A January Night

It is a cold, clear night here in the Ozarks.

I left my vodka tonic on the coffee table to escape outside to the deck.  The dogs were kickin' up a fuss and when I stepped outside, I realized why.

The moon.

Lawsie.

I'm going to take a moment.

...
...
...

Full.  Bright.  Incandescent.

Orion is jealous. How dare she steal his spotlight in the winter sky!

I see my breath escape in a gasp of wonderment.

I don't preach from a pulpit nor from my blog, but I'm telling you...seeing that wondrous gift, I felt ministered to.

I sit here on the gray metal deck chair.  The cold seeping through my night gown.  The stillness is as piercing and as dear to me as the screeching of pond frogs in spring.

I should do this more often.

Looking Back

I was going to rant in this post.

Local radio stations have been playing Wham's 'Last Christmas' on a continual loop.

For God's sake!  It's been playing non-stop since October.

...the video is hysterical, though.

See, I love Christmas music.  I was looking back through all of my posts looking for a playlist of my favorites to reference.  I just knew I had one.

Couldn't find it.

But as I was looking for that, I found myself stopping to read some old posts.

Was that me?  Did I write that stuff? 

Are you kidding? It's unrecognizable.

Is that weird?

Have any of you had this experience or is it just me?

Just me you say?

Figured.

Still...I feel like a stranger to myself.

...and for some reason, it makes me kinda sad.

A Text

I got a text from Big this morning.

All it said was, "You're the best you know that?"

Sigh.

I've had a smile on my face all day.

See, Big and I fight.  I mean really fight.  We have these huge verbal smack downs.  When we're done, we look at each other in amazement.  Where did that come from?  What was THAT all about?

At long last though we've found each other's hot buttons and agree not to punch them.

Interesting.

I texted him back and told him he wasn't so bad himself.

He's actually Pretty. Darned. Awesome!

A Yum Run

Finally, legalized 'shine in the Ozarks.

What's that?  You assumed that we've been able to buy good corn liquor all this time here in our fair hills?

Nope.  We had to come by our hooch the old fashioned way.  ...in the sink.

But this fine fella has found a way to distill a product that is far superior to garden variety back yard corn squeezin's.

And it's a great place to while away a cold winter afternoon.

Big Daddy and I know.  We've been there a time or 20.

A Little PR

Little isn't so little anymore.

He's an amazing young man.  As a senior in high school he has shown ambition, leadership, and compassion all while courting the most special of young women.

He has a mountainous goal for this summer.    There is little doubt he will make it to the top.

Phantom Regiment will be fortunate to have this awesome Tuba player in their brass line.

This is a taste of what he experienced last weekend in Rockford, Il.  We go back in three weeks for the next step.

Chicago here we come!

Watch!

Redneck Sunday Night

Ribs.

They've been cooking low and slow all day.  Big Daddy knows his way around a slab of ribs

We buttered some corn an hour or so ago and put them along side.

I think I'll pour myself a cocktail.  I'll sit outside and smell the meat cooking.  While I'm there I'll watch the storm come in. I can feel it.  The wind has picked up and is blowing the humidity out of the air.

You know what?  Big is home tonight, too.

So why am I sitting her posting for the first time in a coon's age when I could be outside visiting with him?

Hmmm?

Exactly.

I'm outta here.

...Sigh

I got one of these framed for Mother's Day. 

Perfect and tear producing.

Big was born on Mother's day.  ...as some of you know.

1991.

Little is no longer little.

1993.

Both equally handsome and dashing and charming and smart and talented and wonderful and funny and awe-inspiring.

...yet totally, completely and utterly different.

How is that possible?

Yet, isn't that fantastic?

.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shuler-Photography/105497456153886?ref=ts&v=wall

Check him out!

Baby,You Can Drive My Car

Little took off for school tonight in the car.

Fine.

However he's used to driving the Blazer, which is an automatic and the Dodge is a manual.

Yeah.  See?

I am a goofin' bundle of nerves.  My neck is as tight as a nun's knees.  He ground a least a pound trying to find reverse to get out of the driveway.

I can't fault the bubba.  I remember learning how to drive a manual.  ...it wasn't pretty.

But...once you learn, it is forever.  I can get behind the wheel of a 5 speed and go to town.  (literally and figuratively)  There is something so big and bad about shifting gears.  When I got proficient, I felt so tough and powerful, hot and sexy! Roaring along in my...in my...gulp...

