“My bad”

“My bad.” This was what the teenage girl said who bumped – no, body-checked me – at Walmart last night.  Why am I still seething about it today?

Was it the invasion of my personal space? Was it the annoying colloquialism? Would it have been different if she had been carrying an armload of groceries or bulky items, instead of holding hands and walking with her girlfriend, swinging arms to-and-fro and paying no heed to anyone else in her insular world?

Or was it simply that I kept my damn mouth shut.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. It actually started the night before, when I received a delicious Edible Arrangement, compliments of my wonderful brother and his family. This arrangement featured pineapple that was cut into the shape of a cupcake, then coated with white and dark chocolate, and sprinkle-fied. There were also chocolate-covered strawberries, melon and grapes.

Then, I had a phone interview with a company that I really really really want to work for, and the promise of a face-to-face interview with the same company next week! I went to lunch with a dear friend, dropped off some school supplies for underprivileged children, and visited someone at a nursing home.

And then! Got home, went to church, and discovered that I had had another Edible Arrangement delivered yesterday, and this one was from my former place of employment. Kinda weird, but still delicious. All in all, a 9/10 birthday.

Worst. Interview. Ever.

Since joining the ranks of the unemployed, I made a vow to go through whatever door might be presented to me. Yesterday, for example, I stood in the blazing sun for $8 an hour to show support for a political candidate who is also a friend of mine.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I drove 30 minutes for an interview at a home health agency. The opportunity was given to me by a dear friend of mine who was hoping to help me out. When I got to the interview, a woman ushered me in, asked me for my resume, and said, “Oh, development? What is that, marketing?”

After I explained that I was a fundraiser, but I had a lot of transferable skills, she hemmed and hawed and told me that the position was basically a secretarial job. How much money was I expecting to make?

Well, I told her. I was making about $18 dollars an hour at my previous job, but right now I was making Zero dollars an hour.

I don’t think they could have rushed me out of there any quicker.

Schatzi in the morning

Since joining the ranks of the newly unemployed, I have faltered around a bit, perhaps napping when I shouldn’t, perhaps not following a schedule conducive to bettering myself. Well, that all stopped this morning. I am getting back in the routine of taking Schatzi,  my German shepherd, for a walk around a nearby school.

Schatzi is a rescued dog, and who knows what her schedule was like before she came to live with us six years ago. When we got her, she was pitifully skinny – so skinny that her skin hung down around her stomach in loose, flabby folds. We set about the task of fattening her up – I say “we” but I really mean “I.” Not sure why the care and feeding of the living things in my house falls to me, but it does.

When I first started walking Schatzi after she became a member of the family, it was not a pleasant experience for me. She walked me, not the other way around.  I had to wrap her leash around my waist to prevent any chance of her escaping. After our walk, I would have deep grooves in my waist from being pulled the whole way.

I heard about the “Gentle Leader,” a special training tool that helped dogs like Schatzi not to pull. The GL goes across the top of the dog’s nose and latches behind the ears. The idea is that when the dog starts pulling, the leader presses down on top of the nose. Dogs are not supposed to like it.

Well, Schatzi didn’t like it at all. She felt the thing across her nose and tried to use her paws to scrape it off. It didn’t really seem to affect her pulling that much – at least not at much as it seemed to affect the dogs in the GL’s training video.

Anyway, that’s how Schatzi and I go for a walk nowadays. She is usually in my room, sniffing around my bed first thing, wondering if I’m ever going to get up and take her for a WALK. This morning, she came in, saw that I was snoozing, and went back outside to bark at the air.

I got up, got her leash and clicked the clip attachment a few times. Schatzi came tearing through the doggy door and started flipping out when she saw that I had my SNEAKERS on. She started nipping at my hands, legs, wherever she could, imploring me to hurry up! I got the GL on her and put her into a SIT-STAY, and after a few minutes, I gave her the OK sign and she came a-running.

Schatzi is very interesting to watch. As she charges ahead, she weaves to the left and the right, lest something escape her notice. She sniffs everything, hears everything. She occasionally sees other dogs (code yellow), squirrels (doesn’t even care), or her nemeses, kitty cats (CODE RED – DANGER!). Along the short route, she marks her territory several times, and seems exhausted by the time we get home. She has a weird habit of trying to climb into the water bowl when she gets home, I guess her feet get hot.

