Bad girl. Bad girl. How on earth do you expect me to go to sleep NOW, with my nose all stuffed up with the tears that didn't come out of my eyes when I read what you wrote? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> Thank you, my dear, for your very kind words. I love you too, even if your middle name IS French for "You stupid dog." Did I ever tell you how shocked and absolutely horrified I was when you said that was your middle name? That idiot Flard never mentioned any such thing, and I was just making a joke about a dog who disliked me every bit as much as I disliked her. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> I was able to get not just a toe, but my whole foot in my mouth that time, and without using a shoehorn or crowbar either! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Pretty funny now, though, isn't it?

"Vuluptuous" bosom? Ha! Don't I wish? My bosom is fat, and let's just say it has long since begun to answer the siren call of gravity. YOURS is vuluptuous. There IS a difference! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I didn't dislike you. I just thought you were too young to know your own mind (she was just turned 18 when they married; he was 24), wouldn't stick with the marriage in the long run, and poor Flard would get his heart broken. How could I have anticipated that HE would be the one to go belly up in a most spectacular fashion (story later--I'm not getting started on that one now!), and be the "break-er" instead of the "break-ee"? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

If you ever decide you want to stop belonging to this family, you will have to contact Lemonman and have yourself surgically excised with one of his scalpels...because none of us (except, at least temporarily, that idiot husband of yours--and we haven't given up on him yet, either!) is gonna give you up any other way. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> So there.

t&l

P.S. If you were going on home from here, I wouldn't have suggested that you spend your last weekend with your folks with us instead; but since you're spending the rest of the summer with them, if they feel they can spare you to us for Sabbath, don't forget you're invited. I'd like to see you for a day when I'm actually awake, and with a germ of intelligence in my head!

Flard asked me, no BEGGED me to change my middle name from Cherie to ANYTHING else because of "Take-and-Bake" Cherie. If that is any consolation between you and him <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> . Of course, I couldn't because my name means something to ME even if not to anyone else <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

That was always something that bothered me about Flard was his ability to never settle down or make up his mind or take sides on any issue, whereas I was always the goal-oriented one who pushed for a game plan and a path to follow. I guess if the marriage was doomed (which it wasn't doomed, but some Flard made a choice to kill/squelch it), I'm glad it was not me proving you right <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. Even though I was barely 18, I knew what I was doing in marrying him even though I wasn't mature enough in so many ways, we could and did work through it together, and thankfully my immaturity was not the downfall between us. I truly would not regret it today if things were the way they used to be between Flard and I. This past January 3, our fourth-year anniversary, I wore my going-away outfit from the wedding and ended up crying most of the day <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. Anyway, it is very hard to keep a straight face and type "F.L.A.R.D." What a name! Sweet dreams.

Ah, is THAT what it's called? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

See also billowing, enveloping, roomy, cushiony...I'd better quit. I'm starting to sound like a Mayberry RFD Aunt Bea look-alike, which would be a serious overstatement of my, um, profile! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Heaving? No, no heaving, I'm afraid. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

t&l

Well, if it's any comfort to you, the name meant a lot to Nana, too. That's why she gave it to her precious, oogums-woogums doggie, and would tell anybody who was interested and lots who weren't that it was French for "sweetheart." Boy, would that dog have ever had a different name if it'd been left up to me to pick it for her! YOU, on the other hand, are a sweetheart, and don't have to change it for anybody. Just ignore the fact that it's been sullied by a (now-deceased) miserable toy French poodle, and continue to be what your parents meant to express when they gave you that name in the first place.


OK, now you're making me sad again. I would've made you laugh if I'd known you were "down." You know I could've, too, even if we'd ended up crying both before and after we laughed!! What a pest. That would be Flard, not you, just in case the previous sentence was ambiguous.


Well, he was little when he got the nickname, at which point nobody was visualizing a 28-yr. old Flardulous McBarf, so it didn't sound quite as silly at the time! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

I read something tonight which is either some very deep, wise advice, or the biggest bunch of malarkey I've ever heard in my life. I think I'm ambivalent about the right definition...but I'm not sure! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Here it is: somebody else can decide...

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

Wouldn't the lives of many MBers be simplified and improved if that could be easily applied to their situations? Nice philosphy. But reality? That's a bit trickier, isn't it?

t&l

I feel like I'm sitting in on somebody else's family reunion.

... and kinda wishing it was my family.

Now, T&L, you dont' have any spare daughters do you? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I know you got one almost-spare DIL, but that doesn't count, cause you're going to straighten Flard out sooner or later and then she be "taken" again.

I'm just enjoying the overspray.

