dressed to the nines...(photo added)

I've been in Chattanooga for the weekend. C. had to work on Sat. and Sundays, as he does every other weekend - just what happens with his job. So P. and I went to church together. They have started going to a service up on the top of Lookout Mountain, where the church they have been attending for several years has been given an old building. The congregation that had been meeting there for years, Baptist I think, just gave their facility to the Calvary Chapel community. I guess the membership got so thin they maybe dissolved, and the few hardy souls left transferred their membership to other churches. But Calvary Chapel appears to have attracted quite a good number. There were at least fifty folk there. Some who probably live up on the ridge, in that area, and some, like P and C who chose to drive up the steep, winding, twisting, switchback road to go to that much less crowded service on the mountain top. In that pretty little red brick very traditional style church, with tall windows on each side of the sanctuary, and massive bright white columns across the front of the building below a soaring steeple on top.

Though I think I am pretty reasonable, open-minded, the service might have been a little too casual even for laid-back me. Four musicians on the stage doing worship music, two with shorts on. One of those, a female with short shorts, that was a bit too distracting to fully appreciate her singing ability. It's pretty much 'come as you are when you roll out of bed' at the church I attend on Sunday mornings, but that was something I was not ready for. Even though I see people in T shirts that look slept in, frayed cargo shorts, and holey jeans, looking like they don't own a comb, I'm doubtful the daisy duke shorts up there on the stage were my definition of appropriate.

After church, we needed some lunch, and went to Wendy's. Pretty crowded with families when we got there, but cleared out before we left. To the point that we were the only ones in there. Until an older couple came in the door. Dressed to beat the band. Looking 110% patriotic. I assumed they had been to church, and were stopping by before going home. I could be all wrong, as all they had was one cup of ice cream between the two of them. She was in blue and white stripes, with a red sweater and bright red straw hat with a flourish of a red feather tucked in the side: just like Yankee Doodle Dandy. And her escort, we assumed husband of many, many years, was very conservatively dressed in a neat suit. With a hankie carefully tucked in his breast pocked, with all four points tidily showing, neatly spaced on the left side of his suit coat. Wearing the necktie I am sure she picked out for him, that was striped like the flag on the wide end, with a bright red background and white stars up near the neat, perfectly tied Windsor knot.

We were so taken with their carefully crafted, meticulously planned appearance, P surreptitiously snapped a photo. And could not resist speaking to them as we were leaving, commenting on how nice they looked, and admiring his patriotic tie. We wondered if they had been together for sixty plus years, or were on their second date....

226...

Left Chattanooga at 5:50 yesterday afternoon, and got back home before it got completely dark. Plan B was to try to leave there at 6:00, so I feel like I was doing pretty well. It was record time for me, to do that long tedious drive in less than four hours. I was pulling in at 9:20 and surprised to find that it did not take the usual amount of time. I think making a couple of stops in the past is what has made the difference. Guess I wanted to get home so badly, to be done with driving, I did not dally along the way. There was one pit stop when my bladder reached maximum capacity and I had to pull off and run in Wendy's.

Plan A was to try to leave TN by 4:00, but we were so immersed in a project, I felt I could not walk away and leave a huge half-done mess. So hopefully we got close enough to completion that it will get finished this week. It involved the framing on the door to that 'world's longest DIY' in the bathroom: had to be stripped down to bare wood to be repainted. The people who sold them the house had done a remarkably shoddy job of paining latex over varnish and there was only one way to resolve that disaster: messy, toxic, deadly vaporous, dangerous, cautionary, eat your skin off paint stripper. So we did it. And mostly got down to the raw wood, though there was a dark stain under the varnish that is permanent. As I left they were deciding if they would just seal it and leave natural wood, or paint it as planned, which will involve some sanding before a primer and then the actual paint color, to match the other woodwork in the nearly completed, two year long project.

