Rabbit Rabbit

It's that time again! Golly how the months fly by. It's the first of the month, so you'd better say Rabbit Rabbit for good luck. Can't be too careful.

The night I was born

My father, mother, and three older sisters were all delivered by the same man, Dr. Wiley. In fact, almost all of my cousins were delivered by Dr. Wiley as well. All born in the same hick town in the boondocks of Tennessee. You can barely call it a town in fact, and for the most part they were born out in the country nearby the "town."

I just had to be different of course. My father was working on a temporary job on a TVA damn in Alabama when I was born. The family was there for just a few months.

My sisters were all born at home, but none of them had been present at the birth of any of the others. They had always stayed with my mother's mother when Mama was about due to deliver. But Mama's mother had died about seven months before this particular November night. So, everyone in the family was there in the small two-bedroom house the night I was born.

I grew up hearing the story of "the night you were born," from all different directions. It seemed to have been a big event in everyone's life. Well, the one person who never told the story was my father. He never mentioned it.

My oldest sister Mary was a bright kid who read a lot and wrote all the time. So I have my story in front of me right now. Written by my sister, who was nine and a half at the time of my birth. It's not a happy story. Below is part of what Mary wrote:

"When Mama started labor, my father sent me for the mid-wife. The directions he gave me were to a part of the tract I had never been to before. My heart was in my throat. I was afraid I would get lost. I knew my father would be very angry with me if I failed to find her house."

Later after Mary has alerted the mid-wife and is back home she writes, "Daddy told me to take Doris and Bonnie to the bedroom that Doris and I shared and not to come out until he gave us permission." (Doris would have been six years old, and Bonnie would have just turned two on the first of the month. Bonnie had been used to sleeping with Mama up until this very night.)

Mary continues, "It seemed like hours passed. Bonnie was only a baby herself and she kept asking for Mama. I let her play with my paper dolls, which were cut out of the Sears Roebuck catalogue, to keep her quiet. Finally, the door opened and we were allowed to see the new baby. Mama called our attention to how she already held up her head and turned it in the direction of the person speaking."

"We could all see that Axxx Nxxxx (my real name), as Daddy named her, was going to be a strong intelligent child. Besides, she had violet eyes, which I had never seen before."

The story goes downhill after that. Bonnie cried later because she was accustomed to sleeping with Mama at night, and Daddy wasn't going to allow that now that there was a new baby. Daddy whipped Bonnie to make her stop crying, which only made her sob harder. (That was a favorite trick of his.)

Mary writes that, "Bonnie desperately tried to stop crying. Her sobs came in jerks that drew her stomach up under her ribs. " Mary then describes the beating that Bonnie got from my father because she couldn't stop crying. Mary got up the nerve to save Bonnie by grabbing her and retreating into the girls' bedroom. Poor Mama was crying and begging Daddy to leave the kids alone. So Daddy did his other favorite thing: Slammed the door and left.

As I said before, I heard this story from day one. When I was six or so, I told Mary that I knew why Daddy got so mad the night I was born. It was because I had been another girl. He wanted a boy. Here I was: just another damned girl.

He got his revenge on me with the names he gave me. My true first name is ugly, and my true middle name is unusual. But that's not the kicker. It seems that the family left Alabama a couple of months after I was born because my father had been having an affair with one of his supervisors daughters, of which there were two. Yep. I got those two names. That Daddy. Such a rake.

Too lazy to think

I stole this from Christine (formerly 100 Reasons Why I Hate My Husband). I have no shame, and I have no ideas for a post. Besides, it's Sunday. No one reads or posts on Sunday, 'cept Hoss. Can't compete with the best, and Hoss is the best.


What were you doing 10 years ago?

Still working as an accountant and accounting systems analyst for the Commonwealth of PA. Pennsylvania is a commonwealth, not a state. Please don't ask me what the difference is.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

Just returned from a long trip to the western states. We hit Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Seattle, Salem (didn't know Hoss then), Glacier National Park, Mt. Rushmore, you name it. Then we hosted the family for Thanksgiving.

5 snacks you enjoy:

1. Chocolate
2. Chocolate covered pretzels
3. Chocolate ice cream
4. Chocolate covered anything
5. Coffee, best with something chocolate to eat


5 songs to which you know all the lyrics:

1. Amazing Grace
2. Purple People Eater
3. The Star-Spangled Banner
4. White Christmas
5. Rock-a-bye Baby

5 things you would do if you were a millionare:

1. Give money to my kids
2. Give money to all kinds of causes and charities
3. Buy a vacation house at the shore (I think)
4. Travel
5. That's it. Millions don't go all that far.


5 bad habits:

1. Chocolate
2. Laziness
3. Cleaning other people's houses
4. Blogging
5. Not seeing other's points of view

5 things you like doing:

1. Eating. Especially chocolate
2. Reading
3. Blogging
4. Traveling
5. Being with my family

5 things you would never wear again:

1. Bell bottoms. Unless they come back into style.
2. Maternity clothes. (Yea! I'd rather be old than pregnant.)
3. Four-inch killer high heels
4. Hip huggers
5. Platform shoes

5 favorite toys:

1. Computer
2. Vacuum cleaner
3. Car radio
4. CD player
5. Obviously I don't have enough toys.

Let me know if you played.

