It’s the great Kentucky blizzard of January 2016, and I have to go work my night shift at the hospital.  It’s a 30-minute drive in the daylight, with good roads and cooperative traffic.  We already had 8 inches of snow on the ground, with the brutal wind blowing drifts high enough to thoroughly cover the roads.  Lacking any confidence in my car’s ability to trudge through the snow and get me to work safely, I asked my hubby to drive me to work in his four-wheel drive truck.  I got myself ready an hour early in order to accommodate for the much longer commute we expected.  The truck was warmed up nice and toasty when we started the trip down our long driveway through the heavily and very steadily falling snow.  I text my work friend to let her know I was on my way.  Away we went — dashing through the snow just as the sun was setting.  At several points on the country road from our house to the main road, we literally could not see the road — at all.  Just keep driving. Just keep driving.  Hospitals don’t close for inclimate weather, and blizzards are no exception.

We were less than two miles from the hospital and, what’s that I see?  Starbucks is — is it open??!!  “Pull in there,” I shout to my hubby excitedly.  I was thrilled and so looking forward to a caramel latte to start my long night shift.  It was so nice of them to be open for business in this horrid weather.  Pull up to the order window, and…sadly, it wasn’t open.  Apparently, they just leave their lights for no reason.  No problem.  Making the best of a disappointing situation, I notice the very empty parking lot in the shopping center beside the Starbucks, and I shout, “Do a donut in the parking lot!!”  Well, no self-respecting redneck man would ignore that request.  Hubby delivers and does the most perfect, full-spin, sliding donut in that snow-covered parking lot as I was woohooing the whole time.  So much fun!!  The moment the truck stopped, we hear sirens!  What???!  One donut and we get busted?!!  No!  It was only an ambulance heading to the hospital.  Sigh of relief.  On to work!  We’re about to pull into the hospital’s entrance when I get a phone call from my work friend.  “Vonda, uh, you’re not on the schedule tonight.  I thought I’d tell you before you got all the way here.”  Umm…ok.  I reluctantly share this news tidbit with hubby.   No words could’ve described the look on his face.  As he’s turning the truck around to head back home, he says, “I need a drink.”  Unable to contain it any longer, I burst out laughing, hysterically.  There we were, dashing through the snow in a four-wheel drive truck, with me laughing all the way.  Hubby was far less amused, which only intensified my giggles.

My niece, Rachael McNeill, did the illustration for this caper which is currently the cover photo on my A Comedy of Perils Facebook page.  She’s an amazing artist!  I hope to use much more of her work within my blog and book.  Thank you, Rachael!

I sat down at my computer late yesterday afternoon.  I suppose it was around 4:30.  As I kept writing and tweaking my blog post, I realized that it was getting pretty dark outside. “Wow, I’ve been writing for a long time,” I thought.  My fingers continue clicking on the keyboard.  “Hmm.  This is pretty cool, actually, being so lost in my writing.”  Click click click, enter.  “La la la...” then, BAM!!  Oh my gosh!  I totally forgot to take care of our chickens today!!  This was new.  Not once had I forgotten to take them their daily treat, usually a scoop of dry cat food, and collect the 12-20 eggs they’d produced.  Not once!  I’d been so hyper-focused on my writing, it almost startled me when I snapped out of it.  I sometimes envied the people who could maintain their mental focus for long periods of time like that.  With a touch of A.D.D., I tend to get — “Oh, look!  Squirrel!

Don’t worry, the chickens are fine.  I’d given them plenty of food and water the day before, plus I’ll be checking on them much earlier today than I would normally.

Once I’d completed my blog entry, I walked into the living room to watch a little TV and relax for the remainder of the evening.  I glanced at the clock on the living room wall.  It was 8:30 p.m.??!!!  I exclaimed, “OH MY GOSH!!  NO!!”  This is just great!  Not only did I forget about our chickens, I’d also forgotten to go to my Tuesday night salsa class being taught at our local gym, which started only two hours ago!  What?!  I was disgusted with myself.   Then, I was amused by the fact that I possessed the ability to zone out and be so completely engrossed in what I was doing.  I sat down in my chair, staring into space.  I was in a slight state of shock, of disbelief.  How the heck could I have been so oblivious to what time it was that I missed these two activities which are both pretty important to me?  Then, I felt all three emotions swirling around at the same time.  These three different feelings inspired me to create a new word that would describe the trio occurring simultaneously.   Welcome the birth of “bef**kled.”  (The asterics represent a bad word which I cannot bring myself to type in this blog post, but it’ll be in my book.   I’m sure you know the word to which I am referring.)

Bef**kled:  When you are disgusted, amused and in disbelief at the same time.  Created by Vonda Newsome on March 12, 2019.

Bright side — After reading my blogs for the first time, my husband told me, “You are a very good writer, by the way.”  Totally melted me.

The moral of my story — I will be using Siri reminders from now on!  (Still shaking my head…)

 

With both of our parents being teachers and having every glorious summer off, the crowned jewel of teaching benefits, they took us kids on countless summer camping trips.  On one trip, we brought along a very pregnant cat named Tilly.  Mom was worried that Tilly would give birth while we were gone, so she insisted we bring her with us.  We kept her in a box with the top open to keep her safe and comfortable during our trip, and in hopes that that’s where she would have her babies.  After we’d arrived at our camp site and all the tents were set up, Tilly decided it was time to give birth and she did just that, on the floor of one of our pup tents.  My brother, my sister and I watched as she gave birth to four tiny kittens.  That was pretty cool.

One of my favorite camping memories is when my sister, Becky, and I had constructed a trap near our campsite so we could catch chipmunks.  I’m not even sure what we used now, but we propped up the basket or box with a stick which had a long rope tied to it.   We’d lure the little chipmunks into the trap with some bread or breakfast cereal, pull the rope from where we were hiding, keeping a close watch, and we’d catch it.  We did this for hours and caught several of those little critters, too.  My sister was actually able hold one of those chipmunks in her hands.  It was so exciting for both of us since that was our main goal in catching them in the first place.  However, the chipmunk wasn’t having it and soon darted right out of Becky’s grip, leaving its tail right there in her hand.  It was hilariously entertaining, although I think Becky felt horribly about the rodent losing its tail.

Our father was nuts for “the old west,” and in the summer of 1970, I believe it was, that is exactly where we were headed.  Dad built onto a wooden utility trailer modifying it into the perfect tag-along for transporting all of our camping gear and our luggage, etc., and we began our westward journey.  I can still remember how bored I was through Indiana and Illinois.  It was nothing, I mean nothing but corn!  Throughout this trip, whenever it was time to fill up with gas, we would hear Dad exclaim, “There’s my price!  Twenty-nine point nine.”  Can you imagine gas being 29.9 cents a gallon?

