Nurse Meme Nurses

 When I was a little girl and I was sick, my mother would make me get up in the morning.  Take a bath/shower wash my face and get dressed.  Even if I wasn't going to school.  She would tell me it would make me feel better.  So I would do as told and get up and do my morning ritual.  I used to get so angry with her because damn it, didn't she know I was sick.  I felt like crap.
The last thing I wanted to do was get out of a nice warm bed crawl into a steaming hot shower, put on fresh clothes with a clean face and freshly brushed teeth.

  When I emerged from the bath I would find a clean, freshened bed with pillows plumped or a couch made up with sheets, blankets, and pillows which allowed me to lounge in comfort.  There I would lie for several hours at a time watching one of the three channels.  First, it would be the news then Let's Make a Deal and on into the afternoon where Days of Our Lives or General Hospital would entertain me with some awful drama.   More likely it would be playing in the background while I read my latest obsession, be it one of the Little House books or Anne of Green Gables or a Zane Grey I stole from my father's pile.

When I was six or maybe seven, I got really sick.  I had the flu that moved into scarlet fever and then snowballed into rheumatic fever.  I was down for a couple of months.  I read, watched TV, played with my dolls and pretended to be a princess who had been exiled to a strange and distant land.  I built forts from quilts absconded from the couch and the linen closet.  I drank gallons of soup from mugs and ate tons of grilled cheese sandwiches made by my mom.

She worked nights and tried to sleep all day.  During my illness instead of her going to bed when she got home from her shift, she would sleep on the couch, one eye open, jerking awake every time I coughed or blew my nose.  She was ever vigilant.  She would pop up wide awake, drink another cup of coffee as she prepared whatever medicine was needed at the time.  She made grilled cheese and tomato soup and fed me peeled oranges and apples cut into slices.  Eat she would say.  Eat your health.

She taught me many things, but one of the best things she taught me was to give yourself some love.  Get up, put on your lipstick and face the world.  You don’t have to go any further than the couch, but you have made the next step to feeling better.

It’s Flu Season.  If you did or didn’t get your flu shot, I hope you do not get inflicted.  If by some poor happenstance of luck you come down with the dreaded Captain Tripps or a bad case of Coxilliosis of the Blow Hole.  I have these words of advice.  Get up.  Take a hot shower.  Put on fresh clothes.  Eat your health.

Happy Halloween From Leon Ray Livingston

Halloween was different when I was a kid.  I remember being a Hobo  three years in a row because it was a cheap costume comprised of items we had around the house.  A pint-sized Leon Ray Livingston if you will.  Wait!  What?  You don’t know who Leon Ray Livingston is?  He is the most famous of Hobos.  If you had been a Hobo for most of your trick-or-treating career, you would know this.  He became a Hobo at eleven years of age and Hoboed the rest of his life, stowing away on ships and hopping trains.  He wrote journals and became somewhat famous.  I digress.

            Nurse Meme would drag out the Maybelline black eyebrow pencil and draw big thick eyebrows on us, then she would smear it across our jaws and cheeks making little five-year-old Gladys look like she hadn’t shaved in a day or two.  Then she would dress me in Buck’s old flannel shirt and a pair of jeans that were twenty times too big, cinch them up with a swath of rope and hand me a bandana tied to a stick for a bindle.   That was it.  That was the costume.  It was in this fashion I would tag behind my big brother, Quirky Cousins, and Matilda going door to door begging for candy. 

Buck of course was Superman, Matilda was a movie star, the Quirky Cousins always had some kind of imaginative and quirky costume and then there was Gladys the Hobo.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t care that I was a Hobo, it was just that I watched other kids in their store bought costumes with their plastic jack-o-lanterns full of Dum-Dum’s and Tootsie Rolls.  I envied their polyester Casper Costumes with the plastic mask with eye holes but no way to breath.

  I would long for the Cinderella costume that tied with three ties in the back and had scratchy netting for a skirt and again a plastic mask with huge eye holes but no nostril holes. This costume always flummoxed me, if you didn’t wear something underneath it you have a draft in the back, but if you did wear something underneath well then it just wasn’t Cinderella like.   We would pass each other on the street, little Johnny in his Casper costume complaining to his mom “I can’t breathe!” as his plastic Jack-O-lantern full of candy swayed this way and that spilling out little pieces of Bit-O’Honey and Laffy Taffy.   I would pause, stoop, and pick up the stray pieces only to find that Casper had melded into ten other Caspers none of which knew they were leaking Nik-L-Nips and Candy Cigarettes. 

            House by house we trudged up and down our neighborhood, ringing door bells and yelling the same old spiel “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.”   Every house on the block would have the porch light on and some kind of goody.   The elderly lady on the corner always had candied apples and popcorn balls wrapped in cellophane.  The old man that lived at the end of the road had rolls of pennies.  My favorite house was the big house half way up the block who always gave out little packages of suckers on a string, candy corn and Double-Bubble gum with the cartoon wrapper. 

            We had to wait until dusk to make our rounds and before we went we had to eat our dinner.  ALL of our dinner.  Nurse Meme was no fool. She knew that if she wanted us to eat liver at least once a year, then Halloween was the night to cook it.  We would never miss trick-or-treating over liver.  We would try not to gag and choke down our strip of organ meat smothered in onions and gravy, slog down our helping of spinach and head out the door.  Buck pushing back his red satin cape, Matilda fluffing her hair and checking the mole she had painted on her face and little Leon Ray Livingston in her too big everything. 

            I guess I’ve come the long way around to tell you Happy Halloween.  Today’s Halloween are much more sophisticated with costumes that look like they belong in the movies and decorations that equal those of Knots Scary Farm.  I don’t ever remember adults dressing in costumes but today everyone was decked out in some type of get-up from Freddie Kruger to a life-sized singing Elsa.  Everyone was in the spirit from the guy at the DMV dressed as a sloth to the cashier in Wal-Mart dressed as a giant Snicker’s bar.  I don’t know if Halloween is better today or if nostalgia skews my view.  But I kind of miss seeing a bunch of kids using their imaginations to come up with original costumes.  Or even some who ended up being Leon Ray Livingston three years in a row.

GLADYS BORROWS TIME

Tap…tap..tap… Is this thing on?  Anybody there?  (crickets)

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been here but I’ve been in a coma and then I had amnesia when I came to Stefano DiMera had kidnapped me… oh wait maybe that was Days of Our Lives.  In reality I’ve been here and then I went there and after that well I went over there and now I’m here. 

Most important I realized I really missed this creative outlet and decided it was time to return to writing this blog whether there was anyone out there still following or not.    I may not be here every day but I will be here more often than every 4 years. 

One of the many things that have happened to me in my journey is I’ve come to the realization that no matter where you go there you are.  Life takes us down so many paths and we must learn to enjoy each and every road we are traveling in the moment.  It doesn’t come easy for me to practice being in the moment as I am one who worries about things that may never happen.  I worry that I worry too much and then worry because I’m worried about that.  Such is the life of a constant worrier.

I have been working on not worrying so much.  Nurse Meme used to tell me not to go borrowing trouble.  I would thinK “why would I borrow trouble?  I might borrow sugar or shoes or even a really cute purse but trouble?”  I realize now what she was telling me not to fret over things that have not and may never happen.

A little over a year ago we moved to Hollywood South to work on a project.  The old Gladys would have obsessed over where we were going to live, what we were going to do and how it would all come together.  The new Gladys just loaded up the beast and settled in next to her sweetheart and was thankful to be along for the ride.  We finished that project and headed back to Californica.  Again the old Gladys would have gnashed her teeth and wrung her hands fraught with worry but the new Gladys once again thanked the stars above for the chance of another adventure.  

