Who's On The Bus?

Ever hear of flying monkeys?  When Darling Hubby says "flying monkeys" he's not talking about those in the Wizard of Oz.

Remember being 6 or 7 years old and riding the bus?  Spit wads would fly through the air, girlfriend and boyfriend would pass loving notes, homework papers got passed over seats for sharing, and anything unsecured would be used for playing football, air-bor-ne!

When we first started riding the bus at the red brick house (had to call it the red brick ‘cause we used to live in the green and white house) I was 7 and Brother was 6.  Mom and Dad had me skip kindergarten so I went right on in to first grade; but Brother got to go to kindergarten.  It was exciting to catch the bus for the first time. 

Remember that?  Feeling so big.

Those first steps up into the bus were BIG!  But I’ve always been able to do something easily if someone else was there with me, so it was great to have my brother there to brave the yellow monster with all those wheels. 

Up we went.  Hey, there was my cousin!  Yay, Jimmy; Jimmy was on the bus!  Great! 

Oh, and there sat the neighbor girl Molly.  Molly and I had been walking across the cow pasture to each other’s houses all summer for what they nowadays call play dates.  Yep, we had to avoid the cow pies, and climb the wired fences.  You always had to climb near the fence post so the metal nailed-in square holes would support you. 

Ever have to do that?  Not fun the first time your foot slides on through.  You get scratches all up and down your legs!

Molly would come to my house with a note saying she had to be back home after an hour, then another day I’d take a note over to her mother saying I could only stay for half an hour this time. 

Their house was fun because they had an old treadle sewing machine, which I’d never seen before.  It was intriguing.  And wow, it worked 'cause Molly’s mom was using it!

So, on the bus, it was fun, too – my brother, my cousin, and my playmate!

We’ve come full circle.  You know what I mean, I don’t ride the bus, but now Darling Hubby rides the bus, LOL.  After raising a half dozen children who no longer ride the bus, Darling Hubby is riding the bus.  There’s a bus driver in my house!  What a hoot!  

And to top it all off, HE LOVES IT! 

The first day home he came in chuckling, “The flying monkeys are delivered!

Pushy Therapist's Couch

“If you currently can’t seem to connect with your character (when you have writer’s block) put him on the therapist’s couch”, that was a fellow writer’s advice.

The advice made me smile.  Big.  Then I laughed out loud. 

It made me laugh to imagine coming up to Biker Dude – burly, head of thick black curly hair, facial hair enough to cut for a large doll’s ringlet wig –and forcing him onto the therapists couch to dig deep into his feelings.

Of course, he’d land with a thud like a wrecking ball in mud!

 You think he’d take me seriously?  Shoot, no!  He’d grin with a twinkle in his dark eyes, then he’d chuckle.

“How’d that make you feel?”  I’m supposed to ask this as a therapist.  

He’d probably say, “Like Mack The Dog lunging for some petting after my long day at work.”

“From your viewpoint, what’s the problem today?”  second probing question asked.

“I have a pushy therapist?”  he’d query with laughter.

“No, Biker Dude, I’m asking what brought you to the therapist’s couch?” 

“My baby.

“Your baby?”

“The Suzuki, it’s a sweet ride.”

Clearly, I’m not getting the answers I expected.  Nor answers I can work with.  This Dude is intent on being entertaining with literal interpretations.

So, in my mind I turn to his brother.  He’s nothing like Biker Dude.  Brother is tall, thin, impulsive, full of silliness and named S’pencil. 

“S’pencil, have you ever seen a counselor before?” I’d try to solve the problem with this new patient and a new query.

“Absolutely, I saw you.” 

“You did?  I don’t remember.  When?”

“Just now.  When you were questioning Biker Dude!”  Oh, boy.

Still trying to connect with my characters and trying to get to the heart of the problem, “Do you consider yourself to have a low, average or high interpersonal I.Q.?” 

“He’s 5 ft. 9, and I’m 5 ft. 11, so I’d interpret-personally that I have the higher eye-to-eye queue.”  My mind is smiling again.

Going at this from another angle, I’d have to ask,  “Do you get along with your siblings?”

“Yep,” says S’pencil, “we get along just fine.  This afternoon on the way over Biker Dude said, “Hurry up!  Get along.”  “And I got here just fine.” Then he, too, would have a twinkle in his eyes.

In my mind I wonder, shall I put them on the therapist’s couch at the same time?  Biker Dude would command the space, as the saying goes.  And S’pencil would tower over him in a kingly way. 

