mustache fever

have you heard about the new-ish trend? i bet you have if you've got regular contact with tweenage girls and their likes and dislikes. the trend i'm referring to is mustaches. yeah, you read that right. mustaches, as in, the fur that grows on men's upper lips.

i discovered this back a few months ago when i was watching some ridiculous reality show with brooke (aged 9 at the time) and there was one contestant sporting a bushy mullet and a really big, ridiculous mustache. i made some snarky comment about his odd, 80's styling and she said, "i like it." WHAT?! i concluded she must be joking, so i laughed at her great joke. however, one look at her face convinced me that this was no joke. she seriously was digging his look.

she assured me that the mullet wasn't really her thing, but that giant fur-patch on his lip was looking mighty fine. great googlie mooglie, my child is very strange. she's not into goat-t's or beards so much, but that solo lip hair is oddly appealing.

it didn't take me long to discover that this mustache phenomenon isn't unique to my child. i started seeing mustache clothing, mugs, and jewelry.

that's when i remembered seeing photos of several friends of mine at a baby shower/mustache party. i don't understand the infatuation, but i've decided to find it amusing.

before christmas, i was shopping with a friend, looking for mustache paraphernalia at the mall but having little luck. my friend suggested that since i'm handy, i should just buy any shirt and put a mustache onto it. 

that sparked some fun ideas, so i purchased a shirt for brooke with a big giraffe face and then sewed some velcro onto the lip. then i made up six different mustache styles in felt and put velcro onto them as well. it became a much more elaborate project than i'd anticipated, but thankfully i started far enough ahead of christmas so that i had enough nights to finish it before the morning of the big reveal.

here's my strange little child, sporting her giraffe-stache shirt on christmas morning. and her mood-stache necklace that has brought endless fun, but currently needs to be repaired because it's already been loved too much.

what's your take on this wacky trend?

Padiddle

"Padiddle!" i yelled excitedly as we drove home tonight. my husband looked at me strangely and smiled slightly, wondering what the heck made me yell out gibberish.

i repeated it again. "padiddle. puh-diddle. don't you know what that means? didn't you see it? don't you want to kiss me?!"

he looked at me even more strangely, no longer smiling, as if i'd lost my mind. obviously he grew up with an incomplete childhood because no one should grow up without the padiddle game.

when you're driving at night and you see a car coming toward you with one head light burned out, you yell "padiddle" at the top of your lungs and then you get to kiss the person of your choice in the car where you're riding.

as a kid, i think i learned this game from my aunts who were young and hip and cool and knew about things like kissing boys. i spent many nights as a young teenager riding in cars where boys were present and hoping that we'd run across one of those lovely padiddles so i'd have a perfect and legitimate opportunity to smooch a boy. i'd see a solo headlight coming our way and i'd hold my breath, hoping it was an elusive single lighted car and not another stupid motorcycle out to trick me and spoil my fun.

years went by and i never saw one of those buggers at the right time. i was always with my parents or maybe my brother when i'd catch a glimpse of one.

finally, one night i was riding in a car with several friends on our way to a youth group activity with our church. i was probably 15 years old. along the road toward us came a padiddle, unmistakable, definitely not a motorcycle. i yelled it out gleefully and then started looking around, thinking of who i was going to kiss.

it wasn't going quite the way i'd imagined in my head. i wasn't crowded into a backseat with several cute boys to choose from. there was one cute boy driving, one not cute boy in the passenger seat and then 3 or 4 girls crammed into the backseat together. i quickly decided the driver wasn't a good option because of the potential crashing factor. i had no interest in kissing the un-cute boy in front of me.

i couldn't bear to let the opportunity pass me by altogether, so i turned to my best friend who was sitting beside me and gave her a big smooch right on the lips.

all the other passengers started squawking and yelling about what had just happened. they couldn't believe i'd kissed her.

in my mind, it wasn't sexual, it was just funny. i'm not sure i'd ever even heard of lesb!ans (trying to trick the naughty google searches) before so i didn't think much of it or understand the dramatic reaction of my friends.

looking back on it now, i guess it shows just how naive i was at that time. i thought i was a lady of the world, but clearly i was wrong. it makes me smile to remember those times and the innocence of hoping for a chance to give someone a quick peck on the mouth. childhood is a wonderful thing.

chinuvla

since we've been taking some strange pictures around here recently, i thought i'd show some fun ones i got of brooke as well. she's usually up for a photo shoot, particularly if it's a weird one and she doesn't have to smile pretty or hold still.

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1. cute little toe-ies.

2. sole of food.

3. palm.

4. ankle. (just kidding)

5. side of knee with leg bent. funny how many of our parts can look like bo0ties if taken out of context.

6. shrivelly chin.

7. oh that girl and her faces.

8. nostrils.

9. the whole package.

after taking the pic of the chin, she decided we needed a video of her chin singing and dancing. this makes me laugh every time i watch it.

naked in public? of course not! except for that one time...

i had a friend many years ago named Kate. we spent a lot of time together my senior year of high school and for a couple years after that. then i got married, moved away and Kate and i mostly lost touch.

i decided i wanted to get my group of friends together for a little reunion after about 12 years apart and as a chance for us to meet each others' husbands and wives. invitations were sent out, rsvp's arrived and as it turned out, only two of my girlfriends who were invited were able to make it and neither brought a spouse.

that was fine and i was secretly glad because they were the two i was closest to and sometimes less is more when it comes to having a good time of remembering the good ole days.

during the evening of chatting, Kate mentioned that her husband wasn't there because she didn't want him to meet me. i was temporarily speechless. my feelings were kind of hurt. i think i did the head tip and brow furrow as i tried to process what she'd said and figure out what she meant. she elaborated. "every bad thing i ever did, i did with you. i don't want him to know that part of me."

it was interesting how the memories i had of our time together didn't fall into the "bad things" category. i've got another friend who shared most of those times with me, but she still loves me and doesn't mind a bit if her husband knows me and we laugh over those stupid memories.

