humor

Bee Stings and Writing Prompts

June 15, 2015 By Barbara 10 Comments

Have you ever had one of those days where you thought it was going so well and suddenly your heart is palpitating, your breathing is shallow, and you feel light-headed? I’m not talking about falling in love or sighting an alien spacecraft. Both of which can send most people into a tailspin. I’m talking about the painful sting and allergic reaction from a deadly South American Stinging Sorceress bee. Yes, you read that right. (SASS bee)

I was minding my own business, picking strawberries from my garden, when suddenly I was attacked without warning or provocation.

Now, I’ve been stung by wasps, bees, and jolts of static electricity multiple times in my life, without the hint of a bad reaction, but this bee was apparently much more maniacal and deadly. Hence the title: SASS.

Sometimes I think stuff happens just so I can write about it.

A couple minutes later, I came into the house with my berries, poured a cup of coffee, and called my mom to joke about getting stung by a bee. Suddenly, I was having scary symptoms. I broke out in a sweat, flushed and dizzy. My heart started pounding and I was finding it hard to breathe. Of course, I didn’t tell my mom I was in the middle of an attack. I just cut her off in the middle of a sentence, said I got to go, and called my husband.

It went something like this. Although, I’m unclear about most of it because inside I was freaking out.

Me: “I got stung by a bee and I think I’m dying.”

Leon: “Can you breathe?”

Me: (panting like a dog after a long run in 90• weather)

Leon: “Do you want me to come get you?”

Me: “Maybe I should call 911.” (I hang up)

I feel like I’m going to puke, pass out, or curl up and die. Maybe all three. So I unlock the front door, lay on the couch, call 911, and wait for the hearse.

A nice policeman shows up first.

Policeman: “Are you ok, Ma’am?”

Me: (I’m thinking: I called the freaking 911, of course I’m NOT okay!) “I feel bad and my stomach is cramping.”

Policeman: “Hang on. The Medics are on their way.”

The Medics show up. My pain and agony is suddenly more excruciating by the thought that I’ve broken my mom’s #1 rule to always have clean underwear on in case of emergencies. I haven’t showered since I walked the dogs, mowed the lawn, and worked in the garden!! I stink like a sweating mule! I’ll never live this down!

Talkative Medic: “So, what’s going on?” He checks my throat, takes my blood pressure. “Your airway is open. Are you sure you want a ride to the hospital? You know, people who take the ambulance have a 56% higher rate of death than riding in their own car.” (okay, some of that might just be what my addled senses heard)

My husband shows up. Leon: “I can take her.”

Me: (thinking: is he really crunching numbers at a time like this??) Nods head.

Medic: “Ok. But go to the ER, not the clinic. And stay clear of that Apple Valley emergency place. Unless you want to show up in the weekend Obituaries.” (what I heard. I swear!)

Me: Nodding and groaning in pain from the cramping.

Medic: You just need to sign this form to keep us from having our asses sued off.”

Me: “No problem. (signing something that looks like Bshruinlk)

Medic: “Have a good day!” and they’re out the door.

On the way to the hospital: Me writhing in pain. Leon driving slightly over Wyoming’s posted highway speed limit. In town. In Minnesota.

Emergency desk lady: “Can I help you?”

Me: “Dying. Bee sting.” (leaning on desk, trying not to cry)

Lady: “Fill out these papers.”

Other lady behind her: “You match! You must be her husband.”

Leon: “It wasn’t planned.”

Me: (wondering if my face is as green as his shirt… then I remember I’m wearing a green tank top) I look down and see strawberry stains across the front. Sweat, dirty underwear, and a dirty shirt. Great.

Hooked up to monitors in room. Doctor asks the same questions again. I answer again. They send in the nurse. She asks the questions again. I answer again. They send in a guy to test my heart. He asks. I answer.

