When your feet start tapping

I like to think that I have an eclectic taste in music, that I am broad-minded.  Hey, I was in college during the 1960s and 70s, man.  But that is so not true, there is more genre than I knew back then. 

My music education pretty much ended in the early 1980s.  Some how I cannot get beyond Zanadu Xanadu with Olivia Newton John.  Was it the trauma or Boy George? Or both? But then other music styles saved me?

I don’t know, but the last 15 years or more are scarcely dotted with memorable music, except for Whitney Houston and anything Irish music related (of course).

In recent years, I was exposed to something called “Zydeco”.  And I haven’t been the same. 

Can’t help it, my feet want to dance.  I feel the beat and the words—and this is from a person who struggles to clap and sing at the same time.  Maybe I was born down in Louisiana, stolen by pirates and brought up-river to where my folks were buying catfish from a guy down on the levee off the ‘Ssippi. 

What IS it?  It is like gumbo, with every nation tossing a bit of its culture into the pot, adding lots of spice.  And I like it. 

A community gets together, eat some gumbo, dance like crazy.  Just listen, see what you think.

Re-post from October 2013. Arlee Jackson and Alex Kavanaugh helped create the "A to Z April blog a thon" My offering for Z is Zydeco.  

Ireland is actually the top of the dancing kingdom. Sorry, guys. Ireland wins.

 Zydeco. 

 

 

Creased, folded, photo in hands of memories

Great-Grandma Annie Praul Shive Johnson
A creased and tattered photo--
Held, shown, and stored in a shoe box for decades.
Hard evidence of a life lived
and remembered

Around in a circle on Christmas morning at Grandma's house, that is snapshot where I still see my family, frozen in time.  Photos have a way of capturing the smiles and memories that cannot be stored on a chip, flash drive, disc, cell phone...

A photo brings back sounds of laughter, of dishware placed onto the stretched out table.  Then it would have said the table was a mile long and the browned turkey as big as the sun. Lots of children noises filled the room, children laughter and some tears.  Just a quickly as they started, they stopped when grace was said and dishes filled.

A photo inhales wafting mashed potatoes with gravy cascading down the mountain and onto stuffing.  Creamed, buttered, fragrant, never-ending--amazing food, enough to feed entire towns. 

Then pies.  Queens of homemade pies, that's what Grandma and Mom were. Name any filling and these queens could whirl to place perfect pies, steaming hot, crust golden brown on the table.
  

 Front row: Robert, Bill, and me (with my new doll)
Don, Mary, Dad and Mom Christmas 1959

A photo can be held, placed lovingly an album, where smiles and bright eyes will look at it, talk about that day.  Remember...Mom nearly spilled the gravy...apple pie was...

A photo is taken of people of people frozen in time. "Hold still. Bill, stop it..." Click and wind. Click and wind. Then the roll of film would be put in an envelope, sent off, and returned. Open the envelope. And Christmas is re-lived over and over.

Food and family without end

A photo will travel across decades to find its way into hands of one who calls back that day with all its senses.  One who will caress faces of those long gone, saying, "I know when this happened."

Grandma and Grandpa Cardiff at home

A photo kept safe for decades in a box emerges into my hands. I can still smell the pies and feel the love all around us.

Can one do this with a digital? Can one hold the photo and feel all that?

Make Way for Trees

Trees are patient.  Trees go and grow wherever there is food, water, and light. Trees do not care what year, decade, century or millennia it is. 

Rainbow Eucalyptus

Roots can put on bark...

The Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland

 Trees have right-of-way. Do not stand in one place for too long.  Just saying.

K is for Kindness

The A to Z Geniuses

When one of our loved ones (adult, fully capable, with some common sense) sets out on a lengthy trip, we pray.  We hope for safety.  We try not to think about all the what-ifs. 

When our son "Victor" returned from two week biking in Germany and Switzerland, he told of one of the what-ifs.

“I mis-judged this part of the Alps. And the ascent, how steep it was. Then it started raining, a hard cold rain that nearly blew my poncho off.  By the time I reached the summit, my thighs were knotted and cramping.

Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, My son was never near it.

I was freezing, I started doing exercises, flapping my arms, anything to keep warm.  A few energy bars in the saddle bag, but not enough to refuel.  My map app showed how far it was to the next town.  It wasn’t that far, maybe twenty miles.

It was a slick downhill ride.  Rain in my face, soaked me to the skin.  Dark sky, no moon, just my bike lights to show me ten feet ahead.  Cold, bitter cold.  Shivering so hard that handlebars vibrated.

Then lights ahead, a hotel. Started crying, so relieved.  Pulled on the door handle and found it was locked. Closed for the night.  Pounded on the door. Any one there?

