You are my sunshine

You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You’ll never know dear
How much I love you
Please, don’t take
My sunshine
Away

I was never “That Mom,” the one who had an extensive playlist of lullabies to sing to my babies. When my daughter was a newborn, the only kid’s song I could remember all the words to was the ABCs.

When she went to pre-school, whenever her class worked on the alphabet, she’d doze off. Her teacher worried that she wasn’t getting adequate sleep at home. Once we figured out the problem, I didn’t know whether to laugh (which I did, to the point of snorting) or feel guilty for having such a lame grasp of sleep inducing songs (which I did.)

My son was born four years later.  You’d think I would’ve put the time to good use and learn some more songs. Nope… I sang this little ditty, or “Away in the Manger.”

At least, I learned my lesson (see what I did there? ABCs… school… lessons?) and didn’t interfere with my son’s education… but I may have given him a God-complex.

Submitted to Skywatch Friday, Season 6: Episode 42

Parallel parking like a boss

Every time I take a long road trip, and I mean every single time, I think of my high school Driver’s Education teacher, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown was from Mississippi, and couldn’t pronounce his Rs. He was a tad difficult to understand. Lucky for us, he spoke with a sloooow southern drawl, so we had plenty of time to figure out what he was trying to tell us.

One of the exercises he had us do, during our on-the-road classes, was to change lanes without hitting the reflectors that ran between the lanes… the ‘fump, fumps” he called them.

That’s why road trips take me down memory lane. I still try to stealthily veer around the “fump, fumps.” It’s one of the very few maneuvers I managed to master during Driver’s Ed. Which was good, because I was the first student who ever received an F in backing up.

We were supposed to navigate through a dog-leg course, in reverse. Mr. Brown made me abandon my car when I ran over one of the course traffic cones and got it irretrievably stuck up in a rear wheel well.

“Jus’ get outta da caw!”

The only thing that saved me from failing the class entirely was that I was the only student in my class who could parallel park. And, I did it like a boss. None of this multiple attempts parking, I mean I could tuck my car into that tiny space, first try, every time… still can. It was like I entered a self-transcendent state of ecstasy, my moment of zen.

I was the parking space…

I may not be able to drive backwards through a narrow zig-zag shaped alley, but if you have to park on the street, or deftly avoid small plastic objects stuck on the road, I’m your go-to gal.

The Trifecta challenge this week is: Ecstasy [noun \ˈekstəsē\] 3: trance; especially a mystic or prophetic trance

*I’m on a road trip with my little dog, Asta, to meet with an orthopedic vet at Auburn University. The pin in her injured leg had begun to migrate down and the pointed tip was irritating the back side of her knee. The doc removed the pin and order 4-weeks of complete bed rest for Asta. No more activity than when she needs to use the bathroom, walking outside, on a leash and only as many steps as necessary, and eating. I’m supposed to crate her to restrict her movements, but that is not going to be possible. Since, I’m home during the day, I think I can keep her still enough to avoid having to put her in doggy solitary. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully, with limited movement, the bone will mend completely and she won’t require any more invasive surgery – either a screw in the bone to secure it, or a plate on her hip and femur. Fingers crossed for us both.

Back in the day

Sometimes when their dad and I are being goofy, but trying to make a point, we go all “back in the day” on our kids. You know, “back in the day we had to walk to school, in the snow, up hill, both ways.”

There’s profuse eye rolling and tolerant sighing, patronizing laughs and an occasional, “Yeah, right.” But, I don’t think either of them actually consider that there really was a “back in the day.”

For instance, back in the day, my family had a single, 24-inch black and white TV, with only three VHF stations and a grainy UHF Public Broadcasting Station. There might be an aerial on top of the house, and rabbit ears on the set (wrapped in aluminum foil), to help improve reception. We children were the remote controls.

Back in the day, there were no wireless phones, no cell phones. I remember my grandparents having a party line and that their calls were one short, two long rings. I can even remember when you had to start using area codes when making a call… on a rotary phone.

We were lucky to have oscillating fans to help cool off the hot Tennessee summers. Air conditioning, when we finally got it, sat in the living room window. There was none of this new fangled central A/C.

At one point when they were very little, we did have a stereo turntable, actually listened to vinyl LPs. That was until our toddler son managed to remove the drive belt… still can’t figure out that one.

My children will never remember a time when they didn’t have a large screen, HD color television (in multiple rooms); a cell phone, a car stereo that played CDs (or could sync to their MP3 players), or live in a home that couldn’t be cooled or heated with flick of a switch. They will not remember a time when they didn’t have a personal computer.

The changes that technology have gone through in the 20 years they have been around are astounding. I cannot imagine that changes we’ll see in the next 20.

