I have no idea how Dawn became Pussum Cat. I think James was trying to say Pussy Cat and it came out that way. Anyway, Dawn was mostly called Pussum. He loved it.

Yeah, that’s right. HE loved it. Two small kittens were curled up in the flower bed in front of our house one freezing rainy day. James was three I think. Mama Cat wasn’t around. Snell ran to the vet and bought special milk for kittens and we put it as close to the babies as we could. Long story short. James named them. Kissy and Dawn.

Kissy never warmed to us but would wander through periodically. Dawn was a bright young kitten and knew a good thing when she saw it. She stayed and let us pet and humor her.

Finally, one day Dawn started getting into our laps and letting us really hold her. She had to be neutered. We didn’t need any more cats to take up with us. The vet said Dawn was male. Well, gender identity was never one of our stronger traits. Don’t believe us…Delilah became Samson, Lilac the rabbit became Smokey, Figaro looks like she has a pair but is female and the Queen of the house. We need to choose genderless names.

Dawn knew his name. He and Puddles, the Puppy-Dog (oh I know, but …) loved each other. He made his way into the house and there he stayed. Forever.

Dawn was an amazing cat. Tolerant of a toddler who loved him. Answered you when you asked him a question. “Want some chicken, Pussum?” ”yaa,” he answered.” “Want some turkey, Dawn?” “Nah”. He didn’t care for turkey at all.

My husband has been in the hospital with pneumonia and a fracture T-12 vertebrae. He is hard of hearing. No, I take that back. He is deaf as a post. He wouldn’t hear the thunder if lightning struck him. I am the official hearing aid. I go where he goes. I am the official interpreter.

Being an interpreter means I have been known to do odd things to get the message across. 

While in the hospital, Snell was having a great deal of trouble understanding. He mostly reads lips. The medical staff wear masks. Yep, might as well have been blind as well as deaf.

He has pneumonia so every other syllable is punctuated by terrible coughs, followed by a moan of pain from the broken back. He was unable to answer their questions. I am invaluable, yes I am. I know all the answers. I walk in with a two page report of all of his doctors, medications, and medical history. I hand it over and the medical staff are like “Oh WOW. This is great.” 

Do yourself and your family a favor. Create a report for each family member. In a crisis you might forget a medication. Hand them the paper and your crisis is averted. I also have a 3 x 11 sheet of paper in each family member’s wallet that lists all our medications, medical contacts, and emergency contacts. 

I am also much more talented than I ever realized. Young people are more ignorant than I had realized. I told the nurses that I was having to do my Marcel Marceau impersonation to communicate. Clueless. Had no idea who the most famous mime and interpretive movement actor in the world was. I educated each of them.

Then it hit me. These adults probably have no idea of the people who made the entertainment industry truly great. They only know artificial acting and computer generated creativity. Sad.

“Do you know who Cary Grant is?” I asked several of the staff. They all said no.” Bette Davis? Ingrid Bergman? Alfred Hitchcock? Humphrey Bogart? At least, please tell me you know John Wayne?” 

I was quivering at the ignorance and innocence before me. Okay, maybe they don’t watch the great ones on the Classic movie channel.

“Do you know who Harry Truman was?” When that one got a no, I said “ever heard of the atomic bomb? Or Hiroshima? How about World War II? “Some of them had grandparents that served in Viet Nam. Okay, this was my time. They knew doodly squat about Viet Nam.

I wasn’t exactly frothing at the mouth, but it was close. Folks, you need to know a little about history so you don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over.  

So people, if you don’t know Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart, watch a few black and white movies. You might learn what acting really is… You know where people learn the words and create a character and provide knowledge and entertainment without using a computerized brain.

Watch some old movies. Expose yourself to something besides car crashes, foul language, and green screens. Maybe you will learn something about the history of our nation. No, the movies aren’t exactly accurate, but it is better you know something than nothing about how your world has developed.

I am now going to get myself out of this invisible box and watch a Cary Grant movie, where intelligent conversation and a love stories without filth and nudity can entertain me. I have to use MY imagination. 
And Marilyn, diamonds are a girls’ best friend. 

Cary Grant, British-born American film actor whose good looks, debonair style, and flair for romantic comedy made him one of Hollywood’s most popular and enduring stars. Among his most notable films are Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, Notorious, and North by Northwest.

​

Marilyn Monroe (born June 1, 1926, Los Angeles, California, U.S.—died August 5, 1962, Los Angeles) American actress who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful films during the 1950s, and who is considered a pop culture icon. She was the secnd woman to own her production company, unheard of in the male run world of movies. ​

"Getting old is not for Sissies."
-Bette Davis

Talk about a true statement that is one.  

