I remember my first job at the athletic clothing store, “Superstars” in the mall. My manager’s name was Chandler and we were alone in the store one weekend morning and he was in the back and I was seated at the cash register. I sneezed just as he opened the door from the back.
We were still alone in the store and he walked up to the cash register and looked at me incredulously. He asked me if it was me who just sneezed. when I told him that it was, he told me that I sounded like a 90-year-old Italian woman. I laughed and told him that it was just me in the store.
I sneeze pretty loudly and blow my nose just as loudly! It’s definitely NOT lady like but I always remember him saying that about me being old Italian woman.
Well, Leia has been living in my house for nine months now. I had yet to hear her sneeze. That is until yesterday. It was a little baby sneeze. But what can I expect from a dog who is about 36 pounds?! Of course she would have a baby sneeze! It was super cute but I think most things she does is super cute anyway. Except when she needs a bath because then I just call her, “Stinky girl.”
I am thinking that I will climb out of this 3eB rabbit hole soon but in the meantime, listening to this tune reminds me of the ONE time I rode on the back of a motorcycle.
Maybe it was because I was two months pregnant and no one knew except for me and my boyfriend. I was so afraid that I squeezed this guy’s (Sean’s godfather) waist so hard that at a stop sign, he told me that he can’t breathe so that I would have to let go a little bit. I opened my mouth to scream but all that I could do was scream in as I gasped for breath.
Ah, youth. Back when cigarette ash in my eyes would not bother me! But this tune goes back a little further for me, I remember being I n the high school rewinding this CD as it played in my car so this line played over and over:
I can’t even remember what I was referring to but I like hearing this tune anyway because it reminds me of a simpler life; one that I can’t easily recall now but music helps!:
My Mom and I have been listening to the soundtrack while we complete our routine for a while. I remember just after I bought our house, I ended up teaching a short story from the literature books we had.
It was a terrible story about towns people gathering together on the same day every year and stoning whomever chose the paper with the black dot on it. The reason they did this was because it was tradition. they had no further explanation than that. Thinking about this fact, I showed my kids this clip from the movie, Fiddler on the Roof:
I showed my kids this song clip because there was no explanation for traditions they had. I also remember that I gave them all a fortune cookie and told them that that is a family tradition of mine. When I was young, we always used to go to a Cantonese restaurant as a family that has since closed and we would ceremoniously open our fortune cookies on the way home.
While I was previewing the clip to show my students, I just watched the rest of the movie. I remember growing up with this movie and watching it with my cousinTs and we would laugh at Tevye dancing during this song:
So, when I watched this movie about 10 years ago, Sean came out of his room and saw that I was crying. He asked me why I was crying and I told him because it is a sad movie and then he asked why I was watching it and I told him, “Because I love it“
So, my Mom and I watched it the other day and of course I cried again and I can’t believe I used to watch this movie with my cousinTs when I was young! We didn’t know what was going on. But now, as an adult and a mother I know! I paid attention to the songs that I never really paid attention to before:
And the most heart- wrenching:
So, of course I cried A LOT both times since we watched it twice.
I am still so deep into this 3eB rabbit hole! I am surprised that I still know these words when I have not thought about or heard this song in 20 years! I am listening to the Third Eye Blind Collection on loop on Apple Music:
These all are songs from back before I was a parent and I was still able-bodied and driving. I really like listening to my soundtrack from back then!
I’ve been sharing this song with my friends from back when all I could do was text lyrics:
I am currently exploring the rabbit hole of 3eB… I’m getting lost and surprised at how I still know most if not all of the lyrics. It started with my graduation song:
And then…:
But my love for them started with this:
And then my first concert experience:
This whole trip down this rabbit hole definitely has gotten me in my feels (as the kids say)…
My hair has grown considerably since the beginning of the lockdown:
Some of these pictures may be out of order but my hair is a lot longer than it used to be!:
I miss my shorthair tremendously! My birthday wish is to get a haircut and I might as well get two eyebrows and wax my face while I am at it. My birthday is not until March so the rest time still…
I had my overdue contact eye exam on December 16th and have been wearing daily disposable contacts since then. About a week after my appointment, I had to go back into the Eye Care center to get my contact prescription adjusted with a contact lens technician because my prescription proved to be a little too high and was giving me a headache. My prescription changed from an 8 to a 7 meaning that I am NOT totally blind but just MOSTLY blind.
I will say that having daily disposable contacts has taken some time to get used to. First of all, this is the first time I have worn contacts that are not tinted blue because they are so disposable, they don’t need to be. In addition, it is the weirdest thing to just throw them out at the end of the day. That part is very hard to get used to and it feels so wasteful. At the end of the day, after I brush my teeth, I take one square of toilet paper and place it in my right hand. I take my contact out and place it on the toilet paper square. Once I have both contacts there, I fold the square up and then throw it away. I always think of this cartoon that I saw when I was a child:
My Mom laughs at me and tells me that I don’t need to be so careful because I am just going to throw them away. I tell her that I have worn contacts for 26 years and that old habits die hard. I am so used to taking great care of my contacts for so long that and feels so foreign and wrong to just throw my contacts out at the end of the day. The other day, after I took one contact out and carefully placed it into the square of toilet paper, my Mom grabbed it up and ripped it in half! She laughed as I had a mini stroke.
Another thing that has taken some time to get used to is having to open a new package every day for each contact. I no longer store them overnight but I have to peel the foil wrapping off of a brand new package every day.