since that night, (i chose to disregard that comment and still have fun with my girls) i've thought about it a lot. i've trolled through my stash of brain files. am i remembering things wrong? i don't think so. we hung out before i started drinking and she never had a drink in her life. we didn't smoke or fool around with boys or any of the things i usually associate with being bad.

then i remembered the night. i'm pretty sure there was only one that might land in both of our "bad things" mental files.

we went to visit a friend at their apartment. it was summer and we were about twenty. we were silly and lively and always looking for something fun to do. our friend had to leave, but we decided to use their apartment's community pool without the friend. unfortunately, we didn't have bathing suits. so we went into the pool fully clothed and had a grand old time hopping back and forth between the pool and hot tub. it was late, no one else was there and we giggled up a storm while splashing around merrily.

we sloshed back to my car and then stood there in the parking lot debating what to do next. we dripped rivers onto the pavement because we didn't even have a towel, wash cloth, or tissue to blot ourselves with. after some discussion, we decided that the best course of action would be to strip off our clothes, throw them on the floor in the backseat and drive home naked.

yes, completely naked.

it was around midnight and we had a fifteen drive back to my house. the house where i lived as a nanny and had a nice place to park in the garage. we screamed and laughed like it was the funniest thing we'd ever done in our lives. i drove really fast whenever i passed anyone, but not so fast as to attract potential police attention. if we'd been stopped, there was no way we'd have even been able to scramble into our clothing because it was in a twisted, soaking heap on the floor behind me.

we arrived home, incident free and filled with the adrenaline rush that comes from doing something outrageous and getting away with it. we snuck up to my bedroom, clutching our dripping clothes and found some comfy jammies to curl up in as we laughed over our nudie dash through town.

looking back now, i guess i can see how she might not want her husband to hear such tales. she's a pretty prim and proper kind of person and her husband probably likes that about her. it might spoil his image of his wife if he knew about the night she drove through town, bare as the day she was born.

the pink nightie

sometimes it's said of a kid that "they're in a hurry to grow up." i think i was kind of like that, except i wanted to skip the journey and zing straight to adulthood. i wanted to zoom from 7 to 20 in no time flat. i longed to hang out with the adults and listen to the things they said. i wanted to hear the gossip and absorb all the information that i thought i was old enough to understand.

when i was about twelve, i started being allowed to shop around the mall with a trustworthy friend while one of our parents wandered around the mall apart from us. i thought that was about the coolest thing ever. i had a little bit of money because i always babysat, pet sat, raked yards, cleaned the house, washed the car. anything to get some moolah into my pink, pleather wallet.

i liked to buy my own clothes when i was with my friends because then i didn't have to listen to my parents' opinions about them. of course i thought i was a mature woman with my own income, so surely i was old enough to pick out my own attire. however, my parents, being conservative, had other ideas. they didn't mind if i bought my own stuff, but they didn't hesitate to shuttle me right back to the mall to return my purchases if they didn't fall in line with the standards that had been set for me.

it didn't take me long to learn how to get things that were acceptable to both my parents and myself so as to avoid the embarrassment of having to return things. it was awful to be asked by the associate doing the return, "reason you're returning this today?" and having to answer with my eyes averted, "my dad said it looked slutty."

there was one time though, where i decided that i didn't care what they thought. i was going to buy any old thing i pleased that was within my budget. i loved silky, lacy things, and underwear in particular. i was browsing through a department store's lingerie department. i meandered out of the bras and through the girdle region. before i knew it, i found myself in the land of sexy teddies. the things surrounding me were so beautiful and elegant. they were pleasing to the eyes and the fingertips and i longed to own one of my very own. i wanted to put it on and wear it under my clothes. i wasn't entirely sure what the intended purpose of such clothing items was, but i knew i had to have one.

i couldn't afford most of the lacy pretties, but i found a sale rack with some lovely little things. there was one pale pink, fake silk number with a scalloped lace neckline and skinny little straps. i held it there in the j.c. penny's and debated with myself. what would i ever do with this? did i really want to spend all the money i had allotted for clothes on something that i could never show to anyone? i put it back and started to walk away, but it called out to me in a gentle, whispery voice. it promised that i'd feel beautiful when i wore it. it assured me that no child had ever owned an item of such elegance.

i hesitated for only a moment longer before i snatched it up, hugged it to myself and rushed to the counter to pay. an elderly saleswoman waited at the desk to ring up the next customer. i tried to control the trembling in my hands as i set it down. she raised an eyebrow in clear disapproval. her look plainly stated that in her book, i wasn't even old enough to wear makeup, let alone buy a sexy nightie that would no doubt be put to shameful and unladylike uses.

in response to her disdain, i determined to be as womanly as possible. i puffed out my chest to show off my new breasts. i raised an eyebrow of my own and looked her right in the eye, just daring her to question my morals or maturity. i knew of no laws forbidding twelve year olds to purchase underwear and i was ready to state that for all to hear if she dared to so much as cluck her tongue in criticism.

when the transaction was complete, i walked sedately away, shoulders back, head held high, not letting on that my heart was pounding in terror and excitement. my friend was giggling and elbowing me in the ribs, but i held onto my mature facade until we were out of sight of the store.

we immediately raced into a bathroom where i threw away the bag and receipt and stuffed the beautiful silk treasure into the bottom of my purse. i couldn't risk getting spotted by my parent while carrying a bag that i wasn't willing to explain.

when i got home with my negligee, i held it up and twirled around in front of my mirror. i imagined wearing it to sleep or to church under my conservative dress. but somehow, i could never get up the nerve to put it on. i held it and petted it, i even ripped off the tags, but after each time that i admired it, i tucked it away in the bottom of my toy box full of stuffed animals to prevent it from being discovered.

after a few months of keeping the nightie in hiding, my guilt was becoming unbearable. i had figured out the reason that women bought such things and i knew i wasn't ready for sex. it no longer pleased me to look at it and now i sort of understood that the snap-crotch wasn't there to make going to the bathroom easier. i couldn't even think of it without feeling a twist in my gut, knowing that i shouldn't own it. i thought about throwing it away, but couldn't bear the idea of letting something so pretty go in the garbage. i had no friends who were old enough or slutty enough to be wearing such a thing for a boy or man, so i couldn't give it to any of them.

