You Wear the Pants, Buddy Good for You

Last weekend, I was hanging out with Sophia and Sadie, when Sophia felt the need to pull her pants up really high.

"You look like my Uncle Nort!"

Raw looked at me funny. She'd never heard of my Uncle Nort.

I don't remember him all that well. I can't remember his voice or anything he said, but I remember he was always nice to me. And I have very clear visions of him.

For some reason, when I think of him, I have a memory of him standing on the tee box for hole nine, leaning on his golf club. I'm sure there are a lot of people who have the same type of memory of him.

My Uncle Nort was quite a vision. His style was . . . unique. He always wore a collared Polo-style shirt. Quite unremarkable. The style was in the pants. They were the leisure-suity polyestery plaid pants with lovely bell bottoms. And he always had them pulled up high.

Last night, at dinner, Sophia suddenly said "I'm gonna be Uncle Nork!"

I laughed. That girl always surprises me with her memory.

"Who is Uncle Nork?" Mary asked. "All week, she's been talking about Uncle Nork!"

"Awesome!"

Long live Aunt Bee's influence and the memory of Uncle Nort!

Let it Out Don't Hold It In

On Friday, my Mamo turned twenty-sixty.

She's one of those terribly hard to buy for people. She has what she needs and what you buy her probably isn't going to be right. So this year, we all decided we'd try to get everyone together for her birthday.

And by some miracle we managed it. Well, mostly. All the sons, daughters-in-law, grandkids and great-grandkids, anyway.

We're a ridiculous bunch. Full of beards and immaturity and even a Speedo. And somehow, I think Mamo liked it.

Click on the photo below to see more pictures of this soggy bunch.

Cracking Jokes and Drinking Liquor

This weekend, I headed up north to go to the OU vs KSU football game.

It was a great day. Not just because OU won, but because I had a good time with my family.

Doug and Kathy came up, of course. But we were all surprised to see my cousins Jill and Jeremy show up.

"So what's up?" Jill asked me. "I haven't seen you in a long time!"

"Yeah, this is about the time of year when we'll actually see each other." We all live in Kansas, but for some reason, we never hang out except at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But just like with everyone else I'd like to hang out with, it's hard to sync up. Everyone's really busy!

I really would like to hang out with Jill and Jeremy more often, though. They make me laugh more than just about anyone else in the world. We seem to really understand each other. I guess it's a family thing.

Which is why I wish they were at the Country Club later that night. I think only our family would understand what was happening when Kathy handed David a birthday card and BJ intercepted.

BJ asked for a pen and those of us paying attention started laughing. We knew just what he was doing. Instead of buying David a card, BJ was just going to sign his name to Doug and Kathy's.

Soon the card made its way around the table. Someone even threw in a dollar bill.

It was probably the greatest birthday card David ever received.

Too Many Blessings, Too Little Appreciation

We're having Thanksgiving at the cabin, so I won't get to hang out with the goats and chickens this year.

I'm in charge of the relish tray and BJ is having panic attacks over the fact that I'm not making dill dip. It doesn't matter that I'm bringing a thousand different dips. He's not good with change.

Wait until he sees I got purple cauliflower!

I'm sure, as always, my family will make Thanksgiving . . . special. I hope yours is special--but in the good way--and full of pumpkin pie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

T-T-T-Totally Dude

Oh man. What a weekend!

I know you're expecting a full update, but right now I'm really tired.

And to tell you the truth, I remember thinking "I need to write about this!" a lot this weekend. But now, I can't seem to remember what it was I wanted to tell you.

I don't think my memory loss is due to my new friend, Malibu Coconut Rum. I think it's more about defective brain cells.

I promise I'll recap what I can remember (and what I haven't promised not to tell) soon. And in the meantime, here's a few pictures:

I Throw it Back to Quench This Thirst

My uncle BJ is a bit anal at times. Other times, he goes completely opposite.

For example, lets talk about his issues with littering the yard.

One day, I was hanging out at their place. I drank a can of Dr Pepper and set my can down beside me.

"You'd better throw that out!" BJ ordered.

Too lazy to get up right away, I brushed him off. "I'll get it later."

As the afternoon went on (which means, every five minutes), BJ would remind me that my can was still sitting there.

"I'll get it!" I kept telling him as I rolled my eyes.

He's like that. He'll keep badgering you until you give in to his demands. But I'm stubborn. So anything he asks me to do usually doesn't get done until just before I leave.

After I got home that night, I called BJ. "I forgot to throw out my pop can!"

"I know! I'm gonna kill you!"

"I can't believe it! I meant to get it! I just forgot!"

"It was like a movie! i saw it and it's like I zoomed in on it!"

No really. He was that angry. He still brings it up several years later.

