Edda's Essays

iS PLAYING WITH CLAY LIKE MAKING MUD PIES?

2011-08-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

My energy only comes in spurts, depending on the outside temperature, which lately continues to be too hot for much creative activity. One good thing about the hot weather is that I can bring slabs to a workable leather-like stiffness in just a few minutes of laying on the patio picnic table exposed to the hot sun

However, I have made two more Jotnars, (2 dots over the o; plural), Norwegian Lords of Nature. It was quite complicated getting their legs strong enough to hold up their upper bodies, so, learning about the centuries long feud they’ve been having with Thor, the Scandinavian God of Lightning ,ever since his marriage to one of them didn’t work out, and how he had depleted their population so much, the inspiration came out of the clay to greatly reduce their size (l5 ft tall is more clay than I could handle or afford) and put them living in trees, pearing out cautiously to see if he is sneaking up on them. This way I only have to make their huge nosed and long haired heads and huge hands to keep their hold at the peek hole. I have begun to love the ugly little mythological creatures.

This week a letter came from the Cedartown art league inviting me to enter their fall art show. As I have usually received some ribbon or another from my previous entries, they always boost my ego, as well as did the insert in this envelope stating that, as they were familiar with my work, there was no need to send photographs of the entries to be judged for acceptance.

As I am working on Jotnars to give one to all my grand and great grandchildren who want them, (a possible total of 38, last count. To date I am about l/3 through with the plan.) I have been making their abodes only 4 to 6 inches in height, which is a bit small for an art show, So day before yesterday I made one about l0 inches high this week, but I don’t like it nearly as much as I do the smaller ones. One reason for this may be the fact that I placed in on a rotating platform that required my reaching up to work on it and I ended up with that inherited curve in my spine hurting. Of course that pain always disappears after a 20 minute application of a cold pack, but the experience turned me against this individual Jotunn (singular)

Yesterday afternoon I decided to use the last of this lovely dark chocolate colored clay to make something smaller again and ended up with one about 8 inches high, counting half of the top I raised up to permit a second occupant of that tree house to act like a sentry on duty watching out for Thor. I like this one much better and may submit if, if J.J. can find the time to fire it before the lst of September. When I was finished I didn’t have a handful of that clay left anymore.

I had made the bigger tree home look like it had been sawed off at the top, with shallow indentations of the tree’s rings, but, this morning I wet the center down enough to make a hole like a chimney opening. This way the finished article could hold something or be used as a vase, once it is fired and not be totally useless, despite its occupant being less endearing.

I have noted how many aging females often enjoy being given dolls. Carroll’s mother did. Being such a tomboy I never was attached to them when I was young, although I do remember playing with paper dolls I cut out of old pattern books from the cloth store. I also remember how much I liked to make mud pies. Perhaps this joy I find in making trolls and other mythological creatures is a sign of senility, too.

House Guests, continued

2011-08-23T08:14:00.000-04:00

I’ve been trying to remember the name of this one from Iran, but it has been blotted out of my mind, as have been other unpleasant experiences. I wrote my good friend, Teri, who had taken him off my hands for awhile, but she has done the same thing, so I shall just have to give him the pseudonym, Shariar, which is Persian for, ‘Lord.” which evidently he had been taught to believe he was.

I had been friends with his parents while they were attending MSU and helped the wife by sharing my notes for a class we were taking together. They often came to eat with us and I enjoyed a number of meals at their home. Carroll never joined me there, though as he liked to know what he was eating. Their son was born before they returned back to Iran.

After Carroll retired and we were living in the house we built belong Bainbridge, the father wrote and asked if we would let them send their young son over to stay with us as he was in danger of being conscripted into the at a very early age. At that time of our lives we didn’t feel up to taking on someone his age but our youngest son, Jim, and his wife, Melinda, volunteered. However, despite lots of letters and phone calls with the U.S. State Dept. it was never possible.

It was not until after Carroll had passed away that I heard from this couple again. The father telephoned from Iran asking me to look into schools in America which their son might attend. I mailed him the information I found and forgot about it, until one night about nine o’clock, I received a call from the Starkville-Columbus airport that there was a foreign teenager expecting me to come get him.

Shariar was a handsome young man, about 14 or 15, I guess, and didn’t object to being bedded in the pantry/washroom. Alam, the Pakistinian student, was occupying the extra bedroom. I called the father in Iran and asked where he intended to enroll his son in school and learned that he meant for him to stay with me an attend the local schools. I told him that we lived in a district with a very substandard school, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to him. When I asked how he expected to pay for his son’s upkeep, I was told: “Oh, we’ ve checked and there is some $300 monthly checks from the U.S. government available for young people like him.”

I’d never heard of such a thing and quickly went to the local social security office to find out what they knew and was told, that Yes, if a foreign student had some incapacitating injury or sickness occurred while here, that that amount of money would be available until they were cured. Wow! I would certainly have to see that this didn’t happen.

In succeeding calls with the father I could not convince him that he should send his son elsewhere. While talking with the boy I learned that he had an aunt living in California, but she had refused to take him. Smart woman.

Shariar had no respect for women and being one, that did not fit to well with me. During the months he was with me, his disdain and rudeness was a constant irritation. His father was content to have him stay with me and live off me, but never sent anything to pay for his food or rent. However, hardly a week passed that the boy did not receive some expensive clothing or an electronic toy such as a boom box or video game from Iran.

Alam told me that Shariar had a habit of pestering him when he was trying to study or would use that time to practice on the piano. One of the women in Trinity Curch had heard that he had been studying piano and offered to give me free lessons, but the boy’s time spent practicing seemed to be only when it could irritate Alam and he lost interest in taking lessons after the first few..

My mother’s relatives hold a family reunion in Oklahoma the last weekend in May and I tried to attend as many as possible. One occurred while this lad was with us and his presence really spoiled that event for me and my daughter, Ann, and sister, Pauline. I also forgot a new pair of Birkenstock sandals but which were never reported as being found by the clean-up maid. In fact, that was the last one I ever attended. But that is mainly because it is a long way to travel and the weather is always so hot.

Eventually there was an Iranian professor teaching at the university and after his wife heard about Shariar, she started inviting him to spend the weekend with them, taking a big load off my mind. She told me she found out his reason for coming was only to escape being drafted into the army and that he should be sent back. He also treated her with the same lordly disdain as he had me, something she could not tolerate, either.

After awhile, Teri, a good neighbor, seeing that I was near the breaking point, had him move down to her place for awhile, where he continued to insult her regularly, like he had been doing me.

Finally the kind Iranian professor and his wife made arrangements for him to be returned to Iran. I was more than glad to pay for his ticket, but Don Dearholt, Head of the computer science department at MSU, who often helped me get out of uncomfortable situations and, through me, anonymously often supplied money to students with financial problems, insisted on paying a big share of it.

I understand the father was in a lot of trouble when Shariar returned home for sending his son out of the country. I have never heard from them or him since. However, several years later Sharia returned to the U.S. and enrolled in a college out west, got in touch with Terri and inquired about me, but she told him I had moved away to parts unknown. I’m so glad she learned how to tell a white lie.

I wonder if the word “irate” had anything to do with individuals like Shariar from Iran?

AUTUMN DAZE or too much ado about nothing

2011-08-19T17:55:00.000-04:00

Yesteday morning I arose at six, firmly determined to move all the furniture in the back room to other places. However, I had to feed Ann’s cat first, then take my 5 pills & 10 Goji berries, eat breakfast (cooked old fashioned oatmeal, plain yogurt, walnuts, and 4 prunes instead of the usual ½ cup of blueberries….lately because they are in season and the dear little lady kept bringing them by to sell,,,,, and a glass of plain Silk soy milk, and then water the garden before it got too hot.

As I paid so much for this brand new flower garden, I have sort of been in awe of it and never imagined I’d ever have enough nerve to make any changes other than poison any emerging nut grass as John Schultz, my landscaper, had advised. However, I noticed that what I had thought was a cluster of healthy sprouts of nut grass looked more like the leaves of dayflowers, or, more likely monkey grass… that had formerly occupied that place and the nut grass poison probably doesn’t affect them. No wonder the two Impatiens planted over them have been starving to death! So I dug up what was left of the flowers and planted them in an open space on the other side of the garden.

Emboldened by that deed, I then dug up a little yellow blooming plant whose name I have forgotten and which, with another of the same species, are all tht survived out of 3 pkgs of seed that I had planted this spring. This one was by the front door and putting up a good fight trying to prevent suffocation by the Lamb’s Ears John S. had put there…then moved it to another empty space. Gradually John Schultz’s garden was becoming mine.

The temperature was still comfortable enough to give me lots of energy (I think I remember being able to fly when I was younger and it got that cool) so I decided to move the rock engraved with “Gwenlin Crossing” the Foils had given me. to a more prominent place in my original collction of rocks John’s helpers had placed around the narrow leafed Blue Fescue that the cat likes to nibble on, growing on the right of the entrance to the stepping stones leading through the side of the garden facing the parking spaces. I then decided the beginning of the other side of the path needed some rocks, too but discovered the loose ones scattered in the garden elsewhere too heavy for me to roll them there myself. They’ll have to wait until some unsuspecting muscular male happens by.

Emboldened by these changes, I stole some of the outer rocks that had been part of the helpers’ neat arrangement and placed them along the edge of new plantings along the patio side of the garden….. completing an incomplete row started by the workers before they ran out of rocks. Part of the unused larger rocks will be at the end eventually.

The longer I changed in the garden, the braver I got and the more it became my possession. After all I did pay for it. So I am making more plans for the future.

Karen has started a xeric garden of succulents so I talked her into taking the very attractive cacti arrangement John S. had given me but which has suffered too long under my neglect. Not sure how often it needed watering, I either did too little or too too often. Despite that it has managed to stay alive (though barely) for over two years, I never learned how to make it grow and I was ruining the hardwood floor by the glassed entrancy by spilling water on it.. Tired of feeling guilty every time I saw it, which was every day, it is a relief to have someone else in charge of it.

There is a huge fern now hanging in one of the Crape Myrtle trees that requires an awful lot of watering. Before cold weather comes in I’ll bring that inside and put it near the north windows.

After several years of having the apartment full of plants I am finally taking Thoreau’s advise and simplifying. The fern,, along with the small potted lucky bamboo and orchid that unbelievably thrived under my neglect, plus the new one Mary just gave me are going to be all that I plan to have in my apartment There is not enough space or growing light for plants and I have too many other things to do than take care of house pets. .

One change in the patio will involve moving the bird bath away from under one of the Crape Mytrle trees that line the back of the garden. Too many things drop out of the branches into it and it needs frequent cleaning. Ann’s Sam cleans it every time he drops by but he doesn’t come often enough. That ought to be enough changing to make me begin to regard it as My garden instead of John Schultz.’ I and every one who sees it admire everything he has done and it gets looking better and better as the plants are beginning to leaf out and bloom.

By then I’d had enough outdoor fun and went inside where the clock’s hands had jumped past ten o’clock. A little late to completely rearrange the back room, so I wrote a letter and packaged two books for mailing One of them was oversized but I had saved a plastic envelope that it would fit into. Its previous traveling information covered one side and that had to be hidden. Fortunately a regular sheet of typing paper covered everything necessary and I know how to use the computer to type sender and receiver addesses on that size of paper, so I did it.

Next I had to fasten the sheet to the envelope so I got out the sticky tape to do that, used all of the narrow one, and then tried a medium sized one which kept breaking off forcing me to use my fingernails to locate and release additional tape. Eventually that was accomplished, but it was time to eat by then.

At my place a nap usually follows the noon meal and by the time those were satisfactorily completed I felt like starting the moving of back room furniture. I found two empty spaces in the front room for two small cabinets. One gives me a place to put the old TV on the top. ( I want to use it to look at the video Charles Barnett made of our trip to Burma that I’ve never taken the time to view. He was the official video photographer of the Los Alamos atomic bomb operation.) Then I’ll get rid of the tv and give Mary the videos that have some of Allen playing baseball and the fateful trip our big pontoon boat on the Flint river water parade she and I took with Carroll at the helm.

The other one is wide enough to hold the boombox. I’ll probably be playing the radio and CD’s more often now that it is more conveniently located.

I placed the 3 wheel walker (that I don’t need yet and which has been in the way every since it arrived) next to the chair/bed from which I now watch TV. The walker has a tray on top large enough to hold the tv remote and a drink. If I need it later to hold on to when getting up out of the armless chair, it will come in handy.

Back to the back room to do some more rearranging. But before I did, I decided it might be best to hang a framed embroidered wall hanging (The one of an Alaskan loon and other waterfowl and ocean creatures, that had been in the last Rockmart art show.) while I could still get close enough to the wall to hammer or screw in its hanger.

Ann has been doing all that for me so long that I hadn’t realized tht my fingers can’t do what they use to, such as hold a hammer or a screw driver so they will do what I want them to. I did more missing than hitting. Unfortunately the spot the picture had to be hung had a stud behind it and I had a hard time driving in the nail holding the hanger far enough into it. Then, after I finally did, I discovered the hanger was upside down and even though I turned it around, I still had to drive another nail into the empty top hole. Went to the shelves in the washroom, got into my basket where I keep nails and screws and finally located one screw that had a head big enough to cover the hole in the hanger. Tried to drive it into the wood with the hammer before I started turning the screw driver but the screw dropped out of my fingers and totally disappeared. Only one thing to do: go to the hardware store and buy another.

The hardware store is across the highway from the post office on the other side of town, but I needed to mail the books and the letter, and some clouds had cooled down the temperature, and, more importantly, a drive with the scooter always builds up my deflated ego when I have to realize that I “aint what I used to be.” so I joyfully headed that way on the scooter. mailed the items intended, then dropped in the hardware store, looked at their nail collection and, finally found one not too long and with a big enough head. All I wanted was one but I had to buy a whole box which cost $l.25. Had only brought a dollar but that wasn’t enough so I had to use my credit card which fortunately had in my jacket pocket as I charge postage for the books I mail to help keep a record of how many are being sold .

Back home, again, and remembering one of the verses from the Sermon on the Mount (We had to quote a new one every time we went to Sunday school when we reached a certain age) “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” as well as Scarlet O’Hara’s shrewd advise, I decided to worr about picture hanging and moving the rest of the furniture tomorrow and spent the remainder of the afternoon reading that very long but interesting book, “1491,” about the different and amazing cultures that developed in the Americas. No wonder it was a best seller.

This morning, I woke up at six, more determined than ever to finish the rearranging and to be sure I stuck to it, invited several neighbors over for lunch. Nothing like company to make me keep a clean house. Also I nearly always find lost treasures whenever I shift things around. This time it was a missing small and soft rubber toe separator that helps keep one toe from leaning too much on another, as well as discovered that 2 necessary slats were missing on the bed. They are no doubt still in Ann and Sam’s basement where this bed has been stored. This may be why I hear noises when I turn over that I don’t remember having heard before. Another revelation was that I don’t have the extra pump needed to inflate an air mattress in case I have overnight guests. It may be in their basement, too. No hurry about getting either of those, though.

As it turned out, one of my regular Friday luncheon guests had a fever and another thought she might be getting one. However, the latest new tenant came (the one who doesn’t know when to stop talking) and I actually enjoyed hearing her this time since she wasn’t taking up anyone else’s talking time like she had on her initial visit, and has really had an interesting life as well as genes.

One thing I learned was that one pair of her grandparents had been first cousins, had eleven children, 6 of which were either dwarfed (she is) and 6 albinos, while one was normal but had an albino child when she married. I think her own four children were like her. Her first husband, father of the children, was deaf. She has been and still is an interpreter for the deaf. They later divorced and she married again but is now widowed. Interestingly, the first husband has been helping her move in for the past two months but does not care to remarry her. That apartment must really be jam packed, judging all the stuff he and a helper have been toting in.

I had emailed Winnie to see if she could come pick up the books Mary brought up here that Winnie will put in the big fall garage sale for some charity or another. She had said there was room where she stores AHHAA’s equipment and would come get them today. She just did. You would not believe how much improved the good Chi flows through that room now that the bed is tucked in a corner and the small round table and chairs for playing games have so much walking room around them.

I know I’ll sleep better tonight.

P.S.

Just one more item probably of no interest to anyone but myself. Since my painless operation I haven’t had much appetite and I’ve lost five pounds, most of which evidently partially deflating the innertube of fat I’ve been toting around on my waist for years, making it so much easier to fasten buttons and hooks on my slacks now.

BACK TO BLOGGING AGAIN

2011-08-13T12:49:00.000-04:00

The past two weeks have been rather hectic, what with my youngest son, Jim, having 4-by-pass open-heart surgery, making the long trip by auto in the hottest of weather, to and from the hospital in Tallahassee where he finally ended up and then, once back home, a minor one at the Redmond Hospital in Rome to fix a problem with my plumbing.

Jim has been recovering amazingly fast, was walking all over the hospital the next day and out of there and in his own home in a few more, determined to change his life style, as one of these operations was all he ever intends to have.

I had to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. It takes about 45 minutes to drive from my apartment in Cave Spring to the other side of Rome, so Ann promised to pick me up at 5:15. (asking a lot of someone who likes to sleep aslate as she normally does.)

