Just A Bowl Of Butter Beans: Little Jimmy Dickens
Posted February 18, 2023 by katryCategories: Video
“I’d rather have a hot dog than caviar.”
Posted February 18, 2023 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: beans, brown bread, bugs, Creature Double Feature, hot dogs, market, Peace Corps Ghana, sloth
Winter is back. Last night it rained, but sometime during the night we got a bit of snow, and I mean only a bit, not even a dusting. The morning is cold, 30°, but it is a pretty morning. White clouds dot the blue sky, an every now and then breeze blows gently and we have sun, bright sun.
My dance card is still empty. I have been a sloth of late, but I make no apologies. Today, though, I have one chore. My kitchen floor is a mess. The tile has paw prints leading from the door to the hall, evidence of yesterday’s rain, and bits of pine bark litter the floor. Nala’s new obsession is chewing pine branches. Instead of bringing stuff out, Nala brings them in. I guess it is an improvement.
When I was a kid, Saturday was Creature Double Feature Day. I got to watch two wonderfully bad B-science fiction movies in black and white. They became my favorites. I liked the worst the best. I still do. My movie library is filled with films like The Brain Eaters, Attack of the Crab Monsters and the best of them all, The Thing with Two Heads. That one is not to be missed.
Last night I had hot dogs for dinner, a day early. I didn’t have beans. I never have beans. I also didn’t have brown bread but only because I never thought to buy it. I always loved the fried brown bread slathered with butter, but then again, I love anything slathered with butter. I do have a couple of hot dogs left for tonight and two top loading buns. I just wish I had cole slaw.
Where I lived in Ghana, I could buy beef in the market. The butchers would cut me a fillet and wrap it in banana leaves. The butchers were clad in filthy aprons. I don’t think the cutting surfaces were ever cleaned, but I didn’t care. I had stopped being finicky sometime during training. If my food had bugs, I’d pick the bugs out. If I missed a bug, no big deal. It was added protein.
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.”
Posted February 17, 2023 by katryCategories: Musings
Today is an ugly day, a warm ugly day at 52°. It rained earlier and will rain later. The sky is light grey. A breeze stirs only every and then. It flutters the curled brown leaves at the ends of the scrub oak branches. I have no reason to leave the house today. That is just fine with me.
Yesterday I cleaned the backyard. I took my prisoner stick and a plastic trash bag, watched where I stepped and got all the trash. Nala’s trash. This morning I noticed I missed something white in the back. That will bother me, and I’ll have to pick it up today.
Today’s post is a bit different.
I get to the kitchen for no reason I can remember. I had a reason, that much I remember, but by the time I walk down the hall to the kitchen, distractions like cleaning dust balls or wiping down the kitchen counter take my attention so the original reason usually flies out of my head. Later, I remember why I was in the kitchen, but mostly it doesn’t matter anymore. Words escape me which I find especially frustrating. Thankfully, they do pop back into my head. I just have to be a bit patient, not a strong suit of mine. Every day I am a day older, and parts of me don’t function as well they have the whole of my life or even the day before.
My body is old. I swear my bones creak when I walk. I can’t lift anything too heavy, and too heavy is not heavy anymore. When I was a kid, I used to wonder what it felt like to be old. I know now, but what I’ve come to realize is while my body ages, my way of seeing the world doesn’t.
I have lived my life inherently hopeful. Sometimes the hope faded a bit, but it never went away. I have always believed in people. I loved my kids when I worked in the high school, all of my kids, even the ones who occasionally bedeviled me. I was thrilled for their triumphs. I remember a teacher asking me why I was spending so much attention on one kid not worth my attention. I had to restrain myself from saying what popped into my head, a litany of four letter words; instead, I told him this was a good kid still finding his way. He just shook his head and left. Well, I was patient, and that kid found his way just as I knew he would. I, gleefully, told that teacher my kid had done well, passed all his classes and was graduating. I never really got a reply. I have always wondered if that teacher learned anything from that kid. I sure as heck did.
