The fact is, things used to have down time. Stores closed. Television and radio stations “signed off,” and each station often had its own unique signoff ritual. After midnight, people went to bed; they didn’t stay up for hours and watch because there was nothing to watch. When people said, “There’s nothing on TV,” it wasn’t just an expression.  Radio stations signed off, too.

Sometimes I think it was better the old way. After midnight, people generally went to bed. People didn’t watch show after show just because something was on, because something WASN’T on. Just blackness, static, or a test pattern.

I can remember turning on the TV on Saturday morning, seeing nothing but the test pattern, and waiting patiently until 6:00 a.m. or so for the station to “sign on.”

When my cousin C and I were kids, and would stay at our grandmother’s house every weekend we could manage it, the sign-off for Indianapolis’ WTTV channel 4 was a few minutes of Mahalia Jackson singing.  I can’t remember what she sang, specifically, because C and I usually watched our grandmother when Mahalia sang.  It was one of the few times we saw Mamaw laugh out loud.  Mahalia’s kind of singing just wasn’t heard much in southern Indiana, and the shock value of it set Mamaw off every Saturday night.

Most sign-off rituals were religious in nature, and patriotic as well.  A local clergyman would speak a few words, the National Anthem would play, and the sign-off words were spoken, along with a promise to sign-on again in the morning.  It was kind of cool.  It was also a signal that everybody still up ought to go to bed, as well.

Maybe that’s one reason people stay up so late these days.  They’re glued to the TV, and there’s nobody now to tell them it’s time to sign off and go to bed.  As long as there’s SOMETHING on TV, some people will watch it.  I’ve never understood the mentality.

This picture, now, is the NBC peacock, telling us that the next program would be in living color. Those of you who thought In Living Color was nothing but a funny television show have a lesson to learn here. And now you know why the title of that show was funny in more ways than one!

Seeing that NBC peacock flexing its tailfeathers was the signal that Bonanza was about to start. A lot of the old 50’s sitcoms had been filmed in color but never seen in color, and eventually those started to be shown as was intended, too.

Here’s your laugh of the day. I didn’t know The Wizard of Oz was partly in color until I was in my teens. It made the expression “a horse of a different color” understandable, for the first time.

I’m not really QUITE that old, but my family just waited that long to get a color TV.

Mamacita says:   I remember being so tired it wasn’t humanly possible to turn OVER, let alone get up.  But I got up anyway, because I had responsibilities.  I sleep-walked across campus many times, to take a test.  I took tests with migraines so severe there were sparks shooting out of my head and I could barely read the questions.  I took tests that I’d pulled two or three all-nighters in a row to prepare for, and I really believed I was prepared!  I have fallen asleep with my head resting on my completed test.   I never once cut class on a test day, even though there were plenty of times when I wanted to.  (Are you listening, students dear?) (Because midterms aren’t all that far away, you know.)

I think a great way of telling whether a person is an adult or still a kid is watching him/her to see if he/she is, on a regular basis, dragging the ol’ carcass out of bed to do something because he/she signed up to do it, promised people he/she would be there to do it, paid money to do it or is being paid money to do it, and by golly he/she is just SUPPOSED to be there to do it.  No excuses. If it’s an obligation that requires a timeline with an established start and finish point, get up.

That being said:

Unless there is a legitimate reason for a teen to get up on a Saturday or any vacation day, the kid should be allowed to stay in bed all DAY if that’s what he/she wants.  Item:  the possible fact that Mom and/or Dad are up is NOT a legitimate reason to make others get up.

Teenagers really do need far more sleep than even a baby, and they seldom get it.  Many adults don’t understand this, and they insist that a teen GET UP on a Saturday morning or a vacation, because YOU’RE WASTING HALF THE DAY! COME ON, GET UP, THERE ARE CHORES TO BE DONE, ETC ETC ETC and these things can’t be done at nighttime, apparently. . . .  Plus, there’s the absolutely ridiculous early-morning start of high school, which most experts agree is detrimental to most teens’ body clock and yet school systems insist on it, mostly for the convenience of the bus drivers and families who rely on their older kids to babysit the younger kids after school.

Doesn’t anybody care about our sleepy teens?  An average teenager’s body requires ten to fourteen hours of sleep sometimes!  Why won’t some parents let the kid sleep?  Just, you know, leave the kid alone and let him SLEEP?  Wasting the day?  Some people are night owls, plain and simple, and sleeping when they’re the most tired is just logical.  Not everybody loves the early morning.  I don’t.  I hate it, in fact.  “Are you ever going to get out of that bed?  Do you intend to sleep your life away?  Jane, you’re wasting half of your Saturday!”  No, I wasn’t.  My Saturday was divided differently than certain other people, that’s all.  And at nine or ten p.m., when those people were curled up in bed, I was just beginning to be at my mental-alertness peak. I’m still that way.