Two hours later, they finally give me something for the allergic reaction. Most of the cramping has gone away, my head clears and I’m not feeling quite as dizzy… and I realize George Clooney is never going to show up. That show was cancelled.

~~~

Barbara

Red Onions, naked bike riding, and pyramid schemes

April 26, 2014 By Barbara Leave a Comment

Sometime back, I met the author of Trailer Trash online through the great, mysterious reaches of Twitterverse. I stumbled upon Stacey Roberts’ blog one day and started reading. I was supposed to be leaving the house for some reason or other, but instead I sat glued to the computer screen, tears running down my face, practically choking to death on laughter. My husband was watching television in the next room and I kept yelling out, trying to share my mirth in a garbled, hysterical way that I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand a word of. Before I had finished reading that blog post, I was hooked.

I had no idea these short stories would result in a book, but I was excited when I heard they had, knowing the hilarious exploits of a young boy, his onion-loving Jewish mother and his older brother (Layne, the favorite) would give me hours more entertainment and laughter.

Trailer Trash is a book you just have to share. Stacey’s stories of childhood and beyond are filled with crazy characters, bizarre circumstances, near-death experiences, and inedible food that could have killed a lesser person but instead gave him a totally new perspective… the perspective of a humor author.

I’m just glad his lungs were “cooked” enough that he survived being a preemie baby and lived to tell his tale. You’ll have to read the book to understand that. I suggest you get started. Life is too short not to laugh your way through it. Trailer Trash will start you on your way.

Thanks for stopping by!

Barbara

Open Letter to my favorite Ex-Vice President

April 8, 2014 By Barbara 1 Comment

Dear Mr. Gore,

I’m writing to you today because I have this blog and your name just popped into my head. I read that your chokra hasn’t been working lately. Perhaps your friend Mr. DiCaprio can give you some pointers or at least loan you some of his extra viagra. I hear he was strutting his chokra a lot in his new movie about a wolf in New York City. I didn’t see it because it looked stupid and besides I couldn’t afford the exorbitant ticket fee. I have to pay my taxes.

Most people probably don’t thank you enough for all you do, sir. Flying hither and yon around the world, leaving a jumbo jet-sized carbon footprint, but obviously giving back to the smog-choked throngs below with your servant attitude by tossing out your sound-bites of wisdom about saving the planet for the next generation by not driving cars but instead taking the bus. So thank you, from the bottom of my carbon-coated heart.

I won’t bring up the silly Global Warming thing, cause I know you’ve heard from those nasty anti-believing peons too many times already. How dare they attack your theory about the ice caps melting by last year! Who are they to disprove such genius science? You have all the biggest and best experts backing you up and until temperatures drop below zero for days and days on end, the Minnesota governor actually cancels school for fear that some child’s extremities will crack off waiting for the bus, and the ice is so thick on the lakes that fishermen can’t drill through, then I… never mind.

Now that the weather is tamer and weathermen have gone back to light-hearted joking and making shadow puppets on their green boards, we slowly unthaw here in Minnesota and commence trekking to the bus stop in water-logged shoes and hanging our laundry out to grow stiff on the line. Because that’s what the little people without jets and limos and mansions do to save energy for you, Mr. Gore. Rest easy in your imported Italian leather recliner while you read the news on your seventy-five inch movie screen by the dim glow of 4000 Watts of energy-saving curly fluorescent bulbs.

We are as green as gourds here in Minnesota! We despise plastic bags, electricity, and running water. Save a Wolf, drink a Caribou. That’s our state motto. I don’t know what it means, but I think it has something to do with coffee.

I agree with you that it is totally unfair that Mr. Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize when you are the one who has worked tirelessly in pursuit of recognition for… something. Anything!

Mr. Gore, you have been an inspiration to me ever since you tried to kiss your wife on national television during one of those presidential campaigns. You didn’t even care that you looked like a cardboard cutout of a guy who’d been dead long enough for rigor mortis to set in. You just did what came natural and forced yourself on a woman who apparently didn’t really like you even then. But it all worked out, right? Now that she’s the ex. At least you don’t have to pretend anymore.

I know you still won’t concede on the presidential thing. Obviously, you were a strong-willed child, cause that stubborn, poochie-lip, streak in your character is still waging war with reality. Sadly, Mr. Bush did win and he did become president despite your refusal to acknowledge the obvious. But you can always take pride in the fact that you suffered your shame behind open doors… and a very bushy beard that would have competed pretty well against those duck dynasty guys if they’d been around back then. You might have even gotten on their show as an extra.

Well, I must close this missive for now. I’m truly thankful for all you’ve done for our country… wait, what did you do?

