Category: A Bit Of Randomness

This category is full of randomness that really doesn’t fit nicely into any of the categories having to do with my road to walking.

Awkward

I didn’t start binge watching Game of Thrones until May 2017. I started because I was confined to a medical chair that I slept in for probably a month after knee surgery. I wasn’t weight-bearing for that month and the only time I got up was when someone would carry me to the restroom. It didn’t take very long for me to get COMPLETELY hooked! I binged the first seven seasons in 10 days.

I have told Sean to watch it but I told him I wouldn’t watch it with him for the first two seasons. Now that I am into the eighth season, I’m not sure I want to watch it with him the first couple episodes. His friend was over the other day and I told him that as a mother, I was not able to recommend it but it’s really GREAT! I told him I would not recommend it to him because of all the nudity but if I were talking to someone else, I would COMPLETELY recommend it! He got the gist of that.

Last Sunday, I started watching it as my Mom left and began crying during the opening scenes! She started to laugh as she walked out of the house. My Mom is NOT a Game of Thrones watcher! In fact, I think the MOST awkward thing in the world has been that all three times that my Mom has seen me watching this show, an explicit scene was on! Because she has seen that, EVERY time she vows she will not watch it!

I tell her all of the time that it is so good but she won’t give it the time of day! This morning, I started talking about Sunday’s episode and with her limited knowledge of all eight seasons, everything made sense to me but I don’t think so much for her. She never lets me forget that she doesn’t like the scenes she has seen! Sean has not started watching it yet but I know that I won’t watch it with him because that would be awkward! Kind of how awkward it has been for my Mom to see me watching the MOST explicit scenes!

My Mom did, however, tell me that she likes the opening theme music though;

959

Today, it has been 959 days since I have been to Barwis Methods. That’s two years, seven months, and 17 days. That’s a VERY LONG time! My knee was injured at 960 days ago and it has not stopped since I was injured and my orthopedist said not to go back there until my knee doesn’t hurt.

I asked Sean to get me out of bed immediately this morning when he was getting ready for school. I was safely in my wheelchair before my Mom got here but it didn’t feel that much better. I turned GMFB off about halfway through the first broadcast. You know it had to be BAD if I wasn’t even going to watch GMFB! I reclined my chair back almost completely flat and it helped a little bit.

My Mom got here and was making breakfast for both of us I sat in my kitchen and stared at the rain, I told her that my legs are feeling like a G.I. Joe doing the splits:

I used the example of a G.I. Joe because I didn’t have many Barbies growing up or at least not many Barbies with heads. I told my Mom that I was on the verge of tears! I reposted a post from January 19, 2014. This was the day I wrote about Michael Rhodes doing the, “Ooh Doggie!” stretch on me. I did not realize how important that stretch was until now.

Since it has been 959 days since I was stretched, my MS has progressed that much more, not to mention the added stress of the constant and excruciating pain from my knee and subsequent surgery. When Sean got home from school, I was by myself and he looked at my face and saw the pain. He wrapped his arms around me and I started to cry. Today is a really bad MS day! What I wouldn’t give for another, “Ooh Doggie” stretch right about now! But I really can’t think of doing that because I can’t imagine my knee being bent like that now!

Today, with the rain, it is an extremely difficult day! Actually, they have ALL been extremely difficult for the past 959 days! I miss who I used to be even five years ago and I hate popping prescription pain pills like it’s my job but I’m trying to get this under control.

A Ring from a Machine

I’ve been watching, A Thing Called Love a lot lately. I tweeted the breakfast table from GMFB because they showed The Bluebird Café‘s awning just before they went to Nashville for the 2019 NFL draft. I asked all of them if anyone has seen that movie. I plugged it by letting them know River Phoenix and Samantha Mathis star in it. It also has vintage Sandra Bullock as well. I absolutely LOVE that movie!

My favorite part reminds me of a memory I have from high school. I was in my honors English class (I’m not sure which year) and I remember having a conversation with one of my friends about the type of engagement ring that I wanted. I was telling her the size of the diamond and the cut. It was before class and Ms. Graybill was taking attendance.

She stopped for a moment, looked at me, and told me that, “[I]would take a ring from a candy machine [as my engagement ring].” I loved my English class and Ms. Graybill knew me! I stopped talking to my friend and looked at her and thought for a moment. I responded with a nod, shrug, and a, “Yeah, probably.” I’m not married but I did accept a plastic ring from a machine that I wore every day for a few years until it broke. That ring was from my son and I wore it like it was the huge diamond ring I described to my friend when I was in high school.

I am not a movie spoiler but if you watch the movie, you’ll know the correlation to the movie I have with this ring. I’ve been really into country music recently, probably because I miss Barwis so much!

Ms. Graybill is the reason I was an English teacher. I actually wanted to double major while I was at WMU. I was planning on double majoring in English and history because two of my favorite teachers taught those subjects to me! (That’s a shout out to you, Mr. Dean, as well!). By the time I became an upperclassman at U of M Dearborn, after having had my son, I just wanted to get the hell out of college so I majored in English and minored in history. I ended up teaching English at CCA because back then, I told the person hiring me that students can’t pass a history MEAP test to save their lives!

The OnDemand part of my cable is a little wonky. I think I need a newer cable box! I think I got a letter from them a while back. Maybe I will call my cable company tomorrow. Now, I just got to figure out how to watch the end of this movie!

Floored

Growing up, these songs were always my parents’ songs.

I used to sing this first one to Sean when we still lived with my parents when I was too tired from studying to read bedtime story. He recently asked my Mom if she used to sing this song to him because he remembers it being sung to him when he was little. She told him that I was the one who used to do that.

I also remember one time, just after my Dad finished dialysis, my brother, Jimmy, played this song on his guitar as my Dad laid in bed extremely exhausted and my Mom laid behind him and held him. Jimmy told me to sing this song because of course I knew all of the words! It’s THEIR song!

This next one it is also THEIR song.

Whenever I hear either of these two songs, two things are evident:

! 1. I have to listen to the ENTIRE song. 2. I will cry.

These songs have always been there songs since before I was born. The songs my dad would always sing to my mom were these:

He would sing this song to her just after she had an appointment to get her hair colored. It wasn’t until a couple years ago, after he had been gone for a decade that I realized that this man was going to shoot Ruby!

My parents and I watched a live concert of Lou Rawls singing this song and my Dad told my Mom that this was going to be herwhen he is gone.

The first two songs I posted are and have always been my parents’ songs. The second two, I just remember my Dad joking with my Mom and my Mom would shake her head and move her hand like she was dismissing what he said.

So, all FOUR of the songs will make me cry because they just DID! Now, my Dad has been gone for coming up on 13 years this August and I never thought that I would learn anything new about him that I hadn’t already known or heard about. But then my Mom shows up this morning softly singing a song.

We both were in my kitchen before she started making breakfast. She played this video on her phone that I was not prepared to witness! It completely floored me!

She told me that my Dad used to sing this song to her. I couldn’t believe it! My eyes began to well with tears as I watched the look in my Mom‘s eyes that told me that she was not here in the now but in the past as her eyes also started to well with tears. I was completely floored! We discovered during breakfast that this song was released in 1977. Of course I didn’t know that my Dad used to sing this to her because I wasn’t born until 1982.

My Mom texted my brother, Steve, to ask if he remembered my Dad singing this song to her. He did and I still couldn’t believe it! I pulled this song up on Apple Music so we could listen to it continuously as we completed our routine. I listened to the words over and over again and I told her that it was a really sweet song! I can’t imagine my Dad singing it to her!

It was so tender! It made me think of the tender moments I remember from the end of my Dad’s life. I thought of those sweet memories I witnessed of their love until the end. I have to write about that another day because I’m still crying over all FIVE of these songs!

A Million Bucks

Sean went to his junior prom today. He was going to leave with his friend, Bryce, to meet up with everyone at one of their date’s houses for pictures. Because it is kind of cold (REALLY COLD FOR ME) today. I didn’t accompany them. Instead, just before he left, I told him to copy me on all of the pictures. He told me he was going to as he left. I didn’t believe him.

That is until I heard my text alert go off. It was Bryce’s mom and she texted me numerous pictures!

I was so happy to receive these pictures and then I went back to reading my book. I am getting really lost in the story which I appreciate. Then, I heard people on my porch. I heard Sean in my porch! Then he opened the door and he was with Bryce, and their dates.

He mentioned to me that they may make a stop here because we live so close to Dearborn Inn (where his prom is being held) and I was not able to go watch the pictures as I have for every other dance he’s had.

The girls dresses were absolutely beautiful! I saw them in the pictures but I didn’t see them up close! They both had little crystal beads on them that looked ABSOLUTELY beautiful! I don’t even know if that’s what they are called! I know that they weren’t sequence but I’m not familiar with any girl accessories.

