STOP! In the Name of the Law!

Tonight I was reminded of a story from my high school days which I gladly share at this time. It is a homeschool science lesson in the making, mixed with art and civics. Thank you for bringing this story to the forefront of today’s news, Connie, my partner in crime more than once in our late teen years.

It has escaped me where I obtained this gem of a fashion statement, but somehow I got my little 17-year-old hands on a pair of these stop sign sunglasses.

This is EXACTLY the pair that I chose to wear in high school. See how they have shatter-proof lenses? Safety first! See how it says for children 5 years or older. It should have said for children ages 5-15… let me explain.

The lenses on these beauties were green and they were quite dark, which aided my shielding of the bright California sunshine while donning them. One bright shiny day, I was cruising down El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, California (But not cruising at night on El Camino Real in Santa Clara….. that was naughty) minding my own business… wearing the above glasses… because I was fashion conscious. I’m sure I had on a red or white or royal blue Izod polo shirt with the collar turned up with a matching cherry red patent leather belt in the belt loops of my 501 Levi jeans. (Button fly! Rock on!)

Unusual, to be sure, the stoplights were out on El Camino that day! I was quite surprised that so many in a row were out… block after block. I approached each intersection with caution, stopped, looked both ways and proceeded with care.

Next thing I know there was an officer of the law flashing his blue lights at me in the rear view mirror. Odd. I had never seen them only flash blue. (Not that I had much experience being pulled over… ahem.) After pulling my car to the side of the road the nice police man came to chat with me. He asked why I was running all the red stop lights on El Camino. WHAT? “They were all out, officer! That is why I treated them like stop signs.”

Then I pulled off my awesome stop sign sunglasses and realized his patrol car WAS flashing red and blue… but I couldn’t see the red lights with the green lenses in my fashion eye wear. Figuring he would believe me as I made the discovery and explained it to him….. he simply stood there looking at me like I had used too much VO5 hairspray for too long in too small of a bathroom.

Finally, I handed him the glasses and offered, “See for yourself!” He did. He put them on, glanced around at his police car lights and the red street light in the next intersection, removed them and handed them back to me shaking his head.

The kind public servant did not give me multiple tickets for running multiple lights that day, but did instruct me to NEVER wear the stop sign sun glasses while driving! OKAY!

Here is the science lesson part of this story from physicsclassroom.com:

A pigment that absorbs a single frequency is known as a pure pigment.

Pigments absorb light. Pure pigments absorb a single frequency or color of light. The color of light absorbed by a pigment is merely the complementary color of that pigment.

And so, dear students, green lenses on fancy sunglasses shaped like stop signs absorb red traffic lights because green and red are complementary colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel. You cannot see red lights with these glasses on! Don’t try this at home!

Be safe! Don’t drive with green or red lenses! And there you have it, from the archives.

Laughing in the Midst of Purgatory, Part 1

That is the title of the new book I’m writing about our lifelong struggle with an address change fiasco and our debit card nightmare. Every time a new frustrating glitch arises in our lives due to these two events that began in the summer of 2015, I think, “This HAS to be the last time.” And then no. I have another blog story to tell.

This one MIGHT take the cake. It is still not resolved. I am still hopeful. I am a diehard optimist. You have to be in these situations.

We switched our internet service from Cox to Century Link in 2013, however, we decided to keep paying $9.99/month for my email address at Cox because I have used it for 11 years and it is printed on the back of my books, on business cards, receipts, bookmarks, etc., etc., etc.

Last week I was not able to log on to my email account and the page read, “This account is closed. Please contact us.” WHAT? So I called, because it told me to and I obey the rules (if they are not stupid, in my humble opinion!)

After only a four minute hold, I was able to speak with a kind lady who read her script well… I almost couldn’t tell she was reading scripts. I refrained from asking how long she had had this job, because I’m nice and I needed her help. (My guess was one week!)

Guess! Just guess what she asked for first to verify my account???  YEP! My address. Somehow I knew this was not going to be the walk in the park I was hoping for. Thinking quickly that this account was opened three years ago, I gave our Arizona address where we have lived for 11 years. Nope. Wrong. Then I gave the Oklahoma address where our mail went for two months where we have never lived. Nope. Wrong. WHAT? She replied, you know, like I’m stupid and don’t know my address, “Have you lived anywhere else?” This account has only been open for three years…. I lived in this house that I am sitting in this very moment. So I gave the address of the house we lived in before 11 years ago. Yep. Oh my stars.

