Remember that old nursery rhyme? "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockleshells" and something else that I can't remember now but whatever it was it was "all in a row."
This morning, while Maya romped around the living room playing with various toys - mainly her Barbie princess dolls that she loves to remove their clothes and then brings them to me, one at a time, with the outfit to put back on the doll - and Kurtis was still sleeping, I managed to snag enough time to make the rounds of the favorite blogs I try to read every day.
One thing I noticed in today's rounds is that a lot of my favorite bloggers have flower gardens, some even have vegetable gardens too, and several of them even have some beautiful photos on their blogs of their pretty flowers "all in a row" or the vegetable or herb gardens they are working on and how well they are doing.
How I envy these people! Gardening is something I've never been able to "cultivate."
Although I come from a long line of gardeners - my Grandpa ALWAYS had a huge garden, every year until his health no longer permitted his doing that but even then, my Mom and Grandma took up the slack as much as they could manage and we still always had a fairly large vegetable garden, as well as having many flowers around the yard that Grandpa had planted here over the years. There was a huge peony bush that grew at the back of the house and for many, many years would blossom so beautifully - those huge lush flowers so big and heavy that the plant would be bent almost in half with the weight of the blooms on it.
The lot adjacent to my house now, when I was a kid, Grandpa had across the front several rose bushes which he tended to ever so lovingly. Beautiful roses they were. There was also a big forsythia bush over in that part of the yard and in the middle, he had a circular flower garden filled with all kinds of beautiful flowers. He had a section along the back part of the two lots - that separated the main back yard from the area where he had his vegetable garden and it had rows of dahlias, flocks and other larger flowers that he grew there too. There were also three big apple trees in the main back yard and a smaller apple tree down in the back lot as well. Over the years, all three of the big apple trees were cut down for one reason or another. A big old pine tree that used to stand between this lot and the adjacent one also had to be removed because the roots tended to spread and tangle themselves into the pipes leading from the house into the septic tank and inevitably created a problem that would cause the commode to back up into the house too then. And there was also a great big, really prickly type, fir tree/bush that grew alongside the chimney on the house too and it had to go as well. That one I never regretted seeing it cut down as it was so prickly it made trimming around it very difficult plus, the tiny "spear-like" parts it dropped on the ground made running around the yard in one's bare feet a real challenge!
After my kids and I moved from the house my ex-husband and I had built on the lot next door into this house - which had been built in 1903 by my Grandparents - I decided each spring for several years running that I would try to grow some vegetables in the back lot - like Grandpa had done all through my childhood and probably for at least 20-30 years before that.
I would have the area plowed and harrowed, try to rake through the ground more and get it ready to plant some things there - nothing fancy, not a whole lot but the normal vegetables most people tend to plant - onions, lettuce, radishes, carrots, peas, beets, corn, potatoes, some cabbage plants, tomatoes, cucumbers and occasionally I'd throw some pumpkin and squash seeds into the mix as well.
These designs I had in my mind for a nice vegetable garden that would provide fresh food for my kids and me at the end of the summer were all thwarted by what must surely be the "black thumb" that seems to plague me when it comes to gardening of any type!
Put a plant in my care and it will die - sure as God made little green apples - you could probably set a clock by the length of time these plants would last in my care! They would barely get out of the ground and presto magic, the black thumb apparently was waved over them and they would wither up and die!
In all the years I tried to have a garden in my back yard, the most I ever was able to get from any of my gardens was one year, I did "harvest" a cup - yes a whole cup - of peas!
My neighbor, now deceased, who lived two doors from me and who often used to admire and compare gardening notes too with my Grandpa told me one year after watching me trying to tend to my puny plants that if my Grandpa would see me, see this futile effort I was making to grow some things, he was probably rolling in his grave right now - either from sheer consternation or in laughter! The neighbor wasn't quite sure which emotion would be present - maybe even both!
So now I have long since given up the dream of ever having a nice garden from which to venture out and bring in fresh veggies, with all their better flavor, good nutrients and such to prepare for a family dinner.
I wish I could figure out how to correct these problems I have with the "growing greener" programs cause I'd sure love to go out in the garden and pick a ripe tomato right from the vine, rub the dirt off on my shirt or shorts and pop it into my mouth. Nothing tastes better than fresh food like that - dirt and all, ya know.
But for the sake of those poor seeds in the packets, the seedlings one can purchase at the greenhouses too - I don't want to cause anymore death and destruction to the plant kingdom of the world.
On a side note - changes around the house here - on Sunday, Mandy and Maya took a run over to Walmart for a few things and they came home with an inflatable pool for my little princess to play in! And, play she has too!
Sunday night, she couldn't wait until her Dad got the pool all inflated. He took it up to my son's and used the air compressor to do that task and when she saw him pull up out front, with that pool all inflated, ready to be filled with water, you can just imagine how excited and happy she was!
She "helped" Uncle Clate hold the hose to start filling it with water and as soon as she saw there was enough water in there to at least get her feet wet, in she went! For close to an hour, before supper, she romped around in the water, in the pool -out of the pool, just having herself a ball. Trying to pry her away to get her to come in, get dried off, dry clothes on to eat supper was quite a challenge. Sitting up to the table, she kept turning around, looking longingly at the front door as she knew, just on the other side of that door was that wonderful pool waiting for her return. There was an appetite for only one thing - going back out and into the pool. We tried and tried to reason with her that she needed to eat, etc., to no avail. At one point, she looked at us and said "Go swimming now. I eat later!" Full sentences are not usually a part of her vocabulary just yet and this one, so appropriately inserted into the dinner table conversation completely cracked all of us up!
Yesterday, Mandy had her outside, in the pool for about an hour or so in the late morning hours and again, in the afternoon for close to two hours so she really fully enjoyed herself "swimming." It's a bit on the dark side today - calling for rain sometime this afternoon so she hasn't seemed to even think about going "swimming" again - at least not as yet today but I'll lay odds the subject will come up again sometime before supper unless the rain moves in before then.
Have a nice day all!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Connect The People
My blogging buddy Mau up in Canada made a comment on my post below titled "Auld Lang Syne" which has a photo of all but three of my classmates who attended our recent class reunion two weeks ago that she thought it would be fun for readers to try to identify classmates of mine from old-old photos compared to our recent group photo. That might take some tricky manipulation of photos and such here but I thought what the heck, let's give it a try!
So what I'm going to do here is post some moldy-oldy photos of a few of my classmates and see how many of you can identify that person by looking at the group photo in the earlier post and the names I have shown on that post of everyone in the big picture. Are you ready for the challenge? You can label your answers in the comments by first pic, second pic, etc, etc. Here goes!
1 2
3
4
5
6
7 & 8
Pictures 1 thru 6 are senior photos, the bottom photo -well, it's just a big older. These two girls grew up side by side - and no, neither one of them is me, but they were my next door neighbors and childhood playmates as I lived on the other side of the girl to the right on the picture.
Have fun!
And, if identifying people from old photos (who you don't probably know in the first place) to pictures of them today as shown on a post two below this one isn't a fun thing for you, the only other thing I have to offer today is this Bushism for tomorrow -June 19, 2007. I can't give you the one for today as it seems someone has dared to rip a page out of my calendar -again!!!
"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe, and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right." - Rome, Italy; July 22, 2001.
Wonder what it is that he actually believes, don't you?
So what I'm going to do here is post some moldy-oldy photos of a few of my classmates and see how many of you can identify that person by looking at the group photo in the earlier post and the names I have shown on that post of everyone in the big picture. Are you ready for the challenge? You can label your answers in the comments by first pic, second pic, etc, etc. Here goes!
1 2
3 
4
5 
6
7 & 8
Pictures 1 thru 6 are senior photos, the bottom photo -well, it's just a big older. These two girls grew up side by side - and no, neither one of them is me, but they were my next door neighbors and childhood playmates as I lived on the other side of the girl to the right on the picture.
Have fun!
And, if identifying people from old photos (who you don't probably know in the first place) to pictures of them today as shown on a post two below this one isn't a fun thing for you, the only other thing I have to offer today is this Bushism for tomorrow -June 19, 2007. I can't give you the one for today as it seems someone has dared to rip a page out of my calendar -again!!!
"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe, and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right." - Rome, Italy; July 22, 2001.
Wonder what it is that he actually believes, don't you?
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Something in the air?
Today was, by all standards, a beautiful day - at least if you base those standards on warm weather, loads of sunshine, things like that.
But today was one of those days with a deep-seated feeling in me that I couldn't shake and have no clue as to what exactly brought it on either. Inside, I just wasn't feeling all "sunny and bright."
I thought maybe it was a subconscious thing inside me where I was feeling a lot of the regrets of life -remembering the things I did wrong. All those shoulda, coulda, woulda things we all have, don't we - or am I alone on this one?
Maybe I was just not feeling up to par for other reasons that are working on me and I don't know what they are - some medical issues about to launch and set me back a notch? Who knows.
But by the time I got around to reading the posts on some of my favorite blog reading list, it seems that I wasn't the only one having a "bad day."
Blogger Claire was feeling a bit on the punk and tired side after slaving and struggling away to finish up work for her college courses this past semester and not having an easy time of it either. She's also just trying to bounce back from having had a nasty ear infection a couple of weeks ago that played into putting her behind in her course work, along with just generally kind of slapping her upside the head a bit too. Not exactly that it's the old "misery loves company" thing here, but reading her post and then, clicking into the comments there for her for today, well that did tend to bring a smile or two up within me. The words of wisdom may have been intended for Claire, but I found a lot of comfort in their content as well.
And then there's the good old Meloncutter who wasn't his normal zany self today either because he was worrying about some recent episodes in the life of his teenage son. I have no words of wisdom to share with him other than to tell him I can relate to the anxiety he's experiencing having been down that road with all three of my kids a time or two in their teenage years and occasionally getting a return trip down that highway too when -now and again - one of my kids manages to pull some stunt - usually my son - that sets my teeth on edge or just generally gets my nerves all roiled up.
Why is it though when you aren't having exactly a stellar day to start with, it seems other things throughout the day happen that just seem to upset you, drag you down a bit more then too?
Besides just not feeling up to par - not sick, just off-center I guess -today, Miss Maya decided to let fly and see how many things she could do to keep things on a downward spiral here.
The first thing she did that should have been an omen of more to come was get into the new container of kitty litter her mother had bought and brought into the house today. The mistake was that her Mama set the container down on the dining room floor thinking it was a safe area and would't -or shouldn't be a problem. WRONG! Miss Maya managed to take the cap off the container and proceeded then to pour kitty litter directly on to the dining room floor! Lovely! NOT! I don't know why this child has taken up this love of kitty litter in the past 7-10 days now but she has. THe only "good" thing about this stunt today - compared to those she pulled off on me last week - was this at least was fresh kitty litter, not of the "already been used" type which last week had held her fascination. Ok, so her Dad and I had a fun time trying to sweep up all this kitty litter today.
Then a little while after that, Maya decided to play with the cat's water dish and dumped most of it on the kitchen floor. Enter the mop here to that area as I tried to soak up as much of the water as possible with the sponge mop then.
While I was cooking supper -and this, she did right under my eyes, within five feet of where I was standing no less, Maya came out and picked up the cat's food dish and promptly picked it up and dumped the contents of the dry cat food on to the kitchen floor. OK, child, this time Grammy took her by the hand, led her to the cat food, sat her down on the floor and told her to pick up the cat's food and put it all back into the dish. And, she did that. Ok, not a perfect job but she did try to pick all the cat food up and did manage to get most of it back into the dish. But then, she grabbed the bag of cat food and proceeded to pour some of that on to the floor and started the mess process all over again. This time, her big sister, Kate, swept up the cat food for me because I was trying to feed the baby at that time.
Later in the evening, Maya decided the in thing to do would be to take the little can of the Nestle's strawberry milk flavoring stuff and it would be ever so nice, ever so pretty to dump that powder on to the kitchen floor too! ARRGH!
About the time 9 p.m rolled around and my favorite weekly program - "The Office" -was coming on, I cranked the volume up on the tv because in order to catch the dialogue on that show, I seem to have to always turn the volume way, way up. Well, it comes from another factor there actually too - that being for some reason, probably because I have to listen really closely to what is being said, watch just as closely too what's happening on that show, but it seems every Thursday night, regardless of what time NBC broadcasts "The Office" - the little grandson here, good old Kurtis, decides that it is time then for him to stand up in his playpen and exercise his vocal chords then! Not crying, not fussing - just making tons and tons of loud -VERY LOUD - noises! Can you say ARRGH with me again?
Then, when Mandy got home from work and said something to me about the evening, I made the mistake of just saying to her "Don't even ask how things went today" and she got all bent and uptight over that. So much so that she said to me later that she really wished she would be able to come home from work one night and not listen to me say something to the effect of "Don't even ask." Now she thinks maybe she should make other child care arrangements -which would negate then the reason for her taking any job right now anyway - that being to try to get ahead a bit, financially. Geez, Louise!
It isn't that watching the kids is too much for me to take care of because most of the time it isn't near that much of a disaster zone. It's just that somedays, when it is, it's usually because I am having a "disaster zone" in my mind that seems to trigger these things - or at least makes them seem to feel worse than they probably really are.
But today, with Mandy's response, the problems I read that Claire and also the Meloncutter are experiencing, the way I was feeling today, I'm thinking maybe there was something floating about the airwaves today that was causing all this tension, these issues, problems, etc.
Either that or there's a full moon!
How about your day today? Was it nice and smooth or full of bumps and spilled water, kitty litter, milk flavoring powder and a variety of other things?
Looking towards tomorrow now and maybe it will be a better day for one and all, here's the Bushism then for Friday, June 15, 2007
"Anyway, I'm so thankful, and so gracious --I'm gracious that my brother Jeb is concerned about the hemisphere as well." -- Miami, Florida; June 4, 2001
And, while I'm at it -here's the Bushism then for the weekend too. May as well get a jump on these things you know.
Saturday/Sunday - June 16/17, 2007
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." - Washington, D.C.; April 28, 2005
Gee - maybe I should have read the Bushism for tomorrow and the weekend when I first got up this morning, huh? Might have put me on a better plane than other things did!
But today was one of those days with a deep-seated feeling in me that I couldn't shake and have no clue as to what exactly brought it on either. Inside, I just wasn't feeling all "sunny and bright."
I thought maybe it was a subconscious thing inside me where I was feeling a lot of the regrets of life -remembering the things I did wrong. All those shoulda, coulda, woulda things we all have, don't we - or am I alone on this one?
Maybe I was just not feeling up to par for other reasons that are working on me and I don't know what they are - some medical issues about to launch and set me back a notch? Who knows.
But by the time I got around to reading the posts on some of my favorite blog reading list, it seems that I wasn't the only one having a "bad day."
Blogger Claire was feeling a bit on the punk and tired side after slaving and struggling away to finish up work for her college courses this past semester and not having an easy time of it either. She's also just trying to bounce back from having had a nasty ear infection a couple of weeks ago that played into putting her behind in her course work, along with just generally kind of slapping her upside the head a bit too. Not exactly that it's the old "misery loves company" thing here, but reading her post and then, clicking into the comments there for her for today, well that did tend to bring a smile or two up within me. The words of wisdom may have been intended for Claire, but I found a lot of comfort in their content as well.
And then there's the good old Meloncutter who wasn't his normal zany self today either because he was worrying about some recent episodes in the life of his teenage son. I have no words of wisdom to share with him other than to tell him I can relate to the anxiety he's experiencing having been down that road with all three of my kids a time or two in their teenage years and occasionally getting a return trip down that highway too when -now and again - one of my kids manages to pull some stunt - usually my son - that sets my teeth on edge or just generally gets my nerves all roiled up.
Why is it though when you aren't having exactly a stellar day to start with, it seems other things throughout the day happen that just seem to upset you, drag you down a bit more then too?
Besides just not feeling up to par - not sick, just off-center I guess -today, Miss Maya decided to let fly and see how many things she could do to keep things on a downward spiral here.
