Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Tacky Tourist day for the Teens! :)


They had the fun time, helping eachother find items to look like a tacky tourist. Teens are very hard to motivate, but they are and can be motivated. They look like they came from or went somewhere or a bunch of places. Enoch has on a Hawaiian shirt and Ev Loves NY T shirt. Since when is NY a tourist attraction? When you live in NC, NY is a tourist attraction. That is so interesting. You know that you are home sick when you are looking at the NYtimes and tears come to your eyes. I watched the old tv shows to see NY on the Youtube. I love seeing them have a good time,dressing out for school and I hope to become a tourist in NY soon. xoxoxox

Monday, October 25, 2010

Fretful is having a tantrum again. {Car troubles}

We woke to the anticipation of going to church. Our weekly crescendo, we put on our "Sunday-go-to-meeting", piled into the car, said our morning prayer and buzzz.
No transmission at all. Fall out, Walkers. AWWWWW, MAAAAAAN! After the sundry explitives were exchanged, we had a restful Lord's Day at home. It is really nice, sometimes to enjoy one another's company. Today, we will get the car fixed and get back on the road again. Thank God for the computer, where we can gather in our home and get the message, also.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

This was the week of falls for us.

The temperatures weren't the only thing dropping around the Walker household. It started for me, right after the NASCAR. I fell, right in the street and hurt myself, something awful. Sunday, Elyse fell at church. I didn't see it, but I hear that it was quite a spectacle. And the piesta resistance, so to speak was my En'. En had the fall of a lifetime. Thank God, no broken bones. But at his height and weight there was no cushion to soften the blow. I was totally asleep and awakened by some kind of thud, thud all the way down each step. Not a yelp or a peep, just thud, thud, thud. I waited to hear the cry of who it was. Little fellows fall all the time and the jump up hollering, but there was silence, complete silence after this fall. I hollered. What was that?
Enoch was laying on the couch, just quietly nursing his wounds. "My bottom is out of place now", was his somewhat facetious response to the fall. How can a fellow be so droll? I was crying for him, inside, but I couldn't let him see my tears when he was being so brave.
He was convicted that he had treated his sister harshly and took the spanking like a man. None of us could tell him otherwise. I seem to think that the NASCAR was so loud that it affected all of our equilibriums. Whatever the case, my young man took two very well earned days off and won't be able to sit down for a month without the remembrance and painful impression of every single step on his bottom. We're out of tylenol for everybody's aches and pains.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Walker Family Discovers Nascar!


The absolutely most occupying sport of Charlotte, is not Tennis. Although, they do have some of the most beautifully kept courts all over the place. It is Nascar. What is a Nascar? I used to say. Are you American? People go absolutely crazy for Nascar. I could not imagine what the fuss was about that would build, nearly our whole Charlotte economy on a bunch of people watching hotwheels around a track. We live 10 minutes from the track and would kick ourselves on the way to Walmart from time to time when we would forget it was Nascar season and get caught in the race traffic. That is what it meant to us before, we were blessed, amazingly with 8 tickets to the greatest event of our town, Nascar. NASCAR? Yep!
After we picked ourselves up from the floor, from fainting at the generosity of some mysterious person, we were afraid. We don't know how to act at a NASCAR event. At the opera there is a decorum. At the tennis events there is a decorum and, we knew that we didn't know the decorum of Nascar. We googled all of the apropriate Nascar affiliated sites to learn what to dress in and how to act. You must wear jeans and you must be as regular as you know how to be. That is very difficult for a bunch of "Sunday go to meeting Walkers". "This is how we act regular." By the time we got there we were well practiced and ready for Nascar.
We had the very best seats in the house. No matter how practiced at acting regular we were, there were 8 of us and we were, well, "Black". You don't know how black you are until you try to blend in at NASCAR. We were a spectacle, even to ourselves. It was fun, though. We parked near a trailer park group. They were so hospitable and friendly. Evvy said she preferred if we would have stayed with them at the trailers and watched it on tv. They were so fun, they could've made us drink beer. Ha, ha. The sweetest people on the face of the earth. Emily, who was the most against going to NASCAR, said if this was NY we would have had to pay 100 dollars for where we parked.
It is a sound polution pool. If you are squeamish in the subway don't go to NASCAR. It is as though the quiet of this southern lifestyle gets to people and they stick all of the noise into a box and shake it up and it comes out NASCAR. The subway homesickness that I had was abated by the beauty of how they appease their love of noise in one event for the year. I could dig that. It was loud as a year in the subeway. How many laps they started asking, after the first 100 laps? Breathtaking speeds and breathtaking noise and people who can sit, relatively stoicly amidst all of this. How private these people are? I wanted to get up and do the chicken dance, because the concentration became too much. Numbers and car colors and noises whizzing by. I was dizzy, but entertained. That is what I told the children, if you can sit and watch a show on a little box for hours, or participate in the Facebook, like you do, you can enjoy NASCAR. We did! Surprisingly so, all 8 of us, with no paint on our faces enjoyed one thing as a family, even Emily. We were like a big black line in the totally sold out show. It was spectacular and we were part of it, because of somebody being so generous.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

When Baby Evvy was born...


