Write Kudzu

Calling Miss Clairol

2009-11-05T14:11:00.002-06:00

This morning I was looking in my mirror and couldn't believe I still had white paint in my hair.

I looked a little closer.

It was a grey hair.

Joy

2009-11-04T11:02:00.001-06:00

Yesterday morning when The Child and I were getting in the car to go to school, a little breeze stirred and yellow leaves from a tall tree began dancing their way down. I told him to look, and he tilted his head back to look straight up and I did, too. The sky was that incredible blue we’re blessed with in the fall and those golden leaves falling and twisting, the look of delight on his face...it took my breath away.

No No to NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo

2009-11-03T09:29:00.005-06:00

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and its offshoot, National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). Last year and the year before I participated in NaBloPoMo. That was big fun.

This year, as much as I’ve enjoyed NaBloPoMo the last two years, I won’t attempt to post every day. This year I’d planned to finish my novel by Christmas. That plan was hatched this summer and it seemed completely doable. If I were to write a 90,000-word novel (which is an average word count for recent novels) I could simply write something like 900 words a day, five days a week for five months and I’d have a novel. Perhaps a poorly written novel in dire need of editing, revising, and rewriting but still. I’d have written a novel.

900 words a day, five days a week. Completely, absolutely doable.

Yet when The Husband’s old house out of town sold and we bought a new one and were in the midst of packing up and moving two houses before moving into one, one where each room would get a thorough makeover from floor to ceiling, I knew it wouldn’t happen, not this year.

Writing a novel while moving and unpacking and painting and Halloween and The Child’s birthday and the holidays would be a challenge but not impossible. Anyone could do it but I chose to step back a bit.

See, early on I outlined the novel in a big, looping fashion. I knew whodunit and why and how. I knew where the story took place. But I found as I went forward that the main character was the person I knew the least about. A BIT OF A PROBLEM.

For now my daily writing is about that main character. This word count doesn’t technically go toward the novel because most of it won’t be in the novel. What brand laundry detergent she uses, what kind of music she listens to, and her favorite gift the Christmas she was seven. The author needs to know all that and more but the reader most likely doesn’t.

That’s what I’m working on now, filling in the empty gaps and figuring out what I know about the protagonist. The exciting thing is that it’s working. I’ll be writing along and something I didn’t know about the main character tumbles out. “Huh. I didn’t know that.”

Which is great. But I’m a bit sad at missing out on the NaBloPoMo fun. It is fun.

I’m more than a bit regretful over not having a steadfast deadline and the camaraderie and encouragement that would come from knowing hundreds, thousands of people are battling the same demons and working just as hard that would have come from participating in NaNoWriMo.

I was looking forward to using the book the founder of NaNoWriMo wrote. I’ve read the first couple of chapters and loved it. (I stopped reading because the author begs you not to until you’re actually doing NaNoWriMo.)

By the holidays, we’ll have everything done in the house that we want to do. Or not. Either way, we’re going to stop and take a break and enjoy the holidays, enjoy our home for a bit.

Come the new year (and what time is more appropriate – except maybe back to school – for starting a new project), I’ll dive back into the novel, head first and headlong.

October Books

2009-11-02T09:12:00.008-06:00

Whisimical and lyrical and mystical - The Art of Disappearing was a great read. I won the book by leaving a comment here, a great blog to visit for book and author news.

From Amazon.com:
“How do you know if love is real or just an illusion?

When Mel Snow meets the talented magician Toby Warring in a dusty roadside bar, she is instantly drawn to the brilliant performer whose hands can effortlessly pull stray saltshakers and poker chips from thin air and conjure castles out of the desert sands. Just two days later they are married, beginning their life together in the shadow of Las Vegas, where Toby hopes to make it big. Mel knows that magicians are a dime a dozen, but Toby is different—his magic is real.

As Toby’s renown grows and Mel falls more and more in love with his wonderments, she starts to realize that Toby's powers are as unstable as they are dazzling. She learns that he once made his assistant disappear completely, and couldn’t bring her back. And then, just as Mel becomes convinced that his magic is dangerous, a trick goes terribly awry during his Strip debut.

