I'll Call It Like I See It

wintry mix, or snow as we call it in South Carolina

So you think you know snow? Ha. We are rolling in it in the sunny South.

only one dog outside with me this morning

Schools closed yesterday, the day before the snow. Many businesses including our favorite Mexican restaurants closed, but Pretty’s antiques empire remained open to the few brave souls up for a winter adventure in Little Mountain, South Carolina. Grocery store shelves were emptied of necessities like bread and caffeine free diet coke. Everything was in short supply when I ordered my groceries from the store to be delivered by Instacart yesterday so limit 1 per customer of everything including Nestle’s Crunch Bar. Nestle’s Crunch Bar? Seriously? Pretty will be most unhappy.

Worst news: Jersey Mike’s sign on the door yesterday that said Out of Bread. Jersey’s is our latest food obsession because I can count exact calories on every sub sandwich and Pretty has discovered their veggie culinary delight with Portabella mushrooms. (Convicted Subway Spokesperson Jared was my inspiration for the benefits of healthy eating habits, but of course I switched to Jersey Mike’s to totally dissociate my plan from his plus they have better bread.)

Best news: Rush’s didn’t close. They did not run out of tea or french fries that are not part of my healthy eating program – but my one weakness. Sigh. I bet you can’t eat just one.

Ok, so my friend Paula in Minnesota had outdoor temperatures this morning of 8 degrees that supposedly felt like minus 1 degree while I walked for five minutes in the yard to take pictures for Pretty who would have missed the whole snow thing otherwise since her favorite winter activity is to sleep through the month of January with hopes spring will be here when she gets up to greet Groundhog Day. Pretty prefers to hibernate.

My friend Ann in Pennsylvania can expect a high of 28 degrees today, but it will feel like 18 degrees to her and her horses. My friend Susanne in Canada showed a picture of walking her dog this week when the temperature was -16 degrees. That’s 16 degrees below zero if I understand higher math. These northern friends measure their snowfall in feet – not the puny 2 inches of white flakes we had last night.

I’m mostly embarrassed to put my “snow” pictures in cyberspace.

no need to water front yard today

Pride Flag undisturbed

Pretty’s favorite of my snow pictures today

Carport Kitty and Pretty have similar feelings about winter. Thankfully her heated pad keeps her toasty warm in the laundry room – Carport Kitty, not Pretty. Heh, heh.

Carport Kitty reigns

The sun also rises, the snowflakes melt, and Pretty will leave me to work in her antique empire while I watch the disgraceful television coverage of the 2022 Australian Open this afternoon. Bollocks.

Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated for your own sake, get boosted as soon as possible and please stay tuned.

January 22, 2022

MLK Day in 2022

“I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. They won’t let the majority senators vote. And certainly they wouldn’t want the majority of people to vote, because they know they do not represent the majority of the American people. In fact, they represent, in their own states, a very small minority.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke these words in July, 1963 in response to a question from a journalist about a Civil Rights bill being discussed by Congress that would end segregation, a bill first proposed by President John F. Kennedy that became law in 1964 following his death, a law that represented a revolution in prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin in employment.

Dr. King understood the dangers of a political procedure which threatened the will of the people in a democracy – particularly in an attempt to suppress voting. Dr. King’s remarks hit home to me almost six decades later. The more things change, the more they stay the same, according to the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849.

In May, 2018 Pretty and I met our Texas sisters Leora and Carmen in Louisiana to spend a few days on Pretty’s guided tour of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. In addition to great barbecue and fun times playing cards at night, we went to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery.

We squeezed in under the wire for the last tour of the day for the church following our visit to The Legacy Museum that morning. The church was rich in history but was usually identified by its connection to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was its pastor from 1954 – 1960. The meeting to launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott was held in the basement of the church on December 2, 1956.

What an incredible experience we all had with our tour guide Wanda – her joy in sharing the history of the church was infectious…her storytelling made the history come alive. She provided opportunities for our personal interactions within the sacred surroundings. One moment from the church basement tour stood out to me as I settled into my thoughts on a riverboat ride later in the afternoon.

