November Writing Challenge Day 23
Whispers.
It had been a challenging day. The house was full of relatives and their noise and needs. But that’s what Thanksgiving is all about, right? Everybody under one roof, pitching in or watching football, opinions about everything possible being vented.
The sisters were into it in the kitchen, this time over mashed potatoes. One wanted them creamed, because the others made them too lumpy, one kept adding more salt much to her siblings dismay, and one wanted more butter to the point they would be yellow.
The sisters never agreed on anything, from to where to eat to what their husbands were thinking. The husbands in question were scattered around the living room, watching them placidly. They knew better than to get involved in any debate-those women would eat them alive. The only one that could do anything with them was their blessed daddy, who was snoozing in his armchair. Their mother just made them worse.
Dinner eaten, too much wine consumed by one sister and her husband, and now they were having a whispered conversation about her by the sink. Three were grouped together, talking low and clandestine while the fourth cleared the table of crumpled napkins and smeared dessert plates.
She didn’t know her sisters had noticed. She wasn’t aware the sisters knew about the affair. She was oblivious to the worrisome glances they kept shooting her way while the whispers continued.
November Writing Challenge Day 22
Distorted sounds.
When you’re sitting at work and there’s a crash-boom-bang and it’s 50 pieces of toprail rolling off the pile after the guys cut the band.
Or you’re there by yourself and something keeps popping and you think somebody is messing with you but it’s just the metal roof contracting as the sun melts the frost.
Or you’re home alone and something falls in the closet and you jump out of your skin and belatedly reach for your pistol, even though you would be dead by now if someone was coming in.
Distorted sounds will make you crazy if you let them.
November Writing Challenge Day 21
You, again.
Do you have someone in your life that keeps turning up like a bad penny? Someone you’d love to forget and never see again? Someone you wish would move to the other side of the planet?
But yet, there they are. Every time you turn around, someone is mentioning them, or you see them, or you run into them at the bank and the grocery store and the courthouse? It’s like you can’t catch a break. And you’re reminded of them every time you drive past the road they live on or see a dog the same breed they used to have or some song you know they would love?
And you hate it. And you snarl and think, you again.
It would be nice to be able to block people from our lives like we do from Facebook. But I guess that’s asking too much.
November Writing Challenge Day 20
Hello.
So much better than goodbye.
Hello is full of new beginnings and happiness. Goodbye is fraught with tears and you’re left with memories.
Make your hellos while you can. Don’t be afraid to say hello. Most people are friendly. You might discover they’re also crazy, but at least you tried. They might have been needing a hello.
Most of you I met through the Co-op, and my hellos began as simply that, “Hello.” Which eventually morphed into a “Hey!” which may have become a hug and “Where have you been? Tell me all about yada yada yada, and when can we go out?” in a few years.
I’ve said my goodbyes to many, too. The most painful ones are the ones they couldn’t hear as I stood there snuffing into my Kleenex next to their bright and beautiful flowers. It’s so hard when they didn’t say goodbye before they left. It’s impossible when you don’t know why they’re gone…even if they did tell you goodbye.
Never be afraid to say hello first. You might really make a difference in their life, or more likely, a difference in yours.
I’m so glad you all said hello back. ❤
November Writing Challenge Day 19
Rules change.
Yes, they do. They change so quickly that sometimes I can’t keep up with them.
The unspoken rule for Southern Ladies is: school, university (which you’re allowed to drop out of if you meet the right man), token job, marriage, babies, volunteering, and then you wait on death. Laugh all you want, it’s true. Look around you. How many women stray from that? And how are they regarded? Maybe the rules changed in other parts of the country, but not in well-to-do circles. Not in Appalachia.
Rules change for what you fight for. The right to vote. The right to drive. The right to wear pants! Or no pants!
Rules are made, followed for a time, then people begin slacking off until it’s no longer an enforced rule. And that generally benefits me, because I’m not much of a rule follower. But I don’t know that I’m a breaker, either, unless I feel justified.
