Yesterday I did something illegal -- I ripped that crackling, annoying warning tag from my mattress. You know, the one that warns you about unprotected sex, not to smoke in bed -- and MOST especially not to remove “said warning tag” from mattress. If you put things into perspective, things get to the point of ridiculous -- and we’re all in danger of making missteps that lead to an orange jumpsuit and doing hard time. To quote the great Lily Tomlin, “Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.”
The kids have eight more days before they are out for the summer, and I find myself filled with that same irrational exuberance that I get every year about this time -- and for no good reason at all, I tell you. For no good reason at all! For the first time this year, my daughter rolled out of bed this morning without that “kiss my bitter ass” look on her face. She is assuming that she will be graduating in approximately a week. I am hoping that she is right.
Heh! I still remember dropping her off when she was in kindergarten, saying cute little things like, “Mommy, my teachers will be SO HAPPY to see me today!”
Can you please explain to me how in the heck it’s already the 16th of May!!? Or even better, that my second child is almost out of the nest!? I feel like I’ve been Rip Van Winkled along for the last 10 years or so -- and I want it back, dammitt!
In about three weeks, my son will be dragging, moaning and moody about really vague things -- which translates into him missing the necessary social drama and delicious soap opera that middle school serves up ( something he would hotly deny, of course.)
I have gotten rid of an old, inefficient filth-catcher known around here for years as “the beer box”. It was a ratty refrigerator from one of our previous marriages that held moldy leftovers and beer. Loads of beer. Really good beer and then of course there was the “Guest Beer”. (cheap beer). I couldn’t open the door past 90 degrees because of the wall. As a result, I couldn’t slide the compartment drawers out on the left side to clean them. (insert full-body shiver)
I have replaced my old friend with a new frost-free deep freezer, compliments (temporarily) of my Sears account. My daughter lovingly refers to it as “An Old Lady Refrigerator.”
I had grand plans of stocking it with gulf shrimp and crabs, exotic fruit segments, a rainbow assortment of Blue Bell and really nice Vodka…but strangely enough, I find that I have been slowly filling it up with low-brow East Texas food: Purple hull peas and turnip greens, frozen corn bread dough bricks (!?), pork chops, pecans and dried beans. The secret to those beans, I have finally learned, is to thoroughly soak them overnight, cook them at low heat for hours and hours in a large crock pot, with some sort of farm animal floating in there. Serve those babies with cast iron-cooked cornbread. Ah, the magic of cornbread and bacon drippings. I will also freeze dinners in order to keep my poor husband from having to grab the old spear and go hunting for food when I’m away at suppertime.
Speaking of low-brow East Texas food, remember us whacking away at the poke sallet? My son now carries that torch (old golf club)
I remember sashaying with my baton at the Poke Sallet Festival to Hank Sr.’s “Hey Good Lookin, whatcha got cookin?” Good times.
I remember once hearing that you had to cook that stuff (poke sallet) three times or you were liable to get poisoned…and I’m not sure why somebody endured the process of getting that stuff right, but I am sure of one thing: I’m not about to take chances with some rural weed that grows in cowshit piles. Maybe it’s something East Texans have conned the “tourists” into trying, I just don’t know. I’m told the antidote is to drink lots of vinegar and eat a pound of lard. I’m pretty sure I’ve had worse here in Houston. And now I’m done with that subject.
But the subject does remind me of the “feeds” they would put on at Spring Branch Baptist Church, in Springhill? It was held on some certain Sunday(s) and was pretty much an upper-white-trash event. You probably also remember that it started off with a terrifying sermon served up to the women, children and elderly. Most of the rowdy menfolk stood around outside in overalls, leaning on rusty El Caminos, smoking Camels, waiting for their women to get out so that they could commence to feeding.
Remember that long bench table hammered between the trees just down the hill? They would spread that thing with delicious meats that a game warden probably would not approve of. Also turnip greens, fried chicken, sliced tomatoes, peas, dumplings, cobblers, pecan pies, banana puddings, cornbread fritters. Also big gallons of super-sweet ice tea. After the big feed, the men drifted back up the hill to recline in their pickup beds while the women would commence to cleaning off tables, packing up leftovers, then strolling up into the cemetery. Us wild-ass young-uns’ had a grand time tromping and cavorting over the graves of our elders while our mommas and grannies laid fresh flowers, weeded and tended the headstones. I seem to remember our Nanny associating “cavorting over a grave” with some seriously bad karma.