Exiled from the stage, Mel and Toby flee the lights of Las Vegas for the streets of Amsterdam where a cabal of old-time magicians, real magicians like Toby, try to rescue him from his despair. But he’s haunted by the trick that failed, and obsessed with using his powers to right his mistakes, leaving Mel to wonder if the love they share is genuine or merely a fantasy, conjured up by a lost magician looking to save himself from being alone."

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Sonny Brewer at a book signing. He read from his new novel, The Widow and the Tree.

After the reading, the author said that if he’d done his job right when we got to the end of the book, we’d understand why the widow did what she did. I absolutely did.

There is a big old tree back in the woods in the northwest corner of Humphreys County, where I’m from. I’ve heard of it all my life and have never seen it. It’s way back. Way back. From what I understand I’m not entirely sure one could get a four-wheeler back there to it. Those who’ve seen it say it’s all but indescribable, that 6 or 8 men could lean against its trunk, circling it.

Because of that tree that grows where I come from, I felt a bit of kinship when I heard the story of this novel.

From the book jacket:“The magnificent Ghosthead Oak has stood watch over coastal Alabama’s mysterious backwater bays and slow-running rivers, where bull alligators rumble the nerves of lesser creatures and every living thing has the capacity to kill, for five hundred years. Some say the fabled giant tree was once a knee-high seedling brushed by the black boot of Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez. No other tree along the entire coastal crescent from New Orleans to Apalachicola can rival its majesty or its power to draw people to it.

In silence and with dignity, the Ghosthead has served as sentinel to the widow’s family land for countless generations. It was a childhood friend and a spirit guide in troubled times. Her father is buried in its shade.

So why would the widow walk into a biker bar and hire a man to fire his chainsaw and inflict fatal gashes around its trunk, ending in a few minutes what took five centuries to create?

”The Widow and the Tree is a tale of dark deeds committed with mercy in mind, provoking the reader to ask: Would I have done the same thing? This book is based on a true story.”

When I began reading The Poet of Tolstoy Park, I was intrigued by and I liked this Henry Stuart character, who was stubborn and who loved his sons. He was also dying of consumption and decided to move to Fairhope, Alabama and live out his last few months. He took a train from Nampa, Idaho and gave his shoes to a porter because he wanted to walk around barefoot the rest of his days.

Henry Stuart began to feel a bit like Charles Ingalls, a two-dimensional perfect person. His work ethic was unquestionable, as was his character, his stamina, his strength. It was a bit off-putting. He seemed so perfect as to feel unreal, as in not an actual person who I could imagine being around.

While this is a novel, Henry Stuart was in fact a real person and much of the work is based on him and his life.

By the end of the book, my thoughts and opinion had swung in another direction and I liked this guy so much.

It was late one Saturday night that I finished the book. I read the reader’s guide, the author’s interview, all the back matter. I closed the book and sat there, staring at the wall for a time, just thinking about the book.

From Booklist:
“First-novelist Brewer chronicles the real-life journey of Henry Stuart, who, in 1925 at the age of 67, is diagnosed with consumption and told he only has a year to live. Henry decides to leave his home in Idaho and bid his two grown sons and best friend good-bye before his decline begins. Henry chooses a small plot of land in Fairhope, Alabama, as his final residence, and he corresponds with a man named Peter Stedman in order to get the supplies to build a house. On the train to Alabama, Henry gives his shoes away to a porter and determines to live out the rest of his days in solitude. But life might have other plans for him: on the final leg of his journey he meets a friendly schoolteacher named Kate, and Peter also seeks to develop a rapport with Henry. Henry tries to shut them all out until one life-altering night gives him a new perspective. Fans of quiet, philosophical novels will find much to enjoy in Henry's musings and revelations.” Kristine Huntley

Jill McCorkle came to town on a windy and rainy night week before last and my friend and I went to hear her. Jill is pretty, warm, and approachable. She read from Going Away Shoes, her first new book in eight years.

Years ago I read McCorkle’s Creatures of Habit, another collection of short stories. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I’m sure that was the first time I’d read a short story since literature classes in college.

I keep saying I don’t like short stories yet I keep reading them and keep liking them. This is a great collection, for readers who enjoy short stories and those who usually don’t.

