Sokoo Chronicles #2

One day Sokoo, our exchange student from S. Korea, decided that she wanted some coffee as she wanted to stay up later than usual to get some studying done and she was tired.

I volunteered to reheat what was left of the morning's brewed pot or to brew her a new pot because we didn't have any instant coffee.

But she insisted that she wanted instant and then began to concoct her beverage. First she asked me if I had any coffee beans. I showed her where they were. She didn't know the word for grinder but she made the motion of one so I showed her the grinder and then ground the beans for her. I was very amused by all of this because I could tell that she thought instant coffee was just made by grinding up the beans and putting them in boiling water and that they would "dissolve." I told her that it was not the same thing and that this wasn't going to work but she was insistent and since she is rather stubborn by nature I just let her go forward with her plan.

She proceeded to put the coffee grounds in a cup and was about to pour boiling water on them. I told her that she should at least put the grounds in one of those little tea strainer thingys so she did. None-the-less and not to my surprise, when she poured the water into the coffee cup, coffee grounds escaped the strainer and floated unappetizingly loose in the coffee cup.

Next she asked me if I had any cream. I didn't, but offered her the 1/2% milk from the fridge which she liberally poured into the cup.

After that she asked for sugar and then proceeded to dump 4 heaping teaspoons into the murky brown liquid and stirred it in.

I watched her as she hesitatingly took that first sip to try it out. Her expression said it all but her broken English said it better; "I think this isn't coffee."

And you know what? I think she was right!!!!!!!!

Begin the Sokoo Chronicles - #1

It's been a looooooong time since I've posted anything much besides the group blog projects from JMCS. I'm on a project at work that is all consuming and so there is not much time to hop on the computer and blog, especially since we have "acquired" our S. Korean exchange student named Sokoo who will be with us for 10 months. With our 4 kids all grown up I kind of forgot what it's all about to have a younger teen at home.

Many people ask why we are hosting an exchange student. Unless you've been an exchange student yourself or done a study abroad you may not be able to relate to this. Being an exchange student myself though, I know how much it changed my perceptions and my world and am glad we are now in a position to reciprocate. For me it is one small way to give back to the world. My motto is "World Peace; one exchange student at a time." Cultural differences aside we are all human beings trying to survive, enjoy and make sense out of this world and our own lives. We are more alike than different.

Soo is actually exchange student number four for us. The others were only with us for summer exchange programs though. One liked living with us so much that she came back for a second summer!

Anyway, Sokoo is 15 (soon to be 16 on Nov. 1st). To be honest, even though it wasn't that long ago that our own kids were young teens, I had completely forgotten how young that really is.

Don't get me wrong though. Soo is really a riot. She is a vivacious girl, temporarily somewhat trapped behind a language barrier . . but she has been here 6 weeks and is really starting to come out of that. Her language skills are improving greatly.

The real point of this post was to relate this funny little incident that happened the second week that she was here. School had just started and I was up around 6:30 getting ready for work. I passed Soo's bedroom on my way to the kitchen to make coffee. Her door was slightly ajar and as I passed I turned my head and glanced in her room and customarily said "good morning Sokoo."

Did I just see what I thought I saw? There she was, this willowy 5'6" 110 pound girl, standing on the bed and seemingly staring into nothing. What the heck? I was totally baffled by what I had seen. I just could not imagine what she was doing? Was she praying? Was she meditating? Was she stretching? Was she jumping on the bed? Did she do this in Korea?

All day long I wondered and wondered about it and just couldn't come up with any reasonable explanation in my head. So that night my curiosity got the better of me and I just came straight out and asked her. "Sokoo, when I passed your bedroom this morning I saw you standing on the bed. What were you doing?"

The long and the short it I found out that she was drying her hair!!! That's right, drying her hair by standing under the ceiling fan that is mounted in the bedroom!!! She told me "in Korea we use fans to dry our hair." She must have thought, "boy, it's so much more efficient to blow dry my hair in Korea where I have a vascillating fan. These Americans are so inefficient."

So that's when I took her into the bathroom and showed her the extra blow dryer we have and how to use it. To this day I have still have never heard her use it but I haven't caught her standing on the bed recently either!

Help Support Marcelo's Education

Check out Kyle's posting over at Just Married Chilean Style and support her efforts to raise money for Marcelo's education. http://ohquepasa.blogspot.com/2008/10/art-for-good.html

Hardest Custom to Adjust to in Colombia

This is the second time I've participated in a group blogging exercise over at Just Married Chilean Style website http://www.ohquepasa.blogspot.com/

One of the hardest things for me to adjust to in Colombia was the superstition. My experience with this came directly from the family I was living with so I don't really know if it was unique to this family or if it was a "Colombian" thing.

My Colombian Mama taught me (and had taught her children) that if we ever saw a strange or scary looking man approaching we should hold the thumb and pointer finger of each hand together (sort of like the way you hold your hands when practicing Yoga mediation saying "om") until the threat passed. She assured me that this would ward the evil doers and their nasty intentions off. Although I was skeptical, I had plenty of opportunity to act on this. Was it this pose that kept me safe in Colombia or was it fate? I'll never know.

This very same endearing lady told me that when she was pregnant for her youngest child (about five months along) one day while she was walking she passed by the most horrific looking cow one day. The cow, as she described it, was one of the most horrific looking and ugly creatures on all of earth. It was a dirty yellow cow with a black splotch mark on one of its legs that was so unsightly she could barely stand the sight of it. That was why her daughter was born with the exactly same ugly splotch of a birthmark on her leg!! I played along with this one but it was a really tough one to swallow. But hey, maybe there is something to this?!

Then there was the bean counting deal. I can't remember exactly what this was about but it had something to do with it being a certain Saints day and the (Catholic) tradition was to begin counting beans at a certain hour and continue counting until you reached 1,000 of them or something. If you counted the beans as such, the Saint would protect you for one more year (or something like that).

I do admit that at times I can be a little superstitious. Like my last trip to Chile, when Kyle and I were trying to figure out dates for my visit I had my choice of flying down on Friday, June 13th or the following Friday, June 20th. We both agreed right away on the 20th. But if I hadn't had any other option I would have flown on Friday the 13th anyway.

The superstitions that my Colombian mother exposed me to were a whole new level that I could never quite embrace.

Chilean Men

This post comes about as a result of the general group blog topic of "Chilean Men." The topic was started over at Just Married Chilean Style blog but was suggested by Heather.

I haven't had much experience with Chilean men, but not wanting to be left out of this new blog phenomenon, I thought I'd give it a shot, albeit a little late. I have 4 experiences to tell about. Although they are unrelated to each other, they can be related to what the other bloggers wrote about Chilean men.

1. R. - The Chilean guide that melted my gringa soul

The most memorable experience with a Chilean man that I have ever had was when our whole family made a trip to visit K. last December. From Santiago we rented a couple of cars and drove 9 hours south to the resort town of Pucon. We had all decided ahead of time that thing we all really wanted to climb the volcano while we were there. We arrived at the designated time and place to begin our adventure and were greeted by two friendly guides; the lead and the tail. I didn't have much exposure to the guide who was bringing up the end of our line but the one in the front really impressed me. He was an ox. Upon meeting him he looked a little beat up; the kind of guy who was middle aged and over weight and probably smoke and drank too much. But he was very cheerful and despite the languange barrior with most of our clan, he was good humored and seemed to understand just enough English to be able to joke around a little, if not with words then with gestures and looks.

His name began with an "R." It was something like Rodrigo or Ricardo. I can't remember for sure. It was not Rafael or Rodolfo. I'll just refer to him as "R" for the rest of this story.

