The road to (my) low self esteem is paved with good intentions...and fat pants.

Good morning!

The fact that I work seven minutes from my parents' house has, in the last few years, been a source of mild annoyance and awkward hilarity for me.  My mother finds the oddest reasons to drop in to my place of business and, in the course of a conversation, will forget that we're in my place of business.  She has no problem discussing, out loud, in my office, in front of NBM with his bat-like hearing about her various issues, including gas and bowel movements.  She's brought up tender topics like my own approaching menopause and always, always, always this new health thing or that to battle my life long war against my weight.

I've always blushed easily, so to say these visits leave me red faced is really not a big deal.  Still, hey, I bet no one else has their parents drop in at their work and talk about hemeroids.  Right?

Well, this week I believe my parents hit an all time high water mark for uncomfortable visits to my office.  And honestly, I'm sure they meant it in the best possible light...but given the fact that my mother has always been a size 4-6 where I've been shopping on the plus side of the aisle for more than fifteen years, this was a stinger.

You're the only one
big enough for these pants...and no more
wire hangers.

See, here's what went down:

My grandmother lives in a very nice old people's home where they play bingo and win little prizes.  I'm not sure what grand prize bingo tourney g-ma won, but the prize was a plus size pair of women's sweat pants...in turquoise.  

My grandmother used to be a sturdy woman.  I take after her and my aunt that way.  Old age  (She's 97) has taken its toll and she's shrunk a bit as old women will.  She's no longer that sturdy of a woman.  "She still thinks she's this big," says my mother, "but she's much smaller."

At this point, my mother is holding the sweat pants up...while standing in my office...and I know all too well just where this is going.  But I'm a good daughter.  I have to wait for the boom.

"So I tried them on, and they are way too large for me."  She says, a smile on her face.

At this point my face is so hot I can feel the make up sliding down my neck.

"So I figured they'd fit you just fine.  You know, for when you're writing."

She hands me that rolled up wad of soft material and I take it.

"See, hold it up...look, they'll be just fine on you."

Did I mention NGTJ and PM are both witnessing this?  Thank heavens NBM, who is a health nut and will, on ocassion, express enthusiasm when NGTJ and I talk about diet and exercise.  (He's nothing like my old Evil Bossman, though, so I give him points for that.)  

Yes, my coworkers are witnessing my mother and father standing there, handing me these massive sweat pants, and talking about how all the females in my family tried them on and decided I alone was large enough to wear them.

Earlier in the day PM, who had a fairly lousy week, expressed the desire to shoot himself.  When parents left (but NOT until after they then launched into all the gory details of my father's upcoming cataract surgery...the perfect diet plan.  Have a parent give details of an upcoming procedure.  You'll never want to eat again.)  I asked him if he did, indeed have a firearm with him, because I, too, wanted to shoot myself.

Peaches' boyfriend, a very sweet boy who is funny and awkward and fits in around here pretty well, heard this story and made me feel a bit better:  "I'm sure she meant it in a nice way, though, right?"

She probably did.  

And, curse it all, they are comfortable pants.

Yes, I'm wearing them right now.

Shoot me.

Strangling myself on a door handle wasn't even CLOSE to the dumbest thing I did this week!

Good afternoon!

This really should be a "Five for Friday" BUT since it's SUNDAY and I can really only think of four things...it's not.

This past week seemed to be, for me, a series of really, wildly unfortunate events, or just terrible choices.  So instead of burying a week of embarrassing, frustrating, and down right goofy moments of my life, what does a good blogger do?  A good blogger blogs!

Sooo, enjoy!


Yes, I can be taken down with a necklace and a door handle.

My grandmother was a big fan of the long necklace and I wear one of hers all the time.  It's not a precious antique or anything like that.  It's just really, really long string of odd shaped pearl-like beads.  I wear it looped twice around my neck, so that one loop is right up at my throat and the other dangles almost to my waist.

One of the things I do at work each day is, at the end of the day, go to the shop and make sure the two back doors are closed and locked.  It's not a difficult thing to do and 99% of the time the doors are closed and locked.  But I do it because in those last five minutes of the day I try and do as much as I can AWAY from my desk so I don't get that last minute phone call that puts me at my desk past quitting time.

This past week I was wearing my double looped necklace while doing this. Now I've worn this necklace to work a million times, without injury, but on this day, on this one day, the bottom look of the necklace caught on the door handle while I was opening and closing the door and checking the lock.  I did not notice it so when I turned to check the other door, I couldn't move and, thanks to the fact that I at first had no idea what was going on, the upper loop of the necklace instantly strangled me.

