Crying in the Movies

Lucas and I went to see Gravity last night while Dean and Drew were both working. I give it a thumbs up, though as we were walking out of the theater some guy yelled, "That was the absolute worst movie - I hope you people know that!"


I think Sandra Bullock was excellent...and in excellent SHAPE! In this scene she shucks off her space suit, and as she's arching backward, her THIGH muscle is larger than her BUTT. (I've got to get back to Pure Barre!)


But something weird happened first. They showed a preview of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which is a book I haven't read, and stars Ben Stiller...who looks like my dad in some of the scenes. Well, he apparently daydreams about doing wild, adventurous things, and for some reason I started crying.


Here's an old pic of my dad for comparison, but throw some gray hair in there and maybe you see a slight resemblance.


Well, he doesn't look anything like him on second thought. But I've always thought he looked like Bruce Dern....my dad, that is, not Ben Stiller.


And in the 90's I thought he looked like Alice Cooper, minus the creepiness.


Oh, so during that preview the character is jumping out of buildings, climbing mountains, skateboarding down a highway, etc., and all of a sudden I've got tears running down my face and my SHOULDERS are shaking up and down - a sobbing fit snuck up on me! (They call them "grief attacks" in the literature that hospice nurses give you.) Anyway, that was just weird and random, but Gravity was really good. Oh, and I'm nearly finished with the back of my corset, but I cut my finger with my very sharp embroidery scissors Becky gave me at the GCGSW, so I had to stop for a Bandaid. (They're the perfect scissors for Alabama Chanin work, Becky, thanks!) Back to work!

Sisters with Hats

Oh, Junior, you didn't expect me to post this, did you?! My sister sent my boys a Halloween card with these pictures in it. These are from about 12 years ago, and we were trying to be very sophisticated with our new hats.


But you know that saying, "You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl?" There's a reason that sayings are sayings.



We Arnolds'll turn redneck in a minute when nobody's watching.

One More Dance Video

Well, since my mother doesn't want to appear on the internet before a bunch of strangers, this is the last dance video...until my sister or brother uploads their stuff to YouTube. It's so funny that you think there's no sound with this video...till you hear the pool players in the background, then it's really hilarious because they're just dancing their hearts out in silence!

The Post Before Christmas

Well, this first picture came out too bright so I messed with all kinds of settings to let you see the miracle of the jack-o-lantern face on this Thanksgiving carrot. It came out of the bag like this. Sadly, it didn't make the news.



And here's my sister, Junior, modeling her new jacket - it fits great except for the sleeves being a little long. I offered to make the lilac camouflage one for her with shorter sleeves, but she respectfully declined. Is that a statement on my choice of fabric? Hmmm.....



And I'm 2 lectures and 1 den meeting down, but still have the big pack meeting and karate party to go, plus the trip to NYC. Naturally, the MIL pants and other 2 fleece jackets did not get made yet. I DID actually measure and trace out the pattern for the MIL pants, though - baby steps!

And oddly, I'm having a very cry-ish holiday season so far. Last night the boys and I made hot chocolate and settled in to watch It's a Wonderful Life, and I teared up remembering the first time I saw it when I was about 8 or 9. I remember my whole family piling up in my parents' bed and my dad explaining it to us (at 404 for Jester and Junior). And today, Little Drummer Boy came on the radio, so I turned it up because Lucas wasn't familiar with it (is that a sign of a bad parent, or just a sign of modern times?), and I started tearing up again.

I thought you were supposed to get depressed AFTER the holidays. Well, looks like I'm ahead of schedule for once - merry Christmas everybody!

Junior Kicks Ass!

Well I'm so proud of my little sister, who used to go by "Sister" here till we realized how confusing that was, so now she's "Junior." She told me that yesterday she and my nephew stopped for gas and while she was filling up, a man on the other side of the pump filled his tank then watched her a while. He then started to approach her so she knocked on her van window and my nephew jumped into view with a cell phone to his ear (I'm not ordering a pizza here, mister!) The guy then proceeded to ask her something about her car and made unintelligible conversation at her while stepping toward her, and her ladies' self-defense training kicked into action.

Now first I have to tell you our background - we are meek little Southern belles who have never spoken ugly to anyone not related to us. When she and I were living together my first year of medical school, a man knocked on the door selling magazine subscriptions. I looked over his paper and he told me he was so hot and thirsty, could he possibly have a drink of water? (Well of course, Sir, come right on in!) I had a bad feeling, but I said I'd get him something and he asked to come into the air conditioning. Tracey shot daggers at me when I let him in, but she fetched him a glass of water. He then smiled at us and said, "Now I need you to do one...more...thing for me..." This is when I'm picturing us bound with duct tape and stuffed in the trunk of a car - why am I so stupid and gullible? We both must've looked like deer in the headlights, and he said, "I need you to have a great day!" I think we both soiled our pants in relief (then she ran to the phone as fast as she could to call our mother and tell on me).

So you're wondering what Tracey's training has enabled her to do at this gas station....well she looks the guy straight in the eye and says loudly, "If you mess with me, I'll kick your ass."

