REDBOOK CALLED!

Did you know I was asked to be on the cover of several magazines?

It's true.  Yep.  Yep, I was!

So, I took myself to the gym.  You gotta look your best before a photo shoot, right?
Off to the gym.  Took my water bottle.  Well, the label said water; it said water.

Mountain Water.
King Mountain Water.
King Mountain Ice Water.  Yep.  Yep, it did.

Don't look at me like that.  I saw the fizzy bubbles, too!

Then I went to get my eyebrows threaded.  Gotta get rid of the hair between the eyes, you know.  You've seen 'em.  You know the kind, the uni-brow.  Where your eyebrows go down with a questioning look, but no one can tell, cause the eyebrows remain a single line.  Arch 'em in surprise, bug your eyes, no one can tell.  Frown in anger, no one can tell.   Scream and holler at the kids, give 'em the one-eyed evil eye and furrow the brow, forget it, no on can tell!  Uni-brow.

When the Chinese chick finally finished there was enough there to make Barbie's poodle a better sweater!

And finally I decided I'd best get a tummy tuck.  First place I went into the Japanese gentleman, I guess you can call him a gentle man, fairly yelled as he was bowing me out the door, "No, no!  So sorry.  No tum tuck."

Next place couple blocks down, another gentle man said, "Oh, so, you want tuck tuck". And he pat-slapped my back side.  "No, tummy tuck",  I corrected him.  Then he squeezed my upper arm, "Tuck tuck?" again I restated, "No, tummy tuck."  He looked at my mid-section, then he say, "Have customer waiting,  You go now."

I was so embarrassed I backed out the door red-faced and was bowing myself, "So sorry. So sorry. I go now."

What magazines wanted me on their cover?  Well, Cover Girl called, they wanted me in their before picture!

Cosmos called said my photograph would be most appreciated, they wanted the perfect model for "What Not To Be"!

When Sports Illustrated called I had my doubts but they convinced me.  The cover photo came out pretty good.  I'd sat on the hood of the Lexus, arms back, voluptuous chest out, one knee bent with high heeled shoe strategically hooked in the chrome bumper, other leg stretched out showing my curvaceous calf, with a cute yellow polka dot bikini astride my hips.  All very good.  Well, mostly very good.  It was photoshopped...nothing left but the bikini!

I told Redbook all that had happened, said I wasn't interested.  They said not to worry, none of that would happen with them, they'd put my full body out there, just like the Dove soap girls.

Persuaded, I went.  It was their Valentine's Issuse for February.  Nice.  I like red.  I like chocolates and roses strewn about.  This was gonna be a life-changing experience!

There it lay, on the coffee table, Redbook magazine, full body photo, little arrows pointing here and little arrows pointing there.  Ha, ha, you know the song, "Little arrows in your clothing, little arrows in your hair, you'll find those little arrows everywhere."

There was a little arrow pointing to my under-eye, "Maxine Concealer needed here."
There was a little arrow pointing to my lips, "L'oreal Lip Liner needed here."
There was a little arrow pointing to my cheek bones, "Botox needed here."

And the pièce de résistance, a little arrow pointing to my navel, "Tummy tuck needed here."

Tummy tuck?  Tum tuck!  Shoot!  I go now!

THE OLDER WE GET, THE MORE WE MAKE!

My body makes noises!  Don't look at me funny, yours does, too!
Just wait, the older we get, the more we make!
And, mercy, they just rise up on their own!

There's the usual -- the burp.
Let's start with the daddy belch, he just lets it out there.
The baby burp, heard mostly by mothers, accompanied with "goo".  (Yah, picture that pun.)
The mommy involuntarily escaping belch, hand to mouth, "Oops!  Sorry."
And the teenager belch.  This one's stretched out for half a minute, "Burp A, urp B, ur-rp C, urr-rrp D, and F, urrr-rrrrp E".   Yah, you get it.  All the way to Z!
"Bur-r-r-r-rrrp!"

Then there's the usual hiccup.
Daddy squelches hiccups.
Mommy hides hiccups.
Child complains, "It hurts.  Somethings in my throat!"  Blend it with the above teenager bur-r-r-r-rrrp and you have an interesting science lab explosion.  "Oh, no-oo"

And finally the usual fart.
Daddy fart, goes up and fogs the room like an A-Bomb cloud, "Leave no one standing."
Grandpa squeaky fart -- walk, fart, walk, fart, walk, fart....does he ever quit??!! -- walk, fart, walk fart!
And the baby floop, "Did you hear something?"  Time passes.  Moments later, "Ewwww, pew, what's that smell?  Baby?  Did you do that?????"  Smells like the cap came off the septic tank of a 200 room motel!

