why i didn't go to the mountains again this year.

 it's hard to type when your pain level

is in the ass. literally. no one seems to understand

the over riding need of attendance to such a pain

supplication, ritual, delivery of the drug.

not that i'm asking them to. it's more an excuse

for my nagging ego, why ddidn't you finish

unloading the china cabinet, why can't you pay a goddam bill

or begin, even, a load of laundry. and to think i wanted

to drive 400 miles to see death come on the leaves

cuz the colors are so pretty. tho i feel the periodic need

to visit the mountains, inhale

 air that's closer to the limits of tolerance and i did take

the time off to do the drive but honestly i like to be passenger

and tho my car's a dream to drive i just want to look out 

and navigate, not steer. so i won't be going. ima put new floors

in the kitchen instead . i hope. i pray to my  sadistic gods

i will do it if he will. let him will. 

i needed 2 days to recover from  not having citrucel for a weekend.

so i dunno what i was thinking i'd be cruising hiway 41 to us 1 to 

hickory. then an hour to the mountains. needed a second pair of eyes even

if i were to be  driving cuz i like to keep mine on the road.

my dad might have gone but he'd already done a solo

trip to georgia to see family, perhaps a reunion.  he went by

to see aunt j  who just turned 99 but she

was away at choir practice so he  left a balloon and a pound of butter

on her porch. butter? i asked. he laughed, that small but punctuated heh 

heh he emits when he's got a juicy bit to share. 

she was on facebook showing how she'd got 20 pounds of butter

from the local farmer's market for 10 dollars, she was so proud.

someone told her at your age

don't you think that's a bit optomistic? 

she told him buddy, at my age, everything's optomism!

she still active in the church i mused, maybe she got something there

well, dad replies, it's prolly more like god don't wanna meet her yet

he's enjoying heaven too much. heh-heh.

my granddaughter, whose middle name is the same, wants to meet her.

the last time i saw her was a family reunioin prolly 10 years ago.

obama was up for re election. before the prayer, she gave a speech 

about  voting ,worthy of the state of georgia. how we as privileged 

family, she used that word, it was our duty to vote the right way come

this election time. i wonder how she'd react to her mixed race

great great grand nephews, who live in poverty via they momma's choice. 

i wonder if she'd feel honored at the choice for granddaughter's name. she

shouldn't. it's not after auntie but after our grandmother (her great great) whose

middle name was j, but   having died so long before her birth, could not be met.

she talked to me about her trip to north dakota, a missionary trip

her and her church had funded to go spread the gospel on the reservations.

there is some talk in the family that we all have a great great great great

gramma who was full blooded something. cousin r told me on the phone

one time about it but i forget the details. it's not important in the overall

scheme of passing in america. she said aunt j was not pleased

with the geneology reports. i wonder if she's done a 23 and me...

anyway, i always thought we were cherokee. my daddy said after a summer

of beach my skin was red as an indian.;hair, straight as native, but not black;

eyes, both his and mine, the color of florida rivers surrounded

by cypress, clear, dark, earthy brown drowning pools; the epicanthal fold

which grows more prevalent as we age.  priveleged she said. and we are.

or they are. blonde, blue eyed, buxomed, bmi healthy, built on the land wealthy

that side of the family, the older brother's children's and grands, whom she

claims as her own since her adopted son turned out fairly do well but

ulitmately failing, dying before her as well, the rest of us she 

tolerates as one does the poor kin, the wretched , the losers. it gives her

sustenance to know that she loves all god's little lambs.

but god? i think sice he's promised her certain things that will be 

in heaven, he's waiting a minute. cuz she's a mighty stickler for proper.

and we need more of that on this plane.