LOOK ALL YOU WANT, BUT DON'T TOUCH!

'Cause I'm done with the men!

My Mystery Lover

Sundown, you better take care if I find you been sneakin' down my backstairs...

PAWS AT MY FEET AND WONDER!

Remarkable discovery made by doctor Ben G. Hager II, reveals how far back I go.

POUT OUT!

How come this old hippo got a big hoedown for Respect for the Aged Day on September 22nd and this poor old widow woman didn't get so much as an email or a "howdy doody"?

HOLD ONTO YOUR TEETH

The above is an artist's rendering of what I'll look like not too many years hence. Save yourselves now, while there's still time. This tale, told by a tooth, is straight from the horse's mouth.

What a Day of Rejoicing That Will Be (For SOME of Y'all)

Here's an old boyfriend a mine singing one of my favorite tunes. He calls me "Thelmer" in it--he dedicates it to Thelmer--because that's what I told him my name was when we met up in a bar.

Young Trixie Goforth Does the Google

Here's me way back when. Even as a young girl, I was doin' the Google. I was doin' the Google before it was invented. I had one of the very first laptops. Don't look at that little piece of my step-ins hanging out my britches leg, you naughty. I may look like I was hot to trot, but even then I was good to Choose Virtue. Leastways that's how I remember it.

GET OUT MY FLYSWATT!

Get out my flyswatt! What I'd give to beat this boy's tail.

GO FORTH AND SIN SOME MORE

So I was up in Heaven, young again and having the time of my life (death), a fugitive on the run from St. Peter, who had grabbed me at the pearly gates, seeking to detain me because my time was not yet.

And lo, the Lord pressed upon the heart of my own preacher back home to climb up Jacob's ladder and coax me back down to earth.

He took me by the hand and he said unto me, "Come back down to earth, Trixie."

And I said to him, "Get your ole hand off me! No tellin' where it's been!"

"Trixie, please come home. We need you at South Bostic Baptist."

"You mean you need that five dollar bill I put in the plate every Sunday!"

But my mind took to thinking of some wild oats I hadn't sowed yet, a few naughty words not yet spoken, a few ugly deeds left undone, some gossip not yet spread, some **** not yet started.

And I rose up with a shout and declared, "I'll think about it."

Y'all stay tuned.

*****************************************************
Give me a thumbs up. Make a comment (EASY!) Click that little envelope with the arrow on it and spread my wit and wisdom worldwide. I thank you for your visit, and I love and praise you for it.



Copyright 2008/2009 by Trixie Goforth and Sherry Austin, that gal who helps her out.

Goodbye for Now

Look at that face over there to the left. That's me in Heaven, where all things become nifty and new.

It's not the prettiest face you've ever seen, but is it not one of the sweetest and most satisfied?

"Farther along we'll know all about it," the old song goes. "Farther along, we'll understand why..."

Oh, sweet, sweet hope of the ages!

Somebody wrote in to say my face looked all peaceful like the Buddha's when he was sitting under a tree and figured out he had it all figured out, or figured out he didn't have it figured out or couldn't ever figure it out, so he just quit trying and decided to "zen out" and "go with the flow."

And to that I say "to each his own," but deliver me from having to tote around that big Buddha belly!

And look at that Clairol Loving Care helmet hair!

Every hair in place. Looks painted on, don't it?

Yes, that's me, looking again like I did in the prime of my life, when hope sprung like an eternal bed spring from my breast.

And now my hope is satisfied.

And yet...and yet, my heart longs for home and the sight and smell of the sweet earth. And for the sight and smell of y'all. Well some of y'all.

Make yourself at home until I come back. Sit in the shade of the porch or come on in--y'all don't have to knock.

Get the clothes in off the line if it looks like rain. Do you mind? And be sure to help yourself to the cornbread on the stove.

A Taste of Heaven: I Died and Went to Heaven, Part Three

{Including a recipe for Heavenly Ambrosia! Celebrity names in bold!}


I know that picture of me looking like Mother Maybelle Carter on the moon is the same one I put up last time, but there’s a reason for it so y’all keep your teeth in your mouth!

My last write-up ("Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity") was going to be all about how I came to look like I was dressed up for the prom in that long dress and tiara, how I dropped forty years and about half that many pounds and came to look fine and lovely like I do in that picture instead of like the old white-haired, flap-bosomed granny in a Dollar Store housedress that you all know and love.

So I put up that picture with the last write-up. But then I got the idea some of you thought my write-ups were too long, so I whacked off the part of the story which you are now privileged to read. And so there's the picture again so it'll all make sense.

Meanwhile, some of you emailed to say you liked my posts on the long side! Will y'all make up your minds? Anyhow, now I know that some of you are a whole lot smarter and have a lot more patience than I’ve heretofore given you credit for.

Congratulations.

So here’s what happened next. (If you don’t know what happened before, scroll down to parts one and two or click here for part one and here for part two.)

But basicially, I died, went to Heaven, and gave St. Peter the slip. I ran past the gates of Heaven. I ran until at last the green earth under my feet became flecked with gold, and soon my happy feet bounced upon a street of gold and my heart leapt up as I beheld a rainbow in the sky, though I'd not yet seen a drop of rain, and in the distance the shining Celestial City, which glittered and shimmered like a star, danced in the never-fading light.

And I came upon a street fair on the outskirts of that city. Since I'd always loved street fairs and flea markets and parades, I was hit by the realization that Heaven is custom-tailored for each of us.

It's one thing for Billy Graham and another for the Pope. One for Dolly Parton and another for Dolly the Llama. One for Howdy Doody and another for Donald Duck. One for Tom Cruise, and yet another for Hoss Cartwright and Colonel Sanders.

(One for myself, another for Cloris Bell--I wished.)

And I realized, too, that for someone as simple-minded as I am, and as short on taste, my Heaven was probably pretty easy and economical to design.

I ran to a booth that said "Information." Two seraphim, which are six-winged angels with big muscles like the men on the covers of romance novels, were manning the booth.

"What is the meaning of life?" I asked them. "Why is there evil and suffering and death? Does everything really happen for a reason? Is there life on other planets? Was it Roosevelt's New Deal or World War II that got us out of the Great Depression? Is the Lord a Republican or Democrat or Libertarian? Is the Pope Catholic? It wasn't God who made honky tonk angels?"

