Music Evokes the Strangest Memories

Hey, the memory may come and go, but music is the great equalizer.  I grew up in a household full of music -- of all types -- and took a turn at lessons in organ (hated it), violin (meh), viola (loved it), and piano (loved it more and still have one).  Some people say that people's memories are stimulated in a completely different way by music, and that people in comas may not remember much, but they remember the music you play for them while they are sleeping.

Sometimes I have to turn the music off in the car, if I'm having a really busy day and my head is already spinning, because bringing in a bevy of memories can just plain be distracting.  More often, I'm afraid I'm going to miss a call from work because I'm rockin out.  Heck, I was sitting at a red light yesterday, in front of an unmarked car, watching my rear view mirror while the cop behind me rocked out.  Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

And so it was that I found myself driving into town this morning, and what should come on but this:



A song that invokes STRONG memories for me of my mother in law (may she rest in peace).  The song is from the movie "White Nights," which the ex and I saw with his parents when we lived in Florida.  We had had a lovely sunset dinner with them at The Sandbar.  I have no idea what I ate, but I do know that my mother in law ate shrimp.  It was the last time she ate it in my presence.  What she didn't tell me was that she was allergic to shrimp.  Violently allergic.  She could, by her report, eat it, but only until she got an odd metallic taste in her mouth.  At that point, she had to stop, or she'd react.  Of course, I went into dinner knowing none of this, and this happened to be a night where she decided to push the envelope.  God love her, she loved shrimp.

So we left and went to the movie.  I really can't tell you much about it except Gregory Hines was in it, and so was Isabella Rosselini, and there was something about Russia.  Partway into the movie, my mother in law excused herself and made for the door like a road runner, looking rather green.  I decided it was best for me to check on her, and walked into the hallway just in time to watch her vomit straight into the trash can in the hallway.  Got her to the bathroom, where she continued to hurl.  And hurl.  And hurl.

I don't remember how we got home.  I don't know if the men watched the end of the movie.  I don't remember how we got home.  What I do remember is that she laid down in our apartment and went to sleep, and a couple of hours later, she got up, hurling like no one I've ever seen in my life.

Keep in mind that on May 20th, I will have been a nurse for 30 years.  And I have NEVER in my life seen someone vomit like she did.  It was like a disgusting Fountain of Trevi, but trust me, I never, ever wanted to return to that fountain.  Poor thing.  We were up most of the night before it finally settled down.  And if she even so much as mentioned shrimp to me after that, we'd exchange a look that put the ix-nay on it immediately.

What a memory to evoke at 7am,  Fortunately, 107.9 plays such a wild mix of music that I went on to a completely different memory with the next song.    Against all odds............

The dog gets it all

So, Thomas went backpacking this week.  It was his first overnight journey, after months of taking Penny The Stalker Dog out on lots of day hikes. He's been chomping at the bit for warm weather since Christmas, when I got him a lightweight backpacking tent and warm socks (hey, I'm the mom.  Gotta keep those tootsies warm).  We finally got some nice warmer temperatures, so off to the trail he went.  There was rain in the forecast, but he carefully planned to outrun the rain.

He was thoughtful enough to file an itinerary with me, but I still asked when I should be concerned, if he didn't get back.  He said he was planning to be on the road by 2pm, but if I didn't see him by evening, get worried.  And for the record, I wasn't worried.  The Heir to the Throne is a planner.  He had researched everything, and he went prepared.

He texted me about 5pm and told me he had broken camp for the night, that Penny was having a blast, and everything was fine.  It was nice to know that it was going as well as he had hoped.

Then, about 10pm, Seth comes into my room and asked where Thomas was.  I reminded him that he was backpacking.  He thought about it for a minute, then said "you know what I just realized?  At this very minute, my brother could be getting eaten by a bear."  "SETH!  How could you even think such a thing?"  "Well, it's possible," he says.

I threw him out of my room, saying "geez, boy, right about the time I was thinking of putting you back into the will, you go and say something like that!"  He replied "well, Mom, if I'm cut out of the will and Thomas is dead, then that means Jill gets everything, and she wants you dead."