As someone else noted in their blog (yes, I cheated and read everyone else's blogs already), chivalry is definitely not dead in Chile. Not too far into the climb it became apparent that E. was not doing too well with it. She wanted to give up because she felt she just could not make it. R. would not hear of it. He very graciously insisted on taking E.'s back pack and slung it onto his own back and continued to climb effortlessly. A little later E. was still struggling. He encouraged her step by step and for about 4 hours of the climb he actually held her by the hand and literally pulled her up the mountain. When the going got tough for me toward the top of the climb he gave up his poles for me to use.

But my favorite part was when it came time to don the funny chap type pants that are made especially for sliding back down the mountain. He assisted each of us in figuring out how to untangle them and not put them on upside down. R. was down on his right knee directly in front of me, almost as if he were about to propose. In the American culture, the space between us would most likely have been deemed as uncomfortably close. He helped me put my right leg in and then the left leg and then right when I was hoisted the pants/chaps contraption up and wriggled them over my butt, he looked me square in the eyes and with a big grin on his face he said "SUPER SEXY!"

I thought that was about the most hysterical thing in the whole wide world right about then. By that time I was totally exhausted after all of the climbing we had done and I'm sure I looked like an old hag, but I had to hand it to him .. . .his delivery was smooth. I'm absolutely sure it wasn't original. I'm absolutely sure he used those almost universal words on every woman tourist that he had ever assisted up that mountain. And maybe his motive was a bigger tip in the end. But guess what? I didn't care. He made me melt up on that moutain!

2. Piropos for the mother of the bride to be

This story dates back to that February day in 2007 that K. got married. I went with K. and her Sara of honor to get our hair done for the wedding. We went to a salon that was located at in an upscale area of Santiago although I'm not sure exactly where we were. The talented gay hairdresser put my hair in an updo and I was all set to go. While I was waiting for K. & S. of honor K. sent me on an errand to walk to a nearby ATM and withdraw a bunch of money that she needed to pay for some of the wedding expenses. I was dressed in blue jeans and heels and somekind of button down shirt (so I could take it off without ruining the do) and was clicking down the street when suddenly I heard cat calls and whistling and whooping from a car passing by. I looked around. Really, that couldn't be directed at me, now could it? I glanced around and there was no one else in sight, so I guess it was. O.K. so there were no gross, dirty remarks and to be honest I didn't catch sight of the men (I'm assuming) in the car so I don't know, they might have been gross and dirty . . . but at the ripe ole age of 48 (at that time) I'll take a cat call in Chile as a compliment cause that sure as shootin' wouldn't have happened in the good ole US of A.

3. Chilean men will do anything for their friends

I witnessed this first hand during the week of K & S's wedding. S.'s friends bent over backwards to accomodate all of the requests from K. & S. for their help; from acting as chauffers to hair appointments, hauling mattresses, providing transportation to the wedding to participating in the festivities, S.'s friends impressed me with their loyalty to him and K as his bride to be. They were at K & S's beck and call and did whatever was requested willingly and good naturedly.

4. S. as a son-in-law (SIL?)

What can I say? S. is an awesome SIL. He takes care of my K and puts up with her shizzle. He lets her use the cupboard space under the kitchen sink to store her shoes and boots in. He works like a devil all day and comes home and gives her love and attention. He let's her be in charge but once in a while will call the shots (as well he should / better). He let me invade their precious space for an entire week when I recently visited in June and never once complained about it, at least not to my knowledge. He makes K. laugh with his cauliflower antics!! S. is an awesome SIL.

Telling on myself

Do you ever have one of those moments where you wish you had a chance for a "do over?" In all honesty though, I guess this is a moment I would rather not do over because otherwise I wouldn't be providing my readers or myself for that matter with such a good laugh.

It went like this. I was at my Kung Fu class and during a small break I was talking to one of the younger male students (age around 24ish.) He was telling me about video he watched about Qi Gong, a sort of alternative healing eastern excersize form, that he got from Nut Flakes. During the conversation I'm thinking to myself, "wierd that they would put a CD like that in a cereal box, but hey, for a while they gave out yoga CDs at McDonalds." So at the end of our conversation, (always being curious about improving my health via cheap methods; i.e. nothing more than the cost of a box of cereal?) I asked him "so what kind of cereal was that; Nut Flakes?"

Ha ha ha, you already guessed it. He downloaded the DVD from Netflix!!!

Oooh, I've been laughing so hard I no longer need to investigate the healing powers of Qi Gong exercises. I've totally healed myself with the endorphins released in my body from laughing!

EEeeeeeewwwwwwwww

Last January I had an opportunity to travel to Singapore for work. It was something that just kind of dropped in my lap and loving international travel and new experiences I jumped at the chance.

On the way there my route was something like Grand Rapids to Minneapolis, MN, then to Japan and on to Singapore. The Minneapolis to Japan flight was really really really long. I can't remember how long but it seemed interminable. I prefer to sit in an aisle seat but since the trip was booked kind of last minute I had to settle for a window seat. So I was stuck on the inside. After our flight had been in the air for a long time and I had been dozing off, I realized that I had to go to the bathroom but not wanting to inconvenience and awaken the other 2 passengers to get out of my seat (I'm sometimes too nice to a fault) I thought I could just hold it a little longer.

I dozed off and on and every time I woke up of course the urge to go to the bathroom was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, coming out of a deep sleep, I realized I couldn't wait any longer and so excused myself and squeezed out of my seat into the aisle.

I made a beeline for the bathroom, stumbling down the aisle, bleery eyed and trying to blink some moisture back into my dried out contacts lenses. The bathroom was vacant so I swung in and in one fell swoop locked the door, unzipped by britches and plopped onto the toilet. I had almost wet my pants. After peeing and peeing and peeing and peeing I finally felt relief. I wiped myself, stood up and turned slightly to flush the toilet.

Horror of all horrors. To my disbelief, the previous dumb f* (must have been male) user of the toilet had not put the seat down and I had just sat for two minutes on a rim of piss; everybody elses piss, piss and pubie drippings from how many other hundreds of passengers??!!!! Gross me out the door. I totally freaked. When I came to this realization I hadn't pulled up my pants yet so I instantly and instinctively grabbed a wad of paper towels, doused them with hot water, squirted some soap on them and started scrubbing my big piss laden butt cheeks. Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing and more paper towels and more hot water and more soap and more scrubbing and two minutes later and who cares who is waiting in line to use the toilet . . I'm having a crisis in there and I'm not leaving until the scrubbing is done. After I was finished scrubbing my butt I washed and washed and rinsed and washed and rewashed my hands. Total grodiness.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I just can't get over the fact that I sat in all of that yuckiness and the piss drippings of all of those other passengers. But I did. And I survived. And as far as I know I didn't catch any communicable diseases!!!!!

But I got over that little incident quickly, by about the time I stepped out of the lavatory and was on my way back to my seat.

BTW, I had a great time in Singapore. It's a way cool place!

What's he got?

K. was in the cart. She must have been about three years old at the time. We were in a large department store. I was in the hardware section searching for who knows what. I couldn't find whatever it was that I was looking for. I looked up and there coming toward me was a gangly teenage male store employee. He was the epitome of awkward; about seventeen years of age, slumped shoulders, no confidence in his hesitant shuffle, greasy longish dark hair, eyes looking downward .. . . "Excuse me sir, do you know where I can find the xxx?" Before he could even answer, K. sees something she is unfamiliar with . . . . . Out of curiosity she began her inquisition in an innocent, loud, three year oldish voice. "Mom, what's he got all over his face?" No reply from me. I was flabbergasted and embarrassed; for me and for the kid. Since she didn't get an answer her question became more insistent . . . "Mom, what's he got all over his face?" She wouldn't let up. "What's he got all over his face?" "Thank you for your help sir." I turned the cart and began to explain in a normal tone of voice, "Oh, that's a thing called acne . . . .some kids get it when they get to be teenagers . . . . . ."

Does anyone know how I could have / should have responded?? Sometimes that scene replays itself in my head and I still don't know the answer. None of the parenting books I had ever read prepared me for how to handle a situation like that. I felt so darn bad for that kid. I wished I knew how I could have handled it more gracefully.

