Good morning, Brother. I’m sitting in the infamous sunroom, staring at a big pile of “whites”, fighting the urge to go back to sleep. The fireplace is burning, Mercedes has wedged herself comfortably beneath my left ass cheek, and it all feels really nice. Ugh. I’ve been up since my 4:30 a.m. captioning gig.

As you now know, after the last letter or so, your sister is a CEO. I have these routines now that must be firmly adhered to around here…lest the planets un-align themselves and I find myself struck by a comet by week‘s end.

Whites suck, as there is at least sixfold the amount of work to do. Literally, haha. My new rule is that everyone must fold their dirty socks together before tossing them into the hamper. The family had slowly bogged down into “a situation“ : Everyone had suddenly become all defensive (typically at 6:15 a.m. in the morning) cursing and calling out “sock thief!”, all boiling down to the masses (James included) accusing ME of actually being the leader of the sock-thieving ring. So the CEO threw the accountability back at their accusing little faces…by making them do the new sock thing… And that is just the way I roll now (finally…)

As a result, I’m staring at about 60 bundled up, semi-damp socks right now. There. I showed them, didn’t I?

Speaking of thievery…my vast network of liars and backstabbers (and I) got together in Brenham (home of Bluebell ice cream goodness) for a little bluebonnet-gazing, antiquing, and familial note comparison last weekend. It proved to be, as usual, estrogen gold. It typically starts something like this…we all set our families up with junk food, an endless supply of buffalo wings, video rentals and toilet paper… and trickle into Brenham, to a friend’s “country house” by Fri. night. I’ll spare you all of the half-assery that takes place (I’ve been sworn to secrecy anyway) but it all ends around 2 a.m. with the annual swearing-off pledge to never…again…touch a Mai-Tai. Last year it was Pina Colada. A few short hours later, we roll out of our bunks and hoist ourselves up by our bra straps. We march painfully, but bravely, into the antiques fair. By 10:00 a.m., we are all having berry cobbler and Lite Beer. Breakfast of the elite effete’, haha!

While there, I saw many, many treasures…of which I knew immediately which wholesale market they had come from, so I just couldn’t justify any purchase. Well, except for the non-mandatory (mandatory) gift exchange that takes place among the liar and backstabber clan that night. My purchase ended up being an amazingly cool vintage cowgirl postage-stamp necklace with a pearl dangling from the bottom. (which I coveted, by the way) I ended up getting a plastic rooster that looked like a “Far Side” character -- and of course which everyone ooohed and aaahed over. Yet that was just my opinion, and it seems lately that suddenly my opinions don’t exactly jive with the rest of the world’s. Pass the beer nuts.

I think that means… I’m getting on in age (You too) . I remember when I considered 28 (when I was 18) to be when it all comes crashing down. I suppose when you take the “rural” perspective, that makes sense, since the majority of rural 28 yr-olds are married and have teenagers and a deflated bank account.

I have viciously clung to my vanity -- and thankfully do not look like a sun-dried Magda (remember “Something about Mary” -- the binocular scene??) I am also not embittered by all of the bleached-out “Brittanys” or “Paris’s” or a myriad of other coveted STDivas we see on every TV now. It’s like tuning in to Telemundo anymore here in the states. However, I have spent, unfortunately, too much of the last few years rocking along between indecision/outrage… indecision/outrage…indecision/outrage. I blame that not on the bitter aging process and the STDivas that we are supposed to “live up to“, but on The Horror that is Bringing Up Teens.

I’ve almost gotten through them. My oldest is outta here, just in time for my sweet boy to transition into his spot (my cute little baby boy has become a smart-mouth that smells like onions and coconut shampoo -- a byproduct of his hatchelling hormones, forgotten deodorant and trendy hygiene choices.) God willing, my daughter will graduate next month. (OMG!) Reading that on my computer screen has been like finishing a chapter and going on to another…

Well, doesn‘t that just beg a segue??…
Chapter 2: How My Daughter Got Her Groove Back…

Well, sort of…

One day, after a few short weeks of promoting myself to CEO, and at the conclusion of another exhausting, mental ass-whippin’ of a day, I posed a question to my tearful, woefully sad little Wolverina: “Honey, are you ever going to get tired of frightening away nice people?” To which she responded with another round of tears and rants and homicidal doodlings in her sketchbook.

Well, sh*t. Again, through my vast network of liars and backstabbers, I was able to ascertain the name and number of “The Best Teen Psychiatrist” in town, so I called to set up an appointment. I was promptly informed that Dr. X would not have an opening until three months later, (wha!) but that my daughter could be seen by on of his associates’ associates, or something like that. Long story short, she and I end up in the associates’ associates office. There is riveting dialogue taking place. Something like this…

B: My mom is ridiculous.
Dr.Y: Why do you say that, Baylen?
B: I don’t know.
Dr. Y: No, really. You must have some reason for saying this.
B: I don’t know.
Dr. Y: Okay. I understand.
B: Oh, and my friends also think my mom is ridiculous.
Dr. Y: Which ones?
B: I don’t know.
Dr. Y: Do you think your friends are justified in that opinion, seeing how they don’t even know your mom?
B: I don’t know.
Dr. Y: I see.
B: Oh, and my friend’s parents think that Mom is ridiculous too.

