FREAK ME

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” ― Mark Twain (young portrait of Mark Twain).
Barbara sent me an ‘oil on canvas’ card of a painting that was painted in 1915 by Edward Potthast.  The title of the card is “A HOLIDAY”.   We all look forward to our holidays, don’t we?   I get the holiday feeling just from receiving a handwritten card.  Of course, this one made me take a step back.  Life is precious and it’s is so easy to forget this fact.  One never knows when it will be ‘your turn’.  I had a ‘Freak Me’ out sort of feeling.  Barbara wrote:
20 May 1993
Dear Mike,
This IS a Birthday greeting, so Happy Birthday…so guess you will be off to New York soon…exciting! Yes!
Well, I am keeping my chin up during this “hard” time and grieving process.  The story is my mom is now 85 ½ and had a major stroke on 5/3 and also 5/6, leaving her paralyzed.  She could not even eat or talk.  She was saddened she could not smile, only cry.  Early yesterday morning she passed peacefully.  We are all so grateful she didn’t suffer any longer.  She was too spunky to stay in bed.
Enjoy Life—With Love, Barbara
P.S. Thanks for the card.
The top song playing on the airwaves this week is a sexy sounding one by a group called SILK called FREAK ME.   I guess it’s easy to be freaked out.  That’s the feeling I get when I see a rodent unexpectedly while in New York City. 
Alan says, “You look for them.  That’s why.”
“Yeah, right…I’m just being cautious.”
I just hope I don’t get that Freak Me feeling when we go to New York at the end of this month.  It’s the worst thing.  I think it stems for when I was a boy at 1447 16th Avenue in Oakland.  The first house my mom and dad owned.  They had put a mouse trap in the kitchen.  I had to see it…dead on the trap.  As a child it’s a lifelong unforgettable vision of terror.   I also have nightmares from seeing that movie WILLARD (from 1971).  Why on earth did I go to see it?  Grrrr….
 “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”  ― Rumi