Addendum

Well, the dog didn't get to make the trip this time. He had to stay behind at the Vet Hotel and Doggie Spa for some much needed rest, relaxation, pampering and maintenance. Nothing serious. Getting old for dogs is just about like getting old for humans. Everything starts to fall out, fall down or fall apart.

Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and Visa/Mastercard, most of it is repairable.

Vianne called to say she was stuck somewhere in small town Texas for the night, booked into a suite at regular room rates because she reminded the clerk of her grandmother.

Nothing like the young to make us feel old.

But Vianne assured me she is not alone. A brief stop at the post office on her way out of town led to the discovery of her very own copy of Life and War with Mikey Fatboy Delgado. You can find the link to his blog in the column on the right under 'A Little Lagniappe.'

For tonight it's just Vianne and Mikey - in a suite right next door to the hotel lobby.

In case Vianne needs security.

Vianne is trippin'!

She's getting packed up, bathing the dog and heading on down the highway. Well, not 'down' actually. Just slightly up and to the west, past Lafayette and Lake Charles and right on into Texas. And she's wondering if it's really possible to say Texas without that accent which seems to emerge, unannounced, anytime she says Texas (Tayuhxas). Or Tennessee (Tayuhnnessee), for that matter. Mississippi (Meyahssissippi). Louisiana (Loueeyuhzeeayuhna). Alabama is almost neutral. Once you get past the initial 'A' that never seems to sound right unless you make it a two syllable sound - Ayuhlabama.

Vianne left home awhile back, quite awhile, in fact, and has been roaming the highways ever since, looking for life, engaging herself in one adventure or the other. I know from long contact with Vianne that most of these adventures occur in her imagination only, but it's surely hard to tell truth from fiction. Sometimes. Not only for those of us listening to her tales, but, I suspect, for her as well. I've never known someone to live so much inside herself. And not even know that's where she is.

I remember the time she called, full of the tale of the satin stranger. She described him as sleek and smooth and willing to do most anything in the world just to please her. They rode together for a day and a half before she pulled into a truck-stop cafe for morning coffee and saw a big ol' truck driver chatting with the waitress. As soon as I heard all about his muscles expanding his t-shirt, I knew she had found another travel companion. That particular day dream lasted for most of the week. It took her that long to find a suitable replacement in the check-out line at the D'ville WalMart. She was there just to pick up a half-gallon of Rocky Road and a Redbox new release. Never suspected she would find the man of her dreams.

But Vianne is nothing if not open to knew suggestions.

Vianne lives - or half-lives, might be more accurate - with Joe the Depressor. You know how we were taught as children that if we didn't have anything nice to say, it was better to say nothing at all. Joe didn't learn that lesson. Or if he did, he somehow got turned all the way around and interpreted it to mean just the opposite. Joe believes saying anything nice is a sign of weakness. And unfortunately for Vianne, he's the strongest man she's ever known.

But the girl is on the road, again. Good things happen on the road.

Retirement, or What's it All About?

On the 17th of December, 2010, I will have been retired for exactly one year. And sometimes, I still feel like I'm on vacation. Like when the holiday is over, I will be back in the classroom, writing lesson plans and IEPs and doing all sorts of inane paperwork that has little to do with the actual act of teaching. Sometimes, when I feel that way, I begin to feel a bit of anxiety - okay, more than a bit. More like panic, with an accompanying increase in heart rate and shallow breathing and even a little extra perspiration in the perspiring parts.

Sometimes, I feel something else entirely, and I'm not at all sure how to describe it. As if the past 33+ years really didn't matter much at all. As if I tried much too hard to make it mean more than it actually did.

Apparently retired teachers remain in the parish school board email system. I guess it's an easy way to communicate information to us, but, to tell you the truth, there doesn't seem to be much to communicate to retired teachers. Too often, it seems, my school email is used to inform me of funeral arrangements for other retired teachers. Rather disturbing to think there is nothing to report between the retiring and the dying.

Occasionally, I receive email that should have been sent to someone else, an 'active' teacher, who has the same last name and first initial. I log in just to forward it on to her as an act of courtesy.

I think one day I'm gonna have to send an email right back to them, address it to everyone in the school system, just to let them know that what they're doing is not really life. Life is what goes on out here when they aren't playing school.

And I'm gonna tell them I'm not dead. In fact, I'm only beginning to feel alive.

How small is it?

The place I live is so small that ...

As I posted last week, the house was damaged by an out-of-control tire and I have spent the week trying to find a bricklayer (otherwise known as a Mason, but that's another blog for someone else with more time and more imagination). I simply want someone to remove the bricks that are no longer attached to the house, clean them up real pretty, and put them back again. Sounds easy enough.

I had no idea how hard I was apparently trying until Thursday. I admit I had made quite a few phone calls, chatted about it in the grocery store, even stopped by a lumber yard for a few recommendations.

But I never thought my gynecologist would get involved in the search. There I was, lying back on the table, feet in the stirrups, the sounds of instruments of torture clanging in my ears, and he, in his most doctorly manner says, "So, I hear you need a bricklayer."

That's just not a conversation I ever expected to have at that particular moment. But have it we did, and I walked away with one more name to add to my list of possibility.

If he does return my call, I won't be telling that bricklayer how I found his name.

Country Livin'

Or - the day the house turned on a dime.

Actually, it wasn't a dime, and the house only shifted a bit.

For those of you not so well-acquainted with living down de bayou, this may not be as amusing I awoke not too early after being up rather later than usual. I was still waiting for the coffee to brew when the house shook, glass shattered, and the cat leapt across the den and flew headfirst into the closed bedroom door. She was too frightened to realize the door wasn't open, attempting a failed quick retreat to the safety of the bedroom closet.

After the initial moment of complete stupefaction, I began making the rounds, inspecting the windows, pondering "whatthehell hit my house!?"

I wasn't stunned that the house had been hit. These things seem to happen here with alarming regularity. I've known folks to install posts in the ground across the front of their homes to keep cars from plowing through their bedrooms. I've personally had vehicles fly from one side of my front yard to the other, damaging only the driveways on either side before rolling to a stop in the ditch. The same ditch that has hosted a cane truck turned on it's side and a pickup truck whose driver was epileptic and should probably not have been driving at all. Admittedly, each of these was a one-time experience, but my thinking has become "if it could happen once, it could happen again". And it has often enough to prove the exception.

So, I live in expectation.

It wasn't until I went outside that I was able to locate the source of the noise and apparent glass breakage. In one of those freakish moments that happen frequently during the grinding season in rural southern Louisiana, a tire had escaped a moving 18-wheeled sugar cane truck, had flown/rolled/crashed into the corner of my house, and had shoved a column of brick away from the outside wall. It also split some wood and send decorative objects flying across the dining room - the source of the breaking glass in the one room I had yet to inspect.

So, I spent the next hour, rocking on the front porch, cup of hot coffee in hand, and watched the Keystone Cops try to figure "wha' happened?"

Gotta love this country livin'!