Month: March 2019

I am on chapter 3 of this book which is, “Raising Grateful Kids.”

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Kaplan references Billy Collins, a former US poet laureate. She talks about his poem, “The Lanyard.”

Once the poem was referenced, I had to stop reading and retrieve it so I could read it because I was not familiar with it. I thought I would read it on my own but I found video evidence of it where Billy Collins reads it himself. Hearing him read his words, I thought back to an orange ring. A ring that Sean gave to me so many years ago.

I think Sean was about four or five years old at the time. We had met my parents at Senate Coney Island close to our apartment. I had given Sean a dollar (4 quarters) to buy something in the machines at the door. I don’t remember the other things he came back to the table with but I’m sure it was a temporary tattoo or a superball or something.

He had gotten an orange plastic ring. It was for me. Because I have small hands, this child’s toy ring fit me so I put it on the ring finger of my right hand.

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I kept that ring on until it broke when Sean and I were living in our house so he had to be about 10.

My students would constantly ask about it through the years. My students thought that orange was my favorite color because being that the ring was neon orange, it didn’t go with anything I normally wore but I wore it every day! I never took it off!

I remember one time being out to dinner with a friend shortly after I started wearing it and he asked, “The deal with the orange ring.” I remember looking down at my right hand, smiling, and telling him that Sean had given it to me. I told him that whenever any man would give me a ring that cost half of all of the money he has in the entire world, I was obliged to wear it I would happily wear it!

One night, I was in bed when I realized that it had fallen off of my finger. I gasped and looked at my bare right hand! My Mom laughed at me and said that I was acting as if it was a huge diamond ring. It was even BETTER than a diamond! It was in the kitchen sink because it had fallen off of my finger while I did the dishes that evening. My Mom got it for me so I went to bed happy.

As Sean got older, he asked me why I still wore that ring and I told him it was because it was from him! I didn’t mind that it was orange. I loved it because Sean gave it to me. In his little mind, he thought to use two of the four quarters that he was given to get jewelry for me! What a great kid?! I was making copies in the office copier after school one day when the ring broke. I was completely aghast! At that point, I had been wearing it for five or six years.

Because the ring was a $.50 ring made of plastic, I couldn’t repair it. The machine at that Coney Island where he got it from five or six years earlier was no longer at the restaurant. I still have the broken ring in my room, in the small jewelry box Sean made for me in kindergarten.

I cried as I read that section of the book, I am not even finished with it because I had to stop reading because I needed to blow my nose because I was crying so much and the, “Green leopard print” had become too dark on the pages of my book. I cried because that orange ring definitely made Sean and I, “Even” in Billy Collins’ words and more importatantly, in my book!

I posted these pictures of Sean yesterday on both Facebook and Twitter. I was making the point that the national color for MS is orange but NO ONE looks good in orange! Except for Sean. He has always looks good in orange! I posted the evidence in my Facebook posts and my tweets:

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Who wouldn’t get that kid a fish?! He wanted a dog but he and I had just moved into our first apartment and they had a no dog policy and I didn’t want a dog anyway. He settled for a fish, actually it was two. I got him two Cichlids. One was orange and one was blue. Cichlids have a long lifespan but they do eat other fish; however, they also eat flake food. I opted to get him flake food because I didn’t want my child watching his fish eat other fish.

Because he was such a kind kid, he let me, “Have” one of the fish. The orange one. I decided that it was a girl fish and I named her, “Andromeda.” She died shortly after we got her. Sean named his fish, “Shark Attack.” He ended up living to make the move from our first apartment (a one bedroom) to our second apartment (a two bedroom). We fed him at night before Sean went to bed.

Three weeks after we moved into our second apartment, my Dad died. My nephew’s mom took Sean as my family and I stayed at the hospital until late into the night. My Mom and I went to pick up Sean (who had fallen asleep). He awakened before we got him in the car and was quite upset that my Dad had died. Once we brought Sean home, he had fallen back to sleep in the car and my Mom carried him into the apartment because I was already on Canadian crutches back then.

As she was laying him down in bed, I grabbed the fish food to feed the fish. Once I looked into the tank, I told my Mom, “ “Shark Attack” is dead.” Sean shot his head up and exclaimed, “ “Shark Attak died?! What a horrible day!“ I didn’t think that day could get any worse but it just did!

