Ninna and Aunt Bett had sinkin' spells. They'd get too hot or too tired or too hungry and I'd look at their tired wrinkled faces and say: "Whassa matter, Ninna?"
And Ninna would say, "Nuthin' honey, reckon I'm jus' havin' a sinkin' spell."
Then I'd say, "Ninna, you set a bit an' I'll get you a drinka water. You'll feel better in a lil while."
Same thing with Aunt Bett.
I am happy to tell you that now I am entitled to wear that crown. I had my first sinkin' spell just a few days ago. Might have been last Wednesday night. It was a little cold and along about 6 or 6:30 I got to thinkin' that I might ought to eat a bit. I'm one who only eats when I feel the need to eat, or when my tummy grumbles, so I am not in the habit of depending on the clock to tell me it's time. I hardly ever get hungry during the day, but I do drink lots of juices and herbal teas, so don't you start talking to me 'bout my bad habits. I eat when I'm hungry and that's just the way it is. So on maybe Wednesday night, I was cold and I was busy so I grabbed some greens, some broccoli, a few grape tomatoes, almond slivers, grated a couple kinds of cheese and a big scoop of poppy seed dressing, all natural it says on the label. I also baked a small sized potato.
A feast. I had a feast! Now don't mention meat to me, y'all already know I don't indulge in meat, except the occasional shrimp or crab leg or lobster.
About an hour passed and I just kept right on shivering. Felt like my feet were hanging out in ice water. I dragged myself up to check the thermostat, ummmm it was 70 warm degrees. Now I've been known to shiver and shake when it's 60 and raining, but not usually when it's 70 toasty degrees with no cloud in sight.
I dug out my flannel pj bottoms and my long flannel granny gown that matched those bottoms pretty well, both red plaid, and besides who cares when you are just trying to get warm. I figured as bad as I was shakin' I needed both.
It didn't help, but along about the same time I felt like something heavy was draping itself all across my shoulders, but the cats, though both were looking at me a little strangely, were curled up in their respective chairs. They didn't seem to be cold at all and they for sure weren't draped across my shoulders.
I swear I shook and shivered so bad I thought Mama's prized red Avon Cape Cod glass collection was going to shake itself right out of the china cabinet. I decided to drag myself to bed before that happened. Thought I'd never get to sleep.
Before daylight I was up, drenched from head to toe in sweat. Southern ladies don't sweat, but honey, this one does. And every bone I had along with every muscle, was aching. I know because it was painful to climb out of that soggy red plaid matching flannel outfit and into a dry one. But before I did that, I thought a bath was in order. Something akin to boiling hot might ease the ache of those bones and muscles. Not another symptom did I have. Nothing. Just a sinkin' spell.
So that was the beginning, and it lasted another night and half a day before I finally called my friend Richard, the doc, and said, "I'm fine but I'm having a sinkin' spell and I reckon I just need a blood test to make sure it isn't a forever sinkin' spell." My friend Richard, the doc, knows me well enough that he knows better than to push his luck with me so a blood test is what I got. It was his physician's assistant who got to call and tell me the results that night. She also just happened to be one of my former students. It went something like this:
"Ummmm, Ms. Brown, Doc wanted me to tell you that your electrolytes are in imbalance and he thinks you need to check into ER for an IV..."
"Wait, oh wait!! I don't do ERs, and I don't do IVs but I reckon I can guzzle a gallon or two of Gatorade. Howzzat??"
She knows me pretty well, too.
"Ms. Brown, Doc and I talked and we decided if you add a couple gallons of Pedialyte to that Gatorade, and if you'll promise to eat more and slow down and rest occasionally, and IF you'll come by and let us do a check up in about a week, then we won't send EMS to your door tonight."
Huh. All that for a silly sinkin' spell.
I stopped by the grocery. Got the Gatorade. Did y'all know Pedialyte is in the children's department right beside baby food and baby cereal and baby shampoo.
Good grief, it's just a sinkin' spell.
That last little bit happened on Friday, so yesterday I rested. Today I went outside and repotted some potbound houseplants. And took a picture or two. Yep, it was just a little sinkin' spell. I reckon I've earned it now. Aunt Bett and Ninna would be right proud.
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Y'all have a real good evening.
It's 6 in the evening and I'm looking out at golden fall sunlight as it drapes over my magnolia tree in the back yard. There's just something about this time of day that reminds me of the mountains where I grew up.
We'd come home after school, my friend Doris and I, walking the mile between my house and school. She lived a little further up the holler than I did, so she had a way to go after she left me. The color today reminds me of the golden colors of those fall days in the mountains.
It was a time of collecting leaves, labeling them and putting them on a poster for the whole world to see the kinds of trees that lived around us. I wish I still had one of those posters, I must have made one every year I was in elementary school. And we had a kazillion trees.
