A Little Shiner

I was always pretty relieved that I had a girl and didn't have to suffer through being a football mom.  I know some moms embrace their children's football participation with full blown enthusiasm, but I would have spent every game worrying about neck injuries, paralysis and concussions.  Especially after a neurosurgeon told me he could count on most of his business to come from ATV's, trampolines and football.  Sometimes, being on a local hospital committee gives you insight into things you'd be more comfortable not knowing.  Since Teen Angel didn't play football, I pleasantly told myself I didn't have to worry about such things.  Until now.

Until my tomboy daughter took up roller derby at the late great age of 18.  After years of braces, corrective shoes and us nurturing her into a healthy young women, she went and joined the rowdiest sport she could think of.  For the last year and a half, I have watched her bouts with one eye closed, praying the whole time she wouldn't fall and knock out some teeth or break a bone.  It wasn't until recently that I could actually watch with both eyes open and cheer with great spirit.  I had started to relax a little.  Not much, but a little.  And then, in an out of town bout this past weekend, she fell and took a skate to the face.  She scraped her face, bruised the area just below her eye and busted the inside of her lip. 

Saturday Night

She was darn lucky she didn't lose an eye or some teeth.  And yet, she is thrilled with her darkening eye.  It's a badge of honor in her world.  A sign of toughness. 

I guess all those times she came home from preschool with ripped tights and busted knees were a precursor to all of this roller derby business, but I sure didn't see it comin' at this age.  And after this weekend, I'm back to worryin'.  And watching with one eye closed.  Maybe two.  Aye, yi, yi.  Is this why they invented vodka?    

I Love it When my Family Gives me Blog Fodder

This is the picture Teen Angel texted me today.

It's the jar Teen Angel placed on the kitchen counter today.  I like it.  I'm in.  She tells me so far we have about a dollar.  That means we can afford a beverage out of the vending machines in the Metro or a trip to a public toilet.  But not both.

Pretty Soon I'm Gonna Have to Give her a new Blog Name

'Cause she's barely a teenager.  Guess who's nineteen today?

Wasn't it just yesterday she was crawling across the floor and playing with my pots and pans?  Somebody stop the clock.

Number 7 in her class!

And we couldn't be more proud.  Not just for her scholastic achievements but for the beautiful person she has become. 

It's graduation night, brothers and sisters.  Pray that I hold myself together without too many tears.  Oh, and pray for us parents staying up all night at Project Graduation.  Hula hasn't seen the back side of 4am since she had the flu in 2008.

The Littlest Cowboy

I’m rather happy that True Grit got nominated for several Academy Awards. I thought it was a great movie, and I truly enjoyed it even though I’m not a huge fan of westerns like Hubby is. I think the soundtrack contains one of the best versions of Leaning on the Everlasting Arms that I’ve ever heard.




Even Hubby, who is a dyed in the wool John Wayne devotee who didn’t believe a remake could touch the original, really liked the new version of the movie. In fact, we’ve chatted it up quite a bit since we saw it at the theater a few weeks ago. Where as chatting it up includes laughing about one of the funnier moments from Teen Angel’s early years.

When she was about four years old, we were shopping in a mall just outside of Louisville, Kentucky. Hubby was watching Teen Angel romp and snort around the little playground inside the mall while I was doing my best to buy out JC Penney’s clearance rack. The playground was rather crowded. Toddlers were clamoring around and playing with each other while a group of parents watched closely. Always one to make a playground friend, Teen Angel was doing her best to interact with the other children. They were playing some kind of game that involved chasing each other. In her usual dramatic fashion, Teen Angel climbed to the top of the ladder on the slide, waved her imaginary sword and in the loudest voice she could muster uttered that famous John Wayne line from True Grit that she had apparently heard on one too many occasions at home, “Prepare to die, you sons of B*****s!” Which brought the whole playground to a quiet halt with plenty of glares from the other parents. And with his pride in shambles, Hubby quietly picked her up and decided it was time for a food court break. Or a restroom break. Or any kind of break from the playground games. In fact, they came looking for me soon afterward to find out if I was done.

