Clacker Balls and Sex Ed 101

My regular readers know that sometimes it takes a while for me to get around to the subjects I post as titles. I'll get there this time, too, I promise. Just be patient. :-)

When I was about 2 or 3 years old, my family moved from Haltom City Texas over to a 3 bedroom frame house in the Riverside section of Northeast Fort Worth. It was a nice house for my mom and dad, and my older brother and sister and me, but there were no other children in the neighborhood for us to play with.

My mother said I  never met a stranger, so it wasn't long before she caught me going from house to house introducing myself to the neighbors. Little did I know that the lady next door would become one of my closest friends and confidants, despite the 60 year difference in our ages.

Auda Lee Thompson. She was an auburn haired widow in her mid sixties who had a dowager's hump and dirt under her nails from the yardwork she insisted on doing herself. When the work was done, she liked to sit on her front porch and smoke Old Gold cigarettes.

Our friendship began through the fence. She was always working in her yard and it showed. There was never a weed in the grass, never a stray leaf in the flower beds, never a rotting crabapple on the ground. I would sit on the ground, on my side of the fence, surrounded by grown over flower beds, half-raked piles of leaves, and asparagus that sprang up out of nowhere. She would always say to me, "Make yourself useful, as well as ornamental."   I thought for a long time she was teaching me that it wasn't enough to look pretty, but I finally figured out she just didn't like the leaves blowing through to her yard.

As I got older, my favorite way to spend a summer evening was sitting with her as she 'edged' her entire yard with a pair of hand clippers.

First she would mow, then she would clip any stray grass that dared to cascade over her curb...her edging was perfect, an inch wide and an inch deep, her fingers reaching into the furrow she'd created to smooth out the dirt and toss any that she deemed extra. When all the work was done, (by her, I was still being ornamental) we would sit on her porch and drink iced tea and she would smoke and we'd talk about her life with her late husband, and her precious grandchildren, the darlings of UT-Austin, and my life dealing with the angst of puberty and junior high school.

When I got engaged at the tender age of 16, our topics of conversation changed drastically. She began to tell me that it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich man, as it was a poor man. She gave me recipes and household tips.

One evening, she decided I needed to know about sex. But none of that birds and bees stuff for her. She was going to get right down to the nitty-grittty and explain to me just what it was that made a fellow's eyeballs pop out.

Okay...here it comes.....according  to Miz Auda Lee Thompson, the reason a man has pleasure during sex is because the woman's ovaries bang together on his...you know.

Is there really anything else I can say here? I think not. Goodnight, All.

Ack-sint?...Whut Ack-sint??

Dave and I have had a running argument for the past 10 years over whether or not I have an accent. I think I sound just like any other self-respectin' Texas girl, and he thinks I sound like I've got a mouth full of cow patties.

We had this discussion over the phone many times,  but it was truly brought home to me, just how different I sound, when I made my first trip West, into the land of granola.

Dave and I had gone to Santa Cruz, to see the boardwalk. It was off-season, and the middle of the week, so it was pretty deserted. We decided to take in some of the shops. We went into a little gift shop...Dave went over a couple of aisles and I was looking in the front cases...here's how that went:

(Young, pretty clerk): Hello, how are you today?

(Me):Whul, A'hm jist peachy, Sugah, how are yew today?

(Y,PC): You're not from around here, are you?

(Me): Now whut makes yew think A'hm not a native Californyun, Darlin'?

(Dave): Maybe it was when you opened your mouth.

*_*

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have since discovered that I can work this thing to my advantage. You can catch a lot of flies with a little Southern sugar, ya know.

Case in point:

My friend Michele and I were working on a party for our co-workers and we had been sent to buy supplies. We took her pickup truck to the grocery store, where we loaded a cart full of 20lb bags of ice. We were about to pay, when she mentioned that the hard part was coming...loading it out of the basket and into the bed of the pickup truck. I said, "Why not just ask one of those boys in the aprons to do it for us?" Well, she said, they don't do things like that out here.

Oh Pshaw!!....watch this....we checked out and paid for our mini-iceberg, then I stopped the first boy in an apron, and asked in my sweetest Southern belle drawl...

(Me):"Sugah, do yew thank y'all could come load all this ol' aice into our truck?"
(Boy in apron): "Oh yes Ma'am, I'd be happy to!"
(Michele): How'd you DO that?!?!?
(Me): (insert sweet smile here)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've been out here 8 years now, but you  know what they say....you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can NEVER take Texas out of the girl.

