It's my story and I'll cry if I want to...

I’ve decided to write down my history before I forget anymore of it. It is only going to get harder to remember. Don’t think that I blame anyone in these stories for the way my life has turned out. I don’t. Life is just a road I travel and all these little stories are like towns I’ve visited along the way.

The story of me begins with my mother. Mom grew up in rural northern Indiana. Grampa worked the railroad and was a gentleman farmer. She had one older brother and one younger that died in early childhood from brain cancer. She lost her Mother to cancer when she was ten or twelve. While I was sadden by this story growing up, it never occurred to me that these events shaped who she was as a parent and a person, maybe because she never talked about her past. I’ve heard snippets of her life from various people around her but rarely if ever from her.

Grampa never recovered from losing his wife and blamed God. I heard he never set foot in a church again all his days. He didn’t know what to do with his two kids after his wife died so he farmed them out to relatives each summer. Apparently mom had a weight problem (go figure) and was shipped off to a spinster Aunt that promptly put her on a diet of cottage cheese and lettuce. I’ve seen pictures of my mom from high school and she was a platinum blonde bombshell so the diet must have worked.

When Mom married my Dad, she was all ready carrying me and everyone knew it. I’ve heard rumors that she dated my dad’s older brother before she started going out with my dad. She conceived around Christmas of her senior year and I was born in the fall just four days after her 18th birthday. She has never talked of the stress and pain this must have caused the families involved. Surely her dad was pissed. Did he throw her out? I don’t know. She named me after her dead mother. Was it because she loved her mother so much she wanted to honor her or was she trying to appease her father’s anger so that he might welcome me into his family? Did my dad like the choice; did he have any input in picking my name?

Doomed from the beginning, the marriage fell apart by the time I was six months old. My dad related a tale that he came home early one day and caught mom in bed with a door-to-door salesman who had to jump out the bathroom window and ended up breaking his ankle. Neither of my parents has ever talked about their divorce to me. Was there yelling and tears and broken hearts or were they resigned to the fact that it could never work as they calmly split their property? Were they ever in love? I don’t know.

I’ve only seen one picture of my parents together. It’s a picture of them at a semi formal dance before they were married. I don’t know of any existing pictures of their wedding. There are very few pictures of me as a baby. If not for these few photos to document my early beginnings, we could pretend it never happened all the way back to when my grandmother died and her family shattered.

My mom picked up her life and quickly married again, a pattern that would repeat itself several times over the years. My dad was lost to me for the next 21 years until I had my first child. From what I can gather, he was drafted or enlisted on his own in the Army and was sent to Viet Nam where he served several tours of duty before coming home addicted to drugs and shell shocked for life (I believe the current term is post traumatic distress syndrome).

So ends my early years.

Big Princess

Big princess didn't win Homecoming Queen. She was sad. All those people we invited to come and support her, all those we think of as family, 3 families came and waited with us and cheered and congratulated Big princess for making it that far and told her how beautiful she was. To those 3 families, THANK YOU, you truly are our family. Those of you with no excuse as to why you weren't there for her, thank you too. We now know how important we are to you.

1 formal dress $185
1 semi formal dress $145
2 pairs of shoes $110
jewelry $50
1 corset strapless bra $50
2 updo hair appointments $80
eyebrow waxing $15
Total Cost $635
Actually Spent $350

Teaching your daughter how to bargain shop--saved $300
Showing your daughter how beautiful she already is--PRICELESS

How not to take a temperature

I know the weatherman lies but I think in the future she should just watch the news.

It's something you may do every day, but for a 25-year-old Seguin woman, checking the temperature outside turned scary.

"I said Minnie, is it hot or cold?'" said Lisa Segura. "And (motioning with her hand) she said 'no, it feels good' and she just fell out."

Segura says Minnie Montemayor was just checking the weather outside her window when she felt something give way. Witnesses say they felt helpless as the railing gave way and she fell 20-25 feet to the ground.

