all roads…do not lead to Heaven

I want to be a more serious-minded Christian, more detached from this world,
more ready for heaven than I have ever been in my whole life.
I want an ear that is sharp to know the voice of the enemy,
whether it comes from religion, politics, or philosophy…
I would rather stand and have everybody my enemy than to go along with the
crowd to destruction.
Do you feel that way?
Aiden Wilson Tozer

(massive trees fall across a dirt road / Troup Co / Julie Cook / 2017)

About a month back, following Hurricane Irma, this is what my husband and I found
on a piece of property located in the western Georgia area.

It’s a piece of property he’s enjoyed and maintained for the past 30 years for hunting, fishing, hiking, etc.

Nearly 400 acres of woods and former pasture land with a criss crossing maze of
trails and dirt roads…
Irma saw to it that one of the main roads to the backside of the property should be
blocked by downed trees.

The trees fell across the road from the adjoining neighbor’s land.

Removing the massive oaks would require some major equipment of which we didn’t have,
so the only option was to cut a new road.

Where I saw an impossible passage, my husband saw a brand new opening…
but one that was not readily available.

A new passage that would require some time and hard work on our parts….
Not to mention destroying a large yellow jacket’s nest underneath a massive rock
as well as battling ticks, mosquitoes and watching carefully for snakes.

Yet it was all part and parcel of a massive undertaking if we wanted to
reach the other side.

It took the two of us the better part of the day to first clear a path using
clopping shears, and a chainsaw…
eventually allowing for the tractor and bush hog to make a clear path.

I was reminded of this recent road cutting adventure yesterday after reading
the words offered by a dear friend from Ireland…

A wise friend who admonished me…warning me to be wary of words now being offered
in the name of God…
As in not all words that are currently being claimed by some seemingly knowledgeable individuals are words, as given in scripture, being that of God’s…
Words that are not God’s word to man….but are rather words man is taking as God’s
and twisting them to his own.

He reminded me that the world has a new gospel…
and with its new gospel the world has decreed that any and all roads will lead
to Heaven..it matters not.

My friend noted that it would behoove me, as it would behoove all the faithful,
to see and to understand that the world is now claiming its gospel path as
the road of inclusion…which is a very dangerous gospel at that…”

He encouraged me to trust no one with God’s word.
For the amount of false teachers is growing at such a fast and alarming rate with
this current new notion of the gospel of inclusion…
such that scripture and prayer are to be our only true guide…

Because these false teachers are each readily claiming that any and all roads lead to God..which is a very dangerous gospel thought.

As I am reminded that Jesus, not man, clearly taught us to…
“Enter through the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads
to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life,
and only a few find it.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing,
but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
By their fruit you will recognize them.
Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons
and in your name perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I never knew you.
Away from me, you evildoers!’
Matthew 7:13-22

Good old fashioned hate, with an extra dose of love

“I hate and love. And why, perhaps you’ll ask.
I don’t know: but I feel, and I’m tormented.”
― Catullus

(detail of an embroidered bee on a pair of pants / Julie Cook / 2015)

Looking in the closet, deciding what to wear, I opt for the yellow pants with the embroidered bees.
In honor of Dad.
You should know Georgia Tech’s mascot is a yellow jacket.
Yellow Jacket. . .Bee. . .
Comme ci, Comme ça

Every state has its own hyped up in-state college rivalry.
You know, those colleges within each state which vie for bragging rights from one another–with such being anything from the highest recruited freshman class to the nicest campus, the best football team, the best basketball team, the best gymnastics team, the best debate team, the top research facility. . .yada, yada, yada. . .as the list goes on and on.

Here in the South we simply call it “good old fashioned hate”
Someone wrote a book about such using that very title so I’m assuming that’s what we call it.
Here in Georgia that love / hate relationship exists between The University of Georgia and The Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech, or simply Tech.

I come from a long line of Georgia Tech graduates. . .
My brother, my dad, my uncle, my grandfather, my cousins, even my son took a few course at Tech.
I on the other hand earned my degree from The University of Georgia, otherwise known as Georgia or simply UGA.