The first thing she did that should have been an omen of more to come was get into the new container of kitty litter her mother had bought and brought into the house today. The mistake was that her Mama set the container down on the dining room floor thinking it was a safe area and would't -or shouldn't be a problem. WRONG! Miss Maya managed to take the cap off the container and proceeded then to pour kitty litter directly on to the dining room floor! Lovely! NOT! I don't know why this child has taken up this love of kitty litter in the past 7-10 days now but she has. THe only "good" thing about this stunt today - compared to those she pulled off on me last week - was this at least was fresh kitty litter, not of the "already been used" type which last week had held her fascination. Ok, so her Dad and I had a fun time trying to sweep up all this kitty litter today.
Then a little while after that, Maya decided to play with the cat's water dish and dumped most of it on the kitchen floor. Enter the mop here to that area as I tried to soak up as much of the water as possible with the sponge mop then.
While I was cooking supper -and this, she did right under my eyes, within five feet of where I was standing no less, Maya came out and picked up the cat's food dish and promptly picked it up and dumped the contents of the dry cat food on to the kitchen floor. OK, child, this time Grammy took her by the hand, led her to the cat food, sat her down on the floor and told her to pick up the cat's food and put it all back into the dish. And, she did that. Ok, not a perfect job but she did try to pick all the cat food up and did manage to get most of it back into the dish. But then, she grabbed the bag of cat food and proceeded to pour some of that on to the floor and started the mess process all over again. This time, her big sister, Kate, swept up the cat food for me because I was trying to feed the baby at that time.
Later in the evening, Maya decided the in thing to do would be to take the little can of the Nestle's strawberry milk flavoring stuff and it would be ever so nice, ever so pretty to dump that powder on to the kitchen floor too! ARRGH!
About the time 9 p.m rolled around and my favorite weekly program - "The Office" -was coming on, I cranked the volume up on the tv because in order to catch the dialogue on that show, I seem to have to always turn the volume way, way up. Well, it comes from another factor there actually too - that being for some reason, probably because I have to listen really closely to what is being said, watch just as closely too what's happening on that show, but it seems every Thursday night, regardless of what time NBC broadcasts "The Office" - the little grandson here, good old Kurtis, decides that it is time then for him to stand up in his playpen and exercise his vocal chords then! Not crying, not fussing - just making tons and tons of loud -VERY LOUD - noises! Can you say ARRGH with me again?
Then, when Mandy got home from work and said something to me about the evening, I made the mistake of just saying to her "Don't even ask how things went today" and she got all bent and uptight over that. So much so that she said to me later that she really wished she would be able to come home from work one night and not listen to me say something to the effect of "Don't even ask." Now she thinks maybe she should make other child care arrangements -which would negate then the reason for her taking any job right now anyway - that being to try to get ahead a bit, financially. Geez, Louise!
It isn't that watching the kids is too much for me to take care of because most of the time it isn't near that much of a disaster zone. It's just that somedays, when it is, it's usually because I am having a "disaster zone" in my mind that seems to trigger these things - or at least makes them seem to feel worse than they probably really are.
But today, with Mandy's response, the problems I read that Claire and also the Meloncutter are experiencing, the way I was feeling today, I'm thinking maybe there was something floating about the airwaves today that was causing all this tension, these issues, problems, etc.
Either that or there's a full moon!
How about your day today? Was it nice and smooth or full of bumps and spilled water, kitty litter, milk flavoring powder and a variety of other things?
Looking towards tomorrow now and maybe it will be a better day for one and all, here's the Bushism then for Friday, June 15, 2007
"Anyway, I'm so thankful, and so gracious --I'm gracious that my brother Jeb is concerned about the hemisphere as well." -- Miami, Florida; June 4, 2001
And, while I'm at it -here's the Bushism then for the weekend too. May as well get a jump on these things you know.
Saturday/Sunday - June 16/17, 2007
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." - Washington, D.C.; April 28, 2005
Gee - maybe I should have read the Bushism for tomorrow and the weekend when I first got up this morning, huh? Might have put me on a better plane than other things did!
Auld Lang Syne
No, I don't have my seasons and holidays confused. I know it isn't New Year's although that song title is the big one of choice for New Year's Eve, isn't it?
Actually, the reason behind that title is because I got something in the mail today from my classmate - Bernie Lucas Kapura -which i scanned and sent out a copy of this photo to all of my classmates for whom I have a working e-mail address. I even received a reply from one of the guys from our class too in which he thanked me for sharing the photo and thought it was a great picture as well.
So here it is now - I present to you the members of the Cooper Center of the West Branch Area High School, Class of 1962 who attended our 45th Class Reunion. Unfortunately, when this picture was taken some of those who had attended were not still present when we got around to taking photographs of all of us as a group, so Art Folmar, Ernie DeGrasse and Linda Wertz Payne are missing from the picture although they were there at the reunion.
And, for those of you with really inquiring minds who want to know who everyone is on this picture - and how much each one has or hasn't changed over the past 45 years - here's the identification of these folks in the photograph.
Row 1, seated, left to right: Sharon Rolley, Carol Folmar Nadzom, Frances Lucas, Kathryn Nelson Eyerly and Arlene Anderson Stover.
Row 2, seated, left to right: Loretta Bunyak Greenfield, Betty Samansky Danko, Bernadine Lucas Kapura, Susie Violanti and Doris Thompson Malinky,
Row 3, standing, left to right: Durvin Wick, Nancy Benton McFarlane, Harold Hahn, Thomas Chakan, Rosalind Little Wick, Jennifer Hill Ertmer, Herbert Lucas and John Harvey.
The photo was taken by Ed Kapura - husband of classmate, Bernie Lucas Kapura - and I think Ed did a really great job - as usual -with getting a terrific group photo of my classmates -and me -on the occasion of our 45th Class Reunion.
Now begins the job of planning our 50th Reunion. It just never ends, does it? Well, lets hope this aspect of our lives doesn't end too soon anyway.
And now, the Bushism for today, Thursday, June 14, 2007, which by the way, in case anyone has forgotten also happens to be "Flag Day."
"Now we talked to Joan Hanover. She and her husband, George, were visiting with us. They are near retirement --retiring --in the process of retiring, meaning they're very smart, active, capable people who are retirement age and are retiring." - Alexandria, Virginia; February 12, 2003.
Hmmm - let's hear that one more time for those who didn't get the message to begin with - are these people retiring or are they near retirement age, in the process of retiring, or what? A little bit redundant there, don't 'cha think, DUBYA?
Actually, the reason behind that title is because I got something in the mail today from my classmate - Bernie Lucas Kapura -which i scanned and sent out a copy of this photo to all of my classmates for whom I have a working e-mail address. I even received a reply from one of the guys from our class too in which he thanked me for sharing the photo and thought it was a great picture as well.
So here it is now - I present to you the members of the Cooper Center of the West Branch Area High School, Class of 1962 who attended our 45th Class Reunion. Unfortunately, when this picture was taken some of those who had attended were not still present when we got around to taking photographs of all of us as a group, so Art Folmar, Ernie DeGrasse and Linda Wertz Payne are missing from the picture although they were there at the reunion.
And, for those of you with really inquiring minds who want to know who everyone is on this picture - and how much each one has or hasn't changed over the past 45 years - here's the identification of these folks in the photograph.Row 1, seated, left to right: Sharon Rolley, Carol Folmar Nadzom, Frances Lucas, Kathryn Nelson Eyerly and Arlene Anderson Stover.
Row 2, seated, left to right: Loretta Bunyak Greenfield, Betty Samansky Danko, Bernadine Lucas Kapura, Susie Violanti and Doris Thompson Malinky,
Row 3, standing, left to right: Durvin Wick, Nancy Benton McFarlane, Harold Hahn, Thomas Chakan, Rosalind Little Wick, Jennifer Hill Ertmer, Herbert Lucas and John Harvey.
The photo was taken by Ed Kapura - husband of classmate, Bernie Lucas Kapura - and I think Ed did a really great job - as usual -with getting a terrific group photo of my classmates -and me -on the occasion of our 45th Class Reunion.
Now begins the job of planning our 50th Reunion. It just never ends, does it? Well, lets hope this aspect of our lives doesn't end too soon anyway.
And now, the Bushism for today, Thursday, June 14, 2007, which by the way, in case anyone has forgotten also happens to be "Flag Day."
"Now we talked to Joan Hanover. She and her husband, George, were visiting with us. They are near retirement --retiring --in the process of retiring, meaning they're very smart, active, capable people who are retirement age and are retiring." - Alexandria, Virginia; February 12, 2003.
Hmmm - let's hear that one more time for those who didn't get the message to begin with - are these people retiring or are they near retirement age, in the process of retiring, or what? A little bit redundant there, don't 'cha think, DUBYA?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Blast from the Past
Boy, what a day! What surprises it held for me!
I had plans in place today that I was going to meet the nephew and great-nephew of my Mom's older sister's husband and a cousin of theirs for lunch up at Jim/Charmaine's so that isn't the big surprise today held for me. But a visitor who showed up at my house around 1 p.m. today was a total shock to me.
I was gathering up my clothes to take into the bathroom so I could get dressed after a nice little shower when I noticed a red pickup truck with a cap had pulled up in front of my house. I could see a man on the passenger side peering out the window, looking at the house as if to decide if this was the right house or what. He got out, started down the walk and I met him at the door. I asked if I could help him thinking maybe he was looking for someone and I could give him directions.
To my surprise, he responded, "Yes, I'm looking for Jennifer Hill."
I laughed and replied to him "Well, you found me!"
The look on his face was something else - this huge smile as he started to explain who why he was looking for me. He mentioned his name so quickly, I didn't grasp it but then he said that as a kid, many years ago, he used to come here for a week or two every summer and spend that much of his summer vacation with his great aunt and great uncle (not a couple - they were brother and sister) who lived down the street from my house here.
It was at that point when it all registered to me who this was and I practically screamed out his name - "RICKY!"
The smile broadened even more.
"You remember me," he asked?
Oh my, yes indeed I do! And the funny part about all this is that only a couple weeks earlier I had mentioned to my neighbor and good friend down the street - Kate - about Ricky, if she remembered that kid from down around Philly area who used to come up here every summer and stayed with his great aunt/uncle - Axel and Frieda Johnson - who by the way had been the previous owners of Kate's house too, no less!
He had a friend with him - Drew - who he introduced to me and then, he began asking me questions about various people he'd known way back when - all kids we had played with probably close to 50 years ago!
This was something that really, really made me day complete. How great to have someone you haven't seen since you were a little kid show up on your doorstep, out of the blue, and realize that other person enjoyed and still remembers all the crazy, fun things we used to do here to pass our summer vacations from school.
He told his friend and traveling buddy how much he had loved coming here, looked forward to these visits. And I remember too how some of the other neighbor kids and I used to bug Axel and Frieda, his uncle and aunt, about as soon as school let out asking how soon Ricky would be coming up for his yearly visit here.
And, if you remembered what I told you before you left to go back to Philly today, how to find my blog here and if you're reading this, I just want to say thank you so much for stopping by and surprising the living daylights out of me today, Ricky!
Come back again sometime too - just don't wait another 45 to 50 years to make the trip!
I had plans in place today that I was going to meet the nephew and great-nephew of my Mom's older sister's husband and a cousin of theirs for lunch up at Jim/Charmaine's so that isn't the big surprise today held for me. But a visitor who showed up at my house around 1 p.m. today was a total shock to me.
I was gathering up my clothes to take into the bathroom so I could get dressed after a nice little shower when I noticed a red pickup truck with a cap had pulled up in front of my house. I could see a man on the passenger side peering out the window, looking at the house as if to decide if this was the right house or what. He got out, started down the walk and I met him at the door. I asked if I could help him thinking maybe he was looking for someone and I could give him directions.
To my surprise, he responded, "Yes, I'm looking for Jennifer Hill."
I laughed and replied to him "Well, you found me!"
The look on his face was something else - this huge smile as he started to explain who why he was looking for me. He mentioned his name so quickly, I didn't grasp it but then he said that as a kid, many years ago, he used to come here for a week or two every summer and spend that much of his summer vacation with his great aunt and great uncle (not a couple - they were brother and sister) who lived down the street from my house here.
It was at that point when it all registered to me who this was and I practically screamed out his name - "RICKY!"
The smile broadened even more.
"You remember me," he asked?
Oh my, yes indeed I do! And the funny part about all this is that only a couple weeks earlier I had mentioned to my neighbor and good friend down the street - Kate - about Ricky, if she remembered that kid from down around Philly area who used to come up here every summer and stayed with his great aunt/uncle - Axel and Frieda Johnson - who by the way had been the previous owners of Kate's house too, no less!
He had a friend with him - Drew - who he introduced to me and then, he began asking me questions about various people he'd known way back when - all kids we had played with probably close to 50 years ago!
This was something that really, really made me day complete. How great to have someone you haven't seen since you were a little kid show up on your doorstep, out of the blue, and realize that other person enjoyed and still remembers all the crazy, fun things we used to do here to pass our summer vacations from school.
He told his friend and traveling buddy how much he had loved coming here, looked forward to these visits. And I remember too how some of the other neighbor kids and I used to bug Axel and Frieda, his uncle and aunt, about as soon as school let out asking how soon Ricky would be coming up for his yearly visit here.
And, if you remembered what I told you before you left to go back to Philly today, how to find my blog here and if you're reading this, I just want to say thank you so much for stopping by and surprising the living daylights out of me today, Ricky!
Come back again sometime too - just don't wait another 45 to 50 years to make the trip!
How Many Years?
I was going to wait till I finished the other roll of film before I posted any of the photographs from my recent class reunion but oh heck, if I do that, as long as it sometimes take for me to finish a roll of film, it might take a really long time and I might even forget to post the pictures then. So I decided tonight that I'd post the photos I have now and when I get the rest developed, share them at that time.
So, ready or not - here goes!
These three lovely ladies would be Sue Violanti, Sharon Rolley and Nancy Benton. Nancy traveled from Aurora, Colorado to Pennsylvania just to spend the evening with the rest of her classmates. Now, that's some dedication, isn't it?
Over to the left side here now, the lady in the middle is Loretta - better known though as "Lori" Bunyak who lives in northern Virginia -outside the District of Columbia. Lori grew up about four houses up the street from me and loves to remind me about the time when we were about kindergarten age I invited her and the other kids around our homes to a birthday party at my house (for me, of course) and it wasn't even my birthday! (My Mom was really surprised when some kids showed up for a party but she took it all in stride and fixed up a little lunch with lemonade in the backyard for us.
The guy standing in the middle there is Harold Hahn -who lives in Philipsburg now. Harold was one of our star baseball players in high school and continued playing the game for many years after we graduated with the team in Philipsburg that I think was sponsored by the American Legion there. Four years ago this summer, when I had two herniated discs and was getting tons of physical therapy, there was a young man who often worked on my back - a very friendly young fellow and there was something very familiar to me about him. I could never peg it then, but his voice always made me feel like I'd known him for a long time. Imagine my surprise when I learned within the past two years that young man is Harold's son - no wonder his voice sounded so familiar because he sounds just like his Dad! (Oh and if you look closely behind Harold you can get a little glimpse of the photo display board I had put together for the reunion.)
The lady with the blue top on in this photo is Doris Thompson, who lives over in Curwensville. Seated at the table is Marg Harvey, who is married to our classmate John "Butch" Harvey and standing in the rear is Mike McFarlane from Colorado, husband of classmate Nancy Benton who is standing off to the left in front of the table. That's Sharon Rolley in the front left side -well, half of her anyway! My Mom, when she lived with me down in Maryland, used to babysit Marg and Butch's first child and expanded her babysitting operations in our apartment too when their second child, second daughter, came along. Butch was one of my regular chauffeurs when I first went to work in D.C. because he and his roommate usually came back home almost every weekend and I could almost always hitch a ride home with them.