WOAI News
LAST UPDATE: 10/26/2004 12:46:28 PM
Posted By: Dale Blasingame

Don't you make more money than God?

The company likes happy workers and they really do a good job of making sure we're happy. I have a fabulous work environment and all the tools I need at my disposal. My bosses are always asking my opinion and actually considering it. My pay is more than fair. The benefits are better than most offered in South Texas. Ten paid holidays a year, flex time, generous vacation. They throw these little soires once a quarter to bring us together and build team relationships.

So we are having a little golf competition. We have a 3 hole course laid out on the fourth floor amid filing cabinets and cubicles. On Thursday at 5 pm they will announce the winners and serve beer and sodas. First place $200, Second place $100, Third place $50. Wow, the cash would be sweet with Christmas coming up soon.

One of the owners is here in town for meetings and decided to sign up and play our golf tourneyment. Rumor has it that a woman beat him and he paid $5 for a second chance to putt. He is currently in 1st place as of day two.

Like he needs $200...

Oh well, there goes the office harmony. Cause most of us will bitch about the owner winning our shot at cash for the next quarter.

Voting too early?

I voted early while I was at the courthouse this week. Heck, why not. There was no line and I was already there.

But now I'm wondering...

What if my candidate screws up big time before the "real" elections? Maybe he gets caught with a male prostitute or slips up and says he really doesn't like _____________ (insert favorite minority here).

What then? Can I re-nig my vote?

How about this one: What if one of the candidates dies before the "real" election? What happens then. I mean I understand if Bush goes we get Cheney as President until elections but does that mean the ballots would have to be reprinted with Cheney as President and a vice president to be named at a later date. How about Kerry? Would Edwards move up a slot? How is the vice presidential running mate then picked? Do they have to go back to convention for approval?

And what about my vote! Do I get stuck voting for a dead president? Or can I (and all of us) start over and vote for our choice of the new candidates?

Wow, I can't wait until someone starts reading my blog and answering my questions...

It Ain't Letterman's Top 10 List

I had jury duty this week. I'm one of the few people I know that doesn't mind jury duty.

The number 1 reason I don't mind doing my civic duty?

#1 The cafeteria in the basement of the courthouse has the best beer-battered onion rings in the state. And the only time I get them is on jury duty. So hurray for jury duty!

The other top 10 reasons I don't mind going is:

#2 Hey, its a day away from the office. Need I say more.

#3 People watching-Where else can you get such a cross section of freaks and a whole day to observe them.

#4 My grandma hasn't heard from me since last Christmas. Now's the time to write letters to those relatives you're hoping will send you a Christmas gift.

#5 In South Texas its pronounced doodie and I like telling people "I had doodie today".

#6 I get to read all the dirty, dirty sex tips in Cosmo.

#7 The fun I get from asking the bailiff, "where's Bull?" (the bailiff from Night Court).

#8 People there are impressed by my "hang 'em high" tattoo.

#9 I get to brush up on fun legalese "That amounts to little more than an ex post facto justification of the war."

#10 Tic Tac Toe is Fun! And I always seem to win when I play myself.

I'm All Shook Up

Frequently, around 3 pm, the building I work in rumbles and shakes. It used to be scary now it just gives me pause. This is Texas and we don't really have earthquakes but I imagine that this is what it feels like.

Ok, I had about 30 minutes of writing after this paragraph and now its gone and this isn't the first time. I'm pissed and don't have the time to rewrite it. This is not the first time, its like the 5th or 6th time. I've only been here a month but I may cancel my lease and move my butt outta here. That's how mad I am, again.

I type and type and make corrections and even hit "Save as a Draft" occasionally. And yet when I get back to my post, half or more is just gone. Argh!

Anyways, I've finally figured out what all the rumbling and shaking is. There's a rock quarry (think the Flintstones) about 5 miles east of the office. Its dynamite! They're blasting big rock into little rock. My house is only 3-4 miles from this same quarry but I never noticed it at home. I wonder if that's because at the office I'm on the fourth floor and the tremors are transmitted up the building.

