PWT

When I was seventeen I entered what would be the first of five colleges I would end up attending. My days were filled with backgammon, soap operas, and smoking cigarette after cigarette in a room the size of a prison cell. Evenings often involved driving the winding rural roads surrounding San Marcos listening to Guns-n-Roses drinking beer. Sometime during this year of freedom to exercise stupidity, I decided to get my first tattoo.

It was Christmas break and for the life of me I don’t remember what brought us to the seedy Montrose area that night. I remember drinking a bottle of cheap champagne (a habit I unfortunately have not kicked since that first year of college) then the next thing I know I have my leg hiked up on a stool while a fat man in leather shoots ink under my skin with a needle. I would love to tell you it was something cool, or at the very least something people would recognize, but alas my first permanent marking was nothing but the infinity sign. Yes, a sideways figure eight smack dab on my ankle that matched the one my girlfriend at the time put on her ankle. At least it wasn’t a name!

A year later when infinity ended and the relationship took a sharp turn in the downward direction, I attempted to cover the infinity sign with a shark. Why a shark you ask? It was on a model’s ankle in a magazine. The entire shot was of her ankle so I am not even sure what product the ad was for but boy did that tattoo speak to me. It said “you are a beach bunny with sandy blonde hair that glistens in the sun as you frolic in the waves on white sand beaches.” Truth be told, even after the tattoo I sadly remained a bleach blond, beer drinking, flunking out college student. A girl can dream.

After the tattoo, I wore socks whenever I was around my parents. Willing to fight the independence fight when it came to my curfew (“But I don’t have a curfew at the dorm”) but not yet willing to fight the doing the same stupid thing everyone is doing fight (“All my friends are getting them”). One day driving in the car with my father I had forgotten the all important socks. It took awhile but he noticed and asked, “What is that on your ankle?” I replied “A tattoo” with all the confidence I could muster. His response was “Congratulations, you have finally graduated to poor white trash”. Oh, but if he only knew what I did when I was twenty-one.

Ghosts of Christmas Present

Well, we survived another Christmas…barely. Christmas morning I woke up (unknowingly) next to Scrooge. Gone was my girlfriend and in her place was this mean spirited, bad mood, Scrooge. She even threatened to leave the house while everyone was over. She just needed a little reminder that if I stay she stays. Like the Marines we leave no man behind. This rule applies even more when twelve family members are going to descend upon our house in four hours. So Scrooge pulled it together and we were able to have all but the turkey and crab cakes ready when the nut house stopped the bus in front of our house and released its wards to our care for the afternoon.

Immediately following their entrance, our family members congregated not in the living room, not in the sunroom (both rooms with sufficient seating where nothing was going on) but in the kitchen. Not even the flames rising from the skillet could drive them away (the fire was minor and did not spread). When all food had finally reached the table everyone grabbed their plate and started filling up like we were running an all you can eat Chinese buffet.

My sister however exercised some restraint putting just two items on her plate; turkey and my grandmother’s spinach salad. Scrooge made it a point to sarcastically state that she was really branching out putting spinach on her plate at which point Morgan exclaimed “Spinach!! You mean there is spinach in this salad”. If I were my parents I would have called the private tutor and asked for my money back. This is the “spinach” salad served at every special occasion. We don’t call it “grandmother’s special salad” or “mandarin orange salad” it is always referred to as “spinach salad”. Throughout the meal Morgan shot side glances at everyone around her trying desperately to have someone, anyone, verify that there was in fact NO spinach on her plate.

After lunch we exchanged gifts then everyone packed up to head home with one exception, my aunt’s boyfriend who had been sleeping upstairs on our guest bed since arriving. Presents were in the car and he had not yet resurfaced. Scrooge and I dropped subtle hints then finally leaned in to ask my father if maybe someone had forgotten Ed upstairs. Seizing the opportunity to throw me into a panic he started telling everyone to hurry up and leave. In the end we did end up getting rid of Ed but not before I followed my aunt out to the car to verify that she would be taking him with her.

In the end it was a Christmas filled with family, good food, and lots of laughter but if the mother ship insists on giving me Scrooge again next year I may hop the bus back to the loony bin.

Nectar of the Gods

My grandmother recently advised me that if I had enough wine at Christmas dinner everything would be fine. This was in response to certain family members who will remain nameless (my father) that think 1:00 is too early for Christmas dinner. My grandmother doesn’t even drink that much wine anymore but back in the days that woman was a wino.

One year for a birthday we went to eat at a quaint Italian restaurant. It wasn’t too froo froo but it wasn’t plastic red and white checkered table cloths either. Most of us had a fabulous meal. My grandmother drank her meal and proceeded to get schnockered at the table so when my mother commented on how much she liked the breadsticks she began throwing them at her saying “Put them in your purse. You paid for them. They’re not going to serve them again. Put them in your purse!” I thought my grandfather would drop dead right then and there. My mother not knowing what to do began stuffing her purse full of bread so my grandmother would stop yelling. She had to vacuum the thing out when she got home to get rid of the bread crumbs.

For years most of the family would not lift a finger to help her clean the table. She would retreat to the kitchen alone. Well not alone. She had her wine. We could always tell when her buzz was kicking in because her singing and whistling would increase to deafening volumes. “You say toe-may-toe! I say toe-mah-toe! Oooooo, let’s call the whole thing off!” Hey, whatever made her happy washing a million dirty dishes. Who were we to break up the party?

Grandmother has stopped drinking as much but if you go to her house the telltale signs of her wine days are everywhere. She drinks Ernest & Julio Gallo Chablis… in a screw top jug. She has recycled countless jugs by propagating ivy vines in them then placing them strategically in every room of the house. If anything happens to her I am giving them to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. They could line them up along I-10 from one side of Texas to the other and call it art.

Third Time is a Charm

C and I started a new tradition for the holidays whereby our families come to our house for Christmas dinner. This year will be our third year hosting anywhere between twelve and sixteen people. By now we have the whole affair down to a science but the first year did not go so smoothly.

We realized early in the day that when we built our house we chose to install only one oven. Great when we are making dinner for ourselves but how do you cook three side dishes when the entire thing is filled with a giant turkey that will take at least six hours to cook? Solution: we were watching our neighbor’s house so the rest of the day was spent walking back and forth to use her oven.

C’s father bought a ham to go with the turkey but he didn’t think to look at it before Christmas day. I wouldn’t either but when we did it was green. Green eggs and ham is one thing but a green ham is a bad sign. About the time C was discovering the strange tint to our meat I was cutting up iceberg lettuce to put in a salad. The knife slipped as it is wont to do in my hands and sliced a nice chunk out of my finger. In my typical melodramatic fashion I ran to the sink and fought off a fainting spell while C demanded to know why I had the knife pointed towards my fingers while cutting.

Once I had three inches of bandage wrapped around my finger, I began calling restaurants and hotels to replace the rotten ham. One hotel said yes they were in fact serving ham but that no they wouldn’t sell me one. Denied by some Scrooge and on Christmas day no less! The search seemed fruitless until I called the Matamoras Meat Market. In what little Spanish I remember from studying it multiple times throughout high school and college I was able to ask if they sold hams. Success at last, they were open and had ham.

I jumped in the car, throbbing finger still wrapped in three inches of bandage and headed to the meat market. With a spring in my step I walked through the doors and asked where I would be able to find the hams. With a smile, the gentleman behind the counter lifted a large, rectangular, slimy ham LOAF out of the cooler and asked how much I wanted. There was no ham for Christmas that year but what I didn’t eat in pork I made up for in wine. This year we will look at the ham, my grandmother will bring the salad, and we will definitely offer to watch the neighbor’s house.

Excuse me waitress, there is an eye in my salsa.

I admire people who really live by the cliché “when life gives you lemons make lemonade”. Personally I live by the adage that if life gives you lemons throw a fit, cry, yell then have the world’s largest pity party for yourself. Call it a pity prom and invite all your friends. It isn’t a successful party unless they all go home unhappy.

My mother’s brother has four boys. The oldest is also the most successful. He attended West Point, made great grades, played football, met the woman of his dreams and settled down about half a mile from my uncle’s house. This side of the family has a relationship that can only be found by taking your nose out of a book and talking to one another. Hence the reason my father’s family is about as close as one side of Texas from the other.

My cousin’s first child had a broken chromosome. This caused her to be born with severe mental problems, open heart surgery immediately after birth, physical handicaps, and only one eye. Amy has outlived all of our expectations but the experience has been a trying one on my cousin and his wife, but they chose to make lemonade.

Case in point, the entire family attended a rehearsal dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Amy was sporting a brand new glass eye which she was fixated on playing with at the table. Ed told her several times to “put your eye back in and leave it alone” but she just went right on popping the sucker out. At one point she threw the eye in the salsa. For grins, my uncle called the waitress over to complain about the eye in his salsa. Is it sick that my family would laugh at the expense of an innocent (and equally horrified) waitress? No, it’s squeezing a little bit of pleasure out of life’s less shining moments.

35

I woke up this morning a whole year older. Ugh! It did get me thinking on past birthdays:

The cake with “Happy Birthday Jacqueline from Ronald McDonald” that I got at my McDonald’s birthday party. Oh yeah! They know how to suck you in young and start the French fry addiction early.

The 10 speed bike my parents bought me that I had trouble getting the hang of. The first time I came screeching up my grandmother’s driveway I hit only the front breaks causing the back of the bike to come up over my head hurling me into the garage door.

Getting ALL of the Nancy Drew mysteries that I was missing on one day and having to decide which one to read first. Go by the numbers of course. These are still at my father’s house waiting to be read by my sister.

