Birthday Memories

Another year has trickled by. 

Fifteen years to be exact.

The boy.

The Man Child.

It is every father’s dream to have a son….the one to carry on the family name.

This is my third child.  The easy one.  The one that rolls with the punches.  The one you hope you don’t forget at the Mall.  It was an awful pregnancy.  I can’t even describe the sickness.  It wasn’t morning sickness….it was twenty four hour a day sickness.  It was I had to be hospitalized sickness.  In the words of my physician, it was “This is a healthy-pregnancy-with-no-worries type of sickness.”  Yeah, he tried to convince me how healthy the pregnancy was, as I continually threw up everything and anything whether I was sitting, walking, sleeping, driving, cooking……

And then…..there he was.

 Our Man Child. 

He slept....

....and slept.

He slept everywhere and anywhere he could find a place to lay his head. 









Remember how I mentioned the third child is the one you don’t want to forget someplace?  It could have easily happened with this one….until he started to talk. 

And he was boy. 

Oh sure, his sisters would dress him up…

he even had his favorite blue tu-tu.

But the boy was always in there.  

He was poked in the eye with sticks. 

 Not once, but twice, by the same best friend as they played with their “swords”.  

He built things with his dad.  

He learned to hunt. 

He survived boyhood and is growing toward manhood.  

He is mechanically minded.  

He is a learner.  

He is a doer. 

 He is meant for great things.

Happy birthday to my Man-Child! 

I send you my hugs and my love for all of your days on this earth.

May you fly high your entire life....

A Rant - Spring Cleaning

It is that time.

I informed the Dear Ones living in my home that Spring Cleaning is upon us.
A list will be hung in each room and that list WILL BE COMPLETED.

Do not pass GO and do not collect $200.

I received some unhappy faces and questioning as to why this must happen again....
Didn't we just do this??

I explained how we need to :

Clean out
               Clean up
                             Remove the cat fur
                                                          Remove the dog fur

So after all the griping and trying to get this crazy, over scheduled day finished up, the Man Child announces ten minutes before needing to leave for a sport practice, "I know this is a bad time to tell you this, but I have no dress pants for the concert tonight..."

So WHERE would they be?  I even called the dry cleaner to see if I forgot to pick them up...nope.

He just wore them for a jazz concert.....they must be in......the room.....the pit.

And where were they, you might be asking yourself right now?

Crumpled up and shoved behind some wadded up sheets ("Those are folded!") in his closet.

And they are asking me WHY we do Spring Cleaning!

House Breaking

I think the bathroom is Puppy's favorite room in the house. 

 She reminds me of a three year old child who has to follow you into the bathroom just to see what you are doing.  

She loves the shower......she likes getting dried off more.

She sits on the toilet to watch make-up time and loves if she gets a swirl of a little blush on her fuzzy, puppy cheeks.

She thinks she is a person.  A member of our family.

So one afternoon, when no one would let her outside, no matter how many times she rang her door bell, she made a human decision.  Where do my people go when they have to go?

The bathroom.

I can picture Puppy staring at the toilet, 

wondering how to open the lid....oh, to have a thumb.

How to balance on the seat without falling into the water dish.  

Oops, back to that first thought...

how to open the lid.

The poor Puppy had to go sooo bad, that she went as close as she could, right in front of the toilet.

At least it wan't on top of the toilet.

She was so proud of herself. 

 I wonder how hard it would be to toilet train a dog?

Training

train [treyn]

verb.

to develop or form the habits, thoughts, or behavior of 

(a child or other person) by discipline and instruction: 

to train an unruly boy. 

My parents would say it should read.....to train an unruly girl.  

Training can be difficult when it comes to our children.  It takes practice and repetition, and how often we forget that they have a mind of their own.

Many years ago, we moved from Georgia to Michigan.  Our darling dears could not get the concept of wearing a coat.  It was natural for them to just run outside and play.  We began to sound like a broken record, "PUT ON YOUR COAT!"

And just when you are patting yourself on the back for this accomplishment in the training, they are back in the door from playing and plop their coats in a heap on the floor.

This became the next task to train....

.....it was time to call in Tall Man.

Tall Man has military training.  He can bark out orders so fast your head will spin!  You know you should be doing something a certain way, but you just can't perform the task fast enough before more orders are barked.

Tall Man gave them an exercise to do every time they walked into the house.

Open the Door

Come inside.

Close the door.

Take off your coat.

Hang up your coat.

Take your coat off the hook.

Put your coat on.

Open the door.

Go outside.

(repeat 10 times)

Our three little soldier monkeys would repeat this exercise every morning, afternoon and evening.  It was like watching Larry, Moe and Curly in our entryway. And it worked!....for a while....

I am still training.....

I give constant reminders to the dear ones, but now......

 it is Puppy's turn.  

Housekeeping!

My final job of my high school career was another connection made by my father.  He had a friend who owned a motel in my hometown.  I guess his thought was if I could learn how to clean motel rooms, it might inspire me to clean my own room....

I learned how to make beds and make beds and make beds.

I learned what clean looks like.

I am not sure if you personally ever really look at your hotel room.  Is it really clean?

No visible hair.
Edges of carpet.
No visible hair.
The entire toilet! That means the front and the back!
No visible hair.

We were taught to look under the bed.  We vacuumed edges of carpet using a crevice tool once a week.  We were taught to scrub the toilet.  All of the toilet.  Remove ANY trace of hair.

