The Bridal Show

Through the years, I have worked at several jobs. I've been a data entry clerk, a secretary at a car auction, washed library books, a hairdresser, an instructional assistant, a high school secretary, a Program Assistant, an Accounts Payable Clerk, then back to the Program Assistant.  I loved working at the high school.  I retired in 2005 and I still miss the kids and the staff.  

I left the Central Office in 2003 after six years and went back to where it all began, the high school. I worked with a good friend in the Youth Service's Department.  We shared our office space with the attendance clerk, also a good friend.  I'm sure it didn't take long for the principal to realize maybe he had made a huge mistake by putting the three of us together.  We loved to have fun and before long, students and staff found out that our office could be a "happy "place.  It was a busy place too, sometimes too busy. Somedays we didn't have time to eat or take a bathroom break.  The three of us were good friends at school and also out of school.  When the attendance clerk announced she was getting married to the most eligible bachelor in the county, we were excited for her.  She had always wanted a church wedding and thankfully so did her groom. 
They set the wedding date for June and we started planning in January.  She asked her teenage daughter to be the Maid of Honor, and the Youth Service Director and Myself to be her bridesmaids.  This was going to be so much fun.  I was a bridesmaid in several of my friend's weddings back in the day, but us three ole gals were getting on up in years. I was the overweight bridesmaid.  The other three all together didn't weigh as much as me.  The thought of standing up in front of a church full of people while standing beside those skinny things, kind of made me sick.  

The bride picked her dress out first.  I went with her for support and to offer my opinion.  She had no trouble finding her dress, we all liked it as soon as she put it on.  According to T.V. and newspaper adds, there was going to be a bridal exhibit in Lexington one weekend so we made plans to go.  We thought we might get some good ideas since we didn't have any ourselves.  We left home early so we could spend the day. We were also hoping we would find some bridesmaid dresses we liked.  The show was going to be held at Rupp Arena and when we pulled into the parking lot there were several cars there.  We put on our lipstick, combed our hair, tossed back a breath mint and headed inside like the girls from the show, "Sex and the City."  We opened those big doors to Heritage Hall and went inside.  Several people were shopping and milling about.  We didn't want to ask directions to the show, we all felt sure we knew our way around.  So we headed down the hallway that we assumed would lead us into the bridal show.  Giggling and twisting all the way, I started to notice that there were a lot of men in the crowd.  Men who looked like real men, farmers and construction worker types.  I expected to see a lot of just-out-of-college and engaged looking ladies as well as ritzy looking matrons with teased, blonde hair and a lot of diamonds, but I didn't see anyone at like that all.  I remember saying, "What's with all these men?"  I even saw one guy pulling a air compressor.  My partners in crime were beginning to wonder also.  We noticed the exhibit hall up ahead on the left, but when we got there the sign out front said, "Discount Tool Sale."  This kind of excited us because all three of us are the "fix it yourself" type.  We decided to look around awhile and ask the check-out lady where the bridal show was.  

We got a little carried away in the "Discount Tool Sale" to say the least.  We just couldn't pass up a bargain.  My bridesmaid buddy bought a lawn wagon.  It was big and heavy.  Very awkward to carry around.  She asked a young guy working there to help her get it out to her vehicle.  We also asked the lady who checked us out about the bridal show.  She wasted no time in telling us, "Oh, that's next weekend."  Duh!!  We found this to be typical of the three of us and quiet funny.  We had came to see a bridal show and ended up at a tool sale.  We were going to make the most of our day by going to the mall and trying on dresses, but first we had to get that big purchase out to the vehicle.  Coming out wasn't as easy as going in for some reason.  We thought we had just walked straight through the doors and down the hall when actually we had ridden an escalator.  We must have been talking because none of us remember riding an escalator upstairs.  Anyhow, now we had our little helper pulling what we had bought on a yellow dolly.  He was quiet taken with us three silly ole ladies who thought everything was funny.  He didn't realize how hard it was going to be to get all that stuff and the dolly down the escalator, but he soon found out.  Apparently, he had never worked at this job before because he had no idea what he was doing.  We tried to help him as much as we could, but we had a serious case of the giggles and didn't give it all we had.  We pulled the dolly onto the top step, jumped on the escalator, held on to the purchases and still messed up.  As soon as we started going down, the boxes on the dolly came loose and rolled all the way down the escalator, knocking feet and legs of other shoppers all the way down.  We tried to catch as many as we could, but most were too heavy and were moving pretty fast.  We were yelling, "look out and heads up" but most people didn't heed the warning.  During all this, I remember looking at the nice young man still holding on to a now empty dolly.  He looked scared to death.  He was even a little pale.  We made it down before he did and started trying to pick up the boxes.  Some were still under a man's feet.  He had to hop over the boxes to get off the escalator.  Needless to say, these shoppers didn't seem to pleased with our actions.  But, we still thought it was funny and getting funnier by the minute.  Finally, our helper and his empty dolly made the exit off the escalator, much to his embarrassment.  We loaded all our stuff up and since we felt bad for the young man, we all three helped him push the dolly.  

