Saturday, June 22, 2024
Saturday 9: I'll Never Get Out
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Thursday Thirteen #865
Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 80 years old today. Here are 13 things about her.
My mother as a young girl. |
1. She was madly, fiercely, and desperately in love with my father.
2. By the numbers: She had her first child when she was 18 (that would be me) and her second (my brother) when she was 21. Mom was 38 years old when I married. She retired in her late 40s (I can't remember exactly how old she was), and she passed away at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer. I was 37 when she died and my brother was 34.
My mother bringing home my brother. |
3. Mom could sew well and up until I was old enough to pitch a fit and ask for store-bought clothing, she made most of my clothes.
4. She followed my father to live on a farm that was adjacent to the property on which her father grew up. She diligently canned green beans, helped kill and pluck feathers from chickens, and kept a fire burning for heat, all while working a 40-hour week job that was a 45-minute drive away from home and taking care of her husband and two children.
5. Mom had a button box that was full of glittery things that I liked to play with. It wasn't a box, actually. It was a metal fruitcake tin. But it certainly had a lot of buttons in it. I wonder what happened to it.
6. She could be very creative with arts and crafts. She painted small houses to use for Christmas decor and made mushrooms out of some kind of plaster that she painted up nice.
8. She was always well-dressed and her hair perfectly coiffed. She wore her hair the same way all of her life.
9. She was pretty in a traditional way, though she had freckles and she disliked those immensely. My paternal grandfather used to call her "Liz" because he said she reminded him of Elizabeth Taylor.
Does she look like Liz Taylor? |
11. She was not afraid of mice. Once during a party, a mouse strode out into the kitchen and Mom took off her shoe, whapped the mouse dead, and then scooped it up with some paper and tossed it outside.
12. She had a decent singing voice but never really got the hang of playing an instrument. She could accompany herself a bit on the organ, though.
This is the way I remember her. |
13. She was loyal to her friends and family.
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
He Did What He Said
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
And Now This!
So then yesterday it simply stopped cooling. The man came out just at 5 p.m. and started talking about what he was charging me for, and I informed him very quickly that the thing was under warranty, and he wasn't charging me a darned thing. He wanted to argue with me about it until I showed him the paperwork from where I bought it last year.
Monday, June 17, 2024
Not the Uber Driver
This year, we are making hay on someone else's property, which means driving equipment six miles to its destination.
This requires multiple trips, with my husband driving a tractor over to the property while hauling a piece of equipment. Then I have to ferry him back so he can get another tractor and another piece of equipment.
It is also important that I go in front or behind him (whichever he requests) with my hazard lights flashing to keep traffic from hitting him.
He finished up the haymaking and this morning we went after the equipment. He drove the dump truck with a trailer over there so he could load the last of the hay, and I followed. He dropped the dump truck and trailer off where he had hay stacked, and then I drove him up to the landowner's shop space where he had a tractor with the equipment my husband needed to load the hay.
There I was to wait on him so I could then follow him and the dump truck home, and then bring him back so he could get another tractor and drive it home.
Yes, it was as complicated as it sounds.
Anyway, during the first part of the delivery and waiting process, I needed to turn the car around. I started backing it up, using the backup camera on the car, and then suddenly, "WHAM."
"What the f*ck did I hit," I wondered aloud. It stopped me dead, whatever it was. I pulled up a bit and looked in the backup camera. All I saw was what looked like gravel.
I got out and saw that there was actually a stump covered with gravel in the middle of this area. This was a flat, graveled area, part of a shop and machine storage place on this landowner's property, that shouldn't have a stump in the middle of it.
It most definitely should not have a stump covered mostly with gravel that looks nearly invisible on the backup camera of a car.
The landowner was nearby but apparently did not hear my collision. I couldn't see anything wrong with the car, so I turned it around and waited for my husband to return on a tractor (also belonging to the landowner - he let us borrow it because we have a tractor out of service).
I told him what I'd done and confessed to backing into the stump. Husband looked but couldn't see anything wrong, so we determined I'd probably hit the stump with the car tire.
He also told me that he and his helper had nearly hit the camouflaged stump while they were over there working. "I couldn't have said anything if it had done damage," hubby said. "It's a bad place for a stump."
It's stuff like that that makes me glad I'm not an Uber driver. Sheesh.
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Sunday Stealing
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Saturday 9: Wait Till You See Him
Friday, June 14, 2024
Vengeance and Vandalism
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Thursday Thirteen
1. I took the recycling to the recycling dumpsters early this morning, before the heat came, and saw that the plastic dumpster, at least, was compromised. Someone had tossed heavy plastic shelving in the bins. We can only recycle items with "1" or "2" in the little recycling logo on the bottom of things. Heavy plastic shelving doesn't fall in that category.
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Rural Living v. Farming
Sunday, June 09, 2024
Sunday Stealing
2. Can you curl your tongue?
3. Can you wiggle your ears?
4. Did you ever participate in a talent show?
5. Do you have any piercings or tattoos?
6. Do you prefer Mac or PC?
7. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?
9. Have you ever been hospitalized?
10. Have you had braces?
11. Were you ever a Girl or Boy Scout? (Or a brownie)
12. What is one food you refuse to eat?
13. What's the most expensive item of clothing that you own?
14. What's your favorite foreign food?
15. Who's your favorite fictional character?
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.