At that point, my ears were starting to bleed. Will somebody please slap me here? Okay, so I’m ridiculous. What now?

Well, my gal is now taking Wellbutrin, and is a totally different creature in God. The aura around that child had gotten so damn gloomy that green mold was starting to creep up and cover the Hardiboard under her bedroom window. And I am not kidding you about that! Jeesh.

I will not burden you with happy stories, as I am a media professional, and that is definitely not the way we roll, but just imagine normal…or something like normal. For at least a good two months now. She has been a nice, cool drink of water after a long drought.

Except for yesterday.

Overcorrecting has always been a problem for me. My vast network of liars and backstabbers is proof that I’m in line behind many other overcorrectors. Overcorrecting is an exercise that seems to work very well with some personalities in a clamoring, ladder-climbing, ambitious society, just not with teenagers. And especially not with my teenagers. That shit always hits the fan around here.

So here we are on Monday. Remember, on Easter Sunday (yesterday), my little venom-dripping Wolverina backed me into a corner. I come out railing on as only an unseasoned and untested CEO will do. And a green CEO that is derailing fast usually decides to come out blazing with ALL of her big CEO weaponry:

* Fine! You can pay for your own damn prom tickets! ($75 apiece)
* I am not buying that nice prom dress for you! Go naked for all I care!
* You are not driving your Jeep (even though she has a job and has to take after-hours English ( because she failed first semester! - and it’s not like she’s a Senior or anything -- Wrong!!)
* I am not buying you another droplet of gasoline (just to see you slam out of this house and screech down the streets of a neighborhood in which every other home has a 6-yr-old outside on a new bike!!)

Like I said, somebody please slap me. Really. I must be doing something wrong…

It is sobering Southern Baptist lore, but it tends to hold true, especially in our household: The devil comes calling on special holidays.

I understand. Reading this letter, it all sounds so ridiculous and avoidable, but it’s really not, once you factor in lots of estrogen fuel and two medicated women. My poor husband and son weren’t having any of it. They quietly went to their respective rocks and climbed underneath.

Perhaps you are wondering if my daughter is justified in this behavior, but I‘ll bet you can‘t quite put a finger on anything. Her curfew is 12:30, extended to 1:00 as long as she calls me. The only chore she has is to keep her room semi clean and her laundry done. She is also supposed to load the dishwasher in the evenings, which she does not do 80% of the time. I know those aren’t many expectations for an 18-yr-old, but my husband and I decided to let up on our expectations a bit a couple of years ago, after she nearly drowned in her little sea of unstable elements. I’m not being dramatic here. She calls it “The B* Ocean.”

To be avoided for sure.

I just don’t know…because just when I start thinking I know a little bit about something, I get my head handed to me on a platter. This is another insecurity that comes with aging. I remember in my 20’s I seemed to know something about every subject known to man. Seriously, the super-colliding superconductor to . You name it. I was a brilliant conversationalist -- but not anymore. Now all I can manage are words, words, words on a screen, words on paper… Teens and age tend to numb you way up.

Okay. I can’t feel my hands or the tip of my nose now. Mercedes is rooted so deeply into my thigh now that I have “phantom ass syndrome”.

Please forgive me for all of these “words,” and thanks for “listening.” I just have one closing thought. I have always done my very, very, very best for all of them. Good, bad or ugly …parenting teens takes all three.

Sadly, one day very soon, I will turn around and they will all be out of my nest -- and I will probably be left with the pain of someone having ripped three huge band-aids from my quivering little heart, really fast.

I've been thinking a lot lately of my Grandmother and Nanny, both deceased. I'm pretty sure it's because tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I will eventually include something in this update that I wrote last year.

I was asked if I wanted to speak at Grandmother's funeral. I had to think on that for a moment: She died at an unusual time -- the day before Thanksgiving. She was the world to me. I'm hyper-emotional during holidays, especially the fact that this is my little grandmother. So I just decided I would not be able to do such a thing....unless I wrote it first, then read it back to the congregate.

It was a little awkward for me, but soon people were laughing and openly nodding their heads in remembrance and poking one another. I think grandmother would have approved. But who knows with Grandmother, haha.

I still do not understand that I can't drive to Spring Hill anymore, walk up their driveways and see them slowly walk out of their homes with big smiles and sweet, gnarled-up granny waves. I still want to call them up for assorted reasons. Nanny was my spiritual advisor -- and also gave me the okay to go ahead and plant my tomatoes. That lady was a walking Farmer's Almanac. I am considering planting a couple of fig trees in my back yard -- and not because I like them one bit either. Things like that just feel good. I suppose I'll just sit out back, sipping black coffee, enjoying the birds go to town with those trees.