Trains, Planes & Automobiles

O.K., well really this post has nothing to do with trains but the story does involve a plane, an automobile, a well meaning stewardess, two hyper kids, a frazzled mom, 4 gas stations and at least six restrooms.

Now you are really curious aren't you? Here's what happened. K & K were probably around 12 and 10 years old, old enough to be let on an airplane unaccompanied by an adult. After the divorce their dad moved to Florida so when they got old enough once in a while we would arrange a trip where they could take a direct flight, in this case one from Detroit to Tampa and back so they could visit their dad.

On this particular occasion, they had spent a week in Florida. I can't remember the exact circumstances leading to this event (it may have involved malfunctioning alarm clocks or such) but for some reason, they missed their scheduled flight from Tampa back to Detroit.

Their dad had to get to work and so after speaking with the airlines customer service rep he was able to put them on stand-by for the next flight out. I usually try to stay neutral on these subjects but in this case I have to say, I question the judgement to leave a 12 and 10 year in an airport on stand-by. That said, I'll get back to the story. I think that my ex called me to inform me of what was going on since I guess I needed to know that I didn't need to be in Detroit at the original estimated time of arrival.

This was in the day before cell phones. Well, I'm sure they existed but hardly anyone had them in that era. Needless to say, my kids didn't have one so I was scrambling to find a way to communicate with them to make sure they were O.K. and to try and find out if/when and what flight they would be on.

I thought to call my parents who live about an hour away from the Tampa airport. I miraculously happened to catch my dad who even more miraculously coincidentally was on his way to the airport because he had to pick up my mom from some trip she had been on. Anyway somehow or another I was able to link my dad up with K & K and I felt some relief that an adult would be with them while they were waiting. I mean, what were they supposed to do if there had been no room on that stand-by flight??

But luck was on their side and they made the flight. I rescheduled my trip to meet their arrival at the Detroit airport. We lived in Grand Rapids so to get to the Detroit airport is about a 2.5 hour drive in good weather.

I was very relieved when the plane landed on time and K & K appeared rushing out into the concourse. They spotted me and ran towards me at top speed. "Wow," I thought. "They must be really happy/excited to see me." But they ran right past me waving and shouting "Hi, mom" as they made a bee line to the nearest restrooms. After what seemed like eternity they each emerged from the respective restroom.

While we were waiting for their luggage they once again took off for a restroom pit stop. No sooner than we were on the highway heading home when they began to complain that they needed to go to the bathroom again.

About that time I also realized that they were bouncing off the car walls, they were super hyper, talking loud, picking at each other and behaving as obnoxious as ever in the general sense of the word.

Then the story spilled out. Because of being on stand-by they had gotten to sit in first class on the 2.5 hr flight. The well intentioned stewardess brought them snacks and then whatever they wanted to drink the entire flight. It sounded like they just had her keep bringing them refill after refill of coke the entire flight!!

Needless to say, the 2.5 hour drive back to Grand Rapids turned into about a 3 hours trip as I had to stop at a gas station about every half hour so that they could use the restroom. And each time we stopped I made them run around the gas station building 3 or 4 times to try to get them to expend all of that pent up chemically induced energy!!

But it didn't work. This story basically ends where it began with a still very frazzled mother and two still very hyper children!

Apples and firecrackers don't mix

One early spring Sunday morning (I mean it was early in spring, not that early on Sunday) I was coming home from a walk. As I got closer to my house I noticed some smoke rising behind it. I thought, wow, that's nice. My husband has picked up the trash that has collected over the winter and is burning it in the fire pit behind our house. We have a woods directly behind our house which was one of the whole reasons I wanted to buy it in the first place. I love having that little bit of wilderness in the middle of the city. So, upon arriving home I thought I would go check out his progress.

I jogged around back to give him a pat on the back for his efforts. What to my amazement . . . he wasn't back there at all. There was no fire in the fire pit. Just a huge blazing brush fire burning in our back yard. I glanced to the outside faucet but our hose had been put away in the garage for the season. Next I tore into the house to alert my husband about the ordeal. He happened to be in the shower. While he was frantically getting dressed, I got the hose out of the garage and ran to the back with it. With shaking hands and after what seemed to be an eternity I some how managed to get it hooked up to the faucet in the back. T. took over and started spraying the hose. By arcing it as much as he could he was barely able to reach the farthest part of the fire. In his haste, he hadn't bothered to put his shoes on and as he was fighting the fire he would come upon hot coals and start doing a really cool dance!

Thank goodness he was able to contain the fire and we did not have to call 911. Also, thank goodness that most of the neighbors were at church when all of this was going on and upon their return to the neighborhood hopefully they just thought someone was having a huge barbeque!

So, what do you supposed caused all of this excitement? Oh, did I forget to mention, that my son K. had been out on our deck the day before experimenting with firecrackers and apples? And throwing them into the woods and blowing them up? Yeah, just take that has a friendly child rearing hint. Apples and firecrackers don't mix.

Meet the neighbors

When I was fairly newly single, I bought a house. I remember that week distinctly. I had a final exam in a class I was taking, it was end-of-the-month in the business I was working at which was the busiest time of the month, I had some kind of a court hearing to finalize the divorce and I was scheduled to close on the new house. Somehow I made it thru all that. I closed on the house on the last day of the month of April and the day was a Wednesday.

I couldn't afford to pay one extra day of rent so I had cleaned up the apartment, loaded all of our stuff into a Uhaul with the help of a friend and moved into the "new" house . It was very late by the time we got settled in but the next stay I shooed the kids out the door to their new bus stop and I went to work as usual.

By that Friday eve I was happy to be "home" and excited to really start getting settled in. It was about 5:45pm and I was talking on the phone to a girl that I worked with, trying to make some social plans for the following weekend.

When all of a sudden, my daughter K. blew into the house all out of breath trying desparately to get my attention. (yeah, yeah, hold on a minute . . . . let me just finish talking to my freind.) But really I could see panick in her face so I told my friend I had to go and hung up the phone. "Mom, mom, the back yard is on fire" yelled K.

OMG, I had not owned the house for more than 2 days and it was about to go up in smoke. I looked out into the back yard and all along the fence a fire was blazing. I commanded K. to go over to the neighbor's house to see if they had a hose. We had one, but where it was and how long it would take me to find it and hook it up is something I didn't have time to deal with. Then with hands shaking, I dialed 911 to tell them my back yard was on fire. I could barely remember my new address but somehow related it to the dispatcher.

My first thought was that the night before I had been mowing the grass and had spilled gasoline right outside the shed door. Although I had no idea if a day later the gasoline would still make that more dangerous, I was praying that the fire wouldn't reach that spot to find out.

I ran outside to see what was going on. K. had done her duty and the nice next door neighbor man who we hadn't even met yet, had his hose hooked up and was arcing the water stream from his back yard into the edge of ours. With the very highest arc ever, it was just barely hitting the fire. Then, within minutes I could hear fire engines roaring up the street and the fire-fighters came to save the day and they successfully put the fire out in a matter of minutes.

By this time a huge crowd had gathered to watch all the drama unfolding. As the fire was being contained by those brave fire-men, I looked at all of the strangers and started waving to them. "Hello, we're your new neighbors. This is K. and this is K." "Hello, hello, so nice to meet you."

Ha, what an introduction. And that is the infamous way we made our presence known in our new neighborhood.

P.S. - We did find out what had happened to cause the fire. Some boys were bike riding by our fence. Our yard was located right next to an access sidewalk to a park. The boys innocently threw a firecracker over the fence and the sparks caught the dried leaves on fire.

Spice it up

One day I came home from work and noticed that my son's hair looked a little strange. I zoomed in on it and looked closely. What to my amazement . . . it looked singed!

