Tag Archives: life

“New” Beginning

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I have been reading Momma’s blog and Cindyism’s and then I looked at mine – yup, once again I suck at keeping up with it daily. I think I will work on updating it once a week – with either what is going on with me, my thoughts or a memory.  Let’s see how I do at that.

Today started out alright, and now it isn’t.  I had to send sweet hubby to the store for me because some how I got some flu-ish type of bug.  It isn’t pleasant. I had to stay home from a meeting tonight as there was no way I could do my duties as “President” with the way I was feeling.  The secretary was oh so happy to take over for me.  Tomorrow is a big luncheon at church and of course I am supposed to be there doing many things.  I sincerely hope that I can make it.

So here is one of my thoughts – if you feel like you are coming down with something or you definitely know that you are ill; please for the love of all that is holy – STAY HOME!!  I already came down with a sinus infection which the offender tried to pass off as a seasonal allergy and I wasn’t happy.  Not sure who or how I got this latest “bug”; pretty sure it came from someone who needed to stay home.

Over the summer I got back in touch with an old friend and we have been enjoying speaking with each other and catching up on the 15 years that we hadn’t seen each other.  I do have some trouble keeping our “phone dates”. I don’t always like to chat on the phone and sometimes I just plain forget.  The other day I decided I needed a short nap first and ended up sleeping much longer then intended; yup, missed the phone date.

So this is some of what is going on with me – what is going on with you?

 

 

And we call her “Crash”!!

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In my last post, I wrote about my friend “Jenny” and that her nickname is Crash.  Since I did not elaborate on why she is called that I thought that I would do that now.

Back when we were in high school, it seemed every time that Jenny got behind the wheel of a car she got into a minor fender bender.  Though she rarely got a ticket, nor caused enough damage to bother with a car repair and no one got hurt, she just couldn’t seem to avoid having an accident.

I remember when she had just bought a new car for herself, a little yellow Pontiac Sunbird and she was so proud of it; couldn’t wait to take me for a ride.  She had graduated high school and had been working full time so we had to go out on a Sunday.

I spent a rare Saturday night at her house, giggling over “Tiger Beat” (a teen magazine about teen idol gossip, fashions, movies and music) and poring over stories in “True Detective” magazine. We didn’t stay up too late as we had promised my parents that I would go to her church in the morning.

We didn’t make it to church as it snowed and on top of what we already had on the ground from before we had to wait till the plow came through so that we could leave.  Once we could leave her house, after lunch, we decided to stop at the 7-11 near her house to get a Slurpee, an icy drink that almost always gave one a “brain freeze”.

When we pulled into the 7-11 I noticed that in plowing out their parking lot the snow was in massive mounds on either side of the driveway.  This made visibility of the road for the vehicle exiting totally impossible.  Inside we got our Slurpees, some more magazines and then headed back to the car.  Before I got back in the car I asked Jenny if she wanted me to go across the street and tell her when it was safe to pull out and she could then pick me up on the shoulder of the road.  “No”, she said, “I can see just fine”.

I didn’t have a good feeling about this, but got in the car anyway.  (You also should remember that this was before wearing seat belts in even the front seat was mandatory)  She started that Sunbird up and toward the driveway we went.  I mentioned again about the snow and maybe I should be outside letting her know when it was safe to come out of the driveway because we couldn’t see the road.  Nope, nope we would be just fine.

She pulled the car out of the driveway and not quite halfway across the lane when BAM!! We were hit by a car on her side, which pushed us into the other lane where we were hit by a car on my side.  Lots of ouchies received that day but no broken bones; just a lot of damaged car and no ticket.

Fast forward to 2013 the two of us in her car, driving down a busy 5 line road with multiple intersections and traffic signals; also lots of vehicles.  We are coming up to some stopped traffic, the light ahead is red – she is NOT SLOWING DOWN!!!  There is a pick-up truck dead ahead and I can tell that if she doesn’t stop really, really fast that the pick-up truck bumper will be contacting with our heads as her car is way smaller than that truck!!  “Jenny, you need to stop.”  (No reaction)  “Jenny, stop.”  (No reaction)  We are getting too close………. “STOP!! STOP!!! STOP THE DAMN CAR!!!”  She slams on the brakes and we barely stop in time.  She looks over and says, “Sorry”.  I have not ridden with her since; I will not.  And people wonder why I prefer to drive myself………………….