Rules about running in halls, no skateboarding on sidewalks, stop for pedestrians and school busses, clean up after your dog, be kind-rewind…how many rules pop into my head. It’s so restrictive. But what else? We could be an anarchy nation, no governing bodies to keep us in line. And then what? Murder and mayhem, that’s what.
So yes to adaptive rules. Because we have to upgrade from our muskets and powderkegs eventually. We no longer drink from pewter giblets and think tomatoes are toxic. But some things shall remain forbidden, for good reason.
I feel like I talked in circles without saying anything in this one. Much like life. Confusing.
November Writing Challenge Day 18
Her husband.
Her husband was suave and polished and wore a tie to work. He regarded football as a Neanderthal sport, preferring polo or maybe an occasional tennis match. Something more dignified. Her husband drank red wine and knew which fork to use and talked about hedge funds. Her husband sat on the hospital board and the foundation for the historic district. Her husband was an alumni from Brown. Or was it Cornell? All those Ivy League Schools blended in my mind.
Her husband was a total bore.
And here I sat, listening to him drone on, while I swirled my French 75 and wondered if it would be rude to drink it as fast as I wanted. I glanced around, noting the cornices and architectural details that set this house apart and screamed wealth. Or rather, quietly drew your eye to the next lavish design or painting.
Her husband was still talking about his uncle’s bird dogs in South Carolina. I watched the diamonds flash on his watch. I then watched the diamonds dance on my bracelet and wondered how long it would be before I could take off these ridiculous shoes.
My husband didn’t have a college degree. My husband had to rent a tux for a yearly event. My husband loved hockey and beer and nachos.
My husband was eyeing the caviar with distaste but I knew he would have to try it before we left. My husband would fall asleep in the car after he made a remark about what a buffoon her husband was.
Her husband drove a Lexus and worked in a high rise.
My husband owned the land it sat on and only remembered when we had to attend the annual Christmas party.
November Writing Challenge Day 17
Grass cuttings
You know summer is on the way in the south when you smell wild onions.
Most people have Kentucky 31 fescue with a healthy heaping of weeds. People will build half million dollar homes and then slap two bags of grass seed on their plot and call it done. It was quite the joke at the Co-op. And some people cut their yard so short, grass has no choice but to die.
Growing season is March through October, fescue prefers the cooler seasons and will go dormant in the hottest part of the year. Or will get brown patch disease and look like hell. But heaven forbid you suggest Bermuda to anybody. That’s a weed. Gets in the flower beds and you can’t pull it out.
Sigh.
It’s hard out there for a seed salesman 😉
But anyway. I remember as a wee tot I’d gather up all the grass cuttings and go to town, covering up my tomcat, Sylvester, or making a nest for my Greyhound, Candy. Sometimes I’d go make a bed for the rabbits or feed it to the cows through the barbed wire fence. I really felt industrious. I was a primitive grass catcher.
I guess that’s about the best I can do with this topic. Why can’t they give me something I can relate to, like cornbread? Then I could share recipes and stuff.
November Writing Challenge Day 16
Just another day.
What’s “just” another day? Today? None are exactly the same…the all have a general theme of aggravation and reminding myself I’ve actually got it pretty good. But my day? My typical day starts between 5 and 5:38, depending on whether I get up at J’s alarm or mine. Today it was his.
First things first, a quick shuffle to the water closet. I mean, this is full disclosure, right? If I remember, I take my vitamin, my allergy pill, and my blood pressure pill.
I generally forget.
And although some people think I’m lying, I make the bed. Ask Shug. With all 300 throw pillows (that he says he despises but secretly loves).
If it’s chilly, I pull on socks and my robe and stumble my way to the coffeepot. If it’s summer, I just yawn and make my way to the couch.
I scroll a little Facebook, maybe glance through emails while I try to wake up. I check the weather to see what to wear and if we can go forward with staining jobs or what have you. I think about how good Chick-fil-a would be for breakfast…or a doughnut. But maybe I should concentrate on the present and grab a Snapple and some Nabs (tip of the hat to you, Southwest Virginia readers. To the rest of the world, that’s just peanut butter and crackers). If I’ve been to the grocery store, there may even be fruit, typically in the form of grapes, tangerines or bananas. Typically, I leave the bananas for Shug. They give me heartburn.
