Gracie Got the Jinkum Blues, Y'all

FAIR WARNING: IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY BATHROOM HUMOR TURN BACK NOW!!! ok so I was in the bathroom peeing, and Gracie comes in and jumps on the back of the toilet, she has never been up there before so she got a little over excited with that and then I stood up and was bent over pulling my pants up and she stuck her nose where it CERTAINLY DOES NOT BELONG and she absolutely lost her mind!! She jumped down, ran in the living room, jumped on the couch and kept spitting (something she often does when over excited) and hopping around wide eyed crazy eyed running amok spazzing out. I was laughing about that and the thought that she quite possibly was freaking out over having her nose in my taint then Barry said it was the jinkum which I never heard of before and while he explained it to me (you people do NOT want to know but if you do google it)I was literally on the floor not able to stand up from laughing so hard. I am still laughing right now as I write this. Y'all just don't know how my brain works seriously I got issues and am probably gonna need hernia surgery from laughing so hard.

3:30 a.m. musings

I have been thinking a lot lately, dangerous I know, but danger is my middle name, yo. I found out a schoolmate of mine passed away suddenly the other day and it made me realize how short our time here with loved ones really is. I have begun to notice recently how fast time goes by (except winter, winter lasts FOREVER)and it is rather distressing. I try to call my mother every few days and talk because I have begun to realize there will come a day when one of us isn't here any more and I don't want to regret neglecting to call her nor do I wish she would regret calling me when we were both here and available to talk. I get wrapped up in things like my photography, which by the way is why I haven't written in so long. I forget to call anyone and then when I finally think of it, it is usually midnight or after and too late to call. Today I heard a quote from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and it struck me hard. "I will show you fear, in a handful of dust." wow. What that means to me is that though most people think we fear death, and we do of course, but in reality what we fear is that once we are gone, no one will remember us. We will cease to be. I don't want people to forget me. I want to be remembered. I think that is why when the doctor's are putting me under for surgery or procedures, I freak out a little bit. That darkness. Total darkness. I am afraid that I won't come back from it and I will just cease to be. I also think that is why I am waking up every morning at 3:30 a.m. I just pop awake and that is it I am up. I cannot sleep like I want to. Maybe since I have figured this crap out today I will be able to sleep until six at least tomorrow :D here's hoping anyway.

Another Year

So three days ago was my birthday. I turned 46. I was looking back on my life and some of the things I have gone through, surgeries, sickness, scoliosis, abuse, childbirth, motherhood, sisterhood, you name it I have been through it. I was thinking about how strong everyone thinks I am and how nice everyone says that I am and thinking about how awful I used to be when I was younger. I was a terrible daughter, a terrible wife, a terrible mother, a most awful friend and an even worse sister. I was mean. I try now to be a good person, to make up for all the ugliness that I used to be made up of and sometimes I do great, sometimes I fall short. I was going to write a long emotional blah blah blah, but I decided to tell you guys a story about a war I had with our neighbor, George. It will give you an idea of how mean I was when I was younger. So George didn't like me and I certainly did not like him. He would come over when his wife was alive and bring cookies she had baked for me and my sister and tell my sister they were for her but if she wanted to share with me she could but she didn't have to. He would turn the hose on me when I was trying to lay out in the sun. Then he started throwing rotten vegetables in our yard, cigarette butts, rotten meat, you name it. Well then he got some wind chimes and hung them over where they would irritate me because they were right outside my window. I kept getting madder and madder because they were really big and loud. I got to thinking, hey daddy hoards toilet paper, so my sister and I got a roll each and we went out and stuffed each chime on his wind chimes all the way full of toilet paper, taking a stick and poking it up in there real good. They quit ringing after that and he would come out and look at the chimes, I would watch from my window and when he would look up at me I would smirk. He never did figure out what we did lol. I also took the rotten food and threw it in his back door and the cigarette butts and duct taped them to his car, let the air out of his tires so he thought they had leaks, and just generally tormented him. He was awful.....but I didn't have to be that way. I chose to be that way. Today I try to be nice to everyone and help everyone in any way it is possible for me to help. I try not to be hateful or say mean things I will have to apologize for, not necessarily because I am a better person, but I really hate to apologize.

Mothering Part 3

Last fall I met someone that I have come to see as a mother figure. Her name is Carolyn and she is the sweetest, funniest woman. She moved into the apartment across the parking lot from me and I just knew when I saw her that I would like her so I went over and introduced myself. Almost every day since then I go over to her house or she comes to mine and we sit and talk and giggle. I have been taking pictures of nature and birds and have gotten her into looking for birds for me to photograph. We get out and go to the store some days or go hunting for barns to take pictures of and we have so much fun just riding around and acting silly. The first barn we found is what we call "our barn" and we go by there every time she goes with me to the doctor. We stop and get out of the jeep and smoke and look around. I have taken some wonderful pictures of the view through the window of the barn. We go on adventures to different places and she is one of my best friends. She is funny and silly and though some days we are not feeling so great we try to cheer each other up. I am blessed beyond measure with three mothers when most people only get one. I love you, Carolyn!! Happy Mother's Day!!

