The Marvelous Memory of the Maple Creme Egg..................

The Marvelous Memory of the Maple Creme Egg......by Diane Ogden

Who cares huh?  When I was a child I loved maple anything.  Maple syrup, maple cookies, and I stabbed the bottom of every piece of chocolate in the huge box at Christmas with a knife until I found the maple piece.  After a few years I learned it was always the round one with one swirl almost full circle but not quite.  I loved maple frosting, maple ice cream, maple candy drops, maple flavored hickory smoked bacon, maple oatmeal, maple flavored brussell sprouts, and lollipops!   The chocolate cake with maple flavored fluffy frosting was the killer deal. And of course the maple cream Easter egg. I quit eating all that sugary maple many years ago, and then something happened to me today. Maybe it was a maple demon.
I had to run to the Walgreen's for some plastic jugged water and some tummy pills.  Change of season always messes with a touchy tummy.  Back to my point.  There it was, at least a hundred Russell Stover Cream Eggs spread out over a half of isle 3, third shelf up right at eye level.  Didn't even need to bend over.  Wont be able to bend over if I don't stay away from said isle.  I scanned each little box searching for the word maple.  I found butter creme, peanut butter creme, coconut, vanilla, peach, lemon, orange, chocolate, and finally  ("drum roll please") there it lay among thirty other ones.  I just stared at them in awe thinking don't do it, don't do it.  Of course I was going to do it!  I didn't scan the entire length of that shelf for nothing.  It was a lousy memory that caused this moment of weakness or the maple demon. I reached into the box and took one out.  Then I took out another one.  That = two!  I told myself I would take one bite and put it away when I got outside and into my car.  But what I really did was eat the whole thing before I got out the driveway and up to the first light.  I tried to savor it and move it around my taste buds for a long time but it didn't work.  My brain went into maple overdrive and it was history.  Do recall I have another one!  I truly doubt I will enter the Walgreen's again until after Easter because I am a maple flavored failure. I will say since the last Maple flavored Russell Stover Creme egg I ate, which was twenty some plus years ago.......Mr Stover has changed the consistency of the maple creme.  It is now filled with air.  It is spongy and thin.  Used to be thick and creamy.  Not so much no more.  Wonder if that means it has less killer calories and may not clog my heart arteries!  Right! The good news:  I enjoyed the heck out of that spongy maple air thing.

So Be Happy, Be Well, and Be Safe until we meet again.  And if we don't, you'll know what happened.  (I am not going to have a maple flavored heart attack) Just kidding

No Chapter: ..............."Only God and Me are My Rule Makers!"..............by Julianna Rowe

Katerina's non existent Chapter:   .....Only God and Me are My Rule Makers!

Before I continue with Katerina’s story I need to address an issue regarding what I write:   My imagination, my anxiety level, my fears, my mind, allow no one else to interfere because no one is my “Rule Maker but God and me!”  If I write something you do not care for, do not enter into my blog space for much of what I write comes from factual happenings that I embellish or imagine.  Or do I?  If I write it in a manner you believe then I am doing what I set out to do:  WRITE believable FICTION!  Using my own and others life stories is what I do. It is no different than what a stand-up comedian does only this may be the reverse of that.  Maybe I could try to add some comedy to the shit Katerina went through in her life or maybe not. Maybe its all true and maybe it is not. I set out to hurt no one's feelings.

  
Life lessons come with pain and hiding the pain makes no sense to me. Been there done that.

I was thinking about the woman who wrote “Fifty Shades of Gray” of course not comparing Katerina’s life story to Anastasia Steele and or Christian Grey’s! God forbid had I done that in my children’s eyes yet not to say I couldn't.  And bless the woman’s retirement fund that did write “Fifty Shades of Gray” despite her children and or Grandchildren’s opinions.  Hell they weren’t going to take care of her in her old age, or send her on a magnificent trip to Europe or fulfill her BUCKET LIST.  She is/was on her own.  Whether Katerina is a dear friend, a daughter, an aunt, a Grandmother, or me, is no one’s business.  Read it, weep, and or learn from it, for learning doesn’t end in the classroom, we are on this earth, for our intellectual and SPIRITUAL development.  Hopefully we don’t simply die and turn to dust. 

I shall shake the guilt I was raised with and no longer be vulnerable to manipulations from anyone regarding my writing.  

