RebL Books

Killing Time & a Review

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The poll closes in five days and it appears as though my multitude of five imaginary readers (thanks Dad, Volpone, Shylock, Rover, and Mrs. Pinchwife) want to know where I refuse to live. Then again, yesterday I received six of the cutest photographic gifties, so perhaps the pulse of the people will change.

In the meantime, a certain 7-YO is getting a jump start on the summer promises she made to her teacher. Of course I’ve obscured their identities so no one will ever know of whom they read. I’m certainly not implying it’s these jokers. Clearly these two straight laces couldn’t be carried away to story worlds.

Dear Tree Teacher, I finished reading Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Basil, by Wiley Miller and I thought it was a touching story because there was a friendship between a boy and a girl. One day at school, there were a few girls going to the playground and a boy asked if he could play with them. They said “No, you are a boy.” I wish more people were like the characters in The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Basil. I also liked the part in the book where it said what makes music magic. I do think music brings joy. Love, the 7-YO girl

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What a Rush!

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At age 14 I lived in the last house on the left (the literal one, not the movie one). The tree-shaded, dead-end street played home to three main residences, but so many more of us lived there. My grandmother and great grandmother resided across the street. My current computer guru lived in a tiny cottage out back making stuff on his Mac for the Oklahoma Film Society or something cooler than whatever I was supposed to know about Algebra. Various people moved into and out of our basement. There were others.

Our House was a very very very spooky house. I foolishly didn’t want to live in Norman. Midwest City was much less pretentious and much more edgy. Big bro and I used to sneak out to find an oasis from the land of upturned Polo collars, of which I totally would have been a citizen if I owned more than one Polo. We would catch the midnight show of Rocky Horror or run around the cemetery or see who was at Café Royal. We didn’t have to sneak out. My folks were way lenient about that sort of thing, but sneaking out made it all the more fun. Once we returned home about 2 a.m. running down our little street in spite of the fact that our dad was standing in the middle of the road smoking a cigarette under the full moon. He just hung his head. It made no sense to him at all that we would sneak out but neglect to sneak back in. I don’t recall that we got in all that much trouble, however, the shame of our dumbassary clouded the next couple of days.

It was about this time that my taste for Alternative Music, whatever that was, hit my radar. Big Bro was listening to “88 Lines about 44 Women” by The Nails (mental note, put that on the iTunes list). He picked it up at the used record (vinyl, I said it) store on Campus Corner before Harold’s bought the whole damn place up. I also caught my dad singing Dead Milkmen. Or was it Dead Kennedys? Eeww. Dad had to tell me that he knew a thing or two about hep — a fact I seriously doubted and yet totally believed.

Soon after, Dad’s friend Rush (pictured above and ripped off the LA Times) arrived for a visit. I had met Rush by a different name, but he was the same impossibly cool. He said things like, “Better dead than mellow” and “Bury Dali in Lichtenstein.” I used that latter line to end a Blue Book essay on First Amendment Law in college when it was clear I would run out of time without a conclusion. It won big points. I asked Rush why he thought Dali should be buried in Lichtenstein. “Why not?” he said. And he was right. After all, isn’t The Lizard King buried in Paris? He also played a song for me that he’d been working on. The lyrics were as follows:

I’m sick of everything.
So sick of everything.
I’m sick of everything.
I’m sick of you,
And people like you!
I’m sick of your sh*t,
And I’m not going to take it!

Ah, the beauty. It was my anthem.

Rush is famous.

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Fun with Google: Part 2

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I caught these mourning doves doing the dirty deed. Every day they are out there. I don’t find doves to be all that bright. Rather I find haphazard nests on precarious perches with sad fallen eggs splattered nearby.

I’ve been watching a pair humming birds outside my picture window for some time. This photo wasn’t taken with some fancy zoom. These birds were about four or so feet from where I sat in my big red chair. They are anna’s hummingbirds with shiny red necks. They weren’t fighting as territorial birds often do. I wondered if perhaps they were related.

I don’t have photos of the verdin or quail as my sweet innocent Princess of a cat is very much pleased by their slaughter. That sucks really. It doesn’t suck like this:

You can ask the 9 YO boy. Nothing sucks worse than changing the oil in Mom’s car.*

In reverse: Mom. Suck. Bird. This brings me to Denveater’s Google Search Laffy Time – a roundtable examining the myriad ways in which people arrive at a blog. Yes, someone arrived at my blog with the keyword search, “Mom suck my bird.”

Rather than going to a particular post, they came to the main page based on the posts A Bird Pooped on my Head and Jesus Can Suck It. Incidentally, that bird poop post scored another interesting keyword search – “pooping into oblivion.” My heart weighs heavily for that surfer and what s/he must be suffering.

