Twas Brillig

Dearest Luisa wanted to know about me and opera, opera and me.

Well, there’s so much to this story.  Some of you probably don’t even realize that I am passionate about opera, and have been since I was a child.

So, we’ll start there.  When I was a child.  It is Flashback Friday, after all.

I’m a daddy’s girl.  I would do ANYTHING to be able to spend extra time hanging out with my daddy.  Daddy was an opera enthusiast.  He would stay up late at night to watch the Met on PBS.  I thought it was disastrous cacophony.  But, if it meant that I could stay up late and hang out with Daddy, then it was worth it.  And somewhere in there, I got into the music and developed an interest.

Again, this was just the beginning— setting the scene so that a few years later, when I was 12, I was ready to really embrace opera.  12 was a huge HUGE year for me.  HUGE!  I’m still quite convinced that I was more mature as a 12-year old than I am now.  But that, dear friends, will have to be discussed another day.  Yup.  You read that right.  I’m going to drag this out.  Two reasons for this:  so many people are doing NaBloPoMo that no one wants to read a long post, because they’ve got a million posts to read.  Secondly, I’m playing NaBloPoMo, which means that I need to stretch out my meager supply of writing material. 

(With a title like that, didn’t you just KNOW that there had to be a song to go with it?)

It’s a Flashback Friday, friends!

So… once upon a time, Matt and I went on a road trip. Okay, we went on lots of road trips. For this particular one, we were headed to Los Angeles (from Salt Lake City) on I-15. I was 18, he was 19. I had just been thrown out of BYU and he had just come out of the closet once and for all. He We had too much money and absolutely no sense of responsibility.

At some point, we pulled over–along that narrow, terrifying little piece of I-15 in Arizona. Matt handed me a Farrah Fawcett wig, which we just happened to have brought with us, of course, and a shiny satin dress with sparkly tights. I’m sure that the conversation went something like this:

Matt: Hey, put these on and then pretend to hitch-hike when truckers drive by. It’ll be awesome.

Brillig: Okay [as I proceeded to rip off what I’d had on and don my new wardrobe].

Really, it didn’t take much effort on his part to convince me to play along with his crazy games. And wow! Aren’t I fantastic?

(Some of you got a sneak peak of this pic at Cre8buzz–see? One more reason to join!)

Alas, our friend Matt doesn’t know how to scan pictures–even though his sugar daddy partner has a scanner– so this is a photo that he took of a photo. (And I tell ya what, somewhere between the camera, the picture, the picture of the picture, the emailing and the uploading, my boobs were lost. Seriously!!! Don’t I look like a little boy in drag? Hahaha. I SWEAR I wasn’t that flat…)

Ahem!

Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that no one actually stopped for me. Rude, right? Good thing… I don’t think we actually had a plan for what to do if someone HAD stopped.

That whole trip was one of the craziest of my entire life. From Vegas to LA to the cruise ship we then boarded and took to Mexico, it was non-stop Flashback Friday/Soap Opera Sunday material. We will undoubtedly be revisiting this story at some point.

Happy Flashback Friday, all!

Flashback Friday!

About a year ago, my son Bubba, then three years old, started preschool.

Yup, the poor kid started preschool with no fanfare, no photos, no mother poking at his hair making sure it looked “just right.”

No, instead, his mother was on her way to the hospital. Again.

See, I was very pregnant and very sick. I dropped the kids (Fluffy was in the same school, just the older class) off, practically shoving them out the door, and then dropped Scooby off with my sister-in-law, Pam, and raced to the hospital where I was examined and FINALLY diagnosed with pre-eclampsia–severe enough that they wanted to induce me THAT. DAY. (You who know how very dedicated I am to homebirth/unmedicated birth will understand what a huge blow this was. Pitocin? In MY VEINS??? I don’t THINK so! And yet… there was no other choice.) So, I called Pam who agreed to pick up the kids and take care of them. She was such a lifesaver. I mean, she expected to have one of my kids for a couple of hours, and instead she ended up with ALL of my kids for a couple of days!!!

