Writer’s Workshop #9 – Just Punishment

My parents were pretty strong disciplinarians when I was growing up. Both were teachers and they had high expectations of my behavior. Overall I was a good kid. Sometimes however, this might come to you as a surprise for those of you who know me in real life, I could have an “attitude”. That was my biggest behavior problem. Being the only child, I spent most of my childhood with my parents. In the tweens and teen years, they drove me nuts. Add in some hormones and that was quite a mix.

I know I was a brat and I don’t wish a teenage daughter like me on anyone. One of my mom’s favorite stories to tell about this period of time starts out with me and my room. I was messy. Never gross messy – I didn’t leave dirty dishes or food in my room – but I left clothes everywhere. This drove my mom crazy and her craziness drove my dad crazy.

After one particularly heated discussion about my messy room where “It’s my room and I should be able to keep it the way I want it!” and “I can’t believe you!” were screamed for the millionth time my dad got so mad and marched upstairs to take care of the situation.

Some background information…In the house we lived in at the time my room was one of two rooms that faced the street. Both of these rooms had a sliding glass door out to a balcony which looked over the front yard and driveway.

My dad came into my room as my mom and I were fighting about my piles. He opened up my sliding glass door, scooped up an armful of clothes, walked out to the balcony, and flung them over the side. At first I gasped and then the drama kicked in and I started crying, “Stop it!” Instead, he picked up another armful and threw those over as well.

There were clothes everywhere! Hanging off the balcony, from tree branches, in the planter boxes, draped over rocks, and strewn over the driveway and grass. I don’t know what I was more mortified about at the time – him throwing my clothes or what the neighbors thought. I ran downstairs and tried to scoop them up as quickly as possible. It was so embarrassing.

That incident took care of the messy room issue for a little while. When it reared it’s ugly head again, my mom finally compromised. As long as I kept my door closed and did my own laundry, she agreed not to hound me about my room. Not sure if that was the result my dad had in mind, but at least the arguments about it stopped after that.

Random Thoughts

• I don’t like Sundays.  I don’t think I ever have or ever will.  By choice, I don’t do anything on Sundays.  I prefer to stay in my jammies, catch up on my recorded shows, and hope the day doesn’t go by too fast.  However, since my dad died, Sunday is the day that I usually miss him the most.  Probably because I’m not preoccupied with work, or errands, or whatever else I am doing. 
• I had another back incident last night.  I have had one every week or so for the last couple of months.  I think they are lower back spasms of some kind but they make me feel sick to my stomach as well.  They seem to start right around the time I’m going to bed and then I spend about 2-3 hours writhing around in pain.  I thought I had narrowed it down to days when I sat down too much, but yesterday I didn’t do much sitting around at all.  So now I’m perplexed. 
• I am so looking forward to my week of vacation for Thanksgiving.  My class is FINALLY starting to settle down and we’re getting things done, but it was a painful and tiring process getting there.  They wore me out and I need a break.
•   I met up with another high school friend who I reconnected with through facebook.  We met for coffee this weekend and it was a lot of fun to catch up.  I’ve given FB a bad time, but I have to admit that even though it was a bit overwhelming at first, I’m starting to settle in with it.
• Have you shopped on Zappos.com yet?  OMG!  It is shoe heaven.  Over the last couple of weeks I have been on a mission to find a cute pair or boots that fit well.  That’s how I discovered Zappos.  You can order as many pairs as you want with free shipping, try them on, wear them until you know if they work or not, and then send them back with free return shipping.  I did that a few weeks back and found a great pair of boots in brown.  I then wanted a pair in black so I ordered some more with the same free shipping.  However I got an email right afterwards stating that since I was such a good customer they were upgrading me to overnight shipping, for free!  Like I said, Heaven!

A Gross Story Which Really Wasn’t

This is my dog Koho. She’s the coolest dog in the world.

This story actually began last Wednesday when I spent most of the day sitting down from about 8 am until about 7 PM as I was out at meetings for most of the day and was not teaching. Since I am turning into an elderly person, that night I had the worst back ache and couldn’t fall asleep until very early the next morning. Which meant that I was exhausted on Thursday. Just remember that as you read the rest of the story.

