Post-it Note Wills and the Dress Boobs

Yes, it does seem boobs are a theme around here but it’s inevitable when you’ve grown up in a boob obsessed family.  My grandfather was the grand boob-a (get it!  Pooh-ba…….boob-ba…….)  All through the 70′s, Dolly Parton greeted you at the door of his workshop.  Even though I hadn’t grown to full height, I was quite sure that those glossy boobs were about eye level for a tall man.  Hmmmm.  It did give me something to look up to.  Or shelter if a pipe burst.

As my mom’s blog mentioned (http://savanvleck.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/things-i-miss-by-clicking/), Grampa had a love affair with televisions.  After his retirement, many of us were convinced he felt remote controls were an adult toy.  At the push of a button you could summon boobs of all shapes and sizes.  If boobs moved off the screen you need only to click to a new channel and another pair was waiting to entertain.  I remember visiting one day and wondering why he was watching a program aired in Spanish until I realized boobs suffer no language barrier.

While Grampa was dedicating his life to freeing boobs from bondage, Gramma was spending hers trying to make them illegal.  Everyone watching the battle of the boobs sympathized to some degree with both sides I believe.  After all, when two polar opposites dig in their heels, the tassles are bound to fly.  The situation was made all the more ironic when, due to medical reasons, Gramma ended up with more than one set of boobs.  For Grampa it must have been like visiting Ben and Jerry’s and being told you were allergic to Chunky Monkey.  Sweet revenge.  Gramma now had eight boobs and Grampa wasn’t touching any of them.

Now in another twist of neurosis, Gramma was concerned she would be called to meet her maker and the family would fight over her posessions.  Since editing a will on a daily basis is inconvenient, she reserved coveted items by placing post-it notes with names of their next owners on the them.  (I learned this trick real early and would scan the room when I first arrived tagging things like a male dog at a campground.) 

When my mother, grandmother, and I get together we tend to get a tad giggly.  Grampa had chastized us for such outrageous behavior more than once.  (It appears boob watching is less enjoyable if women are laughing behind your chair.)  One visit our giggly conversation turned to Gramma’s spare boobs and the matter of inheritance. 

Now for those of you who did not grow up during the Great Boob Wars, you may be surprised to find out that medical boobs come in many shapes, sizes, materials, and weights.  Good dress boobs can cost upwards of $1000!  (a pair, not each)

Since we were already giddy, and it was really irritating Grampa, Gramma helped the conversation along by retrieving her boob collection from its hiding place.  What ensued was akin to a booberware party.  We shook, jiggled, passed, and assessed the qualities of the various pairs while laughing until we cried.  Three generations of women making such statements as, “What if I want to borrow the dress boobs on the same night you do?  Should we draw bra straps to decide or do we each get one?  (Which reminds me of the bag of bra straps Gramma gave me one year because she was sure I could use them in a craft for my Cub Scouts.  NOT KIDDING)  In the end, I believe my mother won inheritance rights to the boob collection on the condition that I then get them after her.  I do have to wonder though if the post-it notes with mom’s name on them are visible through a pink sparkly evening gown.

While I have many many treasured memories of laughing with my mom and grandmother, I believe I may be the only one who can claim to have, as one of my favorite memories, the night we all fondled Gramma’s boobs.

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Cookie Monster and the Blog Snatchers

Once upon a time, there was a mean generic drug company that sold pretend Viagra.  (I’ll bet it only gives pretend erections too.)  This drug company had a nasty boss named Mr. Fish who liked to swim around the Internet stealing funny posts from unsuspecting bloggers………….

Yes ladies and gentlemen, one week into blogging and I’ve been blognapped.  “Will Knit for Sex” has been stolen by a generic viagra company without so much as a cigarette or change left on the nightstand.  But will this deter me?   Never!  Why not you ask?  Perserverance my ever inquisitive blogging friend.  A trait I learned from Cookie Monster.

