Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

Thursday was Spelling test day.

I had one glass labeled as “gifted.”

They used to make sport of pulling the dictionary out and trying to find words that I did not know.

You see, words are my thing. I always have a dictionary at the ready. I have Word of the Day calendars at home and at work. My favorite books are books on words, and dictionary.com is my home page.

Truly, I have a love for words.

I quite often made my students learn new words from my calendar with me. They found it both irritating and funny that I made it a habit to learn one new word a day.

Armed with their arsenal of new words, they thought that I could not stump them.

So, they asked me for some bonus points on the next spelling test.

So I said, “OK. Dictation.”

And remember, they were the gifted class…

We made rules and agreed on them. No weird words from my calendar.

The day of the test came, and they were ready…or so they thought.

The test concluded and twenty-five papers flipped to the back without my ever asking them to.

“OK class. One sentence. All or nothing. Ten bonus points at stake.”

Papers shuffled. Butts wiggled. Nerds high-fived.

Until the sentence fell from my mouth…

“Arnold Schwarzenegger stared in Kindergarten Cop.”

Even the nerds were not happy.

So many things I could zap then with here . The sentence was rife with chances for 8th grade errors!

And the whining continued.

OK… I’ve got a plan . You can choose between the sentence I just read or a second one. But… should you choose the second one, five bonus points, max.

They agreed, as I read the sentence, “Nadia Comaneci was a famous Romanian gymnast.”

MS. STEWART!!!

Even the best of the best had THE LOOK.

But of course, I had been prepared for this.

I walked quietly to my desk and grabbed three photos.

The first picture showed a woman who had been burned over 95% of her body. The second showed a boy with three prosthetic limbs where two legs and one arm used to be. The third showed a picture of someone sitting in an AA Meeting.

“All three lives touched by the same addiction. Three very different outcomes. The woman was hit by someone who didn’t make it to one of those meetings.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

“Sometimes, life is just not fair. But you still need to pick one of those sentences and give it your best effort.”

No words were spoken as the tests were turned in. None at all.

Nor were there any spoken when I handed the graded papers back out the next day, and each child had received ten bonus points.

But the lesson was the same. It was the same one from the day before.

“Sometimes, life is not fair.

It’s not fair to the students across the hall that you got bonus points for nothing.

It’s just that sometimes you’re on the good end of the not fair stick, and sometimes you’re on the bad.

Either way, life isn’t fair.”

And yeah, they groaned when the assignment directly after that was to write a paragraph about life not being fair.

But that’s what they get for not knowing how to spell Arnold’s last name, y’all! That’s just what they get!!!

Certainly by now my children know this.

Weekly I hear the phrase, “Other moms just aren’t like you.”

But every once in a while, I catch even the ones who know me best off guard.

I had left something at work the other day, and Micah came in with me to get it.

He took one look at my desk and cried out, “Mom!”

“What?”

“You didn’t give it to him?”

“HUH? Oh. No. That wasn’t for him.”

“You bought a mug while we were on vacation with someone else’s name on it, and you didn’t give it to him?

“It was never for him. It was for me. It makes me happy.”

“But you’re supposed to give it to him.”

“Not when it makes me this happy. It makes me smile every morning when I drink my coffee.”

“I don’t get you, Mom.”

“You’re a teenager, son. If you did, something just wouldn’t be right.”

You see, we had been souvenir shopping, and he assumed I was getting the coffee mug with someone else’s name on it for someone else.

But I was getting it for me.

That’s what he gets for assuming!

Anyway…

It’s hard to be motivated when you aren’t happy.

And as simple as it sounds, starting my work day off drinking coffee out of a giant, cheesy mug with the name of the sexiest man in the world and a big, glaring LAS VEGAS decal staring back at me, makes me happy!

Happy at work, means happy after work.

And leaving work in a good mood makes it all the more easy to head straight to the gym for lifting.

It’s amazing how the little things we can do to lift our spirits throughout the day can lead to better lifting later in the day.

Because before I can lift that first weight, I have to lift my spirits enough to lift my booty off the couch!!!

And for me it all begins with a mug and a smile.

Oh…and he does NOT know I have this mug. So, y’all do not tell him!!! He would roll his eyes for sure!

It’ll be our little secret!

My coworker had emergency surgery, so we were unprepared for her absence.

The week prior, she was on vacation. Vacations you prepare for. We had someone there every day. With the surgery, we just weren’t ready.

I kept telling everyone I was fine, but I got daily check-up calls from our home office. They didn’t like a woman being alone.

But I made it through the week just fine.

Until that last day. That last day gets you every time, y’all!

A customer came in, and I took a payment.

A normal transaction I assumed.

