Another Year, Another Turkey

I will admit I have been a bitter turkey baker these last few years.  If you know me, you know that.  If you have read my stories, you know that.

Each year after the meal, I say bitterly, “Why did I bother?”  The meal lasts 5 minutes, then my mother goes and lays down, then complains later, while my husband just watches football and continues to make mess after mess in the kitchen throughout the rest of the day and night.  My married son has dinner with his in-laws and their huge family.  My daughter is in and out.

I am usually left with a huge mess, an exhausted check book, and extremely sore feet.  Exhaustion of my body sets in from the pre-holiday stress of shopping, worrying, cleaning, etc.  I usually feel a little “ruined”  for a couple of days afterward.

Each year, I put myself through all of this mind crap about how on Thanksgiving, all families except mine, look and feel like the smiling Norman Rockwell paintings. 

All families, other than mine, are surrounded by loving, laughing, fun family and friends, who share in the preparation and cooking of this huge meal. 

All families, other than my own, play board games, or go play in the snow together after the big meal, then decorate the outside of the house for Christmas, then sit in front of a nice warm fireplace and drink hot cocoa, or spiked eggnog together, talking and laughing. 

This year, I told my husband we are going out for dinner.  He did not want to.  I was determined, but then a turkey appeared, and I eventually decided, I would cook.

I had most of the dinner items by the weekend before, so my shopping was minimal.  When I got home on Thanksgiving Eve after a second round of shopping, I was looking forward to cooking a meal for my family. 

My husband had helped out tremendously by vacuuming and mopping the floors, thus eliminating big piles of dog hair.  I really dislike cooking with dog hair on the floor, (we have a long-haired retriever).

I prepared as much of the food as possible the night before and got to bed at a decent hour, rising to finish the rest of the meal in the morning.  It was the easiest time I had ever had fixing a Thanksgiving feast. 

It was only the 3 of us at dinner, and though a little sadness always creeps in as you remember your parents and/or other family members who aren’t there and long for times past, you realize that you actually enjoyed making this dinner for the people you love.

My husband tried to dive in without the blessing having been said, and I stopped him.   “Hey you, wait a minute!”  I tell him.  Though we don’t daily say a blessing before we eat, there are a few holidays that I insist on it. 

 I look at my husband and mother and say, “Well guys, they are dropping like flies around here, it’s just us.”  and we ask God to bless our food, family and friends and thank Him for all He has provided. 

I realize that I would indeed miss this feast of thanks if I canceled Thanksgiving.

A Dad Is A Dad

Your Dad is just your Dad, when you are young and don’t really have any thoughts or worries about the future.   If he is a good Dad, he takes care of your, nutures you and protects you, raising you into the person he wants and hopes that you will become some day.  He plays with you and goes to all of your Little League Games or Piano Recitals.  He trys to talk with you about Politics.  He encourages you to speak Spanish.

On the weekends, he fills a mop bucket with Pinesol and announces that it is time for you and your brother to get up out of bed and get your rooms cleaned.  The drill sergeant in him comes out of hiding.

If you are caught saying a bad word, watch it, the bottle of hot sauce finds it’s way on your tongue!  Just a drop or two.   Effective.   Occasionally a spanking happens.  The old fashioned way.  Not the abusive way spoken  of today.  You are no worse the wear for it.

You and your Bro are lined up to take a spoon full of honey each night just before bedtime, as it is said to help curtail bed wetting.  It doesn’t work.  It is your Dad’s fault anyway, the hereditary gene comes from him.

You play in the yard with your dog while he gardens.  When he mows the lawn, you walk behind him with your palms on his levi back pockets, fascinated by the way his butt cheeks move as he walks.  (You are about 2 or 3 years of age at this point. )

When watching a Saturday afternoon movie on t.v. with him, a heavy love scene comes on and he turns the channel mumbling that children don’t need to be watching that crap.  Protecting you.

When he goes overseas for a while year at a time, you are devastated and miss him so much.  A year is an unfathomable amount of time for a child.

When your mom has a nervous breakdown, he comes back from overseas and makes arrangements for relatives to take care of you for the rest of the year.  You are well taken care of, in a fun place with cousins you love, but the sadness and missing your parents leave a hole in your belly like none other.

