Day 25: Four Weird Traits You Have
I’m struggling. I feel pretty normal, but that’s what you get when you work in retail. By comparison, I am definitely mild.
1.) Tuletta says I’m weird because I don’t like nuts & that my truck has a name. She says only abnormal people name their trucks. But the guy standing here waiting on the straw blower said everyone he knows is abnormal, then. I asked him what his truck’s name is & it was Wilma. I thought that was great. I asked why Wilma? He says because every mornin’ he goes out & says, “Will my {mah} truck start? Will my truck run? Will my truck stay runnin’ all day?” I polled, & John is in agreement that it is weird I named my truck.
2.) Robin says it’s strange that I’m so straightforward. It is abnormal in the South to tell it like it is, & I always have. Also that I tell the truth. You don’t get a lot of that these days. No worries with me. You get what you ask for-an honest opinion. Sometimes you don’t even have to ask for it.
3.) Tuletta thought of another one—that I underline in books. I underline a LOT. That IS weird. Most people don’t write in books. I make a point to use a pencil. Except in my Bible, I exclusively use a pen there.
4.) Lisa said my pinky finger. It IS definitely bizarre. I’m double jointed in my hands & my pinky pops when I move it…I can’t explain it. Next time you see me ask for a demo.
Day 24: Something You Miss
Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most. 😉
This specifies “something”, so it can’t be a person. But it could be a person’s LOVE….Hmmm…
I miss the unconditional love of my dog. But I love having the unparalleled joy of the Bug now.
I miss the innocence of childhood, not having a job other than picking up sticks out of the yard & keeping my room cleaned up. But I am thankful to be grown & appreciate the value of hard work & know how much it takes to spend ten dollars on something frivolous.
I miss the days when we weren’t eat up with Yankees & Dotheads. There is no but.
I miss when I didn’t have to worry about spots on my skin being cancerous. But I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to have “age spots” & been fortunate enough to be out in the sun long enough to get freckles.
I miss reading all day, but I’m thankful I have Shug to occupy my time these days.
I miss people telling the truth, & not skirting the issue. But there have always been snakes. I guess I’m glad I’m not naïve anymore.
I bought this apothecary jar a few days ago to replace the one I broke a month ago to use for this exact purpose: a home for our seashells from the seashore. It had to be super huge because we found some really nice intact shells this go-round. It’s about 12″ across. I have lots of these jars/ vases in smaller sizes around the house. Anyway, so Shug sees it sitting on the table the other night, empty.
“You know what would look good in that glass jar thing?”
“Ummm, sand & shells?”
“No. A whoooooole bunch of peanut M&M’s.”
And that, ladies & gentlemen, defines why straight men aren’t interior designers.
Day 22: Your Morning Routine
Weekdays obviously vary from weekends.
Weekdays I get up between 5:30-6. Pour a cup of coffee & settle down to read emails, texts from night before, notifications on Facebook. Glance at clock & wonder how it got to be 6:15. Kiss Shug goodbye. Think about getting dressed but decide a game of candy crush never hurt anybody.
The next time I look up it’s twenty till seven. Hmm. Better not scroll Instagram.
Pick out jewelry first, because that’s the best part, and determines what kind of attitude I will have that day (Sassy, always, but there are variations). Underthings, socks (also dependent on outfit), pants, top, shoes set by the door to go on very last thing because I hate shoes.
Do I have time for breakfast? Yes. Soggy cocopuffs or AppleJacks usually. And a banana. If I take my lunch, this is when I’m grabbing the leftovers in the pyrex dish or the hot pockets & grapes. If I’m smart, I will take my shirt back off to brush teeth. If not, brush teeth & cuss for getting toothpaste down front of shirt. Dab at it & decide whether to roll with it (usually), add scarf, or change. Still need to make the bed. I fleetingly wonder why I bother, then remember that in the event of a home invasion & I’m shot & killed (not likely, as I am armed & most definitely dangerous), press & police will be examining every aspect of my life & they will see that I’m tidy, if not speckless, & a creature of habit. I make the bed, complete with accent throw pillows.
It is now two minutes till seven & I still need to do something with my hair & put on makeup.
Or a hat & hope for the best. (That was twice last week). Or maybe a funky sparkly headband to distract from my unwieldy curls.
Ugh. Definitely need to do foundation & not just eye makeup. Oh well, I’ll just drive faster.
And of course I haven’t started Patsy to get the frost melted off the windshield, so that pushes me into the red danger zone of being late for work.
And then some mornings there is Chick-fil-a & I arrive with plenty of time to spare. So it’s breakfast that makes me late. Or procrastination, whichever.
Weekends we’re typically up by seven, & we watch some movie while we play on our phones. Sometimes I read instead. And then it goes like this by eight o’clock:
Me to Shug: “You gettin’ hungry?”
