Month: August 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom lately. Not surprising considering the anniversary of her death was August 11th. She has been gone for 5 years now. However, mentally, she was gone years before her physical passing. She has Alzheimer’s.

Before the disease came along my mom was total greatness. She was funny, kind, gentle, thoughtful, resourceful, confident and just in general amazing. She was all of the things I so desperately want to be. I never ever heard her say one bad word about anyone. EVER! That is a hard thing to accomplish. I remember asking her once if she had ever done anything bad in her life. She sat there for a long time, finally she said well this one time when I was 5 years old…. I can’t tell you what she did, as she made me promise never to reveal her secret, but the real point of the whole thing was she had to go back 80 years!!! She was 85 when she told me that story. I can begin my list at the age of 4 and just continue on till today! She had the patience of Job. I remember the one and only time I ever saw her lose her cool and it was when I was 15 and my dad decided to teach me to drive, well, during one of our driving lessons I backed the car into the fence. No comments please. My mom shot out of the house like a lightning bolt, pointed her finger at my dad and said “Driver’s Ed!” then went back into the house. My dad looked at me and said “Well, I guess that settles that”. LOL! It was funny.

My mom was so very intelligent. She was a published author, a retired dental assistant, seamstress, Sunday school teacher and frustrated wannabe English teacher. She told me that when she was a girl she wanted to go to college and become a teacher. Well since it was the depression and she was a girl there was no money for college. It wasn’t even discussed. I often wonder what kind of life my mother would have had if she had been able to go to college.

The quality that I loved the most, and still miss to this day, is the way I could tell my mom anything and she never judged me. She never offered advice unless I specifically asked for it, even then, never expected me to act on the advice.

I try and mimic that characteristic with my own children. I hope I do half as good of job as my mom did in the whole parenting department. I sometimes feel bad that my children don’t have as good a mother as I had.

Did I mention the cooking? My mom was a terrific cook. She made the best ever fried green tomatoes and this coconut cake, it was white cake with this icing that was out of this world, made out of that marshmellow stuff in a jar with coconut, it was a pure white cake, so good!! Trust me when I say we ate well. She tried to impart all of that domestic stuff on to me, it hasn’t taken yet…

When I grow up I want to be like my mother.

 

Last week I was talking to friend of mine who got married a while back, my friend was saying how sometimes they missed their single self. I immediately responded I miss 16 year old Angie.

Then I started thinking, I really do miss her. She was absolutely, totally fearless. Faced every day with the expectation that it was going to be amazing and wonderful. She was right the majority of the time, you have to account for normal teenage angst in there.

So, being who I am, I decided to do a little time traveling. No, I do not own a Delorian, or a flux capacitor. I have a Ford…

I put on my wide legged jeans, hoop earrings, tons of lipgloss, sparkle eyeshadow (I don’t own blue, however, have found a copious amount of sparkles covers a ton of sins) and got my hair as close to Farrah hair as possible.

Got into my car, sans cell phone, 16 year old Angie didn’t even know what that would be! Backed out of my garage and turned on the radio. There is this great station that plays nothing but ’70’s music.

To my great delight More, More, More by Andrea True Connection was playing, I turned it up so loud the car pulsated, next was Todd Rundgren, love, love, love him, I was rewarded next with Peter Frampton.

I was 16 again, carefree, slightly wild and always perfectly coiffed. As I drove down the street I didn’t think about bills, work, kids, politics, war, famine, death, taxes or dinner. It all melted away.

I drove for about 20 minutes, enjoying in every indulgent second.

As I pulled back into the garage the ’70’s melted away and I was back in good old 2008. I wondered if I would miss it as I walked into the house.

My 17 year old son was waiting for me, gave me a huge hug, announced the cats had thrown up and he was leaving. I found I didn’t miss 16 year old Angie as much as I thought I would. She is great to visit, fun to reminisce with, however, I love my life, my children and who I am now.

I highly recommend time travel, however, I suggest you only do it in 20 minute increments, anything longer and you might not find your way back.

I have a new favorite song. I know that you are all surprised by this new development and may wonder why it is news worthy

It is the new Kidd Rock song, All Summer Long. See lyrics below:

Kid Rock All Summer Long Lyrics
Songwriters: Marinell, Leroy; Wachtel, Robert; Zevon, Warren; Ritchie, R J; Shafer, M; King, E; Rossington, Gary; Vanzant, R;

It was 1989, my thoughts were short my hair was long
Caught somewhere between a boy and man
She was seventeen and she was far from in-between
It was summertime in Northern Michigan

Ahh Ahh Ahh
Ahh Ahh Ahh

Splashing through the sand bar
Talking by the campfire
It’s the simple things in life, like when and where
We didn’t have no internet
But man I never will forget
The way the moonlight shined upon her hair

[Chorus:]
And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking ’bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long

Catching Walleye from the dock
Watching the waves roll off the rocks
She’ll forever hold a spot inside my soul
We’d blister in the sun
We couldn’t wait for night to come
To hit that sand and play some rock and roll

While we were trying different things
And we were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking ’bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long

Now nothing seems as strange as when the leaves began to change
Or how we thought those days would never end
Sometimes I’ll hear that song and I’ll start to sing along
And think man I’d love to see that girl again

[Repeat Chorus x2]

Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long

—–

If you changed 1989 to 1981 and Northern Michigan to Northern Oklahoma and all the she’s to he’s and well you get the point this could have been my summer! Almost, some differences…

This song is the most amazing thing ever, any song that samples Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama! OMG, seriously amazing.
I am not usually a huge Kidd Rock fan but he really out did himself with this piece.
I love it!
If I had music on this site I would have this song playing.

When I was in the fifth grade I read Homer’s The Iliad, I was so hooked! I began to read everything I could get my hands on regarding the ancient gods and goddesses. I watched every film ever made regarding the subject. Even the cheesy ones and those were plentiful. I decided that when I grew up I wanted to be a demi-goddess, I chose demi-goddess because I wanted to look youthful for a long time, however I did not want to live forever. That would mean outliving any children I might have in the future (remember I was 11 at the time). I tried to find the exact goddess I wanted to be, there was none that really fit the bill. I decided to make up my own. I wanted to be a time traveler, not to change history mind you, more of an observer of history. I had no desire to travel to the future. As I grew up I realized that I was not going to achieve that goal, I did manage to achieve the youthful looking part however. So, I decided that I wanted to be a historian, an observer of events if you will. You should have seen the look on my father’s face when I revealed that goal. He told me there was no way I could make a living from it. But it would make a nice hobby. He then said you should be an accountant. LOL. OMG! The absolute horror! He should have known better than to make that comment, he knew I could not add two plus two. I absolutely hate numbers. Well I grew up, got married, had a passel of kids, got a divorce, did not become an official historian, nor did I achieve the goal of demi-goddess. However, I have achieved motherhood, friend (I have really good friends!), nerd with geeky tendencies, and all around American Woman. I think that is good for now. I still have yet to grow up so I may just yet achieve the goal of demi-goddess, you never know. They have made really good advances in modern science lately….. Oh I never told my dad about wanting to follow the path of the greek gods. He was a Baptist Deacon…. He would never have understood that one!