Author: Kathleen Fisher

We’ve got a family wedding this summer.  I need to start practicing my dance moves now.

We were in bed when Mallie Bee came in and told us the breaking news that Osama Bin Laden was dead.  We turned the t.v. on and stayed up until President Obama had finished speaking.  This morning we watched more coverage, including impromptu gatherings across the country in celebration.

It is unsettling for me to witness cheering for someone’s death, even for the most evil among us.  I don’t know if that makes me a bleeding heart liberal or crazy, but like each of us, this man was born into a family that had the highest of hopes for him.  Instead, his path would break their hearts in three thousand places and surely they must have wondered when they heard the news, if his God would show him any mercy.

About ten years ago, Big Daddy and I started hosting an Easter dinner for those of us who have no family in town to spend the holidays with.  Around year three, BD decided to relax with a glass (or many) of wine once the ham was in the oven.  When the ham was done, the guests had arrived and BD was carving, I told him that he should make some sort of toast before we ate.  I should have given him more notice to gather his thoughts, but until that moment it hadn’t occurred to me either.

We gathered around the tables, BD announced that he’d like to make a toast and everyone picked up their glasses.  And, geez Louise, did he start toasting.  There would be a long pause, we’d all start to lower our glass thinking it was ending and he’d start right back up.  I’m giving him the what the Frank look let’s end this thing before Memorial Day, but he’s not making any eye contact whatsoever.  Finally, he says, “Hey this reminds me of a joke.  Do you know why birds fly upside down over Kansas?  Cuz it’s not worth a shit.”  Hardy, har, har.  That’s when it dawns on me that he’s three sheets to the wind and working a stand-up routine so I jump in and take control of the situation.  Cheers, Happy Easter, God bless us everyone and BD sit your ass down and eat some carbs to soak up that red wine you’ve been knocking back. 

Since then, BD has redeemed himself and every year delivers a lovely, little speech that he has prepared for the occasion.  Now that many Easters have come and gone, the rest of us fondly look back at the Year of the Toasted as well as the start and end of a career in show biz………..Thank you, thank you very much.  I’ll be appearing all next week at the Holiday Inn located in beautiful downtown Decatur.   You’ve been a great audience and hey, don’t forget to tip your waitresses.

Somebody outed Santa Claus and giving the stinkeye to anybody who gets in his way.

I was a late bloomer to the gardening phenomenon, so to speak.  I didn’t get it.  Not only did I not understand it, I was completely bored by the subject.  When I would get in the middle of two gardeners at a dinner party rattling on and on about compost and garden gloves, my eyes would glaze over and I’d repeatedly top off my glass of wine until my glazed eyes became had too much to drink eyes.

My friend pestered me for years to garden and I ignored her time after time.   When another spring was approaching, she firmly said, “You need to garden.”  I just as firmly replied no thanks but then she said,   “You have to do this because you’re creative, ”  It was too hard to argue with that so I gave in, dipped my hands into the soil and was thus baptized into the Kingdom of Gardening.

I was such a rookie at every aspect of gardening that I tested the limits of our friendship with every trip to the nursery.  It is not an exaggeration to say that I struggled for years trying to understand the difference between an annual and a perennial.  At an estate sale, I thought I was buying a spade when in fact I was buying a trowel.  It was only when I paid for it and the cashier asked me if I was laying a ceramic floor did I realize I had absolutely no business pursuing this endeavor. 

I persisted, however, and my first garden was modest and sweet.  I looked after it as if it were a newborn and like raising a child, made many mistakes before it took hold.  A few years and a lot more confidence later, we redid the landscaping around the house and moved my garden so it was steps from the front door and much larger.  Putting a garden in your front yard is either stupid or brilliant, but I took that leap of faith and and flowers became my drug of choice.   When my mom, who is not a gardener, went to a mega-garden center with my brother, I asked her to give me the scoop.  She said it was filled with everything you could possibly imagine but that, “some of those damn fool people were spending three and four hundred dollars on flowers.”  “Damn fools,” I repeated, but inside I envied those shoppers who could pile their plant wagons with all those flowers.

I wouldn’t know where to begin to explain what has happened to me since that initial introduction many years ago.  I study gardening books and growing zones and peer into strangers carts to see what they’re buying.   I long for delphiniums but they never do well in my garden so every year I pass them by and sigh deeply.  Very deeply.  I battle rabbits and when they chewed two flats of petunias, I thought about getting a hunting license.  I have bent over a weak, sickly plant and whispered, “come to Mama,” as if that would cure all its ills and make it bloom.  There is nothing I enjoy more than tending my garden.

