30 June 2012

Who Knew? And Blood Geysers ....


I have been lying in bed comatose since Sunday - that is seven whole days. Well, not really comatose, just really, really sick - fever, chills, sore throat, same old, same old. I have been very naughty and lax when it comes to my overall "Health Regimin" which includes jamming a needle in my thigh ... go figure I just haven't been in the mood for needle jammin' ...

So - I got myself up this morning and weave and wove my way to my desk to write a note that needed to be written weeks ago and decided that I needed to give myself the injection (that is, after asking Ryan if he would and he told me no, but bravely stood by, white faced and supplied moral support).

Thing is? You know that part where they say 'after jabbing in the needle, pull back on the plunger to make sure you did not hit a vein' part? Yeah - that part? Well today I decided that I just could not be bothered - if I jammed it into my thigh I was going to call it a victiory and plunge the crud in my thigh ...

Hmmmm - THE ONE TIME I fail to be diligent on this and the 'Needle Gods' on high decide to show me what happens (I am assuming) when you actually hit a vein. I pulled the needle out while covering the hole with my finger while I 'deftly' tried to open the band-aid (Ryan wasn't looking very good right here and he had actually rescued it from the floor after I dropped it - yeah - I live on the edge - I USE BANDAIDS THAT HAVE BEEN ON THE FLOOR). When I moved my finger there was a VERY COOL spray of blood - everywhere! BABY GEYSER!!!

Hmmmm....

That HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE ....

I deftly placed the bandaid over the spurting geyser and decided to go to bed. Halfway there I realized that the blood had run all the way down my leg, was leaving footprints on the floor and my night gown was COVERED.

*sigh*

This is a photo of it still bleeding 10 minutes after giving myself the injection:


Next time? I will most likely pull back on the damn plunger ...

24 June 2012

"Home Security and Protection"

Here is something that I posted on Facebook on Friday at about 4:20:

So … I’m sitting at my desk. It is 4:00pm and I hear the knob on the door turn on the back door. Charlie is jumping up and down, prancing and whining as she does when someone gets home. The door rattles again, but no one enters. I entertained the thought of going back there and letting my son in but decided I was too lazy. Charlie’s jumping sounds are less frenetic and yet still no one enters. I wonder if Gary has come home early and remembered he needed to drop something off in the garage …

No one enters. Charlie has given up with her antics and wanders off …

Decide to go see what is going on. There is no one. There is no truck in the driveway.

Uhhhhh … *gulp*

Text Ryan and asked him if he came home, but had to leave before he got inside?

No.

Uhhhhh. There are probably numerous things that should be bothering me or upsetting about this … but only ONE has taken up residency in my mind:

Charlie – my DIRT BAG guard dog totally BETRAYED ME. Man she was TOTALLY WELCOMING whoever was trying to get into our house with open arms (… er legs? paws?).

She is now back at her ‘Guard Post’ as shown below – and no, I did not help with the pillows – she’s a pillow dog …

I’m so hurt …

Anyone want a dog?



**** end of Facebook Post ****

So, after thinking about this for a bit longer and totally freaking out that there REALLY was a person in my backyard and he / she / they were REALLY trying to open the back door and my IDIOT DOG was REALLY jumping up and down in front of the DOOR - thus in front of the intruder(s) also - she was DELIRIOUS WITH JOY that someone had come to play with her, upon these further deliberations, I decided that maybe we should not use Charlie for any of our Home Security needs.

Gary, however, thinks that maybe with proper instruction Charlie will get on board and become the guard dog that he knows in in her (TOTALLY just made that up - we are not DELUSIONAL ...). So - I give you installment #1 of our "Home Security and Protection" video:




I'm not totally on board with this, but I am sure with proper motivation and training Charlie will grow up to be the ...

Oh, man - I cannot even type it ...


the dog is a complete idiot when it comes to security and protection ...



So I will start making sure the door is locked - it was a TOTAL fluke that the door was locked on that Friday afternoon. I had let Charlie out earlier and I guess I had locked it when she came back in. I am a little more than mildly curious as to what would have happened once the intruder walked in and simultaneously:

1) I realize that it is not Ryan who walked in the back door as I had assumed

and

2) the intruder realize that the house was not as empty as it looked - my car was in the garage, the driveway was empty.


So what happens then? Charlie, I am sure would have been entertaining in some sort of way ...