As the customer left, my bedridden coworker called to check on me.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Just took a payment.”

“Who for?”

I told her the name, and she gasped.

“Oh, Adina. I’m so sorry you were alone when he came in. Are you OK?”

“I’m fine! He was just making a payment.”

“Adina! Do you NOT remember him from last time?”

“Uhm. No. Evidently not.”

“He came in drunk and threatened you.”

“Now, Kitty. Surely I would remember the face? That cannot be him.”

“I’m telling you Adina, it is.”

She hung up after making me promise to stay locked in tight. And I’m pretty sure I heard her curse as she hung up the phone.

I looked up the account and sure enough, that was him. The notes were there. My own notes.

I thought about it for a long time that afternoon.

How could I not remember the face of someone who had been that unkind to me?

I mean, I know seeing the perky side of things is my forte. This is where I dwell.

But this?

This is odd even for me.

As I read the notes, I remembered the smell of his breath, and the words that he said. I remembered the invisible wall of professional distance he had encroached upon and gotten all too close.

So…

How did I not remember THIS face?

The answer is simple. I chose not to, without even knowing it.

I didn’t make him the subject of my Blog the next day, although it would have made for a captivating read.

I did not call anyone at the home office. I simply notated the account. My coworker only knew because she was there.

I did not even E-mail my friend who I tell everything.

And I remember doing these things because I didn’t want that to be my first thought of the day for the next few weeks.

I knew people would E-mail or call, and that would be my first working thought of the day. Every day. For at least a week.

But there is a protective wall and a locked door between me and anyone who walks in. While the situation was annoying, I never truly feared for my safety. So I saw no need to dwell on it.

And I learned something…

When you don’t dwell in the negative, each day really is a new day!

I was laughing in one.

One time I blinked.

My personal favorite was the one where I looked absolutely naked, because I was wearing some sort of off the shoulder gypsy-looking shirt thing.

I remember showing it to a cashier one time. He looked at it. Then he looked at me.

“You look naked.”

“Yes. I know.”

There was a long dramatic pause before he said…. “Were you?”

I’m going to need him to be smarter than that.

He’s probably working for the DMV to this day. Waiting. Patiently waiting for all the naked girls to come in and renew their license.

God love him.

But I wasn’t expecting to have a photo made today. It’s casual Friday. I’m not dressed up, and I’m really not even fixed.

The last time I had needed a new license was to do a change of address. I did it online. No photo required. They just sent me my old one again.

My license isn’t due to expire until 2013. I just lost it.

I’m thinking I’m going to go in and just leave ten dollars and get my same old, same old.

Until she said, “OK. Go stand behind the line.”

Then I whined.

Yes, I said it. I whined.

“You mean I have to have a new photo?”

“Yes. There is no other way to do it really.”

“I look terrible.”

“Just stand behind the line.”

Notice how she didn’t interject with, “Honey, you look fine.”

How very unsouthern of her. She must not have been born here.

I finished my duties and was walking away. Micah was with me, and I whined and griped about the new photo the whole way down the hall.

“Why are you complaining?”

“I didn’t even smile. It looks like any mug shot you’ve ever seen.”

“MOM! Good Lord. You weighed 250 pounds and were Band-Aid white in the last one. I don’t care how bad it looks, it’s better than that one.”

I just stopped in my tracks and looked at him.

“Son, you’re right. Let’s go eat. I’ll shut my pie hole now.”

And I did.

He was right about that last photo. I did weigh 250 pounds in it. I renewed it by mail last time. I CHOSE to keep that wretched photo.

It was one of my last few reminders.

The new picture really is a bad picture, but it surely is better than what it used to be.

And you know, I don’t need to be reminded of what I used to be anymore.

At some point we all have to let go of who we used to be in one way or another. Even if it’s by force.

Thank goodness I lost that license, y’all! Thank goodness!

May 22.

It’s funny how different dates mean more than others.

I would have thought that date would stick out to me, but it didn’t. I was thinking it had been close to a year. It actually surprised me to discover the year mark had come and gone without notice.

I thought back to the events of that day.

It was in the early hours of the morning when it happened.

And yeah, OK. I hit a pig. I totaled my car out hitting a pig. (Shut up, all of you!)

I was on my way home from my boyfriend’s house.

I called, and he did not answer.

He called back in a few minutes. I could tell he had been sleeping.

I told him what had happened and I vividly remember him saying, “Go home and get some sleep.”

Huh? What?

He did not ask if I was OK, nor did he call back to see if I made it to the house.

The next day I got a text.

“How is the car?”

And not once on that day did he call and let me hear his voice.

And aren’t those the defining moments in life? Those moments when you look up and can clearly see what isn’t there.

Love. Support. Dignity. They were all missing.

