You're Forever My Girl

It is a beautiful spring morning, April 26, 2008. The trees along our block are all in bloom with white or pink buds, it’s very palatial. As if I am in another date and time. And I am.
Twenty-six years ago today, I was laboring with my third child. With a four year daughter and a not quite two year old son at home anxiously awaiting the birth of what we thought was “their baby brudder, Abner”. I had shared with my not quite two year old son that if the baby was a brother, his name would be Andrew, and if it was a sister, her name would be Abbie, how he came up with Abner I have no clue, but it’s been a funny part to our family story.

Having had the other two children by natural childbirth methods (breathe and push, and ENDURE!!!!) as was so popular in the 70’s and early 80’s, and having labored a long, LONG 30+ hours with each, I wasn’t surprised when my labor started off long and progressed slowly. Waiting at home until I thought she was practically hanging out, I arrived at the hospital, the day before my proposed due date, dilated only 2 cm.

2 cm. The dreaded words I longed to hear. I thought that I was ready to push for God’s sake, and I am, the minute this snotty nurse turns her back…but two- disappointing- cm. !!! After all the laboring I did at home? This is crazy!

But labor did progress, and soon I was delivering (on my due date I might add, the first and probably only time that I was ON TIME!). I so wanted to watch this time, with my glasses on so I could see, trying not to scrinch my eyes as I pushed and panted, trying to keep them wide open. Better for viewing.

As you crowned, the doctor told me about seeing your hair, and soon they adjusted the large mirror so that I could see your face. Your lightly colored hair all slick and sticking up, your perfectly round head (like Charlie Brown!) coming through the canal that was all mine, with your EYES wide OPEN! You were trying to focus on the world, even before the rest of your tiny little body was through it's warm little cocoon. I still didn’t know if you were an Abner or an Abbie.

And then I knew. You popped into this world, very little pain, no need for episiotomy, thank you very much, eyes wide open and when they wrapped you and put you in the Isolette next to me. You, amazed them all by reaching around for the edge of the blanket and tucking it into your palm, sucked your thumb. You were our Abbie girl.

And that’s how you have lived your life ever since. Eyes wide open, searching for adventure. Until you were three you were so content to explore just within the family and home. As a baby, you never fussed alot. Hell, you slept through the night the night that we brought you home from the hospital, so not wanting to intrude yourself. And like so many other babies with older brothers and sister, you endured calmly all the poking of their tiny fingers into your eyes and cheeks, as they tried to haul you around.

These are all familiar stories to you, I’ve repeated them over the years (but not to the readers…ok, the two maybe that read! How DO you get readers anyway?) You grew up, and left the nest. Oh, my baby, did you have to go so far away? Off to Colorado. We speak almost every day. But I can’t share with you all the day to day things that I share with Sarah. I’ll miss you today, as I celebrate, deep within my heart, my special day with you.
Happy Birthday Bean. I love you, Mom

“And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
Taken without permission from “The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran”

What The F*$+ Friday

What the heck is this?
Does her mother know that she posed for this photo? and that it's rated one of the worst "gaming tattoo" on the Internet? I thought it was a raunchy fashion statement. I'm looking for some jewelry to go with an outfit "I think I'll tat some on".

And dig the "bra". This is a POSTER CHILD for those of you considering tat's.
I 'd say, um, don't? A bunch of the ladies at work yesterday were discussing body art. I'd always joked that if ever I decided to get a tattoo, it would be one of "Where's Waldo". Remember him? Cute as a darn button, and difficult to find. The craze of the 80's coffee table books, about the time I thought I was sassy enough to be able to flirt someone into looking for Waldo on my much leaner body. Hidden between the stretch marks! Ha! Cover your eyes Joe!
I'm sure that when all you young moms out there who kiss the sweetness that is your tiny baby's skin, you will cringe at the thought of Miss Pac Man's appearance on their tush.
I guess to each his own! That is the wonderful, crazy thing I LOVE about people. They never continue to fascinate me! Have a Great Friday everyone!

OMG-This JUST IN

Girls, Girls gather around....I'm so very X-cited.
Seems the fact that I've only lost about four pounds, on this weight loss plan, AND the fact that I borrowed a nifty waist cinching strapless device from my dear co-worker, Bonnie, I have in fact been able to cram into my dress for the wedding!
Yes, MY God, it's true.
AND I could sit down. OH the joys of starvation and undergarments.
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There would be a cool picture here of the bustier, but blogger couldn't upload it today...maybe tomorrow???
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It is DAMN amazing! There isn't too much fat/flab/skin hangin around my mid waistline, and the back fat (or back bacon as Danielle would say) is tucked neatly away. Away where, I cannot quite figure, but I think if I get some amazing Control top pantyhose, I will look absolutely stunning in the Neiman Marcus FREE (did I mention FREE) two piece mother of the bride type dress in celery green that I have been saving for this event. It was given to me with the TAGS STILL ON (swoon) and it's never ever been worn or danced in or ANYTHING.

