Rare Sighting Of 3 Foot Beehive Dates Back To 1937
Category: Culture
To Temper The Loneliness
I’ll Be Your Shelter
Miss Ruby Forsythe, 1987, Pawleys Island, South Carolina
one-room schoolhouse teacher for 50 years
Put On Your Red Shoes And Dance The Blues
Well, At Least You’re Not A Blind Lampshademaker
1971 Roaring Twenties Party Still Looks Like 1971
And if that doesn’t make you feel old enough, now we are actually in another set of Roaring 20s, or whatever adjective you’d like to choose. I’ve seen so many hundreds of yearbooks and thousands of pictures over the last 150 years, that it really chaps my hide when folks don’t even try to look era-specific. Don’t get me started on the mom’s hair in A Christmas Story.
Flappers had bobs. Not Crystal Gayle hair. Not Marcia Brady hair. Certainly not Chrissy Snow pigtails or a beehive. Sigh. Then again, it was just one night.
Let’s Get This Show On The Road
Now that businesses are opening up, folks are itching to get out of their houses and back to work. After seven weeks sans income, my husband returned to his job, carrying his mask and his hand sanitizer (which they are selling at 7-11 for $8 at about 3 oz!), making the arduous commute into Austin. Many young folks in Austin aren’t wearing masks at all, or much of anything, according to this picture taken at Lake Travis on Saturday. I guess they figured social distancing is just a suggestion.
My heart breaks to think of the healthcare workers on their feet for multiple shifts at a time, unable to eat or bathe, trying to cope with the trauma they witness as best they can, scared to carry unseen germs into their homes. My heart breaks for the victims who had no loving hand to hold during their final moments, no solace or comfort before they left their bodies forever, bodies destined to be shoved into makeshift coolers in New York. Perhaps it takes maturity, decades of learned compassion, prioritizing and realizing that this life is not about selfishness, and we all need each other to make it. Survival of the fittest is not the goal.
I get it. I want to be where the people are. I want to cavort again. But even though I’ve daily jogged and tried to stay positive, taking hot baths and reading scripture, ignoring endless negative articles thrown my way, I evidently could not tell my own body to chill. My muscles got so tight and restricted in my neck and chest last Sunday, that I could barely breathe for two days, and I wound up in an ambulance, headed to ER (the last place on earth you want to be during COVID). My temp was 98.0, and I had no cough at all, so they didn’t waste a virus test on me. They determined that the chest pain, SOB, and left arm numbness was not a heart attack, and sent me home. As they said, the job of ER is not to diagnose, but to “rule out.” That said, don’t be too hard on yourself if your body, your hormones, your emotions are so out of whack, no matter what you do for self -care. Dr. Phil said we are all in a fight or flight mode designed to last for several minutes, not several months, and we can’t control the way the body chooses to deal with it.
So I’ll stay home yet again, watching the cars roll down the street.
Knowing that soon, I’ll be riding tandem bikes again.
And crossing streets with my peeps.
Watching films at the theater. Okay, I won’t do that because I hate seeing movies in public, listening to babies cry and patrons chew popcorn loudly. Guh-ross. But you can.
And won’t we be celebrating then?
Howdy, Y’all
Just a note to say howdy from one of the states that is now allowing 25% capacity dining.
We didn’t take our chances with that risk today, and continued instead with carryout, per our usual Saturday order, wore masks, held the containers swathed in a towel as we drove home, got home, threw the towel in the wash, switched all containers to our plates, then popped them in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes, wiped down the counter where containers had made contact, washed our hands, and badda-bing, badda-boom, lunch. How about y’all? Eating out yet?
Statement Wall 1938
Wild Rice Is Life
Four incredibly color-coordinated pale faces chat about patterns with Chippewa Chief Big Bear in Itasca Park, Minnesota back in 1935. His tribesman sold many items to visitors, including beaded bags, baskets, toy birch-bark canoes, and other handicrafts. They also held husking parties, such as these, with the intent to supply rice for sportsmen’s game banquets.
While other tribes chose corn as their main crop, the Chippewa lived in a “place where there is food upon the water” surrounding the Great Lakes region. Wild rice, or “manoomin” in the Ojibwe language, was integral to their diets as well as their entire way of life. Wisconsin Chippewans have harvested manoomin for centuries.
In 2018, Chippewa Indians from Turtle Lake, Wisconsin continued to gather in the name of rice, hosting their 45th annual Wild Rice Festival. The pow-wow was the showstopper.
While rice beds have been diminishing, threatened by climate issues, pipelines, and mines, Chippewans struggle to protect the crop by reseeding lakes and waterways, hoping to meet the needs of their communities as well as pass on the culture to younger generations.
Who knew wild rice was such a big deal? To most of us, it’s just a side option at restaurants.
Or a delectable holiday dish, such as this cranberry squash wild rice pilaf.
Seriously, I could eat that right now.
Check and see if your state celebrates wild rice as well. Why, we even have a Texas Wild Rice Festival in San Marcos! There’s the mayor floating the river in the middle of the festival.
thevoiceboxmedia.org
Prices seem fair in most places, even if you don’t get a pow-wow or float down a river.
And don’t forget to dress up!
When You Want The COVID Vaccine But You Hate Needles
Countdown To May Day
Perhaps your state will start re-opening as per its Phase I guidelines on May 1st. Perhaps it’s May 8th. All I know is it WILL be May, and folks will be getting prepped and ready to shine.
Betty can breathe on Martha, and Martha can cough on Mary.
Carl won’t have to wipe down that wooden chair seat after he gets up.
The line at Great Clips will stretch past the adjacent Subway and Pizza Hut in the strip malls.
The cleaners will be packed with piles of people’s threadbare sweats and yoga pants.
Cobblers will be cobbling.
Diners will be packed elbow-to-elbow.
People might even board public transportation.
Ew. Seriously gross. Kirk is even having second thoughts about cushions never cleaned.
Butchers will be butchering, fileting, de-boning, and slicing deli meats and cheeses.
Department store racks will be scoured for wider waistbands.
Bars and restaurants, clubs and dance halls will throw open their doors and welcome the traumatized masses, stumbling in to relearn dances, to rebuild their tolerance to cocktails, and use public restrooms.
The streets will sound with joyous rapture and merry harmony. “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye” to coronavirus.
At least…for now.
I Don't Get It 