Miley's booty- Part 2

Dear Gentle Readers,

So what was I to do? The answer came to me immediately. Get her out of this house! I just stood there holding the coffee pot while Michelle held Bébé up to her face, covered her with smoochy kisses and said “Oui! Oui! You are such a sweet Bébé!” Walker was sitting there staring at her and I imagine he was thinking, “I sure wish I was that Bébé!

I just put down the coffee pot, took Bébé from her arms and gave her the old “southern simpleton” look. That is a look of sheer and total innocence. It is a look of sweetness and blankness. It is the look that says “I haven't got a clue what you are up to” but honey, let me tell you, behind that look of idiocy on my face I was planning my battle tactics!

She knew she was feeling a breeze under that T-shirt! That (not so) little fanny flash at my husband was no accident! She just hadn't planned for me to see it, too. Ah ha! I knew she thought I didn't see what had happened. I said, “Michelle, Macon is lovely, but how would you like to see Washington D.C.?”

“Oh oui! I'd love to see Washington, but I have no way to get there.”

“I'll drive you.”

Walker said, “That's a thirteen hour drive............are you sure?”

I gave him a not-so-simpleton look, a look that said “If you don't shut up this very second you are going to have a pot of hot coffee up your nose.”

He shut up.

In the next six minutes I arranged to drive Michelle and Bébé to my sister's house in Manassas, Virginia, right outside of Washington, D.C. My sister is the most hospitable southern bell you will ever meet. At that time she had a husband and three young teenage sons. I just told her I was bringing a sweet young French girl to visit and would they take her around in Washington? She readily agreed. I left out the part about which town she came from in France (the one where girls where no pants!).

It was a long but immensely rewarding thirteen hour drive to Virginia. Along the way, I started wondering if I should have just dumped her in Atlanta, but no........that was too close to my husband!

When we arrived in Virginia, my sister, her husband and three sons were so excited to meet Michelle. The next day the boys took her on the Metro to Washington. When they got back the whole gang was sitting around the kitchen table. My sister asked Michelle, “What did you think of Washington?”

“It was beautiful! Oui!”

“Well, what do you think of Americans in general, I mean?”

“Oh! They are all fat and so unattractive.”

All of us at the table just looked at each other, flabbergasted by her response. And of course, each of us was thinking “of course she didn't mean me!”

Then my sister said, “You mean you have not seen one attractive person in America?”

“Oui, they are all either fat or ugly. I saw women, many women, in Washington that had stomachs shaped like the capital dome.” We all sucked in our guts.

After supper my sister pulled me aside and said, “Do you know anybody else that might let her visit them?”

“I have some friends in New York City...............” We high-fived each other. I called my New York friends and they arranged all her travel plans for a wonderful guided tour of the city. “Goodbye, please!”

Years later one of my nephews told Walker “You remember that French girl that came with Aunt Suzan to our house in Manassas?”

“How could I forget her?”

“That was the best present I ever got from Aunt Suzan. I was in middle school at the time. I remember Michelle didn't close the bathroom door all the way. She was standing at the sink, brushing her teeth, with no shirt on! I was laying in the bed in my room with a clear view down the hall, just watching her. It was the first truly enjoyable physics lesson I ever had. She was a vigorous brusher and when she would charge right with the toothbrush, the lovelies would swing hard to the left. Then she'd give an equal thrust to the left teeth and here they'd come, flying back to the right. She evidently believed in long, thorough brushes and it was enough to make me dizzy! I know there are those out there who might think it left me scarred for life, but actually, it made me quite hopeful for the future!”

And to tell you the truth, Michelle must have really impressed my nephew because he ended up marrying a girl that looks very, very much like her.

And me? After I packed Michelle off to New York City I put Bébé Laurel in the car seat, looked in the rear view mirror and said with the “southern simpleton” on my face, “Who me? I would never be inhospitable to a visitor!”

And the Bébé and I drove oui, oui, oui, all the way home.