We made it to the van and got our stuff loaded, thanked our dolly driver and climbed in.  Then things exploded.  We all three laughed so loud and so hard that the van was shaking.  We cried our mascara off it was that funny.  Each blamed the other for getting the dates mixed up.  Looking back on it now, I'm sure I was the one who got the wrong date.  I'm good at that. 

We hurried over to the mall thinking we'd be coming back several more weekends before we found what we liked, could afford and would fit two sticks and a fat lady.  But, that's where we were wrong.  We found the perfect dress as soon as we walked in the door of Dillard's Department store.  We even found shoes too.  A nice lady helped us try on our dresses and offered her advice.  The dresses were strapless, so she thought we could use these foam things to wear instead of strapless bras.  We tried those on and were quiet pleased with the outcome, so we each bought a pair.  

The day of the wedding finally came.  It was sunny, warm and perfect.  We had appointments to get our hair and make-up done which was a luxury for us.  We had a grand old time laughing and telling how we went to a tool sale instead of a bridal show.  We arrived at church still having fun.  We gathered in one of the Sunday school rooms to get dressed.  Everything was going great.  I put my foam things in my bodice and was quiet proud of how I looked.  My fellow bridesmaid however, wasn't sure of hers.  She was a little bigger than me in that department and thought maybe the extra padding made hers look too big.  The rest of us in the room, and there were a lot of people in there, convinced her that she needed to wear them, so she did.  

The time had come to start the show.  We had to walk outside to get to the vestibule where we were to line up and wait to make our entrance.  Just so happened that there was a mirror hanging in the vestibule.  We checked ourselves one last time before we went down the aisle.  I looked as good as I was going to get, but the other bridesmaid still wasn't liking those foam add-on's, so she took them out right there in church.  I looked at her and whispered, "where are you going to put them now?"  I don't think she had thought that through because she began looking around for a place to put her foams.  There was a pretty, high backed chair in one corner, so she lifted the cushion and placed her foams under it and was then ready to march down the aisle.  

The service was beautiful.  It had a few moments that made us laugh, but hey, it was great.  The minister was a wonderful man and a good preacher.  He was overweight, but didn't seem to mind.  He actually made jokes about his weight at his own expense.  After the ceremony, we were all milling around before going to the reception, I reminded my bridesmaid buddy not to forget her foam things.  She said, "thanks for reminding me, I'm going to go get them right now."  We both turned and headed toward the pretty chair where her extra parts were hidden and both stopped dead in our tracks.  The preacher was now sitting in that pretty chair and he was squashing her foams flat.  Why stop now, we had laughed about this wedding for months anyhow, so we roared one more time for prosperity.  We hurried to the reception to tell the bride that the preacher was sitting on the foam things.  We had to wait forever until he got up to go retrieve those things.  They were now shapeless.  Oh well, she didn't like them anyhow. 

That couple have been happily married for several years.  The three of us no longer work at the high school, but we are still good friends.  I think about that wedding a lot.  I remember how uncomfortable those shoes were, what a good time we had and of course I remember those flat foam things.  I wonder what ever happened to them. 

