Haven’t written for a while, right? Mostly cuz I have nothing to say… so today it’s a throwback:

Friday, August 27, 1999. My twenty-third birthday. Was supposed to be my first date with my future ex-husband. I got home from work that day a little early, to find a message from him on my answering machine (remember those?) with some lame excuse cancelling our date. (In his defense, he did not know it was my birthday.)

So crap, it’s Friday night, it’s my birthday, and I have no plans. But fear not, there’s a rodeo in town. So, I decide to take my nephew (age 12) and my niece (age 8) to the rodeo!

We get there, and kids being kids, they want to sit way up at the top of the bleachers. We climb the bleachers, get all settled, but we’re early. We want something from the concession stand, but we don’t want to lose our seats. I can SEE the concession stand from where we’re sitting, so I give my nephew money and send him on his way, while my niece and I stay behind and hold the seats.

The concession line was quite long, but I can see my nephew at all times, so I’m not worried that he’s gone for a long time. I start chit-chatting with the family sitting behind me, some people I know.

It’s getting dark. The bleachers are filling up. I look to see how my nephew has progressed in the concession line… and I can’t find him. That’s fine, though… he’s probably got our stuff and he’s just making his way back.

I scan the crowd for him. I can’t remember what color he’s wearing. It’s fine though.

The national anthem starts. It’s getting darker… the bleachers are getting crowded. I think about how hard it can sometimes be when you’re looking for someone in the bleachers. When you left, they were almost empty, you think you know exactly where you were sitting, but when you come back you’re disoriented. If I lose my nephew at the rodeo my brother will murder me…

I decide to ask the people behind me to keep an eye on my niece while I go in search of my nephew. I start down the bleachers, stepping between people, excuse me excuse me oh crap was that your finger I’m so sorry… I get to the edge and look over the side.

So… here’s a good time to tell you that I have depth perception issues. At that time (I later had surgery to try to correct it) I was completely blind in my right eye. This makes things look closer to you than they actually are. Which actually is fine most of the time… it annoys other people in the car when you wait too long for traffic to clear but in most scenarios it’s better for things to look closer than for them to look further away.

Unless, of course, you are on the edge of the bleachers and you are contemplating how far of a jump it is over the side.

So… I jump.

It’s further away than it looked.

And just as I make the move, some guy darts out of nowhere… and I… well… I land on him. Almost perfectly… like… he’s giving me an unintentional piggy back ride.

And HE certainly didn’t see it coming. He doesn’t know who or what or why… just that something has landed on him, so he does the most reasonable thing and …. more or less body slams me.

So here I am, flat on my back… people come running all around. He’s looking down at me, horrified, with this look like what the hell just happened?!?

Anyway, still flat on my back, I look up and the first thing I see is my nephew, hands full of concessions, looking down at me in ultimate horror and embarrassment.

Paramedics who were no doubt intended for the bull riders show up, I refuse medical attention, dust myself off, back up the bleachers we go… enjoy the rodeo. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

A year to the day later, Sunday, August 27, 2000. My twenty-fourth birthday.

I can’t remember why, but I’m driving in a part of town I don’t go to often. I get to a four-way stop sign. I stop. I see a big white truck coming, but he has a stop sign, so, after I stop, I start my way through the intersection.

Except. He doesn’t stop. And the reason he doesn’t stop, in retrospect… is that it’s actually a two-way stop sign. I had a stop sign. He did not.

So he hits me.

We get out of our cars, someone calls the police (this was before everyone had a cell phone) … witnesses are helpfully pointing out to me that I had a stop sign and he did not… the man is actually being pretty cool about, but he keeps looking at me kind of funny. I know why, but I keep hoping he won’t bring it up.

Finally, he can’t take it anymore. I had written down my name and phone number and insurance policy number, etc. He asks me… Have you ever gone by any other name? I feel like I know you from somewhere.

No, that’s my maiden name. But I’m actually getting married next weekend, I tell him (which was true).

He asks what my fiancé’s name is. I tell him. He doesn’t know that name either.

He asks me where I work. I tell him. No, it wouldn’t be from that.

He asks where I went to high school. I tell him. No, not that either.

He asks if I have brothers. I tell him. No, not that either.

Did I ever hang out at such and such local bar? No, not that either.

“Man,” he says, “I just can’t shake the feeling I know you from somewhere!”

