The past week, I have spent approximately nine hours in the Nashville airport (I don’t recommend it to anyone) and have had more than my share of people watching opportunities. One of my favorite games is to sit there and play “Who’s the Spy?” There has to be at least one international spy in every airport y’know, and I saw him last Thursday at BNA. Medium height, stocky, swarthy, black hair with enough oil in the back comb to fuel my CRV for a month. He was wearing a very expensive black silk suit, white shirt with cuff links, black tie, and top dollar shoes. He spent well over an hour walking here, walking there, always looking around him, and never making eye contact with anyone that I could tell. Unlike everyone around him, he never touched a cell phone. That was a dead give-away, because we all know that calls can be monitored. Was he there to make a hit? Meet a La Cosa Nostra member from the old country? I pretended to read my Kindle and kept track of him from behind my Foster Grants. After over an hour of discreet observation, I was quite disappointed to see him standing at the bottom of the escalator with a sign……he was merely a chauffeur waiting on a late arrival. The spy was probably the granny sitting next to me.
I adore the reunions between grandparents and grandchildren. I really love it when the little guy spies the much loved grandparents and squeals their names as they go racing across the floor to be scooped up. Gramma, Grampa, Nana, Boppa, whatever…..it makes me choke up, missing my own, all of whom have been gone many years.
On a random note, the Nashville airport has more guitar-toting people and more tattoos than I have ever seen in my entire life. It also has the market on tall men with toothpick legs – and they all wore jeans so tight I could tell their religion.
Another observation is that people in shoes pretty much all walk the same way, but put a pair of flip-flops on the same feet and things change. First off, why do so many wear open toe shoes/flip-flops/sandals with their toes hanging over the front of the footwear? Here’s a hint….buy a size that fits the entire foot! It doesn't cost a penny more. As far as styles of walking, first off are the flat-foot flip-flop wearers who raise the knees in order to walk and land the foot flat on the ground without the usual heel to toe rolling motion. They remind me of a horse in a dressage competition, and I want to shout out tips to improve their style.
There are those afraid of losing the flip-flop. They are the ones who have their toes clenched tightly to the keep the center thong under control. They make me want to watch them walk away to see if the butt is clenched as tightly. Loosen up! Wear some sandals with straps and stay away from watching prison movies or “Deliverance.”
The oddest flip-flop foot walk I saw belonged to a woman who when lifting her foot to step, also lifted her toes away from the flip-flop, curling them upwards as if they were trying to touch her ankle. As soon her heel hit the floor, the toes curled completely up, only to come in contact with the shoe when the toe area had to push up off the ground. That walk fascinated me. I practiced it in the privacy of my hotel room, but never even came close to mastering it. It will probably haunt me the rest of my days.
After that, I'll probably just keep my toes under wraps while in public.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Fabric of Our Lives
Ever notice how, to change a phrase, music, not cotton, weaves the fabric of our lives? I grew up in a house with very little music. No one played an instrument or took lessons of any sort. My parents had a scant number of old 78 RPM recordings of Hawaiian music for which they had no explanation, and one 78 of Gene Autry that they played every Christmas Eve to let me know that “Here Comes Santy Claus.” They didn’t even listen to the radio, so except for Lawrence Welk and music inside the classroom, I grew up bereft of the wonderous sounds of music.
It all changed in 1961. I turned 11 and was given as a present, a small, red, plastic box with an earbud…the original AM transistor radio. To a young girl in her last year of elementary school, it was the sheerest form of Heaven. I immediately found 710 on the dial, home of WHB, the World’s Happiest Broadcasters, sat on the front porch and started catching up with what all my friends had always taken for granted - real, live, current, popular music. I don’t remember what I heard first, but every tinny sound that came out of that 4x6 red plastic box gave me complete joy, for the early sixties were golden years of music. Chubby Checker was twisting again, Del Shannon was chasing his little runaway, and telling tales on his girl Sue, who was a runaround. Pat Boone was up a moody river, Connie Francis was where the boys were, Dion was wandering, Gene Pitney was in a town without pity, Elvis was lecturing his girl's little sister, and The Tokens were letting us know that the lions were sleeping at night. In no time at all, I was hooked on music.
