Gifts

Tomorrow is Christmas when everyone gathers around the tree, rips open presents, say the appropriate words and then eats. Recently, I have been trying to remember special gifts I received over my many years even when I was a child and I can’t remember anything. So either I am one step closer to the home, or those aren’t the gifts I should be trying to remember.

I remember our hip, modern aluminum tree that the branches had to be put in one-by-one. I remember the multi-colored light that shown on the tree and magically the tree changed colors. I remember my brother, Brad, and Caren sitting in front of the tree for hours oooooooing and awing over its beauty.

I remember the family gatherings of close family and distant crazy cousins. The best thing about family gatherings was the food: turkey stuffed with sage dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry jelly from the can with the can ridges prominently displayed and PIE. I remember everyone hanging out in the kitchen bugging my mom while she was trying to cook, and waiting for the turkey to come out so we could pick at it.

I remember the laughter. The same stories are told at every gathering and the stories still cause uproaring laughter. In the gathering of the Cunningham girls it doesn’t take long before one of us is shouting our mantra, “Stop, I am going to pee!”

I remember the competitive game play. The hours of Scrabble, 10,000, Left-Right-Center, and Yahtzee. Watching the Yahtzee victory dance never gets old. Caren won’t let anyone win, not even small crying children. When someone would say, “Caren, he is only two. Let him beat you at a game of Candyland.” Caren would reply, “The kid has to learn to lose sometime, now is a good time as any.”

I was watching Glee, (yes, I am a Gleek) and one of the characters, Quinn Fabray, said while serving food to the homeless, “I’ve been spending too much time focusing on what I don’t have rather than what I do have.” The next time you open a gift and find it wasn’t what you wanted, remember to focus on the gifts you do have. The real gifts: the gift of love, the gift of family and friends, the gift of laughter, and the gift of life.

Paco’s  Perspective

Do you like the little gifts I leave for you in the bathroom ever once in awhile? It’s all about the element of surprise.

The Flip Side

I like that gift of a doggie door. I can see the lizards and get outside to get them quicker. The Gecko Master lives!

If You Have Chocolate, They Will Come

I am at home with pneumonia. Janet keeps asking me, if I want to go to the hospital. I hate going to the hospital everyone always seems too busy to care for my needs. I get so much better care at home. Believe me a RN does not like to do assisted coughing. So when Janet asks if I am ready to go to the hospital, I always answer, "Nope, I am not seeing angels, yet." That is the only time I go to the hospital when I am seeing angels. 

When I had my car accident in the late nineties, I spent over two weeks in the hospital and many more weeks in rehab. I was the youngest person on the "no hope" ward. I had broken all my bones from the waist done and I was already handicapped it wasn't like they were going to get me to walk again. Also, I was only there because I didn't have anyone that was able to care for me at the time. I really only saw nurses at breakfast lunch and dinner. I am not putting down the nurses. I didn't ring and they didn't come. One night I rang to ask to go to the bathroom and I waited and I waited and I waited until I couldn't wait anymore. There is nothing more embarrassing than having an accident as an adult.

Later, I was sharing my tragedy with a friend and she said, "If you have chocolate, they will come." The next day she came with a big bowl of candy with lots of chocolate and placed it in the farthest point from the door with a sign that said, "Help yourself!" From that day on I saw RNs, nurses assistants, janitors and rehab coordinators throughout the day and because they had to walk all the way into the room to get to the chocolate they had to make eye contact with me and say, "Is there anything I can do for you?" The next four weeks were a breeze.

Remember, if you have anyone that has to have an extended stay in the hospital or rehab centers, if you have chocolate, they will come.

Paco's Perspective

If you have treats, I will come.

The Flip Side

If you have lizards, I will come.

Shortcut

Recently, I was hanging out in the hallway between the library and the lounge, I was chatting with some students. At the end of the hallway is a door, which one can exit out of but not come in. All of our exits are like this because our students are precious gold so they are locked in like the gold at Fort Knox. The students aren’t allowed to exit out this door. This is another way to keep tabs on the students. One of the students I was talking to happened to casually saunter over to the door, open it, and walk out. As I was about to say, “Hey, Buddy, you can’t go out that door,” the three other students’ eyes became as big as saucers, their chests filled with excitement and all three of them in unison yelled, “SHORTCUT,” and they bolted through that door and were gone.

