I agree with you Faye. If I bought yogurt and read this on the container I would put it back on the shelf thinking, "I really didn't want to know that."
Dec. 30, 2019 ... 07:04 hours PST ..... "There are three paths in life. The first path leads to death with honor. The second path life, but one of shame. The third path ............. a life with honor. The third path is the most difficult." Faetta Fox ... Dec. 30, 2019 From the wisdom of my Great Great Grandma.
Dec. 31, 2019 11:15 hours PST --- Day after day of overcast skies and cold temperature, started putting a damper on my naturally sunshiny attitude that you all are accustom. I have been delinquent in my diary keeping for this reason. I have gone for walks every day to break this funk. Something seems to always happen along the way, things like almost getting hit in the crosswalk by drivers that don't plan their time properly. Ugly looks and language may occur and this upsets the blossoming warmth and goodwill that the walk has expanding inside me. I decided to walk this morning and put a little sashay in my rhythm. As I sashayed by a dept. store window, I noticed it was empty except for nude manikins and a little girl, maybe four, doing poses like she is a model. I stopped and did some silly poses and she copied me, perfectly. After about half a dozens of these diva poses, I noticed clerks looking around the side of the long backdrop panels that give character to their displays. They were smiling! Suddenly a lady with a worried stern look comes in and grabs the little girl. As she grabs her, I wave at the poor little thing and she waves back. I start walking fast, forgetting to sashay, away from the place. I am several stores down when I hear ... FAYE FAYE FAYE ... I recognize the voice as that of a young lady I know well, that works in the store. I don't respond because I fear both the little girl and I are in big trouble with mommy. I get a call on my cell and the clerk says the mother wants to thank you for keeping her daughter in one place as the store was being searched. A great warmth came over me and I felt all sunny inside. I had done a good thing that didn't turn out bad. That cute little girl really made my day. So glad that this year isn't going out with me all serious and gloomy.
Jan. 2, 2020 09:44 Hours PST ---- Please keep posting your stories here on SOC. I am still on Season 1 Episode 5 and hooked! I have discontinued Netflix. Please don't leave me hanging in suspense. Sincerely, Faye
Jan. 2, 2020 12:52 hours PDT Many have said I look like my Great Great Grandma, a full blood Chickasaw. A friend was over today and saw her photo on my wall and commented on how much alike we looked and suggested trying overlay as a test. I had never thought of trying this. Our features fit almost perfect. My neck is longer and my hair shorter and bushed up, but I am stunned with the facial results. Even her earrings are in the right place.
Thank you dear! I am still totally shocked how perfectly my photo matched up with my GGGma's! I had no idea! It is just unreal I think my avatar gives me a look of wisdom. ha ha ha!
Jan. 4, 2020 07:35 PST Another day of overcast with the wind. I am feeling great this morning but still clueless about what I can do to get back to my hobbies. I must find something else to do besides punching these computer keys, now with the letters worn off them, requiring going back and hitting the right letter. I did take typing in High School and hit 30 WPM which didn't impress any employer, even when I interviewed wearing a miniskirt. This was perhaps the reason I continued my education and became a fully licensed Broadcast Engineer. I loved AM broadcast radio work! It wasn't easy for me to get accepted employed as such. My first job was 4 hours on Sunday being a DJ playing those long easy listening albums with breaks for the news and a few ads. It was hard to stay awake. Nothing easy listening about that music. It was hard to keep my head from falling on the console. The other 4 hours were spent doing the FCC required meter readings and equipment cleaning, even the toilets. I did other jobs like carpentry and sewing backpacks during the week to make enough to be independent. My big break came when a job opened to help move a station to a new location and was around the clock as time was of the essence, so they had to hire another 1st Class licensed engineer. I was the only one they could find, so I got the job and the Cheif Engineer was impressed after he showed me around and gave me an easy final wiring job on the console, then he left for a few hours to get sleep, and when he returned I had the console wired and working and also the faulty remote link to the transmitter corrected. Once this job was finished, I wasn't needed there, so I took a job at a TV station that I hated because the other engineers gave me all the boring jobs and usually cleaning up after them. I found another little AM radio station and was hired as Cheif Engineer since the only other engineer was not 1st class. The pay was bad and I had to sell ads, and DJ, to get in full-time work. I then went to work at a large FM station and FM wasn't my thing. About then equipment began becoming automated and the need for a 1st Class engineer was fading. I took a construction job and worked in the construction trades for most of my working years. I was also a state social worker for a couple of years and some other mundane female-oriented jobs I can't remember this morning. It wasn't that I didn't like dressing up and sashaying around an office, but I preferred fieldwork. I think it was my being raised on a mountain ranch that made me hate being put in a corner. This was long before Dirty Dancing and Baby being put in a corner. I never liked dancing, dirty or not!
