Stella's Many Winding Roads: Good Food, Good Drink, Good Grief

Gloria, Earl, Bud and Shirley

We lost a dear friend Sunday morning.

Our former Landlady, Gloria, passed after a nasty fall several weeks ago, breaking her hip for a second time. I believe she was 89.

Her husband is 96 and his son wrote to tell me the sad news yesterday. He said his dad has lost his short-term memory, so this is doubly sad.

I worry that Earl may not be long for the world without his Gloria. With tireless devotion, she took care of both her "boys", Earl and his brother who lives with them.

We lived on the other side of a nice stone double, in a lovely neighborhood in ‘Tosa; of all the places we’ve lived, this was one of our favorite place (besides where we are now), we loved living there. We have many fond memories of summer days spent sitting on the back porch with them.

Fun with Books

They got a kick out of my letting our Budgie, Spaz, fly freely in there screened-in porch. He would even fly in their house if the back door was open. They got a kick out of him landing on Earl’s shoulder and calling Earl a “Jerk Birrrrrrrrrrrrrd”. Spaz has quite a vocabulary.

Spaz is King of his Castle

We have many wonderful memories of that time and place, they were a big part of the healing that we both went through during our divorces. I have to say, it was the best place for us, at the time. Earl’s Brandy Manhattans and Old Fashioned’s helped me get through some tough times, too! He loved to get me schockered on one of his yummy drinks, just to hear him laugh at my going on about his drinks-they could knock the socks off a bear, if a bear wore socks. HA HA!

Some of my fondest memories
Gloria: I will miss coming over and working on your computer, after Earl turns it off by unplugging it from the wall, YIKES!

I will miss hearing your laughter from the other side of the wall as we “chat” back and forth on our computers. We use to laugh that we were on opposite sides of the wall, could practically talk through them, could hear each others giggles, and still we chatted on the computers, for fun. Those were some fun times and I always got a kick out of every time you called to have me come over and “fix” something.

I will miss seeing our evenings, sitting on the back porch reading, having a cocktail or listening to rainstorms, or the endless traffic next to our block that never stopped.

The Gang's All Here!

Gloria and Earl practically adopted us, they were like the grandparents we never had. We were so grateful when they welcomed the kids with welcome arms and open hearts and had a blast visiting with them, whenever they were up.