Sissies Don't Make It To Old Age...

No photos on this post. Just a quick catch up for you all. I went to see Carol's brother Wednesday. He is an orthopedic surgeon that I trust and I had made an appointment to see him because I have been having hip problems for several months... off and on. More on the last couple of weeks, though, as there have been a couple of times that the pain woke me up out of a dead sleep. I must tell you that I have lived in Oklahoma or Texas all my life and have slept through hard storms... hail that put holes in our roof in Bartlesville, wind that broke trees over, no tornadoes thank goodness, but I just threw this in so you'd know there's not much that wakes me in the night.

Anyway, after getting up and getting ice packs to settle the grabbing pain I finally bit the bullet and went to get it checked out. I had a hint that it was probably bursitis but I knew that Bill would be able to verify that or know if it wasn't... Sure enough, it's bursitis of the hip. If you have had to deal with this you have my utmost sympathy... if you haven't you don't want to have to deal with it. I ended up getting an injection in my hip. Afterward my Bro, who had driven me to Bartlesville, and I went to a restaurant that is one of the staples in B'ville, Murphy's.

Murphy's was started up in 1946 and is the home of the hot hamburger, at least in Bartlesville. The restaurant cooks up a couple of hamburger patties, puts them face up on the bread, puts a load of french fries on top and then covers it all with brown gravy. A guaranteed cholesterol shot right straight to the heart, but there are folks who have moved away that every time they come back for a visit they head to Murphy's for a sinful, totally not healthy meal. But that's not what Bro and I had...

Our favorite, and the thing worth driving three hours for, as far as we are concerned is their filet mignon. They serve a 6 ounce filet that is the best I've ever eaten. It is always tender, cooked just like you want it and absolutely delicious. They serve it with a baked potato and salad. That's it. And it is wonderful. They make a house dressing for the salad that I could sit and eat on crackers... sooo good. You wouldn't think that a joint known for their hamburgers would serve such an incredibly good steak, but, oh man, they do. I just groaned and smiled all the way back home.

So now you know another dirty little secret of mine... I would drive three hours for a great steak. I don't drive much of anywhere other than Ft. Worth and sometimes Tulsa, but every time I get a chance... I'll go to Murphy's.

The bursitis? My hip is doing much better but Carol's brother said that it is not unusual to have to have a 'booster' shot... another shot to get the bursitis under control.

Ask me where I'll go to eat if I have to go back.

Simple Joys...

I’ve decided that the only way to break out of the depths of depression is to take back the simple joys of my life. There seem to have been so many things that have ganged up on me in my head that I’ve just been overwhelmed and unable to fight my way out of the shadows.

In looking through my photos trying to inspire some form of emotion I ran across the following photos…









I took this photo when my girls and I were out one beautiful fall day. I don't remember what I was doing, probably putting away garden tools for the winter, but the girls were hunting grasshoppers.














"Aha! I've got one!" says my Chloe... Whereupon she promptly starts trying to rub it out... with her body.












"Got'cha now you ornery little jumping, flying thing!"















"See mom! Right there! I'm a GREAT hunter!"













"You were right, SueSue. This is a great hunting place. Now let's do our break dance to thank the happy grasshopper hunting God..."









"We've got to teach these moves to mom. When she is blue it will make her feel so much better!"















Okay, mom, get down in the grass on your back and WIGGLE!!!"




Meanwhile... in another area of the ponderosa...













Life goes on...













Keep it simple, stupid!

Off The Walls Of My Mind…

Sometimes I sit around and think too much…  Usually about one thing, but sometimes like today I have random thoughts bouncing around in my head and every now and then a thought will even stop me in my tracks.  The one thought that I’d like to share with you all today…

What costume would Lady GaGa wear for Halloween?  Would she just run around with no make-up, a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt and normal shoes? 

This is just on example of the wonderful things that trip through my mind when I’m sitting doing something mindless on the computer but I’ll share some of my more normal recent moments now and the photos to back them up…

October 30th I went out to my Cuz’s with the girls and spent the night and had a very good visit with her and my Bro.  The pupsters got to run around outside without leashes on and they, too, had a great visit with Spud and Lucky.  My Cuz and I wandered out to the back garden on a stroll and picked these…

Well, at least the bell peppers part of these.  We went to the front and picked all those jalapeno peppers.

 

Both the bell pepper plants and the jalapeno plant were loaded still with babies and blooms both.  They have been producing like crazy since the weather cooled down. The okra is done for the season but I thought you’d enjoy seeing what the okra looks like when it is dried:

 

These are some that I picked up, two were on the ground and two were dried on the plants.  The seeds rattle in them like a baby rattle and these four will have enough seeds to insure that I have okra seeds enough for a small plot in my yard in Norman. 