Witness to BASIP

This is so much fun. I'm on the PC at AP3's. Daughter Aral is on her lap top in here, making her BASIP. If you ever read her blog, you know that on Saturday she does a Bizarre Album Saturday In Pezland post.

It's so much fun watching this develop. She's pretty darn smart at putting all this together. In fact she says that it's so much work, that she ought to get paid for it. That Aral. What's bizarre is that she didn't even pick the album until a couple of minutes ago. She's half asleep, and she just does this stuff on the spur of the moment. I'm impressed.

'Course, if any of these albums was worth actually hearing, they wouldn't be considered bizarre. But she buys them for the bizarre cover pictures.

Aral's spouse Me Wonder Woman Pez and I are rockin' to the music, such as it is, my husband Niks is reading the newspaper out loud to us, and Aral is working away on her post. The cats are meowing for attention, the dog is excited at all the activity, and there's a young man over in the living room who apparently slept there last night. I knew that granddaughter Aved had company when I went to bed. All the activity is exciting to me too.

Niks and I get to stay in a Pezland room here. Aral has nine musical instruments in that room. She has albums with "interesting" covers framed on the walls, plus many other odd and interesting things.

She has a pretty good Elvis collection goin'. Has a lamp with Elvis and his hips swing back and forth continually. There's a life size bust of Elvis too. Of course the shelves are full of books on music and sheet music. She's a musical girl.

Oh! Hats! This girl has hats! A lot of hats! And more shoes than straight women have. But the shoes are in the closet, unlike Aral. The hats are hanging in collections. Maybe 50 or 70 hats?

Me Wonder Woman also has a room for her toys. (This is a big old house with plenty of room.) MWW's extra room is pretty and meditative. Aral's is like a college dorm room.

Young people are energizing. I'm having a great time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm having the very best of Thanksgivings. I'm sitting in my daughter's (ap3) livingroom (recently redone and beautiful), with a fire in the fireplace, it's snowing outside, and the young folks are doing all the cooking.

There's a Johnny Mathis CD playing Christmas songs, and the TV is showing the Macy's T-day parade with the sound muted.

I love this wireless laptop of ap3's. I may have to gift myself with one.

Amid all this love and loveliness, I am thinking of you and yours. You are real people to me. Not just obscure identities on the 'net. May you have your best Thanksgiving today. If you do not celebrate this holiday, I hope that whatever you are doing, you are at peace and in good health.

Love to all.

Over the hills and through the woods

Over the hills and through the woods to AP3's house we go. Husband Niks and I are off to spend a week in MA with our daughter and her spouse and step-daughter. It's gonna be fun. We always have fun there. They have two cats and a dog. Plus they're all nice folks. Fun folks. We get to laugh a lot. It's a big house, so everybody can have all the space they want.

I will comment on a blog here and there, but I doubt that I will post. So I'll leave you with this Thanksgiving Notice that I received from my friend Sally:
***********************************
For those of you who are coming to our place for Thanksgiving dinner- Martha Stewart ain't gonna be here! I'm telling you in advance, so don't act all surprised. Since Ms. Stewart won't be coming, I've made a few small changes: Our sidewalk will not be lined with homemade, paper bag luminaries. After a trial run, it was decided that no matter how cleverly done, rows of flaming lunch sacks do not have the desired welcoming effect. That Sally.

Once inside, our guests will note that the entry hall is not decorated with the swags of Indian corn and fall foliage I had planned to make. Instead, I've gotten the kids involved in the decorating by having them track in colorful autumn leaves from the front yard. The mud was their idea. Those kids. The dining table will not be covered with expensive linens, fancy china, or crystal goblets. If possible, we will use dishes that match and everyone will get a fork. Since this IS Thanksgiving, we will refrain from using the plastic Peter Rabbit plate and the Santa napkins from last Christmas. (I've seen that Peter Rabbit plate. Not a collector's version.)

Our centerpiece will not be the tower of fresh fruit and flowers that I promised. Instead we will be displaying a hedgehog-like decoration hand-crafted from the finest construction paper. The artist assures me it is a turkey. Probably little Tommy. We will be dining fashionably late. The children will entertain you while you wait. I'm sure they will be happy to share every choice comment I have made regarding Thanksgiving, pilgrims and the turkey hot line. Please remember that most of these comments were made at 5:00 A. M. upon discovering that the turkey was still hard enough to cut diamonds. Sally's not the happy cooker. (Closer to a happy hooker back in the day).

As accompaniment to the children's recital, I will play a recording of tribal drumming. If the children should mention that I don't own a recording of tribal drumming, or that tribal drumming sounds suspiciously like a frozen turkey in a clothes dryer, ignore them. They are lying. Those guys! We toyed with the idea of ringing a dainty silver bell to announce the start of our feast. In the end, we chose to keep our traditional method. We've also decided against a formal seating arrangement. When the smoke alarm sounds, please gather around the table and sit where you like. In the spirit of harmony, we will ask the children to sit at a separate table. In a separate room. (Next door most likely).

