Moving House June 7, 2011

I love this blog for the content (lots of stuff about family and friends ♥) but I am abandoning it. Though many people love WordPress, it isn’t right for me. I’ve learned a lot about Blogger and feel more familiar and, therefore, productive there. So I’m packing this up and moving it over there. I’m just getting the new one up and running but I’ll include the link, in case you want to join me there. I hope you do, it’s been nice interacting with all of you over here and I would hate to lose contact. So, without further blah, blah, here is the link:

My Rich and Random Life

See you soon! 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day and why I feel like a heel May 7, 2011

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Wow, it got here fast. In fact, it snuck up on me, caught me unaware and unprepared. In truth, I have loads of viable excuses but come on, we’re talking about Mother’s Day. I could have and should have done better.

My mom reads this blog and I know that she knows how much I love her, how much she means to me. She knows this because we have a mushy (and forgiving!) family. We hug and laugh and love to the extreme. Out loud. For the world to see. She knows. But still, it’s Mother’s Day.

Mom, in her interminable style and grace, has given me (another) pass. She allowed me to postpone our Mother’s Day celebration. My mother and I will not celebrate Mother’s Day tomorrow. Because we live in different states, we will celebrate in a few weeks, when we can be together. I can’t wait to see her.

Here’s an excerpt from a lighthearted Mother’s Day poem I wrote last year:

Mom finds humor every day
Her laughter fills the air
Family time was joyous
We didn’t have a care   read more…

I posted this on Facebook today and want to post it here too:

This pic is of Mom & Dad when they were in the hospital having me. Look how young they were! Mom, I'm posting this in honor of Mother's Day. I love you.

Guess what mom’s comment was. When she saw the post she wrote: Was I ever that young and that small? And just think… we brought home the prize!

What a sweetie. Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

(Mea maxima culpa. I hope my brother and/or my sister have my back tomorrow!)

My First Car was a VW April 27, 2011

Yep, for those of you that are playing along, I’m sure you guessed it. My first car was … wait for it … a VW. How good is that? See how clever I am, writing about my first car to catch up with the A-Z Blogging Challenge. I’m behind on my V-day post and today is W-day so this works out peachy. Okay, enough with the self congratulations, let me think of how to turn this lucky coincidence into something you may find interesting to read.

It was a huge accomplishment, buying that car. I didn’t own anything at the time, and had no credit. The car was a white Volkswagen Jetta. Stripped bare. No power anything, but it was mine.

On my drive to work, I passed a corner building that was made of mirrors. There was a stoplight at that corner and I never minded when it was red. I got to look at my car’s profile in the mirror. It was a good looking car.

sxc.hu/SebHughes

The car was a lemon. It was a dud. I had to put oil in the engine every time I gassed up. At the time when I was counting every penny, I was buying more oil than food. Feeding my car better than I was feeding myself. So I got busy. I hounded the dealership. I was relentless. When I found no satisfaction there, I went to Volkswagen corporate. I made noise. I researched and quoted Lemon Laws. I stayed on them like a bad dream. After spending lots of energy,  Volkswagen sent a corporate mechanic to evaluate my car. It was, indeed, a lemon. I’m happy to report that they made it right. Yay for VW and yay for me.

Don’t give up.

T is for… Tea April 23, 2011

sxc.hu/makram

T is for tea because I love it. All kinds of tea. I’ve never tasted a tea that I didn’t like. I’ve had the good fortune of traveling all over the world. During my travels, I’ve had proper tea in England and explored a variety of green teas across Asia. Right here at home, I enjoy good, basic iced tea.

Being from the south, iced tea is a staple. But we didn’t drink iced tea growing up. My parents thought we needed milk to build bones so… we drank milk. At every meal. Very un-southern-like, milk was our go-to beverage. It wasn’t until I forged out on my own that I started my love affair with tea.

My vagabond days are over and I’ve settled down, back here in the south. Fortune smiles on me (again). The Charleston Tea Plantation is close to our house. America’s only working tea farm is right here, where I live.

Local tea. Fresh, delicious tea. Right here. Did I mention that I love tea?

If you want to read more about the Charleston Tea Plantation, check out these articles:

America’s Only Working Tea Farm is in Charleston, South Carolina

Making Tea at Charleston Tea Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina

Product Review: American Classic Tea in Pyramid Tea Bags

Super Siblings: I Won the Sweepstakes April 22, 2011

It’s true. I won the siblings sweepstakes. My brother and my sister are exceptional people. If they weren’t in my family, I’d still want to hang out with them. The three of us are wildly different but it works seamlessly. We all have our strengths, our ‘position’ within the familial unit. Birth order probably has something to do with the harmony, but so does personality. We just fit together. It makes sense.

