Ordinary Life

Chapter 1: BiLo  Sometimes her list would require six, but usually, scrawled in blue Bic ink beside 'bananas' was a (7) in parentheses; a week’s supply of potassium until the next shopping day rolled around. I try to remember now who did her shopping before it became our job. Likely an array of her extended network of family and friends, for though she didn't drive, Aunt Nellie June was well-known, and well-liked. She needn't go out, we came to her. And truly, it was our pleasure to help; to just be in her orbit.  So it was, back when we were not just kinfolk but also neighbors, I would take the list she had made after consulting the weekly circular, along with her envelope of carefully counted money, to the Bi-Lo on the corner, and do her weekly shopping.  Her list was quite specific, calculated for maximum savings and minimal waste. Seventy years in one primary location had worn a groove in her routine. Amongst a rotation of seasonal produce and various household prod...

East coast girl with your sun tanned skin Salt in your hair, kissed by the wind You're wild and free to live and let be Strings let go you'll soar and sink low Follow the river away from the sea  Float the Savannah, back home to me. I once wiped the tears of a young girl's eyes  Real life is tested by whether we cry. Feel and allow it, for though there is pain  A life without contrast is one built in vain. Salt and fresh water, shadow and light  Opposing angles build houses upright I sit in my own house, thinking of you,  little kite tattered, lost in the blue I bottle my question and fling it to sea:  Were sandcastles and kite flying only for me?

There's just something special about Walt Disney's Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. It is my favorite park for several reasons, and it seems to me one of the most fitting monuments to the man behind Mickey Mouse. At its inception, Walt said of EPCOT:  "EPCOT will be an experimental prototype community of tomorrow that will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise." Ingenuity. Imagination. America.  I think that's all of it in a nutshell.  Walking through the park makes me nostalgic. Not only for past visits and childhood adventures, but also for the strong broth of a certain philosophy, spooned to me steadily f...

Of course there were the fried things I told you about earlier .  (way, way, way earlier at this point) Then there were these other, mostly pre-packaged fried things that we haven't yet discussed.  Jalapeno Poppers and Cheese Filled Pretzel bites.  Appetizing...no? (NO)  Some 'DIY' corn pup nuggets:  Before: Post Oven: And also, Chili Cheese Oven Fries: Not to mention some salsa & chips that accompanied us to the shore: Current Favorite Salsa: (CHIPS & DIP-the original moveable feast) And then there were the mini Cherry YumYum pies. The food with the story attached. (You knew there had to be one, right?) You see, I always think about MeeMaw Brewer around Independence Day. Cherry YumYum was one of her signature dishes and one of our last family gatherings with her was a July 4th. Now, while Aundree was indeed a beloved family member, by the time I joined the family she was  almost completely bats (no offense, MeeMaw... it's okay, we loved you st...