Category Archives: Love

3000 Miles Apart

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I’ve been getting text messages and phone calls from Britton with updates on what’s going on down in Puerto Rico. Sounds like it’s nice and warm and tropical as usual and that the houses are looking good.

Back at the homestead, things are so weird without him here. Even the animals don’t know what’s up. (But they manage as long as I feed them 🙂 )


Britton is currently about 3000 miles away!

This is the farthest we’ve ever been apart since we got married. When we were still dating I lived in Querétaro, México for a summer, and that was really hard to be apart for that long!  

It’s so different doing everything by yourself…cooking, cleaning, taking care of the pets. I’m glad we planned this trip during the week, because at least I have work and that keeps me busy. On the weekends we spend the whole time together usually, so it would have been a lot tougher. And I have a few things lined up before Thursday when he returns. Tonight I think I’m going to go to Trivia night at Old Chicago’s and Wednesday night together with my friend Shana, my mom and my aunt, we are going to watch Eat, Pray, Love and have dinner and drinks. (Girls Night In)

But I still want to know what is going on down there in the tropics. It’s hard to only get the play-by-play and not see the action myself. Lots of questions…So, how was the flight? How was the new airport? What time did you get in? Is it three hours or two hours ahead of Colorado time? Did you get to spend any time with the Kruses? How was the first house? Was there a stream? What did it look like? What kind of view does it have? Is it really hilly? How far is it to the beaches? Etc, etc. I’m excited to know the details, but he’s busy looking at them! 🙂

I really hope that we find one that we can work with, so the next time we can bridge these 3000 miles -together!

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Poker Memorial for Dad at Cattlemen’s in Greeley

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Thursday night we went to a poker memorial for my dad at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse in Greeley. He had talked about getting his poker group together along with us (his family) for months before he passed. He gave his best friend, Mory, some money to cover a nice meal and said to have a good time on him when he was gone. He was just that kind of guy. He loved poker and gambling and he loved his friends and family. It was a fitting tribute. And we felt him there that night.


The group at dinner

We had a large group come out. Most of his regular card crew came as well as their significant others. We all commented that we should have done this before. The wives had never met the other wives (it’s mostly a boys’ card club, but women are welcome), but they knew all the men from many, many years of rotating houses and fixing the food. So it was nice to fit the family with the card player. And we even had links we didn’t know were tied to Dad! (Greeley is a small world after all.)


Pre-dinner conversation

We had a nice meal that Dad would have approved of. He loved Cattlemen’s Restaurant here in Greeley and its western theme really fit with who he was. We toasted and told stories of his serious love of cards.

Then we got started with the poker. We had so much fun! We were laughing and joking and remembering his little sayings, like how Queens were Queeches, Kings were Cowboys, Twos were Deuces and other random fun stuff Dad taught us. I remember being four or five years old sitting on Dad’s lap playing cards with this and other groups. It was just a part of him. So this night was a perfect memorial.  And he was so forward thinking to put this idea into motion even before he was gone.

The night was wonderful. I felt like I had had a second chance to be with Dad again. We even dealt him in a hand of seven-card no peek and the first card turned was…a Jack! But it also left me nostalgic and longing to really see him. To hear him laugh, hoot and holler, joke and bet. To see him slide the poker chips around in his hands. To watch him bluff -something I can never muster enough sneakiness to adequately pull off.

And with all these memories, my feelings of sadness and loss welled up by the end of the night. But I know that I only miss him so much because of what a great hole he has left. In me, my family, and even this great poker group.

Dad’s perspective- he would be smiling

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What Is All of This?

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It’s been about a month and a half since my dad passed away.  In that time I wouldn’t say that time has necessarily healed me, but I do start to feel the separation between my dad and I drifting farther and farther away as if we were holding hands in two separate boats and were pulled apart in different directions. As I watch it slowly float away all I can think is how to bring it back together. But it cannot be brought together. That time is gone…

But is it? I still have really vivid dreams with my dad in them and strange occurances happening although not as often as early on. Maybe they are just my mind trying to cope with this loss, or maybe there is something else out there? Maybe there is more to life than just life? I mean, what is the point of inhabiting a body for this short amount of time (in the long scheme of things) for it only to die permanently? If we ask ‘what is death?’, then we would have to ask, ‘what is life?’

Could it be that our consciousness, our strong belief in this physical body reality, limits us from experiencing the unconscious crazy limitless universe -that we actually experience every night in our dreams when we sleep?

This morning I heard my dad talking with me, really faintly as I was in a dozy state of in-between sleep and waking. I asked him to talk more clearly, and he did, but I ended up deep in a dream. Is there something to that? Could it be that access to that “side” is limited to when we are in a subconscious state? Are we cut off from that side of things because we are so tied to believing in this conscious life of the tangible and concrete?

Isn’t it true that everything we know to be real and tangible is but a fleeting moment? A type of energy? Everything we are and see started as a form energy. Most of it from the sun. Our bodies are made of water, and oxygen and the sun. We eat the plants that absorb the sun, and the animals that eat the plants. We are part of that cycle. And if energy never dies only transfers, then what happens when a body does? How do we even begin to understand what this all is?

Could it be that we are just spirits in the material world trying to figure this stuff out?

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The Mambo Kings Make Me Happy

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So I was over at the High Plains library here in Greeley the other day (a fairly regular occurance) and I was perusing their latest in new selections. I am always on the prowl for a good tropical book as you know, when I came across “Beautiful Maria of My Soul” by Oscar Hijuelos. I had no idea this was a sequel to his Pulitzer Prize winning “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” (which I hadn’t read or known anything about -maybe because I was 9 when it came out and his stories are a little, shall we say, adult in nature).

Anyway, I get all the way through the novel and fall in love with the style and story and find out that this is, indeed, the second telling of the same story, but told from Maria’s perspective instead of the Castillo brothers. It happens so often for me that I fall in love with the characters, setting and story of novels that by the end of the book I just want more…and this one has more, even if I do read it in a different order.

So today I went back to the library to pick up “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love”… AND I also picked up the movie “The Mambo Kings” (starring Antonio Banderas) in old school VHS format (we’ll have to dust off the old VCR). I guess I have some reading to do and Britton and I have a movie for a chilly evening this week. Yay. Here’s a clip from the movie:

Have you seen the movie or read the books?

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