New Grandchild in Our Family

A most funny thing happened today. I was helping my mother at her Christmas craft show at her church, when my cell phone rang. I answered it and someone with a deep, gruff voice said, "WHO IS THIS? I said, "Who is THIS?"

He said, "Who is this?" again. I said, "You called me! Who are you?"

He said, "You sent my son a very inappropriate text message this morning. Now who is this?"

I said, "I NEVER did any such thing! It wasn't from my phone!"

He said, "Yes it was, and who is this? I mean it!"

I said, "Is this a joke?" and he said it was not.

I said, "Who is your son?" He said, "Never mind. I only want to know who you are."

I said, "What was the message?"

He said, "The message said ~ 'How do you like your new baby girl today?'

I said, "I DID write that! My daughter and son in law had a new baby girl in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday! I thought it would be a funny thing to say to them today, because they were so over the moon yesterday."

Silence.

In a very quiet voice, he said, "Ummmm, is this Aunt Theresa?"

I said, "Huh? What? Yeeeees, this is me."

My young, teenage nephew in Ishpeming said, "This is Dakota, Aunt Theresa. I was trying to sound like a man so I could find out who sent me the message. I thought someone was saying I had a baby with someone. I was very confused ..."

The funny text message my son in law Dave never got, went to Dakota in Ishpeming. That message meant a totally different, frightful thing than it would have to the person it was intended for. I must watch those speed-dial-phone-number-text-message thingies more carefully.

To my nephew Dakota, I would like to say how proud I am of you for challenging what you thought was an accusation. Good move to pretend you were an angry, grown man, in order to get to the bottom of that message.

To my son in law Dave, I want to say that you missed a darn good text message this morning. Good job and well done on your incredibly lovely baby daughter with YOUR steel blue eyes. I can't wait to meet her.

To my sixth grandchild ~ Lucca Pearl ~ I want to say welcome to one crazy family. Grandma Tia loves you very much.

Of Mice & Woman

Yesterday I was telling a friend that I will be blogging about 'this' as soon as I feel better ~ which is NOT today. Oh heck, let's blog about it today. Let's try to see some humor in a very humorless situation, if there is any. Let's talk about it now, and then see what tomorrow brings.

A month ago I moved into a retirement community. I've lived for years and years outside of town ~ not far, but far enough. I'm right in town now, less than a mile from the main highway and Walmart! My good friend is a surgeon, who is committed to a healthy lifestyle. He eats organic food and works out every day, no matter what his grueling schedule is, even if he has to sacrifice sleep time to do it. He's very serious about all of it, and I've never heard him joke about 'fast food,' especially with someone whose body is no laughing matter. When I told him where I was moving, he said, "Hey, you could walk to Taco Bell!" I said, "That's what I'm talking about here!" And there I moved.

Our apartments and townhouses are surrounded and protected by the beautiful, unspoiled forests in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We have dense woods and a lovely creek. We have deer and fawn (who ate someone's roses recently and got shooed away). We've seen fox and badger. People have seen bear. I have mice.

I've lived in rural settings all my life and have had my share of troublesome and uncomfortable situations. I know what lives in the woods (right outside the back door), and I know what to expect when I go into their domain. What might be happening 20 feet from my back door is very different than what's acceptable inside that door.

I was here almost a week, when I got up early one morning. It was dark inside and I made my way to the bathroom by the light of the silvery night lights. I caught a glimpse of the furry intruder as his eyes hit the light he scurried in front of. I clapped my hands, and I'm not sure why. We weren't outside, where he had a vast space to run. I think it was an instinctual run-but-not-by-me response.

Very well. I had a mouse. To be fair, I had just moved in and left the front and back doors open for most of moving day. I live on ground floor (and I mean ground floor - wheelchair accessible). The woods are ten feet away from my back sliding door. I totally accepted this momentary problem.

I called maintenance, and they came immediately and set seven traps in my little apartment. Two were traditional snap traps, and five were sticky traps. They were close to walls and corners, as mice have poor eyesight (I THINK, but at this point, what do I really know about mice?). I didn't like that moment in time, but I understood it. No big deal. Silly old me.

