Mom and Dad'isms

These tidbits were written down after my folks died and I found myself spontaneously saying these things out of my own mouth. When my husband or others heard some of them and I realized no one ELSE heard such things, I decided to write them in a little book for posterity, so I won't forget what characters my parents were, realizing they probably got these little sayings from their parents, grandparents, friends, historical items, etc. So here are some of my little "Book of Mom & Dad'isms" ...

INTRODUCTION
Hello! My name is Kyle Lynn Haswell (and, no, they didn't want a boy!) and my parents are both in that Parallel Universe I call Heaven. This book of their sayings, jokes, songs, and my commentary scattered sparsely throughout is a form of grief therapy. Remembering with many emotions, this short, very short list of the words I thought EVERYONE heard and spoke..but have found this not to be true. (I believe it is genetic, as I've become afflicted with inane strings of words only the genes of my ancestors could've assembled.) Most were as heavy sighs, before a yawn. Ennui got fun...
It is notable that they were married 3-29-43 and Pa was buried 3-29-86 and Mom 3-29-93, on what would've been their 50th anniv.
OK, It's "Twilight Time" (beautiful song):

• Never get well if you pick it. (a scab)
• Never notice it on a trottin' horse.
• You don't want much for a quarter.
• Were you raised in a barn?
• Shit the bed and kick it out with your feet!
• Yehudi did it. (anything strange, noise, etc. that no one new where it came from)
• Balls! cried the king and he laughed 'cause he had to (two).
• Guess you need to be born on the other side of the road to get there. (heavy traffic)
• Put something on your feet!
• Cracker ass.
• Fizzy farts and rattlers.
• Don't drop it in the mud.
• Close the barn door, your horse is going to get out.
• Noasitol--best form of birth control.
• Poopin' in high cotton. (got it made)
• Don't get mad, only dogs get mad.
• Pretty fart smeller.
• You're so bright we shoulda called you Sunny.
• Take care of your pennies and your dollars will take care of themselves.
• Winklehawk. (a pimple)
• Like putting silk stockings on a hog. (mostly referring to dressing me up)
• Ask your father.
• Ask your mother.
• Wait 'til your father gets home.
• You're my favorite daughter. (only one)
• She was my 46th birthday present. (me)
• It's the meanness coming out of you. (a blemish/pimple)
• Up your bucket!
• Hanging in there by the skin of my teeth.
• A little bit of powder and paint makes little Kyle something she ain't.
• Talk's cheap but it takes money to buy beer.
• I'm gonna sack in/hit the hay/turn in...
• Daylight in the swamp and the devil's beating on the tan bark.
• You don't mind if I have a little nip, do you? (dad's 'holy water' Christian Brothers brandy mostly)
• 'Tomorrow kick away the stool and dangle from the beam.' (from a poem dad would recite, usually when inebriated--perhaps from Robert Service or Oliver W Holmes?)
• Wash those meathooks. (hands)
• You sound like a coupla Jew peddlers. (dad referring to me and ma bugging him)
• Yak! yak! yak!
• You and your mother are like a couple of plump quail. ;o(
• It's hell to get old, but I'm too old to die young now.
• No bigger than a fart in a mitten.
• Let's get chakkin'. (eating)
• This meat is cooked to rags.
• Shit or get off the pot. (make up your mind)
• Cat fur to make kitten britches. (in ans to: "mama, whatcha got?")
• Ass over diddleberry. (ie falling down a hill)
• Here's your hat, what's your hurry? (ie can't wait til you leave)
• You had a marcelle wave and sounded like a baby crow when you were born. (dad's description of me as gooey wheezy newborn)
• That was before you were the twinkle in your father's eye.
• What ho!
• "Is Mass out?" said the little girl to the priest after falling while trying to get there. "No, little girl, but your skirt is badly torn."
• Nickname for me: Tookey
• Nickname for brother: Buckshot
• ...some spoonerisms: A speen o' boons (spoon of beans); Slopped your dripper (dropped your slipper/from Rindercella as quoted on TV show HeeHaw); The Sonata Rag (Kleenex), Fart smeller (smart feller); Shake a tit (take a shit).
• The shades of night are falling.
• Oh! Horsepucky! (mom heard me say this in junior high and never let me forget it)
• These four walls...
• Someday you won't have me to worry about.
• Hang in...
• Booootiful.
• "...so never run down limburger, just stop and consider, please, you never know when your life may be saved by a poor little piece of cheese." (wish I'd have written the entire poem down but it was one of those roll-my-eyes, oh god, no, he's reciting THAT one again type of thing--if anyone knows it, please let me know!?)
• Two in the hill.
• The sun was hot to Johnny's ass and the sand was hot tamales. (to Molly's)
• Grassy ass (gracias)
• Cookie duster (mustache)
• I could stretch to Boston if I didn't have to walk back.
• I'll beat the bejesus out of ya.
• You look like a Billygaloobird. (?)
• Judas Priest!!
