Heather Anne

Dear Family,

As you know, Manmaw and Tom's 50th wedding anniversary is coming up next week. Plus also, a party! The standard 50th anniversary gift is gold. (By the way, I looked it up, and the 100th anniversary gift is a 10K Diamond. No joke. We'd all better start saving.) Now I've been thinking about how much we all love Manmaw and Tom and also about the gold. And here's what I've decided: gold is played. No one gives gold anymore. I think we should all chip in to buy Manmaw and Tom something they'll really enjoy: a Nintendo Wii.

I'll just keep it at my house, in the living room, and Manmaw and Tom can come play anytime they want. (As long as I am not in the middle of the game.)

The contribution chart is as follows:

You'll see that the older you are, the more money you owe. Dad, Tina, Kunkle, Andi: you guys owe the most because you've had time to amass more wealth. The grandchildren (myself included) are poorer. And the great-grandchild, Hogan, is poorest of all. In fact, he's a freeloader. That's why he only has to pay $10 toward my new game console Manmaw and Tom's gift.

Make checks payable to: Heather Hogan. Or Paypal me.

Bring your Hokey Pokey shoes to the party.

Love,

Heather

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

About ten years ago, during a high school basketball game, I chased a fast break pass out of bounds (thank you, Katrina!) and ran full-steam into a concrete wall. My head hit the wall first, and I was knocked unconscious. I woke up in the locker room during half time. The next day I walked into my coach's office and he was sitting with the entire boys' team, watching the video of the game. Not the whole game, no. He was watching me chase the pass, crash into the wall, and fall down. Over and over and over. In slow motion. LIKE IT WAS FUNNY.

Run, run, run. CRUNCH! Topple. Rewind. Run, run, run. CRUNCH! Topple. Rewind. Run, run, run. CRUNCH! Topple. Rewind.

This week? I feel like I am trapped inside that video. Like I keep slamming into a wall - head first - again and again and again. And also? I hear the faint sound of chuckling.

In Love Actually, Hugh Grant says that when he gets gloomy about the state of affairs in the world, he thinks about the arrivals gate at Heathrow International Airport. When I get gloomy about the state of affairs in the world, I watch The West Wing, and pretend that it is my actual government.

In a few days, Georgia's 10th District is holding a special election to fill the seat left vacant by Congressman Charlie Norwood's death. The front-runner is an ultra-conservative Republican, Jim Whitehead. He says he wants to follow in Charlie Norwood's footsteps.

Awesome.

Norwood was famous for saying (loudly and longly) THAT YOU ARE FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OR YOU WANT TO MARRY TERRORISTS! Last August, he oversaw a 2-day panel on immigration. The entire experience displeased him. ""What I wanted," Norwood said, "was witnesses who agree with me, not disagree with me."

This is one of my favorite quotes by Norwood's hopeful successor, Jim Whitehead: "Left-wing political activists [are] intentionally registering illegal aliens to vote, including known Al Qaeda terrorists."

Riiiight.

Oh, and also Whitehead is not so much a fan of the Gay People.

My sister lives in the 10th District. I am encouraging her to write in Jed Bartlet's name. I don't think I'll have to plead too hard; she's the one that gave me the West Wing DVDs.

Here's a video I wouldn't mind being trapped inside.

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)

Spent the day out at the pool yesterday.

Saw Ocean's Thirteen. Played some cards. Ate some tacos.

Didn't wear a watch all day. Didn't turn on my cell phone.

Good Saturday.

Think I'll do it again today.

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I was lying on the couch this evening, watching season one of The West Wing, and eating Swedish Fish out of a big tub, when Amy came racing down the stairs to plead with me to help her tidy up the house. One of her coworkers was on the way over to drop off something.

Our house was actually pretty clean. In fact, I just vacuumed in March. I told Amy so and motioned for her to move out from in front of the television because this was the exact moment I felt like Josh fell in love with Donna.

Amy let out an exasperated sigh and said, “I would like our house to at least have the appearance that two grow-ups live in it.”

I reluctantly got up off the couch to vacuum and sweep.

“Shall I offer your coworker some refreshments?” I asked Amy, as I wrestled with the dustpan.

“Like what?” Amy asked.

