Christmas @ MindSay 
presents
Though the morning at the library has actually been quite busy...(interpret that to mean I have been doing actual work) I have found time for internet browsing.
Most often, my browsing takes the form of random clicking on anything that catches my eye, however, given the time of year, my surfing has been a bit more focused of late.
I have been reading an excellent book (that I have read before, but enjoy rereading annually) called The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Santa Claus (as told to Jeff Guinn). This is a wonderful story that literally gives the history of Santa, the truth about the man behind the myth and several interesting historical facts that Santa personally recounts as he traveled through history. If you are a cheesy holiday fan like me, I heartily recommend this book. If you aren't but still enjoy a great story and a bit of history....well, I recommend it for you as well.
Having said that, I have been browsing some of the tidbits that particularly interest me from this book. And in doing so, I came across this awesome bit of information taken from a fun website called How Stuff Works.
Although Rudolph is what's called a bull -- a male reindeer -- there's a rumor that many of Santa's reindeer might be cows, or female reindeer. Why is this?
Have you ever seen pictures of Santa flying in his sleigh with his team of reindeer? If you have, you'll notice that the reindeer have fully grown antlers. The interesting thing is, though, male reindeer typically shed their antlers by early December, well before Christmas Eve. The antlers grow back in the spring, and the cycle of growth and regrowth continues. Cows keep their antlers all year long, however, so the chances that there are more females than males on Santa's sleigh are a bit higher.
This isn't to say that all of the reindeer are female and Rudolph's the only guy out there. Most males shed their antlers, but not all of them, and it's possible that a bull won't lose his antlers until after December. Accounts of Blitzen, a part of the original team of reindeer, identify him as Rudolph's father, so we know that Santa has both male and female reindeer leading his sleigh.
So there you have it: Santa is an EOE-for the most important job on Christmas Eve, he doesn't just trust the men...he knows that when there is real work to be done, get the women involved.
Oh, the only issue I have with all this is that the movie version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer credits Donner as being Rudolph's daddy, not Blitzen. It's a big mystery-maybe one I will try and solve after lunch.
Finally I'm able to just sit and let the words roll again...
This picks up from March 29ths posting.....
Backing up_
I met James(my husband now,then boyfriend!) when I was 15 and in the 10th grade. In those days, High school was split up into 2 years each,9-10 and 11-12, each at seperate places. It was the tail end of 10th grade and I was able to miss my last clas of the day because I was traveling on an activity bus to my Sr high school to try out for "Dancing Boots". There was a period of about 2 weeks where each afternoon I went to the Sr. high to try out. I made the team. More on this later.... Anyway, I decided to keep skippping my last class of the day which was, History! I made A's in there anyway... I went and hung out on my bus instead. My bus driver was really cute and we had struck up being friends. Several bus drivers hung out on his bus while waiting for classes to let out, and we had a good time kidding around. At the time, I was dating James' best friend.I hadn't met James yet... Anyway, it's late May, early June of 1979... The then boyfriend was becoming a pain...trying to ditch me.. He shows up at my house one afternoon to break a date with me and lo and behold, James is in the backseat of his car. He(the boyfriend) had several friends with him. The boyfriend and I argued a bit, then James decided to say something... My very first words to him were" Why don't you just shut-up and mind your own business!" Well, great beginning huh? LOL- anyway the jerk and I broke up and then James started hanging out on my bus with the other drivers. He was a bus driver too. We picked on each other and kinda got to know one another.James was 2 years older than me and he was getting ready to graduate high school. Then James calls me one evening and asks me out. Our first date was June 15th,1979. We went to see"Rocky 2" and then went to Hardees to eat. We went out just about every day after that first date. All summer long we went to tons of movies(they only cost us about $5.00 for the 2 of us to go!) and hung out. On July 10th, James gave me a promise ring. that was the thing back then. He said he had never met anyone like me and he was in love with me and I was "it", the ONE he'd been searching for. I felt the same way. We talked for hours on the phone at night, usually my dad ran me off the phone at 2 in the morning! LOL Those were the days of one phone houses, and rotary phones! Ha! We talked about nothing in particular, and just basically had fun. I turned 16 on July 12th and tried to have a sweet 16 party but it was planned for outside and it rained that day and evening, so there went my party, BUT James stuck by me all day and he took me out that night instead. One of the best birthdays I can remember! I started Sr high in the