"Immensely appealing . . . These spirited and surprising stories are powered by humor and hard-won understanding of the lacerating effects of union. The result: admirable women who are 'sure-footed and steady in real time.'" —Amy Hempel, author of The Dog of the Marriage

From the book jacket:
“Jill McCorkle, a master of the short story whose work has been compared to that of Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore, is a writer whose characters insist on our immediate and total attention. Here, in her first collection in eight years, are eleven new stories bristling with her signature wit and weight. One way or the other, all of these stories are about women looking love in the face without flinching. Some of them are confronting the reality of domestic disruption; others are simply flirting with the possibilities—and dangers—of change. McCorkle's characters make mistakes but aren't interested in hiding behind them. They get divorced or quit their jobs or tell people to step aside, and they move on."

Favorite Book: I really enjoyed each and every book I read this month although I probably enjoyed The Widow and the Tree the most.

Book That Made Me Think the Most, That I Am In Fact, Still Thinking About: The Poet of Tolstoy Park

Character Who I’d Most Like to Have a Drink With: Henry Stuart, the poet of Tolstoy Park

It Doesn't Get Much Better

2009-11-01T16:25:00.004-06:00

It was still daylight when we began trick or treating Saturday night. Kids were everywhere in their bright costumes and treat bags. They walked down the sidewalk, branches of old oak trees above them. I saw lots of people I knew and some I didn't. Everyone smiled and greeted one another. It's hard not to feel festive with Transformers, Dorothys, SpiderMan, princesses, butterflies, and cowboys walking about.

A full moon was overhead and it was good and cool outside. We walked around the neighborhood for a couple of hours before going to a festival at a local church. Mom and I munched on toasted pumpkin seeds and watched The Child go up and down the giant slide inflated in the church yard.

Afterwards, we went to my parents for dinner and dessert of homemade fried pies.

This morning I enjoyed the extra hour of sleep and ate two popcorn balls for breakfast.

I love fall.

Among Other Things

2009-10-29T09:31:00.002-05:00

Do you know what I just learned? Daylight Savings Time (which I hate with the heat of a thousand fiery suns) ends this weekend! That means we get to fall back.

It gets dark earlier and all but what I know for sure is this: an extra hour of sleep.

Woo hoo!

Trunk or Treat

2009-10-26T09:50:00.004-05:00

Sunday afternoon we festooned my car with pumpkin garland, fake spider webs, and purple tulle.

We filled bowls with candy and cookies for the children who were in costumes.

And a few adults who were, too.

Not calling any names or anything.

Blue

2009-10-22T12:59:00.002-05:00

I didn’t realize how much the grey skies and rain were affecting me until after the fact.

For about six weeks it rained almost every day and night. No hyperbole – I’m serious.

I like being watching raindrops slide down a window pane. I enjoy reading a book while it’s overcast and gloomy outdoors. I appreciate the drama of a good summer lightning show.

Yet for a week or so I’d been kind of down. Blue, for no reason I could ascertain. Nothing was wrong yet I felt blah. No ups, no downs, just – you know, blah.

Last week on the phone I was telling my mother about pulling up the green carpet and the disintegrating carpet pad in the master bedroom to find sub-floors that were of pretty pine planks. I told her we intended to stain and seal them.

“I want you to sound excited. You don’t sound excited,” she said.

I didn’t? I was excited about those floors, those floors that I knew would like great. I was excited about having that rustic look in our bedroom. I was excited that on my second try, I found the color that if I do say so myself, is perfect for that room. I’m excited that the kitchen bowls me over each time I walk in there, I like it so much.

Yet I kind of wanted to take a nap all the time.

Then three things happened.

The first was that a friend and I went to a show at an art gallery, followed by a book reading and signing at the bookstore down the street.

My friend knew the artist whose work was being featured and she introduced me. I ran into friends and chatted but mostly I enjoyed looking at the paintings and sculptures and creations, such as the guitars made from cigar boxes. The artisan who’d crafted those cigar box guitars picked one up, plugged it in and began playing – blues, bluegrass, it was all great.

It was rainy that day, too, and umbrellas were stacked up just inside the door of the gallery. Things inside felt festive.

We left there and went to the bookstore. Authors Sonny Brewer and Rick Bragg were the headlines. Both writers spoke and read and answered questions. When I walked downstairs after the signing, I wanted to touch, then buy, then read every book in that place. It was like a contact buzz.

