G is for Guests

The Rogue Speaks:

It's time once again for Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday, and this week's letter is G.  Here is my offering:

House Rules for Guests

You are a guest in our home.  Please use your best manners (if you were taught any) and say “Please” and “Thank you.”  Those words are universal and are consistently used by people in all walks of life.  They are essential.  No matter how smart you are (or THINK you are), if you don’t know when to use those words, your life will be very lonely.

Since you are not paying to stay here, we expect you to be considerate, especially at mealtime.  I am happy to cook supper for you, but I expect you to be polite and offer to help out by setting the table and filling the water glasses.  It is unacceptable for you to sit around on your ass, waiting for dinner to be served.  After dinner, I expect you to help clean up, and be cheerful about it.  Oh, and no iphones at the table.  That’s just plain rude.

We don’t intend to help pay for your vacation by providing all your food, so please consider doing a little grocery shopping to contribute.  If you were staying at a hotel, you would be paying for all your meals.  And since you are saving a lot of money by staying with us, it would be nice if you took US out to eat for a change.

You are responsible for your own breakfast and lunch.  The cereal is in the pantry, and there is lunch meat, etc., in the fridge.  Don’t forget to clean up after yourself.

Make your bed every day, and don’t leave your things lying around, especially in the common areas of our home.  Please don’t leave fans and lights on unless you want a bill for the extra electricity you use up.  The guest bathroom is fully stocked, so if you run out of toilet paper, don’t wait around for me to put on a fresh roll.  This is just not going to happen.

Please think twice about being sullen and pouty.  You may never want to come back here again, but since you’re here now, you may as well make the best of it.  If you DO decide you want to come back, please make sure that you read and understand the following books:

Emily’s Magic Words: Please, Thank You, and More by Cindy Post Senning

Emily Post’s The Guide to Good Manners for Kids by Cindy Post Senning, Peggy Post, and Steve Bjorkman

You think you’re too old for these books?  Think again!  One is never too old to learn rules one should have been taught as a child.

 

This concludes my offering for this week.  I have a splitting headache and I'm going to bed!!

The FUTURE of America

The Rogue Speaks:

It's time once again for Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday, and our letter this week is "F."  Summer in coastal Georgia always comes with houseguests.  The first group to visit the McEwen Plantation/Bed and Breakfast left last Friday.  Our youngest grandchildren, Keillor and Emaline, were here for two weeks along with their parents.  These two are among the brightest and most engaging four-year-olds that one could ever hope to meet.

Toe-headed Keillor

 

The enchanting Miss Em

 

They played in the surf with their parents, and built sand castles, but even the beach can get a little tiring when it's so hot, so one day Emaline wanted to go to the Museumof Science and History in Jacksonville.

 



Joey, Emaline, and Keillor at M.O.S.H in Jacksonville

The Human Body exhibit at M.O.S.H

Keillor and Emaline have very smart, wonderful, loving parents who have taught their children from the beginning to be polite and helpful.  They always say "Please" and "Thank you," and "I'm sorry" when they misbehave.  They know how to set the table for meals, how to clear their dishes when they have eaten, and even know how to put a fresh roll on the toilet paper holder without even being asked.  These children are the future of our country in the best sort of way.  They are bright, energetic, and loving.  These are definitely not spoiled, lazy kids.

 

They left for home on June 21st, and the next houseguest arrived the following day.  Today is June 27th.

 

 

A fresh roll of toilet paper has been sitting on the toilet tank for two days now.  I have no intention of installing it on the holder.  Someone else should have taught that lesson a long time ago.  It's not rocket science.  It's very, very sad. 

 

E is for Edible

The Rogue Speaks:

"E is for Edible"

I am one day late with my offering for Alphabe-Thursday.  Joey and I took the kids to the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville. They are leaving today, so it was our last field-trip.

"...and for our next selection..."  The twins at M.O.S.H. in Jacksonville

  Another houseguest  comes in tomorrow, and the day trips will be entirely different.  We may go to the Okeefenokee Swamp, or maybe Cumberland Island.  We shall see!!

Joey and the carrot

The Rogue Speaks:

C is for Coastal

"Eye of the Storm"              Judie McEwen
Acryllic ink on Yupo paper
 

The Rogue Speaks:


When one lives on the coast, hurricanes are always a serious threat.  Today, tropical storm Andrea (aptly named, for all who know me) is passing through Florida and southern Georgia.  Since we have only lived here for less than a year, I am grateful that this is only a "tropical storm."

I left home today at 12:45 p.m. to go to a meeting.  After the meeting, a friend and I ran some errands, after which I went for a much needed haircut.  The tropical storm was slowly moving up Florida into coastal Georgia, and by the time I finished my errands and arrived at the hair stylist, the rains were quite heavy.  When I left the salon, the rain had become blinding, and I drove home going about 25-35 miles per hour on a road where the speed limit is 60.  I followed the yellow line on the left-hand side of the road.

I am grateful to be home safely.  There are many situations over which we have control in our lives, but weather is not one of them,  When one is at the mercy of the elements, anything can happen. 

I have lived through a tornado that came out of nowhere on a lovely Sunday afternoon on Lake Allatoona outside Atlanta.  It tore across the lake with such force that the coast guard just could not get out to rescue the boaters.  Our mast was snapped like a dry twig.  The twister came ashore and tossed dry-docked boats high in the air, then deposited them back to earth, smashed and twisted.  Fortunately, there were no fatal injuries.  I would not get back in a boat for 15 years.

