Texas Sayings . . .

I've been thinking a lot about my dad lately, and we were compilin' a list of Texas sayings when he died. He loved them--they always made him chuckle, and getting an Old Colonel to chuckle is no easy task. I've decided to take up his cause and collect as many as I can.

Some of his favorites were, "Useless as tits on a boar hog," "Richer than ten-foot up a bull's ass," and "Daylight's burnin'!"

What are your favorite southern sayings? Come up with some good ones and we'll vote on who gets the "Not Now! My Muse is Kicking Ass!" tee shirt . . .

Some of my faves are:

I’m gonna give it to ya with both barrels.
That really chaps my hide.
Madder than a long-tail cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs
Look out, she’s havin’ a conniption.
He’s sharpenin’ his saw teeth.
She’s in a sod-pawin’ mood.

I’m so mad I’m gonna cloud up and rain knuckles.
He’s got his tail up.
She’s got her hackles up.
He’s burnin’ like chicken at Baptist barbeque.
Look out, he’s tearin’ up the pea patch.
That just burns my britches.
He’s so mad he could stretch sheet iron.
She’s mad as a wet hen.
I’m mad as a cow with a sore teat.
I’m so mad I could eat a horned toad backwards.
He’d fight ‘til hell froze and skate on the ice.
She jumped on me with all four feet.
He’s madder than a red ant.
She’s so mad she’s sweatin’ steam at every joint.

The Roof!

It's raining, but the guys are here doing the roof! Also, our plumber sucks. They know we have to get the house inspected before each draw, and they're hounding us (and we have no control over it) and they did a crappy, crappy job.

They cut giant holes where smaller ones would have done the trick, and mounted the big switch box two feet from where it should have been. When confronted with the poor workmanship, he said, "We gotta do what we gotta do. Where's our money?"

Never using them again . . .

Atticus's Motto

And don't you forget, bub.

Rainy Days & Sundays Make Me Happy :)

The house is rockin' right along, despite a sub-standard job by the plumbers. And I wish the HVAC people had done as we asked by pushing the unit back as far as possible--we're trying to limit our carbon footprint in many ways, and the biggest is building a house that's more than 1000 sq.ft. smaller than we planned on five years ago.

The cedar post R put in the center of the house is a real treat, and I'm loving the way it looks!

The house and Puss Boy

Once again, Puss Boy is on the prowl, and we're making progress on the house. Not too happy about the plumbers, but we'll see how that goes . . .

Come out and play!

So, Atticus has a new hobby, which is trying to get me to come play while I'm trying to work. He doesn't want to come in, he wants me to come out. He's found a perch on the window sill next to my computer and sits and yowls his head off until I at least open the window and pet him . . .

New! Favorite Thing Friday!

Okay, so if you haven't read the series Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency, you need to run right out and read you some! I LOVE these books, and now I love the new series on HBO.

Redneckedness

Some random thoughts on Redneckedness,

The question is, why would any woman who isn’t of the redneck persuasion marry one of these men?

That question came up at Pulpwood Queen Kathy Patrick’s Girlfriend Weekend, when a panel of lone star literati, end for some reason, me.

It was a fabulous weekend, I got to meet, have lunch, and drink bourbon and Diet Coke with Sara Bird, Carol Dawson, Cyndi Hughes, David Marion Wilkinson, and THE fabulous Sam Barry of Harper Collins who still owes me for the tiara he swiped during the downing of said bourbon and Diet Cokes. We'll talk later, Sam :)

The final question posed to the panel was, “Why don’t people in other states like Texans?” And while the rest panel pondered this question with wit and brilliance, I could only offer one word: Redneckedness.

Redneckedness is a special brand of crazy, of which Texans take great pride. I hear up north, they lock their crazy up in the attic. In Texas, we prop ‘em up on the sofa and invite the neighbors over for iced tea.

While rednecks are not locked up (though they are often incarcerated), they do sometimes roam freely about the country, inflicting their redneckedness on unsuspecting strangers.

It was one such case with my own personal redneck that I used to illustrate the profound affect rednecks have on people outside the state of Texas.

We were heading to California to visit my sister and step-brother. My sister was working, and my urbane step-brother, who happens to be half Japanese, suggested we visti a winery.


Texas rednecks are easily identified by their uniform—Wrangler jeans, boots, and some sort of t-shirt in disrepair, topped with a gimme cap proclaiming a slogan for cars, beer and or Tito’s Titty Bar.

Of course, there will also be an image of the Texas flag somewhere on their person, and often on their underwear.

I know of no other state where people would wear their flag on thong underwear, or for that matter would want to. But in doing so, Texans can go anywhere in the world with the state flag up their butt.

The house, the house & Cauley of the Day

The guys have the dormers almost done, and R is sealing the logs. In other, writing-related news, I'm finished with the first four chapters of Redneckedness, and about to put together the proposal (hooray!).

Because both of these activities are nerve-wracking, I have taken out stock in Doritos, because nothing soothes a troubled soul like fake, powdery Nacho cheese . . .

Cauley of the Day (In honor of the new book): There's only three kinds of men in this world--the ones you play with, the ones you stay with, and the ones who just need killin'.

Buy My RV

We're finally building, so if you're looking for a terrific RV in showroom shape, here's your chance!

Yikes!

So, we're working on the house today and R got a terrible splinter!

Fighting

I hate fighting. It's amazing how often I'm in a situation that calls for it. But, like all things worth saying, there's a Cauley-ism for it:

I'll knock a knot on your head and dare it to rise . . .

Woo hoo! & Cauley of the Day

Woo hoo! The house is going up! The roof trusses are up and the dormers are on the way! We just got the doors and windows in (with two bay windows . . . woo hoo again!).

And, in honor of the guys working so hard on the house: Cauley of the Day . . .

Those boys are skippin' like water on a hot skillet.

Round Top . . .

So, we just got back from Round Top Antique Show--the next one is in November. It was huge. Miles and miles of a mixture of crap and some really good stuff -- Lot's of things that stopped me in my tracks and would have had me pulling out the checkbook. Happily, I wasn't alone, and was not in total charge of the check book. I loved, but displayed an incredible amount of restraint, with only an amoire coming home . . .


Atticus was not a amused when we got home . . . he scoffed at the armoire and bit me (hard) because we were gone more than the perscribed 4 hours. Life is hard out there for a puss . . .

Horrible and Beautiful and Sad and True . . .

I've been thinking about my dad--step-father if you want to get technical--but I ran across this horrible, beatiful, terrible poem today, and I wept. I wept for both of my fathers and their short, short lives--and wept at how lucky I am that I had two of these men, shorn from the same strong cloth, but different in their pattern and print, and I wept for myself, and the children who will come, the children who will never know these strong, stoic men, these fathers, who changed my life in the small amount of time they walked ahead and beside me on this earth, and for the long time that I will live on this earth without them . . .

A Father's Pain
by Larry Smith

My father ignored his pain,rode it out without complaint—high threshold they call it now.He worked as a brakeman in snow and rain.Once he pulled his own back tooth,held the pain in his side one timetill it burst his appendix, thenlay in a hospital bed for days.He wasn’t hard on us kids,never struck us, took us todoctors and dentists when needed.He used to sing in the carbought us root beers along the road.He loved us with his deeds.The day he died, he played golfin the morning, came home,muffling the pain in his arm,went upstairs and lay down.
"A Father's Pain" by Larry Smith, from A River Remains. © WordTech Press, 2006. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Progress . . .

So, I got a lot of writing done yesterday, and the guys got a lot done on the house!