Starting in the rear, with their backs to my camera at the photo display are Jim Eyerly (husband of Kate Nelson -our class president) and Harold Hahn. Then there is Lori Bunyak's back and at the rear of the table is Kate Nelson. In the center - Betty Samansky, then Carol Folmar and her husband, Ed Nadzom with Durvin Wick standing to the right side. Ed Nadzom graduated two years ahead of our class, but he - like Lori Bunyak and Kate Nelson was also someone who I grew up with as he lived about two houses up the street from me. As a matter of fact, when we were about 6 and 8 years old, respectively, Eddie would come down to my house and we would play "house" in the back yard. Years later I figured out why Eddie would come play with me, because I had a bicycle (and he didn't) and he would hop on my bike, saying "I'm going to work now, the Dad has to go to work" and off he'd go, riding my bike for a few minutes and then, he'd come back, announcing "I'm home from work now." I have to add too that Eddie's also one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet and really is not a "user" type person -i.e. "using my bike" ya know. Always was a lot of fun to be around him then and still is. Isn't it great to have friends you've known since you were 3-4 years of age though?
In this picture, starting again on the left, there is Ed Stover, who is married to classmate Arlene Anderson, then Irene Danko, from the class two years ahead of ours and who was a guest of her cousin, Frances Lucas, is seated. That's Tom Chakan standing in the doorway talking to Herb Lucas. The man in the center with the camera is our classmate, Bernie Lucas' husband, Ed Kapura. Bernie and Ed Kapura and Arlene and Ed Stover and Herb are folks who almost always attend all our class reunions and Ed Kapura does a great job with taking photographs of us, so we usually give him the job of lining everyone up and taking a group picture of all of us from our class present at each reunion. Tom Chakan there, this was especially nice to see him again as the last time he made it to one of our reunions was 35 years ago! And the nice thing is that he's changed very, very little over the years!
Maybe since we have some visitors this week from Phoenix to the area I will have a chance to use the film left in the camera faster than I normally do and will be able to get that developed soon then. When I do, you can be sure to expect I'll post more photos of my class reunion and the bunch of really great people who were there this year!
Now - before I head off to get things started, finished, etc for the day, here's the lovely Bushism for Wednesday, June 13, 2007.
"Let me be very clear about this. Steroids out to be banned from baseball." - Washington, D.C.; October 4, 2005
So, ready or not - here goes!
These three lovely ladies would be Sue Violanti, Sharon Rolley and Nancy Benton. Nancy traveled from Aurora, Colorado to Pennsylvania just to spend the evening with the rest of her classmates. Now, that's some dedication, isn't it?
Over to the left side here now, the lady in the middle is Loretta - better known though as "Lori" Bunyak who lives in northern Virginia -outside the District of Columbia. Lori grew up about four houses up the street from me and loves to remind me about the time when we were about kindergarten age I invited her and the other kids around our homes to a birthday party at my house (for me, of course) and it wasn't even my birthday! (My Mom was really surprised when some kids showed up for a party but she took it all in stride and fixed up a little lunch with lemonade in the backyard for us.The guy standing in the middle there is Harold Hahn -who lives in Philipsburg now. Harold was one of our star baseball players in high school and continued playing the game for many years after we graduated with the team in Philipsburg that I think was sponsored by the American Legion there. Four years ago this summer, when I had two herniated discs and was getting tons of physical therapy, there was a young man who often worked on my back - a very friendly young fellow and there was something very familiar to me about him. I could never peg it then, but his voice always made me feel like I'd known him for a long time. Imagine my surprise when I learned within the past two years that young man is Harold's son - no wonder his voice sounded so familiar because he sounds just like his Dad! (Oh and if you look closely behind Harold you can get a little glimpse of the photo display board I had put together for the reunion.)
The lady with the blue top on in this photo is Doris Thompson, who lives over in Curwensville. Seated at the table is Marg Harvey, who is married to our classmate John "Butch" Harvey and standing in the rear is Mike McFarlane from Colorado, husband of classmate Nancy Benton who is standing off to the left in front of the table. That's Sharon Rolley in the front left side -well, half of her anyway! My Mom, when she lived with me down in Maryland, used to babysit Marg and Butch's first child and expanded her babysitting operations in our apartment too when their second child, second daughter, came along. Butch was one of my regular chauffeurs when I first went to work in D.C. because he and his roommate usually came back home almost every weekend and I could almost always hitch a ride home with them.
Starting in the rear, with their backs to my camera at the photo display are Jim Eyerly (husband of Kate Nelson -our class president) and Harold Hahn. Then there is Lori Bunyak's back and at the rear of the table is Kate Nelson. In the center - Betty Samansky, then Carol Folmar and her husband, Ed Nadzom with Durvin Wick standing to the right side. Ed Nadzom graduated two years ahead of our class, but he - like Lori Bunyak and Kate Nelson was also someone who I grew up with as he lived about two houses up the street from me. As a matter of fact, when we were about 6 and 8 years old, respectively, Eddie would come down to my house and we would play "house" in the back yard. Years later I figured out why Eddie would come play with me, because I had a bicycle (and he didn't) and he would hop on my bike, saying "I'm going to work now, the Dad has to go to work" and off he'd go, riding my bike for a few minutes and then, he'd come back, announcing "I'm home from work now." I have to add too that Eddie's also one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet and really is not a "user" type person -i.e. "using my bike" ya know. Always was a lot of fun to be around him then and still is. Isn't it great to have friends you've known since you were 3-4 years of age though?
In this picture, starting again on the left, there is Ed Stover, who is married to classmate Arlene Anderson, then Irene Danko, from the class two years ahead of ours and who was a guest of her cousin, Frances Lucas, is seated. That's Tom Chakan standing in the doorway talking to Herb Lucas. The man in the center with the camera is our classmate, Bernie Lucas' husband, Ed Kapura. Bernie and Ed Kapura and Arlene and Ed Stover and Herb are folks who almost always attend all our class reunions and Ed Kapura does a great job with taking photographs of us, so we usually give him the job of lining everyone up and taking a group picture of all of us from our class present at each reunion. Tom Chakan there, this was especially nice to see him again as the last time he made it to one of our reunions was 35 years ago! And the nice thing is that he's changed very, very little over the years!
Maybe since we have some visitors this week from Phoenix to the area I will have a chance to use the film left in the camera faster than I normally do and will be able to get that developed soon then. When I do, you can be sure to expect I'll post more photos of my class reunion and the bunch of really great people who were there this year!
Now - before I head off to get things started, finished, etc for the day, here's the lovely Bushism for Wednesday, June 13, 2007.
"Let me be very clear about this. Steroids out to be banned from baseball." - Washington, D.C.; October 4, 2005
Monday, June 11, 2007
Missing In Action!
This has been a VERY long weekend for me. I've been lost. Boy, was I lost! Since about 7:30 p.m. Friday night, I had no computer - thanks so very much to a nasty electrical storm that made its way through here and knocked out my telephone line - partially - and also, nipped my modem in the process.
And to someone who is as addicted as I am to my computer, you have to know it was a rough weekend for me.
Even with the crummy problems I've been having off and on of late with my lovely provider, at least, I could log on, get my e-mail (or most of it anyway), read my blog favorites, do a post to my blog, surf, play Pogo games and generally, stay relatively happy as a result of this lovely little machine.
A visit today from a telephone repairman got my phone line issues straightened out - also required my son-in-law to install a new jack for the phone to the computer too because the old jack was in rough shape, all corroded and such - and my son took the computer into the computer place where I bought it and got a new modem installed for me too. So now, here I am again, all set, ready to roll!
Aside from the computer issues of the weekend, I did get a couple of things accomplished. Since I couldn't get online but could still work - offline - on my family tree maker program, I took advantage of no interruptions of e-mail, blogs, spam -whatever - and printed out the data a cousin had sent me on our family tree and used that to update my family tree on my Dad's father's side. I have it pretty well updated right now!
And, yesterday, we passed a little bit of a landmark within the family as well. Mandy and I went to church and for the first time in almost a year, we took Maya with us once again. We were both really edgy as we walked in because the last time we attended services and had Maya along was the day Kurtis was baptized and Maya had, at that time, decided for who knows what reason that she wanted no part whatsoever of church if it involved a service, sitting in the main sanctuary, etc., etc. At Kurtis' baptism, I ended up sitting out almost all of the service either in the narthex, rocking Maya, trying to soothe whatever terrors existed in her mind at that time pertaining to church, or walking around outside with her to keep her from screaming the entire length of that service.
Was Maya totally well-behaved, quiet, like a sweet little girl should be? No, not quite. But she responded a darned sight better than she did last July at Kurtis' baptism and Mandy only had to take her out to the narthex two, maybe three times, for very brief intervals to get her calmed down again, avoiding any major meltdowns.
As we exited after the service, the couple who had been seated directly in front of us, smiled and Martha leaned over to me saying, "You survived!" Yep, that we did! Pastor asked as he greated me how I felt and my answer to him was a simple one -"Relieved!"
Yep, Mandy and I were both relieved because we could see this much progress there in Maya to get her through a service, lasting a little over an hour maybe, without her being totally disruptive, without one of us having to sit out the entire service in the narthex or walking her around the building either.
Near the end of the service, Pastor Joel called all the kids from our youth ministry who are participating in a trip -beginning next Sunday - to North Carolina where they will do "assistive" ministry, helping folks around their homes with light maintenance work and such - to come forward, introduce themselves and state too how many other field trips they have each made with the youth ministry group. My stepgranddaughter (Kate) and her girlfriend (Erin) were among the kids who reported to the front of the church - along with my next-door neighbors two daughters (Alina and Kylie). After the introductions, Pastor asked the congregation to give the kids a round of applause for their hard work on these trips.
As the kids were going up front to the altar, when Maya saw her sister and Erin, then Alina and Kylie going up there, she wanted to go up there too. I had to catch her before she started down towards the kids and she started to cry out "Wan see Katie, wan see Erin, wan see Alina, wan see Kylie" and trying to take her back to our pew, she was on the verge of going into a slight meltdown, so I took her out to the narthex then for a minute or two and got her calmed down. As we walked back into our seats was right when the congregation gave the kids a big round of applause. Upon hearing everyone clapping, Maya stopped dead in her tracks and immediately began clapping -and singing - "Patty cake, patty cake" which is what she apparently thought the applause was an indicator to sing that little ditty!
But it was a good day, all in all! And, we figure Maya's comprehension levels have improved enough that perhaps a few more trips to church and she'll be much more comfortable with the routine - and so will we!
I just realized today too that it was really a smart move on my part that I had put the Bushisms in that post that covered Friday and the two weekend days or tonight, I would be way behind, having to play "Catch-up ball" you know. But instead, I only need to post the Bushism for today but I think I will plan ahead a tad here and give you today's AND tomorrow's too in yet another attempt to get myself functioning in a more timely manner here! Remember, the intent is there. Whether it will work all that well remains to be seen!
Monday - June 11, 2007
"I firmly believe that the world cannot allow the world's worst leaders to hold America blackmail, threaten America, threaten our peace and threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons. - South Bend, Indiana; September 5, 2002
And, for Tuesday, June 12, 2007
"You see, the Senate wants to take away some of the powers of the administrative branch." - Washington, D.C.; - Washington, D.C.; September 19, 2002
And to someone who is as addicted as I am to my computer, you have to know it was a rough weekend for me.
Even with the crummy problems I've been having off and on of late with my lovely provider, at least, I could log on, get my e-mail (or most of it anyway), read my blog favorites, do a post to my blog, surf, play Pogo games and generally, stay relatively happy as a result of this lovely little machine.
A visit today from a telephone repairman got my phone line issues straightened out - also required my son-in-law to install a new jack for the phone to the computer too because the old jack was in rough shape, all corroded and such - and my son took the computer into the computer place where I bought it and got a new modem installed for me too. So now, here I am again, all set, ready to roll!
Aside from the computer issues of the weekend, I did get a couple of things accomplished. Since I couldn't get online but could still work - offline - on my family tree maker program, I took advantage of no interruptions of e-mail, blogs, spam -whatever - and printed out the data a cousin had sent me on our family tree and used that to update my family tree on my Dad's father's side. I have it pretty well updated right now!
And, yesterday, we passed a little bit of a landmark within the family as well. Mandy and I went to church and for the first time in almost a year, we took Maya with us once again. We were both really edgy as we walked in because the last time we attended services and had Maya along was the day Kurtis was baptized and Maya had, at that time, decided for who knows what reason that she wanted no part whatsoever of church if it involved a service, sitting in the main sanctuary, etc., etc. At Kurtis' baptism, I ended up sitting out almost all of the service either in the narthex, rocking Maya, trying to soothe whatever terrors existed in her mind at that time pertaining to church, or walking around outside with her to keep her from screaming the entire length of that service.
Was Maya totally well-behaved, quiet, like a sweet little girl should be? No, not quite. But she responded a darned sight better than she did last July at Kurtis' baptism and Mandy only had to take her out to the narthex two, maybe three times, for very brief intervals to get her calmed down again, avoiding any major meltdowns.
As we exited after the service, the couple who had been seated directly in front of us, smiled and Martha leaned over to me saying, "You survived!" Yep, that we did! Pastor asked as he greated me how I felt and my answer to him was a simple one -"Relieved!"
Yep, Mandy and I were both relieved because we could see this much progress there in Maya to get her through a service, lasting a little over an hour maybe, without her being totally disruptive, without one of us having to sit out the entire service in the narthex or walking her around the building either.
Near the end of the service, Pastor Joel called all the kids from our youth ministry who are participating in a trip -beginning next Sunday - to North Carolina where they will do "assistive" ministry, helping folks around their homes with light maintenance work and such - to come forward, introduce themselves and state too how many other field trips they have each made with the youth ministry group. My stepgranddaughter (Kate) and her girlfriend (Erin) were among the kids who reported to the front of the church - along with my next-door neighbors two daughters (Alina and Kylie). After the introductions, Pastor asked the congregation to give the kids a round of applause for their hard work on these trips.
As the kids were going up front to the altar, when Maya saw her sister and Erin, then Alina and Kylie going up there, she wanted to go up there too. I had to catch her before she started down towards the kids and she started to cry out "Wan see Katie, wan see Erin, wan see Alina, wan see Kylie" and trying to take her back to our pew, she was on the verge of going into a slight meltdown, so I took her out to the narthex then for a minute or two and got her calmed down. As we walked back into our seats was right when the congregation gave the kids a big round of applause. Upon hearing everyone clapping, Maya stopped dead in her tracks and immediately began clapping -and singing - "Patty cake, patty cake" which is what she apparently thought the applause was an indicator to sing that little ditty!
But it was a good day, all in all! And, we figure Maya's comprehension levels have improved enough that perhaps a few more trips to church and she'll be much more comfortable with the routine - and so will we!
I just realized today too that it was really a smart move on my part that I had put the Bushisms in that post that covered Friday and the two weekend days or tonight, I would be way behind, having to play "Catch-up ball" you know. But instead, I only need to post the Bushism for today but I think I will plan ahead a tad here and give you today's AND tomorrow's too in yet another attempt to get myself functioning in a more timely manner here! Remember, the intent is there. Whether it will work all that well remains to be seen!
Monday - June 11, 2007
"I firmly believe that the world cannot allow the world's worst leaders to hold America blackmail, threaten America, threaten our peace and threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons. - South Bend, Indiana; September 5, 2002
And, for Tuesday, June 12, 2007
"You see, the Senate wants to take away some of the powers of the administrative branch." - Washington, D.C.; - Washington, D.C.; September 19, 2002
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Just One of "Those Days!"
Ever have one of those days when it seems nothing wants to go right for you? They pop up now and again - usually fairly randomly too, thank goodness. But today, it seems was one of those days for me.
First -I've been trying for almost three weeks to speak to someone with Verizon - my telephone company - about paying my bill online. I had set up an account back in April to do that and about two weeks later, my bank sent me a new bank card, with a new expiration date - also a new three digit code too on the back -but everything else on it was the same as before, same account number, name, etc. I went into "my account" on the Verizon set-up and was able to change the expiration date, but it wouldn't let me do anything to change that pesky three digit code so therefore, when my bill came due, I couldn't pay it online.
I had called the phone company then - after a lot of searching to find a number in which you could call and actually speak to a real person ya know. They in turn, gave me the number for their "tech support" - which number by the way, is not listed on the online bill nor is it on any paper copies of phone bills either! So I tried to call that number several times and each time I would wait and wait and wait for someone to answer, but to no avail.
Today, I really had to get this resolved because it was the last day to pay before I would be getting a third month's billing added to it!
