Mistake

Ummmm.... I mispoke... Lil brother DID NOT get a kitten for his birthday. Rather a flying squirrel that just looks like a kitten....as it sails over your head...

Nifghe

Nifghe: This is how lil brother spelled "knife" on his spelling test last week.................wt????.......Do you know how long it took me to figure this out???................. I mean.........like?........how do I fix that???................and yes.........I am a school teacher............... but I give up..................screw spelling........... It's sooooo overrated.

Real Mad-Women

Joan from Madmen is one of my all time favorite TV characters. I love her smart, savvy, sexy demeanor in the office. She's a red headed vixen whose nobody's doll baby. In spite of her intuitive and often thoughtful observations about office politics and the general bad behavior of the men in the company-I actually most adore her for her luscious, curvy, full hipped, high breasted confidence as she saunters down the hallway pushing the mail cart between offices. How refreshing to be reminded of how real women in the late 1960's used to really look. Joan reminds me of my aunts, ladies in the church choir, my school teachers, my best pal's mama, bank tellers, and office secretaries across town. These women were soft when you touched them and smelled of baby powder & Windsong cologne... These women who walked with heads held high, chin up, hips swiveling, and brows arched. The same women who wore coordinated polyester suits, stacked heels, filmy scarves, and panty hose (for God's sake!) while swinging and striding and sauntering about their business with absolutely no shame about their size 12,14, or 16 wide hips... How refreshing it would be if fashion could resurrect the curvy likes of Marilyn-wide hips and child bearing bellies and big boobs to boot. Instead we have the modern age where pencil thin and third world impoverished is the new look. We can thank actresses such as Jen Anniston, Courtney Cox, Megan Fox, and Angelina Jolie for making rangy, stringy, hard angles all the defeating rage...

So here's a salute to Joanie! And to all those other "real" women from the past who embraced their bodies AS IS in all their soft and perfectly curvy imperfection.

First Down

Lil brother's football schedule is gonna be the death of me... When will it ever end?!? UNCLE! I can't take it anymore. Keeping the jersey washed... loosing not one but TWO mouth guards... fighting the WAL-MART crowds to buy a third one...forgetting it was my turn for snacks and going back to WAL MART... practices in the dark that never seem to end... showing up to the game WITHOUT the damn flag...ARGH!!! Ya'll shoulda seen me at the last game-from-hell-day. I'm sure it looked like I was having an apoplectic fit with all those f-bombs exploding in my head. I barely managed to keep them behind my gnashing teeth... Please God, let it end... AND SOON. Or I'm gonna need an exorcism.

Not Right...

OK-I confess. I shouldn't be having these thoughts. But I am already thinking about my Christmas Crap! I LOVE the Christmas Crap-every cheap, tacky, spray painted, raggedy, over the North Pole piece of it... Oh!!! At a yard sale this summer I actually bought a gold reindeer with a broken antler, an old black Santa who been drug through the 1970's, and a roly poly plastic Santa from the 1960's (lead paint an all...). Ain't that EXCITING ya'll?!?! I've got ornaments stuffed in hidey-holes in my kitchen too... Ya'll I'm READY to get my Holiday ON!!! Mr B is not gonna like this line of thinking... So I'm gonna hold the holiday line (and keep the fantasizing just between us) and try to at least get to Thanksgiving before cracking the holiday decorating whip...

But I ain't making ya'll no promises...

Neighborhood Scoop:
There's a n'borhood near mine, and as I drove through I noticed that an acquaintance ALREADY had her Santa Christmas lights up on the lawn. Ya'll it ain't even HALLOWEEN yet! When I saw this I came home and called 5 people. Now I know I'm TACKY when it comes to the Christmas Crap...but at least I ain't THAT TACKY.

New Release!!! Run to the stores...

I know ya'll have been waiting with baited breath for The Autobiography of Mark Twain to come out. And it finally has...100 years after his death. Twain-a fan of telling it like it is-wanted to write a no bars hold tell-all. But he needed for all his friends and enemies to die first to avoid all the teeth gnashing and counter suing he was likely to endure. So as a brilliant marketing ploy-he made us all wait 100 years to hear how he really felt about his contemporaries. He does postulate in his memoir that there are plenty of selfish and shameful acts that he committed in his lifetime... though none have yet to make it to paper at the time of his writing (...imagine!) So although he might not reveal his own shortcomings-he leaves no contemporary out. A true gentleman, huh? I hear he's absolutely brutal to Theodore Roosevelt and down right mean spirited towards his Italian housewife neighbor and heaven help the poor US congress who gets an absolute vitriolic tongue lashing-Twain style. I can't wait to get the juicy details...in three rambling, meandering volumes. So I hope you're as excited as I am to read America's favorite humorist in his own sprawling, prosaic words. I'm a major fan of an old school smart ass-even if he's been dead for 100 years.

In his own words:
Let us swear while we may, for in Heaven it will not be allowed.
- Notebook, 1898

...heaven for climate, and hell for society.
- Mark Twain's Speechs

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
- What Is Man?

