Thursday, July 9, 2009

Twenty-Five Pounds!

That's how much weight I've lost since my surgery the end of April. I celebrated my accomplishment by buying four $6 t-shirts at Walmart and feel very good about myself. I don't look much thinner but I sure feel a whole lot better. Yay, me!

Oh, Jennifer, I meant to say that I too think first of someone sitting on "the throne" when I see The Thinker, but yesterday I tried to rise above that. Tried anyway. I hope to see you tonight if your knee will let you come to writer's.

July 9--Jan Miense Molenaer, Family Making Music. Jan hated playing in the family band. Hated being the middle kid in the Merry Music Makers with Dad on drums, Mom on keyboard, Jerry on trumpet, Jonah on sax, and Uncle Henry on bass--standup bass, not electric. Jan played acoustic guitar and they all sang. She was the only girl, besides Mom of course, so they dressed her like she was eight years old in a frou-frou pink dress with lavender ribbon rosettes all around her waist, seven or eight layers of scratchy net and lace petticoats, white lace ruffled anklets and black patent Mary Janes. the dress smooshed her growing boobs, the net scratched her thighs (too much of which showed as she grew taller), and the plastic shoes made her feet sweat like crazy and smell like they were rotting right off. She didn't think anyone saw that she had grown so much over the last year. It was county fair season and the Merry Music Makers were on the circuit through Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois playing week-long gigs at big fairs and one- or two-nighters at the small ones. She was sick of Mom telling her to sing more like Patsy Cline or Dolly Parton. "Put a little twang in there for the hayseeds," she'd say so often that one of these times Jan would have to stomp the pink dress with all its skirts and shout, "If you want Dolly Parton, get me fringe, rhinestones, and a push-up bra!" A thirteen year old can only cope with so much, and she thought she had just started her period. On stage.

Hmm, interesting. Time for work. See you later.
--Barbara

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