The Turtle Continues

One holiday, my Aunt Gay fell to the floor.  Thinking her sister was having a heart attack, my mother, Mary Margaret Madden, dialed 911 in a panic.  Mom and her husband at the time (not my father by a long shot) followed the aide car to the hospital with Uncle Arnold and his two sons, Jim and Joe in the back seat.  A fist fight broke out with the force of a heavyweight chamionship title bout.  My Mother, fearful that teeth were going to fly, pulled over to the side of the road while her husband broke up the rumble in the back seat.

They arrived at the emergency room with Uncle Arnold, Jim, and Joe all looking like Rocky Balboa following his final round with Apollo Creed.  (The actor who played that part actually did play for the Oakland Raiders)   Just a side note.  They were still arguing in the hallway when they heard Aunt Gay screaming from an examining room:  "I'm not dying!  I'm drunk!"  And, certainly she was.

It was another Merry Christmas from the fighting Eagen family headed by Uncle Arnold, alias the Ruiner of Holidays, a.k.a. Mr. Turtle.

I want to make it perfectly clear that Arnold was not a blood relative.  He was married to my Mother's sister, Gay (Flaherty)  and my very first memory of him was that he was probably from the bizarro world.  I was able to determine by the age of five that he was an awful, sloppy, son-of-the-poor-unfortunate-woman-who-gave-birth-to-him, abusive jerk.  As I mentoned yesterday, in all the years I knew him, I never once saw him sober.

Arnold the Turtle

It's almost here, the season to be jolly. I was shopping at Fred Meyer today when I noticed shelves stocked with Christmas lights.  It reminded me of my childhood holidays.  There was the Christmas Uncle Arnold went to the bathroom and fell sideways into the bathtub.  In an effort to break the fall, on the way down he grabbed the towel rack and pulled it out of the wall, plaster and all.  He landed in the tub like a turtle on his back with his pants down around his ankles.   Since he had locked the door, the stepfather had to break the lock to rescue my uncle who was honking like a stressed-out goose for help.

The entire family gathered in the hallway to assist in the rescue and help extingush the fire he started when he dropped his cigarette on the carpet and ignited the towels.

My Mother had to have the wall re-plastered, the bathroom painted, the carpet replaced and buy a new doorknob.  It was a Merry Christmas courtesy of Uncle Arnold, also known as the Ruiner of Holidays.  I have never seen this man sober.

The Original Cat Woman

1. Franklin (see picture)  trots around the house with his tail waving as if he is greeting his royal subjects.  He is really quite majestic.  He likes to eat, sleep, and cruise his litter box.  As I may have mentioned before, he's a gifted cat.

I taught him how to "high five" but he doesn't like to perform on cue, so frequently I'm left with my hand in the air, no return paw.

I taught him how to catch a ping-pong ball in mid-air with his paws.  He did it twice.  It was a breathtaking athletic feat.  Maybe someday he'll do it again.

My Mother, Mary Margaret Madden, was the original cat woman.  She grew up on a farm where she had 18 cats.  They lived in the barn and hunted for rodents.  She wasn't alowed to feed them.  They were "mousers", working farm animals.  If I had 18 cats, they would live in my house and I would train them.

Freedom

I recently lost 31 pounds on the Jenny Craig weight loss program.  Today is my first day of freedom to purchase my own food and would you like to know what I did?  After 5 months on a 1200 calorie a day diet, I bought 1/2 of a cinnamon pudding cake from the Fred Meyer bakery.

I thought about it for a long time.  I circled the cake display. I encountered friends from my Zumba class.  They asked me if I was buying healthy food. I showed them my banannas and peaches. They showed me their vegetables.  We agreed that we were wonderful.

When they walked away, I snatched the cake and sprinted for the check-out stand.

Sometimes I just have to be a rebel.   

Have You Seen Honey Boo Boo?

Did you notice on the news that the reality show:  "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," beat out the Republican National Convention in the TV ratings?

Honey Boo Boo is a 6-year-old beauty pageant competitor from Georgia whose family should be saving for college tuition (in my opinion) instead of spending thousands of dollars on custom-made pageant costumes and entry fees. 

It's a fascinating sociological study focusing on the relationship between poverty and a lack of education.  Poor decisions including exhisting on junk food and raising four daughters without dignity are just a couple of reasons to watch this train wreck of a show.

As for the RNC, I tried to watch but it was just too boring.

Karma

Were you here before me?  That's what I usually say to people who try to cut in front of me in a line.  "Call the behavior."  My Dad taught me that.  People will usually (always in my case) back down.  Most people don't like confrontations.  I mention this because while shopping yesterday, a lady who was in line behind me decided to go to the "returns only" line and was immediately assisted there even though she didn't have a return item as I heard her tell her daughter before she left the line.

I pointed out to the others in the serpentine line (about 15 people) that the woman, about 35 years old, cut in front of us.

"She doesn't have a return," I informed them.
"Karma will get her," a young teenage girl buying school clothes said confidently.

I wanted to yell:  "You don't have any returns.  You cut in line!" in kind of create a scene the Seinfeld way.  "NO  CUTSIES!  Everyone learned that in Kindergarten!"