Don't Worry, Be Happy

When I began this blog last week, I had attentions of writing only funny stuff and I still will do that.  For some reason I feel the need to talk about something that is not funny, suicide. All that's been on the news the last couple days is the suicide of Mindy McCready, a one time country music star who took the wrong path to addiction.  Apparently she was handed the troubles of Job and she took the easy way out.  I was just watching Dr. Drew, her therapist, talk about suicide.  One sentence stayed with me, "If you have someone in your family that has committed suicide more than likely another family member will also commit suicide."  I know this to be true first hand.  Before Mike and I were married his uncle, Luther Childress, went to the home of his brother Jesse.  He sat down and talked to Jesse's wife awhile. He asked her to go get him a cup of coffee.  While she was in the kitchen, she heard a gunshot.  She ran to see what was wrong and discovered Luther dead in the chair from a gunshot wound to the head.  Seems Jesse always kept a pistol in the end table by the chair, Luther knew this and used that gun to kill himself.  There were no warning signs, at least not that anyone noticed.

Mike and I hadn't been married very long when we got the word that his uncle was found dead in his mobile home.  He too had shot himself in the head.  He was divorced from his wife and the family knew he wasn't taking it well.  He shot himself on Tuesday, but wasn't found until Saturday when a nephew went to check on him.

In 1977, I was working at my job in London.  We had moved back to Rockcastle Co. from Louisville and Mike didn't have a job yet so we were living with my mother.  My desk was beside the door to the outside, so I saw every car that pulled up.  One night in October, I saw my mom and grandma pull up.  They had come to tell me that Mike's Dad, Cecil Childress(Pete) ,had been found dead.  He had shot himself in the chest.
My father and mother-in-law had a rough marriage.  They had separated several times, but my mother-in-law couldn't provide for the nine children she had without Pete so she had to endure a lot for her children.  Pete decided to open a grocery store so he bought a building on highway 25 south between Mt. Vernon and Livingston. It was in that store that he killed himself.  A customer wondered why the store wasn't open since his truck was there.  He walked to the side of the store, looked in the window and saw Pete lying on the bed.  My brother-in-law, had to identify him.  Like the others, he showed no signs that suicide was on his mind.  We saw no depression or sadness.  By now, we were all stunned by the fact that 3 brothers had committed suicide within 10 years.  Pete's death was very hard on the family.  Losing a father by suicide was very hard on Mike.  None of us could understand why. After all that the Mike and his family went through, we never thought one of them would do the same.

In 1988, I was working as a hairdresser in Mt. Vernon.  I had my own shop with two stylist and myself working.  I went to work one day just like always, happy that my business growing, my boys were healthy and Mike had a good job.  Somewhere during that day, my life changed.  I began to feel sad and I had no reason to be. I was short tempered and hoped I didn't have customer because all I wanted to do was go home to bed.  That sad feeling was with me all the time.  I had saw my father suffer with depression.  I was just about six when I would make the trip to St. Joseph in Lexington with mama and daddy for his Shock Therapy treatments.  I didn't understand why my daddy didn't act the same after these trips, but mama assured me it would make daddy feel better.  So after two weeks of the sadness I went to Dr. Jack Lewis, the same Dr. that treated my dad.  He sent me to a psychiatrist in Lexington right away.  I remember him saying to me, "I saw your dad go through this and I don't want to see you go through it too."  I spent 21 days at St. Joe.  I was diagnosed with clinical depression and started on a round of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds.  I took Prozac when it was brand new.  It did help some, but not enough. I felt so guilty about not being there for my boys.  Mom and Mike would attend school functions etc, since I wasn't able to go anywhere.  I would end up being hospitalized two more times.  I had to sell the beauty shop and try to get myself together.  Times were tough and I didn't know exactly what to do next. I took a job at Rockcastle Co. High School in 1990.  I was able to work there for fifteen years before I became unable, both mentally and physically to work.  I retired on disability in 2005.  I have good times and dark times.  Recently I was told I had Rapid Recycling, which is a form of Bi-Polar.  Just the name rapid recycling explains it.  I go from zero to sixty in five seconds.