I asked him, "K. what the heck happened to your hair? It looks like you burnt it." Sheepishly he admited that while I was at work, he was bored and so he turned on the gas burner and was experimenting by sprinkling different spices into the flame. Apparently one had sparked a little more than he had anticipated and caught his hair on fire.

My gosh, fire is so dangerous. Can you imagine if he hadn't been able to put it out? This is a mother's worse nightmare. I'm guessing he was about 11 yrs. old at the time . . definitely old enough to know better. I tell you, it was hard. I mean he was really too old to have a babysitter, yet based on this incident too young to be left alone.

Easter in November

One cold Friday night in the month of November K. and K. had gone over to their dad's for the night. It had been a long week at work and I was looking forward to the weekend and some relaxation but at the same time I really needed to get into my son's room and clean it while he wasn't around. That way I could bring a garbage bag in and do some serious purging without him witnessing the act when things he hadn't noticed or touched in six months would suddenly become his favorites.

So I compromised with myself, poured myself a glass of Zinfandel, put some music on and went at the task. I had been dreading it so much because it was so long over due, but the wine and the music kicked in and curiously enough I was having a grand old time tackling that shambles of a room.

I was a good 3/4ths of a trash bag into the room when I came across a blue and yellow plastic Easter egg. My kids loooovvved hunting Easter eggs and candy on Easter morning and I always made a practice of counting the Easter eggs and items that I hid so I wouldn't come across any unwanted surprises later on. So, without even thinking, just sort of instintively, I just popped the blue and yellow Easter egg open, expecting to find some eight month old Easter candy in it.

Gaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggg me with a spoon. Baaarfff. Pungent rotten egg sulfur smell permeated the air. I bolted out of the room like there was no tomorrow. For the last eight months an actual hard boiled egg had been decomposing within that innocent looking air tight plastic egg.

And that my friends, is hopefully the last time I will celebrate Easter in November.

Another Bunny Story

This is another story involving a bunny rabbit.

My kids were always begging for pets when they were growing up. As a single parent I resisted their relentless nagging though because I had a hard enough time just keeping up with their needs and I was wise enough to know that after the novelty of a pet wore off I would be the one stuck with providing the pet care. I knew myself well enough to know that it would be easier just to do the feeding, walking, letting out myself than to insist that my kids do it . . . follow through on the chores with them has always been difficult for me to manage.

Over the course of time, we did end up with some small pets; the usual gold fish or two (if they count), Janet and Michael Jackson (the parakeets), Penny and Nickel (the hedgehogs that ended up making small change), a newt (lizard type thing that we brought back from Florida one year), a few gerbils, a scorpion and a bunny (whose name I can no longer remember.)

I can't remember why I finally gave in and let K. have the bunny, but I did. True to course, it started out small and cute and furry and soft but in no time flat that bunny grew big and fat and mean. I would grow big and fat and mean too if I were kept in a cage all day. I mean, I really don't blame the poor thing. We would let it out loose once in a while but that darn thing got pretty good at eluding our efforts to recapture it when it was time to put it back into it's cage. Then, it just got too stinky to keep in the house.

We had a very large rabbit hutch that had been given to us. We kept it outside up against the backside of the house. I felt better when we moved the bunny there in the fall. After all, the cage was bigger and the bunny could enjoy the fall breezes and fresh outdoor air.

The problem was that since the bunny was out of sight, it was sort of out of mind. I reminded K. on a daily basis to go and feed it but I'm sure there were times when she missed a feeding. As fall turned to winter, I wondered if the bunny could withstand the Michigan snow and cold but from all accounts I was told that it could. Sometimes I would go out and feed that poor bunny instead of K. and it seemed to be thriving despite the winter weather. As a matter of fact that rabbit (by now bunny seems too diminuative of a term to use on it) seemed to have not only grown a thick furry winter coat, but it looked like it had put on layers of fat to keep warm as well. The gosh darn thing almost looked like it had grown as big as a buddah bunny. It really had just grown huge and wasn't the least bit cute anymore.

I have to say that my conscience pricked me when I would go out to feed that thing and quickly open the hutch door, throw in the food, make sure the water was fresh and lock the door shut. All the while that rabbit, almost motionless, would follow me with it's small beady red eyes. It glared at me as if to say; "Yeah, and you aren't stuck in a cage freezing your arse off. You get to go inside where it is warm and cozy and there are fresh baked cookies." As I would turn my back I could almost feel those evil red eyes burning into my back. Well, I did get to go inside where it was warm and cozy but the fresh baked cookies was a stretch.

One particularly windy and freezing cold night, K. had gone to some school event or other, it was getting late and I thought I better go out and feed the bunny while I was thinking of it as I knew she had not done it the night before. I grabbed my jacket, put up the hood and ventured out back against the elements. As I approached the hutch, true to from, the rabbit was glaring at me in a motionless state. I opened the door to put the food in. THUNK! The rabbit fell completly over. The old bloated furry nasty beady eyed fluffy had frozen to death.

I hurridly shut the hutch and out of force of habit locked it too. I turned and ran back into the house feeling totally remorseful about that poor thing for about a second and feeling totally grossed out by it. Then the practical side of parenting kicked in. Now what was I going to do with that big old dead rabbit body? Save it for spring so K. could give it a proper burial? I think not. The next day happened to be trash pick-up day. I put my jacket back on, grabbed a couple of trash bags and went back out to the hutch. Making sure not to touch the carcass, I used one trash bag to scoop up the animal and the other to deposit it in. Then I lugged that heavy bag to the waste container and put it out on the curb for pick up. My most vivid recollection of that experience was the weight of that dead bunny. It was surprisingly heavy.

Needless to say, a couple of days went by before K. inquired about feeding the bunny and I had to gently inform her that it had passed away. I can't recall if I was truthful about it's disposal but I'm guessing that I sugar coated it in some way to soften the blow.

And that my freinds is the tale of our bunny. Please don't sic (sp?) the animal rights activists on me. The demise of the rabbit was not intentional but let this be a lesson to all of you parents out there who think it would be nice to get your child a bunny for a pet. Think twice.

Failure as a parent

How do you define succes as a parent? How do you define failure? In general I think parents these days are way too hard on themselves when judging their own parenting skills. Hey, there is no manual and even if there is, it is a one size fits all which we know does not apply to our circumstances.

My defining moment as a failure of a parent came to me like this. I was single parenting at the time, working a full time demanding job and trying doubly hard in the corporate world to make up for that time when I had the luxury of being a stay at home mom. My ex had moved to a far away state and I had absolutely no family in the area to offer assistance. So I was in the thick of it. Me, myself and I. My life basically revolved around the kids and I would not have had it any other way. I rarely dated (I would have but only if there had been interesting prospects and none presented themselvs very often) and my social life with other friends was really very minimal simply because there wasn't time.

But the kids were a little older now; about 8 and 10. I have always enjoyed the academic world. My degree was in Russian Studies and Spanish. I was working in the business world and had never taken a single business class. My employer offered a tuition reimbursement program and the kids were becoming fairly independent. Why not? I thought I could afford one night a week away from them to take a masters level class and it could double as some socialization with other adults as well.

On Sundays I usually tried to have the house in order so we could start another week off on a good organized foot. My classes usually ended up being on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and usually by the time I got home from my class the house had already begun to look like a war zone. I tried hard to anticipate needs and throw dinner into the crock pot on the night I would be gone to school or at least make sure that there was lunch meat available for sandwiches and milk that wasn't sour but I wasn't always successful .

About my 3rd semester into the program, I diligently called home during the class break, as was my routine, to check on the kids. "Moooommmm" my son whined. "Can you stop at McDonalds on your way from school and bring us some real food?"

That's when I knew without a doubt that I had failed as a parent. My son thought McDonalds was real food!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back seat discipline

When K&K were about 4 and 6 years old we were living in a fairly rural location in mid-Michigan. The setting was very pretty, on a lake, but boy it was really inconvenient. There was a burg about 7 miles away but the closest real town was about 20 miles away.

