A Gramma Mary Moment

When I was six, Christine had a friend named Emily and Emily had everything. Going to her house to spend the night was like going to Disney Land (or China, where they make all of the things we envied). Hello Kitty, Little Twin Star, Atari, you name it. She even had a fluffy-headed stuffed animal named Frou Frou. When you shook her head (in the most loving and affectionate way, of course) her soft, pretty pink hair would stand up all over. Every little girl's Must Have. After much begging, pleading and the donation of our left kidneys, our parents decided that we too deserved our own Frou Frous. So, they talked to Santa and he was was given consent to leave, under the tree, a pink headed white headed Frou Frou for Christine and a blue-headed Frou Frou for me.
It was not long after we got our fluffy headed Froufs that we discovered putting baby powder in their hair was too much fun! A little shake of powder went a long way. A half a bottle would make it into the next room, at least.
We stayed at Gramma Mary's one weekend and were having our usual fantabulous Frou Frou fun when Gramma came in and took the powder away, telling us, "You're going to give yourselves asthma!"

*** UPDATE***

For those of you who were wondering, this is a Frou Frou Doll.
(Gotta love Google)

Frou Frou, Made by Dakin.

1/365 Gramma Mary

You would be 101 today. I miss you much more than you would realize. I think about you often. Me and Mommy talked about you the other day. Did you hear us?

Happy Birthday, Gramma.




I am a participant in x365.

I Can't Even Name This Post

A Toast to Jenni's friend, Catheroo

I got home late from work today and am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. Even though I know I should be in bed it kills me to think that daylight hours are wasted away by barely sleeping, working, and barely sleeping again... despite the fact that this 7 day work week is the sacrifice I make for wanting to take two vacay's in one month. Ok... I asked for it.
Forcing myself to stay awake to maintain somewhat of a 'normal' person's life, I am outside (it is currently 101 in sunny AZ), drinking my drink and catching up on blogs. This is relaxing for me.
Jenni's page is so cute. It looks like "E" may have an "ET" toe like my sister. I love it. There may be a picture posted later... she will not like it but her toe will maintain its anonymity.
There is a fly that keeps landing on my leg and I am going to swat the _ out of it in a second if it doesn't stop.
L was is another accident this week and totaled the camper. No one was hurt but I hate that I heard it from my mom two days after the fact. I emailed her. Everyone is okay.
It's f***ing hot out here.
Random memories come to my mind time to time and a lot of them have to do with Gramma Mary. Blogs are becoming a means to logging my memories (inaccurate as they may be). I remember Gramma Mary's cold, wet kisses that smelled like Milwaukee's Best.
Damn fly. I need to keep flyswatters in every room like she did.
Did I mention it's hot?
Vegas this weekend! I can't wait! It will be my first real visit as the first time I was there, I was 19 and with my boyfriend, just driving through back from CA to AZ. My friend 'J' and 'S' have everything planned out which I am grateful for since I would be at a loss... hopefully not at the tables. I will be 34 on Sunday, even though MySpace thinks that I am already.
We fly back on Monday night. Tuesday AM I am driving down to Tucson to stay with my parents. Jenni and Co. will be there and I get to see her after ... 10 years? Seriously, has it been that long. I can not believe that. Plus! I get to meet the whole family! So excited!
Two more nights of work and then my vacation begins... I think I can...
Work sucks this week. I love my job but sometimes I think that management just doesn't get what a a staff nurse does during a typical shift at night. Patients do NOT sleep. We do NOT sit around. They are just as sick at night as they are in the day time. I think this misconception is one of the reasons we are continually understaffed with CNA's (God bless 'em) and called into the office for 'a discussion' when we end up working overtime. That's it... no more about work. I can't even think about it. I have to be back in 7 hours and need to sleep.
Shoo fly!
It's too hot to lounge outside.
Finally, a toast, to Jenni's friend, Catheroo. I clicked her link after reading Jenni's post and saw she was blogging & drinking her Fat Tire before bed. A toast to a great weekend for all... Happy Independence Day! Have fun and be safe... nitey nite for now.

Weekly News: BINGO!

The last time I played Bingo I was in either elementary school or Junior High. Gramma Mary went every weekend to play with her senior friends from Saint Anthony's and would bring Christine and I along, on occasion. The two of us would spend the night at her house on Friday night, eat ice cream that she bought with change she made from recycling aluminum cans and sit on her couches watching 'Murder She Wrote' and 'Columbo' before bed. We shared the full sized bed in her second bedroom and stayed up giggling and talking. Sometimes she would come in and tell us to be quiet and go to sleep.
We played with Gramma's Bingo group during our summer vacation in a small two-room building on the side of the church which was hot and had a swamp cooler that seemed to work only half the time. The games were played for pennies and Christine and I used a collapsable plastic cup to hold our pennies in. Most of the regulars would have a jar of pennies and about 20 cards in front of them. C and I would have one or two, which is probably as much as we could handle. I also remember that they used to have clever ways of calling out certain numbers. Such as "B - ELIVIN... one, one", or "B - four... be-fore I grew up and I was a child...", and then everyone would laugh.
Last night, my friend 'K' and I went to the Ft. McDowell Casino to play Bingo. It was my first time going to play and I have to say that it was a totally different experience than Gramma's Bingo. There are hundreds of people who play, everything is electronic and a winning bingo can look like a "Crazy Tree", "Picture Frame" or giraffe. Although winning $1.26 at Gramma's Bingo was very rewarding, I could handle winning $100,000 for a $3 game. Yes... I could stand that.