I watched and waited for three full days. On the morning of the fourth day ~ TWO mice in traps. Eeeeeeeekkkkkk! A mouse and his mistress! I had only seen one, and my mind could only accept one, but there they were. I knew exactly when it happened. I heard a SNAP! drag, click click click for almost a minute, before he gave up the good fight. I laid in my bed in the dark and thought ... that was disgusting, but now it's over. Yay me! My house - my rules. I have that no mice in the house rule.

Within a half hour, I heard a shrill shriek, then short bursts of shrieking. Lord have mercy ~ it was hideous. My friend Jen was right. (Sometimes) when a mouse in caught in a sticky trap in just the right way, they will scream. Had she not told me that, heaven only knows what I would have done in the pitch black. I would have had no idea what in the heck that was. It was in a corner of the bedroom, in the trap hiding between the dresser and the wall. I don't usually get up at 4am, but I did on that day.

Maintenance came and took the two traps away as soon as they came to work at 7. Until then, I sat shivering and quivering, wondering where they had been, what they had been eating, and how they had avoided seven traps for almost four days. It's spooky to think they're smarter than you are. We all thought that was that, but we left the other traps hiding along baseboards, just in case.

Two more days went by, and I was happy to report the emptiness of the traps to the crew of maintenance men and young guys who work the grounds every day. Thumbs up as I passed them on my walk, told them that all was good. My new diversion was a subtle smell of garbage as I walked into my place from outside. I knew it wasn't garbage, as I took each little bag of garbage to the main dumpsters on the property. It wasn't dirty laundry molding in the broiling heat either, as that was all caught up. All the food was safely tucked away. Hmmm ...

I took a bucket of soapy bleach water around with me one day, washing down everything I could reach. Who knows what those dastardly little creatures had touched. I washed and wiped and changed my water and washed some more. I've never had nice manicured hands and nails. I just plunge my hands into the bleach water and clean what needs to be cleaned. I could still smell that odor at the end of the day, especially around the laundry room (which is immediately to the right as you walk in the front door, in spite of the bleach wash.

I read my devotionals in bed and settled in for the night, content with a good day of work, yet still bewildered. Why did it have to hit me at night and get me all upset? I suddenly remembered one trap that I had forgotten about. I had been standing behind a young maintenance guy, at the doorway of the laundry room. He's about six feet tall, blonde curly hair, with a sweet face that a grandmother like me could just pinch. I was hiding behind him as he whispered, "I think I hear something in here." I gently pushed him and said, "Well then get in there and see what it is!" He tucked the last sticky trap behind the hot water heater. I bet myself a hundred dollars that that was the smell. Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.

That might have been the very first mouse I caught, as there he lay, rotting in the heat. I could only bear to look at him for a brief second with the flashlight. I called the emergency number for maintenance, and they came. I sat on the porch weeping. I told the maintenance man that I couldn't live here. He assured me that they would get to the bottom of it, and to please allow them time to 'fix it.' He told me honestly that there was only one other place, another townhouse on ground floor, that had a mouse problem. There were no others in 150 units on the property. I was brave when there was only one. What were the chances of THREE mice sneaking in on moving day? I had a bad feeling that the problem was bigger than that.

My disabled daughter came the next morning. She lives in a group home about 1 1/2 hours away from me. She comes every other week and stays for two days, and then goes back to her group home. She is totally dependent, and my angel. I enjoyed a brief two days of different emotions. Fear was replaced with protectiveness. I thought ~ if there's any mice left in this place, it would serve them well to surrender and jump into one of the traps right now. If I see one, I was prepared to catch it in my bare hands and WHAMMO! I thought ~ if you're smart, you'll flee to the woods and tell your little friends what horrible things are going on in 685! Mouse beware.

