Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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When You Come From Writers, You Write.

   My Great-Grandmother Velma Neiberding was a writer in the most traditional sense.  She was a published author; she contributed to the records of Ottawa county for the Oklahoma Historical society; and from what I understand she also wrote recreationally.  I have a copy of one of her books in hardback, Sugar and Spice, and I will never ever give it up.  She died before I became closely acquainted with her enough to claim any specific influence, but her legacy in the family is still tangible.  And having some of her writing available is a wonderful gift.  It is true that words live longer lives than we do.
   Her son, my Grandpa Jack Dunaway, also wrote.  I don’t know whether he was ever published, but he wrote prolifically.  So much.  And so well.  He made people laugh and feel good with his words, writing about daily life and his experiences in the U.S. Army and with big animals as a country veterinarian.  Just organically great stuff!


   He was an incredibly loving and world-aware man, as witty as my to-do list is long.  He had a way with words that made you want to read about what would otherwise be just the most mundane things ever!  Even after his passing we continued to find typewritten essays and poems, possibly never shared with a soul. 
   Too bad blogging wasn’t around yet for Grandpa Dunaway.  He would have been even more popular than Mrs. Ioneer-Pay Umman-way.
   My Dad is a writer.  He will strenuously object to this label, and he has every right to do so, but it fits.  Too bad, so sad…
   Dad wrote the most humble, beautiful and time-tested message to me at my high school graduation inside the cover of a Dr. Seuss book. 
   Yes yes, I know LOTS of seniors received Oh the Places You’ll Go for a gift, but only MINE has my Dad’s handwritten love letter inside…

   When my middle-little-brother-who-actually-seems-like-an-older-brother and his lovely wife had their first baby…

Aren’t they a beautiful family??

   …Dad shared with us a piece he wrote called PIQ.  “Perceived Importance Quotient.”  It is priceless.  He outlined the aching truth about how parenthood shifts through time, how the complete dependence of an infant and the proportional self-assured feeling of necessity for the infant’s parent gradually devolves.  Sad, true, exaggerated, loving words from a man who has never received the honor he so richly deserves.

   We were invited to respond and Big-Little Brother did so eloquently, but I never found the words.  I can’t get comfortable matching my Dad.  Way to show me up again Joey!  Sheesh.
   My youngest daughter writes.  She is thirteen, and as I sit here her bookshelves and the space beneath her bed are stuffed with journals, notebooks, and errant pads of paper all tattooed with her sprawling thoughts and imaginative stories. 


   At times I have thought she cannot contain the flood, a familiar feeling.  She is talented and passionate and terribly missed in these walls.  But now we are pen pals, and I can read her letters and stories every day!  Words live.

   So the bloodline continues.

Only the Best Car in the Galaxie

   My first car was a 1960 Ford Galaxie.  I loved it.  It was huge and rusty and smelled like a damp cellar, but it got me (almost) everywhere I wanted to go.  I inherited the beast from my Grandpa Dunaway after just a hundred years few months of practicing on dirt roads in Ft. Towson, OK.  Now, you want to talk about good memories, I have a hard time thinking of better ones! 
   Grandpa Dunaway aptly christened the car “Flattery” because, well, we all know where flattery gets you.  Ahem.  This was cute and hilarious to me when maybe it should have been a red flag.  But, like so many teenagers, I made independence the key to my happiness.  The Flattery years were a time for celebration!

   My Dad, always the patient mechanic and city-wide tow service, will certainly beg to differ that I was ever in those years independent.  What a little snot I must have been!  Now, of course, I see the difference between independent and simply mobile.  Yes, that is a huge difference indeed. 
   Thank you, Dad, for always being there to help me out!  I still have no idea what a solenoid does.  And I am sorry I never saved enough money to put cool wheels on that car; I know you wanted it to have baby moons.
   Ole Flattery had a classically loud mid-century horn, loud like a foghorn, which had a habit of shorting out before dawn.  This was a favorite event for the neighborhood, I think.  Kind of bonded all the households.  Helped everyone not sleep too late. 

You are welcome for that, 41st street.

   Flattery’s body was so rusted that now I feel a moral conflict when describing the car as white.  Sometimes if I brushed against it, especially around the driver’s side rear fender, something resembling paprika would cling to my hand or jeans. 
   Don’t worry, though; another feature of my teen chapter was wearing too much black, so no white jeans were harmed in the brushing of my rusty car.

   The front bench seat had its original upholstery.  Well, whatever was left of its original upholstery after the car’s stint in a field.  I found the foamy depression to be very comfortable.  I knew how to move out of the way of that spring. 
   Flattery’s radio was original, too, the awesome chromed push-button kind that is destined to only broadcast KOMA (oldies station in these parts).  
  
   I could write pages about this machine, as it was a character in its own right!  The important thing, though, is that Flattery will forever live in my heart as a privilege I did not deserve and as a host of lessons I could have learned if I was paying better attention.  
  