November 13, 2008 found me doing pretty good.  I have Fibromyalgia also,but that November neither Fibro or depression were bothering me.  We had our first grandchild, Jack, that past May and I helped babysit him and Neil and Ashley had just gotten married in August.   I was in the grocery store when my cell phone rang.  One of  sister-in-laws had called to tell me she had heard someone in Mt. Vernon tell her that Mike's brother, had died.  We thought surely that wasn't true.  No one had called us.  I then called my sister-in-law, who lives in Louisville where my brother-in-law and his wife lived.  When she answered the phone I knew right away it was true.  I stood in the middle of the grocery hearing how my happy go-lucky brother -in-law had went into the garage while his wife was at work and shot himself.  I don't remember much about that afternoon.  I know I didn't buy anything and I remember thinking that I had to call Mike because if the word was out on the streets he would hear it like that.  I called Mike just to tell him to come home, but he knew something was wrong and assisted that I tell him.  When I did, there was silence for what seemed like an hour.  Once again we had lost someone too quick. Someone who made the decision to leave this world.
I am left to worry about my sons.  They have inherited some bad genes on both sides.  I have told Mike and the boys several times that I worry about how much suicide and depression in our families and make them promise to get help if they start feeling sad or anxious.  They always laugh and tell me I'm crazy. 

Everyone goes through the blues every now and then, but depression is the blues triple time.  You see no future, you have unreasonable thoughts, you abuse prescription meds just to take yourself away for an hour or two, and your family and friends don't understand.  People have said to me, "Just make yourself be happy.' or "What do you have to be depressed about?"  My favorite one is, "Honey, just take it to the Lord, you must not have enough faith."  This illness is not something I chose and I'm doing all I can to fight it.  I just hope and pray that it never gets so far ahead of me that I can't see the light through the darkness and plan a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  I want to leave you with a line from a song by John Mellencamp, "Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone."

 www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

I wish you love

Happy Valentine's Day!!

After celebrating 37 Valentine's Day since I married my husband, Mike, I have to say I can't remember most of what we did or what gift I got from my him.  Twice I got roses.  That's all I remember.  So, the lesson here is, we make a big deal about this day that we're never going to remember down the road. 

I met Mike February 28, 1975, so I missed that Valentines with him, but by the next year we had already been married six months.  That year, 1975, was a busy one for me.  I had a new boyfriend, graduated from high school, got married and moved to Louisville.  The first Valentine's Day we shared was February 1976 and that year I got red roses.  After that it was over 20 years before I got roses again, they were white. I don't remember what year that was, but I must have been good.

Sometimes Mike has asked me what I want and I have always come up with something.  I go for the practical things that we really need.  One year for Christmas I asked for and got a kitchen sink.  Lately, if he asks me what I want I've been replying, "I would love it if you would quit smoking."  Then the next time he asks, I change it up a little and name another one of his bad habits that I wish he would give up.  His answer to this is, "I will quit when you quit eating or lose 50 pounds."  He's such a romantic. This year I got him something I had never gotten him before, 2 packs of cigarettes.  I always said I would not enable him to smoke, but I racked my brain thinking about what to get him that he would really like, so cigarettes it was.  Also, that's a really expensive gift.

I always expect something for Valentine's Day, but the last couple years, I've just gotten a card.  Cards are nice too.  At least he thought of me.  I was thinking about Valentine's Day and how my boys celebrate it.  Kyle is a romantic, he's always coming up with ideas to surprise his wife, Melanie. He takes her out every weekend.  But, Melanie is not that much of a romantic, from my point of view that is.  To her Valentine's Day is all about her children, which I appreciate so much.  She has spent a week getting Jack ready for his party at school.  Jack signed all his cards himself.  She made chocolate chip cookies and gift bags and cards for all his classmates and the teachers.  Neil, well he's a little bit romantic.  Not as much as Kyle, but more than Mike.  He's taking Ashley out for dinner this year and maybe a movie.  They live in Georgetown and don't have anyone close to watch the boys so they can go out every now and then.  I'm going to visit them Saturday and watch the boys so they can get away for awhile.  Ashley is a romantic.  She actually should have married Kyle.  She's also a lot like me.  We were both born on May 4, different years though.  Maybe it's our zodiac sign.  I never believed in those much, but I will agree that Ashley and myself think alike. 

