Random thoughts about a random condition & Toni Tennille

This past Tuesday (2 days before Christmas) I thought I'd warm up some Sunday leftovers for an early dinner.  Cheesy rice, roasted broccoli and a piece of smoked sausage.   I'd been dealing with some orofacial pain earlier in the day, but it was more soreness than anything.

After heating it up and taking a bite, my eyes, face & mouth erupted in fire and pain.  I grabbed my drink, a glass of cranberry ginger ale I bought for the holidays and took a gulp, and immediately spat it back out.  It was like trying to swallow fruit-flavored battery acid.

I went into the other room, got my phone and took that first selfie above.  Just wanted you to see the inflammation that occurs, smolders an hour or two before dying back down to an achy soreness again (the second picture).

The irony of this is, when I first made that meal on Sunday I enjoyed it with a side of chopped tomatoes and sliced jalapenos.  They didn't bother me in the least.

I told my friend Diana later that night, it's irritating all the time, but the awful flareups are so darn random, it's impossible to make plans for anything.  I was so fortunate to go with my friends Mary & Evie to that Single Seniors Holiday Luncheon a couple weeks ago.  I was mostly okay that day; the day after I couldn't turn my head without pain.  It's just tiresome, maddening and all I can do right now is pray it eventually goes away.

As long as I'm on here, I thought I'd tell you about a celebrity autobiography I just finished and enjoyed greatly.  I have to be honest, the older I get the less I enjoy these types of books.  (I love Sally Field, but bought her autobiography a few years ago and was bored to tears.)  But one night last week I was watching a short clip of Toni Tennille being interviewed and she remarked she was turning 86 this May.  What!!  

Toni was born May 8, 1940.  She's exactly 3 months older than my mom, if she was still with us.

She was asked how her life's been after publishing her memoirs in 2016, and she said pretty much the same.  I went on Barnes & Noble to see about buying her ebook for my tablet, but had the sense to contact my local library first and see if they had a copy.  They sure did, both the physical book and ebook.  I was reading it in 10 minutes.

(In fact, when I finished it last night a little button popped up on the last page:  "Do you wish to return this ebook?"  I clicked on yes and that was that.  Gotta love technology.)

Anyway, it was less than 200 pages but a captivating read from start to finish.  Back when I was a teenager in the 1970s, I loved all the female artists--Linda Ronstadt, Roberta Flack, Helen Reddy, Karen Carpenter, those chicks from ABBA--but I carried a secret torch for a couple artists, Loretta Lynn and Toni Tennille.  (It's silly now, but at the time Loretta was more for 'older folk' and the Captain & Tennille were considered dorky.)  

In the book, Toni acknowledges this and says many in the entertainment industry rolled their eyes or ridiculed them behind their back.  She even includes a photo of her & Daryl winning Album of the Year in 1975 for "Love Will Keep Us Together" at the Grammys, and a smiling Stevie Wonder handing them their trophy--while a disgusted Joan Baez stands off to the side!  But Toni was proud of their corny image, neither of them smoked or drank or did drugs, which were industry standards then.  

The book paints a truly fascinating image of growing up in Montgomery Alabama in the 1940s-50s.  "Daddy didn't have a lot of money, but we still managed to have a black cook, black housekeeper and black nanny--most middle class white families in the South back then did."

Sadly, the book shares some VERY honest feelings about her 40 year marriage to Daryl Dragon.  She says he never once told her he loved her, he couldn't even hug her.  They lived in a succession of beautiful, oversized houses yet never shared the same bedroom.   She finally divorced him in 2014.

(The book was published before Daryl's death in 2019, he died of kidney failure.  The irony is, he spent his entire life eating only rice & vegetables; he was a strict vegetarian.)

Of course, most of the book is centered on their musical careers (and her solo career afterwards), their various television specials in the 1970s, how the recording industry was back then compared to today.  It really is a captivating read--I just love her.

And on that happy note, gosh I can't believe it's Christmas Eve.  Merry Christmas everyone.