FUZZY WUZZY WAS A BEAR AND OTHER MATTERS

I never see a goose without thinking of my dad. My dad was born in 1914. The house he grew up in did not have an indoor toilet. He told me that when he was little, it always was an adventure getting to the outhouse. His father and mother kept a goose for the eggs. The goose apparently thought it was her job to protect the outhouse. Dad would have to out run the goose to the outhouse. If he were not fast enough, she would grab him by the seat of the pants with her beak. He said when that would happen he could not go anywhere. The mental picture of my dad, a small lad of 4 trying to run while being held back by a goose that had his behind firmly held in her beak, always made me laugh. Dad had good stories of his childhood.

Besides telling me stories of his childhood, my dad would patiently read to me my favorite nursery rhymes and stories night after night at bedtime. My two favorite nursery rhymes when I was little were:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy was he?

And:

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I’d rather see one then be one.

I guess even as a little girl, I was a sucker for the physically handicapped and mentally ill. No wonder I became a Social Worker. Later as a mother, I was ecstatic to find a stuffed bear that had a fur coat that unzipped and came off like a union suit. He had red-stripped underwear underneath. My little girl at first did not know why I insisted he be called Fuzzy Wuzzy. But I was glad to tell her the poem and also glad someone had, from my point of view, been able to solve Fuzzy Wuzzy’s no hair problem, and very neatly too. Never did find a purple cow, but that is why I am a Social Worker and not a mental patient.

THE PURPLE GANG

I am a proud member of The Purple Gang, a chapter of The Red Hat Society. We meet for lunch and fun the second Saturday of each month. This past Saturday was one of the nicest, not the food, but the company. It is my birthday month and I wore my new purple hat. We normally wear red hats, as the society name implies, but if it is our birthday month we can wear purple hats. Anyway, I got a lot of compliments on my hat, and I got birthday cards and presents. Thanks to all that gave me such nice cards and gifts. Among other wonderful presents, I received a Red Hat Society teddy bear and Glow in the Dark jigsaw puzzle from my Secret Sister and a heart shaped frame Pat gave me. I got other presents too. The conversation that day was good, I felt good, the adult beverages I consumed were good, but the meal was not. Oh well, can’t have everything. There was only one thing missing which would have made the afternoon especially nice. My best friend Karol was not there. We joined The Purple Gang together; almost always go to the meetings together, but this day she had to visit her brother in the hospital in Ohio. Hopefully she can attend again next month. Next Monday, we hope to go to Lansing for a Red Hat doings. See all you Michigan Red Hatters there.

BIG FISH LITTLE POND MY TOM

Tom caught this wide mouth bass in the little pond behind our house this morning. He was so excited he called me on his cell phone from the edge of the pond. I was just in our office/craft room. I took the picture. Tom liked the picture. Besides the beauty of the fish, he thinks it really shows the beauty of where we live. Over the long cold frozen winter, I almost forgot the best reason why we had moved to our manufactured home, but with warm weather and the reinstallation of the two fountains, and Tom’s joy of fishing, it all came back to me. I am going fishing as soon as possible.

HEY RED HATTERS

Can any of you tell me where this quote comes from? “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls…” No, it is not from a news account of a Red Hat affair. Give up? Click here: The Answer. Amazing! Any comments?

CHAIN E-MAIL LETTERS

Does it have a bug in it, or a virus tagging along? Will opening it cause my computer to crash or do weird things? One time, some bug or virus took over the built-in search feature of the Address bar on my web Explorer program. Thereafter, no matter what I was searching for, my inquiries lead me to a page full of links to products or services for sale. Never could get that fixed. Had to wipe the whole hard drive and reinstall Windows. That worked, but suddenly the monitor of my laptop refused to show anything. That was money down the drain. You can see why I am so leery of those e-mails that start out announcing they have been forwarded to me from someone else who got them from someone else, and which almost always have cute subject lines or pleading ones like: You have to read this! Besides, just between you and me, most of these much passed on bits of prose or pictures are not cute, funny, or interesting enough to look at, let alone pass on to someone else.

