NAE NAE GETS A TWO AND MOM GETS THE TONGUE

As per my usual routine, before my daughter abandoned me and moved out west, I would spend the weekend at her house where I wowed everybody with my unique Karaoke style. This particular weekend, however, we were busy getting ready for a baby shower. We made a fabric-covered photo album, a matching fabric-covered picture frame, and there was enough of the material left over to make a matching quilt. Nae lived in a tri-level house and I was on the lower level, sitting on the floor, pinning all the pieces of the quilt together when in through the front door comes Renae with a large animal. I asked her where she got the Clydesdale and she said it isn't a Clydesdale, it is a Labrador retriever. As one of her elderly friends already had 3 dogs she couldn't take care of she called and asked Renae to please take this dog. Since this was the second Labrador the elderly friend had been given she named her TWO. I'm thinking oh big woo, Thing One and Thing Two and that Renae is adding yet another thing that eats and poops to her menagerie. Now you have to understand there is just something about me and animals. For some reason they seem to like me.

So I am sitting on the floor, left leg stretched out on the left side of the quilt, right leg Indian fashion, bent at the waist pinning this thing together, when Two trots on down the 4 or so stairs, waltzes right over next to my outstretched left leg and cuddles right next to it. Which was FINE, except when I needed to wiggle around a little bit I couldn't get Two to move. I didn't want to move the quilt pieces because they weren't pinned good yet and I kept telling Two to move. Finally pushed her and she reluctantly moved just a little. I was able to shake my leg a little, and then I starting pinning more on the quilt. Two once again snuggled up to my outstretched left leg and this time when I told her to move she threw her front right leg over my leg and pinned me there. After much coercion she finally moved and I just kept pushing her to go away because I had only so much time to get this quilt done before my big Karaoke special! She moved away and I couldn't see her. Yay, she is leaving me alone. I once again bend over the quilt and started pinning it. I never saw it coming. Two came on the side of me, stuck her tongue in my left ear and it came out my right. That quilt NEVER got finished!

BARE BEAMED AND BUTT NEKKID

I like to do yard work. When I'm working in the yard I tend to pay attention to nothing but the task at hand. My husband is always telling me to pay attention to my surroundings, but I was born with a one-track mind. We bought about 13 earth boxes and filled them with veges. I am a stickler for cleanliness and orderliness. My husband, on the other hand, well let's just say opposites attract. I wanted the boxes in an area that was easily accessible for me to keep the weeds whacked and he wanted them 3 feet from the fence which is exactly where he stuck them. He was in his "toy box" making yet another fascinating thing out of steel, and I was weedwhacking around the earth boxes and the fence and planning how I was going to get even with him for where he stuck those earth boxes while I was at the grocery store. After I weedwhacked I used the loppers to cut chinese privet out of the fence. I was really into getting rid of that privet when I noticed something felt strange about my legs. I couldn't really tell what it was and so I kept cutting the privet. I bent down to pick up the cut privet and saw that both of my shoes and pants up to my knees was completely BLACK with fire ants. As the lead fire ant blew his bugle for his mighty army to chomp my flesh, right there in the back yard, for all the world to see, in broad daylight, as I was making a bee line out of that fire ant nest I came out of my shoes and my socks, all the while doing this running/hopping/flopping/sliding maneuver up the hill while pulling my pants and bloomers off and I dove into the pool. Hmmmm. All my clothes are on the ground well away from the ladder, there were certain parts of ME that went UNweedwacked most of the summer, and about the only thing I was wearing when I dove into the pool was a long tee shirt and half a zillion fire ants. Might as well do some water aerobics cause it was a long time til nightfall. I didn't dare SWIM because, well, moon over Miami. About an hour later my husband came out of the toy box, saw me in the pool and asked if I wanted a float. Told him naaa, I didn't think so, because I was bare beamed and butt nekkid. He didn't believe me as he was tossing in a float. I told him to walk around the pool and when he did he was dying laughing as he followed the trail of my clothes. He picked them all up for me. He was kind enough to put fire ant bait along the fence line and fetched me a robe. He missed the whole show, but it took about a month for him to quit grinning.