Chapter Six: Dr. Pig.......property of Julianna Rowe

I must backtrack a few years for you to understand my next error in judgment.  Some would say it was an excuse.  Nope…. How can a person excuse themselves for something they do or did not know they were doing? It takes time to evolve. Sadly some need to learn through life's hard knocks. Do I wish I had been able to rise above my raising?  Sure. But the cells needed were not there so the Universe has to use Plan C.  

CHAPTER SIX:   Dr. Pig  

            My father bought me a horse when I was fifteen years old.  I feel bad I can't recall her name.  She was a lazy stocky pinto, but for someone who had never ridden horses….. lazy was good.   That is until one day while riding/walking down the old farm lane toward the barn she spooked and bolted. My skinny friend and I were riding double bareback.  She flew off the rear and landed like a feather.  Not me, as usual in life I hung on while sliding sideways down around her neck while continuing to hang onto her face halter. So....  she kicked me to get me off her face!   I fell a mere two feet, but somehow those two feet fractured my left arm and it swelled like angry storm waters in a raging river. 

            The local Dr. Pig we will call him tended to the arm all the while having dishonorable advances  towards me.  Back to my Grandfather's relative in Colorado right? My God I was only sixteen years old. During my physical therapy he began making more advances. Massaging my arm up to and under my arm obviously close to my breasts.  I was so frightened not to mention frozen I never returned to his office for years.  As well as I never completed the healing therapy of my arm he was in charge of. You see back then Physical Therapy was at your local GP's office.

            He never gave up!  I re-connected with him years later as a physician during the abusive phase of my marriage to Ronnie Lee.  Dr. Pig had a great bedside manner, especially if he thought he could get you in it and he eventually did.  He used the horrible situation I was in to use me.  I felt somewhat important seeing the infamous local surgeon even if it was behind closed doors. A far "cry" from where I had been and was. Where else was I to get uplifted kudo's? My family? My husband? His family? NOT! So the Pig and and I had a quiet affair for some time.  He told me all his troubles and vice versa. How sad when I look back to see my lack of ability to see reality. At least I didn't have to deal with a Procto!!

            I was hospitalized twice by him.  Once for pneumonia and later in life for the embarrassing hemorrhoidectomy. I must laugh at that one.  Until the time my father was hospitalized with a life threatening condition.  I felt it was my KARMA and feared my father would die because of my sin. But no, Dr. Pig saved his life right there in little town USA hospital with all its/our secrets.

            Somewhere inside my mind I knew he had more problems than I did.  But in retrospect I realize he had started his sick mental take down of me years previously when I was sixteen.  One of those conquest things in certain  men.  Again, I did what was expected of me…..although my pay off was believing I was bettering myself when in reality I was digging another hole I’d have to deal with at some point in time, probably still do somewhere on the CD of life inside my head that no one sees or dreams or feels but me.  He was a band aide for an open wound in my life.  As a professional, he could and should have tried to set me on an uphill course rather than push me further down the destructive rabbit hole I had already set in motion or was born into?? Heck I wasn’t just falling I was on a collision course.  I guess I was ready made for him.  I was looking for an external answer to an internal problem.  I never stopped trying to make that method work for many years.

            Dr. Pig moved from his little town shrine and remains an excellent unhappy surgeon who never figured life out.  From what I heard via the grapevine of facebook, he was a cruel husband to his new wife.  Least I missed that bullet!

            I continued with Ronnie Lee for a time and to my knowledge no one ever knew about the doctor and the young girl who didn’t know her potential.  In my later years when I visit the old small town the old folks look at me and smile a smile of somewhat understanding. Maturity has a way of showing us our true connection with one another even when it seems too late to use it in ways more beneficial to our lives.  Possibly it is a step towards the level we will live in our next life beyond. I can only hope and believe.

            Ronnie Lee was having affair after affair.  I had caught him many times but I didn’t leave.  I was on a mission. 

            One of his affairs was with the woman who lived behind us. One day I was doing dishes looking out the window and saw them throwing crab apples at each other and giggling like children. Couldn't get more obvious than that. He would play with her little boy and take him in the truck he drove for a living but leave his own son Robbie behind.  Robbie was rejected many times by his father in his tender years and shot at with a gun in his teen years. Yes by his father.

            Ronnie Lee was not a well person mentally or physically but then I had my emotional curses going on also.  Ronnie Lee had a bleeding ulcer so he said.  One time while drunk and after he had hit me several times he was on his knees crying for sympathy. He said he had thrown up blood…. so I called 9 1 1.   I knew he was simply trying to get out of how abusive he had been that day.  Our family doctor, not Dr. Pig.... knew how he treated me and figured he was lying about the blood because he needed redemption for hitting me the day before. 