Faye, it sounds like you had a very interesting and exciting life. I envy you. You have so many good memories you can't even keep track of them all. Don't let the weather slow you down. There will always be weather.
Jan. 4, 2020 17:26 hours PST --- @Nancy Hart Please don't envy me! Most of my adult life has been stress. I am lucky to be alive. I can think of at least a dozen times that it was nothing short of a miracle I survived. I think I told one of these stories in another thread, but I will sleep on if I will post any of the other stories. As you know, I like to try to be funny telling my stories and lace them with sarcastic wit at times. These death-defying stories will require some thought to find the humor in them that is being masked by my relaxed evening memory. OK, now for my night time brandy gargle to clean the remaining denture glue and the lights are going out in Fayeville, after a few word puzzles to keep my brain sharp.
Jan. 5, 2020 06:23 hours PST --- After sleeping on whether I should tell my death-defying stories or not, I decided not for now. I tried in vain to find the one I had posted on SOC a few weeks ago. After an investigation in the style of Sherlock Holmes, I wasn't able to locate it this fine morning. I loved reading Nancy Drew as a child and was always looking for a mystery to solve and impress the neighbor boys that thought they were the cat's meow and the dog's bark when it came to investigating the low crimes and Miss demeanors that occurred in those mountains parts. I even purposely left an easy to see a fingerprint on a gate latch on one of my mystery creations for these Hardy Boys to solve. They had no clue. Each blamed the other and claimed they had matched their brother's prints, so I conspired with their mother. It was taboo to leave a gate open on a ranch, even if no animals were in its confinement. I left a paddock gate open and purposely made very easy to see footprints with my custom made cowgirl boots. The sole and heel were unmistakable. Well, these pre-testosterone driven (ages 8, 9, and 10) sleuths did plaster cast and took measurements and argued their case to their dad (he also was in on the scam) blaming the other brother. Their mother called me to come over and witness this pre-trial Judge's only hearing. I sat there facing the accused, all pleading their case with hard evidence against the other, and I had my legs crossed and the bottom of one boot facing them. I even had a little mud still around where the soles met the uppers. They each had a theory of why the cast didn't match the other brother's boots exactly. Their theories did all have some validity. Then their mother burst out laughing and stood and pointed to my boot sole. The youngest that had a quick temper, threw his cast down and it shattered everywhere as he stormed off to his room/forensics lab. They refused to play any more detective after that. Silly girl stuff they called it. That ended my Nancy Drew amazing super-sleuth, forensics expert days.
