13 Thursday: That’s What I’m Talking About
1. DID YOU HEAR THAT SOUND? I JUST FELL OFF MY CHAIR!!! That’s what I said to my blog friend, Patry, after reading the email she sent me with the subject line: the strangest coincidence ever. At the same time she discovered that one of her cousins used to live here in Floyd, she also found out that the same cousin (who I know but didn't know Patry was related to) was once married to a man who was first married to me! Patry’s cousin’s son and my sons are brothers! “So does that mean we’re related,” I asked her after I got up from the floor? In her follow-up email she called me “cuz.”
2. Before I die I want to see northern lights and flamingos in the wild.
3. My garden corn and my blog are in competition for my attention. When I wake up in the morning I often think about my blog right away. I get the computer turned on so I can manage comments, and I wonder about what I’m going to post. But now that my corn is an inch high, I think about it first. Is it still there? Any taller today? Has the scarecrow done its job and scared the crows away?
4. I’ve been voted off the island. My blog server is closing down and I have to move my blog by the end of the month. I can’t decide if moving my blog is like turning over a new loose leaf or like looking under a rock.
5. THIS is what Loose Leaf Notes personified looks like.
6. I’m not sure there is really such a thing as writer’s block, but I believe there is a writer’s crash. It’s when you can no longer stand the incessant sentences, lines, and stories that run through your mind and your subconscious protects you by turning them off. Sometimes you forget where the controls are to turn it back on.
7. According to my dad’s definition of alcoholism, an alcoholic is either thinking about drinking, thinking about not drinking, or he's drinking. Sometimes I feel if I changed the word drinking to writing, it would describe how it feels when I get obsessed with writing.
8. If writers were categorized by musical genres, everything from opera to rap, I’d be a folk writer with a punk hairdo.
9. Our porch has become like a nursery that I have to tiptoe around. On one side of the porch a mother phoebe takes care of her baby birds up in the rafters, while on the other side a different mother phoebe is building a nest. I guess we got the plastic Wal-Mart owl just in time, because it scared off the cardinal that had been creating a racket by repeatedly slamming itself against our living room window for the last two months.
10. Patry, who is the author of “The Liars Diary,” likes to read the obituaries. I read them too – she’s the one who got me started – but we read them for different reasons. She likes the stories and I like the old names. Here are some new country names I've come across to add to MY COLLECTION: Men – Byrd, Esker, Dossie, Gratton, Garver, Harman, Orbie, and Squire. Women – Gusti, Glada, Ovilla, Patience, Almeda, Velvia, Nobie, Chacey, Via, Ossie, and Nova.
11. When my sisters and I were young, we used to play teenagers. We'd wear towels for skirts and long sleeved sweaters on our heads for long hair. We’d call ourselves “Barbara or Pat” because we thought those were “teenage names.”
12. I do not have blonde hair. I’ve never had blonde hair. And THIS is not me.
13. Although I don’t accept the burden of the last statement, THIS was a trip … or should I say, a 60’s flashback?
Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13's are here. View more 13 Thursday’s here.
Comments
I love the anticipation of growing plants and food. I love the smell of moist corn silk in August.
Have fun with it and think of me when you shuck that first ear!!
Posted by: Josephine | May 10, 2007 9:00 AM
I will! And I think thinking about my corn first thing is healthier than thinking about my blog. I read somewhere that some Native Americans had corn watchers, those who would watch the corn all day to make sure the crows didn't eat eat.
Posted by: colleen | May 10, 2007 9:15 AM
I love the image of you "playing teenager"! When I was a kid, two of my friends and I would pretend to be gymnasts and we would fight over who got to be Mary Lou Retton, Julianne McNamara and who would be stuck being Kathy Johnson (the gymnast with the least exciting name.) Although, in hindsight, it was cool to be Kathy -- she was the first American female gymnast to win a medal in both the Olympics and the World championships.
Posted by: Jeanne | May 10, 2007 9:36 AM
LOL! I'm totally cracking up at #11 because we did something similar. Towels were our long hair (sorry, sister. You definitely should have used the towels).
And we weren't teens. Nooo. We were single moms raising twin Tiny Tears dolls. Our names were Ann and Cindy. And when my little brother wanted in, we told him he had to come up with a name. His choice? Machine Head.
Stop by my TT and you can read about his efforts to jump start our dog's heart with a stripped lamp wire.
Blessings,
~Toni~
Posted by: Toni | May 10, 2007 10:14 AM
That first one is pretty wild!
Posted by: Angela Giles Klocke | May 10, 2007 10:36 AM
Number one reminds me of - "it's a small world after all..."
Folk writer - love it! Are you the Joan Baez of Floyd?
Great 13 as usual!
Posted by: susan | May 10, 2007 10:53 AM
WOW! I think #1 is so cool. The Universe is such a small place.
Did you take that picture? It is so neat.