Over the course of the next week he offered no help in the week-after-the-wreck process.

Not once.

I thought about it. He had always been this way, but I didn’t want to see it. He left me stranded with a flat tire once. Took a female employee to lunch on my birthday. Never called when he said he would. I don’t recall that he ever gave me a gift. Not on Christmas, nor on my birthday.

And….

Stick a fork in her, y’all. Adina is done!

Sometimes you have to realize who or what is no good for you! That man was no good for me.

It might be as simple as sweets are not good for you.

Cigarettes.

Coffee by the gallon. (OK…that one’s me again. Sorry!)

But I can look back across this last year and see…WOW. What an amazing year it has been.

And it began with walking away from someone who wasn’t good for me, which led me right to the people who were. Who are!

For everything you struggle to give up, there is something so very much better waiting for you. But you can’t get to it until you let go of what is holding you back.

Sometimes you have to force an open mind, but sometimes it’s just there.

When I attended UFC 98 a few weeks ago, it was just there.

Talk about a blank slate. I knew NOTHING about UFC fighting. Nothing at all!

Jonah is not a fan, but he was not going to let us go without him! He studied ahead of time and took notes at the weigh in. (God love him!)

But by the fight he was excited, and he knew who he was rooting for.

I learned that Jonah did not have be a fanatic about something to appreciate an opportunity. Although that wasn’t his thing, he made it his thing for that one night.

I also learned that Micah can be moved. As a teenager, he rarely shows enthusiasm. When Rashad Evans slumped to the floor, Micah looked at me and almost shouted, “He’s out. Stone cold out.”

But the greatest lesson came in the last few minutes we were there. The speeches. I heard several that evening. Of most, I cannot tell you a single word.

Most of them.

But there is one I remember well.

Machida. The big winner of the evening.

English being a second language to him, he worded things just a little differently. It was endearing. I would even go so far as to say it was charming.

It culminated in him saying, “If you have a dream, go ahead. Go ahead!”

He was so excited that even the Evans fans around him had to laugh.

Then he said, “I keep this belt long time.”

Funny that a big grown man who, as my friend would say, knocked Evans the hell out, would be standing there like a little boy. Smiling at a dream fulfilled like a little boy smiles at his first bike.

But in an instant this man who had just knocked somebody stone cold out gave everyone in that room a key to success.

“Go ahead!”

We all have dreams, wishes, desires, and hopes.

And some of those things often seem out of reach.

But as Machida would say, “Go ahead!

My go-ahead-moment is getting some surgery done. I’ve needed it a long time, and have even been promised it on more than one occasion.

But you know what? Obviously it’s not as important to anyone else as it is to me. It’s time for me to just go ahead!

In fact, I think that later today I will make a go-ahead-list!

If Machida can do it, then so can I!

Sometimes you have to force an open mind, but sometimes it’s just there.

When I attended UFC 98 a few weeks ago, it was just there.

Talk about a blank slate. I knew NOTHING about UFC fighting. Nothing at all!

Jonah is not a fan, but he was not going to let us go without him! He studied ahead of time and took notes at the weigh in. (God love him!)

But by the fight he was excited, and he knew who he was rooting for.

I learned that Jonah did not have be a fanatic about something to appreciate an opportunity. Although that wasn’t his thing, he made it his thing for that one night.

I also learned that Micah can be moved. As a teenager, he rarely shows enthusiasm. When Rashad Evans slumped to the floor, Micah looked at me and almost shouted, “He’s out. Stone cold out.”

But the greatest lesson came in the last few minutes we were there. The speeches. I heard several that evening. Of most, I cannot tell you a single word.

Most of them.

But there is one I remember well.

Machida. The big winner of the evening.

English being a second language to him, he worded things just a little differently. It was endearing. I would even go so far as to say it was charming.

It culminated in him saying, “If you have a dream, go ahead. Go ahead!”

He was so excited that even the Evans fans around him had to laugh.

Then he said, “I keep this belt long time.”

Funny that a big grown man who, as my friend would say, knocked Evans the hell out, would be standing there like a little boy. Smiling at a dream fulfilled like a little boy smiles at his first bike.

But in an instant this man who had just knocked somebody stone cold out gave everyone in that room a key to success.

“Go ahead!”

We all have dreams, wishes, desires, and hopes.

And some of those things often seem out of reach.

But as Machida would say, “Go ahead!

My go-ahead-moment is getting some surgery done. I’ve needed it a long time, and have even been promised it on more than one occasion.

But you know what? Obviously it’s not as important to anyone else as it is to me. It’s time for me to just go ahead!

In fact, I think that later today I will make a go-ahead-list!

If Machida can do it, then so can I!