Regurgitated Meme

When my friend Jennifer over at Dust Bunny Central did a Meme I thought "cute" and was glad she didn't tag me. This time though I got snuck up on by Edna Lee of Regurgitated Alpha Bit fame. If you don't already read either of their blogs, get your butts in gear and go enjoy. They both make me smile a lot. My life has been unusually crazed the last few weeks and my poor blog has gone begging so I don't know if I have any readers left but here we go. I'll be trying to get around and catch up on all your blogs shortly.

I did the work this morning offline since my internet was seriously down. Sure hope Word doesn't cause wild font effects when I paste it over.

First things first:

The Rules

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.



1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago was the pause between storms. My youngest turned 18 and got his first real job. My teaching studio was at its height and both my daughter and I were teaching five days a week, my son had a half dozen cello students and we had two other part time violin teachers. I had spent the year before running back and forth to Momma’s after she had a mastectomy and then broke a hip, but she was better and not needing me every weekend. Daddy didn’t have his first stroke till a year later.

Ten years ago I had a year to breathe and enjoy life. My husband and I bought matching backpacks and after a lifetime of insisting that camping required a picnic table and flush toilets, I took to the wilderness like a possum takes to ripe pawpaws. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Feed the horses (twice).

Finish making my breakfast smoothie.

Leave early enough to get to Verizon and find out why my PC card is refusing to connect me to the internet.

Get my April bookkeeping done and take deposit to bank. (I’m only about 30 days behind on that)

Try to find a source for Edna’s divine almond champagne.

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, the sugar free chocolate I make. mmmmmmmmmm

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Quit my job.

Run away from home.

Travel the world with my favorite travel partner.

Self publish my poetry and novels even if no one ever read them..

5. Three of my bad habits:

Insisting I’m right. (Well duh, of course I’m right.)

Grooming my finger nails with my teeth.

Engaging in devious acts to get my own way. (Well after all, I’m right.)

6. 5 places I have lived:

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Bethany, Kentucky (Yep, I was an orphanage kid but that’s a whole nother story.)

Spring City, Tennessee

Norfolk, Virginia

Oldfort, Tennessee (Which I still maintain should be two words not one, and come on, you know I’m right.)

7. 5 jobs I have had:

Clerk – Local feed store two days a week.

Violin Teacher – Still doing this, still self employed.

Early Childhood Music Teacher – Fancy way of saying I do music classes for little tots and their mommies. I also do this two days a week at a Montessori school.

Chief Cook and Bottle Washer – Hey, it’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it.

Home Educator – Again a fancy way of saying I kept my kids home from school and taught them myself. Must have worked out OK cause they both graduated cum laude and are gainfully employed in the same fields (or nearly so) they got their degrees in.

OK so I had to stretch it to make 5. I could put in novelist but since I’ve not finished my first novel yet I thought that might be stretching it a bit far.

8. 5 People I want to know more about:

DaForeigner / Rob at 1 Day at a Time Yeah I know I’m way behind in my reading. I’ll get there and catch up somehow.

Bob at Cranelegs Pond I always love reading your short humorous clips. Makes me realize how far short of funny I fall.

Tree at Decedent Tranquility I'm loving your story and your art. Hopefully I can get there soon to catch up. I think I'm maybe two weeks behind now.

Camphor at Mostly Harmless I love you girl. I get a few minutes I'll look for you over on GTalk.

Glenda at Glenda's Musings Welcome to blogspot girl. I know, this is a heck of an introduction but hehehe here you go. Tag. You're it.

My Other Blog

I have this other blog (or two or ten) *points at sidebar links* that I write in pretty frequently, pulling much of my material from either the dictionary or other vocabulary book. Since it isn't really intended to be humor I don't have to think about what would be funny or amusing so it's a lot easier to come up with stuff to write. Once in awhile though, it wanders off into humor. I can't seem to help myself. Yesterday I was doing my Word of the Day post and I reckon I just had a momentary psychotic break or something cause I ended up with what to me reads like a humor post. I'll copy it here and y'all can be the judge of it.

Word of the Day

gravamen

noun
Plural gravamens or
gravamina

The part of a legal charge or an accusation that weighs most substantially against the accused.

[Medieval Latin (as opposed to Old Latin, Middle Latin, or Pig Latin) gravamen injury, accusation, from Late Latin (anytime after 11PM), encumbrance, obligation, from Latin gravare, to burden, from gravis, heavy.]

Now I have to be honest, when I saw this word my thoughts wandered down dark paths. I visualized a caveman being whacked with a club and becoming a graveman. From there I made a connection in my mind to my niece's gecko that if it is carrying eggs is gravid therefore a gravamen would be a pregnant man like that Trans fellow that has been in the news and was it Arnold S. who made a movie where the man was implanted with a baby? Anyway, from there my imagination flow wandered off to the gravel pit where the gravel version of northern Europe's bog men has recently been discovered perfectly preserved by his submersion in gravel all these centuries. Then there are thoughts of having fits of mania associated with graves. Some words just won't quit.