Go sit on the roof!!!

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A long time ago, in a world far, far away…….   Oh wait!!  Wrong movie!!

Back when the place where I grew up actually had 2 drive-in movie theatres my friend, “Jenny”, and I would often take her car and go for a double feature.

One night we had made plans to go see “The Hills Have Eyes”.  I am pretty sure it was paired with another horror movie, but because of what happened I can’t remember what the other movie was even about.   The plan was made and Jenny was to pick me up and I was going to spend the night at her house after the movie.  To say I was excited and happy to be going and getting out of the house would be an understatement.

I packed my bag, got some snacks ready (the real cool thing about drive-ins was being able to bring in your own snacks), popped some popcorn, grabbed some money and sat on the porch to wait for Jenny to pick me up.

Jenny pulled up in her latest car (her nickname is “Crash”) and jumped out to tell me something.  The something was that she had also invited 2 of her other friends along and they were already in the car and one was already riding shotgun (front passenger seat) and that was MY seat whenever we went anywhere.  Jenny told me that they had dropped by right as she was getting ready to leave and she had invited them to join us.  (Seriously you couldn’t have called and warned me?)

Now, if you are wondering why I was acting like such a little brat here’s the scoop – all 3 of them went to the same high school – but not with me, all 3 of them were a grade ahead of me and all of them were 2 years older than me.  I should’ve been thrilled to be going with them but instead I was being my pain in the butt younger self and being jealous.  Plain and simple; I was used to it being just the 2 of us and I didn’t like surprises.

Well, I climbed in the back of the car and tried to be pleasant to everyone; only Jenny knew that I was less than happy about the situation.  I ended up sitting behind Jenny and that was when the plan began to form.

We got to the drive-in and of course there was a discussion about where to park to watch the movies.  When Jenny voiced that she would rather park a little closer to the concession stand and the other two were voicing their objections, my voice said it should be driver’s choice and then I muttered something about it being her vehicle she should park it wherever she wanted to.  She parked where they wanted to.

We parked, went to the concession stand to get sodas, came back to the car and put the speakers on the windows. I passed around the snacks and popcorn, then put my icy cold soda between my knees and sat back to enjoy the show.

I used to be better with horror movies than I am now; could watch them all day and even find humor in them.  Well, I was finding more than humor in this one, I was getting more ideas.

About mid-way through this horror movie I discovered that not only were my knees getting cold from the soda, but my hands were also about freezing and then suddenly the plan came together.

I wrapped my hands around the cup and held on till my hands were really icy cold.  I leaned forward on my seat till my head was almost touching Jenny’s and I started talking to her about the creepy stuff that was happening in the movie; all the while slowly moving my hand out my window and in through her’s.  Then I slowly wrapped my hand around her throat, not hard enough to hurt her.  I just touched it with my icy hand enough to scare her silly. Well, she screamed and leaped toward the middle of the car and I sat back in my seat and laughed and laughed.

Unfortunately the joke was on me – first I was asked just what the hell I was doing and then I was told to get the hell out of her car and to sit on the roof till it was time to leave.  If I couldn’t be nice then I wasn’t allowed to sit in the car with the rest of them.   What??  I was only kidding around!!!

So, I took my popcorn, my soda and some of the snacks and exited the car.  I put my stuff on the roof and using the bumper as a first step I made my way up on the roof of the car where I sat for the rest of the evening.

It took many apologies and a couple of days before our friendship was back to where it was before the movie.  And now that we are older, it is something that we can laugh about when we reminisce.  Yes, she still calls me a little brat whenever the incident is brought up; but it is done amid smiles and laughter.  (I am glad that I have such a forgiving friend; especially when I was being a total jerk.)

Mine, mine, mine………

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I was having a bit of a problem thinking of what to write about and so I decided I would go back and read some old posts for inspiration; it worked and here is what I was reminded about.

