Give me a little hug, won't you, huh?

Every person needs a daily dose. It has no monetary value. It is one of the most beneficial things in life; it is affirming, healing and transfers energy from one person to the other. It is a hug.

Four year old Nicole was over last night for a couple hours. She and I drew pretty designs on paper plates. Then she snipped the edges.

She played 'family' with three dolls. A big rubber boy doll (wearing her daddy's baby clothes) for Paw-paw, a chatty pull-the-string-doll for me (hmmm) and a Baby Beautiful baby doll for herself. She named them and gave them personality traits.

Paw-paw Bill being the male that he is, held the doll for a moment, and then he chased her, played monster, teased her etc. She would run to me with open arms shouting, "Hold me, Nana!" Then she'd yell, "Do it again, Paw-paw!"

She knew her safety zone was in my arms. How often we go through life unable to say, "Hold me." or "Hug me."

Later as she was snuggled with me in a blanket on the couch, she jumped up unexpectedly, ran over to Paw-paw, laid her head in his lap, wrapped her little arms around him and said, "I love you Paw-Paw Bill, let me hug YOU."
She sat on his lap and they snuggled for a while.

I think I disagree with my previous statement that there is no monetary value to a hug. Sometimes a hug is worth a million bucks.

When you are in the midst of a heated discussion with anyone of any age, and one of you says, "Stop that right now!" It is almost impossible to immediately switch gears. Human beings reason with emotions first and logic second. It requires a powerful shift in our emotional state to turn off what is bothering us. BUT...a hug first can lead to peaceful resolution.

Today, won't you give away one smile and one hug? The energy spent will be returned. Know that God loves you, and His door is always open even if yours isn't. He believes in you even if you don't believe in Him. My personal belief is, one God, one earth, many religions. HUGS to all of you.

Stretch your imagination

When young children color on a flat service, they work different hand/finger muscles hand down, than they do with the hand up. I mount foam peg boards or puzzles and table toys on walls, ends of book cases etc, so children can exercise the area between index finger and thumb. When this area is strengthened it is easier to grasp a writing instrument.

Geo Boards are great manipulatives. Usually they are table top toys. Children stretch rubberbands between pegs to make different shapes. My approach is a bit different. I used a large sheet of cardboard, hot glued the center of buttons in three sizes, and added some happy face stickers. I glued a box on the bottom filled with colorful rubberbands and I mounted the entire contraption on the door with clothespins (the glue pops right off). Children stretch rubberbands to make designs. They use this game during free play; it is a self-directed activity and they play cooperatively, believe it or not.

Easy to make for pre K and elementary classrooms. Imagine the joy on your child's or grandchild's face if they were to come home and find one of these propped up against a wall or mounted to a door.

With a little imagination and few discards or reasonably priced items, you could be the star where you are!

Can you say OUCH?

It's that time of year for me again.

Ladies, be vigilant and get your

Mammy Whammy

“Disrobe,” said 20 something
“waist-up completely bare.”
I removed my shirt & bra
and awkwardly stood there.

“Point your toes now forward,
twist your body right this way.”
Maybe ten years ago,
but I can’t move like that today.

She lifted Mopsie and Flopsie,
manipulated my chest,
depressed that boob smasher
and said, “Honey, hold your breath.”

“All done now. Take those with you.”
She joked and continued to yap.
“Don’t worry,” I said sarcastically,
“I’m not leaving either one of these
flatsos in your booby trap.”

Happy Halloween

My former husband, an auto mechanic knew his stuff about cars. However, he had a disposition that I referred to as mechanic's mentality: lug nut, crank shaft, hammering piston, boiling radiator, speedometer in the red zone. We were like fire and fuel, and I admit, my mouth fanned the flames.

