Almost As Bad as a Boy named Sue

I hated my name growing up.

All my friends could buy bicycle license plates, or barrettes or cute note paper with their name emblazoned across it.

But, no not me!

Once in a great while I stumbled across something, but it was always spelled LuAnn instead of Luanne.

Not only was I disappointed with my name for lack of bling, but I can't begin to tell you how many times my friends and relatives misspelled it. Finally in the 8th grade I decided that if I couldn’t beat them, I might as well join them and embrace what they were doing, and I began spelling my name differently on each school paper I turned in.

One time I wrote LuAnn, the next LouAnn, then Louann, Louanne, LouAnne, LuAnne, Luann and once even LooAnn.

My teacher, Sister Marcine , didn't find this exercise one bit amusing, and when each paper was returned, the normal C+ grade was accompanied by a large red pen circle around my name. Finally, deciding that enough was enough, Sister Marcine made a comment that went something like this:

"Had you been paying as much attention to your
lessons as you have been to creating a new spelling for your name the last few weeks, perhaps your grades wouldn't have fallen so dramatically. Stop this foolishness NOW, and get busy!"

My parents agreed wholeheartedly, and not wanting to risk having every privilege taken away from me, I agreed cease and desist the name changes.

High School was even more of a drag when it came to my name.

Whenever Barb, my BFF, would walk down the hall, guys would sing Ba Ba Ba Ba Barbara Ann, to her.

And to Peg they would sing "Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue, oh how my heart yearns for you, my Peggy my Peggy Sue."

Then there was Diane who was serenaded with “Oh please stay by me Diana”, and Judy heard, “Well now its Judy’s turn to cry Judy’s turn to cry, Judy's turn to cry i i” , and finally my friend Laura often heard, “Tell Laura I love her, tell Laura I need her, Tell Laura not to cry, my love for her…will never die.

It seemed all sooooo romantic back in high school.

Even my boyfriend Ed had a song "Eddie My Love". Perpetually late for a date because he was either hunting or milking cows, I often serenaded him before a date by singing “Please Eddie, don’t make me wa ait too long.”

But alas there was no song sung about Luanne, or even LuAnn for that matter (sigh) I was doomed to live a life void of romanticism.

But finally circa the 80's, the group Foreigner came to my aid, (just a tad bit late however) with this song.

Now if only I could find some nice guy to come and sweep me off my feet by serenading me with this song, well let me just say.... life might actually be perfect.

Super Powers

Oh how I would love to have one super power.

It would be the ability to go back in time and live certain moments over once again.

With all the snow that has been accumulating in my neck of the woods, I've been thinking of the big snow days of yesteryear; days of building inanimate objects out of snow.

I never really grasped the idea of building a snowman? After all what can you do with a man made out of snow.

Instead, my sister and I made lovely horses, and spent all afternoon in fantasy land as we rode our wild stallions to exciting far away places and became heroines for a moment in time.

Those were such carefree days.

When we spotted Daddy's panel truck turning into the driveway late in the afternoon, we squealed with delight and eagerly ran to greet him. Embracing him with tiny balls of snow clinging to our fuzzy mittens, we dragged him off to see our creations.

To have daddy home made us feel safe, it made our world complete.

Tuesday night I went to Lansing for dinner with some friends.

The weather forcast was calling for blowing and drifting snow so my friend M offered to drive her 4 wheel vehicle. As we drove along I realized how enoyable it was to not be the one behind the wheel. I sank deeper into the seat and savored the reprieve.

Living by myself means always being the driver. It's another one of those little things I miss and took for granted.

Being the head of the household does have its rewards, but every so often I wish I could go back to the days when I could be independent because I chose to be that way and not because circumstances forced it upon me.

Somedays I long for a Prince Charming no matter how unhealthy I know that it can be. Putting those expectations on a partner can be damaging for both parties. What I think made our marriage work so well is that we took turns bearing each others burdens and one time he was the strength in our marriage and the next time it would be me. Both equally satisfying.

Yep, having a husband only in your memories, is a lot like building a man out of snow. What can you do with him? Where's the give and take. Sometimes life is so disproportionate.

