As I got older, I had to add “traveling on the school bus” to my car sickness agenda. It was not fun. I got sick on the bus almost every day. I threw up on our bus driver, who was a nun. Well, I didn’t throw up directly on her, I was able to make a direct hit on her sensible shoes while she was shifting gears on the pretend bus van. When I switched to a public school in fourth grade (after debating with a nun why God was a meanie because of the whole Noah’s Ark situation for most of third grade), I got to sit with my best friend, Ramaine.

Ramaine would let people know when I was about to get sick. It happened at least twice a week on the way home. Our bus driver liked the bus to be toasty toasty on his afternoon run for some reason. My gurgling stomach couldn’t stomach the heat and the swaying of the top heavy bus around corners. So, Ramaine would yell out, “Raise your feet!!!”  We had a good system. I would throw up, the bus would be going up or down a hill, and the kids could raise their feet before it got to them. It’s gross, but since I didn’t eat much but had to drink a lot of water because of my dysfunctional kidneys, it was just a liquid venue.

So, as I got older, I couldn’t ride in the back seat. That explains why I didn’t date much, I guess. I couldn’t ride many of the amusement rides at Kennywood Park. I couldn’t float on a raft in a pool. And when I had children, I couldn’t chaperone on any of their field trips…. And that killed me.

Oh, sure, I followed the bus on some of the trips. But, I always wanted to be a chaperone. I wanted to watch how my children interacted with others, and be able to slap the ones who were mean to them. Ok, I would never have done that part. But, I do have a look that is like a slap. So, for many years I was able to avoid traveling on a bus until I got a teaching job.

When you teach, you wear many hats. You are a counselor, a nurse, a principal, a banker, and a field trip coordinator. I had been able to skirt the whole field trip for awhile. This year the class was going to the Pittsburgh Zoo. I love the zoo and decided I would try it. After all, I have taken the bus from JFK airport to Penn Station several times with no issues. I’ve been on Amtrak and have flown several times. I have plans to take a long train ride into the Canadian Rockies this summer. Surely, I can take half of a Dramamine and go on a two hour trip to the zoo. My daughter didn’t think so.

“Mom, you know you are going to get sick. Why are you doing this?”

Yeah, why am I doing this? Well, I think I can handle it for some reason. I don’t think I’m that little scrawny Pukey Vickie anymore. It turns out, I was right. I did great on the bus. I made one fatal (ok not exactly what I would call fatal) mistake, though: I told my class I had to sit in the front and wouldn’t be able to turn around. What the hell is wrong with you, Vickie?

I thought I had it all worked out. I had six chaperones from my class for fourteen students. How easy this would be! With two classes, we were going to have twelve adults on board for 28 students. We loaded the buses with the chaperones scattered throughout. I had previously talked with my class about bus behavior and the fact that they would not be allowed to eat, drink, or chew gum on the way up or the way back. (I was surely not going to perform the Heimlich while the bus was moving. Not gonna happen.) I repeated the rules because that’s just how we are this year. I also told the kids to show respect towards the chaperones and not run away from them.

So, we loaded the bus and after a head count and quick repetition of the rules…once again..we were ready to close the doors. So, we were off. I was prepared in case I got sick. I sat in the front so I could look watch the road. Plus, I took half of a Dramamine.

The rest of the trip up wasn’t too bad. No one got sick, so life was good.

I think the kids had a great time at the zoo. The other fourth grade teacher and I did not put any kids with us. We weren’t about to do that to ourselves. So, after arriving 40 minutes late, we ate, and then began visiting the exhibits. During the day, parents who had driven up behind the bus signed their children out. Four less children would be on the bus on the way home.

I do have to mention that some time during the day, one of my girls ran up to me with a stuffed animal skunk. She bought it for me because my favorite animal is the skunk. I was at a loss of words. I hugged her and knew she spent way too much on me.

So, we loaded the bus for the ride home, which took forever and I had one of my girls sit with me on the way home because she was feeling ill on the bus. Her forehead was quite warm. She slept most of the way home…until she woke up and puked.

Luckily, for me, I know the signs. I was able to grab my zip lock bag out of my bag when she woke up. I had that feeling.  I didn’t have time to get the trash bag out of the zip lock, so I just opened up the zip lock. She managed to get 50% in the bag, and 50% on her pants and all over my hands. The other teacher was handing me paper towels left and right.

When we got out of the bus, the little girls grandmother collected her quickly, and I went into the school to wash my hands.

Some things never change. Well, except this time we didn’t have to raise our feet.

English: The face of a black windup alarm clock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For those of you who follow my blog, you know tomorrow is my least favorite day of the year. I’ve surely written enough about Daylight Savings Time and how it turns me into a zombie for a few weeks after the time change.

Daylight Savings Time Ends….Again

 Spring Forward into the River

Hello Circadian Dysrhythmia

Go Fly a Kite, Benjamin Franklin

So, how many times can I beat this dead horse? Apparently, at least five times. I guess I just need to really get my opinion out there. Daylight Savings Time just sucks the life out of me…….and millions of other people too.

But, I have to admit, the whole time change did have one perk: church. Now, don’t judge, but I just did not care to attend church when I was younger. My dad was a Sunday school teacher, so we had to get up every Sunday morning and drive downtown to church. And, I’m sorry, but I just didn’t like it. I had a problem with the whole Noah’s Ark story when I went to that private hell of a Catholic school from first through third grade, and was tired of arguing about it with Sister Maria and then at Sunday school. I just didn’t buy it. I was mad at God for drowning animals. Taking only two of a kind was really mean, and when I was little, I held a grudge for a tremendously long time.  So, I just thought the whole church thing was a big ole fat lie to get money in a collection plate.

So, there was one Sunday each year that I didn’t have to go to Sunday school, and that was when it was Daylight Savings Time. Oh, I remember my parents talking while sitting on the couch about how they had to remember to turn the clocks ahead before they went to bed. I always wanted to try to sneak into my parent’s room and change the Big Ben alarm clock my dad kept by his bed, but after getting caught the first time, I decided I was doomed and would have to go listen about multiplying fishes and walking on water. None of the Bible lessons were believable to me. People can’t get that old. I told my mom Caspar the Friendly Ghost cartoon was more real than church. I remember my dad looking at me like I needed an exorcism. His Bible was all marked up and his handwriting in the margins. He was clearly into it, but his  nine year old heathen daughter wasn’t buying any of it.

I know  my dad would change the kitchen clock above our lovely gold refrigerator that Saturday night before he went to bed. He would change the time on his wrist watch. He would change the time on his Big Ben alarm clock and set the alarm to get up for church. But, every Daylight Savings Time Sunday morning we would always miss Sunday school. We slept it! My mom would yell first.

“Elwood, wake up! We’ve missed church!” I would wake up and smile. But, then, my mom would march into my room and ask why I pushed down the alarm clock so it wouldn’t go off.

The problem with all of this is that I was a great liar and lied every chance I got. So, when I really told the truth and tried to explain that I didn’t do it, no one believed me. I would be just like me to sneak into my parent’s room and push in the alarm buzzer thingy.

For years I thought my sister was the culprit because she would laugh at me for getting yelled at for turning it off. She wanted to go to church because she liked wearing her white patent leather shoes. She would deliberately put on a pair of white anklets that had a hole in the big toe so she could entertain while sitting in the pew at church. But, you know, I never ever pushed down the alarm button to keep us from waking up on time. I mean, I wouldn’t wait until Daylight Savings Time to do that. I’d do it every damn Sunday.

Years later, when I had my own children and complained how my husband wanted to go to church the next day when it was Daylight Savings Time, I would always try to balk. “Oh, come on. We are losing an hour. Let’s just sleep in.”  My mom was visiting during one of those time changing moments and just smiled when I was complaining about being blamed for turning off the alarm.

“Mom, I really wasn’t the one who would push in the alarm so we could sleep in after losing an hour.”

“I know.” I looked at her and she was wearing a shit-eating grin on her face.”

“God dammit, Mom! …….You were the one?…….and then you came in and blamed me?” She smiled and nodded.

Well, there was only one thing I could do….

I stood up and clapped.

“I needed that hour,” she said with a shrug.

So, in the end, the heathen’s mother threw her own daughter under the proverbial bus in order to garner a lost hour of sleep once a year.

Well, played, Mom, well played.

Map of West Virginia counties (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The governor of West Virginia, Earl Ray Tomlin, introduced Senate Bill 359, an educational reform bill, which will be voted on soon. Teachers have given the bill a big, fat F, which in my opinion has nothing to do with reform.

Reform- to amend or improve by change of form or removal of fault or abuses.

I’m not going to go into each point of the bill, only to say that it is a slap in the face to all educators in the state of West Virginia. You know, teachers in the Mountain state make one of the lowest salaries in the nation. Many teachers head east to work outside the state borders to garner higher wages. But, in the end, teachers are working the best they can, despite the obstacles that are coming directly from the higher ups.

Obstacles, you say? Absolutely. Someone a few years ago had decided teachers need to test more.  I give a beginning Math and Reading test at the beginning of the year. I give Benchmark tests twice a year in four subjects and the students have two online writing tests to get ready for the big one in March. The Westest is held in May. Now, mind you, this is on top of the tests I give weekly in Social Studies, Reading, Spelling, and Science. I also have to give end of the year tests.

I would just rather teach.

I’m 56 years old and I think I received a pretty good education when I was young. We memorized our multiplication tables. We learned our state capitals,  had spelling bees, and wrote and presented book reports. It was all about Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. We grew up fine. Some of my peers did better than fine.

 Ok, this was before my time….but we had those desks.

But, something along the way changed. Someone has decided that to exist in the 21st century, we must bathe our children in technology or they will surely die.  So, in the elementary setting we are testing, and we are teaching technology….on top of Handwriting, Math, Spelling, Grammar, Reading, Science, Social Studies, and Health. And we are doing this in crowded classrooms.

If you want to reform, let’s first take a  look at teacher/student ratio.

The governor wants to require early childhood education programs to be made available five days a week for the full day; allowing program to be for fewer than five days per week and less than full day under certain circumstances.

I don’t understand this. This is not the reform that we need. Before adding new programs, we need to address the teacher/student ratio in k-2. Class size should be limited to no more than 16 students and the curriculum should be restricted.  Let me explain:

Years ago, there were a lot of two-parent households. A lot of the moms did not work outside the home. Someone was there to make sure students did their homework, and were more hands-on. Now, I’m not saying that a lot of people don’t still do that. Of course they do. But, for the most part, it is fact that the divorce numbers are much higher than they were years ago. Even without divorce, economics force both parents to work. Some single parent households need help. Grandparents are raising many of the children. Many children come from homes where abuse is a way of life. Drug use is more prevalant than it was years ago. Some children go to bed hungry. Yes, I realize that has also happened in the past, but in the end, the classroom is now a home- away- from- home for a lot of children.