 

Pringle’s Potato Chips

When I was growing up, my best friend Lisa was the one who always had the cool stuff. Her mom always made delicious, cheesy dinners (pizza on Fridays), and this delicacy called broiled flank steak. They had vitamins on the table and served Tang, the astronaut juice beverage.

Perhaps the most wondrous thing they had, however, was a newfangled potato chip called Pringles.

Pringles weren’t like ordinary chips. They came in a can, not a bag. They resealed. They were light and stackable. And they were delicious.

I have preferred these tasty morsels for years now, staying true to the red can version, not the gross flavored one. I am a Pringles purist.

One time, I was picking up a kid at school, and had brought along my friend Pringles. I was enjoying them all by myself, when a lady in the car next to me honked her horn. When I glanced over, she held up her own Pringles can. We smiled at each other, in a moment of freeze-dried potato crumb solidarity.

He was blind, but now he sees?

The most amazing thing is happening. Tanner is regaining some of his vision. He is still legally blind, but the little retinal ganglion cells in his optic nerve are firing back up again. This can happen sometimes with Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy. They don’t know why. They don’t know if it’s permanent.

How cute is this guy? The book was a joke gift for his 16th birthday

Tanner is currently eligible and has been accepted into the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, and is scheduled to start January 13. If he totally regains his sight, he won’t have to go. He has already lost much time because of this, but what can we do?

Popcorn, Indiana

Could there be any more magical place to live than Popcorn, Indiana? There, little children pick bouquets of cinnamon-drizzled kettle corn, and walk down a cheddar ranch popcorn path to the crunchiest homes in the world. 

But I digress. 

If you haven’t tried this stuff yet, seriously, you need to. I discovered this product earlier this year, when it was available in sample size packages in my local Walgreen’s. This popcorn is truly the best new product that I have ever tried. The kettle-cooked popcorn is sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and then drizzled with a white candy coating – i think it’s white chocolate. It is scrumptious.

The popcorn spawned a county-wide search for any remaining sample bags, and several emails to the home office. The popcorn would be re-launched in the fall. 

I went to their Facebook page in November, and some lucky people had already found the popcorn again. I had no luck until I went to Walgreens again, and it was tucked away high on a shelf. I bought ten bags. I unfortunately have not got tired of it, and I am reluctant to even talk about how good it is, because I don’t want to create a shortage. Seriously. Buy. this. popcorn.

Introduction

Like most of us, I have read product reviews on the Web and thought, “Hey, I have opinions!” I have been shopping nearly all my life, ever since I took my weekly allowance up to the corner convenience store to see what new candy they had.

OK, not just new candy – any candy. It was then that I discovered the magic that is Heath bars. I stayed away from Heath bars for awhile, mainly because I did not know what toffee was.

Then my friend Lisa gave me one from her father’s secret stash – he ate Heath bars because they did not contain peanuts, something he was highly allergic to.

O. M. G. A Heath bar doesn’t look like much – two thin rectangular blocks of unadorned chocolate. But it is the inside that is truly where Heath earns its street cred. The toffee is a simple, yet delicious mixture of butter, brown sugar, vanilla and almonds, and it is crunchified. When the toffee is juxtaposed next to the creamy smooth decadence of the chocolate coating, all I can say is Mmmmm.

There are two ways to eat a Heath. In one, you scrape all the chocolate off with your teeth, and eat that separate from the toffee. In the other, you just pop it into your mouth (one or two bites? it’s up to you). Either way, you can’t go wrong with this little chunk of heaven.

My beautiful daughter

We interrupt this program for a special message: In exactly one week  two days, my beautiful, talented daughter will be 25 years old. I was a terrified 24-year-old when I discovered I was pregnant with her. I didn’t know what was in store for me then, and definitely did not know the boundless love I would have for her.

Each year, on her birthday, I call her at 7:06 am, the time she was born. When I was pregnant with her, I was working at Holiday Inn in Gainesville. I had been a server, but when I became pregnant, the food and beverage director pulled me aside and told me I could not wait tables when I was pregnant – it just wouldn’t look good. They told me that I could be a hostess.

