Just finished reading Erika Kind’s newest book, 101 Kind Quotes. If you enjoy Erika’s blog, you won’t be disappointed by her lovely book. I zipped through it in one sitting, but will be focusing on one quote a day. Erika has a wonderful way of making things better. Please check it out for yourself.
Month: March 2016
101 KIND Quotes – New Release!
Re logged from Erika Kind. Please check her new book out. It is inspirational!
The 5th book from Erika Kind is about the 101 daily quotes she has published on her blog, for 101 days. This is really remarkable and I congratulate her on this. You can find more details about the book on the link below and for previous publications of Erika Kind click here.
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Terrible Tale of Cell-Phone Torture
Mother is a tightwad, or careful with her money as she calls it, refusing to get a cell-phone. For my own peace of mind, I put her on my plan. I did get peace of mind in knowing she wasn’t out without a phone, but the cell-phone opened a whole new can of worms. First of all, I tried to convince her it was free, so she’d use it, but she didn’t buy that. When I finally admitted it cost ten dollars a month, no matter how much she used it, that was okay. She insisted she’d accept it only if I let her pay me. I agreed and that’s the last I heard of it. She doesn’t mind owing me forever but has no intention of being a freeloader. I am happy with that compromise.
She also has the habit of locking her keys in the house or car. I added roadside assistance, but she was reluctant to call the service till she realized there was a guy in her neighborhood who got the calls. Now she feels like she’s helping him and gives him all her business. I haven’t had the heart to tell her she is only covered for two calls a year.
She loses her phone a couple of times a week. Most of the time, it’s in a jacket pocket, or under a chair cushion or car seat, but sometimes she’s left it somewhere else. She panics and calls me the second she misses it, since I was foolish enough to provide it. By the time I get the call, she’s ranting at herself for losing it again and has to wear her frustration out before we can get down to the business of finding it. I don’t advise providing the instrument of your torture. Most of the time it’s at my house or in my car. I always try to check her out before we part ways, but sometimes I forget. I added phone insurance just in case, so she’s going to pay for that sometime, too. That’s the only way she’d agree.
Unfortunately, Mother sometimes get random text messages on her phone. She doesn’t text and is hostile to texting, so this is a problem. She’s always convinced one of her children are in danger and are trying to reach her by text this time, though any of us would rather die than deal with texting her. It puts her in a panic till I remind her none of her kids would ever text her. If one of them ever does, she’s going on their plan then and there.
I am still glad Mother has a cell phone, but just in case you wondered, she still has her land line for back up. Cell-phones can’t be trusted. I dread the day when Mother finds out her next phone will have to be a smart phone. She HATES the internet!
Alternatives
Reblog get from the brilliant Vanbytheriver.
A rainy Monday morning.
Daylight Savings Time sleep deficit.
Primary Election burnout.
This one made me smile.
With apologies to Christopher Walken.
Who is brilliant.
Monday Funnies…
Post by @Storyreadingape.
Source: Monday Funnies…
Conquering Corwin (part 2)
Aunt Essie got her nose out of joint when her little guys came home bringing tales of how badly Uncle Bill had treated them, so he didn’t hear from her till she fell on hard times a couple of years later. She had married her own fella named Bill by that time, strangely enough. This Bill was an affable enough guy, though he must not have taken time to meet the boys before they married. He’d also been married before and “wadn’ payin’ no child support to that whore of a woman after the way she done me. Besides that oldest ‘un never did look anthing like me, ner that little one neither, if you git right down to it.”
The long and short of it was, they needed to get the heck out of Dodge or her sweetie would have gone to jail. Like any landed gentleman of the South, Daddy had always maintained he’d provide a place for any of his sisters who fell on hard times. She magnanimously forgave Daddy. Over Mother’s furious objections, he set up a mobile home on their farm for Aunt Essie and her family. The situation went downhill fast. Aunt Essie wore her slippers to check the mail and slid down. She asked Daddy for the name of a good lawyer so she could sue. He told her she’d have to move if she sued him, so she changed her mind. Her Bill had a heart attack within a month of the time they moved there. He never worked another day, leaving them penniless until his social security kicked in. Guess who supported them.
