Tell Me About the Earthworms, George

Two months after George and I married, we relocated to a college town near his office so that I could finish school. George was working an entry level job in a field that was barely related to his degree. I was unemployed but hoping to find a part time position on campus to help with our expenses. To say that we were living on meager means is generous. We only had one car and George needed it for his commute so we had to find a cheap apartment within walking distance to campus in an area where hopefully we would not be raped and pillaged on a weekly basis. For George, the icing on the apartment cake was to find this cheap apartment in an ideal location WITH all bills paid. Yes, he dared to dream the dream.

Because this apartment hunting happened several years ago before the Internet was what it is today, and  because we were in a serious time crunch to get moved before the start of the fall semester, we had to make quick decisions with limited information. So we found our first apartment in our new town and let me just say that it met all of George's expectations but none of mine. I guess you could say that he had a better grip on reality because I felt certain that we could find Barbie's dream townhouse located in a picturesque park setting just on the edge of campus, and of course the rent would be just a small token of George's paycheck. Alas, I'm not sure which rock I'd been living under but I had a rough encounter with Reality, she had that heroin chic look except without the chic.

So our all bills paid close to campus cheap apartment was the stuff of which shanty towns are made. Imagine, if you will a time, when off campus college housing resembled army barracks or better yet, a minimum security prison. Think 1940s but institutional 1940s not Frank Lloyd Wright 1940s. Then picture this same complex about 50 years later with the only improvements being fresh paint in drab dismal colors to camouflage the grime from the previous tenants and the thinnest carpet ever known to man, and now you have our apartment. It, or The Cave as I called it, had cinder block walls which had been painted elephant gray. Now I ask you, if you are going to go the trouble of painting cinder block, why would you paint it gray? The carpet was also the same drab gray and appeared to be original to the building. I won't lie, I cried the day we moved in but I knew this was only temporary. It was only temporary because I would only agree to sign a six month lease. I figured that in six months, we would have time to learn the city and find something better that fit in our budget.

Our ground level apartment held a small surprise for us which we soon discovered after a good soaking rain. You see, while our apartment was technically on the ground level, the parking lot sat just a little higher than our front door and apparently a genius of an engineer designed the parking lot so that the rain runoff would head straight under our front door.The only thing we could do to keep our apartment from flooding was to pile towels at the door to soak up the rain. Well, when the rain subsided and we went to hang the wet towels to dry in our bathroom, we were a little startled to find that our wet towels were now threaded with earthworms. Yes, threaded. The earthworms were half in and half out of the towel and something had to be done. George wanted to throw away the towels but I refused. We were, after all, saving for a nicer place to live and if we threw away the towels, then we'd just have to buy more and surely it would eventually rain again. As a matter of fact, it seemed to rain a lot that fall and each rain brought along a new crop of earthworms. George, who I learned in those first few months of our marriage, does not like earthworms in the slightest and he absolutely refused to touch them. So I made him stand in the bathtub and hold open each towel as I, yes, I pulled each worm free from the towels. There must have been a hundred of those suckers, and I dangled each one in George's face just so I could watch him squirm, and boy did we laugh until I thought we would both pee our pants. 

Yes, that apartment was a dump in every sense of the word, but that is where we began our marriage. While we didn't have much in the way of materialistic things, those newly married months were some of the best times in my life. We were so happy just to be together that all the earthworms in the world couldn't take the joy out of the life we were creating together. It's funny how much less you think you need when you are head over heels in love with someone. 

I Wouldn't Spread That on a Cracker

October invariably leads to Halloween and Halloween always reminds me of one college party in particular. I was a freshman working in one of six campus dining halls. Back then, for the kids working in the dining halls, the dining halls served as our social networking platform. Behind the serving lines, there were friendships forming, people dating, and there were parties...a lot of parties.

So it was October, and the dining halls were all buzzing with the news about the upcoming costume party. This party was being touted as the party to rival all others. It was taking place in two neighboring houses, there was going to be a live band, and hundreds were expected to attend.

A couple of weeks earlier, I had gone out on a date with a co-worker, let's call him Jack (some names have been changed to protect...well, I'll just say it...me). He seemed like a nice enough guy and we'd been chatting for some time, so when he asked me to go see The Last of the Mohicans, I gladly took him up on his offer. Something you should know about me is that I love a good action movie, especially a good war movie. In case you've never seen (or read) The Last of the Mohicans, it takes place in 1757 during the French and Indian War. The first of many battle scenes happens early in the movie, and I guess that Jack may have not really enjoyed war movies because he was very concerned that this movie was going to be too violent for my delicate nature. Please understand that I know Jack was just trying to be a gentleman but after I reassured him for the fifth time that I was fine, I started to suspect that maybe, just maybe, it was Jack who was having a hard time with the battle scenes. There was no way I was letting him drag me out of that movie. That movie which is now my absolute favorite movie. That movie which is based on the literary classic by James Fenimore Cooper (I majored in English). That movie which starred the oh so lovely Daniel Day-Lewis, one of my all time favorite actors. No, I wasn't going to let him out of the theater that easily. When I was dating, I wanted my boyfriends to possess the same qualities I wanted in my husband, and if Jack couldn't man up enough to watch a good old fashioned war movie with me then I was certain we didn't have a future together. So after the movie, the date just grew into an awkward mess. We went to dinner, where he continued to apologize for the movie and then he pulled out a plastic gumball machine ring and got down on one knee (no, I'm not kidding) and proposed marriage, albeit jokingly, nonetheless it was creepy. So that was my first and last date with Jack.

Even after our uncomfortable date, Jack wanted me to go to the infamous Halloween party with him, and although I had told him I wanted to go with my brother and some of our friends, he wasn't taking the hint. Jack decided he would try to persuade me to go with him by coming up with a clever costume idea for us to go as a famous couple. So after thinking on it for a few days, he sprung his great idea on me one day at work. Are you ready for this? He wanted to go as Paul Bunyan and he wanted me to go as....wait for it....Babe the Blue Ox because, as he put it, I was a "real babe." Even now, this makes me laugh out loud and it makes me want to train my boys on how to give a woman a real compliment. Before I could even respond to Jack, my good friend Vince, jumped  in the conversation and said, "Man, you don't ask a girl to dress up like an ox! Get outta here!" So as you might have guessed, I didn't go to the party with Jack but we were friends, so I figured we'd see each other there.

