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More Mom Snippets….

Alas!! I always wanted a poodle skirt when I was in about 5th and 6th grade. So my mom bought me a red flannel skirt. The right shape…but missing the rather important poodle. And I longed for a crinoline that would make the crinkle noise when you moved. My mom bought me a mesh-like flared half slip. (sigh….) No noise. And I so wanted saddle shoes like the cheerleaders wore — narrowish black and white saddles with little perforations around the saddles. My mom bought me good sturdy Buster Browns — brown clunky saddles, no perforations. And yet life was good!!

And –oh, my gosh! In 4th grade my mom wanted to sign me up for violin lessons at school, but I talked her into piano lessons. We did not have a piano so, for 3 years, I practiced after school on an old piano there as well as on my cardboard keyboard (which, of course, made no noise) and once a week at a neighbor’s. No more lessons as of 7th grade, but when I was 14, my mom finally bought a piano. Still have it today! Never became a virtuoso, but I loved to play over the years.

My dad died when I was just over a year old, so my mom had to be my everything. I miss her!

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Chippy

A summer day in the year of the virus (2020). Sitting on the little deck enjoying sunshine (filtered by an umbrella to avoid burning). Spritzed the area with peppermint oil to repel bugs and apparently managed to attract one renegade yellow jacket (sigh….) Chippy and Chipette, our two local chipmunks, have been stopping by. Their quizzical expressions imply that they had assumed it was their deck and view me as an interloper. Chippy is currently eyeing me from a tie wall to see if I will have the audacity to stay. (I will.)
Today on the deck — I am under round-the-clock surveillance by Chippy and his crew. They trade off doing shifts on the tie wall to keep an eye on me. So far I am behaving.
Back out on the little deck. Chipette was on surveillance duty but abandoned her post when I brazenly said “hello”. So Chippy made a couple of runs past me to be sure I am on my best behavior. Aha! My little sentry has returned, observing from afar. The greenery is so peaceful. A small squirrel scuffle is occurring on the hill. Three of them, apparently playing tag, although I suspect a bit of flirtation as well.
Eerily quiet today on the deck. No surveillance by Chippy, Chipette, and company; no squirrel frolics on the hill. No birds. So….I’m wondering if the hawk has been stalking the neighborhood. I haven”t seen him today, but he did buzz by a couple of days ago.
Well, of course, just after I posted the above, I had two birdie fly-bys and one chipmunk scamper-by. Hmmmm…?
Good things: Since he has been unable to get rid of me (surveillance and staring me down don’t work), Chippy has decided to befriend me. He now visits me on the deck, and I think he is interested in negotiation for shared occupancy…perhaps with a shared meal or two in the mix. Chipette, of course, is avoiding me as she is wimpy (and may still be miffed about my making fun of her a couple of years ago when she kept running up the pole to the bird feeder and repeatedly bonking her little noggin on the preventive inverted pie tin halfway up).
Well, I posted on social media about my Munk family and received a warning from a well-meaning friend to beware the furry fellas. Okay, I am already really old; there’s a deadly virus lurking; there is horrendous social and political unrest all around; and now I’ve gotta worry about an otherwise friendly but potentially rabid chipmunk???!!!
Hmmmm…he has approached me for a couple of days now with no incident (ran under my chair once)., sooo….

Posted in A View from the Soapbox, Uncategorized

An Observation about Change….

Hmmmm….Just saw a headline on a weather site claiming that the earth’s axis has shifted due to climate change. Interesting…but, since earth’s axis has constantly shifted throughout time, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that climate change occurs because of earth’s axis’ shifting? (And I’ve actually visually noticed the shifting since the morning sun now shines into windows further north than it did 40 years ago. The house has not moved relative to the earth, so I’m guessin’ it’s the earth moving relative to the sun…since it does that anyway via revolution and rotation. Just sayin’….)

Posted in A View from the Soapbox, Uncategorized

Musing on Pondering….