Thursday night I crashed into bed and was out like a light before my head hit the pillow. I was so tired. In the middle of the night I was awaken by my dog coughing on the bed next to me. I sat up because it kind of sounded like she was actually vomiting. In my exhaustion I looked over in the dark, just lit by the streets light outside, and found that she actually had puked white nastiness on the bed, about a foot away from where I was sleeping. I have to admit that in my sleep deprivation I seriously contemplated letting her and the puke stay there because I was so tired. But a clearer head prevailed, and I got out of bed and shooed Koho off as well. Luckily, my comforter has a duvet cover on it so, with my eyes closed, I unbuttoned the cover, rolled it up, dumped it on the bathroom floor, vowing to take care of it in the morning. I got back into bed and fell back to sleep.

The next morning, still feeling slightly annoyed that my sleep had been interrupted. I got ready for work and then carried the soiled comforter cover down to the garage. I opened it up to see if I needed to remove any undigested food (I know, gross) before throwing it in the washing machine. As I did, I had a hard time finding where it was. I looked and turned it and looked again and again. There wasn’t any sign of the puke?!?! I washed it anyways and left for work.

That night when I went to bed, I realize that Koho had actually just been coughing. As the light from outside shown into my dark bedroom, the pattern of my bedding shown brightly.
I realized that the white of the pattern was what looked like dog puke to me in the middle of the night. I was relieved to know that I hadn’t really contemplated sleeping next to dog vomit.

All Your Mayonnaise Questions Answered

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my mayo issues. Some of you had questions about this issue. I wanted to take a moment to answer those…

Hula Hank wondered if I should have “mayo submersion therapy”. To that, I say “Blech!”

Teacher Tom asked, “Do you like Miracle Whip? Tartar Sauce? Ranch? Or does your dislike apply to all creamy condiments?” To me Miracle Whip and Mayo are the same thing, so that’s a no to miracle whip. I do not like Tartar Sauce or Ranch dressing. Neither have the effect on me like mayo, but they are still pretty gross. White condiments are a bit of a problem for me except for one…blue cheese dressing. I love that stuff.

g asked, “Have you ever tried REAL homemade mayo? You could call it something else. Or is that even grosser?” Yah, that’s pretty gross. I know it’s just eggs and oil, but, ugh, even thinking about making my own mayo made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Kelly wondered about “mustard!?!?” I can do honey mustard sometimes. I don’t like regular yellow mustard. I’m a ketchup girl.

If you like mayo, you don’t know the problems that I encounter at catered lunches (which I often attend at school functions). I always find myself asking this question in a whiney voice, “Why can’t they just leave the mayo off the sandwiches. You can always add it, but you can’t take it off.” And then I pout. Sometimes these lunches are like a mayonnaise party. I don’t like those kind of parties.

Writer’s Workshop #8 – Halloween

This week’s WW topics are all about Halloween. If Mama Kat was going to grade this post, I would be marked down because it’s not really on any of her topics, but it is about Halloween costumes.

My costumes, throughout the years, haven’t been anything too exciting. I don’t even remember all of them. I think once I was a kitty cat, and then there were several years of those plastic costumes with the mask secured with a rubber band. Most of the time the rubber band broke before even getting the chance to trick-or-treat.

Then there were the high school years. I was so very original when I dressed as a baby four years in a row. Sweats, hair in pig tails, and a bottle with my favorite beverage, why not four years in a row?

College wasn’t much different. I wasn’t a baby, but a Kings’ fan for those four years. I wore my Kelly Hrudey jersey, my Kings’ hat, a pair of jeans, and wrote on my face. How easy was that?

Today my team and I were talking about dressing up for school on Friday. Ideas were thrown around like pirates or witches, and then I said, “Let’s dress as something so we can wear our pajamas to school.” They loved it. We’re going to go as tired teachers! Flannel PJs, messy hair, and slippers; what a nice way to dress on a Friday.

So, no, I’m not very creative with my Halloween costumes, but I sure am comfortable.

Random Thoughts

• In celebration of a friend's birthday a group of about 10 of us climbed into a limo for a night filled with drinking pink martinis and singing our hearts out. We had a good time last night, but today I’m feeling it. I spent the morning with “pink” sloshing around in my belly and the rest of the day with a sore neck from crazy dancing. When did I get so old?
  
