So.....after reading Crystal's blog about her not so monumental achievement at softball practice, it reminded me of the reason I don't play softball. I use to keep score for the GMC softball team back in the day.....I won't say which day or year, but it was mostly before kids! I was pretty good at score keeping, even kept the official score on occasion as well as our own book, and carry on a conversation with all the other spectators on our side and never miss a play. That was my contribution to softball. I would never have dreamed of playing, nor did I have any desire to. Softball was for those who could actually play. I do not have much depth perception so I can't tell when the ball is close enough to hit with a bat and when it's close enough to hit me! I can't field a ball at all....again..that depth perception thing...or it could be that when I was in 5th grade I was hit with a line drive right in the middle of the forehead. It wasn't the type that would knock me out, after all we were only in 5th grade, but it didn't exactly tickle. I have had a fear of baseballs/softballs ever since. I tried once to practice with Jon and kids when they were playing little league and I really thought I had the licked until I ran to catch the ball, got it in my sights...waited till was on its way down and then fear kicked and I ran the opposite direction. That probably explains why Crystal decided that running away from first base when they threw the ball in that direction was a good idea. It may not do much for the team, but it's certainly safer...unless the team decides to lynch you...then you have a whole other problem.
No..I know my limitations....and I certainly know that when it comes to sports my only atheletic prowess is in the game of volleyball. I will run toward the ball, make contact and even take one in the face (mostly accidents because I thought it was farther up than it was), and still come back for more!
The only times I have ever had to play for the church team was when they were short on players and very desperate...and I do mean desperate..we are talking, either I play or they forfiet. I was made (oddly enough) Catcher every time and told when it comes to batting to just stand there and let them pitch to me. I tried to swing once and missed so they told me again to just stand there and let them pitch to me....I guess they really meant just stand there!!
I will stick to being a spectator and score keeping when needed and let Crystal do the actual playing of the sport, becuase it is blatently obvious that I am only an asset to the opposing team!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Dream the Imppossumble Dream!
Anyone who knows me knows I like to do a little writing on occasion. The trouble is I don't not know how to write fiction so everything I write has to be in first person; good for me, not so good for my family. I stumbled upon this hidden interest while I was doing the editing for the church newsletter. I needed a filler for a page and it was close to our 25th wedding anniversary and I decided to write about our wedding....the misadventures of our wedding. As I was writing the story I realized that our life together has never been dull and it all began while we were dating.
While I published the story of our wedding in the church newsletter I started it out with a paragraph from how it started which I never got around to publishing. So, I will tell that story here and now!
What do you do with a guy who terrorizes you with a bag of newspapers claiming it to be the carcass of a dead Oppossum? What else....you marry him. This horrifying incident took place one night when several of the youth group members were over at Jon's parents house decorating their barn for a Halloween party. While doing so they disrupted an animal which turned out to be an oppossum. After getting rid of the animal...(I won't say how) they began to throw a bag of rolled up newspapers around and it would make a thud noise on whatever they banged it against. The lead us to believe it was the animal inside. After discovering how exciting it was to terrorize 4 girls with this bag of harmless newspapers (which hardly ended up being harmless), they sent us running to my car to seek refuge from them. While enduring this so called form of entertainment for them, the time came for me to be home. Since it was my car we had to get the 2 girls in the back seat out, it was a two door car so that meant we had to open the door and risk being attacked by the animal in the bag! I was in the passenger seat, which meant I had to change places with the gal in the driver seat. It was decided that I would climb over her and she would slide over. After she was in place she opened the door at the first sign of a safe opportunity and the other 2 girls jumped out and ran to the house. As we were leaving I checked to make sure I had everything. My purse was there right beside me and everything was fine....until about a 1/2 mile from my home the police pulled me over. I wasn't speeding, I knew that, but I panicked none the less. I pulled over and the officar approached the car and promptly asked for my license. This would be a good place to mention that I had just gotten my license that afternoon not even 8 hours earlier. I reached for my purse ony to discover that it wasn't mine, but my passenger's instead. You see cordouroy and suade feel the same in the dark. I began to frantically look for my purse. I had turned on the lights inside the car and was now hanging over the back seat looking for it on the floor back there, hoping it had gotten shoved to the back somehow throughout the confusion with the so called dead animal in the bag, but it hadn't! I was sure I was going to lose my license, my newly obtained license that I had waited 16 years to get and probably would never see again license! I was a mess by then. When the officer asked me where I had been, I told him at a friends house decorating their barn for a Halloween party. He then asked where they lived and I said, "oh just down the road a bit." Which was true, but it was closer to 5 miles down the road. Seeing how frantic I was the officer and his partner suggested I go home and call them or go back and look for it. I was in no shape to drive the 1/2 mile to my home, let alone 5 miles back to their house and another 5 miles back home, plus..I would be past my curfew if I had gone back. I told them I was closer to home so I would go there and call. Now one thing you have to know about this is that this was 1975 in Edwardsburg, Micigan. No one just goes home without having endured at least a hard time by the police back then. But they did....they didn't even follow me. Oh...but they did reveal the reason they had pulled me over.....the light on the license plate wasn't working! I had just been terrorized by a dead animal in a bag by a 17 year old and his brothers and he was worried about my license plate light???? Argh! Anyway, I made it home, God only knows how with all the hysterics I now had going on and tears and all the trama of the whole evening. The first thing my parents said when I got home??? "Is the car alright?" I managed to calm down enough to tell them that the car was fine...I on the other hand had been tramatized way too much for one day. I told them the story and that trigger my dad's memory and he immediately wen to the kitchen table where he had put all the papers from the BMV that afternoon. Amongst those papers was the registration for the car. Yep, I not only did not have my own license, I didn't have the registration for the car either! Angels watching over me??? You bet! Still being a little upset, my mom phoned over to Jon's house to inquire as to whether my purse was there. It was; in the driveway where it fell out when the door was opened to allow the other 2 victims, I mean girls to escape. When I climbed over the other gal into the driver seat, she slide over and unknowingly pushed my purse in between the door and the seat, allowing it to fall out when the door was opened. We made a trip over there to pick it up and I vowed I would get even with Jon some how; some way....so on November 26, 1977 I married him! 31+ years and 3 kids later we are still together. It has not been dull, believe me, and I have many stories to write to prove that. Our wedding alone was not to be incident free.....ice storms, squirrels and me hitting a tree the day before are just a few of the things that happened, but that will be for another time!
