I'm gonna be a Macho Man.....

With one shoe on and one shoe off! Let the party begin! We're six and one and ready to rumble! Chey's got her chaps, and the newlyweds next door are collecting feathers and leathers, Theo is donning the blues.....

And out of the perfectly clear oceanside past, Persichetti shows up on my porch this afternoon, and our plea, for a few good men has been answered! Ta!Dah!

Trick or Treating is gonna be a blast.....
concrete boot and all......

And yeah, Cinderella did wear construction boots, just not in the made for TV version......

The Day I put my foot down.....

It started out all routine. In my sleep. But then I overslept, Deja pounced on the snooze and she did it again, and I guess again, because when I rolled over and clomped out of bed, I only had thirty minutes before I had to climb in the shower and race down the driveway. I need forever. Not to put on make-up or do my hair or anything like that. To drink my coffee. Stare out the kitchen window. Watch Georgia do round-d-rounds in the backyard. Blog a little. Day dream. And then I put lemon juice in my coffee instead of creamora. But it was all good. Not the coffee, just the fact that it was a new day....

I don't know what happened, but somewhere between Mickey Dolenz belting out "I'm a Believer" and Mick Jagger's throaty reminder that "Tiiiiiiiiiiiime is on my side, yes it is".... I started to stew. A good kind of, growing, gutteral, strengthy, kind of stew.

When I hobbled into the office beltin "Good Mornings" at 9:00 (yes, we have banker's hours) and Chey answered me in her raspy "morning after" voice, I pounded both hand's down on the counter (to get her quick attention) and then I started. "O.K. Enough. Enough of being exhausted, worn out, tired, and spending the day catching up on hell. Enough of being whipped, beat up, and ringered. Enough of growing old. Your boyfriend doesn't love you, he's addicted to you. Like Coke. He's gotta have it, and when he doesn't get it, or get it his way, his mad. Mean. And that's not love. I've thought about it long and hard (And I really hadn't, it happened sometime between just those two songs) and we're just not gonna do it this way anymore. We used to have fun. We used to laugh. We used to raise hell, not live in it"

She stared back at me in silence.

I started again. I ranted and raved and paced, watched the clock and the front door for the first patient.....watched the back door for the good doctor. It took all of seven minutes to convince her. Life was short and we were wasting it.

At lunch we took a cigarette break and lounged in the doorway. We watched the telephone repair man park under a tree for lunch. He ambled out of the van, put his parking cone in front of his right tire, and hiked over to the Dairy Queen for ice cream. It wasn't polite, but we stared. We kinda need a parking cone for Halloween. It's on our list. Chey took her right pointer fingered and motioned for him to come over. He smiled and shook his head.. "Nah".....he was enjoying his ice cream. She did it again. He did it again. She snubbed out her cigarette and started out across the black asphalt. I watched from the doorway. Silent movie conversations. He threw his head back in laughter and she lifted a fluorescent cone off his bumper and started our way. She set it gently in front of her truck, tossed a two fingered peace sign over her shoulder, and walked back into the office.

"Anything else we need?" she whisper smiled as she passed me.

The Emporer's New Clothes....

"Levi's are fine
with holes in their knees,

Faded old fannies

with no zipper keys.

When the Emperor got dressed

in the Emperor's new clothes...

He probably had on Levi's

and was wearing the holes....."

My daughter's favorite nursey rhyme.... Yeah, I wasn't exactly Mother Goose.....

My life story, told in blue....

I was wearing the peaknuckle pair when we went to The Tampa Fest and ended up on the 11:00 news, 16 and dancing in the broken water main.....

Gary Long's 501 blues when I hitchhiked to Peace Creek...

The no-name-brand with the silver belt and the rhinestone butterfly at the David Bowie concert....

His new pair the morning of the hurricane...

The ones I have on for the last three lives....

And then you wear them for years and years....

They're supposed to hang around. Until they're tattered and torn, with holes in the knees, until the legs fall off, too tired to keep going, until they accidently become cut-offs with holes in the rumps. Then you scribble on the pockets, patch the seams, trim the fringe from the bottoms....
until they disappear in the washing machine, nothing left but the tags.....

We're desperate. I'm down to one pair of "I can wear these out in public" cut-offs. And this is Florida. Skinny's still running around in a pair Kimbies bought in high school, held together with an embroidered guitar strap. She's wearing a ghost of threads.

