Hey, guys,
Nana Diaries is moving. Now you can find me and my rants and raves over at Fragrant Liar.
Drop in and leave me a comment. I don’t want to lose my regular readers, so please change me on your blogrolls to http://fragrantliar.blogspot.com. Thanks, and I hope to see you over yonder.
KJ
The black-eyed variety. In our neck of the Hill Country, it’s a long-standing rule that the natives must eat black-eyed peas between midnight on the first day of the new year and 11:59 PM of the same day. This is to ensure that we all have good luck for another 12 months — at which time, we must again immunize ourselves against the funky fickle finger of fate with another oral dose of black-eyed peas.
Naturally, if good luck isn’t a concern for you, there’s no point in forcing yourself to swallow. (After all, those little black eyes watch you the whole time you scoop them up and shove them in. Once, I think I even heard them scream.) And if, like me, you’re not really a native, but a transplant, then you must weigh the folklore for yourself and decide if it’s worth the possibility of fracturing that mirror just when you got all your bills paid. The redneck jury is still out on whether seven years of bad luck is trumped by legumes with peep holes, but why take chances?
Me, I generally follow the rules, if not the superstitions (unless I don’t like them). So today, as I do on this day alone every year, I will eat my black-eyed peas. It’s an acquired taste that’s taken me, oh, about 20 years to acquire. To prevent gagging (and feeling guilty), I enjoy my good-luck fiber in a savory, homemade dish called Texas Caviar (see image left). It’s actually quite tasty, and since one can never be too careful with lucky breaks, I won’t be shy about getting seconds.
What about you? Double or nothin’? Or shall I pass the black-eyed peas?
Tags: bad luck, black-eyed peas, culture, good luck, holidays, January 1, life, nana diaries, Peas, recipes, Texas Caviar
I suck at New Year’s resolutions. Used to be that I’d set really grand ones — with the best of intentions — that in the end I didn’t keep. So for the last few years, I’ve thrown resolutions out at the stroke of midnight. Instead, I adopt a word that encapsulates what I want to achieve during the ensuing 12 months. Last year, my word was “move.” Among the many meanings it held for me, I wanted to move on to the next phase of my life and move into a new place, all my own. There was also “Move over, world!” and “Move that bus!” Though my moves were momentous for me, the successes were not nearly so earth shattering and the hard times never so defeating as for many other people.
Tags: 2008, 2009, goal setting, happy new year, life, midlife, resolutions, thoughts
My good pal Midlife Slices has challenged me (and about 25 other fun-loving keepers of the alphabet) to come up with ten things I love that all start with the same letter. She has tasked me with the 14th letter of the alphabet, so after burning up the brain cells, here you are: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 10 "N" words, favorite things, fun and games, nana diaries, random, silliness
Miss America and Nana are cruising in the cherry hooptie, northbound on I-35 through San Marcos.
From the back seat, Miss America’s small voice sings her made-up melodies: I eat my green beans, cuz they gimme big muscles. Cars are fa-a-ast, bikes are slo-o-ow.
The lyrics and tunes continue flowing while Nana drives: I get dust on my sandwich, and the princess dances under the moon and she drops it like it’s hot.
Nana lifts an eyebrow.
Tags: bonnie tyler, hero, humor, kids, midlife, Miss America sings, nana, nana diaries, random, thoughts
That venturesome furball of mine who returned? Well, she’s gone again, and this time for 32 days. I’m heartsick over it, and have been searching shelters, vets, and petfinder sites, including CraigsList where you can announce a lost or found pet, ostensibly so that pets and owners alike can be reunited. Hard to imagine you could find good samaritans on CraigsList, but I’ve seen it! Just not for Tookata — yet!
Tags: CraigsList, doing the right thing, good samaritans, lost pets, rehoming fee
Today’s word: Yuletidiness. It’s that feeling of Christmas joy that you are expected to get around the holidays, that neatly wrapped box of goodness and light that is your heart, growing three times too large yet still fitting nicely inside your chest, and which causes you to squawk merrily off-key in front of total strangers, spend $15 on Secret Santa Costco gifts you would never buy for yourself, and long sappily for those good old golden days of yore. What is yore anyway?
