Like most people (maybe I’m presuming a bit here), my Facebook feed is filled with memes & links & billboards. Lots of bad news, politics, & sometimes a history lesson. Occasionally it’s interspersed with an antidote or joke. I scroll through lots of hysterical cat videos. There are recipes & makeup reviews. Here & there people check in at restaurants or cool places. Families smiling & laughing & barbecuing. There are plenty of prayer requests & praise reports & pictures of babies. I see tributes to our armed forces. Shared pictures of beautiful landscapes. I read about Vols statistics & what Peyton’s up to. Not just in the fall, but year round.
But here my news feed may begin to differ. Mine also consists of eggs for sale by young 4-H’ers. Trophy bucks & ducks. Sausage, freshly ground & ready for your freezer, from hogs I just saw on the hoof a mere week or two ago. I see cows & four-wheel drives & tractors. It’s also sprinkled with book recommendations.
I see children & crops grow.
And Lord at the horses. Thousands of horses.
And Sunday night, I saw my good friend TammyLynn holding a great big crappie.
TammyLynn is my newest good friend. Like all the best people, she has two first names. I met her, like I have the majority of y’all, at the Co-op. She bought bookoos of birdseed twice a week, and as it happens, about the sixth time I waited on her, we struck up conversation. I learned straightway that she can close her epiglottis & not be able to smell much of anything.
Now, how many of you can do that?
Also learned neither of us care for surprises in food. With me, I have an aversion to nuts. Y’all surely remember the banana bread incident? Well, raisins are why TammyLynn has trust issues. She said when you bake ’em, they swell up like a tick & then you bite into ’em, & there you are, all that mess squirting out like blood, guts, & gore like when you pop a tick getting it off your dog.
Y’all will be thinking about that next time you eat raisins, I bet. She ruined them for me, too.
C-uuuun-TREE, I tell you. (That word is country, by the way). And hilarious, to boot. We share the same type of hair (curly, & not a thing you can do about it), the same height (it’s rare for me to be able to look someone eye-to-eye), & the same general outlook on life. She’s a nut, ain’t a bit bashful, & has a steadfast belief of God, Jesus, & the afterlife.
My faith in her was further reinforced when she was telling me she had jury duty Monday & said she would love to be a professional juror. She said she doesn’t mind doing it, she didn’t go fight a war overseas, it’s the LEAST she can do. It’s our civic duty. It was like she was taking the words right out of my mouth.
The only fault I can find in her is she likes Alison Kraus, who makes me grind my teeth & my eye go to twitchin’.
Anyway, this picture of her holding the crappie just spoke to me, as things are wont to do. We need more fish in our news feed!! So I simply text her: “May I write about you? The crappie is striking a chord in me.” I sometimes just leave it open & ask if I can write about you. I have also been known not to ask at all but it’s not out of meanness, I get caught up in your story & just forget. Anyway, TL said she would be honored, which is one of two standard replies. The other one is “oh, Lord.” Hahahaha. She’s very brave, you see.
So, even though I’ve written about my favorite biscuit instructor before, how she nearly died on the lake shore, going for broke against The Gooch/ Bull Shark, I had to share the best picture in my news feed with y’all.
And no, she ain’t mad, I think the sun was in her eyes. Or maybe she was thinking she needed a dozen more just like him to freeze. Or MAYBE the thought just crossed her mind about the last mess she’d cleaned & left the guts for her neighbor to use for organic fertilizer. Who, come to think of it, hasn’t returned her bucket & wonder if he’s okay….
(This story to be continued, because goll-lee day it’s funny. It involves a bag of lime & a motorcycle helmet)
Thoughts I have while walking on treadmill:
I should have four miles in about an hour. I can do this.
Lalalalala…
Should have brought my radio.
This would be a perfect opportunity for listening to an audio book.
Wonder if I could read a REAL book without falling off?
Nah.
*Close my eyes & try to envision how it would go*
Immediately trip.