Mother Goes Cruising (Boarding Day)

I went on a cruise. I went with a fuddy-duddy who didn't want to have any fun. I have since gotten rid of him. While on the cruise, I had to do everything by myself and I didn't get to do a lot because he was whining the whole time. The cruise itself was something I wanted to do if I could be on there with people who wanted to have fun! So, the first person I thought of was MOM! And I thought the kids would have a lot of fun too! Mom was a hard sell. "I AM NOT GETTING ON A SHIP, I AM CLAUSTROPHOBIC, I AM NOT GOING TO GET ON A PLANK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN WHERE YOU CANNOT SEE LAND! I SAW TITANIC, AND I WOULD BE A REALLY GOOD SHARK MORSEL! " I had to carefully explain to mom that there were NO ice burgs between Mobile, Alabama and Cozumel, Mexico, to which she quickly retorted, "I ALSO SAW THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE!" But mom has never met a grandchild she could say no too. Besides, I told her that they feed you around the clock and you don't have to do the dishes! She said, "Sounds like a plan! I am gonna eat my way all the way to Cozumel and all the way back!" AND, the opportunity became available because the Port was brand new and it was the first ship to leave from Mobile. You couldn't beat the price either, as all 5 of us got to cruise for the price of 2!
In October 2004, we set sail for a 5 day cruise to Cozumel, MX. It was cold and rainy and foggy in Birmingham, our home town. So we dressed like Eskimos for the trip from Birmingham to Mobile. We'd no sooner cleared Montgomery when the sun came out and it was 89 degree's easy! And it only got hotter as we progressed towards Mobile. Well... we only allowed enough time to get from B'ham to Ricky's house and get our suitcases in Sandra's car and then head to the port. So, we get to the port, 2 fat menopausal women dressed in "snowmobile suits" in 98 degree weather! (we were in long pants and long sleeved shirts, so it seemed like it was a snowmobile suit for these two women who didn't have an ovary between them!) Nobody told us that we were going to have to be in a line for 2 hours , in the sweltering heat, in our "snowmobile suits" to board that ship! We finally managed to get through all of this and get on the ship. Found our room. Room was lovely. We had chocolate dipped strawberries and champagne in our room. Wanting to rub it in, ma flips out her cell phone and calls her husband to tell him that she's in the room and that we had chocolate dipped strawberries and champagne. I took a picture!! While mom was posing for the picture Samantha scarfed down all 5 of those strawberries!
Next thing is, we are in a hurry to ditch those heavy clothes and put on something more suitable. Before we could get a leg out of our pants, they made this big announcement that everybody on the ship had to get the life preservers that were in their room and head down to this big room so that we could learn what to do if we had to evacuate. We only THOUGHT it was hot until we got to that meeting room.! There had to be 900 people crammed in that room, and now in addition to our snowmobile suit, we have a heavy, hot life preserver around our necks!! Mom did some fast calculating; 900 people times 98.6 degrees........... equals 88,740 degrees! Mom was looking for a set of ovaries to borrow!! Mom, being reluctant to even go on a cruise, told me, "This is no fun! I know what to do if we have to abandon ship! I am climbing over top of everybody and getting in one of those life boats!"
Mom and I were at the back of the herd, and she noticed that there was an empty space and possibly some fresh air, so she headed for it. She took 2 steps backwards and a security person told her she couldn't stand there, she had to join the rest of the herd! Moms life jacket was way too little for her. She was complaining that if she was thrown overboard this little thing wasn't going to do anything for her, and she asked, "What do they think I can do with this thing anyway?" I turned to look around the room a whole big thirty seconds, and then I heard mom say,"Hey Nae, look what I can do!" She squished that life preserver around the cheeks on her face, managed to hunker her neck into it, and all the excess fat around her chin was oozed out all around that life preserver and her cheeks were so squished that she had fish lips and her eyes were squints (ya'll think I'm joking!) and in Edith Anns voice through those fish lips, she said, "Mr. Bus driver, sir, can you please open your door?" I do believe in the 30 to 40 minutes of sweltering torture, we managed to offend half the cruise before we set sail! Especially when mother raised her hand and pointed her finger straight up in the air and said in her best English accent, " Evian over here please!" Her plea's were ignored. Undaunted, she raised her hand again and said, "Bottled water please!" still in the English accent! Still ignored, then in her best Fred Flintsone bellow, she said, "What's a person got to do to get a drink water around here?" She was completely ignored.
As soon as we learned what to do in case of "enemy fire", or if we hit an "ice burg", they turned the herd loose and we were able to go back to our room!! As the herd was being disbanded, mom gave me that look and asked, "Are we having FUN YET?"
When we got back to the room we changed into something more suitable so we could go to the front of the boat and watch as we set sail. There wasn't a lot of room out there and there was a guy about 35 years old who hadn't quite mastered the english language and who looked like his name should have been Jethro Bodine, was drunk and pointing and yelling, "Over yonder's the POO-POO plant!" Mom asked the man, "Should we stop over there and get some toilet paper?" We ended up leaving and going to the back of the boat to get away from that obnoxious fool!
After we took off and we got to clean, blue water, the sun went down pretty quick and we were starving, and so our cruise began.
Told by Sharon and Renae