When I arrived at the party, it was already starting to get underway.Some people were hanging out and talking in the first house while a U2 cover band played for a crowd in the other house. Some chose to wear costumes and some did not. As I walked into the first house, I couldn't help but notice an overpowering smell of (I bet I know what you're thinking and if so, you're wrong) peanut butter. Yep...you read it right...peanut butter. There in the center of the living room was some yahoo wearing nothing but denim shorts and a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter all over his body, head to toe. Let me tell you this, not only did he look gross, but the smell of sweat mingling with peanut butter was enough to clear a room, plus he was leaving a peanut butter trail every where he went. It gets worse. As I passed Skippy, trying hard not to get any of his peanut butter on my new sweater, I ran into one of the cooks from the dining hall. Cookie, as I will refer to him here, was not a student. He was probably close to 40 and he was three sheets to the wind. He came over to me laughing hysterically, put his arm around me, and began whispering words in my ear that still haunt me to this day. "I scraped Peanut Butter Guy's back with a cracker and ate it." EEEEEEWWWWWW!!!!

Well of course, I ran back to the area where my brother and our friends were talking and shared the news, and just as we finished laughing, my brother looked toward the door and said, "Who the heck is that coming this way?" I immediately looked in the same direction and saw a guy wearing an actual jack-o-lantern as a mask heading straight for me. "It's Jack," I said. To which my brother responded, "Yep, you sure can pick 'em."

I don't know whatever happened to Jack. I like to think that he ended up with a nice girl who prefers Disney movies to war movies and who loves quirky pick up lines. I can only imagine that Jack asked his Jill to dress up as a thief for Halloween because she stole his heart. As far as Skippy goes, I didn't really know that guy but I'm sure he heard every peanut butter joke in the book for the rest of his dining hall days. As for the party itself, it was nothing short of legendary, but I know the guy who hosted the party was cleaning peanut butter trails for weeks.

Environmental Awareness

When my husband, George, gets home from work, he usually comes in the house through the garage. When he gets to the interior garage door that leads into the laundry room, he swings the door open and takes a quick look around before he actually steps foot inside. You see, I have made my husband paranoid, or at least paranoid about coming into our home. I like to say that I am teaching him to be aware of his surroundings. It may seem odd that George should be so cautious about walking into his own home on any given day, but the truth of the matter is George married a prankster and my all time favorite go-to prank is hiding from him, then jumping out and scaring the poo out of him. It's his own fault really. If he didn't scream like a little girl or yell absurdities all the while dancing in place and doing his best bobble head impression, I wouldn't waste my time. Frankly, it's the best laugh of my day.

The game of hiding from loved ones only to jump out and scare them within in an inch of their lives is a game that my mom taught my brother and me when we were kids. Imagine that. One minute Mom would be busy in the kitchen or putting laundry in the dryer and the next minute, she was nowhere to be found. In those moments, I knew Mom was hiding from me, and that at any second, she would pop up from behind my bed or burst out of a closet, scare the daylights out of me, and then we would both crumple over with laughter. It was always fun and unnerving at the same time. I remember one such instance when she went into hiding and I searched the whole house in an effort to beat her at her own game only to come up empty handed. Needing to relieve myself, and feeling confident that she was probably in the garage, I headed to the bathroom, which I had already searched. I went into the bathroom, started to close the door, and as I turned, I found Mom perched on the toilet seat hidden from view by the opened bathroom door. I think she quietly said, "Boo." I know I screamed and it's possible, just possible, in light of where I was, that I may have peed my pants a little. We still laugh about that one.

Mom taught me the fine art of choosing our victims. The bigger the screamer, the better the target. Enter my Uncle Robert. Now Uncle Robert was actually my great uncle so he was an older gentleman and quite easy to catch off guard. He always put on quite the show of hollering and jumping out of his skin any time that we scared him, so of course, he was the obvious target. What I have failed to mention is that in earlier years when Uncle Robert was still a smoker, he suffered not one, not two, but three heart attacks. Yeah, I know we probably shouldn't have been hiding from him but I like to think that it brought him almost as much joy as it brought us. I should also mention that we stopped hiding from him after he had the quadruple bypass and you'll be relieved to know that he lived to be 91 years old and his passing was not the direct result of any of his heart issues.

So now, the not so coveted title of Most Demonstrative Victim falls to my dear sweet George. Oh, I'd love to scare the kids, and I have on occasion, but it's hard to savor the scare high when Nathan is crying or Liam is telling me how angry that makes him. Jacob puts on a good show, and he usually falls to the floor with laughter but I don't like to target him too much because it just doesn't seem sporting. I get Vivie every now and then so she doesn't feel left out, and she thinks it's the funniest thing ever, but George is by far my favorite target. Before you start thinking I'm twisted and mean, let me just say that George has gotten me a time or two (he actually brought me to tears once) but I'm not as jumpy as he is thanks to Mom's Environmental Awareness Program for the Up and Coming Paranoid.

All this to say that for several consecutive months on an almost daily basis, I would hide from George in the laundry room upon his arrival home from a long day at the office. It's reasonable to assume that I would be able to scare him once. It's even probable to think that I would scare him twice, but let me tell you, I scared that man nearly every single time I hid in that same spot for months on end. One day, George decided to push the door open and take a look around the laundry room before he actually entered the house. That decision was life changing for him. This is now his habit and it makes my job a little more challenging, and to be honest, a little more rewarding when I actually score the scare. I keep at it because I would hate for an intruder to scare George and George's initial reaction be his usual jumping in place, arms flailing in all directions, topped off with a shrill scream; however, this might just cause the intruder to fall to the ground with uncontrollable laughter buying George the small amount of time he would need for his fight reflex to kick into gear. Nonetheless, I have been laying low for a while. It might just be time to crank it up a notch.

Save the Books

Today, my 12-year old son, Jacob, started reading To Kill a Mockingbird -- my all time favorite book. I read it for the first time when I was about 11 years old and I think I have probably read it a dozen times since then. It always amazed me that Harper Lee's first and only novel is an American classic taught in classrooms around the world. Can you imagine your first attempt at writing a book and not only do you win the Pulitzer Prize but you are considered to be among the greatest of American novelists? Lee certainly didn't need a mulligan, did she?