This spring has been cold, overcast and often dismal, and my garden, which was knee-deep in leaves, seemed as sad as I was.  When the sun made an appearance, I spent the day cleaning up the remains from winter.  When all was finished, the heads of those dormant flowers were beginning to push their way upward and I was charmed once again.  My old friends had come back and I didn’t feel the weight of the world on my shoulders any more.

Now I am the one at the cocktail party rattling on about flowers and if someone asked me to explain my passion, I would say that this little garden of mine calms my restless mind and awakens my senses.  It is the place I go to dream and plan and offers a winding path of surprises every year.  It knows my prayers and my problems and only answers with color and life.

Eventually, spring will come to stay so I will dig and plant and mulch, and at the end of those long, sunny days, it’s that garden of mine that will have tended me.

For those who seriously want to look more youthful without surgery……….

….and have orgasmic sensations while firming up those face and neck muscles.

The Adams Mortuary, located in Compton, California, has covered a 12 foot wide drive-through with a glass display window so that mourners can pay their respects to the deceased without leaving their car.  Yep, fat-ass Americans can grieve their dead without even getting out of the car and if they stop at McDonald’s first, can gnaw on some supersized fries while telling Grandma she meant so much to them that they can’t be bothered to come in for a look and a prayer card.

I’ll give you some thinking music to ponder this concept………….

Feel free to replay it if need be, but I’m gonna bet the house and say Alex, is the Final Jeopardy question WTF?  

This is BD’s new tub.  He thought it would spice things up a bit.  Har. Har. Har.

Actually, we saw it at a garage sale.  I wanted it for the house.  Oh, BD, a cast iron tub for the upstairs bathroom?  Be still my vintage heart.  BD had other plans – a koi pond and keep your mitts off it, Curly.  It sat for months on the side yard and the neighbors were like, “For krissssssakes, Fishers, keep your erectile dysfunction problems in the house.  This ain’t some commercial.”   To hell with them we said and left it out there until spring.

Last weekend the Cialis Tub got moved to its permanent location by the patio and isn’t she pretty?  The fish will be ready for their new home once BD runs the pump awhile to clean it out.  The power for the pump is coming from an outlet in the basement.

Like so……  BD, shouldn’t we do something about that window situation?  When the raccoons discover your pond, they’re going to come in the house thru the basement window to dry off after their surf and swim.  BD said I was crazy.  He said animals don’t come in houses.  He doesn’t watch Hoarders so he doesn’t know about the old lady who had a house full of chickens.  And I mean chickens everywhere.

Once upon a time, BD and the Boy Child came home from a scouting campout with a snake.  BD put it in a little aquarium with a screen on top.  Shouldn’t you put something heavier on top of that so it doesn’t escape?  Oh, Little Woman, he says, you slay me with your heebie jeebies.

Months later, I’m up and down the stairs on a Saturday morning doing laundry and BD is whistling and wandering around with a flashlight.  I ask him what he’s looking for and he says, oh nothing, just looking.  About the third time up the stairs. two neurons in my brain region make a love connection and that’s when I figured the whole thing out, looked at BD and said, “That fucking snake is missing, isn’t it?”  (No italics and an F-bomb cuz I was really pissed.)   It’s not missing he tells me, it’s lost and he goes back to whistling zippety-do-dah like it’s my, oh, my, a wonderful day with a snake on the loose. 

Not to anyone’s surprise, the snake was never found which is why I try not to keep my butt on the toilet seat too long.  BD says that’s why I’m uptight and constipated, but if it has grown to python size, I don’t want to be in a compromised position should it decide to check out our little Garden of Eden……….

………..because when that snake thinks the moment is right, plenty of trouble could be headed my way.

I’ve been a little overwhelmed this week which explains the lame posting.  I’m in charge of the Easter Vigil reception on Saturday nite for about 100-150 people.  On Sunday, we’re having 30 people over for Easter dinner.  Can you say AHHHHHH???  Today after I grocery shopped and made umpteen reminder calls to volunteers, I crafted.  For hours at the dining room table.  It’s how I handle stress.  I check out with scrapbooking paper and scissors.  I feel better and still have no idea how I’m going to fit this many people in my house, but how lucky are BD and I that we have so many friends?

In the meantime, have the loveliest of Easter seasons when all of life gets a do-over.  Thanks for supporting this writer these last few months.  I heart you all.  Big time…………

Love, love, love, love, crazy love