Okay, at least they gave me three tries. That was nice of her, although the script probably said, “After their third attempt, hang up on this moron.”

Next she proceeded to tell me that we missed a payment in October 2015. (This is August 29, 2016) I calculated back and yes, that was about the time of the first dumb debit card problem. I kindly asked why they didn’t inform us. She said they would have sent a letter. Great! It probably went to Oklahoma.

She said we acquired a late fee, plus we missed payments in November and December, both with late fees. I commented that we would have paid these, had we known about them. Then came my favorite part… they sent the account to collections, which we have never heard from. After that they closed the account. THAT would have been pertinent information to share with a customer, quite possibly through the avenue of the email account that was with their company. But no.

My email account was working all this time… until last week, August 24th, when I could no longer log on. (This saved my husband, Mr. Wallet, over $110!)

I was still remaining under control with my nice mom voice on. (That surprised even me!) At that point I inquired how I could get my email account back. Pausing, while searching her script for this question, she finally retorted, “We don’t have email accounts anymore that aren’t associated with our internet service.” A small swear word went through my mind, which is not like me at all. Thankfully it didn’t come out of my mouth. She then went to section 27 of her script and asked, “Would you like me to get you set up with internet service? But you would not be able to use the previous email address.”

At that point, I lost it. I laughed…. hard. Right in her ear. (Just like the picture!) When I was eventually able to speak, I asked her, “Why in the world would any customer come back to your company who has just shut down my personal email without contacting me, sent me to collections, and tell me that I need to go back to paying for your crappy internet service just to have an email account?” She paused. I don’t think she could find the word CRAPPY in her script. She stuttered, she spat, she slowly responded, “I’m just reading the script, Ma’am.” I laughed hard in her ear again. It was that guttural laugh that the Joker cackles on Batman like he is possessed or some such nonsense.

“Has any customer ever said yes to coming back?” I probed. Obviously that question wasn’t on the script either. Long pause.    …..      I wondered if she had fallen and couldn’t get up. I finally told her that I appreciated how patient she was finding my account but that she could help me no further that evening. And we hung up as friends.

Oh, it’s not over. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3. (Part 3 hasn’t even happened yet, but it’s coming because of how Part 2 went down.)

 

 

After ALL These Years….

After all these years, I have finally figured something out.  Please don’t hold your breath too long waiting in anticipation for this monumental, earth-shattering news.  The back-story first.

With two bathrooms upstairs and a newly acquired princess from Colombia in December 2010, I decided that she could brush her teeth and bathe in the master bathroom, so as to leave more room for her three siblings.  How nice of me.  I’m the nice mom, remember?  I figured it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle due to her usually preening at different hours than her father and me.  Fast-forward four months to me being completely grossed out by the blobby toothpaste all over the cap and drawer where the Crest is kept.

The gross-out feeling is mutual between my new daughter and me.  She is grossed out that hair is stuck in my hairbrush.  I am grossed out by dried, globby toothpaste on the cap and in the drawer.  Deciding not to mention the blue blobs, I got myself a brand spankin’ new tube of Crest ONLY for personal use, and cleared a spot in my medicine cabinet for MY toothpaste where it would remain clean and blob-free.

NOTHING gets past her big brown eyes!  NOTHING!  She asked me THE NEXT DAY, “Why do you have toothpaste up there on the shelf now?”

In a sweet voice (because I’m the nice mom) I replied, “It’s because someone left toothpaste on that tube in the drawer and I don’t want to touch it.”

Her response made me burst out laughing, “Maybe DAD left the toothpaste all over the cap!”  Hahahaha!

Her father and I have been sharing the same tube of toothpaste for 23 years.  If you are a germaphobe, I’m sorry that you now look down your sanitized nose at us.  We are what we are.  So, YES there were new clumps of toothpaste.  YES, the Colombian princess was the culprit…. but not the culprit willing to admit to the messiness.

So what did I figure out after all these years?  My husband is a very neat toothpaste user, for which I am thankful.   I would not be harboring these thankful thoughts if it weren’t for our Colombian Princess joining the family.  :o)  One more blessing of adoption.

 

Nora-isms: Skills of Language Acquisition

Until our Colombian princess learns how words are spelled, she will continue to pronounce them the way she hears them, which is not always clearly nor correctly.  It may be contributed also to our lazy speech or the rapid-fire delivery we occasionally use.  It makes me laugh.  Have a glimpse into our kitchen this afternoon:

Nora: Mom, will you paint with me tomorrow?

