... and no commentary, except to say that I like this because these days, if I don't laugh, I'll cry.

And laughing is much more better!  Satisfying and delicious ... you can even eat the dishes.

It has been well documented that I am not often rendered speechless.

However.

When it was brought to my attention this morning that People has published a new 100-Most-Beautiful list and two names (and faces) in particular are on it, I couldn't think of a thing to say for, like, fifteen whole seconds.  The silence was deafening.

Happily, I recovered.

People (and People) ... Turbo-Tax Tim Geithner and First Malady Michelle Obama? On a list of booful peoples? My retinae are burning! In what lobotomized society would this fly one inch off the ground?

Of all the terms of language we've been forced to redefine, a beautiful word like "beautiful" is now one of them?

Help me. I think I've died and gone to where I know I'll never go.

Folks.  Look.

Beautiful black woman:

Beautiful black woman: 

Not a beautiful black woman:

Beautiful white man:

 Beautiful white man:

 Not a beautiful white man:

And y'all, it has nothing to do with politics, or even airbrushing. It has everything to do with facial features.

The world has become an insane asylum. Not just the Spanish Main, luv ... the entire world!  The derelict denizens of the Oblahma-crazed mainstream media are the wardens.  I think it's time for my lithium. 

They're coming to take me away.  Thanks for listening.

On Monday morning I was tooling down the road toward Manning, South Carolina, which is a little less than one hundred miles from my home. The deposition was set to begin at ten o'clock. It was a beautiful day and since I had plenty of time to reach my destination, I stopped at one of our lovely roadside rest areas to stretch my legs and freshen up.

As I exited the ladies room and headed for my car, I saw a female employee of the Palmetto State polishing one of the glass doors leading to the parking lot. She looked up and caught my eye, so naturally I give her a big smile and said "Good morning!"

Got GPS?

She sort of smiled back but instead of returning my greeting, she waved her cleaning rag and told me I was going the wrong way.

Huh?

I looked through the sparkling door. Grass. Trees. Picnic tables. Trash barrels. A person walking a dog.

No cars.

A concrete picnic table wouldn't get me to Manning; I knew that right off. I've never learned to drive one. And I figured the dog probably wasn't fast enough.

I laughed when I realized -- pretty quickly, I am happy to report -- that I'd turned the wrong way out of the ladies room door. I thanked the nice worker for pointing out my error, did a one-eighty, and there was my car sitting right where I had left it.

What a relief! I'm fairly ditzy and consequently do not take serendipitous outcomes lightly.

I was a couple of feet out into the sunshine when a man in front of me on the sidewalk turned around and grinned real big.

"Get confused comin' outta there, didja?" He asked in a friendly way.

"Yeah, story of my life," I admitted. "If there's a hard way to do a thing, I'll find it."

"You got GPS?" he wanted to know.

To find my way back to my car from the ladies room? Uhm, no.

I told him I was usually the last woman in the Western Hemisphere to acquire new technology, and that I still relied on MapQuest to get me where I needed to go in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and even points beyond.

Assume nothing.

He gestured in the direction of his vehicle, which turned out to be a white van. "I deliver caskets, and I couldn't do it without my GPS," he assured me.

I glanced at the van and could see through the back windows that there were indeed a couple of caskets nestled cozily there.

"I got mine at the pawn shop," he said.

I assumed he meant his GPS and not a casket, but I figured I'd best make sure. "A Garmin?" I asked him. (Even I know Garmin makes GPS's and not coffins.)

"Yeah, a Garmin," he said. "My daughter-in-law stole a bunch of our stuff and pawned it awhile ago, and when I went to get some of it back, the GPS caught my eye. Best hundred fifty dollars I ever spent. You should tell your husband to get you one."

Duly noted. Next time TG and I visit a hock shop (which will be the first time), I'll check out the GPS units. I may even ask if they happen to have a casket, because in this "terrible" economy and pigs flying (swine flew!) all over the place distributing potentially deadly cooties, you never know when you might need a bargain-basement deal on a coffin.

I located Manning without incident and without a GPS, by the way ... found it sleepy and charming as ever, "Matchless for Beauty and Hospitality" ... right where it's been since 1856.

And while "Assume Nothing" is my sometime-mantra, I assume the caskets were delivered right on schedule as well. Wherever they ended up, I hope they sit empty for a long, long time.