People often ask about my family’s rivalry but it’s never a problem. . . not until each fateful fall Saturday in late November when The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets meet The University of Georgia Bulldogs on the gridiron—-then there’s a problem. My Uncle would get so upset, he couldn’t bear to watch the game or even listen to it on the radio—simply too stressful.

Ask anyone from Ohio how they feel about Michigan.
Ask anyone form Michigan how they feel about Ohio.
Ask anyone from Auburn how they feel about Alabama.
Ask anyone form Alabama how they feel about Auburn.
You learn quite quickly that you’ve simply created fertile ground for a fight, plain and simple,
like I say, good old fashioned hate. . .

My deep sense of rivalry satisfaction however, comes in knowing that a man who graduated from both Emory University and Georgia Tech, who claims allegiance to a yellow jacket nation, actually had to endure paying for his daughter to attend college at his much hated arch nemesis.
Enough said.

As I sat in the waiting room, the nurse stepped out to change the channel of music.
U2 was currently singing yet she told me that they needed to change the tempo as Bono was just a little too lively for my dad. I know Dad didn’t complain, probably wasn’t even paying attention, but I let her change it nonetheless.
Eva Cassidy began singing a somber and melodic Fields of Gold.
“This is to make me feel better?!” I mused to myself.
The nurse immediately noted my “bee” pants saying how cute they were.
I explained I wear them for dad.
We then chat about that whole Georgia / Georgia Tech thing. . .

Looking over at Dad, I notice that he just looks so, well. . .old.
Small and tiny, shrinking.
His clothes seem to swallow him these days.
His hair, what hair remains, sits most days a bit disheveled on his mostly bald head.
His glasses, too big for his now tiny face, are always dusty, clouding his rummy eyes.
He’s pale and frail.
Usually listing to the right as he walks. . .make that, shuffles.
We made small talk. . .or actually I attempted to make small talk as Dad rarely initiates conversation.
I asked a few short questions in order to fill the quiet of the waiting room, albeit for Bono’s singing.
“I don’t know” was Dad’s reply, “you know my short term memory isn’t good.”
“I just looked at him, feeling sad, as he began staring forward with his chin dropped in his hand as his arm was propped up on his knee.
As they call him back to see the doctor, telling me they’ll come for me when he’s finished, I lose myself in my thoughts as the song Mad World begins to play. . .
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places,
worn out faces. . .

Not making me feel better at all. . .

The nurse finally calls me back.
I walk in as Dad is sitting in a chair looking rather small.
I take a seat by him on the doctor’s stool.
“Oh you’re wearing bee pants. . .”
“Yes Dad, just for you” I proudly smile.
He beams a smile of satisfaction.
He becomes fretful about a new prescription the doctor had told him about but I reassure him that we’ll find out more when the doctor comes back in to go over the lab results.

Dad’s hemoglobin is low. It’s been low.
Meaning he’s anemic.
There are symptoms and signs. . .
Dad is most likely bleeding internally, most likely intestinal.
Last visit they shot him full of Vitamin B-12.
Added lots of D and changed up some of the prescriptions.
He seems much better than last visit.
Not as pale, not as wobbly, not as poorly.
At 87 with one so frail, a colonoscopy is asking a lot.
As the doctor had explained to me on our last visit. . .”say he has a colonoscopy and say they find cancer—what do you do?” The odds wouldn’t be in Dad’s favor with surgery. And what of treatment? What of chemo or something even more aggressive. . .would he, could he survive?
We all agreed, with Dad leading the charge, we will wait and see. . .monitor.
Sounds good. . .

