Southern Exposure

A visiting pastor from Ohio told this story to our congregation of East Tennessee Presbyterians. The pastor, who found Southern ways strange and accents almost incomprehensible, had found himself transplanted to Tennessee, and he often used examples of his confusion over all things Southern as illustrations in his sermons. He sometimes referred to the place where he’d found himself as the “Deep South.” 

Finally, after one of many such references had been made from the pulpit, an old man from Mississippi who had been transplanted to East Tennessee himself to live with his daughter and her family (and apparently was none too happy about it), went to the pastor after the day’s service. 

The Mississippian said to the pastor, “Suh, you often refer to Tennessee as the Deep South. Tennessee is not the Deep South. Tennessee is not the South.  Tennessee is not even the beginning of the South. Suh, Tennessee is the bottom of the Nawth!”

To read more on this story, go here: http://longinvolvedstories.blogspot.com/2013/02/where-is-south-anyway.html

I Want That Thing That Is Not Really That Thing

I pulled up to the Starbucks drive-through window and ordered a salted caramel hot chocolate.

Long silence.

Then I realized that that might have just been a holiday flavor, so I asked if that was the case.

SB Barista: No. We still have it. Just without the salt.

KB: You have the salted caramel without the salt?

SB: Yes. Well, no. We have the drink. But it was a holiday flavor [Ah!]. But we’re out of the salt crystals that go on top.

KB: Ooooookkkkay.

SB: The caramel hot chocolate is the same drink, just without the salt.

KB: Okay. I’ll have that then.

SB: It’s the same drink once you get past the caramel topping and the whipped cream.

KB: Got it. I’ll have that.

***

This reminds me of one of my and my sister’s favorite stories about our dad. Dad had a wit that was as dry as the Sahara, and was delivered with such flat affect that almost no one could tell for sure when he was joking and when he was serious. (This combination of humor and poker face continued to the end of his life, in spite of his dementia, which threw off many a nurse involved in his care. They would mistake his humor for confusion.)

Oh, before I embark on the story of Daddy Mac’s hammer, I have to give the back story that my maternal grandfather–dad’s father-in-law–known to all as “Daddy Mac” was a revered and larger-than-life character in our family. His sons-in-law loved him as dearly as his three daughters did, and though Daddy Mac had died before most of us grandkids were born, our childhood was so rife with stories about the man–his boyhood, his humor, and his adages (which were many) that we felt as if we’d known him. He was a venerable person in our eyes.

Now, cut to many years later. My sister and I, in our midteens, were hanging out in the kitchen, which was a sure sign that there was nothing that had to be done there, as we had a gift for making ourselves scarce when there was work to be done, particularly in the kitchen.

Dad came into the kitchen from the garage (his workshop), which was just off the kitchen. He came through, armed with the basic tools needed to do some sort of simple DIY project somewhere in the house. We spoke to him, and, for some reason, he held up his hammer, and he said, “Have I ever told you that this was Daddy Mac’s hammer?”

We were properly impressed with this bit of information and expressed an appropriate amount of awe and respect. It was certainly believable, as the hammer was really quite ancient-looking, and I couldn’t remember his having had any other hammer in my lifetime. The handle, which had obviously started out as a blonde, was now burnished to a rich auburn by much use and “elbow grease.”

Dad went on to tell us that Daddy Mac had given him (the oldest of the sons-in-law, who had known Daddy Mac the longest) many of his tools before he died, this being one of them. Well, as far as Sis and I were concerned, this made all of dad’s tools family heirlooms, and, again, we expressed our appreciation of this info. Dad then began to walk past us, explaining, almost as if to himself, “Well, of course, I had to replace the handle after it split, and then I replace the head when one of the claws broke off. But it’s Daddy Mac’s hammer all the way.”

By this time, he was out of the kitchen, leaving my sister and me looking at each other quizzically until his words sank in, and we were left, as my dad used to say, “to ponder the advisability of it all.”  

