True Story

{April 17, 2010} Labeling & Reminding

True Story: I am a great Reminder. Just ask my husband.

I will leave the vacuum in the middle of a room for a week to remind me to vacuum that particular room.

I will tell Pump twice, email, text and phone call for good measure to remind him to do something. If he would get back on Facebook I would write it on his wall so all his “friends” could remind him too.

I’m a good labeler as well. I will scribble a note “Dirty” on the counter above the dishwasher so I don’t drink out of a crusty cup. I can’t remember if the dishes are clean or dirty due to mass quantities of wine, lack of sleep, brain overload, from “hold me pweese Mommy”, Facebook, real estate calls, emails, texts, blogs, “Can we have sex”, and other daily disturbances.

I HAVE to label medicine, especially generic prescription creams & ointments, or I might, in the middle of the night, put the Retin A on the wrong part. And that sounds like a BIG mistake.

True Side Note: My Dermatologist has 5 kids and baby soft skin. He told me I could buy Retin A over-the-counter in Mexico for $20. Girls trip???

I am looking for different revenue streams if anyone needs me to be a human daily reminder. Just comment your husband’s cell phone number below. $20 a pop. Think of the tubes of Retin A I could buy.

{April 14, 2010} Me and Cousin Eddie

True Story: I’ve worn a Dickie. As in a Dickie Turtleneck… Yep.

My Mom gave us everything we needed, but not everything we wanted. Which, I suppose is what most of us try to do.

Whatever brand everyone was wearing, she would buy us the off-brand. I suppose I am thankful for this today, as I am currently not materialistic or a clothes-hound. If win the Lotto tomorrow we’ll re-evaluate that statement

However, this could be a little embarrassing during the teenage years when having everything your friends did,was like the most important thing in the WORLD, you know? Ye-ah… Like, ev-ah…

I don’t know if you remember, but somewhere around 1987, leather bomber jackets were in style. At least in small town Alabama, they were.

All my friends had one and I wanted one too. Mom took me to Wal-Mart to look at some pleather bullshit. I was like, “Mom, it has to be a REAL leather jacket, GOSH”!

Mom: I’m not paying $200 for a leather jacket.

True Story: One of my Mom’s famous lines is, “I’m not buying you another stitch’!

I’ve heard it like 5 trillion times. Never gets old, hmm.

So, after begging for a leather jacket for what I think is a reasonable amount of time (6 months), I am expecting to get one for Christmas. I am just sure of it!

I am also picking up on little hints from My mom in the weeks leading up to Christmas that Santa might be skinning a cow at that time. (My intuition was not very strong then).

True Story: I like surprises… Good ones.

True Side Note: I hate surprise drop-in visits. Do you?

I’m always naked or … naked. Call first people.

The reason I bring up surprises is I really like to open any and all gifts that are given to me WITHOUT knowing what is inside of them prior to the opening.

I like everyone to be real quiet, and watch me open my gift. I’m very good at being the guest of honor at my own baby shower or birthday party.

Well, this particular Christmas Season, I let a friend convince me that it was cool to open your gifts late at night while your parents were sleeping, see what you were getting, then wrap them back just as they were. She was REALLY good at it. Me? Not so much. Not too crafty.

So, one night, about a week before Christmas, circa. 1987, my friends, A & P, were spending the night. I told them how this girl had taught me how to open the gifts up. The 3 of us decided we should check out my goodies.

We picked out the large “clothing” box that HAD to be my leather jacket. It was the only one that fit the bill.

We gingerly peel the tape back and slide the paper off. I start to get excited and look around to make sure no adult is coming.

How will I disguise my knowing excitement Christmas morning when I already know what’s coming??? OOHHH!

We lift the white lid off the box…

A gorgeous, worn, brown leather KICK ASS bomber jacket…

No. 12 stacked Dickies in a multitude of colors and a black paten, leather clock purse.

True Story: Curiosity embarrassed the S _ _ T out of the stupid cat.

{April 11, 2010} Whine (Wine)!

True Story: I never knew my son knew what a beer was.

When you have a child that talked a little later in developement, you forget what sponges they are. He picks up my beer the other day and says, “Mommy’s beer”.

Me: That’s right. That’s Mommy’s beer.

I’m thinking I never told him what a beer was….

Oh yeah. I guess he must have heard it a thousand times.

Me: Pump, would you grab me a beer.

Me: Hey Pump, how bout a beer?

Me: Pump, you want a beer?

Me: Pump, Momma’s thirsty.

Pump: Is it beer thirty?

Pump: Want to crush a couple beers?

Pump: I’m thinking about sizzlin a few beers.

Makes since now.

So the other evening we are attending an art show, Myself, Pump, & G Monkey.

They have complimentary wine and snacks. Pump and I are both enjoying a cup of white wine. G Monkey is running around eating chips and what not. He see’s my cup and stops suddenly.