I have a thing about sea gulls.  Ever since I was a small child I have not liked them, not one bit.   I remember that as a child we would go to Florida to visit our old neighbors who stayed down there in the winter.  (Same people who had cabin in Mio, MI) Often they would accompany us to the beach and feed the gulls.  They would hold up pieces of bread in their hand and the gulls would swoop down and grab it.

The husband was doing this once to show me how close they would come; he was in awful pain moments later when the gull hit him in the eye with a load of poop.  After that I would just stay in or near the car whenever anyone wanted to feed the gulls.

Shortly after that occurred, I happened to catch the old Hitchcock movie “The Birds” and after watching gulls attacking people and other scary scenes about birds I didn’t even want to be in the same air space as gulls.  They creep me out and I absolutely do not like to be near them.

Fast forward to being married and having children of my own and also living out on Long Island.  There are hundreds of gulls occupying the air space there; landing in droves in any parking area where there is fast food.  I have seen them try to follow people into grocery stores in search of their next snack.

On the particular day that I am thinking of, the gulls were at one end of the parking lot; and our family was at the other end getting food from Checker’s, clearly the kids’ choice.  We went into Checker’s, ordered and received our food and headed outside to eat at one of their picnic tables.

As soon as we sat down and started unwrapping our food, the gulls started coming towards us.  I was not going to sit out there unprotected from the gulls, so I took my food and went and sat in our van.  Soon my girls and sweet hubby followed suit and the gulls started milling around the van.

I was almost finished with my meal, as were the girls, when suddenly the gulls started attacking the top of the van and each other.  The more I heard them on the roof and saw how many were circling around the van and walking up to the van, the more creeped out I became.

I kept asking the kids to hurry up and finish so that we could leave the parking lot and all the gulls.  I was trying hard to keep the terror out of my voice too as I kept an eye on more than 100 gulls that had surrounded the van.

It was then that I noticed sweet hubby was quietly chuckling to himself.  He knew how much those damn birds bugged me.  So I asked him what he found so funny.  That was when he confessed that he had ordered extra fries and had dropped them in the parking lot on his way back to the van, as well as, put some on the roof of our vehicle. I wanted to throw him out of the van.   Here I was sitting there getting terrified because of my totally irrational fear of those birds only to find out that they were basically attacking our van because of him.

I told the kids to buckle up and grab onto their drinks as we were leaving – RIGHT NOW!!!  As I drove out of that parking lot, I was yelling at him about his insensitivity and he was chuckling about my “irrational fear” of gulls; when lo and behold a rather large gull landed on the mirror right outside of his window and just seemed to stare at him with pure malice.  This caused me to really hit the gas and head for the road.

The canoe trip

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A few of you may have heard me talk about going canoeing as a kid, sometimes with family, most often with the youth group from church.

I was either between grades 8 and 9 or between grades 9 and 10 when this particular trip happened.  Our church’s youth group would go camping up near Mio, MI for a weekend and go canoeing down the Au Sable River.   Good family friends had a cabin up near Mio and I was often allowed to spend a couple of weeks with them after the canoe trip was over.

This particular year one of the youth leaders, Steve, had a younger brother, “Lyn”, who had come up from Florida to go on the trip. He was tall and cute, a life guard and also a certified scuba diver; most of the girls were trying to get his attention.  My older sister had dated Steve, so it would of been weird for me to think of him as anything but just another guy on the trip.  We got along alright, just kept a healthy distance between us.

Also on the trip were two girls who I had never gotten along with and my friend, “Veronica”, had always been the butt of their jokes.  We will call them “Renee” and “Peggy”.  There was also the female leader, Lisa, and about 10 other kids.

Friday, we arrived at the campground and set up camp.  Veronica and I pitched my little orange two man tent as far from the leaders’ tents as possible and still be in our camping area.  There was the usual cook-out, followed by a sing-a-long and s’mores; then it was time for sleep.

Saturday, dawned bright and early and after eating breakfast and packing certain items in water proof bags we left to go to the canoe place and spend a day on the Au Sable River.

