Bon Appetit, Kiddies!

Over the weekend in Germany it's supposed to snow, at least a little, even here in the flatlands. Predictions of snow prompts me to make a list for me to stock up on needed supplies at the grocery store. Not the standard milk-bread-toilet paper stock up but instead I like to bake when it's lousy weather outside so I have to make sure I have all I need for baking.

Cakes are good but there's something about snow and cookie baking that goes together. Toll House cookies are my favorite cookies but I often save that for Christmas baking because chocolate chips and American style brown sugar are hard-to-the-point-of-impossible to get here. Brownies are another favorite but B is allergic to nuts and I personally think brownies without nuts are dull. The best choice for snowy day cookie baking in my home are snickerdoodles. They have no nuts, they're easy to make and they're B's favorite cookie. I introduced him to the world of snickerdoodles when I first moved to Germany and he became a fan immediately.

I have four distinct memories of Kindergarten. The first is my Kindergarten teacher, Miss Wickie, telling Andrew Campbell that he looked like a drunk in our class picture. And he seriously did! I haven't actually seen that picture in nearly twenty years but it's burned into my mind. The second is Miss Wickie telling some boys stacking up some huge wooden blocks to not stack them so high because they would fall and hurt someone. Not thirty seconds later the stack did fall and hit me on the head and it didn't hurt a bit - but I pretended that it caved in my skull because those bad boys had not been listening to Miss Wickie like they should have and I could get lots of attention if I acted like I was injured. I learned manipulation early in life. The third distinct memory I have is being outside at recess and I could see my mother down in the parking lot talking to some lady. Miss Wickie called us back into class and as I was running I ducked under a jungle gym bar like I always did except this time I didn't duck down far enough and I slammed my forehead into the bar full force. Knowing my mother was down the hill from the playground I ran back and could see my mother driving off in our Chevrolet Biscayne stationwagon and screamed after her "Mama! Mama! Come back!" and she didn't hear me. Cosmic repayment for the hit-with-the-blocks incident? You be the judge.

The fourth distinct memory I have was being selected one day to pass out the milk and cookies at snack time. The cafeteria lady had delivered the cookies and milk about ten minutes before and I could see that they were snickerdoodles. I was so excited because we almost never got snickerdoodles for snack time. One of my favorite cookies and I was going to get to pass them out to everyone! Wouldn't it be terrible if something happened to prevent me from carrying out my sacred milk and cookies duty? And not two minutes later I had to go to the nurse's office to wait for my mother because as I was getting up to pass out milk and cookies I threw up.

Give me a snowy day baking snickerdoodles and I'm five years old again - head injured and throwing up.

Friday Shuffle - Batten Down The Hatches Edition

A big storm is expected to barrel through Germany this weekend, complete with heavy rains and very strong winds. I'll be keeping myself indoors as I am not fond of having rain blowing in my face as I walk down the street nor am I a fan of dodging stray branches as they rip off from trees and fly around looking for an innocent victim to bash in the face.

I'm not a weather wimp though. I know folks who cringe and fall apart whenever a bit of rain or a stiff breeze is predicted but I had too many years of working for an electric utility for that. Work for a power company and you'll soon learn that there are no days off for severe weather and in fact you'd better be coming in early for your shift because all hell will be breaking loose. I've driven to work in blizzards and ice storms and tropical storms and was late for work due to difficulties in driving in bad weather maybe twice in eleven years.

I can be fairly blasé about impending storms to the point of not necessarily being as careful during them as I should be. For example:

In 1998, B and I went to Mississippi to visit my family for Christmas. That winter we were having crazy weather. When we arrived a few days before Christmas we had weather in the 70s and then on Christmas Eve we had a bad ice storm that threatened to call a halt to our celebration. Then in January we experienced one strong storm after another that would spin off tornadoes. I've been in a few tornadoes but B had no experience with them at all and he became a bit fascinated by TV programming being interrupted by news reports of impending storms and tornado watches and warnings. We had been lucky enough to be spared but towns north of us in Tennessee and well west of us in Arkansas had suffered a lot of damage. B and I would see the news reports and I'd semi-jokingly say to him "Honey, I reckon if a tornado is heading our way I'll drag you into the bathroom, throw you and me into the bathtub and put the mattress over us. Don't you worry. I'll save you!"

When B and I were in Mississippi we stayed with my brother in his apartment. One afternoon my mother came by and we left B alone while she and I drove the 1 1/2 miles to Walmart to get some groceries. More strong storms were rushing through Arkansas and Mississippi and when we left there was a tornado watch for our area but the worst of the storms were over Lafayette County, ninety minutes or so southwest of us. While inside the store I could hear a gawdawful rumble and whooshing sound and I figured it was the heat coming on in the store. It's one of those giant Walmarts with the open ceiling where all the pipes and whatnot are exposed and it's always noisy and clanky in there. My mother and I finished our shopping just a few minutes later and as we were fixing to leave we hesitated because the skies were black with storm clouds and it was positively vomiting rain. We waited until the rain slacked up enough for us to get our groceries and ourselves into the car and we were home a few minutes later, despite the fact that the roads had quite a bit of standing water on them in places.

We'd no sooner got inside when the phone rang and my Aunt Cora was on the other end calling me from the appliance shop my uncle owned at the time which was in the downtown area just a couple blocks from the county courthouse. "How are y'all? Are you all right? Is B all right? That scared the thunder out of me and Glyndon"[my uncle]. Aunt Cora is no stranger to Mississippi storms so I thought it was slightly strange for her to not only be upset by a big thunderstorm passing through but to call me about it. I assured her that we were fine and told her we'd just come in from the Walmart and B was okay and my mother would be leaving soon to fetch my nephew from school as she did every afternoon. A few minutes later my sister called in search of my mother to tell her that my nephew's school was probably going to be released early and she needed to get down there and pick him up. I couldn't figure out how she knew Sam would get out school early and when I asked she said "Because of the tornado! Where have you been? You didn't know there was a tornado in town? It went right down Cruise Street!" [the street where my uncle's shop was located].

Oh! No wonder Aunt Cora was calling me and no wonder she and Uncle Glyndon were a little rattled.

I told my sister that Mama and I had been at Walmart and ohhhhh! so that's what that noise was! gee I thought it was the heat in the store kicking on! Boy, no wonder it was nearly pitch black outside when Mama and I were leaving!

