Help, I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

After a little over 24 hrs with my three daughters and three grandsons, my house was very empty yesterday when they all headed home. We had talked and talked and I had answered a lot of Why? questions and What's that? from the young grandson. I decided I could use some down time myself. I skipped church and began cleaning out closets. My noon I had cleaned and cleared and thrown away things I had forgotten I had.  A little after lunch, I realized I had not spoken in almost 20 hrs.  About 4 p.m. I began to think that the rapture had come and Jesus hadn't called me.  I turned on Fox News knowing that if that was the story they would be carrying it. No terrorist attack or major catastrophe had befallen the human race.  I picked up my phone. Yes, there's that familiar dial tone. My cell had bars.  By 5 p.m. I was sitting on the porch with a glass of wine thinking about how many ways I could have died during the day and not been missed. I might have carried something to the attic and broken my neck on that faulty step. Slipped cleaning out the fridge and laid on the floor in a coma. Electrical problems ended my life while changing a light blub. A rattle snake got me in the garden.  I was mauled by a bear and bleed to death. By the second glass of wine I was beginning to feel sorry for myself.   I thought about my Momma and how she'd say, "Yes, I sat here all day and no one called me".  I always ignored her and changed the subject. Now I think about her growing up with l3 brothers and sisters, 5 children and scores of grandchildren and relatives and being married to the same man for over 50 years.  I can image the silence was deafening. Ok, I didn't die and really I enjoyed my day. But as I went to bed, alone, with 2 Tylenol PM and  thought about never having heard a single voice, said a word or seen another person all day I wished I had been a better daughter. That was pretty good wasn't it. I was taught "guilt trip" by a professional, My Mother. 

For the Love of Nature

Yesterday I had my first bear sighting of the summer.  She was fat and glossy and sitting very calmly along the busiest neighborhood street.  She wasn't a very large bear and she had two fine cubs playing on an old log beside her right in front of my friend Cathy's home.  The cubs rolled over the log, tried to crawl on top and playfully chased each other as mother patiently dug for grubs and small rodents in the log.  I slowly drove by as cars in the other direction did the same.  No matter how many bear you see, it always feels amazing that such wild creatures exist within the gates of my subdivision.  When the traffic seemed to stall, without waiting for a horn to blow, I began to circle around the narrow streets heading home.  I passed the pond which now has baby duck and young wild geese swimming and grazing in the grass field nearby. I had been to the Piggly Wiggly where I had purchased two pounds of carrots that had become too soft and had been marked down to move out of the produce aisles.  The carrots were for the doe who is heavy with a fawn that should be arriving within days.  She has taken up the post vacated by my special doe who frequented the first summer I lived here.  There were days that she seemed my only friend, days that I spent crying and worrying.  Her calm beauty made me feel that somehow I would survive in this remote place.  She had a notch in her left ear and would gently take a melon slice from my hand.  I was certainly not the first to feed her.  I have always felt she lost her life in the first deer cull, which is still considered the First Great Sin Against Nature, at least to some of us here.  This little doe is small but from the size of her belly, she is getting plenty to eat and is fairing well.  We are no longer plagued by the drought that has effected North Georgia for several years and the forest are rich in undergrowth and small trees.  I sat on my porch and watched her eat the carrots and thought how much I wish I had someone to share this with.  Then I remembered I did.  So I am sharing it with you. 

