Tea

My cousin Allie reminded me about the existance of Chai. By the end of the summer I can't do hot tea, but it's back!

Yum. The best part will be building a fire when it's actually cold and having tea. I'm not generally a winter type but even bitter winter has it's cozy, mysterious, long, dark night pleasures.

For the first time in memory I have to say I will miss some things about summer; the not too hot heat in June & July, swimming in the pond, going to the farm with Bran and the kids, long long days with plenty of time to play outside, being tan!

I'm ready to kiss it all goodbye though. Bring on Fall.

Hangin' with my sister.

Saturday! Time for me to get caught up with me old blog...First I have a picture of my cat Mixie's latest offering. I put in a kitty door months ago so she can come and go as she pleases (and so I could lose the litter box-disgusting). She frequently brings fresh kills into the house and deposits them on the dining room floor. I think it's sweet. One time she brought me one of these in bed at 11 P.M., that's service!

Brandi brought the kids to Charlotte last night to spend the night with our Mom "Mimi". The two of us snuck off to get her some joint compound but we ended up at Value Village, our favorite neighborhood thrift store instead. We found all sorts of cool stuff. I got a glass apothecary jar (my favorite!) with a "P" etched into it, a pair of very cool vintage old lady rhinestone earrings (clip on of course, since ladies back them did most certainly not pierce their ears), a very creepy miniature baby carriage (I nearly have a phobia of these macabre things), and a super gaudy fake gold pendant with a glass crest of some sort in it. I have plans to remove the crest and replace it with a Byzantine Icon, or invent some way to put a bug in there somehow...

The highlight of the evening was a chance meeting of the coolest lady ever...Her name is Paula and she was a hippie-biker type back in her day, now she makes funerary arrangements in her little shop right across from the graveyard only a mile or two from my house! How cool is that? She & Brandi hit it off right away and I thought they would talk in the parking lot of V.V. all night long while Paula's aging mother waited patiently for her in their van. I wish I had gotten a picture of this fine specimen! Under the unflattering glow of the street lights I could still see what a stone cold fox she certainly was in her prime, still an attractive woman, Paula spoke at length about "manifesting" her creations from her mind into form otherwise all those ideas would drive her nuts. She also told us about her work; she is an artist and her means of getting free supplies of joint compound, sheet rock and packing materials is dumpster diving. She learned us about getting stuff from the loading docks and dumpsters of the thrift stores once they're closed, I didn't ever even think the thrift store would throw much away, just assumed it was in itself the "last stop" for junk. I was wrong! She is a Recycle Queen who knows her way around tools and materials and who's philosophy on men was summed up as "I'm finally turnin' out to be the Man I always wanted." Paula is not holding her breath waiting on one to act right, she's too busy. You go girl! Brandi was much impressed by Paula's method of applying hot glue (which she uses for everything including upholstery) and was jealous she hadn't thought of this herself; she has what sounds like a smelting pot of hot glue in a metal pan-"not a tin pan" and she just dips the flowers or whatever needs to be stuck into the goo and sticks it right wherever it's supposed to go. She warned us though, "you gotta keep a glass of water close for when you get burned" beacuse "when that suff gets on you, honey I'm gone tell you...". This woman does not even have time to fool with a glue gun, she just keeps it at the ready in a bubbling cauldron, I like your style Paula!

Brandi has instructed her to email her and send pictures of her many projects but don't worry, if we don't hear from her we are hunting her down at her little pink house/funeral arrangement making shop. I'll keep you posted...

Meanwhile, I can't figure out how to post my pictures where I want them to go in relation to the text. Curses! I will have to get a tutorial from oh I don't know, the closest 4th grader probably knows how to do this!

Now I am off to start my Saturday, walk the dog, hot glue a skeleton to push the creepy baby carriage, see if I can wheel & deal myself a replacement washer from Craig's List.

Wish me luck!

I got caught in a shower today on my walk with Roxi. I think I enjoyed it more than she did. We were only about 1/2 a mile from home, nearly done anyway. Before the rain though it was dark and beautiful, I only wish it had felt as cool and crisp as it looked. September in North Carolina can fool you that way.

I am eagerly awaiting real Fall, the first day I can build a fire in the fireplace, the first day I have to wear long sleeves, the first day I smell burning leaves...what a treat. I heard the grumpy crows cawing the other day but it was false advertising, still too hot. I see the very edge of the season all around me still, despite the humidity that hangs on for dear life.

Tuesday!

Tuesday is me and my Dad's favorite day of the week, it's also my Mom's Birthday today.


All the other days of the week had thier own egos: Monday is well Monday and throughout the land it is generally despised or at least begrudged, Wednesday is known as Hump day and is a midweek marker, Thursday is favored because it is the day before Friday, I do not need to explain why Friday and Saturday are the celebrities of the calender, or why Sunday is the Holiest day of all; a day of rest, the day of the Lord, the Sabbath. They all have their traits that make us love them or as in the case with Monday, hate them; but poor neglected Tuesday. Tuesday is the redheaded stepchild of the week having no assets either good or bad. That's why years ago Dad & I adopted it as our favorite day of the week! We rejoice when someone is fortunate enough that their Birthday falls on it, or anytime something of note happens on Tuesday.

