Bottle Tree

Once a common site in the Southern landscape, the bottle tree is now an increasing rarity as ancient folk beliefs and customs fall from common usage.

From the website http://www.steberphoto.com/gallery/bottle.htm

I made a bottle tree today. If you are unfamiliar with this, you can check the website listed above to learn about their history or click here to see color pictures of a modern reinterpretation. Most of the modern ones I see on the web have been made of rebar or a piece of 4X4X6 timber with dowels or PVC inserted into drilled holes.

I wanted something a little closer to the original concept. I took branches from some of the piles and piles of storm damage in the edges of the woods and lashed a couple together. I "planted" it in a defunct flower bed in my backyard and put the bottles on. It is a work in progress, but I like it.

I guess I became fascinated by them when I saw the one at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson. Maybe I'd seen them in old pictures before, but I'd never really paid much attention to them. I liked the fact that it was a way to reuse the glass, and I love the colors as sunlight filters through the bottles. It's like outside stained glass.

The fact that it's also talismanic adds another level of enjoyment for me. I have always been interested in good luck or protective symbols. I collect them when I travel. Since this is an element of Southern culture, albeit a fading one, I thought it was appropriate to have in my yard.

After making the tree (with considerable "help" from the dogs), I simply sat and watched the light shine through. It may fall apart tonight. I may have to rebuild the whole thing in two weeks. Today, though, it glowed blue, green, and brown in an abnormally-warm December day, and I felt strangely peaceful.

Rereading Narnia

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
C. S. Lewis

I want to go see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe over the holidays, so I sat down last night and reread the first of the Chronicles of Narnia. It was such a good book. It had been far too long since I took the pleasure of reading it.

I had forgotten so much of it. I had forgotten how quickly it moves along. I had forgotten the power of the words and the symbolism within. So much truth is wrapped inside a story that was written for a college professor's goddaughter.

Whether I am seeing it in a cartoon form or reading the book, I always cry over Aslan, and I can never stop the chills that run up my spine when the resolution of that crisis happens. As you may be able to tell, I'm trying not to "spoil" it.

All I can say is that you should read it if you haven't. It won't take long, and I don't think you'll ever be sorry that you did.

Christmas

God grant you the light in Christmas, which is faith; the warmth of Christmas, which is love; the radiance of Christmas, which is purity; the righteousness of Christmas, which is justice; the belief in Christmas, which is truth; the all of Christmas, which is Christ.
--Wilda English

Christmas for me this year was wonderful. I hope the same can be said for each of you who read this. It wasn't about what I got or gave. It was about finally having a family Christmas.

For several years now, my family has been scattered or unfocused. I don't know how to explain it. The holidays have been more or less just another day. There are many reasons for this, and all of them have been valid, but I can't say it wasn't a disappointment to me. Our last few Christmases have consisted of all of us sitting in front of the TV with very little being said.

I love the holidays. Actually, I love almost all holidays. I love the decorations, I love the special purpose behind the holidays, and I love the idea that there are some days in which we honor God, our families, love, being Irish, or whatever. I believe some days should be special to refocus us on the important things of life. Those special days, those holidays, help us carry on through the day-to-day grind.

It's almost like a booster shot to my spirit. I am the only teacher on my hall to hang little pumpkin lights at Halloween, twinkle lights and garland at Christmas, and shiny red and pink garland at Valentine's Day. I long for a set of plastic turkey lights.
I need those twinkle lights. I need those tiny illuminated pumpkins to inoculate myself from the bad things that seem to build up sometimes.

Coming back to Christmas, though, this year we all got together after church on Sunday morning, and I made brunch casserole. We ate and talked and never once was the TV turned on. It was a good family time. I hope it's the start of a new tradition for us.

After Mom and Dad went home, I turned on the Christmas music and just watched the lights on the tree for awhile. The weather outside was bad, so I eventually watched a movie. Just before I went to bed, I turned out all the lights except the one directly over my piano and the string of lights that illuminates my nativity scene collection. I sat down and played all my favorite Christmas hymns one last time for the year. "Silent Night," "O Holy Night," "We Three Kings," and "What Child Is This" are all favorites of mine. It was a very peaceful way to end a good day.

When I finally went to bed, I felt like the day had been a special one. It wasn't like the big family holidays we used to have when I was a child, but I hope that it is the start of a new and wonderful tradition for my adult life.

The Ruins of Shearwater

I went to the websites of the museum and family businesses of my favorite artists, the Andersons of Ocean Springs. There I found decimation and despair. Shearwater is gone.

