SLEEP ELUDES GLADYS

Gladys and Kahuna slept the sleep of parents.  A sleep in which every creak or groan, cough and hiccup awakens you from a sound sleep to jumping up looking for the boogeyman or at the very least the boogeyman’s throw up.    Gladys jumped and looked at the extra large numbers on the clock.  The green glow read 2:22.  She settled back on the pillow and closed her eyes tight trying to will herself back into the land of slumber.   Kahuna rolled over patted her arm and began his ascent into dreamland.

The warm wash of sleep swept over the couple and the night became still and quiet.  Then through the silence came that sound that makes mother’s ears perk and fathers duck under the covers.  It was the sound of horking.  If you are a parent or a pet owner, you know the sound of which I speak.  The sound that breaks through the night causing you to leap from the bed in which you share with said child or pet, switching in on lights and grabbing towels.  You begin the search for the pile of puke in a futile effort to clean it up before it soaks into the mattress. 

All of a sudden you are a ninja warrior, flipping and leaping wiping as you go.  Your partner snatches the offending creature from mid-hork and carries them gingerly but quickly to place where they can safely retch their guts without offending your sleeping place.  In mere minutes you have managed to completely undress the bed and redress it with clean linens as you carefully wad the wretched fouled sheets into a ball keeping the effluent away from you, the bed and the floor.  Then as deftly as you cleared the bed you are washing the foulness down the drain. 

Your partner is not sitting to the side sleepy eyed and waiting.  Nay they are dealing with the poor child, four legged or two, who has now managed to expel three days’ worth of intake onto the bathroom floor.  Your partner has their own choreography of dancing around the pile of vomit gathering paper towels while still holding on to the patient and wiping up with their feet.  They chasse’, pirouette and plié’ while wiping the face and patting the back of the sufferer.

Finally all is clean and all is calm.  They settle back into clean sheets still cool from the early morning.  The invalid between them on a towel with a bucket close by.  You look at the clock and it now reads 2:28.  You have performed the vomit ballet in six minutes.  You wait for your heart to stop racing and you take deep breaths.  You realize at 2:46 that you are waiting in anticipation for the initial horking sound and sleep will not return.

It is in those moments that you realize that you will not be sleeping and you reach to check the poor offending soul who has sprung you from slumber and they let out a long low snore. 

  

Gladys Reelz in Reality

Lately for some unknown reason I have been watching more television than normal. Maybe it’s the fact that the sun sets at noon or perhaps it is because I need the distraction. I don’t really have a good excuse I just am. I do have to say that my choice of television fare has been a little, unique.



I am usually a Turner Classic Movie kind of girl. Oh you know what I’m saying I watch Father’s Little Dividend or It Happened One Night even though I’ve seen them a bazillion times and can recite the dialogue line for line. Lately, though, I have been indulging in the equivalent of television fast food.

I am addicted to watching the gold mining, ice road driving, crab fishing, oil drilling, hog hunting, alligator wrestling, dirty job working heroes that are all over Discover, History Channel and A & E. Not to mention those guys out in Vegas buying our treasures, the two guys who dig through barns and of course we can’t leave out Rick who rebuilds it all. Oh don’t think I’ve forgotten the Storage Bin Bidders, YUUUUUUUP, I watch them too.

I know what Chum Lee bought and where Mike and Frank found that really cool whirly gig.

I do have favorites and feel especially sad when their season ends. I look forward to watching Jack, Todd and the Alaska Gold Rush gang run around totally clueless trying to extract that precious metal from the frozen tundra only to be foiled again. I mark my calendar to remind me when Troy, Elizabeth and the crew will be in the swamps of Louisiana. I do have to admit they also can be very frustrating.

Who doesn’t want to remove that wad of snot from Jack’s throat on Gold Rush so that he doesn’t have to talk through his nose? Oh and I want to just tell everyone that as a native Texan I do not need subtitles when I talk to people. Honestly, Mr. Campbell from American Hoggers can you not remove that wad of Redman so we can understand what you are saying.

