Southern Living

Tennessee Judiciary


Courhouse for the 6th Circuit of the Eastern District of TN Posted by Hello

Alright, here’s another funny story.

My friend had knee surgery on Monday and because her husband was unable to go with her, I offered to accompany her. She gladly accepted my offer, so I got my mother-in-law (she is such a saint) to take the kids.

When we got to the same-day-surgery unit, I instantly realized that these people were all thinking that we were a “couple”. I had just had my haircut short, we both had wedding rings on…etc.etc. When I went in with her and she had to get her gown on, it became a little too much for me to keep quiet about. I just HAD to tell the nurse that, “I AM HER FRIEND, her husband couldn’t be here today.”

When the orthopedic surgeon came out and called for my friend’s family to come and get the scoop….I stood up. He had a VERY surprised look on his face. My friend is very wholesome and innocent and I could see the look of utter astonishment in his eyes. My husband got a chuckle as I told him the first words that I said to the surgeon (we’re going back to my obsessive need to explain myself). I said, “I am just a FRIEND of hers; her husband had to work today.” The surgeon looked somewhat relieved, but also dissapointed…go figure?

Well, I went and sat back down in the lobby, waiting for my friend to come out of her anesthesia (they said they would call me). I decided that after two hours it was time to strike up a conversation with the man sitting closest to me. He looked in his 70’s or 80’s. I asked him who he was waiting for. He said, “My wife is having surgery on her breast today.” (I guess when you get to a certain age, you don’t blush saying the word breast to a woman who is a total stranger.) He went on to relay that him and his wife were in the their 60’s and then he proceeded with their whole medical history. His wife had a tumor in her breast and he had lung cancer in 1996, but came out just fine. (I was astonished when he went for a smoke break a little while later)

Well, as he was talking on and on about his family’s medical history, I thought to myself, “Oh no, I am going to be stuck hearing all about this for the next hour.” I then caught a glimpse of his baseball cap…it said, “Tennessee Judiciary”. Then, I thought, score, I may have just made my husband a contact with a judge or somebody important. I then proceeded to tell him that my husband was in Law School and I made reference to his hat. He said, “I worked for the TN Supreme Court for 29 years.(or some high figure like 29)”

I said, “Oh yeah, what did you do?” He said, “I was in the maintanence department.” Well, there went my contact, unless LG wants to clean the floors of the courthouse for the rest of his life….I don’t think that would pay off the student loans, though.

Well, I didn’t want to make the man feel bad, and so I said,”That is what my dad does for a living. He is in maintenance.” [My dad is a contractor and can do or fix anything, but he maitains all of the LDS church buildings in Southern Utah]. He smiled as if to say, “Well, I am glad that you understand.”, but he didn’t say another word until I probed him for more private family information. It is amazing what you can learn about a person in one hour. He turned out to be a really nice guy; the best guy I know in the Tennessee Judiciary.

Wal-Mart Proposal


Boys, you gotta have the flowers

Alright, it’s about time that I tell on myself again. Here’s the latest episode of brain lapse or “talk b4 think”.

I went to Wal-Mart late Saturday night. While I was checking out I noticed a cute young couple behind me in line. Of course, I had a LOAD of groceries, and so my check-out took a while. I was brought up to be TOO friendly to strangers and of course I decided to strike up a conversation with these two.

The young girl had a dozen roses in her hand. She was standing behind the guy. I said to her, “Are those for you?” She replied with a yes. I chuckled a bit and looked at the guy and said,”Is she showing you what kind she likes?” She said, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

I said, “Funny, I just called my husband on the phone and told him that roses were finally coming down in price after Valentine’s Day. I asked him if I should buy some for myself.” I continued,”Now you shouldn’t have to buy flowers for yourself until AFTER you are married.” They laughed.

I then looked at the guy, elbowed him, and said, “you know what that means for you, huh? Guess you might be married real soon.”

The girl then decides to pipe up again. I think that she was trying to save her new fiance from my torture. She said,”Actually, he just proposed tonight.”

Everyone in line gave the oo’s and the aw’s….all I could think about is how absolutely crappy I had just made this poor guy feel. He proposed and then his new fiance had to go and buy herself some flowers to remember the night by.

Moral of the story: Never propose without flowers. Just do like my husband and don’t propose at all; then you won’t have to worry about it.

The Love of My Life


Dollywood’s newest roller coaster
left to right: logan, tyler, jordan, & LG

This is a great pic. of LG. I thought that I better put a picture of him up here because I haven’t yet. Isn’t he so cute? I love his smile and I love this picture because you can tell that he really is having the time of his life…..having any kind of fun is a considerable accomplishment when you are in law school with a wife and three kids. This was taken at one of the best attractions in East TN, Dollywood.

LG took this picture at Christmastime ’04. In the back are his brothers. Logan and Jordan, and our brother-in-law, Tyler, he is a pilot in the AirForce; he flies the F-16 (cool huh?)…Tyler also clogs like you can’t believe, even though he is from Utah. I don’t think that his airforce buddies know about his clogging talent. Flying an F-16 is probably the more amazing talent of the two…depending on who you talk to, I guess.

Well, if I can get my stupid digital camera to download to my PC, I have some more jewels for you later.

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.

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.