Sisters, Sisters

I journeyed back for a short, sweet visit to my sister in Alabama last week. It was lovely to spend time with my family down there, especially with one of our South Carolina cousins who’d come to stay as well.  In between cooking, talking, and eating, we took some time to clear through a few rooms of my sister’s house.

Sweet Home.

She sent me home with, among numerous other things: our Aunt Sadie’s sewing machine, our grandfather’s cross-cut saw, our grandmother’s rocking chair, our old family ice cream freezer, our father’s Coleman ice chest, some cuttings from a white wisteria I’ve long admired in her front yard, and a brick. Just the one brick. 

Spring comes softly and sweetly that             far south. At least it does most years. So one delicious morning, we decided to drive into the country to the first community I remember as home. Despite the cheerful baby blue sky, sad changes soon became evident. Only last spring, which was far less soft and sweet than this one, storms raged over the area, bringing tornadoes.

It looked as though someone had let slip the dogs of war.  Trees were blasted. Large, old ones-- far too many to count.  Houses were gone, just gone. The double punch of the recession and damage had decided Billy Parker to close his grocery store and garage after what must have been forty years of business in the community. It stood padlocked. Empty. Lifeless.

 At the top of the rise where my childhood church once stood there was, now, just the top of the rise. It was a sobering drive. 

 So we looked for and found a few places that were still as we remembered them, and we remembered them together.  After awhile, we started to re-remember the places that weren't there anymore as well, along with the people and happenings that made them worth recalling.

Black Walnut is a great favorite.

I would have taken a picture
of the whole cake, but it was gone before I could.

Then my sister took us back to her house and baked us a pound cake.  It was delicious.  She makes wonderful pound cakes.  And she gives me her recipes.  She's a very generous woman, my sister.

And so was my other sister, as well.  Among other things, she taught my nine-year-old self how to crochet.  That must have taken patience and sacrifice.

And that one brick?  My nephew picked it up from the remaining rubble of the church mentioned above, the one that mostly blew off the rise.  This would be the nephew who is the only child of the sister who taught me how to crochet when I was a nine, back before she died at the same age my youngest child is now.

L-R: Leann, Brenda, Joan

You, know, I think Thomas Wolfe had a point. You can’t go home again.  At least not to the same home you left.  But I have to wonder if he’d have written that book differently, or at all, if he’d had sisters to help ease his heartache with laughter and pound cake and bricks.

Benefited greatly from being the youngest child.

I hope you spend some time with someone you love today.  Thanks for visiting. Come again soon.  

Kept everybody's toys.

Leann

. . . and you can stay as long as you like . . .

How to Play Saturday Morning Kitten Footie

Looks innocent enough.

Possibly not what immediately comes to mind.  Read on.

What You’ll Need

1)    One kitten, old enough to eat solid foods but young enough still to be curious and active.

2)    One Saturday morning with nothing on the calendar. No projects, no appointments, no chores at all. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Make it happen.

3)    A teammate with an astute appreciation for time-wasting, a sense of fun, and the temperament to withstand numerous tiny bites and scratches.

4)    One fairly indestructible bed covering, or one which is already far beyond further damage.

How to Play   

1)    As the morning light tiptoes into the room, you and your teammate are conscious much earlier than necessary because you have reached an age, now, when you wake up at the same time every day, whether you need to get up or not.

2)    If necessary, wake up the kitten also.

Left-side play.

    3)    Recline comfortably, propped against as many pillows as possible. One person, usually the one on the left, begins play by moving his or her left big toe ever so slightly until the kitten notices and attacks.  Immediately cease movement of that toe.

    4)    While the kitten is still attacking the big toe of the person on the left, the person on the right begins to jiggle his/her right big toe in an alluring fashion until the kitten’s attention is diverted, and with one enormous pounce, the kitten lands on the opposite side of the bed from where she was originally, and begins to shred the bed covering over the right toe of the right side person.  Immediately cease movement of that toe. Continue play in this manner until the kitten loses interest in toes.

Right side play.

    5)    Using the same technique, and keeping all appendages safely under the indestructible bed covering, continue play using hands, alternating from one person to another until the kitten loses interest in hands. Revert to toes.

6)    Laugh with your teammate like idiots at every pounce as though you haven’t played this game hundreds of times and have never, ever, before watched a kitten rip all over your shredded bedspread.

7)    Repeat steps  3-6 in a pseudo-infinite loop.

8)    While repeating steps 3-6, muse aimlessly about how many cats and kittens have lived with you over the years and how they’ve added to your enjoyment of life.

9)    As you notice out of the corner of your eye how the morning sun lights up his face, shift your attention to your teammate.  Be reminded of how he laughs with his eyes more than any other part of his body. Marvel at how, just at this moment, he still looks like the 17-year-old you fell in love with. Think of how he’s made your life so much richer than you ever could have imagined. How when you were young and breathlessly silly over the boy, you thought you couldn’t possibly love anyone in the world as much as you did him.  Now you know it.

Fifteen bottles and counting.

   10) It occurs to you that you could measure your life together by the cats you’ve known, and also, you think oddly, by the number of those little bottles of Tabasco sauce that you’ve gone through together. It also occurs to you to wonder how many more kittens and bottles of Tabasco sauce the two of you have left to share.

   11) Notice abruptly that you can vaguely make out the shape of your mother-in-law standing slightly past your teammate's right shoulder. She looks exactly like she did just after your father-in-law died, a few months before she followed him.  She has the same sweet, sad look on her face as the morning she told you in a broken whisper how hard it was after nearly fifty years together, to wake up every morning, every single one, without her high-school sweetheart there anymore.

Patsy loves Jerry forever, and vice versa.

   12) In an unsuccessful attempt to ease the painful little catch in your chest that that the last step produced, take in a sharp breath. Remember to breathe out.

   13) Now turn your attention to the door as the dog pushes it open and walks in to snort disgustedly at you for giving too much attention to the kitten again. She gives the three of you a hard stare.  For a moment you all stare back at her.  Suddenly, she passes an explosive parcel of gas and twists quickly around to face her own bottom as if trying to catch it.  Then she turns back to you with a look that says, “Where on earth did that come from?”

Our Scout is a long-suffering dog.

14) Laugh. A lot. Rolling all over each other and the tatty bed covering, completely routing the kitten.  Laugh as though this morning, and the both of you, will go on forever.

Not always quite as idyllic as they appear here,
 but not bad for thirty years, three kids, one dog, nine cats,
and fifteen little bottles of Tabasco sauce.

The thing to remember about Saturday Morning Kitten Footie is that there are no losers in this game.  Only winners.  Including the dog.

Hope you find laughter in your day. Thanks for visiting.  Come again soon.

Will grow up to be luckier than she deserves.

Leann

No kittens, dogs, or husbands were harmed in the writing of this blog.

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