Christmas Panties

Preface: My mother passed away just after Christmas 2005. This is an email I sent to my sisters just before Christmas the next year. That was back in the pre-blog days where I had no forum for my ranting stories except emails to my poor, long-suffering sisters.

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December 18, 2006

Tonight I am in a holiday funk. For the first time in my life I will not be receiving panties from Santa for Christmas...cheap, white, Dixie Belle brand granny panties, size extra-huge, available at the local dollar store for about $1.38. The panties have been a yearly tradition for me and my two older sisters, The Christmas Panty Queens. It was a tradition I detested when I was young. After all, who wants underwear for Christmas?

In later years, after we were all married, it was kind of an inside joke to get panties from Santa. Daddy took photos of us, year after year, holding up the panties among the piles of opened gifts. Dixie Belle has kept the same style for the last thirty-five years so every panty looks exactly the same every year. I appreciated the panties. I wore them out knowing there would be a fresh batch under the tree next Christmas.

At some time in my thirties I realized that my Santa mother had purchased the bulk of my lifetime supply of underwear. There's something a little icky about your mother buying your underwear when you're thirty-something but that's how it was. Oh, I have purchased a few sexy Victoria's Secret underthings... "Party Panties"...but for daily wear I always reach for the white granny panties. They must be white; must be granny.

I cringed at the first pair of granny panties I received and refused to wear them for a long time. The inevitable day came, around age 14, when they were the only clean pair in the drawer. They felt funny but at the end of the day I realized I had gone the whole day without a wedgie. After that I was a granny panty devotee.

My middle sister Pris, the prissy, girly sister, wears granny panties also. You would think she would go for the skimpy, lacy numbers. My older sister, Nana, the only real granny among us, prefers bikinis. I guess she finds them sexier than the granny panties.

I've never found granny panties to be a hindrance to my sex life. Men discover that extra-huge granny panties provide lots of room to frisk around in. They want what is in the panties after all and, like a Christmas present, the wrapping is minor in the scheme of things.

Sexy little panties are a not-so-subtle indicator to males that the wearer would like to get laid. Men, being rather dense on their best days, sometimes don't get the hint. I find that saying, "Hey honey, do ya want to git nekkid and screw?" works well in most instances. Only the comatose of the testosterone set don't pick up on the hint. Whatever panties might have been on at the time are quickly forgotten.

So here I am on the eve of the Christmas season in my year-old ratty granny panties feeling rather blue. They are the last of the last-ever Santa panties I will receive. Yes, I will have some new granny panties in January. I will go to the local dollar store and plunk down a buck thirty-eight and buy myself a handful of Dixie Belles out of necessity. But it won't be the same.

There will not be the comforting feeling of the knowing the Christmas panties are under the tree. My sisters and I will not check around the room this year to be sure we are all holding the same size box, indicative of the identical panties within, so we can open them at the same time so as not to spoil the "surprise" for the other sisters.

There will be no hullabaloo exclamations of "Oh LOOK! Panties!" as if they were a novel gift. There will not be the joy of the pile of crisp white panties in the drawer to start the new year. The Christmas season will not be the same. My hiney will not be the same.

I realized tonight I have reached a turning point in my life. I must now be a grown-up and be responsible for the acquisition of my own underwear. Since I sport gray hair and bifocals I guess it was about time anyway. But I don't like it, I don't like it at all. The Christmas Panty Queen will not go quietly into that good night.

There must be a way to have the tradition continue. I wonder if it would help if I wrote a letter to Santa, "Dear Santa, I've been a good girl this year. Please bring me some Dixie Belle granny panties, white, size extra-huge." Do you think he would get it before Christmas????

The End

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The Rest of the Story

Under the tree that year was a box tagged TO: Speck, FROM: Santa.

Inside were seven pair of extra-huge white granny panties. I laughed when I opened the box and found Christmas panties. Nana Santa had done well with the surprise. They were indeed size Extra Huge, but we exchanged them the next day for size Merely Generous.

Later when I got home, I opened the box and held them to my cheek, thinking of the legacy of the Christmas panties and how sweet my sister was to try and make this a 'normal' Christmas, and just cried and cried and cried.

Miracles of Life; or Tres Butterbean

The Nephew and his wife are pregnant. Since the day the EPT test turned blue, the family endowed the new baby with the nickname Butterbean.

We have included Butterbean in conversations as if he is already here. The Christmas cards will probably go out with Butterbean's signature even though he is not due until late April 2008.

