Roy's Wheat

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." - Galatians 6:7

Turns out that the side effects of too much sleep, inhaling too much smoke, and eating just plain too much on Fourth of July makes the Fifth of July National Cranky Mother’s Day.  So, I need a diversion, or a time out, or both, and maybe a nap.  I decided to write this instead. 

My stepdad, Roy, died when he was 36 years old of alcoholism.  More specifically: cirrhosis of the liver caused by chronic alcoholism.  I believe that’s exactly what the death certificate said.  Odd that I still remember that.  I can still picture the document.  He was, however, the best stepdad I could have asked for and he loved me.  A lot of my favorite childhood memories involve Roy and his family and all the stuff we used to do together. 

Lately, I’ve had several dreams about Roy.  Now I have weird dreams all the time, but not usually involving people I know.  When they are about actual people, I can really get upset over them because they seem so real.  Anyway, a few weeks back I dreamed I ran into Roy in a grocery store.  He was buying dog food and wearing his red baseball cleats.  I kept telling him how much I missed him and that I hadn’t seen him since he died.  He just kept acting like he had no idea what I was talking about.  And I woke up nearly in tears.  This November 20th will be 17 years since he died.

Now back to real life….

Roy’s family was full of farmers.  His dad raised pigs.  His sister raised cattle.  We had horses.  We picked pecans.  We fished.  We always lived in town, but Roy would plant wheat in our yard.  Usually out by the alley behind and around our redbud tree in a little patch.  It was always shocking green compared with the rest of our grass and I liked to pick the heads of wheat when they finally matured.  I remember hulling out the wheat seeds and sprinkling them around. 

Then one year his family raised a whole field full of wheat.  I remember playing in the back of an old farm truck full of wheat, running the seeds through my fingers.  I also remember we ground some of the wheat with a hand grinder.  I don’t remember what we did with the ground wheat, probably fed it to the pigs, but I remember my hands hurt. 

So, when I think of wheat, I think about Roy.

Three years ago, I had a couple of wheat plants come up by my back porch.  Must have been planted by the birds.  But I thought of Roy.  This was my first wheat crop:

 

I don’t know why I kept the seeds.  Nostalgia, I guess.  Maybe I thought I’d plant them and didn’t, but they’ve been in my laundry room ever since.  I ran across them every now and then.  And I thought about Roy. 

This year I am the same age that Roy was when he died.  I’m not a drinker.  Now that doesn’t mean I never tried a beer when I was younger, or that I didn’t send my husband to the liquor store for whiskey when I was sick of coughing last winter, but I’ve never acquired a taste for alcohol.  I even choose the grape juice at communion.  I have Roy to thank for that.  Living with an alcoholic for 10 years of my life pretty much snuffed out any alcoholic fantasies I might have harbored.  In fact, I find myself suspecting all people who drink of being alcoholics and wondering if it might kill them.  What would their children do without them?  How would they die?  In a car crash?  In their sleep?  Would they kill someone else?  Do their family members know how serious drinking is?  Do they?

I get through holidays, family gatherings, stressful times, relaxing times, and most generally every day of my life with nothing harder than lemonade.  Why can’t they?  Why couldn’t Roy?  And they drink in front of their children. 

I was one of those children.


He’d still be alive today if it weren’t for beer. 

Cases and cases of beer. 

 

This year I have 11 wheat plants that I’ve found in my yard.  I’ll probably collect their seed heads yet again.  This time, though, I think I’ll plant them in my garden area for next year.  Roy’s life was cut short by his habit, but the seeds he sowed into my life are evident every day.  I hope I’m as patient, kind, involved, and hard-working as he was, or at least I hope my kids see me that way, because that’s how I saw Roy.  I saw though that Roy had a character flaw that was a dark shadow on all things about him that were good, and I couldn’t fix that about him.  I hope my children see nothing but sunshine when they think of me! 

Am I in a better mood now?  Probably not.  But my focus is on “reap what you sow”, so I vow to be less cranky and maybe try some sunshine! 