"Wait. Where was B?"

"At home. We just went to get some groceries and we left him here. We weren't gone all that long. Not more than an hour. I leave him alone for that long all the time when we're at home."

"YOU LEFT A QUADRIPLEGIC AT HOME ALONE DURING A TORNADO?!"

"Well. I guess I did. But I didn't know we were going to have a tornado cut through town just then. Plus I had to get groceries before Mama had to leave to get your kid at school!".

"DON'T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN! DON'T YOU EVER LEAVE YOUR HUSBAND AT HOME AGAIN WHEN THERE'S A TORNADO WARNING!"

"Sure. I won't. But it was just a watch when I left. I mean it's not like I knew we were suddenly under a tornado warning."

Afterwards I curled up with B and said "Honey, I'm sorry. Are you okay? Between all the phone calls and getting the groceries in and getting stuff put away I didn't even check to see if you were okay."

"I'm fine! Don't worry about me!"

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone. I didn't realize we were in the path of an impending tornado. I should have been more careful. I won't do that again. So anyway, what did you think of the tornado?"

"Well, I was here watching TV and it was just getting interesting. I mean you could see on the radar maps the storm getting closer. And then it got really, really dark outside and I could hear something really, really loud and just then the cable TV went out and I couldn't follow the storm anymore. And I didn't get to see the tornado either. It was....well...boring!"

I love a man that takes everything in stride.

Time to shuffle.

1. All I Want is You - U2
2. For Your Love - The Yardbirds
3. If You Say Jump, I Will Say No - Irving
4. Something Changed - Pulp
5. Beautiful Dream - Adam Ant
6. All You Ever Do is Bring Me Down (featuring Flaco Jimenez) - The Mavericks
7. Don't Smoke In Bed - Nina Simone
8. Fill My Little World - The Feeling
9. You Wear It Well - Rod Stewart
10. Star - The Crash

Y'all have a good weekend. And button up your overcoat.

She Knew Me When

Waking up at 6:30am on a Sunday is not something I'd normally do but when given the opportunity to meet up with an old and dear friend, it wasn't a hardship at all.

I caught the train shortly after 9am and arrived in Berlin at around 10:45. I had been a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to find Elaine on the rail station platform. After all, I hadn't seen here in over 25 years - would I still have the memory of her face in my mind enough to recognize her? Would she recognize me? But those nervous moments were wasted because as soon as the crowd thinned enough where I could see who was leaving and who was staying I saw her. And from a distance Elaine recognized me right away. We hugged each other and both of us marveled over how long our hair is. Elaine always had fairly short hair and my hair was seldom ever past my shoulders and now both of us have long hair. Both of us figured that we didn't do it while we were young so we may as well now. And the other thing that struck me at that moment was how Elaine's voice sounded exactly the same. Not changed in the least. To me she sounds the same as she did when we were in high school together.

With Elaine was her niece and and a friend of Elaine's who lives in Berlin who had her boyfriend with her as well. We hopped onto a local commuter train and rode down to where Berlin's Karneval parade was to be held. Berlin isn't a typical Karneval city like Cologne or Düsseldorf but it's catching on and the parade drew a big crowd. Any worry we might have had about the weather was also worthless because it was a sunny, clear day. A bit breezy and cold but for early February it was very good.

Since it was right there we walked over to the Gedächneskirche, a famous Berlin landmark, so Elaine could see it and get some pictures.



And afterwards since the parade hadn't yet started we ducked into a nearby restaurant for some warmth and a quieter atmosphere for conversation and lunch.

What do you talk about when you haven't seen someone in over 25 years? The answer: everything. The conversation jumped from childhood and school memories to mutual friends to what we're doing now to family to current events and back again. She bought up people I hadn't thought about since Jimmy Carter was president and it was fun to hear about what mutual acquaintances are currently doing.

The parade started and we headed outside to see it.





It was fun and loud. Crazy loud. And still the conversation kept going. We'd watch the parade and shout in each other's ears and tried as best we could to stay warm in the biting wind. Finally after about 90 minutes we gave up and went back to Berlin's main train station.

We still had plenty of time before I had to head back for home so we found a nice pub were we got seated and drank beer and had some more to eat. And never did the conversation lag. Not even after we left the pub and walked around the station some before heading up to the platform for me to catch the train for home.

We had over 6 hours together and it wasn't nearly enough. Not even close. There are so many things we never got around to discussing. People and memories and events - we needed another 6 to get to them all. No. We could have used another 60 hours and I'm still not sure we could have covered everything.

Elaine was a big part of my life when I was growing up and I'm glad we've been able to reconnect. Here we are. It's not the best picture of me but nevertheless, it's precious.


And you know what? I feel a bit younger today.

Friday Shuffle - I Remember You Edition

It was a nice surprise to receive an email the other day with the subject line "Do you remember Elaine [insert last name here]?". It seemed slightly silly for her to ask me if I remembered her since we became friends when we were ten years old and went to school together until we graduated but if I were writing the same email to her then I would have used the same subject line. 'Cause, you know, I guess you never really know.

Elaine and I haven't seen one another in about 25 years. We had some brief email contact about 7 or 8 years ago but that's pretty much been it for us. Still she remembered that I don't live all that far from Berlin and since she'll be traveling there in early February she asked me if perhaps we could get together while she's here.

I'm very excited by this. I haven't seen someone else that I went to school with since 1998 and I just don't keep up with any of them. And yet I talk about these people all the time. B and I grew up in obviously different ways and we can entertain one another for hours with stories from our school days. And since I was pretty good friends with Elaine during that time she figures in quite a few of these stories.

Remember when I talked about my singing days in elementary school? Elaine was there for that. She's seen me wear a prayer shawl and a beard! She remembers me before I had boobs and pierced ears. She remembers me before I had to wear glasses. She knew me before I could drive a car or do algebra. And when I was stopped by the police and threatened with arrest for trespassing on school property the night before graduating from high school, who was in my back seat? Elaine!

Elaine remembers me when I looked like this:



and when I looked like this:



and this:



and this:



and often when I see certain movies or hear certain songs, I think of her because she was there with me when I first saw or heard them.