I laughed. It reminded me of my brother-in-law, Caren’s husband, Darrell. Darrell is a Montana boy through and through, born-and-raised. He knows every highway, byway, farm road, dirt road, path and trail in Montana or so he thinks. We call him Shortcut. Every time Caren and I get ready to prepare our route to travel around Montana or across country Darrell will pipe up, “Hey, I know a shortcut.”

We grimace and mumble under our breaths, “Oh, no, not a shortcut.” Darrell has sent us on “shortcuts” that the digital voice on my phone’s GPS system robotically states throughout the trip, “You-must-turn a-round-make-a-u-turn-at-the-next-exit-turn-now-turn-now-turn-now!” I swear she mumbles under her robotic breath, “ Oh-no-not-a-Dar-rell-short-cut!”

Whenever Darrell sends us on a shortcut it always happens to go through the town of Moesha. Caren and I always start giggling when he starts to say, “I know a shortcut that goes through Moesha.”

Here is the worst part, well, for us, not for Darrell. We argue, squabble, giggle and shout our mantra, “Stop, I am going to pee,” but we take the shortcut and he is ALWAYS right. We bounce over washboard roads. We count and dodge cows as we drive through a farmer’s pasture and we still shave time off of our trip. Caren I could be lost for an hour and a half trying to find the wooded horse trail to Moesha and still shave two hours off our trip. And we raise our fists to God and shout, “Why does he always get to be right? Just once, God, just once!”

And then it happened. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there but here is the story as Caren told it:

Darrell and I were in Montana and I wanted to go for a hike. It is a hike that I have done before. It is two miles in and two miles out.  I generally hike about two miles per hour. I have done the hike many times. I like it because I know where I am going, it is a strenuous hike and it only takes two hours. Darrell decided was going to go with me. I believe the reason that Darrell always wants to take shortcuts is that he gets easily bored and doesn’t like looking at the same trees and bushes. So, I specifically said to him, “Darrell, if you go with Osa (the dog) and me on this hike, we will stay on the trail. There will be no bushwhacking. There will be no shortcut.” He sheepishly agreed.

Well, the three of us hike to the end of trail. It takes exactly one hour. I proceeded to turn around and start my one hour back and Darrell says, “You know, Babe, if we go this way, just over that ridge is a trail back to the car and we will get there much quicker.”

“No, Darrell.”

“Come on, just walk up to the ridge with me and I will show you.”

“No, Darrell. I have things I have to do at home. I told you we were going to stay on the trail. One hour in, one hour out, please.”

“But, Babe, this will be better. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

Darrell was absolutely positively sure that we would come to a road and we could take the road to our car that was parked about five miles south of our house near Flathead Lake. As any good obedient wife (which I AM NOT) and faithful dog would do, we followed Darrell. Two hours hours, and no water left in our bottles later, we came upon a road where Darrell proceeded to start jogging down the road with obedient wife and faithful dog lagging behind. As Osa and I stopped to catch our breath I shouted, “Darrell, I don’t think this is the right road. This doesn’t look right. I don’t recognize any of the trees.”

“This is the right road. How do you recognize a tree? They all have brown trunks and pine needles.”

“My Indian name happens to be She-Who-Recognizes-Trees!”

“Look. We can see the lake so we are not lost.”

Four miles and over two hours later, we end up at the exact same spot that She-Who-Recognizes-Trees (that would be me) told Darrell that it was the wrong road.

Our dog, Osa, sat down next to Darrell, she eyed the trees knowingly, got up, walked over to me, sat down, and looked at Darrel as if to say, “My Indian name is The-Faithful-Dog-of-She-Who-Recognizes-Trees. Where she leads, I will follow.” I led us through the bushes to the RIGHT road where I recognized the trees. If we stood just right and held our right arm in the air, we could get cell phone service. Darrell called his mom and told her to try and find us. I don’t know how she was going to do that, but Anne knows the huckleberry picking roads better than Darrell. I looked at Darrell and said, “Osa and I are flagging down the next truck that passes our way. I don’t care, if it is occupied by the next Montana serial killer, Osa and I are getting in the truck.” I flagged down the next truck, we jumped in the back of the truck and the driver dropped us off at the Ferndale Volunteer Fire House that happens to be eight miles northeast of our house. I called Darrell’s mom to come and pick us up. She had packed food and water for all of us. Good thing the sun doesn’t set in Montana in the summer until 11:00 p.m.

