Friday Fragments: When Mamma Goes Away

I mentioned last Friday and again on Wednesday that I was going away without my kids last weekend.

My reward for going away:  The Boy went down with Strep Monday. It was a Teacher Work Day, so in the scheme of things, a good day to be sick. I was able to get in without issue and leave plans for Tuesday AND pick up all the work I had planned to do on Monday.

*****

I have another new obsession:  Words with Friends.  Yes, I'm late to the party, but what else is new?  I'm so obsessed that I maybe downloaded it onto The Boy's iPod Touch so I could play against him. 

We were able to message each other throughout the weekend. Of course, every time my literal 9-year-old replied to my "I Love You's" with and "I am having fun," this Mama smiled.

*****

Following this trip last year, I posted for you one of my favorite songs of the weekend.  We sang it again and I remain committed to the notion that I will dance with my son at his wedding to this song!

They put it up on the screen and I was running for the tissues.  Some of the girls made fun of me and of course it was those exact girls that had to borrow my tissues!

*****

Heard at the dinner table the week:

The girl says, "Mamma, Tony Hawk has three wives." ~For the record, I have no idea if this is true or how she found out.  We are not a family that follows skateboarding and she only knows who he is because her brother has a game for his Nintendo DSi.

I reply, "Well, he doesn't have three wives, but he may have been married three times.  You have to be divorced before you can get married again."

She says, "He didn't not like his other wives, but each time he found one that was prettier!"

Seriously my child, where do you get this stuff??

To my credit, I did not a say what you know I was all thinking, "That's not necessarily true sweetie, because Mamma is WAY prettier than Daddy's new wife!"  I may have been thinking it, but I didn't SAY it! *grins*

PMM: Proud Teacher Moment

We took a Field Trip last week to see the state Symphony perform. It's an annual event that is part of the music curriculum for our grade.  This year, our Advanced Orchestra performed for the Symphony.

Can I just say, "Wow!"

As a magnet school located in, well, the armpit of the city, there are a lot of naysayers who wonder why anyone would send their children to our school.  I'm not going to lie, our "base" crowd is a tough lot.

THIS is why.  

You can't get programs like this at a non-magnet school.  There is no band. There is no orchestra. There is no chorus. There is no drama... not at the elementary level. In these groups, our "base" kids are just as well-represented as the magnet kids.

Our Advanced Orchestra...they really are THAT good. They took my breath away.  Even the members of the symphony were impressed. ~I think maybe if they'd realized, they would have had the poor kids that performed on their recorders go first. THAT was awkward!

I was so proud to stand up and say I teach there! ~And the fact that it was one of the non-magnet schools from the "right" side of the tracks that got asked to have their children stay off the balcony rail...REPEATEDLY. Yeah, that helped too! *grins*

Linking up with KMama and Emmy Mom for Proud Mommy Moments!

PYHO: The Bible Made Me Blush!

I was away last weekend with my church's women's group on our annual retreat. This was the second year I went and I freely admit that I didn't pay too much attention to the topic ahead of time, because I was going to go no matter what. It's a weekend filled with fun, fellowship, laughter, wine, oh, and Bible study, so the topic wasn't that important...

Until last week when we were at a dinner meeting at church. My roommate for the weekend and I were firming up plans to carpool.  Another friend turned to her husband to firm up plans for the children after school and said, "It's on the Song of Solomon" and his eyes lit up and he went, "Weeelllll, I'll see YOU Sunday night!' *wink*wink*

Suddenly I was very uncomfortable... and blushing...I stood there thinking two things:

1. "Crap, the last time I paid any attention to the Song of Solomon was when it was read at MY wedding"  ~fun memory~ 
2. "OMGracious!!!  Am I going to have to talk about SEX with the ladies from church???"

