Rabbits and Windchimes and Breezes, Oh, My!

Sunday afternoon on the patio. Cool breezes, blooming impatiens, tinkling wind chimes. As Martha Stewart would say, this is a good thing.

And not far away, a wild rabbit lolls in the grass. Let me say here that, as a general rule, wild rabbits don't "loll," especially out in the open. They are prey animals in many a food chain. Their vision range is nearly 360 degrees, and they stay on high alert most all the time. Except for this one. She comes out regularly to just...relax. Often she will lie and watch me hang clothes on the line. I don't know why this is interesting to her, but apparently it is. Sometimes I feel like turning toward her and saying, "What!?"

Clearly, she's not the least bit concerned that I might suddenly remember that I come from a long line of hasenpfeffer people.

I've been a semi-country girl all my life, and I've never seen a wild rabbit do this. I once picked wild strawberries alongside one when I was a little girl, but we were both hungry. Lying around like this was so odd to me I looked up "rabbit behavior" on the internet. It apparently has significant meaning among the Family Leporidae:

Life is good.

THE HELP

I don't often recommend specific books, but I want to tell you that I loved this one. It's what I like to write and what I like to read -- character-driven gravitas with humor, set against an important historical (in this case, the early 1960s) backdrop.

Kathryn Stockett is a stellar writer. Did I say I loved this book?

What I'm Reading/Listening To

While checking out Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book recently (What can I say? I like "Harry Potter-y" books), I made a discovery. My local library has a wonderful new service -- access to the NC Digital Library. With a library card, a PIN number, a computer and special software downloaded from the library website, you can check out digital audio books (among other things) which can be listened to on your PC or Mac (so far only a few book downloads are Mac compatible) or transferred to you MP3 or iPod. Some books can also be burned to a CD so that you can listen to them in your car. The books are checked out for seven days and you're limited to four selections at a time.

The upside: I love the convenience. Everything is done online, even getting on the waiting list for a popular release. And it's like old times. I grew up doing household chores while listening to soap operas (Guiding Light, Our Gal Sunday, Hilltop House) and variety shows (Breakfast Club, Arthur Godfrey) on the radio, so it's a familiar and enjoyable experience hanging clothes on the line, vacuuming, washing dishes and all the rest of the cleaning while listening to a book I don't have the time or the inclination to actually read. And, an MP3 player with a book on it is also a wonderful thing if you have to go someplace and wait.

The downside: Listening to an author's writing is not the same as reading it, i.e., I get no sense of the writer's "voice." It becomes the voice of the actor or actress who was hired to do the audio version. For example, I can't tell a Jodi Picoult from an Elizabeth Berg or anybody else in the audio versions.

"Voice" aside, some audio book readers are simply better at it than others. Some of the productions are better than others, as well. The Widow of the South, for example had music interspersed for dramatic effect, making it much more enjoyable for me, the old radio listener. Some versions will make a point of telling you when a new chapter begins and there are significant pauses when the narrative switches from one character to another. Others don't tell you anything, or elongate the pauses, which can be confusing.

And some readers are out and out obnoxious. I listened to a non-fiction book (the cover of which isn't above) and found myself insulted on so many levels -- Southern customs, Southern heritage, Southern accent, the South in general. Even the small town where my aunt lives got skewered. Or it sounded that way, thanks to the over-the-top and mocking style of the woman who read the thing. I suppose she wanted to make a very dry and inconclusive book seem witty and exciting. Didn't work, though.

All in all, I have to say I like this new technology. You might want to check your own library to see if they offer digital downloads.

And that's all for this time. Except for my wishing you a HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY...

Where The Lilies Bloom and Some Updates

It's mid-June. Which means the lilies are blooming. The ones seen above are legacy, memory-keeper plants. They came from the dh's late Aunt Peg and hadn't bloomed in years because the shade from the maple tree overtook them. The dh moved them year before last into mostly full sun next to the neighbor's fence and they've really blossomed. They are nearly as tall as I am. You can just see the cats' cairn in the lower left corner.

The magnolias are blooming, too, but I don't have any of those. I read once that there was a huge magnolia forest around Pilot Mountain (or "Mount Pilot," if you're an "Andy Griffith Show" fan) in pre-Colonial times. What a wonderfully fragrant place that must have been. Now they're fairly uncommon ornamental trees found only in well-established yards and old cemeteries in my part of NC. I've never seen one planted around a new house. Little boys love the seed pods -- perfect hand grenades, don't you know.

But I digress. Again.

As I was saying, I don't have any magnolia blossoms, but come along with me now and I'll show you the blossoms I do have. I don't know the names of any of the lilies -- if you do, would you let me know?




This one is...pink. And burgundy. And yellow. And unusual looking as lilies go.







This one is similar petal-wise, but with much bolder colors:







Two more of a different variety:















And the last one. It's very...orange:








That's it for the lily tour. Now some updates:

Our World Traveler has reached his destination safely and is studying and working hard. Housing was a bit problematical initially, but I think that's straightened out. And so far, he's staying well.

The grandson is doing well with his brace despite some painful abrasions and blisters from the brace pads. (Aoife, the Jockey tees are still working. Thanks again.)

My mom had an episode with her heart -- tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), which eventually straightened out on its own. She was hospitalized overnight and all her tests were negative, thankfully. She seems to be feeling pretty well -- troubled mostly arthritic aches and pains which keep her from sleeping well.

Till next time...

I "HEART" BALLERINAS (especially the first one on the left)

The granddaughter's big finale dance recital was held last night at Catawba College, and it was raining hard. But, as you will see, the little ballerinas took it all in stride and were wonderful despite the weather. As usual, I was shooting what I couldn't actually see (The auditorium was packed, and I was in the semi-nose bleed section). Even so, I wanted to share a snippet of my favorite number with you. My ballerina is the first one on the left. (Aren't they the cutest things?)

Memorial Day

This photo was taken yesterday at the National Cemetery, which was also the site of the Confederate Prison during the Civil War. My father is buried here, and two great uncles, and several nurses I'd worked alongside during my long career.

But when the photo was taken, I was thinking about a particular co-worker of mine who is buried on the second row. She was a navy nurse during the Vietnam War, and I've been remembering something she told me about that time.

She was assigned to a hospital in New York -- New York City, I think. My memory is hazy as to the name of the hospital and the exact locale. I do recall her saying that because of the location, the hospital often had "celebrity visitors" whose mission it was to chit-chat with the patients and raise morale. They came to the hospital, but not to the ward where she was working. Her patients were young men who had been severely disfigured by burns and explosions and high-powered weapons. Their wounds were considered too shocking, too hideous and upsetting for that kind of public relations visit.

But there were two, she said, who came anyway. Two. In all the time she was assigned there. And their visits meant more to those young men than they would ever know.

Who were they?


Patty Duke and Grace Kelly.


One navy nurse never forgot what a kind and powerful and far-reaching thing they did -- and neither will her old co-worker.















That's it for this time...

This and That

It doesn't take much to make me happy. Here's something that does:







Cherries. And the good news is that the sweet cherry crop at the Levering Orchard just across the Virginia border is estimated to be ready May 30. If you love cherries like I do and you live in the vicinity, check out their website for the particulars -- like calling before you make the trip and bringing boxes and/or bags. We've been buying cherries there for years and they are excellent.





Other things:

-Thanks to Aoife, who posted on this blog a few days ago, I've found some better undershirts for the grandson in the brace. Jockey brand, that would be. It took some doing to find them here. They were finally located at a Belk's department store. They didn't have the sleeveless ones, but I have a pair of pinking shears, and I'm not afraid to use them.

-The "blackberry winter" has had a resurgence. Yesterday was quite comfortable; today it's windy and rainy and there may be frosts in the mountains tonight (hopefully not where the cherries are.)







-The heirloom irises (Mamaw Rose's irises) have peaked and are on the wane. The bluebirds have disappeared. I think the dh running the wood chipper for three days straight twenty feet away could be the reason. For the disappeared bluebirds, not the irises.

-My mom has been a little under the weather with a cold/allergy kind of thing. She was feeling better yesterday, though.

-Our World Traveler is planning to travel again soon, returning to the same country he was in for six months or so last year and one he has truly come to love. It wouldn't surprise me if he chose to live there after he graduates. In any event, you are all invited to help me (and his mom and our mom) to worry until he gets back. (What can I say? We worry if we don't have something to worry about -- or so we are told.)



-I spent a good portion of yesterday at a soccer game and then working on secret birthday plans with the granddaughter. Her mom's birthday is the 22nd, and she really, really wanted to find the birthday card and something special to wrap up. The card took some doing. I read the sentiments in every card the store had to her. She wasn't the least bit interested in the "kid" versions. She picked a really grown up, "Happy Birthday, Mother" one, with gilding and roses and a fountain pen on the front. It apparently said just what she wanted to say. And we went to the T-shirt outlet store (where I am now well-known because of the undershirt-for-the-brace quest). They have first quality T-shirts, nightshirts, etc., and a large selection of decals you can purchase and have put on the knitwear of your choice. We ended up with kittens and sunflowers on a lime green V-neck. Mommy is going to love it, and she's going to be very easy to spot in a crowd.


That's it for this time...

Blackberry Winter

No, no, not the book.









The real "blackberry winter."

It has arrived. I know this because a) it's 50 degrees and raining, and b) the blackberries are blooming. It's a raw day, so I made chicken and rice soup for lunch (with peanut butter crackers and sliced apples), one of my favorite chilly, rainy day remedies. I have eaten said remedy, and now I feel better. More or less.



So let us update:

The grandson is now in a chest brace. He will eventually be wearing it constantly, except at night when he's sleeping. Right now he's working on building up his endurance. I think wearing it to school has been pretty rough, not esthetically -- you really can't see it under his shirt -- but pain-wise. The thing hurts and rubs blisters.

I'm going on another quest later today to try to find a proper undershirt for brace-wearing. The problem is that they have to fit tightly, but smaller sizes just seem to be shorter and not significantly less wide -- which could be remedied if I or somebody in my orbit had a sewing machine. Anyway, we have run into a logistics problem, but we are working on it.

The family men took all of us mothers out to lunch yesterday at the Classic in Denton (huge buffet of Southern "country cooking"). It was great. I like the Classic a lot. Not just the food, but the thirty-five mile drive to get there, especially the "back way" which is all secondary roads through rolling farmland, over the Yadkin River, and through a valley in the ancient Uwharrie Mountains. The other, longer way isn't bad, either. Down US 52 through Misenheimer and literally through the Pfeiffer College campus (I wanted to go to school there SO bad), then onto Hwy 49 to the Denton exit. That way takes you over the Pee Dee River -- which is the same river as the Yadkin actually, only broader and much less muddy. Denton itself is a quaint little town with a number of antique shops. There's an interesting bed in the window of one of them, tall brass canopy with what looks like some kind of mother-of-pearl designs in the headboard. It's very imposing. It would be a job to keep polished, but it certainly makes a statement.

My mom is doing nicely with her replacement vehicle. I think she misses the Mustang's "bad girl" persona -- my son's friends were all alarmed to see her driving "something else." She doesn't miss the 5-speed stick shift, though. Neither do her knees.

So. That's it for now. Till next time...

Flora and Fauna on the Back Forty

Well, actually, it's the Back "Less-Than-One." Still, small or not, there is usually something nature-y going on.

Last Saturday I coerced the grandson into sitting on the patio with me for a time and seeing what he could see, not easy with an almost fourteen-year-old. Handing him a pair of binoculars helped.

It bothers me that he and a lot of kids his age have never bonded with nature. They're too busy, for one thing, and when they're not, they don't go outside all that much. Too many bugs, not enough air conditioning, too far away from the Wii. (I know, I know. I sound like Andy Rooney.)

Here are some of the things I made him look at:



The peach iris. One of my favorites. Every time I see one of them I want peach ice cream.







And the white iris -- with petals that look as if they'd been edged in a blanket stitch with purple thread:








And a pair of Eastern Bluebirds at their bluebird box. One is on the roof. The other is about to go inside.








And the lonesome dove. He or she has lost his or her mate. It comes often to the bird feeder and birdbath. Always alone. And it sings a lot -- that mournful, mournful call that is never answered.







And the rabbit. It comes out to eat the clover. It lives in a pile of privet hedge limbs -- the dh trimmed the hedge and then some. At present I'm lobbying for him to spare the debris until the rabbit is through with them.





There were also squirrels (many, MANY squirrels), a red-headed woodpecker, a thrush or two, robins, blue jays, sparrows, titmouse (mouses? mice?), mockingbirds, a finch, cardinals, and assorted butterflies.

The grandson's verdict after I made him suffer through all this? He thought for a moment -- while the wind chimes tinkled softly in the late afternoon breeze.

"It's...peaceful," he said.

Yes. It is.

Excerpts...

Click here to read excerpts from THE FIRST BOY I LOVED and from the bonus book, THE MARINE. (Comments welcome. Generally speaking.)