I’d better separate them -- one on the couch, one in a chair, and me behind the desk.  Yes, the symbolism is there; the desk is a barrier with me behind it, chuckle.

Then, I can just imagine it; these two would sit there in glee watching me.

Give Me A Second, I'm Thinking

A dangling participle should be included, the worst sentence, as worstest sentences go, should also have misspellings, wrong tense, an few grammatical errers, and doesn’t never need no double negatives.

I’m thinking.

Just give me a second, I’m thinking.

I’m thinking my gray-haired perfectly coiffured English/Lit teacher would stand with her hands on her ample hips, look at me with squinting probing eyes, and wonder if she should lower my grade for that sentence or not.  She knew quite well I was up to something.

A prank?

Fulfilling a dare?

Provoking the teacher and therefore the class?

Enjoying a secret laugh at trying to pull the leg of a professional adult?

She knew.

She knew and I knew.

She knew that I knew better.

Ah, what fun.

She was fun, too.  She’d bring out photos, and artwork, and magazine pages to distribute throughout the class.  Our assignment?   Make up a story to go along with the scene.

Another time we were to write the ever-traditional essay about “What I Did Over Summer Vacation”.  Ugh.  My family was lucky to go to the local pool where we braved the turbulent waves made by the belly flopping water bully.  It was fun to spit chlorinated water upward like a whale’s blowhole in the bully’s direction.  We never did anything as exciting as the class’s Little Miss Popular who in just a few weeks time tripped up the Eiffel Tower, swam the Thames, and yodeled from the top of Switzerland’s Matterhorn. 

Once there was a fun assignment for my fellow classmates of filling in conversation bubbles.   Not for me.  Being funny didn’t come easy.   But I had admiration for others.  Teacher said we could use one of her papers that had characters already on it or, as Johnny would ask,  “Can we draw our own?”  Of course, Johnny could do it all.  He could draw the characters himself, fill in the bubbles, and write commentary that made you laugh out loud, my hero.  Just like Charles Schultz he could draw a Snoopy dog in love.  Of course, he became my boyfriend!

For one of my teacher’s other assignments we had to incorporate the five senses in our writings.  Her example went something like this:

“I heard the upward gurgle and felt the coming bulges of gas.  Then the stench from the splattered chunks of vomit of last night’s spaghetti supper rose to encircle my nose.  Like green bile in the back of the throat, the stench rose upwards to the eyes causing streams of tears to wet my reddened fevered cheeks.”

Sheesh, that was sensory overload!

With inspiration like these to write wrong, write funny, and awaken the senses how could I not aspire to Wuthering Heights.

We Know Our UPS Man By Name

We know our UPS man by name.

Darling hubby has found a website that sells vehicle parts a lot cheaper than any local auto store, and that price includes the shipping fees.

What a boon to him!

So, every few days either the white FedEx or the brown UPS truck is seen coming down our drive.  Just in case you don’t know, our drive is curved, is about 350 steps to the road, and takes 1.5 minutes to walk to the mailbox.

As the holidays approached UPS was coming almost every day.

Today, Christmas over, Epiphany passed, I’m walking through the family room when my eyes catch a glimpse of hulking brown bigger than me through the glass and I flinch.  In nanoseconds the brain catches up with the eyes.

“John!  There’s a man at the door.”

9:30 in the morning, John’s busy in the hall, halfway not believing me,  “Who could it possibly be?”

Opening the door, I smile and say,  “I told my husband there was a stranger at the door.  Hi.”  I reach out to shake his hand,  “Your name is…?”

“Chip.”

“Hi, Chip.  Are you the same driver I complimented the other day?”  He smiled and nodded an affirmative and handed me a big cardboard box that’s 8 inches square and 7 feet long.  Impressive.

The other day I’d been sitting at the computer, hearing a “Beep.  Beep.  Beep”, you know, that “I’m backing up sound” that emits from big wheeled equipment, and I’m watching red tail lights and brake lights blink as this whopper of a truck comes backwards down our drive BETWEEN the candy canes lining either side.

When the driver had stepped up on the deck to deliver the package I complimented him,  “You did a great job of backing down that long drive and navigating the candy canes.”  He smiled a response.  I didn't know whether to chuckle or turn my head in embarrassment when he grinned, “I’ve had lots of practice.”

Twas A Surprise In Her DNA

Lil Sis had her DNA analyzed.  Yay, this could be interesting, and it was!

