FunnyBlog

Open mouth, insert Penelope


Who names their daughter Penelope?

Shortly after my husband and I were married, he was fortunate to get a glimpse at the excitement that he would have the rest of his life…and I am not talking about the honeymoon. I am talking about a most entertaining encounter we had with a few old guy friends of mine.

We went into an ice-cream joint with my brother and his wife. As we were about to sit down, I spotted these three friends of mine. They were sitting at the table with another guy that I didn’t know and his wife and baby. She was just a few months old. Now, for the background, you have to know that these guys were the biggest jokesters…..i like hanging out with people of my own kind.

I introduced my husband, they introduced their friend, his wife, and then one of them said, “And this is their daughter, Penelope.” I instantly started cracking up, thinking that they had come up with a pretty good joke on the spot. I said, “Yeah right, who would name their daughter Penelope.” The joke was on me; her name really was Penelope. Poor LG, he could have died right there on the spot.

Madness


emily dickinson…you gotta love her!

The First Day’s Night Had Come
And Something’s odd – within-
That person that I was-
And this One-do not feel the same-
Could it be Madness-this?
-Emily Dickinson (19th Century)

Washington Post
Did a Bipolar Trait Bring a Turn for the Verse?
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 14, 2001; Page A07

“Scholars have long speculated whether the reclusive poet suffered from some kind of mood disorder. Now, a century later, a new study postulates that Dickinson may have had a mild form of manic depression, with periods of high poetic creativity coinciding with exuberant periods that bordered on mania.”

I’m taking on a serious side today because of the frustration that I am experiencing. I have been reading a book called Touched with Fire by the manic-depressive sufferer, mental health advocate, and PhD and Professor of Psychology at Johns Hopkins University, Kay Radfield Jamison. She is considered by many to be an expert in Manic Depression. In this book she considers the mental health of many of our GREATEST creative artists, such as Emily Dickinson. It is her expert opinion that Emily Dickinson, the remarkable poet, did suffer from Manic Depression, as well as Social Anxiety Disorder. From the poem above, you can get a hint that Emily Dickinson, although never diagnosed, that we know of, also had an inkling that something about her state of mind was not always “quite right”.

Like Kay Redfield Jamison and Emily Dickinson, I am a sufferer of Manic Depressive Disorder (aka BiPolar Disease). I was just diagnosed in August of 2004. This has been a HUGE eye-opener for me. I have read everything that I can get my hands on about the disease and people who have suffered from it. I recently read a Biography about Nick Traina, the son of author Danielle Steele. He was a “casualty” of this disease. He killed himself in the late 90’s; he was very bright and creative, but ended his own life at the young age of 19.

Bipolar Disease is a killer, just like heart disease and cancer. It is sad that society seems to turn their back on individuals who SUFFER from mental illness. I emphasize SUFFER, because unless you have experienced the feeling of “going crazy” that comes with this disease, you cannot possibly know the inner turmoil that it causes…many people feel the only way to get relief is to end their own life.

Well, as soon as I was diagnosed, I began the journey of finding the right medications to help me live a normal life. This is a LONG process and it requires pure diligence because you have to constantly analyze whether or not your prescription drugs are working and what you need more or less of….all depending on your own subjective mood. It is a pain. Lucky for me, I have the BEST HUSBAND IN THE WORLD and very understanding family members (my parents both suffer from one thing or another and my in-laws aren’t crazy, but they try to understand me even though I am). I have all the reasons in the world to live and I have still contemplated suicide, even though I don’t know why I could ever think about something so morbid. [Through my studies I have found that my brain is WIRED this way, as all manic-depressives are].

Well, many people in this world don’t have the wonderful life that I do. Many people NEVER get the medications or help that they need because they are too poor, embarrassed, or uniformed. I may be too poor to afford my meds. soon, but we will figure something out because I don’t want to put my husband and kids through the torture of having a TOTALLY unstable ME. I am always a little unstable, but they like me that way. However, it is a really BAD thing when I never sleep and wake up every morning crying uncontrollably.

I have talked to some charities on the phone today researching what exactly they offer to poor people like me. One conversation that I had with the woman at “Ladies of Charity” really struck me. She informed me that they only provide the needy with medications that help with LIFE THREATENING diseases. Not, that I am trying to undermine what they are doing for the heart disease sufferers (many of which are that way because of bad habits), but BIPOLAR DISEASE is LIFE THREATENING and the people who suffer from it, have done nothing to deserve what they suffer from. It is MADNESS that the people in our world want to turn their backs to them, when they have enriched our society so much.

