And the headline will read: Desperate Husband Discovers Cure

Jon and I were driving home from Shakespeare in the Park last night when he reached and started rubbing the back of his neck.

"I think I have meningitis again."

And being the caring, sympathetic wife I am, I reached over and patted the back of his neck.

"Hmmm... and what do you think cured that the last time you had it?"

"Sex."

"Really? Sex is a cure for meningitis?"

"Uh, huh."

Internet- why do I have the feeling my husband is going to suffer from chronic meningitis?

A Brief Photo Commentary

Almost every day in the car, I see something and want to smack my head on the dashboard for not having a camera with me. Like one day, I saw this white van that had a cosmetology head mounted on it's antenna. You know, those toy, life-sized doll heads you get as a young girl (or flamboyant boy), where you can fix their hair and do their make up. No kidding, it was sitting on the hood of this van with the antenna running straight out of the top of its head. Moments JUST LIKE THAT.

Well, these are a few where I DID have my camera. None like the doll head, but they still caught my attention.

LaMona's Cut-N-Up
No longer open. Perhaps LaMona did a little TOO much cut-n-up!
LaMona quit the hair styling business to pursue a career in comedy.



Now, I don't mean to state the obvious. Wait, yes I do.
I think Pappy did his own signage.
Antiques? Old? Used? How about "confused," cause I think those are all the same.



Construction started with this sign. Neighbors jumped the gun and had to dismantle their protest after the realization that this was indeed not a Gentleman's Club for the good 'ole boys.

Sometimes it pays to be a porker!

On my way home today, I passed our neighborhood Piggly Wiggly. Let’s stop right here. Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store, in case you’re not one of the fortunate folk who have had the pleasure of that knowledge. Piggly Wiggly was a staple in my hometown. My sister worked there in high school and my boyfriend was a bag boy there. He asked me to “go with him” while he was breaking down boxes out next to the dumpster. Yes, it seems much of my life revolves around trash (see previous entry). Another life lesson learned: Any relationship that starts at a dumpster… well, it probably isn’t destined for greatness. But, back to the store itself- they’re all but extinct these days. I blame it on the name. Seriously- Piggly Wiggly? Who would want to grocery shop in a place that reminds you that the sheer act of eating can make you a wiggly porker? What genius came up with that winner?

So, I’m driving by today and there was an advertisement for Hunts Ketchup- 5 for $5. Now, I don’t argue that this is a bargain… if you’re a freak of nature!! Who the hell needs five bottles of ketchup at one time? Tuna? Mac ‘n Cheese? Soup? I can understand some items in quantities of five. But ketchup? I don’t get it. If you're going to sell ketchup at 5 for $5, then pair that special with bags of fries at 5 for $5. Then this would be an entirely different kind of post, and I would be gladly oinking my way to the Piggly Wiggly!!

This was my childhood.

I think I could just tell you my mamaw’s name was Effie and my papaw’s name was Lester and that would be enough. Effie and Lester. Where do you go from there?
It’s a sad day when the words “mamaw” and “papaw” sound better than your grandparents’ real names.

I have a lot of endearing memories about my mamaw and papaw. Like how cute they were when mamaw would call me and my sister into the kitchen and sneak us a couple of dollars, instructing us to “not let him see it.” I suppose we should have told her that he had just done the same thing, but we weren’t stupid. Besides, I considered it payment for the cruel embarrassment suffered under my papaw’s supervision. I’m sure some kids got excited about going places with their grandfather, but honestly- the coolest thing about that experience for me was to climb in the back of his old blue station wagon with the roll-crank window in the back. That was back before seatbelts were invented and folks just threw their young ‘uns in the car or back of a pickup truck and told ‘em to “hang on”.
I was cool with the station wagon. What I wasn’t cool with was where we’d go in the station wagon. Mainly to Foodway- the local grocery store. I would have been perfectly fine pulling into a space in front, climbing out of the back of the wagon, and going grocery shopping with my papaw. I was eight years old and I would have been fine with that. But we didn’t park in front. We parked in back. In the alley. By the dumpster. ‘Cause my papaw… Lester… he wasn’t taking me and my sister grocery shopping, he was taking us dumpster diving. That’s right. He’d pick us up and toss us over in the dumpster to dig for produce. Not to eat. No, we weren’t starving. To feed his rabbits. His pet, caged, white, fluffy rabbits. So, you can understand why I was never overjoyed with finding an Easter basket full of jelly beans. That damn bunny should have been bringing me some imported chocolate... or baskets of cash.