Then the door opened.  A woman about my mom’s age, rounded and hands on hips.  She said something in German.  Then she grabbed and pulled me inside.

She acted just my mom.  Didn’t understand her, but she put me in a room with towels and a hot shower, so nice, down the hall.  Putting my gear near the heater, heard her calling.

Like Mom, for sure.  Sit down here!  Eat! Eat more!  And then she probably said something like this: WHAT did you THINK you were DOING?!

I fell into the best bed in the world and slept hard. There was a huge breakfast waiting for me, and a bag of bratwurst and cheese.  Plus some more mom-words.

I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t opened that door.  If she hadn’t been so….kind.

After a 60 mile jaunt

338 words

Six Sentences: Patsy

Source

Patsy shivered in the new home, despite the heat and the friendliness of the other occupants and the happy sounds, despite the good food waiting for her, despite…everything.

She had never, in her whole life, been in a place where she was welcomed and where nothing was expected of her.

Someone approached her and Patsy reflexively ducked her head and curled up, waiting for the first strike and subsequent kick, over and over again.

Instead Patsy found a kind hand and quiet reassurances that she was home, that this was now her home: love, friendship, food, and a warm bed were hers if she wanted them.

If she wanted them?

Patsy licked the offered hand and gazed into the gentle eyes, with her tail wagging for the first time in a long time.

This is a post from 5 years ago, when I started to feel a sense of confidence as a writer.  

Sunshine!

Our granddaughter, Sunshine, continues to be a fount of wisdom, a source of great insight.  With her clear view of ‘what should be’, Sunshine gives us all a reasoned out perspective on almost anything

Want a unique view of space and the universe?  Read ‘Sunshine and the Solar System’.

Struggling with unruly spontaneous children?  Read ‘Sunshine and Self-Control’.

Ever wonder why one has eaten enough broccoli or meatloaf, and yet, has room for ice cream?  Sunshine has been explaining that to us.

I had fixed a great baked ziti dinner complete with green salad, garlic bread, and dessert.  I had worked most of two hours on it, which also included doing yesterday’s dishes while the girls cleaned the TV room. 

The delicious smell of Italian food and copious amounts of garlic greeted my son-in-law and then my daughter when they came home from work.  The table was set by the girls, my husband had filled the water glasses—dinner was ready.

With great flourish we all sat down to eat.  While the rest of the family dived in to eating, Sunshine pushed her noodles around with her fork, scraping off the sauce and meat.  After just a few bites, she announced that she was full, and ready for dessert.

Mommy handled it well.  “Sunshine, you have to eat your salad and noodles.  No, no more bread!  No, you can’t have a second glass of milk.”  The ‘No’ went on for a while.

Sunshine burst out, “But, Mommy!  The noodle and salad side of my tummy are full!”   

Courtesy of Bing.com:  Apparently this is a common belief.

She pulled up her shirt and explained how her stomach was divided in to compartments.  Over here was the noodle compartment, and it was way full; over there was the salad compartment, and it also was going to blow up.  The bread side could use another slice or two, and the milk side was virtually dry.

Since then, Sunshine has used this compartmental stomach claim many times.  She never wins, but I do believe there is some truth to her claims.  

Bring on the dessert, Sunshine.  I am with you.

My secret love

There are very few TV programs I enjoy.  My husband is an-almost-indiscriminant watcher of TV.  He loves having a DVR, and records anything that might be about poker, the Universe, Black Holes, science fiction,  golf,  physics/math/chemistry, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis…well, you can see his mind bent.

 For me, TV viewing needs to have certain parameters:

• No car chases
• No  formulaic plot line
• No gratuitous near-nudity
• No thinly veiled political correctness

So far I have effectively eliminated almost every show on TV.  That leaves very few choices.

Fortunately there are the food related programs namely "Cake Boss".

Hoboken, New Jersey, here I come!  For there, I will find Carlos’ Bakery and meet the man of my dreams:  Buddy. 

Buddy, how I thrill at the thought of your Italian pastries!  Oh, I long to bite into the flaky, creamy custard filled ‘lobster tail’ that is made with obscene amounts of butter and cream.  I want to stand in front of the glass case that is filled with delightful creations, and hear your sister Mary yell out, “Well, are you gonna buy somethin’, or you wanta just drool?”

Oh, Buddy, I want to sit across the table from you and order the most incredible, impossible cake and see what you create.  You made the Zombie cake today, and my heart nearly stopped.  Your tribute to the circus world was pure artistry. 

Someday, Buddy, I will see your bakery, someday.
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