Lord, Take Me Now!

It wasn't a typical Monday. I had a long, tiring weekend and was looking forward to just sitting and writing all day. But by the time I got to work, I was so sleepy, I didn't know how I'd make it through the day. I managed, but there were times I really felt like I could just pass out. I attributed it to the rough weekend, forgetting to take my meds today, and the constant insomnia catching up with me.

As the day progressed, it became apparent what the problem was--one of those stomach bugs. I made it home, but just barely. Mom had fried some chicken, but eating was the last thing on my mind. I spent the next few hours dozing off and on, and finally trudged to bed about ten. After about an hour, I had to get up. I hoped playing a few computer games would take my mind off of the inevitable, but that's not happening either. I go from being chilled to being hot. I feel like every bone in my body has dissolved. And I'm nearly to the point where I say, "Kill me NOW".

Death has to be better than my stomach doing cartwheels. Now I'm going to have to take off work tomorrow, which is NOT what I want to do. I've got a lot to get done before April 5th--my first subrelease deadline of the month. Right now I really don't give a hoot.

This isn't looking good, folks. If this is the last blog I ever write, you'll know the Good Lord has finally granted my wish of entering the Heavenly Gates rather than praying to The Porcelain God all night long.

So long...it's been real.

Lettuce Pray...

I was reminded today of a funny story about my neighbor. I've done stuff like this too, and always find it hilarious.

Marianne had gone grocery shopping that day. As usual, she pulled into her garage, unloaded the groceries, and put them away. A few hours later, she went out to the garage and found two heads of lettuce sitting on the step between the garage and kitchen door.

Puzzled, she picked up the lettuce, went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to put the lettuce away. That's when she found the shoes she'd worn to the store, in the crisper drawer.

Nicole

I swear to you, it was just yesterday when I took this photo. Time isn't marching...it's running. This little girl is now a young lady, on her own and somewhat independent. I've got to capture some of those "Nicole" moments in time before they rust away in the cobwebs of my mind.

"Cole" was always a happy little girlie-girl. The color pink suits her very well--if people do indeed have an "aura", Nicole's would definitely be pink. As families tend to do, we have our favorite stories of each member. Here are my favorite Nicole stories.

When she was just barely out of toddlerhood, Nicole's daddy was left to take care of the two kids while mommy was out. Mark made a trip to the bathroom to "take care of business" and when he came out, he found Nicole in the dressing area of the bathroom having a good ol' time with her mommy's makeup Mark yelled, "NICOLE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? Nicole knew how to get out of this mess. She turned around, and with bright red lipstick smeared on her lips and the surrounding area of her mouth, she sweetly asked, "Am I so purdy?"

My favorite was the time when Mark and family were on their way home from church, and my brother accidentally ran over the kids' kitten. Markie and Cole didn't see it happen, and he dreaded having to tell them about the little cat's untimely demise.

Steeling himself, he gently explained to his two little kids how their kitten had been run over, died and gone to some sort of "kitty heaven". Markie, the older of the two, started crying. And evidently, Markie has a much more tender heart than Nicole. As Markie was quietly crying, Nicole piped up and as cold as ice said, "Did it suck its brains out or something?".

When Nicole started school, she soon attracted the attention of little boys--there's just something about a little girl with long blonde hair and big blue eyes that little boys like. She came home from school one day and told her dad about a little boy giving her "the date look". The date look? Mark had never heard that expression and wasn't sure what she meant, so he asked her what "the date look" was. Matter of factly, she answered, "You know..."low eyes". She demonstrated by shutting her eyes halfway. I think she had watched too many soap operas. Oh, and the photo demonstrates "the date look, aka: low eyes". I'm pretty sure the person giving "the date look" wouldn't be smiling, but would have a sultry curl of the lips.

Living in the boondocks of "Martins-tucky", wild creatures often visited their place. One day a possum decided to meander into their yard. Nicole came running in, all excited and out of breath. "Dad! Dad! There's a hippopotamus in our yard!" Mark told her, "Quick! Go get my elephant gun!"

