The Christmas Trees Won't Fit in the Bathroom

I can write about this now, because it's over. But, I've danced perilously close to the line between sane and crazy these last few months...

Sugar and I are blessed with a large family, and we are grateful for each and every loved one. We love it when they all come over to visit. We were not, so much, prepared for five of them to move in for an extended stay. But, the economy and other disasters made it necessary. This is what family does, right?

The guestroom became an extended-stay bedroom, which meant all my off-season clothes had to either fit into my closet or be stored in the basement. Both my office and Sugar's also became extended-stay bedrooms, which meant that everything in those offices, including all the stuff stored in the closets, had to go downstairs. All of this had to happen quickly, which meant we ended up with what looked like the aftermath of a tornado in the basement.

When we first bought our current home, the partially finished basement served as an overflow area. It was eclectically furnished, and we could hang out there when all the family was around, or when we felt like rounding up a group of friends for Karaoke and didn't want trouble with the HOA. (The sound doesn't carry outside from the basement.) Also, there was a nice-sized storage room, the laundry room, and a pre-plumbed, but unfinished, bathroom.

We tried carving office space out of the storage room, but the Christmas trees wouldn't fit in the bathroom, which was the new storage room. With all the stuff now in what used to be the unfinished-but-not-too-bad Karaoke/Family room we were low on space for everyone to hang out separately when we started getting on each other's nerves. And, as I am slightly--okay, maybe much more than slightly--OCD, the chaos in my house was driving me to the brink of a breakdown.

Suddenly, the basement we might finish one day became the basement we needed finished lickety-split. All the stuff that had just been moved to the basement had to be moved to the garage. The cars had to be parked outside. Never one to pay someone else to do something he can conceivably do himself, Sugar drew up a construction plan, got a permit, and got to work--during the one day a week, some weeks, but not all, when he was home.

Progress was slow. Nerves frayed. Construction dust drifted upstairs and covered everything, no matter how often we cleaned. After about eight weeks, Sugar looked at me and said, "Call somebody." I did, and the work is mostly finished now. We had a few bad moments when we were cleaning the aftermath and moving things back in from the garage. Several pieces of furniture are worse for the experience, and one didn't make it.

But, we have a fully-functional family/Karaoke room now, with more than one bare bulb and a disco ball for lighting, and more than one electrical outlet to replace the two power strips and spaghetti bowl of extension cords. The Christmas trees have their own storage space. Sugar has his office back, and I have a killer new writing cave. And boy, does that extra bathroom come in handy.

Peace, out...

Susan

An Incognito Rock Star with a Sprained Derriere

You know that old Billy Joel song We Didn't Start the Fire? Sometimes my life is like that--one long rapid-fire series of events. But hey, I'm never bored.

When Sugar and I arrived home from two weeks in Indiana around tenish on Friday the 29th, we lugged our stuff upstairs, had a glass of wine, and collapsed into bed. Saturday morning, we had to fit our house tour and all the errands into a compressed time slot, because we were invited to a killer Halloween party in Greenwood,  ninety minutes away.

This was a Guitar Hero party, and we were supposed to go dressed as rock stars. All we could pull off was Sugar in his (typical) Jimmy Buffett weekend attire, accessorized with a captain's hat and shoulder parrot, and me in big sunglasses. I told our hostess I was incognito, and could be any rock star she wanted me to be. (For some reason, people kept calling me Tennille.)

The party was a blast--so much fun, good food, good company--but we stayed well past the pumpkin carriage's schedule, and spent the night in a local hotel instead of making the ninety-minute drive home.

We arrived back in Greenville on Sunday just in time to prepare for friends and family coming to our house for a cookout. When our loved ones left around tenish, we finished the laundry and repacked, as Sugar was leaving on a jet plane at 5:00 the next morning, and I was headed home to North Carolina to "handle" my father who was being obstinate about a gall bladder operation he needs. This, of course turned out to be a fool's errand, as Daddy is completely unmanageable, but I got in some quality family time.

I spent half the week with Mamma and Daddy, then went to Raleigh to "handle" another crisis involving my offspring. This leg of the trip was marginally more successful, and again, I got quality family time--always precious.

Then, when I arrived home on Friday last, I did a very stupid thing. I do not travel light. I have a large suitcase, which is always packed with everything I might conceivably need. (I'm nothing if not prepared.) As Sugar wasn't home yet, I carried this monster in my left hand, with my laptop and mammoth purse on my right shoulder, up the stairs. This arrangement required me to rest the suitcase on my left hip as I lugged it up the steps.

It wasn't until Saturday, when the lower back pain started, that the full consequences of my stupidity started revealing themselves. At a friend's house for dinner Saturday night, I had to keep moving from chair to chair to floor to standing trying to keep the pain at bay.

By three a.m. Sunday--mere hours before Sugar and I were scheduled to head BACK to Indiana--the pain in my left derriere was so intense I was nauseous. I nudged Sugar. "I hurt so bad I'm about to throw up," I said.

The love of my life mumbled, "Just relax. We'll go to the ER in the morning."

"Why do I have to wait?" I wailed.

"They aren't open now."

"It's the ER--THEY DON'T CLOSE." The louder wail woke not only Sugar, but likely the neighbors, and set several dogs to barking.

Sugar was up, dressed, and had me in the car within mere moments.

The doctor gave me a shot of something that allowed me to ride ten and a half hours in the car to Indiana, and five prescriptions. But, since the shot wore off, I can't sit. I can lie in any position that doesn't put pressure on my left derriere at all, or kneel at the desk and answer quick emails.

All of this to explain my absence from Jazzercise, Twitter, Facebook, my blog, and most human interaction for the last week and a half. I'm also over-medicated, so anything I do say should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Peace, out...

