I seeeeeeee uuuuuuuu....

So we were sitting on our patio, on a bright lunch hour, when I noticed something up at the top of the hill. I've talked about our backyard before, the tree filled hillside that offers different levels of our summer sanctuary.

The neighbors house in the back is five levels up from our back yard. We can just see the top of the house over the edge of the dirt and trees. With the trees in bloom you can't even see the neighbors that line the street behind us. It's actually quite nice to have a privacy screen provided by mother nature herself.

I was facing said hillside when just to the left of one of the top-most trees, a shadow of movement caught my eye. I tried to, on the sly, watch the treeline, while still talking to LTR. Sure enough, someone was squatting behind a tree, knees bent, head in the 'Y' of the tree.

Smooth as I am, I stopped mid sentence and said to Laura, "I think there is someone watching us from the top of the hill." Laura being even smoother, turned around immediately and looked up the hill.

The knee that I had seen, pulled in behind the tree and the round head dropped out of the split of the tree and ducked down.

Through the course of our conversation the head would pop up and watch us. There are very few times when I feel "frail" as a woman. At 5"10' and an ex-professional football player, you tend to feel...well...safe. There aren't a lot of folks that I feel threatened by or intimidated around.

A creepy shadow watching a house with two women who live there.....I was feeling a lil uneasy.

LTR texted me the next afternoon to let me know that it seemed there were now two figures up at the top of the hill.

Great!

She didn't want to sit out there if they were going to stare at her the whole time. I said, "You sit on the patio and face the hill!" No one was going to make me itchy in my own space!

Sure enough, after a lil while, they figures left.

My question is this: if they are kids, why the HELL aren't they in school? Why are there always kids out of school? I wasn't allowed to even THINK about leaving campus! And I lived, no lie, half a block from school!

I know...I know...I'm starting to sound like an old fart, "You pesky kids get off my lawn!"

In the mean time, I'm going to ask my co-worker if he's still has those paint ball guns of his. I'm thinking bright pink splatter might mark my territory a bit for the shadow figures to get the hint.

Wy? Cuz.

We went and saw Wynonna Judd right before we left for a family reunion, of sorts, in Vegas. I have followed Wy since she was singin' with momma. And I became a rabid fan when she went solo. I have all her 'albums' (cuz I'm old) and love them all. Even the Jesus-y ones.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, when she asked who hadn't seen her live, I was one of the hands raised. I don't know why I hadn't. I just figured a big ol' lezzy in the middle of ten gallon hats and platter sized belt buckles might make me itchy that there was a lynchin' bout to happen. But after seeing the amount of 'family' in the audience, I shouldn't have worried.

My secret lust is Wy is one of us. I mean, come on....the guys she picks? Her horrible luck in love? The motorcycles? The rockin' guitar licks? Her affinity to Elvis? Her one attempt to get on an Olivia Cruise to perform? (thanks Christian, conservative fan base for screwing THAT up!)

I gotta say, if you were to line up the columns for probabilities, she would race to the top.

As soon as she stepped on the stage...her presence, her beauty, her wink and crooked grin....sigh....I was in LOVE!!! I mean I love her....I've always loved her. But holy crap! Her swagger and strut on stage and that voice? My heart melted into my panties!

I was deep in a lustful state of lustiness when she dusted off one of her top tens: She is His Only Need.

There I was, at a table, in a showroom in an Indian casino, at a table with six strangers, bawling my eyes out. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that song. It's from her first album, so it's played a lot over the years. And while it would often cause a lump in my throat, this time...this time it was the life of my dad put to music.

There was nowhere in the song to pull out. Every turn of phrase pulled at my heart. Every image her throaty growl produced, took me to a picture in my family album. So I let the tears flow. I let the sadness wrap around me. I did the one thing everyone hates: cried my eyes blind in public.

I never know where my dad will pop up these days. I will say it's always unexpected and there are just never enough kleenex around.

What's in a name?

Death.

You know it's coming. We are all gonna die. Like flowers wilt. Like balloons deflate. Like a clock stops ticking. Everything has its cycle.

When it comes, everyone deals in a different way. I really, REALLY wanted to get shit faced and numb out. But I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to making the moment go away through liquid drowning. I had to be aware to tend to the faces that looked with pity upon me.

There are those who deal with life through a haze of alcohol...

A slurred voice called out to me across the patio table, "Cabreena...I wanna know shumthin...Now....I know that...um...you know....he wash....um.....well....hesh Allison's biological dad. But being he wash your shtep fath...hic...father.....do you shthink the losh...excuse me...the L-O-S-S is the sssssame?"

I've never wanted to reach out and strangle someone, till their wine soaked eyeballs popped out of there head, so badly.

"Yes."

My response split the silence that followed the intake of air around the large table we were sitting at. Everyone, aghast at the question posed to me. I stood up from my chair and walked from the patio to the house. Calming the rage inside.

Grumpy Old Men and Weepy Young Women

I was feeling a lil lost today, so I asked my girl if she would meet me for lunch. I thought a lil time out of the office, where not much is going on, would clear my brain and blow the memory playback out like dusty cobwebs when a door is opened.

We were sitting in a bright, sunny table near the window. I looked up to notice a gentleman well into his 80's. He shuffled alone into the dining room and sat at a table where I could see him just over LTR's shoulder.

A panini and a bowl of soup, the tray in his hands, shook a lil as it lowered to the table. He plopped into his seat and removed his baseball cap, the name "Lucy" embroidered into the front. He placed it on the table across from him, the name facing him.

Now, I'm a creative type with an imagination that takes me all over the place. One of my favorite games to play, with my pal Mae, was to make up stories of folks in cars next to us or walking by. When I saw him, I got this image in my head that his late wife was Lucy and the hat at the place across from him was a place marker that she was there at lunch.

After filling my head with that... my own sandwich had a hard time making its way around the lump in my throat.

The table next to us was filled with college girls, full of life and wide eyes of what the world looks like to them. The old man, his eyes clouded with age and knowing all to well what the world holds, scanned the room them started in on his meal.

I couldn't help looking over, like a TV in a sports bar, my eyes continued to look at his hunched figure; a slurp of soup, a nibble of panini. I fought the urge to ask him if we could join him.

"He's probably the biggest grump ever." I thought to myself. "He'd probably tell us to buzz off and stop pestering him."

Then I started thinking....my dad will never get to that age. But my mom, god willing, will have a long life. How many tables-for-one are in her future? My mom LOVES to go out to eat. Will she stop doing that, when it's just her?

Can you sit across from an empty chair and feel like you can face another day? No conversation over the meal, no one to offer a bite to taste and trade, or no one arguing who will pick-up the check.

It was everything I could do to keep myself from turning in my seat or staring out the window, so I didn't have to look at him. The raw emotions and helpless feelings rising to the top. I couldn't help him and I couldn't save my dad and I'm 3000 miles away from comforting my mother.

By the time he was done with his meal, he had kicked back in his seat, taken out a cell phone and some paper work and was conducting business of some sort. He sucked his teeth in satisfaction, as he talked to someone on the phone. His laid back air seemed more normal of a business man and less a helpless old man.

I relaxed in my seat a bit. The girls, giggled and picked up their things to go. The old guy gave them a quick look. His "maleness" still alive at his age.

As we left, I didn't even look back at him. Satisfied that he was fine and it was just my overactive imagination. Maybe the hat said "Lucky" and his only chance to get away from his harpy wife was to go grab lunch once and awhile by himself.

Who knows. There isn't much in my daily life that doesn't set me off on a path of emotions. I guess it's just something I need to get use too. Like my mom and a table for one.