Years ago that wouldn't seem all that important to me - having someone out there who remembers my youth - but as I get older it does. Tomorrow is my birthday and as I turn 46 it seems fitting for me to again be in contact with someone who remembers the same things as me - high school dances and football games and chemistry class and slumber parties. There's someone out there that remembers me when my ass wasn't as big and gravity didn't play such dirty tricks on me and gray hair wasn't being battled by my hairdresser. Someone who knew me when I was innocent and loved watching The Flintstones and I hadn't yet started shaving my legs. Someone who can testify that this girl really did once exist because she was there with her.

Since we're going to reminisce, let's let Bixente the iPod dig into my 70s music folder and see what he can shuffle up.

1. Lonesome Loser - Little River Band
   
2. ABC - The Jackson 5
3. Jungle Boogie - Kool & the Gang
   
4. Smokin' - Boston
5. The Things We Do For Love - 10cc
6. Jungle Love - Steve Miller Band
7. Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd (That happens to have been our senior class song.)
8. Walk This Way - Aerosmith
9. Josie - Steely Dan
10. Show Me The Way - Peter Frampton
    

Snow Rookie

The first day of 2008 brought us the first snow of the season. I'm not a fan of snow and view it as a hassle but one of my favorite memories comes to mind whenever I see it snow.

I was in the ninth grade and we lived in Virginia where it would actually snow worth a damn, unlike the snow one gets in Mississippi which should not be called snow but instead labeled "white panic maker falling from the sky". It had snowed something fierce and school was out for an entire week.

My friends and I would get together each afternoon and often go sledding. Behind the house of one of the guys was a hill that we'd sledded on so much it eventually became nothing but icy grass. The hill went straight down into some wood and once you got to the bottom of the hill you had to be pretty careful. Steer too sharp to the left and you'd hit a big rock. Steer too sharply to the right and you'd hit a tree. Steer straight ahead and you'd hit a huge brier bush. The trick was to go straight down and after you passed a big tree but before you hit the briers you'd have to steer gently to the right. Pretty clear, right?

We'd been doing it for days and no one suffered a mishap. Sure, there would be a couple wipe outs but nothing too bad and we were having a great time. It was a pretty evenly divided group between boys and girls and we were all good friends. We'd sled and talk about movies or music and maybe talk about what we'd do together the next day - go sledding again or maybe hang out at someone's house and play records and dance.

There was one fella in the group, Doug, who was new. It was February and his family had moved to Virginia just after Christmas. One of the girls, Susan, knew Doug from her French class and since he was cute and no one else had gotten their claws into him, Susan invited him to hang out with our group of friends. All us girls were crazy about Doug. He was so handsome and very smart and terribly friendly. Exactly the sort of guy our mothers wanted us to date. His only drawback was he couldn't sled worth a damn. He'd been living in Hawaii for the past five years and hadn't seen snow since he was about twelve years old. He'd try but mostly he would either sled by himself and stick out his feet and stop himself when he started going too fast or he'd have to ride behind one of the girls who knew what she was doing. We girls didn't mind having him snuggled up behind us but it had to be a little embarrassing to him. No one picked on Doug about it but you could tell he wanted to steer the sleds like the rest of us but he had no real clue how to do it.

Finally someone suggested that he lay down on the sled on his stomach and steer with his hands. He was a little hesitant about sledding head first but his pride kept him from chickening out. And either as a way to look cooler or as a way to seem a bit more in control, Doug asked me to ride along with him, me laying on his back. Hmmm...ride down the hill while on the back of a really cute boy. Okay!

Doug lay down on the sled and I laid face down on his back. "Now look, Doug. Just steer straight until you pass the tree on the right then turn the sled towards the right. Just steer along the path we've made. It'll be easy!".

One of the other guys gave us a good boot down the hill and off we went flying. I was the envy of the other girls and Doug was finally learning how to steer a sled properly. I looked up and saw he was steering too much too the right and we were heading towards the tree. I screeched "Doug! Pull to the left!" and Doug pulled alright. We began to lurch to the left and skidded right into the big rock on the left of the path. I went flying off of Doug's back, somehow did a flip in mid-air and landed on my back in the brier bush. I didn't have time to register where I was before Doug landed right on top of me and the sled went flinging by, missing us completely.

That was the greatest sled ride I've ever had.

Fans

I think it's pretty well established to everyone that I am not a fan of especially hot weather but one thing I do like about it is sleeping with a fan running in the background. It's not just the cool breeze slipping over my skin that I love so much as the sound of it. A running fan has the ability to put me to sleep within minutes. Perhaps it's because many Southerners grow up with the sound of fans running all summer and over the generations our ability to be comforted by it is nearly genetic.

Fans really remind me of visiting my grandparents - my mother's parents. By the time I was six years old we only lived in houses that had central air conditioning so using fans was generally limited to those times when it wasn't quite hot enough to justify turning on the A/C. But my grandparents had A/C only as a window unit in the living room so electric fans were used throughout the rest of the house. It's seldom I turn on a fan that the sound doesn't instantly transport me back to the home of my grandparents.

Visits to my grandparents, generally lasting about two weeks, were something I'd look forward to and my enthusiasm for being there would last for maybe a day or two. Mostly because there simply wasn't much to do there. They lived in Woodruff County, Arkansas, otherwise known as The Middle of Nowhere. They didn't even live in town but instead lived in a 100+ year old house about 4 miles from town in a little community called Grays which was essentially a gravel road with some houses. Even as a child it used to amuse me no end to see the sign before their road that said "Grays - Pop. 25". I think the 25 the sign claimed was perhaps a little overly ambitious. At any rate they lived in a one story house with a modest front yard and a rather large piece of land out back that contained my grandmother's large vegetable garden and, until I was seven-years-old, an outhouse.

Knowing how I am with such things it's a wonder that I didn't simply cross my legs for two weeks instead of braving the outhouse but in reality I imagine I mostly availed myself of a chamber pot and have blocked out the actual memory.

While the floor plan of the house changed since the time my mother had lived there, I remember my grandparents' house like this: It was a brown clapboard affair with long, unshuttered windows. A porch ran the length of the house and the front door was at the far left end of the house. It opened directly into the living room - a somewhat cheerless room with a sofa, my grandfather's recliner and another two upholstered chairs. A table by the front door held the telephone and I remember that for many years it was an ancient black rotary dial affair with a receiver so heavy it could give one a concussion should one be clanged in the head with it.