Now how 'bout we have a piece of pai and a glass of Sweet tea, Darlin'?

If They Call It A "Remote"....

WHY does it always have to be right there in Dave's hand??..I thought remote meant "far away". It is rarely more than 12 inches away. Even when he's sleeping, it's right there. Just in case he wakes up and doesn't like what's on. Someone I was chatting with tonight said that men don't use a remote to see what's on...they use it to see what ELSE is on....OMG Truer words were never spoken.

The remote control.....the first claw on the iron fist that rules so many of today's households....with just a click you're transported from one world to another, another click and you can turn a whisper into an ear-splitting cacophony. Another click brings your world to a standstill or lets you travel back in time, 7 seconds at a time.

The next player in our little drama is the cable tv service. Over 100 channels of drama, comedy, sports, movies...movies...and more movies...Movies that we've seen  a million times....movies that Dave can quote most of the dialog from....good movies, bad movies, movies that are so bad they are good. What's scary is, I'm starting to quote dialog myself.

Claw #3...42 inches of high definition television. It has a whole lot of other statistics about pixels and such, but I won't bore you with those, mainly because I don't have a clue what they mean. I just know that down in the corner of that 42 inch screen is where it all comes full circle. The remote control summons it from the cable tv service and the television shows it....the Guide....a 6 inch square picture....the elusive "what else".

42  inch HDTV.......................................$1400
100+ channels of cable TV......................$215 a month
Watching a screen smaller than a laptop....priceless

Heeeere Kitty Kitty Kitty!!

Due to the neuropathy in my hands, I like to do things online that don't require a lot of hand action on my part. (THIS thing is difficult enough, but I can do it in bits and pieces over a period of time).

One of the things I like best is watching the 24/7 webcam from a no-cage cat rescue center in Defiance Ohio called Friends of Felines' Rescue Center. This place is incredible. At any time they may be taking care of 80-120 cats and kittens of all breeds, sizes, ages, and temperaments.

The center is owned and operated by a sweet lady named Jacci and her crew of the most dedicated volunteers you'd ever hope to meet. Everyone works tirelessly to give the kitties the absolute best care and to find them their forever home. People from all over the country send in donated cat food, baby food, litter, office supplies...heck right down to the Q-tips and cat toys.  Their friends and partners at the Earth Angels Low Cost Spay & Neuter Clinic provide spaying, neutering, and medical exams to start each kitty off on the right paw in their new home.

You wanna talk about working hard? This bunch of volunteers start at 4:30 in the morning, mixing food for all the cats and kittens. Just take a look at a typical day at FFRC:

• Walls are washed daily in the 3 rescue rooms, floors are vacuumed and mopped 3 times daily.
• 35-40 cans of cat food, 15 pounds of dry cat/kitten food, & 40 pounds of scoopable litter will be used
• Every piece of bedding is washed daily. When combined with all the towels used, a total of 18-22 loads of laundry will be washed, dried, folded and put away.
• 50-60 phone calls will be received
• The treatment board is checked. This keeps them up to date on any medical needs such as worming, vaccinations, and testing, as well as things like grooming and toenail trimming.
• If it's a surgery day at the Earth Angels clinic, several "Fixings" may be done on the rescue center's cats and kittens
• Most days will have adoptions take place as well as have incoming cats and kittens.
• Lots of “behind the scenes” work such as ordering supplies, shopping trips to local stores, bill paying, reference checks for potential adoptions, answering emails, returning phone calls, keeping up with Petfinder, Facebook and the blog. 

 WHEW!!!! I'm tired just reading it!!!

The webcam watchers have become like a global family. Some have their favorite cats they like to keep an eye on. Some have even been known to alert Jacci to a middle of the night problem that needed immediate attention. (Why is it that babies of any species always get sick in the wee hours?)

On Sunday, July 24, at 1pm Eastern Time, the center is having a huge fundraiser called the Catathon. 31 baskets and several individual items will be up for auction via 5 phone lines. Dave even donated one of his hand-made afghans.




The phone numbers are:

419-438-1343

419-438-9993

419-439-4679

419-393-2400

419-769-1010

 

I'm asking all of my readers to follow that link to the Catathon, check out the baskets in the Auction Catalog, and come bid on Sunday!!! Help this amazing place raise funds to expand and care for all the kitties.

Things that go BUMP!