Now we are on yet another adventure, one that I hope will lead us to yet another adventure,

 but I’m not here to borrow trouble, I am just here for the ride.

Gladys Has Coxiellosis of the Blowhole

I’ll admit it; I’m a little bit neurotic with a touch of paranoia added to a scosh of hypochondria. Now I know that is hard for those who know me to believe but it’s true. I like to think of it as having symptom empathy for my fellow medically challenged humans, oh and animals too.


You see I have always been a little, as my Granddad would say, puny. In my defense, when my fellow 1st graders filed out into the play yard I was the runt. They were all robust healthy 6 year olds and I was half their size, pale, skinny, buck teethed and big eared. It continued to be that way my whole school years. Why even my first day of junior high school gym class Coach Perris thought I was lost and thought I was some elementary school kid dropped off at the wrong school.

Just the fact that I was small and thin made other’s think that I was unhealthy. I would hear things like “oh, my! Are you alright? Can I get you some water, a doctor or perhaps a pint of 0 negative?” I of course would begin to believe that I was dying of some mysterious illness. It didn’t help that I was highly impressionable and imaginative also my mother was a nurse and I had access to medical journals. A typical morning before school would go something like this:

Momma, I’m sick and can’t go to school today.

Really Gladys? What is wrong now?

Well, I have green snot coming out of my nose and my head hurts. Oh and I have a tingling on my tongue.

Oh really? Well maybe you just need to blow your nose and get dressed.

Oh NO! I think I have coxiellosis of the blowhole and that is terribly contagious.

You have what? You don’t have a blowhole. That is a disease a whale would get. Whales have blowholes.

Well, I did read Moby Dick last week.

I would have multiple days of multiple symptoms of deadly diseases to which Nurse Meme would always answer “pull up your big girl panties and go school.”

I tell you all of this to tell you I am convinced I have a brain eating amoeba. I know this because I use a netti pot. I use a netti pot and I have been using tap water.

I know this because I use a netti pot with tap water and I read this article yesterday, Amoeba Netti Pots Prove Deadly. See now you are wondering if you have a brain eating amoeba too aren’t you?

Gladys Quotes Nurse Meme

It is April which means it is spring, which means there are pollen and mold spores and all kinds of floaty fleety things in the air. It happens every year and every year it takes me by surprise. I wake with puffy eyes, running nose and a raspy voice that sounds like I have drank a few too many whiskeys and smoked ten too many cigarettes even though I haven’t. It is also the birth month of Nurse Meme.

I thought about this one morning when I woke way too early. I wondered what I could do to celebrate and commemorate my mother. I decided that I would each day post on my Twitter @gladysspeaks one of my mother’s sayings. Now some are original and some are bastardizations of clichés but all of them came out of her mouth at one time or another.

Nurse Meme could deadpan better than anyone I’ve ever known, but she was loud and clear when she was being serious. She would preface this fact with “I’m NOT LAUGHING” which would be preceded by either y full name complete with my first, middle and last name or with “young lady”.

One day when I was a young woman, oh shut up I was young…once, I was having a particularly bad day. My boyfriend was being an ass, my dog was sick and my clutch had gone out on my car and I thought it was the end of the world. I was sitting at the kitchen table having myself a real nice pity party. Nurse Meme came into the kitchen and took one look at me and shook her head “Gladys, what the hell is your problem?” I looked up from my cup of coffee and whined “my life is just terrible. I’m so tired of things going wrong all the time.” Nurse Meme got a pained look on her face and replied “Oh for cryin out loud! Pull your big girl panties up and get over yourself!” That was it. That was all she wrote. I was done for. I started laughing and couldn’t stop. She had totally nailed me. She was good at that. Now I know her intent was to basically tell me to knock it off but it was the way she told me to knock it off that made the difference.

 If the art of being blunt was gold, Nurse Meme would have been 24 karat. She could see you the first time in 2 years and immediately note out loud that you had gained 5 pounds and exactly where they were situated. The conversation would go something like this. “Earlene, why I haven’t seen you in 2 years. How are you? Howsyourmommandthem? Has your sisters hair grown back in after the bbq explosion? I told your dumbass brother-in-law that kerosene isn’t a very good choice of charcoal lighter. You know I think I’ve had him through the Eemerg-incy room 5 or 6 times this year. Well gurl you are looking good. You know it looks like you have put on a pound or five, right there round your hips. Oh now don’t go pulling that little short top down tryin to hide it. It looks real good with those low slung pants. You got one of them, what is it the kids call it? Muffin top? Well now you make sure you tell yourmommaandthem I said HI.” Then she would sashay off with her hair and make up in perfect order, her jeans freshly starched and pressed waving bye and never once batting an eye that she might have crossed a line. She said what she thought. She was blunt.

I loved that about her and wish that I too could be that blunt. So in memory of Nurse Meme I am posting my collection of Nurse Memeisms

"If you keep eating like that your ass is going to be as broad as an ax handle.". Nurse Meme

"You can get happy in those same panties you got mad in" Nurse Meme

"If everyone else were jumping off a bridge would you jump too? If you would then you're as big a dumb ass as they are" Nurse Meme

"There isn't any thing that a little Camphonphenique won't cure." Nurse Meme

"If you don't have something nice to say, then shut the hell up!" Nurse Meme

"Don't sh*t where you eat" Nurse Meme

"Don't cry over spilled milk, get off your ass and wipe it up." Nurse Meme

"Can't never could do anything" Nurse Meme

"Just put on more lipstick, you'll feel better." Nurse Meme

"If you lie down with dogs, you're gonna get up with fleas and you'll smell like a dog" Nurse Meme


Now go on and eat your veggies because there are starving children in China who would just love to have your brussel sprouts.

White Ribbons of Remembrance

It is Thursday which of course means it is Theme Thursday. I know it is Thursday because every Friday I refill my old lady grandma pill holder and I only have one day left of pills. You know that thing that has the days of the week on it and you put the 45,000 pills you have to take every morning in it so you can keep up with what day it is. Really that is why I take all those pills, not because I’m sick or don’t absorb calcium but because if I didn’t I wouldn’t know what day of the week it was.

Oh and let me tell you something else the last time I went to see Dr. Wonderful I got a whole new passel of medications that I have to take at night. So now not only do I have one of those pill dispensers for my morning ritual I now have one for nighttime. I sit in bed watching the 10 o’clock news squinting at my dispensary trying to figure out if it says a.m. or p.m. on it. I digress.


This week’s theme is White. White is a difficult thing to write about because really what is it? It is the absence of color. I am a colorful person. I love color but mother loved white. It represented cleanliness and health. Oh you could find her in a chartreuse jacket or magenta pants but it was always paired with white. She wore white every day to work and every day in her off duty life. Read Nurse Meme’s interaction with white and then go on over to Theme Thursday and read what my cohorts have written. Now I’m off to refill my pill dispenser with little white pills. “One pill makes you Barney, the other makes you Fred…go ask Wilma, what Dino said…..”

The box sat on the table along with some hand picked dandelions in an old jelly jar. It was her birthday. Nurse Meme didn’t celebrate birthdays as a child. She had no one with whom to celebrate. It was different now that she had a family. She had a husband and three little kids who were excited to celebrate her birthday. She knew money was tight. She knew that both she and Trooper Bob were picking up extra shifts just to make ends meet. Yet here sat a box wrapped in last Sunday’s funny papers. She didn’t quite know what to say.

Meme had just gotten off of a double shift at the local hospital. It was her third double that week and her feet were aching, her back was paining and her brain was mush. She was exhausted and didn’t want to think about the hospital, sick people or ironing uniforms. She just wanted one day to relax and maybe if she was lucky, sleep. She looked at the eager faces of her children and knew that today would not be that day.

