Happy Birthday

to
melancthe
and
wbahner!

33 Years

One of the highlights of the trip to Asheville yesterday was the end of a 33 year search for the first Goddess I encountered. After spending too much time in The Celtic Way shop on Wall Street, Diane, Aunt Tudi, and I decided to go into Himalayan Imports. While Aunt Tudi inhaled mighty plumes of Nag Champa and Diane admired the jewelry, I made my way to the statues. They carried Buddha, Kali, Shiva, Ganesha, and a variety of other deities. On a whim, I asked the lady running the shop if she happened to have any Durga statues. Her eyes got really wide, like she was surprised I knew anything about Durga. When she said "yes," it was my turn to wear the wide eyes of surprise. What she had were tiny figurines of the Goddess. I got one for home and one to carry with me.

( here She is )

I feel like I can finally close a chapter in my life with the acquisition of the Durga figure. She's come home to me after over three decades of my wondering, searching, and marvelling at how the Goddess can manifest and place Her finger on you, even when you're too young to realise what's going on.

Argh!

Motley has spirited away my home figure of Durga. The Goddess is now *somewhere* in the house, but Durga only knows where. At least my travel figurine is still safe in her drawstring bag in my purse. Oy....

I talked to Mrs. Patch this morning. Shmoop doesn't have a hook worm or any other type of worm. Her poop provided no information on why she has diarrhea. Doc also checked her protein levels to see if that was the problem, but everything came out okay. So they're giving her an antibiotic for a possible intestinal bug. If that doesn't work, she may have to be switched to specialty food. I'll be going to get my bebbeh in about an hour.

My neck was getting better until I tensed up when Aunt Tudi fell. I am now unable to turn my head to left even a little. Hopefully, it'll ease off with time. Until then, I'm looking straight ahead.

Aunt Tudi's knee has gone down and her lip looks much better. I think she may just survive! The jury is still out on whether or not we'll be going to the Father Unit's this weekend, though. The good thing is that Lori said I could wait to the last minute to cancel boarding the dogs if need be. There's one wee load off my mind.

I'm now off to post pictures from the Asheville trip and figure out what I need to write next about Tuesday's goings-on.

Images of Asheville

( land o sky )

Malaprops

I was given advice many years ago to write what I know, but I always balked against it until I committed myself to NaNoWriMo 2005 and finally wrote The Chalice. While Asheville was initially a cameo location in the original story in my mind, I decided to make it the primary location when I began writing. Even though I left when I was 13, I still know Asheville. Visiting the city and acquainting myself with the abundant alternative community there gave me a familiarity with the area that became a benefit when I began to write. One of the businesses I mention in the book is Malaprops. It's a bookstore and coffee house that caters to the artsy and alternative tribes. The only thing different about the store when I visited on Tuesday was that the chairs and tables they had outside were gone. This could be because of the season.

( malaprops pictures and an excerpt from The Chalice )

Just Added

iGor has acquired a little gem called "Erik the Awful" by Ray Stevens. This is probably the funniest song Ray ever recorded, or at least I think it is.

( Erik later amassed a small fortune posing for Molly Hatchet album covers )

It should be of note that I can sound almost exactly like Jane in Ray Stevens' "Guitarzan." Maybe someday I'll get up the courage to make a phone post of my Jane impersonation.

Ploom

Okay, this is the last Asheville post.

Diane brought a loaf of bread in anticipation of going back to Lake Julian to feed the birds. We didn't bring any bread 'cos we forgot it like idjits, so I stopped by the Ingles on Hendersonville Road to pick up a few cheap loaves.

Before I go further with this story, I need to describe what an Ingles employee looks like and what I looked like on Tuesday. This is important. Ingles employees usually wear light blue smocks with the word "Ingles" on the breast. I was all in black (big surprise) and I had painted my left eyebrow on because of an unfortunate waxing incident earlier that morning. I looked nothing like an Ingles employee.

So imagine my surprise when an old woman stopped me almost the minute I came into the store and got my shopping cart. She said, "Caaaan you help me find deh ploom? I need deh ploom."

"Uhm...the what?"

"You know. Ploom. Like rezzin. Dried ploom."

"Oh. Plums?"

"Yes. Caaaan you tell me wheere dey are?"

Okay, so this woman was apparently from Lower Slobovia where grocery store employees dress in black and have partial left eyebrows. She needed help, so I decided to play along. I tried to tell her where deh ploom were, but she argued with me that they weren't there. Deh ploom are always in the same place in every Ingles store. I tried to tell her that, but she didn't understand. So I offered to show her. She gave her cart to her husband and told him to stay put, that I was taking her to deh ploom.

I took the old Slobovian lady to deh ploom, and this made her extremely happy. She obviously had some serious regularity problems.

After that, I got the bread and headed back up front where I saw an actual Ingles employee trying to tell the old woman's husband where deh ploom were and she found herself leading him over to produce. While I was checking out, the old woman approached me again and said, "I heff deh ploom, now I heff lost my hoozbind."

"I saw him following an employee over to the plums as I came back up front," I said. She thanked me and toddled back over to deh ploom.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I saw the happy Slobovian couple leaving Ingles with their ploom, probably preparing to have a major ploom party and colon cleanse on an eventful Tuesday eve.

Deh Eeend.