Cosmo Topper had the Kirbys.
Oda Mae Brown had Sam.
Lydia had Beetlejuice.
Every kid watching Saturday morning cartoons had Casper.

And we had the little boy in the yellow house.

Have you ever seen a ghost? If you  haven't, do you know someone who has? Maybe you haven't seen one, but you can tell a story where something just wasn't right.

Remember the big yellow house from Pain Pills, Numb Toes and Mexicans? I want to tell you about that house because it was haunted. Not in a bad way. The ghost who lived there wasn't a mean ugly ghost. He was just a mischievous little boy. I never saw him, I just saw his pranks. But the man who moved in after us swears to this day that he saw him face to face one summer day.

The big house on Archer Street. That's what we always called it. When we lived there, it was just my husband and me. No kids yet. We moved into the Crackerbox Palace before Joe was born. (The Palace? That's another story, another time.)


The big house on Archer was once one of THE places to be in Jacksboro TX back in the 1920's when it was built. An oil man named Spears built it for his daughter. It was the site of many fancy dinner and cocktail parties. But as time went on, it changed hands many times, and fell into disrepair, and by the time we lived there, it had been split into 3...the 'big half' where we lived, the 'little half' where an 85 year old lady who made beautiful quilts lived, and the garage apartments where the Mexicans lived, with and without goat.

The ceilings had been lowered in the house, and if you looked in a closet you could see the original ceiling about 4 feet straight up. The rooms were huge, with gorgeous hardwood floors. There was a living room, a dining room ( where Mark Vaught met his demise in the summer of '84) kitchen, mud porch, and a bedroom twice the size of most master suites. That room was so big, we had a king sized bed, a chest of drawers, dresser, couch, and end table in there, and it still looked empty.

Up there where the original ceiling was, a crawl space had been created. You could get there from inside the closet, but a quick peek up there showed there was nothing of any interest, just dust bunnies and cobwebs. And a window.

A dormer window that looked out onto Archer Street. You could see it plainly from our front yard. It had no curtains on it, but it did have those old wide venetian blinds that were always closed. Unless 'Little Boy" was in a playful mood.

There were so many times that we would pull into the driveway and the blinds would be open. The next time they would be closed. Open. Closed. Doors locked, nothing else disturbed. Just those blinds. Open. Closed.

Little Boy also liked to take things. Not your usual things whose disappearance can be explained away, like socks, or keys. He liked things like baking dishes. A colander. Shirts. Things you don't just misplace.

We never saw Little Boy in the flesh (or in the protoplasm, if you prefer) before we moved, but the next tenant swears he did.

It was a hot summer day and Doug had gotten home and taken a bath to cool off. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when he looked into the big round mirror attached to the dresser and he saw him. A little boy, blond Dutch boy haircut, old fashioned short pants, standing at the end of the bed.

Doug immediately turned around to find no one in the room with him. Remember this was a huge room...too big for a little boy to escape that quickly. Besides, there were no children in the neighborhood at that time.

Doug's friends Bill and Earnestine lived across the street. They said they saw Doug burst through the front door and stumble across the 4th busiest street in town... with nary a look left nor right... his face as white as the sight he'd just seen. Earnestine said it was a good hour and most of a six-pack before he calmed down enough to go back home.

I've often wondered what the rest of the history of that house was. Was there a little boy who used to live there, blond with a Dutch boy haircut?

I do know that a little boy was conceived in that house. And I have a picture of him when he was five years old....blond...with a Dutch boy haircut....

My Joe.

My Renaissance Man

I wanna talk about my Dave tonight. First, I'd better tell you how he became MY Dave.

We met in 1999 in a Yahoo chat room called Cat Chat. He had just fallen for a woman in England. I had a strange feeling of jealousy even though I was happily married. He lived in California, and I lived in Texas. We quickly became good friends. Chat friends. That was all it was and all we ever thought it would be. Totally innocent. My husband said that any man who called himself Big D online was saying he was....well...gifted, so he forbade me to chat with him. So I snuck around and did it anyway. Well...hey....it WAS innocent. And the "D" stood for Dave.

Fast forward to January 2002. My 30 year marriage had just gone down the crapper. Dave had nothing to do with that, but he did remain a shoulder for me to cry on. A few months after Ex and I split, I decided it was time to meet Dave face to face, so I made arrangements to take a vacation in San Jose and surprise Dave for his birthday.

