this bird's tale: 2012-08-05

Saturday, August 11, 2012

FLASHBACK july 2009

"a little less conversation a little more action baby..."
one of the first things i noticed about jamie, he has an amazing tattoo of elvis on his right ankle. yep. he's an elvis fan. i was a closet elvis fan. i would watch his movies when no one was looking. i had (have) a cd with all of his greats. i only listened to it when no one was in the car with me.
FLASH FORWARD today
i am no longer a closet fan. i love elvis. i sing along with jamie every time he comes on the radio (which can happen a lot with sirius xm). last saturday night we watched "clambake"...an elvis great as long as he wasn't singing about "goop". okay. i admit it. sometimes his movies made him look like a dork. but we all know he was the coolest person in the history of ever. even my beloved beatles thought so.
yesterday was the beginning of elvis week. so from today thru the 18th of august, take some time to unleash your inner hound dog. HAIL TO THE KING BABY!!

Friday, August 10, 2012

FLASHBACK 1965-1981

"scooby dooby doo, where are you..."

i had the most amazing toys growing up. bicycles, skateboards, a mrs beasley doll, barbies, jump ropes, and hula hoops. all things designed to make me use my imagination or get outside. i rarely remember being inside, maybe if it was raining. jumping on bicycles and riding to the marina to see the great white sharks fishermen were bringing in. jumping rope down fisher drive or attempting, unsuccessfully, to double dutch on the playground. hop scotch, four square, tetherball. as kids, queenie and i were constantly moving. playing 45's on the record player and jumping up and down on the bed, singing at the top of our lungs, on a rainy day. we got in one fight, that i remember, and i'm fairly certain it was over who was gonna be ken when we played with the barbies. yuck! nobody wants to be ken. actually, i just made that up because, i remember the fight, i just have no idea what it was about.

before we had barbies and record players, my grandma had the coolest toy ever....a stereoscope (the original viewmaster...remember those?). i remember her sitting with me and going thru all the pictures. she was amazing at making up stories to go along with each pic, something she also did with my daddy, when he was young. i have that very stereoscope to this day. one day i will get to go thru the pictures with my grandchildren...even before she had that stereoscope, her mother had a toy all little girls love. a doll. my great-grandma had scarlet fever as a young girl. she would look out her window and see this porcelain doll in the store window across the street. it had no clothes or hair. her sisters bought her the doll. they made her clothes. one of her sisters provided a lock of her own hair. i have that doll to this day. i have to hide her when people come over. she scares them.
as a teenager, i was never home. before i could drive, i was walking all over lebanon. clear across town to hang out with my joyce court girls. if we were at home, we were watching music videos on mtv. jumping on the bed and singing at the top of our lungs. we had to walk over to the tv to change the channel. if we were lucky, the screen was 19 inches.
my first video game, pong, was a ball of light that blipped between two bars. it was AWESOME...for about 5 minutes.

FLASH FORWARD today
so every morning, i see jamie off with a kiss. i grab a cup of coffee. i turn on our big screen hdtv. i turn on my macbook. i check my iphone. i check facebook, twitter, and pinterest. maybe i play a game of scrabble. maybe i play a game of family feud (queenie, tbird, and i really need to go on the show. we are an amazing team. it doesn't matter who the other two teammates are, they won't contribute to our greatness). if i wanted, i could turn on the ps3 and kill some zombies (you need all the practice you can get to prepare for the zombie apocalypse). i turn on mtv. there are no music videos. i turn on the news (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)...
i quickly realize my grandchildren will never know a world without technology. they will probably have a robot that rides their bike for them. or jumps rope. or hula hoops. they will look at a music video kind of the way i look at silent movies: with a strange fascination. 45s on a record player? "what is this ancient disc?" they will say. shoot....does anyone even by cd's anymore? and saturday morning cartoons!!! DO NOT even get me started. my boys think they know cartoons (and in all fairness, nickelodeon used to have some ama~za~ing cartoons~ren and stimpy, anyone?), but even they didn't know the joy of schoolhouse rock between episodes of scooby doo, jabberjaws, and josie and the pussycats. this makes me sad.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

FLASHBACK august 1999

"smelly cat smelly cat, what are they feeding you...."

in 1999, my house was the place for stray cats to give birth. or, should i say, one slutty cat to give birth five times. yep. FIVE times. try as i might, i couldn't get my hands on her to get rid of her (the ex's stupid idea) or get her fixed (my ingenius idea). then, one day, i hear a knock at the door. that's right...a knock. when i get to the door there sits slut cat with the cutest, fluffiest, blue-eyed kitten in tow. i open the door and she pushes the kitten at me (no. i am not making this up). i was told to take the cats to the pound, or find homes for them. i took them to the vet and got mama fixed.