By the time I was in high school and earning babysitting money, I saved it and bought a record player. I spent all my spare change from then on, at the Katz drug store, buying records. By the time I was a senior and on into college, teen music had changed a lot. There were still feel-good songs like Itchycoo Park, Judy in Disguise, and On A Carousel, but social consciousness was quickly seeping into the airwaves. Crosby, Stills, and Nash sang about the four students shot at Kent State, the Beatles wanted a revolution, Joni Mitchell was pensive about the peaceful qualities of seagulls, and Zager and Evans told us how it would be in the year 2525. Through out it all, Archie Bell and the Drells couldn’t stop dancing.
My tastes have expanded and changed over the many years since, but like most people for whom music was pivotal in high school and college, those songs are still among my most played, even when they take me back to such heartache and angst I can hardly stand it. These days, I’m as likely to listen to country (both old school and new), jazz, fusion, classical, and even hip-hop, but just as it was back in 1961, music is everything to me. The radio or iPod is playing whether I’m cooking, cleaning, working, or writing blogs about music. During the last hour, thanks to the shuffle mode, I’ve heard The String Cheese Incident, George Jones, ZZ Top, Jason Mraz, Rod Stewart (old school and new), Bread, John Prine, Van Morrison with the Chieftains, and a few others whom are already locked away in the vast wasteland known as my subconscious.
Music is such a powerful force, when I hear certain songs, I’m instantly taken back to the past where I see, hear, smell and feel specific moments in my life. Zager and Evans instantly transports me back to Half Moon Bay on the California coastline, while Simon and Garunkle’s Cecelia puts me in a sorority house with a pledge who really thought they wrote the song for her. Mercedes Benz plants me right in front of Janis Joplin on stage, half a football field away from me, as I reveled in the raw power of her mere presence. Paul Revere and the Raider’s Hungry sits me right back in the up-front seat at the Music Hall as I (and several hundred other girls) cried every time Mark Lindsay opened his mouth to sing. (Hey - we were 16 - it was mandatory.) Eddy Arnold’s voice always reminds me of my maternal grandpa, his tiny living room, and the big, blue, horsehair, overstuffed chair that itched a little girl’s bare legs. Money by Pink Floyd gives visions of the in-laws living room and their massive, blonde, console stereo. I can’t hear Garth Brooks sing a particular song without seeing an adorable blond three or four years old in nothing but cowboy boots, and underoos (sports on my shorts) sing very loudly “I got friends in low places where the keys are round and the bears are chasing my boots away.”
This year it’ll be 49 years since I first discovered the magic that music produces. It can soothe a soul or rile it up. It can make a person giggly, sad, or introspective, and sometimes can even provoke feelings that can’t be described or understood. It can create lasting memories, or give us something to cling to when we desperately need something - anything, to give us hope. Music is more than the fabric of our lives - it’s life itself
It all changed in 1961. I turned 11 and was given as a present, a small, red, plastic box with an earbud…the original AM transistor radio. To a young girl in her last year of elementary school, it was the sheerest form of Heaven. I immediately found 710 on the dial, home of WHB, the World’s Happiest Broadcasters, sat on the front porch and started catching up with what all my friends had always taken for granted - real, live, current, popular music. I don’t remember what I heard first, but every tinny sound that came out of that 4x6 red plastic box gave me complete joy, for the early sixties were golden years of music. Chubby Checker was twisting again, Del Shannon was chasing his little runaway, and telling tales on his girl Sue, who was a runaround. Pat Boone was up a moody river, Connie Francis was where the boys were, Dion was wandering, Gene Pitney was in a town without pity, Elvis was lecturing his girl's little sister, and The Tokens were letting us know that the lions were sleeping at night. In no time at all, I was hooked on music.
By the time I was in high school and earning babysitting money, I saved it and bought a record player. I spent all my spare change from then on, at the Katz drug store, buying records. By the time I was a senior and on into college, teen music had changed a lot. There were still feel-good songs like Itchycoo Park, Judy in Disguise, and On A Carousel, but social consciousness was quickly seeping into the airwaves. Crosby, Stills, and Nash sang about the four students shot at Kent State, the Beatles wanted a revolution, Joni Mitchell was pensive about the peaceful qualities of seagulls, and Zager and Evans told us how it would be in the year 2525. Through out it all, Archie Bell and the Drells couldn’t stop dancing.
