Yes, that cake was really good - mocha filling. Gooey too, lol. Shelly, I am so happy the potato salad worked out. I made it for yesterday too, but zero left over.

The lady in the one pic, Janice, is my shopping expert friend, the one that takes me Christmas shopping and we're in and out in 45 minutes with all of it done. The blonde girl is her younger daughter. (That hair colour is natural!!) Her older daughter is a school colleague of Mike's. We really like that the friendships have crossed generations as Nick and younger daughter are friends now too. Many of the people that were at that poolside dinner a couple of weeks ago were here yesterday along with our family.

Does it not STINK that the sun is setting so early now? Gah! It was dark by 8 last night.

I better go wash up the big bowls that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher so I can be guilt-free to watch Y&R in an hour.

Shelly, we've had some tragedies (of the emotional kind) happen around us too, because of JW. One sweet girl, whose father is a much married guy, has a mother that is JW and KICKED HER OUT of her house when she remarried and converted because the daughter wouldn't convert too. She was 15 years old!!! This poor thing went to live with her father and his latest wife and it wasn't pretty. She ended up dropping out of school in the tenth grade and moving in with her grandmother, who up and died a few months later. This girl has been on her own now since she was only 16. She gravitated towards men that weren't good for her, but she saw as father figures. Suffice to say she's quite messed up. I really don't understand JW one bit.

And I don't blame your mom for one millisecond for cutting that lady out of her life after your sister's ordeal. Gah!

KaeEll, that looks like a GREAT party! I'm so glad to finally see your shopping buddy, and her beautiful daughter. I'd kill for that hair! What fun to have a crowd in your backyard on such a pretty day when no one needs to do anything but eat and laugh!

I haven't tried your potato salad yet, but will. Our son came over last night, and he's a very weird child in that he doesn't like olives or mayo (he DOES like capers), so that pretty much eliminated the possibility of doing a potato salad. I did scalloped potatoes instead...

I have close, personal knowledge of the JW community, by the way. This was a movement that began in Tennessee, and my grandmother's family jumped in with both feet (on my mother's side). My grandmother twisted my grandfather's arm into becoming a JW, and he agreed just to put an end to the bickering about it. He was a very sweet guy, and so he simply accepted his new friends in the congregation as people, separate and apart from the religious doctrine. My mother never officially joined any other church because she didn't want to offend my grandmother (it would have been a slap), but she also refused to become a JW.

This became an issue when my mother was dying. My grandmother, desperate to save my mother's soul, used to preach to her while sitting by her bedside. My grandparents had temporarily moved in with us, closing up their own home in Roanoke, VA, to be with their daughter, and to help us in the household. My grandmother's preaching put enormous stress on my mother, who finally confided in my father about what was going on. He was FURIOUS...!!!

My father took my grandfather aside, and told him that he needed to have a "chat" with my grandmother, and to make the terms and conditions crystal clear to her: either she stop it with the preaching altogether, or she and my grandfather would be sent packing; they would NOT see their daughter again.

It sounds cruel, but my father judged it to be MORE cruel to put my mother through that turmoil during her last few months of life. And, by the way, my father was a deeply religious man! It wasn't as though he was without faith... Also, by the way, my mother's parents ADORED my father, and respected him as the head of his household, so my grandmother zipped her lips, and stayed until my mother's death.

There's an ironic twist...

From the time that I was a little girl, I heard my grandmother's rants about transfusions. She made me swear that if she were dying, and if a transfusion were the only thing left to save her, that I promise I wouldn't allow it. I always promised, but wondered why she was talking to ME about this when there were plenty of others who could have intervened, in this regard. I was a little KID, and she was OLD!

Well, the woman lived to be 95. In the meantime, my father died, my mother had already died, my grandfather died, and that left just my sister and me when our grandmother went into a nursing facility. Originally, she was in one in the Roanoke area, but asked to come up here to be closer to us. We had her moved, but within only a couple of days of her being here, the idiots overdosed her with some medication, and put her into a semi-comatose condition. It's a long story, and I won't go into it all, but my grandmother was hospitalized for about ten days before she died. At one point, she rallied, and my sister (who had previous plans to go out of town) and I decided that our grandmother was doing well enough for my sister to go away for a couple of days.

We were wrong!

