PERMS

(I wrote this a long time ago, when "Susan" was "Suzi.")


One of the joys of motherhood is giving your daughter a perm. Last Sunday was rainy and dreary, and it seemed like a perfect day to give my daughter Suzi the perm she had asked for. Actually, she had asked for a professional perm, but she had to take what she got.
Having done this before, I knew I might lose my temper. Those curlers, hair, and papers cooperate about as well as a fish cooperates when you're trying to take him off the hook.

I wrapped a plastic garbage bag around Suzi's shoulders, clipped the front together with hair clips and tucked paper towels in at the neck. Suzi sat very still for all this, knowing I hate it, and counting her lucky stars I was doing it.

I parted her hair and tried to separate it into little squares like they do at the salon. But it didn't seem to be cut in squares. I tried re-staking the territories, but that didn't work either. So I just put a curler in every hair swatch that seemed to be a different length.

As time passed, Suzi's shoulders slumped more and more. I was almost crawling onto her shoulders to reach her head. She got bored and pretty soon I noticed that a lot of hair clips were missing. I found them decoratively lining the edges of her plastic cape. I looked at her face, and she had clips on her lips and nose.

We took a break - partly because we were both tired, and partly because the cape and towels were falling off. Night fell. My Sunday night TV shows drew nearer. My nerves became even more frayed. Then I caught a curled piece of hair in the comb. Suzi jumped in anticipation of pain, and I jumped because she jumped. We got the giggles, which turned to gales of laughter and tears. My husband looked in on us and decided everything was OK.

Later that night, Suzi styled her now wavy hair and I got to see my TV shows. But the smell of a home perm lingererd in the house as if to remind me: Mothers aren't expected to be joyful all of the time.

GREENGO

Small towns were relatively safe in the 1950s and 1960s. I rode my bike to school, put down the kickstand, parked it alongside the others, and hoped they wouldn't all fall into a pile. After school I biked to my parent's newspaper office and went in, leaning the bike against the window outside. It stayed there waiting for me.
The streets "rolled up" after five o'clock except on Thursday nights when the newspaper went to press. Then the only light in town, other than a couple of streetlights, was the light coming from the open door at the back of the print shop. I'd ride figure eights on the one-block main street, waiting for the papers to get printed.

I loved that bike! I had ridden my tricycle to the little one-room library and around the crooked sidewalk in front of the courthouse long enough. Finally! One Christmas, there it was! I named it "Greengo" because it was green and it would GO!

The hardest task Greengo ever had was riding down a dirt road beside my friend Phyllis and her horse. It wasn't really dirt. It was fine, powdered sand. I pushed more than I rode!

I owned Greengo from age seven to sixteen. Painted her once with this gosh-awful flat color of green that had looked pretty good on the glossy swatch in the paint section of the Shell gas station/hardware store. I don't remember what ever happened to the old gal. I got my driver's license, and that was that. Funny how old friends get left in the dust!

MOJO'S PLAYPEN

Our living room rug is Cat Mojo's playpen. He romps on it, pulling out tufts of carpet with his claws. Last week he got crazy. Tufts were everywhere! I picked them up, showed them to him and fussed at him. He seemed to understand. You see, Mojo, even though he is a cat, wants to please us. (And if you believe that I've got some property to sell you.)

Things got back to normal for a while. But then he struck! It looked like it had snowed! I knew this was war, and Mojo wasn't going to win. I needed time to think, so I moved some furniture and folded the heavy rug over on itself as far as it would go, stopping short of the other furniture. I laid sofa pillows over every square inch of carpet that was still exposed. Ugly? Yes!

A couple of days later my husband threatened me, so I decided to fix the room back the way it was before. That was three days ago, and (can you believe this?) Mojo has not pulled up one tuft of carpet.

But he won't speak to me. He sits in font of me and turns his back - cat language for "You are a #%@&!#!!" I wonder when the next offensive will begin?

CRAPE MYRTLE

One day in June George looked out the window and said, "That tree is going to be beautiful! It's full of buds!"

Remembering how beautiful it had already been when it already bloomed a couple of weeks before, I decided he was seeing things. I looked out the window, and the "buds" he had seen were the little black dead balls that still clung to the limbs in clusters - mere remnants of the beautiful crape myrtle blossoms. I didn't say it, but I thought, "Don't you think black buds are dead?"

Two days later the tree was full of mature green buds just getting ready to blossom. Some clusters of dead black balls were still there, but I had to search for them to see them.

I guess I chose to see what I expected - I thought the blooming season was over and I was determined to remain disappointed about missing the beautiful flowers. George saw what was real.

HIGH TECH FIFTIES - LIGHTING, AC, AND INTERCOM

My parents had a fascinating office when I was a kid in 1959. I would walk there after school, go get Cokes and Nabs for Mom and the others, and come back and rummage through the letters in the trash looking for stamps to add to my collection.


Our school had fluorescent lights, but the newspaper office was still old fashioned. We had light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

We had an enormous air conditioner. It was as high as the ceiling, about two feet deep and maybe three or four feet wide. I’m not kidding! It was like those first gigantic computers. It was loud. It piped water out through a hole in the wall onto the flat roof of the one-story addition to the building. That roof held puddles of water most of the time, and I don’t know why it didn’t cave in!

Our high tech intercom system was a hole in the floor. Paperwork was transported between floors VIA a wheel and pulley, a rope, and a clothespin. When somebody downstairs banged on the wood box, the people upstairs pulled it up.

The "good old days" seem like a science fiction movie now!

Where Are the Pictures?

All I had to do was take the pictures. I dutifully went to the site and took pictures of the signs we had installed. I brought them back to the shop and gave the camera to my son Fred to offload the pictures from the camera into the “Drop” on his computer. The Drop is a wonderful folder on our network that all of our computers can use. You just drop a picture into it from one computer and take it out on another computer.