I opened up the pantry. “Um…we’ve got grape juice and Spider-Man fruit snacks.”

“Is that all we got at the grocery store yesterday?”

“Psh, don’t be ridiculous,” I said, reaching for a plastic grocery bag and pulling out a bright red box. “We also got fireworks.”

Because nothing says "two grown-ups live here" like a cold glass of juice and a big KABOOM!

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

1) My brother-in-law, Jeremy (father of the wayward dragon), asked me to post a link to fella named The Fat Cyclist. He's a, well, he's a cyclist. He has a blog that's really been an inspiration to Jeremy. And sometimes the blog makes Jeremy giggle like a little girl. The Fat Cyclist's wife is fighting a second round of breast cancer, which has spread to her lymph nodes. He is raising money on his blog for cancer research by selling pink jerseys. You can find out more about it here.

2) Chris Jordan is opening an exhibit an the Von Lintel Gallery in New York on June 14th. It's called Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait. It depicts the disposable stuff Americans use every day. It's pretty crazy. A picture's worth a thousand statistics I guess. You can view the collection here.

3) There is a program called Soles4Souls that matches up shoes you don't wear anymore with people who don't have shoes. Amy and I probably have a hundred pairs of unused shoes in good condition between the two of us. I'm going to pack them up this weekend.

4) PAWS (The Performing Animal Welfare Society) says $5 can make a world of difference for an animal. You can save a tiger, a bear, an elephant, a lion, or even a monkey with a few bucks. I, of course, opted for the monkey.

5) Have a beautiful weekend.

Edited to add:

6) The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows cover art for the deluxe edition was released on The Today Show this morning. I think it's Mary GrandPre's best cover of all. (Dude! A dragon!)

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

As my time with my therapist was winding down yesterday afternoon, she asked me where I was going on vacation this summer.

I said, "2727 Bethel Road, Suite 4D. That's where."

She said, "You're coming to my office for vacation?"

I said, "Yes, because your office is where all my disposable income goes."

She laughed and I told her what I really had planned for the summer. I also mentioned that in July the last Harry Potter was coming to me. I said it nonchalantly, like, "I think the last Harry Potter comes out around the end of July or something." Instead of, you know, "44 days until Deathly Hallows!" She asked if I was excited, and I told her I guessed so. Then she asked who would live and who would die.

"Dr. P," I answered. "I can't talk about this."

She put down her notepad, where she'd been jotting down notes on our session. "Why not?" she asked.

"I can't be in therapy about Harry Potter. I will have seriously gone round the twist when I start telling you how I am afraid Ron Weasley's going to die."

Dr. P laughed. "I'm not asking you as your therapist. I am asking as your friend."

I gasped. "You can't be my friend!"

I could tell she was a little hurt when she said, "Um, why not?"

"It's in the literature!" I explained. "You gave it to me when I started seeing you. It said about how you can be my therapist but not my friend because it goes against attorney-client privilege or the Hippocratic oath or whatever."

"Heather," she said. "We spent the first ten minutes today talking about Tony Soprano's leggy therapist quitting him. I think you and I have a little leeway here."

I shrugged. "Yeah, okay. But first you tell me what you think."

"I don't want Luna Lovegood to die," she said with such earnestness that I thought about giving her a hug.

"I don't want Neville Longbottom to die," I told her.

We talked for a while about Horcruxes and whether Snape was an evil genius or a misguided man-child. It was well after my alloted hour when I finally got up to leave. "Good work today, doctor," I said.

She inclined her head. "Thank you."

"Am I your favorite client?" I asked, as I shouldered my backpack.

"I don't have favorite clients," she answered.

"Yeah...but?"

She shook her head. "But... what?"

"You don't have favorite clients, but...I'm your favorite?"

Dr. P rolled her eyes.

"Well, if I am your favorite, and it causes you some sort of emotional turmoil or something, I'll help you work through that. Or if Luna dies, and you're depressed, I'll help you work through that, too. For $100 an hour."

"Nobody likes a smart ass therapist," Dr P. told me.

I sighed. "Then clearly this is not my line of work."

"Yeah," Dr. P said. "Clearly. We'll talk about that next week."