Teens are wasting good daylight hours when they could be DOING something?  No, they’re not.  Teenagers desperately need that sleep, so leave them alone on their days off and let them sleep. It doesn’t do any good to insist that a kid go to bed earlier, either.  Most of the time, a kid just isn’t sleepy enough to go to bed earlier.  Mother Nature is a wily old thing and wired us all differently, sleep-needs-wise.

So who’s right and who’s wrong?  Nobody and everybody, of course.  But far too many adults can’t fathom a kid who wants to sleep so much.  Nay, a kid who MUST sleep so much.  I understand it completely.  I sympathize. I’m all for leaving the kid alone and letting him sleep.  He needs that sleep.  He needs hours and hours and hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep, far more than adults need.  Leave the kid alone and let him sleep!

Unless, of course, the kid, of his own free will, signed up for a job, or a degree, in which case, the kid needs to be there, #2 pencil in hand, or spiffy uniform donned and ready to fry, right smack when he/she contracted to be there, or else.  Part of becoming an adult is forcing oneself to do things one really doesn’t want to do, simply because it’s the right thing to do.  Many forty-year-olds still haven’t learned this.

HOWEVER, if that’s the case, these kids should have signed up for the midafternoon or evening class, not the morning class.  And since they did sign up for it, they need to honor their commitment. Most of my students have jobs.  That’s good.  All teens should pay for their own car insurance, dates, and fast food with the pals.  But if a kid can get up for fast food with the pals, the kid can get up for class.

Parents, please leave your teens alone on vacation mornings.  Do you really think he/she would have set the iPod and cell phone down and turned his/her back on them unless there was a very, very, very good reason?  Your kids are genuinely tired.  They desperately NEED that sleep.  It’s not laziness.  It’s biology.

Just be grateful it’s the kind of in-bed biology that you don’t have to lose your own sleep over.

So, old people, get up at the asscrack break of dawn if you are wired that way (bizarre) but leave other people alone. It’s a funny thing, but early-rising people always seem to love that time of day so much, they can’t conceive of anyone not being grateful to be awakened to share it.

News flash, morning people: If you don’t get out of here right now and leave me alone, I’m going to have to hurt you. I’m not kidding. The only good sunrise is the one you watch before you hit the sheets.

And I was even worse as a teen.

Sincerely,
–Dracula’s daughter

P.S. If the teen has a real commitment, such as a job or a class, he/she needs a good LOUD alarm clock and some serious consequences falling on his/her head – not from you but from the college or employer – if there’s a question about whether or not to get up to meet that obligation. If you just want the car washed, you can bloody well wait until late afternoon. Sheesh. Go watch the sun rise and eat “breakfast” if it’s that important to you. Leave everybody else alone. LEAVE THEM ALONE. You are not like them, and they are not like you. They’re normal, and you’re a bloody freak.

Well, I feel better now.

Mamacita says:  Women who had difficult labors probably hate me already right now, but I’ll go ahead and make it worse: I loved being pregnant. I felt GREAT.

Even when I was sitting still, doing nothing, I was still doing something wonderfully productive.  I was euphoric.  I felt very off-balance, but I’m so inclined that way anyway it wasn’t too bad.  But mostly, I just felt good.  The concept that after I had the baby, I would actually HAVE the baby, hadn’t sunken in yet.

I was scared of my babies. I knew I was too ignorant to deserve them, and I felt it was just a matter of time until my supreme ignorance caused me to do something with or to a baby that would toss me in the state pen for life, and deservedly so.  I could hear the sentence in my head:  YOU ARE FAR TOO STUPID TO GET TO HAVE BABIES!”

Somehow, I managed.  WE managed.  My kids are fantastic today, so maybe they didn’t suffer TOO much.  Sigh.

But, between panic attacks, I had fun with my babies, too. I made zillions of mistakes and did tons of stupid things, but I had fun. I hope they did, too.

I know I was half-asleep through a lot of it, esp. anything that happened in the early morning hours, and I know I was an odd mommy, and I hated having to leave them and go to work but I had no choice, and I know I packed some really bizarre lunches for them to take to school, and I know it’s probably my fault that both of them are night owls like me, and I know I embarrassed them a lot (that was my job, after all) but I also know that the good things far outweighed the bad, even if I could remember all the bad, which I don’t, which is probably best for the perpetuation of mankind.

