Sad, sad day. I wondered why the cat Gray Boy was not waiting on the deck for his normal routine, Friskies Mixed Grill on top of dry cat food, that he would leave for the blue jays to fight over. Then taking out the garbage, I saw two cats in the road, one down and one right next to it crying. It was Irene's big cat Franco crying , and I knew it was Gray Boy down. Irene was coming from the house, attracted by the cry of her cat, and I just kept saying poor Gray Boy, poor Gray Boy. Irene bent down to look at him, "he's still breathing, but he took a terrible blow on his head - not going to make it." I got Timmy who put him in a basket and brought him to our yard. Irene had watched over him until then, keeping traffic clear. An hour later he was still breathing, so Tony took him to the vet and that was it. I couldn't look at him, but Sabra said he didn't look like he was suffering, so that's something.

Gray Boy came to us in July 2007. We were coming back from Cape Cod, Ria driving, when Sabra who had arrived home earlier, said, "Ma your cat died today." That was Ellie, old, old cat so it was no surprise. What was a surprise, was later that day, a gray cat appeared in the yard, a gray cat wearing a pink flea collar. And that is how we got Gray Boy. Oh, we tried to find his owner, Sabra took a cute picture of him and we posted them throughout town. The phone rang, and a woman said she saw the poster and thought it was Smokey. She came to the house, with two kids, a girl and a boy, and the kids both yelled Smokey, It's Smokey, and I smiled. But the mother looking closely, said No, it's not Smokey, Smokey held his head differently. So close. Then a man called and said his cat was missing, looked like the picture, but did this cat have only three legs? Sadly, I had to admit there were four. No one else called, and he became our "outdoor cat". He slept under the living room window, and since he was a Russian Blue Cat with heavy, heavy fur, he didn't seem to mind the winter. Recently, in the heat he had been tearing his fur out, pieces all over the deck.

Maria loved Gray Boy. "He was a prince in another life, Ma." Sabra loved him too, would pick ticks off of him, which he patiently let her do. Timmy would chase him if he came in the house, but he would prefer Timmy instead of me for his nightly belly rubs.

Poor Gray Boy....rest in peace. We are going to bury him with Sabra's cats, Horchow, Toad and Aunt Eddy. Rest in peace.

Well, the wedding is in three days and I still don't know what I am wearing. The problem is all my clothes come from two places - the thriftshop in Tivoli and the Free Table at the gym. Well, acutally, there are two tables at the gym, one is FREE and the other is LOST AND FOUND, but Timmy treats them both as the same thing. Right now I am wearing New Balance sneakers from the free table that I saw at Kohl's for over $80. You can't beat the free table.

And the same is true about the thrift shop, most clothes are marked under $5 and once a month there is "bag day" where you can fill a grocery bag with clothes for $5. Hence, the problem why I can't buy clothes. It just doesn't make sense. ButI haven't seen anything recently at the thrift shop that would be good for the wedding.

So I started pulling out old dresses from the closet. One was so old, it was falling apart on the hangar. Well, time to get rid of that one. I showed one of my favorites to Sabra, and she called it "frumpy". So that's my latest dilemma.

Last week it was my car. I needed to get it inspected, but the "service engine soon" light was on. I told the manager that when I made the appointment, and his voice saddened, as he said, "well, that's going to be a problem." So I took it to the garage, "Needs three new tires to pass inspection", so feeling hopeful about the light, I said "Well, you might as well make it four", and went home to await the phone call. It came. "Well ma'm the light indicates the emission valve might be stuck , we can get a new one for $290". Go ahead, I gave approval. I have to get the car inspected. But when I picked it up, no inspection ticket. You have to drive it now for 50-100 miles and bring it back with the light still off. So I drive for 50 miles, bring it in and my friend Chris who was behind the desk is not there. "He was taking over for me last week", explained the new face. When I told him I drove over 50 miles, he shook his head, and said"You have to drive it more than 80 miles." But we will check it anyway. Sweating bullets I watched them attach the computer to the car. Then, the mechanic drove it into the shop. Oh, No, this isn't good. I watched thru the window as he typed in information on a computer. Finally, I saw him open the driver's side of the car and do something with the window. GREAT...he was putting the sticker on. $21 more dollars on top of $653. No wonder I can't buy a dress. Maybe something will turn up at the FREE table.

Courage has come up several times lately - Kathy send Laura a courage pin from Maria, the cowardly lion, and Maureen sent her a cup from Maria that had one word on it - COURAGE. So, it came as no surprise when the priest yesterday quoted Robert F. Kennedy: "Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change."