-AD

Well, I wish you were part of our family, too. After all those years as a frustrated only child, I think expansion is a good thing! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Give me credit for consistency, too. I'm certainly applying that philosophy to my hips!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

No extra unattached females, though. Neaksis is it. And she's got the 3 albatrossi (plural for albatross--I made it up, in case anybody's tempted to believe me and try to use it themselves) around her neck. Her adoptees are smart, and funny, and cute...and SO screwed up by what their sperm and egg donors did to them. She said, "When DS3 is 18, I'll only be 37. That's not too old, is it?" Gr-r-r-r. I will wish for you (and all the others, too) that you find someone to love you who has as faithful a heart to you, as Neaksis has for 3 little lives which foundered on the rocks of their parents' selfishness and neglect. Sometimes I get angry that their futures were salvaged at the expense of Neaksis' own life, but I love them, too, and Neaksis made this choice with full awareness of what it would cost her, so I really can't complain. There was a good family friend who was interested in her a few years back, but he was lured away by a book with a VERY flashy cover, never realizing that the story inside was a horror tale. He told me not long ago that every time he saw Neaksis he couldn't help but contrast her loyalty to someone else's children, with the faithlessness of his ex-wife to him, and to the son they had together. I'm not the only one who exemplifies the proverb, "Too soon old, too late smart." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Well, I'll sign off for now. Flard is supposed to be done with the Great Arizona Toad Hunt, and I promised I'd call him back before he went to bed. I think he just wants to know why his wife is visiting us. Let 'im sweat. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

t&l

t&l,

Count me as another one who is enjoying learning what great relationships you have with your adult children, including you DDIL! You are truly blessed.

It does my heart good to see this, and it's what I hope to have with my future DIL's. Not that I'm in ANY hurry, because my boys are 11 & 12! At their level of maturity (and my husband says males on his side of the family are late bloomers!), they shouldn't get married until they are in their late 30's or 40's! I am doing my best to raise decent future men....I feel I owe it to the future women they come in contact - I have my work cut out for me!!!

My own mother died over 22 years ago, so unfortunately I didn't have a chance to know her as an adult. I was in a rebelious stage at that point, and didn't appreciate her very much - who KNEW she would die so young???

Which brings me to a "funny" laughing in church story. It was at her funeral. My father was the regular church goer - my mother only went on major holidays. My sisters and I went to church with dad on a regular basis. He was also on different boards within church, far more active than just attending church.

So you can imagine my surprise when the minister was naming surviving family members during the funeral service and he called my father "Bob". My father's name isn't Bob or anything close! When I heard that I burst out laughing in the respectfully silent congregation.

Dead silence followed! Of coure I tried explaining myself to my family surrounding me....but nobody else heard it!

Oh well, I thought - since mom didn't attend often I could understand him not getting her name straight....but my father - it was way toooooooo much!

Yes, I am blessed, and very, very thankful. I had some interesting battles with my kids when they were in their teens, especially with Neak and Neakbro. When Flard hit that point of burgeoning and totally unwarranted self-confidence, I just told him, "Look, I've already done this with your brother and your sister, and you need to believe that I'm ready for you, too." And we rubbed along pretty well the rest of the time. Neaksis never really had an argumentative stage. I guess she saved her uncooperativeness for her dad when he wanted her to abandon (at 17-22) her interest in the children she finally adopted at 25. I was usually her buffer against his anger, but she was able to hold her own just fine, too, when she had to. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> But now they're grown, and their companionship is a richly sufficient reward for anything and everything difficult that has ever happened to me. Neak, if you have time you may post the picture of the four of you in your outfits I made. They were SO cute!!!!!!!!!! (I meant the kids, although the outfits weren't bad, either.) Now my babies are all old and used up, but the habit of love is hard to break, so I'm keeping them around anyway. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My own MIL has given up on not liking me. After 34 years, I guess she's figured I'm not going anywhere, but she has always preferred the ex-spouses to the ones her children have currently. (3 for the older brother, and 2 for the younger sister) When I was pregnant with Neaksis, and about 5 months along, she came for a visit <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />, and when I walked out to say hello it was the first time she realized we were having another baby. Her greeting words were, "Are you pregnant AGAIN?" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> Later, HP told her not to worry about any more children because he was going to have a vasectomy after the baby was born, to which she voiced vigorous opposition. "Don't do that," she said. " When you remarry, your next wife will want children. Let Susan get her tubes tied." So he dropped the subject, but went ahead got himself snicked when Neaksis was a baby, without his mother ever knowing. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> Then he came home and passed out in the bathroom between the toilet and the sink/cabinet. Do you know how hard it is to pull an adult male out of a cramped spot like that when you've recently delivered, you're all alone in the house...and doubled over with laughter?! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Went down like a tree, he did. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Kerplunk. Sorry--hope I don't sound TOO cruel and mean, but the sympathy store was closed at the time, and I myself was fresh out. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Hey, Pep, some OTHER-deprecating humor for a change!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />Do you like it any better than the other kind? I'm not sure it's an improvement, myself!