And the seraphim looked at each other, then looked at me and shrugged.

And I walked away unsatisfied, remembering the old hymn we used to sing in the Baptist Church, which hymn proclaimed that all our questions will be answered when we step behind the Gates: "We shall understand it better by and by!" that song went, and that had ever been my most fervent hope.

But as I walked, I came to understand that had I learned the answer to even one of those questions, I would have got the big head and started thinking I was some kind of a prophet or something and would have gone back to earth determined to start my own political party or TV network or religion, and Lord knows there's enough of them already.

And then a voice came booming out of the sky. It said, "Oh taste and see!"

So I tried to quiet the questions in my head and simply walk along and partake of the little delights provided for me.

And at the next booth, two little cherubim held back a shimmering curtain and in little burbling voices like the Munchkins on the Wizard of Oz, they bid me step behind it, and choose the age I wanted to be and how I wanted to look and what service I wanted to perform for all eternity, although I could change it at any time, which I thought was mighty convenient.

And I chose to be thirty-nine years old because at that age, after years of being a little Tammy Wynette standing by my man, (and a little Hillary Clinton), I'd kicked my first husband out of the house and got a job making my own money at the Green Stamp Store.

And I chose to wear a long, flowing garment, and to have an oval head full of dark hair like I used to have, but piled on my head and adorned with a tiara--all because I'd never gone to the prom or had a real dress-up wedding.

And since I'd never taken piano or guitar lessons, and had always regretted it, I elected to play a harp, though in the end I chose a little lyre over a big Harpo Marx-style harp because it was lightweight and more portable and reminded me of the autoharp that Mother Maybelle Carter used to play.

And I was about to run off with my lyre in search of the perfect cloud, when scents most heavenly lured me to a big tent under which sat tables laden with squash and broccoli-cheese casseroles and those congealed fruit salads which are so popular at church suppers on earth.

And outside the tents stood booths where angels offered Angel Food Cake ("Accept no imitations!" the sign read) and white Divinity and Heavenly Ambrosia, which was far and beyond any I'd ever made or tasted.

And I ate and ate, somehow knowing I'd gain not a pound and my blood sugar wouldn't go up, and that I was not being a hog and need not feel guilty, that all the hungry in the world would be fed if we would find a way to do it, and that somehow all would be well, all would be well, all manner of things would be well.

And I realized I had learned more from eating than from all my other explorations.

And I knew if I could only remember what I learned I could go back to earth and proclaim it to the multiudes the world over who adore me and read my blog without fail, and I could use what days I had left to change the whole world for the better, and would be glad to do it, but with my mind the way it is here lately, I forgot everything within about ten minutes, except that part about tasting and seeing.

And this:

No matter what your mama told you, it is possible to make a church supper casserole without cream of mushroom soup, and fruit salad without Jello and Cool Whip, and here's proof if you need it:

Heavenly Ambrosia

Peel the sections from two or three navel oranges

or about six to eight little clementines.

It'll taste best if you peel the skin off the orange sections.

If you use clementines with their tender little membranes, don't

peel off the skin, but cut each section in half or thirds.

Throw the oranges pieces in a bowl

with a couple of cups of chopped and drained fresh pineapple.

And a cup of fresh-grated coconut (the kind that starts out as a hairy brown head you have to chase around with a hammer and crack open to get the meat)

or frozen coconut.

Mix it all up with a couple of cups of miniature marshmallows

and one carton (about 16 ounces) of sour cream.

Throw in a cup or two of chopped pecans if you want to.

Throw in some fresh cherries (do I have to tell y'all to take out the pits?)

if you've got some.

Or use maraschino cherries from a jar if you have to, drain them good.

Add a little sugar if you want it sweeter.

Stir it all up, chill it in the refrigerator and let the flavors marry,

and you'll get a taste of Heaven just like I did,

but without the hassle of travel.

(And you can use canned stuff if you want to.

It won't taste like Seventh Heaven, but it'll still be not of this earth.)

**********


Copyright 2008/2009 Trixie Goforth and Sherry Austin, that gal who helps her out.

You can buy THE DAYS BETWEEN THE YEARS, that book about my life, and other books by Sherry Austin, right here. They're brand new, we can autograph and personalize them for you, too.

See down below where you can vote "funny, interesting, cool"? Y'all know I'm all of the above! And over there on the left below the two chickens in bed is a place where you can give me a thumbs up. I'll sure love and praise you for it.

Vanity, Vanity, All Is Vanity--Died and Gone to Heaven, part two

I guess that's what some of y'all will say when y'all hear how much fun I had picking out how I get to look in Heaven--that's the new me right there, perched on a sickle moon) but I don't care what y'all think. I had one Hel* of a time!

Now, if you don't know the tale of how I got to this thrilling juncture, scroll down to the post below or look right here.

But to sum up, I died, then arrived at the Gates of Heaven, and St. Peter, who talked like a Presbyterian, though I had always had him pegged as a Catholic, looked me up on his Blackberry and informed me that I was one of the Elect and was destined to come here, but I was predestined to sin some more before I got to come.

And his hippy angel sidekick chimed in and said I had to go back and work off some bad karma, and St. Peter walloped him on the head with his scepter and said to him, "We don't appreciate that New Age crap up here! And what are you doing here, anyhow?"

But I told them both I was raised a Baptist and therefore believed in free will and could do as I dam* well pleased.

Forthwith, I slipped through the gate and took off running and St. Peter and the angel ran toward me and made out like they'd grab me and throw me out.

And I stopped in my tracks and said, “Look, Pete, since I’m already here, just let me look around a little bit and take some notes. I can get that girl who wrote that book about my life to write a book about how I went to Heaven and came back to tell about it, and everybody'll fall for it hook, line, and sinker, and I can knock that old hag Sylvia Browne off the bestseller list, and also that moony-eyed Deepak Chopra, and can make enough money to keep me off Medicaid, to tide me over 'til my time to come here."

And he cocked his head and said, “Well…"

And I spoke up real fast to close the deal and said, "I’ll split the proceeds with you fifty fifty."

“Well,” he said. “All right, but be back before the cock throws dice! I mean cock crows twice! Thrice!”