Due to that fact, running errands of any substance required a lot of forethought. First you had to time it just right leaving after lunch so the bellies were full but arriving back home in time to throw something in the oven quick for dinner. Otherwise you spent an arm and a leg at fast food places. You lined up as many errands as possible to make sure you were using your gas and time as efficiently as you could.

One day I think I had tried to fit in just one too many stops and both kids had just gotten darn right ornery. In general they were good travelers but I must have pushed them just a little beyond their capacity that day. They started bickering with each other and whining and basically being little brats and would not let up. My usual tactics to get them to quit were not working. I was fed up. Hey, they weren't the only ones sick of being in the car and hungry to boot. I was too. After several times reprimanding them and reminding them of the good behavior I expected, the bickering continued. That's when I lost it with them.

I started raising my voice angrily, not quite yelling , but almost. They continued on. They were both in booster seats buckled in the back. Keeping my eye on the dirt road that I was on, I stuck my hand in between the front seats, reaching back and started to swat at their legs. I smacked one of them, but they got wise and dodged my groping hand. I was swatting uncontrollably. They started giggling at my vain attempts. Oooh boy, that really raised my ire. My voice continued to raise as I hurdled empty threats at them. By this time, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was yelling. The louder I yelled, the madder I got and the more I swatted and the harder my foot was pressing on the accelerator.

Just then in a quick glance to the rear view mirror I spotted it . . .flashing lights . . .yes, my angry foot had us going 55 mph in a 40 mph zone. In retrospect it would have been much more cost effective to have just given in for once and stopped at Micky Ds.

Mother's Day

Every day is children's day but Mother's Day only rolls around once a year.

I love my kids dearly. They are very special to my heart. I'm sure there are many other mother's around the world who could report similar stories.

This is the typical Mother's Day story about being served breakfast in bed.

One Mother's Day I had just gotten out of bed when my kids ushered me back to the bed and instructed me to wait there. I obediently went back to the bed where my brain began to churn through all of the things I should be doing; throw the load of wash in, do the dirty dishes from the night before, fold a load of wash, scrub the bathtub and toilet etc. etc. and in the mean time yearning for my morning cup of coffee. You can only imagine how hard it was to stay in the bed wide awake waiting.

True to your expectations, about a half hour later my two children appeared back at my bedside to serve me breakfast in bed. It looked delicious!! Two burnt pieces of toast accompanied by a side of very scrambled eggs. The eggs looked totally wierd, they were in pieces, like in teensy eensy little balled up balls.

Come to find out, the kids didn't think they were cooking properly and not really knowing how in the world to prepare scrambled eggs, my son had the bright idea of adding more oil to the pan!!! So, if you ever want to know how to make scrambled eggs ball up into little bally balls, just add oil!!

Mmmmmm. Delicious Max! That was certainly one of the best Mother's Days ever. Always remember, it's the thought that counts.

Hood Ornament

Continuing on the note of travel disasters I swear I am one of the most unobservant people in the whole wide world.

One morning I had to be into work extra early so it was around 6:30 a.m. At that time I was driving a big old blue Cadillac (to explain that is a whole other post). I was traveling my daily commute on the highway when all of a sudden a big bird swooped out of the sky. I recall thinking "gee I hope that birdy doesn't hit me." Ka thunk. Too late. It did. Oops. Well, I felt bad but there was really no way to avoid it. I dismissed the incident and forgot all about it.

That day I had errands to run on my lunch hour and so ran around town to the bank, to the post office, thru a fast food drive thru for lunch and back to work.

Then, in the evening, it was more running around, doing the loop thru Grandville, coming home to get my dauther and take her to cheerleading practice, stopping off at the grocery store, to the pharmacy, back home, back out to pick the daughter up from practice, thru another fast food drive thru for her dinner and back home.

It was at that point that I glanced back at the car and lo and behold, sticking out of the grill on the front of the car was a HUUUUMOOONNGGOUSSS OWL. I mean it was hilariously huge; it's poor head plastered into the grill with it's big butt and body sticking out in front about a foot.

I was absolutely horrified by the fact that I had hit that poor thing and not given it the due respect of a timely removal. I was cracked up by the fact that I had driven around all day with it jutting out of the front of my car like some kind of divining rod and hadn't even noticed it.

P.S. - I made my son yank it out of there. I didn't have the heart.

A bunny, a bag and a barrel

A few years ago when my son was trying out a semester at Northern Michigan University up in Marquette, we decided to take a trip up to see him. It is about an 8 hour drive from Grand Rapids if you go the speed limit. It takes about 4 hours to get to the Mackinaw Bridge and then about 4 more hours on two lane highways from that point to get to Marquette.

We left right after work on a Friday night. My husband drove the first 4 hours and then just over the bridge turned the driving over to me. It was black as pitch up there. The cities, or should I say towns, are few and far between so there are no city lights to speak of. We were enveloped in darkness with only my headlights cutting a path into the future. An occasional car would pass going in the other direction.

I'll be the first to admit that my depth perception has never ever been good which is a handicap when driving. My night vision is not good either and only has gotten worse as I've gotten older. So all of these physical limitations sort of exacerbated the difficulties I was having driving that not. Not to mention I was pretty tired from already having put in a long day at work.

Anyway, it was probably about midnight. I was driving around 60 miles an hour when all of a sudden, directly in front of me, a bunny was staring at me. It was up on it's hind quarters and you could tell by the stare that it was mesmerized by my car head lights. I have no idea how far away it was because as I've mentioned, my depth perception really sucks.

I had a choice to make. I could swerve to the left and hope the bunny didn't hop in that direction too. But I risked losing control of the vehicle if I did that since I was going pretty fast. Or I even risked hitting an on-coming vehicle if one suddenly appeared over the hill. The other choice I thought of in that split second was to just continue forward and pray that the bunny run out of my way in either direction. I chose the second option, held my breath and continued straight forward. I stared at the bunny. The bunny stared at me. A loud thump*/splat sound by the bunny/car impact and a loud scream by me pierced the silence of the night and scared all of my passengers awake.

I was heart sick to have killed an innocent animal but worse than that this incident really shook me up. Only about a year before my mom and dad were in a horrible car crash when they were hit head on by a drunk driver. My dad died on impact. My mom survived but the accident has taken years of vitality aware from her. Anyway, the correlation here is that the second I hit that bunny rabbit an instantaneous vision appeared in my mind of what it must have been like to be my dad driving along in his car with the headlights of a drunk driver aimed straight at you. The accident scene showed how far to the right my dad tried to swerve to avoid being hit and without going down into the ditch to maintain control of the vehicle. If it weren't for this I'm sure my mom would have been killed too but because of dad's quick thinking or instinctive driving reactions, it was the drivers side of the vehicle that bore the brunt of the impact.

It was like I was the drunk driver and the bunny was my dad. I know. How stupid. Right? But the visual image was so powerful in that moment that I was really shook up. Plus I gave my passengers a heart attack.

I still had about 2 hours of driving left from that point. An uneventful hour passed. I was fighting sleep to stay alert at the wheel, it was probably about 1:00 a.m. now. The bunny incident had left me so skittish that my nerves were on edge. Just then, out of nowhere a black figure appeared in front of my head lights. My heart was pounding. This time I had no time to think of options. Just as I started to instinctively tap the brakes I hit the dark object it!!! Straight on!!! The garbage bag undulated and hovered before me and then was swept away in a whirlwind; caught between the gentle night breeze and the forceful airflow caused by my car. My heart skipped a few more beats. The passengers all woke with a start. They were quickly losing faith in my driving skills. Geez but the phsycological damage that darn garbage bag caused!

