You gotta believe

There are certain things in life that seem to be cyclical. For instance, we are born toothless and bald and are put in diapers because we have not learned to control certain bodily functions. If we are lucky enough to live to a ripe old age, the odds are we will end up bald and toothless and in diapers because we have forgotten how to control certain bodily functions.

This came to mind last night during a conversation with Frances, my sister-in-law. Frances works at Publix cooking those tasty little dishes and handing out samples of same to customers. She has received numerous requests to come cook for customers as well as almost as many marriage proposals from single, older, men. I remarked that men reach an age where we stop looking for the "hot babe" and start seeking the "good cook."

I was fortunate, Faye was a hot babe who could cook. Time and circumstances have left me with the good cook and great memories.

Frances is a wonderful person and rally a lot of fun to be around. She's a bit naive, though, and gets suckered into all kinds of scams. She is a great believer in "natural" remedies, conspiracy theories, and the like. I , of course, am not. We have some interesting conversations.

Frances visited a couple of times when my mother was living with us to help take care of her. They got along famously as they had a lot in common. My mother was a dreamer, as is Frances. My mother always entertained me and my siblings and, I assume, my father with her get rich quick schemes. None of them ever worked out, of course. But there were often some good unintended consequences. She bought one of those books on getting rich through real estate. She got her real estate license and went about looking for houses she could fix up and resell at great profit. Didn't quite work out that way but I ended up with a place to live for awhile after I married the first time. I rented a house from her with the rent being the same as her mortgage payments. To be fair, I did help fix it up a bit. After we got rid of the termites.

Frances gets the bulk of the mail at our house. She is on every scammer's mailing list, I think. Natural cures for everything from diabetes to coronary heart disease. All of them sketchily documented and preceded by "What your doctors don't want you to know" in large boldface print. All she is required to do to learn about these amazing discoveries of what the ancient Egyptians/Greeks/Native Americans/etc. knew but were hidden by Big Pharma and the medical conspirators.

Trust me, I love Frances more than my own sister. Not a hard thing to do considering my history with my sister. But she frustrates me with her willingness to accept what "they" say about just about anything. She firmly believes in the 100 MPG carburetor (the automakers bought it and suppressed all knowledge of it), the natural cure for cancer (Big Pharma is keeping this from you), and so on. She also has the annoying habit of not paying attention to whatever is on the TV most of the time until some word catches her attention and then she interrupts with a multitude of questions about what is going on. I believe Frances is the reason the Pause button was invented for live TV. Well, her and bathroom breaks.

Frances has a green thumb. She is the owner of the Tomato Plant that has Eaten the Front Porch, a peach tree growing from a seed (she swears it is, I think it strongly resembles a weed), two avocado trees (started from avocado pits), a couple of aloe plants, and one non-producing (so far) pineapple plant (started from a pineapple). She started these because I brought home that sickly looking Key Lime tree which has managed to survive and produce. Now I can't stop her from trying new plants.

Our back porch resembles a greenhouse.

But we have fun.