D Selby Designs

Our dear Sally Rogers passed from this realm early on Friday morning, the same day I brought Mom to live with us.

Yesterday’s funeral was up-beat and touching, tears following laughter. God praised first, Sally’s life honored second. I was so proud of her sister, Karen, and husband Jeff for their moving and creative tributes. There were over 250 people there sharing in the Love Fest, and more visited the funeral home on Sunday. We paid our own tribute to my Movie Girl by going to see Mr. Bean after the visitation. Sally and I used to see the inane and/or chick flicks together, then join the guys for adventure films.

The gathering at Jeff and Sally’s beautiful home afterwards was warm and delicious. As Jeff said in his tribute, “Sally would die all over again if she knew so many people were coming to our house!” Our loss is surely Heaven’s gain. I’ve never known another to listen as well as Sally. We’d be at Starbucks sipping and chatting, and I’d ask about her nieces or herself or Jeff, but before I’d know it, she’d turned the conversation back to me. What a truly gifted counselor-friend! I told Jeff at the visitation that I wished I’d had the ultimate words of comfort but that I was speechless, and he quipped back something along the lines of ‘hey, and it only took Sally’s dying to bring about that miracle!’

Here’s a rose for you, Sally. Like I told you at our last meeting: we’re right behind you, so save us a place.

These are certainly interesting times. Mom had a reaction to the dye in her mylogram (that’s my take; the medical profession will never own up to it) and fell out of bed Monday night. She sounded groggy Tuesday morning when I called, but that’s been the case for some time. She insisted I go to my appointment, and stop by in the evening. So I did. Had a long meeting with the new client, sorting out window treatments for her entire house, and by the time I got to Mom, she had been in bed for nearly 18 hours.

Long story short, I took her to Central Baptist’s Emergency Room and she’d had a stroke. It was the good kind. As a result of her fall, there was a blood clot on her brain, rather than a clot traveling through her brain, and she could very well be herself again after therapy. Dr. Carr says she has ‘hospitalitis’. She’s being dismissed to Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Center tomorrow. We’ve already moved her bedroom to our house, and Greg is painting her room as I post. It’s been a ‘through the rabbit hole’ week with her, but she seemed very chipper this afternoon–just disoriented over where she is. Last night, she didn’t want to put down her telephone or her box of tissues, as she was supposed to ‘take them with her’. Don’t know where she thought she was going. La La Land.

Then this afternoon, I heard from Jeff Rogers. Sally is not expected to make it through next week. Her liver is unable to clean the poison out of her system, so she will go to sleep and wake up on the other side, soon. Jeff said he’s very grateful that she won’t suffer through lung cancer, as anticipated. She’s hoping to stay at home, where her sister and mother now are by her side with Jeff.

Interesting times? No thanks.

Yea, Greg’s niece Meg Bosworth Blanton is pregnant! She said during their wedding reception in March that she hoped she got pregnant on their honeymoon. They didn’t have long to wait! She has from very early days aspired to motherhood and her groom will make a great dad. The first E & E Selby great-grandchild!

This was the limited information Greg got from his sister, Kelly, who was in a tizzy after driving their lawn tractor over the swimming pool pump, causing Old Faithful to relocate to Grove City, OH. It took her husband and many of their fellow church members 12 hours to get it fixed.

It is so hot and humid, I am having trouble breathing in these great KY outdoors, so Greg and I took in a movie this afternoon: The Bourne Whatever. It was good, but if you have a tendency toward epileptic seizures, I don’t recommend it. Very jerky and extreme-angle camera work. I thought I’d grabbed a couple of sodas from the refrigerator, but one of them turned out to be a low sodium V-8. Hmm. It was rather good, balancing the over-salty pop corn.

Keep cool, my little chickadees.

Mom: continued knee and hip pain, to the extreme. She’s trippin’ on serious pain meds. MRI and another doctor next week. Joint replacement surgery? Maybe. Back surgery? Could be. There was a life-changing moment last week when she asked to take us up on our offer for her to live with us. We’re taking it in baby steps, and not only because she is hobbling. It’s very difficult for her to leave the only house she and my dad ever owned. Yet it’s ridiculous, finally even to her, to survive on a small social security check each month when she’s sitting on (in?) an income-maker.

Us: a contractor has looked at the back of our house, trying hard to design a studio/office for me that will not involve our losing the morning sky light in the den. The addition will change the light in 50% of our house, bringing ‘borrowed’, rather than direct, light into the dining room, entry, kitchen and den. Our roof line will allow a maximum 14′ x 18′, and I’d love to have a 20′ x 40′! For that, we’d have to move. Forget it.

Zach: is in Atlanta for Carey’s last roller derby bout of the season, and is enjoying his work. He may try to buy Mom’s house.

Carey:  has been asked by Dogwood Studios to stay on until at least January. Mosque project proceeds.

Griffin: I’m the last to know.

Greg: stressing over new job title and accompanying pressure. Doing great, though.

Me: after the wonderful visit to Chicago, I dug out and am reading a 1971 exhibition catalog/book by John Russell on Vuillard, which I purchased from a remainders table upwards to 30 years ago. His (V’s , not Russell’s) huge distempers in the Art Institute are fascinating. Wonder how Greg would take to my keeping pots of simmering glue on the cook top? His friend Bonnard was certainly the more favored of the Nabis, but Vuillard made such a highly patterned and intriguing visual record of his life. Inspiring. So am I painting? No. Had to disassemble my painting area (dining room) for a client visit. I’m enjoying my new client on her lovely Bluegrass horse farm–to whose designs I now must return. Enjoy your weekend, as I labor on with colored pencils and new chartreuse calculator.