PRINCESS SWEET PEA'S ADVENTURES WITH THE DEARLY DEPARTED

Princess Sweet Pea is Mrs. Bird and Guy Smiley's daughter. She has always been a favorite of mine.

She was working in the pharmacy the other day when she heard a woman give a faint little scream. The Princess looked the woman's way and watched as the woman dropped to the floor.

Curious, The Princess walked around the isles to find the woman frantically making sweeping motions on the floor. Thinking maybe she had lost a contact lense or maybe her jewelry had broken and the woman was trying to round up lost pearls, she offered to help.

"It's my best friend. My very best friend," the woman wailed. "I had her ashes in my locket, and it just opened, and now she's strewn all over the pharmacy floor."

And the Princess? She brought the woman a broom and a dust pan. "Uum...good luck with that," she said in her most reverent voice. Then she retreated behind the Phillips Milk of Magnesia and Hemorrhoid Cream.

I hope Princess Sweet Pea made a mental note to be careful when sweeping up that night. Maybe the floor dust would be more than just ordinarry dust. I hope she scattered it under a lovely rose bush in the local park and thought to say a few words, and to have a moment of silence, just in case.

And now you know that interesting things happen to Mrs. Bird and Guy Smiley's offspring, too. Stay tuned.

MRS BIRD WANTS TO KNOW WHO DAPHNE IS

This is Mrs. Bird and her husband, Guy Smiley, sitting on the lawn swings, telling us funny stories.
Mrs Bird and Guy Smiley are night owls. Perhaps Mrs. Bird is more of an owl than Guy Smiley because the other night, at 1:30 am, she had to wake him up so they could go to bed. (They watch TV late, catching up on the news and Dr. Oz and other things Mrs Bird records.) So, she woke him up and they got ready for bed. It was Guy Smile's turn to say the family prayer because it was an odd day. (I pray on the odd days too. It's not because I'm odd or anything, it's because my birthday is on an odd day.) Anyway, Guy Smiley prays for everyone (just like me--it must be an odd-day-phenomenon) so his prayers are long. Right in the middle of it he says, "Bless Mrs. Bird that she will come to accept Daphne."

Mrs Bird wanted to poke him right then and there and say, "Who's Daphne?" but since he was praying she waited. The second he said "Amen" she did poke him.

"Who's Daphne?" she said.

"Daphne who?" he said,

"That's what I'd like to know," she said.

"I don't know any Daphne's," he said.

"Yes you do. You prayed that I would accept her." she said. And now she was getting a little peeved. After all Daphne was in his prayer and she was supposed to accept her. Was this some kind of mind game he was playing?

Guy Smiley started to laugh. He's had conversations like this before with Mrs Bird.

"Stop laughing and tell me who Daphne is." Mrs Bird was now glaring at him.

"I don't know, honest I don't." he said throwing his hands in the air while trying to quit laughing. The more he tried the harder it was. There was a good snort building up and it was going to come out any minute.

"Guy Smiley!" she said, "You tell me this instant who Daphne is!"

"Okay," he said, "What exactly did I say?"

"You said, 'Bless Mrs. Bird to accept Daphne."

This sent Guy Smiley into a fit of laughter. "I said, 'Bless Mrs. Bird to accept her bad knee."

This sent Mrs. Bird into a fit of laughter and she couldn't stop. Guy Smiley decided to sleep downstairs because her giggling showed no sign of stopping.

She laughed and laughed and finally at 2:30 she took a sleeping pill and could hardly wake up the next morning.

The moral of this story is: Don't pray for your partner's body parts if they sound like a woman's name. You will have to sleep downstairs and your wife will be so groggy in the morning that you will have to fix breakfast.

THE BAND GIVES A PRIVATE PERFORMANCE AND MRS. BIRD MARCHES TOO

Every year the Timpview High School band marches around our neighborhood in preparation for the 4th of July parade. This is the woman who makes sure this happens. She emails the band teacher and tells him how we are looking forward to their pre-4th of July practice parade. Thank you, CindyThe shadows on the mountains were still long from the morning sun. The neighbor's geranium was probably happy to get those first rays. The only thing better than a private neighborhood band parade would be for them to be wearing their uniforms. We will have to brave the real parade heat/crowds/sometimes rain/noise/confusion for that.

The 4th of July, there isn't another holiday like it!

Here comes the band. The band marched around "the circle" twice. Here is the neighborhood gang, waiting for them to come around again. Every year our neighbors have a grandchild just this size. How do they manage it? Here he is following the band. He's patriotic that way.And I heard from Mrs. Bird. As she was getting dressed--she only had her pajama bottoms on--when the patriotic mood got to her too. She started marching down the hall. Now, Mrs. Bird was a drum majorette in her high school years so she has skills--she is also well endowed and gravity seems to have given her a reprieve. The feather duster was tossed in the air and caught just as her husband came in the house.