Jan. 6, 2020 06:11 hours PST ... --- ... What story should I tell? Should I retell the one about the bear and the bloody buckskin dress I deleted because one reader questioned it to be true? Maybe the one about my job in bridge construction where I was a bossette and wore a miniskirt to orientation? I already told the one about getting whacked on the side of my head by a 300 lb swinging piece of steel and it bored everyone so bad their fingers seized and they couldn't hit the like button. Maybe best to let those stories stay untold. I did think of one last night about my one and only high-speed chase. I was leaving Texas after I finished a temporary radio engineering job there and I stopped for gas at the last big town, Socorro, on that lonely New Mexico highway, before heading to Albuquerque on my way back home to Colorado. It was a very isolated highway and part of it through an Indian reservation. I had about 500 miles on my new Chevy Camero. I went into the station's all-night store to get some refreshments. It was about 2 AM. I noticed a car with four guys in it as I got into my car. I stopped at a red light and these guys were signaling at me and banished a handgun. The minute the light changed, I floored it and took off out of town. I could see their lights gaining on me doing 70 mph on this 50 mph poorly maintained road. That highway was famous for horses and cattle standing on the highway at night as well as rattlesnakes going there for warmth. I keep speeding up and they kept gaining. I put the speedometer on 120 mph, the highest it registered and the lights stayed about the same distance back for over 50 miles. The road was very straight and I had travelled it many times. I blew through a couple of small sleepy villages. Finally, the lights seemed to drop back so I slowed and kept it about 80 mph until I saw them finally turn around. I slowed to 70 and kept that until I reached a turnout that overlooked the outskirts Albuquerque. I pulled over and must have passed out because the next thing I knew a flashlight was in my face and a cop was knocking on my window. I was shaking as I told the officer my story. He said travelers some times pull over there for a bit of sleep, but my being slumped forward holding on to the wheel caught his attention. It was 5 AM. He radioed in my description of the car and guys. He got the report back that these guys tried to abduct another lady, but the police were hiding watching as they had received several reports of these guys banishing a handgun.
Jan. 6, 2020 07:53 hours PST ... --- ... Old age memory is an amazing thing. Shortly before Christmas, I was going to share this story, but I forgot until this morning. Unlike my other stories of epic proportions, this one is an examination of a word that the urban meaning was unbeknownist to one such as myself. Putting aside my failure to grasp the English language, either the Queen's version or the backwoods version, I must admit my laziness in Googling the definition of this word. A young lady, of the kissing selfie school, was the one that defined it for me. What has the world come to? Teenagers educating us old folks on word meanings. I still rely on that four-inch thick leather-bound Webster I inherited from my dad. The word in question was not in it. Therefore I question its validity. When I have to rely on former snot-nosed brats, now hormonal driven teenagers, vocabulary genius, as approved by the online Urban Dictionary, then I feel like the alligator that watched the T Rex being knocked over by the asteroid striking the Yucatan many moons ago. As a gator, I can maintain my balance and suffer only a headache through this invasion of modern word definition. What killed the T Rex, is making me strong. Here is the story. As I have reported in a fair and balanced way before, my neighbor Zek is also a friend and while we are not and have never been involved in the performance of the uglies, we do look after each other. His wife died many years ago and I promised his daughter that he would not be left on his own to do foolish things or if he did a female presence would be close to point out the error of his ways. He is a retired firefighter and he is still invited to attend some of their special functions. Since most are married or have a partner, he got tired of always going alone. He worked up the courage to ask me if I would accompany him to such soirees. I accepted. Before Christmas, the men and women of the emergency service hosted an informal get together and brunch. The ones on duty wore their uniforms and their emergency vehicles were parked ready to respond. They decided on a brunch as it was the slowest time of the day. Trying to blend into the all couples party, I walked with my arm looped in his as we entered. I overheard one young woman refer to me as his wifey. I have always thought that it was a derogatory term. I questioned her and she said in today's urban dictionary definition it means one that looks after another like a wife but isn't. Who wrote the urban dictionary? Zek swears he never said anything besides telling them the story of me micromanaging him when he was stranded on his roof for hours. I rebuked him for his choice of words. I requested he refers to me as SAVING HIS LIFE, not nagging and micromanaging his careless ways. I want to be known as a heroine, not a wifey!
Faye, I love your stories. You should write a book. Could you come up with a theme to tie all your experiences together?