So today his levels are still low, but stable. . .so all is good. . . for now

It’s a quick ride home as he is only a Point A to Point B sort of individual. .
no diversions whatsoever!!
He tells me multiple times that he’s worried about Gloria as she’s constantly hurting and frustrated that her hands aren’t as apt to do what she wants them to do. I tell him that I hope the doctor can prescribe something for the arthritis.
He smacks his lips.
In fact the entire time we’ve been in the car, he’s licking his lips or rather moving his tongue over the top of his mouth. . . you know, the way you do when your mouth is dry and you’re trying to work up enough saliva to make it unsticky. . .but the sound is one that is enough to drive a person crazy.
I realize that his mouth is most likely dry from all of his prescription and I make a mental note to say something to the doctor on our next trip back in a couple of weeks.

There was a time I’d have gone nuts over the endless smacking sound and of the constant litany of the same worried question after worried question. My patience with Dad has not always been great.
He tends to be very obsessive compulsive. Especially in regard to my brother. I won’t go into that whole story—suffice it knowing that he committed suicide years ago and dad has a very unhealthy conscious decision in choosing not to heal.
He is a dog with a bone, refusing to let go. . .
For years he refused counseling, always preferring to wallow.
I had a hard time with Dad and all of that.

Yet thankfully time and age have a funny way of sorting things out.
Dad, unbeknownst to himself, is continually teaching me about the important things in life . . .with the kicker being that I’m finally open and appreciative to such.
Funny how that works.
And the most amazing thing of it all. . .
is that a diehard yellow jacket hating Bulldog can proudly wear a pair of yellow bee pants. . .
just for Dad. . .
Good old fashioned hate steeped in love. . .

The Twilight Zone or the life of a woman over 50

“This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you’re on a through route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable…Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re entering the wondrous dimension of imagination. . .Next stop The Twilight Zone.”
― Rod Serling

Que the music. . .
As I was patiently sitting, on a hot and humid late August Sunday afternoon, in our local ER, I found my mind wandering in and out of what constitutes this so called life of mine. Isn’t that title already being used. . . “my so called life?”
I think I rather like the sound of that.

And not to fret, I’m fine.
My husband however. . .well, lets just say that his pants have seen better days. . .but I’ll get to that in a minute.

So now back to the ER and the theme music from the Twilight Zone which is now playing in our heads. . .

Back when I was preparing to retire, about two years ago, from what seemed to be a perpetual life of being stuck in High School mode, I thought there were two things I’d like to do with my life and time. Not so much bucket list material mind you, just a new hobby or two.

One thing that I thought I’d like to do was to raise bees. I love honey, and as I fancy myself as bit of a honey aficionado, it seemed to make perfect sense that I should have a hive or two—you know, to call my own, as in I could gather my own honey.

(image of just some of my kitchen’s honey collection)

Local honey as local as it can get, as in my back yard local. We’ve got plenty of clover, I’ve got a garden, I’ve got some random flowers placed around the yard. . .everything seemed to be in place except for the bees.

Yet the more I read about it, it all sounded rather complicated.
And there are so many bees.
Really lots and lots of bees.
Plus ever since I first heard about those africanized bees. . .you know, those hyper aggressive honey bee cousins that don’t exactly like people or anything else for that matter that isn’t another african evil bee?
I, in turn, developed a bit of a fear that those crazy bees could somehow invade the hives of my sweet honey bees, running them off, or sinisterly killing them off, then they’d all simply lie in wait for me to happen happily along, all ready to gather my honey, when BAM, they’d swarm me dead in one fell swoop.

Yeah, I’m rethinking that whole bee hobby. . .

My second thought was and remains chickens.
Layers mind you, as in for fresh eggs only.
I can handle, say, 3 to 5 chickens can’t I?
For Christmas, my sweet husband (remember his feelings are really hurt as to how I painted him in such a bad light the other day when on our anniversary last week he allowed me to be attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets—reason 2 as to why I’m not too keen of my own hives. . .digressing) had a coop built. The coop building man just finished everything Saturday.

Now all that remains is for me to find “my girls”. . .

These girls are my Dad’s neighbors in the city—if city folks can raise some girls, so can I, can’t I?

I’m thinking that my chicken adventures shall all be for another post another day.
Today we’re all about the Twilight Zone of being a woman over 50.