The 4th of July has many perks. The parade, celebrations, the Art festival downtown, vendors selling ethnic foods of all kinds, the hot air balloons that fill Fox Field and then the sky, family picnics and barbecues, the Stadium of Fire, Fireworks, and private marching expeditions for one.

THE FISH DOWNSTREAM ARE FEELING NO PAIN, THANKS TO MRS. BIRD

Mrs. Bird is suffering from back pain. One day she had been visiting at my across-the-street-neighbors and was walking home. She only had to walk past seven homes but at house number two and she felt funny. Woozy. She called her daughter and said, "Come and get me." She had to sit down on the curb she was so woozy.

"Where are you?" her daughter asked.

"Five houses away."

Her daughter, naturally, was mystified. "Just walk home," she kept saying but Mrs. Bird was incapable of walking home. When she got home she took the "pain patch" off and recovered. She threw the rest of them in the garbage and they are now in the landfill.

So, her doctor gave her a prescription for pain pills. The first was Oxycontin. Great! No pain but the symptoms were unbearable. Things like dizziness, weakness, light headedness, and the list went on. Mrs. Bird flushed the Oxycontin down the toilet.

"Do you know the street value of Oxycontin?" I asked.

Mrs. Bird just looked at me with an, I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that look.

"So," she said, ignoring me, "the doctor gave me a prescription for Percocet."

"And..." I said. There is always an "and" when Mrs. Bird is telling a story.

"Well," she said, "I was so nauseous I could hardly get off the bed."

"And so...?" I asked. There is always an "and so" when Mrs. Bird is telling a story.

"So, I flushed them down the toilet."

"Do you know how much the street value of Percocet is?" I asked.

"Lynne," she said. "Do you think I'm going to go stand on the street corner by the high school with a sign that says, 'Pain pills for sale?'"

"Well, no," I said.

But the image of her doing that was very enticing. I can just hear her talking to Officer Friendly.

"But officer, I'm sure there are kids in pain and I was just trying to help. And besides that, with this economy like it is right now.... I'm sure you are feeling it, aren't you? And do you have pain somewhere?"

And then he would tell her--because she is so friendly--that he does have pain. Sitting in a squad car all day, handing out tickets to people who are going to lie to you or cry or both is just more than he can take some days.

Mrs. Bird is very sympathetic. And understanding. She invites confidences.

Then I wake up and realize that that Officer Friendly isn't going to be hoodwinked by a pair of sparkling blue eyes.

"Just come quietly and there won't be any trouble," I can hear him saying.

And then I see her, making her one phone call from jail.

And then I see her husband, Mr. Personality, saying, "You are WHERE?" And then I see him laughing so hard he can hardly stand up. You'd think he had seven or eight pain patches on, he is so weak from laughter and falling all over the place.

In the back of my mind I'm thinking about those expensive pain meds being flushed down the toilet and that somewhere, downstream, there are fish who don't give a darn if they are caught or not because THEY ARE FEELING NO PAIN.

Mrs. Bird now takes Ibuprofen like the rest of us.

PS I KNOW that the pills aren't flushed downstream. They go to a treatment plant. And somewhere, there are treatment plant worker who are FEELING NO PAIN.

PPS I know that doesn't work either but it make a better story this way.

PPPS And somewhere, there are landfill rats that are FEELING NO PAIN as they are wearing Mrs. Birds pain patches. And it's only right. If you have to live in a landfill--or "a dump," as we called it when I was a kid--there should be some compensation.

I knew a man who lived at the dump in Richfield. But, that's a story for another day. I knew a woman who combed the dump for treasures--she was my mother--but that's a story for another day. And there will be more stories about Mrs. Bird. Stay tuned.

SPARE ME THE CALAMITIES

I went Visiting Teaching today but only to one of our three sisters. I gave the lesson. I used Julie B. Beck's conference talk. “And upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit” (She is the Relief Society General President for our church.)

It's a wonderful talk, full of hope and the promise of peace and joy and encouragement about how to receive revelation. After I gave my lesson the other two women immediately started to talk about the calamities in the world. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Exploding volcanoes. End of the world type stuff. My visiting teaching companion searches the Internet for information about the latest horrible thing happening in the world. The lady we were visiting had a real enthusiasm for the subject too, and they got more excited by the minute, giving details of the latest mind boggling happening in the world, and why some tragedies could have been prevented and on and on and on.