A door separated the living room from my grandparents' bedroom which was in the dead center of the house. This was the largest room, dominated by their beds - two double beds with ancient felt mattresses and chenille bedspreads. I remember those mattresses being like rocks. I remember as a teenager turning those mattresses and nearly suffering a hernia on the strength of it. A long double window separated their beds and at one time this room had been the living room and those double windows were the front door. Two of the walls were decorated by large professional portraits of two of my mother's sisters, sporting the finest in early 1960s beehive hairdos. I thought they were beautiful. While my grandfather's chest-of-drawers was bare on top save a dresser scarf, my grandmother's dresser was topped with an ancient jewelry box, a silver backed brush and hand mirror and various school photos of her nineteen grandchildren, often tucked haphazardly into the edges of other framed photographs. Regardless of the time of day, that room always seemed terribly dark - the result of having the only windows in the room being those that were sheltered by the porch.

Two other doors lead from their bedroom. One led to the back of the house where the kitchen was at one end joined with a dining room and from that was a door to my great-grandfather's bedroom...at least until he died and then it was turned into a sort of storage room. A back door in the kitchen led to steep, rickety steps that led to the back yard under which my grandmother's collection of half wild cats slept. These cats were never allowed indoors, were never fed anything but table scraps and all the mice they could catch and were never played with by us children. They weren't fond of humans and picking them up insured one of a scratched face or arms. In 1969 an addition was built on the back of the house adding two rooms - a laundry room with an automatic washer and dryer replacing the wash house housing the ancient wringer washer and a bathroom which replaced the outhouse and having to bathe in the kitchen in a galvanized tub. It always seemed to me those two rooms leaned somewhat and I took my baths with slight concern that the bathroom would simply fall off the house one day.

The other door in my grandparents' bedroom led to the other bedroom of the house. Two double beds were in there, also with ancient mattresses that sagged in the middle. Two people in those beds would have to cling to the sides of the mattress for dear life to keep from rolling into one another. When I was very little I would often have to sleep in one bed with my mother and my sister and invariably I'd be in the middle which insured that I would not only be kicked by my sister but would be rolled upon by both.

The best part of the house, to me, was the front porch. At one end was a porch swing covered with at least twenty layers of white paint. Lawn chairs lined the porch from the swing to the front door for the use of anyone not lucky enough to land a spot on the swing and no rural Arkansas porch could really be complete without a tin Coca-Cola thermometer nailed to the wall. A couple wire handled fly swatters were also hung on a nail. Survival on that porch depended on one's ability to kills flies, mosquitoes and wasps with one blow and I became a crack shot at an early age.

The front yard was dominated by an enormous elm tree that in my younger days had a well-loved swing hanging from its branches. The ground underneath was sandy which was perfect for digging your toes in to get the swing to stop but playing in that ground was discouraged as occasionally cat crap could be found there.

Days on these visits went pretty much like this: We'd get up early but not nearly as early as my grandfather, who was already up, bathed and dressed, breakfasted and already had driven into town by the time we were awake. We'd play or read or do something to stay out of the kitchen while my grandmother and mother were cooking the noontime meal and my grandfather would arrive back home in time to nap for a half-hour, eat dinner, relax in his recliner and watch As the World Turns before driving back into town for the afternoon. These trips into town generally consisted of running errands and hanging out at the hardware store to bullshit with his cronies. Afternoons for us kids were not as much fun as the mornings as it was much hotter and we were growing bored with one another. Staying outdoors was encouraged and repeatedly coming inside to cool ourselves in front of the air conditioner was greeted with shouts from our mother to "stop fannin' that door...you're lettin' the air out!". There were no other kids around for us to play with - the average age in that community hovered between old and ancient - and we kids would grow bored with each other's company within a few days. My brothers often spent their time finding something disgusting or scary to throw on me in order to watch me scream and dance in fright.

If we were lucky then perhaps we could go into town with my mother in the afternoons while she grocery shopped at the Mad Butcher - a grocery store that had a rather weird logo of an insane looking meat cutter that laughed crazily in the TV commercials. Under normal circumstances it would be a trip we'd beg to get out of but grocery stores in another town always seemed more interesting. Plus vacation time was always a good time to try to con my mother into buying stuff she would normally avoid.

Evenings were the worst time on these visits. My grandfather went to bed not long after sunset and we were sharply reminded to be quiet lest we awaken him. Trips to the bathroom became like missions because one had to go past my sleeping grandfather to reach the back of the house where the toilet was located. We'd wait until all of us had to go or until peeing in one's pants became a distinct and very real danger. TV reception in the evenings could be iffy and one was never sure if one could clearly tune in a station coming from Little Rock or Memphis. Finally we'd give up and go to bed, always careful to wash our filthy feet before climbing into bed. It seems that no matter how clean we might be otherwise, our always bare feet looked as if we'd been wading through mud.

Tussling and grabbing for mattress real estate ensued and continued until finally the electric fan was turned on. It's soothing whoosh of air would caress our clammy skin and its sound, much like the ocean in a seashell, would fill our ears and lull us to sleep. I have always sworn that once asleep, I slept better at my grandparents' house than almost anywhere else I've laid my head.

The secret is the fan.

Friday Shuffle - Rock Star Love Edition

I'm not sure how we got onto the following topic, but that's a common thing when I'm chatting with Darling Mollie. We'll start out talking about her job or what I did that day and it'll morph into a discussion about the latest episode of Lost that I've seen and then we'll talk about some wacky persons she saw at the grocery store. We'll start at Point A and find ourselves at Point M via Point R before we know it.

Anyway, it was one of these roaming conversations that got us started on talking about what rock stars we thought were hot when we were teenagers. A discussion that left us both wistful and feeling older than we probably should feel. Do you remember your teenage rock star crushes? Care to confess them to me?

Now my first rock star love was John Lennon. Before I even started Kindergarten I wanted to marry him and thought it would be entirely possible to do that. Of course back then I thought all the Beatles lived together in one house in London.

