Got Plans For This Weekend?

Got plans for this weekend? AJC Decatur Book Festival | August 31-September 2, 2012 | Authors | Gianetta Palmer The Decatur Book Festival is going on this weekend in Decatur, Georgia. It is a suburb on the southeast side of Atlanta and is going to be an awesome way to spend the Labor Day weekend. The main reason that I am so excited about it is that I will be having my first public book signing. I will be in the Emerging Writer's Pavilion (WOW!) on Saturday, September 1, at exactly 1:15 p.m. Because of the large number of writers involved in the festival, I'll only be there a short time. So, if you're in the area and want to meet the MA Fat Woman in person and get a signed copy of the book then you'd better get there early or at least be on time. Pedro, my hairdresser, has got me looking all sparkly and fabulous or about as sparkly and fabulous as I can look and I even got a new pair of shoes: New Balance 609 tennis shoes if you're wondering. I still haven't decided on an outfit but I know it will be something cool and comfortable and not a dress. After all, it is still summertime in the south and that means hot and muggy. Mom and Friend are coming along for the ride so it should be really fun. Again, if you're in the area, Saturday, September 1, at 1:15 p.m., stop by and say Hey!

Granny...Part II...A Cherry Fork Road Memory

..."Mom?" "What did you say," Granny asked with a questioning look. "Did Diddy (my dad) ever tell you about the world's longest fart?" Without even hearing a word of the story, granny's shoulders started to shake, a grin spread across her face, and looking toward my dad, "No, I don't think he did." "A few weeks ago, in through there, we had went over to John's and I had got my usual, the Rainbow trout. Lora, didn't you get the Ribeye? Well, the lady said they had a new cook and instead of having, in through there, the usual green bean almondine with the trout, in through there, they was trying to make things healthier and cooked broccoli with it. It was all right, in through there, and I also had some of the new chili. Lora, did you get some of the chili?" "Yes, I had the Ribeye and tried the soup too. I think that was the problem." "Right. It wasn't too long and I started to get the belly ache. You know I got that trick stomach, in through there, and I told mom I wasn't feelin' too good." "He wasn't feeling too good," mom said in agreement. "I wasn't feelin too good, myself. Tell her what happened." Dad, never needing any sort of encouragement to tell a story continued. "I told Lora here to pay the bill and I needed to get home. Fast. I made it outside, in through there, and I passed gas the entire walk to the truck; must've been almost twenty steps." At that last comment, Granny lost it. She snorted, tears were rolling down her cheeks, her small body was shaking and she started gasping for breath. She was tickled. "Oh, my goodness," she gasped. "Stop it. You're slaying me." "Mom wasn't far behind me and she walked right through it. It stunk bad, too. She walked right through it and I don't know if it was from my stink, in through there, or the chili, because she threw up all over the side of the truck." Granny squealed with laughter and started slapping her knee, "Oh, my goodness, you didn't throw up, too, did you?" "How'd you know? I got one whiff of that and up come the trout. Made me madder than hell, too. Pay good money for food and then throw it all up." "I don't think we'll be going to John's for a while." "Unless they fire that guy and bring back the other one," Dad said. "We must've got the food poisoning or something. I don't know, but that sure was some fart." And with that statement, we all started laughing again, led by Granny, all 4'10" of her leading the way. Rest in peace. You are deeply missed.

Granny...Part I...A Cherry Fork Road Memory

Margaret Jane Shutt Keiber Stephenson was born in northwestern Ohio, around Wapakoneta, on December 22, 1908. She was my maternal grandmother and one of the most spiritual women I have ever known. To many people she was known as Margaret, but to me and my large group of cousins, she was simply known as Granny. Granny was small in stature but big in heart. For years, when her kids (seven girls and four boys) would come to visit they would always be surprised by how little she had. Questions of "Mom, what happened to your coat?" and "Why don't you have any groceries?" were common. She would just smile in her own way and with a soft voice reply, "Well, I think the good Lord told me that somebody else needed it more than Tommy and me. My uncle, Tommy, was physically challenged and lived with my grandmother until she was well up into her eighties. Even though Granny was a highly spiritual woman, she had a wicked sense of humor. In her case, the more gross and disgusting a situation, the harder she laughed. If you could ever imagine a 4'10" white-haired bespectacled lady laughing so hard at the sight of someone slipping on a cow patty or throwing up after they had eaten a mountain oyster before discovering what it was until she nearly wet her pants? Well,--that would be my grandmother. Come evening time, after dinner and after Tommy had been to the bathroom (another story at another time) Granny would settle in the living room under the family portraits of her children and grandchildren which covered an entire wall. She would settle into a small, comfortable brown-cushioned easy chair and prop her feet up on a padded stool made from old juice cans that she herself had made. The conversation would flow around her but before too long her head would begin to bob up and down as she struggled to stay awake. We would tell stories of days gone by and what had happened earlier in the day, usually with a laugh or two thrown in. One evening, after mom and dad had moved to Georgia and I was still living in Ohio, we had been at Granny's house visiting for the day. Everyone had settled into their respective chairs in the living room, a wrestling tape was in the VCR (Granny and Tom both loved wrestling)and Granny was snoozing in her chair. "Hey, mom, did Diddy tell you about the world's longest fart?" my mom asked...