Now, I know you have all seen pictures of one person carving a turkey in front of a crowd of appreciative onlookers. This will not be happening at our dinner. For safety reasons, the turkey will be carved in a private ceremony. I stress "private" meaning: Do not, under any circumstances enter the kitchen to laugh at me. Do not send small, unsuspecting children to check on my progress. I have an electric knife. The turkey is unarmed. It stands to reason that I will eventually win. When I do, we will eat.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind my young diners that "passing the rolls" is not a football play. Nor is it a request to bean your sister in the head with warm tasty bread. Oh, and one reminder for the adults: For the duration of the meal, and especially while in the presence of young diners, we will refer to the giblet gravy by its lesser-known name: Cheese Sauce. If a young diner questions you regarding the origins or type of Cheese Sauce, plead ignorance. Cheese Sauce reigns. Cheese sauce stains too.

Before I forget, there is one last change. Instead of offering a choice between 12 different scrumptious desserts, we will be serving the traditional pumpkin pie, garnished with whipped cream and small fingerprints. You will still have a choice; take it or leave it. Martha Stewart will not be dining with us this year. She probably won't come next year either. I am thankful.

That Sally. More honest than most.

Mens' Room

Nothing to post about, but thought you might like to see what's new in mens' rooms.

Housework or not

Friday Radio Question of the Day: On a scale of one to ten, 21 percent of people give themselves a 9, for this. What is it?


My husband Niks teased and shamed me into skipping a day of blogging on Friday. I have to admit that I sneaked in a little blog stuff in the evening. I didn't post, but I left a few comments. Not that many. So it's okay. Right?

We all play our little tricks on our roommates I think. Niks does it himself, only he would never admit it. I always cook all of our meals. I always clean up after them too. I gave up on getting any help on that long ago. But once in a while I'll have a meeting or something that I have to do and he'll say that he'll clean up after supper while I'm out.

Then he always sits down and watches TV instead of cleaning up. When he hears the garage door opening on my return, he jumps up and starts loading the dishwasher. The automatic garage opener we have now is so quiet, and his hearing is so bad, that these days he doesn't jump up until I walk inside. That guy. He's a complete time slob. Always tries to act as if he's been busy while I'm out.

His idea of helping with the housework is to lift his feet up so that I can run the vacuum under them. But he's usually not devious.

Now, me, I'm devious. I cover up my goofing off. If I've been on the computer all morning and he's downstairs thinking I'm doing housework upstairs, I'm perfectly capable of quickly scattering some stuff around that will make it look as if I've been doing something more productive than blogging.

Before the computer took so much of my time I had other time-wasters of course. Mostly just reading. Once when I was a stay-at-home mom and had wasted the day, I realized I should do something to make it look as if I had a good reason to be "too tired to cook." I put up the ironing board, drug about 40 little dresses out of the girls' closets and hung them around the room, making it look as if I had been ironing all day. It worked.

One good hint I could give you folks is to start a big job really close to the time your partner will be returning home. That way, you'll still be doing it when he or she gets home. You'll get more credit for the chore that way. Plus, it's possible he or she will pitch in and help. This works better if you have covered the kitchen table with the mess you're making with this chore. You can generally get a restaurant meal out of that.

Any time the spouse is away, stay away from chores that s/he has been nagging you to do. Anything that a spouse has been nagging at you to get done should be done when the spouse is home to see you doing it. Sigh a lot. Bonus points.

Of course, I offer these tips in hopes of helping you have a more harmonious relationship. Would I lie?

Answer to the radio question of the day: Keeping the house clean. Try calling in sick on that one.

Taxpayers 1, Legislators ZIP

We won! We called, we wrote letters, some of us, like dddragon, went down to the Capitol Building and protested, and son of a gun, we got them to repeal the big raise they gave themselves.

Of course, they are still the fourth highest paid jerks in the lawmaking world, but we did knock'em down two pegs.

I give big credit to the Harrisburg Patriot News for this. The paper in Philadelphia didn't do diddley squat to help.

 

Headliners

These are some real headlines that appeared in newspapers. Pretty amazing.


Crack Found on Governor's Daughter.
Imagine that!

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says.
No! Really?

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers.
Those cops! Harsh!

Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?
Not touchin' that.

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over.
That vet! What a guy.

Miners Refuse to Work after Death.
Huh! Some lazy so-and-so's.

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant.
Ouch. Might work better than a fair trial. Or not.

War Dims Hope for Peace.
I can see where it might have that effect.

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile.
Duh.

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures. Amazing.
Whodathunkit?

Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide.
Those cops. Smart.

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges!
Apparently there is something stronger than duct tape.

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge.
You think maybe he is a battery charge now?

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group.
Those fatties. Not fat enough I guess.

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft.
Don't let him eat any more beans.

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks.
Taste like chicken?

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half.
Chainsaw Massacre I guess.

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors.
Hoo Boy! Tall guys.

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead.
You can kill'em twice?