It is sadly true—when a woman reaches the magic number of 50 she enters the Twilight Zone—que the music again.
I have proof.. .

The other evening I prepared the best steak tacos ever. I grilled delightfully seasoned New York strip steaks, slicing thinly. I nestled the slices snugly into a warm small soft flour tortilla which was given a nice spread of Jalapeño Ranch and salsa, some wonderful Mexican cheese topped with my oh so tasty Jalapeño cole slaw. . .yummy!

My husband had actually gotten some of the deliciousness on his nice dress shirt so right after we finished eating I told him to go change, bring me the shirt, so I could quickly pre-treat the stain hoping the stain wouldn’t have time to set into the fabric.

As I was clearing the table he brought me the shirt. I left what I was doing to go pre-treat the stain, only to let the shirt sit a bit while I returned to do the dishes. Just as I was finishing up the dishes, I remembered the shirt. Knowing I didn’t want clorox to sit too long on a white shirt, as not to damage the fabric, I quickly headed to the laundry with the covered bowl of slaw in hand. As soon as I popped the shirt in the wash, I’d head to put the slaw in the fridge.

Fast forward to the following day.
As I made my way to do a load of laundry that next morning, what did I see sitting on top of the washing machine?
My bowl of slaw.
Exactly where I had left it the evening before as I had put it down to throw the shirt in the washing machine. And since it was now well past the acceptable 2 hours of sitting at room temp for mayonnaise, I had no choice but to throw out a seemingly perfect and delicious bowl of slaw.

The Twilight Zone. . .

Oh, you’re not convinced?
Ok, here’s more proof.

This has happened on more than one occasion.
As I’m in the process of getting dressed, fixing my hair, putting on make-up, donning earrings and watch, for some reason there is always an interruption—the phone rings, the cat throws up, I suddenly remember to go immediately to take my hormone pill, when in mid dressing I’m called away.
I do remember to go back to put my clothes on, but that seems to be where my memory ends.

How many times have I been some place when a person such as a sales person, student or friend notices that I seem to have lost an earring.
OH DEAR GOD THAT WAS MY GRANDMOTHER’S EARRING!!!!
I can be heard wailing throughout the store, classroom or wherever I may be at the time.
I go into panic mode.
I fret as to how I can tell my jeweler husband that I’ve lost a nice earring.
I fret that my Grandmother is shaking her head from the great beyond.

There is an all out search.
People are alerted.
Others are now on hands and knees.
I’m promised to be called if it is found.
I tear the car apart.
Dejected and sad I eventually end my day by heading to the shower, when low and behold, guess what’s sitting on the bathroom counter, just where I had left it earlier that morning. . .
BINGO, an earring.

Twilight Zone!

For you see, when a woman hits 50 all those hormones, which make bodies run smoothly, fall out of said woman. Hormones all gone equal hot flashes, no sleep, dry skin, thinning hair, ill temperament, a brain now operating in constant fog mode. . .

Have you ever thought you were asleep, say around 2 AM, when suddenly you’re wide awake and your brain is wired, like wide awake wired and ready to go? If only you felt this alert at say 2PM when it would actually help to be alert–but since you were wired and alert at 2AM until, say, your alarm is ready to go off, you feel like crap the rest of the day–all because the hormones that help you sleep with some semblance of normalcy have long fallen out of your body.

Which reminds me suddenly of where I am and of what I’m doing as it is now the magic time of 2PM on a Sunday afternoon and I am feeling rather sluggish. . .that is until I remember seeing all that blood which leaves me woozy again.
Seems my husband and his chainsaw did not see eye to eye on clearing out brush and small trees on said deer property. Would someone remind me why we spend more time on deer property, working like dogs and almost always getting killed by first a swarm of angry yellow jackets and now a chainsaw gone mad rather then say, our house and yard???!!!
The answer will be for another day. . .

Two harrowing hours, a nice set of stitches and a tetanus shot later we walk out of the ER when it suddenly dawns on me, where did I leave the car. . .

Anniversaries and anaphylactic shock

Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.