Until the next time I see you on national television at the UN promoting some “green” company that you have money invested in…

Your devoted fan,

Barbara

Barbie’s getting her groove back

February 18, 2014 By Barbara 2 Comments

If you only know me from my twitter picture you probably haven’t noticed, but the past year or so has not been kind to my physique. I’d like to say that it was on account of my last pregnancy, but since my daughter was born twenty-six years ago… Actually, too much of my favorite things took me down the road to Spreadsville. Not a town I enjoyed living in. So I decided to do something about it… besides cry in my Dairy Queen Blizzard.

Going into my fifth week of Venus Factor workouts and calorie counting is definitely giving me results. I feel the inches slowly melting away like that pile of snow outside on this 40º day.

I’d be the first to say that it’s hard. A lot harder than putting ON the pounds. But every day I feel a little bit of accomplishment and I’m definitely seeing a thinner me.

Shrinking boobs–not to be confused with shrinking violets–is a sure sign that I’m losing weight. When I look in the mirror and find that my bra is no longer overflowing, I rejoice. Given that I’ve never had silicone shoved into my chest, I’m thrilled at the change. Because everyone knows that skinny girls do not have boobs. Unlike the original Barbie, which was apparently the model for all Hollywood plastic surgeons in the past thirty years.

I have a ways to go, but along this journey I have learned a few things:

Warning: When on a diet, avoid all food-scented products. Strawberry kiwi shaving gel and Almond Joy lip balm are not a good idea when you are sugar deprived and coming down off a chocolate high. Inedible calories are not worth biting into a bar of soap. It may stop your children’s filthy mouths but it will most definitely NOT stop yours when this happens.

McDonalds is not the main culprit for America’s obesity problem. It’s actually Chili’s. There is NOTHING that you can eat there under a billion fat grams. Trust me. The salads are more fattening than pound cake. (Obviously why I love it so…)

A treadmill, once thought to be a good place to hang things from, is actually a wonderful tool for burning calories. Who’d have thunk it? It also lets me multitask, combining the thing I love most –reading – with something I don’t love quite so much – exercise. But I do love my nook.

When on an exercise ball… don’t fall off. Especially if you have hand weights sitting on the floor nearby. Can you say concussion?

Balance is something that can be learned again. Just don’t let go of the wall until you’ve learned it. And don’t fall on the exercise ball. Can you say bounce, drop, and smack?

When choosing low calorie, high protein foods, don’t shop in the cookie aisle. Or the baking aisle. Or the deli aisle. In fact, it’s best if you just stay home and send someone else to the store.

ps. keep lots of this on hand>>>>>>

Barbara

Stretching the truth

February 1, 2014 By Barbara 4 Comments

It’s threatening to snow out… again. So, to get my mind off the cursed weather and harsh reality that I will be out snow-blowing and shoveling soon – (my husband very thoughtfully had back surgery recently) – I thought I’d write a blog.

When I was growing up, we lived mostly on the West Coast. Not along the coast but more in the desert climate. So the weather was never very harsh or snowy. We had snow, but my father’s childhood “stories” of ten foot drifts did not materialize for us no matter how hard we prayed.

So snowy we aren't even wearing our coats. — So snowy we aren’t even wearing our coats.

This got me thinking about how we tend to glamorize, exaggerate, or sometimes downplay a past experience to make it more palatable or exciting.

My grandmother once told me that when their family of six was very young, they lived in a tiny mobile trailer that was so small… “if you cursed the cat you’d get a mouthful of fur.”

My husband likes to tell our kids that we were so poor when we first got married we had to dig through the couch cushions for enough change just to buy milk. Okay, maybe we did that once, but not on a continuing basis. The couch wasn’t exactly a money tree. We had to actually drop money out of our pockets when we sat down. Sadly, it didn’t produce money on its own. So if we didn’t have money for milk to begin with… rickets.

My mom tells a story from her childhood where “evil” neighbor boys talked her into getting on a horse and then took off galloping across the field so her horse would follow, nearly sending her to her death. Being that she was already frightened of horses because her mother had told her the terrifying story about her aunt being nearly trampled to death as a toddler, I think those boys could have walked the horses and she would have thought she was going to die.

I know for a fact that parents often tell young children things that may be stretching the truth just a bit, in order to get them to follow direction.

When I was in kindergarten, before the invention of Elmer’s glue sticks, we had paste. Containers of thick, sticky gunk left in the hands of five-year-olds was probably never a wise idea, but some kids took it to the next level. They didn’t just wipe it all over things they

This kindergartener would never eat paste. Ick!

