On The Spot

“I go where?”

“Spotify.  Now that we have WiFi, you put the client on your desktop and you can listen to anything.”

Kid One is attempting to enlighten me on the endless musical possibilities the Internet has to offer. I’m attempting to decipher how the Internet is made up of enough nonsense words for Dr. Seuss to write a novel.

“That sounds illegal. If I had a client on my desktop the only thing I would hear would be the sound of his lawyer threatening to take my house.”

“Mom. Get real. Nobody would willingly get on your desk.”

“I was quite a catch in my day.”

“You didn’t have a day. You had a decade of disco.  Besides, nobody would fit on your desk. You collect things.”

“I need everything that’s on that desk.”

“Three pencil cups?”

“They all have special meaning.  The elephant and the clown came from the circus, and your aunt stole the flowered cup from a yard sale just for me.”

 “It’s STOLEN?” Kid One looks gleeful at the thought of a woman who wouldn’t take an after dinner mint without asking bending the law.

“Well, not technically.  It was hidden inside a coat she bought.”

“My life is a lie. I was raised in a den of thieves.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“So what about that stack of ratty notebooks?”

“Those are my journals.  Everything from my first kiss to your first diaper is in that stack.”

“Sounds libelous.  Or slanderous.  Or whatever means that if you show them to my friends I’ll have to join the Witness Protection Program.  They have to go.”

“No way. I’d sooner part with my tiara.”

“That reminds me. Why do you have a tiara on your desk?”

“Why do you listen to Spotify?”

 “So I can hear anything I want.  It takes me whereever I want to go.”

I popped the tiara on my head and transported immediately to a faraway island country where I reign as Queen and every inhabitant is over forty years of age and wears an overcoat over their swimsuit.

“And with this I can hear what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

His voice faded as I sat back and listened to the waves splash gently onto the white sandy beach.

“Quiet.”

The Right to Assemble

Sometimes the Captain has trouble
keeping his opinions to himself.

Insert Tab A into. . .Where?!  There's nothing like a do-it-yourself project to break up a perfectly shaky relationship. Join me at Stage of Life where the Captain is treading all over my pursuit of happiness!

Who Moved My Mountain?

When I'm in charge of the map,
ALL ways are the wrong way.

Who would think you could lose a mountain? It's really not that hard when you have sisters to help you.  Join me in the search over at An Army of Ermas. It's got to be around here somewhere. You can't miss it.  Unless you're headed the wrong way at the speed of chocolate.

Stick With It

“It’s your turn to sort laundry.  There are socks in the dryer.”

Three hours later, a record for quick response, Son One ambles to the dryer for sock duty.  The dryer door creaks open.  Someone besides me is about to do laundry. They’re playing my song.

There’s a pause. 

Son One is 23 and quite mature.  He holds a responsible job, doesn’t mind being seen in public with his mother as long as she’s paying for dinner, and watches “My Little Ponies Friendship Is Magic” on Saturdays.  He also mows down zombies like they were tall grass, but that’s a separate skill set.

“There’s underpants in here!”

“Of course there are. I wash all the whites together.  It’s economical.”

“Where are the tongs?”

“Oh, Good Lord. It won’t kill you to touch underwear.  Cuff your socks and leave the rest."

“So many underpants!”

How have I raised a child who goes all white around the dryer seal when confronted with underwear? When I was kid we trudged to the laundromat on the corner every Saturday. I played jacks on the concrete floor while Mama sorted whites and colors.  Some days I wasn’t sure the underwear I came home with was the same underwear that was in the drawer the week before.

Times have changed.  Today kids wear their waistband around their knees.   They think cleavage is found in the back.

I trudge down the hall where Kid One is sorting through unmentionables with a stick and pull a pile of socks from the back of the dryer.

It just goes to show you. Give a child a pair of socks and his feet are warm for a day. Teach him to poke them with a stick and you’re stuck with laundry duty forever.

Cherry Bombs and Sticky Buns

I’m not a nurse. I don’t play one on TV. I can’t even open a Bandaid without an instructional video. But it seems like I could manage to pop a package of pre-made dough without the household going to Code Blue and breaking out the sticky buns.

