Best Advice

I am not very good at taking advice since I am a notorious know it all.  I am not one to give advice either.  Except to Joe and Bridget, and they call it nagging.  Go figure.

What I will tell you all about is the best advice I did receive from my Mom some years ago.

So that you guys do not think I am a monster, I'm going to give you some background.  I went to private Catholic schools until college.  So I did not know F. very well.  We are both from the same county in central Kentucky and when we found out we were going to school at Murray State University together we decided to be room mates.

I was so proud to have F. as a friend.  She was ultra popular at home and at MSU.  She was immediately elected a class representative, became a member of the most popular sorority, had a hunky boyfriend in a cool fraternity.  On top of that, she was gorgeous, very smart, and kind.   I love F. Having her as my room mate and eventually my best friend made me feel great about myself.

Times change.  Things change.  F. married the wrong guy.  He took her out of Kentucky and moved her to Detriot.  He resumed his education and ultimately became a psychiatrist.  They had two children, a beautiful home in Southfield, and a perfect life from the outside looking in.

What was really happening was that he was driving F. crazy, I mean really driving her to drink.  And that she did.  After the marriage crumbled, it was found out he had a girlfriend, whom he married days after the ink was dry on their divorce.

Then he became determined to have the house.  It was hers as long as she had custody of the children.  They waged a custody battle for several years.  She drank more and more, and began to slip into what I can only determine to be a psychosis.He won.  The children went to him, then he went after the house.  And in time, he got that.  He put her on the street.  

She showed up at "home" with a U-haul full of her furniture.  Her brother drove her to my apartment. And left her.Her family was at their wits end with her drinking and bouts of insanity.  She could not hold a job, she drank morning and night.

My Mom gave me the best advice I have ever received.  She told me to tell F. that she had six months to stay with me and get herself on herfeet.

When one is over the edge as F. was, well only a professional could help her.  She refused to go to AA, "Only a bunch of alcoholics go to that!  I am not an alcoholic.  I drink to self medicate myself, there is a difference."

Bridget use to find the vodka bottles in her bedroom and pour them down the drain.Bridget was 11 at this time. I began to count the days until the six months were over.  I would drive home from work and see her car in the driveway and my stomach would turn.

I love F. as if she were my sister.  She is the only person I would have or could had ever shared life with in a small tiny college dorm room. My friend no longer exists.

When it was six months, she left.  Every so often she shows up on my door step.  She no longer requires a U-haul. A suitcase will do.

News Flash

JON'S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

http://journals.aol.com/jayveesonata/NotesFromAnAncientEnigma/

 

 

Too Good to Hoard

I have decided to not keep these post cards in a dusty old box!  If you would like a slightly naughty, highly saucy post card from me....e-mail your address to me.

To Slither or Not to Slither? That is the Question.

The annual event of the Derby Eve Schnitzelburg Slither is this Friday night.  My brother in law and his best friend host this annual event.  What it all means is this.  50 to 70 of their closest friends gather in the area of Louisville know as Germantown.  At the appointed hour and place, they eat pizza and drink a few cold ones to loosen up.  The money changes hand, the tickets and passes are issued and the whole brigade takes off walking the tiny streets of this blue collar area following a guide as we march from one neighborhood bar to the next.

This takes all night.  Or at least until the last bar is reached usually around 2 to 3 am.  Actually, this is a blast.  Drinking rot gut beer (can you say Falls City?  Can you say Pabst Blue Ribbon?), staggering down streets to the tune of barking dogs and people muttering, "What the Hell?" to find the next small bar.  And they are small.  And our group will overwhelm a bar in no time.  My favorite are the karaoke bars.  Not that I sing, but I sing along.  We have been known to climb on table tops and dance to Princes' "P***y control".  We are rolled down the sidewalks in shopping carts.  We cry, we laugh and then we all come back to do it again the next year.

My problem...My dilemma?  I laid on the couch the whole next day feeling like I had been run over by a Mack Truck.  I consumed an entire pot roast and the fixings trying to make myself feel better.  It took three days. I began to feel like myself on Tuesday. Then my gall bladder began to ache, and has not been itself ever since.

I want to go.  I don't want to miss out.  I want to sing along with "You never call me darling, Darling, you never even call me by my name" at the top of my lungs.

