When I was a kid living in Florida, nothing made my sister and me happier than coming into the house after playing all day to find Mama or Daddy (or both) studying the section of the newspaper that told which movies were playing down at the Drive-In.  We knew what those pages looked like and we tried to tell from the expressions on our parents' faces whether they were just glancing through or were serious about doing the movie thing that night. 

We'd start hopping around, flipping out basically, begging to know if we really were going to the Drive-In.  Securing an answer indicating the affirmative or even the vaguely probable, my sister and I would begin gathering up our pillows and our stuffed animals and whatever else we wanted to cram into the backseat of the car to fight over when we got to the Drive-In.  Sometimes we changed into our pajamas because it was certain we'd be dead asleep long before we got back home.

We'd beg for a stop at the local grocery store so we could secure a stash of penny candy to futher "hop us up" and rot our teeth as we watched the movie from the dark, humid, stuffy recesses of our baby blue Nash Rambler.  Mama and Daddy would have their own stash -- of cigarettes -- and he would have his cooler of beer with a small brown paper sack to "hide" the bottle he was nursing, and maybe we had soda pop if the adults were in a good mood.  Mama sometimes bought herself a candy bar to enjoy during the movie. 

My sister and I usually achieved an uneasy detente by about five minutes into the feature.

I remember feeling such a sense of drama and adventure when we set out for the Drive-In at dusk on a sultry summer night.  I don't know why because, with the exception of the mystery and excitement of the movie itself, which I rarely if ever understood but which nonetheless wholly captivated me, the whole experience tended to be rather miserable.

I guess you could get into the Drive-In for about a dollar per car in the late '60s ... I don't know for a fact what it cost but that sounds about right given the general economy at the time.  Daddy would enter under the big neon-lit sign with its attached marquee, through the opening in the gate to the huge lot, where we'd hunt for an available speaker pole.  The gravel of the lot always sounded crunchy and loud under our tires.  Once we found our spot, Daddy would roll down the window and grab the clunky silver speaker, trying to hurry so as not to admit hordes of mosquitoes into the car.  He always failed.  Almost immediately you would hear that nauseating buzzy-buzz as the pests dive-bombed your ears, and right away you'd start scratching.

My eyes were invariably riveted to the five-acre movie screen from the moment it came into view.  Whether it was the dancing soft drinks and hot dogs (which fascinated me because we almost never visited the concession area except to avail ourselves of the restroom facilities ... their prices were too high), or previews of upcoming movies, or the cartoon feature, I could not tear my eyes away from that screen.  It seemed to me to be as big as the huge world beyond my limited horizons, and just as much out of my reach.

As we got situated on our little plot of borrowed real estate, Daddy would fiddle with the sound knob on the speaker, cursing under his breath as the announcer's voice stridently invaded the cramped space.  Mama would quickly assemble and light a Pic mosquito coil, setting it right in the middle of the dashboard where the smoke rose lazily, blue in the reflection from the movie screen.  Sort of like incense, it was supposed to repel mosquitoes but to this day I think the bugs found the scent alluring.  At any rate there was no discernible decrease in the mosquito population feeding on us, but now there was added the disgusting smell of the burning coil.

It was all part of going to the Drive-In.

The movie would start.  From the dark hole I occupied in the backseat, perspiring, fighting with my sister, attempting to locate candy I'd dropped in the dark, swatting at mosquitoes, hating the smell of the burning coil, I had to sit up on my bony scarred knees in order to see anything.  If we kicked the back of Mama and Daddy's seats, or pulled on them to hoist ourselves up, we'd get in trouble.  Also we'd get yelled at if we made noise.  My sister and I usually achieved an uneasy detente by about five minutes into the feature.  She would sit by her closed window and I would sit by mine, and we ignored one another unless a stray foot happened to issue a sly kick.  Then someone was going to get hit or pinched, but quietly so we wouldn't get a whipping on top of our other injuries.

It was from the backseat of our family car that I saw movies like Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?  In case you aren't familiar with those films, let me tell you right now: Bette Davis in the 1960's could scare the stuffings out of a little kid.  Those two movies terrified me well into adulthood; once after I was married and had children I tried to watch Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte on TV and couldn't.  John Mayhew's severed hand on the stair, the blood spatter on the white of the debutante gown, the massive urn crashing down on Joseph Cotten and Olivia DeHavilland, was still too much for me.