Regain balance.
Wow, the ceiling is really low down here.
Wonder what those nails are from?
Good thing I’m not tall, I’d be claustrophobic. Guess God knows what he’s doing.
These dogs stink.
I can’t believe Johnny used to let dogs live in his house. Look at all the dust they generate! Why does he like it down here so much? It’s so drab.
Probably because I talk so much.
And he can watch what he wants to on TV. (Platoon infinity)
How do I turn that TV on, anyway? {It’s a big screen that’s probably as old as I am}
Can I Facebook while walking?
*Try it*
*Become slightly nauseated*
Nope.
Sigh.
How far have I walked? Not even a thousand steps?!? Bull crap!
Maybe I could do Instagram. Less reading.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Hmm. I’m getting kinda hungry. All I’ve had is coffee.
I should take a break. How long have I been down here? Probably 30 minutes.
Try ten. Good grief.
I couldn’t do this in a gym.
At least I can look out at the snow.
…..
Maybe I could do this in an airport where I could people watch.
Now there’s an idea! Have a few treadmills at every gate for layovers.
Except I don’t fly enough to get exercise.
If I COULD fly, I wouldn’t need a treadmill.
I wonder what fish do for exercise? Like, catfish. Trout are sleek.
Birds aren’t fat. Except chickens. Chickens are fat.
….
OK, I’ll walk until the clothes finish in the washing machine.
Our dogs are FAT.
I’M FAT, that’s why I’m on this thing.
It’s hot down here.
I could be reading.
I could be watching Friends.
I could be eating eggs & avocados.
OK, just 4,000 more steps.
If I were a queen, I could have my jesters come through & entertain me.
Pssh. If I were a queen, I wouldn’t do squat.
I gotta tinkle.
I’ll quit long enough to make breakfast. Then I’ll come right back down here.
You ever been driving along, into the sunset perhaps, & thinking how glorious it is? And you wonder if other drivers around you have even noticed the gorgeousness? Or when the sun has those slanting rays through the clouds & it’s like a spotlight to a distant point ahead? Or when the air is so clear you can see the frost on the mountain, & the mountains behind it are a crisp, visible line & you’re sure, just positive, if you had binoculars you could find a deer picking its way along a ridge?
Today this hawk flew up out of a holler & right across the highway in front of me & a couple of other vehicles. And I wondered if I was the only one who noticed. Or if they just saw a bird, with no idea it was a hawk. I don’t know, I see deer & turkeys all the time on my commute, I would call it commonplace, but no one else seems to pay any attention. I don’t know what I expect them to do, though. Wave their arm out the window & point?
This was the beginning of my adventure with the Reader’s Advisory for The Sevier County Pulic Library System. I was beside myself with happiness. I don’t know how me and my ego fit through most doors.
https://sevierlibrary.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/guest-resident-bloggers-1st-book-of-2016/
I’m told the Powerball is 800 million. Johnny asked if I picked up some tickets. I gave him one of my blank stares. “Let me tell you how that would go: ‘I need to play the lottery, please,” I would inform the Pakistani gas station clerk. And he would ask me something that I don’t understand, so I would point to those scratch offs in desperation & he would rip off some & I would have to buy those too.”
“They’re five dollars a line.”
“And I don’t know what that means, either.”
“You can pick your own numbers or the machine can pick them.”
“Pretty sure I don’t trust computers. So then I’d be having to come up with numbers other than seven, & that could be problematic.”
“Don’t worry babe, me & the guys from work went in on some. We’ve got 15 plays.”
“But then we’ll have to split it with all theeeeemmm….” I whined.
“You might as well say 500 million, split five ways, 100 million for us…you think you’d even notice?”
“I’m gonna be like Monica on F.R.I.E.N.D.S. & hide some extra.”
So I’ve been planning what I’m gonna do with our $100 million. I keep dreaming of Ireland & then forgetting to come home.