After all, they’re alive, and they’re still speaking to me. I call that a good sign. And, they’re curious about everything and they love to go to see live shows.  They also both love music and enjoy living outside of the box.    They’re both sensitive and tenderhearted and like to help people, and they enjoy being odd on purpose to make other people mad.  I’m sure I have no idea where they learned THAT.

This ramble probably makes no sense, but I’m sitting here with a soul-splitting migraine, wishing I were tired enough to just get up and go to bed, and knowing that if I did I’d just lie there for hours and hours, feeling guilty because lately I’ve been wishing for my children’s childhoods back so I could do a better job this time, and knowing that with some things, well, even the gods can’t unscramble eggs. . . .

I also wish I could solve all the problems of the world with a wave of my hand, and knowing I can’t, and wishing I could, anyway, and wondering why some people have to be so cruel, and wondering how some people can be so upbeat in the face of unspeakable horror, and wishing I were thinner, and nicer, and more fun, and knowing I probably could be if only I weren’t also so lazy, well, I’ve got a massive migraine and these thoughts aren’t my fault.  They’re not, they’re not, they’re not!

Maybe I should go to bed and get up early.  I almost wish I had a pile of quizzes to grade.  Life has all kinds of quizzes, doesn’t it.  The quizzes in my briefcase usually have  easy answers.

P.S. It would be lovely if there were a prize for the person who counts all the run-on sentences and comments with the number, but there isn’t one.  Do it anyway if you’re the O/C type, and I’ll thank you, but that’s all you get.

I know they’re big stuff now, and I’m glad because they so totally deserve to be big stuff, but let it be known that I loved them before you did.

But grooving all over Straight No Chaser is something I’ve already done and will continue to do. Here are some things I haven’t done yet:

1.  I really need to mow the grass one more time before the snow covers it.  Why do I need to do this?  Because I’m hosting Thanksgiving, and I don’t want my family to get their knees wet when they walk across my lawn.  And why, you might wonder, would their knees get wet if they walked across my lawn?  You’re not really wondering, are you.  Some of you have been here.

2.  I haven’t taken the huge stack of midterm exams – makeup version – to the Testing Center yet, but I’ll do that tomorrow afternoon.  Pig-genre Flu has taken its toll on my students.

3.  I haven’t washed the fifteen bread pans I used this afternoon yet.  I didn’t even know I owned fifteen bread pans, but I guess I do.  Spread out all over the stovetop and counters as they are, a casual observer might guess that I owned a hundred bread pans.  The dishwasher won’t hold them all, that’s for sure.

4.  I haven’t loaded my Christmas music into my cd jukebox yet, but I’m thinking about it.  I always try to wait until after Halloween, at least, but I do love me some purty Christmas music.  If my mention of this fact has offended anyone, suck it up.  People who take offense at other people’s celebrations make me tired.

5.  I still haven’t stopped humming awesome Beatles’ songs; I’ve been a fan since sixth grade and since I saw “1964″ a couple of weeks ago, the obsession has surfaced again.  (Thank you so very much, Smaller Indiana!!!!)

6.  There are leftovers in my refrigerator that have almost achieved the “science project” level.  I haven’t cleaned it out in a while.  Perhaps I should do that tomorrow.  Yes, tomorrow.  The sun’ll come out tomorrow.  I’ll think about that tomorrow.

7.  In my head, I’m still at Blog World Expo in Vegas.  I haven’t really come home yet.  I mean, I’m home, and back to work, but I’m not entirely here.  Note: this is NOT the same thing as “She ain’t all there.”  Although, there has been some doubt for some time. . . . .

8.  Whenever I use an ordinary trash bag, I see gnats – or worse.  When I use a Repellem trash bag, there are NO bugs to be seen anywhere in the house.  They even take care of the ladybug beetles, which is nothing short of extraordinary for southern Indiana.  I need to order some more Repellem bags.  I haven’t done that for a while.

9.  I still hate Pentax.  Haven’t come down from the shoddy treatment yet.

10.  It’s nearly three a.m. and I have to get up in a few hours.  I always do this on Sunday nights.  When will I ever learn?  Probably never, that’s when.

And now, Carly Simon has begun to sing “bedroom songs, ” so maybe that’s where I’d best go.

Goodnight, dear Blogosphere.

Did you ever “sort of” know someone and wish you could be friends?  I ran into a lady today and she invited me to lunch on Friday, and I’m so excited, my earlobes itch.  How junior high is that?  Well, I’m here to tell you something you already knew:  in many ways, we never outgrow junior high.

The world is full of lovely people, and I truly believe that if we open our eyes and ears and hearts to others, they will respond.  Well, most of them, anyway.  There are some people you can’t kill with a meat axe.

