DAYS ONE AND TWO

If there's no sun out anywhere else, it's because it's centered right here in our back yard.

The gang arrived Saturday night pretty late, and we sat up til almost two, just talking and hugging children. Sunday was nice, with a LONG afternoon with the whole family outside, brandishing bubble wands, water hose and sidewalk chalk. We just walked and talked and answered questions and named every flower-gonna-be in the garden. Our Kit arrived wearing a (genuine) clip-on-your-belt foxtail, which she's not relinquished, even beneath her Hannah Montana Granny-gown. Her Daddy made a several-hours' trip back to a powwow they'd attended becaused she wished so hard that she'd bought one.

We hadn't seen them since November, but Kit leapt out of that car with a frog-legs-and-arms -around-me hug that would gladden the heart of anyone. She's also discovered all the routes amongst and around and over every limb in the arbor, for the best route to several vantage points as high as she can go (she'll be six on Saturday, tall and lanky and agile as a gymnast). You can find her there most of the time she's not romping on the lawn, riding the bike, or pushing one or the other of the littlest ones in the big plastic car-with-a-handle. Chris got lots of pictures of a totally green view, with only her tiny face, her long fairy-braid hair revealing her fairylike little ears, and that foxtail hanging over the limb to show that she's up that tree.

We had a really good time at supper on Sunday, with everyone here we could gather up---two tables of us (guess who the BIG kid at the kid's table was?) Chris did a gorgeous ham on the grill, and we ate indoors---baby carrots and green beans and buttered rice and fresh cucumber pickles and hundreds of celery sticks with peanut butter/honey for dipping in.

Lunch Monday on the patio---leftovers and sandwich makings and some ELEGANTLY wonderful chicken paillards from Caro's kitchen ---they made marvelous warm sandwiches between soft bread. And tiny upside-down lemon-frosted cupcakes from Sam's---they look as elegant as little Individual Iced Cakes, and have a wonderful tangy flavor---like a Gucci version of Hostess Orange Cupcakes.

DD is delighted to be sharing her 24/7 companionship with these little ones; she and Caro and DDIL went out for their annual Girls' Night Out last night (always very tame---dinner and lots of talking, and it probably wouldn't DO to know about what), and now DD is off in search of party decorations and favors for Saturday's Birthday Lunch on the lawn.

Gracie (almost eleven), went with Chris on his service call down to Bloomington, and they'll be back for supper---it's hard to reconcile that round little egg of a baby girl who lived here with us for a year-and-a-half with that tall, slender, beautiful young lady with the stick-on French manicure and the i-Pod in her ears. She's very into crafts, and so Caro gave her a flower-making kit and our dear neighbor is teaching her to knit---both VERY well received.

And little Cal---he's just a delight---he wielded the tiny yard broom with a will yesterday, as Kit and I snipped great chunks from the zealously-growing hedges. No need to watch out for where he went---he was right there, working away, with a constant patter of "I working. I working. I WORKING?? I working." He's a peanut-butter-and-jelly man, loves sharks and dinosaurs, and is right now communing with the Care Bears on one of their adventures.

Yesterday was also an exhausting-but-lovely day. We played outside from Can til Can't, got everyone's faces and hands washed, and after the three Ladies left for their restaurant, we all walked out and around the blocks for Chinese. I don't know WHERE Kit PUT those three bowls of egg-drop soup, and Cal LOVED his first "bik"---a deep-fried, sugar-rolled pop-a-can biscuit---so named by his biggest sister when she was his age.

We came home to a quiet time on the patio, more of Sunday's bubbles, quick washes and into pajamas, a little bedtime snack of sweet red strawberries, and they three went to bed. Cal needs more persuading than most, I was warned, but I sat down on Gracie's bed with him in a big lap-hug, and he gave a deep sigh, relaxed and collapsed heavy and warm against my chest. Out like a light, and didn't wake til eight this a.m.

Couldn't we ALL use a big welcoming soft lap now and then---one that we could collapse on and just fall blissfully to sleep, knowing that we and everything else was being taken care of, and that they would lay us gently into a soft bed, pull up a downy blanket and turn out the light?

