Bugs In Your Ear, Josh, and Forever 21

Today is Saturday, September 28th...............yesterday was my Birthday and depending on how you count – it was either my 54th birthday or my 21st. I have really wanted to write this entry for a couple of days but I just didn't know how to put the words down without tears and today it finally came to me.

In 1982 a VERY special person came into my life in the form of my best friends first born son. Josh was supposed to have entered the world in October but in the wee hours of the morning following my pre-birthday celebration he decided it was time. Now it was many hours after those pains started that he entered into the world but he managed to clock in on my birthday! Over the years we swapped cards, shared a few cakes, and the rule was always that since he got to use MY birthday date – I got to use HIS numbers! Well except for when he turned three, that year he went around telling everyone that he was the BIG 3! and since I was NOT 30 at the time I didn't chime in because I didn't want any one to think I was 30!, lol.

I believe Josh was about 19 at the time of the Bug saga...........

It was after my divorce and I was working at the local quick stop and had to be at work at 5:30am. Josh's mom is a teacher but she worked at the quick stop on weekends and she and I were scheduled that morning. I was in the shower, grabbed the towel and started drying off. Honestly my first thought was that I had gotten water in my ear. The next thing I knew my body was being racked with the most horrible intense mind numbing pain EVER, and I thought – I have ruptured an ear drum!

I will not go in to details, but I called my friend and she and her daughter came to get me. We dropped her off at the quick stop and Lacey took me to the hospital. The pain would come and go and when it hit – OH MY! I literally squeezed a coke bottle so hard that I POPPED the lid off of it during one of the pain waves. We were in the ER for a while when the doctor came in with the LONGEST pair of tweezers I have ever seen and pulled a tiny black bug out of my ear..............and no more pain! He said the pain waves were when the bug was trying to crawl through/around my ear drum.

I must note that during this time I was reading a lot of Tom Clancy and I had kind of gotten the attitude that being a spy would be cool. After this I knew that all they would have to do is threaten to put a bug in my ear and I would tell them ANYTHING they wanted to know! So I quickly ditched the spy as a second career idea!

Now Josh was just a little bit ornery (okay, a WHOLE lot ornery but that is part of the reason I loved him so much) but he loved me and he tried to react to the whole “bug in the ear” thing with SOME amount of sympathy but he was not very successful. He thought it was hysterical and pretty darn silly that I went to the hospital over the whole deal................

Well that was until during the summer he was out in a field, bugs were flying everywhere and Karma sent one in to his ear. After a great deal of hitting himself on the side of the head, tears coming to his eyes from the pain, and telling the guy he was working with that HE might have to go to the hospital to get the damn thing out.................well it finally came out and he had a LOT more sympathy for his Aunt Rhonda.

When Josh turned 21 he was away getting his certification to be a hunting guide. I was so excited when he got back to town and we exchanged Birthday Hugs and Congrats. I told him this was the best birthday yet – we were 21! YAY!

Josh had a wreck Thanksgiving weekend that year, he never really woke up from the accident and we lost him right before Christmas.

That was 10 years ago and I still have a hard time when it comes to my birthday but I put a smile on my face, I think about bugs in ears, and I remember being forever 21.

I Will Take The Bottom

Last night I was talking on the phone to a friend and the conversation turned to personalities and just what made people happy. We talked about several different types of people we knew – ones that just wanted to follow, ones that wanted to lead, ones that were happy doing both. We also discussed some personalities that we really didn't enjoy being around. I, for one, have know a couple of people who sadly were not happy unless they were ANGRY about something.

It was probably the Leaders that we discussed most and the reasons they wanted to lead. And we talked about the satisfaction from leading and the different experiences and approaches to this.