I called Brian and told him the news, so he packed up his things and headed home to meet me at the hospital, calling me as he made his way. And then I did what any other completely terrified, irrational, and psychotic pregnant woman would do.

I started bawling.

And bawling.

And bawling.

And the poor man was stuck on the phone with me.

Among the things I was bawling over was the fact that I had COMPLETELY flubbed up Bubba’s first day of preschool.

“How could I be so selfish? I’m a terrible mother! How can I be trusted to bring yet another baby into this world??? You KNOW I’ll end up ruining all their lives, because I’m too occupied with myself to take pictures of them on their first day of preschool!!!!!!”

That darling husband of mine was incredibly kind and supportive when, looking back, we both know that he was desperately trying not to bust up laughing at me.

ANYWAY! Today Bubba started a new year of preschool! And this year, I was NOT going to mess it up. So, yesterday, I took him shopping and we bought him all sorts of handsome new clothes and then we made a HUGE deal out of how he was about to start class, and today he got to take a bath all by HIMSELF (very rare, when you have two little brothers) and I took a bunch of pictures:

“This IS a smile, Mom!”

“How many more of these are you going to take?”

“Frickin’ Brackin’, Mom! Stop taking pictures and let me go to preschool already!!!”

And then, just before he walked into his classroom door today, he threw his arms around me and said, “Oh MOMMY!!!! I’m gonna miss Fuffy when I’m at preschool!”

Well, okay. I’d sorta thought that he was going to say that he was going to miss ME, but really, I think it’s incredibly darling that he’s going to miss his older sister. What a good boy.

So there you have it, folks. A happy day! And, despite his mother, I think he’s turning out just fine.

Flashback Friday!

I’m a vegetarian. Sometimes I’m a vegan. I have many reasons for this, but the main one is that I can’t eat red meat because I don’t have the enzyme that digests it. And, um, if my body can’t digest it… well… you can imagine that it’s not a good outcome.

My parents always insisted it was all in my head. So, like any good parent, they would sneak beef into my food. And every time, I would puke it up, or *ahem* have other digestive… issues.

To this day, my dad still thinks it’s all in my head. I’m not quite sure what further proof I need to offer. All the doctors’ notes and buckets of puke in the world couldn’t convince him.

(In fairness, I understand their lack of belief in my ailment, as it should be noted that another reason for me not to eat meat is that I’m terribly picky–the pickiest eater you’ve ever met. I always have been, I always will be. Yeah, my two year old doesn’t hold a candle to me. And I hate the look, smell, and texture of meat. I cannot fathom how anyone could choose to eat it–enzyme or no enzyme.)

However, I’m also an adventurous traveler.

The two don’t exactly, um, go well together.

One lovely afternoon, my parents and I found ourselves to be the guests of honor in a rural town in San Juan, Argentina. I had just turned 18. My father was considered a Very Important Person in these parts. Being the guests of honor always meant one thing: I would have to eat meat. And I would be very sick. (Okay, that’s two things.)

However, what I didn’t know about this little village is that the traditional dish to serve to your guests of honor is chivo.

Goat.

In this case, a goat that was specially handpicked from the bishop’s personal flock.

In such a situation, there is no way to say, “no, thank you. I don’t want to eat your goat.” That is simply not an option. ‘Tis better to eat the goat and spend the rest of the day puking than to disappoint, offend, and insult your host.

It gets better.

Everyone eats the goat. But the guest of honor gets… the brain. I am not making this up. The head is cooked with the rest of the body and the brains are, therefore, boiled inside the skull. So they crack open the skull and scoop out the soupy brains and bestow them upon the lucky guests of honor.

Well, I couldn’t do it. There was this head, in front of me. It had singed eyebrows. CRACK!!! They broke open the skull. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t stand it. Thank goodness I was a trained actress, or I would have lost it all entirely right there–just watching, let alone eating! I could feel my gag reflex kick in…

My parents found it all a great adventure.

I thought I was going to DIE.

FORTUNATELY, my father found a nice way of sharing the brains around and *oops* there wasn’t enough left for me. Phew! But, it didn’t get me off the hook completely. I still had to eat the rotten animal’s leg. Which I did, with feigned grace and dignity.