My tastes have expanded and changed over the many years since, but like most people for whom music was pivotal in high school and college, those songs are still among my most played, even when they take me back to such heartache and angst I can hardly stand it. These days, I’m as likely to listen to country (both old school and new), jazz, fusion, classical, and even hip-hop, but just as it was back in 1961, music is everything to me. The radio or iPod is playing whether I’m cooking, cleaning, working, or writing blogs about music. During the last hour, thanks to the shuffle mode, I’ve heard The String Cheese Incident, George Jones, ZZ Top, Jason Mraz, Rod Stewart (old school and new), Bread, John Prine, Van Morrison with the Chieftains, and a few others whom are already locked away in the vast wasteland known as my subconscious.
Music is such a powerful force, when I hear certain songs, I’m instantly taken back to the past where I see, hear, smell and feel specific moments in my life. Zager and Evans instantly transports me back to Half Moon Bay on the California coastline, while Simon and Garunkle’s Cecelia puts me in a sorority house with a pledge who really thought they wrote the song for her. Mercedes Benz plants me right in front of Janis Joplin on stage, half a football field away from me, as I reveled in the raw power of her mere presence. Paul Revere and the Raider’s Hungry sits me right back in the up-front seat at the Music Hall as I (and several hundred other girls) cried every time Mark Lindsay opened his mouth to sing. (Hey - we were 16 - it was mandatory.) Eddy Arnold’s voice always reminds me of my maternal grandpa, his tiny living room, and the big, blue, horsehair, overstuffed chair that itched a little girl’s bare legs. Money by Pink Floyd gives visions of the in-laws living room and their massive, blonde, console stereo. I can’t hear Garth Brooks sing a particular song without seeing an adorable blond three or four years old in nothing but cowboy boots, and underoos (sports on my shorts) sing very loudly “I got friends in low places where the keys are round and the bears are chasing my boots away.”
This year it’ll be 49 years since I first discovered the magic that music produces. It can soothe a soul or rile it up. It can make a person giggly, sad, or introspective, and sometimes can even provoke feelings that can’t be described or understood. It can create lasting memories, or give us something to cling to when we desperately need something - anything, to give us hope. Music is more than the fabric of our lives - it’s life itself
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sunday Morning Observations
I love sitting in front of television on an icy, sleety, snowy Sunday morning when they are telling everyone to stay in because the roads are just too treacherous to attempt. I curl up with those Sunday morning news shows, booing, hissing, and only occasionally atta-boying the guests of honor of the misguided panelists. At the same time I am keeping one eye on the closings list scrolling across the bottom of the screen. I have learned that Baptist churches are the first to close and even during the Christmas Eve blizzard, the Catholic ones remained open…probably because the priest lives in the house next door and just has to walk across the lawn or parking lot, instead of driving across town.
I love watching the names of churches scroll by. Arise Ministries International. Smack dab in a very modest working class, almost redneck neighborhood, I wonder where the international fits in, because I know it's no where in the surrounding several miles. Church of the Harvest unfortunately makes me think of Children of the Corn. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Madhani Alem. OK, now that’s a church worth investigating. It evokes richly ethnic sounds, smells, and visions, similar to a bazaar scene out of an Indiana Jones movie. I see a church where people are completely involved in the faith and the community rather than, ‘it’s Sunday, get dressed, we gotta go to church.’
So many churches let you know exactly where they are: Blue Ridge Boulevard United Methodist, Independence Boulevard Christian, Rosedale Congregational, Welborn Community United Church of Christ, Pittman Road Church of God. Their names tell you not only the denomination but thanks to the location, a lot about the people who go there, much like the nickname my sister-in-law gives her own church....Our Lady of Mercedes. Other churches let you know what they offer: Shower of Blessings, Miracle Temple, Redemption Ministries, Atonement Lutheran, Works of Faith Ministries, Full Faith Church of Love in Jesus Christ, Mercy Church, River of Love Church, A Place of Praise, Celebration Community Fellowship, I Can Ministries, New Beginnings, and Refuge of Hope. I can practically see the congregation for each one.
I am confused by the many types of Baptist churches: Baptist, ABA, American, Cooperative Fellowship, Free Will, GARBC, General, Independent, Independent Fundamental, Missionary, National, North American, Primitive, Regular, Southern, and Sovereign Grace, and I want to shout, can't you all just get along? LOL
There are churches for everyone looking for a mainstream religion - Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Congregational, Catholic, Orthodox, Buddhist, Gospel, Assembly of God, Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal, Zion, Charismatic, Seventh Day Adventist, Latter Day Saints, Nazarene, Evangelical, Mennonite, Jehovah’s Witness, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Christian Scientist, not to mention the small, non-denominational ones like the Refreshing Waters Worship Center.
