Our Christmas cactus

...decided to surprise us and become an Epiphany cactus. Here's how it looked today:

Here is a closer view:

And here is an even closer view:

Epiphany is not quite here yet, but then neither is Mrs. RWP's second creation from her new coloring book. While we wait for both to arrive, let's watch and listen to Carol Burnett and Dick Van Dyke perform "My Coloring Book" (4:21). Their version is ever so much more fun than Kitty Kallen's original rendition in the preceding post.

Carry me back to Plano, Texas

...dat’s whar de cotton an’ de corn an’ taters grow.

No, wait, that was Old Virginny.

Speaking of old, my stepbrother and his wife drove into town from Texas one day last week. It was the first time we have seen each other in eight years. They had decided to take an autumn vacation and drive around the southeastern U.S. for a few weeks and we were their first stop. Well, their second, really, because they spent their first night in Meridian, Mississippi.

On Friday, as much of the family as we could get together on short notice went out for dinner at a very nice restaurant in Kennesaw.

On Saturday, we went up to Big Canoe in the mountains to spend some time with my oldest son’s family. We went to a place called Burt’s Pumpkin Patch in Dawsonville where people were pushing around wheelbarrows full of pumpkins and gourds and Indian corn and butternut squash and acorn squash and lots of other things. We also went to Amicalola Falls, the highest waterfall in Georgia at 729 feet (222 m). We had planned a picnic and a trip to some apple orchards in Ellijay as well, but Mother Nature decided to give our area some much-needed rain, so we cut short the gadding about and returned to Big Canoe for the afternoon.

On Sunday, our visitors departed for their next stop, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They also plan to visit North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park/Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway before heading across Kentucky and Tennessee back to good old Big D.

Here is part of Amicalola Falls:

and here is part of Burt’s Pumpkin Patch:

I hope it is not another eight years until we see them again.

Until then, we’ll just have to be satisfied with singing “Big D, Little a, Double L, A, S” along with Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews at Carnegie Hall (5:45)

On the other hand, there are times when swearing is definitely appropriate

Here is a famous (in the U.S., anyway) scene from The Carol Burnett Show (4:57) in which Tim Conway destroys his castmates during a “Mama’s Family” sketch by refusing to let the scene continue until he can finish a story about a circus elephant.

For the benefit of any Nederlanders and Enzedders and Yorkshirians out there (you know who you are) who might not know, Tim’s habit of inserting unscripted material during tapings of Carol’s shows before a live audience became legend.

I thought a good laugh might help you start your week.

And, yes, the fellow on the other end of the couch is Dick Van Dyke.

Here’s a scene of Tim with Harvey Korman (2:48). Although it is probably mostly scripted, it is every bit as funny as the first clip. In fact, I find it downright hilarious.

Thus spake Zarathustra.

We have time for a few questions from the audience.

A reader in Oregon writes, “Rhymes, you surely have solid irons in every antique shop in Georgia.”

A reader in Tooele, Utah, writes, “goodness, gracious, what a pair of glumps you two are, pat from big A and rhymes wit<><><>there has never been or will be greater music, and yes when i was in high school<><><><><><>><><><><<>><><<><><<>><><><><><><><><<>><><<><>”

A reader in Arkansas writes, “I think I have lost my marbles!”

A reader in Groningen (Holland) asks, “Are you okay Mr. RWP?”

Setting aside for a moment the very real question of whether I wish to be addressed as Rhymes, rhymes wit<><><>, Mr. RWP, or a simple “Hey, you!”, I now take pen in hand (figuratively, of course) and respond to your questions because your questions, even when they are not phrased in the form of a question, are important to us.

Oregon reader, no, I personally do not have solid irons in every antique store in Georgia, nor do I know of anyone who does. There must be hundreds of antique stores in Georgia, and that would be one humongous collection of solid irons, to my way of thinking. I would not attempt to guess the number of either antique stores or solid irons in Alabama, South Carolina, or Tennessee. Also, I do not know whether each and every antique store in Georgia would even want to have a solid iron, which is another question entirely. None of the irons, in any case, solid or otherwise, came from me.

Utah reader, according to dictionary.com (my favorite online dictionary), “glump” is not a noun, it is an intransitive verb meaning “to manifest sullenness; to sulk” (albeit colloquially), and I for one -- pat from big A can speak for herself if she wishes to -- can’t make heads or tails of what you’re getting at, if, in fact, you are getting at anything. You mentioned in another comment on the same post that you liked the music of “alll the b’s bach beethoven bocelli brahms,” but you neglected to mention beyoncé, bono, and dieterich buxtehude. The post in question contained a photograph of Elvis Presley performing “Jailhouse Rock” but your contention that “there has never been or will be greater music” is debatable. What about your own Mormon Tabernacle Choir there in Salt Lake City? Did you forget about them? Also, for a minute there at the beginning of your comment, you seemed to be channeling Jerry Lee Lewis. You kind of trailed off at the end, though, and I am not certain what it is, exactly, that you are asking.

Arkansas reader, I rejoice with you, as you seem very happy with the very real possibility that you have lost your marbles. I gleaned this fact from your use of an exclamation point at the end of your sentence. Had you used a question mark -- I think I have lost my marbles? -- I might have thought that some displaced Valley Girls had found their way to your fair region and influenced the local patois.

Which brings me to the final question, “Are you okay Mr. RWP?”

Groningen (Holland) reader, your decision to omit the vocative comma gave me pause. If you had included it (“Are you okay, Mr. RWP?”), I would have answered that sometimes I am and sometimes I am not, but that my not having blogged for a few days just meant I had nothing to say at the moment. My health is good; no problem there. Life is busy and full -- real life, I mean, not this computerized facsimile thereof. But I have taken your question at face value (that is, without the vocative comma), and after pondering a good deal over it, I have decided that I am both an okay Mr. RWP and the okay Mr. RWP. My goal in the time that is left to me, however, is to be the most magnificent Mr. RWP possible.

Speaking of alll the b's, my all-time favorite is this one, especially when she was poking fun at something dear to the heart of every Georgian (part 1) and (part 2).

Hello, I must be going, but I’m so glad we had this time together.