Crazy Country Convos.

More tales of my Labor Day Jaunt in the country.

Cowgirl Cre has the most uh, colorful relatives.

One of them is the most colorful of all...

We'll call her cousin Cre.

Anyway, when I attend a Cowgirl Cre family gathering, I make a beeline for Cousin Cre. She is my prime entertainment, and through her, I've gained a special understanding...

One should always have one's special cup for one's adult beverage.

And she has one indeed.

I took the picture above at a Memorial Day gathering, I believe. I'd walked up on her in the driveway. I caught a whiff of what was in that glass.

Let's just say, it looked like water, but it ain't water. It was a strong adult beverage.

VERY strong.

Now when I went down to the country this past Saturday, she wasn't there upon my arrival. Someone said she and an uncle and another cousin had gone to someone's birthday party.

She came back within a couple of hours. I saw her strolling across the yard. She spotted us all - me, my sister, and Cowgirl Cre- sitting at a picnic table under a tree. She wore a sarong-type dress and it was whipping in the wind.

She walked over...

Peered at me curiously...

No, she glared at me...

She asked, "Did you brang some cookies?"

"Yes I did. 12 dozen, and they in the kitchen," I said, as I pointed back towards the trailer.

Her face broke out into a big smile and she gave me a hug. Thank goodness for that. If I hadn't brought cookies, I would've gotten cussed out and tackled...

And cussed out a little more for good measure.

I introduced her to my sister, and we all talked for a minute.

"Did you bring your cup?" I asked.

"You know I did, girl!"

And bring it she did.



As you can see, it is her special cup. Her initials are clear, and printed in the King's Old English script.

I learned from her that every cup should have it's own special cup jewelry.



The cup jewelry - it was a charm bracelet of sorts. Not sure what each charm represents. That's a conversation for another day, another time.

Cousin OJ tried to talk me into having a drink with her. Her drink was some vodka, with some lemon or lime juice in it (we think).

I looked over at my sister, who is the quietest person on planet earth. She was watching our exchange.

I MUST be a good example for my sister, so I said no.

(NO way I'd get to dranking and my sister Kentucky relay this back to the family).

I respectively declined. Cousin Cre gave me the hard side-eye, but she didn't pursue the matter.

Later the conversation turned to making a run of sorts...

A run down to, uh... Johnnie Mae's house.

"Lee, you want to run down to Johnnie-Mae's house with us?" Cousin Cre asked.

I stared at Cousin Cre as she took a sip of her strong drink from her special glass.

Johnnie-Mae was special. She owned a bootleg house. If you don't know what that is, then figure it out. There is one right behind my house. I'll have to post a picture one day.

But Johnnie-Mae's bootleg business was EXTRA special and over the top.

Let's just say, it was a place where you could go see the MOON, and how it SHINES so brightly.

(That is all I'm saying on that. If you don't understand that, then you must be very young or a bit slow or not from the south).

I've only had this "special" libation once in my life: A capful in my cola some 15 years ago. I wasn't drunk, but it had me SUPER chatty, to the point where my man threatened to put me out of the house.

It was cold that day. I remember being crouched in a corner, crying uncontrollably, afraid of being put out in the cold dark night....

Nope. I don't fool with the special libations, this liquor that looks like the MOON when it SHINE.

But I must admit, I got a bit excited about this run to Johnnie Mae's house. Because if I could get in there, I could take pictures! It would make a most excellent blog post!

But I looked over at my sister Kentucky.

Who was looking right back at me.

"She's not gonna go with you," Kentucky said. "Ya'll will get to the top of the street and she'll say 'Stop the car, let me out'. She's not going with you."

My sister... she knows me well.

But I played it off. "Na'wl Cousin Cre. I ain't fooling with ya'll. Get up there and some mess jump off. Ya'll be done left me, I'd get locked up and nobody will know where I am!"

My sister repeated her former statement. "She's not going with you. If she did, she'll get out the car up at the top of the street and walk back."

"And I have to be a good example for my sister," I added.

Cousin Cre looked my sister up and down then back at me. "What are you talking about, your sister- she grown."

Yes, Kentucky is 29 years old. I still think of her as being 3 years old. She did not need to see me making a run to Johnnie Mae's house.

Plus ya'll know good and well that no one's gonna let me take a picture in a house where the MOON SHINES so brightly.