I have fifteen students this year in my fourth grade classroom. Last year I had twenty-one. Six less students makes a world of difference.  And those teachers with twenty-five and twenty-six students are overwhelmed. I know my students. I can look at one and know she is not feeling well because I know her so well. I send her to the office to get her temperature taken…101.6. I smile and give her a hug as she leaves to go home. I know not to give much homework because it is an unfair advantage to the several who are lucky to have a piece of notebook paper or pencil at their homes. No one goes through their backpacks at night. No one helps them practice their multiplication table. My mom drilled me nightly when I was in third grade. I knew them when I went to fourth grade. Some students in general just have no clue. Some children have behavioral issues. Some are learning disabled. Some have attention deficit problems. This is not the same mix of students that I went to school with, but yet, nothing has changed in the way of class size.

So, I teach time management skills in the classroom and basically let them do some homework during class time. This only seems fair to those who aren’t lucky enough to have help at home. Sure, in the end, fourth graders can learn to do their homework on their own, but they need guidance and direction..but sadly,  a few are not receiving it at home. They are allowed to sit and kill things while playing their video games. And I know a majority of the boys do this. I ask these things…. Technology at its finest. When I was young we had three channels on tv and the World Book Encyclopedia as our internet. We honestly didn’t have much to do but our homework on school nights.

When you shove many children into a classroom, something is lost. So, let’s begin our educational reform by taking a look at teacher/student ratio. I know you won’t, because that would mean hiring new teachers. It’s bad enough that the governor wants to hire anyone with a bachelor’s degree to enter the classroom.  You are going to be opening a can of worms if this hiring practice is passed, however. It will change the scope of teacher education in this state forever.

I know some of you will not agree with me on this next point, but I think technology is making us stupider. (Yes, I realize that is not a word.)

“The fog of information can drive out knowledge.”

Don’t get me wrong. I think technology in the classroom is great. I use it in some form every day. If we are studying volcanoes, I have a volcano simulator waiting on one of the computers. I have a penguin cam up some days. There are many, many internet sites that are extremely beneficial. That’s not what I am talking about.

The state of West Virginia implemented a program called Tech Steps. All students from kindergarten on must complete about six assignments. In my opinion, this program should not be used in the elementary school setting. Why do elementary school children need a technology component when we should be concentrating on core subjects? If you want our test scores to rise, don’t inundate us with work that can wait until fifth or sixth grade. You are making us waste precious time. Do third graders really need to learn how to use a spreadsheet? Sure, we are in a different world now, where computers and technology are at our every turn. I get it.  I think it has merit in junior high, but not in the early grades where everything depends on them learning the basics so they can go on to the next year and build on that.

In the end, it is not the same as it was. We are forced to test too much when we should be teaching. We are forced to teach more children in our classroom than is beneficial to their educational growth. We are forced to teach technology, when in fact, we should review our multiplication one more time instead of completing yet another techsteps assignment that will have no bearing on other important educational milestones, such as defining words, rounding numbers, and correcting a run-on sentence. K-2 teachers should be teaching a limited curriculum, plain and simple.

There are only so many minutes in a day for an elementary school teacher. We have to teach Spelling, Social Studies, Science, Math, Reading, Grammar, handwriting, and Health. We are also referees, bankers, counselors, and health inspectors.

So, Senate Education committee people, there you have it; the rambling of a fourth grade teacher.  If you truly want an educational reform in West Virginia, start with kindergarten and give those teachers a small class size. We teach with kids squished into our classrooms because that’s the way you want it. We test and test and test to make sure we are testing because that’s what we have to do. We teach technology subjects that the wee ones should not have to be introduced to until an older age. We do all this because you told us to. If something is broken, it’s not with the teachers. It is with the system. Please be careful with every point of our governor’s education reform bill. It needs to be chewed up and digested to see if it sits well with teachers. Take us in consideration instead of pointing fingers at us. Because after all,

 You can lead a student to the test, but you can’t make him pass it.

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Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

You could put three Hershey kisses in a bowl and I would probably guess the wrong number. I’m that bad. I have to think back to all the times I lost the estimation game at parties. And there were many. I never won. Ever.  I remember when I was in high school, staring at a jar of frogs, floating in  formaldehyde, thinking anything in a jar was just wrong.

My dad always played an estimation game with us on our drive out to our grandparent’s house. “Hey, how many people are buried in that cemetery?”  I would smile because I already knew what he was going to say. “All of them!” That’s my kind of estimation contest.

Even as an adult, I sucked at guessing anything.  I went to a bridal party years ago where they had a huge jar filled with clothespins. “Guess how many are in the jar” asked the maid of honor. I wrote, along with my number-

“I don’t give a shit.”  I did add a smiley face…It’s not nice to point and laugh at the lady who guessed 27 when there were 234 clothespins in the jar.   I think we should have guessed how long we thought the marriage would last.

So, am I doing a bad thing by teaching fourth grade Math? We really don’t have to estimate much. I leave it up to the homeroom mothers who love estimation games at the parties. I just watch and listen to see what child may be estimate challenged like me.

Here’s a glittery pompom estimation jar. I’m sure the teacher knows how many things are in a thing.

The more I looked online at estimation jars, the more I realized I should be doing more. I too, should hold weekly contests. I could put the following items in jars; jelly beans, marshmallows, conversation hearts, gummi worms, macaroni noodles, or cotton balls. But, there is a problem: I just don’t want to count the items.

Ok, that’s a lie. I guess I am in estimation denial. I don’t want to teach something I just suck at. But, at the same time, my kids will move on to fifth grade and will never know how to guess how many items are in a jar.

I think it would be fun to have an estimation contest that would be absolutely hard to win…There would just be a guess….no counting the sides and multiplying by whatever….just a damn guess. And to do that, I would use-

marshmallow peeps. Oh, I would shove them in a jar so their little suffocated faces would be smooshed up against the glass. Yeah, now guess how many peeps are in the jar. It would be an honest guessing game. Or would it? The person who guessed ten would still be laughed at if there were fifty smooshy peeps in the jar. I just can’t put any child through the horrors of being labeled “estimate challenged.”

Or, you know, maybe I’m just lazy.

All of them

Several men dressed like Abe Lincoln will gather on a knoll tomorrow morning, proclamation in hand, and will proceed to yank a fat squirrel out of its heated den. Crowds who have gathered on this cold cold February morning will wait with bated or alcoholic breath, whichever comes first. Will Phil see his shadow?  We must know.

Another Groundhog Day, another prediction. Will we have another six weeks of winter or will spring be right around the corner?  According to Wikipedia, ” if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, then spring will come early; if it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and the winter weather will continue for six more weeks”.   The Weather Channel is already telling us we are going to have six weeks of winter. So, why all the brouhaha over a sleepy chubby squirrel?

Ok, a groundhog is not a fat squirrel. I apologize. A groundhog is a member of the squirrel family, but much larger than the ones I see eating out of the bird feeder.  Putting that aside, I’d still like to know how  the people in a small Pennsylvania town decided years ago they have a weather prognostigator?

“Hey, look at that groundhog! I can see his shadow. Do you think that means something?” I mean, how did this weird ritual start?

And it is weird. Think about it. People drive from miles around to gather in the cold to watch the town leaders grab a sleeping groundhog from its luxury living quarters, hold it up, and then proclaim to the masses if there will be six more weeks of winter. The crowd will clap and yell “hoorah” or moan and go home…or back to the bar. When did we start believing a groundhog? Why not a raccoon? They are smart enough to take the lid off of a garbage can. Surely they too, can predict the weather?

Ok, I know we don’t really believe a groundhog, but how did the people of Pennsylvania believe in it enough over the years to create such a tribute to weather forecasting? I just had to know.

I have written several times about the little varmint  Ground Beaver Day   Groundhog Day  Groundhog Day and a Haiku or Two in the past, but really never took a look at how this event started. I actually have this on my bucket list. Sure, why not drive up there one year just to say I did it?

English: Welcome to Goolers Knob – Groundhog Day 2005. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, it looks like Groundhog day  began as a German custom in the 18th century in this country. When German settlers arrived in the 1700s, they brought a custom known as Candlemas Day.  Supposedly, a custom in ancient European weather lore used a badger or a hedgehog as the prognosticator.  Seeing  there aren’t too many badgers or hedgehogs in Pennsylvania, I guess the groundhog was the next best thing. It has been celebrated in Punxsutawney since 1886 or so. In Europe, it was the tradition on Candlemas Day for the church official to bless candles and hand them out to the people in the middle point of winter.It also has something to do with Mary and Jesus, but I didn’t want to go in that direction, so I ignored the religious meanings of the day. So, If the sun came out February 2, the mid point of the season, it meant six more weeks of winter. Tomorrow will be Punxsutawney Phil’s 127th prognostication.

Shouldn’t he be dead?

So, when you turn on the Weather Channel in the morning, you will undoubtedly witness the faux Abe Lincolns pulling a fat squirrel out of a den on Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It’s a big deal. And maybe the ground hog will be alive, celebrating its 127th year of forecasting or maybe he is an imposter for the real Phil, who no longer sees his shadow. Regardless, it is a tradition in our country that is here to stay. In fact, there are many “Phil’s” in different parts of the country. Afterall, the weather in Florida is different than Pennsylvania. It is known as “The Sunshine State.” Of course Phil would see his shadow down there. And that surely wouldn’t mean six more weeks of winter in Florida. That means, “Hey, I saw my shadow because I am in freaking sunny Florida.”

Here are some of the other “Phil’s” that will be called upon this February 2:

French Creek Freddie – My home state of West Virginia.

 A pissed off French Creek Freddie

North Carolina has five prognosticating groundhogs- Grady, Nibbles, Queen Charlotte, Sir Walter Wally, and Mortimer. ( I fancy the Sir Walter Wally moniker)

Tennessee- Chattanooga Chuck

Georgia- General Beauregard Lee

Canada- Wiarton Willy

New York- Staten Island Chuck

Ohio- Buckeye Chuck

I could go on and on. There are many famous fat squirrels that will be pulled out of their dens tomorrow.

Happy Groundhog Day! (Whatever the hell that means)

When we pulled up to the new car wash, we had to wait in a line because, as all things new, people wanted to experience this new-fangled way to wash a car. It was the 60′s, after all, and inventions were just waiting to be invented. When it was our turn, a guy motioned for us to move up a bit. We then had to put the car in neutral. They guy then took some gigantic hook and put it somewhere in the front of the car.

“Will that pull off the bumper?” I thought that was a pertinent question.