So, fast forward almost 13 years and Sean, my Mom, and I Were at a strip mall and Sean was picking up a pizza. There was a tropical fish store a couple doors down and Sean wanted to go in. My Mom and I waited in the car while he went into the store. I told him NOT to buy a fish! I think I am still leery of having a fish since, “Shark Attack’s” death. I think it was the timing.

So, what did Sean end up coming out of the store with?! A fish! He bought a blue Siamese fighting fish that he named, “Bill.” My Mom did NOT like that name but I kept singing this:

My Mom told Sean to get an additional fish because she didn’t want the fish to be alone but we explained that a Siamese fighting fish does not play well with others. We stopped at another pet store to get him a bowl, rocks, and a little barrel decoration thing. My Mom told Sean to not name him, “Bill.” Sean decided on renaming him, “James Pond.”

So, Sean has had that fish for five days. I hope it doesn’t die! I think I may have a hard time handling that! My Mom hates for us to say this but, she does the cutest things! She talks to the fish! Every day! Multiple times a day! Sean and I both let her know that a fish has a three second memory and when she walks out of Sean‘s room we tell her that he does not remember her talking to him. She does so anyway! Case. In. Point. Cutest THING EVER!!!

This morning, on Good Morning Football Tiffany Blackmon (she’s filling in for Kay this week) asked the guys there favorite long haired man for #WhiteboardWednesday. Kyle’s answer was gold! Absolutely gold! I am not talking about this kind of gold though:

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Kyle’s answer was Chris Gaines. You know, when Garth Brooks released an album under a different name.

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I actually own this CD. It’s somewhere in a box with like 200 other CDs that I never listen to anymore. But it definitely took me back!

I wrote about the song I liked from this album and reposted that post on Facebook and Twitter. It was from August 1, 3016. I had a memory of back when I was a server at Lonestar Steakhouse the summer after my Senior year. I was still walking then and it was before my MS diagnosis.

I can clearly remember walking through the dining room waiting on tables and this song coming over the loudspeaker. When I first was hired in, one of the managers asked me if I listened to country music. I told her that I did not. Her answer was simple and confident, “You will.” She was right!

I am Kyle‘s contemporary because I just turned 37 so we’re close in age but this choice was absolutely gold! I appreciated it so much and this song has been in my head since this morning! I LOVE this show!!!

I don’t drink coffee. In my adult life, I’ve just never had a taste for it. When I was working, my colleagues and friends would constantly comment on the fact that I was, “A morning person.” They were so amazed that I did this without the use of any caffeine in the morning. I felt the need to immediately set them straight. Very early on in my employment, I would wake up in the morning every day at 4:30 AM. I needed that time to let my body, “wake up” and adjust to being, “awake.” I would tell them that to me, it was not 8 o’clock in the morning but rather, noon. The only reason I was so chipper was because it was lunchtime to me. A couple years before I stopped working, my Mom would come over to my house to drive me to work. Now, she IS a morning person!

It took a very long time for Sean and me to get used to her chipper morning self! I think because I am NOT a morning person, and the fact that I raised Sean by myself, I also have made him to NOT be a morning person as well. From since he was at a very young age, I would wake him up and that is all the speaking we would do to each other until we left for school. (I’d drop him off at my Mom’s house and drive myself to work).

When I stopped driving myself to work, I still would get up super early and be awake at 4:30 just getting used to, “being awake.” Now that I no longer work, I don’t need to wake up at 4:30 to make it to work on time, but rather, my, “morning” starts a lot later now.

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Even though my morning starts later, today was one of those days where I needed A LOT of time to, “wake up”! It was really rough and I looked like that little girl in that picture! Even after I got ready for the day, I was really warm just after I got ready but then I started to freeze! So here I am, sitting in my sweatshirt and winter DC high school winter beanie that Sean got for me for Christmas with my arms and mouth inside my sweatshirt.

I am watching, Love and Other Drugs for the third time in three days. (It’s free on HBO OnDemand – just know that it’s on HBO so don’t watch it with little kids). In about an hour and eight minutes into it, I begin to get sad and at about an hour and 11 minutes in, I cry. EVERY SINGLR TIME!

So here I am, watching this movie with a winter hat on because I am freezing but I thought about that picture and being in the teachers’ lounge in the morning (because I used to have first hour prep) and defending the reason that I do NOT drink coffee but I am NOT a morning person!