Tags: bah-humbug, Christmas, family, holidays, humor, life, midlife, nana diaries, random, scrooginess, shopping, thoughts, yuletidiness
Since my daughter TG and the nanababies had already erected the Christmas tree — the day before Thanksgiving — I felt obligated to get into the Christmas spirit, if only for the kids’ sakes. After all, if we adults can conspire to perpetuate the big Santa charade, we should then not be too humbug about the whole North Pole business – just in case it’s not a charade, I mean. So at TG’s request, I took on the centerpiece of the house: the staircase.
Tags: bah-humbug, Christmas, culture, decorating, family, holiday spirit, holidays, humor, life, midlife, zen, zing
So Friday morning, I go down to my local pain management center, ready for my first of three “procedures” that promise to diminish the consistent pain I have from the CATWE (car accident that won’t end). The doctor is to place special needles into the facets of my cervical spine and trigger points, injecting some super awesome powerful stuff in there, ultimately so that I will quit complaining so much to God and all his minions.
Tags: car accidents, cellulite, cervical facets, Culo con queso, health, humor, life, medical procedure, midlife, modesty, pain injections, pain management, procedures, random, sedation, thongs, trigger points
“Heaven’s a bad place.” So says Miss America as we cuddle on the sofa watching Shrek2.
“What?” I say. “Heaven’s a good place.”
Miss America shakes her head and looks up at me with big brown eyes that reveal how much she’s learned of life and death lately. “I don’t want to go there,” she says firmly.
I assure her, “Well, you don’t have to go there now.”
“Only people gets dead there.”
I can’t argue this point.
“So I don’t want to go,” she continues. “Heaven’s a bad place.”
She opens the brightly colored spiral notebook in her lap and informs me: “I’m going to write that down in my diarrea.”
©2008 Nana Diaries
Tags: death, family, grandparents, heaven, humor, kids, life, nana diaries, parenting, thoughts
Somebody over at DivineCaroline nominated me for a really cool award — “Love this Site,” to be exact. To win it, I have to get votes. That means I need your help. So please, if you like what you read here, take a moment to click the DivineCaroline link at the top of the first sidebar and vote for Nana Diaries.
Tags: awards, Bullshit Honors, cake walk, culture, DivineCaroline, Love This Site, midlife, Mr. PotatoButt, nana, nana diaries, prizes, random, the sixties, thoughts
Another lovely blogging award. I am honored! I’d like to thank Smart Mouth Broad, who voted for me and sent me this linky love. She has an awesome blog, so that makes this an especially nice gift to receive.
Tags: blogging, community, kreative blogger award, link love, writers, writing life
My daughter Scoots called me late yesterday afternoon, awash with excitement. She had just cast her first vote in a national election. Lucky dawg didn’t even have to stand around in any lines. I waited yesterday morning for over an hour in my little town outside Austin to cast my ballot. Texas is Redville all the way, but Austin proper is most assuredly blue. As an Independent with left leanings, sometimes I wonder if my vote will make any difference when the state repeatedly crowns the Grand Old Party with or without my help. But exercising my right to participate in electing our leaders is something I cherish too much to forego.
Tags: American culture, bosses, Cockrill, daughters, election, midlife, motherhood, Obama, voting
Got divorced yesterday. Courthouse, at lunch.
We’d been separated for eight months, but it was the plan to end things permanently since before I even moved out. We got married at lunch too, eight years ago. Same courthouse. It seemed fitting to untie the knot in the same place we tied it, without a lot of pomp and circumstance — although the fact that it was Halloween and early voting filled the usually stoic state hallways with the chilly air of a fall festival in Transylvania.
DJ picked me up and we drove to the courthouse, did the deed, and then went to Schlotszky’s, where we honored the demise of our matrimonial union over carrot cake. Well, it is my favorite. And I shared. We’ll probably go to a movie next week.
Man, this is my best divorce ever.
©2008 Nana Diaries
Tags: Cockrill, courthouse, culture, divorce, marriage, midlife, nana diaries, older women, relationships
In Your Words