They had made her cinnamon toast and oatmeal, Gladys’ specialty. Matilda had poured a cup of coffee and added just the right amount of cream. Buck drew the picture for the hand made card and had risked an asthma attack arranging the bright yellow weeds in the jar. It was a birthday breakfast fit for a queen. Nurse Meme sat at the table and nibbled on burned toast and clumpy oatmeal. “What have you kids done? This looks really interesting” she said between bites. The three children gleamed with pride as they urged her to read her card.

Nurse Meme opened the envelope and took out the folded construction paper. She read the misspelled words and the picture of the hand drawn dinosaur. “Oh this is wonderful she cried.” Trooper Bob sat across the table sipping his coffee and watching the goings on “Go on open your present” he urged. She pulled the box closer to her and began carefully pulling the tape off Dagwood and Beatle Bailey. She slowly and precisely folded each piece of paper and put it to the side while her kids wiggled and squirmed wanting to shred the paper to get to the box. “What did we get you Momma” they cried.

She lifted the lid from the box and pushed back a wad of tissue paper. She looked in the box and a tear came to her eye. She sighed heavily and announced in a defeated voice “oh look! You guys got me a new white uniform for work! Thank YOU!” Then she hugged each of her children and sat the box to the side. Trooper Bob proudly got up and retrieved another box, wrapped in shiny white paper with a big white bow and announced “that’s not all. We got you this too.” Nurse Meme’s eyes lit up as she took the box from her husband. “Oh you shouldn’t have” she cried as she again painstakingly tore each piece of tape from the waxy paper and folded, ribbon, paper and tape in a neat little pile. She once again lifted the lid from the container and looked inside. “Oh, gee, YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE” she exclaimed as she lifted a brand new Proctor Silex steam iron from the box.

Once again she gave hugs and kisses all around. She stood up and carefully placed her new possessions in their rightful places and slowly drug her exhausted and disappointed body to bed.

Years passed and birthdays came and went. Nurse Meme was ailing and in the final days of her life. She was lying under the cool white sheets in a sparkling clean white room with tubes and wires protruding from all parts of her body. She had a white turban wrapped around her hairless head and was fighting to pull enough oxygen into her body to get through another minute. Gladys sat on her bed chattering away. “Momma, remember when I was 13 and it was my birthday? It was on Friday the 13th? Remember how upset I was? Remember how I thought it was going to be a horrible awful day and you kept telling me to get over myself? Then I came home from school and you had bought me that really cool 10 speed bike that I wanted? Yeah that was one of my best birthdays ever.” Nurse Meme smiled and then whispered “remember the year you guys gave me a new uniform and an iron?” Gladys thought back and was a little ashamed. Her mother had always made sure she had great presents. “Yes, and Momma I’m sorry about that.” Nurse Meme drew in as much breath as possible and said “I’m not. That was one of the greatest birthdays I had. We were all together. We were all healthy and we were happy. What I remember most was how beautiful that iron was wrapped in that shiny white paper.”

Nurse Meme once again reminded Gladys it’s not about the material gift but about the heart and soul behind it.

Magical Mystery Tour or was it?

Today is Theme Thursday. They, I don’t know who they are, tell you the theme for the week and then you sign up and write what your take on that week’s theme is. It is always a mystery for me what to write until right before I go to bed on Wednesday. Other people know what they want to write. Heck they post their stories, poems or observations on Monday or prescheduled it Sunday night. Not me, for me it is a mystery wrapped in an engima surrounded by a riddle. This week’s theme was right up my alley. The theme is mystery. Yes, as in Mystery Date remember that game,


or Mystery Science Theater and Ellery Queen’s Minute Mysteries. I thought long and hard which hurt quite a bit but I came up with a mystery that just happened to me. Enjoy my mystery and then go on over to all the other mysterious bloggers and read what they pre-posted Sunday 5 seconds after the theme was announced by the mysterious “they”.

She was sleeping the sleep of the dead, exhausted after working non-stop for the last month trying to move and clean a house that was impossible to keep clean and moving things that she had no idea why she was keeping. It was a relief to finally be asleep in her familiar bed inside the motor-home that would be their residence. They were homeless without really being homeless. They had a roof over their heads and a bed in which to sleep. The regulars call it “full-timing”. She called it her in-between home. So many people had lost their homes or been displaced in this thing they called the housing melt-down. She thought homeless boom was a better moniker for it.

They had pulled into the r.v. park and set up camp late that afternoon after moving the remainder of their belongings into the storage facility they had rented. Kahuna had connected the sewer, water and electric while she had made the bed and stocked the refrigerator. This was nothing new for them, they had done it last year while on a project in Montana, but then they had a home in which to return. Gladys had looked out the galley window at the row of motor homes lined up in the park and wondered how many others were in the same situation, in the in-between.

She was dreaming that her mother was sitting on the end of the bed talking to her. “Don’t worry about it. You just need to go fix the leak and then you won’t float away” Nurse Meme had said. Gladys nodded her head and wondered where the tool bag was, she needed tools to repair the leak. She was jarred awake by her little dog begging to be let outside. Gladys sat up and looked at the illuminated numbers on the clock and sighed. “It’s three o’clock in the morning Boz! Do you really NEED to go out?” Again there was a pathetic little whine and she swung her legs over the bed and pulled on her robe.

Out in the cool damp night she looked around at the darkened windows of her fellow travelers and sighed. She froze, there were voices. A little afraid and a little curious she walked to the front of the coach. The grass was wet and stuck to her bare feet as she crossed the front of the pad. Sitting in front of the coach was a truck with flashing yellow lights and two men talking in hushed tones. Boz barked and tried to run toward them. Gladys pulled him up short on his leash. “Is there a problem” Gladys asked as she sloshed through the water running down the street. “Your water reducer was leaking and we had to tighten it.” Gladys looked at the flood of water and back at her water connection “Thank you”. She and Boz crawled back into bed and whispered to Kahuna “our water connection is leaking. It looks like the great flood out there.” Kahuna turned over, opened one eye and said “it’s not us.” Gladys insisted “it is too. The park police had to tighten the connection because there was so much water.” Kahuna sat up looked at her “it’s not us. It is coming from behind us.”

Morning came and with it another day of packing, moving and settling in. As they prepared to leave Kahuna checked once again on the connections “Yep, it’s not us. They have a major leak right behind us, but the water hose is leaking a little. It looks like the rubber gasket is gone, remind me to pick one up.” They drove away completely forgetting about rubber gaskets and leaking connections.

Several days went by and the park realized the leak was not theirs. There was a little water beside the coach but not the flood like before. Then it happened. The drip turned into a flow. Kahuna searched frantically for the replacement gasket for the water connection. He checked his tool box, the storage bin in the coach and even in the back of the car to no avail. “Remind me to pick up another gasket for that water connection” he told Gladys as they ate their dinner and caught up on their work.

That night as she dreamed once again her mother came to her and sat on the bed “you really need to fix that leak. You have the parts.” Then she got up and went into the galley to make coffee. Gladys could hear her running water and smell the coffee brewing. She woke up to the smell of coffee and Kahuna handing her a mug. “Hey, look what I found” he said opening his hand, revealing a black gasket. Gladys took the mug and asked “where did you find that?” Kahuna shook his head and replied “in the bathroom, in the cup by the sink.” Gladys looked at the gasket and back at her husband “did you put it there?” Kahuna shook his head and replied “no. I’m not even sure why I looked in there. It wasn’t there the other day and I know I didn’t buy this one.” Gladys shook her head in wonderment and answered “where did it come from?” Kahuna smiled and said “I guess Nurse Meme.”