By the time I was your age I was in the coffee business nine years. ~John Cleary, The Subject Was Roses by Frank Daniel Gilroy

Of course I like her! She's a peach! ~George Bailey, It's A Wonderful Life

I rather crave violence. ~Jo March, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Just peachy, Mr. Shooter. How are you? ~Mort Rainey, Secret Window

Who ate the last of the peach cobbler? ~Me

It's a cryin' shame. ~Astute four-year-old boy, son of a South Carolina lawyer

~}{}{~}{}{~}{}{~}{}{~

On Wednesday (where I live we pronounce that word "winsdy") I reported the deposition of a young man embroiled in a sticky bit of litigation stemming from the purchase-gone-awry of some peach orchards and an adjacent packing and shipping operation.

I used the opportune moment to wolf Nip-Chee crackers and quaff copious amounts of Diet Coke.

Sound like a nickel-and-dime dispute to you? Nope. This here was a seven-figure deal, gone further south than a moss-draped bayou. Hence the acrimonious lawsuit.

I like money okay, and often fantasize about it, but say the word "peach" and my mouth commences watering. Immediately. The mere thought of a sun-ripened, fuzzy-blushy, pinky-gold, firmy-soft, tangy-fragrant, succulent South Carolina peach practically makes me forget ...

I can't even remember what it makes me forget. Large fortunes? Johnny Depp? Oh, wait ... the two are synonymous. And both quite peachy.

All I know is, I want the peach strings in my teeth and the peach juice dripping off my chin. And elbows. And I want it now.

Our (understandably) somewhat tense deponent -- a young peach farmer who is also a devoted husband and the father of baby twins -- told me during a break that the peaches will be ready "on May 20th."

Duly memorialized on my calendar. And etched on the inside of my skull. Nobody better get between me and the nearest farm stand on twentyo de Mayo.

Back to our legal proceeding, which featured long stretches off the record so that the plaintiff and his attorneys could pow-wow out of earshot. I used the opportune moment to, in a ladylike manner, wolf Nip-Chee crackers and quaff copious amounts of Diet Coke (I'd had no breakfast; just coffee). Between crunches and slurps, I asked the remaining two gentlemen in the room to tell me about their children.

The twins can't talk yet, so our guest of honor had no anecdotes to share apart from the fact that they are "cute." Duh. His sweet smile, though, when he talked about them, told me all I needed to know. The wee tykes won't want for love. Or, apparently, peaches.

I was tired of sitting still. I wished for some excitement.

But the attorney of the young man who will soon celebrate his first Father's Day was glad to share a few recent utterances of his own little son, whom I quoted above. The one about something being "a cryin' shame." I could tell by the look in his eyes (and the goofy grin on his face) that the legal eagle was mighty proud of his eaglet's early command of southern slang.

As it should be.

Amongst all this misty-eyed talk of young'uns (yes, I slipped in a few doting-mamaw comments about my grandkids), what I thought was a cryin' shame -- besides the fact that the peaches won't be ready for another month -- was that no fisticuffs erupted between our witness and his adversary, who was in silent and watchful attendance.

Into the third hour of his testimony, the model deponent -- calm, courteous, credible, clear of speech, unflappable -- began to show cracks in what had been pretty impressive composure. After all, the fellow who had done him wrong was sitting three feet away, giving him the evil eye the whole time. And occasionally making faces.

When he wasn't scribbling notes on a yellow pad and showing them to a member of his legal team.  All perfectly normal and above-board.

I guess you'll think I'm mean or something, but all I was, was bored.  Weary and still hungry, I was tired of sitting still. I wished for some excitement. So I surreptitiously eyed first the witness, then the other guy, then the witness again, watching for signs of emerging testosterone-driven redneck hostility.

You might say I was keen for it.  Peachy-keen.

For a few breathless seconds -- when the deponent recounted that his former friend had "lied to my face about the deal even when I took him out and paid for the beer and wings" and the other guy was looking daggers in reply -- I thought there was a peach slice of a chance. But then the moment passed, uneventful.

It was the pits. And a cryin' shame.

Yo dawg ... I am so down with Twitter.

As a potential time-waster the twittersphere ranks right up there with Johnny Depp fansites and computer Solitaire, but it can be used to good effect. And believe me, one who is logging on a half-dozen times a day and paying attention can sometimes glean an important insight from a 140-character-or-less tweet.

But this wasn't one of those times.

When in a random search I entered the term "pro-life" (looking for like-minded Twitterers to follow), I found many pro-aborts whining opining that pro-lifers are ignorant hypocrites.  Why?  Because frequently their anti-abortion stand coexists peaceably with a conviction that the death penalty is decidedly not cruel and unusual punishment when warranted by the circumstances and carried out according to law.

Seems a no-brainer to my simple way of thinking.

Despite its predictable ubiquity among libs, this tired old "argument" -- stale as last December's fruitcake -- never ceases to astound me.