I set the alarm on the clock and placed it on the bedside table. Woke up at 3 then went back to sleep and not waking up until I heard the door bell ringing. I evidently cannot hear the alarm when I don’t have my hearing aids on…which I didn’t.

I broke an all time record of fast dressing, aided by the fact that I had everything ready to put on handy. (Usually I might try several different things before going out in public until I decide )

Ann is an excellent and law abiding driver and the lights were all with her so we arrived at the hospital at 5:59. Once inside and waiting to be admitted, Ann was embarrassed to see I had on mismatching sandals. (Having finally found some Propet’s that fit, I have bought white, beige, brown, and black ones all alike except for color. This time one was white and the other beige…a natural mistake to make that early in any morning for a casual dresser like myself. . She took home the beige one and brought back another white one first time she left the hospital.

Once bedecked in a hospital fits-all (but me) gown I relaxed in a comfortable bed and several different nurses came in to see the 93 year old person who was in good enough shape to be a candidate for surgery. They all were very sweet.

After awhile the anesthesiologist came in to ask some questions and explain the procedure. A self confessed, disappointed ex football star who wasn’t good enough to be a professional, he had opted for a career in medicine and would be supervising the anesthesia. Young, tall, handsome, and with a marvelous physique he probably could have done very well in movies. Having been through a similar operation about 20 years ago, I knew what to expect, but kept asking him questions about it as long as he’d stick around to answer.

I have such tiny and wiggly veins that getting blood from them often requires several attempts but this nurse was so skilled she succeeded first try. Simply amazing!

I was surprised to have them start on me so early and was expecting to wait a lot of hours but before I knew it was being rolled down a long series of halls and into the operating station. A nurse added something that felt very cold into the opening on my arm and I vaguely remember someone showing me a mask and saying they would be doing something………….

The next thing I knew I was told I was in the recovery room and not much later back in my own room. A strange doctor came by and told me he was Dr. Gilbert’s associate and that my operations went well. I was disappointed, as he was very plain looking and Dr. Gilbert is certainly not.

I was scheduled to be an out-patient but the family members insisted I stay overnight since I live alone. Best decision I’ve made lately as there are some post operative procedures involving catheters and before the next morning the nurses had helped me complete all that were required. Back in Starkville I attended Body Recall exercise classes where we learned how to always keep one hand on the stair rail when on stairs, another how to relax when we fall and roll over to use your hands to help get up, and do a lot of things that might be needed if we got very much older. Another one of them was to use the time waiting for stoplights to turn green by pinching your pelvic muscles together. That ability really shortened the number of catherings for me. The operation did go well and is giving me a new lease on life.

The nurses pushed something in my vein said to ease pain (I didn’t have any) and help me sleep, then kept waking me up every few hours to check my vital signs. Despite that they could not have been nicer to me; one even bringing me some crackers and peanut butter for a midnight snack. They give you a menu with a lot of choices and the food served me while there was excellent tasting, too, but I never was very hungry.

.After breakfast I was told I could get dressed and to call for someone to come get me. I had not brought my cell phone to text Ann . Stupid of me! I used the house phone to call Sam but it must have been off the hook as all I got was a busy signal for several hours. Finally, shortly before the eleven o’clock eviction time, Sam called to say Ann was on her way and she arrived soon afterwards. She and the nurse spent some time looking for the battery out of one of hearing aids that I thought had dropped out the night before, with no luck. When I got home there it was laying on the bathroom counter where it had dropped out when I was hurriedly dressing to get to the hospital on time. (They are sticklers for promptness.)

When we got to my apartment the new mattress had arrived and Ann put it on my bed. Medium firm, it is very comfortable and it is great awaking without a backache. There were two prescriptions that had to be filled and she took them to the pharmacy and asked them to deliver them. They did not understand her and didn’t bring them until I called the next morning. No matter, as one was for pain and the other an antibiotic and I’d been given the latter one for that day before I left the hospital.

The food I heated up didn’t taste as good as when I ate it Sunday night before the operation, on Monday, nor was it as digestible as had been the hospital’s that made me sleepy. So after a day of no discomfort other than some nausea and minor attacks of indigestion A few minutes on the internet and I learned that carbonated drinks were a good antidote and Ann brought me ginger ale that proved it.

Taking so many daytime naps as I had done on Tuesday, I decided to try the pain pill, expecting it to be the same as I had been given in the hospital that had made me sleepy. Wished I hadn’t as I had a reaction to it that was similar to the horror that came with Digoxin: head hurting visions of bright colors and intricate designs. Evidently it wasn’t the same medicine used at Redmond. .I hadn’t read the instructions that came from the druggist and when I did, learned that allergic reaction could be expected.

The next few days friends began bringing me fresh vegetables from their gardens:, okra, green beans, edema, and yes, more blueberries. My freezing compartment is filled to the brim, I still have not even the slightest twinge of anything like pain.

A three hour downpour saved most of the garden while I was away and I’ve been watering it since. I need to buy something to plug up the end of the hose as it is tricky keeping my balance between the sidewalk and the shut-off valve on the side of the building. I would be easy to llift up the end of the hose to turn it on while I'm standing on the sidewalk. I can’t afford another bad fall.

Since I’ve kept the orchid alive and blooming regularly that Mary gave me about 9 years ago when I had my heart operation., Ann bought me another to commemorate this minor one. The first one is now sending up 3 flowering stalks, the 3^rd blooming of the year! Quite a record for a greenless-thumbed person like myself.

While in Tallahassee, my middle son, John, who is into hunting artifacts, lent me a book called 1491. It is a revelation to learn the differences between what I've been taught and what scientific research has revealed. about the Native North and South American civilzations.

H0USE GUESTS NUMBER TWO

2011-07-28T11:57:00.000-04:00

Shortly after I moved into the house on Blackjack I tried to find someone to sublet the duplex I had been occupying. Finally a young women from Indonesia, (or was it Malaysia?) whose name I cannot recall (I am able to blank out unpleasant memories but I will call her Mrs. S ) answered my adv and gave me her down payment.

It was along about that time that the person in charge of international student s called and asked me to take in, Alam, a young man from Pakistan, who was homesick and trying to quit college. They knew I often had international students coming to my home for parties and thought I might be able to convince the young man to stay.

Alam was exceedingly handsome and courteous and grateful and charming as well as prompt in paying his rent and he soon decided he could stay on at least until the end of that semester. However, he wanted to stay on with me. I had learned that his mother ran a college in Pakistan and was separated from his father, who was a doctor in Africa or Egypt at that time. Also, his uncle had the franchise on all movies coming into Pakistan, that all members of his close family stayed ome and lived together, and that they were very rich. I did have to inform him that in America we used deodorant rather than perfume and that we didn’ t use the same towel for a month. He may have assumed that it was my duty to clean up his room as it continued to get dirtier and dirtier. as long as he lived there but I stayed out of it. I kept trying to convince him to find another place but he wouldn’t budge.

At the end of the month I kept waiting for my sublease of the duplex to call so I could pick up her check, but after that didn’t happen for a week I went to the apartment to get it. The place was in a mess. Kitchen sink piled up with dirty dishes. She had exploded the microwave, and she was in tears, telling me she was afraid to stay there alone. I began to understand why the members in the house across the street who were from the same country, didn’t let her join them. She had been to my house and thought I might have room for her there. True, since moving in I had enclosed the formerly screened porch, leaving the bedroom empty, but I now needed it as an access to the rest of the hous. In our original plan there were walk through closets on each side of the back of the bedroom and leading into half baths with one shower between. The side next to the livingroom also had a doorway so Alam could enter it that way.

Mrs. S. was persistent, insisting the closet on that side was wide enough for a bed (she was quite tiny) and it would still leave enough space for her clothes and that she could study in what had been the bedroom. I either wanted to keep on getting the rent money from her or felt so sorry for her, I relented, provided the bed and let her move in.

Mrs. S. was a Muslim and very religious but she was always putting down her prayer rug gacing the west, instead of the east. It took me some time to realize that would have been the proper direction in her own country. Alam was also Muslim but he wasn’t into prayer rugs and told me college students were exempted. He made up his own rules,, one being his driving speeds and disregard for weather warnings, taking off on cross country trips in blizzards under dangerous icy conditions, ending up needing a lot of repair on his auto as well as tow-trucks. Perhaps I misjudged him, as there must be nothing to worry about if Allah is in charge. (When my daughter, Susan, and her husband were living in Saudi Arabia, she said the highways in the deserts around the city were littered with abandoned, wrecked Mercedes and other expensive autos.)

Both my unwanted tenants took care of their own meals and, as I insisted, cleaned up the kitchen behind them. Alam often stirred up a combination of rice with fruit and nuts and olives and spices. I really like it. Mrs. S.s attempts were not as appetizing looking or tasting. One thing she ate a lot of was some sort of meat in a can. I discovered it was a Danish ham but she evidently did not read English enough to know it came from a pig, something a person as religious as she, I assumed would not be caught eating. So I kept my mouth shut.

She began to wake me at night asking me to make the angry crowd yelling at her to go away. She would often come home complaining of similar problems on the campus. Eventually she told me someone had planted a radio in her heart as she was being told she was unfailful to her husband. I kept sending notes or dropping by to explain these incidents to those in charge of international students but they didn’t offer to take her off my hands. I even got her husband’s phone number at their home and called him suggesting she be brought home, but he refused.

Finally one of my reports mentioned finding a missing carving knife being broken and hidden in a place it shouldn’t have been. This finally got their attention. (I wasn’t feeling threatened, just reporting another incident). I was soon asked to come to their office and meet a person who was in charge if all the students coming to America from her country and who had already talked to Mrs.S. He explained that, although she was schizophrenic her medicines had been keeping it under control, but that she had stopped taking them as they made it difficult for her to study. He went on to say that her family was one of the most influential in the country and it would be a disgrace if she came back without completing her studies, so it was important to their program to keep her here. They put her in a hospital for a short time and then found another place for her to stay. I would see her occasionally, each time getting a little heavier. She had discovered the wonderful American ice cream. She was unrecognizably fat the last visit before she returned to her country.

After Carroll’s passing I stayed on in Starkville in the house we had built and continued to have Saturday night soires with different friends (mainly college professors and their families) and foreign students bringing musical instruments and foods. The living room in that house was extra large and there was plenty of room for 20 or more at a time. We (all ages) ate, sang, listened to solos and poetry, had fun, and usually they did the dishes. Whenever they didn’t, Don Dearholt. head of the computer science dept., always stayed and helped me with them. He loved playing the hammer dulcimer and making music.

Two of the usual attendants at these parties were Prof. Ellen Bryant and her daughter, a violinist. I noticed that John, our landlord, and a mechanic- motorcyclist, was spending a lot of time in the kitchen whenever the daughter was there, and I wondered if I should say something to him as they were culturally worlds apart. Thank goodness, I didn’t because the time came when Ellen told me how happy she was that they had found each other. Eventually he was dressed up in a suit and tie and attending her orchestra concerts and she was wearing a leather jacket going motorcycling with him. They married and as far as I know living happily.

I also began to take a lot of trips with the Barker Group, photographers going to third world countries to help them with photos for their programs to attract tourists. On the first one we went to the rain forest in Ecuador to float down the Amazon, but the water was so low the cruise ship couldn’t move, so we had to take short trips in long boats. On this trip I met a sophisticated blond woman from Italy. I kept worrying about her as she insisted on wearing a lot of gold, something strongly advised against in many countries as thieves had been reported as seriously injuring women when gold necklaces were snatched off their necks. For a number of years we kept up a correspondence and she even invited me to come to her villa on the big lake above Florence for a holiday.(something I could not afford). One day the phone rang and it was from a relative of this woman who was traveling in America and wanted to come meet me. She and her husband, who was a retired American naval officer, had a fancy motor home and were touring America. They arrived in a few day…. A charming couple and I enjoyed their ahoer visit but I never heard from them or my Italian friend again. Something I said or I wasn’t (like rich) ?

House Guests, Part one

2011-07-27T08:49:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday night’s supper conversation included my retelling of some of the house guests I’ve had when we lived in Starkville, and I now remember several I forgot to include. However, for those who might have missed hearing about them, I decided to give you that opportunity this morning.

When I first started to work on my fern book and was staying part time in Starkville to have access to the library and also to get away from my allergic reaction to bahia grass that in south Georgia. My eosinifil reading was l7 ( I think 7 is normal), so my doctor strongly advised me to move elsewhere.. It didn’t affect Carroll adversely and he was content to stay on the farm, Our youngest son, Jim, and his family lived in a trailer next to our house and the middle one, John, who taught in Bainbridge, stopped by regularly to visit him on his way to and from te school where he taught. Carroll was still ambulatory and could make his own coffee and cook for himself .He spent most of his time watching TV and reading.

I rented a duplex just off the campus and returned to our farm in south Georgia every other weekend to check on Carroll, do the laundry and clean the place, and prepare some frozen meals for him to heat up until I returned.

There were a lot of interesting looking courses available at the university and oldsters could take them free, if they weren’t too crowded, so in between research in the library I began attending classes. The first one had to do with identifying the vegetation on the campus, the trees and shrubs and herbs, including annuals and perennials. Carol Reese, a vivacious and highly intelligent young woman, was the instructor and before the course finished, we had become friends. So I was delighted one day when she had me stay after class and asked if she could move into the extra bedroom in the duplex. Her reason being that she was divorcing her husband who, among other irritating things, insisted that all his clothing in the closet be color coordinated. Reason enough. Those months with Carol in the house were lots of fun and I regretted when she finally moved on.

As time went on and Carroll still insisted on staying on the farm, I decided to live in our motor home instead of the duplex and to talk to John, the young man who had bought the house we had built on Black Jack road after Carroll retired and we’d moved to South Carolina. When we had bought the place there was an extra hook up ffor water and sewage for a trailer or motor home and I preferred living in the country rather than in town, He was agreeable, so I brought tour motor home over and parked it there. I also bought a small storage building that I insulated and intended to use as a living room for watching TV and entertaining company. At different visits to the Georgia place I brought back a kitchen cabinet and put that in there, too.

Shortly after I got settled in, John, the landowner, came over and gave me an offer. His son had recently had an accident and the medical bills were so high he was not able to take care of them and the mortgage on the house he had bought from us, so, If I would rent the house, he would finish converting the storage building I had purchased into a miniature apartment. Nothing could have pleased me more, so we agreed.

Taking over the house also meant providing a room for a graduate student who was also teaching in the English department. No problem. John had closed in part of what had been a spacious combined kitchen and dining room to make a bedroom which was on the opposite side of the other bedroom and sleeping porch with our huge living room in the center. He was seldom there and never spoke unless spoken to which was o.k. with me, but being curious, I would have liked to have known him better. All I knew was that he ate nothing there but cereal and paid his rent on time.

The university union offered regularly offered short courses and I decided it would be a good time to learn how to play chess. It so happened that the professor teaching that class was ranked the 3^rd highest chess master in the nation. I was the only female. At the end of the class he played all of us at once and he checkmated one after another until I was the last one left..Of course, before long, he won. I really didn’t know that much about the game and he knew it, so I was surprised to have stayed in so long, but when I said so, he explained. “Gwen, you re just so illogical. I never could figure what crazy thing you’d do next.”

While I was taking the class we were supposed to practice playing chess at home so I set up my board along the counter top that .extended across the back of the livingroom between the doors leading from the bathroom to the kitchen. One day I noticed that the roomer had made a play on the board. Each day after that our game continued, and then notes appeared explaining what I had done wrong the previous play. That was the closest that roomer and I ever came to communicating, as his monthly check for the rent was always laid on the kitchen table.

However, being a teacher, he must have been able to talk. Proof of that happened the time some pretty young girls were there for one of my Saturday night parties and the roomer came out and spent the evening conversing very animatedly with them. He moved out shortly afterwards.

Carroll wanted to make one more trip to Alaska. Our motor home had sleeping arrangements for four, so I invited Carol Reese and another young friend, Shirley Harris, ex-wife of one of Carroll’s former students, to go with us and help with the driving. Carroll really enjoyed having these two highly attractive and outdoor loving young women around.By the time we got to Alaska and Prince of Wales Island, he was ready to go home, but they convinced him to stay longer as there were still a few mountains unclimbed and salmon uncaught. The girls were deluged with proposals of marriage wherever we went. We camped about a week alongside what had been his favorite creek and then moved into a very nice cabin owned by a friend we had made up there when doing research….Steve Hansen, the head of the State fish hatchery in Craig, situated at the end of a long narrow peninsula and available only by boat. When he had been building it Carroll and I helped with the insulation and our Jim did the electrical wiring. With the extreme changes in tides, the view is constantly changing so Carroll was content to stay a while longer. so there were many more places for Carol and Shirley to explore. Shirley liked Alaska so much she applied for a physical therapy job before we left, moved back shortly after we returned to Mississippi , nad has lived there happily ever since.

By then my husband, Carroll, had decided to move back to Starkville and I was finally able to convince him to see a doctor. Shortly after we returned from Alaska, I received a telephone call from someone in Fellowship Church that an exchange student from Slavakia had been placed in a small town where there was no art classes available and that he was very unhappy, so could he stay with me until they could locate a family in Starkville where art was available.? I had an empty room, so why not?

