This is February?

The Super Bowl is over and the Academy Awards are coming. Yes, winter must be fading, right? Today it was 60 degrees, no wind, and not a cloud in the sky. There were a few song birds about on limbs just like spring. I know it is too soon, and that is why snow storms in February and March send me reeling! With warm days like this and January torn off the calendar, I am ready to move on for sure.

I went about numerous errands today without a coat. It was the most perfect air. I was in and out of the drive, in and out the doors. On one pass I made by our picture windows, I saw a brown back. Oh, since I have been imagining having a perfect brown dog I could name Biscuit, I went to see if one had appeared. Just as I opened the door and stepped to the rock wall of the porch, a monster reared on hind legs to meet me! I nearly died when I saw this dog. I talked to her as she seemed so friendly. But her paws on my rock wall were only slightly smaller than my own hands.

I could see she had a tag, but when I looked at her mouth. one that could take my arm up to the shoulder, I backed off from reaching under her chin. I talked to her, but I had to go on to the pharmacy. I left and she walked down to the neighbors. When I came back she was lying on the porch of some new neighbor’s house so I thought she was new too. I came home and started loading some boxes in the van for another trip out. Suddenly, she was behind me again…trapped in my own garage by this tail wagging Goliath. DH was coming in the back garage door at the same time. We gave her a drink and she was SO thirsty. Once satisfied with water, her jowls continued to drip like a drainpipe after a rain storm.

So we walked her down to the corner, knocked and no, she was not his dog. The young man next door walked over and no, he had no idea where this dog belonged. I could not see this dog go to the pound! So we finally took the number off the rabies tag and called. Miss Lily waited patiently while we called a vet that turned out to be 80 miles away! But his mother had moved to our town and he knew from the description this sweetheart had to be hers.

                                           Note the size of those feet!

So we all waited with Lily until her ride came. I was sad to see her leave, but then I knew I really didn't want those slobbering jowls all over my furniture or in my bed at night. Still this was the best part of my February day…meeting Miss Lily and seeing her returned safely to her home. 

Blue and White Strike Again...with a Dash of Coral

The temps this week have bounced up and down in a fifty degree range. Yesterday was darn nippy, but in the afternoon I ran to the square for a new meat thermometer and some milk at Braum’s. Leaving the hardware store, I just sneaked a peek in the flea market windows.  There was a slight spitting of snow from the leaden skies and the cold felt, well, crisp. I saw all the Valentine reds through the plate glass windows and was a goner.

I put my purse and thermometer in the car, and dashed in for a quick look. I had only ventured down the first aisle a short ways, when I spotted a deal. A Blue Willow platter and dish, sporting dark cobalt blues made in Japan, were marked at a ridiculously low price. Need was not the question but cheap price was the answer.

Then I looked across the aisle and there was a “head”!  Oh, she was a beauty wrapped in a coral headscarf. I took her up to the counter with the dishes and told the clerk, “Check me out fast, I am not even going down another aisle!”

When I got outside, the snow was pelting my face heavily and I felt invigorated. I realized I had missed January snow while everyone else was cheering those near 70 degree days. I knew the snow would not last, but I was euphoric in it for the short while it made its appearance. I hugged my finds and headed home.

I had found my first head while flea marketing in Cape Girardeau years ago. We were leaving a flea market when I noticed a pair of heads behind the register. They were a man and woman pair and the owner was going to repair a small chip in the man before placing him in a booth. I had the clerk call him, and I begged to buy the woman only. Finally he relented and separated the pair. No one knows why I wanted this head; my family was full of ridicule.  I didn’t know why either but I have loved her. Something about her feels peaceful.

So when I saw the wide-eyed beauty in coral, I had to bring her home too.  I think I have found a place for her, three rooms away from the brown beauty. She was pretty cheap herself so she can be enjoyed and then passed on to someone else for company someday. But this morning, it meant some digging around here on a ten degree morning.

