Stomping to the Death - Orange Shag Runway Style

'Tis the season for my hometown paper to report of all the local queen contests in preparation for the county fair at the end of July. Much to the chagrin of my mortified mother, I was once a candidate myself.

Why did I submit myself to the wonder of the local beauty pageant? Two words...savings bond. That's right. All that humiliation for a savings bond for the winner. Well, that, plus I was afraid I would be pestered to death by the local Pork Producers group to become the County Pork Queen and that is a title you just don't live down. I'm sure many Ivy League colleges would be impressed if I listed "PORK QUEEN" as a high school accomplishment.

My first foray into beauty pageant...I mean, queen contest, was my hometown pageant. I was running against one other person and she had 99% of the support of the crowd. I counted only my sister Lisa and my friend Heather B. as my lone supporters. Nevertheless, I bellowed my way through my talent and somehow wound up winning. For such a small town (350 people), they gave me one GINORMOUS crown. I needed a whiplash neck brace to keep my head upright when I wore it.

On to the County Pageant ruled over by the long-standing pillar named Wava. Wava was the Saturday Night Live church lady with more lipstick and extra plumpness on top. On the big day, Wava stood behind her podium and staidly announced our entrance as we climbed out of the trailers (I know...redneck city) in which we were changing clothes and climbed up the rickety metal steps to the "stage" - which was half of a trailer sitting on the drag racing track. The roof was a green tarp and covering the floor was orange shag carpeting.

We stomped to the death (move over, Tyra Banks...this broad was FIERCE!) in our clothing selected from a local clothing store. Thankfully there wasn't a swim suit competition or I would have foregone the lure of the savings bond.

There was, however, the talent competition. I had written a song a year before after a guy I had a crush on really wanted nothing to do with me. He had used the dreaded F-word (let's just be FRIENDS) and I guess I was heartbroken enough to pound out some sad, sordid number called "Nothing Broken But My Heart". I don't remember much but the chorus was:

"Nothing broken but my heart

Nothing hurt but my pride

Nothing shattered but my faith

Since I can't have you by my side."

I know...dig out that sad violin music and pour me a bottle of bourbon. Nashville, here I COME! No seriously, I had to play on this old upright piano that had been painted mint green sometime during the late '70s. The microphone poised near my mouth kept weighing the stand down and the microphone began to slide down, down, down towards my lap. I'm sure by the end I was hunkered over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame as I tried to bellow out the last stanza.

I ended up getting first runner up...the only real dig was that I lost to my current-boyfriend-at-the-time's ex-girlfriend name Julie. My family consoled me with a little ditty called "Junky Julie from George" in which they assured me that the crowded "jeered and jived" that I hadn't won. And my only chance to practice my "wrist, wrist, elbow, elbow" queen wave in a parade was rained out.

But I do still have the savings bond. And in another hundred years, it just might have doubled in value. To $50. If I actually consider the rate of inflation, I actually lost money on this whole deal. As well as a great deal of dignity.

The Need for an Adult Bib

This week I am away from home on business, training a new sales rep for my company. Now, I suppose I should feel enormous guilt for abandoning my Squirrels but they are spending the week at my sister Susan's house, and they had nary a minute to talk to me when I called. Which means they are having the time of their life, probably free feeding on TCBY frozen yogurt, riding horses, and turning Susan's house into shambles. So, if it's all right by you, I'll skip the Working Mom Guilt this week.

I indulged in something tonight that made me realize there is a market for adult bibs...a 45 minute pedicure. Why the bib? Let me 'splain...

I was in Old Navy feeling sorry for myself as I realized sometime between last year and this year, Old Navy had shrunk all their pants. I stood before the dressing room mirror in the "Sweetheart" jeans and turned and twisted trying to see if my backside looked like it needed backup beeping sounds in the pair of pants I had wedged myself into. I realized it would be some time before I would be in single-digit sizes again and resigned myself to fate (cue the violins playing sad music).

So I left the store planning to attend my Pity Party, Population One when I spotted a nail salon. The last time I had a pedicure was right before my wedding and I managed to leave the salon on my foam flip flops and promptly rear end somebody at the next stoplight as I was looking down admiring my newly-painted toes. The passenger of the vehicle I rear-ended got out and was smoking up a storm and cussing at me. She must have called the cops because soon an officer, an ambulance, and a fire truck pulled up. Suddenly she was in the car complaining of chest pains and neck/back injuries. My insurance company rewarded me with a fat increase in my premiums for the next three years. Happy Wedding to me.

So I felt it was time I climb back into the saddle again...or, in this case, the delectable vibrating, swirling warm water around my feet pedicure chair. I really think if we'd drop these pedicure chairs into the Middle East (instead of food packages and bombs), we'd have world peace in no time.

I was 15 minutes in before I figured out my pedicure chair was programmable. It started massaging my back and between that and having my feet pampered, I feared my eyes would roll back in my head, I'd start drooling like a nursing home resident, and fall out of my chair.

Alas, I made it through and must say, my feet look fabulous! At least 10 years younger (ha!) and in honor of my cute little Asian pedicurist, I indulged in some MSG-laden Chinese food for dinner. Who says business trips have to be a drag?