The Body.  It Makes Noises.  Unusual noises.
Cracking.  That's the joints and bones sounding like a wooden puppet clacking about the house.
Gums.  The gums shrink but the false teeth keep on talking.
Neck grit.  Turn your head wrong and you get the sound of rock on gravel.  Very unsettling.
And never forget the sucking sound.  Twisted lips to one side, hole so tight it makes a needle's eye look big, suck in air with a "schwoop", gotta get that last bit of peanut from between the teeth.

So, let's tick them off, we have burp, hiccup, fart, cracking, grit, schwoop.  Shall we go on?

How about noises that're rare?
The owl and the pig.  When a man snores he exhales, who-who.
When he inhales it's a piggish, s-s-s-noink.

Wait.  There's more; the tinker man, the opera singer, and the washer woman cometh.
The tinker man, Snow White's eight dwarf in the ear, "Tink-tink, tink, tink-tink-tink."  Wish he'd hurry up and find that gold!
The opera singer.  Vying for position in there too, so high pitched she could crack glass!
And the washer woman.  With her water bucket she sloshes this way and that, "Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh."
Stick your finger in your ear and wiggle it around good.  Won't help a lick, they're driving stakes and laying claim.  Squatters, they are!  Squatters!

Oh, you think it's funny?  You wait.
Like a slow invasion of special ops taking over your body, they jump out of the bushes, one by one, to create an orchestra of sound!  Never again will you hear the sound of silence.

Tink-tink.  Hoot.  Swoosh.  Sn'oink, "Oh, no-oo!"

Tink-tink.  Hoot.  Swoosh.  Sn'oink, "Oh, no-oo!"

Indian or Pilgrim, Let's Talk Turkey

"Let's talk turkey!"  I gotta say there must've been a mean streak floating around that first Thanksgiving dinner table.

Just think of it, we have the turkey bird, and I mean those things are squawkers!  But you catch him,  you de-feather him, you boil him, and from the butt up to the gut, you shove spiced bread.  Who thought of that !  Who thought of that -- cooked bread coming out the head?

I tell ya, Indian or pilgrim, one of them was feeling threatened 'cause it doesn't stop there.

You've got your mashed taters.  That's some energized force to mash a mess o' taters, especially enough to feed  20 axe wielding turkey dressers.

Then there's the deviled eggs.  How do you devil an egg anyway?  "Let's get that witch doctor to summon the underworld, these eggs need deviled!"

Keep the witch doctor, with his dance and chants maybe he can get them green leaves to cabbage roll!

"Hi ho! And while we're at it, let's roast a gourd!"  Did you hear the one about the gourd?  They say it's empty-headed.   And....the orange pumpkin said to the green gourd, "You look sick!"  And don't forget...when a gourd gets dropped, he becomes a squash!  Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing!  Roasted!

While the fire's hot, toss in the corn, will ya?  We don't need those squash eaters to eat too much. They might get all fired up!   Whoa, look at that!  "Pop.  Pop-pop.  Pop-pop-pop...pop-pop-pop!  POPCORN!

And eggnog!  Think about those two words.  Egg.  Nog.  I mean a mean streak was still brewing on that one, "I'd like to egg his noggin!'

Ain't got a turkey?  Get a goose.  Chase that thing down and give it a pinch on the rump,  Christmas goose!

Ta-da!  Next.  To the next holiday, belly-up!

GREEN, PUKE, YOUR EYES?

"Green, green, it's green they say" that old Johnny Rivers song came to mind while little Jay sat at our supper table.

"Green, green, it's green they say, on the far side of that hill."
"Ew, it's green. I'm going away", that's Jay,

What is it with kids and green vegetables?  Veggies -- I like em.  They're good.  They're tasty.  They can be eaten raw, cooked, or deliciously in a casserole.  But Jay, fitting the stereotype of kids and their aversion to green vegetables, climbed down from the table and scooted away!

Jay had come for a long visit so we offered him supper.  I'm watching him as he sits eye level with the table's edge.  He promptly told us, in his little 4 y.o. boy voice, and with much assertion, "Broccoli not for me" and he pointed his little finger in the air, "Un-uh, no broccoli."

