Category: Life

You can’t find what you can’t see

Ok, this is what I went through this morning. I got up extra early to go over the intervention lessons that I offered to teach for a friend today. Showered, dressed, ate breakfast, readied the house for the housekeeper, and then practiced the lessons. All was well. Then I realized I didn’t have my glasses on. Not only that, but they weren’t in any of the usual places. I checked and rechecked but it’s hard to find one’s glasses when one has lost one’s glasses.

I was quickly running out of time, so thinking quickly (stop laughing!) I grabbed my prescription sunglasses out of my motorcycle ditty bag. At least I could drive legally. Now, I had to decide if I had time to stop for my morning caffeine fix. The answer was a resounding “of course, you fool” so I ran into a convenience store, grabbed a cup, and promptly sprayed myself with Diet Coke. A little adjustment of the nozzle actually put some soda in my cup, but now I’m a mess. No time to go go home, so I mopped up with wet paper towels, paid for my soda, and hurried on my way.

The front parking lot at the school was completely full, so I parked far away in what I lovingly call the “back forty.” From here, it’s quite a hike to the office, but I was still at least 15 minutes early when I got to our little classroom. But the door which is never locked was locked. So I went in search of a key. That was fairly easy and only cost a couple of minutes, but I couldn’t get it to turn in the lock. Finally a nice teacher came by and used her key on the door. Great! I found a student to return the key I’d borrowed and went about setting up materials for the lessons with five minutes to spare. Whew! Wrong!

Just as I headed out the door to pick up my four students the custodian came by and said he needed to move me to another room. Since I’m a guest at the school I said, “Sure!” much more pleasantly than I felt.

Of course this new classroom was almost out where my car is parked. Quickly I got all my stuff arranged and went to pick up the kids. The intervention lessons proceeded smoothly in spite of it all, and even though we started late we managed to end right on time. Then I figured I had time to run home, change clothes, and look for my glasses.

The housekeeper (the most wonderful woman in the history of the world, next to my mom and my mother-in-law) had just arrived and she and I scoured the house from top to bottom. No glasses. I decided that the cats must have knocked them off the back of the dresser, but I’d have to wait until my hubby, Studly Doright, came home to move it for me.

I decided to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge before I left the house and wow. There were my glasses sitting next to a gallon of 2% milk. Now I know I’m getting old and forgetful, but how in the world did that happen? Never mind that, I needed to go to my next school.

Giving Rosa a hug I ran to the car and headed to my next school. It was only when I sat down that I realized I was still wearing my Diet Coke stained shirt. Have Mercy! Life is good and today is Friday.

Hope this made my readers feel super smart today!

Peace, People!

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Looking Ahead

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It’s a little depressing to know that I’ll be cooking a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner for just Studly and me. I know, we could open our doors to others, but Studly isn’t into that sort of thing. He just wants family around on holidays. So, I’ll cook a small turkey and make my mom’s recipe for cornbread dressing. We’ll have cranberry sauce, green bean casserole (ugh!), and some kind of fruit salad. It’s nothing fancy, but tradition (Studly) demands it, and he doesn’t demand much.

My brain is already looking ahead to Christmas. For the first time in many years our family will be together for Christmas. I can’t even tell you how much this means to me and how very excited I am! I could use multiple exclamation marks and they still wouldn’t convey my excitement. Our son and his family live in Texas, our daughter and her family are in Illinois. Studly and I live in Florida. My heart longs for us to be together, and on December 24, 2014, that will happen.

We are renting a home in Nashville, Tennessee, a location fairly equidistant to all of us, give or take a couple of hours. We’ve booked a trip to the Grand Ole Opry on the 26th and a trip to a place where we’ll be locked together in a room and have to solve a mystery as a team in order to escape on the 27th (http://nashvilleescapegame.com).

But I just want to see my grand babies playing silly games together. I want to see their eyes light up when Santa visits. I want to help them leave treats for Santa’s reindeer on the lawn in front of our house. This photo was taken the last time we were all together in one spot.

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Harper, the baby, is two now, so it’s about time we got together as a family again.

These are the kids I can’t sit to hug:

The Illinois bunch

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And the Texas two.

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Peace (and LOVE), People!

Fair in Tallahassee

Study and I visited the North Florida Fair on Saturday night. As fairs go, I’ve seen much better, but the food from local vendors was terrific. A beautiful family cooked the most delicious grilled shrimp just for me.

The highlight of the evening was the carousel. I’d never seen a double decker carousel before!

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The Ferris Wheel looked spectacular lit up against the November sky.