Other bipolar sufferers: William Blake (the poet), T.S. Eliot, Victor Hugo, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, George Frideric Handel, Robert Schummann, Peter Tchaikovsky, Hugo Wolf, Irving Berlin, Vincent Van Gogh, Benjamin Haydon, and Michelangelo.

What defines the perfect woman


June Cleaver – what exactly is her role on this earth?

Alright, I have been on here a lot today, but I am finding this rather therapeutic. I am going to make this quick and it may not be too funny, but I HAVE to get something off of my chest. Alright, I was just writing specifics of why I feel the way that I do right now, but my husband warned me that I may lose friends. What is it with our society? Why can’t we all just be honest about the way that we feel without worrying what other people might think?

Well, to make a long story short….a friend of ours is pregnant AGAIN. They will have more children than us now and I AM HAVING THIS TOTALLY CRAZY REACTION to the news.

We do not want any more kids right now, and may never want any more, but once you hear that another woman is going to outdo you with her child-bearing skills, this crazed “I’ll show you that I am more perfect” mentality comes riding to the surface. It is scary. I know it is all wrong, but why do we women do this to each other? It starts in Middle School and it NEVER stops.

If we could all just be honest about who we are, then maybe no one would come out looking like the ms. perfect june cleaver that we know she is not. Personally, I just like to throw myself out there. It’s too bad that too much honesty can make a woman really imperfect.

Gotta go to bed.

P.S. I think perfection is found in making other people feel that they are better than you, not visa versa.

Isn’t She Lovely

So, today, I was at McDonald’s with the playgroup from church. The other moms were watching my youngest, Bella, eat her hamburger. They all admired her and said how cute she is. One mom said, “She is just beautiful.” I said, “I know, isn’t it great, she looks just like me?” The other mom responded with a chuckle and a look of bewilderment, “Wow, I never thought that you would actually turn that compliment into yours!” [Hey, you have to take them how you can get them.] I just laughed because I guess I think I am beautiful…that’s a good thing, right?

I have three daughters and it took me that many to get one to look like me. I told the other mom,”Well, everyone always tells me that she is beautuful and she does look just like me. I am so happy about that.” What could they say; they all agreed that she does look just like me. I guess I really am beautiful. Who would of thought that having kids could overfeed one’s ego?

No Smoke?


Would this sign become obsolete if the world would all convert to smokeless tobacco?

Alright. It is 8:30 am and not much funny has happened yet today. Unless you consider the debate that I just had with my friend’s kid about eating Honey Nut Cheerios funny. (I am watching the two older girls of the friend who had baby #3) The kid already ate breakfast before I went and picked her up, but when I gave my daughter, Sophia, some dry cereal in a bowl to snack on while watching cartoons, she wanted some too. So, I gave her the pick from my pantry. She wanted Honey Nut Cheerios. I poured them out into the bowl and handed them to her; for some reason they weren’t what she expected. She said, “I don’t want that kind.” I said,”You just said that you wanted that kind.” She said,”No, I didn’t.” I wanted to say,”Yes, you did”, but I refrained from the debate with a two year old, and started back at square one asking her which kind she would really like. She settled on Frosted Mini Wheats. Thank goodness they were aesthetically pleasing when I handed them to her in that Dora the Explorer Bowl. I made a big deal out of the bowl, when I handed it to her, to take the attention off the cereal, of course.

Well, I was just thinking of another one of my brighter moments, and thought that I would share it here. I think it is pretty funny. Shortly after we moved here to Tennessee, I found myself at a semi-professional football game. My brother-in-law Jordan was playing for this team that he called semi-professional, but it seemed like the league was made up of fat old guys that were reliving their high school glory days. Note: (in case he reads this) Jordan wasn’t old and he was only a little fat back then.

Well, I found myself in the stands with my husband, kids, and in-laws. I was a little shocked that SO many people were smoking in the bleachers. Remember, I am a Western girl. I spent my first 18 years in California and the next 12 in Utah. (both States have clean-air acts) My husband says that in TN many people farm tobacco and a clean air act would never fly. If the amount of people that I see smoking when I am out and about is any kind of indicator, I am sure that my husband is correct. My husband is a native Tennessee-an and like anyone else he is extremely defensive of his native land. So, I really wasn’t enjoying one of my first TN football experiences because of all the cigarette smoke. If this makes me shallow, sorry, I just do not want my children to die from second hand smoke inhalation.