Mothering Part 2

When I met my fiancé, Barry, I had no idea I would gain another mother. Barry told me when I was going to meet his mother for the first time that she was going to think I was the girl who was stealing her son away from her. Lol you have to know Barry's mom, Norma, to know how funny that is and how not true. When she answered the door, she put her arms around me and hugged me tight and that was that, I had another mother. When we go to visit, she always makes me potato patties and pineapple casserole. She is so good to me. I am not just blessed with my mother, but with Barry's mother too, and let me tell you she raised a good man. She is the sweetest, smartest, most kindhearted woman. I have never felt so accepted and loved by someone outside of my family as I have with Barry's mother. She is intelligent but doesn't flaunt it and she treats me like I am her daughter so when I met Barry I gained a whole other family. How many women do you hear complaining about their in-laws and getting in fights with them? Not me, not Norma. I wish we could be with my mom and Norma today but we can't so I hope they are having a great day. I love you, Norma!! Happy Mother's Day!!

Mothering Part 1

Today is Mother's Day and I am blessed to still have my mother with me. When I was growing up we fought like cats and dogs and I was terrible as a teen. I don't want to think about all the horrible things I have said to my mother in my lifetime. I had no idea how much she loved me, or how much she did for me and put up with from me, until I had a beautiful daughter of my very own. I don't know what I would do without my sweet daughter Courtney. She has grown into a beautiful, strong, intelligent, kind hearted woman that I am so very proud of and blessed to have in my life. I remember how Momma used to get me up after she made us go to bed and let me watch 30 minutes of tv with her when daddy was on nights. I can't convey into words how special my mother has always made me feel. She thinks I am a writer, a purveyor of words, a poet, intelligent, pretty, witty and funny but really she is all of those things and more. My mother is beauty. She is smart, and hilarious, she is a writer, a poet, a songstress (I can't carry a tune in a bucket with a lid on top)she is witty and most of all she is mine. God chose her for me because we belong together. I imagine it was frightening to be handed a severely disabled child and not have a clue what to do, and though she thinks she didn't do so well, she did a wonderful job. I love my mother with every fiber of my being. Who I am today was shaped by all the fun and silly things, all the touching and special things, all the creative ways she made my sister and I feel special and loved are what made me who I am and for that I am so very grateful. I love you, mommie. Happy Mother's day!!

Road Trips With My Father

Last year I wrote a post for my father's birthday and this year I am doing the same thing of course. Partly because that man is hard to buy for and partly because I want to tell you all about a few of my favorite memories of my father. He turns 72 today, Happy Birthday, Daddy you are the best and I love you! When I was little I had to go every so often to the scoliosis clinic in Memphis for checkups to make sure my scoliosis wasn't getting worse (or better who really knows). We would get up before the sun came up at around 4:30 a.m. and get in the car and go to Memphis. Sometimes my mother and sister went, but most times it was me and daddy on a road trip. To this day, the sound of the tires on the interstate and the sound of a passing semi makes me smile and think of my daddy. We would get the appointment over with and then always, always stopped at Stuckey's for something to eat on the way home. There was one time that the car broke down and we got a ride from a truck driver to the truck stop where we hung out and waited for someone to come and get us. I met Carl Perkins that day. I remember those times as some of the best times because it was me and daddy, on the road listening to Johnny Cash or Don Williams on the 8-track player. I would look over at my daddy, so young at the time, and think he was the strongest, smartest, most handsome man in the world. I still look at him that way. My daddy knew how to fix anything and I still think he is the most handsome man I know. I think the most proud he has ever been of me, is when I gave him a grandchild. I have never seen him smile so big before or since. He scooped her up and took her up and down the hallways of the hospital, where he didn't know a single person, and showed her off to everyone he passed. That was the greatest feeling in the world right there, knowing I did something that made my daddy proud.

