home is a good place to be

"D'you get a hair cut, Brille?"
"Oh Abrum, you noticed!!!"
Chris looked up from his seat at the table as I flourished over to where Abe was sitting on the couch.  In typical fashion he was absorbed in reading an article.  I did a jig, partly in celebration of his keen observation and partly to see if I could  amuse him enough to get a smile out of him. I did get the smile and he said,
"Go on, kid, you're a nut."
"Tell me, Brumly, how could you tell?"  I sat on the cushion and looked inquiringly at him.
 "Well, they generally iron out your hair real good at those places once they've lopped off the hair."
"Dried it. Blow dried it," I told him. "It always makes my hair straight."

This morning Mama made breakfast. Her buttermilk biscuits and thick slices of bacon and daddy's fried eggs, gravy, homemade jellies and jams and - oh lands. It's good. The best part though was having ten people sitting around our table. Ten people that were very glad to be home and together. Daddy says we don't value peace like we ought to until we don't have it, or we see people who don't have it. Then we tend to be thankful again.  I want to be thankful for that peace all the time. Peace between God and me and between the people I love.  Daddy says it can't be taken for granted. We strive for it every day and hold it Precious and Valuable in our lives; we pray for it and live it, even when it's not easy to retain.
 I hope I can do that more.
That old septic tank, poor thing. It's been its lot in life to deal with the hard blows we give it. Well, it decided it'd had enough this weekend. So it stopped. Just plumb quit working, at least for a while. Thus, we washed dishes outside tonight. Anne handed me the water hose while she toted dishes in and out of the house. Jay came too with pots, whistling "Got A Whale of a Tale to Tell Ya Lads" and opening the door for Chris who toted more dishes in and more dishes out.

{Legend = Melody}
"I don't know why I've always liked putting things up my nose," Dawn said as we cleaned up the table tonight. "I just always have. Even when I was really little."
"Would you like having a nose ring, do you think, Dawn?" Chris asked.
"No.  There's a thought that Legend  put into my head not too long ago, that if you took the ring out and needed to blow your nose then the hole where the ring is would be like a whale when it blows water. That decided the issues of nose rings for me."
Chris' dark beard was spread all across his face in a large grin and his eyes weren't showing very much because they squint almost to closing when he laughs.

          ~ ^^ poor ole' Maple. may very well be the last spring she's with us, good ole' tree.^^~

        ^^ A.G and I are going to recreate Senior Photos with these new and improved poses. ^^

 ^the girls put a diaper on Jean Val Jean on account of the rain and him having been dropped into a puddle. by the way, these puddles have been around as long as our house and all of us have been alive. every rain they appear in our yard, and every rain we appear in them.

                             ^^ Jay's last night to be home…Gonna miss that boy.^^

"Loud sounds pups make," was 1. Across, Chris said. Merry and Jay huddled on the floor beside him as he read off clues for the crossword puzzle.
"Yips," I say from the couch between writing in the journal. Someone else offers "Yaps".
"Yep, Chris says. I think it's yaps. "Much trouble or confusion," he says.
From her room where Mama is in bed she says "Ado".
"Ah good one, Mama. That works.  I tell you what, ain't nothin' like a crossword puzzle to make you feel dumb."
"Man, I tell you what! I can't stand those things," said Daddy. "Make me see how daft I am right quick."
Something light rubbed my face as I was writing and something sounding like a cat was right at my ear. I turned and saw Jeremy in a white wig looking very much like a colonial redneck in a full cammo suit and that wig.  He spoke chinese about Oolong tea and sipped a little from his clay mug.
"Reads fast," Chris said.
"Pigs," Daddy rumbled from his chair.  Merry looked up at him like he was teasing and laughed.
"Oh Daddy, you're funny."
" Not enough space for rabbits, so it'd have to be pigs."
Merry looked very confused. "What daddy? Neither of those can read."
Now Daddy was the one who looked confused and said
"Well…he did say Breeds Fast, right?"
Merry's "Reads Fast" back to daddy was nearly swallowed in the burst of laughing that followed.  Daddy's face was his deep, hard laughing color again and, well, very few eyes of us were showing at all.

full moon, mama's home, world is right, life is good.

just the way an early morning should be enjoyed.





