Swans - Art Crossing?

Who would've thought that a guy this cute:

Could be THIS talented?

Yes, that's the very same "Garret Booth" from the long-loved, short-lived "Swans Crossing" semi-soap!   Turns out not all child actors become drug-addicts or vampire slayers! Some just move to Texas and learn to become pretty darn good painters!
No, really - go check out Shane McDermott's artwork and be amazed! 

Have a happy weekend, ya'all! 

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Granny Roasting, Hillibilly Style

I'm in a blah mood. 
I get up, go to work, come home and - blah.
All of it.
Is this what they call a "rut" and who are "they" and why are they naming the blahness that is my life.  
The one shining beacon of light is the fact that my grandmother's birthday is coming up this weekend.  
We're having a little party for her...
"We're going to roast me at the party.  Call everyone and tell them to write stuff down so that we can roast me.  But it's your idea, ya'hear!"  my granny told me over the phone last Saturday.

This is the VERY rough draft of what I've come up with so far:


When Nan-nan called me up on Tuesday night and said “hey – tell everyone that you want to ‘Roast’ me on Saturday – but it’s your idea ya’hear!” I had no choice but to gather the troops and demand a heckling of my grandmother to beat all hecklings.   Although to call anything related to Nan-nan a “roasting” is a bit of an oxymoron as we all know that it’s more of deep frying.  With butter flavored Crisco.
So, Nanners, this Transfat is for you:
Memories:
1.    At an age when everything I touched and saw went in my mouth my grandmother’s go-to toy was a large coffee can of pennies.  And it worked.   I never choked on them – but I did get really good at stacking them and spinning them for hours on end while Nan-nan talked on the phone about lots of people named “That-there.”
2.    When the pennies became boring (or lodged in an orifice) then we would resort to Plan B.   My dark-haired and blue-eyed granny would hand me an ancient fork, a large marshmallow and prop me up on a stool before the cook stove.  With a flick of her wrist and a toss of her hand I was left alone to roast marshmallows until they were charred and on fire.   Or until Papaw intervened. 
3.    My meals at Casa de Porter always consisted of four things:  Lettuce, Tomato, Papaw’s cheese and a pan of rice krispie treats eaten right out of the nuclear hot iron skillet. This meal was served breakfast, lunch and dinner.
4.    My fondest memory is one where I am standing at the sliding glass door and I can see my grandmother, all 85 pounds of her, in the garden.   She is viciously hacking away at the ground with a large garden tool.   Later I found out that she was killing a snake that dared to slither too close to Birdhouse #507. 

And
Who can forget when Nan-nan convinced me that her age and wisdom coupled with my learner’s permit did a whole driver’s license make?
Who knew, too, that Marge, while living in Branchland could learn the secrets that took Houdini years to master? Upon moments of landing in a shopping mall she will instantly disappear and will only reappear when the lights flicker to signal end of day.



I thank you for my love of good bluegrass music, my fear of churches in which talking is allowed during the service, my need for having gum in social situations, my keen ability to be able to tell exactly when a vegetable is no longer edible (when it is 95% brown- not a second before).
I thank you for my love of bad television, my exposure to Nick at Night at 2am, my sudden realization that life, or at least birthdays, should stop at 25, your recipe for fried chicken (tub of butter Crisco and pancake flour), for showing me how to make everything better (or at least gaudier) by adding sparkles, sequins and/or rhinestones, for showing me that if something stands still long enough it does, in fact, deserve to be painted, that a gourd is that much better if painted in Patriotic colors, and that a giant Angel painted on the side of a tiny house is not only perfect but preferred by one out of two doctors that have been committed.

I thank you for my ability to pick up on people who are lying, food that “H’aint no good”, and for pages upon pages of blog-worthy material from your antics alone.

And now, on your 25th birthday we gather today to celebrate you and your quirks.  All 4, 804 of them.  

I love you, Nan-nan, not because I have to, but because I’m scared of your heavenly connections.  I wouldn’t put it past you to black ball me at the pearly gates by telling the saint about the time I drew pictures of talking kittens in the ancient family bible.   