I like to feel that at my core I am a teacher. I LOVE IT when a student “gets it”, when they figure out how to do something! The light in their face is a wonderful thing to see when they figure out how to do something correctly or at least the next step to solving their problem. I get further joy when they complete something and they are truly satisfied with it! When a student is struggling I spend hours trying to find a way, trying to find that one puzzle piece that I can share with them so that the light comes on for them..........and when it does, every minute I spent trying, researching, asking others is so worth it. I once had a communications student that her first speech to the class was given with her head down, reading word for word from her paper, and in a voice so low people two feet from her could hardly hear. Her last speech to the class was with head up, given impromptu, and someone standing at the door heard every word. Two years later she was president of a major organization on campus and giving speeches around the area. I like to think I had a hand it that and I am so proud of how far she has come.

Now I must point out that I also consider myself a “fixer”, that means I am much better at Fixing something than I am at doing things right to start with, lol. Yes I know it would take less time to do it right the first time, but I kind of consider the first time as a trial run to learn from...........then I can go back and redo it for the better.

I enjoy sharing what I know with others and I really like when I can help someone “fix” what they have done. Some of you might say that besides this being a “teacher thing” it is also a “mom thing” too, and you are probably right.

I really do like helping others and if I can help someone to learn something, help them to grow, or help them fix something.............well they just made my day! And their success is a major adrenaline rush for me.

I will not go into details about one of my jobs, I will just say that it is therapeutic riding for clients with mental and/or physical challenges and part of my job is physical. Now I do a lot of paperwork, I do a lot of talking, and a lot of fund raising. But I also get to work with the clients and believe me when the night is done...........I have a bad knee (thank you basketball and rodeoing), a bad shoulder (thank you rappelling and bull riding), and a bad ankle (yep we are back to basketball) – that ALL talk back to me...........and sometimes they are still “talking” the next morning when I hobble around.

Is it worth it? When you have a seven year old that has never spoken more than a word or two at a time and you tell him you are taking him off the horse and he says “I don't want to”...........YES! Every ache and pain is worth it. When you have a five year old that has never taken a step on his on get off the horse and WALK to his mom...........oh HELL YES it is worth it!

But I know people that do NOT help for this reason, they help for the control that they get........for them helping is power and they use that power every chance they get. They will ask you to do something so that they can point out how you did it wrong – so that they can come in and prove to everyone how they can do it better than you. They are always there to remind you and others how much you owe them for making things right. And if you ever forget this, they will find another way to set you up, so that they can put you in “your place” again. They help only so that they can tell others how THEY suffered and worked to make things right. They help for the power and control over others that they receive.

Now I have been told by several that my attitude of helping others, my desire to see others succeed, and my willingness to push others to their top is why I will always be at the bottom. That I should take power and use it to rise to the top. I will say that I don't think the “top” is such a bad place, I just don't want to get there by beating down others or controlling them. I don't want to be that person, who when they walk into the room everyone cringes in fear and all the joy is sucked from the room.

If being that way is the only way I can get to the Top.......................

….........I will take the Bottom. I like the view in my mirror much better this way, I sleep good at night, and it makes me happy.

Brownies and "Blondes"

I must start this off by saying that I am a natural blonde, over the years my hair has gotten darker.............but then about the time I turned 50, well lets just say those natural platinum highlights have lightened up my hair considerably.

I mention this because I have heard blonde jokes ALL of my life, most of the time I laugh them off.........sometimes I fight back with a joke of my own:

“Do you know what is Black and Blue, Red all over and laying in a bar ditch? - the last brunette to tell me a blonde joke!”

Other times I fire back that “those jokes are NOT about true blondes, they are about the die jobs – it is the peroxide brain damage” 

or my favorite is “The Dingy-est blondes I have EVER known were brunettes!”

Today someone shared this ad with me.........

and it brought back to mind a true incident that happened to me several years ago.

I was a member of an organization that was going to have a concession stand. We had a meeting to discuss our menu and work schedule for the event. Our main item was going to be sandwiches that we were going to make there. We also decided to buy big bags of chips and repackage them in smaller bags. The club was going to pay for all of the things we needed except for the dessert. 

Everyone was to bring two dozen cookies packaged two cookies to a bag.  We discussed the size the cookies should average so that it would be fair for our customers.

One of the members (I will call her Suzie) proclaimed that cookies were not her thing, she had a killer brownie recipe that she wanted to make for the event. 

