grace grits and gardening - ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Bat Signal

September 18, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

My mother's Professional Grade Makeup Mirror

Traveling with my mother is entertaining….

Recently we traveled to Washington DC – my mother, her fifteen pound mirror and me. Heavy and onerous, the mirror nearly flattens the wheels on her rolling luggage. The luggage she cannot lift.

Double-sided with circular lighting, you can view your face in natural light. As if that’s helpful. It shines a beam into the heavens as though pointing the way to a nightclub grand opening. I truly expected Batman to appear outside our hotel room window. Professional spa grade, it magnifies pores, hairs, blood, atoms. It could be used to isolate cells, possibly curing cancer. But we have no time for such things.

In between visiting the sites of our nation’s capitol, my mother was busy receiving push notifications on her phone all day and night from her new friends at ChristianMingle.com, an online dating service with daily Bible verses and Christian dating tips…

Me: (asleep) Who is texting you so late?

Momma: Oh I got a flirt!

Me: Huh?

Momma: Oooh and I got a wink too!

Me: Huh?

Momma: From ChristianMingle. A flirt and a wink – that’s what they call possible matches.

Me: What’s the difference?

Momma: Who knows.

Me: Could you send them a bat signal and let them know we are asleep?

Kelsey (my daughter) & the BAT (Momma)

Fun, fun! Really, it is:)

Grace Grits and Gardening

If you are new to my crazy life, click HERE to read why Momma is the BAT and our home the BAT Cave…

Musical Pairings:

Crazy, Gnarls Barkley

Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are. – Batman

Munger Place Days

September 17, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

In January 1977, the National Apartment and Home Builder Convention met in Dallas. On the agenda, a home tour of newly built Fox & Jacob homes, zero lot model homes at the Villas of Las Colinas, several recently constructed multi-family developments scattered throughout city and almost as an afterthought, a remodeling tour with stops in Munger Place and along Swiss Avenue.

These turn-of-the-century-built homes were slowly being saved thanks to a handful of tireless folks with the grace and forethought to recognize these treasures were worth saving.

The first unofficial Munger Place home tour?

This year’s home tour, Munger Place Days, kicks off Friday night with a wine walk and intimate preview of the homes on tour. Saturday’s activities include a tour of six historic homes with riveting histories – including a ghost and an Olympic gold medalist. The tour will continue on Sunday along with an old-fashioned street festival, complete with live music, six food trucks offering everything from whoopee pies to grilled cheese sandwiches, a pet parade, cakewalk, an art fair with over fifty artisans, and much more.

If you live in the metroplex area, take a few hours to step back in time at Munger Place Days. If you live elsewhere, it might be worth a road trip!

talya

Musical Pairings:

Pineapple Rag, Scott Joplin

I looked to the past for guidance…We may talk of saving antique linens, species, or languages; but whatever we are intent on saving, when a restoration succeeds, we rescue ourselves. – Howard Mansfield

Blackbirds

September 15, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Throughout the spring and summer they send up silent prayers. These rough, hardworking, strong farmers ask for very little else other than ideal growing conditions. Not too hot. Perfect rainfall.

Just one more good crop.

Self-taught, yet like highly educated scientists, they control weeds and pests and test soil for nutrients, constantly patrolling the fields, sensing the slightest alteration in the landscape. They hear the wind change direction and feel the days get shorter.

The rice grows. Flat green blades, heading and flowering, ripening into a milky stage. Finally golden brown, heavy, dry. Ready for harvest they pray once again for late summer storms to scatter, to blow over the county, leaving them at peace to work into the night.

Combines, massive and roaring, move into the fields, threshing and cutting, churning up dust and debris, leaving jagged stalks and stubble behind. Leaving duck blinds, partially revealed.