I’m pretty sure you erased me from the looping family tree by the time I was three.

But still – have a good birthday and make sure you tell all your friends over Sunday prayer that your party, well, “it waddn’t no good!”

                     

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Gifted

First of all - in case you missed your daily dose of amazement and belief in sheer raw talent, take a listen to this kid:

 

 

Second of all, I must share with you the course of my father's day on Monday.   First, as he was helping a friend of the family move deck furniture from the lower level to the upper level, the back of the metal chair swung down and knocked him square in the forehead. 

Twenty minutes (and more than a few chosen curse words) later he was in the yard looking for his lost lawn equipment: "Drema!  Where'd I put the rake?  Hey!  Did you see where I put the RA-"  WHAP!  Dad had stepped on the upturned spikes of the rake and pelted himself in the face with the pole as it swung upward in a comical arc.   Mom told me later, when she could breathe between fits of laughter that my poor father's day did not end there.   Later, at work, he moved the chain that blocked the entrance to his place of work to allow a truck to get by.  As he grinned and waved them though, the large pole toppled over and smacked him in the back of the head and shoulder.

The best part of the story was when he and mom had come over to my house for dinner last night and I asked "Hey, mom?  Why is there a quarter-sized bruise on dad's forehead?"

:) I love my daddy.  Even though whenever we go through a drive thru he will insist on yelling "Can I get nuts on that cheeseburger?!"   And he likes to wear shirts that depict stick figures pointing to large lipstick prints on their behinds.  And that he once called me during a really busy day at work to tell me, in the middle of winter:  "Hey, hey... Holly... I just fell in the pool."

:)  I guess we all  have our gifts.   Some, like opera boy above, are natural and wondered at.  Some, like the ability to be hard-headed like my dad, well, those are just as natural and wondered at, too.

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New York, New York!!!

I can't wait to go to New York again in October!
Hence my newest "masterpiece"  "Apple on apple":




    
hee hee

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And Then There Was Boredom

I get bored.
I draw fishies.
Which, as it turns out, is really hard to do on a drawing pad.
Here's my elementary attempt:
     

:)<
           

And Then There Was One

Harry is spending the night with some much-needed male bonding with his new friend Chris.
Chris, on the other hand is PETRIFIED that I'm mad about not having my hubby at home.
So I decided to write him a note.
Without a pen in sight I typed up a quick "Get Out of Jail Free" note and sent it with Harry:

Dear Chris,
I can’t find a pen.  So my “hand-written” note will have to do.

This note entitles my hubby, Harry S. Shivel III, to hang out with you tonight – free of charge and free of any wife nagging, needling, poking, moping or general all-around beating up.

This is a limited time offer.  No, not really, but just pretend.

So enjoy.

And remember – well – something.  I don’t know.  I’m a bit tired and loopy so – just have fun and bring him back in one piece… or at least two.

Thanks, 
Holly – wife of that one guy that you’ve been hangin’ out with.  


:)

And then there was one... Me.

Pearl Necklaces, for example

One day a few weeks ago I went to Gabe's due to the fact that someone who dresses not unlike a forty-year old DAR woman told me that there were some cute designer shoes on the racks.   For some reason I took her lead and headed to the store.  Packed with the rejected items of the discount stores and smelling like feet, Gabe's is a place where most retailers sent their crap.
For the seasoned shopper it can be a treasure trove.
For the mildly interested after-work browser, it can be hell.
So imagine my surprise when I found a cute pair of espadrilles and later, a book entitled:  "The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms."
For a buck.
So I grabbed it and walked up the counter with my prizes.
I expected something hilarious and a book that would help me with my "smut" writing.   I mean, really, how many times can one not use the word "penis" before things just start getting silly?
Imagine my surprise when I opened the pages to find a rather dry and unfunny account of such things as "Little Dutch Boy" and "Red Riding Hood" and "pearl necklace" and "paddle the pickle." 

However, even if the book was not as funny as I expected and really wanted it to be - I can say that I'm much better educated on sexual euphemisms.

Anyone out there wanna guess what  a "Blind Houdini" is?
HA!