Fred dropped them in and then deleted them from the camera, as we always do. Unfortunately, I forgot about the pictures until a couple of weeks later. When I sat down and opened the Drop, you guessed it - no pictures! Fred had thought I had retrieved the pictures, and he who never organizes anything had done some housecleaning and cleaned out the Drop. Bummer.

Next day, I grabbed the first camera I saw and went to photograph the signs again. When I arrived at the site, I realized this was the camera we used to use - the one that doesn’t hold many pictures. But I got enough pictures to get by and brought the camera back to the shop and asked Fred to offload them. Oh dear. The offloading cord for this camara had been lost long ago.

I got the right camera and took the darn pictures!

HIRING A SALESPERSON

DON'T!! That’s the best answer I have. The interview might be the most spectacular sales job they will ever do.

We hired one who told us he was impressed with our business and that he thought he could sell a lot of signs for us. So we tried him out. He didn’t bother to show up too often. .

Next, we used an employment agency. They found a guy who said he liked cold calling and knocking on doors, but we soon found that he couldn't get past the first door – his car door!

Then a very persistent door-to-door salesperson caught our eye. We started thinking (optimists that we are) that he’d be pretty good at selling signs, so we hired him. At that time there was a bell on the front counter for customers to ring. We had some fun with it in the shop, ringing it when someone got a big sale. This guy got so few sales that he started ringing it when he got a good prospect! Scratch that one.

We decided what we really needed was a good telemarketer. The first seemed excited about the job, then she left for lunch and never came back. The second one didn’t show up the first day. But the third try was a charm. She amazed us with the number of calls she made and the good leads she stirred up. Then she moved to California.

No more! I’ve had it! If anyone has had good luck finding salespeople, please tell me about it. I’ve always loved fairytales!

TO-DO LIST

I like to be read, write, and calculate numbers. (Yes, I 'm the weirdo who loves balancing a checkbook. Just wish I had more to work with there!) I'm greedy and offensively defensive about my time. Don't tell me to do something! I've already got a chronic "To-Do List."


Sometimes God knocks a knot on my head, so to speak. Recently I read, "God didn't put us on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. We're called human beings, not human doings."

"Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest:  Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400.00 into your checking account.  However - (1) everything you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you, and (2) the bank can end the game without warning at any time. What would you do?

"Actually, this game is reality!! The magical bank is TIME! Each day we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life. What we haven’t lived up that day is forever lost - gone - caput!" (that last word is mine).

I think someone's trying to tell me something!

PRUSIKS - ROPE KNOTS PART 4

The rope knot saga continues, as I once again look over the interesting names of the rope knots on http://www.proknot.com/html/rope_knots.html. (No, this truly isn't writer's block. I really am curious.) There was one called a "prusik." It makes a loop. You tie it around a tight line, then you can slide it up and down the line, but once you put something through the loop it "jams solidly." Sort of like the hangman's noose I was considering a few days ago, but different.

Wilkipedia says a prusik is "a friction hitch or knot used to put a loop of cord around a rope, applied in climbing, canyoneering, mountaineering, caving, rope rescue, and by arborists." All exciting sports except arboring. It's named for a mountaineer in Austria. I wonder how many spills it took to invent that knot!

The Prusik knot is used when rescuing crazy people that climb mountains, and it works kind of like a ratchet. But Wilkipedia says that even the Prusik doesn't work when the rope is frozen, so don't use a prusik when you climb a glacier. And if you should decide you want to put two prusiks on one rope, you can make handcuffs. That's to cuff the crazy person you just rescued.

PANTS ALTERATION

My husband lost weight and didn't have a suit to wear to a wedding - or to anything, for that matter! So we hit the sales. He bought one, and we took the pants to be altered. A very small job that wouldn’t take more than a couple of days. We waited for a call. And waited. We needed the pants Saturday, so on Thursday we drove to the one-person alteration shop and a sign on the door said, "Closed Wed. through Tuesday. Family emergency."


After I picked my husband up off the sidewalk and dodged some very sharp exclamations he threw around, we went to the store to find some slacks to match the suit coat, I thought. I found the suit, I thought. He said, "That's not the same suit." I said, "That IS the same suit. I'll bet you money."

After he showed me the correct suit, we tried to find some pants that would go with the coat, I thought. He kept picking up tan pants instead of gray. He was matching his navy blue sports coat. Of course! All this time the US Open was going on at home.

The next day he said he meant to match the suit coat but was too mad to think. Anyway, he put on the new tan pants. I pinned them up and walked off. I heard a thud and another one of those sharp exclamations - about pins and skin.

OK. It was Friday morning. We were leaving Saturday morning. I found a dry cleaner who would hem them and clean the blood off them by 5:00, and I was more than glad to get out of the house! But everything turned out OK - and the pin wound healed.

SMART PHONE IS STUPID!

When a SmartPhone stops offloading photos onto a computer, even though it was doing fine a minute ago, it sounds like something's wrong with the SmartPhone. Right?

I called the phone company's tech support guy. When he told me to call the phone manufacturer, I thought, "This is definitely a phone problem, not a computer problem."

I called the manufacturer and they couldn't figure it out. Second confirmation that it was a phone problem.

I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it. No help.

I called tech support again, and another technician couldn't figure it out. (Third confirmation.) He finally said to take out the battery and put it back in. (This is real technical!) 

I took it down to the local phone store.  The lady there repositioned the battery but it didn't help. (There's the fourth clue that this phone was not working.) She said to go back home and call technical support again, and if I couldn't get it resolved they'd have to replace the phone.

