Spider Webs, Fall Harvest, and How Dogwood Girl Knows There is a God

So, I cleared out my summer garden yesterday, which involved pulling out the old plants, and reaping the last of the tomatoes, all of them still green. Tiller took this picture of Quint, who just doesn't get enough facetime on Dogwood Girl, considering he is always right there with us, no matter what we are doing around the house.


While i was working, Tiller and i found an awesomely huge spider web and spider.



The spider was not too happy when his web was messed up in the pulling of the old plants, but he was relocated into a nice boxwood and will be up and spinning in no time, I am sure.

And then there is the frying. If there is one thing I know, it is that there is a God. I know this because how else can we explain the majesty and awesomeness that is fried green tomatoes? They are a gift from God. This probably looks like fried okra to those of you in the know. . . however, they are tomatoes. That's right, i took the last of my patio tomatoes and fried them. I am sure my mom will read this and shake her head in disgust, because that's just not how it's done. But they were damn good. And I had realized that this was the first summer since i started eating solid food that i had not had any fried green tomatoes! A travesty!


Even Rollie and Tiller ate a few. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure you lose your Dunstan card if you don't like fried everything.

First Snow

A little video from our brief snow experience last night.

Things I Forgot About Snow

"Mama, when i was outside in the snow, I made a ball and I threw it on you and it was fun."

Yes, Rollie, it was. It was the most fun I've had in ages. I threw an icy, wet snowball today. But it was a snowball. And I showed you how to make a really sad snow angel. And I showed you how the best place to get a snowball from is a clean surface like the car and then we tried to throw snowballs at Daddy in the bedroom window above while he was on a conference call, while Quint did the low-butt run around the cul-de-sac, like he was a pup.

I had forgotten that snow had a sound and a smell, and that it made dogs frisky, and toes tingle and eyelashes frosted, and that it made little kids and big kids giggle like they were being tickled.

p.s. Mom, I'm real sorry about that mess me and Lisa and Matt and Karen and Sean made in the house, like, every day, throughout the winter in Rochester for two years in a row. We musta been about the biggest pains in the ass ever.

Winning the Lottery

You probably would not know it, even if you know me pretty well, but sometimes I get depressed. It's never enough to make me unable to function (well, there was that one time after I had the baby, but that was just the hormones), but I just get down. Blah. Uninterested. Bluesy. I don't really want to leave the house. I don't really want to clean the house I don't want to leave. I don't want to do anything at all. It reminds me of when I was a kid, and it would be raining, and there was nothing to do, and I kept on driving my mom crazy, but whatever she suggested sounded like absolutely no fun to me, and the feeling was just pure frustration.

When I get this way, i think I hide it pretty well from everyone but my sister and my husband. God knows, Todd has certainly been seeing the ill effects of my recent melancholy in the sorry housekeeping I have been doing. But for the most part, I really try to overcome my down days, to find things to do to pull me out of the depression, or at least keep me busy until it passes. Which I guess means that I am not truly depressed at all, because I can still function, can still see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it just seems like lately i have have been bored, depressed, whatever. Maybe it's the holidays, maybe it's watching both mine and Todd's parents deal with their own aging parents, when they should be enjoying their retirements and their golden years. Maybe it is feeling helpless at not being able to make all of the people I love just have it easier, or just get a damn break once in a while.

I am still feeling a little down, but you know what helps? When one of your oldest and dearest friends calls and asks if you can drop everything and help her out by going to New York with her for the weekend. All expenses paid. Because her husband was supposed to go with her and something came up with work and now she will have to go by herself.

Um, okay. I guess so. What? Hells to the yeah, I'll go! What depression? What boredom?

Who won the lottery?

I did. When I was born to the most awesomest, givingest Mama ever. When I started playing rec-league b-ball with Mealby "Take a Look at My Choices" Barron, and when I met the most understanding, laid-back, fun-loving, hysterical - and yet responsible - man EVER and made my smartest life move yet - Marrying his ass.

My Dad and sister and kids and cutest dog in the world? They are icing on my life cake.

