Ewww Bugs

For those of you lucky enough to live where the ghastly Ciccada are not in the habit of scaring the bejeezus out of you, let me fill you in on just how scary it is to come face to face with the creature from the great beyond. Once upon a time there was a demon spawn bug that grew to insane proportions, say 2-5" in length, with long scratchy legs and fucking WINGS that enable it (once it came above ground) to fly about making screeching noises with said legs and making Pammy SCREAM HER FUCKING HEAD OFF.

Phew. They are pretty much like crickets on steroids except that they live underground and then come up once every 7 years to molt and leave their cocoon all over the fucking place, and make these horrendous noises, so they can die. Yes, boys and girls, it is their dying wish to watch grown women scream and have fits, laughing maniacally while they breathe their last breath.

So there I am, minding my own business, weeding in my flower garden in front of my house. Yes.. the part of the house that faces all of the uptight southern belle's in the neighborhood, who wouldn't say shit if they had a mouthful. I am really trying to be graceful, and not stick my ass up in the air for all to see, because I realize that they are still traumatized that I would be so brazen as to ride my very own riding lawnmower.. and *gasp* mow my own lawn. They fell over their finely coiffed selves to come over and ever so daintily give me the numbers to their "lawn boys". I'm sorry Scarlett, but I'm Canadian and didn't participate in slavery, nor is it beneath my painted toenails to mow my own damned lawn. But I digress... (sipping on a mint julep).

There I am.. weeding my flower garden, when I realize that I'm sweating a tad and need a drink. So I look up to the railing where I perched my ice water, and there.. licking its arse on the rim of my glass is King fucking KONG of ciccadas. This is the part where I once again shamed my husbands name by screaming like a child being beat with its own ripped off arm. I trampled through my poor lilly patch, over the petunias and right on past the monkey grass in an effort to escape. I hear M yelling my name asking if I'm ok, because all he can see are my gardening tools that I toppled and left and my legs running faster than he's ever seen. Did my little guest decide to stay put.. oh no... unknown to me, my initial screech scared him off of his perch, where he fluttered a bit and landed on the brim of my hat. So I'm running to get away... and reach the bottom of my lonnnnnnnnng driveway figuring an acre should be enough distance between us. Panting, heaving, whimpering in fright, bent at the waist trying to catch my breath. I finally get upright and look up towards the house, seeing M hopping down the driveway trying to get his other shoe on and attend to me... when my alien stalker grips its ugly legs around the brim of my hat and peeks itself down over to look me in the eye. GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OOOOOOFFFFFFFFF!

Okay. So once again my endorphins kick in and now I am not only the crazy lady riding the mower, but I am the crazy lady standing down at her mailbox beating herself around her head region. Screaming... GET THIS FUCKING THING OFF OF ME! At that point I am sure the minister's wife a few homes over is planning my exorcism, and calling a prayer chain for my deliverance. M gets within about 10 feet and sees my dilemma, at which point he just falls onto the lawn in hysterics, laughing at me. I swat it onto the ground, and look frantically at M... "KILL IT, KILL IT NOW". He snorts so delicately when he finds things about me that make him realize I am not Superwoman. Now I am hyperventilating. It decides that my foot, yes... my bare flip flopped foot needs to be sat on, which makes M laugh all the louder. Just before the darkness of fainting descends over me, I squeaked "I hate you.. I fucking hate you."

I think M now understands, that some things just aren't that funny anymore, and I am going to polish the big "S" on my chest. I have 7 more years to overcome this creature... and to stock up on Raid.

Ho Hauler

I was pulling into my parking area at work this morning, and I see this shady dude sitting on one of the concrete pylons smoking his morning cig, just having woken up. We see this guy fairly often, mostly when he goes off of his meds and goes on a walkabout for a week or two, spending all of his time roaming the streets looking for adventure. We know this, because his wife eventually catches up to him, gets him detoxed, and back home on his meds. She usually comes to our office building to make sure that the kids down in the daycare weren't scared. He never goes near the daycare... he just uses the covered parking to stay warm at night. Seeing him this morning reminded me that its been quite a while since I last saw him, probably close to 5 months. And that episode went like this:

I worked serious overtime that day.. it was dark... and I was spooked about going out to my car alone. There I am.. umbrella ready to beat the hell out of anything that scares me. I'm hot-footing it to my car, when I hear something. I stop dead... trying frantically to see in the dim light whats going on... my car only 4 stalls ahead. No one else around.

I hear a rustling sound, and say a prayer to my Maker, hoping if today is my death day.. that I had on new panties to greet the day would win me points. Cause momma always said.. always put on new panties.. you never know when you are gonna be in an accident and someone might see. *sigh* (she's another story) hehe.

I get a little closer... tiptoeing as best I could, when I smell cigarette smoke, and then hear a man growl. I take 4 more steps to my car thinking I could sneak in and get the hell out of there. I sneak to the left thinking I'd go around from the rear of my car and just as I turn towards the front of it, there in front of me... sitting on the far concrete pylon, is shady dude. Buck assed nekkid, with a hooker kneeling on the dirty ground, and he barks out (in between pulls on his cigarette..... "suck it bitch, it ain't gonna suck itself". Words to live by.

I busted out laffing... couldn't help it. God could have struck me dead but I couldn't stop it from escaping. The fear/funny factor of it just seemed hysterical to me. He just cackles and nodded at me.. holding her head down, "ya'll have a good one" he says.

I get into my car... somehow. Tears rolling from laughing. I start my car and the lights come on, of course putting the pair in spotlights. She's trying like hell to finish her business, and he's just sitting there, leaning against the wall, smoking. Somehow I made it out of there in one piece... but had to pull over just down the way to get the mascara to stop running.