• I'm the Campbell Kid (5' tall 180 lb little apple-cheeked mama--got called it as a kid)
• Titty pink. (Pa's embarrassing reference to color)
• That's certainly nice!! (being facetious)
• Quitcher bawling. Your bladder is too close to your tearducts!
• Where'd you get THAT outfit!? (usually one I was SO proud of)
• You don't even look like yourself any more (drunk mom crying because I'd let my hair grow long and had a perm)
• Take a P-T-A bath (you figure it out)
• Ready to blow my cork!
• Don't pry into me!
• Don't know shit from straight up.
• Which ancestor is coming or going? (dust balls under the bed)
• Goodnight, Irene.
• Blacker than Toby's ass.
• Worthless as tits on a boar pig.
• Coddy Codfish (mom's embarrassing nickname for me)
• That's the only brother (sister) you'll ever have!
• Nobody yikes me. (making fun of our mournful quote when we'd get yelled at)
• The clean plate club (a lie: finish your plate and we'll go on a picnic)
• You can catch a bird if you put salt on its tail (a lie!!! that was my 1st recognizable lie mom told me as she watched the scene from her kitchen window of me sneaking up and when the little yellow canary flew away, I saw her crack up laughing! I was crushed! I think I got over it ;o)
• Sweet violets, sweeter than all the roses--covered all over from head to tip ... covered all over with ssshhweeeet violets.
• In ONE long INHALE I learned to recite: "Happy-go-lucky Bobby Racoon sat on the edge of the laughing brook--Mr. Round-Red-Purple Sun popped up behind the purple hills. Bobby Raccoon's been out all night, you see, and he's apt to get into mischief." I truly DID this, of course, to make Pa proud (even with asthma). ;o)
• The Farmer's Almanac said it was gonna: snow/rain/be nice/freeze, etc. (I just bought myself one...it's fun to read again.)
• You're big enough to play with the Green Bay Packers! ... "No! I yust play with Ole's packer." (joke about Helga off the boat to meet Ole Svenson)
• Hunde scheisse (spelling?) (dog shit in German)
• Hit the nail on the head.
• That's the way the pickle squirts.
• Don't that take the rag right off the bush!
• It's a one-egg cake all right!
• What'd you buy brown for? (this could be for any reason having nothing to do with buying anything or anything brown?)
• If I'd've said scoop shovel, you'd've said pitchfork!
• Play "Far, Far Away" (dad's request re: my piano playing--;o(
• You have those bedroom eyes. (shame game)
• Your eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket.
• You know, we've just got to say no to you. We can't keep helping you every time. (Pa finally telling me how it was)
• We gotta go find Old Baldy. (a sand dunes seemed like 10 miles out into the dunes, as I flogged along with no one but my cousin Wink noticing I'd sat down waaayyy behind them--and "Old Baldy" grew hair, let me tell ya! 'cause we never found it!)
• Must've slept too close to a crack. (caught a cold)
• Your mother's getting her head baked. (beauty parlor)
• Gotta go to the sawbones. (dad's reference to doctor)
• Day late and a dollar short.
• You fried the wrong damn egg!
• Really eating high on the hog!
• Six of one half dozen of the other.
• Three dog night (such as how cold Eskimos are to sleep with how many sled dogs)
• Back to the old grind (and Pa was actually a grinder--in a factory, not the music type)
• Sweet essence of squat drops. (?)
• Sounds like the tune the old cow died to.
• T'ain't me, McGee.
• Shave and a haircut--two bits.
• You can be replaced, you know. (we were told this often ;o(
• You'll be crying before the day's over. (if I was laughing too much)
• Well! By the Great Horned Toad!
• There's a kiss for ya (a fart! ;o(
• Have a little soup with your crackers (or ice cream with your syrup, or salad with your dressing--referring to overuse of crackers, etc.)
• Howdy, Penelope!
• Howdy, Muldoon!
• Ass deep to a tall Indian.
• Back to the Salt Mines.
• Get some shut-eye.
• Your ass sucks buttermilk.
• You dance you gotta pay the fiddler (kinda like, you play you pay, you made your bed now lie in it)
• Got your snorkel, Tookey? (my asthma inhaler)
• If you don't snap out of it, you're going to the hospital! (when I was having trouble breathing!)
• Is that your hatchin' jacket? (a maternity blouse--I never had a baby)
• All I get is a duck pond. (busy signal on the phone)
• This won't hurt, did it? (two bunnies, you-know'ing)
• Moose milk (beer)
• Your mouth runs like a bell clapper to a duck's ass.
• Skinny-well-fed.
• Aw, get up the hill!
• Jigs and Maggie (corned beef and cabbage).
• You have to accept your lot in life. (bull shit)
• Manana (sp? 'tomorrow' in Spanish)
• C'est la vie!
• Get to bed or you'll never get up in the morning! (I always was a nightowl!)
• To have a friend, you need to be one.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.....and I hope any of you who chose to wade through any of this had some fun and a little insight into parts of why I'm who I am. Happy Saturday with love from your SisSTAR! Don't let the bed bugs bite!

