I've moved!!!

My actual home is far too small these days, and there isn't much I can do about that, so I have been blogsphere shopping.

I've found a new home - please add to you address book.  Stop by and visit me, often.
http://bht826.wordpress.com/

XOXO,
BT

Joe

I lived downtown for most of my adult life.  We laughingly referred to it as the historical ghetto - yes, it was in the historical district, but it was surrounded by examples of white flight.  Our three little avenues were a cocoon of homes always needing repair and requiring more maintenance than a single woman who teaches school could deal with.  I sold my house several years ago and now live in a smaller and more manageable abode.

I loved my neighbors, my sidewalks, and my hundred year old oaks and pecans.  I also loved Joe.

Joe Hope took care of my lawn and most of the others in the district.  He was of no discernible age - could have been 40 or could have been 60.  He wore the years well and no job was too much for him, unless you asked him to plant any white flower or shrub, or a nandina.  He hated them as much as I do and quit one family when they insisted he plant the things.

The first year he worked for me I told him I wanted five white azaleas to mix in with the pink and red.  I might as well have asked him for a kidney.  When I insisted he said he'd do it, but they 'wouldn't do.'  Asked me why I wanted a flower that would just look 'rusty' when they turned. 

He was right - the next Spring was a banner year for dogwood and azaleas, except for those five white ones.  I'm sure he poisoned them.

He was also a master garden designer.  I might look out one day and have monkey grass around a camellia bed, or the crepe myrtle might have changed places with a Japanese maple. 

He didn't mind 'borrowing' plants from other people in the neighborhood.  When I mentioned my new monkey grass to a friend up the street she told me that he had thinned hers the day before.  Mystery solved.

Joe had other quirks besides white flowers and nandinas.  He always came to my house first because he liked my coffee.  He and I spent many mornings on my front porch, drinking coffee and talking about everything.  He had several children - I'm still not sure how many - and all of them had children.  If  you ever needed to call Joe you had to go through five or six people to get him to the phone.  I think they all lived with him.

He wouldn't use a weedeater.  He spoiled me by using an old-fashioned edger on wheels.  He took great pride in his sharp edges and told me he sharpened his tool every day to make sure his lines were clean.

He was also sensitive.  A mention that maybe the grass needed to be cut shorter was enough to make him quit you.  It took many phone calls and promises that the offender would never question him again about grass height before he would come back, and an even longer time for him to stop sulking.

I never questioned him about anything after the azalea incident.

I'm not sure how much he charged.  It varied.  Sometimes he'd knock on the door and say "I had to charge you more today - I fertilized (or cleaned gutters, or poisoned)."  If he wasn't in a pout he did some of those things for free; if not, you could spend your grocery money paying him.

Joe got mad at me when I started work.  He was used to starting his day in my neighborhood at my house - he said Mrs. So-and-So's coffee wasn't fit to drink and it got his day started on a bad note.  He got over it and worked for me as long as I lived downtown.

When I sold my house I told him where I was moving.  He looked disgusted and said, "Mrs. T, you know I'm a townie just like you.  I ain't gonna go down that Drive.  You gotta find you somebody else."

I miss my friends and the camaraderie you find downtown.  Front porches really are the best places to visit.  I miss the convenience to church and the post office and the library.

But I really miss Joe and our early morning conversations on my porch, me in the swing, Joe propped up with one leg on the stoop.  Both of us content just to be in the world.

Michelle Duggar Saps My Brain

Admittedly, I'm no expert in large families.  I have a sister and two brothers, a fairly normal sized group for my era.  I personally birthed three of my own.   So the number of children I consider acceptable is vastly different from the Queen of All Things Uterine and Fallopian,  Michelle Duggar.

I bow to her reproductive system.  And scoff and sneer and rage against the machine.

Why?  Simply, why?  I get the whole 'we have the children God sends us' litany - I don't buy it because I know where babies come from.  And how to prevent them from coming.

God also sent you a damned brain.  Come out of that Stepford bubble for a minute and face facts: 

You. Have. Nineteen. Kids. 

You and that shellac-headed moron you married.  And you gave them stupid names for the most part.  Ginger with a 'J' just to continue your prejudice against the other 25 letters of the alphabet?  C'mon.

