After my last “diaryofanut” post waaaaaayyyyyyy back on April 24th…….I began what turned into a rather long, unintentional sabbatical. For whatever reason, whenever I would think about sitting down to type, I was either interrupted by life events, or I simply talked myself into using my free time to research just one more political article (wink, wink!), or…….. I discovered that my cluttered brain simply refused to get itself organized!!! Finally, after weeks and weeks of procrastination, from somewhere out of the blue, I suddenly felt nudged by the spirit to begin to jot down some “diaryofanut” thoughts. However, when I attempted to log-on to my WordPress administrator page, I discovered that WP would not recognize my email or password. After many frustrating #$%#! hours of searching support forums, etc.etc., I ended up finding an account recovery process (which was indeed a “process”) and was able to at long last resolve the e-mail issue and get a new password. Not only were my meager attempts to return to the documenting of the harum-scarum (I love that adjective!!) life of a nut thwarted by WordPress issues, but my ten month NEW HP laptop, which has never worked properly from the very beginning, was in and out and in and out and in and out (well, you get the idea) of Micro Center’s repair center. At long last, the tech guys decided to install a new motherboard and a new internal battery (btw..I have an idea about why it is termed a “mother”board and not a “father”board”…… mothers’ brains, i.e. boards, are the storers of vast amounts of critical and superfluous details about everything and everyone….fathers’ brains would literally explode were they to be exposed to so much “data”!!). And now, after two weeks, the new installations seem to have my laptop back up to speed. Of course, when I then went to try to transfer photos from my iphone to the laptop, I discovered that my laptop refused to recognize my phone!!!! #$%#@#! I have spent some serious time the past month on Google seeking to resolve all of these various and sundry aggravations. You can be absolutely certain that Google knows all anyone would ever want to know about me from my never-ending web searches. I suppose that I will not, therefore, be surprised should some nefarious looking men in trench-coats from the government turn up on my doorstep seeking the whereabouts of a certain “right-wing nut”!!
Actually, I have to confess that I have been somewhat obsessed (who??? me???) with this summer’s numerous political headlines which have kept me so preoccupied that the blog was relegated to the back of the bus (oh dear, is that a politically correct phrase?? I think it must be, especially since our President made an oblique reference to it when speaking on the economy and telling the GOP that they “could come for the ride, but they gotta sit in the back”). Now please do not get your feathers all ruffled my dear family, I am not going to get on my soapbox, I am simply, for the record, explaining that this “obsession” is the most logical rationale for my three-month long absence from diaryofanut.
Right along with Ohio’s weather, this summer has seen its share of ups and downs. In the interest of brevity (for which I have never been known), I will skip over most of the “merry month of May” in order to highlight the summer of 2015 which seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye!!
As soon as the school year ended our immediate family of 18 headed back to the place of some of our favorite memories…….Duck beach in the Outer Banks. We were fortunate to be able to rent a home on the same street where we had come with Crick on two previous occasions in order to allow the kids and grand-kids to rekindle those favorite moments they shared with their Dad and Papa…….walking down to the shops in the evening to get ice cream…..waking early to go to Duck Donuts and spend a small fortune on a little round pastry with a hole in the middle (FYI…bringing Duck Donuts to Clintonville was the final dream I attempted to “crush” of Crick’s!)…….playing a game of pool……..relaxing in the hot tub……..fishing for crabs…..star gazing in the night sky, trying to identify all of the constellations Crick had taught them. The entire week was a nostalgic blend of old and new memories and every day was a day of sunshine!
And then…………….we returned to Ohio where the rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights!!!! Okay, okay……God did promise that He would never again destroy the earth by water……but seriously…..nineteen straight days of rain in June with just a couple of days reprieve before the rainfall started up again……we Ohioans were beginning to Google ” how to build an ark”!! One day I used my weather app to look at the continental United States and there was little old Ohio, all alone among the 50 states, showing up in varying shades of green…….radar’s color for precipitation!!