My grandmother took a sudden turn for the worse, and I was the one who received the phone call from yet another idiot doctor who told me that he had ordered a transfusion! My grandmother's WORST nightmare!!! Understand that I had fully ADVISED the hospital, when she was admitted, what her religious affiliation was, and it was IN HER CHART! I virtually SCREAMED into the phone for them to STOP THE TRANSFUSION....IMMEDIATELY...and that doctor couldn't get off the phone fast enough to stop the order.

So, it came down to me after all, knowing that my grandmother wouldn't survive without the transfusion. I barely made it to the hospital in time, and what I saw horrified me. There was an empty bag of plasma hanging over her bed. For the first time in ten days, my grandmother's eyes were open, and she was slightly turned, staring towards the door. She was waiting for me. When I arrived, I went immediately to her bedside, told her I was there, and stroked her head. She closed her eyes and died...

It STILL haunts me to this day that she may have thought that my sister and I had betrayed her with our promise. She lived for 95 years, holding true to what she believed was right, and in those last few moments of her life, her worst fear was realized. I didn't agree with what she believed, but she had the right to believe it, and I'm heartsick 23 years later that our promise to her wasn't fulfilled.

Moore, that's a really touching story. I have a feeling that your grandmother does know that neither you nor your sister betrayed her, that it was the idiots at the hospital instead. I believe that as people are passing and have just passed on, they have a much broader knowledge of what's going on than we do down here. And by the time she got to where the angels live, someone there confirmed it for her. I know that sounds quaint, and I don't mean it to be. I seldom talk about my faith, don't have much a vocabulary for it, but it's in my heart.

Anyway, today I am dead exhausted. Janice, my shopping friend, isn't very photogenic. She's actually quite a head-turner, but I do have to admit that without her pink hair streak that she had dyed out last week, not so much, lol. Can you tell that her glasses are purple? And her new Mazda is bright red! She's one colourful gal.

(Shelly, we were posting at the very same time with almost the very same message to Moore.)

-- Edited by KaeEll at 12:47, 2008-09-02

Thanks Shelly and KaeEll.

Quite honestly, I was so horrified at the time, and so rattled by my grandmother's death that I didn't have the courage to ask the nurses if that bag represented what had been administered, or if ... I don't know ... it's unrealistic to believe that that empty bag wasn't anything other than what it apparently was.

The one thing that I've prayed for all of these years is that SOMEONE told my grandmother that they were discontinuing the transfusion, on her granddaughter's orders. That I have prayed for 23 years, but I CANNOT tell you the level of my guilt over this.

If nothing else, that's the very first thing my sister did when she died; she found Lovely (what we called our grandmother) in heaven, and filled her in! LOL... No, I actually DO believe that she knew it moments after her death. I've had some very unusual angel-related experiences in my life, among others, so I fully believe in them, and in what's possible for our departed spirits to do.

KaeEll, your friend looks darling, and like a fun person. What a great pal to have!

we had a lazy labor day. we were gone all weekend, then had a 3 hour drive home, so we did nothing but get caught up with things around the house

today it's 98 degrees, in the shade! You feel like you can barely move out there.

I don't get the JW take on a transfusion, how can the bible possible say it's wrong when they didn't do transfusions during biblical times....

Moore, I'm sure your grandmother in spirit form can see the bigger picture now. She's probably upset that you are carrying that kind of guilt around for something that was clearly not your fault.

Where is Bran and Jody and Sophia and Jess??????? And I still wonder about Kris. She often got on my nerves, but still I wonder what happened to her.

Miranda is doing something in politics now! Such a go-getter!

Tina, the JWs believe that having transfusions is the same thing as consuming human flesh. That's why they refuse to have them.

I know...

The weather has been absolutely fall-like here for the past several days. It's intoxicating!

Shelly, I think that your friend will LOVE getting a letter. And congratulations to your friend Jen on the birth of her new baby.

Jojo. when you feel like sharing, we're here... It takes a while sometimes, I know.

Shelly, congrats to Jenn and her new little one. New life - aw, quell miracle. I'm always amazed. And your friend will LOVE getting a letter. Go, Shelly!!

Tina - are all the children back in school now? Labour Day came so early this year!

Tony will be in Chicago all next week, Mike in WV.

The menfolk received their out-of-country ballot registrations today to be faxed back immediately. All done! They are all voting for the next US presidential candidate of their choice. Should be interesting as they are all voting for the same candidate ( I think; we don't talk about personal choices until after it's all done). There are 700,000 US citizens eligible for voting up here. It could make a difference! We shall see.