"If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself."
-W.F. Woodard 

I fall down. Go splat.

Me.

Yep, I am officially old. I fall down a lot. And this time I won the big prize: fractured upper orbit eye socket, concussion, scratched cornea, bruised knee caps, and lovely, colorful patches all over my face.

I guess it was good thing that I do like color, because I am a rainbow. 

I had gone under the house to find Snell. He had turned off his hearing aids and he can’t hear the phone and went under the house to change the filters on the pool. I was supposed to call him when the water level got to a certain point. No hearing aids, no phone and deaf as a post. I had to go under the house to find him.

When he'd been gone a long time and didn't answer his phone. I got worried and went looking for him. Mistake No. 1. I swore if I didn’t get a full basement under this house I would NEVER go into the crawl space. I didn’t get the basement. I got a crawl space, in which I have been exactly four times in 27 years. This was the fourth.

Mistake 2: Trusting Snell to NOT turn off his hearing aids. I was supposed to call him for heaven’s sake. He can’t hear the phone and the vibration isn’t strong enough to give anyone a thrill. 

So here I am, searching for an 85 year old man with no hearing aids working and a puny vibrator. I go all around the house. I stand at the crawl space door. I yell. I scream. I wave my hands in a please don’t be dead manner. Nothing. For the fourth time in my life I go under the house. Mistake #3.

Over in the corner, way over in the corner, is Snell. “I thought you were going to call me.” 

Me “What is wrong with your phone?” 

Him“Nothing, I guess. I had to turn my hearing aids off because the pool motor was making so much noise.
 
Mistake 4:  Putting the pool motor, etc. under the house. (I didn’t’ vote for that either)

 Mistake 5: Telling me he turned off the hearing aids and looking puzzled at my concern.

Mistake 6: Telling me later in the ER he discovered he had accidentally turned off the vibrator to his phone.

In exasperation I turned and started walking/crawling to the door. The space is 4 feet high. I am 5 feet 3 inches on a good day. It was not a good day. I was mimicking the Hunchback of Notre Dame in walk pattern.

The crawl space floor is concrete. I’m not sure if I won the fight, but I beat that concrete floor into submission with my face.

I hit left eye first. My hands are not even scratched. I didn’t even try to break my fall. I just hit the floor and skidded on my face, filling my left eye with concrete dust.

 “What’s the matter? Did you fall? Are you okay?” No, I like laying on a concrete floor in a claustrophobic crawl space that I both resent and hate.

I just lay there. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. All I could was hurt. I had a baby. This pain was so much worse.
​
I was covered in concrete and other dust. My eye was filled with blood and dirt. My knees would not support my weight. I was gasping for air and inhaling dust, dirt, any critters that had died under the house.  And it had started out as a very pretty and productive day. 

After several minutes, Snell was able to help me get out in the blinding bright light and fresh air. I tried to wash some of the dirt off my face. I washed my eye out with a saline solution repeated. Finally the majority of the dirt was out of my eye. My eye is swollen shut and the knot on my head could be used to carve one of the busts from Mt. Rushmore.

Snell dropped me off at the ER entrance and I walked in. I thought I was doing okay by then, except for blindness and the headache. “Excuse me. I need some help.”

One of the nurses looked at me and said “You sure do, Honey. What is your name and social security number?” Admission and fee paying always comes before treatment and/or death.

I remember looking at her and thinking “Social Security Number.” I know I was in shock. I remember starting to say something and then I am falling backwards. Before I hit the floor someone caught me and then a chair was slamming under me and my sore knees.

The next thing was a very bright room. I couldn’t see it was so bright. I had to shield my one open eye. The lights dimmed. “I’m Dr. whose name should not be mentioned for his indifference. How badly are you hurt?”

Duh. What do you think, Doc.? I have an ostrich egg on my forehead. My eye is swollen shut. I just passed out in your entrance way. “Gee, Doc, I bumped my wittle head.” I could have strangled him with his stethoscope.

Now this is the truth. When someone for whom I care goes to the emergency room I am there. I know enough about medicine to be dangerous but I am great at emergency care. I can butterfly a gash as pretty as any ER doctor. I can even to do Madison Bandage on an open torso wound. I am never hysterical. I am never nauseated. Blood is just interesting. I make sure that every wound is checked, treated and it is right.