MORE ON BIRTHDAYS

Well, according to the web site I linked to re birthdays, also born on April 6 was Berry Levinson, Billy Dee Williams, John Ratzenburger, Marilu Henner, Merle Haggard and others. Well, guess what, Jerry, my stepson, and I were joined by a very publicly expected baby, Grace Hasselbeck born to Elisabeth Hasselbeck of The View. In addition, though of course, we do not know what the date is on LOST, but Claire had her baby last night. on LOST. Congratulations to all the new babies, real or pretend that were born on my special day.

BIRTHDAYS

I was born on Easter; my Dad said that made me special. My Mom said it made me handicapped. You see I was born in a Catholic hospital on Easter Sunday over 50 years ago tomorrow. According to my mother, all the hospital staff was in Church all day and she, was ignored most of the day, and when she was not ignored, she was medicated to hold the birth back as there were no nurses or doctors to attend her. She and my father played cards and smoked cigarettes while waiting. My mother was in labor 36 hours. I was born with very mild CP. I do not know if being born on Easter made me handicapped, but I feel lucky to have been born at all. You see, my parents had been married nine years, had both gone through WWII as members of the armed forces and they never had any other children. I on the other hand, gave birth to three children and raised two more. I always thought my son; my second child was special due to the circumstances of his birth. Joe’s father and I were not getting along well the month Joe was conceived so the probability of conception was very low. Let’s put it this way, Joe was almost an immaculate conception. I was not even aware of my pregnancy for four months after conception. My body behaved during this time as if I was not pregnant at all. When I finally got an inclination that I might be preggers, I thought I was at most a little over a month. You can imagine my astonishment when the gynecologist announced after his exam that I was four or five months pregnant. On the day I got that news, I started my first real professional job and my husband walked out on me. My job was working in a detention center for delinquent youth. While pregnant, Joe and I survived a riot by the inmates, an assault on me by a female inmate and some crazy folks trying to break in to the detention center in order to harm one of our inmates. In addition, my car skidded on ice and rolled onto its side into a slushy pond in the center of the interstate median, whereupon I found the then current TV advertisements for VW Bugs were inaccurate. They were not watertight. The next day, when walking across a parking lot into a store an old lady in a large Cadillac hit me and knocked me down. She apparently had no knowledge of how long her car really was. Thank God, Joe was born whole healthy and well, all nine pounds of him. You can see why I thought he must have an important purpose in life. Well, maybe he does have an important purpose, but I no longer think he will ever be President of the United States. That he is Samantha’s Daddy and a damn good one is purpose enough. Ah Birthdays. Follow the link to see who else had or has your birthday.

SAMANTHA WAS HERE YESTERDAY

Samantha is our only grandchild. You would think with 5 children, depending how you count them, we would have more grandchildren by now, but sadly we do not. We have hopes for the future however. Our youngest is only 19 and still in college, and we are teaching Samantha to tell her mother she wants a little brother that she can boss around. Samantha’s mother who has an older brother might see the appeal of Samantha being able to boss a younger brother around.

Samantha at 3 ½ years is into everything when she is here. She gives lots of kisses and hugs, semi torments the dog, likes to watch cartoons and do anything with Papa, my husband and her default paternal grandpa. She is thankfully less active then her father, my son, who at almost 33 is still extremely hyperactive. He was here too yesterday. I am exhausted today.

Samantha’s father thinks, probably rightly so, that Samantha watches too many cartoons on TV, so, when I finally got her settled down to watch cartoons on the TV in her Aunt Vicky’s room, so Gramma could get a break from her activities, her Dad found her and started chasing her around the house. I found myself yelling, just like I did many years ago, “ Hey you two, no running in the house!”

DEATH WITH DIGNITY

Terri died. Her husband’s lawyer said she had a peaceful beautiful death. Her right to dignity had been preserved. Well, I for one do not want to go into that good night peacefully. Dignity be dammed. Let me leave kicking and screaming, struggling, in pain if necessary. My husband and I agree, “Please use all methods, medical, mechanical, supernatural, or otherwise, to keep our bodies alive as long as possible.” There is always hope. And even if hope is gone, I do not want to just slip away, as if life has no worth, or purpose. We have all heard of folks in profound coma awaking after many years when all hope was gone. Besides, I firmly believe we humans have no business deciding when another human dies. Except in war, which is sometimes a necessary evil.