When I was around 11 years old all of my friends were crazy over Donny Osmond or David Cassidy or Bobby Sherman. And while I thought they were good looking I never plastered their images all over my bedroom. They were okay, but not all that great. About the same time I got a pen pal in England. She lived in Gloucester and was crazy about Sweet. She would send me their records (you just couldn't get them in the States back then) and sent me her old copies of teen fan magazines and that's when I fell in love with their lead singer, Brian Connolly. I was a little in love with the drummer, Mick Tucker, but maybe I just wished I played drums like he could. But Brian had what I loved - he was skinny and blond and I loved his voice...and I still do. My pen pal loved the guitarist, Andy Scott, and she and I would write long letters about how we'd marry them and live next door to each other. Unfortunately Brian drank until he ruined his health and he died ten years ago and Andy Scott is fat now so it's probably best that we didn't live out that dream.

By then I'd discovered that I could have more than one rock star love and when I was 13 years old and attending my first rock concert I fell for my next one. My first concert was Led Zeppelin in 1975 and Robert Plant was my new love. I didn't know a lot about sex back then but he looked like living sex right there before me. And he had my requirements - skinny, blond, and a fantastic voice. I love that Robert Plant took my concert virginity.

Peter Frampton was next. I still had my English pen pal and she was a fan of his going back to his Humble Pie days. I had Frampton albums before Frampton Comes Alive came out and by the time it did, I adored him. I still remember my life sized Peter Frampton poster and I saw him in concert a couple times but after the Rolling Stone article about him by Cameron Crowe that called him the "Pretty Power Rocker", my lust began to fade a little. He was becoming appealing to the wrong crowd and being skinny, blond and with a voice I loved couldn't completely overcome this. And that dreadful Sgt. Pepper movie didn't help any either.

I've been listening to The Who for nearly as long as I've been listening to The Beatles but for some reason it took me until I was in my late teens before I developed an enormous crush on Roger Daltrey. Why couldn't I see it before? He's skinny! He's blond! And he has what I consider to be the greatest voice in rock. I still think he's fantastic. When I saw The Who in 1979 and ended up losing my hearing for three days afterwards I couldn't have been happier. Hell, I still think Roger Daltrey hot.

So after all these rock stars I loved when I was a teenager in the 70s, is it any wonder I married a guy who spent the 70s looking like this:



Skinny. Not blond, but he had blondish red hair back then. Can't sing worth toffee though.

Time to shuffle. Not sure if any of my former loves will shuffle up but Bixente the iPod is holding songs from them all.

1. Apple Of My Eye - Dolores O'Riordan
2. Shadow Of The Moon - Blackmore's Night
3. Everyday I Write The Book - Elvis Costello
   
4. Ariel - Dean Friedman
5. Jungle Love - Steve Miller Band
6. Ready To Run - Dixie Chicks
   
7. When I'm Up - Great Big Sea
8. Veronica - Elvis Costello
9. Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire
10. The Air That I Breathe - The Hollies

None of my boyfriends showed up but two from the fabulous, if not especially attractive, Elvis Costello.

Have a great weekend.

Faithful Customer

I'm a fiend for eating TicTacs. I've always got a pack in my coat pocket or in my purse and I go through a pack every couple days. I get a little wiggy if I don't feel as though my breath is all minty fresh and since I am not much of gum chewer I've opted for breath mints.

Somehow B and I got on the topic of my ridiculous TicTac consumption and I told him that while I do love TicTacs, I've become a full-time TicTac-er only since my move to Germany. Before then my mint preference was for the not-to-be-found-in-Germany Certs.

Now really, one breath mint is pretty much like the other - with the exception of Mentos which are too chewy and candy-like for me. Smints are okay except I'm not crazy about how you have to keep pushing the little dispenser button to get multiple Smints. This is an important consideration for me because I can't eat just one mint - I have to eat a minimum of three at a time. Breath Savers were good if I couldn't get Certs or TicTacs but my heart really does belong to Certs.

Now if mints are pretty much the same, why do I have a long standing devotion to Certs? American Bandstand. Certs were a sponsor of American Bandstand and from the time I started watching AB as a wee small child until I gave it up as soon as Madonna made a guest appearance, my consumer preferences were strongly influenced by commercials seen while watching American Bandstand. Certs, Dentyne gum, Noxzema skin cream, Cover Girl make-up, Ultra Brite toothpaste, Love's Baby Soft cologne,Stridex acne pads, Clearasil, Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo - if it was advertised on AB then I knew it had to be a required item for growing up right in America. Stick with the sponsors and I'd be assured to have a perfectly made up zit free face, shiny, good smelling hair, white teeth and fresh breath and a cloud of boy enticing powdery scent following my every step. What impressionable young teen wouldn't want that?

I eventually learned that Madison Avenue ad executives don't always tell the truth about the power of their products and that using the right one wouldn't guarantee happiness or your current crush asking you to the dance after Saturday night's basketball game. I gave up the Noxzema, Stridex and Clearasil after it made my skin so raw it hurt, chose a line of make up more suitable for a more mature person, traded my powdery cologne for a more sophisticated scent and figured out my tetracycline damaged teeth weren't going to get whiter until I had them capped.

Kept the Certs though. You really can't underestimate the power of fresh, minty breath.

Becuse it's Always Good to Review a Lesson Learned

A St. Patrick's Day that will never be forgotten. It's the primary reason shy away from drinking on St. Patrick's Day. And the primary reason I no longer get into cars with monks.

Hope your St. Paddy's celebration will be less vivid.

Hoping My Memory Doesn't Fail Me

As much as I protest about the goofiness of memes, I certainly do my share of them. I think I protest in an effort to convince y'all that my arm is practically being twisted to get me to participate. In reality all it really takes is a meme about music, books or movies.

Today it's music. Swiped from Kara.

1. Go to Pop Culture Madness. Click on "pop music" on the left sidebar. Scroll down a bit and find the hits for the year you turned 18 years old.

2. Copy and paste the top 75 songs of that year.

3. Bold the ones you liked; strike the ones you disliked; and italicize the ones you knew but didn’t exactly like or dislike. The ones you don’t know will stay plain text.

I hope I can remember which ones I liked way back in 1980 and not mix them up with ones I liked and later hated.

1. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
2. Theme From New York New York - Frank Sinatra Worst Sinatra song ever. Ever.
3. Another One Bites The Dust - Queen Not the worst Queen song ever, but close.
4. What I Like About You - Romantics Every time I hear this song I remember flailing around to it in Poseurs on M Street in Georgetown.
5. Funkytown - Lipps Incorporated Disco couldn't die fast enough for me.
6. On The Road Again - Willie Nelson I like maybe two Willie Nelson songs. This isn't one of them.
7. Another Brick In The Wall (part 2) - Pink Floyd This almost became our "class song". Thank goodness us rednecks banded together and picked Free Bird instead.
8. Master Blaster (Jammin) - Stevie Wonder
9. Rapper's Delight - Sugarhill Gang
10. Fame - Irene Cara
11. Ladies Night - Kool and the Gang
12. Take Your Time (Do It Right) - S.O.S. Band
13. He's So Shy - Pointer Sisters
14. Feels Like I'm In Love - Kelly Marie
15. One In A Million You - Larry Graham Took me a minute to remember this song. I was sorry I remembered it.
16. Any Way You Want It - Journey Oh I loved this song! It reminds me of my first love.
17. The Rose - Bette Midler Awwww...what a sentimental favorite!
18. Could I Have This Dance - Anne Murray
19. Off The Wall - Michael Jackson
20. Rock With You - Michael Jackson
21. I Wanna Be Your Lover - Prince I swear, I can't remember this song for the life of me.
22. Upside Down - Diana Ross
23. On The Radio - Donna Summer
24. Volcano - Jimmy Buffet
25. Lady - Kenny Rogers I can't stand Kenny Rogers but the rest of his work is genius compared to this shit.
26. Whip It - Devo
27. Love Stinks - J. Geils Band
28. Cheap Sunglasses - ZZ Top I had many cheap sunglasses mornings during this time of my life.
29. You Better Run - Pat Benatar No memory of this one.
30. Look What You've Done To Me - Boz Scaggs Not his best song but I have fond memories of this song.
31. Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
32. Misunderstanding - Genesis One of the few Genesis songs I like.
33. Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
34. This Is It - Kenny Loggins My friends and I would sing along "This is shit!".
35. Cocaine - Eric Clapton
36. You May Be Right - Billy Joel Can't stand this song now.
37. The Long Run - Eagles Another I liked at the time but don't care for now.
38. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys - Willie Nelson This isn't one of the Willie Nelson songs I like either.
39. I'm Alright - Kenny Loggins Another that doesn't show up on my likes list any longer.
40. Rock Lobster - B-52s I never tire of this song.
41. Do That To Me One More Time - The Captain and Tenille
42. Call Me - Blondie
43. Love X Love - George Benson
44. Against The Wind - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
45. I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
46. I'm Coming Out - Diana Ross
47. Don't Push It Don't Force It - Leon Haywood
48. Remember (Walking In The Sand) - Aerosmith Can't place this song at all.
49. (Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon I was so happy that John was back into music.
50. Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen One of my fave Queen songs.
51. Dreamer - Supertramp How I hate Supertramp.
52. Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen Perfection.
53. It's Still Rock and Roll To Me - Billy Joel Boooorrrring.
54. Turn It On Again - Genesis
55. Special Lady - Ray Goodman and Brown
56. Games Without Frontiers - Peter Gabriel
57. Give Me The Night - George Benson
58. Brass In Pocket - Pretenders Brilliant.
59. The Spirit Of Radio - Rush
60. Train In Vain (Stand By Me) - The Clash Oh I love them.
61. Working My Way Back To You (Forgive Me Girl) - The Spinners
62. Angeline - Allman Brothers Band
63. Alabama Getaway - Grateful Dead
64. All Out Of Love - Air Supply Too much drama for me.
65. The Breaks - Kurtis Blow
66. 99 - Toto
67. Longer - Dan Fogleberg - A really perfect love song.
68. I Got You - Split Enz
69. Don't Misunderstand Me - Rossington Collins Band
70. Dirty Water - The Inmates
71. Cars - Gary Numan Complete crap.
72. Back Of My Hand (I've Got Your Number) - The Jags
73. Say Goodbye To Little Jo - Steve Forbert The only song of his I can remember is Romeo's Tune which I loved.
74. Tired of Toein' The Line - Rocky Burnett
75. Private Idaho - B-52s

More music tomorrow for it is then that we shuffle!

Ten Minutes

My father died at home. He'd been stricken by an aneurysm in his brain that left him in a persistent vegetative state. While we didn't know how long he'd live we knew as a family that we didn't want to put him in a nursing home so he was brought home for us to care for with the assistance of a local hospice group.

As it turns out he survived for nine months after his initial aneurysm. In the week before his death his body began to shut down and we knew the end was near.

On the day he passed he was surrounded by his family. He simply took a last breath and it was over. His eyes were closed and it seemed as if he were only sleeping except that the sound of his breathing had stopped.

The moments after that - they seem jumbled to me now. I know we talked among ourselves for a while, cried...I remember calling my now ex-husband to tell him to come to my parents' house. I remember my brother telling my two oldest nephews that Granddad had passed and the five year old slapping the back of his hand of his forehead and staggering a little as if he were going to faint. He was always a bit of a ham. That would have cracked up my dad.

The one really strong memory I have was being alone with my father for about ten minutes. All of us had come in and out of the bedroom in the time after his passing and before the funeral home was called and at one point I was alone with him. The late afternoon light was fading and I switched on a lamp beside his bed and sat in the rocking chair next to him.

I'd seen dead people before at viewings and was never comfortable with it. I wasn't scared of them but those I had seen laying in their caskets didn't seem to be real to me. Instead they seemed to be more like creepy wax figures.

Sitting with my father was different. He seemed to simply be asleep. I didn't say anything to him - I don't even remember thinking about anything special at that moment - but I remember a peaceful feeling. I was so content just to sit there with Daddy. After the years of distance between us, it just felt right to sit there in silence with him.

After a while I reached over and put my hand on his cheek and could feel that the warmth had begun to ebb away. That's the moment when his death became real to me. Before then it was simply academic - I knew he was dead and felt relief that his suffering was over but feeling his cooling cheek made it...I don't actually know what it made. Final. Maybe that's what I felt. The finality of it all. It was sad and still I had that feeling of contentment sitting there next to my father. It was as if then I could begin to let go of the need to avoid him and I didn't need to feel distanced from him anymore.

My father passed fifteen years ago today and while I have memories of that time - memories that sometime don't make much sense on their own but somehow fit together to make a whole picture - the one memory I have that is as strong today as it was then is the memory of sitting with Daddy and touching his face for the last time. I still remember how grateful I was for that feeling of contentment.