::note::

milly = my term for melody

margaret = melody's term for Dawn
broge= dawn's term for me.

maher is our cat 

whose full name is

 Mahershalalhashbaz Spurgeon 

and

 who also

may have worms and

 who, furthermore, we have 
suspected of dying on us for some time now.

~~~~

This day {thank God} ends nearly a week of the Grey Submarine being emptied of some of its key ingredients: Merry, Mama and Melody.  Amazing what a hole one person can make in a family, let alone three!!!  Don't get me wrong, the remainder has survived considerably well: we had coffee brewing all week, Clyde and Sherri work to do, baked pumpkin cupcakes, went shopping {kroger, not clothes} and settled into our routine of threesomeness. But this is sure, there is just not the same atmosphere when Mama's not home. It's as true as all get out that she's the heart and life and vibrance of this home.

We don't get cell phones around here when we're infants.  We usually don't get them in our teens. We get them when the circumstances fall out that way.  The circumstances fell out that way for Anne and me to get ours last year, so we got them. Along with them, the fabled texting. That first night Mama, Daddy, Anne and I all sat in the living room sending texts to each other and laughing.   As it is, the other three girls use A.G and my phone interchangeably. Milly was coming home on the trip today and from Mama's phone she said:
"Is Marge around?  Is she able to be communicated with?"  Took the phone to Dawn who was shinnied up a tree.
 'Ah, Broge," she tilted her head and squinted her eyes, "Do I have to take that?  I'd have to get down and I've only been up a minute."
"Milly says she wants to talk to you.  So she swung down, took the phone, and when I got it back there was this conversation:

Milly:: Did anything come from Anthro for Mama?
Dawn:: Yes but I don,t know why were doing this infurnal texting bussieness
Milly:: Cause i didnt want to ask in front of the girls cause we're in the car. Can you put the box beside my chest and put the old cup in my top drawer?
Dawn:: ohta, anything else?
Milly:: you're a pal margaret thanks see you on a few hours. Are y'all going to 6 flag today?
Dawn:: Nope
Milly:: Ok has Maher died?
Dawn:: No
Milly:: Are the people coming tonight?
Milly:: Im glad Maher's not dead
Dawn:: I don,t know
Milly:: Ok see you in a while
Dawn:: Sure can I get back in me tree now?
Milly: Certainly Margaret go right ahead!

Anne and I read over Dawn's shoulder and Anne said matter of factly,
"Maher has been happy this week!"
"No he hasn't! He's been so dismal. Have you heard his meow lately? It's so raspy and he can barely croak one out."
Yes, Maher was dismal, and so were we, to some extent; but the fam's home, and this means that the world is set right again.

noah!!!

.take a lesson from this little man on the right way to eat a pumpkin spice cupcake.

^check out daddy's cauldron of chili…Ah!!! so good. nobody makes it like he does. 

and classic bro j telling fireman stories :)

happy night, happy bellies, happy people,

goodnight folks.

saturday hooplas

Along about Friday Mama decided to start sewing skirts for us girls.  Five skirts that we all had to wear by the next night.  So we stayed up until midnight or so, stitching the 'invisible stitch' and listening to as many Doris Day, Cascades, Sam Cooke and Disney songs  as we could until we got slower and tireder…and slower. and sillier and sleepier. The question, of course, was 'would they be finished'???…I felt a little like I was living in one of those atrocious reality shows where there's all this drama and bug eyed tears and a SCRIPT and a happy ending. But there wasn't a script, even though we knew of course that Mama would finish them in time, just because Mama is Mama. And that's that.  We took our skirts to Dawn's soccer game and sewed them there. Dawn almost scored twice, almost tackled a very hideous ref (you know the type) and we all yelled like a good southern family should.  We got things done.  Picked okra in our okra forest after the game, cleaned my room, worked out…. seems like we got more stuff done. I can't remember exactly.  But I know that everyone was 'laid out like flies' as GrandPatty would say. Zonked.  It was a dreadfully good day for an afternoon nap, I'll admit. But then it was time to go, and Dawn needed her hair done, and Milly couldn't find a belt and Chris came - he's so handsome.   Daddy had shined all our boots, so five clomping gals, plus Daddy and Chris and Mama, all shipped off to FSH Benefit for Muscular Dystrophy and the concert we sang in. Cowboy's attire. Amen. A good Saturday.

{to listen to a clip from the concert, click here}

this is saturday all summed up. look at our maple, poor thing. she's all wrinkly and cracked. but she's 