My 21st birthday spent with a good friend at a dive bar named Juliet’s. Standing on the barstools drinking Cactus shots. Mature, really mature.

The birthday I spent alone in a one bedroom efficiency in Lubbock, TX. All of my friends had finals the next day so no one would celebrate with me. I ended up going to the strip for a bottle of wine and drinking it in front of my tiny gas space heater.

The luau C threw for my 30th. It was a beautiful day until the temperature dropped a trillion degrees and we had to use propane heaters in the big tent to keep semi-warm.

My 31st in New Orleans. This was a fun one! Casinos, Cajun food, champagne, a drag brunch. Our most proper friend showing up at the hotel a bit tipsy wearing no shoes and a Café du Monde paper hat.

Going to NYC with C. She woke me up the day of my birthday by throwing a snow ball on me in bed that she had collected from the window sill of our room. That is one of my favorite memories. We captured Sadaam Hussein that day.

Merry Christmas Y'all...
From your Pistol Packin' Grandma

The following is an excerpt from my grandmother's annual Christmas newsletter:

"End of June a half naked man appeared at my patio door at 10PM!! Next day I put padlocks on my gates--told neighbors, Epernay Town-house manager since their esplanade is at my back fence, and then the police. Bought me a .38 revolver and laid my .22 across the chair. Then I needed an anti-depressant!!"

To steal a quote from Prince of Tides "and that's what I love about the South".

Precious Cargo

When my mother met my stepfather in 1978 he was somewhat of a free spirit. His main income source was rent on a couple of houses he owned in Belmont, NJ. To supplement his income as a slum lord, he also played saxophone in a jazz band and had a paper route. He lived in an old Victorian he also owned in Ocean Grove, NJ, twelve or so blocks from the shore and close enough to Asbury Park that you could ride a bike.

Tom’s only mode of transportation was a vanilla colored cargo van that had but one seat, the driver’s. After they were married I used to love helping with the paper route, driving in the van with the side door wide open throwing papers on people’s porches. My favorite was pay day when I would run up to everyone’s door and collect the monthly fee in a tiny brown envelope.

For my mother’s twenty-ninth birthday, Tom arranged for them to spend a night on the town in Atlantic City. After years of nothing but fighting with my father, my mother was ready for some romance. She bought a new red dress, did her nails, and had her hair done for her big night.

Tom arrived at my Uncle’s house where we were living at the time in his cargo van. He came up to the door to collect my mother and escort her to the car. When he opened the door, mother realized he had set up a lawn chair in the back for her to sit on. Mother didn’t balk but climbed right into the back of the van and assumed her throne for the evening. A window in his van had recently been broken so the ride was a windy one. Oh to have a picture of them riding down the road, an old hippy driving around a woman dressed up sitting in a lawn chair in the back.

Pete

After lunch with my mother today, as she drove me back to the office, we began discussing my grandmother. It is that time of year when family members who don’t live close begin to descend upon Houston like tornados from the sky. First my Aunt Sharon on the 17th followed by her daughter on the 18th. The 21st brings my Aunt Laurie. On Christmas day my Aunt Sharon’s boyfriend Ed is coming. Not one of the above mentioned will be leaving at the same time and as you see arrivals are spread out. Enter my mother who has been offering to pick everyone up. My father flat out doesn’t offer and this is his family!

Here we are in the car after a perfectly pleasant lunch and my mother begins talking about how my grandmother is not going to be around forever. How my mother already sees her declining. Back up a damn minute. I spoke to my grandmother on Tuesday morning. She was getting ready for her weekly tennis match. Does this sound like an 83 year old who is “declining”?

My grandmother is my hero. I have always been close to her. Looked up to her. Admired everything she does. She is a painter. She plays tennis. She can cook (although you really should ask how long the meat has been in the freezer). She likes to sing, drink wine, garden, read, do the crossword puzzle and truly enjoy life. She took care of me when my parents were in the midst of their separation making crepes for my school home economics project.

I tried to stop my mother from saying these things. Quantifying my grandmother’s existence by predicting how many years she may or may not have left on this Earth. I didn’t want to hear about her decline because the second she senses we think that she is declining I think she won’t try as hard not to be the same person. The chink in her armor is there I just can’t see it right now.

Right now I want to hear about her kicking ass at tennis on Tuesdays. I want her to bring me spinach salad every special occasion. I want to see her finally discarding my grandfather’s home office to set up her painting studio. I want to watch her pick out her Christmas tree, strolling through the Scotch pines, grabbing a big handful of branches that she will stick her face right in the middle of to smell if it is fresh. This is my hero and if you never get to meet her I am sorry, you would truly enjoy the visit.

Dear PETA,
This Winter I’m Wearing Fur

Funny that when I was young I wanted to shave my legs. Couldn’t wait to start shaving my legs. It was like wearing lipstick or piercing your ears. A rite of passage so to speak. When I was around eight I decided to just try to shave a little of my leg to see what it was like. I perched my leg up on the side of the bathtub, grabbed my mother’s razor then proceeded to slice a four inch line from my heel up. My bathwater turned pink as I yelled for my mother who immediately asked if I had tried to shave. No, the razor fell into the tub and I set my foot down on it thereby cutting myself. Right. She didn’t push the issue probably thinking I wouldn’t try again too soon after that experience. She was right.

These days it is a completely different story. Although C and I fell asleep with the fire place ablazin last night and woke up to a bedroom hotter than the Sahara desert, when I stepped into the shower I couldn’t get the chill out of my bones or the water hot enough. I stood there turning the knob, turning it some more, waiting to be surrounded by the steam. Nothing.

Resigning myself to the fact that it just wasn’t going to happen I proceeded with my shower. I looked at the razor, perched on the side of the bathtub, outside the glass doors of the shower. I thought I had two options; brave the cold of the bathroom to retrieve the razor, effectively giving up what little heat I had built up or shave tomorrow. Looking at my legs it was clear that today would have been a good choice unless I was willing to use a new blade on each leg. I opted for comfort over practicality.

This morning when I left for work the temperature outside was hovering in the thirties. That’s when it hit me. I am growing myself a winter coat (one particular reader is laughing about a completely unrelated story). Why do I need smooth legs that won’t see the light of day until February at best? Come Spring I’ll get some industrial clippers and sheer myself. Maybe make a sweater or two. Until then, PETA if you see me walking down the street please don’t throw red paint on my legs.

Putting the Christ You People Need a Life back in Christmas

For all of the conservative, right wing, evangelical, Bible thumping, hating in the name of the Lord, Christians who are trying to put the Christ back in Christmas, I have this to say. You can have it back but it will cost you.

I am taking Santa Claus back. He is too good for you. You don’t deserve Saint Nicholas, who according to Wikipedia is “revered by many as the patron saint of seamen, merchants, archers, children, prostitutes, pharmacists, lawyers, pawnbrokers, prisoners”. Got that! Prostitutes and pawnbrokers. Prisoners. Santa Claus is a democrat. I am sure Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t mind revering the patron saint of pharmacists and Tom Delay might want to light a candle for any saint that might help his attorneys. We can only hope he is in prison soon praying to good old Saint Nick for himself.

Guess what?! I am taking your Christmas tree also. You don’t want something in your house that started as a pagan tradition do you? No. You are chaste. You are compassionate conservative Christians who want to follow the Bible by the word when it suits you. So no more trees for you. You can however keep the nativity scene.

You want schools to start calling it “Christmas holiday” instead of “winter break”. Sure is going to suck when little Johnny and Suzy have to call it “Kwanza holiday” and “Chanukah break”. Oh, you didn’t think you were the only ones who got two weeks off of school named after you did you? You see this is America. The same America that embraces all cultures or used to before you hijacked our government. If you want Christ back in Christmas start with the person in the mirror.

Turtles and Mice and Bulls, Oh My!

Ah, another weekend in the country. When C’s father is not at the ranch we cube the cows (give them treats) from the back of an old orange Jeep that has been fitted with a hunting tower and seats with gun racks on the front. We have a system so to speak. C drives out to the pasture while I sit in the passenger seat until we get close then I hop in the back to pour out the cubes. First, however you must load the bags in the back of the Jeep. This weekend we removed the doors and as I walked around to the back where we would load the bags, AAAAGGHHHH! There half in, and half out I might add, was a turtle with a bullet hole through his shell. C took one look and said “Well, get him out.” Hmmm, why must I be the one to remove the offending corpse? Because she said if I didn’t we would just not cube the cows at all. I bucked it up and removed the turtle. You thought I touched it didn’t you? No, I found a silver bucket top, slid him off the tailgate and quickly covered him up with the lid. Perfect.

Cubes loaded and ready to go, we set out along the gravel road that leads to the back pasture. A few minutes into our journey, I see a mouse high tail it from the console, straight up the middle of the cab between our seats and somewhere in the back. Before I could quite warn C of her impending doom, the scared shitless part of my brain took over and I jumped right out my door while the Jeep continued on. C seeing her passenger bail knew it must be bad. By this time I have yelled into the dust cloud the Jeep is leaving in its wake “MOUSE”! A split second later there is C jumping out of her door. What else was there to do but watch the Jeep slowly rolling away from us with nothing but a field mouse for a passenger. The Jeep finally stopped but before climbing back in we looked everywhere for the mouse. At last we came to the conclusion the mouse must have seen us bailing ship and thought he would do the same.

Now you may know how spoiled our dog is, but what you may be unaware of is his tendency to not think before acting. It is a trait he inherited from me. C’s father has been feeding one of the bulls outside the gate of his pasture because despite being the Alpha (only) Male in his pasture, the female cows will beat the crap out of him and take his feed if given the opportunity. We let him out of his gate which went as smooth as silk. It was on reentry that he had some trouble. He didn’t want to go back. Instead he went halfway in the gate, stopped and stared. C was shooing him in but he wouldn’t budge. I came out with all the confidence in the world (as well as a piece of conduit) and poked him in the rear to move the process along. When an animal the size of a Honda turns around and shakes his head at you after you have just poked him in the ass it is time for Plan B. Before we could really come up with Plan B, Isaac decided he would crawl under the barb wire fence separating him from safety and certain death and come bounding towards us both. I panicked. I screamed. C retrieved the dog and pulled him away from the danger zone. The cows took the opportunity to start making their way out of the pasture to see if there was anything left in the feed bucket. At this point I was high on adrenaline with a bit to spare so I went nuts. Screaming at the top of my lungs and waving my arms around. My hair was standing on end. They cows gave me one look, looked at each other as if to say “whoa, she has lost all her marbles”, then walked calmly back into the pasture. I’m telling you I can be scarier than a dead turtle, fleeing field mouse or a two ton bull when panicked.

Designed With Quiet in Mind

In the past couple of years, C has begun snoring every night. Two seconds after her head hits the pillow great waves of sound begin filling the room. It sounds like she is snorting gravel. Interspersed with the snoring is the “puh”. This is the sound of a big intake of air followed by the “puh” sound her lips make on exhale.

In addition to C’s snoring, Isaac chimes in with his own brand of keep you awake make you cringe noises, lip smacking. He sounds like a dog that has been deprived of water for a week. Smack. Smack. Smack. I do however have Isaac trained to immediately retreat to the closet when I say the words “quit it” real loud. This trick doesn’t work so well with C.

As C’s snoring habit has developed into full bloom, my own inability to sleep has grown to irritating proportions. I toss. I turn. I shake her and tell her to turn over. I toss. I turn. I shake the bed violently to make her wake up. Nothing worked until now.

At the ranch one weekend, C placed a small fan on the bedside table next to me to see if the quiet humming would lull me into a deep sleep. It worked. It is a rare occasion that I don’t sleep through the night at the ranch. What works in the country should work at home so last night we went to the drug store and bought me a fan.

The box said “Designed With Quiet in Mind”. What the hell? I don’t want a quiet fan. I need noise. Humming, whirring, something. We bought it anyway with the intention of returning it if it should prove too quiet. First thing when we got home we unpacked the fan and plugged it in. Zzzzzzzzz, tik tik tik, zzzzzzzzzzz, tik tik tik, zzzzzzzzz clink. The box lied! This fan was designed with revenge in mind because when I turned it on last night to settle in for a good nights sleep, C was almost kept awake by the noise. Alas, she did fall asleep and promptly began snorting gravel but with my trusty noise maker I was able to sleep also.

Geaux Tigers!!

My life has been inundated the past couple of weeks by football. Of course I live with a woman whose eyes light up when the Monday Night Football song comes on. At eight o’clock she starts leaning closer to the television, waiting, then here comes Hank Jr. and when it is all said and done there is an audible sigh. Can you feel my muscles tensing? Unlike me with a good Lifetime movie, C wants me to share in this moment with her. I usually try to have a good book handy.

This past weekend however, LSU was playing and I did not have to fake my interest as this is my father’s team. I don’t care so much about them winning but it makes me feel strangely closer to my father to cheer his team on. The game was closer than anyone thought (a statement shamelessly stolen from overheard conversations between people who actually know what they are talking about). With me uncharacteristically involved in the game, our conversation went something like this:

Me: “I’ve been to that stadium”

C: “Uh huh, I know.”

C (at top of her voice): “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”

Me (a few minutes later): “Did you see Mike the Tiger just now?”

C: “No, did they show him?”

Me: “Yes. I hear he has a new habitat”

C (again at top of her voice): “COME ON!!”

Me: “Are you going to help me with the Christmas lights?”

C: “I thought you wanted to watch this game?”

No, clearly I had no interest in the game. What I preferred was to watch my own childhood in my mind’s eye. I wanted to tell her again that the one time my father took me to Tigers Stadium it was snowing in Baton Rouge and that I didn’t have a heavy winter coat so I wore my Smoky the Bear Halloween costume. That we watched the teams warm up on the field and before kick off my father lied and said we had won. Now that was my kind of football game.

Baby Jesus Drives a Hot Rod

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house. C and I put lights up on the house this weekend and around the crepe myrtles in the front yard. I have a great desire to go Clark Griswald on the place but she is keeping me in check for the most part. I will be holding out for that snow machine I asked for on Christmas Eve but won’t be too disappointed when it doesn’t arrive.

On Thursday we called our friend with the twins to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. It is so great when kids get to the age that you can ask to speak to them on the phone and they will actually talk to you. So, I interrupted their playtime which included two Rubbermaid bins formally containing Christmas ornaments to see what they want for Christmas.

J. went first and asked for a blue truck. Not just any blue truck but one that does a whole bunch of stuff because he went on and on. It is too bad I have no idea what he was saying. Miss. May wants cookies and milk. I guess if it is good enough for Santa it is good enough for her.

When I made a follow up call to Mommy today to see if the Christmas ornaments that were displaced from the Rubbermaid bins had made it to their respective spots around the house she said they had but that she had made an effort to keep everything breakable on higher ground. One thing that does keep popping up is a shiny red Hot Wheel in the nativity scene. I guess J. thinks the Baby Jesus deserves a nice car after being born in a manger and all.

Close Encounters of the Bar Kind ~ 3
Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple

When C took me to New York for my birthday two years ago the smoking ban had just gone into effect. You have no idea just how addicted you are until you stand outside in twenty-eight degree weather smoking through blue lips, trying to cup the cigarette so a giant snowflake doesn’t put it out causing a nicotine induced meltdown. In addition to seeing the usual tourist traps, it became our mission to find the secret smoking bars in the city.

My aunt, who lives in Brooklyn, told us to go to Campbell’s Apartment because she had heard you can still smoke inside. Campbell’s Apartment is inside Grand Central Station so needless to say we were skeptical but our dinner reservations weren’t until 11:00 (p.m. that is) so we decided to give it a try. Walking into Campbell’s Apartment was like taking a drink of water after forty days in the desert. There was a big toasty fire, fluffy couches, a long dark wood bar and best of all an ashtray on the table. We couldn’t get our coats off fast enough.

The only thing Campbell’s Apartment does not have enough of is seats so when three couples approached us about sharing our space we were more than happy to oblige. Sharing with these people ended up making my birthday a truly unforgettable experience. They drank, they smoked, they told funny stories of children left at home while the adults grabbed a weekend in the city.

While sitting there on our big fluffy couch our little group incorporated another patron into the fold. A woman sitting on the couch behind us was clearly alone and wanting to join in. She was missing her tap recital by being in NY for the weekend so she performed her routine for us all. Very interesting seeing a grown woman tap dancing.

A few bottles of champagne and a dozen or so Vodkas later, we were all a few sheets to the wind so at the time bad ideas sounded really good.

Bad ideas disguised as good in chronological order as they occurred on December 14, 2003:

1. Ordered not just glass, but bottle of champagne at 6:00 when dinner reservation was not until 11:00.

2. Allowed new friends to buy me second bottle of champagne because at this point I really couldn’t feel the giant hole bottle one was burning into my stomach lining.

3. Blew off dinner reservation at one of NY’s top dining establishments because we were having way too much fun.

4. Met fellow Sound of Music fan and began singing “I Am 16 Going on Seventeen” (in public no less).

5. Decided to make the experience more authentic by pretending to be Liesl while new friend pretended to be Rolf. Was asked by waitress to please stop jumping on the couches.

Close Encounters of the Bar Kind ~ 2
Cantina Calamity

Bound and determined to add some authenticity to our trip to Cancun, C and I inquired about a local salsa bar and were told it does not get hopping until at least 11:00 p.m. In an effort to stay awake we dressed and ate around 6:00 (an hour late for those of you who know us) and decided to relax in the hotel lobby bar until it was time to catch a cab.

Before taking our order the waitress informed us that it was happy hour. Two drinks for the price of one. Imagine our surprise when she came back with four drinks. So as not to seem oblivious to local customs, we accepted the four drinks vowing to only order one the next round. This had less to do with excess and more to do with keeping our ice from melting before we made it to the second drink.

Not halfway into the first drink the entertainment arrived in the form of a tank top wearing, short-short sporting, twenty sheets to the wind, VERY Southern sounding woman named Lucinda. Lucinda is from Tennessee where her father knew Elvis. I know this and the rest of her past because ten feet away from her perch at the bar everyone could listen in. In fact, it would have been more difficult not to hear her.

Lucinda was extremely thrilled about the happy hour tradition of two for the price of one and you don’t even have to wait for the second. She ordered Corona after Corona all the while babbling on to the any man brave enough to sit at the bar. At one point she did shut up to take a tiny cat nap, head hanging over the back of her barstool while her bare feet were propped up on the one next to her. Not one to sleep through a productive happy hour she quickly woke up to choose her next victim.

Ready and willing was a single guy with a mullet to match his mustache who owns an appliance store somewhere in the Midwest. I know this because before hitting on Lucinda he struck out at our table. Mr. Appliance was more than happy to shell out the sixty pesos for Lucinda’s double Coronas. She was equally as happy to have him until a young, mocha skinned boy of half Mr. Appliance’s age made the mistake of walking up to the bar right next to her. Lucinda moved in like a black widow and just as quickly was turned down. You know the expression “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Well, add a few cocktails to fuel that scorn and see what happens. Lucinda jumped off her barstool and began screaming racial epithets at the man. For his part he did the best thing and walked out without saying a word.