... but I am pretty sure that I would not have found it funny ...



Not funny at all.

12 June 2012

Mysteries of the Mind ...


I do stupid things when my husband is gone. It is a proven fact – if he is not here to keep me sane, well …

He hasn’t even been gone that long, but I am out of practice – it has been a while since those six week stints in Australia and the times I couldn’t go over in between. Like I said - out of practice. I’ve notice two things happen when he is gone and I get a bit … weird. One: my potty mouth acts up (sorry about the beauty pageant bad words, but, really – they just really needed to be there …) and Two: I tend to over share – what fun for y’all!

My sister called me up about a Photoshop question the other day then tentatively broached the subject of my health and wanting me to read some books. As she described them, I quickly realized by the titles that they were going to tell me that unresolved issues in my life were causing my illness. She started to say that she felt so guilty that she was the beginning, the cause of my ‘weirdness’ when I was young and had to stop her, having discovered a thing or two in the twenty or thirty years since we had probably brought up the subject.

I told her that I would get the two books and read them (and bought them), but something kept nagging at me. It was that I feel as if I have done a reasonably decent job in keeping my sanity intact with all the fun times in my past. So I wrote her an e-mail titled “Because I need you to understand” and asked her to read some of my writings plus something I wrote on Facebook – I couldn’t concentrate on the first book since I felt I needed to convince my sister that I was more stable than she probably thought. She is a busy gal and like most of my family, does not read my blog. I write it for my parents to know that I am still alive and they say they enjoy reading my writings – so I continue to write. That Gary’s two sisters and many of my nieces read the blog makes me actually feel more connected to his family than mine.

But then again, as I have said before – I am the ‘weird’ one in the family and they barely tolerate me – hell – I barely tolerate me! I don’t know how Gary does it without going stark raving mad. I guess I am ‘weird’ in a different way now days than when I was younger – mainly I blurt out whatever comes to mind without censoring it first and it gets me in heaps of trouble. Go figure – somewhere along the road of my life I guess I just stopped caring what other people thought of me and just say it like it is.  If you don’t like it - whatever – it is my opinion, which in this country is just A-OK (in theory) and so ignore me. And they do.

I have watched my blog since I sent the e-mail 5 or 6 days ago and since no one in Hawaii has gotten on nor accessed the ones I pointed out, I decided that I was in a tentative standoff with her (without her knowing - mean, I know). As soon as she read MY stuff – I would read hers. Stupid I know – and it isn’t like I think it is going to be disturbing or life altering or even a teensy bit healing to my immune system (sorry, I am a cynic through and through) but that is just the way my brain decided to deal with it.

I cut and pasted something I wrote in Facebook and I don’t know if I should put it here since this is going to be long as it is.  Oh, well – I will but I will mark the beginning and the end so you can skip it:

*****

“A Note for Brent"

Brent,

You asked “Have you ever noticed its only sunshine wherever you go Lori? You look like you have a good life.” and it gave me pause … and much to think about. I DO have a good life! A wonderful life and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I would like to answer your question in more depth, if you don’t mind.

I have a daughter Jessie – she is 23 years old, but mentally she is three years old and we spent many years in the hospitals repairing her birth defects. Raising a mentally retarded child comes with its own special set of rain clouds – BUT it comes with a very special set of rainbows! That first step? Her first word? The first time she tells you she loves you and understands what she is saying (just 2 short years ago)? The ‘uninitiated’ will never know the joys these things bring a parent because of the price it took them to get there. You simply cannot have rainbows without the storm clouds …

I lived in Norway for two years, absolutely the most beautiful country I have ever seen - in the most beautiful, remote, historical mountain home that I could have ever imagined living in. It taught me to appreciate those rare weather patterns with clear, sunny skies for months on end and to take advantage of every minute of it!

I have another daughter Rachael – she is in the cemetery up the road a bit. Knowing she was going to die soon after she was born while I was pregnant with her was stressful and scary. It taught me that in the worst, darkest, severe, most scary storm – there is always the promise and surety that it will end one day and the sun WILL come out.

My husband lived in Australia for almost two years and I ‘commuted’ back and forth every 4 or 6 weeks, calling both our Texas home and our high rise apartment in Downtown Brisbane my home. It taught me to appreciate the beauty of the clouds from above - at 37,000 feet, and to excitedly anticipate and be thrilled to watch the beautiful sun rise twice on a that very long, tiring 14 hour flight between Brisbane and LA.