that left me with only one option that i could think of. i had to give it to my mom. i knew that if she'd caught me with it, she would immediately think that i was trashier than i was. at that point, i hadn't even kissed a boy, so i didn't want her to think that i was that kind of girl.

mother's day was approaching, so i decided to give it to my mom as a gift. i would act like it was a recent purchase and always intended for her.

i called her into my room that afternoon and handed her a plastic bag containing the slinky garment. i told her that i didn't give it to her in front of the rest of the family because i didn't want to embarrass her. i tried to play it cool. woman to woman. as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a child to give her mother a piece of sexy lingerie for mother's day.

she looked at the nightie. she looked at me. she narrowed her eyes, but i maintained what i perceived to be my air of mature innocence.

i suspect it was badly wrinkled from being crammed into my toy box for months and maybe even a little dirty or frayed from being petted by my childish fingers so many times.

i told this story to my mom the other day, hoping to hear her end of it. she didn't really remember at first, but then she ran up to her room and dug around in the bottom drawer of her dresser. she pulled an old plastic bag out and slipped the very negligee in question out of the bag and into my hand.

my eyes widened. i couldn't believe it still existed. i petted the cheap silk for a moment and then dropped it like i'd been shocked. i looked at her with a horrified expression and asked if she'd ever worn it for its intended purpose. she laughed and assured me that it had never been worn and she gave it back to me.

that night, i took it home. i told my husband of 14 years the story and pulled the little nightie out of my purse...

let's just say that even after 25 years, this little number is still hot. 

little known fact

i always like learning new things about people. i also like holding some things about myself back in reserve to whip out and surprise people at unexpected times. i have one friend, jana, who i've known for about 13 years and we've spent countless hours talking, laughing,  and crying together. she thinks she knows me so well, but then out comes something random about my life that makes her shake her head and wonder if she even knows me at all. like the fact that my brother has called me choc for most of my life. and no, it has nothing to do with chocolate.

i'd love to hear something about you. something that maybe is a secret or maybe isn't secretive at all. perhaps it's just something that you haven't thought of in a long time. or something that goes way back to your childhood and has nothing to do with you now, but you can still claim it as your own.

i'll go first.

in my childhood i spent a lot of time swimming. my grandparents had a nice pool and i was always up for any opportunity to go for a dip (not of the skinny variety). i'd taken some swimming lessons over the years and felt that i'd mastered the craft of the different strokes and the end of pool flip, along with some basic dives.

when i was about thirteen, i signed up for synchronized swimming classes to give myself a new water challenge and hopefully become like the awesome ladies in the olympics.



unfortunately, no other people wanted to participate in the class. i went every week for three months and received private lessons, which sounds nice and personal, but actually was a little bit awkward. my instructor never got in the water, so i was only synchronized with myself and my own inadequate rhythm. i learned a few cool pool tricks, like i can float on the top of the water with almost my entire body sticking out, as if i were lying on something just below the surface. and i can flail my legs about out of the water in some fun patterns that look almost fancy, and not so much like a 4 year old does when they first learn to go underwater with their face.

but i never learned the synchronicity part.

how about you? tell me something about yourself. something interesting or obscure.

i'm waiting...

behold the power of balls

while out walking with my honey last night, we stumbled into an amusing conversation. it was about power, or more accurately, the feeling of being powerful.

the first time i remember ever feeling that i was powerful was when i was about seven years old. i was out running around the neighborhood with my posse of elementary hooligans. i'm not sure what game we were playing, but one of the boys caught me from behind. he had his arms wrapped tightly around me, pinning my arms to my sides as i struggled to find a way to free myself. no amount of squirming could break me loose, so i started kicking. one grand kick straight up and backwards bought me instant freedom. the boy released me and i scampered away, giggling and squealing, but not entirely sure why he'd let me go.

when i got a few paces away, i looked back and saw him laying on his back, moaning and holding his crotch. i stopped running and cautiously walked back toward him to see what was wrong or if he was just trying to trick me. several of the other boys in the group ran over and stood around him in a circle with looks of horror and sympathy on their faces. they placed gentle cupping hands of protection over their own crotches and then turned to look at me. they looked afraid.

i wasn't entirely sure what had happened with my kick, but suddenly i had the begrudging respect of all the boys on my block and there was murmured talk of balls. i didn't see any balls around, but whatever they were talking about, i knew i'd found a source of power in myself. an unexpected chink in the armor of the more physically power males of the species.

and with that knowledge, i skipped off, arm and arm with my best girl friend, singing a silly ditty and pondering those mysterious balls.

what about you? when do you feel powerful?

i posed that same question to my husband and he said, jokingly, that it was when he knocked me up. i'm sensing a testicular theme here... is there power in the world that isn't linked to balls?!

it smells faintly of raspberries

there are times when life feels unfair. there are no good reasons and yet, things happen anyway. we can't control them, they're just a part of life that we have to learn to deal with. like periods. especially for children. and by children, i mean girl-children. and by girl-children, i do not mean brooke. thankfully that's a bridge we haven't had to cross yet.

but many girls start when they're way too young to be having to deal with such things. take myself, for instance. i started at the ripe old age of eleven. i was one of those kids who looked on the event with joyous anticipation. i couldn't get that thing kick started fast enough and once i did start, i told pretty much everyone. it was like it was my birthday and i thought everyone should know and maybe there would be presents and cake.

i thought it made me the most mature and fabulous girl in my group of friends. i offered unsolicited advice to other girls about how it felt and how it should be dealt with and what the drawbacks were. though, in my mind at that time, there were hardly any. long list of pros, not so many cons.

one time, a few months after aunt flo made her maiden voyage into my underwear, i had a friend at my house for a sleepover. she asked about my mysterious period and i proudly boasted that i was having it right then. i was lying. it hadn't been back for a second showing, but i didn't want anyone to know. i felt like my period was a sham, mocking me and my imagined womanliness.

i decided that i would need to prove to her that i really was advanced in the underpants, so i slapped a pad into my undies and would occasionally yank at my rear gear to show her how uncomfortable my new lot in life was. such a martyr. then i decided that it wasn't enough just to wear it, because what would happen if my friend somehow discovered that it was unsullied? i scouted around the house in search of something i could use to mimic blood that wouldn't be dangerous to my girl-parts.