The original lectern Dr. King used in his meetings was still standing in the basement of the church. Wanda allowed each of our small group of six (another married couple from Kansas had joined us) to stand behind that lectern and repeat his words: “How long? Not long.” I put both my hands on the lectern as I repeated the short phrases, how long? not long. I felt a crack in the veil of shame for an entire race that I had worn since The Legacy Museum visit earlier that day. If Dr. King could say “not long,” then surely time was meaningless; redemption was still possible for all who repented. How long? Not long.

I wanted to add “too long.”

*************

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like any man I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now…God’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know today that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, today, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man...”

These famous words were delivered in a speech by Dr. King at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee on April 03, 1968, the day before his assassination.

The Covid pandemic has changed all our lives in the past two years. The political unrest is crazy unnerving, but our struggles are small in comparison to those of a young African American minister in the 1960s who refused to surrender to fear in the face of threats on his life over and over again until one became a reality.

Here’s my last quote. I promise. But if you haven’t listened to any of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches, I urge you to celebrate his birthday in 2022 by going to the magical YouTube videos of his recordings to pick your own favorite quotes. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Meanwhile stay safer, stay saner, get vaccinated and boosted, and please stay tuned.

poster for 1993 March on Washington

“Our freedom was not won a century ago, it is not won today, but some small part of it is in our hands, and we are marching no longer by ones and twos but in legions of thousands, convinced now it cannot be denied by human hands.”

Hear ye, hear ye, Senators Manchin and Sinema. To borrow a line from Wanda Sykes, Dr. King is talking about you, fools.

January 15, 2022

how is Bully Cat like Novax Djokovic?

I wonder…hm…what similarities do they have…

Number 1: Both BC and Novax disrespect their peers.

Number 2: Both refuse to go home when politely asked to leave.

Number 3: Both Novax and BC will share a tarnished legacy for their selfishness.

Bully Cat looks longingly at Carport Kitty’s carport…

like Novax gazes past guards at Australian border

Bully Cat patrols carport border looking for legal representation

No one wants to take my case!

Meanwhile, Carport Kitty could be seen yesterday eating three square meals at the bottom of our kitchen steps in the carport. She had been looking thin and “poorly” for the past several days so we were happy to see her appetite return.

keep the food coming, sisters

Bully Cat was seen hustling to his own home – the judge and jury of Pretty and me sent him packing. Novax’s visa was revoked a second time by the Australian Immigration Minister this morning; he will be returned to immigration detention this afternoon but will appeal to the judicial system to restore the visa in time for him to participate in what was once his favorite Grand Slam. I’m thinking he’s lost the good will of Australian tennis fans in 2022 – he should go home to Serbia to practice for the clay season.

************

Stay safer, stay saner, please get vaccinated and please stay tuned.

January 14, 2022

Spike, our Texas cur dog who needs a pack

When my cousin Martin saw Spike for the first time he said, “Sheila, that ain’t nothing but a cur dog. Plain as day.”

That was in the spring of 2012, the year my two mothers died within two weeks of each other. I was a motherless child by any definition at the end of April, the month Spike appeared on Worsham Street in Texas as a motherless cur dog which according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, and my cousin Martin, meant he was a mongrel or inferior dog – surly or cowardly.

When that cur dog showed up on Worsham Street in front of our house, Pretty and I had four other dogs: Annie, Red, Chelsea and Ollie. I tried to convince my neighbors across the street to keep him, but both of them had cats as well as dogs plus jobs that required their daily presence. I was a stay at home writer. My neighbor Lisa and I tried to find his owner for several days but finally realized someone had dumped him in our neighborhood so he belonged to Worsham Street. I called Pretty to talk to her about him – she was living most of the time in South Carolina while I had been in Texas to take care of my mother – and since we split the four dogs into two separate households – what was one more?

At first Spike was skittish around Red, Annie and me. He preferred to stay in the yard, but one night the rains came; I saw him sitting on the back porch looking at Red and me on the bed through the sliding glass door which I got up to open for him. He came inside that rainy night – never to be an outside dog again.