It seemed that the further west we traveled, the stronger the winds became.  Perhaps it’s due to all the flat open land out there.  Dad did most, if not all of the driving and fighthing those strong winds really irked him.  He’d yell, “Damn wind!”   And, if he and Mom were having difficulty finding a route he’d yell, “Dammit,” followed by, “Where’s the map?!”  He’d get so frustrated.  “Damn wind!”  Ooooooh, how many times we heard that as we traveled further west.  We must’ve heard him say, “Dammit” a hundred times along the way, too.

Now, with three kids in the backseat of a small VW car, well, it gets a lil bit tense back there.  Due to my being the smallest child, I was sitting in the middle seat, “the hump,” of that VW squareback, and in every VW vehicle my parents ever owned thereafter. Always on the freakin’ hump!  It is NOT fun sitting in the middle, on a hump, between two of your older siblings.  If you are one who likes to sit comfortably in your own space, without your arms touching the skin of another human being, especially on very long car rides, well…you couldn’t have endured the hump seat.  I barely did myself.

With no air-conditioning in the car, the windows were always open and the breeze was kind of nice, at times.  However, with that lovely breeze also came my sister’s very long hair which liked to blow across my face, tickling my nose and basically just getting on my nerves.  All of them.  “Get your hair out my face,” I’d say.  She’d retort with, “Move over!!”  Our brother would shout out, “Mind your own business!”  As you can imagine, after a few choruses of “Move over,” “Mind your own business,” and “Get your hair out of my face,” Dad would chime in with, “Get the switch!”  That was Mom’s cue to grab the fly swatter, turn around in her seat, glare at each of us with her deep, dark, brown eyes, and threaten us with the butt-swatting of our lives if we didn’t “simmer down” back there.  If memory serves, it usually worked, too.

We made it to the big state of Missouri and finally saw something interesting in the distance.  Our parents simply had to check it out.  Looking back, I wonder if they’d known all along that we’d be stopping to see the St. Louis Arch and were just making it more exciting by letting us imagine and guess what it was when we saw it in the distance.  Once there, all five of us piled into one of those tiny elevator cars and enjoyed the bumpy, rickety, noisy ride to the top of the arch so we could look out the observation windows.  Definitely more interesting than miles and miles and miles of corn.

Mom would always keep a dampened wash cloth handy, which she kept in a plastic baggy stored in the glove compartment.  She’d use it to wash our hands and our faces as needed while we were on the road.  I can still feel the warmth of that damp cloth on my cheeks.  We didn’t do much restaurant dining on our trips.  Our meals were cooked by our mother either on a Coleman gas stove or we’d roast hotdogs over a campfire followed by the roasting of marshmallows, of course.  For those long car rides, Mom would make sure to pack snacks for everyone, too.  My favorite was the Underwood deviled ham on saltine crackers.  She would pop that little can open, get a knife and she’d start spreading that deviled ham on crackers and be handing them out one at a time to her hungry crew as quickly as she could.  I thought it was the best snack ever and could barely wait until it was my turn to get another one.

At one of the campsites on this westerly trek, my sister and I had had a fight wherein I visciously scratched her arms.  That tended to be my fighting tactic, my only tactic, since she was much bigger than me and I didn’t stand a chance physically.  I believe I’d yelled and screamed at her, scratched her, then cried myself to sleep that night.  When I awoke the next morning, all my fingernails had been clipped off.  Every last one was clipped to the nub.  Can you guess who did it?  I’m sure you can.

We continued our journey and saw all the major tourist attractions along the way:  The Grand Canyon, cave ruins, Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, Bear Butte in South Dakota, old abandoned western towns, the Pacific Ocean, the steep streets of San Fransciso, the Golden Gate Bridge, the painted desert, the petrified forest, Yellowstone National Park with its bubbling (boiling) mud, the actual Salt Lake and Salt Lake City, and I’m sure many more.  It truly was a remarkable summer adventure.  We even drove through Hollywood and saw the sign way up on that hill.  I remember spotting the sign for Rodeo Drive, which I pronounced like the horse and cowboy event, not the proper way of “Roe-day-oh.”  We didn’t see any movie stars, that I recall, but the Hollywood Walk of Fame was something worth seeing.

We arrived at the Rocky Mountains in Colorado where Dad was determined to drive way up as close to the top as he could muster.  We were on a road that seemed to go in constant loops and turns which Dad called “hairpin turns.”  If I was to ever experience motion sickness, it would have been on this drive up the mountains.  Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue for me.  We reached a high enough elevation to actually see snow.   All of us in our shorts and tank tops and we were playing in the snow.  So fun!  My father’s initial goal for his first trip to “the old west” was to drive across the U.S. to California, and then on up to Alaska.  We went as far west as California and as far north as Montana before my parents felt the need to head back home based on their travel funds.

I don’t remember if it was on our way out west or on our way back home, but for one night we got to stay in a motel.  This was a very big deal for us because I don’t think any of us kids had ever stayed in a motel.  It was after dark, our parents were tired from the miles we’d spent on the road that day and they just wanted to go to bed without fussing with tent poles, pottying in the woods and such.   There up ahead, shining in the beams of our headlights was the Cornstalk Motel.  I kid you not, that was the name of it.  It had a bright yellow, very shiny cornstalk right on the sign.  Although we all had enjoyed camping, it was a nice treat to sleep inside, on beds.   Oh, the memories.

In 1976, when I was 14 and the only kid left at home, I went out west with my parents for the last time. For this trip, we were traveling in my mother’s butterscotch yellow Vega, with air-conditioning!  I had my own pup tent and would set it up and break it down by myself at every campsite.  We returned to Bear Butte in South Dakota and we all liked that campground so much, I think we spent two, or three, full weeks there.  We would gaze up at the stars each night which were so incredibly bright and clear out west.  When I wasn’t gazing at the stars, I was watching the park ranger whom I’d had a serious crush on at the time.  At night, I’d lie on my stomach with my head facing out the tent opening, my chin in my hands, watching him as he sat under a light pole looking through his log book or whatever it was he was doing.

On my fifteenth birthday, we were traveling on a long, straight highway somewhere in Arizona.  The day before I told Dad that all I wanted for my birthday was for him to not say “Dammit” the entire day.  Well, that worked out really well.  Along that hot, dusty Arizona highway, with the temperature about 119 degrees in the shade (if you could find any), was where, as luck would have it, the Vega up and died.  I don’t think my father said “Dammit” as many times in one day in his entire life as he said it that day, my birthday.  My parents ended up buying a used Jeep Wagoneer for $500.00 and towed the broken down Vega behind it for the rest of our trip.  (Funny, after we returned home, the Vega was sent to a mechanic for diagnosis and treatment where it was discovered that a $10.00 part would have fixed it.)  Since we’d already had an exhausting day with the heat, the dust and being stranded on a road somewhere in Arizona, my parents decided it might be a good idea to get a motel for the night and take it easy.  Wouldn’t you know it — we came across the Cornstalk Motel again.  The same place we’d stayed for one night during our first trip out west!

