When life gives you capitalism

TG and I were headed out on Saturday for some errand-doing when, at the end (or beginning, depending upon your perspective) of our street, just across the way we spotted a lemonade stand.

Said establishment consisted of a card table outfitted with poster-board signage (in addition to standard black Sharpie, liberal use had been made of a neon-yellow wide-nib highlighter), some bright kitchen towels, two lawn chairs, and two kids.

A little brother and a big sister, to be specific.

Oh. And a large Rubbermaid pitcher of lemonade sitting beside a snowy stack of styrofoam cups.

Dad was nearby, mowing the lawn. A two-story brick manse served as backdrop.

Politely earnest humidity velveted the air. Thunder burred in the distance, warning of the imminent daily summer downpour.

Cicadas wheezed maniacally in thousands of trees.

By now I'm seeing visions of apple pie, baseball, and moms in aprons.

'Murca! Land that I luv!

TG always stops to buy lemonade from kids engaged in such activities.

In fact, I do believe TG would stop and pull out his wallet if the kids were selling three-day-old dead lizards as a snack to accompany the sweet-tart beverage.

I fetched my camera and chatted up the kids while TG made change. He bought not one, but two cups of lemonade. 

When queried, the little boy admitted he did not understand all about capitalism. So I told him it was when you are free to offer a product to the public and sell it at a profit.

He understood that, as he counted a wad of cash stowed in a styrofoam safe.

While we visited, a lady pulled her car up ahead of our idling auto and came to take advantage of the sale.

She appeared to be an extremely nice American person who just happened to not be strictly white.

Everybody was happy and unfazed. Despite the best worst efforts of Barack Obama and his race-hustling minions, we have virtually no racial tensions in our neighborhoods.

We simply get along, glad to be living in the greatest country ever to exist on Planet Earth. We are courteous to one another. It is not difficult.

But I digress. Without apology, but still.

I chatted up big sister -- she appeared to be eleven or twelve years of age -- and found that she offers the service of dog-sitting in the community.

"Do you walk them?" I asked. Javier adores walkies.

"Sometimes," she said. 

Her dad, hearing the exchange, told me: "She'll send you a text and tell you how your dog is doing."

I generally know how Javier is doing -- since he's generally snoozing -- but you may rest assured that the next time I require a minder for Columbia's Finest Chihuahua, if Erica is not available I will seek out my enterprising young neighbor.

Big brother of the family is involved in a start-up too: He starts up the mower and trims lawns for pay. I don't need him yet but when/if I do, I hope he is still in business.

In other news, it wasn't long before TG and the father of the junior entrepreneurs had found out they are both Citadel graduates.

Class of '74 and Class of '92 exchanged the usual info: what company were you in, did you know so-and-so, weren't those uniforms scratchy and hot -- wait; I don't think they discussed that -- how 'bout them dawgs, et cetera.

It is kind of sad that, as the kids' mother came across her lawn and introduced herself to me, and we began chatting, I was on the lookout for the Po-Po to come by and shut the children's store down for failure to obtain a permit.

But that didn't happen. What with Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott (who succeeded Senator Jim DeMint) and Congressman Joe Wilson making up our team, Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty notwithstanding, we live in what is still one of the most conservative states and counties in 'Murca.

God bless her. Long may she wave and long may her citizens consume lemonade sold by children who aren't lying around the house pestering their mothers.

Because you know what? This little guy's mom told me he himself makes the lemonade he purveys.

As it should be.

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Happy Monday ~ Happy Week

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Here today, gone today

Speaking of little princes -- which just about all of us have been, haven't we -- our grandson has been with us for a few days.

You don't have to be "royalty" to rate high with me.

Andrew arrived on Monday afternoon with his mother and sisters, who were keen to swim.

Since TG keeps our pool sparkling for just such occasions, and the weather has been more or less idyllic, we were all set to laissez les bon temps rouler, y'all.