And today, thanks to ice, sleet, and snow, they’re all closed unless the pastor or priest lives next door. Feel free to give thanks in the privacy of your own home.
I love watching the names of churches scroll by. Arise Ministries International. Smack dab in a very modest working class, almost redneck neighborhood, I wonder where the international fits in, because I know it's no where in the surrounding several miles. Church of the Harvest unfortunately makes me think of Children of the Corn. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Madhani Alem. OK, now that’s a church worth investigating. It evokes richly ethnic sounds, smells, and visions, similar to a bazaar scene out of an Indiana Jones movie. I see a church where people are completely involved in the faith and the community rather than, ‘it’s Sunday, get dressed, we gotta go to church.’
So many churches let you know exactly where they are: Blue Ridge Boulevard United Methodist, Independence Boulevard Christian, Rosedale Congregational, Welborn Community United Church of Christ, Pittman Road Church of God. Their names tell you not only the denomination but thanks to the location, a lot about the people who go there, much like the nickname my sister-in-law gives her own church....Our Lady of Mercedes. Other churches let you know what they offer: Shower of Blessings, Miracle Temple, Redemption Ministries, Atonement Lutheran, Works of Faith Ministries, Full Faith Church of Love in Jesus Christ, Mercy Church, River of Love Church, A Place of Praise, Celebration Community Fellowship, I Can Ministries, New Beginnings, and Refuge of Hope. I can practically see the congregation for each one.
I am confused by the many types of Baptist churches: Baptist, ABA, American, Cooperative Fellowship, Free Will, GARBC, General, Independent, Independent Fundamental, Missionary, National, North American, Primitive, Regular, Southern, and Sovereign Grace, and I want to shout, can't you all just get along? LOL
There are churches for everyone looking for a mainstream religion - Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Congregational, Catholic, Orthodox, Buddhist, Gospel, Assembly of God, Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal, Zion, Charismatic, Seventh Day Adventist, Latter Day Saints, Nazarene, Evangelical, Mennonite, Jehovah’s Witness, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Christian Scientist, not to mention the small, non-denominational ones like the Refreshing Waters Worship Center.
And today, thanks to ice, sleet, and snow, they’re all closed unless the pastor or priest lives next door. Feel free to give thanks in the privacy of your own home.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Smile Experiment
I used to smile a lot. Heck, I could even be accused of downright grinning a good percentage of the time, however as the years have passed and life has gotten more complicated, I’m seeing that a smile on my face is a rarity. I’m more apt to be seen frowning, grimacing, or just staring blankly. I admit it – I have become a monumental grouch. Oscar in his garbage can has nothing on me.
I’ve noticed it in others also, whether it be at work, sitting at a stop light, at a restaurant, or the grocery store. OK. Given the poor excuse I have for a grocery store, I can truly understand that one, but it’s genuinely rare anymore, to see a smile on a friend, let alone a stranger.
When did the world stop smiling? When did we start thinking unkindly of those who think differently from ourselves? When did we become so busy we can’t look someone in the eye, acknowledge their presence, smile, and say good morning? Wouldn’t the entire world be more civil if everyone smiled at just one extra person tomorrow, two the next day, three the day after that, and so on?
Thus comes my challenge.
Smile more.
Smile when I don’t want to.
Smile when I don’t think I can.
Smile at people I don’t know and wish them a good day....and mean it.
Smile at people I know and with genuine feeling, ask them how they are...and listen to their answer.
I have a feeling that if I practice what I preach, I’ll be out of those grouchy, bitchy doldrums in no time flat, and I just may make a few others smile in return. Coca Cola wanted to teach the world to sing....I'd like to teach us to smile. It’s worth a try.
I’ve noticed it in others also, whether it be at work, sitting at a stop light, at a restaurant, or the grocery store. OK. Given the poor excuse I have for a grocery store, I can truly understand that one, but it’s genuinely rare anymore, to see a smile on a friend, let alone a stranger.
When did the world stop smiling? When did we start thinking unkindly of those who think differently from ourselves? When did we become so busy we can’t look someone in the eye, acknowledge their presence, smile, and say good morning? Wouldn’t the entire world be more civil if everyone smiled at just one extra person tomorrow, two the next day, three the day after that, and so on?
Thus comes my challenge.
