Get Serious

An 88 year old man opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, and I'm blogging about nicknames? Yes I am. Sometimes I think I should make more serious commentary instead of silly topics like candy bars and things I like about summer in CNY. But, you know know what? There's enough misery in the world and out there in the blogosphere. So you won't find much serious content until my taxes go up. Then the hounds of my middle class fury will be unleashed. Until then . . .

I love nicknames. I love coining nicknames and believe that some people's names were meant to be nicknamed. There's my friend Ginger, whose name is so easily converted to Gingersnap. There's Clark who became Clark Bar to me in graduate school. I call Zora Zoraster, in part because she drives a Forester. And there's a D-licious out there, cringing as he reads this because some of you know who he is. Every year or so I used to come up with a new nickname for Terry Engebretsen (talk about a patient person), and so Mr. T, T Rex, and my favorite T Bone were coined, among others. I have also coined other nicknames for Pin and Big, and rarely call them by their real names unless referring to them in conversation. Over the years I have called Missy the following:

Miss Thing, pronounced Thang(stolen from Sam)
Missypotamia (stolen from Daryl)
Missy Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mississippi
Missy Poops
Missy Poops a Lotta
Stinker Fuss (because her feet stink like corn chips, but not corn chips you'd want to eat)
Sweet Sally Sue (which Pin loathes)

That's just a partial list, but I want to get on to my main point. Rarely does anyone nickname me. I think when you have a name like Murphy, the "Murf" moniker replaces any real nickname. Brandon Hall used to call me Fatty or Fatty Patty because I wasn't, and occasionally students call me Dr. Pat, but I WANT A REAL NICKNAME. Suggestions?

Do you have a nickname? How did you get it?

I had a dream

literally. To most people that's not too odd an occurrence, but I rarely dream so it was a bit unsettling. Worse still, I had a dream about getting a B, actually a B- on a paper. And getting that B made me realize in the dream that I had not registered for any classes, and that realization led to another realization that I had failed to attend a class the previous semester, had indeed only attended it once. Therefore, I had failed that class (I think it was a Spanish class). Those realizations led to another realization that I would no doubt lose the office I was sitting in (the dream took place in an office I used to share at ISU). After trying to read the comments on the paper, I turned and the room was full of new doctoral candidates. I told them what a great program it was and how much they would enjoy it. Then I looked at the clock and realized I might as well go home since I had no classes to go to, but I wanted to decipher the paper comments written in such small, tidy handwriting. Not mine, that's not where this is going. Apparently the handwriting belonged to Will Hamlin; now there's a clue. No it's not, actually. What a feeling of desperation I had in the dream! Desperation so frightening that it woke me up safe and sound in my big bed in my old house in my middle class existence. Whew! I'm glad I don't dream too often.

I really don't like dreams; the only recurrent one I've ever had was frightening to say the least. I don't know how people do it, dream and sleep that is. Do you? Dream and sleep that is? What do you dream about? Personally, I think dreaming causes sentence fragments.

FYI, the offensive candy bar I wrote about was a Sky Bar. I was at Chanantry's last night and there it was. Do not eat it; take my advice on this one. And do not eat the giant ice cream sundae at the Ice Cream Factory in (is it in Chadwicks?) that has mint and regular Oreos on it as well as dark chocolate ice cream and hot fudge and whipped cream and sprinkles. I know what you're thinking -- the sprinkles, just too much. Do, however, eat the Crown Burger at Charlie Boys; that's what I had for dinner last night. I love summer eating: good thing I love summer walking too.

Awright peeps, what are you eating this summer and where are you eating it? If you're not eating some nasty burger outside at a place on the side of the road, I feel sorry for you.

P.S. You can learn from dreams. The handwriting on that paper was so small I really couldn't read it. Maybe I'll try that.

Silly Rabbit

I was reading Jess's blog this morning and found out that until quite recently she didn't know the joy of Twix candy bars. Boy am I glad she found herself on that one. It got me to thinking about things we think we don't like, which got me to thinking about my dear Aunt Grace who in recent years has eased up just a little on one food dislike, raisins. D likes to say that I am food eccentric, but I got nothin' on Aunt Grace who will eat turnovers but not pie. Aunt Grace also will not try a plethora of foods because she thinks she might not like them. Is that how it works? The thinking prevents the knowing? Aunt Grace also will not eat pork roast (only roast, mind you) because once thirty years ago after eating pork roast she had a smothering feeling in her chest.

I will not eat bitter melon, and I find cooked fruit slimy and wet. Most of the world is with me on that first one, I suspect. After all, you don't see too many bitter melon stands on the side of the road. At first when I read Jess's post I couldn't imagine a candy I wouldn't eat, especially one that involved chocolate. Then I remembered a candy bar that I tried once and couldn't finish. It had four or five chocolate covered sections and the sections had different flavored fillings. Good concept, bad execution. Anybody know what it is? Let me know if you do, and please let me know if there's a candy you won't eat, or your favorite candy bars. Mine are:

Well, that's the problem, isn't it? It's like trying to figure out who in your life you love the most. Do I pick Chunky because he's an old love and part of my childhood, or do I go with the exotic but fairly new to my life Milky Way Midnight? The Ice Cubes I bought with saved up pennies as a kid, or the Three Musketeers bar that I can have even when dieting? No matter which one comes to mind, candy=love.