And that, my friends, is why the Hula-gen’s can never go back to the Elizabethtown Mall. Well, that and the famous Who Farted incident, but I don’t know if you’re ready for that post, yet.

And Now She Can Vote

And buy porn. And lottery tickets. And join the military. And get married. And all kinds of other things without her parents' permission. My baby turned eighteen today. And while I could sit around and wax and wane about my mixed bag of emotions that constantly race between pride and sadness, I shall shut my pie hole and just enjoy the moment.

The highlight of the day? The ceremonial (and painful) piercing of the belly button. (Sorry about the blur. Somebody wouldn't be still.)

Oy vey. All I can say is it's better than a tattoo that she might later regret.

Homecoming 2010

Will she really be eighteen in just a couple of months? Great Googly Moogly.

This Post is Gonna be all Over the Place

‘Cause I can’t seem to find the time to put together anything focused and coherent. Where has this week gone? Whew! And has anyone seen my sunglasses?

Teen Angel registered for school yesterday. Yesterday! Her first day of classes is one week away. I can’t believe her summer vacation is already over. We kept saying we were going to do a little one day trip before school started, and now we’re almost out of time. The three of us are headed to the local water park tomorrow to have at least one day of funshine together. TA and BFF will likely slide down tall stuff while Hubby and I tube it in the lazy river. If I could just get that park to sell margaritas and put cup holders on their tubes, I’d be happy as a pig in mud.

I’m taking a day off of work next week to go shopping with TA for school clothes. I think we’ll head north about an hour to a university town, so we can cruise a “big campus” while we have the time. We need to start looking at some schools, so we can make some decisions soon about TA’s college plans. I know this year is going to fly, and before we know it she’ll be walking across the graduation stage. That means college applications, scholarship aps and all sorts of other paperwork will have to be filled out in the coming months, and it makes my head spin just thinking about it.

When she was gone on the mission trip last week, Hubby and I got our first taste of empty nest syndrome, and I’ll just go ahead and admit right now that it didn’t feel very good. I’m sure we’ll muddle through the real thing when the time comes, but we are NOT looking forward to her being gone all of the time. We’ll be excited for this next chapter in her life, but honestly, it’s gonna squeeze my heart like a box of Krispy Kreme’s. Oddly enough, she was homesick by the end of her week away from home. That’s never happened. Always before, she flitted out the door without a second thought and enjoyed whatever camp or trip she was taking. This time was different. She openly admitted that she missed her family, her bed and her friends. I think the significance of this year is starting to dawn on her, too.

The heat and humidity around here have just been miserable for weeks. The heat index rises past 100 degrees regularly, leading people to say things like, “It’s hotter than a $2 pistol,” “It’s hotter ‘n Guam” and my personal favorite, “I’m sweatin’ like a whore in Sunday school.” This has been the hottest, driest summer we’ve had in a long time, but I’m not complaining. All I have to do is close my eyes and think about the ice storm for a few seconds, and I suddenly decide that summer heat is not such a bad thing. It does make running in the middle of the day miserable, though. I already wake up at 5:30am, and I just can’t make myself get up any earlier to run before dawn. After work is out of the question because I’m busy trying to get everyone fed and supplied with clean clothes when I get home, so I’m stuck with running at lunch. Man, it’s brutal. I take walking breaks after each mile and listen to my body for cues that I’m getting too hot. I push on through the run, but my running is more like trotting right now, and most of the time I don’t even pay attention to my pace. I’d rather be slow than pass out in the street. And let’s just say some of my exercise clothes are going to have to be laid to rest after this season. You know it’s bad when you can smell yourself.

The same goes for Hubby. Some days he changes shorts and t-shirts as many as three times while doing yard work. Some of his shirts we’ve actually thrown away instead of washing because they were so sweat stained, and even the sports laundry soap couldn’t kill that funk. We’ve learned to buy the 5 for $10 t-shirts at Wal-greens each spring to keep him adequately supplied. It’s so hot around here that ANY clothing, not matter how skimpy or thin, seems hot. I think we could all go naked and no one would really care right now.

