With a bit of a mind flip...

I know I haven’t updated this thing since forever; Truth is that the last entry caused me to spin out of control emotionally, and I went right to the library after watching it and checked out books titled:

The loss that is forever: the lifelong impact of the early death of a

Mother or father by Maxine Harris.

How it feels when a parent dies by Jill Krementz.

A Music I no longer heard: the early death of a parent by Leslie Simon

Children and grief: helping your child understand death by Joey 'Connor.

Because inside I needed to be connected to others like me, and maybe understand how I should have been talked to about my father dying instead of how I was. My husband didn’t understand this need, and was puzzled at my seemingly out of nowhere cry-fest on the couch while reading a “self help” books as he called them. He also didn’t understand my uttering’s of “that’s me!” and “that would have helped!” and “amsdkfsdnfasldn” which was me sobbing uncontrollably while trying to say something. I realized that Its okay for me to be sad every once and awhile, that my little depressions aren’t me falling into holes that I don’t know how to dig out of, they are part of me mourning for him and that’s perfectly okay.

I have also been in my own little world of what I like to call “facebook highs and lows” I am on facebook, been on there for awhile but never checked it. I was burned by how shitty MySpace got and didn’t want to be a part of another online community site. BUT so many people were telling me “so and so is on there from high school” and “so and so from camp wants you to add her” I broke down and logged back on and it’s been weeks and weeks of internet reunions. From people I went to middle school and high school , to people who were my campers and fellow counselors at Camp Indian Springs. I went to two different high schools, so there are twice the people to keep track of and remember which went to what school!

It’s been a good thing because I missed a lot of them, and we are sharing old stories and catching up. Some people had no idea who I was , and then followed up with “were you the girl who ate baby food at lunch and belonged to PETA?” and yes that was me for awhile, miss animal rights, which I still support I just don’t like PETA. But I think its funny that at least 6 people have used the “baby food” reference to remember me. I did eat Banana baby food as a snack, its good stuff!

The bad thing about it is that, and I am not exaggerating here, every single person has procreated. There is not one person, well besides one lone gay guy, who doesn’t have kids. I am the one person whose uterus hasn’t had any occupants; I am a landlord without renters. I think I am taking it so personally because I am trying to get pregnant here, without any results and its frustrating me. We are trying and trying and anyone who has been through that knows it’s the most unromantic thing in the world to say to your husband “well this is the week, and this is the day and no you cant play one more round of  Call of Duty,  because its Call of Booty time” Not that he is complaining, but there is no way it can be a normal romp in the sack when there is a mission behind it (and I just said Mission and Behind when talking about sex, hee hee) I have read every book about getting knocked up and have tried to follow the guidelines and have been doing everything okay but for a few hiccups and complaints:

*No more caffeine, which is like saying to me “No more Project Runway” it just isn’t fathomable. I am drinking decaf, but I am a complete bitch in the mornings and no one understands at work, because the last thing I want to do is to share my personal life with my coworkers. They are post menopausal harpies and if they sniff out a youngling like me who is in the process of still using her reproductive organs they will descend like vultures and shriek at me about baby advice and I just don’t think I can survive in prison after poisoning their Activia.

*Take vitamins, and this doesn’t seem like it would be hard, but I cannot for some reason remember to take any pill, everyday, on a schedule. I have them in the little Mon-Friday pill container that I swore I would never own because it seemed geriatric. I will look at it, and just walk away, my brain cannot tell my hands to open the darn thing and take them! And then I get behind and worry that my kids going to be born with 8 arms and no spine or worse like Britney Spears. . It’s why I couldn’t take the pill, or antidepressants, or finish any medication prescribed to me. Maybe I should just put them all inside some brownies because lord knows I have never passed up a brownie in my lifetime!!

I know I shouldn’t be jealous of my friends, or feel so darn upset when I am around babies, or disappointed when the crimson tide comes to my beach but I cannot help it. The thought of never getting pregnant truly scares me, and I know there is the option of adoption out there; I will cross that road if my journey ends up there. So dear readers, if I have any out there, any advice for me? Words of encouragement? Brownies?