Not one to be easily let down, Lucinda again turned her attentions to Mr. Appliance who asked the woman to dance!! She could barely walk! However, she did manage to begin dry humping his leg during their Dirty Dancing routine. She also kept a hold on her Corona the whole time. Problem is those glass bottles get slippery with condensation and have a habit of just slipping out of your hand which hers did. A moment later, Lucinda followed landing in heap on the broken glass.

As if they were waiting in the closet for a moment such as this one, three paramedics were on the scene in a matter of seconds. They sat Lucinda in the table directly behind us. C and I could not believe our luck! While the paramedics doctored Lucinda’s bleeding hand, the bartender came over to check on her and their conversation went much like this:

“I’m a gooood tipper hunh?”

“Yes”

“Will you get me a drank?”

“How about some water?”

“No, I want a draaaank.”

“I can give you some water”

“Come un bay-bee. Brang Lucinda a drank.”

“I can’t bring you a drink.”

Leaning over to get as close to his face as possible, Lucinda musters her exorcist voice and says:

“Assface!”

Close Encounters of the Bar Kind

C and I meet a lot of interesting people in bars. I don’t know if we secrete some undetectable pheromone that screams “Here, right here, tell us your deepest, darkest secrets” but that is exactly what happens everywhere we go. Two cases in point:

Last weekend we attended a cow show and sale in Fort Worth. By Saturday at four, the sale cows were all beginning to look alike and the auctioneers droning was putting me to sleep so we decided to cut out early. We headed back to a restaurant in the historic stock yards that caters to out of state tourists. Half of the bar stools are saddles. No self respecting Texan would sit in a bar stool that is a saddle. We grabbed two normal bar stools, ordered drinks and settled in.

The woman next to us struck up a conversation and before long was revealing her idea for a new strip joint in Fort Worth named “Chubbys”. All plus size all the time. This would be perfect she thought for other men like her husband who are “chubby chasers”. I had never heard this term before and it more than struck me as odd that when her friend’s called her husband a chubby chaser she didn’t turn around and eat them on the spot. We began discussing livestock (of course that would be the natural progression of any conversation about a larger than life strip joint) and bad quickly went to worse. How long should you know someone before they tell you that they walk around in their pasture naked? She was a great girl and as far as entertainment factors go it did not get much better than this for free.

Last night was yet another chance encounter of the bar kind. We weren’t even there to drink but were being forced to sit at the bar to eat because Houston has passed this crappy smoking law that limits where we can eat and smoke in peace. Health nuts be damned! The woman at the bar next to us was going on and on and on to the bartender a mile a minute when (and I am not sure how) we began a conversation with her about her recent bout of depression. In a nutshell, she was estranged from a family member who left her quite an inheritance which became a problem with her loser boyfriend then they broke up and now she is depressed. Rich and depressed, but depressed none the less. This woman listed the medications she is on and I am telling you there is not one second of the day her mood isn’t being controlled by one chemical or another. She could medicate the state of Texas with one swipe of her medicine cabinet.

These are just two of the recent stories. My memory is overflowing with many more that vary from the strange to deranged.

Hoo-Ah

C and I saw Jarhead last night. This is a miracle in two ways. First, we see a movie about every six months so the fact that we chose to go is special enough. Second, C doesn’t agree with the Marine Corps so the fact that I got her to sit through two hours of nothing but the Marine Corps is another act of God. We both enjoyed the movie but what I really enjoyed was the tiny glimpse I got into my father’s past.

My father enlisted in Vietnam. He felt it was his duty and that is why he enlisted in the Marine Corps. This morning when I spoke to him (you should stop now if you haven’t seen the movie) I was telling him about the main character saying “I may have made a big mistake” his first day at boot camp. My father said not one man didn’t lie down on his bunk that first night thinking “What have I done? It can’t get any worse.” Unfortunately for every one of them it did.

Like the Marines in the movie my father was at Camp Pendleton before being shipped overseas. This was the staging area before he was sent to Vietnam. He also took a commercial airliner to war. Traveling from California to Hawaii and then on to Vietnam. Strange the contrast between stewardesses in prim uniforms, familiar with serving tourists and business men, serving soldiers going off to war. I wonder if it was hard to look at so many young faces and know that very few of them would return uninjured and many of them would never return at all.

The movie was predictable in some ways. There was the Marine who is mentally slow but committed, the Marine who wants nothing more than to be a soldier and sees it as his job to instill honor among fellow Marines, the Marine that is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to smell the blood of his enemies and the main character who mixes a bit off all of them. I relayed this formulaic cast to my father who said “That is what all of these movies about the Marines get wrong. Ninety percent of them are the sociopaths who are barely literate while only ten percent are normal.” Yes, he is in the ten percent.

Ending my call with my father I wished him Happy Birthday to the Marines. The Marine Corps celebrate 230 years today. My father got off the phone to go hang his Marine Corps flag in front of his house. I am proud of my father and his service. I didn’t walk away from Jarhead with any life changing revelations but I did get the a small look into a world so unfamiliar that at times you feel no one on the outside can ever fully understand.

Life Couldn't Get Any Better

There are moments in life you wish you could live inside. It is when you feel totally at peace. You are not thinking about work, or family, or friends. All you think about is how totally right this moment feels and that you wish is would never end. It is a moment that you want to capture on film to replay over and over again in your mind’s eye.

I had one of these life couldn’t get any better moments this weekend. We were at the ranch in the front yard. C was using Isaac as her pillow and I was using her leg. We just lay in the grass looking up at a perfectly blue sky. The wind was blowing. The temperature was perfect there in the shade. A bird flew right over us and the sun seemed to shine through his wings. The bird was a buzzard who must have thought he hit pay dirt. C raised her hand to let him know we were alive and well and to keep on flying.

If I could relive those few minutes at will it would be the best thing in the world.

Field Trials

It’s opening weekend and at 4:00 we’ll be hitting the road with every red neck, weekend warrior in Houston. Nothing like a convoy of pumped up hunters in their pick up trucks pulling four wheelers. It is a weekend we dread if we know we will be on the road. I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. Before anyone goes responding with statistics on over population, culling the sick and diseased, I said I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. I did not say that I disagree with hunting or that I don’t enjoy a nice venison medallion now and again. It is just the thought of me doing it that gives me the creeps.

I have gone hunting with my father. Once. Not for anything with fur, but birds down in South Texas and just across the Mexican border. In preparation my father bought me a brand new gun, a green vest and boots. We loaded up the motor home and took off. I shot my gun exactly one time before he realized his mistake by bringing me and banned me from shooting the rest of the trip. It is apparently very serious to shoot a bird other than the species one is actually hunting. In my defense, unless you have done this before they all look similar when flying overhead.

With my gun now resting safely out of reach my father went to Plan B. He would shoot the birds and I would retrieve them. Okay, I agreed. After his next shot I ran in the general direction I thought the bird went down. I found it, took one look and, yep you got it, turned right around. There was NO WAY I was touching a bird that had been shot.

Plan C. My father would go with me and actually touch the birds which he would put in the large back pocket of my vest. I had wondered what the big pocket was for but never did I imagine. Plan C failed also and I ended up spending the rest of the trip pretty much hanging around the motor home. I wonder if there are any other men taking their daughters hunting for the first time this weekend that will have quite the trouble.

Phenomenal Bette

Phenomenal Bette
Originally uploaded by photo4reading.

This is one of my favorite cows. Phenonenal Bette. Her mother is Chips of Flame.

Farm Living is the Life for Me

This was written last weekend, never finished, and not published until now because quite frankly I forgot all about it until now.

Anyone who has never traveled two lane back country roads in Texas needs to do so. The drive up here was so beautiful. Rolling fields of freshly cut hay. Big round bales sitting in a row waiting for the winter. Cows grazing. The sun rising in the East and throughout it all we had some of Willie Nelson’s greatest songs blaring on the radio. Can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be sitting next to a girl who knows the words to every song. Oh, and who could resist the face in the side mirror. All yellow fur and lips flapping. A truly happy city dog.

When we arrived the cows all came up to beg for cubes. Cow crack that is, a true addiction. Our mission this weekend was to take photos of all the cows on the ranch for a new program that keeps track of everything for you. While the cows were pleading their case for cubes we walked through them squatting for pictures. There we were, perched precariously above giant piles of shit making sucking noises trying to get them to look our way. The morning hours yielded fifty-five photos. A handful will be good enough to import into the program.

Midday our bellies were grumbling and mimosas had begun to burn holes in our stomach linings so it was off to Westhoff for chicken gizzards. Disclaimer here: I do not eat gizzards but the love of my life loves them so that is where we went. Again, the drive was spectacular. We ate at tables covered in vinyl tablecloths, drank long necks and for dessert- played a game of pool. I lost. For those of you who know me this is no surprise.

Anyone thinking of moving to the country must know there are some rules:

Before your home is complete you MUST have an old piece of farm equipment that is no longer functional. This equipment must be so rusted that no amount of refurbishing could bring it back.

You must place this piece of equipment in the front or side yard. Putting it in the back where no one could see would completely defeat the purpose of having said equipment in the first place.

It’s hard keeping landscaping looking pretty in the country. With all of the livestock and fields to tend to there is just no time left to water regular ole yard plants. To remedy this, place plastic flowers in your yard. Stick those suckers right in the dirt next to the painted wood cut outs.