We are spending a fortune watering the yard and garden. Nothing like trying to keep new landscaping alive. So far, nothing but grass had died, and the tomato plants are producing like crazy. Everyone who comes near us gets a bag of tomatoes forced upon him (sorry Janjanmom) whether he wants it or not. One of these days I’ll get around to taking some pictures of the plants. One is thirteen feet tall!

Speaking of pictures, I took some engagement pictures last night for a young couple who are getting married in October. I haven’t had that much fun since the hogs ate my little sister. They were super sweet and just as cute as can be. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to mind when I asked them to do things like kiss in the middle of a downtown street or pose like a mannequin in a store window. If they don’t mind, I’ll post some pictures later. We’ll be doing bridal pictures at an historic home in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods next month. I can’t wait. The homeowners have an antique baby grand piano, a Victorian sofa and joy of all joys, a claw foot bathtub. It makes me giddy just thinking about the photo ops.

I should sign off and get busy as I have clothes to wash and pictures to crop. However, I will leave you with this final quote from the late great Lew Grizzard, which seems appropriate for the heatwave:

"In the south there's a difference between 'Naked' and 'Nekkid.' 'Naked' means you don't have any clothes on. Nekkid' means you don't have any clothes on ... and you're up to somethin!"

Day 2 of the Mission Trip-Building A Reef

Can I just say it does my heart good to see my sometimes sloth like teenager sweatin' her hiney off while shoveling oyster shells? I get to use all of those parental nuggets like, "Hard work is good for you," and "It builds character." Or how about, "When I was your age I had to shovel oyster shells barefoot, in the snow, uphill, both ways?" Sigh. It just warms my heart to see her work. Of course, that has nothing to do with all of those mornings during summer vacation when she got to sleep in, and I had to be at work at 7am.

Teen Angel

Another youth group member

Notes From Our East Coast Correspondent

Teen Angel is in Georgia this week with the church youth group on a mission trip. They arrived last night at Epworth by the Sea, a Methodist retreat of sorts that hosts groups doing local mission work. While the kids are there, they will be doing everything from working in a soup kitchen to teaching young children at a Boys and Girls Club.

Teen Angel signed up to go several months ago and then started to weasel out on me a couple of weeks before time to leave. I think it had something to do with spending a week away from a certain boy and from her beloved job at the bakery. I big footed her into going under Parental Clauses # 6-Because it's good for you and #1-Because I said so. A few days before she left, she broke up with the boyfriend, and suddenly Georgia seemed like a much more appealing place to her. She stopped whining about it and got her bags packed. We loaded her up on a bus yesterday morning and by nightfall she and the youth group had made their way to the Georgia coast passing by many a boiled peanut/velvet painting/Dixie memorabilia stand. One of which prompted a text exchange between me and her where I jokingly told her to pick me up a Nascar toilet seat and she informed me they were out of those but that they had some with a rebel flag on them. And she was telling the truth. Oy vey! I can't even begin to describe how many ways THAT item is offensive.


It was just one of many chatty, witty texts we've exchanged in the past couple of days. That girl is quite sarcastic when she wants to be, a trait she obviously gets from her dad. Goodness knows she doesn't get it from me. Ahem.



For example: She informed me their bunkhouse looked like the 70's threw up. I told her it was a camp not the Hilton and that I didn't want to hear any complaints as she could smell the ocean and I couldn't. She replied that all she could smell was the neighbors' laundry drying on the clothesline. See what I mean? Sarcastic.



In the midst of all the jokes and teasing she shared details of their day today. They cleaned the yard of a woman who is wheelchair bound with Multiple Sclerosis, and TA talked about how fun the lady was. They met a man who used to be a drug lord in Miami. He served thirteen years in prison, got out and turned his life around. And then they helped to gather up excess produce at stores and restaurants and bagged it up and delivered it to residents of some very poor neighborhoods. The pictures of her and BFF are from TA's phone and BFF's mom. Who's that behind those Foster Grants?