Cereal and bananas and more strawberries for breakfast, and outside with all the dogs for a little while until it started to rain. Hope it's more like Sunday on Saturday than like today. Figure that one out.

I've got supper ready for when everyone gets home, and it's been a wonderfully relaxing day, with homemade mac-and-cheese for lunch (side of PBJ sandwich for Cal) and some games and books the rest of the afternoon. I'm just folding clothes and waiting for everyone to get home.

Moire non,

DR. TICHENOR'S

425,000,000 bottles sold, the website says. It’s today called a “mouthwash,” with ads which tout its strength, and if memory serves, yea, these decades since I’ve smelled that blast of boozy-mint alcohol aroma, strong it is.

During the Civil War, Dr. Tichenor received a serious wound to his leg, and with the hardships and dearth of proper medicines, the only course was to amputate. He refused the treatment, left the field hospital and somehow found the ingredients to brew up his own “Antiseptic” which, in application to the injury, killed off the gangrene and totally healed the leg.

He began making the stuff in earnest, and it saved many a limb and life during the duration of the War, but his loyalty to the South caused him to flatly deny its use to treat any Union prisoners. I understand loyalty to Country and Cause, but what kind of doctor WAS he, to so go against the precepts and the oath? People were suffering and dying, and he just would not relent.

A wide market for his brew, which originated in Canton, Mississippi, has lasted in one form or usage or another, ever since, with a great heyday for the first hundred years---the Patent Medicine era in our country. I remember it well, for one of the slender flat bottles sat in every medicine cabinet, used for man and beast. It was applied to any kind of ailment or injury, and I do not doubt that it killed the germs, at least. Its 70% alcohol formula would sear the hide off a buffalo, and was widely popular as a “lin-a-mint” and rub for sore muscles, as well as a germ-fighter, before most people were even aware of the little critters.

Oil of peppermint and arnica (which sounds like something Nellie Oleson would have worn for perfume) were the only other ingredients. The label features the famous "Confederate soldiers" picture, and the uses are listed on the other pictures---one "for wounds of any nature" which would not seem to include giving a big dose to a horse, but that remedy is apparently, from all I can make of the label, for "Botts and Foot Ew." Diseases whose time has come and gone, we trust.

And does anyone else think that baby is looking WAY too happily at that BIG spoon?

I don’t think I was ever directly involved in any usage of the antiseptic, but I well remember seeing countless bottles bought and used and tossed on the ground out back of Aunt Lou’s store. I do believe a bottle cost fifteen cents or so when I was very young, and a Co-Cola was a nickel. So gentlemen in need of a little toddy would line up at the store every morning for their bottle of TISHNER’S.

They’d pay for it, with a nickel laid down for the Coke, then detour by the big red cooler wherein resided ranks of glass Coke bottles, the six-ounce size, standing up to their necks in the iciest water in the county, afloat with great shards of just-chipped ice from the big blocks in the ice-house out back. That green linoleum floor would be wet with the heedless trail of the dripping bottles, and Uncle Jake would hit it a few licks with the mop as the morning went on.

And unless the Preacher or a vigilant wife were in sight, the men made no secret of their imbibing---they whsssssssssssped the cap off the Coke at the handy opener, took one big swallow out of the bottle standing right there, and barely made it out the flappy-screen door before pouring in most of the fiery TISH to foam up the Coke and add that ticket to temporary bliss. Depending upon the urgency of their need, they were away to the back yard to the shade, or standing right out there as big as you please, gulping down the undiluted remains of the little flat bottle right there on the porch before drinking down the foaming Co-Cola mixture.

It was a dry county, and “for medicinal purposes only” could cure a lot of ills. I think of those drinkers sometimes, those twenty-cent drunks---their drug of need, if not of choice, was a strange, unappetizing one, like upending the Vitalis bottle or the Turpenhydrate, an equally-noxious concoction, prescribed for my Grandpa’s emphysema.