I’m not sure at what point during the course of my goat-leg-eating that I casually excused myself, trying to make it to the bathroom in time. I didn’t make it. I rounded a corner where no one could see me and I purged my soul of the wretched beast. Oh what joy and rapture it was to have it all come back up and not sit inside me, stewing and burbling for a week.

I returned, charming and sweet. They were utterly delighted with me.

Fortunately, we left before I could tell anyone about the… uh… mess in the hallway. I mean, the only thing less comfortable than telling the impoverished village that you won’t eat their goat is telling them that you just ralphed up their goat in the church hallway. So, I sorta didn’t tell them.

I suspect that, upon discovery, they were no longer delighted with me…

Flashback Friday, dear ones.

Really, I can’t believe I’m about to post this picture. But it just had to be done. It was time you knew the truth.

There she is. The “blonde” Brillig.

Breathe. I know. It’s a lot to take in.

Let’s just say that blonde didn’t really, um, work for me. But hey, every raven-haired beauty has to try blonde at some point, right? Just to know for sure?

(And yes, I’m using the word “blonde” VERY loosely. It’s more like… electric yellow/orange?)

Here we’re at the year-end Drama Awards ceremony, the end of my senior year of high school (1996, if that helps to explain the fashion–though not the hair color…). Some of the awards were serious, but mostly they were just funny. You see, Matt was the Drama Club President (I know, hard to believe) and it was therefore his job to come up with the various awards and their nominees. There were many categories, all of them bizarre, and I actually won quite of few of them. Bryan, the strapping young lad by my side, is holding most of my trophies. Aren’t they lovely? I don’t actually remember what they were all for. I do, however, remember that the broomstick with the great big bow was my award for “biggest witch”. Now, I need to clarify that I won that NOT because I was a brat (though that’s why the other nominees were nominated…) but because I had played the Wicked Witch of the West in the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz.

Cuz really, I was a very nice girl. Not a witch at all.

(Kate has a pic of my Wicked Witch and her Auntie Em here if you’re dying to see it–which, of course, you are.)

The other award is the snorkel, which you can barely see. This was an award that Bryan and I won together. It was the, um, best kiss award. A snorkel to remind us to come up for air.

The best part is, though, that I was kind of a shew-in for this award. After all, the nominees were:

Brillig and Mark,

Brillig and Tommy, and

Brillig and Bryan.

(Again, NOT because I was the only one doing any kissing… I think. But rather, because Matt had a wicked sense of humor and loved the idea of humiliating me in front of my peers… and teachers… and school administrators…)

As for the dashing young Bryan, he was my boyfriend for a significant time and endured many MANY hair colors and was remarkably devoted to me. He would be fodder for some outrageous Soap Opera Sundays if I hadn’t caught wind that he… uh… reads my blog.

Hi, Bryan.

So, yeah. I’m not likely to tell those stories. Though I’m proud to announce that he and Tommy make a brief appearance in this Sunday’s SOS.

And so, do blondes really have more fun? Nope. At least not in my case. My blonde days were the darkest, saddest, awfullest days of my life. And it only lasted about a week, maybe two. Still, they’ll always stand out as a particularly bad time.

Brunette is SO much more fun.

Flashback Friday!

Tonight while packing up some things at my old house, I came across a box full of my Gulf War memories (more about that here)–newspaper clips, some journal entries, a calendar, a gas mask box cover. These little things transport me.

January, 1991.

I’m twelve years old. It’s the middle of the night and I’m sitting in bed, fully dressed, staring out my window towards Jerusalem’s Old City, of which I have a crystal clear, unobstructed view.

It’s always hard to calm down after an air raid. Tonight it seems particularly difficult. When the siren sounded a few hours ago, we’d raced to the bomb shelter, as usual, carrying our gas mask boxes and our shelter bags. Chairs and blankets were already set up, waiting for us in the shelter. The first item of business upon arriving at the shelter was to put our gas masks on–we must always assume that Saddam Hussein is using chemical warfare, because one of these times he might be. We know he has the capabilities.