Slow Death & Black Hair Snobbery

After recently visiting the town we used to live in in mid-North Carolina, I have realized that adopting African-American children as pasty white parents while living in the South would have been an entirely different experience.

It isn't just because the South has some weird traditions. Case in point...when I first moved to NC, I was driving along the road and I saw signs on either side of the driveway of a house that said, "Slow death in family". I thought that was very odd to broadcast to the world that a loved one was slowly dying until I realized a punctuation mark was missing, and it should have read "Slow. Death in Family". As in, slow down...there is a 3-day wake happening in this household where people are double-fisting fried chicken, fried okra, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and gallons of sweet tea all while prefacing anything they want to say with "Bless his heart..." followed by a thorough roasting.

And it isn't just that the grocery stores in the South carry weird items...like floating bits of what appear to be brain matter they call "chitlins" and shrink-wrapped packages of pigs' feet. And evidently what I call a grocery cart is labeled a "buggy" - no horse required to pull.

It's that there is a clear racial division in the South and the blacks really don't care to mingle anymore than the whites do. There could be two grocery stores belonging to the same chain in the same town and one was where all the whites went, and one was where all the blacks went. You had your black funeral parlors, churches, dry cleaners, and schools and your white versions of the same.

Well, I show up with two African-American girls and get the look of Black Hair Snobbery from every black woman I see. I went into a African Braiding salon to see if someone could give my nearly arthritic hands a break and cornrow the girls' hair. I got the aghast looks from the two ladies braiding and was told they didn't have time for me. I asked if there were other salons in town that could help me (the town is 50% black) and was told "not really". Really? One salon for all the black women? I know how many hair relaxers, weaves, extensions, corn rows, and wigs go into making a black woman's hair look nice. I know that a black woman will pay for their hair to be done before paying their rent even if it means eviction. And they are telling me one salon caters to all the black women in a town of 23,000? Seriously...

And then the older black women think they can tell me how to raise my child. I was carrying Kate back from the breakfast nook at the hotel when the maid told me "Put her down. She's old enough to walk." I was so shocked that someone would tell me how to parent that I'm sure I looked like a guppy standing there with my mouth hanging open.

So alas, (and no disrespect to my dear friends in the South) I am glad we waited until back in the Midwest to become an interracial family. And I'm glad no black woman saw my squirrels while we were at OBX. FYI...chlorine, sea water, tons of sun, and black hair is a deadly mixture. I didn't even bother to tame the beasts until mid-week.

Olympic Gold Medal Eyeballs

The other week Squirrel #1 (Eli) came home from school and in the midst of her rambling, she told me she ran a mile in 6 minutes and 35 seconds. This, coming from the same girl who thinks she will grow up to win "American Idol" and who tears up the pages of her journal and sprinkles them in fake plants as "seeds", didn't have me batting even one eyeball. There is not even a track at her elementary school so I figured she was confused with the shuttle run or something.

On the last day of school, however, the P.E. teacher sent home the results from the Presidential Physical Fitness testing. In addition to the particular student stats, the students are given a percentile rating that indicates where they rank on a national scale of students at the same grade level (1 being that pretty much everyone can beat the pants off them - i.e. the ratings I'm sure I got and 100 being that they can pretty much beat the pants off everyone else).

There it was...mile run 6:35, 100th precentile. I wondered if the P.E. teacher had hung a shiny object on the end of a string in front of her to get her to do anything longer than 1.5 seconds. But then, well, I gotta tell you...I started to dream big dreams for my little spastic squirrel.

I mean, up until now, we were hoping that her being black and formerly in foster care was enough of a sob story to get some level of scholarship. She does all right with grades when she is not getting marked down for constantly talking during class or not staying seated (thank God for the little blue pill she takes each morning...). But now, I had visions of her blazing around the high school track, college scouts madly dialing their Blackberries shouting "Recruit! Recruit!" (okay, this may not be how it happens...). Then some reknowned Olympic coach spots her and takes her on as his special protege.

In reality, I could never afford that level of coaching and look how well athletes/entertainers have turned out that have had parents who tried to live vicariously through their children (Michael Jackson, anyone? Tiger Woods?). So in the end, I just took her aside and told her that God had given her a very special talent...and it was up to her how she was going to honor Him with it.

Sweet "Crunchy" Music

It seems my penchant for getting song lyrics wrong has somehow infused into the genetics of Squirrel #1. Who says you need biology to pass on craziness?

Case in point was Eli singing along to Husband's Atlanta CD.

The song is supposed to go:

"Singing sweet country music
Breathing clean mountain air."

Eli's version? "Singing SWEEEEET crunchy music..."

I've had some doozies myself. I though Guns N Roses' "Take me down to a Paradise City" was "Take me down to a very nice city" and Go West's "King of Wishful Thinking" was "King I've Wished For, Baby". Or even Elvis Presley's "Memories" was "Mammaries...pressed between the pages of my mind" I didn't quite get how breasts could be pressed in your mind but who was I to question the King of Rock and Roll?

