Kittens, I’m not going to lie. It’s hotter than two rats wrestling in a wool sock out there. I went to WalMart and had to come home and re-shower, just from walking through the parking lot.

The point is – I think I’m suffering from heat exhaustion, so pardon the lameness of this blog post. I don’t know what the excuse is for the other 754 posts I’ve done.

I wanted to show you a few photos of my trip – with the BACK story to help you appreciate them more.

Every trip to Tennessee, the Moon and I stop at this store both going, and coming home. It’s a Tyre tradition. The store is about halfway, has clean bathrooms, and a place for the dogs to run around. Moon always takes a long time to decide what she’s going to get as a snack. This trip, we found out they have hot, boiled peanuts, or as Moon calls them, “boiled pinders.” Yes, I have a daughter who gets really excited about boiled peanuts. I think my parenting skills speak for themselves.

This LOOKS like an innocent ball field at Standing Stone State Park where our reunion was held. But actually, it was the scene of a church softball game/picnic when I was about thirteen. I decided on the way there that I liked Ricky Reeder, and by the afternoon, we were sufficiently united in that we decided to sit together on the bus ride home. But by then, he was really sweaty and stinky and I was OVER the whole relationship. It was the longest bus ride home of my life.

This is my dad grilling hamburgers for our dinner. My dad is a great cook and his ribs are CRAZY good. So good, that when Alaska Ashleigh asked for the rib sauce recipe, he made it and shipped it to her in Alaska. She was a big hit. But that’s not the story. The story is why would such a renowed cook, be using such a small grill. It’s because while I was in India two years ago, my husband decided to grill something for my parents, and set their grill on fire. I think dad’s feeling is that a smaller grill might not catch the house on fire next time.

I don’t know this woman. You probably don’t either because none of us have ever seen her wearing such HUGE jewelry. But when she came out of her room wearing  jeans and a black shirt for a gathering at a PARK, her mother insisted she needed “spark” and forced her, against her will, to wear the jewelry. EVEN THOUGH said woman is at least thirty and capable of making her own fashion choices, her mother would not hear of it. Once it was on, some witnesses claim her mother ACTUALLY DANCED AROUND THE ROOM in joy.

And now you know, the rest of the story.

One of the great things about my family reunion was that Moon got to spend some quality time with her cousins. When I was growing up, my cousins were my best friends. We didn’t have “play dates”, we had relatives.

They hiked up the trail.

They checked out the rental boats.

They went swimming at cousin Karen’s house.

You remember Karen, don’t you? Karen has a pool. And a house. Like a REAL house with a mortgage. How is that possible? She’s younger than I am and I’m, like, just out of high-school. She watched the kids while I  ran an errand with cousin Ginger and cousin Lisa.

You remember Ginger and Lisa don’t you? Here’s the deal, even though we were helping Ginger do something very adult and sad, the second we all got in the car, it was like we were seventeen again. Not the bad seventeen with horrible hair and acne, but the good seventeen – like the world existed just for you and anything was possible.

At least I think the feeling came from being with the cousins. While we were visiting, “Uncle” Lester insisted we try a shot or two of his new strawberry rum. And since it was only three hours away from 5 p.m., we said sure.

This looked perfectly in-focus at the time.

By the time we made it back to Karen’s, cousin Lori had joined us. You remember Lori? Hey, I don’t have any posts about LORI. How did that happen? Oh yeah, Lori doesn’t put pictures on Facebook so I’ve got nothing to steal. Hmmph. Well, even though Lori can’t possibly be out of high school, she says she’s a doctor. Shut UP. You know how people always say if they knew then what they know now, they would have been a lot nicer… Yeah, it’s like that.

So, the cousins sat around watching the kids swim and telling stories and there might have been a strawberry daiquiri involved, when someone got the big idea to go see cousin Brian. You remember Brian, right? He’s Lori’s brother and a few years ago, he and his father, Uncle Ralph (see previous post) decided to build Brian a log home. An authentic log home, the way they did it back in the day. The HARD Way. And as we talked about it, we thought, “Hey, let’s go there now. Maybe he’ll be sleeping. Maybe he’ll freak out. Maybe he’ll insist we drink some strawberry rum.” So we turned over the life-guarding duties to Aunt Faye and away we went. It’s important to mention at this point that Lori had not been drinking so we let her drive. Did I tell you she’s a doctor? Shut UP.

Alas, Brian wasn’t sleeping or at all freaked out to see us. He and his lovely wife showed us around the cabin without once mentioning that 3/4ths of us reeked of strawberry. He was very adult and grown up about the whole thing- it was, in a word, disappointing. But then he made us sit down and listen to a bunch of songs he recorded with his band when he was sixteen. Whew. I know people grow older and act responsibly – I just don’t want it to happen to a cousin.

Except Lori. I’m pretty sure a doctor is going to come in real handy one of these days. Little Lori – a doctor. Shut UP.

I wake up in the mornings thinking the strangest things. Today I was laying in bed, considering all the phrases my mother used when I was a child, that I’ve neglected to teach my own daughter. For instance:

Cutting-a-Shine – as in, “If that was my daughter cutting a shine in WalMart, I’d have spanked her good.” It was used interchangeably with “pitchin’ a fit”. I used it once while talking to JD and he looked at me like I’d suddenly had a stroke and was just randomly putting words together. He’s not country no matter what he tells you.

Showing Out- Ironically, this is a bridge term that I use, when someone “shows out” of a particular suit. But as a child, it meant cutting-a-shine cause you had an audience. “You’d better stop showing out in front of your Aunt Fay or I’m gonna spank you good.” In my defense, Aunt Fay started it.

Mess and Gom – As in, “All you kids do is mess and gom. If you don’t clean up this mess, I’m gonna spank you good.” Yeah, I thought it was stupid too. I googled it and it was described as everything from Gomorrah to gum to Irish for fool. Since we’re Irish, and foolish, I’m going for the last one.

You’re going to send us to the Poor House – Evidently, there once really was a Poor House, where the destitute went when they’d run out of all other options. I never really felt threatened though. Maybe cause I figured it couldn’t be much different than the one we lived in.

When the police come, tell them we’ve been here the whole time – Hey, I didn’t want to be spanked good.

So, what crazy things did your parents say?