THE LAST HURRAH or, BOONE, neener neener : - '

The boys and I are in Boone. We came to visit my brother and his wife for a few days, the last trip before school starts back. Whenever they know I'm coming to Boone, my friends stick their noses in the air, roll their eyes in their head and poke their lower lips out. Jealous, they are. Grown women. I've aaaaaalways wanted to gaaaawwwwwww thaaaayur.....

Well, I'll bring you something. Whaddyu want?

Oh, anything. . . something kitschy, antique-ish, mountain-ey, North Carolina-like, and OH! it should smell good.

Good grief. It reminded me of a scene from a Diane Keaton movie called Baby Boom, where she was a big money man-eater advertising rep in New York, had quit, moved upstate to the country with her baby and started making baby food in mass quantities with apples from her orchard. In the middle of a frigid winter, frazzled, frustrated and nearly broke she's standing in the general store trying to talk the owner into selling her baby food when two yuppie couples from the city come in. (I think one of the wives was Rita Wilson, by the way, but I can't be sure.....I need to watch this movie again - it's so great - but I digress.)
Anyway, they're going on and on about how cutesy this place is, and oh LOOOOOOK at theeeeees and oh how kaYUUUUUUUUT is thAAAAAAAAT and we need to take six of these flannel shirts back to the city for the wintertime, they're so, oh I don't know, Eddie Baaaa-wer, but here they're only seven dollars (shhhhh). . . . blah blah blah, when they spy a jar of Diane Keaton's homemade baby food with the sweet little country baby label and all that jazz, and one of them, Rita Wilson I think, holds it up and says, OH. MY. GOSH. MARY JANE LOOK AT THIS!!! Cute little small town homemade baby food! We have to have four jars of this and the other one says oh how great! homemade? no how many are there lets take them all and turns to Diane Keaton and says how much are these and back to her buddy and says out of the corner of her mouth lets get 'em all and back to Diane Keaton how much did you say? and she says $2.00 each I mean $2.50 no $3.00 ....$4.00 a jar yeah uh $4.00 a jar.

Now I don't remember why I started this story but I gotta go watch that movie. Which I can go do because I'm takin' it easy for three days in cool, breezy North Carolina. My gosh it's so nice here. It's almost 10am and no air conditioner needed. We slept with the windows thrown wide open. Heaven. Ate dinner last night on the deck. Grilled out. Can't do that at home. It's still brutal at 9:00pm! Ronny called this morning in fact at 8:00am from work in crunchy brown Georgia and I told him how cool it was and he was sooooo jealous. I'm frying already, says he. Don't even tell me says he. I can't stand it.

Yep, I'm looking forward to fall. But right now, lemme tell ya. I'm looking out my brothah's front picture window at the rhododendrons that line his driveway and the hostas that grow the size of shrubs. He has an amazing amount of shade, which is one of the things that comes with the hilly terrain here. It's a give and take I suppose. Last night when I was bragging on the temperature in his house (sans air conditioner) and his lush landscaping, he said I'll trade you that for a flat piece of land.

I guess it's all relative.