Smile more.
Smile when I don’t want to.
Smile when I don’t think I can.
Smile at people I don’t know and wish them a good day....and mean it.
Smile at people I know and with genuine feeling, ask them how they are...and listen to their answer.
I have a feeling that if I practice what I preach, I’ll be out of those grouchy, bitchy doldrums in no time flat, and I just may make a few others smile in return. Coca Cola wanted to teach the world to sing....I'd like to teach us to smile. It’s worth a try.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Me and Chicken George
I need to get back to my roots. Obviously there’s a hair appointment due, but I’m talking about my other roots... those who came before me....my ancestors; specifically, genealogy. I’ve dabbled, I’ve played, I’ve taken it seriously for maybe 2-3 weeks at a time, but I really need to get into it and get into it big time, because it really is fun.
My dad started me off - he has been huge into genealogy for a long number of years, and has given me most of the information he has, but I have questions about certain lines and branches that I need to go off on my own search to figure things out. He has also entrusted me with a wealth of photos that leave me with tons and tons of questions.
How can you substantiate family stories that you’ve heard all your life about something that happened 100 years ago or more? I’m not talking things that one can eventually find on a paper deed, or a courthouse record, but a rumor, like the one about Jesse James. There’s been talk all my life, that my great grandfather (I think he was the one) had a secret basement in which he hid his buddy Jesse, when posses were a-ridin’throughout northern Missouri. Cool, cool story, but how does one substantiate it? Everyone that knows is long gone, but could there be a newspaper report or something in a memoir someone wrote?
Even when there are records, so to speak, there’s the looseness of them. I have an ancestor from North Carolina who lived to be over 120 years of age....or 115....or maybe 100. Depending upon what information you find, ol’ Robert could have been any age, but one thing is for sure – the man was quite the character if even half his autobiography is true. What I’d give to spend a few hours with the dude, even with the ego he seemed to have.
You can’t depend upon the word of those involved either. My maternal grandmother was known to stretch the truth she didn’t know. For years I thought I was a descendent of Isaac Watts, the English hymn writer (she said he was her grandfather.) Only after starting research did I find that her mother was born in 1870, and the man my grandmother claimed was her mother’s father died in 1748, unmarried and childless. At least I no longer feel guilty about not enjoying some of those stodgy, old hymns of Isaac’s. I did finally get a photo of my great-grandfather’s fish and chips shop in Sutton Bridge, England, however. That was neat.
My paternal grandmother however, tickled me to no end when she revealed that her mother, my great grandma Maggie, met her husband Earl, when he was a comedian in a burlesque house and she was the piano player there. Oh, the stories I missed not knowing that little tidbit until 30 years after Grandma Maggie died. In the same family, Bud Ledbetter, the famous Oklahoma territory marshal known as The 4th Guardsman, was a cousin of my great-grandfather Earl. There’s a lot of info out there about Bud, including a book I own. Now that’s cool stuff to read and know it’s all about kinfolk. My fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak.
A friend of mine and I have a theory about roots. We say we’re drawn to the type of life our ancestors had. Both of us came from long lines of rural people. Country folk. Farmers. Small shop keepers. Small town dwellers. She and I are both happiest and most comfortable in those type settings, and cringe at the thought of big cities and large urban spots. My husband, on the other hand, has ancestors from super large cities in Europe, and he can’t stand the quiet life. He needs the hustle and bustle of the cities, and the people, and the noise. When he went to New York City for the first time a few years back, he came back saying he’d move there in a (pardon the phrasing) New York minute. I, on the other hand, have no desire to ever even get close, so needless to say, we don’t necessarily agree over vacations and retirement. He prefers noise, hustle, bustle, bright lights, and lots of people, while I tend more to a stack of books, a comfortable chair, plenty of trees and flowers, a glass of red, and a body of water where I can watch my son fish.
Considering my husband and I both grew up within 50 miles of each other, I’d say genetic imprinting has more of a hand in our likes than does environment. He yearns for a place far larger than the million and a half people metropolitan area we live in/near, and I long....no...I yearn for something about 1/1,000th of that size. Mayberry, if you will. If we could only win the Powerball we could afford to retire in both places. Well.....kinda. He’d be welcome to come visit me anytime, but no way am I going to NYC to see him. A girl’s gotta keep to her roots.