Tomorrow is my last day to sleep until just before my husband gets home from work to sleep in, and I intend to take full advantage of it. My teaching schedule is full, full, full, and this is a wonderful thing indeed. Normal people – whatever THAT is – get up in the morning, and soon I will be getting up at 6:30 and doing a lot of whining about it even while I’m grateful.  I’ll be teaching most of every day, and nights until 9:00.  I like to be busy; it keeps me off the streets.  Our creditors are also glad.

You and I both know that someone will phone me early in the morning.    Twas ever thus.

Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Celebration.

Invested in new washcloths today.  I lead a thrilling life.

I need to get out the Sevin.  My poor tomatoes and rosebushes look like green lace.  Stupid bugs.  Why can’t they eat the weeds?

I’ve got the blog conference withdrawal blues.  Ain’t nothing gonna make me content except another conference.  It’s an addiction; I must be humored in every way.

And now, I’m off to do important things.  You know, like harvest some more cotton and stuff.  Oh, and laundry.  And ice cream.  It’s sugar-free, so it doesn’t count, right?

Saturday afternoon, and I’m finally awake.

Today, it took about two hours.

When I got home at 4-ish today, I was finished.  The semester is over and I’ve got some free time.  I thought at first about taking a nap, but the phone kept ringing.  Then I thought about mopping the kitchen floor, but by the time I stopped laughing, the notion had passed.

The point is, if I might drag a point in by the hind legs, that I can stay up late now because I can sleep late now.  Of course, I always stayed up late, but I had to get up early, and the combination was beginning to wear me down.  It can’t be old age, so I figure it must have something to do with those footprints on the moon.

I only know that I used to make fun of people who took naps, and lately I’ve become one of those people.  I still laugh at them, and at myself most of all, but, well, there you have it.

Those moonprints have made me weird.  I was normal, once.

Hahahahahahahaha, did you fall for that?  I was NEVER normal.

Nor did I ever wish to be.

Back in the middle school,  the 6th grade girls used to have backpacks that looked like dead animals with their front paws wrapped around the students’ necks.  Watching them walking up and down the halls,  animal backpacks clinging desperately to their backs, looked a lot like one of those weird science fiction stories wherein the human race was enslaved by equine aliens, and made to serve as packhorses.

I always loved to walk around the track when the weather was nice; I usually managed about five miles each time, so I’m not exactly anybody’s idea of athletic.  Now, though, we’ve joined a gym.  Tonight was the first time. My too-frequently-used excuse of “I can’t do it tonight; it’s too cold/rainy/crowded/dark/whatever” is no longer valid.  The gym is open 24/7/365.

I love it.

With a little luck, maybe I’ll get a few more pounds off my very poundful self.  Or at least firm that jello up a little.

Jello that isn’t firm is just, well, Kool-aid.

Jiggly-ball was funny on Scrubs, but in real life, it’s just butt-ugly.  Those sneakers still feel really, really huge and heavy.  And a gym that’s still open at 3 a.m. is an omen:  it was time.

This pity party was brought to you by Oscar Mayer bologna, which has a first and last name, but does not live in my refrigerator, because I just looked and we don’t have any.

How sad is it that I am longing for a bologna sandwich?  Most people long for more exotic fare, but not Mamacita, no, she longs for bologna.  Sigh.  See what I mean?

1.  I haven’t painted the interior walls of my house for over twenty years.  That would be when the house was built.  I have all kinds of ideas and plans for new paint, but no money to buy any.

2.  I haven’t put away the children’s Easter baskets yet.  My children are grown up, but I still create an Easter basket for each of them.  It’s what good mommies do, thankyouverymuch.  I love doing Easter baskets and Christmas stockings and I will never stop.  If my children find a special someone and choose to marry and procreate, I’ll have even more baskets and stockings to build! Parents who don’t “do” baskets or stockings, and who don’t encourage their children’s fantasy worlds, are unnatural and creepy.  Bring it on.

3.  I have my final exams all updated and ready, but I haven’t xeroxed them off yet.  I need to do that tomorrow, before the machines break down.  Xerox machines have some kind of sixth sense and they KNOW when finals are approaching.  Also, the little gnomes that live inside each machine love to frustrate people.  I can sense them holding their sides and rolling with laughter when they mess up my tests.  They mock my pain.

4.  I still haven’t ever watched a single episode of “Oprah,” nor have I ever watched any kind of reality show.  And, I’m still not in the least interested in doing so.

5.  If I told you that there are still a few Christmas cd’s in my stereo, would you still love me?

6.  I put a load of towels in the washer Sunday afternoon, and it’s still there.  I don’t smell anything yet, so I’m sure they’re all right.

