Picking up pecans

My neighbor has a huge pecan tree that stands near my property where actually one-third of its branches hang over my side of the fence. I have to say branches loosely because they have been cracking during storms. Two huge branches have fallen, decimating the tree little by bigger. One branch fell onto his yard, one onto mine.

This is the tree limb that fell onto my yard. I've already cut it into pieces and hauled half to the curb for pickup.

                                                                         

                  The tree limb that has been in my neighbor's yard for a month.

                                              

I must digress to say that last year our area had a drought. The few pecans that fell were dried out. I think squirrels got the majority of the few pecans from that tree. Actually, there was little output for two years in a row. However, the preceding three years that tree produced bumper crops.

Since I must rake up all leaves, suffer from the sticky residue from the leaf production in the spring, plus clean up those curly things that drop with leaf growth, remove all limbs and other debris that falls from that tree, I am entitled to all pecans that fall onto my property. And there are plenty! OK, sometimes I slip over to the other side, but just barely.


A couple of weeks ago when pecans started dropping, I cracked a couple. Dried and blackened. Another pitiful crop! Thursday afternoon I took my saw, big limb cutting clippers, and hand cutter to tackle that huge limb that the recent storm broke off onto my yard. I think the new guy who lives in that house is a renter. He works at the local air force base; the couple who previously owned the house, I think, are renting to him, another airman. They are both military. He does not mow or pick up trash that he drops (cigarette wrappers) into his yard. He even brought home a piece of furniture in a huge box and plastic wrap and left the box and wrap right there at the head of his driveway, where it sat and sat and sat. Last week I dragged it down to curbside for trash pickup. I've also pulled horrendous weeds out of this pitiful little flower bed facing my house. 

I'm been in my house seven years now and seen three different families live next door. Not once has anyone ever planted anything in that potentially lovely little bed. However, I just know it's going to happen soon! I already have my answer ready for the time he asks why I'm tending to his business. I'll ask if he knows who Edmund Hilary was. If he says no, I'll explain that he was the first man to conquer Mt. Everest. Someone asked Sir Edmund why he did it. His answer will be my response if my neighbor ever quizzes me: "Because it was there."

Back to Thursday. I cut up that huge branch into manageable pieces, but it was dark by the time I finished, so I just left them--on his side where I threw them, knowing I was going to haul them to the street before the next pick-up. Yesterday after putting on my yard work clothes and donning my always ready yard gloves, I began the haul. Took a trash can to rake up little limbs. That's when I made my discovery! And great it is! We have a bumper crop of pecans once again!! I ran back into the house, got two big bowls and filled both those suckers squatting in one spot!! Got a grocery paper sack and filled it two-thirds full. Oh my goodness! My mother is going to be so excited! We can have pecan pies all winter! I am ecstatic!

By this time it was dark and I was frantically rolling those pecans into my gloves into that sack, picking up trash along the way. It was dark, I live by a bayou, and we have snakes. Is it snake season? Do they come out at night? I just didn't know. The grass was rather thick and too tall. There I was, just sticking my hands into all that mess, ready to pounce up and back like my cats if I so much as saw a jot of movement.

Pecans with debris. See the green and black husks?


                
                                             "Cleaned" pecans. Ready for cracking!


After I ate, I settled on the floor with my bag of pecans and debris and an empty dish tub and an old episode of "Criminal Minds." I pulled off black, damp husks, using my left thumb. It and its nail are black and sore this morning. Pecan oil stains very dark! I sat and pried the outer husks from the pecans for an hour last night. Finally had to quit because my thumb was so sore (the quick was tearing from the nail). Those husks were still wet from all our recent rains. I've always done the clean-up work with the pecans. My mother and great-nephew will do the actual shelling--a cracking job. My nephew thinks he is hot stuff for helping. And he is! I'll keep enough for myself.

There are bags more out there on my side alone. No telling what's on his side. He won't pick them up. Someone has to do it! 

In looking for a web link, I discovered that a handful of pecans a day are great because they belong to that rich family of antioxidants. If you're inclined, please take a look at the health information and recipes. Pecans are good guys! And ever so tasty!


Pecans: so good for you!

 http://www.ilovepecans.org/

Slight update: It's the next day and I know how the Phantom of the Opera feels. The light of day can be ugly. There aren't so many good pecans. About half, at least on the ground, are wizened nuggets, but still more than last year! Two pecan pies? Still sounds good to me!

New update: I have cracked and picked out a large bowl of pecans. My second estimate was wrong. Maybe one out of 20 pecans is bad. I'm ecstatic! Maybe I will learn to bake a pecan pie. I should. I'm a full-blooded Southerner! And we don't say pee-can. It's puh-con.

Anxiety and stress

I've been crying too much lately. And forgetting way too much. Embarrassingly too much! Figured I was in trouble again and made the doctor appointment. I have a wonderful doctor, easy to talk to, personable, and oh-so-knowledgeable. Have you ever considered what position your doctor was in his graduation class. I won't claim first for mine, but he's up there. (Another doctor, I feel sure, is way down there.) But I digress.

