A Speckled Trout

I peruse a few other blogs on a regular basis.  Mostly, they are decorating blogs that I check out for ideas for the sales that Nancy and I have.  There’s one I read every day.  How this woman manages to refurbish furniture, stock a space to sell her stuff, photograph it, and then write about it every day escapes me.  But she does, and I read it religiously.

A couple of weeks ago, she asked her readers to keep in their thoughts and prayers the son of another blogger who died in a flash flood in Virginia.  That I found this blog at the worst moment of this mother’s life has changed how I look at everything since.

She has written about the events of that night and the aftermath in one heartbreaking sentence after another.  Her latest post describes in detail the accident that took her son.  When our daughter was thirteen, we had an incident with our creek, a head injury, police, multiple fire trucks with ladders going down to get her, a seizure that thank God I didn’t have to witness, neighbors coming from everywhere to see what was going on, a ride in an ambulance – her on a stretcher in the back and me in the front, where she was asked if she knew where she was when she started coming to.  An ambulance, say an ambulance.  As if she had any point of reference for that.

I made the decision to let the kids play in the creek just to get them out of the house on Day #2 of canceled school, and like a thousand thoughts you have as a parent, it occurred to me at one point that maybe it was time to bring them inside.  Not even five minutes later, one of the kids in the neighborhood was knocking on the door telling me that Maggie fell and wouldn’t open her eyes.

I ran.  Ran to her.  Ran back to the house to call 9-1-1, ran back to her with a blanket, climbed up the sides of the creek so the fire department knew where we were, climbed back down to her when they came, climbed back up to talk to the paramedics.  Sat in the ambulance going so goddamn slow because of the icy roads that I wanted to scream.  She was more coherent by the time we got to the hospital and escaped with a concussion and frostbite on a couple of her toes.  I don’t think I ever escaped what happened that day, but we were lucky.  So, so lucky that the next day she was fine, we were fine, we were still five.

If you’ve forgotten for a day how fragile life can be, read this.  If you are a parent, you will see yourself in virtually every moment she recounts, and how a series of seemingly harmless events and decisions can change everything in your life.

From the archives of The Big Daddy Bad Behavior file……………..

When the chillens were little, we would take them to the pumpkin patch.  At the time, we lived in Maryland, and so we drove out yonder to the farm for some good ol’ fall fun.  When we arrived at said Pumpkin Patch, the aroma of brats on the grill was the first thing you smelled when you got out of the car.  “Oh geez,” the Big Daddy said, “Those brats smell good.”  We can’t have brats, we didn’t bring that much money (this was way before the handy-dandy debit card came to be).  “Not enough for brats?”  No extra money for brats, just pumpkins.  “I love brats.  You mean there’s no extra cash for any food?”  Well, it’s not like we’d have to get a brat, we’d have to get four brats and then we’d have no money for pumpkins.   Suddenly, Sunday Funday had turned into a bitch for The BD.

The kids jumped like little monkeys on the hay bales, and played with all the other kids.  At one point, we went into the corn maze and went left and right and all about trying to find the way out.  Oh, such fun, but I didn’t see The Big Daddy.  He must have been way behind us.  When the kids and I emerged, the very first thing I saw, crouched down near the hay bales was The Big Daddy stuffing a brat into his mouth.

As soon as my eyes landed on him, I marched over and said, “Oh you couldn’t think of the whole family having fun, you just had to get a brat, didn’t you?”  He said he couldn’t help himself, you know how I love the brats, baby, and polished it off.

I gave him the stinkeye all afternoon, and when we took a hayride out to the fields to get pumpkins, the kids would lift some big, ol’ heavy pumpkin up and say, “I want this one.”  And I would look into those little, innocent toddler eyes of theirs and say, “No, honey, something smaller.  Your father had a brat so you can’t have a big pumpkin.”   They’d be so sad until The Big Daddy told ’em little pumpkins are better anyways.

Twenty years later, BD would say nothing beats a grilled brat on a fall day at the pumpkin patch, but leave The Ball and Chain at home if you really want to enjoy it.

It has been my experience in the raising of Teacher Girl, that when she decides to do something, it’s best to get out of her way or get run over.