I bought Sonny Brewer’s The Widow and the Tree and it was all I could do not to take it out right then, right there and begin reading it. After I started reading the book, I finished it in two days.

Later my friend and I went to a crowded downtown restaurant, with the rest of the bookstore and art gallery crowd. The artists played music and the authors spoke to the crowd before retiring to a table. She and I ate and talked and laughed.

The second thing happened a couple of days later. We woke and there was this hypnotic light coming in the windows. It was sunshine, something that’s been in woefully short supply as of late. The skies were mostly blue, the air was crisp and tart, and it felt like fall.

Finally, over the weekend The Husband and I hung out. He cooked on the grill. We sat on the deck and talked. We sat around in the kitchen and talked. We stained the bedroom floor and talked.

Today the rains are back but not for long. The weekend forecast calls for cool temperatures, sunny skies, baking, time with family, and good food.

Not Kidding

2009-10-21T10:26:00.003-05:00

About the state of my office at home.

It's pretty much looked like this since the day we moved in. We've shifted a box here, nudged a bookshelf there but pretty much it's the same.

I've tried to find my Mark Bittman cookbook that wouldn't fit in the box of kitchen cookbooks so I put it in the box of cookbooks-that-are-shelved-in-the-office-because-I-have-a-ridiculous-number-of-cookbooks-but-I-love-them. I still haven't found it.

Here's hoping that in two weeks or less the following will have happened:
- Move master bedroom furniture from guest room where we're camping to newly painted master bedroom
- Effortlessly remove pink floral striped wallpaper from guestroom walls
- Sand with ease the cracking and peeling paint in the guestroom
- Paint guestroom, which will then officially be known as The Husband's Office and Exclusive Domain (THOAED)
- Move furniture from garage, my office, and assorted locales throughout the house into THOAED
- Unpack boxes
- Effortlessly remove wallpaper from my office
- Paint office and give it a snazzy name, like The Husband's
- Unpack boxes of books
- Unpack boxes of books
- Unpack boxes of books

Doable, right?

THEN there is only:

- Effortlessly remove floral wallpaper border from The Child's room
- Paint The Child's room
- Rearrange furntiture in The Child's room because the bed is just not working the where it is
- Unpack boxes
- Do all that before his birthday in mid-November
- Throw charming, memorable, and fun Lion King birthday party

NEXT there is just:

- Paint dining room
- Unpack boxes
- Host Thanksgiving

That I'm actually truly looking forward to. I love Thanksgiving.

P.S.
I accidentally typed "pain" instead of "paint" every time I used the word paint in this post. Freudian slip?

Worthwhile

2009-10-19T08:50:00.005-05:00

Some mornings when I go outside my car is sprinkled with fall leaves.

This makes me very happy.

So Says Vanity Fair

2009-10-14T09:55:00.001-05:00

The magazine has a questionnaire at the end of each issue that celebrities answer with witty bon mots.

I completed the online version and the celebrity whose answers were most like mine are Jack Lemmon and Oscar de la Renta.

And yours?

That Could Have Been Me

2009-10-13T08:27:00.001-05:00

I caught a glimpse of yellow. I froze and looked around. We were at the Mississippi State campus amid tailgaters Saturday morning, on our way to the stadium for the football game.

I knew what I’d seen: the bright yellow back cover of a Nancy Drew book. There it was – a girl of about eleven years old in a red hoodie was rounding the corner holding the book.

My mother was behind me and I turned to her. “Did you see that?”

Just that fast, I lost the little girl in a crowd and then found her. “See what she’s carrying?” From that view, the classic cover of a hardback Nancy Drew book was visible. “That is a girl after my own heart.”

I read dozens of Nancy Drew books one summer.

Nancy always combed her hair as a part of dressing for dinner. I assume Bess and George and Ned did, too. At my house, we washed our hands before a meal but we didn’t “dress” for dinner. For a while that summer, I carefully combed my hair – I didn’t brush my hair, but combed it because that’s what Nancy did – and sometimes I even tucked in my shirt before sitting down for supper.

Seeing the young girl with the Nancy Drew book brought all that back. So, thanks, girl in the bright red hoodie, clutching the Nancy Drew book. Keep on reading.