I have always loved reading, but this is the first book that I read that I truly devoured. It was the first time I read a book that I just couldn't put down and I was so sad to leave it when I finished reading the last page. So for about a year now, I have been encouraging Jacob to read the book in the hopes that he will enjoy it as much as I have over the years. I guess the title threw him because he was reluctant to pick up the book. Thus began my oh so subtle campaign (I took cues from Sam I Am--think Dr. Seuss, not Sean Penn) to persuade him to give it a try.

We got a puppy last summer, and I insisted that we name her Scout, and even after I told Jacob that the name came from the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird, he still seemed uninterested even though he enjoys reading. I had high hopes that it would be required reading in sixth grade because it was required when I was in sixth grade, but apparently, they don't really teach literature in sixth grade in this school district (don't get me started). At the end of the school year, I suggested that he and I read it together over the summer. His response was simple, "Nah." Now that seventh grade has started, I hoped he would be getting a required reading list that included my beloved book. Not so much. Again, even though he is in advanced English and has a separate reading class, he will not be studying the finer aspects of literature. This year is all about grammar, writing, and building vocabulary, which are all important things; however, by now I was well versed in symbolism, themes, irony and all those wonderful layers that unfold when delving deep into literature. I can't help but think standardized testing has played its ugly hand here, but I digress.

Desperate to get this book on Jacob's radar, I decided to loan him my copy weeks ago when he was looking for something to read. Nothing. My last ditch effort came when I decided to add the movie to our Netflix queue. You see, the kids and I have a long standing ritual of reading a book and then watching the movie counterpart. We then discuss how the two compared and which one we enjoyed more. The book always wins. When Jacob saw me updating the queue, he insisted that I not add the movie just yet because he eventually planned to read the book, but not right now. Then out of the blue today, he finally decided to crack it open. I was just giddy...that is, until I saw Jacob dog ear one of the pages to mark his place. Oh no he di'int! Oh yes he did! I mean who is raising this kid?!

When I was in elementary school, I had the greatest librarian. Her name was Mrs. Barksdale and she influenced my love of books almost as much as my own mother did. When our class went to the library, Mrs. Barksdale made all of the students line up at the sink so we could wash our hands before touching the books. Then we all chose our seats and the one lucky student who sat in the secretly marked chair was allowed to select his book first and read it while lounging in the whimsically painted claw foot tub filled with colorful throw pillows that sat center stage in Mrs. Barksdale's library. (Alright, now that I have children, the idea of allowing the kids to lounge in a pile of throw pillows gives me pause what with head lice being so prevalent in school settings.Yikes! That being said, the rest of library time was nothing short of enchanting.)

Not only did Mrs. Barksdale make library time special, but she went to great lengths to teach us how to handle and care for books, how to really appreciate books. She was a lovely woman but you didn't want to cross her. So watching Jacob dog ear that page in my most favorite book, my inner Mrs. Barksdale wanted to smack the back of his head, but she and I restrained ourselves. I said in a horror stricken tone, "Jacob, what are you doing!?" To which he so innocently replied, "What? I don't have a bookmark." It was as though we had never even met.

Just what goes on in those school libraries these days? Next thing you know, the kids will all have ebook readers and the crinkling sounds of a book's spine opening, the wonderful tactile experience of turning the pages, and the warm yellowing hues of aging books will be meaningless to upcoming generations. The horror, the horror.

Basketball Courting

I have never been athletically inclined. I'm not that coordinated, I don't enjoy sweating, and I am convinced that the whole runner's high theory is just a big scam similar in nature to a snipe hunt. So no, I never played sports in school. I took a dance class in lieu of a p.e. class in high school, and I took health psychology to opt out of my p.e. requirement in college. I enjoy watching sports, but I am about as athletic as a three toed sloth; therefore, during the fall semester of my freshman year in college, when three cute boys asked if I would round out their intramural co-ed basketball team, obviously I said yes.

Newsflash: I didn't really think through this grand plan of mine to hang out with these three cute boys. I shudder at the number of times I have made a fool of myself all for a pretty face, but I digress. I genuinely wish my present day self could go back and knock some serious sense into that goofy girl who thought that the only girls playing intramural sports would be the ones just wanting to flirt with cute boys. Forget about the notion that there are dedicated athletes with tremendous ability playing intramural sports. I'm laughing at my foolishness right now. (Oh how it hurts me to think back on this. There truly is no place for pride in this narrative).

When my brother got wind of my basketball team (once he stopped laughing and regained his composure), he asked, "When is your first game? There is no way I'm going to miss this."

My team and I had just a few practices before our first game. My best friend, Jen, was also on the team because I coerced her into playing so we would have 5 players. She was my athletic kindred spirit, thus you can understand why she and I were only getting more and more nervous as we realized these boys were hoping we would actually win a few games. Oh, you mean the goal of playing sports is to improve your technique and hopefully win some games? It's not about looking cute and getting asked out on a date?

Before Jen and I could think of a way out of this predicament that I had allowed my hormones to create, the day of our first game arrived. True to his word, my brother, Tad, met us at the gym and not only did he not miss my first game but he brought his girlfriend, and a handful of our friends from work to cheer me on to victory, or at least that's what I told myself. I pretended not to hear Tad when he laughingly asked the cute boy who was both a teammate and the coach, "Have you seen Allison play?"

There I was, in the gym, stretching and warming up my muscles. I had my hair pulled back in a cute ponytail, and I was working on my game face which included full makeup, by the way. Don't all serious athletes have vanity issues? Suddenly, I looked up, and I kid you not, just as the radio in my head began playing "We Will Rock You," the other team strutted onto the court. These girls looked as though they had just left their day jobs as Justice Leaguers. I knew there was no way I was going to walk off that court without suffering some form of humiliation, but I had no idea that it would be reminiscent of The Bad News Bears. Jen and I, or maybe I should say Lucy and Ethel, struggled through the first period, we were out of breath by the end of the second period, but I think the sugar hit the fan in the third period, when Glenda The Not So Good Giant, decided to guard me. She was all over my stuff, standing head and shoulders above me with her chest pushed right in my face. I couldn't breathe, and in all honesty, I didn't realize that her aggressiveness was considered fair play. I thought she was just being rude. In that moment, I snapped. It's as if I thought we were in some women's prison status sqaubble and I was not going to be her punk. I put my hands on her ample chest, and I shoved her so hard it knocked her off  balance, all the while I was yelling for her to get out of my face and back the heck off of me.

