Dear Reader:

I must admit on this Monday morning while writing today’s post I am really, really tired of rain! It’s just not the rain…it seems like it has been weeks since I have awakened to sunshine. Even the precious few semi-sunny days, stuck in between the rainy ones, start off cloudy or foggy. Either way you cut it….it equates to drab, dreary, and dismal. 

Definitely the climate for a lunch with the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe. It’s his kind of weather…

Instead I went with friends and saw two movies last week just to literally get out of the house. I keep telling myself how fortunate we are (weather-wise) in comparison to other parts of the country and world…but after several days of this personal reprimand….even “lofty” attitudes (like chewing gum) lose their “flavor on the bedpost over night.”

I keep waiting to see my barrel (in the front yard) with the freshly transplanted pansies in it float down the road like a floral ark. Since taking the title photo (earlier this morning) my front yard looks like a swimming pool.

I, also, half-expect to see my lone Bradford Pear take a dive towards the house…this tree doesn’t like a lot of rain and I have seen what one storm can do to the roots (with the crash of my other Bradford Pear on the house several years ago) from this  fragile tree.

Enough of these “Poe-ish” thoughts….we need some funny writings… like the kind from Miss Effie (Wilder) about the little boy who told the visiting preacher that they were having buzzard for dinner. While the horrified pastor shook his head, the little fella calmly explained that he had overheard his mother telling his daddy that she reckoned it was their time to have “the old buzzard for dinner.” 

…Or Frank Gilbreth, Junior (author of Cheaper by the Dozen) who re-called memories of his daddy proudly taking all twelve of his children out for a Sunday afternoon ride….to  show off his large “brood.”

The older teenagers hated it…because of the way the people, on the streets, stared at them like they were from a freak show every time their father stopped at the end of a road. But this was Mr. Gilbreth’s favorite part of the ride.

He loved it when a crowd gathered to gawk at all fourteen of them packed inside the convertible Pierce Arrow. Each older child would be holding a younger sibling on his/her lap….while mother had a baby on each arm. The comments ranged from “Good grief man…is that an orphanage?” to “Have you got yourself a reform school there?” 

One day a particularly off-center comment was shouted at the family from a rather annoying spectator. He exclaimed, “My goodness, it must be about to start raining because it looks like brother…you are taking the animals into the ark….two by two?” 

Mr. Gilbreth, a master showman and shaman of verbal come-backs, smiled good-naturedly, while stopping and bowing to the crowd…He then glared at the verbal offender and said, “That’s right mister…all we are missing is a jack-ass….hop in!” 

And with that…he beeped all three horns simultaneously while the car jumped across the intersection to the roar of laughter behind them. The teenagers had slunk onto the floorboard in embarrassment and even mother’s face was as red as her hair. Mr. Gilbreth patted her hand, grinning, and said….”Children, remember, always leave’em laughing.”

So on this “Once upon a midnight dreary” day I hope you have gotten a chuckle or two from two wits of wisdom.

So until tomorrow….”Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

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*Yesterday I decided just to hang up going out in the “foul” weather and instead grabbed “Big Pinkie,” my overstuffed robe, to ward off the temporary chill in the house. I  gave in to cat-napping and reading in mixed intervals throughout the day.

Around mid-afternoon…the doorbell rang and one of my all-time favorite people was at the door….Jo Dufford. She had brought me a book titled: The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss.  She assumed I had probably already seen it, if not read it….I had not done either…and can hardly wait to dig in. Thank you Jo!!!!!!!

*Now before I end today’s post…I have an important request for prayer from you for another favorite author of mine….who I have become friends with in the last five years. Gloria Houston.

You might remember Honey and I followed the trail of the fictitious search for the “Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree” (culminating on Grandfather Mountain) in 2009 following a snow storm.

I ended up leaving Gloria a note in her hometown of Spruce Pine and she miraculously got it the next time she and Ruthie, her mother, stopped by there. She wrote back and invited me to join her and Ruthie for her mother’s 95th birthday party.

Brooke drove me up the Waynesville (site of a book signing/party celebration) and we had a wonderful time with Gloria and Ruthie.

From that time on Gloria and I exchanged Christmas emails every year…with me sending photos of my Christmas tree with the “Ruthie” doll sitting on top…a Christmas tradition had been born.

Last year, the Christmas email, proved a sad one….Gloria told me Ruthie’s health was failing…she was to turn 100 in March and Spruce Pine was planning a big celebration but they didn’t know if Ruthie would make it or not..

A few months later I emailed to ask if Ruthie made it to 100 and Gloria apologized for not letting me know…she had died in January…a very peaceful death. She had been overwhelmed with the responses from family and close friends and just hadn’t gotten the news out yet.

She also mentioned that she, herself, was having some health issues but didn’t go into much detail. Gloria is a very private person.

The next email from Gloria was definitely a “shocker.” She had moved to Tampa to be near family and a clinic that specialized in patients who have a rare form of cancer called Leiomyosarcoma. (Pronounced Liomyo)- this cancer develops in the connective tissues of the body…the smooth muscles… and can appear just about anywhere and everywhere.

Her “voice” sounded determined and strong but she knew it was going to be her greatest challenge and an uphill fight since the prognosis for this type of cancer is not good.

Last week, out of the blue, Gloria kept popping up in my thoughts so I emailed her and she responded immediately:

“Been through a very rough patch. I’m home from the hospital. trying to make some tough decisions.”

Again, not wanting to intrude on her privacy, I asked her to spell this cancer out for me once again …because when I was praying for it to leave her body…I wanted to get its name right. She immediately sent it and I told her (back) that I would just start calling in “Lio.”

I had also sent her my favorite prayer that I have shared with you many times by Donna Fargo titled: “I Prayed for You Today.” Gloria loved it too and sent her thanks back.

I could see her smiling when I told her my plan to dis-own  “Lio.” I wrote: It is getting “un-invited” ….”unfriended” by everyone I know….”little c” doesn’t deserve respect or friendship!!!!!

In Gloria’s last response to this email she wrote: “AMEN!”

So please help me in your prayers for Gloria that she be provided the strength to keep fighting this formidable foe, this giant of a disease….We need a miracle here and that’s in God’s realm. For us we just need to keep praying and perhaps send her a sling-shot with  five smooth stones!

We, also, need to keep this saying of Madeleine I’ Engle’s in our prayers….”Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.”

My Christmas wish for Gloria is to have a balsam tree for Christmas this year…because it is the perfect Christmas tree…. as Ruthie’s father told her in the Christmas story:

“We shall have a balsam Christmas tree my pretty young’un. The balsam grows up the rocky craigs where only a venturesome man (or woman)  may go. The balsam is the perfect tree. It grows up high, near to heaven.”