Oh, and Miley Cyrus, let me give you a bit of advice that every good southern mother gives her daughter: You start being sexy when you stop trying to be!

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Miley's booty ain't the first to shake...........

Reading all the uproar over Miley Cyrus' bottom made me laugh. Booties have been shakin' around as long as there's been booties to shake, much to the disapproval of non-shakin' women, much to the approval of bootie lovin' men. When my husband, Walker, and I, were in our early thirties, we were in an international friendship club. We would host a guest from another country and then we were supposed to go visit that guest at their home. The problem was that we never had the money to go visit our guests in their countries. And, we had Baby Laurel, less than a year old.

It was the summer of 1989 when Walker and I drove up to the Atlanta airport to pick up our guest from France. In those days you could still go far enough into the airport to watch the passengers walk out of the plane, down some steps and across the tarmac and on into the airport. All we knew was that we were to pick up “Michelle” a young French girl in her early twenties.

“She wrote that she would be holding up one of those little French flags on a stick!” I hollered over the noise of the people and the planes. I adjusted the sweaty, sticky bundle of baby that was sliding off my extended hip. Motherhood had left me feeling rather unattractive lately. I was always covered in some ooey-gooey glop of one sort or another. Now underneath that glop I was still a hottie, but the problem was I very seldom seemed to get enough baths to get off enough goo to expose the hottie level. Baby Laurel would not take a pacifier . She preferred to gnaw on my chin. Wise women told me she was just teething and not to worry about it. It was all very natural. But why does natural have to be so wet? I tried to break her from sucking on my chin because it sent torrents of warm baby slobber that smelled like her “natural” formula made from goat milk running down my hot neck. They don't tell you this before you get the baby...

So Laurel was just gnawing away on my chin and slobberizing my face and neck when I looked up and saw “Michelle” sashaying down the airplane steps. Oui. Oui. Oui. “Oh {bad word}!!!” I uttered under my breath. She looked like a runway model from Paris. Walker lit up like a Christmas tree. “There she is! Wow!!! She's a looker!!!” I gave him a look that wiped that smile off his face but fast. “Well, I mean...she's looking for us...” He started waving his arms around like a drowning man and yelling, “Michelle! Michelle!” Just at that moment Baby's diaper sprang a leak and I could feel something warm running down my leg... I was still using cloth diapers because I was trying to save the earth. At that moment I decided to start using Pampers.

Michelle came bouncing up all smiles and sweetness. Ooh la la... She hugged Walker and kissed him on each cheek. Then she blew kisses in my general direction. “Well, I'm Walker and this is my wife....”

“SUZAN. My name is SUZAN,” I reminded him.

So we trudged out to our little compact car and went through all the gyrations of getting the baby in the car seat and Michelle's enormous amount of luggage in the trunk. “I thought she was only staying two weeks,” I whispered to Walker. “Maybe she decided to stay all summer,” he said with a big grin. So, we all got in the car, Walker driving, Michelle in the front passenger seat and me crammed in the back with suitcases falling on Baby Goat's head while she screamed her lungs out.

We got on down the highway and Walker asked, “What's that smell?”

“Chanel No.5,” “Goats,” Michelle and I answered simultaneously.

I had to let my back window down to get the smell out. The hot wind blew my hair onto my face where it stuck to the drool. I was a sight. All the merry while Walker and Michelle chatted away. Oui. Oui. Oui. “We are going to take you to a pool party this afternoon,” he told her.

“Oh how lovely! I bought a new swim suit! It has a top!”

At that moment Walker let our car go over into the other lane. I guess I shouldn't have kicked the back of his seat so hard. Some guy laid on the horn and shot an impolite gesture at Walker as he sped around us. “My sentiments exactly, Mister!” I thought.

We made it back to Macon and Michelle was so lovely. She was absolutely so polite that I couldn't say a thing against her. How could I be jealous of this precious young girl? After all, she brought me French perfume and she brought Walker an expensive bottle of French wine. She brought a Madeline dolly for Baby Laurel. So, ooh la la, it was off to the pool party. All the young mothers gathered in the shallow end of the pool. We were all bouncing our wee ones up and down in the water while all the hubbies were grilling and drinking beer.