There was some discussion and it was decided that this would be okay, she could bring brownies.........................and then........... it began.............

Me: Okay, Suzie, one brownie needs to equal about the same as two cookies so bring a dozen brownies.  Package them one brownie per sack.

Suzie: How many pans would that be?

Me: It depends on the size of your pan

Suzie: It is a regular long cake pan

Me: A 9X13?

Suzie: I guess

(Did I mention that she was a college graduate who had told me more than once that her degree was from a MUCH better learning institution than the one I graduated from)

Me: (insert inner eye roll) Then just one pan

Suzie: How do I cut it to get a dozen?

(Remember this is a woman with a college education and children)

45 MINUTES LATER.............first talking, then using a chalkboard for diagrams, then transferring it to paper for her to take home I had convinced her how to cut a 9X13 pan of brownies so that she would end up with 12 brownies!

A week later we had the event, and Suzie marched in with her........................

.........

.....

PLATE of cookies! A very nice plate, complete with a paper doily and the store bought cookies stacked neatly in a pyramid. When she sat it on the table, I grabbed a box of sandwich bags and started filling them with cookies. She was not pleased because she had spent all morning getting them stacked just right.

.....

Did I mention she was a Brunette?

When Walls, Objects, and People Talk

If Walls Could Talk..............ever say that to yourself? I know I have, only today I thought about it in a new way and the walls actually did talk to me, as well as items and people.

I decided to take in a garage sale or two today, it is one of my favorite ways to find new treasures and face it – this is one form of retail therapy that doesn't break the pocket book.

One of my first “finds” was an awesome little table that was priced for $10 but before I could even ask the woman said she would take $5 for it since it needed some work. I snapped up the bargain and looked around some more. While I shopped she told the other woman helping her all about the fact that it was her grandmothers table but it was time to let go, besides she had another table of granny's that she was going to use as an art table and that was a good way to remember her.  I still can't decide if she was trying to justify selling her grandmothers table to herself or to the woman helping with the sale.

I made a few more sales then I found a street with two sales! At the first sale I overheard another customer trying to dicker on an item. The woman holding the sale was adamant on her price, to the point that she said she would take it back inside before she went any lower. I stopped at the next sale, there was a really nice wooden wine rack that I liked. 

Now let me say the fact that I really didn't need a wine rack, lol, I already have one and I am not exactly a wine collector. 

Although I am getting a nice collection of Vintage Denim wines thanks to the fact that a friend of mine, Jean Stuntz, is making her own wine. I am digressing, I looked at the rack for a minute, it had a price tag of $15 on it. I couldn't resist asking if they would take $10.............WOW! All four working the sale said YES! Lol, then the lady who owned it started talking about the fact that she did NOT want to have to take it back home and how delighted she was that it was SOLD!

Oh I have to mentioned that be this time I had realized that ALMOST EVERY sale I had stopped at, there were people complaining about the new Apple update on their phones and trying to help each other figure out all of the new features?

A few minutes later I found another sale...........this sale will probably stay with me for a long time. I bet there were 10 women taken money and making deals at this sale. It didn't take long to find out that the sale was to help with the upcoming funeral expenses of the homes owner. One of the women was the daughter and she told another woman that the only thing she was taking home on the plane with her was her mama's bible and her ashes.

It was in the house that I was hit the hardest. Most of the kitchen items were well used and not of good quality but the furniture inside the house............well it was of the highest quality and very large scaled. In fact the furniture was of the size it should have been rooms two or three times the size it was in with 9 or 10 foot ceilings. I knew that this woman at some time had been forced to downsize from a very large home. I had been told when I went in to PLEASE not open any closed doors, I passed a bedroom with the door closed and a signed taped on in that said “Do Not Disturb – Sleeping”. Out side I learned that Mom is still alive and was napping, apparently she is not expected to be here much longer. My heart hurt for the woman in that room, spending her last days in bed while the physical things of her life went out the door. I imagined that she had been strong before when she moved to her smaller home, but I really hope she had no idea what was happening in her garage and house this time.