At which point, I told him the dog gets everything.

Say WHAT?

Seth went out with some friends tonight.  He came home and said "Hey Mom, guess what I had tonight?"  Now, when the boy is 18, and out with four similarly aged friends, maybe the mother doesn't want to know. But I bit.  "What?"

"Milk.  From a cow."

I was confused.  "Milk, Mom.  From a cow.  Not a bottle."

"So, you milked a cow??"

"No, Mom.  It was milk from a cow.  Like, not from Kroger."

Proving, once again, that my kids are way, way too city if they think that milk from Kroger is not from a cow.  Or a wild cow.

Cap-less

One of my Facebook friends posted her LPN school graduation photo, so I challenged all my nursey friends to post theirs.  I've heard several comments -- that I look like I'm in middle school, that my hair hasn't changed, and the like.  I, of course, notice immediately that this is pre-braces.  And that I only got to wear my pin a time or two after graduation before it went down the laundry shoot at the hospital, still attached to my scrubs.  I never saw it again.  I remember that I loved this top, and wore it all the time, but never after graduation.  I spent the next twenty years in scrubs.  And I never wore my cap again, though I do still have it.

One of my younger Facebook friends said that her class voted not to have caps, then another chimed in with a similar comment.  I think that's sad.  Granted, mine is put away, and I never wore it again, but still, those caps were a HUGE thing for us while we were in school.  First, student nurses looked forward to the capping ceremony, where they recited Florence Nightingale, and lit candles.  That was after the first year of clinicals.  I was so sad that ours was the first class that didn't get a capping ceremony.  We felt really cheated.  As I recall, they just handed out our caps in class.

Nonetheless, we had arrived.   Once you had a cap, you were looked upon with some respect by the other student nurses.  Caps set you apart, because each school had a different cap.  Mine had a circle with an IC in it -- for Indiana Central (since renamed, rendering the IC obsolete).  You could recognize alumni by their caps.  And when we went to clinicals, we felt just a little closer to being a Real Nurse.

So, I don't know why the schools don't give out caps anymore, but then again, I do.  No one wears them.  Their time has passed, just like the white hose and the starched whites.  It's more than a little sad to us Old Nurses, so I hope that my Facebook friends keep putting up their graduation pictures, to remind us of the time past.

No Hokey Pokey Allowed

I was raised in a musical household.  We didn't do sports, that I recall, but we all were involved in some way in music.  I did two years of organ -- much against my will, as I hated it, and the teacher, Mr. Ribble, creeped me out.  Then I did a year of violin, was ambivalent, so I switched to viola, which I really enjoyed.  After that, we moved to a school that didn't have an orchestra, so I switched to piano, and did choir.  But we always had some form of music in our house.  Some of my earliest memories are of Mrs Miller --- God help us, I don't know where my dad found HER, Johnny Cash, Donna Fargo (shine on me sunshine, walk with me world, it's a skip-a-de-doo-dah day), all my dad's choices, and Three Dog Night on my transistor radio, and the Dixie Cups on my 45rpm record player.

Of course, that was interpersed with the Disney 33 1/3 rpm records that I listened to over and over.  I listened to Bambi over and over.....kids today have no idea what it was like to not have DVDs.  I found out the other day that Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Cinderella is playing on Broadway again, and if it comes to town, I will trample someone for good seats.  Oh, the memories............

Today, I rarely have the radio on, and my iPod is rarely charged.  Matter of fact, I just gave it to Seth the other day.  If a CD makes it in my player, I generally play it until someone complains which, these days, is at least a couple of months.  More often than not, however, I travel in silence.  But music gets stuck in my head all the time.  Yesterday, I was stuck on a country tragedy channel of George Jones and Brad Paisley/Allison Krauss (who has the voice of an angel).  Tonight it has been soundtracks, namely Gladiator, which is some of the most powerful soundtrack music in recent history.  This is, of course, interspersed with the sounds of the boys' music:  Thomas is on a 70s Progressive Rock phase, and Seth is into, of all things, waltz music and soundrack music.  (Don't worry, he'll be back to techno in a New York minute).  Jill listens to mostly pop, but if Michael is choosing, it's Waylon and Willie and the boys.  I will say, I am glad that my children have such varied taste in music.

