the life and times of sherrena by sherrena

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the life and times of sherrena

Wednesday March 15, 2006

The last stop.......

This morning I got up and drank my breakfast, put my music on and started exercising…. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be on me…. I have things ass backwards I think… Instead of spending the winter on a diet and getting ready for the summer with FEWER cloths to wear, I have chosen to do the exact opposite…. As if I am using my heavy winter apparel to hide behind… of all the nerve….. OK I AM! I admit it! At least I don’t buy bigger cloths to make every one THINK I lost weight!….I have come to realize that I am never going to look like those beautiful brass pole dancers and I have to except my self as I am…. Some times I look at my daughter and think…. “I USE TO LOOK JUST LIKE YOU! AND LOOK AT YOU PULLING ON THE SKIN UNDER YOUR EYES WITH TOILET PAPER!”… She wipes at her face like it’s a 2 year olds full of dirt…. I tell her not to… I tell her she should treat her skin as if it’s gold…. BUT SHE IS YOUNG…. She doesn’t see the future on MY FACE! The tiny lines around the eyes or the tiny lines that start to crack the top of your lip…. The silver streaks that you have to keep coloring and every one thinks is a great tint job at the beauty shop… They tell me…. “Oh that’s pretty… those blond streaks”….. I want to scream in there face, that’s GRAY! I color my hair and those gray streaks wont color as dark! Instead I smile and say thanks……I started getting silver gray hair when I was a child…. Some say that’s good luck…… If it is I‘m still waiting for it….. My mother and grand mother were not cursed this way…. At the time of my mother’s death you could count the silver hairs (not on one hand but close)… and my grand mother, on both sides, just had a few stripes….. I look at my own children wondering if I have passed this on to them…weak genes. My mother was exactly 20 years older than me…. So when she died I thought…. “Fuck! I only have 20 years left!”…. I don’t know why I thought this… just that I did. I thought other crazy stuff too that I have NO IDEA why…. Like… Well I guess maybe her dieing isn’t so bad… now I have her with me all the time… She’s watching me now, where she couldn’t from her house. I look back now and I see myself saying it or thinking it and I can’t believe it! Or how instead of shopping for funeral cloths the day before she was laid to rest, because I had nothing to wear, I bought work boots for my husband. I LOVE THIS WOMAN WITH ALL MY HEART! How could I think and do such things? I guess what I am trying to say is since all my loved ones started passing on…one by one…. I have been feeling like my days here are numbered… It’s strange because before I felt happy and care free about dieing… Even when I worked at the nursing home and I made friends with the old people and one by one they too started being called home. I didn’t feel this way… Let’s face it… The nursing home for an old person is the last stop before the funeral home…. This is life… You live your life and if you’re lucky you make it there and then you live the last part of your life with nurse’s aides and nurses looking after you and waking you up every two hours and of course playing checkers … I started out being a nurse’s aide before you had to have a license for it. I lied to the first place I ever worked and told them I was 16 when I was really 15... They hired me to pass ice water out and play checkers. Back then you didn’t need any skills… you just had to like old people… and I qualified for that… I loved there stories and later on I loved taking care of them… I moved up to shaving the men and rolling the ladies hair…. I really enjoyed this a lot but it seemed I only knew one hair do… the foot ball helmet… I was told a few times not to leave Elvis side burns on the men but they didn’t seemed to mind… It was always the up tight nurse that had a problem with it… Then I moved up to shower’s… Now this took some skill… learning to take the cloths off some one who was chilled to the bone constantly and then trying to get them wet was something out of this world… Some times they grabbed your hair and pulled it out… thinking that being mean to you would make you leave them alone…. I learned instead to trick them with pretty perfumes and heat…It seemed that no matter how old a woman gets she still loves to wear perfume… I bought and paid for this extra thing my self…. I would come to work and turn the heater on… then I would take my trusty black case that I had filled with perfumes and lotions to there rooms…. We smelled all of them before they would choose which one they would be wearing for the day… Then after I assured them that it was hot enough to cook a chicken in the shower they would get in the shower chair… A rolling portable toilet… and I would wrap a sheet around them and roll them down…. Now after awhile, seeing naked people seems to disappear… You start to see UN washed bodies… The wet shower heat wasn’t bad at all… I would compare it to Sauna heat… I washed and scrubbed till they were clean as a whistle… Yes they yelled the whole time…. Yes they slapped my hands and yes I was told many times not to scrub so hard but the ending result was a clean happy old lady smelling nice with a foot ball helmet hair do…I dressed them up every Sunday for families that didn’t come to visit… and every Sunday night I got them ready for bed and told them that there was always next Sunday… I know now why they looked at me like I was an Idiot… I treated each one like they were my own grand parent and I watched each one die like my own grand parents… I was the one that came to give them there last bath… I always chose the perfume that they had liked the best… and I stood there with them till there family came to say good bye… Now the men didn’t take as much tricking to get them to go to the shower… Seems that in my experience a man NEVER gets to old to want to go to the shower with a woman… Not only do they want to go but they have their close laid out waiting on their turn… Yes they would tell me to scrub down there a little more… and yes they loved getting shaved and yes they tried to make there time in there last an hour each time… But the end results was a fresh clean shaven old man smelling like old spice and a chili bowl hair cut with Elvis side burns.. Seems back then that’s the only hair cut I knew too… I loved those old people… And I treated them with dignity and respect… They had been soldiers, postal workers, carpenter’s and USO girls, son’s and daughter’s, mother’s and father’s long before they were old grand parents and great grand parents. They had more stories than Carter had Liver pills… And I hung on there words like I would never hear it again…. Maybe I will share some of there exciting stories with you some time… Who knows? Maybe you too will find them as interesting as I did…