I have had two very serious chronic illnesses for 19 years that have kept me on two types of morphine for intolerable pain. It has taught me that when the storm clouds roll in … as they are guaranteed to do – I have the strength to make it through to the other side and to more gentle weather. Sometimes I breeze through and sometimes I’m just hanging on by my fingernails … but one way or the other, I always get there!

My son is a handsome, gentle, kind and polite 21 year old who has weathered all this by his parent’s side. As he is the ‘Nearly Perfect Son’, he has taught me to see the beauty in that ‘Perfect Day’. To stop, slow down, soak in the sun and just be happy to exist in that moment.

I have travelled extensively all throughout Scandinavia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand taking photographs. It has taught me that regardless of the weather, there is always, always, always an infinite number of stunningly beautiful photographs to take – you just have to look a little harder, be a little more patient, and not mind getting a little bit wet!

I have been married to the smartest, kindest, most patient, talented man I have ever known for just months shy of 30 years now. He has taught me many, many things. He is my best friend, the person who picks up the slack when I am ill, never complains and is always happy and cheerful. When Gary is around, I have discovered – regardless of the weather outside - the sun is always shining brightly …

So … Brent, I guess you are right! There IS only sunshine wherever I go! Thanks for giving me the chance to think it all through.

*****

That was not a ‘fluff piece’ to me. It is truly what I believe and feel. I also wrote her:

Writing has always been therapy for me. It chases away my demons and if I can get it down on paper – I can mentally fold that paper and lock it away in a safe – deep in my mind – and I HAVE CONTROL when it gets opened – these things never again jump me in the dark.

This was probably the first thing I ever wrote that let me ‘put it away’ and not worry about it anymore:
The Beginning of the End

This was truly a gift – and says a lot about where I am at … I believe:
The Gift of a Dream ...

This one I believe mom made you read about Rachael – things about her all are OK now …
Rachael's Box

This one is just one of thousands of tiny moments in my life that make me enormously happy and at peace with myself:
The Perfect Rock

I felt comfortable that if she read these things she would understand that I was in a good place in my life and OK with everything.

Except for that beginning of the conversation where she said she felt guilty for something. Here comes the ‘oversharing’ part. When I was young I had two very severe issues and looking back – both my mother and I agree that I was clinically depressed and never diagnosed since I never went to a doctor about either of these things – except for one time – it is to follow. We just all assumed that I was weird …

The first thing that happened was my Elementary School decided not to distinguish between the mental maturity of a kindergartner and a sixth grader and showed us all a film about not approaching strangers. Back then, I guess they thought the best way to get the point across was the scare the shit out of kids via film noir …

I was a kindergartner at the time. I don’t remember much of the film … just the end. The girl that got in the car with the lovely gentleman was shown at the end. She was dead and I remember that it was autumn in the film and she was lying in leaves and they were blowing over her. At that age, I really could not distinguish between what was real and what was ‘theatre’ since I didn’t watch much TV and I guess I was particularly dense. I truly thought that I was seeing the girl dead. It affected me immensely. To my credit – when my mother finally called the school a week later to discuss the situation that I had literally not fallen asleep for one single minute since seeing that film – they mentioned that many, many of the younger children were … freaked out.

Sleep suddenly became a huge issue for me. I went to a doctor who prescribed some sort of horse tranquilizer that would totally dose me into unconsciousness. He thought if he broke the cycle that everything would be fine after that. They gave me the pills, but had been cautioned that they must wake me up every few hours … I cannot remember exactly why – I would drop into a coma, stop breathing? Who knows – but that is what they did and I slept.

That night.


I have since to figure out how to sleep – which since it is 2:22am as I type this sentence pretty much shows that I really have no clue how to fall asleep. Insomnia and I have been inseparable pals ever since that lovely film.

