Free Me

Currently listening to Joss Stone's Free Me. Serious crush on this song.

Hair down, summer dress, bare feet, dancing in the den, eyes closed, glass of wine in hand.

Playing it loud.

Christine and J.G. A Love Story

In a small blue room on College Street sits a woman who, seventy one years ago, fell in love with a red-haired man whom she knew from her childhood. When they were small she watched him swinging around the columns on his front porch across the street while she played with dolls on hers. When they met again, she recognized him before he ever took off his hat to reveal that red hair underneath. Theirs was a six month courtship that culminated in a wedding at the parson's study.

They built a life in a small house with a wrap around front porch and a screened in back porch. She watched him go to war with a young girl beside her and a babe on the way. She welcomed him home and introduced him to a second daughter. Everyday she polished his shoes and he took the list she gave him to do the shopping. She baked cookies and he delivered them. He sat at the kitchen table and diced and chopped, sliced and cut and she cooked. She shopped and he paid the bills. She fertilized and he cut the grass. She waved goodbye as he drove to his shift as a prison guard, and prayed he would come home safely.

Each Sunday he dressed neatly in the shirt she pressed, the suit and tie she picked. She put on “ear bobs”, touched up her hair with a pick, asked him to zip her dress and off they drove. Three blocks to church and three blocks back. They raised their daughters, Pat and Linda, in the quiet little house with the big backyard. They loved them through thick and thin, though there wasn't very much thin. How could two girls brought up in such love ever raise much of a ruckus?

Eventually they welcomed grandchildren and rocked and read and babysat. She patched the knees of torn dungarees and sewed buttons back on shirts. He bought crickets and packed up the long cane poles so they hung out the car window, a flag that said without words: “Going fishing!” and patiently baited hooks, took off the catch and never once dipped his own line in the pond. Then there were great grandchildren and they repeated all that had gone before with the same books and toys, needle, thimble and cane poles (but new crickets).

And then. He was sick. The recurrent bronchitis turned to pneumonia that turned to something else. And he was in a hospital 60 miles from home. Home being not the little white house with the red columns and detached garage, but her. And then he did come home and he cried to see her again. She was no longer the slender blond whom he had married on a cold day in February, but do you imagine that he had never thought her more lovely? Not long after, his breathing changed. Infection had set in and this time he would return neither to the little house on the double-lined drive nor to her.

Ten years from that day she sits, no longer in the house where they lived together but in a nursing home. A summer wreath hangs on the door. Framed pictures of the girls hang on the wall next to the window. A hummingbird calendar tracks the days and months as they pass. Outside her windows blue jays, redbirds and little black cowbirds swoop to the bird feeder. Linda has updated the magnet boards that hold family pictures with photos of the first great-great grandchild and Pat has made the bed and turned back the covers. She can no longer chat with them as they sit with her day in and day out, morning and afternoon. The life that lit her blue eyes is fading as quickly as their color.

Today, one of them will help the staff use the lift to move her from bed to chair and back again. One of them will take care of personal needs the mother is no longer embarrassed to endure at the hands of others. The daughter, Linda or Pat, will bathe her, gently scratch her scalp, spoon feed her small helpings of yogurt, plump the pillows just the way she likes them. The daughter will call for medicine and tuck a small gift in the breast pocket of the hospital gown, so her mother, whose lips can no longer form the words “thank you” can, nonetheless, say “thank you” to whoever comes to help. And these daughters still search for, and find, the woman who fell in love with a red haired boy so many years ago. And they love her, with gentle words and hands, as she has loved them.

When Life Gives You Peaches...

make peach cobbler!

My strawberry couple gave me a big bag of fresh Georgia peaches yesterday. So this morning, I peeled and sliced them, googled my favorite recipe (below) and coerced the kids into helping prepare a south Georgia summer treat. Note that I used skim milk in mine, which surely cancels out some of the butter? I know, I know... the SUGAR. I just couldn't help myself. I did save three peaches for slicing and eating plain. But there were so many peaches. It would have been so wrong to let them just lay around and ruin wouldn't it?

Dear Kmart,

It's over. You've teased me with your blue light specials. Tempted me with soft Martha Stewart linens. Marked your books down to 25% and added a line of children's dance accoutrements to keep our relationship limping along. Instead of being warned by your mostly empty parking lot, I fell hard for the false promise of short checkout lines, only to discover a single cashier on duty and a line 6 customers deep.

Why Kmart? Why? Was I not disheartened enough with your lack of help, customer service and wonky-wheeled shopping carts? Did you have to add a survey to the electronic checkout? Mr. Bluelight wants to know if I would recommend Kmart to my friends? Highly likely, probably, maybe, probably not, no? You won't let me complete my purchase unless I answer? You've sealed your fate.

I can quit you Kmart. Luckily, I won't need a restraining order.

Sweet Tea

Good sweet iced tea is created by steeping tea bags for at least five minutes, pouring the hot concentrate in a pitcher, adding sugar,and stirring to dissolve before filling the pitcher to the top with cold water. It is impossible to sweeten cold tea! No one wants grains of sugar suspended in their tea glass, which is exactly what happens when you add sugar once the tea is already cold.

It's brutally hot. The first day of summer on the calendar, but the 50th day according to the temperature gauge since early April. A nice cold glass of sweet tea, heavy on the ice, is THE way to cool off. We've been downing the tea by the pitcher.

Why?!

Children and reason go together like chocolate and pickles or sharks and seals.

Why do I have to go to bed? Because it’s late! Because it’s past your bedtime! Because you’re cranky! Because I’m cranky!

Why does he get to go first? Because somebody had to do it and you can’t BOTH go first! Because it’s his turn!

Why can’t I wear the sparkly shoes to town? Because we’ll be doing lots of walking and they will hurt your feet. Because I they don’t stay on!

Why do I have to brush my teeth? So you don’t get a cavity! So no one has to smell your stinky breath! So your teeth don’t fall out!

Why do I have to brush my hair? Because it looks like rats nested in it! Because it’s rude to go out in public without bothering to comb your hair!

Why can’t I get in the pool by myself? Because you might drown! Because I can’t hear you if you get into trouble! Because it is the rule!

Why can’t I sit up front? Because it isn’t safe! Because it’s the law! Because you aren’t tall enough!

Why are you yelling? Why?! Why?!
BECAUSE YOU ASKED WHY!!!!!!

Telemarketing FAIL

This morning I received a call from a telemarketer. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Good morning. May I help you?"
Her: "Good morning, this is so-and-so from such-and-such marketing. Do you have an email address?"
Me: "Yes."
Her: "May I have it?"
Me: "No."
Her: Silence.
Me: (after a few seconds). Click.

Five seconds later the phone rings. I answer it with my customary cheerful "Good morning! May I help you?" She says: "You B*$&#!!! You are SO RUDE!" Hangs up. Then calls me back FIVE times. Each time I get no response to the standard greeting. Until I say, "If you keep calling I will contact the Federal Communications Commission to report you." She says: "Go ahead. GO AHEAD!" in a sing-song voice that I've only ever heard before in a school yard.

But she didn't call me back.

And she certainly isn't going to get my email address NOW! Sheesh.