The Bless*ed Dressing

By Patricia White

     
     With the patio door cracked open, I could feel the cool evening breeze as I waited anxiously for my hubby to get home from work. Sitting in my favorite spot, in the corner of our brown leather sofa, I was sipping a glass of Cab and working a crossword when my husband walked in. He had a big smile on his face and gave me his usual, sweet, hello kiss.

     “How was work?” I asked. 
     “Fine. The Thanksgiving Feast is coming up the end of next week and Tammy asked me if Pat would make the cornbread dressing.”
     I looked up from my crossword puzzle and said, “Pat who?”

    “Pat, you. You’ve spoiled them, they love your dressing," he said

     Because I was working last year, Tammy had to order dressing from the building deli and no one liked it. It was dry and had too much sage. He said that he told Tammy he was sure I’d be happy to make it. I bit my tongue, I was not happy, or flattered or thankful.

“Well, I was hoping to send the rolls and butter this year, but I’ll do that for you.  By the way, is everyone    preparing a dish?”

“No,” he said. “Those who don’t cook gave Tammy ten dollars to buy stuff.” I headed for my purse and offered him a twenty.  He looked hurt. 

     “It was a joke,” I said.  “Of course I will make the dressing.” 

 He volunteered to shop for all the ingredients and to chop up all the veggies for me in advance.

That little piggy went to market.

     A few days after he volunteered my services for this culinary undertaking, I woke up one morning and my right leg wasn’t working.  The bottom half of my leg went one way and my knee went the other. There was no explaining the bum knee, just untimely bad luck; maybe it was good luck with the dressing thing.  I thought for a second I was off the hook. But I’m not one for making excuses and I did have my CVS animal-print cane, and at worst, Mama’s walker was in the storage closet.

     After trying to walk with a cane unsuccessfully for several days, I saw the Doctor and sadly accepted the news that I had bad joint strain and had to stay off the knee….if I could.  Rest and ice. That was two days before the gargantuan task of making my better than store bought dressing for thirty something of the dearest people in my husband’s office.  I was also to be the delivery girl and my timing had to be perfect.  Somehow I had to get that twenty-pound pan of hot dressing to the truck if I had to tie a rope around the handle and pull it out there.

”I’ll huff and I’ll puff……………

 

     The day before the feast, I made the cornbread, sautéed all the veggies, mixed it all up with my special secret ingredients and dumped it into the big pan with the handles and shoved it into the fridge. Next day I had only to bake and transport it. Just as I got the kitchen all cleaned up, standing on my good leg, the bad leg propped on a footstool, the phone rang. It was hubby. Now, they wanted a big bowl of my delicious gravy to go with the dressing.  I guessed that next they would want me to dress up in a uniform and serve. I was injured, my leg was getting no better and I was not warming up to this kitchen frolic. I was having un-Christian-like thoughts.

     As I rolled over in bed the next morning, the day of the feast, I had a burning pain up under my left wing (Yes, I have wings). I was sure it was a pulled muscle from pulling myself up and down with my old flabby arms.  This was becoming a nightmare. I had dressing to bake, gravy to make and somehow load it all into the truck with only half of my mojo working and now, a busted wing.  I just wanted to cry, but I pretended to be better as I walked my hubby to his car, like I did every day. I blew him a kiss as he drove off into the blue-sky morning. He offered to stay but I insisted it was no biggie.

     “See you at 11:00.”  I mouthed, with a tear in my eye, as he backed out of the carport.

    The fridge was opposite the oven so transferring the dressing was not too taxing.  The Angels were hovering over me. Mama must have sent them down. I could feel a warm presence. After a short while, a wonderful aroma was wafting from the oven and I was just about done with the gravy when the phone rang. It was hubby.  He said he would need our electric knife and asked me to throw it into the box.

     “What box?” I asked.

     “Well, the hot gravy should be in a box so it doesn’t spill in the truck.”

     “Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” I said sarcastically. Where in the hail was I going to get a friggin box?

     “Hold on,” I said, as I switched the phone to speaker and laid it on the counter.

     I squatted on one leg to dig the electric knife handle from out of the back of the kitchen cabinet. I finally reached it just as I dropped my cane. I fell to the floor and screamed. I shouted toward the phone.

     “I’m OK. Baby got back, just not enough to soften that fall.”

      I silently cursed everyone on the tenth floor of One Riverway as I pulled myself up off the kitchen floor, fished the knife blades out of the drawer and threw everything on the countertop. I remembered there was an empty wine box in the dining room from last night’s wine run.  The mail lady was peering into the dining room window. What the hail was she looking at? I guess she’s heard me scream.  I was breathing heavily when I finally picked up the phone.  

     “OK, it’s all in the box.” I said.

     “Are you OK?”

     “Yes, I’m fine.”

     “Try to be here by 11:15.” He said sweetly.

     “OK, I’ll do my best.”

     “If you need me, I can come home and get all that stuff.” 

     “No problem, I’m good,” I said. (I’ve had four children, two with no anesthetic, I got this).