Working My Way to Rehab One Sip at a Time

I have drank alcohol to excess for as long as I can remember. My parents, God Bless their souls, are not strangers to late night slurred phone calls. My first year of college these calls were mainly that I wanted to come home or had a fight with my girlfriend. My second first year of college in Lubbock, TX, these calls mostly centered around the fact that you had to drive outside of town to buy alcohol. Could they believe that? Now I no longer dial direct but rather don't know when it is a bad time to return their call. Case in point: It is not a good idea to call your mother back after three bring you to your knees margaritas and two beers. My saving grace is that I have surrounded myself with functioning alcoholics much like myself. On occassion their antics have made me feel like a saint.

For instance, when I see my friend strip at a restaurant in front of total strangers after forcing them to play the dating game, it makes the time I woke up face down in a friend's living room with my face firmly planted in a cowboy boot seem like an innocent mistake. Anyone could have fallen off the couch in their sleep.

Is it no wonder I read Augusten Burrough's memoir Dry with such rapt attention? It was like looking into a crystal ball into my past or future. At this point I just don't know which it is; did I dodge the rehab bullet or do I merely live in the crosshairs.

Desperately Seeking Jackie

While out running errands this weekend, we pulled up beside another car at a stop light and there, hanging from the rear view mirror, were turquoise rosary beads. It got me traveling back in time to the fashion deficient Eighties and the fact that I followed EVERY bad trend.

If you were to ask me today, I would say it started with Madonna. After watching her videos repeatedly on MTV, my weekend wardrobe consisted of men’s boxer shorts, a wife beater tank top, and colored bracelets snaking up my arm. Sad that if I were in school today those bracelets would make me a walking billboard of sexual preferences. Madonna wore rosary beads around her neck. My mother, being the good Catholic that she is, did not allow me to wear mine.

I got tired of Desperately Seeking Jackie and changed my look to more of a Flock of Seagulls meets the Munsters. My hair was stripped of all color then teased as high as possible in a swoopy-flat-top then sprayed with an entire can of Aqua Net. Next came a few layers of pancake base in the ever popular shade at the time~ Winter White. Approximately half an inch of black eyeliner around the top and bottom of each eye, black clothes to accentuate the white face, and Red as a Baboon’s Ass lipstick topped off the look. I can prove this with a picture of me sitting on our piano bench, looking angry for the camera of course.

Punk got old and I ventured out into my Talking Heads big blazer look. I gave up the teasing comb and Aqua Net and replaced them with hot rollers instead. I did not, however, give up the bleach in a bottle. That event happened just seven years ago.

I know that fashion trends come and go but please, I am begging the Image Gods, don’t bring back the Eighties. My poor hair couldn’t take it again.

Mommy and Babies Make Three

We had dinner with a good friend last night and her twins. We were there the day these babies were born and have watched them for the past three years morph into little people. Last night it dawned on both of us that these are not babies anymore. We don’t need to run behind them hunched over waiting for the one misstep that will lead to a busted lip and screaming fit. Motor skills are up and running. When I say running I literally mean running around the patio jumping for joy at the bottom of a step.

Little Miss. M arrived wearing a shirt that read “I (Heart) Ponies”. On her arm was one of her mother’s old purses filled with My Little Ponies. There is Pinky (the pink horse), Purpely (the purple horse), Orangey (the orange horse) and oddly enough Key Lime (the yellow horse). Miss. M. has this wonderful fake, infectious laugh that is all teeth. It reaches into your chest putting your heart in a vice grip.

Mr. J has become the epitome of a boy. He was the one referenced above running the patio and jumping down stairs. When Mommy grabbed his arm to tell him to sit down he promptly began telling her “Quit it. Stop doing that. Quit your pinching” followed by very loud “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!.” Where is CPS when he needs them? He is not the first one to realize that a mother’s embarrassment leads to a quick release of the arm.

We both left in awe of a woman raising twins all by herself. How exhausting it must be. She said trips to the grocery store have been reduced to no more than the thirty minute attention span of two three year olds. I picture that game show Supermarket Sweep. Mommy running the aisles, arms swinging items into the basket, throwing everything on the conveyor belt, glaring at the slow cashier, dashing to the car a screaming child under each arm and a puzzled look when unpacking that says “Did I mean to pick this up?”.

Both of us left dinner last night with a yearning to spend more time. To spend time savoring the small but rapid changes that take place in the blink of an eye. To spend time enjoying conversation and laughter with a close friend.

Bittersweet October

I am getting really excited about Halloween. Not really sure why. This year I am going to try to make popcorn balls from the Martha Stewart cook book. She makes it sound so easy but I’ll probably walk away from the experience with permanent scars from hot Caro syrup splatter. I don’t’ even know if the parents in our neighborhood will let their children eat homemade popcorn balls. I know when I was a kid I LOVED popcorn balls. Trick or Treating was a bit spotty for me until we moved out of the apartment complex by LSU. College kids don’t buy candy, they rent kegs. I remember going to several doors and when they realized I was trick or treating people at the party would begin handing over spare change dropping it in my bag. My parents let me spend this change on candy that I like. No Bit-o-Honeys, no black licorice, no apples.

I always had homemade costumes. My father made some of them. One year he made me a daisy. My suit was green with white petals stemming out from my neck. Another year he made me an apple tree. This time a brown body suit and when I lifted my arms red apples dangled down. Flora and fauna seemed to be the theme those days.

One year I told my mother I wanted to be a gypsy but what I really meant was a belly dancer. She worked so hard to make the gypsy costume and when she was done I was clearly upset. She changed the whole thing and by Halloween I was a belly dancer. I had a great clown costume my mother made with big yarn balls hanging down the front as buttons. I wore that one for at least three years in a row.

Our family ALWAYS carved a pumpkin. To this day I love to carve pumpkins. In fact I have convinced our neighborhood to add a pumpkin contest to the annual Halloween festivities. I am ready for the pumpkin but we will see about the popcorn balls.

Sowing the Seeds of Misinformation

It was me. I am Suspect Zero. Patient X. The gossipy gardener from whence this nasty seed of misinformation was planted.

It all started at a restaurant when a certain Mother said her daughter used to dance. We were not discussing ballet, however a less refined form of dance. I looked around the table and with only TWO daughters to choose from picked the likeliest candidate.

Who knew there was a THIRD STEP DAUGHTER out there to whom she was referring. One single little STEP in front of the word DAUGHTER and this whole thing would never have taken ten years to straighten out.

So for the written record:
She was not an exotic dancer. She has never danced except at parties with all of us and when she does that it is fully clothed.

Western Haze

This weekend we attended our second small town festival this month. Below are just a few of the memories that survived Saturday's menu of beer, wine-a-ritas, wine, and champagne:

1) A man we met at the bar told us he is really "hermitized" and spends much of his time traveling by himself in his motor home. On the particular day we met him he had a new haircut and shave. The first in awhile I imagine. He promised as he left the bar, six pack in hand, that the next morning when we saw him he would have his good teeth in (imagine no teeth grin here).

2) Only a man would take lemons, cut them in half and place them beneath the skin of chicken cooking on a smoker with a beer can up its butt. The end result is a chicken with a D cup.

3) The Scrambler (World's Best Carnival Ride) should never have tacky, non-stick seats. The purpose of going on the Scrambler is to squish the person on the outside and slide around wildly. I have a skinned elbow from this new non-stick material. Should I sue for free rides for life? Only if they bring back the glitter infused red pleather seats.

4) If you're looking for junk food, look no farther than a festival: corn dogs, barbecue, tacos, tamales, sausage on a stick, funnel cakes, roasted nuts, and ice cold beer to wash it all down.

5) Wine-a-ritas, although disgusting sounding are DELICIOUS! I am saying this now but must try one before a six pack of beer to confirm. I did sort of look at the woman when she recommended Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot as the best wine to use.

6) mutton Bustin is hilarious! Children 50 pounds and under are placed on the back of one pissed off sheep with nothing but a helmut two sizes too big and judged on how long they can stay on. A riot I tell you! If I had a child that was under 50 pounds I'd buy a sheep so we could do this in the backyard. Maybe charge admission to the neighbors.

The Great Gobbler Gallop

Ever seen a turkey race? For that matter how many of you have heard of a turkey race? Not only have I heard of one, but last weekend I had front row seats in Small Country Town America, USA for their annual Turkeyfest which, yes includes a turkey race down Main Street. Front row seats meaning I parked my ass on the curb camera in hand at the ready for the fun to begin.

The emcee of ceremonies introduced this The 33rd Annual Turkey Race by giving a little background into the competitors. It seems that there are not one, but TWO towns in America fighting for the title Turkey Capital of the World. When people ask do they really say, “Well, I’m from the Turkey Capital of the World. Where are you from?.” I don’t know, there are a lot of things I will admit to but I think I would keep my mouth shut on that one.

Next the mayors of the two competing towns got up to give a little pep talk to the Turkey team members and spectators. It was George Forman and Mike Tyson before the fight. They actually insulted each others turkeys. Come on fellas leave the birds out of this.

A different bird races each year but their names are passed down from generation to generation thus the race is always between Ruby Begonia and Paycheck. There is even a bar in town named Ruby Begonia’s Roost. The town’s football team is the Fighting Gobblers. I’m pretty sure there is even a Turkey Queen! Hail to the Queen of Gobblers. Will she put that on her resume one day? Maybe in her wedding announcement?

Finally it was time for the Great Gobbler Gallop. The hounds (oops, fowls) were released followed by handlers shaking giant bead filled paddles to egg them on. The crowd went nuts. Paycheck flew into the crowd but was quickly brought back into the street. Men were standing on trash cans screaming “Go Ruby Go” I caught myself screaming her name as she bobbed by me.

For the first time in three years Ruby won back the traveling trophy and the town is once again Turkey Capital of the World!

