Big Bad Ass Bald Cypress by Murphy Doodle

Letty says that it has been a long winter and she is tired of me dragging in leaves and twigs,

first of all, i do not drag anything into our house but sometimes when i shake my body, brown pieces of leaves and grass fly through the air,

even i do not like the brown twigs that stick to my tail and ears,

it is not my fault that brown needles from a tree called bad ass bald cypress sticks to my fur,

that is why i shake in the house and rub my head on the carpet

most of the time letty and jack pick the needles out of my hair, and i don't cry or act like a whimp when it pulls or bites, i am not a puppy

one night when i was scratching and itching because of the nasty needles letty told me that the bad ass cypress will grow a new set of lovely russet-red lacy needles this spring,

if that is what poet tree is then whoever said that has never slept with red lacy needles in their tail

 

the lady who gives me baths and loves on me while she dries my hair told me that i was really dirty and sticky this winter

I hung my head

i am lucky to have a lot of curly hair that keeps me warm in the winter,

when the lady who cuts my hair shaves by body i don't get cold but i do look funny and skinny, no one says I am a cute dog when my hair is not curly,

but the big bad brown needles do not stick to my short hair except on my long wagging tail,  

today is not winter where i live, so jack sits outside with me on afternoons like this and keeps me company,

when we are swinging the big ass cypress stands bald behind the swing in the gardeners yard, i think bald means no hair and maybe the same thing for a tree, that is because all of the trees hair fell in our yard and i rolled in it

jack says in a few more weeks all of the needles will be gone and he won't sit on the swing and pick at my hair, 

i hope he is write and i hope he will still swing with me

maybe when spring comes to our house letty will spend more time outside away from her computer

my favorite time is when she sits on the swing with jack and me

What's in a Name?

 

During third grade I became fascinated with names, after a mouthy boy at Lincoln Elementary called me "Lettuce" and "Lettuce Head."  

 "I am not a lettuce head," I screamed on the playground that day, as my right arm socked him in the face. He cried and I found myself in the principal's office.

Between the principal's words that day and the scolding from my mother, my head felt scrambled in thoughts. Why couldn't a lady fight?  I felt proud of my name because I was the only Letty in a world of Carols, Bettys, and Lindas. Worst of all I learned that words hurt more than bruises, to me. 

Seventy-five (oops, 76) years ago, my parents gave me a name long enough to fill the line on the birth certificate, Letishia Isabelle. Within weeks that great long name became Letty.

Mother helped me look up the meaning of my name but the encyclopedia set only showed these names.  She said she thought Letishia meant happiness and that is why she named me that. I am not so sure I believed it nor did it make me happy.    

That year in third grade a wise woman entered our lives. Leona DeAttley Hampton a loud, vivacious, intelligent, and eccentric woman, who loved the names Letty and Jonya. Like a lioness prowling for attention she would step into our living room, stop, turn her head both ways searching for two little girls. When she saw us she sprang to life. What she said, I no longer remember. It was how she said it that caught my attention. No other woman in my life could capture our attention quite like Leona. Even my father stayed in the room when she visited. 

It was mother's description of Leona that sent me to our worn-out dictionary that mother had carried with her since the war years. Words filled my head. There in I found the meaning of eccentric, a person of slightly strange or unconventional views or behavior, and vivacious, lively and animated. 

Leona fit all of those descriptions and along the way I discovered that the back of a dictionary also listed names and meanings of names. Letishia meant "JOY and HAPPINESS", and my mother didn't spell it like the Latin form Laetitia. I do not hear and understand separate syllables very well (phonics did not help me learn  how to read), and I realized that mother's spelling was better than being called  Le tit tit ia by some mouthy boy. 

Something about knowing my name meant happiness and joy along with my love of the word eccentric made an indelible impact on my life that year.  Words also took me a step closer to becoming a lady, who could stand her ground with words not by throwing punches.

Knowing Leona may have also done the same thing. Her greatest gift to me was bringing  foreign exchange students from Northeastern A&M Junior college to our home on E street, Southeast. I recall discovering that a young man who had dark eyes and melodious voice was named Said. When he spelled it out for me, I turned to explain that he misspelled his own name.

"You said your name was Syeed, but you spelled it like the word said. How can that be?" He smiled and I discovered that not all things are the same in this world. 

Patty, Jonya, Katy, and Letty, all member of AARP!

This holiday season my sister, cousin, daughter and I met for lunch at Scratch restaurant in Norman. Gifts are not necessary, nor our cards. What matters is that the four of us are together to celebrate our December birthdays.  Our daughter, Katy, is a September birthday and loves to celebrate it twice, once then and again with us. 

My sister surprised us with the sweetest gift this year, the meaning of our names. 

She then opened her phone and began to read:

To cousin Patty, your name, Patricia, is the female given names of Latin origin, derived from the Latin word patrician, meaning "NOBLE." Applause applause. The name and its meaning match up with Patricia, and she even sits and walks boldly upright with the look of a patrician. 