The young man moved in .. He and Carroll got along famously, but I soon found out this boys parents or somebody had thoroughly spoiled him. He had very little respect for females, especially me, Proof of the latter is a pen and ink portrait he made of me as an assignment.

Carroll needed a lot of my attention and having such an ungrateful young person in the house was more than I cared to prolong. Fortunately our house was in a school district where the highschool was in the country and offered no art and so this young aspiring artists had to live with someone in Starkville, if he were to continue his art education. I think his last name was Stas.

So one Sunday I convinced him to go to church where I made an announcement that he was needing a place to stay. Now one of the membes, both professors in the English Dept at MSU, had two teenage daughters and the opportunity od having a good looking young man like Stas in their house appealed to them, so they convinced their parents to take him off my hands. It turned out he was as ungrateful and disrespectful there as he had been fo me. There were also reports that he had acted the same way toward his art teacher.

Smoking had damaged Carrolls lungs so by then he had difficulty breathing and needed lots of oxygen/ He eventually agreed to go to the hospital in Tupelo where he was much more comfortable. The male and female nurses pampered and treated him royally and he seemed to be almost as happy there as he had been when among his beloved students. .He had accomplished all he had dreamed of doing and was ready to go. His passing at the age of 80 and a half was peacefull

A year or so later I got a telephone call from the art teacher. There was an art contest being held at a university in the western part of the state that Stas, the echange student, needed to attend, and that she, as well as both parents in the family where he was staying, had teaching responsibilities and could not get off to take him to it. Could I? I could and did. .

Once there we spread out some of his work for display and in a very short time several members of the faculty holding the contest were so impressed they came out to where we were sitting and told me his work was so outstanding he had already won the contest and they were also offering him a full scholarship. This was quite a relief for the professors who had been hosting him in, as he had taken up with the wrong type of friends and was becoming a big problem for them. He soon graduated and left Starkville and enrolled at that university.. After some time I heard that he eventually moved to New York City.

Since then, whenever I get to thinking too much of myself, I have only to get out the portrait he drew of me and it jolts me back to reality. Maybe it will be worth something eventually if Stas becomes famous.

A TYPICAL GWENLIN DAY

2011-07-22T21:38:00.000-04:00

IPPY (Independent Publishers-??) , the last book contest I decided to enter had many categories in which to enter but charged for each one, so I had to make up my mind just what my patchwork quilt- or Brunswick stew- like Liana Tips was mostly about. Dekie, my editor, suggested three as being the most likely to win. When I read over the contest announcement I noticed that there was an email address offering to answer questions, so I sent them a number of them and almost within the hour they were answered. Among them was a Yes, 2 volumes could be considered as one book as long as the covers were recognizably similar ( the only differences between one and two of mine are their number and the colors) . Yes, from what I had written describing the books, Dekie’s choices seemed the best. I had also thought to enter in the SE (mid to S. Atlantic )and S (Gulf) regions but I was advised that S was probably enough.

I had also mentioned in my email that some of the other contests I had entered had offered to read my book and place it in the best category. And Jim from IPPY replied, that if I’d make a note on my application stating: “Jim, check categories.” Jim would decide which was best for me. So I did, while requesting only two be picked out, as that was about as much as Icared to spend at this time.

Contests don’t offer much , if any, money, but literary awards make libraries more apt to purchase them and I am just egotistical enough to belief that every library in the southeastern states needs Liana Tips in it. Winners may only get a small amount of stickers that look nice on the cover, but it’s the winning that’s the THING and oh how well I like to do that!

To enter a contest you have to fill out the printed form (trouble for me because it has to be typed or handwritten and I am too lazy to type a copy of the forms so I have to get out my pen. But my writing is so poor these days and I make mistake after mistake, so it takes a lot of starts to ever complte one.

The two regional categories I was entered (whatever they may be) required a copy for each and if you decided to enter the national contest (naturally I did), another, so since mine had two volumes 6 books had to be included in the box, along with the application, a check covering the charges, and an addressed post card to be sent to the sender to let them know it had had arrived (cheaper than the post office charge for the same). I had a post card I bought several years ago I had been saving for something, so this seemed to be the time to use it. However, I knew it would need additional postage so I took a number of 2 cent stamps I;ve had for a long time too.

I had meant to take all this to the post office this morning but the local one deosn’t open until 9:30 and that would not leave time for me to go on the scooter, buy a box to fit it, get it labeled, and paid for, in time to get back and meet Ann who was coming to take me to an appointment in Rome this morning.

She arrived just as I had put all the things in a half box I’d saved from those shipped me, and suggested we mail them and several orders of Volume 2, after we came back to Cave Spring. Which seemed like a good idea.

When planning this trip I had asked Ann to come early as my dermatologist, Dr. Harris, had paid for Volume Two at my last visit and I had promised to drop it there yesterday at his morning office behind Redmond hospital, which is on the west part of Rome while Dr. Gilbert’s appointment that day was in the North central section of that widely scattered city. (Its spread out along the banks of three intersecting rivers).

However, when Dr. Gilbert’s office called to confirm the appointment I learned that it was for Friday, rather than Thursday as written on the original card given me. So I called Dr. Harris’ office and explained to the office girl that I was supposed to deliver something to him at his Redmond office on Thursday but it would be on Friday, only to be told that his Friday appointments were all at his Riverview office, which was along the way to Dr. Gilbert’s. So, after I left it there we had about a half hour to spare.

Then I had the bright idea of mailing the books at the Rome office which we’d pass by on our way. Ann turned in to it and parked and brought in the books. The men at the postal counter were busy so we looked round and after one wrong try, found a box for sale on the wall that fitted better.

Now in Cave Spring postoffice, the postmistress (or mistresses) take time to find me a box, pack contents in, even finding stuffing if needed, and then address it for me since they can’t read my writing. Not so in the rome office. The Ann had chosen needed to be taped together. The Rome postoffice man said if the contents were media he would tape it himself; if not, we would have to also buy a role of tape. It was not. Then Ann decided she could address it better than I could, but couldn’t read the print on the application until after she’d borrowed my glasses. Her reading glasses were in the car. While she was doing that I showed him the post card that had to be included to see how much more money was needed and he said 5 cents but suggested I put 3 of the 2 cent ones I’d bought on it. Now my fingers don’t pick up stamps very easily or quickly but he offered not help. Finally Ann stopped and unstuck the last one needed and pasted it to the postcard and dropped it in the now addressed box.

While all this was going on the line behind us was getting longer and longer and the clerk at the desk not a bit friendlier. When all was done and I’d finally zapped the credit card through at a pace that it would accept and signed the bill, we were finished. I apologized to the crowd behind us for keeping them waiting, but most of them assured me it was all right. I’m sure the unhappy postal clerk would be relieved if he knew I am determined to never enter that door again. What a difference between small postoffices and big ones!

For once we arrived at the Urology department of the Harbin Clinic (I;ve been having some problems with my plumbing) exactly on time!. I checked in and then explained to the girl at the desk that I was going to the rest room but she said not to as that was a no no for this type of examination. So I was relieved when my name was called in just a few minutes. But there was a long wait after I had partially disrobed and waited and waited for the doctor to finally get here.

Back when I first went to the clinic for this problem and had my first exam the cute specialist doing it was dressed up like she was going to the opera under her white coat. She explained all the options and processes and offered me a choice of surgeons), but suggested the oldest one, Dr. Gilbert, assuring me he was also the best looking. Of course I took her advice and hoped he wasn’t so old that he was doddery.

The doctor that came in the door was silver headed, all right, but hardly more than 40 and about as handsome any man can be. He came in apologizing for making me wait. On top of that he has a great personality and is a good communicator and turned what an generation older person expected to be embarrassingly exposing situation to one not at all. He said I was the oldest potential surgical patient he’d ever agreed to take on and that the hospital is going to not believe he is doing it on an 93 year oldster, but thought I qualified, the shape I’m in. Before we parted I found out he was an avid gardener and convinced him he needed a two volumed “ Liana Tips”. How lucky can I be?

Afterward Ann and I went to Chick-Fi-Lay for our choice of sandwiches, she the chicken salad and me the plain chicken, both so delicious! I also ordered a peach milk-shake, which was very good but unfortunately, I no longer like sweet things. Quite a crowd eating there or picking up takeouts at the windows. It looked like everybody in town comes there to eat lunch.

We were home before I discovered that I didn’t have my hat. It is one of my dressier sunproof ones and I didn’t want to lose it. I remembered then that I had put it on the table next to ours at the restaurant and then recalled how Mother insisted we never put hats on tables we ate food on, so had placed it in the seat of a chair. All Mother’s fault. I called and was relieved to learn that some honest soul had turned it in and Ann kindly agreed to go back and get it, right then.. I suggested she wait a minute and I’d autograph the books for Dr. Gilbert and drop them off also. She started to drive off to do so, thinking I might want a nap, but I’d slept all the way home so I rushed out and stopped her before she got away. When we got back I unloaded some of the blueberries that were crowding my refrigerator on her. The sweet little lady that sells me some each year had called to tell me she had some and I told her I wanted all she had (she usually just has two or 3 pints) but this time “all” turned out to be 6 pints. I love them and eat a lot but my freezer space is limited.

After she left I took another nap ..a long one this time…and then put on a cool housecoat and my comfortable tennis shoes, expecting to enjoy a quiet evening of tv when the doorbell rang and there was Richard, all ready to take me to the AHHAAS dinner/theatre., a culmination of a two weeks theatre camp the organization had just completed. I had thought it was to be yesterday and had dressed up at 6 and waited for him until 7:15 and then decided the play must be on Saturday before the big auction at the gallery for the benefit of the local historical society. No. It was on Friday. It didn’t take long for me to get into something more suitable. Then when we got there I stopped at the table where Jane was taking the money and opened my purse to pull out the 20 bill I knew was there, but it had become a 5 and a few ones. I’d forgotten I’d spent the rest on our lunch. Winnie told Jane to let me eat for that much but Richard pulled out another 20 and took the bills I’d given Jane.

The menu for the supper was from the mid l700’s or sometime way back but very good. I just wished I could have held more but I wasn’t that hungry. The play the young people performed was from a Cherokee Indian tale that the local writer whose book signing I attended last Saturday had written. He was there. I recognized his white beard but didn’t realize he was as large as he is. He had been sitting at a table that hid most of him at the signing but now was in a church pew where the play was performed. Richard said he’d been at other tables too many times and stayed too long.

After we got hom I gave Richard some tomatoes. Too many friends bring them. More than I can eat. Winnie and Richard’s tomatoes failed this year, so I have no trouble getting rid of the surplus.

Jim called to see if I’d gotten the program he’d recommended: http://www.wildearth.tv/petes-pond-mashatu-botswana-africa-waterhole-wildlive-webcam-live

I hadn’t been able to get into it but he told me how. After awhile I had to call him and find out how to turn it off, as I couldn’t make it stop. He said use the escape tab. I said” what escape tab? First time I’d ever noticed it being on the keyboard.

It worked.

It’s one where you view wild animals at a watering place in Africa. He says its best to watch early in the morning.. It was night there at that time and not much activity. I’ll try again early tomorrow.

Mid summer doldrums

2011-07-19T23:01:00.000-04:00

Hot weather always takes all of the wind out of my sailing ship and I just sort of mill around in the same spot, seldom making any headway in any project. That was one reason I enjoyed those 13 trips to Alaska when it began to warm up too much down South. There was always enough coolness in the air to keep me finishing things started, where I seldom even begin to try to do something when the temperature gets too hot for comfort. Praises be to the inventors of air conditioning and the machines and electricity for making them work, even though it doesn’t have that affect on me. At least, I can get comfortable.

Not too long ago when some of my friends were here we got into the discussion of what sort of cookware was safe. Several years ago I got rid of all my iron skillets when I heard they weren’t healthy, the aluminum ones went elsewhere when I was told they were dangerous, and I was hearing unkind words about the Teflon lined ones I have been using lately. Were stainless steel to be the next?

A couple of days ago I decided to go to my Oracle, the WEB, and get the latest advice and I learned that the current best and safest seemed to be anodized aluminum and ceramic, but as I kept reading it recommended copper ones and even said cast iron ones were extra good because we may be needing more iron in our diets, and finally, that my Teflon ones were o.k. as long as the Teflon finish was in good shape. So I guess ‘l’ll stick with what I’ve got and maybe even go down to my favorite secondhand hardware store and bet a small iron skillet.

One reason for the latter was that when I last enjoyed a meal at Jane and Hilda’s home I complimented them on the lightness of the cornbread and was surprised to learn that no white flour had been added to the cornmeal, like to do when making mine. Hilda also offered to give me a private demonstration. So last Sunday, after the usual birthday dinner the congregations shares on every third Sunday, Hilda took me in her shiny red jeep to do it.

Hilda is a retired Home Domonstration Agent and a masterly demonstratress. She settled me in a cushioned armchair at the end of the kitchen bar so I could have a front row seat for the occasion and hear every word that was spoken about what was being done and why. Her recipe isn’t that different from mine, other than the lack of white flour but the ingredients were all carefully measured before being put into the mixing bowl, where I seldom measure mine and often use self rising flour and cornmeal instead of going to the trouble of measuring the soda or baking powder to go with the buttermilk.

I remember when I took cooking in high school and Mrs. Vance, my dearly beloved teacher, telling us to stir quick breads only until the ingredients were all moistened…no longer. Hilda must have had the same sort of instructions.

Instead of baking the mixture in muffin tines she pours some canola oil in a small iron skillet, and places it over a burner on the stove. The heat was set on No. 3 on her stove (about 1/3 of the total numbers on the dial, or at what looked like 8 o’clock on a clock) and decided the proper temperature has been reached for pouring things in it by holding her hand a few inches above the oil. (Hilda made me put my hand over it, too, to learn just how hot that should be) Then the mixture is poured in, covered with a lid and allowed to cook for 8 minutes, at which time the lid is removed, the bread tossed upside down and put back to brown on what had been the topside earlier, which took about 3 or 4 minutes. A picture perfect pan of corn bread was the result. The term “corn pone” came to my mind but not being sure just what a pone was supposed to look like I got out the dictionary and was surprised to learn that it was an Algonquin word for “baking.” However, no illustration or description was given. The Indian breads I remember eating when taking Mother when she was about 75, to a southwest Oklahoma Indian cultural showplace, was more like a flat and heavy pancake than this leavened bread. That was the time we camped out in the campground nearby and Mother’s cot collapsed during the night and the people came by and took back the plastic I had found in what I had thought was an abandoned campsite and wound around some trees to keep the cold wind off her. Not her favorite adventure, I’m sure.

Hilda then presented me with the whole pan of cornbread and it was greatly appreciated later that night when Winnie and Richard and Karen came over for the usual sharing of leftovers. Doug Jensen came again, too, and brought a delightful Japanese dish made with eggplant and miso. I had warned them by email earlier that I was going to make a tuna curry with rice and the ground almonds, dried cranberries, and coconut that goes with it When I went to the pantry it was albacore and not tuna but tasted even better. These Sunday night get togethers remind me of a modern day Canterbury tales with each taking turns adding their experiences with each topic that comes up. This way I get to hear reports on the books they’re reading among other things. I had just finished the book on Japan Karen had lent me last Sunday, about autobiographical by a 30 year old American documentary photographer who was looking for and finding some meaning in her life while spending a year in that country.. Winnie took it home to read and Doug decided he’d pull it up on his Kendle. (I’m sorry I don’t remember the title but I’ll find out if anyone wants to know. )

Several years ago Jane Faile, a retired English professor from LSU( whom I was lucky enough to meet in my eye doctor’s office and with whom I’ve kept in touch. .She lives in or near Menlo, an art colony in the northeast Alabama mountains beyond Rome) who notified me one time that that some organization of English teachers were pushing a project where groups would get together and write their life histories, suggestion I do that. There turned out to be about a half dozen acquaintances that were interested and we had a lot of fun getting together for several weeks and sharing our efforts.

Hilda was one of them. And as far as I know, the only one that went ahead and completed hers. When I was there Sunday she offered to let me look at what she’d done and this week I have been enjoying reading her well organized story of her life as a Home Demonstration agent and the annotated pictures in the other notebook accompanying it. No wonder she was so successful, winning many national awards during her career and making friends in a number of southeastern states. When we lived in Baton Rouge I belonged to a Home Demonstration Club and had a lot of fun going to the meetings with my best friend, Monroe St. Amant, doing all the crafts that the Agent taught us, such as etching aluminum trays with acid,…. I think Ann has mine now….weaving baskets with vines, and learning new recipes and better ways of housekeeping and sewing. They added a lot of spice to a lot of lives.

Quite a contrast to the book I’d bought at the book signing Saturday in Rome written by one of Dekie’s clients about a famous murder trial that took place in Rome. The writer is an ex-policeman turned author. He writes well and knows a lot about the history of that city. . I’m sure it is quite interesting to long term residents but not having been one and living so far back in the woods as I did and never having heard of the crime, it has been an effort to get as far into it as I have gone. However, now that I’m to the place where the trial is actually underway, I must admit it is easier to stick with it. Judging from the size of the crowd eagerly awaiting to get him to sign their book, he has a large following.