And I took off past the gate, with my eyes on that Celestial City in the distance.

And I ran with the speed and ease of a gazelle, with hind's feet on high places, and through golden groves and by crystal waters of flowing rivers where saints had gathered, and by a flowery field covered with ten thousand angels at choir practice, and past the green, green grass of home and Mama and Papa and Aunt Ollie Pearl, and all who had gone on before, except, luckily, my enemy, Cloris Bell--and I waved at them and they waved back, all of us knowing it wasn’t my time yet, though it would come soon and what a day of rejoicing that would be...

(to be continued...)


Click on comments and talk to me! It's easy peasy now!

Trixie Goforth Has Died and Gone to Heaven

It’s true what y’all heard: I died last night. I'm old. Y'all knew it was coming.

I was standing at the sink washing up the supper dishes, when I fell to the floor. All of sudden I was sucked down a tunnel toward a white light, and I remember thinking, “I hope it’s not a train!”

Soon I found myself standing short as a gnome in front of the mile-high gates of gleaming pearl leading into Heaven.

By the gate St. Peter sat on a high-back chair, with a cone on his head like the Pope, holding a scepter, showing an angel boy something on his laptop.

Now, it occurred to me I’d not yet cut back enough on my cussing, so if they saw me, they might not let me in.

So, noticing a little Trixie-sized crack in the gate, I stepped on through, but the angel saw me, nudged St. Peter, jumped up and pointed, and St. Peter hollered, “Come back here!”

I let a fly an ugly word, and quick put my hand to my mouth.

St. Peter ran up to me, the angel at his heels, and Peter said, “What did you say?!”

I called forth my squeaky little mouse voice. “All I said was, ‘For Pete’s sake! Where am I?'"

“Who are you?!” he bellowed. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

And I crossed my hands over my chest and smiled and caused my face to beam and said, “My name is Mrs. Trixie Goforth, and I feel like I’ve died and went to Heaven.”

“Hmm. I recognize the name. You’re the one who faked a gall bladder attack at that Oral Roberts tent meeting back in the 1930s."

And he started punching buttons on his Blackberry and said, ”I’m not sure you’re one of the elect. I think you are predestined to go back and sin some more.”

“Why, St. Peter, you’re a Presbyterian? Half my friends are Presbyterian! Can you find it in your heart to forgive me for thinking you were a Catholic?”

But about that time, he found my name on his Blackberry. “Go back! It’s not your time yet.”

And I worked up a cry and said, “St. Peter, you can’t mean that! You mean that I, Trixie Goforth, who has stored up food in my pantry so those left behind in the Rapture won’t starve to death, am not bound for Heaven? Tell me that old Cloris Bell didn’t make it! She who ran with the men, stole money from the cash register when she worked at the Picadilly Cafeteria, and hogged all the food at the church suppers, and joined the church right before she died just so she’d have a preacher to do her funeral."

"You're talking about the one you murdered by smacking her on the head with a fried chicken leg from Bojangles?" And he looked again at his Blackberry and said, “I think she is not one of the elect. If I remember right, I believe she went to Hell.”

“Well! Thank Heaven!”

“No, no. I was wrong. She’s here.”

“Well, dam*!”

“See there, Mrs. Goforth? That filthy mouth of yours! Your name is written in the Book of Life. You will come back here someday, but you’ve got some sinning left to do."

“Yeah!” the angel piped in, “You’ve got to go back and work off some bad karma!”

At which point St. Peter walloped him on the head with his scepter. “Shut your mouth! We don’t appreciate that New Age crap here!”

And I hastened to inform them both that they were both full of barn yuck. I was raised a Baptist and believed in free will, and to prove it, I took off running through the gates, my eyes afire and firmly fixed upon that Shining City on the Hill.


… (to be continued)...

More Monkey Business

That picture over there is of my son Terry Wayne when he was going through a phase in his teen years, and it’s a testimony of what a mama has to deal with sometimes. Any woman who has known the pleasure of having a young one spring pink and wet from her loins knows that a book on how to raise them right does not pop out with it. You bring them into the world but you cannot govern their actions.

Take a good long look at that picture, now, because it’s real symbolic. That means there’s a deeper meaning to it than the one that hits you in the face right off the bat, and since I've learned that there are those of you who aren’t as sharp as I am, I’m going to spell it out for you real clear.

And take a minute to gaze into those beady eyes and make note of what all you see there, and if you find something let me know it.

If you're one of my countless admirers all over the world, you know in my last write-up I got worked up over some funny monkey business. It was about this monkey in a zoo in Sweden who had worked up a mad about getting stared at all the livelong day, day in and day out, until finally at last he studied over what to do and ended up hatching a plan to store up a pile of rocks which he then proceeded to sling at the zoo visitors the next day.

The scientists watching him declared it proof that monkeys make plans, something which those of us with common sense--but no big funding to support our notions--have known ere long.

That story tickled me to death, and I got word from the world over that countless others of us who walk upright, and sometimes take excess pride in the fact, understood that monkey too.

And I learned that people all across the globe have their own words for how that monkey felt. I learned that there are some thousand different ways of saying "pis*ed off,” and that each of those ways has its own special charms.

And that story spooked me too, because I felt like I understood that monkey and his mad with a depth that was all but unnatural, what with my being brought up a Baptist.

But I read that story over and over because I felt like I'd been inside the mind of that monkey and had felt with him the pure pleasure of release when the first rock left his grubby little hand and soared in an arc and crashed like a meteor into the crowd of gawkers.

I felt like I had slipped into that monkey just as my son Terry Wayne had slipped inside that big ape suit the better to impersonate Bigfoot for a documentary movie he and some of his bowling pals made back when they were teenagers for a show called "The Truth is Out There" on the public access TV channel.

That film, with its footage of Bigfoot lurching through the woods, and even crossing a paved road, had everybody hopping until it was proved a fake and the scandal got written up in newspapers nationwide.

(That picture up there is of my son IN HIS BIGFOOT SUIT, which fact I forgot to mention until just now.)

And I was hopping mad when I found out about his part in that uproar, which I did by watching the show on TV myself, before I knew my own son was involved in it.

