Family Feathers

  Upon turning 49, I had a terrible realization that I only had one year left before I was 50.  I'm not sure what great difference there is in being 49 and being 50, but that voice in my head was screaming, "Hurry up and do something before it's too late!"  Turning 29 had the same effect on me and left me scrambling to enjoy ever last minute of a decade that would soon be gone. So, as I sat here last night, perusing my birthday gifts of perfume, blinged out slippers, a jar of cash and a bottle of tequila, something hit me.  I want to enter my fifties as if I was 29 again and not be some sloth on the couch overwhelmed from work, heat, bills and other weights of the world.  Renewed with a goal, I donned my shiny slippers and got my body in motion.   Suddenly a woman on a mission, I tore open the entertainment cabinet and dug out the old Deepak Chopra tapes and unopened Zumba DVDs purchased during a late night binge of cookies, milk and infomercials.  Then I fo

  Apparently, you can burn a candle at both ends.  I know this because I found a very good deal on candles and bought 144 votives for $5.  I never thought to pick one up and see why it was such a good deal.  Since they simply will not sit properly in a candle holder, I will stash them away in my "Emergency/End of Days/Alien Invasion/Someone Didn't Pay the Light Bill" kit. They will be safe among the ammunition, junk silver, jars of dried beans and Family Pack of Twizzlers.  Should I find myself in the dark, I will be twice as prepared.

    We are not a canoeing family.  While I like to think that we are, nothing could be further from the truth.  My children have not properly been exposed to manually operated watercraft other than the deluxe inflatable pool lounge with cup holder that floats about our pool.  There's a reason for this and has nothing to do with the fear of open waterways.  My husband and I have different visions of floating down a river.  Mine involves a leisurely four hour float to a tastefully decorated cabin where steaks are sizzling on the grill.  My husband's plan for a water adventure involves entering the river where normal people take out, a 23 mile trek through a canyon with no cell phone signal and catching, cleaning, and preparing our own food along the way.  If I have to strap a knife to my leg to ensure an outing is successful, I tend to avoid it. So, for eighteen years, we've been unable to merge our visions of floating down the rivers of the South and stick to watercra

  I have developed an interesting new hobby that fills my time while I wait in doctor's offices or at airports with nothing to do.  I have discovered the fun that exists in my Spam folder.  I always knew it was there, filtering out the messages sure to deliver viruses, empty promises and mail order brides.  My friends in Spam are many.   Andre Ouedraogo has written on multiple occasions and has been waiting for my response for weeks. While I don't want to be his business partner and receive $11.2 million dollars, I do have a strange desire to play Scrabble with this man of many vowels. Bento Desmond has some pictures he wants to share with me and unless they are digital images of my dog from the Wal-Mart photo department, I'm going to have to look the other way. Michael Osei, who suggests that we are dear friends, is a manager of a financial institution and needs me to care for an orphaned child from a country I'm not sure exists. In exchange for taking this child i

  Archie Bunker had a chair.  It was a good chair that he came home to each night after a long day at work.  After a nice dinner, he relocated to his chair where he enjoyed watching television and rested until bed time.   As I headed to work yesterday,  I realized that I do not have a chair like his and wondered where our lives took different paths.   When I come home from work, I've already received numerous phone calls and text messages from my family demanding to know answers to important questions such as, "When is my eyebrow appointment" and "Where are my socks?"   Upon arrival to the house, the dog greets me only because she wants to make sure I don't know that she has been lounging on my couch or nosing through my pantry.  My husband is perched by the pool, donning a red bandanna, dripping in sweat, because he somehow chooses the hottest days of the year to split wood or relocate fencing, both things nobody does in the 104 degree heat. When I enter