My dad started me off - he has been huge into genealogy for a long number of years, and has given me most of the information he has, but I have questions about certain lines and branches that I need to go off on my own search to figure things out. He has also entrusted me with a wealth of photos that leave me with tons and tons of questions.
How can you substantiate family stories that you’ve heard all your life about something that happened 100 years ago or more? I’m not talking things that one can eventually find on a paper deed, or a courthouse record, but a rumor, like the one about Jesse James. There’s been talk all my life, that my great grandfather (I think he was the one) had a secret basement in which he hid his buddy Jesse, when posses were a-ridin’throughout northern Missouri. Cool, cool story, but how does one substantiate it? Everyone that knows is long gone, but could there be a newspaper report or something in a memoir someone wrote?
Even when there are records, so to speak, there’s the looseness of them. I have an ancestor from North Carolina who lived to be over 120 years of age....or 115....or maybe 100. Depending upon what information you find, ol’ Robert could have been any age, but one thing is for sure – the man was quite the character if even half his autobiography is true. What I’d give to spend a few hours with the dude, even with the ego he seemed to have.
You can’t depend upon the word of those involved either. My maternal grandmother was known to stretch the truth she didn’t know. For years I thought I was a descendent of Isaac Watts, the English hymn writer (she said he was her grandfather.) Only after starting research did I find that her mother was born in 1870, and the man my grandmother claimed was her mother’s father died in 1748, unmarried and childless. At least I no longer feel guilty about not enjoying some of those stodgy, old hymns of Isaac’s. I did finally get a photo of my great-grandfather’s fish and chips shop in Sutton Bridge, England, however. That was neat.
My paternal grandmother however, tickled me to no end when she revealed that her mother, my great grandma Maggie, met her husband Earl, when he was a comedian in a burlesque house and she was the piano player there. Oh, the stories I missed not knowing that little tidbit until 30 years after Grandma Maggie died. In the same family, Bud Ledbetter, the famous Oklahoma territory marshal known as The 4th Guardsman, was a cousin of my great-grandfather Earl. There’s a lot of info out there about Bud, including a book I own. Now that’s cool stuff to read and know it’s all about kinfolk. My fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak.
A friend of mine and I have a theory about roots. We say we’re drawn to the type of life our ancestors had. Both of us came from long lines of rural people. Country folk. Farmers. Small shop keepers. Small town dwellers. She and I are both happiest and most comfortable in those type settings, and cringe at the thought of big cities and large urban spots. My husband, on the other hand, has ancestors from super large cities in Europe, and he can’t stand the quiet life. He needs the hustle and bustle of the cities, and the people, and the noise. When he went to New York City for the first time a few years back, he came back saying he’d move there in a (pardon the phrasing) New York minute. I, on the other hand, have no desire to ever even get close, so needless to say, we don’t necessarily agree over vacations and retirement. He prefers noise, hustle, bustle, bright lights, and lots of people, while I tend more to a stack of books, a comfortable chair, plenty of trees and flowers, a glass of red, and a body of water where I can watch my son fish.
Considering my husband and I both grew up within 50 miles of each other, I’d say genetic imprinting has more of a hand in our likes than does environment. He yearns for a place far larger than the million and a half people metropolitan area we live in/near, and I long....no...I yearn for something about 1/1,000th of that size. Mayberry, if you will. If we could only win the Powerball we could afford to retire in both places. Well.....kinda. He’d be welcome to come visit me anytime, but no way am I going to NYC to see him. A girl’s gotta keep to her roots.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Going Mad in Winter
Dear Diary,
I don't know what Charles has gotten us into. Spending all my life in Wisconsin until he moved us here to this little house on the Kansas prairie, you'd think I'd have been prepared for winter, but nothing short of moving to the North Pole would have been adequate. Last week, Santa couldn't even make it through the blizzard to leave the poor children modest trinkets in their stockings, and it's snowed every day except two since Christmas Eve. Charles and Albert can't keep up with keeping a path shoveled to the barn, and I'm afraid one morning we're all going to wake up and find the house is buried in that nasty white stuff. I hate it. Why couldn't I have runaway with a snake oil salesman who would have abandoned me, unmarried and with child, in Florida? Alone in the warmth and sunshine has to be better than being trapped in a one room unheated cabin with Mr. Machobullcrap and the depressingly upbeat cherub faces brats. When the hell are they going to invent vodka? I can't wait.