“Yeah…I could eat a little something.”
“Whatchu want?”
“It don’t matter, baby.”
“Well….do you want homemade biscuits & sausage gravy? Or eggs, bacon, & rice…or omelets & fried taters? Or cereal and a banana?” I don’t offer pancakes unless I’m feeling very generous. I don’t like pancakes early in the morning. They turn my stomach with their sugary flavor.
“What do you feel like?” He always answers.
And I try to determine what he wants, unless I do have a preference.
And then I get to fixing it, we eat, I wash dishes. If I haven’t yet made the bed, I do so then. And then it’s time for a nap. Or to post a rambling status on Facebook.
Day 20: Put your music player on shuffle & write the first three songs that play & what your initial thought is
First one was “Kiss” by Prince, which I love. Reminds me of Pretty Woman, just like it does everybody else. She’s in the bathtub, with bubbles up to her ears, which are covered by headphones. She resembles a mermaid with all that wild red hair, & is singing her off-key heart out.
#2 was “Me & God” by Josh Turner. I listened a moment, but it’s not my favorite, so I went on & got “Some Sweet Day” by Ray Ball, so I suppose I cheated, but hey, this is my story, amiright?
#3 was “Loved By You” by Jewel, whom I consider a genius. I love just about everything she’s ever sung or written. She published a book of poetry several years ago & I have it. She recently came out with another one, which I have not yet acquired. She’s great. If y’all have never really listened to anything by her, give her a try.
It’s been a fine music morning so far. I had it on 94.9’s Throwback on my way in & heard several good ones (Push It, Jessie’s Girl, Moulan Rouge, & When I Come Around).
Yesterday is a different story. Perhaps y’all were wondering what the picture of the goat trail had to do with music. Well, I didn’t listen to much music yesterday. I listened to Barbara Hayes give me a tour of her corner of Grainger County.
Barb is a friend of mine from when she worked at Co-op in the small engine shop. We’ve been meaning to get together for lunch since she retired a couple of years ago, but Barb stays on the move! A week ago, we managed to pin each other down for yesterday. After a tour of her home, we decided to head to Wasabi’s on Bearden Hill for lunch. We got caught up on mutual friends over sushi & hibatchi, & then Barb asked me what I wanted to do next. I told her I didn’t care; anything was better than going home & cleaning house.
“Well, you wanna go shopping, or ride around, or what?”
“Whatever you wanna do, I’m with you.”
“Do you need to be back at any certain time?”
“Nope. But by dark would be best.”
“I know! I’m gonna take you to Grainger County! You ever been to Grainger County?”
“It’s been a looooong time.”
“I might take you by where I grew up. We’ll go out by momma & daddy’s, see if we can slip by there without getting caught.”
So off we went. We headed down 11W a ways, & shortly after entering Grainger County & identifying House Mountain & seeing where Clinch Mountain came out of the ground, we turned off the four lane divided highway onto a winding two lane road. Immediately, Barb started telling me who lives where in a stream of commentary, interrupting herself with, “Oh! I forgot to show you where the log cabin where the last remaining widow of the Civil War lived.”
“What? Cool!”
“Yeah, she just died six or seven years ago. She used to walk down our road & she scared me to death. I don’t know why. But she always had her little boy with her”—here she said their names, I don’t remember— “And she’d always stop at our house & ask for a cup of water.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“Why sure! She married when she was 14 to a man that was 65, that’s how come her to just die not long ago.”
“That’s kinda disgusting.”
We continued on as I pondered being a little girl back in these hills, the only entertainment being what your siblings provided. She showed me how far she used to walk to catch the bus, but by the time she was in high school, her sister had graduated & she was scared to walk alone, because she was afraid this cow at the corner would get her.
“Was there not a fence?”
“Yeah, but I was afraid she’d come through it!”
In addition to Barb’s many uncles & aunts scattered across the hills & valleys, we encountered a multitude of horses and sheep. I was expecting cattle & waaay more tomatoes. The only tomatoes I seen were a few beds along a hillside. And that was AFTER we passed the winery. That’s right, a winery. We journeyed over a ridge overlooking the whole valley beneath, you could see clear to the Smokies. Barb took me “around the loop” past her old homeplace & where her parents live now. We started hearing this grating noise whenever she turned the wheel so the next little turnoff we took I hopped out to see what I could see. And lo & behold, came up with a stick as big around as my thumb that we’d acquired at some point, jammed in the wheel well. We continued on, passing some fish hatchery that used to be a bird farm, a makeshift hair salon that had an old style lettered sign that spelled out “Watch me snip. Now watch me spray spray”. It was so ludicrous I snorted. We rode out to her sister’s place, a gorgeous farm situated among green fields. “You know, back there where the waterfall was,” Barb was saying to me.
I’d seen no waterfall. “What waterfall?”