(picture of my mom and the four of us right before dad died, I am in her lap) 

James Joseph Husty was born on March 19, 1938 in Milwaukee Wisconsin to Steven and Clara Husty, both immigrants from Hungary.  He had brown hair, sort of tall, lanky, pale skin, brown eyes. He married my mom in the 60’s, was in the navy as a navigator in the early days, and later on one of the creators and testers of the microwave, he also did some nuclear testing as well ( I have a picture of him giving the thumbs up, with a freaking mushroom cloud behind him). He had four daughters, all blonde haired and blue eyed like their mother, the youngest being me, born in 1973. They were trying for a boy, and he was over seas in Italy when I was born, my mom called him on thanksgiving to say she was in labor and he said “a turkey baby?” and they laughed, later when she called him to say that they now had four girls, he wasn’t the slightest bit disappointed or fazed, according to most he was a quiet laid back man and I don’t think the prospect of being the only guy in the house mattered in the slightest. He like to read especially anything science fiction, he loved star trek and James Bond, and being outdoors; he loved skiing and flying and traveling. He was a good father, so I am told, always being the quiet observer to the chaos of girly delights.

Around his birthday, his 43^rd, he got sick and test showed that he had lung cancer that had spread to his esophagus and stomach. He had been a lifelong smoker (who wasn’t back then?) It was devastating news, and the doctors said he could have radiation treatments, chemotherapy, but that his prognosis wasn’t good. They gave him a year at best. My dad decided to forgo any treatment because it would just make him sick all the time and make the time left he had with his family a good one. So he came home and lasted basically symptom free for 5 months, in August he finally succumbed and had to be hospitalized. Him being a devout catholic, and his parents who were doubly catholic (if that is even possible) hid crosses everywhere in the room, under his pillow, his aunts who were Nuns kept vigil and on September 9^th 1976 he passed away. My mother, who according to family, was a rock of strength (good lord she was only 33) and stability and grace drove home to an empty house , pulled out her beautiful wedding dress and burned it in the backyard, a story which is legend in our house, and my husband wonders where I get all the drama from.

She was a widow, with four daughters under the age of 11, me being almost 3 years old. She packed her bags, and moved to Florida to start a new job, new life, new everything. She is the most amazing woman I have ever known, they didn’t have Oprah or all the self help books, or TV shows, or magazines to help her deal with his loss. She only knew to work, love us, and do the best she could with what she knew. God knows she had no time to grieve herself, to mourn his loss and to deal with it, who has time for that with four children? Back then, you didn’t talk about your feelings, you didn’t say to each other “I am depressed” , you didn’t get the answer of “you should go to grief counseling” that just didn’t happen.

My mom knew nothing, of the protocols or guidelines on how to deal with the death of a parent, how to make sure the children aren’t confused or are acting out because of it. She remarried when I was five, and by the time I could understand that there was a man named James Joseph Husty and he was my “real” dad and he was dead? There was already an unspoken rule in my house not to talk about him…..it was too sad. We had no pictures of him anywhere but in an old brown suitcase under her bed, we didn’t talk about him at all for fear of upsetting her, or each other, or my stepfather

.

My mom got a call once from a neighbor, saying that I was telling her children that my dad was buried under our house. She didn’t say anything to me, only later did she tell me about the call, and that she told the neighbor that yes, my dad was dead but no, he was buried in the Woods National Cemetery in Wisconsin. I remember telling those kids that, actually showing them under my house the mounds of dirt and that he was under there. Was it a child’s way of somehow having him near me?

I know for a fact, that my love of everything macabre, my love of cemeteries, and anything relating to death and dying stems from my preoccupation with getting as close to that “world” as I can. I love it all because I feel close to it, personally, through the death of my own father. It’s weird to think of it that way. I have not one single memory of him alive. Almost 3 years with him, and I have pictures to prove the proximity, I have nothing in my head to say “ah remember when” I grew up hearing hushed stories about him, and mom and my sisters, the houses they lived in, the pets they had, the good times, the bad times, and its all so foreign to me. As if there is a BD(before death) and an AD (after death) I only have memories from AD, so when they are talking about BD, I feel completely and wholly left out and ripped off and bitter and angry and sad and god knows what else.