G Monkey: WINE!!!!

Me: Shh. Yes, baby, that’s Mommy’s wine.

G Monkey: WINE!!!

Me: Wine is for Mommy’s & Daddy’s and grown people. You want some water?

G Monkey: I want wine!

Me: You can’t have wine. You can have water.

He reaches for my cup.

G Monkey: Mines wine!

At this point it is starting to get loud. People are trying to have intellectual, artful conversations, probably wondering why a 2-year-old is there in the 1st place, and why he knows what wine is. I am starting to feel the eyes of “how is she going to handle this” on me.

What would you do?

I chose to take his cup of water & add a splash of the lovely green tea they were serving, hand it to my kid and say, “Here you go. Wine”.

He danced off doing the hot diggity dog dance.

True Story: We don’t get handbooks… Oh wait, I think there are some parenting handbooks lying around here somewhere???

{April 8, 2010} Skinny Bitches

True Story: Some skinny girls have been known to make people sick.

No lie. I’m not being ugly. This is serious business. My sister L, has some sort of medical, anatomy phobia.

She doesn’t like anybody to talk about veins ( V Words), or organs, or illnesses, or anything of this nature. If an ambulance passes by, she gets a little queasy.

Me on the other hand, I actually think I’m a doctor. Seriously. I’ve had zero medical training, other than being a lifeguard and a mother, but I really feel like I have a grasp on the subject.

If I’ve been drinking and you have a health problem… You better watch out… I’m not afraid to just come on out with a diagnoses.

So, L and I, years ago, were attending an Alabama football game. We were sitting on the edge of the student section, which is basically a 3rd world country, i.e. starving, poor sick kids yelling, shouting, and holding their hands out.

So, we’re watching the game, enjoying ourselves… All of the sudden, I look at my sister and she is rocking back and forth in her “Safety Position” holding her wrists together.

Me: What are you doing?

L: Uh, uh…

Me: What’s wrong?!?

She just points to her right.

I look over and finally see what she’s talking about.

There is a young lady thinner than I’ve ever see in my LIFE.

Now I’m no virgin. I’ve seen all kinds in my day. But this girl was SKINNY. I could have snapped her little legs in two like a toothpick. I thought she was going to shatter right there in the stands.

Every time her date, and I use the term date loosely at an SEC football game, would put his arm around her, I would instinctively raise up off the bench and go, “No..No… be careful. You might break her”.

I mean no disrespect whats so ever. I know that anorexia is a disease. I suffer from many many addictive, mental, and bodily diseases… I get that.

I’m just trying to paint a picture here.

So I say to L: Yep, she’s skinny. I hear ya. It’s pretty gross.

L: (still rocking back & forth, holding her wrists together, and crying a little) Her V words are sticking out all over the place… And her B words.

That would be Veins & Bones for you lay people.

True Story: Young ladies, before you hit that diet, or “gateway” method, know this… Fat people are happy too. See it all the time. I’m just saying…

{April 6, 2010} Sprink Break – The Middle Years

True Story: I have never thought about exercising when on vacation. Never.

I live at the beach. And I can’t even check my Black Berry for one minute while driving, without running over a bunch of “over-achievers” running up and down the beach road. WTF?

Second trip down Spring Break Memory Lane

Memory 1: Riding in the first ever “Mini Van”, my friend’s parents would take out all the seats and rig up a 12″ TV and VCR on the floor of the van. All of us kids would lie on a blanket and watch movies. It took 2 1/2 movies to get to the beach.

True Story: My friend’s parents would be arrested today for not strapping us in.

Memory 2: Sun burning myself so badly there were blisters, and I couldn’t take a shower or put clothes on my body.

True Story: Our parents would be arrested today for not lathering SPF on us.

Memory 3: It had to be Spring Break when out to a “fancy seafood dinner” my younger sisters talked Mom into letting them get their own entrees instead of splitting, or ordering from the children’s menu. Inevitably, my sisters could not eat a 1/4 of the portion served them. ( Mom’s instinctively know this?) So, every time Mom turned her head, they dumped fettuccine alfredo between the cracks in the old, nautical wood table, till it was piled on the floor for the waitress to sweep up.

Memory 4: I was swimming in the indoor pool with my friend on this particular spring break. I went to the bathroom and saw a spot in my bathing suit. That’s right. It was spring break. I remember it like it was yesterday. No woman will ever forget.

Memory 5: It had to be spring break when my younger sisters were swimming in the gulf of Mexico and suddenly became over-run by a school of tiny fish. The fish ended up in their bathing suits. They ran screaming to the shore, both pulling little fish out of their suits… When L stopped and looked up at B… Horrified.

B: What?!?!

L just pointed…. To her… GIRL PARTS!