Send It To Zoom!

2009-10-12T09:15:00.004-05:00

No idea why or how but for some reason I mentioned something about Zoom to The Husband the other day.

Specifically, I was telling him about the little song they song with the Zoom address where kids could send a self-addressed stamped envelope and get directions to whatever cool thing they had made that day. "Write ZOOM, Z-Double-O-M, Box 3-5-0, Boston, Mass 0-2-1-3-4: send it to ZOOM!" I did the jazz hands and everything.

He had no idea what I was talking about. I was all, Come on, the Zoom kids! In their matching striped rugby shirts and their song and dance numbers. You know, Zoom!

It was a PBS show that aired in the mid 70s. I loved that show. I actually sent my SASE to Zoom and got a recipe for pretzels. I still have that recipe card somewhere.

Tell me you remember Zoom, that I'm not the only one who loved it, who wrote in, who daydreamed about being a castmember.

Funny. I didn't see Dr. Doug Ross.

2009-10-09T10:17:00.002-05:00

When I was about 9 years old, I went to cut through an apple with a long, dull knife. I was holding the apple in the palm of my hand at the time and it didn’t go well, as you may imagine. Neither did this:

Last night we were cooking tilapia, green beans, and new potatoes for dinner. The Husband was cooking the fish on the stovetop smoker. So that everything we be done at the same time, I cooked the new potatoes a bit in the microwave before putting them in the smoker.

I put the potatoes in a shallow baking dish with a bit of water, covered the dish with plastic wrap and microwaved them for a couple of minutes. When I took the pan out of the microwave, I carefully peeled back the plastic wrap. Only not carefully enough because I burned several fingers on my left hand.

I jumped and said, “Ouch!” and carried on. It didn’t hurt that badly but about 5 minutes later, it did hurt and how. I put aloe vera on it, which took the sting away for a good 10 or 12 seconds. I wrapped ice in a wash cloth and held that on my hand while we ate dinner and for the next hour.

We live in a small town with no urgent care clinic, leaving the hospital as the only healthcare available after 5:00 p.m. The Husband insisted we go to the hospital when two hours after the incident, my hand still felt as if it were on fire.

I felt sheepish. I thought the healthcare providers would roll their eyes and laugh at me (as one of my bosses did this morning when I told him a steam burn had sent me to the ER last night). The burn didn’t look bad, it looked barely sunburned but it hurt. Bad.

A nurse looked at my hand and didn’t comment except to tell me I couldn’t put ice on it, that the cool cloth was fine but no ice. Ice was the only thing that cooled the pain. He sent me to admissions for them to get my insurance information and so forth. The clerk typed with two fingers.

I went back to the ER to wait on a doctor. The nurse checked in and said the doctor would be there – he just didn’t know when. I asked if he could give me anything for the pain. He shook his head and wrapped my hand in cool gauze. I think he did that to keep me from putting ice on it more than anything.

I don’t know for how long I waited but I’d just started crying (it hurt bad) when the doctor came in. He looked at my hand, being careful not to touch the burns. “That’s a second degree burn,” he said. “I bet that hurts.”

He was right. They gave me three shots – Demerol, an anti-inflammatory, and tetanus. I asked the nurse if I could go to work the next day. He thought for a moment and said it’d be my judgment call, that if my hand was still hurting to get the prescription for ointment filled, apply it, wrap my hand, and keep it elevated. He applied an ointment that stung badly, then wrapped it in gauze.

I had to wait for half an hour before I could leave to make sure I didn’t have an adverse reaction to the shots. That was a dreamy half an hour. I was amazed at how much better I felt in about 10 minutes.

The tile on the floor was getting swimmy and my thoughts drifted around. I thought about people who lived in the pioneer days. What did they do when they got scalded and burned? Drank a slug of whiskey and prayed infection didn’t set in, I guess.

I thought about NieNie.

I thought about Jimmy Gant, who lives in Winona and was horribly burned a year ago and is still one of the most uplifting people to be around.

I thought about how thankful I was that already my hand was free of pain.

I went home and read about a paragraph before drifting off into sleep and woke this morning feeling groggy but pain-free. I took off the gauze to find the redness dramatically decreased. I showered carefully and went to work.