Some of the little faces in our shelter are too small for gas masks, so for toddlers there are special plastic hood-style masks and for infants there are “tents” which look like incubators. Some of the babies scream. They don’t want to go in there. It breaks their parents’ hearts to shove them in. But because it could mean the difference between life and death, it just has to be done.

Our shelter, deep within our fortress, is full of interesting people. While there aren’t very many employees left at the BYU Jerusalem Center, there are a few, and most of them have, upon invitation, brought their families to live in the Center during the Gulf War. It’s just safer here. So, Arab and Jew alike, security guards and kitchen staff and Professors all camp together in the shelter. Because there are no students and very little staff here, there’s lots of room and all are welcome. Still, there are only thirty or so of us all together. We’re a myriad of colors, faiths, and languages, and most communication is done through pleasant smiles. Whatever might be going on out there, we all get along in here.

Once gas masks were on, we sat for a minute, getting oriented, hearts beating, wondering how soon we’d know if it was a false alarm or whether conventional or chemical missiles had fallen in Israel, or if they were on their way–or what?

The American man who is the Center’s director is trying to finish the Bible before he goes home in a few month, so he opened his big scripture and balanced his glasses over the outside of his mask–a comical but reassuring picture of serenity. Our appearance is difficult to describe–we look like large insects, or maybe aliens. J, my 15 year old brother, and I pulled out blankets and set up a board game instead of trying to sleep–we both knew we wouldn’t get any sleep, even if we’d tried. A game was better. Anything to take our minds off of things unknown.

One of the old women in our shelter who we’ve come to know and adore, suddenly exclaimed to her husband, having just come in contact with her own morning breath in the personal intimacy of her rubber mask, “how have you stood it all these years?” J and I nearly laughed till we cried.

After awhile, one of the Arab guards checked on his children. Recently the Jerusalem Post has reported that an infant and three elderly women suffocated in their masks. He leaned down over his young son wearing the hood-style mask–he touched him–no response. Shouting, he pulled the boy to his feet and ripped the hood off his head. Suddenly, the boy inhaled and started to cry. His mother pulled off her mask and, crying out, grabbed the boy, holding him in horror against her. J and I watched from our corner of the room with terror and relief all at once. Soon everyone calmed down. Everything was okay. But I confess to having shed a tear or two.

Soon the all clear siren sounded, and we were allowed to back to our apartments. Which brings me back to now, as I stare out my window.

This city outside my window seems so vibrant, so alive, so eternal. There’s an aura of peace, even among all the terror. I often find myself looking out the window, just to make sure it’s still there. And sure enough, after 3500 years, it is. It’ll take a lot more than a Desert Storm to shake it.

I jump a little as the phone starts ringing. I hear my father answer it before slamming it down. “What was that?” my mother’s muffled voice asks him. “A man, saying that he’s planted a bomb in our apartment and we’re all going to die.” My father sighs.

I just shake my head. We know it’s a lie. We’ve had similar calls in the past. No one can possibly get into our home here, our fortress. But they attempt to use the power of fear against us. It hurts me in my heart to think of their hatred for me, simply because of the color of my skin and the nationality on my passport. We’ve seen pictures on the news of our Palestinian neighbors, sitting on their rooftops as they watch scud missiles fly overhead, cheering. I’m too logic-driven to understand this. I asked my dad why they would cheer rather than seek shelter for themselves. He smiled sadly and explained that some people don’t care if they die, just as long as we die too. We know that this is just a small handful of people, a vocal minority, and certainly not the feeling among all.

Still, when I wander through the streets of the Old City, dropping coins into beggars’ hands, buying souveniers so that a father can feed his family tonight, and listening to a continuous stream of men offer my dad a certain amount of camels in order to take me as their wife, I can’t help but wonder if these are the people calling my house in the middle of the night with their bomb threats–the people rooting for my death.

It’s time to pull my eyes away from the window and go to sleep. Just before I close my eyes, I catch a glimpse of the pin on my bulletin board above my bed that says, “Free Kuwait”. I laugh a little. Who would have ever thought, when I was given that pin in London six months ago, that those two little words would have such a profound impact on my existence.

