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Please click on Posts by Topic in navigation to read postings and columns about the many humorous (in retrospect) events encountered by my family, friends and me. The above drawings by son Greg (way over qualified for that task) illustrated a couple of my books. You may click on each to enlarge if you wish to see more detail. And, yes, I really did hit an owl on the highway and unknowingly drive all over town with him hanging from the grille.
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Click on the cover to buy or read excerpts from the book.
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X marks the spot where I lay on my back next to the stone that threw me. That space between the stubs is 24 inches wide and accommodated my posterior, part of my upper legs and my lower back. My lower legs and shoulders were on the stubs of that %@#%*# pampas grass. Is it any wonder I couldn't get up?
I figure Ray's IQ should have been 12 or even 20 points higher than mine. I can only think of a few dumb stunts he pulled in our lifetime together while I felt I wasn't living up to my reputation if I didn't have a couple of dumb stunts per week.
I can't imagine what he would have thought of me helpless on my back the other day in the middle of his much loved pampas grass. If he didn't love them I wouldn't have already cut 11 of them so they can grow even taller this year. I don't know how many more I have to cut, but it is a LOT! When Ray and I lived on Illinois Street with our two young sons, a little girl across the street witnessed some of my dumb stunts and hasn't forgotten them even though it was a long time ago. Here's what she posted on FB after reading the post below about the problem turtles and I share: "I don't know how you are always winding up in these situations, but that's you!!!!!!" 'Fraid she is right. I once wrote a column about some of my other dumb stunts. If you'd like to read "A few crumbs short of a Smart Cookie, click here.
My husband Ray made yard work look easy. He loved to mow, create flower gardens and plant trees. He trimmed the bushes, cut off the many ornamental grasses in the spring and pruned the trees. I have learned to do some of that now and I’m telling you this: It isn’t easy.
Take today, when I decided to use the electric hedge trimmer to cut off the pampas grasses down by the water garden. These are younger than the 12 to 15 foot pampas grasses in the front yard which I managed to cut with no issue so you’d think cutting these six to seven-feet tall grasses would be a piece of cake as long as I didn’t fall in the water garden (I didn’t, but Ray’s “Raiders of the Lost Arc” hat which I had secured under my chin almost did when it blew off in the strong east wind). The pampas grasses form a half-circle about nine feet long and four feet wide. I had cut most of them down — leaving hard hollow stubs a foot tall — except for the very back of the center grass and was so tuckered that I decided to sit and rest on one of two stone benches Ray made so we could sit by the water garden. But when I sat down, the heavy long stone resting on two stone legs flipped me backwards then fell off beside me. I twisted sideways when I fell and was lying on my back with my lower legs and shoulders resting on foot-high stubs. My life is pretty much an open book but you may not know this about me. Twenty-five years ago, I had a bilateral mastectomy with a TRAM-flap reconstruction. In that eight-hour procedure, the surgeon made a hipbone to hipbone incision, cut flaps out of my transverse rectus abdominis muscle, leaving them connected to the blood supply, then subcutaneously tunneled them up to my chest, attached the flaps to my chest wall and replaced the breast tissue with tummy tissue. So it’s all me, just living a foot or so higher than it used to be. When the surgeon told me I’d never be able to do sit-ups again, I thought to myself Sure I will! I was wrong. In a prone position, I am as helpless as a turtle on his or her (hard to tell turtle gender) back. I do have one advantage over a turtle, however, because I can usually put my hands under my bent knee and lever myself into a sitting position. However, I couldn’t do that in the confined space although I tried and tried and tried, managing to lose Ray’s hat and my sunglasses in the process. Did I have my phone to call for help? No, I did not and if I had, I likely would have lost that like the hat and sunglasses. I looked at the sky as I contemplated what to do. Finally, I said, “Ray, you are going to have to help your idiot wife get out of this.” I didn’t hear him tell me, but it was then that I thought of grabbing the tall stalks of pampas grass I hadn’t cut to help me roll out of there. Once I rolled outside my pampas grass nest onto my stomach, I could get on my hands and knees and stand up. Once standing, I retrieved Ray's hat, my sunglasses and the trimmer and cut the remaining pampas grass. I won’t be sitting on that bench again and I will certainly take my phone with me next time I go outside to do anything. The good news is that I am not a turtle. If I were, I’d still be out there on my back staring at the stars.
