WillThink4Wine

Today is my brother John’s funeral. The Service should be over in just a few minutes, actually. I did not attend, partly because our parents live with me here in Georgia and the services are in New England. They are just not up to the trip, emotionally or physically. It is too much for them to fathom, too much to face. Truth be told, I have never been one to attend funerals. If they were held months or even seasons past the pain and emotion, perhaps. But not so soon.

This is the last Family Portrait where all of eight children and our parents were all together. It was taken at SisterDear3’s wedding, so I’m estimating it was 22 years ago or so. We were planning a new one for this summer.

MotherDear asked me to sign John’s Online Guestbook on behalf of our youngest brother who cannot attend. I searched for a poem I thought would suit them both. As I reread it, it makes me sweetly sad. I think they would both approve.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Love, Billy

By Christina Rossetti with thanks to The Poetry Foundation

Tags: Family, Gatherings, Thought for the Day

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

–Confucius
 

Revenge and Jealousy. They’re kinda family, like evil step-sisters, aren’t they? Equally self-destructive while at the same time equally destructive to the intended object?

I’m a lover, not a fighter, so I’ve never been able to get my mind around the whole ‘let me punch someone in the face’ thing, or ‘gee, I think he likes her better than me’ thing. In my opinion Revenge & Jealousy speak more about the person displaying these emotions (fear, low self-esteem, insecurity etc.) and don’t necessarily say anything about the object of the Revenge or Jealousy.

When I was in junior high I received a phone call from a girl I barely knew who “called me out” . She wanted to meet me at a certain location at a specified time to fight for the affections of my boyfriend. I laughed at her, mostly because I thought she was kidding. I told her if she wanted him that bad, she could have him. She got mad! So I told her that the way I saw it, if he didn’t want to be with me, what possible purpose would the fighting serve? She also wasn’t pleased with that.

When I hung up the phone, my mother asked nine million questions and was very upset that I might actually show up for the fight. But that’s a whole other story.

The girl? She was mad at me for weeks. We went on to become good friends and remained friends through high school until we both got married and life happened.

The Boyfriend? I married him. And divorced him.

Rats. I should’ve insisted that she take him.

You know bacon’s bad when a healthier choice is a donut.

– Jim Gaffigan tosses some Bacon Bits.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

– George Eliot (1819 - 1880) English novelist

Or as my MotherDear so often said “It is better to appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”. I always thought she was some sort of genius. Perhaps she is. As it turns out, many wise people have said this, in their own way.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

– Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

– Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), (attributed)

One of my nieces has been coming to me for council with some issues she’s been having in her academic life and finances related to college. She’s 19, is bipolar and in her first year of college. She’s been quite aggravated with her parents because they aren’t wealthy like the parents of her friends. She requires student loans. *gasp* Therefore, she has given herself permission to harrangue them about this issue, daily, at great length and quite loudly. Without any success *sigh*, I have been trying to impress upon her the importance of self-control, specifically as it relates to her tongue. She continues to try to win her un-winable arguement by berating them. If there is a teenager (or someone with a Ph.D in Child Development) out there reading this that knows why she thinks this method should be working for her despite all evidence to the contrary, please enlighten me! She’s been at it since before the first semester and it appears that she intends to continue on into and throughout the entire Christmas break.

Honestly, when my sister and I discuss this with our mother you should see our mother’s face. It’s absolute horror! Horror and disbelief! She’s speachless. It is simply unimaginable to my mother for a child to speak to her parents in this way.

I know that I have reached ‘that age’ - the age where I now hear myself saying all those things my parents said that I swore that I would never say.

I just don’t understand what’s happened to this generation. Truly, I do not.

There, I’ve said it.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

–Albert Einstein, (attributed)US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

Good Afternoon SisterDears, family and friends. I have been working from home today (in my relaxing clothes), calling the office periodically per chance an order awaited my attention. I was perusing one of my favorite websites and found this quotation and it struck a chord with me…

I have been adding Google AdSense code to all my business web pages (name of said web site shall not be mentioned). I started yesterday morning, have been at it all day today and still have quite a few pages to go. Here’s the good news… I just logged into my AdSense account and something strange caught my eye… I earned $.21 today for 2 clicks, and $.90 yesterday for 1 click. Do you understand the enormity of what just happened here SisterDears? That’s $1.11 earned for about 15 hours work! Why, that’s $.07 per hour, at least! I’ll need a serious financial adviser if this continues. When I first saw it I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. I’ve been basically working like a dog since February and still await the fruits of my labor.

Well SisterDears, MotherDear has a Roast Chicken (”Sam, my dear Sam”) in the oven and A & B are coming for supper, so I better go see if she needs any help.

Besides, it’s Wine-thirty.

Love you guys, xoxoxo