I would eat A LOT & have the excess liposuctioned out every so often so I could remain a size 8. I would have an hour & a half massage every day. I would pay someone to read books to me so I won’t hurt my eyes. And I would most definitely never answer my phone ever again.
I read an interesting post yesterday about not comparing your life to anyone else’s because Facebook is their highlight reel. I agree strongly with that statement.
However, let me tell y’all somethin’. You know as well as I do that I’ll tell just about anything. That’s how it is when you’re an aspiring writer. Not much is off limits. So here’s how today went:
Slept way too late for my own good. Still up because of it. Also because I chopped a red onion about an hour ago & my nose hasn’t stopped running & my eyes are still watering & no way can I go to sleep with all that goin’ on.
Started laundry. Ended up making three trips up & down stairs that my Fitbit didn’t recognize. I don’t know why it does that. To mock me? Grrrr.
Ate enormous bowl of Cocoa Puffs because I was too lazy to fix actual breakfast.
Watched a segment of Titanic. I started it Saturday. I’m not very far. I think the last thing I watched was where Rose is partying with the Irish down in steerage.
Got my book finished so I could have it back by the due date because my friend Brenda is waiting on it so she can read it & come to book club because I’ve been hounding her about it for months. It’s the only way to shut me up, you see.
Meant to take a picture of said book with my little note taking journal that I keep quotes in from books that aren’t mine because I can’t underline & scribble in borrowed books. The journal book complimented the cover of the library book swimmingly. Very pleasing to the eye, & I wanted to post it on Instagram but that’s not gonna happen because I forgot & turned it back in.
Was going to start taking down the Christmas tree but ended manically scribbling notes in journal mentioned above. Only got to page 130 before it was time to start getting ready for my board meeting. I had not showered or got out of my pajamas all day. Shut up. I’m being honest.
Hurriedly ate spinach dip so I wouldn’t starve at the meeting & over indulge on provided meal prior to meeting. Brush teeth, hoping to eliminate any stray spinach. That is the grossest thing to see.
Kept rubbing my eye. Something was irritating it but couldn’t see anything.
Attempt to fix hair in barrettes. Hair is wet, too heavy to cooperate. Eye continues to bug me.
Attempt to apply makeup. Eye has become all I can think about.
Stretch eyelids every which way. Finally see culprit– small eyelash lodged in far corner. I am blind (literally) without my glasses so you can imagine how that went. Honest to Pete, I was so desperate, I had my tweezers out, then remembered my neighbor had been shooting awhile ago & I thought if he shoots now, I will lose my eye. And you all know my luck.
If there is anything that brings more relief than getting a foreign object out of one’s eye, I don’t know what it is. Maybe getting a q-tip out of your ear (remember that? Lord.)
Remembered en route to Sevierville that I hadn’t paid my credit card statement that was due today. Scrabble around one handedly, blindly, staying in my lane whilst doing 60 to dig credit card out. Peer at typed numbers on back that seem to be shrinking every time I have to look at them. Mis-type them six times in phone before getting through to the right automated system. (Did you know if you type the # it won’t dial at all? You’re welcome)
Check messages in middle of meeting & realize with a surge of panic I have given everyone the WRONG DAY for a surprise party (this is no one y’all know, trust me). Frantically send texts to the people I have numbers for. They thought it was tomorrow, thanks to me, when it’s actually NEXT Wednesday. Guess that’s better than the other way around. None have responded. Of course.
Sat through an EXCEEDINGLY DRY video about budgeting after the meeting to get some sort of certificate trustees need to get by June 30th. I try to stay after the meeting every month to watch so #1) I have company for my misery, & #2) it’s the only time I will remember to do it. And #3) I don’t remember my log in, password, website, etcetera, etcetera to do it myself.
Learned about proton therapy as a bonus. If any of you–HEAVEN FORBID–get cancer you should really look into it.