And we did pass a good time.

Yesterday Stephanie had to go home to North Carolina. But only for a day.

And she left little Andrew with us here in South Carolina. But only for one day.

Because later today, Stephanie, with Melanie and Allissa in tow, and Erica, accompanied by baby Andrew, are headed for Knoxville where they will connect with Audrey.

Tomorrow the lot of them plan to drive up north to spend a few days with relatives.

When Stephanie and her girls left for home yesterday, baby Andrew was taking his afternoon nap.

When he got up, it was suppertime.

Like most seventeen-month-olds he gloms to his mother when she's available, but in her absence he becomes independent.

He loves to climb on things. Both the higher altitude and the adventure of achieving it hold charm for him.

Today I found him having climbed not just onto the seat of the antique school desk in the kitchen (the one Javier parks himself beneath), but onto the desk part, so as to better reach for a glass jar of shortbread cookies.

The fact that I did not have a coronary when I saw him -- I was technically not in the room when he did it, but just around the corner for a mere second -- is testament to how mellow I have become.

But that was this morning. I've gotten ahead of the timeline.

Early in the day on Wednesday, Andrew hung out in his swim trunks, accessorized when necessary by his Carolina-blue passy.

After his nap, Aunt Erica dressed him for dinner in a blue onesie with a single smiling yellow star on the front.

Speaking of smiling, and of stars:

He snagged a window table and dined semi-al fresco, looking out at a pop-up shower that covered the pool with dancing droplets and washed away two days' worth of his sisters' chalk-art efforts.

Then it was time to have a shower of his own -- he wailed the whole time -- and submit to being baby-powdered and fresh-diapered and dressed in a cute outfit to go with us to Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Once he was ready, he amused himself by playing with his basketful of jar lids.

Then, sensing the time to sortie was near, he seized his backpack and trotted toward the door.

Once there, Captain Adorable attempted to escape. But we nipped it in the bud.

He fully enjoyed the church nursery. When I went to claim him at going-home time, he was driving a car. He did not want to park it and leave.

My guess is that, his father being a pastor, church nurseries don't hold much in the way of mystery.

He was initially distraught at Erica's and my disappearance but according to the workers, the mood lasted approximately twelve seconds.

At ten o'clock on the dot this morning he went to the door that leads upstairs to the guest room where he sleeps.

He gestured up, because it was nap time and he was ready.

He's sleeping as I write, but I miss him.

I'm already planning the hot meal I'll fix for him before he leaves with Aunt Erica to go over the mountains to East Tennessee later this afternoon.

Soft chicken, potatoes, and carrots, with a dot or two of gravy. Cold milk to drink and a shortbread cookie for dessert.

And I'm trying not to think about kissing him goodbye, or the silence that will fall around me when he's gone.

UPDATE 1:05 p.m.:

Thanks to Aunt Erica and her iPad, Andrew had the opportunity to FaceTime with his parents and sisters today.

Here he is, still in his pajamas, waiting for the call to go through:

Most of the time he exulted in virtual interaction with his family, but I had to show you the moment when he looked up at me.

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Happy Thursday

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That's a lock

As the crow flies from our house, the Lake Murray Dam is probably less than a mile away.

Over roads, it's about three miles. Five -- maybe six -- minutes and you're there.

The roadway traversing the dam that takes motorists from the Columbia side to the Lexington side of the lake -- and back again -- is about two miles long.

Several years ago it was redesigned to include a pedestrian walkway that provides breathtaking views of sky and water.

It has proved very popular with folks keen to get a little exercise and feel at one with nature.

Walkers have only to look out over the water to witness splendid sunsets.

At its south end, about a tenth of a mile of that walkway is outfitted with cyclone fencing on the lake side.

A month or so back, TG, driving across the dam coming home, noticed what looked like dozens of padlocks affixed at random places to the chainlinks.