This does not even include my biggest question are these people really this stupid? Do they not plan things out? Do they not research and get advice before venturing off into the wilds of Alaska or sail off into the frozen seas? I sit and yell instructions at the television as if Hugh and Rick can hear me yelling that the ice on the lake is too thin don’t chance it or for Frank and Mike to look in the corner of the old warehouse because there is a Sinclair Sign in perfect condition.

Yes this is how I spend my days and nights checking in on my favorite REAL Reality Stars. I don’t know who this Snookie person is or why there is a Situation. I don’t really care what the Kardashian family is up to or who is in celebrity rehab. I want to know if the Pawn Stars guys bought a deal or a dud. I want to watch Barry and Jarrod stick it to Dave, Yuuuup.

A Give Away ****

Are you getting excited?

It's not a kitty.
It's not a pony (even though I still WANT a pony.)


I'll be back to show you what it is and what you have to do for it.

ok it isn't REALLY animal....just thought I would throw you off the scent. :)

25 Authors and A Give Away!

Now For a Meme that was sent my way by Weldable Cookies. (Go here to read hers) First of all how intriguing is her blog name? Second of all I am honored that she thought of me. This Meme is focused on authors who have influenced me. So the Meme is to list 25 author’s who influenced my writing. This is so hard for me because I can honestly say I have never picked up a book that didn’t influence me in one way or another. Even the manuscripts that were terribly written and totally incoherent influenced me. I owe my love of reading to my father. He set forth an excellent example for me to follow. That being said here is my list of 25 authors who influenced me in life and in writing.

1. William Shakespeare. Oh I know, everyone says that but for me it was the lyrical alliteration that painted the words. Plus I’m a sap for his sonnets

2. Truman Capote. Not the In Cold Blood Capote but the side of him who wrote The Grass Harp. His words rolled off my tongue as I sat under a Mulberry Tree reading aloud to my group of girlfriends. I felt I was part of the story.

3. Harper Lee. Need I say more than To Kill a Mockingbird?

4. Larry McMurtry. He showed me that you can write about everything from a Middle Aged Man going through a mid-life Crisis in Duane’s Depressed to cowboys on the Mexico Border and tell a rip roaring good story with humor and adventure.

5. Fannie Flagg. She made me laugh, she made me cry and made me want to go live in that little Missouri town and listen to Neighbor Dorothy on the radio.

6. Earnest Hemmingway. I had never read A Moveable Feast until a couple of years ago and it moved me. It was as if he had reached into the recesses of my mind and said what I wanted to say and did so much better than I could.

7. Jane Austin. I fell into her books and never climbed out.

8. David Sedaris. Because life doesn’t have to be all serious and deep.

9. Clive Cussler. Because sometimes a girl needs a little Dirk Pitt in her life.

10. W.E.B. Griffin. This was a group of books my dad got me hooked on. It was a series of war heroes.

11. Elmer Kelton. What can I say I have a thing for cowboys.

12. Danielle Steel. She made me realize you can write complete crap and sell millions of books then just change the setting and the character names and sell it as another book.

13. John Irving. I loved his ability to broach controversial subjects such as homosexuality and abortion with empathy and balance.

14. Langston Hughes. He let me look at myself from the inside out.

15. EE Cummings because is there any better poem than She Being Brand New?

16. Wally Lamb. He is able to take you to the highest highs and the lowest of the highs and right back up again.

17. Jill Conner Brown. THE Sweet Potato Queen. She made me come out of the hole I had buried myself in and find the humor. She gave me an open door to kindred spirits.

18. Byron Katie. She forced me to change my perception.

19. L. Ron Hubbard. He taught me you can take a science fiction concept and make a whole new religion out of it. Which in turn causes movies stars to loose their minds and jump on chairs and act like lunatics.

20. Janet Evanavich. She made me realize that goofiness sells and I have plenty of goofy.

21. Nicholas Evans. I just like his sensitive side.

22. John Steinbeck. I am not old enough to have lived through the last Great Depression and he took us through it.

23. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Because spending the day with her on the prairie was much more desirable than spending it cleaning toilets.