Thanks for the therapy.  I hope I didn’t drive you to drinking!

Cat Attack

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”  Romans 12:15

 

Remember the orange cat?  He’s grown up nicely into a very sweet loving kitty cat that I love despite his color and has provided us loads of entertainment with his sweet gestures of flopping down in front of where ever we may walk wanting us to rub his belly.  He’s also started a little game with us called “Sneak into the House”. 

It all started about a month ago when we had a little cold snap.  The kids wanted to bring him in. 

Okay, it was me.  I thought his little kitty paws might be cold. 

Anyway, I let him wander around the house and he found a wonderful spot called “Under the Bed”.  He could hide just behind the dust ruffle and then when he noticed I sat down on the floor right on the other side of the dust ruffle to play with him, he could sink his claws right into my bottom causing me to holler and my son to almost wet his pants from laughter.  It was quite the little game we had going.  Ha ha, hee hee. 

Then he found that if he moved to the exact center of Under the Bed, no human arm could reach him.  Well, it had been so long since we’d had a cat in the house, I’d forgotten about flushing them out from Under the Bed with the broom handle, so we just let him be, thinking he’d come out when he was ready. 

We thought he’d come to us.  But he decided to go out the other way and see what adventures he could find in the rest of the house.  What he found was the Hamster Cage!! 

We found him with front paws wrapped completely around the hamster cage, and his kitty nose pressed in desperation up against the thin bars that separated him from his prey, and a look of unfathomable luck upon his face.  We had to practically pry his claws off of the cage and sent him back outside. 

And then he had to live with the fact that we keep tasty cat treats in a cage in a nice warm house. 

And it was just too much for him to live with. 

So, for the past several weeks we’ve occasionally found Sunny hiding under the bed waiting for the right moment in which to unleash his Master Plan.  Lying in wait, I believe it is called.

He’d only made it into the room with the hamsters a couple of times, but was quickly discovered and ushered back to his natural outdoor habitat.  Sunny practiced his murderous skills several times in the past few weeks, picking off several birds that have visited my bird feeders.  He’s left their lifeless bodies on my front porch as a sign of things to come. 

Or maybe affection.  Depends on who you ask.

And so it was tonight that Sunny decided to finally unleash his Master Plan for either liberating the hamsters or having a tasty treat. 

I had left with the children to return two friends to their home, and the hub sat at the kitchen table working a Sudoku puzzle and reading the newspaper.  Sunny apparently sneaked in the laundry room door when one of the four children was exiting the house to get into the car.  In my mind, he probably went straight for the center of Under the Bed to wait for the perfect moment. 

So while the hub was enjoying an otherwise uneventful quiet moment to himself, Sunny pounced.  He jumped on the top of the hamster cage, ripping it from its perch on a stand by the window, knocking a hamster bedroom insert completely away from the cage itself, and exposing a large gaping hole through which he would retrieve his snack.  Unfortunately his plan did not include the hub grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, spanking his bottom, and depositing him back outdoors so quickly. 

Pine pellets and hamster bedding slung all over the floor, it wasn’t surprising that the hamsters had escaped.  The elder of the hamsters has been out at least on one other occasion since we’ve had her and she tends to run in a circle around the cage until the humans show up, but the other hamster is young and new and really doesn’t care for humans that much in the first place, so she decided to make a run for it. 

The hub said he could see her hiding behind the cabinet peeking at him, but as soon as she noticed he saw her, she would run to another spot.  The hamsters are robo dwarf hamsters, which the lady at PetSmart said meant “fast”.  The hub confirmed this definition after having several misses in catching the baby hamster before snagging her back into her cage. 

I returned after depositing the excess children at their home and found the hub at the table reading the newspaper and working a Sudoku puzzle.  He told me of all his action while I was out and I thought I would die laughing.  He didn’t find the experience as funny as I did. 

Probably a classic case of:  “Guess you (didn’t have) to be there!” 

The pine pellets and hamster bedding still remain on the floor.