It gives me the creeps just thinking about Joan Crawford in a wheelchair, being served her dead bird for lunch, and Bette Davis's evil cackle on the other side of the door.  How about Baby Jane Hudson's song?  I'm writing a letter to Daddy, saying "I Love You ..."  I now officially have the willies.  Let us move on.

I was ten years old when I "witnessed" the ambush and execution of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow on a May morning in 1934 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.  I will remember until I am too old to remember anything, how heartrending and horrifying it was when Faye Dunaway glanced beseechingly, knowingly, at Warren Beatty in the split-second before the hail of bullets sprayed their Ford automobile and their poor dying bodies writhed and jumped and sagged and fell from the limply hanging shell-pocked car doors.  I wanted to look away but I couldn't. 

To spend a summer night at the Drive-In was to have the lush panoply of life flung out in all its hideous glory on that brightly-lit expanse that, for a few hours, seemed to fill the universe.  It was all the questions and ostensibly all the answers a kid between the ages of eight and eleven could come up with or handle.  It is as much a part of my life as my family and the pets I've loved and the grades I made and the stubborn paradigm I eventually formed ... for good or ill, at least in part because of all I saw and heard at the Drive-In.

Our daughter, Stephanie, together with her husband, Joel, and their daughter, Melanie, moved from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to Lenoir, North Carolina (gracious are we going to run out of commas?), in July of 2007 when Joel was called as pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Lenoir.  They occupied a small parsonage for several months while househunting.  Last November they moved into a new house and Stephanie began making it a home.  Baby Allissa made her grand entrance on April 15, 2008.

I cooked supper two nights, held Allissa, read to Melanie, drank coffee, and provided considerable moral support ... naturally!

Over the past several months TG, Erica, and Andrew (the painters of our family) have helped Stephanie convert the generic new-construction off-white of her house's walls to the decorator colors she wanted.  On Thursday Andrew painted the "last frontier" ... Steph and Joel's bedroom.  He then helped his sister to rearrange her furniture and get everything to her liking.  It all turned out beautifully and Stephanie was so pleased and grateful.

What do you think I did?  I cooked supper two nights, held Allissa, read books to Melanie, drank coffee, and provided considerable moral support ... naturally!  That included a fair amount of ooh-ing and aah-ing as the painting project progressed, and applause at the final result.  I am good at that kind of thing.

Melanie was camera-shy this time but I got several shots of baby Allissa.  She is a darling wee butterball and so much fun to cuddle.  Now ten weeks old, she sleeps all through the night so her mommy can catch up on much-needed rest.  Such a cooperative and adorable little thing!  I'm sort of wild about her.

Here's a shot of Allissa napping today, which activity I found fascinating.  If you're so inclined, click on the pic to see a few more ... including one of Andrew napping right beside her!  There's also a photo of handsome Uncle Andrew dressed in uniform for last Sunday's patriotic service at our church.

According to a recent report by Sonja Barisic of the Associated Press, Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisees in Canada have been pressured by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) to buy their chickens from suppliers that kill the animals by a "more humane method" than slitting their throats.

KFC Canada President Steve Langford has stated that KFC is working with PeTA on overhauling methods of poultry slaughter because "the ethical treatment of chickens is important to us."

Seriously, how long can it take to slit a chicken's throat ... and how long can the animal feel pain afterwards?  Is there any way to measure these things?

(Really?  Hmmm ... so what exactly is in those buckets if not fragments of dead chickens that have been dredged through the Colonel's special seasonings and fried in hot oil so that they could be sold for profit and consumed by human beings?  Where precisely does ethics enter this picture?)

But such happy news for Canadian poultry!  Over the next eight years KFC Canada will phase in the use of a method known as "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK) for all chickens purchased by its restaurants.

(Did you notice that word "killing" ... ?)

With CAK, instead of the chickens being conscious up to the time they are removed from their crates and their throats slit, they will remain in their crates where oxygen will be "removed" from them.  Then they will have no choice but to breathe "inert" gases such as argon or nitrogen.  According to PeTA spokesman Matt Prescott, the birds "do not suffocate but die painlessly."

(Did you notice that word "die" ... ?)