Dispatch from Hell

Hell is the wonderful municipality of Warner Robins, GA, a town built up around an air force base. It is full of concrete and really ugly buildings. My father said he would never come back here after he finished high school and moved back to Savannah, where he was born. He is back, because no one counted on my grandfather making it to 92 years old, and Pop still lives here. So, now, mom and dad do too. My sister and I are in complete agreement that once Pop dies and Mom and Dad get out of this hell hole, we will never come back again. EVER.

We are watching Pop this weekend while Mom and Dad get away for a couple of days. So far, today:

5 a.m. I wake up to hear Rollie and Pop talking on the baby monitor. Pop has gotten up to go to the bathroom, which we were under the impression he can no longer do on his own. Evidently, he can, and the walker woke up Rollie, who thought it was Lisa and yelled out, "Lisa!" which promptly woke both Lisa and Tiller. I run upstairs, wondering what the hell is going on. Everyone is awake. Pop is sitting on the toilet with the door open (awesome) and Tiller is crying out and Lisa is asking me what I am doing upstairs. We get everyone calmed back down, with admonitions to Rollie that he shouldn't get out of bed until the sun comes up.

5:15 a.m. I am back downstairs in bed with the dog. My stomach hurts like shit. I am trying to go back to sleep. I realize that my stomach hurts because it is upset and then I spend the next 3 hours in and out of the bathroom. I never fall back asleep.

8 a.m. Everyone is up and clamoring for breakfast and the dogs need to go outside and i feel like crap. I slap raisin bran on the table for the kids, while Lisa takes the dogs out, because I just can't risk being that far away from the bathroom.

8:15 a.m. Pop calls and wants someone to get his breakfast and his insulin shot for him. He gets the shots at every meal and before bedtime. Lisa takes pity on me and takes both kids and her Jack Russell Terror, Emily, with her. I lay on the bed with Quint and try to enjoy quiet despite cramping stomach.

8:20 a.m. My mom calls. So much for my stolen moments without children. She wants to know what Lisa wanted. I don't know, but will have Lisa call her.

8:30 a.m. Lisa yelling, "No, Emily! No! No!" Lisa is saying over baby monitor.

8:40 a.m. Everyone comes back downstairs, except Pop, who never leaves his Lazy Boy. Lisa freaking out. Emily ate rat poison. After determining that children never came in contact with rat poison, I google "Dog ate rat poison."

8:50 a.m. Lisa and Emily get in car to go to vet, where she will be given something to make her puke up the poison, and a shot of something to counteract the effects of the poison.

8:55 a.m. I venture out to the carport so that Rollie can ride his bike and Tiller can play with sharp and poisonous stuff, of which there is a ton, because my grandfather has not thrown out a single item since about 1935. Quint gets his leash caught up in the porch furniture he is tied to while I chug Pepto Bismol. Tiller runs around at breakneck speed with a stick and then falls and skins both knees, just as Rollie barrels down the slope of the driveway, narrowly missing my Grandma's c. 1980s Cadillac with 19,000 miles on it. Yes, Grandma has been dead for five years, but why get rid of a perfectly good Caddy only driven to the Beauty Shop on Thursdays and church on Sundays? Swerving to miss Caddy, Rollie's bike flies out from under him and he lands smack dab on his ass, then gets up wailing. He climbs up into my lap for consolation, as I juggle Pepto and a dog leash, and Tiller then comes over to give him a hug, too, which was sweet, but only makes him shriek in my ear.

That's just a taste of a few moments in the alternate reality that is my Grandfather's house. Things have gotten better since about ten. Emily is going to make it, and the medicine might even make her sleep for the afternoon. Lisa took Tiller and Rollie to the store to get stuff for dinner and to give me a break from them. Both dogs are sleeping. Pop doesn't need lunch and a shot until 1:30. Lunch for him is easy, because he eats the same lunch every day: 1 pimento cheese sandwich, one small can of baked beans, and one can of Vienna sausages, all cold and out of the can. Puke-O-Rama.

Certainly things will continue on this upward trend until 3:30, when Cocktail party kicks off, at which point Bulldogs will disappoint me, and I will hopefully be over my stomach deal, so I can drink my sorrows away with a few Saturday afternoon beers.

Hope everyone else is having an awesome Saturday. With less poison, poop, barking, and did I mention the pooping? than we are experiencing here.