 

     As I reached over the counter to hang up the phone, I knocked half a box of Swanson’s chicken broth off the counter and all over the floor and my jammies.“Sorry, Angels, I know I need my mouth washed out with soap.” I wiggled out of my jammie bottoms and dropped them on top of the mess on the floor, hoping to sop some of the broth.  Last thing I needed was to slip and fall. Now that my pants were off, I could see that my knee was swelling more. I would foot-mop the floor when I got home.

This little piggy was mad at all the little piggies in her husband’s office.

      I crawled up the stairs to take a hot bath and dress for the epic delivery of what was becoming the Bless*ed dressing. I put on fresh jeans, a really cute top, silver turkey earrings, make up, extra mascara and teased up my hair just in case Eye Witness News was there or someone from the office insisted that I come up and share this pre-Thanksgiving bounty. No pitiful looking Patty here. 
Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.

     When all the food was at the perfect temperature I started to work my plan for getting it all into the truck.  I rolled the dressing to the truck on the desk chair, then the box with my delicious daayum gravy and serving tools and slammed the door shut. Then I called hubby.

     “I’m rolling and will call you when I get close to the office.”

     “Thank you, baby,” he said. “You’re the best.”

      I10 was like a log jam. A long funeral procession was in the right lane and someone was moving a house down the other two open lanes.  I would not make it by 11:15. As I pedaled my SUV down I10, more than frustration was setting in. I had full blown road rage and a temporary case of Tourette’s.  I was starting to hope lunch would be over by the time I got there with the best part. Some twisted part of me said they didn’t deserve my dressing.  When I was finally able to merge onto 610, it looked for a minute like the Woodway Exit was blocked off. 

“Oh look, a makeshift exit,” I shouted to no one. “Yee Haw for the office, I will make it with the Bless*ed dressing.” I called Hubby to let him know the eagle would land in five minutes.

     Hubby met me at the car and said I wasn’t late; everyone was upstairs sipping wine, eating hors d’oeuvres and having fun.  He removed the dressing from the back of the vehicle and the box with the gravy and electric knife parts and placed it all on a small dolly.  He thanked me and gave me a quick kiss.

     “No problem, Sweetheart, just be sure to tell Santa Clause I was a good girl this year.”

      He laughed as he hurried off with my epicurean delight. He was so proud I’d made the dressing. I didn’t really want to go to the party.  Eye Witness News wasn’t there either. All my fluffing was for nothing. I started the truck and headed straight for Chico’s to shop for a beautiful new outfit I so deserved.

This little piggy did not cry wee wee wee all the way home.

     Back home, mid-afternoon, the phone rang.  It was Hubby.

     “The dressing was a hit,” he said. “They ate every morsel of it.”

     “Good,” I said. “I am here to serve.”

     He said he just had to call to tell me how delicious it was and that it was a good thing he didn’t need the electric knife.

     “Why,” I asked?

     “When I reached into the box for the electric knife, ­­­­ I found the top of the hand mixer and two electric knife blades. But, it’s OK, someone brought a knife,” He said. How thoughtful, I thought.

     “So what’s the problem?” I asked. “Can’t an engineer work those electric knife blades with the mixer top?”  He laughed. How could I have been so discombobulated?  What knee, what wing pain? Only another Super Woman would understand.  We laughed and said the usual I love yous and hung up.

 

     The following year, the office Thanksgiving feast was catered and this wicked witch spent the holidays packing her pots and pans for a move to a new retirement community where no one outside of my beloved family has ever tasted my “better than store bought” dressing…….and probably never will.
 

Happy Thanksgiving, Y’all!!!

The Gator Got Your Granny

By Patricia White

By some divine intervention, I think that I danced right into this world following in the footsteps of my ridiculously unique and zany father. He loved his friends, a good time and he loved to dance. So do I.

I grew up in my hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When I was in the sixth grade, my mama loaded us up in our Army surplus jeep and drove us to the Recreation Center every Saturday afternoon for Mr. Phillip’s ballroom dancing class. We learned the Fox Trot, Jitterbug, Waltz, Rumba and even the Tango. Dancing was in my feet and bones. Over the next 40 years, I would dance myself all the way to Houston, Texas.

Some years ago, my husband and I were out with a group of close friends for a night of dancing at a local watering hole. As we walked into the joint and heard the old familiar songs; my feet began to twitch and tingle with excitement. It didn’t take long to get into the action with one great song following another. Then there was silence for a moment, and the familiar guitar sounds of the Bayou suddenly filled the room.

"It’s gator time,” our rowdy friends yelled. They stomped their feet in demand to the music. I slipped out of my sandals. The smooth wooden boards shook beneath my now bare feet. The joint reverberated with the sounds of John Lee Hooker's,  BOOGIE CHILLUNS, as they blasted from the six foot speakers that stood like soldiers at attention in all four corners of the dance floor. My bare feet would not be still. That Texas watering hole would never be the same again.

We were not on the Bayou in Louisiana, this was not Gator country but the land of Aggies and Longhorns. The demand for a floor show came from the mouths of our Texas friends. They knew about the wild and crazy things we did growing up in Louisiana. They knew about the Gator, heard tales, and their insistent chant told me that there would be no peace until we were on the floor on all fours.