For those of you who never had the privilege to drive down that twisting, shaded lane and catch glimpses of a life dedicated to art and family, this may not be comprehensible. However, anybody who ever really looked at any of the natural curves of the pottery at Shearwater or sorted through the stacks of prints at Realizations knows what has been lost. That wonderful gifted family had their past, their present, and their future pulled out from under them by a force of nature from which no one could protect themselves.

As I look at the damage, I just cry and cry. Why does this move me more than the other images I've seen? I don't know these people. My short sojurns to Ocean Springs are not enough to tie me to them in any real way. That being said, I feel this loss very personally. Looking at those photos of destruction and reading John Anderson's essay about what has been taken makes me feel as if I were looking at one of Walter Anderson's watercolors of a drowned seabird. The grace of that lifestyle has been shattered, and now lies waterlogged.

I believe that the coast can and will recover. I believe that Shearwater and the lifestyle it represents must recover. While I know that much has been lost, I pray that there will be enough help, enough support for all the Andersons to allow them to save Walter Anderson's works and begin to produce the works of their own talented hands once again. Even though it's just a tiny corner of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, if Shearwater is lost, some measure of light will be lost. If you love it like I love it, please go to the website above and find out what you might be able to do to help them recover.

Todd Agnew

"I need a little more patience in the middle of stress/ I need a little more beauty in the middle of this mess/ Need a little more substance in the middle of this emptiness...."
-- Todd Agnew "In the Middle of Me"

I have found another musician to add to my list of favorites, Todd Agnew. I suppose I am coming to him late, but I think the time he came out with his first album was about the time I was in Japan or in transition from Japan. Regardless of that, I'm glad I found him now.

You can go to this page and hear some of his stuff. I like the actual sound of the music a lot, prone as I am to all things bluesy, but to me, the best part of his music is the intense personal feeling I get from his lyrics. I can hear in them a man who has known darkness and can appreciate God's light.

There is nothing saccharine or trite about this album. Nowhere does it lapse into the expected or the cute. I appreciate that. It is rare to find something so genuine. For that alone, I would have bought it. Agnew's lyrics have the same quality I associate with really good poetry: the exposing of things not always comfortable for healing, for confession, and for letting others know that they are not alone.

Works like this always make me wish I could get to know the artist. There are a select few that I'd love to just sit down in the living room with and talk to. If the opportunity presented itself, I'd probably just turn shy and stupid, but to be able to share with somebody who can be that honest with himself would be a great privilege.

I strongly recommend you check out Todd Agnew's stuff. Maybe someday he'll come close enough to Podunk, my humble hometown, that I can go see him live. I bet it's a great show.

Pit Bull?!

If there was a manual describing ideal Pit Bull temperament, it would probably read something like this: "The Pit Bull is goofily friendly towards people--family, friends, and strangers alike. Known for its sound character, strong nerve, and great intelligence, the breed makes an ideal companion for households with children, while remaining strong and vigilant enough to protect its loved ones if need be."
From the website The Real Pit Bull

I took Britta to the vet this morning (with Dad's help), and it turns out that she's not boxer at all. She's a pure blooded pit bull. I have to admit that I was somewhat nervous about that. I asked the vet about a million questions. I told him that all I'd ever heard about pit bulls was that they snapped and attacked people. He said that it wasn't the dog that went crazy. It was the owner that made them go crazy. He told me that they actually make very good pets.

I felt better after that and resolved to come home and look up everything I could about pit bulls on the internet. I found a really good website and learned a lot. Some of the things concern me....her aggressive tendencies toward my other dog may not go away...but others were very settling. Basically, I should only have to worry about her being aggressive to other animals, not to people.

She was fairly good in the vet's office. She showed some aggression (mild) to other big dogs in the office, but I was able to hold her collar and tell her no. Now that I've read the website, I realize that I got off LUCKY there. She also seemed to react only to the other female dogs. The website said that pit bulls seem to react for strongly to their own gender. She pretty much ignored the two or three big male dogs that strolled through.

I'm going to have to do some obedience training with her. I've never done that before, so I'm a little worried about "getting it wrong", etc. I ordered a recommended book and will start over our Christmas break.

Health-wise, she's more or less okay. No mange, but she's got basic outdoor dog worms. The biggest concern is that she tested positive for heartworms. That tore me up, but the vet said as young as she is (about a year or year and a half), she should be able to take the full treatment and be cured.

It's all a little overwhelming, but I think it's going to work out okay. I'm going to make it work, anyway. As long as I can get her and Yelldo to at least tolerate one another, everything else will take care of itself. If push comes to shove (literally) there, I'll probably grant Yelldo his fondest wish and make him an "in-the-house" dog.

