MISSED OPPORTUNITY

On Aug 25 th, Reuion.com sent me an e-mail. They send me e-mail about every two weeks or so, I signed up at their website sometime before I retired in 2002, but never renewed my subscription. I generally delete their e-mails without opening them, as I know from experience, they are trying to get me to renew my subscription. But this time, the subject line said:

SUSAN, Reply Free to Your Message from Mary Ellen Niemeyer/Parker (Woods).

As I am planning to attend my 40th high school reunion next week, I thought, I might as well check this message out. I looked in my yearbook and found Mary Ellen Woods. I did not quite remember her, but was flattered she remembered me. So I went to the web site and found an e-mail from 2002 witch said;

Hi Sue,

It has been such a long, long, time since we talked, and I know we did...but of course at this age our memories are a bit dull.Don't have a yearbook, but didn't you have brown curly hair and a little bigger than some of the girls? I was tiny but now twice that size due to illness and crippling.I think you stole my radio in the john, now do you remember me? haha (forgiven, if it has bothered you, we all did weird stuff then)

I married my highschool sweetheart, Earl, but divorced over 10 yrs ago. I have two children in their 30's and did like you , spread out my family....my baby is now 21. I have two granddaughters from Dawn, my highshcool lovechild, and two adopted grandkids from Eric, (he arrived 11 monthes after Dawn). I was still such a baby when I had those two. Travis arrived 14 yrs later and was the toughest to raise, the one that worried me the most I think. He just married this year and moved to Kansas City about a month ago.

Do you have a website?
Here's mine:

http://www.geocities.com/umpysite/


I was not the one Mary Ellen remembered, I did not steal her radio, as I had my own ‘transistor’ radio. We who could afford them carried them in our purses for use at lunchtime or walking home from school, and I did not have curly hair and was not overly large in high school, but I decided to contact Mary Ellen anyway. She sounded like a neat person. She, like me had been married twice, had a number of children, and had some of the same interests as I, even apparently expanded weight like myself. Besides perhaps she was coming to the reunion. It would not hurt to renew an old friendship before the party. Someone to look forward to seeing, for sure.

Although I did leave a reply to her 2002 e-mail at Reunion.com, I reasoned that she might not have the same e-mail address as had been connected to that 2002 e-mail, so as she said she had a web site, I started there. I was impressed with her skill and creativity on her website and felt even more that I would like to get in touch with Mary Ellen Through links and Googling I found several e-mail addresses for Mary Ellen. I sent a short e-mail to each, but each came back as a failure to deliver.

Still searching around for a more recent e-mail address, I found myself at the guest book for Mary Ellen’s website. The last entry was in Feb 2005. It was from her sister, Cathy. She said she had just visited Mary Ellen’s website, because she missed her so much.

I then Googled for Mary Ellen’s obituary and found it.

Mary Ellen Woods Niemeyer Parker, 56, of Harrison, Ark., died Sunday, Aug. 29, 2004, at her home. Just a few days shy of a year before Reunion.com sent her 2002 e-mail to me.

I am sorry Mary Ellen, that I did not find your e-mail to me sooner. I would have liked to have known you again. I am sorry I missed the opportunity. Goodbye.

WHO WOULDN'T LOVE THIS DOG?

"Nobody likes that dog. That dog is certainly not coming to my house. No one else wants her at his or her house either. Put her in a kennel. Take her with you to St. Louis."

I cried. I had to get out of there before I said something really bad. I did not know why I cried, and why I had to leave. Even to me it seemed silly, at first. Over reaction in the extreme! Then I realized, Daxie has become a 6th child for me, and I suspect my husband too, only he was not with me to defend Daxie. I was as hurt to hear those awful things said about our dog, as I would have been if they were said about one of our children.

I always thought it was somehow strange and a little sad to come across a person, generally an older person, who seems overly attached to their animal, treating it like a child, taking it everywhere, and perhaps even putting cutesy cloths on it. But here I was, extremely offended that they did not like and refused to temporarily care for my 'child', Daxie.

All our children except one are long gone from the nest, and the one left is only home part time, being a college student. Daxie,a very small beagle, who has been in our family for over 9 years, is slowly becoming a substitute child for all those who have flown the coop. I even find myself referring to my husband and I as Mama and Daddy to Daxie when we are alone in our house. The dog sleeps with us, and my husband and I regularly exchange stories of the cute things our 'dog-child' has done, just like we used to about our human children when they were at home. Does this behavior make us old or just a little deranged?

In any case, a pox upon those who do not love Daxie as do we. Put Daxie in a kennel? How dare you suggest that? Daxie has never been left in a kennel, why she won't even go for a walk if she smells a dog that has been by our house too recently for her liking. And if either my husband or I raise our voices, even in joy, Daxie hides, until we tell her it is Ok. Daxie, we think, must have been the runt of the litter, and as such defers to all others in the world. Going on the trip with us would also not work. She just would not do well on a long trip. Every place would be strange to her and full of smells of frightening things. She would probably spend the entire trip with her tail between her legs and hiding as often as possible.

Well, I know there is one person, who was absent from this loathsome gathering where our 'child' was attacked, who loves Daxie. She will take care of Daxie while we are away. But just why would anyone not love Daxie?

THIS PICTURE SHOULD BE IN A CONTEST

Joe's Samantha and our Victoria. Niece and Aunt. How nice! xoxox

SPAM BLOG COMMENTS?

Well, I guess there are now enough bloggers that spamers have come crawling out of their holes to try to prey on us. After posting my daughter and granddaughter's gorgeous picture, I got a comment. The comment started, "I like your blog it is very creative." I smiled, proudly, until, I finished reading the comment. It went on to say I could make money selling scooters and invited me to find out how at a certain web site. Blah!!

Luckily, I found there is a sort of off button on my blog settings. From now on, if you want to leave comments for me, you will have to copy one of those wavy word pictures. I know it is somewhat inconvenient, and I am sorry about that, but just when I was trying to decide if it was worth restricting comments this way, I found I had just then gotten two more advertising comment spams on my daughter and granddaughter's gorgeous picture.

So, I deleted the offending comments and changed the setting to word verification for your comments.

I SAW THIS ON ANOTHER BLOG, SOUNDED FAMILIAR

any ideas

ok so my sister is 16 years old. and i dunno whats wrong with her but she is like electronics dumb or something. shes been through like 6 cell phones, and three cameras. the first camera she dropped and broke. the second camera she lost and the third got stolen. so she moped around and bitched about it and her dad gave her a camera on loan. now when he gave her the camera he told her DO NOT lose or drop this one. or you will be grounded for life and no more cameras or something like that. she had it three days.......

knocked it off the table on accident and broke it.