us again

The next time I drop by your journals, I will be an old married lady.  Well,  not THAT old, but..you know what i mean.

We had planned to have a simple ceremony with a jp in my mom's front yard, but wouldn't you know it's thundering, lightning, raining and nasty. LOL  God, I hope it isn't a sign.

Let me tell you a little about the groom.  He is tall, blonde, has twinkly blue eyes and a great big heart.  He has been down this path with me one time before, but circumstances led to the breakup of our first marriage to each other, and circumstances led us back to us again.

How many people actually remarry their exes?  I have no clue, and maybe we're nuts, but we're gonna do it.

There won't be a wedding cake this time because he's now diabetic. DOGGONE IT.  I love wedding cake.   And there won't be a long honeymoon, and we won't pick up where we left off, but we have learned from our mistakes and have found each other again...

y'all have a great sunday.  :-)

 

Poetry in the afternoon

i'm always surprised by the wonderful things that happen in the middle of concrete and razor wire...today was no exception.  my favorite co-worker, Dr. H, recited poetry in my office.  He couldn't quite remember all the lines, but he was close enough.  he is an oasis in the midst of chaos.

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

 - Yeats

Burning the Book

On May 21, my friend Lisa gave me a voodoo doll kit. It came complete with instructions on how to use it.

Of course, it was strictly for safe anger management, but if there’s someone out there who felt sudden stinging pain in the lower left abdominal quadrant, or thought perhaps he had a strangulated hernia because of excructiating testicular pain - nope. That was me and my pins. Same goes for that sudden headache, and rest assured that you do not have hemorrhoids - although justice would be well served if you did - BIG ones, that require surgical removal, and a donut cushion two years post surgery.

Happily, I don’t have use for the voodoo doll anymore, but was struck by my friend’s thoughtfulness and wisdom.

“This,” she told me as she handed me the package, “is just until you realize he was a world class ass, and that you deserve better. And for God’s sake, don’t feel guilty about being angry. You have every right to feel angry. And even if he shot you that line about everybody deserves to be happy, the man doesn’t have a pot to piss in. If he’s happy, it’s because he has a roof over his head, and a woman to support him. He’s a self-involved narcissistic leech. You don’t need that.”

A seeress, indeed, that woman is. But as I said…I no longer have use for pins and dolls. And I really have let go of the anger (or I have now that I have confessed my voodoo doll capers) because I don’t want that mess tagging along on a new life that will begin at 2:00 on July 31 2005.

I did deserve better. And I got it.

Chapter closed, book burned.

My buddy Bert

I met Bert when one of the journalers directed me to her.  She's a sweetie pie!  And a feisty one.  Y'all might want to check out her journal. The woman is a pistol.

http://journals.aol.com/flossiepumpkin/journalsaolcomflossiepumpkin/

Bert, if you're reading...hugs, ladybug.  Hope you're feeling better.

Right Here, Right Now

I have reaped an early harvest this summer. I have spent hours silking corn, slicing cucumbers, squash and tomatoes. I have searched for the perfect peaches to freeze, and I found them at a roadside stand in Candor. Winblo’s.

We spent the evening in the water, cooling down from the hottest July, and we made it out just before the storms came. The banter was easy and the laughter was light.

are you sure you want to get out right now?

oh yes, but you can stay in and find out what lightning feels like if you want.

oh, i think i already know.

There were peaches to prepare, and when we made it home, the power was back on, and we started peeling and slicing. They were soft and blush and sweet, and for every one we peeled, we ate one fourth. Three for the freezer, one for me.

And the lightning was flashing and sky was rumbling, and we were sticky from the peach juice and laughing while we licked our fingers.

I was a mess, my hair still damp from the water, my arms wet from the juice dripping from my hands to my elbows, and I knew (and know) that I have never been happier than I am right here, right now, and the harvest hasn’t ended yet.

Dandelion Wine

One evening this past spring, I was outside at the picnic table, looking out over a yellow field that should have been my lawn.  It was a cool evening - a bonus after the faux summer that always occurs somewhere between the last cold snap in April and the sudden heat in mid-May.  I remember thinking, I should be mowing this, but it was so nice, and I was so lazy, the dandelions received a reprieve.

I was thinking, they grow so wild and free and everywhere, it's a shame you can't do much with them, and I decided to research the uses of dandelions.  I was amazed at what you can do with them.

For instance, you can use the milky sap from the leaves as a balm for bee stings, pimples, and to remove warts.  You can make tea from the plant.  The greens are edible, as are the flowers.  If you're Ray Bradbury, you can step outside of the sci-fi realm and write a classic novel entitled Dandelion Wine.  And speaking of wine, you can make it, but it's important to let it age.