This diagram shows the potential range of the total destruction of the Yellowstone volcano. Note, Utah is gone. Totally gone. I don't think I'll bother to vacuum tomorrow.
About six years ago I got sick in the summer. After I got well I noticed I was having anxiety and panic attacks. Not major ones but enough that on a regular basis I'm pretty miserable. If I hear about a tragedy or know someone in trouble or in pain I take on their problems. I cannot watch the news without experiencing depression. I don't even want to read books with unhappy endings or even unhappy middles--and how on earth do you write books without conflict and strife--those books would be insipid but that's the kind of books I want to read--I don't--I read the ones with conflict and strife but I want to read happy ones.

So, the longer Miss Enthusiasm-for-calamities and Miss I-can-top-that-horrible-story talked, the worse I felt.

Then I remembered some words from Sister Beck's talk: "The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life."

Okay, I said to myself, if I can get revelation I need some now because I'm rapidly slipping towards destruction, right along with the Yellowstone soon-to-be-volcano-which-will-surely-wipe-out-Utah-along-with-several-other-states-and-a-good-portiom-of-Canada-and-will-probably-put-the-world-into-nuclear-winter. I know these things because Thing One and Thing Two discussed it. In detail!

So, in my shaky little inner voice I sang a Primary song to myself, "Heavenly Father, are you really there? Do you hear and answer every child's prayer?" Entire song here. Almost immediately the fear left . In fact the two women started to sound like the teacher on any of the Charlie Brown movies. "Waah-waah-waah-waah-waah-waaa."

I know this might sound stupid, but to me this was another witness of God's goodness, removing the fear and panic from one woman who should know better but who just can't help herself.

Disclaimer: No disrespect toward Thing One or Thing Two (who I actually adore) was intended, and no harm came to either of them, even though someone thought they should surely be beaned over the head. Any resemblance to people living or dead may or may not be coincidental.

Note: Mrs. Bird is one of the women we visit teach but she was on the lawn swings with us the other night and so I gave her a inadequate but heartfelt lesson. She did not talk of floods, lava tubes full of magma swallowing whole towns and roads and slow moving turtles, or tornadoes, carrying cows through the sides of barns and depositing them, with a flock of chickens, in hay lofts. No, indeed. She told us jokes and funny things about raccoons in their attic and had us laughing for a good half hour and I was enriched and happy and did not have to sing a Primary song to ward off the twitches. Long live Mrs. Bird! And I'm afraid their raccoons are going to have long lives too. Not one raccoon but many. In the attic. Pooping, probably. And chewing things up. And smashing the insulation and they will probably sue Mrs. Bird and her husband because they will have asbestos problems with their lungs. And Mrs. Bird will put a funny spin on it and tell us on the lawn swings and I'll tell you and then we'll all have a good laugh and be happy. And if the Yellowstone volcano blows, I hope we go quick. But on the bright side, the raccoon problem will be solved. I must remember to tell Mrs. Bird. She'll be thrilled.

CATCHING A TROLL

I have heard this story twice, from two different sources--one of my sources was Mrs. Bird, who heard it from her chiropractor. Each version was a little different so I know that true version is not exactly either one of them but I'll put it down as I heard it. Please don't judge me for repeating this story. I'm not making fun, just reporting a story that will be buzzing around here for a long time to come.

A high functioning Down Syndrome boy called his mom at work. Now, this boy--actually he is a man--is a very responsible person and the family trusts him to handle life as it comes. Therefore the mom holds a job and checks in with him during the day but this day, he called her.

"Mom! You've got to come home. I've caught a troll!" He was very excited and kept repeating, "I've caught a troll!"

The mom has heard all kinds of things from her boy so she wasn't too worried. She said things like, "Really?" and "Well, you take care of him, okay?"

She didn't think too much about it until she got the second call, two hours later.

"Mom! Come home and see my troll!"

The mom asked her boss if she could have an hour off. Her boss is very understanding and when he heard about the troll he told her, sure, go see what the ruckus is all about.

When she got home her son grabbed her by the hand and practically pulled her to his bedroom. There she saw all his bedroom furniture piled against the closet door. "Help," came a voice from behind the door.

"Ohmygosh," she said. (This is a Utah saying, and sadly, I know it only too well. It escapes my lips on many an occasion.)

"Help me get this furniture out of the way," she said.

Her son was so excited he was dancing all over the room. "A troll, I told you so. I caught a troll."

One version of the story said he had been sliding Skittles under the door--that I think is one of the exaggerations, but it is a nice detail.

So, when all the furniture was moved and they opened the door, there, sitting on the floor was a dwarf. He was a Jehovah's Witness. He said he wouldn't prosecute. He understood how the boy could mistake him for a troll. He was very understanding.

And that is why missionaries, of any faith--or size--, should always go two by two.

