Ho,ho,ho

Merry Christmas! It's almost here and Happy New Year too! I need to get my butt out of bed and finish up, but I am agitated. The phone rang at 8:00 and if you follow my blogs, you know I ranted on about people waking me up! "Are you talkin to me?" So I am in "paralysis mode" or what I like to call PM! It is dangerously close to PMS now,isn't it? And we don't want any 'flashbacks' to those years now, do we? Well, maybe just for fun, I WILL blog about the PMS years! I will make a "mental" note of it for the future...hmm So here's the thing...what the hell is wrong with people? Is there no  Christmas spirit left any where???                                              

Why are people so dang self centered and stupid? My daughter is a server at Hard Rock and she stayed late to wait on a table and the guy had a stack of $25 chips and he had a tab of $90 and he gave her SIX freakin dollars! WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? We always leave 5-6 bucks on a $20-30 breakfast tab! Twenty percent of 90=18, you A-hole! YOU SHOULDA LEFT $18-20, not SIX! Now, my girl is no pushover, but she is a single mom and when she told me this, I was livid! How she remained calm is beyond me! Here's what I woulda done: I woulda gone"New Jersey Housewife" on his ass and "Teresa tipped" the table at him, yelled a few choice words and walked out! I hope that guy loses "his shirt" and his house and his car and everything to gambling! No, I take that back, cause it's Christmas and I don't want to lower myself and be mean to him...So here's my New Years wish for him: I hope he gets a "brand new job" as a WAITER in 2011 and he can experience first hand the joys of the service industry "My lips to God's ears!!! My real new Years wish is this: that both my daughters find happiness and good health and good fortune doing jobs they love. I would wish them to find true love,but I am convinced that there are no more good guys out there...there is an entire generation of morons who "think" they are men and they are not good enough for my girls-better to be alone than with an idiot! Sorry girls, Mom's gotta tell ya this, but "there ain't NO white horse riding, Matthew McConaughy lookin knight in shining armor, real men out there anymore! I hope I am wrong, I challenge the universe to prove me wrong! WHERE are the Good Guys? All I want for Christmas is some hope that real men still exist and still do the right thing and he can "start" by tipping his server at least 20%...

You' re so vain, you probably think this song is about you...

Here comes CHRISTmas!

Five days until Christmas...wow! It comes faster every year and I hear myself saying "Grinch-like stuff" like "I hate Christmas" Why? Because it is too stressful and expensive and fattening! Yes! that is the worst...5 lbs for each holiday season adds up to 200 lbs in the last 40 years! WHAT? I WONDER...WHERE is Christmas? like the song the Whoville kids sang.What really makes it special ? and I realize that it is in the wonder of a child...that is where Christmas is...in the eyes of a child who still believes...the magic is there. I think everyone has a favorite Christmas as a 'child who believes' and mine is the year that I found out that there was no Santa...I was in second or third grade and I remember my grandparents coming over so late on Christmas eve and they said that Santa had to drop some stuff off at their house because he was so busy...hmm, I could swear I heard sleigh bells on the roof that night! Suspicious as I was, I chose to believe...it's like believing in Jesus...you have nothing to lose if you believe in Him and everything to gain if He is who he says He is...Santa was , to my childlike eyes, just like that, besides, at that point, Jesus was just a little baby that was born on Christmas! and He was so special that the whole world got to celebrate. Back to that night...I think I stared at the ceiling all night long and could not wait to get up! And maybe it was just a coincidence that my dad had a few good hauls in his job as a trucker, and that my mom was working as a waitress at a bowling alley and that we were living in a brand NEW house, BUT, it was awesome! I got a Barbie, a real one, with red hair and a "bubble" hair cut and a black and white striped bathing suit. And my grandpa made a "wardrobe" and it was full of Barbie clothes that my mom had sewn. There was even a real fur stole! Jackpot! I was happier than Ralphie in A Christmas Story! I was Ralphie! the female version! My sister ,of course, got the same, a Barbie too and we had to share the clothes but I didn't even care! now my memory becomes blurry here, but I think this is the very same Christmas that my brother got a brand new shiny red bike, much better than a BB gun any day! No danger there...he couldn't" shoot any body's eye out" And, my siblings will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe my sister got a life size Pollyanna doll with long blond hair! She looked just like Hayley Mills, my favorite actress! And she walked too! If you guided her and held both hands,of course! Now I was not forgotten, I too, had a life-size doll...she wasn't Pollyanna,though...she didn't even have a name and she had brown,fuzzy,short hair...Now "bubble" cuts were awesome on Barbie, but downright weird and gross and disgusting on a huge, clunky doll who's leg kept falling off! I got not only the best present of all, but the worst present of all. And I have "carried the scar of this for the rest of my life" as Candice Bergen would say! Whoa! And the best Christmas became the worst for my brother because his bike got stolen soon after, and he too, 'carries that scar' My sister, although, had a Barbie and a Pollyanna! BUT looking back, she deserved the best Christmas because she had earned it. She was a little fourth grader who took care of all of us! We did not have babysitters in the 50's and 60's. We became little adults and I was the "baby" so I got to be a kid for a couple more years anyway. Meanwhile my sister was making lunches and my brother was watching out and protecting us. Where were my parents??? Working, I guess... Christmas day ended with dinner at Me ma and Papa's. They added a "card table" next to the dining room table for the kids and we all ate dinner together...All I could think about was my Barbie...and the fuzzy haired clunker? she was in a corner near the Christmas tree, unappreciated and forgotten already...I never even gave her a name.