Because they were here, I had to take pictures (well, my Mom took them):

I’ve always asked Sean how he has felt whenever he dressed up since he was very young. The answer he was supposed to give me was, “A million bucks“ which I would quickly respond to him with, “You look like 1 million bucks!” Sean included me in this special day because I could not get out of the house with it being so cold and with my motorized chair. I am clean but not sure how I look today but I definitely feel like a million bucks!

Worth the Extra Money!

I’ve been watching Good Morning Football religiously for almost 3 years now, since my knee was first injured. I absolutely love it! I have been a football fan, a Detroit Lions fan, since 2009. That was the year that my son first began playing organized football.

I have not really known a Lions team without Matthew Stafford as their quarterback. EVERYONE knows that I LOVE HIM!!! So, this last Christmas, Sean got me a University of Georgia Bulldogs hoodie! (This is the college Matthew Stafford went to!).

I watch GMFB pretty much every day. There have been times watching this show that my worlds collide! Most notably, for example, when Kyle Brant interviewed Bono:

And it happened again after this interview with Nikki DeLoach not too long ago:

She’s a Georgia fan as well! So far, I have seen about 80% of Love Takes Flight and there is a song in it that I knew that I knew but I just couldn’t figure out what song it was. I just figured it out right now! It is Rihanna, “Stay.” This song came to me today as I am sitting in my living room wearing my Georgia hoodie:

Sean has to work today and I’m okay with that even though it’s Mother’s Day so, before he went to work, he picked me up some B Dub’s! He knows my order and picked me up, “The, !Yoosh’” (as in “usual”). I shared the cheese sticks with him.

As I started digging into my boneless, honey barbecue wings, I pointed out that it’s not even Thursday! Thursday is boneless wing (Thursday so boneless wings are $.60) as he was closing the door, he told me that I was, “Worth the extra money!”

Just Like the Ol’ Days

Sean and I had dentist appointments today. We have always gotten our teeth cleaned at the same time to cut down on visits to the dentist office. That’s what we did today. Once he got me into the car after both of our teeth were clean, he asked me if I wanted to go eat at Logan’s.

He told me that he was going to pay. We sat in the parking lot once we got there and reminisced about Logan’s while he let his phone charge. Once we were finished, we went inside. They changed the menu again but it was more like it was when we first came here so many years ago.

As we waited for our food, we continued talking about when we used to come here all the time when he was younger. I told him it was usually once a month on payday, sometimes twice. There was a Tigers game on and we talked about when we came here during the Olympics about 11 years ago.

We laughed about all the memories that we had and today was my belated Mother’s Day because he worked yesterday. As we were eating our food, he made the observation that it was, “Just like the old days.” I smiled because it really was! Once we got into the car after leaving, I told him to turn my jam! He knew what I was talking about!:

As it began to play, I started shaking right shoulders to the music and he shook his head and half smiled. It’s another memory he can have of, “The old days.“

Mermaids

I grew up with four brothers. Sean is the fifth of my parents’ grandchildren and the fourth boy and my only son. I have always been around a group of boys since I was born! I have only known, “little boy ways.” I am used to the two racks of Easter clothes for boys next to the 30 racks of girls’ Easter dresses. But Sean looked really good on Saturday!

When he showed up with his date, Angela, and his friend and his date, I wasn’t prepared to see how stunning these girls’ dresses were! As they came into the door after Sean opened it, their dresses were so sparkly! My Mom was here and she told them that they, “Look like mermaids!“ I felt a slight tinge of an ache when I saw their beautiful hair and make up that accompanied the dress!

Because I live so close to Dearborn Inn, all four of them came to my house to change before the after party. Bryce changed in Sean’s room and Sean just in the living room. The girls changed in the bathroom. My Mom brought them hangers to hang their dresses up once they were changed. As they were changing, I heard them laugh! I’ve vaguely remember laughing with my friends like that when I was in high school.

The boys were changed and waiting in my living room as the girls came out of the bathroom, laughing, and carrying their dresses on hangers. Once the door opened, I am mediately smelled, “Girl.” Sean was probably about 10 or 11 when he started wearing deodorant during wrestling season. He also started using Old Spice body wash. He uses the, “Swagger’ scent that I have told him that I do not regally like. He responded with, “Duh! You are my mom!“ I’ve gotten used to my bathroom smelling like the various scents of Ild Spice body wash and the cologne he wears now. It’s pretty manly. I was completely not prepared for the, “Girl” smell that accompanied them out of the bathroom. It was foreign to me but sweet. I thought about that as all four of them left.