When the camera zoomed in on the big footprint which was alleged to be leftover from Bigfoot stepping in the mud, I recognized it as Terry Wayne’s own foot, which is oversized and with the big toe shaped just like a lightbulb, like his daddy’s.

When I cornered Terry Wayne, he denied that was his foot, but I looked him straight in the eye and pinpointed the lie. “I’d know that foot if I found it on the moon!” I told him, at which point he hung his head in shame.

“Son, you have gone and violated one of the Ten Commandents: You have borne false witness. You have spent your allowance money on a Bigfoot suit. You have pretended to be something you are not, and furthermore, you have deceived countless millions and have given them false hope.”

But he denied that he had pretended to be something he was not, which sent me into a spasm of worry, for there is on his daddy’s side of the family a strain of insanity, as one of Terry Wayne’s own cousins went away from a summer working at Disney World convinced he really was Donald Duck, and was known to wear his Donald Duck suit even years later while making presentations in the boardroom of the big finance company where he was top dog.

“Honey, you are not Bigfoot, and I hope you know that,” I told him.

“Yes, Mama, but—"

“You are my firstborn son. All I want from you is for you to do your best, to be who you are. I do not expect you to aspire to any greater heights than that."

“But Mama,” he kept on, “what I’m trying to say is, when I slipped inside that suit, it's like I BECAME Bigfoot! When I was running around the woods and peeping at people from behind the bushes, I WAS Bigfoot! It was like his mind was my mind, his big foot, my big foot!"

Well, that tickled me what he said, because Terry Wayne was a little devil of a liar in those days, but when I stared into his eyes, I picked up amongst the twinkles of deception a little fleck of something that looked like honesty, and then I got worried he’d gone and lost his mind, and would end up like his cousin Donald Duck in the boardroom.

But now, as the wheels of the years have turned a number of times, I understand what he was talking about.

And that is simply that the saying “we are more alike than we are different,” does not apply only to people of different nations and religions and races.

Looks like we’ve got kinfolk some of us don’t own up to having, which fact tickles me, and with that, I leave you with this little movie of monkeys flossing their teeth and teaching their little ones to do the same: Monkeys flossing teeth.

And for those of you who are woefully behind, here's my original write-up about the monkey business, "Science Proves Monkeys Plan Ahead."

And here's one about monkey police, for all you Law and Order fans.

And for all you Doubting Thomases out there, who still don't see how much monkey is like man and man like monkey, here's where some scientists did a study that shows monkey men will pay to see female monkey behinds. That, y'all, should leave no doubt.


**********

I thank you kindly for stopping by, and whichever one of you brought in my clothes off the line, I just love and praise you for it. Take a look at my Precious Memories Album! Just click and go:

Trixie's Precious Memories

***********

[All posts: Copyright 2008/2009 by Trixie Goforth and Sherry Austin, that girl who helps me out and wrote that book about my life called The Days Between the Years. Go on and push the envelope! (That little one down there with the arrow on it.) Forward my words of wisdom all over the globe. But all other rights (and writes) reserved.]

Science Proves Monkeys Plan Ahead

[Photo: Monkey working up a mad, getting ready to throw rocks
at zoo vistors.]

I'm sorry y'all, but I just have to interrupt this series about how important cabbage is in all our lives to report this news that I just found out.

A 31 year-old monkey in Sweden got up early the other morning before the zoo opened up and took to collecting a pile of rocks and sat there studying on when was the best chance to unload his stash on all the gawkers he had to put up with every day.

Then, around about noon, when enough of a crowd gathered that he figured he wouldn't waste his effort, he let loose slinging the rocks at the people gawking at him across the moat from the little island where they keep him.

Or, as the people who wrote up the study put it: "He waited until around midday before he unleashed a 'hailstorm' of rocks against visitors."

Here's the part that tickles me: "'These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way,' said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath."

I think I'll get me one of those Ph.d degrees so I can say what anybody with half a brain already knows and get spread all over the Google for saying it.

But I want to ask y'all how many times you've felt like doing what that monkey did.

I know I have. There are days when everything everybody's ever said that has pis*ed me off just builds up in me after a while, like stomach gas.

And at such times, though I try hard to be a Christian, my greatest desire is to bombard the world with my displeasure.

My weapon of choice might be different from that monkey's: I might load up on bricks, for instance, instead of rocks, or if I've had time enough to pray down my mad, I might take to pitching from that pile of Granny Smith apples I keep down in the cellar, but whatever weapon I choose, just like that monkey I'd take as much pleasure in the planning of the event as in the execution.

And the fact that scientists have now proven that all animals feel the same way just goes to show it's a 100 percent all-natural temptation.

Now here's the part of the story I most take to heart: "He rarely hit visitors because of his poor aim, and no one was seriously injured in the cases when he did."

That tells me to work on my aim so when I sling I won't miss.

All y'all who seek to please me don't have a thing to worry about.

The rest of y'all get ready to duck and cover when Granny Goforth's working up a mad.

*******

Here's more about that monkey, if you care: http://tiny.cc/hXpaW

*******
[All posts: Copyright 2008/2009 by Trixie Goforth and Sherry Austin, that girl who helps me out and wrote that book about my life called The Days Between the Years. Go on and push the envelope! (That little one down there with the arrow on it.) Forward my words of wisdom all over the globe. But all other rights (and writes) reserved.]

*******

Want to lavish me with praise? Want to declare your everlasting love for me? Want to stay off the shi* list I keep on the back of a Duke Power bill envelope? Send me an email at trixiegoforth [at] gmail [dot] [com]. I will keep your email safe and warm beneath the flaps of my ample bosom.

Cabbage, Our Most Under-rated Vegetable

I'm telling you all what: If I get any more popular, y'all are going to have to tie me up and throw me off the cliff!

That next-to-last write-up about my walloping Cloris Bell in the head with a drum leg, and then the one about my cutting up in a cabbage leaf in the Garden of Eatin,' opened the floodgates of praise. And of all kinds of questions and requests.

I've had people write in and ask me if Eve had long hair and Adam had blue eyes. I've had people write in and complain because I gave out the Devil's phone number, which I did not. It was just his area code (666).

And besides, there's plenty of y'all out there who know his number, have his email, and his mailing address. You're not fooling this old bag for a minute.

And then there are those who just want to know how I make my famous cabbage rolls. That girl who helps me out said I'm going to have to hire one somebody just to dish out words of wisdom and another to write up how to make cabbage rolls, stuffed peppers, and cathead biscuits!

Miz Kitty, who is one of my chickens, not that fast-tailed, big-headed, Tammy- Faye-looking thing who hopped in the bed with Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke at the drop of a hat--just wrote me, and here's what she said:

"Trixie I was wondering if you could tell me how to make them cabbage rolls for my man. I don't believe I ever ate cabbage rolls, but they sound pretty good. I think stuffed peppers sound good too, but I never have made them either. I'm ready to experiment a little bit."

Well Miz Kitty, first let me tell you that this whole uproar over cabbage got started when Amanda notified me about her Cabbage Patch Stew, which I believe Scarlett also makes, and I believe it's Scarlett who told that tale lately of losing her cabbage, which tale I do treasure.

And second, let me tell you that if you cook something the way I do, you WILL experiment because I've hardly ever used anything resembling a recipe in my life, except maybe for a pound cake. And for my chow chow. Sometimes.

As I've always said: It is a reckless thing to do as I do. But Miz Kitty, if you're ready to jump in, I'm ready to show you the hole.

Besides, I'm happy to promote cabbage in any way I can.

Time and time again I have said, and all you out there in the national press who are following me are free to quote me: Cabbage is our most under-rated vegetable. Cheap. As good for you as broccoli and asparagus, though not as hoity toity, I'll wager.

I'll tell you how I make cabbage rolls, and it's easy:

Take a head of cabbage. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) Get one with big green leaves if you can.

Cut the bottom and a good bit of the inside core out. Wash the head of cabbage good and put it in a big pot and cover it with a lid.

Pour a couple of cups of water into the pot.

Bring it to a boil, turn it down, and let it boil about ten to 15 minutes. Leave the lid on and let it sit there until the cabbage is cool.

All that does is make it easy to take the leaves apart. Best to do it a good bit of time before you make the rolls, or the day before, truth be told. Or the morning of the night you want to have them. That way they're nice and cool!

Pull the leaves apart. You'll have a lot of leaves!

Take some ground meat--beef or pork or both--and add some cooked rice and salt and pepper and chopped onions to it.

Moosh it all up good. Some people add an egg, but I don't.

Wrap little wads of the meat into each leaf and hold together with a toothpick.

Lay the rolls in a big pan and cover with however many cans of diced tomatoes it takes to cover them good. I add a good bit of sugar to the tomatoes, myself.

Some people take some of the tomato juice and thicken it with cornstarch and a little vinegar, but I don't.

Some people also add tomato sauce. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.

Cover it all up with aluminum foil and cook for about 350 degrees for close to an hour.

When it cools down some, take out the toothpicks. Don't want anybody choking on toothpicks. Not anybody we care about, anyhow.

I think they're even better the next day.

That's how I do it, honey. I think. With my head in the pantry half the time, how do you expect me to remember every little thing, anyhow???

If you want a real strict recipe, they're all over the Google.

And if you take them to a church supper, be on the lookout for Cloris Bell.

Cloris Bell Struck Dead at Church Supper

I’m so popular, I get more and more mail asking me for advice. This week I got a letter from a woman named Myra who thinks so much like me, I held the letter right up to my nose and looked at who signed it to make sure it wasn’t from me.

She wrote, “Trixie, at the church where I go, some of the people who come to our church supper don’t bring enough food, then they eat up more than their share! I feel guilty getting worked up over something so petty. What’s your opinion?”

Well, Myra, since you’ve owned up to being petty, I don’t reckon it’s my place to deprive you of the designation. And if you’re so hell-bent to make a confession, hire yourself a priest. Who do you people think I am, anyhow, the Pope’s wife?

That used to happen a lot at my church, and one Sunday when we had a congregational meeting to address everybody’s concerns, I stood right up in the sanctuary and complained that there sometimes wasn’t enough food at the family night suppers. “The reason there’s not enough,” I said, “ is half you people that go to this church are too tight to bring your fair share and the other half of you are just hogs.”

I tried to go on to suggest a new bylaw that would allow me personally to shut the door to the fellowship hall in the face of anybody who showed up at a church supper with a half of a canned pear smeared with mayonnaise on a piece of lettuce on a saucer, the way Cloris Bell did, but a couple of the ushers hauled me out the back door before I could get into the specifics.

Believe me, Myra, I know just what you mean. This is a problem that is the thorn in the flesh of church people across this nation, and has more than once made me wish we Protestants had a Pope to raise holy hell over these little things that aren’t covered in the Bible.

I wanted to pinch off Cloris Bell’s head from day one, and not just because she was a skinflint when it came to church suppers. I knew she’d run with the men all her life and dipped snuff and had robbed money from the cash register when she worked at the Picadilly Cafeteria.

Then, late in life, like a lot of folks do when they look in the mirror of a morning and see Death looking back, she joined the church so she’d have a preacher to say words over her, a place in the ground to get planted, and a few people obligated to come to see her laid out.

She never put more than a dollar in the collection plate of a Sunday, when I’ll pinch and save all week and throw in a five. I knew she only dropped a dollar because I made sure I sat on the pew behind her where I could lift my head and see what she put in.

To the first church supper she came to she brought a fourth of a dried-up turkey breast still wrapped in the aluminum foil she cooked it in and proclaimed it a main dish. The next time, and half the time thereafter, she’d dump a can of peaches or pears on some iceberg lettuce, sling some mayonnaise on it and declare it a salad.

Then she’d proceed to bull her way into the line and pile her plate high with everything everybody else had brought.

One time old Ben McLaughlin brought a whole ham he'd smoked, it got all eat up, and somebody found her in the closet where they keep the choir robes, gnawing the last bit of meat off that hambone.

It all came to a head one night when I was helping arrange everything on the table in the fellowship hall. She waddled in the door bearing a little relish dish with some celery sticks smeared with dried up pimento cheese. “Is that all you brought?” I said, loud as I could so everybody could hear it. Heads turned. I heard some snickers.

“I don’t bring much,” she said,’ since I’m such a light eater myself,” and I looked her up and down and said, “Are you for a fact? I guess it takes a while for the effect to show.”

Now, that happened to be the same night that I had made a nice pot roast, potatoes, carrots, and onions. My neighbor Delores had brought a spiral-cut ham from Harris Teeters. My daughter Lou Ann had brought a whole bucket of Bojangles chicken.

I couldn’t even eat myself for just sitting back and watching Cloris Bell, Miss Light Eater, load up her plate. I finally had to give up counting how many times she went back to the table since I’ve only got ten fingers.

Bitterness rose up in me like acid reflux. I knew I was standing in the need of prayer.

I was so got away with I ran down the hall to the empty sanctuary and sat in a pew in the dark and prayed for patience. I was so wrought up, I wished I was Episcopalian so I could get on my knees. “Lord God Almighty,” I prayed, “thou alone art the wellspring of my exceeding generosity! I know that thou art the source of all my good and perfect works, and I know I’m not supposed to be doing all that I do for that ungrateful hog, Cloris Bell, over in the fellowship hall. I am supposed to be doing it as unto Thee.”

I tell you what: Prayer changes things. I felt better for two or three hours. But that night when I got home and went to bed, I dreamed I plucked a drum leg from that bucket of Bojangles chicken and chased Cloris Bell around the fellowship hall and walloped her with it upside the head with a supernatural force available to us mortals only in our dreams.

She died on the spot and even before I was good and awake and remembered it was just a dream, I felt right good about it, and if feeling that way for five minutes was wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Thanks for writing, Myra, honey. I sure hope that helps.

Take a look at my Precious Memories album. I've just got started with it. Click on my picture then run the little hand over each picture for a little note:

Trixie's Precious Memories

Captain Hook's Descendent Gives World the Bird

Get out my flyswat!

This latest development is enough to cause me to give up trying to keep you chickens of mine in the coop!

("Chickens" is what I call the younguns who do what the Google people call "follow" me on this blog thing, and I love those chickens every one, even though every one of them but Amanda and O'Clara are in it for the prospect of inheriting my last dollar, should my last dime ever reach that lofty height.)

I have tried to set a good example for all of y'all, and now here's what one of my prize chickens, Creative Hook, (offspring of the Captain) has created with her own wicked little hand: a little man doing something ugly with his middle finger.

And if that's not bad enough, she named the little man Shiddy!

She calls him "a nasty little creature chrocheted in colors of nausea: pissed-off purple, pus green, and vile yellow. He's the dark force that lies deep within the hearts of all of us!" she says. "Having a bad day? Show the world your Shiddy attitude! It's a great way to say 'up yours' to people who deserve it."

I ask you all: Is that not awful?

I'm so weighed down with shame, I'm wandering through the house right now looking for a wall to hide behind.

Yet, Creative Hook is one of my chickens, one of those whose name is missing from the shid list I keep on the back of the envelope my Duke power bill comes in, and I therefore must also inform you that she also has the prettiest little things for sale, scarves and pocketbooks and hats perched on the prettiest little heads--make sure she throws in the head with the purchase of a hat. And you can see it all right here, including what Creative Hook calls a new, improved Shiddy, complete with a tail and a belly buttom: http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=8153377

And to add to my woes: Amanda left her head in the pantry today and has not yet wrote to inform me if she found it.

And furthermore, Arlene Nix, Missy Hager, and Sarah Owens, who have not paid me a bit of mind for months, plus Ellen McLaughlin and Vicki Hughes who have yet to write a word, be sure your sin will find you out because the Devil comes lookin' for that envelope where I keep score and list all my bitter grudges.

And if you would redeem yourselves, write now and then go forth and spread the word to all the other infidels.

84 Years Old and Pregnant at Myrtle Beach

I'll have to make a new category for this one, y'all. I'll have to call it "Trixie's Believe it or Not."

Look at that picture over there on the left of those two young people from a place called the Ivory Coast of Africa who are traveling and exhibiting themselves all over the world and lately at Ripley's Believe it or Not in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Now, y'all prepare yourself for a shock.

Evidently there are in this world 2,000 fool women who claim they got pregnant after they rubbed that naked man with his ding dong a-dangling and that woman with petrified chocolate kissies for titties.

Now, the women who think rubbing those two got them pregnant have s*it for brains and I'll worry nary a hair nor waste a prayer on them. It's that young couple I'm worried about. They look so stiff and out of place. I think they'd make a right cute couple if they'd loosen up a little bit and try to blend in with the rest of the young people.

Anyhow, the story is those two are traveling the world and stopping off at museums and exhibiting themselves naked for a price, claiming that by rubbing them a woman can get pregnant, and all I can say to that is does nobody have any shame anymore and what a creative way to make do when times are bad, and if my tummy was as tight and my titties as taut as that gal's, I might fly all over the world, letting people rub all over me, too, if I thought it would earn me enough money to get my tires rotated and keep me from having to borrow from the Walmart greeter to pay my tithe.

Now, I have lived a long while, long enough to know that it is nature's way that for a woman to get pregnant somebody--two somebodies and one of them a man--have got to do some rubbing, and I've heard tell that the southeast coast cesspool of sin, Myrtle Beach, is one of the top knock-up capitals of the continent.

So, I figure those two are making false claims, but what would it hurt even an 84-year-old woman to play along, pitch them a few coins, give them a good feel, and see what happens? And you never know: Abraham in the Bible, was it his wife--one of his wives, they say he had a houseful--who was in her mid-nine hundreds when she had her first?

I've always told my own kids if I could start over I'd raise them up another way than what I did, knock some sense into their heads early on, for one thing. And now, some 35 years after my female organs have dried up like leather britches beans, maybe I've got another chance. You don't know.

Maybe I'll hitch a ride down to Myrtle Beach with a busload of Baptists and in a few months' time some of y'all will be throwing me a little baby shower at the Methodist Home. More peculiar things than that have happened.

Steelers Beat Cardinals

That's the kind of headlines that hollered out to me today when, old fool that I am, I chanced to open up the newspaper hoping for a little spot of happy news.

Like I need to hear first thing of a morning that a bunch of steel-workers hauled off and gave some Catholic bishops what-for.

Some folks say there ought to be a law against walloping a man of the cloth, even a man of the red cloth, but where I stand on that issue shall remain a deep and abiding mystery.

Well, all I can do is pray for justice, as I reckon that boy is doing with all his might, the one with the yellow britches and the hardhat on.