Guess what? I have moved my blog. Come see my new diggs.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
Posted by: Nancy | May 10, 2007 10:53 AM
I know you couldn't visit my blog 'cause I'm dorky like that (y'know, like posting the wrong flippin' links and all). So hopefully you now have the correct link. This coming from the woman who fell OFF the southermost point of the United States (uh huh, did too).
Blessings,
~Toni~
Posted by: Toni | May 10, 2007 10:54 AM
Nr. 1 is amazing! It's also amazing to know you are growing your own corn!
happy tt :)
Posted by: mar | May 10, 2007 11:34 AM
Does Number 12 mean I might be in style at last? Darn it!
Posted by: Leslie | May 10, 2007 12:01 PM
I love that your corn is an inch high! I would be watching it every day---and maybe a few times a day...I LOVE that you are growing corn, Colleen...And I hope it bears fruit---NO, That doesn't sound right...LOL! Well, you know what I mean....Give me some ears, please...!
As always, a fascinating T.T., my dear.
Posted by: OldOldLady Of The Hills | May 10, 2007 12:33 PM
#5- cool picture!
Special K Family
Posted by: Toni | May 10, 2007 12:42 PM
That is so awesome about the connection with your blogging friend. Small world indeed.
I, too, read obits. I'm glad to know it isn't so unusual. I like the stories of people's lives. People are so interesting to me. I guess that is why I love reading biographies. And autobiographies. I subscribed to the NYT after 9/11 while they did the series on the people who were murdered that day. They published absolutely incredibly moving obits on everyone.
Posted by: Karen | May 10, 2007 12:46 PM
wow, it's a small world over there in Floyd. :)
Posted by: carmen | May 10, 2007 1:36 PM
#1 is pretty wild. I would have been speechless for days.
I also read the obits, but I do it because I figure that this is the last time their names will be in print and I should give them the respect they deserve and read what is there.
Posted by: Indigo | May 10, 2007 2:00 PM
I created some of those obituaries... maybe.
Do you think of me when reading them?
Posted by: Chrissie | May 10, 2007 2:31 PM
CORN! Do you yell "CORN!" when you drive past a cornfield? Or more to the point, when you see your corn in your yard? :-)
Posted by: Janet | May 10, 2007 3:14 PM
Oops, one more note I forgot to mention (nothing to do with TT). We were foster parents too for 5 years. The baby currently in our care was placed with us by our former agency in another state because he's our daughters' sibling. Nice to see that you've fostered as well.
Blessings,
~Toni~
Posted by: Toni | May 10, 2007 4:39 PM
#1 is so amazing. Just wow.
#7 means that I am totally a blogaholic. At least you have your corn!
#13 just the sound of that music takes me back, but yet, a little painfully to be honest. Seems so very long ago.
Posted by: Ampersand | May 10, 2007 5:08 PM
Reading your 13's is like opening the jewelry box in my grandmother's dresser and being awed, fascinated, wowed and entertained for hours on end. Brilliant.
Posted by: Jennifer | May 10, 2007 7:45 PM
Hi from China (it feels surreal just writing that!) I grew up with the Northern Lights in my backyard. At least a couple of times a year, we'd get a lovely show.
They really are magical - I remember standing on my lawn and feeling very, very small every time we watched them. It puts a whole lot of things into perspective.
Posted by: Carmi | May 10, 2007 10:59 PM
Isn't it odd/funny to find someone with your same name? And hen to see a pic of them? I wish my namesakes had photos on the web...LOL
Posted by: kenju | May 10, 2007 11:08 PM
What a coincidence in #1!
You just have to see the Northern Lights!
I thought you were taling about a corn on your foot! Then I saw 1" high and thought you were pretty bizarre! Like how could it be taller today? Then, I saw scarecrow and was no longer scared for you!
What if Dossie and Ossie married?!!
We used to,play Patty Duke!
Posted by: Ruth | May 10, 2007 11:18 PM
Yes, and THAT Colleen Redman is the same age as me.
These comments have been so much fun ... Playing Patty Duke and Mary Lou Retton! I guess I have to clarify that it's garden corn I'm talking about.
Chris, I only read the Floyd Press obits. Those are the ones with the best country names.
Posted by: colleen | May 10, 2007 11:54 PM
What an eerie coincidence...it really is a small world. That Colleen had really nice hair. I've seen some ladies that do have a very nice color gray that is very flattering. I don't want to know about mine for a long, long time.
Great Thirteen as always.
Posted by: Deana | May 11, 2007 9:10 AM
very interesting 13! i loved the picture of the loose leaf note....very cool!
Posted by: bluemountainmama | May 11, 2007 10:02 AM
I am still getting used to our "strangest coincidence ever." So glad you wrote about it here! These kind of connections need to be shared.
Posted by: patry | May 14, 2007 8:33 PM
We have a plastic owl, too. But we have cut a slot on the top and use it for a bank. Everyone feeds it pocket change.
Posted by: Amy the Black | May 16, 2007 9:16 AM