"Raising children is like being pecked to death by chickens"

I found the chicken painting and saying in her kitchen...........I loved them both. My granny used to say that “children are like chickens, when they are little they walk all over your feet and when they are grown they walk all over your heart”.

I still had a lot of time in the day, but I decided to call it a day …....... I just couldn't stop thinking about chickens, and children, and life.

The Gift, The Towel, and The Legend!

Family legends are born everyday, sometimes they are tied to objects, sometimes to actions, and other times just to the people themselves – this is the Murphy legend of the canner and it actually involves all three. This is a tale that goes back to World War II and a time when the majority of meals were cooked at home and many items were either rationed or in short supply because of the needs of the military.

To give a little “back story” - Home canners were not “new” in the 1940's but they were not a common item and if you didn't own one before the war started you were probably not getting one until it was over!. My grandparents, Loyd and Eva Murphy had been married for just a few years and while my grandmother did not personally own a canner but she had been wanting one of her own for a while. They were ranchers in Borden County, I would tell you that the nearest “town” was Knapp but you wont find it on any map, better to say close to Snyder, Texas.

Now I must interject here a couple of facts about the character and habits of my grandparents. My grandmother was one heck of a cook and she took some pride in her cooking. Her recipes did not just include the “normal” fare she branched out..........heck you know those little “wedding mints” that you buy at the store? Not her, she had her own recipe (which I have) and I am not sure if there was a wedding or shower in Grady, New Mexico for 30 years that did not serve her mints!.........oh maybe I should mention that in 1952 they moved to a ranch outside of Grady, thanks to Uncle Sam for deciding that he just had to build lake J.B. Thomas and take up half of the Murphy land........but that is another story. Now my grandmother was what I would term more on the “reserved” side and she didn't do a lot of kidding around.

My granddad was a quiet man, if he spoke more than a couple of words everybody stopped to listen because it HAD to be important! He was awesome with animals and kids..........oh the tales I could tell of my adventures with granddad, lol. But he had a little bit of an ornery streak to him too! Lol, when I was little he and I would occasionally eat a meal or snack when grandmother was gone...........he would tell me we were going to let the dog wash the dishes and put them back in the cabinet so that grandmother wouldn't know! We let the dog lick them clean and he pretended to put them up (eventually I discovered that they ended up in the sink) I would giggle for a day thinking of what we had gotten away with.

Now this fact about my granddad is very important to the story - One thing he liked to do was pop you with a towel! And I am telling you that man could POP a towel so loud it would have made a mule skinner jealous! He rarely even touched you with it but the sound would make you jump five feet!

As had been the custom of most ranchers since the trail drive days usually the owner of the cattle would make the trip with the cattle when they were taken to the sale. My granddad ranched with my great-granddad and it came time to take a load of cattle to Ft. Worth to sell. Again because many things including gasoline and tires were rationed people didn't just drive everywhere they wanted so granddad rode with one of the truck drivers. Either in Ft. Worth or Dallas (sorry I don't remember this part of the story), the truck driver and my granddad stopped at a store............and on the shelf they had brand new Maid of Honor home canners! Well the driver and granddad proudly bought two of these treasurers to take home to their wives!

Shortly after arriving home with the canner my grandmother was in the kitchen and the canner was on the stove...........granddad came in and saw an opportunity!

He picked up a towel and flipped it back to “pop” grandmother...............his sneak attack was detected and SHE turned around and POPPED him! He dodged the towel and his head hit the canner............splitting his eyebrow and sending blood everywhere!

So now our legend of the canner has TWO versions...........

Grandmother – excited and proud that granddad thought of her and bought her a very wanted and treasured item.

Granddad – he went out of his way to buy and bring her something rare that every woman in the county wanted and she was so mad at him for it that she threw it at him and split open his head.

Lol, personally I like both versions AND the real story! I have possession of that canner, I have lugged around the Texas Panhandle............I would never dare can in it but for me it is a precious memory that brings a smile to my face every time I see it.