Remember that little cotton-candy pink and sea green plaque with the little kitten on it that she had in the bedroom that faced our Uncle's place? I have that in my guest bedroom. Remember those creepy-awesome, dark, dark windmill pictures she had? Well, I now have them in my sun room. I wish I had latched onto those stained, old plastic coffee cups that were probably worth negative-34 cents apiece, haha.

Thank God Aunt Don started banging the proverbial war drums, resulting in a memorable family get-together for Grandmother's birthday party, a few months before Grandmother died. And it was all good. Aunt Don brought a beautiful Italian cream cake, professionally done up by some bakery just up the river from the Pea Patch.

A few old friends of Granddaddy and Grandmother dropped by, elderly folks that I did not know but could tell truly loved our grandmother. Many of her friends preceded her in death, which is a sad sort of blessing, ya know?

I have a few stories to tell you about Christmas this year. "Santa Baby"bought me an Ipod (which can hold up to 4,000 songs) and a peripheral device, also from Apple, that looks like an old-school boom box. I'm not sure what I was expecting that morning under the tree. Perhaps that new set of le Creuset cookware from Williams-Sonoma, or The Essential Musical Catalog of the Wang-Chung, or perhaps a gift basket loaded with rare, hand-crafted wines, Godiva chocolates, Tanquerey Gin, a gift certificate to a spa so I can get my gopher toes filed down, my body exfoliated, rolled around in some posh and trendy cow manure...

I just don't know. Perhaps even a new hipt-to-pottamus-us-sus, a pull-my-finger Santa doll. Whatever. So I opened the gift and... (wha?)

The whole tiny room suddenly became quiet, even the dogs. Mom and Dad exchanged uncomfortable, covert glances, then looked at my husband, then looked at me, their eyes imploring me to jump up and down, emote -- fake it, girl, fake it! I could barely hear my daughter' sighing, "Oh my dear God, Mother..."

I had absolutely no idea what in the wi-fied hell any of it was -- and neither did Mom or Dad, but that just didn't matter. They were depending on me. This, after all, had been the force majeure, the climactic ooh, look what Santa accidentally left on the front porch for Kimberly gift. (rushed in by the good fellows at the Fed-Ex)

And the reason I am telling this story...scratch forward a few months, just to let you know, my husband's generous and insightful gift turned out to be... So right-on. From the moment that b*tch at C.C. decided to restructure my ass right out of the company backdoor (age-discrimination, I swear it, and I'll tell you about it one day) I now find myself with more expendable time and energy. I now enjoy simple pleasures, such as downloading from the internet amazing music to this amazing Christmas device, using the treadmill for my own health instead of as prop for my boxed up Christmas decorations (now in the attic - thank you) ....and writing letters to my brother, in jail.

Music blasts out of this box thing in pure Bang and Olufsen style. Sounds unbelievable. Unfortunately...it's all just very ugly to look at. And I just can't have that, so I hide that shit behind houseplants and such -- which drives my husband nuts, completely nuts. Still, it is a product worth clinging to.

Now for the finale of this Christmas holiday. This year I decided to purchase, and gift wrap, real, beef broth-coated uber bones for the girls (Mercedes and Darcy) Since I had the bright idea to have the gift-opening shindig, and fully decorated tree, in the cozy, warm sun room, of course, we were all packed in there in front of the fireplace like smoked oysters in cottonseed oil.

Well, "We" made the mistake of opening Mercedes' gift box first. Daaammnn...but quite a dog fight ensued. Mom and Dad jumped up, hiked their legs up over the sofa arms, sloshing cups of hot coffee over their heads. Kids dove for cover under paper wrapping. All the while, fur, foamy drool and dog biscuit shrapnel slung about all willy-nilly. "Goodwill and peace on earth" had quickly soured into "a situation."

Heh. Good times. I realized at that moment that my precious little princesses were...in fact...alas...only dogs...after all. (sigh) and so it goes.

As "we speak", I'm listening to Marty Robbins on all of that fantastic gadgetry. Remember that guy? Devil Woman, Continental Suit, Big Irons on His Hip, White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation?

The man is brilliant (was brilliant) Gunfighter ballads and trail music. Wild and dashing young cowboys blowing in on the West Texas winds, then dying in a gun battle over a mysterious senorita.... Simple as that.

"Marty Robbins (September 26, 1925 – December 8, 1982) was one of the most popular and successful American country and western singers of his era. For most of his nearly four decade career, Robbins was rarely far from the country music charts. Several of his songs also became pop hits. Robbins also made many starts in the NASCAR Winston Cup series."

I can't help help but wax nostalgic and think of fine, old "old-school" men such as Chester Miller.