~Zelda Fitzgerald

(woodland wildflower / Troup Co. Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

I don’t know what you were doing August 13, 1983 but I was getting married.

And yes that does indeed mean that yesterday was my anniversary.

31 years.

So imagine my surprise and excitement when my husband called Tuesday evening to tell me he was going to be running about an hour late coming home for the day as he needed to finish up a few things at the store before heading home. Asking if someone had come in late, his reply was no, he was actually wanting to finish up a job which was to be picked up the following day- – – because, wait for it, he was hoping to take the day off.

Oooo, taking off tomorrow. . .Ooooo. . . as in tomorrow, our anniversary!

YAY!!!

But wait. . .

That’s odd.

In 31 years, he’s never taken off on our anniversary.

Hummm, what’s up I wonder.

We had actually already gone out Saturday evening to celebrate the mark of our special day. He had business in Atlanta and as our son and daughter-n-law were with us, we decided to take them along with us out to eat—what could he possibly have up his sleeve on a Wednesday, as in the middle of the week?

You may recall that my husband runs his own business. He works 6 days a week 12 to 14 hour days and never, never, ever takes off.

Hummmmm?

And then it dawns on me.

I had accompanied him this past Sunday down to his deer land–helping him clear the roads as he bush hogged the property. We hadn’t finished the work and the tractor was still there. I bet money he’s wanting to go finish up in order to bring the tractor home.

So much for thoughtful romance. . .

And sure enough, I was right. . .

I meet him at the kitchen door.

“So, you’re wanting to take off tomorrow?”

“Yes”

“Do you know what tomorrow is?”

“Of course I do”

“What is it?”

“Well. . .it’s our anniversary”

“And you’re wanting to take off in order to do something for that?”

“Uh, er, uh. . .”

“As in bushog?!”

“Well I was thinking about it. . .you and I”

Bush hog.

The perfect romantic way to spend a loud, hot, dusty grueling day.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning.

After not sleeping most of the night—remember, 54 year old women have no hormones and never sleep, and oddly after having the alarm clock going off randomly twice at midnight (who hit the freaking button by accident?!) and then having battled for just a shred of the covers throughout the entire night, as I sleep with a cover hog, I was finally, happily and thankfully buried deep within the covers as my husband had gotten up just before daylight, heading to the shower, leaving me finally some semblance of sheets and peace.

Suddenly the sheets are jerked off of my head as a shaving cream clad face peers into my “nest”—“HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!”

ughhhhh—as I pull the covers back over my head.

“Time to get up and get going while it’s still cool in order to work” he cheerfully chirps.

ughhhhh.

A cup of coffee and no shower later, we’re heading out in the early morning light for the hour’s drive south.

Once we reach our destination and unload a truck full of chain saws, limb cutters and saws, as well as unloading the Four wheeler from the trailer, my farmer alter ego husband hops on the tractor as I am instructed to follow behind at a safe distance–just so no rocks come flying out from under the bush hog aiming for my eyes or head. We slowly begin to make our way up the bumpy dirt road to the overgrowth he wishes to clear away.

Anniversary romance at its best—yep.

As the tractor rumbles up the dirt road, creating an ever growing red dirt dust cloud, I happily follow at a safe distance. As the always prepared girl scout, I’ve got my camera slung across my shoulder as I serenely rattle along taking in the cattails swaying in the gentle morning breeze. . .

(said husband on said tractor with said trailing dust cloud)

. . . out of the corner of my left eye, I catch something small darting right for me when simultaneously I suddenly feel a searing pain penetrating my left shoulder.

“Damn biting fly” I grouse reaching back to shoo the blasted thing away when BAM, the same searing pain on my index finger with immediately multiple paralyzing stabbing ice pick pains to my left ear.

“AAAGGGHHHHHHH” I scream as I begin waving and batting frantically at my head.

Remember I’m driving a Four wheeler up a rough dirt road. . hands off the handles means I start rolling backwards.

Somehow I get the four wheeler stopped in the middle of the road as both arms are now flailing wildly in the air around my head.

