I Crack Myself Up...Literally

I'm not gonna lie.

I'm my biggest fan.

For all my failings (too numerous to count) I've also acquired a few good qualities.

I'm a decent person.

I don't mind poking fun at my own self.

It's easy and way too obvious not to do.

(trust me, I've heard recordings of my hillbilly self)

I can (do) add two extra syllables to any one syllable word...

and do it all day long, every single day.


My car blue tooth doesn't even recognize my husband's name when I ask it to call him. Instead it goes through and offers to call my entire contact list of two and three syllable names beginning with the letter "T".

My husband's name is Tim.

I use old school terminology all the time and half the time my  much younger coworkers don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about, not to mention people I run into other places I go in Florida.

I

I say "Ooh wee" at least twenty times a day.

Other people just sigh, or say "sh*t!"

(I say "sh*t" a lot too, but my pronunciation has three syllables)

Anything less than a teaspoon is a smidge or a smattering to me.

If I wake up and have a stiff back,
I'm stove up.

I'm always fixin' to do something.

It's never soda or pop.
Its always a CoCola.
(not a Coca Cola)

Iced tea always means sweet.
Fried food is always better.
Potatoes are like a meat to me.

I know I'm a Hick, but like to think I'm a loveable one.





And, I've been slinging plates since the seventies.

"I was a really good waitress. Waitressing takes a certain gusto. You need a good memory and an ability to connect with people fast. You have to learn how to treat the kitchen as well as you treat the customers. You have to figure out which crazy people to listen to and which crazy people to ignore. I loved waiting tables because when you cashed out at the end of the night your job was truly over. You wiped down your section and paid out your busy boy and you knew your work was done. I didn't take my job home with me, except for the occasional nightmare where I would wake up in a cold sweat and remember I never brought table 14 their diet coke."

                                             Amy Poehler--Yes Please

I've been a server since it was called a waitress.

It suits me.

I'm way too loud for an office, but once people get past my hillbilly-osity, which I totally (try to) keep in check while speaking with customers; I do pretty well for myself.

I learned to slow down when speaking , enunciate and attempt to sound articulate.

Plus, the uniforms don't require dresses or pantyhose anymore.

I never have to catch up on work after I get home from work or ever have to go in early to catch up on work from the day before.

How sweet is that?
(especially in these days and times)

When I clock out...it's a done deal, and walk out with my paycheck, already cashed.

I also like to laugh.
A lot.

The best laughs are when you aren't supposed to be laughing.

I think I chose the right profession.

I wait on the public, and that's never dull.

I come home with a "Let me tell ya what happened" story, every shift I work.

I've met (maybe) thousands of people but totally made some pretty wonderful friends along the way.


All three of my kids have worked alongside me, at one point or another.

Massey lasted the longest, working with my crazy ole self.

Yeah, Massey had a pretty sweet gig working with me for a year during her college years, and recognized every famous person I did not.
She kept me current.

She still does.


She went from this...

to this

to this

somehow, someway... when I turned my head for (seemingly) just a minute.

My other two kids are boys. Having boys was always less maintenance...until you have to (literally) make  bond.

Once again I am laughing.


My boys, now men, don't want me calling them every day. They know where and how to find me if they need me, and I make sure of that.

But I don't think I've ever gone more than a day without talking to Massey.

She deserves an award for putting up with the likes of me, but we have certainly share many laughs together and more often than not, usually about something I've done or said.

Next year I'll be sixty years old.
That sounds like a total joke to me.
I'm an old woman now?!



You know, it really didn't hit me until I finally got lucky enough to switch to all day shifts, four days a week, with a three day weekend.

I'm tired.

The past ten years took a toll on us, but would "Do Over" every single one of them, if we could still end up here, where we landed.


It's literally time for me to stop and smell the roses.

I love this place, our place... more and more every day.

You need to live a Life that makes you smile when you think about it.

I kid you not, I wake up grateful every single day.

Don't get me wrong.
 I only work four days a week now. It's perfect for me, and just what I need at this point in my life.

 But those four days they (do and will) get every single bit of my attention to detail and follow through job, from the time I clock in until the time I clock out.

Life's a crazy ride.

Sometimes you have to cry.
 (I have)
 Sometimes you have to melt down.
(done that too)
Sometimes you lose.
(more times than I can count)
But...
The important thing is to get back up, and try again even harder.