Who else can belt out strident, thumpy, upbeat lyrics (think Ernest Tubb) about 185 brave men with squirrel guns, now lying asleep in the arms of the Lord? All the while, cool-cat guitar riffs and raw doghouse strummin' (bass fiddle) that just makes you want to get up and flop around like a retard at a circus parade... Tika-tika-tika-tika-tika-tika from a high hat, while a guitarist that sounds like Eddie Van Halen whacks out a catchy little tune. But then you start honing in on that part about Santa Anna's canons roaring in siege of the Alamo, and you start feeling a little crappy. Good stuff.

Or the classic bad guy stuff is especially cool --
He's here to do some business with a big iron on his hip...big iron on his hiiipppppp.

Or my all time favorite, El Paso Cityyyyyy..... by the Rio Grandeeeee... (fantastic Spanish trumpeting)
Really haunted desert cowboy stuff that is reminiscent (but not even close) to Johny Cash's Ghost Riders in the Sky...

My mind is there as I fly above badlands of New Mexico...(wa-wa-waaaaa I can’t explain why I should know the very trail he rode on to El Paso....(wa-wa-waaaaa) can it be that man can disappear and live another time (wa-wa-waaaa) somewhere in my thoughts familiar scenes and memories unfold these wild unexplained emotions I have had so long but never told (wa-wa-waaaa) like every time I fly through the heavens and see you there below I get the feeling sometime, in anther world, I lived in El Paso. (wa-wa-waaaa….)

Damn-good stuff. That guy is crooning. It's that simple. It takes a certain level of maturity (or getting your head knocked off its block) to appreciate this kind of music.

Speaking of crooning, he's also amazing with that "don't pity me darling" routine.

Don't pity me because I'm feelin' blue...don't be ashamed, it might have been you. O-o-o-oooo.... Love, kiss me one time, then go.... I'll understand, don't worry about me.

Then this gut-string bass kicks it here. A real nasty, badass Dirty Harry riff, then here we go again...sweet, sweet Loooove, I want you to be...as happy as I, when you loved meeee....

Bullshat, Marty. It all sounds kind of threatening to me, ya know? Please.
I have an affinity for croon-sters. Ones that have sophisticated, yet rip-your-heart-out voices and their own brilliant style...Chris Issak (the stalker-crooner) , k.d. lang (the lesbian crooner), Roy Orbison (the old-school crooner), Cat Power (the creepy little crooner - too cute though.)

Enough!

I talked to Papa Ro a couple of weeks ago. The conversation started out kinda normal, but then led into the bizarre, such as the "snakebite-like infection" that is eating on his leg. I then stick my neck out and invite him to Houston for a vacation, because he said that Patch had died and he was totally devastated. I was cringing while waiting for his answer, but alas he will not be leaving because he is simply unable to just walk away from his obligations there on the home front.

Speaking of "his obligations", I keep hoping that nasty feline pride will eventually thin itself out. Alas...he has a new litter, in addition to the litter from a month or so ago. His voice suddenly goes all Christopher Walken, and he starts cooing stuff like, pretty little kitties are so sweet...kitties deserve so much better...just cant bear to leave them behind.

Oh, and the coupe de crap of his bizarreness: "Kim, God meant for us to be fruitful, so who am I to stop my cats from having litters?" This proclamation was set in the same tone as a presidential address to the nation. Dear gawd....I was hypnotized and found myself agreeing with him...wholeheartedly. And so it goes.

I came to my senses, once I'd ended the call, and after emerging safely from some amazingly ghetto-fabulous South Houston neighborhood that I'd been detoured into. Only then did I begin crafting new scenarios in which I had actually answered him with..." Um, well, Dad. How about self-preservation? Or... what about that ever-present risk of catching e-coli from the catshit prints all over your bar, dining table, microwave and toilet seat? And most importantly, the social benefits of having a house that doesn't smell like the gorilla section at the zoo when the females come into heat? Damn it, Man!

He says there's this real nice veterinarian that will spay and neuter for him Anytime He Wants and also gives him as much government-subsidized cat and dog food as He Wants. In other words, supposedly, this vet's "got his back" on this "live-and-let-live" philosophy. I'll bet that vet wants to slit his wrists when he sees him walk through the door. But yet Roland is so brilliantly persuasive and damned likable. He is his own best enemy.

Every time I think about poor dad and his life management skills, I remember when Ken and Don came in during grandmother's birthday party. Kenner opened an ice chest full of sandwich meat, bacon, hot dogs, etc, for our dad. Doyle promptly opens a big bag of wieners and starts dolling them out to all of the animals! Mom had to walk out of the room. I'm not sure if she was going to laugh or cry. Kenner shook his head in disgust, as if Roland had just set fire to a $100 bill. Aunt Don was wishing for a nail gun. I could see it in her eyes.