Doc said, “Let’s see how sick he really is?”

He ordered tubes for every orifice of Ronnie's body.  I was thrilled.  I guess I thought it might make a difference but of course it did not.   From somewhere in the depths of my mind I had made another bad decision.  Not to leave him but to get pregnant once more and then leave.  This was my new mission.  What was I thinking?  I will tell you.  I had a notion that Robbie, my first borne, needed a brother or sister.  I believed Robbie shouldn’t be alone in this world and if anything happened to me he would have blood family.  So I enticed Ronnie Lee.... and got pregnant.  He said the child wasn’t his, but of course it was.  Ronnie was also a pathological liar therefore he believed everything he said.  He was also diagnosed a sociopath.  I was carefully making plans to leave as his behavior was becoming more destructive and I was terrified of him.  I recall one day he asked me to sit in the driver’s seat of our car while he did something to repair the engine.  Hood up and me behind the wheel in the driveway.  I wanted to kill him.  The only time I ever wanted to seriously kill anyone.  All I had to do is step on the gas and run over him but I did not.  I did leave him and go back to the frying pan farm with my parents.  They were not my favorite people but “it “was all I had.

    Since Robbie's birth my mother became even more controlling telling me everything I did wrong for or with him.  No I didn’t, I loved that little boy with all my heart.  He was the cutest and sweetest boy in the world to me.  My mother would complain I dressed him wrong and would physically take him away from me.  I couldn’t do anything right according to her.  She was cruel and there I was living with her and expecting another child.

One day Ronnie Lee called the farm and wanted to talk to me. I said, fine…..so Mother and Dad reluctantly dropped me off at a friend of ours home where Ronnie Lee was waiting.  My Dad did not feel comfortable with this situation but I told him I would be fine.  They drove away and I went inside.  There was another man there who owned the house but when I came in he left the room for the kitchen to give us privacy.....or so I thought.  That is when Ronnie Lee began to beat me up even though I was seven months pregnant.  He kicked me in the stomach and threw me all around the room.  I remember being more terrified than I had ever been. I realized he was going to kill me so he didn't have to pay for another "kid."  
  

I loved that baby inside me.  The man that owned the home would not help me even though I cried out for help.  He hid himself and watched the beating of the pregnant woman. I prayed as hard as I have ever prayed for my parents to come back.  And they did!! I have no idea why they did but they did.  I suspect it was my father’s intuition.  My Father and I have spiritual sensing and it paid off.  When Ronnie Lee saw my parent’s return and pull up in front of the house, he ran out the back door like a scared rabbit.  Dad told me he just had a feeling and I thank God for that GUIDE or ANGEL messenger who got through the veil to my dad. 

 

I divorced the bastard in 1972.  I was in my early twenties living back at the funny farm with one four year old and expecting another.  It was life nightmare number twenty-two plus I developed severe anxiety making it difficult to breathe. The stress was unbelievable.  Mother had taken over completely with Robbie and her perfectionism and narcissism were horrible to live around.  Dad just mumbled and went about his business outside.

My ninth month pregnant I decided to ride my bike into town thinking I would go into labor and get it over with.   It was very hot and I was about half way to town when I realized I had made a dangerous mistake that could hurt my baby and me.    Thank God again because along came my dad in his old blue truck because he was worried about me.  He put my bike in the back and me in the front and we went home, no words spoken.

My parents were hosting a party a day or two after the bicycle incident.  The gathering was  about advertising the program and products of a multi-level marketing company mother had signed up with.  Something like Shaklee I think.   

My luck….I went into labor around seven p.m.   I was in the upstairs bedroom deciding to wait until the contractions were good and strong. Darned if I was going to go sit at that hospital all night again like the last time. Enema's, poking, prodding, and aloneness!  By the time anyone came up and noticed I was really in labor meaning seven centimeters dilated.   Mother drove me to the local hospital, dropped me off and went back to her party.

A nurse named Mrs. Schumann  spent the entire night with me.   She was the mother of a very nice boy I graduated with named Jimmy Don.   I will never forget her.  No one ever did anything nice for me like she did.  I mean Auntie brought me nice used clothes…. I can’t think of anything else even though I am sure there were more decent memories.

I was in the delivery room with Dr. Reiner who had just informed me the baby’s head was crowning when I decided to QUIT and mentally fell apart. I told Dr. Reiner I couldn’t do it….I had an awful life, no way to care for my baby, my poor babies.  Old Doc Reiner left the crowning baby, walked up and stood near my head, bent over and asked me if I wanted to give my baby away.

