Mr. Right For Carol

Monday September 7, 1992

We're up and packed and ready to go about 10:30. Carol calls. We arrange to meet in the Big Apple at 11 a.m. We listen to jazz together til 1 p.m. We say our goodbyes. Harry seems nice. I hope this will be Mr. Right for Carol and she can spend the rest of her days with him.

We have lunch at Carls Jr. nearby and head home. We stop at Gary and Maria's to see how Maria is feeling. Her chest pain is gone but she still feels icky from her medicine. We stay a couple of hours. Her sisters Anna and Rosa come to visit. The kids swim.

I'm really tired when we got home. I take a nap. Later we go to eat Japanese at Kin of Japan.

OK, I just got the chills reading her first paragraph. Her good friend Carol and her first husband Jay had been divorced for several decades and Carol was happily single all those years. Mom is hoping that Carol's new boyfriend Harry will be Mr. Right. Little did she know that her very own Mr. Right Frank would become Carol's Mr. Right also several years later. This is the photo I received with Frank and Carol's Christmas card last year. They have been married almost 10 years.

Mom doesn't say why Maria had chest pains and I don't recall hearing about this. I'll have to give her a call.

All That Jazz

Saturday September 5, 1992

We're up about 8 a.m. Have breakfast in our room, coffee cake and cereal. Frank goes to the lobby to get us some orange juice and coffee.

We're listeningi to a jazz group by 10 a.m. About 1 p.m. we run into Carol and Harry. We agree to meet them and Nobby, her brother, at 2 p.m. Later we see Rick, Berkley and Bob Holms and Sandy. We are having a wonderful time. Lots of good music. I'm not feeling real good. I have alot of pain.

Eight of us have dinner together. I manage to eat a salad. We have a wonderful everning and retire about 11:30.

Once again they meet up with Carol, Mom's friend since kindergarten and Frank's future wife. Notice that in spite of her pain she says she is having a wonderful time.

The Living Trust

Friday January 10, 1992

I try to sleep in a little but a telephone call wakes me. It's Kathy Murphy. She tells me about Echo, her daughter who's expecting her first child and her hubby is in the Army in So. Carolina. She doesn't have anywhere to go when the baby comes. Kathy tells her she cannot come home, though they have room. Echo decides to move to So. Carolina to be with her hubby. Kathy disagrees and says she should find a room in a home here. I think Kathy is heartless. How can she continue to treat her first-born this way. Our kids are always welcome.

I feel fine today. Frank is still disturbed about the living trust. We talk. I assure him I want him to have all my estate if he needs it, but I want what's left to go to my kids. I don't want his new wife to get one penny of mine.

We go square dancing, plus level in the valley and have a good time. We do pretty good considering how little "plus" dancing we've done since June.

I am assuming that "plus" dancing is a more advanced group of square dancers.

We went camping with the Murphy family 3 times every summer for several years. Echo loved babies. When Justin was a baby, on his first camping trip to Lake Don Pedro he was 7 weeks old. Echo wanted to hold him for hours on end. She was pregnant in 1992 just as I was with Derek. Considering how Mom always wanted to spend as much time with her grandson as possible, she must have been shocked that her good friend Kathy Murphy preferred to have her daughter and first grandchild living across the country in South Carolina where she had no family, than to take her into their home.

As for the living trust, I still don't understand what Mom means here. Is she saying that Frank gets everything, but when he dies, her estate will pass to her children? Frank's still going strong 20 years later, so I'm glad he passed her 3 rental houses on to my brother Gary and I. I'm kind of amused that Mom says she doesn't want Frank's new wife to get one penny. I wonder if she would feel that way if she knew that Frank ended up married her friend since second grade Carol Ziegler!

I Have So Many Old Friends from Childhood

Sunday December 29, 1991

We're up early to get ready for a visit from Jack and Theresa Turpin. We put on a great lunch for them, son Bill and his 3 children. We enjoy it too. They stay til about 5 p.m. We have a good visit. Frank says later he is envious that I have so many old friends from childhood and how we reminisce about the old days. Frank had no friends when he was young. That's sad. I think keeping friends grounds us. I'm happy to have so many friends from years and years ago.

I am so envious of that very thing too, Frank. I have very few friends from my childhood that I keep in touch with. The only one that comes to mind is Debbie Smith, who lived 2 doors down from the house on Lemona. We keep in touch on Facebook, but I haven't seen her for many years. That's one of the things I love about Facebook: locating and catching up with old friends. Mom had dozens of friends from her elementary and high school days, and the friends who came into her life in later years remained her friends for life. The image I have posted with this entry shows an inscription from her senior high school yearbook below the photo of her friend Carol Zeigler. This yearbook is dated 1952 and Carol's inscription states that they have know each other for 11 years. In 1941 Carol and Mom were 7 years old! Amazingly, Frank is now married to Carol!

Open House at Guy & Lisa's

Sunday December 15, 1991

Crazy dream upsets me and wakes me at 6 a.m. Can't get back to sleep. Get up at 7 a.m. to get ready to leave at 9 a.m. for square dancing at the Police Academy to raise money for the Midnite Mission. Marty and Kathy meet us there. Not a great turn-out (6 squares) but we have a good time. There are 3 callers. Frank and I get a Purple Heart for dancing in a square with 3 callers. We run into Carol and Ray.

After the dance at 12:30 we go to Lawry's for lunch. They are closing Lawry's January 3. We have a good lunch.

We arrive at Guy's Open House at 2:30. They put us to work. They have a good turn-out and lots of food. We see Gene & Cathy, Perry & Cathy. Lynne is in New Zealand.

We arrive home at 7:00 tired.

I wonder why Mom doesn't mention what her dream was about. Maybe that's her way of not giving it power over her.

I did a little research and found that there are hundred of fun badges that square dancers can earn. The Purple Heart is earned by dancing with 3 callers.

Guy Thomas is Mom's nephew. I'm so happy that Mom held a family reunion a few months before this journal entry and took a photo of the extended family, shown above. In the top row on the left is her husband Frank Reina. Next to Frank is her nephew Guy holding his daughter Allison and son Patrick. Next to Guy is Mom's mother, Grandma Helen Richardson. Next to Grandma Helen is Mom at the center. Next to Mom are me and my husband Ric, then Mom's nephew Perry and his wife Cathy, both of whom are mentioned at the Open House. In front of Frank in the second row is Lisa, Guy's wife. Next to Lisa is my Aunt Cathy Thomas holding Perry's two girls Lindsay and Brittany. Next to Aunt Cathy is my cousin Lynne and then Uncle Gene, Mom's brother. So my Uncle Gene and Aunt Cathy had 3 children, first Perry, then Guy, then Lynne. My brother Gary and his wife are in the center of the front row, and left of them are their 2 boys Joe & Gabriel with my son Justin Reyes between those two.