All this deconstruction and reconstruction has been much more complicated than they ever intended or expected, as most home improvement undertakings become. One thing lead to another, as in busting out walls that revealed plumbing that needed replacing, and pulling out plumbing that revealed wiring that needed replacing. And pulling up flooring that revealed wood that had to be cut away and replaced. But I do believe the end is in sight, and they will soon be enjoying their brand new bathroom in their seventy year old house. And hope it will be a while before they start the next DIY that totally disrupts their lives and homelife.

bloomin' stuff...with photos added...

Lots of neat things blooming at my house: those Easter lilies I have planted over a number of years are all performing magnificently. There must be at least two dozen wide open, plus some other lily plants that dwere probably rescues on the way to the dumpster. Some are a dark red, some are a bright orange, some are a yellow so pale it looks almost white. With the white Easter lilies as backdrop, tall stalks with green foliage and lots of blooms, all politely bowing their heads.

 

 

And agapanathus so prolific, you 'd have to smile when you drive up and see over a dozen blooms, dressed up in a eye-candy shade of light blue. Planted in a big clump in front of the house, right near the front door, tall stalks with big clumps of small blue blooms, opening up more each day. They look very similar to big garlic blooms, so I have to wonder if they are related/in the same family. The agapanthus all came from my dad's flowerbed at 1209, so I will always think of him when I see it bloom each year.

Lots of yellow coreopsis in glorious bloom. It is a rescue of a different sort. I dug it all up last spring when I saw some blooming in the ditch, near the street I can see sitting here at the table, running along side our densely wooded lot. I was out walking, and noticed a bit beginning to bloom - so went to get my shovel. Transplanted and put in good rich (home-made) dirt, fertilized and watered generously, it has multiplied like crazy... probably to the point of possibly becoming a nuisance. I can see how it could be called invasive. And you know the difference between a weed and a wild flower, right? Like the realtor says:  Location, location, location.

scuba-ing in the pool

P. is taking a group of GS to FL to learn to scuba and experience diving in the Gulf.  A big deal for some of the teens who have signed on to go the last week in July. Some have probably never been that far away from home, or swimming in open water. And a big responsibility for the adults/chaperones who will be charged with safely returning them to their families. They will stay at a scout camp near DeFuniak Springs, down in the panhandle and go to Destin for instruction before taking to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

There was one young girl who has sort of questionable swimming skills, and has some other issues that might be problematic. So P. asked her to meet at a pool for some personalized beginning lessons, just to be sure there would not be any major difficulties after they spend an entire day driving to the Florida coast. P. had asked a well-experienced former diving instructor to meet us at the pool, to bring equipment and walk this fourteen year old through the basics of using the underwater breathing apparatus. Along with all the other accouterments (weight belt, mask, flippers, etc.) she would encounter when they start lessons later this month. I think it was a good experience, and the highly distractible youngster did as well as anyone could expect under the circumstances: kids splashing and yelling, teens horse-playing in the pool, fireworks going off in the neighborhood.

They spent a couple of hours in the water, demonstrating and practicing the basics of Scuba diving, hopefully giving the girl some confidence and skills, as well as assuring P. that she has the desire and ability to follow instructions and safety rules. Then we had pizza. Making me remember how I would take daughters to the pool, and they would work up remarkable appetites swimming for hours. And reminding P. of how good a peanut butter and jelly sandwich can be after all the calorie burning 'work' of splashing about, playing Marco Polo, swimming in the hot summer sun.

kinda corny....

I decided the corn was about as cheap as it is gonna get. So I bought a case, which I am assuming is close to the equivalent of a bushel. And had the produce guy at Publix load it in the car to drive to TN. It's on sale at ten ears for $3, which if you have any math skills at all, you can see is comes out to thirty cents each. And the produce guys say that a box should have 48 ears, so when you (not me) multiply 48 by 30, I paid $14.40 for the box.

I got up this morning and shucked it, only to find that there were only forty ears. But we've cut kernels off, and made a monumental mess in the kitchen.. Scraping the ears resulted in that sticky, milky stuff that resides in each kernel splattering all over the kitchen counter, walls, sink, floor and me. It's sitting on the stove in two pots on low, to heat up, so we can put in zipper bags and put in the freezer.