He’ll probably laugh tomorrow when I have to clean them up! 

The ADD Apple Tree - Part 1

"There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off."  Proverbs 23:18

 

Let’s talk about ADD.  Attention Deficit Disorder.  Lack of attention.  Inability to focus.  Executive order problems.  Forgetful.  Being scatterbrained.  Social ineptitude.  Impulsive.

These words, among others, have been used to describe my child.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.  I won’t say which child, but really that’s only because the other one hasn’t gone through the official “diagnosis” process and probably never will.  You see, my children are borderline ADD. 

As am I – admitting it is the first step, right?  I take all these labels personally, as if it is MY fault, although my husband admits he was a bit of a daydreamer as a child too.  We’re fighting genetics!

Anyway, my kids have been plagued since beginning school with not conforming to the rigors, expectations, and distractions of the public classroom.  Teachers complain, principals call, and recesses are taken away.  They are square pegs trying to be shoved into round holes.    

I have been told for YEARS that something is WRONG with my kids.  And I began to believe it. 

I began to nitpick every time they forgot their lunchbox at school.  I freaked every time they forgot a homework page.  I began questioning whether or not they had a learning disability when they failed to retain information.  Weekly, I would make a mental tally of all the times I’d had to remind them twice about something and it began to add up. 

Maybe there WAS something wrong with my kids!   

So, even though the teacher would start telling me about all the problems she’d had with HER son every time we talked about MY son, I decided to take her advice and consult with my pediatrician.  (It should be noted that my husband was not in agreement, but he did fill out his “parent” survey paper on behaviors and social interactions.)  The teacher submitted her papers as well and the pediatrician said, “I’m seeing some tendencies of mild ADD.”  Then she turned into the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons and pretty much said, “Mwah, mwah, wah, wah, mwah, mwah.”  What I did take from the conversation was “…9YO on a controlled dangerous substance that you’ll have to register with the Bureau of Narcotics to be able to pick up at the pharmacy….. appetite suppressant, so you may want to LOAD UP at the Chinese buffet on the weekends.” 

I asked what we had to gain my medicating him.  She said he would have more learning opportunities and would be able to be more successful in the classroom. 

I told her, “Keep in mind that he is a straight A student and is already in Gifted and Talented.”

She then had a puzzled look on her face and said, “Well then, in your case, not a lot.  I typically see patients who are in peril of being held back in school.  Here’s the prescription.  If you don’t want to medicate him, don’t medicate him.”

At this and other doctor appointments throughout his nine years, I’d mentioned to the doctor that he was stiff, asymmetrical, and walked on his toes a lot.  We actually took him to the doctor because his left ribcage was protruding farther than his right in his abdomen area and the doctor laughed at us and said it was totally normal and sent us home without a charge.  This will be important later. 

Anyway, in shock from our controlled dangerous substance discussion, I began to research alternative methods for treating ADD.  I say “research”.  Google was my laboratory.  My friend, who has a slightly autistic son whom she homeschools, had told me she’d started giving him a cup of coffee in the morning before starting his school work and that it really helped him to focus.  So caffeine was where I started. 

Based on internet calculations, I determined that my child could safely consume up to a half a caffeine pill as an alternate to the prescription drug.  I called my pediatrician, jubilant that I’d found something common that I wanted to try before trying medication.  She quickly shot me down, telling me she did not recommend caffeine for children his age. 

Wait a minute….  You would prefer a controlled dangerous substance over caffeine? 

I got a second opinion from my pharmacist who said she would ABSOLUTELY try the caffeine pills over the prescription drug.  And that was good enough for me!

I told the teacher that I was not willing to medicate him and that I would be giving him caffeine pill every morning before school.  And that was the end of that.  She never commented on his lack of focus for the rest of the school year, and he ended up with high Bs and As as his final grades. 

