" My mother is a travel agent for Guilt trips".

I saw that quote on someones blog ( sorry, I can't remember whose. (Kristans?) It rings truer for me everyday. I know that I am blessed to still have my mother. I KNOW that. I do. But why does my stomach tie up in knots when I see her name on the caller ID? Like yesterday for instance. My mom was off work so.... Instead of resting, watching TV, planting flowers, going to a movie or out to eat, she plans her day around calling me.
9AM: ring...
me- Hello...
mom- hi honey, did I wake you up?
me- no, I've been up for awhile.
mom- What are you doing today?
me- I think that I will cut the grass and work in the yard.
mom- oh, I was hoping that you would come over and visit.
me- MOM, I just saw you yesterday. I'll talk to you later. love you, bye
10:30 AM
Ring...
me- hello
mom- I am sooo lonely, I don't know why none of my kids love me.
me- MOM ! I'm in the middle of something, I'll call you back. Love you. Bye.
11:00 AM
Ring....
me: hello
mom- I think that all of you kids are just waiting for me to die to get my money. NONE of you think enough about me to call me. I spend my days not hearing from any of you.
Me: Why don't you just spend your money mom? Go on a trip, go to Iowa to see your sisters, something !
Mom; Then I would NEVER hear from you kids.
me; ( getting more peeved by the second). Mom. I have to go...Bye..
1:00PM
Ring....
me: Hello..
Mom: Quick turn it on the travel channel. They are showing Alaska!
me: see mom, you could spend your money on a trip to Alaska...
Mom: I can see that you just want to be a smart ass. goodbye.
4:30 PM
Ring....
me; hello..
mom: would ya'll like to come for supper?
me: No thanks mom. I made a potato salad and have a ham in the oven. Would you like to come here and eat?
mom: I remember a time when you LOVED to come to MY house and eat. I guess that I will just eat alone.
me: Ok, enjoy your dinner. Bye.
7 PM:
Ring....
me; hello mom
mom: I guess that I'm going to bed. if I die in the night, just remember how much that I loved you kids.
me: Ok mom, goodnight.. By the way, where is your money hidden?
mom; CLICK.....

now before you think that I am being a mean person.... My mom doesn't have a lot of money. I love her dearly but this is everyday that she is off work. I wish that she could be happy. Find a friend. Find a lonely old man. Something !!! She won't and I will hear this conversation for years. I hope so, anyway...

I have been reading about the new search that is about to get underway for Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman that was going to try to fly around the world in 1937. On the last leg of her voyage, Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, diappeared from radar and vanished forever. Maybe not forever. There's a group of explorers and scientists that are making their 8th trip to an island to try to locate their remains. Nikumaroro is an uninhabited atoll ( coral island surrounding a lagoon) that is 1,800 miles south of Hawaii. The island is 2 1/2 miles long and the group will spend 17 days exploring it. They will be searching for human bones, aircraft parts, evidence of campfires, ANYTHING concrete to prove that Amelia and Fred were there and died there. The theory says that they crash landed there and lived for months as castaways. Other theories are that they died immediately or that they were captured and executed as spies on a Japanese held island in the Pacific. I find that theory hard to believe. I would think that after all these years that at least one Japanese soldier would have spoken about that. In 1940 human bones were found on the Island and taken back to England. Doctors say that the bones were of a Caucasion woman of European descent. The bones were lost. In 2001, a campsite location was found. The group of searchers plan to take pig bones with them. On this Island there are Coconut Crabs that measure 2 1/2 feet across. The scientists will scatter the pig bones and let the crabs carry them away. The hope is that they will then know where the crabs would have carried human bones, find the bones and compare DNA to Earhart or Noonans family. We all cheered for Tom Hanks in Castaway. Delighted when he started a fire, found food and was rescued. I'm sure that the real story wasn't that Hollywood. Amelia and Fred may have been injured when they crashed. Even worse, one of them may have been killed ,leaving the other one alone. Alone in the dark on an island in the middle of the Pacific. I'm sure that they were terrified, hungry and felt horribly alone. Perhaps they waited for help to come. For days, weeks or maybe even months. I doubt that they had had Wilson the basketball to talk with. I'm sure that they heard every crash in the underbrush at night and trembled in fear. I wonder if the surviving one was to weak to bury the other one. I wonder when they gave up? I wonder if I would have been that strong? I hope that they find them and I'm not sure why. Do I want them to have a heroes homecoming? Do I want them to finally rest in peace/ or are they already in Peace? I think that I just want to know what happened to that brave woman and her friend.