Anne dropped Osa and me off at he house and took Darrell to get the car. Darrell insisted we take the car to look for the trailhead we missed. We originally missed it by about thirty yards. Our four-mile, two hour hike turned into a fifteen-mile, eight hour hike.

If you ever happen to be hiking in the vicinity of Bigfork, Montana and you see She-Who-Recognizes-Trees and the-Faithful-Dog-of-She-Who-Recognizes-Trees followed by a obedient husband with thinning blonde hair shout, “Hey, He-Who-Thinks-He-Knows-A-Shortcut-Through-Moesha, how’s it going?”

Paco’s Perspective

Hey, I have been hiking with Darrell on one of his “shortcuts” and my Indian name was Short-One-with-Thistles-Stuck-to-His-Butt. Never again!

The Flip Side

My Indian name is Flip. Right?

RULES OF THE "SISTAH"HOOD

Recently, while Caren was in town we had a small meeting of the “sistah”hood. We had made special plans to gather for an initiate, and the initiate had the audacity to not show. Well, at that moment I decided there had to be some rules.

RULES OF THE “SISTAH”HOOD

1.    Always attend a meeting of The “Sistah”hood, unless you have a doctor appointment, dentist appointment, gynecologist appointment, neurologist appointment, any other appointment or a date with a child, husband, mom, dad, aunt, uncle, or someone you like a whole lot better than the “sistahs”.

2.     Always be prepared to gather when a “sistah” calls, unless you live out of country, out of state, out of city , out of block or you are out of your mind.

3.    Don’t bring a non”sistah” to a “sistah”hood function, unless she has treats, bottles of our favorite wines, and she is prepared to dress like Snookie, sing the official “sistah”hood song and dance on the table. 

4.    Always be prepared to help a “sistah” on and off the table of any drinking establishment and never walk away from a “sistah” dancing on a table, unless her antics are just too embarrassing.

5.    Always be prepared to pick up the tab, unless you have devised a plan to sneak out or to run to the bathroom when the check comes.

6.    Always be kind to a “sistah’s” family, unless it consists of asinine jerks or you just don’t like they way they look.

7.    Always be prepared to speak in some kind of an accent, unless you don’t know how to do accents, and then be prepared to not speak at all.

8.    Always make a “sistah” aware of a wardrobe malfunction, unless it is just too darn funny watching her walk around in public with her dress stuck in her pantyhose and toilet paper stuck to her shoe.

9.    Always lavish your “sistahs” with expensive gifts, unless you have no money then lavish them with compliments, and please do it without giggling.

10. Always wear your “sistah”hood pin and memorize the words to the official song (frontwards and backwards). Oh wait, there is no “sistah”hood pin or song.

After reading the above, forementioned rules, and you would still like to become a “sistah” fill out the application below:

Legal Name:

A.K.A:

The name you would like to be called:

Address: (don’t put a real address, unless you want everyone’s junk mail sent to you)

Dream address:

Sex:                                             How often?

If you could who?

Favorite book: (fill in only if you read)

Favorite song:

Favorite movie:

Secret crush:

Who would you like to be deserted on an island with? (Warning, trick question!)

Have you ever been convicted of a crime?

Are you willing to be?

Religious preference: (just in case)

References: (Really important people you know, don’t list your mama!)

After filling in the above application and you still want to be a “sistah”, all right, already, you can be “sistah”, unless you are a male and that could probably be overlooked (“sistahs” love pocket gays). If you get an outfit, you can be a “sistah”too.

Paco’s Perspective

I have lots of outfits. Which one should I wear? I have a pig, devil, spider, elf, reindeer and funny nose and glasses. I would be willing to share with the “sistahs”!

The Flip Side

Am I a sistah? What is one called after “the operation”?

Home is Where the Heart Is

As I have stated in the past I am a big fan of the Wizard of Oz and I don’t know why. Dorothy spends most of her time whining about how she wants to go home. Home to a dusty farm. Home to an elderly aunt and uncle which means someone didn’t want her in the first place. Home to three inept farm hands which happen to be with her in Oz.