Me: Sure, I will paint with you.

Nora: What is taint?

Me: I don’t know what taint is.

Nora: You just said taint.

Me: No, I said paint.

Nora: Oh, ok.  What does taint mean?

Me: (thinking that I don’t want to explain a tainted woman) Nothing really.

Nora: Isn’t that where you put the gas in the van?

Me: No, that is TANK.

Nora: Oh, I thought it was taint.

And so our lives go on as she learns to carefully pronounce words in English.  I distinctly remember the Colombians laughing at my Spanish.  I’m sure I had some doozies as well.  Later today she asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her. Sure. 

Nora:  How about Robin Hoove?

Me: What?

Nora: Robin Hoove…. you know with the wolf and the chicken.

Me: Oh!  You mean Robin Hood, and he’s a fox.

Nora: Hey, just like my book I read Sox the Fox!

Me: Yep! 

Nora: Can we start Robin Hoove now?

Her words make me laugh over and over again.  And the word Congratulations has lots of syllables.  Too many to remember sometimes. 

Later I asked her to pause the movie so we could eat dinner.  She replied, “Yes, man.” 

Me: What?

Nora: Yes, man.  I learned that on a Focus on a Famly story.  The boy kept saying “Yes, man” to his mom.  She said it was good matters. (manners……)

Me: It is actually, “Yes, Ma’am.”

Nora: What is?

Me: Yes, Man is supposed to be Yes Ma’am.

Nora: Oh.  I wondered why he was calling him mom a man.

And later again, we were in my bedroom looking for matches to sterilize a needle….

Nora: Did you look under the covers?

Me: No, why would I keep matches under the covers?

Nora: I seen them there before.

Me: YOU DID?  (Reflecting back 15 years ago when Larisa tried burning the house down by lighting matches in our bed!) Who’s bed were they in?

Nora: What do you mean bed?

Me: You know what a bed is.

Nora: Why would you keep matches in a bed?

Me: That’s what I want to know.   (She stares at me like I’m stupid.)

Nora: (Exasperated) Look under the covers in your bathroom…. I seen the matches there.

AHA!  Cupboards = covers.  Good grief!

The English language is a beast.

A Classic Linda Day

It started out as an ordinary day in the life of me, but no day is ordinary in my life, as I have come to realize.  It was a “don’t-have-to-go-anywhere-or-look-nice” kind of day, so I was sporting my summer uniform of denim shorts and a Walmart USA t-shirt.  Breakfast was under way, but the blown-up chili and eggs on the inside of the microwave grossed me out beyond my comfort level.  As I always do, I filled a small bowl with water and set it in the microwave to be heated to boiling… and thus moistening all the hard-as-cement bits glaring at me.  This has been my “clean the microwave” practice for over 20 years.  It has never failed me until today.  I set the timer for four minutes and stood by spreading cream cheese on a bagel.  I was a little too close to the microwave for comfort.  The bowl boiled down to vapors and the pressure inside the little white oven blasted the door open. Yes, the water hit the side of my head and soaked my Wally World t-shirt.  I also screamed…. quite loudly.  And scared the dog.  Thankfully it was not boiling hot water… it was luke warm water that didn’t burn the skin off the side of my face.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day….. I decided it was time for the bi-annual shower cleaning in the master bathroom.  Don’t judge me.  We do not have a water softener and the hard water clings to the shower door and walls like Saran wrap to itself.  Happily (ok, not really) I was spraying and scrubbing the shower… fully clothed, still in my summer uniform.  I was utilizing a large 7-11 cup to rinse the walls as I went along.  Then the phone rang and I abruptly stood up, my shoulder hitting the shower tap and turning on the cold water from the shower nozzle….. blasting the same side of my head that WAS recently dry after the microwave blasting only an hour earlier.  This was WAY more water, however.  Sufficiently drenched.

When my husband finally arrived home and we were sitting like the Cleavers having dinner around the table, he asked the ominous question, “How did your day go?”  “Before or after I got blasted in the head twice?”  Another classic Linda day.

The Alliance

Yes, it sounds like a movie title but in this case it’s not.  The Alliance is a group of age-old homeschooling families who have walked in their own moccasins for more than twenty-five years and have come together to support homeschool state leaders.  They put on a conference, to which my husband and I attended this week, sort of like a family reunion but we were just meeting the family for the first time. I haven’t mentioned here on MSJ that my husband and I are on our state’s homeschool board, partly because I don’t feel worthy to be there half of the time… and the other half of the time I can’t figure out why they let us on after hearing my husband’s stories.  (Yes, he did it again.)

