I’m here today because I have so much work to do, and I needed peace (read: time away from Dominic complaining about the Wi-Fi).
It’s a nice day, so I’m on the balcony. I’m worried about getting a contact high from the clouds of chronic. (New building name: Chronic Condo. Or THC Towers. Or High House.)
The last time I was here to get work done, I got to party with Cardi B, along with everyone else on their balconies.
One time, I was having a girls’ night with my friend Becky (with the good hair).
Some guys two floors down and two balconies over saw us.
Dude 1: Hey Ladies! Dude 2: You with the hair! Dude 3: We’ve got weed. Come on down!
Becky and I are middle-aged women. We are not going to party with random guys — in a pandemic, no less.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t weirdly flattered.
Anyway, thanks for providing plenty of entertainment.
My boys went back to school today. Usually I’d post a photo from their first day of the new school year on social media. This year, it seems silly.
Their bedrooms are their school.
Here it is, for what it’s worth:
Dominic is in 10th grade. Gideon is in ninth.
They are feeling overwhelmed. Seven classes each. All virtual. Mostly asynchronous.
(I’m even overwhelmed by the number of parent emails and texts I’m getting.)
There are thousands of kids doing the same thing, so the network was overloaded. Dominic was in a synchronous classroom by 9 a.m.
It took Gideon until 11 to get online.
But this is the way it is right now. I’m not complaining.
One of the cool things is that they decided they wanted to go to the store to get their own supplies. No ridiculously long and detailed supply lists this year. Thank GOD. (They rarely even used most of the things we just HAD to get.)
One of the not-so-cool things is that we ended up going to Walmart. (Shudder. Big stores now give me anxiety.)
On the way home, Dominic and I had this conversation:
Him: I really would prefer actually going to school. I’ll take my chances with the virus. Me: Great! So you want to put your brother at risk, me at risk, and also your father who has asthma and likely would get the worst of it and die.* Him: Well, when you put it like that, I guess virtual is fine. Me: Mmmhmm.
So, DCSS, keep up the good work. Difficult times call for creative solutions. We will persevere.
You know that adage: What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Sincerely,
Beth, DCSS parent
* Yeah, I exaggerated, but not by much. Eddie has had so many colds that graduated to pneumonia.
Welcome to the club! It’s a good way to make some money, and the Airbnb platform usually makes life easy. Sometimes the guests don’t, though.
I advise you to set clear house rules. Here are mine:
Even then, I’ve had people leave:
Frat-party levels of empties.
Multiple bags of trash even though the chute is right outside the door.
A weave.
Dirty underpants.
A burn mark on the bathroom mirror.
The balcony door open with A/C, fans and lights on.
Bleach stains on the towels.
A pile of wet towels in the bedroom closet.
Balcony furniture in the bedroom.
Something orange and sticky on every surface.
Cigarette stench that required days of airing out and a trip to CVS for three styles of air freshener.
Someone also left an unopened package of bacon, which did not upset me at all.
One thing I didn’t realize when I first became a host is that guests can be dumb. Really dumb. Like how-can-they-live-their-lives dumb.
Take, for example, the woman who is in our place now. She called me at 10 last night because she couldn’t figure out how to turn on the light in the bedroom.
I had no idea of the rarity of an overhead fan with a remote control that features a lightbulb icon.
🙄
But there is a different woman who has the honor of being the dumbest person so far.
Here is the full exchange (I didn’t leave anything out, except part of the map I sent):
Outdoor dining where we could load up on loaded tater tots (and feel our arteries leaden)
The trip also had things we didn’t need:
People without masks
Pickled pigs’ feet
A ridiculously tight valve on the kayak that made it nearly impossible to deflate (Luckily, Mama can charm passing fellow rednecks.)
The loaded tots (Seriously.)
It’s funny to me your brother was bent out of shape and jealous when we got back. I invited him. He didn’t want to go. As usual.
Dominic: I thought you were just going for a day. I didn’t know it was an overnight trip. Me: You didn’t listen. I tried to tell you about the cool cabin, but you weren’t having it.
Anyway, I enjoyed spitting cherry pits off the balcony with you while we listened to Alan Jackson (in true redneck fashion).
I hope you’ll do things like this with your kids if you ever have them. Or at least remember these times when I’m old(er) and (more) decrepit and unable to haul a deflated kayak up and down a hill.
Dominic was horrified when I picked him up yesterday with a car full of groceries from there.
Him: Mama, I ain’t about you disrespecting my employer.* Me: When Publix stocks the coffee I like and sends me coupons, I’ll shop there.
Meanwhile, his newly employed bagger brother reluctantly went along with his mother, the bad influence. He did at least practice his skills at your competitor and judged the bagger there quite harshly.
If you want the loyalty of all four of us, take a page out of your competitor’s playbook.
For your convenience, here’s a link to my coffee of choice.
I believe you have all my home info. for the coupons.
I have a terminal degree in my field, work in higher education and wear suits/dresses to work (even in the age of COVID-19).
You’d trust me to teach and mentor your college-aged children, right?
But under the collar of my professional lady clothes, my neck is red.
Proof:
I’m barefoot even as I write this. When we lived on a lake in Savannah, I could go days without wearing shoes. I never let myself get Jiffy Feet, though. That’s gross.
I used to drive a crappy Ford pickup truck. Stick shift. So old the shine was gone from the paint. I recarpeted it myself. Sometimes when Eddie drove it, I’d roll down the window and stick those bare feet out of it.