But I must rest now. Tomorrow this day will all start over again. I need to be ready for it.

Goodnight.

Photos courtesy of Jerusalem Shots.

It’s been ages since I told any Matt stories.  I was going to start in on Matt stories again, but then I realized tonight that many of you are new since the last time we talked about him.  And you really need to be introduced properly.  So, for a small handful of you, this is a re-introduction.  This will enable me to delve into more Matt stories in the future.  Here goes.

Once upon a time I was in college and my bestest friend was my dear Matt. Matt adored me. He thought I was so beautiful (he’s gay…) and he loved to dress me up and show me off. We had been friends almost our whole lives, minus a couple of awkward years in high school. But when college came, we couldn’t bear to be parted for more than a few hours at a time. Hahaha.

Matt also had some strange power over me. He would come up with these absolutely ridiculous plans and somehow I would always go along with them.

Which brings us to today’s Friday Flashback.

One night, in the middle of the night, Matt came to my dorm to get me. I was in my pajamas, and could I please change first? No. There was no time for that. Sigh. So I threw on some flip-flops and followed him out the door.

He had a very important mission for us, but he would explain it when we got there.

And, where was “there”? Our local grocery store. And the mission? To buy crackers and cheez whiz, sit down at the handy table right there in the grocery store, and invite strangers to come and join us for cheese and crackers and get their pictures taken with us.

Look at me. Don’t I look like a nice girl? NOT like the kind of girl that would be sitting in the grocery store in her pajamas, inviting strangers to come and eat cheez whiz with me? Do you see the pain etched on my face? The pain screaming out to you, begging you to find a way to make the crazy gay man let me go back to my dorm and go to bed?

But really. The craziest part about this whole thing is that people actually sat down to eat cheez whiz and get their pictures taken with us!!!!

Here’s to you, Matt, and all the crazy things you made me do.

(I’m currently trying to track him down so that he can throw in his 2-cents here.  “Hi, I posted some pictures of you on the internet…”  Wish me luck–he’s very elusive.  I guess that means I can tell MY side of the stories, huh?)

…to last Tuesday.

Okay, so that’s cheating.  Still, they LOOK like old pictures, right?

We took these pictures at Lagoon in their Pioneer Village.

Fluffy was so excited to be dressed as a “princess.” We preferred that term to “bar floozy.” Hahaha. One day she’ll know the difference, but she doesn’t have to now. The important thing is that she wore a sparkly dress and a feather boa. Yeah. It doesn’t get any cooler than that. I’m the outlaw in the back (holding a GUN no less! Many of you know how astonishing that is…), and Bubba was thrilled to be a cowboy–so thrilled, in fact, that he couldn’t keep from smiling in the “serious” picture. But what a cute smile! And then in the middle, dressed as the other “princess” is my sister Laura, who is the best Lagoon-companion you could ever have. She’s fun and funny and loves my kids (and they love her back!!!) And isn’t she GORGEOUS!!!???

Anyway, as you can see, we had SUCH a great time!

Here are a few more highlights … cuz we all love pics, right?

 They had the option of riding separately, but chose to ride together. It just made my little mommy-heart melt!

 Bubba and Laura on the carousel

 Waiting in line…

 Whizzin’ past me on a roller coaster

Train ride!  (And yes, my hair is in pigtails.  That’s what makes me a “fun mom,” okay?)

Yay for Lagoon day!  We liked it so much that we’re going back next week!  (Good thing I sold a kidney on the black market so that I can afford all of this, right?)  Laura has to work (frickin’ brackin’ work…) so I’m taking my mother-in-law instead.  Hahaha.  That will be a very… different vibe, but doubtless lots of fun too!

Flashback Friday, friends!

I’ve mentioned before that I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was 19 (yes, that’s not a typo. I was 19). I was assigned to the Argentina Buenos Aires North mission, which included much of Capital Federal (downtown Buenos Aires) along with some of the northern suburbs and even into some rural area (what we called the barro–the mud). Upon arriving in Buenos Aires, I was assigned a companion (another female missionary, and in this mission most were American, Argentine, or Chilean) and an area. We would stay with one companion, who we were required to be with constantly, until one of us was reassigned to a different area, at which time a new companion would arrive to take the place of the departing one. So, after a year and a half, I had traveled all over the mission and had had many companions (usually about two months with each companion).

