JIM D. & ME pt 1 (reprise)

after that warm and fuzzy new years in front of the microwave

oven work'n on yer 5th bag of radioactive styrofoam marinated in yellow dye #5 sludge coated with just enough iodine crystals to cause yer blood pressure to blast into the outer limits of space just like yer grama used to make as you OD on the latest covid marathon you’ve seen fer the umpteenth time...

it made me think about the many bowls of Orville that i scarfed down with my grama VIOLA while watch'n endless reruns that i never got sick of and could almost recite word fer word at this point...like

"HAZEL" "GOLDEN GIRLS" and "MURDER SHE WROTE"

to this day i OD on these shows and think back on simpler times and had

decided it was time to fer me to have the simplest complex mini vaca from my ramblins' so i could restart my engine and figered i would take the month of jan off (why not!) to address more press'n matters at hand and rerun a blog i ran 5 years ago that was written by the matriarch of our diminish'n irish and not-so-catholic-anymore family...my grama Viola...written pre-blog world in her own words...it gave me a sense that some treasures are worth repeat'n...so see you in feb with all new hard hitt'n nagg'n nonsensical words of wisdom...this is a 4 part series...enjoy!

early on march 1, 1929 our third child was born.

It had been a very difficult birth. I was still groggy from the sedation so all the nurse told me was that I had a 9lb. 10oz. son then wheeled me back to my room for a much needed rest.

My mother and husband came in to see me and i remarked "You both look as though you have seen a ghost." She replied that she supposed they were tired from the long vigil and for me to try and sleep.

They were spared giving me an answer as later the head nurse came into my room, put her arms around me and said "There is something wrong with your baby."  She explained there was a sac at the base of the spine and mentioned the term Spina Bifida. I had never heard of the word. I was young and did not realize just what she was telling me
(how ignorant one can be at 24).

I figured it was some small thing that would be outgrown in time.  She explained there was an opening between two vertebrae and that the spinal fluid pushed out into a sac at the base of the spine. I remember asking her if it would be more noticeable as he grew up. She replied that it would not. I know she was trying to spare my feelings and in a way I am thankful she did not make me realize the seriousness of the defect.

Later when my son was brought to me I peeked down the back of his 

diaper and saw the sac, about the size of my closed fist. We took my son home at the end of my stay in the hospital but first we had him baptized in the hospital chapel as our doctor advised, saying that sometimes these children did not live long.

We had a fifteen months old boy at home (we had lost our first baby, a girl) and realized he was paralyzed from the waist down. For some reason I did not panic but took care of him as i had my other child and things went along from day to day much as they had before. We had named the new baby James Donald but from the first, he was Jimmy to everyone.

At first the sac was the size of my two fists and did not present too great a problem when he was carried about. As he grew older the sac grew so we made several trips to the Mayo Clinic with Jimmy hoping something could be done but the answer was always the same "good home nursing" and each time the doctors there would advise us to "postpone the operation".

As he grew the sac also grew and soon it became more cumbersome. I then devised a harness and binder of muslin to enable the weight to be taken up by his shoulders and this worked out very well. His legs had been paralyzed from the start and could not be in any but a sitting position. Jimmy started pushing himself around the floor on his little

bottom with his legs held out in front of him. This gave me an idea. I figured out a way for him to get around and my dad was able to carry out my idea. I designed a sort of cart which we called the kiddie car. It was in the shape of a horse shoe but with a solid center.

My father made a low cart, just inches off the floor with swivel castors at the back and an axle with two 8 inch wheels at the front, this enabled him to wheel himself around the floor. This developed his arm muscles so he could scoot around amazingly fast. Jimmy could wheel himself around the floor faster than his brother could walk.

We always had to be on the lookout that he was not injured as it would

not take too great a blow to rupture the sac. The years went by and eventually he graduated to a wheel chair and soon it was time for Jimmy to go to school. We lived in the country the first fourteen years of his life and i was able to wheel him to school as the schoolhouse was on our property. He attended school just afternoons and I would push him there and then go get him. The neighbor children offered to push him over but i was always afraid someone would tip him over on the rough ground. He did fine in school and made a lot of friends.

