Update on the Mouse Situation

The cabinets in the kitchen are open, so that a curious cat might investigate. The orange cat is sleeping in a chair in the dining room. The tiny cat is sleeping on a window ledge in my bedroom. The new kitty is sleeping at the end of my bed. Somehow, I doubt the mouse is [...]

In the Olden Days You’d Be Invited Over to Look at My Slides

Won’t Someone Come and Unstink My House?

Friday morning, I took a few hours to weed some of the big bed  I wanted to get the little trees out of the morning glories, which are just about ready to head skyward (you can tell because, when morning glories sprout, their leaves look like back-to-back horseshoes, but when you see them starting to [...]

Lefty Frizzell’s Grave

Also, I finally made my way over to Lefty Frizzell’s grave, after being his neighbor for over a year. He was not in the cemetery I thought he was in, though, in all fairness, I did not realize that there were two cemeteries on Dickerson Pike. I thought there were two entrances to the same [...]

If They Kept Finding it, It Must Be The Best

The International Country Music Conference ended up with a really interesting discussion on whether country music is somehow an inherently Southern phenomenon or if something else accounts for all of the Southern-ness of country music. So, there were a bunch of people who talked about rural music all over the nation–Maine, the Midwest, etc. And [...]

The Butcher May Be Right About Henry

All the things I hoped were buds are out there unfurling into new leaves. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something nice and relieving about seeing a new tree, who has just been through a historic flood, out there putting off new leaves like nobody’s business. It’s really cool and I’m glad to see it’s alive. [...]

TDOT Tops My Good Guy List!

So, I didn’t want to bug TDOT about my front ditch too soon. I figured they were out putting roads and bridges back together, you know, things people need urgently. So, I didn’t contact them until this week about how the flood had taken out all the rock from the front ditch they had so [...]

Guess Who I Had Breakfast With?!

The tiny cat! I heard an earth-shatteringly loud meow coming from the garage. I opened the door. And the prodigal cat had returned. She ate like… well, like a cat who hadn’t eaten in three days. The Professor and I were just talking the other day about how clear it was that the tiny cat [...]

ICMC Day One

I swear, every year I piss and moan about having to go to the International Country Music Conference and every year I really enjoy it. I think I would complain about having to get smooches from a person with big black eyes who I adored, if I knew about it too far in advance. “Oh, [...]

Tennessee’s Angriest Gubernatorial Candidate is Very Angry

I didn’t watch the Republican gubernatorial debate, because, frankly, I thought sitting around picking my toes would be just as useful. But reports coming out of what happened sound so much like how a liberal would write a parody of a Republican gubernatorial debate that I now wish I’d seen it with my own eyes. [...]

Is the Tiny Cat Mad at Me?

For two days the tiny cat has not come to breakfast. I was worried that she’d gotten out and wandered off, but the Butcher said he hung out with her yesterday. And the new kitty keeps bringing me ticks. Shoot, I tell you what. You dress like a German Shepherd and bark at everyone one [...]

Music for Hot Weather

Once upon a time, my friend Matt put this song on a mix tape for me, back when such things were actual tapes, and I listened to it over and over again. I love Muddy Waters as it is. I just think he has one of the voices of the 20th Century. But what I [...]

Fingering My Poppies (Not a Euphamism! Though… it would be a cool one if it was)

I have been going out every morning and fingering my poppies. This is just, basically, grabbing the leaves, rubbing them, trying to decide which ones have signs of life and which don’t. I think the bigger one is going to pull through just fine, but the two smaller ones are still kind of giving me [...]

“When Do Hollyhocks Bloom?”

Every day I come home from work and I go out to inspect my garden and see what is happening where to whom. I have eternal patience and curiosity about when the magnolia will bloom. I know, if it does, it will be any time now, because I see the buds and I see other [...]

Bone!

My story is up! You can even listen to me read it. I tried to convince the Butcher to get his friend to do a dance remix of it, but so far that hasn’t materialized. You should wait until tonight to listen to it, put it on right before you go to bed and let [...]

More Thoughts on HJR 1253

One, the folks over at Our Liberal Friends have a breakdown of the good guys and the bad guys. It should be embarrassing for all Democrats to see who voted for this measure. Two, Southern Beale calls this measure “hippie punching.” I think there’s something to that. But let’s not lose sight of what an [...]

Which Democrats Put Themselves Ahead of You Tonight?

Barker, Bass, Borchert, Ty Cobb, Curtiss, Ferguson, Fincher, Fitzhugh, Fraley, Litz, McDonald, Shepard, Tidwell, West, Winningham, and Yokley all have decided that their need to stand up for glorious Arizona is more important than passing a budget. While I can’t help but think Gary Odom is right–stunts like this hurt tourism, which we need, since [...]

This is all I’ve been thinking about all afternoon

Not all, but it’s weird. Newscoma has been tweeting the flooding going on in West Tennessee and I keep thinking of Mel, who used to call me “Sally,” and how she lost her house. I want, very much, to write another October of ghost stories. I enjoyed it so much last time. But all I [...]

More on Henry Mitchell

I don’t like to blog about my job. I love my job. But mixing blogging and having a job doesn’t always work. So, normally, I just don’t do it. But I will say that one terrible side-effect of my job has been that I pretty much have no interest in reading for pleasure any more. [...]

Poppies

I still get birthday money from my Grandma, which I find so charming. It’s kind of corny, but there’s something nice about getting a small amount of money for your birthday, from your grandma. A large amount of money would obviously have to go to something like, oh, getting the driveway repaired. But a small [...]

The Hottest Sunday of the Year so Far

Mrs. Wigglebottom Take a Beau, We Take Her Back

Okay, my birthday involved driving to Vincennes to retrieve, from my parents, an 8-foot windmill. I am so tickled by the shear ridiculousness of this gift that I about can’t even tell you. If only there were some way to hook it up to generate power or pump up well water! Eight feet! I’m hoping [...]

Birthday Runes

I had a dream last night that the Old Man gave me three runes–sowilo, ingwaz, and hagalaz–in that order. Here’s what the rune poems have to say, when they have anything to say: Sowelo–”the sun” Old Norwegian Rune Poem Sun is the light of the world; I bow to the divine decree. Old Icelandic Rune [...]

Isn’t Defense Money Federal Money? Aren’t We Putting a Boot in the Ass of the Feds?

I swear, trying to understand Republican politics in this state can give a girl a headache. (Not that following Democratic politics is much better. I mean, folks, apparently these days the TNDP chair gives a list of the Democrats the Party thinks are vulnerable to the media so that Republicans can have it. Why we [...]

In Which NM Has Inadvertently Given Me Mad Hydrangea Skills!

My front hydrangeas look weird. I don’t know anything about hydrangeas, just that there were some here when we bought the place. The first fall, my mom claims she cut them back (I don’t remember this but, if she says she did, she probably did). So, we had like, I don’t know, five blooms last [...]