He mentioned them to me. We were intrigued because padlocks on the walkway fencing is a fairly recent development.

Strolling across the dam a weeks or so ago with a friend, Erica investigated.

She reported that the padlocks bore messages of love and hope.

So naturally I had to go and see them. Now I'm off to buy three tiny padlocks which I'll decorate with the names of my grandchildren.

The darlings are here visiting with me now. I hope tomorrow we can go over to the dam and find a place for their padlocks. I plan to let them toss their keys into the water.

Until I can show you pictures of that, enjoy this slide show of the eloquently poignant, completely charming custom that is the Lake Murray locks.

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The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

~Blaise Pascal~

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Happy Monday ~ Happy Week

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Freedom of expression

So I wandered into my sunny kitchen this morning.

I think I had been tending to laundry -- if not that, then trust me, I had been engaged in an activity equally scintillating and fraught with meaning -- when what should catch my immediate attention but the inimitable Javier, Chihuahua of fortune.

Javier turned ninety-eight this week, on Sunday, Bastille Day. I mean, he turned fourteen. Same thing.

Which means that by October, as the leaves outside are turning bright colors, Javier will be rounding the bend to one hundred. 

To commemorate our diminutive pet's appearance on this earth, last weekend TG, Erica, and I consumed an entire Italian Cream Cake from Kroger. Not in one sitting.

And yes, the birthday boy got bites.

We keep it cool in our house so naturally, as a near-centenarian, Javier is prone to hog patches of sun.

Although when we put him outside, where it's nothing but one giant heating pad costume worn in a sloppy-humid sauna, after spending all of twenty-six seconds checking his messages, Javier scratches frantically to get back into the refrigeration.

Go figure.

Anyway this morning when I entered the kitchen, I noticed that Javier had planted his body exactly in the middle of the space between the runners of an antique school desk that sits in a light-drenched spot by a door we don't use.

When he saw me, Javier did not get up but his tail began wagging so violently, his entire hiney was waving at that door. Without leaving the floor, but still.

We believe Javier is for the most part blind, but once in awhile he confuses us by making it obvious that he sees us. Maybe like me, his vision is better in strong light.

At any rate I think he understood me when I told him I hoped he'd stay put while I went in the next room to fetch my camera.

Because when I got back, he was still there and for all the world I believe he began striking poses.

Javier employs a range of facial expressions as plentiful and widely-varied as his impressive vocabulary.

For example he is exceptionally adept at conveying -- with only a look -- nonchalance, innocence, trepidation, ennui, gormlessness, beseechment, anxiety, disdain, watchfulness, somnolence, and an attitude of meditation -- or any combination of all of the above, simultaneously.

In addition he comprehends big, important words such as crate, walk, outside, bed, food, treat, stay, stopitrightnow, no, and amnesty.

If he makes it until July 14, 2014, Javier will be fifteen or one hundred-five. Either way: old, for a dog.

But I have seen no canine version of the Grim Reaper stalking Javier, nor does Javier have a doggy old-folks home on speed dial.

Even with blighted vision, sketchy hearing, missing teeth, a thoroughly disgusting penchant for near-constant licking, and a string occasionally caught in one claw, Javier's pretty spry. He's holding his own.

Happy Birthday, Javier. And many more, little buddy.

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Happy Thursday

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Can't fix stupid ... or can you?

My TG is a very even-tempered man. It takes a lot to rile him.

We are not alike in that way. I may be a trifle more temperamental.

Although in my own defense I will say, I do not holler at the flatscreen when Phil Mickelson is attempting a squeaker of a putt or when whoever plays for the Chicago Bulls these days, does whatever they do in the vicinity of a basketball goal.

I save my rants for other situations. Like, I might have yelled at the screen of my MacBook Pro when I read a certain tweet on Twitter late Saturday night.