Sometimes in the winter the snow presented a problem and I would tie a rope onto the front of the wheelchair and two of his brothers would pull while I pushed through the drifts. Clothing also was a problem as he was incontinent and I had to figure out a way to avoid the soiling of his trousers. I ripped the back seam of the pants down and then cut over to the side seam making sort of wings on the sides of the pants. He sat on a large cushion with a thick pad under him. His belt went through the loops of the pants and held them in place. He always had a large pillow across his back to protect the sac and to give his back some support.

to be continued next week...now GET OFF MY DRESS!

so i dated a serial killer...ALMOST!

like most of the many 10's of double digit cute kittens out there in my

blogsphere that tune in week after week fer all of my hard hitt'n latest break'n snoozer stories that make you sit back and realize just how mundane & metamucily yer own actual real life really is in comparison...i know not to take any of you fer granted...and i also know not to fuck with you of course...i'm like a drug you can't...i mean YOU WON'T...stop take'n!

unlike the feline freaks in this disastrous holidazzle eyesore

so there i was the day before new years eve try'na figer out what would go

 best with my ball gown...basil chicken and the meow mix of veggies i had left in my frigid air from the previous year...before decide'n to settle down to the latest Netflix craze instead of become'n some sorta past my expiration date cougar statistic on the prowl fer a midnite kiss from some unconscious canker sored cantankerous kitten at the bar...unfortunately...i got more than what i had bargained for with my choice...it was like a drug i couldn't stop take'n til it was all gone...and i would be up til the wee hours of the morn'n binge'n all 3 hr long episodes...

and trust me...save this one fer a marathon nite cuz you will be hooked

this is no cliff hang'n documentary!

once the marathon was over...and i laid in bed with my tony the tiger pj's

 on...wrapped in my unfluffable comforter...my mug completely molested in St Ives mint julep mud mask...it got me to think'n about all the past run in's where this mini marathon

could'a easily been written with me as the movie of the week!

picture it kittens...it was the spring of 1991..and i was on my lunch break

at the Children's Theater in the Minne-Apple and i had discovered an ad at the back of the local fag rag i was flipp'n thru at the time...about meet'n local singles in the area...well...me bein' just'a spring chicken plucked from the bowels of a small minnesota town to fend fer myself in the big cold hard city...i was like a lotus flower ready to bloom so i called the line and a week later we would meet at a local non heterosexual intoxicate'n establishment in the downtown Minne-Apple area

this was before i was with car...so i basically hadda check on flight schedules from St Paul to Minneapolis to meet this guy...cuz i was tired of the 3 bus transfers i hadda take to work on a daily basis that always was a fuck over moment when the weather was bad or cuz some road rage'n asswart hadda get to Costco Crazy Daze Deals before the sale ended on anchovies and briskets by cutt'n off someone in front of my bus

by the time i had reached our desired destination...i reluctantly fergot my ID back home and i was not about to rebook a flight back just to get it...but unfortunately the gammorean guard at the front door copt an attitude with me (the pre-unintentionally internationally unknown perform'n illusionist of my own universe of course) and couldn't be bothered in the slightest by my desperate pleas to just let me pass on by...

even after batt'n my daddy long leg lashes

so i waited patiently across the street at some primitive speak'n station fer roughly 10 minutes to see if said phone trade would come out and recognize me

minutes later...what looked like the description of the gentleman caller 

that i had secretly lusted after in my mind from bus to bus as i made my way to downtown Minneapolis (hey...you gotta step inside my mind fer just a minute to understand where i was goin with this) anyways...he would cross the street and we exchanged typical bullshit banter fer about 5 minutes...and though he fit the description he mentioned on line fer the most part...i could feel some sorta hesitation in me...only cuz this would be the 1st time i would become deflowered...perhaps!

