Stevie’s Favorite Treats Were Marshmallows

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Stevie, bless her heart, would do anything for a marshmallow.  If you could make her understand what you wanted, she would enthusiastically do it.  For a miniature marshmallow.  Cold fusion in her in water bowl?  No problem.  Come here now.  With pleasure. Potty Outside. Well, maybe.  That one was a little more difficult. Dachshunds are notoriously difficult to housetrain. 

Stevie was short for Frauleinen Stephanie von Whomper. Yes Frauleinen. Leinen had been my married name.  Dachshunds were originally bred in Germany. My ex-husband’s people were German.  We thought we were so clever with that name.

Stevie was my son’s birthday gift one year. 

An internet friend had come to our house to meet me for the first time.  Negley was a story in herself, but we’ll save that for another time. She brought with her Whomper, her miniature dachshund.

Jeremy fell in love with Whomper.  In all fairness, she was an incredible dog.  It was Jeremy’s first experience with a dachshund. Whomper and Stevie both left an impression on his heart. It took us a few years, but we finally gave Jeremy a dachshund. He’s 40 now and has two dachshunds. He will never not have a dachshund.

My son might disagree, but Stevie was the best dachshund of all.  We got her as an 8-week-old puppy, and I had to keep her hidden for almost three days.  It was over a weekend, and I spent hours in the master bathroom sitting on the floor with a wiggly and tiny dachshund who was falling in love with me. And I her.

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My First Experience with Fine Dining

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Shamelessly Stolen from Vintage Hawaii on Facebook

I’m standing on the boardwalk between teahouses, looking down at the koi glistening in the Honolulu sunset.

I am so thin that everyone thinks they’re being original by calling me Twiggy. This evening, we are celebrating my 8th birthday at the Pagoda Restaurant.  August 3, 1967. We didn’t know it yet, but I would soon be diagnosed with a serious thyroid problem that was rare in kids. 

There were not enough calories to keep me unhungry.  I was never sated.  Never full. My metabolism was always on overdrive due to my hyperactive thyroid.

My father, a career Marine, had been transferred to the Marine base in Kaneohe.  We – my mother, brother, and I – joined him there in May.  We also didn’t know it yet, but my father would soon ship out for another year in Vietnam.  He had just gotten back from his first tour. By the time he left the Marine Corps, he had been through four combat tours.

But on the night of my 8th birthday, we stood on the boardwalk of the Floating Pagoda Restaurant waiting for a table to open.  I was entranced by the fish, but hungry.  As usual.

I think this was my first experience with fine dining. It’s the first one I can remember. The open-air restaurant was all white tablecloths, glistening china, and cold ice water in the first goblets I’d ever seen. The Asian waitresses wore exquisitely embroidered kimonos that gleamed in the light. 

My father was finally back, and we were all together again.  I was so very happy.  I was a Daddy’s girl until the day he died at 79.

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The uterus is not a homing device.

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Photo by Mika Ruusunen on Unsplash

“The uterus is not a homing device,” Rosanne Barr screeched.  I was channel surfing and happened upon her eponymous sitcom just as she uttered that line.  I had never heard the saying before. It turns out that it is an old feminist slogan that is considered overused. 

I laughed out loud.  I did. I sat back and enjoyed the rest of the show.

I’m not much of a television watcher, but that one line hooked me.  Barr was blazingly funny and insightful until she wasn’t. I was a faithful viewer until she, and the show, went off the rails.

Neither my now-ex-husband nor my son can find their own asses with two hands and a flashlight.  I was the designated Finder of Lost Things. By the time I heard Rosanne say, “The uterus is not a homing device,” I was weary of always and forever spending my free time trying to find their lost stuff.

Something snapped, and one time, I quietly responded, “I don’t know where your jockstrap is. I put it away the last time I used it.” And that was my standard response unless the missing item was something important to me.

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The Girl in Black

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Photo by Gioele Fazzeri on Unsplash

Dear Diary,

They think I don’t hear them.  They think I’m oblivious and lost in a haze of weed.  They think I’m a retro Goth.  

I don’t care what my senior class thinks.  I quit caring about sixth grade when the cliques got serious.  I really stopped caring when my great-grandfather died. I wore black to his funeral and have worn black ever since.

They all have no idea, and I like it that way.  I’m not just an introvert, I’m very private.  I don’t even talk to the therapist my social worker has been making me see for two years.  The one my state insurance pays for because we don’t have any money.

I don’t care what my family thinks.  I was a mistreated child that nobody could be bothered to rescue.  My summers with Great-Grandfather are the only reason I’m not a real mess.

I don’t care what anyone thinks.

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