To my niece Katy, your name, Kathryn, is Greek for "PURE." It has been a popular name choice for saints and royal family members.

I interjected, she was actually named after Kathryn Hepburn, a strong steadfast woman, and Alexis Smith, a Broadway star in The Follies. I intended for Katy to be Alexis or Lexie until a male friend of the family tried to nickname her "little Alex." I quickly changed her name to Katy. 

To my sister, Letishia (Jonya uses here Spanish accent to say my full name), your name means  "JOY and GLADNESS." 

Jonya, now where did that come from? Mother announced to dad that under no circumstances would her new baby daughter be given a man's name, thus Jonya like Tonya became my little sister. The name Johnie is both a boy's name and a girl's name meaning "GOD IS GRACIOUS." How perfectly descriptive for my little sister. She is not only beautiful by appearance but gracious and kind to all. 

She shared our name gifts aloud that day bringing smiles and near tears to our eyes. 

So I ask, "What's in a name."

Women Are Like a Bag of Tea!

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that women could be compared to a bag of tea, so you only know how strong it is after it comes to a boil.

I have been boiling since Thanksgiving all due to my computer woes, old hands that knot up and skip a beat, a slow brain that does not understand new technology and a severe lack of patience.

Transmitting a howling scream of frustration in words on a piece of paper seems impossible, unless I think of myself as a tea bag dropped in boiling water and left to stand for hours on end.

After months of my right hand little finger hitting the insert key on my laptop and deleting, rewriting, and moving the words around, imagine the feeling of hot tears running down my face and my heart racing because my brain told me I couldn't do it. I couldn't finish my writing project. I couldn't type. I punched the wall of negativity with my voice in a low growl eventually elevating to a roar that sent the outside birds at the feeder to the nearest bush. My right hand pounded on the table. Storming out of my studio I bundled up and stepped outside to kick the soccer ball with Murphy. 

One ball nearly flew over the fence, and I watched Murphy turn and look at me as if I were superhuman. I finally buckled in laughter and frustration. 

With my mind and brain swept clean of cobwebs, Jack and I sat down to use his computer to see if it (not me) typed any better. It did not.

Little did I realize the concept of when and how I learned to type, 1963, made a difference in what my fingers do or don’t do. My fingers learned to type on a typewriter with a large space between the keys, much like the original keyboards with a desktop. My fingers and brain had no training at keeping my hands close together on a tiny laptop computer!  That knowledge or language alone would have helped to ease my frustration.    

However, on Jack's laptop with a slightly larger keyboard we accidentally discovered that Microsoft Word 365 gave me more options and a more efficient spell check for writing blogs and my Miami Country Club History writing project. We bought the program the next day, along with a new HP printer. 

Even with Microsoft 365 my fingers still created errors. At last, I called my neighbor, Stacie, and begged for help. She walked down that cool evening and downloaded the program successfully and shared some geeky info on steps and processes. Once she understood what my fingers were doing, she turned to me and said, "You need a new keyboard." 

Unable to grasp why a new keyboard would help, I also discovered the next day that my downloaded Microsoft 365 was not talking to me or the computer because I have two Google accounts and we downloaded it to the wrong account. How does that seem possible!

The next rescue came from Karena at Norman Nerds, who cleared up my mismatched google accounts and a few other errors. She also pointed her finger at me and told me to buy a new keyboard. With an online search she pointed out which one to purchase—the one with the dastardly "insert" key placed off to right bottom, away from disaster’s results. How sad to think that one key could make a difference in how a person computes! 

Wavy Keyboards for those over '60. 

*Logi Tech MK670 Combo, Wavy Keys 

With the purchase of a new wavy keyboard and another month of learning where function keys are and how they work, I began to relax. Thanks to coaching from Karena and young folks at the Norman Public Library I use the Microsoft 365 to type all my blogs and then transfer to the Blogspot pages. 

I also have learned that standing 5'4" and sitting in chairs made for larger adults can present issues on reaching the keys comfortably. I have learned to balance my elbows (since the chairs arms don't pull in enough to support my arms) on my torso so that there is no stress on my shoulders or elbows. Large chairs cannot accommodate my small stature. 

Before I add up the cost on solving the problem with my stiff fingers, let me share that a hidden costs that came in the evenings when I consumed several bottles of wine over the holidays. No, I am not proud. 

As for the tea, I discovered that I am mildly strong woman who might have made Eleanor proud. I begin the day with a mild tea and end the day with a herbal tea, and I still am using the computer and writing. 

**On a personal note, I highly recommend Bloomin' Desert Teas. Rosalind recommended that I drink the herbal Ginger Tea, and that has settled my stomach and nerves each evening and allows me to enjoy the evening without my tasty wine. Jack much prefers the "Red Rooibos" teas. 

I’m only getting healthy and my computer skills have improved with age!