We were almost there, about 15 minutes and we would have finally arrived to our desination city of Marquette. It was almost 2:00 a.m. and I was going about 40 mph. All of a sudden I found myself in a construction zone. Once again I was caught off guard due to the circumstances; it was dark, it was late, I was tired, I have no depth perception and I did not anticpate the unexpected construction barrels. The car knicked one of the barrels. I jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid hitting any more. My heart skipped another few beats, the barrel rolled out of sight and the passengers awoke with a jolt. Good thing we were almost there!

I never new "B" objects were so dangerous.

*Gives a new meaning to the name of Thumper

Puddle panic continues

As if two pee pee stories isn't enough, I have yet one more. The last one involved a girlfreind from the Catholic school I attended, this one involves a cousin and the Catholic church we attended.

It's really quite the same scenario. I was about the same age as in my last story . . . what is it about that age? I guess everything is funny then. Anyway, my cousin and I were in church. I whispered something to her that must have struck her funny. She started to snigger and was trying to hold it in (the laughter that is). Seeing how uncomfortable she was getting trying to stifle the giggles only made me persist in trying to make her laugh more. I was successful and true to the story thread, she wet her pants in the pew.

What is it about me making people laugh so hard they wet their pants? Thankfully this has not happened at work (to date . . that I know of).

Another puddle drama

I attended a Catholic elementary school. That fact is really inconsequential to this story but yet somehow in my mind it is so much a part of it. I can still see the blue plaid pleated skirts and white blouses and navy blue sweaters that we had to wear. The school was within walking distance of my house, maybe 6 to 8 blocks from it. Anyway, I had a good friend named Christie Hinkley and we'd often walk home from school together.

The day was early in spring. After a long Michigan winter we couldn't help but be happy and full of energy. I can't remember what in the heck we were talking about as we meandered home but I must have said something really funny that made Christie start to laugh. She begged me to stop it, because she had to go to the bathroom really bad and she said I was going to make her pee her pants.

Well, what kind of a reaction do you think I had to that comment? Of course I just continued on with whatever it was that was so funny . . . . .and lo and behold, within just a few houses of her own, Christie Hinkley lost it and peed her pants right out on the public side walk. We were laughing hysterically by that time. I apologized but of course I didn't mean it. I thought it was a riot and I even think she thought it was funny too!!

Is it a coincidence that Hinkley rhymes with tinkley? Has anyone ever made you pee your pants? Or visa versa, have you ever made anyone pee theirs?

Diaper disaster

This is just a random silly memory from my childhood. I'm not sure what made me think of it.

Once, when I was little, I'd say I was about 4 years old, my sister and I were playing house or something. Anway, she is about 3 years older than me and of course she was the mom so she could boss me around and she made me be the baby. We were upstairs fooling around and she had me go into the bathroom where she deftly pinned a washclothe on me as a diaper and then she told me I had to pee in the diaper.

Being the middle child that I was and always aiming to please, I willed myself to go number one. Much to our surprise, a warm straight stream came right through the "diaper" and made a big puddle on the floor. We were laughing silly and scrambling to get me dressed back in my clothes and clean up the mess before my mom got wind of it. It she had we probably would have gotten our butts spanked!

Ice Cream Sandwiches

In a stream of consciousness, my last post reminded me of this event.

My oldest sister loved to read. As a matter of fact she didn't do much else besides that. O.K., that's not exactly true. She was 16 at the time and in high school and she had just turned old enough to get a real job besides babysitting. She worked at a local hospital doing key punch cards or something related to old computer data input technology. The important point here is not what job she was doing but the fact that this meant she had her own disposable income. She was rich!! And a little lazy too I might add (what 16 year old isn't?)

One weekend she stayed upstairs in her bed practically the whole day just reading away. Her room which she shared with two others of us was in a remodeled attic. About the middle of the afternoon a couple of my other siblings and I went up to see what she was doing. You know how nice it is to be reading a good book and have a treat to eat with it? She saw the three of us, thought of the $$ in her pocket and made us a deal. Being the treat deprived children that we were, when she offered us the deal, it didn't even dawn on us to negotiate. We agreed to her terms and were off.

About 25 minutes later we were back at her bedside delivering the goods. We had run down to the local party store (that's what they were called in those days, not convenience stores) and bought her a whole 12 pack box of ice-cream sandwiches. She took the box, pulled out one measly ice cream sandwich that she split 3 ways for us and doled the sections out. We happily accepted the meager portion alloted to each of us and were on our merry way while she began to devour the first of the remaining eleven delights. Yes, you guessed the end of the story. She ate them all right there in one sitting, never leaving the comfort of her book and bed.

Can you even believe we settled for so little? All for a bite of ice cream sandwich!

Food for Thought

I am the middle child in a family of seven children. I have really fond memories of my childhood and really loved growing up in a big family. But it had its downside too.

Food, for instance. We never had name brand products to eat. Mom was very good at budgeting which meant that we had the cheapest brand of everything. We rarely had sweets for snacks; we just had fillers, whatever mom thought would fill up our hollow legs. And we never had sweet cereal.

At the dinner table we were all very territorial about our plates. If you looked away for one second you risked that the sibling next to you would help themselves to your apportioned mound of steaming mashed potatoes and gravy. When something special was being passed around (green or black olives for example) there was always a limit as to how many/much we could take.

I absolutely love olives. I remember trying to sneak more than my share of olives. Green olives were easy but black olives posed more of a challenge. We always had the pitted kind and I learned to hide the pits underneath the edge of my plate and would always make sure to clear it myself on those days and sneak the olive pits up off the table at the same time.

O.K., so I lied. One time mom did buy sweet cereal. She bought a box of Captain Crunch (it must have been a really good sale). We were told we could not have it for a snack that night but that we had to wait until the morning, and then we could each have one bowl.

What is the definition of a bowl? My brother, who is one year older than me to the day, got up at 6:00 a.m., doled out 6 scanty bowls for his siblings, and proceeded to pour the rest of the box of cereal into a mixing bowl and chowed it right down. Oh my gosh, when we found out what he had done, the rest of us were furious. But he claimed innocence "all I had was one bowl!"

Aaarg.

Universal Language

Once when traveling to Mexico City on a quick business trip, I had had a day and a half of business meetings. They had gone fairly well, but by the time I had wrapped up the last meeting I was pressed for time to get to the airport. I had been kind of tense the whole time, just not on top of my game. After the last meeting I stopped to go to the bathroom before getting out on the street to catch a taxi. Dang, Aunt Mary sured picked an awful time to make a visit. In those days I didn't pay much attention to my cycle and so of course I was caught off guard by the surprise visit and was not prepared to deal with it.

So under the time crunch to get to the airport, I decided that I had better take time to get some supplies or things would be a total disgusting mess. It was hot out. I was tired. I was tense. The suitcase I was lugging was heavy. But luck was on my side as I spotted a farmacia across the street. I made my way over to it.

The pharmacy was small and after circling through it two times looking for the feminine products, I could not find what I needed. Finally, in desperation, I decided I better ask a clerk where to find them. All of a sudden I had a panic attack. I had forgotten the word I needed to ask for the specific product. So . . .what do you do in that case? You describe what you need. I hesitatingly began in my imperfect Spanish "?Se vende aqui esas cosas para mujeres que cuando sale la sangre se mete adentro . . ?" (Do you sell those things for women, that when they're bleeding, you insert inside . . .) I was feeling embarrased to be describing in such a personal manner, but what is a woman to do?

The clerk smiled and reached behind her. "Ay, tampones, cierto?" OMG, how could I have forgotten that the word in Spanish for tampon is tampon?? I laughed my way to the airport with that one!!!

Electrical eSpectacle

This past Tuesday I was invited to be a guest at a very high level strategic meeting because my old boss couldn't attend and he asked me to sit in as a representative on his behalf. The people in this meeting were from around the world and all at a v.p. or director level.

Our company is in the process of totally rebuilding their headquarters. They moved people out of one side of the old building and moved them to temporary quarters while they rebuilt that half of the building. Over the last month they have moved people back into that building. Since I work in the temporary location (and won't be moving back any time soon) I have only been on a walk-thru of the new building once and so am not very familiar with the new layout.

