Monday Mimisms ~ Aunt Evelyn

She would take me with her. Early on Saturday mornings when my sleepyhead wanted to sleep, she wanted company....and help. Yes, that too. It wasn't a long drive to our misty destination, just five miles down the road through southern foggy chill.  She was all kinds of proper and buzzed around the house like a swarming hive of bees, my great-aunt Evelyn. If you didn't get out of her way she'd put a dust rag in your hand or a pan of garden peas to snap. Idle hands you know....  I haven't thought of her lately. I don't like to think of her.

But every spring when it's time to plant flowers, I remember her gladiolas and crocus. They grew on the fence behind her house between the persimmon trees and the tobacco barn, lined up pretty and pristine on that honest-to-God white picket fence. But what does God have to do with any of this?
Well. I'm getting to that part. We would pack the car with all things ammonia, clean clean rags for dirty cleaning, a vacuum cleaner and a vase sitting sturdy in the back floorboard of the car in a cardboard box - full of fence flowers.  

Just getting there was a small testament to my penchant for dangerous adventure. You see, Aunt Evelyn did not like to drive. Except slowly. And she was afraid - I mean afraid - of the middle yellow line. All approaching cars were met with a sharp swerve to the right into gravel and my face buried in a backseat gladiola, praying for one more chance not to die at the hands of a very proper woman who ran off the road every two minutes. 

As soon as we'd pull into the old Methodist Church driveway, I would thank God once again for automobile mercies, but Aunt Evelyn,  who had no clue that her driving was something out of a horror movie, could care less about my near death experience. She would stare out the crank-handled window at the empty little clapboard church in the country with a look something akin to what mission bound soldiers' faces must look like on the cusp of a well-planned attack.  Aunt Evelyn's stealthy battle plan was simple.

Clean the church.

And I mean clleeeeaaannnn the church. Equipped with a mop and a broom and a box of crocus - it was a foolproof strategy. There was just one problem.
I hated to clean. And I loved to talk, especially in an empty church with acoustical echoes of my own making where children were not supposed to otherwise utter a sound.  It was downright blasphemy.

I only tagged along because I knew that as soon as I heard the hum hum humming of the vacuum cleaner way down in the adult Sunday School room, in a place she couldn't possibly see me from, I could do what I actually came there to do.

Explore

My job was to dust the wooden pews with glossy furniture polish. And take the little tiny pencils out of the holes in the back of the bench, replace them, and dust there too. Pick up all the stray papers, handkerchiefs, and teenage left-over notes written on the back of offering envelopes and dust. Everything. Even the pencils. Oh, it was tedious. Painfully tedious. And there were monumental glaring distractions everywhere. Fanning fans from the Funeral Home left on seats that just begged me to fan them. The handles looked like Popsicle sticks and it always made me hungry. An organ with a do-not-touch sign engraved on the lips of my aunt's stern face, and a huge picture of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane hours before his crucifixion, flanked ever so brilliantly behind the preacher's stand with the most colorful round stained glass window you've ever seen. I wasn't supposed to dust it you see....but it was just so...so...dreary.

Dreary like dust before an inevitable resurrection, except in those days it made me sad to see Him so sad because I knew how the story would go.  I liked the sun through the stained glass better. But I digress.

I could only fool her for so long. As soon as the vacuuming started and I was sure she couldn't see or hear me, I would climb up into the choir loft behind the sacred pulpit, say hello to Jesus, and then on the long way back to the pews that still needed dusting, I would conjure up a sermon about what he might be praying and say a few words to the invisible people.

She never knew that's what I came there for.

As soon as the vacuum noise ceased, it was time to return to the dust from which I came...or something like that. And in a hurry. She would sashay out of the hall of now perfectly perfect classrooms and walk right up to the place I'd just been preaching with nary an amen let me tell ya. In her hands she carried a vase full of gladiolas and crocus, now kissed with water, and arranged just right for the Sunday's altar. I figured out many years later that she wasn't just there to dutifully clean.  It brought her great joy to ready and adorn the church she loved. 

I don't know why I'm thinking of her today. Except that I miss her sometimes and wish I could tell her how much those cleaning trips meant to me. And how it shaped my spiritual self in ways I discovered later in life, remembering how she served without asking for payment or praise, and how she never scolded me for leaving so much dust on the wood.

