Retirement Plan

About 10 years ago a girl friend of mine and I were having a few adult beverages at a local bar/restaurant. The area we were sitting in was reached by 3 steps up to a raised platform in the center of the room. As we sat and sipped our cocktails we watched two women attempt to navigate their way down the steps. I know you're expecting to hear that they were drunk and fell down the steps and while one lady did stumble, it wasn't because she was drunk it was because she was 125 years old. It was at this point in my life that I devised my retirement plan. On my 65th birthday I plan to start the day, and every day thereafter with a big healthy glass of orange juice, mixed with a hefty amount of vodka. Then for lunch I will get my RDA of veggies with a big healthy glass of V8, mixed with a heftier amount of vodka. I figure by dinner with all the OJ and V8 I'll be able to enjoy my vodka on the rocks with a lime wedge just how I like it. Lest you think this plan is foolish, let me assure you that I have all the details worked out to perfection including but not limited to the hiring of a home health aide whose main resposibility will be to drive my drunk ass around and get me more vodka. I will continue to follow this plan daily until the end of time, all to be sure that I don't fall down because I'm old. Or at least not just because I'm old, but because I'm hammered.

And speaking of hammered. Unfortunately for me, when Aunt Flow comes to visit she packs a big sledgehammer and at some point during her stay she proceeds to beat the living daylights out of the left side of my brain. I have heard that migraines actually cause brain damage over time so you can bet I'll be sure to use that as my defense when I finally snap. It's also said that the left side of the brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning and the right side controls creativity and flexibility. So I figure with a migraine a month until "the change" by the time I reach 65 I'll be a mumbling, stuttering, mismatched sock wearing, "the sky is not blue" shouting, extremely famous abstract painter, who moonlights as a contortionist. Drunk will be an improvement.

Further proof...

that The Bubba is a reincarnation of a highly trained black ops mercenary. He just tried to put me in a sleeper hold and when that didn't work he pinched my carotid artery until I almost passed out. We're going to play with swords now.

Rest in Peace

Sunday, August 2nd, we lost someone tragically. He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a lover and a friend. And he was all these things so spectacularly I don't have the words to properly describe. Words can't envelope the feelings that he created in all of us that were so priveleged to know him.
We are all struggling so hard to move forward with the thought that he is no longer in our world. The tragedy is, however, all ours, since he lived his life truly, joyously and fully to the last moments.

I'm having good days and bad days and today is a bad day. I'm just so sad that I won't get to see him again in this life. That my son won't get to know him as we do. That my husband will ache with missing him. That we will all ache with missing him.

On the good days I can be grateful to have known him, and for the gifts of laughter he gave us. For the "good energy" he put out for all of us to share. I can celebrate the amazing life he lived, the places he went, the people he touched, and the waves he conquered. The best friends he turned into family for all of us. And especially the woman he loved.

Dude, we'll miss you doesn't even begin to cover it.