“Is that the answer to all our mysteries” Gladys asked. Kahuna smiled “I think so.”

Raking The Carpet

Today is my mother’s birthday. She would have been seventy-something. You see we were never really sure how old she really was and for that matter neither was she. She didn’t possess a birth certificate until she was nearing retirement and they made her get one.  She had a hard life you can read about it here.  Her birth was never registered, in fact she never knew if her sister was her mother or her mother was really her grandmother or maybe she was her own grandma. Regardless she grew up knowing the day of her birth was April 27 but she just wasn’t sure of the year. I am not sure why I tell you this other than I am quantifying telling you about my mother and some of her odd quirks.

My mother was one of the cleaningest women I have ever seen. She cleaned non-stop. There were things you did in her house and there were things you didn’t. You always took your shoes off at the door, you never spit in the kitchen sink, you always wiped down the kitchen cabinets with bleach and you raked the carpet.

Again let me explain. When I was in junior high we got new wall to wall carpeting. It was called shag carpeting. You know it was kind of like hippie carpet. Long and fluffy and in order to keep it looking fluffy you had to rake it. So every night before I heard Nurse Meme’s T-bird pull into the drive I would be feverishly raking the shag carpet. I would do it right before she came in the door because the rest of the evening I would have been sitting in the big gold velvet chair with my feet draped over the side reading the latest “forbidden” book and watching television. I would look up realize it was 11:30 p.m. and would break world speed vacuuming records. I am here to tell you if they put that in the Olympics I would enter and win, well that is if Matilda didn’t enter.

Then I would grab the rake that looked exactly like a leaf rake only plastic and I would run through the house raking like a crazy gardener. Then I would stash rake and vacuum in the closet and throw myself into bed just as she walked through the back door. Yes she knew but she always pretended she didn’t. That was just how things worked.

Time went by styles changed and Nurse Meme remodeled her house and bought new wall to wall carpeting. She no longer had shag to rake. She installed the thickest plushest pile carpeting you have ever seen. Those of you who are a little OCD will understand when I say it is like being in hell trying to vacuum deep pile carpeting. Why? What do you mean why? It is like being in hell because there is no way to vacuum it without leaving streaks.

Have you ever watched the program Monk? Monk is a detective with the San Francisco P.D. but he loses his wife and suffers from OCD. This all makes for a very funny and interesting show. There is one episode where he is trying to vacuum the carpet without leaving streaks. This was just too close to home for me. It made my left eye twitch, my vacuum hand started shaking and my legs went numb. You see, I am the child of the female version of Monk. Nurse Meme would have an apoplexy if you left streaks in the carpet. She would literally pull your stripped butt out of bed and make you vacuum until there were no more streaks. I tell you it is impossible.

You pull the vacuum one way, then you push it the other. You go diagonally and then vertically. You step back only to see a big line in the middle of the floor which can only be pulled out by vacuuming back into the center of the room and vacuuming your way out. You step back and dang it now there is a big patch going the wrong way in the far corner. You keep after this futile project for hours. You stand looking at the floor with tears of frustration streaming down your cheeks and failure weighing your body down like a thousand pound anchor. You march your vacuum back to the corner and start all over again. This was a daily ritual for me for many, many years. Even when I would return home to visit, I would always run the vacuum daily for my mother making sure to not leave streaks. Okay, I always left streaks but I tried like hell not to leave them. Nurse Meme always saw them and always told me I was vacuuming wrong.

I tell you this story because the other day while working at the amazing Technicolor house I had to vacuum the pile carpeting. I vacuumed this way, then that. I pushed it this way and pulled it diagonally. I finally gave up. I put the vacuum away and packed up my tools and went home. That night I had a visitor. Yes it was Nurse Meme. She came to me in my dream. There I am sitting at a table drinking coffee out in the middle of the desert. Nurse Meme appears next to me at the table. She picks up a cup of coffee and says “Gladys, you need to vacuum. Do not leave streaks.”

 I look and sitting next to the table is my mother’s favorite vacuum, a Hoover Power Drive. I look at the sand dunes stretching as far as the eye can see and I think this is my punishment for leaving streaks.

Happy Birthday Nurse Meme, I miss you and love you and I will try not to leave streaks in the carpet of life.

Mystery Meat Madness

Today is once again Thursday which of course means it's time for Theme Thursday.  This weeks theme is Lunch.  Since I am enternally out to lunch this was right up my ally.  So I will serve up my lunch order and then go and see what others have served up. 

“Go get my purse” she said as she kicked off her white duty shoes and started unloading the big pockets on her white uniform. Gladys ran into the laundry room grabbed her mother’s purse and headed back to the sofa. “Momma, why can’t I take my lunch” Gladys asked as she plopped down on the brown tweed sofa.

Nurse Meme crossed one leg over the other rubbed her toes and sighed “because your lunch sits in a locker all morning until it’s time to eat. Bacteria grows on food in dark moist places. You can get salmonella. Now here is twenty-five cents and I’ll give you an extra nickel so you can have ice cream. Do not buy ice cream unless you eat all of your food” Nurse Meme instructed as she placed the coins in Gladys little red plastic coin purse. She pinched it open slipped the coins inside “I will know if you didn’t eat your food and just ate ice cream so remember eat your food first then ice cream.”

Gladys put her little red coin purse in her big plaid book bag. She put on her white cardigan and adjusted her pig tails. “But Momma they are having mystery meat. I hate mystery meat. It tastes like barf. Can I just take my lunch on the days they serve mystery meat?” Nurse Meme slid her stocking feet into her gold lame house slippers and picked up her pocket book. “No, Gladys. You need to eat what those nice lunch ladies serve you. The food is perfectly good. That mystery meat is not a mystery, it is chicken fried steak.” Gladys screwed her face up into a pucker and said “but it doesn’t taste like chicken fried steak, it taste like dog barf.” Nurse Meme tired from working a double shift shook her head and sternly repeated “eat your food Gladys. Do you want me to take back that nickel? You know I don’t have to give you ice cream money. You can do without. Now do as I say and eat your lunch. There are starving children in China who would love to have your lunch.”

Gladys put her head down feeling a bit ashamed but mumbled “then let’s just send it to them.” Nurse Meme had enough. She was tired. Her feet ached and she hadn’t slept in over 36 hours. “Gladys, don’t make me spank you in front of God and everybody! You do as I say and I am done talking about this!” With that announcement Gladys was whisked off to school in the company of her older sister, Matilda, who sat smirking in the front seat. Gladys stuck her tongue out at her older sister and then went back to her job of sulking in the back seat.

It seemed to Gladys that the morning would never end. She would look at the clock, look at her Dick and Jane reader and then back at the clock. She tried not to fidget in her seat but it was impossible. Someone had put ants in her pants and she just wanted to get up and run around the room. She wanted to run to the cafeteria and break out her nickel and order up a cup of vanilla ice cream.

Mrs. Bell, her teacher, came over and whispered in Gladys’ ear “you need to calm yourself; otherwise you can miss lunch and wipe down the chalk boards.” Gladys took a deep breath and squeaked out in fear “yes, ma’am” and sat on her hands trying to make herself still. It was torture sitting still. Gladys didn’t like being quiet. Gladys wanted to run around the room and talk to everyone. She wanted to know what other people were doing and what they thought. She fought back all of her basic urges and waited for the bell to ring.

Brrirrriinnnggg, brrrirrriinnggg. Finally the lunch bell. Mrs. Bell motioned for the class to stand one row at a time. Oh gawd! This is going to take for ever Gladys told herself. One by one the rows of six year olds filed out into the hall and marched toward the lunch room. Gladys was mid march when she smelled it. The smell assaulted her first in the hallway and grew stronger the closer she drew.