I did, and the tech lady said the "partnership" between the phone and the computer wasn't working. (Neither was my "partnership" with the phone company!) This was confirmation number five. Then she said it looked like I was going to have to email the pictures to my computer instead of offloading them with a cable. She gave me a 10% credit for six months to pay for emails. I almost told her where she could put that credit, but I didn't because she was a really nice lady.

I called a computer expert I knew. He logged onto my computer and tried to get that partnership to partner. He finally determined that neither the computer nor the USB cable was at fault. Let's see, this was the sixth confirmation that my phone was NOT WORKING!

One last try. I reinstalled the software, repositioned the battery and rebooted the computer. Then I said, "This is it," or something like that.

I called Customer Service and said it's time to replace the phone. She said to call technical support TO DETERMINE IF IT WAS THE PHONE CAUSING THE PROBLEM! I said "NO! THEY HAVE ALREADY DETERMINED THAT!!!" She kept insisting and I kept saying NO!"

I took it back to the store and they ordered me a new phone.

CLOVE HITCH - ROPE KNOTS PART 3

In my continuing curiosity about the rope knots (see http://www.proknot.com/html/rope_knots.html), I found another one that looked really interesting called a "clove hitch." Cloves are delicious on ham at Christmas. They look like a seed cluster with a little stem. A knot named after a clove looks nothing like the cloves I use. But the clove hitch does "hold firmly but is not totally secure." My cloves don't always hang onto my hams firmly. May be because my hams aren't firm to start with. (Hmmmm)

I tried it. I grabbed the cord to my window blinds and tied up my pencil. It was definitely secure as far as I could tell because I almost couldn't get the knot untangled. I named my knot a "don't knot."

WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS IN THE FIFTIES

“Ruth sort of married the newspaper when she married Bob Grady," the article stated. My mother had never in this world dreamed that her husband would die at 49 leaving her with a weekly county newspaper to run. Imagine - a woman in 1958 - husband dies on Thursday and she takes over a newspaper business on Monday morning! She was petrified! Her assessment of the situation? "When I started in that Monday morning, I didn’t know I’d be here even two days. I was scared. Sometimes I still am!"

So there she was. Other women were at home keeping house and watching soap operas. My mom, who never had the confidence to think she was a good writer or a competent editor/publisher, was gathering news all over the county from morning 'til night, working with newspaper owners around the state, keeping up with an industry that was changing at lightning speed, managing employees, raising a difficult child (ahem!), and trying to have a life!

She took the bull by the horns and made it work. The modern liberated woman has nothing on my mid-20th-century mom!

LEARNING TO DRAW AGAIN

Not to complain, but I'm having the darnedest time learning to draw all over again! I was an artist for fifteen years. No kidding. A serious artist - selling paintings, teaching lessons, the whole nine yards. Now after a ten-year break I thought, well, it's like riding a bike. Once a rider, always a rider. (Come to think of it, I can't ride a bike any more, either!)

So I took a picture of a city scene with an old house and big trees in the foreground and the Raleigh skyline behind it. Martin Street, I think. I dusted off the old T-Square and as I began I pictured (pun intended) my masterpiece of Raleigh history. In a few days, I had ruined it. Maybe I picked something too complex to start on.

So I photographed a neighbor's house. Piece of cake. It only took four hours to ruin that one.

One more try, but this time I cheated and made a photocopy to practice on. You guessed it. Another disaster.

It took one more disaster before I got the hang of it, but even that wasn't the greatest. What's going on? Have I entered a time warp or something?

Oh well. At least I can still draw Hugh Mouse!  :)

ROPE KNOTS PART 2

In my quest for the name of the knot I had tied, I went to this website: http://www.proknot.com/html/rope_knots.html. One of the 24 knots it names is a "constrictor knot." When I saw that I thought, "Gee, there's one I know. It's probably a hangman's noose, since hangman's noose isn't in the list. Everyone knows a hangman's noose should be in a list of knots! Don't they watch cowboy movies on this website? So I clicked it, and here's what a constrictor knot looks like. (I hope proknot.com doesn't mind if I show their illustration. I'm giving them some good hype, am I not?)

It doesn't look anything like a hangman's noose. Now I was curious. I began searching for a hangman's noose. (It doesn't take much to challenge me.) I looked down the list and "taughtline hitch" sounded good. You could probably hang someone with a taughtline hitch. (I'm really not planning a hanging.) I clicked it and decided you probably wouldn't have much luck trying to hang someone with that one.

So I scrolled down further and - oh-my-gosh! There's a button to click and you get sixty more knot names. I counted. But no hangman's noose. However, I did find a disclaimer at the bottom saying not to use these for rock climbing. I'm about as likely to try that as hanging someone.

OTIS

I was sitting in a rocking chair at the local car shop when across the top of my newspaper I saw a Chinese Pug sashaying straight toward me. This prissy little guy had a face that was molded inside a box, and his chunky body sure wasn't eye candy. His name was Otis. He asked me for some petting, got it, graciously gurgled (his version of purring), then picked up his toy, jumped on the couch, and flirted with me, tilting his head coquettishly.

I went back to my reading and Otis sneezed a few times through that smushed up nose of his and apologized with an embarrassed glance. Then he stared out the window, waiting for a more enthusiastic customer.

Pretty soon his perfect mark walked in. Otis greeted her with gusto. She made a big deal over him, which he rewarded with gurgles and wiggles as doggy hairs floated through the air. She told him, "You've made my day!" He must have understood her because of the smug look he gave me. He was adorable, but I like watching more than playing.

GOSH IT'S HOT! (I wrote this last Saturday)

The blinds are closed and the oscillating floor fan is four feet away and aimed at me. I have battened down every piece of paper in sight - and there are a lot of them. The house is a comfortable temperature for anybody except women over forty or pregnant.

Last night there was a free concert downtown in Raleigh. I went to a cool bar for chicken wings and beer instead. My husband really had to twist my arm.