That doctor never came fully into the room. No one cleaned the concrete out of my facial wounds. My knees were never touched. I was skinned from in my hair line to my chin on the left side. My shoulder was painful and I couldn’t lift that arm well.  I was just one bigopen dirty strawberry burn. Except that some places were very deep. The space above my left eye and on my left cheek bone were deeply raw.  He ordered a CT scan. That was it. Oh someone gave me a barf bag. I remember being very nauseated.

CT scans revel I do have a brain, perhaps a big jiggled up. It did not show the fracture of my upper left brown bone. Another doctor a week later determined that injury.

 I do not have a personality eyebrow any more. I cannot lift my scolding, loving, quizzical eyebrow. That brow is very important to my demeanor and my ability to communicate.

Two weeks later my left eye opened. Dizzy spells have continued for all that time with a headache that simply pounds. Light is an issue and so is noise.  The headache lasted off and on for nearly four weeks.

I have saved quite a bit of money on make-up. No spackle is strong enough to cover this colorful face. People are nice to me. I get lots of kindness.  

It was all Snell's fault. I don’t care what he says!!!

Sainthood may not be good enough an honor! Ms. Johnson invented the hand cranked ice cream churn as a way to reduce the time required to make ice cream. Ice cream was originally made using very intensive labor over several hours. Johnson essentially created a way to make ice cream faster and easier. 

Originally, there were many steps to creating ice cream. President Thomas Jefferson had an eighteen step recipe. Johnson’s brilliant idea changed ice cream making into a much easier and faster route to happiness. On September 9th, 1843, Patent numberUS3254A was issued for the. Artificial Freezer and antedated on July 29th, 1848.

A Philadelphia housewife married to Walter Rogers Johnson in Medfield, Massachusetts. Walter was a scientist and first secretary at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Nancy, herself, was a very successful inventor. This was very uncommon in her days, because women’s legal identities were taken away when they married. Under the laws of coverture, women were not allowed to control their own finances, own property, or sign legal agreements. Men represented their wives, mothers, and daughters. Nancy was a bold and determined woman who empowered women, teaching them they can make their own way for themselves.

In 1843, she filed for her patent for the first hand-cranked ice cream churn (US3254A). Her invention was called a “disruptive technology” because it made it possible for everyone to make quality ice cream without electricity. This technology changed the way that ice cream was made forever and portions of her patent continue to be used today.

Johnson received $1500 during the course of her lifetime for her Artificial Freezer. She adapted her original patient and refiled September 9th, 1843. She sold the rights of the patent to William G. Young, a Baltimore native, who improved some on the ice cream freezer on May 30th, 1848. Johnson sold the rights of the patent to Young for $200.

People erroneously credit Young as the inventor, but it was a Nancy Johnson who made the world a better place.
  
There are some people who should receive sainthood for the amazing deeds they do. Heroes should receive awards. We need to recognize the people who have made a difference in this world.

September 9 should be celebrated around the world! Nancy Maria Donaldson Johnson should be known universally for ice cream.

You scream.

I scream...

We all scream for ice cream. 

And scream most loudly for Nancy.

Nancy Maria Donaldson Johnson, thank you, thank you, thank you. You made my life and the lives of so many better.

(Information derived from Wikipedia)

Marlene is available for her speaking engagements. She is an award winning author and her books are available through amazon.com and scribblersweb.com. Join www.MsRatWrites.com for her monthly newsletters.

Hey Y'all,
​
Well, I am a day late and dollar short once again.  Things have just been demanding and time has fled from my grasp.  I hope you all are having a wonderful Easter Sunday.  

My next book, Tips, Tricks & Techniques. A Self-Directed Search for Easier Learning should be available within the next two weeks. I think this book did not want to be written.  I have been trying now since the first week of December to get it out. I seem to be the only person really thinking it should be printed and available.

If you are a female in the arts field (music, dance, visual arts, writing) look up National League of American Pen Women, Inc. (www.nlapw.org).  We have and Atlanta Pen Women chapter and meet monthly (second Wednesday at 10 am). Pen women is very encouraging to artistic women.  If you would be interested in joining, send me a note ([email protected]).

Founded in 1897, the National League of American Pen Women, Inc. (NLAPW) is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that supports and promotes professional women in arts, letters, music, and allied professions. 

I have just accepted a position on the Board of Directors for Southeastern Writers Association.  they have the best conference each year at Epworth by the Sea (St. Simons, GA).  If you are a writer, check out this group.  It is wonderful.

Here is a little piece I wrote this morning.  I hope you will enjoy it.  Now I need to go water all my indoor flowers, the orchids are blooming!

