Goin' Down to Mama's

Hank's Book of Cat Philosophy: #9

You will find, in life, that anything worth having . . . 

is worth stalking.

[At least, that's true of your chipmunks, your lizards, and your feathered cuisines.]

Hank's Book of Cat Philosophy: #8

As I, a cat living in a human's world, journey through life, I find that the most interesting people I meet along the way . . .

aren't all that interesting.

Workouts Through the Ages

My Workout Routine, 1980s:

• Put on Size Small gym shorts and Size Small T-shirt, drive to free sort-of-like-Jane-Fonda aerobics class at Auburn's old Student Activities Building ("Student Act"), and wait for Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" to blast through the speakers (Crank it up!)

• Join 50 or 60 other girls with big hair in doing those really bouncy stretches that the orthopedic community has since advised against

• Make it through 20 minutes of a 45-minute routine, then depart for Wendy's to beat the supper rush (I'll take a single with cheese and a small fry—no, make that a large—I just worked out . . .)

 My Workout Routine, Early 90s

• Put on coordinating tights and leotard (Is it me, or are they making these smaller than they used to?)

• Drive to fitness club and hurry to assemble apparatus for step aerobics before Madonna or Janet Jackson blasts through the speakers (Should they maybe turn that down a little?) 

• Fight my way through everything the instructor can actually see me do; cheat on the closing ab work when she's looking the other way

• Better just have a barbecue salad for supper; those burgers are starting to add up.

My Workout Routine Last Week:

•    Take Advil

•    Apply Bengay to sore shoulder—must've strained it lifting my coffee cup

•    Look for knee brace

• Put on my fat shorts and the biggest T-shirt I own; drive to gym and board treadmill in the blissfully darkened "Cardio Cinema" theater, so I can watch Bruce Willis or Angelina Jolie engage in international (or was it interplanetary?) intrigue on the silver screen, thereby distracting myself from the shocking weight I entered when I programmed the aforementioned piece of equipment

• Make the mistake of driving past a McDonald's on my way to CVS to buy a new ice pack (Yee-ha! I heard they're on sale!) and automatically put on five pounds, just by looking in the general direction of those arches

• Fall asleep wondering if I should maybe do something to express my undying gratitude to the lovely people who invented Advil . . .  

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

One of the greatest teachings in the Bible is also one of the hardest to learn and to practice—forgiveness. It's easy enough in the beginning. Your mother forgives you for running through the house and knocking over her favorite vase. You forgive your siblings and your cousins for the grievous wrongs committed against you on the field of play. (That's not fair! You cheated! Get off my bike!) But as we grow older, the wrongs committed against us and, more importantly, BY us get more serious. It's harder to forgive. It's even harder to believe WE could be forgiven—and to forgive ourselves. But without forgiveness, nothing good is possible in life. You can't be a true friend if you can't give and receive it. You can't be a happy husband, wife, or parent. You can't have a good relationship with your family. And you can't move beyond your own mistakes if you can't forgive yourself. That's the truly tough one for me. So many times, that recording plays in my head: WHY did I do that/say that/not do that/not say that??? I always want to hit the rewind button, retrace my steps, and undo whatever it is that I did. I want to shake the Etch-A-Sketch and erase the ugly mess I've made. But that's not possible. Yes, we're supposed to do whatever we can to right a wrong we've committed, but beyond that, we have to accept God's grace and move forward. And we have to pass that gift of forgiveness on to those around us. When you think about it, forgiveness is really a byproduct of love. And those two gifts—love and forgiveness—are the only pathways to lasting peace.

 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4: 31-32

 

The Favorite

This is my Uncle Guy, my mother's oldest brother—and Grandme's favorite child. Everybody knew it. And poor Uncle Guy, there was not one thing he could do about it. He was her firstborn, her first boy, and she was so proud of everything he did. Uncle Guy and his family lived in Atlanta, so when I was little, I thought they were exotic. They lived in this big city I had never seen, and they didn't get to visit as often as my other aunts and uncles. (Now, people in Birmingham drive back and forth to Atlanta like it's nothing, but that wasn't true in the sixties and early seventies.) Back when we lived with Grandme, a visit from Uncle Guy's family was SPECIAL. My grandmother would go into a complete tailspin—the house had to be spit-shined and polished, a big meal had to be planned, the good dishes readied. Ambrosia and coconut cake (Uncle Guy's favorites) were a given. As a kid, I guess I thought this was just the way people lived in that place called Atlanta—I imagined Uncle Guy coming home from work to find the good china on the dining room table, the silver coffee urn steaming, and a big bowl of ambrosia at the ready. Sometime after my parents built their house (and Grandme moved in with us), Uncle Guy called to see if he might come by for a visit. It was summertime, and Mama was busy canning and freezing from the garden. The house was a mess. There was no time to prepare a feast. Still, she wanted to see him. So she did the unthinkable. She said, "Come on down—but the house is a mess and I'll have to feed you a sandwich." Things were different from then on. As it turns out, Uncle Guy wasn't used to a red carpet in Atlanta and never expected or even wanted one in Harpersville. From the minute Mama broke out that loaf of bread and cold cuts and fed her brother a sandwich at the kitchen table instead of turkey and dressing on her wedding china, he seemed to feel so much more at home. After he retired, he and Aunt Gladys got to visit us more. We got to hear that wonderful laugh of his more. And I learned something. It's not easy being the favorite. It's a lot more fun just being part of the family.

