Was I deaf or dumb?

On my drive home this evening I was listening to my favorite afternoon Sirius radio show...Whatever with Alexis and Jennifer. They were talking about an offensive statement that made me chuckle.

The phrase was "Jew him down". The phrase itself didn't make me chuckle...it was the memory associated with it. When I was little we got most of our furniture and appliances at a local store ran by a man known as Pothead. He was not a gentleman who walked around in a marijuana haze nor do I remember his head looking like a pot so I'm not sure where the name came. Whatever...that's not what made me chuckle either.

Every time we went there to buy something it turned into what seemed like an hours long process. Pothead and my daddy negotiated back and forth, back and forth until they finally settled on a price that made Daddy happy. One time we walked out with a new color TV and a stuffed hawk to sit on top of it. I...am...not...kidding. As a final bid my father agreed to the price only if Pothead threw in the bird.

Daddy always said he was going to "Jew Pothead down". Never having heard the word Jew I associated it with a word I did know. In my little, sheltered, hillbilly world he said he was going to "chew Pothead down". I had no idea what chewing had to do with the process but I did know all the chewing resulted in the best price.

That jogged my memory to all sorts of things I heard incorrectly when I was a kid. I was always replacing unfamiliar words with familiar words. I was some sort of weird vocabulary savant!

For instance, once when watching Gilligan's Island I was very confused because the castaways were scared of sammwiches (sandwiches for you uppity folks). Why would a bunch of people (including millionaires) marooned on an island would be afraid of a sammwich. Were they crazy??? Sometime later I realized they were afraid of savages. Oh hell...I was a kid growing up in the Appalachian Mountains! We had hill people, crazy people, drunks, and half wits but we had no savages.

Honest mistake, right? There's more...

My mother used to take quick baths in the sink every now and then. She would say, "I'm just going to take a horse bath". Nope that's not what she said but it's what I heard. She was saying "whore's bath". I was 5 years old. I had no idea what a whore was (Miss Kitty ring a bell?) or how it took a bath but I knew what a horse was and had seen the guys on Bonanza washing their horses down using buckets of water. Made sense to me that my mother took a horse bath every once in a while!!

One more...

As a child I became fixated on a song I had heard about boys named Peter. Sang it all the time but sang it at a volume of 10+ everytime The Brady Bunch came on the TV. I mean I would really belt it out....

"It was a one eyed, one horned, flyin' purple Peter eater

One eyed, one horned, flyin' purple Peter eater

A one eyed, one horned, flyin' purple Peter eater

Sure looks strange to me."

What the fuck??

You see in my childish world, I thought there was a one eyed, one horned monster that flew around and ate little boys named Peter. I sang it in honor of Peter Brady everytime the Brady Bunch came on. One day my mother yelled at me and told me to stop singing it because it wasn't nice. She didn't explain to me that peter was another name for a pecker, whacker, or dildy...which were the anatomically incorrect names we used for penis.

My goodness...I thought I was serending Peter about his possible troubles with a one eyed, one horned monster that would gobble him up when I was basically singing about a horny cyclops that ate dick. I had no choice but to grow up to become a twisted adult!!!

So was I deaf or was I dumb? I prefer to think that I was imaginative. I mean it takes an imagination to envision a bunch of Peters running around on a deserted island trying to chew down a bunch of ham sammwiches, don't you think?

Chick out...

All good things come to an end...

I had to say goodbye to an old "friend" this weekend. It was a very, very emotional moment. Let me tell you about it.

About 7 years ago I was lucky enough to find this friend. Day in and day out this special friend was always there for me. Never have I experienced so much comfort and warmth in a friendship. Well I guess friendship really doesn’t describe what we had. We were really closer than that.

This friend saw all my emotions….was there for me when I was sad, virtually glowed when I was happy, saw me naked (yikes!!). We were more like "friends with benefits". You get the picture...

Although we were close my part of the friendship was more taxing. It was co-dependent…I was the caretaker and depended upon for everything. The friendship had begun to wear thin and my friend became fragile. I tried to take care but then it came to an end this weekend.

We were in curled up in bed draped in warmth and comfort. It felt soooo good. I decided it was time for me to get up so I stretched out…and all the love and concern I had fostered for long ended. I knew my friend was fragile but I wasn’t aware of just how fragile. When I stretched my damned foot went right through my friend. No…it didn’t physically hurt friend. You see my friend was my favorite set of sheets. Yeah…I stretched out and my foot went straight through my fitted sheet.

DAMN IT!!!!

I have so many sets of sheets but none of them were as soft and comfortable as these. I took them off every Saturday morning, washed and dried them, and put them back on the bed. The pillowcases were getting a tiny bit frayed then a couple small holes appeared in the top sheet. Oh Lord…I knew the end was near!!

I had babied these sheets for the last year. I started to wash them on the gentle cycle. I removed them and put them on very gently. They were basically in a sort of hospice for sheets.

The morning they ripped I actually looked at them and considered stitching the rip. Then I said out loud, “What the hell?? This is not the Great Depression!!! Throw ‘em away!!!”

I removed them from the bed for the last time. It was a sad moment as I rolled them into a ball and shoved them into the garbage.

All good things come to an end…even sheets.

Chick out…*sniff sniff*

hello...........................

Holy hell!!!!!

Look at the cobwebs in this place. Single gal has been gone for a while but she's coming back. First I have to clean this nasty, damned mess up!!!!

Chick out...

Girl, you are crazy!

I just went to pee and realized that I have my panties on inside-out and backwards!

It’s been one of “them days”. Hell, it’s been one of “them weeks”!!!!

Chick out…

Breathing Fire!!

I’ve had a rough week. I’m still getting over the passing of my dear, sweet pup and, on top of that, work is crazy now. Today I needed a break...and a drink….so out to lunch I went with my primary work husband. He chose the place so we went to a bar that used to be a bar that was a bar before that and so on and so forth.