The above membership card is one I made for each member of a club I started for the four female blondes on our United Way Board. We were the butt of many good-natured blonde jokes directed at us from the brunette and gray haired men and women on the Board, but we laughed along with them. We knew we weren't dumb blondes and so did they. The Barb was our amazing brunette UW executive director. I once wrote in Jest for Grins, my newspaper humor column, about blondes and the dumb things we sometimes do even when we're smart. If you'd like to read "Hair Color and Gender Don't Determine IQ," click here.
A friend gave me this picture. I may have burned mine. The only good thing I can say about this teacher is that she prepared me for my 5th grade teacher who was much worse. Those were the only bad teachers I had in elementary school but that may be because we moved from Sabetha before I was old enough to have the dreaded Miss Frybergerhouse (no kidding) for a teacher.
In 6th grade, we had one teacher first semester and another one second semester. None of us liked the second teacher very much although I honestly think it was only because we absolutely loved the first semester teacher who was younger and wore beautiful dresses and jewelry. At any rate, Decades later, I mentioned my 4th grade teacher in my newspaper humor column, Click here if you'd like to read it.
I can't imagine why Ray and I thought it was a great idea to buy a six-foot Burmese python for our youngest son for a Christmas present, but it was probably for the same reason we bought our older son a Hodaka motorcycle. We weren't thinking of anything but the joy on their faces when they saw their presents. Certainly we didn't think Asklepius would live with us long enough to attain a length of fourteen feet.
I'm pretty sure I have had more snake encounters than most mothers, but It’s hard to top my friend Audrey’s terrifying snake experience. She was seated on her bathroom throne when a snake tumbled out of the ceiling vent into her lap. My unexpected snake encounters were more mildly terrifying . . . like reaching in an agitating washing machine to grab a belt only to have a snake (it wasn't a belt after all) wrap around my arm in a frantic attempt to climb out of the sudsy water.
I have written much about snakes. I recently found this old newspaper column and if you'd like to read Snake food: dead mouse walking, just click here.
I don't know about you, but I just asked Alexa what the temperature was and when she said minus 12, I figured out why they quit calling it Global Warming although they still talk about the earth warming. You know how much the earth has warmed during the last 143 years?
According to a continuous study conducted by the NASA’s Goddard institute, the Earth’s average global temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius or 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. That's not enough to worry me, but I could sure use a little Global Warming right now. I promise I won't even complain about mowing the lawn when the sun and warmer weather makes the grass grow. This post started out to be about lawn mowing, not climate change, because I was looking for something on the computer and found a 2015 column titled "Mowing the lawn can be a risky business" about the time the mower caught on fire with Ray riding it. If you'd like to read it, click here.
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For 15 years, I wrote a humor column titled Jest for Grins for my local Lawrence, Kansas Journal-World
newspaper.While I stay busy with speaking engagements, writing articles and books and serving as editor and primary writer of a newspaper for a non-profit agency, I really miss writing about the funny things life throws my way. This website allows me to do that. I freely admit to being a control freak who wants to do things on my own, but my good friend Ruth has been a tremendous help to me. I kept trying to make this website perfect before publishing, but finally decided that was like waiting to have children until you can afford them: it will never happen. So here it is; you'll get to watch it improve. If you develop into a frequent Jest for Grins visitor, you'll quickly become familiar with my usual cast of characters: husband Ray, sons Ray, Jr. (aka Butch) and Greg, daughters-in-law Linda and Valerie, grandchildren B.J., Gabe, Sammi and Zoe, sisters Lesta, Bette and Vicki, as well as a host of family and friends (not one of whom is boring). If the topic has the potential to be embarrassing to them, be assured that they read it and gave it their OK (otherwise, sister Lesta has threatened to sue me). Marsha |