So, please read this post. You’ll be glad you did. It speaks to the heart of how Nashvillians feel right now.

Hello America Letter

Sorry, I’m not trying to rub it in, but I NEVER WIN!

Look what I won!

Anyway, it made me really excited. Which means I will be doing a contest here really soon. And I haven’t forgotten my blog, but finals start next week and I’m slammed. Please be patient and love me anyway.

The last gift I opened said “This certificate redeemable for one puppy of your choice!”

Oh, the excitement and joy! I knew exactly what I wanted: a blonde cocker spaniel. My mother, who tends to hate animals, stipulated “this is an outdoor animal” while I cajoled and begged and pleaded.

On New Year’s Eve, we finally found him. The most beautiful blonde cocker spaniel puppy there ever was. He hid from everything and because of his introversion, I called him my little “Shadow.” Later, I realized that it was a name mostly reserved for black animals, but I was 11. Cut me some slack.

In a rule that I still think was completely moronic, I was required to spend an hour a day with Shadow. I didn’t mind the hour, but there were days it was freezing outside and this was not an easy task. When it was at the freezing point or raining, I could bring him into a shed we had in the back yard or into the garage. I remember holding him in my lap and stroking his long, soft ears for so many of those hours and, though he was an incredibly hyper dog, he let me.

My time got shorter as I got older and became more involved with school and work. I took my first real job at 15 and I had to “make up” the time on the weekends, when I could. This led to some days where I would attempt to entertain Shadow for four hours at a stretch and he grew weary of me.

As he grew older, the gate in our backyard did, as well, and he grew more mischievous. He began to break free of his jail more and more frequently and somehow, no one had enough time to fix the gate. I spent hours searching for him and thankfully, because he had a collar, we always managed to find him.

Until early one morning over the summer of my 18th year.

The phone rang and woke me out of a sound sleep. It was my grandmother and asked me if my dog was missing. I had no idea and looked out the backyard where I could see the gate standing wide open. We’d had a storm the night before and I had no idea how long it had been open. I swallowed the lump in my throat and said that yes, I thought he might be.

Her voice quivered and said that her neighbor had called and said a dog had been hit in front of her house. It had been grazed by a car and was still breathing, but it wasn’t going to make it. It wasn’t bleeding, but the collar had my name on it. Was it mine?

I couldn’t speak.

My grandmother said that animal control had been called to come get the dog and not to bother coming to see him. He wasn’t going to make it.

I still regret not coming to see him. I was such a coward. He lay there alone.

30 minutes later, I heard a knock on the door. A tall man stood there and gently removed his ball cap. His eyes filled with tears and he said, “I got your dog in my truck. He got hit by a car. He didn’t make it.”

I nodded mutely and stared at the words forming at his mouth.

“He ain’t bleeding or nothin’. He looks fine. You can see him if you want to.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks and I shook my head head softly from side to side.

“I’ll take good care of him, miss. They don’t always take good care of these dogs, you know, but I knew he was special, this one. You took real good care of him and groomed him and everything, didn’t ya? I’ll take care of him, myself. I’ll make sure he’s ok, miss.”

I tried to smile and croaked out a thank you as the tears continued to roll from my eyes. He nodded slightly and backed down the concrete steps. He took one last look to the back of his truck, where I knew my dog lay.

I couldn’t close the door until the truck was out of sight.

All dogs go to heaven. I can’t believe in a heaven that doesn’t have them. They are the most pure hearts besides children and if there is an all-encompassing creator, surely He loves the pure hearts. If He doesn’t, then what kind of heaven would it be? I don’t want to be anywhere that doesn’t have my dogs.

Sometimes I dream of petting long, soft ears…

Last week wasn’t great either.

This may mean that I need to go ahead and do another giveaway because my focus is just shot.

I’ll think about that. Keep your eyes here, even if there isn’t much to see, because if I survive mid-terms, there will be something worth it here soon.

I’m hoping to have a video of AJ, or at least the back of his head, wailing the Beatles very soon.

I remember one time when my cousins and I were in my grandparents basement during a storm. Clearly, it had to be after Easter, as we had each dragged a bag of candy onto the bed downstairs and we were bartering candy to one another so that “no one would starve for the duration of the storm.” Melodramatic little beasts, weren’t we?