You'll be happy to know the necklace is in tact, the doors are locked.  As for oxygen loss to my brain, well, who will notice, really?  (Especially after you read the rest of this list.)

And if the necklace and door handle can't finish the job, French fries might.

For quite some time now I've not eaten French fries.  I used to LOVE THEM, but as I age, I find they don't really agree with my digestive tract all that much and, frankly, since I have to limit my caloric intake more and more with each passing year, I'd rather not eat something that doesn't make me happy anymore.

Last week, however, I had a craving for Culver's French Fries, extra crispy.  (If you go to Culvers, you can order them "extra crispy" and they have to double deep fry them.  MMMMmmmmmmmm.)  So I got a small order at lunch and ate them in the parking lot where I eat lunch and take naps along with about a half dozen other office drones from other businesses.  (We don't speak, we nod to each other from our cars and everyone keeps their radio volumes down.)

I then decided to forgo the nap and instead clean out the rubbish from my car.  Somewhere in the up and down motion of cleaning the floor of my car, my body said, "Well if you're just going to toss your stomach contents around, then you may as well have them back."

Yep, I blew chunks in the Culvers parking lot.  More specifically, I blew French fries in the Culvers parking lot.  Unfortunately, it was the same day Peaches and Skippy came down with some sort of stomach bug, so for a brief bit I thought I was actually sick.  But...no...it was just my fat old body telling me that 1)  We are done with the French fries and 2) physical activity immediately after eating is never a good idea.

Oh I'm sorry...I thought the express lane was for 15 ITEMS or less...not three items and your endless personal and financial issues.

Immediately after said barfing episode, I got a text from Peaches requesting white soda and crackers for her stomach ailment.  Since I wanted to distance myself from my soiled parking space, I ran over to the local Pick and Save  (and we all know how I feel about that store) for TWO THINGS!  TWO THINGS!

I figured, two things, and the express lane only has three people in it, I'll be in and out quickly.

WRONG. I chose...poorly.  See, the first woman in line had about 30 items...and was trying to redeem a cash reward from her store card before the reward expired.  (That would be...on that very day.)  She was arguing with the clerk about the amount of the reward. 

The next woman behind her only had two items.  And seven coupons.  And she also, wanted to redeem her cash reward from her store card...again, because those rewards were expiring.  SHE argued with the clerk about how many of her coupons she could use.  (again, this is in the EXPRESS LANE.)

The gent directly in front of me had 8 items.  I counted them because I had so much TIME in line.  He had a store card, which he had out and ready and he was paying with a credit card.  I was overjoyed.

She scanned all his items:  two bags of peanuts, two loaves of bread, three of those HUGE chocolate bars and the BIGGEST bag of sugar the store carried.  He handed her the store card, which took off half his bill, leaving him with about $20 to pay. I had to wonder just how much that huge bag of sugar was...but I didn't have a chance because old guy then said, "Well, you have to take the sugar off, because that's  three more dollars than what I have."

Dude, you are paying with a CREDIT CARD! 

I know that feeling.  I've been there more often than I care to talk about, with credit cards.  BUT, I also know that if you're banging on the ceiling of your limit, you add your totals BEFORE you get in the EXPRESS LINE.

Finally, after the longest 9 minutes of my life...and remember this is the EXPRESS LINE, it was my turn.  I had my two items there, and I put one of those plastic dividers between my two items and the soup the woman behind me was getting.  She said, "Oh, you don't want to pay for my soup?"

Looking back, I may have been a bit short with her when I yelled "NO! I AM NOT PAYING FOR YOU SOUP!"  But hey, I'd just spewed in the parking lot and spent 9 minutes of my life watching three people  (and does it surprise any of you that they were elderly?  Nope, that's how my life goes.) try to argue and adjust things with a Pick and Save clerk like we're at some camel market.

And finally...I get vengeance on Woodman's gas station for making me look uncool.

I like Woodmans' markets.  We just got one here in my home town, but there are some hither and thither around Wisconsin.  Woodmans' markets are low priced and do not take credit cards.  They do take debit cards.  And, they have gas stations.

While visiting my friend Linda this weekend, I realized I needed gas.  I decided that, before we went to breakfast, I would fill up at the Woodmans'.  I'd never gotten gas there before, but I thought I'd give it a try.  I pulled up to the pump and got out.  I realized I hadn't pulled up far enough and there was no way the hose would reach my tank.  So I had to get back in the car, start the car, pull the car forward about a foot, and then stop it again.  Not cool.

THEN the pump said, "PREPAY."  No problem.  I always prepay because I don't like going into the gas station.  I got my debit card and looked for the slot to plug it.  There was none. Nope, they wanted me to PREPAY by going in to the station and paying up front.  Not looking cool at the moment.