I grabbed my partner's hand in a fit of excitement and tugged him toward the center of the dance floor. He tried to shake lose from me as he cast brown eyes at me that said, "Don't ask me to do this.”

The glance I shot back said, "We're doin' it, Baby." I shuffled to the center of the floor with my partner in tow. The crowd closed in and began clapping. I forgot for a moment that there would be a tomorrow as I was about to let it all hang out. John Lee Hooker shouted BOOGIE CHILLUNS from the mammoth speakers and my partner and I dropped to the floor on all fours, face to face like two alligators squaring off for a bayou land-battle or the dance of love.

Words can't describe the dance or the body mechanics involved in this Southern ritual. What happened on the floor was never the same twice in a row. First, I was doing what looked like push-ups with both arms and legs, and then somewhere, somehow, I was doing one arm, two-leg push-ups, then one leg, one-arm push-ups. My partner didn’t miss a beat. He executed each flip and gyration with the grace of a true Cajun. To catch my breath, I flipped to my back like an Alligator preparing to sun on some bayou bank. and at the same time I shook my body as if to dry away the last of the swamp water then I flipped back over. Those back to front flips were risky for human gators as I needed to land with my belly on the ground, arms and legs outstretched, posed for an afternoon of sunning or a quick pounce on something for dinner. I rested a moment. The music wound down, "BOOGIE CHILLUNS, BOOGIE CHILLUNS, boogie chilluns." In one swift movement, I leap from all fours to a kneeling position with outstretched arms, shimming one last time. My partner leapt up and landed on his feet like a Circus performer. With all my strength, I attempted to spring from kneeling to standing. The crowd went wild. I was suddenly having an out of body experience. As I attempted to jump up, I lost my footing and in slow motion fell backwards for what seemed an eternity before I hit the floor. A jolt of electricity up my left arm told me I had connected once again with the smooth, worn boards of the dance floor. I heard a crack, just as the lightning struck my left arm. I was back in my body again, on the floor, sitting on my rump, crying as I lifted a limp hand into the hot humid air.

"It hurts," I whimpered, to no one in particular. The music stopped. The crowd shushed. Everyone knew that the lady Gator had broken her wrist. My partner ran to me and lifted me into his arms. His brown eyes met my tear filled blues. One moment his eyes said he was so sorry that this had happened, then they blinked uncontrollably as if to say, "you're a fifty-five year old alligator, you are a grandmother, what did you expect?”

The emergency room staff was very attentive and sympathetic to the events leading up to my arm injury. I told them I tripped on the green ottoman in our family room. I didn't have to tell them I had been snacking on grapes. I was barefoot and disheveled. Somehow they knew. I had to repeat my fabricated story over and over to each new person who entered the room. They thought my story would change. It never did. Even though my hand was dangling up on top of my wrist, the crew in green still insisted on an x-ray to confirm that my wrist was broken. And it was. As I floated in and out of pain-induced hallucinations, the words from my dancing song floated into my head, "Let that girl boogie woogie, it's in her and it's got to come out, BOOGIE CHILLUNS."

“John Lee Hooker, where are you now? I need something for pain. I'll have what you have that always makes you seem so happy.”

My arm was eventually immobilized and I was sent home to suffer and pay for my sin. Surgery to place pins in my wrist followed three days later. After surgery, the Doctor announced that I had fine strong bones for a woman my age and no pins were necessary. He said my wrist would be as good as new and stronger than ever once it healed. He grinned and said that he hoped I had rearranged the furniture so that no one else would fall over the green ottoman.

I learned over the next three months that there were many things that were impossible to do with one arm in a cast. It takes two hands to eat a sandwich, cut up your meat, dry and style your hair, chop onions, pick up a baby, change a diaper, open a medicine bottle, floss your teeth, put on panty hose and get your britches down in a hurry. I was home alone one day, trying to get ready for a Christmas luncheon. I had planned to wear a wrap skirt with a holiday motif. When all attempts to put the skirt on with one hand failed, I spread the skirt out on the carpet, positioned myself at the edge of the skirt and rolled myself up in it. As I lay on the floor, I began to laugh. Now that the pain was gone, the truth about how it happened was pretty funny. The time had come to be  truthful  about how I had broken my arm with everyone who had not witnessed the Bayou fever that overcame me that night on the dance floor. To all those kind neighbors and unsuspecting friends who called, brought casseroles, sent cards and flowers, I owed the truth.

As I shared the true story over the next few months with family and friends, I often got the same question. "Will you ever do the Gator again?"

“No way, Jose,” I said. "But after the spectacular show my partner put on that night I'm sure he will jump in the dance circle first chance he gets with the twenty-somethings and put them all to shame.”

Hopefully, my Cajun man's bones are stronger than mine. But, I am retired these days and I will be here to help him with those two-handed tasks if he ever trips over the green ottoman and breaks something.

PS. By special request, I did the Gator at our oldest granddaughter’s wedding in 2010 but I had appointees standing by to help me up off the floor as I crouched in my little black dress. My final appearance was at a big Fais Do Do we co-chaired in 2012. We had a live Zydeco band, who could resist? I’ve hung up my dancing shoes, but they are still in my closet. My feet still start twitching when I hear that music. It seems to call my name. “Let that girl boogie woogie; it’s in her and it’s got to come out.” Boogie Chilluns………………….