I loved my mission. I had so many wonderful experiences. But due to the nature of this forum, I will not share the more tender or spiritual ones. But just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot of that.

No, instead I’ll share some of my social adventures. Or, in today’s case, adventures in socialism.

I was assigned to the barro with my sweet companion Hermana F. And yes, you always called your companion by Hermana (sister) and her last name. So, Hermana F and I worked in the barro. We met lots of people, taught people, served people. The barro was always interesting–it was called the “mud” because you were literally walking in mud that was several inches deep all day long. No paved roads, no sidewalks, nothin’ but mud. And since we were required to wear skirts or dresses at all times, you can only imagine how lovely we were!

Hermana Brillig, in authentic “sister missionary” garb (meaning, the ugliest dresses at the ugliest possible length, my crooked name tag–whoops– and big black bag* full of scriptures, food, water, and anything else I might need during the day because we didn’t want to waste time by going home during the day–not even for lunch) in the barro on a blessedly dry day (otherwise, there would be giant rubber boots on my feet… which went GREAT with my ugly dresses and skirts)

(and… hi. Is that the crappiest scanned picture you’ve ever seen? oooops)

*in other missions, they use backpacks instead of the black bags, but in Argentina we were required to carry the black bag and only carry it on one shoulder–that way, when we were robbed, which we were constantly, we could hand over the bag without a struggle. Many a missionary had been shot or beat to a pulp in the past because they hadn’t handed over their backpacks fast enough, so they had to make a rule about the easy-to-give-away black bags. But that’s a different story for another day. Still, though, how disappointed do you think the thieves are when they find that the bags are full of Books of Mormon?

(Here I am with Hermana F, wishing some friends a Happy Birthday via photo)

Hermana F was from Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost part of Argentina (practically Antarctica) and she was… delicate. I loved her dearly. However, the kind of work that we did was exhausting and grueling and you had to be strong to do it every day all day long. But she wasn’t. She was sickly. And so we spent a lot of time getting to know the Rural-Argentine health care system.

We’d been in and out of various (terrifying) free clinics, never once really helped, but often “reassured.”

“Oh, you have a fever, a cold, the chills, vomiting, racing pulse, and seizures? Here’s some penicillin. Just take two tonight and you’ll be fine by tomorrow. And then just save the rest of the package for the next time you feel sick.” Um….

Very late one night, she just stopped breathing. Understand, there were no telephones in this part of the Argentina. Basically I just had to grab her and haul her to the Emergency Room which was, thankfully, about a block away. At the ER, they took her in immediately and left me out in the waiting area, which was outside in the freezing cold. Again, I’d been a missionary for over a year at this point and I’d never been by myself, except while bathing and potty-ing, so it felt very strange to be companionless in this large waiting area full of people. (With socialized medicine, everyone ends up at the ER for the slightest twinge of a sore throat, doncha know. Waiting “rooms” are always packed.) It wasn’t just the being alone that was awkward–it was the staring and the gawking and the exclamations–exclamations that the exclaimers assumed I wouldn’t understand, since my looks were clearly foreign. I was, of course, completely fluent in Spanish so I understood every word that was being said. And I was feeling a bit threatened. Being female, American (and therefore presumably “rich”), and green-eyed in a place where people have only seen brown eyes makes one a target in certain parts of the world–especially in the middle of the night and all alone. Of course, it wasn’t really my style to be a shrinking violet, so I march up to some hospital personnel and said, loud and clear and in perfect Spanish (so that all those who’d been talking about me could hear that they’d just made complete fools of themselves) that I would like to be able to be with Hermana F now. Obviously I’d asked this before, but had been told that I couldn’t be back there with her. This time, it wasn’t really a request so much as a command, and I was taken right to her.

