Memories from the Forgetful

This dear man is my Father in Law. He is funny! The pic is from his days serving as president of AmVets. One of my favorite things about him is he thinks he is the first person to come up with the saying "Take care." I'm not joking he really does believe it. That is like me saying I coined the phrase "What's up?" We thought he was kidding but then he explained how it derived from "Take care of yourself" and he decided to shorten it. He thinks it caught on like wildfire because everyone says it now. What do you think? What are the origins of "Take care!"? Was it Bill Boettcher? Maybe..... I can't get to the bottom of it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't him.

Some of you may or may not know this about me, but in my past life I was a Corrections Officer. (Well, not really my past life but what feels like lifetimes ago.) If you know me you are probably trying to picture me with a taser or something. Don't worry, I didn't carry a taser! I just bopped people on the head with my maglite and I pretty much looked identical to this lady right here.



Haha, I know that's incredibly inappropriate and inaccurate, but I couldn't find any pictures so you got stuck with that. My job was actually interesting and I felt like I was helping people who really needed it. It was also safe, we got the petty felons with drug and alcohol related convictions. The point was to rehabilitate through behavioral therapy. It was called a therapeutic community although I am sure it did not always feel therapeutic to our residents. (Yes, in our facility they were not prisoners or inmates, very P.C.) And the closest I ever got to being hurt was when a resident got mad and threw a chair in my direction, I did not get hit and he was sent to real prison.

The worst part of the job was strip searches, I recall, at one point, one girl was so embarrassed and kept apologizing. It was so weird and awkward. (Like performing a strip search was not awkward enough already.) I do not miss that. Also, there was a co-worker who made me cry on more than one occasion. She didn't like me at all and I had never been anything but nice to her. Oh yeah and working on holidays sucked, too. So maybe it's not as great as I remember.

One thing that I learned from working in a "jail" was speaking my mind and standing up for myself and what I believe in. (This was a huge milestone for me, because I was also a doormat in a past life.) Maybe it was the lady who made me cry or maybe it was having to be responsible for more than 45 felons at a time... ALONE. I'm not sure but I am glad I had the opportunity and I kind of miss it every once in a while.

As some of you may know, (This is a confession some of you may not want to know.... but).... I don't like animals. I know! I'm a bad person! I am sorry and I truly wish I did, but I am not an animal person! I like the idea of them from afar and in pictures, but up close is a whole other story.

I especially don't like tricky animals! Like one of these.

Ewwww RACCOONS!

My dear friends Joanna and Allison were here this morning and the kids were playing outside. I decided I was going to take out our garbage from the kitchen. I bagged it up, took it outside and walked around the side of the house. I lifted the garbage can lid, began tossing the bag in and I glanced down and there it was, STARING AT ME!! A raccoon! I screamed and maybe cussed, (I do that when I am caught off guard) and ran as far away from the trash can as possible. Allison and Joanna were just staring at me. I told them what I saw and they laughed but were as weirded out as I was. It was still in there and I had not managed to get the bag all the way in! So, there is the can, halfway open with a trash bag and garbage pouring out of the bag. and the raccoon is moving the bag just enough so a piece of trash falls out every few moments.

I looked at Allison, who is 38 weeks pregnant, and Joanna, who is holding her 3 week old son, and I asked them to take care of it! Haha! Now Allison being the kick-butt kind of person she is put on her brave face and told us to get all of the kids onto the porch. As I watched my round-bellied sister walk off to battle the beast I had a sweeping guilt wash over me. So we put Joanna and the kids inside and I grabbed a mop. Allison chose her weapon, a broom, and we decided to knock the can over. 1.... 2..... 3.... and push. The can falls and garbage spills, but no dag on raccoon! Allison was trapped behind the can and we don't really think she should walk in front of it so she sneaks behind the house while I decide to take on the 'coon. I hit the can a few times with my mop's soft end and that wasn't scaring it out. So I went and grabbed the biggest stick I could find and I went out to the can one last time. I raised it over my head and slammed it down onto the side of the toppled can. The raccoon jumped and ran even further away than I did after our first run-in. I still feel really nervous about the situation and can't get the image of that raccoon staring at me out of my mind. I do feel a little bit sad for that poor raccoon because it looks like he was eating up the diapers and from what I hear diapers are not on the revised food pyramid. Poor guy didn't even get a decent meal.

Allison's 19th birthday party may have been forgetful to some, but for my family there are two quotes from the night which are definitely memorable.

My family has a way of adopting others into our clan, no questions asked. And from my experience it has never been awkward for the Winkler's old or young, pierced or tattooed. Everyone is welcome and treated like family. When we lived on Reemelin Rd our neighbors Cliff and Leora were in their late 80's/ early 90's and were invited to Allison's party, along with Grandma Frieda, Allison's new boyfriend Ryan, and all the regulars.

Isn't she beautiful?


As some of you may know, my mother loves to eat dinner by candlelight which was lovely and I'm sure delicious. After dinner we turned up the dining room lights. Our dear friend Leora has very poor eyesight and as we turned up the lights her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, "Ohhh, I can see!" with a smile on her face and Grandma Frieda also in her late 80's said while covering her face, "My eyes! The light is too bright!" (Typical for dear Grandma Frieda, a bit of a whiner.) Well, we all laughed and I think we may have given into Grandma's whines. Poor Leora had to go blind in the dark just so we wouldn't have to listen to Grandma! To this day we still laugh about the old people party.

