Memory Lane

Back in 1978 one of my co-workers set me up with one of his friends. I was out shopping on the day of the blind date and happened to run across a sun lamp.

Back then, there were no such things as tanning beds. Well, at least I don't think so. I'd never used a sun lamp, but it was the dead of winter in Utah and being a former sun worshiper, the idea of getting a tan indoors intrigued me. So I bought it.

There was no time to read the instructions, get in an hour of tanning (are you seeing where this might be heading?) AND get properly primped for my date, so I opened the box, plugged in the lamp and got started. I laid on my stomach and propped myself up by my elbows and placed the sunlamp only far enough away to cover the parts that would show in winter: My face, neck and top of my chest.

After about 10 minutes of this, I was bored so turned on the TV and watched it while soaking up the UV rays. Running out of time, I shut the sun lamp off after 30 minutes and started getting ready for my date. I was disappointed that I didn't even have so much as a hint of pink or tan. Oh well, I thought, I'll just spend more time under the lamp tomorrow.

About an hour into my date, my face and neck started really tingling and my eyes were very sensitive. It was about that time that my blind date started asking me, "Are you OK?"

When I went to the restroom, it became apparent why my date was so concerned about me. I had blisters all over my face and neck, and my eyes were extremely puffy and red (and hurt like hell!). I was mortified. After leaving the restroom, I told my date that I wanted to go home and he didn't argue. I suppose it is kind of embarrassing to look as if you're dating a leper.

The blisters got worse and my eyeballs started swelling up (My EYEBALLS!) so my roommate took me to the emergency room where I was diagnosed with second degree burns on my face and neck. I couldn't shut my eyes that night, even though I had ice packs on my face to take down the swelling.

My face was a mess for weeks, and since I was a waitress at the time my manager wouldn't let me come to work. He said that I looked horrible and he didn't want me to gross out the customers. Yeah, he was a charmer. So there I was, ugly and out of work. I was really enjoying myself.

I had a date for Homecoming which was about three weeks after the tanning 'incident'. Within two weeks, my manager thought I finally looked good enough to seat people (but still not good enough to wait on them), but my homecoming date disagreed. He stopped by a few days before the dance, and when he saw me he 'suggested' that we just spend homecoming alone in my apartment. Me thinks he didn't want to be seen with scarface.

Interestingly enough, blind date guy never contacted me again even though our mutual friend tried explaining to him that this was not what I normally looked like.

Now, being older and wiser, I think the fact that he didn't want to go out with me again had nothing to do with how I looked. I think it's because he didn't want to date someone who could be that stupid. He was doing his part for the betterment of mankind by not perpetuating that gene pool.

I had a school girl crush on Richard M. Nixon. There, I've said it. It's out in the open and I'm finally freed from my dark secret.

I fear that I'll lose one of my loyal readers over this, my mother-in-law. Really Mom, it was very innocent! I was 12 when I became aware of my feelings for the man and it had nothing to do with politics.

Come on now, look at this face....


What 12 year old girl WOULDN'T have a crush on this man?

I noticed the other day that it was the anniversary of his death on my "Today in Twisted History" list and I got to wondering about why I would have a crush on Richard M. Nixon. Sure, I had typical crushes and David Cassidy was right up there, but he didn't have the *power* that Tricky Dick had.

I think that crush was my first inkling that I was attracted to men with power. I've never really grown out of that (but have since grown out of my crush on Richard M. Nixon.) It has nothing to do with money, it's more of a presence. Nobody in the world had more power at the time in my eyes than the President of the United States.

Plus, I happened to live in the city where he was born. In front of the little blue house was a sign, "The birthplace of our president, Richard M. Nixon". Whenever anyone asks me where I grew up I say, "I grew up in Yorba Linda, the birthplace of our president, Richard M. Nixon". Sometimes I say "beloved president, Richard Milhouse Nixon" just to mix it up a bit.

I was glued to the set during the Watergate scandal. I even wrote him a tear stained letter telling him that I hated those people who were doing that to him. Ummmm, remember kids, I was 12! I received a letter back from him thanking me for my support and blah blah blah "youth of today" blah blah blah. Hand signed by Richard M. Nixon.

I framed that letter and when I moved away from home I hung it on my wall when I lived in student housing. My roommate, being a hard-core democrat, was none too pleased with my framed letter hanging on our bedroom wall, so she'd take it down and hide it just to torment me.

Eventually, the framed letter was lost for good.

I don't know what happened to my framed letter, nor do I know what happened to my crush on Richard M. Nixon.

What I do know is that there is probably no other blog in existence that mentions Richard M. Nixon's name no less than nine times (10 if you include "tricky Dick"). And I'm absolutely certain that I'm the only person in the world who had a crush on him at the age of 12.

May the object of my 12 year old affections rest in peace.

I have no idea why this memory popped into my head, but I've decided to horrify you all with this story of a surgical mishap. One that happened to yours truly.

I've had problems in the past with anesthesia, resulting in many different issues: I go in too deep, my heart stops, or other neat things like that. I've even had one surgery that did not require ventilation and for some reason, the sedative they gave me made me stop breathing and I ended up being ventilated anyway. Just call me difficult.

So I gave this information to the anesthesiologist prior to a surgery and he said that he'd keep it as 'light' as possible.

The anesthesiologist kept to his promise and kept my anesthesia light. Too light, as a matter of fact. I woke up during the surgery. You read that right. I. WOKE. UP.