The guy told my dad to make sure all of the windows were rolled up. We were ready. There was a little jerk and our car was on some track through a little building with these scrubber things on the sides. The noise was loud and the water was really hitting the windshield and roof of the car. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit scary. Those brushes were right up against our windows and then one roll up over the car and down the windshield.  Hey, this was fun….but not really.

After we were done, there were two teen-age boys who wiped our car with dry cloths. My mom had to interject her authority of being Queen of Weirton.

“Make sure you dry the car good….and there better not be any spots of dirt anywhere.”

Oh, but there was. When we pulled into the driveway, she had my dad not park the car in the garage. She wanted to inspect the job the new automatic car wash did on our family vehicle.

“Well, we won’t be going there again.”  I remember there were seven places that were missed. I smile at this because I can’t remember what I did fifteen minutes ago, but I can remember my mom ranting about SEVEN missed places on the car after visiting the new automatic car wash “up on the hill.” She loved to find something to bitch about. My dad was probably relieved that he wasn’t at the end of this particular rant. I remember thinking he was going to like this new car wash. Anything she disagreed about, my dad was then quietly all about.

So, one day I was sitting, watching tv, with our dog Smokey, on our lap. It was a hot summer day and my dad must not have wanted to wash the car by hand. I mean, who would want to, now that we basically had a robot to do it for us?  He asked me if I wanted to take a ride with him to the car wash.

Since Smokey was already sitting on my lap, I just picked her up and carried her a la Paris Hilton with her prized chihuahua to the car. Smokey often rode in the car. As all chihuahuas, Smokey was a yapper. Yap, yap, yap. But, who knew what was about to transpire.

Well, Smokey went ape shit. The noise first scared her and she buried herself beside my hip. We were yanked ahead on the conveyor belt. When the brushes hit against the car, that’s when Smokey defended her territory and her family. She ran over to the window and bared her teeth and growled and barked like she was ready to take on the brushes. She ran back and forth, over my dad and over me to each window. She was going to save us from this barrage of red and yellow bristles attacking us.

Rotating brushes inside a conveyor car-wash. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I should have counted how many times she ran back and forth. My dad also found it amusing. Smokey the chihuahua was fighting with the brushes at the automatic car wash.

When we got home, Smokey was exhausted and fell fast asleep on my dad’s lap.

The next few times we went to the car wash, we took Smokey along for our pleasure. It seems so cruel now to put the little yapper through this sort of animal abuse, but you have to understand I never once thought I was being abusive. I just thought it was really really funny.

And each time we got home, my mom would disappear downstairs for a few minutes. We knew she was heading for the garage.

“Four missed places this time.”

English: The Rocky Mountaineer boards at Banff. Image by User:Leonard G. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I was little I traveled on Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Spokane Washington with my mom, brother and sister. It took three days and three nights and I fell in love with train travel from that point on. I never traveled by train again until last summer when I thought I would take a different mode of transportation to visit my daughter in New York City. I think I smiled all the way into the Big Apple. There is something about the clickety clack of the train as it travels over the countryside and the whistle blowing at interections that I just really enjoy.

For years I have said my “trip of a lifetime” would be to travel through Canada by train to Victoria and Vancouver, supposedly some of the most beautiful cities on the planet. I know others would probably choose a more exotic location if they were choosing “a trip of a lifetime,” but mine is Canada by train.

Well, I just booked a trip for this summer aboard the Rocky Mountaineer through the Canadian Rockies. This is a trip I have had on my so-called bucket list for several years now. I haven’t been able to go because of my poor old cat, Whiskers. She passed away in October, so it looks like I will have some free time to take a trip longer than three nights.

I am beside myself with excitement. I decided not to travel all the way from Halifax to Vancouver just yet. I mean, I watched the episode of Sex and the City where Samantha and Carrie traveled to San Francisco by train. They were miserable. But, then again, I don’t think they left New York City too often, and I have to realize they weren’t really real people, so I need to erase that visual out of my mind.

I looked at routes and found this Rocky Mountaineer train. Hmmmmmm, this is right up my alley. I can’t get this song out of my head.

Rocky Mountaineer is a privately owned company. They offer three classes of service; Red Leaf, Silver Leaf, and Gold Leaf. The Gold Leaf offers perks for someone who is taking “a trip of a lifetime.” I want to travel in a glass enclosed train car and walk down a spiral staircase for a gourmet breakfast and lunch.

I want complimentary drinks even though I don’t drink…much. So, I booked the Gold Leaf, which also gave me deluxe accommodations in the hotels.

Hotels, you say? Yes. Depending upon the route you take, you can stay overnight on the way to your destination. I was overwhelmed with the choices and routes. The packages are called things like “Circle Rail,” “First Passage to the West,” and “Journey Through the Clouds,” just to name a few. I had to mull over where I wanted to start and where I wanted to end.

 Photo credit: Fresh Tracks

I decided to fly from Pittsburgh to Vancouver, and then travel on their “First Passage to the West” in reverse and fly out of Calgary. Six delirious nights. And it isn’t just train travel. There are things to do when you get off the train if you wish. And I wish. So, this is my itinerary. I liked what Rocky Mountaineer offered in their package design especially for what I would like to do on this trip, but in the end I decided to go with a travel agency called Fresh Tracks/Canadian Train Vacations. The only main difference between the two companies was Fresh Tracks was going to have someone waiting for me at the Vancouver Airport for the drive to my hotel. The cost was about the same for both and I loved working with both companies.

I booked “The Essential Rockies” with Fresh Tracks. My custom built itinerary looks something like this:

Day 1- Fly into Vancouver. I added a second night in Vancouver because I was afraid if my flight from Pittsburgh to Toronto to Vancouver was delayed or something, I would have another option to get to Vancouver before the train left the station. I plan to take a bus over to Stanley Park, which is the third largest city park in North America. It looks beautiful. I will be staying at Sutton Place. The reservationist on the phone told me that there are a lot of movies filmed in the Vancouver area and a lot of celebrities and crew stay at the Sutton. That would be cool to ride an elevator with someone famous.

Day 2- Discover Vancouver and Grouse Mountain Sunset Tour- I will be traveling by trolley to the base of Grouse Mountain, where I will take the largest gondola in North America to the top of the mountain. Much to do on top of the mountain.

Day 3- Ahhhh My Rocky Mountaineer adventure begins. I will be picked up and transferred to the train station where the fun begins. They have an open vestibule on the back of each car where I plan to be for a good bit of the time, pretending to be a photographer. The pictures I have seen of the Canadian Rockies are majestic, and I can not wait to experience it behind my own camera lens. First night stay in Kamloops.

Day 4- My adventure continues as we travel to Banff. This is supposed to be the most magnificient part of any train route through the Rockies. We will  pull into Banff in the evening and I will be transferred to my hotel, The RimRock for two nights.

Day 5- I added this part to my itinerary. Day 5 was supposed to be a free day to visit and walk through the town of Banff. And I want to do that, but I also wanted to travel to the Athabasca Glacier and drive onto the glacier in a special Ice Explorer. It’s a nine hour tour. I will be picked up at my hotel and with a small tour, stop at sights along the way for general sightseeing there and back. It will be interesting to stand on a glacier. I don’t get to do that too often in West Virginia.

Day 6 Leave Banff and meander through the Rockies with a private guide stopping along more majestic picture taking opportunities. We will then end up at Lake Louise. I can not wait to stay  there. Lake view.  I will have to take a canoe ride.

Day 7: Alas, my adventure will end today at the end of the month of June. I hope for clear, sunny days, and fault-free trip itineraries. I will keep you posted. My driver will take me to the Calgary airport for my flight for home.  I guess I should have mentioned that I am doing this by myself. A couple of people told me it wouldn’t be any fun by myself. Hmmmm. I think I’m a lot of fun. Add Canada and a train to the mix and the fact that I don’t know a stranger, I think I will be just fine. I mean, I did a test run and flew to Disney World by myself last year. If I can do a solo trip there and not feel lonely, I think I’m good to go.

 photo credit: Banff National Park

All twelve tokens from the U.S. Deluxe Edition Monopoly. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I have played Monopoly in the past, I have always reached for the iron as my token. I know for a fact I have never played with another token. I never came across another friend who just had to have the iron too, so I guess that was good because I wouldn’t have played. I guess when you find a right fit  you just have to go with that one each time. And the iron and I made our way around to pass Go many, many times. So, imagine the horror when I heard today that Hasbro, the maker of Monopoly, is going to send one of the little steel tokens to jail……and they can’t even pass Go first.

What a great marketing ploy. Hasbro has set up a Facebook page and is letting people vote for which token gets to stay and which one will replace it. I went to the site to see how this was going to unfold.  The choices to vote for are the car, thimble, shoe, dog, ship, hat, iron, and wheelbarrow. I wish we could vote for which one gets to go, but alas, we were only allowed to vote for which one we wanted to stay.

It’s funny, but I think baby boomers are going to feel the same way about this that I do. Oh, sure, in the whole scheme of things, I really don’t give a rat’s ass about the impending doom of one of the Monopoly tokens, but yet again, off I went to vote to save my beloved iron.

The options to replace the permanently jailed token are a helicopter, a diamond ring, a cat, a robot, or a guitar. I immediately voted for the diamond ring. It makes sense and goes with the game. What the hell does a robot or a guitar have to do with Monopoly? Ok, I guess an iron doesn’t make much sense either, but you know, whatever.

So, baby boomer friends of mine, what token did you use when you played Monopoly?

“And here’s a float from McDonalds…blah blah blah blah..roses.”

I was hyper when I was little, so maybe I just couldn’t watch and listen at the same time. The floats were beautiful. And it was named after a flower. Hence, the name, Rose Parade. I thought maybe it was named after a woman…….Rose McGillicuddy of Pasadena…..Ok, I made that name up. But why roses, I asked? Why not the Purple Cone Flower Parade or The Natural Material Parade?” I didn’t ask that when I was little. I’m asking that now when I am older and still challenged in so many ways. But, since I love to learn about insignificant things, I headed to google, king of all kings.

So, it looks like The Rose Parade started way back in Pasadena, California on January 1, 1890. The Rose Bowl football game was added in 1902 to help fund the parade. I thought that was pretty interesting.

The whole reason the parade started was to showcase the mild California winters. Many members of the Valley Hunt Club, the organizers of the very first Rose parade, were former residents of states in the east and midwest. One member announced at a meeting, “In New York, people are buried in the snow. Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”  I would think the man should have said the oranges were ready to be picked, but I guess that’s how the hell they talked back then.

And so they did organize a little parade to show off how wonderful Pasadena is in the winter and how putting flowers on moving things made the freezing New Yorkers jealous enough to withdraw all of their money and move to their sunny community. What confuses me is the fact there was no television in 1902. People elsewhere would have to read about it in a newspaper. So, in the end, I am thinking the Valley Hunt Club wanted to ride down the street on their horses.

