This is my sister Claudelle and me, I believe it was her birthday, she is now NINETY ONE years old.
She has dementia now, which just makes her that much harder to love and deal with on a personal basis..
Claudelle is the eldest of my fathers children by his first marriage...
She never really accepted my mother nor her 4 children by HER first marriage, so any and every time Claudelle brought her family down from Ohio there was always conflict and discord.
I loved her then as I do now, only now she is argumentative and selfish to the point that (gasp!) she is far worse than in the past.
Except for Michele here in this town outside Atlanta, none of my sisters children want anything to do with her. They have tried repeatedly over the years and now my sister has burned her bridges.
So right now my niece Michele is in Greece with her two daughters.
We got here around 3am. The weather is beautiful. 11 hours on the plane with no sleep. I’m dragging, but we are staying across from the Acropolis/Parthenon & we want to go there today.
Thank you for praying. I had a nice Greek salad loaded with way too many green peppers. Anyway, that plus then we went to a place & got coffee. It was perfect & that really helped me. I was able to keep up with the girls as we walked up this hill that goes alongside the Acropolis. There’s a fence between this road & the Acropolis because you have to get a ticket to go to it. We got tickets for later today. But for now we walked up this hill & I didn’t miss a beat. I was pretty proud of myself that I was able to walk up the hill without getting winded & my sciatic in my leg did not hurt a lot, just a little.
So it has fallen to me, my niece CindyKaye and Michele's friend to care for my sister while Michele is away.
I can see now why she needed so desperately to get away.
Neither my niece nor the friend who are here, know how to cook, so I've been cooking and/or buying food to take over to them.
When CK arrived here, one of the first things she asked me for were Stewed Tomatoes with Rice, and Fried porkchops.
I obliged and cooked those things on Friday and took them over to the house where they are staying.
I left the remains of the tomatoes and rice in the pots. Just got them back yesterday.
So Yesterday, the other thing my niece had requested of me was to find a "Black church" that had 'tradtional singing/music'
I asked around and did a search, there is a very small church just around the corner. I stopped when I saw a vehicle and spoke with the pastor
There was a Wurlitzer Baby grand and a drum set, but he said they had no musicians to play.
It was a very small church after all.
Meanwhile CindyKaye had done a search of her own and we ended up going to
(↑Image from their FB page↑)
A large church, two keyboards and drums, mens choir... the music was decent, the sermon too long for me.
All this brings me to another story with church and family involved.
Years ago back home, our church had a revival. Me, Mama and my sister Linda went (I didn't want to, I had other things I wanted to do with my time)
I was seated on the end of the pew nearest the center aisle. My sister sitting next to me was beginning to cry, and when the preacher called the alter, she stood up, so I did and moved into the aisle to make room so she could go down, but She Grabbed My Hand and forced me to go down there with her.
So it may have been me she was praying for, but at that point in time, kneeling next to her, I was RADIATING anger and hostility.
I've really had it with the females in my family trying to manipulate me into going to church with them.
So yesterday I cooked another roast in my crock pot and took most of it over to share with them.
Seared both sides
Put the meat on top of a PLETHORA of cut up veggies, nearly covered it all with Vegetable broth and let her fly.
Made the ubiquitous Tomatoes and rice
I removed most of the meat
Dipped a goodly amount of veggies and broth and took these things over for them
I didn't stay too long because my sister AND my niece irritate the fool out of me and I thought the better part of valour was to just leave them to their own devices.
I have GOT to rid myself of all these resentments.
"Family conflicts and history"
by
Jerry E Smith
©9/30/2025
all images are mine but for
One screen shot and the gif