Posted by sherrena at 8:36 PM - 3 Comments Add a Comment

Magic Man

This plays softly tonight in the life and times of Sherrena.... Hope you enjoy it as much as I am.......

HEART.............. Magic Man

Cold late night so long ago
When I was not so strong you know
A pretty man came to me
Never seen eyes so blue
I could not run away
It seemed we’d seen each other in a dream
It seemed like he knew me
He looked right through me
Come on home, girl he said with a smile
You don’t have to love me yet
Let’s get high awhile
But try to understand
Try to understand
Try try try to understand
I’m a magic man.

Winter nights we sang in tune
Played inside the months of moon
Never think of never
Let this spell last forever
Summer over passed to fall
Tried to realize it all
Mama says she’s worried
Growing up in a hurry

Come on home, girl mama cried on the phone
Too soon to lose my baby yet my girl should be at home!
But try to understand, try to understand
Try try try to understand
He’s a magic man, mama
He’s a magic man

Come on home, girl he said with a smile
I cast my spell of love on you a woman from a child!
But try to understand, try to understand
I’m a magic man!

Posted by sherrena at 12:46 AM - 4 Comments Add a Comment

Tuesday March 14, 2006

PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC WHITE BOY.......

How about a little toe tapping today?.....I WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND MY HUSBAND WAS PLAYING IT ON HIS GUITAR.....I HAVE TO SAY HE WAS DOING A GREAT JOB AT IT!.....

WILD CHERRY

PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC WHITE BOY!

Once I was a boogie singer
Playing in a rock n' roll band
I never had no problems, yeah
Running down in one night stands
Now everything around me
Got to start to feeling so low
And I decided quickly, yes I did
To disco down and shake out the show
And there was dancing and singing
And movin' to the groovin'
And just when it hit me
Somebody turned around and shouted
"Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music right!
Play that funky music, white boy
Lay down in boogie and play that funky music 'til you die!"
So play that funky music baby, play it, play it right
You know we got it going on
We'll funk it up all night
So shake me crazy, honey, you know you really gotta
So play that funky music
Everybody's gonna be alright (Hugh)
At first it wasn't easy
Changing rock n' roll in mind
Things were getting shaky
I thought I'd have to leave it behind
But now it's so much better, it's so much better
I'm funking out in every way
But I'll never lose that feeling, no I won't
Of how I learned my lesson that day
And there was dancing and singing
And movin' to the groovin'
And just when it hit me
Somebody turned around and shouted
"Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music right!
Play that funky music, white boy
Lay down in boogie and play that funky music 'til you die!"
So play that funky music baby, play it, play it right
You know we got it going on
We'll funk it up all night
So shake me crazy, honey, you know you really gotta
So play that funky music
Everybody's gonna be alright
Play that funky music (play that funky music)
Play that funky music (play that funky music)
Play that funky music
Yeah, you gotta keep playin' funky music!
Lay down in boogie and play that funky music 'til you die

Posted by sherrena at 3:59 PM - 1 Comment Add a Comment

Hello New Orleans...... You need to brush your hair girl

Well I feel much better now. My bad feeling of Impending doom has left me and I feel refreshed after a long walk in the woods… When I returned home I played my guitar for the rest of the afternoon. I started playing the guitar about 11 years ago… The mandolin about 5 years ago…. I’m not the greatest at either one of them but I strive for perfection and that keeps me from stopping. I just WILL NOT GIVE UP until I have mastered what I have set out to do… So I think this will be a life long undertaking…… I have learned to play by ear because I am to cheep to buy sheet music for songs that I hear already on the radio… Why should I when I can hear the notes?