We were invited to a “refresher weekend” in January so the current board could get to know us casually over a buffet lunch and some chat time on a Saturday.  All went well until my dear husband started telling a biking story as we were moving from tortellini to cheesecake.  Rick and I were sitting next to each other in the middle of a rectangular table.  He was speaking to one end and I was speaking to the other.  I kept one ear on his conversation the whole time in case I needed to run interference…. but as the forks went into the cheesecake, realization hit that I was too late to save the day. Mercy sakes alive.

The story went something like this…. we were attending a new church that had Saturday night services.  Rick and our son went on a bike ride Sunday morning in the direction of our old church.  Rick has been going to church on Sunday mornings for 44 years… if he is out bike riding on a weekend morning, in his brain it is Saturday, even if it is Sunday.  So Rick and our son agree to meet at our old church, as our son needed to pump out an extra 10 miles without killing off his father.  So my husband pulls into the packed parking lot of the church and sits in a patio chair out front… in his biker stretchy shorts.  He visits with a few friends and keeps asking what is going on that brought so many people on a “Saturday”.  Many people told him that it was for church.  He didn’t get it.  Finally our son pulled up right as the main service was getting out.  A dear friend finally explained that it was Sunday and approximately 300 people would be leaving the building soon.  Rick minorly freaked out and ran to fill his water bottles, jumped on his bike and they peddled out of there as fast as they could.  The story simply sounds funny at this point.  If only he had stopped there.  He continued telling the homeschooling board members that after he arrived home he discovered holes in the back of his stretchy shorts……(story still sounds mildly okay)…. here was the clincher… he finished by laughing and saying “and we go camou under those shorts.”  Yes, he meant COMMANDO, but I was not about to correct him at that point.  It was an out-of-the-body experience for me.  Why, oh why, did that story seem appropriate at that moment??  I have no idea!

They smiled and said goodbye nicely, like there was never a holey-bike short story ever told…. and they said THEY would call us. (Like ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you.’) I assumed that if God did not want us on the board, this was his way of working that out.  Lo and behold, no call came the first month.  No call came the second month.  THEN a call came!  Unbelievable!  Maybe they forgot the end of the story!  We were invited back for another round of questions and the rest is history. 

Back to the Alliance.  I thoroughly enjoyed the conference, especially being surrounded by like-minded people who are sold-out on homeschooling their kids and/or training the next generation to stand strong.  It also made me realize that there is a whole other level of politeness, respect and love that can cross generations and keep families tight.  It was like coming home… all over again.

?#11 from My Sister’s Jar – Laughing at Myself

Tell about a recent time when you have laughed at yourself.

That’s easy.  I have new material daily.  The most recent being yesterday.  Our dear relatives/house guests, who spent their Canadian Spring Break in sunny AZ, left a few items at our home so that we would remember them after their departure.  (Come to find out, they TOOK a few things too, to remember us as well.)  There was a game card for some game system, which I don’t know anything about, but my children tell me it’s crucial for me to send it to their cousin, ASAP.  Whatever. 

Item #2 was a treasured black velvet woman’s blazer that was a critical mix-n-match article for my sister-in-law’s working winter wardrobe.  I agreed to mail it right away, so as not to dampen her apparel choices for too long.  I boxed up the coat, the game card and I threw in our left-over Easter jelly beans.  Aren’t I thoughtful?

Keeve, my youngest son, went with me on my magnanimous mission to mail the misplaced items.  We arrived at the Post Office to find a loooooooong line.  After locating the customs forms on a back table, I laboriously filled out all the blinkin’ little boxes while balancing the triplicate form on my purse.  Eventually, after having enough time to read all of the tattoos on the gentleman’s arms and legs in front of me, we arrived at the counter.  Low and behold I filled out the over-five-pound-box form and my box required the under-five-pound-form.  Another triplicate form to complete with boxes poorly designed for the amount of information required to fit in them.