bringing light into the world

I'd like to type the page of my Science of Mind magazine for 1/29/09 with the above title:

***

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the power to turn a life around." -Leo Buscaglia

***

"Have enthusiasm and, above all, have a consciousness of love--a radiant feeling flowing through your consciousness at all times." - The Science of Mind, page 184

***

We attract what we mentally become. When we become kind, we attract kindness back. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and the second is to love our neighbors. When we do the second, we are living the first. Someone once said, "Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will m ake him wag his tail."

Rabbi Byron Sherwin relates the story of a man who was inconsolable at the death of his wife. Finally, he said to the rabbi, "You don't understand. I loved my wife, and once I almost told her." How many times have we almost said "I love you?" How many times have we almost asked for forgiveness? How many times have we almost offered to help someone? Today is a good day to begin. We never know how much a small gesture will affect someone else's life.

I read a story about a soldier coming back from the Vietnam War who was frightened about the reception he might receive. A young girl sitting next to him reached out and gave him a magazine. Her acceptance and generosity deeply touched him. Remembering this little act of kindness led him to a life of giving to others. He ended the article with these words: "I have to believe that my small gestures have the same effect on others, and to that little girl now a woman, I would like to take this opportunity to say again, 'Thank you.' "

affirmation:

Today, I reach out and tell someone I love them. I make kindness and compassion a regular part of my life.

*******************

Thanks for visiting if you did so. I consider it a gesture of kindness when someone reads my chosen words, be they my own or words from somewhere else. I would ask that all of you look others in the eyes with a twinkle in your own and a smile on your lips and say, "I love you," in whatever way is true.