I’m coming awake now, and begin to wonder if I have time to pack my lunch. Rarely do I have time to fix a sandwich, but leftovers are something you can count on here, and I’ll grab a container of whatever I’ve made the previous night. Which I probably won’t eat if someone offers to go get Pollo Loco or Chubby’s.
Shug kisses me goodbye somewhere between six and five after. Now I gotta get with it. At least the bed’s made. I go get dressed in whatever I’ve decided on. Half the time it doesn’t look like I expected or the jeans I wanted to wear aren’t clean (meaning in the pile by the door of once- or twice-worn garments that aren’t dirty enough to be washed yet) or maybe I’m fatter than last time and that shirt is too snug to be comfortable. #life Brush my teeth before I put my sweatshirt on because I’m notorious for dripping toothpaste all over myself.
So now I’m all atwitter because my new outfit doesn’t incorporate the right shoes for the weather but that’s just how it’s gonna be. I frantically reach for jewelry because I’m running on borrowed time to get out the door. Hopefully there’s no frost because of course I don’t have the foresight to start Patsy and thaw. Deodorant, hair in a knot, makeup would be nice but let’s be reasonable-that’s why I use Rodan + Fields, did I take my vitamins? Keys in the sweetgrass basket, grab my phone, my purse, my lunchbag and away I dart into the bracing air of East Tennessee in November. With any luck, it’s only 6:20.
Start Patsy. Watch for dog turds as I pick my way across the driveway and open the gate. Why does Shug chain it when I leave 15 minutes after him? Zombies? Pull through. Patsy is cold natured and I beg her not to die. Shut gate, fingers numb from dealing with the lock so the meter man won’t come in and knock our dogs in the head.
And I’m off. The madness that is Chapman Highway as people like me that have left five minutes past the time they should struggle and weave around people who seem to be out for a Sunday drive at 6:30 in the morning on a Thursday. I don’t know if headlights are getting brighter or if my eyes are becoming more sensitive but I usually have to flip my rearview up if someone is behind me. And why are they so close, anyway? Believe me when I say I’m going as fast as we should or there’s a vehicle in front of me.
Hitting the divided highway is like a breath of fresh air as we can space out after the turn for those going across Pleasant Hill. A drive down the hill into Sevierville and the sun might be coming up and I might notice again how beautiful my hometown is. The mountains, low and weathered in the distance, pink and purple and orange all melting into one another. Fog lies on the river, still and calm before the birds get out for their breakfast. The Baptist and Methodist church spires pointed to the heavens along with the dome of Sevier County Bank and the courthouse, and yes, there’s the Co-op sniper tower, too. I look to see if Mr. McMahan is at the gas pumps in his teal dump truck.
I didn’t take this picture, and I don’t know who did, but this is what I’m talking about.
Sometimes people wave at me at the light, but I rarely recognize anybody because it’s still dark and I don’t know what anybody drives. I drive the same thing I always have, so I’m easy to spot. I try to not break the speed limit going up Dolly Parton by more than 10 mph but it’s so hard! Finally, with less than 5 minutes to spare, I pull into the gravel drive that leads to SF.
I don’t usually have to open the gates, because the welder or one of the estimators has beat me there. If I do, I pray that no one is watching me struggle with my lunchbag, pocketbook, and keys while unlocking and sliding that barrier gate. If it’s frosty, there’s no hope, the lock will be frozen and I’ll have to go in and get a lighter.
I unlock, punch the code on the alarm, turn on the heat, open the blinds, and wait for shit to hit the fan. Sometimes it greets me. Like when one of our best installers got arrested. I check the phones for voicemails of employees calling in, customers cancelling jobs at the last minute, you know, little nightmares like that. When Brian arrives, I greet him with “Good morning, asshole,” although I don’t have to anymore, since I got him a coffee cup that states it. When Jackie gets there, I hold my breath and wait to see what sort of news he has. He always has news. Sometimes good, sometimes not even remotely good.