So I go to the station, and hand the girl my debit card.  She tells me to go fill up and she'll run the card when I'm done.  I do so and return to the station where she hands me my card and tells me to swipe it.  Which I do.  "Oh you have to wait until I tell you to do it."

I thought you just did. 

Well, no matter, she then says, "Go ahead and I swipe it again.

This time, the machine pretty much explodes.  I mean, there's no explosion, but it shuts down and it shuts down hard.  It starts something she calls a "reboot" and she, clearly, has never in all her years at Woodmans' seen this.  (Note:  She looked all of 17, so it's not like we're talking a vast experience here.)  We wait a few minutes, but here's the thing: when the computer goes into reboot mode, apparently NOTHING ELSE is going to happen in that gas station.  So, to the old gent who gave her his license and then went to pump three, and couldn't get gas?  Yeah, that was me...and I'm sorry, but you're at the receiving end of my wrath from the other day at Pick and Save.

To the woman who came in to prepay and heard clerk child say, "It's going to be a few minutes, I have no idea how long,"  Sorry.  But hey, at least you didn't have to wait in line for twleve minutes...like the guy behind me did.

And to the guy behind me who thought getting gas was going to be a quick little errand, sorry.  But, no, I'm not really, because you were good looking and gave me something to look at while clerk child was trying to say clever things about how long we'd have to wait.  (Hint:  She failed at that.)

So yeah, thanks Woodmans' gas, for helping to perpetuate the world view that I'm super uncool.  Next time, you can mess with some other complete dork who may, or may not, be able to unwittingly shut down your gas operations for twelve solid minutes on a Saturday.

Friends, this is going to be my last blog for the month of November.  Most of you know that I do nanowrimo in November and this year I'm hoping to write almost an entire novel.  Pretty steep stuff, considering I haven't written anything since November started.  So I'll be out until after Thanksgiving.  In the meantime, check out past blogs...because there's no way you've read them ALL, OR, click here to purchase my past novels AND THE FIRST ELSIE BOOK to pass the time until we meet again!

When I am old, I want the sexy wheelchair!

Good evening!

So last week Peaches and I went to visit my 95 year old grandmother in a nursing home 40 mintues from my house.  (I've always said, my people aren't terribly attractive or smart, but we are hairy and we live a very long time.)  My grandmother is one of those spunky ladies who has pretty much outlived all of her friends, siblings, and husband, and hasn't a clue why God is keeping her here, but she muddles along with a good sense of humor.

I maintain God keeps her here so that I can visit the nursing home...and stuff like the following can happen to me.

We went to see her and the plan was to visit for an hour, right before her bed time, and then grab a bit to eat on the way home.  As we were about to wrap things up, the hall monitor....caregiver...came in an announced that there was going to be a band concert on the patio in ten minutes, would we like to go?

Looking at my grandmother's almost sightless eyes light up, there was no way we were going to miss this. 

Which is when the fun started.  See, I don't know my way around the home too well.  It's basically a series of identical halls the lead you to pods of rooms.  I can find Grandma's room.  I can find the lunch room.  Beyond that, I'm just wandering.  Keep that in mind for later.

We managed to get out to the patio, and we were the first ones out there because my Grandma had two people pushing her wheelchair. The rest of the residents had to wait until the hall monitor pushed them all to the lunch room and then moved them one by one to the patio.  Very time consuming, but hey, they were going OUTSIDE.  So they had patience.

The band was the local municipal band, made up of about 14 people ranging in age from low 20's (okay, the two man drum section was made of up guys in their low 20's, both of whom were trying to catch Peaches' eye) to upper 70's...you sort of felt some of the band members were using the concert to scope out the home...you know...for their own future plans.

The concert was okay, I mean, it was 12 really old people playing marches and polkas for 40 super old people who couldn't march or polka if you propped them up and pushed them in step...and two guys trying to catch my daughter's eye.  In fairness to the guys...polkas and marches aren't that taxing on a drummer, and she was, after all, the only person on that patio under the age of 44.  ( I was, yes, the next youngest person out there.)

There was an exception to the rule:  Clarence.  Clarence is a 78 year old volunteer at the home and every single ancient woman in the place adores him.  See, he's not in a wheelchair, he has his own teeth, and he  is charming.  I think even my grandmother, who can't hear or see so well, likes him because every time he moved, she looked in his direction.

You see this.

Clarence sees this.

But Clarence only had eyes for the woman in the sexy wheelchair.