Said tweet emanated disgustingly from the account of Atlanta Falcons Wide Receiver Sharod Lamor "Roddy" White:

All them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid

And I might have let him know, in a few tweets of my own, what I thought about his opinion that six women should commit suicide just because he -- who was present neither at the altercation between the late Trayvon Martin and presumed-guilty George Zimmerman, nor at a single minute of the trial -- didn't agree with their verdict.

In a case, no less, where justice was served (if you can forget the fact that there never should have been a trial in the first place) and of which, had the individual whose death precipitated said trial not been black, Mr. White would have taken no notice whatsoever.

I don't know for a fact but I think we can extrapolate that if Roddy White bothers himself to vote, he votes Democrat. That's the party of tolerance and compassion. The party that regularly lectures the rest of us about bullying.

Mr. White, I suggest you don't look too closely at Demoncrats' demonically tireless advocacy of brutal genocide when it comes to millions of unborn black children.

Roddy White has since "apologized" for suggesting that six innocent Americans deserve to die. Wait. Make that seven.

Don't forget George Zimmerman -- neither white nor a Republican -- himself, whose death is fervently and publicly wished by untold numbers of blacks. And by many whites, too.

But I digress.

If you want to get TG hot and loud in a hurry, call him. Identify yourself as a representative of the Republican Party. Ask for money.

Then, like pranksters who ring a doorbell repeatedly and run away, you'd best hold your own phone a few yards from your ear.

Because if the words "Republican" and "your donation" come out of someone's mouth over TG's phone, the next barrage of words will be directed toward the speaker of those words.

And they won't be spoken in a hush.

We're registered Republicans who would rather die than vote Democrat, but TG will waste no time informing a fundraising caller that before he contributes a cent to the GOP, with their shameful performance in Washington DC on conservative issues, he'll send money straight to Republican politicians who actually stand up for what conservative patriotic Americans believe.

I think he usually cites Michele Bachmann and Joe "You Lie" Wilson as likely recipients of Weber donations. And it is sad that not many more names come to mind.

But I have a new name for TG. Actually, he already knows about this fellow. TG's politically astute like that.

It was in the wake of George Zimmerman's acquittal late this past Saturday that Louisiana Senator Elbert Lee Guillory (R-Opelousas) got my full attention.

Erica told me about a lady on Twitter named Alice Nelson -- @AL_Nelson -- a black woman whose bio includes this statement: I am not an African-American, I am simply an American.

And she is a conservative American. So I forgave Alice the comma splice, and I followed her, and I tweeted to my followers a recommendation that they follow her too.

Then I began perusing her media gallery.

That's when I came across a video Alice had posted on her Twitter timeline.

It is Elbert "Free At Last" Guillory's Why I Am A Republican.

Notable not so much because he's a black Republican -- there are wonderful examples of those, although not as many as I would wish -- but because Elbert Guillory changed horses mid-stream.

Or, got off a donkey and got astride an elephant. Until very recently, Guillory was a Democrat.

In fact, his switch in late May of 2013 makes Guillory the first black Republican state senator in Louisiana since Reconstruction.

As you might imagine, he has received a fair amount of harsh pushback from Democrats.

The constituents of Louisiana's 24th District who elected him, however, have shown overwhelming support for Senator Guillory's new true colors.

The explanation for that lies in the fact that Elbert Guillory was an exceedingly right-leaning Democrat. Atypical, as it were. I don't know why he ever wore their filthy mantle at all.

Despicable Them.

His record on pro-life issues, for example, is nothing short of stellar. During his tenure in the senate he has earned a 100% Life Advocate Award from the Louisiana Right to Life Federation.

His record on abortion is better, in fact, than that of some of his now-fellow Republicans.

Position on Americans' Second Amendment rights? Immaculate.

It's all there in black and white.

I thought I'd let Senator Guillory tell you himself why he is now urging members of the black community to join him in "abandoning the Government plantation and the party of disappointment."

Amen to that.

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God Bless America.

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Happy Monday ~ Happy Week

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