24. Steven King. He showed me that having phobias can be fun and profitable.

25. J.K. Rowling. She showed me that you CAN make millions of dollars riding the bus.

Those are my authors and like I said I have left a bazillion of them out. The bad ones I try to forget the goods ones I hold in my heart.

Now I am passing this virtual chain letter request on to the following people. I want to know what they read and how it influenced their lives.

1. Liveit, Love It –
2. QueensBlog
3. Nanny Goats in Panties
4. Country Doctor’s Wife
5. Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder

Now go forth and Meme...

************************************************************************************

Stay tuned for Give Away later today. Go on... go blog and then come back and visit me later. I'll leave the light on.

Oh OK I'll give you a hint....it's Animal.

Gladys has Random Thoughts

Gladys has Random thoughts and Random Pictures

1. I just finished watching the movie The Queen. In that movie everywhere where she goes she carries a handbag. What do you think the Queen carries around in that pocketbook? A coin purse just in case she wishes to buy a diet Coke? Tampons? Maybe she keeps pictures of her Corgies in there and she pulls them out at state meetings and says “Oh my, have you ever seen my puppies?” She’s the Queen for Cripes sake. I mean can’t she just snap her fingers or wiggle her nose or something and get whatever she wants?

2. Why do people respond to something you tell them with “Is that so?”. Yes it’s so, if it wasn’t so, I wouldn’t have told it to you. Do you want me to respond “No it’s not so.” It is what it is. Why do you ask if it’s so? So what? So true? So much? So little?

3. Why does your hot water heater go out when you are on vacation? Or just arriving home from a vacation where you have just spent your entire budget. Or when you are preparing to leave for the airport to catch your around the world cruise you have planned for your entire working life?

4. Why is it when you have a new born they wait until you have on your good clothes to throw-up on you? Do they know you have on your best cashmere sweater that cost $2000 to have dry cleaned at the special non-chemical environmentally safe cleaners?

5. How do dogs know you are getting ready to go to church, or a wedding or a special occasion? They must know because that is when they rush up to you with their muddy paws and nose from digging gophers to give you goodbye kisses all over your cream colored designer outfit. Do you think they say to one another “hey look she’s got on her cream colored Christian Dior Satin Sheath Dress it would look so much better with a big brownish red paw mark right on the left breast.

6. Why is it you can never find anything good to eat in a full pantry but when the larder is empty you know exactly what you want?

Crawling Out From Under The Rock

You will never know how hard it is growing up the kid who was found under a rock.(click here and read about it) I mean it’s like you live your whole life under that rock. You never feel like you are as good as the other kids because, well, honestly you were found under a rock. You constantly seek attention negative or positive it doesn’t matter. You become the loud kid at the dinner table. Honestly do you have any idea what it feels like to be sitting at the table with all your family gathered around and they totally ignore you? There you sit in the middle of a terribly interesting story and they just start talking over you. Ok maybe it's only interesting to you but they act as if you aren’t there, talking. Then you feel the pressure of the rock on top of you and you realize that you have just been put back under it. What do you do? You start talking louder and more because after all you are trying to be heard from under that rock.

Well today I don’t feel like I’m under that rock. Nope no sir-ree. Not one iota. Not one bit. I feel honored and excited. I feel loved and noticed. Why? First because Punchy over at Lucchese to Louise Vuitton gave me this award.

Yes it’s an award and I am like the dad on “Christmas Story” I am thrilled. Isn’t it cute? I love those rain boots. I think I’m going to have to find some like that just because. I love Punchy because she shops and shows us all kinds of goodies. She also tells us stories about her and her sister’s escapades and all kinds of goodies. Read her love story if you get a chance makes me miss west Texas something awful.




Then just when the buzz from getting that award was about to wan I got this one from LAGirl over at Sweet Tea gave me this award. Yes folks I am feeling the love. It’s the Luv-ly award. There are some rules to follow with this one and it involves passing it on. So I will list those who I want to share it with below.




