Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

At the start of the third year of Chehalem Valley Academy's young life, two things happened, I became a senior and we got a new vice principal.
This is Dale Hosley. He replaced "Mr. Hamilton" whom had been there the previous two years. Mr. Hosley or "the Hoz" as we fondly referred to him as, couldn't wait to get his feet wet. He was ready to jump right in, anxious to give this administration position his all, get to know the kids and be our fearless, likable, leader.
Early on, during one of the orientation talks that take place during the first day or two I saw an opportunity and I seized it.
See, since we were a new, small, private, start up school with kids attending at different levels and with different educational backgrounds, sometimes the school had to supplement a student's class schedule with an "independent study" class. This was simply to help fill in the blanks for cases where a student who was a junior maybe never had a Health class that all the other juniors took the year before. Or say maybe you were a senior needing to graduate but there was a time conflict in which you needed to take two different classes that were going on at the exact same time. Say, like Geography. That was me. I needed Geography, but Geography was a Freshman class and since the school didn't even exist when I was a Freshman, I hadn't taken it. And Geography happened to conflict with Senior English. "Independent study" here I come! This translated into one thing. Paces.
These are paces. They are made by a homeschooling curriculum called ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). One year of paces in just one subject meant you had to complete about twelve little booklets. The format was identical for every pace. You read several paragraphs, answered a couple questions about what you just read, and after about seven pages or so there would be a checkup. This would ask you all those same questions again, maybe worded a little differently. After you answered these twelve to fifteen questions you would start a new section in the pace that was identical to the first. There were three checkups per pace and at the end of the pace there was a self test. This was all the questions from all the checkups combined. You did this, you studied it and then you took your pace into the office and said you were ready for Geography test #1. You sat in the office while you took your test, which was identical to the self-test, turned in your test and then received a new pace-pace #2 and then you started all over. This was tedious and time consuming and independent so you had to be disciplined to stay on course and ensure that you completed all twelve paces and tests by the end of the year. We hated paces. So much reading, writing, re-writing, memorizing and testing!
One morning at the beginning of a class that "the Hoz" was teaching, I think it was junior/senior Bible, somehow paces came up. He asked if there were anymore questions about paces. I raised my hand. I told him that Mr. Hamilton had only required us to do the checkups and tests and that we didn't have to do all the meaningless, mundane writing in between. This was a lie. "So, is that okay if we do it like that again this year?" He thought that was fine and responded as if I had just given him an inside tip into how things were run. He seemed to appreciate the tip. "Listen up," I heard him say as he explained this "standard" way of doing paces to the rest of the school at the start of the next chapel in which everyone would've been gathered. Most students thought this was a new way of doing this paces year and were excited about it. A few students who had heard me "ask my question" new this was bunk. They must've either thought that Mr. Hamilton had been giving me special treatment since they all had always answered all the questions in all the paces, or they thought they were stupid and had been doing extra unnecessary work the previous two years, or they knew I was lying. But they also would've known that they were going to be benefiting from this lie, so they kept their mouth shut. I sooo wanted to tell everyone "secretly" that I was the mastermind behind all this and that they could all thank me for my brilliance and lack of conscience. However, I knew it would never stay hush-hush and I'd be outed, punished and eternally bound to doing paces every Friday night of my senior year. So I kept quiet. So did everyone else, no one asked, no one told. Not even Donna, the faithful, loyal and much loved school secretary who had the mundane task of correcting most paces asked questions. It went over like...like...whatever the opposite of a lead balloon might be. It went over like a hot air balloon, which was fitting since that's what it was, hot air.