When we got there, Veronica and I loaded our things into our canoe and prepared to launch it.  There was only one problem.  I had been canoeing several times and Veronica had never been in one.  It would’ve been natural for me to sit in the back to steer the canoe and let her be in front where she would be paddling only when necessary.   She begged me to let her sit in the rear of the canoe; I wouldn’t let her.   I kept that resolve until after lunch when she finally wore me down to the point that it was easier to let her try to steer than to keep listening to her.

On our way after lunch, things were going along really well until we rounded a bend in the river and there were Renee, Peggy and a fallen tree blocking the river.  Those two had managed to get their canoe sideways across the river and Renee had hooked her paddle into some bushes growing out from the shore.  They weren’t going anywhere fast and here we were coming at them.  I told Veronica how to steer toward them and hopefully we could just knock into the end of their canoe that was closest to the shore, doing minimal damage; as in maybe we wouldn’t tip them over.

We couldn’t go toward the other bank as that is where the tree had fallen from and it blocked over half of the river.  You could see the river just rushing under it and I knew if we got much closer that we would be sucked under it too. The leaders were standing up on a hill on the other side of the tree yelling at Renee and Peggy to start moving.  I was already starting to paddle backwards to give them time to move out of the way.

Veronica had other ideas.  She decided to paddle against me and move the canoe toward where the branches of the tree almost touched Peggy & Renee’s canoe.  She figured (she told me later) that going through those branches would be less painful then our lives would be if we rammed their canoe and they tipped over.

The river was higher than normal and also moving fast, add to that the suction under the tree and you know that you have a disaster just waiting to happen.  And it happened!!   I was yelling at Veronica to back paddle, Peggy & Renee were yelling at us to not hit them, and the leaders were yelling to not go near the tree.

I remember turning slightly to yell again at Veronica when we were sucked under that tree.  I felt some awful hard bumps when the canoe started going under that tree with me in front and then the last thing I saw was Veronica’s hands clutching at a big limb so she didn’t go under the tree and then the canoe came down on my head.

The next thing I knew I was laying on the shore and everyone was ringed around me.  I truly felt that I had died or something.  Once I could sit up Steve and Lisa started asking me questions.  My head was killing me, and I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I asked what had happened as my arm was killing me and it even hurt to move my mouth to talk.

This is what I was told.  Our canoe got sucked under the tree.  Veronica managed to hang onto the tree so only had some scratches on her.  I went under the tree in the canoe.  The canoe hit me in the head and knocked me out.  The water was over 10 feet deep and Lyn had jumped in to get me.  Between the current, the tree and the canoe I ended up with a concussion, a dislocated shoulder and a dislocated jaw. We didn’t lose any of our stuff that was in the canoe; it just had to be fished out of the water.

I was in agony but we still had to make it to the canoe pick up.  This was back in the days before cell phones so I just had to tough it out. Lisa fashioned a sling out of a beach towel to help with my shoulder, there wasn’t much else she could do for me.  Lyn took over the paddling of my canoe and Veronica had to go in Steve’s.  I pretty much laid in the bottom of the canoe and tried not to move as moving made me want to puke.

We put in at the canoe pick up spot and just walking up to bus that would take us back to our cars made my world spin.  Steve and Lisa wanted to call my parents to pick me up but I convinced them that since the lady I was staying with was a nurse I would be alright.   They called my friends and once I let them know what happened they said that they would come early on Sunday to pick me up.  I only had to tough it out for 15 hours.

Back at camp, I was given spare pillows to try to use so that I could be comfortable laying on the ground and I also didn’t have to do any “chores” as I was injured.  Lyn and Lisa were always close by in case I needed anything.

On Sunday morning, everyone helped to pack up my tent and other things.  My friends showed up and took me back to their cabin where she managed to pop my shoulder and my jaw back in place. (Not something I would recommend being done outside of an ER)  I was given plenty of rest and love for the next few days as I recuperated from that traumatic experience.   It was also my last canoe trip with that group; canoeing just didn’t seem so fun anymore.

But you accepted the pig!!!

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Digging through my ring box the other day I came across a ring that is a turtle shape.  It is turquoise, some red stone and sterling silver; two of my favorite things are in that ring.  Upon seeing it, I was instantly brought back to those days in 9th grade when I had the unwanted attention from an underclassman.

