When horror takes control...

Yesterday was filled with stress and horror.  I was going to say that another sick individual had taken hold of the news, refusing to release us from the hold of his grotesque grip until someone forcefully removed him.  Yet even then we were not released.  And I have come to the conclusion that these people are not sick at all, they are simply mean in every definition of the word.  Mean hearted and mean spirited.  I think we let them off easy when we put labels like "psychotic" and "mentally unbalanced".  No, they are simply mean and because they can not stand to see anyone happy they go out in the world to spread their darkness of spirit.  Unfortunately for the world, sometimes this darkness spreads to other like minded individuals who decide to try to go someone one better.  The world holds its' collective breath waiting in anticipation for the other shoe to drop.

I tried to change the channel. go outside to work in the yard, walk the dogs...anything to break the hold of the horror that this person had on my mind and heart.  I always came back in and turned the channel back to Fox to get the latest update, to find out if it was over.  And then it was.  You would think that it would be anticlimactic but no.  There was even more news about the shootings.... now we needed to know everything about this man (whose name I refuse to utter here after he held me hostage to a news channel all day yesterday September 16th 2013.  Why give him even that little bit of honor?)  We needed to know where he was born, what he did for a living who his parents were.  Now the FBI wants anyone who knew him to contact them.  Yeah, right...if I had known him I would not claim such.  To have anyone such as he in our lives is not something to be proud of.

So last night as we watched yet more news about this person, the phone rang.  When I answered I heard the sweetest voice saying "hi Grandma, what are you doing?"  Suddenly the abysmal cloud of distress that had overpowered me for most of the day lifted and like magic was gone.  Sometimes it takes the pure love of a child to make you see the world for what it is...a shifting shadow always fluid never stopping to consider your wants and wishes...all in all there is nothing to be gained by wailing that you have no control over your world.  All of us need to take a deep breath and be thankful for what control we have over our own lives and let the devil take the hindmost...the hindmost being the mean and heartless among us.

Tobacco Stick Cowgirls

 

I heard on the news the other day that there is a new Rehab program for those out there who are addicted to the Internet. Really? It makes me long for the good old days when our parents made us play outside till dark and the last game was Ain't No Mad Dogs Out Tonight. Of course there were only three channels on the tv, and like now, you couldn't always find something of interest to watch so we went out happily. Now 500 channels and nothings on, so the kids (and adults) spend too much time in front of the computer. I have noticed over the past few years that there are a lot of remakes of movies, quite a few tv shows are "borrowing" plot lines from shows in the 60's and 70's and it raises the question of "has everyone lost their imagination?" I worry that our kids are spending so much time in front of a computer screen that they may be losing the ability to think for themselves and make up games to play, complete with storylines.

I long for the days of road building for the toy trucks which my grandfather, Dwight Douglas gave us as children. He wanted grandsons so badly but settled for his tomboy grand daughters. We learned to build roads, make dams,and build little villages out of sticks and stones as we played happily in the long dirt drive in front of his house. At the end of tobacco season there were glorious games of cowboys and indians...I guess in these days of political correctness, those games are relegated to the distant past. My grandmother would go into the rag bag and get out some of Daddy Dwights threadbare socks, give us buttons and other scraps and we would lovingly create our horses heads. We would stuff them with cotton batting and tie them onto tobacco sticks that had been deemed to used for tobacco hanging anymore. This was long before Build a Bear you understand. We would sew matching (sometimes) button eyes and two little (again sometimes) buttons for snorting nostrils, a few buttons for a mouth (sometimes smiling, sometimes snearing) and if we were lucky add a bit of fringe for his mane. They had names like Sassafrass, Buddy or even Silver if you were lucky enough to be The Lone Ranger (of course we said The Long Ranger, even then we didn't listen well). We whipped around that old farm house with the smoke house as our Saloon, the woods as our hideout and the dirt road up to the barns as our raceway from the bank holdup. Listen, I told you we were tomboys...Becky, Kay, Patsy and Cathy, Teressa and Crystal. Toni and me (sorry Alice you were to little to enjoy our games) we were the Wild Bunch. Yes. those were the days, the wonderous days before Internet Rehab and Legal Marijuana....the great brain drain. In my heart we will always be the Tobacco Stick Cowgirls...

Happy 21st Birthday Alex Bush...

This is a rerun in honor of my nephew...something happened when we were not looking...he grew up.  He turned 21 today and I have vivid memories of this wonderful young man, though this post indicates otherwise...So, here we have Trouble in Paradise, Redux

It has been a long time I have cohabited with an 8 year old boy. Even when I did my boys did not talk to me all that much. Figuring that this was why they had friends, there was only parental communication between us. You know the drill, I gave orders they patently ignored. I would find myself giving the same order over a short period of time until it was ultimately obeyed. It was a war of wills between us, a war I usually won.

My sister Toni and brother in law Tim had a business meeting to attend in Boone. NC this particular weekend (or at least that was what I was told) and they figured my father would benefit from the company of his grandson for several days. He arrived on Saturday. It is now Monday and he is not with his grandfather, he is with us. My father, who likes the pleasant buzz of familial activity, likes it from behind his closed bedroom door. He was worried that Alex would fall in the pool and drown, that one of the dogs would bite him in his over exuberance or that he could not escape the endless chatter of said child. It turns out he didn't need to be the one worrying about any of those things. He simply took to his bed and called for back up.