All seem to say throw cares away

Margaret! Margaret!

When my grandma was in a nursing home losing her dignity in the last years of her life,she used to call out for "Margaret!" None of us knew who Margaret was...She was 92 and she lost a lot of weight and a lot of herself within a few short years.. She did not have Alzheimer's, she was too old. She had something we used to call organic brain syndrome and we now call dementia...they are both ugly reminders of what getting old is going to do to us, most of us anyway-we cannot all have the grace and good fortune of Betty White. Grandma was not Marie anymore,she was a shell of someone we once knew and loved,even if she was a scary, old German woman, who just happened to be our Me-Ma.

Why did we let them "bully" us into the things we did when it came to her? There are things I will do different when I am old. I will NOT let my grandchildren decide because my own children don't know what to do or care enough to talk to me about it before I lose myself. My children deserve to feel the guilt of making the wrong choices, if they do, not my grandchildren. I want to be dropped off to any halfway decent old folks home, when I lose "me" and they can tell them that my name is "Margaret Jones" and then they should run, not walk away, run and never come back...I won't know who they are anyway, will I? I won't know "Jack or Jill" will I? so I won't know the difference. If I am in my right mind, then they can still drop me off somewhere and I will not piss and moan and whine about how awful my life is...I will appreciate" three hots and a cot" and be happy that I am not working and that I am actually retired.

 I will be happy and proud for my children and grandchildren and not guilt them into visiting me. If they don't come willingly, then I don't deserve them to come at all. In other words, I don't want to be a "beast of burden" Death must be better than being old and miserable and I would choose death. I will have a stash of sleepers and a box of wine stored away somewhere for the occasion of my passing if need be. I have specific things I want done to celebrate my life, not mourn my death...I have a book of instructions and I want it to be respected, but only if I have respected those who will want to celebrate me. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of losing me, like my grandma, and becoming a ghost of who I really am.

Let me go when I am done and not one moment sooner, Dear God, I pray...but let me go before I turn into Margaret Jones, for my children's sake...The mind is a terrible thing to lose, but I am willing to give up my mind, but not my memory... I have so much more to say and I don't care if I am ever published or paid much attention to by anyone else...I do care that I was loved by someone and meant something to someone...

you can look back and say, "you did okay" you were loved...

Okie,McSmokie Skiddly do!

I cannot believe I have not written in over a month! Where have I been? in a fog? in a slump? asleep? in a crisis? in Georgia? ALL of the above! And no wonder! I have NOT "been to therapy" and MY therapy is blogging! Now I have seen movies about "blogging" and that is where I got this idea in the first place,so why can I not be consistent??? I dunno...in the movies,it's all so different...and in the movies they get a "payoff" for blogging! What is MY payoff? Hmmm...a payoff...wow...I "only wish" I could blog for dollars! Wow, I really DO need therapy!

Would that I could have a job that challenged my mind and my creativity and my very soul! AND that did not have a high cost when mistakes were made...How could mere words cause such stress? How can you make mistakes when you write from the heart? How could I EVER be wrong? And that is WHY my dream will never come true...there is no perfect blog job! It would eventually become something to dread and then I would get "writer's block" and have no topic to write about unless! Unless I had the perfect readers and they would give me topics to write about! THAT would be awesome! It would of course, be "my" take on the topic and AGAIN, HOW could I be wrong??? Oh how I wish upon a star for my thoughts, like pen to paper and "Words to Windows" be something that people would actually read! Heck, I go to bed late and wake up early with my mind racing anyway,why not put this "race" to a finish and DO something with this crazy energy? Well until the day that I "win the lottery" for creative writing, I will just blog a little here, blog a little there, get down tonight! Signing off for this post, "only the shadow knows" when I shall blog again...hopefully the "blog gods" will be with me and guide me through until reality sets in and I realize that perhaps I am NOT a writer at all or that perhaps...I AM! Oh, and my title? Somebody got "paid" to write THAT...It's from a Geico commercial! WOW!

When you wish upon a star, all your dreams will come true