fall, and I quit the Dance team! Told ya I'd tell ya later about it... I wanted to be with James all the time so I quit! No regrets here! Anyway, we had good year as we grew closer and closer. then I started my Sr. year. it's now mid 1980. Senior year was a blast! Too much fun! Then Nov- Dec 1980 rolls around. James shows me these house plans that he drew up when he was younger and asks me if I llike them. I said I did. They were of a split- foyer with a full basement. Typical for that generation. I didn't think much of it. Then James takes me to a wooded lot and says"This is where we are gonna build our house" I'm thinking, Ok he's planning for down the road. We proceed to rope off an area in the woods to the size of a house. next thing I know within the week, he has people out there digging out a basement and cutting down trees..... Hummmm..... Anyway, James,his brother, and his dad all had two weeks off at Christmas... So they start building a house on top of the basement which has been blocked already...... the house gets framed out totally during those 2 weeks.... Now I can say that James took me for granted! LOL builing a house and I hadnt even said YES yet! LOL then Christmas Eve arrives and James is at my house for the evening. We steal some time alone in the living room.. he gives me this big box to open.... I open it and pull out a stuffed Panda Bear that is holding a fish velcroed to his paws. On the fish is a note. I open the note and it says in big letters"This is It! Will you marry me?" I looked at him in surprise and he asks me, on his knees."Will You Marry Me,Tracee? I love you with all my heart." I of course start crying and say "YES!" Now I'm just 17 years old still at this point and still in high school, but I didnt care! I had wanted to be a wife and mom since a little girl. I didnt care to go off to college. I wanted a family to love! He slipped a ring on my finger and we kissed! so we go to the den where my family is gathered and make our little announcement. Dad was a bit shocked, but he knew the day had been drawing near.... They gave us their blessing, but said I had to wait til I graduated and til after I was 18. they weren't going to sign for me to get married because they didnt want me to come to them if the marriage didnt work and say you let me do this thing! it was to be totally me! more on this later!
Anyway, we got their blessings. now meanwhile, I had been going to church with James for a long time. I grew up in the Episcopal church, and my family didn't attend regularly. I believed in GOD, but I didn't KNOW GOD... I was basically a GOOD person... well, James was Baptist, and I had been hearing some things that I questioned him about alot. James was talking to me a lot and having me read verses. Well, on a Sunday night on Feb.8th 1981, I was with James at his church for a revival meeting. James Ellis was the speaker. he preached Hell and Brimstone that night, but not in a condescending way... he explained things that were clear as a bell to me that night. my eyes and my heart were opened. Later that evening after lots of my questions to my James in my living room at home, I accepted Christ as my Personal Saviour! I was so giddy with happiness! my heart was overflowing... It does us good to remember the time and place we met the Master... James was very happy too. he had been working on me for a long time, and even though he had asked me to marry him knowing I wasn't saved, he had hope. he knew he was risking alot too. Believers should never yoke with unbelievers. the Bible tells us. His family had told him he shouldn't get involved with me, but when they heard that I got saved that night, they accepted me whole heartedly. only thing was, I couldn't tell my dad about what I had done. Dad had a way of twisting things around and he would argue someone blue in the face, that there is no hell. so I kept this from my family for the time being. I knew God would let me know when the time was right For Valentines day that following week, James gave me a scofield Bible, which I still carry and use to this day. that was a very loving present.. The months came on by and in late May of '81 we finished the house. it was ready. I was busy planning my wedding and getting ready to graduate high school. Now is where I need to say that I did alot of the planning myself, bymyself. i didnt have my mother to turn to in this. She was there, but not really there. She is manic-depressive or bi-polar as the term better is known now. Since I was 11 she had been in and out of mental hospitals. I saw bizzarre behaviour during those yeaars and I had to grow up quick. I came home from school and took care of my younger brother. I got home before he did. I cleaned and cooked, and washed,etc... My brother is 6 years younger than me, and I hid him from a lot of what was going on. anyway, It came down to the week before the wedding which by the way we planned for July 18th 1981. Dont think I mentioned that before now! Those days you had to have your marriage license ahead of time. Well, guess what, the week before the 18th was the 12th which was my 18th birthday, and I had to carry my mom with me downtown for the license and SHE had to sign! we had to go on the 11th to get it, and being I wasn't 18 yet(just by a day!) and she had to sign! She was ticked! anyway, got through that then the wedding. (At the end of May I graduated!)