Yeah, my fifteen year old nephew thinks it’s embarrassing when he has to be seen getting out of the car with his family at the movies. How horribly embarrassing. I think my sister and I should toss him over in a dumpster so he has a legitimate gauge of embarrassment. I have a feeling after digging up a couple heads of lettuce, he’d be ready to hold his momma’s hand in public. Kids now days.

No, we didn’t have to walk to school, three miles, barefoot in the snow. He drove us in the wagon and he at least let us wear shoes. I guess it’s good that we didn’t spend all our time sitting on the couch playing video games, or watching TV. There IS something to be said about child labor I guess. We even had occasional strength training. Foodway didn’t have the only dumpster. There used to be dumpsters along every county road and you could just go throw stuff away. Or pick it up.

This one time, my papaw took me, my younger sister, and our cousin, Michael, for a ride in the country. Hey- we were just excited it wasn’t to Foodway. That was, until my papaw spotted a roll of carpet lying beside a rural dumpster. He pulled over and we all did what normal 6, 7, and 9 year old kids do… we jumped out and acted like we had just pulled up at Fred’s Dollar Store. We figured this was as exciting as it was going to get. Lester had my sister and me trying to help him lift this roll of carpet into the station wagon when my cousin Michael popped around the corner wearing a mask he found in the trash. All I remember is him bouncing out and yelling “I’m Mickey Mouse,” before my papaw jerked that mask off and yelled, “BOY, STOP FOOLING AROUND AND HELP US GET THIS IN THE CAR!” ‘Cause Michael’s strength at six was staggering!

I guess I should be thankful. I’m thankful for the experience. I’m thankful that when one day my kids complain about how terrible it is that they have to sit down for family dinners, or that they don’t have the latest $400 cell phone… and all the other terribly horrible tragedies they’ll have to suffer- I’m thankful that I have a resource for a lesson in humility. Only nowadays, people get arrested for putting their kids in dumpsters. Maybe there’ll be a landfill nearby.

And later they'll all say, "He seemed so normal."

As Jon and I were lying in bed with the sleep machine running:

Jon: “Do you ever hear other noises in the white noise?”

Me: “Yeah. Sometimes the speakers on that thing are weird and it makes weird rhythms and some other noises.”

Jon: “‘Cause I think I just heard it say ‘nominate Romney’… and the other night, I thought I heard some of the Chinese Olympians’ names.”

Me: “Okay, honey… that’s not called ‘other noises'…. that’s called CRAZY. And I think you're watching too much TV.”

Maybe I should be the doctor in this relationship.

The following is a brief conversation with Jon, who on our honeymoon feared he had meningitis because his neck was stiff. I, taking a more practical and logical approach, reminded him that he had been sleeping on a plane and two-hour van ride while his head bobbled and flopped around. Muscle soreness seemed like a more legitimate diagnosis to me. I guess being married to a neuro-psychologist has its challenges. “I’m a brain scientist… I KNOW all the things that can go wrong with the brain and spinal cord.” I’m not a brain scientist (or a hypochondriac), but I know that having your head tossed around like you’re on a ride at the county fair will cause your neck to be stiff.

So, after we returned from Panama and I had finally convinced him that he did not have meningitis, he pointed out a small bloody spot on his elbow.

“What is that blood?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Did you slap a mosquito or something?”

“Maybe.”

“Gah, now you’ll be telling me you have West Nile or something.”

“No. Dengue fever. Everyone has West Nile.”

Leave it to my husband to be dramatic. We’re not too far away from cold and flu season. This could get interesting.

Welcome Back

If you've returned to this outdated blog, I'd like to commend you for your patience. Either that, or we really need to get you out of the house more! So, it's been quite a while since I've been able to blog, but now that the wedding and honeymoon are over, I'll return to my regular life and you can read all of the boring details of it here.

There's an overwhelming sense of pressure for this first entry. I've been thinking of how to return and what to write about. As you can imagine, much has happened in the past few weeks and I'll have many stories to share. But for today, I decided to ease back into things and let someone other than me be the idiot of the day.

Enjoy the video. This is classic! Who would guess working at Subway would provide such drama?