HOO-AHHHH - go Sister! I mean Junior!

Back Home...

What a lovely week at the beach, besides a couple of days of chilliness and overcast-ness. Here are some of the photos (sorry the first one is dark, and the others show more detail if you click on them...not that you want any more detail since we're not wearing makeup):

My sweatshop - how nice to sew in a room with a view of water where you can throw the door open to catch a breeze!

But my poor baby skipped stitches and didn't want to zigzag too well on my sister's shirt.

It still turned out okay, though she didn't want to pose without makeup...

Okay, I talked her into wearing sunglasses and posing...

Hey, Tracey, I missed the fact that your right shoulder is higher than your left (unless you were posing that way). Perceptive seamstress I am, huh!

See, my hips aren't really that wide - I was just posing that way. (It's my favorite pose.) This is the pink too-young-for-a-42-year-old shirt I made. The fabric was WAAAYYYYY too stretchy and I had to take about 3 inches off the side seams. Wish I could've taken some out of the center front, but that was cut on the fold, so things were not as snug as I'd like there. (But just small things that don't cause a lot of commotion when they're dangling freely, so no biggie.)

I actually kind of like the back - the top part is made of two ties that you knot and the bottom has a little keyhole where the ties are. Kind of cute. I even remembered to sunscreen that place!

And it wasn't ALL sewing - we did have some fun, as evidenced by the hole to China dug by Lucas and Parker, and the 3 tiny boys on the tube far in the distance screaming for their lives under what appear to be very stormy skies (they weren't, Mother, relax; though that brings back the memory of you running down the pier at Lake Martin last year screaming "GET OUT OF THAT WATER!!!!" when it was lightning. Good times, good times.).

Let's Wrap It Up

I'll get off that cancer kick - sorry 'bout that! Just to reassure everybody that it was a double-edged sword, it was the worst thing I've ever been through and I felt like my life ended (the first half of it anyway), but those times with my family were some of the best ones we ever had. We got together more than we would have and we didn't sweat any small stuff. We actually looked forward to tests and doctor visits because we knew it meant a get-together.

I just remembered a funny thing from the time the hospice chaplain came to meet us at my dad's house. She asked if we could all pray together, so we're all sitting in the den listening to her pray (more of a discussion with God, it was going on for quite a while), and Drew (4 at the time) says, "Excuse me." She says, "Yes, sweetheart, did you want to add something?" Drew says, "No ma'am, I pooted."

With stuff like that happening, how can you not laugh and enjoy the moment?

Just Some Photos for the Cancer Saga

Playing with Drew in New Orleans. (Pappy, can I ride it now? Please???)








This one's really old, but such a great shot of Tracey supposedly cracking that hand. He was really good at getting the joke pictures.





Gettin' jiggy at Pawley's Island. This was some song and dance to put the boys down for a nap - probably gave 'em nightmares!







Very tired after an intense game of "There's a Bullet in My Foot."

The Cancer Saga Cont'd....

So I left out the part where we decided to take a trip to Pawley's Island for one last week together before my dad died. (That's kinda heavy, huh.) My mom was living in New Orleans with us as our nanny, so she, Drew (4 years old),and I drove over to Mobile to pick up my Dad. Then we got Mamaw (my mom's mom who'd had a heart attack a couple of years earlier) somehow - maybe we drove through Sylacauga to collect her and headed on up to Birmingham for my brother Scott.

Scott wasn't home yet from work even though it was after dinner, and when he came in the door I was the only one sitting in the den. He told me, "It's time for a come-to-Jesus meeting," and he had an MRI in his hand. It is here I should mention that Scott told me about some blind spots in his peripheral vision a few weeks earlier, to which I flippantly replied, "Well that's a brain tumor." (You learn such useful things in medical school!) Well, turns out it WAS a brain tumor, and he'd just gotten his preliminary MRI results. So we set about Fedexing the MRI to my husband Dean in New Orleans (he's a radiologist - you couldn't be married to anyone better when your family's got a cancer epidemic!). But we had to continue on the road to South Carolina to pick up my sister Tracey and 3-yr-old Parker. I said, "Hey! Maybe when we get to Tracey's house she'll tell us she has ovarian cancer!"

Anyway, that vacation week was something else with my Dad not feeling well from his radiation and Scott constantly on the phone trying to find out what the tumor was and what they were going to do about it. Scott and I really wanted to sign the guest book with, "Between the 5 adults we have lung cancer, a kidney tumor [my dad, incidentally], a brain tumor, and severe heart disease. The group sessions have been very inspiring." My mom wouldn't let us write that; she wrote something generic like "You have a nice house."

Long story short, we come back home and my dad is promptly hospitalized with metastases to his adrenal gland, and Scott is admitted a couple of days later in Birmingham for his first brain surgery. My dad's employer at the time was an old Sylacauga friend who amazingly offered to fly my dad and me up to B'ham on his private plane so we could get there in time for Scott's surgery. So Daddy got discharged from one hospital and we flew straight to another hospital for Scott. Have I mentioned that Scott and Elizabeth were expecting a baby girl?