During this time too, we took him to a pediatric neurologist for the toe walking who didn’t see any immediate concerns, but wanted to do a sleep-deprived MRI, just in case, and had him evaluated for physical therapy due to stiffness with his gross motor skills.  Naturally, the physical therapy office wanted to sign us up for six months worth of appointments for which I would receive an immediate 15% discount if I pre-paid. 

None of these appointments gave me the warm fuzzies! 

I quickly cancelled all future appointments, relying on my gut instinct.  Then I gave it one more try and took him to the orthopedist we’d used twice with his brother’s broken arms because I felt like he would shoot me straight.  He assured me that nothing was physically awry in his feet or legs, but it would be up to my son to fix the way he walks and carries himself.  He said we could do all the physical therapy in the world, but that if it wasn’t a problem for my son and he continued to walk on his toes, he would undo every bit of progress we would make.  He looked right at my son and said, “It’s up to you, buddy.  Mom wants to help you, but Mom can only do so much.”  He said regular exercise, stretching, and sports activities would help with his stiffness.  We continued to play soccer and swam during the summer.

And then summer was over, and he was back to his old tricks, but with a new teacher in a new grade.  She is quick to communicate with me her concerns, which I appreciate.  Better than going along thinking everything is hunky dory and then one day having a bombshell dropped on you that your kid has been having a problem for six months and this is the first you’ve heard of it.  Not that I’m bitter… 

Anyway, she had some serious concerns about his ability to handle this grade’s school work and his ability to focus in the classroom.  She said it was causing him unnecessary and undue stress in the classroom and at home. 

And so, I contacted the Special Education Services office at my school system.  I told them I wanted him tested for a 504 plan under other health issues.  I told them I wanted him evaluated for modifications in the classroom.  I was told they would have a meeting and then decide if he needed to be evaluated. 

This was during the week of Fall Parent/Teacher Conferences.  We’d started playing Fall Soccer and had met a nice family on the sidelines in which the dad was a chiropractor.  His office was in Tulsa and his wife talked to me about chiropracting on numerous occasions. 

Now, let’s get my opinions of chiropractors out of the way.  I was not a fan of chiropractors.  I’d had spinal manipulations all my life, but I always went to a D.O. instead of a chiropractor.  I don’t know why.  My family just saw D.O.s.  I began to think that chiropracting was a racket when I worked for the government and had a co-worker who would get out of work assignments on a regular basis because “she had to go to the chiropractor.”  (Say that in a whiney voice.)  So I wouldn’t say that I thought they were a bunch of quacks, but that wouldn’t be far off. 

So we’d met this chiropractor, and I’d talked to his wife on the soccer field.  Then, one of the ladies whom I do exercise classes at the Y, out of the blue, says to me one day, “Hey, is your son still having trouble paying attention in school?  Because we’ve been taking my grandson to the chiropractor and now he’s off his medication and everything.”  Weird.  Two chiropractor coincidences. 

Then we had our Parent/Teacher Conference.  We went all through the meeting with the teacher telling us what behaviors our son needed to work on and what he does typically in the classroom instead of his school work.  Yet his grades remained high.  My husband and I were feeling beat down and destitute and without a clue as to what to do next.  So I asked the teacher, “If he was your kid, what would you do?”

She said, “Off the record?”  (I agreed, but I guess it’s on the record now….)

She said, “Now this is going to sound weird, but I’d take him to a chiropractor.”

The hub and I looked at each other like “whoa, that was weird,” and we left with the distinct feeling that someone was trying to tell us something.   I made our son a chiropractic appointment the next day, the day before his 10^th birthday, and the same day the school decided he wasn’t bad enough to be evaluated for a 504 plan.   

 

*To be continued………………….

Life Compliments

“You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”  Matthew 5:14

 

Have you ever received a compliment that you think might stick with you the rest of your life?  I got one from my friend Jill once.  It was one of those terrible chain mail-like emails where you had to list three people and then give them each a compliment, and then they had to list three people, and so on and so on.  I don’t remember who I listed, but I remember what Jill said about me:  “She always does the right thing.”