I took some advice from a friend a few years ago. She told me no one is exempt from an occassional pity party. How long we choose to party is up to us. She told me to let my party last 15 minutes and after that its time to

My 15 minutes is up so I best go change my clothes.

Happy New Year

Happy 2009


Emotions are crazy things, one minute your laughing the next you're crying. That's the way the last few days have been for me.


Tuesday was card club. It was also Al's birthday, and a month ago she offered to have club at her house. Al lives about 20 some miles from the rest of us and she hates to drive at night and especially in bad weather. So hosting the party on her birthday seemed better than driving.

Like most of the single women I know, Al seldom cooks a meal. So, she decided rather than try and cook something, she'd like to take us all out to lunch and after go back to her house to play cards.


We met at a Chinese restaurant. Umm Umm Good. I had string bean chicken that was to die for.

This group of women has a 40 year age spread but you wouldn't know it when we get together.

We laugh until we cry. We bring out the best in each other but for some reason we also make a lot of cracks about our sexless lives. If anyone over heard us they might think we are a bunch of hussies who would jump the first male that crossed our path. We wouldn't think of it. 4 or 5 would have to cross our path before we'd jump their bones. Just kidding. See, I bet some of you didn't believe I had that in me.


The restaurant where we had lunch is near one of the hospitals. On this day several tables were full of men only in business attire. It was like having our dessert before dinner. Oh my, were we mumbling some choice things under our breath. And of course the things we were saying were so far from our real character, that it made it even funnier.


I started the potty mouth stuff last year when we took a bus trip to Branson. We boarded the bus at 5 am the first morning and made our first stop for breakfast at McDonalds an hour later. We were all half asleep when the bus driver announced that the right side of the bus, my side, would be getting off first. As I stood and moved into the aisle I leaned over to my two friends on the left side and said "Oh goody I can't remember the last time a man let me get off first" They laughed so loud the entire bus wanted to know what was so funny. It sure woke us up. And my friends followed suit and began coming up with one liners of their own.


Now, whenever we get together it continues. Tuesday at the restaurant we laughed so hard people kept looking at us. When the waitress brought Al a birthday cake and we started singing, every table around us joined in.


As we were getting up to leave the table next to us told Al happy birthday and Al said thank you and added "I hope we didn't disturb your lunch by our rather raucous behavior , but we are a group of widows out having a good time."

The ladies laughed out loud and said "That explains why you're having such a good time. You're not married."


The afternoon of cards held even more laugher.


When we got back to the house we opened a bottle of wine and toasted Al. As soon as the wine got to Barbs lips she had one of her famous hot flashes, so we turned on the ceiling fan. When it was my turn to discard I threw my card towards the pile and the breeze from the fan caught it just right and the card went into the crack of the table. I couldn't do that again in a million years and we laughed again.


Finally at 9:15 we called it a night. To our surprise we'd gotten several inches of powdery snow that was still falling and blowing. I was happy that one glass of wine was my limit and that it had been 6 hours earlier.


As I was pulling out of the driveway, I said outloud "Jesus be our co-pilot" and everyone answered "Yes Jesus Please"


I white knuckled it all the way. The interstate was really slick but I could follow the tail lights of the car in front of me to stay on the road. But when we turned off the interstate and on to the highway there was no one in front of me and I had a terrible time seeing the road.



Our laughter had died down and I think we were all praying silently. Just before getting to the road my friend lived on I could feel that my right side was riding the lip of the road and I tried to get it back on the road. I must have over compensated because the van started going sideways. Big ditches were on both sides. I pressed the brake firmly not pumping them and the van finally came to a stop. We were on the road still, but heading the opposite direction.


"Thank you Jesus" we said in unison. Then someone asked where the car had gone that was behind us. She had noticed the lights just before we skidded. Someone else thought they had seen a car coming towards us , but amazingly none were in our path like they should have been. We all felt like we had just experienced a miracle.


Funny how the feelings change in a moment.


Last night a few of us went to church, then to dinner and then to a movie. The same changes of emotions occured. We started on a spiritual high going to church and remembering the blessing of the night before. We met for dinner and laughed and shared stories with those not with us the night before and then we went to see Marley and Me and laughed til we cried, and then wept.

I was exhaused by the time I said good night to this great group of friends.





Peace and Blessings in this new year.