I once had someone say to me:

“How can you miss, someone you never knew” (never talked to that person again, thank you) I can most certainly miss him, but more importantly I mourn the loss of all that could have been, the life that I would have had, and the memories I will never make. I suppose that growing up in the shadow of such a death, and having it as such a mystery, made me the lone child that everyone thought wasn’t really affected by it. Laura doesn’t remember Jim, so how on earth can her doing poorly in school be related. I can see where they were coming from. Unfortunately I didn’t know how to voice what I had inside.

I felt depressed, but had happy days too. I was emotional and cried a lot, but thought it was just me being sensitive.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a good childhood, but a hard one too. I was an energetic , funny child who opened my own puppet show business and hired myself out to birthday parties, I worked for Mattel for years dressing up as characters and going to toy stores to entertain kids, I was artistic and took dance and was never deprived anything from my parents. It wasn’t until I was 12 , and when no amount of tutors or sylvan learning centers could help me do well in school, and the going from happy to sad was more frequent did my parents send me to a counselor as a last resort.

Story continued for another day. Or else you might get bored……Ha Ha.

Has anyone ever had a conversation like this one?

(While watching six feet under for the 30^th time)

Me- I am totally going to be cremated.

Husband- What? Seriously? Why?

Me-Well unless I die from some murderous intention, or contract a serious illness, I won’t be required to have an autopsy, and I don’t want to be embalmed at all or buried in a casket. Words like “fluids” and “drainage” and “trocar” give me the willies. Besides all that is just too expensive and I don’t see the need for it.

Husband- Who cares, you’ll be dead.

Me- I care! Its still my body! I don’t want some dude stuffing cotton up my snatch and pumping chemicals into my veins. Just baste me with some olive oil and slide me into the oven , bake at 870-900 degrees for an hour or two, dump my bones into a Cremulator (and yes that’s what the bone grinder is called) I prefer to be ground fine, like good coffee is, and than you can either keep me around, or sprinkle my ashes on the ocean or whatever makes you feel okay.

Husband- Cremulator? And that’s better than Trocar?  What If I don’t want to burn you up? (awwww)

Me-would you rather think of me hermetically sealed in some coffin under the ground?

Husband- Yes.

Me- No, I want to be cremated, and if you freaking bury me? I will hope and pray that some weird alien meteor crosses into our atmosphere causing all the dead to rise up out of their graves, then I will come looking for you, zombiefied, shambling and lurching and I will find your hiding place because I still retained memories of that hallway closet and I will eat your brains while you scream out “I should have cremated you bitch”

My husband has two sisters and three brothers, out of all of them his sister K was the first to get with child. That sounded bad “get with” child, let me rephrase. K was the first to be blessed with a pregnancy, that’s better.

Back story: my husband’s parents had 5 of their kids at home, unassisted by any sort of professional; they only had prayers and lots of towels. All of them came out fine, although sometimes my husby acts like such a weirdo that I think he might have been beamed down instead of pushed out. K, halfway through her first pregnancy, decided that she too would like to do the home birthing thing; I mean she always wanted to so why not just do it? It’s not for everyone, and you really have to know K to understand her reasons. To my eyes it was more about it being comfortable, and calm, and natural and she wanted that bonding to take place between her and her husband and the baby that she thought the hospital or even a birthing center couldn’t provide. I personally thought she was a bit nuts at first, all the red flags went up in my brain. If something went wrong, what then? The most any of us have is some certifications in First Aid and maybe watching a lot of Little House on the Prairie. Was she prepared with all the “stuff” needed to hose the baby off, and clamp it, and do whatever they do to it? I was at my niece’s birth and they did an awful lot to that infant before handing her over taco bell burrito wrapped tight and all.

