I am sitting in our apartment in Mississippi, a woman of leisure for the past 20 months having retired from a 30+ year career of teaching public school. Outside the rain pours and threatens (or at least the meteorologists threaten) to freeze into ice, especially on bridges, and the temperatures are… Read full post »

You call it folks, but let me begin…
She was an old black woman in uniform, hair pulled severely back from her face, a mumbled, indistinct speech pattern which threw me completely off.  She was my accuser.

Preceding this encounter I had begun the morning in anticipation of vindication. … Read full post »

Tomorrow I go to court in Mississippi.  Legal matters in Mississippi fill me with trepidation.  I am a woman in a place where women are to be demure.  Demure I’m not.  A fickleness seems to permeate the legal system here, a whimsy that might work for me or against me. … Read full post »

I’ve compiled a short list of some things not to do in Mississippi in August or September.

1.               Don’t go anywhere without an umbrella.

2.         … Read full post »

Another hot and muggy day across Mississippi…another hot and muggy day…another hot and muggy day…expect highs in the 100’s.  Beware of the heat index pushing temperatures over 105.  If you must be outside, drink plenty of water and seek shade whenever possible.… Read full post »

******UPDATE******

MPB has reinstated Fresh Air into its daily line-up.  It now airs at 9:00 p.m., a little late, but hey, it is a response which addresses all sides.

Damn.  I was dealing with, dare I say liking, Mississippi life, heat and all, when Mississippi Public Radio pulled Fresh Ai… Read full post »

A perceptible graying of the scene before me occurs as a cloud crossing the sky filters the sun’s rays.  The cloud moves on and the day regains its brightness.  A changing skyscape, beautiful azure field festooned with an array of billowing puff clouds, ensures that the darkening and… Read full post »

While all the world watches soccer (myself included) another competition is playing out in Jackson, Mississippi which I am also privileged to view, the International Ballet Competition.  Every four years this elite competition comes to Jackson; this year showcasing the talents and years of train/… Read full post »

With hot humid weather, mosquitoes come calling.  I wish they didn’t, but since they are here, I’m shouting out---OPEN CALL---anyone with a sure-fire repellant or bite treatment. 

So far in this mosquito season, I have discovered mosquito repellant towelettes in little foil pa… Read full post »

Some flights are delayed because a volcano has spewed ash into the air disrupting the atmosphere and potentially damaging engines.  This seems to me understandable.  Flights that are forced to turn back because someone is planning to set off an incendiary device located in their shoes and w… Read full post »

I’m put out and I can’t deny it.  The Jackson, Mississippi St. Patrick’s Day Parade (which was not on St. Patrick’s Day, I might add) and Sweet Potato Queen…Pageant? Display? Event?...did not invite me or my lovely Fiona to be mascot or even to attend the festiviti… Read full post »

I almost have a connection with Sherman Alexie, the winner (announced today) of the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award.  Let me please take advantage of that "almost" because I have enjoyed his writing for so long.  Around 1994 I heard him talk...entertain...enlighten...and touch an audience in… Read full post »

The mists rose up from the Mississippi River enclosing and obscuring that which was directly ahead of me.  I drove on, though, trusting in the legends, the stories, the alluring descriptions everyone in the South tells about Natchez.  The moment came when the mists parted and the town of Na… Read full post »

Don’t you dare argue with me about this!  Mississippi’s air contains some amazing, magic ingredient which generates art of all kinds in all kinds of people.  Those who don’t make art, love art.  (I secretly hope to baptize myself in the atmosphere, to rise up inspired… Read full post »

Whee Haw! The Dixie National Rodeo performed in Jackson this month.  Despite a week of really cold, rainy weather and another week of less really cold, rainy weather the rodeo show must go on and it did.  The night I went, Tanya Tucker was the “half time” show between the rodeo… Read full post »

Despite snow, rain and cold people flocked to Jackson from Tennessee and Louisiana, probably Alabama and Arkansas, too, as well as from every corner of Mississippi for a magical night of music with Renee Fleming and the University of Southern Mississippi symphony orchestra Friday night. Renee Fleming… Read full post »

This Saturday is the Miss America Pageant.  Normally I don’t pay attention to that particular event, not anymore.  When I was young and there were only three major television networks, the Miss America Pageant was a big draw.  It’s really been years, though, since I have ev… Read full post »

Who knew?  Apparently, Hattiesburg, Mississippi is the the place to go for sex addiction treatment.  The premier sex addiction treatment program, Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services has snared that pinnacle of infidelity, Tiger Woods.  Mississippi never ceases to surpri… Read full post »

Is there a place or person on earth unaffected by the vagaries of weather?  From literature, Odysseus and his men battered by a wind let loose through the men’s distrust were forced into a lengthy journey that only one survived; from history, General Washington’s harsh winter at Vall… Read full post »

Regardless of where you are from Nome, Alaska, to Biloxi, Mississippi, as the end of one year approaches and a promising new year begins time seems to leap over itself in a race to the finish.  Traditions demand time and have little concern for weather.  Lights strung along rooftops in snow… Read full post »

When I was a kid and my family would take road trips, my brother and I would play a game to see who could spy the most license plates from different states.  Of course we’d try to get all 50 states, but tucked up in the corner of the country as… Read full post »

My yoga classmates gave me a warning about two weather conditions, tornados and hurricanes.  They said, if you hear on the radio that we are going to have either of those go directly to the grocery store.  Do not stop for any reason.  Buy what you think you’ll need for at… Read full post »

Geographic place names fascinate me.   They can be hilarious, curious, descriptive, and charming.  We were driving to Greenville the other day and I noticed a sign for Midnight, Mississippi which caused me to investigate other place names.  As with many states, a slew of locations… Read full post »

James, a poor black teen (maybe 14), lives in the Mississippi Delta.  His mom, Marlee, cleans toilets for a living.  The opening scene of this first time movie for director, Lance Hammer, shows James in a large field, as if on the ocean, chasing hundreds of geese up into the skies.… Read full post »

Y’all know that my list is purely subjective.  It’s about today, but not tomorrow or yesterday.  It’s about how I see the world I’m living in, the place I’ve moved to, the emotional state I’m in at the moment.  Having explained that, here’s my… Read full post »