After reading this post, Mark reminded me of the time we all went to Spring Mill State Park. Nicole was about two then. About the last half-hour of our picnic, Nicole had been playing with a wooly-worm. When we were all getting ready to leave, Mark told Nicole to put the wooly-worm down because they were going home. Nicole, with her little bristley friend in her hand, bent over the kissed the worm goodbye.

I'm not even going into detail about the time she projectile-vomited on a fat lady in their church, but I would've given anything to have seen it.

We Want a Pitcher (not a belly-itcher)

It's about softball time in Indiana. As far as sports go, I always liked baseball, softball, and volleyball. I've played softball since I was a kid. After I got my glasses in seventh grade, I could actually SEE the ball--but until then I sported a few black eyes due to line drives that I couldn't see coming at me.

When I got into high school, I took phys ed during the summer so I could play outdoor sports. We joined up with the boys phys ed class and played softball for a week of our summer school. I was the catcher for our team and pretty good at it for a skinny girl. But one day while I was catching, a big strapping football player was barreling towards home plate. The ball was coming to me even faster. Just before home plate, I squatted into a catcher's pose to catch the ball, which was coming in low. It was going to be close, but I was in the path. I had to tag the runner--not just catch it on the plate.

I had it! All I had to do was tag him. But Jim had other plans. I guess he didn't see the 100-pound girl that was about to spoil his plans to score a run--or maybe he did. He plowed into me with everything he had. When I landed, my crumpled body was about 15 feet towards first base. My glasses were another ten feet farther. Stars and little birdies were flying around in circles around my head.

Jim must've realized he played it a little too hard for a sandlot game. We never had any safety equipment--not even a helmet. He ran over to me (after scoring his run), and got down on his knee to take a gander at the damage he'd done. Still swimmy-headed and blind without my glasses, I weakly said, "You're out!" Jim said, "No I'm not...you dropped the ball". Great...all that pain for nothing. I ended up with a huge bruise on the calf of my leg that left a scar for years. But worse than the bruise, this made me gun shy.

About 20 years ago, we formed a co-ed league at the naval base I worked at. The guy I carpooled with was our captain. I played shortstop. I never was a great player, but I always got a hit. Rarely was it a double, but I almost always got a single. Fielding was a little rougher for me. Still gun shy from my high school days, I hated to see a line drive coming at me. The dirt on the field at Crane was horrible--kind of a mixture of razor sharp sand and small cinders. One day someone hit a very fast grounder right at me. I ran up to the ball and got down to stop it. At the last minute it took a bad hop in the dirt, then it hit me on the tendon just above my foot. The ball had a wicked spin on it, so it climbed up my shin and skidded all the way up my face.

Since the ball was embedded with the sharp sand and cinders, it was like sandpaper. I not only had a goose egg on my tendon, I had a huge skid mark from the right side of my chin all the way up to my hairline. My new glasses had the same fate.

During that season, I did have one really good catch. While playing my shortstop position, some guy slammed a line drive right towards me, but way above my head. I involuntarily jumped as high as I could, closed my eyes, stretched my arm out, and the durned ball landed in my mitt--and stayed there. When I landed on my feet and felt the ball in my mitt, my jaw dropped! I looked around and said, "It was an accident!". Everyone cheered--even the opposing team. And after the game, everyone told me what a good catch it was. Gee...wish I'd had it on film. No one was more shocked than I was that I actually caught that ball. I didn't mean to.

Once during the season, coach Danny had what he thought was a bright idea. He turned to me and told me to get out there and pitch. What? I don't pitch! I started protesting. I told him I couldn't pitch underhand, but he didn't believe me. I could pitch just fine overhand, so why wouldn't I be able to pitch underhand? Seeing that the protesting fell on deaf ears, I hit the mound. At bat was another big strapping male. I caught the ball from the catcher and poised myself for my first underhand pitch ever during a real game.

Follow through...follow through--all I had to do was swing my pitching arm behind me, swing it forward, then turn loose of the ball at just the right time...and remember to follow through. I threw the ball and it arced perfectly towards the batter. Good arc, but the pitch went BEHIND the batter--not in front of him. I turned to Danny and yelled, "I told you I can't pitch underhand!". He just chuckled and said, "Get outta there"!