I hope everyone gets something, a hug, a text, a kiss, a call, a ring, roses, candy, stuffed animals kitchen sink or whatever you ask for on this Valentine's Day.  If you don't have anyone to remember you on this day, I will.  I wish everyone, old and young, a Happy Valentine's Day and many more. All of us are loved.

The Ghost Lady

My sweet mother-in-law, Tessie Childress, loved to tell ghost stories.  If she ended up with 6 or 7 grandchildren on a Saturday night, she would dress up, take her teeth out, jump in the room and scare poor kids into going to bed.  She always told all of us that there was a ghost of an old women in her in house.  She had seen her several times and so had several of her children.  There was unexplained noises like the sound of chains and windows and doors would shut on their own.  According to Tessie, the ghost lady's favorite spot was in a small rocker that sat next to the wood stove.  Tessie claimed she had heard her putting wood in the stove, except it wasn't the stove that she had now, it was the old stove that was there when she moved into the house.  It apparently made a different noise when you opened the door.  The lady was said to have died in the house and was "laid" out in the front bedroom for viewing which was common at the time of her death.  I didn't believe in ghosts, but still enjoyed hearing Tessie and her boys tell about their experiences.  Tessie also had a habit of telling really scary, scarier than normal, stories if she had a pregnant daughter-in-law whose due date had passed.  Tessie claimed she could scare them into labor.  I actually think that happened once, but I don't remember which sister-in-law it was.

When Mike and I got married, he worked in Louisville at General Electric.  I was 18 and he was 22, much too young to be married.  We picked out an apartment, moved in our hand me down furniture and waited for the magic to begin.  Mike worked second shift which meant I was stuck at home alone. Two things bothered me,  first, it didn't feel like home to me and second I was scared to death.  We didn't have a phone and only had one car, which Mike drove to work.  Remembering Tessie's ghost stories didn't help much either.  We both disliked Louisville and our life there so much that as soon as Mike got off work late on Friday night, we would pack the car and drive 2 1/2 hours home to our mamas.  One of those weekends home, we were spending the night at Tess's.  It was winter and there were so many quilts on the bed that once you got in you had to sleep that way all night because you couldn't turn over because the quilts were so heavy.  Also, we slept in the bedroom that the ghost lady died in.  Sometime late into the night, I woke up needing to use the bathroom which was in the back of the house.  I would have to go through the living room, the dining room and the kitchen to get to the bathroom. It was pitch black dark and I knew I would fall over something trying to get there and I didn't want to wake anybody up by turning on a light, so I opted to try to go back to sleep.  Well, that didn't work, I absolutely had to go.  I thought about waking Mike up to go with me, but once he's asleep he could sleep through anything, so I let him be.  I felt my way through the house, found the bathroom without falling or breaking anything.  On my trip back to bed, I felt somewhat secure since I had made it through the dark maze once already.  Feeling around for the door to the bedroom, my foot hit something and I realized I was off kilter and was touching the chair sitting by the stove.  Using my hands to feel my way around, I felt something soft and hairy.  What in the world was that?  I felt around some more and then it came to me, the ghost lady was sitting in her favorite chair and I had my hands in her hair.  Yikes, she will grab my hands any minute, run.  I did run, more like lunged, for the bed.  I lifted up ten pounds of covers, jumped in bed, and covered up my head.  I was so scared that I felt faint.  I really had to get Mike awake.  But, like I said he was hard to wake up and this night he seemed dead to the world.  I laid there for hours afraid to move.  It was a good thing I was on my way from the bathroom, because if I hadn't visited it yet, I wouldn't have needed to anymore once I petted the ghost lady.  Finally daylight came.  When I heard Tessie get up and go to start breakfast, I was brave enough to go to her and tell her about my experience.  On the way to find Tessie, I had to pass the chair.  Surely she wouldn't be sitting there in the daylight.  I turned my head slowly to gaze at the chair just to make sure and that's when I saw IT.  Hanging on the back of the little rocking chair was my winter coat which had a fur collar.  The collar was at the same height as a dried up little ghost lady's head would be if she were sitting in the chair.  How dumb could I be?  I had let my coat scare me to death and lose out on a night's sleep.