Love from Your SisSTAR

xoxoxoxoxo

Some Memories on a Short Ride to Work

Quite often I don't have much time to listen to any decent songs on the radio on my way to work since it takes from 10-15 minutes to get there. But I do have time now and then to have little memory sessions. I live in the home my parents built and after Mom died in 1993, we bought the place and I've lived here since June 1994. I was sorta getting down on myself for not making much "progress" in my life, driving the last 2 yrs to the new location of my job, and even obtaining a 2nd job in the same new location on the same floor of the bldg. So I head 1/2 mi to Livernois where I turn right ... and on the left a ways up the road is a house my ex-sister-in-law lives in. She was the first one of the 4 sisters and 3 brothers I met when my brother was dating her ... then I met her brother, also my brother's friend, and ended up marrying him...for a little while. Traveling farther up Livernois I come to the intersection at Hamlin and right at that corner is a house where an elementary school friend lived and her mom was our Brownie Scout leader when I was 8 or 9. I'd gone to a pajama party sleepover and I guess I was just having too much fun laughing and ended up having a very bad asthma attack where all the rest of the little girls were staring at me choking for air as I sat on the toilet--once the old diaphragm gets going in and out like an accordion playing a hot polka, I seem to remember it creates some havoc with the bowels. Anyway, the parents had called the fire dept, an ambulance, and my mother. I was sitting on the toilet with the girls staring, when 2 very young and attractive paramedics came in to put an oxygen mask over my face. I was so very embarrassed sitting there on the toilet. I remember my little 5 foot tall mother flying in there flinging little girls left and right and saying, "get out of here and give her some air" and I kept clawing the oxygen mask off my face, feeling just suffocating. There weren't any inhalers in those days, but they must've given me some adrenaline or something and I had a horrible headache. I believe I ruined the pajama party for the most part, but one thing I remember before my mother took me home was my friend's father massaging my temples and helping my heart not hurt so much. I remember how kind that was and how much it meant to me. Strangely enough, he is buried at the cemetery by my parents, just a few gravesites away (about 1-1/2 miles from this same corner, on Hamlin). Then I travel farther down Livernois and pass Avon Rd and in a short while I see a big blue "H" signifying the back entrance to Crittenton Hospital, an entrance all of us silently took during a big full moon on March 27, 1986 at 3:30 a.m., to say goodbye to my father who had just died there. I keep driving on Livernois 1/8th of a mile and I can see Crittenton Hospital, where both my parents died 7 yrs and 1 day apart. But on the south side of Livernois is Rochester High School, good old RHS, home of the Falcons, where I graduated in 1970, going half days (unfortunately I went in the early mornings) while they built the 2nd high school of this school district, Adams. After school I'd walk across Livernois and up University to the little barn in the front parking lot at Crittenton and worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield billing for Co-Op. But for now, I turn left at the intersection of Livernois and once left, it is known as Walton Blvd...and I don't turn left on Rochdale where I used to go every week to have wonderful massages from Larry (someone I'd gone to high school with!) but I turn right into a building where my parents doctor used to have an office, and remember some of the times I'd taken either of them to their appointments, the last right after dad fell and hit his head on his dresser corner and was bleeding internally, developing pneumonia, and was supposed to have an appt, but instead he had to go into the hospital where he never returned from. There are stray cats out by the dumpster in our parking lot. I've been asked 3 times not to feed them and I complied a very long time, until more kittens were born just before winter and I sneak some food to them when I'm able to, and I see others do the same. They deserve better, but for now that's the best I can do.

So that is my 10-15 minute "memory lane" on the road to work. A veer this way or that would reveal so many more memories, and I can go past all 3 of the schools I went to thru the 13 years in this consolidated school district from Hamlin Elementary, to West Jr High and good old RHS, all in one trek to work or back, depending on if I do a bank deposit or not. So...I may not have progressed too far, but don't let anyone tell you you can never go home again, but I know that's not true. I'm sitting here in the "Blue Room", the same room where dad fell and hit his head, the room where my parents made their bedroom, probably the room where I was conceived, and I am facing northwest ... only 240 miles NW was where my folks came from, where my brother and I were both born, and where he died in a car accident.

When I grew up in this house there were cows and a few horses fenced in all around us, not ours but they could come right up to our driveway or orchard and we would feed them apples or sugar cubes. One cow had a calf right beside the driveway. I loved to hear the cows mooing and the horses whinneying, and I really loved to hear the old trains crying in the background, around Livernois somewhere. They're not around any more, but I am, and so are my memories.