Butterbean was a miracle baby. He was most definitely unplanned because Butterbean's momma is in the final stretch of a B.A. in Medical Technology and graduates in May 2008. Butterbean's daddy knew he was being called to active duty Oct 1st this year. He's currently training in the States and ships out to Iraq in March 2008. They were doing everything possible to prevent a Butterbean, but ya know, sometimes things don't go according to plans.

So everybody was a bit meshuganah at first but they've calmed down considerably since the EPT test. Butterbean's mom and dad have moved in with Butterbean's grandmother, my sister Nana. BBMom is going to finish school and start working while Nana takes care of Butterbean after he arrives.

So today is the big day...the first sonogram. Today we find out if Butterbean is really a he or actually a she.

BBMom and Nana are in the sonogram room and the first thing the tech says when the sonogram screen lights up is, "Oh, twins! Congratulations! That wasn't on the charts."

BBMom and Nana's jaws both drop to the floor. They had no idea.

The tech starts a long routine of measurements and techie sonogram stuff. It's taking a very long time. Then the tech frowns and says she's confused, that she needs somebody else to come look at the sonogram. A veteran sonogram looker-ater person comes in and fidgets with the equipment for a minute and says, "Yep, there's a third baby. Triplets."

So world, say hello to Tres Butterbean...
(Yes, I had to include the gratuitous fuzzy, amorphous blob sonogram photo.)



They are fraternal triplets. Two are definitely girls. The third one is probably a girl too, but the jury is still out. They are 19 weeks and everybody seems to be healthy and on track. BBMom and Nana need some tranquilizers, but we will get them peeled off the ceiling eventually. BBDad is ecstatic.

I called Momma Speck (who is no relation to these babies whatsoever) to tell her the good news. She's a big ol' baby lover and doesn't care who they belong to. They are her chirren now and she was squealing with excitement. She couldn't hang up the phone fast enough to go out and buy materials to start sewing baby quilts and receiving blankets.

Hubby snorted Pepsi out his nose when I told him the good news. Wiseacre that he is he said, "Well, now we're gonna have to call them Butterbean, Sweet Pea and Collard Greens."

Life is never going to be the same.

And that's a miracle.

Another Family Wedding

We had another family wedding yesterday. My cousin's daughter (that would actually be my first-cousin-once-removed) married her long-time boyfriend. It was a quiet, intimate affair with immediate family, close friends, and a few odd, distant cousins (me, my sisters) in the audience. The ceremony was lovely and touching with the requisite sniffles of sentiment.

I was giggling inappropriately through the ceremony of course. I giggle at weddings and cackle out loud at funerals. That's just what I do, I can't help it. A sister is usually poking me in the ribs trying to get me to behave. Funerals are my all-time favorite rituals of society with weddings running second. Where stress and solemnity mix, hilarity ensues.

In this case the little ringbearer was charming the socks off of me AND my sister this time. He was so cute! He was up there in his little tux twirling the pillow around on his finger, yawning, scratching, fidgeting, and rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. He was definitely a scene stealer and the highlight of the day.

Overall the entire event seemed to go off without a hitch. The ceremony went smoothly, the food was delicious, the guests well-behaved. However, the bride's immediate family was stressed out to the nth degree. I didn't really understand why, but hey, it was a wedding and what bride's family isn't stressed out at a wedding?

Because they all looked like deer in the headlights they weren't relaxed enough to sit and visit for a spell. My cousin John commented that we really don't see each other any more except at weddings and funerals. Yes, so true. We really need to have a family reunion other than at a major life-changing event.

That got me and another cousin conspiring. She agreed to have a gathering at her house sometime this spring or summer. Details will have to be worked out after the holidays. Plans will be made, notices mailed, tables gathered, menus hashed. It will be a major ordeal but well worth it.

On the long drive home I mulled over the prospect of a family reunion. I started getting all sniffley-eyed just thinking about it. There are 14 cousins in my generation. Almost all are married. There are about 23 young uns from those couples and a few grandchildren to boot. If everybody came there would be 56 people, and most of them will attend. That's just awesome if you think about it. Fifty-six people who think enough of each other to willingly show up, bring food, and spend six hours together. Just awesome.

How lucky I am to be a part of such a family. We have our quirks to be sure. Eccentricity is genetic after all. But we know our quirks and hold them near and dear to our hearts. It makes us uniquely who we are. We are family.

Awesome.

