I'm Just Saying

My regular lunch date with Junior included Paul this past week as I had been giving him breathless descriptions of Junior’s, daddy’s (we don’t say, ‘father’), home place, seen from the pinnacle of Glassy Mountain, on the side of Hogback, easily visible through the bare, late-winter trees.

In speaking to friends in the field of psychiatry, and reading from two respected scientific journals, it appears there is a noticeable uptick in people, Americans, mostly, seeking mental health assistance to deal with the trauma of current politics.

Here’s a little tip to those of you would-be writers out there from your Aunty Pam: when you begin the promotional book tour for the release of your debut novel and find yourself happily chatting about it on morning television, maybe mention its name.

“How’d it look?” I asked Paul upon arriving home two hours later.

I think,” I announced to Paul after watching an episode of ‘Travels with Rick Steves,’ “We must consider retiring to Ireland.”

“I thought you were all about retiring to some medieval Italian hill town,” Paul replied, not looking up from the highlight reel from Kobe Bryant’s last game.

As far as I’m concerned, the funniest (saddest?) story of the week featured Lawrence Ripple, age 70, of Kansas City, who, according to various news reports, walked into a bank with a note that read, ‘I have a gun, give me money,’ and after receiving the cash, calmly waited for police.

Generally, I’m very happy to have grown up in the generation into which I was born. While the suburbs were encroaching, there were still large swaths of open, rural area in the North Georgia community where I grew up.

Hasn’t this past week been exquisite? The foothills, cloaked in white, sparkling beneath the winter sun, the open fields under a soft, becoming mantle of snow…how lovely it has been to watch the trees bow down, heavily laden, the cardinals darting to and from the bird feeders.

This past week in the news, as seemingly each week, there was another report of what has been dubbed, ‘air rage,’ when yet another flight was forced to divert, this time, to New Zealand, because of an unruly passenger.

Never have I been so grateful not to be touring full time, anymore.