 A few years after my great-uncle died and she was alone for the first time in her life, at fifty-two years of age, she had a stroke. I thought she was invincible and strong. Driven and dedicated. Selfless and kind....and deserving so much more than her fate. She spent the next twenty-five years of her life in a nursing home. And it pained me more than anything. When I visited there was only one word she could say. That word was "home." She would cry openly and beg me to take her with me. I made promises I couldn't keep, but I tried.  No amount of Gethsemane praying was going to make that dream come true for her. And so without the benefit of children of her own, she stayed in that miserable place. There were long seasons of time when I simply couldn't visit her. Not because it was physically impossible, but because I knew I would have to tell her no and watch her cry. The look of disappointment on her face was more than I could take. And my guilt when I didn't visit, was just as painful. One day I picked a bouquet of her ever blooming fence flowers and took them to her. It only made her miss home more and I never did it again.


If I could, for just one day, I would like to go back with her, in a swerving white car full of crocus, to the churchyard where she's now a permanent resident and talk to that Jesus on the wall. I would ask Him how one who dedicated her life in service to others in so many ways could end up alone and uncared for. I won't get that chance. The sanctuary burned in a fire not long after she went away. The only thing they salvaged was the window and the painting.

But I have so much more in my memory bank. 

So much more.

 Henry Meynell Rheam (1859-1920) "Arranging Flowers" watercolourPublic domain
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Colorful Peace Globes

Billy Warhol ~ Canada

Skeezix The Cat
California

Dawn Drover & Alexandra Justine Drover
Newfoundland, Canada

The family: Sanni, Frank, Luis, Lilly, and Jersey The Furry Diva
Germany

Blueszy Dumpster
awesome animation!

Join us for BlogBlast For Peace Nov 4, 2012

I Raise My Glasses To Ye Lads and Lasses

I'm not much of a drinker of Irish ales but I can raise my glass to the beautiful country of Ireland.

Antique stores are wonderful places. I love these old glasses. They are not really green but my camera and the glass reflection somehow casts that color when I took the shot.  Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Steeple In A Rainstorm

Sometimes you chase the steeple

 sometimes

it chases you

safely home

Wheat Germ is My Friend

Welcome to The Queen's Meme #112

7 Royal Questions on Tuesday

Warning: This meme may make you hungry. It's all about our favorite time of the day: mealtime.  Take a bite of this appetizing meme. Please pass the salt.

1. Breakfast literally means "breaking the fast" of the night. What is your favorite cereal?

Captain Crunch sans the peanut butter, milk and wheat germ on top

2. Brunch is typically eaten between breakfast and lunch. When is the last time you brunched?

I have never bungee jumped. Oh,....you said..

3. In the castle we call it luncheon. The prisoners downstairs in the dungeon call it horrible lunch. Do you eat lunch at the same time everyday? What is your favorite sandwich?

I eat lunch in bits and pieces throughout the day - sitting at my desk, running through the hallways, on the dashboard, at the piano and sometimes even when I take a nap. Multi-tasking at its finest.


Sandwich? I've sworn off bread.

4. What is the difference between dinner and supper?

About 5 hours

5.  What time do you generally "take tea" in your abode?

I take tea when the rest of the European community takes tea. Don't you?

6.  A "cuisine" is typically influenced by and named after geographical regions and cultures. Pretend your blog is a country. What is the name of your cuisine? 

 BloggingHAM

7. This is a good food display from the National Institute of Health and Human Services. What is the one healthy food item below that is lacking in your diet?

The Snickers bar just under the carrot pile to the right of the yellow squash. You see it too, don't you?

Time for dessert!

*images public domain*

Monday Mimisms ~ I'd Rather Marry an Evil Pygmy

No wonder my ponytail keeps flipping in my eyes and the salt fell out of the salt shaker. The castle has flipped. I am flipped too.

This blasted Daylight Savings nightmare gives me nightmares. It takes two weeks for my delicate royal body clock to adjust. I have to sleep on peas ya know.  It's supposed to be 9:19 pm right now. Instead it is 10:19 and just a short breath away from the horrible evil alarm clock sound. I hate that sound worse than anything. Why do we need to save daylight? It's not like it's going anywhere.

 I'd rather have a root canal, marry an evil pygmy or listen to Rush Limbaugh than go to work tomorrow. ..oh, wait, that's the same thing....