Dandelion tea has uses as a diuretic.  It also soothes the digestive system and certain urinary tract afflictions.  It reduces swelling of the liver due to chronic hepatitis, and apparently, is good "all-over" remedy for the body, but certainly, don't use holistic methods without consulting your physician first.

Dandelions are loaded with the vitamins and minerals B-1, B-2, B-5, B-6, B-12, C, E, P, and D, biotin, inositol, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc and are higher in beta-carotene than carrots, and are an excellent source of iron and calcium.

Best of all, you can make wishes on them - but you must scatter the entire seed head and keep your wish a secret, or it won't come true.

And if after all this, you decide to eradicate the weed/flower/vegetable from your lawn, keep in mind that if you pull them and break the taproot, you're actually helping the  plant reproduce.  Further, they don't need cross fertilization, so a flower can actually fertilize itself.  How's that for efficiency?

Personally, I think I might harvest mine next year.  If I could dredge up a market for all the possibilities this simple weed possesses, it could be quite profitable!  I wonder if there's a market for wishes...

 

Dandelion Wine

Yields: About 1 gallon

Ingredients:

1 gallon dandelion blossoms
1 gallon hot water
Juice of 1 lemon
3 oranges, peeled and sliced
4 lbs of sugar
1 cake of yeast
Combine water and blossoms in a crock. Let stand for 24 hours, then strain.

Then add the rest of the ingredients. Let the mixture set for 3 weeks, then bottle.

Age the bottles for at least 2 months.

 

 

mmm mmm mmmm!

the first tomatoes straight from the vine are coming off, and i have just finished a tomato sandwich.

it was heaven!  folks, i'm tellin ya, i saw God!

and so i'm including my very own special recipe for a tomato sandwich so that you all may enjoy. 

two slices of merita old fashioned bread - very fresh, the kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth, it's so fresh.
a jar of mayo
a large, juicy, ripe red gorgeous tasty tomato
salt and pepper to taste

slather mayo on the two slices of bread, freely
slice that tomato into the thickness you like best
sprinkle a little salt (pepper, too, if desired)

put it all together and don't mind if it's messy, just enjoy!

man, that's good stuff.

Running with the wolves

Every spring, the S. Pines Library has a book sale.  I'm usually fifth in line (i like to sleep late), and have found many treasures while plundering through boxes of books.  Some, I purchase because I've wanted to read, and some for the titles alone.  For instance, one title that grabbed me was "I Killed June Cleaver."  I mean, really. Who could pass that up?

Last year, there was a black and gold paperback, good quality.  The title of that one grabbed me, too.  It was called, Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Fascinating reading. She uses stories as a healing tool to help women rediscover the primal woman, the collective unconscious specific to our gender.

I’ve skipped ahead to a chapter on rage. How to deal with it. When it’s appropriate to bare fangs. How to lay it to rest.

Estes speaks of descansos, white crosses that mark the spot where someone has died, where lives have changed. An exercise in this chapter involves making a descansos, a chart, or time-line, of our lives and ask where the crosses are. Estes writes:

“To make a descansos means taking a look at your life and marking where the small deaths and the big deaths have taken place.”

“We mark where there were roads not taken, paths that were cut off, ambushes, betrayals, and deaths. I put a little cross along the time-line at the places that should have been mourned, or still need to be mourned. And then I write the background “forgotten” for those things that the woman senses but which have not yet surfaced. I also write “forgiven” over those things the woman has for the most part released.”

“Descansos is a conscious practice that takes pity on the orphaned dead of your psyche , laying them to rest at last.”

"There is a lot to be said for pinning things to the earth so they don't follow us around.  There is a lot to be said for laying them to rest."

Pinkola-Estes is a wise and insightful woman. Women Who Run With the Wolves is teaching and healing well worth the time for reading.

A Journal Jar Question: Fathers

I didn't write a father's day entry, but as I was perusing journals this morning, happened upon the Journal Jar.  The question was, do you and your father have anything in common.

There was a time I would have answered that with a resounding and unequivocal No!  and was convinced nothing could change it.  My father was a lot of things.  He was called Mayor of Montrose, Mr. Marshall, and often, son of a bitch.  My brothers and sisters and I tagged him The Silver Bullet because of his penchant for silver town cars and his lead foot.

He was, and is, a hard man - at least, on the surface.  He's an alcoholic.  He is unhappy with everything and everyone - me, in particular.  I was supposed to amount to something.

He was physically abusive.  I remember instances vividly, but won't go into them here.