I was one of the few early residents of Sesame Street who was able to benefit from seeing the extremes of life and knowing that, even though the characters had a few issues, at the end of the day it would still be sunny and the air would be clean.  We all knew Bert and Ernie had leather stashed in their closets.  (I always looked forward to the Tweedle Bugs who lived in Ernie’s flower box.  They were a tiny little version of the Brady Bunch and I think they lived there just to show you really could get along with gay neighbors.)  It was common knowledge that Grover was “special” and the aliens were just another form of stoned hippies.  Wap-wa-da-da- dadada- Wapwanna wa – da- da- da -da  EVERYBODY!  We all knew Big Bird was an abandoned six year old forced to sleep in the alley.  No one called DCFS, they took care of him. 

Even though I loved them all, Cookie Monster was a muppet after my own heart.  He loved cookies……..I loved cookies.  If left unattended, he would eat all the cookies.  (That’s why we never see his butt……….too wide.)  We all knew he had a problem with immediate gratification but we accepted him into the fold and tried to guide him to have a little patience.  (Never once do I recall him being prescribed ADD medication to help him control himself.)  He was a muppet that had a single minded driven purpose in life……a goal that he pursued with a passion.  To get cookies.    But did he steal, lie, and cheat to get cookies?  NEVER!

I’ve now taught over 300 students in my teaching career and I can recall only a few who had a passion or goal to equal Cookie Monster’s.  While my goals have changed since I was eleven, I still had them.  My students, overall, do not.  Even when Maria was holding tightly to the tupperware and the cookies were just out of reach, Cookie Monster was polite.  My students, not so much.  I teach at an amazing school with a special population but even at that, many of my students feel entitled and don’t hesitate to roll their eyes and flip their head or call mommy on their cell phones to tattle on me.  Cookie monster knew that, with a little patience and restraint, even if it was so hard that his eyes rolled around, he would eventually win the cookie prize.  Not many of my students.  It’s easier to cut, paste, and plagairize.  It’s easier to make excuses than turn in homework.  And in the end who gets the grief for their grades?  Me…..not them.  What has caused this un-Sesame-Street-like behavior?

I believe the very fabric of society has been ruined in the name of political correctness.  Instead of raising a generation to believe that you can have burning goals and desires…..you can be polite and still win….. you can fight the urge to live in the moment and still gain the prize……….we now believe that “Cookies are a sometimes treat”.  Yes, the PC police have even censored Cookie Monster.  (I’m wondering how they are going to manage broccoli crumbs flying around Cookie’s head.  Does he get to keep his name or is he now the “sometime’s-cookie monster”  maybe the “cookie’s in moderation monster”?)  Did they really think that Cookie Monster was soley responsible for childhood obesity?  Could it be……….the parents (horrible gasp here) that buy the wrong food, feed their kids too much, and don’t pull the plug on the electronics?  (I took my students outside one day and they had no idea what to do on a playground.)

 ”Cookies are a sometimes treat” is a rule.  It’s a statement  that we are blindly supposed to accept.  The problem is we are a rebellious society and we don’t just blindly accept things.  The Cookie Monster of my childhood taught me so much more than how to eat a whole box of oreos at once (a skill which I was born to naturally by the way).  He taught me to get along, to have patience, to follow your heart and stick to your goals, and to be polite.  Instead of learning the lessons of my childhood, today’s school children and pretend Viagra pushers want it all now and without effort. 

 In my house, cookie monster’s eat cookies and it’s wrong to steal someone elses writing.  Sunny day……sweeping the clouds away………..on my way to where the air is clean…………………………..

 www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Will Knit for Sex?

My husband and his male (go figure) friends tend to find humor in sending each other juvenile emails.  Most contain photos of men doing stupid things, boobs, or men doing stupid things because of boobs.  This evening we’re sitting back to back at our respective computers and he starts chuckling hysterically.  Now as this response can be brought on by a number of things: finding a booger shaped like a dolphin, a well designed fart, burping the alphabet…….. I felt the need to ask what was so funny. (It was actually a self-defense mechanism should I need to make a quick escape before a breeze blew my way.)  It seems the latest email offering from a friend included several pictures of elderly people in various interesting situations.  I usually resist the urge to look as I always regret it but it’s late and…….well there’s just no excuse.