Who's your sugar baby, baby?

Happy Tuesday

No, I won't eat it; it's got "bitter" right in the name

One way that I'm a good girl is that I do eat my vegetables with gusto. I was looking at my friend Jeremy Petersen's facebook post about yet another tomato incident he's had, and that got me to thinking about vegetable preferences. Jeremy was, and apparently is, tomato-phobic. I have other friends who have what I consider strange aversions to innocuous (or even delicious) vegetables. Z doesn't like celery, for example, and Pin will pick peppers out of anything with the precision of a surgeon, piling them neatly next to whatever food contained them. D doesn't like the bland but blameless cauliflower, but I've never figured out whether that's a taste thing or just because they're heavy. You'll have to ask him about his past with cauliflower to get the full story on that one. An ex tried to tell me once that he had eaten several vegetables that day, well tomatoes, and they were present in catsup and pizza sauce. In my opinion, that doesn't count.

As I said, I love my veggies, raw, cooked by wok, grilled or steamed. I can't understand people who don't eat vegetables, and have been know to be intolerant of them, but there is one vegetable I will not eat. It's said to be medicinal and have excellent anti-oxidant properties. But still I can't get past the way it smells (in my opinion, skunk) and how it makes my stomach hurt after eating it. So I say no thanks, no way to this vegetable. In case you don't know what it is, I put a hint in this blog title. Can you guess?

Are there any vegetables you won't eat? Don't worry, I won't think less of you. And I'll know what not to serve if you come for dinner.

Ouch, that hurt!

That must be what Ruby said as we careened off the road and into that snowbank in January. Careened not because of my bad driving, mind you, but because two of the tires she came with were almost bald. Which reminds me: I have to write that letter to the Attorney General's Office complaining about the dealership where Ruby used to live -- the one that after today will cost me $200.00 more than I've already spent.

Ruby's going in for a minor cosmetic repair; two scratches that have to be filled and painted over to be exact. So the money I might have spent on, oh I don't know, something extravagant like expensive shoes or that new designer handbag will go to scratch filling and probably one-tench of a tenth of an ounce of Ruby Red Kia car paint.

Of course, if you know me you know that I would never spend that kind of money on a purse or shoes. Maybe you know that my purse came from the Salvation Army store in Utica. I've never been the designer kind. I'm the one who has the $12.95 boots that vaguely look like Uggs but that came from Target. I'm the one who's always amazed at what other people pay a lot of money for.

I used to have one big expense back in Idaho. I used only Clinique products on my face, even though I lived in a basement apartment and drove an ancient Subaru that roared loudly when driving at 55 mph or over. I took care of my face with the precision of a surgeon, using cotton balls to remove makeup with makeup remover, then proceeding to cleansing and moisturizing, with a weekly face mask. Then I moved to New York, made over twice as much money as I had in Idaho, and acquired . . .
a mortgage. Now my face gets cleaned with water and a facecloth, then moisturized with whatever is on sale at Target or on the rack at TJ Maxx. That is until I discovered the one product I will never do without again, Garnier Nutritioniste Ultra-lift Daily Targeted Deep Wrinkle Treatment. With all those names it must be good. And it is. Now I'm not saying it'll erase those wrinkles that look as deep as the Snake River Canyon (that one's for you Clark), but at $13.00 a tube it does a nice job of making me look a little less like Death when I first wake up (okay kids, name that tune: "and if I look like Death today, well please let her know").

So that's my piece of girly, chit-chatty talk for the day. For my guy readers, I talk about my Sears Featherlite weed whacker. Yeah, it's a little girly too, but I got it because it's so lightweight. This, sadly, is not a product endorsement, for I cannot (and have never been able to) start it. Yes, it has gas in it. Yes, it has oil in it. Yes, the fluids are mixed correctly. Yes, other people can start it, although not easily. One of today's goals is to go start it.

On the other hand my Sears mower (Greeny) with his 6.5 hp engine starts even after a winter of sitting in the shed containing old gas. I love Greeny. I should, we spend plenty of time together. I calculated that when I mow the lawn I walk at least 4 miles, and that was calculating conservatively. No wonder I eat everything in sight on lawnmowing day.

Well, the question I was going to ask two paragraphs ago I'll ask now. Do you purchase any deliciously indulgent products? Do tell. Some people will tell you I own far too many shoes, but I would like to point out that I never pay much for them. Truth be told, I do own a lot of shoes. My last purchase was a blue/green pair of Cons, and I got them for only 25 bucks. What do you buy that makes you feel like a million dollas?

Really, alls I do is read and write

I toyed with the idea of just putting up two more paragraphs of my memoir, but I don't want to lose friends. It's not that it's that bad, but it's so me-centered. I know you all think that I think the world is me-centered, Pat's little queendom, so to speak, but Jeez this writing about myself and reading about other selves in such a compressed format for summer school may get me to be a little more other-regarding.

