Family Secrets

I am about to reveal an idiosyncracy about our family that our children would probably prefer remain obscure. Whenever it occurs, they roll their eyes and groan. Even to this day, as adults, they tend to take it as a confirmation of our diminishing neurological capabilities. Yet - I'll wager that, once they have their own kids, they will behave similarly. They won't be able to help themselves. It's ingrained in their genes.

This is it:

We wave at livestock.
We often verbally greet them as well. And we honk the horn.

I'm sure no one else does this. It's unique to our family. As we approach a herd of cows, we feel we must address them. Can't help it. We are known among the bovine community as "the friendly family." Sometimes we even wave to goats, sheep, or emu. It's hard to catch the eye of a chicken though; they usually miss our greetings.

I make public our oddity to illustrate a point: it is stories and traditions such as this that bond a family.

Animals play a big role in our bonding.

We often claim the strangest-looking beast that we see in a photo, on TV, or in a field is actually named after one or the other of us. For years, I would hide a wallet photo of a gorilla in my better half's suitcase whenever he travelled. As he discovered it between his t-shirts, he could hear me saying, "Here's you!" Then I'd find it in some obscure place after he returned, and I could hear him say the same thing. It would make us smile every time. A teasing testiment to our devotion.

One of our favorite stories to tell involves our son at the Washington Zoo. After discussing how monkeys felt threatened by stares, he of course had to test the theory. How hilarious when the monkey lunged at him through the glass enclosure! The normally unflappable little guy was definitely flapped!

Then there's the time our very young, always compassionate, daughter hoped to restore a very squashed, dried frog back to life by sprinkling some water on it.

We have many -isms that define our family as well. These are the cute variations of speech that our children used when they were little. Things like: "natgume" for napkin, or "app-dushe" for apple juice. An -ism can also be a catch phrase that only our family would understand: like "Shampoo Man" or "I'm not a human being; YOU'RE a human being!" or "it wouldn't let me jump!" (See? you have no idea what I'm talking about, but my kids are no doubt rolling their eyes again.)(I hope they don't get stuck in that position!)

We even have carry-overs from my own childhood. My brother and I tell the story about how we painted my bedroom 'screaming green' one weekend while our parents were out of town. From then on, my dad would just close the door rather than look at it. He also tells how I tortured him by crawling under his bed when he got up to tell our Mom about his nightmare. When he returned, of course, I grabbed his feet and got him upset all over again. I confess, I laugh to this day at the cruel prank.

My dad created many of the -isms that my brother and I remember. We would insist that he show us the undisturbed jar of jam or peanut butter before he dug into it. We'd say, "See it smooth!" Even now, at age 81, he takes great delight when we make that request.

There are many such instances that only our family can appreciate. Such things extend to various kinfolk and close friends. Stories are told by the grandparents that our children will always remember. Gentle teasing is our way of reminding each other that we're cherished. Laughter unites us.

Such are the very threads that weave the fabric of who we are and whom we love. We are creating a priceless quilt.

What fabric makes up your coverlet?

Gone Country - Bring On the Rain

We went to the CMA Fest in Nashville last weekend. For us, it was a weekend full of new experiences: 1) we've never been to Nashville; 2) we've never been die-hard country music fans. Considering #2, you might ask, why on earth would we go to the CMA Fest? Well, we might reply, because it was there.

For the uninformed, the CMA Fest (Country Music Association-Fest), is held annually in Nashville to offer country music fans four days and nights to rub elbows with their favorite artists, hear multiple concerts, and to raise money for charity. The city hosts an influx of fans from across the country, most of whom are clad in brand new, ready-to-be-autographed cowboy hats, Sharpies in hand, cameras at the ready.

During the day, there are performances by up-and-comers, one-hit-wonders, and used-ta-be-big-names at the tents along the riverfront. At night in the Tennessee Titans' Coliseum, the reigning stars play 4-6 song sets of their most crowd-pleasing hits. Then there are the saloons and pubs all along music row that offer after-hours acts. In all, Nashville becomes four days of non-stop music and festivities.

At certain hours during the day in the exhibit hall, artists will show up to sign autographs and pose for pictures with adoring fans. We didn't venture in there; my better half is NOT a line-stander, and we had other things we wanted to see on our maiden trip to Nashville. I imagine, though, that it was a packed venue, judging from the number of people who knew every word to most every song being sung.

All this in the rain, mind you.

We drove out to the Opryland Hotel and the new Opryland performance house. My oh my, what a resort! We will stay there on our next visit. One would really never have to leave the grounds for one's entire trip. It's rather like one of the Las Vegas mega-resorts minus the casinos. Dining, shopping, shows, and gardens all under one roof.

Now picture this: a couple of citified new-comers, sporting brand new $5.00 ponchos that cost $1.98 in the store next door, huddled in our end-zone seats with the concert stage in the opposite end-zone (thank goodness for big screens). Tropical Storm Arlene is making her way north through Alabama, her bands of steady rain creeping into this very coliseum. One after one, country stars demonstrate their talents, converting us to their Americana brand of music. And there we stay. Enjoying the likes of Alan Jackson, JoDee Messina, Craig Morgan, Joe Nichols, SheDaisy, Trace Adkins, Josh Gracin, Trisha Yearwood, and more. Wow.