NASCAR Commuting

If you live in South Texas you drive a minivan or a truck. Its a fact.

If you leave more than 1/2 a vehicle length between you and the minivan/truck in front of you, you are inviting some one to fill that space. If you drive the speed limit in the fast lane, someone will flip you the bird and shout "asshole".

I have exactly 3 stop signs between my house and my office. Seriously. That's it. I exit my neighborhood, get on the highway, exit highway, turn right and I'm there. Its probably 8 miles. So why the hell does it take me 35 minutes?

Today there were no accidents on my particular highway, the weather was good (dry, 74 degrees and slightly overcast) and yet traffic was like the line up for NASCAR. Everyone revving their engines and swerving back and forth (to keep the tires hot?). Occasionally I'd get the green flag and accelerate to 45 mph (speed limit is 70), jockey for position, before the caution flag came out and we all brought it down to 25 mph with intermittent stops for clearing debris from the track. (I saw a commercial refridgerator on the side of the road.) I wasn't careful about distance and was passed a couple of times. Apparently we all need to run nose to ass to avoid drag and save gas so we don't have to pit before the end of rush hour.

I think I finished 10,268th today. Where am I in the points?

Fairy Godmother I ain't

Apparently, Homecoming Queens need a semi formal dress and a formal dress. Let me just say Big princess owns neither. She contemplated making a dress from duct tape or the possibility of ripping some jeans apart and sewing them into a dress? Big princess wears crappy thrift store t-shirts and jeans most every day except Sunday. When I make her wear a better class of t-shirt to church.

Last spring, when she went to prom, we went from store to store either finding nothing that fit or nothing under $300. We both cried, a lot. We finally found a store that rents formal dresses. Not her dream dress but for about $100 including rental jewelry we settled.

Last night we had to start the process again but this time needing 2 dresses. I prayed (I begged God is what I did). Big princess said a friend of hers always gets her dresses at Dillards. I told her, "Remember, we looked there last spring. The sales staff was bitchy and we couldn't find anything in your size." I really wasn't in the mood to kick sales lady ass. Apparently last time we didn't look in the appropriate department, which for the record is no where near the rest of the formal wear (different floor even). We actually had about 8-10 dresses to choose from. Pretty dresses, pretty dresses in lots of colors and styles.

I bought her a full length gown that is a shimmery sapphire blue at the bottom and fades to pale blue at the halter top, covered in sparkley rhinestones. Ahhhhhh, muy bonita! And I love it twice as much because it was only $45 on final markdown from $150. Big princess bought her semi formal gown, a 1950's design, black w/big white poka dots and red lace peeking from under the flared skirt. It could use a big hat and she would be perfect at the Kentucky Derby!

Now all she needs is shoes! Fairy Godmother, glass slippers would match both dresses and save me another shopping trip.

Where the heck have I been?

Vacations are great. At least the idea of a vacation is great. I had dealt well with the stress of trying to pack everything we own into a minivan, making sure everyone was happy with what we were taking. The beach was good. Camping was ok. We aren't very good at making food but I brought enough junk food and no one starved or complained. Who doesn't want oreo cookies instead of chicken and rice?

The worst of it: no place to get out of the sun for 3 days. It was too hot to hang out in the tent mid-day and no shade anywhere. Big princess and I are royally burnt. No bras for several days and we just keep lathering on the aloe vera. We are currently at the peeling stage. And yes, we did wear sunscreen, often and thick. But alas, we are very pale to start with.

The very worst of it: having to unpack everything and put it a way and bringing back way more sand than allowed. It's been 3 days and I've cleaned and put everything a way except the tent. It still needs to be set up and cleaned and packed a way neatly. Argh!

