Aug 31, A Day Late

For most of you Aug 31 is the day Princess Diana died.. and yeah, I remember that. Only for me it is the day my marriage ended (still not sure if it was a happy or sad thing) and more importantly it was the day two woman who helped mold my life were born.


Do you have days in the year that mean something to you. Days other than your birthday, anniversary, kids birthday, holidays etc..? Well I do and August 31 is one of those days. In all honestly I should have written this yesterday but the words weren't there.


My Grandma, Dorthea Mae (Crabtree) Branch (There were a few other names thrown in there but I only know one of them and didn't want to ignore the other). My Grandma was a century ahead of her time. Had she been born into

My cousin Linda Comstock made this! hence the Aunt Dot

this world.. she would be president. Her teachings and thought process were so ahead of her time that I hear the pundits blowing smoke, I mean stating their new and innovative opinions and I think, That's not new.. I heard that when I was eight! Grandma was alive, vibrant.. tough as nails and proud of it. She could do ANYTHING she set her mind to and did! While she seemed to enjoy the occasional man (enough to marry three of them) she didn't really have a use for them.. I am sure there were all sorts of reasons why but for me, it didn't matter. She was Katherine Hepburn strong.. classy, gorgeous and yes a tough old broad (that was a compliment back in the day). I remember when we were kids and went to the mountains to go inner tubing and sledding.. there was grandma sliding down the hill right next to us. 

When I was a child she needed a traveling companion.. I go picked!! I was lucky enough to travel with her every two years for the next few years.. Hawaii (for a month), The East Coast, The West Coast.. and we didn't just travel we say, we learned. It was experiences that stayed with me forever. 

She always had this nifty little sayings and quotes Like:

• BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP.
• PRETTY IS AS PRETTY DOES
•  THERE IS NO SUCH WORD AS CAN'T. YOU ARE AN AMERICAN AND THE LAST FOUR LETTERS OF AMERICAN SPELL I CAN [believe me we rarely used the words I can't.. but as I got older and had kids.. I was a brownie leader and whenever the girls would say I can't I would say.. “Now if I had said that around my grandma she would say...(insert phrase here)” to this day.. those little girls now 19 – 22 can be heard to quote me when someone says I can't to them.]

Aside from that I have one (ok two great memories) of my grandma.

 What is hard to believe is that while I spent hours, days, weekends, weeks and even months at a time with Grandma I never and I mean never remember her cooking for me. Now we all know she fed me.. but to this day I don't remember what except for these two occasions..

Grandma had those wonderful orange trees in her backyard and I thought hey wouldn't it be cool to learn how to make freshly squeezed orange juice. So I asked Grandma.. “how do you make orange juice” *note I must learn to phrase my questions properly as I didn't ask for fresh juice and I did ask how “she” make juice.. Anyway, grandma went to the freezer pulled out a can of frozen orange juice and tossed it to me, saying.. “If you can read, you can make orange juice”

Having not learned my lesson, another time I wanted to learn how to bake a cake (you know from scratch.. don't even ask me why). So I asked Grandma (you know the one I never remember cooking for me) “Grandma, will you teach me how to bake a cake?” Yep you guessed it, grandma went over to the cupboard pulled out a box of cake mix and tossed it to me.. “If you can read, you can bake a cake”.. what did I learn? Don't ask grandma to teach you to cook and grandma was a great advocate of reading!

My cousin Linda Comstock made this!

The second most amazing woman and in my honest opinion the smartest woman I ever met.. and probably smarter than most I haven't. Was my Aunt Jean. Yep Grandma's oldest daughter.. born on the same day. She had a hard life and made some harder choices but through it all she was strong.. She was a woman to be admired and she played a huge part in my life!! When I took a friend to California a few years back (9 or 10 now) we spent some time with my aunt and let me tell you Mary will back me up on this. My Aunt Jean did something with her life.. Shoot she did everything!! A fabulous teacher, in her later years she and my uncle Karl, gave up their teaching positions in the American School system (A very well paying school district) and cut their salaries in half, in order to teach in the American Schools. They were actually teaching in Kuwait when Iraq invaded.. Well they were home for a three week vacation when Iraq invaded.. so they remained alive and well, but their things, all gone.. The only piece of jewelry I wear regularly was given to me by my aunt. And I think of her every time I glance at my finger and see it. 