I enjoyed an eventless visit with my baby, thankfully. Why I can't adopt that brave attitude all the time is a mystery to me. Once she left, I was fearful and creeped out once again. I bought a bag of mothballs and lined up a booby trap barricade outside and inside both doors. There were no sweet, romantic, womanly smells in my house at that point. Nosiree. Moth balls. I felt that it would be worth it if it worked.

My friends Jill and Jeff came to visit and hook up the printer to my computer. I told them all about my mouse adventures. Jeff told me his 'mouse story.' He was a young, single college guy. He played in a band and led a rowdy life. He ate pizza one night and dropped into bed, with his beard full of pizza. He said that he kept waving his hands in front of his face as he drifted in and out of sleep, thinking a moth was flying around him. UGGGHHHHH! You KNOW what I'm going to say here, don't you? He finally whacked it hard as he was waking up, and realized that it wasn't a moth. There was a mouse, spinning silly on the floor where he had landed, that had been eating pizza out of his beard.

I almost fainted. I told him that he had just dispelled every 'myth' I had about mice being too afraid to deliberately come near humans. The bed was no longer a safe haven. My bed ~ that sits on the floor with no bed frame, so that I can get my disabled child in and out without having to lift her, was no longer safe. I went to pieces. Jeff said, "Well he didn't bite me!" WHO CARES, I wailed! That's NOT the point! It's like saying a snake is okay because it isn't poisonous. I'm glad it's not poisonous and I won't die from a bite, but a snake is a snake is a snake. A mouse eating pizza off your face is a mouse eating pizza off your face. It's incomprehensible. Jeff didn't get my hysteria. He's such a Yooper guy! And then Jill told me a few days later at church, that she forgot to bring me her favorite book ~ Of Mice and Men. You can't NOT be in a good mood when you're around people like them. They're such crack-ups. Thanks for inspiring the title of this blog, Jill.

I put moth balls between my mattress and box spring, and on the four corners on the floor. I have a new dustmop in my bed, that I slap around whenever I toss and turn during the night. I've had a lot of headaches in the past couple weeks. I'm not sure if it's from the heat, or from lack of sleep. I've been driving myself crazy with the scenarios of how all of these mice could have gotten in on moving day, versus their coming in on a regular basis. This brings me to yesterday morning, when yet another mouse had succumbed to death-by-sticky-trap.

For a second I saw the black spot. You know the one ~ the one that you see before you faint. Alright, this is it! No more Ms. Nice Lady. If I ever felt a pang of I-should-be-catching-these-in-humane-traps-and-setting-them-free-in-the-woods notion, it no longer applied. This is war. They have the most fabulous, dense, lush woods in all the world to make homes in. God has provided them with their own food sources. They have holes in the ground and knots in trees and hollow logs to inhabit. They don't belong in anybody's house.

I spent $17 for two of those sonic sound rodent repellants that you plug in. They're supposed to give off a sound that mice hate. I have drawn the battle lines of moth balls inside and outside the doors, and around my bed. If you're going to press your luck, you're going to die. I told my daughter Autumn that I'm thinking about mounting their little heads to display in my log dollhouse.

I have written stories and drawn pictures of wee little people, fairies and critters (including mice) that live in the forest, since I was a little girl. They lived in the hollows and roots of trees, and made darling homes for their families. They covered their babies up with tiny patchwork quilts that they made from scavenged, disgarded fabrics and clothing. Nobody was happier than I was when the original 'Gnomes' book came out in the early 1970's. They were my people! They were the embodiment of all the whimsical little wee folk that I had invented since my childhood. They were darling and sweet and did good things, and never bothered people, for goodness' sake. I'm in the process of making a quilt at this very moment, from cotton squares picturing adorable mice and their precious homes in the woods. IN THE WOODS. It's cute IN THE WOODS. It is NOT cute or the slightest bit entertaining IN THE HOUSE. It would never, ever, ever be cute in bed, on your face. I can't bear to think about that one anymore.