He was in a couple of my classes, would always try to sit by me or get into conversations with me.  He was an okay person, just a wee bit strange and kind of clingy for a guy.  I had already told him several times that he wasn’t my type and to back off.  You think he would’ve gotten the message when I didn’t ask him to the Sadie Hawkins Dance!!

It was Christmas time and he followed me to my bus on that last day of school.  I can still see it as if it had happened yesterday.  His dark red hair, blue eyes, pale white face and holding out a wrapped present.  He assured me that it was for me and he didn’t expect one in return.  “Go on take it.  I got it just for you.”  Okay………….

Got it home and waited to open it till the 26th of Dec.  The box contained a cute, stuffed pig – cute if you like that sort of animal, and attached around it’s neck with ribbon were two rings.  I can’t remember what the one ring looked like but the other was the turtle one.  I cut the ribbon and tried on the rings; only the turtle one fit.

Returning back to school after the holiday, he was waiting for me as I stepped off the bus and tried his usual tactics to start a conversation.  I was my usual monosyllable self and tried to lose him in the hallway.  All too soon it was time for chorus, one of the couple of classes we were in together, and he was waiting at the door.  He got all excited when he noticed that I was wearing the turtle ring on my RIGHT hand.  I managed to get him to sit in his seat and leave me be till the end of class, when he insisted on walking me to my next one.

It wasn’t till the last hour of my day that I found out he had been running around school telling people that we were going steady.  I was like, “What??  Oh HELL NO!!!”  When I saw him after school I asked him what was going on with telling people that we were going steady.  He said, “Well we are!!”  And even tried to move in for a kiss; I was having none of that action.  I demanded an answer.  He said, “Well you came back to school wearing the ring I gave you for Christmas. And you accepted the pig it was attached to.”   I stood there with my mouth open in surprise as he hurried away to his bus.

The next day in chorus, he was given his stuffed pig back with both rings attached.  They made a nice clinking noise as it sailed through the air towards his head.   I told him to consider us broken up.  After that he was horribly obnoxious and crude to me for the rest of the year.  I did my best to ignore him because it didn’t sit well with the principal if I pulverized boys who were shorter than me, and underclassmen to boot.

I found the turtle ring in my backpack over the summer when I was giving it a deep clean before a canoe trip.  I don’t know when that little red haired twerp put it in there, or how he did it without being seen.   Now it sits in a little box with other rings that I don’t wear, but can’t seem to get rid of either.

It’s my electric personality

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Well, today I was playing around with some small electrics and through no fault of my own, got a bit of shock and oh was that a bit painful.  It reminded me of the other times that I have been poked by electricity in my life.

The very first time was when I was helping my friend move out during her divorce.  She had a clock hung over the stove and it was plugged in behind the stove.  No problem, I’m tall; let’s pull out the stove a little bit and I can just reach that plug.

Well, in pulling out the stove that little bit, a little bit of the plug for the stove came out so that there was just a bit of the prongs exposed while the rest stayed in the outlet.  Of course, I had no way of knowing that; I only knew that the plug for that clock was next to the 220 line for the stove.

Something told me not to be touching the stove so I leaned over balancing on my toes and reached behind it.  I felt an awful cold bite on my hand and then there I was sitting in the middle of my friend’s kitchen floor with a horrible taste in my mouth.   My friend was yelling “Are you all right?” and I just sat there looking at her thinking, what the hell just happened?   My hubby at the time came over as soon as she called him and he said it looked like I had hit the plug for the stove, all I know is it scared the hell out of me.  An electrician friend later told me that it was lucky I wasn’t touching the stove and that I didn’t grab onto it fully; we all think my hand didn’t grab it fully which is why I could let go of it.  (I think I make my guardian angels work overtime)

The next time I had a brush with electricity was when I moved into a different house and was painting a bedroom for my daughter.  Wanting to paint the outlet covers separately so that they weren’t painted onto the walls, I took a screw driver and went to pop it off the wall.  Found out the hard way the the previous owner had left some wires bare and close to the edge of the outlet.  Insert screwdriver and suddenly I wasn’t by the wall anymore, but back into the room with flames coming out of the holes for the plug.   Had to have the person helping me run downstairs and throw the circuit breaker, grab a fire extinguisher and put out the flames.   Had to call an electrician friend to come repair that mess.  He marveled that it wasn’t worse and checked all the other outlets and switches for me.

