I woke up at a friend’s house when she frantically yelled into the answering machine. I watched alone in horror when the second plane hit. Back at home in my apartment, my friends and I stared blankly at the TV screen all day and into night. My friend said something like, “I left Ireland to get away from terrorism, I never thought there would be terrorism like this here.”

I thought we were going to war. Would my brother have to go to war? (He didn’t but my then-boyfriend did. He reenlisted less than two weeks later. )

My best friend lived in NYC. And since I don’t know geography of the city well enough, I didn’t know how close she was to the World Trade Center and I couldn’t get through the phone lines to talk to her. Late that night I got a short, simple email I will never forget.

“The bridge was closed so I had to walk. I am home, tired, but safe.”

I sat there with the realization that there were so many people who would never get that email and I cried.

July 18, 1915 - January 3, 2011

KELLY, NAOMI FINE – went home to be with her Lord on January 3rd at Life Care Center of Rhea County. She was preceded in death by her husband Charlie Kelly; parents Grover and Myrtle Cox Fine; granddaughter Kelly Martin Streets; brother, Jewell and Ross Fine and sisters Reba Holland and Willie Arnold; and sons-in-law David Wisthoff, Sr. and Freddie Martin.

Naomi retired in 1977 after forty years with Robinson Manufacturing Company. She was a multi-termed past president of the American Legion Auxiliary unit 100, the Dayton City School PTA, and the Rhea Central High School Band Boosters. As loving as she was loved, Naomi was special to everyone who knew her. She had a tender, caring heart for animals as well as people, and fed wild animals like she did her pets – even the crows, much to the chagrin of her friends at her favorite garden center. She was a genius at gardening and her yard looked like a painting, a landscape of flowers, shrubs, trees, ponds, and wildlife. Something bloomed there year-round. Over the years, she supplied flowers, for many church, school, and garden club events. She was also appreciated for the vegetables and fruit she and her husband shared with many. She was known as an excellent cook, from her Sunday dinners to her pimento cheese and ham salad sandwich picnics and her renowned German chocolate, pineapple upside-down and coconut cakes, but  she was most famous for her chocolate gravy breakfasts.

She will be sorely missed by her survivors; daughters Katie Wisthoff (Les)Wiedrick of North Dakota and Pug Martin and Brenda Marler of Dayton; grandchildren David (Tam) and Jonathan Wisthoff, Ruth (Brian) Skar of North Dakota,  the Reverend Dr. Stephen (Grace) Wisthoff of Nebraska, Charlotte Churchill of Florida, Andrew (Karissa) Marler and Catherine Marler (Brenden) Rapp of Knoxville; thirteen great grandchildren and eight great-great grandchildren, and her beloved brother Jake Fine, Dayton.

The family is most appreciative of Dr. Chetan Shah and his employees and the staff of Rhea Medical and Life Care Centers from whom Mrs. Kelly received outstanding, loving care. The funeral will be Saturday, January 8th at 2 PM following visitation from 11am. Coulter-Garrison Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

http://www.wylie-eventing.com/2010/03/maggies-paparazzi.html

We’ve had some changes on the home-front. We’re trying to get all our finances in order so that we can start making all the repairs and fixes on our house so that we can sell it this year. That might not sound like much, but when you’re talking about a new roof (our quotes are around $5,000), removing wallpaper and trim, putting in new flooring in two bathrooms, painting the whole house, and any hundreds of small things I’m forgetting, it adds up to a lot of work and money.

Then my grandmother, who is 94, had surgery on her cornea on Friday. Obviously, anytime someone of that advanced age has a surgery of any kind, it’s a big deal. She wasn’t looking forward to it and has been struggling with it since. It’s irritating her and now it seems she’s got an infection. The doctor says that’s common, but it doesn’t add to her comfort level or get her back to normal faster. I wish there was some way to help. We went to visit her this weekend but the pain medication made her so drowsy she couldn’t enjoy it. She knew we were there though, and that’s all that matters to me.