Then John, my dearest hubby, set his bowl down next to Jay's plate.  John's bowl was full of baked potato, and chopped broccoli, and topped with melted cheese -- a stuffed potato.

Jay was observant.

"Hey, where is the potato?"  He sits low in the seat, you know, can't see totally into the bowl.  And then we got updated news, it translates to "I want some."

Nodding his little brown haired head he said, "I like potato and cheese and broccoli!"


****

So, on the way to our house, Jay is strapped in his car seat, wearing a blue puffy coat, excited to go to GrammyPam's, I hear him chatter from the backseat, "I puked two times."

"In the wiving woom."

"Big puddles."

"I had to go to bed 'cause mom is nice cleaning up things."

Can you see my bugged eyes?  Can you see my mind's wheels turning at full speed?  Can you just hear the brakes squalling as the tires come to a dead stop on black tarmac?

LOL, not really, but, let me tell you, I did make a phone call!  No sick kids are going to MY HOUSE!  Thankfully, I found out his memory is three days late!


****

Jay wanted to play ball.  We'd already played with the bug puzzle, the tote bag of Ty babies, the cloth road map and Matchbox cars, the child's bowling ball and pins, the Spiderman car and Spiderman motorcycle, the ball pit of a hundred balls, the bucket of jungle pieces, the toy gripper, the balance board, the paper towel roll pirate's telescope, and more!  Now, he wanted to play bouncy ball.

He got the pink 8 inch ball with nubs.  I got the swirly blue 6 inch ball.  He would roll and I would roll and we'd try to make contact in the middle to see where each ball would ricochet.  He was sitting on the floor with his legs in a V formation.

I had consented to playing as long as I could stay where I was -- laying on the couch with the red pillow behind my head.  Only one arm had to move, my right.  I'd stick out my hand, give the ball a gentle push, and off it'd roll.  Any adult is good enough for Jay, he doesn't know how to play on his own.  We're working on that.  So, he was content to play my lazy way.

Roll.  Hit.  Scatter.
Roll.  Miss.  Grab balls.
Roll.  Hit.  Bounce away.
Roll.  Miss.  Trade balls.
Roll.  Hit.  Laugh.
Roll.  Hit.  Retrieve balls.
Roll.  Miss.  Too far.
Rolllllll.......hi............

And from the fog of my mind I hear a toddler boy voice ask, "Why are your eyes doing that?"

Happiness; A Love Gesture

"Happiness is enjoying the little things."

This photo of orchid and clear crystal vase reminded me of my friend's husband so I have to tell you about him.  

When we went to visit my friend and her husband in Oklahoma in 1989 they were in their 70's.  Of course, both have passed.  But while sis and I and baby Clint were there the hubby disappeared.  Later in the morning we learned that he'd taken our car to the barn to give it a tune up, even fixed a headlight.  My friend, though there was 30 years at least between us, was a great pen pal for 20 years or more.  When her husband, a kind, hardworking, Christian man, came back in from his farm rounds he brought a short interestingly shaped bough of an evergreen tree. 

She bustled about in her white and blue kitchen wearing a farmer's wife apron getting out a vase to fill with water.  She set them honorably on the dining table.  "When he comes in from his morning work he always brings me a sprig of flowers or of some plant he's come across."  She let us know that she was a little embarrassed at what it was, but we could tell she was happy that he'd kept up the little love gesture.

Enjoy the little things, some day they may become the big things.

Ghosts, Playing, Help!

"I want to scare everybody with these ghost-es," Miss Lilly had found my homemade ghost magnets.

"A-boo!"
"A-boo!"
"It's Happy Halloween"

She actually sang her own lilting tune,
"It's a ghost, ooo-ooo-oo.  It's a ghost, ooo-ooo-oo.  Happy Hallowee-een."

You know what day it actually was?  DECEMBER FIRST!

***

Jay, only 3,  is jabbering and jabbering and engaging me in conversation as I'm making cookies.
I'm between baking batches and resting my feet while I play Candy Crush on the computer.

He jabbers some more trying to engage me further.

"Jay, you can go play.  I don't have to play."

He's a quick analyst, "But you are playing a game.  That means you ARE playing."

***

Jessica is burping her baby Jacob, he spits up all down her Sunday dress, and in a panic, from the front room, we hear her cries, "Help!'