Courage - I have been interested in that word since I read Anne Morrow Lindberg. She questioned what courage was....was the person afraid to face the world that managed to get out of bed and face his fear any less brave than the soldier on the battlefield? Good question. She was also quoted as : "It takes as much courage to have tried and failed, as it does to have tried and succeeded."

Lots to think about - COURAGE...you can almost see the Wizard of Oz lion when you say the word. Courage ---Anne also said, "Don't wish me happiness...Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor. I will need them all." So my wish to you today is COURAGE.

It's been a while, I have been in a scattered frame of mind and today is no different. I am thinking about turtles and thunderstorms. Turtles first. I saw a painted turtle on the road and I always have the urge to stop the car and pick them up. I used to do this for the kids. We would bring them home, look them up in the turtle book to identify the type and watch them for a while before releasing them. 40 years ago there were a lot of turtles, painted turtles, box turtles, snapping turtles, etc. Today you are lucky if you see one turtle all year. We had turtles, as I recall Maureen had them and gave them to us...Romeo and Juliet? Something like that. They were big painted turtles that lived in the living room window, eating flies, vegetables and ground beef. When I couldn't take the smell anymore I released them in the creek here in Tivoli. They got caught in the current, and I saw them going downstream, heads lifted high, watching out for each other.

My favorite turtle story is from Paul. He and Steve were going somewhere when they saw several cars stopped, watching an enormous snapping turtle slowly crossing the road. Now snapping turtles are scary to look at and if you hold a thick stick by them, their jaws can snap it in a second. Paul and Steve got out, and unexpectedly, Steve picked up the snapping turtle and carried him to the side of the road. The people were amazed. "Is that the direction he was going in?" asked Steve, and was told that actually, he was going the other way. So Steve picked him (or her) back up and carried him to the other side of the road. The turtle watchers loved it.

Thunder storms are another thing that comes with summer. Today was just a small one, but we've had some boomers. When I was a kid Bucky would go crazy when lightning and thunder arrived. "Take the bobby pins out of your hair - it attracts lightning." And, we would pull out the bobby pins quickly. Another thing, "Get off the phone - you'll get electricuted". This I almost believe because one storm hit close by and our phone made a strange noise. When I lived on Beacon Street, we had some terrible storms, and I would gather the kids and run into the hallway. There I would be joined by the woman and her daughter from across the hall, and we would hear Helen from downstairs, hurrying to join us. Actually, that is a good memory, we would all look at each other embarrassed, laugh at ourselves and wait for the thunder to stop.

I heard on the news this morning that they are expecting more than the usual number of hurricanes this season. Then when I saw Sabra this morning, she said one of the future hurricanes is named Maria. This gave me goosebumps...I mean that, so I think we better be ready for that one.

May 1st was the last day I saw juncos, those little caped birds that mean winter is here. They all left at once, and on the first day of May. The cat birds have come back and the rose breasted grosbeak, so it really must be spring. Thursday was Cinco de Mayo and that always makes me think of my last days at IBM. It was on Cinco de Mayo that still another offer of an early departure from IBM came around. This one seemed to be made for me. You had to be a certain age, 49, you had to have 9 years of work at IBM and you had to be willing to "bridge" for 6 years until the time you would have had a total of 15 years, which was the earliest you could retire at.

Cinco de Mayo, my last name at that time was Ciancanelli, so I kind of sang Cinco Ciancanelli, a few times, and e-mailed my manager that I wanted to take this last offer. Who wouldn't? IBM was going down the toilet, grown men were crying in their offices, the older workers were hiding in bathrooms to avoid the talk with their manager about taking retirement, the young workers were afraid that they would be the first to go. Rumors were all over, this department was going to Texas, this one was being dissolved. No problem, Cinco Ciancanelli is going out the door. Oh, my manager tried to talk me out of it. They had just put me through three years of programming school, wanted to get their money worth, and of course I was an older woman, one of the statistics the government liked to see in corporations. But I took the bridge. My last day the main desk called me that I had flowers, and I went there to find who would have sent me something on my last day. Sure enough, it was Maria, with a note that said"To Ma, the Captain of her ship". As I returned to my office, one worker seeing the flowers said, "Did you get a promotion?" "No," I replied, "I'm leaving -it's my last day." And it was one of the best feelings I ever had.

It turned out to be a good decision in so many ways. And the money I got up front paid for a big house in Cape Cod that I rented for three weeks, with everybody we knew coming and going.