So here's the deal, guys. Dig through your closets, empty your stash. If you've got jeans you're not wearing, send them south.

These girls gotta have cut-offs!

Singleton and Skinny

c/o Justgivemepeace

269 Market Place Boulevard

#115

Cartersville, GA 30121

We'll even trade ya. Painted beer bottle caps or something!

Little black spell....

She flew into the driveway, aiming for her spot, wreckless, and not at all caring if someone else might be parked there. It belonged to her, of course. That gravely, patchy grassed, dusty piece of drive way. She irrrrrkkkkked the brakes just shy of slamming down the pink park benches, threw open the crinkled driver’s door and screamed…… “I’m home!” I looked out the kitchen window in time to see her fanny and feet only, the rest of her lunged face first into the back seat, her tiny hands flipping Samsonite and garbage bags blindly out behind her! Thunk! Plunk! “Oh, this is just junk!” Make-up bag hurled over her shoulder. “Mom! I’m home” she screams a little louder, with her “Are we losing this damn game?” cheerleading voice. “I’m right here, baby girl, you just clobbered me with a ghetto blaster”…..

We hugged and
lugged
It all up the drive-way.

Home for the summer.

Giant Tupperware tins with leftovers and graduation gifts line my hallway. “Why do you keep hauling this stuff back and forth?” I asked her with my best garage sale smile on. “It’s sentimental, Mom” “…‘kay” I mutter, the one who taught her memories are priceless.

An hour later, she’s unpacking and rearranging her room. Lining little perfume bottles and mascara samples up on the vanity. Choreographing her private world. Shoving “please don’t tell me this is you” pictures into the frame around the mirror. Yet another summer, I’ll have to ban her grandparents from her room.

An hour and a half later, I stand in the hallway…pacing. Waiting on the ice cream truck. And then she starts. A halter flies out the door and lands at my feet. A pink bra, three socks, a fake diamond ring. Two hot curlers, a pair of size 0 jeans, an Ohio State sweatshirt. A little black dress with the tags on it. Two plastic champagne cups and a bag of aquarium marbles.

“Is that it?” I offer, my toes stretching to lift the pink bra up and drop it in the black garbage bag. “Yeah”
“So you don’t know who this stuff belongs to?” “Nah” “So we don’t need to save it?” “No, Mom, I’ve told you that before. It’s not mine. And I don’t know who it belongs to so I can’t return it”

This is a ritual. The cleansing.

The pitching of the “it accidentally ended up in my room” stuff.

I lift the heavy bag of marbles up and shove them in the hall closet. Skinny just got two new goldfish. Christmas is only seven months away.

I kick the little black dress. Cat hair swirls in a current and latches on for safekeeping . I reach down and pick it up, the tags jingle a little. Size 3.

I hold it up in front of the bathroom mirror. Dust it off. Traipse barefooted into my room and grab a hanger.

I can’t wait for Friday.

It's Friday and we're off to the Parade......

“I hate men in costumes.” Please quote me on that.

I am not turned on by a man with a lopsided cowboy hat perched on his head, like a toppled bird nest, and pointy shoes. First off, men have big feet and the extra 3 ½ inches it takes to fit their toes into the point looks absurd to me. And I don’t know how they drive those big trucks that go with the get-up. It’s a wonder they don’t get their rattlesnake tips all caught up in the under-the-dash wires just shifting from stop to go. And besides that, I don’t think Fords look like horses. At all.

I’m not crazy about the baseball hat thing either. Not backwards at all. And toss in the “I just bought these today” white sneakers and tidy whitey under shirt cuffed at the sleeve, and I get all confused. Is this West Side Story? Should I run back inside and whip up a dress?

And then there’s “The Suit”. OK, OK, OK. I know you dress up like that all day in the Florida sun to call on all your VIP customers, but it’s hot here. We bake here actually. If you’re not Richard Gere, leave the pinstripes at home. This is the south baby.

And don’t forget “My Bad.” Yeah. His mama taught him well. His shorts are the size of a teepee tent, just flashing a little ankle below and a lotta Joe boxer up top. His neck is drenched in electroplate, maybe even a tooth or two to match. And the doo……. The gelled and moused spikes, poking straight up in the air…..I can’t see the “running my fingers through your hair” thing….

Nah. I don’t do men in costumes. I like mine in levis and button downs, T-shirts and khakis. Just everyday threads. With everyday hair. And an everyday smile. In an everyday world. My world.

No wonder you stood out in the crowd.