Called Shug on way home. He didn’t answer. Got brightlighted all the way home by some moron who thought he was far enough back not to bother me. Or maybe he was just being a jackass, I’ll never know. He never dimmed them for oncoming traffic, either. Remembered we were out of bread & sour cream, so swung into Food City. Couldn’t park where I wanted because a dimwit was coming out the in (you know what I mean).
Got red onion to make bean dip. Saw Little Debbie Valentine Heart cakes (my favorite) so picked up a box of them. Grab bread. Tell myself not to forget the sour cream. Contemplating ham when Shug chooses to call me back. Squash bread as I cradle the phone to my ear. He tells me we’re out of coffee. Can’t have that. Detour to coffee while Johnny lists the ones he likes best (pretty much all of them). Pick up coffee, squashing bread further as he launches into a story about his cousin.
I am now out of hands & still needing to get sour cream. Cut Shug off as soon as I can. Pick up sour cream. One register with human scanning, three serve yourself. Surely I can find a number for an onion. Go to scan ham first.
Barcode greasy & worn partially away. Procrastinate & scan other items first, including onion. Throw look to associate, who turns head. Search for option to plug in barcode manually. No luck. Press no barcode button. Wait. Girl comes over & snatches up ham. Watch as she & other associate try to type it in. Nope. Realize she is deaf. She starts to sprint off but turns to ask me where it is. I tell her the best way I know how, hoping she can read the lips of a redneck. I make motion of swinging doors. She lights up & takes off.
People are lining up behind me now as another cashier closes two of the self serves. I try to make myself look contrite. Deaf girl reappears & has memorized the number to ham & plugs it in at the motherboard. Other chick continues to ignore me.
I pay & drive home without further incident.
It is eight o’clock & Johnny has not fixed himself supper. I drag out spinach dip (why I was out of sour cream), & ingredients for corn dip. I instruct him on where the leftover barbeque & buns can be located.
Get everything chopped, diced, & mixed, & settle down to Google some quotes from the book that I didn’t get to. It takes me to Goodreads. There are 600. About 3/4 of the way in, I hit like on one that I thought was obscure & cool that someone else appreciated it. Guess what happened? You got it, took me back out. Had to start over. Still didn’t get all of them I wanted.
And this, ladies & gentlemen, was my highlight reel. I’m off to bed now. Thanks for reading.
Do you feel robbed?
Home is a relative term. If you’re in your hometown and someone asks where you live, you will perhaps give them specific directions. Say I see you at Food City in Seymour, I would tell you I live behind the high school. If I’m in Knoxville, home is Seymour. If I’m in Atlanta, home is Knoxville. If I’m in Asheville, or Savannah, or Charleston, I might care to explain I’m from a small town near Dollywood. People from away are always fascinated that I’m from the same county as Dolly Parton. If I’m on the West Coast, home is simply “Tennessee”.
If I were to travel to Ireland, “home” would be the United States. I’m arrogant, but not so much that I would expect them to point out the South on a map of the world. And if aliens abduct me, planet Earth would be close enough for me.
So if you move away from where you’re born, but leave behind your family to cleave to your beloved, of perhaps to just a new life, then you hopefully have two homes. Hence the phrase, “Going home for Christmas,” the same as going home after a long day at the office. Home is where the heart is. For years, home was where my horse was, because my heart was my horse. I’ve been home with Johnny before and he has lost me and texted or called, asking where I am. I’ll answer “the bottom garden” or “the laundry room” or “the mailbox”. To pinpoint where exactly in our small corner of the world.
Whenever home is to you, I hope this Sunday finds you well and rested. We are home, with our books, football on TV & biscuits on the stove. My heart is snoring on the couch.
Reading All the Light We Cannot See has got me feeling melancholy.
So there’s this family I know, & they’re not normal.
Allow me to explain.
I’m scrolling through all the pictures of smiling faces & homemade cookies & well wishes on Christmas Day. Being as that I have no children to clean up after, I had a fairly relaxing day & could spend it mindlessly trolling the internet, looking at y’alls madness & mayhem.
