Most women remember vividly the first time “Aunt Flo” came to town and I’d be willing to wager ED’s left nut that 90% of women did NOT have a pleasant experience. I grew up in a house with basically three sisters and I can safely say none of us had pleasant experiences when we started our periods.

My poor, poor father. Can you imagine having a bunch of hormonal girls and a wife, all on the rag at the same time (this happens guys, when women live together they start “cycling together”. Consider yourself warned)? My dad has a golden ticket straight to heaven I tell you what!

But now, my sisters and I are all grown and have gotten over the unpleasant experiences.

Well… kind of.

A few weeks ago I got a message from my older sister Sara saying that two of her step daughters have started their “New Moon cycle”–and no, that is not a Twilight reference although ED decided he liked “Nu Nu” better–and she was throwing them a party.

What?

A party?

For starting your period?

OH HELL YEAH!

What better way to let your scared teen/tweenage girls know that becoming a woman doesn’t have to tramatic. Embrace your femininity and hell, CELEBRATE IT!

And how do you celebrate becoming a woman you ask?

With a pedicure and makeup party, of course!

I am thoroughly impressed and inspired by my sisters idea to make a party out of a confusing and, hell I’ll say it, sucky time in a young girl life.

Way to go on the parenting skills Sara!!! Oh, and because I am so impressed I won’t even complain about how a room full of 12 & 13 year olds called me old.

OLD???

Welcome to womanhood you little brats!

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Loved One(s), Story Time

More often than not, if I do not have plans for lunch you can find me eating a sandwich in my car at the park. Occasionally I get out of the car to soak up the sun, but for the most part I sit confined in my own little world, listening to NPR, people watching and trying to figuring out the mysteries of the world.

It was on one such day, as I was eating my club with lots of Ranch because it has less calories than mayo sandwich, that I saw the most interesting and disturbing things I’ve yet to witness.

The park has a wonderful walking/running trail and it is not uncommon for me to see the same people pass by twice. I noticed a top heavy woman in a baby pink fleece walking. She had long gray hair that reached all the way down to her butt. I was trying to figure out if she was Native American or something else as she approached the stretch of sidewalk in front of my car. Then she stopped, and without realizing I was sitting in my car not more than 20 feet away enjoying a saucy sandwich, put her finger to one side of her nose and blew a great big stringy snot rocket out of the other. A SNOT ROCKET! As in blowing your nose into the air and not a tissue! From a cute old lady in a pink sweatshirt! A SNOT ROCKET!!!

Seriously?

I swear I can still see it all happening in slow motion. I don’t know if she continued to clean out the other nostril or not. I was too busy trying not to THROW UP my lunch! I couldn’t even look at my now half eaten sandwich. I ended up wrapping it up and throwing it away so I could get out of the park before she came back around the trail and managed to do something even more disgusting like, I don’t know, eat chewing gum off of the bottom of her shoe!

Now I’ve seen construction workers blow snot rockets before, hell my uncle does it while we are boating as a family, but to have a cute old lady in a crowded public park do it right in front of me while I was eating… Oh man, that was just too much!

Dare I ask… what disgusting behaviors have you been witness to?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Story Time

I saw her walking towards me even before I set foot out of my car. She walked with a limp and carried a crooked cane. Her hair was curly and mostly grey. She had tan skin with the most adorable freckles dotting her nose and cheeks.

“Do you want to buy me a sandwich?” she asked me. There was no sheepishness in her voice, just a small lisp and an inflection of hopefulness.

I stared at her. For a moment I weighed my options. I had the money, luckily that was not an obstacle. I wasn’t in a rush and for the life of me I couldn’t think of an excuse to say to her that first of all was believable and secondly that I would feel good about saying.

“I’m headed into this Subway. Do you want to come in with me?” I asked.

Eagerly she shook her head yes and followed me in. I asked what her name was, to which she smiled and said “Gildred”.

I took my place in line with the lunchtime crowd. Shyly she asked me, “What type can I have?”

“What type would you like?”

“Do they have ham? I’d like a ham sandwich.”

“I believe they do. What type of bread would you like?”

“White. I like white bread.” Another smile, lifting the cheeks housing those adorable freckles.

We continue through the line a little further and Gildred turns to me and softly asks, “do you suppose I could have a small drink too?”

By this point I am feeling like she is pushing her luck, but I say, “Sure, why not?” instead.

I pay for our meals and help her get a drink. I am about to leave when the Subway employee in charge of keeping the tables clean, who also happens to be disabled, comes over and says “hi” to Gildred. Then she comes over to me and thanks me for being so kind as to buy Gildred a sandwich because normally she was the one to do so.