It's My Lucky Day...Year V

****It's the fifth time around for this post. I'm incredibly excited about the whole month of August this year, not just my lucky day. Super things are happening for me right now so I just know this will be my luckiest day ever! ****It's the fourth time around for this post. I don't even remember what happened last year but I just know that today is my lucky day and the Pythagoreans believed that four was a perfect number. A perfect number for a perfect day! ****It's the third time around for this post. I just know that this will be the luckiest day of the year...Third time's a charm, right? ****This was what I posted last year on my lucky day. It didn't turn out as lucky as I would have wanted. So, I'm giving it another whirl. Maybe, better luck this year...year 2! Today, August 22, is the luckiest day of the year for me. If something exciting is supposed to happen, it usually happens on this day. I can't remember the specific events (okay, maybe I can, but a girl has to have some secrets) but I do know that it was on this date. I do remember that I got my wisdom teeth pulled on this date in 1989. I know that wasn't lucky but I did get to eat mashed potatoes for every meal for a few days. And luckily, my favorite food is mashed potatoes. I think I am going to try my lucky numbers on the lottery this evening. The problem is that I have to pick five numbers and I only have two: Eight for August and twenty-two for the twenty-second. That means that I will only get two out of five numbers and you don't win anything with just two correct. But, since it is my lucky day, I might get the other three numbers as well. I'm a winner and I didn't even know it. Now, what am I going to do with all that cash?

Decatur Book Festival Appearance

Yippee! Hooray! Cool Beans! Can you believe it? Yep, I'll be at the Decatur Book Festival hanging out with a bunch of other literary people (snort). I think I'm going more for the festival food than the literary side of things. Nope, not true at all! I'll be into the food but I AM VERY EXCITED TO BE PARTICIPATING in the literary side of things too! If you are new to the blog and didn't know I had a book just click the book icon on the left side of the blog and it will take you straight to Amazon to give you all of the details. Lord, I'm gonna have to go my hairdresser, P, so he can get my hair under control again. At age 45, I have discovered head bands and I haven't fixed my hair since the Erma Bombeck Workshop. I'm already stressed about what to wear... Click on the link and check me out. Hope to see you there! AJC Decatur Book Festival | August 31-September 2, 2012 | Authors | Gianetta Palmer

The Day The Music Died

Like a lot of people older than I remembered what they were doing when President Kennedy was shot, I can remember what I was doing when Elvis died. It was summertime, I was ten years old and Mom and I were in Winchester, Ohio, just getting out of the car to go into the drug store when a flash came across the radio. Mom stopped dead in her tracks, tilted her head closer to the radio and listened intently as the announcer broadcast the awful news. Mom shook her head in sadness, gave me a weak smile and shut off the car. "Come on, we better go inside," she said. We were outside on the sidewalk when someone we knew stopped for a quick chat and was totally surprised to hear a 10-year-old blurt, "Did you hear? We just heard it on the radio; Elvis died. The King of Rock-and-Roll is dead. That's what the announcer said anyway." Complete shock! The lady's eyes widened, her mouth dropped open and she clutched her hand to her throat. "NO! That can't be true! Are you sure? We're the same age. NO!" "I know, it's just awful," said Mom. "Are you sure?" asked the lady. We walked back to the car and flipped on the dial. WLW, 700 on your AM dial was broadcasting the same report that we had just heard. The lady stood there in complete shock listening to every word. At some point she began to sniffle and then weep silently. "I'm so sad. Tom and I saw Elvis down in Biloxi before he shipped off overseas. Since then he has always called me his teddy bear. I've gotta go home and tell him; this shopping can wait." "Mom, why was that lady so sad?" "Well, sweety, Elvis Presley was loved by a lot of people. You know how you love to run around the house yelling, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time?" "Yeah." "Well, Elvis sings that song." "He does? I didn't know that. But why does Mr. Tom call her teddy bear?" I asked. Mom gave me the classic over-the-glasses-look as only she can and said, "We'll talk about that later, we got to get home so I can tell your father. He saw Elvis in Germany, you know?" "He did......"

