AWOL and Air Conditioners

This is what fall looks like in my neck of the woods and I will be exceedingly glad when the view from my porch once again looks like this instead of the searing heat we are currently experiencing. I do not remember a summer quite this miserable for heat. I do believe there was one in the '90's that was perhaps equal to it, but memory diminishes pain so can't be relied upon to be accurate.
When the weather is this appalling, I tend to hunker down and wait it out in silence; with as little  movement as possible, thus, I have been AWOL for some time. Apologies. No excuse.
I have also been fighting a losing battle to keep my aged air conditioner on life support. It is 25 years old and has fought the good fight, but it is now time to face facts...it is on its last crippled legs. This insufferable summer has killed it.
So, I have a call in to my faithful Wilkerson & Sons Heating and Air Conditioning people to come and give me an estimate on a new unit. This is not the most agreeable time to have to be purchasing a new central air unit, as the State government for whom I work has decided in their infinite wisdom to furlough the entire workforce for six days. Oh well, better than being laid off I suppose.
But! It is September! Can October's Bright Blue weather be far behind. And besides...it could be worse, I could live in the Carolina's. Not a happy time for those dear isles at the present...I'm just sayin'...

Old Country

For the one who "talks to me". The one who has been my friend for so long, for so little. Thanks Old Country, thanks for always being there.

Ann

Time Waits for No One

I have just come from my gym, where it is my habit to lift weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As I was getting dressed to come back to work, I apparently shocked and amused two young ladies of no more than sixteen years of age by simply taking off my gym clothes to put my street clothes back on. I was naked in the lady's locker room. I am not sure where they thought I should dress...the shower stall perhaps, or maybe the toilet stall? But as they made their retreat, they laughed audibly to each other in the certain knowledge that I could hear them.
I am well aware that I am not a beauty queen; I am well aware that I never was. I am a fifty-six year old woman who makes an effort to take care of herself. To eat and drink in moderation and to exercise in order to stay fit.
I wanted to say to these young women, "Enjoy yourselves at my expense if you must, but be aware that if you live long enough, your time is coming. You too will be a fifty-six year old woman who's waist has thickened and whose butt has sagged; your lips will thin and the skin on your neck will lose that tautness that you thought would last forever and start to more closely resemble a turkey waddle. Your eye sight will desert you and you will need glasses to see the number on your locker. And you will lose other things that seem eternal to you now; your sex appeal and the very desire for it. All these things will come to you in your time and you will no longer snicker. You can hold your hand up to the mirror and tell time to stop, but unless you are willing to spend thousands of dollars and many hours under the knife of a surgeon, you can not hope to stop time. As Mick Jagger says in his song, 'Time Waits for No One..."
I wanted to say these things, but I did not. Why spoil their fun? They will find out soon enough, and probably sooner than they expect.

Saturday Morning Market

Tutt and I went to the farmer's market before coffee this morning. That is how bad the man is jonesing for a fresh tomato.  The farmers market is such a pleasant place. Saturday morning, early, still misty from the night, it has a scent all its own. Fruity with an underlying aroma of earth and grass. The people you meet there are invariably smiling and friendly; swapping comments on the weather, the heat, the rain, or the lack of it. And the sheer volume of good, fresh produce is enough to lighten the lowest heart.
Food speaks to us all. The sustenance of life. Plump blackberries, dark and glistening in their baskets. Fat ripe tomatoes, and bushels of firm brown pototoes. Dark green melons, and cucumbers and zuccinies.  And the peaches. Ah...the sweet golden heavenly peaches, so fragrant and juicey they would make you slap your grandmother.  Yes, food speaks to us all. 
The farmer's market is not my grandfather's store. I doesn't have the old men sitting on the bench out front, whittling and spitting on the sidewalk, it doesn't have the feed sacks and the salt blocks in the back, which gave off an aroma of safety and love. It doesn't have the worn counter tops or the hugh old cash register, but it has the same feeling of small town togetherness that touches a place in me that is very old and dear.
Go to your farmer's market, and share in the feeling of "wholeness".

Nice Holiday

The Fourth turned out to be a nice holiday. Nothing spectacular, but relaxing for a change. I went out on the river with my friends. They have a pontoon and it makes way quietly. The day was bright and blue and blazing hot with big white clouds painting the sky. The water was green and cool and the banks of the river spoke to me of times past when Daniel Boone and company canoed down the same river and saw the same palisades. Lush and green and mysterious. I wondered what it as like to be Meriwether Lewis, exploring the Missouri. I love the river. I grew up on it. Spent many happy hours floating in its current. Its voice in the night is soothing.
Yes, it was a good day. We had ribs and cheese potatoes and cold slaw for supper on their porch under the ceiling fan as the Kentucky rolled on by; the late boaters tooting their horns at us as we waved to them.  Ice cream and blue berries for dessert.
America had a good birthday.
Life is good, but some days, its excellent.

Let Freedom Ring

Happy Independence Day everyone.  I hope you will  all have a safe, fun, eventful or relaxing day depending upon what your wants and needs happen to be.
I am headed to the Kentucky river for a day with friends with boats.  It is always better to have friends with boats than to be the one with the boat.
I am asking myself why I am doing this as it is going to be in the 90's here today. But then I remember all the laughter and the cool water and the feeling of belonging that comes with friends and I know why I am doing it.

So here is to friends and belonging and the Freedom to enjoy Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Let Freedom ring for all the world, there is still time.
Cheers!

Nest of Vipers

I have been reading the most interesting books by Sharon Kaye Penman. They are about the reign and family of  Henry II of England and his Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.  My word! To have been such good monarchs, they were dreadful parents! These two produced eight children and I suppose the girls turned out okay since they didn't have much choice in the matter as they were married off and shipped out of the country before they were old enough to protest, but the boys! Whew! Talk about a nest of vipers! Lord God, Henry would have done better to have pinched their little hissing heads off at birth...except for the fact that he was only present for the birth of one of his children; Richard who later became "The Lionheart".

I guess that speaks volumes right there...the absent parent literally and figuratively.  The oldest son, William, died at age three, so like the girls, he didn't get much chance to act out. But the other four sure made up for it. Hal, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, the runt of the litter were in rebellion from the time they were teenagers. Not just your normal teen rebellious acts like getting a tattoo or taking up smoking...no, we're talking taking castles, sacking towns, and generally trying to overthrow their father the king.  These were Teenagers!! And when they weren't fighting old dad, they were at each others' throats...with lances and swords no less.

It didn't sort itself out until all but one of them was dead. John was the only one still standing. He out lived them all so I guess you could say he "won". But in a family like that, it is difficult to see any winners.  So sad to read about people who had it all; beauty, wealth, talent, power and brains, and they squandered it all pulling each other apart instead of pulling together as a team...as a family.

There is a lesson in there for us all. I'm just sayin'.