Spike sound asleep with his buddy Red on our sofa in Texas

(spring, 2012)

Red was quick to be surly – Spike not so much

Spike seemed to understand that he was the low dog in the pack. Red was the alpha male because that’s how terriers roll. Smallest in size – but Red was the recognized “star.” Annie was a big dog like Spike but much older. She allowed Red to lead as long as she approved of his leadership, but don’t ever cross her. Spike learned to avoid her, but he loved Red. Red adored Annie. Typical love triangle similar to humans. Am I right?

The math Pretty and I had originally calculated worked well when we were in different homes but changed dramatically when we were together in South Carolina. Then we knew we had five dogs. Looking back to those years I’m not sure how we managed but we loved them all.

Spike, Red and black lab Chelsea in back yard on Canterbury Road

Spike fell in love with Chelsea on his first trip to South Carolina in 2012; it was a feeling that stayed with him as long as she lived – a feeling that remains with him six years after she died in March, 2016. To this day he whines in a high pitched voice when he sees a big black dog walking by on our street from his perch on the couch in our living room.

Spike at home on our patio in July, 2012

Spike and Chelsea on my grandparents’ bed in September, 2014

my grandparents would be horrified if they knew

One by one Spike’s pack succumbed to illness and old age, and he became the sole survivor in the spring of 2016. Pretty and I promised each other we would shower him with affection, treats, walks, to give him the attention he hadn’t experienced as the interloper of the original four. We tried for months to lavish him with our love – perhaps partially to assuage our own grief. What happened surprised both of us. Spike’s grieving was as real as ours, and he didn’t like being an “only” dog. He missed his pack.

Enter Charly in the summer of 2016. Charly was twice rescued: once by Pawmetto Lifeline and then by Pretty, Spike and me.

Spike and Charly in our living room – 2019

when you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with

Now we have another little old man about the same size as Red, but that’s a story for another night. He and Spike aren’t buddies, though – neither is Carport Kitty who definitely dislikes our three dogs. That’s okay. Charly runs interference between Spike and Carl who has learned the importance of pretending CK doesn’t exist. Spike has a pack again. Pretty and I love them all.

Spike on his walk – January 11, 2022

By the way, cur dogs are really a wonderful breed of “hard-working treeing hounds” with traits that include being devoted to their people, protective of their environment and fabulous additions to families.

So to my cousin Martin I say thank goodness Spike ain’t nothing but a cur dog. Pretty and I wouldn’t have him be anything else.

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Stay safer, stay saner, please won’t you get vaccinated and boosted, and stay tuned.

January 11, 2022

in case you missed it – yesterday was January 6th.

On January 06, 2021 I watched the desecration of my nation’s house, felt horrified and saddened beyond measure at a reality television show produced, directed, and starring the former president of the far from united states – a man who confused firing an apprentice in a make believe office on television with the real life responsibilities of our oval office.

I timed my morning walk yesterday to be sure I returned to hear President Biden’s comments on the first anniversary of the January 06th. insurrection at our nation’s Capitol. He was scheduled for 9 o’clock our time, and I walked through our kitchen door at 8:55 a.m.

Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden took their places at a podium erected for them in the middle of the US Capitol’s Statuary Hall – my mind immediately raced to the images of the rioters in that hall last year, the people I witnessed trespassing through this very space the year before following their breach of security to illegally gain entrance to this building that belonged to all Americans, the chants of where’s Nancy, hang Mike Pence haunted me still…

But both Vice President Harris and President Biden reminded me that, although our democracy sustained a gash like the broken windows in the Capitol on that day, the people we fairly elected conducted the people’s business on our behalf in the people’s house that day. The transfer of power had been neither peaceful nor pretty, but democracy held firm; the legitimate electors were certified according to the constitution.

Yesterday afternoon Pretty and I picked up our two year old granddaughter after her preschool. The heaviness I felt in my morning’s memories was magically transformed to joy in Ella’s delight with a camellia she picked from a shrub full of pink wonders.