Because I am so blind as I am trying to open the package, I have to hold it close to my face. I pull the foil wrapper away from the saline solution that holds the contact and because it is so close to my face, I get squirted with that solution every single day! Today was no different! It is usually on my left cheek or the left side of my upper lip. A few times, it has been my nose. It startles me each time and makes me laugh a little bit because although I am not being squirted in my eye, I am reminded of this scene in Cinderella, a movie that I watched over one million times as a child:
Each time the solution hits my face, I constantly see this scene! I exchanged my 30 day supply of contacts there that were an 8 strength and ordered a 7 strength and I’m waiting for them to arrive at my house. After my next SSI check, I will need to look into ordering contacts for me somewhere it is cheaper because a wise man once told me that money does not grow on trees and it does not come out of the machines in the wall like I asserted! That wiseman was my Dad.
Chewing has become increasingly difficult for me recently. Because of that, I drink both my breakfast and lunch in the form of Atkins shakes. Because I do this, it kind of makes me laugh and I think of the Slim Fast commercials from the 1980s but that is not why I do it.
My, “Sensible dinner” for the past three days has been Chorizo and eggs. My Mom makes flour tortillas to go with it. I haven’t eaten flour tortillas in years! But, carbs and calories don’t count for me between Christmas and New Year’s day anyway.
I sat in the kitchen with her as she made the tortillas and she handed me a warm tortilla with chorizo and eggs in it. I also have not had chorizo in years because it is pork meat and I don’t eat pork but I decided to get myself, “A pass” on this because I knew it would be easy to chew.
The first bite I took was just of tortilla which was warm and soft. The second bite I took, I tasted chorizo and closed to my eyes and saw a vivid memory that I have stored in my mind. I think of this memory with extreme fondness.
I had a half day of school and wore some reason, my Dad picked me up. Because it was the middle of the day, we most likely would go out to lunch together. However, it was the,”Family Planning” week in my Morality class at school. Before we received our ranks as our newborn children, the girls had to be “Pregnant” so I had a book bag filled up with magazines strap to the front of me under my school shirt.
My Dad laughed when I came out of school and commented on how I had the, “Pregnant waddle” down quite well. I told him it was because the book back was hanging too low and the magazines were weighing it down so it forced me to waddle. I told my Dad that we get extra points in my class if I wear my belly out in public. My Mom made me take it off when I was in public with her but my Dad didn’t mind so much.
I clearly remember struggling to get out of my Dad’s truck in the parking lot in the back of the restaurant and walking with him on the side street to get into the restaurant door at the front of the building. As we were about halfway to the front door, my Dad looked over at me and nonchalantly told me that, “If we see anyone we know, I don’t know you!” I vividly remember us both laughing as we walked into the restaurant. We went to El Rancho And I had chorizo and eggs.
I don’t know how much chorizo is left but I’m cool with having it again tonight given how easy it is for me to chew and I like revisiting this memory. I can still hear my Dad’s laugh and that makes me happy.
I was this old with my pregnant belly and this is my school uniform which I was wearing when I went to eat with my Dad. I never would have thought that In just one year, I would ACTUALLY be pregnant!:
Well, today has arrived. I was both dreading it and cannot believe that this day is here
20 years.
Two decades.
Last night, I shook my hands by twisting my wrists and told my Mom verbatim what the doctor said to me 20 years ago today. She remembers that day and what the doctor said. I also told her that my life changed forever that day and back then, I did not know how much it would change but it is aWHOLE lot!
I am not going to cry today though, it is a dull ache and it’s quite sad that I have had MS for so long. It is what it is. I never liked that saying but the definition and dictionary.com was fitting:
I’ve also been listening to Third Eye Blind lately and this song was my graduation song from 20 years ago. Even though it is about something completely different, these lyrics spoke to me:
I KNOW that I can’t take it anymore but the sad reality is that I have to! I am beyond frustrated but I do just have to accept it. It is what it is.
Thanking about this today, I decided to NOT put ornaments on my tree this year. Leia is just over a year old and LOVE my Christmas ornaments way too much! I am a super sentimental and each ornament on my tree has some significance to me!
My Mom tried to convince me to try it out but I told her that if Leia breaks any of my ornaments, I would have to hate her and I don’t want to do that because I love her so much! Leia likes looking at the window and my tree is a little further away from the wall so she can get in there too look out the window. I think it was a couple weeks ago when this happened:
She had just come back from our walk and still had her leash on and something happened where she bolted to the window and I thought for a moment she was going to knock me over. I was grateful that the star was just knocked out of balance which Sean straightened out on Christmas.
I have seen so many people posting pictures of their trees and zooming in on specific ornaments and I missed not being able to do that this year but I did get a few ornaments that I will just post here anyway even though it’s two days after Christmas. My brother tagged me in a post on Facebook of a Cookie Monster tree because that’s my character. I absolutely love Cookie and yes, those of us who KNOW him, are on first name basis! I thought it was funny because I just had received this ornament in the mail:
I did get a few other ornaments addition to Cookie, Hallmark had this one and I remember searching for and buying this toy for Sean when he was young and really into Toy Story. I recently found the toy and it is still in good condition because I put it away nicely:
Just after my tree was put up, I found this one which goes to show my forethought when I ordered pictures from Sean’s graduation in August:
I also got this one because now I DO have a graduate:
I did order a couple ornaments from my friends 31 party to further commemorate Sean‘s graduation because it was a crazy 2020 graduation and one that I was not able to attend:
And Leia was his graduation present! I didn’t get to put my favorite ornament on the tree I bought this year The Sean had to drive and get for me but there’s always next year!:
