Bittersweet Surrender

Driving in my small black import (from Yugoslavia or somewhere), I am drunk and out of control. I have my new best friend whom I greatly admire in the passenger seat. My new best friend is male and a writer and also a computer geek. I warn him I am out of control, I really need you to take the wheel I shout over and over as he ignores me. We careen over a hilltop and crash into a large tree. The car is totaled.
Later I see him in front of his computer. Will you still be my friend I ask.

He says his back is sore and that he doesn't think he is interested in being my friend, now that all of this has happened.

Ok, so I was feeling a little guilty. Two days ago, we packed a little overnight bag. Well, maybe it was a big one. Sheets, pillows, three changes of underwear, medications, shampoo, bathing suits, two bottles of wine, one liter of vodka. You know, the basics for an overnight. We went to Richmond (an hour away)to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

They were playing on Thursday night in a botanical garden. Beautiful.

Yes, I missed work on Thursday, technically speaking. I was there for three hours. I put a note on the door. It read, "Got a date with BHT and the Monsters (but I wrote it all out)Be back Friday at 1:00" and then we hit the road.

I made it back to the shop by 2:00 the next day, but I forgot my keys and decided to call it a day and go on home.

We stayed at our friend's house just outside an idyllic crack neighborhood. She told us to bring swim suits in case we wanted to jump in the pool. This thought made me happy. It was lovely, even if it was inflatable.

A few more drinks, a quick sandwich and into the garden to groove.

Three nights prior to this show, BHT and the M's played to thousands of people at Red Rocks arena. I am sure there were barricades and cops and the security thing that we always see at the large stadiums.

Thursday night, no barriers on a grassy hillside in a bucolic garden. A little stream flowing into a pond surrounded by exotic lilies, grasses and trees. A stage set up under a tent, in front of a stone pavilion. Beautiful sunset, hot summer night less than 500 people.

Only Tate and me dance, he starts to get nervous. Too many eyes watching us and not our favorite band (we have many favorites). I don't care, we dance some more. I kick off my favorite black sandals and careen out of control again. This band and many others have this effect on me. I step across a tiny stone path and dance onto the stage. Todd is so smooth, he smiles at me a most genuine dance smile. I get to dance for nearly the entire song, then one of the stage crew directs me off by coming into view and pointing. I obliged.

I looked around at the crowd on the grassy hillside, everyone was dancing now. We broke the ice.

Last summer this band played in a local arena, the stage is 7 feet high. Tate lifted me up and put me on stage to dance with Big Head Todd. Within a minute or so, a stage hand came out from the back to beat me over the head with a club, so I thought. I jumped off the stage like a punk crowd surfer and luckily Tate caught me before I ended up face down in the concrete. He really must love me.

The band plays an amazing show, they showcase some of their new stuff and play the classic favs. They sign autographs and meet the fans at a little tent after the show. I bought a mauve-red wife beater tee with their logo. Todd signed my shirt while I wore it. I told him how much we love their music and that I was the crazy person who got thrown off the stage last year in Charlottesville.

He said he admires my balls. How about that.

After the show, completely delirious and hungry. We go to a local pub which serves great booze and ok food.

I search the floorboard of the truck for my sandals, to no avail. I seem to have lost my favorite black sandals somewhere in the garden.

That my friends is a black form of transportation(my shoes)telling me that I am a bit out of control and they are not going to be my friend anymore, after the way I endangered them and everything.

I'm going to miss my sandals.

Bitter- sweet -surrender



FYI: This might just be the very worst tongue in cheek dream interpretation ever, but it was fun for me.

Big Head Todd and. . .

Dear Diary

I told Dad the story about Billy Bob (our 100 plus pound Mutt with the temperament and face of a teddy bear)and the giant black snake AND the spotted fawn in one day incident. After I ended the heroic, saved by our dissident dog story with this statement; "What would I ever do without that dog, he's so my hero".

Dad said,

"I have bad news. Caleb has cancer and he's going to die. (Caleb translates as brother in Hebrew. He is my dad's ADHD Retriever).

Tate: You've already told me this story three times.

Me: I did?

Tate: Yup.

I think I might need to start keeping a diary.

Sunday Was a R.O.

Thank you all who sent suggestions as to the naming of the mini estate. I was setting the deadline to last Sunday to get the darn thing painted; hallelujah, it rained all day. The sign is extremely heavy and cannot be moved which means I have to paint it outside. So- I am still a bit undecided and if anyone out there has any more suggestions, I would be grateful. If you don't know about the dilemma, please read the previous post.
Thanks good people!