I can think of a million reasons why I should call in sick. The castle falling upside down made such a mess in the kitchen and caused my equilibrium to un-equil itself back to normal. I LIKE being slightly off kilter!  All the change fell out of the change jar and I have to count all those pennies. My shoe is untied, my hair is a little frizzy and I think I forgot to remember something important.  I noticed just the other day that one of Bloggingham's trees needs a manicure. Three matching pairs of socks were found behind the refrigerator which is so unusual - the matching part - that it surely must be a bad omen and I should stay inside. I now must learn to play my piano with my feet and pedal with my hands. Being upside down ain't easy ya know. And there are spider webs all over the floors.

I think I'll play hookey and go to the park.

Can someone give me a few tips on driving upside down?

Pucker Up. The Flowers Need Kissin'

Muuuaaaahhhh!

*Photography credit Mimi Lenox. Click to enlarge.*

Super Tuesday: A Long Way From 1144

So. I'm trying with all my might not to watch the Presidential race but every time I turn off the tube I realize that I kinda miss the bickering.
The analysts are analyzing the analysts who are analyzing the analysts. I haven't seen this much drama since Rachel Crow fell down on the XFactor stage. With the exception of President Obama's predictable press conference today, all is well in the pundit ratings war. It's a reality show without the hot tubs or sky diving.  And let's talk about the sudden urge to chant and grunt in this country. We are laboriously electing the future leader of the free world, not watching a 3-point shooter at the free throw line. In the middle of Santorum's speech in the school gymnasium one could hear no less than five rousing Jerry Springer chants at intervals of every ten words or so. Post-game on. "Woot Woot" (sp??) as they say.

Where are the pom poms?

It may be against his religion.

Tonight I listened to Romney declare that he would "get" this nomination, Congressman Paul kindly introduce his wife and lay out a plan to exterminate the Federal Reserve, Newt Gingrich played the fiddle in Georgia and Santorum harped on and on about gold and silver medaled health scares. All but Dr. Paul were introduced as the next president of the United States. This IS a reality show.

I wish they'd make up their minds.
Or at least change the channel.

I don't mean to trivialize.
I intend to trivialize.
Because in the end one of them will chose another one of them to be a running mate and I will realize I should have been watching the Disney channel all this time.... unless Sara Palin loses her television show. And here you have a pencil skirt writing politics??!  I pretend to know what I'm talking about and feel bad about that sometimes until I realize that all four of them pretend the same thing. Sometimes. We all do when duty calls for necessity. Did you get that? And if ever a day called for Valium duty and necessity, this is it.


**P.S. This is Romney's Super Tuesday youtube url. He won't allow the evil embedding. **  Click here for the secret victory speech. Shhhh!


 It's not that I'm really addicted to political speeches and campaign rhetoric or that I even LIKE listening to stumps talk...it's just that I am totally fascinated with this entire process. One minute they're patting each other on the back in the Green Room. The next they're slinging names and dodging Rush.  I wish I could take this spectacle a bit more seriously but I just can't. Here it is March 2012 and I must say that none of the front runners here entertain a withering wisp of my potential vote. I can't envision any of them in the Oval Office.  None. Nada. Not one.

But I am learning more about each candidate in the early stages of this horse race by simply watching them fall all over each other. Verbally, of course. Let's be civil, shall we?

**rolls eyes**

I forgot where I was for a moment.

Like any typical ringside fan eating Cheetos in bed, I find my mind wandering to the color of Mrs. Gingrich's pretty suit and hoping it matches her husband's tie.  I want to know if her pearls are real. Come on, now. You think that's important too, don't you? If we're gonna smash Romney for owning 10,000 Cadillacs we have to pontificate the pearls. Will Rick Santorum suddenly break out in babbling prayer in a fit of euphoria? Is the world ready for that? If we're gonna sermonize contraceptive Catholicism we have to give equal time to all manner of churchdom. It says so in the Constitution. Can Dr. Paul keep his optimistic smile in the face of dwindling delegates and still come out swinging 'til the end? I hope so. He has won my respect for stick-to-itiveness and has earned 35 hard-won delegates; but C-span left him off the interactive map of states. How rude. How much money has the Romney family and Donald Trump spent to send Mitt to Pennsylvania Avenue? How many nations would that feed? Who will be the next right to exit stage left? And which one will trip over some closet skeleton on the way out... Why does Santorum's wife remind me of my 1st grade teacher???? What did they all have for dinner tonight? Did they say grace to save face? And was there room for dessert? Or just the bitter taste of stump water....

I'll keep looking for that dark horse.

At this point I'd settle for Mr. Ed.
At least he could talk with his mouth closed.

Return of The Totients

Welcome to The Queen's Meme

7 Royal Questions on Tuesday

In honor of our blog post number #111! The Perfect Totient Meme aka the You-make-me-feel-like-a-natural-number meme. I will demonstrate my spectacular mathematical mind. Be amazed.