Rescue 911

The other night I called 911 from my cell phone. We were on the freeway driving home. It was dark and somewhat rainy. Devlyn and I both noticed the car in front of us swerving. Swerving a ton! It was only going about fifty mph while the speed limit was sixty-five, but it couldn't decide which lane it wanted to be in. It was mostly driving on the shoulder one second and then veering to the far left the next. It was really scary to watch. The brakes would get tapped, then the left turn signal would come on while the car would veer right and then the right turn signal would come on immediately followed by the hazards. We were following at a bit of a distance in the right lane, it was mostly in the right lane. Cars in the left lane would hang back until it seemed somewhat stable and then bravely step on the gas to pass it.
"We have to report this." Devlyn said. So, it being dark, me not having a phone book and being in a hurry, I decided 911 was the best route to take. I dialed and pressed send. Then my phone made a noise I'd never heard it make before. Weird. "Clackamas Emergency," a recorded voice said, "if you need help, say 'help' or press 2." I did nothing since all I could picture was a person with a broken leg somewhere saying "help." I didn't feel like I really needed help, that just wasn't the best description of the situation so I waited, assuming that there would be other options.
"I'm sorry. I didn't get that, if you need help, say 'help' or press 2," The voice repeated. Okay....it looks like this was my only option. "Help," I said. Shortly after an operator came on and asked what my situation was.
He (or she, I really can't remember what gender the operator was...weird huh?) patched me through to the Oregon State Police. As I was being transferred, the car in front of us pulled off the road. Devlyn pulled off right behind it. He got out without hesitating (I would have hesitated). As he was approaching the car, a woman got out looking around nervously and anxiously. They walked to the back of the vehicle, squatted down and started looking at the car. I wondered if she was trying to tell him that her car had a drinking problem that was apparent when you look under it.
Meanwhile, I was telling all this to the officer on the phone and feeling really stupid. Um, I'd like to report a drunk driver, Um yeah, hi, we're actually pulled over now and my husband is talking to her. Yeah, they are looking at the back of the car. No, they aren't getting aggressive. Yeah, I can read the license plate number. Oh, call back if I have any more info? Okey dokey, rodger dodger! Click.
While I had been on the phone with the officer, I had been watching Devlyn and this woman standing on the shoulder only about three or four inches from the white line, talking back and forth while huge semi trucks roared past. They weren't looking at me while I was on the phone, but I was waving my arm almost like a reaction, motioning for them to "Get the heck away from the freeway where cars were speeding past!!!!!"
Anyway, Devlyn came back to the car and the women got back in her car. "What's going on?" I asked. Apparently the back left tire of the car was a spare. Oh, yeah it is only half the size of the one on the other side and I'd only been staring at the back of the car for ten minutes. I must've been distracted by trying not to visualize my husband being taken out by a semi-truck!! I wanted to say, "Remember when you were standing on the white line talking to some lady about her car while semi-trucks roared past you!!!" But I didn't. I showed amazing restraint. I must've said something about it though, because he said, yeah she kept leaning backwards while I was talking to her and making me nervous. He said she seemed a little incoherent but he couldn't smell any alcohol on her. Devlyn found out where she was headed and told her how to get there using back roads. She needed to get off the freeway and keep it under thirty-five miles per hour. She got back on the freeway and we followed her most of the way, since it was on our way home. She still swerved. The spare tire was pulling the car to the left and she kept over correcting to the right. Scary. I felt a little silly for calling 911 but then realized weather she had been drinking or not, she really was unsafe on the road.
As we got closer to home, I thought, "I just called 911 tonight, I don't think I've ever done that before." And then about two seconds later, I thought, "yes I have".
When I was about five or six years old, I was at my babysitter's house with my younger sister, my best friend Ginger and her younger brother Danny. Ginger was a year older than me and Danny was a year younger. My babysitter Ginny, had a playroom for us. At some point an unneeded phone was placed in the playroom for us to play with. However, the phone wasn't broken and as fate would have it, there was a phone jack in the play room behind the toy shelf. I plugged it in. There I said it! I plugged it in. Next, I wanted to see if it worked, so I called Ginny's number (it was written on the phone) and hung up. A second later Ginny's phone rang. I listened down the hall as she answered it, "Hello? Hello?" Click. Hmmm, no harm done.
Later I wanted to use the phone again but I didn't really know anyone's phone number. There was one number I knew though. 911. I knew how to dial 911. So I did and hung up. Nothing seemed to happen. A minute later when no one was watching I dialed and hung up again. I may have done it a third time, I'm not sure. I do remember being brave enough to listen to "911 What's your emergency?" once before I hung up. A little while later Ginny came in and discovered the phone plugged in. She asked who had dialed 911. We all looked at her bewildred. Danny and Ginger because they had no idea what she was talking about and me, because I was a good actor. When no one fessed up, she marched out to the living room and had us stand with our noses in separate corners. She said we were to stay there until someone fessed up. "Maybe it was Bethany?" I offered trying to use my baby sister as a scape goat. "She's not old enough." Ginny shut me down and probably began to grow suspicious of me.
Okay, so I'm standing here with my nose in the corner. This isn't so bad I thought. Not bad compared to what might happen if I tell the truth. I'll be in more trouble with Ginny, then she'll tell my parents with whom I'll be in even more trouble with.
"Danny! Tell her it was you!" Ginger screeched in a whisper to poor Danny. Of course, she thought it was him. It wasn't her and oh what faith she had in me to assume it wasn't me. I was old enough to know better. Danny was younger than me, but still old enough to know better. I couldn't let Ginger know it was me. How embarrassing that would be. She'd think it was dumb and be confused that I would do such a thing. No, I was fine standing with my nose in the corner. After about an hour, Ginger wore Danny down and he finally confessed under much pressure. I couldn't believe it. He fessed up to something I did and when Ginny heard, she said Ginger and I were free to continue playing. "I can't believe Danny did that!" Ginger said to me implying the dialing of the 911. "I know," I replied still shocked by his false confession.
Really that memory has haunted me. I never fessed up to it. I stood there while Ginny told Danny's dad what had happened. Danny was going to go home and be in even more trouble. He'd probably even try to tell his parents that he didn't do it, but they wouldn't believe him.
I couldn't sleep that night, the one that happened a few days ago. I felt like either a police officer was going to knock on our door at any moment and say, "We pulled that car over you called about and the driver was sober. You're going to jail for abusing the 911 system," to which I would have to concede. I had abused it and, officer, I had lied about it and, officer, I had let someone else, someone innocent take the blame and the punishment.
Lock me up.