Then there's Mother's Day. I would be told to stay in bed - the kids were going to make me breakfast. My bedroom is right over the kitchen, so I could hear the fighting and arguing, while I waited. Then they would come up with a tray...a dishcloth covering a pizza pan, a cup of tea, toast with jelly in a little cup, and flowers in a small vase, usually apple blossoms from our apple tree. Then they would all sit on the bed and watch me eat. The toast was cold, but I ate it, the tea too sweet, but I drank it and when I was finished, they said "We're starving - can you make us crepes? Happy Mother's Day everybody.

Yesterday I went to the Stations of the Cross for the first time in many years. When I was a kid I remember going with Grandma Burky. The church was packed, waiting for the priest. I remember her looking at my hands, dirty from playing outside, and frowning and shaking her head. You should have clean hands in church. Then the priest came out, with beautiful robes, and an altar boy on each side, each with an enormous candle that took both of their hands to hold upright. They moved slowly down the center aisle, stopping at each station, singing, praying and sprinkling incense. Nothing like that last night.

First of all there were only 10 of us in the church - 10, my first surprise, no full church, no anticipation. Then only one priest came out, no altar boys, no incense, no robes. He started out by saying that there cannot be an bell ringing on Holy Week, he even said he disconnected the outdoor bells so he wouldn't make a mistake. I knew from Ria dying on Easter week that we could not have any music at her funeral, so this was no surprise. Then the priest, elderly with a heavy accent, slowly walked and stood in front of the first station. We each had been handed a booklet with the prayers and recitings for each station, so we opened them and started. As we went from station to station, there was one refrain at the end of our recitation that was always the same, "do with me what you will". It had been a hard week, I'm down with a bad cold, then Laura went into the hospital and had surgery, and I was too sick to even go and see her. Sabra kept me informed and Laura and I talked on the phone, but that's not like being there...do with me what you will, kind of says it all. We cannot be and do everything that we want to, and we certainly don't know what lies ahead, day by day or even minute by minute. But do with me what you will, takes a lot of pressure off. Stations of the Cross, so different from my memories 60 years ago with Grandma, but boy, worth every minute of it. Happy Easter everybody.

March is fast coming to a close and that makes me think of two things. The first one is fishing season, April 1st is the official start of the fishing season. Daddy loved to fish and after we moved to Tivoli he would come to our house and go to a stream in Elizaville he especially liked. When we were kids we would help him get this bait. He would take us to Legion Pond in Glenham (now a car dealership) and he would put his homemade net in the water. It was square, as I remember it, two to three feet in diameter, and lined with a fine netting, maybe an old curtain. It was at the end of a long stick, and he would put the net in the water, letting it sink. Once it was deep enough, we would throw little pieces of bread over it, and the shiny minnows would appear, a feeding fenzy. When there were enough of them, Daddy would quickly jerk the net out of the water, and the trapped fish would be carefully put into a pail of water. Another place he got bait was on the creek near Texaco by a dam. There were a lot of rocks in the water, and he would carefully lift one and there would be a crawfish exposed, a little lobster that he placed into his special baitbox, a small wooden box with a screen top, so you could watch the crawfish in their new home. Daddy would bring home his catch, if it was a large trout, he would place it next to a ruler and take its picture, no "fish story" here. The second thing is April Fool's Day. About sixteen, seventeen years ago Timmy got me really good. It was a Friday, like this year, and we were both going to work, Timmy left before seven and I went about eight. Before he left, he put a lottery ticket on the kitchen table and said, "I didn't have a chance to check my ticket. Would you find Wednesday's paper and check the numbers?" Then he left for work. I did a few chores and then I noticed the ticket on the table and dug through the recycled papers until I found the one that listed the winning draw. I checked the first number, it matched Timmy's, the second number, the third number. My heart was pounding, every number matched. Timmy had won the lottery! It was too early to call anybody, then I remember Paul left for work around seven. I called him up, my hands shaking. He answered the phone, sleepily, I think I woke him up. "Paul, I screamed, "You have got to come over and check the numbers, I think Timmy won the lottery, he matched every f.... (I let that slip) number. Paul answered generously, "That's great he won Ma, nobody deserves it more," and said he'd be over as soon as he got dressed. I checked the numbers again and again, and then I looked at the date. It wasn't for last Wednesday, it was for the coming Saturday. Poor Timmy, he matched the numbers, but not the date. I called Paul not to come, and then I realized that I had been fooled. He knew I wouldn't check the date, just the numbers...Poor Timmy really got me good. Well, anyway, I thought, now I know how it feels to win the lottery, and I did. Happy April Fool's Day.