All the while as my clueless tractor loving husband rambles further away up the dirt road.

Immediately I know my peril.

He ran over a yellow jacket’s nest!!!

And I’m being attacked!!!!!!

(yellow jacket image taken from the web)

I am now fully engulfed in searing pain as a frantic panic sets in, as the hyper speed dive bombers are unleashing their full fury on little ol me.

Run or ride, fight or flight?!

How I don’t recall, but I manage to drive the Four wheeler far enough up the road escaping the maddening assault of angry yellow jackets.

Sunglasses, where are my sunglasses??!! Ugh. . .

Yellow jackets this time of year, are terribly aggressive. They, like wasps, are able to sting over and over again unlike bees who lose their stingers after one attack.

I stop at the top of the hill wailing and thrashing in pain.

OOAAAOOOAAAOOOOOO

Like a wounded dog, howling in woeful agony, I feel as if an ice pick is repeatedly jamming in my ear penetrating into my brain. My finger is now twice its size and my ear, well–if i’m lucky, maybe it’ll fall off.

6, 7, 8 stings.

AAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!

(it may not look it, but it is in mid swell, soon to give new meaning to blown up like a balloon)

Farmer Cook is now finally heading back down the opposite side of the road when he spies me draped over the Four wheeler crying and weakly holding my head. He panics thinking he’s slung a rock and I’ve been beamed in the head.

Oh that I should be so lucky.

“OOOOAAAAOOOOAAAOOOO” I wail

“Yellow jackets. . .”

OOOOOAAAAAOOOOO

“What” he irritatingly quips as he can’t hear over the roar of the tractor’s engine.

“YELLOW JACKETS”

Mr. Concerned:”do you think you’re allergic?”

Really?

Tears streaming down my cheeks, I agonizingly shoot back “I’d be dead by now if that was the case!!”

“Maybe we need to go buy some cigarettes.”

“What??!!

“They say wet tobacco smeared on the stings helps”

You should know that we are miles back in the middle of the woods, far far away from any store, hospital or thankfully, cigarettes.

I suppose it would only be fair that I should tell you that he is taking me to the beach in September for a long weekend as a real anniversary gift, but on this particular afternoon, with a double sized throbbing finger, missing prescription sunglasses, and an ear now the size of a grapefruit with an ice pick constantly boring into my brain, I’m seriously rethinking what I did 31 years ago on August 13, 1983.

Ode to a sweet peach

“A Georgia peach, a real Georgia peach, a backyard great-grandmother’s orchard peach, is as thickly furred as a sweater, and so fluent and sweet that once you bite through the flannel, it brings tears to your eyes.”
Melissa Fay Greene, ‘Praying for Sheetrock’

(Peaches /Julie Cook / 2014)

Shhh don’t tell, but these are South Carolina Peaches.
There is nothing more splendid than a summer’s ripe peach. . .

““““““““““` ““““““““““ ““““““““

Visiting cousins, who lived on a small rural farm in mid eastern Georgia, a young city girl, no more than 7, always made an immediate bee line for the orchard.
Standing small before a bountiful quest, yellow jackets zipping from tree to tree, she saw the challenge and heard the call.

Hand over hand–lifting each leg up a tad higher, tender limb upon limb, this little girl would climb higher and further until reaching the tallest branch.
Here hung the largest, the sweetest and ripest fruit.
Peach trees are not tall trees, but to a little girl, they might as well have been giants.

Haphazardly and full of trepidation, she’d unsteadily reach out with one free hand while clinging desperately to the tree with the other small hand.
Barely yet triumphantly grasping the fuzzy prize.

Settling back in the crook of the tree, yellow jackets vying for the first bite,
the young girl held the furry ball to her nose breathing in the heady fragrance.
Savoring the nano second before taking the giant juicy bite, she eagerly bites through the fuzzy outer layer, releasing a flood of sweet nectar which trickles down her chin.

As summers long past come flooding sweetly back with the sight of a single peach . . .