I will be able to dance with my husband and not worry that he will be fingering layers of flab under the thin fabric of my absolutely FRIGGIN FABULOUS (did I mention FREE) 100% silk dream of a dress.

I must be on the hunt for some fab jewelry to accent this. I was so worried about not being able to fit into it, and have to find a last minute replacement for the wedding at -GASP- full price.

Tra LA, I will skip dessert tonight and tomorrow night too, because I need to have some room for a cocktail or two with dinner.
Ok, carry on with whatever you were doing when I rudely interrupted you so.

RTT or Random Tuesday Type Thoughts

It’s been a good day. Got my emissions tested after work and I passed! (The crowd roars in excitement that my ’98 Olds-paid-for-automobile would pass, thanks to my husband, Mr. Man, and the handy use of some gum and duct tape)

Its 70 degrees outside, and sunny.

Although work was mostly boring, the afternoon was stirred up by a new patient who wanting to use our laboratory services, called for directions and indicated that he needed some help getting out of the car and into a wheelchair to come in. We sent a girl from registration, which is also a medical assistant out to assist him. She tried, but honestly, you can’t come into the health care center without your pants. Yes, when she went to the driver’s side door and opened it, the gentleman didn’t have his pants quite, well, on.
They were there - but he was a larger man, and the pants didn’t come up to his thighs. So, with his entire Biz-ness showing, he just drove on to the medical center for a lab draw.
Scares you to take your youngsters out on the road now doesn’t it? His left arm was not operational, and he couldn’t move his legs, because of the swelling and the obvious pants around his thighs constricting it so.
Ahhhh, just Tuesday. Just another Tuesday in a day in the life.

The cable guy is here.
The on-going cable/phone/internet problem that we have been having has caused yet another visit by the cable guy. Scary cable guys. Most wanting to blame our cordless phones, our new high end big screen digital television, or even Mother Nature. Not the cable services. The guys talk in words and symbols written in "call out" clouds above their heads. He lost me at "Hello", I couldn't get past his bad haircut and grubby cut off pants. (they were cut to just below the knee, like Capri pants for women - don't get me started on Fashions for Cable Dudes)


Did you ever notice how much our language now depends on initials? We use initials in our every day conversations, regardless on whether or not we know that the other person knows what we’re talking about. It's totally socially acceptable, but rude how we think that we're so knowing and cool. How highly we think of ourselves! Oh, how internet users abuse the “initial-speak”. LOL, for Gosh sakes. And healthcare workers are so darn guilty, as is the corporate world. “You have a DVT, and with your CHF your NBC is affected with your CBS.” Or something like that. The corporate office is closed for CNNR and will be likely to stay closed during random HVTD time, that is of course if you are hooked into DLMN, and are CST or EST. If you are not on CST or EST, you can connect via CSNNR transmission. I say “huh”? Play along, and you seem intelligent, and they (the speaker) acts smug, poignantly so. With a smirk on their face, the initial speaker touts you to engage. I can’t because I’ve no clue as to what they are talking about.
Oh, don’t you be so smug, you who reads stuff on the internet. You too are guilty I’m sure.
Imagine someone of a different age group than yourself…they are lost in your assumption that anyone knows what E.T. stands for! If it hadn’t been for Steven Spielberg, none of you would have known either.
Shame on all of us!
TTFN. (Tigger of Pooh)

TGIF

I have a sore throat. Scratchy and sore.
I made some toast, yum. It feels so good going down. Now the house smells so good, like I’m cooking some fab meal for dinner. Boy won’t Mr. Man be surprised when it’s frozen stir fry, instead of some luxurious meal I’ve slaved over.

Ahhhh, TGIF. Work this week has been kinda slow and boring. I collected paper clips off of some old records and shredded them. (Yeah, I KNOW, I should have just went home!) Had some time to think whilst shredding. I thought I’d share some pet peeves with you.

Toss these around, do they bug you too?