The rule here is One In, Two Out. No problem as the front closet was a wreck. So I dug and dug this morning, cleaned out taking out two BOXES of things. I put away the last of Christmas, urged a couple of rabbits out, and changed the red poinsettias to yellow and pink silk tulips. I put away cedar and pine candle rings and got out the yellow spring ones. The Christmas tea pots went into hiding for another year; the pots in pastel shades came out again.

It is a long way from spring cleaning, but I do feel like on the first day of February I am headed in the right direction…and with Coral Girl for company!

Grandpa's DX Station

A flea market find...

A lot of people my age mutter about downsizing, about weeding out so their kids don’t have to do it later. I have thought about cleaning out and have done a little tidying in the closets and drawers myself. While I am not much interested in having the latest designs or owning the biggest house or impressing others with material possessions, I do hold onto the things I hold dear for their memories. There is no real way to pass on our memories or our life experiences to our children. Oh, we can tell them, but you know kids don’t really listen. They must make their own life, their own memories.

I have the top of my kitchen cabinets filled with special things. My grandmother’s McCoy tea pot, a Wizard of Oz tin toted back from California after a visit to see a dying uncle, the Cudahy lard can that calls up my salesman maternal Granddaddy and the Tom’s jar that brings my paternal Grandpa back to me with each glance above the stove.

Grandpa had a DX station when a filling station meant attendants to pump the gas and when coolers full of milk and beer could be found only at the grocery store. He had pumps in front and a shop to the side where he changed points and plugs, fixed tires, changed oil.

Inside the station office, everything was a little messy. Desk and chairs were slightly oily from his greasy hands, built like an outfielder’s glove, and the stained wipe rag that hung from the back pocket of his Key overalls. The black dial phone shined with dirt; the cigar box cash register in the top desk drawer was always closer to empty than not. When we showed up, he tried to always make time to sit in the oak chair on rollers for a minute or two, until the ding of a bell announced another car for him to check the oil, wash the windshield, test tire air pressure, and to pump full of gas at 29 cents a gallon.

The inside of the station also held a metal cooling box full of ice water where icy bottles of soda pop waited: Pepsi, Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, Orange Crush, Grapette. On the wall shelves, near the transmission fluids with chesty girls on the label, rested three Tom’s jars. Oh, I loved those jars. When the lids came off, I could smell the treasures long before Grandpa handed them to me. There were small bags of salty peanuts in one, another held Double Bubble gum in a pink wad that had to be softened in your cheek before chewing, and the third stored sugar-coated red diamonds of sucking candy, the cinnamon so strong your eyes wept when the lid came off the jar.

It was a family crisis when Grandma and Grandpa had to move to the nursing home, a story of its own. The decision to empty the two story, cluttered house came fast with no warning. Family descended like turkey vultures after road kill. I was called and went to find pictures and items and memories being trashed faster than the jaws of industrial strength caterpillars. The station had long been closed, and I knew the Tom jars were somewhere in that old house. Finally in the early afternoon, under a layer of grease and disregard, I spied my jar. I wrapped my arms around it and took it to my car, locking it in the trunk.

                                               A real McCoy!              

The jar now sits on my cabinet top. I have another on the counter that I had bought long before I got my hands on Grandpa’s. I use it all the time, being unafraid to chip the lid or scratch the paint because up above rests the real McCoy! I know the provenance of that jar with the black letters, and on certain days I can still smell the cinnamon as the ring of the glass lid kissed the side of the jar when Grandpa handed me down a piece…I can hear his voice, see the curl of Black Irish hair peek out from his cap…and I know memories are priceless. A house can’t have too many of them hanging around. 

Sunday Night Thoughts

Sunday night and I look at the calendar. I am shocked to see that we are right on February’s door step. January here has been warmer and drier than normal. Some days are getting up to a sunny 60 degrees…climate change? Weathermen have predicted a couple of rains that have not shown up; they are predicting rain again for early in the week. Unfortunately, they are also predicting some possible severe weather. It is hard not to feel uneasy. Weather is a demon any more.