My cooking hadn’t sent anyone to the emergency room until last night.

September Book(s)

2009-10-05T13:18:00.005-05:00

My hair is rocking a white streak kind of like Stacy London in What Not to Wear although mine is less of a fashion statement and more of the resutlt of painting kitchen cabients with oil-based bright white paint. We worked on the kitchen - walls and cabinets and lighting - most of Saturday, all day Sunday and into the evening, and it should be done soon. It's looking great.

I'm certain I read several books last month. I distinctly remember going to the library at least twice yet this is the only book I can find any notes about.

Guess I've been a bit distracted.

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

Amazon.com Review Book Description:

"Following Bridge of Sighs—a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as “an astounding achievement” and “a masterpiece” — Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.

Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone...And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that’s now thirty years old and has largely come true. He’d left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain; they’d moved into an old house full of character; and they’d started a family. Check, check and check.

But be careful what you pray for, especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance...That Old Cape Magic is a novel of deep introspection and every family feeling imaginable, with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter’s new life and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has."

I enjoy Richard Russo’s writing. I laughed out loud through much of Straight Man and Nobody’s Fool. I didn’t laugh a whole lot reading Bridge of Sighs. It was a good book but it was kind of heavy and weighty.

The first one-third of That Old Cape Magic at least made me chuckle. Russo is so good with characterization and his parents are these two terrible academic snobs and he nails them, their narcicism and self-absorption to a t.

I liked That Old Cape Magic, and near the end I felt like I was reading a John Irving novel, which you can take ever how you’d like. The book started strong and it was a good read but lost something midway through and never really regained it. All in all, not a bad read; I’m already looking forward to Russo’s next one.

It's Friday

2009-10-02T09:47:00.002-05:00

I'm really, really glad that tomorrow we're not moving.

We've been priming and taping and painting. My hands are flecked with a fetching red color called "Movie Star."

The weekend promises to be beautiful, with blue skies and fall-like temperatures.

We'll be painting and sanding and painting, and taking photos, which I can't wait to show you.

Here and Happy

2009-09-29T13:57:00.003-05:00

We have moved and are in the new house. I have pictures and everything.

The photos are on my camera. My computer is in pieces – the keyboard here, the monitor there – in the room that will eventually be the office, which means I can’t download the photos onto the computer.

(I really wish you could see the pictures that would illustrate this so eloquently. My desk is on its side. Two empty bookcases, a sofa, two chairs, a thousand boxes of books, and lots of random things cover the room. The room has two closets but there are so many boxes in the room we can’t get to either closet.)

Our original plan was to move with a combination of trucks and trailers. It’s been raining for 15 days straight and Saturday called for more rain so we rented a U-Haul truck.

Friday afternoon we began loading the truck. The Husband pointed out that the stuff from my office included 14 boxes of books while his included something like 4 boxes total.

We loaded the sofa, a couple of chairs, and The Child’s bed. Boxes, boxes, boxes.

That evening we went to the new place and ripped up carpet in three rooms. Have you ever done that? If you volunteer to help a friend take up carpet, make sure you really like that friend. It’s a job. We’re lucky that we have friends who apparently really like us and they came and helped Friday night.

The house was built in 1951. The carpet is wool and old. Using box cutters, we cut it into manageable pieces and hauled it outside. The pieces of carpet pad made us itch. It was probably made of asbestos.

Next we pulled up staples. I’m not a fan of putting staples into beautiful hardwood floors. What were they thinking? First you use pliers to pull the pieces of asbestos-fiber carpet pad that are clinging to the staple and that takes several tries. Once you get all that out, use a flat-head screwdriver to pry up one end of the staple. Get the pliers again to yank the staple out of the hardwood floor. Repeat two hundred times. Per room.

Then the fun part begins. Tack strip. I’m sure it’s an effective and efficient way of installing carpet but great day in the morning. It’s a nightmare to pull up. You take a crowbar and wedge it beneath and hammer and then pull with the hammer. It’s slow work. We got all the tack strips out The Child’s room and most out of The Husband’s office that’s now our temporary bedroom and a couple from what will be my office that’s now a wreck.

That was Friday night. We did that until about ten o’clock.

