Random Day

Still battling my aching head along with insomnia. I have lost the entire day. After a night of trying to sleep and only accomplishing a few hours before No longer Charming Eddie decided to share my pillow by lying on my head. To his credit, The Man agreed to take the dogs out!

Ignoring the urge to go check on what he was actually doing, I caught another 60 minutes of sleep before getting up to feed them at 7:30. I didn't expect to find anything heroic on his "I'll take them out" effort. I was not disappointed in my expectations. Toni Louise was still in her diaper and it was dripping. Bo had relived himself on the floor and he had not opened the door to their yard, so Eddie peed on the porch.

I was not too happy, but what am I going to do. I fed them and cleaned up the mess, regretting the good mop job I did yesterday. I made coffee but mostly sat in my recliner reminiscing. 

When I woke up, the theme to The Patty Duke show was stuck in my head. You remember the show about the teen look alike cousins, don't you? My sister and I watched it religiously and liked it so much that my mother caught on and would use it as punishment.

I wonder why? Was I dreaming about the show?

Anyway, I embarked on a journey of mind through childhood. I wish my sister was still here, nobody else can remember with me. I was reclining, half dozing and thinking about family.

My mother's family was made up of a colorful bunch of characters. None so outrageous as herself, though. When Daddy was floating on a ship in the Mediterranean (good thing he was aboard a ship, he never learned to swim!), Mother would pack up and we would return to her family state of Georgia. More specifically, SOUTH Georgia.

Why did I emphasize the "south"? The southern part of the state is an entity unto itself. This is where you can find a toothless woman without benefit of foundation garments willing to be on camera to give the viewers of the news her version of events. We have all seen those first person reports and wondered why someone would choose to be on camera while not even dressed well enough to go outdoors.

I digress. I was thinking about family .... So, we would stay with my grandparents while Daddy was on an adventure. My grandmother and my mother seemed always to be at odds. Every weekend she would load us up and we would go 'visiting'. We would just show up at various relatives' homes with no warning, or asking if we would be intruding on their plans. Of course, she did not allow that at her home.

One frequent destination was Uncle Reuben's house. He was my grandmother's brother, one of many. I don't remember just how many (my sister would know), but the family was considered to be large. He had children Mother's age and younger. Sometimes we would spend the entire weekend, still with no warning. Aunt Bede always cooked mountains of food in that steaming hot kitchen and there was always more than enough to eat. The house was a shotgun house with that long hall from front door to back door. The kitchen was at the very back of the house. 

The front porch was where everyone gathered after eating and Aunt Bede would always occupy the porch swing. There were odds and ends of various sitting opportunities, rockers and straight-back chairs; and if you were a kid, there was always the porch steps or the floor. I can remember sitting with my back to a porch post, fighting mosquitoes, and trying to stay awake while watching Aunt Bede rub her calves with calamine lotion.

Still a mystery to me, the why of the rubdown. Children raised in the south were taught not to ask personal questions, and never where your mother could hear you. I never asked and never knew why she painted her legs pink every single day. When she got through with her ritual, she would then pull up the "hose" she had rolled down to make her legs available and secure that with a knot under her knee.

I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be, I can't even stand knee high socks. My grandmother wore hose, as well and secured them similarly. 

I thought about this because I have a rash on my arm and I was rubbing Caladryl cream in, it was thick and took a bit of rubbing into the skin. If my memory is correct, her legs were that same color as my arm before I rubbed that stuff in!