Super Moon & Secret Powers

Everybody raised up in Appalachia knows the trick to making a garden flourish is to do the planting under a full moon.

The reason Jack’s beanstalk grew so big is he not only planted it under a full moon, but under one of those super moons like we had last night. It was so bright I nearly went blind looking at it.

I could just hear my granny saying: “Don’t you stare straight at that sun — it’ll blind you!”

That’s how bright the moon was last night.

Which put me in a tizzy of activity all day long — that along with two vanilla iced lattes. (Caffeine is the Miracle-Gro for old people).  I was bound and determined that I was going to get seeds planted under the light of the super moon, so I could rightly answer the question: “How does your garden grow, girl?”

“Very well, dear, thank you.”

So there I was (all by my lonesome since the only person Tim ever says NO to is me) turning dirt with a shovel, clearing away the debris of deadness, moving stones and dog toys, pruning and putting down manure, filling the bird feeders, washing windows and plantation shutters when I overheard something on the radio that made me laugh so loud I left a puddle in the garden.

A man attempting to rob a bank was stopped when the teller asked for his ID first. This was Texas so of course even the criminals are the obliging sort. The man offered the teller his debit card and driver’s license.

Seems our politicians aren’t the only ones operating from a vacuum, our criminals are getting dumber, too.

I suspect that’s why the mama down in Tampa, Florida decided to take some drastic measures when her 15-year-old boy brought home bad grades. The mama, who failed to graduate from high school, is bound and determined that her boy not only graduate, but do so respectably. When he came strutting in the house with his 1.22 GPA, she sent him back out the door wearing a sign around his neck: “Honk if I need an education.”

The boy stood on a Tampa street corner with the sign around his neck for four hours.

Lots of people honked but somebody reported the incident to the children services division and now this mama is being investigated for possible child abuse.

Yep.

America, you gotta love it.

The land where stupidity is an unalienable, contestable right.

How else do you explain Charlie Sheen’s road show “Violent Torpedo of Truth” (or as Sheen says, “The real story from the Warlock”)  selling out in 18 minutes in Chicago?

If you live in a foreign country and are reading this, would you please drop to your knees right this minute and pray for us? All our boasting about our Superpowers only makes us look even dumber to the rest of the world.

We’ve morphed into Gilligan wearing Superman’s costume.

The good news is I got the flower beds cleaned and the seeds planted under the light of a super moon.

I even managed to hang the new solar-powered butterfly globe that glows purple at night.

“That’s creepy,” Tim said, under the light of the super moon. “The neighbors are going to think a sorceress lives here.”

Us Appalachian women, we have our secret powers, that’s for sure.