Cday is coming closer every day.  Monday is the start date.  I have finished the Poppycock, have only four cookies left, the chips are almost gone, I bought my last carton of Orange Crush for a while and all that remains is a healthy dose of chocolate and a banana split.  Then I will be fortified for the long haul. 

After the last couple of days I’m looking forward to this.  All I can think about is my ankles are going to hurt a little less and I may climb upstairs to Momma’s Corner without a stoke threatening.  I am so tired of hauling one 80 lb half developed twin around on my back.  I know it has got to get better and it will!!!  I won’t be posting the weight weekly because my scales and the Doctor’s do not agree.  So let it be known that I start at 244.6 lbs. and the only way is down…..

The significant other and I canned peaches a couple of days ago.  Cinnamon peaches to be exact.  While conversing with my brother and learning that we had ruined some perfectly good peaches (in his mind), we decided that we would do plain peaches too.  The fact that my kitchen counter is covered with pears so we can do spiced pears too was beside the point.  It looked like a fucking fruit market for a day or two until something started ripening.  So now we have about 44 pts. of plain and spiced peaches.  I felt the pears last night and it looks like pear day today.  All this to avoid paying $1.29+ a can come snowfall.

You’ve heard the song “The Thrill is Gone,” well for me it is the wood.
In summer heat with blue jeans, gloves and sweat shirt there I stood.
In left hand a cup of ice water, the trusty hose in my right.
I watch intently, warily as the bare ground comes into sight.

I bless my “Turbo Burner” and my family for having made it.
It does the job, with little smoke, working quickly when it’s lit.
But if I see another stick of wood within the next half year.
I warn you friend, it is for my back and sanity that I fear.

You heard Jackson Browne sing the laments of cocaine,
But my tale of woe is the use of propane.
I’m not knocking the product, four years now I’ve used it.
The pig has sat in my yard and I’ve never abused it.

This born and bred “city gal” prefers good old natural gas.
With no pipeline the only kind that’s natural comes out my ass.
But at the end of the tunnel, a light I can see
Good old CE is here to save my life, for a fee.

Eight thousand big ones is all that it’ll cost,
And if I can’t pay it then my firstborn is lost.
Yes my dear friends I used him as collateral.
His wife is upset, but that is quite natural.

Soon I won’t have to pick up the phone,
Call up the bank and get a new loan.
When I need heat I’ll just turn up the dial.
And sit watching it snow with a great big smile.

The organist didn’t play “Here Comes The Bride”.                                   
Only Mom and Dad , no bridesmaids by her side

They forgot the Wedding Candle, it was left in a room
The guests starting eating before the bride and groom.

The Groom had only parents , no best man in sight.
Everything proceeded though not always right.

But it didn’t matter anyway because their love was new
And after seven years I think that it is true….

I remember my first swing. Daddy made it from a car tire. Not the fancy cut kind, just a rope tied to a limb and the other end through the hole in the tire. My brothers and I played for hours on it, getting all dirty from the old rubber and fighting over whose turn it was.

We discovered the porch swings next and visited anyone who had one because we never had a porch to hang one in.

Then the school swings with the wooden seats and the clunky chains that people said you could break or lose a finger in. Strange, but nobody back then ever broke a finger.

I rode the chair swings at the carnivals and the swing ships at the theme parks. Both were fun, but you couldn’t bring them home.

We had a swing set for our kids with of the swings that looked like an apple crate with leg holes so the baby couldn’t fall out.

Then in my forties I got a log swing. I took many a nap in it in the daytime because I worked all night. It finally wore out and had to be thrown away.

But just 2 months ago and 20 years later I watched my swing reappear in my life. In the early morning or late afternoon I sit and swing to my heart’s content. My cares fly away for another day. My child and my husband brought a dream to life again.

I am fat.  Not chunky, not ample, not buxom, not pleasing plump, but just plain fucking fat.  I could say an underactive thyroid caused it.  Yeah right—sounds good but that wasn’t it.  I could say at my age the “grandma syndrome” set in.  Another good excuse but not true.  Really it is the orange crush and chips at 2 a.m.  The sneaky hand that hits the cookie jar every time I go through the kitchen.  The Poppycock that calls me into the pantry for a handful of carmel popcorn and nuts.  I put the pounds on originally with ice cream, mashed potatoes, gravy, fried anything edible, and double helpings of everything!!!  Salads- I didn’t eat “no stinkin’ salads”.  I wasn’t “no stinkin’ rabbit”.  Then one day—hey salads ain’t so bad with croutons, bacon bits, cheese and loads of dressing—healthy and tasty—can’t miss! Yeah right again!!  And dessert if I eat healthy and less I can have a little cake, pie, cream puff, cheesecake, and on and on, and on and that’s how the pounds came on and on, and on!

Then I woke up this morning and I was pushing two very unsexy things—the age of 70 and 250 lbs.  Now not quite either yet but a year or two away..
I complain my feet and ankles ache. DAH!  I can’t breathe when I lay in one position too long and turning over is like flipping a whale. DAH!  My arms, neck, and shoulders ache when I go to bed. DAH!  When I do a bra, so I don’t beat my chin or kneecaps black and blue when I’m out in public my shoulders start to ache and the band around my ribcage makes my head ache.  I have eaten what I want, when I want, how much I want, and I think it’s going to kill or cripple me.  When do I wake up and smell the roses?  I can’t—I can’t bend over!! So when do I start using my brain for more than stuffing to hold my skull out so my hat will stay on?

By God now is the time!!  I quit smoking a year and four months ago and swore I “ain’t” going back.  I am a big enough bitch to control that so I know I can control the “lard pile”.  So my friends—September 1st is C DAY==control, cuss, cease, and eventually celebrate!!!  It is going to be a long haul but I CAN DO IT!

Early morning, it is cool, the sun is not out above.
Stillness is only broken by the cooing of some doves.

My mind wanders back some 29 years to another day
Doves cooing softly overhead, two voices heard to say.

Words of firm commitment, as they say a vow.
Love like the sound of doves is still within me now.

When burning limbs and logs it is prudent to stay near with water at hand.  This is why I found myself in the shade of the shed on a lawn chair watching the progress of the “turbo burner”.  I don’t usually sit long in one place what with bad ankles and a butt that goes numb but the job of feeding the burner and watching it warranted it. 
I spotted a small stick on the ground a few feet away that suddenly rose in the air, what looked to be wings whirring wildly.  My stick stayed airborne fot 14 seconds then fell.  Moments later it tried again reaching less than five feet up and falling again.  It attempted this feat repeatedly never flying any higher or longer.  But it didn’t give up.
Life, I thought, is like that—Trying again and again to do better and go farther.  I wonder if man tries as hard as my stick to better himself?  GOD I HOPE SO!

As I sit and watch the young girl with watering can in hand.
A vision flashes through my mind of a girl from a different land.
A land that is called fiction and the girl is on the book.
“In The Garden Of Good And Evil” on the cover, if you look

People called her the Bird Girl, her stone hands held the seed.
The birds flew in from everywhere to perch on them and feed.
My young girl does resemble her in that she too is made stone.
But the thing she feeds is my soul with peace when I sit alone.

.