As the author wasn’t making a talk, Dekie and I left early and headed for the Thai restaurant for lunch. She and John eat there regularly and she suggested the ginger tea. I hadn’t tried it before and will now order it often. I chose a clam soup and she some sort of salad. Then we split one of their delicious fresh mango and sweet rice desserts. I had soup left to take out. (I shared some with Richard later) There were so many other customers that Bao, the owner/chef, couldn’t come out to visit, and his wife, Lucky, is still staying home with the new baby,

While at the dermatologists today Dr. Harris asked if I’d finished the second volume of my vine book and insisted on paying for it. We’ll drop it by his morning office across town when I go for another doctor’s appointment Thursday. Wearing all the sunproof jackets and hats that I do, there were fewer places that he needed to zap with that cold spray. However he decided it would be wise to have biopsies for a place on my leg and a smaller one on my back. I am so lucky to live in a time when such things can be found and treated. He told me to keep my left leg elevated the rest of the day, so Ann and I put off the grocery shopping until tomorrow morning. Besides, it will be cooler then.

My orchid is now in its seventh year and for the first time it is putting up a second flowering stalk. What a miracle for any plant to survive that long under my lackadaisical care! I’ve watered the garden plants every day until today but my leg was hurting and none of them were wilted, so I didn’t do that. However, the leaves of the geranium I just bought were yellowing so I stirred up some fertilizer in water and poured on them. I hope that’s all that is wrong. They are more orangey-red than red-red like I prefer, but I would hate to lose them anyway as they are geraniums, Mother’s favorite (besides roses.).

/day 3 N.G. (New Garden)

2011-07-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, I had an appointment with my extra good looking and caring ophthalmologist, Dr. Harton, in Rome, I’d taken Karen’s interesting book about a young American photographer spending a year in Japan, and finished it while waiting my turn. This time one of the attendants sat me in front of a new machine while she took some photographs of my eye’s nerves. The pressure showed a slight increase and I was given a prescription for a stronger dosage on one of the two type .drops I take. I ‘m not seeing as well as before but I am still able to read and watch Tv so there is no need for a cataract operation now. The deer doctor also told me how much his wife, who likes to grow flowers, thought of my Liana Tips: she displays it on their coffee table! I never thought of it as one of those, but I think the different colored covers and grape vines on the two volumes are quite pretty together..

Afterwards, it was so hot and sultry Ann suggested we try out a newly advertised cold drink, mango and pineapple, at MacDonald’s. It was good tasting but so cold it wouldn’t go down our esophaguses, so it took the whole trip home for me to swallow the whole pint. Ann had decided to wait until it thawed some.

John Schultz, the landscape artist who had redone my garden insisted that it be well wateed for the first three days. It was so hot, I decided to put it off until after supper but before then, I glanced outside to see that Richard had come over and was doing it. It that isn’t a true friend, getting out in upper ninety degree heat to water someone else’s garden, then what is? During the night we had a lengthy electrical storm, accompanied by a lot of rain, so the plants are holding their heads up fairly high. Richard has lots of talents, one of which is handcatching flies. Now in my whole life, I have never even come close to hitting one, as many thousands swaps as I must have taken, but last night when a pesky one just wouldn’t quit, I decided to try his technique of bringing his fist slowly close to them and suddenly snatching. It worked! I have yet to hit one with a fly swatter. My reflexes must just be too slow.

The new bird binoculars have been getting some usage. They are a little heavier than I would have wished, but work so well I really shouldn’t complain. Now I can get a good clear view of the birds as they land on the feeder and go back to the more open branches in the crape myrtle nearby. I never heard of the company before, Zummell, but they come with a 25 years guarantee, which at my age, should be sufficient. Today I had a treat. First time I have ever seen an American Goldflinch male in full dress. What a handsome bird. Where we lived before they stayed throughout the winter when they are rather drab looking but always migrated further north during the spring. I don’t think they were around here this spring but I hope this one will stay around and show off his fancy attire for me to admire for awhile.

When I sat down to the computer just now I noticed some sort of bill sticking out from a Latin dictionary I keep close by it. It was a ten dollar one and I had not put it there. Then I recalled Penny’s apologizing for not bringing some canned food when she and Laura came today for their usual Friday lunch. It had to be Penny’s contribution. But much too much for the lentil soup, baked sweet potatoes, and waldorf salad I had served. (They rest of the week they mainly eat at one of the greasy cafes downtown.) For the past several mornings I have been getting hives soon after arising. The doctor suggested I might see if was the soap or some cosmetics (I nevr touch that sort of stuff). Instead of the Olay I’ve been using for years with no bad reaction, I tried ivory. No hives yet. As one of my medicines has to be taken with food, I have begun eating 3 dried plums and 2 dried apricots before swallowing it. This morning before the 2^nd plum had been swallowed, the hives began heaving and itching. So that must be the problem. I’ll start the day with something else tomorrow and see. No matter, these mild displeasures….At least life is not boring!.

Checking over the plants in the garden I find a lot of new ones, most of which I have no idea what they are. I’m looking forward to John S. sending the diagram explaining what is where. Ann had taken a picture of one part of the garden yesterday but today I some more. I’ll get her to help me send them later. There are only a few flowers in bloom now, but I’m sure that will soon chagge.

It was cool enough this morning for me to spend some time rearranging the patio furniture. I hope John S. won’t object because, compulsive furniture movers like myself just have to do that and often. I have everything where I want it (at least for now) but was unable to put the smaller table top back on its base by myself

Recently while looking on the web I found the address of Bruce Rawl, the likeable young man who was farming on Mrs. Papper’s Botany Bay plantation below Charleston when Carroll was managing the quail population and hunting. Before we left there Carroll had recommended Bruce take his job and evidently he got it. In the years since then we had lot touch with him. So I had written him, enquiring about the Peppers and things. Today I got a letter from him and learned that the property is now a state wildlife management area, so evidently the Peppers are deceased (as that was what it was to become at such a time) and he is in charge of it, living in the Pepper’s lovely home and using what had been our home as his office. He has married and has two daughters now, both teenagers. In his letter he stated that the main difference between the time when we lived there and now is 60,000 annual visitors. I am not surprised. it was such a showcase place! The letter ended with “Please come and see me.” I shall do my very best.

How my garden grows

2011-07-14T17:47:00.002-04:00

Day before yesterday the temperature was predicted to be in the upper nineies in northwest Georgia, but some occasional rain clouds started passing through here about nine a.m. and cooled things down for the remainder of the day. This made it much easier on John Schultz and his helpers, Santos and Victor Hugo (father and son, formerly from some mountainous country in Old Mexico) while they were removing everything from my old garden, including all the flowers, grass, liriope, and even the soil. Later in the day they came back with a truckload of rich black gold in the form of compost and spread that out so everything is ready for planting.

The weather was unbearably hot yesterday when they returned and replanted some of my old plants and a large number of new ones. It was so interesting watching everything happen that I stayed glued to the front door and didn’t miss a thing. John came inside every now and then and gave an explanation of nearly every step.

Once when we built the house in Starkville there were two young men, brothers or cousins, who put up the sheetrock together and it was like a well rehearsed ballet watching them working together, stepping up and down onto the ladder and attaching things in unison. The three landscapers were much the same way, although each was doing something different but perfectly timed so that when the hole was finally prepared by Sanchos for the plant, it had been selected by John and de-grassed or de-weeded by Victor Hugo and then clipped to a pleasing shape if necessary by John. They had removed all the rocks I had put in the old garden and there were enough for Victor to arrange them in a neat row around the outer perimeter of the two parts to the garden, with more of them at the entrance to the stepping stones making a path from one edge to another.

It is not the xeriscape garden I had first imagined nor the one with native plants like Rick Hartzog made for me in Starkville, but it is full of species that are well acclimated to this northwest Georgia environment. And the plants are sll in plain view of my front door or the lawn chairs placed in front of it with the tall ones at the back and the shorter ones in the front.

Not ever having planted many flower gardens (ours were always seeded with things to eat) and having so many wild flowers that surrounded out houses in the countryside or woods, I know very few cultivated flowering plants by name, but John S. is going to made me a diagram of the ones he has put in my new one so I can know what they are. He is truly a landscape artist and I am so lucky to get his help.

One thing John S. does not ever plant is a wisteria as the introduced ones are so aggressive they cause lots of problems. He has a very funny story to tell about thwarting a garden club member who insisted on trying to make one grow in a garden he had designed for their club. But that is his story. Not mine. However, I had no trouble talking him in to using the big twisted vine of one that Winnie and Richard had cut from a tree in their yard to use as part of the decoration for both the first and second Vine book signing parties It twines in the shape of an elaborate T-e-e and now hangs on the tall stone wall between my bird feeders.

He also saved me the cost of a lot of lattice work for my two yellow jessamines to twine up and over the front entrance by attaching and draping a dog chain there.

When he has more time he is going to figure out some form of shade over the big swing. Then we can use it again, as the sun is too hot this time of year without one.

Now it’s up to me to see the garden gets watered properly the next few days and to report to John S. when the first l inch of a blade of grass or liriope sticks it head up through the mulch for the next 2 years. He tells me it takes that long to actually get rid of them.

Lots of good things happening these days. People still want to buy my vine books. I finally found some sunglasses that are not too dark for me to see when I’m scooting along in the shadows, and a pair of binoculars that focus down to where I can see the birds coming to the feeder. My vision is a little poorer but I can still read this size print and watch TV by just moving my easy chair a little closer. For smaller print, I have magnifying glasses. I can walk all the way around John Caple circle without stopping to catch my breath. The cut on my arm is practically healed and not leaving much of a scar. I feel great but I take longer naps. I have doctors and nurses that know me by name. I’ve got my airplane tickets for a bargain price to go to grandson Jamie’s Texas wedding in October. I have the computer and all the treasures it makes possible, like emails and information on everything I want to know.plus my John to fix it when it quits working, and nephew Paul who keeps my blog viable. Ann and Sam see that I get where I want to go. I’ve been blessed with what I consider the perfect family and friends. I’m feasting on delicious Georgia peaches from the store and fresh homegrown blueberries and vegetables from kind neighbors. Could Heaven offer much more?

LAST WEEK'S LOWS AND HIGHS

2011-07-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

One of the lower lows occurred after the manager of the local Dollar Store insisted I bring the scooter inside instead of parking it on the curb. It was stupid of me to agree as I know how crowded their aisles are and the flag on the scooter angles off from the path I am heading, but, not wanting to hurt the man’s feelings, I drove in. All I wanted was a pair of longer shoe strings as I had cut off some that came with a pair of tennis shoes, not noticing there were places for them higher up and on the sides until much later. When I inquired of their location the checkout girl led me to the spot they stayed. All well, so far. However, once I had found the longest white shoestrings and deposited them in the front basket of the scooter, I noticed there were people blocking the aisle ahead, so I had to back out to a corner with the flag hitting various objects on the way, but not knocking them off the shelf.

Here, again, more people shopping in that direction, so I turned right and meandered in and out of the mazes in that direction, often having to back again as merchandize was blocking the aisle. Finally came to a rack with cotton pajamas and as I needed some tried to find my size in a color I could live or at least sleep with. They were on a rack too high for me to reach without getting up so I had to do that several times as the size codes in colors did not correspond to the label on the merchandize. I wear a petite 10 but the lowest they came was a medium, so I settled for that.

In my maneuvering around through the store I noticed that the aisles along the perimeter were less cluttered than those in the interior so I made a wide swathe of the store and headed back toward the checkout counter. I would have made it had not my curiosity taken over my reason and I looked at some of the price tags on objects I was passing and noticed that everything was marked 50% off. They were picture frames and one looked like it would fit Doug’s lovely photograph of Orontium aquaticum, commonly called Golden- Club or Torch. So I put it in the basket in the back of the scooter.

But when I neared the checkout counter I found that my way was blocked by a cold drink display so I had to back up again and take another aisle to arrive there. The same nice girl who had pointed out the shoelaces waited on me and I became quite distracted with the terrible state of her hair which had become quite dry and bristly from too many re-blonde-ings, an unfortunate contrast with such a pretty young face, so I could think of nothing else.. Then I put the pajamas and shoestrings on the counter and since the credit card machine was so high before I could dismount from the machine she came around and ran the card through for me. When she told me the total, I was surprised because she said “fifteen something.” And I had only noticed an 8 dollar sign above the wrap. When I told her that she explained the sign was for “$8-up.” (I know I read too fast, so that was that.)

On my way out the flag got caught on something and by the time I reached the front door the pole it was on fell to the floor with something it had caught on making a loud noise. At the same time a buzzer went off and the clerk came around and spotted the picture frame in the back basket which I had completely forgotten, as I mainly live only in the moment. So I apologized and backed up and retrieved my flag and its pole while she put whatever it had taken down with it back in its place. Thank goodness it wasn’t broken. She acted like she believed my story, but then when she rang up the total for the frame it was twice as high as I had expected, so I told her that. She went back to check and returned with a lot of half price sale labels in her hand. Some one had half-priced the wrong section. She also said, since the frame had been mislabeled the manager could probably let me have it as priced, but I wanted only to get out of there as quickly and carefully as I could. So now my kleptomaniac instincts have been found out and you know how fast gossip spreads in a town this small!

Another low happened when I passed by a bowl and took a handful of nuts in my mouth, something I do several times a day as I come from a long line of hunters and gatherers, who took almost every opportunity that came along from taking a handy snack. I eat lots of nuts these days. However, when I took the first bite the taste was not nutty and the texture was much too hard. Rushing to the sink I spit out the bits and pieces and tried to wash away whatever I’d chewed. Looking back at the place where I had found them I saw it was the leftover food in the cat’s bowl that I had brought inside before the white cat and I went for our morning walk, in order to keep the black cat that has moved into this neighborhood from eating what remained. Ugh! I’ve heard of persons being so poor they had to eat pet food. I hope I never have to do it again.

Quite often, when I try ordering something on line, I overlook or leave out something that should be in the order before it will get to the checkout. Shopping this way is sort of like intentionally going rafting on rough water., something I have never done willingly. I should know by now there will be rapids and whirlpools that will entrap me. It wasn’t too bad when Carroll was in the boat and managed to safely maneuver us to safety ( There were a couple of exceptions where he demanded I paddle,too, and I ended up with blisters on my hand, but we survived.) I usually go back and try again on the computer but often end up having duplicated my order. This is not too bad when you are given a form to rectify such double orders, but those are not always available, nor are there places to blip S.O.S.es to service departments or telephone numbers to call for help.

Part of my present plan of coping with problems facing those growing older is to be prepared. So I have been accumulating things that I might need when I am forced to become more sedentary. Even though birding has been an important part of my amusement most of my life, I haven’t done that much of it lately, but the time will probably come, if I keep on having so many birdthdays so often, that I may find time for that pleasure again.

My most recent encounter with this dilemma of online shopping was last Friday while trying to order a pair of birding binoculars. The last one I’d ordered wouldn’t focus close enough for me to look at birds at my feeders, and I finally had to contact the Better Business Bureau to get the company to accept my sending it back for a refund. This urge to try getting binoculars again was instigated when I received a letter from that same company offering me a 20 dollar discount on any l00 dollar order. How could I resist? The eternal optimist, I went to their website and found one offered for sale that would focus down to 4 feet, so I recklessly plunged into the maelstrom again. My trouble started early when I was supposed to check the blank as to whether I was a first time or a returning customer. I checked the latter and typed my name, email address, and personal key code. They said they had no record of me shopping there before, but let me continue. I did and was near the checking out point when they asked my for email and secret code again. I typed the newer one I have been using. Then they said that some cutomer with the same name had a different secret code.and wouldn’t proceed.

Not knowing where to go next I went back to the beginning and through all the steps again, this time getting to the check out point and finding there was no form to fill out to delete one of the binoculars. So I gave up on the order that day.

Another day, Saturday, arrived and having had a good night’s rest, I braved the thing I dread so much…telephoning. My hearing is poor, even with the aid of three thousand dollars worth of hearing aids and if the person on the line has a high pitched voice, or a foreign accent it is all just babble to me. This time I was lucky, however, and a male with a deep voice and a slow way of talking took care of everything until we got down to the refund and code number. He told me he was unaware of his particular department offering such. However, after a few minutes absence from the phone he returned and said it was and that one pair of binoculars at 20 off the sale price would be soon coming my way.

One challenge I got to solve was how to transport one of the fawn photographs to the Art Gallery for an upcoming auction benefitting the local Historical society.I only had one stiff sided folder and I wanted to keep it to store the two remaining ones in. I finally solved that by rolling it up and placing it inside two large-sized whole-grained oatmeal containers, inverting the top one and sealing them temporarily for the rough trip by scooter yesterday afternoon. I have trouble ever throwing any of those boxes away as they make such nice drums. J.J. had shown me how well crumpled newspapers protected the ceramic pieces I was also donating.