I'd love to be a kid again, running through the sprinkler, sitting in a big pan of water, eating watermelon that dripped off my chin and elbows, and spitting seeds. Hmmm. I've got some watermelon in the fridge. It's seedless. It's been cut into bite size pieces. I've had a cool shower and am clean and dry. Life is good!

I need to clean the house and paint some furniture and iron the stack of clothes that has accumulated for six weeks. But really!

ROPE KNOTS PART 1

I went online to look up the name of the knot I had made in a rope so I could put it in one of my stories and sound intelligent. Take a look at this website: http://www.proknot.com/html/rope_knots.html. It lists 24 knots (I counted them) - but you have to click on one to see a picture of it. Really? I looked them over and saw "buntline hitch." What's a bunt, anyway?

I looked it up. A bunt is "the bellying part of a square sail," and you pull it up with a buntline, of course. Who didn't know that?

Then I clicked on it. (Shouldn't have. I had other things to do that day.) Buntline hitch - "Pass end of the rope through shackle." OK. Though I've heard of "shackles and chains," on this particular morning I just wondered what a shackle was, exactly. (Curiosity killed the mouse, you know.) So I looked it up.

Shackle - "also known as a gyve."

Gyve - "a fetter especially for the leg." It's often used with manacles. It comes from the word 'give.' If your leg is shackled, where's the "give" I wanna know!?

Manacle - "usually a set of two metal rings that are fastened about the wrists and joined by a metal chain." So why don't they just call it hand cuffs? Who knows? (By now you're probably thinking, "Who cares?")

That was just the first knot I looked at. To be continued . . . .

CURTAINS

Why not use one color curtain over one window and another over the others in the same room? "Think outside the box!" I look at the room - old LazyBoys re-covered around, oh, maybe 1992. All the beautiful curtains in the world aren't going to help those! The new bright blue sofa ("new" in my house meaning seven years old) was supposed to bring out the blue patterns in the old chairs. Not.

I used to be creative. In our last house I made kitchen curtains out of nylon net shawls, and I painted the bedroom dark green. (Don't do that, by the way. It makes your complexion look horrible in the mirror.) But for the last seven years I've been working my mousetail off at our small woman-owned business. Just the thought of being creative made me tired.

Now I'm semi-retired. The time has come! Look out old furniture. Here comes the paint. It's curtains for you!

UPSIDE DOWN TOMATOES

I saw them in a catalog a few years ago and have been waiting until the containers get prettier to buy one. But I caved this year and bought a green plastic hanging container for growing tomato plants upside down. It's so ugly on my deck.

I took this contraption out of the box and tried to put it together the best I could. (Found the instructions a week later under a table.) There was a piece of foam rubber or something that looked like a packing thing, so I tossed it.

I had bought four tomato plants, figuring one of them would live. I maneuvered the thing (with no help from my dear sweet hubby) until I got the dirt in it and the tomato plants hanging out the bottom. Then I hung it on twine. It wasn't high enough to suit me, so when my son was visiting he helped me raise it. He only dropped it once - and yelled out some bad words for the neighbors' grandson to hear. Later I decided that when my tomatoes get large, optimist that I am, that twine might not hold them so I went to Lowe's, bought a chain and re-hung the contraption by myself as my hubby watched TV - which is another whole story.

These plants survived and now have some blossoms on them. I found the instructions last week under a table. The foam rubber thing was supposed to hold the tomato stem and plug up the hole so the plants wouldn't fall out. Oh well. I guess putting four plants in there plugged the hole pretty well anyway. Now what should I do with this big, heavy hook that came in the package?

SWEETIE

The waitress called me "Sweetie"! She didn't know how close she was to having a plate full of chicken wings thrown at her as she walked away from our table. My hair isn't gray. I died it. My clothes are young looking. My wrinkles are skillfully concealed. What's wrong with her eyes? What's her problem?

You know you're old when people call you "sweetie."

You know you're old when the kids (babies really) behind the counter at McDonalds hand you the senior size cup.

You know you're old when you realize all the cars are passing you because you're not in a hurry.

You know you're old when your children want you to enjoy life.

You know you're old when you look at your friends. I won't go there.

When did this happen? I'm still having fun. I'm not old!

VOLUNTEERED TOO QUICKLY

Our church needed some signs, so I volunteered our sign shop. That part was easy. But I tend to jump first, then think, so I also volunteered my husband and myself to meet with the church committee to walk the grounds and advise them about signage placement.

The closer we got to the scheduled date, the more nervous I got. Our daughter and son know exactly how to meet with clients and help them decide such things. They know every kind of sign material we use and under what circumstances to use it, and they can talk intelligently and help people make decisions about their signs. I, on the other hand, am a bookkeeper. My husband is a former textile manager. The only reason we were on this mission was because this was our personal donation to the church – hence, our project!

As the day approached, I kept thinking, “I wonder what materials we should use,” and “I wonder how they’ll be made and installed,” and “I wonder how I’ll advise these people.” So I was very relieved when my daughter offered to go with us. (I think she had a premonition!)

We drove to the church and she led the committee through their signage needs and I was one proud (and relieved) mamma mouse!

SPEECHES

Mom ran a weekly newspaper. She covered all the local news, both writing and photographing. I was nine when she started, and I absolutely hated meetings and speeches, but I had to go along with her a lot of the time. By age ten, I think I could have taught a course on how to outline a speech. Some speakers laid out their points and even numbered them for you - and I sat there calculating how much time it would have cut off their speech if they had just gotten on with it! Some spent half of their speech telling you what they were going to talk about. Some started their speech with a lot of jokes, and it was a blessing when they were actually funny. Some repeated themselves several times, like you didn’t get it the first time! Preachers are especially bad about this. Some read their speech and never looked up. I guess they were as sleepyAnd none of them knew when to quit. If they said it was going to be short, look out! It was miserable, but I accepted it as a fact of life. “Have Gun, Will Travel” (remember Paladin?) was a popular TV show at the time. Well, my motto was “Have Mamma, Will Travel.” She got a kick out of that.