With that task done, I handed the Post Officer an open 6×9″ manila, bubble-wrap envelope with a book inside…. but no address on the outside.  She flipped it over and then looked at me like my jr. high math teacher used to look at me…. like I was stupid.  I kindly asked, “Could you please tell me how much it would cost to mail this to the furthest destination in the USA?”  I thought it was a reasonable question.  She asked, “Why?”  Can they do that?  I explained that I’m going to be mailing many packages just like this one and need to set a shipping cost applicable to the entire US (for when I sell my books on my website – but I didn’t tell her that.)  She grunted, “I need a zip code.”  She probably knew all the zip codes for the major cities on the East Coast like the back of her hand…. but I don’t.  The only one I could come up with was the zip code for ZOOM.  Remember the song?  ZOOM Zee-Double-Oh-Em, Box three five oh, Boston, Mass, OOOOOH-Two-OOOOOONe-Three-Foooooouuuurrrr.  SendittoZoom.  And I simply could not get the numbers out without the tune.  Keeve looked at me like my jr. high math teacher used to look at me….. like I was stupid.  Maybe I was, but I got the shipping rate I was after.  :o) 

Climbing back into the van, I said under my breath, “Did I really just sing the ZOOM zip code in the Post Office in front of 17 strangers?”  With a grin on his freckled face, Keeve chimed in, “Yep, you did, Mom!”  We both giggled.

Where was my Mother???

The year was 1971 when the life I grew to love was changed for all eternity.  Happily I was enjoying kindergarten in my lavender and red polyester plaid jumpsuits, with matching ponytail ribbons and bobbles decorating my combed-to-perfection hairdo.  Then it happened.  This photo is proof of the stress that my mother and I went through after the birth of my sister.  I was no longer the only princess in the castle and my mommy obviously was too preoccupied to read the school handout I brought home that read, “Tomorrow is Picture Day.”  Look at my hair!?!  I don’t remember trying to give myself a perm.  How in the blazes did it turn out like THAT!?!  And a light pink bow with a red and navy outfit???  Horrors. 

Little did I know that 36 years later, that little, red wrinkled-up baby would give me a journaling jar with prompts in it…… prompts that should have read: “How do you feel about your kindergarten school picture?”, “How does it make you feel that your mother no longer worried about how you looked after your sister was born?”,  “Did your mother ever push you out the door for school with a smile on her face?” or “Write Oprah a letter revealing your inner feelings after the birth of your sister.”

But look at that face.  Joy unspeakable and full of glory.  :o)

Happy Ground Hog Day!

 Big headlines for today:  Pennsylvania Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil Sees Shadow, Predicts 6 More Weeks of Winter.  (Is this a stock picture from 1927, or are there some serious Phil lovers in PA?)

And Phoenicians are rejoicing.   :o)

?#3 from My Sister’s Jar – Grateful List

List 10 things you are grateful for.  Write the first 10 that come to mind.

1.  My crock pot.  I got it for Christmas probably 15 years ago from Dad and Mom Crosby – but I have gone through use/non-use phases.  I’m in a use phase currently.  Dinners done by 9 a.m. and the house smells scrumptious.

2.  Air-conditioning.  Hello?  We live in the desert… in Phoenix… the only place hotter is hell.  The inventor of a/c has a statue in the capital building.  Right on!

3.  Elastic.  Think where we would be without it!?!  Everything we wear “under” includes it.  It has magical qualities… like making a size 24 body into an 18.

4.  Taco Bell.  Where else can you get all of your daily caloric needs met in one meal for only $3.69?  It’s quick… it’s cheap… they have diet Pepsi.. and it’s Mexican.  Aaaahhhhh.  (Dined there yesterday.)

5.  Books…. really good books that take me away from the here and now… to the 1850s in a covered wagon with 1/2 naked Indians visiting… baking biscuits over the campfire… sharing them with the Indians.

6. Sales Racks.  There is something satisfyingly triumphant about buying $82 pants for $12.27.  It’s almost like you cheated the big guys somehow…. sweet victory!

7.  Rick Coming Home Every Night.  I look forward to his arrival every day… starting at about 9:30 a.m.  I look to the clock every other hour ’til his keys plop on the entry table.

8.  Laughter.  It truly does make you feel good.  I love laughing and making others enjoy a belly laugh.  Jill is really good at those.

9.  This Journal w/52 prompts. I haven’t written freely in years.  No spell check.  No grammar boo-boos.  Just me and the pen and pages waiting for an adventure.

10. Flowers.  I simply love them.  Vibrant colors.  Soothing aromas.  I love fresh-cut flowers on my kitchen table.  It just sings “a Martha Stewart lives here”….  (which is a good thing.)