I think of their hot, nervous mornings, up before the sun, a-jangle with the urgency of their need, waiting in the heat of that gravel road for the jingle of the front-door’s opening bell and the cheap, corrosive gulps of the day’s first drink. And I think of their hot nights of fitful, restless dreams, muttering a presage of that Clarice's memorable last line, "Dr. Tishner---Dr. Tishner--- Dr. Tishner. . ." I wonder what Dr. T. would have thought of that employment of his concoction.

About what I think of his fitness to be a doctor, I expect. Scientist, yes. Doctor----no.

ALMOST HERE

One more day until the Georgia clan arrives, and the house is awash in anticipation---the beds waiting with fresh linens, fragrant with the hours on the line. Floors are vacuumed, shelves dusted, slipcovers smoothed; small trays and drinking glasses and lidded-mugs-with-a-straw, each in a separate color for keeping-up-with await small hands and breakfasts beneath the big backyard tree.

Toys and games and books sit ranged on shelves, in baskets, just for this moment, for when four sets of eyes seek and find, the merriment and the play are everything, and order flies out the window. It’s a comforting chaos, with littered floors and scattery stuff, puzzle-bits a-mingle with dinosaurs and the neon ping of Barbie pumps, and stuffed creatures of every hue in their postures of droppage and strew.

And new faces, new knowledge, new postures and accents and haircuts and clothes---the changes are noticeable every time, except for the same easy slide right back into where-we-left-off, the familiar companionship and bright together of being with these remarkable young people.

And so, I anticipate, I prepare. Their needs are provided for, their boxes of Alpha-Bits and Cheerios stand by, with juice boxes and fruit cups and pretzels, goldfish and grapes; yogurts and endless gallons of milk populate the chill shelves of the fridge.

And, of course, a BIG box of little flat-bottomed ice cream cones---we stop for cones at the drop of a hat, scattering sprinkles like seeds on patio, lawn, furniture, ourselves. Two tiny round blue “swimming pools” are propped out by the back faucet, for the littlest ones, and a big new froggy sprinkler on the little side lawn should entice them all on a hot day. There’s no symphony in the world like the giggles and squeals of kids running through a sprinkler.

We’ll have picnics on the lawn, another in the park; a day at the Children’s Museum is scheduled, perhaps another at the zoo. A weenie roast, the real old fashioned kind, about firefly time one evening---Chris is cutting long sticks for the cooking out at the firepit, and Aunt Caro has all the needfuls for a surfeit of S’Mores. He and she do differ on ideas---he maintains that Peanut Butter is a necessity, and she is a purist---Graham crackers, Hershey Bar squares, and toasted marshmallows at the perfect gooey stage for smushing between and melting the chocolate. Would that all the world’s differences be so sweet and warm, with such easy accord.

There’s a birthday party next weekend for our Kit, with two sets of grandparents in attendance; we’ll have lunch on the lawn, and I’d like to introduce our young ones to the old-fashioned party games of my own childhood: Drop the Handkerchief and Farmer in the Dell and chalk-drawn Hopscotch on the driveway. I think they’d even try Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and I’ve found a pretty, girly piñata---no hitting or blindfolding---you each pull a ribbon for the candy shower.



I’m ready. I prepare. And I’m prepared for the roller-coaster of the days, as well, with four voices calling at once, and footsteps scattering to the corners of the yard, all needing seeing after and answering at once.

And tea parties---always tea parties. Last visit, every lunch was a tea party, with another late in the afternoon. You just can’t overdo on those.

When the world is all at odds
And the mind is all at sea
Then cease the useless tedium
And brew a cup of tea.
There is magic in its fragrance,
There is solace in its taste;
And then laden moments vanish
Somehow into space.
And the world becomes a lovely thing!
There's beauty as you'll see;
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.

......................A Wise Soul

GOLDEN

One of my favorite TV shows in my “single days” and ever since has been Golden Girls. Those sassy ladies knew who they were, they lived their lives to suit themselves, and they made a wonderful combination of personalities and temperaments.

The smart, even-tempered, quick wit of Dorothy, the ditzy, small-town innocence of Rose, the smart-mouthed, blame-it-on-age zingers and behavior of Sophia, and the flamboyant, openly amorous Blanche were a household of contradictions, of hilarious happenings, of passionately-loyal friends.

