What's a girl to do?

I don't know when it happened. It's been five months in the making, creeping, crawling, sneaking in.....and then walah!, I go to zip my jeans, (line dried, can't blame it on the heat!) and....ummm....for the first time in 36 years they don't fit! I'm suddenly there, courtesy of mid~life crises, a broken foot, and an obsessive compulsion to collect beer bottle caps. The pudge. The pinch an inch. This will never do! I live in Florida. We run around half naked, even when we're seventy. Flesh is a given. It's hot down here!



I moan. I don't cook. I don't clean. And I darn sure don't want to diet or exercise. Fridays are for dancing and other than that....I wanna dream. I spin in the mirror. Yup, got a fanny goin' on now, too! And pencil legs to hold it up! I cringe.



I lay on the floor and try to remember the 1-2-3's from my Cher Fitness Video.....Uggggghhh! I go to the fridge, take a cold one out and stare at it. I wonder how many calories are in this puppy. How many are in three? I pop the cap.



And decide I absolutely have to do something. I can't afford to buy new clothes. And then I remember.....yup! That's it.



I'm gonna get a new boyfriend. I need to dance in the kitchen again.



Wish me luck, friends,
And yeah,
peace and love......



Picture courtesy of the world wide web, www.hookedonvintage.com

When butterflies are tigers....

I preach. All the time. I flash peace signs to road~ragers, butt~in~front~of~you in liners, thou-shalt-not-doers, and ex~lovers. I scribble peace signs on thank you notes, just-sign-here's, divorce decrees, concrete walls, and pockets on hand-me-down-jeans. Peace signs hang in my windows, on my walls, and from my neck. I preach. And I practice it. In the end, peace wins...

But sometimes in the middle, you have to wad it up. Stand up and holler. Make a mess. Don't mess with my Skinny.....

JSYK, sweet sib of mine, I'm campin' out at peace creek, and on the way there, I'm gonna toke the fire ....

Pleased to meet you....

Last Sunday I was estatically catatonic. Worn slap silly out from friday night dancin' and camping out with the little ones, playing hippie hoo-hah, and chasing stars. It was wonderful. I was punch drunk, giddy from exhaustion. I fell into bed on Sunday, racing the Sun to be the first to fall, and slept a glorious full 8 hours.

In those eight hours my life changed. I woke up rested, rejuvenated, full of love, and charged out the Monday Morning door. Cranked the car, blasted the music and joined the ratrace. And then I saw it. The orange glowing lights changing. Flickering. The clock in my car suddenly working again. It's been stuck on Midnight, the moment between yesterday and tomorrow since June. And so have I.

Other chics have biological clocks. I have a car clock. And Monday the alarm went off.

Ta! Dah! Sometimes, it's all in the timing...

You're only little once......

We've waited forever. Marked X's on the calendar. Counted days.

Watched the weather
man.

Ta! Dah! This is it!

Hippie Camp-out Night! Kimbies and I and our elfin little grandbabies goin' Woodstock for the night..... And feelin' the love......

My little heart-n-souls rode backseat, buckled up for 400 miles to spend the night in the latrineless green castle in the back yard. They came toting pillows, fuzzy blankets, yoo-hoo's, flashlights and smiles the size of martini moons. Kim's little Alana packed her Cinderella sheets, a sippy cup, and Me'Me's beer and we were off! To never-ever land, 18 steps from the back door. We played AARP Twister......Kimbies and I moaning, groaning, stretching, hoola-hooping our bodies into "left hand on green" pretzels.....tumbling in a pile of laughter. For every beer we drank (Hippie gramma's are allowed!) they ate a cupcake, a chinese fortune cookie, a puff of cheese popcorn....We built a cardboard house big enough for two......We colored, we painted, we glued, and ran barefoot in roundy-rounds through the backyard! We stayed up until 2:18 (That was the exact time according to Stone, the keeper of the battery operated clock!) and we never chickened out. The winds blew left and right and in mighty circles, 60 MPH, and we waited for the house to lift and send us flying.......we laughed, and oohed and ahhhed, and achoo!ed, piling under covers......

We woke this morning, to the same magic we fell asleep too. Alana saw it first. "Look she's fwying, dancing....... the yewwo buttahfwy...." We stretched our camp-out necks, squinted towards the window...."Where?" we chorused......."There!" she pointed...... And then we saw her......