“We brought our new friendship club girl with us. She's a real sweet girl. I know y'all are going to like her!” I said with my back toward Michelle who was walking out of the pool house wearing a black, string bikini . “I don't think I like her at all!” one of my girlfriends said. I turned around to see Michelle surrounded by Walker and all the other fellas. The boys were all laughing and having a grand old time. “Run for cover girls!!!” All of the mothers jumped out of the pool and ran for the terry cloth!

That night back at our house Walker and I put Baby to bed and sat up visiting and drinking the French wine with Michelle. I had to count the dunk in the pool as a bath and doused myself with Chanel No.5. She really was an adorable girl. What was I worried about? I could still turn a head or two myself. When he came to bed Walker said, “Why did you put Michelle in the downstairs by the kitchen? That's not the pretty room.”

“Shut up Walker.” He shut up.

The next morning I hopped out of bed and ran to take a shower while everyone else was still asleep. Walker got Baby Laurel up and took her downstairs to play on the floor of the dining room. Then I came down to make coffee while Michelle got up and took a shower. What a sweet picture the three of us made. Young mother filling the baby's bottle... Young father sitting at the table reading the funny paper... Darling baby playing with blocks on the floor... Life was all that it should be. Then our darling house guest appeared wearing a T-shirt with no bra. She was drying her wet hair with a towel. Her shapely long tanned legs went down down down to her lovely little pink toenails that were polished to perfection. And then it happened. She bent over to pick Baby up from the floor and I heard Walker choking on his coffee. I turned to ask, “Are you okay?” just as I heard and saw Michelle bending over and picking up the “Beautiful Bébé!!!” and then I knew. I had no doubt. Michelle was from the place in France where the girls wear no underpants and the dance they do is the Hoochie Coochie Coo!”

Stay turned for part two. Ooh la la!!!!!!!

You mean I'm dead???!!!

 Dear Gentle Readers,

Many of you have probably not had a chance to read my book, "Dear Girlfriend, A Handheld Walk Through Breast Cancer".  So I thought I would use this post to share a brief chapter of the book with you.  This is a funny account of what happened while having one of many procedures during treatment.  When finished, if you want to read more about the wild ride I took with breast cancer, click here!  Enjoy!!!

 

Dear Girlfriend,

When we got back to Macon from our trip to Florida, my oncologist, Dr. Pippas, ordered a test called a Muga Scan. I was told that I needed to start chemo just as soon as my incisions were healed because chemo is the most effective if it is done within six months after the surgery. My problem was that my left breast, the side on which I had had cancer , was just not healing. After six weeks that left breast still looked just like it had right after surgery. But, I went ahead to the hospital to have the Muga Scan, a test to determine if one's blood is pumping throughout the body properly. It's important that your blood is pumping normally if you are going to do chemotherapy. The Muga Scan does not hurt. It's done at a nuclear medicine center or by a radiology tech at the hospital. You don't eat or drink anything for four to six hours before the scan and you don't use caffeine or tobacco for four to six hours before the scan. Also, remember to wear comfy clothes because you are going to be lying on a table for a couple of hours.

Before the test, the technician will inject a little bit of radioactive material into a vein in your arm. This material is sort of like dye and it will hook up with your red blood cells as they carry oxygen through your body. See, like I told you, you are on automatic. When you woke up this morning, did you say, “Okay, red blood cells, get to work and take the oxygen I'm breathing all through my body. Chop! Chop! Get to it!” No. You didn't give your red blood cells one little thought because God is controlling all the inner workings of your body, just as surely as he holds the stars in the sky and keeps you from floating off the planet by controlling the force of gravity. But, do we ever think about any of that? Heck no!

So the technician had me lie on a table and she said, “This thing up above you is a gamma camera that uses gamma rays to take pictures of how blood is going through your heart. This won't hurt, but try to lie as still as you can or the pictures will be blurry and we'll have to do it over. I'll leave you here for a few minutes. Just relax, nothing will hurt you.”