If you look real close you can see the two pods on your left have just barely started splitting open, but what I think is so neat is the ribbon look to the pods.

Earlier in the week my cousin had picked these:

Roma tomatoes and more bell peppers.  When we were in the front I checked out the tomato plants and there was a load of green tomatoes even at this late date.

But this is what caught my eye initially and drew me out to the front garden…

My yellow double blooming iris that I had moved from Noble was blooming!

Lordy I love having a touch of spring in the fall.  Whomever was the genius that managed to breed double blooming iris is wonderful.  If I ever meet them I’ll give them a big kiss on the cheek and a big hug.

My black mood that I’ve been trying to deal with was lightened, at least for the afternoon, thanks to my Cuz, my Bro, the dogs and a mystery iris hybridizer.

It's Official...

It is fall in Oklahoma... We had to turn on the heat this morning because it was about 58 degrees here in the trailer... It got cold enough for frost on the ground last night and this morning when I took the dogs out for their morning constitutional I could see my breath. I did have the foresight to put on a long-sleeved fleece jacket on over my t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, but I will have to admit to no socks on my feet and just slipping on my Crocs... Needless to say after a 10 minute walk I was ready to crawl back in under the covers.

While the official first day of fall was Sept. 22, in Oklahoma we rarely see any crisp fall mornings until late October... usually around Halloween. Speaking of Halloween, I always make sure to check out Rick's blog, Organized Doodles blog for the latest "share if you dare" that he so kindly offers up to all us bloggers, or anybody else, to 'steal' and put on our blogs... and here it is...



But back to my 'officially fall' statement... Carol cooked up a big pot of brown beans and about 4 o'clock this afternoon turned on the oven to cook meat loaf and I had to turn on the air conditioner. It was almost 80 degrees F. in the house. It was a beautiful 70 F. outside but when the west sun hits the trailer and the oven is on... it gets too warm for this old gal and her hot flashes... so the standing joke in Okie Land is when you have to turn on both the heat and a/c in one day it's either fall or spring and since it's almost November even I figured out it's fall.

Anyway, Happy Fall y'all!!!

Oh, and please pray for or light a candle for or send good wishes out for my favorite baseballers, the Texas Rangers... Finally after 50 years they made it to the World Series and so far they are playing like a high school baseball team. They are headed back home for their game Saturday against the San Francisco Giants after getting thumped bad in the first two games but all of us Ranger fans know how to hope for miracles so maybe things will turn around.

Granddaddy Sid, Part Two…

During World War II granddad worked at Tinker AFB in Midwest City.  Because he was born in Indian Territory he didn’t have a birth certificate like folks from a ‘state’ had.  They had to do all kinds of paperwork for a birth certificate to get him cleared to work since it was for the government.  I just found this out from talking to my cousin this past week.  Granddad and grandmother lived with my aunt, uncle and cousins during this time we think because my uncle worked at Tinker and they could ride together to work.  During the war everything was rationed, gas, tires, sugar and a lot more.  I don’t know if, since my uncle and my granddad worked on the planes, thus the war effort, they had any more gasoline than normal folks were allotted to be sure they could get back and forth to work.  I wish I had thought of these questions years ago when my uncle was still alive but it seems that looking at things retrospectively is when all these questions pop into my head.

My grandparents probably were dressed to go to church because of granddad having his suit coat on…  This photo would have been taken in the late 40’s I think because of this…

 I was probably two or two and a half here but the photo was taken at my aunt Mac and Uncle Bud’s place like the photo before, or at least that’s where I think it was but it could have been at the house where we lived before we moved to the ‘big house’ as I like to call it because I remember next to nothing about the little home we lived in before the big house.  My grandmother is stepping out the door, probably to chase me down, but I think that my grandparents had moved to Konawa, Oklahoma, by this time and were in Okla. City for a visit and this is why there are a number of photos that were taken at this time.

Anyway, I loved my granddaddy and although I didn’t find the pictures I was looking for at least I got you introduced to my grandparents and when I find the photos that I know one of us has I’ll be able to post them and share another post about my grandparents with you all.

My Granddaddy Sid…

First off I feel like I need to say that these posts are MY memories, things I either remember about family members or stories that I remember being told about family when I was growing up.  I imagine if you asked my four living sibs or any of my cousins about a certain time you’d probably get similar stories but from their perspectives.  Since my parents were older when I was born (36 and 41) my grandparents also were quite a bit older so by the time I started forming memories they had either gone to see Jesus or were getting close…

That being said my granddaddy Venable, my mom’s daddy, is the grandparent that I remember most because he lived longer into my life than my other grandparents.