Even now when I'm back in my hometown I go visit my father's grave and really prefer to do it by myself. He's headstone is one of those big double headstones and I like to sit on it and just be quiet because I can always get back that feeling of contentment I had when I had him to myself for ten precious minutes and had no fear.

I'm Going To Graceland

Actually those are four words that I hope to never say again.

This being Elvis Presley's birthday reminded me of the first time I ever visited Graceland. I've been there - I forget how many times since. Three times more? Four times? The visits there tend to run together for me except for the first one and the last one.

My hometown in northeast Mississippi isn't terribly far from Memphis. I lived in Memphis as a small child. I have aunts and cousins that live in Memphis and the surrounding suburbs. I've seen Graceland all my life. I can't remember the time when I didn't know the stone wall and famous iron gates surrounding it and the big house up the driveway. When I was a child and Elvis was still living there Graceland seemed weirdly out of place in the neighborhood. There it was, the famous mansion where a very famous man lived and across the street were ordinary things like dry cleaners and gas stations. It's still that way except now Graceland has become a sort of Elvis oasis plunked in the middle of a busy street. If one drove down Elvis Presley Boulevard from one end to the other one would see on the trip things like this: strip malls, fast food places, mini-marts, ELVIS LAND, check cashing places, liquor stores. An island of Elvisness in a sea of boring concrete commerce.

I was living in Virginia in 1985 the first time I ever went to Graceland. I took a week from work and went to visit my sister in Mississippi. Since I was flying into Memphis we stayed there overnight at the Peabody Hotel (and how I loved it) and made the trip to see Elvis' home. Graceland had been open to the public for less than two years. The only things to see were the house itself and his airplane, the Lisa Marie. There were no restaurants or souvenir shops or any of the other Elvis related businesses on what I now think of as the grand Elvis Complex. At that time you bought a ticket, rode in a little van across the street and were taken on a tour of the house and grounds and walked through the Lisa Marie if you wanted to plunk down another $7. Now when you visit Graceland you get a recorded tour that you listen to through headphones but back in 1985 we had real live tour guide and were assured that all Graceland tour guides were specially trained to assist you should you become emotionally overwhelmed during the tour.

That was the wrong thing to say to my sister and me. All I'm going to say about that is they were right. Back then they did know how to take care of the emotionally overwhelmed. I guess now the emotionally overwhelmed are on their own because when I was at Graceland in 2004 there seemed to be fewer employees around and what ones I did see seemed more interested in protecting the lawn than aiding those who were a crying, hysterical mess.

Some other things about that first visit to Graceland stick out in my mind:

• Touring the mansion is only half of the fun of visiting Graceland. The people there taking the tour is the other half and provide endless entertainment.
  
• We smelled food the minute we got pass viewing the livingroom and walked more towards the back part of the first floor that was then off limits to the public. Elvis' aunt still lived at Graceland in that part and we could smell her lunch cooking.
  
• Upon entering the TV room downstairs the guide informed us that the only Grammy awards Elvis ever received were for gospel music and upon hearing that a man behind us gave a resounding and thundering "AMEN!!". I had to pinch my sister very hard to get her to stop giggling at this man's enthusiastic approval.
• As we entered what is known as the Jungle Room the guide told us that Elvis had picked out the furniture himself in one afternoon at a local Memphis furniture store. We looked around at the outlandish furnishings and having ourselves grown up with furniture purchased from local Memphis furniture stores my sister and I looked at one another and said at the same time "Oh no shit!".
• Clothing from Elvis ranging from his and Priscilla's wedding clothes to the sparkling jumpsuits he made famous were on display in one room - one you reached by passing through a hallway lined with Elvis' gold records. The gold records were fascinating to my sister and me but the rest of our terrycloth jogging suit clad tour-mates were dying to see the Elvis fashions and practically ran us over to get to them. There was much oohing and aahing from the group and our favorite was one beehive hairdo sporting lady who, with honest to goodness tears in her eyes, said to her companion as they stared at one of the glittering jumpsuits "Oh I wish I could touch that!". Actually it came out more like "Oh aaah wish aaah cud tuuuch thay-it!". It was my turn then to be pinched to stifle my snickers.
• The Meditation Garden where Elvis is buried actually is a peaceful place - until someone becomes emotionally overcome, that is. Those were some quick and efficient tour guides!

I visited Graceland a few more times over the years with friends and family but while the tour changed a little, it didn't have the same allure to me as the first visit did. Even my last visit there a couple years ago was only really memorable to me because I was with a group of dear, dear friends who were all seeing it for their first time. No, I believe my days of touring Graceland are over for good. That is until they get something else in there as good as the round, fake fur covered bed. I may never be able to scratch that sight from my mind's eye.

I do goof on Elvis an awful lot but regardless of how much I make fun of his image, I still recognize his musical greatness and am still in awe of it. Hell, I even love Elvis movies. Even nearly thirty years after his death the world still recognizes his name and he's still inspiring musicians. Elvis did what he was born to do - make music and entertain us all and for that I honor him.

Milestones and Accomplishments

Let it be known far and wide that it is the second day of January and my Christmas tree is down, back in its box and all its decorations completely put away. Well, except for the taking it down to the basement part. I know this doesn't sound like much to many of you but there are those of you out there who actually remember when my tree often didn't come down before my birthday in mid-January (as Darling Mollie once put it "It has to be up for Jesus' birthday, not yours!"), a few times not before Valentine's Day and one terrible year when I spent Palm Sunday taking down my Christmas tree.

The year I wheeled it on its rolling table into a spare room and threw a sheet over it and never took it apart doesn't count. Don't ask me why...it just doesn't.

Today I was thinking that 2007 will be the anniversary of a few events. It'll mark thirty years since my sister graduated from college and my brother from high school and then I got to thinking about what anniversaries of my own will come up in 2007.

In 1967: I started Kindergarten. I learned to ride a bicycle.

In 1977: I French kissed for the first time. I learned to drive a car. I got really, really drunk for the first time. Two of those events are connected - I'll leave it up to you to guess which two.

In 1987: I bought my first house.

1997: I moved to Germany.

I'd like to think that I move up in events every ten years. I hope that mean that in ten years I won't be celebrating the anniversary of when I got my Christmas tree down in a timely fashion.