My mother called the nurses to let them know that my insanity had a cause. "She just lost her brother, please be patient with her" We are trying, was the answer that the nurses returned to my mother. After they got off the phone they came in with that medical pity look. What did my mother say? She said that we should treat you kindly. Hours and hours of labor and perhaps false labor. on and off and on and off and then. She arrived. I call her the lady bug, because her father went right out to buy her a special outfit with lady bug buttons on it. I had carried undershirts and leggins. Nothing ornate, buttons and bows were "choking hazzards. I was always looking out for those choking hazzards. She can't choke if she can't grab it yet. I gave in to the ornate stuff, in spite of myself. Joanne gave a beautiful hat with a huge flower on it, that was Evvy's trademark throughout infancy. Just put the cap on her and let us go. Those years are much a blur. Sick parents and travelling back and forth to hospitals, with the terrible twosome of Ev and En always making themselves at home, wherever we were. One day Enoch got it into his head that he wanted Evvie to be a boy, so he cut one of her braids off. Ahhh! Grandma Ruth said thats alright, it will grow back. Where is the Grandma Ruth that I know. I wanted her to beat him. No, she hugged him and just grabbed the two of them and made a joke. I guess that is the progression of life. It was really funny, when you think about it.

Monday, October 11, 2010

My Baby Girl is 15 today!










The sisters surprised her with a trip to the mall and an eatout, birthday lunch, after church, yesterday. Oh, my, they had a great time. The sisters let her into their womanly club and she has passed their initiations to be one of them.{I think} Walker women have very high standards of looking and socializing. I could never have hoped to be their friend, if I weren't their mother. LOL.
I admire their relationship from a distance and love the parallels with the other Walker women that I have observed and admired over the decades of my knowing them. Happy Birthday, Evv.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Remembering the day that the sky came down to meet us.









We were taking our daily constitutional on the boardwalk, at the beach in NY. This was usually a very refreshing way to get the children ready for bed. Not on this memorable day.
From a distance, we could see the clouds gathering in the distance. Like a huddle of large football players calling out numbers, we saw them. Some of the little ones were gathering shells and I was screaming for them to gather so that we could go to the car, in the hopes of outrunning the obviously consuming cloud mass. They took their time. As I recall, Emily was the last to come to me, as I called, refusing to leave baby Ethan on the boardwalk to grab her insistently. She took advantage of my preoccupation, as usual. We did what we could to try to get to the car. We never made it to the car. The clouds rollercoastered over us when we got to a small trestle. We stood under there and couldn't see our hands in front of our faces for the clouds and the torrential downpour that we got stuck in. We will have to wait it out, I told them. The children all thought that we would be stuck there through the night, but, I could tell that this was a swift moving storm mass that had just gathered and we would be able to go behind it down the highway to pick up our daddy, as planned. It seemed as dark as night, but it was just that these "fullback" clouds were trampling our region.
We don't get to the beach anymore, as was our habit, in the old days. But we remembered that day with fondness recently. The day we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces, much less get to the car in time. It was fun in retrospect, but ominous at the time, especially for the fretful mommy.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Fretful Carriage was the subject of the weekend!


Every once in a while, somebody in the family has a distress. This weekend, it was "Fretful". She does her job of carrying us hither and yon, usually, without glitch. Not this weekend, she just couldn't hold her water. Leaks and squeaks and sputters and splanks everywhere we went, she was the subject. We bought her some needed radiator sealant and filled her and filled her with antifreeze and we made it through the weekend, but she made it an adventure. We had to pull off the highway in various and sundry places. New brakes and a new connection for her fan and we are back to motions.

Friday, October 1, 2010

The sunshine has brought us a small taste of Autumn.



