I spotted this in north Tallahassee this afternoon.
I’m guessing they got it for peanuts. It probably isn’t worth a lot of cashew know.
Peace, People!
Category: Life
Greased Lightning Bug
I’m trying to lose some weight before I go to Guatemala in April. Even before I scheduled my trip I’d managed to lose 12 pounds, but I’d reached a plateau and needed a bit of motivational energy.
The prospect of going to Central America fit the bill perfectly. And, there’s a wedding involved, so there’s twice as much motivational material.
I’m not much of an exerciser, even though it would be in my best interest to get involved in some type of physical activity. Like opening wine bottles, perhaps?
Occasionally I’ll get off my butt and walk around our beautiful neighborhood. Today the weather was just about perfect, so I dug out my tennis shoes, left Doright Manor and set out at a brisk pace.
My Pandora radio station was set on the Grease soundtrack, so I twirled my walking stick, bopped, danced, and sang along to the music playing through my earbuds as I walked. I’m sure any neighbors watching believed me to be possessed by some unseen presence as I danced my way around the block. I’d occasionally grow self-conscious and stop, but soon I’d forget I was in public and start dancing again.
Turning down the home stretch, I was singing to “Greased Lightning” when a large insect flew into my mouth and down my throat. I saw him coming, but couldn’t react in time to avoid contact. One second it was, “Go greased light…” the next second it was “ack ack ack!”
I couldn’t get the darned thing out and I could feel it scrambling around. “Ack!” I gagged, but I could still feel it in there. Tenacious little devil. My eyes were stinging and I stopped to cough and gag every few feet. When I got home I grabbed a banana. I don’t know why, but it seemed like maybe the banana would help the bug find its way to a better place. Like a raft of sorts. It didn’t.
Then I thought back to what my mom used to say about catching more flies with honey than with bananas, or something like that. Sure enough, honey did the trick. I’m not sure if this counts as a life hack or not, but my readers might want to bookmark this post just in case.
Peace, people!
There’s This Song Stuck in My Head
Ever since I first heard “Take Me to Church” by Hozier the lyrics and the sexy, haunting melody have been stuck in my head. According to Pinterest, I’m not the only one. Many people are loving the song and its handsome messenger.
Seldom do I look up musicians on Google, but after watching a clip of Annie Lennox performing with Hozier on the recent Grammy broadcast I googled him. According to Wikipedia,
Andrew Hozier-Byrne (born 17 March 1990),[1] known mononymously as Hozier, is an Irish musician and singer-songwriter from Bray, County Wicklow.[2] In 2013, he released his debut EP, featuring the hit single “Take Me to Church”, and his second EP From Eden in 2014. His debut studio album, Hozier, was released in Ireland in September 2014 and globally in October 2014.
I hope he is more than a one-hit wonder. Only time will tell, but I’d sure appreciate it if I could get this song out of its continual loop through my mind. In the meantime, take me to church. Please.
Valentine’s Day
I love you, dear one
Every beat of my heart
Claims this basic truth.
What is our love worth?
The sky plus the earth, and more?
I’ll tell you, much more.
Do not disregard
The consequence of our love
It brings me such joy.
From Studly With Love
Please note that Studly does actually exist; although, he hasn’t quite mastered the spelling of his last name. My very unexpected bouquet of roses is as fragrant as it is beautiful. Studly forgot he’d sent them, so they languished on the porch most of yesterday.
For Studly, I baked his favorite brownies overflowing with walnuts. I added a little something extra for the special day.
Not too shabby, eh?
I hope you have a sweet Valentine’s Day.
Peace, People!
Things I Love: Date Nights
Golf is Studly’s thing. He plays golf every Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. And by “weather permitting” I mean that the golf course hasn’t barred him due to snow, flooding, or the threat of impending lightning strikes. I’ve seen the man dress for a round of golf in so many layers that he looks like the kid brother from “A Christmas Story,” barely able to move his arms, legs, or head. Now, you know that makes for a picture perfect swing.
I’m glad he plays, though. It keeps him off the streets and out of the pubs. After chasing a little white ball around 18 holes Studly doesn’t have much spare time to chase anything else except for me, and that’s a good thing.
That’s Studly on the left, pictured above with some of his golf buddies on the 18th fairway at St. Andrews Old Course in Scotland.
When the kids were younger I often felt abandoned on the weekends. Studly and I both worked all week, then just when I was ready for some grown up time with my man he’d go to play golf and I’d be stuck at home cleaning house and doing laundry. Grrrr. Of course I knew he needed his golf time, but I needed him. The heart wants what the heart wants, right?