Musing on Pondering (aka thinking about thought) — In Thelminian ideology this is not redundant. Sometimes I find I have burrowed so deeply into my thoughts that I have trouble finding my way back out. Other times, I flit about the surface, never quite making contact. Is there a finite line of demarcation where thought starts and stops? And, as for Descartes’ “I think; therefore, I am” posit, I’m pretty sure that when I flit, I am still me.

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Random Utterances….

If my aunt had wheels, she’d be a teacart. If a bullfrog had a hip pocket, he could carry an automatic (explanations for “if-then” propositions).

Watch your mouth! I can’t; my nose is in the way (exchange between a former client and her daughter).

I’d stand on my head and stack BBs if I thought it would help (from a former client, expressing her frustration).

The Brussels sprout (in reference to my Belgian friend).

Better to owe it to you than to cheat you out of it (my first husband’s philosophy).

Knee high to a grasshopper (an oldie; don’t know who to credit).

You have a good memory, but it’s short (so I’ve been told).

The more the cry, the less you pee (said to spoiled-brat me by my mom’s stepmom…which was not a threat to a child who hated outhouses).

Prematernity top (in reference to clingy sleeveless shell sweater, compliments of my high school boyfriend).

No. It comes in through the walls and goes out through the floor (my response to a telmarketer asking “Do you have problems with water in your basement?” when my basement at the time in my very old house consisted of a curb wall and a dirt floor).

Not as long as other people get paid (response to smart-aleck guys back in the 70s trying to embarrass me by asking if I believed in free love).

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Who????

New day, new mystery to ponder. Who seems to have taken credit for so many things over the years. Horton hears a who. Who are you (grammatically, shouldn’t this be “who is you”?). Who dunnit. Who’s on first. Who is that masked man. Who wrote the book of love. Who put the bop in the bop shebop shebop and the ram in the rama lama ding dong.
This is a lot to accomplish! Not to mention all those little misdeeds and faux pas. Who forgot to put the milk back in the fridge, left the toys on the floor, let the dogs out, and neglected to put the toilet seat back down. And just when you want to cut a little slack, you find out who was in his right mind! But who’s sorry, and who cares. Now who can argue that (often does), but who’s with me. And who knew!!
(Aaahhh, the power of punctuation!)

Posted in Motorcycles, Monkeys, Mischief, and My Life, Uncategorized

Big Bruce!!

Once upon a time my human son brought home a “puppy”. We named him Bruce. At eight weeks of age, Bruce was approximately eighteen inches long… or so…and had feet the size of my fist. We later learned that his heritage was half golden lab and half St. Bernard. Bruce grew up to be a big boy!!

Despite the fact that Bruce wanted desperately to be a lap dog, he never fit on anyone’s lap, try as he might. And it became readily apparently that he was not destined to be a house dog. He simply didn’t really fit. There were areas of the house in which he had to back up because he was too large to turn around. So Bruce had a doghouse in the yard on top of which he liked to sleep. When we began to feel guilty about having him live outdoors through the chill of midwest winter, we learned that he could not tolerate being indoors. When we had a record 29 degrees below zero, we tried to bring him in. He began to cough due to the heat and proceeded to whine by the door to get back outside. Bruce, we learned, was virtually weatherproof. He had inherited the best of both worlds — the thick St. Bernard let’s-go-rescue-folks-in-the-Alps fur which ensured that he was snowproof, and the thick wiry labrador coat which rendered him quite waterproof. In addition, his skin was so thick that he never, ever had a flea bite. Ever! In the spring, we had to rake bushels of fluff out of the yard when Bruce would shed his winter coat. Because of his girth and strength, he was on a heavy chain on a runner attached to trees. For sport, Bruce enjoyed chasing the cats. And the cats knew exactly how much “give” was in the chain, so they would taunt him by running along a path just about an inch further than he could reach. At one point we had kittens that were young and naive and could not measure the reach of the chain. Bruce surprised himself by getting a mouthful of kitten. Immediately, “Pfftt!!” — he spit it out. “Ugh! Furball!” (The kittens figured it out.)

After one of the major snowstorms, I looked out the door to see his chain lying across the snow. No Bruce visible. Oh, no!! “Bruce!” I called desperately, hoping he had not gotten too far away. “Bruce!” And the snow rumbled a bit, and a large head (the neighborhood kids called him “Cujo”, by the way) popped up and shook off the snow. Bruce eyed me with an annoyed “duh!” blink. I had obviously disrupted his nap.

Another little adventure occurred when a friend had given me a ride to an all-day speech tournament as we both were scheduled to judge but I had a car problem. On the way home, about half a mile from the house, we spotted a large mass of fur with mud up to its leg-pits. It looked suspiciously like…yep!…Bruce. He had broken loose and was cavorting in the canal. Well, we couldn’t just let him run around and hope that he’d find his way home. So we pulled into a little parking lot. He came immediately when called (always a good boy, Bruce). But he was covered with gobs of filthy black mud. How to get him home? My friend was driving a little Chevette. She popped the hatchback, dug around a bit, and came up with a shower curtain which she spread out in the hatch. “C’mon, Bruce! In! Come on! Jump!” This was a dog who easily would jump onto the roof of a very large doghouse, but he eyed the back of the car as though we were expecting him to pole vault. Well, we weren’t going to pick him up. First of all, we were in our good clothes and he was slimy. But, more importantly, he was huge and heavy, so lifting him was not feasible. My friend dug around some more and produced some rope. (What my friend was doing with rope and a shower curtain in the back of her car I will never know and was afraid to ask!) So we tethered Bruce to the rope and got into the car with my window down so I could hold the rope to guide Bruce home. What a ride! We toddled along between first and second gear with Bruce trotting along beside the car…except for when he would detect a scent interesting enough to stop and sniff. Yikes!! Fortunately, my arm was able to remain in the socket, but….oh, it was a challenge. We did finally, amazingly, get him home. Whew!!

Bruce stood about three feet tall on all fours and close to six feet tall when he would stand on his hind feet with his paws on my husband’s shoulders, begging to take the man for a walk. Big Bruce!! We miss that guy!!

Posted in Uncategorized

The Glass….

Friend Marla posted this version of The Glass, and I have to share!!


Along with summing up recent history (the year 2020), this triggered a couple of other thoughts to share.

I have always believed the glass is all the way full, but some idiot is going to knock it off the table!!

And…a precious story of a little guy who was in a foster home during my days with child protective services. He was about 3 years old at the time and so, so needy. The agency placed him in a wonderful foster home with loving parents and older foster sibs. One day when I did a home visit, the foster mom took me aside and told me that one of her teenage daughters had to submit a urine sample for a physical. They were to refrigerate it and so put it in a styrofoam cup, ready for transport. When they went to retrieve it, the cup was missing. Eventually they found it, discarded on the floor with rather incriminating teethmarks in it. The mom had shown the empty cup to the little boy and asked him if he drank the contents. He slowly nodded his head. “Did it taste good?” she had asked. He slowly shook his head. “But you drank it, anyway?” she asked. He slowly nodded his head.

So…take a moment and think about children who are victims of neglect. Their behavior may be a little different, and that’s okay. This little fellow just knew to take advantage of an opportunity to quench his thirst.

Posted in Motorcycles, Monkeys, Mischief, and My Life, Uncategorized

Holiday Theatre for Kids — Giants, Dwarves, Bustles, and More….

Special theatre memories pop up around this time of year. For several decades, the Women’s Board of our community theatre produced shows for children (with a bit of humor injected for the adults who bring the kids to the theatre). Most often these were stories based on good old standard fairy tales. As with all live theatre, the on-stage and backstage stories go on and on, providing years of fond memories and abundant laughs.

Theatre for kids involves larger than life characters and lots of action (chase scenes and the like). The magic is there for us all!!

