STRESS TEST IS OVER

We went back to Memphis this past weekend to attend Matthew's first communion. We got there Friday night and the service was at 10:00 A.M on Saturday. It was a really large group of communicants. It is always nice to see the little boys dressed in their sports jackets and slacks and the little girls dressed up in their white dresses and veils. It was a special occasion even for Matthew, who never shows much excitement unless he is camping out at a scouting event or finding great treasures at a yard sale or thrift store. ( He gets that from Grand daddy and Mawmaw)but Sunday he had on his best outfit and his brightest smile.

After the service we went to a Hibachi grill and had lunch. I swear I have never had so much to eat in one setting. The cook made fried rice, grilled veggies, shrimp, steak, scallops and chicken to serve us and to top it off he was very entertaining. It was my first time at a restuant like this, so I was empressed with all the cooking, tricks and jokes the grill chef was making. While we were in the restruant a pretty bad storm went over. I guess it was part of the cell that spawn all the tornadoes across Louisana, Missippi and Alabam. Luckily ours was just a heavy rain and some wind, but no damage.

Late Saturday afternoon John and I left heading down to Tunica. The storm had done a little more damage there. The wind had taken out a stretch of power line polls, but that seemed to be the only damage that we saw. Mark and Paige came down and we had dinner and played the slots for a while. They left around 11:00 because Paige had to be at work on Sunday morning. We left there around 2:00 on Sunday afternoon and headed home. The trip took some of the anxiety that I was having about my stress test away for a couple of days.

This morning we got up early and headed down to the cardioligist office where I had to have a nuclear stress test. Man I am the biggest woose ever. I had stressed myself out for the last two weeks worring about this test. Why is it that the fear of something and the letting your mind run away with you usually turns out to be worse than the thing you have to undergo. The test turned out to be much easier that I had imagined. It took about three hours to get out of the office, but most of it was sitting in the waiting room waiting for the next phase of the test. I was injected with a dye and had a scan done, waited again then had the stress chemical injected. It took four minutes to go in and then they let it hold for another four minutes. The last minute of the injection I felt a little tightness in my upper body, but no pain. Then they held me at this point for another four minutes. When the last four minutes was up I was injected again with something to take away the effects of the stress chemical, went back to the waiting room until they called me in for the second set of scans. When that was over I was finished. Had I have known how the test worked I would not have driven myself half nuts for the last two weeks. Yeah, I would probably still worry cause like I say I am the biggest woose ever.

DANCING WITH THE STARS ( WANNABES)

There are three TV shows that I have become addicted to somewhat. Dancing With the Stars, Biggest Loser, and Ugly Betty. I usually set up and watch the first two on Monday and Tuesday nights, but I usually record Ugly Betty because I have a hard time staying up until 10:00. I watch the last ten minutes of Dancing With the Stars on Tuesday night just to see who gets voted off.

Poor Buzz, I'm sure he had illusions of winning the mirror ball trophy. But I think he was still wearing his space shoes. He seemed a little weighted down. I wonder how much they pay these people to embarrass themselves in front of a live television audience.

Jake looked like he was truly relieved that he didn't get voted off. I guess he is not ready to give up his fifteen minutes of fame. He seems to be stretching it into at least 45 minutes. I really liked him when he was a bachelor on the Bachelorette season. He seemed like a real all American type guy looking for the perfect girl. When he came back last season as the Bachelor I figured out the he had the worst taste possible in women. Most of the girls that seemed half way real, he sent home. Then he ended up with two divorcees and a lingerie model. For some reason I don't think he was looking for Ms Right.

I have always felt that Kate Gosslin was very domineering and maybe not so easy to live with person. I'm sure that she and Jon had some deep problems in their marriage and it would probably not worked even if they had not had eight kids and lived the last few years on TV. I do have to say that I truly felt sorry for her the first night that she danced on the show. She looked as horrified as I would have if it had been me doing the same thing. Now whether she is doing this for her own ego or whether she is doing it to support her family I don't know, but I can't imagine anyone willingly humiliating themselves this way. I get to actually praying for her when she comes out. "Dear Lord, please let her do better this time". At least it turns it into a religious experience.

