I have been thinking about my Dad a lot lately. It is probably because of Memorial Day and Father’s Day. I didn’t do a post about him on Father’s Day because I felt like if I did a post at all it would have to be about my Dad and my husband and the fact that I don’t have my Dad in my life anymore and that I miss him terribly would overshadow all that my husband is and does for me and the kids. Besides it was too raw. I went to the store to get cards for Jason and my father-in-law. I couldn’t do it. I stood in front of the cards and all I could see was “To Dad From Daughter” or “When I was a little girl, Dad”. I kept getting tears in my eyes. So I went to the regular cards and got Jason one of those and made him get one for his Dad. I still miss him and it has been more than 6 years.

My friend, Mr. Fabulous, does Dedication Friday (and yes, this week he is doing it) and so last week I tried it, too. This week I am doing it again.

Right after my Dad died, this song was on the radio a lot. Or maybe I had the CD and played it a lot. Whatever the case, it struck a chord with me because it seemed that I would see my Dad everywhere. I would see his truck everywhere. Sometimes my brother’s would drop in and they would call, “Shell?” from the front door, like my Dad used to do when he would stop after or during work sometimes. And the kicker there was, they sounded just like him, too. My heart would stop beating sometimes. This song still reminds me of my Dad. Sometimes if I am in the right mood, it will make me cry. Not as often anymore, just once in awhile. You know?

Still Holding Out For Youby SheDaisy

Never thought I’d be in this place
It’s someone else’s life I’m living
Wish I were living a lie
The hardest part is when the bough breaks
Falling down and then forgiving
You didn’t even kiss me goodbye
I’m choking on the words I didn’t get to say
I pray I get the chance one day

Chorus:
I still run
I still swing open the door
I still think you’ll be there like before
Doesn’t everybody out there know to never come round
Some things a heart won’t listen to
I’m still holding out for you

I can see ya smile in the dark
I can even feel you breathing
Then daylight chases the ghost
I see your coat and I fall apart
To those hints of you I’m clinging
Now’s when I need them most
I should get up
Dry my eyes and move ahead
At least that’s what he would have said

I still run
I still swing open the door
I still think you’ll be there like before
Doesn’t everybody out there know to never come round
Some things a heart won’t listen to
I’m still holding out for you

Faithfully I trace your name where you sleep
It’s the only true comfort I feel

I still run
I still swing open the door
I still think you’ll be there like before

I still run
I still swing open the door
I still think you’ll be there like before
Doesn’t everybody out there know to never come round
Some things a heart won’t listen to
I’m still holding out for you

Holding out for you

I was supposed to have a job interview yesterday morning. I didn’t talk about it much because I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out. It was for a position in the pediatric office where I used to work. It was for a job share working 20 hours a week for a pediatrician, Dr. E, that I know and get along with very well. When he saw that I applied, he told them to make sure that they got me to come in for an interview. Sounds good, right? No. See it turns out that I am not qualified. Let me explain.

I started working for The Clinic in 1987. When I started I was a medical assistant and my certification was pending. I passed my certification exam and all was well. At that time, you didn’t need to be certified to work for The Clinic. I worked there without getting recertified or keeping track of my CEUs for 12+ years. During that time, The Monopoly took over The Clinic. They decided that they would now mandate that it be necessary for the medical assistants to be certified although it is not a law in any state and is something that is widely seen as completely voluntary. Those of us who’s certification had lapsed, were “grandfathered” in and were not required to be recertified, but they kept track of our CEUs in our file. My certification lapsed in 1992. They will not let me work pending recertification in spite of the fact that Dr. E wants me to work for him and I worked for them for SEVEN years with no certification.

The person who does the hiring for The Monopoly, is clueless as to what is needed and not only that, she sounds completely clueless as to what a CMA even is. So, I did a bunch of investigating today to find out that I can get a packet of self study material (for a large amount of money) take some quizzes and be recertified. Sounds simple enough, right? I am not sure.

If you have read this and can read between the lines, you probably can tell some of the reasons that I quit. The Monopoly being one of them. Generally speaking there are a bunch of people who know nothing about nursing/medical assisting (I kid you not, it was widely known that one of the upper management team was a high school drop out and if you heard her mouth and saw the way she dressed, you would know how she got where she was in upper management), handing down edicts and stipulations that make no sense. Politics. Nonsense.

So the question is, do I want to go through this when there are other clinics that don’t require you to be certified, I don’t know for absolute sure that they are going to hire me (it has been inferred), and The Monopoly drove me crazy when I worked there before? Pros? Cons? People, help me out.