It is my birthday. I am not sure which category I fall into, antique or vintage. I suppose if something has to be 100 years or older it is an antique. That makes me vintage. Like a fine wine, but a bit tangy, occasionally sweet. Perhaps even a tiny bit bitter. I suppose it could be worse—dried up bottle of dust.

Our tractor is celebrating its birthday, too. It is one year older than me. So is my husband Snell’s favorite car, a Cadillac Sedanette. Both were born in 1948. Snell has kept all three of us going for years.

1949 is really the year of my birth. Easter Sunday at 5:05 pm. Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, GA. I am not sure where the Ford tractor or the Cadillac were born. Anyway we have all arrived in Georgia, the land of slow vowels and beautiful springs.

1949 is the Year of the Ox on the Chinese calendar. I thought I was a hog or a rat, but I am an ox. Well, I guess I am kind of shaped like one now in middle-old age. I am going for longevity here. 74 is middle aged if you live to be 150.

Oxen are described as “industrious, thrifty and clever, and they make careful calculation and strict budgeting for everything. Also, they never do the things beyond their capability, so they seldom suffer losses; they attach great importance to the fairness of benefit distribution. They are destined to have average luck in early years, favorable luck in middle age, and excellent luck in old age.” Still waiting on some that to mature! I need to learn to say “no, thank you” more often.

And I am an Aries. According to the information I found Aries are the trailblazers. Passionate, independent, loyal, smart, and impulsive. They always have multiple projects on their mind, and won't be satisfied until their work, social life, and personal lives line up exactly with the dream life they've envisioned. Aries are all about initial attraction. They can sense chemistry in the first sentence uttered by a potential partner. (This is true. I knew on our first date when Snell kissed me goodnight that I would marry him. That was in 1975, still together. I had to work on him though!) Forthright and unabashed, an Aries will do everything in their power to go after someone they want.

A combination of an ox and a ram. No wonder I am who I am. 

Another truth, I am a liar. I lie about my age. Lots of people do. When I first started teaching I had a student who was only a year younger than I. When asked about my age I lied. Sometimes I would be ten years older, other times twenty.

I haven’t formally taught in many years and trust me there are no students even close to my age now. No reason to lie, you think. There you are wrong. I add ten years to my age. I look good for some in their mid-eighties, not so hot for mid-seventies.

So middle-elderly aged, fat and sassy, blessed with a wonderful husband, a great son, who is regular middle aged, dear friends, and an old tractor that still works—happy birthday to me. 

In researching this I found a quote in the Aries description. It is my new motto.

"When you know yourself, you're empowered. When you accept yourself, you're invincible."

(Marlene is an award winning author who is available for speaking engagements. Her books are available on www.scribblersweb.com and www.amazon.com. You can reach her through www.MsRatWrites.com or [email protected])

Hey Ya'll!
 
I am have been pitiful about keeping up with anyone. I would like to say it was because I have been very productive in all kinds of things. 
 
It ain't true. I don't know where my time goes, but it isn't for very productive things. We're clean. That’s about all I can say!
 
I did finish writing a book on learning styles. I have sent it in, but haven't heard back from the people who will do the publishing. I think I am going to go through Amazon for it. Tips, Tricks, Techniques for Self-Directed Approach for Easier Learning is the title. 
 
I am in the midst of getting the publishing on my first book back over to me. It is still under the publishers imprint.  
 
I am about to recreate the book I lost, Finding Home. I have 14 chapters, though not in order, that I retrieved.
 
My favorite short story is The Caretaker. I am submitting it to a contest this month. Keep your fingers crossed for it. No, you haven’t seen this one. I wrote it two or three years ago. It is long and therefore not acceptable to most contests. I hope to get a book of short stories out this year. It will be in there. 
 
I had oral surgery on Thursday. I have one side of my face swollen and I look like a monster, but it is getting better. 
 
Bless Snell, I have slept pretty well all of Thursday and Friday. I have a meeting on Sunday with one of my writing groups. I hope my face will be less swollen and my headache and mouth pain will be better. It has greatly improved this morning. I am president of the Southern Sisters in Crime group so I hate to miss. 
 
I am watching a huge pileated red pecker on the suet block this am. He is beautiful. All the smaller birds are there and just ignoring him.
 
James has branched out with his glass blowing and is making these incredible squids on rounded ball. The legs are very delicate, but just lovely. I included his fox as well, these are his two newest interests. I hope the pictures comes through. 
 