My granddaddy Sidney Venable was born in Oklahoma Indian Territory.  His daddy, my great granddaddy, was a doctor that traveled around the Territory, mostly out from around Ada, Oklahoma, area.  This photo was, as best as we can figure, taken probably around 18-21 years of age.  Granddad turned totally gray before he was 30 so it was a delight to me to see this picture of him with his auburn hair and though he turned gray early he never lost his hair and I loved his gray, wavy hair.

He and grandmother farmed out in Canadian, Texas, in the Texas panhandle.  It was a hardscrabble life but both of them were no strangers to hard working.

At some point the family moved to Gentry, Arkansas, because that is where they were living when my momma went to John Brown School for her last two years of high school and met my daddy who was going to college for his bookkeeping degree.  I assumed that granddad and grandmother had a farm outside Gentry Arkansas because I don’t know of them doing any other type of work after they were married.  Grandmother taught school before they married but I think she just became a farmer’s wife after they married and I imagine it was a lot harder life than teaching. 

Anyway after the war started up grandmother and granddad moved back to the Okla. City area and lived with my Aunt Mac and Uncle Bud and their children, Nancy Gale, Ray Lynn and Carol, the cousin that took me in for the last November until I moved back to Norman in July.  Granddad and Uncle Bud both worked out at Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, a bedroom community of Okla. City.  After the war he retired and he and grandmother moved to Konawa, Oklahoma, about an hour and a half drive from OKC.  I remember visiting them in Konawa one time before grandmother had to go to the nursing home in Okla. City.  Granddad came and lived with our family after that. 

To me, he was the kindest man.  He loved to read the stories of the old west, Luke Short and

Louis L'Amour in particular. He'd sit in his rocker, upstairs in his bedroom, and read for hours. Granddaddy also played the fiddle and if we asked him he'd break it out and play a little "Turkey In The Straw" for my little brother and me. He smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes and sometimes when money was short he' roll his own.

This is getting long and I'm having trouble finding the photos I want to show you all so I'm closing this for this evening... Stay tuned for Granddaddy Sid Part Deaux.

I'm Feeling It...

I feel the earth move under my feet... actually under my whole body. I was still laying around in the bed this morning, a little after 9 a.m., and heard what at first I thought was a truck, like a dump truck that was overloaded, going down the street, a rumbling. Both dogs bailed off the bed barking like crazy and the bed started vibrating like some one had installed a heavy duty vibrator in it, the kind you could drop a quarter in the box on the nightstand at the motel in the olden days and the bed would start vibrating, not that I would know anything about that but I digress...

I was laying there jiggling and smiling that, once again in my life, I was feeling the earth move when it dawned on me that it was just that... the earth moving. I heard Carol tell whomever she was talking on the phone to that she would have to call them back, heard the recliner foot rest bang back in place and she was up like a shot heading to the door. I got up and she asked if I felt the trailer move. I suppressed a smile and said yeah... She thought at first that someone had driven into the trailer and then realized it must have been an earthquake. She got into her wheelchair and headed outside and I laid back down and turned on the t.v. Sure enough in a couple of minutes the local news broke in and said there had been an earthquake and would get back on air in about 12 minutes when, hopefully, they would have more information and would be checking with the earthquake center about the strength and where it originated. I felt that there was no alarm at all, more just letting folks know that, yes, there had been an earthquake.

There was still some disagreement on the 10 p.m. new about the strength of the trembler, 4.3 according to the national earthquake center and 5.1 at Oklahoma earthquake center. The epicenter was about 6 miles east of where we live and we figure that our California friends are saying 'big deal, snicker, snicker... it's no real earthquake unless it gets into the 6+ range' and I'd have to agree with them. I was not alarmed at all during this episode, more like curious about how strong it was that we would feel it at all. We have had reports for the last year of probably eight different quakes around central Oklahoma area and this was the first one that I've actually felt since 1952 when there was a 5.5 earthquake close to the Okla. City area. I remember that we must have had people over at the house because my sis and I were sitting together on the piano bench in the living room. I would have been seven and I remember us looking each other when the piano bench started dancing around with us on it. It was not scary to me then either. I remember being curious at the chandelier tinkling and dancing and the piano bench moving.

Anyhow... just so y'all know, in case you heard about an Oklahoma earthquake, that no one was injured or killed and only minor damage has been reported such as broken windows here and there and maybe some cracks in brick mortar in homes closer to the epicenter but all in all it was more just an unusual happening.

I'm working on my next post about my family but it will be another day or two because I will be driving a friend of ours back to Tulsa tomorrow so that will be about a six hour up, unload and drive back tomorrow evening, but I've got the post about half written... just looking for a few more photos so I hope to get it up by Friday.

All's well that ends well and all has ended well this day.