I had to book the PA because MY doctor is so much in demand, being a good doctor and all. However, she is just a cute, young version of him (he's about early 40's). I have come to trust her, too. 

While I waited briefly for her to come in, I just sat and cried. She wanted to know what was wrong. So I just spilled my heartache. A student had called me a Nazi the day before. She started laughing and laughing. Wait, I'm thinking, that's not very caring or polite. She explained. "I'm a coach for girls in grades 6-12 at a private academy. I have to be tough on them. Would you believe they call me the Leprechaun Nazi?" So I had to laugh. (Yes, she's tiny and I understood why she laughed.)

I explained a number of family-related things going on that were breaking my heart, that I had no control over anything in my life, that I had regained six of the 30 pounds I had lost taking diet pills. That was in just two weeks. But the male doctor said I couldn't take any more until March, so I pretty much begged to have a single "subscription" She laughed again, making me laugh. "You wouldn't believe how many people use that word," she said. Ha Ha on me, a retired English teacher. OK, prescription. I would make a walking advertisement, I'm afraid, for diet pill addiction. They give me control over my raging appetite, so much energy I almost never get tired, and a much more frequent positive attitude.


And forgetfulness! See, I almost forgot to tell about how much I am forgetting. In fact, during my previous doctor visit (the male), the one thing I forgot to bring up was how I forget. (Yeah, pretty funny, huh?) So I asked this young woman if the onset of Alzheimer's was beginning. She ran me through a brief test, which I readily passed. "Anxiety and stress. Are you experiencing any?"

"Anxiety and stress often mask as Alzheimer's with the forgetfulness. Your brain becomes clogged and information can't get through," she explained. She asked if I saw a therapist, advised that I exercise, and do something fun.

I put a link to a website dealing with anxiety and stress, things that can happen to anyone. It's two days later and I'm already getting a grip, thanks to my smart little PA. I don't mean to seem glib, but talking to someone professionally, cutting up a huge tree limb struck by lightning, and putting a puzzle together with family seemed to get me started again. I did all those things just yesterday, the same day I saw the PA. And got my diet pills once again. All in all, a fabulous day!


www.helpguide.org/mental/generalized_anxiety_disorder.htm

What do you do when....

1. Someone tells you to your face you're lying when you are not!

2. a teacher all but calls your child stupid ("She just doesn't have it up there!")

3. when you don't think God knows who you are?

4. you think you are cursed with gremlins who create havoc around you?

5. you know you are losing more and more words?

6. the organizational gene is missing from your DNA?

7. the punctuality gene is missing from your DNA?

8. everyone shows up early and you're right on time but seem late because those early birds are already there!

9. you need one more dime to have enough money for a purchase at the check-out counter.

10. it is your turn to check out at the register and you realize that you used the last check last night and you know your credit card is maxed out?

11. you just flirted with that attractive man who you just realized is 20 years younger or that you are 20 years older and now you're embarrassed!

12. you're always late to the business meeting? Always, even though you try to be on time!

13. no one listens to you.....

14. your best friend gets all the attention from the boys and you get none at all (you're both 12 and one of you is devastated!)!

15. you realize it is midnight and your carriage will turn into a pumpkin at any moment and you're just not ready to go!

Feeling powerless

Some people have it--most don't. Some flaunt it--others hide that they don't have it.

So how does one get power? What sets those possessors of IT apart from the crowded herd? I'm one of those without it--without any sense of real power, the kind that makes people quake when you come around, or jump to it if you approach  when we are unaware. We are always aware of you. Do we want to be like you? Not so much that, as the life style. In other words, we want to feel empowered.

I was once told to behave as if I expected to be treated in the best manner possible. Then I would be. But there must be some indefinable something written on my face, because they offer me up to the gods all the time as a sacrifice, as one miscontrued,  not saved, but used in the best circumstances in the worst ways. Maybe I over-exaggerate, but my experience shows that I don't get adequate respect.

F----ing Motherhood

Warning: This post bleeds...

What is a mother?

"You fat f....er!" Words of love to her tween daughter, oh so cold, so reprehensible, so scathing of human value, her own, her daughter's. She's just out of jail, this one, this mother. She slithers back into the domicile--can it be so wilfully called a home?--and spits her poison, first in one corner, then another, on one child, then another. How many of these f....ers, do I have? Just don't hang on me. I need air to breathe. I need a little fun after three months of cooped up hell.
I'll tell you one damn thing, you hag, I am someone in jail. They know my name. They know who I am. They like me in jail. You b....ing hag, you m.....-f...... You call yourself a mother? You can die right now. Who would care? All my little f....ers and me--we hate you. Ask any of 'em. They would slit your throat in a second. That's what I'm teaching my chilren--how to cope, how to survive. You selfish b----! Where the f... is my child support money? Give me my child support!!I need some things. Gotta get a pedicure and manicure, get my f...ing hair cut. Gotta take a long bath, get out of these f----ing clothes.
If that f----ing G--- calls, tell him to F--- off! He's been shackin with that f---ing b---- the whole time I was in jail! He better not be tellin' my f----ing kids they have a new mother. Hey, baby, bring your f----ing mama a glass of water. I need to get rid of this headache.