What changes have you seen during your lifetime, that your children now take for granted?

Submitted to WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. This week the theme was to “share a picture that says Change.”

Kicked to the curb

In 1991, then Tennessee Sen. Al “I invented the Internet” Gore was in town to commemorate an Air Force Base anniversary. Being the seasoned local newspaper reporter, I got the interview. Our only opportunity to speak was in his limo on its way to the airport. Afterward, I was unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road.

Prompt #16: Share a celebrity encounter

I worked for a time at a thrice-weekly newspaper in rural Middle Tennessee. The paper served an area that included Arnold Engineering Development Center, Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma.

Gore and Sen. Jim Sasser were special guests at a 40th anniversary commemorating the opening of the base. I was to interview Gore for an article about the event. He was traveling to Chattanooga immediately after the ceremony, so I had a very small window of opportunity.

I knew he was headed to the airport, but had not been told how I was supposed to get back to the base. To say I was distracted during the interview, would be an understatement.

Just before the interstate on-ramp, the limo driver pulled onto the gravel shoulder, turned around and just looked at me. Gore also sat there simply staring at me, not saying a word. I was expected to know this was my stop. Dumbstruck, I got out of the car, all alone in the middle of nowhere, and watched as the car drove off.

This was before cell phones, so I had no way of calling anyone to tell them where to pick me up. Just when I was about to start walking the five miles back to the base, in a dress, in heels, another car pulled up. A Gore staffer got out and opened the back passenger door of car for me to get in. I didn’t say much on the drive back, but my poor husband, who was waiting for me at the base with our two-year-old daughter, certainly got an earful.

Where childhood

When do we lose that childhood sense of wonder and magic?

There is that invisible boundary between believing in fairies and leprechauns, and only seeing bills and piles of laundry.

I told my son recently that I miss those days when he and his sister were little, and we would build elaborate couch cushion forts in the living room. We’d hide under blankets and picnic on Cheez-its and Hawaiian punch, watching hours of cartoons.

Then we all sort of out grew that. They weren’t little kids anymore, they wanted to do more big kid things, mostly with their friends and not mom. I became immune to silliness, almost allergic to it. My funny bone was replaced by a bone of contention.

Fart and poop jokes no longer made me laugh… it was intellectual humor that evoked a chuckle. The days of mud pies and water fights were gone, replaced by more grown up endeavors. I miss more than my kids being young, I miss me being young at heart.

I need to ride a ferris wheel. To be lifted high in the air, where I can see my future on the horizon. A future that includes balloons and bubbles, cushion forts, coloring books and playing in dirt.

Submitted to Skywatch Friday, Season 6: Episode 40

Lessons learned

I expected Allen Funt to jump out of the pantry the day my dad bare-handed a doxie turd and popped it into his mouth, noshing on it like some perverted peanut. Two valuable lessons were learned in that moment…

Be more diligent in my doggy doodie duties, and be more aware of what day it is.

Happy April Fools’ Day Pranksters!

Prompt #15: Share the best prank you ever played, saw executed or were the butt of yourself

Today I shall behave…

Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.” ~ Theodor Seuss Geisel

If I had to describe my personality, I’d say I’m fairly introverted. I don’t typically go out of my way to be noticed, staying under the radar whenever possible. I’m not what I would consider memorable.

That is when I can be recognized. From the fringe, where I can’t be readily identified, I can be totally psycho, but that’s not how I truly want to be remembered.

I don’t want to be remembered as the crazy motorist in the blue Honda, yelling obscenities and making rude gestures at anyone she deems incompetent to share a road with her.

I don’t want to be remembered as the ranting woman in mismatched exercise wear, with her mismatched dogs, screaming at cars speeding passed her during her morning walks.

I don’t want to be a doormat who allows others to take advantage of her stubborn belief that people are who they say they are, and avoids conflict instead of speaking up for herself.

What I do want to be remembered for is that I was that friend you could count on for a shoulder to cry on, an ear to vent to, the one who could make you laugh so hard you snorted, or the one who made you glad you knew her.

What I want people to remember about me is that I was the very best mother I could be. That my kids were raised to be happy, compassionate, funny, smart, and productive adults. That they are the type of people you want to be friends with too.

(I have only one person to impress as far as being a wife is concerned…  so, yeah)

I want to be remembered well, with smiles and warm feelings.

On any given day, I should be able to say I live my life like my eulogy depends on it.

Week 10: Inspired by Dr. Seuss, honoring his March 2 birthday. I chose this quote: “Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.”

*Photo venue: Jesse Rodgers Memorial Cemetery, Fort Walton Beach, FL