Cross Creek

Thursday my friend Dee and I jumped in the car thinking we would just drive to "a river, any river" for a change of scenery not knowing we would end up here. We've been talking about making a trip to Cross Creek for a long time since both of us have read the book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings about a thousand times. Usually our plans to leave early and stay all weekend in a small town nearby are usually interrupted by my many health issues or hers. We were already halfway there when we decided, Dammit we might as well go now. I was more excited because she had already been there before. What used to be the orange grove is now a park with lots of trees, benches, and places to picnic.

The rusty gate....

I was dying, just dying to bang on that bell and yell, Dinner! Ya'll bad kids git in herr and eat!

I didn't take any pictures inside the house because there was a tour going on there and it was full of people putting their greasy fingers all over even though we were asked not to. Just picture your Grandma's house with lots of books, that's pretty much what it looked like. Ok when we were in the guest room, I heard the tour guide say that a few famous people had slept there, including Ernest Hemingway. I heard, and I won't say who, but I heard someone whisper in my ear,"I'da slept with him..." I giggled loud enough for the tour guide to give me a stern look which, actually, is the real truth about why I don't have any pictures for ya'll of the inside of her home.

Above is the front porch where she did her writing. Below is the side porch. If you've seen the movie(which, in my opinion, was not as good as the book ) you'll recognize the water pump which still works but we weren't allowed to touch it.

We walked around a bit. The orange trees were in blossom and I was scared of the bees but the air smelled so nice. This is the servants' house. We peeked inside since my giggling got us in trouble and seperated from the tour group who was by now in the barn(and I don't have pictures of that either because the tour guide was mad at me.)

It was full of 'antses'

We snuck behind the little house looking for varmints, keeping an eye on the ground for any snakes. We were both in awe of the canopy. It is exactly how I pictured while reading and exactly how I thought old, undeveloped wild Florida was.

We wanted to stay longer for more walking around, more giggling and more pictures but we were dying of starvation and getting eaten by the bugs--what nature girls we are! We ate lunch at a place with a name I can't remember for the life of me but it smelled like my Grandma's kitchen at the farm. I have to admit that we pigged out on fried chicken, biscuits and fresh honey, greens, butter beans, mashed potatoes, rice and beans...all the food I just answered as my favorites in my last post but no strawberry shortcake. Like I had any room left anyway. We both decided if we had been real visitors to Cross Creek, that's probably what we would've been served. Is the Spanish moss romantic? I think so.

Friday I went soul searching elsewhere and found some of these......

We're very scientific

D and I have all sorts of serious, science discussions. Don't worry about not being to follow along with our big words, scientific jargon and such......

Me: Hey, I'm on my balcony can you hear that?

D: Hear what?

Me: That bird crying,"Heeerrrah!! Heeeerrrah! Heeeeerrrah!,".....or is she saying "kiiiilllah! Kiiillah!." She's a gangsta.

D: heehee Oh what kind is it?

Me: Well that's why I'm calling you. To ask if you knew.

D: Is she big?

Me: Not as big as our osprey, but kind of big. Cute yellow feet. And she doesn't have pants on.

(I wasn't talking about any osprey in particular, every osprey is our osprey)

D: No feathers on the legs?

Me: That's what I said, no pants. But she sort of does. Fluffy feathers on the upper legs. Ok a tutu. She's fancy like that.

D: What color?

Me: Reddish orangey and brown. Kinda burnt-lookin'. Pretty stripes. Healthy. White specks and the wings. She looks like that top you wore the other day.


D: Scary eyes?

Me: Well, yeah. Not mean eyed though. But you definitely don't want to f- with her, that's for sure.


D: Well I don't know. Could be a couple different hawks, I can't say.....Too bad I divorced B because he would know.

Me: Damn. So we can't call him then?

D: Nope. We need to get a book! Are you sure there's no pants?

Me: No...but like a tutu though. Damn if I can't figure out the name of that bird.

D: How 'bout Francis?






(By the way I didn't take this pic, I got it from Wikipedia where I looked it up. )

I love road trips

I'm finally home. Well I haven't really been gone. Monday, I went on a road trip by myself since my regular road trip partner had the tail end of a flu. And oooh I have some gooood pictures to share, my lovely peeps. But I have to sort them out so ya'll have to wait. But I did get a couple today. My friend with the flu(say that out loud, really fast 10 times) called me this morning and said,"Let's drive some place far and go some place weird for lunch." Strange places are not hard to find in the state of Florida. I was thinking maybe she meant some old, southern looking small town diner where the locals will look at us like we're aliens. I was wrong.

Just take a look at this. We stopped in here to use the ladies room and look what greeted us. Would you eat here? I'm not too adventurous when it comes to food. I'm very picky. The pickiest you'll ever meet I promise. But my friend Dee loves these weird places. So I always just tell myself, "if it just feels wrong, I'll order a sweet tea and buy some Doritoes on the way home!" These alligators were fake ones not real, stuffed ones, I'm happy to report. They did not deter Dee. I was weary though.



