You may know that, in the US, women were once referred to as Chicks. To be fair, I don’t know if people still use the term Chick in the US. It could have fallen out of favour or it could have been considered inappropriate with the PC brigade. Well, here in the UK, women are […]
Category Archives: Family
Not quite as expected
Although I was born and raised in the US, I have lived in the UK for the past 20 – 25 years or so. Over the years, I have welcomed a number of family members for visits and lead a number of expeditions into London. This particular day, my mother and I went along South […]
Paternal Moment
I must have been about 13 or so when Dad was diving along I-74 between Champaign and Mahomet when I Want To Know What Love Is was playing on the radio. I remember there was a high-pitched him coming from the stereo and I associated it with Dolby – which was a new technology all […]
Loving Fiercely
When I started at the U of I, Louise was about 6 and I took her to my dorm’s Haunted House. It was something which students put on every year for the local children. At first, it was kids’ stuff: being handed grapes and told they were eyeballs… But then one room we went into […]
Mother
When I commented to my husband recently that both my mother and sister were crazy, he said “You’re from the same stock, you know.” So after I reminded him that he married me so he must be completely insane, I got to thinking. What exactly are Mom’s personality traits that I want to let go? For starters, Mom is […]
Random Dream
I dreamt last night that I needed to get through Campus and to Urbana. I found myself in a big building- and all the signs for the exits lead in the wrong direction. So instead of heading downstairs to the ground floor I headed upstairs- through the lethal ceiling darts (with tips the length of […]
Loving my Step Children into my Life
When I first got together with Troy he told me about his children from a previous marriage. Of course, I nearly bolted when we had the conversation: I felt as if someone had clamped concrete shoes on my feet and thrown me into a lake! Troy, calmly, kept talking. I don’t know if he realised […]
Depression and Suicide
It wasn’t long after Andrea left the US that I decided that the world would be better off without me. I would go home after school and, before Mom got home, I would get a number of tablets out of the cupboard and wonder how many I would need to take to get the job done. The […]
Indentured Servitude
I first met my first husband, Brian, when I was working as a maître-d’ at a high-class steak restaurant in Champaign. Table for 3? Great! Come in and sit down. *smile* Here are your menus. Your server tonight will be Kyle. My future husband had shoulder-length blond hair worn loosely around the face. From behind […]
Death and Belief
This story starts in 1991, on my 20th birthday: I was due to visit my boyfriend’s parents that week but Mom wanted me to stay with her: if Frank (Louise’s dad) died in the middle of the night she didn’t want Louise, aged 7, to wake up and find herself alone in the house. The […]