Didn't know there was such a thing, did you?  Well, most wheelchairs have brand names on them, "Mediline"  "Medimove"  "Medipedi."  Things like that.  But there was one semi comatose lady on that porch whose wheelchair's name was BREEZY.

Yep, Breezy...the Porche, Corvette, Mustang of wheelchairs all rolled up into one.  And Clarence couldn't get enough of the lady in the BREEZY.  She didn't seem to notice him...after all, it was half an hour past her bedtime and she was pretty much asleep.  But he was making her hands clap and moving her chair back and forth during the polka.

I suggested Peaches polka with Clarence.  She declined.  And then returned to staring at the drummer with the cute glasses.

The concert lasted 45 minutes and then we were going to wheel grandma back to her room, and go home.  However the caretaker, the only person who brought all those people out to the patio, now had to bring them in from the patio and put them in their rooms.  She told them all, like first grades, to stay in the lunchroom until she got everyone in there and then she would get everyone, one by one, to their rooms.

And like first graders, the wheelchair set was not about to wait. 

We were wheeling grandma out of the lunchroom, ahead of those making a break for it, but there was a gent whose back wheels were stuck on the threshold of the door.  (Speed bump, if you will.)  I gave him a nudge and started to take Grandma back to her room.

"No, sweetie, take me back to my room,"  says the old man.

Now, I'm not one to be unhelpful.  So I told Peaches to take grandma back to her room, and I'd take this guy back to his. How long could it take?

"What's your room number?"

"110," he says, and I figure we're off to a good start.  The group behind me is milling around looking for an opening in the wall because no way are they waiting for someone to wheel them to their rooms...darn it, they know where their rooms are!

So I start taking this man to his room.  After several twists and turns one this is abundantly clear:  There is no room 110.  Oh, and this guy hasn't a clue where his room is.

I ask a nurse, who points me in the right direction.  We get to the door and he reads the name, "Yes, that's me.  I'm Fred."

"Oh good, Fred,"  I park him in his room and I'm about to leave...



You know how I hate unmade beds.

"You make my bed."

I look at this guy.  "What do you mean, make your bed?"

"Fluff up the pillows, pull the sheets tight."

He says this like I'm an idiot...and like an idiot, I make his bed.

"Now I want to get in the bed."

"But Fred, I just made it."

I'm arguing with a 90 year old.

"I'm getting in the bed."

"Can you do that on your own?"

"Yes."

I have my doubts.  But I let him fiddle with the foot rests on his wheelchair for a minute.  I used to work in a facility a little like this, so waiting for an old person to do something isn't an issue for me.  But after a minute, he really seemed hell bent on standing up, whether those flaps were up or not, so I bent down to flip them up.  That's when I saw that Fred had a catheter/urine bag strapped to him.

I'm out. 

Too many things could go wrong.  So I go out, get a nurse, who is laughing about this because she heard our conversation.  Then I head back to my Grandmother's room, working my way through the flood of wandering wheelchairs...sort of like the escape scene in "Titanic"  except in really, really slow motion.  One woman stopped me and said, "Am I lost?"

"Sweetie, I don't know," I said, "What is your room number?"

"525."

I was happy to see a sign two feet away with an arrow pointing to 525.  "You go that way,"  I said.

She started to scoot, and another woman stopped me.  "Can you help me find my room?"

Her husband didn't like her talking to strangers.  He hustled her away from me.

I did notice that Clarence had BREEZY well in hand.

Back in my grandmothers' room we hugged her and said goodnight.  On our way out of the building I noticed that "525" had someone pushing her chair in the opposite direction.  He looked a tiny bit panicked. 

I wonder if he had to make her bed.

Christmas story #3: Who needs "The Ring?" We've got Grandma!

Good afternoon!

Now, there are some people who would refuse to tell certain stories simply because well, it might be unseemly or it's a private matter, or, as in the case of this particular story, it might seem insulting to those who have passed.

If you've read this blog, you know by now that I have zero edit button when it comes to telling my stories.  So sit back, buckle up, and get ready to remember the stuff your elders used to tell you to keep you in line!

This is going back to my grandmother's gigantic old house on church property.  I can't swear to the fact that this happened at Christmas, but it was winter and my cousin, I'll call her Lily, was there, so chances are good that it was.

I've mentioned before that my grandmother, who is now in Heaven, had emotional problems.  At least that was how it was explained to me when I was little.  I think sometimes that my twisted sense of humor and the skewed way I'm able to share stories that might seem too embarrassing or dark to talk about is because the real core of my grandmother's issues were glossed over for so very long to us grandkids. 