I was brought into a teeny tiny room, where I found her (conscious, thank goodness) hooked up to an oxygen tank. Again, no one had any idea what was wrong with her–nor did they seem to care very much–but she was receiving oxygen and thriving on it–well, surviving, anyway. Because of the oxygen mask, she wasn’t able to talk to me. Instead, we played “count the cockroaches.” She would point to the cockroaches, I would count them out loud for us. We reached over forty before she was discharged.

Good times.

Hermana F. ended her mission early–I think it broke her heart, but she clearly wasn’t physically able to keep up and she knew it. So she went home to Tierra del Fuego and I haven’t heard from her since. I hope some doctor somewhere figured out what was wrong with her and how to help her…. but I doubt it.

Oh, so many fun mission stories. We’ll have to revisit this topic again sometime. I mean, I KNOW you want to hear about how I bathed out of a bucket for two months because we didn’t have running water. Or that time that someone brought me a drink of water that turned out to be white vinegar. Or… well, let’s save it for another Flashback Friday, shall we?

Flashback Friday, Gentle Readers!

(Thanks, by the way, to everyone who has left comments on my last post. On Monday or Tuesday I’ll write a follow-up to it. In the meantime, I’d love for everyone to throw in their 2 cents. And guys! I haven’t yet had a GUY leave a comment and I’d really love to hear your point of view there too!)

Today’s Flashback Friday is one that I’m not even sure I’m ready to talk about. But here goes.

When Hubby and I were engaged, we were poor. Very poor. We needed a place to live. It was arranged that we could live with my Gramma D. For free. In her basement. We would be required to earn our keep, so to speak, by doing odd-jobs for her. She was nearly 100 years old at the time and had been wheelchair bound for forty years by that point, so there were lots of things she’d love for us to help her with. She was a millionairess, but it never occurred to her to HIRE someone to help her with things. She just usually guilt-tripped family or neighbors or the church into helping her with stuff. So it would be handy to have us there as her on-call slaves.

Hubby and me with Gramma D

Here’s the thing with my Grandma. She was not only extremely demanding, overly critical, impossible to please, manipulative, racist, and self-righteous, but she’d also made it clear from the beginning of my life that she did. not. like me. So why I thought that this would work out, I have no idea. But we were poor. Oh my gosh, we were so poor, and we had to live SOMEWHERE! Hubby was still in school full-time and I was working my butt off at a job where I was making just over minimum wage, paying for his schooling and our living expenses.

Gramma D at our wedding

I tried to get along with her. I tried every possible approach. My parents said that no one had ever broken through her shell as much as I had. Some days we got along and I made her laugh. I had a knack for making her laugh–it was my saving grace. Still, she loved to tell people how awful I was and even occasionally how abusive I was and how I took advantage of her, and so on.

Fortunately, she liked Hubby. She probably wondered why he had stooped so low as to marry someone as wretched and disgusting as me, and she likely judged him quite harshly for that, but otherwise she loved him. And since he hadn’t grown up with her, he didn’t carry all the baggage about her that I did. So that helped us all to co-exist.

We lived there for three years–I gave birth to my first two babies right there in her house. The hardest time was probably when Princess Fluffy was about 7 months old and I was already pregnant with Bubba. That’s just way too many hormones and emotions rolled into one human being, and living with a woman who thought I was a terrible mother and didn’t know anything about caring for my baby was very difficult.

One day she decided that I had made the floor dirty (in a room that I never went in, that had rotting linoleum floors that weren’t “dirty” they were just worn out and needed to be replaced!) and so she demanded that I get down on my hands and knees and scrub. I was pregnant. I had a crawling baby who kept trying to drink up the cleanser on the floor, etc. She sat in her chair and watched me, criticizing every stroke I made with the scrubbing brush. “Gramma, this floor is not going to get clean. It’s scratched. Scrubbing it will not make it look any better, no matter how hard I scrub.” She wouldn’t believe it. I just sucked at cleaning. She couldn’t believe I sucked so bad at cleaning. She would have to call all of her friends and let them know.

So, that’s Flashback Friday, friends! We will probably revisit Gramma D stories again in the future. There’s lots of blog-fodder here….