Bambi

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

1st grade...1966

Bambi was playing at the movies in my town and I wanted to go see it.  My mom refused. I never got an answer why my brother and I could not go but we just could not.    I remember begging and begging to go see Bambi but all my pleading fell on frozen,  deaf ears.  I was heartbroken and I never let my mother live that down.   For many years when I was still in elementary school. ...no let me rephrase that....every year when I was in elementary school I would always bring up the fact that I was Bambi deprived.  Bambi challenged even!  Bambi deficient and Bambi lacking. 

I was positively Bambi defiant and determined to let my mother know I was Bambi scarred.  In middle school I may have brought it up 2 of the 3 middle school years.  In high school I brought it up yearly as in do you remember when.......you would not let us see Bambi.  My mother was haunted by Bambi.  I haunted her with Bambi.  Whenever she thought of me she thought of me missing Bambi.  Even she began to bring it up.  I think I brought it up once in college and that was my senior year.  I was off to the real world and had never seen Bambi.

After college I left home and was gone for about 10 years.  I haunted my mom with Bambi from afar via phone and letters.  YES>>>yes yes..she remembered that we did not go to see Bambi.  After 10 years of being away I moved back home for a short while, about 3 years I think, and in that three years Bambi was never forgotten.  

I was Bambi defiant in that I could have rented the video and watched it but I just could not get over the fact that my mother would not let me see it back in 1966 and for no good reason.   Just because!  What the hell was "just because" when it came to a Disney movie?  That was insane.  Finally Disney released Bambi from the Disney vault around 1999  I think.  I was at my mothers' house visiting and my daughter who was 6 at the time asked if we would be getting that movie.  I told her I was not sure.  We were watching a commercial about Bambi being out of the vault for a limited time--me, mom and my daughter. 

It was July and my birthday was at the end of the month.  I told my daughter we would have to see  about the movie and of course it was the perfect moment to bring up the fact that when I was a little girl,  nana would not let me go to see Bambi.  My mother let out a big sigh.  She had been hearing me talking about not seeing Bambi for 38 years.     38 years.   38 years of no Bambi and being haunted  by me being scarred for not seeing it.  Bambi! Bambi! BAMBI!!! 38 years of Bambi.

About a week before my birthday I was leaving town.  We had the standard family birthday dinner.  I got one of the best gifts I ever got that year.  My mothers'  gift was in an envelope.  I figured a gift certificate or money...you know the usual.   I opened the envelope and it was money.  A check for $21.26.  I looked at her.  She looked at me.  She said it was for me to buy my personal copy of Bambi before it went back into the Disney vault.  I started  to tear up and so did she.  I gave her a hug and when I did she apologized into my ear for not taking me.  She had no idea it would affect me in such a way.  I was 38 and Bambi scarred--Bambi starved!  

I went out to the Disney store that very evening and bought my copy of Bambi and watched it all alone with a big bucket of popcorn and kleenex.  After seeing it one time I watched it again.  I have never brought Bambi up to my mother again.  I was going to be okay.  I was going to heal.  My mother had found a way for me to see Bambi!

               

 

Lobster

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

1987 summer

I have always loved lobster and had no quams about eating in anytime or anywhere...whether I was buying it at a restaurant or cooking it myself at home..until one of my coworkers in a past life/job told me that eating a lobster was the same as eating a giant spider as they were in the same family. I have an extreme hatred of spiders and this totally unnerved me. I thought she was lying until I looked it up for myself. It is true. Spiders and lobsters are in the same family. It was about a year before I ate another lobster after that. My friend also told me that if you listen very closely when you place the lobster in the hot water you can even hear it scream. (Damn her!)

At that year mark I went to the store and picked out a nice, fiesty lobster and a bottle of wine to cook at home. The grocer placed those large, red rubber bands around the claws so that I would not get pinched. I got the lobster home and placed him in the fridge while I got the large lobster pot and set the water to boil. After about 15 minutes I had a large pot of roiling water, perfect to pop a lobster in. I got the lobster out of the fridge and slid him out of the paper bag. His two large red claws were still rubber banded closed. The lobster was sitting on the kitchen counter just above the silverware drawer. I opened the silverware drawer and got out the kitchen sheers and cut off the rubber bands. This is what I have always done. I would then grab the lobster by the back tail and plop him headfirst into the boiling water. No problem.

