Class Reunion

This year I am going to my class reunion. I won't say which one but it ends in zero. And that's all I am going to say about that. I think Facebook has helped me tons in reducing the dread about going to this reunion. I always worry about these things and whether I will recognize people and know their names and have anything in common. Let's face it, the one thing we had in common all those years ago was the luck of the draw of being in the same town while growing up. But Facebook has allowed many of us to take a sneak peak into each others lives and realize that we are all still the same slightly scared and unsure people we were several decades ago. I know that most of us have put on some weight, gotten a few wrinkles, some are grandparents (gasp!!) had some ups and some downs. We have been able to talk a little and catch up a little and be interested, a little. So here's to a good time and let's hope that maybe we will all be a little more comfortable with each other. I plan on practicing internal editing so I can remember the good stuff and leave the not so good on the cutting room floor of my memory bank. I can't wait.

My own prairie

Today I started my very own prairie. Well I really just decided not to mow a portion of my yard that had these really nice red and yellow flowers growing in it. Several weeks ago this same piece of ground had purples and blues and I mowed it anyway. I felt really bad about it so when the newest colors came up, I decided to let them grow. Besides, who needs two acres of cut grass? It is less than 1/2 of an acre of prairie (can prairie come in small parcels or is it like a dozen donuts and there is a minimun in order to qualify?)

Too bad my name doesn't start with a P, it could be Polly's Prairie, or Paula's Prairie. When I was a kid we planted tons of trees every year. Something like 500 a year. Apparently, my sister helped more than I did so my dad always talked about Sally's Woods (not her real name). Curious how these things come back to us later in life. So now I have a prairie and she has a woods. Not like it is a competition or anything.

I wonder how one goes about getting dogs, as in prairie dogs. Does the internet sell prairie dogs? Would FedEx delivery them or would it have to be the post office? Did you know the post office delivers live chickens? Just like 100 years ago. Some thing never change and some things become a prairie.....

Forgetting things but not the valium.

Today I forgot to go to the school and take down a display case of stuff (things the principal brought back from China) and a bulletin board of pictures. I was supposed to meet a friend there and we would do it together. I hate it when I do things like that.

First you remember and then feel guilty. I don't know about anyone else but then I felt a little put out that my friend didn't call me when I didn't show up to help. Like it was her fault! Just shift the blame to someone else. "Oh, it's not my fault that I didn't do it, you didn't remind me." What a looser. Loser, Losser. This is a word that gets me every time. But I digress. Let's just say a big fat capitol L L L.

Sometimes there are so many things I feel like I have to remember that it makes me a little short of breath. Stressing about getting it right. I don't know why because my family has such low expectations that they just take what they get and are always surprised that I think it is not enough. But it stresses me out. Now I know why valium was called mother's little helper in the 1960's. It would help. I bet those 60's mom's forgot things but didn't forget the valium!!

Maybe I should make a list..... This is an inside joke because I am quite famous for my list making. I even have a notebook in my purse to write all my lists down in. Lately I have been putting tabs on certain pages. It all makes sense to me but when I see it written down it looks a little wacky. Well today is not the day to go into my wacky behaviors and quirks. That's what the shrink makes the big bucks for. And earns every penny.

Fanny Pack

True Confession time - Here it come and I am really ashamed to have to write this. Well - I wear a fanny pack. Several hours a day as part of my job. Still, strapped to my waist is a large fanny pack with my company logo emblazoned on it. I like it. It is very handy. I put lots of gear in it that I used to inspect stores. But people laugh at me. Until I tell them how many violations they have and they realize that this goofy person has power over them. So be careful who you laugh at.

But fanny packs are funny. Who ever made them and then convinced people it was stylish. What a tough job that must have been. Bet he wasn't paying attention on career day.

Memorial Day and New Traditions

I think it is tough to have a holiday tradition with a very small family. I wish for a big picnic feast or parade. When I was a child (yes, back in the sixties!) we put crepe paper on our bikes and rode in the Memorial Day parade to the cemetary. Our bike baskets were full of lilacs and we would put them on the graves of relatives. We would ride in the parade with our friends but at the end, we would go with our families and wander through the cemetary that my great-grandfather helped start.

There were veterans walking in the front of the parade but the first one was always a very old man riding in the oldest fire truck our small town had. He wore his uniform with the big flat brimmed hat and stood in the truck because he was too frail to walk the 1/2 mile to the cemetary. My grandfather had fought in WWI but this man was really old. My grandmother said he fought in the Spanish American War (1898).

On the anniversary of the 100 year founding of the cemetary, my grandmother read a poem she wrote about when she was a little girl marching in the parade. The old men in uniforms were from the Civil War. I am still looking for the poem but she was in her nineties and was the last living child of one of the founders of the cemetary. It was a huge day for her and I remember how proud she was to have her family there.

Now I live in my husband's community. It has taken me awhile to figure out why I feel out of sorts on days like today. Yardwork doesn't feel right, we have a VERY small family. Five. So it was time to start a new family traition. We went to the cemetaries and took pictures of the tombstones of my husband's ancestors. We are going to make a family tree for our son with pictures so he better understands where he came from. It is a start. But still not a parade with red, white and blue crepe paper in the spokes of his bike.

Why are there a million things in Mom's head?

One day recently, my son was yammering on some incredibly detailed story about some lego whatever that was important to him. I must have appeared distracted so he asked "What's wrong?" I told him of the groceries I needed to get, the oil change in the van, my job as a restaurant inspector, the bulletin board at school that needs changing, and then to be at his school so I could listen to 15 first graders all read the same book to me for 30 minutes. His next words really stopped me. "Your head must be stuffed full, like infinity plus one" Yes darling, mommy's head is stuffed full of the lives of all the people I love and just a little bit of my life.

I just hope he didn't get the stuffed head line from the old Sally Field movie Sybil. Her neighbor boy said Sybils head was just stuffed full of people. And look where that got her!!

This is my first blog, aw isn't the blog virgin cute? I am married with one child still at home and three others who got smart and left. I have a very flexible job in which I am a restaurant consultant. We are living on an urban Indian reservation with my Native American husband of 9 years. Being a green-eyed Blondie from farm stock, I don't blend here very well. In fact there is one of my husbands uncles always referrs to me as "oh you're that white woman that married my nephew"

I also have a long time love affair with books and food. And if there are books about food. I want them. Mysteries involving people who get killed while eating dinner