Imagine if you will, waking up to find your eyes are taped shut, your arms are tied down, and you have a breathing tube down your throat. Imagine feeling the knife cutting into you and not being able to scream or open your eyes. I did the only thing I could think of, and that was to kick my legs. As soon as I did that, I could hear someone say, "she's awake" and then nothing. The anesthesiologist pumped it up a bit after that and I was out.

You may be thinking that it was just a dream. I wondered the same thing too, until the surgeon came to me seeming very upset WITH ME that he cut himself with his scalpel when I kicked my legs. He was upset because I had a yet to be diagnosed liver disease which gave blood test results similar to that of people with hepatitis and he was worried that I was contagious. As an aside, I'm not contagious unless you happen to be one of my kids. It's genetic.

So now, I have two requests for the anesthesiologist when we meet. Don't put me too deep, and don't make it too light. Oh, and have fun figuring out where that fine line is.

Picky...picky...picky.

I have NO idea why I haven't blogged about this sooner. I kind of forgot about it, I guess. That is, until my sweet little boy reminded me of it tonight.

BJ and I got married in Vegas almost one year ago. We were fortunate enough to have lots of family and friends fly in and celebrate our wedding with us. After the wedding, we took everyone (about 30 people) out to a wonderful dinner that was quite away from the strip. The food was great, the wine was great, and everyone had a great time.

Afterward, the best man thought it would be a good idea to rent a van to take us all back to the strip thinking that it would be cheaper than several taxi's. We all piled in the van which had seating in a U shape.

It's important for the story that you know the seating arrangements. On one end of the U, there was a driver. The other side was a movie screen. I sat between my (new!) husband and my youngest son, and sitting directly across from me was my oldest son. The rest of the van was a bunch of BJ's friends. All guys.

The driver asked if we wanted a movie, and everyone yelled "yeah!" "bring it on!" etc.

The movie starts, and what do you know... it's PORN. On the big screen. I am not a watcher of porn, but have to admit that rather than be shocked or offended I was practically on the floor laughing. I was laughing at how my poor boys (and new husband!) were turning inside-out from embarrassment. In addition, the rest of the guys were whooping it up and pretending to spank the "actress". Everyone was looking and laughing, except my two boys and my husband. They were looking at the ceiling, at the floor, out the window, pretty much anywhere but where the action was.

Of course I couldn't let it go. I kept asking the boys if they needed me to explain anything and asking BJ if he was taking notes.

I think the phrase of the night was from my oldest son. "There's not enough alcohol in the world to make me forget this......."

That's right, honey. And in case you do forget, you can thank your brother that the story is now permanently in cyberspace for all the world to see.

Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha

Mike over at Senior Thinking wrote about his dog-like cat and it reminded me of my son's cat, Jimi Hendrix.

We got Jimi at the pound and knew he was the cat for us the moment we laid eyes on him because he had a lot of spunk. He kept sticking his arm out of the cage as far as he could, trying to grab us all while practically screaming at us. He wouldn't shut up. When we decided to take him, they let us have him in the office while we filled out the paperwork. He got into EVERYTHING and kept knocking the phone off the receiver and knocking papers off the desk. Eventually the pound worker took him back to the cage until all the paperwork was done because he was such a pest. He totally sealed the deal with his antics.

If I were to compare Jimi to a human, he'd be James Dean. He is a tough and cool cat. Even though he was neutered at a very young age, I'd feel sorry for any cat OR dog who was on the receiving side of Jimi's rage. Jimi even had a spiked collar, which fit his personality to a "T".

Jimi had some weird idiosyncrasies as well, and I'm sure he'd hate me publishing it for all of the world to see but I'm going to do it anyway. Jimi liked to maintain the "bad boy" image in public, but he's a big softie when nobody is looking.

Early on, he adopted one of my son's stuffed bears that was twice his size. It was clearly his bear because, he'd nurse on it (loudly, I might add!) which was always funny. But the most funny thing was that he used to bring 'offerings" to the bear. Thankfully, they weren't the type of gifts that most cats bring (dead mice, dead birds, etc.). He would steal makeup and leave it next to the stuffed bear.

My sister was living with us when Jimi started doing this and we'd regularly have to sort through the pile of mascara and lipsticks around the bear when we had to get ready for work in the morning. One morning, we found a tube of mascara that didn't belong to either one of us. That's when we discovered that Jimi was also a cat burglar (get it? ha ha) It was during the summer, so it was apparent that he was sneaking into open windows and stealing makeup to bring to the shrine of the bear. The funny thing was that it was always makeup.. nothing else.

Jimi also liked riding in the car, so he'd try to sneak in whenever he saw us leaving. If it was just to go pick up the kids from somewhere, I'd let him come along because I enjoyed seeing the strange looks I'd get from people who noticed that there was a cat in the back window. It got to be a problem once when the neighbor was having a garage sale, because apparently he tried to go for a ride in EVERYONE's car. Someone actually drove off before they noticed him in the car. Funny cat.

I miss Jimi. He's living with my son's ex-girlfriend right now because my son can't have cats where he is. I can't either because there are a lot of wild animals where we live and Jimi is not a cat that can be kept indoors. I've tried it and he's miserable. He likes to be inside to sleep, but he's beyond cranky if he can't go outside as he pleases. You know that saying, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"? Well, let's just say that Jimi is 'mama'.

I'm a dog person. I'm not even a little bit of a cat person. But Jimi was definitely the exception to the rule.

UPDATE:
I finally located a picture that I wanted to put in this post. We all wondered if Jimi was sending us a message when we found him laying next to a headless bunny on our front porch.


Yikes.