So here I am with a very precocious 8 year old boy whose favorite activity is talking. He talks very well. If I could find one thing in common with a small boy this would be an outstanding situation. I like to talk, too. But as I have mentioned, my boys did not do much talking to me. I had no interest in Batman then and I find I have even less interest in him now. I am perfectly content on my day off to play in my garden until it gets to hot and then move my playtime to the computer. I have enough competition for computer time with Mac, and now I find this little person staying with us also likes the computer.

I also learned this little person is a picky eater. He doesn't much like vegetables of any color. He explained to me that his parental units were teaching him to eat vegetables, a lesson he should have learned in infancy, but he is a slow starter in that area. (I have to remember to tell the parental units they may have procrastinated to long on this one.) I found that the one vegetable he will eat is corn and then only on the cob or creamed. He likes chicken. I of course fixed Roast beef. He likes yellow rice, not white. Two guesses what color the rice was and the first one doesn't count. He will eat tomatoes if they're in spaghetti.

I had them sliced. Raw. When he saw the okra he very politely turned up his nose. This was after he had very cleverly asked what that green slimy stuff I was slicing was and if it was a vegetable. I should have told him it was a fruit and maybe he would have at least tried it.

Supper being a dismal failure, he continued his pursuit of the cat children. They, being of sound mind and good sense, hid from him. Duffy had long since pleaded guilty to a charge of child endangerment and was sentenced to the back yard.

The phone rang while I was cooking. Joyce wanted to know if I wanted to come in and work third shift for an officer who had called in sick. The answer was a resounding yes...I did want to but I simply could not. Mac, who had had even less experience with 8 year old boys than I have, would never have understood. I feared he would run off to Daddy's and lock himself in with him.

Toni called a little bit ago. She asked how it was going. I lied. I told her all was going well...great in fact. I told her if I was a bit sharp it was because I was in pain. My shoulder and neck had been been giving me a fit for about three days. I told her it wasn't that I didn't want to talk to Alex, I didn't want to talk to Mac either. In fact I wished that everyone would leave me to my own devices and let me suffer in peace. Alex came to speak with his mother and wanted to know when they were coming to pick him up. He said he thought he was making Aunt Sandi nervous. I suspect Toni now knows all is not well in paradise.

And  now our Alex has reached his majority...he is now 21...a college student with a bright future in Communications in front of him because he loves to talk... now I wonder which side of the family he gets that from...Happy Birthday darling boy...we love you...

Aunt Sandi and Uncle Mac

Smoking...I almost left the quitting to late...

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Sandi and I am a reformed smoker. (Hello Sandi). When I say I'm a reformed smoker you can take that to the bank. I do not sneak around in the bathroom or on the porch or in the yard hiding to feed my nicotine habit. Oh, I used to smoke all right. Like a chimney. I would put out one cigarette while reaching for another. I would stop on my way home from work and buy a pack of cigarettes even if I had a half pack in my coat pocket. Yes, that's right, coat pocket. No time to be fumbling around in the suitcase I call a purse looking for that life giving nicotine. I had to be able to put my fingers on one at a second's notice. I had to have a lighter that would not fail to flame at the first turn of the wheel. I had stock in the Marlboro Company and single handedly supported entire families of workers for the Zippo Lighter Company. My fingers and teeth were yellow, my white walls at home were yellow. Not a pretty daffodil yellow, an ugly nicotine yellow. Oh yes, I was a smoker. I tried every thing known to man to put down the filthy habit, I used a patch (sometimes two) I chewed the gum, I tried cold turkey. I would announce to the world "This is my last cigarette" as I balled up the half empty pack and tossed it carelessly into the nearest trash container. I always had good intentions. But like the road to hell, my good intentions had filters on each and every turn. If I was lucky enough to have made the now infamous "I have quit smoking" speech at home, I could crawl out of the bed (hoping not to awaken Mac) and into the kitchen and root around in the trash like the crazed addict I had become until I found a piece of broken cigarette large enough to smoke. I wouldn't even make it out of the kitchen, just sitting propped up against the wall, a lighter in one hand and a badly damaged cigarette in the other. Now, Mac had quit smoking in 1999. He made no announcements, called no press conferences, he simply put the last one out and it was over. It is the closest I have ever come to hating him. I remember the day I quit smoking like it was yesterday. It was several days before Christmas, 2002. The week before I had been taken to the hospital with a breathing condition. The condition was, I couldn't. Breathe that is. They gave me breathing treatments, kept me overnight (after announcing that a surgeon would be in to draw fluid from around my lungs...luckily he was a no show) then sent me home. Yep, they sent me home and I was breathing just fine and woohoo, I needed me a cigarette like no body has ever needed a cigarette in their life. Two days later I awakened in a panic, I could not breathe in such a way that I thought perhaps this time I had finally been successful in killing myself. I had hoped that after I retired the stresses I had felt at work would mean that I wouldn't want to smoke quite so much. Luck would be a fine thing. I was on the phone to my cousin (also in Law Enforcement, also a smoker, and on breathing treatments at home!) I begged her to bring her nebulizer kit over ,that I thought I might die. I knew then and there that one way or another I was never going to light a cigarette again as long as I lived. Even the breathing treatment didn't work for long, as at 7 am I awakened Mac and told him I might need to go to the hospital. He took one look at me and bundled me into the car and off we headed to Carolina Pines. They gave me a successful breathing treatment but wouldn't let me go home. I had test after test. The Doctors kept asking if anyone had ever told me that I had had a heart attack. No, no one. They scheduled a stress test an Echo and an EKG. They kept asking that question. Finally, I just told them I suspected I must have because that same question kept coming up. Yes, they said, we believe you have had two events. Uh huh. Two of them. Well, I had the third event while I was on a treadmill the next morning taking a stress test. I remember them helping me onto a gurney, I remember them giving me something to help me relax (can I get a sixpack of that to go?) I remember they were ordering a helicopter to fly me to Providence Hospital in Columbia. I don't remember much after that. When I came too there was a Nurse leaning over me telling me I couldn't move my leg for the next four hours and here's something to help you relax (ok, maybe not a sixpack of this one, but hows about one for the road?) Turns out the weather had been to bad to fly, so the siren I kept hearing in my narcotic haze was the ambulance. I learned that women's symptoms of a heart attack are pretty dissimilar to a man's. I learned that I really should have quit smoking the first time I had made the announcement fifteen years earlier. I learned that the only thing worse than a reformed whore is a reformed smoker. I don't smoke, I don't allow anyone to smoke in my home. I nag every smoker I come across, even though I know in my heart that all the time I'm preaching they want to shoot, stab and disembowel me while they're lighting up that smoke for a nice long drag. But people, I tell you this. The inability to draw breath, then find yourself with your chest cracked open while they cut a vein out of your leg to attach to your heart is a mighty strong incentive to stop smoking. Do I want a drag? No. I don't even want to be in the vicinity of a puff. I wish all of you smokers out there the guts to put them down before they put you under.   In the words to an old song:   smoke smoke SMOKE that cigarette   smoke smoke smoke until you smoke yourself to death   tell Saint Peter at the Golden Gate that you hate to make him wait   but you just gotta have another cigarette! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWXbVsMkz1U

The Rains Came

I think I may have told you that we  purchased nearly 5 acres of land that adjoins us a few months ago.  At the time it was one of those things that I was for and upon which Mac dragged his feet.  I had already made an offer a year ago on one parcel and was turned down.  Then the land didn't sell and didn't sell and the owners came back with an offer on both parcels that I felt we couldn't or shouldn't turn down.  Still Mac looked over the acreage and only saw grass that would need cutting.  Since the bushhog had been through it, it didn't look all that bad to me.  So I began to harangue and cajole and plead.  He of course had a different name for what I was doing and after we bought both parcels, he began calling it my hissy fit land.  Therefore, it is now Hissy Fit Acres.  At the time, as I mentioned, the bushhog had been through and the place looked pretty good.  We immediately began caring for the plum trees and peach trees, hired a young man to clear out the trash and pure garbage that the renters had left and prepared for a proper mowing.

 

And then the rains came.  They came for days.  They came for weeks.  Our one mower could not keep up with mowing nearly 6 acres of grass.  I thanked God for the three acres in woods.  We didn't need to mow that.  As soon as we had two dry days forecast, we would begin mowing.  Or should I say Mac began mowing.  Our big mower would absolutely not start with me perched atop the seat.  Not even if I bounced up and down to try to trigger it, it just refused.  Mac got on and off it went.  So we had (yes we, not just me) this brilliant idea to buy a bigger mower.  We found a 52 inch cut Cub Cadet and had it delivered to the house.  While the rain that lasted six days was going on, Mac read the handbook for the lawn tractor.  It even has cruise control.  Now, Mac will not use cruise control on the truck so I have no reason to believe he will use it on the Cub.  Finally able to actually mow grass with it (it stopped raining for a few minutes) off he set.  He got more than half of the highway frontage land mowed but back where we are at the house...well  those three acres of grass continued to grow as it  didn't get a look in before the rain started again.  Now we had time to read the instructions for the tripple bag grass catcher that we had bought for the machine.   What fresh hell was this?

 

So Mac has the book on the bagging system in hand and off he goes.  After about an hour I hadn't heard anything out of him and went to check on him.  He was sitting on the ground with the instruction manual in hand and a look of exasperation on his face.  They don't send instructions for these things in Greek...it just seems like Greek   I went to Catholic schools most of my life until we moved to Ruby, and had taken over  two years of Latin.  The instructions for putting this thing onto the mower was every bit as difficult as trying to take a second year Latin exam with only two weeks of classroom exposure.  The pictures of the parts and where they go looked as though they had been drawn by a not terribly bright five year old, and slots a b and c was not part of the equation.   We have been working on it for over a week.  We are nearly there.  I figure that as long as it doesn't rain for a bit we may have the thing assembled and put on the back of the mower by the end of the month...all we have to do now is get the mower deck back on.  And perhaps salute it with a stiff drink.

First Days

I received a call from our grand daughter last evening that I was not really expecting.  She had just completed her first day of High School and was calling to tell me all about her class schedule, the friends she had not seen for awhile, her teachers.  I was pleased to learn that her first impression of her teachers was all thumbs up.  We spoke for about fifteen minutes then she asked to speak to her grand father.  What?  Knowing how he hates to talk on the phone, I told her to hold on and went in search of himself.  I told him that Arianna had asked to speak to him.  So she regaled him with first day High School Hi jinx  (as though in my dotage I might leave out a detail).  Then he was speaking to Michael, 2nd son, and laughing at something he was telling.  Mac says, here's you mom, tell her about that, and he thrust the phone in my direction.  So, Michael tells me how they dropped her off at the bus stop then drove around the block to sit just out of her sight to wait for her to board her school bus.  Michael told me that he was telling Anna (daughter-in-love) about how he felt the first time Arianna asked to go into school all alone, no Mommy or Daddy trailing behind to make sure she got into the right classroom.  She was in first grade.  As he was talking to Anna, he had a melt down.  When they eventually arrived at work, one of his work friends asked about the red swollen eyes...and he told him "just having a bad morning".  But eventually he had to tell them how this sudden feeling of losing his baby girl had affected him.  And as he related it to me, I had to laugh as I recalled my own meltdown episodes in my sons' lives.

 

My major meltdown did not come with Wallace's first day in Kindergarten in Norfolk, Virginia.  I still had a baby at home after all, and the nest might be feeling a tad roomier, but it was not really empty.  Both of us waited at the bus stop that first afternoon to welcome the young fledgling back in.  He showed us the pictures he had drawn (even then his drawings were better than mine had ever been), about his teacher and about nap time.  Yes, nap time.  I think he was glad of nap time.  Then  that year flew by and the following year it was Michael's turn to be initiated into the great school time experience.  I watched him go into his first class room, went to the car and cried as though my heart were broken.  Mac, who was at Sea a good deal of the time, never got to go through these traumatic times.  The Navy owes him so much for all he missed.  But anyway, I cried for two days.  Then my good friend Patricia Roney, took me by the shoulders and shook me.  It was like a scene out of Moonstruck as she yelled, "snap out of it!  They will both be back at 2:30!"  It was like having cold water dashed in my face.  Of course they would.  Then she proceeded to talk of shopping without beggars (oh come on, you know what I mean...."I want"  is always the first things out of their mouths when you hit a store.)  And off we went, shopping till nearly time for the school bus to arrive home.

  I am so glad she didn't remind me of the other firsts that would eventually bring me to tears...first day of High School, first day of college, first move away from home forever as they took wives...and the first born grand child who even now was breaking my heart as she grew up and away from us.  Too soon grown, too soon gone.  Happy first day of school you children of Chesterfield County.  Don't forget to tell your family all about it, it is a memory they will hold in their hearts forever.

 

The Tree

I was on my way to my Dad's house yesterday afternoon, the top down the wind blowing my hair all over creation (and me not caring) when I got behind a slow moving log truck ,filled with freshly cut pine trees.  The aroma that drifted back to me was overwhelming.  It was my childhood unraveling like ribbons and wrapping themselves around my heart. I could see us, the cousins, pinching off little balls of amber and chewing them like gum. The amber colored blood of the pine would have been hardened in a century or more to make fine jewelry, but for then, it was a tasty treat...yes, I did say tasty. It was as though we were living in a primeval forest and scrounging for sustenance at any source.  You will forgive us, we were children.  We also chewed Indian Pepper and drank from Honeysuckle flowers. 

But the memory that was so strong that it brought tears to my eyes was of Daddy Dwight's tree.  It was a very tall long leaf pine that stood at the crest of a hill above Mammy and Daddy Dwight's big old farmhouse.  You traveled up a steeply graded dirt road went past the gas pumps on the left that serviced the farm equipment, past the big old barn on the right, and around the curve and there he stood.  Too tall and straight to climb or to see the top without craning your neck painfully. Now, the pines surrounded us on three sides but this one old tree stood sentinel all on his on. He stood near the highway (145) and could be seen for miles.  This pine tree was not for cutting, it was for viewing.    And we could view him from five miles away atop a fast dropping highway hill as we traveled to our grandparents from some far away state we lived in.  Every summer of our young lives was spent with them, and we eagerly watched for the first sighting of his lofty branches which signaled that our arrival would be soon.

That tree stood for so long that we thought he was indestructible.  And that Daddy Dwight, though bed ridden when I was in my mid twenties, was destined to be with us forever.  I will never forget that he held my first born son in his arms as lovingly as that big old tree of his held the birds nests in his gnarly boughs.  That when my boys were two and three, although he couldn't sit up anymore, he motioned for them to come to him and stroked their little heads with love shining in his eyes amidst the tears. 
Daddy Dwight passed away a year or so later.  On the night he died,the big old Pine breathed his last and fell across the dirt road adjacent to the highway, humbled and brought low.  After Daddy Dwight's funeral, someone had the foresight to cut slices from the big old tree, and mark them as Daddy Dwight's tree and each grandchild received one in memory of both Daddy Dwight and his tree.

So there I was, traveling down Angelus Road and this load of pines had me weepy. It was like receiving a hug from my grandfather, those memories evoked by a log truck traveling slowly through the forest of the Sand Hills.

Laying the Garden By

It is, unbelievably, August.  Where did our summer go ,I keep
asking myself.  It has been uncharacteristically cool and wet,

everything we planted has made well. I have made enough jellies and jams to

keep us in sweets for the next three years.

The tomatoes in the raised beds have furnished us with over 70 quarts of canned tomatoes, and I am in fact about to can twelve more quarts.  I find myself astounded that as often as I have offered free tomatoes to my face book friends, enough for them to can their own, I have had no takers.  Earlier in the summer I offered free Iris rhizomes and water plants for ornamental ponds.  I had one taker (thank you Carol for taking them off my hands).  In fact,I still have water plants looking for another tub or pond to call home.  But I refuse to go on Face Book and offer a darned thing again.  You read it here, if you want to start a water tub or ornamental pond and need plants, look my phone number up in the book and give me a call.  If not, well I have a number of tubs I can "borrow" from Mac to divide them out.  