 I said, “No.”

He said, “Then let’s do this, you can do this!”   

 He continued cheering me on like I was his favorite football team.   And so I did.   Richard (Richie) was born that night with me and the Doc and his nurses.   I loved Richie so much.   He was six pounds thirteen ounces with black hair and blue eyes.  He was a gentle baby and is a gentle man.   

           

                    PART I

                     

               ABANDONED

To forsake as a hopeless enterprise:   To dessert:

                                                          

Abandonment is cold as the icy winds of the tallest mountain, 

and as lonely and frightening as the descent among a storm.

A child that is abandoned at birth……or before

A wife that gives her all only to be left with nothing

A family pet left at the shelter they call humane…….

A man thirty years doing his job…fired……

A country devastated by terrorists…..no help in sight

A Mother praying for her child’s life……no answer

A lie….lived out many generations ……   CRESTVIEW

"The Edge of Crestview....." A Novel and property of Julianna Rowe

I will be sharing daily or every few days another chapter of my new novel:  

THE EDGE OF CRESTVIEW

     by Julianna Rowe

Written:  May 11, 2000

Rewritten  October 7, 2017  and again 2019 

                                                                                                                                                      Introduction:                                                                                                                                                                Crestview was a beautiful mansion with a back yard that cascaded down the slope of a mountain outside Los Angeles, California.  Heavy bricks acted and appeared like huge ladders as they braced the home from sliding down the hundreds foot slope.

Within its walls lived the high fashion well to do lives of people searching for the same goals and holding the same demons they passed onto me.  That invisible cloud of cells would lead me through many difficult times before I understood “their” impossible dreams had not come to fruition therefore had latched onto me, the weak child.  And when I eventually did I was able to let go of the anger, fear, and pain.  I  replaced it with pity for the very people who had haunted me with "their" delusive dreams.  Who hid their atrocious backgrounds and behavior behind the pretty walls of Crestview.   They, being the only touchable and untouchable force to put any blame on.  Yet the lie within its walls would live on even after the death of it and its people.  The force then moved on to another, then another.  The Spirit of Crestview would only die through time and the wisdom or its origin.... and of course having the willingness to learn.  My spirit led me through the pain and into the truth but not for many decades.  I found the anger, strife and horrors inside Crestview's walls evil as well as the money that covered up its sins.

It is written, "The truth shall set you free."   But before that could happen I allowed my life to be controlled and manipulated between the victim role and the rebellion it birthed in me.  Rolling back and forth from submissive and compliant to noncompliant which is simply the root of rejection.  This verbal equation would be the constant of my life for at least forty eight years.  I was taught in the midst of my trials; "When the curses are gone the blessings will flow."  I couldn't find my curses as evident as they were.  They had become a way of life.  My eyes were blinded to what they saw.  For many times vanity obscured my sight, blinding my own existence and or expectation of life.  I drew in what I was.  I attracted similar spirits and blew with the wind never being in touch with my inner person.  I was in need of balance.  The pendulum would sway and cause a wild ride of life for many years until I came to understand the victim of the Crestview generations within the swirls of my mind.  I no longer needed to rebel, yet before the wisdom came, the storms were severe.  As time moved more swiftly than I realized I began to  hear the soft inner voice of God or the Spirit.  I had a line of emotional thunderstorms that would swell up and hold their own, drowning out the wisdom from that true inner voice.  The part of me that was still somewhat detached from the rest of me was growing up, yet independent and waring with my authentic self.  That part attached to others for security and a sense of love, even though a twisted sense.  I was no longer a child, crying over everything and demanding, but rather of the teenage mentality "fairy tale princess" with no castle, fickle, and looking for an external domain rather than to my own internal spirit.  Emotions wanted to lead. And the fear of abandonment held steady its ground. When I was a little girl I'd talk to myself within myself.  I would figure things out, calm myself down, comfort myself like I was my only best friend.  That voice of comfort was my emotional voice which took over my life.  It became very hard to distinguish the real inner voice from the emotional voice because the later was always looking for an answer elsewhere.  It took many years for the emotions to catch up with the mind and join the spirit as one.  But, realize from the ugliness of the generations of pain  handed down mentally to me on a silver mental platter, came the real beauty.  When this takes place, there is no limit to what we can do with our lives.  I am proud I can now hear from the inner spirit allowing me the opportunity to relay this wild ride in the form of a novel. 