WOW!

Yippee! Hooray! Cool Beans! Can you believe it? Yep, I'll be at the Decatur Book Festival hanging out with a bunch of other literary people (snort). I think I'm going more for the festival food than the literary side of things. No, probably not! I'll be into the food but I AM VERY EXCITED TO BE PARTICIPATING in the literary side of things too! Lord, I'm gonna have to go my hairdresser, P, so he can get my hair under control again. At age 45, I have discovered head bands and I haven't fixed my hair since the Erma Bombeck Workshop. I'm already stressed about what to wear... Click on the link and check me out. Hope to see you there! AJC Decatur Book Festival | August 31-September 2, 2012 | Authors | Gianetta Palmer

Friend's Birthday...Year IV

Birthday wishes go out to the Friend that I mention in my posts. Friend has experienced several of the MA Fat Woman's mishaps and can always be counted on for a good laugh, a no nonsense quote, or a story that will upstage mine every time. Which reminds me of a story about Friend. Friend had a big time job and several underlings at her disposal for years. When birthdays and holidays floated around they always celebrated big. Everyone got cakes, presents, and usually taken out to dinner or the such. Well, Friend was really excited when it was time to celebrate her birthday. She had heard them planning and plotting the details of the party and was very excited. It didn't turn out that way. It seems the person that had done the planning had an emergency and all of the plans fell through. On the day of the birthday, there was nothing. No dinner! No presents! And no cake! Somebody realized what had happened and ran to Walmart to get an emergency cake. The day was a Friday and the office was scarcely staffed. After about 3 or 4 people sang Happy Birthday, each grabbed a slice of cake and scattered back to their respective offices. When it was time to go home that evening Friend went into the break room to get the cake to take home... ...it wasn't there! "Where's the cake?" she asked. "Oh, so-and-so took it with her. She said nobody had chipped in, so she was taking it home!" I know! Stuff like that happens all the time to her. Happy Birthday, Friend! I hope you get a cake that is all yours...

Olympic Burnout

I'm a huge sports fan. I like sports of all sorts and will watch basically any sport on television. Back in the day, on Sundays, Dad and I would watch ABC's Wide World of Sports. That's where I learned to float like a butterfly, a` la Muhammad Ali, and do a running commentary, a` la Howard Cosell, of our boxing match which usually occurred in the living room and ended with me getting knocked in the head by my brother, with me trash-talking, "THIS IS HOWWORD COSELL, LIVE FROM the living room. WHAP! Down goes Palmer, down goes Palmer." "You kids better stop that," mom would always say with the over-the-glasses look. "Somebody is going to get hurt." I always liked to watch winter sports on television. My favorite sport was the ski jump and it was always exciting waiting to see if anyone was going to crash on landing. I tried to imitate those jumpers out back on the big hill but landed straight in the creek on more than one occasion. I have been watching a lot of NBC's coverage of the XXX Olympiad. I have really enjoyed watching Michael Phelps becoming the best swimmer in the world and the young female swimmer, Missy Franklin, only 17, accomplishing things that most teenagers can only dream about. I would never have made it as a swimmer, though, because I never learned how to dive. The only thing I could ever master was a hard-hitting belly flop that left red marks on my torso and more water out of the pool than in. One Olympic sport that I seem to be smothered with lately is beach volleyball. Don't get me wrong, I like volleyball, more inside volleyball than beach volleyball, but every time I turn on the television women's beach volleyball is on. I have practically memorized the patterns of the funky athletic tape that all of the athletes tend to sport these days. I'm actually quite sick of it! How about some table tennis? What about boxing? What about fencing? I've yet to see any of these sports on my regular NBC station. Maybe in this age of reality television, the producers at NBC think that we must want to watch scantily clad women jumping around bare-booted in a pit of trucked in sand from God knows where. Okay, maybe some people do. But, hello, it's Great Britain, it's 55° and rains everyday. I bet the players are really having a ball when conditions are like that. So, NBC, why not have a contingency plan for when it rains? Why not ditch the beach volleyball for something less revealing, say, I don't know....men's diving?