I called his brother and worked up this huge surprise. John would meet me at the airport and take me to Dave's office where we would finally meet. Little did I know that Dave figured out what was up and he turned the tables on me. I was surprised when he met me at the airport with a giant bouquet of flowers. :-)

We spent the next 4 days getting to know each other and traveling through his beautiful state. I'd always had a desire to see San Francisco. He took me there and showed me 'my bridge' for the first time.

Isn't it beautiful?








Three months later, he came to Texas to meet my friends and my sons. He spent 3 days, over the July 4th weekend...long enough to feel what a Texas summer is like.

Three months later, I returned to California and spent 10 days. By that time, we knew that we were more than friends, and we wanted to be together. We decided to live together in California, because Texas is just too hot. I told him my sons would have to agree, and we would have to wait another year until Gary was out of high school. When I talked to my boys about it, they told me that if their lives took them into other states, they wouldn't hesitate to go, and if I would be happy with Dave, I should go with their blessings. Sooo...a year later, I moved to California.

Dave is a puzzle sometimes. He lives with chronic pain of having most of the cartilage in his joints gone and rarely complains, but let the cat scratch him, and he's breaking out the Neosporin and bandaids.

He can get all misty eyed at a sappy movie or he can load and fire black powder guns, or tell you how to prospect for gold like the 49ers did.

He can share Jesus with a  homeless person and give them money for a meal, or he can let out a stream of profanity that is almost lyrical.

He crochets blankets from scrap yarn and gives them to charity, he oil paints beautiful landscapes.







He has become Grampy D to my grandsons. He's the one I've gone through grandparent-hood with, and he loves those boys as if they were his own flesh and blood.

Right now, we are so comfortable with each other. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. He is my best friend, my companion, my love, my man of many talents, and I can't imagine growing old without him.

My Love/Hate Relationship With Facebook

You know, I'm just not sure what to make of Facebook. When I first got on it, a little over a year ago, I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. There were people on there that I hadn't thought of in 40 years.Here are a few of the reasons I love/hate it:

I love it that I've been able to re-establish relationships with some family members that I had thought were lost to me.

I hate it that I have to wade through a million posts about games and crappy apps that want to give me a virus.

I love it that I can talk with my son on almost a daily basis. And that I get news and pictures right away.

I hate it that so many people don't check things out and  'share' just any old thing that comes along, no matter how ridiculous it is.

I love it when Facebook helps to find a lost child or a lost pet. Remember the stolen horse from Ft Worth about a year ago? He was found and returned to his owner within a day or two because of people flooding Facebook with information.

I hate it when I find out that people who were total jackasses in high school are still jackasses 40 years later.

I love it when somebody shares a really good recipe with me.

I hate it when people post a link to every song they listened to on the radio today.

I love it when people ask for prayers for a loved one and tons of people answer the call.

I hate it when someone posts that they are having the worst possible day, or they are so mad, and then won't say what's going on.

And this last one I'll mention tonight, I'm just not sure how I feel about it. A few days ago, I added an old high school acquaintance to my friend list. In reading about his life over the last 40 years, I see that he has become a huge success in his field, a well-known writer, CEO of several successful businesses, rubbing elbows with celebrities and presidents, even carrying around a little dog everywhere he goes, and you KNOW that's a sure sign you've made it. I'm torn between being proud and happy for him, and being insanely jealous and feeling like a huge failure.

I guess I  have to lean more toward the Love side of this relationship.One picture of my grandsons outweighs a million pages of  Mafia Wars.

Daddy's Widdle Girl

I promised I would tell you about our other cat, Mitzi. She is the yin to Toby's yang...the calm to his chaos...the brain to his brawn.

Here she is, with Toby....I think the picture speaks for itself.

She is a beautiful, dainty, delicate, black and white girl...also called a Tuxedo cat. She is also a spoiled rotten Daddy's girl. She likes nothing better than to crawl up onto Dave's chest and snuggle up with him. She also likes to knit-knit in his beard, which can be a little painful if she's due for a manicure, but he tolerates it, just because he loves her.
Here she is, snuggled up with her Daddy. If he's working on a crochet project, that's even better. She'll get under it.

She doesn't have much use for me, even though I control the kibble. Where she pours her love onto Dave, I get it in little dribbles. She likes to sleep in a cat bed, and she has one that sits on a storage tub at the foot of my bed.When I go to bed, she goes to bed. Sometimes she will let me play tickle-the-tummy with her in the mornings. And they both know that I am the catnip (kitty-crack) dealer.