My first challenge of the day was finding the meeting. Since I wasn't directly invited to the meeting, I did not get an official meeting notice. I saw on some documentation that the meeting was going to be held in a specific location; the X.X. XXXXX location. Well, our company owns a building downtown by that name so that's where I thought the meeting was.

Not wanting to be late (and I am almost always late to things), I scrambled out of the house a good 15 minutes earlier than usual in order to make it on time. So I got down town and as soon as I pulled into the parking lot I noticed a lack of cars and a lack of hub-bub . . . uh, oh . . .I think I'm in the wrong place. But I better park and go in the building and check just in case. Darn, the signs that were posted for events taking place that day did not include this global meeting. By that time it was 10 mintues before the meeting was supposed to start.

That meant I had to get from down town to headquarters, figure out the parking situation at the new HQ building and which door to enter (since I had seen e-mails about certain entrances not being available yet), as well as finding the meeting room all in 10 short minutes. I didn't think it was possible but thought I'd go for it. Also, I suspected that the first 1/2 hour might be people just informally gathering and getting their coffee, bagels and fruit so I figured I'd scope it out to see if I could just kind of sneak in.

I got to HQ and found parking with no problem. Then I saw someone heading towards an entrance so I just followed them and that worked out good. Then I got myself to the 2nd floor. Since it was 7:00 a.m. there were only a few worker bees around. I ran into a guy I knew and just asked him if he happened to know where the global meeting was being held. He didn't but said he saw a bunch of important looking people going through "that door." So just when I was heading toward "that door" I happened to see the president of our company who was hoofing it at quite a pace toward "that door." Being the perceptive person that I am, I figured he was going to the global meeting (probably to head it) and so I scurried up behind him and followed him thinking even if I'm late I'm not really late if he hasn't opened the meeting up yet.

But not to worry, when we got to the meeting room, everyone was casually grazing at the breakfast troph before the official 7:30 a.m. kick off. Whew, that was a close one.

Where am I going with this story? Oh yeah, so I sat like a fly on the wall (knowing my place) and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to sit with the execs and hear future strategy being discussed. When the portion of the meeting was done that I had been invitied to, I excused myself from the room, glanced at my watch and knew I had to hurry out to my next meeting which required driving back to the temporary building in which I am housed.

So, I was trotting rapidly along since again, I was late. I was in a world with my own thoughts, mulling over what I had just been exposed to as well as transitioning into the next meeting topic and thinking about what demands would be required of me. My head was down and I was just booking in the general direction of the door that I had entered the building through. I grabbed the door knob to twist and pull. It wasn't until that point that I glanced up. There, in bold letters, staring me in the face was a sign on the door that said "Electrical Closet!"

One minute I'm hob-knobbing with the global execs, the next I'm in an electrical closet!
If that won't keep a person humble, what will?

Boot trial

Last October I thought I needed a new pair of short brown boots so I went out and bought a fairly cute cheap pair that I thought would do the trick.

I wore them on and off over the past 5 months. I was really disappointed though. The right foot was comfortable but the left foot felt really tight. When I wore them to work at the beginning of the day it would only bother me a little bit, but by early afternoon the left foot would really really feel uncomfortable.

Usually when I buy shoes I only try on the right foot because that foot is a little bigger so it the shoe is comfortable on the right, it's comfortable on the left. So I thought it was really wierd that the left boot was tight. I even checked the size of the left to make sure it was a 7.5 and not a 7.0.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, on a day when I was wearing the dreaded boots, I got stuck in a bunch of bad traffic on the way home. It was stop and go and since my car is a stick shift there is no rest for your feet in that situation. Somehow or another, that stop and go driving really started making my left foot feel horribe and I couldn't stand to keep that boot on anymore. So I unzipped it and took it off but I left the right one on cause that one was O.K.

Well, when I finally got home I had to put the left boot back on in order to walk from the car to the door in the cold garage. When I was trying to put the boot back on kind of half way still in the car, I couldn't get my foot at a good angle and then it was like there was a flap or something inside my boot that wouldn't allow me to get my foot in all the way.

And that's when I made the shocking discovery .. . . . the plastic insert that they put inside shoes and boots in order to keep their shape before selling had been inside my boot during the whole 5 months that I had been wearing it. It was a humongous plastic form and it was even bent under in one spot where my foot had crushed it upward from months of wearing it.

Of course I shared the story with my co-workers who got a hardy laugh out of it, especially when I even showed them the plastic culprit to back up my story

Geez oh peet. I could hardly believe it. And guess what, that left boot is really alot more comfortable now.

Sticker Shock

It was not unusual of Kyle, at about 3 years old, to go off and play quietly by herself. She could really entertain herself for hours with whatever was at hand and her imagination.

But one day she had gone upstairs and I had been doing whatever it is I used to do (I always want to say "when I was working in the kitchen", yet I hate to cook so in reality I probably wasn't in the kitchen unless I had to be) I all of a sudden got this feeling that Kyle had been quiet for a little to long.

So I yelled up the stairs, "Kyle, are you alright up there?" That's when she appeared at the top of the stairs "Mommy, look, I found a box of stickers." and she was covered head to toe with my light day mini-pads!!!

Road to Nowhere

Road to Nowhere and a disappearing act like you wouldn't believe.

Kyle was about 2.5 years old. Kelsey was about 7 months old. We were living in Doylestown, PA at the time and Kyle was enrolled in a Montessori school. This meant a good 25 minute drive to get her there. The road we had to take was nicknamed the "Road to Nowhere." I guess that was because the Dept. of Transportation ran out of $$ and they never finished the road, therefore it just ended someplace and didn't go on.

Anyway, the point of this blog is a recollection I have about dropping Kyle off at the school one day and driving back home. Poor Kelsey, throughout his life he spent a good portion of his time being dragged from one place to another due to the involvement of his sister's activities. Anyway, he just downright hated his car seat. So after dropping Kyle off and heading back home, all of a sudden I realized it was very very very too too quiet in the back seat. I knew immediately that something was up. I glanced in the rear view mirror to catch of glimpse of the baby in the car seat. Much to my amazement when there were no merry eyes looking back at me. Nothing. Nobody. My mind went crazy for a minute "Where's the baby? Did I leave him at the school? WTF???" So in a semi-panic state, I instictively pulled the car off to the side of that super curvy, hilly damn road to nowhere. I jumped out and opened the back door. What do you think?

There, contentedly sitting on the floor of the car, staring innocently up at me, was the most adorable brown eyed escape artist you could ever imagine. Not content for long though as I hoisted him back into the carseat and secured the straps even tighter. Not happy for the rest of the 20 screaming minutes back home!

Do you ever trick yourself?

Again, back in the day of having to dress up for work, I found a pair of pumps that were relatively inexpensive and comfortable. I bought one pair in black and one pair in blue. In the dim morning light at the bottom of my closet it was hard to tell which pair was which and God forbid I would never want to make the mistake of wearing one blue and one black by accident. So I thought I would help myself out and code the shoes so I would know which was which at a glance in the morning. So I grabbed a permanent marker and on the inside each shoe of the black pair I inscribed a capital "B" for Black. Given that blue and black start with the same letter, I picked up the blue pair and wrote "N" for Navy Blue in each shoe.

Much to my dismay a week later when I went to grab a pair of shoes in the morning (I'm not even sure which color I was looking for) I stared completely dumb founded. For the life of me I could not figure out if "B" was for black or blue and what the heck did "Z" stand for?????

Stylin' at work

Quite a few years ago when I was single parenting it, and always behind in everything, and always running and always late (o.k. single parenting is just an excuse because I'm still that way and single parenting no longer applies) I was dressing hurridly for work. It was the days when we still wore suits to work, none of this business casual stuff that we have today. I had a really nice tan and white light wool summer suit that put on that day. I threw on a pair of tan shoes to match.