FLASH FORWARD september 2011. my youngest kid is moving out of my old homestead and into an apartment. he cannot take e'beth. he also cannot find a home for her. she hates to be cuddled. she stinks. she hates being inside. she is 12 years old. jamie says for me to bring her home. did i mention jamie hates cats? no. really. jamie HATES cats. he has rules: #1~he doesn't want to smell kitty litter; no problem, she stays outside and i am meticulous with a litter box; #2~she better not claw the furniture; no problem, she was declawed 11 1/2 years ago before i knew she hated the indoors; and #3 (and, by far, the most important)~she can't lay on him; no problem, jamie, remember how i said she hates being indoors?

FLASH FORWARD today

it has been 11 months. she is 13 years old. she no longer stinks. i am still meticulous with a litter box. she LOVES being inside. she HATES being outdoors. she LOVES to cuddle. she gets comfortable in the most ridiculous places.

she LAYS on jamie.

the problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer. ~paula poundstone

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

FLASH FORWARD july 2009

"imagine me and you and you and me...no matter how you roll the dice it had to be.."

without using this forum to bash exes (because remember how we are all supposed to be grown up now?) let me say that i wasn't very happy. soooo...with my spawn all leaving the nest, i decided to spread my own wings and fly. again, that lovely little invention, facebook reconnected me with another important person in my past. jamie sent me a friend request (he says i sent the request. he is wrong.) and we were chatting online occasionally. it took awhile to get up the nerve to call him because it will be weird, right? it wasn't. he answered the phone and i immediately turned into that 15 year old girl. i really had been in love with him over the 28 years since our "dates" and had been kicking myself in the head for not telling him then. but, remember how i said i was 15? what do 15 year olds know, anyway? we went on our third date in july of 2009. a trip to the mountains that "flipped-turned upside down" our lives. it was a REAL first date with ACTUAL dinner (no mcdonald's french fries this time around), and real wine (actually, not wine, yuengling), laughs, and matching tattoos. yep. matching tattoos on our "first" date. turns out we were made for each other.

2011 2012

Monday, August 6, 2012

FLASHBACK august 1981

"so now i come to you with open arms..."
1980-81 i was a freshman in high school with blond curls (a perm...ugh...do people still get those?) and a mouth full of braces (well...for part of that year anyway). jamie was a junior and the ultimate jock. he played football (state runner-up that year...yay!), basketball, and my personal favorite baseball. all the girls swooned over him (he's mad at me right now, for saying that, and says i have a habit of exaggerating for effect. i don't.). i was no different. making matters worse, he would talk to me in the hall. or at harmon park. or at colony square. in my world it was a big deal. in august of 1981 we went on exactly 2 dates that went something like this: we ran into each other at colony square, THE place to be in lebanon during the '80s. he bought me dinner (mcdonald's french fries) and wine (tj swann easy nights...in hind sight, not a wine i could recommend with any meal) and took me to field parties at settlemire farm (THE other place to be in lebanon during the '80s). he took me home waaayyy after curfew. i didn't get in trouble. i was 15 and in love. stop shaking your head and saying "you weren't in love, it was a crush" cuz i was in love. remember how i don't exaggerate? then life happened. jamie graduated in 1982, joined the navy, and married his senior year sweetheart (not me...boo). i graduated two years later, married a carolina boy. i travelled all over the country, living in 11 different cities in 9 years, had 3 boys in 3 different states, and settled in a small town near the north carolina coast. jamie travelled up and down the east coast, with the navy, settled down in our home town, and had two boys and a princess.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

FLASH FORWARD august 2009

"life is a roller coaster and i am not strapped in..."
with the invention of a little thing called facebook, kris (henceforth to be called queen bird <or queenie for short> for reasons to be explained at a later date) and i reconnected, in january of 2009. married life had moved me to a small town near the coast of north carolina, so we were now an entire continent apart. we chatted online for a month before one of us worked up the nerve to pick up the phone. i mean, it's gonna be weird, right? it wasn't. remember how i said we are best friends/sisters? time really doesn't change that. we talked nearly every day and decided one of us needed to migrate to the opposite coast for a face to face. in august, queenie landed in myrtle beach, thus ending a 33 year separation. she had another bird in tow, tbird (more on her later). we had an epic girls' (well...except for jamie was there for one day and duckie was there for two) weekend with lots of laughter, new tattoos, mini cooper road shows, and gigantic birdie marys. we found out that we listen to the same music (and have intense love for all things incubus), the same taste in tv/movies, and even dress very similar (ummm...how do we keep buying the EXACT same dresses when there is an entire continent dividing us?). we have the same sense of humor. her's is a little sicker than mine! we talk every couple days. we text everyday. sometimes i even get her birthday presents to her on time. and, unless jamie has a surprise up his sleeve, this might be the first year we don't have a face to face.