K and her husband R got prepared, ordered a birthing blow up tub, got all the clamps and bells and whistles and read up on the whole thing. PLUS K’s mom would be there and having done it 5 times she would be a voice of reason and knowledge. I asked K who she wanted there, and at first she talked about putting up a curtain between her and the living room and having people chilling and talking and her a-pushing and sunning in our love, but she realized soon enough that this event had to be as stress free as possible, that the people she chose to be around would need to be trustworthy (hello all her lady parts would be on display) and calm, and know their place. So she chose me and her mom, her husband (duh) and his mom.  This comes into play later……….

She, for all nine months, got excellent prenatal care and so forth, and according to her doctor everything was fine and perfect. So the due date came and went (which was on a Tuesday), and in the meantime the National Football Championship game came on and since we live in Gainesville, we are required to watch it with a lot of people and food, or else we are ostracized from the swamp. While watching the game I cautioned her not to yell or get angry or strain too hard reaching for the guacamole because the floors had just been steam cleaned and I didn’t think the owner of the house would appreciate all the ick that would come forth if her water broke.. She kept saying “oh he is waiting for the weekend so everyone doesn’t have to take off from work”. I had an understanding with my job, if she went into labor while I was here, I would stay and monitor it being only about 5 minutes away, if it was during the middle of the night and she had been contracting for awhile I would call and take “family sick leave” and come back the next day. Luckily my job isn’t one where if I am not here, things fall apart, I am needed but I work independently, and by independently I mean I am on the Sugar Network 10% of the day.

The weekend went by and I called her and she said she felt “some pain” but didn’t know if it was the beginning or not. Sunday night at about 10:00, I am on the computer playing The Sims 2 and she calls me “its getting worse I think you need to come over” So I pack my bag , giant jug of crystal light, Books to read, camera, etc and head over there. She is in pain, but not too bad. We watch “pride and prejudice”( the only version that matters) and eat cookies and chips and salsa and at one point we boil water to put into her blow up tub thing. She gets in (this is about 2 in the morning) and chills. Meanwhile I take a cat nap on the sofa, and so does everyone else. At around 3:30 she gets out and declares that she hates the Tub (that she bought over the internet) and will never go back into it. So we ask, where do you want to have him, and she doesn’t know. So we break out the tarp, and blankets and just plop them underneath her like she is a walking leaking fragile water balloon that will burst at any second.

Monday morning with about 1-2 hours restless sleep I bid her adieu and went home and called my work and told them that I was up all night and I got a little guilt trip from my boss, which made me a bit angry. I mean I NEVER call in sick, I NEVER take vacation, I am NEVER ever late, and NEVER leave early, so I call in from being with my SIL and I get “well can you come in half a day because we are out some secretaries” whatever I went in,  I was on a high, adrenaline rush, worked till 6:30 and called her periodically to get an update, still contracting, painful, but not too bad. She ate and slept and ate a slept, and I really had no idea if this was going to be a weeklong thing or what. I couldn’t take a ton of time off. I have off Wednesdays anyway, I work 4/10’s so I told my boss I was taking Leave on Tuesday and to basically Suck it if she didn’t like it…..okay I didn’t say Suck it, I did say “I am taking Tuesday off, because she needs me” but I would have liked to had said the other one.

I went home Monday, ate dinner, took a bubbly bath, watched Deadwood (I am In love with that series, I watch it every six months or so) went to sleep at around 11pm and got a call at 4 am “she is really having pain” so up and showered and out. (his mom didn’t come back) She was on the floor surrounded with pillows, looking exhausted but alert and cheerful. The contractions are getting worse, and her hubby is looking under the sheet when she has them with a flashlight, we all giggled a lot at that because it looked like she should have been charging him for a peek. We watched “A Fish called Wanda” “The Great Outdoors” “Galaxy Quest” and “50 First Dates” all comedies to keep the mood up. The whole time she is in serious pain, and she switched positions from the floor, to the recliner, to the couch, back to the floor. We were rigging chairs to put her legs on, and tarps and towels and shooing her cats away. All day long she was contracting and resting and in and out of sleep and saying “is this normal? Sleeping between contractions?” and her mother said yes (I certainly didn’t know, my experience with my sister was 3 hours of labor and out the baby came thanks to pitocen) She cried and moaned and writhed with the pain and oh honey I was right there with her, I couldn’t take it away but I could darn sure ride them out with her!

