Ah, memories. When I was looking at photos to unearth from my dusty albums yesterday,I was reminded of the time the town thought I had a bastard child.

My father had remarried to somewhat reclusive 23 year old, mildly amusing OCD stepmother the previous May, and she bore him a son December 27th of that same year. Yes. You, too, can do maths.

Early in January, when the baby was only ten days old, the whole family moved from a bustling metropolis to the quiet resort town I was born in. I rather enjoyed being a big sister to a cute baby, and I took him with me everywhere but school. He was a social child, and the stepmother was somewhat reserved.

Here’s the image that brought it back to me.

Now look in the background, on the clothesline. See all those? They would be diapers. And onesies. And all sorts of baby thingies.*

Somehow it didn’t occur to me that people would not believe me when I insisted this child was not mine. He was a very smart and entertaining kid. Small town. Something fun to do, right?

It was quite a while before mildly amusing OCD stepmother ventured onto the streets of our quaint little town. And when she took the little professor in his stroller, he would recognize people and perk right up. That’s really how she got to know people there. Through the child that had already charmed half the populace.

First, she had to go through the gauntlet.

“Why, you’re taking witchypoo’s baby for a walk.”

“No. This is my son.”

“But he was only ten days old when she moved here with him.”

“When I moved here with my husband, son, and stepchildren.”

This happened so many times that she forayed out less and less. She couldn’t seem to take credit for this remarkable being.

What nobody would tell me is that my boyfriend was Horny McSlutty. I mean that he was doing just about every girl and woman for miles around. The guys really liked him, as he was charismatic, and the girls wouldn’t reveal their own part in him being such a slut. I was extremely naive, to say the least, but it would have been physically impossible for me to have given birth ten days before we moved. You know, the whole sex thing. Generally it’s necessary to get pregnant.

So it seemed natural that Horny McSlutty’s girlfriend had already produced a child out of wedlock. Turns out he had a few of them running around.

Want to know what was really funny?

My father was beyond strict with me. I had rigid curfews. My theory was that he remembered what he was like at that age.

When did he lift my curfews? When?

When I took up with Horny McSlutty.

The one all the guys, including my father, liked.

Irony? I think so.

* The image in the red jumpsuit with the child on my shoulders? That would be the little professor, the one who is in the Air Force today.

Friday wine and pizza gets me spinning yarns to Warrior Woman, and she, in her own enlightened state, enthuses “That is a good story for your blog!” Here’s one.

Back in the day of my irresponsible hawtiliciousness, I received a call from Sleazy Collection Agency, wanting me to pay a bill. When they discovered that I was between jobs, because, seriously, people, all that partying interfered with my work life, they offered me a position in their sales department.

The first thing they did was rip up my delinquent account file.

Yes. A stellar company. I also overheard collection agents offering to do the same for lobster fishermen, in exchange for a good scoff of crustaceans.

I knew I was knee-deep in the sleaze, but I got to travel and take clients out to lunch and that made it more like partying and less like work.

They worked on a diary system, so that I had to diarize each account I contacted, list my expenses, and note when the account would be turned over to collection. I made bonuses in addition to salary, and they made bonuses based on mine.

I had some great accounts lined up, and discovered that the big, big, account was headed by a man I went to junior high school with. I had a huge crush on him at the time, and thought it would be nice to tell him that.

Over lunch, I persuaded him to turn over a quarter of a million dollars of outstanding accounts to me and my company.

That’s a nice bonus no matter how you cut it.

The sleazy manager and his slimy assistant were drooling over that account and couldn’t see me collecting the bonus for it, and they came up with the brilliant idea to fire me and collect my bonus in additon to their own.

It was my birthday.

I called up my former classmate, and the larger accounts that were pending, and explained what Sleazy Collection Agency managers were up to.

I asked them if they cared to do business with people who would steal from their employees. Or make them ex-employees so they could steal from them.

Everyone I called withdrew their pending accounts.

Sleazy Collection Agency? Don’t mess with witchypoo.

Especially on her birthday.

Bet you wish you hadn’t destroyed my delinquent account file, huh?

Still kind of living in the land of being a kid, and remembering.

Today it was the camping trip we made across the continent, from the west coast to the east. Moving toward the place that burned down.

Dad had made a bright red tent out of parachute silk and a sewing machine. No matter where we wandered on the campgrounds, we could always find our tent. It was the only red one.

My brother and I tried it out in the yard before we left, but scampered inside before dark. We were afeared a bear would get us. On a military base. Funny we weren’t at all worried about bear when we were camping in actual campgrounds, where there were actual bears. That’s because our parents were there to protect us.

We had a Hillman station wagon. They don’t make them anymore, I believe, but for comparison sake, imagine a Mini Morris. About that size and shape. Stuffed to the gills with camping gear, clothing, two adults and four children. No air conditoning. Hilarity ensued.

We were able to take a lot of time making our way to the east coast. Some of the things we saw were amazing.

The thing I remember most is driving through the prairie states, or the flat part of the northern states. The highway was without bends. It stretched as far as the eye could see, and in the mornings, on the side of the road, were loads of squished rattlesnakes. I think I was more fascinated by those rattlesnakes than I was the numerous tourist attractions such as the real! Indian! teepee! and the pond stocked so you could catch a trout.