Well, apparently I pissed off some people by not actually posting about my blogsurfing pet peeves. (Well, Steph wasn’t pissed, she just wanted to hear about them. Pup, however, called me names. That’s okay, she’s my sister and I love her, so I will let her get away with it.) Anyway, I had already planned on posting them eventually, so here they are today. No one get mad at me, ‘k? These are just my observations and I don’t want to piss any one off.

Angry political blogs. I know. Some people like them and there is a demand for them, I am sure. I don’t mind the occasional political commentary, but I don’t like it shoved down my throat. Quickest way to get me to stop reading your blog is to rant and rave several posts in a row about politics. And it doesn’t matter which party you belong to, either. I am bi-partisan in my dislike of angry political blogs.

Media that starts when the blog is still trying to open. I love music. I love videos. I love them both together. I would like to put music on my site. I won’t until I can find a free media player that doesn’t open by itself. I want my readers to have the option to play it or not. I know that there are still some people out there who use dial up and that it really makes it hard for them to load pages when there is media playing. Also, I use Firefox and almost always have multiple tabs open while I am surfing. If I have opened your page and then, while waiting for it to load, have gone to another tab, sometimes I have to search and find out which page is playing some music/video so I can either shut it off or close the page. As it is, I think that some blogs open slowly because of photos and other things that people have on their blogs. It sometimes causes system hangs and freezes. I try to minimize that if I can.

Some blogs have Pop ups! I know. That drives me crazy. I don’t want a Pop up ad when I come to your blog. I don’t EVER want a Pop up ad. ‘Nuff said.

Spam blogs. This one only seems to happen when surfing BlogMad, but it irritates me anyway. Blogs that only have advertisement. Well, for that matter, blogs that have a lot of obtrusive advertising. I did the ad thing for awhile, too. I didn’t make one single penny. I don’t know how the rest of you have faired, but I would be willing to bet that you aren’t buying a mansion with a pool in a gated community with the money made on the ads from your blog. Just a guess.

Spam commenters. I KNOW I am not alone in this. They suck. I hate them.

Trolls. In the urban dictionary they are defined as this:One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument. I would add blogs to the places where they post their poisonous comments. I hate that people think that because they aren’t visible they can say whatever hurtful things they want on someone else’s blog. It isn’t nice. I have a blog friend, Anne, who is sick. She just minds her own business and posts on her blog as a way to deal with her illness. Yesterday, she posted about an email that she got from another blogger claiming that she was a Christian and telling her she was amoral and asking Anne not to comment on her blog anymore because she didn’t want her readers to come to Anne’s site and be influenced by her lifestyle. I would like it if y’all (I never lived in the south) would go and give Anne some love. That would sure counteract the poison that the Christian spewed and also show that not all Christians are hateful. (There I gave her many links to show my support. I love you, Anne!) Besides, my Mom always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.” (Why am I whining? hmmm?) And in the words of Rodney King, “Can we get along here? Can we all get along?”

Okay, I think that I have given you enough peeves for this time. Stay tuned though, I have more. I won’t post them for awhile. Maybe in a few weeks.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about the things that are annoyances to me when I am blogsurfing. So, I thought that I would tell you all about it, too. You are my friends, too, right? Then I thought, “Well, Shelli,” (that’s what I call myself sometimes, well, actually, the person in my head that calls me Shelli is actually called Chatterbox, but that is a whole other story), “won’t people be put off if you sit and whine about the things that irritate you? No one wants to listen to a whiner.”

Another deeper voice comes along and it says to Chatterbox, “STFU, CB!” (only he said the words, you know the ones I am talking about, right?) “It’s Shell’s F@$%ing blog, she can write whatever she wants to write.”

You gotta love him, right? I mean he just says what he wants to say and he always keeps Chatterbox from destroying me. I have a name for him, but that will have to wait for another time, too.

Okay, before you get all weirded out, wondering about my multiple personality disorder, let me just say that I do not have MPD/DID! Really, I don’t. Stop coming towards me with that white jacket. I don’t like all those straps on it. Let me explain, please. What I mean by voices is, you know, consciences. Well, or those voices that say that you are doing something wrong or something stupid or something bad. You know, the angel and the devil that sit on people’s shoulders in the movies and on cartoons. Those. (Whew! They’re backing away. I think they believe me.) Anyway, my voices are just a little more active. Especially Chatterbox. She nevers shuts up and she is really mean. She tells me really mean things about myself.

“Why did you say that? That was really stupid!”

“Why did you do that? Do you know how stupid you looked? Everyone is laughing at you.”

