Good day!

Well, ‘good’ might be a bit overstating it.

“I am well”, was my Mantra when asked today at the rehab/gym “how am I”?

Many people answer I am good, but I do believe grammatically that is incorrect; the proper answer should be that “I am well”, right?

Calling all grammar mavens, calling all grammar mavens!

Sure I am trying hard to be more socially acceptable since misbehaving all these years I do believe has taken a toll on me.

That’s not to say that I am breaking the mirrors type of homeliness, but pretty close in my opinion.

Between the left cheek biopsy of only one stitch and the above the lip dog bite that took forty miniscule ones done by a plastic surgeon my face has been through the mill.

PS that dog bite was my younger son’s collie Shepard mix that was a pup from Hurricane Andrew circa 1992 and he was named for that horrendous event.

I have told the story before, Hubby was in Tampa at a Hurricane Conference one hundred miles away and this was around 1999 or 2000, for some reason I cannot remember…

I was editing my Misty Gable Mystery series that a publisher was interested in, and I had been drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes all morning and afternoon and forgot what time it was because I was in ‘the zone’, the writer’s zone, hoping to soon be the author’s zone…I hadn’t been in the shower or even out of my nighty, yep that is how I used to be that committed.

Maybe I should have been…

Any-who, for some reason I had gotten the inkling that it was late and no I hadn’t eaten only drank that java and smoked those cigs and well… I started to get up for some more of one or the other and all of a sudden…as I rolled back my computer chair I heard an ungodly yelp!

Andrew was in agony I had rolled over a part of him, but I had no idea what part that was, a leg, a tail or what, and I felt his pain and I bent down to say so …”poor baby” right into his face then all of a sudden without any real warning he let out another horrid noise, but this time a deep confounded growl and then…my upper lip became chopped meat with his vicious attack of me his adopted Mom! Number two son had asked us to take him in with his cat Casey when he went into the Navy back on January 27 of 1999 and of course we couldn’t refuse. Andrew had of course been a part of the family from the age of eight weeks when the boys went down to help with the animals after we had way back in 1992, number one was twenty then and our younger son was sixteen and they of course were still living at home with us… That expanded our menagerie of pets to three dogs, one cat and our cockatiel at that time…But two years later when number two went away to college he had an apartment not a dorm room and so I felt for protection and company he should have Andrew back…and so he did take him. And until then we had always had them come home for visits and he wasn’t a stranger, Andrew that is and so when he bit me that terrible day I blamed myself! After all I rode over his tail or leg or foot or what-have-you, didn’t I?

That’s why when I did drive myself to the hospital after a quickie shower and getting dressed I gauzed my lip the whole time while I watched my life source, blood, wash away down the drain, scary!

Somehow number two son was told about the incident and felt that Andrew should be put down, and I insisted it was my fault, and Andrew lived with us for two more years, but died a horrible death from liver cancer with jaundice and bile vomit and for months we went to the vet and had spent thousands as we had before on other pets who were ill but to no avail, he was terminal and went out with a fight to his death, his anger and viciousness was amplified when trying to get him into the vet that last day he had to be euthanized…

Although, we always had dogs and our two Yorkies Benji and Brandi were stepped on too often, since they were so little and they wouldn’t bite me when I tried to apologize, in fact they licked me, especially Benji…I came to the conclusion that Andrew may have been ill before it was evident to us and maybe, just maybe that is why he reacted that way? Sometimes though, I do think he may have been just not that nice a dog, since the year before he actually bit our little Brandi and she too had to be examined by her doctor, the vet. Who knows…?

And Skipper too has been accidentally stepped on or moved by my wheeled indoor vehicles and he is of the ilk to kiss me when I apologize, never bite or be mean…

Animals/ pets are like people we all know that, personality wise… and my theory has been small dogs take small bites while big dogs take big ones, and that is why to I prefer to err on the side of safety I stick with the latter, and more than likely ones with loving dispositions!

The point is my face is a mess and as I have gotten fatter when most would think those lines would have stretched smooth they somehow became more distinctive and ugly reminders of two of the times in my life that I had to try hard to be brave. And daily that has been the case over the last few years; albeit I have not been a plausible example of how to handle this hand I was dealt.

And it shows in my face, as my mean nasty ugliness that I feared… when believe it or not I did model for three different stores as a child and young woman and even in my forties, here in Florida in promotion!

Looks should not mean anything to anyone, but many think my lines above my lip was caused by smoking and they were not, and that biopsy was benign too! I had a lump that was removed…the size of a small pebble under the skin; so very odd…with all my other stuff going on, some days I am not at all well, but I have decided that Mantra of 'I am well!" is how I must think to get there in my mind anyway, correct, yes!

Moving on…

Our storm is here now and so allow me to be the very first to wish you a very goodnight and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!