The other ‘weirdness’ is something that I was so ashamed of - for years and years. After I was married, at family gatherings, no one could resist taunting me and telling Gary all about my weirdness. To say that it embarrassed me to no end and was the birth of my insecurity with family gatherings with my family is putting it mildly. Gary was rather surprised the first time they made fun of me – because, really – it is a doozy, and sadly he agreed with them – I was weird – that hurt. But really, was it necessary to share? It sort of always bothered me that Lori was the one that got the ‘stories’ told about – but maybe it had something to do with my small bit of success. I was a Student Body officer in High School, got straight A’s in college, had a great job in my field – so maybe they just felt like knocking me down a notch or two. I really don’t know – I am sure that there were PLENTY of other things we could have talked about – but that’s just me …

Little did they know that growing up a freak, no matter how much success you achieve – you will always be the freakishly weird one – and that really does not foster self-esteem at all.

In our first house we lived in in Logan, Utah, there were two bedrooms downstairs. My older sisters Kelli and Jodi slept in one and me and my younger sister slept in the other. It was a great house and I am going to veer off course for just a bit.



It was a typical house. You walked in the front door into the living room. Straight in front of you was a door sized entrance to the ‘kitchen’ part of the kitchen. To the right of that was a larger opening where the table was. Behind the table was a sliding door to the backyard and to the right of the sliding door (if you turned 90 degrees) was the entrance to the stairs to the basement and a door out to the garage – right along the rightmost side of the house.

Between the living room and the kitchen area there was a hall to the left – the first door on the right was a bathroom, the second my parents bedroom. There was one bedroom on the left where my little sister Marci and my brother Jeff slept.

That bathroom was THE COOLEST bathroom in the universe! Under the sink, there was a chute to the basement where you could throw your dirty clothes. That we used it as a slide was incredibly stupid, but we made sure there was a sufficient pile of clothes in the basement to buffer our fall. WAY COOL. The coolest thing we did without punishment. The COOLEST thing we EVER did was either one of two things – equally AWESOME:

One: we turned the kitchen into a slip-n-slide while my mom was gone by placing rolled up towels around to keep the water in and flooded the floor – SO MUCH FUN (until mom got home).

Two: Pinning a towel on Jeff when he was about 3 years old and convinced him that he could fly. Taking us at our word he immediately jumped off the top step intending on ‘flying’ down into the basement. Since these steps were not carpeted and the guy really couldn’t fly (well, NOW he can, but he does not wear a cape and needs a helicopter or plane to do so) he landed badly on a step and broke his leg or foot – my mother, again was displeased. But still …. SO AWESOME!

Walking into the basement you entered a huge family room. Turning 90 degrees to the right you would be staring at the opposite end of the house and that was where the two bedrooms and a bathroom were. If you turned a quarter turn again – you would be looking at the door into the large laundry room with a small room inside it that was a pantry. Shelves and shelves of home canned goods and food storage.

One night, my sister and I were in bed and I heard something. My sister was ‘in’ on the joke and said she didn’t hear anything. This went on for a while until my sister – the one who called and wants me to read the books, jumped on me and scared the living shit out of me. I believe that was the last time I ever slept in that basement.

That is my huge shame – and the brunt of my sibs jokes – Lori – the ‘fraidy cat’ who was too scared to sleep in the basement. I took it. What else could I do? It was true. My parents eventually built another home with the master bedroom upstairs and one other bedroom – so I would not have to sleep on the living room couch. The thing is? I could sleep in THAT basement no problem.

No problem? Seriously? Then, really – what was the real problem?

And here is where the mind becomes such a marvelous piece of the anatomy. I was a kid back then – moved to the new house I believe as I started Junior High. I am 50 now and I have made HUGE leaps of progress into finally discovering the ‘mystery’ of why I could not sleep in the basement. Everyone thought they had it pegged – Jodi scaring the shit out of me – which certainly didn’t help and it didn’t help that it was near the time of that infamous film I saw either – but there was something more – something weird, something creepy, something scary and dark and evil and I could never get a hold of what it was.

Most of what I have had ‘come back’ to me was while I lived down here in Texas – so after years my mind started working on the problem. I would dream that I was in my old house and I would wander and wander. I would go downstairs and everything was fine, not scary … until I entered the laundry room and tried to enter the pantry. For years – awake or during my dreams I could not open the door.

Years later I was able to go into the pantry – but since it was right by the end of the house – if you walked to the end of it – you could turn to your right 180 degrees and be under the stairs – more storage. I realized that I could enter the pantry, but I could NOT, no matter what turn and go under the stairs. This went on for years and bothered me to no end that whenever I thought about it – everything felt dark, and weird and … well – evil.

