Hey…………………………
Month: January 2012
Truth or Fiction
Our local grocery store has a card that offers a gas discount based on how much you spend. Before the end of the year, I had accumulated enough points to get fifty cents off a tank of gas. Yeehaw. Except I couldn’t find it, and that was the second one I lost. I tore the car apart and dug in every coat pocket with no luck. In January, my points were reset and now I have thirty-five cents off a fill-up. Come to Mama, oh missing gas discount card.
It is making me crazy.
I was telling Mallie Bee about this for the hundredth time and she was like, “Too bad, so sad.” Nice display of empathy, little one. That’s when things went downhill, as she accused me of never being sympathetic when she can’t find something. This is true, but she misplaces something every single day. We argued about this for awhile and then I told her this………..
Remember the time you called me at work because you lost a textbook? Remember that you were so upset you started crying? I told you that it had to be in the house somewhere, for you are the child who misplaces everything, but not the child who loses everything. I told you to calm down, make yourself a bowl of ice cream, forget about it for awhile and when I got home I’d help you look for it. I was as cool as a cucumber and may have called you “honey” a few times Remember that?
She had no recollection of that incident. None. My bright, shining moment when I was not screaming at her for being irresponsible and she had no idea what I was talking about.
I might have been tripping down The Mother Memory Lane with the wrong kid.
Cutting Back
The Speckled Trout is a year old this month, and this is post #305. Sheesh, that’s a lot of writing. When I first started, it would take me days to finish one post. I’d work on it, delete half of it, rewrite it, post it, take it down, put it back up, find a typo, fix it, put it back up. I wonder if the five people who were reading it back then were like, “What the hell??? I was just in the middle of reading something and now it’s gone.”
Thankfully, writing nearly every day has improved my ability to clearly get my thoughts down and it doesn’t take as long as it used to. However……….since about December it has been a real struggle to maintain five days a week of posting, and I’ll be my own critic here and say that I don’t love what I’m putting out lately. That takes time to formulate and I’ve got other things competing with that at the moment.
Rather than hold myself to the rigorous schedule I started, I am going to cut back on the posting so I’m doing it 2 – 3 times a week. I spend my days writing in my head, and tend to fly up the stairs to get it written down because I’m so excited when it comes together. Dork alert……a good sentence makes me crazy happy. Instead of flying up the stairs lately, it’s been more of a trudge and that makes for forced writing, not good writing. I have some longer pieces I’ve been kicking around, so I will see you here sometime next week with a return of my mojo.
HE has nothing to do with the above, but I’m thinking he might be the cure for my self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder, even though a certain Ellen friend always claims to have dibs on him………….
Mary Mary Never Contrary
My neighbor, Mary, has MS. She was diagnosed when she was 19. You couldn’t imagine what thirty-five years of a disease like that can do to a person, and none of it is good.
Recently, Mary needed to get a crown. Not the pretty, sparkly kind, but the expensive drool-inducing kind, and she asked me to take her to the dentist. When I picked her up, she scheduled a return appointment to get her permanent crown put on, and asked me if I could bring her back. Only if I’m not working by then, Mary. Sure enough, two weeks later You Know Who is available for a ride to the dentist. It is my custom to reward myself for any dental work I have endured, and I told Mary that when I picked her up. Little work, little reward. Big work, big reward. Mary’s not as greedy as me, so she decided on coffee and a muffin.
We sat in the local coffee shop talking about kids and husbands, our crackpot Governor, music, writing and the neighbors. With all her limitations and reasons to be bitter, she is not. She is funny and interesting and dear to many of us. Our Mary in her wheelchair conjures up all kinds of thoughts, but in her presence I see the grace.
My Life
I’d Like To Thank The Academy
Well, an opportunity has come my way. A money making opportunity that involves acting skills.
I ran into a friend after Christmas and we were both lamenting the lack of suitable employment. She called me a couple of weeks ago with a prospect. It seems that teaching medical schools hire people to portray patients in order to give students the opportunity to work on taking a patient history, extracting information, and general people skills.
I was intrigued, so I called the training department and had a nice long chat with the recruiter. Seems 50+ women are in high demand, at least in this field. I went into their office for an orientation/overview of the program and have since passed the background check. This week is two days of training followed by four afternoons of working with the med students.