1. Bad customer service. Yes, even from the 16 yr. old pimply drive through boy who takes my fast food bag and crumples my burgers, telling me that he got called into work when he wasn’t EVEN scheduled and he doesn’t want to be here now, because it’s too nice outside. Thanks for your order. Or, the short little young thing that gives me a lecture each and every time I buy a pack of “now and again” cigarettes, like I don’t know how bad they are for me and others with my second hand smoke - and I am so polite, but I’m going get her someday soon. I hope I don’t make CNN when I do. Mind your own bee’s wax girlie. Does everyone buying condom’s get a lecture too?

2. Annoyance sets in when someone engages me in a story, or conversation by asking me a distinct question, then does not listen to the answer I give. They also look around, like I can’t see their eyes looking over my shoulder, they are clearly not listening. I should tell them some outrageous thing, like, I’m sleeping with your father, mother, husband…fill in the blank. Hey sister, did that get your attention? Maybe I should just walk away.

3. When someone comes to visit your house, and upon entering states that they hate:
Cats (when they know that you have one) dogs, (same deal) green (the color of your living room) and proceed on in only to plop down and expect you to be happy to visit with them. I could smile and sweetly say, have you gained weight? Something looks so different about you.

4. Here's another I'm sorry to admit. I’d rather not watch midgets perform on T.V. There, I’ve said it. Not counting the Roloff’s, whom I find engaging, I don’t like to watch midgets PERFORM. You know, like Mini Me. It disturbs me. The exploitation of it.

5. Have you ever engaged in a nice conversation with an acquaintance and they start using proper names of people you don’t know in a manner that suggests you know who they are talking about. Like this, “ We had a great time this weekend, we went over to Seth’s and Marge’s and little Kyle had a cute raincoat on!” Who the heck is Seth, Marge and little Kyle? Or, I had one friend who only used HE or SHE etc. out of context, like "I wonder when HE is coming over?" and I never knew what or who she was talking about. I spent all my time, saying “who’s he? Your son?, No, your husband? Oh, your Boss….Ahhhhh. Drove me bonkers. I'd avoid her just because I couldn't follow her conversations.

That’s it for now. Those are enough, I know.
Not like I’m a control freak or something.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to talk about the misuse of the word “dude”. I’m a freaking middle aged woman and the kid at the gas station called me DUDE. I hate that.

I Got Nuthin

I've nothing to say to you. I've been have a really strange week, up and down. Really creative one minute, sleeping the next. The weather around here is really changing, cold in the morning, sunny and in the 70's in the afternoon, will drop to 40 degrees in the evening. It really is Spring.

I typed a witty little post yesterday, but OH, no, you won't read it here. I typed and typed and then got booted of my wonderful Internet connection. I had no phone, no Internet and no cable...hint hint, guess who my carrier might be with a trio like that.
So, I called them and spend about a good hour on my cell phone standing on one leg in the driveway talking to "Steve" who kept putting me on hold while he "tried one more thing". My cell lost it's power (because I forgot to recharge it) and we disconnected.
Steve didn't call back.
But the connection was back. All my typing was gone.
So now...I got nuthin...talk amongst yourselves a minute.

nope, still nothing. Well, when whatever my mind has lost has returned, I'll be back.

Planted

While I wish for springs warm and hope filled days, I spend a little bit of time checking out my flower beds - watching for signs of life of course, and avoiding critters of any kind. (spiders, rolly polly bugs, centipedes, and nests of bunnies all curled up in fur and dry dead grass)

I love the smell of the soil. It's different scents of rotting remainders from last years plantings and of the bits of sprouts from this seasons promises.

I love to poke around in my little beds and see if I can get anything to "take". I went to some gardening web sites, and was appalled at my lack of knowledge regarding all that is green. (for those who know me well, I love green, always have, it's my signature color.)

Most of what I like to plant, is like a scrapbook of remembrances. I never really realized it until we "lost" the peonies.

I always wanted to grow peonies. My mother had a row of peonies in the back section of our back yard where we had lived when I was four. I remember vividly hearing my mother talking about the peonies, which were bushy, and came up to my knees...our dog, Rudy, peed on them. I got it! Pee-o-knees. My little mind put it all together! We transplanted some a few years ago into our backyard, but I think we planted them too deep, in an area that was too moist. Got nothing.

I loved to hear "the ladies" talk about flowers in their gardens.

My mother, used to plant four o'clocks. When she wanted to collect the seeds for next year's batch, she would give me a baggie, and send me out to pop and collect the black seeds, which were hard, and of a good size for 4 year old fingers to pluck from the seed pocket. It always seemed to be afternoon when she sent me out to do this task, so I assumed it was 4 o'clock. That's how one told time.