So I just lay there and thought about my blood traveling through my veins. I thought about the camera taking pictures of my heart. I was warm and cozy and unafraid until... the technician came back into the room and with no trace of a smile on her face she said, “I'm so sorry. You flatlined.”

I jumped up off the table and shreiked, “You mean I'm dead???!!!” She started laughing and said, “Well, obviously not!” I could hardly breathe and I said, “But you said I flatlined, doesn't that mean I died?” She said, “I'm so sorry! I mean the machine stopped working. The machine flatlined.” I lay back down on the table and said, “You scared me to death. I thought I had died, but just hadn't zooped up yet!” She said, “Well, I'll try to choose my words more carefully next time.” We both had a good laugh, but I 'll bet she never told anybody else that they had “flatlined.” My test came back normal, but I could not start chemo because my incisions had still not healed.

I outfoxed the phone company!

Dear Gentle Readers,

As you recall, in my last post, I was telling y'all how good I was at changing my voice to sound like Stinky, Winky and Blinky, the three little pigs. When my daughters were very small, on Saturday mornings my husband, Walker, would get up early with the girls, and try to let me sleep. But, the girls would all three come to my bed and pounce up and down on top of me while they tickled me unmercifully. I would try to hide under the covers and say, “Girls! Don't torment your mama! Let me sleep!” Then they would jump up and down on the bed yelling, “Torment! Torment! Torment! Get up Mama!!! Get up Mama!!!” Such gentle children they were... Then they would yank the covers off of me and pull me up into a sitting position with my feet dangling off the side of the bed. My hair looked like flying monkeys had played in it. I had on no makeup. You get the picture.

“Make your feet talk, Mama!” Now, I hope you realize that my feet can't really talk, but I could throw

my voice down to my feet and my feet would jump all around saying in a very high squeaky voice, “No! No! I don't want to get up! No! No!” The girls loved this and they would pull my poor feet down to the floor and then drag the rest of me out of bed into a standing position. Now you must realize that I had twins and another child a year older. So, I had two babies that were three years old and one baby that was four years old. This is why my feet would protest getting out of bed. My feet knew that once they were out of bed there would be no rest for the weary!

So the years rolled on by. Now the girls are in their twenties. Sometimes when they are home, one or the other will bring me coffee in bed. We snug up together and they talk to me like I'm a girlfriend. We are all so close, and I feel so mightily blessed that they love to come home. They don't pounce on top of my head anymore, but we do laugh about those good old times.... Yes, the years rolled by and it became time for my mother to break up housekeeping and move into an assisted living home. I would have brought her to live with me, but I'm so small I couldn't lift her.

Cleaning out her home went very smoothly. Two of my sisters, Camille and Cea, my sister-in-law, Janelle and I took on the task of moving all of Mama's stuff out. We had heard so many horror stories about relatives getting into fights over their parents' stuff that we were terrified that we might get into an argument over who took what. So, if any of us wanted something, we would hold it up and ask in our most sugary sweet slow little southern voices, “If none of you girls want this dishrag and used Brillo pad, may I have it?” And the rest of us would reply in unison, “Oh no honey, you take it, we insist!” So we proceeded just like that and through some kind of miracle we didn't have one cat fight! Whew!!!

When everything was out of the house I realized that I had to call the phone company and get Mama's service moved over to her room at the assisted living home. I didn't think this would be any big deal, oh boy.... I called the phone company on Mama's phone because I didn't have a cell phone with me. Mama had a land line phone with buttons on it. This a a true account of what happened.

I dialed the phone company. “Service department,” said the friendly young voice on the other end.

“My name is Suzan Rivers. My mother is Mary Lampp. She has just moved from this address to an assisted living home. I need to change her phone service from this house to her new address at the assisted living home.”

“Is your mother there? I will need to talk to her” said the friendly voice.

“No mam, she is at the home. But my name is somewhere in your paperwork as someone you can talk to about her phone service,” I replied in a friendly voice.