I don't know my neighbor that lives on the left of me very well. She's probably about my age. We wave to each other and say hello but that's about it. My house sits on a little hill and her driveway is not very far from my office window. Usually EVERY Friday night, she and her boyfriend ( is that how you say that?) drink lots of beer and get pretty drunk out in her driveway. She has a little round table, chairs, a radio and some mosquito candles there. Just right for party central. Now, I don't care who parties. It's none of my business BUT, they get pretty loud. Loud and redneck. If I'm at my computer I can hear everything..LOUDLY." Ron, if you don't bring me a beer, I'm gonna knock the shit out of you". Last night at about 8:30, someone knocked on my front door. If you are friend or family, you know to walk down my drive and knock on my kitchen door. So... front door knocks are usually a stranger. I went into the bedroom and peeked out the window.... No one.. So, I went to my kitchen door, went outside, looked around the corner of my house and it's her. The loud neighbor. I said Hello. She said ( as she wobbled about), " Have you noticed this thing on your roof?". I said HUH? and walked with her to her driveway where I could get a good line of vision to THAT part of my roof. Sure enough, there's something on my roof pointing towards her house. I told her that I had no idea what it could be. She went to her shed and got a ladder and a flashlight and what is was....was a camera. It seems as though her boyfriend is married.... his wife isn't very happy about his affair. ( Do you blame her?). The camera is pointing right at the place that they sit and drink and cuddle and do whatever else lovers do that have to sneak around. My neighbor starts freaking out and almost hyperventilating. " Oh my God, it's Ron's wife !!!" Now, I'm not really happy about Ron's wife sneaking into my yard and planting a camera on my roof. She HAD to have carried a ladder and made sure that I was gone for a while. That's kind of spooky. BUT.. part of me could hug her neck. I am willing to bet that there won't be any more loud Friday night "talk fests" right outside my window anymore. I also bet that Ron will be paying out the butt when those pictures go to court. Oh well... Someone played with fire and someone got burned.... What a night..

" When you come to the edge of all you've known and are about to step into darkness; one of two things will happen. Either there will be something solid for you to stand on or you will be taught to fly.
Author unknown.

Those are powerful words. Words of faith and certainty. I am afraid that I won't fly. I'm afraid that I will fall. I am falling. I need a miracle. TODAY. I need to just get up my courage and tell everyone what is going on in my life but I just can't... yet.. It's funny... Up until recently, I have been self sufficient. I COULD take care of myself. Now, it's no longer just me and I do not know what to do. I guess just continue to have faith and wait for my miracle. AND... stay away from the edge of cliffs.

I have been thinking a lot lately about someone that I met several years ago. I guess that I am wondering what finally happened to him. It was almost 15 years ago and I was a nurse in a maximum security prison. It was a scarey and sad job at times. I would often look at the inmates and think " there but for the grace of God go I". I never really had many problems with the men because I treated them with respect and got respect in return. The nurses had to do a "body chart" if the officers brought you an inmate that he been in a fight or tried to hurt themselves. All a body chart is, is a piece of paper with a diagram of a human body. You would make an X mark on the diagram to correspond to any injuries etc. that you saw on the inmate. We had several rows of BLOCKS in the prisons that held the men that were really dangerous, an escape risk or a threat to themselves. BLOCKS were really just rows and rows of single cells. I HATED going up on the blocks because they would yell obscenities at you or throw, urine, feces,blood or semen and try to hit you. It was a skill if you could walk beside the cell and not get hit with any of that. Evening shift in a prison is a dark and frightening time. Some of the lights are lowered so that the men can "sleep". yeah right. NO One could sleep because there is a constant cacophony of screams, men calling out to "mama", threats, crying and nightmares. It's what I almost imagine HELL sounds like. The corriders are darker than usual and you can almost imagine murderers jumping out to grab you when you walk down one. Anyway, one night an officer came up to me with a really weird look on his face and said " Nurse Valerie", I need you to do a body chart on an inmate." I said Ok, what's the problem? The officer said " I think it's a woman". He brought the inmate to me and I made him get undressed. I looked at this man and swallowed hard. He had breasts. Beautiful, big, "perky" breasts. I swallowed hard( no pun intended) and looked down and saw a penis. He also had pink fingernail polish and long curly hair. I looked at him and said "Ok, what's the deal"? This poor man had started a sex change in Georgia and was stupid enough to cross the state line and get busted in Alabama for drugs. His main concern was whether Alabama would let him complete his operation to become a woman. I had to tell him no and told the officer to put him on the blocks to protect him. Weeks passed and "Adrian" still got raped and sodimized on the "yard" and other places if the officers weren't looking. I sometimes thought that they didn't look on purpose. Prisons can hire good people and they can hire sadists. I got to know "Adrian: and learned to like him. He was just a confused young man that wanted to feel "whole". He didn't commit a violent crime and I lobbied for him to be sent somewhere else so he could get the help that he needed and to keep him safe. It didn't work. Late one evening, I got a call to go to the blocks STAT. ( at once). I ran to the blocks and the first thing that I noticed was the quiet. The blocks were NEVER quiet. The inmates would yell out the things that they wanted to do to you ( or your mamma) and there was the constant dodging of stuff thrown at you. It was so quiet that it was eerie. I noticed several officers in front of Adrians cell and remember thinking " oh no, what's happened now?'. I got to his cell and there was blood all over. Adrian was laying on his bunk but he was alive. Alive and very calm. He said. " I did it. The state wouldn't do it, so I did". I looked down and his testicles were on the floor. He had somehow saved a razor blade and cut them both off. He was happy. He was on the way to becoming a woman. I put gloves on and picked them up and put them in a speciman jar. I remember thinking " They DO look like Lima beans" as I gagged and tried to appear calm. I sent Adrain out to the hospital, to a Urologist and never saw him again. I don't know if he finally got his surgery or not. I hope that he got the help that he needed. Physical and mental help. I hope that he's happy. I hope that he's alive.