From the Editor

Living in this crazy world, I have realized how many crazy experiences I have had that may be fun for others to read. No, not an autobiography, but just stories. When did I decide to do this, last week when I was playing 'Two Truths and a Lie' with my kids. I had been giving them vignette after vignette that they could  not believe were true. They asked my friend, boring Amy, to go, and she said "I have not had the experiences your mom has had." That is when I thought, true, I should get some of this stuff down. 

I have always been a story teller, but not much of a writer. So, please forgive me if I do not follow all of the commonly agreed upon conventions. I would prefer to write as I would talk. 

Crazy - I know!

PS Amy is not boring; she is awesomely fun and full of energy and like a quadruplet to me. 

PPS To read my stories - click on the right side bar and choose a few. Happy reading.

Cut Throat Cranium

Bob first met Paul when we drove to Reston, Va to visit my bestie Barb. They got along fabulously. Since we are such a game playing family, we brought Cranium with us.

We decided to divide into boys vs. girls: Chad, Bob and Paul against me, Barb and Katy. It did not take log before we were knee deep into intense competition. We played each night and when we left, we wrapped the Cranium cards in plastic, enclosed it in duct tape, and initialed over the tape. We wanted to ensure that no one peeked at the cards before the next competition.

The next time we got together, we had a very intense competition, close game, and we were all on our game. I was acting out a card, with Katy and Barb trying to guess. Katy was throwing out random guesses, when Barb got totally freaked out at her and screamed "SHUT UUUUUUPPPPPPPP!" 13 year old Katy was astonished, shocked, dumbfounded, and confused, but she quieted down. Barb then was able to focus and guessed the correct answer for the big WIN! The Big W was very important each and every time we played.

Before our next get together, we decided to make team shirts. We bought white t-shirts and decorated them with brains and "champions" using colored paint pens  Our competitors got wind of our team spirit and decided to one-up us. Bob hired a silk-screen professional to design and create magnificent t-shirts for team hombre. Lucky for us, the  silk-screen professional was a turn coat!

We drove down to Reston for the big tournament. The boys went to the Smithsonian Museum for the day and plotted their game strategy. They also made the big decision of when to put their uniforms on. The competition began, Dudes won game 1, Gals won game 2. The boys went into the basement to discuss their game 3 strategy, while down there they were going to don their gay apparel. But they could not find their team uniforms. We knew of their evil plan and had confiscated the shirts, altered them to fit team awesome! We crossed out Bob's name and wrote over it Barb, Katy for Paul, and me for Chad. If only we had thought to get their picture when they came up the stairs and saw us in their marvelous shirts. They were heartbroken and we were joyful and triumphant!

The next few meetings of the teams we wore those shirts as a psych-out. Drove the boys crazy. As the years have passed and members of the teams have gone their separate ways, we fondly remember our robust competitions. Currently, whenever we visit Barb, we can count on her to dress in her Bob shirt. Nothing like a little "in your face!" I am so lucky to be married to a good sport.

Thou Shalt Not Litter

One of the craziest things about living in Naples, Italy was how nonchalant they were about ignoring a social norm that is ingrained in most Americans. So much so, that I still feel guilty for a plastic cup flying out of my hands at the East Aurora Easter Egg Hunt hosted by the nursing home two days ago. DO NOT LITTER. 

Even in Rome, Italians were unconcerned with this American Sin. My good friend, Lorainne and I, were walking out of the Vatican behind a group of nuns when one of them violated this fundamental edict. She blew her nose in a tissue and very purposefully discarded the nasty to her side. We were shocked. Although, I am not sure why, this was not the first liter transgression we had witnessed, but this was the first from a nun, whom we held to a higher standard. We briefly considered confronting our pious offender, but decided against it. The possibility of holy retribution was too overwhelming.


When I first moved to Italy, one of the largest culture shocks to my system was getting used to the amount of trash on the sides of the roads. I would have to drive very defensively from my apartment to the military base, darting and weaving between oncoming trash bags. You see, garbage collection was very expensive, so, often, a national would dispose of their bulging kitchen bag through the drivers side window, thus causing chaos on the road. The flow of traffic and the wind would manipulate the garbage off to the side, where someone later would throw a match and the piles of trash would go up-in-smoke.   

While I absolutely loved my years in Italy, I always kept my eyes up, enjoying the wonderful architecture, the amazing view of the Mediterranean, and hosts of loving Neapolitans.   

Italians are not the only violators, it turns out Ethiopians chuck their fair share of trash as well. I brought two of my children home from the airport in Rochester to Canton, their first car ride in American, not knowing the cardinal rule (a substantial rule that must not be broken at anytime!) My new Americans rolled down the car window and tested the  flight path of a box of french fries. I was horrified. I pulled over, ran and picked up the box and tried my best to explain the "Thou Shalt Not Litter" commandment. They thought it was hysterical, this crazed woman who cared so much for their french fries. However, I have succeeded in indoctrinating them and it is doubtful that any of my children would ever be violators again.