She approached the counter and stared up at the lady in the hairnet with the huge mole on her nose. Gladys tried to smile but it came out more of a grimace as the lunch lady scooped a spoonful of gravy covered brown substance onto the divided plate. Next she watched as a pile of unidentifiable green mushy stuff was plopped into the space next to the brown magma. Oh my gawd they are touching each other! Gross! The juice from the green stuff is running into the juice from the brown stuff. It looks like vomit Gladys’ mind was screaming. She grabbed her tray tighter and waited for the lunch lady to put a roll on her tray. Gladys liked the rolls and knew that was the one thing on her plate that she could eat. Then the lunch lady did the unthinkable. She plopped the roll deep into the brown magma and green stuff juice. It was ruined. Gladys moved down the line and gave Principle Gray her quarter then she whispered “I have a nickel for ice cream.” Principle Gray leaned down and looked at Gladys “What did you say? Speak up child.” Gladys cleared her throat and said “I HAVE A NICKEL FOR ICE CREAM”. Principle Gray peered over his glasses at Gladys and said “you eat your food and then you can come back for ice cream. I’ll be watching you though. You eat it all or no ice cream.”

Gladys wanted to cry. She couldn’t eat this slop on her plate. It stunk. It looked exactly like what her dog Pepe’ had done after he ate a whole bag of Oreo cookies and that had come out of both ends of her beloved poodle. She sat at the table across from her friend Chris Robbins. He had a peanut butter and banana sandwich. He had a thermos full of iced tea. His mother loved him. She stared at the mess on her plate and began pushing it around with her fork. John sat next to her wolfing down the vomit scented mystery meat and Gladys gagged as she watched him. “How can you eat this stuff” she asked him. “It’s good! It tastes kind of like those new Swanson T.V. dinners” John replied. Chris looked at Gladys and said “how come you don’t bring your lunch if you don’t like what they have?” Gladys blushed and said “because my mom is afraid that Sam and Ella will make me sick.” John stopped mid-shovel and Chris bit off a big hunk of Wonder bread stuffed full of Jiffy peanut butter and banana. “Who is Sam and Ella” John asked. “I don’t know but my mom thinks they will make me sick. I told her we didn’t even have anyone in our class by that name.” John swallowed his bite then shoveled in another mouthful “wow, your mom is mean.”

Gladys sat looking at the now cooling brown glop on her plate and said “yeah, but she gave me a nickel for ice cream. I just have to eat all of this before I get it.” Chris looked at Gladys with true pity and said “aw, man, how is she gonna know if you didn’t eat?” Gladys smiled weakly “she and Principle Gray are in cahoots. She has spies everywhere.” The boys shook their heads and went back to eating. Gladys dug her fork into her plate held her nose and started eating the slimy brown substance. She scooped green stuff, brown stuff and roll all together and ate trying not to gag.

She was almost done. She only had a few bites left to go and then she heard the burrrrinnngggg of the bell that signaled the end of lunch. Wait! Gladys wanted to scream, I haven’t had my ice cream yet and I ate all this stuff on my plate! It was no use Mrs. Bell was urging each child on to dump their tray and get into line. “Mrs. Bell. I didn’t get my ice cream” Gladys pleaded as she was prodded toward the big silver trash can. Mrs. Bell ignored her plea and moved down the line touching each child on the shoulder moving them on.

Back in the classroom Gladys began feeling queasy. She looked at John sitting in the seat across from her. He looked a little green. Then it happened. Betty on the front row started making that glumping sound and then there was a plop of vomit on the floor. John saw Betty throw-up which of course caused him to begin heaving and puking which of invoked the domino effect. The whole class was heaving and horking. Mrs. Bell was running around with little brown paper towels “Oh my! Oh Goodness!” She was ushering a mass of children out into the courtyard. It was serial regurgitation. It was retching chaos.

“Mr. Gray? Yes this is Meme McGuillicutty, Glady’s mother. Yes, I was just calling to let you know that she will not be in school today. She has salmonella. Yes, I understand everyone who ate in the cafeteria contracted it. Yes she should be back in school Monday, thank you.” Gladys lay on the bed sipping Seven Up and smirking. Gladys knew she was vindicated but she still didn’t know who Ella or Sam was.

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle I Would Label It Paregoric

It is once again time for Theme Thursday.  My how time flies.  I apologize to everyone I normally read and comment.  I have been at a seminar this week.  I just now checked and saw what the topic was and decided to share my ship in the bottle with you.  Go read all the other wonderful submissions to Theme Thursday after of course you read mine. 

She looked up from her pillow and saw the bottle sitting there. She winced and swallowed. It felt as if she had swallowed a mouthful of glass shards and they were shredding her throat on the way down. She heard Nurse Meme in the kitchen and knew what would come next. She cowered lower in the covers.

Oh make no mistake she enjoyed being home, lying on the couch watching Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans explain how the mail man knows who gets what mail; she did not enjoy having a sore throat. She reached over to the cup of still steaming sweet hot tea and tried to take a sip. It hurt so badly as she tried to cauterize the raw tonsils. She wanted to cry out but she couldn’t. She couldn’t cry out because it hurt so much. She really knew she couldn’t cry out because as soon as she did it would happen.

Nurse Meme waited for these days. She longed for these days. She would relish in the nursing and mending of her youngest child. Well that is what Nurse Meme called it; Gladys knew it was really medieval torture. Gladys’ eyes watered as she sat the cup back on the coffee table and unwrapped the Sucrets cherry flavored throat lozenge. She moved the heating pad over just a notch and laid her pounding ear back onto the doubled over pillow case. Gladys and Matilda both suffered from ear aches and sore throats. Sometimes they would suffer at the same time which would cause Nurse Meme to spin around the kitchen grabbing bottles of this and jars of that out of the medicine cabinet. Then she would chase Matilda through the house until she had her in a head lock and administer her “cure”. Gladys would take this opportunity to hide in the corner behind her bed. Sometimes she was successful and would hide long enough that her throat or ear would actually get better; but mostly she was ratted out by her older sister.

Gladys would then be forced to march into the kitchen and stand under the brightest light. Nurse Meme would take the amber colored bottle from the cabinet and mix it in another bottle. She would shake the two together thick and dark rust colored. Gladys would watch helplessly as her mother would pull a twenty-seven foot long cotton swab from a white bag. Nurse Meme would then dip the swab into the iodine and glycerin mixture. She would grab Gladys by the chin tip her head back and then do the unthinkable. Gladys was sure her mother was trying to train her to become a sword swallower in the circus that had long ago left her under the rock.

Nurse Meme would jab and stick and swab until she had coated every inch of the rotten little tonsils in the back of Gladys’ throat.
Then she would take cotton tipped telephone pole and ram it down her throat just for good measure. This would invariably cause little Gladys to choke and gag and gag and choke. She would spit and sputter as soon as the white tipped tree trunk had been removed. She would spit orangish brown liquid into the sink and rinse her mouth with salt water trying to rid herself of the nasty metallic taste. Gladys however would have already by no fault of her own swallowed some of the oily brown mix which would cause her mother the next day to bring out the other dreaded bottle.

The second bottle was marked with the name Paregoric. Well at least it wasn’t the bottle of Castor Oil, but that is a story for another day.