Small Town in the 50s

I've been writing a story (turned into a term paper!) about the Duplin Times & it includes a bunch of stuff about my home town of Kenansville (population 600, more or less). If you're over 50, you probably remember some of this stuff.

When I came into the world in 1948, postage stamps cost three cents, Coca Cola bottles came in six-packs, and nabs were packaged in cube-shaped four-packs.

In the ‘50s, downtown Kenansville was busy. Cars parked diagonally on both sides of the main street. Our car was always parked in front of the Duplin Times, and later on, when I was in college, my mother backed her car out of that space and bumped into a car one morning. That afternoon, she did the same thing – to the same person’s other car! That was the only wreck she ever had that was her fault, so I guess she wanted to make it count!

Back then I could ride figure eights all over that street on my bike after the town went to sleep at five o'clock. The town was small, and I knew every inch of it, except for the “crack” between the Duplin Times building and the building next to it, which was just wide enough for a child to walk through to the back of the building – if that child had the nerve!

There was a grocery store called “Your Store” that had a big scale in the back room. It was like the scales in a doctor's office, with the sliding weight, but it was very large. Maybe it was for weighing boxes of food or something, but Mamma weighed on it all the time, because she was on a diet all the time! They gave out S&S Green Stamps at the store and I licked them and stuck them into the little books.

The Kenansville Drug Store had a marble soda fountain where you could get a Pepsi with a squirt of cherry or vanilla for five cents, and you could watch all your classmates approach the store from the table and ice cream chairs in the front window while reading ten-cent Superman, Wonder Woman, Archie, Little Casper, Mighty Mouse, and Katy Keen comic books.

It was an awesome town!

FULL CIRCLE

 

I wanted a wide screen TV, so I researched it. I studied and searched the web until I learned an awful lot about LCDs and projection screens and other stuff that I've now forgotten, and I decided what I wanted and found a "real deal" on Craigslist. Two months later I was at the store purchasing a new one.

I decided we could save some money at the office by changing our phone and internet service providers. I calculate that this idea has cost me about 20 to 30 hours, and I'm back where I started - sticking with the same company.

I tried to find a less expensive insurance policy. I spent hours upon hours comparing policies only to find out that I already had the best deal.

Some mice are just smarter than others!

JOB PRESS

More about the Duplin Times newspaper office in the 50s.

The two-story sandy brick colored Duplin Times building looked onto the sidewalk through double doors and two picture windows. People walking to and from the busy stores and offices of Kenansville (all one block of it!) peered into the windows at movie theatre schedules printed in color on heavy card stock propped up against wood racks.

Beyond those racks in the left window you could see a "job press." One of the local teenagers would be running it, printing one flyer at a time. This job press was a machine that operated on manpower, using a foot pedal and wheel and belt to keep the big, heavy, flat, circle shaped metal press rocking forward and backward. It clanked a tune as it churned through its duties. The machine inked the type. The machine operator placed the paper on the type, and the machine closed on it, pressing down to imprint the paper. Or a finger!

The printer's ink and the wood floors mixed into a musty smell. In the winter, a heater overhead blew out heater odors. Add that to the clanking of the slow moving job press and the busy noises the linotype made, and you've got newspaper office music and aroma. I loved it but didn't know it at the time.

We have a new follower.  Thankyou for following my blog!  I hope you'll comment on some of the stories.  Love to get feedback!

Snakes

I wish I had seen this! A friend described it this way: "I looked out the door and saw my neighbor and my husband running in opposite directions. I knew immediately - it was a snake! He was running for a shovel and she was running for the mothballs! She said that snakes hate mothballs, and pretty soon she was throwing mothballs all over the yard!"


People do the darnedest things when snakes appear. My mother, saw a black snake in our front yard one time. Well, Mom was dressed for church in her hat, gloves, and high heel shoes (this was the 50s), and she ran to the basement, got a hoe, and started chasing that snake all over the yard. She cut off a piece of his tail.

Another time Mom screamed "There's a snake!" and sent my sister running to fetch the neighbor. He arrived red-faced and armed with a shovel, only to find a tiny, harmless green snake. My mom never lived it down.

Dominoes

The biggest storage problem these days is the vinyl tubes. These are short tubes of rolled up vinyl (mostly scrap). We have bought storage racks. We have built storage structures. But the tubes reproduce like rabbits. The overflow ends up standing vertical on the floor - then they become Dominoes!

Now and then someone bumps them and the chain reaction begins! And I’m not talking about just the chain reaction of the tubes. It’s the beginning of a series of expletives!

We have now put some of our best brains to work to find the perfect storage system. Today there’s a long box on the floor with dowels sticking up to hold the tubes. So far so good.

Dogs

I walked into the shop and our two dogs started barking. Big dogs! They were barricaded from the lobby by a door that was about a yard high, and they were fighting each other to get to me. Fortunately, I love both of these dogs. They belong to my son and daughter who run the shop now.

When I entered, two customers were at the counter talking with my daughter Susan. I hurried to my desk to put down my purse then turned to talk with them (and to hopefully remember who they were). They asked if we had received their logo yet. I waded through the barking dogs (one trying to block my path to get attention) to talk to my son about this. He looked up from the assembly he was working on and called to the customers across twenty feet of tables and dogs to tell them he got it but didn't know what to do with it. Great.

I made my way back through the dogs, one of whom almost tripped me. Susan told me to just say "No!" and hit her (the dog, not Susan), so I started doing this while Susan kept talking to one of the customers. I said to the other one (the customer, not the dog) that I was retiring and that Susan would be handling their order. He looked at me without the understanding, friendly smile I expected. The dogs barked. The customers walked out. They looked angry.