The rest of the game was just a blur, but I will tell you, we lost significantly. We withdrew our team from the season, my brother had some great laughs at my expense, and while none of those cute boys ever asked me to play on any of their teams again (nor did any of them ask me out on a date) we remained close friends for the duration of my college years. And that, was the start and finish of my not so lucrative basketball career.

Dancing With Salmonella

I love to bake. I hate to clean, but I love to bake. I especially love to bake chocolate chip cookie bars because chocolate chip cookie dough is my crack. Hello. My name is Allison and I am a chocolate chip cookie dough addict. Yes, I am well aware that there are raw eggs in chocolate chip cookie dough and I don't care. Of course, I would never let my children have cookie dough because of the risk of salmonella, but they haven't had the opportunity to build up a tolerance to raw eggs like I have and frankly, I don't want them to get sick on my watch. Yeah, part of that is because I am a good mom who hates to see her children sick (and I know I could use pasteurized eggs but I don't), but the other part of that...well, I'll just be honest, I don't want them throwing up all over the floor because invariably there will always be at least one kid who doesn't make it to the toilet, and (okay, don't hate me because I am sure you can relate to this on some level) I really don't want to share my cookie dough. By the time I get the dough spread into my bar pan, there is just a little bit left in the mixing bowl, just a smidgen on the beater, and a teeny tiny minuscule amount left on the spoon. It would never amount to much if I had to share it with four kiddos. Besides, I don't want to enable them to the point of becoming a dough addict like their mother. After all, addiction can be hereditary.

So there I was yesterday, channeling my best June Cleaver, baking yummy chocolate chip cookie bars and remembering to add love and goo which is what I always tell the boys makes my cooking tastes so good. The boys were upstairs playing, my baby girl was scaling the living room walls, and my husband was working quietly on his laptop at the kitchen table. It was such a serene moment that I lost myself in my mixing and measuring. I do a lot of my baking while the baby naps and the boys lose themselves in a video game. It's my alone time. Just me and my cookie dough or me and my buttermilk pie or me and my beer bread, but yesterday was different. George was home. I put the bar pan in the oven and started the task of cleaning the mixer. I found myself licking the beater over the kitchen sink while taking in the view of the backyard. I was alone with my dough, or so I thought. Suddenly, I felt eyes upon me. I slowly turned to look over my shoulder and saw my George, the love of my life, the man of my dreams, looking right at me with an expression of horror mixed with disgust all over his face. I think it was the first time he'd ever caught me with my dough. "What?" I asked too caught up in my own dough euphoria to be embarrassed. He simply replied with laughter.

So George would never eat anything with raw eggs in it but I figure they were good enough for Rocky Balboa, and they are good enough for me so long as they are wrapped in butter and brown sugar.

Maybe That Is The Best Smile He Can Do

I desperately want a beautiful family portrait. You know the kind where the whole family is seemingly blissfully unaware that a photographer is capturing every wonderful moment they are spending playing in the forest while each member of the family just happens to be perfectly coiffed and wearing a coordinating outfit. Ah, but this is simply a pipe dream in my world. A dream that only becomes more unobtainable with each child we add to the mix.

Today, we had our church directory photo taken. Now, I know this isn't quite the same as having a professional photographer take your family photo out on location, but I still hold tight to the dream. I put a lot of thought into choosing the right color coordinated outfits. I made certain that everyone had a recent but not too recent haircut and I personally styled all of the children's hair the day of the photo. I even went to great lengths to make certain no one spilled his breakfast on his clothes or dribbled his toothpaste down his shirt.  Alas, this effort was all for not. Let's face it, the church directory photo session is the wham bam thank you ma'am of photo shoots. There is no time spent getting the kids to loosen up and relax. Heck, the guy simply referenced the kids based on their height rather than taking 2 minutes to learn their names. We were in and out in five minutes so I really didn't expect to end up with the perfect family portrait, the one that captures the true essence of each of my four lovely children and my handsome husband, all the while making me look 15 pounds lighter and 10 years younger. I really didn't even expect to like the portrait, but I certainly didn't think it would be so bad that I would laugh out loud when the salesman tried to coax us into purchasing a package. Really? Was he looking at the same proof that I was or was he drinking 80 proof?

So none of my children have mastered the art of faking a natural smile. It's not their fault. I think I was 19 before I could do it, and I'm a girl with some vanity issues. Awkwardness is in our gene pool. My boys are boys. They don't care about looking cute in photos and my baby girl, well she's still too young to get it and frankly, she's too smart to find the humor in the feather duster the photographer kept waving in her face. So there we were, George and I front and center donning our most genuine fake smiles, a stoic Vivie was seated in my lap while we were flanked by the three boys. Jacob and Nathan came close to genuinely smiling but still not really looking themselves, but Liam, my dear sweet wonderful Liam, can single handedly ruin a picture. I write this with all the love in my heart, because frankly, I love that Liam is his own person. He is wonderfully weird and funny and oh so creative; however, when Liam was in kindergarten, for reasons unknown to me, he decided that his claim to fame would be that he is the one kid who never (and he really shoots for never) smiles in pictures. Well, sometimes to accomplish this goal, this means Liam won't even look in the general direction of the photographer for fear that he may accidentally smile at the photographer. Other times, this means that Liam will contort his mouth into any other expression trying to fight against the appearance of a smile. No matter the technique Liam uses to avoid smiling, the result is always the same...one awkward family photo.

So I had to laugh today when the salesman, who was earnestly trying to persuade me into purchasing a portrait package, simply said, "Maybe that is the best smile he can do."

The Eyes Have It

When I was about 5 years old, I started collecting Madame Alexander's Dolls of the World. Once I had acquired several of those dolls, I started wanting larger dolls to add to my collection. So when I was in second grade, my mom gave me a 15 inch vinyl doll dressed in a Victorian style brown velvet dress with a matching hat. She came wrapped in a box with a clear window showcasing the doll in all her beauty. While I was excited to get a new doll for my collection, there was something unsettling about this particular doll. I wasn't sure why, but I didn't want to take her out of the box. I simply told Mom I just didn't want her clothes to get dusty, and there, wrapped in her box, the doll stayed for several days.