All I wanted to do was make cherry turnovers for breakfast. There are infants in undeveloped countries who can help their mothers peel the plantains for the appetizer, and I can’t manage to crack open a can of crescents and squirt the cherry plasma out of the bag without feeling like Marcus Welby, M.D.

I’m not a complete moron. Okay, I may have all the qualifications, but I should still be able to handle the point and shoot method when it comes to cherry filling.

“Here’s breakfast,” I said breathily, placing a tray carefully down on the table.

“What’s that?” Bill asked. His tact factor burned out the night I sprinkled meat tenderizer on the garlic bread instead of, well, garlic. Think salt with a side order of salt.

“They're pastries.” I put my hands on my hips and tilted my head to one side. They definitely looked better tilted.

“I’ll pass. I ate yesterday.”

“So you’re not hungry?”

“I’ll just have coffee. Why are they so. . .crispy?”

I looked at the triangular balls of dough. Burned triangular balls of dough oozing thick red mucus. “I’m having a little trouble with the new toaster oven.”

“Are you sure you changed the setting?”

“You can change the settings?”

“Uh huh. You might want to switch it from “Bloodbath” to “Bake.”

I checked the uncooperative appliance and groaned. “It’s on Broil. I guess they’re overexposed to the heat.”

“Put them out of their misery.”

"Martha Stewart would turn them into cunning appetizers."

"This is not a case for Martha Stewart. It's a job for Dr. Kevorkian."

"There's still hope. I haven't frosted them yet."

"They're bleeding to death."

“That’s cherry filling.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be on the inside?”

“I had a little trouble aiming.”

“If the Germans had your eye in WWII, they would have bombed Lexington instead of London.”

I smeared a concealing cover of icing on a turnover, took a big bite, and settled down beside him. “Well if they’d used cherry bombs like these, the war would have ended a lot sooner.”

Zeeba Alert!

Why yes, I did end up at The Wandering Zebra today.  And while I don't normally show myself in horizontal stripes, EVERYONE should stop by the Zeeba's hangout once in a while. C'mon over and join us!

 I promise not to tell.

Growing Pains



Amy's lawn thriving under special care.



Around this time of the year, when there’s still frost on the outdoor dog in the morning and air conditioners run like a spider-chased schoolgirl in the afternoon, I like to venture down to the Lawn & Garden department at the local Sow ‘em & Grow ‘em Store.  People who should never own fertilizer are wandering past the bags of peat moss, clutching pots of distressed dahlias, and murmuring, “Wonder if I need manure?”

It’s like Disneyland for clueless people.

All I want is a bird feeder.  Winter and fat Cardinals have not been kind to the little plastic number that hung in my yard all winter, and I need someplace to leave the offerings for the sparrows that exercise the dogs by flitting around just out of Labrador reach.

Here in the South, whimsical lawn ornaments are popular among the population.  By whimsical, I mean ugly and offensive.  By population, I mean my neighbor (you know who you are, Danny) who used to borrow a goat the last week of every month so that he didn’t have to cut the two square inches of grass that grew beside his cultivated kudzu patch.

 



My other neighbor has a patch of lawn decorated by a wishing well, two wooden farmer misses bending over to show polka dot bloomers, a bevy of plastic geese, and a charming white toilet holding a cluster of cheerful daffodils.  These folks may have lawn furniture in the family room, but the porcelain in the front yard holds a place of honor.

Driving back home with my tiny plastic birdfeeder, I can’t help but think about my own yard.  I won’t feel comfortable calling it a lawn until there is something growing in it that wasn’t thrown from the window of a passing car or spontaneously springing to life over the septic tank. Algae doesn’t count as lawn, even the easy-care kind.

I guess everybody celebrates Spring in their own fashion.  In Augusta, the Masters has acres of azaleas, all across Amsterdam we find fields of tulips.  But in my little corner of the country--just below the Bible Belt and just above the Sweet Tea Bag; we have our pottied plants.