I didn't even try today to call anyone - just went online and after much searching, finally found a way to get the darned set up to change all the data on my account and then was able to pay the freaking bill! Things like that really annoy me! A choice example of technology supposedly helping us but yet, making things just a tad more difficult!
Then, since I had some success with the phone company an my issues with them, I decided to tackle the problems with my internet provider - try to see if they could explain why for the past 10-12 days - at least - my e-mail has been returning mail to some senders with a message that my e-mail is closed "due to inactivity." When the heck this "inactivity" took place is beyond me because my computer is online almost 24/7! Go figure.
Well, two days ago the provider, after I had sent an e-mail complaint to them, they had responded asking me to please send them a copy of the e-mail that had been returned due to inactivity. Now, talk about a stupid request - that one takes the cake! How the heck can I send them a copy of an e-mail I never received because they had returned it to the sender, marking it undeliverable, due to "inactivity" of my account?
I explained that -again - to the techie guy and this clown thought I was referring to "undeliverable" messages in my webmail that my e-mail software either won't bring over from the webmail or Peoplepc.com decides it doesn't want to send them through - I dunno the answer there either. Anyway, these are messages with attachments that get dumped into an undeliverable box because they are over 1mb in size. (And no matter what setting I put on my e-mail settings, it still can't or won't pull these through and they have to be opened then in the webmail, which I had because I hate the way it handles attachments!) I know, picky, picky, huh?
Well anyway, back to the "inactivity" problem - the tech guy monkeyed around a while, kept me on hold for a good 3-5 minutes while he said he was "checking things out" and when he came back to me, his explanation for the problems I'd been having was that my spaminator level was set at too high a detection level and he had lowered that and now, presto-magic, all should be operating fine and dandy! Frankly, I don't see how the spaminator level could have caused my e-mail to return mail to the senders saying my account was closed due to "inactivity" but if you say so buster, I'll take you at your word for the time being anyway!
After all that took place, a lady from one of the yahoo groups I belong to happened to post some questions she had about spam and how she was currently getting slammed with all kinds of dating service ads in the spam and I, feeling quite cocky, put up a post about my provider being basically a piece of crap but I did have to give them high marks for the anti-spam stuff they have in play because if I am lucky, the most spam I would generally get -that would slip by - in a month, was about maybe 6-8 pieces. Remind me never to say anything nice again about Peoplepc.com, will ya?
After having put that post up on our message boards, suddenly I started gett e-mail and what was it? Freaking SPAM! So far tonight, I have received around 15 pieces of SPAM - more than I generally would get in a two month time period!
So, what do I do now? Do I go back to Peoplepc.com and tell them to re-elevate my spaminator levels, not get the spam but run the risk of people sending me stuff and the provider sends it back marked as undeliverable - due to "inactivity?" Or do I contend with the damned SPAM, just deep six it as it comes in and be grateful that my e-mail is coming through to me!
Why can't I have the best of both worlds ya know - no SPAM and get my e-mail meant to come to me too?
ARRGH! What the heck is a USER to do anyway?
Tonight though - just to prove that my e-mail is working ok on the outbound message service, I sent 86 photos through to a cousin of mine for her to use in a family DVD of photos she is putting together for our family reunion to be held on June 23rd over at DelGrosso's (formerly Bland Park) in Tyrone, PA! Bet she was happy to get all that incoming mail, huh?
And, now, in closing for today - here's some Bushism for you - that will carry you through the weekend, just in case your e-mail gets blocked after tonight or mine does and no one can get any e-mail in or out!
For Thursday, June 7, 2007
"Part of the facts is understanding we have a problem, and part of the facts is what you're going to do about it." Kirtland, Ohio; April 15, 2005.
Friday, June 8, 2007
"A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an economic illness." - on The Edge with Paula Zahn; September 18, 2000
and finally - for Saturday and Sunday - June 9th and 10th, 2007
"I think it's very important for world leaders to understand that when a new administration comes in, the new administration will be running the foreign policy." Interview with USA Today; January 12, 2001
No lie, DUBYA! Great display of 'correct' grammar in the first Bushism for June 7th. And, how about the line for the weekend - isn't that just a wonderful piece of news to learn that with a new administration, we will get that "new administration" running foreign policy too? And silly me, I thought maybe the Clinton administration would just stay on and run the foreign policy, didn't I? Sure I did, didn't you? Apparantly DUBYA must have been surprised to learn they wouldn't though or why else would he make an idiotic statement then like that one? Don't answer that, Tomcat!!!
First -I've been trying for almost three weeks to speak to someone with Verizon - my telephone company - about paying my bill online. I had set up an account back in April to do that and about two weeks later, my bank sent me a new bank card, with a new expiration date - also a new three digit code too on the back -but everything else on it was the same as before, same account number, name, etc. I went into "my account" on the Verizon set-up and was able to change the expiration date, but it wouldn't let me do anything to change that pesky three digit code so therefore, when my bill came due, I couldn't pay it online.
I had called the phone company then - after a lot of searching to find a number in which you could call and actually speak to a real person ya know. They in turn, gave me the number for their "tech support" - which number by the way, is not listed on the online bill nor is it on any paper copies of phone bills either! So I tried to call that number several times and each time I would wait and wait and wait for someone to answer, but to no avail.
Today, I really had to get this resolved because it was the last day to pay before I would be getting a third month's billing added to it!
I didn't even try today to call anyone - just went online and after much searching, finally found a way to get the darned set up to change all the data on my account and then was able to pay the freaking bill! Things like that really annoy me! A choice example of technology supposedly helping us but yet, making things just a tad more difficult!
Then, since I had some success with the phone company an my issues with them, I decided to tackle the problems with my internet provider - try to see if they could explain why for the past 10-12 days - at least - my e-mail has been returning mail to some senders with a message that my e-mail is closed "due to inactivity." When the heck this "inactivity" took place is beyond me because my computer is online almost 24/7! Go figure.
Well, two days ago the provider, after I had sent an e-mail complaint to them, they had responded asking me to please send them a copy of the e-mail that had been returned due to inactivity. Now, talk about a stupid request - that one takes the cake! How the heck can I send them a copy of an e-mail I never received because they had returned it to the sender, marking it undeliverable, due to "inactivity" of my account?
I explained that -again - to the techie guy and this clown thought I was referring to "undeliverable" messages in my webmail that my e-mail software either won't bring over from the webmail or Peoplepc.com decides it doesn't want to send them through - I dunno the answer there either. Anyway, these are messages with attachments that get dumped into an undeliverable box because they are over 1mb in size. (And no matter what setting I put on my e-mail settings, it still can't or won't pull these through and they have to be opened then in the webmail, which I had because I hate the way it handles attachments!) I know, picky, picky, huh?
Well anyway, back to the "inactivity" problem - the tech guy monkeyed around a while, kept me on hold for a good 3-5 minutes while he said he was "checking things out" and when he came back to me, his explanation for the problems I'd been having was that my spaminator level was set at too high a detection level and he had lowered that and now, presto-magic, all should be operating fine and dandy! Frankly, I don't see how the spaminator level could have caused my e-mail to return mail to the senders saying my account was closed due to "inactivity" but if you say so buster, I'll take you at your word for the time being anyway!
After all that took place, a lady from one of the yahoo groups I belong to happened to post some questions she had about spam and how she was currently getting slammed with all kinds of dating service ads in the spam and I, feeling quite cocky, put up a post about my provider being basically a piece of crap but I did have to give them high marks for the anti-spam stuff they have in play because if I am lucky, the most spam I would generally get -that would slip by - in a month, was about maybe 6-8 pieces. Remind me never to say anything nice again about Peoplepc.com, will ya?
After having put that post up on our message boards, suddenly I started gett e-mail and what was it? Freaking SPAM! So far tonight, I have received around 15 pieces of SPAM - more than I generally would get in a two month time period!
So, what do I do now? Do I go back to Peoplepc.com and tell them to re-elevate my spaminator levels, not get the spam but run the risk of people sending me stuff and the provider sends it back marked as undeliverable - due to "inactivity?" Or do I contend with the damned SPAM, just deep six it as it comes in and be grateful that my e-mail is coming through to me!
Why can't I have the best of both worlds ya know - no SPAM and get my e-mail meant to come to me too?
ARRGH! What the heck is a USER to do anyway?
Tonight though - just to prove that my e-mail is working ok on the outbound message service, I sent 86 photos through to a cousin of mine for her to use in a family DVD of photos she is putting together for our family reunion to be held on June 23rd over at DelGrosso's (formerly Bland Park) in Tyrone, PA! Bet she was happy to get all that incoming mail, huh?
And, now, in closing for today - here's some Bushism for you - that will carry you through the weekend, just in case your e-mail gets blocked after tonight or mine does and no one can get any e-mail in or out!
For Thursday, June 7, 2007
"Part of the facts is understanding we have a problem, and part of the facts is what you're going to do about it." Kirtland, Ohio; April 15, 2005.
Friday, June 8, 2007
"A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an economic illness." - on The Edge with Paula Zahn; September 18, 2000
and finally - for Saturday and Sunday - June 9th and 10th, 2007
"I think it's very important for world leaders to understand that when a new administration comes in, the new administration will be running the foreign policy." Interview with USA Today; January 12, 2001
No lie, DUBYA! Great display of 'correct' grammar in the first Bushism for June 7th. And, how about the line for the weekend - isn't that just a wonderful piece of news to learn that with a new administration, we will get that "new administration" running foreign policy too? And silly me, I thought maybe the Clinton administration would just stay on and run the foreign policy, didn't I? Sure I did, didn't you? Apparantly DUBYA must have been surprised to learn they wouldn't though or why else would he make an idiotic statement then like that one? Don't answer that, Tomcat!!!
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Cheese and Whine!
No, this post isn't a rant - only a little tiny bit of it is -right here at the beginning.
I'm perturbed and I don't know what or who to be perturbed with. Is this my computer, my ISP or blogger playing nasty tricks on me? For the past three days, there are several on my blog favorites list who I have visited and when I went to make a comment, I couldn't get any cooperation. Either the comment block would come up as unavailable, or just blank. Then today, I thought maybe my run of luck had changed as I went to make a comment at Linda's blog (Are We There Yet) and it opened up for me just fine and dandy. I made my post, hit the publish button and it was processing and then poof - gave me a nasty error message indicating this time there was a problem with blogger! Really tightens my jaws when things like that happen.
Then, two days running when I go to read my favorite Alabama friend's blog, which she just recently redesigned, everyone is oohing and aahing over the banner picture she has posted on the top of her blog and I feel terribly neglected because for some reason or other, my computer refuses to open it! Go figure that one, will ya?
Okay, I feel a little better having done that amount of whining here today - getting those gripes off my chest. Now, on to other things.
Today, my son stopped by about 11 a.m. to do a load of laundry and mentioned he was in a hurry - had a lot to get done and then had to get home and rest because he was going to have to leave about midnight tonight to be in Harrisburg by 2:30 a.m. to make a run tomorrow. One of the things he had to do was to go to Clearfield and pick up his check as well as the volkswagon front end he and his boss hauled back, strapped to the back of the tractor, from Arizona. (My son thinks the sun rises and sets on Volkswagons; has a vw bug -1967 I think it is -painted lime green and purple, which everyone in the entire township knows it when they see him coming.)
Anyway, I needed to go to Clearfield too so we decided instead of wasting that much more gas, I would ride over and back with him. He could drop me at Walmart so I could pick up some of the groceries we would need for the month as well as getting three -yes, three -rolls of film developed while I was there too. I always enjoy riding with him because he is really a hoot to do most anything with, plus he's just such a nice sweet young man. No I'm not prejudiced either, just because he's MY FAVORITE SON!
So, I got these three rolls of film developed and now, that left me with a dilemma. Which pictures do I use in my blog tonight to write about?
There were the photos from the "impromptu walk" down in the local ghost town back the end of April there and I had promised to post them here as soon as I got the pics developed. Then there were the visitors from Sweden - yep, some good pictures of them in the mix and I'd also said I'd share those with you too, didn't I? There were some pictures from Mother's Day of me, my son, my daughter, Mandy, the grandkids too and my Mother's Day gift(s) that I thought would be a nice thing to share. Plus, there were also about six or maybe seven photos too from our class reunion this past Saturday evening that you've all heard me talking about here for at least a week or two. Which group should I post here tonight? Hmmmmm. That was a tough decision for me to make but I decided to go with the Mother's Day ones. If for no other reason than to get the embarrassment aspect over and done with. I don't like having my own picture taken - for reason obvious when you see these. But for posterity's sake, here I am, in all my "stuffed sausage" glory!
Here's my "baby" -Mandy, with her two babies, the Princess Maya on the swing and the little Duke Kurtis seated on the ground by the neatest, most comfortable swing ever - my Mother's Day present from Mandy and my son, Clayton.
This was really a very pleasant surprise when the kids came in and asked me to come outside and see what they had just put together for me - for my Mother's Day gift. I really and truly never expected anything of this magnitude from them.
Here's my little Princess Maya, checking out how nice Gram's new swing opens out into a really neat bed - one that moves back and forth, no less. (Also can make you feel a tad dizzy if you do try to lay down on it and it starts to move. I figured I had to add that little tidbit in.)
Here we all are - checking out the new swing - me (Grammy J), Princess Maya, Mandy and Duke Kurtis! You can see by everyone being all smiles just what a big hit this swing is!
And now, if you remember, I had another present for Mother's Day - a ride around the village on the back of a little Honda motorcycle my son and son-in-law recently acquired.
Here I am, trying my best to get my right leg to swing over the bike so I can get settled in then on the seat, behind my son. Unfortunately, my hip joints don't function quite the way they used to do -a little arthritis probably has set in over the years I guess - and as soon as I got my leg about half way up and tried to swing it over, the old hip joint just wanted no parts of that action!
Not one to be easily deterred, wanting a taste of reliving my youth, I had my son-in-law (the one with the hat on backwards -tres cool, ya know -LOL) go in the house and bring out the step stool from the kitchen. Using that, it gave me just enough height where I could bring my right leg over the seat on the bike and actually was able then to sit down without the right hip joint going into a massive cramping spasm!
Ah, sweet success, at last! All settled in for a nice little ride and away we went with Clate beeping the old horn on this bike as we zipped past my friends' homes around town. Bet they were surprised as all get out to see me on the back of this bike but not near as much as I was to be there!
Now, before I finish up for today and give you the Bushism for today, here's a photo, just taken yesterday morning when my son met the newest addition to the family.
This is Nina - the little orange kitten my older daughter "gave" Mandy on Sunday when she went down to pick up the Princess and the Duke and bring them home. I'm adjusting -somewhat - to have her in the house, only slightly better than is Gracie, the lovely black with gold flecks furball we've had here, who has ruled the house for over 15 years now. Gracie is still growling at the kitten, giving her the evil eye too every chance she gets. But for sure, Nina has found a fast friend in my son, Clate, as he loves cats, as does his little sister, Mandy! So, as much as I profess to disliking orange cats and as hard as it is for Mandy's husband to have a short-haired cat around too who will really irritate his allergies, big time, it looks like Bill and I will have to take a back seat and adjust to living with little Nina. Maya and Kurtis both really love watching her and Maya is already having a field day chasing around the house with her too. So long as Nina doesn't develop any nasty habits like biting your hand when you pet her or shredding the screen on the kitchen door - things that the two orange cats we used to have here often did, I'll go with the flow and she can stay. I say that very grudgingly though - remember that!
And now, the Bushism for Wednesday, June 6, 2007.
"We need to apply twenty-first-century information technology to the health care field. We need to have our medical records put on the I.T." - Collinsville, Illinois; January 5, 2005.
I'm perturbed and I don't know what or who to be perturbed with. Is this my computer, my ISP or blogger playing nasty tricks on me? For the past three days, there are several on my blog favorites list who I have visited and when I went to make a comment, I couldn't get any cooperation. Either the comment block would come up as unavailable, or just blank. Then today, I thought maybe my run of luck had changed as I went to make a comment at Linda's blog (Are We There Yet) and it opened up for me just fine and dandy. I made my post, hit the publish button and it was processing and then poof - gave me a nasty error message indicating this time there was a problem with blogger! Really tightens my jaws when things like that happen.