But then he takes the other road. Like during my first Fourth of July in Wichita.

I was trying to be a good girl and got up from my lawn chair to throw my bottle in the recycling bin. BJ stopped me. "Throw it in the yard like you're supposed to!"

I did as I was told and continued to throw my bottles and cans into the yard for the rest of the night. At the end of the holiday, the yard had quite a display of used fireworks and litter.

You can see, now, how it's hard to tell where BJ will stand when it comes to litter.

At Mitch's graduation party, our family mostly hung out in the back yard. When we would finish a drink, we'd toss the bottle in the corner of the yard. When BJ came back, he flipped out and started picking them up.

Of course we laughed and as soon as BJ turned to walk away, another bottle flew by him. "Who threw that?"

He left to mingle with people in the front yard and we continued to litter the back yard.

Jeremy must be getting old. Instead of joining in the fun, he would pick up our trash and throw it away. Luckily, he couldn't keep up and eventually surrendered.

As the day went on and Jill drank more beer, the more obsessed she got with throwing bottles. She was a maniac! She would zero in on a person getting ready to finish their drink and hover until she could snatch it away and toss it clear across the yard. If anyone left their bottle around for more than five minutes, she'd claim it. And if neither of those opportunities were presented, she'd chug her beer and toss it.

All through this, BJ would yell "Who threw that? I'm serious . . ."

The way he yelled and crouched down to pick the bottles up brought glee to our evil hearts.

I went to the garage to grab another drink and noticed the bottle and can bin was full. I hatched a brilliant plan and shared it with Jill.

"We should go grab the bin and dump it all over the yard!"

Of course Jill was all into the idea. Joe, not so much. He and Jeremy must think they're mature or something. Joe kept trying to talk us out of it.

Like we would listen!

We hurried over to the garage just in time to see BJ bagging the trash. But we didn't give up. We decided to wait for him to bring around the bag and just pull crap from that.

Jingle. Giggle. CLANK! We weren't very quiet about getting the bottles. We grabbed as many as our little hands could hold and rushed off to scatter them in the yard. But that wasn't enough. We went back for more.

As we clanked and clattered with BJ standing just a few feet away in the garage, we laughed our bums off about how clever we were.

"What's that noise?"

We were caught! Somehow BJ had heard our bottles clanging at eleventy billion decibels.. "Who's back there? What's going on?"

Jill and I ran for our lives, still clutching some bottles. We rounded the corner of the house and I, thinking Jill would take the same rout she had before, got rid of the evidence. I dropped the bottles one by one as I ran.

Turns out Jill hadn't gone her old route. She stayed right behind me and as I dropped each bottle, she had to hurdle them to keep from falling. She thought I was trying to pin everything on her.

"Who did this?" BJ demanded to know. Apparently, he couldn't figure us out as the culprits even though we were laughing and peeing ourselves like we did when we were three.

He was pretty grumpy at us when he put it together. "I'll remember this. I won't forget how you treated your poor Unckie."

"Oh please. You'd think it was hilarious if it wasn't your yard!"

Very quietly, BJ admitted "Yeah. But don't do it again!"

This weekend, my dad's side of the family is getting together for the first time since that fiasco. My cousin Chad got married last weekend and we're celebrating this weekend.

Do you think it will be rude if we throw our finished drinks on the Elks Lodge floor?

Is it all You Really Want?

For Mitch's birthday, we ate at my favorite restaurant, Braum's.

Gotcha! You all know by now that my favorite is Sumo. Lucky for me, Sumo is Mitch's favorite, too.

Before we left, I asked Doll if she was going to eat sushi.

"Yes! In fact, I was telling everyone at work. But I couldn't think of the word so I said 'Um . . . that raw stuff . . .'"

When we got there, BJ hollered across the table "Get some of those round things!"

Everyone at our table ate at least one of "those round things." Even Mamo!

She said it tasted like dessert.

Just a Reminder to Help You Pave Your Pathway

Last week, my cousin Jill celebrated her birthday.

I was doing some "computer work" for BJ. He was hovering over my shoulder when we decided to send Jill a text message to wish her a happy birthday.

>Happy birthday! BJ says you're old!
>Thanks! But I'm only twenty-five, right?
>Sure! If that means I'm still twenty-four!
>No matter how old we are, BJ will always be older!
>Much MUCH older!
>Grandma just called.
>At least she remembered. She forgot Doll's birthday a couple of weeks ago.
>Poor Doll! She has always managed to remember mine.
>She could never forget mine . . .

"Don't say it's because you're Momma's favorite," BJ said. "Don't make her sad on her birthday!"

"You're the one who said she was old! I wasn't going to say that anyway!"

> . . . because . . .