It's such a messy proposition, I sort of dreaded the process. But now that it is done, the countertop and floor cleaned again, it is very gratifying to think of how nice it will be to stockpile in the freezer. And even more pleasant to think of what a treat it will be in the long cold months of no fresh vegetables: pulling a bag out to enjoy the taste of summer and sunshine.

As I was sitting on the back steps shucking those forty ears, I was thinking of doing that when I was a kid. Sitting on the back steps of my parents home, pulling the shucks off freshly-picked ears of yellow field corn. I am sure it was probably much cheaper (if not free), but that truism of you get what you pay for still holds: I seem to remember that every ear, as I would pull the shucks off, had a big ugly cornworm hiding in there, merrily chewing away. Getting fatter and nastier by the minute. I guess it was grown back then to feed livestock, so why would a farmer waste money on trying to keep the crop pest free? But I have the clearest memory, picture of those icky green worms, about as big around as your little finger, and nearly as long, happily munching their way down into each ear of corn we were planning to have for lunch.

trash talkin'...

I spent several hours yesterday, in the hotness of July in GA working in the yard. Picking up trash. Not the sort that blows off the street: from inconsiderate, illmannerd, poorly-raised, ignorant people  who toss burger wrappers and beer bottles out the windows. I realized recently this accumulation of limbs, sticks and vines that  fallen over time, is a hazard of forgetting about the Fact of Gravity. How it is always going to be in effect, and will always exert a certain amount of control in our lives: a good thing or we would float away into space. But a bad thing when I never get all the stuff picked up that continually falls in the yard.

Obviously a result of not considering the laws of physics when we decided on a house that has a big wooded lot. Lots of hardwoods, mixed with a few pines and some softer stuff that sheds year-round like tulip poplar and sweet gum.   I thought I had pretty much gotten all the front yard done, and was thinking: This is the last load to push the wheelbarrow up the driveway. When I looked behind some tall azaleas and found a gigantic limb that had recently fallen off a sweet gum tree. So big it will take the chainsaw to make it manageable. The addition of a man to use the saw would certainly be helpful.

I am once again reminded of the pleasantness that occurs when people live in condos, or apartments or some other form of communal living. Not having to even think about what is going on in the landscaping, no mowing or blowing, limbs falling, or raking in the fall. One of the joys of homeownership sometimes seems to be similar to that song you hear from the backseat that never ends, and gets on your very last shredded nerve.

I do love feeling like I live out in the country, instead of on a city lot. But the way traffic has multiplied out here in the panhandle end of the county leads one to think that sense of space and open-air is swifty coming to an end.  It has becomes so congested with housing and retail development, there is a stretch of about two miles I try to completely avoid traveling on. Going around by my elbow to not even get on that section of highway that is always backed up with traffic due to lights being installed too close together. So much for the bucolic life.....

thankfulness...

I have a friend who has an adult daughter who is a bit older than my 'girls', who are amazingly capable, smart, busy, responsible adults. This girl, who we will call 'Z', is really smart, and teaches on the high school level. She is working this summer in a 'camp' type environment for gifted high-schoolers, sort of an immersion experience where they go for several weeks to practice their skills, learn, advance, enjoy meeting other people with whom they have giftedness in common in a number of disciplines. Like art, music, dance, math, science, language arts.'

My friend called her daughter to ask if she could come and spend the afternoon with her at the 'camp', and 'Z' was welcoming, said she would enjoy having her come to visit for a few hours. The thing is: my friend never knows how 'Z' will respond to her - invitations to come to visit here in Columbus, or in the daughter's home some distance away. She could easily be rebuffed,with 'Z' saying she did not want her to come, or she didn't want to see her. Or she could be welcomed with open arms, asked to come and bring her needle and thread to help with a project, or invited to come for lunch, or to spend the night... she just never knows what the response will be.

Which leads me to thankfulness. For believing that I will always be welcome. And the door will always be opened, and they will always want to see me. Even when I 'invite' myself, which I have gotten really good at doing, with remarkable frequency.