This weekend is Western Days in yet another small town. I’ll let you know what I find.

Things to do today:

1. Quit current job. (organize desk so everyone knows where everything is when I am gone, must maintain best assistant ever image)
2. Find circus. (if they still travel by rail this should not be too hard, I'll just walk the tracks until I come across one, then again I could search on the internet and find out where they are right now)
3. Runaway with circus. (this may be difficult as I do not swallow swords, couldn't hold my fat ass up on a trapeze if there was no net and letting go would mean certain death, I can't train cats to walk a wire the diameter of yarn- hell, I can't keep my own cat from eating himself to death, I could however lay strapped to a spinning wheel while someone else threw knives at my shiny sequined costume)

Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent

My father is writing a book. Part historical novel, part mystery, part Southern fiction, and the real kicker part family history. I asked to read what he had so far. He e-mailed me the Prologue and the first 54 pages with the following disclaimer:

Dearest Daughter,
Attached is your reading assignment.
WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!THE DAUGHTER IS NOT YOU!!!!!!!!REPEAT!!!IT IS NOT YOU!!!!!!THIS IS JUST A BOOK AND DOES NOT REFLECT PRESENT OR PAST FEELINGS ABOUT ANYONE!!!!!!!(except your mother, of course)IT IS FICTION___NOT REAL LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Daddy

Okay, I thought, that’s sweet. There must be something I will recognize, some story from my childhood that he has taken poetic license with and changed to fit the story line. Oh no, mon cher, he took his poetic license got in the driver’s seat and ran over my character like a turtle crossing a highway in rush hour.

First, the character he warns me about is named Nicole. This is what he wanted to name me that my mother would not. She finally compromised by giving me the middle name Noelle. This is how my mother meets in the middle. She drags the line just a little over to her side then refers to the case in point as a compromise. Nicole. Noelle. You got your way they sound similar enough.

Second, the character is a total bitch! I’m talking money hungry, uncaring, and downright evil. I admit I have had my moments in the past when my personal objectives overshadowed the fact that I was asking for money from a man who, at the time, did not have it but always managed to get it to me anyway. I have put myself through enough old fashioned Catholic guilt that those transgressions should have moved from the liability to asset category. I’ll be damned however if they don’t keep coming up.

Back to his disclaimer, I think he was afraid to call me and ask what I thought of the book thus far. Everything in me wanted to pout and make him change Nicole to a loving, caring, giving (or just human) daughter, but I sucked it up telling him I couldn’t wait to read more. Then I promptly sent him an e-mail detailing all of the fun times we had going over anything nice I could think of in the past that I had done for him.

I have never been accused of letting sleeping dogs lie.

A Flu for All Seasons

There is a new dog flu going around. I had no idea until my girlfriend informed me that she received a call at her office from another friend warning her that the Today show was doing a piece on a new dog flu so don’t be surprised when I began taking our dog to the vet for every cough or sneeze. I missed the panic inducing segment but nonetheless was told about this new strain of germ.

It is times like these that the world as a whole should be thankful I don’t have children. The poor creatures would be living in bubbles of fear that every new disease would be the one that took them down for good. I, as their mother, would be no help from my self imposed quarantine in the closet with nothing but a can of Lysol. If I did venture out it would be to get those headaches checked out that I am sure are a tumor the size of a grapefruit eating away at my short term memory. It just could not possibly be the bottle of wine a night.

As my children ventured out into the world would their dorm mates stare at their emergency preparedness kits complete with a flash light, two cans of peas, a can of corn, and bottle water? Would their potential spouses be offended when I chased them with a can of Lysol for sneezing in my house? How would my grandchildren feel that their grandmother won’t let them spend the night if they have runny noses?

Thankfully Isaac has neither sneezed nor coughed since this announcement came my way. If I were smart I would write the emergency vet a check now. Call it a retainer for when he starts exhibiting symptoms.

A Room With a Door

As I said in a previous blog in the past year I moved up a rung on the corporate ladder, moving from a cubicle to an office complete with a door. Nothing could have made me happier at the time. Now all is lost, for the cubicle that occupies the space directly outside my door has been taken over by the loudest woman on Earth!

I have tried the diplomatic route, calling our head of Human Resources and asking her to have a talk with the woman. I have tried the not so diplomatic approach of muttering “Jesus Christ” under my breath and slamming my door, but this woman is truly clueless to her volume.

She inherited her position from the quietest, most feeble guy in the world. He could be in that cubicle all day and you would never hear a peep. Now, against my will I know the following things:

1. Her father will only wear Sansabelt pants. He gets a new pair for Christmas and (Surprise!) they are hard to find. One must make no less than 50 phone calls to every sporting goods and department store in town recounting your father’s life story to find the pants.

2. She has never owned a computer. Simple tasks like typing a letter in Word elude her therefore I get the pleasure of hearing our IT girl go through Computer 101 on a daily basis.

3. Clearly the intercom is also lost on her. The woman she works for is across the hall from her cubicle and in lieu of announcing calls on the intercom she feels that screaming across the hall is just as effective.

4. This has nothing to do with the volume but speaks instead to the overall hell I am currently in because this woman eats at her cubicle. What do you ask? Asiago cheese melted on Triskets. It’s as if she searched for the stinkiest cheese. My boss even sent an e-mail asking the stinky cheese culprit to please restrict themselves to eating in the lunch room but at that time she didn’t have a computer and thus did not know about the e-mail.

Waiting for Rita

We've made all of the preparations and now we sit here waiting. In fact that is all we have done for the past two days- wait. My trusted favorite cat is here with me purring away. The dog is downstairs getting some much needed nap time as all the activity of the past few days has him very confused.
What have we done to prepare? On Thursday, I left work early to hit the grocery store. It helps that I work for someone who is also proned to panic attacks. The grocery store looked like nothing I have ever seen or imagined. There was no bread. They were rolling in large pallets of water but not bothering to stock them on the empty shelves as it took only a few minutes for them to be completely bare. A friend from Cuba says this is what the stores look like in communist countries. On the can veggie aisle my brain just shut down. There was barely anything to choose from and seeing that I am not the veggie eater in our house I just could not decide on what to pick up. I settled on two cans of peas and a can of corn. This strikes Carrie as funny that I only bought three cans of food. On the next aisle I picked up a giant box of Goldfish crackers. Much more my style. Picked up some ground coffeee and fruit then set out to get some kitty litter. There was not one box or bag of litter. I was amazed until it was pointed out to me that plenty of people will be bringing in pets that usually stay outside. Hmm. Something to remember for future disasters.
Yesterday we helped a friend close up her restaurant for what may be the last time depending on the kind of storm this ends up being. She says she will leave it all and move to her home in New Mexico permanently. This was more than somewhat upsetting. We had lunch, filled prescriptions, bought more cigarettes, and came home to wait.
It is the waiting that is killing me. The uncertainty. The constant news coverage. I had a blank diary that someone gave me (it even has a lock) so I began writing in it today. Random thoughts like how we have creamy peanut butter and if I had thought about it I would have picked up some crunchy. I have also been videotaping this event. This afternoon we moved lawn chairs to the end of the driveway to watch our empty streets. Eerie. Tropical Storm Allison snuck up on us. Rita is like that person coming to tickle you. You know they are coming. You are waiting for it to happen. The anticipation is what gets you first. I'm going to take Cat 1 downstairs now and see the latest update. Then I guess we'll wait.

Roots of Epic Proportions

My hairdresser can’t see me until October 1st. I don’t think her receptionist fully understood the urgency of the situation. I CANNOT walk around looking like a displaced contestant from the Jerry Springer show for the next three weeks. I have roots as long as the Mississippi river and they are DAAARRRRK!

After making the appointment for the first and asking to be put on a waiting list, I hung up the phone in shear panic. When the desperation reached my bones I had a fleeting thought of bleaching my own hair. I shiver again to think of the results. It would not however be my first rodeo with scalp searing bleach in a bottle. I have spent many an evenings, rag towel wrapped around my shoulders trying to outrun the toxic smell coming from my own head. The result was blinding white hair that lasted all of one week before the tiny line of black appeared beneath.

I can say that this is not the worst shape I have been in. I once volunteered to let someone use me as a living model for a hair show. Free haircut and dye job were included. When my mother came home that night there I lay under a blanket on the couch hysterically crying. She slowly coaxed me out from under the covers only to recoil at the sight of my new egg plant colored page boy. To add insult to injury the dye was supposed to be temporary but apparently it really liked my hair because damn if that stuff didn’t hang in there for a good two months.

The Writing on the Wall

In West Blocton, Alabama my great grandfather owned a Five & Dime. West Blocton was a mining town. Coal dust filled the cracks in every floor. Miners would buy goods from my grandfather on payday before taking to the bars then the streets at night. He would move money and receipts across the store using a pulley system of wires that ran along the ceiling. I don’t remember much of the store. I was too young to take it all in when I visited. My great grandmother was running it then. She let me pick out one toy to take home. I remember proudly taking a plastic cowboy set complete with flimsy brown vinyl vest, gray painted Sheriff’s badge, and cap gun.

During the depression, starving men looking for work would come to my great grandfather for food. He gave them what they needed and in the back room they would write their IOU’s on the walls. By the end of the depression these walls were covered with the names of men who he helped. Most probably caught rail cars to other places in search of work. Some came back to repay the debt. Others didn’t. I don’t think my great grandfather expected them to come back. I don’t know if he asked them to sign their names on that wall or if it was their way of preserving a sliver of dignity.