I drape the word "argument" in quotation marks because while I think these people believe they are posing a valid point, the premise is so untenable that it barely counts as the real thing. As apples-to-apples types of things go, this comparison is weak at best and ludicrous at worst.

*stands at mid-ring and grabs microphone that descends from ceiling*

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to tonight's prizefight! In this corner, wearing nothing but its birthday suit, we have a teensy-weensy unborn baby contending for the title! He could have been somebody!

In the other corner, wearing an orange jumpsuit, we have the challenger: a convicted serial murderer! He came, he saw, he tortured and killed his fellow man!

In a moment the bell will sound and they'll come out swinging! The winner gets to go on living! The loser takes the big dirt nap!

I'm rooting for the little unborn baby to live. I do not care if the murderer dies. In fact, I prefer it. Seems a no-brainer to my simple way of thinking, but then I was not "educated" at a fancy Ivy League school or, for that matter, any stripe of a liberal state university.

For which I thank God every day.

The "intellectual" libs (ever learning yet never coming any nearer to the truth) are on their feet ringside, cheering for the likes of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Marie Noe, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, Aileen Wuornos, Richard Speck, Charles Manson, Michael Swango, Marybeth Tinning, Gary Leon Ridgway, Eddie Gein, Albert DeSalvo ... and their despicable murderous ilk, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

It is not hypocritical to be pro-life and, at the same time, pro-death penalty.

(Not a single abortionist in the above list of names ... and they're the most prolific serial killers the world has ever known. Collectively, they make Adolf Hitler look like a rank amateur. And yet, nobody's doing a 20/20 segment or an episode of Notorious about them.)

Make no mistake: the libs want that baby dead ... the baby who, having committed no crime apart from existing in the first place (through no fault or effort of its own), is presumed guilty from the word go and summarily consigned to a merciless agony of death with nary an advocate to plead its case.

It never heard its Miranda rights. It never got its phone call. It had no defense counsel, no offer of a plea bargain, no bail hearing, no psychological evaluation, no trial (fair or otherwise), no jury of its peers, no insanity defense, no family members in the gallery, no probation, no commuted sentence, no appeal, no pardon, no last (or first) meal, no last (or first) words, no forgiveness, no prayers, no chance.  No rights whatsoever.

The pro-aborts want that baby to be swiftly executed in ways so unspeakable, they refuse to speak of them and won't hesitate to vilify anyone who does. They don't want to see pictures of the finished product, either. I mean, why confuse yourself with images of tiny baby parts lying in bloody heaps alongside surgical instruments? So tiresome when you just know you're in the right on the issue of this "tissue."

But they picket and protest and hold spooky candlelight vigils while hollering about the "inhumane" ways in which we rid society of psychotic bloodthirsty criminals -- the ones guilty of remorselessly hunting men, women, and children like animals, snuffing out human lives in the most heinous, vile, humiliating, and painful ways imaginable -- who are required to "suffer" being put to sleep in a sterile room with a comfy pillow beneath their heads.

If I think about it for too long, my own sanity will soon be nothing but a chalk outline on the pavement.

I'll never be smart enough to figure that one out.

I suggest leveling the playing field. If the pro-aborts are happy and proud about the incredibly savage way that little babies are put to death in America -- one every 23 seconds, more than 50 million since abortion infanticide was legalized -- then I think it only fair that criminals convicted of offenses worthy of the death penalty under our laws, be subjected to a mode of death identical to that which the innocent babies are obliged to endure.

Maybe when the scissors are poised at the base of the death row criminals' skulls and the giant turkey-baster at the ready to suck their brains out, and their limbs are about to be torn from their torsos -- without benefit of anesthetic or even a tranquilizer, while their executioners enjoy full protection of the law -- unborn babies will be safe in America once more.

It is not hypocritical to be pro-life and, at the same time, pro-death penalty. It makes perfect sense. The mindset I cannot comprehend is the one that is vehemently pro-abortion but dogmatically anti-capital punishment.

I'll never be smart enough to figure that one out. In a different situation the fact of my ignorance might rankle me, but in this case, I gladly embrace it. I think it's the only intelligent thing to do.

No.  No, I don't think I will.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. ~3 John 1:4

Our male heir was home briefly from college this weekend ... as in, just long enough to do a load of laundry, help his dad fix the lawnmower, eat a sandwich, suffer a breakup, and sing in church Sunday morning.

Whew. These kids travel at the speed of light.

As I clack away here, he is in Savannah, Georgia, for a week-long training deployment.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers, poured incessant from above

(He's a reservist with the Tennessee Air National Guard. Or TANG ... not the kind you drink.)

