Of importance and of no importance...

I’ve been tagged by Ken at Grumpy Old Ken to list 8 personal facts, of no importance, but I’ve decided to also some things that are of importance to me alone, so here goes:

1) I’ve had a muscle spasm in my back for well over a month but the combination of therapeutic massage and chiropractic treatments make me feel there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This has curtailed much of what I normally do on a daily basis but I’ve read even more books that usual, which is a good thing.

2) Since my toy poodle, Lexi, has bad claws (read my post Lexi’s Claws) I usually do her grooming. Today, while using the clippers, I left my poor sweet girl shorter in a couple of places because I had the wrong clipper head and didn’t realize it at first! I refused to make it all shorter, so she’ll just have to wear a t-shirt when she’s in public until it grows out again.

3) I was made to wear a girdle while performing in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (play) when I was in the 10th grade. My drama couch, who was also my English teacher and a very, very old woman, told me I undulated when walking and she “just couldn’t have such indecency on a public stage.” She made me feel really bad about myself until I looked it up in the dictionary… then I felt very good about my teenage self.

4) Just recently, I did the evaluation part of Wii Fit Sports Plus, and discovered that my balance is really great and my age is 59 (I’ll be 68 on December 15), so that made me feel good because I haven’t exercised in many years and I continue to eat milk and cookies late at night when I can’t sleep. Go, Wii Fit!

5) When I was in the second grade, my grandmother gave me a watch that was her mothers. She, and my mother, told me to not wear it unless it was a special occasion. I was good about that part, but I was bad about carrying it around in my pocket. One night at a drive-in theatre, I lost it when going to the concession stand. No one knew until I was having an emergency appendectomy a couple of weeks later and I confessed to my grandmother on, what I thought, was my death bed. She forgave me, then told me I wasn’t dying.

6) I have a ‘dent’ on the top of my left hand where a classmate of mine stabbed me with her very sharp pencil in the first grade. Obviously, I incurred her wrath but for the life of me, I don’t remember how. Oddly enough, it didn’t bleed very long.

7) Also on my left hand, my pointing finger doesn’t point straight out; it actually points up from the knuckle. This is not a deformity I was born with, but a result of my own stupidity. When I was about 7, I was trying to “whittle” a piece of wood like my Uncle Johnny, with a pocket knife I wasn’t supposed to even know where it was, let alone be using it. Unfortunately, I was whittling with the sharp part facing toward me and I cut my finger just below the knuckle. Since I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, I went to my much younger Uncle Bobby and he bandage it for me. Neither of us knew the tendon was cut and when it healed, it contracted, bringing the end of my finger up permanently. So when I point at you with that finger, just know I’m not trying to be rude, well, except for pointing, of course.

8) I married my cousin and that made my Aunt Lois suddenly my mother in law, and all her children, my cousins, suddenly my sisters and brothers in law. Actually, we weren’t blood related as I was adopted by my stepfather, but it did allow them all welcome me into the family a second time.

To pass this along, I’d like to ask some of my newer followers to take up the baton and tell whatever you would like about yourselves.

Brightened Boy

Chatty Crone

Cimba7200’s Thoughts

Life, the Universe and Everything

My Southern Touch

Smiling Sally

We’re all in a virtual world here, so don’t hold back.

One Year in Blogland

Can’t believe I’ve been blogging for one whole year!

Of course, I received absolutely no comments on my first few posts, but we all have to start from nothing, right? I first began blogging to promote traffic to my retail website, but after a few posts about hand painted this and that, I thought to myself, this is really boring to me, so it must be to others as well. My consensus was, if I’m going to spend my precious time writing and setting up a post, it should at least be different from all the other people out there who also have retail websites.