They had a great time, and the youth minister says he didn't hear one complaint from a single teen today despite the heat and the hard work. I can tell TA's been touched by what she's seen so far, and they still have the rest of the week ahead of them. I'm glad. THAT falls under Parental Clause #12-One day she'll thank me for this.

In This Moment

I’ve been terribly reflective the last couple of days. I don’t know if it was spurred by that long library fine list or that pitiful homeless fellow I saw sweltering in the sun and vacantly peering over his cardboard sign, but something has me deep in thought. Thoughts about the fragility of life, the power of emotions and even the sad state of people and wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. Mostly I’ve been thinking about time and how fast it’s moving. It’s as if the globe spins faster each day. Some days I feel as if I’m barely hanging onto the earth and I could lose my grip at any minute and go flying into the atmosphere. As a child I used to laugh at my mother when she had trouble remembering what day it was or how old she was. Now, I suffer from the same problem. The older I get the faster everything moves, especially the clock. Proof of that sits right in front of me every day in the face of my daughter.

Poor Teen Angel is my victim when I drag out the camera to practice things like aperture and shutter speed. She’s a pretty good sport about it as long as I don’t push my luck too much. She posed for me Friday evening while I toyed with light and shadows. And while I have plenty of pictures of her smiling, it’s the more somber photos that intrigue me because they make me wonder what’s she’s thinking.

Is she mad at her boyfriend again? (And can I just pause a moment to say he’s been a royal T-U-R-D?!) Is she thinking about the year ahead with all the joys and emotions the senior year brings? Or is she looking even farther into the future, and thinking about college and careers?

I don’t know. Emotionally, she’s mature beyond her years because of some of the things she’s had to deal with in recent years like the drowning of her cousin and the suicide of her aunt. In some ways she seems more than ready to skip this last year of high school and move right into the freedoms and responsibilities of college. In other ways, she seems like such a kid, like when she belches the alphabet with pride and gusto. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, but I know what I think when I look at her. She’s growing up fast. In a short time her dad and I will be loading her belongings into a car and driving her to college. We’ll wave goodbye and drive home with our hearts in our throats and hope for the best. We’ll watch from afar as she dives into adulthood and starts to make her mark on the world. She’s a good girl. I’m proud of the woman she’s becoming, and there are days when she makes me believe that her dad and I aren’t complete failures at parenting. I can’t wait to see what she does with her life. Right now though, in this hour, I have to enjoy every fleeting moment and will the earth to slow just a little so I can savor these days. I hope she’s thinking the same thing.

Prom 2010

Two thoughts: I don't know when my baby grew up on me...

And the world is not ready for these women.

Wheels Up!

Stop the world. Let me off. It’s moving too fast. In fact, it’s leaving me behind. Because…well, see this little stinker who was roaming the pumpkin patch just last week….

She must have kissed a frog because she turned into a princess overnight.
A princess in Chuck Taylor high tops and jeans. And now she’s done gone and gotten her driver’s license. After six months of logging practice hours and causing my backside to pucker and my hands to grip the dash, she took the test. THE test. TODAY. And passed.

This was one of the biggest days of her life. And it’s one of the biggest days of mine because now I have to turn loose of this death grip I have on her leg and let her go out into the dangerous world of driving where people go too fast and run over you. Gulp. I’m terrified.

Seriously, this is scarier than the Big Ass Chair.

She's a Big Girl Now

Have I mentioned lately how proud I am of this one? Besides being an "A" student and working hard at her job, she's a great help to her grandparents, a pretty cool cousin to her nephew and a right mature young lady given some of the tragedy she's had to deal with in the last few years. She's also very empathetic to others. My baby's growing up, but she's growing up to be a good girl. Growing way too fast, though. Way too fast. Oh, and she's just like her mama. She can't keep her mouth shut, even when I tell her to.