Ennui - No Chance!

A friend called yesterday asking if I was getting antsy staying with Mom while helping her get acclimated to a new apartment arrangement. My "What on Earth would lead to that conclusion!?" remark elicited, "well, Hell, you never stay in one place long while you're home. I figured you'd be getting bored being in an old people's home for so long."

Huh!? Bored? While in the company of Kathleen D. Mayer?! No chance. Here's how today went, so you can make your own assessment.

Breakfast conversation included a recap of the resolution of the government shutdown, why no one we knew ate green food at breakfast, is non-reflective glass on pictures worth the money, should we send a  tee-shirt declaring "Past, Present and Future walked into a bar. The situation was tense." to my Australian college teacher friend, and possible furniture arrangements for her livingroom.

Then Mom took a phone call from the public relations firm organizing the Jackson, Mississippi museum's groundbreaking event next week. (A couple of years ago my family returned a necklace to the museum that had been "liberated" during the the Battle of Jackson in May 1863. The Union Army ancestor gave the necklace to his sister and it has remained in the family for 7 generations.) The museum had contacted Mom for an interview about the necklace because it has become a very popular item in their collection. After speaking with the PR organizer for about half an hour, Mom handed me the phone so I could coordinate emailing photos and images of documents we have unearthed linking the events and my ancestor. This encouraged her to reprise her comments about enjoying 21st century technology as long as some one else manned it. 

Then we drove to the dentist's office where a magazine article prompted a discussion of which pollinators would I rather have in my yard: bees or hummingbirds. 

Stopping for lunch led to a conversation on why Burger King never offered Swiss or Sharp Cheddar on the Whopper and an argument about onion rings, which led to a side trip to Bud's to get an order of Stella May's fabulous crispy onion rings.

Later this afternoon, I shared an email from my friend in OZ who commented on Mom's having had dinner with J. B. Rhine of paranormal research fame. Mom said tell him about "my psychology professor who studied with Carl Jung in Vienna and hypnotized me in class when I questioned the efficacy of that practice." Seventy years later and she is still chortling about her reaction when he remarked, "Unsuccessful? Try lifting your arm."

Then she told about Tuggle the 450 pound boar that escaped from the butcherers at her grandfather's farm in rural Georgia. Tuggle broke his leg trying to run across the field and had to be put down. The issue was not doing that, the issue was locating a sharpshooter proficient enough to kill Tuggle with as little damage as possible because he was a food boar, it was 1931 and 99% of him was to be consumed! When Mom mentioned Tuggle had been a stud, I asked if hogs were gelded and if so, what was one called since I only knew about geldings, capons and steers. This led immediately to a Google search and the information that a gelded pig is a barrow, a gelded rabbit is a lapin and a gelded goat is a wether. 

That brought us to memories of rural farm life experiences in Georgia, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina from both of us.

All of that happened before dinner! 

In less than one full day, my mind has dealt with subjects ranging from green breakfast food to Duke University professors.  Bored? Not a chance! "barrow" is now a part of my vocabulary but "ennui" will never be!

Parrothead Book and Binge

I adore my book club. It is small - only 10 members - but we seldom leave it. The last two vacancies were due to out of state moves. Members suggest books, we vote and the winnner is what's read. It's a challenge because frequently individual members are forced out their comfort zones when an author they would never pick off a shelf wins the vote. My personal horizons have been enlarged by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs, James Lee Burke, Spencer Quinn, and Carolyn G. Hart.

My book club is called Book and Binge since we coordinate the chosen reading selection with a local restaurant's menu so we can "eat, drink and be merry" while discussing the work for that month. The Lost City of Z saw us at the Jax Brazilian Cafe. A Dave Robicheaux adventure found us dining of Shrimp Étouffée and jambalaya. The People of the Book found us "down under" at Outback.

While we eat, we talk about the book using questions submitted by the book's sponsor. (I LOVE this part because it allows the career teacher in me to re-visit skills retirement have put on the shelf.) Next month, our book is Jimmy Buffett's Where is Joe Merchant? Since I suggested it, I had to create our discussion questions. This was a challenge because not one person in Book and Binge knew he was a writer, and only a couple knew much about his music. So I wanted to develop questions that built from a knowledge of his words.  

I have been a Parrothead since I first heard JB in Key West after I moved to Florida in the mid 70's. I bought my vinyl of  A1A and have never looked back - only to the horizon. I own 9 vinyls, many tapes and cds as well as all his books. I even required my AP class to analyze Tully Mars for a Timed Writing!

I have been entranced and delighted by the depth of JB's facility with words and ideas. And, bemused when people who have never paid attention to those words discover the layers which exist in them. (I have often wished he would write a song called "Layers" as it seems to be a perfect fit for him.) Hence, I eagerly await Book and Binge's reactions to their introduction to him. 

While I was researching my discussion questions, I found a fellow admirer of the layers in Jimmy in a blog entry from Preacher Mike. Reading this blog prompted me to try to make my own list of Top 10 Jimmy Buffett songs. I have been stymied. Every time I generate a list I believe I can live with, another song pops into my head and I have to renegotiate with the current list. I don't think my struggle will ever end and I adore having a rationale for listening to all that "shrimp boat rock" offers its audiences.

Jimmy is a year older than me. He touched a chord in A Pirate Looks at Fifty, I joyfully anticipate what will happen when that self-same pirate looks at 70 in a couple of years. Like Einstein in one his latest songs, Jimmy is a surfer riding the swells and troughs of life and making connections from his world to the one the rest of us inhabit.

After Book and Binge meet in October, I'll write about what happened. I hope he'll ride this wave to the beach and not wipe-out, but waves and readers are not always predictable.

Note: Anyone planning on reading Joe Merchant who wants my questions, just let me know.