We lived in a brick house, in a middle class working neighborhood, on a one way street. The neighbors on either side of us were aging and had been long-time residents. The retired immigrants who lived to the right, kept their property immaculate. They were what was referred to as Scrubby Dutch. The missus would come out every Saturday morning with a bucket of steaming sudsy water and scrub the white marble stoop, four steps, and the porch. The mister would mow his lawn closer than a young man's crew cut. Often we found a big fat swath cut from our grass. This hint-indicator irritated the mechanic as he only mowed on weekends.

The retired white-haired couple on the left were an odd couple. He was mild mannered and soft-spoken; she towered over him figuratively and literally. Both sets of neighbors were friendly, but they knew that the mechanic was usually one spark plug away from firing off an opinion.

One Halloween, our daughter and son wanted to make a scarecrow. They wadded up newspaper and stuffed a pair of their dad's blue jeans, a red, plaid, flannel shirt and a pair of my discarded suntan colored panty hose which we used for the scarecrow's head and arms. I drew on facial features and added a mustache and a cap. We propped him outside on a chair on the porch and added a pair of work boots. Eight year old Jason, asked if he could give the scarecrow his rifle. Why not? I placed that rifle in the life-sized scarecrow's "hands" and took a photo of our masterpiece.

I saw the neighbors to the left drive up. I stood inside the open door and listened. I couldn't wait to hear their reaction. They did not park, they sped past the house, not once, but twice. The third time, they parked in the alley. I peeked out and saw them hunched over creeping quickly to their back door. I wondered what they were up to.

The next day, I was in the back yard with Dusty, our spaniel-mix, when the neighbor man walked out with Fee-Fee, his white toy poodle.

"How'd you like our scarecrow?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, yesterday when we came home, I started to park in front of the house when I saw your husband on the porch, wide-eyed, looking like he was about to go off half cocked with that rifle in his hands. I drove around a couple times, then decided to sneak through the back door. My wife looked out at him a time or two, and then we realized it was a dummy."

Out of grief came joy

Did you ever sew something with a loose, temporary stitch and then forget about it?
Pull a thread and unravel a hem?

That is what it felt like for me yesterday. So many years have passed since my childhood, since the day I sat at my grandma's table on my Uncle Frankie's lap. He was in his late teens, had a full head of thick, wavy hair. He tried to get me (a preschooler) to eat my chicken noodle soup. He held the spoon in front of me and told me to look away. Then he ate it. After that, it became our game, everytime HE looked away, I gulped "his" spoonful of soup.

He was my mom's younger brother and the only boy among five sisters. Spoiled? Yeah.

We didn't have too much interaction, but I do remember that he gave my dad his old Studebaker when we needed a car; he came to my mom's rescue a time or two, and when he was in his forties and bald, he decided what he wanted to be when he grew up. He became a police officer. He made the rank of lieutenant. He had odd pets, a pot bellied pig and a "depewed" skunk.

He visited me and my family at my home a time or two after I married. My kids were little but they remember him tooling around in a little red MG, experiencing his midlife crisis, probably.

I saw him at Christmas once at Grandma's but our family did not have a close bond. Everytime I tried to take a snapshot he'd cover his face, to keep from having his picture taken.

I spoke to him on the phone a year ago. He said he needed to have an artery opened, and after he got over his painful case of Shingles, he would probably have the procedure. He chickened out and his heart gave out.

In so many ways he made his family proud. He raised three step daughters, but he harbored a shameful secret. He had two children, a boy and a girl from his first marriage, and he was estranged from them. I felt sorry for my cousins whom I barely knew. I always wondered about them, especially after I had a granddaughter whose father abandoned her at birth. That kind of pain is searing.

Yesterday at my uncle's memorial service, I met my cousin, Brenda, and her daughter. We shared a common memory, our grandmother used to stuff us with cookies, although we were never at her house at the same time, that we can remember. As I shared my memories with Brenda about her mom and grandma, I felt as if I was hand stitching pieces of a patchwork quilt together with very large stitches, connecting our memories, as we hurried to wrap it up. Someone pointed her out to me at the conclusion of my uncle's memorial service. I gave her my business card. I hope I hear from her.