Oh well, if it weren't for the high maintenance animals in my life, what would I do with all my "free time?"

The Christmas Shoes

Most drama in our lives is really rather squalid.
Tom Baker

I realize that I am probably going to hell for this, but I HATE the song "The Christmas Shoes." Every time I hear those first few piano cords, I change the channel on the radio. Sometimes I come in on those last few saccharine little kid words, and I shudder uncontrollably. I almost wrecked this morning trying to get to the channel selection buttons when they snuck it in on my while I was half asleep.

It's hard to put my finger on why a song most people regard as a staple of the Christmas holidays, a deeply moving and semi-religious experience, makes my teeth ache. Maybe it's the same thing I hate about really sad country songs. It's not that I doubt the original sentiment of the song. It's that I think it's crass to take that emotion and try to make a buck off it.

Yes, it's sad. It's impossibly sad. It disturbs me, though, that this type of thing always becomes so terribly popular. Are we all so hungry for a publicly-sanctioned form of catharsis that we have to take it in huge, artificially sweetened, heavy air-play rotation doses? To me, it cheapens the original sentiment that inspired the song. Seeing every woman in an entire beauty shop tearing up while turning the volume on the shop radio to maximum so it can be heard over the dryers is just somehow repulsive to me.

I know this isn't a world-shattering issue. Most people probably either disagree or don't care. I just hope that I can get through the rest of the holiday season without having to hear that melodramatic song again.

New Dog

Friday afternoon, just after dark, a large Ford vehicle pulled up near my mailbox. It was odd because they just kept sitting there. I got up and walked toward the door, and I suppose they saw my silhouette through the window because they pulled away. About ten minutes later, chaos erupted on my back porch.

I looked out to find a beautiful, honey-colored, mostly boxer dog. She was so hungry you could see her ribs, and she was looking through the glass door with the most adorable wrinkled brow. I think it was the wrinkled brow that caught me.

I opened the door carefully (strays are always an unknown entity, especially big ones), and poured a scoop full of food into Yelldo's dog dish. She ate it as though she hadn't seen food for a long time and might not ever see it again. She ate so fast she almost choked herself, and I felt an overwhelming sense of hate for anybody who would let an animal be that hungry.

Deciding to take a chance, I stuck a finger through the door. She sniffed and licked very politely. Feeling a little more confident, I put out my whole hand. When I raised it, she flinched and cowered. Again, I felt that anger. Not only had whomever had gutlessly thrown her out starved her, they'd hit her enough to make her shy away from a casual pat.

Four days later, she's got a collar and a name (Britta because she was pitched out on the Waters), she's stopped eating every morsel in the bowl, and she is a wonderful frisky critter with a huge bark and really, really big puppy energy. I still have to take her to the vet, but she's mine, regardless.

I can't believe the callous crappiness of people. Even if someone is having a problem dealing with an animal for some reason, what kind of person takes a defenseless animal and just throws it away? It may not be a kind thought, but I firmly believe there's a special section of Hell for people who abuse animals.

Britta has a home now, and I'll do the best I can by her. My other dog, Yelldo, is in shock. Britta is about three times as large as he is, and the poor baby is more than a little overwhelmed. I'm hoping we all normalize soon. Until then, I will continue to enjoy looking out whatever door I happen to be at and seeing her cute, curious expression peering back at me.

COLD!!

The heat in my house has been off for about a week. Right before Thanksgiving, some valve-thingy died and now I am very, very cold. Thank goodness I have gas space heaters on the walls. Unfortunately, you have to be very close to them to be warm.

Right now, I'm wearing three layers of clothes and have blue nails. My cats are sprawled on the floor in front of the space heater. They love it. They also love the extra blankets on the bed. We will all be glad when the heat comes back.

I hung Christmas lights Sunday. I also set up my Santa collection and my Nativity collection. Every year, it's like discovering every piece again. This year, I got to put my Waterford nativity out for the first time. I can't get over how it catches the light. I can sit here in my chair wrapped in a blanket or five and watch the light play on it. :)

In addition to heater problems, I also had to have the windshield in my car replaced. About two months ago, a rock from one of those enormous highway mowers dinged me, and one day when the weather got cold, the ding became a run. Yesterday, in the time it took me to drive from home to work, it grew by two inches. This morning, I was grateful I'd called Novus to get it replaced, because I actually SAW the run get longer. I almost drove into a ditch trying to get the defroster off.

Well, there's no organization to this. Maybe thought will return when Christmas break comes. Maybe not.... I'm off to shiver on the couch.