One Night At The Club

 The song "Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Staton just started playing on the Sirius channel on my phone. It immediately took me back to one particular night at my favorite club. Not because they played this song that night, but because of something else.

I must have been around 18. It was a Saturday night, and I was waiting for my bestie Vickie to pick me up so we could go to the Golden Grill Disco, which is what we did most Saturday nights. She would also swing by to pick up Denise and Ivy, since they lived on the way to the club. We were all dressed up and were anticipating an evening filled with lots of dances and good-looking men!

We got there, sat at our usual table and let the night unfold. We were laughing, dancing, flirting and having a great time - until the unthinkable happened. I was on the dance floor, looked up: and my parents were walking through the door! Not just them, but my Aunt Elnora, her husband Uncle Tom, and my father's brother Jeff from Baltimore with his wife Catherine.

Don't get me wrong: I loved Jeff and Catherine, Uncle Tom was my favorite uncle and his wife was gorgeous. However: what were they doing encroaching on my territory at their age??? I hustled off the dance floor and went up to them. "What are you doing here???????"

Marie answered, "Well you're always talking about this place, so we wanted to check it out. Especially since Jeff and Catherine are here visiting. Tom and El like to dance so..." Seriously??? 

As you can imagine: this put a serious damper on my evening. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been if Denise and Ivy's parents had been there too! And to add insult to injury: all of them except for my parents got on the dance floor and started dancing! Uncle Tom was close behind Aunt El while she had her arm in the air, waving it like she just didn't care! Jeff and Catherine got up there and did the Baltimore Boogie or some such thing. However, thankfully Marie and Clarence just watched with big smiles on their faces. Oy vey! Vickie was giggling and said, "Wow, look at them go!" I was wishing they would!

So there was no more sexy dancing with hot guys for me: not with family on the watch. After awhile Denise and Ivy didn't care but I invited my parents to our table and pouted like a child. When were they leaving???? Not soon enough.

As I look back on that night so many moons ago, I wish I could go back and enjoy that night with them. I'm sure they didn't really care if I wasn't pleased: the important thing was that they had a good time. They even got home after I did that night! But now: Jeff was the first of the group to pass away: followed by Catherine, my father and then Marie. 💔Only Uncle Tom and Aunt El are left but they don't go out dancing anymore... 😢 Sadly, I can't turn back the clock.

Anyhoo, why does that song remind me of that night? Because it was Uncle Jeff's favorite song, and Catherine said that he would leave her for Candi Staton if she'd let him, ha ha. So I always think of them when I hear that song. 💖 Thanks for playing it, Studio 54 Radio!

Remember Gym Class?

 I do! I was getting ready for work one day last week and a memory came to mind about a game I loved to play in elementary school. It was called Crab-Ball. When it was raining outside or cold in the winter, Mrs. Fitzgerald, the girls' gym teacher, would let us choose what we wanted to play inside. We always voted for Crab-Ball!

It was a simple enough game: two teams would get on the floor in crab position. Mrs. Fitzgerald would throw this giant, canvas-covered ball onto the floor and we would crab-walk hustle to kick the ball over the opposing team's goal line. It was hilarious: especially since some of the girls weren't too coordinated! This probably explains why I had wrist problems as an adult! Scurrying around, having your butt not touch the floor while you were using your hands and feet to get to the ball and kick it: it was work. But so much fun! And of course there was always someone who got flattened by the ball at least once during each game, and the rest of us would laugh and laugh. Way to be supportive!

Another rainy day gym activity was something called "Chicken Fat". This wasn't as popular as Crab-Ball but was still fun. Mrs. Fitzgerald would put on this record, and it was like a drill sergeant giving instructions for calisthenics and stuff, set to music! Jumping jacks, squat thrusts and other kinds of cardio designed for elementary school kids. I will always remember the last line of the record: "Go you chicken fat go away! Go...you...chicken fat...GO! Da da da da da, da da da da da, da da da da da: DISMISSED!" If you think I'm making this up: go to YouTube and search Chicken Fat Go and it will pop up by Robert Preston! 😁What a hoot! That song has been in my mind for more years than I care to admit. Nice to know you can still find it. 