But, of course, no one can talk to him about self-preservation, hygiene, insanity.
When I start to get depressed about him, I always play a little rerun in my head from "Dumb and Dumber." Remember when Dumb's wallet is stolen by a sweet old woman in a motorized chair? In the next frame, D&D pull their shaggy dog-mobile into a convenience store and D'r tells D, "Hey, man. We're really low on funds, so only get what's absolutely necessary." The next frame starts playing hokey, boinging, Indie Western Music, and Jim Carey waltzes out of the store, weighted down by a huge cardboard box. On his head is one of those huge, floppy, foamy cowboy hats. His box is overflowing with beef jerky, whirling plastic windmills, yoyos, new smut rags, pecan logs, cheap beer, corn nuts, etc., all manner of truck stop frivolity.

Of course this story lends itself to a theory...something about one man's junk being another man's...whatever. I've just lost the willpower to finish that sentence.

I now sport a nifty new short-short-short hairdo. On a good day, with perfect makeup and sassy earrings, I look like Sharon Stone; on a day without makeup or female tricks, I look like an angry lesbian. Just laying all my cards on the table right now.

I think I'm going to cool my jets right here.

(First in a series...letters to my dear brother (in jail)

Dear brother, I have a funny story:

Late yesterday evening I was grilling chicken breasts. Zero, my homosexual cat, goes streaking by with a “squealing” something or other in his mouth. I caught a glimpse and believed it to be a mouse. How appetizing, I’m thinking, and started feeling queasy -- and I just can’t have that -- so I went inside and poured myself a glass of wine. 15 minutes or so later I go back out to inspect the chicken (I can‘t stand overcooked chicken), the mouse incident is now just a blur -- and I hear that awful squealing again. Mercedes, our basset hound puppy (terroristista) corners Zero in the ginger bushes. Zero opens his mouth to hiss… and the tiny little critter makes a break for it at break-neck speed and launches straight…into…the…swimming pool. Didn’t even make a splash. Just kind of walked on water for a few seconds there, ya know. The pool light was on and I just stood there, scratching my head and thinking…it’s a toad! Looked just like a little fat-bellied toad swimming around, except it was blazing around the pool, much faster than any overboard toad I’d ever seen. More like a fat little bullfrog. I grabbed the pool net, reached over and dipped it out. Holding the net underneath the porch light, I cautiously looked over into the net and saw….the tiniest baby bunny I had ever seen…ever…in my whole life!

Grandmother taught me that there are some things that we just do not burden our husband with, and since my husband had presented to a new client in an 8-hour meeting -- and also came through the door looking like he’d just been dipped out of a pool also, or something -- I decided that I would not mention the rabbit just yet. Instead, I fed him his very dry, very overcooked chicken over a bed of angel-hair lemon picatta with a bleu cheese wedge salad.

New animals in the house are a source of extreme stress to my husband, especially wild animals, so I just didn’t mention the rabbit.

My next worry came with a realization that baby wild rabbits almost NEVER survive. I started thinking about that and wondered why that is. The thought occurred to me that if I had been snatched by a cat out of a warren (rabbit nest) full of 12, warm, cozy little cotton-ball siblings, I might go into shock, then I would freeze from lack of body warmth. (before even being eaten alive)

I do not have a heat lamp. I use florescent bulbs anyway (no heat) and I do not have a heating pad…hmmm. I couldn’t go around all day holding it, could I? Could I?….And then my brain farts and out poops a great idea. I went into my dresser, strapped on a sports bra and stuffed the little rabbit down into my cleavage. Voila! Nice and warm!

I pull on an old Steely Dan concert shirt, and then some soft sweatpants, and all was well with me and sweet little Basil (I named it Basil because we were watching Sherlock Holmes, and Basil Rathbone plays Sherlock Holmes.

As an afterthought, I thought it might be a good idea to pry open its little mouth (literally the size of a mouse’s mouth) and see what kind of equipment I was exposing myself to. The lower little nippers were only a fraction longer than the top ones. It was still teething!!! (Awwwwwwww….) So I do a few more chores, fold clothes in the bedroom while we are watching Sherlock -- and the little thing hasn‘t moved once. I mean nada. Did I smother it? Possibly. It’s pretty tight in there. I’m thinking, you can do anything you want to do in my sports bra, little Basil…except die.

I’m getting a little emotional here just thinking about that…somebody please hold me. So I finish up the laundry, my husband is fussing because I can’t be still and stop “doing stuff”, so I get out of bed and do a few more things, then crawl back into bed. The rabbit is still not moving. In fact, it feels like it has slid upside-down. Holy Mother of Beatrice Potter!! I’m going to have to get up again and do something with this dead bunny -- and my husband is going to flip out if I so much as even move my big toe. Remember…he’s had a really, really, reaaally difficult day.

20 minutes go by and my brain is torturing me… it’s dead, gross….it’s dead, how sad…it’s dead, please don’t cry.

So…I slowly reach my under my shirt and give it a little poke, just to see if it will wiggle around a bit.

(*&*()_%%%#&!!!!

I feel little sparks of fire on my chest, and out of the top of my shirt blasts this little rabbit -- and starts running tiny little circles all over the top of the comforter, doubles back, dives under my husband's sheet (he’s always hot and has his legs poking out) and wedges itself under my husband's a$$.