I have been pondering on the idea of home. What is home? Where does one feel at home? Home can’t be just where you live.  Home is that feeling in one’s heart; that feeling of peace, love and safety. There is an old cliché, “home is where the heart is” that I believe to this day. I feel at “home” in many places.

When I am with family and friends I am at home. I don’t have to worry about anything with family and friends. I can let my guard down with family and friends. I don’t know why we separate family and friends. Many cling to the word “family”. I have heard people say, “We are a family. Families must stick together.” What if some people in your “family” are asses? Does one always have to stick by jerks? I believe that one should pick the best part of one’s family and put them together with one’s real friends and create a “framily”. I love my framliy. I happen to live with a framliy. Whenever I am with framliy I am at home.

I am at home in Montana. I have spent the past twelve or thirteen summers in Montana. At first, I only went for a week or two, so it was like a vacation. But then I started spending the entire summer with Caren in Montana. I have had some of my greatest adventures in Montana. I have had some of my greatest laughs in Montana. I have definitely partaken in some of the greatest picturesque views in Montana. I have many framily members in Montana. I call Montana home.

I am at home at my church. When I lived in Estrella Mountain Ranch I started attending Estrella Mountain Church. When I first attended it there were only about fifty people in the pews on Sunday and now there are about two hundred eighty-five people in the pews on any given Sunday. Since I moved away from Estella Mountain, I very seldom attend church, but when I do I always feel like I am at home. It is filled with framily. It is a place where everybody remembers my name, even though it has a huge membership. It is a place where I feel loved. If you don’t have a church or a temple, find one. If you don’t believe in God, go anyway it’s worth it. Find a church or a temple or a commune and you will find a home.

Believe it or not I am at home at work. I am a hermit, so it is the only place I make friends. I love my job! I love the students! (Okay, maybe not the kinders!) I love working with the teachers! I love the stress! I love the hard, sometimes impossible work. I have been doing this for thirty-four years and I can’t imagine doing anything else. Recently, I was asked if I was ever going to retire and my answer was why would I want to do that.  

Home is the place, people and things you would miss. I would miss going to work. I miss my framily (that includes DaBoyz) daily. I miss Montana. I miss going to my church. Dorothy was right all along. She missed her home in Kansas and when she got to Kansas she probably missed her home in OZ.

Paco’s Perspective

Hey, I got an idea! Let’s take Flip somewhere and see if I miss him.

The Flip Side

How come I always just miss catching lizards?

Thank God, We Forget

Over ten years ago I was involved in a car accident that impacted my life forever. To this day I still don’t know what really happened. I was driving. I wasn’t feeling well. I came to a stoplight . . . . . .the next thing I remember is being crumpled up under the dash and some woman very calmly saying to me, “Don’t worry, Honey, I am a nurse and you won’t remember any of this.” She was right I didn’t. I only have little snips of memory over the course of the two weeks I was in the hospital. Thank God, He has us forget.

Thanking God for forgetfulness permeates my school teaching career, also. The reader must know I do not like kindergarteners. I think they are mean, unruly crybabies. The reader must also know that 60% of the kindergarteners at Tomahawk don’t speak a word of English, and by state law teachers are not allowed to communicate with them in Spanish. I stay as far away from the kinder building as possible. At the beginning of this school year, I was rolling across campus a little too close to the kinder building, and I spied a kindergarten teacher on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She was trying to explain bathroom and drink procedure to a bunch of those Kinder Kreatures, and to top it off they were the English Language Learners. Now, HollyJane is a go-with-the-flow kind of gal. She is not a wave maker. She won’t even splash in the kiddie pool. She looked at me and started stuttering, “I . . . I . . . . I just need a break.”

“Okaaay, I’ll take care of them for a few minutes,” I replied with a look of fear in my eyes and hesitancy in my voice.

“No, no, no that’s okay. I can handle this. I’m just . . . I’m just . . . . I’m just . . . .,” she started stuttering again.

“Go to the bathroom, get a drink (of water), and take a few deep breathes. I don’t think I’ll kill them in that small of amount of time,” I said with a fake smile and look of confidence. The reader needs to know that in all my years of teaching I only taught a primary class one year. I make all primary kids cry. It might be because I talk to them the same way I talk to fifth and sixth graders.