You see, part of the weekend's structure is Small Group time following a Whole Group lecture by the guest speaker.  The Small Groups are randomly chosen and people are asked to please switch if they end up with a good friend, so the likelihood that I would end up in Small Group with someone's grandmother, who had been married for 50 years was pretty good. ~In fact, although we did not figure it out until after the fact, last year, my Small Group leader actually WAS The Girl's new best friend's grandmother... seriously!

Consequently, I went into the weekend feeling a little apprehensive.  Most of the people I've met at church are pretty gracious and non-judgmental, but it's also pretty big and I worried about talking about sex as a single woman. Plus, sometimes it's hard to listen to people talk about bettering their own marriages.  Despite this week's steamy fiction piece, I don't like talking about sex. I blush and plug my ears and go "La, la la!"  ~really, I do.~ There are words that when used in regular conversation will literally make me crawl under the table.

As is always the way, I worried for naught.  I was exactly where I needed to be.  Our speaker, a former pastor and Old Testament Scholar who currently works as a college professor is also currently happily married...for the SECOND time.

When she stood up there and said that the Song of Solomon was a beacon for her when she was getting divorced.... a written message from God that this is how love between and man and a woman was supposed to be and this was NOT what she had... and that in all the years she was single, it was a beacon that gave her the confidence to hold out for what she knew she was supposed to have.

If I'd been standing it would have brought me to my knees.  It did bring me to tears.

Don't get me wrong... she totally talked about the sex part too and had us rolling on the floor.  One rabbi she quoted called it soft-core porn and I will say that parts of it rival any good smutty romance.  Right there..in the Bible...who knew??? BUT that's not the bigger picture.  That's not what I walked away with.  

This week I'm feeling a little raw... a little unsteady on my feet...but not necessarily in a BAD way.

FYI: These are the verses that were read at my wedding:

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which has a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be condemned.

No, the irony is not lost on me.   

Fiction: The Jeans

Walking to the door, she braced herself, took another deep breath and reached for the knob.

She opened the door to let him in.

He walked by her to put down the bag he had slung over his shoulder.

She turned, placing her hands on the cold door behind her, backing up to close it.

She smiled.

So did he.

He took at step toward her, stuck his hands in the front pockets of her jeans and pulled her toward him.

She put her hands flat against his chest to stop her forward motion. His shirt was warm compared to the cool metal door.

She could feel the backs of his fingers through her pockets.  His knuckles tickled the crease where her thigh and groin met.

She forgot, as she was so often wearing heels when around him, how tall he was when she stood next to him in her bare feet.

"I like the jeans," he said, his hands still in her pockets.

Rising onto her tiptoes,  she looped her hands lazily around his neck, biting her lip in anticipation as he backed her up against the door and lowered his head.

Friday Fragments: Fun Mom

In keeping with my 2012 goals, I reorganized my closet following the file clean out. 

The Girl is dutifully shredding my pile... it appears to be in a "gets worse before it gets better" stage, but we are plugging away....

*****

I tried to be Fun Mom last weekend.  Again, in keeping with my goals, I decided I'd actually actively participate rather than stand on the sidelines, so while taking my kids to a birthday party for my boss's son, I strapped on a pair of roller skates and actually got out on the rink.  I didn't fall, but I don't like roller skating.  It's not fun and while I wasn't a sore as I thought I would be, I definitely hurt in some places I didn't know I had...

But at least I got out there.  Although they wouldn't skate with me, the children thought it was great to have me out there.

*****

There was a thing going around facebook asking you to google and post a video of the song that was number one on the charts the day you were born.  I decided rather than putting it on facebook, I'd save it for y'all.

Without further ado:

*****

Guess who is going on a girl's weekend with her church?  Guess who has the best sister and brother-in-law in the world?

Writer's Worskhop: These are the Dogs of Our Lives

Pardon the Pun, I couldn't help myself.

I do not like dogs.  I make no *bones* about this.  I'll take my cat over a dog any day.  That said, while as an adult, I've never owned one, I have had many a few in my life over the years.