My aunt, my mother's sister, grew all kinds of delights. She favored me, and in the summer when I spent the weekend at her house, we'd water her flowers. She'd tell me the names of the different kinds of plants and flowers (mostly because I bugged her to do so!) and let me pick a bunch or two for a vase inside the house. This was very, very dramatic for me. I dreamed of wealthy homes, with vases full of bouquets of fresh flowers. I picked a neat floral bouquet from her hillside, which was a weed called the snot flower. It was pretty, with it's blue bell shaped flower, but it's stalk had a lovely, mucous like substance that stuck like snot in sinewy strands to your hands and ran down your arms. Cool.

They wilted in a vase.

She also grew raspberries. The best raspberries ever! They produced twice a year, and were called ever bearing. Although prickly, there was nothing that could beat the taste of sun warmed berries plucked right from the vine to your mouth. They melted away. I have a few starts of her vines, although among them was a wonderful vibrant plant, that grew amazingly stronger with each application of Miracle grow I gave to it. It outshone all the other starts I got out of her garden. About five days later, and hours of itchy fun, I realized I was cultivating a wonderful healthy patch of poison ivy. After my husband plucked it out of the ground, the raspberries did grow. And we enjoy them Spring through Frost!

When I was all of seven, we lived in Colorado at the time, a neighbor lady had a huge flower bed of snap dragons. She spent many a day listening to me putter around on the other side of the chain link fencing that separated our backyards. So kind of her I realize now, she often popped the flower head off one of the snap dragons and pinching the end, it became a little puppet. I was delighted with those! And they had cool seeds too. When the little heads were finished, they became a seed pod that when you squished it, produced thousands of tiny black seeds. Smaller than those of a pansy.

Pansies were another favorite, along with moss roses. Another neighbor lady when I was around nine had beds of both, and would give me a white envelope and ask me to gather the seeds. Each were as thrilling! Popping the seed pocket of the Pansie and plucking the cap off the moss rose, to find a hidden treasure of life's promise of renewal.

(I guess I had a thing with seeds)

Does anybody remember Balsams? They are tall, fragrant stalks of flowers, with the neatest seed pods. The pods resembled that of a milk weed plant except only about 1/2 an inch in length. When they were ripe for harvesting, you could press the fuzzy pod, and all the sides would pop and curl up like a banana peel. Delight!

Come to think of it, it's not spring so much that I anticipate, but the harvest of Fall that I love so much!

The generosity of the time that the neighbor ladies, my aunt, my mom spent in sharing little bits of gardening with me was precious and thoughtful. I passed that on in my little girls, my step-daughter and my granddaughter who loved to help me plant the seeds and gather them in the fall. It's funny how every living thing that blooms holds a special memory for me. Does it to you?

This spring, plant something that does. Nurture it and watch it grow, and then collect the seeds. Hopefully each year, you'll get enjoyment from the familiarity of it.

Blaaag Friday

It's a blaaag Friday.
I've nothing of interest to say to anybody. I ate a ton of "naughty" fatty foods today. (hence the blaaaah?)
Yet, I lost 2 lbs. Yep, I got on the scale and lost two whole pounds.
I did get my hair cut yesterday, and had to use alot less product to style it this morning.
ah, heavy sigh.
I thought that Spring was here, and indeed it is, but it's windy, chilly and rainy. Perfect for Spring thundershowers maybe tornados.

Did I mention that the Naughty food had icing? Did I mention that some of it was Dunkin Doughnuts, and although the greasy oil tasted slightly like that of Long John Silver, I didn't care. I also had some raisin coffee cake that had icing on it too.

I'm having pizza for dinner. I love pizza.
There you have heard it here first kids. I LOVE PIZZA! Pizza's your pal, pizza's your friend! What makes a "get together" a party? PIZZA!
What makes you homesick when you travel? Your hometown PIZZA place.
Be you a thin or thick crust, veggie or meat? Be thee a lover of oooey gooey cheese? I've had it with WHITE sauce and friggin chicken, and it's still PIZZA!
Love it with pineapple, and ham, I LOVE it Sam I am.
Pizza is PURRRRfection.
Pizza is a Slice of Heaven.
Pizza and almost anything else is pretty amazing too! Pizza and beer, pizza and wine, pizza and MILK, pizza and Ranch dressing, ooh la la.

It really takes so little to please me. I'd take a frozen Tombstone ($3.99) at Walmart and heat er up!
Yeah, Friday is looking up.