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Studly ate all of his favorite fair foods: chicken kabobs, corn dogs, and funnel cake. Amazingly he still manages to keep his churlish figure. 😍😉

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Perfect night. G,night all!

Peace, People!

Graphic Stupidity

Have you ever watched truTV? It’s filled with content such as “World’s Dumbest” and “Impractical Jokers.” Basically, it’s crap. Studly is entranced by truTV, ergo, crap entrances my spouse.

This evening’s viewing included a countdown of the world’s dumbest criminals. In spite of myself I watched to ascertain which criminals make the top 10. Will it be the naked guy who attempts to rob a convenience store saying he has a gun in his pocket, or will it be the woman who attempts to knock over a fast food place by pointing a gun through the drive in window?

I don’t know if I’m more disturbed by the content or by my willingness to watch it non-stop from 7 p.m. until bedtime. Granted, at my age bedtime is often 9 p.m., so that’s only two hours of mediocre programming.

I guess I pictured us watching quality television during middle age. Stuff with a purpose like “Planet Earth” or “Cosmos.” Yes, I could go into another room, but then I’d miss out on discovering the number one world’s dumbest criminal. I’m betting on the guy who wrote his bank robbery note, “Give me all your money” on the back of his own phone bill.

Peace, People!

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It Only Hurts When I Move

Friday night (Halloween, 2014) Studly and I, along with his sister, Angie and her husband, Steve, ventured into the frightening world of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando.

Angie and Steve flew all the way from the panhandle of Texas to help me bring closure to my glorious birthday month. And how do I thank them? By dragging them through one terrifying haunted house after another.

Imagine, if you will, Halloween on steroids. The big draw for us this year was “The Walking Dead” house in which we had to negotiate the claustrophobic confines of the prison and then make our way to Terminus while keeping out of the reach of walkers and cannibals alike. It was absolutely everything I’d hoped it would be–heart stopping horror at every turn.

Studly played it pretty cool all night until we went through the “Dusk ‘Til Dawn” house. It had snakes. Dangling, coiling, lurking, slithering snakes. Fake snakes, but Studly’s worst nightmare nonetheless.

What Are We Doing Here?

Every now and then I feel like I’m on the verge of being able to answer the great ‘meaning of life’ questions.

I mean, the answers are right on the tip of my brain. It’s as if I once knew these answers, but someone has hidden them from me.

Like when you have an incredible dream that floats away in a mist before you can write down the details of how a cow spoke to you in a foreign language, like Lebanese or Taiwanese or some other -ese while massaging your temples.

I ponder these questions often: Why are we here? What is our purpose? How do I program one remote control to manage all of the functions I require?

Perhaps, if I assume the lotus position, fast for three days, and focus all of my attention on these questions I will at some time in the future be able to answer the first two. The third is well beyond my comprehension, now and forever, but that’s why I have grandchildren.

Peace, People!

Wine Tasting

Don’t worry, I’m not going on an “I’m drunk and love the world” kind of post. If you want one of those read “Having a Wine a Time, Wish You Were Here” and/or “Drunk Blogging.” No, this is a post about an ordinary woman learning about the wonders of wine.

Most folks who didn’t grow up around wine tend to be a little intimidated by it. Take me, I grew up around weak beer (Schlitz, Coors, Old Milwaukee, etc.). I could write volumes about beer drinking etiquette in a dry county. Wine, though, was something I thought only rich people drank. And they tended to be snobbish about it.

Dad’s eldest sister, my Aunt Jackie, was employed as a cocktail waitress in a ritzy restaurant in Marysville, California, for many years. I figured that was the most exotic profession a girl could have. Aunt Jackie knew how to do a lot of things that I’d only read about in the books I snuck from the adult section of the county library in Floydada, Texas, not the least of which was the proper way to serve wine.

On one family vacation to California we went out to dinner one night and Aunt Jackie ordered a bottle of wine. When the waitress brought it out already poured into the glasses my aunt chastised the poor girl until she almost cried. I learned two things that night: The proper way to serve wine in a nice restaurant and that my aunt wasn’t always a very nice person. I guess all those years waiting on other folks had made her cranky.

I was given a sip of wine that night, but wasn’t impressed. It reminded me, in both color and smell, of cough syrup. I remember thinking that Schlitz had wine beat by a mile. Pretty sophisticated thinking for a twelve year old.

Wine didn’t really interest me until one memorable evening in Great Bend, Kansas. A friend and I sat outside grilling steaks and drinking a very nice bottle of Merlot. Eureka! Instantly I understood the importance of pairing the right wine with the right food. That Merlot, coupled with the grilled-to-perfection steak, made my taste buds do things they’d never done. It was almost as if I’d never tasted a steak before.