Then, two days running when I go to read my favorite Alabama friend's blog, which she just recently redesigned, everyone is oohing and aahing over the banner picture she has posted on the top of her blog and I feel terribly neglected because for some reason or other, my computer refuses to open it! Go figure that one, will ya?
Okay, I feel a little better having done that amount of whining here today - getting those gripes off my chest. Now, on to other things.
Today, my son stopped by about 11 a.m. to do a load of laundry and mentioned he was in a hurry - had a lot to get done and then had to get home and rest because he was going to have to leave about midnight tonight to be in Harrisburg by 2:30 a.m. to make a run tomorrow. One of the things he had to do was to go to Clearfield and pick up his check as well as the volkswagon front end he and his boss hauled back, strapped to the back of the tractor, from Arizona. (My son thinks the sun rises and sets on Volkswagons; has a vw bug -1967 I think it is -painted lime green and purple, which everyone in the entire township knows it when they see him coming.)
Anyway, I needed to go to Clearfield too so we decided instead of wasting that much more gas, I would ride over and back with him. He could drop me at Walmart so I could pick up some of the groceries we would need for the month as well as getting three -yes, three -rolls of film developed while I was there too. I always enjoy riding with him because he is really a hoot to do most anything with, plus he's just such a nice sweet young man. No I'm not prejudiced either, just because he's MY FAVORITE SON!
So, I got these three rolls of film developed and now, that left me with a dilemma. Which pictures do I use in my blog tonight to write about?
There were the photos from the "impromptu walk" down in the local ghost town back the end of April there and I had promised to post them here as soon as I got the pics developed. Then there were the visitors from Sweden - yep, some good pictures of them in the mix and I'd also said I'd share those with you too, didn't I? There were some pictures from Mother's Day of me, my son, my daughter, Mandy, the grandkids too and my Mother's Day gift(s) that I thought would be a nice thing to share. Plus, there were also about six or maybe seven photos too from our class reunion this past Saturday evening that you've all heard me talking about here for at least a week or two. Which group should I post here tonight? Hmmmmm. That was a tough decision for me to make but I decided to go with the Mother's Day ones. If for no other reason than to get the embarrassment aspect over and done with. I don't like having my own picture taken - for reason obvious when you see these. But for posterity's sake, here I am, in all my "stuffed sausage" glory!
Here's my "baby" -Mandy, with her two babies, the Princess Maya on the swing and the little Duke Kurtis seated on the ground by the neatest, most comfortable swing ever - my Mother's Day present from Mandy and my son, Clayton.This was really a very pleasant surprise when the kids came in and asked me to come outside and see what they had just put together for me - for my Mother's Day gift. I really and truly never expected anything of this magnitude from them.
Here's my little Princess Maya, checking out how nice Gram's new swing opens out into a really neat bed - one that moves back and forth, no less. (Also can make you feel a tad dizzy if you do try to lay down on it and it starts to move. I figured I had to add that little tidbit in.)
Here we all are - checking out the new swing - me (Grammy J), Princess Maya, Mandy and Duke Kurtis! You can see by everyone being all smiles just what a big hit this swing is!And now, if you remember, I had another present for Mother's Day - a ride around the village on the back of a little Honda motorcycle my son and son-in-law recently acquired.
Here I am, trying my best to get my right leg to swing over the bike so I can get settled in then on the seat, behind my son. Unfortunately, my hip joints don't function quite the way they used to do -a little arthritis probably has set in over the years I guess - and as soon as I got my leg about half way up and tried to swing it over, the old hip joint just wanted no parts of that action!
Not one to be easily deterred, wanting a taste of reliving my youth, I had my son-in-law (the one with the hat on backwards -tres cool, ya know -LOL) go in the house and bring out the step stool from the kitchen. Using that, it gave me just enough height where I could bring my right leg over the seat on the bike and actually was able then to sit down without the right hip joint going into a massive cramping spasm!
Ah, sweet success, at last! All settled in for a nice little ride and away we went with Clate beeping the old horn on this bike as we zipped past my friends' homes around town. Bet they were surprised as all get out to see me on the back of this bike but not near as much as I was to be there!Now, before I finish up for today and give you the Bushism for today, here's a photo, just taken yesterday morning when my son met the newest addition to the family.
This is Nina - the little orange kitten my older daughter "gave" Mandy on Sunday when she went down to pick up the Princess and the Duke and bring them home. I'm adjusting -somewhat - to have her in the house, only slightly better than is Gracie, the lovely black with gold flecks furball we've had here, who has ruled the house for over 15 years now. Gracie is still growling at the kitten, giving her the evil eye too every chance she gets. But for sure, Nina has found a fast friend in my son, Clate, as he loves cats, as does his little sister, Mandy! So, as much as I profess to disliking orange cats and as hard as it is for Mandy's husband to have a short-haired cat around too who will really irritate his allergies, big time, it looks like Bill and I will have to take a back seat and adjust to living with little Nina. Maya and Kurtis both really love watching her and Maya is already having a field day chasing around the house with her too. So long as Nina doesn't develop any nasty habits like biting your hand when you pet her or shredding the screen on the kitchen door - things that the two orange cats we used to have here often did, I'll go with the flow and she can stay. I say that very grudgingly though - remember that!And now, the Bushism for Wednesday, June 6, 2007.
"We need to apply twenty-first-century information technology to the health care field. We need to have our medical records put on the I.T." - Collinsville, Illinois; January 5, 2005.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
A Different Person
My son frequently tells the step-granddaughter here stories about me, how I was when he was a kid, with him, with his sisters and generally concludes those stories by pointing to me and saying, "That is not the same person who raised me!" He usually tells the kid to be darned thankful too that the old lady is now a very different person.
And yes, I am in many ways - different.
Grandchildren definitely will do that to you!
Although my older daughter has always accused me of being much more lenient with Mandy than I ever was with her or with her brother. And, that too is also probably true too. You learn with each child that first off, each one of us is different so what process worked with the oldest may work fine with the second child -or maybe somewhat - or not. But with the third child, I think your priorities and standards have changed so much that you really don't worry as much about having sweet, perfect, extremely polite and well-behaved kids that can come at such a price to your own stress levels that you realize, it just isn't worth quite that much effort.
Of course, things were a lot different during my daughter Carrie's early years too as my Mom was living with me and she was really the main disciplinarian. I went to work every day -yes, I did really, as a general rule, go to work almost every day most of the time and some weeks, I did work every single day! Being the sole support of Mom and my daughter and living in the D.C. suburbs, unless I either had access to working overtime - and lots of it - or had a part-time job when the overtime would dry up now and again, there was no way I'd have been able to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes on our back without going to work every or darned near, every single day!
Fortunately, with Mom living with us, taking care of Carrie, I was free to work whatever number of hours I could get or want to put in to see to it that our basic needs were covered.
With my son and the younger daughter, life really wasn't that much different because, from the time Mandy was almost four years old, I was back to being a single parent, working two jobs again! Only now, there was no such thing as overtime - not at a truckstop restaurant anyway. So I had a second job - I sold Avon - and did that for 18 years. And somehow or other I managed to do what had to be done - keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes for the kids and occasionally, had a little left over to do something pleasant. Although the "doing something pleasant" aspect when my kids were growing up was a pretty far and few between type experience. But they survived, so did I and here we are today, still doing the same thing as history repeats itself only this time it is my son-in-law who works a 40-hour week then comes home and often works part-time at the garage of the local used car shop or if he isn't working up there, he's doing mechanical work for various people around town who know he has a reputation for being a decent mechanic and charges a very fair price for his work too.
And, I get the honors now of taking care of Miss Maya and her little brother, the Duke - Kurtis! (My older grandson, Alex, is the Prince since he got that title bestowed on him when he was a baby and Maya, being the first Granddaughter, naturally is my "Princess" and I had to have a title for Kurtis but didn't want Alex to feel slighted by having to share the Prince title so Kurtis became "the Duke." And, because I don't have to worry constantly about the bulk of the household expenses as Mandy and Bill do take care of most of that, I am less stressed -most of the time - and can deal easier with the kids now than I could with my own when they were small. At least that's my theory and I'm sticking to it anyway.
This past weekend, since I wasn't going to be here Saturday night to watch the Princess and the Duke, Carrie - the older daughter -offered to take the two little ones over night at her house -about 45 miles from here. She's done that a few times before, had no problems with either of the kids being away from home either and she really enjoys having the two little ones around for a weekend too.
Sunday morning, when Mandy got up, the first thing she said to me after she got her wake-up cup of coffee was "I wonder how late Kurtis kept Aunt Carrie up last night?" There was definitely a touch of evil in her voice when she said that and we both giggled too as we were thinking how this past week, for whatever reason, had not been an easy sleep week for little Kurtis. Matter of fact, he'd slept downstairs in the pac'n'play several nights because if Mandy took him upstairs, it seemed he would just toss and turn and fuss and fuss, preventing her from falling asleep. So she would leave him down here with me, to yell and sometimes cry and scream, fussing until he would finally give up the ghost anywhere between 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. (I'm often up and awake well beyond 2:30 a.m. so it didn't make much difference if he was downstairs with me as he wasn't preventing me from sleeping.)
Sunday morning, I left for church and Mandy headed down to Lamar to pick up the kids. After she had picked them up and started for home, Carrie phoned me to tell me about what a fun time she and her fiance, Robert, had had Saturday night with grammie's two little angels.
Now, one thing you have to know first off here is that Robert really knows nothing - and I do mean NOTHING about little kids - how to deal with them, expectations to have that are reasonable, etc. Plus, he refuses to acknowledge that Maya just doesn't operate always on the "normal" type of wave length that most three-year-olds may tend to have too and you have to take those things into consideration at all times too when dealing with her or you end up with her having a meltdown that can last anywhere from five to ten minutes or it can go on for what seems like an eternity too - of crying, repeating words, any words that pop into her mind, endlessly in a very annoying tone of voice along with rolling on the floor, kicking and sometimes even out and out ear-piercing screaming too! We try our best to keep her as calm as possible and still get a certain amount of discipline and expectations for how we think she should behave and keep the meltdown possibility at as low a level as we can.
Carrie said the first problem arose at supper Saturday night when Robert had decided that it was time Maya would learn to eat all the food on her plate - no more of this picking and choosing what she will eat! No siree Bob! And I was that way, ALWAYS, when my kids were young - whatever was on the table, they were expected to eat THAT. Not necessarily huge portions or anything, but they were expected to eat at least a little bit of whatever was being served. My favorite mealtime expression was "You'll eat what I cook or else because I'm not running a freaking restaurant around here." And, my kids, for the most part, knew I really meant business about that too.
With Maya, we try to get her to eat a little bit of everything the rest of us are having but there are somethings we know she absolutely WILL NOT EAT so at times, we do compensate a little bit there and I may have something fixed (something small, easy) just for her. Not all the time, but now and then and it does save a lot of pain and anguish, makes meals a lot less nerve wracking for all concerned that way. And Robert tried to insist that Maya eat more than the macaroni and cheese Carrie had made - but those green beans just were not going to be part of her dietary choices for that meal! Carrie said Maya ended up winning that battle with Robert! And, I was far from surprised at hearing that too!
Bedtime came and the kids were dressed for bed but it seems neither of them had any plans on going to sleep anytime soon. Eleven p.m. came and went and both kids were still awake. Midnight, one a.m. then 2 a.m. and finally Carrie was able to get Maya to go to sleep. At home, she generally isn't up near that late - usually she goes to bed anytime between 9 and 10 p.m. but if she thinks she can hassle people enough, stay up later you know, she's definitely able and willing to do that. Kurtis decided to make his stay with Aunt Carrie and Uncle Robert a lot like he'd been doing to us all week here too and he had Robert up with him till a little past 2:30 a.m.
Carrie said that wouldn't have been all that bad to deal with had they both slept long in the morning -which Maya generally does (most days, she doesn't get up till 9, sometimes as late as 10 a.m.) But Sunday morning, she was awake and up and not even thinking in the least about going back to bed, back to sleep, at 5 a.m. While Carrie tried everything she could think of to try to cajole her, entice her into coming back to bed, Maya proceeded to have a really fun time exploring Aunt Carrie's bedroom, getting into her makeup, her hair products, shoes, etc. Carrie said she was struggling to stay awake and suddenly had mists of cologne being sprayed in her face by Maya, who had managed to find and get Carrie's different colognes off the dresser and was spritzing her with them.
And, listening to her tell me this tale of her woes with her little niece and nephew, I was howling laughing at her dilemma and also Robert's.
While we were talking on the phone, Mandy and the kids arrived home. Complete with a surprise for me, no less! The first one through the door was the step-granddaughter, carrying this little package in her arms that as soon as I saw it I said, "That kitten is going right straight back from whence it came -no way in Hell are we having a damned kitten in the house and especially not a freaking orange one!" I have an aversion you see to orange cats since in the past 27 or so years, we had on two occasions had an orange cat and they both were evil, obnoxious little beasties! The one shredded the screen on my kitchen door as he was both an indoor and an outdoor cat and if he was outside and decided he wanted to come back in, he would throw himself at the screen and managed then to shred the screen in the process! I hated that cat! He would let you pet him maybe three, four times tops and then, turn around and try to bite your hand. Mean little bugger, George was. And, the other orange cat we'd had which Carrie had found while on a nature walk one Sunday with the Youth Ministry Group, never really became tame, not fully anyway. He was just as mean and ornery as he could be too. I hated Luther too! And after George had finally disappeared about 8-9 years ago, I had sworn that I would never, ever have an orange cat in my house again. Besides, we have the pretty furball, Gracie, who we've had for 16 years now and I am perfectly content with her, sweet, loving thing that she is.
Now Carrie was laughing hysterically at my ranting and raving over them having the audacity to bring this damned kitten home! Although I kept saying it was because I just didn't want another cat, especially not another orange cat too, there was another reason I didn't want one of the four kittens Carrie's cat had about eight weeks ago and that was that they are all very short-haired cats and Bill, the son-in-law, is extremely allergic to short-haired cats! I really didn't want to hear him moaning and whining and complaining day in and day out about how bad his eyes were itching, seeing how red his eyes would be in a matter of an hour after he'd get home from work each day. Gracie doesn't bother him because her fur is very long-haired and fluffy but the short-hair cats just totally give the poor guy absolute fits.
Well, a day later now and Nina (the orange kitten) is nicely ensconced in the house! Bill and I have both lost that battle. Maya plays with the kitten - actually quite nicely for the most part too and Kurtis loves to watch the kitten romp around the room, up and down on the sofa, running along the back cushion within reaching range of the little guy too and even stops now and again, puts her head on her front paws and watches Kurtis watching her. Oh yes, that's another thing too - another reason I didn't want another cat - or maybe I should say I didn't want another female cat at any rate! I definitely don't want the hassle of kittens and trying to give them away or worse, offering to pay people to take one of them if worse might come to worse.
Tonight, Bill was working at the used car garage, Mandy was at her job and I was here, alone with the kids. THe phone rang and it was a guy calling about getting Bill to come do some brake work on his car and I was talking to him, getting information,etc. and as any parent will tell you, as soon as you pick up the telephone, that's a signal for all children to find some way to get into something, anything that they know will really antagonize whoever is there with them!
And, in that respect, Maya is quite normal!
For a while as I talked with the caller, Maya was being fairly well-behaved - just running around, chasing the kitten, talking to Nina (yes, the kitten's name is Nina). But then, there was silence, followed shortly thereafter by loud, very loud gales of laughter emanating from the kitchen area. And as any parent probably will agree with me on this there are two sounds which indicate a problem when dealing with small children. One is the sound of silence (when you know the kid is awake, out and about the house, and the other is when you hear laughter that is coming in the form of loud cackling laughing. I told the caller I thought I might have a problem here with my granddaughter and I'd have Bill call him either later tonight or tomorrow evening.
And I then headed to the kitchen. There I found such a lovely mess awaiting me. This child, my sweet little princess, is soooo very lucky that her grammy loves her!