Susan

P.S. About the house... Your know that saying about how you can't go home? Sometimes it's true. When Sugar and I walked into the house we loved, the one that holds so many memories, we realized immediately the answer to what had mystified us a few years earlier: why did it take so long to sell such a great house?

Since we left, we've lived in new construction, and have grown accustomed to an open floor plan, nine-foot ceilings, modern baths, and windows that work properly. We're spoiled, yes. We stepped into the foyer of our previous home, and immediately felt claustrophobic.

The good news is, we can quit pining for what we thought we missed, and even if we never embrace certain aspects of subdivision living, we can fully embrace our new home and get on with life. This is a good thing, as we have a full one.

When Life Sends You a Fruit Basket

We all know what to do with lemons, right?  When life hands us lemons, we make lemonade and add our libation of choice. Common sense, that. When we have only one choice, we make the best of it.
But what to do when life hands you a basket filled with mangoes, kiwi, and all manner of luscious fruits? I'm ridiculously blessed, and perhaps, sometimes, have too many choices. If I fill up on figs and strawberries, I won't have room for a peach, right? And I love peaches...

Saying yes to one thing always means saying no to something else. Saying no is hard for me. I spent years of my life so over-extended by commitments--okay, yes, I'm no longer talking fruit here, we're on time management, please stay with the group--that I was in need of an intervention and regular doses of that spiked lemonade.

But the need to make hard choices, embrace them, and not look back applies to so many things. (Leaving time management, on to life choices...it's all about the fruit...)

A few weeks ago, when I was explaining how Sugar and I are not cut out for subdivision living, I mentioned that we were working on a plot with our old neighbors--the ones we lived next door to for years in the house we loved, before I filled up on pears (decided we should live downtown, within walking distance to restaurants, etc)--to convince the interlopers who bought Barbie's Dream House that it was in fact haunted, and they must move to satisfy the spirits and whatnot.

Well, I guess it worked. I got a phone call a few days ago from said dear friends next door, who we'll call Wilson and Sandra, because those are their names. It seems the folks we sold our house to are interested in selling. Now, I have no evidence that Sandra or Wilson either one hid a tape player with a timer in the neighbors' attic that played "GET OOUUTTT" at 3:15 a.m. every morning, so we'll say no more about it.

Sugar and I have an appointment to see our old home and discuss details on Saturday morning. Right now, I so long to drive into OUR driveway when we get home from Indiana and be home again. Of course, there's the detail of selling the subdivision house...

But saying yes to Barbie's Dream House will mean saying no to some other things we really want to do. It will need new windows soon (two vacations we won't be able to take). And Sugar wants to replace the paneling in the den with sheet-rock. The master bath needs updating... Already we have a list of projects we're excitedly considering. The budget for all those projects would eat up a lot of travel.

And the time spent on all these projects could be spent enjoying family, volunteering, or taking up crop circle interpretation.

That house is special to us. We have so many wonderful memories there. It's home. But saying yes to it will mean making choices. It will mean fewer date nights out, fewer vacations, and less time and money for a long list of things we enjoy.

But I suspect if we can come to an agreement with the very nice folks who bought it, we will buy our home back. We'll eat the peaches with the juice dripping on our hands, having learned that pears are nice, but you simply can't eat all the fruit in the basket. You must choose.

And there's no place like home. (Clicking my heels together...)

Peace, out...

Susan

In Which Sugar Hatches a Devious Plot

I am a book lover. We have many, many books in our home, and shelves measured in miles, not feet. I have on many occasions proclaimed to family, friends, and random strangers that I will NEVER own an e-reader, because I love the feel of a book in my hands, the smell of paper, the flap copy, for heaven's sake!

Sugar has always nodded like he understood, and never once argued the point. He had no dog in that fight.

But then I mentioned how we needed another set of bookshelves, perhaps a row in the not-yet-completed family room downstairs. I'm working my way through my to-be-read stack (which has its own bookshelf), and as I add books to existing home-library shelves, they are becoming overstuffed. I don't have room to work in more books by my favorite authors. Clearly, action must be taken.

But Sugar's vision for the downstairs room is more "Jimbo's Tiki Bar" than family room. He did not welcome the suggestion that yet more bookcases might be part of the decor. Still, he didn't press the point.

Now, next to my books, Sugar knows I love my iPhone. He's a smart man, and one day he comes home from a company meeting with an iPad. I don't doubt his story that this is business equipment, necessary for presentations, etc. BUT, I'll say this: He's been waving that thing under my nose every chance he gets, showing me one cool app after another.

Then, he started downloading books. He's already got most of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series on that gadget. "Look, it's back-lit," he says. "I don't even need a book light."

For the first few days he had it, he'd demonstrate the fabulosity of the toy, but wouldn't let me play with it. When he had me in a mad frenzy to try it out, he let me read a few pages. Okay, it had me at "browse, download, read." I love books, but I'm an instant gratification junkie.

Thinking I would have to talk him into this pricey new toy, I casually said, "You better stop showing that thing off, or you'll have to buy me one."

Here's where he made his mistake. He didn't protest quite enough. He worked up a weak, "We'll have to see about that."

And I knew. I looked at my true love square in the eyes and saw the truth. He had done the math. The iPad was less expensive than more bookshelves. And it would not interfere with his plans for a man cave downstairs.

I have been had. But, hey, I'm getting a new toy. Everybody's happy at Chez Boyer.

Peace, out...

Susan

Things I Learned on the Road Trip

Here are a few things I learned on our recent odyssey:

1. My mom will dance on Beale Street (literally ON the street--she would not go into the clubs) and have her picture made with the large rooster outside The Red Rooster bar. This caused my reality to bend a little.
2. The Mississippi River isn't all that wide in Memphis. I've always imagined it as a mile-wide river the whole length of the thing, but it's not. It's a mile wide in places.Someplace in Minnesota it's nearly 11 miles wide, but in spots, it's only about 20 feet wide! I'm sure I must have learned this in school, but so much has fallen out of my brain over the years. I've flown over the Mississippi many times, but had never seen it from the ground. Crossing it in Memphis and again in St. Louis on the way back was very cool.
3. Graceland isn't as large as you might think. (My dad had to go there.)
4. Oklahoma City is quite lovely. I'd picture all of Oklahoma like the black-and-white parts of Kansas from The Wizard of Oz. (We were in Oklahoma City the day of the flooding, and that was scary. We nearly had to swim out.
5. We visited 18 states in three weeks. Every one of them was beautiful, and watching the landscape change gradually from mountain to plains to desert and back to mountains is fascinating. I thought I would sleep in the car, as we drove about 8 hours every day on the way to California and back. I never closed my eyes.

More later. I learned a lot on this trip. I'll never forget it, both for all the beautiful country we saw, and for the gift of three uninterrupted weeks spent with Jim. This was the most consecutive time we've seen each other in the errr... some years we've been married. It was wonderful.

Also a very special gift was spending the time with my parents while they are still young and active and loving life. Here's to you, Wayne and Claudette!

Peace, out...

Susan

The Mother of All Road Trips

The Husband, (aka Jim, aka Sugar) and I just got home late Saturday from a three-week road trip from our home in Greenville, SC to San Francisco, then Napa. We took my parents. For their 50th wedding anniversary. (Note: Yes, they had me VERY late in life. I was a miracle baby, in fact.)

I'd told Mom and Dad not to worry about how much they packed--"take whatever you need," I said. They took me at my word. I myself am not a light packer, and I think it's safe to say that the result was that we hauled more stuff to California than your average family moving west in a wagon train.

So, it took a while to pack and unpack all that stuff, and I've been unplugged for a while. I'm catching up on email and laundry. Planning to drag myself in to Jazzercise today so The Queen of Pain can start working some of what I ate off my derriere.

Trip highlights are too may to count, but coming soon.

And, my dad was well behaved. He didn't show his tongue to a single soul, though he looked at it in the visor mirror a lot when he was riding up front.

Peace, out...

Susan

The Number One Reason I've Had No Time to Blog

Things have been intense lately. I've been traveling almost non-stop. Here are a few highlights from the road:

• Last visit to Indiana, while we were on a side trip to Amish country for pickles, the police raided our hotel. They brought the drug dogs and everything. Seems one of the locals had rented a hotel room to hang out at the pool and smoke some weed. Someone must have reported the smell. This was big news here, as we're in a very wholesome, family-oriented part of Indiana .
• Last trip to Jasper, AL, we NARROWLY missed an F-3 tornado, which formed virtually on top of us, then moved on to the next county where it did a lot of damage. I love Jasper, but I am SO not going back there in spring or summer. The Husband has strict instructions he can only work there in fall and winter.
• On a happy note, the hotel in Jasper now has a Belgian waffle maker. The Queen of Pain now has a few waffles to work off of me when I get home.
• I made a quick trip home to Faith, where I spent most of an entire day chauffeuring my dad (who is young and perfectly able to drive himself) to various doctor's offices so he could talk to the poor receptionists and nurses about this curious coating on his tongue and throat. Now, most folks will call and make an appointment to see the doctor. Not my daddy. He doesn't like dealing with the automated answering machines that require him to press one to make an appointment, et cetera. He just drops in. To his credit, this has proven to be effective in that these nurses will do ANYTHING to get him to stop showing them his tongue. I can relate, which explains why I was driving him on this fool's errand.

As exciting as all of this is, the number one reason I've had no time to blog is that I've been busy lurking over at Do the Write Thing for Nashville where I've been busy plotting my strategy for scoring some of the goodies.

I had my heart set on the manuscript consultation by none other than Janet Reid. I've had a little ebay experience, so I strategized waiting until the very last minute and placing one bid--but WAY before midnight last night the bidding got too rich for my bank account.

Then, I set my sights on five days at Kari Lynn Dell's ranch in Montana--only to be quickly left in the bidding dust. This one is still open, and a bargain for anyone who has ever wanted to go to Montana. I think the bidding closes at midnight tonight.

I hear that tomorrow Barbara Poelle and Holly Root have a combo meeting at RWA or BEA going on the block. I'm glued to my PC. but I have a sinking feeling this one will go for big bucks as well.

Y'all check it out--there's a lot of great stuff being auctioned for a great cause!

Peace, out...

Susan

You Can't Tell That Here

I went home last week, to Faith, the little town of about six hundred, with one caution light, where I grew up, and where my parents, my brother and his family, and a slew of other relatives still live. I got into the whole ancestry thing about a year ago and was shocked to find out how many people in that town I'm related to and never knew it. I digress...

Dad is retired, and mostly he spends his days looking up imaginary symptoms on Web MD. He needs a hobby. Mom refuses to retire, mostly because staying home doesn't look all that attractive. Anyway, Dad and I went to The Faith Soda Shop for breakfast one morning--several mornings, actually. Side note: One would think that somebody who spends hours a day on health-related websites would stop ordering sausage and egg sandwiches with mayo for breakfast, but not my daddy. I'm just saying...

One morning, we walked into The Shop, and the couple who'd lived around the curve from us my entire childhood sat in a booth just inside the door. I graduated with their oldest son (and played in the creek with him, and fought with him, and love him like a brother). Their faces lit up when they saw me. You can't find that just anywhere...

I said, "I'd know these folks anywhere," and went over to chat. I hugged them, and they hugged me back, and it felt like I'd never left. There were a few other familiar faces in The Shop that morning. After we'd eaten, Dad and I made our way to the register to pay. We passed another pair of faces I knew well. This couple, parents of another guy I graduated with, lived a block and a half away from the house my parents still live in.