he asked me if i wanted to go to his place in uptown...and me bein' 

unfamiliar with the Minneapolis area and it's surround'ns at this point in time...i asked him where uptown was and he explained it was only about 5 miles away (keep in mind kittens...it's 10:30pm on a warm spring weekend...with winds outta the west at 10 to 15 miles per hr) so i asked where his car was and his response was that he didn't have one but it was such a nice nite out that he suggested we just walk instead of cabb'n it back to his bungalow

now here me out...i don't mind a dance in the dark...a drink in the dark

hell...i don't even mind a dick (or 2) in the dark...but there ain't no way in H-E-double hockey stix that i am walk'n 5 miles thru the dimly lit streets of some city i knew nothing about at the time...though i remember he said we could take a short cut thru some Loring Park and it wouldn't be as long...i still resisted and said i was gonna hop on the bus back to St Paul...and i...fortunately as you will learn...would never hear from my date ever again

forward to a year later and i was now live'n in the uptown area with my

very 1st roomie at the time Doug (who i longer dig...just FYI) we were as inseparable as as moth to a flamer (in a non sexual way) bs'n one lazy afternoon when he came home from a difficult day at the park (hey..i don't judge people's professions...i just report 'em) he happened to have the latest fag rag in his hand that he tossed on our coffee table...which...hello...we were almost 22...our coffee table consisted of a large microwave box covered in a printed pillow case...

like most under privileged rectally retarded roomies had done with limited income at the time...cuz we were more concerned about the 3D's...dance'n...drink'n and dick'n our days away

i happened to notice the guy on the cover as the 1st date i ever had when

i came across him on the phone line on one non productive day at work scrubb'n out the urinals just try'na pass time a year earlier...i thought to myself as i picked up the rag...damn...he's in the paper on the front page...and i was too damn lazy to walk with him to his dwell'ns that one windy spring nite

turns out that it was a good thing that i had listened to the flutterbies in my 

gut that even'n fer a change...cuz 2 months after our dismal date...it turns out my date had gunned down 21 year old Joel Larson in Loring Park in the back...and then a month later...he went after former state senator 48 year old John Chenoweth with his 19 year old trick of the nite Cord Drazst...at bare ass beach along the Mississip river...luckily fer Drazst though he was able to bar hop with his buddies after that horrible incident...that i would run into on occasion while bar hopp'n...that is....until he was 32...(leave it to my dearest friend Peetrinella and Jon to indoctrinate me to bare ass beach in the midnite hour just a year earlier) apparently my "date" aspired to be the latest serial killer at that moment in time...gotta have goals i guess!

don't even get me started about the 3 days after i'd moved to Milwaukee..

and the Dahmer trials where all over the front pages...(not that i hadda worry if he wasn't caught yet...well...cuz he only liked dark meat apparently...makes sense i suppose)

or how i used to check in Andrew Cunanan at the gym i was work'n at downtown once i had moved back to Minneapolis before he went on his shoot'n spree...

or my other date i had met in my early middle 20's late one nite or early one morn'n (depend'n on how you wanna look at it) who's left prosthetic arm fell off onto my floor when i let him inside my apt...just a minor detail he fergot to mention to me when chatt'n on line...

now i have zero issues with the handicap so don't get all PC on my supple snow white A-double snakes...but i told Dr Hook it would be best if he could kindly pick up his appendage and look fer another peter'd pansy to poke at

then there was that one time pre-wanna-be-serial-killer-date...in the summer of 1990...when i was wait'n fer my cuz's hubs to pick me up from St Paul on the corner 3 blocks from where i currently reside...when this juiced up shirtless hot tamale pulled a gigantor hunt'n knife on me late one nite and told me to "get off his block" and that is a direct quote (cuz apparently...2 nites later someone did not take his demands seriously)

OMG...i almost fergot about the body spread eagle outside the same apt a year later that i tripped over as i was come'n home late one nite from perform'n...on stage pervies...but i'll add that to another pillow bite'n episode in the near future (cuz it's probably gonna be a 2 parter)...you won't believe how that one turned out!

statistics say that i should have only about 3 more lives left...so until then

GET OFF MY DRESS!