Hump Day With Harry

This picher is of me when I was almost asleep. I look funny, don't I?

Mom threw her back out today so I had to remind her it was hump day. Jeeze! I know she throws balls out for me and Honey sometimes, but I didn't see her throw her back anyplace.

Yesterday something really strange happened. I was in the kitchen (because I really love the kitchen) and I walked place the stove. The most amazing thing I ever saw happened. There was a big orange dog right in the oven. I growled at him and he growled right back at me. I showed him my teeth and he showed me his teeth right back. I barked as loud and scary as I could and he did the same thing to me. Mom kept yelling at me to be quiet, but I guess she didn't know there was a guy in the oven. Anyway, then I got tired and went to my apartment to take a nap.

Next time I looked, that guy in the oven was gone. I don't know where he went though.

Another thing that was funny is when me and Honey went to the Park with Dad, Honey just walked off real fast. I didn't know where she was going so I watched her. Honey hardly ever runs because she has the arth right us. Anyway, she's almost running so then I see it. There is a squirrel right in front of her who is watching her and shaking his tale laughing because he thinks that slow dog can't get him.

So I jerked the leash out of Dad's hands and I went after him. I almost caught him too but he ran up a tree and I could only get halfway up the tree before I fell back down. Honey was glad I showed him up though.

I had a hot dog this morning for breakfast. It was the coolest breakfast ever. And I have to go have shots this week. Not so good.

Honesty, Integrity, and Economics

Last week, I went to the ATM machine at my local bank in the shopping center. There was cash sitting right there in the dispense tray. I picked it up and counted $60. Wow! I immediately walked into the bank and explained to the woman at the desk that the person before me had forgotten to take their money.

No big deal, I thought. I am not hard up for money (although I could use more and yes, couldn't we all?). At this point in my life, I can afford to be scrupulous about honesty and integrity. This was not always the case, I'm afraid.

When I was a single mother of two, and living on a very meager amount of money, my ethics were not nearly as sterling. In fact, I would have taken the money from the ATM and figured "this is my lucky day!". I'm not proud of that, but I'm being honest here. If I found a $20 dollar bill on the street, my reaction was not "who on earth dropped this?", but "Hooray!Finders Keepers!"

If I received too much change at the grocery store, I didn't go back and return the money. It wasn't because I was a thief, it's because I was broke. I would never have taken what wasn't mine, but if a mistake was made in my favor, I let it slide.

I told myself that wasn't stealing, but of course it was. Oh I justified it with telling myself, "they overcharge me half the time anyway" but deep down inside, I knew that I was doing something wrong. Still, poverty makes us do things we wouldn't otherwise.

I did have a job but it was a low paying one. (File clerks were not highly compensated in the old days.) We managed, but just barely. If push came to shove, I would have stolen, whored, or just about anything I had to do to feed my kids. Lucky for us, it never came to that.

Still, I do have such strong ethics at this point of my life that sometimes I have to slap myself down and say, "Yeah, you are honest and ethical now... but that sure as hell was not the case years ago."

Spring Orchids

I've got so many orchids blooming in the garden that I had to cut some for in the house!

I love orchids and have quite a few. For some reason, they do great in the yard, but when I try to grow them inside, they don't do much at all.

If you click on the picture, you can see the flowers better. There are three different kinds in the vase. Cool, huh?

Alex is working from home today because he had to call in for Jury Duty. He didn't have to go in, but since his office is far far away from home, it was better that he stayed here. If you don't go to Jury Duty if they want you, they will put out a warrant for your arrest and sheriffs will come and get you! I HATE it when that happens!

Okay, the truth is, I have been at the jail. I was never in the jail, but I was at the jail. Scare Eye Place!

Driven To Drink

This does not happen often. Today, at 3 PM, I was thinking of getting at the cooking sherry.

Instead, I opened a Corona. It may not stop there either.

Now, at the risk of boring you, I will tell you that I do not drink in the afternoon, unless there is a damned good reason for doing so.

Today seems to be one of those days. I have a mystery on my hands that I cannot solve. I hate mysteries unless I can figure them out. It frustrates and upsets me.

I am a good wife. I do laundry at least once a week (usually twice), I am a good cook, I am fairly attentive to my appearance (in other words, the husband and the guy at the fish market think I'm cute.) Okay, so what's the problem?

I did laundry today. It's Monday and Mondays are a good day for it. It rained cats and dogs here yesterday and since the washer and dryer are in the basement, I figured it could wait. (Besides, who wants to do laundry on Easter? That's when we are going to eat Easter eggs and such, right?)

Now if memory serves, I did laundry about a week ago. Keep in mind that Alex has been traveling so I may have mixed up my days. Still, when I sorted and folded the laundry, I had 7 pairs of my clean panties. Since I am a very pristine sort of girl, this indicates to me that it has been a week since I washed last.

(Bra's, as I'm sure we all understand, do not need to be washed after every wear because by and large, boobs are clean. And that is not to indicate that other parts of our anatomy are not clean, it's just that I always worry about the accidents and the ambulance driver that Mom always talked about being shocked and dismayed about unsightly undies. In other words, I do not want to be wearing the "Wednesday" panties on a Saturday!)