Now some of you may recognize this guy right here! Now known as Pastor Ryan.

Ryan was our new pierced friend and we loved him dearly already. After dinner we were relaxing in the family room and gabbing our jaws off. Mid-conversation we turned to Grandma Frieda and asked "Isn't Ryan cute?" and Grandma being the positive person she is said sweetly, "Yes..."










"And so is the dog."

Ohhhhh hahaha poor Ryan! You are cuter than the dog.... mostly.

I started to take dance class when I was four years old. It was short lived. I believe I was done by the time I was six. So there aren't very many pictures of me in crazy 80's and 90's dance costumes. (I won't pull out Allison's pictures.) But here is proof I did it.



This is my question. Why am I not a good dancer?


Oh yeah, I remember now! This man is my father.

Do you ever have a complete brain fart and can't remember something that seems like it should be so clear?

The other day I was trying to be tough on Google Chat, so I said something like. "If Ryan doesn't stop saying I have an attitude I'm going to give him a noogie and also put his head in the toilet and flush it." It doesn't sound as tough when you can't remember the name for it.

Allison told me it's called a "swirly". That sounds about right

Warning! It's a long one. I need to filter some info probably. I will get the hang of this.

My parents rock. (Although I might not have always known this) It is so true. Growing up I know for sure we went on vacation every year, well, at least as far as I can remember we went on vacation every year. It didn't matter if Dad was still in school or we were poor and lived in North Fairmount, I'm pretty sure we still went.

When I was 15 I so did not appreciate the fact that my parents did this. I had just finished my freshmen year @ Colerain, Allison had just graduated, and Allayna would have been 6 almost 7. We were on our way to California for 2 weeks. Now to any normal kid this would have been awesome, but this was the summer of bummer for me. I had lots of new friends at home and had been hanging out with them since school had let out. Now, poor pathetic me had to go to California. Whaa whaa whaa!

The trip started out with us having to make 3 connecting flights and one was through a super big airport (which I can't remember right now.) We knew we'd have a tight squeeze at one point but we were being optimistic about it all. (Ok, I want to say it was O'hare, but I may have to correct it later.) So we land in "O'hare" and realize we have about 15 minutes to get on our connecting flight and if I recall correctly it was over a mile to get there. We had to take a shuttle to the concourse and after that we had to run. It looked like it was straight out of a sitcom. My mom took off her shoes and was sprinting and my dad booked way ahead of us. We were running on the moving sidewalks trying to catch our flight. I am sure you are trying to picture us dragging poor little 6 year old Allayna behind us to get there. Now this is sad, I can't remember if we made it after all that drama, but I'm gonna say we did. We deserved it after that long run!

Our first stop was in San Francisco and we stayed in the Adelaide Inn now known as the Adelaide Hostel. It was in a dark creepy alley and pretty difficult to find, and kind of.... old and stinky. Allison and I shared a room together and Allayna stayed with my parents. I called my friends every night and Allison wrote love letters to Ryan or something like that. We went to China town where Allayna got a bright red kimono and we skipped around holding hands, once again like a sitcom family. We saw lots of jade objects and after a while we said we should start a collection. Dad would say every time the jade was for his "correction" and we would all laugh (every time). We walked down to the pier where we saw sea otters breaking things over their bellies and got some really cool pics of me in orange pants and a pokemon shirt. I hope they do not surface.

This is getting long, but I must remember more than I thought. I will recap the rest in tidbits. Like flashes of memories.
*flash* Allayna would do this creepy surprised face where she would look at something in amazement rub her eyes and then look again in amazement, this made us laugh everytime.
*flash*We went to Big Sur where we talked about lighting farts, played the "HAHA" game and got whipped in the face by sand. It was beautiful. We laughed.
*flash* Dad wore his sunglasses without one of the lenses for a long time without noticing, we laughed.
*flash* Allison made fun of me when I was on the phone with my friends and I punched her, we didn't laugh.
*flash* We did our morning exercises in our underwear, we laughed.
*flash* When we got home, my luggage was missing, with all of my new clothes, I didn't laugh.

This was before teenagers had cell phones and text messaging. I'm glad. I wouldn't have such great memories, blurred or not, if I would have had one in my hand at all times.

Mom and Dad, I don't know if I ever thanked you for that trip, but I want to say it now. Thank you for always making me laugh even when I am a big, teenage, brat.

Written a blog. I suppose it is time I gave in.

Firstly, I am not good at writing and am not particularly good with words.

Secondly, I have the worst memory ever. (Well, for a 24 year old) So I thought it would be interesting to try to remember funny stories (to the best of my ability) and share with you. If you know the story better than me we will have a re-post with more accurate details posted later correcting my beguiling story.

Let me apologize ahead of time for how awesome my blog will be. You will probably cry every time you read it because of the extremely profound things I share. You will laugh often because of my sharp wit. And you may fall asleep often because it will be soOOOooo interesting.