They had horse drawn carriages adorned with flowers. After the parade, there was a chariot race, tug-of war and other games which drew about 2,000 people. After a few years, the parade got too big for the Valley Hunt Club, so the Tournament of Roses was formed and later a football game replaced a chariot race, which was a big deal of the whole celebration.

English: A Tournament of Roses Chariot Race from 1908. The race was later replaced by the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The floats of today take about a year to construct. According to Wikipedia, “It is a rule of the parade that all surfaces of the float framework must be covered in natural materials (such as flowers, plants, seaweeds, seeds, bark, vegetables, or nuts, for example); furthermore, no artificial flowers or plant material are allowed, nor can the materials be artificially colored.”And this is what bothers me.  I mean, it bothers me just a little, but enough to gripe about it. Isn’t this a waste of nature?

I’m beginning to think somebody in the Valley Hunt Club was a florist.

Think about it. I bet you there are more florists in the Pasadena area than anywhere else. Ok, maybe flowers are shipped in from other flowery places. Tulips from Holland, perhaps. Acorns from a forest in the Applachians. I don’t know. But, this has got to be a boon for florist owners and growers. I guess that is a good thing for the economy. But, what happens to the flowers and natural materials after the parade. Do they go into the biggest compost pile in the world?

So, being that my mind is still a bit hyperactive and all over the place, I wondered about other wastes…..like Christmas trees. I have a bit of a problem with cutting down beautiful pine trees, dragging them home on top of a car, sticking them in the corner of a room and putting things on it….only to throw it away come New Years Day. Poor pine tree.

But then again, everything is like that, isn’t it? Chickens are raised only to have their heads cut off so they can be served on our dinner plates. Corn is grown on farms just so we can eat popcorn and cornbread stuffing. I guess I could go on and on. So, in the end, flowers are grown for the Rose Parade. I guess I have to live with that.

That being said, I think it is our responisibility to watch the Rose Parade to see the beauty of Pasadena’s mild winter and of course, the magnificent floats. They are beautiful. Band members nation-wide fund raise their little asses off to be able to be part of the parade. Our very own East Fairmont High School was able to participate in the Rose Parade several years ago. That was a big deal. And it was exciting to watch on tv.  I didn’t notice the sunny environment of California, however.

Is this still the objective? Regardless, watch the parade tomorrow. Kudos to the Valley Hunt Club of 1890. They came up with a great idea. Look how many people are now living in California.

English: Bicentennial Mexico ~ Rose Parade January 2010 ~ Pasadena, California Español: Bicentenario de México durante el desfile de las rosas en Pasadena,California. Enero 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

Gull drool (Photo credit: Tom Clifton)

I saw a seagull today. I realize that is not an unusual observation for many. People always see them at the beach. After all, that’s where they belong. So, why the hell are they flying around my local Walmart’s parking lot? In West Virginia.

I came to Fairmont to go to college in 1974 and there were a few seagulls in the Middletown Mall parking lot. I was confused then and I am confused now. They have no business being in the mountains of West Virginia. That is against the laws of nature. Why, that would be like seeing a polar bear on a Miami beach, a rattle snake crawling along in the Arctic, or a moose hanging out in Central Park. So, after going through more “animals out of their element” scenarios, I decided I needed to learn more about seagulls and why they are in Fairmont, West Virginia. We only have streams and rivers. And they aren’t even cool rivers, like the Columbia…..or the mighty Mississippi. No, my seagulls are near the Tygart and the West Fork Rivers. There is no sand, no waves, no crabs to peck at. Why, oh why, are they flying above me in the freaking Walmart parking lot? The search was on.

Many people are perplexed as well. A woman wrote from Iowa about seeing seagulls in her Kmart parking lot. Many other land-locked puzzled people were wondering the same thing. Is it a migration route? And if so, where the hell are they coming from or going to in Iowa? That makes no sense at all. Iowa is too far away. And a blogging friend informed me that the seagull is the state bird of Utah. Utah!  Seems that years and years ago locusts were eating a lot of crops and all of a sudden seagulls appeared and ate the locust. The Mormons saw that as a sign and the next thing you know, they’ve got a state bird. Apparently, the seagulls in that state like the brine in the Great Salt Lake.

Maybe the seagulls think West Virginia is part of Virginia. They, afterall, have Virginia Beach, seagull capital of a small stretch of beach. There are a lot of geographically challenged people out there who think West Virginia is western Virginia. Maybe the seagulls think the same.

Years ago, near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, people thought they saw a strange flying “thing” that was dubbed Mothman. Hysteria reigned in that small Ohio River town for many years afterwards. Mothman supposedly had red eyes, a large wingspan and could pick up a German Shephard and carry it off. There is even a statue to Mothman and a Mothman festival. But, a wildlife biologist said all along it was a sandhill crane,  a large American crane almost as high as a man with a seven foot wingspan featuring red circles around its eyes. He said  the bird may have wandered out of its migration route.

I guess not all birds know what the hell they are doing. Sure, Canadian geese flaunt their knowledge of their ABC’s by flying in a V formation. They fly south for the winter. Well, they used to until they decided that since these silly Americans are  feeding them, they’d just stay all year long. We can’t get rid of them or their trail of slimy algae green poop.

So, maybe my Walmart seagull got lost on his way to Bora Bora or Aruba or where ever they fly on their migration route. I had no idea there were so many varieties of gulls. All I know is that they can attack. I know this because I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Tippi Hedren got pecked in the forehead by one.

In the end, I guess I feel sorry for the seagull who is living at the Walmart parking lot. Where does he sleep at night? Sitting on a light pole can’t be fun. Doesn’t he miss the sound of the ocean waves lulling him to sleep?  And if he doesn’t leave, will the crows let him hang out with them? They are usually a tight group, not making friends easily.

I did just read that we may be confused by their name, as it implies the “sea.” Someone wrote there is no such thing as a “sea” gull.  Gulls can adapt inland. Well, then maybe their name should change. Canadian geese are no longer Canadian….. Hermit crabs are quite social……a teddy bear hamster is not a damn teddy bear……

and a jumbo shrimp is not a big little thing. Whoever is naming animals is on drugs.

When you think of New Years Eve, all those who don’t live under a rock know about the ball drop at midnight in Times Square in fantastic New York City. I took a picture of it from the top of the Rockefeller Center when I was there this summer. It’s just not the same, I guess, as being there smooshed up against thousands of people on a cold, drunken New Year’s Eve.

 The first ball drop in Times Square took place on December 31, 1907. According to Wikipedia:

“The first New Year’s Eve celebration in what is now known as Times Square was held on New Year’s Eve 1904. The New York Times newspaper had opened their new headquarters at One Times Square (at the time, the city’s second tallest building)  and persuaded the city to rename the triangular “square” surrounding it for their newspaper (which the city later did on April 8, 1904). The newspaper’s owner decided to celebrate the opening of the company’s new headquarters with a midnight fireworks show on the roof of the building on December 31, 1903. Close to 200,000 people attended the event, displacing traditional celebrations that had normally been held at Trinity Church. After four years of New Year’s Eve fireworks celebrations, the newspaper’s chief electrician Walter F. Palmer constructed an electrically lit time ball that would be lowered from the flagpole on the roof of One Times Square. It was constructed with iron and wood, lit with one hundred 25-watt bulbs, weighed 700 pounds (320 kg), and measured 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter. It was first lowered on New Year’s Eve 1908 (December 31, 1907).”

The Times Square ball drop is one of the best-known New Year’s celebrations, attended by at least one million spectators yearly.  The Times Square ball drop has also inspired other drops across our great nation. So, if you can’t be there in New York City for the ball drop, and don’t really care to watch it on tv, you can always check to see if your city has a creative drop of their very own. Not all cities drop balls. Some cities use their famous icon to ring in the new year. It  is obvious the state of Pennsylvania loves to share their symbols on New Years Eve.

*  Eastport, Maine- a maple leaf is dropped. There is also a sardine drop in the city also. The Great Sardine and Maple Leaf Drop

*  Saint George’s, Bermuda- a Bermuda onion wrapped in Christmas lights is dropped.

*  Key West, Florida- A gigantic conch shell is dropped.  There is also a gay bar that drops a giant ruby slipper with a drag queen inside. Fun times.

*  Miami, Florida- The Big Orange Drop. Well, Florida is the orange capital of the world. “Mr. Neon” was recently renamed, “La Gran Naranja,” which I am thinking means the big orange. I really know my spanish.

*  Atlanta,Georgia- The Peach Drop. Georgia loves their peaches.

* Gainesville, Georgia- Chuck the chicken drop in honor of the humane society.

*Harrisburg, Pennsylvania- strawberry drop.

* Tallapoosa, Georgia- they drop an oppossum. It started out as a joke and has now grown as their biggest yearly event. I hope it isn’t alive. The Possum Drop

*  Winder, Georgia- A jug drop.

* Easton, Maryland- a crab drop.

* Havre de Grace, Maryland- a duck.

* Princesss Anne, Maryland- a muscrat.

* Niagara Falls, New York- A Gibson guitar is dropped from the Hard Rock Cafe.

*  Black Creek, North Carolina: A large red heart drop represents “A Small Town with a Big Heart.”

* Eastover, North Carolina- a flea is dropped….. A flea.

* Charlotte, North Carolina- a crown is dropped.

* Mount Olive, North Carolina- The New Years Eve Pickle Drop.

*Raleigh, North Carolina- Acorn drop

* Elmore, Ohio- a sausage is dropped.

* Marion, Ohio- a popcorn ball is dropped. Marion is the popcorn capital of the world.

*Port Clinton, Ohio- a walleye fish named “Captain Wylie Walleye” is dropped. Walleye Madness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qPNV-88Aok&feature=player_embedded

* Cincinnati, Ohio- A flying pig is not dropped, but flown, maybe to show there is at least one time “when pigs fly”.

* Allentown, Pennsylvania- a replica of the liberty bell is dropped.

* Akron, Pennsylvania- a gold and purple shoe is dropped.

* Beavertown, Pennsylvania- a beaver is dropped. I hope to God it isn’t real. PETA would be all over them.

*Bethlehem, Pennsylvania- a Peep is dropped. Yes, one of those yellow Easter peeps. The company that produces Peeps is based there. I was happy to see they aren’t dropping baby Jesus in Bethlehem that night.

*Blain, Pennsylvania- a wooden cow is dropped from a silo. Moo.

*Cleona, Pennsylvania- a pretzel is not dropped, but raised. Why, Cleona, are you raising the pretzel? Not cool.

*Carlisle, Pennsylvania- an Indy car is dropped.

*Cornwall, Pennsylvania- a Cannonball Drop.

*Dillsburg, Pennsylvania- two pickles are dropped. I guess one should drop a pickle in Dillsburg.