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Big kid couldn't believe it as we joined forces to muck out lil brother's room (while he blithely played in the back yard as we threw away his "treasures"): I didn't even holler or yell or shriek or cuss-NOT ONCE. "Mom, I can't believe you're not saying anything about all this mess! I mean aren't you gonna lecture him or fuss at him-not even a lil bit???" And I can see him getting all worked up over the injustice of lil brother missing out on an epic tongue lashing. But all I can do is nonchalantly shrug in response. And big kid, who is holding a giant black garbage bag that is already filled to the top (we filled 3 bags for give-away & trash, btw), is looking at me in open mouthed disbelief... Yes, I have lost my mind. I can no longer even rouse the energy to get mad that lil brother can stuff 2/3 of the contents of his closet and drawers under his bed. Really....it's kinda impressive the stuff that can be found there (almost makes me believe in the boogie man under the bed)... I just don't have it in me anymore. I'm just not willing to sweat profusely as I grind and gnash my teeth and shriek like a banshee (i.e. crazy @ss b*tch) going to war. Cause this I know: give it a couple of months-and we'll be right back at it again... hauling out 3 more bags of #$@! from under the bed... It will NEVER end.

So my advice to big kid is this: let sleeping dogs lie...and leave worn out mamas alone. Lord, have mercy, ya'll...

Thistle Bell

"After dark all cats are leopards." - Native American Proverb

I had forgotten how entertaining and charming it is to have a house cat in the family. Although I have previously owned and loved two cats in my adult life who have long since passed, I never expected to be a cat owner again after all those years of cleaning out the cat box. And besides I have the perfect best friend: Murphy, the Good Child. Perfection cannot be topped. However, with the arrival of lil brother's b-day kitten, I was frankly quite worried about living with another feline. I mean, we're all familiar with the aloof, disdainful, condescending, and punitive house cat. When a cat decides he will no longer abide you-not even Jesus himself could change a cat's mind. But with much relief I am happy to report that we have a loving, spunky, yet mostly docile rag-doll of a cat who loves to be carried, petted to death, baby-talked to, and generally adored by the masses. And we are all infatuated with Sister LuLu (her bad girl name after dark). This adorable scrap of calico fur may as well be The Queen of Persia over here at Blither Blather headquarters. She can do no wrong. Even when she's ripping around the furniture, hanging upside down from curtains, eating our dinner from the stove, drinking my morning cup of coffee, or making the dog move outta of his favorite napping spot and commandeering it for herself... her badness is just so darn cute. There's a new boss-lady in town...and it ain't me!

The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry.
- French Proverb

Southern Living

I recently had surgery. But I'm gonna spare ya'll the gory details-cause it's just bad manners to talk about innerds and guts. And really I'm trying to suppress the horror of it all. In classic style-I was the ultimate titty baby 'bout the whole thing. I even made the nursing staff nervous which earned me an extra Valium due to my theatrics... But really that's not my point here-enough with the random meandering...

As I have spent the week recovering, I have had the time to reflect on Southern graciousness-of which I have been the lucky recipient. I actually received homemade get-well cards with hand written messages in the real mail this week; I had a gaggle of friends who called me on my home phone to check up on me; Another friend went to the grocery and bought me a stack of the most embarrassing (and juicy!) celebrity trash mags that no one in her right mind would be caught in her own zip code buying; Another gal-pal made me a CD of her favorite songs-and now I can't stop listening to Janice Joplin sing about Bobby McGee; I had other friends who actually did some ol' fashioned visiting and sat in my living room to take my mind off my pitiful innerds and were avid listeners as I re-lived every gory detail; I even made it onto the EPISCOPAL prayer list this week (they're a picky bunch!); Another sweet friend delivered WARM pumpkin spice cookies to my front door... and the list goes on, ya'll...

You would think that in the age of texting and IM'ing and FB'ing that the ol' fashioned arts of Southern graciousness would have suffered a serious blow. Not so. These women offered up their most precious commodity for an ailing friend-their TIME. And they did it with style and patience and attention to detail. Ya'll-the modern Southern Belle LIVES! And she's still baking, visiting, calling, and writing her own messages in her own hand writing while whipping the kids across town and keeping up with her 1,000 daily commitments. And I am humbled by it. May we all aspire to give away our time and talents to those who may need it in the future.

Blessings to you ALL!!!

TMI

Overheard big kid while in the bathroom:

"YESSSS!!!! I FINALLY have an armpit hair!"

He's been waiting on armpit hair since 2nd grade. We might have to have a special dinner since one finally arrived. Not sure I'm as exctied as he is 'bout all this 7th grade growing up he's doing... Seventh graders are pretty stinky & gross on the whole... but mama's still find a way to love 'em-armpit hair an' all. Go figure...

Direct Order!

This is a MUST READ BOOK! So put down the laundry, leave the casserole in the oven and the kids in the yard, and go buy it NOW. This book is sweeter than molasses and refreshing as mint iced tea and as satisfying as southern fried comfort food. This book is a beautiful look at what love and tolerance is really all about. Set in Mississippi during the 1960's and told by the warm, rich voices of three authentic women...trust me: you won't regret it...

Career Advice

Lil brother's advice to big kid over dinner:

LB: You don't need to be one of those peoples who listens to other people's problems... (look of confusion) Was dat called again?

Family (in unison): Therapists???

LB: Yeah, das it. (directed to big kid) You're not very good at it.

And big kid was completely insulted...even though he thinks lil brother's "problems" are annoyng and stupid. Some of us just aren't meant for the feel-good professions...

Fall

Fall is my favorite season of all...warm colors, blue skies, nippy weather, layers, chili, fires, mums & pumpkins, spiced coffee, rides in the country... A time for settling down and preparing for hibernation...

Hope your fall is GLORIOUS!

House Cleaning Day

Mr B whipped the troops into action today and was in full-tilt Drill Sgt mode as he assigned various chores to the conscripted when lil brother piped up (voice filled with shock and horror), "But we did that last month!"

Clearly-we probably ought to step up our efforts over here at Blither Blather headquarters...

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