So after a few posts in December with still no comments, I began posting about other things… and by mid-January, I had two whole comments; count them, t-w-o! And while I was trying to think about what I wanted to blog about other than my “stuff”, I was also trying to find blogs that I wanted to read and participate in. It took me a while to realize that everyone has a blog roll, and viola, I was finding blogs I actually liked! And then, I discovered following. Wow. How on earth did people like Vodkamom; David at Authorblog; and Willow at Life at Willow Manor have thousands of followers?

Anyway, finding that most of these people were blogging about their life, I thought that’s a great idea. I mean, I‘ll be 68 this month for heaven‘s sake; there must have been something I had done in that amount of time that was a little bit interesting. So I started blogging about things I had experienced such as southern cockroaches, a particular recurring dream, and about somewhat humorous faux pas in my earlier life.

Then I started getting more than two comments which really made me feel good about my writing, so in early April, I started writing stories of my living and working abroad and I was in heaven with lots of encouraging comments… lots to me is more than two!

Among my very first and most faithful commenters are Beth at What I Should Have Said; Michel at Facts Are Strictly Optional; Suzanne at The Question of the Day; Derrick at Melrose Musings; Sheila at The Quintessential Magpie; Fragrant Liar; Lou Cinda at Tattered Hydrangeas; Nikki at Blah, Blah, Blah Blog;  and Words of Wisdom from a Smart Mouth Broad. And of course, my daughter, Toni at Dee-Zigns Jewelry, who had just returned to blogging.

These wonderful people found and followed me from the beginning and I want to thank them collectively for giving me the confidence to charge ahead... and I want to thank all of those who jumped on my little wagon and remain with me to this day. You're on my blog roll so I won't be singling you out, but I hope you know how important you are to me!

Then I discovered awards when Beth at What I Should Have Said presented me (and Michel) with a Tuesday’s Tribute award. What an honor it was to receive that first award, and each one that came after was received with equal humility and pride. And I shared every one of them, unlike some people I know named Michel. When I received my first Post of the Day from David at Authorblog, I was over the top.

Throughout the following months until the present, I’ve discovered and am following many fantastic bloggers, so many of whom I consider to be friends even though we’ve never met. And it’s this feeling of friendship and sharing and closeness that keeps me blogging and I imagine will continue to do so for a long time to come… or at least until I run out of stories and/or memory, whichever comes first. At my age, you can never tell.

So I want to thank each and every one of you who has ever read even one of my posts, and whether you’ve ever commented or not. I feel I’m being followed by some of the very best people in blogland and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for letting me tell you my stories and taking the time to read them.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Our Little Garage

I married for love, not money. When my husband, Bill, and I first married, we lived with his family for a short while, then we lived in the upstairs apartment of an old Victorian of my paternal grandparents in downtown Savannah. This was in the early 1960s.

When I became pregnant with my second child, Sandi, we moved into a two car garage that had been renovated into an apartment. It wasn’t the Taj Mahal, but it was clean and had two bedrooms which was perfect for my daughter, Toni, and soon to be new baby.

Toni was precocious and curious about all things. One weekend morning in dead winter, it had snowed overnight. Yep, the occasional snow in the deep south does happen, about once every million years. Toni slept in her crib, but had long since figured out how to climb out and on this particular morning when we woke, she had not only climbed out but had pulled up a chair and opened the lock on the front door.

Like any mother would, I panicked. I instantly pictured my adorable little blonde haired girl in her sleepers walking around in the freezing snow, alone and frightened. Okay, it was only two inches of snow, but I have always had a vivid imagination. Bill threw on a coat and ran to our landlord’s house to see if she had maybe gone visiting as they often kept cookies for her.

I was very pregnant but ran out to look in the back yard, screaming her name like a banshee. With the landlords, we split up to canvass the neighborhood. It was only a few minutes later that Bill found her, playing in the snow behind the church that was right across the street. Her little hands were freezing and her sleeper feet were soaked, but she was fine and smiling. Bill immediately installed a lock on the front door, too high for her to reach.