So, one day when we were together I said to my oldest sister Kelli “You remember the first house in Logan and the pantry downstairs?” She said yes. I said “I can’t remember what was under the stairs, and I cannot mentally go there … were there bodies stacked like cord wood?” She laughed and said “No, it was where mom and dad kept all the food storage.” Hmmmmm.

A few years and a lot more dreams and wandering around the house and one morning I realized something. The pantry was NOT filled with home canning and food storage. It had a floor of carpet scraps and there were toys and books on the shelves. I was NOT wandering my childhood home – I was wandering my BEST FRIENDS childhood home – right next door to us. It was the very first time I realized that they had identical floor plans.

That was quite a breakthrough and I realized that I could not, no matter how hard I tried – turn the corner in our own special playroom.

It does not take a PhD in psychology for me to realize that something happened back there. I have a glimmer that it was full of beanbag chairs and overstuffed pillows. My best friend had an older brother and what I would give to be able to ask him if he had anything to do with this (which seems the most logical answer and feels right) but he was killed years ago having been hit by lightning on a golf course – so …


unanswered questions.


Will I ever know what happened in that playroom under the stairs? Yes, I believe that my mind has been working on it for quite some time and I will eventually get to the bottom of it. Does it make me feel less of a ‘freak’ or a ‘fraidy cat’? Yes, but the time for caring at all about that has long gone.

I find that the mind is a mysterious and fascinating place. I know that I have many, many unresolved issues. I used to joke the year after ‘THE YEAR’ (1997) – the baby, the broken wrist, the tornado, the hits just kept coming and I just tried to keep afloat. I was working at the time and was confiding to a friend that I had been in ‘triage mode’ for a long time – just going from body to body – working with the hopeful and leaving the dead and dying behind. I told him that I had done that for so long just quickly working with one thing and bracing myself for the next - not really working anything through, dealing with anything at all - just bracing for that next hit - and then suddenly – no more 'hits' no more major disasters! And what happens? I tell him that things in my mind get very quiet, and I mentally turn around and discover that all those ‘dead and dying’ things that I left behind are all still back there ... a giant room filled with rotting and stinking bodies. Metaphor’s are not my strong suit – but this one was so visceral and felt right.

He asked me what I was going to do about it?




I told him that I was going to buy a freezer …



…. a really, really big freezer.


Not sure if that is what happened or if I have sufficiently ‘cleaned up the mess’ in my head, but although I have insomnia – these are not the things I lose sleep over – so maybe I have moved on. Having been diagnosed at the time with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) made sense, but when do they tell you that you no longer are hampered with this albatross hanging around your neck? Does it linger forever, just getting lighter and lighter (or heavier and heavier for some, who unfortunately cannot take the strain and decide it is time to leave this mortal place and finally get some peace)? I don't have the answer to that. Maybe I am free of this moniker, or maybe I am just fooling myself - who knows?

Do I think that my illness has anything to do with all this? Yes, I do – but not as my sister thinks. When I got mono in 1992 – some people snap out of it, but studies have shown that those that don’t and it morphs into CFS – a very large number have been in tremendous amounts of stress at the time. I know that stress is a killer – but sometimes you don’t get to pick and choose when you are going to be in stressful situations. I had gone through 4 years of Jessie and averaging 8 doctors and specialist visits with her every week since we moved to Houston (not to mention all the surgeries and hospital stays), and after Ryan was born – he was lugged along to all those visits too. So – I was in no shape to get ill – but I did and that’s that.

Shit happens …

If I exorcise my demons, will I be healthier? Maybe, a little bit, but I really don’t think that since my subconscious cannot remember some trauma that I experienced as a little girl my T-Cells are precariously low.


But who knows? Maybe I will pick up one of those books even though she does not care enough to read my stuff, I will start reading and see if there is something to it.



Weirder things have happened …

05 June 2012

If she had asked me to jump off a bridge … I probably would have done that too …


I had a friend my Senior year in High School. I am unsure exactly when she moved from New York to Utah, so she might have been my friend my Junior year also.

She was beautiful, vivacious, full of life, mischievous and loved every minute of life. We got along rather swimmingly – which is saying quite a lot for me. Having many, many acquaintances I was gifted with being the Studentbody Vice President AND before you think that I was actually COOL or something … I was also the Yearbook Editor – thus the nerdy part to balance everything into perfect equilibrium.

