Lifestyle

In 1990, I was a 23-yearold mother of two living in a Washington, D.C. suburb. I had a rowdy 3-year-old, a demanding 8-month-old baby, and no money. We were trying hard, however. March of that year was a good month. Conversations about bringing the family back to Texas had begun. There was more to eat than carrots and fried bologna sandwiches, though you can survive a pregnancy on such a menu, FYI. And, the cable bill had actually been paid! MTV still played videos. One spring afternoon, while the baby napped on a pallet and the preschooler was busy with a snack, I turned on the Zenith television in the walnut cabinet surround, and my mind was blown. The video was a woman’s face against a black background, nothing more. She was beautiful. While this sounds very tame in today’s world of anything goes, it was shocking for the times. She didn’t have any hair. Well, she did, but it was buzzed like a little boy leaving a 50s era barbershop. Her voice lifted and lilted and dipped like a haunted meadow. I was hooked. After my first experience with Sinead O’Connor, I went on to buy the CD featuring that very song, Nothing Compares 2 U. It is one of a few CDs I have repeatedly purchased in my lifetime. I know the words to every song on the album. I have followed Sinead’s life over the years. An artist who refused to compromise, even when it cost her money and fame, she lived on the fringe. When I read the news of her death last week, it floored me. That girl, my same age, who sang about racial injustice and poverty while loosely integrating biblical scripture into her music – she wasn’t supposed to go out like this. Sinead took her own life. She lost her son to suicide a year ago and could not go on. I certainly understand that unfathomable sorrow. So, I took to social media as so many others did. I chose the best picture of Sinead. I threw in a line or two from my favorite song of hers, Three Babies. I just said that I hoped she found peace. That’s when I saw red. Moments later, someone dear to me commented on my post. “Too bad she switched to Islam.”

General Land Office, City of San Antonio, Alamo Trust, Inc. and Moses Rose’s Hideout Owner Reach Agreement on Purchase of Building

B

I am an introvert. When my husband proposed to me, I gleefully said yes, with a single caveat. It had to be private. I didn’t want people looking at me. Walking into a room alone causes an IBS flare. I am often thought to be cold, indifferent, arrogant, or just plain mean, but it’s a simple case of fear. I don’t like to speak first. I don’t like to walk in first. I prefer, almost demand, solitude over crowds. I get overwhelmed easily. Places like Walmart are painful for me because there’s just too much going on. It’s too peoplely. It’s too loud. It’s too colorful. All my senses ping at once and suddenly, hours later, I’m still in there attempting to avoid people, not because I don’t like them, but because I just cannot do it. Yet, once you get to know me, you can’t shut me up. I tell loud, raucous jokes, play board games, give hugs, and laugh like there will be no tomorrow. But the introvert thing, it’s a strong trait with me. Oddly, neither my mother nor my daughter had a shy bone in their bodies, prompting us to joke that it skips every other generation. And, boy is that ideology panning out in front of my very eyes. My granddaughter is an extrovert.

“God’s lesson is that you can run from me, but you can’t hide,” says Kate, age 10.

“Ms. Moo?” the voice was coming from a body in the corner with a clipboard for a head. It’s the curse of the paperwork software. Some places, namely the ones that feel the need to place plastic bracelets on your arm, use a software program that cuts off after exactly 3 characters of one’s surname. It’s a perplexing problem for someone with a perfectly symmetric name like Dina Moon – 4 letters, 4 letters. It’s a shame to leave that last letter off, I think. “Diana Moo?” The name butchering continues with predictable reactions. All waiting room eyes gravitate to me, Ms. Moo, who has just stood to acknowledge the greeting. I don’t even correct them anymore. It’s easier to go with the flow. I can be Diana Moo for the next 2 hours. That’s how long I will be here, in this auxiliary Baylor Hospital building. It’s mammogram day.

B Dear Aunt B, I am hearing lots about artificial intelligence. I would be lying if I didn’t say it frightens me. Will I lose my job to a computer?

“Maybe the things Jesus asks people to do are so hard that they do not want to do it,” says Maggie, 11. “It’s easier to quit.”

For more than 80 years, the USO has served the men and women of the U.S. military and their families, throughout their time in uniform. And now, with the opening of its first two shipbased USO centers, they are going where they go even at sea.

It was dusk, the first time I saw the creature. My 5-minute foray to the outside of my house went awry. I had intended to water the rosebushes, the ferns, and the small patch of lemon balm I was trying to resurrect from the summer heat. Like a modern- day Goldilocks drawn further and further into the woods, I had wandered first toward the unchecked mailbox and then toward the voice of a neighbor. Suddenly, it was more than dusk. It had gotten dark. In this old neighborhood, dark means the beginning of the feral cat witching hour. They emerge from every crevice, out from under every pier & beam porch, and from the belly of every storage shed. We have ginger cats, so very many calicos, and run of the mill black cats. As I turned to saunter back down my walkway, I glanced up at my front door. That’s when I saw it. The black feral cat we call Midnight had gotten INSIDE my foyer somehow. He was sitting atop my paternal grandmother’s 1900-era buffet, facing the glass, his yellow eyes ablaze, his long mane extending from his face in perfect, triangular points. My mind raced. How had this he devil gotten inside? Had I left the door open? It was closed now. Does this cat have opposable thumbs? I was blown away by his mustered bravado that prompted him to do this as his normal personality is more prone to Freddy Krueger-like claw maneuvers. Moreover, how was I going to extract him from my home? My thought immediately ran to my three resident cats, the youngest still in need of a spay. Great, all of them have been exposed to who knows what sorts of deadly communicable diseases and Polly is probably with kitten child by now. Grabbing a rake from the side of the porch, a weapon I knew I would not dare to use on any animal, I took a deep breath and readied my nerves. Time to eradicate the beast. Hand to doorknob, sheen of sweat on my brow, breath held for eternity, I looked up to face my foe. The eyes? Turns out I’d left a double wick candle burning. The mane? My faux hydrangea and lavender flower arrangement was throwing a perfectly cat shaped shade silhouette in the exact place. Crisis averted. There was no beast lying in wait. Things aren’t always how they seem. Why do I think I know best?

B

“The Bible is like a magnet and the people are attracted to it,” says Angel, 12. “We all have a choice to stay in the darkness or be saved and go to the light.”

The back-to-school season can bring excitement for young people, but for youth in foster care, starting a new school year can feel scary and uncertain.