Earlier that day, my mother had purchased a Pepperidge Farm frozen chocolate cake for celebrating my birthday.  Oh, but it was completely thawed out by the time we checked into the motel, all the icing having melted off the cake part and sufficiently pooled in the corners of the box.  Mom had also gotten some fresh hamburger to cook for our supper which, by the time she got it out of the cooler (where there had been no ice for hours) had turned to a lovely, brownish color.  Determined not to waste food, Mom proceeded to cook our hamburger supper on a hot plate right there in our motel room.

Although I’d been a bit concerned with the burger having that brownish tint and all, it was the yummiest hamburger I’d ever had.  The cake too, even with its melted icing, was absolutely and incredibly delicious.  I really enjoyed my 15th birthday celebration in the Cornstalk Motel!   Dammit, anyway!

I had an eventful commute home the morning after working a 12-hour night shift. It was a wintery, extremely cold January morning.  There was snow on the ground and fresh snow was steadily falling with the wind blowing it fiercely.  I was almost home when I noticed my car was nearly out of gas.  The trip indicator showed less than ten miles were left on my tank.  Even though the roads were becoming quite treacherous, I decided it would be a good idea to get some gas before I went home.  To save what fuel I did have, I took a road that I would not normally take since it was the shortest route to the nearest gas station.  The snow seemed to be falling more quickly as I moved along.   Even though I had been driving slower and slower, when I came to a sharp curve and gently turned the steering wheel, my car insisted on going straight. I went right off that road, through a fence, bounced through a ditch and finally stopped in a field.  There I sat, alone, no houses in sight.  I watched the snow falling and listened to the howling wind for a moment, contemplating my current predicament.   

First thing I did was call my hubby and he arranged for a tow truck.  A nice man pulled off the road and came to check on me.  Apparently, he had been driving not far behind me and said that he nearly followed me into the same field.  After I assured him I was okay and that help was on the way, he advised me to sit in the passenger seat of my car so I wouldn’t be hurt should another driver run off the road in the same curve.  There I was, sitting alone in the middle of the country in my booboo-covered car.  Then, it hit me.  I have to pee!  What am I gonna do?!!  There are no houses close enough for me to walk to and with my menopausal bladder, I wouldn’t even make it 10 feet in that cold wind.   There was nothing but snow and mud all around the car.  Oh, that would be a sight — me squatting down beside my car and the wind blowing my stream sideways, likely all over my scrub pants and my shoes!  I knew there was no way I’d make it until the tow truck arrived because it had another run scheduled before coming to rescue me.

So, desperate times, right?  I look around inside my car.  I guess I could pee in my travel coffee mug.  No, that’s gross. But, I realllly gotta go!  There’s got to be something that I can use!  Aha!  I spot empty McD’s and Starbucks cups in the backseat.  I double the two up (you know, just in case one is leaky), climb over onto the passenger seat, get up on my knees, manage to get my scrub pants down just enough to accommodate my makeshift female urinal and, yes, I peed in my cups!!  Thankfully, I had some McD’s napkins in the glove box, and I only dribbled a tiny bit on my car seat.  Not long after that, the property owner came with a chainsaw to cut down fence posts and pull away the barbed wire fencing so the tow truck could pull me out without too much further damage.  When the tow truck dropped me and the wreckage off at home, I was sore, but not severely hurt, and I was very thankful that my front seat adventure transpired without any witnesses. 

Later that week, the insurance company declared that my car was completely totaled.  The bright side?  Well, when they towed that car away, it only had one mile left on the tank.  At least we weren’t out the money for filling it up, right?!

The year was 1998.  During one of my routine AOL chats with one of my very favorite people in the world, my Uncle Joe, he told me, “You would make a good nurse,” and in a later chat, “With your personality, you should go into nursing.”  I said, “ME?  A nurse?!!”  If chats had sound effects, that would’ve been a very shrill sounding “ME?!!”  Was he out of his mind?  I was terrified of needles and I couldn’t stand the mere thought of blood, much less the sight of it!  It was extreme, to say the least.  I mean to tell you, I would get grossed out and literally weak-kneed if I even thought about the blood in my feet and how when I stood up or walked, all those blood cells were being squeezed and squished between my foot bones and my skin.  Yeah, it was that bad.  

Five or ten years prior to that, my sister-in-law had been going through nursing school and I remember seeing her study at her dining room table.  She was reading one of those 20-lb nursing textbooks.  They’re ridiculously heavy and equally expensive.  Plus, they’re usually “outdated” by the next academic year making hand-me-downs, in order to save a fellow student some money, quite infeasible.  I’d sit at the table and occasionally glance at her as she turned the pages, absorbing all the medical knowledge they contained.  I really admired her determination to complete her degree with three young children at home.  She went on to become an excellent nurse, too.  Every now and then, when she’d be studying, I’d catch a glimpse of something unpleasant on her current page.  With my knees feeling weak, and my vision blurring, I would say to her, “I could never be a nurse,” as well as, “I could never even work in the medical field.”  This is just one of the many incidences wherefrom my use of the word “never” came back to bite me right in the buttocks.  Hard.

Well, Uncle Joe, in all his wisdom, had successfully planted a tiny seed in my head.  From time to time, I would mull over the idea of nursing and that mulling would be abruptly ceased by me.  Never!  Still, that little seed was determined to take root and persisted to the point that I was seriously thinking that, perhaps, just maybe, there was a career in the medical field which did not require my exposure to needles or blood.  I know.  I just heard you say it, too, “Yeah, right!!”  

With that seed taking up more and more space in my noggin, I finally looked into degrees which I felt would be tolerable, safe from the gory inside the body stuff.  Oddly enough, I really liked the thought of working in a hospital with lots of other people.   There seemed to be a wide variety of jobs within the hustle and bustle of hospitals and that appealed to me.  Through my online search for a new career, I came across medical assisting.  That didn’t sound very scary.  I spoke with a guidance counselor at a nearby college and signed up for the associate degree program.  For my first twelve-week semester, I registered for three classes.  They were anatomy, medical terminology and a literature course.  I made all A’s for that term and felt more confident that I was doing the right thing pursuing this medical field sort of training.  The second semester rolls around, I register for classes and — there it was — a clinical, hands-on class that required us to give shots and — draw blood!  On each other!  Needles?!  Blood?!  WHAT?!  I didn’t think medical assistants performed such tasks!  I was mortified, petrified, and was no longer constipated, if you get my meaning.