PS I've been notified--by Mr./Mrs. Anonymous--that this is not true. What a disappointment. Here's the Snoops article. I usually check with Snoops as I get emails about the most outlandish things. This story did gave Mrs. Bird and me--and her chiropractor and my dentist--a good laugh. Hope you got one too.

MRS. BIRD DOES THE LAUNDRY

Mrs. Bird is a laundry genius except for one thing, forgetting to check the pockets of her husband's pajamas. His pajamas are black and grey stripes so they are washed with the black clothes. (Mrs. Bird wears a lot of black--I don't know if I've ever seen her in any other color of pants.) So, when she is loading the washer with all the black clothes, instead of checking the pajama pockets she is thinking, Do I have any more black pants that need washing, and while the washer fills with water she dashes upstairs to check.

Later, when she opens the washer to put the clothes in the dryer she is faced with--once again--little bits of Kleenex ALL OVER THE BLACK CLOTHES. Usually she stands there for a minute and then, after she has sighed a bunch of times, she takes every item out, shakes them, and then, after depositing a billion bits of Kleenex all over the laundry room floor, she picks little bits of Kleenex that didn't get shaken off the clothes and rewashes them.

The other day she had had it. She put every item in a laundry basked, stormed upstairs, hollered for her husband and by the time he came she was outside with a chair and the leaf blower.

"Hi, Honey," he said, going to the open slider. "What's up." With Mrs. Bird for a wife it could be anything.

"Just come out here and hold this." She shoved a pair of black and white pants into his hands. Then she turned on the leaf blower and blew the pants until they were mostly only black. She did that with each piece of clothing he held up. She had him drape the wet clothes over the back of the chair.

By about the second item of leaf-blown clothing Mrs. Bird's husband is laughing. He is laughing so hard he can hardly stand up to hold the clothes.

"Don't you dare laugh, you Kleenex-pajama-pocket-man, you."

This made him laugh harder.

Then Mrs. Bird looked up to see her back-door neighbor, opened mouthed, watching them.

"I thought of telling her what we were doing," she told me, "but it would have taken too long and I had laundry to do. Besides that, maybe she thought we had invented a new way to dry clothes and I wanted to see if she'd try the same thing later in the week."

After all the clothes were leaf blown, her now wheezing husband took the leaf blower away from her and blew all the bits of Kleenex out of her hair and off her clothes. Then she did the same for him. The neighbor now had her hand to her chest.

"I don't think she could see the bits of Kleenex from her yard," Mrs. Bird said. Then she smiled. When Mrs. Bird smiles the whole room lights up. In this case it was the whole back yard. Birds came out to sing. Mrs. Bird's husband put his arms around her and give her a big hug and then he took the chair back in the house, she took the laundry back downstairs to be rewashed and I got a blog post out of it.

Aren't you glad I'm her Visiting Teacher? I will have new Mrs. Bird stories every month. Long live Visiting Teaching--and Mrs. Bird--and her laughing, wheezing, amused husband. And may the back-door neighbor realize what a choice position she is in. There are bored people all over the world who would trade places with her, I'm sure of it.

MRS. BIRD DOES THE OOM-PAH-PAH

Once upon a time Mrs. Bird was going to a banquet with her husband. She needed something wonderful to wear. (Mrs. Bird has great style.) She went downtown to Suzy M's to shop.

"I need something really nice for the Umpa banquet," she said. (Umpa stands for Utah Municipal power association--her husband is a member.)

What's an "Umpa?" the sales girl said.

Another sales girl was eavesdropping, "You know...Oom-pah-pah! Oom-pah-pah!" she sang.
"That's how it goes!
Oom-pah-pah!Oom-pah-pah!
Ev'ryone knows."

And then Mrs. Bird and the two sales girls danced and sang the "Oompah" song all through the store, winding through the racks of clothes.

Only Mrs. Bird would go shopping and end up in an Oompah parade. Long live Mrs. Bird.

I WENT VISITING TEACHING AT MRS. BIRD'S HOUSE

We went visiting teaching to Mrs. Bird's house today. My visiting teacher partner likes to talk. Mrs. Bird likes to talk. We were there two hours. I am going to have to be the voice of reason.

But, I did hear a good story.

When Mrs. Bird's youngest child was an infant Mrs. Bird and her husband took in a pregnant teenager. (They have spent a lifetime taking in kids who need help.) There was no bedroom where this pregnant teen could stay but in the nursery, so the baby had to move out. Where to sleep the baby?

Mrs. Bird got a piece of foam from the upholsterer--a five inch piece of foam, cut the exact size of the shower. She covered it with fabric and the baby slept there.

In the morning the shower-mattress came out and everyone showered. Then they wiped the shower dry and the mattress went back in in time for the baby's nap. There were no showers allowed at night.

