"A" is for either Alligator or Annoying Bull Frogs

Since I have very little alligator experience, I decided to write about bull frogs.  We live by a pond, well people here call it a lake, but it's really a pond.

 In southern Indiana it gets hot in the summer. So most of the time the windows are closed and the air is on.  Anyway, May offers the opportunity to open windows; I like to open our bedroom window at night.  I love the cool breeze of spring on my back.  Too bad the damn frogs have to croak!  

I saw a dead one once on the side of the road.  Those babies are huge!  We have at least three in the pond right now.  They sound like they're playing bad bass instruments.  I have to give them credit for their rhythm though.  They keep a steady beat.

Counting the croaks just happens; it can't be helped. When it's quiet I count the seconds while I wait for the noise--it's like waiting for a hiccup.  This is not conducive to sleep. So after awhile, I begin an internal debate.  Do I want the pleasant breeze or do I want quiet?  If the ducks join in, that settles it.  The window is closed.

We used to hear coyotes, but it's been awhile...

"B" is for Braving the Storm

I'm sitting in my closet as I type this.  Why am I sitting in my closet?  Because we don't have a basement.  My daughter has a guy friend over and they're watching a movie in our other closet.  It just feels silly, but not going in the closet or taking cover is just dumb.

 We live close to where the tornado hit a few years ago. My husband and I went back to bed that night thinking we had just a little bit of rain, hail, and wind, but nothing more.  When I woke up that Sunday morning, I found we were without electricity.  This was unusual because all the power lines are underground where we live.  The storm had passed and it was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining and the sky very, very blue.

  I decided to go for a milk run or was it a McDonald's run...  As I drove along I began to see signs of the storm. The Apple Center near us had a parking lot full of emergency vehicles.  And...what was that in the road?  A refrigerator?  The storm was a little more wicked than I'd thought.  A tornado hit Newburgh and some of Vanderburgh County.  People died.  I take cover when I'm told.

"C" is for Carmel

Gotta love Carmel--it's sweet, creamy, and wonderfully fattening.  My husband gave me the recipe for making my own Carmel early on in our marriage.  He learned this technique from his Spanish teacher in high school.  Here goes:

Take the paper off a can of sweetened condensed milk
Put the can in boiling water for 3 hours.  (If you bring water to a rapid boil, you can turn the temp. down keeping a lid on the pan.)
After 3 hours, open up the can and see the Carmel!  It is spread easily on apples or another treat idea is to put the Carmel between two vanilla wafers, squeeze, then roll the gooey edge in coconut.  Yum.  Kids love making these treats.  Just give them a plastic knife (or something lacking sharp points) to do the spreading with.  The treats look like  wreaths when  finished.  They look pretty and kids are proud to have made something so nice.

"D" is for Door

I'm glad we have a friendly doorbell.  Knocking on the front door, or I should say, banging on the front door sounds so ominous and I hesitate to answer it.  If a person chooses to knock on our door, they knock hard for some reason.  The front door has two glass panels and in the afternoon shadows are cast by the souls in front of it.  This can be sort of funny, but it can also be scary.  One time my oldest daughter's boyfriend's parents dropped by on their motorcyle.  His mother just wanted to drop something off so when she approached our front door she didn't bother to take her helmet off.  I can tell you that was a pretty interesting shadow.  I didn't know whether to laugh or run.  She looked like an alien with a tiny body and huge round head.  It was tough keeping a straight face when chatting at the door.

 Another time it was a bright moon that cast a shadow.  My younger daughter couldn't sleep.  It was three or four in the morning; not a time you would expect visitors.  She wandered down to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.  As she pondered what to eat the knob on the door to the garage rattled.  Gulp.  She made her way back upstairs to my room and shook me awake.  My husband didn't wake up.  Anyway  I sat on the stairs with her to listen for the door rattle.  Jumpy as we were we were staring at the front door.  A man's shadow appears followed by a knock and we shot up the stairs to wake my husband.  With both of us shaking the life out of him, he woke up.  As he stumbled downstairs to check things out, my daughter turned her cell phone back on and it rang.  It was her boyfriend outside the house.  She had told him about the doorknob jiggling and then shut off her phone.  He was worried so he came over.  It was his shadow at the front door.  The next day we discovered our garage light on.

"E" is for bursting with Enthusiasm!



Enthusiasm Is Explosive

 Enthusiasm is one of those pregnant words.  It's an "E" word that gives birth to other "E" words like excitement, energy, enjoy, and embark.  For a club, an idea, a committee... to be truly successful there has to be some enthusiasm behind it otherwise it's bound to be flat like another spot on the road.   Sports teams have cheerleaders riling up a crowd; they are important because an excited crowd riles up the players.

Writers need that magic called enthusiasm, too. We need to find our inner chearleader.  Working alone and reading rejection letters has a way of keeping enthusiasm at bay.  Unless, of course, writing is just what you do.  Focusing on the process of writing is what keeps me going, and weird as this may sound, I don't mind being alone.  Still-- I'm happy to go out into the world to live and talk to others.  If I didn't, I wouldn't have anything to write about.

"F" is for flush and I'm so glad that I can



Model (made by Ordean Synstelien) of the outhouses outside the country school my dad attended as a kid. 

 My children will soon be taking off for the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area) with a few of their friends.  I'm pretty certain everyone that is going along on this trip has had experience camping.  There will be no flush toilets, showers, or beds.  It's a little tough on people if they aren't used to roughing it a bit.  I recommend camping like that anyway.  How can people learn to appreciate the great outdoors if they're never out?  We've sort of settled in our boxes behind our desks in front of  electronic devices. It's comfy there.

 People used to spend a lot more time outdoors.  My father, like a lot of people on farms then, even had to use an outhouse as a kid --no flushing for them. Imagine that. Think of all the times people get up during the night to use the bathroom and even more so if they have the flu... 

I'm reading one of Diana Gabaldon's books, A Breath of Snow and Ashes.  She does an excellent job of bringing her readers back in time where a bath is a luxury and flushing is unheard of.  I believe in at least one of her books the people kept bedpans under their beds.  They threw the night happenings out the window in the morning. 

"G" is for Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts

 Great, green gobs of greasy, grimy, gopher guts,

Mutilated monkey meat, itty bitty birdie feet.

Great, green gobs of greasy, grimy, gopher guts,

And me without a spoon...

Do you remember that song?  I used to sing the chorus at top of my lungs.  It was especially funny to me when the adults in my world looked horrified by what I was singing.  I'm not sure where I learned this silly tune; probably not from my teachers at school or in church.  I may have learned it at camp, though.  I doubt it was one of the songs we sang around the campfire. Most likely we sang it on our own in the cabin or walking along a trail.  I think we kids felt tougher than the wimpy adults when we sang it. They always scrunched up their faces when we came to the mutilated monkey meat part.
 
 In general a lot of singing as a kid.  My parents sure were good sports about it.  Those long car rides clapping with camp song after camp song...
 
 
"The (Greasy Grimy Gopher Gut) song derives its power to amuse children through alliterative description of disgusting foodstuffs, usually parts of human or animal bodies not customarily eaten in the areas in which it is sung. The song appears on the Smithsonian Folkways collection A Fish That's a Song, a collection of traditional children's songs from the United States, where it is performed by Mika Seeger.^[1] The Smithsonian recording came from an earlier recording called The Sounds of Camp, originally released in 1959." Wikepedia