Five kinds of tea

I walked down the street in downtown Atlanta with some colleagues today for lunch.  We went to a thriving salad-and-sandwich kind of place for a marvelous lunch.  They had five jugs of tea AND lemonaide.  You gotta love being in the south. 

Home again, jiggety jig.

I'm tired, I'm home, I'm covered in cat hair all over my black skirt.  I'm here tonight and tomorrow and then it's another airport.  Is my talk done?  No.  Do I remember what I promised to talk about?  No.  I can look it up on the airplane, can't I?  So I have laundry, two more fruit trees to thin, and the rest of the garden to dig up.  I'll actually have a week and a half at home to do the latter before I take off AGAIN.  Sigh.  Makes me tired to think of it. 

How to tell when traveling in the south

I was driving to Richmond VA to attend my aunt's memorial service and stopped in a drug store to pick up a drink.  Lipton plain tea in a bottle?  Not a chance.   Sweet tea and Extra Sweet tea?  Two rows of each.  

The service was lovely.  There were tears in her memory, but we are a restrained bunch.  Two daughters, two granddaughters, two grandsons, along with friends to respect her memory.  Uncle Jim looked old, frail, but surprisingly strong after his recent stroke.  There is a military cemetery outside Richmond, green rolling lawns - a peaceful place.  We all needed closure after a rather bad ending to her life, which in any event, does go on for the rest of us.

We needed to sit in the room for hours together, chatting of this and that and recent events.  And so we did.  Blood is indeed thicker than water.  Uncle Jim was so pleased to see each of us, as we were glad to have him with us.