• This past January I signed up for facebook with the urging of my friend Jill. The whole thought of it “weirded” me out a little bit. Everyone said how great it was to hook up with people from the past that you’ve lost touch with, but the few people that I was hoping to reconnect with weren’t signed up. That was until recently. A couple of months ago, one of my very dear friends growing up who I had lost touch with, due to moving cross country and out of the country and parents moving away from our points of contact, became a facebook member. Shawna and I reconnected on Facebook and she’s living in the Los Angeles area. We met up for lunch this afternoon and had a great time catching up. I still go back and forth on the whole facebook thing, but I’m so happy that we have become friends again.
• I am so addicted to my new Victoria’s Secret bras. When they came out a few months ago I bought 4 of them. Just this week they came out with new winter colors! They are so pretty. I just bought 5 more. I love them!
• I’m hoping that my crazy, crazy, crazy class is starting to come together. Last Thursday and Friday were the first two days since the school year started that I didn’t want to throw one (or more) of them over my classroom’s 2nd story balcony. Two whole days in a row – that is progress.
• The new season of So You Think You Can Dance starts this week. I'm so excited! It's one of my favorite shows.

Writer’s Workshop #7 – Poetry

This is a poem I wrote a few years back shortly after my dad died. It’s “me” in a nut shell.

Random Autobiography

I was born in September.
I always hated that!
Always the youngest, the last to be 16, 18 and 21.
With blonde hair and blue eyes I’ve been told I look like my Dad by some and my mom by others.

Wanting to keep me safe on a weekend camping trip my parents tied two inner tubes together and set me inside. By Sunday morning I knew how to walk. I learned to ride horses shortly after.

Spending hours at the barn taking care of my horse, never wanting to go home. I slammed my finger in the front door while running outside to show my Dad how I could ride my bike and I broke my left arm in two places roller skating backwards at the Skatin’ Place. But I never injured myself riding horses.

My family has driven to Arkansas, twice, on family vacations and I have stood in both Texas and Arkansas at the same time. I think that is where I learned the art of eye rolling.

We went to the Grand Canyon and after looking over the edge, we turned around and left after hearing the news that the Colorado River was flooding. I’ve shoveled sand into sandbags to keep it from flooding a friend’s home.

As a 4^th grader, I watched my teacher have a nervous breakdown over a bad boy who I thought was cute (which, turns out, is a pattern for me) and nearly had a nervous breakdown of my own when my Dad was my math teacher in 6^th grade. I watched the Challenger blow apart in mid air on television in junior high science class and baby mice being born in 10^th grade biology.

At 17, I moved from California to the New Hampshire seacoast to attend college and ended up staying on the East Coast until I was 25; also living in Providence and Boston.

My car was buried for a week under 4 feet of snow in an April Fool’s Day storm.

And I have sat in obstructed view seats watching the Bruins at the “real” Boston Garden – totally worth it.

I’ve eaten the best ever Italian food alongside mobsters on Federal Hill in Rhode Island, sipping limoncello as an after dinner drink.

I’ve kayaked on Keleakua Bay in Hawaii with spinner dolphins and snorkeled with sea turtles.

I spent a summer traveling around Ireland. “Gotta do 10 or do it again,” was our motto when pubbing in Dublin. We did it again even after doing ten.

I’ve cruised the South of France and long to go back to London’s busy city streets. Africa was a trip of a lifetime and driving around Italy for 3 weeks is my definition of heaven. I carry a list of the top 50 places I want to travel to around with me. Seven places have been checked off. Someday, I will cross off number 50 and start a new list.

I bought my first home at 28 and have learned to paint with color. There isn’t a white wall in the place. I have killed more hydrangeas than I care to admit, hoping to someday have a thriving (or even surviving) plant or two of them. I love having a backyard to sit in, but the upkeep has become the bane of my existence.

Teaching is my job, but often it feels like my life. I love kids, but not sure if I want any of my own. It might be selfish, but I like my free time too much.

Looking for the man of my dreams I’ve dated mostly nightmares. I’ve never liked the ones who are good for me and have fallen hard for the ones who aren’t.

If music played while life happened (like in the movies) I think the world would be a better place.

My Dad passed away recently. It’s hard. I am sad, but I don’t always have the time to be sad; worrying about my mom. But, this too shall pass. At least I hope so.