Genuine Antiques - Made in China

When I am lucky, or desperate, I work at a large rambling shop in my new hometown. If you are looking for stuff, Burnt Mountain Trading Company in Jasper, Georgia,  has some.  We have jewelry, scarves, pots, pans, plants, soap, lotions, oil paintings, my silly things, antiques, new and old ones, $3400 aluminum elk,  6 foot tall black bear, antlers made into tables, lamps, chandeliers, wall sconces, and dishes.  We got bears on toilet paper holders, soap dishes, and carved into furniture.  We got wind chimes and birdhouses and sparkly things to hang in the yard, and dish towels, buckets, barrels and more.  We got dog paintings, dog cards, dog greeting cards, dogs sitting, running, standing in a field looking at each other or ducks. We got a lot of paintings of chickens, sheep, deer, cows and cowboys. We got stuff.  Some of it is really nice stuff and some of it is junk.  Having been in the junk business for more years than I have ever been married, I know junk when I see it.  For many years I found it more profitable to sell good junk rather than to sell cheap junk. This was when an antique was l00 years old and nothing from China was considered anything but junk. You turned your dishes over and read the marker.  Now if you pick up some cute little dish or funny metal sign or country novelty, you can pretty much be guaranteed to see "Made in China" stamped on the bottom of it.  Even the little red, white and blue, "Made in America" signs are made in China.  You can buy fake antique signs, North Georgia black bears, antler lamps, rough wood tables and pottery of any kind bearing that stamp.  If the knives aren't Case, they are made in Pakistan.  If the dishes aren't marked with a 50 year old image from England, Germany or weren't given away in Winn Dixie or purchased with Green Stamps, then they are probably from China. Even the little Davy Crockett Coon Skin Caps, Made in China.  I personally have no problem with buying junk nor selling it but I miss the days where people came into a shop like the one in which I work and looked for an antique and found one.  I resent being the oldest thing in here. Now most folks don't want old, they want new and they want Pottery Barn and Kirklands.  They buy the same prints in our store you can get in the mall or some outlet. They want China. And I don't mean the kind from Bavaria. .

Buying the Cow - No Bull

One of my good friends here in the Mountains brought me a present this past week.  It was a book entitled "Miss Becky's Charm School - Using Southern Belle Secrets to Land Your Man".  My God, I could have written the darn thing myself.    No where could you find a more complete and effective strategy for landing a man.  Chapters on Flirting,  Men Friendly Recipes, Communication - His and Hers, and the ever popular "Why Buy the Cow" suggested that Southern women have more arrows in their quill than the average woman.  I completely agreed with the premise that first you got to decide "Why You Wanted One" before deciding on the ammunition. Your needs have to coincide with your weapons of choice. And the ammo?  I had shades of  Dating resembling the Hunger Games with a bunch of us old women running around trying to get the best push up bar.  Stabbing someone in the back for the last shot of  Botox.  Before killing every other single woman in town,  you might want to decide "What Kind of Man Do You Want?" so as to prepare yourself for your choices.  I also found type casting to be accurate as far the kind of men available.  You got your "Redneck" to your "Southern Gentleman" and a whole lot in between.   She did fail, however, to realize that she did not fully cover the ever popular "Sociopath" nor the ever present "Obviously Gay" who I have found to be so in abundant in both the Mountains of Georgia and the Beaches of Alabama. While I agreed with the "Trashy is as Trashy Does" premise, I do not believe that you can wear too much jewelry.  Yes, your hair can be too big, but I don't know that your eyelashes can be and I have really never heard a man say "I just can't date her, her boobs are too big".   Now to be honest I don't think I could ever recite any of the pick-up lines suggested with a straight face.  If I bat my eyelashes, it could effect my glaucoma.  If I dropped something and reached down to retrieve it looking helpless, I might find I am and not be able to get up. And admiring the size of his hands(as opposed to the size of his shoes?).  Well, you get my point.  I have promised myself that I will read it over and over though in case I find a man in the North Georgia Mountains who does have nice hands i.e. clean, no blood of deer, axle grease or nicotine stains, so I will have my Southern Belle down to a perfection.  I think I remember how it goes. For the most part though, I seem to be invisible to most men but I am still a tiny bit of an optimist.   If I don't meet "Mr. Right Now" pretty soon I believe I will start to resemble the people that work at those Oriental Restaurants at the Mall.  Running around smiling and trying to give out samples. Canape?