I got to a picture of a home I know, a home I’ve visited, a home that belongs to a family I love.
In the picture was a modest tree, decorated with traditional colored lights & homemade ornaments, nothing flashy or showy about it. The tree sat on warm hardwood floors, polished to a shine. Nearby, perched on a low table, was a glass of milk & a plate of cookies. Other pictures revealed stockings hung on the chimney (with care, I imagine). The pictures themselves weren’t perfect, either, kinda blurry. Nothing was staged. But it was perfect in my eyes.
I looked closer. And I saw something there. Or rather, a lack of something.
Underneath the tree were just a few presents. Maybe six. Maybe there were a few more that didn’t make it in the frame. I was puzzled. Houses with children are usually overrun with presents. Even here, Johnny & I are terrible & have all of ours under the big tree in the living room & the rest belonging to other people are scattered under the other trees. Piles of gifts. But not there. Not in that house with two little boys.
I watched for Christmas morning pictures. There were several shots of them in their new matching pajamas on Christmas Eve, holding their bags of popcorn. They looked happy & excited, as expected. There were pictures of the family lounging, the boys posing with their nerf guns, & of the oldest son playing the guitar. There was talk of dinner being prepared.
Today, me being me, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I messaged my friend of almost twenty years.
“I’ve been meaning to commend you on Christmas. Looks like you didn’t go overboard on presents & everything looked so nice in the pictures.”
Her response was immediate: “Thanks. They each get three presents, because that’s how many Jesus received from the wise men. We want them to remember the real reason we celebrate & learn it’s not about the presents.” She went on to explain that her older child only got one big present, a guitar, & the other two were hand-me-downs for free.
Make no mistake, this is not a family that can’t afford to get what their children want. This is a family that refuses to have ungrateful boys. Not to say they’re rolling in it, but that they know what’s important.
Jena was raised by parents that taught her the value of hard work. It’s one of the things I always admired in her. We met in college, & it wasn’t long before we were hanging out together a few times a week. I met her family pretty quickly, as her house was more spacious than mine. And so inviting. Her mom is truly the hostess with the mostest. Her food was always delectable, the bedding so soft & warm, the conversation never stilted. They were generous with everything they had. As I got to know them better, I came to learn that they hadn’t always been the house of plenty. For many years after they married, it was lean. So Brenda penny pinched & made clothes & took in ironing & was just thrifty overall. They were living in a rented apartment in Florida while Al worked as a technical architect, gaining respect & experience over many long nights stretched across his drawing table. Brenda learned to cook from an Italian woman who lived downstairs & that gave her some sage advice: “you can never add too much cheese”. They were so poor, Al once told me, that if at the end of the month, there was any money left at all after bills, if they could buy a coke & some popcorn to split, that was their party.
As the years went by, they were blessed with two children. They were doing better. Jena was able to take riding lessons. Al began to work from home, visiting the office infrequently. They moved to North Carolina & built their own barn & paddocks & riding arena. After a few years, they felt the pull to move to the hills of Tennessee & they bought a log home in Gatlinburg. Al would mail or FedEx his plans to his office in Florida for skyscrapers to be built all over the world. He worked late into the night & rose early in the day to pad downstairs to his office, measuring precise dimensions for all sorts of structures. Once every few months, they’d load up the “bus” {a gargantuan RV} & take off for a few weeks to the plains, or Florida, or wherever Brenda pointed them. They took their golden labradors, Sadie & Sammie, along.
Brenda & Al didn’t have a fancy wedding when they got married, so for their 25th anniversary Brenda sewed herself a beautiful sparkly gown & ordered a cake & had the wedding she’d dreamed of all those years before.
Jena never acted better than anybody, & she didn’t necessarily have the best of everything. But she did have a daddy that wanted her to have the stars as long as she would help reach for them. Now he’s one of those stars & we all wish we could stretch on our tiptoes & pluck him from the sky every now & then. But I know he would be thrilled with the way she’s raising her boys, & proud of her family on their little farm in Jefferson county. The Jeffcoats are love defined.