Then I usually watch Ugly Betty after work on Thursday. I have watched since the first season and enjoyed it through her awkwardness (glasses, braces, ugly clothes) and waited for her to turn into a swan. I am afraid the producer is turning her into a too worldly woman with too many life experiences that makes her less unique and just like all the other characters on all the other shows. If the story line continues as it is now I guess I will have to say good bye to Ugly Betty and find something that comes on at a better time slot and does not assault my poor naive sense of values.

The Biggest Loser is my favorite. I can't imagine anyone losing 150 lbs in three months. (Mike) I can't figure out how they have kept some of these contestants from dropping dead from the excessive work outs. I guess it is the money that motivates them. I need to tie a dollar on at stick and put it in front of the tread mill maybe I would get a little more motivated.

So there is my TV review for the week.

WHEN I WAS A KID

Today has been the most beautiful day. Right now it is 8:15pm and the temperature is 73 degrees. I think it is supposed to rain later on in the weekend, but right now I am sitting here with the windows opened and a nice breeze is blowing through and I can hear the crickets chirping, the neighborhood dogs barking and the occasional whinnying of the horses in the pasture behind us. It makes us know that warmer days are ahead. It seems that ever thing has come into full bloom in just a matter of a few days. Butter cups, forsythia, plum trees, violets and Bradford trees have changed the drab scene of winter into a splash of color that is just breath taking. Everything is yellow, pink, purple and white. I guess nature is just renewing itself.

We stopped at a yard sale out in Killen and got to talking to a young woman that lived on the street that I lived on when I was growing up. I was able to name most of the people that lived up one side of the street and down the other when I lived there. I was able to go across the street to another yard sale at the little house that my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jimmerson lived in when they were a newly married couple. It gave me strange feeling walking into the house where they had lived. It really had not changed that much. Just a little one bedroom house with a living room kitchen and bath. It brought back lots of happy memories of staying overnight and sleeping on a pallet in their bedroom floor. They didn't have any children so they spoiled me and my older brother quite a bit.

Up the street was where my grand mother Hale live and I can remember sitting at the base of her porch steps digging dirt with a spoon and putting it into a pan. Across from that was where my best friend Judy lived and I spent most of my life walking from our house on the north end of the street down to the south end to play with Judy. We would get into a huge 50 gallon drum and get her brother to give us a shove and roll down the hill until it would come to a stop just before it reached the pond. Dear Lord you wonder how kids survived, but when we got up in the morning our mothers told us to go out and play and that is exactly what we did. We would usually make it home in time to eat and head back out again.

There were several families on up the street that didn't have children, but the next house with kids was the home of Becky. Becky was a year younger than me and Judy. She would walk by the house and start calling us names and the next thing you knew we would be slinging rocks at each other. Judy and I behind the swing on the porch and Becky behind a tree. I still to this day can't figure out why we didn't like her.

None of the families from my younger days still live there, but it was fun to reminisce about the Mauldins, he was the princaple of our school, the Taylors lived across the street from us, the Lewis',he was from Germany and still spoke with an accent, the Richardsons an old couple at the end of the street. Mrs Richardson gave me a tobacco sack full of ribbons one time and I thought that was the greatest gift I had ever received, the other Hales, Minnie and Connie, Minnie always wore Tabu cologne and to this day when I smell it I think of her, the Hamners and so many other families that lived in our little town. Now I probably couldn't name three families in the area. John laughed at me when we got into the car and left. He said "Man you were sure wound up. I haven't heard you talk that much in I don't know when".

I guess it is the nice weather that puts me in a very nostalgic mood. Remembering the first days of spring. How it felt to take you shoes off and walk through the new, soft green grass. The smell of rain falling on a dusty road. The feel of wading in the first mud puddles of spring and the feel of mud squishing between you toes. Spending hours catching bumble bees in a fruit jar. Tying a string to a June bugs leg and letting it fly around your head. Catching lighting bugs and July flies. It makes me excited to think of all the things that are in store for the grand kids in the coming months. That is if we can pull them away from the TV and all the electronic games...