A recent chat with a friend got me thinking of the types of things that made these shows so delightful. He recalled playing the hunter in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. During one performance, when his 4-year old nephew was in the audience, he walked out on stage and heard the small voice, “Hi, Uncle Dave!” He almost dropped his gun. For me, this kicked off another memory about that particular show. (I worked on the sound crew.) The young lady who played Goldilocks happened to be the daughter of a co-worker of mine, Kathy, an intake caseworker for child protective services. So….one day I called in a report (designated for Kathy) on a little girl who was breaking into houses, eating the food, and hanging out with wild animals. It brought a bit of humor to the intake department.

I was in charge of props for “The Wizard of Oz”. The stage manager and backstage crew had an exciting moment when the Wicked Witch of the West snagged her dress on a cauldron containing dry ice and inadvertently flung the smoking contents all over the stage. The next scene was supposed to be in the forest with no mist, so we props folks were scrambling to figure out how to get the substance cleaned up as there was no curtain in between scenes. The witch’s quick-thinking flying monkeys, already equipped with scrub brushes and buckets as well as gloved hands, deftly handled it by scrubbing the dry ice particles into the buckets and carrying it offstage on their exit. (Thank you, ringleader Julie!) All’s well that ends well! Whew! And the actors always greeted the children in the lobby after the performance, another aspect of the fun. My husband, who sported a full beard, played Captain Verdo, the green-bearded guard outside the Emerald City, so he spray-painted his beard green. Interesting how many kids are inclined to yank on a beard to prove it’s fake. (Owwwww…..!)

The first time I ended up with a speaking role on stage was in “Jack and the Beanstalk”. I was the head of the Christmas show committee so was assisting the director with auditions. As it turned out, we were short on auditioners as another theatre in the area was producing a large-cast show that year. I offered to be Bossy, the cow, if needed, and diligently began to practice mooing. The director subsequently cast me as a little old lady, Old Tyb (which, due to a typo, became old Tub in the program, something I never did live down). I found out that I wasn’t as shy since my costume disguised me well. And I learned that I could not seem to talk unless I was moving my right arm, so old Tyb (or Tub) appeared to have a bit of palsy. The giant in that production was indeed gigantic, tall and large with a wonderful booming voice. The chase scene called for the chased (Jack) to leap off the stage and run up the aisle followed by the giant. In one show, when the giant landed with a resounding “fee-fi-fo-fum” and a heavy thud next to the second row, the little boy on the aisle screamed and proceeded to wet his pants. Ah, the joys of live theatre!! (The giant toned it down a bit in subsequent performances less he frighten away the audience.)

Another kids’ show I was fortunate to be part of was “Cinderella”. I was one of the stepsisters, and the three of us wore huge bustles. Our backs were to the audience during the ball, and we would, together, sway to the music with impressively choreographed bustles. (We eventually became known as the Butt sisters. And proud of it!)

One of my favorite roles was Grovella in “The Tale of Snow White” (adapted for the theatre by Eileen Moushey). I was the evil queen’s handmaiden and chief groveller. The dwarves were named (as I recall) Dilly, Dally, Dodie, three more D-names, and Mel (who was 6 feet tall). When Grovella encountered one of them in the woods, her original line was “Ooh, are you a dwarf?” However, at auditions, she uttered a la (for those of you old enough to remember back in the 80s) the character Stephanie on “Newhart”, “Eeeewww, are you a dorf?!” Not politically correct, of course, but it stuck! Another one I will never live down.

And the last children’s show I did was “Wolf Tales” (also adapted by Eileen Moushey), a combination of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. (Guess who was a pig!) Darla, Marge, and Tiffany — we all wore snouts and snorted frequently. Again, traits that will remain with me forever. It strikes me that this show was the one where the audience got to choose the happy ending (with an “applause-o-meter”). And…the Big Bad Wolf turned out merely to be misunderstood.

Holidays, that magic time! Children, those magic little people! Theatre, where magic is born!

Theatre folk, please feel free to add your memories!