I hear a lot of people dreading Christmas, hating Christmas, saying the gift giving isn’t what it’s about. And while that’s true, I hope these people realize that getting back to the true meaning of Christmas starts within yourself. I hope that they pick a child off the Angel Tree, or volunteer with a Food Pantry, or some other selfless act. It WILL change your heart.
Last week at work, this couple came up to the counter, inquiring about a discount if they bought several pairs of boots. They said six pairs.
So we offered them the same discount we had on Black Friday, including 50% off our closeouts, which are already marked down.
They bought fourteen pairs.
They were at the counter for awhile, as you can imagine, as we were checking sizes & whatnot. They explained what they were doing. They were from North Carolina & it all started four years ago. A few members in their church are teachers & brought up the subject of a few of the underprivledged children in the community. These teachers had an inkling that some students weren’t getting anything to eat over the weekend. They thought the only food these children received was at school. So it came about that the church was making up sack lunches for these kids to take home over the weekend. It wasn’t much, like a can of soup or a sandwich, some chips, an apple, & a few bottles of water, but it would be enough to sustain them.
They packed six lunches a week that first year.
Four years later, they are packing 135 every week.
So that’s who the boots were for. And they came back the next day & bought four more pairs.
The need is growing as the drug problem grows. The parents get a food stamps card to help with groceries, but most of them turn around & sell it to someone for half the amount to have cash for drugs.
This happens HERE, people. The need is HERE. You don’t have to go to Kentucky, or Mexico, or Africa to make a difference. Go to your local church, or school, library, or food bank. Any of these places can provide you with a list of the needy, I have no doubt.
I could tell you the story of a little boy who didn’t have any underwear or socks to wear to school, & when presented with them, he was so excited, he went to put them on right that minute. I could tell you about the kids who know their parents will take their clothes back to the store to get money, so they request the tags to be cut off so that can’t happen. I could tell you about a boy that ate six bananas at the library because he never got fruit at his house. I could tell you about another little boy who was so scared for his family starving that he was sneaking food out of the piles & putting it in his pants.
While I’ve been writing this, I’ve had one customer tell me he hated Christmas. I told him what I wrote at the beginning, to go volunteer somewhere. He says he lives in the woods by his lonesome. I asked him what that had to do with it, he was down here at least twice a week, he could help out somewhere & change someone’s life. He said his wife was working at the VA hospital. I told him to go there & volunteer, or meet her for lunch. Another customer was telling me I better get to church & learn the real reason for the season (I have NO IDEA what provoked this, I think he was just feeling righteous) & I told him you didn’t have to go to church for it, He lives in our hearts. So then he quotes scripture at me, so I got to quote back the verse “Where two or more are gathered, I am there among them.”
Guess what?
No, I didn’t hit the lottery. Y’all goobers really think I’d post it like this? No. You’d see a picture of me with my toes in the sand & a drink my hand.
Guess what?
Guess who your newest blogger for Sevier County Public Library System is? ME!!!! *picture me holding my arms out, head tilted towards the sun that is shining directly on me, much like a spotlight, eyes squinched shut, spinning*
Miss Rhonda pitched a reading challenge at me last week & it was 40 books. Combined with our one a month for book club, that makes 52, which is perfect because my goal is one a week. So she said since I basically write a review on Goodreads anyway, would I care if they shared it on the library’s media sites?
Well, heck no!!!
So, that’s the gist of it. The way I understood it, anyway. Follow me! Follow me! I’ll be harping along as usual.
P.s. Coming home tonight, I stopped for supper to bring home. Most women my age have children, & when traveling, if they have to slam on the brakes, they instinctively reach an arm across their kid’s chest. You know, like a backup seatbelt. Me, I sling an arm across my bag of food to prevent it from hitting the floor. Priorities.