But because it was such a blessing -- how I wish you could have heard it -- I want to share with you the words to the song he sang in church yesterday. Here Is Love is also known as the "love song" of the great Welsh revival of 1904-1905.

Wondrous love, unbounded mercy! Vast as oceans in their flood: Jesus, Prince of Life, is dying -- Life for us is in His blood. Oh! What heart can e're forget Him? Who can cease His praise to sing? Wondrous love! Forever cherished, While the Heavens with music ring.

On the mount of crucifixion, Fountains opened deep and wide; Through the floodgates of God's mercy, Flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love, like mighty rivers, Poured incessant from above, And Heaven's peace and perfect justice, Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting, Love Thee, ever all my days; Let me seek Thy kingdom only, And my life be to Thy praise; Thou alone shall be my glory, Nothing in the world I see. Thou has cleansed and sanctified me; Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me; By Thy Spirit through Thy Word; And Thy grace my need is meeting, As I trust in Thee, my Lord. Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring, Thy great love and power on me, Without measure, full and boundless, Drawing out my heart to Thee.

This YouTube is unfortunately un-embeddable, but if you care to, click here to hear a beautiful performance of this hymn at a Welsh church a year or so ago. It's not very long; they only sing the first two verses. The beginning is sung in Welsh but some English comes later! The soloist is very pretty and the melody is ... well, you just have to listen.

If you think of it, please pray for Andrew. He looks slightly crazed in this picture, but I can assure you, he is only slightly crazed. LOL! Just kidding.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Baby Allissa turns one on Tax Day.  Born on a Tuesday just like her mother, she seems in a hurry to grow up just as her mother was. 

They say time flies, but I read somewhere that time doesn't fly, y'all.  Time stays put; we go.

And before I go, I'm going to North Carolina to be with my granddaughters at the birthday party.  I'm making homemade barbecue.  I wish all of you could be there to celebrate Allissa with us!

Meantime, have a happy Tax Day!  Participate in a T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already) party if you can!

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.  ~Song of Solomon 2:1

When I was a little girl I was not taken to church. I learned exactly two things about organized religion as a child: one, we were not Catholic; and two, we were Baptists. My mother imparted this knowledge to me in a course of events completely unrelated to any stripe of faith-based instruction.

The non-Catholic part I learned when, as a grade-schooler, I picked out a St. Christopher medal on a neck chain for my mother's Christmas present.

She had a taste for fine jewelry and I was even then a person of refinement.

I can still smell the hot vinegar.

But the cashier at our local K-Mart was brought up short when my mother, spying the trinket in my hand along with a sweaty dollar, told her we wouldn't be buying it.

"We're not Catholic," she explained in a low voice.

The cashier stashed my wholly inappropriate gift choice under the counter as she and my mother shared a conspiratorial chuckle at my expense.

That must have spurred me, ever the inquisitive one, to demand of my mother as we walked home exactly what we were, if not Catholic (a word which meant nothing to me).

"We're Baptists," she said.

But if you'd been witness to the lack of activity around our house at any time church services were being held in the community, I am certain you would have been justified in questioning the depth of our piety.

To put it plainly, Sunday mornings were for sleeping in, eating a late breakfast, and reading the funnies in living color. Later in the day you might sortie with your family, ending up at the beach or a drive-in movie.

The occasional Easter Sunday would, however, find our strange little clan bedecked in homemade finery -- to include hats of plastic straw and shiny white vinyl shoes with matching purses for my sister and me -- and ensconced for an uneasy hour in the back row of some packed-out local sanctuary or other.

I remember nothing about these visits to places of worship because they are memorable only for their marked infrequency.

My sister and I always received Easter candy in abundance, however. Our parents were generous and downright ceremonious when it came to the presentation and distribution of chocolate bunnies, jelly beans -- indeed, Easter candy of every variation -- the sugar blitz mitigated somewhat by the heavy, brightly-colored real eggs nestled in the shreds of synthetic "grass" that lined our baskets.

I can still smell the hot vinegar and see the little stemmed plastic loop one used to fish the stained eggs out of the steaming, garishly-hued liquid that had transformed them from plain white ovals into psychedelic freaks of nature.

(Nothing like a good hardboiled egg -- any shade of shell -- eaten standing by the sink, studded with grains of salt from a puddle in your palm.)

But at the age of fourteen, by God's grace, I learned the truth about Easter. That was when I recognized my need for a Savior and was told that my need had been met long before I existed, in the person of Jesus Christ. I accepted His finished work on the cross as being sufficient for my salvation, and I'm so glad I did.

