There we were, in idyllic Malibu, when someone, I think it was the young granddaughter had an idea. “Let’s make a movie.” And she thought the narrator should be a French Bulldog.
See there’s this sort of normal American family, and every time they take a vacation something curious always happens. Like the time the grandson was bit by a Portuguese Man of War, in Hawaii. The parents are both doctors so a tragedy was averted and the tentacles were removed.
It just so happened that on this very trip to California the whole family caught Covid. Now everyone was vaccinated but still the mom had it the worst. But just as the grandparents were due to arrive, a sand bee bit the mom on her ring finger. OUCH
Who ever heard of sand bees?
Anyway, the poor mom had to have her wedding rings cut off. They tried everything they could think of to slide her rings off, but nothing worked. Eventually they had to drive down the windy, treacherous canyon road to the urgent care.
Since the family was serenaded by a pandemonium of parrots and a few showy peacocks every day, the young girl thought she would sweeten this trip with another catastrophe. What if a peacock bit her on the nose?
Our screenplay took a different turn once the uncle and aunt arrived. They wanted motivation… and plot… and music of course! Suddenly I volunteered to be the villain.
Our movie is still in development. There’s a strange blue triangle house we need to explore and we still have to jump a fence and catch a peacock. Also we had a small mishap in casting.
Nana fell off the bottom rung of the bunk bed ladder. It wasn’t a pretty sight but she won’t be hopping any fences soon. Stay tuned for the trailer!
Our local Nashville PBS will sometimes air a short segment between programming called, “A Word on Words.” I believe our famous independent bookstore helps sponsor this Emmy award winning series, and I always sit up and take notice. Authors J.T. Ellison and Mary Laura Philpott were the first hosts to interview writers about their craft.
“NPT’s Emmy Award-winning A Word on Words features accessible interviews with authors and poets about their latest books. Launched in 2015 the series was designed to be accessible and engaging for a new generation of readers. Join our A Word on Words hosts for more discussions with writers about their work, their process and what they are reading for inspiration.”
Words have always been magical to me; and there’s nothing better than hearing (or reading) a word I don’t already know. Recently our master bedroom closet was finished by a talkative carpenter. It’s no surprise that most of our old crystal cottage is not plumb. And just as he was getting around to the last corner, he turned to me and said,
“This is all cattywampus!“
For me, it was as if someone had handed a toddler a lollipop. I had to ask him about the word, and where he was from (North Carolina), and before you knew it there was a story sprouting in my mind. The Bride told me she’d heard the word before, but that’s probably because she went south for college and pretty much never returned. Cattywampus means exactly what it sounds like – all mixed up. It’s a noun that means askew, disordered, uneven, awry. Scottish in origin and related to “caddy corner.”
Our family loved to make up words. For instance, the Bride was incensed to learn that not only had she believed that our word for something sharp, “porky,” was a real word, but she insisted that her friends believed it too, well into her teens. Somehow, our German Shepherd dog’s incessant drive to chase porcupines, and having to pull those quills out of his snout, resulted in pointy things turning into pesky “porky” things, which makes sense. Right?
Who doesn’t love a little on·o·mat·o·poe·ia in the morning?
This morning as I was scanning the Twittisphere, I came across another word I’d never heard of – banjaxed! According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s an Irish colloquial term meaning:
Just like SCOTUS. Not only are they banjaxed, their decisions are cattywampus! As an ex-school board member, I was shocked to think that Christian prayers can now be said aloud on our public school sports fields. Maybe shocked isn’t the right word, gobsmacked is more like it. Shall we let Muslim football and soccer players stop playing when it’s their time to pray? The team must stop and roll out their prayer rugs on the fifty yard line?
As for me, I can’t wait for the January 6 hearings to begin again tomorrow. Oh and for the third season of Ted Lasso! What would Ted do?
If you’ve been following along on my journey, you already know that our nation’s birthday is a bittersweet holiday for me. It was on the Fourth of July, 1949, that the Flapper took her family for a car ride to see the new airport in Wilkes Barre, PA. A drunk driver plowed into our car headfirst. And that car accident was the reason I was raised by foster parents; the reason I had two families, two homes, two mothers.
“Unfortunately, Independence Day has 19% more traffic fatalities than the average holiday — due, again, to drunk driving and increased traffic. What’s more, 52% of all traffic deaths occurred because someone involved wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Additionally, fatigue plays a serious role in Independence Day deaths. Many Americans use the time off for this holiday to take the family on a short trip, and the long drives lead to tired drivers, which lead to deadly mistakes.”
That being said, I have always hated driving on this weekend. And even though we now have seat belts, and mothers against drunk driving, I’m still skittish. OTOH, some of my best childhood memories are from the fireworks celebration over Lake St Joseph in the Catskill Mountains. It signaled the start of summer camp season, and I couldn’t wait to get back to camp. Sleepaway camp, even if it had a nun in every cabin, represented freedom in my pre-adolescent Catholic school girl’s life.
At Camp St Joseph for girls, I had the opportunity to excel at sports, to sing in the plays, and train to become a lifeguard. This was pre-Title IX. I was voted captain of my team, and became a top notch jacks player. I advanced to Counselor-in-Training (CIT) at 16 and taught boating and canoeing. Camp was the place I forged my identity – I would dream about it well into my 30s.
And when the nuns read us the riot act, after finding out about my scheme to pass notes to Boy’s Camp through the altar boys during Mass, I was the first and only CIT to volunteer to leave. That was my last summer at camp. I was becoming a lapsed Catholic just as my world opened up to include my biological/extended/family, including a Jewish Step-Father!
Maybe the SCOTUS would like to revisit Title IX? They seem to be doing a good job at setting us back decades by overturning Roe in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Org case. If they feel the states can force women to carry a fetus to term, maybe their true mission is to keep us barefoot and pregnant? I’ve lost all respect for this court, this crowd of ultra-radical right-wing partisan appointees.
“Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor and a liberal constitutional scholar, said that, based on the logic of Dobbs, “there’s no principled way to hold back the tide that would return us to the law of the late 1800s on matters of privacy, reproduction, sexual intimacy and L.G.B.T.Q. equality.” Although Lochner itself is probably “too radioactive” for this court to embrace outright, the court’s overall hostility to government regulation of business and its celebration of individual freedom are clearly in the ascendant. Professor Tribe warned that the effect could be to “return our jurisprudence to a preindustrial, agrarian world. It’s all but unthinkable.” The consequences, he added, could be “horrendous.”
I wonder if the good professor read Margaret Atwood?
We woke on Friday morning to a street full of tiny American flags up and down near mailboxes. We don’t know who was responsible, but suspect it was a real estate company. Some people took their flags down, but we didn’t. The 30% of religious/right/cult followers in this country don’t get to dictate who can exhibit their patriotism and who can’t. I’ve even got my stars and stripes pinwheel on my desk! And I’m wearing my handmade red, white and blue eternity necklace.
But if you see me crying at a parade today, and I’ve been known to cry at 4th of July parades, it may just be for the human rights I see slipping away.
I’ve just learned of another mass shooting at a parade in Chicago this afternoon. Dear God, what will it take?
MountainMornings 