A friend has been volunteering at the Houston Astrodome helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Last night she worked in the clothing distribution center. Evacuees gave her their size and what they need then she sorted through the mounds of clothing to find it for them. I know that this is embarrassing for some of these people. I hope the world continues to give without prejudice allowing them to preserve just a sliver of dignity just like those men who wrote IOU’s on my great grandfather’s wall with nothing but hope backing them up.

June 9, 2001 we awoke at 3:00 a.m. to two very happy Labradors playing in the foot high water in our living room. Earlier that evening we were at a friend’s restaurant drinking bottomless glasses of wine and vodka watching the rain. We were offering to help carry tables to higher ground as she had flooded many times before. We never predicted that hours later we would be standing knee deep in water calling everyone we knew for rescue.

I am no help in a crisis. I grabbed the two cats headed back to the bedroom and cried on the phone to my insurance company for an hour. My first new car, the one I didn’t need a co-signer on, was completely under water in the street. The agent asked if I was calling from Texas and I wailed “How did you know?” As if Tropical Storm Alison was only a local event that this person on the other side of an 800 number would know nothing about.

We were rescued by boat the next morning at 6:00 a.m. by the resident of a neighboring subdivision. They tied right up to the Crepe Myrtle trees in our front yard. A stranger from the neighboring subdivision was going door to door in the boat evacuating as many of us that would leave. The old woman down the street (who stole our cat- but that is a different story) would not budge. I think many of the neighbors who had lived there for 54 years or more without flooding couldn’t believe it was happening.

The waters subsided fast and by 10:00 we were back home to survey the damage. Everything was misplaced. Everything had floated to a different spot as if ours was a doll house and some cosmic giant rearranged it for fun. Mud covered everything we owned. At least those possessions that rest below four feet. Our golf shoes were caught in the ginger plant in the front yard, moved from the porch where we had left them that afternoon.

By 10:30 six people were at our door step ready to help. They put all of our clothes, sheets and towels in plastic garbage bags. Photos were taken away to wash and dry and try to salvage. Not many photos survived but two people in particular did what they could and for that I am eternally grateful. They had the forethought to save the photos of our childhood first.

Our furniture was taken to the edge of the driveway and discarded. Trucks began circling before sun down filled with families taking this or that off the junk pile. I needed at least twenty four hours to adjust to someone walking off with our life and would yell at them to come back later.

We moved in with a friend who was kind enough not only to take us but our two dogs and two cats as well. There we stayed for six months figuring out where to go next. Eventually we tore down the old and built up (4.24 feet) with the new. It took over a year for our neighborhood to rebuild. There are still empty lots that remind us of neighbors and families that never came back. The risk of reliving that night was just too much for many of them to bear. Many did not have flood insurance and were left to rebuild with very little money and a lot of sweat.

Watching the news, my heart is breaking for the thousands of families displaced and grieving by Katrina. They will return home and rebuild their lives from scratch. In addition to restoring their peace of mind they will have to acquire everything anew. New sheet rock, new floors, new beds, new mattresses, new appliances, new sheet rock, new carpet or wood floors, new clothes, new photos, new memories, new books. I could go on but won’t. I’ll keep the people that are effected in my thoughts and help as much as I am able.

Spoiled Rotten

After successfully reaching the bottom of a couple of bottles of wine last night I ran straight into the dog bed in our room. Now today in addition to the marching band playing its opus across my temples, I am also semi-limping around the office with a giant raised bruise on the top of my foot. When I explained the injury to a coworker she asked “The dog bed is hard?” Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and our dog has, not just one, but three beds.

There is the poofy downstairs bed for during the daylight hours when he must be locked in the kitchen to avoid further damage to our windowsills. When anyone so much as breathes in the direction of our house he goes into his rabid-dog-biting-windows-and-jumping-up-on-glass routine. We are partially to blame for the aggression. He was over a year when we snipped him. The rest of the aggression can be blamed on two very evil children who poked sticks at him through an iron gate when we were living with a friend. Looking back I should have poked their beady eyes out.

The wood bed I broke my foot on is upstairs. It has what every dog needs; a head board! My partner didn’t think the mattress that is made to fit the bed looked comfortable enough so she bought him a smaller but softer version (with his name embroidered on the side). Hard to believe but they don’t make wood dog beds as sturdy as those for human slumber. Every night as he spins around working himself into sleep position the beds makes the loudest creaks and pops.

The third bed, which is technically more of a furry fleece mat, rests on the floor right next to the world’s loudest dog bed. Best of all for him though is that he is going to his girlfriend’s tonight and will be sleeping on her mother’s bed.

Surprise

For the first few years of my childhood we lived in a small white clapboard house under a freeway overpass. Mind you it was not like the colonies of homeless you see under overpasses these days camped out with cardboard boxes and signs depicting one tragedy after another that are meant to trump one another in the need department. No, but it was close enough to be considered under the overpass. No one but a starving law student, his child bride and new baby would live there and anyway our Great Dane needed room to roam.

We had one neighbor who cultivated a giant vegetable garden on the side of his house. Having only two houses on the street as well as the field of fresh veggies leant a certain rural feel to the area. If you wore ear plugs to drown out the semi trucks above, you could almost imagine living in a small farmhouse somewhere. Besides this rural feel we had BIG country size bugs. I know because one day giant flying ants attacked me in my own front yard.

My partner would interject here to inform everyone reading this that she believes there are no giant flying ants but who are you going to listen to? A woman who has never been attacked by these creatures or me who not only was attacked by them but also lived to tell the tale? This is a woman who thinks all children have worms at some time or another in their lives. I assure you I have dated a few worms but never in my life had one living inside me.

I accidentally stepped on the mound one morning which must have set off an ALL ANTS AIRBORN alarm inside. They attacked my leg like the remnants of some street festival funnel cake rotting in a gutter. I was covered from toe to knee. My parents jumped into action to rescue me and carried me inside to put medicine on the stings left behind. The only problem being that I was as terrified of the medicine as the stings and therefore proceeded to run around the house screaming.

Parental ingenuity kicked in and my parents developed a plan. So as I sat on their bed, swollen red leg propped on a throw pillow, my mother informed me my father was making some “Surprise”. This was the name they came up with for the baking soda and water paste that is supposed to remove the stinging. Fool that I am, I wanted a “Surprise” so bad I fell for the ruse hook line and sinker.

My mother’s birthday is Saturday. I am having her over to our house for an early dinner, along with my aunt and uncle who are flying in from Colorado to spend the day with her and my paternal grandmother. She is bringing her own cake because she wants an ice cream cake from Carvel and it is closer to her house than mine.

One of my favorite photos of my mother was from a birthday before I was born. There is a sepia tone to the photo and it is of her standing at a kitchen counter holding back her long straight black hair to blow out candles on a cake. My father had baked her that cake. It was round, white with lemon filling and icing. He forgot to put the lemon filling between the layers so he lathered it all over the top. Then he spread the icing on top of the filling. In the photo you can see the icing sliding off of the cake, running down the sides to a big glob on the plate. Despite this goopy birthday cake she is smiling from ear to ear because the man she loves has made a cake from scratch.

There is another photo from one of her birthdays. This time I am sitting in her lap. The cake is on a table in front of us. My mother is not smiling in this photo. Again, my father has baked the cake. He let me help until it came time to write Happy Birthday on the top in icing. Just below Happy Birthday he has written “to our favorite five letter woman”. To accompany the cake we have bought her a rhinestone necklace that spells “Bitch”. Looking back it is a miracle my mother didn’t grab her purse and cigarettes and walk out of our lives forever.

So Saturday I will endure my aunt’s repeated attempts to offend me. I will endure my uncle’s fanatically conservative views. I will spend the day with my mother on her birthday and hope she smiles when she blows out the candles.

Now Someone Else Can Be It

Since I was tagged by Inspired who was tagged by Sass I hurriedly produced the following answers before heading home for the evening. If you are reading this and get the urge to comment that I am a dork, DON'T.

10 Years Ago Today:
Two years away from getting my degree after seven uninspired years of college.

5 Years Ago Today:
Working for my father while he worked on giving me a bleeding ulcer.

1 Year Ago Today:
In a cubicle around the corner. Now I have an office with a door. Movin’ on up!

Yesterday:
In the same office with the door.

Tomorrow:
Anywhere but here?

5 Snacks:
Cheese and crackers, french fries, peanut M&Ms, spicy Cheetohs, more french fries (I am such a health nut)

5 Bands I know most of the lyrics:
Captain and Tenille (ask me about their concert in Tulsa, OK), Fleetwood Mac (thanks to Inspired), Tim McGraw (does that count as a band), can’t really complete all five.

5 things I would do with $1,000,000:
Buy a country and beach house, invest some, write a book then publish it myself, go to Europe

5 bad habits:
smoking, eating French fries with nearly every meal, leaving my shoes under the coffee table, starting a load of laundry but not finishing, thinking I am right about everything

5 things I like doing:
bantering and laughing with my partner, cubing cows, reading, drawing, hand written letters in the mailbox

5 locations I would run away to:
Mexico, New Orleans, New York, Las Vegas, Seaside Florida

5 things I would never wear:
knit caps, head bands, anything neon, a half shirt, white pumps

5 t.v. shows:
West Wing, Law & Order, Dateline, E True Hollywood Story, Average Joe

5 movies
Gone with the Wind, Coal Miners Daughter, Urban Cowboy, Man on Fire, Sound of Music

5 famous people I’d to meet:
David Sedaris, Michael Connelly, Augusten Burroughs, Bill Clinton, Carl Hiaasen

5 biggest joys at the moment:
the love of my life, our home, our dog, our cats, and her father’s ranch house

5 favorite toys:
my camera, the big lens for my camera, sadly I too don’t have enough toys

5 things on my bedside table:
last nights cup of water, two picture frames, an Aveda candle, a friend’s Esquire magazine that I promised to give back to her three weeks ago, the last book I read

5 things I save:
postcards, old letters, obituaries, book jackets although I normally do not put them back on the book after I have read them, ticket stubs, little hotel soaps and shampoo

5 things I won’t travel without:
a big bag for those tiny soaps and shampoos, a black and brown purse, portable dvd player for the plane, sunglasses, a carton of cigarettes

5 cd’s in my car:
none, I took them all out before heading to the ranch this weekend.

