The Old Lady met this longtime Valdosta resident as a teacher of free yoga classes… but thanks to the Georgia Writers Association she now knows Roberta George as the 2019 Georgia Author of the Year!

George’s latest novel, The Day’s Heat, won the judge’s heart as well as the hearts of readers.  George has won her readers’ hearts before with a previous book Baptizing the Cat, short stories, poems, and op-ed pieces.

She is the founding editor-publisher of the Snake Nation Press and facilitates a weekly writer’s workshop at Valdosta’s Turner Center for the Arts where she served as Executive Director for 12 years.

You can buy The Day’s Heat at Amazon.com … or just ask Roberta, she’s got lots of copies!

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The Old Lady enjoys soccer played at World Championship level.

Which means that she is keeping up with the US Women’s National Soccer Team as they play for the 2019 World Cup in France, a Cup the USWNST has held for three straight years.

Which means that the US Women’s National Soccer Team, along with the US Women’s National Hockey Team, are the ONLY World Championship teams in the US at the time of this writing.

The ONLY.

“And yet,” grumbled The Old Lady, “all I’m hearing are complaints about how hard those soccer Women celebrate. Maybe they celebrate each other to make up for the fact that even though their world-class skills may win World Cups and gold medals, they are STILL not being paid as much money as the Men on the US Men’s National [Soccer] Team who were not even invited to their federation’s World Cup party last year.”

LISTEN to The Old Lady!

Sometimes The Old Lady is sadly disappointed by the English language, usually when she cannot find a word for a very specific thing.

For example: there should be a word for buildings that are shaped to look like what is sold inside, like the Twistee Treat stand in Crystal River, Florida pictured above or the filling station shaped like a dinosaur in Spring Hill, Florida.

Such dilemmas throw The Old Lady into her imagination to make up her own terms:

Picto-tecture?

Sculptural construction?

Faux façade?

“New words enter the English language all the time,” complained The Old Lady; “I just want those Linguistics Departments to work a little harder.” 

The Old Lady was fortunate to take a yoga class with Marisa Wolfe, a teacher who helps students explore “…ways to profoundly develop and embody gentleness, love, respect, and compassion on the mat.”

                Lovingkindness yoga?

                Right up The Old Lady’s alley!

Marisa led the group through exercises that helped the students physically embody lovingkindness toward themselves… then toward someone they love… and then toward someone they really did not like.

Wait, what?

Yes, it is possible to exercise and mindfully develop lovingkindness toward EVERYone including people we don’t like, just like exercising a muscle.

“And well worth the effort,” puffed The Old Lady on her yoga mat, “especially for the ones you really don’t like. Isn’t that what Jesus meant by ‘Love your enemies’?”

The brilliantly-showy berries of the Brazilian pepper tree made it a prized ornamental plant in the 1800s.

Now it is considered an invasive species in the United States, and the state of Florida has from time to time launched eradication efforts which have largely proved, well, unfruitful.

Recently south Florida beekeepers have begun marketing honey produced from the blossoms of the Brazilian pepper.  Of course it’s not exclusively from that tree… who knows where all their bees wander?… but what The Old Lady has sampled tasted robust and slightly kinda sorta like sweet potatoes.

Instead of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, beekeepers make sweetness from weeds!

Love Florida but hate high-rises and crowds?

B’s Marina on the Withlacoochee River in Yankeetown is one of the Sunshine State’s best-kept secrets.

Nestled in the wild heart of the Nature Coast, the campground is the peaceful home of plenty of birds and wildlife.

The Old Lady observed a dolphin swimming in the boat basin early one morning!

If you want to party the Tiki Bar is never crowded and Sarah’s fish tacos are delicious.

They play a game with heavy wooden dice as big as your hand, each player putting up a dollar to throw one die on the floor – watch your toes! – with the highest number winning the pot.

One player explained to The Old Lady: “We call it Yankeetown craps and we only throw one dice [sic] ‘cause nobody here can count to seven or eleven without pulling off at least one shoe.”

It’s that time of year when male birds act aggressively territorial, launching defensive attacks against all interlopers.

So The Old Lady was interested but not surprised to watch a crimson and black cardinal perch on the window ledge of her truck and wage a fierce battle with his own reflection in the side mirror.

He lost!

After his first furious assault the cardinal dropped down to the ground for a breather. Then in a great display of persistence and misperception he redoubled his efforts. He flapped his wings and pecked the mirror until, exhausted, he flew away.

“So often we humans do the same thing,” mused The Old Lady, “struggling fiercely against what we believe opposes us… only to find that we were fighting our own reflection all along.”

A bluebird was snatching bugs on the fly in the sunny yard, so The Old Lady kept an eye on the birdhouse atop a nearby fencepost.

Her vigilance was rewarded when she spotted a bird flitting through the hole into the little wooden box!

As soon as she focused her binoculars the bird poked her head back out for a peek, with her beak full of soft-looking nesting material.  She kept her eye on The Old Lady as the scary human backed away.  The Old Lady wondered how far she would have to retreat before she did not represent a threat to the bird.  The answer: about fifty feet, then the bird disappeared back inside.  

Keeping the binoculars focused The Old Lady waited for the bird to reappear.  As soon as the little head poked out again her mate fluttered down in front of her – OH! Resplendent in his bright blue coat and rusty orange vest! – then landed on the top of the birdhouse.  He leaned over and gently fed her a tidbit from his beak. 

Nothing says LOVE like a beakful of bugs!

Some years ago when The Old Lady found herself in desperate straits she checked the food banks at churches in her general vicinity for something to tide her over… and none of them were open that day.

So she was pleased to notice The Free Little Pantry in downtown Valdosta, Georgia, placed by a local school, Scintilla Charter Academy.

The Free Little Pantry is stocked with several types of food, from dried beans to peanut butter crackers, as well as bottled water which could be lifesaving on the sizzling south Georgia summer streets.

As the name says, it’s free… and it is never closed.

Donations from those of us who are food-secure are gladly accepted.

The Free Little Pantry is located on the corner of Central Avenue and Toombs Street.

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” – John 21:15

The Old Lady confesses to being an unashamed hedonist.

The pleasures of the table are near the top of her list of earthly delights.

She will not bore you with details of the fine meal she has just enjoyed… let the terms “blackened scallops” and “crème brulee” suffice… but it reminds her of a story:

Once upon a time in Sarasota, Florida, The Old Lady shared a table with several ministers. When dessert was served, a lovely slice of nut pie, one reverend gentleman patted his paunch ruefully and swore he would not touch it.

The Old Lady said: “Pastor, the psalmist tells us ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good.’ If the Lord has seen fit to offer us this lovely pie, it would appear ungrateful and disrespectful if we did not at least taste it.”

The reverend gentleman tasted his pie.

The Old Lady ate every bite of hers, and the rest of his too!