Oh, yeah, one of the first things I can remember on my way to work, trying to make a left hand turn onto Auburn, was my mom saying, "I guess you have to be born on the other side of the road to get there." ;oD Yep! Lots of population around now. Dad always seemed to be ahead of his time choosing lands that became popular and over-populated. But much of what he planted and built here still stands ... and all 5'5" of me is part of that.

Happy New Moon and New Year of the Ox, Bloggie Souls xoxo

Your SisSTAR xo

Blessed Be All of Thee

Jack Frost

Hibernation

Saturday afternoon, lazily nappin' after being out in the Tundra

(practice digital photo #2)

Tuffy just wanted Mom to leave him alone

His "human people" are getting

cabin fever and we'd better find something

to do, somewhere to go, before we

go stark raving mad or start being

meanies--take Tuffy's cue and

paw at each other with our claws out!

Oh, no!!

Be brave, bundle up, get outside, go for a ride!

maybe to Borders for MORE books,

or Blockbuster for MORE movies!

same old song and dance!

(cabin fever, cabin fever!)

And, Happy Birthday Edgar Alan Poe,

on Monday! 200 years, I hear!

Didn't see a Raven out there in the snow

but a HUGE Hawk is out there

trying to scare up some protein!

its gotta eat, too ;o(

Over and out!

SisSTAR

KLH

(keep laughin' honeys!)

xoxoxoxo

snug as a bug in a rug

EEEeeeee! my brother-in-law gave me what I thought was a teeny little piece of shit digital camera and Jeff and I were finally playing with it and this is my first photo. I wanted to see if it would be worth using, and turns out, I wish I would've saved the other 25 I just took - ha ha! But this is just a practice one of a part of a vase in the kitchen. Not bad...this could be fun for little photos for my bloggies. Wheeee! Fun!
Thanks, Ronald!!! (yeah, like you ever read my blog!)
SisSTAR (I call myself the Sister-Out-Law)
tee hee xoxo

Happy 1st Full Moon

I hauled the old coathanger peace sign I made many years ago with the blue lights wrapped around it and a few items of jewelry and ornaments (even a MSU hockey helmet in the center for Jeff ;o) It was one of our few holiday decorations. It would go for days and all of a sudden the lights would start blinking instead of holding steady. The little plate of a boy in the window at the left is called "Daddy's Home" and my nephew Dana gave it to me.
I'm not sure which position these photos will end up as I'm always surprised that things don't go the way I plan and then I either can't figure out how to edit them correctly or just say, what the hell!? but wanted to just share a few today. I use an old Canon T-50 35 mm and haven't delved into digital yet. I'm able to get one copy of prints and a CD to download for about $12 for 24 which is always a thrill for me.
Last night the Full Moon was out and we got over 10" of snow. The giant black walnut tree you can see behind the peace sign in the window was all covered, but the moon's shadow of it on the snow and the snow glinting like diamonds all over made me put on my pink Crocs with the fuzzy lining and go out in my nightgown so I could look at it all around 2 a.m. I need to figure out how to do night photography because it looked like constellations all over the ground. It was very surreal and I loved it so much.
OK, over and out for now. Much love, warmth, peace and joy from your SisSTAR xoxo


Kinda hard to see the full mystical branch of the Tree of Heaven here, but to the right there is an opening like two serpents kissing (or a Claddagh sp?) and to the left it seems to be a tuning fork or a dowsing rod, and the well is behind the original 50 foot tree to the right (not part of photo). Many branches fell years ago and we left them, and this one is so awesome. You can see how tall it was.

















The Angel Wing begonia was given to me by my "Other Mother" Margie less than a week before she died in her sleep Oct 1994 as a cutting. It tripled in size this year. Sits on top of the TV in the SE corner of the living room. To say I have orange walls and purple drapes makes some want to be ill, but I like to call it Terra Cotta and Raisin (actual names of paint/drapes). I have a southwestern thing going on in there which I love.

