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?

Fair to Middling

When I think of some of the happiest times in my life, many of them focus on either my time in high school or my friends from that time.  My high school experience sure doesn't resemble the ones you see in most movies or read about in books.  If anyone brought a gun to school, used drugs or turned into a She-devil, we didn't know about it. No "Carries" or Vampires.  A few criminals but even they could be sweet.  My time there was happy and I felt good about myself and my choices.  This past weekend I sat and talked with many of the girls who helped to enrich that experience for me. It was a time when half the sentences began with "y'all listen" and ended in an exclamation point. We laughed at ourselves and each other as we shared recipes that began "start with a piece of white bread" and  "top with Ritz crackers".  I heard phases like "then come to find out" and "don't that beat all".  As I listened to these funny, smart and relatively happy Southern women,  I wondered why I was not traumatized by high school or why the memories are not painful or at least confusing.  But these women seemed to feel the way I did about it.  On the way back to Georgia, it came to me.  I realized that the best way to grow up is to be mediocre. I don't mean that in a bad way.  It just seems that life may be easier for you if you fall somewhere in the pack growing up.  If you were the prettiest girl, you had no where to go but down. Every wrinkle, sag and extra pound will be detrimental to your self image.  If you were the ugliest, heck, even if you grow up and get rich and have everything fixed, Bless Your Heart, you may still hear some of those names in your head(or from your mother!).  If you were the smartest, then even if you are the Governor, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or President of the PTA, either that little voice in your head or some well meaning Christian lady may still be telling you that you failed.   If you were the dumbest, well, dumb breeds dumber and dumber breeds dumbest, but you're probably so dumb you don't even know it.  The sweetest girl in class better have moved on to be with Jesus 'cause even if she was still as sweet as a jug of Luzianne Tea, somebody will find something wrong with her. And no one will believe the biggest Hussy has changed even if she is Head of the Adult Choir at First Baptist.  So, I think if you are pretty enough to get a date to the prom and smart enough to go to college, well, then you have a really good chance of being OK with yourself and your life. I think that's why when I have gone to my Class Reunions, the Most Beautiful, the Homecoming Queen, the Class President or the Valedictorian are no where in sight. Maybe those people are not as happy about how their lives turned out.  Maybe its us, mediocre, in the middle, who end up having the best memories and are not afraid to face each other or the facts of our lives.  If you moved up, nobody is surprised. And if you moved down, well, nobody is surprised ('cept maybe you). So to all my didn't win anything in the yearbook or didn't date the captain of the football team (who after a few years is almost always bald and turning to fat) friends, I say ain't we lucky. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for the memories, years ago and this weekend..

Get Your Hillbilly On!

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think "Where am I?".  And then I remember.  I live in the mountain of North Georgia.  I live in Jasper, end of the world as we know it, Georgia.  What Jasper lacks in cultural events, nice stores, a movie theater, a warm and friendly downtown with fine dining, a Fresh Market, Target or attractive men, it makes up for in.....well, its got a couple of real mountains in it.  And tons of deer, black bear and wild turkey.  Unlike Alabama where you pass a dead dog on the highway every few miles, here road kill sounds more like the meat menu in some Western Restaurant. We got your bear, deer, possum, hedgehog, groundhog, wild boar, turkey and squirrel. They have plenty of dogs here but most of them are chained up to a tree in the front yard. Recently I have taken to painting hillbillies on tin pieces in my small art booth.  My standard by line is embrace you inner hillbilly.  In a quest to say something funny about Jasper, I have come up with a list of ways to help me tell you about my town.  You know you are in Jasper when: l.Your neighbor has the taxidermist on speed dial. 2. The biggest mall in the county is Wal-Mart. 3. A personalized car tag means you made it yourself. 3. Blue book value of your truck depends on how much gas is in the tank. 4. Most family trees don't have a fork. 5. The directions to everyone's house has "then turn off the paved road". 6. Everyone has two outfits, one for church and camo. 7. The tattoo parlor offers financing on site. 8. The last words most of the guys around here ever yell are "hey, watch this!" 9. We have 8 full time pharmacies and 24 road side signs advertising pain clinics. 10. Raid is considered a condiment on the kitchen table.  And finally the number one thing I have found to be true in Jasper is that when the guys have a stag party, they actually bring a deer.

Oil and Wildflowers, That's Texas

This past week, I spent visiting my sister in Texas.  My ex husband paid for my ticket.  It seems my divorce is so much like my marriage.  I love him, remain faithful to my vows, act nice when I feel like screaming.  He on the other hand, ignores me, sometimes is angry at me, and pays for everything I need.  If you don't count the fact that we haven't spoken in a year and haven't had sex in over three, its my marriage all over again.  I have never really liked Texas.  Too hot and too much wind.  While there it rained though and I thought about turkeys who get so confused that when it rains they stare up at the sky, often drowning.  So it would appear with Texans since they always seem to have a drought.  I did find it amazing that almost every little "ranch" or piece of property from Corpus to San Antonio now has a oil rig on it.  Every day folks are becoming millionaires over night as the sign off the leasing rights to this otherwise almost barren land. These rigs are not on government land, they are on private ranches snuggled in beside the cows, next to old sheds and on patches of hard dirt that have been passed down through generations and where owners smartly kept the mineral rights in tact.  This is the "we're drilling more than ever before" that the President talks about.  It has nothing to do with the government but instead is private enterprise at its best.  When you walk the "ranches", the hard dirt and dryness of Texas, you find yourself lost in the wild flowers that cover the grown.  Here Indian Blanket, Blue Bells, Rubeckia, Corn Flowers and Chickseed grow in abundance. And with the flowers come the butterflies who bounce across the top of the fields like magic dots.  Yellow and white monarchs and black swallowtails, huge gold and brown moths.  A beauty that I will long remember mingled with the loving thoughts of my sister.