The anxiety I experienced due to the looming poke-a-student-with-a-needle-day was palpable.  I considered dropping my classes, hanging up my school bag (way far back in a closet), changing my name, leaving town, the state, the country, and forgetting all about this short-lived medical training endeavor nonsense.  I mean, what was I thinking, really?   However, I would think of my dear Uncle Joe and about how much he believed in me.  He had encouraged me every step of the way regardless of my phobias.  I surely did not want to disappoint him, prove him wrong for his belief in my abilities, or let him down.  Deep breath.  I persevered.   

B-Day arrived.  No, that’s not birthday, it’s, Blood Day.  On the day that we learned to draw blood, the instructor asked for a volunteer to go first.  Surprisingly, I was the only one to raise a hand.  I simply could not imagine waiting my turn through the 20 or so other students and possibly being last.  How agonizing that would have been for me.  I wanted to get this over with — and as quickly as humanly possible.  My heart was racing.  I think all my blood was in my face, but I was determined.  The instructor slowly talked me through the steps.  I tied the tourniquet snugly around my classmate’s upper arm.  I felt inside the bend of her arm for a suitable vein.  I thoroughly cleansed the site with alcohol.  Oh, please, can we just have a fire drill, like right freakin’ now, please?!  Deep breath in…and exhale.  I had the needle in my hand, that vein in sight and I really stuck it into my slightly hesitant classmate’s arm.  I wasn’t successful at harpooning the vein so I didn’t actually retrieve any blood.  I think she closed them all due to the fear created when a visibly terrified, shaking, fellow student is coming at her with a needle, determined to jab her vein and remove a blood sample.  But, I did it!  I was so elated, I screamed, “I didn’t get any blood, BUT, I POKED HER!!!”  The instructor hushed me and closed the classroom door.  I must’ve been really loud.  I actually did it.  I left school that day feeling six feet tall.  I was going to say ten feet tall, but when you’re five foot two, six feet is monumental.  Surviving that experience was a turning point for me and I realized maybe, just maybe, I really could do this nurse type job thing after all.  

After attaining my associate’s degree 2003, I soon found that hospitals don’t hire medical assistants.  They’re only used in clinics, doctors’ offices, etc.  That was a disappointment.   However, I got a hired by a small cardiology practice which was associated with my favorite hospital.  My co-workers were great people and I enjoyed working there for a couple of years before boredom set in, along with my yearning to work in a hospital setting.  There it was — I could either stay at the clinic indefinitely, or I could go on to nursing school and work in a hospital.  So, that is what I did.  There I was, studying at my dining room table just like my sister-in-law had done, paging through the 20-lb textbook, learning about unpleasant human conditions and looking at the accompanying gory pictures.

Today is my one-week blogger-versary!  I have enjoyed it immensely.  When I’m writing, I get completely lost in it.  It’s like Calgon has truly taken me away.  It’s — it’s… transcendent.  There’s the word!  That’s something else I’ve learned through television.   With the help of the Netflix series, Grace and Frankie, I have learned a lot of new and exciting vocabulary words. Words like transcendent and ubiquitous. Now that latter one is a really cool word, isn’t it?  I was super proud of myself for spelling it correctly when I looked it up online because, of course, I had no freaking idea what it meant.  Did you stop reading this post so you could look up the meaning of it, too?  I have a spiral-bound notebook where I log my newly discovered television words. At this moment, I’m not exactly sure where that notebook is, but I have it here — somewhere.

A dear friend once asked me, “How do you know when you found the right guy?”  My answer to her was, “When you no longer have to ask that question.”  So it is, I’ve learned, with finding your life’s passion.  I’m not talking about romantic passion.  I’m talking about the passion you feel when you’re doing something you really, really enjoy doing…eh, I guess that could mean both kinds of passion.  Let me clarify, when you’re doing something that could be your life’s work, your career.  Umm, well that could be even clearer still.  It’s when you are doing what you are called to do, the greater purpose for your life, be it the job or creative endeavor that truly sparks the joy within your heart.   That’s better.

You would think that finding your life’s passion would be very easy, a no-brainer, that you’d instinctively know the answer to the question, “What is your passion?”  But for some, that is not the case.  It’s apparently such a common subject for our human brains to wrestle with that scads of books have been written on the subject.  I personally have read and/or listened to such books while discovering my passion(s).

Photography is a passion of mine.  I’m continually framing pictures wherever I go and whatever I’m doing.  I’ll think “Oh, that would be a great picture,” as I’m snapping the photo in my brain, sometimes blinking my eyes like Barbara Eden on the 60’s show, I Dream of Jeannie.  “Wish I had my good camera with me,” I’d think to myself.  When I look back through the pictures I’ve taken over the years, and there are literally tens of thousands, maybe even more of them, everything around me fades away.  It’s just me and those precious fleeting moments, captured and frozen in time with the click of a shutter button.  I just had a mental image of me sitting in a zen posture, floating up above the clouds, everything around me is white, and I’m flipping through stacks and stacks of pictures.  What exactly is in this Starbucks vanilla coffee anyway?!

Paraphrasing definitions from the internet:  A dream is a vision or goal that resides in your brain. Passion is doing something you love again and again with ease and without getting tired.  A dream may be pure fantasy, but passion is always real.  I think that the two can sometimes be melded together.  In 1982, the first of two times that I was approached regarding the Amway multi-level marketing plan, the presenter asked me, “What is your dream?”  I said, “I want to live in the country, in a house up on a hill, with bay windows, a long driveway, a pond and a barn full of cats.” Do you know where I live now?   I live in the country with a wonderful husband whom I’ve been with since 2002.  Our house is up on a hill.  We have bay windows. Our driveway is about 600 feet long.  We have a pond between our house and the main road.  I also have nine cats who have a cushy space in our pole barn which I’ve named “the kitty condo.” Don’t tell me that dreams are just in my head.  I’ve lived it. It may have taken me 20 full years, and one hell of a wild ride, but by golly, it sure came true, and with exquisite detail.

I’ve also had the wild dream of having Ellen Degeneres and Chris Tucker teach me to club dance.  My favorite part of Ellen’s talk show is her dance intro and I’ve watched the movie Rush Hour more times than I can count, mostly for the musical scenes where Chris is jamming to tunes in his car and such, but I laugh throughout the movie every single time.  A little voice may occasionally whisper to me saying, “Yeah, right, like that’ll ever happen.  Chris and Ellen teaching you to club dance?   Dream on.”  I simply answer with, “Well..why not?  Did I tell you about where I live?  It can happen!”  Dreams don’t just reside in your brain.  They can and do come true!  I’m passionate about my dream of being a published author, and it’s on its way to being a reality.  See?  The two do go together.

When you’re doing something that is in alignment with your passion, you’ll be thoroughly engrossed in it.  It comes easily and you don’t notice the passage of time.  You may forget to eat.  I always thought, how the heck can someone forget to eat?  Do you just not get hungry?  Well, I can now say that I’ve done it. I have forgotten to eat while I’m writing.  I have a potentially embarassing confession to share with you. I have spent entire weekends sitting at my computer, completely focused on writing my book, barely eating, only leaving the house to feed the cats and chickens, and totally without showering.  Do you know where the bridal bouquet tradition originated? Brides would carry strong smelling flowers, in part, to help mask their body odor. Daily baths were not a common practice way back when.  Hey, at least I didn’t pee in mason jars and line them up against the wall, and since my hubby has a man cave, he did have an escape from my potentially pungent aroma.

I worked on my March 7th blog entry for five hours and it felt like 30 minutes.  Although I spend a crapload of that time reading, rereading and editing what I’ve written, the whole process seems to flow from me quite naturally.  It’s like I’m the instrument for something much larger than me.  That may sound super cheesy and/or flaky, but it’s the best way I can describe how writing makes me feel.  The joy I experience when I’m writing, well, there are no words.  No pun intended.  You know, no words for the words I’m typing.  I know, I’m silly.

Every day I ask, “What will I write about on my blog today?” Every day, I am answered.   It may be a fragmented answer, sometimes it’s a single word, like passion, that pops into my head.  I’ll take it, sit down in front of my computer, and just start typing.  A word here and there. The next paragraph may be just a few sentences followed by a string of equal signs, my cue that I need to fill it in later. I just keep typing, editing, rearranging until I think it will make sense to my readers.  It’s been pretty cool, so far, this whole blogging thing.

Hey, guess what!  While I was searching for something else, I found the spiral-bound notebook which contains my list of vocabulary words!!  Life is good.

In the description for my humorous autobiographical book, it states that along with the giggle-snort worthy true stories, there is also some heartbreak and tragedy.

After my mother’s passing in 2013, my father remained in their home and he managed quite well by himself, the vast majority of time.  I lived 141 miles south of my parents, yet I was the most logical offspring to care for either of them in their times of need.  Thus, I was there to help them through any serious illness or after major surgeries.

During a small, family style New Year’s Eve 2016 party here at our house, I received a call from my brother-in-law, Gary, urging me to come to Ohio right away.  Dad had become quite ill and Gary expressed his deep concerns.  He and Dad had become besties and Gary would visit him daily and they’d share a cup of Nescafe coffee.  I told Gary I’d be there as soon as I could, we ended our conversation, and I explained to my family what was happening.  I told my husband, “I think I’m going to be gone for a long time, this time.”  In a flurry of activity, I packed my bags with everything I would need for an extended stay, gave my hubby an early Happy New Year kiss, and was on the road heading north by about 10:30 p.m. Little did I know, I would not return home until the following June.  Details of this precious time with my father during his last six months on this earth will be included in my book.

As far back as I can remember, Dad loved to watch the news, and my visits home were no exception.  He’d watch it every day, many times a day and, most often, very very loudly.  Now and then, he’d mute the sound and just read the closed-captioning in silence.  I truly cherished those breaks in the media noise, since one could have a difficult time ignoring the sound coming from a bright and blaring TV screen a mere 4.5 feet from one’s face. That one was me, as that is where I sat with him in that kitchen, most times, in that little blue recliner that had been my mother’s and was positioned in front of the television.  This television remained on from time Dad woke up in the morning until he went to bed at night.

I possess a very sensitive soul and it simply cannot endure the horrific, often graphic, worldly news that’s splattered all over the TV, internet, etc.  So, in order to survive my extended stay by avoiding the news details that, quite literally, have caused me to lose sleep, I purchased a single bluetooth earbud and started listening to music through my Pandora app.  I opted for a single earbud so I’d have one ear available to focus on my father’s activity.  He required a lot of supervision, the rascal.

Along with my father’s television being on all-day, he also had a small boombox in the living room on which he’d play the local classical music channel, also all day every day.   Another of his morning routines was turning on that little box.  Now, I’ve personally never been much of a classical music fan.  Many of the pieces coming from that radio station would irritate me — a lot, actually, almost to the point of banging my head on the wall.  So frantic and unorganized.  Eek.  However, when a waltz, any waltz, would start to play, I would immediately feel my spirits being lifted, it’d make my heart smile and fill me with the urge to glide all through the house along with the music like Julie Andrews on that mountaintop in The Sound of Music. I especially looked forward to catching Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky on that radio since it became and remains my favorite waltz of all time.  I suppose, mainly because it reminds me of being with Dad.

I don’t remember what type of music I listened to first on Pandora, but once I started this courtship, I spent a lot of time listening to 1940’s and 1950’s music as well as waltzes.  I do love the sound of a waltz, have I mentioned that?  While I sat just 54 inches from the distracting news screen, I could play Candy Crush, or any other game, on my iPhone, successfully avoiding eye contact with the bad news box, while being swept away by the beautiful 1-2-3 melodies playing in my ear.  I’d often close my eyes and envision a large ballroom filled with couples in their lovely formal wear, music wafting through the air as they dance ever so gracefully and effortlessly around the ballroom.  Then, I’d see myself out there twirling around the vast openness in a totally fabulous full-length ballgown.  Oooh, it’s so wonderful to dream.  (Sometimes, when I was only listening to Dad’s boombox, the triumphant part of the music would coincide with me winning a level on my game.  I loved it when that happened!  It’s the little things, isn’t it?  Ha ha.)   When I’m dreaming of waltzing, I keep seeing myself in an ivory-colored dress.   That is most definitely NOT my color.  It makes me look like I have jaundice, for real.  Some of you may think the proper word is “jaundiced,” but I looked it up.  Jaundice is a disease, so it is a noun.  Jaundiced is an adjective, so, I suppose I could’ve said I appeared jaundiced? I dunno.  I like “have jaundice” better.  On that note, I’ll be right back..I’m closing my eyes and changing the color of my dress so I don’t look jaundiced.

That took a little longer than I expected.  Almost took a nap!  I was going to say white, but that’d make me look like a bride.  While I kept my eyes closed, holding the image of my gown steadily in my mind, the color of the gown changed continually, as if I were using a fashion app, until I landed on my very favorite color — red, of course.  Not an orangy red, no.  A deep, rich, luxurious, true red.  Yes, that’s the gown.  Now, I can continue writing/typing.

Return to me sitting in my mother’s blue kitchen recliner.  Since I’d been imagining myself dancing to the songs, I had a brilliant idea.  I could check YouTube for videos of actual people dancing to the actual song which had currently resonated with me.  Insert lightbulb above my head!  Voila!!  I watched countless videos of people dancing to songs I’d heard through my earbud.  I’d watch couples dance the jitterbug, foxtrot and the Lindy hop, among others, and that is where my long-time dream of learning to dance intensified.  It looked like so much fun.  Along with my favorite waltz of all time, I quickly acquried my favorite waltz videos, which were promptly saved in my favorites.