Maintenance was called yet again. A professional extermination company came yesterday afternoon. The first place he went was to the laundry room. The pipes that go down into the ground from the water heater had some bigger holes around them. He thought they could be chew marks from mice coming up. Maintenance stuffed steel wool into every crack and crevice around the piping. I asked him if they could get through that anyway. He said, "Did you ever bite into tin foil?" I said yes I had, as a child. I cringed. He said, "Yes ~ and you still remember that sensation. That's what it's like for mice to try to chew through steel wool."

The exterminator looked at all the corners of my modest apartment. He saw no signs of cracks or chewing in the molding, and no other obvious way of coming and going. He put down squares of delicious mouse poison. He told me that it's very effective, but the only drawback is that the mouse can fall and die anywhere. I'll take my chances. Now we play the waiting game. I hate the waiting game.

Anyone coming into my house today, without explanation, would assume I have some serious ritualistic compulsions. I have lines of moth balls here and there. There's a dust mop in my bed. I shake my shoes and slippers out before putting them on. I walk with my miniature led flashlight, scanning it in corners and under things as I move about.

I remember when I lived in Skandia, about twelve miles from town. I had an old farmhouse that my dad built an addition onto. I took my daily walk down the same two roads behind my property. I had a problem with a loose dog following me on my walks, and hanging around my yard until he ran off. He was probably a husky mix, and friendly enough, but bothersome. Even in the country, I don't believe dogs should be running loose, if they tend to follow people.

One day he trotted along beside me for the hour that I walked. My dad was in my yard working, as I got home. He said, "Where did you get the dog?" I proceeded to tell him how annoying the dog was, and how many times he just assumed he could walk with me and hang around my house for the rest of the afternoon. I was being so shortsighted and just plain mean. I hate it when I do that.

My dad said that the dog was 'friendly enough,' and I agreed. I never fed him, but he liked to walk with me and pretend he was mine. We stood there talking, in front of a pile of old wood siding that my dad had pulled off the house. All of a sudden the dog plunged into the pile of wood, and came out with a mouse in his mouth. He dropped it on the ground, and within seconds had stomped on it and tossed it around with his nose. He picked it back up again, pranced over to the porch and dropped it at the door. He came back and sat by my side, waiting for me to pet him. I had an epiphany. "I'll keep the dog!" I announced to my dad, who laughed and petted the dog, and told him how great he was. We aren't allowed to have any pets here in the retirement community, but boy do I wish I had that dog. His owner came driving slowly down the road, looking for him, and I never saw him again.

I don't know how long it will take before things feel normal and comfortable around here, and it truly feels like home. I don't have peace yet. I don't feel like the queen of my kingdom. I haven't been able to close the door and know that I'm safe and all is well here. Not yet.

I hope to look back on this sometime and think ... wow, I haven't thought about that for awhile now. I want to enjoy the creations in my head of the little people and animals that were such a part of my imagination in my childhood. I've collected gnomes and fairies and natural things for fifty years now. The mice and critters in my stories meant no harm, and had redeeming, social characteristics and noble intentions. I prefer to see them that way.

Almost fifty years ago, in a Catholic school in suburb of Detroit, my two best friends and I would gather natural things and make little wee folk houses by the 'swamp.' There was a small swamp at the bottom of the playground hill at our school, which enhanced our vivid imaginations. We gathered small stones, sticks, ferns, acorns, leaves and tiny twigs to make our houses. We wanted a place for our tiny forest friends to sleep at night. One time I brought some dry wall putty that my dad gave me from a house building project. I was so disappointed that it had dried out in my plastic container by the time I got it to the school. We just used it as a big lump of something in our creations. Little did we know that many decades later, it would be quite popular all over that area to make enchanting 'fairy houses,' that people would take tours of. I'm certain that it all started with Ann, Charlene and myself.

There was an enormous tree at the edge of the swamp, full of crazy marks. I'd have to see it today, all these years later, to make sense of what I thought we saw. We could only assume that there was a monster in the swamp. There were deep holes in the bark of the tree, in the shape of claws. Big claws. I'm not kidding about this. Either there was something ethereal living close by, or someone made those marks up and down the tree with a tool, just to try to scare the crap out of somebody.

We moved to the Upper Peninsula when I was twelve. I left behind my two best friends, the swamp and the miniature houses we built, but I took my fascination and imagination with me. I've kept it alive all these years, by indulging myself in gnome and fairy folklore, and filling my hollow log dollhouse with furnishings I've fashioned from clay that you bake. For whatever reason, the mouse I saw in front of the nightlight and the dead mice in the traps, don't look anything like the lovable creatures I've built houses for and made patchwork quilts for, from squares smaller than postage stamps. Reality is overrated.

I will just have to let time pass, and see where this story goes. Perhaps I should make an inviting, woodsy home especially for mice. Of course it will be deep in the woods, where they belong, far from our apartments and townhouses. I'm perfectly fine seeing them there, instead of in traps in the dark corners of my apartment. I'll get right on that today, and it will be even more fun than it was fifty years ago, with Ann and Charlene. I now have five grandchildren, and another joining our family in November. I think I'll call them right now.

Have a most wonderful day. God bless you with all good things.

Yours truly Tia

Real Friends ~ Jenny & Christine

There must be an actual 'Friendship Day' when you pay homage to your friends, but I don't know when that is. I'm going to call Sunday July 24 our Friendship Day.

Jenny and Christine have known each other for 24 years, since they began Special Education school together when they were both very young. Like the rest of us, life has taken them both different places. They ended up in different school program; my Jenny went into a group home 1 1/2 hours away from me, and then Christine went into a group home in another place. My life and children and grandchildren took me in one direction, and my friend Lori (Christine's mother) went in another because of her children and job. Even in our little area we can lose track of our friends. We lost track of Lori and Christine geographically, but never in our hearts.

Recently I ran into Lori and Christine at church, and we made plans for the girls to get together the next time Jenny came to my house for an overnight visit. That was Sunday, two days ago. Jenny and Christine haven't seen each other in six years.

Jenny doesn't speak (she says some baby words, but doesn't speak functionally). Christine has a severe hearing impairment along with her disability, that affects her speech, but love and friendship is way bigger than all that. The girls hugged and held hands and carried on a 'conversation' that was way above Lori's and my ability to follow. It's their own secret language. They looked at Jenny's collection of movies and recipe cards, and laid heads on each other's shoulders.

I have two disabled children who live in two different group homes now. They have good times and fun adventures that I must credit, but there are times (many times) when they have issues and incidents that take all my strength as a mother to work through and resolve, or know that I can't change. Lori has had the very same in Christine's group home placement. We both know what it's like to crawl into bed and curl up in anguish and cry, and feel like we can never fix this and nothing will ever be right again. There is nothing like the companionship of another single mother who is living the same life as you ~ loving a child that you can no longer take care of by yourself 24 hours a day.

I remember sitting in my surgeon's office one day. He had done my major back surgery years ago, and was preparing to do my knee replacement. I cried and told him that my heart was going to burst. I had both children in group home placements by then. I had pulled Jenny out of her first group home, after dealing with problems that I could not resolve, and kept her with me for five months. I was killing myself, trying to do all the physical work with her alone. I lived 15 miles out of town, and didn't even have a vehicle I could get her into. I knew what it all meant. I was going to have to place her again ~ for good. I told Dr. Davenport everything.

He sat in front of me and kept his head down and his hands folded while I talked and cried. He said, "It's a very, very sad day when we come to this point in time ~ when we realize that we're too old to do the things we've done all our lives ~ the things that mean the world to us." We talked and shared as doctor and patient, as parents of children we love, as people who had known each other for years and years, and as Christians who have the hope of a world way way bigger than this one. He ended by saying, "You and me Theresa ... you and me ain't no spring chickens anymore!" No doggone fooling!

Lori and I know this agony. Lori came to the point with Christine, also, where she could no longer physically or emotionally or financially take care of the precious girl she had always had with her. I can't tell you what it's like to put your baby ~ the one you used to carry in your arms ~ in a place where other people are giving them baths and enemas and medication, and doing all the direct care that we used to do.

Some children, like my Brian, are able to walk and use the bathroom himself, and (sort of) tell me what's going on and how he feels. Others, like Jenny and Christine, can really only express their emotions in their behaviors. Oh how terrible some of their behaviors can be. Lori and I got together and couldn't talk fast enough, sharing some of our experiences.

I have never been at a place in my life where I've appreciated good friends like I do today. To my friend Lori and Jenny's friend Christine, and to all my other friends who are such an important part of my life ~ I want to say how much I love you all.

May our perfect God bless you with all the wonderful things you deserve.

Yours truly Tia

The Time I Was Arrested For Shoplifting ...

Shoplifting at Shopko

It was summer, a long time ago, when all my little birds were still in the nest and the big daddy bird still lived there and was working on our house. My shopping cart was piled high with building and remodeling supplies. I was impatiently waiting for the young man in the red smock to tint my paint when I spotted small bags of red licorice hanging on hooks at the end of the aisle ~ the unassuming red twisty things that were about to change my life. I would wish later that I had never seen this candy.

I hummed a few bars of Garth Brook’s song, I Got Friends in Low Places, as I opened the bag of licorice bites and put a few pieces into my mouth. I grimaced when I realized how terrible it was. It was red, synthetic, play-pretend food. Sometimes I can compromise with generic items, but I guess not when it comes to licorice. I refused to waste the calories by swallowing even that one mouthful (remembering every diet book’s advice to make sure, if you’re going to cheat, that it’s really worthy of cheating). I inconspicuously spit it into a napkin that was in my pocket.

I dropped the leftover bag of candy into the cart, watching it bounce from side to side on the light bulbs, paintbrushes, coat hooks and small tools, until it rested on the bottom. I scanned my shopping list for forgotten items and glanced hurriedly over the contents of my cart as I whizzed through the store. My eyes perceived the candy but my brain didn’t recognize it as danger. I was thinking about the amount of money I had spent, the time I had taken to do my errands, the places my children needed to be that afternoon, and what I could fix for supper on such a hectic day. I was totally unconcerned about the candy.

I finished my shopping and hunted for the shortest line at the registers. Waiting in line doesn’t usually bother me like it does some people. It gives me a chance to peer through the end-stand tabloids and find out what’s happening in Hollywood, which is exactly what I did on that day.

As I put the last of my items on the counter to be scanned, I ignored the licorice resting on the wire grate of the cart. In a moment that almost wasn’t conscious, I decided not to pay for it because it was awful. I knew that I could buy it and then wait in line again at the service desk for a refund, so I just decided to skip this step and handle it right there.

In retelling this story, I amaze myself at my own stupidity and shortsightedness. I can’t even pretend to explain myself. I have no excuses. I should have had a premonition of the impending disaster that was soon to be upon me by what happened next, but, unbelievably, I did not.

I stood at the register and waited for the total as I wrote my check. The phone rang. The clerk answered the phone at the register and whispered for a moment, then hung up. She casually leaned over and peeked into the bottom of my cart. “Is that your candy?” she asked. I looked at it and justified my answer in my mind in a millimeter of a second. “Nope. That’s not mine,” I replied. That was one of my many mistakes that day.

I scooped up the bags in my arms and stopped at the pay phone by the exit door. “I’ll be home in a minute,” I promised my impatient daughter. “Make sure everybody’s ready to go when I drive in and we won’t be late.” I left the cart inside the store with the candy still in it as I hurried to my car.

The bags were heavy and the cans of paint hung clumsily from each of my arms as I scuttled through the parking lot. I felt a hand rest on my arm from behind me and I turned, smiling, expecting to see a friend or acquaintance. “Excuse me, Ma’am. I’m security and I need you to come back into the store with me.” My mind went blank and I looked around in a daze. Did I accidentally carry something out that wasn’t paid for? Was he mistaking me for someone else? Was my check bad? Was this a joke? Was I on Candid Camera?