At one point , I believe it was about 8 that night, after having been at this since Sunday night and myself only having about 5 hours sleep (restless at that) we got punchy. I have pictures of her husband R under her legs, poking his head out of the sheet like his head is the babies head, to that her mom says “you guys are nuts” I was just doing my job really, being the person who keeps everyone’s moods up. Inside though, I was really worried, was it taking too long? Was everything okay in there? Was the baby in distress and we didn’t know it? Will this go beyond Wednesday ? Hours and Hours of contractions and then all of a sudden she just stopped having them, or at least the strong ones, and at about 7 Wednesday morning, having been up for more than 24 hours I had to go get a shower, change, maybe get some sleep. I wasn’t any help at that point being a zombie. She, at this point, went into her room. I told her I loved her and to call me when the baby was born, because I just knew that within a couple of hours she would have him and I wouldn’t be there. She totally understood.

I cried the whole way home, disappointed in myself for not hanging in there, I could have slept on the couch but I was so uncomfortable and needed my own bed (which I had not spent more than 3 hours in, in 3 days) I cried when I got into bed and my husband reassured me that I was a good sister in law, that I did what I said I would and I was there when I was needed. So I slept, Hard for 4 hours and got no phone calls, woke up at noon because I kept dreaming about the baby, and that he was already here and I just needed to know what was going on. So I called her Mom, and got her voicemail. Meanwhile her brother M called me twice and asked what was going on, since I was privy to info he wasn’t, and I said that they would call everyone when he was born , that they weren’t picking up the phone because a) they were sleeping or b) they were busy and to just be patient. Her mom called me back said K was ready to push, she had been fighting it because of the pain and fear (I don’t blame her!) and now she wanted me back there. THANK GOODNESS I didn’t miss it, I was so happy, I was dancing around trying to find clean socks, brushing my hair, giddy with excitement! So I drove back, and they were now in her room, on her bed, tarp and all, just a-pushing.

Now I have seen other women’s business areas and such, I have 3 sisters and a Mom and I was a camp counselor for years, and there was that one time when I was 24 and thought I was a lesbian, and I have seen my sister give birth, so I wasn’t at all “wierded out” by her nakedness, in fact I see it as the most beautiful piece of natural mechanism ever. And she wasn’t at all shy or modest about me being there either, which made me feel all the more honored to witness the event. I can see why she didn’t want a lot of people there, especially people that would give off the wrong vibes (worry, impatience, scared) The room was dark, and we had a dim light in the corner and a spotlight on the “ta-da!” place. She pushed, and we watched and gave her praise for each one, she didn’t scream or cuss or snatch her husband bald or cry or protest, the girl was determined to have at it and get it done with!  

The baby was crowning, and if you know about birth you know its pushing, and pushing and pushing and little by little the baby heads forward, than retreats, forward and retreats, every time making head way (hee, head way) She is asking “Am I tearing” and we are telling her “no you aren’t” because her hubby is making sure there is pressure where there should be, and she is INSISTING she is tearing, and we are telling her “it may feel like it but you aren’t!” and all of a sudden THE FRONT DOOR TO THE APARTMENT OPENS!

And his mom jumps up and closes the bedroom door, for poor K’s privacy and its K’s older brother and his wife who had called me that morning to say “mom isn’t answering her phone” they didn’t call ahead, didn’t knock, just came the F over like gangbusters. I hear K’s mom say “you guys are not welcome right now, we are in the middle of labor and you cannot just come over like this!!” and they are saying “well (his wife) is supposed to be here, K invited her” So her mom sticks her head in and says “did you invite her” and they both say NO! And R is angry saying “who just walks into someone’s apartment like that? Especially knowing what is going on here?” So she goes out and says No, you cannot go in there wait out here in the living room. They leave, slamming the door, and go to the parents house where their dad is and proceed to freak out about the whole thing.