While I published the story of our wedding in the church newsletter I started it out with a paragraph from how it started which I never got around to publishing. So, I will tell that story here and now!
What do you do with a guy who terrorizes you with a bag of newspapers claiming it to be the carcass of a dead Oppossum? What else....you marry him. This horrifying incident took place one night when several of the youth group members were over at Jon's parents house decorating their barn for a Halloween party. While doing so they disrupted an animal which turned out to be an oppossum. After getting rid of the animal...(I won't say how) they began to throw a bag of rolled up newspapers around and it would make a thud noise on whatever they banged it against. The lead us to believe it was the animal inside. After discovering how exciting it was to terrorize 4 girls with this bag of harmless newspapers (which hardly ended up being harmless), they sent us running to my car to seek refuge from them. While enduring this so called form of entertainment for them, the time came for me to be home. Since it was my car we had to get the 2 girls in the back seat out, it was a two door car so that meant we had to open the door and risk being attacked by the animal in the bag! I was in the passenger seat, which meant I had to change places with the gal in the driver seat. It was decided that I would climb over her and she would slide over. After she was in place she opened the door at the first sign of a safe opportunity and the other 2 girls jumped out and ran to the house. As we were leaving I checked to make sure I had everything. My purse was there right beside me and everything was fine....until about a 1/2 mile from my home the police pulled me over. I wasn't speeding, I knew that, but I panicked none the less. I pulled over and the officar approached the car and promptly asked for my license. This would be a good place to mention that I had just gotten my license that afternoon not even 8 hours earlier. I reached for my purse ony to discover that it wasn't mine, but my passenger's instead. You see cordouroy and suade feel the same in the dark. I began to frantically look for my purse. I had turned on the lights inside the car and was now hanging over the back seat looking for it on the floor back there, hoping it had gotten shoved to the back somehow throughout the confusion with the so called dead animal in the bag, but it hadn't! I was sure I was going to lose my license, my newly obtained license that I had waited 16 years to get and probably would never see again license! I was a mess by then. When the officer asked me where I had been, I told him at a friends house decorating their barn for a Halloween party. He then asked where they lived and I said, "oh just down the road a bit." Which was true, but it was closer to 5 miles down the road. Seeing how frantic I was the officer and his partner suggested I go home and call them or go back and look for it. I was in no shape to drive the 1/2 mile to my home, let alone 5 miles back to their house and another 5 miles back home, plus..I would be past my curfew if I had gone back. I told them I was closer to home so I would go there and call. Now one thing you have to know about this is that this was 1975 in Edwardsburg, Micigan. No one just goes home without having endured at least a hard time by the police back then. But they did....they didn't even follow me. Oh...but they did reveal the reason they had pulled me over.....the light on the license plate wasn't working! I had just been terrorized by a dead animal in a bag by a 17 year old and his brothers and he was worried about my license plate light???? Argh! Anyway, I made it home, God only knows how with all the hysterics I now had going on and tears and all the trama of the whole evening. The first thing my parents said when I got home??? "Is the car alright?" I managed to calm down enough to tell them that the car was fine...I on the other hand had been tramatized way too much for one day. I told them the story and that trigger my dad's memory and he immediately wen to the kitchen table where he had put all the papers from the BMV that afternoon. Amongst those papers was the registration for the car. Yep, I not only did not have my own license, I didn't have the registration for the car either! Angels watching over me??? You bet! Still being a little upset, my mom phoned over to Jon's house to inquire as to whether my purse was there. It was; in the driveway where it fell out when the door was opened to allow the other 2 victims, I mean girls to escape. When I climbed over the other gal into the driver seat, she slide over and unknowingly pushed my purse in between the door and the seat, allowing it to fall out when the door was opened. We made a trip over there to pick it up and I vowed I would get even with Jon some how; some way....so on November 26, 1977 I married him! 31+ years and 3 kids later we are still together. It has not been dull, believe me, and I have many stories to write to prove that. Our wedding alone was not to be incident free.....ice storms, squirrels and me hitting a tree the day before are just a few of the things that happened, but that will be for another time!
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