I didn’t know much then, but I knew this was illegal. I filed a complaint with the EEOC ( I forget what it stands for at the moment), and I consulted an attorney. It ended up that I won the complaint, which meant they had to give me back pay (it might have been $300 back then), and Holiday Inn was also admonished that they could not retaliate against me – meaning, they had to treat me nicely from then on in.

Boy, they didn’t like that one bit. The one guy, his last name was Bolno, would come to the restaurant every once in a while, and he would make a report on what he had observed. The manager at the time, who liked me, and was disgusted by what they had done to me, showed me one of the reports. In it, Bolno singled me out, and said that although I appeared to be taking care of my tables, I was “grossly overweight.” This was shortly after I returned to work after having my beautiful Annette.

Bolno didn’t last much longer at the Holiday Inn. I have always fantasized about really telling him off – and have hoped that karma caught up with him at some point in time.

But enough about that. My beautiful Annette.

I had been hostessing Thanksgiving Day – all freakin’ day. It was so busy. At the end of the day, I walked into the kitchen and – wouldn’t you know? it was right in the middle of a roll fight. One of the servers was in the middle of a lob, and it hit me in the neck. I burst into tears, because I was emotional, not so much because it hurt, and the server felt so bad.

By the time I got home, it was about 9 pm, and I was tired, but I was keyed up. I tried to sleep, but I kept having pains. Thought it might have been gas. The pains became stronger, and more frequent, until I thought I MIGHT have been in labor, but my actual due date was a month away.

My doctor said I could come in, it was possible I was in labor. I was in denial, however, and even on the frantic way to the hospital – with my husband blowing through at least one red light – I was convinced it was false labor.

When we got to the hospital, I walked through the ER doors, and climbed up on a gurney the wrong way.    I couldn’t move. They examined me shortly thereafter, and I was at 9 centimeters. I was going to have a baby. No time for an epidural or anything, just some medicine they said would take the edge off. Not so much. It did, however, drug Annette after she came out (they gave her some medicine to counteract that).

Hubby was feeling faint. They gave him a cool cloth and some orange juice, as I was doing the pushing. I guess it was rough on him. And then, after Annette made her debut, he left with her to see where they were taking her. Meanwhile, when he was gone, the nurses made me go to the bathroom – I guess they have to to see if my bladder was torn. I passed out on the toilet, and when Hubby came back, there I was, on the toilet, with nurses huddled around me, giving me smelling salts.

When I felt better, and was in my own bed, they brought my beautiful Annette in to me, and I cuddled her like she was a bag of glass. I was afraid of breaking her. Somehow, I didn’t.

When the pediatrician on call came in to talk about Annette, she was careful to talk about her birthmark. I knew what a birthmark was, knew it was permanent but harmless, and the doc was talking about it  like I didn’t know what it was. Sheesh.

All I could feel was wonder and love, and fear and hope. Twenty-five years later, nothing has changed. Happy Birthday, Annette. ❤

Fearless

When I first realized that Tanner was losing his sight, I was afraid. Afraid that he had a life-threatening illness and that he would be taken from me. I was also afraid his life had changed and he would not be able to cope. I was even afraid he would never meet a girl and fall in love, just because he couldn’t see anymore.

I cried almost every day, sometimes in front of him, sometimes in private. Now, almost six months later, I don’t cry all the time anymore, but I still get sad.

It’s just the little things that make me sad: when he puts his cell phone down on the sofa, then comes back a few minutes later and has to sweep his hands over the sofa because he can’t see it. He can’t always tell what food there is to eat in the fridge or freezer, and sometimes his favorite snacks go uneaten.

I get sad when he watches “King of Queens,” his favorite show, but he doesn’t really watch the TV, he just listens.

One time, he crouched down to pet what he thought was our dog Schatzi, and it was just a pile of stuff that his dad was taking outside.

He can’t read the menus in fast food restaurants, or see the different types of soda when he gets himself something from a fountain machine. Sometimes, his close friends walk right by him and he doesn’t even know they are there.

Through it all, he has had an amazing spirit. “Mom,” he said, “There are people who have it worse than I do.”