Well, he screams like a little girl -- and I do mean a real-life little girl -- and nearly has an ass-plosion in bed. I won’t tell you what he said in this letter, but the gist of it…he thinks at that point it is a rat that our homo cat has brought in and let loose in our bedroom. The dogs go frikkin‘-maniac-ballistic and feathers and fur fly.

Once my man stops clutching at his chest, I patiently tell him the whole scary-sweet adventure; the magical, meant-to-be story of the rescue of the bunny rabbit. Well, have you ever looked at Andrew Jackson’s expression on a $20 bill? That was exactly the expression he was wearing.


Dismissing the blow-up last night, Basil has been tiny and unobtrusive. Trust me when I tell you that it is wedged into my sports bra and no one knows. Today Basil went with me to take lunch money to school (Chan had left on the bar), to the dry cleaners and also to Petco, to see if I could find (?) to feed it.

I started out by asking for advice on feeding baby rabbits. The young man said, “I dunno, let’s walk over here and ask our rabbit expert.” We walked over to the rabbit expert, who was cleaning out a snake tank (!). Immediately two more associates joined us, and we had a whole discussion panel lined up. The first question the “expert” asked was, how big is it, to which I replied by reaching into my shirt. They all jumped back, like I was about to pull a heist or something.

Once they realized it was a teency-eency rabbit, they still stayed back, like I was a little loose in the head. Why these places hire “zitsters”, I just don’t know. They need to hire steady, old hippies for that particular sort of job. Like Doyle, heh-heh. I actually think I could have robbed the place, holding up that little rabbit like that. On my way out of the store, an older cashier appears and comments…“ma’am, it looks old enough to be on its own, you should just release it. (wha?!) I made eye contact, just to gauge her sincerity and knowledge on the subject-- and one of her eyes seemed to be looking over my shoulder; the other eye was rolling slightly to the left. So much for aging hipsters, and so much for Petco -- and so I walked out empty-handed.


I’m turning into our mother. I once captioned a news program, one of serious tone, concerning people that “collect” cute little animals -- even though they don’t necessarily have time or appropriate accommodation for them. They are called “hoarders”. Mom just hates it when I call her a “hoarder.” Speaking of hoarder, I’ll have to mention the humming bird adventure.

(The next day)

Well, I buried another body in my backyard today…Basil the bunny. You know what did it? I took out of my teats for a few hours so that I could get a nap in, and gawdammit…

I’ve had it with trying to save poor little helpless things from the resident homosexual. It is just heartbreaking, and a part of life. My lesson, I suppose, is to let the wild things be wild and stick with domesticate’.


In case you have been wondering if there is some malicious intent behind my lack of letters, let me assure you that there is not. For many years I have always been the type person who is “so busy,” just trying to manage an unorganized household. The act of placing a stamp on a letter has to go through Congress around here. My little world looks great when guests/family come over, but look in the off-the-beaten-path rooms…disaster. Those rooms are filled with total nonsense from prior marriages, novelty vacation art that doesn‘t make sense once you get it home, cheap crap mixed with nice things that could be useful, if only I could remember that I own them.

Dad has always tried to teach us…a place for everything. It actually does take time to make a place for everything. And a lot of work too. It isn’t just physical crap, but it is also household finances, mail organization, computer organization (I.e. pictures, bills, upgrading virus protection (they should call that “goofy teens will download anything” protection) backups in case computer crashes -- and believe me, ours do. It also involves a cleaning routine that makes sense, help with the yard, when to exterminate for bugs before the bastards hatch, when to fertilize the yards in order to choke out weeds, (and if you miss that window, all summer long the weed problem turns into an ass-whippin’.)

I realized something. I have too much to do (when I do it all myself), and a whole group of tasks seem to be fall on my head every morning when I get out of bed. I can either just work myself into the ground while bitch-preaching to the children how lucky they are (I really showed them, ha-ha), or change my way of thinking about how things need to get done.

So about nine months ago, I started throwing stuff away. I mean a rampage. My husband nearly shat himself but didn’t dare step into my path. Rationalization was, if we don’t touch it….gone. If it messes up my overall sense of feng shui….gone. Guess who helped me load the trailer and truck down to Goodwill without a single complaint? Haha.

85% of our “stuff” now has a place to call home. I have enforced a new rule with my kids (after adopting a stern and necessary new parenting perspective -- think Aunt Don.) I shed the old -- I think it was called condoling -- and put on the new, and it is all good.

The new rule, which I enforce like a mad dog with the children is: I had better not know that you have been in my kitchen. I better not know that you have been in my living room. I better not know that you have been anywhere downstairs. This is my space and I don’t need your filthy evidence lying around. In other words, feel free to come and go -- just tread lightly and don‘t drop crumbs.

It sounds harsh, but it’s gotten their attention nicely. I’m not wasting my whole day “chasing my tail” or their tails. I am starting to have time to be a human now. Kids need framework that is palpable. I have learned, unfortunately after Kris left, that being sweet and making pliable and negotiable framework just turns your kids into vigilanties -- or lawyers -- and makes parenting very insecure.

I also have another great new rule: If you treat me like crap, I will treat you like crap too, for days... I will no longer try to understand your moods and the reasons behind your crappiness anymore: aww, maybe you’ve had a tough day at school; awww, maybe you are not getting enough sleep; awww, maybe if I bake you cookies to lighten your mood. No more, you little terrors.


Perhaps the coolest new way of thinking I’ve taken on is that…tada…I am the CEO of my own home. It is amazing what that will do for your attitude, going from being condoling, to giving yourself a promotion to CEO.

CEOs command respect. CEOs don’t have time for your petty little excuses (unless you are bleeding or crying, of course) CEO’s look ahead and forecast potential problems and take dramatic steps to avoid them. I have put in an order for my custom corporate jet. I’m not holding my breath, yet still I persevere -- and keep on doing everything a good CEO has to do to run a very stressful but hopefully successful company.

And there you go. My family --dogs included-- is starting to respect their new CEO. Pass the beer nuts.

I wanted to send my fellow Pea Patch bloggers my own short synopsis of my favorite place on earth, aside from the Pea Patch, of course: Uncertain, Texas...

Lake Caddo must be the most beautiful and interesting lake that God has ever created. It is actually made up of many small lakes and is divided by cypress breaks and channels and boat roads. Different areas on the lake are designated with names like Whistleberry Slough, Hog Wallow, Death Hole, Swanson's Landing (once the first railroad terminal for East Texas' first railroad), Jap Islnd, Onion Island, Buzzard's Bay, Red Belly, Hell's Half Acre and Hay Rake. Does this sound like a ski map to you??
For grins, order a Caddo Lake Map. It's a hoot..

CADDO LAKE MAP
P.O. Box 139
Karnack, TX 75661
(903) 679-3743

You could easily get lost in there without a guide. Cypress trees are magnificent. Spanish moss hangs on everything. You can find lodging, canoes to rent and catfish joints, but remember...Uncertain is no resort! (though some locals think otherwise and attempt to capitalize through the only way they can -- lodging -- so don't be surprised to pay $100 smacks a night in some places. Lodging probably won't be worth writing home about, but Lake Caddo will captivate you. If you want spiffy, go to Jefferson, just up the road. In the days of the steamers, Jefferson was a port town, second only in size to Galveston.

Interesting tidbits...
- During Prohibition there were floating diners called beer boats. (I think Dovie and Alvin McCord had the first one - a pontoon arrangement requiring bilge pumps that ran day and night to keep it floating) It was called Caddo Diner. It soon became a smashing sensation (because of that naughty 3/2 beer) and was reconstructed, 100-by-80, on pilings. People got to it on flat-bottomed taxi boats! It was in the channel of Big Cypress Bayou that runs through the Caddo. The tree line across the bayou in Uncertain is Marion County- the 'wet' side!)

- Texas' first Secretary of the Navy, Robert Potter (a signer of Texas Declaration of Independence) and his family settled in the area now called Potter's Point. His wife's incredible life is recorded in Elithe Hamilton Kirkland's "Love is a Wild Assault." It details her migration to East Texas and is truly entertaining. To say that Robert Potter's life is extremely facinating would be an understatement also. He was a hero/yellowbelly/poetic cad and was shot to death by shotgun while swimming underwater away from a Regulator during the bawdy Moderator/Regulator wars in those parts.

- During the time of Pearl Harbor, a man of Japanese lineage named George Murata lived on one of the islands with his high-powered radio equpiment. (Jap Island) Rumored by some that he was there to sabotage oil wells on the Caddo and was reporting directly to Japan via high-powered radio equipment. (I have a picture of George smiling in front of this equipment. The calendar over his desk shows December 1941) He was actually a U.S. citizen, honorably discharged after years of service with the U.S. Navy. The high-powered equipment was a glorified C.B. - a dry battery-operated receiving set patched together with outdated and spliced-together junk. Ironically he was a "pearl" broker. At one point droves of people migrated to Caddo to dig up fresh-water mussels for the pearls inside. George traveled many places selling the pearls. Supposedly he was well-known at Tiffany's and all! owed to directly show his pearls over the counter to customers!

Of course there are plenty of ghosts and treasures...rumors of Lafitte(every little puddle has a good Lafitte rumor). In 1869 a steamer called the Mittie Stevens sank. It was reported to be carrying over $6,000 in gold, which hasn't been recovered. True, documented story.