Love,
Caroline
I don't know what Charles has gotten us into. Spending all my life in Wisconsin until he moved us here to this little house on the Kansas prairie, you'd think I'd have been prepared for winter, but nothing short of moving to the North Pole would have been adequate. Last week, Santa couldn't even make it through the blizzard to leave the poor children modest trinkets in their stockings, and it's snowed every day except two since Christmas Eve. Charles and Albert can't keep up with keeping a path shoveled to the barn, and I'm afraid one morning we're all going to wake up and find the house is buried in that nasty white stuff. I hate it. Why couldn't I have runaway with a snake oil salesman who would have abandoned me, unmarried and with child, in Florida? Alone in the warmth and sunshine has to be better than being trapped in a one room unheated cabin with Mr. Machobullcrap and the depressingly upbeat cherub faces brats. When the hell are they going to invent vodka? I can't wait.
Love,
Caroline
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
'Tis the Season
It’s December 1. For 11 months of the year, with an exception here and there, I mostly read biographies, and books about history. I love history. Not only do I love knowing what went on before me, I really love discovering why. Over the next five years, my goal is to read a biography of every U.S. president - in order. This may take some doing, since for the last eight months, I’ve been stuck in a very good joint biography of George Washington and Benedict Arnold, that laboriously details every battle they were ever in. Now I ask you - unless each man left very extensive journals (and they could have, but that extensive, I doubt it), how does this dude know these details that have strung this book reading out to the current eight months and counting?
Still….it’s December 1, and that’s when my reading habits change, fed by all the smushy Christmas movies on Hallmark, ABC Family, and FaLaLaLa Lifetime. Yes, what you’re suspecting is true. In December I gorge on Christmas romance novels. There. I’ve said it, and I’m only partially ashamed. Oh, I read the traditional Christmas books - “A Christmas Carol,” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, “The Gift of the Magi,” ”Why the Chimes Rang.” “The Grinch,” “The Cricket on the Hearth”, and so on and so forth, but I’m a complete sucker for the kind of book where true love and Christmas conquer even the coldest or most broken of hearts.
Give me a broken hearted woman, nursing a long ago love gone wrong, the new man in town who has no intention of ever getting caught up in any relationship that lasts longer than the time it takes to put his boots on, hop in the truck and leave, and the inevitable Yuletide circumstances that will throw them together as true soul mates, and I’m happy as a pig in slop. I don’t care if it’s a Christmas novel by Debbie McComber, or the short story I pulled out of a woman’s magazine 30 years ago about a college student named Mary, a cab driver named Joseph, and a Christmas blizzard, as long as it’s Christmas and true love reigns, I’m good. I’m more than good I go to sleep smiling, dream sweet dreams, and wake up happy, and full of hope. Got a suggestion to add to my pile and make my heart grow warmer and my smile bigger? Let me know.
It’s December first and officially the season of magic. I believe in the North Pole, the Elves, Santa Claus and most especially, for 25 days each year, I believe in true love.
Still….it’s December 1, and that’s when my reading habits change, fed by all the smushy Christmas movies on Hallmark, ABC Family, and FaLaLaLa Lifetime. Yes, what you’re suspecting is true. In December I gorge on Christmas romance novels. There. I’ve said it, and I’m only partially ashamed. Oh, I read the traditional Christmas books - “A Christmas Carol,” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, “The Gift of the Magi,” ”Why the Chimes Rang.” “The Grinch,” “The Cricket on the Hearth”, and so on and so forth, but I’m a complete sucker for the kind of book where true love and Christmas conquer even the coldest or most broken of hearts.
Give me a broken hearted woman, nursing a long ago love gone wrong, the new man in town who has no intention of ever getting caught up in any relationship that lasts longer than the time it takes to put his boots on, hop in the truck and leave, and the inevitable Yuletide circumstances that will throw them together as true soul mates, and I’m happy as a pig in slop. I don’t care if it’s a Christmas novel by Debbie McComber, or the short story I pulled out of a woman’s magazine 30 years ago about a college student named Mary, a cab driver named Joseph, and a Christmas blizzard, as long as it’s Christmas and true love reigns, I’m good. I’m more than good I go to sleep smiling, dream sweet dreams, and wake up happy, and full of hope. Got a suggestion to add to my pile and make my heart grow warmer and my smile bigger? Let me know.
It’s December first and officially the season of magic. I believe in the North Pole, the Elves, Santa Claus and most especially, for 25 days each year, I believe in true love.
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