Will they pile up all the chickens' little eyeglasses and shoes and tooth fillings before gassing them?  Because to me it smacks of what happened at Auschwitz and Dachau, except that it's poultry instead of people.

And trust me: I am a lifelong carnivore and no stripe of an animal rights activist.  Doing this to chickens just sounds evil to me.

How about this: Do we know it will be safe for humans to eat the chickens that have died from being gassed?  Is there concern for the ethical treatment of humans?

Oh, I forgot!  That's not nearly as important as the ethical treatment of animals.  HAHA!  Silly me.

By the way, just wondering ... how does anyone presume to know what a chicken will experience when it is being gassed to death?  I mean, can we be certain that a chicken suffers less under those circumstances than when its throat is slit quickly and (I assume) cleanly?  And can one honestly assert that it matters either way? 

Seriously, how long can it take to slit a chicken's throat ... and how long can the animal feel pain afterwards?  Is there any way to measure these things?  I doubt it, but we have to be talking about less than three seconds here. 

So many questions.

In the end, folks, the result is the same: the chicken is dead and it gets eaten.  Chickens are not being "abused" because of the method currently used to kill them so that humans can eat them.  After all, the majority of them exist solely to be used as food and the only way that can happen is if they die first.

As a final absurdity, at the insistence of PeTA, KFC has "agreed to add a vegan faux-chicken option to its menu." 

(Don't you know diners will show up by the droves at KFC, clamoring for that "faux" chicken?  Is that by any chance a euphemism for a hamburger?  Or, wait ... a veggieburger?  Put bacon on mine, please.)

Sure hope Chick-fil-A doesn't go that route.  Can you see the cows now, painting their billboards?  EeT mOr Fo CHiKiN ...

Faux chicken ... KFC would be wise to serve that up on some PeTA bread.

June is not my favorite month. That would be October. But this evening as I walked in the gloaming, I considered the assorted faces and the assured fate of comely June.

Tonight you may have looked up and noticed that moon illusion thing that happens a few days before the first day of summer.  TG and Erica and I were out and about just after "moonrise" and saw what looked like a ginormous orange drifting up from the horizon.  It was every bit as breathtaking as the meteorologists and astronomers all over the news today promised that it would be.  It's hard for me to believe that the moon's apparent size at such a time is a product of my imagination, but the experts insist that the moon is no bigger when it hovers just above the horizon than it is when it rises higher in the sky, seeming to become smaller and paler as it goes.  It's all in our minds.

As we chip away at them like we would a huge block of ice or stone, the size of the thing becomes more manageable and a shape begins to emerge.

Many if not most of life's problems are smaller than they at first appear, I think.  Sometimes their proximity to us, their massive girth, the power they exert over our being, causes us to imbue them with more heft and importance than they really have.  As the "giant" moon drifts higher into the sky, it takes on a disinterested and benign appearance.  The fire leaves it and only the pallor of its cyclops stare remains.  Even when the moon is "full" and at its most impressive, it is less intimidating later in the night than when it first looms gigantic, directly in our line of sight as we are driving or walking.

So it is with daily difficulties.  If at first sight they seem much too large to get a handle on, we should bide our time.  Wait.  Ask God for help.  Tackle the ones we can wrestle easily to the ground and get those out of the way.  Often in the process of doing this we realize that what appeared to be one huge insurmountable problem was really a collection of smaller ones huddled together, finding strength in numbers.  As we chip away at them like we would a huge block of ice or stone, the size of the thing becomes more manageable and a shape begins to emerge.

Sometimes we'll make a wrong move.  That is to be expected and doesn't mean we are losers.  It means we are making an effort.

Discouragement is sudden death to problem solving.  When we allow a situation to overwhelm us (and it won't unless we allow it), the situation has won and we are on the canvas ... down for the count.  That's when it's time to shake it off, bounce back up, and start swinging away.  Yeah, it's going to hurt and there will be a few more setbacks but after all that's what makes it interesting.

It helps if there's someone looking on, cheering for what they are convinced will be our ultimate victory.  There are people I am cheering for.  You know who you are.

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.  ~2 Corinthians 4:8-9

And yes ... I was a ten-year-old bride!  I am 39!  Just kidding.  I was 22 and TG was 27 ... you are gonna need all your fingers and all your toes and your dog's paws (front and hind) to do that equation.  I do not think it will require a second dog.