When she wanted to get a dog, she and her Prince Charming looked around at the pounds.  When they found Butters, she wanted me to look at him to get my opinion.  Wow, a puppy.  That’s a lot to take on.  “So you think I should get him?”  Well, you’re both gone all day, is what I really meant, but she didn’t hear that.

Butters is a crack baby.  Easily stimulated.  Easily distracted.  Needs a heavy dose of Adderall.  The Teacher Girl is not one to be deterred, and so Butters is enrolled in obedience class.  As she puts it, “He will be a trained dog.”   That was a swipe at me, but I was training kids back then and didn’t have time to train a dog.  Which is why he bit a neighborhood kid who came into our house for a glass of water.  Once. 

This is the Teacher Girl holding class and getting Butters and our Old Fart to sit.  Attached to her belt is a pouch for treats.  Did you seriously buy that goofy thing?  Oh yes, she did.

The girl in on on a mission from God.   She’s a teacher.  She owns a pouch.  She’s got a dog to train.

Now move.

When I was a little girl and couldn’t fall asleep, my mom would say, “Now you say your Hail Marys and you’ll be asleep before you know it.”  All these many years later, that is still how I go to sleep.  Sort of.

When I close my eyes and say my prayers before drifting off, things get a little ADD.  I start off pretty intent, but it doesn’t take long for the train to leave the track.  Pretty soon, I’m praying for the sick and wondering if I should make chicken for dinner tomorrow nite.  Nah, there’s been way too much chicken around here.  Maybe a pork roast.  Yes, that’s what we’ll have for dinner.  I wonder if I’ve got any onions.  Did I buy onions the other day?  Surely there’s an onion in the fridge.  If I do go to the store, I have to get vacuum cleaner bags.   Does the Macy’s Mega Sale start tomorrow?   I’ll go there first, then get the onion and then a Target run for the rest.  I wonder if that check cleared.  I better do the bank balance before I go.  Say we won half a mill in a scratch-off, and say the IRS takes 40%.  O.k., that leaves me with $300K to pay the house and car off.  Say we allow $25K to redo the kitchen and paint the house.  O.k. we still have some to give to the people whose lives have been a crapshoot these last few years and……….oh, yeah, I was praying for them

I eventually get back to the prayer part after going over the river and through the woods, and it’s why I make it a point to be more accurate and say, “I’ll keep you in my thoughts.”  You plus the chicken, onions, vacuum cleaner bags, Macy’s, and a faux lottery win.  Maybe even the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island.”

It’s a jumbled interstate winding around up there, but if things are really not going well with you, you will be in my thoughts, and in my thoughts, and in my thoughts, and hopefully somewhere that counts as a prayer.  

“All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow, and the long voice of the hound.”

-Thomas Wolfe

When The Teacher Girl moved back home to do her student-teaching gig, she got me hooked on Wheel of Fortune.  Every night, we’d watch it together, solving puzzles, shouting out letters, yelling at contestants.  It is a well-known fact around here, that I cannot be beat.  Why?  Three reasons.  I love words.  I’ve cracked the Wheel code.  I am The Mother of All Dorks.

Before & After………….Concentrate on solving the first or second half, not the whole puzzle.  As soon as you’ve solved half of it, the rest is easy.

Prize Puzzle……….Always has to do with a destination spot.  Think beaches and you’re going to Hawaii.

Final Spin……….If it’s one word you’re toast.  Hard as hell to solve, but think compound word.

The kids always tell me I should try out for the Wheel and win my fortune, and I’ve considered it.  However, it is also a well-known fact around here that I get diarrhea when I get one of my Nerve Spells.   If a Southwest flight I was on should have an outbreak of the scoots, I could supply every passenger with Immodium because I carry that much with me all the time for the Nerve Spells.

If I ever did make it to The Final Spin, I’d probably stand at the marker and get that uh-oh, pre-diarrhea feeling and end up shouting, “I’m about to crap my pants.”  Old Pat and Vanna would say, gosh, sorry, no, it’s A Pot of Gold.   Well, we don’t refer to it as that in Kansas, but okay.  Then Pat would open the envelope and show me that I just lost thirty grand, and I’d have to go back to the Land of Oz with nothing to show for my troubles but a purse full of poop pills.