After much grumbling and griping, arguments and tears, Studly and I realized we needed a dedicated date night, a time to do something each week to celebrate our couple hood.
Most weeks date night meant a dinner out or a movie at the local cinema. Sometimes date night consisted of packing the kids off to a friend’s home so we could have the house to ourselves.
If you google Pinterest, there are some great date night ideas for every budget:
Even now that our children are grown we still celebrate date night. One might argue that for a couple of empty nesters every night is date night. But we still find fun in holding hands at a movie or laughing at each other’s corny jokes over a table in a restaurant. It’s our thing. And our thing keeps me from grumbling about Studly’s thing, and that’s a very good thing, indeed.
Peace, People!
Rower’s Remorse
My husband, Studly Doright, and I recently purchased a home, Doright Manor, on a small lake near Tallahassee, Florida. We are not lake people. We are Texas panhandle people, born and raised in the dry, dusty plains and ill-prepared to handle any body of water larger than the occasional rain puddle.
When we bought our lake home we both envisioned rowing hither and yon around our lake for hours on end, working those muscles that spend too many hours typing on a keyboard and too few doing actual labor. We were going to get in shape! To that end, Studly bought us a two-person kayak. Thank goodness he had the foresight to purchase a fishing kayak–broad on the bottom and damned near impossible to tip over.
Our first venture into the world of kayaking was tense. I yelled. He cried. Or maybe it was the other way around. At any rate, that was just the part where we tried to get into the vessel without getting wet. After several borderline pornographic physical manipulations, Studly and I found ourselves seated in the appropriate slots. To us it made sense that he take the front seat and I take the back. Him: Strong. Me: Weak. We: Wrong.
The back person does all the hard work. All of it. The front person is just there to look pretty and occasionally help steer. We discovered this at the halfway point. There was no way we could switch places without one of us getting drenched. I had to shoulder the load–the big load where the pretty one should be.
Slowly I rowed. Inch by painful inch I paddled and an hour later we found ourselves at our dock confronted with a final challenge. How the heck do we get out of this infernal thing? My arms were shot and Studly couldn’t get enough leverage to pull himself up onto the dock. You see, boats don’t stay still when you pull them into the dock. No. They continue to move in all sorts of ways. Back. Forth. Sideways. They rock and roll. They Zumba.
But, we are not quitters. Nossirree. Neither of us wanted to die out on that lake mere yards from our own back door. “Let’s back the boat away from the dock,” said Studly. “We’ll aim for that grassy area beside the dock, get a running start and shoot onto dry land.”
“Huh?”
“Yea,” he said. “Just help get us out into the inlet and I’ll power us onto the grass.”
“Sure.” Wearily, I pushed against the dock, and then stroke, stroke, stroked
out into our little inlet, giving my man plenty of room to make his final stand.
He instructed me to lift my paddle and be ready to spring out of the boat as soon as we hit the shore. Spring. Yep, he said that. I’ve never seen arms work so powerfully. Boom, boom, boom and we hit paydirt. My spring was sprung and I fell onto damp grass, almost, but not quite, touching my lips to the solid ground.
“Quick! Grab the boat!” Studly yelled. Just in time, I caught hold to prevent him from floating away. I steadied the vessel as he rolled out, sprawling in lake mud. I’d have laughed at the sight, but I couldn’t summon the energy.
We both recovered. Slowly. And we’ve been out in our kayak many times since that first one. Every time we learn something new, but getting out never gets easier. I keep intending to google the topic. “How do I get out of my kayak without inflicting mortal wounds on my partner?” The good news? I think I’m developing an arm muscle. But it might be a mosquito bite. Time will tell.
Peace, People.
Above is glimpse of our lake.
Afternoon Delight
Studly and I married in 1976. We were young, oh, so very young, and so very broke. We spent our wedding night at The Camelot Inn in Amarillo, Texas, but had to move to a less expensive motel for the rest of our honeymoon. The only thing less expensive than The Camelot Inn was a Motel 6, but none of that mattered. We were in loooove!
We had rented a tiny two bedroom house in Dumas, and thank goodness we’d paid our first month’s rent in advance, otherwise we’d have been in serious trouble. I’m not sure what either of us thought marriage was all about beyond the fact that we could now sleep together legally.
To commemorate this wondrous new development, we adopted as our song, “Afternoon Delight,” a one hit wonder by John Denver’s backup singers, The Starland Vocal Band. To this day when I hear the lyrics, “Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight…” I get all tingly inside. Of course nowadays I generally dismiss that feeling as menopausal in nature and wait for it to pass.
Peace, People!