I could not believe it when he started flinging a raw egg into space and catching it on the flat metal surface of a giant spatula without breaking it until he was good and ready.

We spent our honeymoon in Charleston, South Carolina, a city which runs on sheer perspiration eight months out of the year.  June is most definitely one of those months.  The only place I've ever been that was hotter than Charleston is (1) New Orleans, Louisiana, and (2) San Antonio, Texas. 

But it was lovely.

To my way of thinking one of the best things about staying married and producing several children is that said children grow up and get jobs and start buying you stuff.

Today Erica and Andrew, our two youngest, gave us a generous gift card for dinner at Yamato, one of our local Japanese hibachi restaurants.  We'd never eaten at a place where they try to set you on fire along with your dinner (unless you count that table right up next to the roaring hearth at Cracker Barrel).  It was as dangerously exciting as it was delicious and great fun. 

Our chef kept telling me he didn't have a green card!  I wasn't sure why he thought I cared as long as he fed me, but then I realized what the deal was ... I had brought out my camera and he played like he was convinced that if I took his picture, he'd be deported.  I took it anyway and led him to believe I was from the INS, sent there on purpose to bust him.  I think it got me a few extra bites of steak!  Smart man.

I wish I could describe his squirt bottle for putting water on the grill surface but I won't.  Use your imagination.  TG kept smirking at me, HAHA very funny.

Our illegal alien of a chef turned out to be adept at not only making fire but at cooking our rice, vegetables, steak, chicken, and seafood to perfection.  He was quite the showman with his flashing bottles of sesame oil and soy sauce and his glittering knives and skewers and scrapers and whatnot.  For example I could not believe it when he started flinging a raw egg into space and catching it on the flat metal surface of a giant spatula without breaking it until he was good and ready.  Then he added another egg and scrambled them both before integrating the cooked egg into our fried rice that was already studded with the peas of happiness.

He had some purply transparent shrimp lined up there, curved like a bunch of quotation marks just waiting for the spoken word, arranged like they were spooning, and before you knew it they had been separated from their tails and were sliced lengthwise, then into little bitty nuggets.  By that time they had cooked  to a gleaming white and each of us had several pieces that were absolutely succulent when you popped them into your mouth.  The shrimp were soon joined by tender and juicy pieces of steak and chicken that smelled so good when he plunked the sizzling morsels onto your portion of rice.

Our dinner companions turned out to be Beth and Keith from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  We met them just tonight because you sit at a big table with six to eight folks you don't know and who don't know you.  Beth and Keith were very sociable and we enjoyed getting acquainted.  They're on a two-week vacation to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, which was back in March but Beth couldn't get off work then.  Proving once again that timing is everything because it is anybody's guess who they'd have had to eat next to three months ago when TG and I did not have an anniversary.

We did end up having to explain patiently to Beth and Keith what grits is/are, and the proper procedure for consuming them on their travels through the South.  TG tried to get all fancy with his instructions (he who is from Ohio and when he first learned to eat grits while a student at The Citadel put sugar and milk on them ... ahem) but I said, y'all, just douse 'em in butter and salt 'n pepper and mix in a few fried eggs at breakfast or shrimp if you're having lunch, add a biscuit and you are there.  Beth looked queasy when we talked about it but she promised me she'd give grits a try while she's down in Charleston.  People who live above the sweet tea line simply do not know what to make of a grit.  In my view that is tragic.

Additional tablemates included a darling young couple who had such cute smiles.  When I asked if they were celebrating a special occasion, she explained that she'd had a bad day at work so her husband had treated her to dinner at Yamato.  As if we collectively disbelieved she'd had the workday from H-E double toothpicks, she took pains to point out how red and puffy her eyes were ... presumably from crying ... but honestly through all the smoke and fire I hadn't noticed so she didn't need to feel self conscious!  For all I knew she'd been hit by a flying shrimp because a chef at a neighboring table (also no green card I fear) was lobbing crustacea at his guests, who had to catch them in their mouths.  Hi Flung Shrimp.  I'm glad TG and I did not get seated there because I am telling you right now, I will not pay to have seafood thrown at me.