Now, I am the kind of person who can laugh at herself and this was a good time to do just that.  When everybody came for dinner that day, I told my ghost story.  I've been in this family for thirty-seven years.  I've seen sister-in-laws come and go, watched babies grow up and have babies of their own, but no one will ever let me forget the night I became acquainted with the ghost lady.

Tessie passed away in 1997, almost twenty one years after my scare.  She must have told that story a hundred times or more.  I think it was one of her favorites.  I miss her and I  miss the old house.  Her sons built her a new house and tore the old one down.  We wondered if the ghost lady would make the move to the new house, but she didn't.  I think we all kinda missed her, but wouldn't say so. 

All on a Monday

Was it just last week that my "tech" life was functioning as usual?  I was on Facebook off and on all day, posting, commenting and liking.  My laptop was working as best it could for what all it has been through, all my messages and texts were positive and I was enjoying life in the free world, but then Monday happened.  Actually, it started Saturday night.  I was reading a message from an old friend and notice of another message popped up. That message was from a family member that I hadn't talked with in awhile.  After reading his message, I wished he'd waited even longer. I guess he was having a bad day and directed it all at me.  I came out of that with hurt feelings and nothing I could do about it.  My husband and two sons urged me to take a Facebook vacation, which I didn't want to do, so I waited awhile on Monday before I got on the Internet.  As soon as I did, weird things started popping up.  People I wasn't FB friends with started showing up telling me they had Wal-Mart vouchers for me or they could get me a free iPad.  I ignored them because I had something to look up before I got on Facebook. Before I could do a search, a page came up saying, ATTENTION! You are a criminal! It went on to say I had been caught with child pornography on my computer which was a crime that included 7 to 9 years jail time. also, my computer was locked and the only way I could get it unlocked was to buy a MoneyPak at Wal-Mart for 200.00. It was signed by the FBI. first, I knew it was a scam because I do not have child porn on my computer and second you never send money to some site you don't know anything about.  The whole thing screamed, "don't touch this." My computer was indeed locked and while I was sitting there contemplating my next move, eating pizza and drinking a Sprite Zero, my web cam took my picture and placed that picture on the FBI letter.  I was freaking out.  It was a good picture and how did my web cam know when I was sitting in front of it's lens? What was going to happen to that photo?  Was it going straight to the post office top ten fugitives board or would it appear on Americas Most Wanted?  

   

I have a tech person that I depend on, so I gave him a call and he too was amazed with the picture   taking episode, but he said he'd look at my computer and try to clean it up.  I was a victim of the MoneyPak/FBI malware virus.  So I ended up on a Facebook vacation anyhow.  I deactivated my account, but it wouldn't go quietly. I had to deactivate it 3 times before it actually worked. I had decided if it didn't deactivate by the third try, it was an omen meaning, keep Facebook.  

Next, I got an email from Wal-Mart saying my Site to Store order was ready for pick-up.  I hadn't ordered anything from WM so I called the Berea Store.  Seems I had a CD to be picked up at my convenience, price 2.88. What?  Who would order something for that amount and have it shipped to the store.  The person at Berea gave me the Corporate Headquarters number and said he would put the cheap CD back on the shelf.  The people at the big house said actually I owed 173.00.  Whoever had stolen my identity had bought a gift card along with the CD.  Wal -Mart said they would handle it for me and I would be getting papers to fill out. Then I called the credit card company who also took the charge off. It's hard for me understand how someone used my credit card while it was still in my purse.  

Finally, Monday came to an end.  At this writing, I am having Facebook withdrawal, can't quit looking behind my back for the FBI and my credit card has been canceled.