The pregnant teen was going to give up the baby but in the last month she changed her mind. She couldn't do it--she loved him with an intensity that only a mother can understand.

After the baby was born she went home to California to her parents--who had spent all her pregnancy in Europe on assignment. She met a nice man--who adored her baby boy--and she eventually married him. The marriage has been very successful. And her baby? He is now grown up and is a wonderful doctor who is much loved by his patients. And guess what? He and his mother are the best of friends.

And Mrs. Bird's baby? She grew up to be one of the kindest people I know--and the cleanest.

THE REASON MRS. BIRD'S WAS LATE

I am Mrs. Bird's new visiting teacher. Today was my first day to go visit her--my partner is nowhere to be found. I've called. No answer and their voicemail box is full. I've sent two emails. No answer. So I went alone.

I pulled into Mrs. Bird's driveway and my phone rang. It was Phil. "Mrs. Bird called. She said she couldn't remember what time you were coming and she's at her daughter's house getting her nails done. She'll be home in fifteen minutes."

In a half hour I called Mrs. Bird. They had just driven in so I went to see her. I allowed a whole hour for her visit because, well, if you've read any of the posts about her, you know she's a talker. There was only a half hour left and when time was up she was just warming up but I had to go. I had another appointment.

"You know," she said, "I'd have been home on time, but my husband went with me. He wanted his toenails done."

I didn't even ask.

MRS. BIRD DOESN'T RECOGNIZE THE BANK MANAGER WITH CLOTHES ON

Years and years and years ago, when Mrs. Bird's children were little they went to Lake Powell with six or seven other couples. All the kiddies stayed home. They were at Lake Powell for five days. Five full days of water skiing and good food and sun and sand with just the adults. It was Heaven.

They spent every day in swimming suits and only got in clothes to sleep and then it was usually just underwear. A wind storm came up one night and all the men exited the tents, battening down coolers and tent flaps. Mrs. Bird said it looked like a bunch of headless ghosts, running around in their underwear, but that's a post for another day.

Anyway, after Mrs. Bird and all the others wound up their week of fun they had to come back to earth and "do" real life. One of the first things Mrs. Bird had to do was go to the bank on Monday morning. Jim (not his real name)--I'm going to call him Mr. Swimming Trunks--was the bank manager.

She saw Mr. Swimming Trunks across room and called out to him. "Jim! I didn't recognise you with your clothes on!"

There was a great silence. Not even the counting of a coin could be heard. All the tellers, loan officers, bank president and vice president and customers took a collective breath and held it. Every head turned to the man who was unrecognizable in clothes.

Mrs. Bird, unaware of the stir she had caused smiled and waited for a response.

For a long, l-o-n-g time.

MRS. BIRD AND THE POT PIPE

Mrs. Bird is a Mormon--a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Some of the things we don't do is drink, smoke, or drink coffee. We don't do drugs. This story is about the "don't do drugs" part.

This incident happened when her husband was our Bishop. The Bishop watches over the whole ward. They council the members, they "run" the ward, and they take a very active role in the lives of the youth. He had been called to one of the members homes--they had a rebellious teenager and the Bishop took something to get it out of the house. That sets up the story.

Mrs. Bird got in the car to run some errands. On the passenger seat of the car was a paper bag with the top folded down several times. Mrs. Bird didn't think anything about it until someone ran a red light. She hit the brakes and the paper bag went flying onto the floor. After she gathered her wits and got in the parking lot of the grocery she picked up the bag and opened it. Inside was a recipe book. "How to make Hashish brownies," she read. Hum, she thought. I wonder if that's a health food? And I wonder whose recipe book this is? Maybe my husband wants me to start baking and he bought me this book as a surprise. She put the recipe book back when she noticed something glittery in the bottom of the bag.

She pulled out a necklace with a little pipe-looking thing on it. Hum, she thought again, this is kind of cute. So, like a true blond she put it around her neck and went into the grocery store. She went back to the meat counter to order something and the butcher looked at her like she had a wart on her face.

"What on earth do you have around your neck," he asked.

"Oh, isn't that cute. It's a little necklace of some kind." She picked it off her chest and played with it.

"Do you KNOW what it's for?"

"What do you mean, 'what it's for?'."she asked. " It's just a cute little necklace. I found it in a bag in my husband's car. There was a recipe book in there too, one of the recipes was for Hashish Brownies. I wonder if they sell Hashish here."

The butcher shook his head. He knew Mrs. Bird and he knew her husband was a bishop and he had already put two and two together and got four.