No, we didn't make it to the end of the concert on either night, and we missed some really good performances. Our daughter tells us we missed some of the best: Rascal Flatts, Blake Shelton, Sara Evans, Kenny Rogers, Wynonna. As it was, when we stood up to leave, all the accumulated rain on our ponchos cascaded down onto our britches, and we were more soaked than we ever wanted to be. We slogged back aboard the shuttle bus to return to the hotel, whereupon we squished through the lobby to our room.

Drenched though we were, we returned as Country Music converts. Proud to be among the CMA Fest attendees. Proud to know the names and the songs (and some of the words) of today's CMA artists. Proud owners of freshly downloaded and burned country music CDs. In agreement with Trace Adkins when he says they're "Songs About Me."

But no, we don't have cowboy hats. Yet.

Collections

I collect stuff. As I formulated this post in my head, I realized that I collect a lot of stuff. It gives me great pleasure to find it, attain it, organize it, catalog it, and display it. Then I get satisfaction just looking at it over and over again. I imagine a psychologist would have a heyday with this obsession of mine.

Currently, my attention is on my collection of Madame Alexander dolls which began when I was a young girl. My parents gave me an exquisite 21" Queen Elizabeth doll and then an 8" Little Women Meg doll, both which I still have in nearly mint condition. Since then I've added over 40 dolls, mostly from the International and Storyland lines.

I can remember in the early 80's when it was rumored that Madame was at death's door, and that perhaps there would be no more dolls. Whenever a local store advertised the sale of dolls, people were waiting at the door well before opening time. Among them were my friend, Beth, and I, both very pregnant, joining in the "feeding frenzy" of collectors as soon as the doors opened. Were we crazy or what? and the dolls weren't even of the highest standards for which the company was known before and since then.

The dolls manufactured today wear beautifully designed clothes, even if there aren't the delicate intricacies of the 60's and 70's. It was during the 80's (and my pregnant frenzies) that I feel the clothing was sub-par. No matter. I had to have those little dolls all the same. Even now, I hope my birthday and Christmas boxes contain at least one Madame Alexander doll.

In my quest to complete the collections of my desire, EBay has become my very best friend. It enabled me to find all my Lenox porcelain Pencil Snowmen at below retail price. I only lack one, so far: Winter's Salute, and I look forward to seeing what they'll design next for the series.

When my Pfaltzgraff dinner pattern was discontinued, I was distressed. Thanks once again to EBay, I've found more pieces than ever. I now proudly possess 12 place settings of Garden Party as well as numerous serving and accessory pieces. The Pfaltzgraff Company caters to people like me who simply must have extra pieces and doo-dahs to go with my setting. Their mommas didn't raise no dummies.

I also collect things like fonts, computer sounds, and desktop themes. Since I do a lot of desktop publishing, I like to have many choices. Then there's genealogy information on my and my husband's families. And I have a photo album for every year since we were married. (That's a LOT of photo albums! Ours are well-documented lives!)

There is my music collection. For awhile it was beach music. If I do say so myself, thanks to Napster, my friend, Alice, and WalMart.com, I believe I now have one of the most complete sets of Beach Music found in the Southeast - 9 CDs of no-repeat Beach music for your shagging pleasure. (for you international readers, "shagging" is a type of DANCE done in the South.) If I hadn't acquired a few of the songs before the big crackdown on P2P file sharing, I could make a lot of money should I choose to sell my CDs. Only I couldn't spend much of it in jail.

Before the invention of the CD, I collected music on cassette tapes - one each for my favorite songs of every year from 1976. Of course now, I burn my favorite songs to CDs, and I've stopped limiting my playlist to certain years.

Then there's my collection of Disney DVDs. I claim to be collecting them for my future grandchildren. Fact is, I prefer Disney animated stories to most anything else at the movies (except maybe Harry Potter). Now that some of the titles are retired, EBay has once again proved invaluable.

I have a collection of Lenox porcelain Garden Birds that I started years ago. I suppose one could say that I still collect birds, only now I collect them in photographs that I take in my backyard. (See previous posts).

Chrismas provides endless opportunities for me to expand my collecting mania to my friends and family. We began giving our children an ornament each Christmas as soon as they were born. Our daughter has the entire collection of Hallmark Victorian Houses of which she's very proud. I can remember our son opening his Christmas ornament when he was younger and saying, "Oh, it's just another old ornament." He'll be proud of his collection, though, one day. We have even begun collections of ornaments for our nieces and nephew.

Hey - Jay Leno collects automobiles; John Travolta collects airplanes; Imelda collected shoes; Elizabeth Taylor collected jewelry. At least my collections are a little less extravagant (although I could definitely enjoy collecting jewelry!)

Am I obsessed? maybe. Compulsive? possibly. Having fun? most definitely!

and if you have a Madame Alexander doll you might want to sell . . . .