I told you about my dance lessons at Arthur Murray, right?  After this week’s lesson, my instructor gave me homework.  To prepare for upcoming events at the studio, I am to compile of a list of songs that mean something to me along with the dance I’d like to perform to each song.  Although, Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky is my very favorite, beloved waltz, it would pose an unnecessary choreographical challenge to my instructor.  I told him not to worry and that I would find another waltz, no problem.

After I got home, I started looking through the songs on my Prime Music playlist.  It was very easy to find my very favorite disco song, Fantastic Voyage by Lakeside, that I’ll be dancing the hustle to, oh yeah.  Maybe not the advanced hustle, just yet, but the hustle.  The real deep disco beat in that song just revs me up.  The foxtrot would most definitely be to the musical genius of Glenn Miller and/or Mills Brothers.  After all, they are truly the best.  My parents would agree!  Many moons ago, my parents hosted dance parties in their basement.  I can still hear the catchy, addictive beats of their 40’s big band music and the sounds of dance wax being shuffled all over the floor by dancing couples having a splendid time, while I’m upstairs watching primetime shows like The Partrdige Family and The Brady Bunch on a black and white television.  I enjoyed listening to those dance parties, plus the snacks Mom served her guests were really yummy.

But, now, the waltz…which waltz?  I didn’t have a second favorite, nor could I even name another one.  Along with the 40’s, 50’s, and waltz music stations on Pandora, I would often listen to solo piano.  It is so relaxing, soul-calming, and reminds me of my mother playing her piano which was also located in their basement.  I did a lot of this type of thing while I stayed with Dad in order to remain calm, present and to lessen the stress of being away from my husband and my family back in Kentucky.  I searched waltzes on Prime Music and the name of one of my favorite solo pianists caught my eye.  His name is Brian Crain and the waltz listed, Butterfly Waltz.  It’s a piano and cello duet and has a lovely album cover, too.  Of course, I had to play it right then and there!

I didn’t recognize it as one I’d ever heard, but it immediately touched something inside of me.  Something very deep in my soul and completely unexpected.  Within mere seconds of listening to this beautiful waltz, I felt the welling up of emotions in my chest which grew and grew until they were bursting out of my eyes.   Streams of tears were soon cascading down my face faster than I could wipe them with a tissue, and I let them.  You see, I hadn’t fully processed my grief after losing Dad, now nearly two years ago.  Oh, since my father died, I would allow some tears to fall here and there, but only in small, metered increments which I felt I could withstand.  You see, I’d still had a job to do and was determined to see it through and, hopefully, make my parents proud:  I had to clean out their house, their memories and personal items, and sell their house.  The house they’d lived in since 1965.  The house that was built in 1949, the year they got married.  So, not realizing it, I’d put my personal grieving on hold.  A serious hold.  My job of selling their house was completed last October.  I still haven’t been back to see it, though I know it is being truly loved and well taken care of by my niece and her little family.   There’s new life in my parents’ home now and I’m very thankful.  It, too, had mourned my parents’ passing and its grief was much more evident than my own.

I have found my waltz.  It feels as though Butterfly Waltz narrates my entire life, playing it back for me in 3:43 minutes of beautiful music.  It represents the sacrifices I made in order to take care of my parents, no matter the inconvenience or the cost.  “Doing the right thing isn’t always convenient,” I would often say.  It’s the putting myself on the back burner for one reason or another and the many decades of maybe somedays.  But, most of all, it is me saying, “I did it, Mom and Dad!  I took care of everything the way you wanted me to.  And, look at me!  I’m dancing to some of your favorite music now!  Can you believe it?!  It has been very hard, but I think I can let go of you now, feel my sorrow, and move forward with my life — my life without you here on earth.  I hope I’ve made you proud.  I love you both and will miss you every day — for always.”

At the next Arthur Murray event, I may look like one of the celebrities on Dancing With the Stars, dancing under the mirrored ball to a personally meaningful song with tears streaming down their face as the camera zooms in to get a serious closeup like they’re trying to count each tear that falls.  I may be a blubbering, floor-soaking mess.  But, I’ll be out on that ballroom floor — waltzing.

P.S.  I fully intend to master that advanced hustle dance, too, daggonit!!

It was late June 2018, a beautiful, warm, and sunny day. After getting home from work that afternoon, I had a little extra energy and decided to work on the little chicks’ run and mini coop. The six adult hens and cocky rooster enjoyed the show through the chicken wire between the two coops. I put lots of lovely, fluffy shaved pine bedding in the mini coop, then cleaned out the water bowl and filled it with fresh water. 

Ahh, happy chickies! With a feeling of joyous accomplishment, I opened the door — uh, tried to open the door to get out, but it would not open. “Seriously?!” I exclaimed as I tried to open the door a second time. Nope. Nothing. Ordinarily, I would have my cellphone tucked into my waistband for just such emergencies (to which I seem to be awfully prone). This time, however, I had laid my phone on the outer window ledge on the big chickens’ coop so I couldn’t accidentally drop it in the muddy run. Smart, right? My phone was several feet away and out of my sight. Great! Hubby won’t be home for at least four more hours. Great!! No one inside the house would be able to hear me yelling. Great!!! I’m freaking stuck in here, and I’m going to die. I can see the news story: Woman trapped in a chicken coop for hours suffers severe dehydration and numerous deep, life-threatening wounds from vicious pecking chickens! I tell ya, it’s the modern-day version of that Alfred Hitchcock movie! You can’t make this stuff up, folks!

There I was — trapped — left with 16 young, inquisitive chickens and my own wits and resourcefulness to get myself out of this mess. Okay, we’re breaking out of this mother! The door to the run opens out into the yard, usually. I tried to pull it inside, against its normal flow, which got me nowhere. As luck would have it, the metal pipes I hammered into the ground to keep raccoons from digging under the fencing were now keeping ME from getting OUT. I’m sure the raccoons are having a good laugh right about now.  Next, I pushed the door hard, in the right direction, hoping that whatever the SOB was catching on would be released. Of course, that didn’t work either. Okay, let’s try kicking the bottom of the door really hard. Yeah, that was futile. The next few minutes remain a blur to me as my panic from being trapped took over, and I basically beat the hell out of the door and bent the entire frame to the chicken run. However, to my surprise, my maniacal efforts paid off as I discovered a 6-inch gap through which I could possibly make my escape. I think I can. I think I can!  I squeezed my body through the tiny and incredibly painful opening, effectively shaving inches off my hind-end and my breasts and finally got myself free! At that point, I had 23 birds standing there motionless, staring at me with a look that said, “What the cluck was her problem?”

