The Clampetts Get Caught in a Mini-monsoon

My husband made a purchase a few years ago, one that I willingly signed off on.  Years later I've often lamented it as one of the biggest mistakes of my life.  You see, I've always had a taste for the finer things in life.  Which is a shame seeing as I don't have the required dinner jacket and evening dress attire to make it into the restaurant.  I like the looks of a BMW, an Audi, dare I confess a Range Rover.  I give you exhibit A:

You see that darling little girl in the puffy lilac colored coat and handsome man next to her that may or may not be in need of a shave?  Ignore them.  Look to the left.  That snow covered vehicle is the subject in question.  Make: International.  Model: Scout II.  Year: 1978.  You may have seen it featured in such films as Fools Rush In with a gorgeous Selma Hayek behind the wheel, as well as Hope Floats with Harry Connick Jr. romancing Sandra Bullock in his convertible "truck".  I mistakenly thought when we bought the Scout that we'd keep it a few years until we had more children and then sell it for a more practical family vehicle.  Like the time my husband highlighted his hair blond, I thought it was a temporary thing.  You know, after a few years it will be out of his system.  I was so wrong.  My husband loves it, with the same sort of passion I have for Red Vines Licorice. 

I have a love hate relationship with it myself.  I even brought it up in marriage counseling to which I was sorely disappointed as our therapist gushed on and on about how much she likes them and how a friend of hers has one.  "So what's the problem with owning the Scout?" She asked me as if I was being difficult.  "Well, he spends a lot of time fixing it.  A lot of time," I replied.  "So it's a hobby for him.  I can't see the problem with that," She declared.  "But...but...but...." I stammered.  Anyway, you get the picture.  The thing is I get the appeal.  I even like seeing my man pull up, engine roaring, thick dark hair blowing in the breeze with the top down.  I don't even mind that he smells like he's been snowmobiling all day.  The thing is the Scout is made for warmer climes.  It feels so nice in the summertime.  The wind in your face, hair flying crazily about as onlookers check out your ride.  In the winter it is cold, leaky and unreliable.  Which in Utah means eight or nine months out of the year.  That's my problem. 

Also...I feel like a bit of a...dare I say it?  A hillbilly.  Like I said, the finer things.  Anyway, Tuesday we were just headed out of Costco as dark clouds closed in swiftly around us.  We got the girls buckled in just as the first rain drops fell.  By the time we drove the block down to the stoplight it was pouring down.  We pulled the canopy of Brielle's carseat as much over her body as we could.  Her poor legs and feet were left out in the rain.  Ava on the other hand had no protection.  It was then at the first stoplight in a series of a dozen on our way back to the east side of town that I started laughing.  I had on sunglasses hoping to keep water out of my eyes.  They were soon fogged over.  Massive amounts of hair gel used to tame the mane streamed into my eyes.  And still I laughed.  We got stopped at every stoplight.  Ava and Brielle were both crying.  It was beyond an adventure for Ava anymore.  She was wet and cold.  I tried to stop laughing.  I really did try.  I even took out the shovel in the back seat and held it over her head to try to block the rain which only served to push me over the edge into hysterics.  My husband couldn't help it, either.  He started laughing.  And there we were, lined up at 13th and 7th waiting at a stoplight while the man in the truck next to us snickered and our two girls howled and me holding a hillbilly umbrella laughing my head off.  As we finally pulled up to our house I said still chuckling, "There is a puddle in my pants and I'm not entirely sure it's from the rain."  It was the most fun I've had in a long, long time.  Thank you, Scout.  Maybe I misjudged you.  Maybe.

Perrier Song

If you're like me and don't have a DVR in which you can fast forward through commercials then you may have noticed a commercial of late that's been circulating.  It's a Perrier commercial in which it's so hot outside everything is melting.  I love the song that accompanies it.  I decided to google it and found out that the woman who sings it is a French artist named simply Camille.  Apparently she's a big deal in France.  I'm so glad I found her.  I took a long strange, slightly absurd trip on youtube yesterday watching all her videos.  She's extremely talented and delightfully strange.  So if you're bored and feel like some entertainment I highly recommend her.  Below is her performing the aforementioned song "Waves".  Enjoy.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

The Tanglewood Tree

I've always felt a very deep connection to nature.  At times the feeling of peace is similar to some of the most sacred experiences I've had in my spiritual life.  A moment in the redwood forests of Northern California my ears were filled with silence as if all of nature held its breath in awe of those old giants.  One day at the top of a mountain in Jackson Hole I wandered off the path and sat next to an old twisted cedar bent, no doubt, by the constant wind that howled up there.  The vista was filled with gossamer gray clouds hovering over windswept crags.  Up above the timberline, few things grew, making the land seem bleak and tough.  And yet if there were ever a place that God would linger in His creation it struck me that it would be there.  Many of my poems focus on aspects of nature. 

There is a tree next door that has grown wild and tall and twisted in the middle of the city.  It fascinates me.  I've spent hours watching it.  It seems menacing in winter, when its crone-like branches seem to reach downward as if to snatch an unsuspecting passerby.  The color of the leaves in summer are such a vivid green, like a neon sign announcing its vitality.  When it storms the old tree creaks and groans and thrashes it's limbs as if in pain.  In my mind I imagine it in the story of other peoples lives.  Only most times it is not in the middle of a city, but in the middle of a medieval forest.  As you can see I'm enamored of it.  And so, like many people and things I have loved in the past, it got the old poetry treatment. 

Dreaming Beneath the Tanglewood Tree

I run on legs so swift and nimble, run toward the Tanglewood Tree

Bright green buds alight so softly, decorating a maze of limbs

Like the winter birds returning from across the summer sea

If you listen as a child does the forest sings it springtime hymns:

Come and dance and sing around me

Come hear the wind whispering softly

Come braid the daisies in a chain

Hope that in your heart a portion of spring will yet remain

  He takes my hand and leads me onward, onward to the Tanglewood Tree

On a carpet of pure white blossoms we dream together, a lover’s dream

Brash sunlight burns my skin as it filters through the canopy

We stand and make our way back home, flowing together like a stream

Come and rest your back against me

Come be wild and young and care free

Come and see my lofty branches sway

Linger on with me throughout this hot summer day

Two children run before me now, a baby I carry upon my hip

In search of autumn berries we enter a forest Mother Nature has set ablaze

I pause and ponder what the aging tree can offer when its foliage, winter does strip

With a restless heart within me I hurry on through dusk’s growing haze

Come and gather my dying leaves I generously drop at your feet

Come remember the love that was born here in the summer heat

Come see autumn’s final glory, feel winter’s breath on the air

Hold your children close against you, all the love within you share

  The Tanglewood Tree looms barren in the light of a midwinter’s moon

We see that there’s beauty in bleakness, silence and tranquility

I smile knowing we’re both thinking of that long ago afternoon

The vital roots buried below us are waiting, dreaming beneath the Tanglewood Tree

Come and kneel together beneath me, a prayer of thanksgiving to give

Come lay the pain of old sorrow by, there is life before you yet to live

Come see how storms have bent my bows and yet they did not break

Rejoice for times the sun shone down, what a dazzling life it did make

- Denise Cooper Smith