Don't get me wrong, I do not think I'm that boring. And I think that schlogging through the past is fine. I get stuck with description. It's hard to write so that someone else can see what we saw. So that means I slow down and take the time to explain things like freeze branding Chinook salmon, my first job and what the school bus that took me to high school in McCall Idaho smelled like.

So, I've escaped my memoir writing and class planning for five minutes. I've allowed myself five minutes to blog, but since I just finished writing for about an hour I feel like I got nothin', nada, I'm dried up, exhausted.

Missy's fine, thank you.
Summer still hasn't come.
It's not raining yet today.
I talked to Bighead last night.
I have to go now and get ready for work.
Please post something better than this post.
Okay, I'll give you a question to ponder and respond to.

What are you doing this weekend?
That's all I got.
Peace

Alls I do is read and write

I know nobody is going to feel sorry for me (and you shouldn't), but I've learned that if you teach creative writing in a four week format you are immersed in writing and reading. Well, I don't do much work at night, but Jeez it's summer, sort of. So on days like today when I have to start reading and writing immediately, I think I'll bore you with excerpts from the roughest of rough drafts of my memoir. I don't really know what it is I'm writing about yet; don't tell my students. But I'm writing. Here goes . . .

My sister likes to put it this way: “you were just such a brat.” She doesn’t say this with any rancor or resentment, no exclamation mark necessary. It’s more a statement of fact delivered in a matter of fact way that really says it all. When we have these conversations about my childhood, I always wind up putting up my best defense; I was just a really high strung, skitterish, no let’s face it downright scared kid. My mother likes to muse about the metamorphosis that I seemed to undergo as a plane took off one summer and took both of us to Idaho to visit my brother. At the end of that summer only one of us returned to New Jersey, and I, the youngest and far too dependent Murphy child stayed behind.

At fifteen years old I wanted out. Out of New Jersey, which seemed a place with no identity and plenty of ways to get into trouble. The towns full of sameness, the suburban adolescence with no opportunity for part time work, the friends who were starting their various explorations into drugs, alcohol and sex all seemed like a recipe for disaster. I was no star at the large suburban high school I attended, excelling only in poetry and literature classes, failing miserably at algebra and physical education. I had great friends, but we were all glued together by problems and drama. We scorned the generations that had come before us for their naivety, but didn’t really understand the world we occupied. It was a time full of no big questions and not enough to think about, and we may have been the first generation of American kids to have too much unsupervised time on our hands, some of us with mothers who worked. We were adrift in an ocean that had no swells but wasn’t really placid either. We were 1970’s Jersey kids. In some ways, that says it all.


Betcha can't wait for the next installment, huh? Boy, writing when you have to is hard. I get a few pages one day, a few paragraphs the next. I found myself looking at the McCall, Idaho webcam so I could get details for my piece. In doing so I learned that nothing happens in McCall, Idaho.

Gotta go.
Gotta write.

Devil or Angel, I can't make up my mind . . .

That's as far as I go with anything negative in this, Missy's one-day-late birthday tribute -- that and mentioning that I do call her Mephistopheles. Missy turned ten yesterday, and over the years she has proven a good companion. She:
-- stays in bed with me when I'm sick. That's not hard for her now that she's older, but she's always done so, and her ability to perceive my mood is appreciated.
-- gets so excited to see me when I come home, although now I have to wake her up sometimes to tell her I'm here.
-- still jumps straight up in the air when she's excited, even though she sprained her tail once doing so.
-- loves people so much and is so happy when somebody comes to visit her.
-- let me do part of two nails with the Pedi Paws recently, which proves that she's open minded and willing to give things a second try.
-- can entertain my parents when I can't.
-- protects me from the mail carrier because she just knows he's up to something.
-- adores me, and we all need some adoration.
Thanks Missy for always being there -- I mean always!
Do you have any great Missy memories you'd like to share?
Happy Tuesday

Hi Honey I'm Home

Yeah, I'm back. I just can't stay away from the blogosphere for very long. Today I'll just test the waters, if you don't mind. I don't feel particularly witty or insightful. Oh wait, maybe I'm never witty or insightful. I've done a lot of thinking in the last several weeks, and that's probably a good thing. A lot of telephone time with G listening patiently has also helped. So here goes:

Things I have learned in the last few weeks:
-- People will disappoint you and no matter what their motivations, no matter what the intricacies of the situation, disappointment still has the same nasty taste, like hairballs rolled in chalk (Have I tasted either? No, I'm making a metaphor here).
-- When people disappoint you, you can make a small doll that resembles them and steal a lock of hair and . . . No I didn't do that, but I hear you can.
-- Stewing, dwelling, and fretting are great and all, but plotting revenge is better. Yes, that's a joke.
-- There's a guy who lives on Genesee Street in Utica who mows his lawn wearing red shorts and a green shirt.

That last one is the real reason for this post. I kid you not. I saw it. It's not like he was going for a Christmas look (I can tell these things), but that's the way it turned out. Perfect Christmas colors, not lime and maroon, no, the real deal.

Well, I'm spent. If I keep writing I'll start some sort of festering complaint, and nobody wants that. Besides, I have to work on my memoir, since I told my creative writing class I'd be writing every day just like them.

Happy Monday