Neither of us had been to this bar so it was a new experience. The goddess of food and drink was not with me as I ordered. I went with my standard drink of vodka tonic. It had maybe a tablespoon of vodka in it. Bastards! Bad sign or omen?? Hmmmm...

Then I ordered some sort of buffalo chicken sandwich. It looked so, so good. Even when the waitress put the plate in front of me it looked delicious. I noticed that she had forgotten my blue cheese dressing for the sandwich. Oh well, I said, that will be okay. Then I took a bite. OH MY GOD!! I thought I would die. It was hot. Okay it wasn’t really hot…it was fucking hot!!

My eyes bugged out of head and my dear work husband ran to the waitress and told her to bring me the blue cheese dressing. Oh shit…I really needed a fire extinguisher. At this point, I was glad that the drink had very little vodka in it because I could have possibly turned into a human flame thrower.

I made it through about half the sandwich then gave up. Blue cheese dressing or not this thing was brutal. Never have I had such hot food before in all my life. Next time I’m going to follow his lead and order the Carolina-style pulled pork. Believe me…I tasted it and it tasted about as Carolina as Nebraska but at least it wasn’t flammable.

I’m not a wimp to spice but I don’t like to be in pain when I eat. As we were gathering up our things to leave I turned to him and said, “My goodness!!! My mouth feels like I just gave the devil a blow job!”

Chick out…

Goodbye My Handsome Boy

Today I said goodbye to one of my best friends. His name was Pepper but I commonly called him “Handsome”. I knew that he had way more days behind them than he had in front of him...I just didn't know the end was so near.

He was my dear, sweet, handsome pup for 17 years. For the past year or so I’ve had to lift him into bed and he’d been a bit more careful when going up and down the steps. He wasn’t as steady on his feet anymore. He had lost most of his hearing.

From the time I left for work yesterday morning until I came home last night something drastic had happened. He wasn’t himself…he was confused and he wouldn’t eat. I stayed up with him all night and napped on the couch while he curled up behind my legs and slept like he was exhausted.

This morning I got up hoping that he would be okay but he wasn’t. He had problems standing and when I saw him trying to get a drink out of the water bowl and miss the bowl over and over again I knew that he had started his journey home.

I was able to get an appointment with his vet for this morning. I called at 6:30 and his appointment was at 9:40. I microwaved him 2 slices of bacon, which was his favorite food in the world. He gobbled down about 1 slice and had problems with that. Then I held him for the almost 3 hours until I had to take him in.

After we arrived at the animal hospital, the vet examined him and did some blood tests. Everything looked pretty normal but he was broken. She said that his problems appeared neurological.

I told her that it was time and she knew what I meant. She took him out of the room and put an IV line in. A vet tech brought him back and told me I was making the right choice. Then we were left alone for a few minutes.

I told him that I loved him

I thanked him for being a good friend and for being there for me for so many years.

I told him that I would miss him.

I told him that I wished I could fix him but I couldn’t.

I told him this was the best gift I could give him because I didn’t want him to suffer.

Then the vet came in and gave him his injection while I wrapped my arms around him and cried.

I told him goodbye and he slipped away.

Now I miss him and I will for the rest of my life.

Today the single gal’s heart broke but I know it will heal. I have 17 years worth of fond puppy memories to get me through it.

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is the birthday of the woman whom I call Mommy. Yes, I’m almost 42 years old and I still call my mother Mommy…get over it.

Allow me to introduce you to her….

She grew up in a holler just like Loretta Lynn and had to walk 2 miles to school…no joke!

She was born at home and weighed with chicken scales. Can we say hillbilly??

She met my daddy when she was dating his best friend. Yep, he stole her away from his best pal.

She was a secretary until I was born. This is back when secretaries still fetched coffee, wore skirts and heels and smoked at their desks.

She is the woman who brought me into the world and the one who can take me out of it and I know it.

She fought my natural curls for years then one day gave up and had my head sheared like a sheep.

She taught me to love books. Oh how I love books!!!

She urged to me follow my dreams. My dreams weren’t her dreams for me but she still urged me on.

She used to turn out all the lights at night and yell “Bloody bones!!!!” I would let loose a blood curdling scream then beg her to do it again.

She wore my ass out many times with a switch for misbehaving but was the first to give me a hug when I did well.

She taught me how to drive and never laughed at me when I wrecked the driver’s ed car.

She helped hold me together when my father was dying and I returned the favor when he passed away and she fell apart.

She’s wrecked 3 times in the past 4 years. She hit her house twice and her van with her truck once. All accidents happened in her driveway. I make fun of her for this…daily!

She used to paint Mrs. Butterworth syrup bottles and made hats for them.

She once dropped a 2L bottle of Pepsi then immediately opened it. She had to mop the floors and wash the walls of two rooms.

She tells me that neither of her children are her favorite but I know the truth. She loves me more…really she does!

She used to sew the most fashionable polyester outfits for me.

She asks me every time I talk to her if I have a cold…EVERY SINGLE TIME!

She has as crush on Simon Baker, star of The Mentalist.

She is addicted to her laptop.

She had the birds and bees talk with me when I was about thirteen. She told me to “keep my knees together and my skirt down” and that was it.

She told me that it wasn’t the end of the world when I failed Organic Chemistry in college. She was right…I’ve been a chemist for almost 20 years now.

She is the woman who my nephew calls by her first name and has for over 20 years now.

She makes the best biscuits and gravy in the world.

She can never remember the name of any movie…ever!

She is a Facebook voyeur.

She has no idea my blog exists because she would die of a heart attack if she read some of the things I write.

And finally….today is her birthday and I love her.

Chick out…