Apparently mooching Subway sandwiches is a skill Gildred has mastered.

For me, it was the freckles. I could not say no to the freckles. But you know what? I’m not upset about it. I don’t feel like I’ve been had, although I suppose I was. I guess I just feel like I did a kind deed. Not just for Gildred, but for the minimum wage Subway employee as well. I can live with that.

What about you? What do you do when you are accosted by the lunchtime beggars? Is there a correct way to handle it?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

PS – When I came back from lunch I shared my story with a co-worker who said the same lady had approached him a month earlier. He too bought Ms. Gildred a sandwich.

Story Time

I was a late bloomer. While my friends were holding hands with boys and getting their first kisses, I was doing my best to not be noticed. I had bad acne, braces and I was taller than all of the boys. It wasn’t until I was 15 that I started to discover my own femininity. It was as if everything happened overnight. I got my braces off, finished the medicine that cleared up my acne and started to gain the confidence to hold my head up high. All of the sudden, men started staring at me. At first, it scared me, but then I discovered that men were not the only ones who could stare. I created a little staring game, I called it “The Eye Contact Game”. It was one sided, since I was the only one aware of the game. I would catch a man looking at me, make eye contact and the first person to look away lost. I always won. I remember distinctly being on vacation with my family in Las Vegas walking the strip. I was playing my game and would get such a thrill over the power of being able to make a man blush or become nervous. Of course none of the men ever approached me because I was with my family. I felt safe, in control and highly amused.  Little did I realize the dangers of my little game. Little did I realize that most men are not well intentioned and nothing invites them to disrupt your life more than engaging in eye contact.

The full extent of this danger was not recognized until I reached my mid-twenties. I was recently divorced from a man I married straight out of high school and single for the first time in my adult life. I went out with a few of my girlfriends to a club and quickly realized the rules to my game had changed. The game had been stripped of all of the innocent fun my youthful mind had created. No longer was I protected by my family or a wedding ring. Men became hunters and I was their prey standing unknowingly in the middle of a field inviting them to attack with my eyes.

Quickly my girlfriends came to my aide like protective tigresses watching over their cub. They had been playing the adult version of the eye contact game for quite some time and knew the rules of engagement. They feared–and with good cause–that my naivety would lead me to right into the hunters trap.

I’d like to say they were successful in their mission to protect me, but the truth of the matter is I trusted kind looking men thinking they were decent people only to find that they were not decent at all. They were simply hunters, wanting to feed on my sexuality, my kind heart, my stable nature; and leave me with nothing but emotional scars. After two years in this adult jungle I started to avoid eye contact all together. keeping my eyes on the ground or towards the task at hand. I feared who might be looking at me wherever I went, but wouldn’t dare to look up. On the off chances I did look up, it was in a nervous, fleeting manner and there was definitely no eye contact made. How strange to go from a confident teenager, feeling power from the effect of her glance, to an insecure adult afraid to look at a stranger passing by her on the street.

Now here I sit, nearing 30 and having found a balance that is somewhere near the middle, yet closer to eyes to the floor. My fear of men remains, but I have learned how to smile politely and still give off the vibe of unapproachable. As a female, I do not know what the correct way to look at a man is. I wonder if I were to have a daughter, what would I tell her to ensure she doesn’t make the same mistakes. How do you come across as a confident woman, looking at whomever you please, and not invite them in? And if they do approach, how do you guard against advances and stay true to the type of person you want to be?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Essays, Story Time

I took my car to get the oil changed on my lunch break. It’s only about 5,000 miles over due for one, yeah,  I’m a responsible car owner like that. So I am sitting in the little waiting room by myself when another patron walks in to join me. This guy, let’s call him Gus, has had too much coffee, or possibly crack, for breakfast and can not sit still. I’m playing solitaire on my phone to avoid eye contact and the chance of having to engage in conversation while Gus sighs exhas…..

You know what I hate? I hate when I can’t think of the right word. Normally I can’t think of it because it’s a larger word that I don’t use in my everyday vocabulary, but I know it exists because I’ve heard it used before, normally by my father. It’s not so bad when I am writing because I can Google that shit. It is bad when I am having a conversation and end up sounding like a moron. For example, I’ll say, “Gus sighed exhasturbatedly” and then whoever I am talking to will say, “What? He was masterbating?” and I’m all, “NO! You know when you sigh and you blow air out your mouth really hard and it makes your lips bounce off each other? Yeah. What’s that called?” and I then I get BLANK STARES for a good 15 seconds. Then they are all, “you mean he was annoyed?” and I’m all “yeah, that works.”

