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Archives for 2012

Sugar Sugar!

August 7, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

This past weekend, in a weak moment I shall blame on the blazing temperature which is affecting my judgment,  I bought a party size bag of peanut M&Ms. ThereWasNoParty. I don’t typically eat that much candy or chocolate. Sometimes a girl just needs a fix. 
My craving would have easily been satiated with a regular, one-serving, sane-person-sized bag of M&Ms, but NEVER would I EVER buy a small sized bag. That would be buying junk food obviously meant to be inhaled by yours truly. 

Instead I opted for the Route 44 bag large enough to feed a class of 3rd graders after recess. It comes with the possibility of sharing with a crowd, the suggestion of a party. A hint of fun times to come. Yippee. 

In a crystal bowl, the M&Ms become art on the piano like a vase of flowers. A pop of color. Visitors can partake as if the M&Ms are fancy hors d’oeuvres, like a bowl of Spanish nuts for impromptu guests who stop by. ThereAreNoGuests.

Jeff, our builder, did stop by the other night to discuss our hail damaged roof. He ate two M&Ms from the bowl. I felt like such the hostess:))  Melissa, our neighbor, stopped by to ask if we wanted to sign a petition. We were so wrapped up in Season Two of Mad Men I totally forgot to offer her any ‘dessert’! Bad hostess:((
Of course, I am the only one eating them. I’m the only one here. John is at work or out of town. The dogs can’t eat chocolate. 

Why on earth did I buy those M&Ms? Of course there was a full moon last weekend….

talya

Sugar Sugar – The Archies

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart. Erma Bombeck

Lost

August 6, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Things don’t just vanish into thin air. There must be a valid explanation. Right? One moment I was wearing my wedding band and the next moment it was gone.  Nowhere to be found. 

It must be somewhere.
I didn’t leave the house except to take Lucy and Annabelle on several hot, miserable walks around the neighborhood. In this nearly unbearable heat that swells my fingers like Vienna Sausages, I can’t imagine it slipped off my finger during a dog stroll.
I cleaned house and did some laundry that day. In the process did I subconsciously take it off and place it somewhere odd like inside the refrigerator? Did I absentmindedly lay it on the coffee table while dusting tempting Annabelle or Lucy to snatch it? There was clear evidence that someone had been on top of the coffee table. Evidence in the form of a squeak toy placed in the center of the table. A squeak toy traded for a platinum ring? 
I have turned my house upside down searching. I’ve retraced my steps. I’ve gone through the trash bags which was disgusting. I’ve monitored the dogs’ poop(!) for two days which is even more disgusting. I’ve crawled on my hands and knees looking underneath rugs and appliances and down sink drains. Bermuda Triangle.
There is only one plausible explanation for this disappearance. The Borrowers.
As a kid I loved to read The Borrowers by Mary Norton. The Borrowers were a family of teeny tiny people who secretly lived underneath the kitchen floor of a house in England. To survive they simply “borrowed” from the “human beans” who lived above them.  When something went missing in the house such as a button or a tiny toy, the Borrowers had likely taken it to their home below the floor to be used as a furnishing of some sort. A matchbox served as a piece of furniture and a postage stamp hung on the wall as a painting. It was completely believable. I still believe.
Hello? Any Borrowers under there?

Looking for clues, I closely inspected our old splintery kitchen floorboards which have gaping cracks wide enough to lose small trinkets. I’m pretty certain my ring is down there being used as a wheel or a hula hoop or wall art.

What other good explanation is there??

talya

Musical Pairings:

Lost Soundtrack – Parting Words

Hurley: How exactly does something like this happen? 
Danielle Rousseau: Are you on the same island as I am? 
Hurley: Guess that explains it.  – Lost: Exodus: Part 2

Cruel Summer

August 2, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Here we are again. Sitting smack dab in the middle of another sweltering summer. Another obscenely hot and cruel summer. Motionless and glaring. Water droplets from sprinklers evaporate before touching the parched grass. Mother Nature sends no rain for the crops.  Evidently she holds a grudge.

Yesterday I fried an egg in the backyard by the swimming pool. The pavement burned my feet and the skillet handle scalded my hand, as hot as the oven. The pool water is probably hot enough to poach an egg. Even the kitchen tap water is warm. 


Every night the super enthusiastic weathermen of Dallas try to inject a new twist into the forecast. Something to justify their time slot before sports. Before the Olympic news and Dallas Cowboys training camp. But there is nothing new. There won’t be anything different until that first cold snap on Halloween, if we are lucky. The high’s and lo’s are fancifully displayed and the heat index is thrown in for effect as the entire Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex collectively gasps. As if there is a distinct difference between 110 and 112.

No matter how high the mercury soars each day this summer, the record high temperatures hold firmly in place. From 1980. Nothing compares to the summer of 1980. The summer I graduated from Rivercrest High School. The summer we did rain dances in the front yard in air that cloaked our bodies like gauze.  The summer daddy had a scorched crop yet forked over college tuition. The summer we nearly had to bury him on the banks of Little River.

In 1980, thousands of lives were lost and crop damage totaled in the billions. Beer sales in Texas were at an all time high.
Irrigation. Rice. Tate Farm.
Thank goodness we irrigate the crops now. 

Only 51 days until Autumn….

talya

Musical Pairings:

Long Hot Summer Days, Sara Watkins
Cruel Summer, Bananarama

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.” Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting.
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Hi! I'm Talya Tate Boerner. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE (2016)

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law (2020)

BERNICE RUNS AWAY (2022)

THE THIRD ACT OF THEO GRUENE (coming 2025)

Recent Ramblings:

  • Sunday Letter: 03.29.26
  • Sunday Letter: February 22, 2026
  • Our Garden Mission Statement
  • Goodbye, 2025. Hello, 2026.
  • Sunday Letter: 11.23.25

Novels:

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