He builds you a bedroom from the garage and paints it “apple blossom pink”  and he is your hero.  Your black piano looks very nice against those extremely pale pink walls.

When nightmares cause you to wake screaming, “Daddy!”  He comes running and says everything is alright.

He kills bugs for you.

He teaches you to drive.

He worries about you and searches for you and calls the police when you run away for a night just to keep your best friend from having an adventure on her own.

He smacks you with a flyswatter when you smart mouth him and his best friend at 15 years old.  Very humiliating

You don’t realize the importance of his having served in the Army Air Corp in World War II as a bombadier until after he has passed from this life and you are grown.  You don’t appreciate the stories of his having “bailed out over France ” into German territory and how terrifying it must have been. You don’t realize the sacrafices he made for you, or your country,even if he wasn’t perfect. 

You do realize the gaping hole in your heart as you are with him on the day of his death, and the excruciating pain you feel in the loss. 

You do still feel some sadness and the emptiness when you go to the Veteran’s Cemetery and his is just one decorated patch of grass among so many nameless. 

As you gaze across the vast greeness and the sea of red, white and blue flags, you feel proud and sense the proudness he felt in serving his country.

Thanks Dad.

Thar’s a Junk Car Out Thar ……….

Oh no, there is now a junk car out in front of my house.  It is my Husband’s car.  Will this madness never end?  He once had a ‘69 Mustang Mach- 1 about  30 years ago that he did not or could not fix.  It sat and it sat and it sat at his parents’ house.  One day to appease his Dad, he moved it out to his Sister’s house in the country where  it sat, and sat, and sat.  From time to time somebody would spot it and stop and ask if it was for sale, but no it was not for sale.  This used to drive me nuts.  Actually, still does.

The Mustang sat for about 5 years before he sold it along with the  bee’s nests etc. inside.  He got very little money for it.  I never understood the neglect and stubbornness in this regard and am  still not sure I do.

After years of frustration and brain paining thoughts on the subject, the only thing  I could figure out was/is:

• No. 1,  my Husband is the biggest procrastinator I have ever met.

• No. 2 ,my Husband will not admit when he does not know how to fix something.  It must be a man thing.

• No. 3 , my Husband will let something sit and rot before getting rid of it.   He loved that car so much that he would rather see  it sit            there and rot before selling it to someone.

What bizarre behavior in this man beast, that I again, love-hate.    Now, if duct tape could have been used to fix that car, I am sure you would have witnessed the first ever duct-tape covered 1969 Mustang Mach 1 with a 351 engine strapped or wired  to it’s underbelly rumbling down the streets.

He loved this car so much that he never got over it.  He still looks at Mustangs to this day,  which really pisses me off.

He actually did buy a second one  later on, a sleek beauty from 1972 and  I thought,  he has  nerve.  I told him, “Don’t let this one sit and rot please.”

He has never listened to me a day in his life and wasn’t about to start now.  Of course, he hot rodded it around town, thinking he was a cool  40 year old guy,  listening to cassette tapes so loud it was embarrassing.  I hated the second Mustang.  To me it represented his “mid-life”  crisis. I envisioned him with his ears laid back as he drove maddening speeds with maddeningly loud rock and roll that was a little after “our time”, hoping some cute chicks would not be able to resist his savoir faire .

We needed a family car, our children were still at home then, and he gets another hot rod.  For Pete’s Sake.

Well, it didn’t get any better.  The car went to his head.  He became that car as he went on a spree, an 8 month runner of partying with his buddies, doing God knows what.  I had made him leave after the first month of this crap, needless to say.

After 8 months, he talked me into letting him come back home.  Actually, he just came over and wouldn’t leave.  He is still here and it is 15 years later.

The junk car that is sitting in front of our house is not a Mustang, nor anything lovely.  It is just an old family car that is no longer worth keeping.  We will sell it for $50.00 to a young guy who has been “jonesin’” for it.  The young man will have a party with his buddies and beat the car up and run it over with trucks with huge tires, so he is excited about it.

Maybe if I throw in an extra $50.00 I can talk him into taking the Hubby for a ride too.

“The Beat Goes On………”

Yeah, yeah I know I’m stealing Sonny and Cher’s words, maybe I should say, meanwhile back at the Dude Ranch, but that is stealing from someone else, uh, can’t say I know who.