I finally decided to take the doll out of her cardboard sarcophagus and get a closer look at her. While I had the doll in my hands, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling building up inside of me, my brother, Tad, just happened to come into my room. I'm sure he must have sensed my uneasiness about the doll because he proceeded to tell me the scariest story about a doll scratching out some little girl's eyes (oh yeah... I also have a thing about eyes). Well, I just laughed it off, but as soon as Tad left the room, I packed that vinyl beast back into her box where she stayed for the next 4 years. Not wanting to hurt Mom's feelings, I stuck with the whole premise of wanting to keep the doll pristine. During the day, the box was on display in my room, but at night, I put that box in the far corner of my closet and shut the door.

So 4 years after I got that creepy doll, our house caught on fire while we were on vacation. Let me just stop you here, I do not think the doll started the fire. Although, having that thought for the first time just now, really gave me the chills. No, I repeat, the doll did not start the fire. We pretty much lost everything in the fire and I have to say, as devastating as losing your home can be, I found some solace in the knowledge that the doll was gone and I decided then and there that my doll collecting days were behind me. It was just too risky of a hobby.

Several months later, my grandmother and my great aunt decided to surprise me with a gift. I couldn't wait to see what was in the gift bag. As soon as I put my hand in the bag, I realized I probably should have told them that I was no longer interested in dolls so they wouldn't have wasted their money buying me a new one. As I pulled the doll out of the bag, my heart stopped when I saw the brown velvet dress and matching hat. Trying to catch my breath I asked, "Where did you find another doll like this?" To which my great aunt replied, "We found your old one in the rubble and took her to my friend who restores dolls." (AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!) Quick on my feet, I asked my grandmother if I could keep the doll (who mind you no longer had her box prison thanks to the fire) at her house so I would have something special of mine there.

That was the beginning of my pediophobia, or fear of dolls. I have what I like to call a rational case of pediophobia. I am not scared of all dolls, just the evil ones. It's all in the eyes. If you look into enough dolls' eyes, and if you're honest with yourself, you'll know what I mean.

Some 17 years later, shortly after my grandfather had passed away (and no, I don't think the doll killed him), Mom and I were helping my grandmother pack up her house so she could move in with my folks. My grandmother reached inside one of the closets and pulled out that same doll and asked me, "Would you like to take her home with you?" Mom, aware of my fear at this point and now a bit of a pediophobe herself, said, "Well she's not coming to my house!" Somehow, that doll ended up in the donation pile but every now and again, I can't help but think our paths will cross again.

The Seventh Grade Squeeze

My oldest son, Jacob, will be starting 7th grade in just a few weeks. In my efforts to wrap my head around the whole Where Did The Time Go concept, I have been feeling a little nostalgic for my 7th grade year. That was a fun year, and I hate to say it,  but given the chance, I might would just do it all over again (this time with contacts instead of the my old goofy pink glasses with lenses the size of salad plates).

So it's probably obvious (what with the glasses and all) that I was a pretty big dork in 7th grade, but it really didn't matter because I had a great circle of friends and in our own ways, we were all a little dorky, right? Anyway, that was the year, that I gained some independence in that I was allowed for the first time to hang out with my friends unchaperoned at the mall.

I spent a lot of free time with my friends at the mall trying on clothes, eating pizza, ogling boys, and giggling. One of our favorite stops at the mall, was this store that had fun trendy clothes for teens. The only problem was that this store's fitting rooms did not have doors or curtains on the stalls. At 12, this was not a shopping deal breaker, but now, with my aging postpartum duct taped body, fuhgeddaboudit. One afternoon while shopping there with my friends, I decided to try on one of those sexy tight dresses intended for a girl much older than 12. I knew there was no way on God's green earth that my mother was ever going to let me wear it because she had this crazy rule that I was not allowed to dress like a hooker. Go figure. Hanging out with my girls, I thought I would just try on the dress for poops and giggles. I'm sure at the time I thought it made me look every bit of 16, because really isn't 16 the age all 12 year old girls aspire to be. So I had my fun slipping into the red dress but when I decided  it was time to take off the dress...well that's when the real fun started. This dress was a pullover style with no buttons or zippers and I think it had the innate ability to get tighter while being worn. I pulled the dress up over my hips, my waist, my small chest, but then when I got it to my shoulders with my crossed arms and head hidden inside the dress, it stopped moving. It just wouldn't budge in either direction. So there I was standing in the doorless stall of the dressing room stuck in this dress with my bra and undies on display for all those in the fitting room to see. When I realized that I could neither pull the dress up over my head nor back down over my body, I called for my friends to help me. By this time, we were all laughing so hard that our bodies were too weak to pull the dress and then all of a sudden, I had to pee. So there I was with the not so sexy red dress stuck over my head, shoulders, and arms completely encasing me like a sausage, laughing so hard I'm crying, all the while doing the pee pee dance and praying that the store manager wouldn't come in and find me this way. My friends somehow managed to free me from the dress, I threw on my clothes and made it to the restroom without leaving a yellow trail. Four kids later, I can't say the outcome would be the same.

Life has a funny way of coming full circle and now I'm looking forward to see what adventures lay before Jacob this year. I pray that he has the kind of good friends that will help him out of a tight situation if need be, and I hope that his 7th grade year will be so memorable that he'd like to live it all over again.

Ain't No Thing But a Chicken Wing

When Liam, our middle son, was 3 years old, he started watching a TV show called Lazy Town. This show had a positive premise that emphasized eating healthy foods, saving sweet treats for special occasions, and exercising daily. Now, I'm sure every other kid that watched this show understood the message of developing a healthy lifestyle, but what Liam took from the show was that if you eat anything, you're going to get fat. So what did Liam do? He stopped eating most of his food. Liam started losing weight--weight that he didn't have to lose. So, we said goodbye to Lazy Town and the pediatrician put him back on whole milk. She also wanted me to add cream cheese and heavy cream to his diet where I could. Liam's weight got back on track but George and I were a little worse for wear as we were eating things like mashed potatoes made with cream cheese, French toast made with heavy cream, and for good measure (or not so good measure depending upon how you look at it), we added sour cream to everything. I am convinced that this is when Liam's love affair with food began.

