Green Beans & Summertime

There are certain things that will whisk me back to summertime in my childhood immediately; the sight of a lightning bug, the sound of a Bob White, the smell of lake water, but nothing takes me back there quicker than fresh green beans.  Just putting my hand into a pile of fresh beans will send me back to hot summers afternoons in North Georgia faster than anything else.  There is just something about the cool texture, the sound and smell of a newly snapped green been that will transport me over the years to a spot next to a grandmother or aunt with a kitchen towel in her lap stringing and snapping away…Maybe those beans were being prepared for supper or maybe to be canned but there was something therapeutic about the experience.  Maybe the therapy was more rest from a long day or maybe it was where these women of my past made peace with theirs.

It is a ritual that I have continued and for some reason I have to do it like they did…with a kitchen towel draped over my lap and a colander to catch my newly strung beans.  Even though I have to buy my beans at the farmer’s market it is one of the simple joys in life…to sit there stringing and snapping beans.  Of course, the ritual isn’t complete until those beans are slow cooked on the stove all afternoon with a piece of side meat for flavor.

Yes, green beans and summertime...

Happy Birthday, Ma Jones!

Today is my Grandmother's Birthday. She would have been 98. Although she has been gone 6 years, I still miss her like crazy.  NOT a single day goes by that I don't think of something or see something that makes me think of her.  Most of the time, it is usually something funny that I would love to kid with her about (I was probably a torturous grandchild, as I loved to poke at her). 

Anyway, this is my Ma Jones' beloved Christmas Cactus and I am not sure how, but after she died, I ended up with it.  She loved plants probably just about better than anyone else I have ever known and loved gardening (both vegetable and flower.)  The day before her death she spent a cold November day digging in her yard to plant spring bulbs.  That is how I hope to die...living until the end!

So Ma Jones' "Christmas" cactus is a crazy plant, in that since she died, it has not bloomed during December one single time!  It has bloomed during February, on her birthday...every year.  Really.  That is probably her way of poking back at me from the great beyond!!!  I noticed it was almost ready to bloom last week and here we are on her birthday and it is beautiful!  So funny, huh? 

Beautiful blooms to celebrate a beautiful life.

And some how, I know that when her son-in-law (my sweet Uncle Kenneth), joined her in Heaven on her birthday in 2009....she had a shovel and rake waiting for him to help her tend the flowers there!

Soaps and The New Year

Here it is, at the end of another year. A time for looking forward and also a time for looking back. I find myself looking back on the changes brought by 2009. I must admit that one of the saddest was the passing of Guiding Light. Yes, you read that correctly, I am lamenting the passing of America's longest running Soap! I don't even watch Soaps, but I used to watch and still occasionally read up on my favs. By far, Guiding Light was always my favorite. I fell in love with the above pictured Grant Aleksander as Phillip Spaulding long before DH came into my life.

Though my adult devotion to the Soaps has been luke-warm, my dear grandmother (Ma Jones), who died several years ago, was a die hard Soap fan. It was known far and wide that you didn't interrupt her "Shows". She would even say less-than-positive things about any newscaster or President who saw fit to interrupt her daily visits in Genoa City (The Young and the Restless), LA (Bold & Beautiful), Oakdale (As the World Turns) and the final stop being in Springfield (Guiding Light). Honestly, even if the world were ending, it would have been well advised to do so before the beginning of her Shows or afterward...otherwise, she was NOT participating!

I am not sure what exactly I find so sad about the slow, winding down of the Soap Opera genre. Maybe it is the nostalgia that comes with seeing much beloved brands pass away (Pontiac comes to mind). I guess it is just seeing something that was so intrinsic to my childhood era end. My Mother and her friends watched Soaps. It was the background noise of our home every afternoon. As I became a teen, and into my college years, it became a shared experience among my friends. Who remembers where they were when Luke and Laura got married (the 1st time)? Were you huddled around the TV at home, or in a dorm room or sharing it with friends in the Student Center? Oh, and then there was the wide spread popularity of VCRs...to record and watch it later. No, I am not kidding!

Soaps always have beautiful people, with beautiful homes, and of course, beautiful clothes. The idea for my Christmas Wedding was inspired by Tom and Margo's (As the World Turns) Christmas wedding in 1983. Oh, and don't forget, no one ever ages poorly on Soaps...how cool is THAT? And now the news is, not only have we seen the death of Guiding Light in September of 2009, but 2010 will bring the execution date during September for As the World Turns, as well. I am just glad Ma Jones isn't here to see that...it would have killed her.

RIP, Oakdale....