Bells Are Ringing, But Not For Meme

This week’s Theme Thursday struck very close to home for me. I will quote what started this process and you can read my take on this week’s theme “BELL”. Please go visit Barry for a little encouragement and the rest of the writers who contributed.
Quoted from Theme Thursday
Oh yes, we'd like for you to join in and ring the bell for Barry as he leaves hospital upon completion of his ( hopefully ) last chemotherapy treatment. Appears that this is a sort of tradition and similar to one we had in the Navy, as one crossed the gangway for the last time, ere being discharged from service. You can visit Barry's blogsite here, for further info and mayhaps leave a comment to join in...I see quite a few have already added on to Barry's side-bar.
She sat on the shower chair her eyes looking up at me and said “how much is coming out?” I stood with a handful of her thick hair in my hand and on the towel and replied “not much” besides you have a great shaped head. She drew in a hit off her oxygen and said “well there is that and the fact with a little more lipstick no one can tell, right?” I put my arms around her and said “Absolutely, the pinker the better.” I helped her up and got her dressed as she made her way back to her chair.

There she sat, scarf wrapped stylishly around her balding head, oxygen tube from her nose and dark circles under her eyes. “The cure is worse than the disease” she stated as she sorted through her plethora of pills and capsules. She held one up in between her thumb and forefinger and said “this one cost $2500 and is supposed to stop me from being sick from the chemo. This one is supposed to keep me from breaking any more bones.” She went through the cup of pills commenting on each one as she stuck it in her mouth and swallowed. “You know Gladys, this is my second round of chemo and I think that it will be my very last. I will not do this again.”

Gladys bit back the tears that were threatening to spill over “Momma, it WILL be your last because this is the time that will do it.” Gladys sat the little crystal bell down on the table next to the chair and said “I’m going to go put the clothes in the laundry and clean-up the bathroom. You ring that bell if you need anything. I have the monitor on and I’ll hear you ring no matter where I am.” She left her mother sitting in the chair and went to finish her chores.

Ting, ting, ting rang out from the speaker and Gladys stopped what she was doing and went to her mother’s side. She looked at her mother’s face and knew she was not breathing well. “Do you need your oxygen turned up?” Nurse Meme shook her head and said “I need to go to bed. I’m not doing well.” Gladys got her mother situated and elevated the bed. She checked her blood oxygen level and said “let’s do some breathing exercises.” They sat together holding each other’s hands and willed the oxygen into Nurse Meme’s lungs.

Gladys knew her mother would not admit to the pain she suffered nor would she acquiesce to a trip to the hospital so she instead went and called the home health nurse. She told her of her mother’s labored breathing and the edema in her feet. “Call me as soon as anything changes” Nurse Angel replied “we need to get her to the hospital if she gets any worse. I am afraid that that DVT (deep vein thrombosis) will break loose.” Gladys assured her she would and then went and told Trooper Bob to be prepared to get the ambulance.
It had barely been five minutes when the little bell dinged again. Gladys went running and checked the oxygen level once again. “Momma, let’s get you to the hospital, okay?” Nurse Meme looked up at Gladys with teary eyes and only nodded yes.

Nurse Meme was right. She never had to go through chemo again. She never got to ring that bell because the cure was worse than the disease.

Barry, I’ll be ringing Nurse Meme’s Bell for you!

The Things Meme Taught Me

Every morning when I wake up the first thing I do is, well it’s not the FIRST first thing but one of the first things I do is check my crackberry for messages. I read my emails while my coffee is brewing. This morning I found this on my messages.


To: Mom


From: Tadpole


Subject: Things Meme Taught Me


How to tell someone "f* you" and mean it.
How to paddle a butt
How to be kind and generous when no one is looking
How to annoy the piss out of your husband (my personal fav lol)
Take life by the horns and make it work
Put your big girl panties on and deal with it


Things my mom taught me:
Always look for the best in people
Love everyone cause they will be gone sooner than you think
Dont sweat the small stuff
Enjoy what you have, because you may lose it.

It made me weep. It made me weep because my mom, Nurse Meme, has been gone for three years.

It amazes me that she has been gone that long. I think of her every day and dream of her most nights. Yes she is often in my dreams, no make that she is usually in my dreams. When we travel in the motorhome she is always in my dreams. I’m not sure if that is my psyche wishing she were with me or if it is her spirit ready for the adventure. She loved traveling in the motorhome. She and Trooper Bob accompanied by his sister, Auntie V, took a trip the year before my mother passed. I have never seen her eyes light up or her smile as big as when she told me about her trip. She beamed when she told me things she saw and did. The wonders of Yellowstone National Park, the beauty of the Canadian Rockies were all enhanced when told through her eyes. She was ill that summer. I think she knew how sick she was but didn’t let on. You see my mother didn’t sleep a whole lot. She was a night owl and was ever moving. You would literally have to tie her to a chair to get her to sit down and watch a movie. She just had to be moving, cleaning, gardening, ironing and constantly in motion. She drank a million cups of coffee a day which would keep me moving. That summer she seemed to slow down. She took more naps and rested more. She let weeds grow in her garden and the floor go un-vacuumed. Heck she even left laundry un-ironed. I should have seen the signs but didn’t.

Nurse Meme taught me so many things. She taught me that life isn’t fair. She taught me that in marriages arguments are never equal and that is why you should always have a big iron skillet in your kitchen. I wish I would have implemented that when my ex-asshusband stuffed my face in a pot of hot spaghetti. I wish I would have listened more intently, paid more attention to her quips of wisdom. I wish that I would have taken more time to learn her way of doing things instead of rolling my eyes and saying “what difference does it make if you cut an onion on the side instead of on the round?” She was meticulous in everything she did, a true perfectionist. She was a clean freak and a neat freak. I was always a gatherer and a clutter-er. She would ask me why? Why do you need all that STUFF? What good is it?

Nurse Meme also taught me that you can’t change the past only improve the future. She would say would-of, could-of, should-of won’t change shit, but taking responsibility for yourself and making sure you don’t make those mistakes again make you a better person. She also taught me you are who you hang out with. This is another one of those things I wish I would have listened to more intently. Truer words were never spoken. Oh it doesn’t mean if you hang out with assholes you will become an asshole, it means if you hang out with them then that is what others will perceive you to be. Guilty by asshole-isation, so to speak.

There were so many Meme-isms in my life it would take volumes to quote them all. One of my favorites was “don’t shit where you eat.” Now think about that statement and how it pertains to life in general. You can take it literally and say to the guy in Wal-mart who came out of the stall holding a cheeseburger and a coke “don’t shit where you eat.” You can say it to the backstabbing co-worker who just undercut you but doesn’t know it’s up to you whether or not he gets a raise “don’t shit where you eat.” See how that works? The other thing she used to say was “put your big girl panties on and get over yourself”. Then there were the normal mommalese “don’t touch that, you’ll grow warts” and “you cross your eyes like that and they are gonna stick” or “you better stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” but my favorite was “I’m gonna beat you in front of GAWD and everybody if you don’t straighten up”. She said that to me a bunch of times but honestly not as much as she should have.

I guess that what I’m trying to say is that even though Nurse Meme is gone, she really isn’t. She lives with me in my heart and my memory. She visits me in my dreams and in the far reaches of my mind.

 Her words ring out loud and true and I am thankful for having such a caring mother. She worked her fingers to the bone to give me and my siblings a good up bringing and strong morals.

Thank you Nurse Meme.

Nurse Meme, It's A Miracle!

Have you ever noticed at the beginning of a relationship people are very private about themselves. They hide everything from their bathroom and bodily functions to their real bodies? The new lovers will hide them or avoid them sometimes to the point of discomfort. They will go for hours needing to expel a bit of gas or the 21 glasses of iced tea they had with dinner. They will not eat for fear it might make their stomach rumble but then that causes their stomach to growl. Women will wear their make-up non-stop not wanting to surprise their new found love with their real face. Men will suck in that expanding stomach for hours until they almost pass out from holding in their beer gut, flatulence and paunch. Years ago there was a television show called Love American Style. One episode named The Phonies featured Phyllis Diller and Richard Deacon as a married couple who come home from a night out. They began to undress and she takes off her wig, padded bra, fake eyelashes, fake butt etc until she was a completely different person and Richard Deacon undressed taking off shoulder pads, man girdle, toupee’, fake moustache and the lifts from his shoes until he too was just average Joe. I always liken the first stages of a love affair to that episode in that we hide our basic core even from ourselves.