I think all of us “girls” of a certain age picked one to match ourselves, or perhaps the one we’d like to be. I envied the easy honesty and self-confidence of Blanche, who changed boyfriends as often as her gorgeous wardrobe, the easy intelligence and common sense of Dorothy, the devil-may-care antics of Sophia, and even the childlike naivete' of Rose, thinking that if I could emulate all four, it would make a formidable, likeable package.

We followed them from heartbreak to outlandish stunts, from separations and losses and reunions and romance and revelry to good, solid friendships which filled that big Miami house with an atmosphere so congenial, we ALL wanted to live there. Or at least, next door.

Rose (Betty White, a perennial sweetheart, with a loving nature and what husband Allen Ludden called “the best legs in show business” even while Betty Grable was still alive---is still kicking up those attractive gams on TV and in movies---most recently a fan-driven push to have her host Saturday Night Live, for which she drew raves AND fans young enough to be her great-grandchildren).

There’s just something about those times, perhaps just in my own mind---I lived there with them once a week, sitting in that pretty kitchen, listening and laughing and crying along with their plots and their plans and their lives. There WERE women friends like that, loyal and caring and supportive, and they could get along under one roof. Lovely.

But in just the last two years, we’ve lost Sophia (the surprisingly attractive and young Estelle Getty (July 25, 1923 – July 22, 2008), and Dorothy (the delightful Bea Arthur---May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009).

And now Blanche, of the sweeping statements and self-absorption and sense of self which overwhelmed decades of hapless, happy men, has gone from us---it feels as if an era has passed and a time is gone. (Rue McClanahan, February 21, 1934 – passed away just this morning).

R.I.P. Dear wonderful, beautiful Blanche. THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND.

HAPPY JUNE, Y'ALL!!

Page of letters from the Internet

My very favorite Dr. Seuss book is ON BEYOND ZEBRA, a collection of letters which come AFTER Z (or should). They're formed to be kind of monograms of their own sounds. One of the letters is SNEE, like an S with a little knee attached.

And the story goes:

Then we go on to SNEE. And the SNEE is for Sneedle,

A terrible kind of ferocious mos-keedle

Whose hum-dinger stinger is sharp as a needle.

The Sneedle's too tough to be killed with a smack

So he has to be hunted on elephant back

And your eyes and the elephant's have to be keen

And you have to aim fast and you have to hit clean

And the bullet you shoot is a stale navy bean.

That you've soaked for an hour in old stale kerosene.

Would that it were so easy.

From my backyard:

June where we useta live always meant hibernation inside, outdoor clouds of OFF and DEET, and sinus-blasting floats of Avon Skin-so-Soft, reputed to have an absolutely get-away-from-me effect on the dreaded little critters, as folks braved the mosquito-infested lawns, gardens and any other space inhabited by blood-bearing prey. The Spring rains and all the low places and rice fields and the bayous contributed to the ceaseless "mosquito season," which lasted from the last freeze to the first frost, which killed off all but the most determined of the little menaces.

They've been known to come in with Christmas trees, baskets of greens, holly and ivy and honeysuckle, and even the swankiest of outdoor weddings Down South includes a basket of cans of repellent, (ours did) right there between the Julep Punch and the bucket of fancy fans.

My first courting "gift" from Chris, a few days after our first date, was a Bug-Zapper, which he installed on the patio of my house. He spread a big sheet of painter's plastic beneath it, just to gauge how many, and the first night's collection filled TWO QUART JARS.

So, amongst the butterflies-on-sticks and the ladybug boot-scrubber and the festoons of Summer-strung firefly and dragonfly lights in the trees of our yard here on balmy evenings---there, by rights, sits the TRUE State Bird of Mississippi---old Miz Mos-Keedle herself, in all her glory.

Copper shine and polished-stone prettifying can just do SO MUCH, and she's just as ugly on the surface as her intentions and her bite. She and the heat are the only two reasons I'm glad I'm FROM there---not there RIGHT NOW.