One of the longer lasting lows has been my inability to do things that needed doing to my little flower-rock garden and the inefficiency and expense of persons I have been hiring to keep it going. The garden is just beyong the patio I have in front of my apartment and in plain sight from my usual place at the dining table. Right now it has been overtaken by grasses and weeds and liriope (monkey grass), but the view is still attractive if I look above it and fix my attention on the deep pinks and creamy white blossoms of the rows of crape myrtles lining the winding rock wall that forms the back of the garden

Among my more numerous current highs is the knowledge that J.J. is firing his kiln this weekend and is adding my ten recent Jotnars to the pieces he’s putting in. I like these new mythical character so much, it is going to be difficult to part with any.

The big HIGH that erased most of the recent lows happened yester day morning when John Schultz, the noted Rome landscaper, came out with his new wife, Dekie, my recent editor, to look over my problem garden and then giving me an affordable bid on its solving. He and his crew will come Tuesday and remove all the present plants, bring in new soil and possibly more rocks (from Ann and Sam’s vast hoard) and replant it Wednesday, using some of the perennial plants I already have in it plus one special one from his mother’s garden, all mulched enough to deter any encroaching unwanted newcomers. All I should have to do for some time will be to water and enjoy looking at it.

I was pleased to hear him say that my chrysanthemums are of a prized variety he has been unable to buy lately. Fortunately there will be more of them than needed for the new garden so I can share some with him. There will be other plants to spare, too, such as the himalayan irises that multifply so fast.

He also says he can solve the problem of providing shade over the big swing so the neighbors can sit there and enjoy the garden view, too. as well as find lattice work tall enough to go alongside and across the entrance for the yellow jessamines I planted there. I am sentimentally attached to them as Carroll never failed to bring me the first spring blossom from one he found in the woods. But those will have to wait until I can better afford them.

Other more important HIGHS: hearing from family and friends. How nice to find just a note on email, or facebook, a card, texted message, or even the shortest of telephone calls! One blessing of growing old is the opportunity to acquire so many old friends. I feel very rich.

But now….. what will I have to complain about?

Memories brought on by Cell phone numbers

2011-07-08T17:29:00.000-04:00

I just refused to answer a telephone call from someone’s whose number was listed as 000=000=0000. Wonder who has such!

Reminds me of a tale Carroll told about Ted O’Neill, his lifelong friend and co-worker when he first got his job with the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries commission. Ted was a famous athlete while in college and was on am Olympic Running Team but was kicked off before he got to Germany after he got so drunk on the ship heading there. Ted either had amazing stamina or didn’t have enough sense to know when he got tired so kept going until he won. When Carroll first went to work with him on Marsh island they decded to survey the island by walking over it and in the process ,osread the maps they were using not realizing some were missing between the beginning spot and the final destination. Carroll was very short legged and Ted very long, and Carroll finally coulnn’t put one foot in front of the other and the sun was setting. So it was decided that Ted should walk back to camp and come back in a boat on the river they were following. The mosquitoes are horrific on the island but Carroll broke down enough switch cane to make a mound big enough for him to get into and keep most of them from getting a bite . Sometime in the night he heard Ted’s hallooing and they went back to camp by water. But that isn’t what I meant to write.

While they were both students at LSU Ted was on an athletic scholarship and got free board and lodging. Carroll was milking in a dairy to pay his way and there was usually not enough left over for rent or many decent meals. Ted solved that by finding a vacant room in the underpinings of the football stadium where Carroll could stay and brought him sandwiches made from whatever his meals consisted of..

For some reason the athletic scholarships had the rule that some work was obliged of the athletes and Ted managed to be put on the landscaping detail and spent quite a bit of his time digging up prize azalea plants and rose bushes on the campus and taking them back to Oakdale for his mother’s yard. I am not sure if Ted had a conscience but I am certain he had not scruples. Still not what I started to write.

At that time very few students and only a few professors had automobiles. It was still Depression days but somehow Ted managed to own one. One time during their college days, Ted spotted a Louisiana License plate in a display cabinet in the student union that was all zeros and naturally it soon landed attached to his auto. Carroll and Ted had a habit of skipping classes near the weekends when it got to be hunting or fishing season and going home to Oakdale to participate in and celebrate them. One time a highway policeman stopped them and asked Ted how he got that license. And Ted boldly claimed it was a personal gift from Governor Huey P. Long, an act not so unbelievable for anyone aware of that man’s antics that the cop accepted the explanation without question.

This was before the bridge across the Mississippi river was built at Baton Rouge. Carroll told me that one time there was some crazy man on the ferry who started chasing every one on the deck around and around it. He happened to be on a higher one and had a bird’s eye view of the chase. He said Ted ran so fast he kept colliding with the back of the one he was leading and getting too close the the gun holder.. Before the boat landed someone subdued the gun toater and nobody got shot. When we were first married we had to cross on the ferry but nothing that exciting every happened.

When Carroll took the job of being Ted’s boat captain for the muskrat study on Marsh island, with the promise that he would be given the next biologist job to come up, we moved to Abbeville and rented a nice two bedroom house. I can’t remember if the rent was fifteen or 25 dollars a month.. Seen after we moved in Ted and his wife Callie decided to join us with their baby who was about the same age as our Tom. We got along about as well as two diverse life-styled couples could for a few months but it was a great relief to each of us when they found a bigger place closer downtown. Carroll probably never really got used to my Oklahoma style cooking, but Ted really liked my Italian spaghetti and would never let any leftover go into the dogs bowls, so I’ll always have a warm feeling for him.

Carroll’s idea of bringing me presents included the first wildflowers and wild pets like baby alligators and a fawn. The fawn often escaped outside and I had to chase it way too many times. I convinced a friend in Oklahoma to take the bator and Carroll finally gave the deer to the Tarvers who had a farm in southwest Louisiana.

After a few months we moved from the edge of town to a house closer to the stores as I had trouble carrying Tom very long while shopping and we couldn’t afford to waste money on gas it I used the station wagon. We were living there when the Japs bombed Hawaii. Carroll rushed down to buy some tires for the station wagon but he was too late. All during the war we had to expect a lot of flat tires needing repairs. My younger sister, Dorothy, came and visited us awhile and she helped me a lot. At that time we could purchase a dozen oysters for l0 cents, and she never seemed to get enough of them. Abbeville was almost l00 percent Cajun and their brand of French was spoken there, more than English. When I bought something I just held out my money in my hand and the clerks would pick out what I owed. We usually ate what groceries were left over from the boat trips to Marsh island. Unfortunately a lot of it tasted and smelled too much like diesel. Carroll always kept the refrigerator full of wild game during hunting seasons and fish throughout most of the year. It was not unusual for him to have duck feathers covering the floor of the room where he was plucking them. We ate wild rabbit until one of his friends died of tularemia but he never brought any more home after that. During blackberry time children knocked on the door offering freshly gathered berries for a nickel. And everytime I had one to spare, I bought them. We always bought the baby’s supply of milk and pablum and one time when the men stayed too long on Marsh Island, that was all there was in the house to eat for a few days. No wonder they spit it out.

We made one more move before we left Abbeville, this time just a block away and across the river from downtown. My brother Buford was in the army at Fort Polk and his wife came down and spent a week with us, driving up to see him. She was a dietician and horrified over the strange food we ate, such as crayfish.

The next door neighbor was the sheriff and he and his wife were childless and often asked to take care of Tom. I left him there the time Carroll took me into the middle of a hurricane. Sometimes Tom and I both stayed at their house overnight and it was quite a treat to sleep in homespun sheets and real authentic Cajun handwork on them and the pillow cases. Lovely couple.

We may have lived there a year or more, (living in the present, it is hard for me to remember dates) when the muskrat research was finished and the promised biologist job was given Carroll. That was when we bought a 20 acre farm near Elizabeth, Louisiana with a nice 2 bedroom house for two thousand dollars. Carroll never had a job that suited him better for he was to study the survival of released pen-raised Bobwhite quail, and him an avid hunter!

MY GREAT BIG NW GEORGIAN 4TH OF July, 2011

2011-07-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

For some reason or another, probably financial, as weekends are more likely to bring in visitors than Mondays, Cave Spring started celebrating this year on the second of the month with foor, entertainment, and fireworks at the City Park. I think the annual bug race took place, too. This is where white paper circles are attached to the front of participating motorcycles and after following the designated route (this is not a race concerning time) they meet somewhere and the circle having been marked closest to the center by the demise of some flying insect, is declared the winner and gets the prize.

As the midday temperature was in the high nineties, I did not choose to join the crowd . Instead I was having a ball making the Jotars, the new type Norwegian mythological characters that are afraid of Thor. These latest one I have peaking out of holes in the trees where they live. J.J. gave me some reddish chocolate colored clay that just takes over and makes them itself. I can look out my back windows and have a first row seat of the fire works display so I stayed at home for that, too.

Monday was when the big parade happens and that is something nobody should ever miss. ( I may have some of the details wrong but this is what I understood: It started out a number of years ago when the druggist’s daughter donned a statue of liberty attire (actually a silvery gown-sized plastic bag with slits for her arms and imitation=crowned head and lead her husband pulling their baby in a flag decorated red wagon throughout the extincts of Love and Alabama streets via Cedartown street connecting them. The next year someone joined them and in the succeeding years practically the whole town joins the parade walking, pushing baby filled strollers ,or pulling toddlers in wagons, driving or riding in kiddy cars, bikes, motorcycles, horses, all terrain vehicles, trucks, tractors, most of them with their whole family sitting in yard chairs or bales of hay, antique cars, fire trucks, ambulance, police car, policitians in expensive roadsters etc. all vehicles bedecked with flags or in patriotic looking red white and blue decorations.. This year a teen aged Elvis, complete with wig and wiggles, brought lots of applause. The one loan Indian in warpaint an on horseback who appeared at the end one year, failed to arrive, to my disappointment. All three of the parade streets ‘edges are lined with viewers in lawn chairs and young children not in the parade follow alongside it and dask out to pick up the hard candy that is being dispensed from the participants.

The Methodist Church has some espeically shady trees in front of it and it one comes early enough, space for lawn chairs. I was a bit slow getting off but Ann and Sam had staked out and held clam to a spot big enough for me to park my electric scooter. It’s advisable to buy your homemade ice cream the women in the church have made early before and while the parade is passing as when it is over, the majority of the paraders have a feeding frenzy after its close as nobody wants to miss out. This helps pay off the debt on the fellowship hall, Winnie and some of the AHHAS members had a booth making paper flowers to raise money but I think they gave more away than they sold. I almost waited too late to get Ann to buy my icecream but there was still some peach flavored and this particular gallon also had pecans in it. Yummy.

I had half of a salmon pie I had made Sunday night, so I invited Ann and Sam to come by and get some of it. They agreed but weren’t ready to leave yet. I had also told Sam that I was going to see if the local grocer was open as I had seen some nice looking avocados there the day before. So I started in that direction, but before I turned the corner at the stoplight a man in front of me stopped me and said someone was calling me. I stopped and a woman with a camera in hand said she wanted to take my picture as she was a newspaper reporter from Centerville, Al. and needed pictures of the parade. I explained I hadn’t been part of it, but she wanted the picture anyway. She said when I had passed her a few minutes before someone remarked about how old I was and she thought they were wrong. Before she got all the pictures she wanted she asked for my phone number as she wants to come back and do a feature article on me.

When I got to the store I bought only one of the avacadoes as they were marked at $l.50 eac. However, by the time I check out I learned they were marked down to 72 cents. (wish I had bought more.) All this talking and shopping took longer than I expected and Ann and Sam had already arrived at my apartment long before I finally did. They have a key but found it cool enough in the shade of one of the crape myrtles to enjoy sitting outside. Ann wanted to get home and watch the trial on the TV so I sent the pie home with them I didn’t expect Ann would like it as it had onions in it but today she tells me she thought it was good!

Winnie and Richard had been invited to a barbecue at The Terrell Shaw’s in Rome. He is a school teacher and a fanatic wildflower identifier. I had them out one Sunday night last year. This past week he and Richard had been trying to solve the identify of one Richard had found on a roadside. I had never seen it. An Agave. It grows in alkaline soil. I guess that might be the reason because I have spent most of my adult life in acid sandy soil where the pines thrive. Anyway they got permission from the Shaws to bring me, too. I had thought the avocado might go nicely with some blue cheese I intended to use in a dip to take there. Along with some carrots and celery. (It wasn’t that good, I’m afraid, and I brought home most of what I’d taken. Wise diners.

The Shaw’s place is on one of the rivers in Rome and their home is quite old and big and full of antiques. Every room seemed to bring up memories from my childhood that I couldn’t’ remember. Anyway, it started to rain shortly after we’d set up our lawn chairs in a crowd of other lawn chairs in the back yard fcing the river to get a good view of the fireworks later. There had to be over 50 guests there…maybe a hundred. All ages. All friendly and pleasant to be around.

When it came time to eat Terrell announced that since I was the eldest I should be the first to eat, so I agreed and went inside. But soon after the rains came and everybody had to rush for cover. I don’t remember ever seeing that much food in one place and that many people enjoying it. All the downstairs rooms were lined with eaters. I was seated at a table with the hostess’ brother and his wife. They turned out to be from Tallahassee. Terrell stopped by and told them about my book so they put in an order. Another woman in a red dress wanted my address, too, but my cards were in my purse in a bag I had left it outside under my chair (I had taken the zero-gravity one I sleep in) . I asked Winnie to ask Robert where he’d put it and he hadn’t as he didn’t know it was mine. Fortunately he knew where the chairs had been and brought in the very wet bag. Luckily my cell phone was working but the calling cards and everything else in my bag were wet as well as the chairs which had been brought in a bit late, earlier. I never did see the lady in red again but the sister in law has my email. The kinds of foods available were too numerous to list but I know they had barbecued chicken, buffalo, spare ribs, and pork roast. A veritable potlatch of a meal. Mike Burton alerted me about the blackberry cobbler his wife, Julie, had brought and as I was seated nearby the dessert table, I got some before it all disappeared. I met a lot of new people Winnie says most of them are associated with Berry College. Must have been why I felt so at home.

The storm continued so fireworks were out. The meal took so long in getting everyone through the line that it was time to go before Terrell and the other two musicians that play and sing together so well got around to performing.

The ride home in the storm was rather spectacular with Nature’s fireworks of lightning most of the half hour’s drive home. In addition, the western horizon had a break in the clouds and it was all shades of pinks and reds from a far away sunset. Most unusual.

When I got home I turned on the TV and enjoyed the PBS Celebration in Washington D.C. Great end for a very full day.

.. ………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Tuosday. July 5^th.

Went to the clinic early to have Dr. Su check on the progress of my bandaged right elbow, The big cut is healing nicely and all should be well by about aother week. I can also get the bandage wet now. It’s been a trick keeping it dry when I’ve showered lately.

Had my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon this afternoon to see what could be done with my crooked fingers. Had another long wait in a cold room after they took some X-rays, but exercised and didn’t freeze before he finally came. Turned out to be about seven feet tall and of Estonian ancestry. Nice personality. Checked my fingers individually, asked about pain. Only one hurts but that’s when I try to make it do something it doesn’t want to. Then told me how lucky I was at my age to have three of them still working so well on each hand and that nothing could be done with an operation on the stiff ones that wouldn’t leave me in a lot of pain. So we said goodby until or if they should ever start hurting.

After we got home Ann helped me pack the l0 jotars I’d finished, thinking I might not be able to do much should I have an operation. I would have picked up moe clay to do some more but J.J. wasn’t in his studio and Ann was more than ready to get back home and see if there was a verdict on the trial.

So irked with the gardener I’ve been using that I decided the only garden I should try to have is a xeriscape one that required little water or upkeep. Will see if I can afford one. No sense being mad at anybody or wasting money on one when I don’t have to.

Contests, disappearing checkbooks, medicines. and weeds

2011-06-30T21:21:00.000-04:00

This past week I’ve spent a lot of time checking out book contests since this may be a way of sprading the word about what a great book somebody might be missing. My batting average at winning writing contests I’ve entred is l00, but that’s because the only one I ever tried and that was when I was seven, in the second grade, and got the $1.00 prize for the one I wrote on how to keep Marlow beautiful (Marlow being the small town where I was born.)

Finding so many contests for poetry, I don’t see how every poem doesn’t win one. Categories to which my book might belong were hard to find and decide which might be apprpriate, as it is such a patwork quilt of a variety of topics. Also, it costs more to enter each category and that makes choosing the closest quite a trick. However, a couple of the organizations stated that the books might be changed to better categories if the judges agreed. I=It too

Each category had to have a one or more books to be judged, Three of the four contests I entered permitted me to enter both volumes as one book, but there was one that didn’t. It cots more than the others and I was tempted to just enter volume one, but my book is not complete without both of them.. It took a lot of time getting the entries filled oout properly with words legible and total numbers accurate.

I finally got the right number of books placed in separate boxes with a copy of the entry inside each one and the addresses to each typed on a sheet of paper, but when I got to writing the check for the 4h one the checkbook for that account had disappeared. I looked and looked but haven’t yet found it, even though it must be somewhere within the small space where I was working. I finally wrote the 4^th check on another account, I’m sure, with Ann’s keen eyes, she’ll find the other checkbook’s hiding place.