1. Tales of a Wild Boomba – she doesn’t post often but when she does Oh My Gawd I have to wear depends. Besides we were twins separated at birth.
2. Queenie – Another soul sister
3. Terri Terri Quite Contrary
4. Queen Goob over at This is My Life…So Be It because well she cracks me up
5. Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissing time.
6. Moving At the Speed of Life
7. Katherine over at Smokey Mountain Café- Feed me Seymore.
8. Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder
9. JeanMartha over at Renovation Therapy
10. Girly Stuff

Honorees, please follow these instructions and share the LUV!1. Put the logo on your blog or post. (You can highlight the photo and text of this post and copy/paste wherever you need to...start your highlight from the bottom up to get the photo)2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show GREAT ATTITUDE and/or GRATITUDE3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received the award

Then Rising Rainbow over at Mikael’s Mania gave me this award. Seems she really liked my Walk of Shame story. Oh honey that is just one of many. So here is the scoop behind the Award.

The story behind the award goes something like this: Andrea at Swamp Suburbia decided to contemplate on where blog awards came from. Her sister said they were made up. So Andrea decided to make one up, and well, the rest is history because this is what she found out: The word 'ham' originated in the early 1880s from a song called The Hamfat Man. It was a black minstrel song about an awkward man. After that, people would use the term hamfatter when someone was trying too hard to be funny and not succeeding. That was ultimately shortened to the word ham. So she made an award featuring her goat Joe. (Andrea, does that mean that Joe is a Ham?)This award has it's rules:1.Blog about the Hamfatter award, tell where the name came from (you can copy and paste, that is what I did!! me too, me too!!)2. Post the Hamfatter Award Proudly on your blog!3. Pick 5 blogs that just make you laugh and link to them in your post!4. Link back to the person who gave you this hilarious Hamfatter Award!5. Let your blogger friends know they were awarded a little something!
The nominee’s are:
Nanny Goats in Panties
The Texas Woman
More than an Electrician over at Naked on the Roof
June over at Bye Bye Pie
Attack of the Redneck Mommie

So now I’m feeling pretty full of myself. I mean I’ve been recognized, awarded and notarized. See I have a notary seal right here in the middle of my forehead. I have crawled out from underneath my rock and I am sitting proudly on top of it. I feel like Steve Martin in the Jerk. I feel like I’ve gotten my name in the phone book. I feel so, so… Well so un-found under a rock like. At least until the next family gathering.

Oh and because I love you all so much... I'm going to be giving away some books. So tell your friends and alert the neighbors. Stayed tuned for news at 6:00!

Frag-ill-eee

Yes folks, I won another major award. It came in a post from Queenie. I am so thrilled that she found my blog because she is a real live (as opposed to deceased) writer. I am also thrilled because she cracks me up. I want to go visit her in Maine and dance naked under the full moon at the winter soltice and then drink wine and eat soup. I want to watch movies in the mansion and eat popcorn and talk shit about the actors and actresses. Yeah I want to be her new best friend since her "old" one is slinking off to Paris and not taking her. So here is how it goes. I got the Honest Scrap Award and in return I have to tell you 10 things about me that no body knows then I have to "tag" some other people.

I don't think there are 10 things about me that no body knows because I have NO secrets. I can keep your secrets but I tell everybody everything I ever did or am thinking about doing. So let me see what I can come up with.

1. When I was 12 my best friend stole her dad's El Camino and she talked me into going "joy" riding with her. The cops stopped us and then followed us home. (yeah I don't think that would happen these days) They made sure her parents got up and acknowledged that we had done a bad thing and then left. I couldn't stand myself and the evil wrongdoing I had committed so I went home the next morning and told on myself. Then I grounded myself for 2 months.

2. When I was little I was so jealous of how beautiful Matilda was I used to turn all 4000 pictures of her in the living room backwards.

3. When I first moved to California from Texas in the early 1980's I went for 8 months with no TV and no phone.

4. I blew up my car trying to jump it off and I refuse to use jumper cables to this day

5. I took a trip to Mexico all by myself and climbed to the top of a Mayan Temple and meditated.

6. I had a life altering event happen to me 3 years ago that made me realize I didn't ALWAYS have to be RIGHT. I could just not know, even if I really did know and know I was right. ;)

7. One time I had a man stick a gun in my mouth and tell me he was going to kill me.

8. I was so petite growing up that my family carried me around like a little baby until I was in Junior High School. You know perched on their hip.