About the time Liam turned 5, George introduced us to one of his favorite food finds, phở, Vietnamese noodle soup.  Phở comes in a variety flavors but Liam's favorite is the seafood. When I say seafood, I don't mean lobster. I'm talking about a noodle soup full of squid, scallops, crab, shrimp, and mussels....you know, just the kind of soup every 5 year old loves. The first time Liam had the seafood  phở, we were at a local  Vietnamese restaurant. He ate that soup with such slurpy fervor that the patrons at 3 different tables couldn't help but notice. By the time Liam's face resurfaced from his giant bowl of noodles and suction cups, several of the observers had  started laughing. I was indeed a proud mama as I watched him eat every last bit of the soup, finishing it off with the last tentacle slurping it's way through his little pursed lips.

Liam is a messy and noisy eater who is also quite the carnivore. This combination of messy, noisy and meat don't sit too well with my mother, who is a borderline vegetarian. She won't sit near the boy if he eats seafood  phở or chicken on the bone. In all my life, I have never seen a human suck the meat clean off a chicken bone the way Liam does. When he gets done eating a drumstick, all that's left is the gray bone and the shiny white cartilage. 

One night, George had made hot wings, a family favorite. Liam was sitting next to me at the dinner table. That kid had sauce spread from ear to ear across his face, and amidst all the greasy orange color, I couldn't help but notice that his very first loose tooth was getting ripe for the picking. As Liam was sucking the last little bit of meat from his 5th hot wing, I saw that his little tooth was gone. I said, "Oh Liam, did your tooth fall out onto your plate?" Much to my surprise, he said, "No. I'm pretty sure I swallowed it."

Now, you'll be hard pressed to find a bigger sentimental sap than me, but when my grandmother suggested I hunt for his tooth, I knew right away that I'd be okay with just leaving a note and a chicken wing for the Tooth Fairy. 

Good Goobity Goo

When George and I were just two college kids crazy in love, we worked in one of the dining halls on campus. I know it sounds odd, but if you needed a grunt job to help pay your way through school, the dining hall was a surprisingly fun place to work. It was a great place to meet people with a wide range of backgrounds (we actually worked with a guy who had been at the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests). George and I were friends with most of our coworkers and all of the dining halls on campus combined to form quite the social network. There were intramural teams formed, picnics with sand volleyball games, great parties, and lots of couples falling in and out of love.

It was during a shift at the dining hall that I became aware of George's protective nature over me. Some weaselly newbie at the dining hall got physically inappropriate with me. Trust me, he unquestionably crossed personal boundaries. George's immediate response was to grab the guy, pin him against the wall, and  threaten to dot the guy's eye (okay, George's words were probably a little more colorful). Suffice it to say, 2 things happened in that moment: 1) The aforementioned guy never so much as even looked at me again, and 2) I discovered that I had a man who (channeling my best Darla from The Little Rascals voice complete with sigh) was my hero and who would  always do his best to protect me.

It was right around this time that George had been looking for a house near campus to rent . He knew a guy who was planning to renovate a house that even in it's heyday was probably best described as a pea green crack house. This house had long been abandoned and left sitting wide open. Yellowed wallpaper was all that was holding plaster on the walls, that is, where the plaster was still on the walls. Windows were broken out and door locks had been stolen. Refuse and filthy garments peppered the worn wood floors. Lead paint was peeling off the trim work and a  thick musty odor filled the place, but George, being a man of vision, saw only  the potential for a newly remodeled low rent house with lots of room within walking distance to his classes. So late one afternoon, George decided to take me on a tour of the house, and since there were no locks on the door, we didn't need the landlord to let us in the place. As we were walking from room to room, George was detailing the builder's plans for the much needed improvements. With George behind me, we started down a narrow hallway. I was struggling to imagine the place all spruced up with new walls and floors but I was also trying not to touch anything as I was pretty certain it had been too long since my last tetanus shot. Noticing a door ajar, I gently used my foot to kick it open. George, seeing the door swing open but not realizing I had opened it, immediately jumped 3 feet off the floor, allegedly (as we have since discussed this moment at great length) tried to grab my arm,  and yelled "GOOD GOOBITY GOO!" Seriously, those were his exact words..."Good goobity goo." Within a flash, he was gone. George was out of that house before I could even process what happened. As he was running, I  turned to see what had startled him so badly and I caught a peripheral glimpse of my long brown hair as it swung over my shoulder. Thinking my hair was a mouse scurrying across the floor, I too decided to run screaming from the house only to find George waiting for me in the middle of the yard. He was panting so hard that he could scarcely ask, "What was that? What was that? What was that?!" To which I responded, "What was WHAT?" Apparently, (now say it with me just like Darla) "my hero" thought someone of ill repute had been standing on the other side of the door and it was that someone who had opened the door.

Needless to say, we had quite the laugh at the misunderstanding, and George told me next time he yells, "RUN!" (which apparently is the English translation of  good goobity goo), I better run. I learned a valuable lesson that day in that a man's protection comes in many forms. Sometimes, you need to stand back and let your man fight the good fight and other times, you just need to be ready to good goobity goo with him.

Life Lessons From A Paranoid Mother

From a fairly young age, my mother instilled in me a healthy sense of paranoia. She is a long time fan of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King so it's only natural that she is one to look over her shoulder, and because she is a good mother who loves her children, she taught us the same survival skills. For example, I don't walk alone in isolated areas. I don't take rides from strangers or eat or drink anything they give me. I don't pick up hitchhikers. I never park next to cargo vans, especially the kind that don't have any windows. I don't fear clowns to the extent that my mother would like, but I will admit, they are creepy and I don't trust them. When I sleep at night, the closet door must be completely closed. When I shower, I always always always leave the curtain half open. You just never know when a psychopath with mommy issues is going to attack.