It wasn't til I got to work and walked to my desk that I actually looked down at my feet and noticed I had on two completely different tan shoes. On the left foot was a plain tan pump, on the right foot was a real cool pump, two tone tan, with cute button adornments. Good thing the heel sizes must have been similar or it could have ended it disaster.

In true Rita form, wherever I went that day, I pointed out my different shoes to everyone. What a hoot.

Have any of you ever worn two completely different shoes to work? Did anyone notice?

Callate, cuchara, cuidado

I sent Kyle to Chile one summer, I think it was inbetween her 8th and 9th grades. She was about 14. I wanted her to learn Spanish and experience another culture and she was open to it. About half way through the summer, Kelsey and I went to visit her for about a week. If I have the year correct, that would have made Kelsey about 12 years old.

At that time Kelsey only knew a few words of Spanish. His vocabulary consisted of "Gracias, gracias, gracias" said frequently and in response to any circumstance that warranted it or not. In the limited time he was in Chile he charmed many people with his smile and his delivery of those words of thanks.

He knew about three other words in Spanish, those being callate, cuchara and cuidado. So we were in the living room of the family that Kyle stayed with on the weekends, playing cards if I remember correctly. There was a little boy about 4 years old that we were playing with. He was a little rambuncious and suddenly tripped. Kelsey, being the bilingual traveler that he was and now thinking in Spanish and wanting to tell the little boy to be careful yelled out, "cuchara"!

Oh well, I guess thats better than yelling out cuchillo.

Out pops a new Boo!

About three months after Kyle's brother Kelsey was born (Kyle would have been right around 3 years old) she got curious about how babies were born and asked me the dreaded but inevitable question about how babies are made. "Mom," she asked me, "How was Boo Bear made?" (Boo Bear was Kelsey's nick name.) I tried to answer her honestly but with information that was age appropriate, you know, answer the question but don't give details a 2 year old isn't ready to understand. I explained to Kyle that Mommy has an egg and Daddy has a sperm and when the sperm and egg come together, a baby is created.

Later on in the day I was in the kitchen whipping up something for dinner and Boo Bear was taking a nap. Kyle was merrily playing with the pots and pans and bowls and utensils from the lower cupboards along side of me. As I'm cooking away (yes, I used to cook on occasion) I heard her talking to herself as she is stirring an imaginary concoction in a mixing bowl "Put in a sperm, put in an egg. Out pops a new Boo!"

Aaah. From the mouths of babes!!

Reflecting on reflections

Kyle and Kelsey were always intrigued by hearing stories about themselves when they were babies. So one day when they were persisting on the topic, I started making up things about how they were born; i.e. "Kelsey, the day you were born you came out on a skateboard." and "Kyle, the day you were born you came out with your nose in a book." From there we would let our imaginations go and embelish even further with outlandish ideas of how each came out doing cartwheels or playing soccer or whatever. But one thing is for sure, Kyle came out with a vocabulary far beyond her 1 second old being.

Really, does it surprise anyone who has read any of her blogs that the child had an innate sense of words? She did not necessarily begin talking at an earlier than average age but by the time she was about one and a half she was already speaking in complete sentences and using a very large vocabulary. When she was right around that age I remember I was driving somewhere and she was strapped in her car seat. She confidently announced to be "Mom, I can see my reflection in the mirror." I was flabbergasted to hear such a small person use such a big word. And later on during that same outing all of a sudden she called out "Mom, watch out. Don't hit that boulder!" I mean, at a year and a half, it wasn't just a rock, it was a "boulder." The funniest thing about that was that the boulder was way off on the side of the road and I wasn't even close to hitting it. I really think she just wanted to try out her new vocabulary.

Kyle's appetite for books was insatiable and her attention span was very long for a little person. I read to her from an early age. At any time of the day we would sit and read through piles of books. We went to the libarary on a weekly basis and took out 20 to 25 books at a time. By the time she was 4 years old she listened to me read the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder series and by the time she was 5 she read them all back to me.

Of course, I'm sure it helped that I made costumes for her and her brother to dress up in so they could play out the characters. Kyle was always Mary and Kelsey was always Laura. They loved to wear the bonnets and aprons. Kelsey was too little at that time (about 2 years old) to think anything about the fact that he was dressing up like a girl. So while Kyle was thriving on this I may have done Kelsey some severe physcological damage but I hope not. Hopefully they were both learning how to use their imaginations!

In first grade Kyle was reading at a 6th grade level and in 6th grade at a twelth grade level and now she is a spead reader. Honestly, she reads about three times faster than I do. It is really amazing. And now I can only imagine that she has got to be a speed writer too to do all this blogging. If only I had the same talent!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

One weekend the t.v. was on. I was in the same room as my son, Kelsey, who was watching it. I'm sure I was doing something else, like a crossword puzzle or something because I hardly ever just sit and watch t.v. Anyway, one of those ads came on with one of those strange, intriuging women, that look pretty yet somehow very cheap. The ad was encouraging people to call the 1-800 number to get their fortune read by one of these hot, sexy phychics. All of a sudden Kelsey declared "Mom, when I grow up, I want to be a side kick"!!!

I can't really remember how old he was at the time, maybe 7 or 8. What great aspirations! And now a toast . . may we all grow up to be side kicks!

How fast is fast?

One day when my son, Kelsey, was about 4 or 5 year old, he said "Look at me mom. I can run as fast as a cheetoh." Needless to say that conjured up quite the visual!

Chill Pills

One day at work (quite a long time ago) I was involved in a stressful project. I was invited to attend yet one more meeting about whatever the very controversial subject was. I really can't even remember what the topic was. I could feel a headache coming on so I thought I would take some aspirin before the meeting to ward it off.

As I reached in my drawer, I grabbed a bottle of some kind of vitamin supplements instead. That gave me an idea. I took two of the honkin' big white smooth pills out, took a fine black perma-marker and scrawled "chill" on one and "pill" on the other and stuck them in my pocket.

Then I gulped down two aspirin and headed off for the meeting. As predicted, the meeting grew long, people began to lose patience, tempers were beginning to flare. Just as the heated discussions were reaching their crescendo, I reached into my pocket and tossed the tablets to the middle of the table. "Anyone want a chill pill" I asked?

Tension broke and the room filled with laughter. It's the best medicine, you know. It releases endorphins or something into your system. It turned out to be another good day at work!

Do Not Disturb

Today at work I had a lot of deadlines and I needed strict concentration to get through my tasks on time. My desk is in a fairly open area with a lot of traffic coming and going and a lot of noise. I could not escape to a conference room and shut the door for my needed peace because I needed the functionality of my dual monitors in able to do my job. It was just about noon when I had finished up with phone calls and was getting ready to hunker down.

I thought to myself "how am I going to let people know not to bother me please." I quickly found a piece of 81/2" x 11" paper and wrote "Do Not Disturb .. . please" on it and promptly reached awkwardly back and pinned it to the back of my sweater. I turned back toward my desk, hooked up my iPod and began to work feverishly away. In a little while as people were returning from lunch, I heard a few people chuckling and I heard a comment something like "only Rita." I smiled to myself and kept on working like a mad woman as the clock was ticking.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that I turned around to ask my co-worker a technical question. He was seated at a table with a few other people having a little mini-meeting in the center of our work area. As I turned, my iPod got twisted up so I had to turn back toward my desk and untangle myself before I could address him with my question.

What to my surprise when I finally looked over there again . . .my co-workers, unbeknownst to me, had taken a picture of my back side with the sign hanging there. One of them had saved it as their screen saver and in the time that I had glance away to untagle my iPod they had displayed the picture up on our big screen monitor. Everybody roared with laughter when they saw my reaction to that picture. It was a great laugh. What a great tension reliever on a day that was fraught with stress. . . but I guess you probably had to be there to experience the true effect.