Back to the baby, about 5 minutes after the Rudes leave, she is still pushing and OMG there he is, head is out, shoulders, tiny little hiney and toes, and we are all crying and laughing and K is saying “I did it!” and we are saying “you did it!” and the baby is looking at all of us like “who are these tired looking people, and where is that magical boob I have been dreaming about? And get that thing out of my nose you A-hole” So I cleaned him up, while her mom and husband attended to the Mom, and I weighed him , 7 pounds 3 ounces, and I put his first diaper on and dressed him and the whole time? NOT A PEEP from this kid, just looking around like he is pondering philosophy and listening to Enya (which I was subjected to those 3 days, and I still hear in the deepest darkest of nighttime….shuddering)

He is beautiful, gorgeous, perfect, quiet, calm, easy, even a week or so later the kid is just so laid back. Eats, sleeps, poops, wriggles around, sucks on his hand. And I feel so bonded with him its crazy! I also feel a lot closer to K, and her husband and of course my hubbys mom. We all went through 3 days of pain, and love and witnessed a new life being brought into the world and I would do it all over again. I myself have been trying to get pregnant, and I would consider a home birth WITH a professional there of course, or better yet at a birthing center. K herself said to me “I didn’t understand how painful it was going to be” so yea, I will go for some relief in that area for sure.

The brother and wife who came over and then flipped out got over it, they had too in order to see the baby, but I would expect in a family like theirs who lives in drama to have something like that take place in the middle of all of it! it was really a misunderstanding that got out of control due to the timing!

So that was my birth story. Hope you enjoyed it.

P.S. I forgot how yummy babies are and might just consist on a diet of smelling their heads and eating thier tootsies.

*In 10^thgrade, if you were to draw my blood you would find that it was composed solely of peach iced tea Snapple, Werthers, Plain baked potato from Wendy’s and unrequited love for Richie Caudill who I wanted to “go with” but wasn’t aloud to date. He ended up in prison for armed robbery, so thank you mom and dad!

*I wasn’t aloud to shave my legs until I was 14. I am a natural blonde, so it wasn’t really that noticeable unless I was in the sunlight and then it was as if a spider spun a golden web of embarrassment on my legs. I went to a lock in at our local Baptist church ( we weren’t Baptists but in a one stoplight town in the Ocala national forest there isn’t much for a girl to do) so after separating the boys and girls with a rope and sheets (I guess they didn’t know that bored redneck teenagers can figure out how to lift those curtains and subsequently make it to 2^ndbase) I was giggling with 3 other girls my age about how cute Doyle Bankhead was and I looked down at their lovely smooth hairless legs and realized that I could have kept the both of them warm all night with a blanket knitted out of my yeti leg hair. I went home the next morning and declared myself ready for the lady bic, and proceeded to hack up my poor stems in an unrefined unladylike way (I should have gotten a blood transfusion) but I was a very happy girl nevertheless.

* I had to share a room with my older sister Elizabeth until I was 15 (we also had to bathe together but I didn’t like that so at age 6 I christened the S.S. Ti-Turdic afloat and she refused that ritual from then on out). She was a neat freak, and I wasn’t. We had twin beds on opposite sides of the room, mine was by the door, and hers was by the closet (because duh, the monster in there would get her first and I had the door to run out of!) she once put tape down in the middle (with a pathway to the closet) so I wouldn’t get my Gunga Din dirty self on her cleanliness. My mom said she used to tell us we had 15 minutes to clean up, and walk in to check and notice that my mattress was now pregnant with all my stuff shoved in between them, and everything else was under the bed. I had to clean up again, blast her detective skills! Later on after we had moved we got our own rooms and only then did my sister and I actually get along! ……although I still call her Lizard-Breath to this day, c’mon it’s a term of endearment!!

*I was the only kid I knew who went to therapy every week, and this was back in 85. I was a very good kid, easy going, the comic relief of my family but I was also very depressed, I hid it well. You cannot look back on any pictures of me and say “that kid is sad” because I was a great actress, and because even then I knew not to be too vulnerable. I will get into why another time maybe, cliff notes version is this: dad died, mom remarried alcoholic, and I had no idea how to cope, it’s an afterschool special I know.