"She couldn't forget your birthday because you start reminding everyone six months in advance!"

Shower the People

No, no. I haven't disappeared into oblivion, yet. I've been busy baby showering.

When I told my friend Christine that I was having a baby shower, her first thought was "Who put her in charge of a baby shower???"

It really isn't an unusual thought. I'm pretty non-girly most of the time, and don't have a whole lot of experience with this stuff.

So, I of course start out going totally overboard. I think of about one thousand games and all kinds of decorations.

I even made poor Jacque help me make snow globes out of baby food jars.

Last week, I got to thinking about the cake. And how my last experience serving cake turned into a total disaster.

"Doll? Will you cut the cake at the shower?"

"I'm not cutting the cake!"

"But I can't do it! I won't cut it into the right sizes and I'll run out and do you remember what happened last time I tried to serve cake???"

She sighed. "I'll cut the damn cake."

It turns out the cake had little grooves in it to help guide the cutting. So I didn't really need Doll to do the cutting. But I made her do it, anyway!

She was a big help all day, actually. She and my mom catered to my insanity while helping me set up the room.

"I think I liked the cake better on the other side. Can you move it back?"

It really ended up being a pretty simple shower. I didn't do any crazy games, but had plenty of door prizes.

My Aunt Deb won the first prize and started it off right by giving the gift to Tasia, instead.

Doll had her eye on one of the prizes and didn't like it that Deb gave hers away. "That's gonna make me look bad when I keep mine!"

We had a smaller turn-out than I had originally anticipated. Some people that had sent their RSVP backed out at the last minute. Apparently, it's that time of the year and a lot of them were sick. Including Tasia's mother and sister.

They live in Sublette and apparently, there's some super virus running through that town. I know Tasia was disappointed they couldn't be there. We all were. We've been excited about finally meeting The Boy's other grandparents and aunt. But I can't say I was too disappointed. I didn't want them giving me the virus!

I enjoyed seeing several people I hadn't talked to in quite awhile. All the "townies" showed up, at least long enough to say "Hello!"

I was trying to be the hostess with the mostest and chat with each guest. I was also running around taking pictures, writing down presents and serving cake.

I didn't cut it, but I had to serve it!

As the shower wound down, I would grab something to pick it up. Then I would get distracted, telling someone goodbye and thanks. By the time everyone had left, I looked around and Doll, Deb and Grandma Peggy had already cleaned everything up. That's the way I like to clean!

You should have seen the pile of crap The Boy got! It's ridiculous! He's not even born yet and already incredibly spoiled!

Have I ever mentioned how awesome my family is? Because they are. Thanks for helping with and without being asked.

And thanks for the presents. Marcus will enjoy playing with all the toys!


You can see the ridiculous amount of pictures I took by clicking here.

Wrong Place Wrong Car

Saturday, BJ and I headed to Lawrence for the KU vs. KSU football game. Unlike last week, I left the purple at home and donned crimson and blue.

If you've ever been to KU's campus, you know that there is very little parking. When you have a record crowd of 51,821 people jamming themselves into Memorial Stadium, the little parking available might-as-well be non-existent!

I had decided it would be easiest to park at Raw and Casey's apartment complex. Sure, it was a good mile or so away, and walking back would be pretty much all uphill, but we wouldn't get stuck for hours just to get out of our parking place.

BJ was a little uneasy about the idea. He was afraid that without a parking permit, his vehicle would get towed. It took Casey and me about twenty minutes to convince him otherwise.

The game was pretty cool. I'll have more to tell you once the pictures decide to upload correctly.

We made it up the hill after the game and lo and behold . . . the car was gone!

No. It wasn't. But can you imagine what BJ's face would've looked like?

The next day, Raw called me.

"I just have to know something."

Am I the only one who thinks comments like that sound ominous?

"Did you have a note on your car when you left last night?"

"Noo . . .?"

"What does BJ drive?"

I tried to figure out why she was asking. I was figuring someone had complained about the big SUV in the lot.

"Is it black?"

"No. It's red. Did you put a note on the car?"

Raw giggled in her oh-man-I'm-so-embarassed way. "Yes! I wrote up a note about how you had to have a permit to park in this lot! 'Remove your vehicle before it is towed,' I wrote! I put it on the car that had a bunch of K-State stuff on it!"

We got a good laugh and then I called BJ immediately. He had about two chuckles before he said "She's even stupider than you! If that's possible!"

Big Sister will be Watching Over You

This weekend, we got to meet "the girlfriend."

Marcus denied for quite some time that he had a girlfriend, even though every time I talked to him on the phone, she was around.

I don't blame him. My family is pretty crazy. I wouldn't want to expose poor Tasia to us, either.