Thanksgiving Recap

All in all this was a splendid Thanksgiving holiday. I put on my chefs hat and spent most of Wednesday afternoon engaged in holiday food prep. My contributions to other people's waistlines were the traditional green bean casserole with fake french fried onion rings; squash casserole (recipe courtesy of sister Nana); a carrot souffle (recipe courtesy of sister Pris); and a pretzel and white chocolate nibbling concoction called White Trash. All were big hits and I didn't get to bring home nary a bit of leftovers, dangit. I would have coveted another helping of the carrot souffle. It was excellent!

On Thursday morning I sent all my goodies with Hubby to his family's farm in one direction and I headed off across the state in the other direction. I volunteered to serve at a Community Thanksgiving dinner in my hometown. It's a cool concept conceived by one of my old friends JA. He feeds everybody in town regardless if you're rich or poor...just come on in and eat. When a bunch of Southern cooks get together and cook a mess of food, they want a mess of people to come and eat it. So, if you didn't want to cook, all you had to do was gather up a crowd and come sit at JA's table. All were welcome. It was quite an event and was like Old Home Week. I saw a bunch of folks I hadn't seen in years. I ate well and visited until I was hoarse.

At 2:30 I was back in the car driving across the state again. Arrived at the farm in time for the between dinner and supper leftover helping. Ate my own goodies at this sitting and Boy-O-Boy were they good. I think assembling them the night before made them better than if I had cooked them that morning. The flavors had melded together to make for some incredible soul food. I was tickled pink with the results because I had never made the squash casserole or the carrot souffle before. I'm still a bit unsure of my cooking abilities especially when I'm responsible for the entirety of the vegetative matter at a major holiday. It all worked out and everyone ate it without wrinkling their nose, so I'm happy.

Four of the Brothers Speck worked in the yard all day bushhogging, raking, and trimming, trying to hold back the wilderness from taking over the house. In the evening we lit a roaring "bondfire" as Momma Speck calls it. There in the darkness all the Speckticles gathered 'round, reconnected with each other, and solved all the problems of the world. It was a glorious time and made for very happy memories. Clan Speck is a crazy lot of folks, all very opinionated, but all very loving. I am blessed indeed to be a part of this nutsy family.

For that I am very, very thankful.

The Tennessee Waltz

Today would have been my parents' 60th wedding anniversary. In honor of the occasion here is a little piece I wrote many years ago.

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I was dancing with my darlin' to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
Introduced him to my loved one and while they were dancing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.

I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes I lost my little darlin' the night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz.

Ahhh....The Tennessee Waltz. A beautiful song. One of my favorites. Hearing it evokes memories of stories Mom used to tell of an open-air dance pavilion on Lake Hamilton called Fountain Lake. Dances were held there every Friday night way back when. In my mind's eye I can see the gay couples dancing under the Chinese lanterns on a warm summer evening as the cool breezes blow in off the lake. The live band, resplendent in their white jackets, plays Tommy Dorsey tunes.

There is an old black and white photograph of Mom and Dad taken there at Fountain Lake. They are frozen in time, embraced in mid dance step. Both are in their early 20s. Mom is beautiful, the belle of the ball. Her eyes are squinched up with merry laughter. She's wearing a beautiful silk dress with a full skirt made from some material Daddy sent home from Japan. Dad, home on leave from the Korean War, is looking dapper in his Navy crackerjack. He is sporting a cheesy pencil thin moustache and his thick black hair is slicked down with a quart of Brill Creme. He has a rascally grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. They both look so young. I'll bet Daddy doesn't weigh 115 pounds in the picture.

For this moment in time they are carefree. All the worries of the war seem far away. They don't know about the coming trials and tribulations of the world and their life together. All that matters is each other and the next dance tune. What a wonderful time.

Fifty seven years and three kids later, Mom and Dad are still together, survivors of several wars of the world and of the heart. The hair is a little thinner, a little grayer. There are a few more wrinkles around the eyes. The silk and the crackerjack have been replaced by a daily uniform of comfy sweatsuits. Fountain Lake has long since disappeared. It's been years since a band in white jackets played the Tennessee Waltz. But Mom's eyes still squinch up with laughter, and Daddy never lost the rascally grin. Who knows, maybe some night on an oldies station they play the Tennessee Waltz and the young-at-heart old sailor twirls the belle of the ball around the living room floor. I certainly hope so.

Ode to Boiled Okra

Well, it wasn't really my great-grandma, but you coulda fooled me.

Hubby and I lunched at a little downtown hole-in-the wall place today. It was the restaurant space for what used to be the nicest motel in town. It is run down now and you really don't want to be in the parking lot after dark. They have a blue-plate special weekdays at noon. The folks who work downtown talk about eating there all the time, but Hubby and I had never tried it.