A Kindred Spirit Story

There are friends who are more than friends, more than best friends even, they are kindred spirits. To an outsider, you may seem like two very different types of people-good friends-but very different. What they don't understand though, is that your spirits are actually made of the same stuff and this explains everything. This explains how unlike other friends, you two don't "grow apart" as you get older. You don't "lose touch" when one of you moves hundreds of miles away. You grow closer. I have a small handful of them. They are few, they are rare, they are instant and they are eternal.
I met my very first when I was around nine years old.
(She's the blond, not the baby).
Sarah Horst and I met at a weekday Bible study that our mom's went to. Both of us being homeschooled, we found ourselves together in the kid's building every Thursday morning. We lived blocks from each other for about two years. Then I moved and we've lived a thousand miles from each other for the past fifteen.
Sarah and I wrote each other religiously, emphatically and sincerely for years. I started writing her a letter on our way out of town, the pink ink spiraling across the pages as our car wound it's way down the California Grape Vine. I think she had actually mailed one to me before I had finished writing, and she never stopped. I would visit Southern California every year for weeks and towards the end of high school she began driving up to visit me.
During one of my winter visits I was staying with my dad who had recently bought-well, probably not bought in the typical sense of the word, but we'll say "came across"-an old VW Bug. In hind sight, I'm thinking it was very possible that someone may have actually paid him to take it. It was white-ish, blue-ish and gray-ish. The tired colors faded in and out all around the dome shaped body. The paint wasn't the only "issue" the car had. It had some trouble starting, and once you got it running, you had to work at keeping it running. It also had some "ghost" problems that came and went. We would soon discover some of these.
Shortly after Sarah came over, which was just about the instant I did, we decided to take the bug on a joy ride. My dad got it started for us then gave me his cell phone along with some pointers on how to keep it running, start it again should it die, stop, go, turn, etc. At first Sarah didn't want to buckle up. She wanted to be able to bail out at any time apparently.
"Buckle up!" I told her. I was driving and I didn't want to get a ticket should we get pulled over. She informed me that if we got pulled over, that would be the last ticket an officer was going to write-plenty of other things to cite. She was right.
It was dark when we took off on our adventure, which made it all the more exciting. We tore around the surface streets of the foothills, not really ever stopping at the stop signs-not just because we were in California, but because I was afraid of "killing it" and then having to try to start it again. We drove around with lots of yelling and screaming, some legit, some from the adrenaline rush and some just for affect. We arrived at Sarah's cousin's house and parked the car. We decided it would be okay to turn the car off since her cousin and his friends could surely help us start it again. Um, no one was home.
We were on our own. I opened the driver's side door, reached in and placed one hand on the steering wheel holding the door open with my other hand. Sarah put her hands on the back of the car and leaned into it with all 95 lbs of her body. We both screamed and ran until the car was moving. Once it picked up a little momentum, I jumped in, pumped the gas, held in the clutch and turned the key. After a minute or so, it backfired, spat out some smoke and roared to life. I tried to slow down a little as Sarah was chasing behind me down the street, but knew I shouldn't stop.
"Get in!" I screamed. Sarah, leaving her flip flops behind, sprinted to catch up and after I circled the block a couple of times, she managed to get into the moving vehicle. I was impressed.
We headed back towards my dad's house honking for people to get out of the way, laughing hysterical, nervous laughter and trying not to swear. We were pretty close to home when I found myself caught between a rock and a hard place. I came to a stop sign on a hill that I had to stop at. We needed to turn left on a very busy main drag. I had to keep the car running while at a complete stop, keep the car from rolling backwards into the car behind us, which was of course, a police car, and watch the traffic so as not to miss my opening. I sat there with the clutch all the way in, the brake all the way in and I had to ask Sarah to loan me her bare, left foot so she could continue to give the car a little gas to keep it from dying. I really don't know how we pulled it off-the successful, accident free left turn and the not getting pulled over-it was a miracle.