*Duncannon, Pennsylvania- a sled is dropped….without any kids holding on I presume.

*Easton, Pennsylvania- a crayola crayon is dropped early in the night to accommodate little kiddie’s bedtimes.

*Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania- a giant M& M is dropped.

*Falmouth, Pennsylvania- a stuffed goat is dropped.

*Frogtown, Pennsylvania- a frog is dropped. This is getting sort of redundant, no?

*Gratz, Pennsylvania- a wildcat is dropped.

*Halifax, Pennsylvania- a hemlock tree. Oh, come on, now!

*Harrisburg, Pennsylvania- a strawberry is dropped. My son has been to this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvjwtM37CmY

*Hershey, Pennsylvania- a Hershey Kiss is dropped. Well, this makes sense.

*Hummelstown, Pennsylvania- a lollipop is dropped.

*Ickesburg, Pennsylvania- a french fry is dropped. These people are just bored.

* Lebanon, Pennsylvania- a giant stick of bologna is dropped.

*Lisburn, Pennsylvania- a pair of yellow pants is dropped. Can’t wait to read the history on this one.

*Liverpool, Pennsylvania- a canal boat is dropped.

*McClure, Pennsylvania- a kettle is dropped in honor of their Bean Soup Festival.

*Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania- a wrench is dropped. The Wrench Drop

*New Oxford, Pennsylvania- an antique trunk is dropped.

*Palmyra, Pennsylvania- The Giant Shoe is dropped.

*Pottsville, Pennsylvania- a bottle of Yuengling beer is raised. I bet those attendees are having fun that evening.

*Red Lion, Pennsylvania- a cigar is dropped.

*Shippensburg, Pennsylvania- an anchor is dropped.

*Strasburg, Pennsylvania- ping pong balls are dropped.

*Shamokin, Pennsylvania- a chunk of coal is dropped, turning into a diamond when it hits the bottom….like magic…oooh

*Hilton Head Island, South Carolina- a giant golf ball.

*Fredericksburg, Virginia- a pear is dropped.

*Mobile, Alabama- a moon pie is dropped. Yes, a moon pie and then the manufacturers of the moon pie hand out about 5,000 of them to revelers.

*Wetumpka, Alabama- a meteorite is dropped in honor of the meterorite that hit the city. Um, ok.

*Fayetteville, Arkansas- a hog is dropped.

*Panama City, Florida- a beach ball is dropped.

*Pensacola, Florida- a pelican is dropped.

*Des Plaines, Illinois- a diamond is dropped.

*Manhattan, Kansas- “The Little Apple” is dropped. I get it. Cute.

*New Orleans, Louisiana- a gumbo pot was dropped for a while. The new drop is Fleur-de-lis. Like I’m supposed to know what that is.

*Bartlesville, Oklahoma- an olive is dropped.

*Memphis and Nashville- a guitar and a music note.

* Plymouth, Wisconsin- a cheese wedge is dropped.

*Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin- a dead carp caught by locals is lowered.

* Show Low, Arizona- a deuce of clubs cards is dropped.

*Flagstaff, Arizona- a pine cone is dropped.

*Tempe, Arizona- a giant tortilla chip.

*Honolulu, Hawaii- a pineapple is dropped.

*Vincennes, Indiana- watermelon drop. Many engineering students across the nation drop watermelons and pumpkins throughout the year.

So, there you have it. There are New Year’s Eve celebrations all across the world. Many more cities just drop a ball,  but some places use their representative symbol to usher in a brand new year. Happy New Year to all!

I have decided to have my own celebration….. I am going to drop a few pounds.

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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

After tossing and turning, my dad would get up and turn the light on beside his bed. My mom and dad had separate twin beds just like the couples we watched on tv. Laurie and Rob Brady had single beds. But, when my dad would turn on his light, it would wake up my mom, who in turn woke us up next door.

“Dammit, Elwood, turn the light off!”  Mom rarely cursed in front of us when we were little. Cursing in front of sleeping children didn’t count.

So, my dad would then stumble out of bed every night without turning on a light and would immediately yell out after walking into an object in the bedroom.
“Dammit! Son of a bitch!”  This would be followed by my mom. “Quit waking up the whole household! You should know where the hell you are going.”

Since I was hyperactive, I had a hard enough time getting to sleep myself. I would also wake up if I heard as much as a pin drop. So, I could hear him get out of his bed, shuffle slowly like a ninety year old man wearing scruffy slippers, and then appear in the hallway and down the hall into the kitchen. Our house was not large, so the three bedrooms were grouped together at the end of the house. I could hear him turn on the kitchen lightswitch and then I would know what was coming next. He was heading to the refrigerator.

After a while, he wised up and purchased a small flashlight for his nightly forays into the kitchen. I could hear the refrigerator door open. It stayed open for a long time. My mom would yell at us if we stood too long with the refrigerator door open.

“What’s in there is in there. Nothing is going to magically appear. Get what you need and close the door……….It isn’t an air conditioner.”

But, I could listen to my dad’s nightly excursions and know  he kept that refrigerator door opened for a long, long time. I don’t know why, but it made me smile. My mom yelled at my dad all damn day. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. The poor man was damned. She was the definition of a rolling pin woman. So, he had the power to keep the refrigerator door open in the middle of the night way past her imposed time allotment. You go, Dad.

By high school, I was moved downstairs. My sister and I fought so much and I kept telling my parents I needed my own room, so they eventually agreed and divided our large rec room into a small rec room and a bedroom for me. It was so quiet down there, except that I could hear faint walking on the floor above. I could no longer hear him or see a hint of light from my bedroom. I was so happy to be in my room, but I did miss my dad’s night walking a bit.

Flash forward years ahead to just last night. I made the mistake of drinking a Coke after 8p.m. That means disaster for me. I was stupid and wanted to stay up late getting some Christmas decorating done. I knew what was going to happen. And it did. Dreaded insomnia. I read statistics that stated 40-60% of people over 40 suffer from insomnia. Even if I didn’t drink that Coke, I haven’t slept through the whole night in years. Years. So, when I stared over at the clock on my nightstand and it said 2:35a.m., I was pissed.  I wanted to get to sleep.

When  I was little, I used to rub Vicks Vapor Rub under my eyes in order to keep them shut. It burned like hell and made me look like an idiot for doing it.  (See my Vicks Vapor Rub post) So, that option was out. I thought about the proverbial counting sheep.

Who the hell started this “Hey, I know….if you can’t sleep, try counting sheep” scenario?  I just didn’t get it. I visualized a fence with sheep going over it…..1……2…….3………the hell with this shit.

getting ready to jump over the fence

Really? Counting sheep? I had to google it.

According to Wikipedia, “In most depictions of the activity, the practitioner envisions an endless series of identical white sheep jumping over a fence, while counting them as they do so. The idea, presumably, is to induce boredom while occupying the mind with something simple, repetitive, and rhythmic, all of which are known to help humans sleep.”

I don’t know about you, but if the idea is to induce boredom, why not transfer boredom for relaxation and plant yourself on a beach with a book, listening to the waves crashing while counting each pebble of sand? I mean, at least put me in a relaxing situation, not in a field with sheep poop and a bunch of sheep bleating as they jump over a fence. Yeah, my sheep bleat while jumping, mainly because FREAKING SHEEP DON’T JUMP!  I mean, maybe they can, but not like a horse…. or a mexican jumping bean.

If anything, shouldn’t one count sleeping sheep? Jumping sheep are active,  so your mind stays active counting the little shits as they jump over the white fence (that needs painted, by the way.)

1…..2…..3……4….zzzzz

In the end, I guess what works for some may not work for others. Counting sheep is stupid, in my opinion. I just read about eight articles that agree with me, although the word “stupid” was not used in any of them. But, if you insist on trying to count sheep as a sleep aid, the best advice I can give you is to stock your refrigerator, because, like my dad and millions of other insomniacs, you will end up standing in front of it.

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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

]]> http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/counting-sheep/feed/ 10 dyingbraincells 1.....2.....3......4....zzzzz sheep1 :) campfire9 http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade/ http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade/#comments Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:49:09 +0000 Jumping in Mud Puddles http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/?p=7013 ]]> A lot of people have bucket lists. You know, a list of things you’d like to do before you “kick the bucket.” For a lot of people, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade live from the parade route is near the top of their bucket list. I now can cross this off of mine.

I flew to New York City to spend Thanksgiving with my daughter. At first we thought we would just get up a bit early, grab some breakfast and just head up to the parade route. I thought if I just snapped some pictures of the balloons from afar, that would be good enough. But, after googling and reading about the parade, I thought since we were there, we might as well do it right.

We woke up at 4:30 and were at Dunkin Donut at 5:00a.m. We decided we better not eat or drink anything since we wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom for at least five hours. That is really hard for me. I can’t even imagine taking kids to watch the parade.

We thought we were prepared for the weather. It was going to be 52 degrees and sunny for the day and when we left it was 43 degrees, so I knew we wouldn’t freeze. My daughter suggested I pack my Uggs and wear them to the parade. My Uggs were in a box in my closet. I had never worn them. I don’t know why. So, I packed them and put them on for our adventure. I also brought extra gloves for Alex.

So, we were off to the parade. We rode the subway and got off at 59th Street and Central Park. I read where the parade is top and bottom heavy, so I thought something along Central Park would be a good place to stand. Not too north, and definitely not south where people probably camped out all night. I’m thinking this way because we saw chairs and blankets saving spots along the parade route. That didn’t seem fair to me. That’s like how people run down in the early morning and put their towels down to reserve beach chairs at a resort. Except in this case, there was always one person standing over the reserved area. If you are going to want a place up front, get your ass out there and stand like the rest of us. Sort of pissed me off.

We finally found a little crack in the armor and were able to find a place right in front of Trump Plaza.

I looked around to make sure there weren’t any kids around. There’s nothing worse than being in one spot for hours with a lot of children. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m a fourth grade teacher after all. But, kids spill stuff and move around and hang on gates, and some will just not stop talking. I just wanted to wait for the parade without much fanfare. Morning was breaking, so we decided to sit down on the cold concrete and wait the time away.

My daughter looking excited to wait for hours

The time just went by slowly. I didn’t mind, however, since I like to people watch and eavesdrop on conversations.

Central Park was across the street. I love that place. There were blockades marked “Police Line: Do Not Cross” and that side of the street stayed vacant for a good part of the early morning. Later, I found out that ticket holders who were family members of the NYPD and firefighters were able to stand all along the Central Park side of the parade route. I thought that was nice. Soon, that side of the street was filled with people, but they did get to sleep in longer than us non-ticket holders.

