Animals Strike Curious Poses

It was hot today. G-man had his football camp this morning until noon. The kids got a slip-n-slide today to try and stay cool. They took a break and were petting the kitties when I went out to take a picture. Maddie told me the kitties have names now; they are Mittens and Paisley. The dogs are jealous of the kitties, so they wanted in the action. 

Tonight Sissy cooked another meal from our garden. We had potatoes, purple hull peas, onions, tomatoes, and our beef. It was all very good.

When I would go to my grandparents in the country, one thing I would look forward to was my grandmother, Ma-Ma's, cooking (and I still do to this day.) She can make anything taste good. She freely uses butter and sugar with no apologies. Homemade rolls and apple dumplings are her specialty.

When I would go and stay with them in the summer, we would gather blackberries. Ma-Ma would find a old cloth, cut it into a a 12" square, put in some blackberries and sugar, and make what she called a "sugar tit." Don't worry, that's not a bad word, because Ma-Ma said it. Another thing she would make that I've never had anywhere else was "sugar toast." Its similar to cinnamon toast. But to me sugar toast is better.

One summer when I was around 13, my grandfather, Paw-Paw, had a  huge garden. We picked peas and dug potatoes in the evenings. I remember he battle the coons, deer and other varmints in his corn. During that time, while I was there, they got a dog they called Lady. (She was the mother of Kelli's favorite dog, Snookums Le' Jay.) My grandfather had a mean bull that we were to be leery of, since it had chased Paw-Paw under a fence. They had a horse that liked to ride under trees to try to scrape me off him.

My dad's brother is 18 years younger than him, and only 4 years older than me. So he's more like a cousin to me than an uncle. When I would go stay with my grandparents, we would fish in the creek and catch little bream (pronounced brim). We would clean and scale them and my grandmother would fry them up. She would make a special sauce called fish gravy to go with them. It was basically fried cornmeal. You could mix it with ketchup when it was hot and it would sizzle. It was tasty. 

It was at my grandparents that I first heard of Michael Jackson. My uncle and I would watch the Jackson Five on Saturday Morning cartoons. In the 80's I was an MJ fan. During the Prince versus MJ era, my friend Hank was a Prince man.  I think because they had the same mustache. (I liked Morris Day better, Jerome.)  A girl talked me into going to see Prince in Purple Rain. I remember because we were the only honkies in the theater.