We also did square dancing. Even back then I didn't care what kind of dancing it was: I was down for it! I was pretty good at it too. After all, I was the queen of doing the mashed potatoes dance as a toddler, ha ha. My parents were so proud of that! Thanks for the song, Dee Dee Sharp 😄

Life was so much simpler then, and it was easy to get your exercise in.  Maybe when I'm done with my physical therapy, I'll start exercising to Chicken Fat Go and relive my elementary school glory days!

Karma Came Back

 Several years ago I was working at a job I really enjoyed (at the time). I worked in Safety & Environmental Health, which was Security, Ergonomics and the like. 

One part of my job was making badges for employees. You wouldn't think it, but I got a sense of power about this aspect of my job. I was the one to make you look good, or not so good. By this I mean there were people who didn't like how their first shot looked so they would ask me to take another one. And another one. And another one...

After a while, I would accommodate requests from friends, etc. But if you were on my "list": nah, you were SOL.

One day this group of new employees came to get pictures taken. I'm not sure who this one woman thought she was, but I wasn't having it. It was like she wanted a portfolio to look through before she chose one. I finally told her, "I'm sorry, but the camera only takes what it sees." The other people started laughing and she was spluttering. Yeah, was pretty proud of putting her in her place with that one!

Fast forward to last week.  The Marketing and Communications department sent out an email that they would be taking new headshots if anyone wanted a new one, or hadn't had one taken. I was thrilled to read this because I thought in my original headshot, six years ago, I looked like a toad. So after losing weight, keeping it off and feeling pretty good in spite of a rough couple of years, I was ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille! (yeah that's an old person saying, ha ha)

I excitedly wore a new dress last Thursday and my hair was looking fabulous. Eric, the photographer, helped me set up my best angles and he took probably five or six different shots. Afterwards he showed them to me and we decided on the best one. I couldn't wait until he sent it to me!

I got the email yesterday and excitedly opened it. Let's just say I should have waited. I looked great in the little preview picture, but the real sized one, to me, showed off the strain of the last two years. Ugh! I was so disappointed! I'm not sure how I thought I would look, since I see myself every day, but apparently the camera cannot shave 20 years off of your face! I did NOT look like I was 30! 😢 (for those who know me: stop doing math in your head!)

That was God's way of humbling me. He knew I shouldn't have wielded so much power over people way back then, when they just wanted to look good in their pictures. Now I know how they felt. So yeah: karma is a bitch, and I was too. Pride goeth before a fall; but I've learned my lesson! And I'm starting a new regimen tonight, so the next time I get my picture taken I'll feel confident enough to actually show it to you!

Local News is Awesome!

 This happened maybe five years ago, and it still makes me chuckle when I think of it. It was summer, and for some reason we had the TV on the "local" news channel. Probably because Marie liked to watch the news. It was nighttime. You know that local news runs the same stories over and over, because not much happens locally in upstate New York. Brie and I weren't really paying attention, you know, because it was the news. But then we heard the beginning of a particular story and our ears perked up as we looked at the TV screen.

This reporter was saying that a bobcat had been seen in a small town south of where we lived. They were interviewing a lady, who said she had seen it a few times and left food out for it. However, the story had a sad ending as the bobcat had been killed. 

That wasn't the funny part. The funny part was that when they showed a picture of the animal, they had a black rectangle on the screen covering its face. It was as if they couldn't show its face until the next of kin had been notified. The lady that was being interviewed had set up a small memorial to the bobcat, with a picture and some flowers. 

I really don't have a dark sense of humor, but this struck me as hilarious! Brie and I laughed and laughed: and they ran this story every 15 minutes. We sat there waiting for it: and each time the black rectangle showed up on screen we'd laugh some more. Marie couldn't quite understand why we thought it was so funny, so she just ignored us.

In my heart I did feel bad for the bobcat because I do love animals, but this was such a stretch for a news story that it tickled my funny bone to no end. I realized that perhaps whoever had killed the animal shot it in the head, and they didn't want to traumatize children. But isn't it interesting that they will show a dead person, or a person being killed and not worry about children, but will cover the face of a dead animal. Shows who gets more respect I guess. Sheesh.

R.I.P. bobcat. I'll try not to laugh any more when I think of you.