This story takes place years ago when my sister Matilda was engaged to her first husband, J.R. Ewing. He was a fun loving good natured sort. She was madly in love with him and they spent every minute of their time together. Now Matilda was a gorgeous young woman and honestly she hasn’t changed much through the years. She is very fastidious and ladylike in every way. What I mean is she is the type who could burp the Star Spangled Banner but wouldn’t. It just wouldn’t be lady-like. J.R. on the other hand was a guy. I don’t think I have to say anymore than just that; he was a guy. Guys have a whole different set of rules of what is socially acceptable and what isn’t.

Now J.R. and Matilda were still in the early stages of their engagement and had not yet been down the road where you actually admit that you have bodily functions. Honestly I don’t think that J.R. knew my sister ever used the restroom. She would mysteriously disappear for a few minutes then reappear looking relieved but bearing a glass of tea or a plate of cookies. Thus leading J.R. to believe she had just popped into the kitchen to whip up a fresh batch of whatever refreshment she was offering. She was magical in his eyes and more than perfect. She was divine.

J.R. was a jokester. He loved to tell jokes, make jokes and play practical jokes. He fit in with our family great. He had the gift of gab, which in my family gets you a place at the table. He became one of the family before he was legally part of the family. I would often wake to find him camped out on the living room sofa in front of the television. He soon found out that if he fell asleep around us he might awaken to his hair in ponytails and his fingernails painted hot pink. He took all of this in good humor and joined in the fun.

It is during this time that my sister had to have surgery. It wasn’t major but enough to require her to be put under anesthesia. She was brought home to recover on the living room sofa. J.R. ran around trying to attend to her every need as did Nurse Meme. Well as things go when you have had surgery and they have filled your abdomen full of air that air must be released. Much to Matilda’s chagrin it was often sudden and cacophonous. J.R. took it all in stride. Matilda blushed and hummed and hawed her apologies until finally J.R. said “No it’s fine really. I just wish I could do that.” Matilda looked up and said “Do what?” J.R. shook his head, looked sadly at her and replied “pass gas. I can’t pass gas. I have this condition which keeps me from it.” Matilda being from the McGullicutty clan decided to claim foul “nu-uh. You’re making that up.” J.R. looked her in the eye and said “no really. I can’t fart. I have NEVER farted. It is really quite uncomfortable. I mean I can burp sometimes but I CAN NOT FART.” Then he sniffed a deep sniff and changed the subject.

Nurse Meme came to attend to her patient and Matilda looked at her learned mother and said “is there some kind of condition that makes it where you can’t fart?” Nurse Meme was taken a back but caught J.R. motioning out of the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath and said “yes there is and it’s very uncomfortable. It’s called epigastricmyosis and it can even result in death. The patient becomes so full of methane gas that if they can’t release it they will expire. Why do you ask?” Matilda cut her eyes to J.R. and said “oh, well J.R. said he couldn’t pass gas and I just never heard of such a thing.” Nurse Meme sat the grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup down on the coffee table and looked at J.R. “Were you born with it?” J.R. looked as pitiful as he possibly could and said “yes I was. It took them forever to diagnose it.” Matilda felt bad for doubting her beau and offered him a piece of her grilled cheese.

Several hours passed and the happy couple sat watching television and holding hands. Matilda tired out from her procedure and the pain killers laid her head in J.R.’s lap. He stroked her hair and she started to drift off to sleep. She was dreaming of butter cream wedding cakes and white fluffy dresses when out of her reverie came a loud honking noise accompanied by a horrific sulfuric odor. She jumped up from her prone position and looked at J.R. He smiled and yelled “I’m cured! It’s a miracle.” It was with this one act that their relationship matured and they became real.

Got Valium?

I have written before about my mother, Nurse Meme, and her fear of heights in “The Invasion”. She because of her fear of heights also had an aversion to flying. She loathed it. She would try not to stress over it and just get on the plane sitting as far from the window as possible and immerse herself in other thoughts. She was very brave and very determined and this often did the trick.
She avoided transportation via the air whenever possible; unfortunately the speed and convenience often sucked her into its vapor trail. My story is about one such event.

Nurse Meme booked her trip, scheduled her continuing education class and packed her suitcase. She gave her parrot an extra ration of Fritos, kissed Trooper Bob goodbye and made her way to the airport. She boarded the American Airlines jet which would wing its way to her destination. She had reserved her usual aisle seat, retrieved her study material and started to focus. The engines whirred and they were rolling down the tarmac when she noticed the young girl in the middle seat was a bit fidgety. Nurse Meme, being the caring person she was, put down her papers and took a long hard look at her seat mate.

She asked the young woman “are you alright?” The woman looked at Nurse Meme through crazed eyes and squeaked out “I don’t think so.” Then she started screaming and trying to get out of her seatbelt. Nurse Meme grabbed the woman and in a calm but firm tone asked “what is the problem? Stop screeching”. The woman grabbed Meme’s arm in a vice like grip and said “I need a fix. I thought I could get through the flight but I can’t. I’m dying here.” The she broke free from Meme and her seatbelt and tried to bolt.

The woman had made such a spectacle that other passengers were beginning to get uneasy. The flight attendant made an announcement for everyone to remain seated until the seatbelt light was extinguished. The crazed addict had caused such a commotion that Nurse Meme was afraid the plane would be grounded and she would have to start all over again calming herself down.
Nurse Meme had been through enough emergencies and had dealt with enough drug addicts in her life that she handled the situation in a calm and professional manner. She grabbed the girl by the collar from behind and yanked her back into her seat. Then my 100 pound mother held the writhing screaming druggie in her seat and said “okay, I’m a nurse. What are you taking?” The girl looked at my mother wild eyed and panicked and said “nothing right now you twit! Why do you think I’m like this?” Now I’m here to tell you from experience Nurse Meme did not like being called names much less being called a twit from a heroine addict. That’s when she went into full Meme action she pushed harder against the girl’s chest and leaned over and through clinched teeth said “you sit your ass right here and you shut your mouth. I will get something to calm you down but if you get up or scream one more damned time I’ll break your legs. Do you understand me?” The girl looked at Nurse Meme eyes wide and mouth open in the beginning of a scream. She thought better of it closed her mouth and nodded her head in agreement.

Nurse Meme went into action. She grabbed the flight attendant and apprised her of the problem. A few minutes later the flight attendant came on the loud speaker and announced that there was a medical emergency and was there a physician on board. When no one responded she once again made an announcement and asked if anyone had any type of tranquilizer or sleeping medication. With this question almost every hand in the plane went up. The plane was off the ground and now in flight. The ‘fasten your seatbelt sign’ had blinked off and Nurse Meme got up and collected what she felt would do the trick. She thanked her fellow passengers then went to administer what she would hope was the dose to calm down the crazed and jonsing addict.
Three Percocet and two Darvocet later the addict was peacefully sleeping drooling on Nurse Meme’s shoulder. Several people passed the two as the flight progressed from South to North. Each one reaching over and thanking Nurse Meme for her quick and stern action and each one offering up another medication which might make the girl remain asleep until they reached their final destination.