When HollyJane returned twenty years later, okay it just seemed like an eternity, they were all shaking in their boots and one was crying that was I. HollyJane and I took them inside and I taught for a little bit and only one more started crying that was her. As I edged closer and closer towards the exit and I was planning my escape from Alcatraz in my head, HollyJane gave me that look: the puppy-dog-eyes-with-the-pouty-lip-please-don’t-leave-me look. I shrugged my shoulders, mouthed the word, “Sorry”, and ran like a schoolgirl from a haunted house.

A few days later HollyJane caught me as I was tiptoeing passed the kinder building hoping not to wake the lions and she laughed and said, “I don’t know why I always forget what it is like the first weeks of school. I have been doing this for a long time, and I only remember the good stuff at the end of the year.”

“Yep, seven weeks,” I quickly responded as I dashed away.

“Seven weeks what?” she queried.

It takes forty-five days to build a habit. The many years that I taught with Colleen I would get so frustrated at the beginning of the year. I would be in a crazy-ready-to-jump-over-the-edge-mumbling snit and Colleen would smile at me and say very calmly, “Seven weeks, Cathy, seven weeks. Just give it seven weeks.”

“If they aren’t doing what they are suppose to do after seven weeks, then we can knock them off and bury them in the playground, right?” I would ask excitedly.

“Mounds of dirt on the playground might be a little too obvious,” she replied.

“Cement shoes,” I giggled.

“This is Arizona, no water. In seven weeks you won’t want to dig a single hole or buy a single bag of cement anyway,” she laughed.

She was right. Colleen was always right, even though, I would never let her know that. After seven weeks, the class was always wonderful and the ones that weren’t so wonderful I loved too much to plan a hit.

Thank God, we forget the bad stuff. Women forget the pain of childbirth; soldiers forget the anguish of war; teachers forget the first weeks of school. Women have more children; soldiers re-up; teachers continue to do what they do.

Paco’s Perspective

I wish I wouldn’t forget what it feels like to get zapped by the bark collar. One would think I would learn!

The Flip Side

What are we talking about? I forgot! It pains me to think, sometimes, okay, all the time.

Have You Ever Heard a Bunny Scream?

The scream of a bunny is a horrible noise. Unfortunately, living where I do, near farmland and the WhiteTanks Mountain Range, I get the opportunity to hear that sound often.

Imagine what it is like to be a bunny near my home. You’re a very happy bunny doing your bunny thing. You have a great den under the creosote bushes where the coyotes can’t get to you. You know the exact time the coyotes come down from the mountains to search for food, so you know when to hide in your den. Those people that moved in during the winter have planted some succulent grass, tasty flowers, and they’re keeping things watered in order to keep everything green. You’re in bunny munching heaven. At night you and your friends sneak in through the fence, lie on the cool grass, nibble on the new shoots, eat the tasty flowers, and sometimes you practice your bob and weave moves that you need to use just in case those little, yapping shits come running out the door and try to make a pathetic move to catch you. There are even times when you and your friends sit just outside the fence and point and laugh at that those yappers. There you are giggling your fluffy-tailed ass off when out of the corner of your eye you see movement. You think in your itty, bitty bunny brain that it can’t be a coyote because it isn’t Coyote Time. Then you suddenly realize the yappers aren’t yapping at you they’re yapping at something behind you and quickly you turn, and there it is, a pack of coyotes bearing down on you and your friends. The pack is between you and your den and you start your bob and weave move, but you are out of practice. Then you hear an ear-splitting scream and wonder where that is coming from, and you realize it is coming from you!

Sometimes I feel like that bunny. I’m a very happy person doing my thing. Every once in a while I practice my bob and weave. There I am hopping along at my happy bunny pace, giggling and having a great time, and then someone comes along and bites me in the ass and I scream like a bunny being caught by a coyote!

Paco’s Perspective

Don’t worry I won’t let those coyotes get you. 

They don’t call me Sir Barks A lot Who Thinks He Is Lion-Hearted for nothing.

The Flip Side

I kinda like chasing the bunnies more than the lizards. They are bigger and I don’t lose ‘em in little tiny places.