Saturday morning dawned gray and drizzly. We got dressed and took apart our bed. A friend delivered breakfast to our back door. Two teenagers we’d hired came at 7:00 to begin loading. In the rain. They got our bedroom furniture moved while I readied The Child’s room.

For the last two weeks we’ve been getting him ready to move – cleaned out his closet, packed away toys and games, went through clothes, etc. I thought it was in halfway decent shape. I? Was wrong. There was a metric ton of glitter under the bed from a school project a couple of weeks ago, Bendaroos stuck to the floor, and junk behind his bureau and the desk. Paper and bouncy balls and CD cases and chalk and crayons and change and crap. Where does it come from?

That takes us up until about 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning.

Everything is good/Such a cozy room/The windows are illuminated/By the sunshine through them*

2009-09-24T06:29:00.003-05:00

The first time I saw the house I’d already agreed to rent it. That was the first week of June 2007, a Wednesday afternoon, I think, when I first walked in the back door to original hardwood floors and a kitchen with red countertops and white ceramic sink.

I thought of my grandmother’s kitchen with its knotty pine walls and avocado appliances. With its red countertops.

Many mornings while making cinnamon toast for The Child – the butter and cinnamon under the broiler - transported me to her Sunday morning kitchen. I finally realized it was the scent of the melting butter and toasting bread, the heft of the battered pan, the scent of coffee perking, the morning light coming through the kitchen window, the red countertops so similar to hers. Once I made the connection, the kitchen gradually became mine even while the reminders of my grandmother's kitchen remained, for which I was grateful. The kitchen window faces due east. Many mornings I’ve looked out that window at the barely pink sky as it grows lighter while I stir my coffee.

This is where The Child got ready for his first day of elementary school – so proud in his uniform and metal Sponge Bob lunchbox.

He learned to ride a bike here.

We had his sixth birthday party in the backyard under a big blue fall sky, brisk breeze, and red and yellow balloons.

More Friday nights than I can remember were spent sitting outside on the phone with my friend, Laura, for two, three, four hours.

I hosted a brunch for Roxanne’s birthday here a couple of years ago.

I saw The Husband for the first time in this house, where I was hosting a Christmas party. He came in the front door, Amanda introduced us and he smiled that great, warm smile.

We stood in the kitchen and talked to one another while. Other people – the houseful of guests, my guests – drifted past.

The day after we got engaged we stood in that very spot, pouring over the kitchen calendar and choosing a wedding date.

The three of us became a family in this house.

Here we celebrated Thanksgiving with our families, washed dishes, washed our cars, wrote thank you notes for wedding gifts, made lunches on weekday mornings, celebrated birthdays, drank coffee, watched episodes of Dallas on cold Sunday afternoons, cooked together, ate together, lived.

From that first time I saw the hardwood floors and the red kitchen countertops, it felt welcoming, and familiar, safe. I looked forward to driving home to it and the family there in the evenings.

Now we’re moving on to a new place that we’re going to love. I say thank you to this house – it’s been good to us.

*

Which Explain the Sporadic Posting as of Late

2009-09-22T19:21:00.002-05:00

It takes talent to put a box together upside down, pack it full, and only then realize it's upside down.

We've got a new house and we're moving across town. This week.

It's been in the works for a while. The Husband listed his house last September - that's a year ago. On the drive to South Carolina a few days later we talked about our plans and felt certain his house would sell that month, if not that very week. We knew The Husband would be in the house by Christmas at the latest.

Right. That house sold a couple of weeks ago and that was something else, let me tell you. For instance Labor Day weekend we drove to the house on a Sunday morning to meet the movers we'd hired to get the last of the furniture - the big, heavy furniture - from the house.

The movers didn't show up. When we called the guy we'd made the arrangements with he said he'd forgotten. "Why didn't you call yesterday and remind me?" he said. Funny, nobody calls me in the morning reminds me to go to work.

The Husband and I moved the refrigerator, washer, dryer, sofa, club chair, desk (after we'd taken a door off the hinges, then take the desk apart), bed frame, mattresses, a 300-pound cement bulldog, armoire, and a jillion boxes.

The next day, Labor Day, which was The Husband's birthday, we packed pretty much all day,

which is what we've been doing most any spare moment we've been at home over the last few weeks.