On with the story, the mother of Jordan’s friend was sitting and talking to me. She was so friendly, like most Tennesseans. There is, for the most part, a breathtaking Southern charm here. During the conversation, I got to complaining about all the smoke and the smokers…me and my big mouth (a few weeks later, at the only other game I could stand to attend, we walked by her when she was smoking…she totally tried to hide it from me.) Well, this woman, started telling me about her son and the football team and her daughter that was getting married. I asked what her son did for work. She had mentioned that he was taking a break from college. She replied with,”He has a great job, and although it isn’t a mother’s biggest bragging right…he works for a smokeless tobacco company.”

O.k., so here is the funny part. It displays not only my naivety, but my blonde side also. I got all excited and said,”How cool…they make smokeless tobacco.” She looked astonished and said, “Oh yes, of course.” Now, there was an obvious miscommunication going on. All the time, she was talking about Chewing tobacco (that is the ONLY thing that I had ever heard it called). I thought that the amazing tobacco farmers had come up with some kind of cigarette that could be smoked without giving off any smoke. I was AMAZED and wondered why in the world more Tennesseans wouldn’t use SMOKELESS TOBACCO. Yeah, I know, I am SO funny.

Can a good deed erase a REALLY bad one?


Wendy’s Fine Dining

Alright. I can’t believe that I am even going to write about this. My husband will be so embarrassed, but I have to get it off my chest and make a public apology. We all do things that we aren’t proud of right? Well, earlier today, I was in a huge hurry. I had all three of my kids and we were heading over to a church friend’s house to do some cleaning…she had her third daughter yesterday and when I talked to her this morning she related how sorry she was that she had the baby earlier than expected…her house was a wreck…so I went into charity mode and decided to go and clean her house, buy her a fruit bowl and some balloons and a good smelly candle. I also put a gift together for her including a gift certificate for diapers.

Well, in the middle of all of this, before heading over to her house to tidy up the place, I realized that I needed to feed my kids. We went to one of my favorite “Get America Fat” joints: Wendy’s. O.k., so here comes the really bad deed…I went through the drive-thru and saw that there were two brand new quarters on the street outside the pick-up window. They looked like state quarters and so, I was so excited. I squeezed out of my car and picked them up….when I got back in my minivan and closed the door, the cashier was sitting there with her hand held out. She said,”Those are ours.” I was distraught…I had just gone through all that effort for 50 cents, and now SHE unjustifiably THINKS that they are hers.

I didn’t know what to do and then I made one of those really stupid split second decisions. One that I will regret for a while….I dropped those darn quarters and told her that if they were hers, I would let her pick them up……….HOW RUDE, am I? I can’t believe that I did that. I am making a public apology here. I felt bad the instant I acted like a total jerk. I was just on the defense because I felt like I was the rightful owner of those two quarters. I really felt bad too because I hadn’t been given my food yet, and who knows what she would do to it now?

I still feel bad, but I did manage to get to my friend’s house…I cleaned for at least three hours. I am smiling knowing that she will come home from the hospital to a VERY clean place. Probably cleaner than she is even used to. I tend to be obsessive compulsive when it comes to cleaning….I even scraped the moldy caulk off their shower. I really hope that in God’s book the three hours that I spent cleaning selflessly will make up for that really rude decision of dropping those quarters…..you can’t even buy anything for 50 cents at Wendy’s anyway and apparently it has to be your own 50 cents.

Flush it down the toilet


Half way there!!! Trust me it is better then it was B4. Posted by Hello

Have you ever remodeled a 50 year old bathroom? ….when you are “home depot” illiterate? Well, that is what my husband and I are in the middle of doing. In fact, we have been doing it for the better part of two months!….yes, two months and we are only 1/4 of the way done.

Tonight we spent another two hours trying to hook up the piping under the new sink and vanity…it’s still leaking!!!!!! We stink! Ugh. It is a good thing that we have one working toilet. The good news is we only have pink tile in our shower now instead of throughout the bathroom. Who knows when it will all be finished…my bet is by the time we are ready to sell the house.

The other day my daughter Abigail told me, “I wish that we had two toilets again.” Her sister Sophia was sitting on the other one and she had to go. She couldn’t hold it any longer. I wish that we had a plumber and not just a husband with a plumber’s bum!

What we do for love

What in the world have we come to in America? We can commercialize anything. I was reading a publication produced by my Congressman the other day. It stated that America is the home to less than 4% of the World’s population, yet we are the consumers of 25% of the world’s goods….no wonder we are so fat.

