the birthday story, for my daughter

Once upon a time there was a very beautiful woman who was pregnant.  She waited long months for the child that kicked her insides to kingdom come to be born.   Lo and behold, on the eve of a great snow storm, she felt a few twinges that could not be explained - and typically, the day after the great snow storm, her water broke.

"I TOLD you it was time!" she fretted as she walked through the snow to the waiting ambulance while the babe within her slept, unaware all hell was about to break loose.

After much wailing and screaming and contractions that rivaled 7.0 on the Richter Scale, the babe was born.  And the young mother was tired and the babe was madder than a wet setting hen (but like her mother, she was very beautiful, with a head full of red hair, fair skin, and one eyebrow that covered both eyes).  The mother was distressed that her child was so angry.

"What's wrong, little one?" she asked.

"I was sleeping so well and you woke me UP.  It isn't a school day for me yet, you know.  And who are all these strange people with funny hair that blouses around their heads and no mouths - just a strange patch of blue skin stretched between nose and chin.  Mother, this is NOT what I was expecting. I am not so much angry as mortified.  What planet is this??"

"Well...it's Earth, but by no means is it a perfect world.  You're pretty!"

The babe blushed and said "Aww, thanks.  I like your hair.  It's...normal.  What's my name?"

The mother thought for a few minutes and said - Oh, I can't make up my mind.  And so you are Traci Elizabeth Leigh."

"So many names to choose from," the babe mused.

"But we'll call you Beth, for the sweetest character in the book Little Women."

"Okay, but be it noted that I have my own personality with layers like onion.  I am not a one dimensional character wedged between pages bound in leather. And also, I plan to enjoy  my life, which means I'll run the full gamut of emotions and do what I please - and by the way, I plan to move to Durham in 26 years.  Word in the Universe is that there is a place there called Duke, and I have my eye set on that.  Go Devils!"

And so the child, Beth, grew.  She brought tears to her mother's eyes by bringing sweet bouquets of flowers, hanging upside down from the guide wires outside of their home, by bringingher dead squirrels unearthed from burial because the dogs kept messing with it.  She was a continual delight with infectious laughter and a penchant for slamming doors until they fell off of their hinges.  True to her red hair, she was - a lit match dancing with life.  A tall candle reaching for the sun - and Duke.

Came the day she left her mother for Durham to follow her dreams.  And came the anniversary of her birth yet again this year.  As always, her mother recalled fondly the day Snow Bird Traci Elizabeth Leigh entered the world and and graced it with laughter and tears and passion for all she cares about. 

I won't see you today...but I remember, and in your honor I am eating an entire triple fudge cake.

I love you, kiddo.  Have a wonderful birthday..

Mommy

Dark Chocolate

I love it, you know - deep, dark, mildly sweet with almonds.  Yummmm.

It has been quite a week, and tomorrow is Friday (already).  Frankly, I'm ready for it.  It has been crazy.  I noticed in Leigh's journal that she had included a few things she is grateful for, and that isn't such a bad idea. 

And so, I am grateful for:

Particulary, my two girls, Beth and Jessica.  They're bright lights.

Jessica's new job!

Dr. Templeton, for dragging me out of medical records and forcing me to walk at lunch time. Every day.  Rain or shine. Dang it all. For the talks we have, tossing ideas back and forth, and for the spirit of adventure.  You would not believe the things you can find between the two prisons!  Among them, a new friend/kindred spirit who carries an umbrella.

For the steam vent coming out of the ground between the two prisons.  Warms the hands on a cold day.

OTC cold medications.

That whatever is making the paint bubble behind my desk did not ooze out and eat me when the paint crew drilled a big hole in the wall to pack it with mud.

Dark chocolate.  It's better than wine coolers.

German coffee.  Smoooooooooooooooth.

Family. Good friends.  That I had opportunity to talk with Dr. H. this week.

You know, when you start counting your blessings, it's hard to know when to stop.  The list is endless...and makes the week seem not so crazy, after all.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

Image is everything, but you have to be careful with it.