We exchanged the usual hey-it's-good-to-see-you kind of things. Then, Arlene patted my hand and said, "John just had a birthday, are you older, or younger than he is?" She was trying to pin down if I had already turned the same age as John, or if that was upcoming. She knew we were about a month apart.

I didn't answer immediately. Age-related chit-chat is not my favorite.

She said, "How old are you?"

I didn't miss a beat. I said, "Arlene, I'm twenty-four. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

She laughed out loud and said, "You can't tell that here."

Now, in Greenville when I tell people I'm twenty-four, they look at me oddly, like perhaps I'm Not Quite Right, but no one has ever called me on it. In Faith, most people have a general idea how old I am, and many can tell you exactly what year I was born.

My eyes misted up. There is something so compelling to me about being in that place where, even after I've been gone more than...err...a few years, folks know me. Makes me think of that Cheers song...

I love Greenville. I do. We have friends here, and a lot of Jim's family lives here. There's a beautiful downtown, with a river running through it, and restaurants of every description. There's culture. Diversity. Costco.

But, on any given day, if I walk into any restaurant on Main Street, odds are, there won't be a soul in the place who knows me, or can tell you approximately how old I am, or remembers the time I painted the old shed in the backyard five different colors (on the outside) and turned it into a weird sort of clubhouse where I could have hang out with my friends with minimal adult supervision.

Lord, I'm homesick.

Peace, out...

Susan

P.S. This is NOT an invitation for my Greenville friends and family to discuss my age. The official age of all Jazzercisers is 24. It's a rule.

There's No Place Like Home

Like a lot of folks, I went home for Thanksgiving. I've lived in Greenville for a while now--we won't go into how long, as that brings up troubling math problems related to my age. But somehow, the little town in North Carolina where I grew up will always be home.

Mom did what she always does--she made enough food to feed a small country. While we stuffed ourselves silly, we caught up on the ins and outs of each other's lives... Dad's acid reflux problem, my niece's ear tubes, my uncle's new red El Camino with the orange Firebird-looking thing on the hood...

And the latest on the group of women who bought my grandmother's civil-war-era farmhouse.

My maternal grandmother passed away a little over two years ago. My grandfather had been waiting for her at the Pearly Gates for years, so their six-thousand-square-foot house was empty. It's a gorgeous home, and it had been lovingly cared for. Our family had many years of happy memories there. It was an emotional thing, is what I'm saying. No one wanted to sell, but it was the only practical thing to be done. None of us needed a house just then, especially one that size. Though everyone hated to see it pass out of the family, my mother, aunt, and uncles decided to sell.

After a year or so, a group of women bought the house. My understanding was that they planned to use it as a shelter for abused women. Now, to say that this home (on six plus acres) in a rural part of a county that's a hundred miles east of nowhere is an unusual place for a shelter would be an understatement. Whatever. They bought the place.

What The Shelter Women did not purchase, was my uncle's house, which is next door and shares a driveway. We'll call my uncle Harley, because he would not appreciate having his actual name on the Internet. The government, and all that.

The Shelter Women want Harley to leave.

They have told him, multiple times, that he cannot stay there, as the women who will be given shelter have been traumatized, and will not like having a strange man so close by--I'm paraphrasing, but this was the gist of it. Harley would be happy to leave if the Shelter Women would buy him out. They just want him to leave.

The Shelter Women have never moved into the house, but periodically they come by. I think my uncle watches for them, and maybe goes outside and acts extra crazy just for fun--maybe shoots something. (He once took out two squirrels with one shot.)

So, The Shelter Women showed up a few weeks back with a minister of undetermined theology. He didn't speak English, and my uncle didn't recognize whatever language he was speaking, but the minister's mission that day was to exorcise the property.

Recently, The Shelter Women have become upset that my family didn't tell them the house was haunted. Listen, my grandparents lived in that house for thirty years. My grandmother lived there for seven years by herself. There were no ghosts. (At least if there were, they were well-mannered and quiet.)

But the minister, nevertheless, went into the house with a bottle of what was presumably holy water.

Then, he walked all over the yard sprinkling and chanting.

Then they--The Shelter Women and the minister--came next door and asked if they could sprinkle Harley's yard. He's an easy-going guy, so he said, "Sure, why not?"

Then, they wanted to sprinkle Harley.

I think they settled for rubbing his head with some of the water in the bottle. What the minister was chanting is anyone's guess. Hey, they can sprinkle Harley with whatever they want to, but unless they come up with some money, he's not moving.

Poor Dad. With drama like this, his acid reflux got no attention whatsoever.

I really need to go home more often. And take a tape recorder. You can't make this stuff up.

Three Words You'll Only Hear at Jazzercise

Sing it, Susan!

This, from the Queen of Pain today, as we writhed on the floor in agony while of one of those American Idol winners belted out a poor imitation of Aretha's Chain of Fools. I couldn't tell you who was singing--I never watch that stuff. I think reality TV is a network conspiracy to make more money by not paying actors and writers. I digress.

To distract myself from the searing pain in my upper thighs--officially known at Jazzercise as the side butt--and because I love Aretha, I sang with enthusiasm. It's a testament to how bad the leg routine was that no one got up and left.

The last time I sang in front of people was during our annual Labor Day Family Weekend in the Mountains. I was jamming around the cabin with my iPod, singing along with The Black Eyed Peas when most of my family bolted from their rocking chairs into the woods, where they fled the vicinity along with all creatures great and small.

Only my brother-in-law, who is a kind soul, and was particularly attached to his rocking chair (and possibly bidding on something on Ebay as his eyes were glued to his laptop) stayed behind. "You sound different with that thing in your ears," he said. Who knew?