That was one of the nicest things anybody has ever said about me.  Oh, I’m sure somebody’s told me I had nice hair and meant it, or that I’m a good cook or whatever, but those compliments don’t have staying power for me because they are minute to minute.  One minute with the window down and my hair wraps itself around my head like a turban.  One minute too long on Facebook and I’ve burned the macaroni.

That compliment said something about my character and my character is something I think I can keep.  It said that I was fair and that I had others’ intentions at heart.  It said that even though sometimes the road might be rough, that I would choose the right path.  I loved it and I love Jill, who coincidentally always does the right thing too.  We also share the same gift of “telling it like it is”, so if you ever need an intervention, you know who to call! 

Well today I received my second life-sticking compliment.  It was from a near stranger.  His name is Larry and he’s stepped on my toe in Zumba before, but besides that we’ve had limited contact.  We smile and say hi, but I only just learned his name today. 

He said: “You seem like you’re always happy and really enjoy life.”   

I told him that I do, and then he proceeded to ask me what I did for a living, and I told him I’m a Lady of Leisure.  He seemed surprised by this.  Then he tried to get me to go back to school to get a degree, and I told him I already had one, and then I had to spill the rest of my work experiences.  He was impressed with my litany of qualifications and tried to convince me I needed a job (like I need anyone else to remind me I have NO money).  Okay, substituting.  I still have substituting!    

But his opening comment stuck with me. 

“I’m happy and I enjoy life.”   

Or at least I seem that way to others.  But for the most part, it’s the truth.  Even though I have days where I think I’m getting the shaft, or that the whining will never end, or that it will take an act of Congress to get something done, I’m mostly happy. 

Even when I burn dinner, or I’m cussing the sewing machine, or the dog won’t stop barking in the middle of the night and I have to go out to the barn with the broom and chase him around, I mostly enjoy the process.

So how do others see you?  Do they tell you?  Do you agree?  Sometimes it takes a stranger to make us see ourselves a little clearer.  And hopefully we’re happy with what we see.  The funny thing is, my impression of Larry is the same as his impression of me.  He seems like a fun person to be around every time I see him.  He’s never without a smile.  He dances in Zumba like no one is watching (which we’re really not because we’re all concentrating too hard on not falling down ourselves).  And he acknowledges people every time he sees them.  I learned today that he’s a retired high school teacher and I’ll bet he was a great one! 

He taught me something, didn’t he? 

Necklaces and Joyce Meyer

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”  1 Peter 4:10

Ok, so I made this necklace.  We have a lot of selenite crystals (as you can imagine) from our days at the Great Salt Plains, so I’m trying to figure out what I could do with them.  We also had some nice rocks that were picked up by my children at the Gem Dig at the Tulsa Zoo and even more from the panning station at Silver Dollar City.  We have a rock habit that we just can’t shake! 

I caught a show on PBS the other day about wire wrapping and hammering wire and such, and like with all shows I watch on TV, I thought “I could do that.”  So I tried it.  It almost killed my fingers, but it worked out pretty nice, I think.  Even the hub was impressed. 

And like all good Facebook friends who try something new and succeed, I posted a picture of my accomplishment.

My friend from church said, “I need that…. Seriously.” 

I thought okay, I can do that.  It’s my first try, and if she likes it that much, then it’s hers!

So then I’m flipping through the channels last Friday night and I run across Joyce Meyer.  Now I’m not a regular watcher, but I occasionally try to keep up on my televangelists to dispel rumors and such.  I’ve watched her a few times and found her to be an interesting subject.  I need to read up on her and figure out more about her. 

Anyway, moments into my running across her on TV, she says, “If God tells you to give something away, it is no longer anointed for you!” 

I said, “Holy cow!  I think she’s talking about my necklace!” 

Then she tells a story of how she had a bracelet that she really liked and felt compelled to give it to a friend, but then she had remorse over giving it away and hounded the friend about how much she liked it until the friend said that God was telling her to give it back to Joyce.  And then she never wore it again because it had lost its luster to her.  She said she kept it as a reminder that God had used that bracelet to teach her a lesson. 

