I'm Special

I’m special. Don’t worry; I’m sure you’re special too. These are words I’m not often found using about myself. And no, I haven’t lost touch with reality. Or at least with what little reality I acknowledge. Let me begin by telling you a story.

My father’s mother passed away the December before I was born. On the way to the hospital that night Dad avoided being in a serious accident when a tractor-trailer rolled on the interstate just ahead of them. After looking at each other in stunned wonder, Dad put the car back in first, Mom turned off the radio and they traveled the rest of the way in silence.

At the hospital Dad took his mother’s hand and she opened her eyes to look at him. His brothers and sister were down the hall and my mother was in the room standing just behind him. “You two take care of that little girl, she’s going to be special.” These weren’t her last words, but she passed before the moon had set. No one knew I was to be a girl but five months later I came into the word on Mother’s Day. Effectively making my mother a mother.

Now I may have embellished a little bit above, but the words are hers as far as I’ve been told. It’s a story that I have heard uncountable times through out childhood and beyond. As a kid I loved hearing it. Though even then I was pretty sure it was a parents made up story to make the world seem magical and mysterious. But that does little to prevent the mind from imagining what it will. I would wonder what made me special? Did I have secret powers? I would sit for hours and stare at our cat trying to communicate with him. All I achieved was a very close bond with said cat, which in itself is probably pretty special. All sorts of elaborate ideas would float through my head, what did she mean? Who could I be? Make believe took on a whole new dimension for me. I was going to be an adventurer, put Indian Jones to shame. The world was my oyster, or shellfish of your choice.

As I grew older, my thoughts turned to a more somber note. Maybe she had been referring to my health troubles. I won’t go into them, that is not the intent of this post. Simply suffice to say that by age twelve I had been through more doctors than most eighty year olds and more hospital visits than I care to remember. Maybe that’s what she meant, I thought. Watch out, she’s fragile. I hated this idea but it took me a while to get past it. It’s hard not to dwell on such thoughts when they circle your brain in the middle of the night when sleep is a distant friend who never remembers to call. But get past them I did. They still visit every once in a while, but not for long and never with any welcome.

I was in middle school when I discovered books. Of course I knew of them before, but I found myself immersed in new worlds and lives that were not my own. I was banned from the library before long, for I had a knack for checking out towers of books and forgetting to return them for months at a time. I made much better admirers with the local bookstore. These tomes, these friends could be mine. And while it’s rare for me to re-read a book, there they were in the boxes at the end of my bed if I should feel the need to not be me for a while. This love of reading turned into a passionate affair with writing.

It was with this discovery that my grandmother’s words came back to me. Perhaps this is what made me special. At fifteen you think any words and ideas that come from you must be important. I would sit at the family computer for days, my fingers roaming madly, backspace and spell check a constant form of entertainment.

As an adult I have come to know myself a little better. The words that I write are for me. Perhaps you my dear reader will enjoy them, or relate to them in some way. Maybe you will read them and feel the need to inform me that I’m delusional. Maybe they will spark a bit of nostalgia, sweet or bitter. I hope some of them will bring a smile to your face or the desire to read more to your heart. From boredom to brilliance, any way that they affect you so be it. I’m glad for your visit to my land of me. But this isn’t what makes me special.

What makes me special, what makes us special I think are our own perceptions of ourselves. Dreaming that something does in fact make us special makes it so. Maybe you think I’m crazy, I’ve been considered worse. Crazy doesn’t bother me so much. Being, without any attempts to delve further into the world or myself, that would bother me a great deal more.

Love Jen

Mindless Moments of Me

I love tea. It’s one of the only beverages that you can enjoy at any temp. Cold, refreshing iced tea. Soothing, steaming hot tea. It’s just fine luke warm, or cooled down. Funny how those are the same temperature, just coming from different directions. (Yes, I know that coffee can be right on the same level with iced coffee and all that but I reject that reality because it doesn’t jive with what I’ve already said. Plus have you ever taken a sip of coffee that you expected to be hot and it was cold. Gross!)

I enjoyed changing Robin’s diaper. No I have not lost touch with sanity. Or at least my grip isn’t any less firm than it’s always been. Robin liked getting her diaper changed. She laughed and smiled and cooed. She was just the most cheerily verbal three month old I’ve ever seen when she was on the changing table. Bee was a nightmare. She fought and cried almost every time.