Now I personally find the elderly fascinating people.  To think that my grandmother grew up with an outhouse, gathered around a radio for entertainment, watched I Love Lucy live on a black and white TV that was first on the block, had an actual Avon lady that knocked on your door each week……..and now blogs.  To have lived through so many decades of change.  I love and respect the elderly.  I hope to be one.  And I hope in my lifetime the decades I live through provide as much fascination for me as the decades she’s lived through.  But there are some things about life as an older person I’m just not ready to envision in quite the detail previously mentioned email has provided.

I’m momentarily speechless.  See for yourself:

Yep.  It’s a deflated elderly butt in a thong bikini. 

Now I’ve often said, “If I ever get thin again………” but I do believe I need to amend that statement to, “If I ever get thin again before I turn 97……..”.  On one hand I’m thinking this lady has earned the right to wear whatever she pleases.  If she feels sexy in her 90′s (I’m going with 90′s because if she’s really 55 I might just have to kill myself) then she should flaunt that badonkadonk.  But there are just some things you would rather not have pop into your mind when you think about grandparent archtypes.  Grandparents should evoke thoughts of hugs and cookies and dollar bills and swinging you like a cuckoo clock……..not deflated naked butts and sex.  Yes, sex. (Cue next photo)

 

Thought you were going to see old people doing the nasty didn’t you.  PERVERT! While not provocative, this photo did bring up several questions. 1. WHAT is she willing to knit for sex?  Is she giving away swatches or sweaters?  Does it depend on the requested act?  Do men who provide merino alpaca blend get “bonuses”?Maybe she’s knitting patterns from Naughty Needles or DomiKNITrix.  2.  Why is the man behind her so enthusiastic?  Is he her pimp or is he just finally glad he’s figured out how to get her to HAVE sex?  Notice the lip prints on his shirt?  HMMMMM.  3.  Who is the slightly inebriated looking gentleman with his dirty hands on gramma?  Maybe he’s the infommercial guy and the man in the back is the testimonial happy customer.  Maybe he’s an alpaca farmer and is throwing her this party for increasing his profits through her innovative entrepenuership.  4.  How long does it take her to knit for sex?  She better be using Addi-turbos if she’s got a high sex drive!  5. Why is she advertising on a paper cone hat?  Couldn’t she knit one?  6.  Does this mean that we know what all the little old men wearing scarves have been doing?  Is the length of the scarf indicative of anything?  7.  Is this why so many elderly ladies take up knitting?  I thought it might be because they needed something to do while waiting for the Viagra to kick in.  At the very least I thought the needles would be a great deterrant.  Seems not so much!

I still have a few decades to enjoy before people are poking fun of my elderly sagging butt in a thong bikini (I can only hope it’s deflated enough to sag.  Right now the thong string would have to be made of nautical rope)  Until that time, I might have to take a little more interest in getting some of my UFO’s finished (unfinished objects for those non-knitters).  You never know when I’ll be tooling around the nudist retirement home and wanna join in the orgy.

MARITAL DISCLAIMER:  My husband is a delightful, cultured, and well educated man who would never indulge in such nonsense…………..Ya, I’m not buying it either.

MATERNAL DISCLAIMER: While I acknowledge my mother has first rights to gramma stories, the historical frames of reference expressed herein are general enough to apply to anyone’s elderly gramma. 

ELDERLY DISCLAIMER:  Dear elderly ladies,  I apologize for the use of your pictures in my blog.  Please feel free to sue your family members and other beach goers who took your picture then posted it for the whole world and any aliens in the radiosphere to see.

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

Booby socks: Need I say more?

When teaching middle school students, there are a some words you do not utter during instruction unless you want to lose complete control.  Sperm.  I heard you giggle from here.  Grow up!  Some words are sure-fire gigglers and I’ve even been known to change my lesson plans after dragging myself out of bed in the morning and realizing that I was NOT up to saying sperm today.  Then there are those words that you never expected to be giggle-getters but, had you read the pubescent memo, you should have known better.  Cookie.  See, nothing.  I had one math class that had a different interpretation of the question, “What would happen if Gloria gave James her cookie?”  Oh Grow up!  Cookies became off limits for the whole rest of the year.  Do you know how hard it is to teach math without cookies?