I have actually sang on stage, though it's been a, ahh...ahem... a few years. In high school, they let me sing on stage in not one, but two musicals--Bye Bye Birdie, and L'il Abner, although, a case could be made that few of my classmates wanted to sing and dance on stage, making it hard to cast an entire musical, and parts therefore easy to land.

Nevertheless, I sing, not so much for the enjoyment of others, but because it makes me happy. They let me do that at Jazzercise, which is one more reason I go.

Peace, out...

Susan

Through the Looking Glass

So, my very good REASON for missing Jazzercise all week (even though I now have clean clothes) is that I've just returned from a trip to another galaxy. Faith, NC, may as well be another planet for how different life is there. I forget this when I haven't been home in a while.

Now, lest anyone think that I am ridiculing small towns, let me reassure all that I LOVE small towns, especially Faith. It holds a charm for me like no other place on earth. And, frankly, were it not for spending my formative years in Faith, I would no doubt be a normal person (how tediously boring!) without the neuroses from which I draw creative juice. It may not be necessary for every writer to be insane, but, speaking for myself, I would be utterly useless as a writer were I mentally stable.

I will tell y'all just ONE of the many interesting things that occurred during my recent sojourn. It involves squirrels, as many small-town tales do.

While I was growing up, my father shot many a squirrel. Along with rabbits, quail, deer--whatever. And we ate what he shot. Not all the time, of course, we had normal food as well, but, I confess that as a child, on many occasions, I had squirrel for dinner. My grandmother would skin, braise, and serve them with gravy, and usually rice. At the time, I thought absolutely nothing of it--it was a routine dinner menu. Although, looking back, I do recall that many nights Mamma had no appetite. And you can bet the farm she NEVER skinned anything.

While Daddy still owns his collection of rifles, shotguns, etc., the town of Faith has long since passed an ordinance against firing guns inside the town limits. For years, residents largely ignored this, but recently, some new folks have moved into town who tend to call the law, or, at the very least, walk over to inquire what is being shot at.

In recent years, squirrel has not been a dinner table staple, so this would not be an issue, except for the squirrels tend to dig up my mamma's flowers. This makes her unhappy, and when Mamma ain't happy...well, you know.

So, my brother-in-law bought my daddy a squirrel trap. Daddy baits this contraption with peanuts, and when a squirrel goes in, the door slams shut. When I arrived, on Monday afternoon, Daddy was aglow with the victory of a recent catch. He'd just returned from releasing the squirrel "out in the country" (which in and of itself is a joke, as Faith hardly qualifies as an urban area--I digress).

Late yesterday, as I was trying to catch up on email from Mamma and Daddy's snail-paced dial-up connection, Daddy yelled from the kitchen, "Come here, quick!"

I went running. He stood pointing out the kitchen window. "Look, he's going in!" A poor, unsuspecting squirrel was poking his head into the cage. He went for the peanut. As soon as the door slammed shut, Daddy went running out the backdoor. I followed him, aghast, as he proudly admired his catch. "Come on," he said.

"What?" I looked at him in disbelief. Surely, he didn't think I was going with him to relocate the squirrel. But he did. He put the cage in the back of the pickup truck. "Come on, you'll have to help." Under protest, I went, but only in case someone had to call 911 if the squirrel turned out to be rabid, or just plain mad about being caged and evicted, and bit Daddy.

Ten miles from my parents home, where Daddy reasoned the squirrel could not find his way back, my father pulled over, muttered at a women in the car behind us who was rubbernecking to see if perhaps he was disposing of a dead body, and released his captive. I stayed in the truck with the door locked, which was smart, because Daddy tried to open the passenger side door and give me an up-close view of the caged squirrel.

In a separate squirrel-related incident on Tuesday, my uncle, who lives outside the town limits, shot two squirrels with one shell, cunningly waiting until they were lined up, so he could take them out together.

Last night I kissed my mamma goodbye and drove two hours and fifteen minutes to the other side of the universe right after dinner--grilled hamburgers, nothing wild.

Peace, out...

Susan

It's a Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad World

I don't do sad. I don't like to see sad movies or read sad books. And I really don't write about sad things. Disturbing things, sometimes, but never sad. There's far too must sad in reality. I like my escapism pleasant. And truth be told, I write to escape. It's like creating this alternate reality that you can climb into where you control everyone and everything. There's not a doubt in my mind that there's a clinical name for that, and somewhere, folks like me are locked up for their own protection and that of others.

Anyway, when this blog goes quiet, one of two things is happening: either I'm juggling too many balls and have dropped one, or too many sad things are going on around me. Lately, it's a little of both. I am trying to do too much. One of my personalities--y'all know I'm slightly schizophrenic, right? And before somebody gets all offended about me making fun of crazy people, just let me tell you that I'm also a hypochondriac. So I'm not sure if I'm truly schizophrenic, or if I'm just imagining it cause I sometimes exhibit the classic symptoms, but, either way, I in no way mean to ridicule crazy people. I am definitely a part of that club, either way you slice it.

I digress. One of my personalities (see above) agreed to be this year's conference chairperson for the South Carolina Writers Workshop Conference. I thought, This will be fun. And it is. It is also a job that I work at 10 - 12 hours every day. This is a volunteer position. I think it was Suzanne that agreed to this--she loves a party. Loves to entertain. This is just like something she'd stick me with. So, I'm busy.

But there's also too much sadness going on around me right now. But I can't write about that stuff--I just can't. And sometimes, it overwhelms me and I can't escape into my imaginary worlds anymore.

And now the bees. This thing with the bees isn't sad--it's scary as hell. On top of being blue, I'm freaked out by the bees. Have y'all been reading about this? I had not heard a word about it. I almost never watch the news. You rarely get good news from Fox or CNN, and I have doubts about how straight a scoop you get from any of them anyway. So I had not heard about the bees.