We had a huge yard but it wasn’t fenced, and it seemed every time I was busy changing Sandi’s diapers, Toni would decide to “go see daddy” and would wander away. She never went far before I finished what I was doing and ran to collect her, but she needed constant watching if she was outside.

In the kitchen was one of those old type refrigerators with the tiny little freezer at the top, but that was okay. It worked just fine but there was something about the handle that intrigued my then two year old child. Toni was constantly opening and closing the refrigerator and yes, it got on my nerves to be also constantly correctly her.

Bill was a very handy man so I knew to find the stud, hammer in a nail as a starter hole, then screw in the hook. One day I had been using the hammer to put up some hooks in the kitchen for potholders and was using the top of the fridge to keep the hammer and hardware. Toni was opening and closing the refrigerator door, as usual, and I was telling her in a firm voice, as usual, to stop. And, as usual, she wasn’t listening.

At that time, I spanked my children, on the bottom, with my hand, when they persisted in misbehaving. On this day, I had spanked Toni once and she had gone into her bedroom to pout, but soon, she was back in the kitchen, at the fridge door, opening and closing, opening and closing, and occasionally sneaking a peak at me to see if I noticed.

I noticed all right and on this occasion, I suddenly grabbed the hammer and started beating on the door handle. I beat that handle right off the fridge while Toni stood there watching me, her eyes huge in what I suspect was fright. It only took a few seconds to beat the handle off, and then I scooped Toni up in my arms, went into the living room and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe I had been in such a rage and did such a thing in front of my baby girl.

After the crying jag was over and Toni realized she was in no danger of being hammered by me, she went to play with her toys while I tried to figure out how to open the door so that I could make dinner for my family. When Bill came home that evening, I was embarrassed to tell him what I had done. He listened patiently, then rigged up a screen door spring that was attached to the remains of the handle and wrapped around the side of the fridge where it could be attached to a screw he had placed on the back.

In this manner, I used that same old fridge for the remaining two years we lived in that small garage. Since it was a fridge my grandparents wasn’t using, at least we didn’t owe our landlords a new one. Many times, if I wasn’t careful unhooking the spring from the screw in back, it would dart forward quickly and hit me in the stomach. I figured this was my pain for having subjected my daughter to my anger.

Many years later, Bill told me he could have put a new handle on the door but he didn’t because he wanted me to be reminded of how I had reacted to a child’s curiosity. He felt the situation could have been handled differently and, of course, he was right. Toni couldn’t open that fridge again but she would watch me as I unhooked and rehooked the spring and I was sure she was going to give it a try some time, but she never did.

Thankfully, this incident didn’t deter Toni’s precociousness or curiosity and I’ll tell you about some of her escapades in later posts. But this is a child who loved/loves me unconditionally and has become one of the best mothers I’ve ever known. Where she learned how, I’ll never know but I’m glad she did as I have two beautiful and well behaved grandchildren, Erika and Blake. I’m so proud of Toni for being her independent, creative self, and for being such a good mom.

Jane
Gaston Studio

The Porcelain Doll

When I was 9, we moved to another house on the outskirts of the city. The backyard was huge and filled with fruit bearing trees, and I attended a grammar school where one of my mother’s male cousins taught. These were in the days that teachers were allowed to paddle students as punishment for indiscretions.

One day, my teacher/cousin caught a young boy chewing gum. He called the boy to the front of the room where he paddled him as we all watched and cringed. I learned much later that my mother had asked him to make sure I saw a paddling so that I would “stay in line.” I was always a good student and liked school as it got me away from home and you can believe I never even considered chewing gum or talking in class after that little demonstration.

That first Christmas, my mother must have been in a good mood because I received the most beautiful doll I had ever seen. She stood about two feet tall, had porcelain face, arms and legs and was dressed in an antebellum style gown including a matching parasol. I loved that doll and she spent her all her time on my carefully made up bed because I didn’t want her to ever get dirty. I can still see every detail of her in my mind’s eye, she was so precious to me.