1. (1) Name one thing you can't live without.

Just one?
OK. Music
2. (1+1=2) Name 2 things you'd rather not do this week.
Get up early and get up early
3. (1+1+1=3) Tell me 3 reasons you need a vacation.
I.miss.this.

4. (11) It is the 11th hour of your life and you have one hour left on Earth. What do you do?

Go for a midnight swim with someone I love.

5. (1x1x1=1) Name one thing you'd rather do alone than in a crowd.
Umbrella. Chair. Flipflops.


6. (111) One hundred (and) eleven is the natural number following 110 and preceding 112 AND a perfect totient number. A perfect totient number is an integer that is equal to the sum of its iterated totients.
What makes the totients so iterated?
They ran out of coffee.

7. (NINE 11) What is your emergency?
See below. I made a video to demonstrate my emergency.

Monday Mimisms ~ Crazy People Never Cry

That's my working theory.

So let's just wipe that smile right off our faces, shall we? It's time to look in the mirror.
For a woman who started this blog on the premise and promise that she would remain transparent, open, vulnerable and more vulnerable...I'd say that last part proved to be a bit much for my delicate southern constitution.
But wait.There's more.

Perhaps that was part of the master plan of the bloggiverse. After all, it's easy to be transparent when things are going well and your soul is intact. Nobody wanted to peer beneath my pencil skirt when the fractured pieces didn't fit. Did they?

Of course they did. Silly me. People live to see you fall apart. Even more so than when all the seams lined up and there were no jagged edges to unravel. Some people hate it when you don't cry on cue. It's so annoying! And oh so disappointing when they want to see a train wreck and get a party invitation instead. Frayed hemlines on a woman-in-the-making are never attractive, at least that's what I hear when I read nice tidy stories in those Chicken Soup books. All the loose ends predictably come together even after the fainting couch and melodrama doctor have saved the dreary day. It might have been good for the soul but it was bad bad bad for my form. And I'm always in the middle of some monumental morphing evolution. I need a good form.And I've had my moments. It's just that...that...well..they're my moments and not to be trifled with. Or stomped on. Or God forbid anticipated.
So if you don't mind, I'm gonna fall down wailing on my curvy paisley settee and have myself a good ole' cry. I'll be blasted if I'm gonna run off half mad today.   I just don't have the time for it. Because you see, one little strand of that hemline has remained ever so true. The more I tried to suppress whatever emotion I needed to post on this palette at the time, the clearer it became that crying on cue was not going to happen. Tough cookies for waiting sharks. And thank you, O Waiting Ambulance Chasers, for the waiting epiphany that had been.... well.....waiting ...for me. I thank each and every gleeful manipulating nemesis for this revelation: I tried to look at the writer in the mirror. I couldn't stand the sight of her. The woman on the page and the woman in the mirror were strangers.  It might just be the most beautiful reflection I've ever put to paper.   No matter how insidious or benign the threat, censorship is the enemy of art and the weapon of bullies. It only made me want to open up the box marked vulnerable even more.  Walking on eggshells is not good for one's form. You know what I mean. You've been there. Stepping out with my hem dragging the floor might sometimes satisfy those waiting to pounce, it might even bring a perverse sort of pleasure, but thank God my unconventional and dangerous lack of armor is laid thick with the scars of  vulnerability - because it is my greatest strength.  So. I'm dusting off the mirror.      If you want to strike a chord in this world, if you want to really connect with people, do this: Wallow real good down and dirty until your boots are soiled and your skirt is unraveled. Pick yourself up and fall down again. Your heart will continue to beat as you wave at passing ho-hum brickhead opposition with an on-cue crazy smile on  your face. Keep doing what you do. You will notice that you might still be standing in a pile of dung, but standing you are.  You have to have the courage to embrace the muck and fall face down in it.  Without it, you have no integrity at all.  
But back to the crazy people. And why they never cry. They're brittle as empty bricks. And hard as nails. When you drop them on their heads nothing falls out.  Not even a beautiful battle worthy tear. Crazy people never cry. 
If you're gonna be a writer worth your salt, worthy of your words or even worth a damn, commit to bringing your best self and your worst self to the page. Your highest glories and your most miserable moments. And for God's sakes, cry. You'd better get used to the fact that once in a while no one in the world is going to buy into a thing you say. It really only matters if you get it.  As for that delicate southern constitution. Oh please.