guest blogger Aline!

While Jacquie is away, some of her friends have agreed to come out and play! Please say hello to Aline!

As I mentioned, my friend Aline had the hots for Keith’s friend Paul. I guess they sort of hit if off, because 14 years and 3 kids later, they still seem pretty hot for each other. She’s the friend you can say anything to, who will laugh with you and cry with you and yell at you and forgive you and lean on you and hold you up and besides all that, she’s got a butt arch that could move mountains. She’s a fiercely devoted mother and a ferocious party girl. She twangs when she talks. I can’t wait to see if that comes across in her writing:

Selective Hearing: Real or not?

Is selective hearing truly selective?? Or is it just an excuse we use? All I know is that selective hearing can be funny as hell.

Like the time when I was expecting my first child and had a scare of going into labor early. We found ourselves being monitored at the hospital listening to his heartbeat. While anxiously waiting to be told everything was okay, the nurse was asking me questions and going over my records. I remember the sound of his heart beating was getting louder and louder. She asked “May 2nd?” (Now, you have to say it really fast all together…maysecond, maysecond, maysecond) My husband and I looked at each other perplexed as I said “what?” And she repeated “May 2nd?” I pointed at my husband and said “no, I’m not Mexican, he is!” In going over my records she was trying to ask me if my previous surgery was on May 2nd, and all I kept hearing her say was MEXICAN! My husband and I just about fell on the floor laughing, and could barely hold it together for the rest of the appointment. Maybe it was her accent, or my pregnant brain, I don’t know. But, it was funny as hell!

Funny how my mother can’t hear you most of the time, but if I ask her if she wants some chocolate, she hears me just fine! I think she got very good over the years tuning out her eight children. I know if I had eight kids running around, I would “tune out” often.

Funny how my husband always says I don’t hear him and his famous words “YOU don’t listen to me…” Oh, like the most recently when my 12 year old son had his Order of Arrow ceremony. For those of you that don’t know, it is a Boy Scout thing. And my husband, Eagle Scout extraordinaire, lives for this stuff. It was a blistery 35 degree cold, cold night and he says he told me that it was going to take place outside. But as he saw me dressing for it in velvet dressy slacks and heels, and saw my mother show up like she was dressed for the dressiest church going, he didn’t bother to tell us we might want to change into something warmer because we might freeze our butts off. No, it would have been nice to hear something like, “there is going to be a huge campfire.” So, campfire attire might be better than the *symphony* attire that we were wearing. No, it would have been even nicer to hear that we should change our thin trouser socks to a pair of Smart wool or something. No, we didn’t hear any of that because it was never said! It was the most uncomfortable freezing 2 hours ever in my life! Everyone offered my 77 year old mother their blankets and coats as she shivered uncontrollably. Now, did I really
not hear him, or did he really not tell me it was outside?? One will truly never know.

The proud husband and the BOY Scout (Prior to the outdoor ceremony)

Or when my youngest little boy tells me “I didn’t hear you, it was an accident…”

This is his: “I’m not hearing you, I’m dead look”

just because they’re so dang cute

So the question still remains, is selective hearing something we have total control over, or is it something we don’t? Perhaps it is something learned and passed down from generation to generation… or, it is what it is.