Not only did rain play a prominent role in this summer’s saga, but hospitals were a significant feature as well. Mayce became the first casualty in early May….running happily across her front yard when she took a bad tumble and ended up in the ER of Children’s Hospital needing surgery to put in a couple of pins for a broken elbow. She was in a cast for five weeks which fortunately was able to be removed just before we left for vacation. Then in July, while Natalie was playing in a softball tournament, Sam had taken 22 month old Ryan over to a nearby playground to keep Ryan entertained. Sam was helping Ryan use the monkey bars, when suddenly Ryan let go with one arm and dislocated his other elbow resulting in a trip to the same Children’s ER where the good doctors skillfully put it back in place…….ouch!!! Fast forward four weeks to the day and Ryan ends up back in the same ER having taken a nasty fall in a bounce house at the Immaculate Conception festival. This time he appeared to have fractured the same elbow and so his arm was place in a cast for a week until they could have an orthopedic doctor take another x-ray and re-examine the elbow. Luckily for Ryan (and especially Jennifer and Jim!), it was determined that the elbow was only badly sprained and so they removed the cast and splinted the elbow for a few more days. And then there was poor, brother Bobby…….he found himself unexpectedly at the James Cancer Hospital ER for an emergency hernia surgery in late July. It does seem as though Dad jinxed him years ago when he jokingly told Bobby who was in between jobs at the time that, unfortunately for him, the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel was in all likelihood…..a train!!! Oh, the dark Clark humor!!! (and my children wonder where my cynicism comes from!!!). After spending a most frustrating five days in the hospital and another week or more recovering at the Demko B&B (as Bobby now refers to the old homestead!), he may find at long, long last that the light at the end of the tunnel may actually be some real, honest to goodness daylight!!!
Perhaps it was all of the bad karma emanating from the conversation we had one Sunday evening about all of the horrible verses to the Mother Goose nursery rhymes that eventually caught up to us, and brought “Jill” (a.k.a. Mayce) tumbling down the small hill in her front yard and caused “Humpty” (a.k.a. Ryan) to take that nasty spill in the IC bounce house, and gave rise to the “Ring around the Rosy” that sent Bobby to the ER. Seriously, you should Google http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/the-horrible-meanings-behind-nursery-rhymes…..I promise you that you will never say those nursery rhymes with the same lighthearted feeling ever again!! EVER!!!
Speaking of nursery rhymes…..I will take a cue from my very favorite children’s book and post a few more pictures using captions instead of sentences so as to shorten the story of the diaryofanut summer.
I happen to be a very finicky Nana when it comes to reading to my Grand-kids. Sensing their short attention spans, I prefer books that read rather quickly or have nice short rhyming sentences. The Once Upon a Time book is a cleverly condensed version of very traditional bedtime stories such as “the two little pigs” and “Goldilocks and some bears” and with that in mind. I present this final montage:
Should there be any new readers to this blog………please, please, please do not assume that the Bernie Sanders yard sign was in my yard!!!! I am just the “right-wing nut” who stopped her car to snap the photo!! ‘Nuff said!! (as the family all sighs in relief!).
One final story to share. One day a week or so ago, I was at morning Mass and was listening as Father was speaking to us about St. Dominic whose feast day the church was celebrating. At the mention of the name “Dominic”, my mind immediately set off in a different direction and I found myself thinking about a family that I know of who have a son by that name. And then, I began to try to remember the name of the second of the three boys in the family. The first name that popped into my head was Tony, but I knew that wasn’t his name, but I couldn’t get the name out of my mind, and found myself reviewing all of the Tony or Toni’s that I have known in my life. Suddenly the name Tony Kubek surfaced (if you are younger than sixty, you probably have no clue who he is!!) and as a life-long Yankee, I began to see if I could name, the starting line-up for the 1960 New York Yankees!!!! I started with Bill “Moose” Skowron at 1st base, then Bobby Richardson, Clete Boyer, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra. All of sudden, I became aware of my surroundings and was horrified to realize that I had missed the entire homily…..I had somehow replaced God with the 1960 Yankees!!! Surely I will rightfully spend some time in Purgatory for that mental lapse. (When I got home from Mass, I “Googled” the 1960 team to see if I was right, and discovered that while Yogi Berra was on the team, he was sharing time with Elston Howard and a player by the name of Hector Lopez was the left-fielder). I write about this because I have been struggling of late to keep my focus on the moment at hand, especially when I am sitting in the Lord’s House and should be surrendering all of my mind, heart and soul to the God of all Creation. Interestingly enough, when I opened my Jesus Calling devotional yesterday this was the message :
“I am the Eternal I am; I always have been and I always will be. In My Presence you experience Love and Light, Peace and Joy. I am intimately involved in all your moments, and I am training you to be aware of Me at all times. Your assignment is to collaborate with Me in this training.
I have taken up residence within you; I am central in your innermost being. Your mind goes off in tangents from its holy Center, time after time. Do not be alarmed by your inability to remain focused on Me. Simply bring your thoughts gently back to Me each time they wander. The quickest way to redirect your mind to me is to whisper My Name.” from Jesus Calling
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
God’s word never ever, ever fails to remind us that we are His precious children. We may fall short of even our own expectations, but God is always, always, always with us, promising us His infinite Love, Light, Peace and Joy.
That. Is. All.
TNT
TGW
diaryofanut 