I dread staying in hotels and motels now.  I usually go through two rooms before I finally tell them what to re- clean.  I want ALL fresh linens.  That means blankets and quilts!  I am demanding.  I have seen gross stuff.  And if it is done right and well?  I tip.

My biggest shock is always the fanciest hotels.  You would think their staff would know what they are doing.  I think they are just lazy.  I have watched how people clean in institution settings. They swish a rag around so they don't have to touch anything.

Stick your hand in and get it done!

I stayed in a fancy  five star my last trip to DC....I shall not mention names.  I left notes. I spoke to staff outside my room. My loving Tall Man finally went to the Concierge.  He figured he could be polite when he asked that our bathroom be checked by Head of Housekeeping AND the Manager.

When we returned from dinner, the poor lady was still in the bathroom scrubbing and apologizing.  I hope no one lost their job.....I just hope they learned how to clean.  It comes down to one thing and one thing only.....PRIDE!

(By the way, I stayed in a small chain hotel in Des Moines the next week......spotless.)

I think this is why I can't hire a cleaning lady......they don't know how to clean.

The Factory

My Dad, in his infinite wisdom and all of his connections, steered me in the direction of a job after my junior year in high school.  It was a hard job. It was a dirty job.  It was a rate job.  It was a factory job.  We made…….clothes hampers.  Glamorous, yes?

It was rate, which meant I was paid for producing a minimum number of pieces per hour.  If I was able to produce more than that minimum, I made bonus!!!  Extra money!! 

I started this grand excursion at hamper lids.  These are produced by placing a piece of vinyl on a heat table …did I mention it was summer in an old warehouse on the Mississippi River?......heat table.  Then you place a piece of foam for padding, a board and you begin stapling….with an awesome pneumatic stapler.  There was a trick to this.  You start in the centers of each side and work your way to the outside edges, that way there are no wrinkles on the top.  Did I mention this is all done on a heat table?  This keeps the vinyl soft and pliable to give a slight stretch to the material.  It creates a beautiful lid….as long as you don’t pull too hard.  I ripped that vinyl to shreds the first day.

It took me about a week to get the feel right and then I was off and running.  By the third week, I was making rate!!  I only took one staple through the knuckle of my thumb. 

But you guessed it.  I made rate…I got moved.

I worked the sewing machines that stitch the vinyl and hemp braiding that goes on the edges and seams.  That didn’t last long though.  I broke one machine and let another one run out of thread….oops.  No one explained it takes about 45 minutes to rethread one of those fancy machines.  Did you know, that to soften the braided material, it runs through oil.  It makes a mess and it stinks.  I also broke a million needles in the two hours I was on that job.  I was never allowed back into that department.

I ran the restock items from the warehouse….the elevator was scary, but really awesome!  I pounded the frames of the hampers together at the start of the line.  I boxed hampers at the end of the line.  I even loaded the truck on the platform.

The lessons I learned working in a factory:

#1

I worked with a cross section of America.

From all walks of life.  Each with their own dreams and goals.

These were incredible people....

#2

I loved the lunch truck!!

#3

No one ate onions for breakfast…..

It is called body odor.

#4

I did it!  

I accomplished every task set before me and I survived!

The Steak House

I was sixteen.  I wanted a job in the Mall…..THE MALL!  I wanted to work at Maurices or Outback Red.  I wanted cool clothes and, like, totally awesome music playing over the loudspeakers in the store.  Yeah, that was my goal……to be cool.

I can’t be positive on this, but I am sure Dad knew someone and got me hooked up with a job at the Mall.  I was hired to be a waitress in a steak house. Cool isn’t the word I would use for that polyester uniform in the most flattering color of mustard and brown, but I guess it hid the stains well.  I made $2.01 an hour plus tips, and the tips were terrible in the Mall. 

It wasn’t a terrible job looking back on it. I learned people skills, real people skills.  Real people eat in steak houses.  They expected good service and good food.  Abe did make good food……and it was real food……except for the salads.  They came in huge buckets that we scooped into salad bar containers.

I learned how to clean, and most important, what a clean restaurant should look like.  Every night the tables were pulled out.  The wall was washed, the benches were washed, and everything on the table was washed, wiped down and refilled.

I learned you could vacuum jello.  I know you shouldn’t, but we did.  It was amazing how that vacuum just sucked it right up off from that orange steakhouse carpet.  I wonder how often Abe had to buy new vacuums…..

So here are my life lessons I learned:  

#1   

Be nice to your server.  

You have entrusted them with your food.  If you treat them like dirt, you may get a little dirt….or worse.  I think this is why I laughed so hard at Minnie’s Chocolate Pie in the movie The Help.  In the words of Woody in Toy Story, “So play nice!”

#2     

You can tell how clean a restaurant is from the table space.  

Is the menu clean?  

What do the condiments look like?  Are they full?  

What does the wall look like behind your booth?  

These clues speak volumes about the Manager's cleaning policies.

# 3     

Don’t eat from a buffet line. 

I avoid buffet restaurants as often as possible.  Have you ever watched how many people will return to the line with the same nasty, drippy plate, with all their slimy germs dripping back into the fresh food?  Not so fresh anymore! 

There are good buffet restaurants out there.  Just watch how quick those awesome waitresses take your plate as soon as you swallow the last bite….no chance of returning with that slimy plate.

Let me know when you want to go catch a bite with me sometime soon!!  I will try most places once, but I have been known to walk out before they even bring me a water…….and yes, I do tip well.