Monthly Archives: May 2015

No regrets! Well, maybe a few

I regret not telling you sooner that I have a personally autographed photo of the Cartwrights.  Such an exciting aspect of my life that I've kept hidden until now.

I regret not telling you sooner that I have a personally autographed photo of the Cartwrights. Such an exciting aspect of my life that I’ve kept hidden until now.

A friend once said to me, “I make it a policy to never regret.” She said this after I asked how she liked her new living situation of sharing a home with her friend. When I told Jerry about her reply to me, he said, “Ohh! She regrets.”

Whether we admit it or not, we all have regrets. Of course, it’s best to move on and not dwell on what-could-have-been.

I regret very few things in my life. That said, here are the ones I do.

1. I regret taking showers in 7th grade P.E.  Why did I feel I had to submit to authority and strip naked? I really didn’t exercise that much, so I didn’t need a shower. No matter. I was forced to stand in line au naturel with other junior high girls, all of us dripping wet while holding a towel the size of a toilet paper square. The P.E. teachers checked us over to make sure we showered.  If we weren’t wet to their satisfaction, we were sent back to the showers. I regret I didn’t go to a parochial school where no one had to get naked for any of their teachers. read more

Eight Things I Learned about Life at Disneyland:

Disney1

Life Lessons I Learned at Disneyland:

1. Mick Jagger must have been singing about Disneyland when his lips famously flapped, “You can’t always get what you waaaaahhhh-nt.” The price of admission to Walt’s theme park is more than the cost of a new Lexus or Audi. Even so, don’t expect to get everything you want.  Jerry and I signed up (and paid extra) for the “Walk in Walt’s Footsteps Tour.” The tour promised a behind-the-scenes look at Disneyland. Unfortunately, Jerry and I chose to take the tour the day before Disneyland kicked off its 60th Anniversary Celebration. Our Disney tour guide flat-out told us, “Ordinarily our tour goes to the Dream Suite, but we won’t go there today.” (sad face) And, “Yes, the Peter Pan ride is on the tour, but not today. It’s under construction.” (another sad face) The comment that should have been said but wasn’t, “Actually, this tour has hours to waste since we cancelled just about everything featured on the tour. Let’s start by killing time at The Enchanted Tiki Room, an attraction not on the tour and that you already paid for with your admission ticket and would probably not go to anyway.” The only thing Jerry and I got on the tour that we expected for our extra charge is a stroll through Walt’s apartment above the Firehouse on Main Street. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside Walt’s apartment, but the tour guide promised she would take our picture for us. “You’ll want this for your Christmas card,” she said (wink, wink).  Once our tour group stood inside Walt’s tiny apartment, our guide noticed a woman preparing to snap a picture of Walt’s Victorian armchair. She gasped in horror, “No! No! No! Only ‘I’ can take pictures in this apartment.” She took deep breaths to calm herself from the tragedy she had narrowly averted. Jerry whispered to me, “What’s so special in this apartment that we can’t take pictures? Are they afraid we’ll take a picture of Walt’s grilled cheese-maker?” We didn’t know the answer and still don’t. One thing I do know. The tour made me realize that sometimes in life you get disappointed and don’t get the Dream Suite, plus unfulfiled promises of Christmas card quality, (yes, we got blurry photos), and when you least expect it, you’re surrounded by fake tropical birds singing, “In the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room.” read more

Five Things You Must Do Once In Your Life

Watch your step as you admire the beauty.

Watch your (Oops! Careful!) step as you admire the beauty.

“Everyone must see the Grand Canyon at least once in their life,” a close family member said to me after her visit to northern Arizona’s natural wonder.

“If we must see it once in our life,” I said to Jerry, “let’s go.”

As we stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon with only a guard rail between us and eternity, we felt the reverence of magnificent colors plunging into a massive chasm. The vastness of the deep canyon gave us an awe-inspiring moment. I didn’t hear angels sing, but I did hear children crying because they wanted ice cream or they were tired of the Grand Canyon’s beauty. I’m not sure which. read more

For Whom The Gong Tolls (our weekend of gonging and clapping and no free coffee)

Something is wrong with our car.

Jerry hears a miss and the engine light is on. Well, we say to each other, it’s an old car with 200,000 miles on it. We wonder if it’s worth dumping more money into for repair. We each imagine our life in the future if we pay for more repairs, giving us the slightest hope the car lasts a little longer…

I don’t know what Jerry’s imagination came up with, but mine flashed the mental picture of us stranded in a broken down car in the middle of the desert. I’m wandering dazed among the saguaros. read more

12 Things I Would Never Know If I Hadn’t Become A Mom

This is me back when I was a real mom. My son is on the other side of Goofy, but I had to cut his picture out to keep my promise of not  posting his picture on the Internet.

If I hadn’t become a mom, I wouldn’t have taken the trip to Disneyland in a rented motor home that rattled and clapped all the way from Seattle to Southern California. But our son had never been to Disneyland and so the trip became a necessity. (The Disney character insisted on having his picture taken with me. I’m smiling but I’m thinking how to escape the overly friendly Disney character.) 

I would have never known:

  1. The words to the song “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” Or that Slash is a real person who plays a guitar.
  2. That you will live in your car for sixteen years, driving your child all over the place to soccer practice, music lessons, after school events, children’s birthday parties, and drive-thru McDonald’s.
  3. That stepping on a Lego block in your bare feet makes you scream from the sheer pain while your neighbors slam their windows shut seconds before hollering, “Can’t we get any peace at all!”
  4. That asparagus hidden in the houseplants (near the dinner table) will fossilize.
  5. That you have poor anger management skills exhibited toward the neighbor lady when she complains your kid did something she didn’t like to her sweet angel child.
  6. That you should never, ever, put trick candles (the kind you can’t blow out) on a birthday cake. Moms learn quickly their child does not think it’s a funny, silly joke. Children want success, especially on their birthday, and that includes blowing out birthday candles that stay blown not. The candles that relight themselves do not amuse your child. Oh! I know that now. However, kids will find it extremely amusing to get a whoopee cushion for their birthday. You will go to sleep listening to hideous. gaseous, flatulent sounds over and over accompanied by much chortling (which I think means laughing hysterically).
  7. That you’re quite good at playing “Clue” and have figured out Miss Scarlet committed the murder. But you keep it to yourself and display a dramatic act of shock and surprise when your child beams and announces Miss Scarlet as the murderess.
  8. That the best thing in the world is the day you, along with four other mothers, volunteer to chaperon the school field trip and as soon as your son sees you at school he calls out, “I’m in my mom’s group!”
  9. That the insides of a golf ball contain a zillion little springy rubber bands that spring all over the house. You just had to give in, (didn’t you?), when your son asked you to cut the ball in half to see what’s inside. You pick tiny rubber band pieces out of the carpet for months.
  10. When in the car with your children, you’re happy to sing “You are my sunshine” over and over (and over) because your kids are having so much fun belting out the tune at the top of their lungs. Then for variety you drop the word “sun” in sunshine and fill in your pet’s name and you’re singing over and over, “You are my Pumpkinshine.”
  11. That the most painful event in your life is seeing your child’s heart broken.
  12. That you will save the paper fan your son won for you at the school carnival for a hundred years.

kids mother-s-day

Real Kids Give Real Answers to Questions About Their Mothers

=&0=& 1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff. 2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy. 3. They say she used to be nice.   =&1=& 1. His last name. 2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer? 3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?   =&2=& 1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot. 2. She got too old to do anything else with him. 3. My grandma says that mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.   =&3=& 1. Mothers don’t do spare time. 2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.   =&4=&