But perhaps the cake topper was thinking the Spin Doctor's "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" was "Cinnamon Carefree Gum". Go ahead..."Cinnamon, Cinnamon, Cinnamon Carefree Gum"...you can see where I could think that.

No?

Oh well. Perhaps it's time for some ear wax removal.

Advice to a New Father of What NOT to Do

I come by funny honestly. It runs all through my family and outlaws are no exception. Take Exhibit 1, which was in an email that one of my brother-in-laws (who shall remain nameless since I didn't ask his permission to reprint this) gave to my only brother Jeff as Jeff anticipated the soon-to-be-happening delivery of his first child.

"Some advice to Jeff on what not to do when your wife is in labor. I may have a friend of a friend of a relative who may have done these things:

1) Watch professional wrestling (early labor is boring).

2) Eat cheeseburgers in front of your wife who can only have ice chips (early labor is boring and a man gets hungry).

3) Complain that the recliner you are in is uncomfortable (not a good idea).

4) Buy a morning paper, eat breakfast, sit on the can, and chit chat with co-workers while they overhead page you in your deaf ear and wait for your wife to push until you get back to the room (that last stage went so fast).

Anyway, you have my prayers, God is in control, birth is truly a miracle, and fatherhood is awesome!"

By the way, William Jefferson (named after my dad and Jeff, not Bill Clinton, as some would think) arrived at 11:48 today, weighing in at 9 lbs. 4 oz. and measuring 22 inches. He already has lots of chubbers so we know for sure he belongs to our lineage. Only hope the neurosis that plagues us all skips a generation. If not, he'll be added to the rest of us who are heavily medicated for your safety.

You Might Belong to Farmer Bill If...

SPOILER ALERT: This post will probably only be funny to my six zany sisters and my equally nutty brother but alas, after reading through a forwarded email my sister Beth received entitled "You May Be a Farmer's Wife If...", I figured I'd do my own adaptation as an ode to my Pops - The One and Only "Farmer Bill"

You Might Belong to Farmer Bill If:

1. You walked thousands of miles of soybeans all while trying to wear the least amount of clothes possible so you could work on your tan...and wound up with a doozy of a summer sock tan nonetheless.

2. You watched Farmer Bill fall asleep in his chair in the evening with his "Hog Farmer Today" magazine. When you would wake him up and tell him he ought to go to bed, he'd snort awake, turn a page in his magazine, vow he wasn't sleeping, he was just "resting his eyes" and promptly fall back asleep.

3. You swallowed a bug at max velocity while you were riding in the bed of the pickup truck pretending you were Kate Winslet in "Titanic".

4. Your date nights ended with a goodnight kiss accompanied by the smell of hog manure if the westerly winds were just right.

5. Your make out sessions with boyfriends were interrupted by the "tink" of pitchfork tines on the car window and your dad lowering his voice six octaves to let your date know it was time to "call it a night".

6. Your dad's wardrobe consists of items all labeled with seed corn company logos.

7. You hurriedly whispered to your dad at the side of the 4-H Hog Show ring to point out your show hog since you hadn't bothered to work with the hog all summer long. And you should have known which one was yours because, as a former confinement hog, it went bucking into the ring, circled several times, and promptly pooped on the judge's shoe.

8. You learned to drive stick shift by barreling down field waterways in the black Ford pickup truck.

9. Anyone seeing you in your designer suit and high heels at the company board meeting would be shocked to learn you can double fist vaccination syringes and "process" (code word for remove the manhood from the boy piglets) hogs. And how you are tempted to repeat the procedure on the horses patoot in the meeting who keeps using words like "synergy" and "win-win situation".

10. You know the difference between a gilt, a sow, a boar, and a barrow.

11. The maddest you ever saw your dad was when he was sorting hogs. But somehow, the worse thing he called the infernal creatures was "shyster".

12. You tried to pressure wash your sibling at close range to see if the epidermis could really be removed, and were rewarded with a howl and a lingering red mark on your sibling's appendage.

13. You know that a "honey wagon" does not really haul honey.

14. You joined FFA because the guy-to-girl odds were CLEARLY in your favor...and you faked your way through lots of "Supervised Agriculture Experience (SAE)" projects to keep from having your cover blown.

15. You watched your dad's steely determination to outbid everyone in the room for you at an FFA Labor Auction as your mom was wildly flapping her arms and making throat cutting motions (evidently because of the fear that dad would end up bankrupt against the Powerful Neighboring Farmer if he didn't stop bidding). PS Dad - I would have worked for you for free.

16. You put on your "feety pajamas" after your bath, then went cross country skiing on carpet and tried to build up enough static electricity to shock your dad by touching his arm.

17. Your dad still has permanent divots in his shoulder from where your chin rested as he sat on the floor by your bed and read from "The Picture Bible" every night.

18. You know how to make "hospital corners" on your top bed sheets because of Dad's military experience.

19. The jingling of pliers still reminds you of the only forewarning we got that Dad was heading up the stairs to lift us out of bed by one ankle and swat us for snickering and playing around when we should have been going to sleep.

20. You still remember the stories he told about "Middie and Shaddie" and the hapless bear that was repeatedly bitten in the rump.

Happy Father's Day, Farmer Bill!