Saturday, June 08, 2024
Saturday 9: Footloose
Friday, June 07, 2024
Tomorrow's the Day
Thursday, June 06, 2024
Thursday Thirteen
1. Thursday sneaks up on me sometimes. Like today. It's Thursday and 2 p.m. and I've not done a Thursday 13! Whatever is going on!
Wednesday, June 05, 2024
Writers I'm Supposed to Love
When I was taking Advanced Placement English in high school (it was, in theory, college level English), I remember a little argument I had with Dr. Shots (she had a Ph.D. and insisted on the title) about the deconstruction of a piece of work.
Apparently, I had had enough of the "they used yellow here for sickness, green for jealousy, why do you think this lamp is placed here," because I told her I didn't think authors meant for their work to be analyzed in such depth and detail.
"Sometimes a lamp is just a lamp," I said. Or something to that effect.
You'd have thought I'd blasphemed the chin of God the way she came after me. Of course, every word was carefully chosen, every sofa, every lamp, every blade of grass, had a deeper meaning than just being a blade of grass. What was I doing in her class, telling her (with her Ph.D) that writers didn't always mean something else with what they wrote?
"Because I write, and I don't do that," I responded. "Not consciously."
"Then you're not a writer," she snapped, putting an end to the discussion.
She was the only teacher to ever say that to me.
After that, I kept my mouth shut and dutifully turned in my papers or spoke up in class saying that of course the lamp meant that the character had an idea or had seen the light about some issue. It wasn't put there simply so she could read the book in her hand.
Then I went to Hollins College, now Hollins University, which is a women's undergraduate degree school that is well-known for the writers it puts out. Think Margaret Wise Brown and Anne Dillard, just to name two. Or Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle.
There the poetry in particular was analyzed in great detail, even that which was written in the 17th century. I went on to read Virginia Woolf and numerous other writers while taking eight long years to get my bachelors.
And I always found the examination of works tedious, and I stubbornly (and secretly) held on to my conviction that sometimes a lamp is just a lamp. But I wrote the essays about the books secret meanings and dissected the poems as required.
Of course, sometimes imagery has double meaning, and of course sometimes the more literary authors put cute language in their works to add to the character. The book I'm currently listening to has a daughter of a woman who was dying of cancer eat a chicken pot pie with her mother and the hospice worker. What does the chicken pot pie symbolize?
Damn if I know. Dinner table scenes are great for conversation; they had to eat something. Maybe it symbolizes the daughter's fears about her mother's upcoming death (she's chicken, get it?). Maybe it was just there.
Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Gilbert, and now Ann Beattie (whom I am listening to - maybe it's something to do with the name "Ann"), are among the literary writers that I am supposed to like. They use great turns of phrases and create deep characters. Every word has been carefully chosen. I imagine these writers spend days pouring over one sentence until they are utterly sick of it, trying to make sure they've chosen chicken pot pie instead of Thai food for the correct reason.
And I listen or read their books and find they do not move me. Occasionally they write one that I find intriguing and enjoy, but overall, they are not my favorite authors. They may have a good sentence or two that makes its way into my little "writer's notebook," but the stories seldom stick with me.
Who do I like to read? I like Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Susan Wiggs, Kate DiCamillo, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts, Louise Penny, Kristin Hannah, etc. These are not literary giants, but they write well and have interesting stories that move along just fine. Sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes they make me think. I liked The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. I like a lot of fantasy writers, like Neil Gaiman, Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Phillip Pullman, Ursula K. Le Guin, etc.
I wrote for newspapers. I wrote to educate and inform, not to puzzle people and have them wonder about the significance of someone eating chicken pot pie. I like my fiction to be straight up and to the point, anymore. I read Overstory and while it received rave reviews, I found it incredibly boring. Great concept, but my goodness, couldn't that have been put out into the world in some way that wasn't so long and drawn out?
It is good for me to listen to authors I do not like, to stories I don't always enjoy. I never know what I may find in such tales. I do it now as a part of my life's growth cycle, so I don't get stale. I listen to or read everything from memoir to nonfiction self-help to the aforesaid authors to Catch-22. I seldom listen to or read something a second time (Tolkien being the exception).
Life is a learning experience. This is part of how I live it. But sometimes it frustrates me, because I still think I'm right. A lamp sometimes is just a lamp.
Monday, June 03, 2024
Ridin' My Thumb to Mexico
This morning the news comes with the word that Mexico has elected a female president.
More than 100 countries, including the United States, have never been led by a woman.
We're supposed to be the leader in the free world, but that's just poppycock. We're so far behind the times in true freedom and liberty that it's a joke. We have lots of freedoms to do things, but not freedoms from things. Like the freedom to go to the movie theater and know we won't get shot in our seat. Or the freedom to be rid of advertisements we don't want. Or spam phone calls. Stuff like that.
I love my country, but the bass ackwards mindset of its citizens in among the more perplexing and aggravating things about it.
My state has never had a female governor. Other states have, but not mine.
My local Board of Supervisors has had females on it, and currently has one of five. Shouldn't that be more like three of two, when women make up half of the citizenry?
We have a female vice president and that scares a lot of people. Oh no, she might become president! She might do some good in the world! Horrors.
Crickey.