This house was very large and had hardwood floors throughout. The hallway was vast, about 12 feet wide by 25 feet long. Many a Saturday morning, I spent hand waxing that hall to shine you could see your face in, as we didn’t have a buffing machine. I had to hand wax the furniture too, but only in the living room as it appeared that my mother was only concerned with what visitors would see.

My other chores remained the same which was clearing up after each meal, washing and drying the dishes, and moping the floor. By this time, my mother had had my first little sister, so I had two young children to look after and entertain while she continued to read romance magazines but, to be honest, she also did the laundry, cooked meals, and cleaned the rest of the house.

I need to digress here just a bit. I’ve thought about this a lot since my mother died when I was in my early 30s and since I wrote my last post. I was diagnosed with endogenous depression in my late 30s and have since endured two more bouts of this phenomenon. Since this is genetic, I was convinced my mom must have also suffered from this same chemical imbalance, albeit untreated. In those days, menopause was treated with valium and this is exactly what our family physician told mom was the problem when she finally sought treatment. This was in the 50s and wasn’t an unusual practice. When a nephew was diagnosed with a bipolar problem a few years ago, I started rethinking my mother’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality.

But this was in the early 50s and I was a child. I had few friends because once some kid came over to my house and witnessed a Mr. Hyde incident, their parents never let them return and didn’t invite me to their house again. Of course, I played outside with other children, but it’s hard to develop a close friendship when you can’t get behind closed doors, giggle together and just plain share.

So back to the porcelain doll. On this particular day, I was helping my mother make jam from the fresh fruit. My job was to hold the cheesecloth in place while she poured the mixture into mason jars. I was tired because I had already waxed the hallway and was waiting on it to totally dry so that it could be hand buffed. I also wanted to go outside and ride my bike, hoping I would run into one of the neighborhood girls so that we could play together before it got dark.

Evidently, I let my concentration drift and pulled the cheesecloth too tight so that when my mom poured the hot liquid, it began running down the side of the jar. She screamed at me, I jumped, the jar crashed to the floor, and there was a mess to clean up.

I grabbed a dishcloth and began wiping up the sugary mixture while mom screamed. I’ve already said she could curse like a sailor and she didn’t hold back while calling me names I’m too embarrassed for her to repeat. It took several minutes to get everything clean and back in order and while I cried the entire time, I felt thankful that she hadn’t taken the long, heavy steel spoon to my back. But she had other plans for me.

After we finished filling the jars, she calmly walked into my bedroom, took my beautiful doll off my bed and told me to follow her. I was immediately petrified but I followed her to a nearby oak tree. Her face was red and filled with loathing as she methodically beat my doll into pieces while I stood by, begging her to stop, and crying as loud as I’d ever done in my life at that time.

She then broke the parasol in two and ripped the chiffon with her fingers, then she ripped the doll’s antebellum dress into shreds. When she finished, she made me pick up all the pieces and throw them into the garbage, then she told me: “How does it feel to have something you love taken away from you forever?”

Something so beautiful, that I had loved so much, had been destroyed in a fit of rage because I had done something unintentionally wrong when I was 9 years old. After that, at least she allowed me to wallow in my sorrow, alone in my room until dinnertime.

I’ll never forget the shock on my dad’s face when she told him what happened and what she had done about it at dinner. Before bedtime, my dad came into my room and told me how sorry he was that mom had destroyed my doll. That eased the pain somewhat, but I never again was given anything to compare to that doll, and I was glad. Glad there would be nothing in my life I loved so much that could so easily be taken away with such finality.

Jane

NOTE: I’m writing about these once painful events in my life because I hope they will help someone out there in blogland who may be on either end of this spectrum. To bring to light, that there are many persons suffering from a mental illness that could easily be controlled if they seek professional help. If you know of a child in this situation, please talk to them or get them to someone who can.