Hope all is well with you and your's.  
 
Marlene

Hey Y'all,
I am a bit behind on everything, not just the October news.  I think I have more pies than fingers and I am up to elbows in sticky stuff.

If you are in the Snellville area, I hope you can stop by the Elizabeth Williams Library this Saturday (11/3/22).  Local authors will be there to talk about their books and writing.  We also have the opportunity to sell our books. It begins at 1:00pm

On Nov 19, from 2-7:00pm, I and my friend Lynn Hesse will be at the Walnut Grove Festival at the City Hall.  Stop in so see all the beautiful decorations. 

Dec 3, three of my writing friends and I will be at the Snellville Performing Arts festival.  The program begins at 9:00 and ends at 2:00 pm.  

I wish I could say I have finished another book, but I can't.  I am trying, very hard.  I have Tricks, Tips, and Techniques for Using color to Enhance Learning and Study Skills.  I need to edit it and then send it on to someone who is a much better editor than I. Working on the title. Suggestions? Send your ideas to me ([email protected]).  If your title is chosen I'll send you a book as a gift. 

I need only to organize and edit another book like Life is hard. Soften It with Laughter.  I am struggling for a good title.  It is another collection of humorous essays based on the foibles of life. Please send me your suggestions ([email protected]). If your title is chosen you get the first book off the press as a gift.

If God is willing and the Creek don't rise, I hope both will be done by the end of the year. Unfortunately, I think the Creek have sharpened their arrows and are lurking in the back yard.

Are you a writer?  Monroe Walton Center for the Arts in Monroe , GA has opened up an Author's Guild and will sell your books. You must be published and you must join MWCA.  For more information contact Barbara Barth ([email protected]).

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and take care.
Hugs,
Ms Rat

Old school teachers do not think in terms of cool weather and pretty leaves. We think of lesson plans and setting the alarm. It's fall. It is time to go back to school.

I was recently asked to speak to Gwinnett County Retired Educators celebrating their 50th year in existence. I was thinking, "Wow. 50 years. That is a long time. Some of those teachers are ancient."

And then it hit me. I started teaching 50 years ago, No wonder I was asked to speak. I was ancient, and I spoke their language, We went through that period of time when women did not wear pants, We knew the pains of girdles and garter belts. Dresses and heels every day. And we had a different type of student back then. Educators had parent support to do our jobs, and the parents would do theirs.

Mama used to say time changes all things." And thank goodness it did. We got panty hose. Now you youngsters have no idea what a jay it was to have your lower body encased in plastic. It was better than a garter belt cutting you in two. And then, pants suits were allowed. The tops had to come down to the bottom of your fingertips and cover your derriere. Even that was a gift from the goddesses.

I grew up and started teaching in the miniskirt age of the 1960-70s. Miniskirts were not as long as the tops required for the pantsuit. I remember going to a restaurant on a date and was told that I could not come in wearing pants. Fine. I stepped into the parking lot and pulled off the pants. Stuffed them in my purse and entered wearing a mini skirted dress.

I taught art to high school students, When I told them my story, the girls cheered! I was a rebel back then!

Fall is a strategic and traumatic time for many. For teachers, we had trepidation about doing a good job and having great students. For the kids, there was the fear factor of another year of homework, tests, and developing maturity. That last thing is the most frightening. Establishing who you are while not quite an adult and no longer a child is a very confusing time.

Fall also brings new engagements in the sickie-ickies. All summer, germs have been mutating, so new strains would attack the school population and, in turn, dill the parents and members of the household. New teachers should get an extra week of sick leave for their first two years of teaching experience. They are sicker than any student.

Fall brings school sports into play. (Yeah, I know. A pun, and a puny pun at that.) The girls have bought new fall wardrobes. We are in the South, It is September and 89 degrees in the shade. Those beautiful sweaters are still in the closet as the kids wear short-sleeved summer clothes into October. On the first day, when temperatures drop into the
low 70s or high 60s, the classrooms burst into color like the trees- all in the new cherished fall outfits.

Fall is a time to participate in change. In Greek mythology, Persephone returns to the Underworld. The Earth begins to die, only to be rejuvenated in the spring when she returns to the Earth's surface.

For many of us, fall begins a new dimension in our lives through education, The need for summer break to harvest crops has been replaced with laughter, pools, summer jobs, and freedom. Our late mornings and later evenings are now switched to a demanding schedule. As the Earth reverts to its autumnal slumbers, our children begin a new process of growth.

Enjoy your fall, y'all.

XOXO, Mama Marlene​