I'd Do It Again

I believe it's true that the older one gets the faster the years go by. Forty years ago a year was a quarter of my life. Now a year seems to be over before I can even get used to writing the correct numbers.

Still this year was pretty good for me. By chance and coincidence I made a new friend. I was able to meet in person two lovely ladies I've gotten to know through their blogs. My sister and her family came to visit B and me for two weeks. I enjoyed the World Cup and would relive the joy and good feeling of those weeks forever if I could. I taught myself to knit socks and spent the following months buying an obscene amount of sock yarn. I even rode a big ferris wheel for you!

And throughout the year my friends and family have been wonderful to me and I am even more crazy in love with my husband than ever before.

If you've been reading here through 2006 then you'll know that not every day was perfect and there were plenty of days that it was downright dull around here but if that's the price I have to pay for the really good days then it's worth it.

I can only hope that 2007 will bring me as many happy days.

I wish for you and those you love a joyous new year filled with love, good health, contentment, success and peace.

Most Popular

There was a pitifully small window of time in my youth when I had the money and the freedom to go out and have as much fun as my legs and my liver could stand. I didn't often go out during the work week - I evidently still held onto that "school night" mentality - but on Thursday you could find me at the mall buying new outfits - or at least pieces of them - to be worn on Friday and Saturday night when I'd join my friends at various clubs for drinking and dancing and the typical stuff a twenty-two-year-old gets into.

I was married a few months before I turned twenty-five and stared down a lot of years where going out and having rowdy fun came to a screeching halt. My first husband, nicknamed "Velcro Ass" by my dear friend Susan because of his lay-on-the-couch-as-much-as-possible lifestyle, just wasn't the rowdy fun type.

Ex-husband and I were good friends with our next door neighbors, John and Mary (not their real names but you having to read an alphabet's worth of initials to hide various identities gets old very fast, doesn't it?) and we did things with them quite a bit. Mary was sensible and while she liked fun, she wasn't as free to cut-up as John was. John has a younger brother, Kevin (I'll let you guess if that's his real name or not), and when Kevin would visit he and John would go out and get silly and as often as not Mary would stay home because their brand of silliness wasn't her thing. Their brand of silliness was exactly my thing and I'd get invited to tag along with them. Often it would just be to a local bar to drink and play trivia and watch Kevin chat up the waitresses but there was one memorable night that pretty well got me banned from hanging out with John and Kevin for good.

My ex-husband was out of town for a week for a hunting trip and Mary was out of town with the kids visiting her family. John had been down in Florida for business and Kevin had joined him so they could play golf in John's spare time. They were due back on a Friday night and the plan was for me to meet them at the airport and then drive into DC and do whatever struck our fancy.

After work I changed and drove to the Metro station in order to take the subway to the airport so I could meet them at the airline lounge and by the time I arrived John and Kevin were already loosened up...at least Kevin was. We gathered up their bags and golf clubs, watched Kevin fall, golf clubs and all, down an escalator, bailed the car out of long term parking and made our way across the Potomac to find a place to continue our adventure.

I was crammed into the back seat so I wasn't even paying attention to where we were going - all I knew was that we were somewhere in NW Washington, DC. The car was parked, Kevin extracted an obscene amount of cash from an ATM and we were in search of a place for us to light.

It wasn't my idea to first go into the strip club. I wish I could remember the name of it but I do remember it was the one that former DC mayor Marion Barry would frequent in his "Bitch Set Me Up" days. I also remember that the strippers looks sort of used and shabby. Luckily my request to get the hell out of there was granted.

I'm not quite sure how long it took us to get there - there was a lot of walking by clubs and bars and sticking our heads inside and then moving along and I think we were walking in circles - but we ended up at Sign of the Whale. I'm not even sure if that bar is there anymore since I haven't lived in the DC area in a long time but at that time it was a sort of frat boys/girls that like frat boys hang out. I'd been in there a few times before but not since I actually dated frat boys so I wasn't really up on the place except to remember its brick walls, wooden floors and narrow area. There was a fair amount of patrons already there (by now it was about 10pm) so we went in to do further damage to our livers. A DJ was there playing records - mostly oldies party music - and it wasn't long before we sort of took over the place. Kevin, used to Manhattan watering holes where he's well known and loved, was the ringleader.

Now this was a bar. A tavern. A pub. It's not a dance club. They didn't even have a dance floor. It's not that dancing wasn't allowed - there just wasn't any real room to dance, that is there wasn't until John, Kevin and I decided that dancing was just what this place needed. While the DJ played the likes of Build Me Up, Buttercup and Summer In The City we found the widest open space in the joint and proceeded to dance.

Suddenly we were like the superstars of the bar. Everyone there loved that they could dance if they wanted and we three became very popular dance partners, people surrounding all three of us. Free drinks were coming our way at a furious pace and it was as if everyone wanted to be seen with us. Us. Two bankers and a customer service agent for a power utility. No one famous or powerful in a city filled with the famous and powerful. Just three people who were drunk enough to not give a shit about the rules and who were willing to have a great time.

And we did have a great time. We danced and drank and talked - well, shouted above the din anyway - and reveled in being the focal point of the place. I was like the queen bee surrounded by a hive full of drones. John and Kevin always were the life of any party but I wasn't used to it and it felt great. For that evening I was ten years younger and I was having fun without worrying about...well...anything. I could have all the fun I wanted without any single girl angst.

By 2am we'd lost Kevin to some poor girl who'd succumbed to his smooth talking ways and John and I left without him. As we left the DJ thanked us for making the whole night and proclaimed that it was the most fun he'd had in there since he started that gig. We found the car, John drove me back to the Metro station where my Jeep was parked and I followed him back to our respective homes. And as a cautionary note to this tale - please people, do not drive if you have been drinking alcohol. I did that night and it was a stupid, stupid thing to do. I've not done it since. If you've been drinking at all, just don't drive.

The next day found me with a vicious hangover and a husband who returned home to find me in that state. He wasn't very sympathetic about my condition and while it was painful to go through the day trying to minimize its impact, it was worth it. It was worth it all to have the memory of that night. In the coming years when my marriage was at its worst and I was feeling worthless and depressed, the memory of that night could still make me smile. It still does. I suppose it doesn't matter how many years have passed - it still feels good to remember a time when you were the most popular person in the room. When you were in demand by everyone. When everyone wanted to be you.