I knew it was going to be home-cookin', so I expected good food. I got the meatloaf to begin with (a small portion), but should have held out for the veggie plate. They had purple hull peas, turnip greens, lima beans, and BOILED OKRA! Never, ever have I seen boiled okra on a buffet line or on a menu. WOO HOO! Gimme a double, heapin' helpin' of THAT! Whole slimy pods of beautiful boiled okra and okra only. No stewed tomatos adulterating the taste. Oh, and hot water cornbread too!

I was in seventh heaven. My eyes glazed over as I shoveled in my veggie delights like a starving man in lock-up. Hubby commented I didn't have a lot to say during the meal. I dared not even take a breath for fear this sumptuous meal may disappear like a dream. I told him my great-grandmother had cooked me lunch and I was too busy to talk.

I am once again a small child sitting at my great-grandmother's table. The table is covered in a red checkered plastic tablecloth. Homemade peppersauce lives on the corner of the table by the window. Veggies picked fresh from the garden have been simmering all morning, making my mouth water with each passing moment. Grandma and I sit down for our lunch. She, the staid 85-year-old, scary looking with just one eye, chews silently with her front teeth...all that she has left. I, the quiet little 8-year-old, eat country cookin' that I can't get anywhere else. The fact that I helped pick it this morning makes it all the more tasty. We eat in silence because when you have good food in front of you, eating is what you should be doing. We can talk later.

But I digress. The point is that I found somebody in this town who knows how to cook like God intended...with a generous helping of bacon grease added to everything.

WOO HOO! BOILED OKRA! Turnip greens and purple hull peas in bacon grease! I may die of a coronary, but by golly I will die happy.

We will be eating here as often as possible.

You're Doing It Wrong

Sometimes I watch Hubby struggle with a project. He's struggling because he didn't make good plans for the project before he started. That makes me cringe because he usually ends up doing it the most difficult way possible and ending up with less than stellar results. I try not to be the Control Freak and add my two cents, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I offer, "Try doing it this way honey," and show him an easier solution.

He doesn't interpret this as help, he interprets this as condemnation of his male abilities and hears, "You're doing it wrong." He "hears" this from every woman in his life...his mother, sisters, sisters-in-law, and female coworkers. He thinks it is a female conspiracy.

Now when I find him piddling on some project, I ask, "Whatcha doin'?" Whatever he says, I immediately follow it with, "You're doing it wrong." He expects me to say that, so I go ahead and get it out of the way right up front.

At a funeral recently, the funeral director had locked his keys in his truck. Hubby had a Slim Jim and offered to try to get the truck open. He tried for a while, gave up, and let me take a crack at it. I opted for the coat-hanger-on-the-handle route since I don't know how to run a Slim Jim. I was marginally successful, but still didn't get the door open. Behind me I could hear Hubby telling the funeral director the story of women and "You're doing it wrong."

Hubby tried again with the Slim Jim, but was getting nowhere fast. Then our 9-year-old niece Jen wandered up. She watched Hubby for a while, then finally couldn't stand it any longer. She said, "Gimme that. You're doing it wrong."

Hubby shot the funeral director a knowing look and the funeral director burst out laughing. Hubby looked at me to see if I had been coaching her. I shrugged and said, "It's a Girl Thing."

Sisters

I realized today just how special my sisters are to me. Whenever anything interesting happens in my life, I reach for the phone and call them. Good, bad, or ugly, they are the first to know about it.

When we arrived home from our big furniture purchase, I was racing for the front door. Hubby commented, "You can't wait to call your sisters, can you?"

Well of course! The fact that I bought something new was big news. I had to share and not a moment to waste. I had the phone in my hand before I set my purse down.

Almost two hours later the first call ended. We had arranged, redecorated, and planned shopping trips. Joys and frustrations were shared. Major ramblings occurred. Every detail was thoroughly discussed ad nausem. That's what my sisters do. They share my life. I love them for it.

Father's Day 2007

This is my Daddy and me. No matter how old I get I will always be Daddy's Little Girl.

I love you Daddy and miss you. My corner of this little blue planet just isn't the same without you.

Love,
Your Baby Girl
Then, Now and Always

I Need to Know About These Things

At the family reunion this weekend, I somehow ended up being responsible for driving my nine-year-old niece from our campsite out in the woods to dinner in town. A few delays along the way made the trip about 20 minutes or so.

