Season 1 - Episode 4

I grew up in the town of H.
For that one year we lived in the town of P.
Then, we moved back to H.

5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grades...a bit of a blur. One thing was for sure about those days....this is when  my boy-craziness began. There was Him 1, Him 2, Him 3 and so on....and if you think I'm just naming them that because I've been doing that with everything else, that is half true. In actuality, that is what we called them in grammar school, we knew who we were talking about, but the 'He' didn't. There was P and J and C and .... it was a whirlwind of pre-teen hormonal soup....bad. I was a bit on the chubby side...and not on the pretty side. The boys really didn't notice me..but they did take notice to my brains...both of my already C sized brains.  *sigh* (a battle I've still yet to overcome!)

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Mom was..who knows. Sure, she was around, but it was more of a presence than a nurturing. She worked, she watched TV, she read books, she yelled, she punished. She never cooked much. I watched my sister a lot when they went bowling two nights a week. Yeah, we didn't get along well.

Dad, well, he's just dad. 24 years my mothers senior, he learned the art of relaxation quite well. He already  had 4 daughters from a previous marriage. (actually six, but one died at birth and one died at six months). His second oldest daughter (the first died), is five days..yes DAYS..younger than my mother. Old man?? Nah, at 81, he's fit as a fiddle, could probably still outrun me! He was very laid back, didn't talk much. Yet for some odd reason, I thought it best to torture him with my rants of "You're not my father!".

The father I never knew, what was so alluring about him? Why did I have to know him? My mother always told me that he didn't care because if he did, he would have been there. But no matter how many times she told me that, I just had a hunger to know who my father was - the man that was responsible for the other half of me. I remember my mom giving me his phone number. I walked around with it in my sock for weeks yet was too scared to call. I never did.

K - my little sis. Oh, what a character she was (an still is). She nearly died in the delivery room. The u-cord was wrapped her neck and I think she did 'die' for a brief moment. (It was at this time, I swore, that she was possessed by the devil himself). Everything revolved around K. The first child of mom and dad...she was special. She had a reputation from day one. I hated my little sister - hated.

Mima & Grandpa. My loves!!! When we moved back to H after my fourth grade, my parents and grandparents bought a house together. We lived upstairs and my grandparents lived downstairs. And then were always there to catch me. Mima knew how bad things were and she was always there to comfort. Always. (well, there was this one time when....oh, wait, we'll get to that a bit later).

Nothing was significant in those years on the home front, the usual cast, the usual script. I was just the understudy.

drink up,
Ms. Fine