The Laundromat

Once again I find myself sitting amongst the vibrating, screeching, tumbling echos of the laundromat. People in the laundromat....it give a whole new perspective of the human condition.

The first person to catch my attention is a woman who has taken over two full banks of washers that will take up to six regular loads in each one... looking at her as she gathers her things I realize she's a mother who hasn't done laundry in a few weeks... How do i know? she brought her laundry in lawn & leaf bags and the amount of bags alone fills up one of those deep laundry baskets on wheels three fourths of the way up and has the look on her face that says "I can't believe I'm doing this AGAIN! life sucks"

Just two rows away from Mrs. life sucks is Mr. Life sucks! NoOOoooO!!!! Noooo NO!!!!! They are not together as in husband and wife....they are together however by expression.. He's wearing one of those "You might be a redneck if" T-shirts...it's pulled up above his hairy fat belly button..his cap proclaiming his prowess as the world's Greatest fisherman...his holy sweatpants catch your attention because you could have sworn you saw something move in them....NOOOOO not that!!!!....you can see his tighty somethings i don't know if that color is still considered white....and then to finish this fashion idol outfit of the week is combat boots... not your run of the mill combat boots they are camouflage combat boots....untied.... the overall effect of the entire presentation of these two is too much for me and i have to step outside and get some air.....

this is where i used to smoke but since i quit smoking February 10th i just stood out there laughing...filing away the scene so i can share it with you....

Then in comes college students wearing hoodies of their various schools, sweats and looking like they haven't slept in four days,they have that 'hangover smell" , stale beer & cold pizza...never going to make it to classes... but hey we're doing laundry we're good!

The old ladies are another subset of people all together.. you have you ritzy botox loving sophisticate who walks in with a Gucci laundry bag on wheels...her outfit is form fitting and she is wearing a trendy blouse after she gets her wash going she stands there like a hooker...hip thrust out to one side...she sounds like she is trying to suck a piece of spinach from between her teeth.......you know that if she was allowed to smoke inside she would be... complaining all the while about how long it took the washer to do it's job.... not admitting to anyone she is just there to be around people...her washer and dryer at home work just fine.

The grandmotherly type comes in just to wash her quilts and afghans...she is short and round and cuddly looking...a twinkle in her eye that I interpret as laughter....she most likely smells like fresh baked anything....she's the type of woman you love to hug because she brings you comfort just by being who she is. I once saw a grandmotherly type who was wearing a hunter green winter cape... all i could think of was Mother Goose in a really old book of nursery rhymes that my family had when we were children...I miss that book i wonder if someone from my family has it or is it just another thing that has faded into the past like so many other things...

There she goes....lil miss sorority...the rich college girl who is going to be in a sorority as soon as she does her load of delicates in a 'public washer' .. but you know that later that night the whole sorority will burn the panties she washed in the public laundromat. you know full well that she never touched a bottle of laundry soap and she never will again after she does this hazing thing...

The new mom is the next to come in...you can tell she was very careful how she dressed... made sure her hair was done... the laundry bag is even spotless...you can tell she wants to prove to the world that she Has conquered this new mother thing....but then the look you catch in her eyes tells you there's nothing she would love more then to sleep for a week....

Men in the laundromat.... another enigma that always seems to make me smile... you have your young men who are still full tilt into trolling the bars and looking for single women everywhere to put another notch in their bedposts so to speak....they are not at all suddle i in fact heard a guy say to a girl "If I told you you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?" oh GAG me with a spoon....modern hip girls actually fall for this?? ....the one i watched giggled and thrusts her near breasts out so the made tiny lil mounds against her size too small t-shirt....another candidate for the IBTC....For those who do not know the IBTC is the Itty Bitty Titty Committee....whats that?? it's the committee for small breasted women who have fried eggs where their boobs should be (trying to remember who had this t-shirt when i was a teenager (ha ha cringe, girl, cringe) or a girl who bought a one size fits all bra and it's too big...(not mentioning any names there either))

Now back on subject....lol....my mind flies in so many directions while I'm typing i think i have a form of ADD but only for when I'm typing.....i currently have three blogs in the works...there i go again....

