So, i have been meaning to post this on my blog. It is a photo of a lamp I found when cleaning out my grandparents’ shed last year. She is a little beaten up, but they don’t make things like they used to. She is heavy and solid in weight, but so weightless in form. I love her.
I wish I had been able to ask my grandparents where they got it. Knowing Pop, probably out of the trash heap. I wonder, though, if my Grandmother bought her. It is hard to imagine my Grandparents, with their hardscrabble backgrounds, having beautiful and timeless things like this, but some of the things we found at their house surprised us.
So, I rewired her, and put a shade on her (wish I knew what the original shade had looked like – I am not sure this one is a good fit) and she sits on my desk, where I write sometimes, and I feel like she is urging me on, shining light down on me and reaching up to the sun, prompting me to do the same.
I wonder if she made my Grandma feel the same way. I wonder how she became relegated to the dusty, hot shed.
There is something so hopeful about her; I guess that is what I love most about her.
I know I said I wasn’t drinking during the week, because I don’t want to be a complete and total fat ass for my twentieth reunion, but I got up at six to run and I did yoga this morning, in an attempt to be stress-free and not kill the spawn. And then? Then I volunteered as a timer at the swim meet and that evidently requires the ability to focus for a long period of time. And Rollie, he conned a buck out of my friend Tara, supposedly for water, because he was “dying of thirst” and really he bought pure sugar.
So, then my awesome husband took the kids home and I came out to get takeout, but I chose mellow mushroom and I sat down and then it got crazy crowded and I had already ordered a beer before I knew what happened.
And then I had to wait forever to order, because the drunk Bama fan from Mobile got rowdy, and trivia was going on, and now I am just getting my food and somehow on my second beer, and doing awesome at trivia, because of course I didn’t actually play and am just playing along and doesn’t that just figure?
Maybe I’ll drink on Tuesdays only. Or days with an eight in them? Something like that.
Todd and I have decided that Tiller’s style is decidedly Betsey Johnson. I am a little concerned that Todd referenced Betsey Johnson in the first place.
Tiller: “Can we eat out?”
Me: “No. But we will probably eat out tomorrow before Rollie’s game.”
Tiller: “Can we have S&S?”
Me: “Well, i guess so. I was thinking Jason’s Deli, but we could do S&S instead.”
Tiller: “Okay, well, let’s agree.” [Her head nodding affirmatively, palms face up, and out to the side.]
Me: “Good idea.”
How I just found Tiller sleeping. That’s her headboard over to the left. Her head is over by the window on a pile of stuffed animals. This is why I liken sleeping in the same bed with her to sleeping with a baby wolverine.
Dropped tiller off at Ned and vanessa’s for her first big girl sleepover. She was so excited, she barely stopped to kiss and hug me before running upstairs with scarlett. She is such a big girl now, and I would wax all nostalgic about it, but I am about to go out with the Creekers and get drunk. Shout out to T and the rolls at The Dome for Monster Jam – Go Gravedigger!
A beautiful sunny Monday. Finally home from Auburn. Went to the fireworks store. Listening to the Avett Brothers. Getting ready to pop open the first beer of the afternoon, build a fire, and download apps for the new iPhone, all while watching Georgia football.
We did our Thanksgiving dinner tonight (Wednesday), rather than tomorrow, because My sister, Lisa, Dash, and Mark are going to Florida tomorrow. My parents will go to the lake. Todd and the kids and I will go to Auburn for Thanksgiving with his family, and perhaps take in a little bit of Auburn ass-whupping at the hands of Alabama.
Lisa and i think there should be a law that we should get to ditch our husband’s families during holidays, and just hang out with each other, and have a nanny, and drink wine, eat chocolate pie, and play Russian Rummy or poker all night.
This never happens.