It is still a bit hot, for my taste, 78 degrees and sunshine, is really absolutely delightful weather. My little okra patch is winding down its season. This little vegetable that was introduced to me by my father in law, grew on me this season. What a very hardy plant it is. I needs no tending at all. You can't let it grow too big, or it will get too tough to eat. You must pick them when they are about the size of your pinky. I have ten or so pickling in my fridge and the rest have gone into soups and stews. The children count them yucky, I have convinced the little fellows that they have no taste and they agree with me. The older ones, I waited too long to introduce them. This weeks vegetable, turkey soup and homemade bread has been my enjoyment. I couldn't push it on the little ones for anything. I think they each ate about a tablespoon or a small bowl. It has okra in it, doesn't it. Well, don't blame me for your sicknesses when they come. The healing was in the brew, I say. I enjoyed it immensely. It is nearly gone and so is my vertigo, nearly gone.


Yesterday, an evening storm seemed to make the cows, around the corner prance with glee. They gave me such a giggle, running like horses. :} They do look funny. The clouds in the sky were so dark purple with perfectly white thick trim, as though someone had sewn a thick stream of white bias cloth right next to the purplish blue. I think that those clouds carry the hail. Everytime I see them, it has hailed. Yesterday, we didn't get any, though. Someone else must have gotten the pretty hail. Then parting between the clouds there was one huge ray of sunshine in the sunset of the day and the beams flew up as if somebody had used a huge eraser to carry the beams in perfect lines. We ooohed and aahhhed at the spectacle and then, I went to bed. One must know when they have had enough beauty for one day. It is breathtaking, some days down here.

Title- The Studious One!

Title-  The Studious One!
artwork by Elyse

Of biscuits and syrup

Of biscuits and syrup
tasty treats

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday!
a day at the Raptor Center.

Widdle Emmie in outer space school

Emmie jumped on the bus and off it flew out into the atmosphere. There was a set of clouds with turbulence right above the house and it took a few minutes for my Emmie to buckle her seatbelt. They hit the bump hard and it knocked my Emmie out of her seat and she bumped her head. The video camera came on and the monitor looked through and stated, Ms. Emmie, where are you? You are not in your seat. Where are you? I am alright I fell because I hadn’t buckled correctly. Well jump up Emmie we have a long way to go and you have to be buckled there is entirely too much turbulence in the stratosphere for you to unbuckle now. As soon as we are through this weather system there will be straight sailing but right now you must buckle. Emmie scrambled into the seat with intensity and purpose now. She watched every cloud pass her window and her nose was pressed to the window trying to see the top of the house as it drifted slowly out of sight. Soon they were not only out of sight of the house, the sun came out brightly and just as quickly they were putting on the atmospherical breathing apparatus and the outerspherical lights. The ABA and the OL. These precautions were to make them appear to be satellites to the radar as they were out in the ionosphere. Emmie knew all about this now. She had gone to the orientation and had a good breakfast and it took them 20 minutes for her to get out past the atmospherical pull and to feel the zero gravity. It would be 15 minutes before the gravity simulators would take effect, a glitch in the system which was being worked on. Until then, they enjoyed the couple of minutes of floatation, while being connected to the seats by belt. The first thing they saw everyday was the strataflotsam. The items which had been dumped into the atmosphere by earlier generations. What would their generation do about this ecological waste area that remained floating above their heads? This was a question for the generations. For now it was the area that they had to guide through on the way to school.

Midnight at the OASIS

Midnight at the OASIS
Sunset in Huntersville

My little Emmie

ran to the bus on the first day of the last year of school. 2 buns on the side of her head. She kissed me and ran at dawn to the bus. She was starting the adventure of a lifetime. I would never see that little girl again, she was going to woman school!

My Father and I 1989

My Father and I 1989

to the tune of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

A VISIT TO PAPA











Are you going to Mary Immaculate?

Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Remember me to the one who lived there,



He once was a true love of mine,



Tell him to buy me an acre of land,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Between the muddy Hudson in Jamaica Bay,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,

Tell him to sow in it seeds of pure cream,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And build Ice cream mountains and buildings of whipped cream,

Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,



Tell him to reap them with sickles of M&M’s,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And chew bubble gum and eat till we’re done,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine.



Tell him to run it off down the motor parkway,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



After your done 50 pushups



and jog down the West Side Highway,



Then he’ll be a true love of mine…

(Don’t wait for me today dad, The kids are sick again, My tummy’s bulging again, My heart is aching again, And now there’s no love there…)





He once was, a true love of mine….So, Girls, I do beg you don't miss your Daddy,Apricots, Chocolate cherries and Pie,You have one short chance to see him on this side, Go visit him and let your light shine.