fast forward through those first years now...... Lots of things happened to us along the way, a son in 1988 and a daughter in 1991, along with the typical ups and downs of a marriage. It takes TWO. You both have to give and take in a marriage. IT CANNOT BE ONESIDED!!! yes, we were young, and a lot of our friends said it wouldn't last, but it has, and it's almost 27 years strong....and going.....
anyway, some things happened in 1993 that werent good financially. So, my parents gave up their little apartment and moved in with us..... For 8 years they lived with us and got us back on our feet. During those years, Was when GOD opened the door and showed me how to witness to my dad. he was still stubborn... So I didnt talk, I SHOWED him Christian love... And he knew there was something differnet..... he saw it and felt it.... To this day though, I'm not sure about my Dad. I Lost him in March of 2007. I was able to be by his bedside alone with him and I was able to pour my heart out to him then. they always say the hearing is the last to go.... he was in a coma, and I have hope he heard me.... I cling to my hope everyday... I pray I see my dad again in Heaven one day... I do have a bit of peace about it. the Lord has given me that, but I dont know the truth about dad... as I said, I have hope....
There's still alot of blank spaces I could write and fill in, maybe one day I will. My moms battle still goes on. As she ages, it seems to get worse. That is a story in itself. All the horrors of a mental illness that I witnessed as a young girl, as an adult. They are too painful to write about. I still have humps to overcome with this myself. it took a long time to just understand that my mother wasn't doing those things on purpose, that she didnt know and couldn't control it. it took a long time to forgive..... mental illness hurts.. it hurts those who love you the most.... but she is my mother and I love her... sometimes its all I can do....
I felt isolated as a kid and then when I became older I was told that if I had sex then I had to marry that person or it would be a sin. I was also told that the person I had sex with would have to be a witness. So I saw kids wanting to marry just so they could have sex and be freed from their parents strict household. I saw people with sin that thought they were perfect or could be perfect just by bearing the name and rules of this religion. I saw people that, when they went up against this religion, then no longer could anyone from this organization associate themselves with them. I saw kids getting kicked out of their homes because they wouldn't attend meetings. I saw parents curse their children lives by telling them that without this religion in their lives then God will not listen to their prayers and they would live a cursed life without blessings. If you believe this stuff then it begins to encumber your soul and eventually you are torn between a world of conflict internally. This conflict affects the relationship later on in your life. You become unlovable, unattached, and very secretive about yourself. You become afraid of anyone truly knowing what's inside you because you were taught that you were wicked.
I never went to a therapist to get my mind resolved on my childhood issues, however I became a Christian. A Christian without rules and demands or my walk of life. A Christian were as the Lord is engraved in my heart and not in books made of paper and stone. I am taught by the holy spirit of the right and wrong paths, not by an imperfect being made up of flesh. Who can make mistakes at any given time like myself. I don't ever want to be mislead by false prophets, those that are the anti Christ, which means that, they don't believe Jesus as being one with God. I had to sever my relationship with my mom because she couldn't respect me saying no more lies. It was painful however needed. I was taught in a black society that disrespecting your parents basically means bringing hardship upon you. I was taught that you could not freely express your views without getting a slap on the face. However I saw the white society of kids express their feelings to their parents. Some said,"Get the fuck out of my room mom". Or, "Shut the fuck up or leave me the fuck alone or even fuck you bitch".