And controversy...
"A potential buyer came on line a year and a half ago: New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation, which needed water to cool its power plant under construction near Marshall and was willing to pay $600,000 for it annually. But immediately the lake coalition attacked the deal...The TNRCC shut them —a decision that drew fire in a rare public fashion from Parks and Wildlife, who warned that drawing down lake levels would result in a severe loss of habitat in the adjacent wildlife management area. The back and forth continued until May, when Entergy executives decided they'd had enough, pulled out of the agreement with Marshall, and resolved to buy the city of Longview's treated wastewater instead."

"Dallas oilman Albert Huddleston, whose political leanings, it should be noted, are at the opposite end of the spectrum from Henley's. A longtime contributor to Governor Rick Perry's campaigns, Huddleston has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money into defending Caddo Lake. "I believe in both economic prosperity and environmental awareness," Huddleston told me by telephone from Peru, just hours after he'd climbed down from Machu Picchu, "but sucking water out of Caddo Lake and destroying that fragile ecosystem is no different than sticking a pipe in the Alamo and selling it brick by brick." Henley's and Huddleston's money has bought, among other things, the expertise of Dwight Shellman, who is the founding director of the Caddo Lake Institute...
(I found these two paragraphs in Texas Monthly)

Regarding Caddo's oil history...
Cado was the first loation where oil was known to be under water. It is Caddo that basic underwater drilling techniques widly used over the world were first developed! In the early 1900's an oil boom was developing in that area, second to Spindletop (Beaumont area)
Howard Hughes, Sr. and Jr. have very interesting ties to the Uncertain area...(I don't have the energy for that epistle -- hint: rotary rock drill got its start on Caddo Lake)

My husband and I were out one afternoon on the Harleys, when we came upon a posted area marked private - Dallas Caddo Club. It's near Starr Ditch and Goose Prarie, near the landing. ("The state's oldest continually operated hunting and fishing club, the Dallas Caddo Club, was established in 1906 on its southern shores. A fly-in fishing resort even operated briefly in Uncertain, which was incorporated in 1961 to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages." - Texas Monthly)

I could just see beyond the thickets and Spanish moss a large, white plantation-style home on the water. Of course my husband had no choice but follow me in - ha! Sitting on the screened-in wraparound porch area were about six or seven gentlemen members. (This club did not allow females until sometime in the '60s or early '70s.) They were sitting in lawn chairs, visiting, frying mounds catfish. We were thrilled when they heartilly invited us to join them for suppa'. Of course..."Five years of water-quality data indicate a severe loss of oxygen, in an area that already has a high level of acid rain—thanks to coal-fired power plants in East Texas—and the presence of mercury contamination throughout the Cypress River Basin's food chain at levels high enough to warn pregnant women and infants against eating fish caught in the lake." (Texas Monthly also) Yuummm!

A simple sign hangs just through the screened-in porch area and inside the doorway to the club's home. "Life is too short to live in Dallas." To the right is the parlor area -- cypress panelled and a taxidermist's dream. The really cool room was scattered with old books and newspapers. There were framed "catch" photos of members that spanned who knows how long, photo albums of members and their children and grandchildren that spanned who knows how long, taxidermed fish trophies, and fishing plaque awards. I don't remember how many, but there are quite a few spartan bedrooms that members stay in when they come for a visit. I met an old-old-timer in there that didn't seem to like me much until he realized how much I loved Caddo -- and that I knew how to fish and bait a trot line. (I draw the line at frog-gigging) He was a simple man of not many words, but I managed to learn from him that he had made his fortune by "selling off his land so that those fellas could build that big airport in Dallas." (DFW!) He was awesome, a life-member and was friends with the oil tycoons that had once frequented the place. Those guys had great stories and were so good to welcome us so graciously that afternoon.

During the 4th of July they have professional group fire the shots from the middle of the bayou (Turtle Shell). It is spectacular. Before the fireworks they also have the Miss Uncertain Pagent. The contestants are actually men in hideous drag. They look awesome. It is so funny. A funny thing happened to me at the fireworks a couple of years ago. I went to the marina to buy a couple of beers. The two volunteering got into an argument over whether to sell the beer for 75 cents or $1.00! (hickup!)

During Christmas they have the floating and lighted Christmas parade on the bayou. Gator-clause is the finale.

There used to be a turtle derby, until an animal activist group squashed that fun. Certain time of the year the females all come ashore to lay their eggs. They are everywhere! An unbelievable sight.

There is an old gal that runs the steam-driven paddlewheel and gives guided tours. (A must) She looks like an "Animal Planet" TV personality. She's awesome. She knows everything there is to know about Uncertain. She had just better watch it, because I would love to have her job!!

Great resources...
Caddo Was... A Short History of Caddo Lake." - Fed Dahmer
"Love is a Wild Assault" - Elithe Hamilton Kirkland

http://www.whitington..com/grove/jefferson/

http://www.tourintexas.com/October2/uncertain/

http://www.sec.state.la.us/museums/oil/oil-index.htm

http://ops.tamu.edu/x075bb/caddo/uncertainsong.html

http://www..lodgingsinternational.com/lodgings/270.htm