RECCE ROOM

Growing up with a  paranoid schizophrenic mother can be interesting. In our case, we kids could do no right, while others could do no wrong in her eyes. This led to many disruptive patterns, including frequent false accusations. Like the time she said my dad drove three hours one way just to take the koi out of her pond. One such false accusation that I always found humorous was the time I was accused of knocking over the propane tank at my dad's farm house. Not your common 2 - 5 gallon tank, but one of the heavy duty 500 gallon tanks used for heating a house through the winter. Those tanks weigh close to 1000 pounds  unfilled (this one was filled at the time). A gallon of propane weighs 4.24 pounds. So even if this tank were only half full (250 gallons), the combined weight of the tank and the fuel would be about 2000 pounds. It would be quite the task for one man to knock one over. What did knock the tank over was something I was privy to... some friends of hers....

It's been 3 years since my mother passed. Actually, at the time I'm writing this, it's just a few weeks since she passed, I just set this one to post way out in the future. The goal was to say nothing but positive about her for 3 years. Keeping positive is important in life. However, my mother was a flawed individual, too - as we all are. This post, and others like it in the future, will detail some of those flaws. Not for the purpose of being mean, but for the purpose of helping others. Every major flaw she had can be fixed, and so many people don't know how to fix their flaws. Other people just refuse to do anything about their flaws, but these folks cannot be helped until they decide to do something about it. Among my mother's greatest flaws was her health. This led, naturally, to other flaws. However, if you fix the root cause, you can often fix all (or at least most) of the symptoms. So I shall lead with this one: she used to tell us to try to eat vegetari...

As a child, then as an adult. My mom would often say "oawh." It sounded halfway between "oh" and "aw." Typically, when she said this, one of us would be trying to tell her something, and she wasn't getting it. She would look right at you, but either didn't comprehend, or else just thought you were lying. Also, it was usually a bit of information that would be important to her... like "no, that's not guacamole, it's wasabi!"   Link to that story.   If we heard "oawh," then we knew to tell her again later. If she said it again, then you knew for sure something was going to happen. Posted via Blogaway

This conversation happened when I was a kid. My brother was about 8 or 9 at the time. Brother: "Mom, is it normal for a belly-button to smell like a butt?" Moms: "It's NOT normal to be sniffing either!" .

My mom had a few words of wisdom on apologies: "Never apologize if you haven't done something wrong." "Using the word 'if' at the beginning of an apology means you don't mean it." "Don't try to rationalize what you did (justify), just fess up." (after you have calmed down) - "if you did something wrong, admit it and move on!" On Twitter, you might see the tag "sorrynotsorry." In person, it's called a fake apology. Other fake apologies: Using the phrases: "I deeply regret" or "mistakes were made." Here are some more fake apologies. This site has some "Do's and Dont's" on apologies which include some of the above nuggets of wisdom. Of all those words of wisdom, I think the most important two are not apologizing when not at fault, and not using the qualifier "if." .

Most people are aware of the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure." I used to not think my mom heard it quite right. She always said: "One man's candy is another man's raisins." Then, I found out later (thanks to "tez interwebz") that there used to be an old ad campaign for raisins and the catch phrase was "one man's fruit is another man's candy." The phrase also was heard like my mom said it, too. .

When I was an early teen, there was an argument at my house about duties. My mom wanted all three of us children to perform more of the housework. At the time, my brother and I performed most of the housework, and she made the very fair request that my sister become more involved. However, my mom was rarely at home to monitor whether the duties would be performed. Also and however, I performed 3/4 of the work already, and yet she was asking for more from me. I asked her how she planned to monitor when she was never home. Literally - she would be gone for weeks at a time. My mom became very defensive at this, as one could imagine. After the argument was over, my dad and I were sitting in the room, and he said something to me that I remember to this day: "you are being awfully hard on your mother." That rang true... but there was something else: I wasn't being any harder on her than she had been on me. --------------------------------------------------------------...

Something my mom used to say: "One man's candy is another man's raisins." Still not quite sure what it means. She would use it when others might use the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure." .

I read a Facebook meme some time ago that stated a Bible in shambles was usually a sign of a person whose life was not (in shambles). This is my mom's Bible: This was the first page I opened to:

Something my brother relayed to me about his experience performing CPR on my mother: Her lips were not blue at all. Her cheeks were slightly blue - like they got when she was cold. As he did chest compressions, her cheeks flushed a more normal color. Note: This agrees completely with my CPR training (I am CPR certified and have been continuously since 2007). In fact, as compared to older CPR methodology, it is more important to do chest compressions than to do rescue breathing. We listened in class to a taped recording of a frantic woman saying: "why do my husband's eyes open when I push his chest, but he goes back to sleep when I breathe for him?" At first, my brother felt guilt that maybe he had not performed CPR correctly. However, in 2010, my mother had a pacemaker and a defibrillator implanted. The idea is if something happened, the defibrillator would work like an external one and hopefully shock the heart back into action. The EMS team discovered that t...

I read the following at my mother's funeral on Monday, August 27, 2012 at about 2:30 pm: Anybody who knew my mom knows she was stubborn. Today, in corporate America, we call that determination. Being resolute. It is a trait that is highly sought after. Anybody who knew my mom knows she was generous - to a fault. She is the only person I ever have known that literally would have given the shirt off her back... not just a figure of speech here. Because of this, she lived in what many Americans would call "poverty." But that was her choice. She would have had it no other way.  And truly, it was only poverty in terms of dollars - never in terms of heavenly treasures.  My mom liked Elvis. Elvis once covered a song that Frank Sinatra made popular: " My Way ." An observer might say this was true of my mom. This would be, however, an inaccurate statement. My mom lived as God would have her live. She never did anything without consulting scripture and the counsel...

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In honor of my mother (6.20.1942 - 8.21.2012), here is the first in a fun list of things she used to say: "If you're gonna cheat someone, don't cheat the Feds or the Mob. They'll come get ya!" .