Since my teen years, I’ve always wanted to learn to dance, you know, like club dancing, out there doing your own thing. But, I was always too shy to get out on a dance floor, or any floor, and shake my groove thing. Yeah, I’m a product of being a teenager in the 70’s. For a brief period of time, when I was about 17, I did go to a local disco tech. They had specific, alcohol-free hours just for teens. I believe the age-range permitted to enter was 15-17 years old. I was dragged there by a very persistent friend and to this very day that friend remains the only person to ever get me to dance in public. But, oh how others have tried and tried, and failed and failed. Heck, I wouldn’t even dance when I was home alone, with all the curtains drawn, doors locked, and the lights off. Regardless of my persistent friend’s belief that I, too, possessed the ability to cut loose under the sparkling mirrored ball hanging from the ceiling of this disco tech, I would only mimic someone else’s moves, mostly hers. I had no moves of my own. Nothing original. No “dancing with” or “feeling the music,” like they always tell you.

Now fast forward a couple decades or so, the year is 2002, I’m 41-years old and had been divorced for several months. It was then that I started going to a country-western bar with my very good friend, Dianne. We would meet there most every weekend night and we’d enjoy watching all the people shaking their stuff out on that dance floor. I actually met my current and forever husband at that bar. Ladies, there are good men in bars, though I’d never have imagined meeting one there. I only went to hang out with Dianne. Anyway, I admired the crowds of happy dancing patrons, even the truly goofy-looking ones, for they all shared the courage to go out there and have a ball. I so wished that I could be that brave. Of course, being that we were all in a bar, a bar that served alcohol, it maybe could’ve been that “liquid courage” working on those dancers. Coincidentally, I’ve yet to find the correct dosage of liquid courage that’ll make me do it. Truth be told, I haven’t tried very hard to find it either. Still, weekend after weekend, there I would sit, watching and sometimes envying the fun being had by all of those brave people. Oh, many times I’d have the urge to run on out and join the party, but my overwhelming fear of making a complete fool of myself would always stamp out that urge and I’d remain seated. Then, one night there I was, elbows on the table, my chin resting on top of my folded hands, yet another night of watching everyone dance up a storm while I stayed put, motionless. I’d had enough. I braved up and…no, I didn’t go out there and dance, but I did make myself a promise: “Before I turn 42, I’m going to go out there and shake my stuff!” Well…did I do it? Show of hands, do you think I did it? Did I? Why, of course not!! I’m now 57 and still haven’t done it.

More recently, in 2017, I suffered from excruciating pain caused by a pinched nerve in my neck. I tell ya, I think I’d rather give birth ten times, without an epidural or any other type of pain medicine! It was relentless, constant, never easing, and nothing provided relief. Thankfully, I signed up with a wonderful physical therapist named Chad. During our sessions, we’d always talk and shared a lot of laughs. I can laugh through pain, I’m tough like that. I get that from my father. That clinic sure was a fun environment to work the kinks out of your body. In one of my sessions, I shared with Chad the details of my anti-dance plight, of being too big of a chicken to just go do it and how I’d broken a promise to myself several years earlier. I don’t remember how many therapy sessions I had before I was released and virtually pain-free. I continued the exercises at home and they finally stopped that last little bit of discomfort.

I did miss seeing Chad and went back weeks later just to visit. We chatted a bit and I told him, “I still haven’t gotten out on that dance floor.” He said, “You just need to go sign up for dance lessons at Arthur Murray. Just do it.” Hmm..”Yeah, okay,” I thought while kind of mentally rolling my eyes. But, when I left the clinic, Chad’s words were playing on a loop in my head. Arthur Murray. Arthur Murray! ARTHUR MURRAY!! As luck, or fate, would have it, I was driving through the fairly large city where Arthur Murray just happened to be located. It was a busy time of day and traffic was very heavy. I drove straight through the downtown area with no idea why because I usually avoid that area at all costs. Then, I saw it. There in the distance was the road which leads to the road that would take me to Arthur Murray. I was in the left lane of the very crowded two lanes leaving downtown. As that right turn was approaching, getting closer and closer, cars bumper to bumper in both lanes, I said, “Okay, fine! If this crazy traffic opens up and allows me to get over in the right lane, I’ll make that right turn and go sign up at Arthur Murray.” I’ll have you know, that the traffic in the right lane literally opened up at least two car lengths long. The universe was like, “Here’s your sign!! Come on over!” I was stunned. I’m sure my mouth gaped open in disbelief. Well, this is sometimes what happens when you challenge the universe.

I arrived at the dance studio, walked in all brave (ha ha) and actually signed up for lessons. You don’t want to irritate the universe, after all, especially when it opened a door of opportunity for you that was two whole car lengths long. I scheduled my first lesson for the very next day. I was so nervous. When you hear “private lessons,” you picture you and the instructor in a room or studio alone, don’t you? I know I did. But, you’re in a large studio with other students who are with their own instructors. There are a lot of eyes in there. I made it through that lesson and drove home with the rhythm and count from my first dance still playing in my head. When I first started, my lessons were only once a month and it’s a bit more difficult to learn dancing with that interval.

As of today, it’s been a bit over a year since I started taking dance lessons at Arthur Murray and have increased them to once a week. I think I’ve had a total of 21 lessons so far and at each and every one of them, my instructor has suggested that I “start coming to the group classes” so I could get more practice. I was nervous enough toying with the perimeter of my comfort zone with just the private lessons and he wants me to join a group?! Then, one day a couple weeks ago, I decided “I’m just going to do it! I’m going to the group lesson for the hustle dance.” It was an advanced class for the hustle, too, but it was the only one available for me to jump on while I was feeling so fearless. Something pushed me to do it anyway. I was all courageous and daring when I asked the instructor if I could attend regardless of my current abilities and coordination. Surprisingly, she allowed me to stay. Well, you remember when I said my fear of making a fool of myself overpowered all my urges to shake it on a dance floor? Going to this advanced hustle group class was the very best thing I could’ve done for myself because making a fool of myself was exactly what I did in that class. I’d spin the wrong direction, step on toes, miss the cue to rotate to the next dance partner (you change partners frequently in a group classes), and I’d sometimes hold my partner’s hands too tightly. I looked like I’d been spun around about a 100 times and then unleashed onto the dance floor. I totally made a fool of myself. But, you know what? I survived. I wasn’t thrown out of the class. I wasn’t banned from Arthur Murray. For the past forty-something years, perhaps I could’ve been dancing if I’d only gone out there and made a fool of myself sooner.