That day there was a problem. All of a sudden when I took off the rubber bands, that lobster reared up its claws at me in attach mode and moved forward. Claws were clicking--clickity clack! Clickity clack! This was a 13 pound lobster so it was pretty big. I jumped back. The lobster walked forward off the counter and dropped into the open silverware drawer. That lobster fought for his life. In the end I won but it was a hard battle. That battle lasted for about 45 minutes.

When the lobster dropped into the silverware drawer it backed up and wedged itself in. The drawer was only 1/2 way open so that lobster wedged in and was not coming out. It continued to waved thoses clicking claws at me. I grabbed a long barbeque spatula and placed it in its claws. The lobster clamped down on the spatula and would not let go. Then I grabbed a pair of tongs and grabbed onto the center of the spatula and pulled. I pulled and the lobster also pulled--backwards.

What was I going to do? I began to panic. Finally, I pulled the drawer out all the way and, pulled on the tongs and grabbed the back of lobster with my hand wrapped in a dishtowel. Finally I was able to get it out. I was unable to drop it headfirst into the pot of boiling water due to the claws still clamped around the spatula. Tailfirst it went and it finally released the spatula and I was able to get the whole thing submerged.

I was unnerved--totally. While the lobster boiled for the next 20 minutes I thought about how hard it wanted to live and that it fought to its' death. I was very upset that I could not get it in headfirst for an instant death. I thought about it being the same as a large spider and finally when it was done, I almost could not eat it. It almost made me ill. Those long spidery legs, the fight, those clicking claws. I did eat it but there was no joy in eating it.

It was about three years before I ate another one. Now, the whole lobster goes in with rubber bands on, head first and there had never been another lobster fighting for its' life in my kitchen.

Lobster Info
So what is a lobster do you ask? A mammal, a fish or some primitive sea creature? Well, in case you don’t know a lobster belongs to the category Invertebrata, one of the two categories making up the animal kingdom. Unlike us humans who belong to the other group, Vertebrata, invertebrates lack a vertebral column (a backbone).

This is the classification system that all scientists use to categorize animals. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Below is the classification for Homarus americanus.

Kingdom: Anamilia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Crustacea
Order: Decapoda
Family: Nephropidae
Genus: Homarus
Species: americanus

Lobsters are actually closely related to insects! It’s hard to believe that these beady-eyed, clawed-clothed marine animals could be closely related to a mosquito or a grasshopper, but indeed they are. Lobsters, like insects, belong to the invertebrate phylum Arthropoda. Besides lobsters and insects, spiders and snails belong to this group as well. These animals are closely related because of two main characteristics that they share: they all have an exoskeleton (outer skeleton) and they all have joint appendages. More Info.

The Amazing Race At A Glance: The Yield

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

There is a new twist to the Amazing Race this season called the "yield". This "yield" allows other team to slow other teams down resulting in all sort of tirckery and ill will. Should be good!

According to the host Phil Keoghan:

In addition to that new wrinkle, "Race 5" offers new challenges to its teams in terms of the sheer distances they are forced to travel. "This season was one of the toughest yet," Keoghan says. "We traveled more miles than ever before, about 75,000. Most previous seasons have been around 50,000. To put that into perspective, to go around the equator once is 23,000 miles, so we did the equivalent of looping the world three times, although we were zig-zagging, of course.

Full Story HERE!

This season cast of characters should yield some explosive results and drama as well. Phil Keoghan also says that:

"They're edgy, engaging characters, contrasting teams that rub one another the wrong way from time to time. We don't look to create a 'perfect holiday' atmosphere, and the players that come into the game now are just much more charged-up and competitive from watching previous seasons."

I am sure with skanky Allison there will be drama! Can't wait until tonight!
Everyone got their compasses? Get ready! Get set! GO!

The Amazing Race: At A Glance

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

It is that time again...time for The Amazing Race! I love that show. It is my dream to be on it or Survivor some day. The picture above is the group shot of everyone. Here is just a little snippet about each of the teams with links to the full story just to wet your whistle. I just cannpt belive that Allison the snake from Big Brother is on this show. There is bound to be controversy with her around. Should be good!