In horror they watch her slip to the floor, water glass crashing, the two-year old clinging to her legs, gasping, Mamamamamamamamama! The oldest child, the 11-year-old must stand there and drink in her own horror. He mother used her to commit suicide. Used her like nothing, as if she were some perverse stranger on some perverse island caught in some perverse drama.

Call 9-1-1, the girl gags on her own horror!

Leave her. We're not calling anyone.

At just the opportune moment, the fallen lump, the wasted wreck of breath, the useless container of self-parody, self-pity, self-regard, self-importance opens her eyes. "Tell G---that I tried to kill myself. Tell him I can't live without him. Tell him to dump that B----. She's nothing! I'm the one he wants.

The diahrrea begins dramatically. After all, it's the drama queen at the center. Her children were so excited to see her, despite her selfish cruelty, her sporadic indulgence toward them, her frequent explosive display of fat, vile words she spews all about them.

Then she walks out, taking herself to the hospital. G--- will know how important he is to her. He must let her come back. He must.

____
What are the options for this woman who has gone so far astray? Government hand-outs? To get them, she must take her children. How is this fair and just? Children must be punished to have this kind of "mother"? Whose justice is this? They have a home with the grandparents, although it is not very loving, but it's clean. There's food and clean clothes. There's room. Reduce these children to a one-room apartment just so this wanton can get hand-outs? Why? By whose authority?

A life span

Have you ever seen your mother choking for breath? I did today. She had a biopsy taken of some stuff in her lungs. When she returned from the procedure, she came in gagging and coughing. It was a mid-week medical drama unfolding before my eyes! If I hadn't forgotten it was my mother in that condition, I would have fainted! Six or seven people packed that room, working as a team to help her breathe. After she caught her breath, she asked if they had water-boarded her! My mother, the comedian! She's 88 and what's that word we use to describe older but still vital old folks? Oh yes, spry! Too weak! My mother is crusty!

When you're the person who is 60, you have to face your own mortality. If your mother is 88, then what? Who wants to see a mother --sorry, can't say it--see a mother go away? What will I do without her?

I took Mother a copy of "Eight Cousins" by Louisia May Alcott, my favorite book in the sixth grade so she could read in the hospital (after she recovers from the waterboard torture). That was the first romantic book I ever read--and one of the only ones, too. There are eight cousins--four girls and four boys (if I remember correctly). Back in that day, first cousins were allowed to marry. It's a sweet story. Mother will like it!

Addendum: Mother thought "Eight Cousins" was just OK. The book she has most enjoyed from my school library is Newbery winner, "Daughter of the Mountains" by Louise S. Rankin. She never rereads books, but she did that one. 

Here's a link to reviews of the book. Mother is not the only one to like it!

http://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Mountains-Newbery-Library-Puffin/product-reviews/0140363351 

Older boomers

If you're an early Baby Boomer, you are probably experiencing what I'm experiencing: the blush, no, make that crinkling of age has appeared--not the first wrinkle--that happened years ago!, but the creping of skin, the sagging of breasts and testicles, the dimpling of fat.

That's bad, but worse--or worst--is the way the 40 crowd treats you. Oh, sure, those with great self-confidence get the good ol' gal/guy treatment, but most of us see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices, feel the first sniggers of disrespect because we've passed that line from upper middle-age into the throes of senior citizen. Doesn't matter if we don't feel it or look it (so we would like to think), but it's there--that snippet of pity, that crawling, squirming worm of disregard. We've arrived--but it's a place we never thought we would enter. Not old age! Not us! We were the vanguard of free love, women's freedom, equal rights--all the necessary and good things. Now what? Say it's not true!

But it is. Age spots, little ugly --say it--warts. I've thought myself a witch any number of times. My face and body look exactly the way that fairy tales describe those old hags. I'm becoming one. A witch. A hag. I baked in the sun with the whitest of them. Now I face the consequences.

This past summer opened my door of realization that I had not only entered old age, but was well into it. For so many years I waited for love, for the possibility of love. Married twice, each time an ugly disaster, life changing, life breaking. Remember in high school when possibility was the key to the future. Possibility. (I don't plan to attend my next class re-union in the fall because of how I look. Not only that, I don't want to see how they've aged, especially the one boy I so muched longed for all through high school. I wasn't his type. No possibility, then nor now. )I've been divorced from the second one for seven years and realized this summer that I cannot look toward possibility in love again. Would I want to show this body? No, I don't think so (spoken in the vernacular tone so popular today). I don't think so. What's more--I no longer want romance. An aquaintance asked me this summer if I was dating anyone. I popped out with: I don't date. And it's true--I don't date. He never called. Good for him.

I don't want to sound so pessimistic. That's how I feel today, Wednesday, October 1, 2009.

                                                          
                                                      This kissing couple shows how I would love to feel!