My Trip Home - The Next to Last Day

This post is part of an ongoing tale of my trip back home to Mississippi to visit my family. To start the story at the beginning, begin reading from October 30, 2007.

Sister needed the headlight fixed on her Prius and that meant a trip down to Tupelo. We had to be there by 8am so we headed out early, my BIL following us in his truck so we wouldn't be stuck down there for hours. After stopping for breakfast - Yay! No one was out of grits! - we arrived back home where I had enough time to call B and to pack a few things before I headed off to town with Sister so she could go shopping and I could, in the meantime, visit with Mama.

I love my mother - there's no question about that - but she can be so incredibly infuriating. She's always been stubborn and hell-bent and determined to do what she wants when she wants to do it and consequences aren't very far up on her list of important things. A discussion cropped up between us that she needs to be more diligent about her diet (she's a Type II, insulin dependent diabetic) and she came back with the claim that she was just fine and her way of doing things was just fine and that meant that I should be happy to run down to Sonic to fetch her a root beer float should she want one. I opted to ignore that request and instead was in search of a brick wall on which I could beat my head.

The conversation went on and I made the huge mistake of mentioning that a friend of my MIL's, a 90 year old woman with diabetes, had to have half of a leg amputated. Mama became properly horrified at that idea and I took the opportunity to remind her that she wasn't exempt from something such as that happening to her and Mama replied that if such a thing occurred we could just do away with her. As if she were Old Yeller or something. I was thinking that this is the sort of conversation that makes me glad that most of the time I'm 5,000 miles away from her because it disturbs me no end.

Sister picked me up a short time later and we no sooner had unloaded the groceries before the car dealership called to say we could pick up the car. We arrived in Tupelo an hour later, grabbed the car, went to the liquor store ('Cause the county we're from only allows beer and wine to be sold - or is it just beer? They change the rules sometimes.) and on the way home we had to stop at Sonic 'cause our breakfast grits were long gone. I can now say that I've eaten enough tater tots and bacon cheeseburgers to satisfy me for a while.

As it was my last night in Mississippi, kinfolk wanted to come by to see me before I left town. Think of the same crew showing up as the night we had our turkey dinner minus Mama, Aunt Cora, and my cousin Danny but added to our number was a friend of Sam's, Trey, who lives across the road from them.

We were making pizzas for this crowd and my niece, Misty, had thoughtfully arrived once again with a bucket of pomegranate margaritas. For someone who very seldom drinks, I'd had an enormous amount of alcohol that arrived to me in a plastic bucket. We had the radio set to play 70s music, with a lot of disco thrown in, so as we awaited each pizza to be baked there was a lot of singing and dancing going on in my sister's big kitchen. Even the four teenage boys there were getting into the groove.

At one point when we were all laughing and dancing and hugging each other I overheard Trey say to my sister "There's a lot of love in here." and he was being absolutely sincere. And she smiled and agreed with him. I did as well. We were knee deep in it.

This is how much my nephews, and Trey as well is seems, love me. They were flopped out on the sofa and all it took for me to get them to get up and do the dance to Crank That by Soulja Boy (Or is it Dat?...I am too unhip to know!) for me was to ask. And I have it on video.

I make no secret of how much I love my nephews. I love them beyond reason. But all the love I have for them doesn't change the fact that I can declare to the whole world that they have no rhythm. They can't dance for shit. But Trey? He was good. I wish I could show you just how good he was and how bad Sam, Bobby and Ben were but I swore I wouldn't show the video to anyone but family. But it's tempting. Very tempting.

Tomorrow: I head for home. Tears, farewells, unfounded panic over my luggage and I fly across the Atlantic next to a mountain.