I take a deep breath. “I know what it is,” I admit.

“You do?”

I nod… “So do you remember last year… at the rodeo… and some chick fell out of the sky and landed on you?”

His eyes get huge… “Oh my God! You cut your hair!”

So… I’m changing jobs again.  I really liked my “new” job, but I was just working too much.  It wasn’t even actually the fact that I was working so much, it was more the unachievable deadlines putting me in this scenario where I couldn’t leave until “it” was done.  Three months in a row, I wound up working 13-14 hour days on Deadline Day, on top of quite long days the rest of the week.  On Deadline Day, I felt as if I were being held hostage.

The end of September, after working 2 consecutive 13 hour days, I decided, that’s it.  I’m over this.  I called a recruiter that represented another company which had offered me a job at the same time I was offered this one, and asked if she might still have anything for me.  As a matter of fact, she did.  She put me in for five jobs, and within three weeks, I had an offer.  Done.  Moving on.

The last Deadline Day I worked, I hit a giant raccoon on my way home.  It made a lot of noise, but I didn’t think it had hurt my car… but when I pulled in the garage and walked around the car to get in the house, I saw the front bumper hanging off the passenger side, and the passenger headlight hanging loose.  So… my pretty new car is on the bench until I can get it in to the body shop for repairs.  This makes me very sad, but I’m coping.

The night before my last day at my old job, I had this dream:

My coworkers and I were going out to lunch to commemorate my last day.  We all drove separately, and I was driving my silver Monte Carlo (which I haven’t had since approximately 2008).  We stopped at a gas station on the way.  Once inside, we noticed men with guns standing at all the doors.  We were being held hostage.

We’re all just standing around, and I look over and see a side door, and no one is standing with a gun at that door.  My Monte Carlo is parked right outside the door.  I whisper to one of my coworkers… “Hey, we can go out that door.”

She looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head, “No we can’t!  We’re obviously being held hostage.“

“No, look… my car is right there.  We just walk out that door and run to the car and we’re clear.”

She looks over and narrows her eyes, “That’s not your car.”

“What do you mean that’s not my car?  Of course it’s my car!”

She shakes her head, “That’s a Honda Accord.  You drive a Chevy Monte Carlo.”

“WTH are you talking about?  That IS a Chevy Monte Carlo.  That’s MY Chevy Monte Carlo.”

She shakes her head, “That’s a Honda Accord.  And we can’t leave anyway, because we’re hostages.”

So I go to another one of my coworkers, and tell her, “Look, there’s no one standing at that door.  My car is right there.  Let’s just go out that door and get out of here!”

She looks in the direction of the door and asks, “Where did you say your car was?”

“Right there.  My Monte Carlo is parked right outside the door, see it?”

“That’s not a Monte Carlo.  That’s a Honda Accord.  You don’t have an Accord.”

So I just give up.  I wish everyone the best of luck, and I walk right out that door, get into my Monte Carlo and begin driving away.  Just as I’m pulling out of the parking lot, a giant raccoon runs out in front of me, and I hear a giant CRACK.

I keep driving though… because there are men with guns who might be following me.  I decide to just drive to my insurance agent’s office.  My agent comes out, surveys the damage, and says, “The car’s totaled.  So what we’ll do, is we’ll cover you for a new car, as long as it’s either an Acura or an Accord.”

He gives me a list of Honda dealers and tells me, “You can go to any of these dealers, and pick out any Acura or Accord that you want.”

“But… this car is a Monte Carlo!”

“They don’t make Monte Carlo’s anymore, Ginger.  So you’ll have to get either an Acura or an Accord.  Do you accept the terms of this offer?”

I signed a piece of paper and headed to the first Honda dealer on the list.

When I got there, I asked the salesman, “Do you have any Acuras?”

The salesman told me no, he didn’t have any Acuras.  But he has an Accord?

I decide to try a different dealership.  I ask that salesman, “Do you have any Acuras?”

That salesman says, “We only sell Accords here.  Would you like an Accord?”

I tell him that I’d really rather have an Acura.

There’s only one dealership left.  I go there, and I ask the salesman, “Do you have any Acuras?”

He says no, but he has beautiful Accord, right here on the showroom floor.  It’s the most beautiful Accord in the world, and he’ll take me there, but I have to sign this piece of paper first.

I look at the paper, and across the top it says “ACCORD AGREEMENT”.

The agreement says, by signing this paper, I agree to never drive anything but Accords for the rest of my life.

I tell the salesman, I’m not sure about this… I’ve never actually driven an Accord before? He promises me that they’re a lot like Acuras, besides, they’re made by the same Company.

“Well let me at least just look at it first.”

The salesman shakes his head.  “Nope.  We have to come to an accord on this first.  I can’t show you the car unless you sign the agreement.  But I promise you it’s the most beautiful Accord you’ve ever seen.  You’re going to LOVE it.”

I decide the salesman’s kind of handsome.  And if he says I’ll love it, I probably will.  So I sign the paper and we go to the showroom floor and there’s my car… my real car, the car I actually own in real life.  And I do love it!  I tell him, “It actually looks a lot like an Acura!”

He shrugs and says, “Nope, we don’t have Acuras here.  Only Accords.”

THE END.

 

This entry reminded me, in some ways, of my childhood.  In that, having brothers who were so much older than me, it was kind of like I was an only child.  She refers to her brothers as her “safety net”, which prompted this memory…

I had to be at least 10, because Brother #2 had already moved out of the house, married.  I know it was summer time, and considering I spent most of the summers before I turned 10 with my grandparents, I’m going to guess it was the summer I turned 11.

Anyway.  I get bronchitis nearly every year, and I think this may have been the first time I had it.  I had this horrible dry cough.  All I did was cough.  Cough medicine didn’t really help.  It had gone on for weeks.  It was admittedly annoying, especially to my father.

We had recently adopted a long hair cat, named Jodie.  Being a long hair cat, she occasionally had fur balls.  She slept with me at night, and my dad decided that maybe I had inhaled too much cat fur.  Essentially, he diagnosed me with fur balls.  (This is a 100% true story, I swear.)

So he looked on the package of the fur ball medicine to see what the main ingredient was.  The main ingredient of fur ball medicine is mineral oil.

We were home alone.  My mom was at work.  I don’t think this would have happened if she’d been home…

He took me to Wal-Mart and he bought mineral oil.

Now this part I don’t know how it really happened – I don’t know if he was saying “mineral oil” and I heard “mineral spirits”, or if, possibly he was saying “mineral spirits” when he meant “mineral oil”?  I’ve thought about this a lot, because I kinda doubt at that age I knew what mineral spirits was?  However it happened, in my mind, I got “mineral spirits” twisted up with “mineral oil”.  I do know, however, that I didn’t know what either of these things really was.

We got home, and he administered to me two tablespoons of mineral oil.  It was awful.  Like drinking baby oil.  In fact, I bet baby oil is made of mineral oil. It was really, really awful.

He made me drink two tablespoons of mineral oil, and then he went out to cut the grass.   The phone rang.  It was my brother.

“Dad made me drink mineral spirits!”  I told him.

“Dad did not make you drink mineral spirits.”

“Yes!  Yes he did!”

“Ginger.  Dad did not make you drink mineral spirits.”

“He did.  He said it would help my cough.”

“Ginger.  If Dad made you drink mineral spirits, you’d be dead.”

Even before he said that, I was pretty sure I was dying.  Now I knew I was dying!

I heard a deep sigh on the other end of the phone.  Like he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer to the question he was about to ask, like he was pretty sure he could just hang up the phone and never think about it again, but in the off chance… 

“Why would Dad make you drink mineral spirits?”

“Because he thinks I have fur balls.”

I could almost hear his eyes roll through the phone.

“Why… would…  Dad… think… you have…  fur balls?”

“Because he says my cough sounds like Jodie’s cough when she has fur balls.  So he looked on the fur ball medicine and the main ingredient is mineral spirits!”

“Not mineral spirits, Ginger.  Mineral OIL.  Two different things.  You’ll be fine.”

I was not convinced.

“Mineral spirits is like alcohol.  It would have burned a hole in your throat.  You can’t drink mineral spirits.”

Then, I heard laughter through the phone, when he put it together and realized, yes, it was very likely that Dad did make me drink mineral oil, “He really made you drink mineral oil?  You won’t die, but I bet that was pretty nasty!”