The detective was in his late twenties and had ocean-colored eyes that were probably beautiful when he wasn’t scowling with disgust. I followed him into a small room adjacent to the service counter. I stood frozen as the door was closed behind me, numbly and mechanically surveying my surroundings. The room was a cool gray and windowless, like a cave. The store manager, two detectives with walkie-talkies in their hands and a woman with a deeply disappointed face sat around a small table. They were looking at me like I had just received the death sentence. My eyes moved slowly to a plastic bag that lay in the middle of the table that someone pointed to. Oh, oh. No way. This can’t be! What have I done? What is going on here? Just as criminal evidence is presented in court, the bag contained the proof of the crime ~ the licorice.

“Do you recognize this candy?” asked the detective who seized me in the parking lot.

I hesitated. “Yes.”

He sighed. “Why didn’t you pay for it after you ate some?”

Gulp. “It was terrible.”

“That’s no excuse!”

The disappointed woman recorded our conversation on a mini-recorder and wrote shorthand notes furiously. She pulled her glasses down on her nose occasionally to look at me with contempt.

The police were called. I was informed that after I was prosecuted in District Court, the information of my arrest and conviction would be printed in the newspaper for all to see. I would be asked to never return to the store again. I would be handcuffed and led in shame and disgrace through the store to the squad car, where I would be taken to the police department and “booked.” I went to pieces.

“I – I – I - I can’t believe this is happening! Please oh please! I just spent over $150.00!”

“What you just spent is not relevant!” snapped a detective. “You ate candy you didn’t pay for! Technically, that is stealing. The price is not important. Stealing is stealing is stealing!”

I begged for another chance. “And I couldn’t be sorrier! I just didn’t understand how seriously you would take it. I never thought about how you’d take it because I never thought. I just didn’t think anything about it!”

“We gave you a chance. When the phone rang and then the clerk asked you if that licorice was yours, weren’t you a little suspicious?” asked the store manager, with an expression on his face that he was talking to an idiot.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t! I never thought! I just never thought! I can’t explain what I was thinking because I really wasn’t thinking about anything except getting home. I never analyzed it. Well, I sort of did. It crossed my mind that I could pay for it and then get a refund, but I didn’t want to take the time when it would have just achieved the same end anyways,” I sobbed desperately. “If I have to go through this store in handcuffs like I just robbed a bank, I’ll die. I promise, I’ll die!”

The detectives glared at me. The store manager tapped his fingers impatiently on the table. The disappointed woman pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. I was cooked. I was a dead duck.

“I need to talk to someone! I have to think this out! There must be another way! If I had known the trouble this would cause, I would never, ever, ever have done it! Please! I’ll never be able to explain this to my kids. Oh, my kids (sob, sob)! My church friends (sob, sob)! My parents will be humiliated! I clean houses for people! I clean houses for doctors and they trust me and now I’ll lose my jobs and my reputation will be ruined!”

I blew my nose on the hem of my coat. Their faces remained expressionless, except for the woman’s. She looked at me as if to say, “I don’t like you. I don’t feel sorry for you. You’re getting what you deserve.”

I paced back and forth in the small room, ten steps each way, with my hands on the sides of my head in despair as I cried. “My nerves are just about shattered and this might push me right over the edge. I’ve been on Prozac for three months for my nerves, which I buy here, by the way. Now I’m really going to have a complete nervous breakdown and nobody cares!” I wailed.

My mind was malfunctioning. The time spent waiting for the arresting officer was going in psychedelic-drug slow motion, but I was thinking in hyper-speed. I had an idea. “What if I worked here for as long as you thought would be fair, for free, in exchange for you forgetting this ever happened today? I’m a hard worker and I know you won’t believe me, but I really am as honest as the day is long. I just don’t know what came over me today, but it will never happen again. I lost my mind. I went completely berserk. This was a one-time only, I promise. Please, oh please, what do you say?” There was no making a deal on that day. They didn’t even answer.

