I don’t get Valentine’s Day. This is the first year Chris and I are going to be together at Valentine’s Day. We will be doing nothing celebratory. Doing something on Valentine’s Day would involve fighting to find a baby sitter, fighting the crowds where ever we went, and probably end in us bickering over the stress of the evening.

We also aren’t getting each other anything, and we’re cool with that. We can do nice things for each other and celebrate our relationship without Hallmark’s permission, and on unapproved days. It’s more fun that way. And it means more. Most traditional Valentine’s Day gifts I think are frivolous and result in clutter. No roses and overstuffed bears for me. I’m a potted plant kind of girl, and stuffed animals are for kids. Of course chocolate is always an acceptable gift, especially when it’s good chocolate*, but why should we be limited to one day out of a whole year to get a box of chocolates?

For me, Valentine’s Day ended at the graduation of elementary school. The minute we stopped decorating cute boxes and passing them out in class and eating cupcakes with pink frosting, I lost interest. I did enjoy helping Jonas pick out some Valentine’s for his classmates; he chose pink Disney Princess cards, isn’t he CUTE! And he had a fun time at school today making heart covered art projects, which is great. The minute Valentine’s Day turns into a guilt ridden, expensive, obligatory holiday it loses it’s appeal.

After school the kids and I were running an errand at the BX when Jonas spied a Mickey Mouse mylar balloon that he has been begging for ever since the Valentine’s decor went up the day after Christmas. I decided we’d go into the store and see how much they were; usually a mylar balloon is priced around three dollars. It turns out that the florist on base (who is notoriously over priced) is priced at four dollars a balloon usually, but since it’s today, they are five bucks a pop. I told her that was insane and left. Five dollars for a balloon! People, I used to work in the balloon industry, and I happen to know that those balloons can be sold for a very nice profit at two fifty. And raising your prices for Valentine’s Day- that’s just tacky.

This is one holiday where the merchandisers themselves are making it very easy for me to avoid the commercialism. Bring on Easter! They’ve got better candy.**

*give me a box of Godiva and I’m YOURS, baby, any day of the year.
** especially Cadbury Creme Eggs and anything with marshmallow filling and those robin egg things, mmmmmm.

I have always been a magnet for stepping on sharp objects. At five, I had a nail go through my foot. I’ve impaled my toosties on more pins than I care to remember, and once skewered a toe (accidentally) with a sewing needle. The family joke when something sharp is lost on the floor is, “Where’s Lou? She’ll find it!” And I will, painfully.

One Halloween my little brother, Bernie, was playing with toothpicks on a woven rug. As luck would have it, I stepped on one. It hurt quite a bit. I turned my foot over to yank it out, because it felt like something was there, but to my surprise, saw nothing. I gingerly poked around, but really couldn’t tell if anything was in my foot or not. The only evidence was a painful dimple on the ball of my foot and, after a few days, a little pus and swelling. Being a die hard Trick or Treater, I made the usual candy rounds anyway, limping from house to house laden with candy. By the end of the night, my foot really hurt.

Six days later, on my eleventh birthday, convinced that something was not right, my mother took me to the Dr. for an x-ray, which proved nothing. The Dr. agreed that something was probably in my foot, and so we set up an appointment with a surgeon. Three days later I was laying on my stomach in a surgery clinic reading a Soup book, trying to distract myself from the fact that they were about to slice open my foot and go digging around. The nurse prepared the anaesthetic, putting it in a needle that I am certain was as thick as my finger, and then jabbed it into the ball of my foot with sadistic glee.

At this point in the story, my mother’s version and mine vary dramatically. At the time, I was certain I merely squealed into the pillow as tears ran down my face. Soon after the procedure, my mother informed me that I probably scared away patients in the waiting room because I screamed so insanely loud people in Nebraska could hear me. At any rate, it hurt like you wouldn’t believe. There are billions of nerve endings in the bottom of your foot, and everyone of mine were on fire and ready to jump ship. The nurse kept wiggling the needle around saying that when I couldn’t feel it any more she would take it out. After a minute or two, either the numbness set in or I had gone to a happy place where I no longer felt pain, and they sliced open my foot. After several minutes of not finding anything and threatening that they might just have to close it up and try again next week, (as if I would have showed up for that!) they extracted an inch long piece of toothpick.

This event marked a major turn of events in my life. Up until this day, I had always been a trooper when it came to shots. I didn’t like them, but I was a tough kid and handled them pretty well. Here, at the wellsprings of my adolescence, that ability to cope with shots was completely destroyed. It took five nurses the next year when it came time to receive my MMR booster at school. Two to hold me, one to get me orange juice and a donut because I was lightheaded, one to stare directly into my traumatized face and talk me to distraction, and one to poke me. Every shot became an anxiety attack waiting to happen. I thought I would never recover. They don’t make a twelve step program for shot phobias.

Or so I thought. Nine years later I was married and expecting my first child. I went into pre term labor and landed in the hospital for seven unending weeks, during which time, my daily medications included three to six shots to keep the contractions at bay. I admit, the first few days were pretty rough. I was worried about my baby, worried about being in a hospital all alone, an hour and a half away from home, and the constant stream of shots didn’t help my stress level any. But, humans are adaptable creatures, and within three weeks I had gone from biting my cheeks and trying not to cry to laughing my head off at the entire situation.