It seemed like we waited forever. I knew better to drink my bottled water, but I did take a few bites of my Dunkin donut. We stood up and stretched, only to find three people now standing behind us. They were taller than us, so I am sure they were happy about that. We soon struck up conversations with all those surrounding us. Some people were from Louisiana. Some were from Connecticut. The couple to our left were from Brooklyn. I don’t know why, but I think people are a bit shocked when I say I’m from West Virginia, like we aren’t allowed across the state line or something. Someone asked me how I liked New York City. Sometimes I just can’t believe the things that fly out of my mouth.

“Well, I really never cared to visit a large city like this and never wanted to come here…. I’m all about raccoons and squirrels….blah blah blah.”

What? I few minutes later, my daughter looked at me, burst out laughing and said, “Really, Mom. That’s what you’re all about….raccoons and squirrels?” She started laughing at me so hard she was crying. It was so normal of me to say something so stupid. I just had to start laughing too. At least I wasn’t wearing camouflage like the lady from Louisiana. Maybe she understood me. She was probably all about crawdads or something.

Well, we could see a helicopter hanging out above us and we could hear sirens off in the distance. The parade was supposed to start at 9:00 up around 77th Street. We figured the parade would be to us around 9:30. And then it began.

We were excited

The police presence was just unbelievable. They were every where. There was a bomb sniffing dog that took a liking to Alex. A guy wearing a red cross button was walking the dog on our block repeatedly. He told the dog to give Alex kisses. Since we were sitting on the ground, the dog obliged and wagged his tail, taking a break from sniffing for bombs to love on Alex for a minute. He was sweet.

Kermit, sneaking up behind this cop

Some of the balloons seemed pretty sad, helium speaking. Kermit was low to the ground and saggy in some spots. A lot of them were like that. Kermit wasn’t going to look pretty for the cameras down in front of Macy’s department store. That’s when the people behind us told us there were floats and singers we wouldn’t see. What?? I wondered how the parade could start on NBC at 9:00, but yet we were on 59th and the parade didn’t get to us until 9:30. There was another street of performers and balloons somewhere that hooked up to where filming took place for  the tv land people.  They would perform and then go to the end of the parade. We began to feel gypped a bit. Who weren’t we going to get to see?

I really enjoyed all the people who were dressed up in crazy costumes. They were so full of energy and would come by giving up high fives and throwing confetti in our faces. It was fun.

I had fun laughing during the parade. Some of  walkers were having a hard time balancing their heads.

It was fun seeing celebrities. We saw Jimmy Fallon and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I was able to take a pretty good picture of some of them.

Whoopie Goldberg was a pirate. I don’t know why.

And then there were singers like Trace Adkins, who I didn’t really know about since I am not a country fan. I did notice he and his wife should have been happy that people from PETA weren’t around with some paint.

fur wearing people

I don’t know why I got so excited to see the cast on the Sesame Street float, but I did. I watched Sesame Street every day with my kids when they were young. So, I yelled Bob’s name.

Bob really had no choice but to look in the direction of the crazy lady screaming his name.

Bob is looking at me

Singer Flor ida…or Flori da…or Flo rida. I have no idea.

I yelled at Mr. Planters on top of the Peanutmobile to look over our way so I could get a good shot, but he wouldn’t look at me. What a nut!

Creepy elf balloon

In the end I took more than 75 photos. It was fun. I am now able to cross this item off of my bucket list. I still need to travel to Devil’s Tower, travel Route 66, and sit by Loch Ness with a rented bag piper, waiting with my camera for Nessie. I have a lot of items on my bucket list.

The Macy’s Day Parade is a once in a lifetime experience. Notice how I said, “once in a lifetime?” Would I do it again? Oh, hell no. Not in a million years. I was cold and I had to pee. But, I got to spend time with my daughter, and that was priceless. I missed my son, though. That would have made the day perfect. But, that perfect day will come when they both fly home for Christmas.

As we left after the parade, I took my best shot of my whole trip.

 People in New York are all about pigeons.

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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

]]> http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade/feed/ 10 dyingbraincells :) campfire9 http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/why-i-was-so-skinny/ http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/why-i-was-so-skinny/#comments Sat, 17 Nov 2012 14:54:22 +0000 Jumping in Mud Puddles http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/?p=7003 ]]> I couldn’t wait until I turned sixteen. All kids imagine getting their driver’s license and then speeding off into the sunset. Well, not speeding, but being able to go someplace without Dad behind the wheel was a thrilling aspect of sixteenship. (I made up that word. I like it). But, that was not the reason I could not wait to get my driver’s license.

You see, once upon a time, I was just a skinny little thing. I wasn’t just thin and tiny. I was anorexic, “Oh my God, look at that girl!” skinny skinny. I had no muscle. I was a freaking stick. And although I curse myself now for hating how I looked back then, it truly was a sad sight. I just could not gain weight. Now, I know you are wondering what that has to do with driving for the very first time, but it has everything to do with turning sixteen, being skinny, and getting behind the wheel.

I totally understand the plight of overweight children even though I was on the other side. I got made fun of for being skinny.

“Hey, I heard you were absent from school today……You must have been standing sideways when they took roll.”

“Hey, I bet you can really sing since you have those canary legs and all.”

“You’re so skinny, I bet you hula hoop with a Life Saver.”

When I switched schools and went to Edgewood for fourth grade, I went home crying the first day because someone called me “Stick.”  I finally told him to leave me alone…..and then hastily added, “Leave me alone! I just got out of a concentration camp.” Ok, I realize that was stretching the truth a little too far, but my last name was Mendenhall, a Germanish name, and I just got to that school. It was feasible, especially when the goof ball head who called me names had no idea what the three ships Columbus sailed on to discover America. Everyone knew that, so I knew he was dumb as a…….stupid head….. He had no grain in his silo…His sewing machine was out of thread…… He wouldn’t even know what a concentration camp was.

So, I had to endure years of being made fun of for being skinny. So, I ate. I ate all the time, trying to gain weight. But, I guess when you are a true hyperactive child, that grows up with you for a few years. I was very active and my metabolism was not my friend. I could not gain weight. When I was in high school, I would get up earlier and fry two frozen hamburger patties before the bus came to pick me up in the morning. It still didn’t work. It finally dawned on me after a very interesting lesson in Science class what was wrong with me. I kept my thoughts to myself.

So, when the big day came and I passed my driver’s test, I also made a secret appointment with Dr. Harper. Dr. Harper was my family doctor. I had been out there so many times, I could drive to his office blindfolded. Well, ok, that would have been bad. But, I had history with this man and trusted him. I had bad kidneys when I was little, so I was always peeing in a damn cup for him. He would tell me to be glad I was so thin. But, now that I KNEW what was wrong with me, he would be able to help me. I couldn’t wait to go to his office and tell him what I learned in Science class.

Lexie, who lived down the street and was a mom of one of my friends and a good friend of my moms, worked for Dr. Harper, so I lied when I made the appointment and said it was for a regular checkup.

“Hi, Lexie. My mom told me to call to make an appointment for my regular checkup….. She’s downstairs sewing.”  She gave me a date that was about two weeks away. Shit. That wasn’t acceptable. I HAD to be seen earlier.

“Is there any way I can come tomorrow after school?…..Um….. My pee is dark and my back hurts.”  I knew that would work.

So, I asked my mom if I could use the car after school to drive by myself.  “I just need to drive to get used to driving by myself.”  I didn’t need to tell her. She would just roll her eyes and tell me I was being dramatic….once again. No, this was top top secret.

I couldn’t wait until I got home from school the next day. I got the keys to my mom’s boat, a gold Cadillac that was a mile long, and drove out to Dr. Harper’s office. There was only one person in the waiting room. I smiled at Lexie and sat down.

Dr. Harper was a pretty nice guy. I was handed a cup and thought that I should probably go pee in it since I was there. It really was close to my regular checkup time anyways. I sat down and took off my clothes and put on the white gown. I always rushed this part because I didn’t want him walking in and seeing me half dressed. He did rap on the door like three times and then entered, not waiting for a “oh hell, not yet.” He sat down, took his chart, read some stuff.

“So, Vickie, your back is hurting. Have you been drinking a lot of water like you are supposed to?”

“I’m drinking a lot of water.” I was going to come right out and tell him why I thought I wasn’t gaining weight, but at the last minute thought I would just bring it up nonchalantly while he was checking the lymph nodes in my neck like he always did during a checkup. “I think my back is hurting because it is almost that time of the month….but I’m not sure.” And then I continued….nonchalantly, of course.

“So, Dr. Harper……I was wondering if you could take an x- ray or check to see…….if I have a…… tapeworm. I think that’s why I’m not gaining weight.” There, I said it. I have a tapeworm crawling around, eating all the stuff that comes down into my stomach. I was sure of it.

Dr. Harper stopped pushing on my neck with his hands and sat back, looking at me. He then started to laugh. I had never really heard him laugh before. What the hell? Why are you laughing at me? I was pissed.

“Vickie, you do not have a tapeworm. You are thin because that’s just how you are built. You will gain weight when you gain weight.”

I just looked at him. I was ready to burst into tears, but I had to get out of his office first. I was also ready to kick him. How dare he laugh at me when I had a freaking tapeworm crawling around inside of me and he wouldn’t even check it out.

“I learned in Science class that if you eat beef or pork, there is a chance that a tapeworm larva could be mixed in with the cow meat and if you swallow it, the tapeworm can grow to be 12 feet long. I eat hamburger almost every day. I really think I have a tapeworm.”

12 feet of worm action in my stomach

He just wouldn’t quit smiling. Dumb ass.  It was possible. I learned a tapeworm could live for years in your body and you wouldn’t even know it:

Tapeworms Symptoms ( Source:webmd.com)

Sometimes tapeworms cause signs and symptoms such as:

• nausea
• weakness
• diarrhea
• abdominal pain
• hunger or loss of appetite
• fatigue
• weight loss
• vitamin and mineral deficiencies

However, often having tapeworms does not cause symptoms. The only sign of tapeworm infection may be segments of the worms, possibly moving, in a bowel movement.

Treatment for Tapeworms

If you suspect you have tapeworms, you should see your doctor. Because there are different types of worms and tapeworms that can infect people, diagnosing a tapeworm infection may require a stool sample to identify the type of worm.

Ok, see? If you suspect you have tapeworms, you should see your doctor. 

I saw my doctor and my doctor laughed at me.

I cried all the way home. My mom asked me what happened and I told her the truth, which surprised me, because I rarely told the truth. She knew damn well not to even crack a smile. And this time she didn’t use the word dramatic or anything. I hugged her for being so understanding. She told me she would see if there was a pill I could take for a “just in case you do have a tapeworm” scenario. That made me feel better. Who knew that my mom would side with me on anything.

Later that night, as I went to bed,  I got right back out, wondering where my dog Cricket was, and heard my mom on the phone. She was talking to Lexie. Cricket was on my dad’s lap on the couch.