Then, Sunday evening we we sitting on my brother-in-law's deck having perfectly grilled steaks when a wasp flew by. I have an aversion to being stung, and wanted someone to kill it. My brother-in-law has a garden, and, who knew, wasps apparently (at least according to him) pollinate some of the stuff he grows. I want to state for the record that I have no knowledge of any of the specific crops in his field. Anyway, he wouldn't hear of swatting the wasp.

Then, he launched into this (at the time I thought typically nutcase) sermon about how all the honeybees are dying out, which will cause all of our crops to fail which will cause us all to starve. I was rolling my eyes because my brother-in-law, like most of my husband's family, (none of whom read blogs) are all loony.

Then, this morning, in the Greenville News, which I do read every morning, right there on page 6A--right beside the stuff about Iraq--is the headline, "Bee Die-off Endangers Food Chain," and a picture of a worried-looking scientist in a bee suit with a tray of dead bees. Even certifiable fruitcakes say something sane every now and again, so you can't just ignore everything that comes out of their mouths like you might think.

It seems some sort of disease or parasite has caused something called Colony Collapse Disorder. You might know they'd call it a disorder. Apparently, we now have to be politically correct when discussing bees, cause, you know, we don't want to offend. Anyway, this Disorder is responsible for U.S. beekeepers losing a quarter of their bees in the last few months. According to someone at the USDA, this is the biggest threat to our food supply. And don't you know the price of honey is going through the roof.

Here's something else to lie awake and worry about. I'm counting on what usually happens in these scenarios: tomorrow or the next day some other expert will chime in as to how this is a normal, cyclical thing--like global warming--and there's no cause for panic. And, people like me, who tend to obsess about stuff like this, will grab hold of that like a life preserver and tell ourselves that so we can sleep at night. Whether it has any basis in fact or not.

Peace, out...

Susan

There is Order in The Universe

So we were driving home from Jasper, AL, last Thursday afternoon. We timed our departure so as not to hit Atlanta rush hour traffic, congratulated ourselves for planning ahead and put a John Hiatt cd in. We were tooling across I-20, passing an 18-wheeler, when an old beat up pickup truck (complete with all the accessories--gun rack, fresh coat of mud, et cetera--came hurtling up behind us. As soon as we cleared the 18-wheeler, the pickup darted at a dangerous angle in front of the tuck, passed us on the right, and swerved in front of us.

Jim had not finished spitting expletives and muttering something about suicidal morons--this particular one turned out to be a female in a tank top with a ponytail and a cell phone--when a guy that looked like he just stepped out of the board room driving a souped-up hot rod of undetermined lineage passed Miss Armed and Dangerous. Then two more cars and an SUV pulled up even with Hot Rod and Dirty Truck.

Jim scooted back into the right lane and backed off from these maniacs--or tried--but we were on the Interstate, and being passed doing 80 miles an hour. Before we knew it, we were in the middle of about twenty cars that were changing lanes back and forth, passing each other and jockeying for position with maybe 6 inches clearance between them. Something bright yellow that I couldn't identify--but Jim said was a Chevrolet Nomad--was riding our bumper. As best I could tell, Minnie Pearl was at the wheel. There was nothing we could do but hang out and try not to get run over.

"What are they doing?" It was me that hollered that out...Jim was busy yelling out stuff I can't post on the Internet--my mamma sometimes reads this blog. "Bunch of morons," he yelled. Moron is Jim's pet name for other drivers. He's kinda stuck on it.

Anyway, cars were zooming by, weaving in and out, and back and forth. Expeditions, Cadillacs, Pickups, an El Camino...cars that looked like they'd been built from parts of 5 or 6 different makes. Toyotas, Volkswagens--every kind of car you can think of. And a camper! Minnie Pearl passed us and waved--not her parade wave, either, but the kind that doesn't require the use of all your fingers.

Then, I saw the sign.

Talladega County.

As in, Talladega Superspeedway, the "biggest, fastest the biggest, fastest, most competitive motorsports facility in the world." According to their website--which I have no reason to doubt--"Records for both speed and competition have been established at Talladega."

Suddenly, everything was clear. Everyone in the county was training for a NASCAR tryout. Sure enough, before long we passed the shrine of speed, oddly painted cars and spectacular crashes. The further we got away from it, the more normal people started driving. After a while, traffic thinned out, and slowed back down to 75.

I guess it's a kind of salute the locals give the race track when they drive by after work. They get within a couple miles of the place, they all start driving like Richard Petty--or whoever. I don't speak NASCAR.

But I still get it. Next time though, I think we'll take rush hour in Atlanta over rush hour in Talladega County.

Peace, out...

Susan

Acts of God and Other Puzzlements

I'm on the road again--in Jasper, Alabama. Jasper is one of the many towns across the country that I would never get to see were it not for the fact that my husband has a job that takes him to places generally not found in Fodor's tourist guidebooks. There's nothing wrong with Jasper. It's a nice, regular town. I just probably wouldn't have made a special trip.

The thing that unnerved me, though, is we arrived on Sunday evening, April 8th--yes, we traveled here on Easter Sunday. Right after my mamma stuffed us into a food coma. Anyway, April 8th was the eighth (or was it ninth?) anniversary of when an F-5 tornado blew through this part of the country. Not Jasper specifically, but real close by. Now, I'm not sure I've told y'all this, but I have had a life-long, blood-freezing terror of tornadoes.

You might be asking yourself if I was raised, perhaps in Kansas, where such horrific storms are common. No, in fact, I was raised in Faith, NC, and as so far as I am informed, there has never been a tornado there, nor anywhere in the vicinity. The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie as a child--perhaps that explains it. Either that, or it was the way my family huddled in the hall every time it thundered, even if it was the dead of night. Mamma would get me out of bed to duck for cover with the rest of the family until the last rumble had faded.

