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Tale of the April Fool’s Wedding

So, we decide to thumb our noses at the Universe and get married on April Fool’s day. Boy, did we get ours in spades!! LOL

April Fools Wedding
April Fools Wedding

After much stress and craziness all week, our wedding day arrives and everything is pretty much on schedule. I’m doing some prep work in the kitchen and everything is coming along fine.

We noticed that the toilet was acting clogged, so Nick was in there plunging away. Then the stupid thing appeared to be working, albeit a little oddly. A few minutes later, Nick comes into the kitchen and says ” I can hear the sump pump running when I’m in the office, it must be from the rain yesterday.” Now, I knew it only rained like one quarter of an inch the day before, so that could not be the reason for the pump running…however, a gushing pipe from the toilet certainly could be the reason. I sent him down there and sure enough, there was water gushing from the big pipe out of the toilet.

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George Evinrude Dickens

This beautiful creature and I met in the fall of 1987, August I think it was. I was living with my boyfriend David in an apartment complex called Londontown in Knoxville, TN. I was 21 years old.

It was a Sunday and we were on the couch watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. There was a crying sound out in the courtyard, so I went out to investigate. I went onto the patio and realised that the sound was a cat crying, so I hollered “Here, kitty, kitty!”. Suddenly, a little head popped up over the long grass and here comes this little grey stripey kitty bounding across the yard. He streaked across the yard and practically jumped into my arms.

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The Little Green Snake

So, it was a warm spring day in the early 70s when I was about 5 years old – before I was in school. My little brother and I would go into the large backyard and sit under the huge tree on the hill to watch the school buses bring the older kids home in the afternoons.

Finally, the long yellow school bus came and released the noisy older kids as we watched. I was sitting Indian style and my brother was standing next to me. We had on t-shirts and shorts and we were barefoot, as usual. He jumped, like he was skipping rope and I looked down to see a little green grass snake coming my way. I jumped up and screamed SNAKE!! while my brother took off towards the house yelling his fool head off. I was several paces behind him, yelling my fool head off. I remember dashing thru the glass sliding door and into the kitchen, where my mom had her head in the sink washing or rinsing or something. I remember that she grabbed a towel and wrapped her hair up just as it was: half washed or half rinsed.

Much excitement ensued as my mom and a neighborhood mom got their hoes and began to scour the yard for the offending reptile. I’m giggling as I write this, with the memory of us scurrying about and our turbaned mom stalking with her hoe, determined to kill that teensy little snake.

It was a silly little Rough Green Snake like this:

Lil Green Snake!
Lil Green Snake!

Heh, I guess with all the ruckus we raised the moms assumed it was a 10′ python or something!

Well, fortunately for the little green snake, the moms didn’t find it and it got to live its snakey life in one piece.

For us, I suppose we went off to do whatever kids do on a gorgeous spring day. The snake incident gone from our heads as we moved on to our next kid drama.

I recalled that incident years later and have giggled each and every time I’ve remember it since. In my mind, it’s in sharp spring colors of grass green, robins egg blue sky, deep yellow bus, noisy kids, the tree reaching into the clouds, the teensy snake that was granny smith apple green… It’s too bad that my writing skills aren’t good enough to convey what I see in my thoughts. My hope is that if I do this long enough, perhaps my skills will begin to come close to my memories.

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Altered Realities

Well, it’s been a bit since my last entry. I just reread my political rant and I have to say that I’m pleased with it. I still feel the same, even as the “war” with Iraq is almost over now. It is all propaganda, no matter if it’s Baghdad Bob or our own media, you know. But this entry is not about our Bush Family Follies. No, it is about a lot more important stuff than that.

As the folks who read me already know, I and my closest friends had a life changing event a couple of weeks ago. I don’t want to rehash the event here, but a brief sketch is in order. On Sunday, March 30, 2003, my best friends’ house burned. They were to move out that day, only hours after the fire took all they had. They lost their beloved pets (a dog and a cat), a Betta fish and just about every single thing they owned. They did not have Renters Insurance (Do YOU??). It was horrific and it could have been avoided had their negligent landlord FIXED the goddam house in the first place. Bastard.

That event has set into motion some changes that I’ve still not totally comprehended. For those of you who know me, you know I’m the Organizer, the Jewish Mother, the One Who Gets Things Done. It was no different that Sunday. I put aside my horror, my fear, my sadness, my intense desire to commit murder, my state of shock and all the rest of it to get ahold of the situation and take care of the details. I called everyone who needed to know what happened. I scooped them up and brought them to my home to get them OUT of that burnt shell of a house. I organized the salvage of the most important items that day and I drove the truck myself. I took pictures. I organized the salvage operation over Monday and Tuesday to ensure that every possible item that could be saved WAS. I delegated jobs to the people at hand. I had Nick set up the PayPal account to wrangle donations from LiveJournal and other internet folk who wanted to help. I shopped. I washed clothes twice to try and get rid of that smell. During all this, I worked a shift and attended the memorial for the pets. And then worked some more.

Then I crashed. Hard. Saturday night rolled around with a 10 hour day at Rich’s (with more business than fucking Christmas). I came home and after some choice words with Nick, I collapsed into a screaming, crying mess. Then I slept about 11 hours.

After all this, I emerged. I was tired physically, emotionally, psychically. But I was also a changed woman. I realized how much I have to be grateful for and how much those crazy, disorganized, messy people really mean to me. I bitch about their total inability to clean up after themselves. But you know what? Those two mean the world to me. They really are my family – along with Nick and Andy, of course – and I can tell you for damn sure that had they been in that house, I’d not be writing this. As bad as it was dealing with the death of the animals (and it was bad) had anyone been in that house when it burned, there is no way on this earth that I could’ve gotten through that. No way. I’m strong, but I ain’t that strong.

So, I am grateful that it’s over and we’re all here, together. ‘Cept for Andy, and that is something that can’t be helped at the moment, unfortunately. This experience has altered my reality so much that I’ve not seen all of it yet. I can tell you that my misanthropy is at an all-time low. I can tell you that I say “I love you” a whole lot more. I can tell you that I thank God, Goddess and everyone else every day that we’re here. And this sure has put stupid shit into perspective. All the dramas of people pale in comparison to mortality. That silly “war” has also been put in its place.

I know that I’m not the only one whose reality has been altered. It’s happened to us all. And I, for one, am grateful for it.