Allison and Donnie
They are from Pennsylvania and have been dating for 3 years. Allison was on BB4 where her "skanky ways" put her relationship with Donnie on the outs. I cannot believe he is still with her. She was a hoochie!

Bob and Joyce
Both these people are widers and found each other compliments of the WWW and have been dating for about a year.

Brandon and Nicole
Both of these team members are "god fearing christians." (Fanatic?!) They met when Nicole was modeling a wedding gown and Brandon just happened to be her escort.

Charla and Mirna
Kissing cousins from Syria who migrated to America when they were small children. They are world travelers fluent in 4 languages. My bet is these two will go a long way due to their international background. That is, if they do not get knocked out for lagging behind due to the pysical challenges.

Chip and Kim
Married couple together over 25 years. They met in 1978 at a party when Kim was getting her freak on doing "the freak."

Colin and Christie
Both from Texas ahd have been dating for over a year. If they make it thru the race together Colin plans to propose. Can we just day "DOOMED" right now?! Marriage should not depend on the race.

Dennis and Erika
They met in college and later went on a trip to Italy together where a shocked Dennis found out that Erika likes to go skydiving in the nude.

Jim and Marsha
Father and daughter team from Florida. They are a military family who has spent serveral years in Germany.

Kami and Karli
Identical twins from Oregon. Hopefully we will be able to tell them apart!

Linda and Karen
Bowling moms from California. They look pretty tough but...they stamina and ability to make it through the physical challenges might do them in. They do both look like of hefty and not light on their feet.

Marshal and Lance
Brothers from Texas who are in the restaurant business. They own a pizza parlor and they bothe look like they eat alot of pizza. Too much! Physical challenges mey be this teams down fall as well. They do not look fit as a fiddle.

The Last Firecracker

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

The States-Fourth of July Weekend...1972

A friend of mine and her mother came over to spend the day with our family on holiday. Her mother and my mother were teachers at the same school so we had been friends for a long time. Her name was Paula. Paula and I were kind of opposites but we got along very well. I was so thin kids in the neighborhood called me "chicken bones" for many years. Paula was a chubby girl who really struggled with her weight. We had many play dates together for many years. Well...they came over for the holiday and after all the eating was over there was nothing left to do but fire off some fireworks.

I was never a big firework person. I really was afraid of them. The thing that I loved and was not afraid of was sparklers. I could like up a sparkler with a punk in no time. Well, I think that Paula and her mother were the ones to bring over fireworks that day. They had bottle rockets and sparklers, and firecrackers and cherry bombs. I stayed clear of most of them. I did the sparklers and stayed on the stoop out of the way when Paula was doing the other fireworks. All our parents were outside so we were being supervised.

Paula had exploded just about all the fireworks and had gotten down to the last firecracker. I left the stoop and came down onto the lawn about five feet behind Paula waiting for her to throw the last one so we could do something else---like jump rope.

Paula lit the firecracker in front of her and then raised her hand over her head to throw it up and away from her. Unfortunately, when she raised her hand over her head the firecracker slipped out of it and flew back toward my face and exploded on my left cheek right next to my ear. That was the end of the picnic of course.

I had a small cut on my cheek but the worst thing of all was the I had sudden and constant ringing in my ears. I did not go to the emergency room that night as I had no real wound. I did go see my pediatrician when the week started again. The peditrician checked me out and did hearing tests and basically said that due to the loud explosion right next to my ear I would have ringing in my ears for a while. He said that eventually it would stop.....most likely.

I did have ringing in my ears for about 2 years. All of a sudden it would just begin and all other sound would be blocked out until the ringing subsided. Finally after that two year period the ringing did subside and it did go away all together. I do not think I have even been close to a firecracker again after that. When I am around others who are on holiday and doing fireworks, I am always aware of the exact location and what party is about the throw "the last firecracker."
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Experience your own virtual fireworks show here---->Pretty Cool!

What is Your Internet Subculture???

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Which internet subculture do I belong to? [CLICK] You are a FURRY! You are a sick, sick, individual. Stop lusting over animals! Take off that fursuit and quit yiffing. No-one likes furry art! STOP NOW! More Quizzes at Go-Quiz.com

Happy Birthday Canada!