Those Aren't My Egg Rolls

By Patricia White

     After a grueling late afternoon Doctor’s appointment I dove into the five-o’clock traffic and headed north for home. Dinner was the last thing I wanted to think about but I knew it would soon be six bells and someone would be hungry. I decided Chinese take-out would be a welcome change to my head-of-household. The search was underway. My head swung from left to right as I scanned each shopping center for a restaurant where I could quickly pick up something for dinner. A place called Blue Iris caught my eye. The neon sign flashing, CHINESE beckoned.  I cautiously negotiated my way across three lanes of slow-and-go traffic and exited the freeway onto the service road into the almost empty parking lot and into a spot right in front of Blue Iris' door. This should be easy breezy, I thought.  No crowd, no wait, and my mouth began to water.

     The restaurant was empty at the almost dinner hour and the owner immediately came forward to assist me.  I placed an order for Sesame Chicken, Shrimp-Fried Rice and two egg rolls, to go.  The soft spoken  gentleman asked me to have a seat on the blue vinyl sofa.    He took my order to the kitchen and scurried right back to the sofa with a glass of complimentary iced tea; he assured me my food would not take long.  As I sat sipping the tea, my stomach began to make a noise.  I wondered if I had made a mistake ordering Chinese food.  Thinking back, my tummy had been talking to me all afternoon.  It was too late, the food was ordered.  In five short minutes, my food was presented to me in two  brown paper sacks.  I stood from the couch,  accepted the warm packages, rendered my Visa card and was on my way.  I walked out of the door onto the sidewalk and my tummy began to roll again. I felt the sudden urge to relieve this rumbling in my lower contutriments I looked around the store front.  Not a soul in sight or earshot, but I still opted for the privacy of my car where I would be alone.  I did not want to share this with the world. My little white Honda was my refuge in the storm. I jumped in, closed the door and the thunder rolled.
      I was digging frantically for my keys as I caught a glimpse, out the corner of my eye, of someone walking out of the restaurant carrying a small brown sack in his hand heading for the parking lot. God, please, no, not my car, I prayed.  I looked at the empty parking space on my left and my right and knew, the bag tolls for thee.   As I inserted my keys into the ignition, there was a tap on my window.  The brown-bag bearer’s small face seem to magnify as he pressed up against my window, holding up the small brown bag. “You egg rolls,” he said.   

     I was not ready to open the window. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I changed my mind, I don’t want them.”

     “You must take, you pay for them,” he pleaded with a smile.

     “I-don’t-like-egg-rolls,” I said, slowly forming each word with my lips.

     “Bery, bery good egg rolls,” he chanted in a high-pitched tone.

     “Put them on top, I’ll get them later,” I shouted through the still closed window. 

     “What?” he said, as he put a hand to his ear.

     At that instant, I contemplated crawling over the shift stick on the floor, exiting on the passenger side and walking around the car to get the egg rolls. This man with the bald head and beady eyes was not taking no for an answer. My stomach growled.  I was about to burn another hole in the front seat of my new car.  My long straight skirt would not allow me to crawl over the console so I just sat for a second pondering the situation. There was another tap on my window…….. Confucius left me no choice. I reached for the electric window switch.  As the window lowered, he leaned forward.  His face melted, his eyes became small slits and began to water. He barely forced out the words, “You egg rolls.”  

     I snatched the bag and  told him to step back and take a deep breath. I threw some Mardi-Gras beads from my mirror out of the window to distract him. He grabbed the beads, placed them around his neck then sat on the curb with his head in his hands and wept. 

     Happy to leave that  place, I pulled out of the shopping center and eased up to the corner where an old man with long hair sat on a box with a bucket of Roses in front of him. I rolled down the window and asked if he’d had dinner. He shook his head, no. I tossed the bags out to him.

     “It’s Chinese, take-out, you’ll love it. Especially the egg rolls.” He smiled.

     I eased back into the traffic and  headed home. I called Mr. Leblanc to let him know I was on my way and to ask if he wanted anything special for dinner. He suggested I stop and pick up Chinese at a new place he’d heard about called, Blue Iris. There was a long pause on my end…..Then he cracked up laughing and said they’d just called the house and said I’d forgotten my credit card there. How could I go back? Ever!!!! I had to get my card. I’d explain about the other issues when I got home. At the next turnaround, I put on my sunglasses, tied a scarf around my head and headed back to the scene of the crime.

     As I entered Blue Iris, Confucius said, “You back. My eyes still burning.”

     I said, “Yes, to get my credit card. Sorry. And, you forgot my Fortune Cookies.”

     He said, “You don’t need no cookies. You fortune very clear, white lady. Stay away from Blue Iris.”

     I said, "Remember, behind every cloud is another cloud.” (*Judy Garland)

     He handed me my credit card and tossed a handful of Fortune Cookies at me as he waved me out. He threw his head back laughing as the Mardi Gras beads jangled around his neck.