So then I was thinking that I for sure had to give that necklace to my friend at church!!

I wore the necklace to church on Sunday and everyone gushed over it and I told them I made it and yada yada yada.  But then I ran into my friend and told her it was really her necklace because Joyce Meyer had told me that I had to give it to her! 

She was confused. 

I’m sometimes confusing. 

I told her the whole story and she thought it as bizarre as I did, but said I should wear the necklace until the end of the service, and then she would get it from me.  She hugged me, and thanked me, and then we took our respective places – me in my pew, and she as a song leader.

And that would be the end of the story, except for the fact that our church has all sorts of fascinating little tidbits of information in the bulletins.  They list the elders and upcoming events and ushers for the week and such, and they also list the week’s birthdays. 

And guess whose birthday it was?  My friend’s. 

I gave her the necklace at the end of the service and told her I couldn’t believe it was her birthday!!  I told her THAT was even a little bit too weird for me even! 

And I think I heard God laughing…

Again!

Tiny

We bought a King Cake for Fat Tuesday a couple of weeks ago.  It came with the baby above.  The kids and I strategically placed it in Daddy’s piece of the King Cake, and my 7YO almost spontaneously combusted with anticipation of Daddy finding the baby. 

He told him, “Daddy, next year instead of a King Cake, just buy us jelly donuts, okay?”

But, oh, that is only one family story concerning a tiny plastic baby. 

Picture it.  Commerce, Oklahoma.  1978.  I was two and staying with Nanna in her mobile home.  My mom calls Nanna to check in on me and hears me crying in the background. 

“Nnnnnnaaaannnnnnaaaaa…..  Ttttiiinnnnyyyy!”   I said through exaggerated sobs and cries. 

My mom asked what was wrong with me. 

“Oh, that S.O.B.-ing Tiny is missing again!” said Nanna, according to family tales.  Only she didn’t use the acronym.

Now Nanna was a Sunday school teacher for at least 50 years.  What was it about Tiny, and occasionally me and my friends as children, that would make Nanna stoop to such language?  (We always thought it was hugely funny when we could get her to say bad words.)

Well, as you can see, Tiny was, well, tiny.  And apparently I had quite the affinity for these tiny babies when I was little.  I held on to Tiny with all my might.  But inevitably, I would misplace Tiny and then it became quite a challenge to find Tiny due to his size. 

I can empathize with the search for Tiny as every two weeks a missing library book usually reduces me to the very last synapses of my nerves.  There will eventually be a wing at the library dedicated to my family’s honor, paid for with fines for missing library books. 

So, the family got wise.  They went to the Dime Store and bought a whole package of Tinies.  *Is that spelled right?  Or is it Tinys?  What kind of grammatical rule applies here? 

Anyway, now whenever Tiny went missing, they could slip me a new Tiny!  Genius!  But the patting themselves on the back ended shortly… 

I wuddn’t no dummy!  I knew they’d slipped me a new Tiny! 

Or at least I figured it out when I found OLD Tiny. 

Then I had two Tinies!  And we had to keep track of TWO Tinies. 

Then FOUR Tinies! 

It was an ever growing problem.   

Tiny survived all of my childhood.  I still had a couple up until adulthood, but alas, they are buried somewhere along with other items of my childhood, like prom dresses and old boyfriend pictures that didn’t get flooded, in some of my mother’s storage items.  I’m pretty sure sometime in my life I will once again run across my favorite Tiny, who was embossed with his own set of underpants. 

But until then, learn from my Nanna’s mistake.  For one, don’t give inch-high plastic babies to a 2YO.  They’re choking hazards, you know!  And if you do, have a plan in place that does not include exponentially increasing your grief should Tiny go missing! 

So, whenever I see a baby from a King Cake, to me he will always wear his full title of “S.O.B.-ing Tiny” due to his tendency to become lost and causing people to lose it! 

Hope you’re not losing it today!  Happy Wednesday!

