Upside Ann

After my mother died, I combed the local stores (Meijer, Lowes, Walmart, Andy's Garden Center, our local florist, to find daffodils and other spring flowering plants for her memorial.  The season was Easter-y and the pickings were a bit slim.  I succeeded, however, and filled the suite in the funeral home with viburnum, hyacinth, lilies, pansies and daffodils.  As our guests left, I gifted each a blooming bulb so they might plant it in their garden and remember her each spring.  I kept the viburnum and a few of the daffodils and created a bed in the backyard which she could have looked down upon from her bedroom window.  The last two years have been decidedly disappointing with the rectangle looking mostly grave-like (thank you to Marianna for that apt descriptor) with mostly dirt and very, very few plants.  I buy plants.  Rabbits eat plants.  I even considered that the local groundhog might have been salading in my bed. Nobody touches the daffodi...

  October 2025 Boarding the bus Zupe can still look like my little boy - if he's not pictured towering above me.

  Mt. Vernon, Ohio   August 2025 Years ago, I found that Ruby Tuesday had pretty great shepherd's pie and zucchini as a side that Zupe loved.  So, I bought a gift certificate for my mother-in-law as a Christmas gift.  When I did this, I got a second card.  I kept that one.  Years past - hence the beginning words, years ago - and it has become very hard to find a Ruby Tuesday.  The gift card languished in my wallet.  During our trip to Denver last summer, we endeavored to locate one.  Unsuccessfully.  I don't remember everything from that quest - mostly that we would find a location by Google search only to learn that it had been closed. Once home we applied our search to restaurants in the state and identified that there was still a location in Mt. Vernon.  And, on a bright and beautiful Saturday, we drove there for lunch.  To use the $11.97 remaining on that card.  (I had NO idea how much was still on the card.)...

 I believe the saying goes, "You are what you eat."  I am cool, raw, and mostly orange.  (Except for the hot green part.) Which reminds me of a story. Once upon a time, I was a professional woman flying across the country to attend a veterinary conference.  I was seated in the back row of the plane and across the aisle sat a young girl traveling alone.  I must make a good impression, I thought.  Give her a role model that she might want to emulate as she chooses a life-course.  The plane took off.  I grabbed the clam-shell of sushi I had bought before boarding and began to eat my lunch.  The wasabi began to irritate my throat.  My soft palate burned and try as I might, I could not stop the cough...which splattered rice ALL OVER the seatback in front of me.  I drank water.  Laid off the wasabi AND ginger, just in case, and hoped she hadn't noticed.   After eating, and only coughing a couple more times, I busied myself ...

  This morning I woke to find (yet again) my hair cursed by its "too long-ness".  Bed-head.  Great.  I wanted to bike to work but do I want to do that with a wet head?   Zupe asked why I was looking in the mirror and sighing.  I told him I thought my hair looked silly.  "What do you think, Zupe?  Is my hair silly?  Nope.  In Zupe, he told me I look fine because he sees me "in his heart".   I'm now wondering if I can start each exam appointment this morning with a suggestion that we each look at the other with our hearts.   This has the potential to become the fourth pillar of my philosophy.  

 It was like a scene from a nature documentary, one where wolves hunted down besuited bastards of the wild frontier. Gotta love the alliteration......  This is the second book of the (at current count) nine book Dublin Trilogy.  Second, unless you count some shorter story that details how Bunny met Maggie which I didn't read so don't know.  I believe, however, that not knowing does not make one bit of difference in appreciating this tale.  What I do recommend and I'll be doing it next book is making a list on paper of ALL the damned surnames that begin with M.  Fuck.  I was definitely lost somewhere around page 200. But, I made it through.  And, unsurprisingly, so did Bunny and Paul and Bridgit .... and Maggie.