I recently came across a black artist that had an excerpt from a song on youtube, that said Yo mama you know you lied to me. And I wish I could hear the rest of that song, because everything that I felt she was expressing it. As if she knew me. I could never say what I wanted to say to my mom, but I felt like through her song, I could. I personally want to say to Kissimistry, thank you for making a song that defies all the lies we were taught in the black community far as voicing our concerns to our parents. Thank you for being the rebel or zealot as the witnesses would call you. Thank you for standing up. Click to listen to Yo Mama excerpt, it's after the first song.
I know I'm procrastinating. What can I say? I'm good at it. I'm working on a major works data sheet on Lear for English class tomorrow. After that, I have to study for my Lear test, do my learning log and study for a Chemisty test, study for my music theory quiz (chord progressions need to be memorized), figure out Calculus, and study for the second half of my psychology test. It will be a fun evening. Matt joked with me and told me I wasn't going to start on all of it until 9:00, which is true most nights, but I told him I'd have it all done before 9:00 tonight. I shall try. I'm just taking a little break. I just got to analyze the style of Lear and cite examples and significance of lines containing blank verse (iambic pentameter that doesn't rhyme) and imagery. Now I'm supposed to relate seven characters back to my group's proposed themes. Yup, that is why I'm procrastinating. It's giving me time to mull it all over in my mind... or just avoid it for a while.
Today has been fun. This morning, Matt and I went over to Hanes with a few other Reagan kids and played Christmas carols with them and Hanes kids, plus our directors first at Hanes then at Central Office. We ate Wendy's for lunch, then headed back to Reagan for our last three classes (the only ones I take at Reagan anyway). I played mellophone all morning, and besides the few times I couldn't remember the key or couldn't see the music (4 of us on one stand), it was really good. I enjoyed it a whole bunch.
Reagan was decent, too. I wrote a decent psych essay for the test, which I'm calling decent only because I remembered halfway through who Robert Baron was and what he concluded from his experiments, which was a big part of the question. I read that around 11:00 last night =D. I don't know anyone else who actually remembered him, so I was pretty excited. My mouth was doing alright until I took out my oboe to play 7th period, which did not work at all because then I realized how sore it was. I'm going to go ice it in a little while.
I'm pretty happy with my life right now, besides my hair, which although it looks alright, it gets on my nerves. I keep joking that I'm going to shave it all off. I haven't gotten to that point yet, but it sure is aggravating. ;
The last day of school for the year is tomorrow, and while I'll be glad to get the break, it means less time around my friends, mostly meaning less time around Matt. I'll live, but it will be sad. Christmas is supposed to be a happy time, and I want to make sure I spend it with people who make me happy.
"You make school way more fun than it should be." I like that line a lot.
Alright, it's back to Lear... ugh.
It's been a nice day. It started out with a really hard AP Chem test before school. Then four classes after missing all of them yesterday... my struggle (and almost success, I think!) to understand what we did in Calculus. My favorite part was Maggie's Christmas music in chemistry. Then a make up test during my travel period on Lear. Then five minutes at my house... my dad made me a sandwich I ate on the way to school. Then Civics, a Psych test (and Myer's classic sense of humor), and band. Then I got dragged across the floor by Josh. I mean all the way across the band room floor. My white shirt is now filthy. I also got my CD that Dr. Ellis did for me. It sounds decent. I'm pleased with how it came out. I don't really think it will have much of an influence as far as college admissions goes, but who knows.
And all's well that ends well, right? My day's been good. Maybe a little less need for ice on the lips today... I didn't have to play three straight hours of mellophone plus a half hour of oboe.... which means my lips are doing much better today =D
I'm happy. I like this feeling. I like this day. School's out for the break. Who could not be happy about something so wonderful?
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