“Oh, I didn’t drive you out to it. You’ve seen it, though, I’m sure.” She said the name, of course I don’t remember out of the barrage of locations & people I learned about yesterday. “Everybody goes on & on about it, come from all over to see it. Oh well, we’ve passed it now,” she says as I was getting excited about seeing it. She looks over at me. “It’s not really all that spectacular. It’s not very high or anything. It’s not natural, either, even though everybody thinks it is.”
I snorted. She went on to inform me that the CCC’s had built it before the war.
We came to what looked to be a main road. It was the biggest one I’d seen lately, anyway. It had lines & everything. Barb was peering around me to check for traffic.
“It’s clear,” I told her.
“I figured it was.” She points out the church, how her daddy had helped build it. Seemed that between her Daddy & her brother, they’d built half the county. We went on by another house that she pointed out used to belong to her aunt & uncle & when her parents would go over to visit she would sit on the rock wall out front & marvel at all the cars going by.
“And I bet you waved at ever’ one of ‘em!”
“I do remember waving,” she admitted.
We eventually came out in downtown Dandridge, & wound our way around the lake. I’d known where I was since we’d come out at the Formal Approach on the backside of Jefferson City, but I didn’t know all the people like she did & what was built when by who & for who. It was a fun trip touring the countryside with Barb. And we never turned the radio on. But I didn’t miss it.
I Five Fears That You Have
#1) Snakes. They are not to be joked around about. There is nothing funny about snakes. I have a million & one snake stories, the most famous one being the one that was hung in my porch that I thought was fake. I don’t have time to go into it, but that was a train wreck if there ever was one.
#2) Cancer. If you’ve ever been around someone dying from it, it will be your fear as well. I’m not scared of dying, but I am scared of wasting away slowly & painfully.
#3) Losing Shug. I don’t know why, but every time he doesn’t answer his phone I just know he’s hurt himself at work & nobody’s had time to call me. I used to not worry as much about him driving because a) he drives slower than turtles stampeding through peanut butter & b) he had the biggest truck in the fleet, but now they’ve downsized to half tons so I’m sure he’s dead in a ditch somewhere.
#4) That our country (specifically, our President) is gonna get us all killed, or that we are going to be governed by a bunch of liberal radicals. Oh, wait.
#5) That our house is going to burn down. Another one that’s basically unfounded. I’ve never personally known anyone whose home burned, but I imagine it’s devastating. But it’s something I worry about, & there ain’t a thing in this world to be done about it. I just try to be careful.
My social life is limited. I choose it to be so. It consists of Co-op, where I am the uncontested Social Butterfly Queen, Shug, short bursts of conversation with my bestie who lives in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee, & the occasional text message. I might have lunch with Ashley once a quarter.
And then there’s book club, which has been minimal, just me & Rhonda. Which is fine, ’cause like I told her this afternoon, we’re the best ones. Last month we had a quirky twenty year old materialize, & this month, although I invited SIX OF YOU, it was just us. And then a lady Miss Rhonda invited showed up, & then this other lady waltzed in towards the end. She contributed a lot to the conversation, surprisingly. I learned a WHOLE NEW REDNECK WORD. “Pillbilly”. She used to be a pharmacy assistant, & turns out, that’s common lingo in pharmaceutical circles.
You just never know.
So.
Now, page two.
Day 18: Your Favorite Color & Why
Pink is my signature color.
It’s happy, it’s girly, it’s pretty. I’ve always loved pink. I prefer hot pink or coral, not pastel pink. I always get compliments when I wear it. I love the Palmer house in Charleston. And The Olde Pink House in Savannah. I wouldn’t have a problem living in a grand old pink mansion.
“My cuhl-ahs are blush & bashful.”
“Your CUHL-ahs are pink & pink.”
“I have chosen two VERY distinct shades of pink, one is much deeper than the other.”
Fire in the sky this morning. Thankfully, it was just from the sun (or Son) & not from missile strikes.
Did I ever tell you about the first time I went to Nebraska? It was for an animal health trip, way back when in like, February of 2002, I think.
Anyway, we were on our way back to the airport, riding along in the van before daylight, across all these cornfields & wheat fields. The sky began to lighten & I blinked like a rat coming out of hibernation. It looked like it was going to be something truly spectacular, with these streaks of pink threading through the darkness.
I’d had a pretty late night the evening before, but I struggled awake, thinking “I don’t want to miss this.” So I battled fatigue & kept my eyes open & watched as more light blue filtered its way into the sky. I thought the outlines of the irrigation systems would be a stunning contrast against the brightening horizon.
And then, suddenly, everything was drenched in white light & it was over.
No magnificent blazing sky. Not much of nothing, really. It looked like the middle of the day. To say I was disappointed is an understatement.
But at least East Tennessee knows how to do it right.