I'm not sure if we did things like this because we were kindred spirits or if doing things like this molded us into kindred spirits, but there is enough of these kinds of stories I suppose to serve as evidence for either scenario.

What about you? Who are the kindred spirits in your life?

A Yummy, Painful, Holiday, Decision Story

There are several ways to tell this story, depending on what kind of spin you want to put on it. I've decided to go with the "brutally honest" route. Yes, it's true I can be brutally honest when I put my mind to it. It's just that sometimes in life we contemplate, we make a pros and cons list before we make a decision, and then sometimes we just impulsively make a decision and analyze it later. We sway the pros and cons list in our favor, "Please, in the name of all that is heaven on earth, let this have been the right decision!"
Well, recently I came across just such a decision moment. I would say that my decision fell on the contemplative-impulsive side. Now before you say, "that's cheating," hear me out. It's just that I've been faced with this decision before many times and I've done the hemming and hawing and it always results in the same outcome. So while it would have appeared to the average passer-by-er that I totally did this impulsively, I would argue that I've done the contemplating so many times before, year after year, that I can sort of fast forward through the process in my mind to get to my conclusion. Here, in slow motion, I'll walk you through the many contemplative thoughts that took place in my mind.

Cruising down the dairy aisle at the grocery store, I saw...

And then in my MIND, I heard bells. Jingle bells...

And...

And then I wondered why the Angels I heard singing were black...my subconscious must've known that they had Whitney Houston as their choir director.

That Whitney Houston sure can sing!

Then in my MIND I saw...

The egg nog of my childhood...but then I realized that's pretty old egg nog and I wanted some fresh stuff. So in my MIND I prepared some fresh holiday egg nog and saw...

Mmmmm....and then I remembered that this last year we purchased a...

(Ours isn't red and overly retro like this one is, but I wish it were and since this is all taking place in my MIND...why not?) Which translates into...

And then there were more Whitney Houston-like angels singing. And then, still in my MIND, I thought of how an egg nog latte would be just the thing to take along on those evening sleigh rides...

Then I remembered we don't take sleigh rides around our neighborhood...but we do have children who do this...

For the love! For the children! "I believe that children are our future!"-Stop it Whitney, this is my blog, just because your angel choir gets a shout out doesn't mean you can take over! Cheesh, celebs, you give 'em an inch and they take a mile!

Then reality came back, flooding my MIND with these thoughts and images...


It's still fall...you haven't even carved your pumpkins yet!

And what about Thanksgiving?!

I am not a fan of mixing holidays! I want to be clear on this. I like to fully enjoy and celebrate each holiday before moving onto the next one. I don't like "having Christmas early" and I don't like "having Thanksgiving late" I'm a traditionalist! Don't tell anyone, it will ruin my easy-going-flexible-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants reputation!
So far these thoughts have been controversial to the egg nog, not contradictory. Until now. Here's where my thoughts get really dark.

Premium Egg Nog Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1/2 cup (120ml)
Servings Per Container 8
Ingredients: Cream, sugar, corn syrup, whey powder, egg yolks, nonfat milk solids, high fructose corn syrup, rum and other artificial flavors, nutmeg, carrageenan, guar gum, mono-and diglycerides, and annatto-turmeric (for color).
Comments:
Amount Per Serving
Calories 230			Calories from Fat 110
			% Daily Value
Total Fat 12g			18%
Saturated Fat 7g			36%

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Then I saw in my MIND Carrie, my Jazzercise instructor! (Who by the way is going to kill me if she ever sees this picture of herself!)

Double AAAAHHHHHH!