shouldn’t; they ate the stuff. Why??? you may ask. Didn’t they have a government-funded hot lunch program? Of course they did. We lived in California, after all. The reason some children chose this path will forever be shrouded in mystery. Or as the owl on the Tootsie Pop commercial said, “the world may never know.” To stop a bad habit before it started, my mom told me to just say no to paste because it was made from dead horses and cow hoofs. My grandpa had an old horse that had died recently. I certainly didn’t want to be eating ol’ Bessy. But more than that, I just didn’t want to be as stupid as kids who did. Of course I wasn’t supposed to say stupid either. Some bad paths cannot be altered.

When my children were young and started thinking they should have a cushy ride through life, I nipped that dream in the bud. They asked for the crust to be cut off their sandwiches. I told them I couldn’t do that because the crust was where the vitamins were and if they wanted to survive childhood, they would eat it.

I also told my children that I suffered excruciating labor pain to bring them into this world and give them life… but that’s totally true of course. And they owe me big time.

Do you have a story that you’ve been told or that you tell, that may not be “totally” accurate? Come on… share it. We won’t tell anyone.

Spinal Vortex

January 12, 2014 By Barbara 4 Comments

This year has started off with a bang, or rather, a blast of air so cold they made up a special name for the sub zero temperatures. Polar Vortex. (How many weather nerds does it take to coin a term that sounds like a cross between a Christmas cartoon and a Star Trek episode? The world may never know.)

I’m no weather expert, but I came up with a few suggestions of my own. Appaloosa of Death, Freezer Games, Re Ice-Aged, Last of the Americans, Gone with the Freeze, or perhaps as a show of support to a man who has for years flown around the world in his private jet, crying out like Chicken Little, “The ice caps are melting! The ice caps are melting!”… The Al Gore Show.

Anyway, on the absolute coldest day of the year, this past Monday, my husband went in for back surgery. Definitely a double whammy, right? Not only did I have to get up at five in the morning on a Monday and brave death-defying temperatures, but I had to put on a happy face and act all positive and supportive. Just so you know, I’m not a morning person or a Monday person. I guess you can safely say I’m more of a – just leave me alone and let me suck down a quart of coffee before you speak to me – person.

I know it’s quite out of character for me to share a personal story from my life, but I thought you should all know that I’m not just a prolific and awe-inspiring writer, but a real person too. If you cut me, will I not bleed? Probably. If my husband has back surgery, will I not suffer along with him? Definitely.

So, before the sun came up, I was hanging out in the waiting room of the hospital, doing what the sign said… waiting. Finally, my name was called and I was told that my husband was out of surgery and in recovery and they’d meet me upstairs in his room. I gathered up all the toys I’d brought to keep myself occupied during the seven hour ordeal: computer, eReader, cell phone, and backpack, and gratefully left the waiting room behind.

Upstairs, I found my husband’s room. He wasn’t in it. I waited another forty-five minutes before they arrived with a very pasty, pale version of my man, wearing a paper gown and covered with a blanket so thin it must have been made from anorexic cotton. Two middle-aged nurses went nonchalantly about their business as if pulling a naked, drugged man who just had his spine cut open, from a gurney to the bed with what looked like a plastic sled, was about as important as tossing a sack of potatoes into a grocery cart. All I can say is… it was a merciful thing he was still feeling no pain.

Being the good wife that I am, I brought him comfy clothes the next day when I returned in the morning to pick him up. After all, it was still a dozen or so degrees below zero outside and that paper gown was not at all becoming. Especially from behind.

Once I had him ensconced in our sleep number bed at home, drugged well and good, and had

given him his smart phone back, I felt that my good wife activities had come to an end. But I would be wrong. Apparently at this time, there is no servant app available for Samsung.

So now I am a part-time writer and a part-time caregiver. At least for the next few days. I admit that nursing is not my calling or my gift. I assumed from watching episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs, that sarcasm was at least a six credit class in med school, but it doesn’t seem to work so well in real life.

To top my week off, our wonderful church family sent my husband a beautiful green plant with get-well wishes. Thank you very much.

So, not only am I expected to nurse my man back to health, fetch and carry, and prepare three meals a day like a short order cook, (Webster’s Definition: call for carry out), I now have to see to the care and watering of a plant that will likely struggle for life against all odds, then slowly wither and croak sometime around the first day of spring. I know from watching morning television that an Australian accent always accompanies a green thumb. I have neither. But after my sarcastic nursing technique went down like a lead balloon, I’m thinking I may have been wrong about other things as well. Like maybe you don’t have to talk to your plants with an Australian accent to keep them alive.

Maybe I’ll try a Sicilian accent…

Barbara

Bee Stings and Writing Prompts

Red Onions, naked bike riding, and pyramid schemes

Open Letter to my favorite Ex-Vice President

Barbie’s getting her groove back

Stretching the truth

Spinal Vortex

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