I have been attending a class at a local church called Writing Your Life in Faith. It has been interesting and a book discussion group might spiral off from this group. It has been fun to write with very little pressure. All is optional to write or read aloud. It has been pleasant to hear the other writers and their takes on the assignment. Tomorrow we write about the Garden of Life and what flower, fruit or vegetable we would be there. I am a potato…because I feel like I am usually in the dark when others are flowering!

My poinsettias, grape ivies, and Cousin Sel plants are all reaching for the windows. They would like to be outdoors, as would we all. Despite the warmth and sun, it is just TOO early. This week I bought a small bunch of cut flowers…as a reminder that spring will come…in her own good time.

January has been a good writing season. I have ten submissions so far this month. I have an essay started and notes made for a second one. I have done a poem for the Crawford County Bombadils. The President assigned an anaphora poem this month so I learned something new when I participated.

Speaking of writing, who all is going to the OWL meeting in Branson in mid-February?

January Has Two Faces

Two warm, spring-like days and now the frosty cold nights return. January is bipolar this year! We so need the moisture that a few days snowbound would be worth the confinement if we got some snow or rain. I haven’t felt like much this week, but gradually I come around.  Coming home from the eye doctor one day, DH and I stopped at a new flea market, small but will a grand fellow from Scotland as owner. DH found a huge wood plane and I picked up this brand new pitcher with sticker still in place. The price was only a third of the original price. Of course, it was the blue and white that caught my eye as I really don’t need another pitcher!

So yesterday I straightened cupboards, wiped counters, mopped a floor, and said goodbye to the reds in the dining room. While I love the blue and whites, they seem almost cold after weeks of warm reds and holly greens. I left out the icy candle holder which is wintry.  Friends brought this to us from their stay in Finland a few years ago, and it always calls to me on wintry days. I have timed candles in it so that at dusk each evening they come on and then go out was we head for bed. They cast a nice glow on cold nights.

Tonight the emails warmed me because I got news of an acceptance. Thanks to Donna over at http://donnasbookpub.blogspot.com for alerting me to the call out for Cupid’s Quiver, an anthology of short romances. Looks like they will be using mine! So despite the coming cold air, I am warm with encouragement. I see a new week ahead that maybe I can get back to work. Hearing of an acceptance warms me up to more writing!

Here is to a great week ahead for both readers and writers! 

Saturday Centus, Tomato Warfare

Today Saturday Centus also uses a picture prompt for a 100 word writing. For more writing samples and complete rules to play, go to
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2013/01/saturday-centus-week-143.html

                                             Tomato Warfare

Most of the tomatoes had withered and shrunk in autumn’s shortened days, but some still plumped enough to make exploding juicy bombs when they hit a target. The afternoon they decided to ratchet up the thrill by embedding small rocks in the fruits, he heard a voice in his conscience warn against the weapon. But the boys on his team all thought the idea smashing…so to speak.

As the missiles hit, their targets’ faces registered shock. Then his cousin howled, the eye already bloodied. The incoming tomato, red as his mother’s polished nails, was the last sight for that eye.

Friday Fictioneers, A Secret Still

Another week is ending and I am ready. Nary a word written this week nor desire to do so. An eye hemorrhage has hammered my week, both worrying, hurting and depressing my days. I think the eye is on the mend,  and I want to write some lines...so Friday Fictioneers picture prompt is just the thing. I think I can do 100 words this morning. For more short readings and rules to play, visit: http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/18-january-2013/

A nice welcome to new followers Sandy! 

Now for the story....picture below.

                                                           A Secret Still

Mickey Shannon could smell the mash on his hands and urged the red handled pump to bring up fresh water for washing behind the farmhouse. He looked back into the woods: no tell-tell path pointed to the still.

Before he opened the screen door, the boiling cabbage smell greeted him. He would have supper with the lusty cook before heading back into town. O’Rourke felt safe having him working for the gang, thinking him 100% Irish. Mickey thought of the candelabra hidden at home in his closet. The golden menorah would remain a secret like the woman and the still.