So, this is my first official entry. My husband did my real first one because he created this blog for me for Valentine’s Day. Ahhhh….let’s hear it….how sweet. I guess he called it “I’m so funny” because I think that I am, and he likes to tease me that way. He thinks I am funny too, just not as much as I think that I am funny.

A little background and then back to Valentine’s Day. I am a 31 year old housewife…yeah, stop reading, I can only be BORING. My husband, whom I call, LG, but has a “real” name that I am not so crazy about, LeGrand. I only like his name because it is his; it is not a name I would ever wish upon my children. Although, if we ever have a son, he will probably have the misfortune of having his dad’s name at the middle of his. We have been married since Aug. ’97 and have three kids…Abigail (5), Sophia (3), and Isabella or Bella (19 mos). My husband is in his second year of Law School at UT and we are as poor as poor can be. So, most of my entries will probably be about this wonderful predicament of poverty.

Going back to the commercialization of Valentine’s. Abigail had her first school valentines party today. Remember we are POOR, therefore, Abigail goes to a “No Child Left Behind School”. Today I went in for Abigail’s school party. I am somewhat of a regular face. Only one other mom and I ever volunteer. All the other parents are either working or it seems that they don’t care as to whether or not their kid ever learns anything. Mind you, I know that education is a huge focus of mine.

On with the story. Many of the children in Abigail’s class often go to school with dirty clothes on and/or hair that hasn’t been brushed in days…. not their fault, by the way. I think that all of these kids are just awesome, but they do have their problems….mostly their parents. (not that I am perfect by any means) At least 40% (numbers could be higher) of the kids at Norwood Elementary eat the FREE breakfast that the school provides because their parents can’t even manage to feed them before school. My guess is most of the kids get FREE school lunches also.

Only 5 kids in the whole school participated in the free summer reading program. Abigail is the only one in her class who EVER gets Tigger tickets for actually reading at the open library day at the school. So, for the majority of the year, the parents of these children are doing close to nothing to show their kids that they love them.

But, today, wow, you would think that these kids were the most loved in the world. You would not believe the junk food that the parents sent in for this party and the valentines that these “poor” kids brought. I guess I should be happy that the parents are doing something for their kids and the kids really were having a blast, but I find it sad that the only thing we can do for our kids on a holiday about love is buy them into the ground.

Leave it to Americans to ruin a holiday that was named for a Saint. Kids don’t make their own Valentines anymore; the schools only allow pre-bought treats; there are no more handmade mailboxes or the nice letters that the parents send in. All of this stuff is way too much work. Going to a party at the school to actually celebrate with your kids is too much work, but we can all buy each others’ love…or so it seems.

Yeah, we don’t have room to talk. You’re 100% correct in your assumption that we let Abigail have the free school lunch. But, we are poor, remember, and for a good reason….education, not just because we are too lazy to go and get a job. We are poor enough to be on welfare but we are not. But, we do get the free school lunch. And we are the awful parents that let her go to the “no child left behind” school because we are too lazy to drive her across to a “good” school that we transferred her to.

But, I tell you what, every morning when she eats that bowl of cereal at home instead of at school, she knows that she is loved. Every time I make the huge effort to get a sitter for my two younger kids and go into her class to help her teacher, the smile on her face tells me that she knows I love her. When she’s bathed and has brushed hair and clean underwear…she has to feel something warm fuzzies coming from her Mama.

Well, this first entry is kinda mumble jumble. My mind is a little fried today. This morning I got to go to the TN State Dept of Human Services to renew our TennCare, which thanks to Governor Bredesen we will most kindly be kicked off this year. Then, I went to my daughter’s school and witnessed the Valentine phenomenon. Then, we delivered Valentines to my girl’s little friends from the neighborhood and church.

I then had the joy of finishing off the errand day with a trip to my local Health Dept. I went to get my refill on my birth control. Yes, I do know what that is. Well, what was supposed to be a really quick trip turned out the exact opposite. I should have known. This is normal when you get the “free” services for the poor that the health department provides. I left with my prescription in hand a totally frazzled hour and 1/2 later. The nurse practitioner (because when you are poor you never get to talk to an actual doctor) had the nerve to tell me my blood pressure was high…..duh, I just had to reel in my three wild animals in your lobby for the past hour.

The longer I am poor, the more I realize why there are parents out there who have seemed to give up. After being treated like poop everywhere you turn, you eventually will feel that way and act that way. I have been fortunate not to buy into that thinking yet. I hope that I can come out of law school with my pride restored.

What we do for love.