 

But, as I was saying before I went off on a tangent, it is August
and time to start planting the Cole crops, the cabbage, collards,
broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower.  I am getting anxious
now to pull up the tomatoes and retill the beds adding nutrients to
the soil to make them grow healthy enough for canning.  I have found
that I love canning and love my pressure canner.  I often cuss it
when the lid doesn't want to go on lickety split, but eventually I
sweet talk it on so the pressure can build and the time begin
counting down.  Last week I made vegetable soup. I called my aunt,
Margaret Kneece, and asked her if Mammy and Mama put the cabbage in
the soup to can or added it when they opened the soup to eat.  She
assured me that the cabbage went in with all the other veggies.  So
the soup has butter beans, okra, tomatoes (of course) carrots,
cabbage and potatoes.  I made my father pint jars that he can fix
as single servings.  I intend to make more next week. 

I made a new friend in the canning aisle at WalMart.  She thought I
had called her name (Cathy) and turned to speak.  Well, I can
hardly not speak when someone looks at me expectantly so we had a
long conversation about fig canning (I start that tomorrow) and
before I knew it we were exchanging phone numbers.  She makes
Mozzarella cheese, from goats milk.  I intend to get a bit from her
for my Eggplant Parm.  I used to think we grew it all.  Never
thought about growing cheese!  Now what better place to make a new
friend but in the canning aisle at WalMart when you are laying the
garden by?  I'll bet I can talk HER into taking some water plants! 
Well, the jars are hot and ready to fill with luscious seed free
tomatoes, so I'll get to it...Little Susie Homemaker cans again!  Tomorrow? Fig preserves!

The life of a box

Our grand daughter celebrated her 14th birthday this past Sunday, but her party was held on Saturday, the 27th.  We happily drove to Coward (SC) with the large box containing her present from us.  She is turning into a girly girl and is changing her room decor to a beach theme.  We found the perfect comforter set for the new look she is trying for and knew she'd be happy with what we had chosen.  She is our only grandchild thus far, so nothing is too good for our Princess.  I gladly tell everyone that she is a child of her own age, she was 13 going on 14, not 13 going on 30.  She doesn't wear a ton of make up, dresses like a young teen should, jeans and tees...just what an anxious grandparent would want, you know? So we have this large box and all the way down we talked about how when she was little (wasn't it just yesterday?) the toys often got tossed to the side and the fun would take place within the deep recesses of the boxes. We talked about how we would miss those days from now on, that she would enjoy getting clothes for birthdays and Christmas, she was growing up, a baby no more.
We drove up to their house and there were half a dozen teens on the front lawn chasing and kicking a ball and a good time was being had by all.  Arianna ran over to us, gave us our hugs and kisses then ran back to rejoin the play that was ongoing on the front lawn.  Michael (our younger son and father to the Princess) took the large box from the truck and I swear the box was smiling. It was happy to be a part of the frolic, I tell you.  As we went inside, the smile slipped a bit from box's flat face.  There in the middle of the floor were two babies, a boy and a girl.  One was maybe a year old. the other one was two.  They had their toys scattered around them and spared not a glance at boxy. He sat in the corner of the room awaiting his opening so he could spill his contents out onto the floor for Arianna's perusal.  After all the food was devoured, happy birthdays sung, candles blown out and cake and ice cream served came present time.  Boxy sat swollen with pride that he was the biggest box there and couldn't wait for the ripping and tearing to begin.  And so it did.  Arianna grabbed her loot and took it to her room to lay on her bed till she could give it the proper attention, but the four girls ohhed and ahhed over how great it was going to look.  The boys there could have cared less and were busy sitting on the floor kicking a balloon around, yelling "don't let it touch the floor".  The girls came back to the front room and joined in.  Even the adults got involved in the play.  Someone had taken all the paper and plastic from within Boxy and he sat waiting for someone to pay him attention. The babies could have cared less.  They were more interested in naps than play.  Then Arianna's eyes found him...boxy grinned as she quickly crawled over and like a flash was inside and laughing.  The other kids noticed the fun and the game was on.  As soon as one long legged teen vacated boxy's depths, another took its place.  Boxy, once crisp and bright and new, was losing it's shape and shiny glow.  Wrinkles now appeared on its once flawless face and little rips appeared where the box once closed itself off at the bottom.  Arianna now had boxy back and wore him like a coat.  From across the room we heard her father say "who do you think you are, SpongeAriannaSquarepants?"  The room erupted in laughter as she replied "that's who I want to be for Halloween" and he replied with "careful what you wish for, when we lived in England your grandmother dressed me in a box for Halloween!"  Laughing, I said, "yes, but you won for best costume...a calculator".
The party went on for a while longer, till boxy lay flat on the floor, worn out from all the fun that had been had at its expense.  As I looked over at the flat little pile of fun, I was so glad that Arianna was not as grown up as she would have us believe. Maybe we had another year or two before she would be too cool to get down on the floor and play with a box.

A Fond farewell to a grand Old Man

We once fed a Siamese cat we called Ring Tail when we lived on Jackson Road.  I have always loved Siamese cats from when I first saw the movie "Bell Book and Candle".  I say we fed him because we definitely did not own him.  When we approached him he would snarl and growl, hiss and spit.  So I would set the plate down in from of him and talk softly, encouraging him to be friends.  But no go.  He continued to snarl, though the hissing and spitting seemed to recede in both frequency and intensity. There were not many cats around at that time because of the frequent sacrifices to the Highway gods.  I worried about him, but couldn't control his goings and comings.  I couldn't get close enough to him to be much of anything but his food provider.  One day as I sat by the Koi pond having a cup of coffee he jumped into my lap and I wondered what would kill me first, the heart attack or him.  But he was purring loudly and rubbed his head on my face as though to claim me, so I relaxed.  I hesitantly stroked his ears and then his head as he settled down in my lap. Mac looked as though he may go into shock, so I reassured him that it was fine. I couldn't tell you what brought about this change, for I simply did not know.  After about a year of his being mine (or me being his) he disappeared as mysteriously as he had shown up.  I was crushed.
  