"Is Mary Magdalene in the Office?"

I'm making a lot of phone calls at work right now, to update our senior service directory. It's hard to get hold of the people I need to talk to during the holidays, as so many people are out of the office.

Yesterday, I called a local branch of the YWCA to check their info. The woman who answered the phone said that the person I needed to talk to was out of the office till after New Year's Day. She then said, “You could talk to Mary Magdalene at the main office.”

“Pardon me? Mary Magdalene?”

“Yes. Mary Magdalene,” she repeated with supreme confidence. And she gave me the number for the main office.

I knew that couldn't be the woman's name, so with great trepidation, I called the main YWCA office and asked for Mary Magdalene. The woman who answered reacted with obvious disbelief, as if I were making a crank call. “Mary Magdalene?” I could hear the suspicious sneer in her voice. I couldn't blame her. If I'd gotten a call like this, I would have suspected that the caller was trying to pull one over on me, too. She was probably imagining a young teen holding the phone, surrounded by a group of snickering children, hands clapped over their mouths to hide their laughter. I had to draw myself up and put on my most professional yet sympathetic voice. “Yes. I doubt that's her actual name, but that's who I was told to ask for.” She hardly listened to my attempts to salvage my self-respect.

“I think you mean Mary Gail Mullin.” I'm sure she thought that I was an idiot. That call was probably her laugh of the day, shared many times with her co-workers. I know it was mine.

It's Just What I Do

I tell long, involved stories. Always have. One of my brothers once said of me, when I was a teenager, "Kathy is the only person I know who can tell the plot of a half-hour sitcom in an hour and a half." I remember that remark because it was (and is) so true.

Delivered verbally, my stories are well received by friends and family. They get my gestures, body language, delivery, and comedic timing. Yes, I'll say it, I am quite a funny person. In person. I don't know that that translates well to the blog world because it makes my stories long. And involved. It may just be too much for the "give it to me in 15 seconds" world that we live in now.

But, for those who have the patience and the attention span, I will point you toward my new blog, "Long, Involved Stories." I've had a description and link to it in the right-hand sidebar of this blog for a couple of months now. I didn't want to announce it with a big media event or anything like that, so I figured that the link was enough. But the two people who have actually been reading my blog (and, yes, they're related to me) have chastised me for not making a bigger splash with it. I don't have the time, energy, or expertise to do the stuff that blogspot.com recommends to get one's blog noticed, so I have a pretty low readership for both of my blogs. That's okay with me. But my family said that I should at least point out in *this* blog that the other blog exists so that people who read this blog with interest and enthusiasm (ha!) will know that there's now "more of me to love." Oh, my!

I'm pleased with the stories I've posted on Long, Involved Stories, but I will tell you now that the blog is aptly named. It is not for the attention deficit or faint of heart. If you're interested, by all means, check it out: http://longinvolvedstories.blogspot.com

How to Roast a Small Pumpkin

Don't.

The end.

HaHaHahahahahaHahaHaha... (hysterical, edge-of-sanity laughter continues for quite awhile).

I like roasted veggies and fruits. I've roasted just about everything that can be roasted, to mostly good results (except for the watermelon incident. Who knew?).

So when I saw the little pumpkin pie pumpkins at Trader Joe's, they seemed like a natural for roasting. Sturdy, not real watery, and they can be prepared either savory or sweet. Sounded good. I bought two. Mind you, these were not the little decorative gourds that look like little bitty pumpkins. These were pumpkins for cooking. The big, jack-o-lantern pumpkins can be cooked, too, but they can be a little tough. These little pumpkins, though, are supposed to be excellent for cooking. I've got a checkered past when it comes to cooking, so, just to be sure, I asked the cashier, and she confirmed that these were cooking pumpkins. When I got home, I called my aunt, a veteran in the kitchen, and she agreed that I had a great idea in roasting these little pumpkins.