She had taken the kitten's food dish, sprinkled a little bit of dry cat food in it and then, proceeded to mix that with kitty litter - unfortunately not kitty litter from the bag but rather, she opted to scoop kitty litter out from the litter box -and then she dumped bowls full of this mixture in several nice little piles all over the kitchen floor.
Trust me when I tell you this - I was not impressed. Nope, not in the least! She came extremely close to getting a spanking! But then I remembered that about 30 years ago, her uncle had pulled a similar trick on me and I had let him live!
He had emptied every box of cereal in the cupboard into a pile on the kitchen floor -directly in front of the cereal cupboard, topped this dry cereal by emptying the oatmeal box on top of the pile and then, as if that wasn't enough, he had taken the maple syrup and poured that all over this cereal mound and proceeded then to run through it. The syrup on his pajama bottoms caused the oatmeal to cling to the fabric which in turn gave the appearance that he had just been tarred and feathered -which by the way, is exactly what I wanted to do to him then too!
But, for some odd reason that day, I had decided against punishing him in that manner and just went about cleaning up the mess. And I took the same actions tonight with Miss Maya too! Not that I didn't grumble and cuss a good bit - on both occasions as I cleaned the messes up - but for some strange and perverse reason, I also had to laugh about what each one - my son, then years later, my granddaughter, had managed to do to me.
Yep! My son is lucky I loved him then. Maya is lucky I love her dearly too. And the only regret I have there is that Maya managed to pull that stunt on me instead of her mother which is the way it should have been.
And that's it from me tonight -or rather this morning. So, with that little story out of the way, here then is the Bushism for today, Tuesday, June 5, 2007.
"I want each and every American to know for certain that I'm responsible for the decisions I make and each of you are as well." - Appearing on Live with Regis; September 21, 2000.
And the same goes for me and my kids, my grandchildren too DUBYA.
And yes, I am in many ways - different.
Grandchildren definitely will do that to you!
Although my older daughter has always accused me of being much more lenient with Mandy than I ever was with her or with her brother. And, that too is also probably true too. You learn with each child that first off, each one of us is different so what process worked with the oldest may work fine with the second child -or maybe somewhat - or not. But with the third child, I think your priorities and standards have changed so much that you really don't worry as much about having sweet, perfect, extremely polite and well-behaved kids that can come at such a price to your own stress levels that you realize, it just isn't worth quite that much effort.
Of course, things were a lot different during my daughter Carrie's early years too as my Mom was living with me and she was really the main disciplinarian. I went to work every day -yes, I did really, as a general rule, go to work almost every day most of the time and some weeks, I did work every single day! Being the sole support of Mom and my daughter and living in the D.C. suburbs, unless I either had access to working overtime - and lots of it - or had a part-time job when the overtime would dry up now and again, there was no way I'd have been able to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes on our back without going to work every or darned near, every single day!
Fortunately, with Mom living with us, taking care of Carrie, I was free to work whatever number of hours I could get or want to put in to see to it that our basic needs were covered.
With my son and the younger daughter, life really wasn't that much different because, from the time Mandy was almost four years old, I was back to being a single parent, working two jobs again! Only now, there was no such thing as overtime - not at a truckstop restaurant anyway. So I had a second job - I sold Avon - and did that for 18 years. And somehow or other I managed to do what had to be done - keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes for the kids and occasionally, had a little left over to do something pleasant. Although the "doing something pleasant" aspect when my kids were growing up was a pretty far and few between type experience. But they survived, so did I and here we are today, still doing the same thing as history repeats itself only this time it is my son-in-law who works a 40-hour week then comes home and often works part-time at the garage of the local used car shop or if he isn't working up there, he's doing mechanical work for various people around town who know he has a reputation for being a decent mechanic and charges a very fair price for his work too.
And, I get the honors now of taking care of Miss Maya and her little brother, the Duke - Kurtis! (My older grandson, Alex, is the Prince since he got that title bestowed on him when he was a baby and Maya, being the first Granddaughter, naturally is my "Princess" and I had to have a title for Kurtis but didn't want Alex to feel slighted by having to share the Prince title so Kurtis became "the Duke." And, because I don't have to worry constantly about the bulk of the household expenses as Mandy and Bill do take care of most of that, I am less stressed -most of the time - and can deal easier with the kids now than I could with my own when they were small. At least that's my theory and I'm sticking to it anyway.
This past weekend, since I wasn't going to be here Saturday night to watch the Princess and the Duke, Carrie - the older daughter -offered to take the two little ones over night at her house -about 45 miles from here. She's done that a few times before, had no problems with either of the kids being away from home either and she really enjoys having the two little ones around for a weekend too.
Sunday morning, when Mandy got up, the first thing she said to me after she got her wake-up cup of coffee was "I wonder how late Kurtis kept Aunt Carrie up last night?" There was definitely a touch of evil in her voice when she said that and we both giggled too as we were thinking how this past week, for whatever reason, had not been an easy sleep week for little Kurtis. Matter of fact, he'd slept downstairs in the pac'n'play several nights because if Mandy took him upstairs, it seemed he would just toss and turn and fuss and fuss, preventing her from falling asleep. So she would leave him down here with me, to yell and sometimes cry and scream, fussing until he would finally give up the ghost anywhere between 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. (I'm often up and awake well beyond 2:30 a.m. so it didn't make much difference if he was downstairs with me as he wasn't preventing me from sleeping.)
Sunday morning, I left for church and Mandy headed down to Lamar to pick up the kids. After she had picked them up and started for home, Carrie phoned me to tell me about what a fun time she and her fiance, Robert, had had Saturday night with grammie's two little angels.
Now, one thing you have to know first off here is that Robert really knows nothing - and I do mean NOTHING about little kids - how to deal with them, expectations to have that are reasonable, etc. Plus, he refuses to acknowledge that Maya just doesn't operate always on the "normal" type of wave length that most three-year-olds may tend to have too and you have to take those things into consideration at all times too when dealing with her or you end up with her having a meltdown that can last anywhere from five to ten minutes or it can go on for what seems like an eternity too - of crying, repeating words, any words that pop into her mind, endlessly in a very annoying tone of voice along with rolling on the floor, kicking and sometimes even out and out ear-piercing screaming too! We try our best to keep her as calm as possible and still get a certain amount of discipline and expectations for how we think she should behave and keep the meltdown possibility at as low a level as we can.
Carrie said the first problem arose at supper Saturday night when Robert had decided that it was time Maya would learn to eat all the food on her plate - no more of this picking and choosing what she will eat! No siree Bob! And I was that way, ALWAYS, when my kids were young - whatever was on the table, they were expected to eat THAT. Not necessarily huge portions or anything, but they were expected to eat at least a little bit of whatever was being served. My favorite mealtime expression was "You'll eat what I cook or else because I'm not running a freaking restaurant around here." And, my kids, for the most part, knew I really meant business about that too.
With Maya, we try to get her to eat a little bit of everything the rest of us are having but there are somethings we know she absolutely WILL NOT EAT so at times, we do compensate a little bit there and I may have something fixed (something small, easy) just for her. Not all the time, but now and then and it does save a lot of pain and anguish, makes meals a lot less nerve wracking for all concerned that way. And Robert tried to insist that Maya eat more than the macaroni and cheese Carrie had made - but those green beans just were not going to be part of her dietary choices for that meal! Carrie said Maya ended up winning that battle with Robert! And, I was far from surprised at hearing that too!
Bedtime came and the kids were dressed for bed but it seems neither of them had any plans on going to sleep anytime soon. Eleven p.m. came and went and both kids were still awake. Midnight, one a.m. then 2 a.m. and finally Carrie was able to get Maya to go to sleep. At home, she generally isn't up near that late - usually she goes to bed anytime between 9 and 10 p.m. but if she thinks she can hassle people enough, stay up later you know, she's definitely able and willing to do that. Kurtis decided to make his stay with Aunt Carrie and Uncle Robert a lot like he'd been doing to us all week here too and he had Robert up with him till a little past 2:30 a.m.
Carrie said that wouldn't have been all that bad to deal with had they both slept long in the morning -which Maya generally does (most days, she doesn't get up till 9, sometimes as late as 10 a.m.) But Sunday morning, she was awake and up and not even thinking in the least about going back to bed, back to sleep, at 5 a.m. While Carrie tried everything she could think of to try to cajole her, entice her into coming back to bed, Maya proceeded to have a really fun time exploring Aunt Carrie's bedroom, getting into her makeup, her hair products, shoes, etc. Carrie said she was struggling to stay awake and suddenly had mists of cologne being sprayed in her face by Maya, who had managed to find and get Carrie's different colognes off the dresser and was spritzing her with them.
And, listening to her tell me this tale of her woes with her little niece and nephew, I was howling laughing at her dilemma and also Robert's.
While we were talking on the phone, Mandy and the kids arrived home. Complete with a surprise for me, no less! The first one through the door was the step-granddaughter, carrying this little package in her arms that as soon as I saw it I said, "That kitten is going right straight back from whence it came -no way in Hell are we having a damned kitten in the house and especially not a freaking orange one!" I have an aversion you see to orange cats since in the past 27 or so years, we had on two occasions had an orange cat and they both were evil, obnoxious little beasties! The one shredded the screen on my kitchen door as he was both an indoor and an outdoor cat and if he was outside and decided he wanted to come back in, he would throw himself at the screen and managed then to shred the screen in the process! I hated that cat! He would let you pet him maybe three, four times tops and then, turn around and try to bite your hand. Mean little bugger, George was. And, the other orange cat we'd had which Carrie had found while on a nature walk one Sunday with the Youth Ministry Group, never really became tame, not fully anyway. He was just as mean and ornery as he could be too. I hated Luther too! And after George had finally disappeared about 8-9 years ago, I had sworn that I would never, ever have an orange cat in my house again. Besides, we have the pretty furball, Gracie, who we've had for 16 years now and I am perfectly content with her, sweet, loving thing that she is.
Now Carrie was laughing hysterically at my ranting and raving over them having the audacity to bring this damned kitten home! Although I kept saying it was because I just didn't want another cat, especially not another orange cat too, there was another reason I didn't want one of the four kittens Carrie's cat had about eight weeks ago and that was that they are all very short-haired cats and Bill, the son-in-law, is extremely allergic to short-haired cats! I really didn't want to hear him moaning and whining and complaining day in and day out about how bad his eyes were itching, seeing how red his eyes would be in a matter of an hour after he'd get home from work each day. Gracie doesn't bother him because her fur is very long-haired and fluffy but the short-hair cats just totally give the poor guy absolute fits.
Well, a day later now and Nina (the orange kitten) is nicely ensconced in the house! Bill and I have both lost that battle. Maya plays with the kitten - actually quite nicely for the most part too and Kurtis loves to watch the kitten romp around the room, up and down on the sofa, running along the back cushion within reaching range of the little guy too and even stops now and again, puts her head on her front paws and watches Kurtis watching her. Oh yes, that's another thing too - another reason I didn't want another cat - or maybe I should say I didn't want another female cat at any rate! I definitely don't want the hassle of kittens and trying to give them away or worse, offering to pay people to take one of them if worse might come to worse.
Tonight, Bill was working at the used car garage, Mandy was at her job and I was here, alone with the kids. THe phone rang and it was a guy calling about getting Bill to come do some brake work on his car and I was talking to him, getting information,etc. and as any parent will tell you, as soon as you pick up the telephone, that's a signal for all children to find some way to get into something, anything that they know will really antagonize whoever is there with them!
And, in that respect, Maya is quite normal!
For a while as I talked with the caller, Maya was being fairly well-behaved - just running around, chasing the kitten, talking to Nina (yes, the kitten's name is Nina). But then, there was silence, followed shortly thereafter by loud, very loud gales of laughter emanating from the kitchen area. And as any parent probably will agree with me on this there are two sounds which indicate a problem when dealing with small children. One is the sound of silence (when you know the kid is awake, out and about the house, and the other is when you hear laughter that is coming in the form of loud cackling laughing. I told the caller I thought I might have a problem here with my granddaughter and I'd have Bill call him either later tonight or tomorrow evening.
And I then headed to the kitchen. There I found such a lovely mess awaiting me. This child, my sweet little princess, is soooo very lucky that her grammy loves her!
She had taken the kitten's food dish, sprinkled a little bit of dry cat food in it and then, proceeded to mix that with kitty litter - unfortunately not kitty litter from the bag but rather, she opted to scoop kitty litter out from the litter box -and then she dumped bowls full of this mixture in several nice little piles all over the kitchen floor.
Trust me when I tell you this - I was not impressed. Nope, not in the least! She came extremely close to getting a spanking! But then I remembered that about 30 years ago, her uncle had pulled a similar trick on me and I had let him live!
He had emptied every box of cereal in the cupboard into a pile on the kitchen floor -directly in front of the cereal cupboard, topped this dry cereal by emptying the oatmeal box on top of the pile and then, as if that wasn't enough, he had taken the maple syrup and poured that all over this cereal mound and proceeded then to run through it. The syrup on his pajama bottoms caused the oatmeal to cling to the fabric which in turn gave the appearance that he had just been tarred and feathered -which by the way, is exactly what I wanted to do to him then too!
But, for some odd reason that day, I had decided against punishing him in that manner and just went about cleaning up the mess. And I took the same actions tonight with Miss Maya too! Not that I didn't grumble and cuss a good bit - on both occasions as I cleaned the messes up - but for some strange and perverse reason, I also had to laugh about what each one - my son, then years later, my granddaughter, had managed to do to me.
Yep! My son is lucky I loved him then. Maya is lucky I love her dearly too. And the only regret I have there is that Maya managed to pull that stunt on me instead of her mother which is the way it should have been.
And that's it from me tonight -or rather this morning. So, with that little story out of the way, here then is the Bushism for today, Tuesday, June 5, 2007.
"I want each and every American to know for certain that I'm responsible for the decisions I make and each of you are as well." - Appearing on Live with Regis; September 21, 2000.
And the same goes for me and my kids, my grandchildren too DUBYA.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Something is wrong somewhere!
Here's my problem. I found out last Sunday from two friends of mine who had tried to e-mail me with questions and information about our class reunion (which was held last night, Saturday, June 2nd) that e-mails they had sent me were being returned to them by my ISP with a message stating it was due to the fact my account was "inactive." Both these friends thought this was really strange - also really funny too - that my e-mail would be returning e-mails with a message like that - due to inactivity on my part!
Anyone who knows me knows I pretty much camp in front of my computer the better part of the day and night! Rarely is my computer turned off and rarely am I not online.
Where I notice that I must be bouncing is through a group I belong to - a Yahoo group - The Writer's Life. This group is probably one of the most active groups around - frequent postings made there at all hours of the day and night and when I go several hours without an e-mail from the group now, as soon as I realize it' s been quite a long dry spell, I go to the yahoo group and check to see if I am ok or if I am showing up there as "bouncing" - meaning Yahoo can't deliver any messages to me because my e-mail provider isn't accepting them due to my supposed "inactivity."
Anyone here have any problems like that with their provider, their computer, etc? And, if so, what did you do to get it corrected anyway?
All this c rapola just makes me love Peoplepc.com and their service so much more ya know.
NOT!!!!!
If it weren't that a change of e-mail address for me would be a royal pain in the old behind, I would drop this provider in a heartbeat! But the mere thought of sending out a change of e-mail address to roughly 200 people in my address book is something I really don't like the idea at all of having to do something like that! As a matter of fact, it's the only thing keeping me from switching over from dial-up to broadband through my tv cable company! I'm holding off there because peoplepc.com sent a message out not too long ago stating they will be adding DSL to their service in the very near future and anyone who switches over to DSL service when it is made available will be able to keep their current e-mail address.
That's so nice to know that you don't have to change your address when you have an address book the size of mine and subscribe to a kazillion other programs too which send me newsletters, and lots of other goodies too on a daily basis.
But, much more of this nonsense from peoplepc.com and their screwing around with delivery of e-mail messages and I am about ready to bite that bullet and change my e-mail address by subscribing to the broadband service available here in this area now.
Nite all! Time for me to go to bed!
and here's the Bushism for Monday, June 4, 2007
"I need to be able to move the right people to the right place at the right time to protect you, and I'm not going to accept a lousy bill out of the United Nations Senate." - South Bend, Indiana; October 31, 2002.