At any rate, I always wanted be as good a MIL to my children's spouses as my own parents were to HP. Well, maybe not THAT good. I've already said I felt as if, in a sense, my mom ditched me in favor of making him feel welcomed and supported. So I've tried to follow their example and not treat my inlaws the way I was treated myself.

I sympathize with you entirely for laughing at your mother's funeral. Too bad Neak and I weren't there, because I can pretty much guarantee that we would've snorted right along with you, if for no other reason than the incongruity of your unexpected lapse from acceptable behavior norms. And three people snorting are a LOT worse, and harder to conceal, than a single embarrassed person who wants to shut up as quickly as possible! At my mother's funeral, there was nobody to think it was funny with me, and I'm the only one who caught the preacher's unconcious foray into humor,so I didn't make any noise. Of course, the explanation could be less self-control than the fact it was a bazillion degrees below zero and my laugh was frozen solid in my throat before it could ever emerge. WI in February is not a hospitable place, especially to Californians. My "winter" coat might as well have been made from gossamer and moonbeams for all the protection and warmth it afforded me. Br-r-r-r. Mid-Westerners, I salute your bravery. Really I do. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

I wanted to tell about the other time I behaved well under great provocation (it involves a virus I'll bet NOBODY, including all the medical people on this site) has ever heard of, but I had to spend too much time in giving two metaphorical enemas to my constipated paper shredder, so I'm going to bed for a hot date with the sandman. It's going to be 103 today. Of COURSE it's gonna be a hot date. What did you THINK I meant? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> Oh. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

CSue, that was probably a good release for you too. Sorry about the loss of your mom so young. When my sister got m'd the minister called her Janet and her name is no where near Janet. My other sister who was the maid of honor could not stop laughing. We still occasionally call her "Janet" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I've heard that, young or old, you're never ready to lose your mother. Mine was 89 when she died, and it was too doggone soon. She was too young to go! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I used to make a joke, when we were having a rough time of something or other, "I want to go home to my mother." I don't do that any more, but I often have it spring to my tongue before I can stop it...just in time. I miss my mother.

You girls won't miss me too much if you just aim carefully, though! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Besides, my family is very long-lived. With my luck, I'll still be alive AND WORKING WHEN I'm 90. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Sigh.

t&l

t&l,

I envy your gene pool! My mother was 51 when she died, and her mother was 41 when she died!!!

My sister at 47 is the oldest surviving person on my mother's side. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!

FF,

You're right about the emotional release. I have had the lifelong unfortunate habit of laughing under pressure. It gives a very bad impression.

I was fired from Pizza Hut when I was 16 because I kept dropping pitchers of beer/coke etc off my tray onto people's laps. And then I would burst out laughing afterwards... I have always envied those professional waitresses who balance so much on their enormous trays.

CSue:

Dropping pichers of coke on someone's lap IS funny...

...but BEER? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

...unless it's one of them fizzy yellow ones, I suppose!

-ol' 2long

2long,

Remember when Pizza Hut's were restaurants? We served Cooooold beer in those heavy gallon glass pitchers....tap beer...yes it was a crime!

Since it happened more than once I was too expensive to keep around. The restaurant had to comp the entire meal to try to make it up to the customers, and no one could explain the laughter...I certainly tried by telling them that NO I didn't think it was funny - I was just sooo nervous, it was spontaneous!

If it makes you feel better, it was Bud/Bud Light! Not the good stuff served nowadays!

Besides, maybe your gene pool is very deep, while mine is just lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong. We certainly are at the mercy of whatever happens to be in our gene pools, though. When they were having all that titty talk at work the other night, it eventually meandered around to breast self-examinations, and everyone was very shocked to find out I never do one on myself. "But you're a NURSE............" So? Breast exams aren't part of the nurses' creed, the last I looked. No need to scold me about it. The MD does that for me every 5 yrs.or so when I see a Dr. about something and he's reminded that I don't do that. Mammograms either. Ouch. Nobody in my family has had breast cancer. The women in my mother's family tended to get uterine cancer in their 50s, but I had a hysterectomy when I was 32 or so, so my risk factor is long gone. I realize it's possible for me to get it, but it's way less likely than that I'll fall asleep on the road, or smack into a tree driving too fast trying to get to work on time, so I just don't worry about it. Nor do I stop working. And yet there are other women who have to have prophylactic bilateral mastectomies when they're young because their risk is so very high. Blasted gene pools. We're certainly at their mercy, aren't we? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Please accept my sympathy about your mom. When you're 18, 51 seems very old, and very far away. But having SHOT past that watermark year already, I know now that 51-yr. olds have a lot of living left in them, and I'm sorry your mom didn't get to stay around to enjoy those years with you. I hope you have a beautiful eternity together to make up for it.