The Big Daddy and I closed last week on the Refi.  We had to go to a title company to do it because banks don’t do that sort of thing any more.  They do the gathering of info, crunching of the numbers, stamp it approved, and then send you off somewhere else to close the deal.  Kind of like pimps.  Financial pimps.

We had an 8:30 appointment in a big office building with nice carpet.  Nicer than we have here at The Estate.  The Big Daddy and I get nervous in places that are too nice.  We like a little less perfect surroundings when we do business, like the back alley where we buy our drugs.  I kid, I kid.  More like the crappy liquor store we frequent on the way home from church.  Cuz sinners need alcohol.

We sat down with a very efficient-looking closer at a big conference table.  We were to sign in blue ink as that is a requirement these days, and she set pens in front of us.  The first piece of business was the HUD statement.  “This shows that we’ll be paying off your mortgage of $246,000.00”  WHAT THE WHAT?????? is what the what me and The Big Daddy said at the same time.  That ain’t right, sista.  “Oh dear”, she says, “I grabbed the wrong papers.”  Well, you sure did.  Maybe you should pay attention to your paperwork instead of buying more art for your hoity-toity office.

She apologized.  Many times.  We finished the deal and left feeling like oh great, a mortgage, but with a lower rate.  Yippee-ki-ay.

On the way home, we passed the dealership where we bought our car.  When the deal was done there, the salesman told us that all new owners of a vehicle get to hit the gong.  Oh, The Big Daddy doesn’t do that kind of stuff and said to me, “I feel like I’ve been gonged in the ass, why don’t you take a hit.”  For five years now,  we’ve both made it a point to give the finger to the place every time we pass it.  Cuz car dealers are right behind bankers on The Skank Meter.

We’re immature in that way.  Well, actually we’re immature in a lot of ways, and this is on the down low, but on the way out of the title company, I stole the blue pens.  Just slipped ’em right off the table and into my purse.  If The Man is going to stick it to me and My Big Daddy, well, we’re gonna hurt ’em where it counts.  In the blue pen inventory. 

Last week, I started writing a post about where I write.  Specifically, how the room that I write in is a hangout for the animals.  How, even at this very moment, the dog is licking the carpet driving me up the fricking wall.  How Beamer the Wonder Cat sits on the desk with all the papers and whacks at my hand when I move the mouse.  And how, I wondered, can a person write anything decent when THAT is going on?

I had a little more editing to do before I posted it, but for the most part it was close to being ready.  I have a fear of sounding like a goofy, old bat who leaves their estate to their bird or stores dead cats in the the freezer so Animal Control doesn’t bust me.  Therefore, charming stories about precocious pets are few and far between.

On Saturday afternoon, I was outside and my neighbor was telling me that Beamer has been eating the dog food.  Their dog’s food, in their house.  Beamer goes over every day to hang out with Dora and Bogey, and the other nite she kicked him out at 11:00 so they could go to bed.  She tells me these kinds of stories all the time, and then usually ends with, “I love that cat.  He’s so cool.”

This morning, instead of going to see Dora, Beamer went across the street where he was hit by a car.  We didn’t know about it until another neighbor was walking her dogs and found him dead on the side of the road.  Can I tell you how much we all loved this cat?  That last nite when I was laying on the couch, Beamer came and laid right with me, purring until he dozed off.  That Mallie Bee is heartbroken as this was her baby.   That Dora was pacing and crying this morning and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.  That these lovely women who live next door to us both cried when they heard what happened.  That we put Beamer in a bag in the backyard until we could bury him and that another cat in the neighborhood came and sat beside him.

This pet who made a best friend next door, and brought out the wild in Dora so much that they both hopped a fence and laid on a picnic table taunting a Great Dane inside.  This pet who was a bit of a shit starter and a lot of a wild one that was a perfect fit for our family.  This pet that we didn’t get to have around nearly as long as we wanted, and will likely turn me into a batty, old lady who sits on a park bench telling stories about a cat she once had named Beamer to anyone passing by.