I watch this show - actually I stop while surfing when I see it on - just as I watch boxing while flipping channels - amazed that anyone would do either.  I think I'd get into a ring with Joe Frazier before I would become a baby-making menace.

You can't parent nineteen children.  It is emotionally and physically impossible.  One episode had TQATUF sharing her parenting tips.  Each child is evidently given a 'buddy.'  (Translated - one of the older children is given a toddler as soon as it's weaned so that Michelle can continue her ongoing mission to birth a nation.)  She did say that each new baby was her buddy at first.

Wow - you mean each new baby gets your undivided attention for awhile?  Sorry, don't believe it.  Having three kids divides your attention - a passel just sends it off the charts.

I realize that the Duggars were doing their imitation of rabbits long before they began whoring their family out for television.  I do wonder how many more they would have had if TLC hadn't knocked on their door.

Their last baby was born monstrously premature.  This poor child faces a lifetime of physical problems.  And why?  'Cause Mommy and Daddy are irresponsible.  They sold out, and honestly, who can blame them - somebody's got to feed all their little 'buddies.' 

I could understand this disaster easier if I thought they were doing all the birthing for religious reasons.  If Dumbass Dad was a minister of some weird sect and saw this as a way to truth and enlightenment.

But they're used car salesmen.  Does that species really need advanced?

I know that the number of children other people feel they can have is not my business.  The children seem very well-adjusted and happy.  They aren't asking that I help support them and they're home schooled so tax dollars aren't even going to educate them.  The Duggars evidently pull their own weight.

My hope is that each of the nineteen children lead purposeful and meaningful lives. 

And that one day Michelle wipes the adoring, blank gaze off her face, gets a prescription for birth control, and tells Jim Bob to blow beets.

Amen.

Prissy

Five days a week, 187 days a year I dress and leave the house.  Semi put together, with make-up and jewelry anyway, ready to face adolescents.  I think I'm known for my unique style, one that I suppose has evolved over almost 57 years.  I give my morning routine no more thought than just another way to prepare for the day.

I go native in the summer.  Shorts, tee, flops.  Toilette consists of showering and washing my hair.  Period.

Except.

After being au natural for several days I feel the urge, nay, the compulsion to be me again.  I actually don real clothes, makeup, and jewelry.  And perfume.

The natural look is great most days. The hummingbirds, Harper Lee, and hydrangeas don't seem to notice that I have on the same pair of khaki shorts I've worn three times this week. They all eat and drink what I offer whether I'm wearing eighty-three bracelets or not.


Right now I'm nursing the infirm and the Tabgaze doesn't register whether I'm all gussied up or wearing burlap.  The lunch I pack for JT still tastes like a turkey, mustard, and cheese sandwich whether I've rosied my cheekbones with blush or not.  Facebook friends don't know when I'm sitting at the computer with a WE tshirt from 1997.

But I don't do it for other people.  I do it for me. 

Why?  Because I feel more like myself with eyeliner, subtle though it is.  (Ink by Bare Escentuals in case you were wondering.)  And after awhile I need to be reminded that I'm grown now, and grownups are expected to do certain things.

Like get dressed.

"Now is the winter of our discontent...

...Made glorious summer..."

Really?  I'm waiting, Willie.

So far this summer I've been part of far more doctor's appointments, surgeries, tests, x-rays, and ongoing recoveries than I would normally choose. And before anyone points it out, I realize that the patient is much more involved than I, but honestly?  Sometimes I think I'd like to change places.

Back story:  This was supposed to be a summer of nothingness.  I had no beach house rented - the oil spill scared me from spending that kind of money for black tar tracking.  I planned to spend the summer in the yard, digging, moving plants, watering, weeding.  My idea of heaven on earth.

Plans changed.  My youngest, who was originally staying at school working, got a better job offer locally.  Added to the free room and board it was an offer he couldn't pass up.

I might have mentioned that his doppelganger is Pig Pen of Charlie Brown fame.  And no shower is complete without using every damned towel he can get his hands on.  And he eats like a mountain man.

My former husband had bypass surgery.  He is alone and there is nowhere else to recover but at my house.  A house I moved to after selling my HUGE house several years ago.  Present house?  Lilliputian in design.  You can cover it from one end to the other in fourteen steps, and yes, I know this from experience.