EXASPERATEDLY!!!!

Yep. That’s a real word and everything.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Gus was… annoyed and/or bored and/or on crack and/or exasperated. Come to think of it, I don’t really like that word anyway…

So Gus decides to throw the rules of waiting room etiquette right out the window. He starts to sing a tune that is only playing in his head. Then when one of the air powered machine thingamabobs starts to click at a metronome pace, Gus starts his own drum solo on the plastic chairs. By this point I am too distracted to even play my mind-numbing game of phone solitaire when the Jiffy Lube employee walks in.

“Summer? We are ready to go over your invoice with you now if you will just follow me to the register.”

THANK GOD! Not a minute too soon. I smile politely at Gus as I make my way out of the waiting room. Gus, being the complete stranger yet cracked out gentleman that he was, did a giant air drum symbol crash and gave me a wink as I left the room. I’m not sure if I should be flattered. I mean he was a pretty decent chair drummer after all and apparently his performance was, in part, for my entertainment too. I think I may have blushed a little.  Really I suppose I should have thanked him for making my lube change an interesting experience.

The world is full of peculiar yet interesting people like Gus – helping to make the drab tasks of day to day life entertaining. I guess our job is to recognize them as such and avoid being put off or irritated by them. Because after all, wouldn’t the world be a boring place without the Gus’ of the world?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Random, Story Time

Yesterday I spent a lovely lunch with my best friend, Karina the Russian. As we are getting ready to go she asked me how my school was going.

Me: “Ugh. I have to give a speech tonight. The teacher told us we could give it on anything we wanted.”

Karina the Russian: “Oh really?”

Me: “Guess what I picked.”

KtR: “Tell Me!”

Me: “How to Shave a Cat in Three Easy Steps.”

KtR: “Oh my God! Let me get this straight… you are giving a speech on shaving your pussy?”

Me: “Yep.”

KtR: “You HAVE to say pussy in your speech! Please. PLEASE? You have to throw it in there! At least once? I promise you will get everyones attention. In fact, I bet you will get an A plus! DO IT! Say pussy in your speech!”

Me: “Honey I can’t do that! They are recording our speeches to review later. This is like, for a real grade.”

KtR: “DO IT!”

Me: “NO!”

KtR: “Pussy.”

Apparently Karina’s entertainment is more important than my grades, which makes her a shitty friend. OK, that’s a lie. She is totally the best friend anyone could ever ask for.

In case you are wondering, because Karina was, no, I did not use pussy in my speech. Maybe I am a coward, but at least I am a coward who got an A on her speech.

Blogfully yours,

Summer

K to the R stories, Story Time

Recently I read an essay about whether college students—the ones who are straight out of high school—are considered adults or children.

I think they are neither.

In the essay (“Campus Climate Control” in case you are curious), the author mainly debates the needs for a balance between no adult supervision and an overly dominate presence on campus. I’m not particularly interested in that part and I can’t speak to what campus life is like. What I can share are my own feelings of going through that child-not-yet-adult stage.

I remember very clearly the strange transition from being under my parent’s ever present watch and guidance to being on my own to make my own decisions. All of a sudden I was working a full time job. I had credit cards and a lease on an apartment. I was completely dumbfounded by the amount of responsibility that was seemingly handed to me overnight. I kept thinking ‘when are these people going to realize I have no idea what I am doing?’

I was still a teenager but I had utility bills and a car lease in my name! Soon it became almost a  game of sorts to see just how many people would extend credit to me. After a while I had credit cards (and bills) for every major department and retail store in town. I had no one to tell me to be careful or to watch what I was doing, so I took the feeling of freedom and the high I got from buying whatever I wanted and I ran with it!

Before I knew it my monthly bills were leaving me with no discretionary income. I was grocery shopping in my parents kitchen (something I still do from time to time) and using my credit card (that wasn’t at its limit) to buy gas for my car.

Outside of bills, I had no one to remind me how important it was to wake up and go to class because education actually is important, so I dropped out—a mistake I would realize ten years later.

At the time I would tell you that I had everything under control and I knew what I was doing, but truth be told I was scared out of my mind! I kept waiting to feel like an adult, but most of the time I felt like a kid dressing up in her moms clothes.

It was a weird scary place to be that’s for sure, one that I am so glad I do not live in anymore. Not that this next stage of NOT being asked for ID when you go to the liquor store is so great or anything. I’m just saying it’s nice to finally know what I am doing.  It’s nice to not be in the “neither” stage. It’s nice to be… an adult?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Just me, Lessons Learned, Story Time

I woke up last weekend to the familiar sound of a coffee pot gurgling. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and rushed out to the kitchen, not daring to believe it to be true.