MEN....Laundromats....MEN in LAUNDROMATS.... O.K. I think i am sufficiently refocused....Newsboys hats...men in newsboy hats in laundromats...you know what hats i mean don't you?....the one that if you see an old man driving wearing a hat of this type you move waaaaaaaaaay out of his way.....this kind:

While on the road you do everything you can avoid these men in the laundromat i strongly recommend if you've a need for entertainment grab a seat and just listen to him talk....this is a guy who has lived his life...life wasn't necessarily easy for him but he did it....he was in the service...maybe even a Vietnam Vet...he's raised his family ...he's a grandpa....raised a grand kid or two.....is still married and loves his wife with all his heart and soul...he is still living life....traveling...visiting family and friends....seeing the things and doing the things that life would not allow him to do until at this time of his life....he is very friendly and will pretty much stand around talking as long as he has an audience...he gives you so much hope... even on the worst day you will think of him and smile the hope that when you are his age you will be as content as he is.....it's all you can really hope for....that when you reach your golden years you too will have the smile of the 'Old Man' in the laundromat.

The Fart Chart

Anyone in my family (both sides) can tell you how much we all enjoy farting... You can not deny it. We all do it... it's a natural thing... think about it...there has to be at the bare minimum half a dozen time in your life (in my house it's half a dozen times a day) that you let one go and said "Oh Mannnnnnn i wish my husband/ wife/ sister/mother/ grandparents/ boss/ priest/ friend/dog/ teacher/ cousin / aunt/ uncle etc etc etc. had heard/ smelled/ran from/ choked on/ cried/ gasped/ fainted/ puked/ died from that fart ...


If you really think about it your life is punctuated by memorable farts!! There is probably not one occasion that you can think of that is not punctuated by a fart...literally....you do it every day whether you want to admit it or not...! It doesn't have to be a public fart it can be private fart...A fart that only you know you did it but everyone else is getting blamed.

(click the picture to read bottom)





I am going to once again reference back to my first blog about growing up 'Kurdt' in a 'Squires" world. As a kid and young adult growing up in our home i was the least fartiest of all of us. I hear the moans and groans and the yeah rights but i have to say with competition such as my father, The great and noble 'Spook" who would be out working, hunting, drinking with his friends and doing the things only Spook would do he would come in.... lay on the couch watching TV.... and if he was lucky he would suck one of us kids into rubbing his feet and he would trap us right there in the line of fire with the foulest nastiest cloud of green fog.... his unique mixture of leeks, pickled eggs, and Genny Cream Ale whooshing out of his ass....sorry but no other word i tried fit there quite as well as ass....We would be gasping in horror...gagging....tears rolling down our cheeks because the velocity of his fart sucked all moisture out our eyes...he would have us locked there between his legs and he would be laughing so hard he was crying but not from the smell but because he sucked one of us naive children to sit there again....every day he would get one of us....then as the memory of the fart he did to us faded to mere sulfur he would sucks us back in...I remember once when I was pregnant i was sitting on the end of the couch and he let one of his foul monsters go and i slapped him on the thigh as i tried to get up(he didn't dare hold me there because i was HUGELY pregnant). He had a welt that raised a quarter inch off his thigh and my hand stung like you can't believe. I apologized and i really tried to be sincere but inside i was saying "haha ha ya bastard i finally got a little even!"

Another big Fart Moment in my life was ohhhh let's see i was about 13 or 14 and our family always the ones for cheap entertainment had somehow devised the infamous "Fart Chart" . The fart chart gave points for every aspect of the fart... length, smell, volume etc... we each had our names on there and received points every time a fart emanated into the room....there were all kinds of rules too... you couldn't just say you farted....there had to be at least 2 or 3 other family members around to witness the fart and to agree on the points... it became a very involved fun form of entertainment for the family...The Fart Chart was made on a piece of poster paper and was proudly displayed on the wall that ran from the living room into the kitchen...it was actually way more into the kitchen then the living room....