i settled on a bottle of purpley roll-on bath soap that belonged to my little sisters. it came in a bottle like roll-on deodorant, but it was bright colored and fun for kids in the bathtub. i figured it would meet my fake period requirements quite nicely, so i rolled out a storm of soap into my pad and pulled my pants up.

shortly after, i coerced my friend into going to the bathroom with me. i'm sure it didn't take much since we regularly shared bathroom time back then and didn't think a thing about peeing in front of each other. i made sure she caught a glimpse of my "used" pad while i was yanking it out and wrapping it up into a ball with half a roll of toilet paper.

i felt rather pleased with myself for my clever manipulation of her senses. it was like i was a stager, changing reality for another person. only looking back now, i realize that while i thought i was smart, i probably scared her. she probably went home thinking about how she really didn't want to get her own period because that menstrual blood isn't like regular blood. it's purple and foamy, like toxic waste. but on the up-side, it smells faintly of raspberries.

halitosis

today we were reading a science book for school about bad smells. i know, i've talked a lot lately about stuff we're doing for school, but people, i don't get out much these days. i spend my life at home with a kid so all i've got most of the time to spark my creative juices is the stuff i teach to brooke.

ahem, where was i? ah, yes. stinky things. there was discussion of bad breath and the things that cause it. the word halitosis was mentioned. and that's when i went spiraling back in time. 

about 4 years ago when brooke was 5, she went to the little gym for the gymnastic classes. it's a wonderful place that i highly recommend if your kid is clumsy or nervous and you're not trying to get into a competitive sport. the teachers were all incredibly patient with brooke as she spent her first several classes hiding under equipment crying and avoiding every activity. it was a new atmosphere for her and very structured which she also wasn't used to. she was only 4 when she started, but after a few weeks, she started to like it and eventually she participated in almost everything. 

early on in our little gym experience, brooke was still afraid of the high bar that the kids could use with an adult assistant if they felt up to it. the coaches never pushed them to do anything that scared them, but would give them the chance each week to see if they were ready to try. one day a teacher asked brooke if she could pick her up and let her just touch the high bar with her finger. i didn't see it happen, but brooke told me later that she bit that lady's long leg like she was a hyena and the teacher was her attacker. she said she felt afraid and had to defend herself. the teacher didn't even mention it, so it must not have been a very hard bite, but i was just thankful they still let her come back.

one day after class, the owner/head coach came to me and quietly whispered in my ear, "i was helping brooke with something and she was nervous, so i leaned in close to talk to her about it. she said, 'smells like someone has halitosis today'." i know my head turned several shades of red, but i couldn't help laughing. we'd been doing some great vocabulary lessons and clearly they were sticking!

at the end of each 20 week session there was always an awards show where the parents could come in & observe the kids' skills and watch them get a medal on a ribbon. brooke was called last to go up on the little foam platform to get her medal. each other kid had walked up the steps and received their prize like a little olympian. but not brooke. when she heard her name, she dropped down on her hands and knees and ran/crawled across the floor, up the steps and to the middle of the platform and posed on her knees with her chin held high and one hand/paw up in front of her. we'd been watching the AKC championships and she was posing in poodle style to claim her award.

she went through several award ceremonies and for almost every one she did the crawling doggy thing again. and i heard from some of the teachers that it had spread and some kids even in other classes had started doing it too.

my little aspie trendsetter with her boundless creativity and imagination. she makes my heart happy.

the fiasco of '87

i posted this right after thanksgiving last year, but i think i had all of 30 followers then, so i thought i'd repost since it's the story of my most memorable childhood christmas.

all through our growing up years, my brother and i almost always knew where our parents stashed our christmas presents. they'd told us the real deal on santa when we were only 4 and 5, so it only went to reason that if there was no santa, then the gifts must be stashed somewhere nearby. it wasn't long before our parents wised up to our snooping and put a padlock on the basement cupboard where the goodies were being stored. that shut us down for a few years... until we moved into a new house that didn't come equipped with such a conveniently lockable storage space.

it didn't take us long to start up our snooping ways afresh when we moved and realized that the hiding options were limited. we figured that the most secure location in the house was probably our parents' bedroom, so we took a divide and conquer approach and it wasn't long before we hit pay dirt. we found stuff in the dresser drawers and a bonus batch of loot in the bottom of their closet.

we kept up the digging and sneaking each time my parents were expected to be out of the house for at least half an hour. it seemed like that left us enough of a buffer to check for any newly acquired goodies and still get out without being caught. we'd keep each other informed if we found gifts clearly intended for the other so that there would be no surprises come christmas morning. if we only had limited time, we'd hit the closet first because that's where mom kept the good stuff. the dresser was mostly the piddly stocking stuff like gum, cheapie toys and maybe some bags of rubber bands (we loved to shoot each other with them).

by this time we were probably 11 and 12 and we'd done the sneaky spying for at least 2 years, undiscovered. our parents had laid down the law at some point and made it perfectly clear that if they ever found out we'd been peeking at our presents, those very presents would be returned to the store and we would not get them.

we thought we were master spies. we thought we'd never get caught. we thought wrong.

i clearly remember being deep into the pile on mom's side of the closet, admiring the cute new clothes i'd be getting in just a few days. chris was digging through his own future belongings...when we heard a noise. we both froze for a moment before starting to frantically stuff things back into the spaces where we'd found them. we usually tried to be precise about putting them away, but this time it was more about speed so we wouldn't get caught with our heads tangled in mom's dresses and our fingers in the proverbial cookie jar.

we weren't fast enough. in less time than we'd have dreamed possible, mom had made it up the stairs and into her bedroom and caught us in the act of spying. there was no way to deny it. the evidence was plain as day for all of us to see. and i've got to give my mom credit for thinking on her feet because she separated us right away and gave us paper and pens and told us to write down everything we'd found. since we'd made sure to keep each other informed about every scrap we came across, we couldn't plead ignorance about anything, even if we hadn't laid eyes on it ourselves. and since we were separated and didn't know what the other would write, we had to put it all down there, on paper, to damn ourselves or risk even further punishment for trying to lie by omission. HO-LY CRAP!