I have me orders to write even if it is a little tiny paragraph.  Loving thanks to you who encourage me and don’t let me give up.  You all know who you are……….

My last writing was more in the form of an “outburst” as one friend put it.  So true.  Let’s see I was threatening to throw my S.O.B. husband over the bridge as I remember and maybe follow him.  But I have not.  Might be easier if I did, but I have not.  Not only have I not done so, but won’t.  Hell I won’t even go so far as to throw him out.

I have accepted over the years, that I made my choice in staying with him and we are growing old together.  Sometimes together, sometimes not so “together”.  Things are shaky these days.

I find myself the “sole bread-winner”  in the household, while his union fights for his job.  I am not sure that he deserves it back.   But by golly, he gave it the best shot any drug addict ever did.  He poured his heart and soul in that damned job while pouring drugs down his throat, and up his nose  with straws and little glass pipes.    He stole from his job, pawned their equipment, and cleaned up their crap doing a fine job of it along the way. Yes, he was a great worker, excellent in his field.  In his mind that probably overshadows any wrong doing.

He has detoxed by himself, on his own and is over the illness part of it.  But it is not over.  Yesterday he felt sorry for himself, said he could “bite a nail”.  He felt sorry for the loss of chance with his son and his grandson.  I really don’t know what he expected.  What should one expect?  I am not sure where the idea of no consequences was born to him, if it is just him or all addicts.

I do know that right now, the goofy, fairly easy to get along with addict has been replaced with the biggest meanest asshole I have ever met in my life.  For some reason I find that harder to take.

I realize for the hundredth time that I have had this delusion that if the drugs were gone, everything will be okay.   The drugs will be replaced with possibly alcohol, or mood changes or meanness or something else that I can’t live with either.

I say to myself in complete and utter anguish, “It is never over”………………..

Suboxin Blues

The son of a bitch should have pursued the suboxin option a while back, say almost a year ago. Now it is too late, he is backed into a corner with his job and that will not only affect him, and his job, but our home which we just got out of foreclosure and a new car that we just purchased. My first ever at age 52. Will this ever end? Nope. The addiction never dies.

I just don’t even know what to say at this point. He is now planning on seeking in house treatment, as he does not have a choice, however he may loose his job for refusing a drug test. We will see how Union Policy effects this. I told him if he loses his job, he will go right out and find another right away, as I am not dealing with all of this. That is b.s. though because I am dealing with it aren’t I?

 Sighhhhhh……………. I toy silently with the idea of taking him on a hike and throwing his body off of a mountain. ………….or mine.

Waiting To Hear ………

I wait to hear the news, how everything ends up.  God, I hope and pray everything will be okay for them.  It is devastating to them, I am sure.

I have not known these folks long, but yet it seems like I always have.  I just can’t stand the helpless feeling.  Unable to help them, unable to console, or give hugs out.  Still helpless , at a loss for words, I hang up the phone as I know not what to say.  There is nothing to do, they are too many miles away.

I do hear later on that their puppy and cat are okay, thank God for that.  I do hear that some amazing firemen grab a precious guitar or two and a laptop full of thoughts, emotions and life.  I am glad for that.  Glad for them, that they are at least safe and unhurt.

Lord, please comfort them tonight, give them peace and rest.    Strengthen them for the days to come and meet their needs.   Thank you that these friends are safe.  Send them my love………….

Coffee In A Hick Town

I had a short career at waitressing and actually loved it.  I worked at a little Mom and Pop Cafe in a tiny little hick town.  The best place to be, I say is a “small town”.  Love the small town life, most of the time.

There was a particular elderly trio of friends whom I had waited on a few times and I remember thinking how cute these senior customers were.  It was a little gentleman in a suit accompanied by two very prim and proper ladies.  The ladies wore blazers and skirts  in tasteful colors with their hair done just so, along with pearls etc.   At first I  was a little intimidated by them as they seemed awfully, “hoity toity” to me.

Each time they would come into the cafe, they would ask for coffee and pie, and they would split the pie 3 ways.   When their coffee got halfway down in the cup, they would motion me over again saying, “More coffee please dear”.   Their manners were impeccable, the ladies acting as if they were having high tea with the Queen, actually lovely to behold.

Once after refilling their cups, one of the ladies took a sip of the hot brew and looked up at me and almost growled out in the most dignified way, “Aw, but that’s damned good coffee”.   Surprised, I laughed and agreed thinking these folks were the cutest I had ever met.

I also love small town cafes and well, any good old coffee diner will do.  I love to sit and drink coffee and shoot the breeze with my friend, or read the newspaper, just chill out and relax.  Until recently, I had forgotten just how much I loved it.

I hold my friend somewhat responsible for this coffee diner-cafe fetish thing, though, actually I probably should blame my Mom first.  She was a coffee cafe kind of girl herself, now that I think of it.

A memorable time for me that I shared with my Mother, when I was a kid, was a trip to the local cafe for my first real hot fudge sundae.   I am not talking about the kind you can get at a drive through now a- days, but the good old fashioned kind.    I watched as the waitress grabbed for a pretty glass dessert dish,  swirling that ebony wonderful smelling goo around the inside of the dish then adding hand scooped vanilla ice cream.   Another ladle  of the fudge followed.  I had never seen a sundae before, and was practically salivating as she swooshed on the spray whipped cream, followed by chopped nuts and a maraschino cherry on top.    She sat it down before me with a flourish saying, “There you go young lady” and just as I had expected, it was love at first bite.   As I sat there downing the decadent masterpiece, swinging my legs  from the stool and half twirling this way and then that, I could not understand how my Mother could only drink black coffee as she smiled at me eating this delicious concoction.

Later, I fell in love with the whole soda fountain, coffee shop type atmosphere, but it definitely got worse when my daughter was small and I was a stay at home mom.  I did not drive either so when my friend came along and said, “Let’s go for coffee”,  we would grab little Salli-o by the hand and haul her off to the local cafe, where we would drink countless cups of black coffee and smoke the heck out of our cigarettes and gab, gab, gab.   We would get interrupted seven thousand times by my daughter, and would get sidetracked trying to keep her from sneak drinking the little creamers.  She’d sneak one and just giggle.  Sigh, she didn’t really need the extra calories at that time either, as she was a pudgy little girl.

This became a favorite past time of ours often annoying our husbands as they thought we should be home doing women stuff.  This also became a time when my friend and I got to know each other very well and gained each other’s trust.  Seventeen years later  we still try to go for coffee now and then.  Not as much as we used to as our lives seem busier in some ways now.

Salli-O has grown up, (though she still would like to drink the creamers, I know her weak spots).   I am  now a grandmother and  care for my elderly Mom.  My friend is planning a wedding and we are both growing a little older, (we are sure we are still cute though).   Our coffee times have become scarcer than they were and somehow more precious.

Yes, our lives have changed, we have been through much and will go through more, but from time to time we get together to drink  coffee and ask for more.   I am almost always reminded of those dear elderly friends and look up at my friend as I say, “Aw, that is some damned good coffee”.  We smile and laugh and talk some more hoping that we will be doing this many times more even when we reach their age.

I Am Not Kiddin’

I am an angry woman.  Bitter I tell ya.  My husband is a dysfunctional man whom is a cross between Fred Flintstone and Archie Bunker.  I could go on and on.  Yes I love- hate him

First I am mad at him because he thinks he knows more than a veterinarian, who has advised us that our dog should not eat animal products other than his dog food as he had an inflamed pancreas.   This Fred- Bunker man whom I love-hate decides to bring spareribs home for the dog.  I tell him “No no, he cannot have that.”  My husband responds intelligently to this with “Aw B.S.!”, literally.

Thus is my life with this man.  I then go out to the back porch and proceed to throw my body across the top of my washing machine to keep it from being off balance as nothing else seems to work.

It sounds like it is full of bricks and is going into a wild orbit which will lead it down my back steps.  Oops! I almost forgot , don’t have a back step either, just a decrepit ramp.  When griping to my friend on the phone , she queries, “What is that God- awful noise ?”,  so I explain.

She then tells me “You know they have little feet on them to level the thing.”   I tell her that I have heard such stories, but no one ever does that here.

Then I ask if she remembers the refrigerator that sat in my yard for way, way too long.  One day I got so upset at that thing and at  Mr. Bunker man that I love- hate for it still being there.