Unfortunately, Danny hadn't seen the time I had to pitch to very young Little Leaguers when my husband the coach had to work. None of the assistant coaches showed up either. Typically me, I felt responsible to fill in. How hard could this be? I didn't have to be scared of line drives coming at me--not from these little kids. So I began pitching--and I beaned every kid that came to bat. And when I'd bean one, I'd say, "Sorry, kid!". Finally a father came out to reprieve me.

I still love baseball and softball, but at this age I'm just content to watch from the stands. And I still can't pitch underhand.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a good day.

In the past couple of weeks, we had a visitor--a Navy reservist from North Carolina who was only going to be with us for a couple of weeks. I knew he was staying on base and probably wasn't getting much of anything good to eat. So I let him and my lunch buddies know I was bringing in homemade tacos and all the fixins for our Thursday lunch. I think I ended up feeding a dozen people with enough left over to feed the sailor and my buddy Julius for lunch today.

Right after lunch, I had my annual review. I hate those things...always did. I never know what to say, and neither do the multitude of bosses I've had over the years. Just do what we have to do and get it over with. Pretend everything's fine so you can get out of their office and get back to work. I've never had a bad review, but I've had reviews where I know I was graded lower than I deserved. Oh, they were good reviews...but does a boss truly know how hard a person works (or doesn't work)? That happens rarely.

Yesterday was an exception. This year I have taken over the duties of another co-worker on top of my already overloaded job. I'm now doing nearly all the work of one coworker and about half the work of another coworker who has gone to another position--and that's on top of the job I already had. The thing is--the way this job is, it makes sense for one person to do it all--unless you have two people with the same knowledge about the software that I document and the same work ethic. And they would have to be able to work very closely together.

In every job I've ever had, all I've gotten for my hard work was somebody else's work. I don't know if it's a sub-conscious thing that bosses do or what. But they seem to know who to assign work to when someone else can't or won't do the work. It's easier than trying to train someone or change their work habits. It's not fair, but just a natural thing to do. I've always expected that my work will speak for me, but have come to realize that the rewards go to those that just know how to work their mouths--either to give excuses, lay claim to someone else's work, or just double-talk their way through it and make it sound good.

As I said, yesterday was an exception. I finally got something for my efforts--and it wasn't more work. Part of the reason was the fact that we reorganized a bit and I now have a boss, his boss, then her boss. The two new bosses are more familiar with my work since they, like me, work in the trenches. My immediate boss is two cubes down from me, and knows my work and sees that I'm there at 6:30 every morning without fail.

Yessiree...Thursday was a good day.

Granny C.

Lately I've been trying to tackle an ever-growing mound of old photographs that need to be scanned, cleaned up, and stored digitally. This project will take me the rest of my life, I think. But it's conjured up all kinds of good memories.

My memories today center around my Grandma Cissell. As she got older, we began calling her Granny. She's shown here with my mom and my Aunt Rita.

Granny was a feisty ol' girl and for the most part, a lot of fun. I loved staying at her house when I was a kid. She was a great cook. Over her 92 years, she's provided her family with a lot of love and a lot of funny stories. Some weren't so funny at the time, but the passage of time caused them to be funny.

When my grandpa was still alive, I was staying with them a week during the summer. Grandpa died in 1972, I think...so I was probably 17 when this happened. My cousin Scott and I were sitting on the front screened-in porch with grandpa. Granny had just been to the beauty salon and was sporting a curly, but stinky, new perm. She stuck her head through the door between the living room and the porch and spoke to us briefly. Then she disappeared for a few minutes. I heard the back door, so figured she went out to do one of her daily chores.

A couple of minutes later, we heard a huge explosion. My first thought was the nearby Navy base blowing up old ordnance, which they did on a regular basis. But a few seconds later, I heard Granny screaming my name at the top of her lungs. We both reached the kitchen at about the same time. Granny looked as if she'd seen a ghost. I knew immediately what she'd done.

Her face had a red flash-burn. But the worst was her hair. That new perm was melted probably 1/4 inch on the ends. The hairs were curled up and even melted to each other. Her eyebrows were gone. And boy, did she smell!