I didn't say anything about the dogs. I just secretly cursed myself up and down for that fateful moment when I agreed to let the first dog in on a trial basis. I mentally shot myself for the day I agreed to let the second dog stay there for a couple of hours while waiting to go to the vet. I mentally stuck my finger down my throat remembering the Saturday I spent moving supplies around to sweep dog hair from behind them and mopping the dried dog saliva spots off the 2,000 sq. ft. floor.

Fred and Susan say "most of" the customers love the dogs. Surely there's a reverse-marketing plan in there somewhere.

(PS - After reading this story, my kids decided to leave their dogs at home. I didn't raise no dummies!)

Great Employee!

I don’t care how small or how large your workspace is, keeping things organized is always a problem. We have a lot of storage space under our work tables. I have re-organized it a few times, but sign installers apparently go to clutter school before they start work.

We have finally lucked out with a wonderfully organized installer. I saw him the other day taking screws out of storage drawers and lining them up on the work table in neat little piles, presumably to organize the drawers. I tiptoed by in complete bewilderment, not wanting to interrupt the procedure. I think he dropped straight out of heaven!

Meredith

The news today says Meredith College laid off four of its seven armed police officers because between 2006 and 2008 they had only one violent crime!


Wow! I graduated from there in 1970, and the biggest violent crime we had was panty raids. Do kids today even know what those are?

There were other crimes, come to think of it. Sometimes someone put detergent in the fountain. And whenever someone got pinned or engaged or something, her friends threw her into the fountain.

We did have laws that shouldn't be broken. If anyone got caught doing something improper, like making out in the parlor, she got a pink slip. And God forbid that you got caught drinking an alcoholic beverage within a 25-mile radius!

There was some cheating going on, too. We weren't allowed to wear pants to class - only skirts, so we faked it by throwing on a raincoat over our PJs.

I can't believe I'm this ancient!

Closets

I don’t care how small or how large your work space is, it’s never enough. Space gets used up – wasted – and then it’s gone forever!

Take for example the "Back Room." You know, it's a generic term, like when you say "The Junk Drawer." When we first opened the sign shop, we put the back seats of the van there temporarily. The plan was to take them home and store them in the attic. But now they are covered with tools and ladders. Sometimes I go in and stare at that clutter and visualize storage shelves. They say visualization helps.

Then there’s the closet. Everybody has one. Instead of installing shelves and stacking things where we can find them, we just shoved boxes and cleaning supplies in there for about three years. Then we built some shelves and, of course, they're overflowing. Build it and they will come!

Ordering a Phone Line

I called one phone company several times until I thoroughly understood what they offered and how much it costs. (Do you know that it's best to ask them that price question two or three different times, just to see if you get the same price each time?)

I decided to order from that company, so I called them one last time (I thought). After going through three people with a total of about fifteen minutes on hold, I spent half an hour placing my order, then was transferred to someone to confirm the order, and got disconnected. Once again, I called and re-ordered, which took even longer this time. I did get the order confirmed this time. Yea! I called back the next day with a question, and they couldn't find my order. I think I said "Bummer!" or something.

Am I sure I want to use this company? As they say, "If the honeymoon's bad, the marriage will be a disaster!"

World's Best Salad Dressing

When old friends get together, everyone else might as well vanish because memories are going to be the topic. That's how it came to pass that I found out why my older sister Becky fed me a concoction of spices and vinegar and mayonnaise and ketchup and who knows what else when I was a small, sweet, innocent child. (Ahem.) It's one of those funny childhood incidents that gets told over and over for years. But I didn't know until yesterday that she didn't maliciously plan to make me throw up.

Becky was creating the world's best salad dressing for supper, and she wanted to see if I liked it. She put the spoon to my lips and I gobbled it up. Now I have to explain that I thought my big sister was God's gift to the world. So when she added a little bit of pepper to the mixture and offered me a taste, I gulped it down and smiled faintly. By this time, the world's best salad dressing was losing its importance and the experiment on little sister was taking over. She added some mustard or something, and I ate it. I made a face, but I ate it. She stirred in some vinegar and other things to see how funny my expressions would look and how far I would go before refusing to eat any more. But I ate it every time until she finally discovered what would happen to me. I think something happened to her after Mamma found out about it!

Welcome, new followers! Thanks for reading! :)

Bats

More about the Duplin Times newspaper office in the 50s.

Through the window in the front of the newspaper office, you could see a wooden stairway with no risers. Climbing those stairs was pretty scary for a child who was afraid of heights and could see through those stairs while ascending. But the offices where my parents worked were at the top of those stairs. You could hear the rat-a-tat-tat of keys tapping on a black Underwood typewriter. Mom had long, red polished fingernails and those fingers could fly! She typed fast, and her hands flew from the keys to the carriage, across, and back. They also flew across the adding machine, which was a bulky manual “calculator” with a handle that she cranked down after she entered numbers.
There was no light switch. Just light bulbs hanging from the ceiling with pull strings made of tobacco twine. When my parents and sister had to work at night in the upstairs office, they had to dodge the bats. I heard about this, but I don’t remember it. When I was older, that upstairs room was air conditioned and bats didn’t live there any more. But whenever I had to go upstairs to turn on the lights at night, fumbling through the room waving my arms in the dark in search of the string hanging down from the light bulb, I remembered those bat stories!

VA Waiting Room

I sat in the VA waiting room listening to an over-enthusiastic man talking nonstop to two others, one of whom was quietly listening and the other, despite laptop and earphones, was engaging in this conversation whenever there was a moment to do so. This fellow was loud enough to entertain our waiting room and the one down the hall. "Yessss. Yessss. Yessss!" he cried. "You can't add to it and you can't take away from it!"
More chatter ensued, but I can't write that fast. So I'm giving you broken bits of it.