“I'm sorry, but I don't see your name anywhere. I must speak directly to your mother on that phone, no other,” she said in a not-quite-so-friendly-voice.

“Look, my mother just had hip replacement surgery. There is no way she can get up the steps to get in this house to talk on this phone. That's the reason we moved her to the assisted living!” I said in a not-so-friendly-any-more voice.

“I'm sorry, but we have our policies,” said a not-friendly-at-all-voice.

“So, you are telling me that I need to find a big strong man to carry my eighty-six year old mother with a bum hip up the steps into this empty house where there is not even a chair for her to sit on while she talks to you on this phone? Is that what you are telling me?” Kiss friendly goodbye.

“We have our policies.”

“ Okay. I'll go look for a muscular man.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” I hung up.

I sat down on the floor and tried to figure out what to do. Then it hit me. I had a great “granny” voice that I used when I did the “Little Red Riding Hood” puppet show. So, I worked on giving the house a good cleaning to kill some time. Then I called “Cathy” back.

“Hello Cathy! I have my mother here now. Do you want to talk to her?” I asked.

“Yes. Please put her on.”

So I took a deep breath and in my most shaky, quavering, dear old granny voice I said, “Hello, this is Mary Lampp....”

“Mrs. Lampp, I need to know your birthday, sweetie,”

I replied in the best sweetie granny voice I could do, “My birthday is October tenth, nineteen twenty- one.”

Cathy said, “Okay Sweetie, what is your social security number?”

I thought to myself that I was in trouble because I didn't know Mama's social security number. So I just pretended to be a tad senile and said, “ Oh dearie me, I don't remember my social security number, but I remember how to make applesauce. Do you want the recipe? And my birthday is October tenth, nineteen twenty one. Did you get that? October tenth, nineteen twenty-one, October tenth, nineteen-twenty one....”

At that point Cathy had started to laugh and said, “Okay honey, you can put your daughter back on the phone,”

“Hello? This is Suzan Rivers...”

“Mrs. Rivers, we will switch your mother's phone service over to her new residence today. She sounds like such a sweetie pie. I'll bet you two are very close.”

“Oh yes, very close, very very close...”

He Thought He Was Hearing Voices!!!

Dear Gentle Readers,

For many years I worked as a children's librarian. I really worry that the fine old art of reading a book to a wide-eyed child is fading away. Everywhere I go I see tiny children being babysat by a handheld gaming gizmo or tablet. They are usually blowing something or somebody up! Now, don't get me wrong. I think gizmos are great, but so is human contact. Imagine yourself tucking your child into bed and then snuggling up next to him while you read “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” in your most grinchy winchy voice. Now the child is laughing. You are enjoying each other, and how much did it cost you? Time. Just a little time to make a beautiful memory that will last a lifetime.

Since I was diagnosed with cancer, even though they say I'm now cured, I have come to value time and to value people so much more than before cancer. I watch my children. I take note of what very lovely young women they have become. Yes, I watch people instead of gizmos. If my husband, Walker, is chopping wood for the fireplace at our cottage in the woods, Fairy Ring, I watch him.... I think how truly beautiful his arms are still... His legs are so muscular from walking in the woods all day.... I smile to myself.... Cancer taught me that even if I live to be one hundred that is no time at all! Time is my gold.

But, you asked me to write something funny, so here goes.... When I was a librarian I discovered how much children love puppet shows. I bought all kinds of truly cool puppets and had my husband, Walker, build me a very simple puppet stage that was supposed to be a castle. That stage was made of plywood, but you can use a big old cardboard box. Anything. If children are given the chance to use their imaginations they will. If you tell them the cardboard box the new washing machine came out of is Cinderella's castle, they will be cool with that.

So, there is one thing that a good puppeteer must have, different kinds of voices. The  prince and the frog cannot sound alike. A frog has to sound froggy and a prince has to sound princey. You knew that. It's instinct!