Classic Cars

My employer’s car alarm began cycling on and off at two o’clock this morning and would not shut off. This would not be a problem except that the car is parked in her business partner’s driveway and they are together in Italy. So I was left to find an extra key and disarm the thing which started me thinking about all of the cars I and my family has had in the past.

The first auto tragedy was when we lived in the ratty apartments mentioned in my previous entry. My father was a law student and my mother was supporting us on the salary she made as a dental assistant. Nice cars were not a luxury we could afford. We had a Torino. Most people reading this have probably never heard of a Torino. Alas at one time we owned a classic. Ours unfortunately was also a lemon. When my father went to start it one morning the engine burst into flames. Quick thinker that he is he ran into the apartment to fetch a pitcher of water. I am sure the fire department appreciated his effort.

The Torino was replaced by a Cutlass. Now, before we go any further it is important to know that my father cannot hold onto money. He is a dreamer and a spender. Always with the best of intentions but as I mentioned we were poor so no matter the intentions whatever it was we couldn’t afford it. So he bought my mother a pony for mother’s day while we were still living in an apartment. A horse has to eat so my parents hauled a bag of feed to the stable. The bag split and they spilled on the back floorboards. My father is also not one to clean up after himself so a half-hearted effort to remove the feed was made. Back to the Cutlass. The roof leaked so when it would rain the back floor boards would be underwater sloshing on every turn. Eventually the floor boards dried but the end result of the water/oat combination was a nice carpet of green that you didn’t even have to leave the car to walk barefoot through.

When my parents divorced I was eight. It was agreed that my mother and I would drive from Louisiana to New Jersey to stay with my uncle until my father finished school. We filled the car with as much as possible and set out for the Northeast. This must have been an awful time for my mother but she tried to keep things upbeat. She did however chain smoke her way out of town putting each cigarette out in the ashtray no less. One day driving along she put one too many in that ashtray and whole thing caught on fire. We pulled into a convenient store and my mother asked me to go inside and get a glass of water. Actually she screamed it in panic. Not one to stay calm cool and collected. I ran into the store announcing to the clerk that our car was on fire. By the time I ran out of the store clerk in tow my mother had removed the blazing ashtray and dumped its contents in the parking lot so she could stamp them out.

I feel bad for people whose parents had new wood paneled station wagons and shiny Cadillac’s. Look at the excitement they missed.

Freshman Fifty

The niece of my very good friend is starting college soon. My friend attended freshman orientation with her yesterday and last night at dinner said she was jealous for these young students starting out what will surely be the last carefree years of their lives. Too bad they don’t know that yet. It made me think of my freshman year of college which I entered secure in the fact that I knew everything. If only someone had taken me aside and said:

1) You will eat too much junk food and before you know your ass will become the size of those prize pumpkins you see in Miracle Grow commercials. Corn dogs are not nutritional and should not be eaten for every meal.
2) Beer is not a staple. It does not make you smarter and your parents don’t really want to talk to your crying, drunk, sniveling self at two a.m. Speaking of beer…it is not cool that your friends who live off campus are wallpapering their bedroom with empty twelve pack boxes. This is not stylish.
3) You will learn nothing from soap operas or playing backgammon twelve hours straight while chain smoking in a room the size of a prison cell. In fact, not only will you not learn anything, in a year you will be crawling back home with your tail between your pumpkin size ass begging your parents forgiveness for wasting their money.
4) Pouring cold water on someone while they are in the shower, padding their door with feminine hygiene products or pornography is not funny. (Exception to this rule is padding large haired bleach blond small town girls door with pornography. It can be funny. In fact seeing them unable to bring themselves to touch the door can be a downright riot)
5) Don’t ever leave your cloths on the river bank and go skinny dipping in the middle of the night. You cannot see where you have set said clothing so when you put them back on and they are full of fire ants (including your underwear) don’t come crying to me.
6) If you have a roommate who sits in the dark with nothing but a candle listening to Desperado over and over again while chain smoking Marlboro Reds she is depressed and on the edge. Best to just back out of the room and give her some space.

If only someone had told me.

Cats are the most spiteful of the animal kingdom. We left for one lousy night this weekend. To teach us a lesson the cat decided to disappear for two days. Damn if I didn’t welcome him with open arms when he came meowing at the back door last night. I have always been a hangers on. I had a hamster that died when I was sevenish. He or she was my third or fourth hamster. I say he or she because I could never tell and when it came to naming my animals it really didn’t matter much. You are, after all, reading the girl who wanted to name her Schnauzer “Bosley John Bosley” after the character on Charlie’s Angels (the television show not the movie). The first couple of hamsters ended up becoming meow mix to our cat Lookie. This one however died a natural death. Not wanting to give up its memory too soon I took an empty check box of my mother’s and placed in neatly on a bed of toilet tissue. Dignified, I know. Because my mother refused to allow me to keep dead animals in the house, I was forced to find weatherproof lodging outside. The barbeque pit was the chosen spot for his/her tiny hamster mausoleum. My parents tried desperately to get me to agree to a proper burial but I was having nothing of it because quite frankly (the weak of heart should turn away now) I enjoyed going to the barbeque pit, opening the box, seeing his progress, and occasionally giving him the encouraging pat on the side. For those of you who know me it is no surprise that in our house I am in charge of dead animal disposal while my partner is in charge of insect disposal. Had my hamster had even a single visible bug on his/her decomposing body I would have buried him in an instant.
One day my mother had a friend over. They sat in the living room gossiping, complaining, and laughing. Not one to be ignored and void of many friends I asked my mother’s friend if she would like to see my hamster. Neither was paying attention and her friend absently said “Sure.” So out I went to the patio to retrieve him/her. I opened the box to show my mother’s friend who was quite frightened and sickened all at once. My mother was mortified.
When my father came home she demanded he convince me to get rid of the hamster. He walked me to the parking lot, check box in hand pointed to the big white dumpster in the complex parking lot and said “You know the big tombs in the graveyards in New Orleans? This is exactly like those.”
We buried the hamster that night.

I am losing my mind. Not really, not yet, but I am preparing. Judging from my family history I will have no way to avoid becoming a certified nutcase. I’m not talking about the kind of stand on a street corner yelling random obscenities crazy but the kind that walks through the grocery store buying dented canned goods so she can complete the maze through her living room crazy. I did have a great grandmother who did just that. She would sometimes share the wealth dropping off boxes of slightly damaged groceries on my parent’s front porch.

My great aunts lived in Washington, D.C. in one big narrow house. Auntie Mel worked for the government for years. Her actions later in life left us all to wonder if she worked as a test subject on experimental medical treatments. I’m not sure how long they all actually lived in the house but it was long enough for it to start coming down around them. The plaster had begun to rain down from the living room ceiling in big dusty chunks. Mel was sure this was not due to a lack of maintenance but the city buses that traveled frequently in front of the house. So she made a chart. If she was in the kitchen and heard a bus she would run to the front door to document the time and approximately how fast the bus appeared to be going. That chart ended up at the City’s transportation office where I feel confident it was hung in the break room for comic relief from what must be a thankless job. They never did reimburse her for the repairs to the living room ceiling.

Mel was fun, spunky. She drove until the day she contracted West Nile Virus and died. I use the term driving loosely because towards the end there she would get lost. A lot. Going the wrong way down a one way street at fifteen miles an hour with other drivers honking and yelling she would state to no one in particular “I’M NOT FROM AROUND HERE!”. That’s how I want to be when my mind goes. I am looking forward to leisurely driving down the wrong side of the street screaming “I’M NOT FROM AROUND HERE!” If you ask my partner she will tell you I am on my way to fulfilling that dream now. What can I do? It runs in the family.

How we ever made it this far is a mystery. Lately there have been too many stories of children being abducted leading me to wonder was my mother trying to lose me? We lived in a ratty student ridden apartment complex near LSU until I was eight. I rode my bike through the complex, roller skated the walkways, went swimming in the community pool, all out of the sight of my parents.
There was one time my mother followed me but that was because in the midst of a brat attack brought about by not getting my way I announced I was running away. Forget the leaving a note behind and sneaking away in the middle of the night. I found it was much more dramatic to announce one’s departure then proceed to pack the one item I needed most- my security blanket. I didn’t have a suitcase, bike, or car at this point so I packed blanky in my plastic Fisher Price ATV that you rode on top of and steered with a yellow plastic wheel that had an air horn in the middle. Off I went as fast as my legs could peddle. My mother, not wanting to ruin my obvious joy at making her suffer the thought of a life without me, followed a safe distance behind. When I reached the main road she simply stated “Alright Jacqueline that’s far enough”. Without fuss I turned around and peddled home confident that she wouldn’t dare risk telling me no ever again. Wrong.
There weren’t very many children in our complex so I became accustomed to approaching adults as potential playmates. Once my mother found me in a strange man’s apartment trying on his many female wigs. I saw nothing wrong with the exchange and appreciated the chance to play dress up with real wigs. How long it took her find me I have no idea but now you see what I mean by was she trying to lose me?