Archives for 2012

So far today…

May 20, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

So far today….

up all night with one sick dog
up early for John’s flight to Vegas
John’s car got sick in route to airport
I drove John to airport
dogs didn’t enjoy leisurely crack of dawn morning walk
dogs ate Tate’s Ray Bans and flip flops instead of dog food
John made his flight
dogs in doghouse
John in Vegas
dead car in driveway
missed yoga class
drinking coffee by the pool
no one died
life is still very good:)

Happy Sunday!

talya

Musical Pairings:

“Breathe”, Michelle Branch

Lucy after trip to
Emergency Vet Clinic
Drugs!

in His Heaven

May 19, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Nana
Frances Johnson Creecy

I believe places have energy left behind from memories of a prior time. Good energy or weird energy, happy or toxic. When we make our annual trip back to Norfork Lake, we always visit the little cove where our dock is still hidden. We troll the holy water there, inspecting the gravel road leading down to the lake, studying the rocks we explored as kids and trying to make out our cabin through the overgrown vegetation. Regrettably, Papa Creecy sold the house and dock when Nana was sick in the early ’80s which made us sick too. The dock is still there, possibly abandoned, and although we don’t own it any more, it will always be ours.

It’s now barely afloat in our once perfectly secluded cove back before Buzzard’s Roost became so developed, when there were no loud jet skis to disturb the peacefulness. That dock was our home base each magical summer. We loaded up the boat in the mornings with John Deere coolers full of ice and cokes and hot dog fixins’, set out to Jordan Island in search of sand and sun and returned to end the day back on the dock sunburned and waterlogged. Sometimes we read books or napped there lulled by the rocking of the lake, and at night we looked for shooting stars, lying flat on our back on still damp beach towels. The stars are more brilliant over the dock.

Me and Staci on the dock.

As kids we explored every inch of that dock including underneath. We spent hours swimming between the floating barrels that supported it and fishing between each boat stall. Nana once fell asleep on a cheap orange plastic raft and floated away so far from the dock we had to pick her up in the boat. I can still hear her laughing. We shot bottle rockets and Roman candles on the 4th of July, listening to country music on our portable 8-track tape player. Our laughter and music echoed from one end of the cove to the other. It probably still does.

One summer we found a flat wooden board in the storage closet on the dock. A gift from the lake gods? It was simply a rough piece of plywood painted white with a faded red stripe and a scratchy rope that served as a makeshift handle. Splintery, hard, homemade, unsafe and fun as heck. We had no idea how it came to be in our storage closet, but we claimed it. Daddy pulled us on that board behind the boat driving way too fast, especially after a few Schlitz. We screamed, “faster, faster” holding on to dear life and our bathing suit bottoms. Clearly, Daddy’s goal was to drown us. It may have been his favorite thing about the lake. As we skidded over the wake almost passing the boat, the water skinned our legs like carpet burn as we eventually shot off head over heels into the lake. If we were lucky, we were still wearing our bikinis when we surfaced with sinuses full of lake water. Later we bought a real boogie board made of molded, curved plastic meant for riding the waves. It was boring.

Daddy
true farmer’s tan

The countdown has started. It’s almost time to visit our cove and recharge from the energy of the lake. A mere 57 sleeps!

talya

Musical Pairings:

“That’s the Way Love Goes”, Johnny Rodriquez
“Summertime”, Kenny Chesney

“God’s in His Heaven, All’s right with the World.” Robert Browning

Kelsey’s Closet

May 17, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

When our neighborhood was platted and the homes constructed, property taxes were assessed per room. And a closet was considered a room. To avoid the closet tax, most Munger Place homes were built without closets. This didn’t much matter back then when people only had a change of work clothes and a Sunday-go-to-meetin’ outfit. Later, closets were added in corners and odd spots as needs changed. Now that everyone has way too much stuff and new outfits arrive daily on the porch steps via one simple mouse click for next day UPS delivery, those closets are stuffed with barely worn clothes and shoes and prom dresses and halloween costumes and business suits that haven’t seen daylight or a boardroom since business casual became the new professional norm.

In our house, Kelsey’s room has the coolest closet. It’s big and spacious and comes with it’s own stained glass window. I do some of my best shopping in that closet. Full of treasures, it’s convenient and the price is always right. Some items were left behind when she moved to Austin for college and some were left behind when she moved to Washington DC for work. On a rare trip home, usually around the holidays, she may leave clothes and take others. So the inventory sometimes changes.

I scored an awesome Michael Kors bag in there. Never mind that I probably originally bought it…. Only so many purses could go off to college. Sometimes I find the perfect tank top right off the rack for a special event. And I found the best pair of J. Crew skinny jeans after Christmas that I can actually wear! Clearly if they were really skinny jeans, she wouldn’t have left them, but they make me feel better anyway.

There is also a shopping bag full of beauty supplies like nail polish remover, lotions of all kinds and shampoo. I haven’t bought toothpaste in a long time. We don’t wear the same size shoe unfortunately, but that’s just as well – she managed to make room for the best of those.

The closet is also full of memories. Like the plastic tub of drill team things, the box of toys including Baby. She never went anywhere without Baby, until she did. And board games we played for hours. There are boxes of awards and ribbons for her many school age accomplishments. The needlepoint “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” I made for her nursery before she was born, rests behind an old jewelry box on the closet shelf.

Kelsey is happy and thriving, busy working and preparing for law school. As she should be. Her baccalaureate poster sits on the closet floor, and sometimes I like to go in the closet to look at the photos on it, just remembering. The closet still smells like her perfume.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.