One of the contests deadline was July lst or the fee would go up. I couldn’t remember which one, so I was quite relieved when Sam came by this afternoon and carried all the boxes to the post office for me. The contests rules also said they had to be shipped by Fed-X, the brown truck company., or that special rate at the post office which I can’t recall right now. I was afraid that many books in one box would be too bulky but there was a size of box that was just right. The postmistress unfolded all the boxes and taped the sides together for us and after we put the books in them fastened the addresses on them. Now all I have to do is wait until March or somerimw next year. I shall try to live that long. Now I can get back to making some more of my dear little Yotars.

Sam nwzr took me to Cedartown to get groceries. I run out of my staples like Silk Soy milk and plain yogurt every two weeks if I don’t get 4 half gallons of the first and four pints of the other each trip.. I often buy fresh fruit at the local store, but it is usually so much more expensive than elsewhere. They finally had some Georgia peaches instead of those from Chile this week and I have been feasting on one of them several times a day, but yesterday there were no more for sale . . The ones at Kroger/s looked rather green and too perfect ro vw Georgians, so I passed them by.

hw lAR Rwo days I’ve dressed up for nothing. Yesterday it was for the Rome appointment but just before time to leave, the nurse called to cancel .... they found I had an infection and told me I’ll have to take l0 days worth of antibiotics before they want me to come back. She also said be sure and check with Dr. Su and get my Coumadin checkup before I started on it. I didn’t go there yesterday and after dressing up early to go there today I found the clinic office closed until next Tuesday. When I got home I noticed the upper half of the pole and the flags on my scooter were missing. Before I’d gone I’d added another flag to make it more visible and it must have made it top heavy and some jolt had tossed it away. I retraced my route and found it had dropped at Gary's Hardware-junk store.. Before I go out again I must get some tape and make it more secure. I went ahead with the antibiotic so I can make the next appointment. I trust my blood will not get too thick or thin in the meantime.

At suppertime when I started to take my 5 pills and 2 kinds of eyedrops , I solved the missing checkbook problem. Somehow I had put it in the medicine drawer instead of the one where it belongs, two to the left.

The weeds (mostly monkey grass) had just about taken over the garden so I called my gardener. He said he’d come over when it cooled down (It was melting hot today.) When I was fixing supper I was surprised to see he had come and finished his job while the sun was still high.. He said his dark skin could take it and went on to add that people in the south thought he was either Latino or Italian ( I had never notic thought so or seen that he was browner than any normal anglosaxon. He went on to say that he had just come back from visiting relatives in New York City where he fitted right in with the majority, color wise.

I will wait until tomorrow when I am well rested before I check to see what he’s killed this time. I lose some treasured plant every time he comes, but weeding is not something I can or care to do at my age. . No sense worrying about today’s massacre now. I should be thankful for the good he does

The pros and cons of Living in the Moment

2011-06-28T18:34:00.000-04:00

Most of my life I have been so busy with the present that there has been little time to reflect on the past or worry about the future. Now that I am back in my second childhood, I am doing it more than ever.

I remember a number of times when I failed to look at an airplane ticket and had to pack and dash off in a frantic hurry to meet the plane. Back when I was young and living with my folks certain subjects, such as bad health and local gossip, were not part of the usual dinner conversation. This has resulted in me missing doctor’s appointments and having difficulty enjoying a meal when such contraband topics are the staple part of the conversation (such as is the case when older women get together.) I avoid that as much as I can by trying to make friends with younger people who still talk of romance and work experiences.

I regularly post appointment cards on the front of the refrigerator (it’s still an icebox to me), as well as on the calendar hanging there, but seldom take the time to look at either. I sometimes remember the date, but rarely keep track of the day of the month I am in. I knew this one was for the 29^th but didn’t bother to check the calendar to see what day of the week that was. Most of the Rome doctors always give you a call the day before to remind me and I wondered why they hadn’t, but got dressed anyway to be ready on time when Ann came to get me. She didn’t come and about that time the phone rang, confirming my appointment was for tomorrow. So I got back into a cool housedress and sort of took the rest of the day off,

One thing I needed to do was check the internet to see what sort of book contests I might enter, in the hopes of winning one and getting some advertising. There were oodles of poetry and fiction, especially mysteries, but hardly a handful of ones that might be appropriate for Liana Tips and only one regional, and that one isn’t taking entries until next year.

My fingers make mistakes and my eyes can’t see them until the type cools down so I kept making mistake after mistake on the entry forms. None of them come cheap except for one and I probably read it too quickly and missed the sentence stating the charges. Most had several categories that some part of my book might fit but only regional non/fiction seemed closer. You have to pay another fee for each category, too. so that is a drawback, too. The fact that mine is in 2 volumes with different ISBN numbers might make me have to pay the full charge for each. One inquiry I made sent a prompt reply that both volumes would be considered as one if entered in the same category. Good news. This took a lot of time, but it was interesting to learn all this.

Richard came by with his wildflower field guide to see if he could identify the lovely cultivated blue flower in my garden. He’s still working on that, but between us we determined that another mystery plant in the garden was oregano. Nancy Boehm had brought me some spicey herbs and it had to be one of them. Richard and I enjoy tracking down plants as much as any big game hunter on a safari.

The mail person always brings things too large to fit in my mailbox or the larger generic package box, to my door. This time she came and left a big stack, junk mail, catalogs, and requests for contributions plus 2 oversized sweatshirts, one more sack (I’ve given a bunch away already as they hold too much, but this one is blue and smaller so I’ll keep it. Another big package held a giant sized American flag. Such deluges make me feel like I am being blackmailed. So many people needing help…but there is a limit to how charitable anyone can be.

This afternoon I decided to send my daughter Susan the ceramic Jotunn she’d picked from the pictures Jim and Mary had made.(I hope I got the right one). Then I began to look for something to pack it in, Found a shoebox and a larger stronger box it had come in, but knowing that the post office determines package costs by size, I decided to cut these both down to fit the figure plus the bubble packaging needed to protect it from breaking. I did pretty well making them smaller but when I got out the sticky tape and tried to fit all the sides together, the trouble began. My fingers don’t hold things well and the tape finally got away from me and stuck back to itself. Much too much time was spent cutting and unwinding it until I had it unwinding the whole width. Then I had to cover it with wrapping paper and got the tape stuck again. Luckily there was smaller tape that would still unroll. By then it was too late to take it to the post office.

.Several things I meant to write about. One was a pleasant visit with my Laotian and Thai friends, Lucky and Brown who brought their baby, her mother, a sister, an uncle, and a niece and nephew by for awhile yesterday afternoon. Another was an old movie I happened to tune in on last night. . The Shawshank Redemption. Normally I don’t watch prison shows but this was one of the best I’ve seen lately and based on a true story. The others are amazing forwardings I received last week, one about a savant artist sketching an incredibly accurate picture of Rome after viewing it from a helicopter about 45 minutes and the other of incredibly beautiful paper sculptures of American Indians by a couple in N. Dakota, some taking months to create and selling for thousands of dollars.. I saw some in the Carterville museum and Winnie gave one to Richard for his birthday. I’ll be happy to share these but don’t want to send them unless wanted

The Drinking habit and others

2011-06-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

When I had my Urology doctor’s appointment last week I was informed that I was not drinking enough water. She  informed me that I really needed 8 glasses a day.

I rarely drink more than six, but I will try to do what she says.

Then when I read my email the next day, there was this forwarding from my friend, Ed Marin:

Correct Time to Drink Water....Very Important

From A Cardiac Specialist!

Drinking water at certain time maximizes it's effectiveness on the body:

2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs

1  glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion

1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure

1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack

I had never been told about the time being important.

Here in Cave Spring we have what is some of the best tasting andpurest water in the world coming out of our spring…but then there is a law that when it comes out of the tap, it has chlorine added!   Lots of persons from other places come in trucks and haul off big bottles of water they have collected at the mouth of the spring.  Ann used to bring me some until I put a purifier on my faucet.  Much ado about nothing.

Try as I might not to, I seem to be able to make at least one mistake per day.  This one was writing a telephone number on an address of a book I was mailing instead of the zip code, which made a number of people in the post office waiting behind me while the postmistress looked it up and corrected the label.

Another one, not of my making (or was it) was the machine in the Dollar store not accepting my credit card until I and the clerk had made several swipes. There is something about my rhythm of doing such things that machines don’t like. I remember when we had the telephone where you had to put your finger in to get the right number and I couldn’t make calls. I had the telephone man come out to see why and he said I was too slow.

We had a very nice rain again last night and a change in the weather pattern so that it was so cool outside this morning I couldn’t resist thinking up places to ride the scooter.  The dumpster for recycled goods down the hill and across two streets was one place handy, so I hauled off my collection of cans and plastic bottles, and paper, involving 3 trips as the scooter baskets don’t hold very much.  It was almost noon and still cool enough for a drive, so I went to the post office to mail some orders and stopped by the Dollar store to get some glue and electric tape.  The latter was to try to hold the scooter’s rod in place that has a flag at the top to let truck drivers know I am there.  The extra screw the young man at the hardware store had put in last week didn’t keep the rod in place more than several days….every crack, every stick, every pebble run over gives the scooter a big jolt.  Maybe a lot of tape will do the job.

My Italian chef-like friend, Rita, had cooked me two delicious dishes last weekend and several people enjoyed them with me.  One of the last group of guests, when I offered some to take home and said “Take all you want.” Took me at my word and scraped the bowl.  Mother told me long ago to watch my language. (In reading this I noticed my fingers had put a superfluous e between the w and the l.  EvidentlyI need to watch my typing, too.)

I’ve had so much fun with the clay lately it almost makes me wish I was younger and stronger so that I could spend a lot more hours playing with it.  I’ve told you about the new troll-like Norwegian figures, the Jotars (plural. There are also two dots over the o.).  Well, when Tom was here he read  something Mary had sent me about them (that I had only scanned and missed) and discovered that a Jotunn (ingular) is afraid of thunder and lightning.  I was wondering why the inspiration had come to me to put some in holes in trees.  Evidently that is where they hide when storms come up.  The article also said that a recent survey indicating that there was a scarcity of Jotars these days might be because Thor’s lightning had done so many of them in.  No wonder they are hiding!

As I still have some more books on hand and have run out of friends to buy them I thought I might try entering in some book contest. The big question is WHAT KIND? As I know nothing about that sort of thing I will see if Dekie, my editor, can give me some advise as she has experience. Her husband won one on his.

Blessings of Showers and vice versa

2011-06-23T18:07:00.000-04:00

The plants in my garden have really been suffering from the intense heat these past few weeks and it’s been so hot I haven’t gone to the trouble to water them often enough, so when the rains started coming a couple of nights ago and cooling the temperature down, it has been a blessing.

Tuesday we were late for one of my appointments and that turned out to not be a good thing as that clinic has a new policy of rescheduling late comers by placing them after all those on time. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had left me in the waiting room, but they called my name early and put me in solitary confinement in what seemed to my old bones, a subfreezing climate. I sat and waited and waited until I begin to get chilled and then resorted to pacing and exercising and Tai-chi-ing to warm up. I remembered seeing the cell at Ft. Smith in southwest Oklahoma near where we had a cabin, where Jeronimo had been imprisoned and during that time had walked so much that he had worn a hollow path in the stone floor . Another memory that came to my mind was while we photographers were in the high and cold altitudes in Bolivia we were told that in former times prisoners were often confined poorly clad and without blankets with the result that they did not live very long.

Finally, having warmed up enough to slow down and rest awhile I started reading all the information posted on the wall. One of them stated that if patients needed something to make their wait more comfortable they had only to ask and they would be given cold drinks and reading material, or they could turn on the heater. It was not until than that I saw there was a small one under a cabinet! But just about then the doctor arrived.

Poor Ann, having to wait so long, too.

After that we were both hungry so we stopped by the Chick-Fi-lay restaurant to get chicken sandwiches. They do know how to treat a chicken right. We can never eat more than half of ours and Ann insisted on me taking her half home, too. As usual I had to use the restroom and was sorry I had when I opened a door to one of the stalls which was next to the entrance and someone opened the entrance door pinning my elbow that had been caught in the collapsed folding chair, making the cut places hurt again. (but only for a little while.) I wonder if I sued the company could I get a free chicken sandwich.?

A newly made friend had invited me to go to the Yummy Thai restaurant with her Wednesday noon, so I had invited Dekie to join us as I needed her to write me a check for the 2 books payed for with checks to Dekie’s Wheredepony Press, instead pf to me. Eleven thirty came and went, the last possible leaving time from Cave Spring to get to Rome by noon. No friend. The clock kept ticking. The same. Finally I called Dekie. Her cell phone wasn’t answering. Then I called the restaurant. got her, and explained my predicament. She decided she’d finish her lunch there and then drive down to my place and exchange checks, as she had something she wanted to give me. The something was a big bunch of beautiful Georgia peaches and a lot of garden vegetables. While she was here I got to look at pictures of her wedding and honeymoon trip out West to scenic places we had missed. I still haven’t heard from the new friend. I forget things, too. I just hope she never remembers she forgot to come.

Late last night I finally remembered the last name of the young man in S. Carolina whom Carroll recommended be hired for the job he had been doing at Mrs. Pepper’s Quail hunting plantation. Rawl, Bruce. What a likable young man. /there he was, on the internet. Finding an old friend is ever better than money. I’d like to know how he has coped with that demanding employer. Talk about slave labor….. Carroll was the only one on her payroll but she expected me and Jim to work, too.

I also emailed grandson Jamie to find out his wife to be’s last name as I wanted to mail her an old pendant . She’s collecting them from both families to include in her bridal bouquet.

Today when the skies finally looked less rainy I got on the scooter and deposited the check in the bank, stopped at the drugstore and exchanged the coupon the Energizer Battery company had sent for a package of hearing aid batteries (I had complained to them when one in a new package had not worked and would have settled for just one.), Then I went across the street to leave some business cards and some advertising cards at The Peddler, where Rip, the owner will be handling some of my Liana Tips, then on to J.J.”s studio to pick up some more clay to continue making Jotars. He used to have a very long haired dog that was so frightened of me that he would bark all the time I was there, but instead he now had a short-haired one that never opened his mouth after one sniff. I asked John what happened to the old one and he said this was it. They had just given him a haircut. It seemed to have done the dog a lot of good, and cured its inferiority complex. I couldn’t carry the big chunk of clay J.J. offered and asked him to half it, not realizing it would be a problem as his right hand had been hurt when he flew through the air on his bike, but he managed to slice it anyway. I opted for a darker color than the white clay I had been using.. We’ll see how these turn out. I intend to make some more tree dwelling ones first. They seemed to be the most popular.

I had every intention of making some more trolls this afternoon but the peaches needed pealing and slicing and freezing. I ate a lot of them in the process, Mmmmh. What a treat they will be later on!

MUCH TO DO DAYS

2011-06-22T06:07:00.002-04:00

I just spent some time in the thesaurus trying to find a word to express my enjoyment of the past weekend but ebullient, exciting, exuberant, or exultant don’t quite describe it as it was a combination of all of them and something more..

It started with J.J.’s pottery workshop for teachers in his newly opened and freshly cleaned up studio ( the old one was clutteed with motorcycles, bicycles, his art library, and everything arty left over from his various teaching careers) on Thursday continuing until Saturday noon when it was time to get all the books and food over to the Old Presbyterian Church Gallery for the book signing for my vine book that night, and made all the more enjoyable by having four of my children here and my dear niece, Pat Hooten, from Birmingham (*who is so much like her dear mother, Dorothy, that it was much like having her here, too.) who joined my local friends in helping me get everything done that needed doing. Added to this was the receiving of days and days of congratulatory emails from other relatives and friends on my finally finishing that vine book after my oewmaturely pronouncing its ending nearing for the last nine years.!

J.J. is an amazing teacher, first demonstrating each step first, then not progressing onward until he is sure the student has understood and can prove it by duplication. He also has some shortcuts and tricks to simplifying the processes. I wasn’t sure just why he was insisting on me being there, too, as I was a student already too set in her ways to change when I came along, but the first day of the workshop I learned so much by just watching and being amazed at the complicated pieces the beginners were already producing. I never could produce anything satisfactory at the wheel, or by using coils, or slabs. Thak goodness Robert Long at MSU had let me stick around until he showed me there was hand building.

The second day J.J. asked me to show them how I made my folk art gwenlins by handbuilding and the members of the group were so so quick to learn that I ended up being envious of their creations. Despite that, It was lots of fun..

With his newly purchased kiln, J.J. was able to have some of everyone’s early pieces bisqued and glazed by the end of the second session and high fired before the workshop finished.

Jerry. Maschint, whose gallery we were using, emailed all the participants in the book signing and art show to bring everything to be displayed Friday night, but to not plan to stay and arrange it. He just wanted to see how much space each of us would need.

Tom flew in from Dallas Friday. I tried to feed him some of the eggplant casserole I’d cooked up but which for some reason was so tough a knife wouldn’t even cut it. In the afternoon he went with me to the studio.. Like myself, he was amazed how J.J. can do so many things at once. Ann and Sam joined us for supper at the Mexican restaurant. Jim was driving up from south Georgia and expected to be there with us but a flat tire followed by the discovery that someone had stolen his extra and then the wrecker he'd called going to the wrong place before finally locating him, resulted in his not arriving until 4 hours later.