I need your help

I think most of you all know that I live in the country. We have a few rituals in the rural setting that may be unheard of to some of you city folks (and I know you aren't all city peoples either). When you pass a car while either driving or walking, you wave. There is the head nod, the finger wave, the full hand parade wave and there is also the delayed finger wave that I often implement due to the old road hypnosis thing which people sometimes assume is my rudeness, but people shouldn't make assumptions.
A few weeks ago, I found the "Plagues of Passover " finger puppets at a local store. Passover had ended and they were on sale. I could not resist.

Buzz Lightyear hangs from my rear view mirror; his motto "To infinity and beyond".

I love Buzz.

Each week I pull a plague out of a sack and stretch it over Buzz's legs. He battles locusts, hail, lice, blood, first born, cattle, drought, frogs-yes frogs (hilarious), and the others during the entire week.

Sometimes I put the weekly plague on my index finger as I drive home, just in case I see any bad people on the road. If I see them I will be sure to give the old finger wave on time, but this is not why I need your help.

If you have a house in the country, and it doesn't really have to be a ranch or a grand estate, you give it a name.

I built my mini estate on seven raw acres of mountain land on top of a hill seven years ago. As I was in the process of building and land clearing the Luna Moths were everywhere. It was kind of magical (they've since dwindled in numbers).
I named the place "Sheer Luna-See" and I painted a sign with a giant Luna moth and set it at the end of the drive.




Here's where I could use some help: Two years after the house was completed, Tate moved in. I got tired of the Luna-see in my past. Tate is not a Sheer and he is currently a major contributor to the place's beauty and he is also an owner, I painted over the old sign and it is now a blank slate and we cannot agree on the right new name for our home.

He likes "Cock's Lair"- I do not like being stalked.

I like "Crow's Dance" - he rolls his eyes a bit and crows are hard for me to paint.




I am thinking "Dunadd Hill"- in the year 632 A.D. in Dunadd Scotland (the ancient name no longer applies to the region)- Tate and I were married and it was quite lovely, until that battle, but I digress again. I have become aware of several lifetimes where we were together but only in that place have I experienced us being together as lovers.

I am to paint the sign tomorrow. Ancient hill forts are easy to paint.


What do you think?
PS-cock's lair is out of the question.

If Ever I get it Right, turn left

Sitting in the humid, Virginia, hellacious heat

Two and a half hours

watching for the mail to arrive, under a shade tree in some strangers driveway

Supposed to be at other job today, another one I work alone

I won't get fired, but I won't make any money either

Trying to keep the guilty worthless speech from playing in my head, again.

He needs that medicine, it comes in the mail

If he doesn't have it, meltdowns are inevitable

He's been out since yesterday

Rednecks cursing at the baby in the laundromat across the street

"Git yure ass in dare"

Loud Fat Momma and greasy tattooed convict Deaady

leave little toddler behind the glass door with Granny

and drive away

Baby animal screams like fire engine sirens

and collapses on the dusty laundromat floor.

Addicted

My Excuse For Not Blogging lately

All my life, I have wished for my own home.

One that I would be able to plant flowers around and still be there to watch them bloom. A house that no-one would tell me what colors I could or could not paint.A house where I was my landlord, and I could tell me what to do and that would be a-okay.

During the first eleven years of single motherhood, my sons and I moved approximately twenty two times. Moving/vacation. I would pack the car with every necessary object that would fit, a few toys, clothes, blankets etc. Never furniture, we always left the salvaged stuff behind. The three person tent would go too and the mini coffee maker. These moves were our camping trips, our vacations.

Hey, let's go to visit Uncle B.- across the country, I'd say.

Taking everything we could fit, camping out under the stars, going to movie theaters in cities we don't know the names of, never seeing our school friends in the theater, strangers on our own stage.

Collecting rocks that look like potatoes in this state, petrified wood from that one. Swimming, soccer balls, soaking in hot springs, seeing buffalo and thinking they were boulders, until we yelled at them, and they began to move toward us, bad idea.

Seashell and rock collection on the 78 Jeep Wagoneer dashboard, purple and blue colored curtains in the back and gun racks with two enormous Super-Soaker 2oo, water guns affixed to them.

What a trip, moving/vacations.

Where have these past two weeks gone?

First semester off in over two years, summers included;

Playing like a school kid on summer vacation; pool party, river trips, reading novels on the hammock, live music under the tent at the crawdad boil, spicy.

and in the evening

going home.

Stinkhorns

I fear I may have buried too many Bad-Guy Voodoo dolls in the compost pile. Look whats rising up out of the flower beds.