People who live alone do strange things.

A hoped for change in employment looks bleak.  New administrator + old relationship = massive fail.

Stress has made a deposit in my soul account and interest is compounding daily.

Whine over, August looms. 

I only wish I weren't already looking forward to it.

Decorum

I'm old.  I've seen it all.  And those truths still allow me to be shocked at much of what I witness daily.

As a culture (great way to start a rant) we lack decorum.  A group of people with every opportunity to get it right, and we fail miserably.  We don't get that just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should.

Can a Hollywood star(?) dress her three-year-old in heels?  Sure.  Should she?  I think not.  She's three.  What's wrong with Mary Janes? 

If I see one more muffin top on otherwise perfectly normal teenage girls - normal meaning you aren't genetically shaped like Barbie - I will  hurl.  Buy a damned pair of pants that fit you.  And please do NOT wear a skin-tight tee with the offending jeans - one view is enough.  Your midriff doesn't warrant a closer look.  You would be just as fashionable in clothes that fit.

Speaking on a personal note - once you hit 50?  Start dressing as you should.  Those oh-so-perfect ripped jeans with the boho top?  My daughter is right: the ensemble just looks kind of desperate.  And the camo pants for someone who has never seen a gun any closer than our SRO's holster?  Not really.

Guys are just as bad.  Please, don't ever, wear a tank top unless you're gay and out and live in New York City.  They do not flatter straight men, regardless of your natural or steroid-enhanced biceps.  We get it - you're a gym rat and you're proud. 

You're also rather silly looking.

And on the subject of Facebook, a topic I waffle on daily, please please PLEASE do not describe every aspect of your significant other's perfection to us.  We don't care - we've heard you before about a different bundle of wonderfulness.

The pictures of you at the beach, one of the 148 that you posted, with your tongue stuck out and throwing the deuces? So trite. So sad. So stupid.


Girls who are 19-21, married or not, who say "I don't feel well today?"  Yeah, in just a few more posts we will discover that Eureka! They are having a baby!

Forgive me if I don't jump for joy at yet another example of lack of decorum. 

Really?  You want me to be excited that you are adding to the already intellectually-depleted stock that I teach every day?  Not to mention the bursting-at-the-seams social programs that I help fund.  I want  you to have a healthy baby, but I don't necessarily want to throw you a shower.  Or attend.  Thank you.

Just say no.  And practice a little decorum.

Day is done, gone the sun...

I grew up on Army posts.  I swam in the pools and attended the Fourth of July picnics and watched twenty-five cent movies in the Post theaters and ate grilled pimento cheese sandwiches at the PX grills.  I knew no sense of permanence; that was found in a farmhouse in Ivalee.  We moved every other year for most of my childhood, settling in Atlanta in the 60s and allowing me the first taste of staying put. 

There was one constant - every day at sundown, on many different parade grounds, the flag was lowered and the mournful sound of 'Taps' signaled that the day was finished.  People stopped what they were doing, and pulled to the side of the road if they were driving, and turned to face the flag.  Paying respect to the symbol of what our parents had devoted their lives to, or what a new recruit hoped would help him find his place, or what silly teen aged girls found droll and bourgeois but meant that the Varsity would soon be packed with Georgia Tech boys we were all too young to date but certainly not too young to flirt with. 

Day was ending, night was upon us, and we were 16.

As I've grown - I hope - (at least I'm not still hanging at the Varsity hoping a 19 year old will smile at me) I miss that ritual.  The sameness, the poignant sound of the trumpet, the minute during the day where everyone could take comfort in knowing regardless of what was happening in the rest of the world our military was at the ready. 

They played 'Taps' at my daddy's funeral five years ago on the coldest day of the year.  It brought home all those sundowns, some of them without Daddy there because of conflicts far away from the life a boy from Sand Mountain ever thought he'd have.  The song takes on a totally different meaning at times like that.

Every day I still do my own version of 'Taps.'  Sitting down somewhere, with a latte or wine, and thinking about the day.  Summing up.

And thankful that I live the life I do because of those who serve their country, in whatever capacity, and make it possible for me to enjoy their efforts in whatever way I choose.

'Day is done, gone the sun,

From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;

All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.'