We went into a gas station on that stretch of flat highway, and the proprietor was very kind and friendly. Gave me a silver dollar. It was more money than I had to myself ever. I asked him if there were rattlesnakes in the junkyard in back, and he said yes there were. I was afraid to go back there just in case. But I really, really wanted to see one up close.I had been having those pesky snake dreams.

For the longest time, over and over, I would dream that I was swimming in a river, and the water would congeal into snakes of every size, colour and description. My young mind switched to cartoon mode always at this point, and my arms and legs took on magical windmill properties. I propelled myself quickly above the snakes.

And in the red tent at night? I never feared that rattlesnakes, which abounded in that area, would find their way into our sleeping quarters. My parents were there to protect us.

I felt that today was perfect for cleaning up the tiny little garden plot I have by my doorstep. The weather is beautiful, the birds are singing, and I always find the earth restorative.

I’m afraid to go into the bathroom. Ass Burger Boy emerged from it, no longer resembling Jesus. Oh, he still has the Jesus hair, but the beard, it is gone, and I suspect is mostly decorating the bathroom sink. Holy facial hair, Batman! The sink, it is clean! I guess it’s safe to hose myself down now, after digging in the garden.

I’ve been rather cranky of late, not feeling perky, and having childhood issues emerging. I decided when I started this blogging thing that I was going to be very careful what I said about my family, because there is a member or two who have the URL. I have no desire to hurt feelings or make anyone feel defensive. Not my style anyway. It’s frustrating because that is where I want to go right now when I sit in front of the keyboard. It’s making me more bitchypoo than witchypoo.

One thing that has been re-emerging has me a tad baffled. It’s the issue of fire. I’m smelling fire a lot lately, and images of fire I encounter are bringing up strong emotions. And of course, there are the strangely clad men who barged into my home.

When I was about ten years old, our house burnt to the ground in the middle of the night. I don’t believe we had pajamas unless it was Christmas, because this happened in November, and will never forget the gray t-shirt and white undies I wore to bed, and which I wore outside to escape the flames and smoke.

We sat in the car and cried because we were scared. I’m pretty certain I didn’t have any idea of the enormity of the loss of possessions the fire caused, but it pounded the final nail in my parent’s marriage, which was never a peaceful one in the first place.

We were in the process of building a house at the time, and we moved into it while it was only roughly finished. My father built bunks and dressers into the bedrooms, and other furniture as well. He was pretty handy that way.

Then he disappeared. He was posted about two hours away, and seldom came home. My mother took to her bed a lot. There were a lot more suppertimes than there were suppers. We should have had enough to eat. My father was military, and the pay was decent enough to live on.

When I look back to all that happened, and link it to the fire as a catalyst for the disease that was choking my parents marriage, I can’t help now but compare it to the Tower in the tarot deck.

The Tower signifies an event which causes all the smoke and mirrors to fall away, all the pretense to be exposed, and the opportunity for a new beginning. It is dreaded, but is the card of transformation. Sometimes, we believe that we cannot learn through joy.

The events after the fire seared my innocence in many ways. I think I am only now really mourning that. So excuse me if I’m a tad cranky. I was fixing to be all over Ass Burger Boy now that he no longer is a ringer for Jesus.

We are celebrating on this day of resurrection, an Easter(n) Miracle that Ree suggested in my comments on the demise of my machine. My monitor was bad. Never mind that I am squinting at a 15″ CRT monitor now. It just feels so good that I have all of my data. And hoo, boy! Did I have a time remembering passwords for various essential sites while trying to navigate on Ass Burger Boy’s keyboard-challenged laptop. From when he took it apart? They’re all written down now. All the hard restarts from trying to get it to work wreaked havoc on my system, and I have a lot of uninstalling and reinstalling to do. Don’t want to have to do a reformat, because there is always something I forget to back up when I do that. Those of you who barely can find the on button of your computer, ignore this. It will hurt your brain.

To celebrate, and stay in keeping with the theme is this bit of creativity that I made with my younger brother and sister out of papier mache about 25 years ago. Yes, that is most likely the last creative moment I had. Maybe. Anyway, Kelly tagged me for a creative meme, which was to produce something creative, and this is all I have actual evidence of. It’s supposed to be the Easter Bunny. Stop snickering. It has personality. Which is what the vet receptionist said about Handsome Henry.

My liddle sister treasured it, and kept it unharmed, lo, all these years. I’m glad she did, because even though two of her boys are older, Bonkers is the right age to love him some bunny that isn’t in a stew.

Peep of the Week is taking me a bit longer than usual, and I have elected to highlight some wicked good comments tomorrow.

Now you will see me returning to begging for votes and stumbles because that big honking ad is finally up, and I get paid for traffic to the site. I’m trying to insert links unobtrusively to my older posts that maybe ten people got to see, when I started blogging in November. Some of them aren’t half bad, and I have been using them as guest posts on other sites because I’m tricky like that. Yesterday, when I could barely type, Kailani of Island Life featured an oldie. She seems to be enjoying herself in Tahoe!

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