#throwbackthursday 'Tis the Season for Snow Days!

Written by Ruby A. Iadeluca


I suppose you've seen it. And you've read all the posts on Facebook that state the obvious: It's snowing! I suppose we need to consider ourselves lucky up here in the north that we've made it nearly half-way through November before it snowed.

I'm not certain what drove my ancestors to land here in Traverse City. In the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I am thankful that at least they didn't land in the *U.P. *That's Upper Peninsula to you folks who aren't trolls who live under the bridge - meaning the Mackinac Bridge.

I don't remember as a child being be-fuddled by snow. It never occurred to us - ever - that the roads were too icy to drive on. Never thought how unlucky my parents were, having to drive on the nasty roads, while us kids had a snow day.

Now I know. But I'm sure, with el Nino and global warming and whatever else the politicians and scientists and weather forecasters want to through at us, that the winter roads now are waaay worse than they ever were when I was a kid!

I could be wrong! Not our car, but I know the blizzard of '78
left us driving through drifts as high as a house.

Snow days were great! Honestly, I think the best part of the snow day was the lethargic, angry mood we would be in while listening to the radio waiting for them to announce that Buckley Community Schools was closed. After that.... don't remember much.

One of the things that my sister and I used to do while we stayed at home was play with paper dolls. I remember some of the details vividly, and others are just a blur.

Carrie, Katie, Sarah and Becky

 

This mush have been Sarah's living room at Christmas. Maybe it was Carrie's?

 

 

Katie's ice cream parlor.

 

 Carrie's bedroom.

 

I'm certain this isn't an exact replica, but it will give you some idea... 

 

We started out the The Gingham Girls, my sister was Carrie - with the dark hair and blue outfits; and I was Becky, with the blonde hair and yellow and red outfits. They suited us well. The paper-dolls came with a cardboard backdrop of an ice cream parlor, amongst other things. We played for literally hours. We would painstakingly set up all of their many rooms in their mansion all over the large Indian-print rug on the living room floor, in front of the huge Zenith console TV.

Again, don't know if this is an exact replica, but I am certain it was this big!

I don't know if anyone remembers how thick the old JCPenney catalogs were, but after mom was done poring over them and ordering her thermal-lined curtains, sis and I would carefully tear out the pages of the prettiest bedrooms and living room and kitchens in the catalog. We would take the pages, trimming them down if necessary, and lay them out, just so, on the Indian-print rug. It was our super-huge paper-doll mansion! We would lay them all out in perfect alignment, setting them up so there would be an intricate maze of hallways. **Sis, did we use secret passageways?

Later on, we got a little more sophisticated when I had gotten a set of Barbie paper-dolls. The Barbie set came with an RV and Ken and Skipper. Ken! Don't remember much about Ken. He must have been a dud. There was just no way to tell if he was such a cool guy that he had girls - lots of girls - around him all of the time; or if he was one of the girls and like them for their conversation and hair-care tips. Barbie had a lovely wedding dress. I think she must have had some kind of complex because I made her wear it a lot!

Anyhoo.... that's one of the many ways we wiled away the hours on a snow day. Enjoy!

Short & Sweet: The Inevitable Candy Corn-Induced Sugar Coma

Written by Ruby A. Iadeluca

**Please see disclaimer below.


I am falling into a nap/sugar coma.

I had some candy corns stashed in my drawer and for the last several days I have been very good; pouring out only a small handful to treat myself with after I've eaten my lunch. Today, however, I temporarily lost my mind. I ate my lunch, poured myself a small amount, then, when that was gone, I thought: There's only a small amount left in the bag. I'll pour those out on my desk and eat them slowly throughout the afternoon.

Well, you'd think that at the age of 42, I would know myself better. Eat them slowly? Riiiight. And secondly, after I poured the remainder of the bag out onto my desk, it looked like way more than I had thought it was going to be. I had this really big pile of candy corns in front of my phone!

I didn't put them back in the bag either. (Of course.) Though my sane self told my piggy self that I should just put some of them back in the bag. My piggy self said, "What? Are you kidding? Eating all these? No problem! And I deserve it!" I began shoveling them in for fear someone would walk into my office and see the massive pile of candy corns, and then they would know what kind of person I really am.

And now?

I'm extremely lethargic. I'm yawning. My eyes are crossing. And I've still got two more hours until the end of my work day. I really don't understand why I do this to myself. I could have just nibbled on a few more saltines to satisfy the cravings. In fact, I still might do that in hopes of counter-effecting the mid-afternoon crash. Maybe the carbs will absorb some of the sugar?

