We have been adopted!

Our “across-the-street” neighbors have adopted us for all holidays including but not limited to Thanksgiving and Christmas. They have a LARGE family, 9 grandchildren, one son and two daughters plus spouses, and his mom. Try getting that many people, all going in different directions, to sit down and eat in unison. Mission impossible. OMG the food! Ham, turkey, sweet and white potatoes, gravy, corn, dumplin’s, fried okra, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, black olives, cornbread dressing, green beans, fresh yeast rolls, lightly sweetened freshly brewed iced tea, and so much more that I can’t even remember. There were at least ten different desserts including chocolate dipped bacon strips (delicious), strawberry pretzel layer cake, assorted pop-in-your-mouth chocolates and other usual and unusual delicacies. Even though I used the tablespoon measurement method (one tablespoon of everything) I was completely and delightfully stuffed. I come from a large family but we never all got together at one time (thankfully). I can only imagine the pandemonium. And my mom would have run screaming into the woods to escape. We spared her having to deal with that many people by scheduling visits far enough apart, one family at a time, so she could recuperate between each one. My brother only brought one grandchild at a time. I guess Mama’s nerves were shot from raising us and little kids running around must have brought back her years of child rearing terror. She will never see her great-grandchildren because she just turned 90 years old and probably would die of apoplexia if they were to visit. I like being around little kids, eating a little too much, and talking with our adopted family. Keeps the holidays light and bright.

The RNC and Isaac

Hurricane Isaac's "cone of uncertainty" tracks toward Florida making the approximate 50,000 politicians, delegates, visitors, and reporters coming to Tampa for the RNC very nervous.

Pica's Park

The lantana, junipers, abelias, and crepe myrtles are blooming and colorful. Pica (my Chihuahua who passed away at 17.5 yrs.) would have been so happy to be able to wander through the plants in search of the perfect place to pee and poop and paw at little green lizards. With two two-person benches positioned to look out over Pica's Park, up to four of my neighbors can sit and enjoy the landscape too. Neighborhood kids are back in school, temperatures are again tolerable, and the scent of gardenias and ligustrum fill the air. Mississippi can be a lovely place this time of year. It took almost eight months for us to finish Pica's Park and for the plants to fully bloom, just in time to enjoy before it gets too cold. Halloween is around the corner, then Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Cycle-of-Life and holidays begins again! When it gets cold, I'll look out at Pica's Park and think warm thoughts of her and our 17.5 years together.

Sad little chi-weenie

Chee-Sy was left to play in the backyard today shortly after it rained. We always leave the kitchen door ajar so she can come in whenever she wants. Today, the volume of rain was tremendous and our backyard flooded almost up to the porch steps. If the water had risen much further we would have been calling our insurance company to file a claim on our recently renewed flood insurance policy. Two overgrown red-tops and a sweet gum tree thrive in our back yard and they lost a ton of leaves because the downpour was so heavy. There must have been a bird's nest somewhere in one of the trees and a little sparrow got washed out of the nest or drowned, fell to the ground and was hurt or died. Chee-Sy picked up the little bird in her mouth and brought it into the living room where my husband was reading. She wouldn't jump up onto the couch like she usually does. She stood in front of him whimpering until he looked closely at her and saw the dead bird in her mouth. She must have wanted to play and couldn't understand why the little sparrow was dead. After making her drop the bird, we took it to the trash can. Chee-Sy seemed distraught. She may have actually killed the bird by trying to play with it. If there is a toad, gecko, bird, squirrel, cat, or anything that moves in our backyard she is going to want to play with or chase it. I'm still trying to get her to quit chewing on sweet gum balls. She was a sad little chi-weenie today.

Miss Personality

She's a hybrid. My new classification, just for her, is ChiWeenieMeow. Half Chihuahua, half Daschund, (with a catty attitude). She howls and barks, and purrs, and burrows under the covers at night, sniffs for anything foul, fowl, or amphibian in the backyard, and stares me down whenever I try to discipline her. She makes friends with all dogs, all cats, and most people. Her energetic bursts of running in the house are something to behold. The sofa is a spring board, the carpet adds traction, and our bedroom is "turn around". I've even tried to stop her and she just dodges me with grace and more speed. When she is finished, she isn't even panting. I didn't think I would become as attached to another dog, as I was to my precious Pica. This one gives me that knitted brow stare that appears to say "you are not immune to my charms lady, no way, no how". She is right. It's been a little over 3 months and I'm hooked! I still tear up when I think of my Pica, but then Chee-Sy jumps into my lap, twirls around till she is comfortable, closes her eyes to sleep, and my sad thoughts are re-directed.