Then I went to high school, and there the only distance I walked was from the bottom of the hill to the top and back down again. Our school sat on a little knoll on the side of the mountain overlooking the town below.
I went back last year for my 50th class reunion. Ha! Did I really just write that? Yes I did. 50.
The building, old even when I was there, is no longer on that hill. It succumbed to time and the elements and progress a few years ago. In its place is not much of anything, just a grass covered knoll. But the old gymnasium is still there, it was newer than the main building, and I loved walking down the steps in front of it, lingering at the tree, looking out over the town. Same steps, same tree, same old town last year, too. Same walk down memory lane.
The sun was low and golden that day too.
It rained for the first time in a very long time. I got up very early, the muffled patter woke me and I realized I last heard it sometime in June. I watched the day get lighter, not very light because the clouds were heavy. But oh boy, it rained.
By the time I'd had my second cup of coffee I couldn't stand it another minute. I absolutely had to get right out in the middle of that rain. You know how rain smells? I swear I could smell it before I could get the door open, it was that good.
So, bearfoot, wearing somebody's too big, too long, old ragged T-shirt and with camera in hand, I stepped outside and just let it rain all over me. What an incredible way to start this day!
It washed the dust off the plants and I swear they turned greener right in front of me. The cracks in the soil faded away, and so did the cobwebs in my mind.
It was such a really good day!
I thought there wasn't a thing going on outside today. It's a little drab out there. Not a lot to see except the cottonwood leaves that insist on dropping by the dozen every time the breeze stirs them. I didn't think there was any color either, mostly that dullish green that lays like a veil over everything just before Jack Frost brings his paint brush along and livens things up.
I was a little bit wrong.
Welcome to Brown's Bug Diner
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So then, after watching the butterflies and the bees playing around on the sedum, I took another glance around. Sophy's Rose is still happy. So's the hibiscus.
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And there's always a Rose of Sharon in bloom.
But I love the coleus in front. I overwintered both of these, the variegated is one of those called Christmas coleus. The dark, which is really blacker than the image appears, is one that my friend Gloria in Virginia sent me a couple of years ago. Love these colors!
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And that's about all. There's a bud or two on the carpet roses but the hydrangea (the third or maybe fifth one I've managed to send to an early grave) is beyond repair. If it wasn't me who killed it, then I'll blame it on the rain that never came. Guess I shoulda watered more.
I really should just fill my yard with Superman roses and be done with it.
I am a little aggravated.
We have had no rain and my Sophy's Rose which normally blooms all spring, all summer and on into November has only 2 blooms on all 3 bushes. I absolutely refuse to get a knock out rose because my neighbor's yard is so lined with them, the sameness drives me nuts. I have a bad attitude about knock outs.
Knock Out roses are the 'Superman on steroids with a rotten attitude of their own' roses, no matter how beautiful they are. Japanese beetles are highly intelligent. They know that Superman roses have been innoculated with every disease known to the rose kingdom and that if they imbibe in KO Rose Juice they will be immediately stricken with an incurable rose disease. So they stay away. Smart of them, I think. But then they come here and attack my own un-Superman roses.
I don't have much kindness in my heart for Superman knock out roses. Once you reach perfection, what's left? Those Superman roses just sit there and bloom. You don't even have to deadhead them, nor do you have to coax and cajole them into blooming and growing and doing all the interesting unboring things that roses do. Kinda like tin soldiers marching all in a row, boring till you see the one who marches to the beat of a different drummer, and then things begin to liven up.
Now that isn't to say that a Superman rose blooming here and there is a bad thing. Not at all. It's just that they are the most boring roses ever grown. They don't even make me sweat, cuss, or cry bitter tears. They just sit there blooming with that superior attitude of theirs. Drives me nuts.
A couple of years ago my neighbor lined her very long driveway with Superman roses. Oh yes, she did. The side of her driveway that faces every single one of my back windows. All in a boring row. Side by side by side, magnificent in their clone-ism and looking down upon every other growing thing. Nasty rotten attitude. And still they bloom. I swear they look like those silk roses on the rack at Walmart all lined up side by side, never moving, never wilting, never drooping and for goodness sakes I want them to do something.
What's the point in having a plant that never drives you to your knees in frustration?? Like Sophy or New Dawn and even Granny Laurie's Dorothy Perkins rose that threatens my roof every spring. Now those are true roses. They unglue me, they invoke temper tantrums, they make me get out there and do something.
Right or wrong, doing something is much better than sitting here watching the monotony of Superman roses all marching one by one to the same drummer.
Oh boy, we really need some rain.
(Reminder to myself to click to get the full effect of these photos, especially Granny Laurie's house eating Dorothy Perkins and my dear neighbor's Superman Knock Outs.)