As I brushed my teeth that night, I saw a few shining sequins on the floor. I smiled! On Monday, I found sequence in my kitchen by the refrigerator because they got bottles of water out of it with Sean. I think that this is absolutely the cutest thing ever! I talked with my friend who has two girls, one in college and the other in Sean’s grade and she told me that they have 1 million different products and sequence is ALWAYS on everything! I laughef with her and told her that I have no concept of, ”Girl” things even though I used to be one! I recalled a funny story from Sean‘s childhood.

He got invited to a classmate’s birthday party at Pump It Up. He was in Kindergarten and the only boy there. I still remember taking away two things from that day. I couldn’t comprehend the high pitch when they sang, “Happy Birthday” because, in my family, there’s so many boys so it sounds a lot deeper. I also remember him standing with his pink gift bag that contained her Polly Pockets as he waited by the “Birthday Throne.” They are still friends and have been classmates for their entire school careers. I swear I have a picture of them on the first day of first grade at DCES! I will have to find that picture soon, Before they graduate!

I think that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing these two girls, “All dolled up” for prom and I really liked having remnants of sequins in my bathroom and kitchen, and smelling their, “Girl” smell but I really like having a son! In fact, I love it! And him! It was nice to hear my Mom refer to them as mermaids.

Senior Quote

Yesterday, after the dentist, and on our way to Logan‘s, my son had his phone plugged in and we were listening to music through his phone. Sean always says that he never realizes how inappropriate a song is until I am in the car with him. He constantly had to skip songs that were playing on his random shuffle. Then, we heard this song:

As I belted this song out, (and in front of Sean, I really don’t care how I sound now) I told Sean that this was my senior quote.

“Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost Along the way (hey). In this great future, You can’t forget your past So dry your tears I say“

I’ve told him before about me listening to Legend on loop in my car for a lot of months. I asked him if his school does that and he shrugged. I told him that if he does, he should use this quote because it’s great! I paused for a moment and then added, “But what do I know? I was just a dramatic teenage girl in high school back then.” Sean started to laugh!

“Lady Love”

My Mom told me about my Dad singing this song to her when they were newly married and I pulled it up in my Apple Music. We have been listening to it every day since Mother’s Day because I am trying to wrap my head around my Dad singing this song to my Mother. My brother, Steve, and my aunt Lissa corroborated her story and they also remembered my Dad singing it to her when they were young. Even though my brother and my aunt let me know that my Mom’s story was true, I had the hardest time envisioning it. I figured if I immersed myself in the song, and then it would be easier:

I am still having difficulty envisioning this! When you are young, your parents are just your parents and you don’t really think about them being in love. My parents were just my parents. I did, however, witness what I believe that love could be like when Sean was born and toward the end of my Dad’s life. Sean knew my dad, his, “Gandfodder” and his best friend. I have three distinct memories that show me how much they were still in love!

I’m not sure which memory comes first but I know they all happened when Sean was alive.

Sean and I came over one morning for breakfast and we always came in through their side door. Once the drawer was opened, my Dad would call to my son, “Where’s my baby?!“ as Sean ran to the living room where he was. I remember coming up those stairs and seeing my Mom making eggs. I remember her looking extremely happy, she told me that she got married last night! She recounted her dream of reliving all the events from her wedding day. I was she described everything, she looked wistful and she told me when she grabbed my Dad’s outstretched hand at the altar, everything was in color and then she woke up. I enjoyed watching her face but was sad that it ended so abruptly. She continued working at the stove and then looked at me and excited they said, “So then, I fell asleep and dreamed it again!

We both started laughing and that day they drink Orange juice from their wedding flutes and my mom kept referring to my dad as, “My husband” and my Dad called her, “My bride.” I really appreciate that I got to witness this!

My second memory is the one that I did not witness but my mom tells me the story finally. It was just after my Dad second heart surgery and he was intubated for eight days (had that tube down his throat) which was unbearable for him! My Mom told me about locking eyes with him in an attempt to calm him down. My Mom told me that they stared at each other for a very long time as my Dad began to calm down. A nurse came in to take his vitals and she recognized that she was interrupting some intimate moment between them so she looked at my Mom and told her that she would come back. I love hearing my Mom tell me about that!

My third and final memory that I hold dear is that one time, well Sean and I still lived with them, I walked into the living room to witness my parents sitting on the couch holding hands and watching TV! Actually, my Mom was watching TV and my Dad was just listening while holding my Mom’s hand. Retrospectively, I understand that my Dad’s vision had gotten pretty bad before he died but the fact that they would do something so sweet as hold hands while watching TV is the cutest thing EVER to me!

Even with these memories clear in my mind, I still can’t wrap my head around my Dad singing this song to my Mom. It’s nice for me to know that it’s true though…