Then I came to my final conclusion, as I always do, which is that I was definitely going to need some egg nog to cope with all the stress these thoughts were producing!

So, in closing I don't regret my decision to start buying egg nog in October, but I would sincerely like to say to my stomach, hips and rear end, "Good luck! I'll be pulling for ya, we'll talk in January!"

(Please see above for the answer to this question.)

OSMI!

I know it's OMSI, calm down! That's just what Chase used to call it when he was little. Anyway, despite all the wit, charm, blood, sweat and tears I put into my posts here...you all seem to want nothing more than pictures of Charley. Seriously I work so hard to get the comments on my "clever" posts to outnumber the comments on my "kid" posts and they never do. NEVER! So I will pretend for today that this blog is not here just to glorify myself and my own selfish ambitions, but about the readers. Really it's about you guys and what you want! REALLY! Here are some picts from our OSMI visit last week to prove it!

This is the water feature. It's sort of like playing in the backyard in the pool except it's raised up to the kids' level so they don't have to risk any back injury from bending over. Scientists think of stuff like that.

Notice the waterproof smock and rubber boots they provide! Scientists think of everything. Charley picked hers out herself. Notice how they match-not a coincidence-that's the kind of stuff Charley thinks of.

She hates it when she's not ready and I take her picture anyway.

An then there was the play dough, I mean "flubber" table. Again something that could probably be recreated at home, but is so much more fun at OSMI with the little pint size tables and chairs and the neat little individual trays.

This is Silas, he's one of the W's we went with. He's the one who informed that the purple substance was not play dough but in fact, flubber.

This is Devon, he's another W. He was making a ball of flubber so he could "bounce" it. He knew all about flubber and it's bouncing properties. He saw it in a movie-I mean documentary-once.
Smile Devon! Smile! SMILE!!!
He's the rebel of the bunch.

Charley's favorite part was the scissors. She's fascinated with our scissors at home, partly because they look cool-we have several pairs in different shapes and colors-and partly because she's not allowed to have them. Here she is looking at me seriously, telling me that "these are my scissors, they are just for Charley's. You can't have them Mommy because they are very, very dangerous!" Being able to give that speech alone may have been her most favorite part.

Here's another pair for her collection. Her less solemn look her is saying something more like, "I'm playing with scissors! I'm playing with scissors!"

And finally she got bored with the scissors and found another tool that looked real-something mom actually has and uses at home-and took to "mashing" and "quashing" and "macking" the flubber. (She doesn't say her S's when they are at the beginning of a word.) Also, notice her crooked part. I did that on purpose. It was an artistic expression meant to raise awareness of how wiggly my daughter is.

Here's "baby Omi" (Naomi) she's the youngest W. I think she's doing a dance routine her mom taught her. Her mom was a cheerleader.

And one more of her face cause she's so darn cute!

That's it. Go ahead and blast me with your comments...you know you want to!

The Brick House

It seems that there is so much about my childhood that I love (loved?) love. There's so much about my childhood that was magical, both at the time and now looking back. Before I became cynical and depressed, before I lost hope in humanity, before I questioned everything on so many levels, I was a child. It was a time that really shaped and formed me. If I dig deep enough, it explains all the inexplainable things about me. Let's take a trip back, shall we? (Don't worry we won't be digging that deep today)!

This is The Brick House Vineyards. Beautiful isn't it? The barn is the building most viewable in this shot. There's an old shop (who am I kidding? The whole place is ancient!) in that first thicket of trees on the left. The house, the brick house is mostly obscured by the trees to the right of the barn.


The old barn has been renovated to a space more conducive to pressing, fermenting, bottling, storing, tasting and whatever else they do to wine. However, the wine is not the point here nor are the vineyards really. Here is a smicket (I know there's a "more correct" word for what I'm trying to say here, but I can't think of it right now, besides even if I could I'm sure smicket is better) of text off of the Brick House Vineyards' website:

"Spring, 1990. The barn was home to a third generation of owls. The eaves of the old house were swarming with honey bees. And in a field to the south, a great yellow earth mover pushed over the last remaining trees of what was once 16 acres of filberts (hazelnuts) to make way for the first planting of Pinot noir at Brick House."
Yes, we'll start about there, actually we'll back up. That is where the vineyard's brick house story starts and approximately where my brick house story ends. But they are right about the owls and the bees (or should I say the birds and the bees? No, sorry, different topic!)

The way I remember the owls and the bees-and remember, the way I remember it is the correct way! I was a child and once those memories are formed no math, scientific evidence or pictures produced claiming things to have been otherwise stand a chance against my stubborn childhood memory! Now...where was I? Let's break it down. Maybe I'll just cover the owls today, this is just a blog post right, not a full on book?

The owls back then were called barn owls-they may have been spotted owls, maybe, I honestly don't know, but it doesn't matter, because the minute they move in and set up camp in a barn, they become barn owls and nothing more. They were a nuisance, I can't remember exactly why. Maybe it was because they pooped all over everything in the barn including hay, tack and the barn floor which was, oh yeah, where we stepped! Us kids hated them, because they were scary looking! Even the babies. I realize that normally baby animals are cute, especially the fluffy kind, but no so with barn owls. Creepy, disgusting little creatures who should only come out on Halloween when such a sight is appropriate. We loved to go up in the loft and make hay forts, a place of refuge from the barn owls. We just had to brave the spooky presence of the barn owls who hung out in the rafters while we made our refuge. I should add an audio clip here of me doing an impression of spooky barn owl coos, cries and hisses-yes hisses, this is my memory, remember!?.
Whatever his reason(s) my dad hated these beasts as well. I'm tempted to stop writing here, because if you know my dad at all, I'm sure you can use your imagination to finish the story. Hahaha, actually yes it thrills me to leave it here. And if you need help using your imagination, here is a picture of my dad, I'm sure I'll do an entire post or two on him sometime.

Curses!!! I can't get my scanner to work! The picture I want to post is not on my computer so I was going to scan it and post it, but due to technical difficulties (there's a redundant phrase!) I'll have to post it later at best. I'm sorry but no other picture can be substituted at this time. Please bear with me as I continue to unplug plugs, blow on them and plug them back in, until my scanner works properly.



SEE...Creepy!

A Gardening Picture Story

Hi guys! It's me Charley. Today we're going to explore gardening! (She
has an Australian accent in this post. It's very crocodile hunter like.)
You're a bit early, I was just getting the proper accoutrements on. It's
awfully bright out here and you know as well as I do the dangers of sun damage! So grab your nearest, stylish, uv ray proof wanna be shades
and let's get going!

That's betta! Now let me locate my tools! Make sure you have a pair of over sized wellies nearby, just for looks!

Hmmm, so these are what gardening tools look like...

"Mom? Is this the right dirt? Should I use this?"

Okay, let's see what we have here...eww, looks like dirt sure enough. I can tell because it looks so...dirty...

Um, yeah on second thoughts...let's just put that dirt back. Don't want to mess up mother nature's plan...the one where little girls stay clean and flowers plant themselves!
See ya next time!

The Forming of my Future Fabulous Life: Part 2

I try to keep my posts fairly short since I don't imagine many of you really want or have time to read a "novel wanna be" online. But since it appears that I only have one reader and she wants more of the previous story, here goes.
Yes, the parents did come home that night. I don't know if it was late, probably, but we were still up for them to say goodnight to. Jacqueline's bed was a twin daybed boasting an abundance of decorative pillows, but under her bed was the best kept secret in my opinion. She lifted up her bed skirt and slid out or folded out, I can't really remember it was all very mirrors-and-smoke-like, another bed! I had never seen nor heard of a trundle bed, but you could bet there was gonna be one of those in my future life. It was the comfiest bed ever with lots of crisp white linens (I'm not sure what more linens than sheets there could have been, but surely there had been so much more luxury and comfort than just sheets). And as if that wasn't enough, there were feather pillows to top it all off. The whole bed seemed to swallow me up and whisper sweet nothings in my ear all night. I thought at the time that if I had been Jacqueline, I would sleep in the trundle bed every night. I loved sleep (I still do).
I also loved breakfast food. In the morning the kitchen was hopping with voices and coffee. There were incredible looking waffles being consumed by Katherine and Kate. I say incredible looking because I didn't actually get to try them.
"Jessica, are you a big breakfast person?" Jacqueline's mom asked. I made the mistake of replacing in my mind the word breakfast for morning.
"No, not really." What? Where did those words come from?
"What do you usually eat for breakfast?" I was one of four home schooled kids. I ate cereal for breakfast. Quickly. I had to be done with breakfast by the time the timer went off or I didn't get any and had to start school on an empty stomach.
"Cereal." Where were these words coming from and how did I make them stop! Who cares what I normally have for breakfast?! I'll take one of those waffles now please! But as fate would have it, Jacqueline was not a big breakfast person and being her friend meant, I wasn't either. Jacqueline was having poached eggs and toast for breakfast. I had never heard of poached eggs and wasn't sure I would like them. Her dad let me watch him make them, probably thought it was funny that I had never heard of poached eggs let alone know how they were made. I was surprised too, I mean I was ten and thought I had a pretty good handle on the different ways you could cook eggs. Scrambled, fried, over easy. That's right, I'd been to Bob's Big Boy a few times.
Turned out, I loved the poached eggs and couldn't wait to bring back this piece of culture from the Suburbias of Glendale to my house. To my surprise, it never quite stuck or even caught on at my house. However, I am happy to report that poached eggs are in fact a regular part of my current fabulous life!

