Category Archives: Family

May 24, 2016 · 0:00

I Found My Donor!

Well, it’s been a while since I discussed the topic that is near and dear to my, ummm, heart.

Poop transplants!  — The ultimate solution to my Crohn’s disease woes.

OK, it’s nearer to my hiney, but you can’t claim you weren’t expecting that.

Earlier today I was discussing my future poop transplant with my boss.  (It’s true, I have no pride what so ever.)  She’s very interested in the idea.  She wants me healthy, of course, but really, I think she wants to see what happens from a scientific perspective.  And, frankly, I can’t blame her.  I want to know what’ll happen from a scientific point of view, too.  And from the perspective of a toilet paper consumer.

You may recall that  I’ve mentioned that you have to be very choosy when choosing a poop donor.  If the donor is fat, or depressed, or psychotic, well, the recipient can become fat, or depressed or psychotic.  I haven’t researched what happens if you choose someone immature, though.  Perhaps I should.

Anyway, the issue was on my mind tonight when I began reading the news. And I found my donor!

He is young and healthy, albeit a little younger than I was thinking of;  he’s living in Florida with his mother.  In fact, it was his mom who brought him to my attention.  Well, and to the attention of people with a deep seated interest in poop.

One day Katy Vasquez discovered that the Lord moves in mysterious ways.  And goes into mysterious places.  Because, You see, one day when she was changing his diaper, she saw this sign that things were going to get better.:

Halla-Poo-Yah

This picture was taken by my donor’s mom, Katy Vasques, and posted to Facebook and the Huffington Post (where I saw it).

It’s Holy Shit!  What more could I ask for from a donor?

HALLA-POO-YAH!

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Filed under 'Merica, ; Don't Make Me Feel Perky Tonigh, Advice from an Expert Patient, All The News You Need, Bat-shit crazy, Beating that Dead Horse, Being an asshole, Childhood Traumas, Chronic Disease, Conspicuous consumption, Crazy family members, Crohn's Disease, Disgustology, Dreams, Family, Gross, Health, Health and Medicine, Hey Doc?, Huh?, Humor, I Can't Get No, keys to success, laughter, Mental Health, Oh shit, Out Damn Spot!, Poop, Poop transplants, Science, Seriously funny, Seriously weird, Shit, Shit happens, Taking Care of Each Other, Useful thing to do with poop, Why the hell do I tell you these stories?, Wild Beasts, WTF?

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May 1, 2016 · 0:00

Sassy

“A haircut will make you feel better, Lease,” my niece, Jen, said as we wandered the mall.  We were together in Florida to organize and attend my dad’s funeral.  It was December, 2000.

For reasons I still don’t fully understand, my brother Bob, who was Dad’s primary caretaker at the end, was insistent.

“Dad wanted to have Bobby Darin’s Mac The Knife played at his funeral,” Bob insisted.  So in the days before YouTube, Jen and I were on a mission, looking for a CD of the song.  It was no easy feat, let me tell you, finding that recording.*  Record stores were fading, and the stock held by the few remaining didn’t include too many hits from 1958.  Jen and I were getting tired and frustrated.

But Jen was right, I looked awful.

My hair is my best feature and always has been.  It’s strawberry blonde, thick and curly.  It does what it wants to do, which is good, because I don’t like to fuss with it.  And I always let whoever cuts my hair do what they want with it.  It always looks better than when I tell the expert what to do.

Into the salon Jen and I went.

Mellie, the hairdresser I ended up with, was young — 19, she said.  Her hair was black and pink, and she wore thick makeup and brass hoop earrings the size of hula hoops.

I looked at Jen skeptically.

“It’ll be fine,” she reassured me.  Of course, she wasn’t getting her hair cut.

I told Mellie to trim my hair, that I was going to a funeral and needed to be presentable.

“How about …” Mellie started talking about different looks.  But really, I didn’t care.

“Whatever.”

When she finished, she twirled my chair around like a playground carousel.

“There you go!  You look … sassy!“

She’d given me the ugliest hairstyle I’ve ever seen — Jennifer Aniston haircut from friends.  Cut short in the back, with long sides.  It’s not a nice look on a human.

John and Jacob hadn’t been able to get to my Dad’s funeral — there were no flights available.  John was gentle when he saw my new do, though.  After all, I was grieving.  A month later when I had all my hair cut off to get rid of the stupid style, John said “I was really surprised to see you with that style.  You looked like Cooper [our English springer spaniel.]    Long curly bits around your ears and nothing in back.”

Jacob & Cooper in Alps ~2000

Yesterday I had my long hair cut to chin length.  When he was done, my longtime hairdresser Ric, who has never given me a bad cut, spun my chair around and proclaimed:

“Elyse, you look sassy!”

Shit.

 

*****

* We were, happily able to find a recording of Mack The Knife:

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Filed under ; Don't Make Me Feel Perky Tonigh, Conspicuous consumption, Dogs, Don't Make Me Puke, Family, Gross, Humiliation, Humor, laughter, Memoir writing, Missing Folks, Oh shit, Sassy

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April 22, 2016 · 0:00

Earth Day/Birthday Redux

You may have seen this before, but I tried to write something new about my sister Judy.  And, well, this piece really just sums up who she was better than anything I’ve come up with since.

She’s been gone now for 16 years.  Not a day has gone by since that I haven’t wanted to talk with her, laugh with her, or, alternatively because she was my sister, smack her.  There really isn’t a relationship like you have with a sister.  Even long after they are gone.

*****

Today, April 22, is Earth Day!  It’s the  Anniversary of the very first Earth Day.  Here  is Walter Cronkite’s report on the first Earth Day, 1970:

It would also be my late sister Judy’s 64th birthday.