All that aside, they had the added joy of daily life with Corwin. Corwin quickly dropped out of school, a reasonable decision, since the only thing he was getting out of it was a bus ride and two free meals a day. When he got suspended for harassing little girls, it was a relief to everyone in the system. Bill and Aunt Essie went somewhere in Aunt Essie’s car one day. Wisely, Bill took his keys, knowing Corwin would certainly take off in his truck the minute he left. One of Daddy’s horses had died three or four days before. As farmers do, instead of burying it, he hitched the dead horse to his tractor and dragged it as far to the back of his place as he could, leaving it to the varmints. Corwin had been puzzling over whether or not the varmints had gotten to the horse carcass yet. Corwin showed some industry in hot-wiring the pick-up, but not in driving in the muddy fields. He got stuck and had to leave the truck buried up to the hubs next to the bloated horse. Bill was livid when he came in and found his truck missing. “Where in the Hell is my G—D—- Truck?”
“Stuck in the mud on the back of Uncle Bill’s place.”
“What in the Hell is it doing back there?”
“I drove it back there to see if see if that dead horse was stinkin’ yet.”
“Well, what in the Hell were you gonna’ do about it if it was?”
Not too long after this, Corwin and Kelvin were found to be growing a lucrative crop of marijuana on Daddy’s place. It was a good time for the family to leave.
Conquering Corwin (Part 1)
In my family of “Mixed Nuts” Cousin Corwin was the winner, hands down. When he was about twelve, he and his twin Kelvin got in a little “dust up” with the police, so it seemed like a good time to get out of town. Aunt Essie called Daddy, asking if the twins could come spend a few days. Now if the image “twins” brings to mind thoughts of “barefoot boys with cheeks of tan,” think again. Kelvin to all intents and purposes, could have passed for normal, but Corwin was nuts. At five foot eight and two hundred and sixty pounds, he was physically intimidating. His pale blue eyes blazed with madness. He ripped through a fried chicken like a chain saw. Mother had to double the amount she normally cooked the minute he arrived.
Aunt Essie’s call for relief was well-timed. Mother and Daddy were just about to leave on a much-anticipated vacation. Though Mother could only hear Daddy’s end of the conversation, it was clear he was assuring Aunt Essie “taking the boys will be no problem. I’ll straighten them out. We’ll come get them as soon as we get back. They can stay as long as they want. They’ll always have a home with us.” He hung up, turning to Mother. She was murderous! Like any right thinking human with twelve years’ experience with Corwin, she despised him. She’d spent most of those years defending her girls from his attacks.
“Are you crazy? I don’t want that maniac out here! He is not coming!”
“Yes, he is! I’ve already told Essie we’ll come get them as soon as we get back from vacation. I’m going to bring those boys out here, put ‘em to work and straighten ‘em out. There’s not a kid in the world I can’t conquer!”
“You can’t straighten them out. You deserve what you get! Go get them whenever you want to. We’re not going on vacation!”
Conceding that point, Daddy left, returning several hours later returning with two sullen, hostile boys. Since neither Mother nor the girls had anything to say to him either, it was a quiet house except for chicken bones crunching when Corwin ate. Corwin was exhausted after his big supper and brush with the police so Mother showed him to his bed right after supper. As soon as she cleaned up the kitchen, she went on to bed, leaving Daddy up by himself. He was horrified to find Corwin in his bed when he got ready to turn in. He went to find Mother. She bunked in with the girls, partly to protect them.
“Corwin’s in my bed!” Daddy roared.
“Yep. You may as well go ahead and get started straightening him out tonight.” She turned over, the bed shaking with her giggling. Daddy knew when he was whipped.
He got up, blasting the boys out of bed the next morning about six. They were sullen, rubbing their eyes. He was full of false cheer, enjoying the prospect of teaching them to work, turning them into productive humans. They dragged away from the table, out into the dawn’s early light. They were back at noon, to eat and rest in the heat of the day. The boys were unhappy. I don’t think their morning had gone well. Daddy was trying to force a good mood on everybody. After an hour and a half’s rest, he had them back at it. They ate, bathed, and fell in bed that night. The next morning, he had to drag them out of bed, openly hostile. They took potshots at him at breakfasts before he dragged them off. By noon, things clearly had heated up.
By the fifth day, Daddy was sick of them, but stuck in the nightmare he’d created. He had alienated everybody. In one camp, Mother and the girls hated him. In the other, he was spending his vacation trying “straighten out” two juvenile delinquents who openly despised him and made his life a misery on every turn. It was a challenge having to having work like a dog trying to teach them to work when he’d planned to be on vacation.