“It took everything I had not to laugh in her face, Lexie…….”

That’s all I cared to hear. They were all laughing at me. Fine. Laugh at me.

Since I am all about revenge, I decided to get back at my mom. Big time. That weekend, I chewed a bunch of gum and started rolling it between my fingers to make it long and thin. It did look like a pinkish worm. I even poked two little eyes and then put it in the toilet. I put a piece of toilet paper in there to make it look authentic. I wished I could have waited until I could have added something else, but revenge doesn’t wait for a sixteen year old. I yelled for my mom.

When my mom arrived in hallway, I just pointed to the toilet. She walked over and looked in the toilet.

“Mom, I told you I had worms!!!”

My mom had her bifocals down on her nose. I thought they were going to fall down into the toilet and join Timmy the Tapeworm. My mom then looked up at me.

“I almost fell for this one, Vickie. Next time, don’t put a smile on the worm’s face……get it out of the toilet, wash your hands, and come wash the dishes.”

Dammit.

Years later, the weight did catch up to me.  I often think about the tapeworm story. Now, I wonder where the hell I can buy one.

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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

]]> http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/why-i-was-so-skinny/feed/ 4 dyingbraincells :) campfire9 http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/scruffy-fuzzy-slippers/ http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/scruffy-fuzzy-slippers/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2012 23:41:19 +0000 Jumping in Mud Puddles http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/?p=6989 ]]> When I got home from teaching today, I decided to skip the gym and be a bum. After all, I had gone to work out four days in a row and deserved to sit one out. I looked at the clock and wondered if at 5:30, it was too early to put on my pajamas.

I usually change from my teaching clothes to my “house” clothes when I get home. My house clothes are generally anything worn without a bra.  Mine comes off the minute I enter the house. Well, that was a lie. Sometimes I wait ten minutes. Bras are evil. I always want to utter a sigh when it comes off. Another lie…I do utter a sigh of relief. Guys have no idea.

So, back to putting on pajamas time. When do people put on their pajamas? I would imagine one would hang out in regular clothes and then retire to their bedroom and get changed for bed at bedtime, because, as we all know, pajamas are for sleeping in. So, am I wrong to want to put mine on so damn early? Now, I realize there are some who wear their pajamas all day long…..and to Walmart……and to buy a gallon of milk….or beer. Hugh Hefner comes to mind.  I’m not talking about those people who obviously don’t care their pajamas go outside and then slide under the comfort of clean sheets. I think it’s just wrong to wear something to bed that you have worn outside of the home. Am I weird? No, not me.  I do have a pile of socks beside my bed that I wear to bed because I can’t stand to go barefoot. I wear socks to bed because my little piggies are always cold. After an hour or so, my feet warm up, and they are flung beside my bed and lie there until I feel like bending over to scoop them up for the washing machine. And no, I’m not lazy. It’s my routine I have followed since I was in junior high. I am a beside the bed sock hoarder. There’s a difference between being lazy and being a sock tossing hoarder.

Anyway, it is now 6:15 and I am still wearing my work clothes. I’m miserable. I’ve been googling “fuzzy slippers 70′s” to find the perfect picture of slippers I wore when I was a teen ager. Oh, to have those fuzzy matted slippers on my feet once again. I loved those slippers.

Ah, fuzzy slippers

I wore those slippers all the time. Do they even sell fuzzy slippers anymore? I want a pair. Those were the one kind of slippers that made scuffing acceptable. You can’t just walk while wearing fuzzy slippers. You have to scuff. I want to scuff again.

In the end, I guess you could say that I really want to put my pajamas on at an early time. It’s now 6:30. I’ve written long enough. I’ve googled some time away. Is 6:30 an appropriate time to put on your pajamas? I guess you can tell I don’t do this very often. Early pajama wearing is normally for sick people. I’m not sick, you know…. physically.

pause

pause

pause

Ahh, that feels so much better. I love my cranberry fleece robe and my flannel long pajama top. I’m ready to hang out on the couch playing SongPop  and watching Big Bang Theory. I love being a early pajama wearing bum. I feel like I’m getting away with something.

I just really need some pink fuzzy slippers.

Albert Einstein wore fuzzy slippers.

pause

Dammit, someone’s at the door!

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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

When I was in fourth grade, if someone asked me who was president, I may have replied,  John F. Kennedy. Oh sure, I knew he had died on my parent’s anniversary several years before I was in fourth grade, and I knew that the gunman was gunned down by some night club owner, but I didn’t know who took his place. Wait. That’s a lie. I remember my grandfather talking about “LBJ, that goddamn snake in the grass.” So, our president was LBJ….Grandpa liked Ike, whoever the hell that was. Later, I found out it was Eisehower, who was president before “that catholic boy.” My grandfather was all about being a republican. But, I was nine years old and had important things to do like go to Campfire Girls meetings and play chinese jump rope. I didn’t care about politics. The only thing I knew at the time was that presidents used initials and short nicknames instead of their names….Ike….JFK…..LBJ.  I was VLM. My friend Ramaine was RAC. Lori was LAM, and LeeAnn was LAW. I was pissed because my middle name messed everything up. I could never have pretty monogrammed towels.

And kids really didn’t pay attention to who was running for president back then. But, that changed when we baby boomers had kids and talked about it more and the kids listened. Why did they listen? Well, because our kids stayed indoors more than we did when we were young. We were outside as long as it wasn’t storming. Well, my mom forbade it to lightning on Woodland Estates, so we were outside most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, my kids played outside plenty, but the mid 80′s were different than the mid 60′s. Kids of the mid 80′s listened because they were around the parents more.

English: Seal of the President of the United States Español: Escudo del Presidente de los Estados Unidos Македонски: Печат на Претседателот на Соединетите Американски Држави. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My daughter became a big fan of CNN when she was little. She liked Tucker Carlson and his bow tie. She became interested in the environment when she was very young, getting mad at the Harrison Power Plant and its wicked plume of black smoke that came out of the stack. She was in tune. Both of my kids were. So, they listened. She pointed out later, “Mom, you are so not a Republican. And Dad……he is definitely not a Democrat.” They listened and picked up on things. And she was right. I changed my party years later so I could vote for Obama.

But, back to my fourth graders. I let them go at each other. One said that Romney hated the Earth. Another said that Obama was going to close all of the coal mines in the state. (West Virginia)

“I’m voting for Romney. Obama doesn’t believe in God.”

“I’m voting for Obama because Romney is a Mormon.” When asked what a Mormon was, the child told me, “It’s a man who has a lot of wives…and that is just wrong.” Another boy added, “I think having a bunch of wives is wrong….but if they could cook, it might not be so bad.”

“Romney is going to win because Obama is going to make rich people pay more taxes.”  I asked if his family is rich. “Yes, my mom works at Walmart.” A girl laughed and replied, “Working at Walmart doesn’t make you rich. You have to win the lottery if you want to be really rich.”

“Obama is a terrorist. His middle name is a terrorist name.” I asked him what Obama’s middle name is.  “Something like Muslim or something.” Another child laughed at his response. “Muslim is not a middle name. It’s something you sew with.” Um, okay, muslin is a cotton. Points scored for knowing fabric.

In the end, their rants and reasons for voting for their respective candidates were highly amusing…and sad at the same time. I had to wonder:

Do people really understand the issues or do they vote because of what they hear from others the same way children form opinions from watching and listening to their parents and believing it is right and just?

It that is the case, which I think it is in a majority of people,  we would always see the proverbial snake in the grass.

The important thing today is to exercise your right to make a decision of some kind. It may not be for the best reasons, but we are lucky to be in a country where we are free to make a choice, even if is because you just like the man. Reagan received a lot of votes because people just liked him as a person. If that alone makes you get in your car and stand in a line to vote, then good for you.

Just please vote.

I just re-read my Daylight Saving Time posts from the past and it is clear I have issues with the stupid time change. And it is stupid. My economics professor son told me once there is a savings. I say “No way, Jose!”  It messes up the workings of my inner clock and that’s all I care about. It takes me almost two weeks to feel normal again. Well, as close to normal as one can feel.

All I know is that it will now get dark earlier until Daylight Saving Time begins again on March 10, 2013, when we spring forward yet again. I find this yearly thing a little monontonous, especially when there are problems associated with this procedure…. My beside alarm clock adjusts itself. Well, my former clock adjusted itself and it is now in a landfill somewhere nearby. It decided to change back an hour on a Wednesday in the middle of October. I woke up an hour later than reality and barely made it to work on time. Damn Daylight Savings Time. I got to school and realized that I only put mascara on one eye. Maybelline hates Daylight Saving Time too, I imagine.

I think the only good thing about Daylight Saving Time is that it is also known to be a time to change the batteries in your smoke detector to make sure they work. The Energizer battery company endorses that, you know. So, you will be reaching and dusting and changing clocks and changing batteries tonight. Life just sucks.

Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa do not observe Daylight Savings Time. These are the smartest people on the face of the earth. There are also 75 countries that do not observe the time change. Again, smart people. The rest of us should rise up against the machine. I have no idea what the hell that means.

Here are my Daylight Saving Time rants. I would write more today, but how many times can one beat a dead horse?  Apparently, I try more than three times. See you in March for my next rant. I am not a happy camper when that one enters the picture.

Peace be with you, Daylight Saving Time people.

Spring Forward into the River   Hello Circadian Dysrhythmia    Go Fly a Kite, Benjamin Franklin

You know, this is all George W. Bush’s fault. Yes, I realize he has enough blame on his plate, but he is the one that changed it to the first Sunday in November. I remember the day well:

On Monday August 8, 2005, then President Bush signed into law an energy bill that extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks beginning in 2007. Since 1986 the United States had observed Daylight Saving Time from the first Sunday in April through the last Sunday in October. The new bill calls for Daylight Saving Time to begin three weeks earlier on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November. Why? Why can’t this madness just end? No, Georgie wanted three more weeks of Daylight Savings Time….so we all could save what? I don’t know.

The mastermind behind Daylight Saving Time is Benjamin Franklin…. inventor, statesman, and someone who played out in lightning storms one time too many. He wanted to save candle burn time. Well, guess what? We now have freaking electricity.

In the end,  I’m not saving a damn thing that I can tell.  I’m wasting. I’m wasting time writing about Daylight Saving Time when I could be doing something more productive……like changing the batteries in my clock or something.

*************************************************************************************************

Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

“When they were passing out brains, you must have thought they said trains, and went for a ride.”

I am certain she told me this more than a hundred times…or maybe twenty, I’m not really sure. I do remember feeling like a stupid train conductor, that’s for sure.

Years later when I informed my mom by phone I was getting a divorce after twenty five years of marriage, and that I was moving out of the house, she replied-

“You know, I thought I raised a smart girl, but you must have been dropped on your head.”