Now I have lived through a tropical depression.  I am grateful that it was not a full-blown hurricane.  But the season is young, and even though there has not been a major hurricane to hit Jekyll Island in 114 years,  it could happen.  In fact, the laws of probability tell me that it will happen.  I won't be here, though.  We will pack up and take ourselves and our dog children to safety, and hope that when we return, our home is still standing.

Life can throw all sorts of stuff at us.  Sometimes we think we just cannot go on.  Sometimes we become so overwhelmed, that the rainbow at the end of the storm is not something that we can even comprehend.  Last June, I was standing on a boardwalk at Jekyll with my son, Jeff.  There had been squalls all around us earlier in the afternoon that had sent us scurrying from the beach, back to the safety of the house.  As we looked far out to sea, out to the horizon, a rainbow appeared--then another, and yet another, AND five more after that!  One after another, they popped up.  There were more rainbows together than I have ever seen in my life.  I think the final count was nine.

I wish my poor, feeble mind could remember those rainbows every day.

This post was written on Thursday, for Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday.  I had to put it aside because we were getting ready for the arrival of Aimee and the twins.  They are here now, and we are heading off to Jekyll to build sand castles.  I checked the radar twice this morning, just to be sure no storms were heading in.  We're safe.

June

The Rogue Speaks:

If a June night could talk, it would tell you the story of a young woman in a long, blue gingham nightgown, sleeveless, with a delicate trim of white eyelet at the neck.  It would tell you of a young man so hopelessly in love that it made his teeth ache, and of how that love began.

But nights can’t talk.  There is only the sound of the crickets, or of two owls calling softly to each other in the twilight.  Perhaps there is the sound of the water lapping the shoreline of the lake, and the sound of our sighs in the dark, in June.

 

 

This is my offering for Jenny's Saturday Centus.  The prompt is in bold type, and Jenny has given us 100 words plus the prompt with which to create a vignette, a flash fiction.  If you are not yet a Centusian, I hope you will join us!!

A is for Adultery

The Rogue Speaks:

A

If north Georgia is, as James Dickey once said, the “country of the nine-fingered people,” then I believe that south Georgia is a woman whose waist has been cinched wasp-like by the Bible Belt. 

That old dinosaur, Pat Robertson said last week that if men commit adultery, it is just not their fault, and women who are married to such men should do whatever they can to bring those unfaithful men back into the marriage bed in such a way that they no longer want to stray.  He goes on to say that women should entice their husbands back by dressing seductively, not criticizing their actions,  being sweet and loving, blah, blah blah.   Old Pat believes that men stray because “that’s just the way men are.”  Hogwash, I say.

I mentioned Pat’s remarks to a friend, a true woman of the south, and her response was that she doesn’t “necessarily disagree” with Pat Robertson.  I’m the outsider here, even though I was born in the south and lived here for many years before exploring new horizons.  Those words caused an alarm to go off in my head.  They made me back off and want to tell her that I had to dash because I had an appointment for brain surgery in 30 minutes and just could not be late.  I am just not quick on my feet .

Another golfing friend was totally incensed at Pat’s remarks.  A transplant from New Jersey, she was quick to make her views known.

“Cheat on me, buddy, and I will make your life a living hell.  I will stalk you like a hawk to find out just what skanky slut has managed to convince you that you are some kind of god who can do whatever-the-hell you want.  I will be relentless.  You can tell me that “it’s over,” and that you “made a mistake,” and that you’ll “never do it again,” but you had better believe that I won’t trust you again for a New York minute. 

If I am a woman of little means, with children to raise, then I will knuckle down and figure out just what it is going to take for me to be self-sufficient and raise my children on my own.  Of course, I will sue your ass for maintenance and child-support, but I will not live with you any longer than I have to.  I will take you to the cleaners.   If you don’t pay up, then you will definitely go to jail.  I will see to it!”

“Have you ever been poor?” I asked.  “Do you have children?”  (Sometimes less is more.)

“Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished.*”

Women have gotten the short end of the stick way too long, and organized religion has not helped them one iota.  We have been told far too long that the husband is the head of the household, and that women should listen and obey his wise counsel.  Any woman with half a brain knows that is just not true.  All one has to do is look at the state of the nation, run primarily by men, to know that women in charge could whip this country into shape and not even break a nail!  Admit it!  You have thought that more than once!  I just cannot see women behaving the way some of those jerks in Washington do. (Well, except for Olivia Pope, who has been sleeping with "President Fitz" in Scandal.  Hahahaha!!!)

I was happy to see those wives of political figures dump their cheating husbands.  I frankly think that Hillary should have dumped Bill, but she did have furthering her own agenda in mind, I suppose.  I am sure that theirs isn’t the only marriage that operates more like a business partnership.  Guess I’m just a hopeless romantic.

I guess what I really question about Pat Robertson’s remarks  about men and adultery is that the last time I checked,  “Thou shalt not commit adultery” was still one of the Ten Commandments.  I don’t think one can pick and choose what commandments to obey, and which to ignore.  Since God seems to talk to Pat an awful lot, Pat should just ask God about that one and tell us what God says.  After all,  those Commandments ARE His!!  AND I think it is just plain wrong of Pat to blame another person for the shortcomings of the spouse.  We are adults, and therefore responsible for ourselves and our own actions.  "The Devil made me do it" just doesn't work in the 21st Century.

It's time, I think, to put old Pat out to pasture, or send him off to the glue factory.  He is starting to plain out smell of decay.

This is my offering for Jenny’s Alphabe-Thursday.  Please read the other offerings for the letter “A.”  I’m heading over there right now!!!

 

*Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette, Act 5, Scene 3