The guys drag in. They get to work right away loading their trucks, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths. They don’t stay long, ready to get their day started. They spare a moment to talk with their project managers about their jobs, double check their straps, and leave in a puff of diesel and crunching gravel.
The sun is up on another day at SF.
Then the calls begin. Hopefully Christy is there with me to help field them. No doubt somebody forgot something that they realize when they get to their job in Wears Valley or Dandridge. Hopefully not Thorn Hill. Arrangements are made to take it to them. Someone has missing or damaged material. Someone has a truck broke down (or on fire, as it happened one bright day), a jobsite that isn’t remotely ready, a problem with a dog/ bear/ goat/ snake/ horse/ pig/ homeowner/ electric-gas or water line. Always something.
Thankfully Brian is always prepared for any emergency. He even hauls around a kitchen sink, as we discovered today. Photo evidence:
There’s an issue with the dumpster delivery/ pick up-customer isn’t ready for pick up, customer isn’t there to pay, gate is locked, too muddy or steep, overloaded…the possibilities are endless with things that go wrong in the trucking business.
I typically get unburied around ten o’clock, long enough to tinkle and maybe eat a snack. I send off for quotes, I order material, I reply to emails, I call for DIG numbers, and I get deposits. I confer with Taj on every scheduling possibility, I bill delinquent accounts, I enter credit card charges. It’s finally lunchtime and I’m starved. Christy and I catch each other up on whatever we haven’t already talked about. Everybody at the shop gathers in the office to eat together and it feels like home for awhile and I take a moment to be thankful again that I’m at this job. We have walk-ins, but not like the previous stream I was accustomed to at my former employment. And I get to sit down all. Day. Long.
If it’s my week to go home at three, the afternoon passes in a mad rush. I call installers to make sure we’re on track with the jobs (the Two O’clock Dead-in-a-Ditch check in, as it is known), call customers to let them know if they’re on the board for the next day, and then Brian will blow in with five estimates he needs emailed with details and pictures. If I stay till five, it’s slightly less insane. I scribble notes at every turn. If I don’t write it down, there’s no hope of me having any recollection of it happening. I try to leave with my work done and a clean desk. Most Mondays this is impossible, but by mid-week, things have hopefully settled down.
The trip home is rarely as harrowing as the one in. If I don’t have to stop for gas, ice cream, drop off garbage, Co-op, or my favorite boutique for necessities (necessities, I tell you!), I’m home by ten till six. That’s going the back way or the straight shot, although I much prefer the circuitous route.
You can plainly see why. But there’s a stretch out by the lake that makes me thankful for my home but also nostalgic for old Sevier County. The Sevier County of more dirt than gravel driveways, wood stoves, working on your own truck, and a good time around a six pack. There’s not a cabin rental in sight, but there might be a dog or turkey in the road.
I go downstairs to kiss my husband hello, but Bug always intercepts me. Sugar lays in her kennel, wagging her tail and gazing at me mournfully. I sit down to catch up on Facebook (clearly I have an addiction) then I’ll get started on supper as Shug finishes up his workout downstairs. I get dinner on the table (the table!!!)
And we eat to the sounds of whatever is on the TV. I used to play the radio a lot but got out of the habit sometime back. I need to reincorporate that into my routine.
I wash dishes. By hand. Every. Single. Day. Yes, I do. I don’t dry them or put them away till the next day (sometimes in the morning but usually when I’m cooking supper), then I run through the shower and then I’m finally settled enough to work on my blog (hi there!), read, or scroll Instagram. I like Instagram, but I kinda need to give it up. I don’t have time for everything like I’d like to. I want to read at least a book a week and it’s a lot of pressure to get everything done. We’re in bed by 9:30, while I lie there and wonder what all I forgot to do, or if I said something I shouldn’t have, and what tomorrow will bring.