Nonna Loves Elvis

On this, the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley's passing, I am thinking of my cousin Kathy, pictured here with her granddaughter, Teal. Long before Kathy became "Nonna," she was the world's biggest Elvis fan. A giant poster of "E" hung on the inside of her closet door for as long as I can remember, and she never missed a rerun of his movies—not even Flaming Star, which I believe had a line that went something like "I been kilt, but I ain't dead yet."  The sad news came to us over radio and network TV—no internet or rooftop satellite dishes back then. I can't remember which one of us broke the news to the other, but we ended up together, huddled around a radio in her room, hanging on every bit of news from Graceland and listening to all the stories told by Those Who Knew Him Best. I wasn't even a big fan back then, but still it was strange to think of rock 'n roll without Elvis. It was like trying to imagine New York Harbor without the Statue of Liberty. There would be no more comeback specials. No more Live! From Las Vegas!!!! But we do have two decades' worth of great music to hang on to. And the movies. (How DID he manage to find the Jordanaires singing backup every time he turned on the car radio in those movies?) What a great talent. What a gift to leave behind. I saw a news story recently about the Ultimate Elvis Auction, which I think was held at the Peabody Hotel a couple of days ago. The starting bid for a pair or 1956 Elvis Presley sneakers was $1200. And if I were a wealthy woman, I would've driven up to Memphis and snagged those for Kathy—and picked up something for our much younger cousin, Kacey, who caught on quicker than I did, and is already a big fan. But alas, my pocketbook can't handle that trip. So until this sad day is through, I guess we'll all just have to spend a little time in the Heartbreak Hotel.

Sunday Morning Serenity

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn
what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived.

—Henry David Thoreau, WALDEN

That's probably the only sentence I remember from Thoreau. The truth is, I never cared much for him as a student:) This line, though, stayed with me, especially the very end—"and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 

I think I mentioned this before, but I've just started reading the Bible, cover to cover, for the first time in my life. A sad admission from a lifelong church-goer, but it's true. I've never read it start to finish. Maybe it's the impending 50th (EGAD!) birthday, but I want to be able to say—to know—exactly what I believe and why. I'm only in Leviticus, but already I can see connections that I didn't see before, bridges over the vast expanse between then and now—between ancient people trying to understand God and modern people trying to understand God. We're worlds apart, but there's a shared need to make sense of the universe—and a shared belief—maybe even an instinct—that tells us we can't do it alone. 

My mother and I spent a day together last week, and while we had our post-mall coffee at my house, we listened to some CDs, in search of new music for our choir. One song jumped out at both of us, and while it may sound strange to hear similar messages from a contemporary Christian lyric and Thoreau's Walden, both of them say something about why I want to take a slow and solitary walk through the Bible:

And all who thirst will thirst no more,
and all who search will find what their souls long for.
The world will try, but it can never fill.
So, leave it all behind and come to the well.

—From "The Well," by Matthew West & Mark Hall 

[Image by Aaron Ahiquist @ Freerangestock.com]

Soul on Her Sleeve

http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/4272/auctions/4726

The link I'm sharing will take you to a pretty amazing place. It's a silent art auction, and it represents a whole lot of love for someone who was very special to Southern Living, Sara Jones. Some of Sara's countless friends donated paintings, photography, fine crafts, books, and more, with all proceeds to be used for a beautiful arbor that will be built in her memory at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. While a few items are Birmingham-specific (like dinner delivered to your door), most are available to anybody, anywhere. You can bid or buy them outright.

It's so appropriate to honor sweet Sara with something beautiful to share with others. Her beautiful spirit was always there for the rest of us to enjoy. You've heard the expression "she wears her heart on her sleeve"? Sara wore her soul on her sleeve. Her love, kindness, compassion, joy, and faith were right there for all to see and share. I miss her warm smile and that cascade of flowing red hair. I miss her hugs in the hallway and her stories and that laugh—heavens tah Betsy, that laugh! 

So please visit the site. Bid if you can. And if you can't, just tell your friends. While you're telling them about the auction, find out how Mama's doing, see if they have any troubles they need to get off their chest, and give them a big hug. That's what Sara would do:)

Hank's Book of Cat Philosophy: #7

Gardening relaxes the body and feeds the soul . . .
especially if somebody else plants and waters all that stuff
while you take a nice, long nap. 

 

Mama Says: "You Busy?"

Last Friday, en route to the mall with Daddy:

Daddy: Your mother says she needs some tops. She's got black pants, brown pants, and white pants, and she needs some tops. She says NO black. She's tired of black. She says I buy her black all the time.

Me: OK, got it. No black.

[We shop. We argue—about the black-and-white print blouse, the black-and-white striped shirt, and the charcoal number Daddy gravitates to. We agree on four colorful choices and leave the mall quite pleased with ourselves.]

Phone call with Mama yesterday afternoon:

Mama: You busy early next week?

Me: No, why?

Mama: I've got some tops I need to take back.