Rusticated into oblivion . . .

I have been to Mississippi to visit my friend Frieda, a former colleague at Delta State University. On my way to Cleveland, I remembered why visiting Mississippi in August is probably NOT a good idea. Here's a picture of Frieda as a student at Ol' Miss. My husband thinks she looks like a china doll (as in china doll, not Chinese Doll). She looks much the same still--for she's certainly trained this same expression on me many times--except NOW she wears clothes that don't touch her body ANYwhere.

Frieda's father was born in Canton in 1912. Frieda took a distinguished visitor to see him shortly after Russian tanks rolled into Ossetia in 2008. Frieda and the visitor hadn't watched any television or read any newspapers for days. In that awkward pause when people first meet, Frieda's Father said, "What do you think about the Russians invading Georgia". Startled, Frieda thought her father meant the Russians had invaded the U.S. As it was, he was the only one up-to-date.

We joined more of Frieda's old friends from Indianola Academy, and drove up to Memphis (actually Olive Branch, which is still in Mississippi), to stay at a "rustic retreat" hosted by a woman who announced she was a John Bircher and prayed her enemies into oblivion. Fortunately, or not, we shopped most of the time in Memphis proper and were too tired to worry about being killed in our beds when we "rusticated" in the evenings.

I was so tired when I started back to Kentucky I nearly fell asleep in the car. I'm still tired.