It’s hard for me to summarize my relationship with my brother and my sister in a single post. In fact, I could write for days and not clearly communicate the depth of my respect and love for both of them. So I’m taking the easy road. I’ll let other, more articulate people speak for me. Here are some of my favorite quotes about siblings:

A sibling may be the keeper of one’s identity, the only person with the keys to one’s unfettered, more fundamental self.  ~Marian Sandmaier

We know one another’s faults, virtues, catastrophes, mortifications, triumphs, rivalries, desires, and how long we can each hang by our hands to a bar.  We have been banded together under pack codes and tribal laws.  ~Rose Macaulay

I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers.  It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage.  Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.  ~Maya Angelou

To the outside world we all grow old.  But not to brothers and sisters.  We know each other as we always were.  We know each other’s hearts.  We share private family jokes.  We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys.  We live outside the touch of time.  ~Clara Ortega

Sibling relationships – and 80 percent of Americans have at least one – outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship.  They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.  ~Erica E. Goode, “The Secret World of Siblings,” U.S. News & World Report, 10 January 1994

Ricochet Rabbit: A Favorite Childhood Cartoon April 21, 2011

Ricochet Rabbit was my hero.

He was a cartoon character from a short segment on Hanna-Barbera’s The Magilla Gorilla Show. Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long were the law in the western town of Hoop ‘n’ Holler. Ricochet Rabbit was fast, real fast. He could race around and bounce off walls at the speed of old-timey animation. Nobody could catch Ricochet Rabbit. As a kid, I was little and fast. Nobody could catch me. I practiced bouncing off the walls, always hopeful that I would magically become as rubbery as Ricochet. I wanted to literally bounce off the walls. I thought that was soooooo cool.

My parents were in an informal bridge club. The games rotated and when it was their turn to play host they would pull out the old vinyl-top card table, open a can of black olives and a jar of peanuts, and make sure we had something to occupy ourselves in the back of the house. I was very young. I loved attention.

At the perfect time, I would blast into the living room where the grownups were playing bridge. I would run around the room, flinging myself against the walls yelling bing, bing, BING! Ricochet Rabbit. (Ricochet always referred to himself in third person).

That’s where the memory ends. I have no idea how my parents explained my bizarre behavior, although I’m certain that wasn’t the only dramatic outburst these folks ever saw from me. I’m positive I graced the guests with encore preformances of Ricochet Rabbit whenever my parents hosted bridge club.

_____________________

In fact checking this post I was amazed to discover that Ricochet Rabbit only played for 2 seasons, only 23  episodes. The Hanna-Barbera classic ran from January 14, 1964 – December 4, 1965. How (and WHY!?) it made such an impression on me is a mystery. But I still think Ricochet Rabbit was a cool cat, and I am pleased to write about him for R-day in the A-Z Blogging Challenge.

Perhaps it’s Ricochet Rabbit (who lived in Hoop ‘n’ Holler), that started my love of alliteration. That should have dawned on me when I wrote this post: Alliteration: Why I Love It.

And maybe Ricochet Rabbit’s propensity for referring to himself in the third person prompted this post: Writing About Yourself in the Third Person. BTW, the comments on that post make me laugh.

I still feel like Ricochet Rabbit sometimes. Bing, bing, BING!

 

Source: wikipedia.org / image: public domain

Q is for Quality: Quality of Life April 20, 2011

sxc/dspruitt

After I wrote my P-post yesterday, I reflected on how the concept of quality of life is ever-changing. In the post (about popsicles, you can read it here) I described one of many fond childhood memories that did not require fancy trappings. Although a short post, the comments let me know the message was received the way I intended.

Quality is subjective. What I consider ‘fine quality’ may differ from you. A clear definition of quality of life is impossible to pin down.

The current economic climate seems to be shifting people’s personal definitions of ‘quality of life.’ Whether by choice or by necessity, simple pleasures are making a comeback. I’m glad.

Enough deep thoughts from me. Let’s test my theory.

Sound off…

What’s your definition of a good ‘quality of life?’

Popsicles and Baby Pools April 19, 2011

When I was a kid we didn’t have much money. But kids don’t know that. There is an age where you don’t think about what you have versus what others have. I had everything I wanted. I had unlimited popsicles and a baby pool. And I loved popsicles.