Haunted by Christmas Past

Yesterday was Christmas day, 2013. I am 45 years old so that means I have lived through 45 Christmas celebrations. I don't remember the first few obviously, but the first Christmas that I really remember is when I was about five or six years old and we had an aluminum tree. I was in the Christmas pageant at church and I remember rehearsing my lines over and over in the car and at home before going and then getting up in front of everyone and freezing up. I couldn't utter a single syllable. The next Christmas that I can recall I was in third grade I believe, we lived at 1103a East Wood Street in Paris, Tennessee. I remember that my sister and I were supposed to be asleep and we had left Santa an apple, of all things. We were whispering and listening when we heard a noise in the attic. There were footsteps, and then a crash, and lots of curse words I won't repeat here and then we heard the gifts being put under the tree and crunching as he ate the apple. It was a familiar voice. That is when we discovered that Santa and our father were the same guy. I don't remember any other Christmas until we lived on Manley street. Then it was all about telling our parents what we wanted and hoping we got it. Our family wasn't rich, but I don't remember ever being disappointed at Christmas as far as gifts that we wanted. However there was one thing that always happened to me every single year if I got a Barbie doll. I don't know why, but every Barbie doll I ever got broke immediately after I got it out of the box. Either the arm, leg, head or one time the whole thing broke in half. I called it the Barbie curse. I also refused to play at all with my sister unless she played with the broken doll. One year when the doll head fell off I just smooshed it down onto the neck until it stayed put and then she had no neck and I made my sister play with "no neck Barbie ". I was a horrible sister. Anyway I was remembering all of this and thinking how blessed we were then and how blessed we are now. Even with the curse on my Barbie dolls Christmas was always special and magical to me. I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did and many more to come. I'll be funny next blog just reminiscing this time around.

Other People's Lives

I have never really had what you would call a "Good" day. I don't tell you this to make you feel sorry for me, I don't know what I am missing so it's all good. I tell you this so you will understand why I think the way I do about other people's lives. I have always been sick, or in pain. ALWAYS. I don't really ever feel like doing anything much besides getting on the computer or reading. A nurse told me that one step for a normal person is like ten steps for me. Think about that for a minute. Think of all the steps you took today, now multiply that by ten. I have a dear friend who is an actress and living in New York. She had a movie come out last month and she is always posting pictures of her life, parties, working on movies, going to dinner with friends. I watch movies about the fast paced lives some people lead and I cannot wrap my head around it. I cannot imagine being able to run errands and go to dinner on the same day much less do any of the things other people do. I look at them and think, "Is that real? What does that feel like?" I am 45 years old and just realizing that there is a whole world of people out there, living lives and doing things I cannot even imagine and here I sit on my couch. I guess I am rambling but it just struck me this morning that my world is truly so small, but there is a world out there where people are living and having all kinds of exciting lives. I told my actress friend this morning that I wish I could be her for one day because one day would wear me out, but if I were healthy and normal and her for one day, I might not want to change back! I know there is a reason for everything and all of that jazz, God made me this way for a reason, but I sure wish he had given me just a little more energy and good health.

Kumquat, I will Miss You!!

I have several best friends. I actually wrote a blog about them a while back, but I also have a couple of friends whose relationship is....different to say the least. One such friend was Eugene Whitten. Eugene and I met in around 1993 and we were instant friends. He was loud and obnoxious and sooooo very hilarious. I was living in Rutherford, Tennessee and going to AA meetings in Milan, Tn and one day there he was, in all his craziness. He was a big man (around 380 to 400 lbs at his largest when I knew him)and we were like two peas in a pod. He came to visit me a couple of weeks after we met and stayed a few days in the tiny town of Rutherford and we had the BEST time!! My favorite memory is of Gene (wearing my big flowered bright housecoat), my daughter and myself running around in the grocery store shopping and for some reason we started yelling out the fruits that were available. Just walking along and belting out "Cantaloupe, peaches, watermelon, kumquat and pickled beets!!" I am still not sure how that last one got in there. Pickled beets. Pickled beets. Pickled Beets became his nickname for me. I always thought I should have been something cute like kiwi or star fruit, but he picked Pickled Beets. He became my kumquat though sometimes he signed his cards or notes to me as Kiwi. As it does life moved on. I found love and moved to Paducah and we lost touch for a while then came facebook and he found me on there and added me and I sent him my number and address and of course the cards rolled in. He would send me birthday, Christmas, or just everyday "I am thinking of you" cards. He would call me every week or two to check on me and we would talk for hours giggling and just being silly. Recently, he had to have surgery so he wouldn't be in touch for a few months and I was just thinking about him a few days ago and wondering how he was doing. My sister called me yesterday and told me he passed away. We are not even sure when or how, but my Kumquat is gone. My funny, loud, silly friend who often called me Smack Madam (if I needed a bath) and I would call him Jemima Puddleduck for the children's book, this special friend who made me cackle at the things he said is gone. I wish I could even begin to explain how I feel right now because though it doesn't seem real. I missed him before, but now it seems there is a Kumquat sized hole in my heart. I will miss you so much, Kumquat. I loved you dearly, Gene. Rest in peace.