Although, I had put forth intense effort in chasing that plastic cup the wind has claimed a few days ago, I am still left feeling like a capital sinner. 

Lover Boy

I definitely breast fed Sky for a few too many months. At 3 years old, Sky was already a lady killer. Everywhere he went, he had women on his arm. Sometimes two. He would convince large-breasted women to read him a story so he could snuggle into the mama-jamma's. He was so excited when he got tall enough to fit right in. He was often heard saying, "I wanna hug." 

Bob's Hornet

At 16, Katy was learning how to drive. Bob decided to take her on a long country road to a small city so she could get used to city driving. On the way, her first time on a long stretch of road, they were driving with the windows open. Bob had his arm hanging out the window when a hornet flew up the sleeve of his short-sleeve t-shirt. The hornet stung Bob in the back three times, he started screaming. Katy yelled, "Should I pull over?" Bob replied "NO!!" Bob wiggled back and forth to try to kill the hornet between the seat and his back, in the process of doing this, the hornet made it down his pants and started stinging his butt. 

Katy again hollered, "Do you want me to pull over?" Bob was not ready to relent, and emphatically told Katy to keep going. 

 After the hornet had succeeded in stinging Bob 4 times in the butt, Katy yelled out again "Are you sure you don't want me to pull over?" Bob screamed back, "Yes, Yes, pull the frig over!" He jumped out of the car and yanked his pants down. The hornet escaped and flew down near the ground. Bob, not wanting to allow the hornet to live, scootched after it with his pants around his ankles not able to get full stride. The hornet won and Bob looked back at the car, pants still around his ankles. He wondered where Katy was. She was face down on the passenger seat, laughing so hard she had to hold her stomach to contain the pain. 

Bob got back into the car with 7 hornet stings on his back and butt.

You guys are so immature

I graduated from high-school early. Why? Because I really wanted to get out of there. Wow, what an experience high-school was. Just a mosh-pit of raging hormones. I left and went to college at Virginia Commonwealth University. I only stayed there one semester before missing my good friends from home. So, I decided to transfer to the University of Buffalo with my buds, Kay and Barb.

We got ourselves into a very large 6 person room with three unknowns. The first week of school we noticed something strange about one of our roommates, Ellen had brought her cabbage patch doll. Not only had she brought it, she changed it into day clothes in the morning and pajamas every evening. We had to do something drastic!

We devised a devious plan to kidnap cabby. We took her, and left cutout ransom notes on Ellen's bed. 

"Leave $5.00 

behind the toilet of 

stall number 2 tonight 

if you ever want to see 

cabby alive again." 

We took pictures of cabby in different locations all over campus. We got her with her head in the toilet, hanging out of the 9th story window, on the bus, under a car tire, wherever we thought would be funny. Kay , Barb and I laughed and laughed and laughed at how clever we were. We wrote many versions of the ransom note, but Ellen never paid. On the last day of the semester, we decided to kill cabby. We cleared our furniture out of the center of the room, tied a special knot in a heavy rope, set up a spot light, and got ready for the ceremonial hanging of cabby.     

When Ellen walked in the room and took in the macabre scene, she walked to the center of the seance, untied cabby, and stated 

"You guys are so immature." 

That declaration has been used numerous times in many of our escapades since. 

Fam

My family is a strange one. I will NOT change names to protect anyone. They did it, now they have to live up to it. My dad is a Scottish and English business man, my mom is an English and Cherokee Indian mom. My sister is a computer geek and my brother is a drug dealer. I am 48 and done. What do I mean by that? I mean that if I died today, I will have no regrets, I have lived a happy and full life already. I actually said those words at 40, and I have had another 8 years full of even more experiences. I am not only done, I am overflowing. 

For example, when one of my mom's many siblings died, we shoveled the dirt onto his bagged body on a hillside by the Kentucky-West Virgina boarder. You get it? As I write this, do I have to go in chronological order, should I arrange my stories by topic or category, maybe alphabetical by subject?..... naw, I think I will just spew as the stories pop into my memory. 

This picture was taken on a Christmas cruise in 2006. We went with my brother the pharmacist, his wife and 7 kids, my sister, her husband and two kids, and me and my husband and three of my kids.

Family below: 

Dad - Don   Mom - Beulah 

Sister - Vicky S.O:  Tom  Kids: Brendan, Sarah 
Brother - Doug S.O:Bev   Kids: David, Tory, Aaron, Nicole, Jessica, Sarah, Donny                                
Me - Donna   S.O:Bob      Kids: Chad, Katy, Josh, Sky, Lydia