My mom used to make red kool-aid popsicles. Inexpensive and delicious, she poured red kool-aid into paper dixie cups and let them half-freeze. Then, when the consistency was firm enough to hold a stick upright, she’d lovingly place a stick in the middle of each popsicle and let them freeze solid. A blowup kiddie pool is the perfect place to eat red kool-aid popsicles. It doesn’t matter how fast the popsicle melts or how messy you are.

Simple pleasures are the best.

I have fond childhood memories of splashing in the blowup kiddie pool slurping quickly melting red kool-aid popsicles. So for the A-Z Blogging Challenge my P-word is popsicles. Yum!

N is for Nitrotini April 16, 2011

Fridays are date night. Sometimes it’s a nice restaurant, sometimes it’s a pizza joint and sometimes it’s boiled peanuts and dogs at a baseball game. But we are going out on Friday nights.

Last night we stepped it up and went to Grill 225. Nice place. As we relaxed after the meal I was yammering on about the A – Z Blogging Challenge. I lamented that I had no schedule, that I was pulling topics out of thin air, blah, blah, blah. As my husband’s eyes glazed over and his mind wandered to his happy place (sports) the waiter walked past our table with 2 beautiful, martini-looking drinks. That in itself isn’t interesting but what made me stop my prattle and my husband snap out of his football fantasy was the fact that the drinks were smoking. A lot. Billows of smoke surrounded these martinis as if they were in a Fellini dream sequence. Very cool.

Turns out, the drinks were Nitrotini cocktails. Here’s a description, directly from Grill 225’s website:

Like your martini shaken…stirred…super-chilled? Come experience the new Nitrotini^TM cocktail, the latest unique luxury from the prime beef pioneer, Grill 225. Cooled to –320 degrees Farenheit, the Nitrotini is Charleston’s only cocktail super-chilled with liquid nitrogen. Choose from over 20 Nitrotini selections, like the Mandarin Chocolate Ganache and Lemon Ginger. Refreshing, delicious and one-of-a- kind, only from Grill 225 in Charleston, SC.

The husband looks at me and asks if I want one. I didn’t. I declined because we’d had a few glasses of wine and I wasn’t keen about mixing wine with smoking martinis. Then, in a flash of good husbandness, my guy says “There’s your N-word Langley. Write about Nitrotinis.”  He was listening!

 

Source: Grill 225 Website (restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina)

Image credit: sxc/Whiter78

M is for Meat: Sweet Meat April 15, 2011

Just now, when I stumbled onto an idea for an M-day post on the A-Z Blogging Challenge, my heart started racing and I began grinning like a jack@$$ eating briars. All because… my sister is going to kill me for this one. I’ll get there…

In the south, we nickname everything. It’s fun, funny and creative. Often, we have many nicknames for the same person, pet, restaurant or whatever else we nickname. Growing up, my dad called me Punkin Head (Pumpkin Head), or Punkin. My head is not especially big but he still calls me that, among other things. My brother’s nickname is Bubba and I’m not kidding. He runs a successful business but never asks clients to call him by his real name. He’s always been Bubba. There were two Bubba’s in our neighborhood so, growing up, I always called my brother Bubba Watts and the other kid Bubba Brickell. Nobody thought it was odd that I called my own brother Bubba Watts because you almost always have to follow ‘Bubba’ with a last name in the south. There are too many to keep them all straight.

My sister’s name is Mary but, in true southern style, she had to have a nickname. She nicknamed herself at a very early age. She started referring to herself as Mimi instead of Mary. And because I put nicknames on everything-even nicknames-I started calling her Sweet Meat. She was my Sweet Meat, my baby sister. (By the way, Baby Sister and Baby Girl are common nicknames in the south but she managed to sidestep those. Now that I think about it, however, she would probably prefer Baby Sister over the evolution of Sweet Meat. I’ll get there…).

As time went on, Sweet Meat became Meat. Just Meat. And it stuck. So we still call my sister Meat. If you don’t know the origin of her nickname, I know how it sounds. It’s terrible to call someone Meat. And I try, I swear I do, to call her Mimi-but I just can’t. Meat pops out of my mouth every time I speak to her. It’s a term of endearment, a pet name.

She’s not really fond of her nickname and her husband, who came into the picture long after she was dubbed Meat, hates it. I try hard not to call her Meat in front of him but I know I do. I can’t help it. Her name is Meat.

PS – here is an article about Southern nicknames if you want to read more: Five Common Names for Boys in the South.  I could write 10 more of these articles and not cover half the subject.

Do you have a nickname or know someone who does?