I had visions of my camera being snatched and being thrown to the ground and smashed into a million pieces. I also had visions of the polices throwing me down on the ground and handcuffing me.

And not to mention we were in the backwoods, in Klan country. The old folks had been peppering their conversations with cross burnings references all day.

*crickets*

No, I didn't go with them. Didn't see them go. I sat there and drank my bottled water and orange soda...

And was happy.

Cowgirl Cre said the frozen drinks were very good, and quite shiny the next day.

I'm sure they were...

I bet Cousin Cre can testify to that.

Cookies Galore!

I go to a fair number of other people's family function every year, and if you know me, I don't care to show up anywhere emptyhanded.

I always make batches of cookies. Cookies always get me in the door. Cookies get me remembered.

I never hear "Who is that, sitting over yonder in the corner?"

I always hear "IT'S THE COOKIE LADY!"

Followed by very hard running in my general direction. LOL

So, I decided to make cookies to take down to the country.

Now, for their last family gathering, back for Easter or Memorial Day I believe, I made 5 dozen cookies. This may have seem like enough, but unfortunately they weren't. Cowgirl Cre took them from me in the driveway. A gang of people peeped this action, and followed us into the house and to the kitchen.

Those cookies were gone in less than a minute. By the time I said "Hey ya'll what's going on?" it was all over.

I forgot to take a picture of my cookies that day, as my usual routine. This is the only picture I got... that of the very last cookie.



Right before someone snatched it and walked away. Sad.

I know I needed to make more for the next time. If there were going to be more than 50 people, then there needed to be more cookies. This weekend I successfully completed a major goal:

I made 150 cookies!

Woo! What a task. 12 dozen cookies.

There were cookies EVERYWHERE.

And I did it on the morning of our departure.


It would have been a better idea to make them on Friday night prior to our Saturday morning departure. But I took my tail to bed instead. Surely I could wake up early enough to get it done. Surely.


And I did. Started at 6:30 that morning. Finished at 9:30 am.

Not good, since we were leaving at 9:45. But we left 30 minutes late. Yep, I'm on CP time.

But that's okay. This time, the cookies lasted 30 minutes! Everyone loved them.

Another day in cookie making. I still have some here at the house, which is not good. I'll probably end up throwing them out if the locals don't get them. (I rarely eat my own cookies).

I can't wait for my next function, so that I can make more!

Happy Labor Day

'Tis Labor Day!

And I should've worked on this post yesterday.

But I didn't. I slept most of the day away. Aunt Flo is here and has a sister knocked out.

So, I will be talking about my adventure down to the country over the next 5000 posts, lol...

Yes, yes, I attended Cowgirl Cre's family Labor day weekend shindig over yonder in East GA.

I even brought my baby sister along, which meant that I needed to be on my best behavior!

There was plenty of swine!

Plenty of food, drink and wine...

So staty tuned for those million posts this week!

I hope you are enjoying your holiday!

Friday Freestyles

Wassup ya'll...

It's Friday!!!

And it is PAYDAY!!!

GLORY!!!!!

And I'm still in bed. Sigh.

I wanted to get to work early today because there will be NO ONE there. Everyone is going to be off, so I expect a very quiet time. My boss rarely harrasses me these days (I think I'm a bit too belligerent for her), so I expect a pretty uneventful day.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Going down to "the country" to my cubicle mate and friend The Cowgirl Cre's family reunion/labor day gathering.

And my baby sista is coming along. That should be interesting. Kentucky is a quiet one. And Cre's family is as crazy and loud as they come.

But there should be good food. They barbeque during the day, and have a fish fry at night.

That's gonna be some GOOD eating. I posted about my time there 3 years ago. Go have a look.

It's funny, because I asked Cre what kind of vegetables they would have.

*crickets*

No one cares about that. I do, though.

Tonight I'm makiing around 12 dozen cookies. Hope that's enough for the masses!

Quote of the week:"Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others." Jacob M. Braude

That right there is the truth. The bare bones truth right there.

Songs of the week. I've been listening to this song, an interesting remake of the grunge hit "Creep" by Radiohead. Not a great idea due to it being terribly depressing.



My goodness. That song should be call "Angst!!!!".

There's a whole story there too. I'm looking at it thinking, "Where are your friends, Oldgirl? WHY aren't you happy? Don't take yourself out, gal!!!!"

