Monday, December 31, 2012

Us Skinny Bitches Need to Stick Together

It's almost time to say Happy New Year...almost, but not quite.  2012 has only 4 hours left, and I for one am happy to see it go.  So happy, I am seeing it out with a drink (a Skinny Bitch).  To make:

  • One part Vanilla or Cherry Vodka, very cold
  • 3 parts diet cola of your choice (I like Coke Zero)
  • Ice
Mix and drink.  

I didn't do much today, a bit of shopping and movie watching (Winter's Bone, with Jennifer Lawrence).  A  good film, realistic.  While I didn't grow up exactly like that, there were parts of the movie that felt familiar.  It was filmed near Branson, Missouri and some of you may know that I live in Southeastern Missouri.  The geography of the movie felt like home.

There is something about the landscape of Missouri that feels iconic.  Sides of the highway are covered in brush and trees.  There are rocky outcroppings or places where the original roads were carved through the rock (granite, quartz, galena, limestone, etc).  This time of year, where we've had hard freezes and even snow, the landscape looks bleak and barren, just like in the movie.  The trees that crowd the side of the road are primarily cedars, oaks, pines if you drive south.  Lots of redbud and dogwood.  Various maples and poplars.  This time of year, the trees are either gray with furrowed barks or patches of white on the birches and sycamores.  Green-gray patches of lichen cover the trees and provide muted color against a gray white sky.

If you went into the woods (and you might), you would see places where the moss was cushiony and had little red hairs on it.  Places near water where there were leathery ferns growing.  You would smell the leaves of years rotting beneath you and it would be a good smell.  There are other places that are more beautiful than this place, but I find the rolling hills, woods, and streams infinitely interesting.  And near the side of every major highway, if you looked up, you would see a red-tailed hawk perched up in the highest branches of the trees.

MacRae, Ted C. “Mini-review of the Cicindelidia abdominalis species-group,” Beetles in the Bush. Published September 14, 2011, accessed August 10, 2012. http://beetlesinthebush.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/mini-review-of-the-cicindelidia-abdominalis-species-group/. [Chicago Style]


The problem with Missouri, as Jennifer Lawrence's character tried to tell us, is all the meth labs.

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