Mary arrived in the mid morning Saturday and she and Jim and Tom dropped by the studio to observe a while and Jim took pictures. Jean, my sweet and strong-handed reflexologist, came at l p.m. to give me a short treatment before going out to Sam and Ann’s for theirs. Those monthly relaxers are quite a treat. As usual, Mary came loaded with goodies like fresh cherries) and 30 small sized cocktail trays she’d found on sale, bringing the total up to 50 with the others she’d give me earlier. I wanted to keep everything recyclable, if possible, and had that many plastic glasses but, not knowing how many to expect Ann would bring paper cups and plates. Mary had to return home. before darj, Then it was time to carry the food and books over.

The young woman who had said she would help with the serving had not called the next day like she had promised and I was wondering where I could find someone else to do it but Friday morning she called and said she had misread the number I had given her, mistaking a 9 for a 4 (I can’t read my writing, either). So she came and brought her boy friend and between them they handled everything in the refreshment line. Karen had popped a jillion corns and Sam had brought several chests full of ice, Dough, the cheese tray he promised, and Michele, one of the artists had gone overboard with fruit and Buffalo wings and I don’t know what else. So there was plenty to eat. I had planned to cover that big table with my red and white checked gingham tablecloth but when I arrived it and the book signers tables were already covered with a nice white linen cloth, courtesy of the church members who were selling their desert cookbook to rasie money to restore an old schoolhouse here where so many had attended. Ann had taken the picture they use on their brochure.

One of the former students at that school sat with us (Dekie, John Schults, and Ann ) John is her new husband, John Schultz, and he had brought his novel, Requiem for a Redneck, which is about the mountain variety. Out table was centered and the walls surrounding were filled with gorgeous paintings and photographs, sculpture, and china paintings. Karen had also brought a tray of vegetables and gathered native red honeysuckle from Jane and Hilda’s yard; Doug had brought vines from his, and Winnie had placed the huge twining vine stem she’d brought to my first signing at the front door and placed a cultivated vine growing in the church yard along the centers of the two tables, plus bringing a lot of nuts and some dips. My napkins (folded narrow sheets of paper towels autographed with a bold markalot pen, with my crossed g and p logo) brought on a lot of laughs.

Jerry had background music playing low enough for conversations, lots of people came, and most of them stayed for the whole evening. I kept looking for J.J. and his wife Patti until I learned that late that afternoon he had been bicyling around the John Caple Drive that surrounds this apartment complex, hit a bump, been thrown into a ditch, and remained there unconscious for an hour or more until he awoke and started trying to carry his mangled bike homeward. Mike Burton, a close friend. spotted him weaving as he walked down the sidewalk, when he and his wife were coming to the art gallery, took him home and helped J.J.’s wife convince him to go to the emergency room at the hospital . No bones broken but lots of bruises and bleeding requiring stitches and bandages. And we had all driven right past him when we left the hosue and never seen him lying there! What would life be without without J.J. and his kiln!

I made more sales than expected, Ann handled all the money, Jim took picture after picture. Tom enjoyed the show. And all of us got to visit with my friends and meet the artists. A very fun time.

Jim left early Sunday morning; Tom attended church (I thought I'd turned my cell phone off but right in the middle of the service Jim called to ell me he had arrived safely. It was deep in my hand sack and I couldn't locate it, finally smothered it between my kneew before it quit ringing, adding a little mirth to the sermon, no doubt ) and the birthday dinner there, We ate with Ruth Goodall, one of my newest friends. (We and Dekie will be eating at the Yummy Thai at noon today.) In the afternoon he and I went back to the gallery to see the art I hadn’t time to inspect and which was still on display. I tried to buy one of Jerry’s amazing photographs but he insisted on it being a gift and you know me…so I took it.

Rita came by (despite her recently operated foot operation) to leave me some food she’d prepared. Just what I needed for supper that night.

Each of the children took their choice of the newest gwenlins, the Jotars (plural for Jotunn) Mary, the one peaking out of a hole in a tree, Jim, a dim-witted looking male, and Tom, the huge nosed mother and child. I’m not sure if Ann took one or not yet.

Sunday night supper, Richard was back from the medical mission in Honduras, Karen came with Doug (a very nice surprise for me, as they are two of my favorites),
Ann came and joined us for dessert. We had a bowl of Mexican guacamole with shrimp from Friday night’s supper, Rita’s delicious pasta salad, some of Doug’s left over cheeses and Karen’s remaining veges, Winnie brought some black beans seasoned the way I like and Richard, exactly ripe watermelon. I talked them into taking home some hummus I’d made. It’s great getting to start each week with such stimulating young conversationists.

After supper Tom shared some of Jim’s beef jerky with Doug and Richard and I passed the venison on to Richard as what he cooks tastes better than mine. There was a lot of Michel’s assorted melons still left so I put that in a blender and have been feasting on that every since.

Winnie brought over the big vine since then. I don’t know when. It looks like a piece of sculpture. I’m trading her an un-nunny looking nun for the vine that’s been sitting out in the garden unwanted for years. Which reminds me of all those unwanted ones of mine that Roberta Martin has adopted over the years. I am so fortunate to know such compassionate persons!

Monday I dropped by on my way from the post office to see J.J.. and found him up an about. He suggested I drop by a local gift shop “The Peddler” and meet Rip Montgomery the proprietor to see about his handling some of the vine books. I did and he will for a reasonable percentage. I love writing but I am uncomfortable selling. Dekie has scheduled a signing of all her authors in September, so perhaps I can get rid of some more of the books. This apartment doesn’t have enough room for storing many of them.

Yes, life hasn’t been very boring lately.

THE PERILS OF PAULINE’S YOUNGER SISTER, GWEN

2011-06-16T08:23:00.000-04:00

During the last few years, after taking three very bad falls and being hit by protruding door knobs, I have been trying to eliminate any possible cause for future cuts or bruises, such as getting rid of the bent wood chair with its extended trippering rockers ; eliminating sliding throw rugs;, exchanging doors for curtains and sharp cornered tables for rounded ones; trying to walk more slowly and remember to use a cane while outside. But just when I think I have everything covered, some other unforeseen accident occurs.

With the long awaiting book signing coming up this Saturday, I have been being extra careful to avoid doing anything that might bruise my arms as I wanted to wear a pretty fancy dress with short sleeves for the occasion. This hope was shattered earlier this week when I was looking for a teeny weensy hearing aid battery that popped out when I was taking the aids out for the night. The mirrored doors above the lavatory are so high that I have never seen more than the top of my head in them, so I found a small mirror framed in wood that I keep on top of a chest of drawers. Like some others I have ought it came with rollers on its base which comes in handy for the regular furniture re-arranging that takes place here. In moving this chest to one side to see if the battery had rolled under it, this heavy mirror, which had been placed too close to the edge tipped off and fell, taking time out on its way to pierc my left arm just below the elbow and bruised a large area around it. I bruise easily but heal quickly, but not fast enough to have nice looking skin showing with short sleeves of the dress I wanted to wear to the Signing.

Furthermore, the next night after making one of the usual trips from my bed to the bathroom I made a foolish decision that further substantiated the necessity for wearing something long sleeved on that upcoming auspicious occasion.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned the zero gravity folding chair that unfolds to a position where my feet are as high (or higher?) than my head and is so good for better circulation to my feet as well as taking the pressure off my lower back that makes it so sore when I sleep in my normal bed. Well, that night, instead of bringing the bed back upright before exiting (a very simple and easy thing to do) I decided to leave it open and climb over the side. No trouble. Then (and here where I was so stupid) when I returned, I attempted to get back in the same way. Now I know that there is no extra legs supporting the upper frame of the folding chair when it is wide open and no problem as long as the lower frame has some weight on it. However, as I backed onto the bed with all my weight on the upper portion, it caused that end to go on to the floor and the other end to come forward and snap me like a mouse in a trap. As it did so, the wooden handle and metal frame cut my right arm just below the elbow and I was not strong enough to lift it up and off me, so I had to pull and push and slide out of it, despite the pain, causing the cut to rip up a large portion of my skin.

When I had the skin cancer on my right ankle removed a couple of years ago there was lots of bandages and ointments the nurse suggested I keep in case of any further problems. One of the unopened tubes was labeled “wound ointment” and I spread that over the open place and found it immediately soothing. Then I did some one arm bandaging that wouldn’t have passed inspection but managed to stay on until I could get to the clinic next morning where the nurse and Dr. Su redressed it in a manner that returned mobility to that limb, thank goodness.

The nurse chastised me for not getting help when it happened, but why bother anyone to wake up in the middle of the night for something I could still do myself? I don’t want to wear out my welcome with too many Wolf-Wolf’s. When the wolf really comes that will be soon enough.

While there I inquired about the possibility of surgery to regain the use of my curling fingers and she assured me that could be done. I have an appointment next month to see the surgeon specializing in that procedure.

I spent day before yesterday cleaning up all the trays and cups I’d bought at the junk store and in removing all the paper labels and glue managed to stop of the drain in the kitchen sink. I tried the Green solution of equal parts of baking soda and salt salt with a ¼ less amount of vinegar, but it was not enough. Then I scootered down to the local grocery and bought the chemical kind. Still no luck. Yesterday Mr. Benefield came with an elaborate chugger and now it works.

While at the store I asked the clerk (who has done some house cleaning for me) if she would managed the food and drink table Saturday night and she said she might if she could bring her boy friend. She said he could help, too. I agreed. But yesterday got worried when she never called to finalize the deal. Just now she called and said she’d misread my 9 for a 4 and had called the wrong number. They’ll be there! Hoorah.

Last night Jerry wanted every artist to bring what was being shown at 7 p.m. so he could see where all could be placed. I was delighted to learn that there are more artists showing than I had known. It will be a great show. He also expected me to have some gwenlins to display, so if Winnie can manage that table she might make something for AHHAAS to which all the proceeds go. Ann came in and delivered the shelves and tables and the weeping troll fountain. Doug wants to bring a cheese tray and some vines for bouquets. His girl friend is making a fruit tray.

All book sellers will share a long table which has room enough for Ann to sit and handle all my sales as well.

Great to have so much help getting this thing going. Sam will be here in a few minutes to take me to the radio interview in Rome this morning. Then I’ll go to J.J.[s studio and help him with the pottery workshop starting today

The Day at Cave Spring Art Show

2011-06-12T09:01:00.000-04:00

My built in alarm clock woke me up in plenty of time to check my emails, feed the cat, and do my 25 minute before breakfast. Among the messages was one from the Energizer Battery Co. I had complained about the one dud in a new package that made me miss out on hearing the actors in a play well enough to enjoy it and asked for a replacement. Instead they listed some things to make them work better that I ahd never read on the instructions, such a always aerite a new one one minute before placing it in the aid, and notified they are sending me a whole package.

As soon as the cat had vanished eating, we went for our walk down the long driveway and then up and down the steep hill around John Caple Drive and back along the entrance to the apartment complex before the sun rose too high. Tiis time the black cat that dug up my recently transplanted flowers decided to join me and the white cat that adopted me, Ann buys her food and the cat allows her to pet her (but no one else) . The cat adopted me and thinks she’s supposed to escort me on the walks so I’ll be able to find my way back home..or something, The white cat soon let the black one it was not welcome.

The day before I’d forgotten to put my hearing aids in and really missed all the bird calls, so this time I remembered to wear them. The first chorus of sound came from the cicadas. If I remember right, they’ll continue their percussion concert until late summer. I haven’t taken the time to see which kind lives in this part of Georgia so I don’t know how many years they stay underground before they emerge to find mates. I still have a copy of the article I wrote many many years ago for the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate and the cartoon I drew, comparing one of them to Elvis Presley.

The rest of the walk was much like the previous ones but this one without any attacks by the little gnats. Did the hot weather get them or have they closed their hunting season for this year? I had been seeing a differently shaped vine leaf in the woods when I’m almost to the bottom of the hill and had picked a leaf several days ago to identify it, then lost it before I got home. This time I stuck it deep in my jacket pocket and used my key in Liana Tips volume one to identify it. Carolina Moonseed. I don’t remember seeing any red berries on it since I’ve been noticing it. Perhaps crammed in between some Japanese honeysuckle vines, it may reproduce vegetatively rather than by pollination.

After completing the 3 times a day regimen of swallowing my medication and my usual breakfast of old fashioned cooked oatmeal with 10 Goji berries, 3 dollops of plain yogurt, a handful of English walnuts plus either blueberries or a banana, I am fortified to take on the challenges of the day’s morning: depositing some checks for Volume Two at the bank, stop at the Art Fair and listen to some of the musician Karen had arranged to perform there; returning a can opener to the Dollar Store that I wasn’t strong enough to make work: and not be late at the Welcome Center where I had some gwenlins on display to try to raise money for AHHAAS

My new and evidently not expensive enough electric can opener had balked at opening a larger than usual can of Osage peaches after making one cut with each try so I couldn’t get anything out of it but the juice and therefore had to be refrigerated until I could get the lid raised eough for the slices. For some reason I had forgotten the battery operated can opener in the tool drawer, which dances gaily around everything except a can of salmon. When I brought home this manual one I couldn’t even make the initial puncture of the lid.

I had to wait until 9 for the bank was open but then I scootered down hill the 3 locks to it, and then on to the Dollar store The fair was being held in the city park, just to the left of the bank and I had to wait quite a while for a slow down in the traffic to cross the main road leading past it to proceed upwards on Love Sreet where there was a lot of traffic going both ways, so I had to stay very close to the edge of the pavement to avoid being hit. Where it deadends at Ga. hwy l00, the edge of the pavement is much higher than the sidewalk I turn on and the scooter almost flips over when I make the turn. I had hoped to be able to run onto the highway and then turn back quickly but there were too many log trucks passing by just then, so I took the plunge downward to the sidewalk and managed to remain upright although jarred.

When I had parked the scooter before going into the store I noticed my tiny little American flag atop the long narrow pole that hopefully makes me visible to truckers passing alongside, was about to come loose. Now I could purchase some tape to repair it when I returned the can opener and feel a little better. With so little strength in my hands I should have known better than to have bought a manual can opener in the first place.

Back to the fair grounds I had another long wait before the traffic thinned down and I felt it safe to cross the main street down town. There are a number of paved driveways in the park which were easy riding by scooter but I had to leave them and bump along on gravel and holes in grasses looking for the platform where the music was soon to start. Finally I found Ann and Sam selling tickets at the back gate to the grounds partititoned off for the booths and one of their customers knew where I was wanting to go.

Just as I arrived a wonderfully rich baritone voice began singing spirituals and hymns a capello. What a voice! I spotted Karen seated at a bench at one of the tables under a large roofed pavilion and joined her. It was nice and cool in the shade there.. Karen had the job of signing up musicians for this two-day event. The singer sang on and on, each song leaving you ancious to hear his next. I can’t imagine how his vocal chords could be that strong.

Finally the entertainer finished and Karen announced there were square cancers performing at another place in the park and then left with someone to go there. I was ready to leave for home and the morning was about gone and I hadn’t remembered to get any change at the bank, in case there were any sales at the Welcome Center. I noticed Karen had left a thermos bottle on the picnic table and after I stood up to leave I noticed she had forgotten her purse as well as her sun glasses and cell phone on the bench. So I thought I’d better take them to her.

Karen is long legged and was already out of hearing and sight in the crowd and I hadn’t paid much attention to where the square dancing was happening so I made my way as fast as possible through the people and over the bumpy ground in the direction she had disappeared. Evemtia;;u I spotted her heading in another direction toward where food was being sold and finally caught up with her. Tjere are a variety of fast food booths at the fair but most of it is fried, so I never buy any. Fortuntely I had an extra shopping bag in one of the scooter baskets so Karen could haul her things with her. The rest of the day. Her thermos was too big and heavy so I volunteered to take that back and leave it by some tables where the sound boxes were connected and a a technician was usually staying. He was there and promised to look after it.

A short drive up the hill and back to the bank and then I discovered I still had Karen’s sunglasses. Once those were returned to her I thought I’d just stay on in the park until it was time to be at the Welcome Center, but then I remembered I needed a notebook and pen to get names and addresses of any buyer so they could receive a receipt for their donation. Back up the hill again for that.

I am usually my brightest when I first wake up, and gradually wear down to dullness by noon. This time I wasn’t thinking too well and rushed to the Welcome Center to be there by 12, remembering much later that I was scheduled for one p.m. to 2. Not wanting to get out in that hot a day I decided to stay on and stick it out;. out.

As I suspected, no one coming to the center to look at the historical collection was particularly interested in even looking at anything for sale so I didn’t have to worry about making correct change or anything. Winnie was taking hr turn at hostin the Center and she told me she had sold one. (I suspect, to hrself.) One visitor ruined my day by being 94 and still very sprightly. I met several Cave Springers who evidently donating some of their time at the Center, one of whom told me she had read an announcement about our book signing in the morning paper. It was interesting to hear them and Winnie’s remarks about some of the town’s history and the changes as well as finding out they were somehow kin or had friends who were. An out of town visting ex-Marine officer, now a part time assistant manager of some Walmart who retired in Cedartown only to learn that you had to play golf or fish if you wanted to belong, Not doing either, he bought a scooter and is leisurely exploring all the winding roads in beautiful northwestern Georgia He had a lot more to say, but thankfully Ann arrived f and brought me a bacon tomato sandwich which we ate in the kitchen of the remodeled home that is the welcome center. When we finished my time was up and Ann and I left.