Chickens on the Run

By Patricia White

    Chicken and Sausage Gumbo is lagniappe for the soul in my family. Just last week I got my Le Creuset 9.5 quart pot out and assembled my ingredients on the counter for this Cajun delight. I know it sounds lazy, but I always use a couple of rotisserie chickens because it makes life in the kitchen easier. I like easy. Mr. Leblanc usually takes over with the deboning of the chicken, but he was not home. I attempted to dismember the rotisserie chicken. First, I pulled off the legs, then the wings which gave me pause for a shiver. I stepped back, took a deep breath and in what seemed like ten seconds I recalled a disturbing sequence of events from my somewhat redneck childhood deep in the heart of Louisiana.

  

  One cold rainy evening back in February 1952, my daddy got a call from the Baton Rouge Post Master just at closing time. A mail order of five hundred little biddies had not been claimed and the Post Master wanted to know if Daddy would take the chicks. It was going to be a cold night and the Post Master wanted assurance those little biddies were safe and warm for the night and the rest of their lives. Have you ever seen one of those Farmer’s Almanac ads that read: 500 biddies for $19.95?  Daddy had a contract with the Post Office to transport the mail four times a day in one of the Army surplus trucks that he bought after the War and the crew at the Post Office knew that he was always looking for a money-making opportunity.

  Mr. Mac. as Daddy was affectionately called, quickly seized the opportunity. With childlike excitement, he told mama and my sisters and me that taking on the biddies would be a family project. Supplies were needed for the new fledglings, like coops, feeding trays and warmers. The five o’clock whistle had already blown for the day and Baton Rouge’s streets were rolled up tight as jelly rolls. Neither of the town’s two feed stores were open. Not easily discouraged, Daddy said we would have to make do for the night. He had a plan. “If Daddy can’t do it, nobody can,” was his mantra.

  Our garage became the neo-natal nursery for five hundred of these screeching little biddies who wanted their mamas. We divided the little yellow balls of fluff into four large cardboard boxes that we scavenged from a couple of grocery store alleys on our way home. Each box was lined with newspaper and held one pie tin filled with cornmeal and another filled with water. We strung a spider web of extension cords across the boxes with one lone light bulb dangling down into each box to provide some warmth in our below freezing garage. By the time the biddies were bedded down for the night, the garage was beginning to smell. Some of the biddies were screeching loudly. Daddy plugged in an old radio and turned it on hoping to quiet them. He could not quell the smell, so he softly closed the door.

  As Daddy kissed each of our foreheads good night, I could see a smile on his lips. He knew he had hit pay dirt with those little biddies. Five hundred fresh country eggs a day would almost make us rich. I could see Mama’s eyes rolling back in her head like she had doubts about this latest venture. Mr. Mac was a force to be reckoned with, a legend in his own time.

  At first light, Daddy entered the cold and smelly garage. His smile turned upside down as he found half of the biddies frozen to death, legs in the air or face down in the pie pans of water. Dead either way. Equipped with shovels and little wooden crosses, we three children buried the still-frozen biddies in a mass grave. After a short prayer, the family moved on with plans for the two hundred fifty remaining future layers. Daddy built a chicken yard, outfitted with all the needed chicken equipment and fed them laying mash religiously for the next three months.

  This would probably be a good time to disclose that several hundred pounds of laying mash later, we discovered that all two hundred fifty of our future laying hens were roosters. Those little fluffy yellow baby chicks had turned into the meanest white roosters on earth.  After we all left home each morning for school and work, I guess those cold-hearted roosters got bored because they commenced pecking each other until their white feathers were splotched with blood. It was a scene right out of Deliverance. Someone told my Daddy that if he daubed black Shinola shoe polish on the bloody feathers each day that the chickens would stop trying to peck each other to death. Sweet Jesus, I thought, come get me now. I wanted no part of that operation.

  Daddy was eager to get the Shinola show on the road. Rushing home each afternoon, he would coral us all into the chicken yard and designate who would catch the chickens-on-the-run by their legs and who would be the polish dauber. Two of us were instructed to catch three sets of feet in each hand. I cried and pleaded that I didn’t want to touch them. I was not cut out to be a farm girl. Daddy said I was being foolish and I should quit acting like a baby. (I was the oldest) I don’t know how I didn’t die from holding my breath during the whole Operation- Shinola when it was my turn to wrap my short fat fingers around those crusty, yellow chicken legs. Every third day I was the dauber which was no easy task with their wings flapping every which-a-way as they tried to peck me with their beaks. After a few weeks of these farm yard tactics, the chickens began to heal. Life almost returned to normal. Homework never looked so good.

  The chickens were fat and clucking when slaughter day approached. We watched in horror as a crusty old whip-of-a-woman with a blue rag tied around her head and matching apron showed up at our house and made no apologies as she rang each and every chicken’s neck. “Come here, you little “SOB,” she’d yell. Then grabbing each chicken by the neck she’d start cranking. Chicken heads flew into one pile and their still-flopping bodies were tossed into another. The last chicken to go gave her a run for her money. No part of the process was orderly. Laissez-fair of the 50’s.  I had to go lie down inside by the fan. Upset as I was, I was still ecstatic to be free from the chickens. Maybe the Circus would be in town tomorrow.