Whenever a new nurse would have the job of administering my shots, she would inevitably ask which arm I wanted it in. I usually rotated arms, so I’d pick which ever one wasn’t used last. The nurse would roll up the sleeve to my hospital gown, and it never failed that I there would be an audible gasp, and the occasional profanity, at the sight of my completely black and blue upper arm. The nurse would always ask, “Are you sure you want it in this arm?” To which I would always suggest that she use the other one if she preferred, since it really made no never mind to me. So she would go for the other arm, which was just as abused as the first.

This kept me entertained for weeks, and often got me extra desserts when the nurses really felt badly for me. They also turned a blind eye when the pizza delivery guy showed up. After seven weeks of shots, I had a healthy baby boy and was completely cured of my shot hang up.

I just needed to let you all know that today I not only entered, but WON the squadron chili cook-off. Uh-huh. Me. I won. I won I won i won iwoniwoniwon. Heh.

This proves it; I”m Queen of the World! Or at least chili.

And, no. I’m not sharing the recipe. I will say that the chili was made the way chili should be made- full bodied, with flavor and heat, just like it’s maker.

Scary and Funnyand Just Plain Hilarious

This morning I got up, checked my e-mail, puttered around the house a bit before it hit me: It’s Rummage Sale Day! I quickly ran through the shower, yanked my dripping wet hair into a bun and flew out the door with the kids and hit the on base rummage sales. I made out with two flower pots, a toy car, and a 2T Harley Davidson black, leather jacket. I spent two dollars.

That’s what I call a successful morning. Last week was pretty good too. I got an HUGE outdoor plant for three bucks, a fifty cent Winnie the Pooh video for the kids, and a five dollar mountain bike that had been ridden once.

Rummage sales haven’t always intrigued me. When I was a kid my crazy grandmother used to drag me to every discount store and garage sale that crossed our path. She was the Queen of the Blue Light Specials, slowly nickling and diming herself into bankruptcy. We would stop at every sale and she would buy ugly little knickknacks to add to one of the four massive curio cabinets or various decorative tables in her house. She had so much bric a brac that when I ran through her house as a child it literally rattled, and I would get hollered at to stop running in the house before I broke something! Very few of her pieces had any true value and I lived with the constant fear of her dying and my having to go through all of the clutter.

When I was a kid I didn’t mind going to the garage sales as much, after all there were toys to be had, not to mention the piles upon piles of children’s books! Grandmother was always good for a few books, so I tolerated these rummage raids with a good sense of humor. It wasn’t until I hit my teenage years that I put my foot down.

It had gotten to the point where she would send me home with so much ugly bric a brac that I had started having to throw things out just to make room for the new. I didn’t want it and she didn’t need to waste her money on it, and I had a job and a library card, so I could get my own reading material. So, slowly we stopped checking out the rummage sales. I maintained a firm ban against them until I was an adult, and even then it was only an occasional thing.

Just a few months ago I was clued in to how completely amazing the on base rummage sales are. You see, civilians are just trying to get rid of a few pieces of junk, whereas military folk are PCSing and have a weight limit and a space limit and really truly need to get all the stuff out of the house. You can find tons of clothing, movies, toys, houseplants, furniture, and other goodies, all in great condition simply because military families can’t be hauling six bins of baby clothing to Germany and back. It’s just not practical, so they practically give the stuff away.

With the invent of ebay, some of this junk does truly have value. Last October I found two baby Halloween costumes for a quarter a pop. After a week on ebay they sold for over thirty dollars. Not a bad turn around for a fifty cent investment! So, between the chance of finding something with good resale value, and the fact that my children always seem to need clothes, and I’m addicted to houseplants, I’ve become one of those crazies who scours the base paper every Friday and gets out of bed way too early for a Saturday so I can be the first person to buy the junk. Not every week has a great find, but the few times I’ve hit the jackpot (try six pairs of baby shoes for a dollar fifty!) make it very sweet indeed.

Today Jonas ran in to the room flailing a spatula and announced he was Pekinese and that he wanted to watch Dumb Nina. “ Pekinese strong!” He said. “Pekinese fight scary monster! RAAAWWR!! Want watch Dumb Nina!”

“Where is it? You can watch it if you want.”

“I lost it!” He climbed to the top of the dryer and jumped off.

“Please don’t do that.”

“Mom! I Pekinese!”

“Well, Pekinese isn’t allowed to climb on major household appliances!”

“Mom! Not Pekinese! Pekinese!

Speech therapy is going well. We have gone from a lot of yelling to a very verbal Thing That Couldn’t Shut Up. Unfortunately, it’s still difficult to understand everything he says, and I will admit that the first time he started talking about a Pekinese and Dumb Nina, Chris and I were pretty confused. It took a few days to put two and two together. Now, I completely understand how easy it would be to twist Hercules and Thumbalina into Pekinese and Dumb Nina. What I can’t understand is why I have unconsciously started saying the same thing!