9. I too have a mug shot.

10. I have many nick-names but the one that makes me laugh the most is Heebeegeebee. See you laughed too.

Oh and as to the people I have to tag. Gosh I hate doing that... but let's see.

Renovation Therapy because she tells it like it is and is so giving and caring.

Half Past Kissing Time She makes me laugh with her honest account of her job and her life.

The Rightous Buzz Coffee Bean is living through teenager hell. She deserves an award for that!

Eight in 2008

Maude Mae over at Maude's Meandering Thoughts tagged me with this "Meme". I thought about it over night and decided these are my final answers. Maybe. Can I call a lifeline Regis?

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Egg Nog with a little bit of Bicardi and a pinch of nutmeg

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree?
Both

3.Colored lights on house/tree or white?

I love colored lights in the tops of the palm trees because it looks like different colored fairies floating in the sky. I like white lights everywhere else.

4.Do you hang mistletoe?

Funny thing growing up in West Texas Mistletoe grew in the mesquite trees since they don’t grow very tall in my neck of the scrub brush we could just go cut it out of the tree. I haven’t seen any growing in any of the trees up here or in Southern California. I have some fake mistletoe I hang. Oh and did you know the Cancer Institute had proven Mistletoe kills some forms of cancer cells?

I Know these aren't mesquite trees and there isn't any mistletoe, I just think it's pretty.

5. When do you put up your decorations up?
Usually Thanksgiving but this year no decorations, no tree…bahumbug.
This is the tree of my youth. We always had a color wheel that would flash different colors on the tree and I would sit mesmorized by it. Hey it was the "atomic age" don't laugh. I thought it was beautiful. I mean do you know how RARE a silver spruce is in the wild?

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
I love food and just about any dish is my favorite as long as it’s not liver. I guess I would have to say stuffing.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
I would have to say the Christmas it snowed. It was actually cold, not 65 degrees cold but real 32 degrees cold. OK I lie, no snow. Although I think it did sleet one year that was close enough for us.

This wasn't Christmas it was in fact last Thanksgiving at my Daddy's.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What truth about Santa? Do you know something I don’t know?

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Nope I’m a Christmas Morning person. I mean how can you open gifts on Christmas Eve? Santa hasn’t come yet. Hey does this have something to do with the “truth about Santa” question from before?

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
What tree?

Hey I wish I still had the frosted white aluminum tree with some really redneck looking Nutcracker's in front of it. Oh wait...those aren't nutcrackers they are just Nuts!

11. Snow. Love it or dread it?
I love it but refuse to drive in it which could be a problem this year since I am in Montana

This is Whitefish Mountain, Montana. Isn't it beautiful?

12. Can you ice skate?
Hahaha, surely you jest. I can’t walk and chew gum and you expect me to get on two little thin blades and gracefully glide across a super slick surface. It would be more like me standing in a puddle of water while being tasered. Yes I’m that spastic.


This is what I look like in my mind, but in actuality you wouldn't want to see it.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

I got this from my kids and my husband a couple of years ago and I heart it.





14. What is the most important thing about the holidays to you?
Family although I rarely get to spend it with them.



This would be my family going to visit my sister's family. They have a cement pond and everythang. Theys live out there in Califourneeiay. We always get one of them big Califourneeiay Welcomes when we go out there with all the critter's to eat Christmas vittals. They wave real funny out there. Theys only wave with one finger.



15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
I have to pick one? I like all of them from Minced Meat Pie to Divinity I love them all.


16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
My life has changed so much in the last several years I really don’t have one any more. I guess you could call buying all the girls in the family a pair of cute flannel pajamas a tradition well that would be it. They each get a new pair of Nick and Nora’s.

They are so comfy and warm.

17. What tops your Christmas Tree?
When I have a tree I usually put an angel up there.

I keep putting her up there but she keeps saying "GEIT DAOWHAN YOU'LL FAAHAALL!"

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
I love giving. I wish I were better at picking out the perfect gift.