When I first started doing puppetry, Walker had not been to one of my shows, so he really didn't know just how well I could change my voice. Believe me, I'm good! So one Saturday morning I woke up and Walker was still asleep next to me. I took off my socks and put them on by hands and started to practice my voices for “The Three Little Pigs”. I wasn't talking loud, but it woke poor Walker up. He had his back to me and before I knew what was happening he pole vaulted out of bed with his hair standing straight up, half blind because he had his contacts out and shrieked, “What was that???!!!”

I was just lying there with my socks on my hands, instead of my feet, and calmly answered, “That was just Stinky, Winky and Blinky.” He looked at me like all that he knew to be true had just fallen away. His very sane wife had lost her mind. He hesitated, and with a wild, bewildered look on his face like he was about to step out onto slippery, icy pavement he said, “Who the {bad word omitted} are Stinky, Winky and Blinky?” I calmly answered, “The Three Pigs. You know, they tricked the Big Bad Wolf into the boiling soup when he came down the chimney.”

He still looked pretty shook up as he stood there in his boxer shorts running his hand back and forth over the top of his head. He again ventured out onto thin ice and asked in a squeaky little voice, “Where are they? Are they under the covers, Baby?”

“No, you fool, they're in a fairy tale!”

“Then why did I hear them?”

“Because I'm practicing my voices to do a puppet show!” The look of relief that came over his face as he finally exhaled is indescribable. Everything that he knew and believed came back and he was laughing. “Suzan, I thought you had gone 'round the bend. You know your mother told me there is insanity on your Daddy's side of the family.”

“Oh, I know! She always says it's on Daddy's side....”

Come back to my blog for the best part of this story!!!! “Oink! Oink! Oink!”

Wow! These are delicious........

Dear Gentle Readers,

My husband Walker and I have attended several social functions recently where he cooked his delicious stuffed jalapeño peppers, and boy did the guests vacuum them up! I'm not real interested in making my new blog a recipe resource, but so many people asked for his recipe we thought we might as well make it available here! After doing a quick bit of research on hot peppers, I found out that they have a host of medical uses and even show promise as something that may be useful in slowing down the growth of some prostate cancers, so I feel better that I'm not only entertaining you but giving you something that might improve your health at the same time!

Here goes.........

Walker's Stuffed Jalapeños

Ingredients:

Disposable surgical gloves

12 large, plump jalapeño peppers

2 8 oz. blocks of fat free cream cheese at room temperature

1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese

3 Tablespoons powdered chicken bouillon

Black pepper

Chili powder

Before beginning, PUT ON THOSE GLOVES!. Handling peppers leaves a residue on your hands that will be most unpleasant for you the next time you touch your eyes, nose or other "tender" spot. If you forgot to buy the gloves, coat your hands with cooking oil prior to handling the peppers, then wash thoroughly with soap when through.

Wash and dry the peppers before cutting them. If you cut them under running water, some of the capsaicin, or heat, in the peppers will volatilize and make you cough. Avoid this by washing first then cutting them dry.

Slice the peppers longwise leaving half the stem on each piece. Using a small paring knife, remove the seeds and the white membranes. If you like hotter food, leave more of the white membrane. That is where a lot of the heat in the peppers resides.

In a bowl, thoroughly mix the two blocks of cream cheese, the cheddar cheese, the chicken bouillon and black pepper to taste.

Using a butter knife, spread the soft cheese mixture on each pepper half, filling the cavity and leaving a slight mound. Place on baking sheet. When finished, sprinkle chili powder on each piece as a zippy garnish. Oh yeah- now you can peel off those gloves!

Bake in 375^o oven for 20+/- minutes until peppers lose their bright green color and cheese mixture browns slightly.

Allow to cool a few minutes before removing to a serving tray as the cheese filling will be extra gooey when it is hot. Have cold milk available for your guests who aren't accustomed to eating hot peppers. Drinking milk will help cool the heat in their mouths whereas water, beer, etc. will actually intensify it!

Yield: 24 pepper halves

Calories: Who cares?

Preparation Time: Longer for slow people.