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Dec 28, 2009

SJ's comment about my Christmas post made me realize just how depressing it was.  I had absolutely wonderful Christmases when my children were growing up.  I became like a little kid myself, and always spent way too much money.  I wanted them to have everything they wanted, but of course there were times when we just didn't have the resources, we'll say. 


I remember when Travis was five, the anticipation of Christmas became too much for him.  He came up to me while I was washing dishes, and said, "I know what you got for Christmas."  I said something like well, what did I get?  And he told me a toaster, a food processor, and a big fry pan.  Now if  he had said cookies and candy and GI joes, I probably wouldn't have thought much about it.  But these were things I had bitch asked for.  So, I went over to the tree and examined the gifts, and sure enough, each one had a tiny little tear in it.  This reminded me so much of something my mother would have done,  I started laughing, and took him aside and told him not to tell anyone else what they got.  It would be our secret until Christmas.  Then we got tape and fixed the packages.  Travis was so cute at four years old, nobody could get mad at that 'youngun.'

When they were older, we lived in a house in the country, and had moved up the socio-economic ladder.  I had gone into work at 3:00 am to feed up and power wash a nursery room at the swine production farm, and got home around 7:30am.  By then the kids were up, my husband was watching TV, and we started opening our presents.  This time, we made a video of the whole thing.  Everything went beautifully until my husband was opening one of his gifts, and EJ, God love him, lifted one leg and farted one of the loudest, longest farts I have ever heard.  At first, we tried to ignore it..but, damn, you can't, can you? We fell out of our chairs laughing.  I think we wore the VCR out watching that tape and fast-forwarding to the part where the farting began.

Every Christmas I wanted to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the boys.  I had loved it so much as a child, and I guess I wanted them to love it too.  And every year they whined, "Mama, can I go watch TV?"  "Mama, we already heard it!" "Mama, Santa Claus is way too fat to get down our chimney..." and it finally occured to me they didn't want to hear it.  So, I read to myself out loud.  Hah! 
As the boys aged, the routine changed.  They would go deer hunting with their father.  I had gone to the hunter safety course with them, which my husband loved, because I got all into guns.  I went out and got a Remington semi-automatic 12 guage shotgun, which, after I shot it a few times, decided hunting wasn't for me.  Anyway, the new routine was getting up early, opening gifts, the boys and their dad leaving to go hunting, me cooking my ass off, them coming home at noon to eat, then going back hunting, and me putting stuff away, washing dishes, and then sleeping in a turkey induced stupor until they came back.   I think one winter we lived on deer meat.  It took me two years to learn how to prepare it, and cook it where you could actually eat it.  One year I made so much stuff, I forgot the mashed potatoes in the oven, where I had left them to stay warm.

These are just a very few memories I have of my kids growing up and the wonderful holidays we spent together.  They are like precious gifts you take out every so often to touch, savor, relive.

But back to the farts for one minute.  One day when my kids were 3 and 4, we were watching a movie called Saturday the 14th, which was funny, and had monsters, but was basically a comedy.  Someone, probably EJ, let loose with a silent but deadly noxious vapor, and we teased Travis, sitting in a chair with his blanket, thumb in mouth, saying Travis farted,  until he became very indignant.  He took his thumb out of his mouth, and said, "If I had of farted, I would have heard it!"

It does make sense in a way, doesn't it?

I stole this from Stephen


What Book are you?








You're The Good Earth!

by Pearl S. Buck


While claiming to be more sophisticated than most, you yearn for simpler times out on the farm. You like a good familial drama as much as the next person, but mostly believe in the value of a hard day's labor. There are some serious questions about your ability to accurately judge others and some believe your perspective on others is quaint at best and grossly inaccurate at worst. Still, you talk about folks that no one else around you is, so that's important.

If you were a type of estate, it would be real.











Take the Book Quiz II




at the Blue Pyramid.


What's wierd about this is that Pearl S. Buck
was born in WV.  (Well, she lived there about two months..) And there's nothing hillbillies like better than fending for themselves.  "What, you got a third degree burn?  Well, put this lin root on it and it will draw out the fire.." 


And the cure all for everything when I was growing up was some God-awful concoctions called Pepsin.  Just thinking of it makes me want to puke.

West Virginian's love their vegatable gardens, too.  It's like a contest of who can grow the biggest, juiciest, tastiest whatever.  My dad was the king of potatoes.   My mom would roast them in the oven,  and they were so good.  I always ate the skin on mine.  Loved it.  Still do.