There is something about a good storm that appealed to my grandfather. I don’t think he could explain it, however, because I have inherited it and I can’t explain it, myself. Rain, thunder and lightening are peaceful to me. They soothe me.

It could be because they remind me of him. He’ll always be the father figure in my life and he’ll always be my hero. Maybe the rain reminded him of someone.

Maybe it just had the “cool” factor that it has for my son, AJ. He likes nothing more than to stand in the rain. He’ll curl up next to me and use his cajoling voice and ask me sweetly if he can wear his rain coat and boots and stand outside. I smile just as sweetly and tell him no. Most times.

But part of me, that part that is still the child on the porch, smiles sweetly back and, now and then says, “Get them on. You’ve got 10 minutes and if you see lightening, get back in here.”

There’s just something about a thunderstorm.

Yep. I’m admitting it.

If nowhere but in our head, when we hear the sirens, we’re guilty of rubbernecking via our neurotransmitters and our catlike curiosity overwhelms us. You can be the person who is better than the rest of us and denies it, but the truth is that the sirens are set up to get our attention and when we hear them, we want to know what is going on and why.

This has always been apparent to me but it seems to be more glaring this week.

While we were heading out of Chicago last week, we saw 2 police cars go flying past us and, immediately, those of us that were in the car wanted to follow those cars. We don’t know where they were going. It’s possible that they were going to find a stolen bicycle. All I know is that it was human nature for all 5 people in that vehicle to want to know what was going on and why.

My mom commented that my aunt, who has since passed, used to take my younger cousin ambulance chasing. Well, not really ambulance chasing, but police car chasing. It’s true. She was an EMT for a while and it gave my cousin a thrill, when he was really little, to follow the blinking lights. We also have other odd traditions in my family that may soon come out here, but the truth of the matter is that my younger cousin cherished those times.

It came up again on Saturday at AJ’s baseball game. We were in a different part of the park when we saw lights and heard sirens and a Fire & Rescue vehicle went screaming past us to another part of the park. People stopped watching their beloved children to crane their necks at the vehicle. I can tell you right now that we could not see what was happening. Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance came screaming in.

I still don’t know what happened, but I know that most of those loving parents still couldn’t tell you what happened in their kids games for that 15-20 minutes on Saturday.

We’re all ambulance chasers.

It’s how we roll and it’s in our nature and denying it is futile. But I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.

I will say that I had a great weekend spending time with our friends over the weekend in Atlanta. I don’t “party down” but watching everyone else do so was simply fun and simply exhausting. This was me after two naps Sunday night.

I’m a happy camper.

Please check when you post comments to giveaways as the spam filter may be grabbing you. I just approved 3 comments to the giveaway that were not there prior to the randomized choosing of the winners, simply because I was not aware they were there. If you are getting stuck in the filter, please email me at my name (can be found on the author’s page) at blueshelled dot com. I will try to check this more frequently, as well. I want to apologize to anyone this affects.

Sincerely,
J

If you haven’t made plans for today, I highly recommend clicking yourself over to this site and see if you can find the 50 movie titles hidden in the painting.

Anyway, when I moved to the South, I was unaware of the problem that was about to happen. I was about to gain copious amounts of weight due to a severe problem: Southern women can cook. And when I say “can cook” I mean Southern women can make food that will make your mouth water and your eyes hungry just by thinking about it.

They have managed to make green beans bad for you by wrapping them with bacon and covering them in brown sugar and it is a gift to your mind, heart, soul and stomach. I haven’t had those green beans in 4 years, but I dream about them now and then. There is never a day or time I will say “Oh no, I just couldn’t eat any more Southern green beans.” It’s just not true.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Southern hospitality and class are attributes that are bred in Southern women and cultivated from a young age. Cooking is the same. Recipes are handed down and a great source of pride. One of my favorite times while living in another Southern state, not Tennessee, was getting my greedy little hands on a church cookbook that had recipes I’d come to know, love and crave. I cackled as I flipped through page after page of “my precious” recipes.

Then I tried to make one and it didn’t TASTE as good as it does when made by someone born and bred in the South. Dang gnabbit.

I guess it must be the secret ingredient: genes.