Y'all knew I wasn't normal, right? Well, there are reasons...

Anyway, I'm right here where this monstrous Act of God transpired--why do you suppose they call such things "Acts of God?" Tangent Alert...

Why are bad things--tornadoes, tsunami's, earthquakes, et cetera--called Acts of God, and none of the good things? I mean, think about it...the sun came up this morning, and no one else--not even any of the presidential primary candidates--has claimed credit for it, but no one refers to Daylight as an Act of God. But if it wasn't an Act of God, I'd sure like to know who is responsible, wouldn't you? I'd like to stay on his or her good side, so to speak.

And what about spring? Things are blooming all over...well, except in the Midwest and Northeast where it's still snowing. See? All that snow, now, that's an Act of God according to newscasters and insurance agents everywhere. But wisteria in bloom? He doesn't get the credit. I find this a puzzlement.

I guess atheists and such aren't much troubled by the lack of logic here. But, as someone who knows God personally, I'd like to see Him get a little more credit for everything good that happens here on planet earth. All of y'all atheists, agnostics, Unitarians, and what not...you can't have it both ways: If a tsunami is an Act of God, then by golly, so is the rhythmic surf caressing beaches all over the world right this minute.

Peace, out...

Susan

Very Good Reasons Why I'm Not Dancing

Okay, my exercise routine, my writing schedule, and yes, even my inner peace have all evaporated this week. An unnamed (because I can't possibly have children that age when I'm only 24, the official age of all Jazzercisers) member of my immediate family has been at MUSC this week. This unnamed but treasured woman-child had a hole in her diaphragm roughly the size of a small pancake through which several body parts had migrated into her rib cage. As you might imagine, this made breathing and eating rather problematic. Thanks to the highly skilled surgical team at MUSC, and their top-notch support staff, she is on the mend.

So of course I've been in Charleston and have a perfectly good reason for not working up a sweat of any description all week. But tomorrow I'm packing my VOLUPTUOUS self back in the Beetle and heading home to the Upstate. Just in time for my pre-vacation spa day. I mean, really, I can't go on vacation without a pedicure. There is nothing worse than scaly feet on a beach. And as hard as I've been working out (up until this week), I have a variety of calluses and blisters that need attention. In their current condition, my feet would clear the beach at Trunk Bay. Every other crazy person traveling to the Caribbean in the middle of hurricane season would run screaming from the beach like folks in one of those old 'B' horror movies fleeing from one of those giant Godzilla wannbes.

And these stress knots in my neck are just begging for the skillful hands of a massage therapist. And everyone knows that once you've paid for a massage and a pedicure, you really come out better getting the Full Day of Beauty package. The one that includes the champagne lunch. One must get oneself in the proper frame of mind before embarking on vacation in order to get the maximum amount of relaxation.

Then, of course, I'll have to pack. Now, normal people can probably pack for a two week vacation in an hour or so. As y'all well know, I'm not one of those people. It will take a least a day for me to run around buying stuff like sunscreen and filling prescriptions that would otherwise run out before we get back. Bad things happen when I run out of my medication.

Then there's the actual cramming of everything I might conceivably need for a two-week stay in St. John into two suitcases, one carry-on, and the largest purse I own. As y'all might imagine, I do not pack light. More than one Delta agent has helped me shuffle my belongings from one suitcase to the other to avoid having to charge me an extra $25 for having a suitcase over 50 lbs while my normally easy-going husband tries to borrow a gun from one of the airport police officers so he can shoot me and get off on account of being unduly provoked. Why is it that the Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepared," and grown men foam at the mouth when their wives try to follow that eminently sensible advice?

Anyway, between the spa day, the shopping and the packing, I will almost certainly not make it to Jazzercise this week. But, I do plan on working out while on vacation. I'll let y'all know how that works out.

Peace, out...

Paying For My Sins

My mother is the world's best cook. Really. I know what you're thinking...everybody thinks their mamma is the best cook in the world. But seriously, mine is. And she will stuff you like a Thanksgiving turkey if you pass within a five mile radius of her house. It is one of her many talents.

Sunday, we celebrated my brother's birthday. She made fried chicken--Mamma's fried chicken is so good the chickens get on a waiting list for her cast iron pan--mashed potatoes and gravy, squash casserole, fresh green beans, tomato pie, corn on the cobb, deviled eggs, cantaloupe and my brother's favorite, German chocolate pie. And even though it was his birthday, she made my favorite, too. Blackberry pie. Oh...my...gosh. And instead of plates, we piled PLATTERS high with that feast. Is there any wonder I am VOLUPTUOUS? I grew up in that house, for the love of Pete. I never stood a chance. I lived with that during my formative years. I am food-challenged.

In my mother's house, if you don't eat enough, she thinks you don't like it, and she gets this hurt look on her face. Who can resist? I wouldn't know where to begin counting the calories in that meal. And that was just lunch.

It's a two-and-a-half hour drive to Mom and Dad's. On the way home, our neighbors called. We have really great neighbors. They were making dinner for us. Just something simple. Hamburgers (about a half a pound each), corn on the cobb, chips and cobbler with ice cream. And of course we had wine with dinner.

I figure if I fast for a week, I will have averaged out my calories to somewhere around five thousand per day. Don't you know Monday morning weigh in was a treat? But...I was very good in the dietary department yesterday and today. I didn't fast, but I am bringing my average for the week down some.