This view from the patio/dock made me feel better. I'll admit the food wasn't bad .....


Still though, someone tell me those alligators would have made you just turn around and walk out so I don't feel like such a restaurant snob!

Damn I love gifts!

Look what I got! Look what I got!

My friend D went to Michigan recently and brought me back these note cards with bunnies' butts on them. Who doesn't like bunnies? Who doesn't like butts?

Hippy or not to be

Whenever I make friends with a Baby Boomer, I always ask questions about what it was like growing up in the 50s and 60s. Especially the 60s because it was a decade of so much change. A really good friend of mine answered a question in a way that sums her up in one sentence. I asked," So, you were a hippy then? Or weren't you?" She said, " Well I wanted to be but I didn't like the clothes...."

Folk Groupie?Me? I would have never thought

One of my favorite memories as a kid is being in the backseat of my Grandparents' car while they were driving me to Dairy Queen. This memory sticks out because there are four kids in my family and I have tons of cousins there so whenever I was visiting, we were always all together but this time I was alone with them. I was about 8 or 9 and we were driving down the hilly, winding road where they lived. It was a beautiful West Virginia summer day and the colors in my memory are yellows and greens. There was a folk song from the 60s on the radio and they were singing it together and I remember being so happy because they were singing. Even though it was the first and only time I had ever heard that song(at the time Madonna was the end all and be all in music for me) I always remembered it because it was such a happy moment for me. Skip 10 years later and one of the women in the group who recorded that song ended up being my neighbor and became one of my closest and dearest friends. She's not one to brag so I knew her for a long time before I even figured it out. Even then I didn't want to come out and say, oh my Grandparents are huge fans! I did end up telling her about that and she was proud that she got to have a small part in one of my favorite moments of my life.


I'll find any excuse to tell everyone who she is because it embarrasses her. (in a good way) One day at Costco I saw a folk music compilation cd and I knew her group would be on it and when we saw the name I got really excited and said, really loud, just to embarass her really good,"Dee, Let's check if your song is on here. Look! It's you! Everyone in the music section stop and observe! This woman's voice is on thishere cd! When you guys go home, you can tell all your friends you had a moment with greatness. This a damn compilation cd, folks, this means it's important. Here she is at the very Costco you shop at buying pretzels!" The whole time she was mortified(in a good way) and trying to run away from me but there were only 3 people there- one looked at me like I was an idiot(which didn't offend me since I was acting like one anyway) and the other two laughed at us. (I do this to everyone. I once ran after my sister at the grocery store yelling,"Hello, you forgot your Preperation H! Don't you need it?"If I were at Costco with one of you, dear readers, I would do it to you-not the Preperation H thing but something more appropriate for the situation, of course. I expect and invite reciprocation, it's funny.)
A few years back, her group had a reunion concert thingy. When she got back, I bothered her and bothered her to let me watch the video because it was going to be on PBS and I wanted to see it first. I had never seen her sing and had only heard a couple songs before. She wasn't really that excited about the whole thing so I had to really pester-something I'm very good at(in a good way). While we were watching it, she told me during one of the songs, for her part, she had to hit a high note. So every time they had to perform that song, she was always a little nervous. And when she would hear a recording of it, she cringed a little just before that high note, even though she knew it was a recording and of course the high note was just right! I have a couple of the group's songs on my ipod, including the high-note song, not because I love it so much but just to have it, you know? The funny thing is today, while I was listening to my ipod, I had it set to shuffle and that very song came on-and right before the high-note, I found myself cringing a little too. In a good way.

You say Homophobic -I say Homeopathic

One of my best friends happens to be just a couple years younger than my mom so we sort of have a mother-daughter relationship. Only we freely talk about sex. And drugs. We do stay away from politics, though. I forgot to tell her that I was taking antibiotics on the phone today. She was concerned about my sore throat and said I should try gargling with a mixture of peroxide and water. "It sounds weird but it works, I think it's one of those homophobic treatments," she said to me. I said,"huh?" She said,"You know, homophobic. Like what they do if you were living in the country somewhere and the doctor was too far away. Or in a country where a doctor isn't available." I said,"Do what in the country?"(I was playing with her at this point) She said,"Homophobic things!" I said,"I don't know D, I don't really want to do homophobic things. Frankly, I don't like homophobic sort of people." She said,"Honey, you have to expand your horizons. You have try new things. It's been around before modern medicine I think. " Finally I said,"Oh you mean Homeopathic or homophobic?" I wish I had been there to see her face. I can't wait to go a health food store with her so I can ask the salespeople for all the homophobic treatments.

BTW-has anyone ever heard of that? The peroxide thing? It sounds scary.

AND I should note that I don't have any knowledge about Homeopathy. Or homophobes since we're on the topic.