Stock distributions from elderly aunties;
Wild Turkey, Jack, and CDs of the King
These are a few of my favorite things!
Wait...those aren't the lyrics?
Well, okay then. Try this:
A strange new olive-green bird in my pecan tree this morning, about the size of a titmouse. He (or she) had a mate (or friend) who looked exactly the same. Ruby-crowned kinglet? Maybe.
The cormorants, speaking of birds, are back. Even in sub-zero temperatures, they sun themselves, wings spread, around the ponds and stock tanks here.
Pecan-and-cinnamon sour cream coffeecake in the oven. Enough homemade refried beans to last a month. Coleslaw.
Clean laundry, happy dog, acrobatic cats. The small, less-acrobatic one got stuck atop my dresser this afternoon and mewed until I came and rescued him. His brother sat by, looking disdainful.
Good neighbors. Mine watched Max-Zoats when the high was eleven and the low was too low to bear thinking about.
Warm enough weather (42*) to open the windows and blow out whatever it is that's been making me sneeze lately.
I went to a funeral today. The woman whose funeral it was found Jesus in a big way, just before she was diagnosed with a right temporal glioblastoma. I'm glad her family doesn't know that the primary sign of a problem in the right temporal lobe is religious hallucinations.
Still, it was a good funeral: laughing, singing; I'm glad I wore shoes I could dance in. The little church on the bad side of Bigtown was rockin' like the church Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem inhabited.
This was one of her favorite songs. I have a minor disagreement with my beloved Brother in BFE about worshipping the Eternal; he prefers formal, ritualized, (to me frankly cold) Anglican incense-burning. Church is one of two places I want to really let loose, so give me big voices, drum sets, and dancing.
When I die, have a gospel funeral, please, for the nerdy white chick who throws the "Live Long And Prosper" sign back to her black coworkers who hit her with the Westside.
Gospel kinda makes everything kinda better. I'm not super religious person but there are lots of times my CD's by The Clark Sisters and Dorothy Love Coates (and the Gospel Harmonettes) make me feel better.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I went to a funeral similar to the one you've described, I was amazed and sad that more people didn't have services like that.
Maybe folks wouldn't be so afraid of funerals if they were celebrations of life instead of grim reminders of death.
"I'm glad her family doesn't know that the primary sign of a problem in the right temporal lobe is religious hallucinations."
ReplyDeleteReally? Why is that?
Molly, nobody really knows. It's hypothesized that it has something to do with the way the brain perceives stimuli inside that lobe as coming from outside the body. People who have their right temporal lobes stimulated report visions, seeing ghosts or angels, and hearing voices. We're still not totally sure why, though.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite funeral moment was when my uncle died and after the last religious song was played, they played a favorite of his...
ReplyDelete"Take me out to the ballgame..."
He would have loved it.
So, when I trek down to see you and take a side trek to see Friend David and his husband and Friend Joyce (who is one of Friend David's dearest friends and is the wife of Friend David's preacher at a nearly all-black church (are you getting all this?) you'll go to church with me, yes? David says it's kind of like the Triple Rock. I can't wait!
ReplyDelete