If you are still with me, I'm getting to the point. I started sorting Alex's socks. It seemed to take an hour. I almost always get a rush when every pair of his socks has a match! (This does not happen every time.) In any case, I got through with the socks and thought, man! That's a lot of socks.

Just for the hell of it, I counted his pairs of clean socks. There were 23 pairs of socks. Holy fucking monkey balls! What on earth is this all about? Why would any man have 23 pairs of socks in the laundry when his wife washed one week ago? What in the hell is he doing to dirty all those socks?

Any suggestions or ideas from you would be most sincerely appreciated. Thanking you in advance for your consideration.

You Can All Go Back To Where You Came From!

This is my beloved husband Alex. As most of you might know, Alex is Navajo Indian. He is one of the funniest people I have ever known. Alex is smart too and he's very successful. I'm glad he is my husband.

When we had a discussion with friends over right leaning politics and left leaning politics, Alex said "I don't trust either one of them. That's why I have guns and dogs." Is he serious?

Recently, we had a party and had about 20 friends over for a meal. The subject somehow turned to "illegal immigration". Generally, I feel that political topics are best avoided for obvious reasons. We all have opinions and frequently they are not going to be changed by anyone else. We build our beliefs on our own frame of reference. And we hold to them.

In this case, it was a rather enlightened crowd so the subject took off! In all cases, respect for each others' view points was shown. One woman who works at a hospital said that the illegal aliens put a huge strain on our health system. That may be quite true. Another person interjected that illegal aliens frequently did jobs that Americans did not want to do. That also may be quite true. In any case, the discussion went on for quite a while. It never became heated, but opinions flew all over the place!

Alex had not said a word for about an hour. He just sat there listening to everybody holding forth with opines. He stood up and said "As far as I'm concerned, you are all illegal aliens and you ought to go back where you came from." Then he went in the house to get a beer.

Silence ensued. Was he serious? Uh, who knows? That's Alex.

Quick! In the Closet!

I have on occasion had to hide men in my closet.

This little transgression of mine came about a few times in my single days. For some reason, when I was in love, (really, truly, and madly in love and that happened a lot), I would give the object of my affections my apartment key. All of my boyfriends knew for sure that this indicated my complete and utter loyalty to them.

I did have a little problem in the loyalty area. Now don't get me wrong, I was loyal all right. But sometimes lonesome won out over loyal, you understand I'm sure. For a whole weekend I was supposed to stay home and not entertain guests? I don't think so! And if the "guest" happened to be that handsome fireman, or the insurance guy, or the plumber, well, who knows!

On at least three occasions, I had to request that my guest get into the closet and fast. (Why would I screw up a perfectly good relationship with all those stupid questions and explanations, I ask you.) So obviously, the closet was the only realistic solution.

After my would-be suitor was safely hidden in the closet, I would make a big deal out of "let's go down to the corner coffee shop because I'm dying for a piece of apple pie!" and we would vacate the premises. This always gave my visitor ample time to get out.

Before you start feeling too sorry for my beloved boyfriends, let me assure you, none of them were really worth your pity. They had left me alone for too long a time. Not a good idea!

And before you dial the number for CPS, my kids were with their dad on weekends. I merely wanted to not waste my life sitting home alone without kids waiting for my true love to reappear after his weekend with: the guys, the children, the sports teams, the hunt, or the chickadee that he may have had on the side.

Besides, my closet was a lovely place with at least a hundred pairs of shoes. If my visitor got bored, he could always try those on.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all! This photo is of me and my sister Terri 60 years ago (tomorrow). We were at St. Michael's Church in San Francisco, and the priest behind is Father Sullivan.

Please take note of the wonderful bonnets and hoop skirts. Damn! I was even hot then!

The Blond, The Shorts, And The Huaraches

I remember my first trip to Mexico.

That summer, dad and mom and my two sisters and I drove from San Francisco to Baha to visit my dad's aunt Anna. I was about 6, Terri, was about 4, and Lisa was about a year old. This was about 6 years before my youngest sister Vicki was born.

Mom wanted to stop on the way, because it was summertime and hot in the car, plus, long drives were a challenge with 3 small kids all having various degrees of carsickness. Dad was just in a hurry to get there.

It was probably hard because although we didn't pull over for sightseeing, we did stop at almost every service station between San Francisco and Baha because somebody always had to go to the bathroom.

If memory serves, we left in the middle of the night for some reason, probably in hopes that the kids would sleep at least for part of the trip. I'm not sure anyone but the baby, Lisa, (held in Mom's arms the whole trip as used to be the norm) actually slept.

After an exhausting long drive, we finally arrived at Tia Anna's. My dad's aunt lived on the outskirts of a small town, but I have no idea where it was exactly. It was more of a compound than just a house. There were marble floors throughout, and it was amazingly cool inside. The house had a main building and quite a few other smaller buildings all around a large shady courtyard full of blooming flowers.