Anyone who knows me knows I pretty much camp in front of my computer the better part of the day and night! Rarely is my computer turned off and rarely am I not online.
Where I notice that I must be bouncing is through a group I belong to - a Yahoo group - The Writer's Life. This group is probably one of the most active groups around - frequent postings made there at all hours of the day and night and when I go several hours without an e-mail from the group now, as soon as I realize it' s been quite a long dry spell, I go to the yahoo group and check to see if I am ok or if I am showing up there as "bouncing" - meaning Yahoo can't deliver any messages to me because my e-mail provider isn't accepting them due to my supposed "inactivity."
Anyone here have any problems like that with their provider, their computer, etc? And, if so, what did you do to get it corrected anyway?
All this c rapola just makes me love Peoplepc.com and their service so much more ya know.
NOT!!!!!
If it weren't that a change of e-mail address for me would be a royal pain in the old behind, I would drop this provider in a heartbeat! But the mere thought of sending out a change of e-mail address to roughly 200 people in my address book is something I really don't like the idea at all of having to do something like that! As a matter of fact, it's the only thing keeping me from switching over from dial-up to broadband through my tv cable company! I'm holding off there because peoplepc.com sent a message out not too long ago stating they will be adding DSL to their service in the very near future and anyone who switches over to DSL service when it is made available will be able to keep their current e-mail address.
That's so nice to know that you don't have to change your address when you have an address book the size of mine and subscribe to a kazillion other programs too which send me newsletters, and lots of other goodies too on a daily basis.
But, much more of this nonsense from peoplepc.com and their screwing around with delivery of e-mail messages and I am about ready to bite that bullet and change my e-mail address by subscribing to the broadband service available here in this area now.
Nite all! Time for me to go to bed!
and here's the Bushism for Monday, June 4, 2007
"I need to be able to move the right people to the right place at the right time to protect you, and I'm not going to accept a lousy bill out of the United Nations Senate." - South Bend, Indiana; October 31, 2002.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Gone, for another five years?
Before I launch into my class reunion report - actually before the weekend comes to a screeching halt at midnight, here's the post for Saturday/Sunday's Bushism for June 2/3, 2007.
"We have enough coal to last for two hundred fifty years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge." - Washington, D.C.; April 20, 2005
Ok, Bushism aside for now, here's the way the Class Reunion went!
And for your viewing pleasure too, there will be a couple photos interspersed along the way - like this one of the 1st and 2nd grade classes at the Kylertown Elementary school in Kylertown, PA. For anyone of this era, from Kylertown, if you can identify any of the kids on this photo, please feel free to give identifications in the comments section here -or e-mail me.
I loaded up my van with this big old picture poster board, a smaller corkboard with some more photos, an old album I finally located late Friday night, three year books -covering 1961, 1962 and 1965, grabbed a gift bag stuffed with 20 bibs for my friend to make her selections from and headed off about 5 p.m. for Clearfield.
I had to stop at the grocery store in Kylertown to pick up a couple little things, cash a check so I would have some green on me in case I needed it over there to buy a drink and when I pulled into the parking lot there, it was starting to sprinkle. I hurried into the store, got my business taken care of and back out to get on the interstate for the drive - about 22-23 miles. It began to rain a little harder for maybe 2-3 miles or so and then, nice weather, dry roads, maybe the rain was all behind me, or so I hoped.
Clearfield, as I got closer though, I could see clouds coming in, a little darkening there and thought boy, I hope I get a parking spot close to the restaurant so I can load my arms up and cart all this stuff in with one trip - just in case it does start to put forth with some more rain. I did luck out and got a parking spot almost directly across the street from Hedges' Restaurant and yep, I was able to manage to load everything into my arms to lug it all across in only one trip!
The girl out front escorted me back to our room - at the rear of the facility - a very nice room too. Big enough to provide plenty of room and yet, small enough that we could all be relatively close together too but without feeling cramped, no space infringed upon that way. When I arrived, Rose Little Wick and her husband Durv were already there and Wick, (that's what many of us just refer to him as - simply "Wick") immediately helped me unload all my packages and Rose and I moved things around a bit on the table, got the photo board set up. I don't remember exactly now who was next to arrive - I think Kate Nelson Eyerly and her husband, Jim -Kate's our class president, valedictorian and well, ask anyone from our class and they'd tell you probably the same thing about her - just all around very, very nice girl way back and hasn't changed a lick over the 45 years either in that respect. Still quiet, very studious, concerned and friendly - that's our Kate!
Gradually, the room began to see a few more coming in -Lori Bunyak Greenfield, from down in Virginia; Carol Folmar Nadzom and her husband, Ed, from State College. (Eddie was my neighbor -lived two doors up the street from me, so I've known him all my life.) Susie Violanti, from Lanse; and Arlene Anderson Stover and her husband, Ed -from down in Georgia were among the first to show up. Then Doris Thompson Malinky, who lives in Curwensville - just up the road from Clearfield arrived and Bernie Lucas Kapura and her husband Ed, from Carlisle rolled in too. We had the usual hugs, greetings, good to see you exchanges again with most everyone looking at the collage of photos I had pasted up for their viewing pleasure.
During this time, we noticed it had apparently started to rain or was really gearing up for it - as although where we were we couldn't see the lightning, could hear a little rumbles of thunder but judging by the way the lights were flickering off and on, over and over, we knew it was apparently going to be a heavy-duty storm - and it was too! About 8 or so of our group was stranded for a while, some for about a half-hour in their cars in the parking lots, waiting for enough of a break that they could run for cover of the restaurant without getting totally drenched. Harold Hahn and his wife Bernie, finally made it in, then Betty Samansky Danko and her hubby, Andy. Linda Wertz Payne, who lives now in Phlipsburg got there and then, Nancy Benton McFarlane and her husband Mike who live in Aurora, Colorado arrived too. Finally, Art and Sharon Folmar and Herb and Donna Lucas made it in as well as Ernie and Rieke DeGrasse. That left only Frances Lucas and her guest, Irene Danko who graduated from Cooper Center in 1960 and Tom Chakan and his wife Liz, who were coming in from Cleveland were the only stragglers not yet there. We waited a while, talking, remembering old times, sharing family news and such till the staff wanted to know if we were ready to sit down for the dinner. We decided we'd best start and hopefully those not yet there would arrive soon.
So, as we started to head for a seat at the tables, there was a little smidgen of commotion coming from the one side of the room, near the door and when I glanced over, I could see Ernie DeGrasse's wife seated on a chair with several guys clustered around her and it was obvious from her eyes that she was in some kind of physical distress. I hurried over to that area and heard them saying she had felt ill, dizzy, tried to sit down and then, as she was attempting to do that, she blacked out.
Well, having a medical emergency at any gathering -regardless of the nature of the event or the emergency - is a scary thing for all concerned. Fortunately, some of the guys were attending to her, trying to get her laid out on the floor, with Kate looking in on the situation since she is a registered nurse and at least knows a little bit about things like dealing with medical emergencies. Poor Ernie though - I started towards the hallway door and he was ahead of me and suddenly he spun around as if he was going to head back to our room, then thought again and quickly turned to head towards the front of the restaurant, then he stopped and did the swivel thing again. I caught up to him and asked if he wanted someone to call 911 and he said , yes please and thank you and hurried then back to the room and his wife's side. I know that feeling when you are in a situation and you think I should do this but wait, maybe it's this, then you think again no, it's this and you end up acting exactly like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. But anyway, I reached the staff out front and had them call 911 and she said they would be right there - would be coming to the back door to check on our friend.
Meanwhile, when I got back to our room, the men had Rieke stretched out on the floor, feet elevated, wiping her brow, talking to her and she was responding somewhat; her color seemed to be returning a good bit too - all of which was very much a relief. She said she had no chest pains, had no issues with diabetes or epilepsy -things like that. But she said she and Ernie had just returned about two days before our reunion from a visit to Korea to see their son who is stationed there and his family and she thought perhaps this was just a combination of exhaustion, not having eaten anything earlier that day and jet-lag.
By that time, the EMT's arrived on the scene and the first one through the door leaned over the patient, took a good look and her and asked her, "What's going on here?" to which she replied that she didn't really know what happened. He then asked her if she knew who he is and she said "No" and he said then, "Well, that's a problem because you should. You've known me for over 30 years. I'm Dave Mulhollem." At that, Rieke smiled and recognized him - kind of a shock when you are out of your home area and the EMT who comes to your aid is a local kid from your own area -you just aren't really expecting to see someone you know in that situation.
After they did a preliminary check and although she did then seem to be coming around ok, they suggested she allow them to take her to the Emergency Room which she insisted she didn't need, didn't want to do that but thankfully, they did convince her to go as when they started to get her up, her color began to fade again. So, Ernie and Rieke left in the ambulance for the hospital and Art and Sharon Folmar followed them out to the Emergency room to wait things out with Ernie. (I talked to Kate after church this morning to see if she'd heard anything back last night from Ernie and she said no, she hadn't but she planned on calling him this afternoon to see how things were. I took a little nap late this afternoon and when I got up, Mandy told me Ernie had called me and he had told Mandy everything checked out ok for Rieke and the doctor felt it was all pretty much caused by what Rieke herself had figured - just dehydrated, exhausted and having jet lag! Boy, there was a major sigh of relief on this end. It was bad enough that Ernie and Rieke had to miss the reunion meal and more visiting but thank goodness it wasn't anything much worse, which at our ages now it easily enough could have been a very, very serious situation! It was scary enough as it was worrying that all was ok there.)
The dinner last night I am happy to say was very good! Excellent as a matter of fact! Roast beef and stuffed chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, gravies (beef or chicken), fresh baby green beans, white snap beans and baby carrots with a very light Parmesan type topping, tossed salad and carrot cake - all very well prepared. The salads were served individually as was the cake but the entrees were all set up as a buffet so you could have either beef, chicken or both!
Prior to our beginning the meal, Frances Lucas was asked to give the blessing and she gave a lovely prayer of thanksgiving for not only the food but also for the cameraderie that brings us back together, usually every five years for a good, friendly gathering of friends who once were classmates a long time ago!
After the meal, Kate had asked me to speak to those gathered. I had messages from Cheryl Schnars Shank who has been living in Destin, Florida since Hurricane Katrina virtually wiped out the home she and her husband Mitch had in Slidell, Louisiana and from Sylvia Janke Kelly too, both girls unable to attend this year. Cheryl and Mitch have been in the process of having their home rebuilt but not necessarily with the intention of moving back to Slidell as Cheryl had told me last year they are thinking long and hard about moving perhaps just a little bit to the north and INLAND! She thinks perhaps they will eventually resettle in either North or South Carolina - a bit closer then to their son, Brian, perhaps. Sylvia though has had many health problems since the year after our graduation when she injured her back in a college phys ed class and this past year has been a rough one for her from a medical standpoint too. In addition, I mentioned that another classmate, who we had lost track of over the years but this spring, through the aid of a graduate of the class of 1961, I was able to track down Nancy Duck, living in the Silver Spring, MD area only to learn she has many medical problems all of which would prohibit her from traveling to our reunion but that she would welcome hearing from classmates by mail or phone calls.
I had gathered some information using our yearbooks to put out to the class, talking about goals we had back then, how many of us realized those goals we had set for ourselves then and how many of us had actually gone on to a little higher calling too in the process. Also went over some of th e silly slogans we each had under our names in the yearbook -and how many of those sayings were still pretty appropriate today. Mine still fits, for sure: "I may not be a Ford but I sure can rattle on!" Oh yes! How true, indeed!
And so, we ended another reunion - leaving with a lot of good feelings (I hope everyone else came away feeling as good as I did about the entire event anyway), but unfortunately, we didn't think to have any discussion as to the idea of having yet another reunion for perhaps our 50th anniversary since our graduation. Well, hopefully we will discuss this here and there as we encounter a few classmates over the next 3-4 years and will decide we want to reunite at least one more time and maybe someone will step up to the plate and take charge of things. I've already decided if folks want another reunion, I will gladly help out in any way possible to see that it comes to pass and here's hoping at least a few others will also step forward, help out and we'll manage to come back together yet again!
As classes go -I doubt ours was any different than other high school classes have been over the course of history - everyone always has a couple little cliques. I think it's just human nature. But, fortunately, what cliques did exist in our class have been, at least for the most part, put aside, forgotten and we now look forward very much to seeing our old friends, enjoy remembering the teachers, other students, little silly things we did back then and sharing our joys that have become our lives since graduation - work, children and now, for many of us, retirement and grandchildren! And boy, I can speak fully from experience here that becoming a grandparent does wonders to change ones perspectives in life. So does having had a life threatening illness too - puts everything in a totally different light, what's important, to what degree and how to go about enjoying living as much as possible.
And, as my friend and classmate, Ernie DeGrasse said today when we talked, "We grew up nicely, didn't we?"
And yes, Ernie - with that I definitely have to agree that I think we did indeed do that quite nicely, in fact.
So there you have it - the full skinny on my 45th class reunion.
Can you tell I very much enjoyed it?
"We have enough coal to last for two hundred fifty years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge." - Washington, D.C.; April 20, 2005
Ok, Bushism aside for now, here's the way the Class Reunion went!
And for your viewing pleasure too, there will be a couple photos interspersed along the way - like this one of the 1st and 2nd grade classes at the Kylertown Elementary school in Kylertown, PA. For anyone of this era, from Kylertown, if you can identify any of the kids on this photo, please feel free to give identifications in the comments section here -or e-mail me.
I loaded up my van with this big old picture poster board, a smaller corkboard with some more photos, an old album I finally located late Friday night, three year books -covering 1961, 1962 and 1965, grabbed a gift bag stuffed with 20 bibs for my friend to make her selections from and headed off about 5 p.m. for Clearfield.
I had to stop at the grocery store in Kylertown to pick up a couple little things, cash a check so I would have some green on me in case I needed it over there to buy a drink and when I pulled into the parking lot there, it was starting to sprinkle. I hurried into the store, got my business taken care of and back out to get on the interstate for the drive - about 22-23 miles. It began to rain a little harder for maybe 2-3 miles or so and then, nice weather, dry roads, maybe the rain was all behind me, or so I hoped.
Clearfield, as I got closer though, I could see clouds coming in, a little darkening there and thought boy, I hope I get a parking spot close to the restaurant so I can load my arms up and cart all this stuff in with one trip - just in case it does start to put forth with some more rain. I did luck out and got a parking spot almost directly across the street from Hedges' Restaurant and yep, I was able to manage to load everything into my arms to lug it all across in only one trip!
The girl out front escorted me back to our room - at the rear of the facility - a very nice room too. Big enough to provide plenty of room and yet, small enough that we could all be relatively close together too but without feeling cramped, no space infringed upon that way. When I arrived, Rose Little Wick and her husband Durv were already there and Wick, (that's what many of us just refer to him as - simply "Wick") immediately helped me unload all my packages and Rose and I moved things around a bit on the table, got the photo board set up. I don't remember exactly now who was next to arrive - I think Kate Nelson Eyerly and her husband, Jim -Kate's our class president, valedictorian and well, ask anyone from our class and they'd tell you probably the same thing about her - just all around very, very nice girl way back and hasn't changed a lick over the 45 years either in that respect. Still quiet, very studious, concerned and friendly - that's our Kate!
Gradually, the room began to see a few more coming in -Lori Bunyak Greenfield, from down in Virginia; Carol Folmar Nadzom and her husband, Ed, from State College. (Eddie was my neighbor -lived two doors up the street from me, so I've known him all my life.) Susie Violanti, from Lanse; and Arlene Anderson Stover and her husband, Ed -from down in Georgia were among the first to show up. Then Doris Thompson Malinky, who lives in Curwensville - just up the road from Clearfield arrived and Bernie Lucas Kapura and her husband Ed, from Carlisle rolled in too. We had the usual hugs, greetings, good to see you exchanges again with most everyone looking at the collage of photos I had pasted up for their viewing pleasure.