Back to the therapy, the first day I went to see him, John Frasier (yes, Frasier) I was instantly comfortable with him, but didn’t understand what I was supposed to do! He says that I sat there, with a pillow on my lap and proceeded to rip apart a seam and pick every bit of stuffing out of it, not saying a word to him. He asked me questions, and I nodded sometimes or shook my head and I distinctly remember having a huge lump in my throat because here there was this world opened up to me, a neutral territory, a place where this guy is telling me I can say what I want, feel what I want, and no one is going to judge me, or try to console me, or make it better with empty things, He wanted me to just ……talk. I can see him so clearly as he was that day, the room and everything, he looked like….a therapist! Beard, glasses, receding hairline but long hair, corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows, brown pants, brown loafers with black socks, I had NO IDEA that this man would be in my life , one day a week, for the next 13 years! And let me tell you he could write a book on me, he has even asked me for permission to publish in journals about me! He is THE only person in my life that I am honestly indebted to (even though I technically paid him) for being alive. I am an advocate of therapy, the right kind of course, and to this day I am still in contact with him!

Conversation in my office today.

My boss, coming down the hallway yells:  “Someone needs to volunteer to take down these Christmas decorations!”

We have decorations all over the office, trees, garlands, and things hanging from the ceiling. A decorating committee was formed to put them all up. I didn’t volunteer for this task because I would have fallen behind in my work.

10 minutes after her hallway yell

Ring Ring.

Me “insert office greeting and name here”

Her “I have volunteered you to take down the decorations, find someone to help you”

Me “Sorry , but I cannot boss lady, I didn’t put them up for that reason and I am not taking them down, the people who put them up should do that”

Her “ well its up to each individual hallway to take down their decorations”

Me “No one in this hallway volunteered to put them up in the first place, I don’t think its right to make one or two of us climb up and down a ladder for an hour to undo something we didn’t agree to put up”

Her “well, okay, but what am I supposed to do”

Me “tell the people who put it up…….to take it down”

I mean really, its kindergarten logic. You take out a toy to play with it; you put it back where you got it.

Her “I understand” hangs up

Five minutes later another secretary who also didn’t put up the stuff is taking it down. I feel bad but not really, she should have said no. I fire off an email to the decorators and tell them that next year they should form a “dismantling committee” so that the people who weren’t there for the decorating don’t have to clean up what they started…..and let me just sideline here, the day it all went down they brought in music and cookies and punch and cake and anyone who WASN’T a volunteer couldn’t touch the party food, but they want us to take it all down? I didn’t want your nasty sugar free oatmeal cookies that you made in your Cosby Christmas sweater anyway, and that goes double for the obnoxious Christian station music.

Office politics, I hates them.

Let me add that I am secretly proud of myself for saying NO. Because I have a problem saying that word to people for fear of guilt, or them thinking bad things about me, or whatever. I come from a long line of “pleasers” and you can make any joke out of that label you want!

It was of course , Christmas this past week, and when my family gets together we are very very loud, so loud that unless you come from my family you would never be able to tell that we are actually carrying on a conversation and understanding eachother perfectly even from across a room, No, you would think that we were all some sort of strange bird species trying to protect our young by yelling at a predator. Its not loud because we are mad, its loud because......we are loud people, and you will hear loud norwegian being spoken as well. Maybe its the viking in us?

My husband always leaves these gatherings and says something like "I am deaf now"

Sometimes at these things , for some reason we all start talking about "remember when Laura used to say (blank) instead of (blank)?" and laughing ensues. I am not the only this topic makes fun of, but its usually me.

Here are some favorites.

I used to say ALLERGY instead of ALGAE. as in "Mom there is allergy growing in the pool"

I used to say BUSY-NESS instead of BUSINESS

I used to say DIZZY-KNEE instead of DISNEY

My father made a song up about those three words to the tune of "ebony and ivory" by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. It went "Allergy, Dizzy-Knee living in perfect Busy-ness" untill I cried.

I also sang songs incorrectly like The Who's "who are you" I sang "Blue Awning" as in "blue awning..blue blue blue blue" I still sing it like that when watching CSI.

Do any of you guys, who read this blog, have similar stories about words pronounced wrong or song lyrics? and does your family still remember them all?