What happens is my kids drive me nuts, and get all cranky, because they are all revved up on candy and chocolate milk and whatever-in-god’s-name-else Grandma gives them, and they throw fits, and I get really self-conscious about my parenting in front of my own parents, because my kids are acting like complete nightmares. Meanwhile, the dogs (there are at least three running around at any time) are stealing food off the baby’s tray, and making the kids cry, and barking at every leaf that falls out of every tree, and eating turkey bones out of the trash, which I can’t find a man to take out to the garage to save my soul.
I am trying to stir giblets and gravy so it won’t burn, heat up turnip greens in the microwave, cook three different casseroles at 350 degrees, shoo my Scotch-soaked father away from the kitchen, and get him all he needs to carve the turkey (“Mouse, there is a right way to carve a turkey and a wrong way; I learned the right way from Daddy- He worked at Morrison’s.”) While doing this, I am also sending my sister to set the table, swatting Rollie’s hand from the turkey plate, batting Jack Russell Terrorists out of the air as they jump for the turkey, taking out recycling, answering texts and calls about dinner timing, and making sure a toddler doesn’t plunge headfirst down the stairs. I break up fights. (Rollie and Tiller over what shows to watch, Tiller and Dash over the stuffed animals, dogs over chew toys, mom and dad over dad being dad, me and dad over dad being dad, Rollie and Dad over Rollie’s Matchbox cars.) I admonish Todd for riling dad up with pointed political discussion.
I drink a never ending glass of wine, but also have a cup of coffee going on the side. I have been reheating the same one since we made a pot after lunch.
We finally sit down to dinner, and everyone complains, then dad does the blessing and Rollie cries, because HE wanted to do the blessing, so we do second blessing, and I look up at my brother-in-law, who makes a point of not bowing his head, because he is an avowed atheist and pretense is anathema to him. I roll my eyes. No one sees. Todd gets possibly unreasonably mad because Tiller spills her milk and then we have to make her a whole new plate and get her a new milk. She cries in shame because for a week, we have been talking about having Thanksgiving dinner with the adults at “The Big Table.” She brightens at the new plate as if nothing has happened.
Dad recites from memory the poem that my grandfather recited every year at Thanksgiving, the poem he learned at Berry School for boys, when he went there as an eleven-year-old orphan in 1927.
We all make an attempt at reverence. I have the urge to cry, i am so tired and worn out from Thanksgiving.
I don’t cry. I am thankful.
We sit around the table. Dash is in the highchair. We all put our arms up in the ref’s sign for a touchdown. We all say, “Touchdown!,” animated and loud. Dash thinks we are brilliant. He puts his arms up and yells, “Touchdown!” Kind of. We all clap and holler. He claps and shrieks in joy.
I thank God that I have my family and they are crying, laughing, fighting, drinking, eating, falling, muddying, snapping, and sharing.
Busy day at Chez Dogwood: I have finished getting my basement awesomeness room set up and now I’m setting up the office. (Not so awesome.) Gotta pick the tills up, then lunch, then off to set up for Fantastic Friday. That is basically like your old-fashioned elementary fall festival. We do ours at end of October, so there is a haunted house, but also the old staples: cakewalk, etc.
I am working the damn inflatable slide. Please God, have mercy on my soul.
In the meantime, Todd sent me this and i got a really good laugh out of it.
I am not sure how we waited this long to take her to a Braves game. Rollie had been to a few games by the time he was Tiller’s age. His first game was the in August 2005 when I was pregnant with Tiller. But it is harder to get four free tickets and life gets in the way, and she is the youngest and just sometimes gets screwed when it comes to “Firsts.” I just forget about them. I know I am not the only mother who does this, and I honestly try to keep up with them, but they are often forgotten in the rush of life. Some of the milestones just seem less exciting the second time around. I have to remind myself that they are just as special for her as they were for him. I have to remind myself that they are her milestones, not mine.
So, Uncle Ned gave us Turner vouchers and we traded them in for the good seats. Thanks, Uncle Ned! We love you!
