I think the most exciting thing I've done in the past few weeks is to get my flu shot. I felt like I should be standing in a huge auditorium, wearing my uniform, and standing in line with others from my work place, waiting to get a mandatory flu shot.
I hated flu shots.
Well, the shot itself isn't that bad, really. It doesn't hurt at all. No big deal. No, I hated that it was mandatory.
I also hated mandatory meetings.
Something about me hates being told I must do a thing. I feel like, "No, I don't! Dang it!" But then I have this very strong rule following personality, so I end up doing things like getting flu shots.
Now I can do it if I want to do it, so I do. I'm older, I have a compromised immune system, and I'm prone to infections. I don't want the flu. I need the pneumonia shot, too, but the pharmacy here in the town of 10 people didn't have it available when I got the flu shot.
Erma and Ambrose and Jethro got theirs, too. We got actual thank you cards from the pharmacy. Erma and Ambrose have theirs on the refrigerator.
So.
I don't have a lot on my mind today, other than some pretty heavy thoughts that I don't want to share here.
No, it's not that I'm suicidal or truly very depressed, but I worry about my family.
I've been out of the Air Force for many, many years, but I miss it so much sometimes. I think Jethro misses the Army a lot, too, at times. Some people that come into contact with me, especially, are so condescending. I will think, "I was in charge of millions of dollars worth of equipment, and was the supervisor over 14 airmen. I trained tons of people when I was the training NCO at various bases I was assigned to. I've raised 4 kids by myself, and I know how to run a household. I know how to pay a bill."
I keep quiet, though.
I will stand up for my kids, but it takes a lot to make me actually stand up for myself sometimes. I wonder why that is... Heck, sometimes I get angry when one of my kids says something mean to another, and one tattles and then I feel like I have to deal with the crap going on. But if they said something about me, I would probably just cry, or tell Erma about it.
And complain a lot, until it was out of my system.
I'm going to be Erma's advocate in the labor and delivery area. "Don't you put that epidural in her back, dang it!" She figures I've gone through 4 kids with no pain killers, no epidurals, and she watched one of her friends deliver very quickly with nothing. To be honest, I wanted pain killers, because darn it, that labor stuff hurts! However, all of my labors went so fast that I was already past the time for pain killers by the time they said, "Do you need something for the pain? Oh, oops! You're at 8 centimeters! Too late! It's almost time to push!"
I hope Erma goes that fast, too.
It's much, much better and faster without an epidural.
So anyway, I'm rambling.
It's what I do best!
I really want that Dragon software, that is the speech to text program a lot of people use. It's really good, I've read. My hands get so sore and swollen, that sometimes I can't type at all. There are times, guys, that I can't lift up my blankets. My hands hurt too much. It's muscle pain, not in the fingers or joints. My muscles hurt so badly! It used to happen maybe once a month, so I thought maybe, just maybe, it was somehow connected to the female innard parts I still have left inside me. Like, something with my cycle, except that my uterus is gone, so it's not really like a cycle. Anyway, that's the technical side of things, I suppose. Innards, I am sure, is a word most surgeons use all the time.
Now, though, the pain happens more, and my hands swell up and stay swollen longer than they used to. Even now, my hands are falling asleep as I type. Changing positions doesn't help. I drop things all the time. I've gone through more coffee cups than you can imagine. Good thing I bought them at the thrift store, huh?
Speaking of that, our favorite thrift store up and closed!!! We were so disappointed. I don't understand how it happened, though I can imagine the new manager ran it into the ground. She was not very good, I can tell you that.
I need to find another, closer one. There is a Habitat for Humanity resale store here, which is cool.
I don't think they have clothes or coffee cups there, though.
About a year ago, Jethro bought me a rocking chair at the thrift store. It has a back that is something like woven bamboo, and several kids couldn't resist putting their fingers into the holes, and now the bamboo is torn. I just cut out a piece of cardboard to fit the back, and I want to cover it with a pillow that I'm making from material that was Mom's. However, I don't know how to work her old sewing machines, my hands hurt too much to sew with needle, and though I have stitch witchery, I don't have an iron! So, for now, I just have a broken rocker, but I'm using it anyway, dang it.
It's really kind of funny... in the box of material I have, there are three pieces of cloth that match my rocker's seat, which is made of oranges, browns, and tans. It's almost like a gift from Mom. "Here, honey! These match your chair!" I can almost hear her. In the box, too, were two baby dresses and a couple baby boy outfits. Those were like a gift to Erma. If she has a girl, she can use those dresses, if she has a boy, then he can use them, too, though that'd be weird. Hee hee!