In the parking lot while walking to our automobiles we had an opportunity to teach Beth and Keith all we knew about crape myrtles and confederate jasmine.  They were just full of questions about our South Carolina plants and shrubs and flowering trees, so different from what is available to them in Canada.  They said their grown daughter was home looking after their dog and their plants and they hoped to find something still living when they return. 

On that grim note we parted.

Speaking of aliens, albeit relatively legal ones, TG complains that he always looks like ET when he has his picture made, and judging from the one below I won't argue.  He's very nice looking and actually has beautiful straight teeth but for some reason he is reluctant to show them to a camera!  We were being silly when I took this pic because we couldn't wait to get to the restaurant and spend our kids' money. 

Click on the pic to see a few more! 

I was scrolling through the coupons when I saw one that caught my eye.  Fifty percent off an entire Cheesecake Factory cheesecake at the Starbucks embedded in Barnes & Noble!  (This is the place where a cup of coffee two-thirds full costs four dollars ... and a ginormous slice of cheesecake can be all yours for five dollars!  If you ask them, they will even grill it!)

Like I need instructions on what to do with a Key Lime cheesecake! Fork please.

The coupon promised that for a limited time I could purchase a $35 cheesecake -- any flavor -- for $17.50.  I wasn't good at math in school but I could tell right away that they were serious about that fifty-percent-off thing.  My mouth began watering.  "We're getting ourselves your dad one of those for Father's Day," I told Erica, who promptly drooled on me.  Please send bibs.  Pink.

So a soggy Erica and I bopped over to B&N on the way home from prayer meeting on Wednesday night, because we needed last-minute Father's Day cards and gifts.  Like a noodle I had forgotten to bring my cheesecake coupon with me, so, anticipating a run on the fifty-percent-off cheesecakes, I went over to ask the Starbucks baristas if it would be necessary or advisable for me to reserve ours.  I was assured they had plenty in stock so I breathed a sigh of relief and and began reviewing their choices of cheesecake flavors. 

Of course there was Original flavor (analogous to vanilla), and one with a heavy coating of chocolate studded with nuts, but the moment I heard the words "Key Lime" I knew that was the one.  Just breathing the words "Key Lime" I could almost feel the tropical breezes on my fevered cheek and imagine a psychotically handsome pirate prancing towards me across the sand.  You will have to supply your own bridge from that visual to Father's Day.  I've burned crossed mine already.

Erica pouted because she wanted the chocolate one but she quit before I could utter my famous mantra "She who pays is she who says."  (And you have to say "says" not like "sez" but to rhyme with "pays" or it loses some of its effect.)

So it was that I sent Erica over to B&N today, armed with funds and my member card, to secure a Cheesecake Factory Key Lime cheesecake.  I waited anxiously for her to return home so that I could gaze lovingly upon the Key Lime cheesecake before putting it in the spare fridge for Sunday dinner's dessert.  After what seemed like a long time I heard the car in the garage and the kitchen door opened.  I bounded upstairs to meet my TG's Key Lime cheesecake.  The box was huge and I was amazed to learn that the Key Lime cheesecake came with instructions on how to "take care of" the cheesecake! 

Like I need instructions on what to do with a Key Lime cheesecake!  Fork please.

Only it wasn't a Key Lime cheesecake.

It was Original flavor.  You know ... like vanilla.  Like, not what we wanted.  Not what Erica had ordered.  Not what she had been required to write down on a special Starbucks cheesecake purchase order.  Not what was printed on our receipt, that being "Whole Key Lime Cheesecak." **

NOT. KEY. LIME.

Now, I know anyone can make a mistake, but I ask you: exactly how difficult is it to read the side of a box when you are filling an order for a single Key Lime cheesecake?  How can the word "Original" be taken, even if you only glancingly glance, for the words "Key Lime" ... ???

These are questions for the ages. 

So Erica hied her soggy (and now aggravated) self back to B&N where she attempted to be patient and kind while pointing out the error and exchanging the Original flavor cheesecake for one in the Key of Lime.  It occurs to me that, gas prices being what they are, with two trips to the store we've now paid $152 for a $35 cheesecake that was on sale for $17.50.

Now if you will excuse me ... the tiki torches are lit, the stars are out, and it is almost time for me to meet my pirate for celebrate Father's Day with a slice of mouthwatering twice-fetched Key Lime Cheesecake.