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Today when I got home from work, I had a package. I thought maybe it was some books I ordered from Amazon, but no. It was a wayward dragon!

Dragons like the fresh air, so I took it outside. I gave it some specs to keep the sun out of its eyes.

I gave it some shoes to keep it from getting burrs in its toes.

I tossed it up in the air, and jostled it around a bit.

Then it threw up on me!

So I took a closer look.

That's when I realized it wasn't a dragon at all. Why, it was a baby. A baby that looks remarkably like my sister. So I sat it down and took its picture with Margaret. I call this one Cousins of a Sort.

I am expecting my first real dragon any day now.

Posted by Heather Anne at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Captain America doesn't like your ill-formed hypothesis about my work clothes.

---

Amy Sue is, by nature, a pacifist. She is also the kindest person in the state of Georgia. She's never uncharitable to people. She's never unfriendly about people. In the 15 or so years that I have known her, she's never said anything intentionally hurtful to me.

Amy's taking a combat class at her gym. When she first started talking about it, she seemed a little frightened of the woman who teaches the class. The first day Amy went, the instructor was all, "Now you've got them on the ground! Picture that person you hate! Picture the face! And KICK THEM! AND KICK THEM! AND KICK THEM!" The teacher's small children were in the class, in the corner, coloring. She made them put their books down and do push-ups.

But now Amy is really into the class. She keeps kicking and punching and jumping and making noises like, Hiiiiiya! And Siyeeee! Last night when we were walking Margaret, Amy attacked me a dozen times.

"This was supposed to be a leisure walk!" I protested.

In reply, Amy chopped at my jugular.

This morning I was changing the light bulb in one of Amy's closets (because my height and Blockbuster All-Access Pass are the only two things I bring to our relationship) and she came into the closet to say "good morning" or "do you want a blueberry muffin" or something, and I almost fell off the stool. Because you know what? I thought she was going to assault me. I am totally scared of Amy.

Now she wants me to put Kill Bill in my Blockbuster Queue.

Movie Mom's Review for Kill Bill: "Constant, extreme graphic violence with gallons of spurting blood, characters maimed and killed."

Awesome.

Posted by Heather Anne at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Who called me a poser and said I wear Business Cat clothes to work.

Posted by Heather Anne at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Since Candice is staying with me for a few days, Amy has someone to share incredulous looks with from time to time. Like yesterday when I got home and Candice said, “UPS dropped off a package for you.” And I ran across the yard shouting, “The Lady Dragon is here! The Lady Dragon is here!”

I took the box into the kitchen, and Amy looked at Candice like she was sore afraid.

“What?” I asked.

Amy shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in that box, but it seems like you to order a real live dragon.”

Candice nodded in agreement.

Silly roommates. The Ministry of Magic would be on me so fast if I ordered a dragon from the internet.

A few months ago, Karindira posted some pictures on her blog from her high school sketch book. One of the pictures was called A Lady Dragon. I have always dreamed of having my own dragon, blue with purple wings, and there it was! Directly from my imagination! I knew I had to have it.

Now, I don’t have much experience with owning fine art. As a mater of fact, everything I learned came from faithfully reading Mad William’s blog. And also from watching The L Word. I was sure I couldn’t convince Karindira to send me The Lady Dragon if I pretended to be a sophisticated curator or something. So I offered to give money to charity.

Karindria responded to my offer thusly:

Dear Heather,

Yours,
Karen

I couldn’t find any dragon-related charities at all, which I dejectedly reported back to Karindira.

Dear Heather,

Karen

I decided that of course I could start a dragon-related charity, and told Karindira so. Did she have any suggestions, I wondered.

Dear Heather,

Please respond soonest,
Karen

Heather Anne Hogan's Home Away from Home for Wayward Lady Dragons? I sort of felt ashamed that I hadn’t thought of that already. I agreed to house Wayward Lady Dragons in my guest room, and Karindira agreed to send the picture.

It came! Yesterday! With a double cool sock monkey!

Now if I could only get Jennie's orginal manuscript of The Evil Summer, my collection of fine art would be complete.

Posted by Heather Anne at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Hiya! For those of you who may not know me, you're out of the loop and can refer to me as HeatherAnne's cousin (HAC if you will). For those of you who do know me, Cousin is sufficient.