This year it is Mom's Birthday. Tuesday Feb. 5 2008 was a big important political date, but I detest politics so I won't elaborate on that; all I know about it is it was a banner day for god ol' Tuesday.

But today Tuesday September 15 is Mom's birthday and also my dentist appointment day. So I have to go brush my teeth and get out the door.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Farm-o-ween or Ellie-ween!?

Here is a picture my sister Brandi took a few weeks ago of her son Danny at the Spring House at the Farm where we have been having our annual Farm-o-ween parties. For the past ten years they became Ellie-ween since her oldest daughter's name is Ellie and the lucky girl's birthday is October 28! The only one we ever missed was last year, her 10th Birthday! Her mom had MRSA and I had a bad MS relapse and we simply couldn't do it.
This year she turns 11 and we have some making up to do! The pointing JOL sign Danny is holding is one I made when I was 20 while working my first woodworking job at Cobourn & Sons. We put them at strategic points along the way, before Google Maps and GPS so party goers would not get lost. When I went out to retrieve my signs the next day there would always be some missing, I guess everybody just had to have one!
This year I am making new ones, exactly like the old ones to post along the way. Maybe I'll bring a ladder in my truck to put them out of reach of thieving little gremlins...

Kid Memories

SO many things I want to write about on here, not sure how personal I want to get. I can write things and not post them...how would that be?
Here is random stuff I want to write and will surely have to come back to for some editing later.
I remember going to visit relatives in Mississippi when I was a kid. There's the before Mimi and Pop's divorce memories, and the after.
I remember going with the whole family when I was very little, maybe between 3-6. I have a distinct memory of wondering how it came to be that my Mimi was my Mimi. You know, the age where kids are just figuring out about people other than themselves. Here's how I pictured it going down: I could just see my parents driving to her house, they got there at night and came to the door at the carport and knocked. Mimi answered, the porch light was on, and my Mom and Dad said "Will you be our daughter's Mimi?" and of course she accepted the invitation. Probably after that she invited them in and fed them black eyed peas and cornbread it the kitchen.
What's interesting is that my Popaw wasn't even in this scenario.? Just Mimi. I guess I figured Pop came with the package by default.
I remember when my niece's were that age and explaining lineage to them. I remember how when you're a kid, you can't even imagine grown-ups ever having been babies or kids. It was like a myth, a bedtime story, a fable; "Once upon a time, long long ago when Mommy was a little girl"...
Of course I absolutely loved hearing tales of when my parents were my age, or any kid age. They told us stories that made me pine away for those "olden" days! Mom's stories were always fun; her driving her Fiat around Laurel at age 12. She had to sneak and drive along only certain streets so she wouldn't get in trouble. Or going to stay with her grandparents at their farm in the country, stories of "Granny Jeffcoat". Granny alone is an entire novel unto herself. She once shot a mockingbird with her .410 through the window as she lay in bed with a broken hip because she wanted it quiet. Then she fed it's babies to her cats. We love that one.
Dad's stories had a different flavor, since his family were so different. His stories usually included an element of mischief, although never maliciously. He is a fantastic story teller and to this day I still beg him to tell me the stories again and again. Stories of him and his cousin Lee, or Parks, or Luke. Stories of fireworks and old school "improvised explosive devices". In these times a kid would be put straight in jail for any number of common escapades for my Dad. Also wonderful stories that I identified with completely and loved because they were about his love of animals, and nature, and art. Also I loved how he had hated and resented school so completely just like me, or rather I just like him.
Once in second grade he stopped to play in a creek on the way to school and caught crawfish. He had a plastic kind of book bag and filled it up with water to keep the crawfish in. Once he got to school he hung up his book bag in the coatroom (in the olden days school classrooms had coatrooms) and the teacher later looked in horror at the water running all over the floor and listened to the scratching of the crawfish clawing the inside of his book bag.
But I digress. Then there are memories of going to Mississippi after Mimi and Pop divorced. The main reason Brandi and I continued to go for years after was really to see our beloved Karla and Vanessa, friends we met because their farm was right behind our Pop's farm. I didn't think of it that way for many years, but had it not been for them, we wouldn't have visited nearly as much I don't think. After the scandalous divorce, family tensions ran high. Everyone chose sides, except our branch of the family. Being six hundred miles away made this easier for us.
For years we had to see Pop in secret, Mimi could not know of our visits although it was probably not long at all that she didn't know.
I remember having been with Bran at Pop's and (before Bran had her driver's license) having to call Mimi and ask her to bring us back to her house. Bran made me call because she said "she likes you better!" and after I got off the phone we realised Mimi would of course assume we were at Karla & Vanessa's and go there. In horror we ran frantically through the cow field "over the hills and through the woods to the Hodge's house we go!" We got there in time before Mimi, shew! I hated having to be so secretive and deceptive just to see my Grandfather, plus I was really bad at it.
Oh the story about the time I messed up my Lie and confessed to Mimi that we had indeed delivered Christmas presents to Pop! Lord what a mess. But that will have to be for another time...