I love dill pickles. Just the thought of sweet pickles makes me want to retch though.

Pampered Chef shout out! Completely ignoring the fact that I’m 100% addicted to this company’s products I came upon a wonderful revelation. One of their Twixit Clips will keep a bag of Tostitos (or tortilla chip of your choice) fresh for over 6 months. Don’t look down on me too much. I was very pregnant when I discovered the lost bag in the back of Kitchen Cabinet Wonderland.

Do you ever watch a movie and hear one phrase, or see one shot and wonder if that was the thought that spawned the idea for the movie? I do this all the time.

Asthma sucks!

Mike thinks I’m crazy because I pick and choose the songs I want on my ipod one at a time. (We’re talking about over 4000 songs to choose from) He just lets it load a random mix when he updates. The point of the ipod to me is to not have to skip songs. I can listen to the radio if I feel like flipping channels non-stop.

I love video games. Especially RPG’s. Final Fantasy rocks my world. GTA is pretty bangin too!

Love Jen

My Cat Hates Her Food

What a ridiculous statement, right? I mean first off, how could I possibly know what is going on inside the tiny furry mind of my cat? And second how different can one brand of dry cat food be from all the others available to the cat feeding public? None the less, I'm quite certain of this fact. Our cat can be a little quirky. Cincy, the Wonder Cat/Satan Spawn? She really is a great little cat. Very independent, (yes, I'm aware that most cats are independent) a bit too smart for her own good, extremely loving when she feels like it. She's a little over 8 years old and this beautiful orange, black, gray, and white mess of colors. If the black and orange were reversed I'd say she was almost a calico. As if someone poured paint on a canvas and then just swirled them about at bit. Or perhaps rolled my cat in it.

When she was younger she use to wait under our dining room table for someone to walk past. Then she'd dash out, wrap her little paws around their leg and start knawing on them. Hence the satan spawn thing. She also loves to play fetch. Especially with the little plastic plugs that come in a carton of orange juice or half and half. Bee's learning how to play fetch with her. Only occasionally she throws the plug at her instead of for her. So Cincy is weary of being smacked in the face when playing with our oldest daughter. She really had become very loving and sweet, as her years grow older. She snuggles on the couch with Mike any chance she gets. If she's able to sneak into our bedroom at night she curls up around your head and will eventually begin to drool on you in her sleep if you don't dislodge her quickly enough. I'm pretty certain that at midnight on evenings of the full moon she spins around 9 times counter-clockwise, stands on her head and does a perfect Elvis impersonation, all be it upside-down and with a slight feline accent. You know, normal cat stuff.

Cincy has this habit of letting you know that she's out of food. Anytime someone walks through the kitchen she swats at his or her ankle. If she's ignored enough times she starts biting the ankle. Or rather the sensitive spot on your leg just above the ankle. She's got dead on aim to. Hurts like a SOB when she gets you. If you're smart you look down, see that the bowl is void of small, dry cat nuggets and you fill the sucker up. She's been doing this for the last two weeks. Since I brought the new bag of cat food home. Even though the bowl is full she swats at me. It takes her two days to eat one bowl of the stuff, when it normally takes a few hours. I'm stubborn, and logically I know that the cat won't let herself starve when there is food there. She's just going to mope, and let me know she's unhappy as she slowly rids herself of the offensive stuff. I refuse to buy another bag when this one is quite full still, regardless of how much the cat swats at my ankles to let me know her royal little furry self is displeased.

Last night Cincy, evil incarnate cat bit me. The food bowl is still full. I know this. I filled it up the day before. I turned around and yelled these exact words. "Cincy! I don't care how much you hate that food, if you bite me again I'm going to beat you with a chair!" She bites really hard. Have I mentioned that? I'm not normally one to remember word for word the angry ramblings that pour from my mouth directed at our psycho cat. And the only reason I remember them this time is because of Bee. Mike was sitting at the computer chair and Bee said "Daddy, Mommy is Mad!" eyes big and a little worried. "Yes, she is sweetie." Mike looks at me and I look at him and I'm about to apologize for yelling (at a cat!) when Bee gets the biggest grin and tells Mike
"It's okay! She's not mad at me!" giggles hysterically and then returns to explaining to the 5 month old baby that she's going to color spongebob purple. I may buy another bag of this cat food, if Cincy ever finishes it.
Love Jen