Now Aunt Jean came close to repeating history with the birth of her youngest child. Lizzie was born on Sept 1. We are all convinced that Aunt Jean didn't want to keep the tradition going, so she crossed her legs and refused to push until the clock struck midnight.. either that or going into labor interfered with her birthday party.. no one is quite sure.

Since I am writing this on Sept 1.. Happy Birthday Lizzie 

My cousin Linda Comstock made this!

Shauni

Raw PopTarts

Do you have something that makes you smile everytime you do it? Something that brings back childhood memories? For me it's eating Poptarts.. Do I eat them on a regular basis? Nope but when I do, I can't help it I smile.

Back when I was in Jr High (and yes we called it Jr High) I was in this awesome Girl Scout troop, our leader was a man Mr See.. sadly his daughter moved on after I was in the troop just one year. This was pretty much the only troop in that area at the time and we had 52 girls. 

The next year we got two really great leaders.. sadly they wanted to take the troop in different directions so they split. 

One was going to be physical, athletic, Outdoor oriented, the other was more into well girl stuff. I was an extremely athletic person but one thing I have always been was loyal and I felt I needed to remain in the troop we had. I liked my leader (I later learned to ADORE her) and my closest friends pretty much agreed with me. We stayed in the original troop while Mr Hartzell took the other one. Like I said he was a very good man and his troop had loads of fun. Of course in Jr High, there was no way we could acknowledge that fact. So we of course became "enemies" yeah that's the GS way. 

Our troop leader was Mrs Couron and she was amazing.. have I already said that? anyway on one of our weekend activities we had decided to go backpacking.. Of course it came up as an inside joke that we couldn't go backpacking cuz we were the girly girl troop. What would we know about backpacking? We won't mention that I had backpacked in the local mountains on numerous occasions.. BUT..  Anyway. we really got into a heated discussion about our toughness.. we were laughing and joking and making fun of ourselves. When one of my best friends and sister of my heart, Judy, who by the way is a gorgeous woman now but as a child and early teen she was gangly (and that is being nice) of course she showed me cuz she is absolutely beautiful and I am well, not *grins* Sheesh back on track again. Anyway Judy looked at us all and with a completely straight face said "I'm tough. I eat RAW poptarts!" Needless to say we were completely lost at that point and laughed hysterically.

Today I was eating my toasted poptarts and realized I was no longer tough, because I preferred my poptarts toasted. Of course I had to post it on my FB page.. And then it gets even funnier. One of my best friends on FB.. she was in the other troop. So Colleen, my cohort in crime and Trish our arch frenemy and I have had a great discussion on raw poptarts.. Seems Colleen is still quite tough!!

Anyway, that is why eating poptarts make me smile

Kicking the Cat

When I was in High School my principal was a huge fan of Zig Zigler.. as a matter of fact he actually taught a class based on his work.. I was fortunate enough to be able to take this class and many of the concepts have stayed with me my entire life..

One of them was the kick the cat theory... A boss is having a bad day so he yells at an employee who gets frustrated and goes home and takes it out on his wife... who turns around and lashes out at a child.. the child having no one to take his frustrations out on kicks the cat..

It is an interesting concept about being aware of the fact that your actions have consequences.. for ever action there is an equal reaction... the thing that I never got though is what about the cat??

I have spent most of my life trying not to offend people, trying to be everything to everyone.. consequently I tend to get walked all over.. in a way I am the cat.. Oh there are those who honestly love me... care for me.. would kill anyone that hurts me.. and yet they see nothing wrong with kicking the cat.. and when I fight back.. lash out or let it overwhelm me.. I am being unreasonable..unforgiving, harsh...

I guess in the end you have to choose in the beginning to not just not kick the cat but to not be the cat..

A Silly Sunday

I am a huge movie fan.. some of my first memories involve going to the movies with my parents. My brother and I in our jammies in the back of my Dad's 1964 Comet (could the man get a mustang?? Nooooooooo). We saw Planet of the Apes and all of the Spaghetti Westerns this way.. As I got older we would go as often as possible.. I remember who I saw Star Wars with (Colleen Couron and empoper Norton) Who I saw Indiana Jones with (Dorene Dakeen) and who I watched Karate Kid with (Rob Holden).. When I moved out there were times when I would go to the movies with my Dad as he needed a date.. even now whenever possible I bundle up the teenagers and we go to the movies enfamilie..