Miss Lilly playing in the family room, kneeling in front of the couch scooting toy pigs and sheep to a pretend trough to drink, hears her, and replies, "Do somebody need help, a little bit more?"

Her mom in the other room with a bit of a chuckle in her panicked voice, "Help!"

Lilly runs by me straight to her mom, "Did somebody need "Help"?"
"Does somebody need a Super Hero?"

What Toddler Eyes Spy

We have a glider much like the first picture here, but its always put it away for the winter along with all the other lawn furniture.

Currently, all those pieces are leaning against each other in the garage.  That glider's in a sideways and covered up position.  

Now, picture it.  You're Miss Lilly, 3 years old, only about "knee high to a grasshopper" and you're rarely allowed into the garage.  It can be a dangerous place, but it's FULL, and oh so  interesting, and you've just dared to venture into No-No land.  

To enter No-No Land you have to navigate carefully down three steps half as high as your own thigh.  Your eyes are wide as everything out there feels like it towers over you, so your view is pretty much blocked and everything's in your face 'cause you can't see up and over and the walkways are narrow and closed in.  You're taking it all in, and this adventure is exciting because you know that somewhere out that in that tangle of wood boxes, folding chair legs, extension cords stretched from here to there on the floor, buckets of kindling, and GwammyPam's red car is your cozy coup and your red tricycle.  You're searching for all those fun, familiar things of yours.  "Oh, there's the butterfly nets!  And, there's the "duckies for the water" and "there's Jayden's pool".  Then!  Then you spy it! 

 "Gwammy Pam!  Gwammy Pam!"  and you're upset.

Grammy Pam steps into the garage to see what the upset is all about.  It takes a few sentences of toddler talk and adult detecting to figure it out.  

It shouldn't be in here.  It shouldn't be leaning sideways.   That's just wrong with its gray plastic legs sticking up in the air!   "That's my picnic table!"   "Fix it!"

IN THE RESTROOM, IN CHURCH, NO JACOB!

We were in church listening to the minister.  Miss Lilly was busy, busy, busy.  Her mom was home sick with baby Jacob.  Miss Lilly's business was all about child's play as her little black skirt swished when she walked.  At this moment she was standing on the floor leaning into the blue upholstered pew, and on the seat she was wrapping her baby doll in a blanket while next to her daddy.   The preacher said something about the House of Jacob in his sermon.  You think little ears don't hear?  Well, she went right up to her dad who was leaning forward, elbows on knees, with the Bible in his hands, and she poked her head between his arms and quizzed, "He said Jacob.  Why he say Jacob?"

LOL, little ears, they do pick up things.

During the same service she gave me an education.  This little sprit of a determined girl instructed me on how to wrap some pennies, LOL.  I wrapped them like a baby, no, that wasn't it, then I wrapped them like a hobo's bag, no, that wasn't it.  Come to find out, she wanted them wrapped so they resembled a sack that she could put on her back, "like Santa" she firmly said.  LOL.  

Oh, and you should see her in a public restroom, that's a sideshow in itself.  I told her not to touch anything "and I mean anything."  Those places are so filthy.  No matter how or who or when cleaned, they remain filthy places.  So while I'm locking the stall door, she gently takes one finger (I'm watching out of the corner of my eye) and swipes it about 12 inches along the wall, with a direct look into my eyes she rebels,  "I touched the wall." 

Grrr, the minx, she's testing boundaries.

When we were done, (and let me ask you, How on earth do you help a little girl get soap from the dispenser and wash her hands in those tall-off-the-ground sinks especially when we're all used to step stools?) she had a fit.  "My pants are wet!" and she flings her arms and hands down her side in a huffy stance and pouts her lips.  Now, I'm totally flummoxed.  Her pants are wet?  How?  How could her pants be wet?  Did she miss the stool?  Did she wet herself before we went in?  What the heck is this all about?

Finally, we communicated.  It was her pants, the knees!  They were wet from the struggle to wash her hands!  Oh, my lands!

But this little bathroom episode is chock full of laughs and I'm sure the occupant next door heard childlike exclamations.  While she was still sitting there, doing her business, her eyes got big, she was half scared, her lips made an "Oh" and I had to think a minute 'cause she hadn't left her seat so it shouldn't have flushed, she hadn't reached around to pull the lever, but our cubicle was filled with this huge all engulfing sound of  "SWOOSH!"

It had come from the neighboring stall.

LOL, Miss Lilly and child's play, like my own kids antics, make my day.