.…"No offense, James, but when He calls, you'd better be ready."

...."Psalm 37 says, 'Fret not thyself.'"

And, "We press for tomorrow. We press for tomorrow. We press for tomorrow. We press for tomorrow!"

"If you accept Christ, Walk - you - there - in - it!"

A man two seats down from the talker ducks his head to the side and rolls his eyes in the direction of the three men for just a split second, then looks away with a stare that's focused inward as if in self-control. Or maybe distress.

The trio is lop-sided. One makes proclamations; the others listen, except for a chuckle or a very quick comment here and there. He goes on. Something about "lust," and about Eve seducing Adam. "You must know the scriptures. You can defeat any rich man, any giant…. Look at what David did…."

I hear a quiet comment - then the silence is deafening. Then a comment comes from the earphones man. Then more expounding - something about "like a fool."

"Hallelujah! A man of God may be what? May be what? May be what? Perfect! When He comes, you better not have a spot…."

Another comment from the middle man. Laughter. He goes on, "Don't let the sun go down with your what? With your what? With your wrath!….Revelation says it's better to be cold than to be lukewarm. Either you're with the devil or you're with God."

A guy at the far corner of the room looks over at him, lids shading his eyes.

Now he's talking about a preacher who preaches that not everybody in this church is going to heaven. He worries that a drug addict on the street could come into the church and hear that and lose hope and leave and never be saved. "Yeah, brother. There are many false prophets. Many false profits in Rocky Mount! And Tarboro." He's silent for a nano-moment. Quotes from the book of Galatians burst forth. He stands, thrusting his fist through the air. He sits.
Then the nurse calls my name and I'm out of there! Saved by grace!

Blackbird, Bye Bye

The bird finally got a bun! Black birds with skinny beaks flew among the rafters and lighted on chair backs while the waiters weren't watching - waiting for that perfect moment! Zoom! He came and went in a flash! A couple of buns tumbled to the floor, but that black bird got his supper!

I'm so tired of planning what to cook for supper!

SMART PHONE - DUMB OWNER

I got a brand new "smart phone" and it's complicated! Smarter than me. Got it free with a two-year contract and was so excited. But I plugged it up to charge it, and it was dead as a doornail. So I called Verizon, and they said it might be a "DOA" and to take it to the nearest Verizon store and get it checked out, because if I returned it and they replaced it and it turned out to be a good phone, I'd have to pay for the new one. I definitely took it to the Verizon store to find out what was wrong. Guess what! I hadn't put the battery in!

Clown Act

We saw a show at our hotel restaurant last night. Jugglers and balancing acts and a lady who twirled maybe thirty hula hoops from her toes to the top of her fingers. What a sight! Then came the clown with the whistle. He got four guys out of the crowd and made them mimic him as he shook and jumped and cavorted. These guys were good sports about it, and after about ten minutes I thought the really amazing feat was that they still looked like they were having fun. I was bored and focused on my Margarita again.
Pretty soon, though, I heard everybody laughing and looked around, and that clown had those four guys in the strangest position I've ever seen. (It's not what you think. This is a G-rated blog.) Each guy had his butt on a knee-high stool, feet on the floor, and was reclining on the next guy's knees, so that the four formed a circle. The clown was dancing around them tooting his whistle, and he started pulling the stools out from under them! It worked! They didn't tumble! I think I'll try that on someone when I get home.

Flags on the Beach

Yellow flags mean caution. Red flags mean do NOT swim. I had read this in the guide book. When I got to the beach and saw two red flags, then two yellow, then a red and another yellow, I asked someone what it meant. He said the areas in front of the red flags weren't safe, but the areas in front of the yellow flags were pretty good. I looked again. These flags weren't even 80 yards apart (I tried to pace it off). Does this mean there are deep holes in certain spots? Who went out there and checked that?

Hot Dogs

The hot dogs looked really good as we walked through the airport to our gate, suitcases in tow. They were roasting in a cabinet, just calling to us to "come on over!" I said to George, "Even though this is Mexico, that sure does look like a good old skinny American hot dog." Two hot dogs and two bottled drinks later we were $20.85 lighter! The hot dogs were SO bad that we bought two candy bars to get the taste out of our mouths - $7.98! We polished it off with some Tums (free - in my pocketbook) and spent the next hour thinking how many chicken wings we could have eaten for $30 back at the good old Overtime bar at Knightdale.

Tan

Tan

The clerk at the hotel in Cancun asked me how long I was staying on my vacation. When I said, "I'm leaving tomorrow," she raised her eyebrows in surprise and started to speak, then sort of stopped and smiled and hesitated - you know, like you do when you just asked someone when the baby's due and she says she's not pregnant.

I said, "What?"

She said, "Well, you don't have any tan."

I laughed and told her how much I hate getting too hot. I'm 61. I don't need to worry about a tan any more. Plus, it's healthier.

But in the airport, a beautiful girl sat down near us. She was tanned smoothly and evenly from her long blond hair to the tops of her polished toenails. And all I've got to show from my trip to Cancun is a few blue bruises!

SNORKELING

I have snorkeled an average of three times in the last 40 years. But I'm a fish out of water, (in more ways than one) and I really should have gills and scales. (Well, sometimes I check for those scales, but it's just dry skin.) Anyway, I forget that not everybody feels at home in the water. George wasn't too excited about it. He likes dry land sports like football. But he agreed to go.

We went out on the boat and jumped over the side. George was the last one in, and he got a big swig of water. I heard some of the weirdest sounds behind me and turned around. I think he still had his snorkel tube in his mouth and was coughing, or something. I don't know. But that did it. He was NOT going to snorkel and wanted back in the boat. Unfortunately, the guide had different ideas.