What's Next?

I'm way past worrying about whether there is an abortion clinic available where I live in MS at my age. I would have had no need for it even in my younger years because I am pro-choice and my choice would be either to give birth or not get pregnant. But so many other women in MS have many good and reasonable reasons to have abortion services available to them. It is a travesty that the legislation recently passed here makes operation of the last clinic that provides abortion services so very difficult. It will effectively shut down the only abortion clinic left in the state of MS. Our legislators and Gov. Bryant make no secret that the main reason for the restrictions they have passed is to close the clinic and put an end to abortions in MS. (Requirements are that doctors who perform abortions must be certified Ob/Gyn with hospital privileges at a local hospital and must live within 30 minutes of that hospital.) The restrictions are not to protect the health of women who seek abortions here as the politicians would like us to believe. MS women will now have to go out of state, or give birth, or return to the "back alley" abortions that were the norm before Roe V Wade became the law of the land. MS will see more illegitimate children born to underage mothers (for which the state will pick up the tab for medical, food, housing, etc.), more deaths from botched abortions and from medical problems that arise requiring the termination of a pregnancy for the health of the mother or incest or rape. I believe these restrictions are illegal since no other clinics in MS have similar requirements. It's just another attack on women's health care here. I'm sure there are men who don't want the clinic closed either but they are not speaking up. The loudest voices against Roe V Wade come from the religious right. They have proven that they are resourceful and devious in their zeal to get around the law if they cannot overturn it. And they are now turning their attention to contraception. What's next?

Pica's Park - A Picture Memorial to My Best Friend

Whenever we move, we will take this sign with us.

Looking at Lantanas, Kaleidoscope Abelias, Dwarf Crepe Myrtles and Junipers.

We can sit here and watch all our neighbors walk their dogs and wave.

View from our driveway.

View from the street.

View from the corner of Pica's Park.

Reason #3 my neighbor wants me to cut down my trees…again.

When we first moved into our home in 2006, my next-door neighbor was quick to jump onto the ‘problem with my trees’. The first time I spoke to her, she wanted me to cut down my trees in my front yard because she was afraid that they might fall on her house in bad weather. A few months later, she was insistent that the trees kept her yard in too much shade so the grass wouldn’t grow. (We were in a drought and she didn’t water because she said it was too expensive and she couldn’t afford the water bill.) These trees made it through Katrina and Rita and a few years of drought. They are tough. I took down the three trees that weren’t so tough (a leaning sycamore, a dead sweet gum, and a damaged Bradford Pear). Two oaks and a sweet gum are all I have left in my front yard. It is survival of the fittest in practice. We had these three remaining trees trimmed up so the branches weren’t anywhere near my neighbor’s roof or mine and surely won't keep the sun from shining on her property. Now, six years later, she is trying to use another ruse to illustrate that the trees need to be taken down. She says the fall leaves are blanketing and killing her grass. So she pulled her lawnmower out of her garage the first week in January and mowed and mowed and emptied the grass catcher and mowed some more. (She definitely could use the exercise.) So, trying to be as sympathetic a neighbor as I can be, I looked up what happens to grass if the fall leaves are not raked up before spring in case I needed to help her get rid of the leaves. (This is the first time she has complained about the leaves in the six years I have been living here.) It turns out nature knows better than all of us. A covering of fall leaves can protect a lawn through freezing weather and if you want to create your own natural fertilizer for plants and grass to use when spring ushers in the growing season again, mulch them up with your lawn mower in March or April and don’t bag the clippings. (This source also suggested another use for your golf shoes. Yep, aerating your lawn. I guess golf courses get free aeration when enough players go for a couple of rounds of golf.) Now that I am aware my neighbor is being quite creative in her quest to blame my trees for her ‘problems’, I will be careful in future not to engage her in any conversation that might lead to a discussion of the reasons she thinks I should cut down the rest of my trees. Nature rocks!!!!