Anne’s Diary (Page 9)

After two strokes, I am spending most of my time in a wheelchair. I’m practically a bionic woman. I have to be fed through a tube that has been inserted into my stomach. I can look at my left arm, which is nice, but I can’t make it do anything. I cannot see well enough to read, which is a real bore. I can eat only bits of pudding and thickened drinks like tea and coffee. Whitley reads the papers to me in the morning while I have a cup of tea so thick it has to be eaten with a spoon–and then, only in tiny bits.
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It’s fall, and birds and squirrels are stocking up on food for winter and building materials for their nests. Squirrels, like some dogs, have long fluffy tails. Other dogs have their tails docked. This is an old tradition, which originated among the European upper classes. The dogs of the lower classes had big fluffy tails like many mutts do today.

Whitley remembers when he was a kid, they had a dog with an immense fluffy tail, who was chased every spring and fall by hordes of birds after that hair. She used to rush along the ground, racing from shelter to shelter, followed by a literal flock of birds.

Where we live, dogs are not let out to run free, but I’m watching squirrels having the same problem that plagued Whitley’s dog. read more

When we did a couple of interviews recently, I noticed that radiation was mentioned quite often. Whitley and I have always wondered what caused my brain tumor, and I am thinking that perhaps it had something to do with an event that took place in the fall of 1993.

One night when we were both in bed (I was asleep), Whitley noticed a purple glow coming from the living room downstairs. This was possible because there was a hall that led from our bedroom to a stairway, and a small balcony at the end of the hall that overlooked the living room.
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When we visited a producer recently, we were surprised to discover that his office contained a proud display of all the sort of furniture Whitley and I grew up with—circa around 1957. There was a dining table with chairs that looked like they were out of the old cartoon show the Jetsons, and framed fifties movie posters. I remember when my dad, who was certainly no esthete, painted our refrigerator turquoise, and there was, indeed, a turquoise refrigerator in the office! Whitley says that the couches and chairs could have come right out of his father’s den.  My own house was themed in pink. When I returned many years later, I saw that it had been returned to the original white with green trim. What were we thinking back in the fifties, anyway?read more