Yes, it DOES give a very bad impression. Which is so very, very unfortunate, because it FEELS so good. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> There has apparently been so much misunderstanding about hospital personnel (ER, etc.) laughing and offending waiting and worried family members that many, if not all, emergency rooms have a sign posted in the waiting area basically telling people that this is a high-stress area for hospital staff, that laughter is a stress release for the people who work there, and that at times it may seem inappropriate to onlookers, but WE'RE NOT LAUGHING AT YOU!

Gotta go to Neaksis' house and trade cars again before I go to work. I'm bored with being me. May I be somebody else for awhile? Preferably somebody who lives by the ocean, in a temperate climate, has a nice figure and no wrinkles or gray hair, and has somebody else pay their bills? Just for a week or so? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> And while I'm being you, you can clean my house! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

t&l

Yes that's it!

Laughter is a stress release...I hadn't thought of it that way - Yipee!

Also thank you for your kind words about my mother. You're going to think I'm nuts to hear me say this.....but I was at peace with her and she had peace with with me after she died.

I was very surprised to feel this sense of overwhelming acceptance after she died. It was as though she had to be on the other side in order to see everything clearly. It was lovely. Here's the crazy part. At the grave site, during that service - I had this "knowing" that she was sitting on the tree limb above my head, happily swinging her legs as she looked on at all of us.

I couldn't prove it obviously, but I KNOW it!

So you're bored with you??? When's the last time you took a really fun vacation???

t&l, tell Neak I finished the book! Stayed up until 11:00 last night because I could not put it down. I must be getting old, I used to be able to read huge novels in record time...now it takes me weeks to finish anything. It was exciting and well written. I look forward to the next one.

Csue, I bet it was comforting to know your mom was there.

Mrs. McBARF here, having just arrived from my long drive home after another busy day at the orifice. I was happily driving along the highway, when suddenly with barely enough warning to pull off to the side of the road and leap out, I, um, ah, er, recycled my supper from last night...right into a paper plate I was lucky enough to have in the van. And all I can say is, "It sure tasted way LOTS better the first time it passed through my lips!" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Love may be wonderful the second time around. Supper is not. You don't see anybody writing any nifty-wifty songs about THAT, do you? Not even I, who concocted the soon-to-be hit, "Red Is the Color of Her Pubic Hair," would try to tackle that one. I have no idea what was wrong, or why it happened. How do you get food poisoning from asparagus and Spanish rice, for Pete's sake? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> I've got to get to bed and try to sleep off whatever it was, but if I am forced to worship at the porcelain shrine even one more time today, I'm calling in sick tonight!

Glad you liked the book, FF. She does have a way with words, doesn't she, as well as a vivid imagination? We didn't call her Diarrhea Elzablatt when she was little because she was so silent, reserved, and aloof, after all. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I'll tell you about my "fun" later, CSue. Right now, my stomach wants to lie down, and my body must, of necessity, accompany it to bed. If I stay sick, Neaksis, maybe you can come over and hold the bowl for me, stroke my head tenderly, and swab my face and lips with a cool cloth? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Neaksis HATES, as in cannot tolerate, stand, abide, endure, bear, or survive, hearing someone vomit. That's what would make her so perfect for the job! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Doing things you don't like builds character, after all, and she's not enough of a character yet. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> Let me tell you, when her little adoptees get the flu and the pukes, they're out of luck for any one-on-one attention from Mama while they're tossing their cookies. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Soothing, consoling, cuddling all come AFTERWARDS. She could never be a nurse! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I'm an anti-mucous person myself. Other things are OK, but please, NO gargles and spits. I could never be a respiratory therapist. When I was pregnant with Neakbro, and still an ICU nurse, I was called in one night because we'd had a young pregnant woman collapse and go into respiratory arrest and they were short-staffed because they also had a man whose esophagus had ruptured while he was eating a pastrami sandwich. The two of them were each in our unit at the same time, and on ventilators, for 2+ months. The old man eventually died. The young mother lived, and so did her baby, who just plopped out in the bed one day, which seriously startled the ICU nurse who lifted up the covers to see what was going on. Up till that point, pretty much nothing I saw or heard in the hospital grossed me out, but with my sensitive pregnant stomach, and all that tracheal suctioning I did to keep their respiratory passages clear, by the time their cases were resolved I could no longer deal with other people's mucous, and 31 years later I've still never have gotten over it, either. How pathetic is that, for a nurse? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

t&l

t&l,

Yikes, not only is it horrible to be you (puking) I even feel sorry for Neaksis!

My OS is chronically car sick. I have had to pull over fast like you in order to give him the luxury of puking on the curb!

In the meantime you can be thinking of all the dream vacations you'd like to take!! Carry-on