I really do see some if the damnedest things here down in Buttcrack, TN.

Music For The Soul

I've been feeling very guilty lately, mostly because I have kind of put aside some things in my life that bring me great satisfaction. I know that it has been for good reason, and that dealing with family issues is much more important to me, I guess I just didn't realize that I would be putting them aside for quite this long.

Music has always been my very own time of healing. Whether it has been to just soothe me by listening to something calming, or whether its my favorite part - creating my own. I started playing guitar when I was a very little girl, mostly because I wanted my father's acceptance so badly, and because watching him play was like magic to me. He has never taken a lesson in his life and cannot read sheet music, but there isn't anything with strings that he cannot play... and play well. I think I was 4 when he taught me my first chord... a simple A chord. And when I got it mastered I was hooked. I could actually make it sound nice!! My mother and father divorced when I was only 10, but he had spent a lot of time away with work prior to that, so most of my learning was done privately, with books and bugging other adults I knew to teach me a chord. When I was in 5th grade, my mom let me join band in school.... where I discovered that I had a natural knack for picking up several instruments. I learned some flute.. but it was too foo foo for me, so I switched to clarinet and then bass clarinet (which I LOVED)... and then finally one day our band teacher convinced me to try the Tenor Sax because he needed one in the finale we were trying to learn. YAY... I loved that even more.

Going to church all my young life, I was always around singing and pianos and that all just came naturally to me. My father sings like an angel, and would always have parties at the house where his brothers and friends would come for the weekend, all with instruments, and we would have our very own jamboree's of sorts. After my father left, music was my own way of trying to deal with all the feelings I had inside, and it just became something I did daily... played... wrote, sang, whatever. During my most painful times in life, I truly believe that sitting down in the dark with my guitar, saved my sanity and renewed my heart. Needless to say, I've been a slacker since moving to the US. I have been so wrapped up in several hiccups that have happened, that I have forgotten to nurture something that means so much to me. Yesterday, I locked myself in my office at home, warmed up my voice a little, and tried to croak out a few things to get myself in the groove. Its amazing how much your vocal chords remember, but just as amazing as to how much they suffer and lose without workouts.

Today, my fingers hurt from the strings, and my voice is a little raw, but my heart feels very full. It was a very good day.

The mind is like a parachute...

Some days .. there are just too many people on my planet. Yanno? There I was doing my usual morning commute to work, listening to Norah Jones, driving like my usual Canadian, good driver trying to live in Southern USA self, when Bubba Doo-Rag decides he likes my lane better. Not just my lane, but my exact GPS position. It didn't matter that he was only driving a POS Datsun B210 that looked like a good wind storm would put it out of it's misery, and that I was driving a brand spankin new truck. Ohh noo. He must have thought those spinners were wings, and would save him from all peril. Perhaps it was that his cock-eyed hat, looking jaunty with the brim in the 4 o'clock position, and just a tad tight that restricted the oxygen necessary to have reason, but I will call my father when I get home and kindly thank him for teaching me to drive in a blizzard, in the snow and ice and allowed me today to save my own bacon.

After a brief interlude of catching my breath, and then merging back into morning traffic, I continue on my merry way, once again trying to get Norah to soothe my frazzled nerves. Every morning I do this hour long commute, and I have had to have many little conversations with myself about not letting the overwhelmingly ignorant driver-safety conscious people here make me a nervous wreck. I am always polite, and I always use those nifty little things called SIGNAL LIGHTS, and never fail to let someone merge or have the right of way. So here I am, watching Evel Knievel ahead of me, swerving dangerously close and/or cutting off people, and coming very close several times to running other drivers right off the road. I called my town police station on my cell phone, and informed chickadee of the car, tag number, and the erratic behavior. "Yes ma'am, we'll look into it." I said a quick prayer of thanks that at least he was ahead of me where I could keep an eye on him. Everyone else must have thought the same thing because they all pulled over and slowed to let him pass. Junior Mint was now in the lead, most likely dreaming he was racing in the Nascar Championships. This went on for another 30 minutes or so, with us all trailing behind thankful to be in one piece and not a policeman in sight.

I glanced over at M, who was gripping the "holy shit" handle and he said, "that boy's an accident looking for a place to happen." Little did he know how prophetic he would be.

I just repeated a saying that has been a mantra of mine for a little while... I can't remember where or when I heard it, but it was something that rang true. "The mind is like a parachute, it works best when open." To me this is something that can be appopriate for many things, but mostly about just using plain old common sense.

Anyhoo.. I digress. About 5 miles before I have to take my exit to my office, there is this little "burb" that we have to go through that straddles the highway. Like all other little highway towns it is littered with gas stations and fast-food joints. I see the Datsun ahead on my left about 5 car lengths. Four lanes of traffic, 2 each way, all on a mission. On the northbound side it is mostly occupied by long-haul truckers getting their rigs on the road for the day. Its 6:40am, and the sun is shining. Datsun boy decided at the last minute he was going to make a left turn, without signaling, and across two lanes of oncoming traffic, RIGHT in front of a dual-axle (2 beds long) semi. I flinched as the world seemed to just stop. Slow motion, matrix kind of thing. I heard a voice screaming "nooooooo", and I realized it was me. Needless to say that the car lost its game of chicken with the semi, and when it all came to a stop, there were two more cars involved, with several fenders bumped behind the semi. Our side came to a complete stop, because we had known he was trouble. The young driver didn't make it. Whatever was so important to have to have, and to have this whole entitlement attitude cost him his life.

I miss home, and most of all I miss the times when respect, common sense, gratitude, and self control weren't unknown qualities in youth. I am only 36, but there are days when I feel worlds apart from the younger generations.