Some cruel words come out of his mouth, and I know this sounds terrible, but I feel fate has stepped in to punish him for that.  He has oral cancer.  He finished up chemo and radiation at the end of February 2005, and still cannot eat most foods because his tongue is burned so badly Pain keeps him awake most nights. I believe my mother's prayers are at work here - not in the punishment, but perhaps a reckoning so that when his time comes, his sins will be paid up, and Hell won't be a probability.

Still, there is much good in him, and I have seen it.  It makes it hard to reconcile one aspect of the man with the other, but it's there..

One Christmas, he bought a coat for a man whose own was in tatters.  When the hungry entered the silver bullet's restaurant or yard, offering to work for a meal, dad would give freely and for no work in return, if he didn't have a task to hand out.  It was small moments no one else saw that showed something else lived and breathed underneath the hard and harsh veneer, and I respected that.

We do have things in common, both good and bad.  I can be unforgiving.  I catch sharp words flying from my mouth and wish they hadn't.  But I share his love of the soil, his respect for wildlife, his love for animals and most days, his business acumen and keen insight.  At least, I like to think I learned those things from him.  Some days, I'm everybody's fool.  He was never that.

I hope he forgives me for not being what he wanted me to be.  I know that I have forgiven him, and pray for him daily.

 

a wonderful day

It was such a wonderful day, I'm loathe to give it up, as has my companion, who is now snoring away in the next room, worn out from our excursions.

We started out the morning by shopping for first aid supplies for my dogs - with the hot weather come hot spots, and I worry that my babies will scratch until they've developed a secondary infection.  So we decided to find a cure.

After that, we went to a farmer's market in a small town named Candor.  It's one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon - not buying vegetables, but talking with the old farmers and their wives.  They're eager to give recipes or canning tips, to tell old stories from a lifetime ago that we wouldn't have heard about, otherwise.  These folks are wrinkled and leathery, and are a virtual treasure trove of memories.

We made our purchases - peaches, from the Peach Capitol of North Carolina.  The winblo's aren't ready, will be a few weeks yet, so we bought a freestone variety we had not tried before.  The vendor was eager to tell us that Claytons were the very first freestone peach developed.  Let me assure you, they taste wonderful.  But there's no subsitute for Winblo's.

We drove on into a place that time did not exactly forget...there are abandoned houses whose histories fascinate me, old tobacco barns that have crumbled to the elements of time and weather.  Homes are sparse, and we drove along a hundred miles, it seemed, of winding country road dotted with mimosa trees, wildflowers, out and out weeds.  It was beautiful.  We daydreamed aloud about building a house on the property he owns in that area...how I will write, and he will garden in a place that seems so far from civilization, but isn't. 

On the way back, we stopped at Stuckey's and admired the wares in the gift shop, vowed to come back for Christmas shopping, bought icees to cool us down on a steaming July Saturday.  And then later, the thunderstorms held off long enough for us to swim.

It's the best Saturday I can remember having in a very long time; I wish it didn't have to end, but he's a keeper...and we'll do it again.

 

Three day weekend!

It's the first day of the three day weekend, and not a moment too soon - my back is KILLING me this morning.

In honor of the holiday, I splurged and spent the extra dollar on Folger's coffee instead of opting for the bargain brand colombian.  Can y'all believe the price of coffee these days???  The price of everything, for that matter.  It has come down to this - we have to give something up in order to compensate for the extra money we're spending on items that are sky-rocketing.  Think about it.  If you have to run uptown for a gallon of milk, that gallon of milk will cost you approximately 10 dollars - 5 for gas to get there, and then more than 3 dollars for the actual milk.

Is anyone out there old enough to remember when hamburger was the meat of choice for those of us on a tight budget?  Not so anymore...at 2.79 a lb, you still get mileage out of it, but that pot of spaghetti/cookout will hit your pocket like ribeyes USED to.

Let's not talk about ribeyes (drooling over here).  Between gas prices and mad cow, beef is a thing of the past for some.

Tea is still affordable - and you all KNOW i havetea.  But I have to give up cigarettes (should have a long time ago), but the state of NC is making it much easier for those of us on a budget - forcing us to quit, actually.  As soon as the senate closes its budget session, we'll find out exactly what the new cigarette tax is.  It's somewhere between 45 and 75 cents per pack.  That hurts, when, as a state employee, we've only had a 2% slap in the face raise in four years.  But it's better than nothing.

SO here's the plan - I give up cigarettes.  That should save enough for a considerable retirement account somewhere in the future.  If I run out of milk, tough.  It'll have to wait until grocery day, when I make a mass buy-out in walmart's supermarket section.  I've switched to turkey instead of beef, and have cut my coffee consumption down to one pot a day.

Lord help us all if they raise the price of toilet paper.