Ready, Set, Go!

I only have a few minutes. There's something wrong with my beloved laptop. After twenty minutes it freezes and I have to manually shut it down, which I hate doing. This isn't that old, but I didn't get a warantee on it. Every time I turn it on I set a timer for 15 minutes so I can restart it before it freezes again.

Anyway...I haven't completely forgotten about the 29 Gifts in 29 Days I was (am) doing. I just forgot a few days then it sort of snowballed into a few weeks. I still do things but I always think I'll remember them to post about (as a writer I should know better than to think I'll remember something).

Today I was finally able to tackle a mountain of paperwork I had to work on. You'd think with only one kid it wouldn't be so hard to find time to sit for a few mintues. When my grandma died last March, she had a few bills that needed to be paid. She hardly had any money (like a few hundred) when she died, so as I was advised, I've been ignorning the bills for her I get in the mail. That is until a few weeks ago when I started getting collection agency notices in MY name. I don't know how I got sent to collections for her bills, but I did. This entire thing is a nightmare. Everyone (including the County because she was on Medicare) wants a piece of her measley $200 in her bank account. I was her power of attorney but that ceases when she dies. The bank won't let me touch her $200. I have been fighting with the county and her nursing home to keep her few hundred dollars because she still doesn't have a headstone at the cemetary. It's f-ing riduculous what I have to go through to put a headstone on an 88 year old woman's grave.

Obsessed at Six

When I was in first grade, I was reading beyond the normal level of a six year old. Because of this I was asked to teach other six year olds to read. I don't remember his name, but the first kid I was to help was a boy. We'd go into the back of the class and sit in a corner on the floor. I was supposed to read to him and have him read back to me. Instead, I tossed the book and tried to kiss him for the entire twenty minutes. I quickly lost my job at a mini-teacher because the boy didn't learn a thing. Well, maybe not a thing...

Circus or Bust

There are a few things I knew for sure when I was 12:

1. If someone didn't invent something to control my curly hair in the near future, I'd have to shave my head.
2. My album collection of puffy stickers were NOT lame (no matter what my brother said).
3. Lastly, and most importantly, I was going to be a trapeze artist in the circus.

I went through a few career ideas before settling on trapeze artist. First I was going to be a teacher, but I realized I only liked organizing the papers, not dealing with the kids.
Then I was going to be a comedian. I'd take joke books out of the library and try to memorize them. Instead, I ended up forcing my mom and brother to sit on the couch while I read the joke book to them, waiting for laughs. Not so funny.
I also wanted to be a gymnast but had never had any gymnastics training other than the cartwheels and round-offs I did on my front lawn. So I settled for the next best thing, trapeze artist.
I decided to start training right way, and the only way I knew how: on the shower curtain rod. We had a big old fashion bathtub with a metal curtain rod that went all the way around and attached to the ceiling. I told my mom I was going to take a shower (I even ran the water). I stood on the edge of the tub and grasped the rod tightly. I got on my tiptoes and flung forward with all my might.
I don't remember landing (maybe I briefly blacked out), but I do remember the sound of the curtain rod ripping out of the ceiling and crashing down around me. My mom came running up the stairs and I jumped back into the tub. She burst in and asked what happened. I told her, in my sincerest voice, that I didn't know. The curtain rod just...fell.
She got on the phone to the landlord (yes, this was a rental) who lived next door. I quickly got dressed and he came over. My mom told him what I'd told her, that it just fell. He took one look at it and said, "It looks like someone was swinging from it." I gasped and sputtered, "Psshh, what? Swinging? Why would someone swing from a curtain rod? Duh." and quickly went into my room to hide out until it was fixed.
Needless to say this ended my short lived career as a trapeze artist.

From Hip to Drip

The summer I was 17 I had a babysitting job on Seneca Parkway (awesomely huge houses) Monday thru Friday. I worked 6am-6pm, made breakfast, lunch and dinner for two kids and made $100 a week. Ah, the good ol' days.

To make the time pass I'd take the kids on numerous walks during the day. One day I was walking down Magee Avenue towards Raines Park. Out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody waving at me from inside a house. I walked closer and saw a very cute guy doing the waving. I had no idea who he was, but it didn't matter. He was hot and he was waving. At me. I waved back frantically. He stopped waving and looked at me strangely. I realized he was cleaning his windows. I quickly walked away and took the long way back to the house.

The next day was Saturday and I "had to"go up to Ray's Deli for something...anything. And instead of walking down my street (Electric Avenue), I had to go the total opposite way to walk by the guy's house. As I sloooooowwwllyy walked by his house, he came outside. We introduced ourselves. I vehemently denied being the idiot who waved like a nut the day before while he was cleaning windows. I told him I was going up to Ray's Deli and he asked me to get him a Pepsi.

I practically ran the rest of the way to the store, so I could get back to him and continue our conversation. I handed him his Pepsi and he asked what I bought for myself. Realizing I didn't buy a thing for myself, I told him I ate a candybar on the way back.

His name was Todd Alexander and he was 23. An older man! He was so cute, I think I'd still recognize him if I saw him. He asked if I wanted to see the inside of his house. He didn't have to ask twice. (An aside: I was an extremely naive 17 year old). We went into his house and instead of him showing me around, he asked if I wanted to sit on his lap. Didn't have to ask that twice either.

I tried to act mature and grown up, like I did this all the time. It was no big deal to be in a strange guy's house sitting on his lap. We started making out and I remember he tasted like beer. It never even dawned on me where he might think it was leading.

Just when I was convinced he was going to ask me out (back then it meant being boyfriend/girlfriend exclusively), suddenly I heard it. The words that I can still hear clearly in my mind. The words my mother called from a block and a half away...

"Lisa....Lisa Marie....Come home now!"

I started talking fast and loud hoping he wouldn't hear. Didn't work.

Him: "Is somebody calling you?"

Me: "No, I don't hear anything. So anyway, you own this house, huh? You must have a lot of money."

"Lisa Marie! Where are you?"

Him: "Are you sure? I think someone's calling your name."

Me: "Nope. No one calls me that."

Him: "What, your name?"

Me: "I'd better go. I should really help that crazy woman find whoever she's looking for."

We made plans for him to stop by in three days, when my mom would be at work. (That story is much worse than this one.)