Month: June 2016

The Fabric of My Life

  
My first pair of blue jeans, begged for and purchased in my 14th year of life, came with a double pronged tongue lashing from my mom: 

1) Those #%*!@ jeans will have to be ironed, and 

2) She wouldn’t be doing the #%*!@ ironing.

Apparently Mom had been traumatized after being forced to iron her elder brother’s jeans during their own teenaged years.

I didn’t care. Never mind that in 1969 the only jeans I could find that fit me were made for boys. Although Levi’s for women were marketed as early as the 1940’s, the handful of stores in my little town didn’t seem to carry them in string bean size–I was all legs, no hips, and so out of luck unless I shopped in the young men’s department.

But the moment I broke in that first pair of jeans–sitting in a bathtub filled with icy cold water while the pants shrunk to fit me–I fell in love. There was simply no going back. 

For the very first time in my young life I was making a statement about who I was and what I wanted to wear, rather than what my mother thought about such things. Jeans equalled independence and freedom, well as much freedom as a 14-year-old girl in a one horse town could have.

And I never ironed the darned things, having found that an extra tumble in the dryer with a wet towel smoothed out the worst of the wrinkles. That made me feel immeasurably better at solving problems than my teenaged mother had been. You see, I didn’t realize that the clothes dryer of her youth was a line strung between two poles.

Now in the last year of my fifties I find myself still in a mad love affair with denim. I own three nearly identical pairs of  cropped denim pants from Chico’s and my only clothing dilemma is which tshirt to pair with them on any given day. 

Thanks to modern fabric blends, these jeans don’t even need an extra tumble in the dryer, or if they do, I have a steam setting to de-wrinkle them. We have come a mighty long way since then, and most of it was in jeans.

Ode to Blue Jeans

Faded blue or indigo

Cuffed or frayed or pressed

Even with a rip or two

My jeans remain the best.

At break of day I slip them on

To wander hither and yon

I’ve napped in them and swum

In them in someone’s backyard pond.

Take away my beer and wine

Confiscate my magazines

But keep your damned hands off

My ever-loving jeans.

  

Color Me Lonely

Once the sun sets over Lake Yvette the sky takes on a subdued tint, filtered through a green

Glass, vintage Coke bottle. Stillness supersedes movement in the magic time between 

Day and night. No leaves rustle. No animals stir. Deep silence permeates until broken

By the trill of a lone bird. Here I am, he calls. I rule the evening. Hear my plea, oh Lord.

I try to answer him, but we speak different dialects of the same language. Hear me, I cry. Nothing more.


Lunchtime Flowers

Impervious to curious stares and half-hidden giggles, I waded into the flowers in front of Chuy’s Tex-Mex restaurant in Tallahassee to snap photos after lunch today.

  
I had to crawl over a barrier to get to these pretty blossoms. Yes, I’m a rule breaker.

 
Sheepishly I shrugged my shoulders at a watchful employee, “They’re so pretty,” I explained. 
He just grinned. Thankfully no one called the petal patrol to take me into custody. 

Peace, people!

Kids

Lunch today was at a counter spot in the mall. Normally, I opt for a table, but none of them were open, so I settled for a stool between a young couple and a group of ten-year-olds.

The children were a diverse group. The ones closest to me were, and I kid you not, one African American, one Asian, one Latino, and one white. Three boys and one girl, respectively.

They were having such fun. Seated several spaces away from their adult sponsor they were being silly. One child was pouring Sprite into another child’s ice cream while the other two giggled.

“Drink! Drink!” They urged. The child drank to the simulated gags of his companions. 

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you all best friends?” I asked.

“Yes ma’am!” One little boy said. “We do everything together.”

I got a little misty eyed thinking about their innocent friendship. Our future leaders won’t think about race or gender differences if we just leave them alone. Power to the kids. 

Peace, people!

A Long Time Coming: Getting to Know My Father

What a beautiful story of change and acceptance.

Jan Wilberg's avatarRed's Wrap

It didn’t take long for my father to develop an email style. His very first email carried what would become his signature farewell. TIE. Take it easy. Sometimes he added SIT. Stay in touch.

His emails were short, very factual, reporting on his bowling score or his search for an even cheaper internet provider. He ended up going to Walmart for their $8.99 a month deal after changing providers three or four times in the eighteen months he owned a computer, the time between the death of my mother and his own death. It amazed me that he’d buy anything from Walmart after the years of being a small dime store owner always trying to outsmart the ‘big guys.’ In our house, a whole dinner would be spent discussing how to beat K-Mart’s price on Aqua Net, the essential ingredient in the 60’s elaborate beehive hair-dos.

“You just have to…

View original post 851 more words

Leaving

Carefully he tucked the snowflake patterned flannel sheets up around her chin.

His flattened palm against her forehead confirmed his worst fears.