But maybe, just maybe.....I've outgrown that type of fun.    Nah!

P.S. The above picture is from last years "crawl".  My sister Omega is on the extreme right with her husband, K.

 

Postcards from the Edge

I traveled the 50 some odd miles to Louisville yesterday and spent the afternoon with Bridget.  We went to the Cherokee Triangle Arts and Craft Show.  We ate lunch at a little cafe on Bardstown Rd.  We went to a book store on the corner where I found this pack of post cards.  I love post cards.  I mean, I  LOVE postcards!!! I collect them.

This one is from a set of 30 by Anne Taintor.  Vintage art work with a saucy twist.  Bridget and I were going through them at the restaurant, passing them back and forth and laughing way too loudly. 

It was so calming to spend time alone with her.

Thank you John! Assignment #2

1) The movie? Would have to be (changes all the time) right now Multiplicity with Michael Keaton, and Michael Keaton and Michael Keaton and finally Michael Keaton.  We watched this movie last week for the first time in ages and laughed hysterically all the way through it.  New line around the house, "I love pizza.  I  LOVE pizza!!!!!!!!!"

2)  My second favorite book would have to be The Wizard of Oz.  I remember my mother reading it out loud to us as kids.  We would pile on the bed together and read a chapter a night.  Me and my three bothers. (my sisters were born later, kind of like a two generation family).  

 3) Second Favorite album would be EAT A PEACH by the Allman Brothers, 1972.  Duane Allman'a last.  I will say no more.  

 4) Father Schumacher.  Taught us Latin in high school.  I took it for three years.  An absolute hunk! Drove a black camero and smoked.  Once took a misbehaving student outside the class room into the parking lot (the class could see through the glass window) and slapped him. That was that for the entire sophomore year.  

 5) Peppermint.  Like it with a little crunch in it!  

6) The only sport I pay any attention to (other than baseball and that is only because you can drink beer at the park and horse racing but that does not count as a team) is basketball.  I love UK.  I mean, I LOVE UK.  But, the only time I hold my fingers and hope the other team wins, is when they play the University of Louisville.  

7)  Is beer a food?   

8)  Okay, it's Don Johnson aka Sonny Crockett.  He was so hot!!  

9)  I'm not sure.  I only really like the Bugs.  

10)  Would you believe laying out in the sun!  You'd think I would have learned by now.

My World

Of course, now that I comment that I am uninspired the past several days, I have a resurgence of thoughts. Finally , something to ramble on about in Alphawoman world.

After writing my 25 things and reading the comments I realized so many people have a perception about me that probably is .....for lack of a better word, "cultivated" by my choice of journal entries. 

I am going to step back and think of myself as my co-workers, Joe, and family view me.

Yesterday I call David, a co-worker. (we are out of the office "selling" all day long)  "David, do you know what I really, really, really, reeeeaaaaalllllyyyyyy want?"

"I haven't a clue, but I bet it's going to be good."

"I want one of those bourbon oak barrels.  Could you ask your "Girlfriend" (I always refer to any women that the guys run across in the "market" as their girlfriends) at Woodford Reserve for one."

"Honey", (everyone in the South, male or female, calls everyone else "Honey") they use those things for making furniture!  They're scarce. Why don't you go to PDQ on New Circle. They sell them there."

"Because I want one for free!"

"What do you want one for anyway?"

"I want to put it under the gutter run off and save the rain water for my garden!"

"Honey, the barrel will be soaked in bourbon!"

"Well, so much better for the tomatoes!"

"It must be so much fun being Mary."

"Sometimes."

"I swear I think you are blond and dye your hair dark."

It was raining something fierce the beginning of last week.  My hair was ruined and I resembled a wet rat.  When it continued to rain the next dday, I yanked all my hair up in a ponytail and made a tight little bun on top of my head. (Bridget does this all the time and looks so cute).  As I check it out in the mirror, I notice my bangs are horrendously uneven.  So I grab the sissor and trim them, then singe them into a nice little roll with the curling iron.

I make my entrance to our weekly staff meeting 1/2 hour later.  My boss takes one look at me and says, "Glad you could make it, Gidget."

Everyone laughs as I get seated.  I turn to him and coo, "I wouldn't miss it for the world, MoonDoggie."  I receive high fives from everyone.