Then on Friday, we found out that my aunt, my mom’s sister on the same side of the family has breast cancer and will be having a mastectomy tomorrow. This is my aunt that I’m the closest to, she gave me my first job working for her in a real estate office. Her only daughter is down in Florida and really can’t come up to help. This puts the brunt of the caretaking on my Mom’s shoulders, all while maintaining a full time job. So in addition to my ill family members, I’m worried about my Mom. I’m afraid to think of what HER stress-o-meter thingy looks like.

I guess all of this minimizes all the changes going on at my work. Even though I have some pretty serious career decisions to make, a major re-organization has got nothing on my loved ones!

*I’m at 322. Seriously.

We offered to attempt to drive down there and get them.  I thought we could possibly get Granny to go to a hotel if I were there to talk her into it.  She’s not much on wanting to go anywhere and while it would seem she’d be all for it what with them being out of power, she’s just not that way.  She has a dog and was worried that they wouldn’t let her take her with her.  Of course, I wouldn’t have let anything happen to my grandmother’s dog even if they hadn’t let her bring her to the hotel but that kind of stress affects an elderly person more than it would you or I.  So, at my mother’s advice, we decided to wait and see what the morning would bring.

I got the call from mom around 11:00 and she asked if we could find a kerosene heater and bring it to them.  Sure. That’s an easy one.  Well, so we thought.  While I’m not a patron of Wal-Mart on a normal basis, I thought that they would likely be my only hope for finding a kerosene heater in Knoxville during winter-weather.  We went to one Wal-Mart and quickly found out that all Knoxville-area Wal-Mart stores were out of kerosene heaters. Crap.  My husband and I quickly put both of our smartphones to work and called two different Lowe’s, two Home Depots, two, Mayo garden centers, a feed store/co-op, and finally, a neighborhood Ace hardware store. They had one.  I begged the guy to hold it for me and we drove as quickly as we could.

I also bought a battery starter/mini-generator thingy.  It wouldn’t help them in this situation because it needed a full 24 hours to charge, but if they had it, they would have had light and some power, certainly enough to power my Granny’s electric blanket through the night.

As I attempted to charge the battery starter with my cigarette lighter (you can’t for the initial charge), I asked my husband to run into Ace and get the heater and a  gas can.  The wonderful guys at Ace REFUSED my husband’s attempt to buy it.  They were adamant that “this heater is for a girl named Catherine’s 94 year old grandmother”.  Immediately, I remembered what I had said to the guy when I was on the phone and frantic. I had begged him to “please don’t let anyone else get this” and you know what, he wasn’t going to.  I was so stricken by their kindness, I immediately started tearing up and ran in the store to thank them.  I cannot express how thankful I am for the thoughtful staff at Ace hardware in Bearden.  They will forever have my business (and I don’t even live in Bearden!)

(My 1st generation EnV is still pretty cool too.  It’s ok to be jealous of it.)

I, on the other hand, am now obsessed with my Netflix queue.  Yes, I know, obsessing over Netflix is so 2005, but I have been boycotting them so I have missed out.  See, they are seemingly the last reputable business that still uses pop-up advertising.  Given my career, I should be pleased they are so focused on digital media, but really it just pisses me off.

Anger aside, I finally joined last week.  It’s pretty much the greatest thing ever in the world.  I got the package that allows me to have two dvds at a time and I have unlimited “Watch Immediately” access.  Now all the money I’m saving on buying movies OnDemand is going to be spent buying cords to hook up my laptop to my TV for my “Watch Instantly” picks.  Why yes, I am a goober.

It has just now crossed my mind that I CAN HOOK UP MY IPOD TO MY TV TOO!  Must go.  I’m off to Amazon to buy a couple thousand dollars worth of cords.  Love ya.

We laughed at the though of giving a child an actual log for Christmas.  And when she opened it, for a moment, she looked like we were the weirdest people alive.  Then, when she saw what it was and we explained how it would work, you could just see her eyes lighting up.

So there you have it. We gave a kid a log and she still loves us.