Geo Metro.

Don't you judge me!

When Big starting driving, I didn't have near this amount of angst.  Maybe it's cuz Little is the baby, but I have consumed a record amount of vodka since he's been driving.  I just know he'll be maimed and/or killed in a hideous wreck.

He is a good driver. He's been driving for almost a year now and he's more careful than Big, but Big always looked at home behind the wheel.  Little looks like an uptight little old man.  ...and kinda drives like one, God love him.

So I sit on the sofa, cuticles bloody.  Vodka and tonic in hand.  Prayers on my Absolute breath.

School is only a mile or so away and since I haven't heard sirens, I assume he still among the living and the little Dodge is still in one piece.

...as is he.

Sweeter Words...

...I have never heard.  Random quotes this evening while watching Life on Discovery.

Little- Don't be a fool, wrap your tool.

Big-Wrap it before you tap it.

Chase-Don't be silly, wrap your willy.


I am heaving out huge sighs of Mom relief!

Well. Look Who the Cat Drug Up.

So...

Ummm.

See, I've been really...
I've had an awful lot of...


Bah.

I'm on a laptop these days. Can use it any room in the house.

Sexy times.

Guess my favorite room?

Right now I'm on the couch. I just came in from sitting outside. My clothes smell like grilled hamburgers and wood smoke.

Most pleasant, I must say.

The wine I drank whilst listening to the pond frogs has comfortably settled in several places. Little and two of his cohorts are playing Halo on two different TV's and another is in the kitchen trying to fix the PC.

Big has left to spend the night in town with a buddy. He spends less and less time here at the house. It is as it should be. I like it when he passes through though. Post secondary education and all the trappings that go with it seem to suit him.

It makes me glad. He's come off a hard year.

So as spring rears it's head, the warm-thrilling day we just had will give way to snow this weekend.

Yep...snow.

Welcome to the Ozarks, Folks.

...and thanks for the prod, You!

Sounds

It's raining tonight and I have a little heartache.

I'm sitting on on my covered front porch. It's thundering and booming and lightening and the rain is pouring down like a cow peeing on a flat rock.

I love that.

I go inside and beg Big. "Come outside and sit and help me watch it storm!"

"Ah, Ma. I just now got on the college website. Besides I can hear it out my window. It's awesome, huh?"

"Yeah! (Gulp) Great!"

Little is watching TV, but he meanders out for a minute to comment.

"Whoa. It is really coming down."

He retreats back in just like that.

I continue my vigil. The rain occasionally blows up in my face which only adds to my pleasure. I look longingly next door.

I haven't seen Chase in a week or two- the little shit. He's working double shifts, courtin' a girl, and getting ready for college in the fall. He hasn't time to spend with his own Momma. Why would I think he'd have time for me?

Sigh.

Even though the clamor outside is deafening, I'm surrounded by a melancholy silence.

Now, those of you who have spent anytime at all with me over the past few years, know that I never took the awesome noise in my house for granted. I loved and cherished every bang of Rock Band and every throaty laugh at 2:00 in the morning.

I still do. They just get fewer and farther between.

I won't mourn this change in my life for long for I know a new and exciting one will come along. There will always be noise coming from my boys.

...in one way or another.

I'm just reflectin', I reckon.

I would say I'd keep you posted, but I haven't bothered to post in so long I'm not sure you can trust me.

Dressing the Part

I wore a dress to work today.

I know in this day and age it is in poor taste to go outside your home unclothed. I daresay it's even illegal. But I don't wear dresses anymore. Somehow down the line my work uniform became slacks and a blouse.

I continued, however, to rock the shoes.

I helped a girlfriend shop for a dress this weekend. She has a reunion coming up and obviously wanted something smashing to wear.

So a trip to the Dress Barn and 27 dresses later, she had in hand the perfect one.

I also found in my hand a perfectly fetching black and white polka dot sensation.

"Buy it!" she says.

"I don't need it!" I says.

But the kind clerk reminded us that we'd get an extra 10 dollars off the clearance price on each if we purchased both and she'd throw in a VIP discount.

So, I parted with twelve dollars and brought it home.

It was 12 bucks. Ladies, do I need to say more?

But I promised myself then and there that I would wear it.

But where? I mean really. Where would I wear it? I don't even wear skirts to church anymore.