The chart was hanging there in it's spot on the wall and there was a knock on the front door....Mom answers it it's the reverend from the church up the street...he's come to talk to mom about vacation bible school or something i can't remember what...Mom invited him to sit and asked him if he wanted anything well the Reverend said he would go into the kitchen with mom and she turned and started to go in and suddenly stopped and turned around facing the Reverend and looking at me and, i think, my brother making those little jerky motions trying to tell us to take down the chart and we acted like we were 'at the airport' mom was getting so frustrated because she did not want the Reverend to see the fart chart and could not say anything directly....finally she gave up on trying to get us to do it and just turned around.... went into the kitchen dragging the fart chart off the wall and crumpling it....to this day i don't know if the Reverend saw it...after that day mom tried to say no more Fart Charts....needless to say it didn't work....i think if we look hard enough we might find one in the house someday...

As you can see dad and Lisa are on there at the top.... they continually fought to out do each other.....seriously, as i said in the beginning, i was the least fartiest of us all...for every one good fart i had the rest of the family had ten make you hang your heads out the window when it's ten below out.... gasping for breath farts. Even my maternal grandmother was fartier then me... I remember one day after she had broken her hip she was using a walker to help her navigate through the house....she had stood up at her chair in the living room and every little step she took she farted....so you would hear the shuffle of her slippered feet the scrape of the walker on the floor and phhhhhhhhfffffftttttt, shuffle scrape phffffffftttttttttttt, shuffle scrape phhhhffftttttttttt..... after about the third step Grandma started laughing and couldn't stop...she was laughing so hard the tears were rolling down her cheeks....so then you hear her laughing gasping phfffttttttt, laughing gasping phhhhhhhhfffftttttttt.....luckiily i believe my mother was home too because grandma got 1000 points for musicalness on the fart chart... No one has ever never ever even once come close to being near to beating Grandma for musicalness....in my eyes to beat Grandma it would have to be someone really special and they would have to fart an aria from 'la boheme' or something equally impressive to beat her.....

Ohhhh I could go on for at least another ten to fifteen paragraphs about memorable farts in my life...like when my sister got married and I had such a hot steamy fart that i had to run into the bathroom at the church just before the ceremony and make sure i had not sharted in my stockings (definition below)....but i wont mention that....

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Sharted -- v- a cross between a fart and a shit.

My Own Language

Language... what is it? It's words...Dictionary.com defines word as:

word –noun
1.a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning. Then there was a whole bunch of other stuff. How profound is it that something as simple as a word can change the entire course of events, make history, cause laughter & bring you to tears.

Words have always (well almost always) been my means of expressing myself...Back in middle school and high school some of my teachers had me keep a journal...The very first teacher to make me do this was Ms. Lemke... Everyday i had to write in this journal my teacher didn't care what we wrote as long as we wrote something. At first I hated the idea of doing this and hated the fact that at the beginning of every class we HAD to write in our journals for five whole minutes... Being the rebellious, PMSing little 'witch' that I was would sit at my desk and for the entire five minutes writing iF yoU Cee Kay or Sugar Honey Iced Tea (read the capitalized letter of each word) time after time...

The first time I turned in the notebook for a grade Ms. Lemke handed mine back to me and told me how creative my mind was... I busted out laughing and sat back in my chair with a whole new respect for my teacher... I completely expected to be sent to the principles office or at the very least get some detention for being such a wise ass. .. Nope...Not going to happen... she later told me (years later) that she laughed so hard she cried when she looked over my journal...she said she could not fail me because i did what she asked...I wrote every day...the fact that i chose in my smartassedness to write curses everyday did not change the fact that I wrote every day just as she asked.

From that moment on my world changed. I started writing EVERYTHING short stories, poems, long stories, children's stories...after that day a notebook & pen were always close at hand...I wrote about my hopes, my dreams, my loves and my heartbreaks...I wrote when i was happy .... i wrote when i was sad.... i remember one time i was crying so hard as i wrote the words smeared into a blob on the page...when i turned the notebook in she wrote 'is everything OK?' next to the smear of words...for the life of me i cannot remember why i was so upset...It had become my outlet...writing...words...language...it saved my soul helped me discover who I was and what i was going to be in this life.

