Confession to my sister, Barbara

About 45 years ago I did something to my sister that I have never confessed to.  Mostly, because I forgot. I know she will forgive me, but I will feel better if I confess to the whole sordid story.  I told her tonight that I was going to confess something about her and Damn her if she didn’t guess it. But she only guessed half of it.

When I was about 12 or 13 , about 45 years ago, me and my best friend, Nancy stole my sister’s  diary. Barbara’s guess was that I read it, but it was worse, we took it.  We took it about 1/4 mile away to a cemetery where there was a little abandoned building.  And that’s where we sat and read it. We expected excitement, sex, boyfriend talk. We got nothing. It was sort of boring- no offense Barbara, but you were such a good girl. Then we didn’t know what to do with it.  We couldn’t return it in case she found it missing and then she would know it was me, so we hid it in the abandoned building.  For all I know it’s still there or someone found it, or it got destroyed if they tore down the building. I am truly sorry for stealing your diary. The only other confession I have to make to her is that at about the same age I went through her bureau drawer and found some used menstrual pads wrapped in toilet paper.  Of course there was blood on them but I still hadn’t gotten my period and my mother never told me about it.  All I could think of is that she had broken something , only I couldn’t imagine what and why I wasn’t told about it.

So there it is, finally out in the open. I can truly say they are the only bad things I ever did to you that I regret.  I don’t know why I waited so long to tell you.  Most likely it was because I forgot.  But this blog thing has me remembering things I had long ago put in the back of my brain.

Soon I will confess about what I found in my brother’s room, and this was back in the early 60’s.

Barbara, I hope you forgive me. Though I know you will because You are my bestest friend and sister.

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Meme of 7 factoids

Wendy from “Life with Buck” tagged me for a meme. A meme is sort of like a chain letter but without the death threats. It’s when you write about a theme and tag people whom you hope will do the same.

In this meme, you’re supposed to do the following:

1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself.
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

#1 Meme is what I called my grandmother and what my children called my mother. It is French
slang for grandmother. So when I saw the meme thing I thought I was supposed to write about my mother and my grandmother. I guess not. But I had been shopping all day and my brain was addled. The photo is of my mother(Meme) and Gubby, my father. Speaking of my mother, she once washed out my mouth with soap when I was probably only four for swearing. I doubt that I even understood what I had said. But I got the soap anyway. My sister is six years older than me and my brother is 8 years older so I probably got the word from them. They also once, when I was a little older tried to get me to say all the swear words I knew. Thank goodness my mother didn’t find out about that. My mother is probably rolling over in her grave because I say motherfucker about 20 times a day.

2. I don’t condone driving drunk. Please remember that when you read this. When I was about 18 years old my best friend, Nancy, and I used to hang around Brown University looking for guys. We lived about a half hour away. Well, we went to a frat party and then got very, very, drunk and realized we had to drive home. We ended up driving the car together. I did the gas and the brakes and she did the steering, most of the time. I occasionally had to grab the wheel if we got too close to the trees. As we approached my house we saw a sawhorse in the road with flashing lights on it warning us of a pothole. We stopped and put it in the trunk of the car. When we got to my house we put it in my backyard near the woods where we thought my father wouldn’t see it. But of course the next day he saw the flashing lights and couldn’t imagine how it got there. It was always a mystery to him because I never told him the truth. The real mystery is how we managed to get home alive without cracking up the car and why we took the sawhorse in the first place.

3. I hate cartoons. I didn’t like them when I was a kid and I don’t like them now. I really don’t know why I don’t like them. When my kids were little I would leave the room whenever they had cartoons on. I also despised Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers made me nauseous. My daughter loved cartoons, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite. Sometimes she would want me to watch them with her and being a good mother I did and hated every minute of it. I did like Howdy Doody when I was a kid. But he wasn’t a cartoon. I guess I could tolerate puppets. My favorite show as a kid was Miss Francis’ Schoolhouse. Now that was 54 years ago, give or take. That’s where I learned how to make paste out of flour and water. I also learned how to make something out of Ivory Snow laundry detergent and water but I can’t remember what it was. Barbara might remember.

4. I loved Algebra so much in high school, that at night I would go out on our front porch and do Algebra problems just for fun. Once in high school they gave a logarhythm problem to everyone in all the math classes. I was the only one to get it correct in the whole high school. Now I can’t even remember what a logarhythm is.

5. When I was twelve, my girlfriend and I were playing Barbie dolls on a blanket in her yard. It was a beautiful summer day. Her Barbie was in love with President Kennedy. I don’t think my Barbie loved anyone but herself. Anyway , we were both looking down at the blanket, trying to decide what our Barbies should be wearing for an evening out when I looked up at Nancy and there was a big black and white cow standing about one foot behind her. I screamed, she screamed (not really knowing why ) and even the cow screamed in a mooish sort of way. We lived right down the street from Cumberland farms and I don’t mean the store. We lived in Cumberland, R.I. right down the street from the Cumberland farms cows and they had gotten loose. The rest of the herd was rampaging through the backyards of all the little ranch houses on our street. I remember slowly getting up and then it was one for all and all for one. I ran like hell not looking back to see what happened to Nancy. She could have been trampled for all I knew. This wasn’t my first run in with a cow. Down the road a piece was another cow, the only cow these people owned and one day after school he got loose and started chasing me down the road. I dropped my bookbag and made it home and had to send my brother back for my bag. So I never took any chances with cows. When I saw one I ran.