Tia Anna had 6 children, and there were servants everywhere. There were drivers, there were maids, there were cooks, there were nannies for the small children as well. Anna's eldest child, Becky, was 14 and had just graduated from high school. Mom was amazed that at 14, Becky was going to college in the Fall.

Nobody spoke English, but they were all very friendly, welcoming, and nice. Not long after we had arrived, the table in the courtyard was set and platters of steaming food were brought out and laid on the enormous table for us.

I later learned that Anna was the mistress of a very wealthy man. He had 3 or 4 women and families in the area. Don Miguel supported them all in style I gather. This man did make an appearance while we were visiting and he and dad spent many hours rattling off in Spanish, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes! Miguel was an old fat guy. My dad's aunt was young and beautiful and I really thought this was somewhat peculiar. I mean, here Anna was so pretty and young! Why on earth would she have this fat old man as her "husband"? (Years later, I guess I figured that part out too!)

There was a marble statue in the courtyard of an Indian man with an Indian maiden in his arms that was very pretty. Mom pointed at the statue, and pronounced it "Bonita!" To her shock, it was immediately loaded into the trunk of our car. My mother seemed to catch on pretty fast that you have to be careful what you compliment! Seems that the mere compliment of any item would result in being gifted with that item!

Tia Anna asked my dad what she could give my mother as a gift. Dad asked mom what she would like and she responded carefully that she really would like a pair of Mexican sandals, "huaraches"! Anna was delighted and insisted that she take Mom into the town to the shoe store to find her a pair! Mom said that would be wonderful, and Anna said we would go right after lunch. Mom asked if she needed to change clothes and Anna replied that she was fine just as she was, in her blouse and pair of shorts. (Remember it's summer and very hot in Mexico.)

The big black car was readied and the driver opened the door for me and my sister to climb in the back. Another car carried my mom, dad, the baby, and Tia Anna. We got to the shoe store and went inside. Mom started trying on sandals.

Anna started laughing and pointed at the store window. There were about 25 Mexican men all looking intently in the window at the pretty young blond woman in her shorts trying on shoes! The word must have gotten out because before long, there were twice as many men, pushing each other out of the way to get a better look.

Dad was very annoyed and he kept telling mom that she should have known better than to wear a pair of shorts into a small town in Mexico. (Of course, he didn't really hadn't known any better either!) Anna seemed to find the whole thing hilarious! The next time we went to visit Anna, about 2 years later, even us kids dressed in skirts the entire time we were in Mexico!

Friday Confessional

Here we go again! Time for Friday's Confession. Thank you Glamazon for giving me this opportunity to unload!

Everyone forgive me for I have lied.

My last confession was snippets of truth mixed in with wild imagination. Three of the sins I claimed, I owned proudly. But the rest of them, not so much. I am not sorry for this sin. Not in the slightest! It made for a very merry Friday!

So there you have it! (And, no, I will not indicate which ones were true!) I'd much rather leave that up to you, dear reader! What I can tell you is that all of them had what I would have to call a smidgen of truth in them, but only that smidgen! (What on earth is a smidgen? I'm not sure.)

I have had my husband home since last Sunday afternoon. Not enough time for me to get ticked off at him. Having my darling DIL and the four babies and Lola for a visit was more fun than trial. Hanging up on the telemarketer is not a sin.

So other than that one big one (THE LIE), I am sinless which is just as well right before Easter. Now, keep in mind, I am primarily a pagan woman so the concept of sin may not be the same for you as it is for me.

Nonetheless, Happy Easter and Happy Spring and where the hell is the sun???

Black Jack

This photo was taken of my Dad a few months before his death. I guess being on his boat was the thing he liked best in the world.

Dad was a cop with the San Francisco Police Department. When he was hired on right before I was born, he was the only Mexican cop on the force.

In those days, there was a lot of racial prejudice particularly in the primarily Irish SFPD. Dad's name, Joaquin, was changed to "Jack", and other cops called him "Black Jack", but it wasn't a term of affection.

Dad married my Irish mother at a time that it was considered a "mixed marriage". He and Mom produced 4 daughters before the inevitable end of the marriage. (He was a guy who had a hard time turning down a pretty woman or a horse race!) And the women flocked to this handsome Mexican cop. Mom had finally had enough by the time I was 14.

I really didn't see much of my Dad until I was 21 or so. Then we reconnected in a big way. His new wife and he had two boys, my half bothers. Dad's wife cared for my son while I worked. Dad used to come by my apartment after I got divorced and had a 2nd child, a daughter.

In the dark days after my divorce, I would see Dad's police car parked outside and he would take a while coming in. Dad would bring in bag after bag of groceries for me and the kids. This was never done with fanfare, just a matter of fact taking care of business.

It's funny, I had always blamed my Dad for the end of my parents' marriage. That really was not fair. It truly does take two to tango! Dad had his bad points to be sure. But Mom wasn't the saint I believed her to be either. (None of us are.)

I'm so glad I got to know this man before he died. I can honestly say it helped me so much after I lost him way too early. And I was so happy that he knew I loved him!

I remember his funeral and the big police presence. There was a wreath in the shape of a police star and his badge number on it. They did Black Jack proud.