There was no escaping the nightmare as he spent his nights with the corpulent, malodorous, psychopathic Corwin, snuggled up against him. One morning Daddy got up to find he had no clean underwear in his drawer. While he was searching, the putrid scent of feces drifted from the general area of his closet. He investigated, finding that Corwin had suffered digestive issues, soiled his dainties and concealed them deep in Daddy’s closet, rather than admit to his weak sphincter. Exhausting his underwear wardrobe, he’d helped himself to Daddy’s, which he also soiled and concealed. Daddy had had enough. He made Corwin take the whole disgusting pile outdoors and wash it. Corwin found he didn’t care for washing aged crap out of his (and Daddy’s) drawers, retching the whole time. He felt Daddy ought to wash out his own, even though Corwin had crapped them all and was doubly insulted when Daddy insisted he scoop up the piles of poop and haul the filthy wash water far from the house to dump it. He would have had absolutely no problem leaving the slimy, stinking mess lying on the ground next to the faucet. To everyone’s relief, Corwin called Aunt Essie, begging to go home. That saga had ended with Daddy finding a kid he couldn’t conquer.
To be continued
New Book Fanfare – Rhymes of the Times by Judy E. Martin
The Mouth of the Beast
Aunt Essie, like all of my aunts, was a wonder of fertility, if not child-rearing acumen. She raised seven of the meanest boys outside Alcatraz. Thank God, her reproductive equipment gave out before she managed more. I thought Mother was exaggerated when she said they’d all end up in jail or dead before they were thirty. She was wrong. Only four of the seven did jail time, and of these, one died in a bar fight after he was released at the age of twenty-eight. Most of rest passed their time boozing it up at Aunt Essie’s house when they weren’t begetting children or needed in jail. Contrary to Mother’s unjust prediction, all made it past thirty. The meanest of the lot turned out to be pretty boring. He opened a very successful auto body shop and became a deacon.
When Aunt Essie’s boys weren’t trying to kill us, they could be entertaining. Uncle July was an avid hog-hunter. He was extremely proud of his Catahoula Cur Hog Dog, Catch. Catch would go berserk with hog lust and “catch” wild hogs by the ear, hanging on until commanded to turn loose; not a nice dog. Uncle July kept him penned up, sternly warning us away from the fence. Catch might rage through the fence, “catching” us by the ear.
Aunt Essie and Uncle July heard “catch” noises from the dog pen and were horrified to realize one of their angelic three-year-old twins was missing. They rushed out and found Corwin and the monster dog rolling around in the dog pen. Expecting to retrieve the bloody corpse of his precious child, Uncle July leapt into to the pen to find Corwin latched down on Catch’s ear, blood pouring from the tattered edges. When asked why he bit the dog, Kelvin replied, “Dog bite me.” Corwin was fine except for a few drag marks.
Considering his tender age, it seemed premature to categorize Corwin, but he showed all the hallmarks of a psychopath. Energized and empowered by his encounter with “Catch”, his strange little mind focused on the unfortunate beast, making his life a living hell. Despite his concerned parents’ warning, he was soon back in the dog pen with Catch cowering in the barrel half-buried in the dirt that passed for a dog house, howling piteously for rescue. Realizing he was no threat to Corwin, Aunt Essie and Uncle July abandoned him to his misery, knowing Corwin was off their backs as long as poor Catch was crying. Catch wet himself and ran under the truck next time Uncle July tried to take him out hog hunting. His spirit was broken. Uncle July swapped him off to an unsuspecting buddy for a pirogue the first chance he got.
Surviving five horrible older brothers made Corwin and his twin Kelvin tough little devils. Their parents doted on all the boys, seemingly unconcerned about their reputations as hellions. When people complained about their bullying, their stock reply was, “What did your Johnny do to them?” They artfully ignored the obvious fact that the damaged kid was three years younger. Aunt Essie grieved because the twins would be her last babies, so she let them carry their baby bottles till the school put a stop to it. It was bizarre to see them coming in from playing football with their brothers, pull their bottles out of their back pockets, and fill them for themselves. They were fluent in profanity from the time they could talk.
As an adult, between stints in jail, Corwin lived in the dugout of the local ballpark. He’d worn out his welcome with Aunt Essie and his tippling brothers after attempting to burn her house down over their heads. He was forcibly extricated by the more sober among them, but did live to the ripe old age of forty-one. After the immediate threat of roasting in her bed passed, Aunt frequently mentioned letting him move back in, feeling he’d learned his lesson in jail, but her other boys had a longer memory and wouldn’t allow it.
Nutsrok 