Granny had gone out to burn her trash, but apparently wasn't happy with the speed it was burning. So she threw gasoline into the trash barrel. I guess she didn't quite understand how dangerous that was. Luckily, she didn't spill any of the gasoline on herself. I spent the next hour or so trimming the burned hair from her new perm. She didn't even blister from the flash burn, but her skin was red for a few days. As far as I know, she never tried that stunt again.

Speaking of fire, during one of my Uncle Bob's visits from Alabama, he and Aunt Nancy had bought Grandma and Grandpa a home fire extinguisher. He explained how and when to use it to both of them.

About six months later, Uncle Bob and Aunt Nancy were visiting again. At Granny's house, visiting always took place at the kitchen table for family and close friends. As Uncle Bob was sitting there, he looked around and didn't see the fire extinguisher. So he asked Grandma where it was.

In typical Granny-fashion, she told him, "Oh we never used it, so I gave it to Virginia". Uncle Bob nearly split a gut laughing at her.

Granny thought of herself as a very accurate weather forecaster. She would call me AFTER it started raining, and would always say, "I told you it was going to rain". That way, she was always 100 percent accurate. She loved to watch the weather and any good tragedy on the news. I don't care if the weatherman was predicting a blizzard in the Rockies, to my granny, that was the weather in Indiana. There was no such thing as national news and national weather--it was always local to her. She would've loved cable TV, where news and weather plays 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Her favorite thing to do was to walk through the living room as you were watching a TV show. She'd reach over, flip the channel, and walk out of the room. It didn't matter if you were watching something. It was her TV and the only thing that should be allowed to air on her TV were "her shows". And it was just easier to wait a couple of minutes after she left the room to flip the station back to the show we were watching.

We loved Granny dearly, even though she could be aggravating at times. She never held back an opinion, and always spoke her mind. It didn't matter if it upset anyone--if she had something to say, she was going to say it.

More granny stories later. I have a ton of them. Miss you, Granny C.

Then and Now...a 52-Year Journey

Back at our duplex in Indy, we three older kids were usually in a constant state of "grubby". That was a result of getting outside and playing the typical kid games. Our favorite thing to do was to take our Matchbox cars out in the back yard and make a system of highways out of the dirt that was our back yard. Like a bunch of wallowing piglets, we worked that yard to the point where grass didn't stand much of a chance of growing. But boy, did we have a good time.

My brother Mike tended to drool and leak from every orifice he owned. Couple drool with dirt, and you have created mud--and it usually coated him on every wet spot. My youngest brother Mark could be seen on any given day with a circle of mud around his mouth. He must've been lacking a mineral or two (and a brain cell or two), because the kid ate dirt. I imagine his guts are still teeming with worms and parasites.

...and me? My drooling/leaking days were over. I was smart enough to NOT eat dirt, or chew sidewalk gum, or smoke discarded cigarettes. At this age, I was just happy to sport a pair of undies and run around topless in the back yard in front of the next-door neighbor kid Ricky.

Ricky is shown on the far right of the above photo. His mom Ginny was my mom's best buddy. I've written about Ricky in the past, so I won't go on about all the toys he had. Ricky and I were good friends--except for the time I set him up. He was in his side of the garage (we also had a duplex garage), and had gotten into a can of bright green Rustoleum paint. Ricky had just begun painting the center wall of the garage when I walked in. I said something to him about getting in trouble, and he just blew it off, saying he could do what he wanted.

So I decided to egg him on and test his claim about never getting into trouble. I bragged about how good the paint looked on the wall, and told him to keep going. When he got the wall about halfway done, I ran into his house and told his Mom. She came out and yelled at him real good. That was a good day, and I've never felt one speck of guilt for setting up Ricky.


The photo above is me, Mike, and Ricky--taken at Mike's surprise 50th birthday party nearly five years ago and standing in the same order as the first photo. We've grown up a lot since that first photo was taken. Ricky's toys are gone, and he no longer paints garages. I have quit running around topless, setting up people, swallowing nickels, and sticking my fingers in electric light sockets. Mike has quit smoking discarded cigarettes, drooling and leaking...

...well...ALMOST.