With all my (our) past misfortunes...I'm still one of the lucky ones, and know this for a fact.
Between having a twenty four year old (live in bestie/daughter) and working with kids born when  I was turning forty... I have somehow, someway managed to "Stay Woke."
(and yes I learned that term from her)

Life can always be worse.
It could stop.

Enjoy it while you can.

Find and count your blessings.
And if you can't find any, you're not looking hard enough.


Till next time...COTTON

Closing In On Full Circle

The above photo was taken outside the entrance to our childhood church in Georgia. This was three years before I was even born, around the late fifties. Both my parents are on the third row from the top, on the right side, next to the lady holding a baby in a bonnet.

That baby in the bonnet suddenly passed away last week.

I've known her for as long as I can remember, and will miss her the same.

As long as I'll be able to remember.

Once all of us were out of high school, we drifted apart  but stayed in touch over the years just like most of people my age always have.

Class reunions, church homecomings and finally, more funerals than parties.

Not too long ago, she lost her partner of  well over thirty years to a nasty battle with brain cancer.

It broke my friend, and my own heart broke for her.

I had attended a Halloween party at their house a few years back with my sister and it was literally us picking up exactly where we left off all those many years ago.

I got a postcard  (from the mid seventies) and this note from her just last week...

I've always loved her handwriting, and way with few words.

Every summer we went on vacation to Panama City with our parents and about four other families from the church. We all stayed at the same place and was usually a group of about fifteen to twenty.

What a terrific childhood and adolescence I was lucky enough to have growing up, with outstanding parents God picked just for me.

And bonus points, all those same families spent one weekend together every Fall in the great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, all in the same huge house.

This is a picture of that very house, my friend mailed me as well.

I immediately framed it.

 It sits on the marble wash stand where I keep my car keys. I see it every single time I walk into my kitchen, leave my house, or come home to it.

After losing the Love of her Life...

 I began to write her about once a month. Just ramblings and going ons about our recent move to Florida after living fifty six years in Georgia, where she also lived.

Every blue moon I'd receive a card or note from her in the mail, unexpectedly.

They were always sweet, short and to the point. 

I even got a postcard from her, when she was in Paris once.

 I was just writing to give her something else to think about for maybe five or six minutes, so that maybe for five or six minutes, she wasn't totally consumed by the grief which was  killing her spirit...

 bit, by bit, by bit.

She mailed me a pack of cocktail napkins one time. I still have them. On the front was this picture and these words:

It looked just like a picture from our parent's Sunday school parties. They had some wild and crazy ones...and were all stone cold sober.

They had themed parties and held progressive dinners on the weekends.

 They had "Womanless Weddings" in the fellowship hall, where the men played all the parts.

 Both my parents taught us in Sunday School at various points

 and we grew up side by side with all these families.

I even remember when they had a "Hippie Party" one time.

This is my Dad and his Sunday School teacher, who was also his tennis partner for decades.

I was such a lucky kid to grow up in such a wonderful time, surrounded by wonderful people.

Unfortunately there are fewer of us left around here these days but by this point must  be "Standing Room Only" upstairs with The Big Guy, and trust me,  quite the party.

I'm pretty sure they allow ashtrays in Heaven now.

Time charges on, whether we want it to or not.

I lost my own mother when I was seventeen.

I watched her die, in less than one (totally unexpected) minute, when out shopping for school clothes with my older sister.

In hindsight (almost a quarter of a century later)

...good for you, Mama.

My brother says our family takes the Express Checkout...

but he's right.  If ya gotta go,

GO!!

Our father went from healthy to being on life support in less than two days. 

Then about a week later,

he was gone as well. 

 I was lucky enough to dance with him at a Valentine's Dance, my senior year in high school. He was a chaperone.

Mama had died just six months earlier.

They were in love every day of their marriage, and it showed.

I've been blessed my entire life, with a couple of tough losses to swallow.

In the grand scheme of things, that's a win in my book.

The older I get, the more loved ones I lose.

It's just part of me being lucky enough, to grow older.

I'm turning sixty next year...

If God lets me.

Live your life like there is no tomorrow,

because tomorrow is never a sure thing.

If you want to be a good and decent person, you best do it now.

My dear departed friend lived, and died, by these very words.

Till next time, COTTON