What’s fascinating about this particular searcher is his/her determination to find my blog. In conducting my own “mom suck my bird” Google keyword search, I waded through pages upon pages of results. Honestly, would you be disappointed if you were looking for “mom suck my bird” and found Mom-a-Tron instead?

* His attitude increased mightily after the car was jacked up and he got into the mechanics of things. I think the Mexican Coke did some to elevate the attitude.

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Mother Earth Day

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About mid-way between Earth Day and Mother’s Day, Caddo Artist sent me this:


Caddo Care Carton Contents:

Sandy Springs Buffalo Meat Jerky, Hinton, OK
Pepper Creek Farms Dip Mix, Lawton, OK
EEMB Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix & Peanut Butter Brownie, Lexington, OK
Lasley Roasted Peanuts, Eakly, OK
Scott Farms Tortilla Soup Mix & Reds, Rice, & Spice, Altus, OK
Sooners Salsa, Amigo’s Salsa, Ardmore, OK
Native Roots Market Bumper Sticker, Norman, OK

That there first item was done et straight’way. The brownie soon follered and the salsa wern’t long for this world. I’m not saying that Caddo is fattening me up for reunion slaughter; I am saying I haven’t exhibited much self-control.

Caddo included a card with the quotation, “There is nothing more honorable than motherhood.” I have plans in the coming days to disprove this, but for now, I am embracing the honorific. A separate note read, in part, “I wanted to send the apple pie, it was a party in your mouth with every bite!” The tease! I guess there is honor in motherhood, but cruelty in friendship.

Okay, while she did everything as I have written, the expanded contents of the note were personal, touching, inspiring, and directed straight my way. Perhaps there is nothing more honorable than motherhood, but for sure there’s nothing more humbling than reflective generosity. This mother of three who takes care of her family and friends so well is certainly most honorable.

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What’s Blooming

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Our night blooming cerus attracted a visitor. Is this a cerus? I think so. It is now anyway. Sometimes we have more than 30 larger-than-your-hand-sized blooms on that cactus. Have you met our new pet bee? We are taking up bee-keeping. Not bees-keeping. Just the one. Doing our part to prevent Colony Collapse Disorder and therefore world destruction.

My great-grandmother in Alabama had a gorgeous backyard with a fishing pond. Along one side was a vegetation-covered corridor and I loved to walk around the pond to get to the fantasy world under those arched green shadows. Depending on which way you walked around the pond, you either passed her beehive before the tunnel or afterward. The bees terrified me, especially in those swarming massive numbers, so I made myself inconspicuous as possible when in their general area.

Do I need to state explicitly that we aren’t getting a hive? Well, there you have it, and our vari cacti don’t all bloom at night. My prickly pear blooms in the daytime and I have three sorts.

I have orange flowers (lots of them):


I have yellow flowers (just this one, but the promise of more):


And I have orange and yellow flowers (not sure this one is prickly pear):

I’m thinking of doing some tuna harvesting and making stuff.

On edit: I didn’t pay much attention to sizing, but the photos are much prettier when really big, so click on them to see up close.

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That’s Right, Kale Chips

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The most insanely fantastical librarian gave Hawt Mz. a tip on kale chips, which she then passed on to me in lieu of getting emotionally involved in my daily drama. Now all y’all will benefit from a resourceful woman-to-woman, educator-to-educator network.


Right prior to the kids’ spring break, the perfect storm of crazy busy, interpersonal frustration, and a visit from Aunt Flo hit like police brutality. I met my teacher guru in a dim corner of the breezeway where she gave me excellent advice, which was to get as ugly as I needed to get in private, then use that to inform a more calm voice.

Hawt Mz. spied me purging my soul and afterward brought me from the dark into the garden’s light with a gift of beets and kale. The produce was about to go to the chickens because it was time to harvest, but our farm stand wouldn’t be open until after spring break, or so she claimed. Then she passed on the kale chip recipe.

Washed & dried kale
Oil to cover
Salt to taste

I translated this to 1 Tbs Kosher salt, 1 Tbs oil, kale.

The sheet on the left is straight up. The sheet on the right uses 1 Tbs of apple cider vinegar. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but the vinegar kale took on a deeper green.

Here they are, crunchy, over-salted chips. That’s right, “salt-to-taste” is way less than 1 Tbs of Kosher salt. FYI, the vinegar chips were mo’ betta’. Generally speaking, kale chips taste like paper thin, ultra crisp Veggie Booty.
You could totally replace the salt with Lawry’s or BBQ seasoning or popcorn seasoning or powdered cheddar or qual quiere.

The kale chips were a diversion from my bad attitude, but keeping me emotionally afloat is a community where people recklessly embrace each other with new ideas, thoughtful advice, and perceptive support.