As I said – acquaintances, but not many close friends. This was entirely my fault – I am rather shy – which, when you have been goaded into running for a Studentbody office, then winning said office and don’t dare make eye contact with people in the halls or go to the cafeteria for lunch (because, you know, there were PEOPLE there …) most everyone decides that you are a stuck-up bitch and stays away.

I was rather OK with that … it worked for me. I was left alone. Except for my friend. She was the EXACT opposite of me – adventurous, fun, talked to everyone – not a shy bone in her body and always, always had a huge smile on her face. She was the Yin to my Yang as far as friendships go and would talk me into doing things that I generally, if left to my own devices would never done. I’m not talking about robbing the local 7-11 or anything – just stuff that I normally don’t do – like stuff where other people are involved …

One day she came to me with a plan. There was a contest, she said. It looked fun, she said. I assume the rest of our conversation went about something like this:

Lori: “Oh! No, no, no, NO, Never!”

Kim: “Why? Come on, there is no one there from Logan – it’s our sworn DUTY to represent the city in which we live in. Anyway – it will be fun!”

Lori: “Have you ever thought that there was maybe, just maybe a GOOD REASON no one from Logan is ‘representing our fine city’? It is a (OK, I am ashamed to admit it – I did use this term, like ALL of the time referring to people who lived in our county but not in the city limits – a HUGE distinction in my mind) ‘Goat Ropers’ event and … just … no.”

Kim: “You are awful! It is NOT just for the county kids – come oooon! I promise, we will have fun! Anyway, I want to do it, but I don’t want to go alone …”

Lori: “Can I make fun of everyone there?”

Kim: “Of course.”

Lori: “And no one gets hurt?”

Kim: “No one gets hurt. Just a fun time all round!”

Lori: “I’m gonna regret this, aren’t I?”

Kim: “WHY would you say that? Good times, good food, good making fun of others – what is not to like?”

Lori: “OK” *sigh* And my FAMOUS LAST WORDS

I did not want to have anything to do with this event. I have SERIOUS ISSUES on anything that even smells of what this event smelled of, but she wanted to do it and she could talk me into ANYTHING.

I made fun of EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. I remember that during a one-on-one interview they asked me why I was there? I was a little freaked, like someone had told the adults about my making fun of absolutely everything. So I answered: “Um, for the food?” and got the laugh that I expected. It sounded way better than my friend had twisted my arm and I was sorely regretting it.

Well the evening comes and there we all are. Standing around in a huge auditorium. My eyes were sore from rolling and rolling them. Everyone there seemed so … dumb! They had no interests that I was even remotely interested in. I would have loved a good conversation about my Physics class, or where I was heading to college – but they wanted to talk about hair, and makeup and Kim had to physically stop me multiple times from attempting to make the gesture of sticking my finger down my throat. Yeah … good times.

Standing there under the hot lights … I remember thinking only ONE THING:

How much longer it was going to last?

Thirty minutes …

Twenty minutes …

As I was looking at my watch trying to figure out if I had made it to 10 minutes the person on my right nudged me and said “They called your name … go!”

Lori: “WHAT!!!”

Unknown County Girl: “THEY JUST CALLED YOUR NAME – go up there!”

Lori: “I will KILL her …”

And so I did what, in my wildest imaginations had not even ONCE thought could happen. I plastered a very fake smile on my face, stepped up to the MC who put a crown on my head and handed me a bouquet of flowers. And then there was the ‘walk’ and in my mind each step resounded with the mantra “I’m going to KILL her” over and over again.

ESPECIALLY when, during that ‘walk’ I turned around to go back and saw her up there standing in the stands LAUGHING HER FREAKING HEAD OFF.

UGGG – I am so ashamed.


My parents recently sent me a bunch of stuff when they were cleaning out their closet and I was yet again reminded of my humiliation, but not so much – since this was the program to the LAST THING I EVER HAD TO DO AS A ‘DAIRY PRINCESS’ ahhgh – just the words ‘Dairy Princess’ makes me want to gag:



Yeah – I could have just DIED. After, behind the scenes, a bunch of county girls found it odd when a girl in a Green dress wearing a crown LEAPT and attacked the girl she had been hanging around for the past two days. I know it is a bad word, but, really … there is no other word that works here: Bitch Slapping commenced until she was laughing so hysterically and I was still yelling at her – actually swatting her with my bouquet of flowers that everyone sort of backed off and gave us space ….