Tequila Mockingbird
Remember the old antacid commercials where an actor would say something along the lines of, “I like tamales, but they don’t like me?” Then the camera would show said actor’s face turning green and his tummy rolling in that special effects thing they do. Well, that’s the relationship I had with tequila. Except that tequila felt more than a dislike for me. It was more of an “I hate you, stupid old woman, and you should die a painful gut-wrenching death” kind of emotion.
I’ve had several run-ins with tequila, but one of the most notable occurred the year I turned 50. To celebrate my milestone birthday I decided to embark on a solo motorcycle trip from our home near Champaign, Illinois, to our son’s home in Dallas. Now, to me that was a big deal. I know other women who have made major solo trips, but I’m not an adventurous woman. I’m a “stay home and read a good book about adventurous women” woman.
It took all of my courage to mount my bike and head down the interstate that summer morning in 2006, but I did it and soon relaxed and enjoyed the ride. I’d divided the route into a three day/two night expedition with the second of those two nights to be spent in Fayetteville, Arkansas. My cousin is a singer/songwriter who was living there at the time, and I planned to spend an evening at a restaurant listening to him perform.
The restaurant served good Mexican food and even better frozen margaritas. I sat with my cousin’s wife and daughter, and we chatted while listening to the mellow music as we ate and drank and then drank some more. I was feeling happy. So very happy. And so glad I’d taken a cab from my hotel to the venue. At the end of the evening we parted ways and my cousin dropped me off at the hotel. Good times. Until, they weren’t.
I knew I was in trouble when the automatic doors at the hotel seemed to be moving up and down instead of back and forth. Whoa! That was a new one. Somehow I got them to hold still long enough for me to lurch into the lobby and on to the elevator, even though the lines in the carpet kept rising up to greet me. I successfully found my room and slid the key card into the door. Always a stickler for cleanliness, I washed my face, brushed, and even flossed my teeth before falling into bed. In retrospect, such a waste of time.
Anyone who has ever had too much to drink knows exactly what happened next. Whee! The bed started a raucous spin, less like a carousel, more like a tilt-a-whirl. Oh, and I knew the worst was about to happen. Frantically I scrambled out of bed, one hand clasped over my mouth. I made it to the bathroom, but then the dam broke. And it was Hoover Dam. A damn big dam.
The worst part was my dam burst onto my toiletries bag, and I spent a good half hour cleaning it up. I took a shower and went to bed which had been tamed considerably by then. When I packed up the next morning I felt like I’d been in a wrestling match with a large, scared skunk. I stuffed everything into my bike’s storage compartment and headed down the road.
The last leg of my trip from Fayetteville to Dallas was brutal. I was riding severely hungover in 104 degree heat through dusty, dirty, windy Oklahoma. Think blast furnace. At one point I called Studly and confessed my sins. I desperately wanted him to say, “honey, you stay right there and I’ll come get you.” Instead, he laughed uproariously, called me a knothead and said something about hoping I’d learned a valuable lesson. He was right of course. ;#^;@$%#!
At the end of that very long day, when I unpacked my bike, the smell that rose from my corrupted toiletries bag had me gagging anew. It seems that drunken cleaning is little better than no cleaning at all. Oh, the humanity!
I’d like to say I never had another drink of tequila ever again, but I’d be lying. I can truthfully say, though, that I don’t drink it anymore. Maybe wisdom does come with age. Yes! Finally something about aging to celebrate. I’ll make another solo trip one day, maybe to celebrate my 60th birthday in a couple of years, but neither Jose Cuervo nor any of his ilk will be invited to tag along. Good riddance.
Oh, here’s a clip of my cousin Effron White, singing one of my favorite songs, “Yankee Dime.”
Peace, People.
Monticello, Florida
Yesterday I drove 50 miles northeast of Tallahassee to administer tests to tiny tots in Madison, Florida. On my way home I stopped in Monticello, Florida, for lunch.
I’ve passed through Monticello before. It’s a quiet little community centered around a lovely courthouse (pictured above). I have a fondness for courthouses. In my hometown of Floydada, Texas, the courthouse (pictured below) once housed the library where I enjoyed much of my well-spent youth.
I understand that the library has been moved from the marble-halled courthouse. That just makes me sad. I loved climbing the stairs to the third floor, running my hands lovingly along the bannister until I reached the pinnacle where my precious books were waiting for me.
Was it the place that made me revere books, or the books that made me love the place? Heaven knows the Floyd County Courthouse wasn’t beautiful like the one in Monticello, FL, but it was heaven to me.
Peace, people!
Side note: there are 16 towns named Monticello in the U.S., but just one Floydada.
Praying for Eyebrowz 