She, Me, Feels Happy Around PINK.......................property of Julianna Rowe

She, Me, Feels Happy Around Pink!

         I have a delightful attachment to PINK!  Almost abnormal some might think. See that rhymes with PINK. My life revolves around association.  If I hear a certain word I start singing the song it reminds me of.  Meaning:  I associate PINK with Love, Caring, Happiness, and All is well.  In fact my license plate says it. ALSWELL.  I tried to spray paint it PINK but that didn't go over so well.

          I still have it in 2019. Price keeps going up for this sweet tag but so does everything else.  I say there is also a price for living.  "Taint" always an easy road for most.  Me, I never felt truly loved as a child therefore I operated on what I was told.  I had to learn I was not on this earth to suffer. That I was and am a good person. But I suffered until I found PINK!  May sound silly but PINK makes me happy. And if allowed..... I could turn into one of those grannies that fill their yards with PINK Flamingo's.  Oh yes....!!  Although I have no PINK Flamingo's.  They are pepto bismol pink.  Not my style.
        
          If I were younger I would have pale PINK hair.  Yes I would.  This is from Pinterest jillweith.

And if I were younger I would have a pair of PINK boots and drive a HUGE PINK Cadillac. 

From my ebook: "The Cardboard Box Part I."

https://www.blurb.com/ebooks/533623-the-cardboard-box-part-1
 Available for Amazon Kindle Fire®, Apple iPad®, Android devices, and Mac or PC computers

Imagine a road trip in that old Cadi!! Imagine a road trip in that old Cadi!!
(Without the boots and hair this time around) You can read about my half fiction travels above.

PINK is soft, gentle, like velvet words, like love should be. A delicate romantic kiss, comfortable like love from a hug. 

         White is pure.  PINK isn't pure its rather more fun.  My Angels are pure.  They are working on me.

             I learned not to give my PINK power away like I used to.  I wanted to make everyone happy so no one's "feathers" got ruffled.  Well ruffle away anymore.  PINK is kindness and strength to me. It may sound silly but if you surround yourself with what PINK represents to me ALSWELL.  Yours  might be the ocean, or fishing.  I love to create.  Somehow PINK gives me freedom in all areas.  Obviously!  Who do you know that would actually drive a PINK 

Cadillac across country on a girls road trip. 

      I am no longer a girl.  In fact way no longer. But my spirit sparkles. It loves people, animals, my Angels....of course God, and PINK!!

The Gazing Ball....... property of Julianna Rowe

I bought a mirror ball yesterday..... the party ones?  I have always wanted one that rotated mechanically, you know battery operated and such.  Most folks buy them for parties but me....  I wanted one for fun and relaxation.  I did wonder if "it" would make me dizzy and where would I put it?  In my bedroom? Who wants to be dizzy before sleep time?  Not me for sure and I do not have parties at this time in my life. Maybe I should.

I do have a shabby chic porch so I decided to put it out there.  Humm. I noticed a funny sound when I hooked the ceiling link up to it...  That is when I realized the interior of the ball consisted of styrofoam!!  Oh dear.  I suspected the little mirrors were GLUED to the styrofoam ball meaning it may not withstand the out of doors porch idea. 

Hey, I got it on one of those for sale sites at $7.  I cant complain no matter what.  Not that I will be rockin and rollin on the porch or in the bedroom like in the old days. Nope.  Actually the best thing that will happen is my cat Lucy will chase the dots around the room.  The sun hits it from the west meaning I do not have to purchase a motion light for it.  I merely have to move it when it rains, along with the fancy victorian pillows etc. on my Shabby Porch. I don't mind, it's worth it. 

Not to mention the dancing ball reminds me of the good old days at Hancock Center in Austin Texas where I got my first kiss.  The Teen Center in Stoughton Mandt Park where we danced and stayed out of trouble for the most part.  The Beatles and Elvis.  Weird Ed Sullivan.  You all have your Weird Al Yankovic!  Not sure I spelled that right but suspect you get it. 

Funny how we want something for years and then when we finally get it we don't know what to do with it... OR we have it and cant get rid of it!  My forever wanted Mirror Ball is hanging outside on my Shabby Chic Porch rotating while my old cat Lucy chases the lighted (dots) around the living room as it shines through the large reflecting glass windows.  Me....it is relaxing just knowing I finally got one. Something so small and insignificant. Probably many other things on my bucket list are equally as small and unimportant. When I die it wont rotate in the hereafter with me...... or will it? 

Its dark now and very peaceful: