Month: October 2020

Happy Halloween

/ Missy Goodnight / 1 Comment

We have a kid obsessed with the Netflix series, “Stranger Things.” To be fair, only season one so far, but still. We also have a Halloween upon us wherein it is not safe to wander door to door asking strangers for Covid, err, candy, so we’ve been thinking up ways to celebrate this year while being socially conscious. Enter, visiting “Stranger Things” film locations while in costume! So far, so good. Living in the South’s version of Hollywood has been pretty interesting. Here, take a gander:

Chief Hopper at the Wheeler house (in East Point)
Hopper lighting a cigarette leaving the hospital. (Don’t worry it’s not real. The cigarette or the hospital, it’s actually a Baptist church by Tyler Perry Studios.)
Hopper “looking around” after finding Benny dead at his diner.
Looking for Mad Max and the boys (season two) at the Palace Arcade.
No sign of the kids at the Hawkins Middle School gym (and we had just missed them starting the set-up to film season four, got to see some new signs going up and a huge tent, before security ran us off. Oops!)
And then there was Hawkins Lab. Talk about spooky szn! It’s actually an old building on Emory’s campus about ten minutes from our house. It’s so close we are headed up in a week or so to get Covid tested there (before we see family for the holidays). Ha! I’m sure Hopper will make another appearance then too.

Today we are headed to a little town just outside metro Atlanta called Jackson, Georgia which is the setting for Downtown Hawkins. More pics tomorrow. Until then, Happy Halloween and enjoy more of his favorite location!

M.

It’s fake, haters.

The Chaos After the Storm

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I’m getting real fucking tired of saying this, but here we go, “The hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm somewhere over Alabama and it got us. It got us good.” I didn’t sleep a wink. Right before bed I got the alert that said it was headed our way. Now mind you, I knew it made landfall in New Orleans, but New Orleans is a good eight hours from us so I wasn’t too worried. Then I started to get weather alerts from DeKalb County all, “Y’all, some shit fittin’ to go down tonight. Pull ya umbrellas out ya tables, pick the pinecones up out ya yard, and remember to vote. The election is six days away!” They also “closed” school, but not really because we are still going virtually on account of the Covid, but essentially they said don’t worry if you can’t log on in case you lose power “cause you will probably lose power.” Seems to be some infrastructure problems they could be working on, rather than sending me salty texts at midnight, but whateves.

So early yesterday morning, right around the time I was falling into a good sleep, Lady Winifred Beesly of Atlanta started up on her barking at random noises she heard, only it wasn’t so random. It was pinecones hitting the roof and the windows at speeds no pinecone should travel. Then the creaking of the pines started. I don’t know if you have ever watched a pine tree sway in downgraded hurricane winds, but Imma tell you it’s spooky.

Pine trees are so tall, and their roots are so far into the ground, that they are flexible trees by nature. But that doesn’t stop you from looking out your window, watching the swaying trees, wondering if you would be safer if you woke up the whole family at three am and herded them into the guest room in the basement.

The good news is we made it through the night unscathed. Relatively. The street looks like it vomited pine needles, the plants are all a little wonky, and our old windows took a beating, but the worst part was when the doorbell rang at 8:45 am and our neighbor Dale was standing at the carport with Sir Duke Motherfucking Barkington of Charlotte on a leash. What?! How did that happen?

Turns out the wind was so strong, it knocked open our wooden gate. It didn’t unlatch, just opened it up wide enough for a petite standard poodle, who hates me, to slip out undetected and romp through the neighborhood until Dale and Cookie came outside and found him running around the empty lot by their house. “Looking like he was chasing butterflies.” Yeah, that fucking checks out.

Listen, it’s been a week. And I need these storms to be over and I need this damn election to be over and I need to incorporate more gin into my life.

Hope you are all unscathed these days.

M.

Angry Today

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I’m trying to stave off anger today. I’m so tired of seeing these Covid-19 outbreaks all over the country. I want to scream, “Did you learn nothing from us?!” Like, hello?! Did y’all learn nothing from Georgia, from Atlanta back in March and April when we exploded and our trash governor opened up too soon and it spread like wildfire? Do you even watch the news? We, the people, had to make changes. My county had to make a mask mandate, because our state leaders wouldn’t. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had to hold Atlantians accountable to stop the spread, and it worked but it was hard. Meanwhile my family and friends in the midwest and the west were like, “Well it won’t happen here.” And now it’s happened there and still, still like yesterday, I saw pics of family and friends celebrating in bars and restaurants. What gives you guys?

STOP IT!

PLEASE.

And yes, I know that was an aggressive please.

And yes I know that you are over “this Covid stuff,” but this “Covid stuff” isn’t done with us. It doesn’t how much you wish it away, it’s here. So start acting responsibly.

PLEASE.

Stay safe and sane, y’all.

M.

VOTE!

Picture This

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Picture this: I’m crying in my car parked in my carport. My dog is at the fence barking his head off. The FedEx guy pulls up, my husband pops his head out the door, my mom is ringing my phone, and Adele is playing on my radio. That’s it. Just wanted you to picture that, so you could see what my life was like this week. That’s it. That’s my life.

Okay, but now picture this: It’s two minutes before I’m supposed to log onto a Zoom class session with my very wonderful classmates. I’ve had horrible ahem, bathroom problems, and I actually, really need to pour myself a glass of wine so I can get through the rest of the day in one piece, but instead I have to run to the bathroom, while I’m calculating whether or not I will make it time to log back in before class starts. I pause for a moment to consider logging in, then turning my screen off while I’m in the bathroom, then shudder at the thought of my professor saying hello to me or asking me a question and me not being there, worse yet, me being heard from the bathroom because I forgot to mute my mic.

Now, picture this: I’m in bed. In my big comfy bed. It’s 9:00 pm on Monday, but I don’t care, who am I impressing? I’ve cried, worked out, been to the doctor, hugged my kid, talked to my mom, and made it through another Zoom class. I’m fading slowly off to sleep on account of all the melatonin and my husband reaches over and squeezes my hand. Tells me Goodnight as my dogs snuggles onto my feet.

Tomorrow will be better, y’all. It just will.

M.

Changing Times

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Struggling this week. Few weeks left in my shortened semester. My first semester back in grad school. My last first semester. It’s been rough, tougher than usual. For all of us. Residency took all my energy last week. Now it’s time for writing papers. Now it’s time for sleeping less. Now it’s time for picking up slack from that weekend I went to the pumpkin patch or played board games with my boys. Now it’s long days at my desk, sore knees and wrists. Running to rummage something up for dinner in between workshop Zoom calls and more reading. Now the cold is setting in.

I’m not complaining. Geez, I know it seems like I am. I do recognize my situation is pretty good. All things considered. And I do wish other’s were just as good. I don’t want to complain. I don’t mean to complain.

The air is changing. The semester is changing. The world is changing. I want to think it’s all changing for the good. I want to feel that way, but I don’t. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Probably tomorrow.

I hope your changing times are okay. Are hopeful and necessary. Are as pain free as they can be.

M.

Homegood’s Art

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Listen, I like to collect art from every state we live in. Local art, fan art, and yes corporate, stuffy art from big box stores, essentially whatever tickles my fancy, though to be fair I’m partial to the homemade kind. Still, whenever I come across state art I stop and take a gander. There’s flea market finds, yard sale finds, Etsy artists, Instagram artists, printmakers at art fairs, and Homegoods. This is a story about Homegoods art and the city of Atlanta.

We moved to Georgia last April. April first to be exact. And by April 10th, we were completely unpacked, thanks to the help of my mother-in-law and some very handy movers. So by the end of April I was already shopping around for home accents. My first stop was Homegood’s. Duh.

While there I came across an adorable work of art, complete with the artist’s note on the back to try to make me think the artist was getting some sort of compensation for their work. Listen, I’m not going to pretend to know how the art world operates, but I’m pretty sure Homegoods/TJ Maxx is not offering artist in residence. Anywho, there I was face to face with something I thought would look adorable in my dining room:

Here’s why it caught my eye: The framing job. Perfect! And the cute paper. The signed work. The pastel colors (that were bound to match the new curtains I’d just bought). So I paid what I paid, maybe $40, and took my cute art home.

It took exactly one year of looking at this picture, of learning about our city and state, of having guests comment on how adorable it was before I realized it was racist as hell.

What’s that, you ask. Yeah, I said it, racist as hell.

Check it. From looking at this art you would have no idea that Martin’s Luther King Jr. was such an integral part of the city. There’s no John Lewis. No Civil Rights Museum. But, as Jackson pointed out to me one day, there are four golf courses, two of which I’m pretty sure we’re “Whites Only” well into the 1980s.

There’s also Stone Mountain. Fun. I wonder why they left the KKK hoods out? Artist discretion, I suppose.

There’s also the Tophat Soccer Club. Gee, thanks. And the airport. Really? There’s the airport and some white-ass soccer club, but you had nowhere to stick The King Center? We’re gonna go ‘head and celebrate Six Flags, but pretend like President Jimmy Carter ain’t from ‘round here? Okay, cool, cool, cool. I see you.

Hmpf. So there it’s been. Hanging on my wall. Until this week wherein I replaced it, finally, with something we can all get behind:

Now granted, this was an impulse buy. Just something to get on my wall until I wait for an artist’s rendering of Georgia or Atlanta (preferably a Black artist) to sweep me off my feet. But, the price was good and it matched my new blanket and I feel less gross about the whole thing. Even though I bought it at Homegood’s.

Oh, leave me alone.

M.

Ps… Don’t be a racist asshole.

Things are Getting Stranger

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We finished season one of “Stranger Things” with Jackson last week and have moved on to season two, but we can only watch it during the day because he likes it, but also thinks it’s creepy. Sure, I feel that flow. So it’s been slow going, but he has developed a little obsession with Hopper, which makes sense seeing as Jackson loves the law. Police Chief Jim Hopper is his new favorite, but “Stranger Things” isn’t new at our house.

Way back in 2018, Jerimiah and I watched the first season with my mom when she was visiting. She also loved the show, and had asked to wait to watch the next season with her until she came back again. Well we forgot about it the last time she was here, so we’ve been stuck in this season one standoff for ages now. Back then Jackson was too scared to watch it BUT he had a little crush on a girl who liked the show and when he asked her what she thought he should be for Halloween that year, she said “Eleven” from “Stranger Things.” So this happened…

Yeah, that’s all of us dressed up for Trunk-or-Treat at Jackson’s school that year to impress a girl he never got the guts to “ask out.” Ho hum.

We were a big hit, but I did have to explain the Eggo connection to him because again, he’d NEVER watched the show.

Fast forward to 2020 and he’s like, “Ohhh, now I get the Eggos!”

Cool.

Anyway, I wanted to be Marv, Harry, and Kevin from “Home Alone” this year. But then Covid happened and well, it’s not like we are going trick-or-treating anyway, so I let him do what he wanted and guess what he wanted?

Yeah, that’s Chief Hopper with a (fake) cigarette dangling from his mouth while he decides if he’s gonna crack open another beer or get to work. “Mornings are for coffee and contemplation” my 12-year-old has taken a liking to saying, “Coffee and contemplation.”

So there you have it. The Halloween costume has been created, once again, and he was headed to being all dressed up and nowhere to go. That is until we got a great idea! But this is a long post and my fingers are all burned to shit from ironing patches on shirts and coats and what not, so I’ll tell you about that another time. For now, enjoy some more pics of Chief Hopper.

M.

Missed Connections

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I was tasked with writing a Hermit Crab Essay in class this week. My professor suggested we don’t give it too much thought, don’t belabor it (we have a ton going on right now) so I didn’t. I sat on my front porch, felt the cool wind blow, and wrote for fifteen minutes on my phone, then copy and pasted this mess to the message boards. Then I thought you all might like it too. I hope you do. Remember, it’s not all terrible right now. We still have words, and art, and Craigslist Missed Connections, and funny Hermit Crab Essays about the things we cherish the most in this life.

M.

Craigslist Missed Connections

Atlanta Metro

Posted 10/21/20

Respond to: BasicBitch@basicbitch.com

I’d just left my therapist’s office, and decided I needed a kiwi. I was looking for any reason to be happy after crying for forty-five minutes. I decided on a kiwi. I drove to Kroger as the wind picked up and the small drops of rain started. This time of year isn’t my favorite. The cold, the rain. On top of what we’ve been through already. It’s all too much. 

I hurried inside the store while struggling to get my mask in place properly, and shielding my hair from the rain drops when I caught the first glimpse of you up ahead. I stopped dead in my tracks and the memories came rushing back. 

I’d been dreaming about you for months. In all my hopes for happiness, for normalcy, you were there, always just out of reach. This realization came to me quickly, brought me back to reality, forced my feet to slush faster through the puddles now forming. I sprinted past the pumpkins on display on the haystacks outside, grabbed the first cart I could find, not even bothering to sanitize it, and ran toward produce where I saw you again. 

You were there, right near the caramel-covered apples, but you weren’t alone. You never are. This time you were with a petite, blond woman. She seemed frail and cold, wrapped in a grey scarf, rubbing her hands together to warm them before wrapping her hands around you. The sight sent a shocking sensation through me, like when you get a lidocaine shot at the dentist and they accidentally hit a nerve. The sight of you hurt, but it was worth it.  

I’ve been a mess, honestly. I’ve been stretched to my mental, physical, and emotional limits this last year. My therapist says I need to look for positivity, wherever, whatever that is. She says I need to stay optimistic that the future will hold goodness, and I want it to hold goodness. But now, more urgently, I want to hold you.

I watched you walking with the blond woman, further away, back toward the deli, so I followed. I’m not sure why I did it, I just did it. Moved my body without thinking much. My therapist’s words echoing in my head, desire pumping through my veins, propelling me toward you, but for what? You were with her. And I didn’t dare get too close. I stayed well over six feet away.

And what did I expect to happen? Did I think I’d be able to snatch you away from her? Did I think I had some possession over you, some agency that she lacked? Was I more deserving, would I treat you better? No. I know I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Plus, this damn mask. How would I…? And in a Kroger of all places. 

So there we were. So close, yet so far away. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to make a move. I’m sure next time it will be different, but for now I sit and wait for word from you. I sure hope you’re the goodness I need.

If you were in that Kroger last week, if you were with the woman in the grey scarf. If you were that tall, piping hot pumpkin spice latte, please write back. You know who you are. The one in the white cup with PSL written in sharpie on the side. I’m waiting. 

Yours Forever, 

Kroger Woman in a Black Mask

Adventures, Babies, and So Much More

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Today is one of my best friend’s birthdays. She’s turns 30-something. Listen, I’m not gonna throw her age around, mainly because it is so far less than mine that I am a little peeved about it, but the important thing is we have known each other so long, that the two young women who met, well before their brains were finished developing, even before one of us could legally drink alcohol, are so far from those two young girls now, yet somehow still need each other, that it’s remarkable and a little sad, because the fact of the matter is, we have never lived further away from each other than we do right now and that’s saying something since most of our twenties were spent in the same town, usually under the same roof, and now here we are miles and miles apart (1800 miles to be exact) and some days that is really bad because some days, many days in the last year or so, we wished we could be nearer, drinking wine on my back deck, or sitting on her couch watching “90-Day Fiancé” while we hide from the world and watch the kids play around us. Ho hum.

Okay, enough about the sadness, it’s Melody’s damn birthday! Last year I was in Tucson to celebrate with her, remember that? Remember back when we could fly places, Mel? Here look:

I’m not in the picture because I’m taking the picture (which we know I love to do, you can read more of that trip and my love of snapshots here) of the girls’ day we spent in the Sonoran Desert last year, going to wineries and generally wrecking havoc on our livers while we laughed under the high desert sun. Oh, the memories. I so wish we were back there again today, Mel.

But alas, you are there and I am here and this is us. I know this year hasn’t been the best one for any of us. I know it’s been a struggle between deaths, and sickness, between learning to navigate losing parents and learning to navigate the terrible unknowns of the world. But sandwiched in between there have been good times. Like getting to see Nashville this summer, or the videos of Bexley learning to walk, or the games nights with the Squad, or the Facetimes just to vent to each other. It’s a crazy world we live in, but it’s also a beautiful world, and as we have grown into the mommies, the wives, the women we have become, we have realized that, slowly but surely.

So today, on your birthday, I want to thank you, friend. Thank you for the lessons of life you have taught me. Thank you for listening to me when I don’t think anyone else will understand. Thank you for always thinking of my kid, for loving him as fiercely as you love your own. Thank you for pushing yourself to see my side of things, for always being down for whatever adventure I want us to go on (and haven’t we gone one some)! Three cheers for Mardi Gras, and Tijuana, and Nashville, and all the other places and times we have fought with each other (wasn’t there some petty shit on a beach on the Mississippi Delta?) Who knows, we’ve always made up, that’s the important part, and we always will. Because friendships like ours are built to last, because women like us are built to last, to get through the turbulence of life, and back round again to the things that make us whole. Thanks, friend, for always helping to make me whole.

I love you, and I hope you have the happiest of birthdays. Let’s drink wine via Zoom with the Squad one day soon. Kisses to the babes.

M.

Pictures for posterity (PS…Thanks, Kasey for always being along for the ride! And at times, Rachel, Julie, and Jerimiah)

The Hike

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Jackson took us on a “hike” yesterday evening. He discovered a new trail with his friend Bella a couple of weeks ago that was “way far away.” Way far away, is really just behind our cul-de-sac and he’s been wanting us to go “exploring” out there with him so he could go further out, so we harnessed the dogs and took out about five o’clock last night.

We only made it to the end of the cul-de-sac before our neighbor Mary (who’s just come back from seven months in Germany) stopped us to say hello, tell us she loved our yard signs (BLM and “Bernie, Ok Fine Biden”) and to warn that there is a mother coyote and her babies living back there somewhere. Cool. Cool. Cool. Thanks, Mary! (Side note: she also said she came back to vote “him out” and it was so different being back in the US where no one takes Covid-19 seriously.) Have I mentioned how much we love living in the brightest blue spot in the South?!

Anyway, we trudged off through the woods then, with Jackson and Duke leading the way, while I slapped at mosquitos and tried not to step on Winnie, who is so afraid of everything (she’s literally a 60-pound 8-month old puppy 🙄) that she kept running between Jerimiah and me every time she heard a twig snap.

Jackson was dressed, of course, as Police Chief Hopper from “Stranger Things” because we just finished the first season and he’s obsessed, and also he knew we might need the protection of the law, especially when we reached the “creepy, energy place that has a fence around it” like in “Stranger Things.” We were all, “Oh sure, okay. (Wink, wink).” Until we got to the fence with barbed wire and we’re like, “Oh damn, yep, that’s like in the show. Weird.”

So there you have it. We took a nice long “hike” on what we think is sewer easement land, stuck behind our cul-de-sac and a creek/lake we had no idea existed and right before a creepy energy compound secured with fence and cameras. Not weird. Not weird at all. Ps… we saw a dead raccoon, but no coyotes.

As usual, enjoy the pics from our little adventure.

M.

Is Today Wednesday?

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I keep thinking, as the weeks go by, that I will remember what it is like to be in grad school. The skills I learned the first time around might come back to me as suddenly as Cinderella losing her slippers at midnight. But alas, there is no pumpkin turned coach this week. No tiny mice running around behind the scenes helping me out. Well, there was a dead mouse in the basement, but that’s a different story better saved for a different day.

Today I’m confused about what day it is. Today I’m trying to keep track which poetry book I’m caught up on, which craft essay is due first, and whether or not I’ll sneeze and fart at the same time on one of my many Zoom calls this week. It’s a lot.

To top it off, Jackson is in the middle of MAP testing. Virtually. Jerimiah is in the midst of budget season, and we have the holidays around the corner. Sometimes it feels like I’m running but not getting anywhere. I’m the treadmill of life I suppose. The damn treadmill of life.

I hope you’re making ground today.

Oh, it is Wednesday.

Make it a good one!

M.

Bone Thugs

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Bone bone bone bone, bone, bone, bone, bone, bone, tell me whatcha gonna do, when you need some new china, what’s the difference between bone and porcelain, who will judge you if you ain’t got either? Tell me… okay, it only works if you know the song “Tha Crossroads” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony so if not please listen to that and then come back here so we can talk about how I need, nay want, some family heirloom china but didn’t come from a family that could afford family heirloom china so now I have to buy my own and I’ve been living deep down in a rabbit hole of the differences in china and did you know bone china is actually made of bone?

Are you back? Did you listen to Bone Thugs? Are we on the same page now?

Bone china is only legit if it is made from approximately 30% cow bone ash. So yeah. If you’re family has heirloom china and it’s bone china it’s straight up made from the dead bodies of cows. Also, aren’t you a vegetarian, that must be weird for you. Also, real bone china, like the real deal stuff, the old stuff, probably had a little human bone mixed in there. Man, could you be so lucky?

To be fair Josiah Spode the Second (yeah, that’s a person) developed the six parts bone ash, four parts china stone, three-and-a-half parts clay (or was it his dead Uncle Clay?) recipe back yonder in the 1800’s. And for some reason today, in 2020, I want, nay NEED, a set of it. Probably because pandemic.

Now I don’t want the kind of bone china I can get from a trip to the Macy’s at Lenox Square, both because I try to stay away from Buckhead and because I want vintage shit. So it’s a tad harder.

I’ve been perusing Craigslist and people want a lot of money for their family heirloom china. Like Jerimiah was all, “Both the car and truck are getting new tires,” and I threw one of my $16 Fiestaware salad plates against the wall and screamed, “That’s my bone china money, bitch!”

I might have a problem when it comes to dinnerware.

I emailed this woman on Craigslist about a Fiesta platter the other day. She had three for sale for $75 (steal of a deal!) but I already have one of the platters so I only needed two and she was all, “I’m only selling as a set.” So I online stalked her social media accounts to see how much of a bitch she really is, like is she a Trump supporter, and she isn’t so I didn’t make a separate Craigslist post titled “bitch woman who won’t piece out her Fiestaware platter collection.” Look, IDGAF. You don’t jack around with Fiestaware and it’s not even BONE.

Do you see where I am? Like, mentally and emotionally? Do you see it? Is it clear? Is it a little translucent? Does it have a 24-karat gold edge? Is it scalloped? That’s where I am.

Send help.

M.

I Miss Eating Out

/ Missy Goodnight / 1 Comment

We haven’t been to eat at a restaurant since March 11th. That’s seven months of cleaning up after we cook (or occasionally order delivery). Seven months. What I wouldn’t give to walk into a small road-side diner and nibble on some fries, the big, fat, greasy ones that only a roadside diner has. With the ketchup bottle you squeeze, and the endless Coke from a fountain. Ho hum.

What I really wish is not to go out to eat, but for other people to stop it. That would be nice wouldn’t it? I’d also wish other people would stop hosting parties, promoting gatherings, going to sporting events, clubbing then going to see their grandparents the next day.

In short, I wish people cared about complete strangers a little more. I wish they had the willpower to not put others at risk. I wish they could say, hmm, sitting in a small, badly ventilated place with my mask off for several hours seems like a bad idea. I don’t want to risk it.

Maybe if more people hadn’t been to a restaurant to eat in the last seven months, we wouldn’t be so much worse than we were back in April. Maybe there wouldn’t be 215,000 dead people. Man. I hope your date night, or your football tailgate, or your 25th wedding anniversary was worth it. Because if you’re doing or have done those things, you’re only adding to the problem. And we are all adding to the problem in one way or another.

Stay safe and sane, y’all. Wear a mask. I’ll be dreaming of diners…

M.

Read news and wear a mask and stay home. It’s not that hard.

Raynaud’s Disease

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If you’ll remember my Dr. Dickhead story from the other day, you’ll remember one of the diseases I was diagnosed with was Raynaud’s Disease. It’s sounds scary, but it’s really not, especially if I have the stand alone version of it. The stand alone version means that your small arteries contract sporadically and restrict blood flow to certain parts of your body. See, it sounds scary. But for now it’s only happening in my toes and fingers. But I can happen in other, more important parts, like your heart and your deep veins. Which is why answers are still needed.

So what does it mean when the vessels spasm? I get very, very cold. My toes will go numb, I’ll lost feeling in my fingers. In fact, I have slippers that you can microwave for two minutes then stick on your feet to help. Well, I had them. Winnie decided to chew one up this week, so I’m patiently waiting on new ones from Amazon.

The problem is, if I don’t warm my feet quickly, they will turn blue, then purple, then white. Then it’s bad. It can take an hour to regain feeling in my toes when it strikes. Keeping the symptoms at bay are most important. The problem is, it isn’t just a sudden gust of cold air that can make it happen. Stress is a factor.

Yeah, you guys know how great I am at handling my stress! Ha! So over the last year this has been happening to me several times a week, some weeks it happens every, single day. It’s more annoying than anything else, but now that my family is used to it, they act quickly to help out. Warming my slippers, or grabbing me gloves. Sometimes I read with gloves on, while I am sipping hot tea and it helps my hands. Sometimes all I can do is sit on my feet until I regain feeling.

So there you have it, Raynaud’s disease. It’s a thing. If this happens to you, you need to see a doctor quickly. Don’t wait two years like I did, assuming it was normal and you were just getting old. Bleh.

M.

Saturday at the Farm

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We visited a friend’s farm last weekend. It is called Butts Mill Farm, and it is out in Western Georgia, near the Alabama state line. Our friend’s parents own it, and it’s less of a farm in the way you are imagining, and more of a family-fun farm, complete with peddle cars, number boats, and miniature horses that you can pet and feed and fall in love with and try to convince your husband to let you bring one home and get denied. Which is bullshit, but I just want you to be aware before you go.

Well, maybe you’ll have a nicer husband.

I digress. We had an excellent time at the farm, and not just because we visited for free and were fed pizza for lunch (although, bonus!) Yes, our friends are that nice. But really it was because we adore these friends and their family was so super nice, that we even got a super-special tour of their big collection of vintage cars and truck, which Jackson LOVED! Whew.

We got to play in a creek that has swings you can set in and watch the whole day go by. We got to feed goats, and go inside an antique Grist Mill. We got to ride a horse (well Jackson did, for the first time mind you) and play all day. Jackson was happy to be with his buddy Bella, whose grandparents own the farm, and Jerimiah and I were happy to hang with other adults and carry on conversations and not be inside our house. It was sort of the perfect day. Not too hot, overcast most of the day, and did I mention the 12-year-old rescued Macaw named River, who was just a delight, until he started screaming at me? Wow. It was a good day. Here are the pictures and trust, if you ever find yourself around these parts and wanna go check out the farm, let me know. We are always in for a trip out west.

M.