I’ve been staying with HA since it’s just closer to where I’m working this week. No other reason, I don’t actually like her – I’m all about convenience, ease, and efficiency. I did a nice little Google Map search last night. You see, I’ve been to HA’s and also to work, but never work from HA’s. So, the directions were as follows:
- Turn left on to drive.
- Turn left on to R road.
- Turn left on to # road.

Now I'll just stop there. That’s not where Google said my destination was, but Google did expect me to be able to complete step 2 to step 3. However, I made the left on to R road, and was ready to travel the 0.3 miles (1 min) when the road ended. Cul-de-sac. One house. One entrance to pool. Crap. Hmmm. Conundrum!!

[2 side notes -> the plural of cul-de-sac is not cul-de-sacs. Oh no dear Internets, it’s culs-de-sac. Don’t believe me? Ask Rory Gilmore. Also -> Conundrum is my favorite word]

So I turn around and start over, this time making a right on to R road (just to see what happens). That doesn’t work. I go straight, just for kicks. No dice. Crap.

I call HA. No answer. Serious Crap. So I look at the map that I had printed off and decided to just leave current neighborhood, get back to # road, take it til it meets up with needed#road and go from there. So I did that and still made it to work 10 minutes early.

I teach a highschool colorguard in the summer. It’s a good time – I mean why would I not want to spend my summers home from college hangin’ out with a large group of highschool girls and band geeks. No seriously? Why wouldn’t I wanna do that? I did it for 4 years in highschool, this is my 4th year out of highschool and I’m still goin’ strong. Anyway, so I get there and the band director informs me that they are going to take care of uniform stuff, then I'll lead the stretch, she’ll work on the flag stuff while I work with the rifles, we’ll re-group and I'll do dance/body work, then we’ll do tosses outside and then we’ll go home. Really? I was under the impression we only had 4 hours today.

She thinks the uniform stuff will take 30 minutes. And my Dad’s new mantra (from remodeling our house) is that everything takes twice as long as you think it will. True statement. She finishes up the uniform stuff at 10:02am. Fine by me, I’m getting paid, however I really would have preferred to sleep another hour. So at 10, I do some stretching and of course the girls sound like I’m killing them, torturing them, etc. I mean you’re on colorguard, is it really that much for me to ask you to be able to touch your toes?! They all complain that they’ll be sore tomorrow. Good, I know I’ve done my job.

Oh wait – I totally forgot to tell you. The uniforms are new this year. In the past they’ve been these hideous black lycra tents of sorts. Hideous. So I was pumped to hear they had new ones. Til I learned they were white. Til I learned they were 2 pieces. And especially until I learned that one of the pieces was a crop top. Now I think that bears repeating – crop top. Half of a top. Oh good Lord she had gone mad. White uniforms?? Hello – football field, sweat, bright lights. I just can’t imagine a good outcome. Okay fine, against all odds, maybe the white uniforms wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe the crop tops won’t be that bad either. Oh wait – there are two girls that wear an XL and five that wear a Large. hmmm. I’m not sure someone thought this through well enough. Okay, fine – maybe they’ll have nude body suits underneath to hold everything in. I’m sorry, what? All they’ll have on under this is a white sports bra and white boy short undies? Yea, someone may have forgotten to take their anti-delusional pills here recently.

Okay – sorry – so where were we? Oh yes, we just stretched. Boy that was rough. So I take the rifles away. I’m used to having 10 rifles or so, but this year I’ve got 5. No biggie – I like smaller groups, easier to clean and make sharp. What’s that you say? One girl is getting her senior photo taken and one will be in Mexico until July 16th? Oh well that’s good. Fine whatever, I'll just work on conditioning first, and then we’ll spin. I like the rifle girls because they always let me make them sore – I can tell them to do 100 crunches and push ups with me and they do it, no questions, comments, or complaints. I love that about them.

After we condition, we spin a bit, then we take a short water break, and it’s back on stage for the whole group. It’s time for across the floor stuff. So we’ll just do a recap of what you all did at auditions, right? Pardon me? You never did any dance work for auditions? *sigh* Okay then, the basics it is! It never ceases to amaze me the level of un-coordination that some people have. I mean I’m beating these drumsticks together and plainly and as hard as I can, and you still can’t even walk with the beat?! How do you sing with the radio? How do you jump-rope? And how in the world do you expect to dance?!