He was wild and beautiful and he had a part ownership of my heart from the first second I saw him.  Mac had spotted the Siamese kitten a week or so before I laid eyes on him.  It was a few weeks after Ring Tail had left, in late June of 1993.  He seemed to be about 6 weeks old and we had no idea where he had come from, either.  Our only outdoor cat, Jane Wayne, had never had a litter, but seemed to be taking care of him.  Gizmo, our little Moggie who lived inside, would entice him to the front door and play games with him through the storm door.  I knew that I would eventually capture him and I named him Pyewackit.  I would set out special little delicacies to get him on the porch then wait quietly for his approach.  Mama had taught me the secret to taming a feral kitten.  Simply get him wrapped in a soft blanket and carry him for hours.  Don't let those little claws out to do the damage his instincts tell him he can do.  One morning as he came up to snatch the piece of chicken I had left on his saucer, I threw the flannel plaid over him and scooped him up into my arms.  He fought like hell but I held on.  I was still walking around with him clutched to my chest when Mac got home from work. "What are you doing," he asked (shocked, that's what he was)"that kitten will do you an injury."  "We're bonding," I said calmly. "The time for injury was over about three hours ago."  I explained how I had taken him into the bathroom for litter pan use, closing the door behind me, then after he had completed his toilet, had quickly wrapped him in the flannel (which now had a few holes in the weave) and we had been walking and rocking since.  That night, I released him to his own devices and Gizmo took over from there.  The next morning, he crawled into my side of the bed and lay purring next to me till I got up for coffee.  That was twenty years ago.  Twenty years of playing and bossing, twenty years of devotion and love.  He was pal Jacqui's (Evil Sister to my readers) "Boyfriend", Grand Daughter Arianna's "Uncle Pye" and a fur son to me. He loved boiled peanuts so much that Mac said we should have named him Goober.  But he also had a love for shrimp, and at his size we could hardly call him that. We noticed a few weeks ago that he had really stopped eating.  We tempted him with all his favorites, I boiled up a pot of goobers and when that didn't work boiled him some shrimp.  Nothing helped.  The vet said consider his age.  I did.  I was not ready to let him go so we came home to await the inevitable. On Friday night, we noticed he had not moved for a long while.  Then Saturday dawned rainy and rumbly, and I held him in my lap, stroking him and talking to him.  Mac and I discussed our options and we decided that if he were still with us on Monday morning a trip to the vets for the final ride was in order.  He did not seem to be in pain, he was not vocal at all, but I couldn't bear to watch him just lying there.  Mac had already dug the spot out back where he would rest and I had faced the truth of it. Late Sunday afternoon I was holding him and he took a long deep breath and was gone.  I lay him back in his bed and went to find Mac.  He knew from the tears pouring down my face what the news was.  I wrapped him in his flannel for the last time and we carried him outside.  I talked to him the entire time, telling him again how much we had loved him. How honored I was to be holding him at the end.  On June 23rd we said farewell to a grand old man.  The house seems odd without him, empty in some way, but when I lay down at night it seems that I can feel him pressed close to me, purring.

the origin of a Catperson

As we all are aware, I am a cat person. We have two old cats, 2 middle aged cats and then there is Hound.  Hound was bottle raised from the age of about one week.  We had to do for her everything that a mama cat would do for her baby.  I was amazed by the article in the Cheraw Chronicle 2 weeks ago featuring Lisa Sisk and The Pawmetto Lifeline.  I am in awe of her and the group she volunteers for.  I was also amazed that we HAD done everything right for our precious bundle.  We even had sitters for her for when we had Doctor appointments. We named her Hound for her antics and puppy like enjoyment of life.  When she was a wee bit of a thing, this Savannah type cat would hear me in the kitchen and come pounding down the hall to run up my legs and back to sit on my shoulder and look to see what I was doing.  It was so cute then, we just laughed and laughed.  Okay so now she weighs 14 pounds, is taller than as our Pekingese and when I hear her running down the hall, I quickly exit, stage left.  I haven't been quick enough once or twice and believe me, it is painful.  She sits even now at my side and would like to join me on the computer.  She is quite the little author.  Lets hear from Hound. I need a coffee refill!