I Don't Want to Make a Difference

That picture right there is of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman who did a lot of good in the world, unlike me, and at my age I don't give a dam*n what anybody thinks about it either.

She wasn't on a fixed income like I am and she liked going around doing things that matter, whereas I'm happy just going to the store and reading the labels on the cans, not doing anybody any harm, but not doing anything they'd write up in the papers either, at least not anything I'm proud of or would even own up to, though I'm capable of a lot y'all would never guess.

Penny who fixes my hair told me one time, she said, "Trixie, you are too a giving person! I've never left your house when you didn't shove into my hands a jar of pickled pears or chow chow that you've made!"

But what she don't know is that half the time I'll give her the jar of chow chow with the worst date because I'm saving up my better stock for when the world ends and all my kids and their kids and half the neighborhood end up here and I've got a whole house of hungry mouths to feed.

Now one thing I will freely give out and that is advice.

You have heard the saying "Advice is cheap." Well, it is, and that's what I like about it.

I guess word of my wisdom is reaching into the far corners of these United States, because I’m starting to get emails from as far away as Florida asking me for advice.

I got an email just this past week: “Trixie," this young gal said, "my kids are in school, my nerves are bad, and I'm spending my days watching Oprah and running around pulling out my hair, and I don’t know what to do with myself, and I could use some extra money."

So I wrote her back and gave her a bit of advice that you'd think would've sprung up natural as a weed from her own head. I said, “Honey, why don’t you get yourself a job? I've heard they are hiring at J.C. Penney's in the catalog department."

And she wrote back, "But I want to do something meaningful, Trixie. I want to make a difference."

So I right quick emailed her back and said, "Honey, you might want to make a difference, but I just want to go the store. They’ve got chicken leg quarters on sale and every time they do I buy up a bunch and stock my deep freeze."

I think what I say and I say what I think, about which fact my daughter Lou Ann says, “that’s all right mama,”---which sounds like the start of an Elvis song and now that I’ve thought about it, I can’t get it out of my head--“you’re at that age where the front lobe of your brain is getting hard, the place in your brain that governs your judgment and your impulses, and the doctors say that’s why you're always doing and saying inappropriate things.”

And I gave her to know that I said and did what I wanted to way back when I was not yet twelve years old and I stumbled down the stairs trying to walk in one leg of big fat Effie's bloomers.

Now, I have, on occasion, tried to do the right thing. The last time I remember was back when I was on the committee at the church where the members were supposed to take supper to Lola Maude Harkey, who was housebound. Well, when it was my turn, I fussed over what I took her, taking care that she had a meat, a starch, two vegetables, and some bread. Sometimes I'd make a pie when I didn't even want it, just so I could take her a piece.

But it didn't take long to figure out that she hardly ate a mouthful and whenever the ladies brought her a plate of food, as soon as their back was turned, she laid it down on the floor for that old dog of hers to slurp up.

The next time the committee held a meeting, I marched myself right in there and said I didn't think we should keep taking food down to Lola Maude Harkey's. It was wasteful, I said. And they all chimed in about how she was housebound and if we didn't take her supper, she wouldn't get the right nourishment, and I said, "But EVERY DAY?" And they said, "Well, Trixie, don't YOU like to eat everyday?"

And I gave them to know they might as well just fix up a plate every evening and take it down to Lola Maude's, and just lay it straight down on the floor for that dam*n dog.

One thing nobody has ever accused me of is being good for goodness sake.

So I hope whoever that was that wrote me that email--I forgot the dear one's name already--will email Dr. Phil or somebody next time, and just leave me out of it.

Dinner on the Grounds at a Leper Colony

Well, I got up this morning figuring I'd probably left y'all in suspense long enough about who I picked as the winner of our dirty pan contest. Some of y'all might think I took too long to get here to the point of announcing it, but that's because I'm old and I just learned to do the Google and I don't learn these things as fast as you all do, dam--t! So, as you young people like to say: Give me a break!

Remember, before Thanksgiving of this year, I had sworn off ever having a thing to do with the Google or with computer machines or cell phones, and with cell phones I still don't so if you happen to be one of my kids reading what I'm writing here, don't you even think about giving me one because I'll sling it right out the window first chance I get and you know it.

But I like doing the Google because it gives me a chance to have my say, though I don't like how it has brought me undue attention from the men, though that could change. You never know.

And I was going to do it yesterday, announce the winner, that is, but I kind of like that boy they put in the White House, the one with the ears and the funny name I can't keep in my mind, and stayed glued in front of the TV all day watching the inauguration and thinking about those little girls bouncing around the White House and what a fine couple he and that wife of his make, and I kept picturing them in the White House in bed having relations with her hanging onto his ears, though I expect they were too worn out last night for that.

So now that I've thrown a wet towel over the heads of those of you who didn't win the contest, and told Arlene to go throw her scrawny self off a cliff, we at last come to the last two pictures, which are of one pan belonging to Karen.

You see that blister in the upper right hand corner of the first picture? When my daughter Lou Ann (who I brought in to help me judge) saw that, she declared that Karen's pan would make a great buffet dish at an all day dinner-on-the-grounds at a leper colony.

In the last picture, which shows the whole pan, Lou Ann said she saw Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's couch, screaming and hollering about psychiatrists and the medicine they give out, and that the little white squiggle to the right--which you can't see too well in the picture up there, small as it is--was Brooke Shields holding high a butcher knife, riding a white horse, galloping toward Tom Cruise with the clear intent of shutting him the hell up.

Now, if you think what my daughter Lou Ann said does not reflect too well on her sense, you've got company and I'm it. This is not the only example of how Lou Ann seems to have climbed down and left her brain dangling up in the treetops, but I owe it all to her going through the menopause. When she said what she did, I just about snatched the job of judge right out of her hands, but I wanted to go to the store so I let her get on with it.

Well, Lou Ann decided that Karen's pan had the "added value" that contestant Hendersonville Epicurean's pan had, and by that I mean you could see things in it the same way some people claim they see the face of the Lord on a bedsheet, so we had a tie. I could see this going on for another month, so I chimed in and declared Karen's pan the dirtiest of the two.

So, as it turns out, plain ole dirt was the deal breaker, or I guess the tie breaker, and I hereby declare Karen the official winner of the Parade of Pans and the soon-to-be owner of what's called an "advance reader copy" of that book about my life, THE DAYS BETWEEN THE YEARS. Karen is a good picture taker of pretty nature scenes and mushrooms and goats, which you can see by clicking right here: http://www.karenbryantphotography.com/

And for those of you who entered the contest but did not win, I want you to know that you did not send in your pictures of dirty pans in vain. To those of you who arose to the occasion but fell flat on your face, who fought the good fight, but got thrown out of the ring, I don't know what to give you for a consolation prize or what to say except keep in mind you're still in my will, although I have not a penny nor a pot to my name, but I've always heard it's the thought that counts anyhow.

Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' With Lovin' On Your Mind

And next in our Parade of Pans (you might have to look down there at the last thing I wrote to get the full effect of what I'm saying here) is O'Clara's witchy-looking pot, which you can see up close in "O'Clara Goes Potty" which is now under 2008 in that thing the Google People call "Archives."

O'Clara sent in some good pictures and had some good things to tell us about how she used her special pot, (and also sent us the facts on the difference between the sweet potato and a yam, which we will discuss later on in "The Truth Revealed,") so why, you may wonder did I not proclaim O'Clara the winner?

Well, O'Clara came awful close, but she did what they call anthropomorphized her pot, which I found out means she thought it was a woman, and that raised up my hairs and gave me the feeling that someone had walked on my grave and my daughter Lou Ann said it did her, too, although Lou Ann's one to talk, seeing as she is somebody who says aliens have been scooping out samples of her kneecaps for their experiments. So, it causes me a pain right under my old heart to shoot down your hopes, O'Clara, but like I've always said, and as I have so often been quoted by the press: "The race is not to the swift nor to the smart, but it never hurts to throw your hat in the ring anyhow."

And there's Arlene's old iron skillet. You can see the top view and the upside down view, and you can see it looks plenty crusty. And I'll allow that pan is handy in the kitchen and would be a good thing for any woman to have hanging on a hook for whenever the man comes home a-drinkin' with lovin' on his mind, or is just late. So y'all keep that in mind. But, here is what Arlene said about the pan, which turned out to be the words of her undoing:

She said, "Here is the pan. Look at that black cement stuff all over the outside of it. Someone years ago had to have done the cooking over a fire as that is creasote buildup and will not come off. It cooks wonderful cornbread. It looks ugly and dirty but it isn't."

Now, I want to draw y'all's attention to that very last thing she said, because it is right there that Arlene threw a boomerrang into her chance of winning the prize. Arlene, honey, I'm sorry, but if the pan's not ugly and dirty, it's not eligible for the prize. And if you hadn't told me it wasn't dirty, I never would have guessed it. Why did you tell me that? I don’t have to ask because I know the answer: Pride over-rode your good sense, and like I’ve always said, though I have seldom been credited for saying: “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit goes before a fall.”

Arlene, you have messed up. Go ahead and just throw yourself off a cliff.

The rest of y'all just stay tuned.

My Old Heart Runs Up in a Pile

That's an old saying for what happens when somebody makes your heart melt, and if y'all didn't know that, it's because you've got cell phones growing out your ears like a fungus, and you miss half what's worth hearing. Or either you're just plain ignorant.

Which one it is, is not mine to say, nor will I condemn thee because if I have said it once, I've said it two or three times: "Judge not lest you be judged," a saying much used, but for which I was never given credit and as old as I am now, I don't give a you know what.

Which reminds me of this: If I could do my life over, I might become a Licensed Practical Nurse. Then I could have LPN after my name and feel like a big shot. And maybe if I'd been an LPN, I could've been some real help to my neighbor Delores when she turned her ankle falling over a hoe after we tied one on New Year's Eve, which you can read about down there where it says "The Guilty Dog Will Bark."

But one thing I would not want to be and that is a judge. A while back, we started a contest, with the aim of giving a prize to the one who sent in the worst, the ugliest, the filfthiest pot or pan they had and still used. You can go down to where I wrote "Parade of Pans" parts one and two, for more information.

Some of y'all were good to send in your pictures, so many that the girl who helps me out with this blog told me I couldn't put them all up or else I'd end up having to pay the Google people for extra space, and as much as I've had to cuss the Google people, I sure don't want to have to pay them for the privilige. But all of y'all who follow my blog (in hopes of getting in my will, I know) and some of you who don't, were so good to help me out that my heart fairly ran up in a pile, as I said.

When it came down to it, I couldn't decide how to pick. Should I give points for dinks, dents, and dirt, like I said down there in "Parade of Pans" or just shoot from the hip and holler it as I see it?

After studying on it, I arrived at the conclusion that the pots and pans were just about evenly filthy--at first glance. (Remember that last part.) So I told that girl who helps me out to be the judge, and she just parked her arms across those big jugs of hers and said, "I am NOT going to get involved with THAT," so I got my daughter Lou Ann in on it, which was a mistake because she's going through the menopause and has seen some things and had some ideas lately I have called into question, such as seeing that alien at the end of her bed and thinking it had taken her aboard its plane and used her for some kind of experiment.

Well, Lou Ann took a good hard look at pan number one up there, that woman called Hendersonville Epicurean's pizza pan, which I talked about down there in "You Danged Ole Fusspot!" and agreed with me that based on that pan's level of grunge, if it was a dog and I was judging the show, I'd say it was pretty much in line with the breed.

What really got to Lou Ann, though, was that she thought she saw that alien's face in the middle of that pan. We called over my son Terry Wayne and asked him and he said the same spot she thought was an alien looked to him like an orangutan's behind or Homer Simpson's face.

I'd heard of that kind of thing where people think they see the Pope in a pizza or the Virgin Mary in a biscuit, but I would have never thought anybody kin to me, much less two of the children who sprang fully formed from betwixt my very legs, would have had such a gift, though with Lou Ann I think it very well could be the menopause. Anyhow, Lou Ann proclaimed that this feature of Hendersonville Epicurean's pan gave it added value, and made it a top contender for the prize, which may or may not mean it won the prize.

You'll have to find out next time. I'm going to keep y'all in suspense. Life has no meaning without suspense.

Stay tuned.