As we sat in the Subway booth she started out saying there was a surprise in her DNA results.  (That means my DNA holds a thrill, too, you know.) What could this surprise possibly be?   For one thing, we’d always heard that our great-great grandmother thought we had some Blackfoot Indian blood.  Then there’s always a chance, because of U.S. history, that there might be some African-American blood in us as well, so wonder what could be the surprise. 

Whenever you get your DNA tested at Ancestry.com they keep a record and match it to various other applicants’ markers so they can offer up possible relatives.  If other applicants used a pseudonym you couldn’t tell, but if they used their real name, Voila!  You could tell.  Sure enough there were some.

She scrolled through the list bringing up a name of a woman that we’d always been told was a distant cousin.   She scrolled on down to where there was another and this time it was a playmate!  Our cousin, mom’s sister’s daughter, was right there with married surname and correct middle initial.  We, Lil Sis, Middle Sis, and I, seated around the table concluded that this analysis must be reliable ‘cause right in her hands was the proof from 3 corners of the world.

Dad had traced our paternal ancestry to Ireland many years ago, so this we knew.  Mom’s last name was unmistakably German.

Being inquisitive I asked, “Do we have African-American blood?”  Nope.

Okay, “Do we have American-Indian blood?”  Nope.  Whoa.  That was a surprise.

“Was that the surprise?”  Nope.  Something else she asserted.

So the results came back:

41% Britain/Ireland  (“Scotch Irish” of Northern Ireland)

28% Scandinavia – Viking era stuff that would have been precursors to Scottish and German people

19% Western Europe (German)

8% Iberian Peninsula (Spanish/Portuguese)

3% European unidentified

1% unidentified

The surprise?  The 8% Iberian Peninsula!  Spain!

One sis pondered, “Maybe that’s why the Spanish language comes easy to us.” 

Interestingly, Middle Sis has very dark hair and high cheekbones; she must be a bit of a Spaniard.

Finally, sitting nearby, my husband chimed in,  “But your Dad called her “Frenchy”.

Chuckling, I countered,  “He was one nation off!”

DOUBLE? NO, TRIPLE PUN FUN!

Johns in fine form this morning, LOL.

He comes up behind me, puts 2 hands on my shoulders,

“What are you up to today; are you going to a FlyFest?”

For a bit of information -- about 17 years ago, when I had many young kids running around my house, my pen pal introduced me to a website (when computers were new to us) called FlyLady.net.  Spun off from that website were groups all across the world that would meet every second Saturday of the month.  We were women in all stages of frustration from bad housekeeping skills and too much clutter.

These Saturday meetings let us vent, make new friendships, eat together, and set goals for next month.

So, he thought today was the day, but no, he was a week early on his guess.   I reply, “No, I’m not going to a FlyFest.  Why?”

He responds,  “I know you usually have one near the first of the month.”

Now, remember, his hands are on my shoulders.

I raised my eyebrows, and gave him the one-eyed sideways squint,

“I was going to help you out the door.”

Another example is that later on in the morning, I don’t know who he’s talking to, or what is the subject, or which meaning he intends, but from the kitchen I hear these words,  “I’m not one of those people who stand here and bellyache needlessly.” 

Let that just flow over you.  Take it in.  It’s such a double-triple-decker pun!  “I’m not one of those people who stand here and bellyache needlessly………”

Like I said, John’s in fine form this morning.  Usually this man of mine has what we laughingly call morning fog.  It takes an hour of passing time, cereal, and 2 cups of coffee for him to come to himself.

This morning was a surprise.   Early morning,  sun isn’t quite up, cloudy & dark.

I’m sitting there in the family room talking with Cousin Jack.  He and son Spencer had just stopped in as they had previously made this their meeting place with their uncle, my brother, Gary.  All were headed to a black smith meeting.  Except at this moment, Spencer was test-driving my new truck.  I could see the red tail lights leaving the driveway passing the mailbox.

Well, DH (darling hubby) and I had just yesterday brought home a new-to-us silver Dodge Ram SXT pick up.  This truck is very basic – 2 wheel drive, 6 seats, gray interior with a mix of vinyl and cloth seats, medium length bed, and a simple console of radio and heater controls but no blue tooth and no GPS.

So, here comes John.  In his pajamas.  And believe it or not, he wasn’t acting his usual sluggish self.  Down the stairs he came with energy.

His voice was raised and quite excited,  “Pam!  Someone just drove out the drive with your new truck.   Thank goodness it wasn’t my diesel!

Thank you for reading, hope you had a laugh.