she compared our lists and consulted with dad; all the while we tried to hide away where we wouldn't be seen and might possibly be forgotten about altogether rather than face the dire consequences that we knew were coming our way. i don't remember any yelling, just that eery silence that should never exist in a happy home with 4 lively kids. silence...

it seemed like it would never end. we whispered together about whether or not they'd actually go through with their threats. they were usually pretty solid about sticking to what they'd said, but in this case, surely they wouldn't take away our whole christmas! surely they loved us enough to have pity on our souls. if there was any love in the world, they would have to change their minds and let us have all those beautiful presents in their sullied stash.

a couple days later, it was christmas eve. it was a saturday. dad didn't have to go to work that day, so it was decided that it was time for the presents to all be returned. my dad and brother drove around town and took back all the gifts that we'd thought we would be getting. i stayed home and helped mom cook and bake the festive food. i wasn't mad at my parents because in my heart, i knew that i'd broken the rules. i knew that i wasn't exempt from the rules and that there were repercussions for my actions. i was sad, but i'd learned a valuable lesson that i knew would stick with me for my whole life. if mom and dad said it, i could be darn sure they meant business, even in the things that hurt them too.

the next day, the space under the tree was pretty sparse. mostly just gifts for my little sisters and the ones that chris and i were giving to the family. we didn't wake up at 3am ready to pounce on our stockings. we got some sleep for a change and we woke up calm rather than hyper. we actually remembered the true meaning of christmas for once because we weren't distracted by all the presents we hoped for or got.

as it turned out, we got a few little stocking things each. they must have been hidden somewhere else where we hadn't discovered them yet. i got the fake nails that i'd been dreaming of. i'd always had crappy nails and wanted to have long, luxurious nails to tap constantly on any hard surface, but my parents had never thought i was old enough for them. this was my lucky fingernail year. and i also got the jean jacket from the gap that i'd been coveting for so many months. it was one of the things that i'd been so excited to find in the closet and was heart sick knowing it was going back to the gap to be owned by some other girl who'd be cooler than me.

i was shocked and amazed to find this most precious item wrapped up under the tree because i was sure it went back to the mall with everything else. my brother also got his most desired item. my parents told us that even though we'd broken the rules and we didn't deserve to receive these gifts, they were having mercy on us. like Jesus had mercy on the world by dying on the cross for all of us who didn't deserve his love and forgiveness.

that's a lesson that i'll never forget.

lizards on lunch break

as kids, we all have dreams and goals for ourselves. one of mine was to catch a lizard. i grew up in new york where lizards aren't generally available for catching unless i went to my neighbor's terrarium and that didn't count. however, my grandparents had a house in florida where they spent every winter and every couple years, we'd drive down there (it took about 22 hours in the car) to spend a week.

when we got down to the land of warmth and sand, my brother and i would always chase the lizards around and try to catch them. i never managed to do any better than to graze one with a finger before they'd zip away from me, but my brother caught a few.

we had read in books that lizards drop off their tails sometimes when they're caught by a predator and grow back a new one over time. this intrigued me beyond reason and i had wonderful visions of holding a lizard tail in my hand while the rest of him scampered away, scott free. it didn't seem disgusting at all to me, just amazing and i kind of wished i could drop off an arm or a leg if someone i didn't like ever grabbed me.


since we've moved to our current home, we now live in the land of the lizards. they're not the big, scaly ones, but rather the little green and brown ones that don't get more than a few inches long with soft skin that caves in a little on the sides when they breathe fast. brooke (and our cats) are excited by the lizards and brooke decided that it was her goal to catch one. huh, must be genetic.

she sits out on the back terrace and waits for them to shoot past on the railing that serves as the reptile highway. a few days ago she snuck up on one and made a mad grab only to end up with a tiny little tail chunk flailing about in her grip. she screamed and threw the tail into the bush & then ran to tell me about it. that's when i remembered how i had once dreamed of holding a tail myself, not realizing that they thrash about once they've come free.

my desire to possess a tail is gone.

today i let brooke go downstairs for lunch and almost as soon as she went down, she came running, squealing right back up to my room yelling "i finally did it! i finally did it!" when she charged into the room, she was holding a little lizard by the tail, with a great big grin on her face.

i was a bit concerned that the tail would snap off and there would be a crop tailed reptile running around my bedroom, so i took her picture and sent her back downstairs to release her critter outside. she stopped on the way to show the lizard to her little nim cat & kitty snatched that lizard right out of her hand, leaving the tail in brooke's fingers and charging off with the rest of it in her mouth. she played cat and lizard with it for a couple minutes before we managed to get it away from her and cart it back outside. thankfully nim is more pouncy than bitey.

i guess that little lizard will have quite a tale to tell to his friends later today. and i bet he'll remember his mama's words of wisdom and not go into people houses again.

the silly chair

when you're a kid and you have siblings close to your age, you find things to do to keep yourselves amused. you make up games and songs and stupid stuff to do when you're on long trips or when your toys get old or you're grounded at the same time.

my brother and i are only 17 months apart and we did a lot of that while we were growing up. he was kind of my hero when i was really little and there were also moments when he seemed like my nemesis. we got along better than most kids our age by the time we made it to high school & we shared a lot of the same friends.

at some point, a couple years after my family adopted our sisters, chris (my brother. and yes, also my husband's name) started playing a goofy little game with the little sisters. he'd pick them up and swing them around a little bit and call it the silly chair. it was called the silly chair because they were facing away from him and his hands were under their knees so that when they were scooped up in the air, they were sort of in an awkward sitting position. the little girls thought this was great fun & would beg for turns doing the silly chair. he'd swoop them around, making swooshing, flying sounds to make them giggle.

one day he decided to see if he could put me in the silly chair and swirl me around like the little kids. i was about 14 at the time & certainly not a little girl to be easily scooped or swung about. but he was pretty strong and he did manage to get me up in the air, though he swung me around less vigorously than he did the 3 year old.