  However evil on my part as it sounds, I realized the chickens were not leaving our neck of the woods. They were cleaned and cut in half, then fourths. The back section consisting of a leg and second joint (thigh) was neatly wrapped in white paper and marked and stacked in our freezer in the same garage where the travesty had begun. Those daayum chickens had come full circle. The two hundred fifty that didn’t freeze that first night were frozen now. The breasts were sold to a local grocer, so the whole disgusting undertaking was not a total loss. And, we did have lots of Bar B Qs. None for me, thank you. Mercy, I hated those chickens dead or alive and felt a sense of deliverance about a year later when the last leg was eaten.

  Do I like chicken today? Do I eat chicken today? Yes, for some sick reason, but breasts only. Let me just say that I do not allow anything in my freezer that has legs or wings. That rule puts my husband in a bind, being the game hunter he is. But, I am the only Chick in this house and I rule the roost.

Glamping is Not For Sissies

By Patricia White

      When we moved into our present home about two years ago we had designs on building a Gazebo in our huge back yard. I’m taking about a lot of wood and about 14 feet in diameter. It was to be our outside sanctuary in which to sit and drink morning coffee or adult beverages in the evening. We would not be able to see anything from the lovely Gazebo but each other, as our yard is completely surrounded by a tall wooden fence. I wanted to see people and much preferred a red-neck cocktail party in lawn chairs in the driveway. We put the Gazebo on the back burner. I woke up one morning and had dreamed we owned a motor home! After breakfast I told hubs I wanted to go look at some motor homes, just for fun. Before the day was over, we’d spent our Gazebo money on a sweet motor home built for two or maybe four very close friends. The name painted on the motor home was Storm.

     We camped with our four children in a tent for many years and still loved the outdoors. Now we would be doing what is currently known as glamor camping…..or glamping…We had become glampers! The Storm has a kitchen, a toilet, shower, a real bed and air-conditioning. You must have cooked on an outdoor camp stove, slept on the cold hard ground in a sleeping bag with three kids during a storm, buried the potty bags and sweated your eyeballs out in summer to appreciate this new luxury. 

     After many hours of shopping and outfitting, there we sat in the driveway prepared for take-off. Mr. Leblanc (hubs) noticed the newspaper still in our front yard and asked me to hop out and get it. When I opened the door, the steps deployed. That’s a very convenient feature, sometimes. I started down the steps and closed the door behind me before I got to the bottom step, so as not to let all the cool air escape. Well, just as the stairs deployed when the door opened, they sucked back into the side when the door closed. In this case, my feet were still on the steps when they sucked in leaving me airborne with nothing to do but grab for a sky hook and fall forward on my knees on the driveway. I was in a good position to pray, but I cursed instead as I clutched at my brush-burned knees. Lesson 1. Always lock the stairs when they are down…always, except when you go to bed for the night. Then you want the stairs sucked in and doors locked so no bears can sneak in   while you are asleep. I am just one who wants everything locked and bolted no matter where we are at night. There are probably no bears at Lake Conroe, but one never knows.

    After several hours setting up and figuring out how everything worked, we fell into bed dead tired. I heard a noise around 1 a.m. and had a strong sense someone or something was trying to break in. I heard it’s harder to break into a motor home than a vault, but the noise was unsettling for a girl who hates the dark. Hubs got up to go look out all windows checking for bears. I decided it was a good time to use the facilities since we were both wide awake. The bedroom is a step up from the rest of the bus interior. It is a very tight squeeze between the bed and wall and being our first trip out, I had not learned the short-cut…..When you’re worried about a bear, you don’t think about steps, or bedspreads that have slipped off the bed. I totally missed the step, slipped on the silky bedspread and flew into the hall. My butt hit the floor, spun around and I raked my forearm and elbow across the AC vent, scraping off all the skin. It burned like you know what. When I quit spinning my head hit the hinges on the bathroom door. OMG, I saw stars. I was ready to sell that son-of-a-biscuit eater and look for a Gazebo kit when we got home.

    Mr. Leblanc kept me awake for an hour or so in the event I had a concussion. By the grace of God, I finally fell asleep, and even better, I woke up the next morning. How else would you know you are not dead? I had a dreadful headache but was so happy to be alive.  I made coffee, filled my tiger mug and headed for the door. I opened it, the stairs deployed, I LOCKED then and headed out to stare at the lake and the family of ducks swimming nearby. My head was really throbbing, but we had no car to run over to the Urgent Care Clinic about five miles up the road. We were hooked up to too many things to un-tether. The reason we were not towing a vehicle was because we didn’t have one. We were encouraged by our RV salesman to hold off buying a tow car for a year until we decided if Glamping was really for us old city slickers. He said there was an Enterprise store in every city and they would happily deliver a car to us. Just call them.  No car payments, no insurance payments, no chance of getting separated from your new little wind-up toy going 70 down the interstate. Lesson 2. You need your own car, whatever it costs.

