Bloopers For Laughs

Someone had recently asked me what were scuppernongs?  Oh my goodness.  They're just the best, growing wild around here, tart and sweet.  Yes, I eat the skins, but most folks spit out the skins and the seeds, savoring only the pulp, but missing vital nutrients in the process.

I nearly hollered aloud seeing them in the produce section of Hell-Mart.  $3.78 for this small basket of 'em.  Are you kidding me?  I'd go broke supporting my habit if I had to go buy 'em.  I pick 'em and eat 'em, not purchase the little buggers.

As the sun set the other night, the temperatures dipped under 70 degrees.  No big deal, unless you're a Southerner.  Then it's an arctic mass moving in.  One gets very accustomed to constantly sweltering for many, many months in a row, therefore the sudden chill feels alarming to one who celebrates sweating.  Puh-leeze, I'm a field hand not an Eskimo. Mid-September just seems too soon to have to be dragging a sweatshirt to the night soccer games.

Deep sigh.

Autumn sucks to me, it means dying plants and an end to baseball season.  No me gusta.

Pulling myself out of my week-long funk, I watched quite a few Baseball bloopers on Youtube, and then my go to best of - prank fart videos.  I just can't help it, maybe it's because I've raised 21 boys, but nothing makes me fall down laughing so much as these videos. Please forgive me this immature lapse in taste.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm living out a blooper reel of ill-timed pranks and pratfalls.  Do folks really like like this?

Yolie'd brought her kids over after school, knowing they needed to jump on the trampoline and let out their pent-up residual energy after having attempted to stifle it at school all day long.

I read to Yolie aloud an interesting email from a woman, another new reader, likely having stumbled upon my blog simply by googling trauma?  Who knows?  I love hearing from others like me.  I'm waiting on her permission to quote her as she's lived a very similar life - that of the astounding illogical adventures involved in parenting trauma victims, then in becoming one as well.

Chuy'd stayed after school for Art Club, ill-tempered afterwards because we'd already finished supper and Grandma'd made meatballs to go along with my usual vegetarian fare.  "Dang if someone didn't stand here at the stove and pick out the leftover meatballs," he complained.

He'd ought to just be happy there was even some pasta and sauce left over, it was as if a herd of famished rhinoceros had rampaged through the kitchen.

"This is vegan?" Yolie asked in surprise, startling me.  Vegan means no animal products and her plate fit the bill, we'd left the meatball crap to my sons.

"See?"  I'm sure I crowed, "Vegan is delicious."  It must've been, she went back for seconds.

Hazel, now nearly five years old, later held my hand up to her soft cheek, "No, I love you more," she promised solemnly, melting my overly hardened heart.  Stupid self-defense I've developed over the years in response to the craziness, the extreme trauma we've experienced.

We all went to Wednesday night church services in which I sat through some exemplary teachings, back home to again re-trash my long suffering kitchen that must feel as if it is a battered feeding trough at best.

But this is just all the noise, the extreme use of facilities that doesn't involve any danger or violence.  I did sign up to work my tail off, I didn't sign up to endure severe aggression and domestic assaults.

When I finally went upstairs to bed a teenager followed me, peppering me with questions I'd rather answer the next day, not late at night when I felt I couldn't even think straight.  "Honey, I'm clocked out," I quipped.  "Off duty, too pooped to pontificate, let's talk in the morning."

I fell asleep fretting over that dumb snake that had returned, spotted in a tree by Scotty yesterday again, acting as if it were a pet needing petting.  I don't think so.

And cool beans here, I just got a text from a son, 24, a former felon, bragging he was up early getting ready for work.  Employed?  That makes me very, very proud.  He's living a thousand miles from here, struggling, but doing right well.  Keep it up son, I don't ask for very much, just that you're able to support yourself.