Watching the sun rise over the ocean... Priceless
Being greeted by cranes and pelicans at dawn, finding sand dollars, chasing crabs on the beach, burying Big princess in the sand.... Priceless
Seeing the sun set over the dunes... Priceless
Having littlest princess point out that serving beans to everyone sleeping in the same tent was not a good idea... Priceless!!!

But She's Nice!

Big princess just won Homecoming Princess and is in the running for Homecoming QUEEN! She said she doesn't think she'll get it because she's running against the National Honor Society President. "And she's nice!" Big princess said.

Yeah, well, my daughter is sarcastic and funny! So there! Besides I think it should be against the law to be both President and Queen at the same time.

Why do you sound like a hillbilly?

My brother called to tell me he's famous. This is nothing new. He always thinks he is on the verge of famousness. This time he tells me that he has satellite radio in his semi truck and he likes to listen to talk radio especially drag racing stations.

I'm thinking "How boring, kill me now."

So he decides to call in and ask some question. He is amazed to hear himself on the radio just minutes after getting off the phone.

"Wow, technology!" I congratulate him on his brush with famousness?

He says, "Ya know, they made me sound like a hillbilly on purpose." Excuse me? "Yeah, they made me sound like a hillbilly." On purpose? "I'm telling ya, I don't talk like that." You sure it was you? "Course it was me, I recognise me."

Well, if it walks like a hillbilly and talks like a hillbilly, maybe its a hillbilly.

No offense and thanks for dinner last time you were in town. Love ya!

The What If's

"What if" tomorrow:

I win the lottery?
I get hit by a bus?
My husband leaves me?
I find out God doesn't exist?

Wow, this list sounds like the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm pretty sure none of this is going to happen tomorrow. But "What if"?

Big princess and I were driving to Church and everything was normal. We were talking and laughing with each other. It was one of those one-on-one moments that I cherish when we are more like best friends than mother/daughter. Suddenly I had a flash of an on-coming car swerving into us head on. At the last millisecond, the other driver corrected. It happened so fast I didn't have time to react, be frightened, or shout obscenities as is my nature. Big princess didn't even notice, that's how fast it was. She was laughing over something she said and must have blinked.

I thought "Wow, what if that was my last conscience moment on earth?" Would my life be good enough to get that golden ticket into the pearly gates? Crap, probably not. What if we were both just gone? At least we would have gone out laughing and together.

"Mom... Mom ... Moooommm! Are you listening to me."

Yes, dear? You are hilarious.

How I Lost Ten Times more than a Million Dollars

Dear Ms. Paula,
Hi! I finished a book called the Toothpaste millionaire. It's about a boy who starts a business by selling toothpaste! And he makes ten times more than a million dollars. That's a lot of money!!!! He even gets to buy a machine & hire people!!!! Man I wish I had all that money. Don't you? Love, Luke

Hi Luke,
When I was your age, I invented beef flavored toothpaste for dogs. My dog had really bad breath! If I had known how to start a business back then, maybe I'd have ten times more than a million dollars!
Ms. Paula

The Beef Flavored Toothpaste for Dogs Story

Well, my first step was to figure out what goes into regular toothpaste. Let me tell you that was harder than you would think. First, I tried to read the ingredients on the tube in our house. No good, it was like trying to read Chinese. And let me tell you, we only had about 3 different types of toothpaste back then, not the 50 different brands you can get today.

Second, there was no internet back then. Heck, people didn't even have computers in their houses (can you believe that? Ask your Dad). I actually had to GO to the library. Back then kids my age (about 10 years old) were allowed to ride their bikes pretty far away. So I rode my bike to the library about 2 miles away inside the mall (Yes, we had malls back then). I did this quite a bit anyway because I've always loved to read and the library had bean bag chairs I could curl up and read in. Then I had to search the "card file index" for something on toothpaste because libraries didn't have computers back then to look up books, just cards with information on them.

I found out that basically toothpaste had some kind of abrasive to scrub the teeth (like baking soda), soap to make it foamy (YUCK!), sugar to make the soap taste better, and they had just started adding fluoride to stop cavities.