Happy Birthday Nurse Meme

She was born in a little town in New Mexico that no longer exists. She was seven years old when her family packed up the house and moved away. She came home from the one room school house where she had walked that morning empty stomach with a biscuit bucket in hand. Her hand-me down dress tattered and torn. She reached the place she called home to find the house dark and empty. Not just empty of the family she had shared it with but empty of everything. She sat on the porch crying and scared. Then she remembered what her grandmother had always said “Girl you ain’t never going to get anywhere sittin and cryin. Now get over yourself and get it done.” So little Meme got up dusted the dust of her dress and walked the long walk to her grandmother’s house on the Indian Reservation.

She arrived at her granny’s house to find her sweeping the dirt and knocking the chickens out of the doorway. “What’s happened girl” the old woman inquired. “I’m alone they’ve done ran off and left me here” the little girl replied. “Well, that is probably for the best. Bring yourself in this house and let’s get you cleaned up and get some food into ya. You look like a walking skeleton” the old woman replied.

The little girl settled in with her granny. She got up early fed the chickens and would stuff a tortilla in her biscuit bucket and head to school. There were no buses and because she started at the white school that was where she continued to go. She would walk the three miles to school every morning and back home again in the afternoon. She was a smart little girl and quickly advanced above her grade. The days turned into weeks which passed into months that faded into years. Then at the age of ten she awoke one morning to find that her Granny would never wake again. She sat and cried and then heard her granny’s voice again so “Girl you ain’t never going to get anywhere sittin and cryin. Now get over yourself and get it done.” So she walked the five miles to her uncle’s house and told him that her granny was dead.

She packed what little belongings she owned and they loaded the chickens and the cow up in the truck. She went to live with her Uncle and her Aunt. She moved in to a real house with real floors thinking her life was getting better. She was a hard worker and a smart girl. She wasn’t there long before she realized that her life wasn’t better just different. She became the maid, the ranch hand and the kicking post. She worked hard and time passed. She grew older and wiser. She was fourteen and graduated from high school with honors.
She packed her belongings in her little satchel and went off to college in a little town in west Texas. She had gotten a scholarship at the school far away from her friends. She was scared to be going away on her own away from everything she knew but she heard her granny in her head once again “Girl you ain’t never going to get anywhere sittin and cryin. Now get over yourself and get it done.”

This was the woman who I grew up calling Mom. This was the woman who never took no for an answer and who I rarely saw cry. This is the woman when I was feeling sorry for myself or had something I considered a major drama would say “Girl you aren’t going to get anywhere sitting and crying. Get over yourself and get it done.” Today would have been her birthday. I think about her everyday and there is hardly a night that she doesn’t visit me in my dreams. I hear her words in my head when I feel myself slipping into self-despair “Girl you aren’t going to get anywhere sitting and crying. Get over yourself and get it done.”

Happy Birthday Meme. I hope you and your Granny are kicking ass and taking names up there in heaven.

You Kids Are Driving Me Crazy

I am sure by now you have heard the story of the attorney in New York who put her kids out on the side of the road. I wrote this story some time ago and posted it on my other blog. I thought it was appropriate to bring it back now. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can go here and watch the news report.
Mom arrested for booting kids out of car Mom Arrested.

I am almost certain that my mother was crazy. I mean certifiable, card carrying, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest crazy. How do I know this? I know this because my siblings and I made her that way. We would run around like wild Indians acting like the King and Queens of Sheba and drive her insane.

My mother would utter these almost not quite sentences. What did ? Who did? Don’t you? Where are your? These would be followed by a garble of words that would sound very much like Martian or Greek. She would tell us over and over again. “Stop it RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE! I MEAN IT!” Did we listen? Oh, no, we didn’t listen. We could hear her. We knew it meant almost certain death or at least being grounded from your favorite toy or person. Did this change anything? Absolutely not, we would continue doing whatever we were not supposed to be doing. We would smile at her and giggle a little. Then it would happen. She would make the final proclamation “I AM NOT JOKING!” This would be followed by the words that would announce that she would now be throwing a grand mal screaming Meme hissy fit. "YOU DAMN KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!"

When my mother would fall into this state of temporary insanity she would say and do almost anything to get our attention. One fine November day back in 1960 something my mother had all three of us precious sweet spawn of Satan’s children in the car. I am not sure where we had been or where we were going what I do remember is my brother aggravating my sister and me from the front seat. He would turn around from his shotgun position in the front and poke and pick and needle my sister and me. My brother ALWAYS rode shotgun, unless my Dad was there. I did not grow up in a democracy. We would in turn yell and scream, hit and punch, whine and cry whatever it took to make him stop. Only it didn’t make him stop it only urged him to continue his harassment.

My mother warned us. She tried to tell us that there was bad stuff coming. She would keep one eye on the road, one hand on the wheel and she would slap at us in the back seat. She declared in her most severe mommy voice several times “Do not make me pull this car over!” Did we heed the warnings? Of course we did not heed her warnings, we were invincible. We were young stupid. We were fearless idiots. We were fearless right up until my mother made the statement that set the world on edge. “YOU DAMN KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!” Then she did the unthinkable, the unimaginable. She did exactly what she had been threatening. She pulled the car over. She opened the door and told her three sweet hellion devil children to get out on the side of the road. She did not even exit the vehicle to make sure we had gotten out of the car she just pulled over. Looked at us with the look of a crazed sociopath and said “GET OUT OF THE DAMN CAR NOW!”

I being the youngest just knew this didn’t apply to me. Surely she didn’t mean me not sweet little innocent me. I was but a mere baby, heck I was the baby. Surely Mother wouldn’t put her dear sweet youngest mephistophelian child on the side of the road to freeze or get hit by an errant meteor. My older brother and sister made perfect sense I mean they were the ones that started it. They were the ones who delighted in making me run crying to my mother. They forced me to tattle on them. I knew my mother would let me stay in the warm car with her. Then she turned that cold deranged stare on me and said “You two Queen of Sheba. GET OUT!”
She shut the door and put her foot into that accelerator like Ricky Bobby with the tail end of his NASCAR on fire. All we saw was the glow of Thunderbird Taillights fading into the golden November afternoon.

I wasn’t afraid was terrified in fact I think I may have peed a little and I began to console my brother and sister cry uncontrollably. We immediately started blaming each other for our situation grabbed each other’s hands and began to walk home while my brother continued to needle, harass and aggravate and my sister continued to beat the crap out of him. We walked the whole way home. I’m not sure how far it really is probably a couple of miles but when your 8 it feels like it is 400 miles. I cried and whined and my sister and brother really did make sure I was alright.

I knew we had finally done it. We had done what my mother always said we would do. Only this time she had really gone over the edge. She was certifiable, she was cuckoo, and she had made a trip to loony town. She had gone crazy and didn’t even take us with her.

We made it home, but she wasn’t there. As we walked up the drive to our house she came driving down the street. We could see her in the car. Beehive piled high, cigarette smoke wafting out the window, her cat eye sunglasses on her face and her expression was stone cold. She got out of the car and we all ran over and hugged her and cried and apologized for being little ass-hats. She hugged us back and told us to go get cleaned up for supper.

Years later when she and I sat chatting over coffee and slot machines she told me the truth of that day. She told me how she was on her last nerve working 80 hours a week, taking care of the three of us kids and my dad. She told me how she remembered she hadn’t slept in days and the bickering and arguing finally just got to her. She said she couldn’t think of any other way to get our attention and let us know she was serious but put us out. She said that she circled the block and made sure we got started in the right direction then kept enough distance to make sure we were alright followed us home. She said she kept her glasses on so we couldn't see that she had been crying.

It worked. It made me pay attention. I knew anytime she said “Don’t make me pull this car over!” She wasn’t joking. She would pull this car over and she would make us pay attention.