So, from now on this gal is really going to think two or three times before she plays with things that have any electrical impulses.

The Ice Pond

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Maybe because I can feel fall in the air; maybe because schools are starting up next week; maybe it is because I know that winter will not be far behind; or maybe just maybe it is seeing all these people dump buckets of ice over their heads for the ALS challenge  that I am thinking about my day with the icy pond.

Back when I was a little kid we lived on a major 5 lane road.  Because of this I mostly played in the backyard of the house; we had three acres so it wasn’t like I was deprived of play space.   I shared my back yard with my father’s quarter acre garden, a swamp, a raspberry patch, several good climbing trees and several ditches.

I don’t remember if I was born yet but there was some sort of trouble with a drain being busted and the result was our property would flood.  To keep our property from flooding beyond the swamp my father dug ditches and ran some sort of pumping mechanism so that he had land for the garden and we had an area to play baseball or badminton or volleyball in.   In the winter he would turn off the pumps and let that area flood so that we had a place to ice skate.

Leading down to that area was a hill that we used for sledding in the winter.  My older brother and my father would make the snow on the hill down to the ice pond into a “chute” which they then covered with water to create an ice chute for our sledding enjoyment.

We had a metal sled that because of it’s shape was called “the boat sled” as it looked like a slightly pudgy round cornered boat.  Put the boat sled at the top of the chute, kick your feet into the snow on either side to get going, tuck your body – feet and all – into the sled and hang on for the ride of your life.

On this particular day I was outside playing by myself and decided to go sledding.  I got the boat sled out of the garage and dragged it to the top of the hill, settled myself mostly in and kicked off.  And I sat!!  The sled was stuck in some snow that had melted a bit and messed up our smooth ice.  I got out of the sled and moved it a little bit farther down the chute to find a place where I could take off from.

Finding the right place, I put the sled on the chute and climbed in ready for a fast ride.

And what a ride it was!! I flew through puddles on that chute, laughing as I got icy splashes to my face and hanging on tight as that sled seemed to just fly down that hill.

Now, no one had ever told me that when Michigan gets that thaw mid-winter that you stay off of ice covered ponds and lakes till someone older and responsible checks it out for you; at least till not after the fact.

So there I was flying down the hill on that boat sled, picking up speed and enjoying the rush that only hurtling down a hill can give you.  I was even wondering just how far out on the ice pond I would go and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone at dinner that I had gone farther than anyone else had.

Got to the end of the chute and I was actually hurtling through the air like being on some whacky magic metal flying carpet!!  I was enjoying this immensely!!

Then I hit the ice pond, slid a little bit and promptly sank into water up to my armpits.  Being a bit on the tall side for a child of that age, the water came up to just my arm pits but I was still about 20 feet from any edge of the pond and I was outside alone!!

What to do??  What to do?? Well, I wasn’t about to lose the sled; especially if we were going to freeze over again before spring.  So I grabbed that sled and held it over my head and tried to walk out of that pond.  Should be easy, right?

I couldn’t go very far with the drag from my boots and holding that sled over my head made making headway all but impossible for me to do.   I remembered my cousin’s advice about what to do when you fall in a lake from a boat and figured it applied in this situation.  I lowered the sled and found that it would stay on top of the icy slush as long as I didn’t put any of my weight on it.  I figured out a way to remove my boots and put them on the sled. Then it was time for me to try to finish wading toward the shore.

It took awhile and I had to break some ice a few times to get to the shore.  Yelling for help did no good as no one was close enough to hear me and with it being winter, no one had any windows open either.  By the time I reached the shore it was all I could do to pull my boots on and make my way to the house.

I got inside and after explaining, to whichever of my siblings was supposed to be watching me, through chattering teeth I got out of my wet clothes, put into a warm bath, then into dry pajamas and put into bed with a heating pad or two.   I fell asleep and slept right through till breakfast, which I ate with gusto, just happy to be alive and already planning my next adventure in the back yard.