My Daddy named me Hound...but Mommy calls me Precious in my ear, and I like that.  I am an oddity, you see.  There are not many of my kind who speak both human and ca'at.  Yes, I am bilingual.  Mommy is playing "Somewhere Out There" on her music machine and I am attuned to it.   I will pass on many secrets to you because I like the music that is playing.  I love my Mommy and Daddy but they keep insisting that Batgirl and the rest are my sisters and brothers, but really Wallace and Michael and Anna and now Sara are my brothers and sisters.  The others are ca'ats...I speak ca'at so well because the others have been jabbering in my ears since I'm a baby...Because I am the favorite I get the treats that my human brothers and sisters don't get, great stuff like sardines and jackmack and if I'm a good girl something Mommy calls nip...the other day after I had nip I just touched her lightly and she yelped like mad and got up and went into the little closet in the hall with the water pipes and the big water bowl and came back with the sharpies in her hand.  So I was Hound getting a manicure, not Precious sitting and purring in her lap...Mommy says I'm a good girl living in two worlds.  Daddy says I'm crazy.  Well, everyone says I'm crazy but Mommy...she knows better.  So, I am Hound to the world but Precious to my Mommy...and She Who Opens Cupboard Doors is the one who matters.  She who can use the special whirring thing that makes cans of great stuff more available to my tummy is Queen of the world...at least the Queen of mine...Daddy is a lucky Consort...ooh...Daddy is eating Angel Food Cake...my favorite...gotta run!  Ohoh, Mommy is mad, she struck my beauty and she says dam blogger won't let her put it in...never mind, she'll keep trying...

 

Building the Classic Tomato Sandwich

I'm sure that all of you have noticed that we have been blessed with rain for the past two and a half weeks.  At first we were all afraid to utter the dire "rain rain go away" for fear that it would, and not come back all summer.  Now as I get up each morning to check for gills and webbed toes, even this morning I found myself casting an incautious accusing eye to the sky as the clouds built up to an explosive burst of rain. I figured shaking my fist at the sky would be going to far, so kept my arm by my side. And why does all this rain bother me so much?  It is because of what some may call the lowly sandwich, but what is actually the King of the Summer, the Tomato Sandwish...yes, I said SANDWISH!
As soon as the first warm day of March hits, I start dreaming about that first tomato sandwich of summer.  Mac has already planted the seeds of my dreams in small pots in a little greenhouse we call  "heaven" since that is from where all good things come.  We Southerners dream of that tomato sandwich made with that tomato that comes from our own or a relatives garden.  The bright red skin, the glistening of the juices, the sparkle of salt and the haze of pepper as it rests on a Duke's Mayonnaise slathered slice of bread and a similar slice lying along side, the mayo thick and tempting.  I know, that is the queen of the run on sentence, but how can you not run on about the Tomato Sandwich?
            
So we have been watching the tomato plants for weeks now and the rain keeps falling.  I hate the thought of rain damaged fruits out there but finally spied the first wonderful tomato just before the 4th of July.  I carried it in reverently, gently eased it into a pot of boiling water, removing it quickly.  I slipped the skin off and stood looking at the awesomeness.  My eyes teared up.  Then I quickly shook off that "in the presence of greatness" moment and got out the bread, the mayo and the salt and pepper. I cut one thick slice then stood back and admired my handiwork.  Thinking what a great photo op this was, I grabbed my camera and took the shot.  Then I devoured that little gift from heaven in thirty seconds.
That photo was so beautiful that I posted it on Face book with the caption Gone In Thirty Seconds.  The remarks were so blatantly envious I had to laugh.  That was one big tomato slice after all, and this was one glorious Sink Sandwich...you know, so juicy and messy you have to stand over the sink to eat it.  One remark puzzled me greatly.  My pal Lee asked this question, "is there wine vinegar in there?"  In caps I answered her: NO THERE IS DUKES MAYO BUNNY BREAD SALT AND PEPPER AND NOTHING ELSE CAUSE ITS A TOMATO SANDWICH NOT A DANGED SALAD!  She later asked me if I could rethink the caps, because it sounded like I was shouting at her.  Forgive her, she's a Texan.  She should absolutely KNOW I WAS shouting at her.  I would fight for my tomato sandwich...wouldn't you?

How I fell into the Koi Pond and the fall out that is sure to follow

     I was introduced to the love of Koi by my mother.  She had a large ornamental pond on the left hand side of their patio that was built by my sister Nikki and brother Michael.  They actually ordered the first koi from a pond and pet magazine. The first three became a dozen before too long.  I admired and loved the koi pond and longed for one of my own.   For our 30th anniversary Mama ordered us the full set up, pond liner,pump and water conditioner. I was so excited to get started on it but Mac said that being October was full on us, we would wait till the weather was more conducive to  fish ponds and fish.  So we waited out the winter. When early April came, I began to campaign for the pond construction to begin (read nag for campaign).  He continually put me off for one reason or another.  I just could not get him to show any interest in the koi pond at all. 
     It was mid May and I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Going into the garage, I dragged out the cumbersome box of pond doings and walked about the front yard of our house on Jackson Road in Chesterfield.  I found the perfect spot with a bit of shade from the pecan tree, dragged the hose over and formed a bean shape about 14 feet long and 8 feet wide.  All the while, Mac was watching me, never offering  to help  or even to ask what my intentions were. I worked on, got a spray can of white paint and painted the outline of the pond I wanted onto the ground. I dragged out the rotor tiller and worked on getting it cranked.  Finally Mac walked over to ask what in the Lord's name I thought I might be doing. 
     "Why, I'm putting in my koi pond...it's going to be too late if we wait much longer."  He gave me that "move over and let me show you how this is going to go" look.  \
     "This where you want it to go, you're sure?"  he asked.
     Very innocently, I nodded yes, this is where we needed it to be.  He started the tiller and after about two hours, the hole that would accommodate the pond liner was done.  I helped him smooth in the liner, we filled it with water, added the conditioner and Bob's your Uncle, except for fish, we had a fish pond installed.  He never suspected he had been tricked, and I have never told him.  But I suspect he knew from what followed several years later.
     When we bought the house here in Jefferson, we were not going to have time to do anything with our koi, whom I had learned to love. We ended up selling them (and contrary to opinion I did not run criminal histories on the applicants).  This was in September, and once again came the argument of weather conditions and fish ponds.  So in April of 2005, I got out the paint can, the hose and the tiller and Mac, taking one look at the paraphenalia, said "oh no, we're not going through this charade again.  We'll do the pond later, there's too much yard work to catch up on first."  By dark, the fish pond was in. 
    We had a bad storm last night and when I went out to feed the cats and the fish I saw the pond with only enough water left in it to keep the fish alive.  I ran as fast as I could down to the well, connected the hose, praying that my koi would support this insult to their habitat. The frog spitter had been shifted severely by the wind and the water had sprayed out onto the surrounding ground.  After filling up the pond and seeing the koi happily gathering for their breakfast, I watched them feed.  I saw something on the edge of the water and reached down to  pluck it from the water when suddenly I found myself IN the pond, my feet unable to get purchase on the slippery bottom.  I was yelling for Mac and got no response.  Finally dragging myself from the water, I shook myself like a dog and went into the house and confronted Mac. He burst out laughing, asking "What on earth happened to you?"
     "Well", I responded, "I am certainly glad that a serial killer or a coyote didn't have me, I would be out of luck!  I fell into the pond!"  He was still laughing when I stomped off to go find dry clothes.   I'm not sure what my revenge will be,but I hear it is best served cold.