There are more boxes than you can shake a stick at stacked up around the house.

It's exciting - it means we're moving!

That Was Thursday

2009-09-18T10:38:00.003-05:00

Right here:

Is where a photograph should be of yesterday's Homecoming parade.

About 30 minutes before the parade was to begin, it was cancelled due to rain.

It's been raining for something like 10 days now. Actually I have no idea for how many days it's been raining but it feels like at ten. It's unusual to have this much rain in September.

The Child was sorely disappointed about the cancelled parade. I felt only a little guilty that I was relieved I could put on my favorite red pajama pants and a tshirt, take out my contacts, and enjoy the rainy afternoon from indoors.

I Find Most By Browsing the Old Fashioned Way

2009-09-15T10:44:00.005-05:00

Yesterday The Child and I went to the library. I checked out The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.

Here's something I shouldn't admit in the light of day but for the longest I got Carson McCullers and Cormac McCarthy confused. You have to admit their names are similar even if nothing else about the two writers is remotely the same.

The librarian showed The Child an old-timey card catalogue.

Photo by Marya

He didn't seem to find it significant or even interesting that research used to entail pulling open a drawer and touching pieces of paper with your hands, writing down a call number, and wandering around the stacks.

Imagine what he'll tell his children about how it used to be.

Sleepy Little Delta Towns Are Never Boring

2009-09-10T15:31:00.004-05:00

"Throwing an egg, throwing your good cooked grits is childish. In your heart you know you did wrong."

Last week a Greenwood, Miss. city council member woke to find someone had tossed eggs (scrambled) and grits (cooked) on his car.

The local paper covered the story. The paper has a column called "My Two Cents," that publishes anonymous comments that readers leave via voicemail. The quote above was in yesterday's "My Two Cents" column. Solid gold.

For What It's Worth

2009-09-09T06:36:00.000-05:00

September 9, 2009 (09-09-09) is the 252nd day of the year . . . 2+5+2 adds to 9. The day itself falls on a Wednesday and both Wednesday & September have 9 letters. It's supposed to be a day for good luck, so have a great day, everyone!

Author and Facebook friend Sarah Addison Allen posted this and I borrowed it. I'm always up for fun with numbers.

Game Day

2009-09-07T11:41:00.004-05:00

The Sonic Boom* was awesome. The rain - not so much.

Saturday we went to Mississippi State's season opener - a home game against Jackson State. It was hot and muggy and stifling. Then it began sprinkling, which turned into a driving rain. The crowd was whipped into a fervor by the pregame festivities and at the exact moment they were about to do the coin toss the players turned and left the field. Where are you going?

A 30-minute game delay had been called because lightning had been spotted about three miles from the stadium. Exactly 30 minutes later, the game was on.

The rain went and came back and left and came back. It's something to sit out in the open with no umbrella or overcoat or poncho. Just us and our maroon shirts. I could have - I did - wring water from my shirt and from my denim skirt. We, along with everyone else in the stadium, were soaked through and through.

I'd rather have been soaked and cold than hot, though. Any day.

The referees surely had been traumatized by a bulldog when they were children as they made some no good, terrible, head scratchers, awful, bad calls. Even with that, though, Miss. State came out strong in the second half and won handily.

The fans on both sides were great, the game was great, the pre-game lunch at Mugshots - hamburger with cheddar cheese and comeback sauce on a sourdough bun and onion rings - was great.

It was a great way to kick off The Husband's birthday weekend.

His birthday is today. Meat sauce for tonight's birthday dinner of lasagne is bubbling away on the stove. Presents are on the sideboard. Good times.!

* The Sonic Boom of the South is the world famous marching band of Jackson State University. Everybody on both sides of the stadium went wild when they took the field. They're incredible.

Over There

2009-09-04T14:18:00.002-05:00

An essay I wrote is at USA Deep South.

Visit and let me know what you think!

A quote from USA Deep South:
"Per capita, the South doesn't produce all that many writers, any more than kangaroos amount to a great percentage of prizefighters. It's just that you can tell right away which prizefighters are kangaroos."
-- Roy Blount, Jr.

Not that I'm comparing myself to a kangaroo, prize fighter or no. Roy Blount just cracks me up.