No, perhaps Jethro will have a boy. Anyway, the clothes were a neat item to find.
A present from Grandma to the kids, you know?
Yes, I talk about her here a lot, I know. I hate that others have moved on and seem to have forgotten about her. Logically, I know that's not true. But heartwise? Well, I still hurt. I still miss her, terribly. I can't move on. Not yet. I don't want to forget her. I have her pictures all around me. In front of me on the desk, on my shelves, and on my bulletin board. I don't talk to her or anything, but I do think about her, and wish she were still here.
She'd have come when I had pneumonia. She'd have gone to my brother, who just spent six days in the hospital. She'd have written to Lampshade, called my oldest nephew, and sewed baby clothes for Erma. She loved us so and she showed it.
A part of me died when she died.
A part of me still wants to wail with the pain inside.
I deal with it by silliness and laughter.
Plus, I figure if I suddenly started wailing, I'd probably scare Ambrose and it would make Erma slap me and call the loony bin to have me admitted.
Dads love in completely different ways than Moms love, I know. So it's hard to lose a mom who loved me so much. I also know that death is a part of us, a part of life, really, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Even if I don't accept it, it doesn't mean that it won't happen, even to me.
People say things like, "You'll be fine. Time heals the wounds. You have to go on. I understand how you feel." It doesn't help, not at all. Time isn't healing me. Oh, I don't cry as often as I did when she first died, but I do cry. I touch something that she touched, and I cry. I touch one of her books, that still has her bookmark in place, and I cry. I remember her in her hospital bed, and I remember her in her casket, and I cry.
I like to keep this journal rather light-hearted, but sometimes I simply can't do that. It's a journal. I share it with all of you, but it's still a journal of my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes, my thoughts and feelings are sad.
It's how it is.
In other news, I made some fruit salad today. You take bananas, grapes, blueberries, and strawberries, and mix them together with a box of instant vanilla pudding. Ambrose got the sugar free, fat free kind of pudding, and I'm not sure it's working correctly. It's supposed to help mix with the juices of the fruit as they sit in the fridge, but this pudding mostly stuck to the fruit. It tastes good, but it's not what it's supposed to be.
Hey, what is, right? Nothing is what it's supposed to be, is it?
Oh, my gosh, my tooth hurts!
I just bit on something, forgetting about a cavity, and OUCH!
Well, I'm going to watch some television or read something, maybe both.
Go in peace, be warm and filled.
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
And in other exciting news...
Or not, depending on whether or not you have no life, like me, and the littlest things excite you.
Oh, man, I have no life.
No, seriously. The other day, I received a disk in from Netflix. This was not a huge surprise, since I'm a member of Netflix and I get disks in the mail from them all the time. (want to save money on your cable bill? Get the cheapest and fastest internet you can find. We use Virgin Mobile to go, which isn't great, and it's not that fast, but it costs me 40 dollars a month for unlimited service. It goes down quite a bit, it's slower than cable, but it's cheaper, too, and you get what you paid for. Then get a subscription to Netflix. Any will do, one disk out at a time, or three, because you want to be able to view the movies online, and get the disks in, too, for those days when the internet isn't working at all-- and then get a monthly subscription to Hulu. Or, drop Netflix and just use Hulu, which is 7.99 a month. Yes, there are disadvantages. Yes, you can probably find stuff with no commercials or illegal stuff around the internet that's much cheaper or free, but I'm talking of legal things to do here to fill your television cravings. My cable bill, with internet and television used to run me around 150 or more a month, depending on whether or not a teenaged son o' mine rented porn. Now I pay around 60 bucks, and I still have the internet, and all the television shows my little heart desires. Hulu is wonderful, and you can watch shows for free, without the monthly cost, but for the small amount, you can get all the new shows, and you can also put those shows on your Ipods or Iphones, etc. Not on the Zune, like I own, but there are ways around that.)
(Which is another story for another time.)
Anyway, where was I???
You see, this is why I lose things like, oh my debit card.
I start doing one thing, like putting my debit card into my wallet, and I end up obsessed with hulu dot com, and then, forget where I actually put the debit card.
(That was a true story, by the way. I really need to find that card!)
Where was I? Oh! The disk.