Clarence, my uncle's lifelong best friend, almost eighty, grew up on the same street as my mom and her siblings. Once this cracker jack joker started talking, it was as if he'd tugged at a loose thread and let out a hem on my old coat. Memories flooded from him to me as he told me things about my father and mother and grandma that made me laugh, cringe, frown and smile.

Out of sadness and grief came joy, a reconciliation of spirit even if we never see one another again. For a brief hour, I was three, my dad and mom were young; I could hear my grandmother's voice, and after half a century I finally hugged my long lost cousin, Brenda, who seems to be doing well.

I crashed the gates! I'm ready to do it again.

1982 World Series
This is what happened twenty-nine years ago. Thirty-eight years ago today my baby boy was born. He can verify this and so can my daughter.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful son, Jason.
By Linda O’Connell

The announcer’s voice gunned across the airwaves
like a hot rod peeling out on gravel.
Nearly fifty-four thousand fans “going crazy” as Jack Buck thundered
play by play, the seventh game of the’82 World Series.
Home runs ricocheted down my spine, coursed through my veins as I bled Cardinal red.

Although my ex was Bruce Sutter’s and Keith-damned-good-looking-Hernandez’s auto mechanic, he said he couldn’t get us a ticket, had to work that night.
Right! During the seventh inning stretch, I raced
the kids to my ’65 Mustang and we sped to Busch Stadium.

Bellowing cheers rocked downtown, thundered to an apex,
reverberated off century old brick buildings,
shook my car windows; drew me like a rip current towards the epicenter
of sound, lights, frenetic on-field activity.

I tugged my two kids three blocks, running
on wobbly legs through thick night air
permeated with popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jacks,
gasping for breath, hungry for a taste of excitement.

We arrived at the twelve foot fence, and stopped.
A gated community. Padlocked.
The fans in stands, a tsunami of red,
swayed like an aftershock.

When Ozzie doubled and Sutter replaced Andujar
I had to see! We ran around the perimeter to get a better view,
and when I saw what I saw, I knew
prison bars could be no worse.

We took off towards the teenagers scaling the chain link.
When they shook the gate loose,
I snatched my son's and daughter’s hands and crashed
through too. A dozen guards came running.

I dashed into the nearest ladies room.
My nine year old son’s mouth moved maniacally
when I shoved him into a stall.
Cheers rocked the walls; his protests fell on deaf ears.

He still boasts about being front and center
at the ’82 World Series when his old mom
nonchalantly pulled him out of the ladies john
and ran like a slugger down to the good seats.
We got caught
up in the moment
and have reveled
in that kick ass Cards vs. Brewers game for twenty-nine years.

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT WE'RE GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN AGAIN

If you saw the 'bad boy' again, would you? I did.

I received my shipment of books a moment ago. My story, A Blast from the Past, is on page 150 along with the recipe I submitted. That in itself is reason to celebrate. More than that, I flipped through this book and noticed that they have included only 21 recipes along with the 101 stories.

My late, best friend and neighbor, Rose, used to make this recipe when our kids were young. I spent many hours in her small kitchen which had dark cabinets and orange counter tops, nibbling, munching and devouring her Apple Walnut Coffee Cake. Two pots of coffee past noon, our small kids would walk through her door after school, and we would still be sharing sweets, secrets, dreams, pain and laughter.

It had been nearly thirty years since I'd had my last taste of that bad boy. When I saw that "hunk" in a clear plastic container on a deli counter, I tried to look away, but was smitten all over again. All of the memories flooded back and I devoured every last crumb.

In the Chicken Soup for the Soul story, there is an incident that accompanies the recipe. No, it is not nice to laugh at your mother, let alone your friend's mother when you see them flat on their backs, feet in the air, in a compromising position.

I will be doing a book signing on 12/10/11 at Main Street Books in St. Charles, MO, along with two other Chicken Soup writers. Would love to see you there.