What does this have to do with Booby Socks you ask?  I was briefly wondering that myself.  A few months ago I was having lunch with a fellow teacher and knitter who asked me (in a loud and very clear voice) if I had purchased a Booby Sock kit yet.  Did I mention this lunch was being held at an in-service with dozens of other teachers?  Go ahead: try it.  Move to the center of a large group of people and say, “Booby Sock” and see what happens.  Apparently middle school children are not the only ones who respond to words seemingly out of context.  A few older teachers frowned at the B word.  The male teachers were suddenly very interested in knitting socks.  And me, I just shook my head to clear the images of just what the heck a booby sock might look like.  Unfortunatly, while doing so I missed most of the explanation.  ( I finally settled on the image of two socks just dangling off your chest.  After all, there’s not much more material they can eliminate from bikini tops.  Cut the strings off and you’re left with booby socks.)

Not being able to admit I missed the explanation of the now infamous knitted item, I was forced to go home and google the term.  (I couldn’t search at school since the filtering software frowned on the search criteria.)  Amazingly, the advent of the Booby Sock seems to be a well kept secret.  So I called the local craft center.  It seems asking if you carry Booby Socks is equivelant to asking if you have Prince Albert in a can. 

I did finally locate said kit and discovered that the socks go on your feet.  Who would have guessed.  The sock pattern looked rather fun to knit (NOTE to SELF:  looked and is are two different things)  and who could pass up the opportunity to knit a toe with a nipple while contributing to Breast Cancer research.  I could never have anticipated the added benefit of seeing the look on your auto mechanics face while explaining what you are knitting.  I think the brakes took so long to fix because they were hoping I’d try them on

www.braindebris.wordpress.com

 

 

 

The Blog Pushers

I fell into this great position working as a research associate this summer at Notre Dame and soon learned the following things from the Graduate Fellow brave enough to let me play with toxic chemicals:  1.  Any machine costing over a million dollars will break more frequently than a yarn addict driving through alpaca country and 2. To render a graduate fellow speechless you utter the words, “I know nothing about blogging.” 

Once recovered, said Graduate Fellow proceeded to show me her blog (http://chemgeek.net/misadventures) and, while entertaining, I did not immediately feel the need to rush right out and commit myself to yet another daily routine.  After all, there are days when I have to pencil in combing my hair.

The following week, my mom came to visit and while sharing copius amounts of Margueritas delighted in telling me all about her blog (http://savanvleck.wordpress.com/) .  A little creepy, two in one week, but OK I just assumed this blog uprising is an isolated phenomenon infecting people who have no one but small children and men to talk to in person.

My paranoia set in when, last week, my grandmother……yes, GRANDMOTHER: defined as lady in her mid-eighties wearing abnormal amounts of pink clothing that poop kleenex (I’ll explain later) started her own blog (http://padairvanvleck.wordpress.com/).  No, I do not jest.   This is the woman who had the cable TV company send her TWO cable boxes because the switch they said was on the back of the box was not there.  It seems she wasn’t looking on the OTHER back. 

Apparently while I was gleefully trudging along the path to a Master’s degree, the blog pushers came to town.   I’m not sure what they used to allure their unsuspecting victims: Post it on the Internet, those people will read anything or Now the entire world can enjoy the pictures of your colonoscopy.  No matter the bait, everyone around me has succumbed.  I now have a list of blogs to monitor and comment on.  The pressure to be witty (while also being sober) is intense.  And while visiting several blogs certainly feeds the ADD, I have apparently overlooked the warning labels identifying blogging as a communicable disease.  (Or it is highly possible that it was prominently displayed in -7 pt font and I missed it.)

So here I am.  Blogging.  I hope you’re all happy.

 www.braindebris.wordpress.com