I got in the first Barry Manilow television specials disk, from his shows that he performed in the late 1970's. You see, I remember the first time I heard a Manilow song. I'd received a little transistor radio for Christmas one year, and late at night, I'd listen to music on that one little ear phone. One night, I turned the little dial and randomly landed on a radio station that was playing his song, Mandy. In my head, I pictured this dark haired dude with a bushy beard and long hair singing this song (It was the 70's! That says it all if you were there), and was rather surprised when I saw how Mr. Manilow looked in real life, because he's tall and blond, and clean shaven. But the song amazed me. It was simple, yet powerful, with its swelling choruses and key changes and the lyrics...oh, the lyrics...
I remember all my life
Raining down as cold as ice
A shadow of a man
A face through a window
Crying in the night
The night goes into
Morning, just another day
Happy people pass my way
Looking in their eyes
I see a memory
I never realized
you made me so happy, oh Mandy
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
I need you today, oh Mandy
I'm standing on the edge of time
I Walked away when love was mine
Caught up in a world of uphill climbing
The tears are in my mind
And nothing is rhyming, oh Mandy
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy
Yesterday's a dream I face the morning
Crying on the breeze
the pain is calling, oh Mandy
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy
Well, they appealed to this 12 year old girl, and they appeal to bajillions and trillions of other women, all over the world.
Anyway, I was watching this disk, and ignoring the laughter and teasing from Mr. Clean and Saige, and it brought back memories for me. I remembered this show. I remembered watching it with Mom, in our living room, and then I remembered that she and I watched several musical special like this, including some by John Denver (whom she liked a lot), the Barry Manilow specials, as well as one by Mac Davis, starring Miss Piggy from the Muppets. (I'm pretty sure it was Mac Davis, and it was a Christmas Special, too, because Miss Piggy sang the line, "Five golden RINGS!" with gusto on the Partridge in a Pear Tree song. Although now, after looking it up online, I think that it was a John Denver Xmas special that had Miss Piggy singing, but, no matter.)
What is important is remembering how Mom laughed and enjoyed so many of these specials. She could not carry a tune, people. Not a bit. Remember the saying, "He can't carry a tune in a bucket?" Yeah, well, Mom didn't even have a bucket. You know the saying that claims white people have no rhythm? Someone came up with that after seeing mom trying to clap along to a song or chorus. Bless her heart, she loved music so much, and she could hear when a note was wrong, and in her head she could sing, but there was a breakdown between head and mouth that was so sad in so many ways. I used to try to teach her how to sing, because I had a theory if she would just bring up some of that air from her diaphragm and actually TRY, she'd be able to sing, but though she'd gamely go along with me, we'd always end up in giggles, and Mom still couldn't sing on key.
Apparently when she was very small, attending a one room school in the town she lived in with her grandparents, the children were going to sing a little concert or show. The teacher told my mom to stop singing and just mouth the words because her voice was so bad, and I honestly believed, and still do, that those words put some kind of mental block in my mom's brain. Some people can sing loudly, and be completely off key, but mom's voice was different than that. She would sing quietly and breathily, as if she were ashamed, if she were in church or letting me "help" her. But I can also remember her singing lullabies to my brothers and sisters when they were infants, rocking them, touching their hair, and singing with so much love that the shame was erased.
So, I watched the disk, relieved some memories, cracked up at the styles worn back then, listened to some of the songs, and then sent the disk back.
I was in a great mood, but that's been switched off by some crap going on around here--that's been going on since yesterday morning. Now I'm too furious and upset to write any more.
Later.
Oh, man, I have no life.
No, seriously. The other day, I received a disk in from Netflix. This was not a huge surprise, since I'm a member of Netflix and I get disks in the mail from them all the time. (want to save money on your cable bill? Get the cheapest and fastest internet you can find. We use Virgin Mobile to go, which isn't great, and it's not that fast, but it costs me 40 dollars a month for unlimited service. It goes down quite a bit, it's slower than cable, but it's cheaper, too, and you get what you paid for. Then get a subscription to Netflix. Any will do, one disk out at a time, or three, because you want to be able to view the movies online, and get the disks in, too, for those days when the internet isn't working at all-- and then get a monthly subscription to Hulu. Or, drop Netflix and just use Hulu, which is 7.99 a month. Yes, there are disadvantages. Yes, you can probably find stuff with no commercials or illegal stuff around the internet that's much cheaper or free, but I'm talking of legal things to do here to fill your television cravings. My cable bill, with internet and television used to run me around 150 or more a month, depending on whether or not a teenaged son o' mine rented porn. Now I pay around 60 bucks, and I still have the internet, and all the television shows my little heart desires. Hulu is wonderful, and you can watch shows for free, without the monthly cost, but for the small amount, you can get all the new shows, and you can also put those shows on your Ipods or Iphones, etc. Not on the Zune, like I own, but there are ways around that.)
