Naked in the Kitchen

It’s been a couple crazy days.  Yesterday, the CERT Team (which is our internal “SWAT” team) descended on the kitchen and acted the fool.  The day before, an inmate worker from another shift had ‘MEOWED’ at the Deputy Warden, who is female.  One of these Alpha Male Overachievers, certainly looking to make some brownie points with the administration, took it upon himself to avenge her by subjecting the minimum security inmates to a full body strip search.  Unfortunately for him, although I did have the last laugh when he got in trouble for it, he chose the wrong shift, and stripped them to the skin with a female staff member (me) present (I ran for the office when clothes started coming off), in a food service area (no no no …. can’t do that, dumba$$).  Anyway, today was the annual chili cookoff, and I contributed a 5 qt crock pot of chili.  The blue code went into effect and not one officer took a scoop of my chili.  This was blatant (but mistaken) retaliation for the Lieutenants getting written up for their impromptu strip search yesterday.  I was NOT the one who reported them to the Deputy Warden, who incidentally didn’t know anything about this little plot to ‘avenge her honor’.  Over a stupid man saying ‘meow’ after she’d left the area.  Welcome to my world.  Fortunately, my guys realized I had tried to step in and stop the search by telling the Alpha Jerk in charge that I was present when said “MEOW” incident occurred and I assured him it was NOT anyone on my crew.  He wouldn’t listen, actually interrupted me and directed me to talk to one of his little minions who was standing by looking like he REALLY didn’t want any part of this little game.  After he’d already stripped and humiliated the entire crew, he came in the office and said to me, “You know, SWEET PEA, I really don’t give a CRAP which shift it was.  I am MAKING A POINT with these a$$holes and they will carry the message to the others.”  About that time, the phone rang and their Captain ordered them OUT of the office and OUT of the kitchen immediately.  Hmmmmm…. how about a little ‘shock and awe’ yourself, dumba$$!!  By the way, do NOT call me ‘SWEET PEA’.  EVER!

Somebody’s knockin’, should I let him in? Lord, it’s a ….!

In the wee hours of my morning, this fine Monday (which is, remember, my WEDNESDAY!), I woke up.  Hmmmm, guess I must need to go to the bathroom, because I’m NOT into waking up in the ‘wee hours’.  As I returned to my room, I hear a THUMP outside.  Well, boogers!!  Sounds like the coons are after my trash can again.  Oh well, I’m getting used to that part of life in the country after picking up trash on a regular basis.  ((Any single, independent welder types out there that are looking for a wife?  I might consider marrying you if you have all your teeth and will build me a critter proof cage for my dang trash cans.))  Anyway, I am just getting cozy again when THUMP…thump thump THUMP.  Hmm, this might be more than just a trash raid by the local wildlife.  So, I get up and look out my window.  Nothing.  Creep down the LONNNNNG hall.  Nothing.  Through the living room, dining room and kitchen.  Nothing.  Into the master bath and look out the window there.  Nothing.  Back out into the canning kitchen and as I pass the back door, THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP… !!  Eeek!  It just goes on and on and on.  So, I muster up a good holler ((it goes something like this – GET ON OUTTA HYEAH!!!)) to let loose, grab the door knob and throw on the back light.  Thank goodness I didn’t let go of the holler because, there on the step on his hind legs, just scratching and thumping away at my back glass door, was a baby skunk.  We checked each other out a few seconds while he continued his assault on my door.  I quietly turned off the light and softly shut the door and returned to my room, hoping the only smells I encounter today when I do trash roundup #32,847 is the smell of dirty diapers that won’t burn in my barrel.   Happy Monday (Wednesday) everybody, or whatever day of YOUR week it is!!  May the skunks leave your trash unmolested and your house unscented.

How Do You ‘Name’ Yourself?

Today I woke up thinking “Don’t forget to post SOMETHING on that blog!!”.  It’s my Monday (happy Saturday to the rest of the world), and in about 30 minutes, it’s time to hit the shower and head for work.  I’m not even gonna say ‘ugh’ or anything, because that just sets the tone for a long week.  So, ‘YIPPEE!  I have a job, thus a paycheck so I can eat and pay the phone bill and keep the house warm!’  Ok, that’s about all the party I can muster, so moving on.

My thought for today was to put a few more recent photos up of what has been going on in my life the past couple of years.  Looking back, maybe I’m justified in losing track of my blog for a while because they have been doozies!  I got a wedding photo of the kids up (only a year and a half late, sorry), and am prowling for the right photo of the Divine Miss Em.  While I decide on the photo, I want to talk a little about how, as a grandparent, you decide what a grandbaby should call you.  It’s pretty interesting actually!

When I was married and doing research on the different branches of Caleb’s family tree, I was completely fascinated by what each generation called the grandparents.  On mom’s side, there was Grandma Ollie and Grandpa Bud, and the only other grandparent I remember anyone talking about was ‘Grandma Great’, which was Grandpa Bud’s mom, I think.   I am pretty sure most of the grandparents up the line on that side were just Grandma and Grandpa.  Now on my DAD’s side, there is a good story of how his mom came to be called ‘Other Mama’.  Apparently her children all called her ‘Mama’, so when one of the early grandkids fell down and skinned himself up, he cried ‘I want mama!’.  The other kids ran in and got his mother, but when she arrived to kiss the boo boo, he said, ‘Not YOU!!  I want that OTHER Mama!!’  Thus was my paternal named, and all her kids and grandkids called her Other Mama from that day forward.  I’ve never heard her called anything else… Other Mama and Papa.  I don’t know what earlier generations of the Horton line were called.  My parents were Papa Andy, who had already been named LONG before Caleb arrived, and Neeny.   We were shooting for Granny Kate, but ‘granny’ came out ‘ninny’ when Caleb started talking, and mom said, ‘Well, THAT’s not something I dreamed of is one day being a NINNY!’.  So, we encouraged a long E sound and she became ‘Neeny’.  So there you have it, Papa and Neeny.

Now over on the Fichte side of the  tree, it is quite interesting.  Every generation  had a unique name for the grandparents.  Caleb didn’t ever really know his grandparents on that side, as Frank, who was called Grandaddy by the other grands, passed away when all the kids were quite small.   There was Papaw and Mamaw (Bennie & Ouida Fichte, great grands), Mom and Poppie (the Avary great grandparents), Daddy Eddie and Mammy Spradlin, Mama Hilton and Papa Hilton, and others.

When I got a text from Caleb announcing positive results on a pregnancy test, the content was ‘How would you like to be a gma?’  Yes, I got a text.  Welcome to the cell phone generation.  Anyway, I am thrilled to be a grandparent, no matter how I found out the happy news.  But my first thought was, ‘Hmmm, I want to have a unique ‘grandma’ name…’ and what better that picking up on what I’d already been called in the announcement?!  So, I am G-Ma.  That is ‘GEE ma’ if you look it up in the dictionary.  Just sayin’…

So, now that Emma is approaching her first birthday, getting teeth, scooting, rocking, crawdad crawling, real crawling, pulling up (and crashing down, an unfortunate part of the process), and now starting to let go and stand on her own, we shall see what she actually calls me when she opens that cute little mouth and gives me my official title.  Now I know what my mom meant when she said, ‘ Granny, Ninny, Neeny … I don’t care WHAT he calls me, just as long as he CALLS me!’  Amen, Neeny!

Mr. and Mrs. Caleb Fichte

May 15, 2010 was a beautiful day for a beautiful couple to get married!

Thank you, Judy!!

Today, being my “Sunday” (meaning I am at the end of my two days off and go back to work tomorrow), I pulled out a random box of mom’s stuff to take another stab at de-clutter-ifying.  Took two recipes to the kitchen to be ‘tried out’, put bits of information into Family Tree from scrap notes, sorted two piles of printouts from her computer (ancestor trees) to be gone over to make sure I have all the information in MY tree before I toss the piles.  It’s a little hard to do this because seeing her handwriting brings a picture of Mom to my mind, doing what she loved the most – family research.  I don’t want any of this to be lost, but it is a lot of repetition, the same information printed out time after time, with notes jotted everywhere.  One of those notes may be something new and different that fills in a missing bit on my tree, so I go over every page, using a purple marker to dot everything I’ve entered.  Sometimes I smile at a little story she’d heard and written down, or go back in my mind to places we have lived when I come across where she’s noted addresses or little notes about the neighbors here and there.  It’s a fun but exhausting journey.

Also, today my cousin Judy popped into my head.  Actually, that is how I found my way back to this blog.  Twenty years ago this month (Jan 14, 1992), we were living in Chicago (actually Zion, IL) when mom called to tell me that Judy and Paul had been killed in  plane crash.  I really don’t know why I thought of them today, but I googled their names and re-read information on the crash and some articles that were put out ten years after the crash.  When I googled them, this blog popped up, because the last post before today mentioned them in some old video stuff I was looking at and talking about.  Strange how things come about.  So, 20 years after she died, my beautiful, loud, funny cousin Judy brought me back to my abandoned blog.  Thanks, cuz!