Sure enough, coffee!

Sweet, delicious, nectar from the gods, COFFEE!!!

“Mom! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEEEEAAAASE tell me that is not decaff watered-down coffee I see brewing!”

“Well… I made it half and half.”

“Half and half?”

“Yes. Half regular and half decaff.”

You might ask why my parents even own a coffee pot in the first place if– as Latter Day Saints–it is not allowed in their “Word of Wisdom”. The answer is simple. Twice a year my family justifies coffee. On Thanksgiving and Christmas… to have with pie… because a small exception like that is OK. Jesus doesn’t mind. Of course we still make two pots most of the time (leaded and unleaded) in case some of the family doesn’t want to walk the line that closely.

But my mother? My sweet, sweet, Mormon mother,  is the mother of all justifiers! She can find a way to make just about anything OK.

“Just let me see the top playing card and I’ll decide if I want to draw or discard.”

“Oh it’s OK if the grandkids have one little piece of candy after they finish their Popsicles.”

“I don’t think having pizza will really effect her lactose intolerance that much. She likes cheese!”

“Your cat wants to be outside. I’m sure she didn’t go too far. Yes, you did tell me not to let her outside, but she was meowing!”

I could go on. But the point is that my mom is freaking adorable for overlooking Jesus and making watered down half caffinated coffee for me.

If that ain’t love, then I don’t know what is!

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Living with the rents, Loved One(s), Story Time

When I was 18 years old, I move out of my parents house to live with 3 other girls in a two bedroom apartment. Man we had fun! Well… two of us had fun. The other two dry humped their boyfriends and poured our beer down the sink meticulously placing each bottle back in the fridge as a not so subtle disapproving statement of our life choices. But they always made it to church on Sunday, I assume to pray for our heathen souls.

I’m still a little mad about that…

Anyway, I lived with this gaggle of girls not-yet-turned women for 18 months and once the lease was up, I moved to where I knew I would always be welcome–my parents house.

When I left my parents house for the first time, I was their good little Mormon daughter. When I returned back, things had changed. I tried to put up a charade–for fear of disappointing them–that I was still the same spiritually enlightened, “morally clean” person. I even took a church calling to be a primary teacher (though the guilt of being a poser nearly killed me!).

Sadly, after being caught drinking underage by a team of power hungry cops, my cover was blown. My parents told me it was live by their rules or move out! Being the emotional hormone-ridden teen that I was, I understood that to mean they were kicking me out.

Through the years I have moved back home a total of 6 times. SIX! Each time my parents have welcomed me back and each time they have come to except me and my non-Mormon ways more and more. They may not approve of my life style any more today than they did 10 years ago, but they have become more tolerant.

For example, Sunday morning I came home after a sleepover with ED to find my parents in the kitchen with my niece and nephew who they were watching for the weekend. My Mom turns to my five year old niece and smugly says, “Rowan, ask Summer why she wasn’t here to have a sleep over with you last night”, then gives me a small, smart-ass smile.

I love my Mother. Tolerance with a sense of humor … I’ll take that over guilt trips and lectures any day!

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Moving Blows, Story Time

I leave for my Mexican love fest vacation with my sexy man in 2 weeks! This is a freaking huge deal to me. It will be the first time ED and I have traveled outside of Utah together, the first time he has ever left the country, PLUS we will be celebrating his 30th birthday!

My sister Staci knows how excited I am for this trip and today she dropped a rare little gem in the any time I think of this it will make me feel good box.

Me: “Holy crap, can you believe I leave for Mexico IN TWO WEEKS? I worked out so hard yesterday I can barely walk.”

Staci: “That sucks. Especially ’cause it’s always worse the next day so you’re really not going to be able to walk then.”

Me: “Great. Thanks. But it’s what I gotta do.”

Staci: “Well you can always get an abscess tooth like me, then you really can’t eat anything.”

Me: “No, I like eating too much plus it’s the whole lifting and toning thing I need help with. But at least I have been working on it for a while so I think if I just kill myself at the gym the next two weeks I’ll be ready.”

Staci: “Yeah I was going to tell you the other night, I think it was when we were drinking at my place, you were in the kitchen and I looked over and your back was all muscly and I was like bitch.”

Me: “Really? That is like… the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

Staci: “Well… I meant every word of it.”

Sisterly love, there is really nothing quite like it.

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Loved One(s), Story Time, Vacations