However, I was still a little nervous about this new endeavor, so I put it off for a week or two. When I went to do the deed, one of the little pumpkins had rotted and completely collapsed. Ewwww. The other was just fine, though. Well, I waited another week, checking the remaining pumpkin daily for firmness, and it was always fine.

So tonight I finally set out to roast this little pumpkin. It was about maybe eight inches in diameter. I may have never roasted a pumpkin before, but I have carved many a Halloween jack-o-lantern, so I got a good knife, and set to work. I sawed, I attempted to stab, I hacked, all to no avail. The shell on this thing was like iron.

I went to the Internet. Can this, in fact, be done? I asked it. Yep. I went to a site that showed the pumpkin cut into rings--horizontally--which hadn't occurred to me before. The recipe said “Prep time: 10 minutes.” I went back and reapplied myself to that pumpkin with a new vigor. But my family has a long, dark tradition of horrible accidents involving kitchen knives, and I became truly fearful that I was going to injure myself. I went back to the Internet. Did it mention anything about a chainsaw? About softening the pumpkin by soaking it in lye for 24 hours first? No. It merely said, “Cut pumpkin into rings of about one inch thickness....” It might just as well have said to cut through a coconut. Using only a sharp rock and your teeth. This pumpkin was impossible. I had managed to penetrate it with two one-inch stab wounds, which gave me the idea that, now that I'd managed to vent the pumpkin, I could try roasting it whole for awhile to soften it. At least, with those two narrow cuts in it, it wouldn't (I hoped) explode in the oven, which I set on 450 and inserted the pumpkin into for a good 45 minutes.

After letting it cool for quite awhile, I carved the stem out so that I could scoop out the steaming insides. This was much easier done this time, so I had great hopes that I had outsmarted this simple gourd.

But no. When I went to trim it into one-inch-thick rings, I once again had to saw and saw—so vigorously that I again could envision one slip of the knife taking me down a notch on the evolutionary scale. Again, I chopped, I hacked, I stabbed and cut and sliced. The inside was soft enough, but the outer shell was like a clam shell. Ten minutes! Ha! After almost 30 minutes, I was finally done, soaked in sweat and covered with pumpkin slime. I sopped up water, stray seeds, and blood. My back was killing me, but I took the time to sprinkle some herbs and spices on my mangled bits of pumpkin, put the whole mess into the oven, and then went to crash on the couch while it roasted.

I once again let it cool after it was well roasted. I just ate some. It has to be eaten like oysters on the half shell, scooped out of its hard little shell “cups” with the teeth. I wish I could say that it is well worth the struggle. It's okay, but it could be improved upon. If I can work up the strength to do it again.

The BDP

So as not to interrupt my own post, I will explain here that the BDP (for BrokedownPalace, a song by the Grateful Dead) was a century-old cabin that my brother lived in from sometime in the mid-1970s until sometime in the mid-80s. To say it was rustic would be putting a nice face on it.

And now, the actual, verbatim, phone conversation between my sister and me yesterday. We’ve been taking turns this week, staying with our teenage niece at our brother’s house while he is out of town.

Sister: When you spend the night at [our brother's] house, you should bring a blanket with you. I think that the one that’s on his bed now is from the BDP. It may be the same one we used when we stayed there when we were in high school [quite some time ago].

Me: Yeah, I remember lying on that mattress on the floor, staring at the hole in the floor where he’d shot the possum. Do you think the blanket has been washed since then?

Sister: Oh, yeah, I’d say it’s been washed since then.

Me: Do you think it’s been washed this year?

Sister: [long pause] Bring your own blanket.

[It was all I could do to contain myself to just this. I actually ended up writing a much longer piece, but I made myself cut it back. A longer version may appear soon in Long, Involved Stories.]

Are you SURE it's not Monday?