George begrudgingly went along, or actually was towed along by the guide. This guy's name was "Angel," and he truly was. He helped with the snorkel tube, showed him how to get the water out of it (which was necessary pretty frequently), and got him relaxed enough to see the beautiful fish and corals. By the time we got back into the boat, I expected to get an earful from George. But what a shocker! He was ready to go again!

Primitive

The water in Cancun is blue! I mean, BLUE! And the beaches are WHITE. Sure, I expected to enjoy the hotel pool, but I was especially eager to get onto that white sand beach. We arrived around 5:00 and walked out on the beach. Egads! The sand stopped. We looked down, and the sand commenced about ten feet below us. It was a sand cliff! There were no steps down to the beach anywhere. Must be some sort of ordinance since the beach had been built up because of erosion. The only way down was to climb down a path that the tourists had made, and climbing back UP was quite a challenge! So I was looking forward to the snorkeling trip, where I could actually get in the water.

For our snorkeling experience, we were driven through the marshes on a bumpy road that had been built with rocks. I started worrying, but was happily surprised when we arrived at a little beach with palm trees, white sand, and the unbelieveably blue sky and Carribean sea - a truly exotic setting. After snorkeling (and swallowing a lot of salt water) our hosts treated us to drinks and fruit under thatched umbrellas and palm trees. I sat in a hammock. It was the first time I had ever done that. It wasn't difficult, and - you won't believe this - I didn't fall out!

But - let me tell you - this little oasis was primitive! The drinks eventually did what drinks do, and I went in search of a bathroom. I opened the door, and the sign said, "Do not put toilet paper in the toilet. Use the trashcan." Or words to that effect. Gee. The guidebook hadn't lied! Thank goodness there was running water and three decoratively painted ceramic basin sinks outside the bathroom. Our hosts did their best!

Name That Mouse

This mouse - she is me! He's a she! She's a plain old down-to-earth practical dry wit outspoken curious mouse. Does anyone have any ideas for a new name????? "Hugh" must be changed to a female. Hmmmm. Sounds kinky!

I want to name her something that sounds good when you say "Mouse" after it and also when you say "___ and Hugh." I'm thinking of Hortense Mouse (Hortense and Hugh) or Hester Mouse (Hester and Hugh) or maybe just Ms. Mouse (but Ms. and Mr. Mouse sounds too formal).

Please comment. If you can't figure out how to comment on this website, you can just email me at maggiegc@bellsouth.net. Thank you for your input! The winner gets a free copy of my first book - if we're all still alive then. Wait a minute. I would have to be, wouldn't I?

Sand in the Beach Bag

I was dry and the sand brushed off easily. I gathered my towel, sandals, cover-up, and beach bag. I carefully brushed the sand off everything, thinking to myself how good I was doing this time. Nice and clean. Tidy, in fact. I turned to leave and BOOM! I fell over a lawn chair. Sand got inside my beach bag. I hurt my wrist, too. Got a nice bruise on my forearm.

I stood up. Mumbled something softly, looked around to see if anybody had witnessed that, and walked away, head held high.
Must be these new glasses!

Glasses

YOU SHOULD NEVER GO SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN WITH YOUR GLASSES ON!!!

Mad Cat

He knows. He sees our suitcases. He's mad! This morning he started meowing very loudly, like he does when he's out of food. My daughter Susan raised him, and she told me he would get mad when he realizes we are leaving. I sat in my chair to try to console him, and he paced in front of me. Finally, he jumped up into my lap, but he circled and couldn't settle. He let me rub his head for a long time, like he couldn't quite give it up. Then he left the room. Later, I passed by the bedroom where he was reclining, and he backed his ears.

He's so impudent. He must have jumped on the kitchen counter ten times last night - brazenly! He did it right in front of me! I wanted to slap him, but he's too cute and too small and too - I started to say "fragile." But MoJo's a tough dude. Anyway, Susan told me if I hit him he'd attack me!

Vacation Plans Continue

So far I've printed 26 pages of confirmations, changes, etc. Little surprises are cropping up all over the place. For instance, I thought I got a real deal on the plane tickets through BJ's until I spoke with the airline personnel direct & found out it was their regular price.

The travel guidebook warns of brownouts and surges that can kill your laptop, so you should buy a $45 surge protector before going. I called the hotel. No problem. They will gladly rent you one for $10/day, in addition to the Wi-Fi charge of about $15/day.

Verizon calls cost $l.48/minute. I guess that beats email, under these circumstances. Not that I plan to even think about home anyway!

The travel guidebook also mentions the 3% conversion fees that some places charge if you don't pay in their national currency. And I still have to check out the ATM fees over there! And VISA charges $10 for each cash advance, even if it's only for $5!

I haven't been in an airport since 9/11, so I figured I'd better find out how many bags you can check. Gees! Egads! Jiminy Crickets! It costs $25 to check my bag???? I'm going to take a change of underwear in my purse and forget the rest!

This trip is turning into a-la-carte!

Little Tiny Bottles

I am still trying to figure out how to pack an entire week's worth of liquids into one ziplock bag full of 3-oz bottles. A man certainly must have written this rule. I mean, if you pack a bottle of nail polish, you also have to pack nail polish remover, don't you?

And even men need sunscreen, which means they'll need aloe for their burns.

The travel guidebook suggests bringing insect repellent. Well, I guess that means you'd better remember the anti-itch lotion!

Drug stores stock little tiny bottled toiletries, but not the brands we use! We've got to pour some liquids from big bottles into little tiny bottles, things like mouthwash, after-shave, hand cream and shampoo. When you think about it, many liquids call for a companion liquid. With shampoo, you need conditioner. With makeup, you need makeup remover.

There's one advantage to these little tiny bottles. The suitcase sure won't be as heavy as it used to be!