A Skating Good Time

"So come on, come on, and do the locomotion with me!"  - Kylie Minogue, 1988.  

My boys were invited to a skating party a couple of weekends ago.  I hated to even tell them where it was because the oldest one had tried skating once before.  And it didn’t go well.

And that brings me back to my memories of the Miami Skating Rink.  I spent many an afternoon there at skating parties, or church parties, or just because Nanna was sick of taking us to the swimming pool.  Or maybe we were too sunburned.  I don’t know.  I just know I have a lot of skating rink memories.

Of course the biggest deal of skating is trying to find the perfect skate and then get them on.  In Miami, they were a kind of beige leather with brown laces that you would eventually wrap around the top of the skate and your leg several times so that you wouldn’t trip on your own ties.  They had orange wheels and stoppers if I remember correctly. 

The laces and wheels perfectly matched the brown and orange shag carpeting that made up most of the skating rink and its lovely round benches that were parked in front of the lockers.  There was about a two inch drop to the baby blue painted hardwood floor of the actual rink.  The floor was warped and if you made it about half-way around, there was a dip big enough to give an unseasoned skater the thrill of going dangerously fast.  Just when you thought you had your balance on the wheels of death, they would turn on the disco lights.  There was an actual mirrored ball that hung in the center of the rink and I hated that thing!  When the patterns of light fell and spun on the rink, it would mess with my mind and make me fall down.  Yeah, that’s what it was! 

I mostly stayed on the carpeted areas, trying to make it from round bench to bench.  Every once in a while, I would get brave and try the slick surface of the concession area where there were booths to hang on to.  Inevitably, I would brave the rapids of the rink.  And it always seemed that just as I was getting good at it, they would clear the floor for a couple’s skate, or limbo, or the choo choo train thing.  Kylie Minogue’s Locomotion still plays loudly in my brain when I think of the skating rink.  (I secretly can’t believe I still remember who it was by!)

And then there was that inevitable trip to the restroom where it was nearly impossible to maneuver in the bathroom stall, precariously perched on one leg with the skate stopper down, trying to take care of business without  rolling out the space at the bottom of the door or off the toilet. 

I don’t want you thinking that bad skating skills run in the family.  My dad’s brother, my uncle Bill, was quite a skating phenom.  He was the classic disco skater.  I was at the skating rink a few times when he was there.  He was probably a little old to be there.  Probably all of thirty or so, but he could do twists and turns and spins that nobody else could do.  Not even the weird guys who worked there.  Yes, it has always been a prerequisite that you must be only slightly on the edge of morality and normalcy to work at a skating rink. 

So back to the kids’ birthday party invitation…

I told them where it was.  They said they’d try it only after I told them if they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to skate.  Of course, they never took their skates off until it was time to go.    

We get there and they have these handy dandy walker looking things that make it look like a place for geriatric skaters, but they really work!  Uh, I mean, they look like they would work.  Okay, I’ll admit that after making it around ONCE without falling, I grabbed a walker.  And even though it was about two feet too short for me, it really did help.  After a while with the walker, I actually made it around FOUR times without killing myself or my tailbone. 

My husband had a different technique.  He would carry the walker and only put it down if he thought he needed it.  It was hilarious to watch! 

But what neither of us did was continually fall on our rears like one dad there.  He was nearly my inspiration to stop while I was still ahead.

AND, after putting it off for quite some time, I finally had a less than exciting trip to the restroom still on my wheels! 

A good time was had by all!  Many new skating rink memories were made including the lights of death, countless falls, and some slightly inappropriate music for the 7YO crowd.  And of course, there was the one guy there who was an ice dancer in another life who could turn around backwards and actually HELP little kids who’d fallen get back up. 

My only defense was to crash myself before I crashed into them. 

Keep on rolling!

Merry Pig-mas!