     Breakfast was fairly uneventful, unless you count the burn on Hub's hand from reaching into the oven to retrieve burning toast. We cleaned up the kitchen without ever moving our feet. Now that is pretty cool. We used up quite a few Band Aids and Neosporin between my elbow, my knees and hubs hand.  We dressed and were ready for a refreshing day in the outdoors on the lake. Hubs baited up some treble hooks on a throw line with chicken hearts and walked 100 yard to the edge of the cove. I grabbed my iPad, my mug of coffee and headed for a camouflage-glamp-chair to sit out my headache.

     Fifteen minutes later, I looked up and hubs was limping back to camp. He had a hook, a treble hook, in his leg. Little did I know I was fixing to perform my first surgery, ever! I got him inside and on the couch. I don’t know where the cutters came from, a God-send, I’m sure, but I grabbed them and cut the barbs off two hooks so that I could slide his jeans down around his ankles and do what I had to do. I then tried to cut the shank off but God’s cutters weren’t making a dent. Against hub's protests, I ran next door and ask a total stranger to come help me. He grabbed his cutters and followed me back. His strong hands were able to make the cut. Then the head nurse took over again. I pushed the hook gently…..if there is a gentle way to wiggle a hook that is stuck in someone’s leg. Then the neighbor tried his un-scrubbed hand at budging the hook. I kept suggesting we call 911. Then hubs said, he’d do it himself and no one was calling 911. Without shedding a tear, he pushed that awful barb right out of his leg.  Fragments of chicken hearts still clung to the hook. With hub's jeans down around his ankles, the stranger was ready to leave once the emergency was over. I thanked him for being a Good Samaritan and he left.  Right after that he and his wife packed up and left camp. I would have loved to send him a Bass Pro Shop gift card but with no name or address, he would have to be happy with the satisfaction of knowing he had paid it forward.  Lesson 3. Always pay it forward if you can……whether it’s picking up the tab for the person in front of you at Starbucks or helping a frantic mother remove a rock from her son’s nose or helping an old man with a fish hook in his leg.  

     I put in a call to our doctor and was informed that Mr. Leblanc was up to date on his tetanus shot. I cleaned his boo boo up with soap and water, peroxide and alcohol. I slathered some Neosporin on a sterile pad and wrapped some purple stretchy tape from my first-aid kit around his leg. Lesson 4.  Prepare a first aid kit and keep it stocked. You will probably need it sooner than later. Stick some good wire cutters in there too, just because I said so.

     My Mr. Leblanc re-rigged his throw line, popped on some more chicken hearts and took off for the water’s edge. The rains started after lunch before we had a chance to stow away our outdoor gear and chairs. We hurried inside where the comforts of home awaited us. Luckily, this camp ground had a full hook-up which included cable TV. I love a dreary, rainy afternoon, curled up on the couch watching a good movie. It was wishful thinking.  The TV reception reminded me of the 50’s when the first TVs came out and we accepted the snowy picture as normal. The two stations that came in clear were both in Spanish.  Yo no hablo Espanol. We played Scrabble and napped.  The Gazebo Kit at Lowe’s was calling our name.

      I brought previously-cooked food from our freezer so supper would be a breeze. I was so ready for easy. By then, it was 5 o’clock and hubs had our long-stemmed plastic wine glasses out and he was filling them. The rain had stopped. We headed out to watch the sunset in the still-wet camouflage chairs. My head had finally stopped hurting. Supper was on the stove. The slippery bedspread was off the bed and stowed in the outside compartment with the nasty fish lines. There were no red streaks running down Mr. Leblanc's leg. The wine and the lake calmed me. Not much else could go wrong tomorrow.

     By the way, the noise we heard in the night was the awning flapping when the night wind whipped up over the lake. Lesson 5. Never leave the awning up overnight.

     It’s hard to teach old geezers new tricks, but I think we got this now. The Gazebo is back on hold as of today. Our kids think it’s so cool that we are still adventurous at our age. What they don’t know won’t hurt then, The Lord watched out for us the next two days and never gave us more mishaps than we could handle, except maybe for the toilet overflow at midnight. Just call us the Glampets….Look out for us at a campground near you.

Hurricane Food is what's for Dinner    
By Patricia White

      A very wise friend told me once that if you decide, “What’s for dinner,” in the morning and get everything laid out, your day goes much more smoothly. Folks, at 9 a.m. it is just too early to think about what we might want to eat for dinner nine hours away. I haven’t even put in my breakfast order yet. At the moment, I can only think about the donut I want to go with my coffee.

     I must admit planning early in the day is better than asking whomever is in the room, at 6 p.m., “What are we going to eat for dinner?” Because that person always answers with another question like, “What sounds good to you?" Well hail, if I knew the answer to that, I’d have laid it out at 9 a.m. and we’d be eating right now. Not being able to decide what to cook early in the day usually means I don’t want to cook. Not knowing what I want to eat, when there is nothing cooked at 6 p.m. is another story and the indecision takes on a life of its own. We pour up another glass of wine, pull out a box of crackers. We scratch around in the pantry and refrigerator looking for  possibilities. My sweet man says he will run to the Kroger or the nearest restaurant if I will just tell him what I want to eat. I’m thinking. I go to the laundry room to switch over some clothes to the dryer and there sits the freezer, like an oasis in the desert. It always holds several possibilities, including previously cooked delicacies, dated and ready to throw into a pot or the microwave. However, if we eat something from the freezer, our hurricane food will be depleted and who knows for sure when we will cook again…..or when a hurricane will hit.  Digging through the freezer and reorganizing while I'm there, I count containers of each variety. We have the most quart-size cartons of soup. So, soup is what’s for dinner tonight, and cornbread. Emergency cornbread from the freezer.