During this time, we noticed it had apparently started to rain or was really gearing up for it - as although where we were we couldn't see the lightning, could hear a little rumbles of thunder but judging by the way the lights were flickering off and on, over and over, we knew it was apparently going to be a heavy-duty storm - and it was too! About 8 or so of our group was stranded for a while, some for about a half-hour in their cars in the parking lots, waiting for enough of a break that they could run for cover of the restaurant without getting totally drenched. Harold Hahn and his wife Bernie, finally made it in, then Betty Samansky Danko and her hubby, Andy. Linda Wertz Payne, who lives now in Phlipsburg got there and then, Nancy Benton McFarlane and her husband Mike who live in Aurora, Colorado arrived too. Finally, Art and Sharon Folmar and Herb and Donna Lucas made it in as well as Ernie and Rieke DeGrasse. That left only Frances Lucas and her guest, Irene Danko who graduated from Cooper Center in 1960 and Tom Chakan and his wife Liz, who were coming in from Cleveland were the only stragglers not yet there. We waited a while, talking, remembering old times, sharing family news and such till the staff wanted to know if we were ready to sit down for the dinner. We decided we'd best start and hopefully those not yet there would arrive soon.
So, as we started to head for a seat at the tables, there was a little smidgen of commotion coming from the one side of the room, near the door and when I glanced over, I could see Ernie DeGrasse's wife seated on a chair with several guys clustered around her and it was obvious from her eyes that she was in some kind of physical distress. I hurried over to that area and heard them saying she had felt ill, dizzy, tried to sit down and then, as she was attempting to do that, she blacked out.
Well, having a medical emergency at any gathering -regardless of the nature of the event or the emergency - is a scary thing for all concerned. Fortunately, some of the guys were attending to her, trying to get her laid out on the floor, with Kate looking in on the situation since she is a registered nurse and at least knows a little bit about things like dealing with medical emergencies. Poor Ernie though - I started towards the hallway door and he was ahead of me and suddenly he spun around as if he was going to head back to our room, then thought again and quickly turned to head towards the front of the restaurant, then he stopped and did the swivel thing again. I caught up to him and asked if he wanted someone to call 911 and he said , yes please and thank you and hurried then back to the room and his wife's side. I know that feeling when you are in a situation and you think I should do this but wait, maybe it's this, then you think again no, it's this and you end up acting exactly like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. But anyway, I reached the staff out front and had them call 911 and she said they would be right there - would be coming to the back door to check on our friend.
Meanwhile, when I got back to our room, the men had Rieke stretched out on the floor, feet elevated, wiping her brow, talking to her and she was responding somewhat; her color seemed to be returning a good bit too - all of which was very much a relief. She said she had no chest pains, had no issues with diabetes or epilepsy -things like that. But she said she and Ernie had just returned about two days before our reunion from a visit to Korea to see their son who is stationed there and his family and she thought perhaps this was just a combination of exhaustion, not having eaten anything earlier that day and jet-lag.
By that time, the EMT's arrived on the scene and the first one through the door leaned over the patient, took a good look and her and asked her, "What's going on here?" to which she replied that she didn't really know what happened. He then asked her if she knew who he is and she said "No" and he said then, "Well, that's a problem because you should. You've known me for over 30 years. I'm Dave Mulhollem." At that, Rieke smiled and recognized him - kind of a shock when you are out of your home area and the EMT who comes to your aid is a local kid from your own area -you just aren't really expecting to see someone you know in that situation.
After they did a preliminary check and although she did then seem to be coming around ok, they suggested she allow them to take her to the Emergency Room which she insisted she didn't need, didn't want to do that but thankfully, they did convince her to go as when they started to get her up, her color began to fade again. So, Ernie and Rieke left in the ambulance for the hospital and Art and Sharon Folmar followed them out to the Emergency room to wait things out with Ernie. (I talked to Kate after church this morning to see if she'd heard anything back last night from Ernie and she said no, she hadn't but she planned on calling him this afternoon to see how things were. I took a little nap late this afternoon and when I got up, Mandy told me Ernie had called me and he had told Mandy everything checked out ok for Rieke and the doctor felt it was all pretty much caused by what Rieke herself had figured - just dehydrated, exhausted and having jet lag! Boy, there was a major sigh of relief on this end. It was bad enough that Ernie and Rieke had to miss the reunion meal and more visiting but thank goodness it wasn't anything much worse, which at our ages now it easily enough could have been a very, very serious situation! It was scary enough as it was worrying that all was ok there.)
The dinner last night I am happy to say was very good! Excellent as a matter of fact! Roast beef and stuffed chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, gravies (beef or chicken), fresh baby green beans, white snap beans and baby carrots with a very light Parmesan type topping, tossed salad and carrot cake - all very well prepared. The salads were served individually as was the cake but the entrees were all set up as a buffet so you could have either beef, chicken or both!
Prior to our beginning the meal, Frances Lucas was asked to give the blessing and she gave a lovely prayer of thanksgiving for not only the food but also for the cameraderie that brings us back together, usually every five years for a good, friendly gathering of friends who once were classmates a long time ago!
After the meal, Kate had asked me to speak to those gathered. I had messages from Cheryl Schnars Shank who has been living in Destin, Florida since Hurricane Katrina virtually wiped out the home she and her husband Mitch had in Slidell, Louisiana and from Sylvia Janke Kelly too, both girls unable to attend this year. Cheryl and Mitch have been in the process of having their home rebuilt but not necessarily with the intention of moving back to Slidell as Cheryl had told me last year they are thinking long and hard about moving perhaps just a little bit to the north and INLAND! She thinks perhaps they will eventually resettle in either North or South Carolina - a bit closer then to their son, Brian, perhaps. Sylvia though has had many health problems since the year after our graduation when she injured her back in a college phys ed class and this past year has been a rough one for her from a medical standpoint too. In addition, I mentioned that another classmate, who we had lost track of over the years but this spring, through the aid of a graduate of the class of 1961, I was able to track down Nancy Duck, living in the Silver Spring, MD area only to learn she has many medical problems all of which would prohibit her from traveling to our reunion but that she would welcome hearing from classmates by mail or phone calls.
I had gathered some information using our yearbooks to put out to the class, talking about goals we had back then, how many of us realized those goals we had set for ourselves then and how many of us had actually gone on to a little higher calling too in the process. Also went over some of th e silly slogans we each had under our names in the yearbook -and how many of those sayings were still pretty appropriate today. Mine still fits, for sure: "I may not be a Ford but I sure can rattle on!" Oh yes! How true, indeed!
And so, we ended another reunion - leaving with a lot of good feelings (I hope everyone else came away feeling as good as I did about the entire event anyway), but unfortunately, we didn't think to have any discussion as to the idea of having yet another reunion for perhaps our 50th anniversary since our graduation. Well, hopefully we will discuss this here and there as we encounter a few classmates over the next 3-4 years and will decide we want to reunite at least one more time and maybe someone will step up to the plate and take charge of things. I've already decided if folks want another reunion, I will gladly help out in any way possible to see that it comes to pass and here's hoping at least a few others will also step forward, help out and we'll manage to come back together yet again!
As classes go -I doubt ours was any different than other high school classes have been over the course of history - everyone always has a couple little cliques. I think it's just human nature. But, fortunately, what cliques did exist in our class have been, at least for the most part, put aside, forgotten and we now look forward very much to seeing our old friends, enjoy remembering the teachers, other students, little silly things we did back then and sharing our joys that have become our lives since graduation - work, children and now, for many of us, retirement and grandchildren! And boy, I can speak fully from experience here that becoming a grandparent does wonders to change ones perspectives in life. So does having had a life threatening illness too - puts everything in a totally different light, what's important, to what degree and how to go about enjoying living as much as possible.
And, as my friend and classmate, Ernie DeGrasse said today when we talked, "We grew up nicely, didn't we?"
And yes, Ernie - with that I definitely have to agree that I think we did indeed do that quite nicely, in fact.
So there you have it - the full skinny on my 45th class reunion.
Can you tell I very much enjoyed it?
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The time is near
Yep, it's almost here - time for me to head out the door, over to Clearfield to Hedges' Restaurant to meet up with twenty some of my old classmates and some spouses and special guests. My car is "loaded" -got the poster board in there, a smallish corkboard with a few more photos on it, three old yearbooks and an old album I did finally manage to locate. I also have a bag holding twenty bibs that I made in it for my old friend, Bernie, to select what she would like to take home with her for her little granddaughter, Emma, and maybe a couple for the new grandchild due -I think she told me -in August! All that's left is for me to stop at the store and pick up some little gold stars that I forgot to get before. I want them to put by the photos of the six classmates who are now deceased.
I also have two disposable cameras stuffed in my purse and, sitting beside my purse -so I don't go off and forget them - the photos that people mailed to me or brought by the house for me to scan for the photo display.
I have a little typed up thing to use as a guide - of sorts - for the little welcome speech I am supposed to give too. Boy, now's when I wish I could write comedy! Or, better yet, that my sense of humor didn't so often lean a bit on the "blue" side. I've always loved off-color jokes but somehow, I just don't think some of my all-time favorite jokes would be too well-received at this gathering. Now, to relate them to a bunch of truck drivers if I were still waitressing at the truckstop -now that's a horse of a different color! They'd love 'em.
Which reminds me of something from my waitressing days - long gone by now.
There was one driver in particular who ran for Consolidated Freight (CF) out of their terminal in the Poconos. He had a steady bid run from the Poconos to Akron and back home again and he also had a reputation, of sorts, for totally enjoying running a waitress a bit ragged at times. A "ball-buster" is really a good term for Eddie. And, he used to love to try to rile me up any way he could. But I found something out about Ed too - he was Polish and he absolutely hated Polish jokes. Well, back then there were frequently a lot of those type of jokes floating around and I deliberately made sure that I memorized everyone I possibly could so I had a big repertoire of them and when he would come in and start giving me a hard time, I would start ripping off with one Pollock joke after the other till he would ease up on me -or get totally ticked off at me too sometimes.
One night, I caught him with a really cute joke but boy, he did get highly ticked at me over this one. All you do is get a paper bag and have the person put their hand in it and then, you just stand there and don't say or do anything. The person with their hand in the bag inevitably starts to wiggle their hand and asks what's next and here's the punch line then - "I knew if I got you in the sack you wouldn't know what the heck to do!" Well, when I pulled that one on Eddie he got really miffed at me. The fact I let fly with a couple follow-up Polish jokes didn't help matters either. And when he and the guy running with him that night got up to leave, the other guy pulled me aside and said "Jen, do you know Ed's Polish and he HATES Polish jokes?" And I looked at that guy and smiled as I said "Yes, and why do you think I pile them on him!"
But, Polish jokes and ball-busting aside, he was actually one of the nicest drivers underneath it all. When my daughter, Carrie, started to work full-time at that restaurant on the midnight shift, the morning after her first night on midnight shift, she came home, threw her stuff across the dining room table and announced to me that "You might like Eddie, but I DON'T!" And I thought then oh boy, if she can't get along with him , she's going to have a rough road ahead because he generally stopped in our place every time he ran.
I asked her what had happened and she said when he came in, she was bending over a table, cleaning it off and resetting it. He'd never seen her before but he knew my daughter was coming on midnight shift, so by process of quick elimination, he knew this was Carrie, my kid. And he walked up behind her, leaned down and told her "You look like your mother, you walk like your mother, you act like your mother and you talk like your mother!" And here was Carrie who really didn't want any of the customers to know she knew me, much less that we were related!
I told her the best way to deal with Eddie was, when she saw him heading across the sidewalk, to think of something to do to him first - get the upper hand there -and he would be fine with her. And, as it turned out, I was right about that too. When she stopped working there three years later, he was her absolute favorite driver! She just loved him to pieces like a father-figure and he treated her just as he would have his own daughter then too.
A couple months after that happened with Ed though, one evening on my shift, a Roadway driver came in and as I set him up, he remarked to me that he'd been in there the night -actually early, early morning that day and that Carrie had waited on him. I told him not to let her know that he knew she was my daughter and then, related to him what had happened with Carrie and Eddie on her first night. He laughed and said to me "Well, she does walk like you, and she does talk like you and look like you but there's one very big difference." I asked what that might be and his response was "She's much more polite than you are!" I just laughed and told him that's all he knew cause he didn't have to live with that little wench!
I just figured since I was remembering a few things from my past, I may as well throw in some stuff from my work days too!
Gotta go! Gonna turn into Carrie - my daughter - which means I will be late and I can't have that now, can I?
I also have two disposable cameras stuffed in my purse and, sitting beside my purse -so I don't go off and forget them - the photos that people mailed to me or brought by the house for me to scan for the photo display.
I have a little typed up thing to use as a guide - of sorts - for the little welcome speech I am supposed to give too. Boy, now's when I wish I could write comedy! Or, better yet, that my sense of humor didn't so often lean a bit on the "blue" side. I've always loved off-color jokes but somehow, I just don't think some of my all-time favorite jokes would be too well-received at this gathering. Now, to relate them to a bunch of truck drivers if I were still waitressing at the truckstop -now that's a horse of a different color! They'd love 'em.
Which reminds me of something from my waitressing days - long gone by now.
There was one driver in particular who ran for Consolidated Freight (CF) out of their terminal in the Poconos. He had a steady bid run from the Poconos to Akron and back home again and he also had a reputation, of sorts, for totally enjoying running a waitress a bit ragged at times. A "ball-buster" is really a good term for Eddie. And, he used to love to try to rile me up any way he could. But I found something out about Ed too - he was Polish and he absolutely hated Polish jokes. Well, back then there were frequently a lot of those type of jokes floating around and I deliberately made sure that I memorized everyone I possibly could so I had a big repertoire of them and when he would come in and start giving me a hard time, I would start ripping off with one Pollock joke after the other till he would ease up on me -or get totally ticked off at me too sometimes.
One night, I caught him with a really cute joke but boy, he did get highly ticked at me over this one. All you do is get a paper bag and have the person put their hand in it and then, you just stand there and don't say or do anything. The person with their hand in the bag inevitably starts to wiggle their hand and asks what's next and here's the punch line then - "I knew if I got you in the sack you wouldn't know what the heck to do!" Well, when I pulled that one on Eddie he got really miffed at me. The fact I let fly with a couple follow-up Polish jokes didn't help matters either. And when he and the guy running with him that night got up to leave, the other guy pulled me aside and said "Jen, do you know Ed's Polish and he HATES Polish jokes?" And I looked at that guy and smiled as I said "Yes, and why do you think I pile them on him!"
But, Polish jokes and ball-busting aside, he was actually one of the nicest drivers underneath it all. When my daughter, Carrie, started to work full-time at that restaurant on the midnight shift, the morning after her first night on midnight shift, she came home, threw her stuff across the dining room table and announced to me that "You might like Eddie, but I DON'T!" And I thought then oh boy, if she can't get along with him , she's going to have a rough road ahead because he generally stopped in our place every time he ran.
I asked her what had happened and she said when he came in, she was bending over a table, cleaning it off and resetting it. He'd never seen her before but he knew my daughter was coming on midnight shift, so by process of quick elimination, he knew this was Carrie, my kid. And he walked up behind her, leaned down and told her "You look like your mother, you walk like your mother, you act like your mother and you talk like your mother!" And here was Carrie who really didn't want any of the customers to know she knew me, much less that we were related!
I told her the best way to deal with Eddie was, when she saw him heading across the sidewalk, to think of something to do to him first - get the upper hand there -and he would be fine with her. And, as it turned out, I was right about that too. When she stopped working there three years later, he was her absolute favorite driver! She just loved him to pieces like a father-figure and he treated her just as he would have his own daughter then too.
A couple months after that happened with Ed though, one evening on my shift, a Roadway driver came in and as I set him up, he remarked to me that he'd been in there the night -actually early, early morning that day and that Carrie had waited on him. I told him not to let her know that he knew she was my daughter and then, related to him what had happened with Carrie and Eddie on her first night. He laughed and said to me "Well, she does walk like you, and she does talk like you and look like you but there's one very big difference." I asked what that might be and his response was "She's much more polite than you are!" I just laughed and told him that's all he knew cause he didn't have to live with that little wench!
I just figured since I was remembering a few things from my past, I may as well throw in some stuff from my work days too!
Gotta go! Gonna turn into Carrie - my daughter - which means I will be late and I can't have that now, can I?
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