The Longest Yard Sale...Revisited

****In honor of the World's Longest Yard Sale that I will be attending this weekend I give you this classic post**** As a frequent visitor to many yard sales in my area I jumped at the chance to go to the World's Longest Yard Sale that stretches through five states over a four day period every August. The yard sale winds for 654 miles from West Unity, Ohio to Gadsden, Alabama. And trust me when I say that a lot of people participate in this yearly adventure. If you are looking for a particular item to complete a collection or looking for an unusual gift for someone, then you have found the perfect place. There is only one problem: Where do you start? Since I live relatively close to Alabama, my mom decided that we should head over that way. We started out early (about 9:00) and were on our way. As we left town, it seemed that every other house was having a yard sale. (Hhhmmmm) Houston, I think we have a problem? Mom looked over at me and asked, "Do you want to stop at any of those?" "No! I want to go to Alabama, let's keep going." We kept going, and in the first twenty miles we probably passed over 20 yard sales. (I noticed Mom glancing over at me and frowning as we passed by each one.) We were over 100 miles from the official longest yard sale; I guess everyone wanted to get on the bandwagon. After driving for 1.5 hours we reached a town that was "officially" a part of the 654 mile shopper's paradise, Summerville, Georgia. Mom looked over at me and asked the same question once again. "Don't you want to stop at any of these sales?" Quite unexpectedly, I made a sharp right hand turn into a church parking lot that was crammed full of would be shoppers. I almost threw mom into the backseat and was rewarded with a look that used to send shivers of fear down my spine when I was a child: The over-the-glasses look. When you saw that look, you knew you were in trouble. I was out of the car in a flash and was making my way to a local park that was packed with sellers of all kinds. Mom, who was a little out of breath when she caught me wanted to know why I was in such a hurry. "Trolls," I said. "Oh dear," she replied. "We're never getting out of here." To the uneducated and uninformed, troll collecting is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. People have been known to spend their life savings on just the perfect troll. Trolls come in many shapes and sizes, colors and styles, and each collector has his or her own particular reason for collecting them. I have a reason but I keep it to myself. I walked right over to the troll vendor and began to peruse her wares. I looked up one table and down the next. (Nothing) I moved down to the next table and there it sat. Troll perfection!! It was a 1935 green-haired, orange-eyed beauty manufactured by the Alexander Family of southern Ohio. It stood slightly over 12 inches tall and was made of corn husks. It was a gold medal find in an unlikely place. It was the troll that I needed, longed for, and just had to have to complete my collection. Twenty years of collecting was boiling down to the next few minutes. The owner of the troll table sidled over to me and looked to be as old as the troll that I now held in my hand. "I see you're interested in old Tallulah?" she asked. "Not really," I said. (I was getting ready to do some negotiating; I didn't want to give myself away.) "Who you think you're kidding?" she said. "I've been waiting on someone like you for about 10 years since I decided that I was getting too dang old to collect these trolls anymore. I don't have family to pass 'em on to, and I sure as hell don't want the government to get 'em. I know how much the blasted thing is worth, so don't try to wear me down. How much you give me for it?" "Uh?" "I'll tell you what, I like the looks of you, you seem like nice folks, being here with your mom and all, I'll sell Tallulah to ya'll for 1 dollar. That's my final and only offer." As I looked over at mom and asked to borrow a dollar (I had brought only hundreds to purchase the troll) I tried to keep my composure. By this time the old lady was wrapping up my purchase and cackling to herself. I murmured a thanks and was about to walk away when suddenly I turned around and gave that woman the biggest hug I had ever given anybody. As she pulled away from the embrace she gave me one last look and said, "You take care of Tallulah for me." (Yes, ma'am) That's the story of my participation in this year's longest yard sale. We walked around the park and sampled a few food vendors and then were ready to go. I didn't make it to Alabama; in fact, I only made it to one town. And that was fine for me. There's always next year!! (I have a collection of kazoos that I'm working on.)

Twenty Years

Reflections, longevity, a time to look back Back to a time of innocence where we held the world in our hands And our hopes from the heart Sprang forth like a rushing mountain stream Many others have come and gone While it has remained to carry on A short time to some A life time as one Laughter, a blessing, never without Stories retold, was there ever a doubt That kindness and honor from those before Would carry to the young, no matter how poor One always steady, another pursuing the dream Stumbles within darkness Beaten For we are that team First to join was the littlest thing Spitfire, vocal, oh how it sang Sadly, the loss affecting their will First love, first lost, it lingers still A day to remember just before the cold The black, the white, a sight to behold The calmness, the gentle of one so small Enduring the stick that affects us all Walks to the green Rides through the mist Settlement is there By the first, still quite the pair More time together Looking for the one The only dream Yet, it's still undone Golden and white So strong is their bond Transferring to it To now and beyond More time to see Being lost in the blue The uniqueness, the beauty That is totally you Twenty years is Twenty years are Twenty years were Twenty years…Done