Grandma was paranoid schizophrenic.  It was a condition that went untreated for decades mostly because, while mental illness now is finally coming out of the shadows and being treated like any other illness, when my grandmother started exhibiting signs of her illness, it was still called "nerves," or some other ridiculous thing.  The long and short of it was that my grandmother was a very ill woman for most of her adult life and for more years than anyone cares to count we called it things like nerves, emotional problems, temperament.  Jeez, I'm surprised her doctors didn't just give her some laudanum and call it a day.

However, if we're going to see the bright silver ring around what could be perceived as a family tragedy  (my grandmother lived to be in her 90's, she enjoyed her great grandchildren very much and she is now happy in heaven, so there's a happy ending.) it could be that I have a closet full of stories like the one I'm about to tell.

Recently, Peaches has developed an addiction to the movie "The Ring." In this movie, if you watch a certain videotape, the phone rings and then you die. Well, I have to believe that the screenplay authors of that gem knew my grandmother and the story of the killer sewing kit pins.


When we stayed at my g-parents house at the church, the girls always slept in the very back bedroom.  This was an amazing room.  There was a little roll top desk, a closet you could hide in and never be found because most of the adults never even bothered to realize that there was a closet door tucked away in the corner behind the desk.  There was a door that went outside to an upstairs deck where sometimes grandma hung laundry.  Most of the furniture in the room was cast off stuff that parishioners gave to my grandfather.  (Seriously, two old people living in a house the size of Tara from "Gone with the Wind?"  The house was full of other people's battered couches and army cots and old chairs.) 

My cousin Lily and I are the two oldest girl cousins, and we are less than nine months apart in age.  (I delight in pointing out that Lily is older than I am.  Not something I was jazzed about when we were kids.)   We were truly best of friends as kids and our favorite game when we visited grandma was to have fashion shows with the paper dolls that grandma kept.  It never bothered us that it was always the same four or five paper dolls wearing the same outfits.  We always came up with new names for the outfits and where the girls would wear the outfits.  It was a game we played into our early teens. 

Anyway, for some reason, this one time we found an old sewing kit in the desk.  See, in the days before cable TV and computers and video games, we had to make do with what we had.  And apparently, this time around, we thought it was a good thing to play with sewing pins and needles.

Ahhhhhh the good old days!

So Lily and I stuck these pins and needles all over the room.  In blankets in curtains.  I think we pretended to be seamstresses and cobblers.  Doesn't matter.  What matters is Grandma caught us playing with them.  And this is when things got interesting.

Whether it was her illness, or just because she wanted to pass on the proper way of doing things to her grand daughters, I don't always know.  I know now that she loved us, and that the pressure she was under every single day to be perfect for those around her must have been tremendous.  So when I talk about her, it's with a sense of humor and a touch of awe that she managed to get from the start to the end of every day for so many years without actually setting fire to the furniture.  Given the wild thoughts that raged in her brain all the time, it must have been a battle. 

 When she saw us playing with the pins and needles  (and keep in mind, we were probably 9 or 10) instead of yelling at us to put the stuff away, she sat us down and told us a story that simultaneously horrified and amused us.

"You can't play with pins and needles, " she said.  "There was a story on the news about a girl who played with pins and needles. And one of the needles got into her veins and rolled around in her circulatory system until it pierced her heart and she died."

With that, she supervised us cleaning up the pins and then she returned downstairs.

For the rest of the evening, Lily and I would look at each other and say, "My arm feels funny."  And then fall down laughing.  Hey, ten is not exactly an intuitive age.  We figured this was just another one of those silly things Grandma said sometimes.  We didn't bother telling our parents because, well, why go all the way downstairs and bother them?  Then they'd realize we were still up and they'd put us to bed.  Who wanted that?

This joke ran late into the night.  "Good night Lily.  Oh, and my arm feels funny...like a pin is in it!"

"Good night Sarah...my arm feels funny too."

Of course, I'm the one who never knows when to end a joke.

Early the next morning, I woke up and decided to continue the fun from the night before.  So I shook Lily awake and said, "Hey, my arm feels funny."

Lily got a horrified look on her face.  She got up, and went out of the room.  I figured she had to use the bathroom or something, so I got back into bed.  A few minutes later she returned, in tears, with Grandma in tow.

"Grandma, Sarah says her arm feels funny and there might be a pin in there and she'll die!"

Grandma sat down on my army cot  (Lily always got the old couch.  The benefits of being older.)  and took both our hands.  "Girls, that didn't really happen.  I just told you that story to make you stop playing with my sewing kit."

I'll give you a moment to comment amongst yourselves, my friends as I wish you a lovely afternoon!

Until my next one!  And remember, the story of my engagement Christmas is a two parter!