Dutchess

Tiller

Charlie Mollie

Mo

Charlie was our first dog. We got him on a whim one day, when I was 8.  My aunt called looking for someone to "rescue" her boss's dog, because his family had moved and couldn't keep him.  We had no plans to get a dog, but my dad had had a Cocker Spaniel as a kid and when my mom turned from the phone and said, "Honey, do you think Ray ~the friend my aunt though might take the dog~ would take a Cocker Spaniel puppy?"

My dad turned on the couch and said, "Nope, but we will!" Just like that.

I remember it clear as day.

My sister and I were in shock, as was my mom.

By the end of the day, we had a dog.

Turns out that maybe the reason they needed to get rid of the dog was because they didn't like it and maybe my aunt's boss was abusing the dog... poor thing wasn't even paper trained.

There was no love lost between Charlie and me, but my mom was attached .   Even my dad, the one who wanted him to begin with, ended up "tolerating" him more than loving him. In the meantime, he became the son my mother never had.  Charlie had some major issues he never did overcome. Plus, my mom is a dismal failure at dog training and discipline. Charlie lived a good 13 years, before developing congestive heart failure.

One day, my mom left to take him to the vet to drain the fluid from his heart to keep him comfortable. My sister was away at college. I, too, was in college, but lived at home.  My dad and I both happened to be in the Family Room when my mom burst into the house, slamming the back door off the wall, hysterically crying.

A lot of  "What happened?" "He didn't make it?" and "He just fell overs!" ensued as we met in the middle of the room for a family hug, which at the time, before my dad's own father passed away, was very rare in itself. 

As we stood huddled and patting my mom in comfort, my dad, stated firmly, "So you left him there," a safe assumption when one's pet collapses on the table during an exam at the vet's office.

"He's on the deck!" my mother exclaimed through her tears.

My dad reeled backwards with his hands up in the air and asked incredulously, "You brought him home?"

And so he went and got a shovel and I stood there with him while he dug the hole and muttered, "I can't believe she brought the darn ~not his word~ thing home! Who the heck ~also not his word~ brings dog home when it dies at the vet?  You are supposed to leave it there!"

It still makes me giggle!

*This post was written as part of Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop: List the names of five dogs from your lifetime.  Write about why one sparks a stronger memory to you than the others. (inspired by Writing Fix)*

A Southern Series: Football

Source

I stumbled across this article last fall and bookmarked it with the intent of getting back to it.  Little did I know it would take me two months and almost to the end of the season!

The author, Kimberly Archie, takes on the notion of Southern Women and football and I have a few ~just a few~ *winks* thoughts on the subject.  Now Ms. Archie doesn't go into great detail,  but she seems to imply that Game Day is Sunday. 

Y'all, I think she missed the boat.  In my opinion, Southern Women watch football on Saturday.  "Us" girls from The Great White North are the ones watching on Sunday!

My very scientific evidence: My facebook page, of course.

LAST week, when 'Bama was playing LSU in the Whatever Bowl, ~Hey, I knew who was playing, and I know who won, even if I didn't watch and can't tell you the name of the Bowl -BCS, maybe???~ my facebook page was FULL of "Roll Tides" and .... well, mostly just "Roll Tides"  from my Below the Mason Dixon Line, both MALE and FEMALE.

*Consequently, my part of The South happens to have three D1 schools within about 30 minutes of each other... it gets a little dicey on the facebook page sometimes, especially if one is playing the other!*

THIS weekend... well, now that the NFL is in playoff mode, it was the whole weekend and not just Sunday, but THIS weekend, all my northern friends where posting... especially last night! ~Sorry, Mrs 4444~

The children and I certainly were at a good friends house, for some southern hospitality and there was much food to go around, but the hostess with the mostess; She may live Below the Mason Dixon Line, but she still walks the dawg and drinks cawfee just like me!

So what are your thoughts, my lady readers, football on Saturday, Sunday, both or not at all?