"You're wearing a 'pot pipe,' and no, Albertson's doesn't sell hashish," he said, laughing behind his hand. "Oh...ha ha ha. No Albertson's doesn't sell...ha ha ha...oh, dear," he said. "You're wearing...ha ha ha...a pot pipe."

"A pot pipe? What's a pot pipe?"

Now this happened in the early 80's. You'd think Mrs. Bird would recognize the words, "pot" or "hashish." But, no, not Mrs. Bird.

So, the very amused butcher explained to Mrs. Bird all about pot--and hashish--and making brownies and he probably explained other things to her as well. When he was finished she was mad. Mad as a wet hen. She got into the car and drove to her husband's office.

"Hi, honey," he said when he saw her.

"Don't you 'hi honey' me," she said. "What are you doing with a pot pipe," she picked it up and waggled it in his face, "and a cookbook telling how to make brownies with...with..." by now she was so upset she could hardly talk. "And I wore this into Albertson's, thinking it was cute, and the butcher had to tell me it was a...a....pot pipe!'

He started to laugh. With Mrs. Bird for a wife he spends a great deal of time laughing. He laughed so hard he could hardly breathe. He bent forward, putting his hands on his knees. "You wore it into Albertson's?" he wheezed. He wiped his eyes. The harder he laughed the madder she got.

"Honey," he said, when he could finally breather. "It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to a teenage boy in our ward. He's having some problems. I can't tell you who it is but I've had a good talk with him and with his parents and, well...." He took the necklace with the pot pipe off of her neck. "Let's just throw this away, shall we?"

Then he kissed her on the cheek and walked her to the car. He said he had some work to do.

Then she said things like, "Oh how silly of me, I should have known you wouldn't have a pot pipe. I have errands to run so I'll see you at home, later. There won't be any warm brownies waiting for you, though." She smiled and handed him the bag with the recipe book and he threw it in the garbage can at the side of the office.

She started the car and he leaned in the window and gave her a kiss. She put the car into gear and as she drove away she looked in the rear window and saw her husband, laughing his head off.

They say laughter is the best medicine. Mrs. Bird does what she can to keep her husband healthy. He should live to be a hundred.

DINNER WITH THE CHARACTERS

The other night Mrs. Bird and The Scottish Dreamer wandered by and sat on the lawn swings and we had a rip roaring, laughing time. The Scottish Dreamer said we should go to dinner and hang out. So we did, but the Scottish Dreamer who now weighs 103 pounds, did not feel well, so Mrs. Bird, my friend who the angels help write her personal histroy so beautifully, and I went anyway, because we don't want to miss a good time, even though we did miss the Scottish Dreamer.

This is a terrible photo of Mrs. Bird but I know people want to see her. She'd die on the spot if she saw this but she's not an Internet girl and so she won't see this.

Mrs. Bird--outside of Mimi's--said, "Oh, look, here's some lavender. If you ever need to make lavender bags just come here."

I said, "you can't do that, Mrs. Bird--but I used her real name--that lavender belongs to Mimi's"

"Oh, I do it all the time," she said. And since you never know if she did or didn't we just laughed and went inside for dinner.

She told hilarious stories, I can't recall the one I could tell--the other one is, well, a little racy. I'll tell it another day because tonight, I'm tired. And because House is almost over and now I have to rewind and see why the alien hand was acting out, because I missed it. I did see the part about the squawking man, so I won't have to rewind everything. And House is finally going in for treatment. And the hunky Dr. Chase got married. And that was the season's finale.

Lisa, who blogs here--but not very often--and here--more often with a bunch of other sassy women--, says I should order all the House DVD's from Netflix and get this whole show figured out. Do you KNOW what would happen if I ordered House from Netflix? I already order 99% of our choices and 95% of them are weird, foreign films, grade B movies or Chic Flicks and Phil is not amused. Well, maybe he is a little bit amused as he holds his head in his hands, smiles faintly and says, "Not another one." And then he laughs, in a feeble sort of way.

And that is why I watch House late at night, after he is in bed.

There's an explanation for everything.

Well, maybe not for Mrs. Bird. Some things just cannot be explained.

Ooh, and I think I just heard someone at the front door and it's 1:10 a.m. and now I'm spooked so I'm taking the baseball bat and going to bed. Quietly. In the dark. If I never blog again you'll know why. Send flowers.

AN UNEVENTFUL DAY

Made a quick trip to Salt Lake to see our darling daughter and we ate a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger on the way out of town. I thought I could get away with that for dinner. Not so. Phil ate soup, a chicken sandwich and two ears of corn--one of them was mine.* I ate almonds.

We sat outside with three church talks, thinking we would have an intellectual Family Home Evening. We had hardly settled when four neighbors came over and were in the middle of Mrs. Bird's funny story about her chiropractor when who should happen by but The Scottish Dreamer. We sat and visited and laughed until the darkness descended, as did the mosquito's.