he thought it was funny to do that every once in a while, probably because i yelled a lot, but couldn't really do anything to escape that wouldn't also hurt me in the process. so one day his girlfriend and my boyfriend were over at the house and he decided that it would be entertaining to scoop me up into a silly chair & give me a great shake around the room. i was screaming & flailing my arms. i couldn't really move my legs much other than some stupid little kicks which hurt me more than chris, so i just started laughing.

i drew a picture, in case you couldn't picture it.
take special note of his mullet and my perm.

our friends were watching and laughing which only encouraged him even more & served to embarrass me to no end. that made me laugh even harder, causing pressure on my bladder, which of course, ended with me wetting my pants. but chris didn't know i had wet my pants. i was incapable of coherent speech by that point and our friends were laughing hysterically and pointing at the spreading wet stain on my light gray stretch pants. chris thought they were thoroughly enjoying his great show of strength and comedy, not having any idea that whole thing had just gone to a whole new level of mortification for me.


eventually i got too heavy & squirmy for him so he plunked me down on the floor, from where i scrambled up like a scalded cat & hauled it out of the room as fast as my wet legs could carry me.

to this day, i can't see gray stretch pants or think of that boy without my face turning a little bit red & splotchy. and we never played silly chair again.

hair bonanza x2

i'm resurrecting one of my favorite posts since things in my brain have been too hectic to present new material. i posted it about a year ago, but i had about 150 fewer followers than i do now. i figure most of you haven't read it, so please read on & have a laugh at my expense. or be inspired to take your own trip down hair memory lane. i'd love to read yours!

ever since i was in second grade and my best friend amy got her hair cut to shoulder length & feathered, i've had a thing for hair. before that i remember having very few thoughts about hair other than that my mom pulled too hard when she was brushing & parting it to make me presentable. but ever since then, hair has been something i've been fairly creative with. i finally convinced my mom to let me get a hair cut to match amy's after months of begging. i went from this

to this.

a few years later, when i was 10, i got it cut really short in the back & got the top permed - because, well, because it was the 80's & my fabulous aunt joan had hers like that and i strove to be like her. i can't find any pictures that really showed the awesomeness of the style at the moment, but i did find one from that time period where i had some friends over & we decided to go all out punk, complete with hair, makeup & clothes. i think we were 11 here & we were channelling madonna and cindy lauper. i'm the one w/ the mirrored sunglasses & hearty socks.

along the line there were lots & lots of perms done in my grandma's kitchen because i wasn't cool enough to get the spiral perms of beauty shop lore.

i also went through many bottles of sun-in & lemon juice with peroxide applied to fried hair with a hair dryer. my parents were pretty conservative & didn't seem to understand my need to constantly cook, cut, dye, perm, and shave off my hair. they let me do some things, but had to draw the line somewhere & i guess sun-in was okay because orange & stalky was acceptable, but miss clairol was somehow over the line.

i did my time with the poofy bangs. my hair is really small & flat, but i was dedicated with the hair spray bottle and curling irons. here you see me, at 12, attempting to give the best sexy face i could manage.

i once went to camp for a week when i was 13 or 14 & came home with the back, bottom half of my head shaved totally bald. as if my hair wasn't small enough already, i had to go & decrease my volume by half. good plan there, sher! i actually found the clump of my hair a couple weeks ago when i was digging through boxes of relics in my parents attic. the guys who hacked off my hair for me were thoughtful enough to hold the end of my now-removed pony tail into some melted candle wax so i could save it as a summer memento. it also serves as a reminder of when i first went rogue w/ my hair. i'd decided i didn't need parental permission anymore for anything i wanted to do to my own head.

here's another shot of me trying to do big hair when i was about 16. it never lasted long, but the first half hour was generally ok before the flop kicked in. there wasn't enough rave hairspray in the world to keep this flat stuff in the air.

finally, straight hair came back into fashion & for a while there, i was in luck. i could stop perming it & just put some gentle curling iron coercion onto my bangs to prevent them from sticking to my greasy forehead & things went fairly well for a spell. here i was, my senior year of high school wearing a lovely ruffled denim shirt & having a pretty good hair day. that's my brother w/ the icky mustache in the back. i almost cropped him out, but i feel like it adds character to the picture. some gritty flavor, if you will.

and while we're at it, i need to add this picture of me in my golden corral uniform too. that hanky they made me wear on my head made me feel smokin hot. i liked working there because the sweet outfit helped me pick up guys. my claw-like hand, dirty keds and transparent apron look foxy here too.

then, right around the time of my 18th birthday, i had a break up that started a trend where i felt like i needed to make some physical change to myself when a relationship ended. this time, it was a big hair cut where i got my hair chopped into a very "mature" style. in other words, i had the hair of a 40 yr old woman. a couple months later, i was just about to head off to college & wasn't loving the hair, so i got a bright idea of how to fix it .... i permed it! and the next thing i knew, i was no longer a 40 yr old woman, i had become an octogenarian. i had the fluffy, short hair of my grandmother & i was only 18.

are you digging my huge, manly wool sweater? i think it offsets the granny hair. (btw, this is the same amy from my early childhood. we're still together after all these decades.)

whadaya know, the granny hair didn't prevent me from finding a boyfriend... even if he was shorter than me.

i got it trimmed a few months later to try to get rid of the granny that was lurking around my head, and i think that was probably a good thing, but as you can clearly see in this picture, my duck smile and velvet, poofy-sleeved, doilie collared monstrosity of a dress left something to be desired.

eventually that grew out. here's me in college dying it into a lovely faux-hawk w/ my newly met bestie, julie in the background. she became a regular partner in the hair crimes i committed against myself even if she wasn't going to make the same foolish hair mistakes on herself that i did.

this was when i developed the concept of "hair is intended for amusement purposes - if it's looking good, it amuses me; if it's looking bad, it amuses others." i believe that the scales don't tip in my favor by this standard.

there's a whole slew of other exciting hair follies, but this has gotten too long already. so tune in next time for the second installment of hair bonanza - the bald years.

