Happy St. Patty�s Day everyone!!! I�m all decked out in my �Everyone Loves An Irish Girl� t-shirt and my green sweater and green underwear. In an effort not to gross anyone out on green-overload, I am not wearing green jeans, I did not paint my face green and my shoes aren�t green. I also do NOT have green toenails or fingernails.
Although my family is a mixture of many western european nations, Irish is my main identification. My great-grandmother was fresh off the boat at 19 years of age. Her stories were passed down to me by my maternal grandmother, who used to share them with us over tea and bourbon. (Tea for us, tea and bourbon for her). There were many parts of her daily routine that seemed straight out of Eire. We had potatoes with every dinner. And not even ones where you would think a potato would match. We had potatoes with spaghetti! Potatoes were a side dish at her house in the same way other people ate salad or bread. If there weren�t potatoes, it wasn�t a meal. We also had hot tea with every meal. And not, here�s your tea bag and some hot water kind of tea, but brewed before the meal and served in a china teapot with shamrocks on it. Her house was full of china plates with shamrocks and irish blessings.
I remember her telling me a story of how her parents met. Her father was a german soldier who had been stationed in Ireland during WWI (as the national irish hated the english, they would side with anyone who was against the english). Her parents met when he was in Ireland and then reunited after they had both emigrated to the United States. I have located her ship�s manifest on www.ellisisland.com and it was amazing to view that. When my grandmother died, we had a big irish wake to celebrate her life.
When I visisted Ireland in 1984, I felt a huge connection to the land, to the people, to the culture. I felt like I belonged there. I have often wanted to learn Gaelic, but it seems such a difficult language to grasp and tackle. But it�s on my list of things to do before I die so we�ll see.
This morning, I drove to work listening to Disco hits, thanks to Michele . I also received a survey from her via e-mail and wanted to post some of the questions along with some more in depth answers here on my dairy� so here ya go:
Have you ever:
Drank so much you threw up � this is one of my most embarrasing moments.
I was 17 and a friend of a friend had rented a room in a ritzy Los Angeles hotel after going to a concert. My and my friend Nicole drove down there on Sunday afternoon to hang out with her. That morning, I had eaten a few bites of scrambled eggs before heading out. When I got there, she (the other friend, I don�t remember her name so let�s call her Madame X) wanted to play quarters. Madame X opened a new Liter bottle of gin and made gin and tonics. I won the first round and then she won every round after that. I don�t remember how many rounds we played, but �we� (I use that term loosely since she only had one drink) had finished half the bottle.
I was well on my way to being drunk, I believe the correct term for me would be well marinated. I then realized I hadn�t eaten much that day, so I began eating peanuts. I then picked up the bottle of gin and remarked, �Look, we drank half the bottle� and then proceeded to guzzle � of what was left. So on my own I had almost � of a liter of gin. On a near empty stomach. I was having significant problems walking and just wanted to die. I remember laying down on the couch. Madame X decided she wanted to go to an art exhibit at the Pacific Design Center on Melrose Avenue. If you are not familiar with Los Angeles/Santa Monica, this is a very ritzy, trendy, expensive neighborhood. I just wanted to lay on the couch and die. But my friends didn�t want to leave me there by myself. Probably a good idea. However, walking was not a good idea.
So we began walking down Melrose. I just remember how bright the sun was. I don�t remember seeing people or the street or buildings or anything. My memory only contains images that occurred within 3 feet of my eyes. And they are all very bright. I would say overexposed. Well, it didn�t talk long for me to begin throwing up. All I had in my stomach at that point was peanuts and gin. I remember walking down the street barfing and not knowing what to do with it. So I held it in my hands. Yes that�s right. I am walking down a street in a ritzy neighborhood, holding peanut and gin retching in my hands. I remember getting to the art show and sitting on the steps, still holding my vomit, since I didn�t know what to do with it. I know there were people there at the art show, but I honestly have no memory of them. I can�t begin to imagine what they were thinking about me. Like I mentioned, my area of vision was very small and I remember nothing visually except the bright sun. After a while we walked back to the hotel room, I was still clutching my vomit. Sometime later I sobered up and drove home. I must have cleaned myself up at some point, I am sure that at the very least I washed my hands. That�s all I remember. Except I remember that I wasn�t embarrassed at the time, but when I look back, I am horribly embarrassed. Ugh.
Been fired � I was fired one time. It was 1996 and I was working in a day care center. The kids were sick all the time and my immune system was not that strong. I would get sick and my doctor would take me out of work for weeks at a time. My boss did not especially appreciate this. She was the kind of boss who would pick an employee as her favorite and then when you fell out of favor, she would either make you quit or fire you. I had seen the pattern several times before. So when I got on her shit list, there wasn�t any way off of it. She used my illnesses to start riding me. Never mind the fact that when the kids got sick, she wouldn�t send them home, stating that their parents would lose their jobs if they had to leave work too often (but me losing my job did not seem to matter to her).
The day I got called into her office, I was really not expecting it. The official reason I was fired is that I made a 15 minute error on my time card. When filling it out, I had forgotten that I had left 15 minutes early one day as all of my kid�s had gone home early that day. She said that the company was doing an audit and anyone with a mistake was being fired. I later found out that someone else had a 5 hour discrepancy on their time card. They were not fired, they were promoted. When she was firing me, she also had a list of a million other infractions. One of these was that I had not locked a gate at the back of the school when closing for the day. I did not have a key to this gate and she knew it. But she wrote me up for it anyway. I refused to sign my termination paperwork. At the time, I was devastated but it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Snuck out of your parent's house � My parents (or rather my mom) did not believe that it was right to go out toilet papering (which, let�s face it, is just a part of being a teenager) so if we wanted to do it, we had to sneak out of the house. I would wait until my parents were asleep, or so I hoped, and then quietly slip out the front door and go meet my friends. The toilet papering took on even more of a mythical quality because I had to sneak out of the house to do it. One time, I woke up to find that our house had been toilet papered. My mom, of course, wanted to know why. So I had to fess up that I had snuck out of the house toilet papering. When all was said and done, it was actually my sister and her friends who toilet papered our house as a joke. But I ended up being the one who got in trouble for it. Thanks Sis!