I began to plot and voiced out loud how I was going to push that thing, with the strength of a maniac into the road, and fire on it with a double barreled shotgun, that I do not own, but would get somehow.  My husband’s friend looked at me in alarm.  I just secretly smiled.

Thank God it never came to that.  It seems like I have to loose total control and go ape- shit for someone to get it through their head, over and over and over, that I do not want to live with appliances or junk cars in my yard.  No brother in laws either p-lueez…….. or cousins staying in the garage or the camper.

Sigh……….. Please God take me away………………..

She’s Only 22………

She’s only 22 and has 3 children under the age of 5.   Her Mother is raising them and has given up hope for her, well, almost.  She sent her back home to her family for help, for more rehab.  The 5th time she has been in a rehabilitation unit.  This time she walked away from it, didn’t even give it a chance, just detoxed and left.

I guess it had been at least 6 years since I saw her.  She was then a teenager with long dark hair, long legs and beautiful olive skin.  She was troubled looking casting her eyes downward when spoken to.   Her aversion to looking you in the eye was a by product of her years of abuse by her stepfather.

It all made perfect sense later when we found out the ugly, awful truth.  The quiet somewhat shy girl, who later could not look anyone in the eye even stopped laughing or smiling like she used to.  There was something about her, a feeling you got that you could not quite put your finger on.  A gut feeling that should have been paid closer attention to………..by all of us.

When her stepfather started keeping her contact with anyone outside of their home to a minimum it really made you wonder.  It was not long after that he was found out and subsequently sent to prison.  Good riddance you say and rightly so, however……….

The physical abuse stopped and she and her family moved away to another state.  Years later, her stepfather is back out in the world doing God only knows what while her life is in shambles………..still.

The promiscuity that followed seemed ironic to me,  yet I believe that may be  typical.  I am no expert on abuse and the aftermath, but from what I have witnessed, self- abuse stays on inside the victim.

The heavy drug addiction that followed should probably not have been a surprise, yet it was.  Why you wonder?  You get rid of the bastard, put him away and she is free to live her life.  Free to recover and heal and move on to the life that she deserves.  But, it does not happen that way.

She has ulcers on her arms, and scars on her once lovely face.  You can see the beauty that was there only a few short years ago.  Her teeth look like they are on their way out also.

It was quite shocking to see her.  I wanted to hug her and say what happened to you and why?      But instead I just hugged her and said, “Hey there, what are you doing? “  I did not have to ask how, I could see how she was doing.

I knew what had happened without being in her life all of those years.  I did not want to be close to her, did not really want to hug her until I saw her.   Afraid of her addiction touching my life, as it was already touched by another family member’s addiction, there was no room for more.

But, when I saw her I felt like crying, the sadness weighs heavily on me now, even as I write this.

I realize that the abuser has served his time and is free, while the victim, my once sweet little niece has a destroyed life.  Her children do not have a mother that is whole.  All are affected.

It is sad that punishing the abuser does not change things, but there can never be justice for something of this nature.  It is just not possible.

Maybe she would have become a junkie anyway, even with a normal childhood.  I will never know the answer.

I do believe that there is a point where she has a choice,  to either nurture or punish herself, but it still angers me to my core.  This chain of events that he has set off.  This ruination of a life or her offspring’s lives.

It angers me that he is free while she may never be………………………………….

Please Tell My Jeans That I Am Not Fat, Only That They Shrunk

Step1

Put them on. This is sometimes easier said than done and may require lying on your back and wiggling into the things.

Step2

Make sure you can breathe and give them the squat test. If you squat down and the button flies off or they immediately rip, you may want to go a size up. If not, proceed to the next step.

Step3

Look in the mirror. Be honest. If you have love handles spilling over the waistband or your butt looks like stuffed sausage, you may want to pick a different pair of pants.

Step4

Pick the right shoes. Tight jeans with stilettos can be sleazy. Tight jeans with riding boots, combat boots, thick clunky sandals or flats can look cool.

Step5

Top them off with the proper top. Since the jeans are so tight, you may want to wear a looser blouse or longer top. It can still be sexy, but don’t make it skintight, have massive cleavage or otherwise make a giant statement. Your jeans are making statement enough.

 

 

I found the above post on e how.com, LOL>