For a long time after I graduated high school i still wrote...but i was not writing as often as i had in school...slowly over time i stopped writing all together and events in life kept me from starting again....well if i wanted to be honest i should retract that and say i chose not to write for a long time because i did not feel secure enough to express myself with the written word... Then back somewhere in the early nineties the most amazing thing i had seen in years was in my house a COMPUTER...it was like in the cartoons when Tom was chasing Jerry and smashed into the wall so hard he stuck there for a few seconds then slid down like he was made of paste....the words just started to flow out of me and i started writing a journal again...then i discovered a chat room that had a whole slew of creative people and chatting helped me to tone up my typing skills...now i am a four or even sometimes a five fingered pecker now....i was a two finger pecker back then....

As i mentioned i have grown and changed over time...now as i ease into my middle forties i am becoming more secure in myself and am finally coming into my own person... the words that flow from my fingers and burst onto the blog will help me once again express myself in ways that nothing else can do...to allow me to share the feelings in my heart and soul for those i love and the patience for those who seem to want to test my ability to look at the lighter side of expression...yes there is also a 'dark" side to expression....words can also be used to hurt....to lie...to spit venomous descriptions at each other...it is my goal not to use my words in a venomous way...

think....use your words....have your own language....express yourself!

A Kurdt to the Bone

As everyone knows you come from two people. You also know that these two people are called your parents. You have a mother with her side of the family and a father with his side of the family.

I have recently been reminded more then once how much like my mother i am.

There was a time in my life when i would have died if anyone said that. No teenage girl wants to be told that she looks like her mother or that she acts like her mother... to be associated with their families. All i ever wanted when i lived at home was to blend in and look like my siblings who looked more like my father's side of the family. The Squires side of the family.

Growing up in Margaretville being a Squires was something to be proud of! My dad was born and raised there! I was literally (not in a redneck way... lol) related to half the town. I had cousins, Aunts, uncles and grandparents EVERYWHERE. I could not go anywhere without running into a relative. Yes, I know, that can be a good thing or a bad thing... we'll revisit that at another time. Anyways, let's get back on track.

Through my eyes every female Squires was beautiful and every male relative was among the best looking males around. You should have heard everyone asking about my male cousins when they realized I, of all people, was a Squires more then once i had 'friends' because they wanted to meet my cousins or even my brother. I looked at my relatives and saw everything that i was not. They were all tall, slim, athletic, smart, funny etc... etc... etc.

Then there was me. Not really tall, not slim, not athletic, not smart but not stupid either with my green eyes, not blue like my dad, not beautiful brown like my mom, just green eyes, reddish hair, dad had dark hair, and certainly not dirty blond like my cousins.... reddish brown and so stupendously curly that i felt like Annie from 'The sun will come out tomorrow' fame. I can't begin to tell you how much time i spent straightening my wildly curly hair wishing it fell in soft waves down my back like my sister,Tracy's did her so dark it was almost black hair or straight in a glimmering curtain of dirty blond down to my waist like my sister Lisa. I never felt like a Squires, which was also egged on by my wonderful (insert eye roll here) older sister who had me convinced for years and years that i was NOT her real sister. Tracy had me to the point of being so upset by her teasing that i actually remember asking my mother if she found me somewhere or if i was adopted. I'm not the only one she did this to she had Lisa convinced she was from a Cabbage Patch.

Most of the year was like that I was constantly wishing i was more like the Squires side of my family. But then a school vacation would come or summer. I can remember last days of school when more then two full months of freedom stretched out before me with the promise of reconnecting with my "Kurdt" family. I would finally be entrenched in the side of the family that i looked more like. It was the most awesome feeling in the world!!! My Kurdt cousins had curly hair, green eyes, the same shaped face now was the time for me to 'fit' in.
It is amazing to me to think back and remember how i felt back all those years ago...

Just a couple weeks ago one of my Kurdt cousins got married. There was a lot of laughing with my mother's side. I heard many many times how much i look like my mother... Aunt Jean, who has Alzheimer's called me Lois...and i just looked at her and smiled...i kissed her cheek.... hugged her close... It was the first time in a long time that i felt my mother was near...

I know that my mother changed a lot before she died. I know that when i was a teenager and into my early twenties that no matter what i was going through & no matter what i needed my mother was there for me. She was my very best friend and confidant. I loved my mother with all my heart and soul and i know now that without her i would not be who i am,. And who I am is:

A Kurdt to the bone..