A New Kind of First Step

   My first baby.  My beautiful, widely talented, brown eyed little girl is embarking on a new chapter of life that will change her life maybe more than anything since leaning to walk.  She is learning to drive. 
  
   And not just the old pickup truck in our back field or her little go cart up and down the long driveway, which were excellent precursors but obviously not the real thing; she is enrolling in actual, real life driving school.  Which means that within months she will likely be seen around Oklahoma City, happily giving all of us pretend heart attacks while we secretly celebrate her growing independence.

   When she learned to walk, it was such a happy time!  She was absolutely joyful about it, like she knew in her wordless baby mind, “Whoa.  This is a big deal.”  She still enjoyed being held, carried, and cuddled, but walking was the shiz-nay.  Her tiny fists could grip an index finger like no body’s business, affording her all the extra balance she needed to make it from couch to chair, etc. 

   Her chubby, wobbly little legs, that soft, feathery brown hair framing Mary Taylor’s face (her great-grandmother).  Glossy, rosebud mouth.  And those eyes. 




   Oh my goodness, she has always had the dreamiest, most liquid brown eyes you can imagine.  She still does, and these days they are tastefully accented by some very grown up swipes of black mascara and silver eyeshadow.  How I miss watching her animated eyes when she tells a story.
   I know that in the future, if we get to hear from her One True Love about why he first fell for her, it will have something to do with her eyes.



   Oh, back to driving…  This is the summer between her Freshman and Sophomore years in high school, and around here that is just the perfect time to take driving lessons.  I couldn’t be happier!! 
   Having long ago abandoned the idea of sternly not allowing my children to grow up, against my Dad’s strong recommendation, this is a time to celebrate!  So celebrate we will. 
  
   My hope is that, in addition to staying safe every single minute of every single journey, my almost grown baby girl will make happy memories, gain confidence behind the wheel and around the city streets, and maybe drive out to see us now and then. 

   She may or may not want me there for her first official trip as Driver, time will tell, but I was there when she took her first step.  And I can feel her belly laugh in my own belly when I remember it.  And I am so thankful for every bit of growth that has brought her this far.  xoxoxo

   http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/search/label/Women%20Living%20Well%20Wednesdays%22%3E%3Cimg border=”0″ src=”http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq297/courtneylivingwell/LivingWell.png” />

Important Book Found in French Quarter

   Sometimes I am lucky enough to travel with Handsome whilst he saves the world from energy crises, regulatory challenges, management mishaps, and such.  Really any escape is appreciated, even to oft-stomped grounds like Tulsa. 

   But another way I am lucky is that sometimes I get to accompany him on trips to amazing cities like New Orleans, from where I might actually originate, despite all evidence to the contrary. 
   Mom & Dad, is it SLIGHTLY POSSIBLE I was born here and you just forgot?  Or did you feed me bread pudding in my bottle?  Did something formative happen to me on the great Mississippi? 



   No?  Eh bien…  I am content to claim Oklahoma as home and visit Louisiana from time to time. 

   On one such N.O. business trip in the warming months of 2010, I had the afternoon to myself while Handsome attended meetings.  I enjoyed lunch of half a cold muffaletta and hot, rich chicory coffee.  With sugar and heavy cream.  Always.  The cafe had a curved painted ceiling.

   And live jazz nearby.

   In the arts district I made purchases of sparkly gifts for my teen aged daughters, and then I found the most beautiful book store.
   Like many New Orleans shops, it was three deeply set, ornate stories stacked onto a diminutive footprint.  It was creaky, painted for the umpteenth time, and crammed to the hilt with treasures.  Treasures the proprietor is happy to reveal to his visitors, but only in hushed tones…  Like he’s letting you in on a little bit of Creole magic…

   This isn’t the same building, but it is a New Orleans building with some elusive magnetism.


   I looked for over half an hour, lazily tempted by five or six good looking titles, when I decided to ask the bearded book pusher for a recommendation.  I asked specifically for anything not mainstream, maybe something local?
   I suppose everyone knows that Anne Rice is just about the hottest New Orleans author known, but the treasure offered me that day was a title not widely published and also one not centered around vampires (arguably her most well known flavor). 

   The Feast of All Saints had three big things going for it even before I swiped my debit card: 

  • Local author in my very favorite city
  • Relatively limited circulation
  • Historical fiction off the beaten path 

Purchased without hesitation, thank-you-very-much. 
This is an unfluffy, uncrunchy image of the book cover.