(Which is another story for another time.)
Anyway, where was I???
You see, this is why I lose things like, oh my debit card.
I start doing one thing, like putting my debit card into my wallet, and I end up obsessed with hulu dot com, and then, forget where I actually put the debit card.
(That was a true story, by the way. I really need to find that card!)
Where was I? Oh! The disk.
I got in the first Barry Manilow television specials disk, from his shows that he performed in the late 1970's. You see, I remember the first time I heard a Manilow song. I'd received a little transistor radio for Christmas one year, and late at night, I'd listen to music on that one little ear phone. One night, I turned the little dial and randomly landed on a radio station that was playing his song, Mandy. In my head, I pictured this dark haired dude with a bushy beard and long hair singing this song (It was the 70's! That says it all if you were there), and was rather surprised when I saw how Mr. Manilow looked in real life, because he's tall and blond, and clean shaven. But the song amazed me. It was simple, yet powerful, with its swelling choruses and key changes and the lyrics...oh, the lyrics...
I remember all my life
Raining down as cold as ice
A shadow of a man
A face through a window
Crying in the night
The night goes into
Morning, just another day
Happy people pass my way
Looking in their eyes
I see a memory
I never realized
you made me so happy, oh Mandy
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
I need you today, oh Mandy
I'm standing on the edge of time
I Walked away when love was mine
Caught up in a world of uphill climbing
The tears are in my mind
And nothing is rhyming, oh Mandy
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy
Yesterday's a dream I face the morning
Crying on the breeze
the pain is calling, oh Mandy
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy
Well, they appealed to this 12 year old girl, and they appeal to bajillions and trillions of other women, all over the world.
Anyway, I was watching this disk, and ignoring the laughter and teasing from Mr. Clean and Saige, and it brought back memories for me. I remembered this show. I remembered watching it with Mom, in our living room, and then I remembered that she and I watched several musical special like this, including some by John Denver (whom she liked a lot), the Barry Manilow specials, as well as one by Mac Davis, starring Miss Piggy from the Muppets. (I'm pretty sure it was Mac Davis, and it was a Christmas Special, too, because Miss Piggy sang the line, "Five golden RINGS!" with gusto on the Partridge in a Pear Tree song. Although now, after looking it up online, I think that it was a John Denver Xmas special that had Miss Piggy singing, but, no matter.)
What is important is remembering how Mom laughed and enjoyed so many of these specials. She could not carry a tune, people. Not a bit. Remember the saying, "He can't carry a tune in a bucket?" Yeah, well, Mom didn't even have a bucket. You know the saying that claims white people have no rhythm? Someone came up with that after seeing mom trying to clap along to a song or chorus. Bless her heart, she loved music so much, and she could hear when a note was wrong, and in her head she could sing, but there was a breakdown between head and mouth that was so sad in so many ways. I used to try to teach her how to sing, because I had a theory if she would just bring up some of that air from her diaphragm and actually TRY, she'd be able to sing, but though she'd gamely go along with me, we'd always end up in giggles, and Mom still couldn't sing on key.
Apparently when she was very small, attending a one room school in the town she lived in with her grandparents, the children were going to sing a little concert or show. The teacher told my mom to stop singing and just mouth the words because her voice was so bad, and I honestly believed, and still do, that those words put some kind of mental block in my mom's brain. Some people can sing loudly, and be completely off key, but mom's voice was different than that. She would sing quietly and breathily, as if she were ashamed, if she were in church or letting me "help" her. But I can also remember her singing lullabies to my brothers and sisters when they were infants, rocking them, touching their hair, and singing with so much love that the shame was erased.
So, I watched the disk, relieved some memories, cracked up at the styles worn back then, listened to some of the songs, and then sent the disk back.
I was in a great mood, but that's been switched off by some crap going on around here--that's been going on since yesterday morning. Now I'm too furious and upset to write any more.
Later.
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