Aging

Fiorella wrote this sonnet twenty-five years ago, and it holds true today: 

                             

TO MY CHILDREN

When I am old, so very old I stink

Of unwashed underarms and brain cell death

So old I shake, my spine and stature shrink,

I whistle, quake, and rattle with each breath--

When I am old, so very old I drool,

And age spots big as elephants appear,

When I forget my name and act the fool

And talk too loud because I cannot hear--

Even when I'm angry, trapped in rage,

Become a miser, call each dime misspent,

When I am cruel and stupid in my age,

When I reject you, scotch your good intent--

     Remember once I loved you of my will,

     And in my heart of hearts, I love you still.

Where Credit's Due

Thursday, and Fiorella is late again, but she's been gadding about. To thank Minnesota son for coming to town to help take care of Husband and rebuild his automobile, Fio took him out to Friend Patricia's horse ranch to meet her friend's Arabians. Son has always been a horse nut, but he hasn't had access to one in several years so this was a real treat for him. For Fio too, who read a lot of Walter Farley in elementary school, but never got to meet a horse up close until she took a college class in Horsemanship (at which she was a total failure).

Anyway, Patricia was a charming and infirmative hostess, and Fio thinks the visit was the crowning glory of Son's visit, a glory he deserves, because Fiorella couldn't have survived these past few weeks without him.

Snippets Of Real Life

All hail to nurses because Fiorella isn't cut out for it. First of all, she doesn't have the build, so thank goodness that Minnesota son came down to Texas to help. Six-three and and solid, he could provide a lot more ballast than Fio could when walking Husband down the stairs. Second, Fio will admit that she doesn't has the temperament for nursing. She's sympathetic, but impatient.
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Fio, who was clocking at 82 mph in the fast lane, was passed in a New York second by a line of cars in the next lane over who quickly disappeared in the distance. It was a Flash pass.
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When you need refueling, there's nothing like having lunch with a good friend, one who's stuck with you through thick and thin, who knows everything there is to know about you. Thank you, Paula Marks. You're my lifeline.

Finale

La Piloto sewed up every plot line last night. John, the consumate villain, gathered all his drug traffic friends /rivals together in his lovely ranch house, then went outside and tommy-gunned them through the window, much to the surprise of los federales, who were preparing for a surprise attack. Sulima escaped the massacre, but with Yolanda confronting her, ended up backing into a whirling propeller, which pretty well took care of her. Dave went after John, and they duked it out like the girls did, but John was hauled off to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The last episode was puffed up with a lot of unnecessary memory footage, but Olivia and Vilmer, Lizbeth and Raul, Mena and his baby, Rosalba, Yolanda and Dave lived happily ever after. Or did they? The last camera shot was of crazy Santamaria, whom we all thought had been left to rot in jail in a women's prison, watching through his evil eye as Yolanda and Dave embraced.

La Piloto Dos, anyone?

A Piano in the Family

Crashing the keys to make a thunder sound when she was about six was Fiorella's first experience as a pianist, but pianos were few and far between back then so she had to wait till she was in fourth grade to tickle the ivories again. That's when she talked to her mother about taking lessons, which, she didn't realize, would require a piano in the house. But Mom talked to Dad, they bought a spinet from a church friend, and Fiorella was set up with lessons from Mrs. Sykes, partially because her house was located on Fio's route home from school.

Fiorella quickly caught onto the numbered finger system and progressed along to the "third year" book, then slowed down when she hit junior high,  partially because North Junior was in the opposite direction from Mrs. Sykes' house, partially because she had more schoolwork, and partially because her pieces were getting harder. Nonetheless, Fio still enjoyed playing and has continued to do so through the years although, frankly, she doesn't play as well as when she was as a child.

But now she'll tell you who benefited most from the piano in her parents' home--her mother. Mom had always been musical, but her family couldn't afford more than three months of piano lessons for her as a child so she taught herself how to play the mouth organ as an adult. Later, after had Fiorella left home, Mother sent off to Sears Roebuck for the teach-yourself-to-play-the-piano instructional series, and learned all about chords and keys and playing by ear. Fio was always proud of her mother's achievement--and impressed.

Downers

Nothing like opening up the morning with four loads of laundry that Fio brought home from Husband's rehab hospital, son still in bed with a migraine, and a computer that refuses to perform,
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The cast iron plants that Fiorella spent hours planting--and replanting--are looking sallow, and an armadillo has been tearing up the planting bed and the lawn. We'll have to get out the trap again.
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Fio cleaned out under the couch and found six pens and seven rawhide dog bones, but not the credit card she was looking for.
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Estella was killed off in La Piloto. Everyone but the bad guys are getting killed off. Mena is probably next.
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Fio's hair refuses to behave. She looks awful.

Lost Again

Fiorella's card case is gone, the one from the 2015 New York RWA conference, the one she keeps her professional cards and her credit cards in. She knows she lost the case in the house, probably in the den or the front room, maybe the kitchen, and she's been searching up and down for it, with Minnesota son right behind her, but no luck. Now, Fio is no stranger to lost credit cards, and she lost the case at H-E-B once, but how can one lose a card case in one's own home?