Then I come to the Latin roots and gravis = heavy and indeed Latin with all its various forms would be a heavy burden to bear. I'm so glad my parents chose to be born in America where we just have English. Really, think about it. What if English was like Latin. OK so we'd have Plymouth Rock English, Early Colonial English, Late Colonial English, Revolution English, Early Expansionism English, Gold Rush English, Middle Expansionism English, Pre-Civil War English, Civil War English, Post Civil War English, (which would overlap with) Late Expansionism English, Dust Bowl English, Pre-Great War English, Post-Great War English, Pre-WW2 English, Post-Pearl Harbor English, Post-War English, Pre-Television English... I could go on (and on) (but then I think I already have). Each would be enough different to necessitate serious reeducation if you wished to read the works of say, Hawthorne or Longfellow. Shakespheare would undoubtedly be completely out of reach except to serious scholars. And people think it is hard to learn English now.

So it's another beautiful day and what do I have to be thankful for? I'm seriously thankful that English has evolved very very slowly.

Weekend at Momma's

I arrived at Momma's house Friday evening, usual time.

She says, "How'd you know to find us here?"

I say, "This is where I find you every weekend."

She says, "I don't think so."

I say, "This IS where you live."

She says, "Not much."

Yep, we were off and running on a great weekend.

Saturday I take time for a shower and when I come out she is missing. I round up her good cane and head up the drive. When I get to the top of the rise she is heading up the next rise four cottages away. I see she has picked up a walking stick from the porch. I call out, "You think you've walked far enough?" She stops and looks around a bit then starts on. I'm thinking "Crap, she's walking home." (664 miles according to Yahoo Maps) So I decide to go back to the house, give her time to walk up maybe near the cemetery where Daddy is buried then pick her up with the car, take her to see his grave and bring her on home. I take the cane back to the house, wait a little bit then head out in the car. I get over the rise and there she is at the bottom of the other side of it, headed back home. She gets in the car and I back it to the house.

She carried that wooden walking stick around the house the rest of the day. That would be a real nice walking stick for when she walked home. At one point she mentioned she hadn't seen her mom and dad and the children in quite a long time. I didn't bother to remind her that her parents are long gone and her little brothers and sisters are old like her and about half of them have passed on.

Supper time she says, "Well, I guess it's time for me to be walking home."

I just looked at her and said, "You can't go yet, you've not had your supper."

Down on the Farm

It’s a real nice day down on the farm. The daffodils and yellow tulips in the round-about planter are still real pretty despite the torrential rains we’ve been having. Azaleas are starting to bloom. Maple trees are showing pale green and that odd orange color of early spring that precedes their dumping great volumes of pollen into the air. The redbud trees have reached the peak of perfection. The dogwoods are opening up to become balls of white.

Of course we know what is right around the corner. Today’s high is supposed to be 69 but by Monday they’re predicting a high of 49 with a low of 35. Hello dogwood winter. Every year it does this, regular as clockwork. We have more or less spring (this year spring has been pretty long lasting) and then some super nice weather fooling folks into setting out tomatoes and peppers then boom! Winter descends on us with frost nipping the buds from the fruit trees and blackening those poor tender vegetable plants. Then it warms back up. You really believe this time, you buy more tomato plants, pack your winter clothes in the old cedar chest and get out your shorts and tank tops. Boom! Blackberry winter hits and it will be cold all over again.

Here in the southern tip of the Appalachian mountains, blackberry winter is pretty much the official end of spring. One day you’ll be shivering under a wool comforter and the next it will be hot as that place the tent meeting evangelists used to rant about when you were a kid and forced to sit hours on a hard metal folding chair under a brown canvas tent with the only breezes supplied by ladies vigorously fanning themselves with those cardboard fans that advertised the local funeral home.

You have to wonder if there was some kind of implied message there. Fan so the heatstroke don’t get you but you’re gonna die anyway and when you do call this number and we’ll take care of your body while your soul roasts if you haven’t made your way to the front to cry a long time and get saved, sanctified, and petrified, praise the Lord!

The preacher would intersperse his rantings with loud insucking of wind. “Don’t find yourself, haaaaaack on your deathbed, haaaaaaack breathing, haaaaaaack your very last, haaaaaaack unrepented, haaaaaaack and God says to you, haaaaaaack you done had your chances, haaaaaaack at the summer camp meeting, haaaaaaack but you have committed, haaaaaaack the unpardonable sin, haaaaaaack of turning your back, haaaaaaack one too many, haaaaaaack times, haaaaaaack and now it’s time, haaaaaaack to face your maker, haaaaaaack a sinner, haaaaaaack in the, haaaaaaack hands, haaaaaaack of an angry God! Haaaaaaack…”

But for now it's spring and it is beautiful. Gram’s little mystery shrubs have tiny leaves that will soon be big enough to identify what her daughters have planted there in her garden. Today would be a mighty fine day to go up on the sundeck and lay naked on the dark grey tile floor and soak in the warmth both from the sun above and from the dark tiles beneath.

I reckon I’d best make the most of this day cause as we all know, winter is about to descend on us again.

Note: I added the picture and it made the fonts go crazy. Darned if I know. I'll just pretend it adds charm to the post.