So yesterday, the kids got an invite to a friend’s house for a few hours in the afternoon.  I dropped them off around two and that gave me three hours to wrap presents and finish up Christmas stuff, since I’d been sick all week with an unidentified flu-like illness.  The friend lives just around the corner, so I drove down the side of our pasture on my way to drop them off.  The horses were over by the fence and I noticed Sugar and Lucky were by the horses.  Lucky was supposed to be in his pen, so I wondered how he got out, but there was another dog there too, wasn’t there? 

I got home, put Lucky up and commenced to wrapping presents and watching HGTV upstairs in my bedroom.  After about an hour, my back could take no more, so I went downstairs and had a little break checking Facebook. 

My neighbor wrote: Just finished the big neighborhood pig roundup.  My Christmas present to you Mickie.  :)  

To which I replied: Are you freaking kidding me?

Lucy, the WonderPig, had apparently had enough of the confined life and decided to take a tour around the neighborhood.  She ended up in Sugar’s backyard and thank goodness my neighbor saw her.  He and his family rounded her up and brought her back home to her pen behind the barn.  She’d apparently worked on the cattle panels that make up the fence on the west side of the barn and pushed them so that they looked more like a teepee propped up on the telephone poles that are the infrastructure of the barn. 

This just after Wednesday, when she decided to heck with the chain link gate and shoved her way right out of it.  We now have chains on everything around here.  It’s like Alcatraz for animals. 

On Wednesday, she stayed in the backyard, while I ran around her in circles screaming at the kids to “get the dogs”, “come help me”, “NO!”, “get out of the WAY!!”  Nothing puts me in a panicked, screaming mood like a loose animal.  I’m surprised someone didn’t call the cops, thinking someone was being murdered over here.   

What we learned on Wednesday was to always hook the chain on the gate, and that I run about as fast as a 3 ½ month old pig. 

Anyway, my neighbor must have been quieter in his escapades, or I had the TV turned up way too loud, because I was totally oblivious to the whole situation! 

I wrapped up my wrapping and covered my tracks and then headed out to check on the barn situation.  The entire 20 ft. or so made up of cattle panels was leaning precariously.  There was a foot wide gap at one end that I thought the pig could have surely fit easily through, so I thought she was out again! 

Please God, don’t let the pig be out again!

“Luuuccccyyyy…” I called.

And out steps a very sleepy pig from the chicken house where she sleeps.  She’d been taking a nap!  Too much excitement, I guess. 

So I corral her back in the chicken house and lock her in so she won’t be doing any escaping before I get the fence put back up and wired in place.  Sounds easier than it really was…

By this time, I had to go pick up the kids.  I told the mom over there about the pig escape.  Her older daughter and the dad had gone to Wal-Mart earlier and the daughter said, “I saw a pig on our way to the store!  I said, ‘Dad, look, it’s a REAL LIVE pig!’”

Great.

Lucy the pig. 

Neighborhood celebrity.

I don’t know how long she was out, or where her travels took her, but it was exciting nonetheless. 

And embarrassing.

Stupid pig. 

My 9YO and I worked until dark wiring the panels back in place.  I should say we worked until my helper’s hands got too cold and until mine hurt from bending wire in place.  I was feeling like a farmer last night!

This morning, we go out to inspect our pig-proofing.  We also took Lucy an old bowling ball to play with at the advice of another Facebook friend who has raised pigs for years.  Said she might be bored.    

Lucy and Lucky immediately started playing.  Lucy kept head butting Lucky and was trying to bite his tail.  It was funny to watch.  She didn’t think a whole lot of the bowling ball, but gave it a couple of shoves with her nose.

I also had her eat dog food out of my hand and this time she let me pat her back.  I think her whole trip around the neighborhood made her a little friendlier to us.  They say pigs are smart.  Smart as a dog, I’ve heard.  Maybe, just maybe, she had some escaper’s remorse yesterday while she was off gallivanting with the dogs.  Maybe there was a bit of panic in her heart that she was truly lost.  Maybe there was no tussling with the neighbor because she was relieved that someone knew where she belonged.  Maybe she thought “There’s no place like home.”

Maybe we should have named her Dorothy.

Dorothy Houdini.