Skipped school � I was actually pretty much of a good girl until my junior year of high school. This was the year where I started to do poorly in school (which meant getting C�s instead of A�s. Teachers, administration and parents were all alarmed. But good lord, it wasn�t as if it was every class or even a D or F � relax people) and was getting called into the vice-principals office about once a week or so. I used to drive another girl to school and one of her classes was to assist in the office. We had a rotating schedule so classes were in a different order each day. When her office period was last, she would come to my class, tell the teacher I was wanted at the VP�s office and then we would leave. So, really, I only skipped school for 30-45 minutes. Oh the horror.
However, there was another day I skipped school. It was early in the morning and I had signed up for an extra class called 0 period. We met before school to take an elective (for me Drama). One of my class mates had also gotten there extra early. It was a Friday and we were both taking the SAT�s the next day. We were nervous and felt unprepared. We decided that we would leave school and go study. First we went to her house to pick up some clothes (as we wore uniforms) and then we went to my house.
The way my school handled absences is that if they didn�t get a call from the parents, they would call your home. If you answered, they would just tell you to bring a note. If you didn�t answer, they would then call your parents. My friend Cris had already called her mom and her mom had called the school. I hadn�t called my parents. I think I was going to wait and try to get a note out of my dad when my mom was out of town. (My mom had a lot of business trips this particular year and was out of town most Monday�s through Fridays. Plus, my dad was the pushover in the relationship). I never did ask my dad and then when I was sick a few weeks later and he called the school, they asked him to send a note for the previous illness. Well, this brought up a whole bunch of questions which ended with me having an in-house suspension. So I had to spend 1 day in the school library instead of going to class. This was really not any punishment for me, as I just hung out and read books all day. My teachers sent my assignments in to me and I completed them in about an hour. The rest of the time, I sat in comfy chairs and read books. I think this was a suitable punishment for someone who skipped school TO STUDY FOR THE SATS.
Seen someone die � When I was 21, my grandfather had a massive stroke. My grandmother had died earlier that year. She had a long and painful death, lasting approximately 8 years. After she died, my grandfather didn't know what to do with himself, his sole purpose for getting up every day was gone. He had trouble finding a life without her. In May of that year, he had a stroke and was seeming to recover well. He was getting back into life, starting to golf again and trying to find things to keep him busy. My uncle (who is only 4 years older than me) had moved back in so that he wasn�t alone. He usually came home on his lunch hour to check on my grandpa and make sure he ate lunch. On this particular day, he made a sandwich for him and then returned to work. When he got home after work, my grandfather was lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. The sandwich was still on the counter.
My grandfather was still alive and the ambulance took him to the hospital where he was hooked up to machines to breathe for him. Some of my mom�s siblings lived in Northern California so we were waiting for them to arrive to make some decisions. My mom, dad and I had spent two night sleeping at the hospital in the visitor�s lounge as we waited for them to arrive. The doctors had already told us that he was brain dead. When they arrived, we all went into his room, held hands around him, said goodbye and then watched as they turned the machines off. I remember that this was something that I didn�t want to do, but it was important for my mom, so I was there.
Petted a Reindeer/Goat/Kangaroo or Jackalope � Do Jackaolopes really exist? Of course I have pet goats at county fairs and petting zoos, but the best experience I ever had was petting deer. I had driven my cousin to Flagstaff to look at a college she was interested in. Outside of Williams, AZ, we found a deer petting farm. You can go there and wander around with the deer, feed them, pet them, etc. There were even little babies. It was such a fun experience.
Won a contest � although as an adult, I�ve occasionally won contests, like drawings and such, the most memorable contest I won was in 4th grade. The district was sponsoring a writing contest for the whole elementary district. Because it was March, the stories were supposed to be about kites. I wrote a story about a kid who got lifted up by his kite and what happened as he was flying over the city. The district did not receive enough entries about kites so they opened up the theme to anything. I ended up winning the contest, tying actually with another kid in my class. But I felt really good about winning (even tying) because my story was actually about the original theme, kites, where as he had written a story about dinosaurs.
Stolen any traffic signs � One night in high school (as opposed to one summer at band camp), my friends and I were bored and restless. I had a station wagon and we were just driving around the less populated areas of Southern California. We soon wandered upon an area of the highway where they were doing construction and they had those blinking signs. We decided that we should steal a couple of them and also took some cones as well. From there, we figured we should find more signs to take. We tried very hard to get a stop sign but they make those pretty hard to steal. First off, they are up high, have very tight bolts and are generally in visible, well lit places. So no stop signs. I know we stole some other signs, mostly from construction sites as I recall. When I got home and put the blinking signs in my room, I failed to account for the fact that they would blink all night long. I soon found a new home for them with a friend who wanted them for a play.
I�m going to call this entry a day now.. I wanted to thank all of you for your love and support. I think right now I�m kind of numb and just not dealing with my emotions. I guess that�s okay for a short while, though in the long run I eventually have to deal with them. I�m determined NOT to make my diary and break-up diary. I�m not saying I won�t write about how I�m feeling, it�s just that there�s a lot more to me than that, right?