“No one likes you. Why would they?”

She calls me names. Ugly. Stupid. Fat. Idiotic. The list goes on and on and on. A lot of the time I can just shut her up, but sometimes, oh sometimes, she really gets to me. Sometimes I even let her words come out of my mouth, directed at myself. See how she is? I hate her.

But then, the other one, he comes to the rescue and he kicks her right out of my head. He tells her where to go, in no uncertain terms. He says good things to me. “You are good.”

“You are loving.”

“You are beautiful.”

“You are amazing.”

“You can do anything that you put your mind to.”

And he doesn’t let the poison that Chatterbox spews ruin any of the work that I have done on myself these past months.

See? Those are the voices I was talking about. If you all are honest, you know you have them, too. The good vs. evil inside your heads. You just probably haven’t named yours. I have.

Now what was I going to talk about? Oh Yeah! Pet peeves when blogsurfing. Oh, never mind. I wasted all your time already. STFU, CB! (There they go again. *sigh*)

***Just a reminder to go to Reverberate58’s blog to find the links for Monday Memories as she is the new hostess. If you click on the links in my sidebar under Monday Memories, they will take you there.

And now, I bring you my brother, whom I like to call Elle. Maybe someday I will tell you all about Shell and Elle’s Excellent Adventures! ;)Her he is, the fabulous one, driveling on and on, Mr. Fabulous

Why six reasons? Why not? Do you have a problem with that? Take it up with consumer affairs.

It was not easy growing up as the only brother to three younger sisters. They always looked to me for leadership, for guidance, for drugs. I was their protector, their champion, their pimp. And if once in a while I wanted to dress up in their clothes and dance around the house singing show tunes well, who is to judge?

I was the best brother ever. And here is why:

1) Once when she was in ninth grade, Pup was followed home by this creepy kid who lived in our neighborhood. His name was Bobby Tresh. He kept throwing rocks at her and calling her vile names. By the time she got to the house she was crying and inconsolable. Three days later I waited for Bobby in the alley near the right of way and I jacked him over the head with a tire iron. I carried him down to the abandoned train depot where I gutted him like a carp and dumped his body into a nearby canal. Problem solved.

2) I taught all three of them to drive. And except for the afternoon when Shelli backed over a nun, and that day that Megan plowed into a group of third graders who were on a field trip, I think it went pretty well.

3) I can remember one day Megan and Shelli were fighting over one of those My Little Pony figures. Each claimed that it belonged to them. Unable to resolve their dispute, they came to me looking for some guidance and wisdom. I took the toy and put it in the microwave until it melted into a big steaming glop of plastic. I then forced each of them to stick a hand in the hot mess, resulting in both of them suffering second degree burns. I think we all learned a valuable lesson that day.

4) When Pup was about three or four she was in a “superhero” phase. One afternoon I was babysitting her, and I must have taken my eyes off her for a second or two because when I looked around she had climbed up onto the roof. She had fashioned a cape made out of the dog’s blanket and she was getting ready to jump off, believing she could fly. I told her to go ahead, she could do anything she wanted, and if anything happened I would be there to catch her. She jumped, and if my attention hadn’t been diverted at that very moment by a bee, I would have caught her. As it was, she broke her collarbone and fractured both ankles when she hit the driveway. But the point of the story is that I encouraged her. I think it’s important to do that with children.

5) Once when Megan and Shelli were juniors in high school, it was just the three of us in the house. Mom and Dad had gone to Iowa for a few days to buy a donkey, and Pup was doing her second stint in reform school. They begged me to let them have a party. I could never say no to them, and soon the house was full of rowdy drunken teenagers. That night I banged no fewer than seven of their friends. Of those seven, five got pregnant. I think this served as an excellent lesson to the twins about the perils of premarital sex and the danger of the growing epidemic of teenage pregnancy.

6) One night when the rest of the family was at a hoedown, I found Pup in the bathroom, shivering, deep in the throes of heroin withdrawal. Hey, who better to take care of her than her older brother? I knew immediately what to do. I took a pillowcase, loaded it up with Mom’s jewelry and Dad’s coin collection, took it to a pawn broker, sold it, and scored some China White from a guy I knew down by the docks. I brought it home and the poor thing was shivering so badly she couldn’t even find a vein. I helped her shoot up and put her to bed. Thank goodness I was able to be there for her.

Don’t you wish I had been your brother? Think how much better your life would have turned out!

*Yah, I’m sure that is what you all are wishing. In actuality, he is an amazing friend, cyber brother, defender, listener and my true kindred soul. I love you, Fab, ah, I mean Elle.