Friday, if I’m off, or Saturday if I’m not, is the day for cleaning. Maybe the store if I haven’t gone one day after work. Laundry, starting with bed linens, then J’s work pants, then work clothes, then whites,ending with delicate-cycle-hang-me-to-dry-and-all-the-other-ways-I-can-suck-all-your-time-away clothes. I sweep, mop, vacuum, dust, wipe down the bathrooms. I might clean a window or two, or ceiling fans, and twice a year I have to treat the leather furniture. That was today (yes, it took me two days to write this. I was exhausted yesterday). I’m just thankful our home is small. I don’t know how people do it with these huge McMansions. I suppose they have help.
People sometimes ask me if I’m particular. I find this hilarious, much like I do when people ask if I’m an only child. I think it’s blatantly obvious. I put certain colored pillowcases on certain pillows (why would you put a cream colored sham on a pillow that has a sage stripe, unless you don’t have sage pillowcases? Don’t strain yourself, there is no good reason why one should do this. J has just resigned himself to it). My left shoe always goes on first. In the days of actual shoe salesman, this could be a tad embarrassing but I couldn’t change my habit no more than I could change the size of my foot. Gloves, too, but I only noticed that recently. Ice goes in a glass before the liquid. I think most people do this, but I’m incapable of putting it in there after. I have to make a new glass. This is sometimes problematic at parties. Paper towels should be white. I bought some Minions by mistake awhile back and I cannot use them fast enough. Socks should match. Exactly. Like, even if they’re white, that’s not good enough. I look for equal wear. And if they’re different brands it goes without saying they should definitely be paired together.
I know all this is very bizarre for someone who has illegible handwriting and crazy hair, but it’s true. I exercise control where I can.
So sometimes my little quirks make for a longer day before I can reach for my laptop to bang out a story for you or pick up my latest read. But these are my days. Not exiting, but generally peaceful and cozy. “Be content with what you have” Hebrews 13:5-6 But I have a lot. And I know it.
November Writing Challenge, Day 15
Just Walk Away
I don’t know about you fellers, but I say this to myself a LOT. Sometimes it’s driving away. But seems like there’s always somebody trying to ruin my peaceful aura. Ok, that might be a bit of a stretch, but I do like to maintain a distance between myself and other individuals, whether it be in line at the grocery store or in traffic. It’s like, if I’m trying my hardest to give another person their space, the person behind me is determined to be taking up the slack between me and them. If I’m maintaining a safe following distance (two Mississippi’s) then someone else sees that as an opportunity to zip in. Jerks. So I have to breathe out Satan and walk/ drive away.
Or hit them with my elbow and/ or purse, as I did in Kmart last week. And Panda Express two years ago. Can’t. Stand. It. If I flip my hair in your face and you don’t back up, prepare to become bruised. And as far as the driving goes, you’re very likely to be treated to a single finger salute and a trumpet from Patsy. I’ve heard that normal people use their horn only twice a year. I’m surprised I don’t have to replace mine with every oil change. Hey hey hey! Y’all drive Chapman Highway twice a day and see how much decorum you can hold yourself to.
So I just realized I’m not talking about being passive aggressive and walking away at all. I’m talking about the exact opposite.
…….
So. Um. Not sure I have any real life examples of that.
I’ve hung up the phone and exhaled and then vented a whole bunch of times…I’ve quit jobs…but I don’t know that I’ve ever went peacefully, serene and angelic and with a Christian-like comportment. Maybe I should exercise more than my writing on this particular topic.
November Writing Challenge Day 15
Just walk away.
You ever had one of those conversations that you knew was heading south (and why do we use south as an adjective for degrading??) and there was no way to redeem it, you were too far gone so you just had to walk away?
I had a friend for over twenty years and I would get in these train wreck derailing conversations with her weekly. You couldn’t fight her. It got worse after we had said conversations over alcohol. I can’t tell you how many restaurants and bars I had to just walk out of. I’m surprised we remained friends as long as we did.
But sometimes walking away is the only responsible thing to do, the only way to preserve your dignity.
In retail, it was hard to employ this rule, so often I could be found behind the counter, slit-eyed and gritting my teeth. It was the closest to walking away that I was allowed. It’s surprising how many people are oblivious to pure hate.
I love this meme.
You can always walk away.