Now about New Orleans…. I went there last night with my husband… His brother has been working down there and needed to borrow some tools… I told him anything he took down there he should just consider a donation… the reason why is because his brother was borrowing tools because his were stolen! It started while he was out back of one of the houses he’s been repairing… He was cutting wood and his saw stopped…He thought … “Damn that Plug!”… It had come loose from the generator once before. So he walked around the house, following his cord and when he got to the end, there wasn’t a generator any more…They had stole it WHILE he was using it. So now after his saw has come up missing he has called to BORROW my husbands…. I guess brother’s do that for one another but I thought men loaning tools was like women loaning panties… It just isn’t done…… Now the trip there only took an hour and a half…We crossed over a few huge lakes and stayed on a bridge that was about 20 miles long….. I never seen a bridge SO LONG! As we came up on the suburbs of the city it didn’t really look like much had happened there…. I watched out the window as we passed side streets all with electricity. Then I saw the city’s sky line…. It’s very pretty, if you’ve never seen it…. The sun had set just as we were reaching Orleans parish so the lights on the bridge were lit. They hung in a swag coming up to the tall buildings…. We traveled on the freeway and took 610 east and passed Canal Street… (It goes to the French Quarter) and we exited on Franklin St. …. now things changed drastically here…. My mouth hung open as I saw the city for the first time after Katrina. Huge rubble piles of peoples life’s still littered the streets…my husband had to slow down and creep through the streets now…I stared out the window at a man sitting on his porch steps with a bottle of whiskey at his feet… all around him was his shattered life… My husband said… “Look at that will ya?”… With a disgusted look… (He’s a drinker his self)… As we drove farther in and made a few turns the roads became one way… Now if you’ve never been there and seen what it looks like let me tell you a little about the houses… there built narrow and tall… and there very close together… most of the houses have some kind of beautiful molding work on the out side… making them look grand and then some are rickety little shacks all mixed in…. the steps on the porches are steep at an un natural angle… and scattered threw these homes are little pubs were a man, or woman, can just step out your own front door and get a cool alcoholic refreshment. My husband was visibly nervous… His eyes scanned everywhere and his remarks about the city it’s self were nasty… I on the other hand saw past all the crap and thought….. “DAMN! This is the place for me!”…. The sky line was beautiful! The river and canals were too…. And every where you could see the city working to clean up what the storm had done…. As we turned on Rampart St. I saw just how high the water had come up…. It was amazing… on every house was a huge red “X”… sprayed in spray paint …. Inside the X at the tops, bottoms and sides were number’s from search and rescue squad’s. You could also see the houses marked from the people searching and rescuing animals that were left behind…. This made me sick…. I couldn’t leave my animals behind! I would not!… as we pulled up to the little house his brother was staying in while remodeling other houses in the neighbor hood my husband made a point to tell me to watch myself around here…. I looked at him and rolled my eyes like…. “Are you for real?”….. And jumped out…. Ever where people were walking around and digging threw garbage… I saw one man carrying a brass bed to the trash and another man pick it up and carry it off down the street… We didn’t stay long… Just long enough to drop off the tools and then we drove back threw the way we came… I thought there would be more street lights! You could see whole neighbor hoods still blacked out…. But in most places the city was rebuilding…. In my opinion they are moving along quite nicely…… And my next trip there?….. Because I DO PLAN ON RETURNING….. Will be for fun!…..

Posted by sherrena at 1:36 PM - 2 Comments Add a Comment

........(emoticon yawning).... Is it 1:30 AM?........

I went to New Orleans tonight....I'm a little sleepy or I would go ahead and post what I saw down there.... It sure makes ones own problems look small in comparison.... I have to say one thing though.... the city sure is bouncing back.......

GO NEW ORLEANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......

Posted by sherrena at 2:30 AM - 1 Comment Add a Comment

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About Me

Author: sherrena
From southern, USA

This blog is about...
me...my feeling's about thing's and my life...So really a diary.

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