Beneath the Wraps

I don’t think more enforced gun control is necessarily the answer. Those that desire guns in their possession are going to find a way to get them – strict laws or not. In my opinion it is cleaning up the media that needs the enforcing. The media needs to quit glorifying horrific crimes and violence. Even the commercials are getting out of hand. John Wilkes Booth wanted to be remembered – and he is. Perhaps not in the manner he would have preferred – yet his name lives on. We associate his name with Lincoln ’s murder. At least two movies were made about Amy Fisher  the crazed teen who shot the wife of her former lover or Wanda Holloway the famous pom-pom mom who plotted to kill the mom of a cheerleader who was/is the same age as her own daughter so that her cheer-leading daughter would be so devastated and uncheerleader-like that there would be a position open for her own daughter to become a cheerleader at the school in Channelview, Texas. You want your name...

          Last year I had a sinus infection that put pressure on my eyes.  This year it’s my right ear.  It’s been clogging and feels like it does when I’ve been on a plane.  I thought it was the air quality that was turning me deaf.           Jenna happened to be sitting next to me when she looked in my ear and told me it was pretty bad.  Apparently it’s a wax build up.  It didn’t hurt – but has been greatly annoying as my hearing’s been distorted, my thinking has been distorted and my balance has been out of wack.           So I set up an appointment to get my ears flushed (I had thought it was both ears) believing that the doctor’s office may be equipped with a greater tool than a syringe.  This particular clinic is not. How pathetic.  The water that was used wasn’t even that warm.    ...

I remember the year my eldest niece turned ten.  She had requested that someone could get her a “Savage Garden” album as a gift.  Savage Garden? Really?  Hadn’t it been less than a week when she had been singing along to “Wheel’s on the Bus” and doing the actions for “Eensy Weensy Spider” and “Popcorn Popping” – okay, something for older children.  But still . . .           “Savage Garden” was a group that I listened to.  Why would a child want to listen to that? Ellen hadn’t been six for quite some time.  She was growing up.  No longer did she watch shows like “Arthur” or “Bear in the Big Blue House”. Ellen was maturing. I don’t know when she had graduated from Disney Sing-alongs to Boy Bands.  She’d always been more sophisticated than her peers – or at least in my eyes.  Ellen was no longer the child I remember her being.           And now th...

I’m a close-up – zoom-in-on-the-face type of gal.  But as I tackle my new project of cropping over 900 photos (It might be to a thousand) I have caught myself looking at things in the background.  Particularly in the old photographs.  Dads Bel Air Coupe, the yard we’re standing in, the couch before it was reupholstered, when there was a kitchen wall with window and no back room, etc. Sometimes the background will offer a clue as to what year it was taken.  And if there is a Christmas tree, I would say it’s safe to guess the picture was taken in December.  And if I find a date or place on one photo and I see we are wearing the exact same things in another, I think it’s safe to assume the two may have been taken at the same time. My paternal grandmother designed her house – created the way she wanted it to look.  And then one day she had to give it up and move into a condo that was closer to where I lived.  I could and did ride my bike to grand...

          Ellen found my mom passed out.  (This was last month - when mom was still in her house and not in assisted living) Her jewelry holder was on top of her.  Not good memories for Ellen – who doesn’t wear jewelry anyway.  I don’t wear much (jewelry) – certainly not enough for the wonderful piece of furniture I remember mom purchasing many years ago.  I don’t think I would have even thought about it one way or the other, but it had been moved into the same room where most of the photographs were.  I made a request to have it.           Roland brought it in the house and started to put it our room.            “I got that for Jenna,” I said.           He’s ordered her to take really good care of it because it’s an heirloom.  That cracked me up....

          I noticed that mom had two shoe caddies hanging over her bathroom door.   Each of the two caddies was nearly filled with shoes – so I’m guessing she had at least 20 pair – perhaps 24 with the shoes which had been sent to assisted living with her.           So I put one caddie in Jenna’s room (she doesn’t have twelve pair of shoes, but I believe more than six) and one in my room.   I was able to put in three pair.   Really?   That’s all I have?   I don’t think so.   I still haven’t come across the other pair however.           And then on Sunday I went to retrieve my Sunday shoes and discovered holes in the bottom of each shoe.   Church was about to start.   I suppose I could have worn my boots.   But I wore the pair with holes in the heal and asked about my mom’s shoes.  ...

          When Jenna was in the first grade, I would drop her off before school started.   Often I would park and walk around the adjoining neighborhoods.   Sometimes I would go to the temple and sometimes I would remain at the school and offer my assistance.   I made copies for Jenna’s teacher once a week. Before school let out I would return for her – though she and her friend Isaac were always the last two across the field.   It didn’t bother me if she dawdled.   I would just assume NOT deal with school traffic.   When she was attending first grade I was usually the only car left by the time she arrived to the parking lot.                     I had a similar routine for the first six weeks of second grade.   And then she gave her name and number to a classmate who happens to live in our same zip code. ...

          I don’t remember being in the ward when the name of Roland and his sons were read over the podium for new membership records. They must have been read the week that mom and I went out of town.           It was September of 2000.   We had gone to San Francisco to clean out my grandma’s apartment.   A place that housed her possessions but she had not actually lived there for over a year – and yet the rent was still being paid.   How wasteful.           Mom and I lined the halls with donations.   We had called Salvation Army, DVA, any thrift store or charity that would come.   Nobody would take it all, but every organization took a lot.   Hard to believe that apartment actually held all that much.   I never knew what a very Large apartment my grandmother lived in.     ...