7.  One of my cats puked in the hallway, but I don’t know which one did it.  They both look pretty guilty to me.   At least I didn’t step in it, in the dark. Um, it’s not there now.  I cleaned it up.

8.  “Someone” ate all the grape popsicles, and I haven’t been to the store to get more yet.  We don’t have any money, anyway.  Popsicles are a luxury, not a necessity.  Except, one would be so good with my bologna sandwich.  That’s TWO things I’m longing for that we don’t have.

9.  I don’t know if I will ever get used to being treated well at work.  Every day I come home awed by the respect and professionalism that are a part of my workplace environment now.  I love it so much, there are no words.   Teachers are enslaved, in many ways, and we don’t even realize it until we escape.

10.  The older I get, the more I want to be involved in my family’s lives.  Not the meddling kind of involvement: the participatory kind.  My siblings live too far away to see regularly, and we’re all busy.  I wish I could see more of them.

Now, laugh all you want at tonight’s obsessions, but you’ll have to admit that they’re obtainable!  Whereas, if I were longing for world peace, enough money to ease the ever-increasing intensity of my worry, and a weight-loss program that didn’t require any effort or sacrifice on my part. . . well, (insert sarcastic laugh) like any of THOSE are going to happen!

1.  Family snapshots are still strewn all over the living room floor.  They’ll be there until the family gets here to go through them.  A word of advice:  label all of your pictures while you still remember names and dates.  You think you’ll always remember, but you won’t.

2.  There are very few good pictures of my father-in-law that we’ve ever seen, but while working in my mother-in-law’s garage yesterday, we found some excellent studio portraits of him in an old box.  I’m going to frame two of them, but I haven’t done it yet.  I did scan all of the pictures, so they’re showing up on my wireless picture frame, thanks to FrameChannel.

3.   My spring break is now over, and I’m more glad than sad.  I don’t get paid for spring break, and that week really hurt.  I do love sleeping in, though.  It’s nearly one in the morning, but I haven’t gone to bed yet.  It’s just not in me to go to bed early, or even want to.  When that day finally comes, I’ll know I’m old.  My funky body clock makes it difficult to get up early when I have to!  And tomorrow, I have to.

4.  Probate sure takes a long time in Indiana.  We’re still waiting.  I just hope they don’t shut off the utilities in my mother-in-law’s house before we can get her bills paid.  We can barely pay our own, and there’s no way we can pay hers, too.  Sigh.

5.  We’re going to fix up our family room downstairs into sort of an apartment.   Before we can do that, however, we have to pack up all those books.  Whew.  We’re talking THOUSANDS of books.  We’re not getting rid of them; we’re just moving them.  Neither of us could live in a house that wasn’t full of books, and we don’t think YOU should, either.

6.  I still haven’t put tomorrow’s lesson in my briefcase.  I know what it is; it’s just not packed yet.  My lessons are always thoroughly planned, unless it’s a day when they aren’t. 

7.  My black cat, Millie, always manages to shed her collar and tag.  Her cousin, Vera, loves the bling, but Millie is a panther at heart, and yearns to run naked through the wilds.  Both cats really need to wear identifying tags in this community, but this time Millie outdid herself and we can’t find the collar OR the tag.  I’ll get her another, but I haven’t had time yet.  As for Millie – as I type this with one hand, she’s sleeping on top of my other hand.  She’s a one-woman feline, and I’m the woman.  Seriously?  I’m honored.

8.  I hate it when the bills pile up.  I especially hate it when I get the second bill before I’ve been able to pay the first one.  Those duns are so condescending.  But then, that’s how they pay the dun-writer to be, I guess.  We always pay, though.  We’ve never NOT paid.  We are people who pay our bills.  I wish businesses would have a nicer dun to send to people who’ve always paid, rather than send the same semi-nasty “I’m sure you have simply overlooked our previous bill” message.  In this day and age of computers, they’d know the difference, wouldn’t they?  Sigh.

9.  I haven’t started playing with my Tumorless Sister’s birthday present yet, but if she doesn’t get down here to claim it soon, I will.  I like it.  I like it a LOT.

10.  I will soon have a copper-colored sofa in the same room with a red wing chair.  Fortunately, I have never cared much about feng shui, other than that I have to LIKE it, to have it in my house.

I have to get up at 6:30, which is a lovely hour in which to GO to bed, but a ghastly hour in which to rise and go to work.  But when I work, I get PAID.  What a lovely concept that is!

Hark ye, my creditors.  Soon the internet will bring you happy banking news from us.  Be patient!