I worked for over an hour, yelling left right left right, 1 2 3 4 and everything else I could think of and some people are just not in sync with the rest of the world.

Please check back for a post from your regularly scheduled blogger with details of the lady dragon and mr-sock-red-butt-monkey.

Posted by Heather Anne at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

People say home is where the heart is. An unfortunate piece of faulty logic, that. My heart is often at Mayfield Dairy Farms, where you can get two scoops of freshly-churned chocolate ice cream for a dollar. But when I showed up at Mayfield Dairy, out on US-124, with a pillow and a sleeping bag, they shooed me away. Apparently my heart and home don’t necessarily live at the same address.

I’ve lived in a lot of houses, a few apartments, a dorm room. I spent my physical growing up years over on Oak Leaf Drive, right past that bridge and the People’s Baptist Church. I spent my emotional growing up years at White Oak Drive, right before you get to Old Federal Park, behind the Pop Stop. My grandparents live on White Oak; it’s the brick house with the pool, the one with all those muscadine and scuppernong vines down at the bottom of the hill.

I lived there a couple of times when I was small, and for about seven years when I was grown. Physically, I mean.

Manmaw bought me a sled for my 21st birthday, and we called it The Steel Saucer. It was one of those hopeful presents because in Georgia it hardly ever snows. Well one winter it did snow, and good. I asked Manmaw to sled with me. She said yes, of course, even though she’d broken her arm in the snow when I was nine. We bundled up and got on The Steel Saucer and sped down the hill in the backyard. Manmaw squealed, I and closed my eyes because I thought for sure we were going to crash right into those muscadine vines. We hit a bank; we toppled over; we lay in the snow, belly-laughing. My Grandpa Tom joined in. His shoulders shook, and he slapped his knee, from a safe distance on top of the hill.

I couldn’t always be at White Oak, so I spent a lot of time over on Briarwood at Amy’s parent’s house. Amy’s dad, Mr. Douglas, was a sight, I tell you. He let Amy try just about anything she wanted, including riding the tractor, operating the table saw, building a fire pit. By extension he let me try those things, too. I told him I wasn’t really good with coordination so maybe I’d just pass on the tractor. But Mr. Douglas, he saw the want in my refusal. He let me warm-up with the riding lawn mower. Amy’s mom, Betty Jo, was sensible and also a hoot. When I was sick, she’d tell me to rest, rest, honey. And she’d give me prescription medicines. Then sometimes, way after her bedtime, she’d whip up some homemade strawberry shortcake and say we ought to go out and see a midnight movie. She never cared if I went in my pajamas.

Last week I got sick and said I sure wouldn’t mind some of Manmaw’s homemade vegetable soup. She called and said I could come get it on the way home from work. I left early and drove over to White Oak. I walked in the door, got a good hug, and then opened up the refrigerator. Manmaw said, “There’s watermelon on the second shelf.” Manmaw made cornbread, too, and sent me home with a pint of soup in a Ball Jar.

Tonight I went over to Briarwood because Betty got some fresh okra this afternoon from J. More Farms, up there off US-365. I went in to the house and opened the refrigerator and Betty said, “There should be a cold Coke in there.” She made green beans and cornbread, fried okra and roasted potatoes. Mr. Douglas grilled out pork chops and chicken. I had seconds of nearly everything and accidentally said “smartass.” Amy made me apologize. I said my love language was hugs, so Mr. Douglas made a show of it when I left. Betty sent me out the door with a container of homemade ice cream.

Sometimes I go to sleep and my heart’s back in Jamaica, Saint Ann’s Bay parish, about 9 kilometers west of Ocho Rios. Or sometimes my heart’s back in Wales, in that farmhouse about a two-hour drive south of The Lake District. Or sometimes it’s in a place I’ve never been, with a people I’ve yet to know. But that’s not home, is it?

No, home isn’t where the heart is. Home is where you can go and open up the refrigerator and have anything you like. Home is up the hill at White Oak. Or just past the old bike shop, down the hill at Briarwood.

Posted by Heather Anne at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)