I remember when my son was 15 and had his driver's permit.  We rode together, him at the wheel wearing his "cool" shades, one hand slung nonchalantly over the steering wheel while the other fiddled with the radio as he tried to find the right cruising music.  He drove 40 mile per hour on the backroad, and as we approached the intersection to busy 211, he said, "Now, when we get on 211, I have to go faster than this."  I tightened my seatbelt and told him "It's a car, not a rocket.  Just remember that. And stop fiddling with the radio!"

How I worried, after he got his license, when he took the car for a trip or a date.  Everytime he whipped on those shades, my stomach went into nervous spasms.  But after a while, it was ok.  He only wrecked once - rear-ended someone, probably because he was busy looking in the mirror to check his image while listening to something that might qualify as music. 

Then came the day he bought his own truck.  He was so proud of it.  At the time, he was a volunteer fireman and the decal on his rear window read "My other truck is a fire truck!"  

Well, time went on - kids change so fast.  He married, had a baby (they're back together, by the way!), and began working for a security company.  He began wearing black pants, black boots, black t-shirt and a security shield.  And even cooler sunshades.  Did I mention the tattoos? Well, he has them, but the sheriff's department accepted him in the ride-along program, and he began working with them several times a week, as well as holding down a regular job and the security job.  One Sunday, he worked at the jail and thought it was the best thing since ribeye steak.

He began taking the required self-defense classes.  He began working out.  His arms are massive for a man his size.  He shaved his head.  And then one night, he came home with ...earrings.  Two of them.  He looked like Mr. Clean on steroids.  And then one day last week, the phone rang and it was him.  The sheriff's department had offered him a job serving warrants.  He was so excited.  And I was excited for him, but the mom part of me kicked in and worried, as it does every time he leaves to work security at a night club.

And then yesterday he came home with a new canister of pepper spray for work.  "Is this what y'all use at the prison?" he asked.  The only thing I know about pepper spray at work is that I'm allergic to it and can't breathe in an area where an inmate has been sprayed.  And so he joked around with me, put on his cool shades and black outfit, hung his new pepper spray on his belt and got in the car to leave for work.  And then he came back in...

"*#$(*&!(#@$$#" repeatedly, as he splashed his face with water.

and I said - "GASP, COUGH, CHOKE" repeatedly.

He couldn't see, I couldn't breathe.  When he sat down in the car, the pepper spray went off and he sprayed himself.

GOD, it was so much easier when he first got his license.

My Night to Journal

It feels as though I haven't journaled in a very long time, so this will probably be another disjointed ramble...First of all, thank you to all of you.  You've been so supportive over the last...ever since I've known you!...and I want you to know how much that means to me.  Mom is doing ok, but has had to go on oxygen in the last week. 

I feel foolish asking her, "How are you today?"  but she always answers, "Fair." and gives a smile and tells me she loves me at some point in our conversation.  I've always known my mother loves me, but she was never one to say the words until lately. And she doesn't complain. She holds herself with dignity and a grace I can only hope to one day have.

So many changes this year, coming thick and fast. It's like the world is rocking, or is being shaken like a snow globe and the flakes are still floating, unsettled, right now.  There is a very good chance that my daughter-in-law and grandson will be living here by the end of the week.  I hope so.  Mason is the grandchild who lives nearer, so I see him more often than Josh and Sara Pie...and it isn't that I love him more, but he is joy close enough to hold.

And on the employment front, there is a big change in coming.  Our facility will begin phasing out in 2009 because the building is so old it would cost more to repair it all than to build a new one.  The Powers That Be are being tight-lipped about the new location.  It could be anywhere in the state.  And with that in mind and the fact that I wouldn't want to be riffed just any old where, I will begin a new job, out of medical, at another unit soon.  I will be working in inmate transfers/classification.  It's an exciting venture.  I began DOC with medical, and now I'm branching out into unfamiliar territory...which I think is a good thing.  I've done and been my best having to think on my feet.

I hope the week is going well for everybody in the Journals community.  And before I close this, I would like to say congratulations to Indigo for her award.  If I could choose an award to give it would be for poetry/prose, and it would go to her.  She is an amazing woman and writer.

Y'all be safe.

and his dog

hope to get a photo of them together soon.  they adore each other.

a boy