gerbils and helium

when i was a junior in high school, my whole family (consisting of 2 parents, 2 teenagers and 2 toddlers) took a month long drive from our house in ny, all the way out to california, down the coast, back across the country and up the east coast. we stayed in a different motel 6 almost every night and spent most of our daylight hours on the road. it was a wonderful trip and we got a chance to learn a lot about our great big country while traveling fairly cheap.

while we were gone, our pets were left with various friends around town, but when we returned, we discovered that one of our gerbils hadn't made it. our friend didn't want to tell us about it while we were still on the road for fear that we'd feel sad and it would dampen our trip, so she put the gerbil into a butter tub and stuck it in her freezer.

this gerbil was not an especially treasured pet. we always had lots of pets and my brother went through a phase of rodent collecting, so it was just one of several. we didn't know if this one was male or female, so it was named Herm. in other words, we didn't know if it was a her or a him. hence, her/m. never mind, the joke goes flat when you have to explain it.

it was october when we got home and by the time we had the little buttery body back in our possession, the ground in our part of the country was already getting too hard for digging holes. we didn't want to flush herm down the toilet, partly because, well, yuck, and partly because it was questionable if it was too large to make it through the pipes. so we opted to leave the critter cadaver on ice through the winter.

the next spring we remembered that it was still there and we had a long distance move in our near future, so we needed to go ahead and get herm into a final resting place. my brother was often colorful in his sense of humor and liked to do things a little differently, so he came up with an unusual plan for disposing of his little dead pet.

it was his senior year at the time and we planned a big graduation party for all of our friends. we rented a helium tank, but no balloons so that guests could just fill up their lungs with it and we'd have a big, noisy munchkin festival. we converted a small shoe box into a lovely, satin lined coffin for herm and we even attached little poles to each corner so that it could be carried like a proper coffin to the burial place.

we drafted 4 strong male friends to be pall bearers and carry the corpse through the yard on their shoulders to the garden. we had friends who participated in being loud and raucous mourners as the somber procession moved through the yard. we had a "pastor" on hand who said a few kind words and a prayer at the grave sight. a couple people stood by the hole and recounted their memories of herm while wiping tears from their eyes.

slowly, herm's casket was lowered to the ground and placed gently into the hole we'd prepared. all our party guests took turns throwing handfuls of dirt into the grave until the hole was filled. a stone was placed at the head of the hole with "HERM" engraved on it.

we fake cried a little bit more and then commenced with the revelry and helium huffing. and a good time was had by all.

9 ~ the start of something new

my little girl just turned 9. and somehow 9 seems different than all the ages that have come before. it's the place where i really remember my life beginning. i moved from one city to another when i was 9 and there were a lot of things that i remember from that period of time that stand out clearly in my memory. it's when i stopped feeling like a little kid & realized that i wasn't the property of my parents but rather of myself.

i remember that the house we were moving out of was about 1 and a half stories high at the highest point (part of it was underground) and my brother & i opened my bedroom window, removed the screen & jumped out the window to the ground without getting hurt & then ran back in through the front door feeling very proud of ourselves and also scared that mom would realize what we'd done & punish us.

i remember that i started growing boobs, but my mom thought maybe something was wrong with me because she didn't expect to see them arriving so early, so she took me to the doctor who twiddled and pinched me & then called in another doctor who did the same & then they agreed that it was simply breast buds and nothing to be worried about. so mom took me to j.c. penney's and bought me a white stretchy starter bra.

i remember that when we got to our new house, my bed was put into the guest room & i was told that we would go buy me a new bed. but i didn't want a new bed, i wanted to sleep in one of the giant wardrobe boxes from the move. so for a couple months, i slept in my rainbow brite sleeping bag in my box like a hobo, loving that i could move it from one space to another or color all over my box walls or ceiling whenever i wanted.

i remember that there was a boy who i really liked named joe deckman. he was 11 and went to the same church as me; our parents were friends. right before we moved, he asked if he could take me out on a date and for some unfathomable reason, both sets of parents agreed. he and his mom picked me up in their huge station wagon & dropped us off at a pizza shop for one hour. afterwards, his mom took us back to their house where we played a round of life which made me feel all nervous because it talked about us becoming adults and parents and having houses. then we went for a walk through the woods behind his house & we held hands.

oh my gosh, my stomach is suddenly feeling nervous just thinking about the fact that one of these days, my little bitty girl will be feeling butterflies about boys and holding their hands. it feels like the start of a new piece of life.

i've loved every part of her life so far and somehow it seems like each part just keeps getting better. she's old enough to get jokes now and sarcasm. she's figured out the humor of word play. she reads books for fun and types like a pro. she knows that johnny depp is hot even though he's kind of crazy. she makes decisions for herself based on logic and reason and she doesn't second guess herself. she's still a little girl, but i'm starting to see glimpses of the older, wiser, beautiful young woman who she's becoming. i'm so glad i'm her mom.

and on a totally unrelated note, i submitted a story to the cheesy bloggers for their Best. Story. Ever. theme and i wanted to invite you to go check them out. it's a great collection of bloggers who get together and share their crazy and delightful stories. my story was definitely NOT delightful, but they published it anyway, along with my first kiss story from a couple weeks ago.

my first kiss

do you guys remember back when you were a tween (though we weren't called that) or early teen and you and your friends talked and thought about kissing all the time? i remember when my friends & i were about 11, the mysterious pull of some lip on lip action became so mesmerizing that it seemed to dominate many of our giggly conversations. most of us hadn't done it yet, but we'd heard about it from older friends or siblings or trashy neighbor girls who we publicly scorned but privately envied just a little.

over the next couple of years, one by one, each of us lost our lip virginity as the opportunities presented themselves for some smooching. i remember waiting anxiously for my moment to come since i knew that it would be a once in a lifetime event. you only get that first kiss one single solitary time & i'd heard stories letting me know that i'd probably remember it forever, so it had to be a good one. it had to be perfect. and yet, that's too much pressure for any kid, especially when it comes to something that's likely to be awkward and messy.