I was panicking about being alone with her for that long. She's a sweet little kid, but I'm terrified of children, which translates to anyone under the age of 25. I just don't know what to do, what to say, or how to act. I only have experience interacting with adults.

I'm mostly terrified of saying something terribly inappropriate or not protecting them from danger. Kids are a big responsibility and I don't think I'm old enough for that yet. With gray hair and bifocals, I *look* like I'm a responsible adult, but the truth is I'm not.

As we left the campsite, we passed a rather large country cemetery. Jen commented that it was amazing that so many people had died in one spot. Wouldn't they run out of room to bury them all?

Woo Hoo! Cemeteries, my favorite subject! I launched into a detailed explanation about cemeteries: public, private, and environmentally friendly ones; and the cost of funerals, caskets, and burial plots vs. cremation. That led to a discussion about how someone is cremated, embalming, ashes, urns, mausoleums, columbariums (a word I couldn't come up with at the time), and how a body gets nasty pretty quickly after death and has to be dealt with.

When she asked about cremation, my definition was, "They put you in a big oven and cook you up into about three pounds of ash, kinda like a pile of charcoal briquettes." Aw, Crap! I knew I had screwed up the minute it came out of my mouth. That's a terrible image to give to a kid her age. Comments like that are the reason I shouldn't be left alone with small children.

I said to her, "Ya know, since I don't have kids, I don't know if I should be telling you this stuff. Is it creeping you out to hear about dead people?"

She pondered for a second, then replied, "No, death is a part of life and I need to know about these things."

Whoa! I was blown away by such a mature response. I'm not sure this kid is just nine years old.

Then she asked, "What happens to your money when you die?"

Yep, she's a 45-year-old lawyer disguised as a short kid.

Well, she asked for it so I gave it to her; an overview of wills, estates, trusts, executors, probate, the whole nine yards. I explained most people leave their money to their children. If they don't have kids, they can leave it to the church, a charitable organization, or a sibling. She nodded occasionally and seemed to be absorbing it all.

When I finished her only comment was, "It's unusual that someone else does all the talking."

I think that was a very polite way of saying, "You're an old windbag."

Sigh.

A Portrait of My Grandfather

This is a portrait of my grandfather, a man I never knew. It is a beautiful portrait, stark in composition with exquisite lighting, capturing the intimate details of an ordinary man.

It is haunting, timeless, and speaks volumes.

It should be hanging in an artsy New York photography gallery.

Memories of Mardi Gras beads

I have a coffee mug filled with a few strings of Mardi Gras beads. I actually got them from a bar on Beale Street in Memphis where I sang Mustang Sally with the band, but that's not why I keep them. They bring back memories of another set of beads from my childhood.

The Mardi Gras beads of my memory are hanging on a coat hanger (known as a rack at our house) on the coat closet door. Daddy brought them to us girls from the actual Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He went every year by himself courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

Daddy was a Chief Petty Officer in the Naval Reserves for a hunnert years after serving two active duties in WWII and the Korean War. He looked very handsome in his uniform with all the braids and stripes and medals and stuff. Since he had seniority over just about every CPO in the nation, he got first dibs on where he would serve his annual two-week training duty. He picked the New Orleans naval base during Mardi Gras every year.

I remember the strands of beads hanging there on the rack on the closet door. I was not allowed to touch them because my obsessive-compulsive older sister had just finished sorting them by color, style and length. They hung there like a sacred cow for a long time, several weeks maybe. I suppose I eventually did get to touch them, play with them, break them, and lose them. Now I remember why I wasn't allowed to touch them.

Anyway, my current beads remind me of those beads, of how Daddy made a point to collect them and bring them back to us, and how special that made me feel. They remind me of how handsome Daddy looked in his uniform and how proud I was to be his daughter when he was wearing it. They remind me that my quiet, unassuming father probably had a wild streak he let loose for two weeks every year.

I'm keeping these beads forever.

Memories of the Dyer Street House

Uncle E.B. and Aunt Paralea - Circa 1947

Some of my earliest memories are when I was two or three years old and was at my Aunt Paralea's house, or The Dyer Street House. She kept me during the day from the time I was two-ish until I was four. Through the years my aunt, grandmother, and great-grandmother's half-brother lived in the Dyer Street house there so there is no telling how long it has been in the family. I remember it had a strawberry patch and a fish pond in the back yard.

The living room had a linoleum "rug" which was blue with a floral pattern. By the time I came along, most of the pattern had been worn off. There was a low bookshelf in one corner with a square compartment door on the lower right-hand side. The door had a round beveled mirror on the front. I would crawl over to it and try to get it open. I never could. I would say "Open Open" until somebody opened it for me. I remember doing this over and over. Funny thing was there was nothing in there. I guess my two-year-old brain didn't retain that information.

