AHA! I'm Not Crazy After All!

Once upon time a little girl (really little...like 5) was standing outside in her front yard with her Daddy. He told her that in the sunshine her hair was the color of shiny copper.  There is at least some percentage of a chance that they weren't in their front yard at all. Her adult brain remembered that moment happening in the front yard, but could she really rely on a 5 year old memory?

She was pretty close to the street, picking up seeds off the ground that would be used as pretend food served on a big leaf plate to her sisters who were sitting in the boat. The boat was actually a little red wagon, and the fishing poles were long sticks that they would poke at a leaf shaped "fish" in the grassy pretend water.   But back to the seeds. The seeds were from a tree, the name of which she couldn't recall as a grown up person. She couldn't even really recall what the tree looked like or how the seeds were originally attached to the tree. The girl's Daddy reached into his pocket and pulled out a little jackknife and proceeded to show the girl something magical that day. He cut one of the seeds in half and used the tip of the knife to pop out a perfect little white spoon, right in the middle of that seed. A teeny, tiny little spoon that your Barbie would use in the kitchen of her Barbie Friendship Plane. Then he told her that some seeds had forks, some had spoons and some had knives.  She always remembered that day and even asked a few people later in her life what that could have been but nobody seemed to know. Then a happy thing happened to her last week. Somebody posted that seed on their Facebook page. She was so excited to know she hadn't made the whole thing up in her very busy brain that didn't always remember things exactly as they were. Persimmons! And then she remembered sitting in front of somebody's house waiting for the Christmas parade to come down the street, right underneath a permission tree and she wondered if that moment actually happened in that nice old lady's yard.

It doesn't even matter. She's just so happy to know it did actually happen. And just almost exactly how and where she remembered (kind of).

Nothing Like The Ones From Gilligan's Island

What a completely miserable night I had last night. I don't believe I have had such a nightmare in my entire life. The gist of it was that if I stayed on the bed, I was safe. If I left the 6.5' x 5' area that was my bed, and stepped onto the carpet, there was about a 90% possibility that a creepy hand would come up and grab me by the ankle and drag me down through the carpet into a basement where there were a multitude of what can only be described as current TV sitcom and drama series television stars who looked pretty normal on the outside, but who obviously had turned to cannibalism. These people were eating people that they dragged down into their basement lair! The same thing went for being outside. If you're on the sidewalk you're safe. If you step into the parking lot you better run because something will be grabbing at your feet through the asphalt. As far as I can remember, this scenario went on ad nauseam and I woke myself up several times kicking at the grasping fingers. When Donna from "That 70's Show" decided to quit being a cannibal, the whole dream took a turn. All the cannibals decided to turn from their wicked ways and eat normal food like oatmeal and fruit. The vast majority didn't like the new diet so now, although I could halfway trust that I wouldn't get grabbed, there were moments when I knew that Rick from "The Walking Dead" and Leonard from "The Big Bang Theory" were looking at me and contemplating backsliding.

Needless to say, my sleep was fitful at best and there is definitely something wrong with me.

Just Sit There and Shush Up

My daddy has been in my dreams for the last few nights in a row. I actually dream about him a lot. It used to be a dream where I would question why he was there because I knew he shouldn't be, but it just felt so real. I remember one where I specifically asked him whether or not this was a dream, and whether he was really there. He told me that he was real and that he was back! I just kept shaking my head because I remembered 

having similar dreams and waking up being terribly sad that it was just a dream. He kept assuring me THIS time it was for real, but of course I eventually woke up and I was pretty mad at him.  But lately, the dreams are more like average, normal life, where we are just sitting around, watching TV or something. I don't seem to realize that his presence is strange, or that it's a dream at all. My dream last night was that he was sitting on the couch, listening to some old musical comedian like he might have listened to with Ivan Bell back in the day. I remember not enjoying it and wishing he would do something less annoying. But then I thought to myself that I should just sit there and bear it because maybe he wouldn't be around forever to bother me like this and I should just enjoy sitting in the room with him beside me.

I'm thankful my daddy is still annoying  me even if it's only in my own private little bizarro world head.

I already know that he was well loved. You don't have to say it. This isn't so much about my daddy as it is about YOUR daddy. Or whoever it is that is still here on this earth annoying you and/or loving you. Just sit there.

My Tub’s Better Than Your Tub

A couple of years ago when we were searching for our new home, we had in mind a number of specific things we were looking for.  We wanted four bedrooms. We wanted a fairly updated look so we wouldn't have to make a lot of changes. We wanted large spacious rooms. You get the idea.

I personally wanted something that I have never had in my life but always coveted; a garden tub. I wanted to take a bath in something that felt more like a swimming pool than a tea cup. No matter how many bubbles you put in an average sized tub, it doesn't feel any more luxurious and you don’t feel any less cramped. I wanted a ledge on which to place my scented candles and a space for my iPad to sit so I could watch movies while I turned into a raisin.

Happily, we found the perfect house complete with a fabulous garden tub. You would think that this alone would be enough, but in fact, there is more. About a year or so ago, I noticed that the tub was miraculously growing coins overnight. It didn't happen very often, but as time passed, it started happening often enough that I took notice. Sometimes it would just be a couple of pennies. Sometimes there would be quarters, nickels and dimes. I've always known money didn't grow on trees, but I had no idea that it grew on the ledges around garden tubs. No wonder people love them so much.  On the mornings that I found these offerings I scooped them up and started putting them in a jar on the dresser. I didn't say anything to anyone because I felt like they might think I was crazy, but the other day I went ahead and mentioned it to Larry because it was happening so much more often than before. I felt like he should know that we had a miracle and that we were going to be rich!

It's been an amazing discovery but today just took the cake. When I went in and turned on the light this is what I saw.

 I guess, like a fruit tree, the more mature the plant becomes,  the more developed the fruit. I immediately woke Larry to show him the new development. He just smiled a sleepy smile and said, "cool". He doesn't seem nearly as excited as me. 

How He Wasn't Bald, I Will Never Know

Gray hairs act differently than the other hairs on one's head. It's probably because they're old and feel entitled to do whatever they want, when they want and how they want. It's kind of like my diabetic grandma who wanted a piece of cake. Everybody was all up in arms about grandma wanting cake. "Don't you give her that! She's diabetic! Are you trying to kill her?" By golly, she had made it to 90 and why should she be denied? She wanted cake, and if I recall correctly, she managed to get it on her own without the help of her loving, concerned family.

Anyway, I know there are products in this world that will help a person control the wiliness of crazy acting gray hair, but I'm willing to bet you'd actually have to spend some time with these products to ensure their usefulness. I imagine it's more time than I spend making my normal acting hairs lay down in a semi-proper fashion every morning. Anything extra would rip a hole in the time/space continuum because I'd have to wake up earlier than I already do. This is not acceptable. The extra moments it would require to make me look less like Albert Einstein are moments I do not choose to waste in such a manner. I'd rather waste them sleeping. Unfortunately, my obvious laziness creates another problem entirely. My lack of motivation dictates that I am daily destined to be approached by all sorts of people who feel the desperate need to pluck said hairs from my head without prior permission and apparently without remorse either.  What kind of world do I live in that people feel entitled to remove my own personal hair from my head, and in such a violent, painful manner? These people are my friends, my coworkers and my family and they all act like its normal behavior. They would argue that it is just uncontrollable, natural instinct to want to grab something so obviously out of place and make it right. Well, my natural instinct is to punch you right in the face after you rip out my hair, but I seem to be able to control THAT.  Rogues.

 

 

All I can say is that Albert must have had no friends. He certainly would have been bald.