Last weekend, Jill asked me to go with her and Michael to scout out wedding reception locations.  One of the places we went to had a place where the DJ could be on a balcony above everyone, and the tour guide pointed out that it would make it difficult for people to make requests.  Jill said that was fine, because they didn't WANT people to make requests.  HUH?  Jill mentioned a "do not play" list.  HUH?  Michael, in a rare moment of opinion piped up with "yes, we are rather picky about our music." He was even a bit emphatic about it.  HUH?  Apparently, there is to be no Rihanna, Chris Brown (it'd be weird to have a couple with an abusive relationship at your wedding anyway), and a bunch of other artists.  But then they dropped the big onet:  there is to be no music "with steps in it."  HUH?

Apparently, there is to be no Electric Slide, Macarena, step-to-the-left-step-to-the-right whatever that song is, Chicken Dance, Hokey Pokey...........none of it.  I pointed out to them that the point of those dances is to incite the crowd to DANCE, because non-dancers will get up and do their thing too, but they are dead set on their musical rules.  I, of course, am only in the consultant role here -- it's their wedding, and it should be done their way.  Given the insane events surrounding her parents' wedding, I wouldn't dream of making waves. Come to think of it, she probably shouldn't even have me along to consult..........

But what if the hokey pokey IS what it's all about?

I Ain't Buying What He's Selling

My old boss was a Jehovah Witness.  Every Thursday, she would say "well, I have to go to Bible study tonight, to learn how to knock on your door."  "Not my door," I would say.  "I've lived there for almost twenty years, and not once has a JW or a Mormon knocked on my door."  She was somewhat incredulous about this, and went so far as to even take note of my address one time, but no one ever came.  Except the seasonal leaf blower/snow shoveller types  -- one of whom later broke into our garage and stole our (broken) snowblower.   That gave me a laugh.

So today one of my friends posted on Facebook that the Mormons were canvassing her neighborhood, and she was trying to decide whether to blast Highway to Hell right then, or wait till they knocked on the door.  Well, we all know that life is full of options, so we started listing some for her:

• Greet them at the door wearing a burqua.
• Keep some Jehovah Witness literature on hand.  (Or Mormon, in case of JW sightings.)
• Ask if they are Team Jacob, or Team Edward.
• Play Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast
• Tell them you're Jewish.

My contributions:

• Since she has a big dog, when the doorbell rings, just start shouting "SATAN!  SATAN!  Get behind me!"
• Or greet them enthusiastically, grab them by the arm and say "oh thank GOD you are here!  The body's in the living room."
• Say "You're right on time.  I have the money right here.  It'll be done quietly, correct?"

Of course, be kind to them, even if you don't intend to chat.  They're just doing the Lord's work.  But life really should always be handled with a wink.

Marked For Death

I think the Heir to the Throne has it in for me.  Some months back, I told him that my will was written, that he is the executor, and that he is the trustee of The Spare's money till he turns 21.  He looked at his brother and said "you're screwed."  I see how it's gonna be.

Since then, they have all been counting the numbers, and having different discussions of how they could off their mother.  The other day, Thomas was enumerating the different methods he could use.  I reminded him several times that he can't profit from his crime if he kills me, so he'd be stone cold broke.  He just kind of shrugged, and then told me that my recent fall down the stairs -- it was an ugly one, and pretty much trashed my left knee -- was a psychic fall that he had inflicted with his mind.  Dark, he is, yes.

Jill popped in and reprimanded him, saying "Thomas, that is your mother you are talking about."  Again, a shrug.  Jill said "don't you even feel bad?"  To which Thomas responded, "hey if I kill her, then you get to have the wedding of your dreams."  Without skipping a beat, Jill said "I'll give you a 35% cut."

I'm a marked woman.