20. Candy Canes. Yum or Yuck?
Yum! I put one in my hot chocolate. When the grandkids were babies my daddy would sit them in his lap and let them suck candy canes. He thought it was great and so did the babies. My grandfather always had pepperming salt water taffy. Peppermint is a good smell for me.

21. What do you want for Christmas?
I have everything I want or need. So perhaps to do away with hunger.

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas party?
Not anymore.

23. Do you dress-up for Christmas Eve, or wear pajamas?
I wear my dressy pajamas.

They even have an emergency flap in the back. Just in case.

24. Do you own a Santa hat?
Yes I believe he accidently left it one year next to the cookies I baked for him. He left me a note asking if the next year I would make him boiled peanuts and beer. Who knew?

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?
Like I said my life has changed so much in the last couple of years I never know with whom I will be spending Christmas.

I like to spend it with these guys cause they are fun.
And these people...
And then there is Huey and Dewey where is Louie?
Here's Louie and then there's
some more goofy people I love

Then there is little Gooball and big Gooball and of course this guy

This is my daddy aka Trooper Bob. Yeah he always has that devilish look on his face. All I can say is watch your back...you may get Bobbed. There are many more to add but I have no pictures. So I guess that I will just say my whole family, God Bless Them Everyone.

Now then who do I tag? Well I'm not real good at playing tag since I usually get my feet tangled up in my legs and then I fall flat on my face so I am going to tag whichever bloggers read this. Please send me a comment telling me. I'll wait. I'll leave the light on.

6 Random Things

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I got this from Coffee Bean over at http://righteousbuzz.blogspot.com/2008/11/six-random-facts-meme.html

Let's see.
1. Since it's close to the Holidays, I am drinking coffee with eggnog in it. I like eggnog by itself, with a little bit of rum or whiskey. One Christmas when our kids were little, my siblings and I were all at my mom's. We were up very late putting toys together and drinking egg nog. My brother who does not drink drank two glasses of rum spiked egg nog before my mother told him there was alcohol in it. He just looked at her and said "No wonder I put the Barbie House together upside down".

2. I'm allergic to all pork products. Gives me a ferocious migraine. I can eat something that was cooked on the same grill as pork and will have a headache. It is very inconvenient when I go out to eat. I have to ask "Was that cooked with pork? Did it touch pork? Did you even open bacon around it?" When I was in Europe I had to keep making piggy sounds and shaking my head No. I'm sure the Germans and French thought I was out of my mind. "Hey don't give the crazy pig lady any more wine."

3. I was sang Happy Birthday by Reba McIntyre. I was 25 years old and she was in concert in my home town. A friend of mine was working security for her. He invited me backstage before her concert and introduced me to her. She was so cute and nice. Then she broke out in song and sang to me. I was thrilled, she even wished me happy birthday during her concert.

4. I'm not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. The first in many, many years. I am however cooking bbq after Thanksgiving. Kahuna and I will be alone for Thanksgiving this year up in the frozen tundra. We will be going back home for a couple of days after Thanksgiving so we will get most of our offspring together and have a dinner then. I'm making BBQ brisket, ribs, tater salad, grapefruit salad, corn and wild rice casserole, a big mixed salad and Falulah and Lulu, my two younger girls are making one of their scrumptious cheesecakes.

5. I recently had an epiphany. I decided that I didn't have to always be right. That sometimes it was ok to just not know the answer to something. I spent most of my life struggling to be right even when I was wrong. It was exhausting. This is much easier. I can look at the person who is trying to convince me of something or is asking me something and I can just shrug my shoulders and say "Beats me. I really don't know."

6. I used to love all types of horror movies, books and shows. Now, not so much. I would rather watch a suspense movie or read a mystery. I will however make an exception for well written or well filmed horror type movies. I also was a huge Sci Fi geek. I watched Star Trek religiously and waited in line for hours upon hours to see Star Wars.

Now then you know me so who do I tag? I tag YOU. Those of you with a blog leave me a comment with you blog site on it and link back here. I will go read yours. This is what Coffee Bean did and I thought it was a great idea. Those with no blog, leave yours here on the comment page. I'll be waiting for you. Now go write. I'll leave the light on for you.