Filed under: Family
This is wrong in SO many ways…
(As she is leafing though a “Medical Aids” catalog): “Hey Elle,this might interest you… a book full of tips for great middled-aged sex.”
After 6 years of both reading and writing blogs, I really thought I couldn’t be surprised by much.
But Wow! Holy Cats! Great Guns! Un-freakin’-believable!
I wrote about the mostly-forgotten song, and Lynda comes through with a win in the comments. The song is, indeed, Five Little Pumpkins.
This blog thing, baby…it’s a good thing!
Thanks Lynda! 
Filed under: My People
During the first few months of kindergarten, my teacher taught us a song. I can’t remember it at all anymore, other than the fact that it had something to do with autumn. I think one of the lines went something like, “and the wind blew…WHOOOOSH”, and during the whooosh, the class would wildly circle our arms. It was one of those interactive songs that kindergarteners and young youth choir singers love. (Although I don’t remember the kindergarten song, I absolutely remember “This Little Light of Mine”, “There were 12 Disciples”, and “Deep and Wide“.) That stuff stays with you, you know??
Anyhow. I loved the autumn song so much that that first night I had to sing it for my grandfather. My grandfather went to bed every night at 8 pm. So at 7:59, I stood on the staircase (about 3 steps up), facing the landing where my grandfather stood and sang my autumn song. I got so into it, that at the end I added an extra flourish by leaping (unexpectedly) into his arms. I can still remember the way he laughed. It was a surprised, deep rumble of humor. It was love. It was beautiful.
That became our routine for a very long time. My grandfather would rise out of his news-watching/newpaper-reading/pipe-smoking chair and announce it was bedtime. As he headed to the kitchen to arrange his supplies for the early morning insulin shot, I’d run to the third step up and wait. Every night. I jumped into my grandfather’s arms every night until I got too big for him to catch safely.
I don’t remember the song, other than the fact that it was about autumn, but I know how much it meant to me. And every year, about this time, when I find autumn peeking around the corner, the song that I can’t remember is in my mind more often, and memories of my grandfather even more.
Filed under: General
I hopped in the car after work on Friday and headed to Philly to spend the weekend with my friend Kacey. I have to admit, I was a little worried Friday night / Saturday morning when we didn’t go to bed until 3am. My normal bedtime is, oh, 9:30 or so. Thankfully, Kacey is a later-riser, and I had PLENTY of sleep, so I felt bright eyed and bushy tailed all weekend long. Although I slept a lot, we somehow still packed in an afternoon at a paint-your-own-pottery shop, and then Kacey, her husband and I went on an evening Ghost Tour.
I am such a creature of habit that I really do forget how good it is to get away sometimes and how VERY good it is to reconnect with old friends.
One other habit that’s all screwed up right now is my blogging schedule. I am usually an early morning blog reader / writer. I generally sit down with a cup of coffee at 6am and catch up online until 7am. I have had no internet access at home for a week now – for some reason after “routine server maintenance” last Monday I have been able to get back online. I know all I need to do is call support, but instead I’ve been taking that hour in the morning and doing all the stuff I don’t normally do: wrap change (I’m up to $250. It’s been awhile), go through old clothes, hem (well, “apply iron-on hem tape” is more accurate) my pants, go through pictures, all that stuff that I keep saying I’ll do someday. It’s been a good thing.
Except for the blogging. I always bring my laptop to the VIM’s house after work, but honestly, it’s hard to open it up when there are stars to sit under and wine to drink and bats to watch. Tonight is the exception because the VIM is out of town, and it’s pouring down rain. Even so, it’s taken me until 9pm to fire up the laptop because I had to watch “Rock of Love” first.
Yes. “Rock of Love”.
Yes. I AM embarrassed to admit it.
I have partially redeemed myself by switching over to History Detectives, which is truly more my speed. But “Rock of Love”, man…it sucked me in before I knew what was happening.
Still plugging away at weight loss. What a freakin’ lesson in patience!
I’m not a goal-driven person. Never have been. Throughout three different stabs at Weight Watchers, I’ve been able to avoid setting a “final weight” goal. Ok, the first two times it was because I stopped going long before I was in final weight goal territory. This time, however, I had slipped in the “healthy range”, where one is supposed to decide on a final goal, and didn’t set the number. I kept saying “next week, next week.” I don’t know what my problem is with finalizing a goal. I mean, reaching a goal is a GOOD thing, right? Yet I just couldn’t commit. They finally talked me into it by explaining that once I stay at or within 2 lbs of that weight for 6 weeks I become “lifetime” and no longer have to pay. What? No money outlay??? Where do I sign???? So the goal has been set and when I weighed in last week I was .6 lbs away. Six-tenths of a pound. So tonight is weigh in night. It could go either way. I could hit a goal that I’ve NEEDED to hit for twenty years, and that I’ve been working toward for seven years. It sounds so silly, but this is huge for me…it’s about so much more than the weight.
I’m sure it’s not that uncommon for people to feel queasy the morning after a birthday celebration. Some people know how to live it up with the wine and the beer and such.
It’s probably a little less common to feel queasy the next morning due to the requested birthday meal.
(Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese [the tall, skinny box, not the one with the real cheese], and stewed tomatoes.)
Oh Lordy, just typing the words “fish sticks” makes my stomach clench. Gah. Or maybe it’s the Tang we had for breakfast that’s causing the clenching. Either way – GAH!
Filed under: The VIM
I think I’m pretty polite. It comes from the whole Good Girl thing I just can’t shake. Even when strangers with lip tattoos scare the heck out of me by coming up behind me and chokeholding hugging me, I’ll graciously smile, give a nervous little hug back, then look at my wrist and say “Oh, look at the time…” rather than being all “What the hell, dude?”
Ok, actually in that case it isn’t politeness so much as self preservation, but whatever. The point is that I would not intentionally call someone out or make them feel bad or , well, be impolite. Right or wrong, I can’t do it. Usually.
This past weekend I went with the VIM to one of his weekend gigs – a local hotel bar. I sort of enjoy going because I’m a people watcher, and really, can there BE a better place to be a people watcher than a bar in a hotel close to the interstate? I think not.
It started out to be a slow night, but then a gentleman sat down beside me at the bar. We exchanged smiles (yes, polite smiles), but didn’t speak for 15 minutes or so. Then finally, while the VIM was playing a Bob Dylan song, the man said, “I didn’t know when I came here tonight that I’d be transported back to the sixties.”
I turned and smiled, but before I could say anything, he added, “and that it would be as DREADFULLY tedious as the first time.”
My mouth clamped shut and my smile froze, but he didn’t notice. He was starting his roll. His roll was all about DREADFUL music (which is all music written after 1946), the TEDIOUS hippie mindset which still lingers to this day, otherwise why would that…that MAN be playing those horrible (nose wrinkles) peace and love songs?
At first I was thinking that it was going to be a great story for the ride home. People watching at its best! But quite frankly, I grew DREADFULLY bored with the gentleman’s TEDIOUS blatherings. I wasn’t able to bring myself to get up and walk away from him, but I can’t even describe the amazingly evil feeling of glee I felt when he finally took a break from his ongoing commentary of the VIM’s DREADFUL choice of music to ask me what my story was, and I just gave a little smile and said, “I’m with the singer.”