The rest of the day I mostly napped, waking up in the midst of a late afternoon wind rain and thunderstorm, and then read some emailings and found out another newphew and niece wanted to be my friends. I was glad to be

TROLLING ALONG

2011-06-10T17:52:00.000-04:00

These super hot days have been great for staying inside in the air conditioning and working with clay. Fortunately I bought a small roller that fits nicely over the dryer and the top of the washing machine is a comfortable height for working on them while standing. And the inflorescent light above is great.

Usually I can make two of these new Jotunn trolls before I get tired of standing, but that depends on how complicated the figures are and how well my feet are doing.

As these are more complicated than my earlier trolls I have had to figure out ways of getting the separate parts stiff and leathery enough to keep their form after I put them together. A few minutes in front of a little fan helps a lot. The fact that these all wear floor length polar bear skins on their backs is a great way to finish stabilizing them. I roll a knobby plastic softener ball to make it look furry. For my big breasty women Jotunns I roll their blouses over two round glass rocks. The tines of a fork can make damp clay look like long locks of hair. A garlick press is wonderful for curly hair, but that’s not Jotunny. A small wooden shiskabab stick is great when it comes to the eyes: The flat end making a nice hollow for them and the pointed end for their pupils and nostrils.

So far I’ve made old and young males and females standing, sitting, or walking and one mother holding a big nosed baby. And yesterday when there wasn’t enough to complete a whole figure I made two heads and hands peeking out of huge woodpecker holes in small trees. Things got complicated when I waited to put the head of the first one in the hole and the Jotunn was too big-headed. Had to do some last minute carving.. On the second one I wisely made the hole bigger and inserted the head in before I’d sealed up the backside of the tree. Never a dull moment.

I’ve only made them in a white clay and then let J.J. glaze them in a clear glaze along with some of his dishes or bowls, which saves all the facial features nicely. Yesterday I ran out of that clay and had to use some that is a nice copper color which I didn’t think was very Jotunny, so I made another Tibetan face bowl, which has the tongue sticking out like they say “Thank You.” There was still enough of that colored clay to do something so I tried duplicating the lavender-black glazed dragon that I’d won a $150 award for in an art show. It looks close enough to be a red-skinned twin.

Today with no clay soft enough to work with I dampened the several small packages that were on the shelf where I keep all the ceramic stuff so it will be ready when I get another chance to play again as this was a busy day.

As I had a package too big for my mail box the mail person brought it to my door and it was from the egg painting artists that live in Denver and come each year to teach it for the AHHAAS workshops. I had mailed them the second volume but must not have sent a bill as in the box were a jar of Alaskan wildflower Jelly and a package of bee honey soap from Alaska where they are vacationing and a warm thank you for my present. Also checks for three books, so I didn’t do too bad, profit wise, afterall..

I had offered to give some gwenlins for the AHHAAS to sell at the Annual Art Show and those pieces had to be sorted by price, put on 3 trays, names of each listed on a print out by tray, individually wrapped and delivered to the Welcome Center where they’ll be displayed and I will have to appear for an hour on the coming Saturday and Sunday. The shoes I’ve bought lately provided nice sized boxes for carrying the new trolls to J.J.’s. Since they had tall sides I could use some of the puffy packaging that came with the last book order. But the trays only had narrow edges, so I had to go down to the office and get some old newspapers to keep them from breaking each other during the trip.

Just as I finished Winnie arrived to pick everything and me up, took me to the Welcome Center where we had time to unwrap them and stick up the signs and prices before it was time for my appointment at the beauty shop across the street. Then she took my stuff needing bisquing to J.J.’s studio and arrived back exactly when the operator had finished with me and brought me home.

After lunch I took a nap but I didn’t hear the 20 minute alarm and slept for two hours. I’ll be wide awake for a long time tonight.

Emails from J.J. informed me he had lined up a radio interview for me next Wednesday morning at 9:30 in Rome. Ann doesn’t like to get up that early and I’m not sure she knows where the radio station is located, but I’m sure it will work out.

Also J.J. said the Rome Sunday paper is supposed to do a feature article on the book signing-art and pottery showing this Sunday. So nice to have friends like mine.

It just rained a little. I had begun to think it had forgotten how to. Nice surprise.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF CANDIDANCY

2011-06-07T11:33:00.000-04:00

As it seems to be the season for announcing your candidacy for President, I guess I might as well toss in one of my hats and advertise my platform. I’ll leave the ways and means of its execution up to the experts.

Keep but improve Medicare and Social Security.

Provide every citizen with access to needed health care and place more emphasis on preventive medicine.

Find other means of judging school student success than by the standardized test scores.

Include more emphasis on trades and crafts instead of college so more high school graduates will be better prepared to enter the work force.

Withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. We can’t afford it and a nation’s form of government should be up to its own citizens.

Permit honest, hard working illegal immigration, especially those with children born here to become citizens. As it is, we are paying for their children’s education and emergency health care.

Fine or incarcerate employers who do not pay workers the minimum wage

Legalize all drugs Abolishing prohibition didn’t turn everyone into drunkards. Take the money out of drugs and reduce crime. Use some of the money wasted on building fences and breaking up drug rings rehabilitaton of the addicts.

Free all convicted drug users from jour overcrowded jails. They could be out making money and paying taxes instead of their upkeep being so expensive. Back in Walter Cronkite’s time he was reporting the War on Drubs as lost and the foolishness of continuing it.

Tax the super wealthy and simplify tax forms. Eliminate tax loopholes.

Support alternative fuel projects. We’re already too far behind many other countries without our wealth of resources.

Abolish special privileges of members of congress, such as insurance and retirement benefits which they voted for themselves.

Limit amounts of contributions to candidates as well as expenditures. Equal free time should be available on TV and radio. Only the very rich or those with rich friends can become President now.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have all candidates take lie detector tests, to save so many of them and their families from embarrassment when secret things come out of their closets .

While I’m at it, I would make all banks permit bankrupt persons who lose their homes , be able to rent them at a fee they can still afford, thus not lending to further depreciation of the value of other homes in those neighborhoods.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

During the years when I was growing up in Oklahoma my Mother was embarrassed nearly every time an election came up for Governor of the State, as my uncle Charlie some how managed to get his name on the ballot. The only reason I can guess was that he was being supported by some of his ans from his college days when he was a star in baseball. The only thing I know about why she didn’t approve Charlie/s running for office (or anything else he did) was that he had inherited the family farm and Daddy, nothing, because Grandpa Kirtley, ex Indian fighter & Sooner in the Cherokee Strip Run, was disappointed in Daddy becoming a preacher.

However, Mother can rest quiet in her grave about my possible candidacy as, after testing the wind I didn’t find even a breeze blowing in my direction, nor more than one member in my GKP Party. But at least,in America, we are all free to have our Says. Besides I have other things more fun to be doing.

INVITATION TO BOOK SIGNING

2011-06-01T07:40:00.006-04:00

My arthritic crooked fingers extended the time of the signing and my worn out eyes didn’t detect it. It is only from 7 to 10 pm. Sat. nightm June 18th

You are invited

to attend the long promised but finally happening

book signing party

celebrating the completion of

Liana Tips,

my two volumed book on

southeastern native and introduced lianas (vines and vine-like plants)

. to be held on

June 18^th from 7 to 10 p.m,

in conjunction with an art show featuring local artists

Jerry Maschinot’s White Church Gallery

located in the

old Presbyterian Church

on Alabama Street

Cave Spring., Georgia

I had so much fun learning about these plants that I feel guilty asking anyone to pay for the books. However as editors, printers, and truckers don’t work for free……

Volume one, which is about vines, vine-like plants in general, and other more or less related viney subjects, such as personal experiences, sells for $14.95 plus the seven percent Georgia sales tax, or $16.00

Volume Two includes all the interesting things I could find about the individual species, is twice as long as the first volume and sells for $29.95 plus tax or $32.00

Gwen Kirtley Perkins.

I John Caple Drive, # 8, Cave Spring, Ga. 30124

Bug bites in near and far places plus Memorial Day activites and musings.,

2011-05-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

Got an email from Herb concerning his unpleasant incounters with southern outdoors’s biting insects and arachnids.

I can really sympathize with him when it comes to flying insects and crawling ticks. One why I enjoy livingon the edge of this small northwestern Georgia towhn of CaveSpring where I have fewer problems with them than anywhere else I have ever lived. Mosquitoes are a rarity around my place and tiny stinging gnats are the only ones that bother me much.

If I’d remember to stay inside just after sunrise and before sunset, I would have no problems whatever, as they have crepuscular dining habits. However that’s when I like to walk, so I have to use some OFF and cover up as much skin and hair as possible when doing so. They lurk in the kudzu which almost completely covers the hill surrounding this apartment complex as well in my little flower garden. Their choicest feeding spots seem to be in my hair and on my ears. One bite will make a huge red bump on my skin and sting for several days,if not attended to shortly after inflicted. I have found that rubbing those places with dampened soda or meat tenderizer as soon as I return can usually stop the itching. Later the meat tenderizer seems to heal them faster or at least stop the itching so I won’t scratch and infect them.

Carroll seemed to be immune to insect bites in most places but when we traveled in the north countries the black flies preferred his taste to mine. When we first started going to Alaska we would get bitten so much that our eyes almost swelled shut but as the summers passed we seemed to build up some resistance. We also had a lot of trouble with mosquitoes but that was our fault as Carroll always set up camp as close to a fishing creek as possible and where mosquitoes are more prevalent.

During our several months backpacking trip to the South Pacific we had no problem during our week camping on Hawaiian Island we had no problems but when we got to the mountains of New Zealand the gnats made us spend more time in our tent that we preferred. When we got to Tasmania, we curtailed our hiking after learning of the leeches. But the flies in the Australian Outback and other parts of tat cinunent made us cut short our intended stay there.

Later when I spent a month with some some avid birders from Panama City we circling the whole of Australia as well as flying into the interior, flies were not that much of a problem. It may have been because of the season, but I’m not sure.

When I spent the Christmas –New Year holiday camping in Kenya with the biology class, insects were never a bother, but that might have been because I slept in the van most of the time and let some of the others use my tent after I learned about the deadly black mamba being nocturnal. .

I enjoyed a quiet weekend. Sunday morning the electricity in the front room of my apartment quit working but was still going in the back one. I figured some lever needed flipping but couldn’t get the box in the washing closet open ( When Sam came he pushed the handle in the other direction than what I assumed was right and it opened easily. However nothing was in the wrong place. When we passed under the stoplight on our way to church there were a bunch of men working on the street light, so I assumed that was the cause of my trouble. But I still don’t know why half the place worked and the other half didn’g. After lunch at the Mexican Restaurant and back home, everything had been fixed. Watched the Joplin memorial service and some Memoriabl Day programs.

The walking shoes I’d bought that felt so good except for being too short, fitted Ann’s feet, so she bought them from me and I ordered the next size larger today. hope they fit because I intend to do as much walking as I can. Naturally the cat escorts me. Her idea of her job is to run a few steps ahead and survey the surroundings for potential enemies (or meals), then stopping directly in front of me even though I’ve veered to one side to prevent this. I;m afraid she’s going to trip me one of these days so I am watching her more often than enjoying the scenery.

Was glad to have Richard join Winnie and Karen and me last night for supper, although he had to frequently stop eating and answer the phone and do something on the computer for Red Cross. He handles all the district computer stuff one week a month. Winnie had photographed a strange vine when they went camping last week and wanted me to identify it. I didn’t recognize it and waited until today to look it up. I think it was a Honey Vine in the Milkweed family. Need to look at the photo more closely to be certain.

This morning I got a glimpse of the towhee I’ve been hearing from further up the hill. As far as I know it has never ventured down to my feeding stations. The feeders are in shadows from the crepe myrtle trees so it is hard to identify the various customers I’ve attracted, but I welcome them anyway.

Ann’s older and very sweet deaf friend, Myrtle, had a bad fall last week and she is so confused they are keeping her in a rest home. I was glad to hear that she had a daughter in law who is seeing that she gets the help she needs. I didn’t know she had anyone. Only lately has she started to use a cane. I guess she forgot to have it handy. I try to always do so myself as my balance isn’t getting any better and I don’t want to ever fall again..

Since the bank, pharmacy, and post office were closed today I had no reason to use the scooter other than to dump some trash. Karen had asked for the new type female troll I’d made and last night Richard asked for the old one with a crooked cane. This afternoon I made another female one. She looks even uglier and dumber than any of the others, but I suspect someone will want her anyway. Solved my problem of having the separate pieces too wet to fit together by using a small fan to dry them faster. That will save a lot of time on some others. As long as there is clay to make trolls, life can never be boring.

VINES: GOOD,BAD, AND BEAUTIFUL, PLUS MISCELLANY

2011-05-26T11:50:00.000-04:00

Followmg Ed Martin’s email to all the landscapers on his email list, orders have been piling in for the book, giving me lots of excuses for scootering to the post office. a couple of them from some women on one of Ed’s European tours. They may even come to the book signing., as well.

Yesterday while I was in the post office mailing them their books a woman in the line behind me asked what I was sending and decided she must need them, too. I gave her my card. We’ll see. And when I got home a strange black truck parked in my space and out if sprang Don, who just retired from delivering prescriptions and devote more time to his garden. He had ordered the second volume before the first one ever was finished and I had only lately been able to let him know this one was available. Nothing like living in a small pond if you want to feel like a big frog.

My hesitancy in taking out the few blooming winter pansies is going to cost me. This warmer to hot (91 here yesterday afternoon) wether has given unwanted grasses and weeds the opportunity to try to take over the rock garden. It may be that everything will have to be taken out and replanted; Something strange and rathr attractive that appeared where a nice purple aster used to grow is definitely not an aste. I’m going to leave it there until the buds p[en to see if I can identify it, then off with it’s roots.

While shopping in Cedartown I was finally able to locate a small sized tomato. I will try growing it in a pot plant as there isn’t any other place to put it. I do enjoy having them so handy all summer as bacon and tomato sandwiches are some of my favorites. Speaking of sandwiches, Ann has been getting Subway sandwiches lately instead of the greasy burgers she used to buy in other fast food places. I am glad she is being smarter. So I decided I’d try one of their 6 inch vegetarian sandwiches on flat bread and ordered cheese and everything else in the vegetable kingdom available, and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it took me two meals to do so. I now join Ann in ordering this sandwich, although I have learned to ask for the server to go lighter on the jalapeno pickles. Another nice surprise is how inexpensive such healthy meals can be.

For some reason the person hired to regularly clip the shrubbery on the apartment grounds has Lately stayed clear of the section around my patio .Monkey grass, Mondo Grass, or Lily turf, originally planted only as a border,wherever regularly trimmed or mowed, it, along with Japanese Honeysuckle , is turning the surrounding ground into a monkey grass-Japanese honeysuckle jungle. The former despite its leaves looking so grass-like is actually a lily, and native to Japan and Korea. It is used in Chinese herbal medicine to restore the yin . It will be interesting to see which of these intruders win the battle now going on between them. A former battle with some Irises planted at the end of John Caple circle has left only a few iris leaf tips visible. I must admit I enjoy the scent of the blossoms of the honeysuckle in the early morning, but lack the will power and muscle to try to save the poor lilies, and keep passing by on the other side without offering any help.

There are a number of more welcome vines there that seem to know and keep their place. Growing up the tall rock wall at that turns along the outer edge of this level on the hill, Virginia Creeper is leafing out and almost halfway up. Along the ground the tasteless but pretty red Indian Strawberries are ripe. I was surprised to learn that it is an escaped introduction from India and not native. The tendrils on the Saw Greenbrier are tasty and edible this time of year. A native, it is kept from spreading by natural controls. For the past several years there have been a few Creeping Cucumber vines along the wall. I see that is threatened, endangered, o r extirpated in several states , but as an another of it’s common names is Guadalupe Cucumber, it may have originated there. I find its heart-shaped, angular margined leaves very attractive. Its fruit is supposed to be edible but its rind is toxic. So far only a few of such plants are apparent.

After the hummingbird morning glory vine I planted by my doorway last year became so aggressive

I dug it up in the fal and tossed it close to the wall. With its unusual many lobed leaves and bright red blooms, it is definitely one of the most attractive vines I have ever met. It also attracted hordes of humming birds and butterflies, but I got tired of cutting back its branches and was afraid it would finally block my entrance. So far I see no evidence of its having reproduced itself in that area, but by late summer, its usual best growing season , it may and I hope it will.

So the world didn’t end except for those in that terrible tornado path. More storms predicted. Nature has a strange and terrible way of housecleaning.

I usually fill orders or work on the computer in the mornings but in the afternoons of this week I have been trying my skills as making my trolls more Norwegianish. These are Jotunns, in charge of the earth’s rreasures, supposed to be stupid, very ugly, have huge noses (some of the problems of the very rich?. )They require a certain amount of drying before the various parts will hold up being connected (Patience is not one of my virtues.) . I don’t know if anyone but myself could ever love one. Some failures; some successes, but as the old saying goes, a troll a day keeps boredomness away.