Today is Tuesday. The day-after-a-Monday-holiday Tuesday. Which means, for those of us who follow a five-day, Monday through Friday workweek, today was Monday. Well, you know what I mean. You get Monday off, so the following day, your first day of work that week, becomes Monday in your mind. You believe firmly that it is Monday. Sometimes this effect will last all week, making you feel like Friday is really Thursday, which becomes a very pleasant end-of-the-week surprise. 

This morning, I got a call from a person with whom I have a standing 7:30 a.m. appointment. On Tuesdays. It was 7:48, and she wondered where I was. I was, of course, at home. Getting ready for work. Because it was "Monday." It was a bad start.

So, without going into all of the details, I'll try to just hit the highlights (or lowlights) of the rest of my day.

1. Planning to spend the night at my brother's house for the next two nights to stay with my niece while my bro' is out of town. Had packed last night, but I had a few last-minute things to gather up before I was ready to go.
   
   
2. This also meant that I wouldn't be back home until after our first back-to-ESL class since the summer break. Having not yet thought about what I'd teach for that first class, I needed to do so now and pack some materials accordingly.
   
   
3. As I put my things next to the front door as I got them ready to go, I finally began to realize that the carpet was very, very, very wet.
   
   
4. My apartment had "flooded" slightly last week in this same area and in the cats' bathroom. I'd cleaned both up as best I could on Friday, before I had to leave town for the long weekend. It had smelled quite mildewed when I returned last night, but I chalked it up to last week's incident and made a "note to self" to deal with the mildew. But when? It would just be worse when I came home Thursday night.
   
   
5. This is when I discovered that the carpet had obviously gotten wet again sometime over the weekend. 
   
   
6. Began trying to sop water out of the carpet for the second time in four days. Without much luck. Decided to just leave it till Thursday night. Ick.
   
   
7. I was ready to go now. But then remembered that I hadn't set up cats' self-feeder and self-waterer so they'd be taken care of for the next two days.
   
   
8. Went to bathroom. Guess what? It had also flooded again. Spent more time, cleaning up that mess. 
   
   
9. Set up cats' food and water, and was finally ready to leave house. 
   
   
10. On way to work, decided that I was so late that I might as well stop at cell phone office to pick up my phone, back from manufacturer for repair, and return loaner phone. Took much longer than I thought it would because all of my info was not properly transferred back to my phone. 
    
    
11. FINALLY got back on interstate and headed to work. It was now well after 3:00 p.m.!
    
    
12. Getting onto I-40, I thought that the car's alignment was way off. Strange, since I'd just had the tires rotated and balanced last week. 
    
    
13. As I changed lanes, some five or six miles later, I could tell that I definitely had a flat tire. Crossed back over to right shoulder. Tire looked like it had been bitten by a gator. 
    
    
14. Went to call AAA. Had my own phone back. Battery was at 3 percent. Couldn't find car charger because I'd taken it on trip yesterday and didn't know where it ended up afterwards. Found phone AC charger. Took life in hands to get out of car and get my little box of car electronics out of trunk. I had a power inverter that I could plug AC cord into. Had to keep car running to get enough of a charge to be able to call AAA. Took awhile, which is when I noticed that the gas was very low.
    
    
15. Called AAA. 
    
    
16. It was 4:40 p.m. My office closes at 4:45 p.m. 
    
    
17. Got towed to place where I bought tires about a year ago. Michelin no longer makes the tires I bought in the size I need.
    
    
18. I DO have a spare (doughnut type)  and should have had it put on, but didn't, for a variety of reasons.
    
    
19. A bright spot: I was able to arrange a ride with Angie and Harold, who were going to be passing by the tire store soon after I called them. 
    
    
20. Now I'm home but still haven't figured out what I'm going to do about replacement tire tomorrow. Also not sure what I'll do for transportation tomorrow. 
    
    
21. I also still need to work on wet carpet/mildew in living room. 
    
    
22. And it's still Tuesday.