   I always devour Rice’s prose with shameful gluttony.  She writes with sensuality and  painfully accurate emotional detail.  Her characters are many and varied, and they are each developed exactly as much as you want them to be.  Her stories are reliably complex, fast moving, entertaining…  Feast of All Saints was no exception.
   I blazed through the first third of the book immediately upon returning home, only to drop it in our swimming pool that summer.  It needed to dry out baby! 
   During those page drying days I moved on to a new title and then got busy with back to school tasks and rituals.  This was not a book I wanted to read with divided eyes, so it got temporarily shelved.
   I noticed the now fluffy and crunchy paperback several times throughout the winter of Snowmageddon but could not bring myself to read more, even with undivided eyes, because it had such a summer feel. 
   Do you ever read a book and crave certain tastes in your mouth?  Certain fragrances or tactile sensations?  Well sometimes I associate certain books with certain seasons, and this book begged for summertime.   It demanded humidity and sexiness and profound beauty, just like what the French Quarter provides. 
   So finally late this Spring the reading stars aligned and I resumed my unladylike feast of Feast.  And I loved
Every. 
Single. 
Page.
Full review to follow…
  

Couchsurfers are People Too (part one)

   So, this past winter we stumbled upon this virtual-slash-real life community called “Couchsurfing.”  Have you heard of it?  It is basically a network of groups and individuals who are interested in travelling the globe a little, umm, outside of the box. 
   They like to stay with people in their private homes rather than in hotels.  Or, they like to host such travellers.  Or both.  I guarantee this is happening in your city, and it is happening all over this colorful world!
   Before we go any further, I would love to hear your innermost thoughts right this minute:  Are you thinking, “That is awesome!  I would LOVE to try that!  Hey I know, let’s remodel the guest room!” 
   Or are you thinking, “What a bunch of crazy hippies!  Do they WANT to be axe-murdered?!?”  Most people fall into one of these two categories.

  On we go.

   Handsome and I were introduced to this phenomenon by a friend and coworker, Luis, and Luis’ partner, Kevin.  Super people. 

   Most of OUR friends and family might assume that I was the one who talked HIM into this, but I assure you, it was quite the opposite.  Of course, there wasn’t much talking-into for him to worry about.  My reaction was immediate excitement (placing me in the first category mentioned above), but the fact remains that HE brought this idea home to MOI.  Just for the record.

   Okay.

   So we signed up.  And yes, it’s free.  The first part of the process is building a profile for yourself online.  And just like in junior high when you do the personality-career tests and such, or like in third grade when you write and draw about your personal likes and dislikes, this was fun in a really egocentric way. 
   Handsome and I went to work as a team describing our home, our accomodations, our specific willingness to entertain, cook, drive, etc.  It was great learning more about my husband in this regard, by the way.  Might be a worthwhile exercise for couples, even if you have no intention of being crazy axe-murder-craving hippies along with us.

   Oh, and you get to upload photos.  Nothing like posting a photo of your home online to make you want to beef up the flower beds!  Public shame is the mother of improvement, after all.  Do you think I need more gladiolus here, or more spiralling ivy?

   After gaining our authentication, collecting exactly one personal referral (thanks Luis & Kevin!) and getting generally happy with our profile, we waited.  Unsure of exactly what to expect, I was silently hoping for visitors who would volley to us profound cultural truths and then show us how to cook exotic foods.  I had just read Eat, Love, Pray not long before, so you will perhaps forgive my overly romantic view of this whole experience that had yet to happen.
   We did receive one couch request not long after signing up, We had to decline it though because Oklahoma was then in the thick of a pretty hefty snow storm.  Our farm was without running water, and the driveway was completely impassable.  We felt this was not the picture of hospitality we wanted to display.  Hence, a slow start to our couchsurfing career…
   Before long, REDEMPTION.  Luis and Kevin received a couch request they could not fill due to scheduling conflicts, so they very generously sent the travellers our way.  I was away from the farm that day, shoppping and luncheoning with my little sister (hi Ang!), so the midday notice of overnight guests sent my hostess mind into a mild tailspin.

   Deep breath.  This is what we’ve been excited to do, right?  So after finishing our “very important errands” and just in the nick of time, Angela & I swung by a super classy giant chain store (starts with a W) to stock up on not only guest-worthy dinner ingredients but  also a few spontaneous creature comforts like a new polka dotted body pillow, extra toothbrushes, and vanilla candles.
   Looking back, the body pillow is difficult to explain.  When I saw it in a center aisle though, it stage- whisered to me, “COUCHSURFERS WILL NEED THIS!”  So it became part of our home’s pillow arsenal for a mere $9.

   One extra word on dinner prep for couch surfers:  Handsome and I had the notion that lots of our visitors might never be exposed to Oklahoma except through this experience, so we (meaning I) really wanted to make a splash.  We (meaning I) really wanted to make a Land of the Red Man-Prairie Life impression, ya know?  So lovely pasta dishes, Tex-Mex, and take out Chinese were mostly out of the question.  We were going for an authentic Okie menu, and that proved to be tricky.  What would you have served?

  

  

   To be continued…