 

According to Kitty...

...I have an addiction. Let me explain.

Remember during the pandemic when everything skyrocketed in price? And the government was throwing money at us, so we could buy these high-priced items? Well, for all intents and purposes, the pandemic seems to be over. No one is throwing money at us anymore (unless you're working a pole) yet the prices are still much more than we want to spend.

How do I deal with this? Coupons! Particularly E-coupons which you just load onto your phone and there they are when you shop. Brilliant! However, you need to check carefully because some of these offers make you buy multiple items, and the discount isn't that great. For instance, $5 off of Olay Body Wash which is good: but if you have to buy 3 and the price is like $8.99 each it's bad. Not enough of a bargain for me! The other one is "buy one item and get one free"! However, now the original price is twice as much as it was the week before, so no deal here either! So I have to make sure the coupons are going to be to my advantage.

This year I have developed a real fondness for chicken sandwiches and chicken salad. Easy to make and take to work. So I buy either canned chicken, or sometimes the rotisserie chicken from the deli. Delicious! Besides bread: what is an integral necessary ingredient? You guessed it: mayonnaise. Which, of course, is one of the food items where the price seems to keep going up, not down. Who is happy paying up to $7 for a regular jar of mayonnaise? I would buy a jar and then have to use it sparingly to make it last.

Enter in: the E-coupon! For the past three months, my 2 main stores have thankfully been having sales on my favorite Hellmann's mayonnaise. And now they have E-coupons for $2.00 off per jar!

I was sitting in the living room minding my own business when Kitty walks in. "Mom, I have to ask you something." "Okay honey, what is it?" She got very serious. "Are you obsessed with mayonnaise?"

I almost laughed out loud but she looked so serious! "No, why do you ask?" "Because you have bought like 8 jars of mayonnaise in the past few weeks. That's a LOT of mayonnaise." What Kitty hadn't put together is that she likes to have sandwiches for lunch and sometimes dinner, which uses mayo, I like sandwiches and chicken salad so I'm using mayo (and have to make chicken or egg salad for Brie too because I make it the bestest, she says, just so she doesn't have to make it!) and I made a big macaroni salad, by request for dinner on Sunday and that took almost 2/3 of a jar of mayo. With it almost being Memorial Day weekend, and with all of the BBQing and salads that the holiday entails: I'm going to be using even more mayo! "Kitty, I assure you, I am not obsessed with mayonnaise. I try to stock up on it when I have coupons so I get it at a good price. I have $2 off coupons so I use those; and with the mayo on sale I only pay $3.29 for the big jar (30 ounces, remember when it was 32 ounces???). So as long as I have coupons and there's a far enough away expiration date, I'm going to stock up on Hellmann's!" "Okay Mom, as long as you don't have an addiction problem." Then she walked away.

My darling Kitty: thank you for looking out for mom. I promise you: I'm really not addicted. But I do have 2 more E-coupons to use for $2 off, which will bring it down to $3.99 a jar. Then I will have 5 jars of mayonnaise. Whoo hoo!!!

 

The Shape of You

 I had to be at church early this past Sunday to set up for Communion. As I was getting things ready, my really good friend from church came in and asked if I needed any help. I didn't but I love her company so told her she could take care of the "body" while I took care of the "blood". But that isn't what this post is about.

As we were in the kitchen chatting, I mentioned  how Kitty had lost over 70 pounds and kept it off. So we talked about how wonderful it was and how proud we both were of her. Then we transitioned to how we weren't that disciplined and our diet 'fails' over the years. I used to give up all the good stuff for Lent, to jumpstart my diet plan. But Lent is only for 40 days so after that: all bets were off! I liked to do Spin, which got my body into pretty good shape, until knee surgery and the surgeon said I could no long do Spin. But feel free to ride a bike sedately to preserve your knee! That didn't help. So this led me to laughingly tell her my latest ploy to look good. 

You know how you get those emails that you don't remember signing up for? Well I had received an email from the women's friend: Shapermint! I perused their products and found one that I knew would do the trick! I was sure it would suck stuff in and then I'd have my hourglass figure. I'd seen the commercials! So I ordered one and waited for its arrival.