Aunt Paralea and Uncle E.B. had two dogs. One was an ancient old blind hound dog that had to take pills. Aunt Paralea would scramble an egg every morning to feed the dog his pill. I don't remember his name but I wasn't allowed to go near him for fear he would bite me. The other dog was a yappy little chihuahua named Danikin. I didn't like Danikin. He was spastic just like every chihuahua I've ever met.

Uncle E.B. and Aunt Paralea didn't have children, so they spoiled me rotten. Aunt Paralea would buy all kinds of cute clothes and dress me up like a doll. She had professional portraits taken of me fairly often too. They fed me Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies. I would eat the icing and the filling but didn't want the cake part. Uncle E.B. would eat the cake part for me so I didn't have to.

The last memory I have of the Dyer Street house is the day Aunt Paralea died. I was about four or so. We had visited the neighbor lady that morning and the she had given me some bird's eggs from a nest she had accidentally knocked out of the hedgerow. I took the eggs and nestled them in some toilet paper in a cigar box. I put my Barbie doll on them so they would hatch. I was contemplating why they weren't hatching when the doctor came to see about Aunt Paralea. I wasn't allowed to go in the bedroom where Aunt Paralea was so I didn't really know what was going on. Aunt Paralea died that afternoon of a heart attack. She was only 46.

Uncle E.B. remarried a widow lady who had kids and grandkids, so he got a whole new batch of kids to spoil. He was the only grandfather they ever had and they adored him. He moved away from the Dyer Street house so it sat vacant for some thirty-five years or so. I saw him only once more before he died, and he had been widowed once again. He moved back to the Dyer Street house for a year or two before he went to the nursing home. After he died they sold the house for something like $9,000. I shudder to think what condition it was in after all those years.

I always thought Uncle E.B. was just a little hick plumber from a little hick town who probably barely managed to finish the 8th grade. When I read his obituary I was stunned to learn he was an officer in the U.S. Navy, had graduated from U.S. Naval Academy, and later returned to Annapolis as an instructor. How he came to be living in the ratty old Dyer Street house may forever be a mystery. He must have loved my Aunt Paralea very much. After years and years of being married to someone else, his last wish was that he be buried next to Aunt Paralea. They are together once again in our family cemetery.

Easter at the Farm

Hubby and I spent a very cold Easter at his family's farm. We had sixteen folks in all around the dinner table and half the clan wasn't there. Hubby's large family has rather chaotic family reunions which is wonderful yet stressful to this introvert. Sometimes I have to go outside and stare at the trees to recharge my batteries.

Momma-in-law had cooked enough food to feed a hundred people: Lamb, roast beef, and ham; potatoes, okra, pinto beans, cabbage; artichokes, deviled eggs, rolls and a tossed salad. Phew! There was tons of food! I ate until I hurt. Her ham is wonderful and I have been waiting in eager anticipation for a couple of months to git me some of that! I was surprised to find boiled okra. That's a new dish on the table for this very northern lady. I don't think she knew what okra was until she moved to Lower Arkansas.

The nieces are growing up into young ladies. One was sporting a brand-new set of braces with her smile. I was a little surprised at that because I thought she had nice teeth to begin with. Her little sister, age eight, had a long, silky headband made of a cool looking retro fabric. The ends of the headband hung nearly to her waist. She also had on a pair of stylish capri pants. I thought she was going to be the tomboy of the two sisters, but she may turn out to be the prissy sissy after all. She has more style now at eight than I've ever had in my whole life. Phooey!

The Prodigal Son nephew arrived unexpectedly from Upper Arkansas with his new wife. He called the farm en route to talk to his momma and wish her a Happy Easter. She was nearly in tears because she thought he wasn't ever coming back for a visit. He didn't tell her he was only ten miles down the road. Many tears of joy when he pulled up in the driveway. He was looking pretty well-fed even though his new wife is a vegetarian. I'm betting he hasn't been sticking to the "greens only" diet. A Big Mac or two has crossed his lips in the last few months.

It was a wonderful, relaxing day...meaning I didn't have to pick up a hammer, paintbrush, or yard rake. I sat at the dinner table watching and listening to everyone talk at once about everything and nothing. Everybody talks; no one in particular listens. It is chaos, it is comical, it is wonderful. Lots of love lives around this table. I am truly blessed to be a small part of this madness.