I am not sure if it was the three mile walk...

or the one hour Zumba class...

or the Cybex circuit at the fitness center....

but something kicked my butt this morning.....

Time Marches On...

Just a reminder that life is like a vapor...

At 7 a.m. my cousin Pamela called me crying so much it was hard to understand her.  She had received a call that her brother (also my cousin, but someone I rarely see or know) had a massive heart attack this morning and died at home.  He had no record of heart disease...  the paramedics worked on him for quite a while... the autopsy is tomorrow.  Cremation, no service... gone.  Leaving Pam with a mother who is incapacitated, and memories of a brother ...and a father who hasn't been dead three years yet...

And this evening, while I was with Pam, Doug visited a woman from his parent's church. She has three daughters that Doug grew up with...  she adored our kids when they were little and we were still at that church...

She is in hospice now because her heart is only working at 8%... she said Doug's name when he walked in... and asked if she could hear him sing "Lighthouse" one more time... and after he did, she sang the chorus again... unbelievable. 

She is 100% ready to go...

As we all should be.

Home Safe & Sound

It was great.  A visit to Kentucky and Tennessee with just me and my mom....  a rare treat for a "middle kid"...  :)

We had a great time... we flew through the countryside in her 2006 bright red Monte Carlo, and saw the sights of her youth... her father's farm, the house he built, the barn he built...  her mother's house later on... Grandma Patton's place.... Doc Barnes' "estate"... the homes where various friends and relatives lived at one time... the place where there used to be a one room school house that my dad taught at on an emergency teaching certificate... the general store that Aunt Thelma used to have to ride her horse over the mountain to... (one time the horse got loose while she was inside and went all the way home without her)... LuLu Looper's house ( I always liked that name.. :)  ...Oak Grove Cemetery in Duvall Valley, where Granny Patton is buried - its so quiet up there. and the mountain views are so peaceful....  saw my cousin Colene where she worked... she and her husband were so good to me... she is nearly the age of my mother... was 15 when she married... was a beautiful girl... 

got lost a few times...  you would think that a woman whose mother's maiden name was Koger would know her way around Koger Mountain... but...apparently not... we drove like crazy people out in the hills, around hairpin curves, and through canopies of trees so dark you could hardly see the road,  ... thank goodness we never met a car coming the other way - there was NOT room for two cars to pass (everyone else knew not to go that far out!)... 

and we were so lost that we ended up on Bald Knob (or something like that) ... and Mom said that she had never dared to go up there in her life... that all the moonshiners and bootleggers lived up there... and when we told family that's where we ended up... they all looked at us in alarm... eyes big... silent... Can it really be that dangerous now??? 

So, after about an hour of hill hopping, we ended up ... back at the Fergus Country Store... where we had been two hours earlier... we made a big, lost loop

We had a great time with Uncle Bill, Aunt Lou, Cousin Michael and his wife Larissa, their kids Adam (who does an awesome Borat) and Alexa.... Michael was one of my favorite cousins growing up and we spent a lot of fun times together... I had not seen him in almost 18 years...  I hugged him and apologized immediately for all the things we did to him... all the teasing... I would tell you who we used to say he looked like, but I am trying to reform....   Michael's a strong political conservative, and his father in law is the liberal representative from the State of Tennessee to Congress.... that's gotta be good...

And I got to see my beloved Uncle Ken, and his wonderful wife, Aunt Jane, and uncle Ken's daughter, Michelle, who I hadn't seen in over 25 years... I reminded her that she was the first baby I ever held... I was 8 when she was born and they still lived in Akron ... and how lucky she is to have Uncle Ken as her father...   She, her husband Mike, son Ryan, all were so fun and so relaxed with us from the beginning... it helped that my mother was acting crazy when they arrived, so we all laughed together at her...

And we went out on Uncle Billy's boat for about 6 hours on Saturday... the water was a fabulous temperature, and I never wanted to get back in the boat... we anchored in about three different places on Dale Hollow... I am addicted... it was so great.  My mom jumped off the boat, too... I am so proud of her... life ain't gonna pass her by...she enjoyed the day with her brothers and all of us "kids".. brought us enough snacks for 20 people... but don't eat her chocolate Mrs. Sees' lollipops... she doesn't share those...

We had a great dinner, and gi-normous waffle cones of ice cream at the restaurant back on the dock... sunset... and family.... nice.

We ended up the evening out behind Uncle Billy's place, which overlooks the Obie River... eating watermelon (the hallmark of a Reed gathering) , having seed spitting contests, looking at the baby quail U.B. is raising, picking peaches the size of softballs, hitting tree nuts off the cliff into the river with a plastic baseball bat, ... and wondering where the years have gone....

And Uncle Ken took me out to Potter's Point again... the most beautiful, peaceful place on earth... wish I owned that cabin, and gazebo and overlook...I would never go ANYWHERE...

On Monday, we headed back into Kentucky to see Aunt Flonnie Belle (seriously, that's her name) and, once again, got lost...  It took us hours to reach Russell Springs.  We went out for what was supposed to have been lunch (but ended up being at 4 p.m.) and had a great meal, then spent time with Aunt Flonnie and cousin Lisa, before starting the drive back to Cincy.

Lisa and I sat on Aunt Flonnie's couch and looked at a box of old pictures she was giving us - my school pictures that I had given Granny over the years, some of my parents, oldies, pictures from when we were kids.  Lisa and I laughed at ourselves and everyone else in them.  In one, I am the only kid with a bathing cap on in the pool - and it has huge flowers hanging off of it....  that is just wrong.   And in another, I am dressed like a boy - my sisters have on feminine outfits and I was dressed like a BOY!    What is that all about?

Mom and I did stop at a roadside sale and I bought myself an iron skillet.  I am the eternal optimist, aren't I?  Dreaming that I could make fried potatoes like my mom's, make some of that other stuff that is only good if you make it in an iron skillet....       we'll see.....  

And I noticed that the motto for Clinton County, where my parents grew up, is 

"where the mountains meet the lakes" .    I like it.

And while touring the backroads of Kentucky and Tennessee, Duvall Valley, Beech Bottom, Caney Creek, Cartwright, Chanute, Jamestown, Byrdstown, Monticello, Albany, Liberty, Russell Springs, Otter Creek, Livingston,

my mom got her car up to 100 miles per hour....

Go, Betty!

Actually, what happened is that she kept passing cars on two lane roads, and regularly hit 85 mph or better... one time she hit 90 mph... and I said "Why don't ya just go 100 then!"

And so she did....

And I took a photo to prove it.  (See photos.)

I was actuallly pretty excited.  Never want my kids to do something like that, but... it was fun!  And I trust my mother - she is a great (and fearless) driver... with a lead foot.

Now, what my mother did that I do NOT approve of... is that she waited till I was out of the car, down in the creek at Standing Stone... and then she cranked up the car's speakers ... with the theme from "Deliverance"...

Okay, that's where I draw the line....