Well, Scott is recuperating well after a couple of days, so Daddy and I are heading back to Mobile and go to the hospital to tell him goodbye. Before we leave, Scott says, "Daddy, we've decided on the name for our baby." Daddy says, "What is it?" Scott says, "We're going to name her Kaye." (My dad's name is Kay.) I'll never forget the sound my father made. He almost sobbed, but he nipped it after a second, though the tears were rolling down his face. He said, "Noooo, Scott, you don't want to do that!" Scott said they most certainly were naming her that, and then we had to leave because my dad was breaking down.

As we were driving to the airport, he said, "They don't really want to name her that! She'll hate that name! What kind of a name is that for a girl?" (I hated to point out the obvious - that my dad is probably the only MAN named Kay.) I reassured him that Scott and Elizabeth really wanted to do it, but when you're arguing with someone on a morphine patch, it's really a moot point.

So it's kind of cool that there's still a Kaye Arnold running around this joint, and my youngest son's middle name is Henry, after the man. Bits and pieces...we do what we can to keep him close.

This One Warranted Some Kleenex

Oh, I was reading a friend's blog about health issues and it reminded me of my favorite movie line of all time: Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List, dying of cancer, looking in the mirror saying, "Somewhere some lucky bastard just dropped dead of a heart attack." I laughed till I cried (but I was really crying, one of those confusing times when it started out funny but it really wasn't). I've always thought I was going to die before I hit 30 - I mean this is when I was 9 or 10 I didn't think I'd see 30. I used to lie there at night and think I'd die of some disease in my teens or 20's, and all my classmates would file by and THEN they'd miss me!

But I'm in my 40's now. My last lipid profile actually showed a really low total cholesterol - everything was perfect! I declared that I had a cholesterol deficiency and needed to take up smoking and drinking (well, heavy drinking). I know it's going to be cancer that gets me - got both grandmothers, one grandfather, and my dad. I knew my dad was going to die of cancer because he smoked so much, I just wondered why his doctor didn't order more frequent chest x-rays. When I was in medical school I used to go home and do physicals on him to see if it had happened yet.

But when he called me after Thanksgiving in 1999 and told me he had something on his shoulder that my sister-in-law thought was a lymph node, I just got pissed and went straight into denial. A lymph node on the top of his shoulder near his neck would mean cancer, so that wasn't right. Then it was hurting him and they finally did a chest x-ray. He called me in New Orleans on New Year's Day and said they saw a mass, so did I think he had tuberculosis? I just sat there and said, "Daddy, you know what it is."

Then there followed the most intense 6 1/2 months of my life, cramming in every possible family gathering while trying to finish fellowship. We all tried to go to every doctor's appointment with him and be there for every test, and we did a good job because the doctor would joke about it at visits. We fit in a week at Pawley's Island, South Carolina (or North?) before things went really downhill, and then we handled that, too. I think my family does cancer well - we got the most out of what we had left with no regrets. We could be consultants now - the top 10 things to do when you find out your loved one has cancer. (It would include going to a hockey game then coming home and re-enacting it in the kitchen with the kids, eating all the oysters you want at a nice restaurant and who gives a shit how much it costs, listening to all the stories you can about their childhood - and here's an idea - videotape it!)

And when Dean and I bought our vacation spot, that was the first thing that popped in my head and I said to the realtor (who probably thought I was really odd) - "this is where I'm going to be with my cancer - sitting right here on this porch." Of course, if I'm sitting alone on that porch for awhile, that's okay too.

Oldies but Goodies, Part 2

Oh yes, now it's YOUR turn! Hey Scott, the 80's called and they want their Izod knockoff back. (Oh, wait, this is from the 80's.)

There he runs; there he goes, boogadad boogadad......and he ain't wearin' no clothes....It was too late for Tracey, she'd done been in-censed!

Aren't underwater cameras fun? Not too much in the way of striking poses, but fun nonetheless. And dear Tracey....I don't remember how her audition for Kabuki theater turned out.

Also, now I know where Drew gets a little of his messiness. I thought I was the perfect child, but what is all that CRAP on my dresser??? And look at old Sherry Nell. How old were you in this picture, about 29? Just wait, sister, I've got a MUCH better picture coming shortly!

Oldies but Goodies, Part 1

Comments from top left down then top right down:
1. Yes, Momma, I think white hose with a white dress and white shoes is beautiful! And here are some blue bows to put on my shoes and tie in the blue belt around my ribcage. Now why don't I have any dates?

2. Who's that boy with the bowl cut sitting next to Janet?

3. "I have a cat, her name is Kitty. She is a stray, but she's real pretty.
She's got black fur and a white tummy tummy. Like I said, she's really yummy.
She jumps on my bed almost every night. She likes to play and she likes to fight.
I forget the rest of that song - anyone? Repeat the chorus.

4. Drew thought my braces were "ugly." So did everybody else apparently.

5. Lookin' good, sexy girl!

6. Scott's first day driving us to school after procuring driver's license. Why didn't the cops pull him over - he looks 9!