Zip, zop, people scattered except for the Scottish Dreamer and me. The skeeters soon left us alone--after I rolled a couple into cigars off my face and the others decided hunger was better than death.

The Scottish Dreamer and I had a good talk. What a lovely girl she is. I sent her home with books to read on health and she said, "Can I eat that last eclair first?" (If you haven't done it already you must read this post.) I told her yes, as I certainly have not been the shining example of health or sugar-avoidance. When I looked at the clock it was 11:00. Are we gabbers or what?

Sitting here at the computer, doing nothing of importance, I felt around on what should be my smooth chin and I felt a whisker stray eyebrow. When did that pop up? I tweezed yesterday. So I tweezed and it was black and long and then, right there, as I was watching, another one popped up. I tell you, it is the honest truth. Which leads me to the conclusion that there really is a bad hormone running around and it has attitude.

*It wasn't really my corn. I got a phone call from a worried sister in our ward so I covered the mouthpiece on the phone and whispered, "eat my corn," which was really his corn to begin with because I ignored his stomach needs watered the garden--the parts the BUGS HAVEN'T EATEN--while he prowled the kitchen. So, I ate almonds. And not the good salty, roasted ones either. The plain ole' good-for-you kind, that are no fun at all. You should feel sorry for me, having to eat those healthy almonds instead of the kind I really love.

NAKED LADIES AND MRS BIRD

Dear Gilmore Girl,

Calm down. The Naked Lady's got replanted by the fence in the garden, but this is the worst time to move them and they possibly may never bloom again. I still have some to move but they will have to wait. I'm too stiff to dig another blasted hole. And our garden is STILL not planted and it is raining like Noah is the precipitation manager and he thinks everyone should build a boat. It is not a garden, it is a mud hole, waiting to devour anyone who turns a shovel in it's back. Mr. Smith should be our garden manager. We'd be eating tomatoes and zucchini by now.

Dear Everybody Else,

About Mrs. Bird. Every word I write is true. I promise. She is one of a kind. I have more amazing stores to tell. You will come to adore this interesting woman as much as I do. I will post a photo soon. She has forgotten more stories than you'd believe because she is always living another one. If you miss talking to her for a month or so you miss a whole volume of funny stuff.

MRS BIRD FORGETS SHE IS WEARING NO PANTS

Mrs. Bird called last night. I told her I needed another story and of course she obliged. I could hear her husband in the background, laughing his head off, saying things like, "Oh, dear, don't tell her that, oh my, hahahahaha."

For those of you not familiar with the anatomy of her house it's like this. The garage is on the bottom level. The laundry room/furnace room/storage room--which she calls "a scary place"--is down there. They have a couple of family rooms on that level, one of which is sometimes used as a bedroom. They have NO bathroom!

She comes in from the garage and almost always has been out way too long for her bladder's comfort. She dashes into the laundry room and pees in a cup. It used to be a mason jar but then she found The Training Table's plastic cups. They are big and flexible and as she says, "conform to any shape you need it to." So, now she uses one of those. There is no sink in the laundry/furnace/storage/scary room and she found out the floor drain does not go into the sewer, it drains into gravel under the foundation so there is no way she is emptying the Training Table cup there. She takes it upstairs, empties it in the toilet and then sanitizes it for her next emergency.

The other day she came home, barely made it to the laundry room, pulled down her pants and, well, you know. Then she took all her clothes off and put all her underwear in the washer along with all the whites that had come down the laundry chute. She looked at her tennis shoes and decided to soak her shoelaces in some bleach but she was out of bleach so she went to the garage to get an extra bottle. Oops, she thought, I'm naked, so she put her T-shirt back on and then went to the garage. She got the bleach, soaked her shoelaces and then dumped the bleach into the Training Table cup.

While she was in the garage she noticed some plants she wants Tom Cruise to plant for her. (His name isn't really Tom Cruise but she can't pronounce his first name so asked him if she could just call him Tom as his last name is Cruise. He, of course, is delighted.) (This is also how her stories go, when she is telling them to you, full of side stories.)

So, she took her training table cup full of it's concoction, thinking she would just dump it on the "hill." (The hill is uninhabited and full of weeds where feral cats mark their spot. She wondered if her concoction would change their minds.)

She gathered her plants in her other hand and went outside to put the plants where she wanted them planted and then and only then did she remember she was practically naked. She looked around, sheepishly, and backed slowly into the garage. She doesn't think anyone saw her, in just a T-shirt (Mrs, Bird is well endowed under her T-shirt so that's another reason she would have been interesting) but if they had they would just shake their head and say, "Crazy Mrs. Bird," in the most lovingly sort of way.