6. I don’t know how to swim. Imagine living 1 mile from the best beaches on Cape Cod and not knowing how to swim. I flunked swimming lessons when I was 12 years old. That’s the same year the cows were always after us. Could there be a connection? Nah! I just think I have an unresonable fear of the water. Both my kids swim like fish. As a matter of fact, my son is a fisherman. He’s a first mate on charter boats when he can get the jobs. It’s amazing they ever learned how to swim. I couldn’t even go with them when they learned. A neighbor of mine taught them down at the pond where we live and their father also helped to teach them. I’m glad I didn’t lay that fear on them.

7. I am an internet junkie, a food junkie (though I’ve lost 50 lbs.) and the worst one–I am a reality TV show junkie. I will watch almost any reality TV show. Of course there are some I like more than others, but I will watch them all. I doubt that there are any I haven’t seen. I’ve watched some that are so bad the network took them off before they even finished. It ‘s probably the same reason I spy on my neighbors. I have been known to hide in the bushes in our front yard with binoculars so I could see what was going on across the street. It’s a welfare house and some very shady people have lived there. I can’t count the number of times the police have been there or at other houses on my street (including mine, more than once because of my son) . It makes life interesting though. I have a police scanner so I can keep track of what’s going on. I can’t stand it when I don’t know what’s going on. I am really the Fly on the Wall. Watch out for me, you never know where I’ll land.

OK, there’s my seven . But I don’t know one other person with a blog except Wendy and I can’t send this back to her.At least she and my sister will read it.

Electricity and boredom eating

Last weekend we had a fairly big storm here on Cape Cod. Wind gusts up to 80 MPH. We lost power right away and didn’t get it back on for two days. My kids spent their time at friend’s houses and I spent my time at home, slightly cold, and sort of bored. Fortunately I had a good book to read and a battery operated book light. I am a weight watchers member and have done quite well changing the way I eat and losing weight. But there’s something about not having electricity that makes me want to eat and eat and eat. My excuse to myself was that I didn’t want to have to throw away the food.

Of course, the real reason was boredom. The book was good but I had to have food with it. I even started a fire in the fireplace and heated some beef burgundy I had made the day before in the crock pot. That along with the dozens of weight watcher snacks and I was partying. One weight watcher snack at night is fine, maybe even two but I was packing them away, one right after the other.

Today I had to pay the piper. I went to a weight watcher meeting .

So, hopefully I’ll get back on track this week. We just better never lose the electricity again. I should buy a generator.

Smelling the Past

There are only two Woonsocket’s in the United States. Woonsocket, RI was first, established in 1888. The other, Woonsocket, SD, was named by its superintendent of railroads who had originally come from Woonsocket, RI.

The first inhabitants of what is today the city of Woonsocket were Eastland woodland Indians – mainly Nipmucs, Wampanoaags and Narragansetts.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Woonsocket had grown to become one of the largest textile manufacturing centers in the United States.

The first free public library in Rhode Island was located there.

The above info I got from Wikipedia.

I was born in Woonsocket , R.I. I have fond memories of Woonsocket, but not especially fond memories of where I went to school–Mt. St. Frances. It is now some kind of a health care center. My sister, Barbara, and I went on a tour of Woonsocket a few years ago, when I could drive without getting a panic attack. We drove by all the houses we had lived in and all the schools we went to. We both went to Mt. St Frances, which was actually part orphanage.. We weren’t orphans but it was a Catholic school so that’s where we went. My mother was an avid Catholic, though she went through some changes as she grew older: Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, etc.

I remember when my sister and I visited the place it was all locked up. But the big door to the old school had a big keyhole. My sister and I kept taking turns smelling through the keyhole. The place smelled just like it did when we were kids. It overwhelmed us. It was such a unique smell. I wish I could describe it, but for a few seconds it brought us back in time. My sister is six years older than I and has a better memory of the place. What I do remember is hating being there. I would always cry to my teacher that I had to go see my sister and they would have to interrupt her class for me to get c0mfort from her so I could get through the day. I actually flunked the first grade because I missed so many days of school. The problem was no one in my family knew I was missing school. I would go to school in the morning and then when we had to get in a straight line to go to lunch, I would make sure I was last in line. I would slowly back out the door, run across the street into the woods and feed my bologna sandwich to a Collie. He got to know me and would wait for me. Actually he would wait for my lunch. I would then hang out there until school was over. I didn’t get caught doing that for a long time. Nuns aren’t very observant. They pray too much.

I would also fake sickness. I would have to go the the main entrance where there was a phone and a nun who would let me call my parents to come get me. Once they sent my grandfather. He passed away when I was about 20 years old and in all that time I think he only talked to me once. He walked into our house handed me a quarter, something he’d never done before. Actually I’m not even sure if he talked to me. He may not have.

The above picture is my grandmother, my father, my grandfather (I was always a little afraid of him) my mother, and her mother. It was my parent’s wedding day.

If I remember correctly and my sister will correct me if I haven’t (Only because she’s older and remembers more. Wait, isn’t it if you’re younger you remember more.) Now I don’t remember what I was going to write. Seriously I don’t freakin remember. I have to think.

Oh, I do remember. My Sin perfume-my mother used to wear it. I don’t know if they make it anymore. But why would a Catholic wear a perfume called My Sin? I really want to smell it. I can almost smell it in my mind. But mind smelling and really smelling something are two different things.

And when I think about it I hate the smell of bologna.

I’d eat Spam before I would ever eat Bologna again. It probably killed that poor Collie I used to feed it too.