We had a situation with her about a year ago that changed our relationship and bonded us.

I woke up about 5am one Monday morning to find her sleeping next to me in my  bed. Right up against me. That was odd. At that time, she rarely let me touch her. I reached over to pet her and my hand touched a wet spot. I sat up and turned on the light and turned her over to see what I had touched. I found that she had a cut under her arm in the web of skin where her harness was, about an inch long. It had been bleeding and she had been licking it. She hadn't been herself all weekend, and had been sleeping more than usual, so now we knew why. I jumped up and woke Dave and told him what I had found. I hit the Internet and found a vet close by who had good reviews. Now all we had to do was wait 2 hours for him to open. We got to Dr. Butchko's office where they examined her and told me they could send her home and I could put peroxide on it and hope it closed up, but it probably wouldn't, or they could clean up the infection in it and sew it up, which was highly recommended. Of course that's what we chose, and I picked her up 9 hours and $200 later. For the next 10 days I gave her medicine for infection and pain and she healed up just fine. Funny thing is, we never figured out what happened to her. She is an indoor cat in an apartment. Her harness was well-fitted. Odd. But we bonded cause I guess even a kitty wants Mommy when they're sick.

Now she spends her days sleeping on the cat tree in a sunbeam, and meowing at anyone she sees in the parking lot outside her window, especially our friend, Bob. She is very smart and has learned to sit up like a pretty girl and to jump through a hoop, for a treat. Here's the two of them when they were first learning to do their tricks.

Dave always said the best sound on Earth was the purr of a kitten. I think we need to amend that...the best sound on Earth is the purr of TWO kittens.

Being a Queen Sized Woman in a Princess Sized World

I've always been a little bit chubby. Ever since I was a little girl. I can remember twice in my life when I was HOT, and once when I was still heavy, but fit and looked good.

This is me at 21 years old. One of the times I was HOT.

This is me at 44....chubby but healthy. And still hot.







This is me at 55. Grey hair, and fat and sassy. I'm still hot, but it only comes in flashes now...LOL




It's not so easy being a Queen sized woman in a world full of skinny little Princesses. I've actually had young girls, high school and such, look at me like fat is contagious. My favorite thing to do, when that happens, is say to them...."You know, Cupcake, I used to  be built JUST LIKE YOU." and watch their face just melt...LOL. It doesn't do any good toward changing their attitude, but it makes me laugh inside.

Before we started using our powerchairs, Dave and I never went anywhere without holding hands.

Here we are, our first Christmas together, 2003.






Dave, being the cute Santa Clone that he is, and me, being the Queen Sized Goddess that I am....well....we would usually get some stares when we went out holding hands. It's like people think you're not supposed to be in love if you weigh over 200 pounds. I got news for ya, World....that old saying about "More to Love".....it's true.

Clothes are not easy to find. I shop online at a site called Woman Within. They have really nice stuff that is reasonably priced, especially when you catch the clearance sales, like I do. I even bought two swimsuits from them...and they fit great!! They carry from size 12W to size 44W so  check them out.

You would think, in this day and age, that we as a nation and as a people, would be past any discrimination, but it really does exist. People treat you differently, talk to you differently, and look at you differently when you're heavy. Before I decided to retire, I was looking for work in an office, just like I've always done. I once did a joint interview with another applicant for a customer service job. My resume blew hers out of the water. My answers did too. I was well-dressed and well-groomed. The only thing she had going for her, over me, was her size. Guess who got the job and who didn't.

The other day, I was down in the clubhouse, playing with a puzzle, and decided to buy a snack from the machine in the lobby. A woman I know came up behind me and proceeded to tell me that what I was buying wasn't on my diet and I shouldn't be eating it. I let her know in no uncertain terms that I was 55 freaking years old and I didn't need anyone telling me what to do and she should mind her own business. It was kind of like that show on TV the other night, "What Would You Do?" where the woman and her daughter (actors) were shopping and the stranger (another actor) came up and started making comments about the types of food they had in their cart.NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

I think my conclusion is this....I have reached the age and time of my life, that I know I am never going to be thin. I do watch my fat intake, because I don't want to have another gall bladder attack. But other than that, I intend to enjoy my life, and that includes eating the foods I like, some of which are  healthy foods, and some are not so healthy foods. And unless you are my mother, which you're not....and unless you are paying my grocery bill, which you're not......in the words of our dear Abigail Van Buren...... MYOB, Cupcake.