Anyway, this sort of makes sense to me.

Stephen, of course, was the Bible!

Dec 24, 2009

Ah, it's Christmas Eve

And all is well,
Or as well as can be I guess
Right now I feel
I need to get moving and clean up this  awful mess!

I keep trying to think of what to write about Christmas.  The Christmases I remember as a child were filled with such magic.  We were so poor, but somehow my mother managed to get us something for Christmas.  She usually ordered from the Speigel calalog on credit, and sometimes her order was approved, and sometimes it wasn't.  I remember waiting in the cold at the end of our old dirt driveway for the mailman, hoping against hope, that he brought the boxes that contained our Christmas wishes. 

I remember my father coming in, after being gone for a few weeks, and, having been paid, he always brought home oranges, apples, walnuts, and hard Christmas candy.  It was marvelous, the anticipation, the waiting to hear his car pull up in the yard.

Our trees were always fresh cut, found somewhere around the hill where we lived.   We decorated them with ornaments that were old, but extremely precious to us.  Daddy always went and got the tree, and when my brother's were young, they most likely went with him.  It was man's work to get the tree. 

We usually managed to have something good to eat on Christmas Day.  And it usually was a turkey.  Of course Daddy didn't care that much for turkey, but he would eat the dark meat.  Some times we had company, and that was special because it was so rare.

I remember one Christmas when my sister-in-law, Nancy, all of 17, stayed with us on Christmas.  Her mother, Margaret, came to bring some gifts for everyone, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.  She smelled so wonderful, and she wore makeup, something I longed to do.  She brought me perfume called April Showers, and I think it was my favorite gift that year.  It made me feel like a little girl, which of course that is what I was, but my hair was always chopped off, and I was an unabashed tomboy.  That perfume reminded me that maybe one day I could look as beautiful as Nancy's mother.

My sister Geraldine, who had moved out of the house and had a good job at Carbide, always brought everyone something nice.  She was glamorous, too, but a very forceful figure to me.  Growing up, we fought back and forth, and before she died, when we talked to each other by phone, we always ended the calls with "I love you".   I am so very grateful for that.

My mother is gone, and my so is my father.  Margaret died in her late 30's or early 40's of stomach cancer.  Geraldine passed away almost a year after my son Travis did.  I never see my sisters and brothers anymore.  The old house, where we celebrated so many Christmases, has been torn down.  I feel sometimes my home is gone.   But then I have to remind myself that my home is where I am.


I miss those Christmases so much.  I long to wake up on Christmas morning with that wonderful, exciting sense of anticipation, and with the special glow I felt just because it was Christmas.

Dec 13, 2009

tagged and funny pictures for you


Well, I finally answered my "Debra, please check out your matches!!" email fromTagged, and picked out some interesting gentlemen.





I like to call this one The Man About Town.  Clearly he has had some modeling experience, as you note the casual way he slings his jacket over his shoulder.  Understated elegance but still approachable....






 
This nice man has cleverly cut his girlfriend out of his photo.  You see a lot of these.  ("I look damn good in this one, so I'll just cut her ass out of it!") Personally, it's hard for me cut, throw away, or otherwise damage a photo.  Makes me think of bad karma or some such....









Damn, ain't that David Crosby, from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young?  I love their song "Wooden Ships", well, it's about wooden ships on the water, sailing free....wow, I just got this craving for doritos, wtf??




Now this guy is putting all of his assets out there. I imagine he is looking for a serious relationship with that one special woman. (You know, if you look real close you can almost see his thingy! Dear me, I'm blushing!)

You know, I like to think I am modern, open-minded, and not adverse to thinking outside the box, but when it comes to beastiality, well, it just disgusts me.  Shame on you, little poodle dog, for tempting unwary females out there.  Fer shame, fer shame, fer shame!*

This one I fondly refer to as "What the fuck are you doing here?? You didn't see me, ok?  OK?  Don't make me get medieval on your ass!"
******************************************************************************

Do you see a girl's butt in this photo??


No, you don't.  What you see is the crease caused by the blond girl's shoulder. 


*Gomer Pyle

Dec 2, 2009

some funnies from anarchitek



 

I GOT THIS NEW DEODORANT TODAY.

THE INSTRUCTIONS SAID REMOVE CAP AND PUSH UP BOTTOM.


I CAN BARELY WALK, BUT WHENEVER I FART, THE ROOM SMELLS AWESOME!


And then . . .
The Golden Years???