So, if there is something you really want to do in this life, but you are being held back by the fear of looking foolish, I say to you:  Do it anyway!  Do it now!!  Go to the next higher level class like I did, dance like a buffoon, look that fear right in the face and say, “You don’t scare me any more. I faced you and I survived.” It’s liberating!  You may be wondering if I have yet to shake my bootie or my groove thing out there all by myself. Not quite yet. But, I am getting closer! I’m currently learning how to shake my hips in couples dances. I didn’t know mine would or could even move that way. I’d always thought it had to do with being limber or flexible. Did you know, that truly has nothing to do with it? It has everything to do with your knees. Your knees control you’re hips. Wow! Kaboom! Mind blown.

Side note: I had my weekly dance lesson today and we practiced a lot of turns and spins. I get dizzy very easily so those are a challenge, but that’s beside the point. My instructor said, “Every time I spin you, you pop.” I don’t hear it, but he does. He said it sounds like it’s coming from my shoulder. Now, when I go to my lesson next week I’ve got to ask him if we can invent a dance called “The Spin and Pop.” LOL! Stay tuned…

I shared this story with my Facebook friends last Friday. I am a registered nurse and work prn (that’s “as needed” for you non-medical folks). My schedule is flexible and varies week to week. Kind of like part-time but without a regular schedule. Anyway…

Last week, I worked more days than I usually do, and longer hours, too. By Thursday night, I was really hoping they wouldn’t need me Friday and would call me off because I felt I was developing a cold and wanted nothing more than to sleep sleep sleep. Not receiving the coveted, you-can-be-off-tomorrow message Thursday evening, and determined to not call in and leave my co-workers short-staffed (I’m so conscientious that way), I plodded through the house to perform my readying routine for the next work day. My scrub set, along with the required undergarments, was rolled up and placed on my dresser. My iWatch was placed on its charger on the kitchen counter next to all the things I put in my scrub pockets for work each day, as well as my car keys. I poured water into my coffee pot and scooped the precise amount of Starbucks mocha coffee grounds into the filter. Close the lid. I was ready and could relax until bedtime. Contented sigh. Friday morning comes and the first of my two iPhone alarms blasts away. I swear it was like 20 minutes after I’d closed my eyes. I get up, brush my teeth, then head to the kitchen to turn on my juice-of-life maker and get my travel mug in position to receive it. Shower, dress, makeup, briefly muss with the hair. Oy!! Well, it looks good enough, I’m tired — just let that freakin’ mega-huge cow lick show! I don’t care! Put on shoes and head back to the kitchen to pour my coffee. What?! It didn’t even brew?! I thought, I must not have put the water in it, so I commenced to filling up my plastic 2-cup measuring cup, which I use daily, with the proper amount of water and after about a third of that water was poured into the coffee maker, I realized the water had in fact already been in there. I’d just left the thing unplugged. I had precious little extra time to start from scratch, so I decided to let it brew and cut it off before it used the excess water. Making such good use of my time while my morning elixir is brewing, I go outside and feed the cats. (A group of cats is called a “clowder.” Did you know that? I learned that from Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory. I learn a lot from television.) Anyway…having placed nine equal piles of dry cat food on the driveway, spaced very equally, too, by the way, I go back into the house to check the coffee process and decide it’s brewed enough for my daily cup of life juice. Turn off the pot. Pour fresh, hot coffee into my mug, give it a taste test and discover it is not right. Too strong. So, I turn the coffee maker back on and let it spit out some more juice. Hmm…that looks about right. Nope, still too strong. Allow a bit more water spittage and pour part of it into my mug. That’s good enough. Shut off the coffee maker and unplug it. Out the door and into my car. Every morning, once I’ve driven through the 6 miles of country road and turn on the main road, I start sipping my coffee and today’s cup was just not right. Now, it’s too weak. Oh well, I’m drinking this SOB’ing stuff anyway after all that extra effort. I don’t care! I work all day, all the while hoping to be sent home early. You know, the coveted you-can-go-home-now verbiage. Nope. Lunch comes. Lunch ends. Back to work and I finish at my regularly scheduled time. It’s all good. I survived and had a few good laughs with my co-workers. It was actually a pretty good day, despite my constant desire for slumber. 

During my 25-mile drive home, I contemplate: Now, do I want to try to take a nap when I get home, or do I want to make a second cup of coffee? Three o’clock is kind of late to take a nap. On the other hand, three o’clock is also kind of late to be drinking coffee, too. I mull this over while twirling my hair with my left hand as I maneuver through the bustling Friday afternoon traffic. This sleep vs. coffee vs. sleep debate would continue until I was within 5 miles of home, and my drive to/from work is 30 minutes long, with good traffic. Finally, I reached a decision. ANOTHER CUP OF COFFEE IT IS!! I might be up too late tonight, but I don’t care! 

The night before, my hubby and I had done some grocery shopping and, as luck would have it, Walmart was out of our favorite Starbucks mocha, “chocolaty and luscious” coffee. Great! Grr! But, I opted to give their vanilla-flavored ground coffee a try. What the heck is a vanilla anyway? So, after I got home from work on this sleepy, Friday, I thought it’d be a good time to try it this vanilla stuff out. If it sucked, I wouldn’t finish it, would still have ingested a little bit of caffeine to maybe help me stay awake a while longer AND I would still be able to sleep at bedtime. Sounds like a win-win to me. I fill my 2-cup measuring cup with water and pour it into coffee maker. Scoop precise amount of vanilla coffee grounds into filter. Plug in pot and turn it on. Several minutes later, I go back to the kitchen to pour my anticipated afternoon vanilla coffee treat and soon find that I have way more coffee than my very large coffee mug will hold. Yep! The coffee maker STILL had unused water in it from the morning coffee fiasco, and, apparently, I’d left a bit of brewed coffee in the pot as well. I decide that, screw it, I’m drinking it anyway. It wasn’t really bad, just a bit weak. But, then I realized that what I’d be drinking was the morning’s cold failure of brewed chocolate coffee that had been sitting in the pot all day which was now mixed with the fresh vanilla coffee. Nope. Couldn’t do it. Down the sink. Rinse. Start over. From scratch!

Ugh! Rinse out my very large coffee mug, place it in dish rack. Scoop out the freakin’ vanilla, NOT CHOCOLATE — well, NOT MOCHA — ground coffee into another cotton-picking coffee filter. Fill up the cute lil 2-cup measuring cup with the precise amount of water, just over the 2-cup mark. Pour it into the [insert any irritated adjective — I can’t think of another one and — I don’t care] coffee maker! Flip the switch. Minutes later, a nice cup of aromatic vanilla coffee is brewed. I pour it into my big mug, add my precise amount of heavy whipping cream, give it a stir, then take a test sip. It’s actually quite tasty and could, possibly, be my new coffee flavor, or at least an additional one. I’m enjoying it as I type out this heart-wrenching java saga to share it with you. I’ve only got about one-third of that coffee left in my mug so…I may be awake until 3:00 a.m. tomorrow. But, you know what? I don’t care!!