I figured, "hey, my dog doesn't need soap or sugar and I wasn't too concerned about his cavities." So I tried straight baking soda with a little water to make a paste and tried to brush his teeth. JUMP BACK, because he didn't like the flavor much. So I thought to myself, "What do dogs like?" BEEF!! So I asked my mom for some beef flavored bouillon cubes (what you make soup broth with). I crumpled them up with the baking soda, added water to make a paste and tried again. Success, my dog loved it. The only problem was he still had beefy breath.

That's my story! And I still think it would have made ten times more than a million dollars too!

Crash #4

I feel like a teenager with a brand new license, I've crashed so many times. I've been on the job four months and today I crashed hard drive number four. Well, it has been 30 days since my last crash. My boss asks how do I do it. I told him I work so hard that the machines can't keep up.

It started off so simple this morning. "Hey, can you run a copy of the O&M manual off this cd." Sure, I'll have it done in a jiffy. That was 5 hours ago and still no O&M manual. Machines are making me look bad! I have the bad habit of trying to use my computer to its full potential. The IT guy said "What are you doing with all these windows open at the same time?" Ahhh, working? I've asked my computer to remember stuff so I don't have to and it let me down. I had to actually run a search engine to find my blog! I couldn't remember the address!

I'm like a duck out of water. Whatever that means. I don't know how to work without my computer. But I'm pretty sure ducks can still be ducks when they are out of the water. So far I've paid my bills, atleast those that I had money for, I ran to the bank, picked up sterno for the camping trip, ate lunch, chatted with co-workers, phoned a friend, wrote the grandparents a thank you note for my birthday check. It took me a while to A. find a computer elsewhere that they would let me touch (I've got a reputation in the IT dept.) B. convince IT to let me log on, C. remember/find my blog address.

Hey, you've got a computer and logged on, why don't you work? It's like this, all my stuff is in my office 1/2 way around the building and I can't get to any of the programs that were unique to my machine. At least I now look busy. I'd kill to check my email. Hey, I think I can log on to outlook remotely. Gotta go...

Hazmat Superfund Site

Yea! The oil is gone. Sing along:

“To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump”

Thirty-five gallons of used motor oil gone from the garage.

I was very afraid when I woke up Saturday morning at 6 am to a ferocious storm. “Oh man, he’s gonna try to put it off, again, for another ten years.” How many decades of oil can we collect in the garage before it must be reported, under section 304 of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986? (Look it up, its real)

I asked him tentatively, “Will 5 inches of rain keep you home today?” He thought he was going to get around the whole issue.

“Call them and make sure they’re still open today.”

I did and they were and he went.

Not the best choice for a party

The preacher made my husband cry today. It didn't happen at church because you wouldn't find my husband there unless it was a serious holiday. Even then he only goes to humor the princesses.

My preacher is virtually famous. They turned his blog into a book. How cool is that! We received a postcard in the mail saying not only was his book coming out, he would be autographing copies at a local bookstore and would read a passage from the book, RealLivePreacher.com

Littlest princess came running into the house a couple weeks ago shouting "Gordon came in the mail!" (Yes, our preacher let's everyone call him by his first name.) I wasn't sure we would buy the book. After all, I thought, we had lived most of the stories and I'd read them on the blog. But when a friend reaches a milestone you want to share it them. So we skipped the opportunity to nap on Sunday afternoon and went down to the book store.

Wow, tamales and beer! Wait, beer? Can I drink beer in front of my "church friends"? On a Sunday no less? After a certain number of people opened beers (thanks, Lyle), so did I. It was good. People milled about, chatting comfortably with each other. I only saw a smattering of people I didn't know. Must be the online crew. My princesses were happy at another chance to hang with the 3 sisters that day. I sipped beer beside my husband (he sipped lemonade). Then preacher began.

He thanked everyone and it was good.

He talked a little bit about the book and it was good.