As I told Myra this morning, I need help. We are going on vacation in a few weeks, and I can't get into most of my summer clothes. The shorts and capris are the biggest issue. I can stuff myself in, and if I use a pair of pliers, I can get the zippers up (as long as I am lying flat). But when I stand up, if the zippers stay closed I can't walk or breathe. This is a problem. As a pre-published and as yet unpaid author, I cannot afford a whole new set of fat summer clothes. I know I whined about this back in May, but vacation is eminent. This is a state of emergency.

So for the next few weeks, I have to be tortured or sculpted and Jazzercise every day...well, Monday - Friday. And I can only have about 1200 calories a day. If I am vigilant, I can get back into my clothes. The sad part is that, after all that pain and deprivation, I will go on vacation for two weeks. Now, no one diets or exercises on vacation...at least no normal person...possibly the aliens do. Anyway, flying back on that plane from the Virgin Islands, you know that I will be once again busting out of my capris. I will come home and start all over again.

Sigh. I wonder if there is a name for this disorder?

Utter Madness

From Wednesday, March 21: My brand new brother-in-law won $100 in the lottery, so my sister (Sabrina) suggests we focus our efforts on purchasing as many as possible in an effort to retire to an island somewhere. But today isn’t my day to buy lottery tickets. Here is how my luck has gone: the repairman is coming back tomorrow (4^th trip) to fix my 6 month old Kitchen Aid (for the way it’s made) refrigerator. The compressor or condenser or combobulator or something isn’t combobulating. Until this morning, only the freezer was on the fritz (intermittently). Every so often I’d go down and clean up a puddle of water and empty the ice maker, and then it would start working again. This morning, the refrigerator quit, too.

So, I hauled everything down to the old refrigerator in the basement (thank God we kept it for overflow, parties and such). I only lost what was in the freezer. Twice.

Then Sandra (my neighbor, one of my dearest friends, hereinafter referred to as my next-door nut) called, to say that Mason (our scrambled-breed dog) was running through his electric fence. We just changed the battery in the collar, so I was sure it was a break in the wire, which would have to wait until Jim got home—this I was hoping for even though I know this is a huge problem since Mason has been known to do such socially unacceptable things as tinkle on the neighbor around the block’s BMW tire (freshly washed). But no. His collar was missing—Mason’s, not the BMW guy’s. Sandra and I searched 4 acres, and no collar.

I called Jim, the man who promised to love, honor, and solve all my problems, even if he was two time zones away. He said, no problem, we have a spare in the utility closet. Great. I ventured into the giant mound of such items critical to household maintenance as a zillion batteries of undetermined age, No-sew fabric glue, and an MRE (one of those freeze-dried meals soldiers eat—don’t ask). I found the collar, and put in a new battery. Experience has taught me that these collars must be tested or they may either a) not work at all, or b) give the dog a three foot circle in which he can roam without getting zapped. I walked out to where the wire is buried, close to the edge of our yard. No beep. The collar is supposed to beep a warning, then zap. I went to Lowe’s (where we bought the system) to get a new collar, and happened to notice the ten year warranty on the package. We have only had ours for 2 years. I decided to raise a ruckus, as a new collar is sixty bucks.

The young lady at Customer Service, aka We Couldn’t Care Less, told me to call Pet Safe. I asked her, “How do I keep the dog in the fence while I’m waiting for the new collar?” “I don’t know.” She shrugged and turned her back on me. Not to assist another waiting customer, mind you, but to signify that I was dismissed. My good deed for the day is that I refrained from jumping down her twenty-something throat and stomping on her liver. Neither did I report her to the Authorities. I was way too wrapped up in my own psychotic episode to mess with her. Probably a good thing.

I appealed to the cute, nice manager guy, who made a phone call and then said he’d swap it, no problem. But I had to come back home and get the old one. Yada, yada, yada… got the new collar home, and, of course, at first, it didn’t work. Fiddled with it. Slammed it against the kitchen counter. Stomped it twice. Then, it beeped. Unfortunately, it was now in three-foot mode. I had to fiddle with the dial thingy to adjust signal, then chase down the dog who is smart enough to know he doesn’t want that collar back on. Finally, the dog is once again contained, and BMW's everywhere are safe.

Did I mention I had another flat tire?

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for buying lottery tickets.

Jogging Along With Jim

Now, y'all know I don't Jazzercise on Saturdays. We have a rule in our house that, as far as it's possible, we'll spend Saturdays together. And, even though I have assured him that other red blooded American men--other husbands who have a heart-felt desire to share things with their wives--do occasionally Jazzercise, he balks like a mule. So we walk. Sometimes in the park, sometimes around the neighborhood, or, like this morning, along the sidewalks in downtown Greer. Walking with Jim is problematic for me because his legs are eleven feet long. I try to walk at my own pace, but he gets cranky because he's half a mile ahead and can't talk to me. He commences to coach me. I do not find this particularly helpful. His coaching goes something like this: "What are you doing back there? I thought you wanted to exercise, not stroll around and window shop. You're not getting your heart rate up." Then he'll grab my arm and pull me down the street. In order to keep from stumbling, I retrieve my arm and jog alongside him while he walks. I don't like to jog. I find that it makes me sweat, which I do not care for. Not only that, it causes various parts of my anatomy to bounce uncomfortably. I am of the opinion that this bouncing can cause said parts to sag. Jogging makes me cranky, so I don't do it for very long. I slow down to a fast walk, fall behind, and the whole thing starts all over with the coaching. This morning, in an entertaining variation, he suggested I Jazzercise down the street--even sang a few bars of "Can't Touch This" for me. Because neither of us is interested in fighting, we keep the complaining at the good-natured ribbing level. But I know a few couples that would wind up sleeping in separate rooms for a night or two after that kind of workout. I don't know about y'all, but I think marriage requires a sense of humor. Now that I think about it, that really ought to be somewhere in the vows. "I promise to love, honor, obey and laugh with." I think I'll put that in the suggestion box!