The Forming of my Future Fabulous Life

You know how when you're young, you are totally immersed in your own immediate family's culture? Well at some point you start to get a glimpse of other family's cultural norms and it's a little bit shocking because you thought everyone's parents were like yours and so on and so forth. Then you realize, that when you grow up, you can do things however you want!
I remember being about ten and spending the night at my friend Jacqueline's house. She was a friend from church whom I loved. She was fun, fun, fun. So naturally I was very excited to sleep over at her house. Before I describe my experience, you should know that we were renting a house in Southern California on a very tight budget. I am the second oldest of four kids whom my mother stayed home to home school...not just me, but all four kids!
Okay so having said that let's go to Jacqueline's. Her house was in a beautiful neighborhood in Glendale. I ran up the steps and waved to my mom, signaling to her and the suburban to please leave now so I could start having the time of my life.
The inside was just as beautiful as the outside, boasting a spiral staircase, gorgeous hardwood floors with expensive looking rugs on them and a big shiny kitchen with barstools that matched their kitchen table and chairs. Everything matched. I decided then that when I grew up, I wanted a spiral staircase.
It was just about dark at the time I arrived but Jacqueline wanted me to go out into the backyard with her and meet her dog Bell. Bell was a young black lab. I'd say puppy but you know how they get big and look full size but are still puppy-like? That was Bell. I was at that time, very fearful of dogs. All dogs. But Jacqueline was persistent, really wanting me to pet Bell. She tried to hold her still, straddling her using her whole legs and holding her head with her hands. This didn't make Bell look calm and friendly, it made her look psychotic as she was trying to wrestle Jacqueline out of this pinned position she found herself in. "She's a really nice dog!" Jacqueline insisted. Bell foamed at the mouth. "She won't bite you. And if she does, she'll get hit on the nose really hard!" What?? I didn't want her to get hit on the nose, I wanted her to NOT bite me! Finally Jacqueline's dad came to my rescue, "I don't think Jessica wants to pet Bell." I was not going to have a dog when I grew up.
That evening Jacqueline's parents were going out for dinner and a movie with some friends. This was something my parents never did, remember the tight budget? They got all dressed up and left us with Jacqueline's older sister, Katherine. Katherine was thirteen. Katherine had a friend over that night as well, Kate. She was equally as cool as Katherine.
In no time at all the older girls had decided to do a fashion show with Jacqueline and I as their models. Kate took Jacqueline as her protege and I was Katherine's. She did my hair, put together outfits for me and Jacqueline and I took turns strutting down the runway, I mean hallway, while the older girls announced what we were wearing. "Jessica is wearing faded wash, bootcut jeans from The Limited, with a light blue oxford shirt under a yellow cardigan also from The Limited." I had never heard of The Limited, but I was shopping there in my future life as well.
Later that night, the girls showed us the dance to My Achey Breaky Heart. They had learned it in gym class at school. I was going to public school in my future life. That and definitely getting an older sister.

The Crawdad's Fate; A Picture Story

It has come to my attention that there are many pictures on my hard drive just sitting there. Not in a physical scrapbook, not even in a virtual scrapbook, but just sitting there. So it's story telling time folks. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so at the painful thought of me not using anymore words, I give you "A Photographic Memoir" for lack of a better title.

Boy meets creek. (Okay there will some narration!) Boy meets bucket and creek!



Boy hunts crawdad and finds a crawdad!


Boy is scared of crawdad and calls for backup...of the dad kind.



That's better. Now boy feels tough again.



Boy is successful. Boy feels proud!

Crawdad feels less successful, and a little warm...is it getting hot in here? Why am I magenta?!!