To that end I thought I would share a few funny quotes from The Princess Bride and the Muppet Movie... Why? You may ask.. well because...

Inigo Montoya:	Who are you?
Westley:	No one of consequence.
Inigo Montoya:	I must know.
Westley:	Get used to disappointment.

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Inigo Montoya:	You seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you.
Westley:	You seem a decent fellow, I hate to die.

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Westley:

My brains, his steal, and your strength, against 60 men. And, you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy?

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Buttercup:	We'll never survive.
Westley:	Nonsense, you're only saying that because no one ever has.

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Vizzini:	No more rhymes, now, I mean it!
Fezzik:	Anybody want a peanut?

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That's pretty dangerous building a road in the middle of the street. I mean, if frogs couldn't hop, I'd be gone with the Schwin.

-Kermit

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Kermit: "Myth! Myth!" Woman: "Yes?
-Kermit and a Woman

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Kermit: Turn left at the fork in the road

Fozzie: Fork in the road!

Kermit: I Don't believe that

( Big Fork sticking in the road)

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Police say mom ordered daughters out, drove off

I was perusing yahoo news and found this article Yahoo Article it is about a mother who was so frustrated with her two daughters ages 10 and 12 she told them to get out of the car and drove off.

They were about 3 miles from home and it seems it was a highly traumatic experience for the girls.. now while I am not condoning such behavior I do understand it. Once Pita Boy was so bad while in the back seat of the car I pulled over on the Expressway and told him to get out and proceeded to pull up oh about 20 feet.. of course I can not believe I was ever that stressed.. and as soon as it happened I backed up and got him... This was not my shining moment as a mother but it does give me a basis for judgment..

Now when this happened and believe me Pita Boy was being HORRID to his siblings all three of them stood up for him against me. My children stood together and strong. These two girls actually went their separate ways.. the 10 year old found wandering and afraid by the police. While I can understand how a mother could get that frustrated I know with indisputable fact that my children would stick together to survive the emergency and then resume fighting.. and that I think was the greatest tragedy of all.. yes the mother should never have left her children if she needed to catch a break from the fighting she should have pulled over and stepped out of the car.. or shoot it was only about 3 miles from her home she could have just sucked it up.

I know her goal was to teach these girls a lesson but it certainly has backfired, child protective services have gotten involved and she was arrested AND her girls suffered. They suffered the most because they could not put their arguments aside and work together to get out of the mess they were in.

Sorry for this rambling babbling blog but for some reason this article touched several serious sensitive areas with me. Oh and for the record Pita Boy doesn't even remember the incident (I just asked)... so he was not scared for life thank goodness..

Post Cards as Memories

I was web browsing the other day and visiting various sites and I must admit I am delighted with the options and blog sites that are out there. Yes I was always aware of them, I knew people were spending time journalling their thoughts, talents, frustrations and daily lives but knowing and experiencing are two separate things.

One site that I find especially enjoyable is the site a postcard a day http://apostcardaday.blogspot.com/, now this industrious person is posting the post cards she has received over the years. This brought back a found memory for me.

My mom loves to travel and believe me you will all get to hear about it over time, anyway back on track. My mom used to send the most fantastic post cards from where ever she traveled. Sometimes she would go off for the day on one of her jaunts and a couple of weeks later I would receive a card. It has happened so often I stopped trying to keep up with her. It did get a little troublesome a while back when she started going on extended trips and not letting me know. Now mind you i live in the midwest and she currently (actually has always) resides in the Los Angeles area. So I would go to call her and no answer, the advent of cell phones really helped me to keep track of her. But I have established the hard fast rule, no leaving the country without telling me first.

Anyway she would send postcards from some of her jaunts, occasionally it would be just a ha ha I am here and you are not.. like a trip to Olvera Street. one of my favorite places on earth. As a mother with young children it was obviously hard for me to go anywhere or experience any of it for myself. So I would take her post cards and laminate them, leaving them out to be played with by the children. A friend once asked my why I went to the expense of having them laminated and before I could respond one of the kids reached across the coffee table and spilled red juice on all of them. Smiling I picked up the post cards and handed it to her, still in pristine condition. My reasons now clear.

These postcards are still around, although for some reason my mom who has increased up her travelling has decreased her post card sending. Or maybe since my children are teens she has refocused her energies on the younger grandchildren. What a fabulous way to teach geography.One day this is a habit I hope to emulate with my grandchildren (one day far away from now).