a dear old friend.

cowboy up

villain = merry's nickname for melody

merry to melody tonight:
'villain, i'm going to bed. wake me up in the morning, won't you?
just shake me then talk to me for a while.  but don't do that horrible 'maaayyylaaah…
time to get uuhhhhhhp…uhhhp..up up up!!!!
it's in the moorrrrning….'
because that will make me
 resolve to go back
to sleep.'

night, kids.

of madness and brumly.

In our family we firmly believe in butter, double dipping, and prefacing any story with topics, side stories, tidbits of information and observations, regrets and insecurities - relevant, or irrelevant - as long as it adds a little more spice, background, understanding or laughter to the subject. This last habit of heavily prefacing any story, fact or message was pointed out to us today at breakfast among eggs and buttermilk biscuits, coffee and fresh peach jams.  Unfortunately Daddy had just put some biscuit and jam in his mouth when Abraham began this observation and Daddy had to keep it there for the rest of the five or so minutes that Abe was talking because Daddy never stopped laughing long enough to swallow.
  "It's occurred to me," Abe began, "that it must be a family trait for us to heavily introduce any given subject. We can't just say 'Hey guess what?  Today I got hit by a car at 70 miles per hour!' We'd have to start, 'Well, I got up at five o'clock this morning, and if I hadn't been up at all hours last night, I probably wouldn't have had such a hard time waking up. But really I only drank one cup of coffee, when I should have drunk two - I promise I only drank one - and I started driving my way to work.  I decided about a week ago that I should be keeping up with some more people, so on the way to work I thought I should call so-and-so but while I was doing that the cd needed to be changed, so as I was trying to fix it, I suddenly looked up - and, you know how you have those moments of thinking to yourself right before something happens - I looked up and saw that truck coming towards me and I thought - well, I knew he must be going about 70 miles per hour and I thought - ….uh oh….'

 There are some times you must hold your own hand or your stomach or your knees or some other object because you're simply too tense and limp with laughter to do anything else. It was one of those times this morning because that hit us all square in the chest and realizing that if we ever did have to give a yes or no question it'd be like pulling nails.  That, plus the fact that poor daddy is about the only practical, yes or no person among us and that he's been in the clutch of people who will drag out a topic for however long it takes for them to examine every angle, savor every new glimpse of an old scene, turn over the same words, phrases, predicaments over and over, to where he is dazed in the repetitive grind and can no longer function, but was long lost in the maze of crossfires of winding thoughts and narratives.

   It's good to know these things about one's family, oneself.  I believe it aids in coping - in a small degree - to society and the world at large in recognizing them.

Mama made apple pie. I'm going to make another soon. Very.

saturday

today was absolutely gorgeous. i stayed outside as much as possible and even though our bamboo was chopped down by the hands of angelot, it didn't deter me from taking my usual position in the front side yard beside the now gaping openness of our yard and hers. i wrote and read and was productive, even with them staring at our zoo from their lawn chairs.  

fitly dubbed by jeremy, 'annsanity'

robin egg saturday

we had our first egg hunt ever today and it was ridiculously fun. mama got all the dyes and boiled the eggs and made our baskets with edible grass and jelly eggs. and we decorated eggs, listened to music, and then chris, daddy and mama hid them...felt like christmas in spring. i'm sold. it's an official fulmer tradition for the grey submarine from now on. the red robin egg hunt. i remembered as we were looking for eggs that i used to believe if i would only lie on an egg and keep it warm enough it would hatch. it's been a good good saturday.  after daddy grilled steaks, dawn and i grilled porkchops and hot dogs and then all of us girls climbed the maple tree. so sad. it's going to be cut down. i think also, that my caterpillars are dead, which is too bad. they would have been nice butterflies.  i hope they'll still come out of their cocoon.  here are lots of pictures from today.

venus, dawn's turtle. apparently he's lived in her garden for a good while now, but 

it was only today that we girls discovered dawn even had a turtle at all.

his legs were so rubbery and funny. 

and the way he looked from behind when he walked

was adorably comical.

poor maher.