As he explained where he was bound she concentrated on a spot above and to the

Right of his head where a piece of molding had torn loose and dangled listlessly.

Her wandering gaze concerned him, but he dared not turn his face from hers

As she wondered how long the house had been in such a state of disrepair. 

Days? Months? Years, perhaps? Why did it matter now that he was leaving?

In spite of his reassurances, she knew she’d be gone before he returned.

“Coward,” she thought and continued contemplating the plaster. 

Any time I’m sick I imagine this horrible scenario in which I’m left alone to die. Thank you, Stephen King for planting this morbid idea in my head.

  

 

Gun Range

Doright Manor is nestled on a small lake in a wooded area just outside of Tallahassee, Florida. Our nights are filled with the sounds of frogs exerting dominance over their domain and the occasional hoot of an owl. 

Occasionally, though, the sounds of lake life are accompanied by the sounds of muffled  gunfire from a nearby gun range. Tonight the gun reports are seemingly non-stop, and even though they’re far enough away as to be non-threatening, I cannot help but imagine what the victims of gun violence in Orlando experienced upon hearing that pop pop pop up close.

Was that one meant for me? 

Dear God, my friend’s been killed. 

Oh Mother, I loved you so!

Every National Rifle Association member should be required to visit with the family of someone murdered by a gun. Wayne LaPierre, president of the NRA, should be required to walk through a site devastated by gun violence. He should have to face the families affected and explain to them why the AK 47 is necessary to their security and health.

But cowardice is the hallmark of the NRA. They hide behind their beloved guns and talk the big talk. Only a good guy with a gun…show me those good guys for I have yet to see a single one.

Peace, people.

Studly and the Second Amendment

An oldie, but relevant.

nananoyz's avatarPraying for Eyebrowz

Trust me on this, I’m not going to get political in this post, it’s simply a summary of a conversation Studly Doright and I had this afternoon in regard to the Second Amendmendent to the United States Constitution.

First, here’s that amendment:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Normally Studly and I don’t discuss gun issues. We own a couple of guns, but the only time we plan to carry them is when we go to the shooting range to learn which end to hold and which to point.

In other words, we have no plans to run around carrying weapons of deadly force in public. Ours are for snake killng, period.

But there are a whole lot of folks in this country who advocate for open carry of…

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Thomasville, Georgia

A brand new friend and I drove over to Thomasville, Georgia, yesterday to shop and have lunch. It was a superb day even with the rain that fell sporadically and the growing realization that my hips have grown wide enough to qualify for their own zip code.

My friend knows the area, so she was my guide as we peeked into gift shops and boutiques and even a funky taxidermy establishment. 

 

Heavenly seafood and grits to die for!
 
After a lunch of Jonah’s spicy Cyclone Shrimp and a Caesar salad we wandered into the cutest little shop. 

 

You probably can’t tell, but the table top had a layer of sand on it! Perfect for a summer beach themed display.
 
I should’ve taken more photos, but as we browsed I realized that after several minutes no watchful shop attendant had come out to greet us. A pair of high school aged girls stopped by the store and we learned that one of their teachers owned the business. We continued looking around and visiting for awhile and then the young ladies left. 

Now, I’m a huge fan of shows like Crime Scene Investigation and Criminal Minds, so naturally I began to believe that the shop’s owner had come to some harm. Perhaps as we’d been innocently examining the goods in her shop she’d been lying in a pool of slowly congealing blood, scratching the initials of her assailant in the viscous red liquid in hopes that her murder will be solved and justice served.

With that scenario in mind, I boldly strode to the work area of the store and yelled, “Hello?!” No answer. I looked under a workbench and behind a counter. Nothing. No one. My new friend was beginning to get a bad vibe. About me. I can tell these things–it’s why I can count my friends on one hand and still have two fingers left over.

Reluctantly, we left the store, but I wasn’t through. I went to the shop next door and explained my concerns to the two ladies working there.

Specifically I said, “There’s no one in the gift shop next door. We were there for at least ten minutes and I’m worried about the shop owner.”

“Oh,” said one of the women with a smile. “She is a bit eccentric. She probably just wandered down the street to get some lunch.”

I was relieved and a bit flabbergasted. Who leaves a shop unattended in the middle of the day? Or at any time, for that matter. Granted, Thomasville isn’t a large city, but it is certainly big and busy enough for there to be ill-intentioned people lurking about.

My (still?) friend and I left feeling a measure of relief and continued shopping. She bought a couple of cute tops and I bought a natural mosquito repellent. That’s what one buys when one’s hips have become their own 90210. 

I fully intended to return to the unattended shop before leaving Thomasville, but a rain storm burst from the heavens and put an end to our stroll about town. Perhaps on my next visit I’ll stop in to see who this most trusting of women is and spend a few dollars in her shop. I had a strange affinity for those wooden seagulls.

Peace, people!