Just another sad event

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On Tues., July 8, 2014 my friend Rick died.  He didn’t die peacefully at home surrounded by loved ones as we often read in obituaries; but rather on a street, alone.  And herein lies  why it is so sad………….

Rick received a closed head brain injury quite a few years ago when the ATV he was riding on collided with a pick up truck that was going the wrong way on a clearly marked trail; Rick almost died.   Strong man that he was, he recovered and was able to walk, talk and sort of resume a normal life.  He really wasn’t competent to make legal decisions but his employer (the big blue oval) said that he had to return to work when in fact he should’ve been medically disabled and given disability.  He worked for a few more years and his employer kept demoting him as he could no longer handle his job.  Eventually he was offered a buy-out & retirement which he took and started being at home, every day, all the time.

He had some medical issues, suffered a few seizures when sleeping; otherwise he was a happy go-lucky guy – he just had no “filters” so to speak and often spoke exactly what he was thinking; which could either be hilarious or hurtful depending on the situation and what he said.  He liked to go on walks and was known to go dumpster diving behind stores.

One year for a few weeks Rick and his wife came and attended a financial class near us.  Since it was at night and we went too, they would come down for dinner, we’d all go to class and then they would come back to the house, play cards or watch TV and then spend the night.

The lady teaching the class was just a tad snobbish (at least that is how she seemed to us) but Rick never cared about that; he would still talk to her every week.  So one week he showed me what he had found while dumpster diving; it was a carved onyx donkey.  (I collect the stuff, and it was a nice piece)  He took it to class and was going to show her his great find.  For grins I said make sure you tell her where you found it after you show her.  He said alright, he didn’t care if people knew he went into dumpsters, and headed up to the front of the room to show her. I sat in the back of the class to watch what happened.

I could see him show her the piece, talking quite animatedly about it and she took it from his hand and was really looking at it, telling him how nice it was; I had a great view of her reaction when he told her where he had found it.  I thought this lady was going to throw it at him.  She rapidly dropped it in his hand and stepped back a couple of feet.  As soon as she could get away from him she came flying back to the back of the room and right into the Ladies’ room.

I slowly sauntered in there on the pretense of using it before class and saw her furiously scrubbing her hands. When she saw me in the mirror, I could tell that she was ready to explode – it was so hard to keep a straight face and inquire why she was so upset.  To her credit she didn’t say anything bad about Rick and never let on that anything was wrong; she just said that she had gotten something on her hands and needed to get it off.   For the rest of the sessions she wouldn’t touch anything that Rick brought to class.

Rick loved to joke around and kid.  If he liked you, you knew it.  He adored his wife and always told me how much he loved her.  Some of his favorite times were when he would come visit us and spend a night or two here.  He loved the way that sweet hubby cooked and would always praise him about his cooking skills.

On July 7, 2014 Rick died, alone on a street within a half mile of his house and on the 30th anniversary of his wedding to his much loved wife.

If you have ones that you love, let them know it – the more the better; you never know when your last day on this earth will be.

Up in “Hooterville”

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Today marks the 2nd day that we have been up with Momma and Jay.  Momma had shoulder surgery and needs a helping hand for a few weeks, so we packed our bags and drove up here.

Life is soooooooo much quieter here than it is at our house.  Even though we live in the same type of semi-rural community that they do, our neighbors are a bit closer and a ton noiser than theirs.  While I have seen their neighbors’ vehicles, I haven’t actually seen the neighbors.  The distance between them is such that I am comfortable enough to take the dog out for her early morning walks in my pjs; something that I would never do at home!

I am looking forward to venturing into Millington, which is nearby, not because I haven’t been there before but because I recently found out that they have a place that has amazing cinnamon rolls.  I found this out because I have a friend who must travel to places for her job and one of those just happened to be Millington and she wanted recommendations for restaurants.  So, being me I Googled Millington and found a recommendation for a down-home diner style restaurant that also has “excellent cinnamon rolls”.  I told my friend about the place and that maybe she should try it and let me know about the cinnamon rolls.  She did and told me how amaziing that they were and how many she also took home.  My mission this time is to get there and try one of those cinnamon rolls.

Well, it is heading toward 10am and I should probably take a quick shower while Momma is busy reading her paper.