Wishful thinking!

Disclaimer: First, let me be very frank: I wrote this at work. NOT something I normally do. And I wrote it a few weeks back. I usually just jot down ideas and one-liners as they pop into my head, but I thought writing this immediately would get me the most bang for my buck. And I think that changing the tenses to make it sound like I wrote it after the fact would definitely have short-changed everyone involved. It was really only a matter of a few minutes and I promise I'll never do it again. Peace.

Friday Night!

Written by Ruby A. Iadeluca

Are you a mother? Are you children moved out? Still at home? What do you do on a Friday night for excitement?

Exactly what I was thinking.

If you're a responsible mother of four and your spouse and two of your oldest children are working for the evening, you're most likely left at home to "be" with the other two. You've probably poured yourself a glass of wine. Something young, cheap and sweet (I won't use the "how I like my men" reference here - though it's killing me to not do so). And, like most of the world now-a-days, you've given up all access cable TV for the much cheaper version of entertainment we all know and love: Netflix.

This is me last Friday night. Wine in hand, my dollar-a-bag pretzels on the coffee table, Parks & Recreation episode 71 playing on TV. The two children who are still at home with their mother are the two youngest daughters: 13 y.o. in her room most likely YouTube-ing music videos, though she adamantly swears she's doing her German homework; and the 6 y.o. who is spending her evening annoying her mother by playing with marbles on the coffee table in front of me. She also has at least one empty paper towel tube that she is blowing the marbles through. My attention, wanting to be on the TV, is distracted every few seconds by the noise of a marble bouncing off the top of the coffee table. Annoyed, I try my best to perfect my lip-reading skills so that I can continue to enjoy the semi-quiet of the evening. I prefer to not turn up the TV at every little sound - unlike some other people who live in this house who shall remain nameless...

It wasn't until my sub-conscious heard the slight coughing/gagging noise that make mothers everywhere cringe with the knowledge that someone has just puked or something of equal value. And then my consciousness heard the shrieking/panicked crying that snapped me out of my tune-out-the-kids trance and I realized what was happening.

But alas! It was too late. The marble was already down the esophagus. I could tell immediately that she was breathing fine because she was crying. And continued to cry - loudly - for a period of time. Poor kid. I suppose I can't blame her for freaking out. She seemed to be in a state of shock. Kind of like: "Oh My Gosh I Just Swallowed a Marble And I'm Going To Die!" mixed with "Oh My Gosh I Just Swallowed a Marble And Mom Is Going To Kill Me!" That's a bad combination for the 6-year-old brain to process.

I admit, I went slightly into panic-mode myself. "Oh My Gosh My Kid Just Swallowed a Marble!"

But I did fine. Something about being a mother and the instincts that just take over when something is happening to your child (though they still need to clean up their own vomit when they don't make it to the bathroom). I was level-headed and calm - at least on the outside. I just knew, as I put my arm around her and told her to calm down, what I had to do. I knew where the other kid was, where my purse and car keys were, where the shoes and jackets were. Worst case scenario: a drive to the emergency room. While my brain was doing laps around the house taking a mental inventory of everything that might come in to play, and my mouth and arms were trying to comfort the frightened child, my legs took me straight to the laptop. GOOGLE! "What should you do if you kid swallows a marble?"

Every post I read (oddly enough, most of the posts came from Australia. Things that make you go hmmmm), suggested that I simply wait. Making sure there are no other symptoms like belly-ache, or not being able to breathe properly, we were to wait until the marble popped out the other end. However, many suggestions mentioned that if it were a battery or something with sharp edges, that I should take her immediately to the emergency room. Well, duh!

And while she threw the few remaining marbles quite willingly into the trash, Mommy explained briefly where the marble was and where it would go. That if anything started hurting she needed to tell me right away. The rest of the evening was spent reassuring her and the next day was spent asking her if she needed to go potty or if her belly hurt.

I'm pretty sure she's learned a valuable lesson.

All this brought to mind the story of when my aunt (five years my junior) got a bean stuck up her nose. They couldn't get it out and took her in to see the doctor. The doctor looked and looked and simply couldn't find it. Once something is up your nose, there aren't too many places it can go. There just aren't. I believe the bean was found when they came back out to the car to go home. It was laying on the back seat if I'm not mistaken.

Maybe my aunt is Australian.