Give me a beer over a cocktail any day.
I don’t have anything against boxed wine.
My favorite summer outfit features a concert T-shirt and cutoff jeans. (Not Daisy Dukes, though. I have kids.)
Thanks for taking me to “shoot the hooch.” I cannot believe I grew up in Atlanta and never did this before.**
I almost feel like I need to turn in my Southern girl card.
But not quite, as I adapted like a champ.
Ratty visor? Check.
Brewery coozies? Check.
Cooler filled with beer? Check.
Bungee cords to tie our tubes together? Check.
Bikini to get some sun (even though I know better)? Check.
The sun was hot. The beer and the water were cold.
It was a perfect day.
Perfect until I fell in, that is. (No, apparently I CAN’T reach your speaker carabiner.)
So there I was, dangling in the water, contemplating how best to get back in the tube when something touched my leg.
SOMETHING TOUCHED MY LEG.
My human brain knew it was just river weed.
My lizard brain lost it.
I started scream laughing. You started scream laughing. At me.
Here’s a dramatic re-enactment of me, slippery from sunscreen and still screeching, trying to get back into the innertube.
In addition to making sure to stay in the tube next time, we also will have to do a better job of tying you to the cooler float so you don’t end up in someone else’s pod, flouting social distancing expectations.
Dear Tony (perhaps not your name in your hummingbird circle, but this is what we call you):
Thank you for giving me a magical moment. I sit on our balcony every day, watch you at the feeder I set out only a month ago, and try to be still so I don’t scare you.
Today, you flew over to me and hovered directly in front of my face for at least 30 seconds.
I didn’t dare to breathe, even though I was squealing inside.
I could hear your wings beating.
I felt the wind from the flapping on my face.
After you satisfied your curiosity, you moved off a bit to the side, and I took your picture.
We assumed there were more of you, but pretended it was just you: our friend Tony. As it turns out, it may just be you. Apparently, you and your kind have excellent memories and remember your favorite nectar spots.
Lending credence to the theory of one, you feed every 10 minutes or so. So I set my stopwatch when you visited, then stopped it when you came back.
Apparently, you can recognize the person feeding you by sight and voice.
So maybe you just wanted to get a better look at the person feeding you.
And it was then, 30 minutes in, that someone finally explained why religious folks would support Trump:
It’s not about four more years. It’s about 37 more years. It’s about two more Supreme Court justices who are pro-life, pro-Israel, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
Without that, according to him, “We won’t have the freedoms we grew up with.”
“What freedoms are those?” I was wondering when the dude brought out his saxophone.
I’m not kidding.
Jentezen Franklin plays “America the Beautiful.” He didn’t follow with “Baker Street,” sadly.
I guess he didn’t want Cain to upstage him.
This was getting a talent show kind of vibe, so I was excited to see what Bishop Harry Jackson would do.
But he just promoted his new book and explained racism to a room of mostly white people. Y’all were polite, but unenthusiastic.
Bishop Harry Jackson didn’t show off his musical talents.
Interestingly, he was the first person to mention the president by name: 45 minutes into the event.
Pro-life: Just unborn babies, apparently
Pro-marriage: Only between a man and a woman
Pro-freedom: Religious freedom to discriminate
Pro-constitution: A Tea Party battle cry regarding the expansion of the federal government (maybe)
She talked about squash plants and chipmunks. I was a little confused. But then she said:
Some things never change. Some things do change. There was a change of the guard in 2016.
And then she said something about Planned Parenthood “ripping little babies up.”
I see. Abortion. That’s the main driver.
OK, then. Let me say this about that:
No one is hyped to get an abortion. It’s a last resort. Also, no one is “pro abortion.” So let’s agree on one thing: The goal is to reduce abortions. How do we do that?
As we’ve seen with prohibition and the “war on drugs,” making them illegal won’t work. People will find a way, but it makes it very dangerous for women. So to me, the solution is to put more money into sex education, healthcare and contraception.
If you are pro-life (and really, aren’t we all?) then you should be supporting organizations like Planned Parenthood that actively help women with the above needs.
Alright.
Moving on to the next speaker, Richard Lee, who is as orange as the evening’s celebrant: the Cheeto in Chief.
He didn’t address abortion like everyone else. His main beef seemed to be with what is being taught in school: “garbage.”
Oh, and the Antichrist in the form of Democrats.
The Democratic Party has been taken over by the Antichrist. It’s an evil party.
I thank God that he sent Donald J. Trump to us. He is a gift to the church of Jesus Christ.
As much as you seemed to like this statement, I could tell you were restless. He willfully went over his allotted time and joked about it.
You were ready for the final act: Pastor Paula White. I found out later she is married to Jonathan Cain. Ah. He’s her third husband. With overlaps in relationships. So she’s truly taking those commandments seriously.
I’d like to nominate my son Gideon for Best Actor in a Leading Role. As Prisoner No. 4 in “Quarantine 2020,” he was as good, if not better, than last year’s winner Joaquin Phoenix.
The humanity — the pathos — he brought to his role really is unparalleled.
Just look at his commitment to character in this scene with his father:
And his performance during last night’s climax when all our test results came back negative?
It featured effusive kissing, hugging, brother-wrestling: All you would expect from an Oscar-winning performance. The display featured the emotional depth of Sally Field in “Norma Rae.” (And watching it was akin to watching her acceptance speech for “Places in the Heart.”)