Game started at 7 pm, against the Nationals. We picked the game because of the earlier start time; the earlier the better, because my kids are usually in bed by 7pm. This was a big night for them. Braves had lost their slim outside chance of a wild card spot earlier that day when the Rockies won, so it was a pretty laid-back game, with a decent crowd, but not too crowded. The weather was perfect: Warm as the sun went down, then changing over to cool, sweatshirt weather, but not so cold that we needed blankets or gloves. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect.
As we walked up to the front of Turner Field, the first thing Tills said was “Look, Mama! A baseball!” She had seen the huge picture of Hank Aaron’s 715 ball that is blown up on the side of the stadium. We walked over to get tickets for our vouchers and as we walked by a statue, she said, “Look Mama! A big baseball guy!” I took her over to shower and I squatted down next to her and said, “That’s Hank Aaron baby. He held the home run record for a long time, and he was a Brave.” For some reason i felt a little choked up. She never took her eyes off the statue, and nodded her head like she knew who the hell Hank Aaron was.
We got inside and she freaked out on the big baseballs, like all the kids do. They started asking about food. Todd took the kids to the seats and i grabbed a couple of beers. We had GREAT seats. Some nice and very southern men behind us told Tiller that if they caught a foul ball, they’d give it to her. We had to have a talk about how if someone gives you a ball, you don’t throw it back in – That kid at the Phillies game (think it was the Phillies) really did some damage to kids’ ideas about what you do with a game ball! Not long after that, a foul ball went crazy in the stands near us. I moved Tiller to a seat on the other side of me from the batters. I thought about priorities: Son and Daughter; camera; beer; game ball. What would i do? I daydreamed that I stand up as the ball comes whizzing towards us, thereby blocking daughter, and with beer in my left hand, I snag the ball, bare-handed, with my right. Everyone cheers. Tiller and I make Sports center that night.
The kids did great. After eating whole slices of pizza (can’t believe my kids are old enough to eat a whole slice, much less carry them back to their seats, and not drop them), we promised them cotton candy in the 6th inning. They became more preoccupied with the cotton candy than the game, but i guess that’s normal. They loved the Coke bottle and Chick-fil-a cow, too. In the 6th, they finally got their cotton candy.
Afterwards, Rollie went with Todd to go to the bathroom. (The kids had split a Sprite, and they had sucked it down, as they normally do when they get contraband drink.) Tiller and I were sitting together as we went into the 7th inning stretch. When everyone stood up, she looked confused. “Why is everyone standing up, Mama?” You forget that kids have never experienced things before. You wonder at their little heads, which have so much GREAT stuff to experience, like their first 7th-inning stretch. I lifted her up, so she could see the big screen over the heads of the folks in front of us. I sang my guts out on “Take me out to the ballgame.” She got a big smile on her face and rocked back and forth in my arms to the song. I got a little choked up again. Then my weepiness turned to annoyance as they started that stupid, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” song. Not that I mind that song, in fact, i loved it as a kid, but it just seems weird that they play it there. Tiller liked it.
The Braves were tied one-one, and then the Nationals went up to 2-1 around the 8th, i think. So, the bottom of the 9th was a pretty fun one, with the Braves trying to make something happen, and me and Todd debating whether we’d rather them win, or have to sit through extra innings with two zombie children, who were sitting on our laps by that point. Because we couldn’t just leave. No, long ago, Todd and I bonded over the fact that our dads both always made us leave FulCo during the ninth, to beat traffic. (You will see a theme here with Cecil, if I have ever mentioned his need to “Beat the Baptists” every Sunday after church.) We said we would never have to leave a game early again. So, were were there for the long haul. Luckily? Unluckily? The Braves didn’t push it to extra innings and we all headed back to the car.
Other milestones for Tiller last night:
Learning the claps when the Braves are coming up to bat! Looking at the fireworks on the gas sign when there’s a strikeout! CHARGE!!!!!! The Tomahawk chop!!!!!! What happens when there’s a home run! (The look on her face was priceless.)