Saturday Morning

It's dumping snow on us again but it's Sat morning so, wheee! I was going to post one of last year's wintery photos then I found this from last spring's pond and it just felt "springy". Hey! I gotta dream! That little corkscrew in the middle is just having fun, being its self in the midst of chaos.

I am very excited about this being the 2nd Saturday of the new year. The past week with both docs back from their holiday vacations, let's just say I'm going to ignore my body's signs screaming at me, "What the hell?" doing stacks of typing and calling myriad patients wanting their meds and appts ... new people sounding desperate for something. I made it through and my "Cubbyhole Sweet Cubbyhole" along with one suite even got painted an awesome light caramel color. So much better than the pale aqua it had been (me being such an earthy person).

I am getting ready to type up a friend's Goddess reading I did for her at the crack of NY's day. It's a good one, she'll be happy. Call me a glutton, but when I'm typing, esp something I think is interesting, it is a joy for me-greased lightning. I'm going to keep them limber as long as they'll fly along and strive to figure out how to not feel so intense when I do so to give the old neck muscles a break. But! the real reason I'm lucky is that Mr. Wonderful is out in the kitchen, playing a really good Dixie Chicks CD while he's making us "hearty" eggs (a sweet 4-heart pan my brother and sister-in-law gave me many Xmases ago), potatoes, bacon and toast, throw in some fruit and, voila! I'll do the dishes ;oD and look out the corner window by the sink my dad built esp for my mom (who was 5' tall) and look out onto the winter wonderland scene of cedars, pine, trees of Heaven, grapevines, apple and pear trees, lilacs 30' tall, the giant black walnut, the special 3 cedars brother gave me as seedlings, as well as the "magic branch of the Tree of Heaven" which looks like the dowsing rod and Claddagh and is pointing to the Well. I always thought and still do that it is so awesome that my family name is Haswell and Kyle Has-a-well! It is a very old well which no doubt went with a huge farm before this old 1940s subdivision was divided up. I often dream of what it was like then. We have 2 of the 3-1/2 acres my dad had and even though there are more homes around us now, we still have a beautiful scene out the south windows, and the kitchen sink faces southwest (hello Arizona! ;oD)

Tuffy Boy is frisky with little to do for now. He tried to go outside and ran under the van since the snow is "ass deep to a tall indian" as my folks used to say. He saw some little birds under the van so he ran out there and I made a bunch of noise to upset the apple cart there. He decided it wasn't much fun scrunched up under the van peeking out at whiteness. Oops! spoke too soon. He was whining his Whinin' Boy catterwawling so he's back out, no doubt ready to scrunch under the van - ha! Not for long, I'm sure. I yelled out for all the birdies to beware, the Tuffster was coming.

You bloggie souls out there have a mighty fine 2009 Second Saturday and know I am sending you highest and best good wishes for wholeness in body, mind, spirit and soul.............poof!

(and I sign off listening to a raging How Will I Ever Get To Heaven Now? by the Chicks!)

Love from

SisSTAR xo

SisSTAR of the C.O.D.E.

Self Portrait/Bathroom Mirror

***

Happy Birthday, Kahlil Gibran!

***

Freezing rain/sleet outside--waiting for my honey to come home.

Nothing much to say, but I'll say it anyway,

the Cat went out in the snow, to meet Daddy when he

comes home...

Day 2 of the normal "back to the grind"

yet it's busier by far for this time

Hearty chilli and chocolate pie

can say I've made no resolutions, not just yet

Chinese New Year coming soon and I'll wait for that

I think the Ox will be stubborn

but probably kinder than the Rat

So I'm wishing you all a

Mighty Fine New Year!

Here's to you and here's to me

and if we disagree,

then I say here's to me

and here's to you!

A Mighty Fine 2009

Peace on Mother Earth,

the Universe

and Beyond!

Sending highest and best wishes

to you gods and goddeses out there!

You know who you are!!!

from

Your SisSTAR

xoxoXOXOxoxo

XXXXX

xxx

x