I'm sure at this point, you're probably thinking that this is all common sense and for the most part, you're right, but if you didn't grow up with my mom teaching you everything she has learned from suspense novels and horror movies you might not recognize all the dangers that lay before you. My mom had a movie for every situation. The night before my first babysitting job, she rented When A Stranger Calls. Now if you've seen this, you know (spoiler alert) that if someone you don't know calls while you are babysitting and asks if you have checked the children, your only response should be to run screaming from that house. Don't feel guilty for not going upstairs to get the children, because they've been dead for hours. You just need to run!

The week before I left for college, my mother rented Looking For Mr. Goodbar. She made me and my best friend watch the movie with her so that at the end, in case we missed the lifesaving message, she could point out to us the dangers of meeting guys in bars. In case you haven't seen the movie, it ends with Diane Keaton being murdered by some guy she met in a bar. After the movie, I asked, "You couldn't just tell us that?" To which she replied, "I didn't want you to forget. I wanted to leave you with a lasting impression."

Lucky for me, I graduated with honors from Mom's Paranoia Prep School for Girls. All those years of training really paid off when I found my first dead body. Now up until that point, the only movie I'd seen about finding a dead body was Stand By Me. Well, when I found a dead body, I wasn't a 12-year old boy in the '50s and I wasn't on a coming of age journey with my closest friends. Trust me, Jerry O'Connell was nowhere to be found. I was in my very early 20s,  newly married, and finishing up my degree. George and I were living close to campus in the nicest dump that we could afford. I was walking home from class one afternoon, and as I cut through a parking lot behind a local diner, I caught a glimpse of a  man's fairly new shoe near the top of the heap in the dumpster. As I neared the trash, I noticed the shoe had a sock in it, and I found it odd that someone would discard a shoe with a sock in it like that. As my eyes went from the shoe to the sock, I noticed skin and hair and there it was, a leg buried in the trash in the dumpster behind the local diner just a few blocks away from my nice dump. I took one quick glance over my shoulder just to make sure no one was behind me. There was a small group of college kids eating lunch on the patio of the diner but no one else was in sight. I had been pretty casual about my discovery, not wanting to draw any attention to myself because I didn't know who put this body in the dumpster. It was obvious that he hadn't been there very long and I had learned from my mother's tutelage that you never can be sure who the bad guy is or who all may be involved. I pretended not to notice the body and I kept walking. With each step, my pace quickened until I was all but running to my door. By the time I got inside, I was crying and all I could think to do was to call my mom and tell her what I saw. This call served two purposes: 1) I needed someone I trusted to know I had found this body just in case those involved, in what I was certain was foul play, were following me, and 2) I needed my mom's clear head to tell me what to do next, which was, obviously, to call the police.

Oh how I wish I had the recording of that 911 call. I was so calm when the operator answered the phone, but by the time the words "dead body" passed over my lips I went racing into hysterics. The operator assured me that an officer would arrive at the dumpster in question momentarily and then she ended the call. As I began to regain my composure, there was a knock on my door. It was a pretty firm and loud knock. My heart started to pound. Had someone followed me home after all? I crept over to the door and peeked through the peep hole. When I saw that it was a police officer, I opened the door expecting him to ask me to show him where the body was. He was quick to inform me that he had already discovered the body....well, it wasn't exactly a whole body. He found the leg....well, it wasn't exactly a leg but a very realistic prosthetic. I questioned him, "Are you sure? It had hair and skin." Apparently, prosthetics are very realistic. Let me preface this by saying, I am so glad no one was harmed in the making of this momentous occasion in my life (it's not everyday I find a dead body...okay, it's not any day), but I was a little disappointed that I had gotten all worked up over this just to find myself crying so hysterically on the 911 call that the police officer wanted to let me know face to face that the prosthetic leg was going to be just fine. Looking back, maybe that was  a young Ashton Kutcher and his buds eating lunch on the patio outside the local diner. In any case, that was just a drill. I'll be ready the next time I find a dead body in the dumpster.

The Shocking Side of Boys

By the time I was in high school, most of my friends were boys. Oh, I had a best girl friend and a few other go to girls, but most of my closest friends were boys. Between my brother,  my stepbrothers, my cousins, and my buds, I spent a lot of time around boys. Generally speaking, it's easy to be friends with boys. They don't crave drama (Heck, they don't even like it!), they don't hold grudges, they don't need to make you feel fat to make themselves feel pretty, and they almost never try to steal your boyfriend.

When I was in the 4th grade, I had my first real best friend. She and I were inseparable. We had sleepovers, talked for hours on the phone, explored every inch of the woods behind her house, and took countless trips to the mall. For 2 years, I told her all of my secrets and she told me hers. It was a beautiful friendship until for some reason I will never know, she dropped me. Just like that. No fight, no note, no words at all. She suddenly just didn't want to be my friend, so she pretended not to even know me. When I say there were no words, I mean literally, she never spoke to me again. I eventually moved to another town, for different reasons, where I met another girl who did the exact same thing. That's when I really started to recognize the ease of hanging out with boys, but I will say, I eventually made a few trustworthy girl friends.

All in all, boys are great, but they are not perfect (well, except for Jesus, though I often wonder what He was like as a boy). Boys like to blow up stuff, melt stuff, wreck stuff, shoot stuff, and shock stuff. I may never understand, and therefore, never truly appreciate this destructive and death defying side of boys, but I'm not convinced that it doesn't serve a purpose. It is, after all, the source of some major male bonding.

My husband, George, has many a hair-raising tale he has shared with me over the years. Some involve trespassing, speeding motorcycles, bicycle shenanigans, dark country cemeteries, and pellet guns; but there is one story George loves to share with our boys, much to my chagrin, about a game that he and his younger brother, Donovan used to play. You see, for some oddball reason, they had a stun gun, and they would put this stun gun in the center of the room. Each boy (I use the word boy here loosely because in all actuality, they were old enough to know better) would go to opposite corners of  the room and then, they would race to see who could get to the stun gun first. Can you guess what happened next? Well obviously the boy who won the race to the stun gun got to shock the poop out of the other one. Suffice it to say, we don't have any stun guns in our home.

In spite of all the daredevil mayhem that ensues in a boy's life, I'll take the honest curiosity of boys any day over the mean girl hi jinx that run rampant in middle schools and high schools. Boys, you gotta love them and all their mischief. As the mother of 3 boys, I 'd love to tell you that they outgrow all of the foolishness, but as you can see from the recent video of my wonderful George playing with a bark collar, some things never change. As the mother of a girl, I will tell her that not all girls are mean and while boys make great friends, there are those amazing girl friendships that can last a lifetime and will bless her beyond measure.