She looked down… And there was a little fish tail sticking out.

The best part? She reached down, grabbed the tail, and squeezed the guts out of that fish.

He was not welcome there.

Memory 6: 24 hours before we left town I was packed and ready to go skiing. I had been looking forward to this ski trip for months. Dad was taking us somewhere in the Rockies. I was trying on my ski suit when my Mom came in my room.

Mom: I’m sorry Ashley. You need to unpack your ski bag.

Me: What?!? Why?!?

Mom: Your Dad hurt his back or something. I think you are going to Mexico instead.

Me: Mexico? Hmm.

Serendipity: At 11 I was a certified diver trained by a really neat guy, Hermon. He was so well-skilled in scuba diving, he wore no weight belt and no air in his BC and could maintain his buoyancy in any depth of water.

He took me on my first dive in 20 feet of ocean water and taught me how to do lung push-ups on the ocean floor.

True Story: We smuggled a rain stick in the United States (customs would have made us open it) on the way home.

How you ask?

You just need 1 puking, pooping, 11-year-old with Montezuma’s Revenge who refuses to swallow medicine. Easy as cake. They let you waltz right through.

{March 31, 2010} Strangers

True Story: Pump always tells the waiter/waitress, toll booth worker, cashier, etc… That he loves them.

Example:

Waiter: Can I get you anything else?

Pump: Just the check. Thanks.

Waiter: I’ll be right back with that.

Pump: K. Love you.

{March 31, 2010} Spin Doctors

True Story: Little Miss Can’t be Wrong.

When I was 16 I moved to the beach and lived with my Dad for a year. I worked as a Lifeguard for a Water Park and went to a small private school. Good Times!

I went back to my home town about once a month to see family and friends. On my 1st visit back after only having moved a few weeks prior I was riding around in the car with 2 of my best buds. I put a new tape I had bought for the 5 hour trip home in the tape deck. That’s right, tape deck. It was 1992.

My friends turned the music down and looked at each other, then at me. Their faces saying, “we need to talk”.

A: You’ve changed.

Me: What?!? What are you talking about? I am the exact same I always am.

A & P: You’re listening to this new, weird music.

True Story: I’m pretty sure that the Spin Doctors are Pop, as in Popular, top 40, not Indie or cool or anything like that.

{March 30, 2010} Angel is the Centerfold

True Story: My aunt used to say about me when I was a wee bit younger, “Ashley’s going to be a dancer. We just don’t know what kind”.

In the 10th grade I was seeing a fella. I went to his house one afternoon. His Mom went to get him out of his room or wake him up… I guess he wasn’t expecting my visit or he was off doing teenage boy things.

Anywho, they had their radio on and the J.Geils Band’s, “Angel is a Centerfold” came on. What would you have done?

I started dancing. It’s a GOOD song.

Enter: Boy and his Mother.

Me: Standing on one of their den chairs… Rocking out!!!

Guess what??? They joined me for the rest of the song.

True Story: I’m glad I had a son. Like Chris Rock says, if I had a daughter, I would have to work hard to keep her off the pole.

{March 28, 2010} 10

True Story: This is the mind of a 10-year-old… And I haven’t changed one bit.

I found a folder made of faded blue construction paper with a “picture” I had drawn of myself titled, My Booklet About Me.

Those of us mothers know that teachers send this crap home on a daily basis. My 2-year-old son’s teacher helped him glue a cotton ball to a primitively drawn sheep. Wow!

Don’t judge. I save most of it, especially the ones G Monkey thought only needed 1 line of crayon. Done. Those show real vision I think. So, a lot of it gets tossed after a day on the frig.

My Mom, inevitably with 4 of us, tossed a lot of crap. But she saved a few gems. A couple of years ago when we were all home for a holiday she handed each of us a large bag of stuff, pictures & memorabilia from our childhood. She said something about having our own families now etc… But really I think she meant, “I’m tired of this crap sitting around my house”. Can’t blame her.

You can’t help but wonder why some things were spared. I went through my stash the other day while making a stash for MY son and found the following Booklet about Me.

True Story: I have always believed that you are who you are when you come out of the womb. And I have known a few people that long actually, in my life, and can attest to the fact that they haven’t changed.

That makes it even more fun when you look back at yourself and realize YOU haven’t changed either. Though on a smaller, more elementary scale, I realize I still had a healthy self-confidence (a little too healthy), a sense of humor, goal-oriented and really, was just pretty ridiculous.

*My 10-year-old words are written in Bold.

My Booklet About ME – Picture of a girl on a balance beam, written below (This is what I like to do!)

On the 1st page there is a puzzle with descriptive words in each piece. You are to color in the ones that describe you.

I colored: thoughtful, brown hair, neat, green eyes, friendly, hazel eyes, careful, outgoing, well-groomed, curious, average height, helpful, happy, proud, cheerful and only 1/2 of the serious puzzle piece.