From that day until this I have never doubted that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion, and that He lives in a real, actual Heaven with God, His Father, and that someday I will live there too.

I was privileged to marry a man who had come to the Lord at the age of twenty-two, and who, like me, wanted to establish a Christian home and rear children who would be taught the true meaning of Easter.

In the spring of 1998 our eldest daughter, Stephanie, had an opportunity to visit London and the Holy Land. Then a senior in high school, she had professed her faith in Christ as a six-year-old. When she returned home around Easter time, we all gathered in the family room to listen to her stories and receive the gifts she had brought us from abroad.

We were all in tears by then.

We hadn't been seated long when Stephanie began telling us about the day the group visited the "garden tomb" -- a borrowed sepulchre where the body of Jesus Christ had been placed after the crucifixion:

When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. ~Matthew 27:57-60

As she described the ancient place, I began to play the skeptic. "How can anyone be sure that's the very tomb where Jesus's body lay for three days before His resurrection?" I wanted to know.

After all, it was a long time ago. And had they made an appeal to her tender, sympathetic heart, wanting her to buy something? Just outside the place they identify as the borrowed tomb, they will try to sell you a splinter, claiming the very cross of Jesus as its provenance.

Religion is big business.

Stephanie, patiently and with the aplomb of a seasoned traveler, explained that even though it occurred more than two thousand years ago, Bible scholars and historians are fairly certain that they have correctly identified the very tomb made available by Joseph of Arimathaea for securing the remains of Jesus.

I must have continued to register doubt, because suddenly my daughter burst into tears.

"Mom," she said. "All I can say is that when you stand there, you just know that it really is the place."

We were all in tears by then. I handed Stephanie a Kleenex and she wept into it. I still have that long-dry tissue, stored away amongst other mementoes of her trip.

Today Stephanie is a pastor's wife and the mother of two little girls who will always know the true meaning of Easter. Although her tears have evaporated, her words -- and the conviction with which she spoke them -- still resonate with me.

I never eat chocolate bunnies on Easter anymore -- although I am not averse to consuming a raft of marshmallow peeps at one sitting -- but I always go to church, just like every other Sunday of the year. And yes, I'm a Baptist. I learned that on the way home from K-mart one day, my sweaty unspent dollar burning a hole in my pocket.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ~Matthew 28:1-6

Jesus said ... I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? ~John 11:25-26

Happy Easter!

The United States of America is, always has been, and ever will be, the greatest nation on the face of planet Earth.

For an American to go anywhere -- be it his own backyard or the farthest-flung corner of the globe -- and claim differently, is nothing short of treason.

America is exceptional in every way, and not even your unabashed, inexplicable,and completely misplaced disloyalty can change that fact.

No other nation has ever come close to her greatness, and no other nation ever will.

America remains a beacon of hope and freedom for the world.

America is the nation to whom, thoughout her history, other nations have looked for help when they have been in trouble.

America sends its young men and women to protect -- and often die for -- the freedoms of not only its own citizens, but of citizens of countries far from its own shores.

Those of us left behind work and pray and contribute to a free society that has been the model for all others since its conception.

When natural disasters strike around the globe, Americans lead the charge in providing assistance both material and spiritual.

Just because you are not proud of the country that gave you -- a nobody from nowhere -- a world-class education, the means by which to accumulate great personal wealth, and the opportunity to become its commander in chief, and just because you seem eager to strip us of our freedoms and dismantle our precious country plank by plank, doesn't mean that we who pay your salary are duty-bound to agree with you.

Perhaps you should reconsider your statements in light of the fact that you at this moment are traveling in the very lap of prestige, luxury, and security, accompanied by an entourage of 500 people -- one of whom was brought along for the sole purpose of playing basketball with you after hours, and eight of whom are there only to attend to your wife's personal needs.

All on the taxpayer's dime.

You should be bragging on the America that has made this type of lifestyle possible for you, because you enjoy it on the backs of those whose beloved homeland you have seen fit to publicly shame.

With all her many problems -- not the least of which, at the present moment, IS you -- I submit to you with all due respect that America is anything BUT arrogant. Your condemnation does not befit your office and is indeed an embarrassment to those whose interests you claim to represent.

In spite of you and your liberal ilk who would orchestrate her decline in order to enslave her people and gain more power for themselves, America remains a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world.

Contrary to popular opinion -- including, apparently, yours -- its citizens are industrious, intelligent, intuitive, genuine, funny, adventurous, compassionate, clever, determined, generous, brave, talented, innovative, patriotic, savvy, selfless, and loyal.

So speak for yourself, Mr. President. You do not speak for me or mine. Speak ONLY for yourself.