The “patient” is a 50-something professional woman, slightly overweight and a high functioning alcoholic.
You could say I was born to play this part.
Newt or Toad
On Friday night, The Big Daddy and I watched a discussion on C-Span that took place at the University of Chicago between left and right wing talking heads. Because we’re that kind of fun. It was so intelligent and civilized that we went to sleep hopeful that the problems we face may have solutions that come from all sides.
On Saturday night, The Big Daddy and I decided to brave the chilly temps and go see The Descendants. As is typical of us, we hung around the house too long and when we attempted to get our tickets had our choice of a dozen seats in the first row. We declined, came home, got into our jammies, popped some popcorn and turned on the t.v. The Big Show was this guy……………………
Who is married to this woman. For reals this time.
He’s King of the World this week, and all memories of that civilized debate from the night before about solving our big, big problems went up in flames faster than a lit cigarette in a parched forest when he got in front of the mike. And the Mrs. kept clapping and nodding and saying, “That’s right.”
No, it isn’t.
Mother of the Bride
I had a dream the other night. It was the day of Teacher Girl and Prince Charming’s wedding. I decided that since I’d be running around like crazy prior to the wedding, that I would dress for comfort for the church and put my party dress on for the reception. When I got to the church in my black cropped pants and gray man’s work shirt, I realized that the mother of the bride looked like she was there to clean the toilets. I ran to the music director in a panic, and she tried to convince me to wear a choir robe. I found my niece and we rummaged through her kids’ closet and came up with a teeny, white communion dress that wouldn’t go over my big, fat hair let alone the rest of me. Finally, my friend came in and she took me to her church. The dream ended as we watched every woman that came in with the idea of ripping the dress of one of them.
It was some kind of crazy.
Since I know exactly what I want, it’s time to get serious about this MOB dress. Why back in the day, I’d get dressed up to go play in the front yard, and thought there was no such thing as too many accessories.
Fired Up. Ready To Go.
You may remember me writing about a new trail being installed that led to our park. I believe my exact words were “suhweeeeeeeeeeeeet.”
I changed my mind.
The trail is a winding path that leads to the park and meanders along the creek. It is wider than the sidewalk that was already there in order to accommodate walkers and bikers. In making it wider, they cut it too close to the edge of the creek, and ten feet down you’d seriously mess up your face should you go sailing off that fancy new trail on your Schwinn.
The city installed a fence. A black chainlink fence that made this old, quaint neighborhood feel like the Arizona/Mexico border. For those of us who walk every day this was too much and we sent emails to our city council members and the park board. The head of the park board is a big buana.
Last week we went to the parks board meeting and The Big Buana said the city council approved it so they would have to approve any changes. Except the city council never knew there was going to be a chainlink fence because The Big Buana never said anything about that part of it.
This week we picked up a few more supporters and went to the city council meeting and oh geez, It. Was. Contentious. There was some significant veiled insults being thrown, and The Big Buana was in the hot seat. Because she’s been a buana for so long, she doesn’t let people not liking her bother her one bit except for some heavy sighs and eye rolls.
But everybody knew she screwed this one up royally. It made me want to get up and shout LET MY PEOPLE GO which had nothing to do with the fence or the trail, but seemed like the perfect dramatic conclusion to an eventful night.
The Soaps
Like most women of her generation, my mom was a homemaker. With six kids in one very small house, she had her work cut out for her. My dad worked for the Edison Company in Chicago, and went to work every day in a suit, white shirt and tie. All of us kids went to Catholic grade school. Every memory of my mom from that time involves an ironing board, dozens of white shirts in varying sizes, and the soap operas.
She was a CBS gal………As The World Turns, Guiding Light, Search For Tomorrow. They were always ending as we got home from school so we saw the dramatic conclusion every day. When The Young and The Restless debuted, she said we had to support it because it was produced by Bill Bell. He was married to Lee Phillips who was the noon news personality, and mom always liked her.
To this day, she still records and watches her soaps, even though they’re on the endangered list. When we were there last month, she asked Mallie Bee if she’d like to watch The Bold and the Beautiful. Mal was game, and when Ridge Forrester delivered his bad-ass lines Mom said, “One time somebody told this guy he could act and he was dumb enough to believe them.”
After fifty years she would know.