He asked if we minded if he read a sad essay from the book. Party's over....

It was the story of a couple that ninety percent of us in the room knew, not well, but we knew who they were. They had come to church and worshipped for a while. I had seen them in church, in pain and never asked. I'm sure God cursed me for pretending at the time that it was for the best that I not ask, that it was none of my business. Their baby came into the world too soon and lived but a few short hours. That this was the second time this had happened to this couple was more than I could bear. We escaped as quickly as we could after Gordon finished. My husband and I sat in the minivan and blew our noses.

Then I turned to my husband. I've seen him cry maybe four times in 17 years. Once when we both thought our marriage was broken, when Babe Ruth dies during the Babe Ruth movie, when his Dad had 5 bypass heart surgery and when our littlest princess was born. We escaped the room as quickly as we could. My husband and I sat in the minivan and blew our noses.

Preacher, today you made my husband cry and ruined a perfectly good beer. Thanks

Dump

We are supposed to go to the hazzardous materials dump this morning. My husband has been saving used motor oil for the better part of a decade. Its only open on the first Saturday of the month. Well we make it? 50-50 shot at it. I've been trying for years to get him to do something about the jugs and jugs of oil in our garage. I may have to just do it my friggin self.

Why can't he just do it? Why can I sit thru hours of TV I hate just to be with him and yet the minute he doesn't want to see what I'm watching he takes off for other parts of the house. Ok, maybe I'm just in one of those moods where he can do no right.

No, its him.

We leave on a mini vacation to the coast next week. He has not given one thought to the planning. We're camping on the beach so gear out the ass. Who will feed the animals while we're gone? What will we eat?

I'd better stop now and go work on the lists...
one for tent gear,
two for food (only need 6 meals for 5 people),
three for toilets/1st aid,
four for cooking/eating supplies (plates, pots, hot pads, tinfoil),
five for fun stuff (tubes, buckets for sandcastles, beach ball, boogie board, sunglasses)

Lord, hear my prayer.
Help me to be pleasant as I gather my household and make it fit into a minivan.
Make me calm as I explain for the 20th time that Big princess has to go and may not stay home alone.
Let me laugh as I try to convice little princess that we're only going for 3 days and she does not need that many toys.
Don't let me snap at my husband as he locks the front door holding a pair of underware and a toothbrush in his hand and yells he's ready to go.
And Lord, if I'm not asking too much already, please help me to relax and enjoy what you have so graciously made for my enjoyment, heaven and earth. Amen

Popular Stalls

We have 4 stalls in the ladies room. Three regular and one handicapped, although we don't have any handicapped employees. Yeah, I know, regulations require it for the public. My observation is that extra large stall is everyone's favorite. You have to get there early in the day cause by 3 pm both rolls of toilet paper have been depleted.

Don't ask me why I notice this kind of things. I want to know why no one else notices these kind of things.

Do women like to spread out, relax, while taking care of business?

Big princess had a conniption on the way home from the gym last night. "Drive faster." What's the problem? "I have to go to the bathroom." Weren't you just in the bathroom before we left the gym? "I just went peed but I have to poop."

Oh

"Hurry!"

She claims to have never pooped anywhere but home her entire life. She will swear she has never pooped at school (daycare thru high school), church, the gym, during week long summer camp, shopping centers, malls, friend's houses, at work.

I've asked why many times over the years, explained that its not good for her body to hold back, even threatened that she will loose control over her spinxter muscle before she reaches middle age and be reduced to wearing adult diapers.

"I'm afraid someone might hear me, smell me, or just know what I'm doing." Everyone does it. "That's soooo gross." I've asked her what her plans are when she goes to college and has to share a bathroom between 4 girls and it is positioned between 2 dorm rooms. Is she planning on holding onto her package until she can get home? <"silence"> This probably explains why her choice of colleges keeps getting closer to home. I thought it was because she was going to miss us.

Apparently she is just going to miss her "home base".