I Was a Blue Collar African American Man

Today is my brother's birthday. I won't say how old Tad is, but I will say that he is only 19 months older than I am. Because we are so close in age, we were the best of friends right up until Tad started school and discovered that he might have more in common with the rough and tumble boys on the playground than he did with a whiny, tattle-telling little girl. Those preschool years hold some precious memories for me and I relish any opportunity to remind Tad how much fun we had.

Our favorite game was Bud and John. I was Bud and Tad was John. Bud (I) was an African American man with some sort of a blue collar job. I always imagined Bud wearing one of those blue mechanic's shirts with the name patch sewn on the left side. John (Tad) was Bud's best friend who was also a blue collar worker but he was a white guy. I don't know how we started playing this and other than the fact the we both knew John (Tad) was white and Bud (I) was African American, race never played a role in our pretend play. Each of our characters had an imaginary wife who we would kiss goodbye at the door as she handed us our lunch pails. For some reason, Bud's wife was only about 6 inches tall so I would have to bend way over to kiss her goodbye, which always made Tad laugh and he would usually ask, "Why is your wife so short?"

When I was 4, Tad taught me how to tie my shoes, not because he was sweet like that, but because he was tired of our mom making him tie my shoes for me. When he started school, he brought home his Letter A reader and taught me how to read. Yes, my brother is that smart that even at 6, he could teach a 4 year old how to read.

When we were both in elementary school, our days of Bud and John long gone, our relationship started to change. We fought more and aggravated each other but Tad proved he always had my back. One day after school (I was in first grade and Tad was in third), the biggest kid in third grade tripped me and sat on my head. I squirmed and kicked and tried to scream for help, but there was no moving that kid. Suddenly, looking just like Luke Duke with his dark wavy hair, sherpa lined tan corduroy jacket, and belt buckle the size of a coke can, Tad came to my rescue. His words still ring in my ears..."Chris, you best get off my sister!"

I followed Tad to college where we shared friends and some good times. He got me a grunt job in the dining hall where he worked. For my first few weeks during my freshman year, he called my dorm every night to check in on me. We were both broke college kids, but when a good friend of mine from high school died in a car accident, Tad gave me the money to fly home for the funeral.

So today is Tad's birthday and it's been almost a year since we last saw each other. Miles and busy schedules seem to get in our way more than I like. Still, on this glorious day, I raise my glass and toast my brother. To John, may you think of Bud often and know that no matter how far apart we may be, there is a blue collar African American man who will always have your back.

Confessions of a Pie Eater

I love sweet little old ladies. I always have. Thanks to Bible studies, ladies' luncheons, and mentoring programs at my church, I have managed to find a bevy of wonderful little old ladies who graciously allow me soak up the wisdom they inevitably spout. It was at a Bible study that one of my sweet little old ladies said something so simple yet so wonderful that it has now become one of the mantras by which I live. "It's just as easy to make two pies as it is to make one."

It just so happens that my 91-year old grandmother, another one of my little old ladies, is in town for the summer. Notice that I did not refer to her as sweet as she is, indeed, one of those precious old ladies who somewhere along the way lost her filter, though I'm not convinced she ever had one. God bless her. My grandmother, thanks to all of her years she spent baking, instilled in me a love of pies and other assorted desserts. She used to make the most wonderful coconut cream pie. If I close my eyes, I can almost taste that creamy vanilla coconut goodness. Well, of course seeing my grandmother this summer has brought back those same coconut cream pie dreams to my mother who loves to tell (ad nauseam) the story of how I ate a whole coconut cream pie all by myself like a thief in the night while my parents were dreaming about coconut cream pie for breakfast. In my defense, I was 15, and I had a much greater appetite and a much faster metabolism. I didn't intend to eat the whole pie. I merely wanted one slice but it was so good that I went back for another and another until there really wasn't enough for my mom and dad to share, so I, in an effort to spare them just a tease of a piece, finished off the pie. Yes, I ate the whole pie while they slept and it was delightful. My only regret is that there wasn't yet another pie for me to eat.

So I decided that since my grandmother is no longer able to bake, I need to carry on the tradition. I have mastered peach cobbler, chocolate chip cookies, buttermilk pie, and pumpkin pie, but I have yet to even attempt to duplicate her almost famous coconut cream pie...that is, until today. So I dug out the recipe, my rolling pin, and set out to make my grandmother's coconut cream pie, whose exact secret recipe somehow ended up in my Better Homes and Gardens red and white cookbook. Hmmm. Because it's just as easy to make two pies as it is to make one, I made two; and because all these years later, I still owe my folks a pie, I have invited them over to dinner tonight. Maybe this will finally put that woeful tale of the night of coconut cream pie gluttony to rest.

I only wish that I had the metabolism of a 15-year old and a third pie.

The First

Welcome to my blog! According to George, my husband and personal computer geek, this blog has been a long time coming. For the past several years, George has been encouraging (and by encouraging, I mean nagging) me to start a blog and I, like any other self-respecting technologically resistant person have been dragging my feet. Well, he has finally convinced me to join the legions of bloggers out in cyberworld. Who knows? George is probably right in that I will actually enjoy it--it is really just another medium for writing. Afterall, he was right about texting being a convenient form of communication and the English language has not completely deteriorated into abbreviations. (I just recently started texting. I fought it off as long as I could but when your oldest starts middle school *sigh*, it helps to get on board the texting bandwagon.)

There is also another reason to text and blog and it is one that feeds into my world of delusions. I realized that if I am going to successfully continue to lie about my age, I need to stay a little more current than I have in previous years. If texting and blogging can make me seem younger or at least make me think I appear younger then I will text and by golly, I will blog! Yes, lying about my age is becoming increasingly more challenging. I am making the transition from just out right lying about my age to just not sharing my age when asked. My mother, in all her wisdom, pointed out that should I continue to tell people I am 26, they are going to think I have lived a hard life. I certainly don't want people to mutter things like, "That Allison really looks rough for her age." So texting, blogging and omission are now the way to go.

Thanks for visiting. Feel free to join me as I muddle my way through  this blog.