Whoever made the decision to turn Judy’s birthday into Earth Day chose wisely.  Judy was a born environmentalist and recycler.

On the first Earth Day, Judy was a new, very young mother who believed in saving the planet.  She was the first “environmentalist” I ever knew personally, and well, I thought she was nuts.  There was a recycling bin in her kitchen for as long as I can remember.  And this was back when recycling took effort.  She believed in gardens, not garbage, and she made life bloom wherever she was.

“I’ve got kids,” she’d say.  “It’s their planet too!”  

But years later, Judy took recycling to a whole different level when she helped people recycle themselves.  In the 1990s, Jude, who was then living in Florida, began working with the Homeless, assisting at shelters.   Then she actively began trying to help homeless vets food, shelter and work — to enable them to jumpstart their lives.

When she died in early 2000, the American Legion awarded her honorary membership for her services to homeless vets.  A homeless shelter was named in her  honor.  So she’s still doing good works, my sister is.  That would make her wildly happy.

Jude also gave me the Beatles.  So it is very appropriate that they wrote a song for her.

You see, the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, it was MY turn to choose what we were going to watch.  And we were going to watch the second part of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Patrick McGoohan on the Wonderful Wide World of Disney.  My four (all older and MUCH cooler) siblings were furious with me.  But I was quite insistent.  You might even say that I threw a Class I temper tantrum over it, but I wouldn’t admit to that.  But hey, I was seven.  And it was my turn to choose.  Fair is fair, especially in a big family with only one TV.

Somehow, Judy talked me out of my turn.  She was always very persuasive.  Thanks Jude.

Hey Jude, Happy Earth Day-Birthday.

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Filed under 2016, ; Don't Make Me Feel Perky Tonigh, All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance, Beatles, Birthday, Childhood Traumas, Climate Change, Crazy family members, Family, Global Warming, Good Deed Doers, Growing up, Health, Heortophobia, Hey Jude, Holidays, Humor, It's not easy being green, Judy, laughter, Love, Missing Folks, Music, Peace, Plagarizing myself, Sisters, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, The Beatles, The Blues

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February 19, 2016 · 0:00

Separated at Birth or Spawning?

You tell me.  Separated at birth?

 

I received these pictures in an email with no attribution.  I’m assuming they can be found on google, though. 😉

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Filed under 'Merica, 2016, 2nd Amendment, ; Don't Make Me Feel Perky Tonigh, All The News You Need, All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance, Bat-shit crazy, Beating that Dead Horse, Being an asshole, Campaigning, Cancer on Society, Conspicuous consumption, Crazy Folks Running, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Do GOP Voters Actually THINK?, Elections, Elections Matter, Family, Flatulence, GOP, Gross, Huh?, Humiliation, Humor, Mysteries, Political Corruption, Politician Pussies, Politics, Poop, Separated at Birth, Shit, Shit happens, Stupidity, Tea Parties, Ted Cruz, WTF?

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February 17, 2016 · 0:00

The Evoluion of a WorryWart

You probably wouldn’t believe it, but I used to worry.  A lot.

It’s true.

My  husband traveled frequently, and from the time he left the house until he was back again, I was positive that his plane would crash, his train derail, or he would be hit by a mode of transportation I couldn’t even name in a foreign country I might or might not be able to locate on a map.

News junkie that I am, I didn’t listen or read or google while he was away.  Nope.  I was not going to hear the inevitable on CNN.

And then, seemingly out of the blue, my sister Judy died.  I hadn’t been worried about her at all.  Not a bit (although I should have — she had a heart condition for goodness sake!)

A lightbulb went off in my head:  The person I worried about was fine, the one I wasn’t worrying about, well, wasn’t.

I decided that worrying didn’t help.  Not one little bit.

So I stopped. I took Alfred E Newman’s motto for my own.

Alfred E Newman

Strangely, Alfred and I look alike.  My hair is longer and curlier, though.  Google image.  Duh!

Let me tell you, being a non-worry-er is great.

You have room in your life for, ummmm, a life.  You get to go about your business and assume that bad news will find you if it needs to.  You get to sleep when your husband is traveling.  Or when your adolescent-teen-young adult son is out.  Or when the weather is bad and any one of the 3,427 people you know might just have gotten into their car.  And started moving … and might just …

Sadly, though, I have gone full circle.  I am not happy to say that I am once again a Worrywart.  I have evolved.  Or devolved.  Or regressed.  Or been bitch-slapped out of M.A.D. Magazine.

You see, my son Jacob had a car accident.

Most importantly, he was unhurt.  He should, however, do a Subaru ad, because his Sub saved his life.  It was crunched, front and back.  Totaled. But Jacob only got a scratch when he reached in through the back window to retrieve stuff.

So now I worry.  But I won’t for long, thank God.  Or thank J.K. Rowling and Potterheads.

Because I just learned that somebody has finally invented a Weasley clock.  You know, that special clock at the Burrow in the Harry Potter books.  The clock that Molly Weasley looks at to find out how her family members are doin’.

The clock that lets her know whether a family member is in mortal peril.

Weasley clock 1

 

Yup.  Someone has invented a real-life Weasley clock that can let parents know when family members are at  “Home,” at “Work,”  “On the Way,” or in “Mortal Peril.”

After the inventor’s family, I’d like to be first in line to get one of these clocks.  Because I know that if I get one of these I will be able to sleep again when Jacob is out.  And that is worth whatever I have to pay  to get one of these.  I’ll even pay for shipping.

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Filed under 'Merica, ; Don't Make Me Feel Perky Tonigh, Adult Traumas, All The News You Need, Baby You Can Drive My Car, Crazy family members, Family, Good Deed Doers, Harry Potter, History, Huh?, Humor, Oh shit, Peace, Poop, Shit, Shit happens

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