This weekend, my parents and I visited Marcus at Gumby's. I knew Tasia worked there, also, so I was scanning the place for her. Marcus had told me she had reddish hair. The girl he finally introduced us to did not have red hair. Maybe Marcus is color blind.

We didn't have a whole lot of time to ask her the full twenty questions, so my parents invited Tasia to my annual birthday dinner of lasagne.

I guess things went well. Marcus said she liked us. But we didn't unleash the absolute craziness. Just wait until she visits for Christmas. If that doesn't scare her, she's probably a keeper.

Everyone asks me if I liked Tasia. And my answer is always "I don't know."

For one thing, it's not like I spent a whole lot of time to figure that out.

For another, I think it's hard for me, because I've always been really protective of Marcus. He may tell you otherwise, since I've been the cause of many of his past injuries. But when it really came down to it, I was always looking out for him.

During thunderstorms, I would lie awake, thinking about what I would do if lightning hit our house. I would think of how I would have to jump through the flames in the hallway and then use the chair in his room to bust out his window so we could jump to safety.

I guess I thought my parents could fend for themselves.

As we got older, I tried to get him to learn from my mistakes. I gave him all sorts of sage advice.

Not that he ever listened.

It's not that I dislike Tasia. It's just that I'm thinking of all the things that could go wrong. I'm theorizing all the ways she could hurt him.

I should like her. She seems nice. She is a Sooners fan. She likes candy. And she really seems to like Marcus, and that's what matters, right?

I guess he can keep her. After all, somebody's gotta do his dishes!

And Drop My Good Side

I know, I know. I swore I had ended "poop week." But, it is still technically the same week. So I have another story.

And I didn't totally go back on my promise because this story isn't really about poop. But I was telling this to my mom tonight and she laughed a lot. And I said "Man! I should totally put this in Poop Week!"

I guess you can really thank my mom for this.

The other night, I was driving home pretty late through Old Town. There were people milling about on both sides of the street.

Always a safe and courteous driver, I made sure to pull far away from the curb, giving bar patrons a lot of room. I saw a man parked on his motorcycle with a crowd of people around him.

As I carefully drove by, I heard a giant roar and a flash. It turns out, it was just the guy starting his motor and the headlight coming on right as I passed.

But, at that moment, I could have sworn there was an explosion!

I told my mom, "It scared the crap out of me! Almost literally!"

ps--This story isn't really that funny. But I'm pretty sure a lot of the funny in my stories gets lost by the readers not being able to hear my voice. So, if you'll just imagine me flipping out, that should suffice until I can tell you all in person.

Poop Loser

No, the new brownness of the site is not in honor of "poop week" here at Heart, Aunt Bee.

Back when I started this ranting, I was looking around at other websites and noticed several that used labels, much the way that Flickr uses tags.

Basically, it's like writing something up and then telling the computer to "file that under family!"

You'll find all the labels listed at the end of the brown sidebar to your right. There aren't many there, now. And you'll only find the most recent posts, unless I decide to go through all the old ones and label them.

If every thing works right, though, you should be able to click on the label "family" and find all the posts I've written about family.

Or, for example, you could find the following under bj, family and poop:

When I was really young, a bunch of my family was hanging out at my grandma and grandpa's home. When it was time to go home, we were all lingering in the drive, saying goodbyes, as families do.

I was just minding my own business when suddenly I felt something really really warm hit me on top of the head.

I yelled at my uncle BJ, thinking he had thrown mud at me.

Now, really. BJ is pretty ridiculous, but who would throw mud at a kid?

It turned out, a bird been flying overhead and decided to poop right on my pretty head.

And that, my friends, is the end of poop week.

Please have a good Labor Day Weekend. But don't labor so hard you get hemorrhoids!

I swear, that was the real end of poop week. I just couldn't help myself.

Poopship Destroyer

Since this has inadvertently turned into poop week, I figured I'd share another story.

This time, the names and places have been changed. The only identifying clue I will give you is that I was not the pooper!

Once upon a time, in a land called Cacaville, some little children were in the bathtub. It wasn't a giant bathtub, so the four kiddos were crammed in tight.

They splashed around, yelled at each other to "Move over!" and tried to figure out where to put their feet.

The oldest, positioned at the front of the group, looked down into the water and saw something floating. They didn't have toys, so what was it?

"There's POOP in the TUB!!!"

What happened next was a jumble of flying water and screaming as the children frantically scrambled to get out of the tub without touching the poo.

The mothers came flying into the room and one yelled "Penelope!!!"

The poor little pooper had given herself away by remaining in the tub, silent and pouting.

And now that I've finished my story, I have to say I'm a little disturbed about the whole cramming a bunch of kids in the tub bit.

Those mommas must have been lazy!