kvetching up

 Entry 1     7:48 p.m. The dogs generously let me sleep until 5:30 a.m., bless their waggity tails. I am finding Willow's barking, exacerbated by Buddy's amen corner yip yipping, particularly vexing this morning. Th ey make up for it by being so damned sweet and funny.  Today I will tackle the remaining 6 boxes or so in the garage.  I say this every weekend and hope to follow through today.   I hadn't thought of it until now, but it seems unlikely we will go to the Carpinito Brother's Halloween corn maze this year, the end of a tradition. It brings back this strong memory of my mother, weakened by the effects of chemo and suffering from neuropathy, sitting in her car and waiting, while we took a 5 year old Leiney and a wee Abby to a pumpkin patch and corn maze in Everett.  She was sick, forlorn, and devastatingly sad, waiting for us to finish the excursion. She wanted desperately to participate, cancer got in the way.  It is so vivid, un...

I am not a religious person. Not even slightly.  I am not an atheist.  I am not smart enough to stake out a position, or to say how or why we exist.  But when I am feeling low, give me Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff or F.C. Barnes singing about their faith, and it buoys me. People persevere, they push on through hard times.  That's what this particularly working-class flavor of gospel music says to me.  I don't have their gift of faith, but I know that this too shall pass.   I haven't written in so long because work, the dogs, Jenny's illness, Jenny's anger, moving, unpacking and preparing for next week's backpacking trip have sapped me. I have been holed up in my room for about an hour as I write this, listening to Fern Jones sing. She was a holy roller, tent revivalist musician whose music was almost lost, but rereleased a few years ago.  She has been compared to Patsy Cline, high praise, really. I digress.  ....