A week later: it was here! I had a particular ribbed dress I wanted to wear but didn't have the chutzpah to wear it. But with my new Shapermint: I was ready! The next morning I put on my lovely dress and then slid on the Shapermint garment underneath it. 

Wait a minute: something wasn't right. I looked at the package, then looked at myself. Hey...this didn't suck anything in! All it did was make sure nothing jiggled. There was no hourglass figure. I'd been bamboozled!

I went and showed Brie. "Look! Nothing is sucked in!" "Well of course not! It's a firmer, not a 'make-it-disappear-er'!" "But how come the ladies in the commercials are all skinny after putting it on?" "Because it's TV." Ugh!

My friend was giggling. "I'm sorry Rita. It must have been so disappointing." I assured her it was, but I showed that Shapermint a thing or 2 and wore it anyway! Yes I was still the same size, but I felt better about life knowing that I looked firm, as Brie said.

And this reminded me of the time I had an evening wedding to go to, and wanted to look all seductive in the dress I was going to wear. So I asked my best friend at the time if I could borrow her Spanx, which she wore frequently and swore by. Thankfully she said yes! I took it home, and the day of the wedding I put on my lovely dress and then stepped into the Spanx.

That thing was tight. After a struggle, I got it up to my knees. It then refused to go up any further. I tugged and tugged. "Brie!" I yelled. She entered the room. "What are you doing?" "I can't get this stupid Spanx up any further." "Seriously mother?" She came over to assist, and suffice it to say in that tug of war: the Spanx won. I couldn't get that thing up any further than just over my knees. So we hauled it back off and I collapsed into a chair. "How in the world was she able to get this thing on?" I wondered. She was shorter than me, her legs were a little bigger (as were other things) yet she was able to wear it. So I just chalked it up to God wanting me to embrace my chocolatey goodness and went to the wedding without it!

We were now done with the setup and just laughed at my exploits. The things we women do to try to be svelte! At my age, I have learned to be thankful that I'm at least mostly healthy. Any flaw that anyone might think they see in me, I have earned through a life well-lived. As long as God sees me as beautiful: other opinions don't matter! Moral of the story: there are no shortcuts (at least to me) to getting the body you want. You have to put in the work. Which is why I'm at the gym 3 times a week 😏

So Embarrassing

As some of you know, I was in a car accident in January. Besides the bad concussion, I have some other injuries that I'm healing from. So I'm still a relatively hurting unit: takes me a bit to get in and out of the car, that kind of thing.

Yesterday morning Brie and I stopped at our favorite Dunkies before work, as we usually do. Since my car was totaled in the accident, I was in the passenger seat. I had on a really nice dress, slit up both sides because I had an interview I was conducting that morning with a few others for a vacancy at the school. I wanted to look my best!

Anyhoo, Brie parked in the Dunkies parking lot and I went to get out. Due to my hurting stuff, this consisted of me opening the door, putting out my right foot, scooching around on the seat until I could get my left foot out and then hanging on to the door as I pulled myself up. No problem, right? 

Not until I noticed a truck had parked next to us. A very good-looking older gentleman was standing there, apparently waiting for me to unwind from my Quasi-modo position and get moving. As I replayed my actions in my head, I just hoped I hadn't flashed him when I was getting out, since the truck wasn't there when I started my exit. But sadly there was a chance that he could have been exposed to more than a bit of leg. Ugh!

However, he was a gentleman and waited for me to close the car door. Then he followed me to the entrance, and opened the door for me while smiling. He had really nice teeth, by the way. Then, since I was still embarrassed and didn't know what else to say, as we entered the vestibule I said, "Now you've spoiled me and can open this other door for me too." Thankfully he laughed as he did so, I said thank you, and he went to get his call-ahead order. He smiled again as he left and I wished him a good day.

By this time Brie was inside. The absurdity of the situation hit me, and I started laughing as I told her about our exchange. She said, "Well maybe he was smiling because he was looking at your ass while he was behind you." "No he wasn't!" "Oh yes he was!" Well he probably got a shot of the front so why not the back too???? Good grief!

I'm telling you: the ortho and PT had better get me back into pain-free health soon! Either that or it's going to be pants from now on 😐