Nanny was great at handing out scary wisdom. It was all “hockey” but of course she believed in it. We all did back then. And if you believe in your own “hockey”, it is as good as the truth.
This triggers another bad-karma-laced memory -- me loading up mom’s good Tupperware tea pitcher with about 15 or 20 toads, and then pouring water over them. (!?!) For some reason, I was fascinated with swimming toads. I just assumed they were having a grand time, kicking and scrambling over each other in a desperate attempt to reach the rim. I hid them under our bathroom sink for later entertainment and, of course, drowned the whole gang. I felt so heart-broken and sad over what I had done that I couldn‘t bear to just throw them out. Instead, I started working out plans for individual little funerals for them, so I kept them until I could work that out. Nanny found them the next day while placing towels. (she was visiting us in Queen City - good times) She handed down a curse that I will never forget. “Girl, every time you drown a toad, somebody’s cow dies!” Cows were a pretty darn big deal to our folks, and I still haven’t recovered completely from that awful massacre.
I know you probably can’t stand another dog story…so I’ll make this one short. Mercedes and my “new associate” Dakota are better than a musical comedy. This tiny little tick-turd of a dog can back my big dogs down with its vicious little snorts and lunges. I wish you could see and hear it. It fluffs up like a little porcupine and sounds like, I don’t know, a tiny little projectile-vomiting gnome, or something like that. Hilarious.
I am currently re-engaging myself in a novel that I started a few years ago. It is set in Uncertain, Texas, my favorite place in the world. It is fictional, of course. Why complicate a good story with the truth? Please say a prayer for me, as God and I have much different writing styles…
The kids send their love. They are excited to get letters from their exciting Black Sheep Uncle. I finally talked to Kris the other day. He sounds great. He seems very happy to be an independent young man, making all of his own mistakes, ha-ha. He loves his motorcycle. Please keep him in your prayers. The two at home are about to go into braces. The reason that my daughter is just now getting hers on is a long, pain-in-the-ass, unworthy-of-telling drama …so I will just not tell it, except the part about her being 18 and very soon will not have the benefit of fancy-pants ortho insurance. She has backed herself into the “corner of limited options,” yet again.
My boy is getting a rather jaunty space between his large two front teeth, and he’s got to have another stubborn baby tooth pulled. His sister teases him by calling him “Corn Pop Mouth” I reassure him by telling him that he has movie star caliber teeth (or will have soon.) He doesn’t want any more gaps and, according to him, he’s not going to submit to any of it. At least we’ll have it done over the summer, so I suppose he can revel in having a “real reason” to be gloomy.
I remember the days when, to my young son, a lost tooth meant good cash money, and it was all good. That child ALWAYS has cash in his wallet. He’s level-headed. The girls are wild about him. They also smell like onions and coconut shampoo and wear hideous little outfits. I can’t believe some of the unflattering (trendy) stuff that these young women waste on their skinny, pre-birthing years. Unfortunately, they all look 16 years old, instead of 12. But fortunately, for right now at least, his wildest fantasy is to just be able to play the new Xbox Live on a 52-inch plasma screen TV. God bless his little heart.
He is also very much into battle simulations, always has been. I have kept a picture in a scrap book somewhere that could have earned him his own orange jumpsuit and a bit of hard time -- but for the fact that he was only 6 years old and a beautiful boy child. The homeroom teacher asked the class to draw a Spring-inspired picture to display for Open House. My boy thought about this for a moment, drew a scribbly little green line in crayon, representing grass, then he drew a scribbly little red line, representing a flower sprouting up out of that grass -- and then commenced to drawing the most exciting and detailed stick-figure battle scene taking place on that scribbled grass and flower. Complete with spurting blood, grenades and assault rifles. I thought it was hilarious. The teacher, however, did not. She sent it home in a crisp white envelope, along with a gentle admonition note on a rose-bordered Post-It note. One for the baby book, I say. The Oprah Nation would not approve, I’m pretty sure.
Now that I’ve exhausted all of my stalling techniques, I need to haul my ass out of this chair and “get my freak on” -- which means feed the dogs, load the dishwasher, make a grocery list, pay some bills and cruise around for little tiny dog shats. You know. I’m going through the horror that is potty training a new puppy, and that sucks about as bad as anything can suck.
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