Mrs. Bird, my pant-less, underwear-less, bra-less friend. How I love her willingness to let me share all the bare facts with you.

MRS BIRD GETS AN EARLY START ON LEARNING TO "GO" IN ODD PLACES

Mrs. Bird was just a tiny girl when her dad started taking her and her brother fishing. Her dad was a patient man. Translation: he could sit in a boat all day, waiting for the mountain lake trout to bite. Sitting in a boat all day, with a lunch and canteens of water and, if they were lucky, some bottles of pop, made for some interesting bathroom needs. Mrs. Bird's dad and brother were equipped for easy disposal of full bladders. "Turn around," they would say to her and in half a minute, "Okay, you can turn back."

But for a little girl it was a different situation. That is why her Dad took two cans in the boat. One was full of worms and the other was empty. Mrs. Bird learned to go, even in the middle of Fish Lake.

Mrs. Bird's learned nonchalance about bathroom duties in odd places at an early age. This will help you to understand future posts about Mrs. Bird.

MRS BIRD PEES INTO A MASON JAR

I was sitting on the lawn swings, painting my fingernails, wondering how Mrs. Bird's colonoscopy went. A car drove up and it was her! She looked great. (Why didn't I run in the house and get my camera? Because I'm s-l-o-w, that's why. I just now thought of it.) Mrs. Bird is blond and was dressed all in black with a silver necklace--from Chico's, I'm thinking. She's a Chico's kind of girl. She looked fabulous.

It turns out the colonoscopy was cancelled. It took her twenty minutes to tell me why. It's scheduled for next month. There will be a story there. Stay tuned.

Then we got on the subject of the fact that there is no bathroom in the basement of her house. And then--naturally--we got on the subject of her peeing. (This is going to take several posts to tell you all her funny peeing stories so I'll start here.)

THE FULL MASON JAR IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM. This happened several years ago.

Mrs. Bird's garage is on the basement level. She bursts in the house after shopping, or doing whatever current bizarre thing she was doing, and has to go to the bathroom. She knows she will never make it upstairs so she heads for the laundry room, pulling down her pants as she goes. She grabs a wide mouth Mason jar, one she keeps just for this very purpose--she has forgotten this part of the story but it is blazed on my brain--she told me this story fifteen years ago--and I know it's true--she puts the Mason jar on the floor, squats expertly--she's had lots of practice--and pees.

She hears the back door open and close but she's busy and can't stop. Her teenage daughter passes the laundry room, does an double take, backs up and stands in the doorway with her hands on her hips. "What on EARTH are you doing?"

"I'm peeing."

Really, Mrs. Bird thinks, how brainless can my daughter get? Even an amoeba could see I'm peeing.

"Why?" The teenage, non-amoeba asks.

"Because I had to go and couldn't make it upstairs to the bathroom."

Just about that time, with Mrs. Bird minding her own business and with her teenage daughter butting in where she's not wanted, all of a sudden, Mrs. Bird's kidneys and bladder go into overtime and the quart Mason jar fills to the top and overflows. The astonished, yet brainless, daughter has yet another reason to think her mother is nuts.

Well, okay, Mrs. Bird is nuts but her teenage daughter shouldn't have confirmation. Luckily the daughter grew up and now knows her mom is fabulous but there for a minute, with pee puddling on the laundry room floor, trickling down the drain, well, just for a minute, her teenage daughter hoped she only got her father's genes.

PHIL MOWED THE LAWN

Phil mowed the lawn. He had to remove piles of snow with the snow shovel first.

I told Mrs. Bird it was time for another of her stories. She said, "Oh, I can't think right now. I'm preparing for a colenoscopy."

MRS. BIRD HAS ANOTHER BUM EXPERIENCE

Yesterday I talked to Mrs. Bird in the hall after church.

"How are you," I said.

"Fine."

I can read between the lines. She was not fine.

"What's the matter, you don't have your..." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "...bottom stuffed with fabric and taped shut again, do you?" (Don't believe me? Read here.)

"Oh, no," she said, "but I do have a rash on my bottom and it won't go away and I've tried...." and then she proceeded to tell me all the things she has tried to get rid of her bum-rash. (Mrs. Bird will tell you anything, really, she will. Ask anyone who knows her.)

And then she proceeded to tell me more than I wanted to know about several others subjects and my eyes glazed over and...well, I was in for a long listen.

Did I mention that I adore Mrs, Bird? I don't want to give you the wrong impression, because I do.

And, if you have a rash and want to know several ways not to cure it, and if you want to be entertained by a number of other subjects for a good long time....she'll be at church next week and you can catch her in the hall.