And then it hit me that, contrary to popular belief, it wouldn't kill me to dress a little nicer for work.

So this morning I showered, shaved, put a curl in my hair, and set off to work with gams gleaming.

I swished into work with the humid air lapping against my legs like lake water.

I felt the tingle on them as the condiditoned air indoors evaporated the residue.

I remembered, that when seated at my desk, I could hike my skirt up past my knees for a little additonal ventilation and no one would be the wiser.

I fielded the expected remarks.

-Hey! Sugar! Got a job interview?

-Sug, I'm so sorry. Funeral this afternoon?

-Sugar! For God's sake cover those things up. The glare! I can't stand the glare!

But then I walked back in my door this evening after a hard day of dress wearing.

Little looked up from Halo 2 and did a double take.

"Wow, Mom! You look pretty."

Oh yeah.

I'll be doin' this here dress thing again.

Potty Mouth

We have a large ladies' room here at work.

20 stalls-10 each on either side of the handwashing stations.

So lo and behold. I go to avail myself of the facilities this morning and find myself alone in the restroom. There isn't another soul in there.

As I go about my business, I hear the bathroom door open and another lady come in.

...and use the stall right next to me.

Really?

Really?

...and it wasn't pleasant.

Why in the world would a person go into a virtually empty restroom and use the stall right next to someone when there are 19 others to choose from?

This is a serious issue, Folks.

Dusk

That great time of evening when everything goes still.

Now is the time of year when everything is green and fluffy and full of color and scent.

The fire pit was fufilling its destiny with logs ablaze. I didn't have any marshmellows or chocolate or graham crackers.

Pity.

The frogs began kickin' up a fuss down at yon pond.

A bat buzzed us. Where it came from we're still not sure.

Sadie and Fred took off down to the fence. They growled off into the timber.

Was that another dog?

Nope.

It was a coyote. He loped out across the bottoms and then made his way back into the woods.

The guys chatted and Big puffed on his first cigar.

His first good cigar.

Big Daddy decided that all of those Swisher Sweets he and a buddy had been sneaking after their school shows should be replaced by a Romeo Y Julieta once he turned 18.

You know, I like being downtown. I love the romantic notion of renting a loft and gazing out at all the folks going by. Walking down to the corner for a coffee-watching folks go by during First Friday Art Walk-from my window.

But it is just a notion.

I'm a redneck girl at heart.

And sitting on my redwook deck at dusk is just about perfect for me.

Paint Your Wicker

In preparation for graduation festivities this weekend, I persuaded Big Daddy that we needed to paint.

We painted porches.

We painted decks.

We painted furniture.

We started out with a paint sprayer.

Several hours and several choice words later, Big Daddy gave up fighting the good fight and made a mad trip to Lowe’s for rollers and pans.

During his trip, I took over the furniture-a mixture of white paint and water to cover wicker that had weathered a lot of weather.

Now I don’t suffer shoes gladly normally, but yesterday I kicked them off so I could feel the grass squishing through my toes while I slung paint.

…and I do mean slung.

I slapped my brush over and around. I splodged it into cracks and crevices. I dappled it across the backs and circled the legs.

For my trouble I had white freckles across my nose and a smattering across my arms and legs. I left white foot prints across the driveway.

While I laughed at my idiocy, I suddenly felt the earth tremble. I staggered trying to keep my balance.

It wasn’t an earthquake.

The fervency with which my Dad rolled in his grave caused the earth to tremble.

He painted for a living.

He painted inside, outside, and underside and he did it all wearing white.

Aside: the scent of baby oil make me think of him. He would slather himself in it before painting outdoors. The reasons were twofold.

1. His vanity knew no bounds and he could tan while he worked.
2. Practicality. What little paint he got on him would wash off easier with an oily undercoating.

Anyway…. I inherited none of his talent. He was appalled at my sloppiness and let me know.

But…

While he’s up and about, shaking his head in disgust, I’d love it if he would stick around for another few days to watch his oldest grandson graduate from high school.

I know Big never got to meet his Grandpa. But I have a feeling Dad knows all about him. And it sure would be nice if he rattled and rolled around a little on Sunday- as Big begins his own paint job.

…not porches or decks or furniture.

As Big picks his colors, he’s going to need help with his brushes.

Maybe with your hand guiding him, Daddy, he’ll finish without leaving footprints in the driveway.