After I hung up on her, I had to laugh. It reminded me back to when I first watched Forrest Gump. He was sitting beside Jenny on the school bus.

“Are you stupid or something?”

“Momma says stupid is as stupid does.”

It made me visualize Momma Gump’s reaction to some of the things my mom had said to me over the years. I’m thinking she would have slapped her. My mom once told me that I would probably study for a blood test. Funny, Mom.

Ok, I am sure we have all done stupid things. Some do more than others…. I don’t know…. I think those are called mistakes. Not all people are stupid. If that was the case, most of the train tracks would still be in use instead of the miles and miles of rails to trails we have across our nation today. So, my question is this-

“Did economics change our use of trains as transportation….or are there not as many stupid people nowadays confusing brains with trains?

I ran across  “Yo momma is so…” jokes this morning that made me think of how my mom would basically call me stupid through different expressions. I wish I had some of these zingers to say back to her over the phone after she told me I was dropped on my head.

“Well, you’re so stupid you think a quarterback is your income tax refund.”

“Well, you’re so stupid you put lipstick on your forehead when you were trying to makeup your mind.”

“Well, you’re so stupid, it took you two hours to watch 60 Minutes.”

“Well, you’re so stupid, you went to the YMCA thinking it was Macy’s.”

“Well, you’re so stupid, you stood inside a Subway restaurant waiting for the next train.”

“Well, you’re so stupid, you think Taco Bell is a Mexican phone company.”

“Well, you’re so stupid you spent an hour looking at the orange juice container because it said,  concentrate.”

(I’m having fun).

“Well, you’re so stupid, you had to burn down the school to get out of third grade.”

“Well, you’re so stupid you got excited because you finished a jigsaw puzzle in 6 months and the box said “2 to 4 years.”

“Well, you’re so stupid you got fired from an M&M factory for throwing away all the W’s.”

Ok, I’m done.

Would I have used any of those to say back to my mom? Probably not.

She would have just said

“Vickie, are you a dumb blonde on purpose or does it just come natural?”

It’s was just easier to hang up on her.

************************************************

Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

 So, on my way to work I have come across a higher than usual deceased creature lying on the road. Don’t they know the “side of the road- good. Road- bad?” Are they stupid? I’m thinking they are stupid.

Now, you have to understand that my mind wanders on the forty minute drive to work and most days I arrive in the parking lot and realize that I don’t remember the drive. I have that much on my mind. But, saying that, I still have time to take a look at the lump in or beside the road. And yesterday, I noticed there were too many of them. Did the population increase because we had a mild winter? If the food source is greater on the other side of the road, why the hell would momma raccoons have their litter across the heavily traveled road? Raccoons are smart little terrorists. I call the terrorists because they liked to terrorize me at my former home. I would feed them, and one night while I was outside, standing beside our pool, one went one way and the other went the other way and cornered me. Sure, they knew I was the food lady, but seeing a blop of red eyes coming from both sides does cause me worry. One night I heard my husband yell and one of the damn raccoons swiped one of his flip flops in his mouth and was heading over the hill to the woods. So, yeah, they are smart. But, yet, there were five dead raccoons on the road yesterday. Yeah, I counted them.

That’s the problem. I try not to look, but my eyes go right to the victim. It’s like I’m playing, “Guess That Dead Creature.” I know I’m not the only one who does it. Well, I stopped yesterday after seeing a poor little squirrel, lying on his back, with his arms up in the air. I knew that he would be squished and unrecognizable on my drive home. Years ago some drunk kids stopped and put an empty beer bottle in a dead ground hogs rigor mortised hands on the side of the road. It was funny, but it was not funny, because, well, I like wildlife. Groundhogs are especially stupid.

Groundhogs may know how to build tunnels and eat enough to sleep all winter, but they have decided that eating stuff right beside a busy road is the way to go. Oh, it is the way to go, for sure. I think groundhogs are the #1 road kill in the United States. Groundhogs are already famous with farmers for not being too smart. That’s why they are also called whistle pigs. Farmer would stand, waiting for the crop destroyer with their rifle, and then would whistle. Groundhogs stand up to see who whistled. And then the farmer pulls the trigger. Poor stupid groundhog.

I hate to tell you this, but there is a law in my state of West Virginia that allows people who hit an animal to take it home to cook it. I cringed when I first read that. I mean, West Virginia gets a bad rap as it is. Hey, I know, let’s add a ridiculously red neck law to make us look even more like country bumpkins. Ugh.

I take that back. Deer are the number 1 roadkill animal in the United States. I’m making that up, maybe. I didn’t look it up. I’m assuming deer because they are on every part of my drive every day. My husband (now ex-husband) hit deer more than seven times on his way to work. He drives like Mr. Magoo, so there is a slight chance that he was not on the road correctly to begin with. He always drifted over to the berm of the road. Stupid driver meets stupid wildlife road crosser. The end result can not be good for either.

Who’s stupider…the opposum, the street painter, or me for using the word, stupider? I’m thinking the street painter.

 I guess my whole point with this post is to remind wildlife to please look both ways before they cross the road. We are still asking

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

It wasn’t intended to be a joke, folks. It was more like,  chickens  asking each other when one of them didn’t come home.

“What the hell was Ruby thinking, crossing the road and all?”

******************************************************************************************************

Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook  that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free.  Have a look see.    My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper, Big Fat Liar

]]> http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/road-kill/feed/ 10 dyingbraincells roadkill :) campfire9 http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-arthritic-cat/ http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-arthritic-cat/#comments Sun, 07 Oct 2012 13:21:08 +0000 Jumping in Mud Puddles http://dyingbraincells.wordpress.com/?p=6894 ]]>

a cat and a Litter box (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My seventeen year old cat, Whiskers, has decided that she doesn’t really care to use the litter box in the same manner that she has done for the previous years. I came home from work and found pee sitting in a puddle, smiling up at me. Well, it wasn’t smiling. Pee can’t smile for God’s sake. No, it was smirking.

Cats should be warned or taught that consistent jumping off of tall buildings will take a toll on their body down the road. Just ask any football player. Whiskers was a freaking acrobat in her early years. She loved hair thingy’s. You know, those coated bands to put your hair back in a ponytail. We would throw them up in the air and Whiskers would jump high in the air, contorting her agile body as she went after it. My mother in law used to save the blue plastic rings off of the milk containers. She absolutely loved those.

Whiskers used to jump on top of the counter and then somehow make it on top of my kitchen cupboards. I don’t know why she decided to head up there. There was nothing up there. But, she got around…. jump jump jump. And now, years later, I’ve got an arthritic cat on my hands. And all of a sudden I’m a cat care giver.

Still practicing

I came home Friday feeling dizzy and had already called for a sub for Monday. When I have bouts of positional vertigo, it stays with me for a few days if not longer, so I just took Monday off just in case. So, I wasn’t excited when I came home to see the pee puddle right in front of the litter box. What the hell? This meant I had to bend over and clean the mess up. I had visions of a couch, a quilt, and a lap top in my plans, not scrubbing my tiled bathroom floor. But, someone had to do it and Whiskers was busy lying in front of the sliding glass doors watching some damn bird pooping on my deck.

I guess I should be thankful that she decided not to poop and then walk in it. I try to think of a worst case scenario to make me feel better. That’s how I roll. I got all of my cleaning stuff and cleaned up the mess. The litter box had already been changed and cleaned the night before, so I know Whiskers was being persnickety about a soiled litter box. So, why the hell did she pee outside the litter box? She did this the last time I flew to New York City in August to see my daughter. I only stayed two nights and got back to a pee puddle smiling at me. But, the box was not cleaned and Whiskers was probably pissed at me for leaving. Cats get pissed you know.

After I cleaned up the mess, I began googling my cat is peeing beside the litter box to see if I had any company. I had plenty. Then I went with a more specific google search term: arthritic cat peeing outside the litter box.  After the third and fourth time Whiskers peed outside the litter box, I actually wanted to search: goddamn cat pissing on the floor. So, I found out arthritic cats may not squat or put their paws on the lid of the litter box if they are hurting. Great. She already stopped grooming herself on her back where it must be hard to get to as an elderly cat, and mats of her pretty tortoise shelled fur look….gross.

I went on to read solutions. The box lid may be too high….hmmmm, could be true. So I googled and looked at images of homemade kitty litter boxes for arthritic cats. I saw two words that I understood…Rubbermaid and hand saw. Ok, that was three words. So, off to Walmart I went. I came home with another type of kitty litter box that had high sides. I bought some kind of saw that looked like a long file. It was pretty worthless. I do have a pretty Angry Birds band-aid on my finger when the saw slipped. I used a knife from my knife drawer and am lucky I didn’t stab myself in the stomach. How the hell would a detective make a ruling on that one?

 ”The victim, approximately 55 years old, but looking 40 (he would say that), was found lying in front of her front door with various knives, a saw and a plastic container. She had a knife sticking out of her stomach. Written in blood on the kitchen tile beside the body was the word, “Figures.”

After I placed the new kitty litter box beside the old one in my bathroom (no where else to put it), I put a doggy training pad I purchased at Walmart in front of the litter box because I was not going to clean up a pee puddle again. Doggy training pads look like a flat opened diaper. And then I waited. I kept watching Whiskers and knew that her internal clock knew it was 8:00pm and for some reason that is her bed time. I followed her up the stairs to see if she would like her new kitty litter box. Sure the edges are jagged and maybe the opening is a bit narrow, but she may like it.

Whiskers went right to the new litter box and stepped in. Yay! Oh wait. No yay. I hurried to turn her around. She meowed at me and then peed in the corner. I clapped like a mom whose child first used the big boy potty. What a loon. So, I determined that Whiskers was not just peeing beside the litter box. She was actually stepping into it but no turning around. Thus, her aim…or lack of aim, made the pee go on the outside of the box. Great. I would just hope that Whiskers would remember that for seventeen years she turned around to use the litter box and she would do the same again since I scooted her around for her to do her business.

No such luck. I got up in the middle of the night and the doggy training pad was wet. I replaced it and this morning it was peed on again. Those damn doggy training pads are $13.97 for 40, which means if she pees or poops (oh dear god I didn’t think about the poop) I will have to buy those suckers every ten days for the rest of her life. Great.

In the end, this means that I can not leave her overnight. I can’t go to New York to visit my daughter for even two nights. I’m afraid she will just pee on the pad, and if I am not there to change it, it will a freaking mess by the time I get back. I’m in quite a pickle as to what to do.

I love Whiskers and I really don’t know how long she has. Seventeen is really old. But, she is such a great companion and I really shouldn’t complain. I guess this is what elder care is all about…in one way or another.

I just don’t like smirking pee puddles. No one does.