I would go into the year of endless school visits, rodeos (kill me now), parades but I won’t.

It ended and there was one fun part. The ‘Queen’ was seriously a bitch that was a very, very strange person and we decided that after she pulled off her fake eyelashes, her fake fingernails, and the rest of the weird accoutrements that she was wearing … that underneath it all … she was from another planet. The other two ‘attendants’ were a blast – the one named Lisa had an identical twin sister Liz who also participated in this little ‘contest’.

Seriously – how does one win and not the other? They were inseparable and all three of us became good friends … County Girls be damned …



I am sure there is a moral to this story somewhere …





… hell if I know what it is though ….

02 June 2012

The Perfect Rock


I had a dream today - during a restless nap.

A dream about a specific event, way, way back in another life. It was about, of all things, a rock! A silly rock ... and I had lost it.

This concerned me to no end in my dream since it wasn't just any rock ...

So I searched, and searched and searched ...




all in vain.




I never found it. I was more than distraught and sat on the ground weeping ...



... until I woke up with tears in my eyes.


I immediately went to my armoire, and started to clear out all of my medications to get to a small, wooden 'treasure box'.



Let's back up a bit - to put things into perspective ...


The Roman Forum, Rome, Italy - 2005:

The Perfect Rock

October 2005: The Roman Forum, Italy

I watched her, while waiting for Ryan and Gary to come back from some excursion or another. I had twisted my ankle on the tour of Palatine Hill above the Forum and had not walked to the edge to see the bird’s eye view of the area I was now sitting in. I told them to go ahead and I would rest for a bit on a piece of rubble from some ancient monument and soak in the sun.

She was very serious and committed to her work! As I watched her move about from place to place, she picked up and discarded three rocks, but the fourth one she kept and put in her pocket. I wondered what was so special about that rock and not the previous three.

I noticed her mother watching me as all mothers of handicapped children do: wondering what is in the mind of that person staring so openly and obviously at their handicapped child. Was I wondering why a woman would travel from the U.S. with her downs child and bring her to Rome, Italy? Her daughter was only looking at silly rocks, for heavens sake. She could not comprehend the wonder of what the rubble we were sitting in had once been. Who was I to judge her? In the split second these thoughts took hold, I realized that it was what I would have thought had I brought my own handicapped daughter along with me and had found someone staring so openly at her. My Jessie also would most likely have been doing something as equally confusing to an ‘outsider’. I had no idea what this mother was thinking.

I smiled at the woman and said: “I miss my daughter Jessie. She stayed home with her grandmother. Your daughter is beautiful.” And being a very perceptive lady, she knew immediately what I meant. Her daughter looked up from her searching, hearing our voices, and I asked her if she was having fun. The huge smile on her face was impossible to misinterpret. She continued on her quest, her pockets bulging with her new found treasures, and her mother relaxed, realizing that I was just enjoying the wonder and joy in her child’s treasure hunt, and nothing more.

Suddenly with a sharp intake of breath and a look of awe - she found it! The Perfect Rock. It looked like a small chunk of whatever was lying around our feet; probably from some beautiful sculpture or building, now in rubble. It was white, asymmetrical, the edges worn smooth by time. She looked at it for some time, and saw in it things that I, obviously, could not. The delight and wonder this rock could bring her was a gift to me in itself, but then she looked up, walked over to me and with the smile of an angel, placed it in my hand. As she looked at me with very serious eyes I thanked her and told her that I would take good care of it.

I keep it in a container: my ‘Treasure Box’, with some other things I have collected over the years. Most of the other items value and importance to me are very clear, but in the middle of all my beautiful, expensive trinkets, is a white chunk of rock: my priceless Perfect Rock. In it are the wonders of a small, special child, the mysteries of the universe and a little glimpse of heaven.

*****

So, you see - this wasn't just 'any' rock - and I had dreamed that I had lost it.

I grabbed my treasure box and left the room (Gary was in there and if I couldn't find it, I would probably burst out in tears and didn't want an audience) and came in the office. I gently opened the lid, and there it was! Nestled in with other treasures, in a ziploc bag with the write up I just shared. All was well!


My 'Perfect Rock' was safe!





I will sleep better tonight knowing this ...