when i was 13, my parents decided that they needed a night away from their 4 kids. my brother is a year older than me & we were both very responsible, as a general rule. we'd been babysitting our younger sibling for a few years by then & had shown ourselves to be trustworthy. i guess they thought that leaving us home overnight wasn't so much different than leaving us home for an extended period during the day, so they went ahead & planned that date.

i thought it was pretty cool to be left home overnight since none of our friends had ever been allowed to do that before. i felt mature and wise and trusted. something that i'm not sure was factored in to the plan when my parents made these arrangements was that my brother's friend from out of town (who i shall call jeff) was staying with our family for several days.

this jeff guy was one of the cutest boys i knew. i didn't see him often since he lived a few hours away, but over the years when i had seen him, i'd always thought that he would make a lovely long-distance boyfriend for me. however, he never paid any attention to me. i was there. i was the little sister. i was flirty, but i was ignorable. he wasn't rude, but he never reciprocated.

that did not dampen my enthusiasm for flirtation in the slightest. maybe if i just tried a little harder or giggled a little more often or followed him around for a bit longer, he'd realize that i was the girl of his dreams & pledge his undying love to me.

that night when we got the little kids put safely to bed, the three responsible teens hung out & played some silly games. i'm sure there was probably some truth or dare or uno played before the evening was over. then the boys went upstairs to go to bed and for some reason, i decided that i was going to sleep downstairs on the couch. i crawled under the holey green and orange afghan on the scratchy plaid sofa only to realize that i'd left a light on in the other room.

i got up & walked over to turn it off & there was jeff. he was just coming around the corner dressed in those heather grey elastic-bottomed sweatpants. he was looking so fine i just stared at him before realizing that i was only wearing my big minnie mouse t-shirt and undies and nothing else. i froze for a moment & then reached out & slapped off the light, hoping he hadn't noticed my lack of pants. neither of us said anything. we just stood there for several seconds in the dark.

then he slowly walked toward me until i was backed up into a wall. i couldn't back away from him anymore and i realized that i didn't want to. i put one hand up and barely touched his chest. i tipped my chin up to see his shadowed face to figure out what was happening. my heart was pounding and i was holding my breath. i was sure that he was going to laugh and then walk back upstairs. but he didn't.

he gently slid his hands around my waist and pulled me tight up against him. he leaned down and put his lips against mine and every ounce of myself melted into that kiss. it was exactly as wonderful as i'd been hoping. i was weak in the knees as i stood up against that wall with so much warm, male contact pressed up against me. i'd never felt anything like that before. i didn't know those feelings existed.
after a couple of minutes, he pulled back, looked me in the eyes and then without a word, he went back upstairs.
i floated over to the couch where i laid awake for hours wondering how i'd gotten so lucky. i replayed every wet moment of that kiss in my mind over and over until i was sure that i'd never forget how perfect it was. i couldn't wait til morning so that i could see jeff again and spend the next few days trying to steal him from my brother for more smooching adventures. i wanted to call all my friends and tell them that my kiss had arrived and it was delivered by a boy who was sure to make them all jealous.

the next morning, jeff acted like it never happened. he treated me exactly the same as he always had, not rude, but a little bit dismissive. i cried for days when he wasn't around, trying to figure out what i'd done wrong. and when he was around, i tried to show him as much adoration as i possibly could through eye contact only, in hopes that he would pay even a moments attention to me again.

i never did talk to him about it. but i never forgot it either. and i'll always have the memory of that one night when i got my first kiss and it was magical in every way.

sleepy time adventures

tonight i was tucking the kid in & kissing her goodnight and i had a flashback to my own childhood. you see, she's sleeping in a pillow pile on her bedroom floor rather than in her bed. every so often she makes up a little nest somewhere in her room & then sleeps there for a few nights & then the fun wears off & she goes back to her top bunk again. this time the space is really small & she can't even stretch her legs out, but she's curled up like a big puppy, happy as can be.

when i was a kid, my brother (who is only a year older than myself) and i used to sleep all over the place and our nests weren't limited to our bedrooms. we slept on various floors, under the baby grand piano with couch cushions propped up around it to close us in. we slept in the dry bathtub. we draped blankets over the kitchen table & slept under there and at one point, we even slept under the ping pong table in the cellar. i didn't know until i woke up the next morning, but sleeping in our funky basement caused my brother to have an asthma attack & he had to be taken for medical treatment in the middle of the night. i wondered why he wasn't still down there on the concrete floor with me when i woke up the next morning, but i never could've guessed the answer.

i slept in a crack/fort space in between a couple sheets of sheetrock & beams in the cellar when we discovered it was in there & we could slither in if we dragged up a ladder and shimmied in just so. there was even a peak hole where we could spy out to see if anyone was coming. or to beg for food if we got hungry & it was too much effort to slip & slide back out of the hole.

sometimes we had an adventure together and camped out with our sleeping bags side by side and other times we had solo adventures. on one of my wacky solo sleep-outs, i chose to bed down in my favorite weird place, which was behind the couch. i'd slept there on several previous occasions, but this time i decided that i wanted to take my book with me so i could read for a bit before going to sleep. however, since i was wedged in tightly behind the couch in such a way that i couldn't even bend my legs in my holly hobby sleeping bag, there was very little light by which to read my book. then i had the great idea to take my bedroom lamp with me. i ran up & got it, plugged it in & realized that it would never fit back there with the lampshade, so i yanked the shade off & sure enough, it fit just fine then. i got myself & my book situated with the cat curled up close to my pillow to enjoy the newly installed heat lamp.

 i was reading myself into a slumber when one of my parents came running into the room, clearly upset.

"what is that smell? what's burning?! SHERILIN!?!"

that's when we realized that in putting that shadeless lamp back there with me, the light bulb was just about pressed against the fabric on the back of the couch & i had burned a hole in the back of the couch, which, by that time was a smoldering mess of blackened, plaid nylon.

but i'll always take with me the joy of my childhood sleeping adventures. being free to pick a spot, any weird spot & curl up there for a night of dreaming about being a hobbit or a fairy or a dallas cowboy cheerleader, without any adult telling me that it wasn't proper or acceptable to sleep in the place that fed my imagination with a healthy dose of happiness. so thank you, mom and dad, and i pass that gift down to my own girl.