That video is sad... Let's have something happy!

Here's a song I really like by Sweet Sable. Bet you haven't heard it before, and I wonder if you know the song that is sampled.



Now, back in 1994, we were TERRIBLY interested in Sweet Sable, as she made a song called "Old Times Sake" where she sang of smoking a blunt and drinking a Henneiken. That whole CD was VERY good. It was produced by Nicki Nicole, a female producer out before Missy Elliot stepped on the scene.

Not sure why Sweet Sable fell through the cracks. I thought she was a good singer.

Whelp! That's all for today.

I'm going to get myself together and go to work. Muster up the courage to ask my boss if I can leave early. Not sure how that's going to go. I REALLY don't want to be at work 'til 7 tonight. If I can get out of there by 4, I'm good!

I hope you all have a great weekend.

On Purpose!

Day Thirty - One Last Moment

This is the final Day of the Blog Challenge. Of course I should've posted this last night, but I fell asleep! Plus I spent a little time this morning condensing it. It was a bit rambly.

This challenge... it was difficult. My goodness, this wasn't, like, "post for 30 days straight".

This was a "post on a specific topic for 30 days straight" type of thang, which is HARD!

There's a new 30 day challenge going on. I'm sitting that one out, ya'll. Can't do it.

But on to today's post...

One Last Moment

Every once in a while, in addition to my usual church communion, I like to have simple communion at home. Just between me and God.

My reason for doing this is that I heard a very interesting sermon many years ago, with the minister saying something like:

"Sometimes, you just get by yourself and settle some things between yourself and God, and commemorate the moment. Don't take much- a piece of bread, some koolaid and a heart open to God."

The more I thought about this, the more sense it made. We all look great on the outside. Go to church dressed perfectly, perfect smiles, perfect make-up. (And for the fellows, your Brooks Brother suit fits just right. And those Stacy Adams wingtips have a fresh shine.)

But at the same time, we have things going on behind closed doors. We all have things going on within ourselves. Things we won't tell a sole. Self esteem issues, self-worth issues, depression, self-hate, addictions, personal confusions, bad habits, fears...

...areas of life that we are struggling so hard in. Sigh.

We're works in progress, ALWAYS under construction until the day we breathe our very last breaths. There are constant ebbs and flows, high peaks and low valleys all throughout our lives.

And there are so few people in our lives who we can admit things to, and they love us no matter what. And if you have a handful of these confidants in a lifetime, you're richer than the richest man in the world.

You can run, but you can't hide from yourself. You know what goes on with you. And God knows what's going on with you.

Might as well get it out in the open between you and God, over a small meal between you and Him.

Saying a prayer, over communion settles things in my heart.

To me, it's a sign of respect and of my faith to do such.

Thus making it one of my favorite personal moments. A moment between me and God.

This year I turned 40. I believe, a week or two before I turned 40, my life flashed before my eyes.

Well, let me rephrase that: the last 10 years of my life flashed before my eyes.

It's not a glamorous life. Probably not a life that people covet, nothing like that of the rich and famous. But it's mine. I have my lane in life, uniquely assigneed to me, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

And I thought about allllll the answered prayer. All the triumphs, tribulations, stepping stones, bad days, good days, failures, successes, disappointment, joys...

Man, A LOT had gone on in the past 10 years.

I was really overwhelmed by it all... and I, like many, tend to have the little questions in the back of my mind of why a couple of major prayers weren't answered. To the point where I dare say, I've caught an attitude. Never mind that my motives may have been bad. Or that I want the answer that I want right now.

Never mind that the desired answer given at the wrong time in my life could be DISASTROUS.

I felt an overwhelming sense of thanks in the midst of it all.

God is on the hustle tip in the background of my life, even taking care of things I don't even know about. He sees around the corners of my life and arranges things accordingly. Even in the midst of me acting a JACK, He's focused on the end from the beginning.

So I will always remember, turning 40... and the first meal was there on my kitchen island, between me and God, giving thanks for his blessings, and remembering all that has gone on, and all He has done for me...

And thanking Him in advance for all that the future holds.

A simple moment, one taking place over wheat bread and a shot glass of cranberry juice.

But a wonderful, most memorable moment indeed.

One moment that I will never forget.