That may be the closest he’s ever come to feeling sorry for me…

If you knew me really well, you might be surprised that I work in a profession that requires as much traveling as mine does.  When I was younger, I had a pretty marked aversion to travel.  I would sometimes decide I wanted to go somewhere (like to to Vermont for summer camp) but right before I was set to go, I’d back out.  (The Vermont camping story could be an entry all it’s own – even though I never actually went…)

My last two trips to Pittsburgh had layovers at the Chicago Midway International Airport on the return legs.  I’ve flown in and out of Midway many times, but, as I mentioned to the passenger next to me on my return flight Thursday night, I’ve never actually been to Chicago.  I almost did once, though…

When I was growing up, one summer my mom planned a girls’ trip for us.  I think it was the summer between fifth and sixth grades, but it might have been the summer between sixth and seventh.  She was going to take me to Chicago.

I did not have any particular desire to go to Chicago.  It sounded like a very Big Place.  Then I overheard her talking about talking to someone she knew who had been to Chicago, who was giving her advice on whether the hotel we had chosen was in a safe area, etc.  This put me on high alert.  I deduced that if we needed to be concerned about finding a “safe” place, then there must be a lot of “unsafe” places in Chicago.  At this point in my life, I had not yet been exposed to many situations where I was aware of needing to be aware of the safety of my surroundings.  Now, of course, as an adult, I get it.  But then – the very fact that we had to consider safety told me this was not a place I thought we needed to go.

So I objected.  I told my mother I didn’t want to go to Chicago.

She was disappointed.  She really wanted to go to Chicago.

Instead, we went to Iowa.  We visited an Amish colony.

I have a feeling on the thrill-a-meter scale of zero thrills to ten, a visit to an Amish colony in Iowa is about equal to a visit to Chicago.  *shrug*

And with that, here’s Waylon Jennings, singing about all the places he’s never been:

As I say all the time, Tarzan doesn’t like my cooking.

Well, let me rephrase that.  I don’t think my cooking is the problem.  He doesn’t like what I cook.  As my friend Lynn would say… “same, same”.

Anyway, as far as meals go, my stand-by Make Tarzan Happy meal is spaghetti.  It’s also the best bet for the grandkids, although they are historically much (much much) less picky than Tarzan.

Spaghetti was also one of my favorite things my mom made when I was growing up.  I do not like anyone’s spaghetti but my mom’s, except my own (which is just like my mom’s.)

I remember being at a friend’s house for dinner once, and they were having spaghetti!  It looked just like the spaghetti I knew and loved, and I helped myself to a nice big plate!  I discovered too late that it was full of onions and green peppers!  And those chunks of red that looked like tomatoes?  Red peppers?!  And the sauce tasted… sweet?  What in the world?

That was when I first realized that different people make the same dish differently!  That wasn’t a concept I was familiar with at the time.

Anyway, I don’t do anything fancy with spaghetti.  Just a pound of hamburger meat, a jar of meat sauce from Aldi, and noodles… the thin ones.  Our grandkids’ mom says that she spends all day simmering her special spaghetti sauce… and she tries not to get her feelings hurt that her kids appear to prefer my version, made with noticeably less “love”.

The trick is getting the right noodle-to-sauce ratio!  I never get it right.  What I have to do is make way more noodles than I think, and then add the noodles slowly to the sauce until it looks right.  Then I use the remaining noodles for other things (for instance today I ate some cold noodles with my current favorite side dish, a broccoli and mushroom recipe I got from emeals).

So this evening I googled “noodles to pasta sauce ratio”, and according to most sources, the right combination is a pound of pasta to 24 ounces of sauce.

Well, not at the Dalton’s house, it isn’t!  That would be waaaaaay too many noodles.  This last batch I made I cooked about 10 1/2 ounces of noodles, but probably only used a little over half that.

Oh, and I love the pot-sized spaghetti noodles, when I can find them.  You have to really look for them in stores, I always tend to overlook them on the shelves, I guess because the box is a different size/shape than I’m expecting?

Some day, I’ll remember to weigh the uncooked noodles, make a note… then before I add the cooked noodles to the sauce, weigh them… then weigh the remaining unused cooked noodles, once I get the sauce-to-noodle ratio to my taste… and back into the calculation of how many ounces of uncooked noodles that would be.

Yes, that’s the kind of thing I do.  For fun.

If you think you know the answer, if you think you know the right number of ounces of uncooked thin spaghetti noodles per 24 ounces of pasta sauce (plus a pound of hamburger meat, if that matters), go ahead and let me know.  But know, you’re ruining  ALL my fun.  😉