The Red Earth of Tara*

Press play and enjoy my theme music.

Last weekend we went to Illinois to celebrate my grandmother's birthday, near the farm where my mom grew up. I had a "Gone With the Wind" moment pretty much as soon as we drove off of I-65 and into rural Indiana, which looks just like rural Illinois at that point. There are beautiful straight rows of corn and everything is flat. Unlike most people, I've always like flat geography--it's harder to sneak up on someone when it's flat.

For the most part, the farm is eternally unchanging. On the outside, most of the outbuildings look the same, even if they have different uses. The apple trees that I used to clime are still there, as is the windbreak made out of pine trees, which is where I used to play. I pretended it was a huge forest, because once inside the trees were planted so close together (the better to shelter the house from the wind) that you really couldn't see much of the outside. The rusty swing set is even still there, although when I look at it now I think that everyone should update their Tetanus shot.

Going to the farm is the closest that I have to going home, which made visiting very bittersweet. Since my parents moved to Tennessee, I haven't "lived" there for more than 3 consecutive months. Even during that time my mother referred to the room that I was sleeping in as the guest room. We have already established my drama queen-ness, but while at the farm, I had the urge to pick up a big clod of rich, black dirt so I could have something tangible to take back home. Yes, I did have a moment when I was thinking of my uncle putting the dirt in my palm, and then closing my fingers around it, telling me that the black earth of Illinois was there to give me strength. Had there been someone bad trying to take the farm I definitely would have picked up some dirt to throw at them.

Like always, when I start to think of home it makes me kind of sad. I know many people share my circumstances, but I miss my home.

Sweet Pea has been at my parents all this week. I will be glad to have her come home this weekend.

From the perspective of my triangle** it's a good thing that Sweet Pea has been gone. I am drowning in Reviews, which is a substance that feels like quicksand. I have so many reviews to do that I can't seem to make any headway. It doesn't help that once one is completed, two more have been scheduled. To make things worse, the reviews are both very tedious and utterly mindless. There is one section that requires impeccable (and sometimes impossible) attention to detail, while the rest is so repetitive that I want to pull out my own hair. Sometimes I want to remind everyone about something that I said in my interview--I said that I wanted to use my brain. This clearly misses the mark.

In other news, I am clearly a really old and judgemental person because K's skirts and dresses seem to be getting shorter by the day. I don't know how she manages to sit down or get in and out of a car. If I were in charge, things would have gotten to the point now that I'd have to talk to her. She's the first person that the clients see and we have a lot of little old lady clients. If I think the skirts are too short I can't imagine what they think.

*See, I told you this post would be about "Gone With the Wind."

**I can never remember if I capitalize that word or not and I am always too lazy to go and look at previous posts, so bare with me if I can't seem to make up my mind.

Time Off

If anyone is reading regularly, sorry I haven't posted in a while. I actually do have things to say, I just haven't gotten around to saying them.

I will post soon and my next post will have something to do with "Gone With The Wind." You can speculate on what that is in the meantime.