Wind Work and Blackberry Winters

    It's after ten p.m. and I'm thinking about going to bed. My son tells me that he prepares to go to bed by thinking about sleeping and how good the bed is going to feel and just in general gets his head around the act of sleeping before actually getting into the bed. He is, he says, asleep as his head hits the pillow. I'm not sure if his father prepares himself the same way, I just know that by the time I am ready to start thinking about going to bed, he is already way ahead of me, sound asleep. While I am lying cocooned with my blankets and pillows, I do wind work. That is what my grandmother, Ms. Nancy Douglas, known by us as Mammy, called it. Wind work. Wind, as in that unseen entity (only seen if it contains leaves, sands or fluttering birds in its thrall). Work, the thing our hands and minds do when they can't be still. Why I've built patios and retaining walls with my wind work as I lie abed, waiting on the quieting of my spirit to allow me to sleep. I've designed gardens and planted bulbs, I've outlined complete areas ready for planting and envisioned the pruning of the trees.  I have written the Great American Novel, revised it, spell checked it and retitled it.  This is wind work.  Pretty soon I am relaxed enough to allow my body to slip into that healing coma of sleep and prepare me for another day of joy in the garden.

     Last April I had some pretty serious surgery on my left foot called a Pantalar Fusion.  I had to keep my foot  and leg elevated by laying flat on my back for the first three months.  No weight was allowed on it til October.  It was a miserable summer.  With Mac having to wait on me hand and foot (pun intended) he had no time for my flower beds.  He did work that garden pretty though.  So this spring finds me reclaiming my flower beds, clearing the patio and planting...and this is not wind work,this is back breaking manual labor.  I am loving every second of it, though.  The Iris are blooming, thanks to my weeding and loosening of the soil around them.  They were nearly to deep to bloom until I pulled a lot of the surrounding soil from around the tubar.

.  The beautiful sweet faced pansy has always been a favorite of mine and I plant them with the ever fierce Snapdragon.  They complement each other so well.  Our friends Billy Eddins and Letha Moore were over a couple of Saturday's ago and Billy mentioned that we were having a Blackberry winter.  I remember hearing this as a child...it means a cold snap while the blackberries are blooming...and are they ever blooming!  The temperature that morning was a brisk 41 degrees.  In other words, cold!  The roses have enjoyed the longer than usual Spring...as have I.  

     Well, I think I might be ready to go to bed now.  Wind work is calling...lets see what visions I can call up.

Button Can Memories

It has been a rainy week for us here in Chesterfield County, and we needed every drop of it.  See God, not one complaint out of me.  I always fear that if I sing the old "rain rain go away" song, it will do precisely that.  l thought about the rainy days of yesterday and how we spent the time stuck inside.  There were only  three channels back then children, and just like today when we have over a hundred channels, there was nothing on.  My grandmother Nancy Douglas was a teacher til the day she walked over to the other side.  She had lessons to teach us all and most of my memories of her involve a lesson she taught us.
Rainy days in the summer involved teaching us patience.   I know that most of you had experience with a button can.  Mammy's button can had place of pride on the bottom shelf of the right hand side of the pantry.  (It was a large Prince Albert can, not the smaller hand held can ,for easy cigarette rolling.)  Buttons were expensive items then as they are now.  Worn out clothes had many uses.  The brightest of the material went into separate rag bags for quilting and rug making, the faded and threadbare into the bag for cleaning rags.  The buttons went into the can.  This was true recycling before it became the chic thing to do.  So on rainy days, Mammy would take down the button can and dump the whole thing onto a sheet spread out on the handmade rag rug in the middle of the dining room floor.  We would be given large safety pins and allowed (?) to sort through the buttons and match them up.  We put our matched up buttons onto the safety pins and laid them aside.  There would be some amazing buttons in that collection, filled with  beauty and mystery.  Where had all these buttons come from in the beginning?  What stories could they tell?  We often exclaimed in true joy when we came across one that was too beautiful for words.  Hard for the youth of today to understand the call of a button.  I wonder what their button can memory will be when they hit their 60's?