Ha! I think many would argue the well-groomed choice, and I am obviously quite proud of myself. I have never been careful, and who knew I was so deep with the 1/2 serious.

I specifically did not color in sad, shy, quiet, or kind. hmmm…

Fill in the _________!

I am 10 years old.

I have 2 sisters and 1 brother.

My favorite subject in school is reading.

My favorite TV program is The Cosby Show.

When I grow up I want to be an architect. (Ha!)

Today I feel like doing gymnastics.

I feel bad when I am sick. (Why else would I feel bad, right?)

I am afraid when I get a bad grade on my report card.

I hope I will never break a bone. (Oh, young, wishful thinking.)

I wish my teacher wouldn’t load us down with work.

I often worry about nuclear war. (This was before I paid health insurance, mortgages and bought diapers & toilet paper, obviously).

I wish I never get a paddling. (Well, not the case. Got them often, usually for “talking”. Corporal punishment in the 1980s was fo real.

I like riding 4 wheelers. (I will not allow my son on these death traps as of this writing).

I don’t like wrecks. (No shit Sherlock?)

I wish my mother would notice that I am older than B and L ( my script was so big and long that I put a little arrow and pointed to the back of the page so I could spell their names and finish my sentence. I still do this today! Over-explainer. If you get a thank you note or anything written from me, it will inevitably have an arrow somewhere on it pointing to more script that was “necessary” for me to tell you.

I wish my father________________________ ( Blank. Nothing. I guess he was perfect. This surely pissed my mom off).

I would like to win a gold medal in gymnastics. (I was probably referring to the Olympics, which, of course, didn’t happen. No baby steps for this chick.)

I wish people would not tease me. (I hate bullies).

When I take my report card home I show it to my Mom. She usually says it’s good but not this six weeks I think.

I would read more if I had more interesting books.

I wish my parents knew _______________ (I didn’t write anything. .. Deep, dark secrets I guess).

When I am alone I’m bored. (Yes!)

I wish I had more friends. (Always)

I wish people would _________________ ( Looks like I erased some top-secret info here).

When I have free time I Read, Watch TV, Jump on the trampoline, do gymnastics and Play tennis. (Wow, what a life!)

I like to go on vacations. (Duh.)

On Sunday I go to church. (Like a good girl.)

My best friend is Jennifer Cooke. (I need to find her… Wonder if she is on FB?)

School is okay sometimes and groce other times. (Apparently I needed to keep going so I could learn how to spell gross.

Girls are Okay. Boys are OKay. (I still feel this way. I don’t think anybody is really ALL that and a bag of chips).

If I ran the school we would get out for lunch. (Food is still very important to me.)

If I had a million dollars I would buy a go-cart. (hahahahahahahaha!)

I wish everyone knew that I _______________________. (Hmmm… Again with the secrets.)

True Story: We were then required to write little essays about ourselves.

I am Special

I am special because I am on a gymnastics team. I have good grades. I have lots of friends. I am not starving or anything horrible like that.

That about says it. I am still very grateful to not be starving or anything horrible like that. So grateful, I go ahead and stuff whatever food I can find in my mouth just in case something horrible like that happens.

When I was Happy

I had been wanting to go see Lionel Richie in concert real bad, but they were all sold out, so I was sad. But when I got home from school one day Mother had tickets. I was real excited.

True Story: Still one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. Pointer Sisters opened up the All Night Long tour. I couldn’t decide which friend to take so I flipped a coin. Mom let us stand on our chairs and dance. Good Times!

When I was Sad

We were in Aspen, Colorado. It was our last day to ski. Guess what? It was a blizzard on top of the mountain. And we couldn’t ski. I was mad because I probably wouldn’t get to ski for another three years.

Spoiled little “you know what”.

Someone I like

I like Jennifer Cooke. The reason I like her is that she is nice, and she’s my kind of person. She is funny. That’s why I like her.

True Story: This is exactly how I choose girlfriends today. And I will stalk them if I think we should be friends. I will ask them out on a “friend date”. Oh Jennifer??? Where are you my long-lost buddy???

When I was really afraid

I was really afraid when I had to do a back hand-spring on the beam by myself. I was in a meet and when it came time for my back hand-spring I stopped. I wouldn’t do it. I was too scared. I stood there. When I looked back at my coach she gave me a mean look and said go or get down. So I went and I didn’t fall off. That’s what made me look like a big baby.

True Story: I can remember it like it was yesterday. Still haunts me.

To do list: Dig out one of these old treasures if you have any, pour a glass of wine and laugh, laugh, laugh.

{March 28, 2010} Typi.n/g

True Story: Not much pisses me off more than typing a VERY long sentence only to find out the CAPS lock was on.

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