     After dinner, I suggest that we start thinking about what we will eat tomorrow. I want to hit the kitchen early while cooking is still a good idea and all my systems are go. I don’t cook after five any more. My day shifts into slow motion. However, we do need to cook a big pot of something and replace that food we took from the freezer. I’m thinking chicken and dumplings. I make the grocery list knowing this soul food is going to be tasty as well as hot and ready-to-eat tomorrow night by 6 p.m. if I start early.

     The phone rings loudly, “Bo Diddley caught him a bear cat; to make his pretty baby a Sunday hat. Go, Bo Diddley.” (I love that ring tone) It’s an automated message from our dentist’s office to remind us we have an appointment at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Well, that surely leaves no time for grocery shopping or cooking. But, a trip into town stirs up other possibilities for our day. We will probably eat lunch at some MSG-free restaurant, mosey in and out of a few favorite stores searching for that little something new that a girl might need to make it through the week.  It will be 5 o’clock somewhere, by the time we get home, but at least there will be no last minute decisions about what's for dinner. We will split whatever lunch leftovers the waitress puts in our take-home box. Maybe I’ll throw a little salad together. Ice Cream with hot fudge at news time.  Tomorrow will be easy.

      I’ll make those Chicken ‘n Dumplings one day soon,or Gumbo or red beans and rice. Until then, there’s always  boxed mac and cheese in the pantry  or the emergency food in the freezer…….no signs of a hurricane brewing in the gulf. Gawd, we get lucky sometimes. Wait, is that thunder I hear?

How I Survive Being Old….one day at a time
By Patricia White

     I guess being old is relative. When you’re twenty, thirty seems old. At forty, fifty seems old, until you realize one day you have kids who are in their fifties.  Old is what my grandparents were and I sure as hail never thought I’d be old. I’ve never sat in the rocker on my front porch for more than 15 minutes at a spell.  I dye my hair a reddish-brown, have my nails done regularly, including purple toenails during football season. (Geaux Tigers) I work hard (make-up & mirrors) at looking younger than my years, wear cute up-to-the minute clothes with a surprise somewhere. Maybe a cute silver tiger around my neck. 

     My joints and muscles hurt most of the time but I keep on trucking. I even work- out occasionally  with a personal trainer….not for muscular legs and arms and forget a six-pack (unless it’s wine)  but to hopefully ward off knee replacement which I probably need…..in both knees. I keep asking why all of these ailments are happening to me. It seems so unfair. Just four short years ago I was playing tennis, Zydeco and Zumba dancing, and water aerobics, all on the same day. Then I started Pickle Ball at the YMCA, advertised as gentle on us more seasoned boys and girls. I went everyday for a week.Yep, I think Pickle Ball  got me. I woke up one morning and the only thing that didn't hurt was my hair. My first thought was, I must be getting old.

     Possibly, if I let my hair go totally white, ditched the make-up, gave away all the sexy shoes I keep rocking, regardless of bunions, fallen arches and teradactal toes, quit shopping at Chico's and started shopping at Forever Old  and SAS, I would realize my actual age and respect this aging body of mine. 

     Generally speaking, seventy-five years olds don’t feel like doing much most days, but as I said, no one told me I was old. I roll out of the bed each morning and limp to the coffee pot and my morning round of pills. Next stop is my big-soft-brown-leather chair where I pick up my laptop and check my email, then  Facebook to see what my friends and family are up to and finally any overnight texts on my iPhone . I play the solitaire challenges for the day, collect my prize tokens  then go back and rotate that sequence of events for a couple of hours.I check my chin in my chair side 20X mirror for any new prickly hairs that have sprung up overnight. I count the completed rows of my latest crochet project and determine how many rows I need to complete to meet the deadline. Say what ???
     Around 9:30 I start thinking about breakfast and give my order to  Mr. Leblanc, my main squeeze. He asks what I want to do that day. I may need yarn from Joann's, new shoes from Macy’s or I may just want to just sit and watch Netflix all day in my robe. Some days I get the urge to go to the gym, but only if I read in an email  that someone is having knee surgery or  has passed from inactivity.
     I decide around 11 a.m. to bathe and get dressed. That means, make-up, hair, jeans, top,  jewelry, the whole enchilada. If Mr. Leblanc is going to drag my decrepit arse  anywhere, I’m going to look good………You never know where Eye Witness News will show up.  And if we don't plan to go anywhere, I'll be ready if someone calls.  We are what we see in the mirror. And so it goes.  Until someone tells me I’m old, I’m going to continue this routine.  I’ll work it until it doesn’t work anymore.

Happy 4th of July and let the good times roll!