That put me on a mission. What other combinations could reach the heights I’d just experienced? I started experimenting and discovered that I really like wine. I’m no connoisseur, but I don’t need to be. It turns out, one doesn’t need to be a snob or wealthy to enjoy good wine, just open minded and willing to explore. Oh, and don’t be a dick about how it’s presented. Unless one is ordering a really expensive bottle of wine, it really doesn’t matter how it’s served.

Peace, People!

Forever My Baby Girl

Long ago, in a hospital far, far away…

A beautiful baby girl was born. Tiny, with a full head of dark hair, our Ashley completed our family. We knew she’d be our last kiddo–and perhaps we spoiled her a little. Ok, a lot. But she was easy to spoil.

At her four week checkup our general practitioner noticed our baby had an irregular heartbeat, a slight murmur, he said, and sent us to a pediatric heart specialist in Amarillo. By the time we were able to see Dr. Jones, Ashley was almost six weeks old. He diagnosed her as being in the early stages of heart failure and immediately sent us to the hospital.

What followed was a controlled panic fueled by guilt. Our baby seemed quite healthy to us. How was it we hadn’t noticed the slight blue cast to her lips when she cried? Well, she really didn’t cry much, only when she was hungry, needed a diaper changed, or was being bathed. She was so easy to comfort.

On December 8, 1980, I sat in a hospital room at St. Anthony’s hospital in Amarillo, Texas. As I nursed my baby girl, television programming was interrupted to inform us that John Lennon had been murdered outside his apartment building in New York. Dr. Jones walked in the room at that moment to find me crying, and he sat with me as we watched the shocking news.

Dr. Jones finally told me he’d made arrangements for Ashley to be transferred to a hospital in Houston where she’d most likely be undergoing surgery to repair a ventricular septal defect. So, just before Christmas, Studly, my mom, our son Jason, Ashley, and I flew to Houston.

A great deal of testing and waiting, waiting and testing ensued. Our poor baby was poked and prodded and hooked to tiny electrodes. She remained happy throughout. In fact, the only thing she protested was bath time, and she hated that with a passion. At midnight before her scheduled surgery I was instructed that she could have nothing to eat. Did I mention earlier that I was a nursing mother?

The two of us managed to cope through the night with the use of a pacifier and lots of snuggling, but by 10 a.m. I’m not sure which of us was more miserable. My baby was hungry and crying. My breasts were swollen like two overripe cantaloupes. Studly kept pestering the nurses about our situation. Then Mom went in search of someone who could help.

At noon I hefted a swollen melon under each arm and marched to the nurses’ desk. I told the nurse on duty that our little one had been scheduled for surgery, but that no one had come and that little Ashley was really hungry. Her suggestion–perhaps she could suck on a lollipop. I lost it. In my imagination I took one breast and squirted milk right in her eye. In reality I blubbered something about boobs and infants and being scared and why wouldn’t someone do something.

The nurse apologized and went immediately to find an answer. Within a few minutes we had a doctor at our door. The delay had resulted from a split decision. Some of the surgical staff wanted to operate. Others wanted to try medication to regulate Ashley’s heartbeat to see if the defect would close on its on and reevaluate in six months. At that point, I didn’t care, I just wanted to feed my baby.

In the end, there was no surgery. The doctors put Ashley on a form of digoxin and she thrived. Every year we went for heart check ups, all of which were great, and eventually there was no trace of a defect. Hooray for split decisions!

Our Ashley is 34 years old today. She is bright, beautiful, sassy, stubborn, and the mother of three of my beautiful grandbabies. Sometimes when I look at her I still picture her tiny face just as it looked so many years ago, watching me as I held her close. She’s grown up, but she’s still my little baby girl. Love you, Ashley.

Peace, Baby Girl.

P.S. Ashley your gift is going to be late.

The Hard Way

Lessons I’ve learned through experience:

Potatoes have to be cooked before you can mash them.

Sometimes one margarita is one too many.

Good things don’t always come in small packages. (e.g. Bacon flavored gum)

Hot motorcycle pipes and bare legs are a painful combination.

Tissues make terrible bra stuffers.

Nothing tastes as good coming back up as it did going down.

Easter eggs begin to stink when hidden under a bed for a year.

Don’t expect to sleep well after a Walking Dead marathon.

Not everyone gets my sense of humor.

People get feisty over politics.

A smile won’t win over all your critics.

Time isn’t always on one’s side.

Riding a motorcycle while hungover is akin to having a raucous drum cadence played inside one’s head.

Just because one works better under pressure doesn’t mean one should leave projects to the last minute.

Peace, People!

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