The first ray of sun, glittering through the window.......

Them's fightin' words....

I gave up fussin' and fightin' a long time ago... my last voluntary hoo~hah left me hidin' in the dog house, literally. Thank God I'm skinny. There were cuss words and accusations. One ice cold beer propelling it's liquid soul across the room. Splash! Right on target. "Now, I'm in your face" were the last words I remember dripping from his chin. I ran......

That was over twenty years ago.

I don't like noise or commotion. Except for Led Zepplin. I've lived through a few world wars in the living room, the street, in nightmares come true, and I've survived. Long enough to choose peace. I've never raised my right hand and volunteered again, but I've been there, in the middle of mahem, begging, pleading....waiting.... I remember, recite, the words my Father taught me "wage your battles well"....and whisper them over and over again, worry beads under my breath, when anger show's it's yellow face.....

I'm a chicken, actually.

Fightin' frightens me. Things are said that can never ever be erased. Faces are made, expressions frozen forever like Superman, waiting for just the right moment to come flashing back.....haunted deja vue. Doors are slammed. And sometimes windows break.......

I need the beach......
And a podium....

Peace~love..........

Cupid Ain't Stupid, that's for sure.....

It's in the air. I know I'm holiday hoppin' here, but I mean to. I want to jump from one "feel~good" to the next, and nope, I'm not racing through 'em... I'm racin' to 'em! It's kind of like getting a good seat on the sidewalk for the next parade, you gotta get there early.....

So here it is, St. Valentines Day, parked right around the corner. Pretty soon I'll have to trip over giant red hearts in the grocery store just to buy beer. Helium balloons the size of space ships will be hovering overhead, their bobbing ribbons tickling my hair while I shop for macaroni and cheese. The jewelry stores will all get together and come up with some new" have-to-have": a ring, a chain, a bracelet, that will brand any woman without one on the morning after as ......well.....valentineless, or soul mate to a poor man. A million red roses will be sacrificed for the moment, bundled and jumbled and sold for a fortune. The writers at Hallmarkwill collapse from exhaustion, worn out from feeling the love and padding their pockets.

Here in Hippie Holiday Land, we do it a little bit different.

"Patty cake
Patty cake
Baker's man,
Role em' and a dole em
and throw 'em in a pan".....

Ta! Dah! Love beads everywhere!

You wanna feel the love? Email your postal and I'll bop a string in the mail to you! Yeah, Cupid Ain't Stupid, she's got blonde hair and wears hand me down jeans....





Here's mine, almost twenty years later.....We started with three little beads, peace, love and hope, and they grew.... The colors and stories have changed, but I still feel the love.....remember the night we sat at the table a lifetime ago, Skinny and I, making love beads, saving the world......

Coloring the sky

I pushed the magic button, automatic ignition, and Cla-Plump! Bang! it shifted gears, lurched, and died. Like the lady stranded in the Winn Dixie parking lot, ice cream melting, beer getting warm, I tried it over and over and over again. Then I kicked it. Once for good luck. Swung my good booted foot around and kicked it twice for "try that"! Sometimes, it just takes a good wallop to get everything back in order.

Nothing.

She just sat there, too old, too cold, too dead to even groan. I felt bad for being a bully, and apologized. It was too late. On Wednesday, the neighbor and I will haul her, one heavy inch at a time to the curb. If she's lucky, a body snatcher will come in the night, and whisk her cumbersome remains off to be reincarnated into something grander....otherwise, she'll be laid to rest at the top of a mile high mountain of likened souls, teetering at the top, until she's buried under the next week's refuge.


Good-bye, sweet little dryer. Hello blue skies!

Writing on the walls....

I woke up to sunshine and followed the trail of abandoned combat boots, clothes, helium balloons asleep on the floor, to the kitchen.....to the first New Day of the New Year. Confetti is still fallin' from my hair, joining the cat hair in a midair ballet. It's nice. This promise of tomorrow. I open the windows and smile at the unkempt yard and the free newspapers piled at the edge of the driveway. I clink! my coffeecup to the blue sky and throw a kiss... "Good-bye friend" I whisper to the old year, the tried and tired and true year. I'm not being unfaithful, it's just time to move on...

I run my fingers over the broken blue tile and Michelob caps, the fresh sandy grout.....and smile again. My Dear John letter to 2007 and love letter to 2008 etched forever on the walls of this old house. Let there be peace.......