A man of imposing presence removed his police cap as he stepped into the room. He smiled weakly when we looked at each other, and I began to cry torrents of fresh, new tears as I recognized him. Officer Hoffman and I had daughters who were friends, and we knew each other casually from the places our girls went together. I was drowning in agony. The officer put a hand on each of my shoulders from behind and guided me gently toward the door, like you’d lead an old, disoriented loved one.

Someone said, “Sir?” He quickly replied, “I don’t think the handcuffs are necessary. She doesn’t look very dangerous to me. I don’t think she’s going to make a break for it,” he said as he winked.

The members of the interrogation squad were openly antagonized and disappointed by his refusal to handcuff me. Part of the punishment for shoplifting was the deliberate humiliation they wanted offenders to experience. I clung to Officer Hoffman through the store and to his squad car, as if he was my only friend in the world.

The ride to the station was intensely humiliating. I couldn’t have been more ashamed if he would have been bringing me in for murder. “Isn’t this some kind of weather?” this kind soul said, groping for nonchalance. I nodded and snorted. “I heard that Autumn and Crystal had a great time at the dance last week,” he continued. “Yup. Our little girls are sure growing up. Um, hmm. I was just telling my wife the other day that before you know it, we’ll be having boys calling and dates and broken hearts and all those girl things. Yup.”

He was the sweetest man I ever met. He talked about everything except what was going on. I made unattractive, guttural sounds in response to his light chatter, as I wiped my nose on my sleeve and contemplated my hopeless future.

The radio dispatcher who formally signed me in at the precinct was a girl I knew from high school. Patty Tallio, another acquaintance. Isn’t that the way my luck would go, I thought. Why, oh why couldn’t I have made this mistake in another town where nobody knew me? Patty was a real professional. To save face (my face, that is) we pretended we didn’t remember each other. As she filled out the required papers, she asked, “Cost of theft?” Officer Hoffman cleared his throat and changed positions uncomfortably. “Thirty nine cents,” He replied.

I almost lost control of my bladder. This was the most humiliating moment of my existence. If I HAD to go through this, at least it should have been for something worth the tears and embarrassment, like a car or diamonds or something. But candy? Thirty-nine cents worth of licorice? And crappy licorice at that! Hardly worth being arrested over.

I was fingerprinted and photographed from the front and side, just like they do on television. I think some things are instinctual, regardless of the situation. Photographs aren’t taken for no reason. Photographs are taken because someone looks at them. Oh dear! What if my mug shot was printed in the newspaper with the story, or hung on the wall of the post office? I couldn’t have that. I did the only logical thing I could do.

“Officer Hoffman, Sir, could you please hand me my purse for a moment? I’ve had enough embarrassment for a lifetime. I’d feel better about this if my picture didn’t reflect this disgraceful situation I’ve brought upon my myself. If you would be so kind as to allow me to comb my hair and put on my lipstick, I’d really appreciate that.”

He turned away from me and tried to stifle a laugh. I believe he also rolled his eyes. The ride home was the worst part. I had to explain this to four little faces that thought I was just about perfect.

“I want to make one thing perfectly clear,” I began. “When Momma said never take anything that doesn’t belong to you, I meant never – ever- ever – ever take anything, and I mean anything that doesn’t belong to you. That’s the law, and I want to tell you just how serious it is,” I explained.

The children actually took the news better than I expected. They were righteously indignant that they had missed their afternoon adventures and that I had been disgraced. They were amused by the rituals involved in the arrest and how precisely it mirrored their favorite cop shows. They must have even glamorized it to their friends, as one little girl observed me closely several days later, before saying, “Terah said that you were arrested and went to prison! That is so cool, Mrs. Croschere!”

While the world slept, I spent that night writing a long letter to the head manager of the Shopko store. It began, “Dear Mr. Starr, my name is Theresa Croschere. I’ve been thinking about this letter for hours and have no idea what to say, so I’m just going to start talking. I have so many things to tell you that I already know this letter is going to be novel-length. I just need to ask you one thing. No matter what you decide to do regarding me, I just beg you to read my letter all the way through to the end before you make a decision. Please let me say what I have to say, no matter how long that takes. After that, it’s all up to you and I will accept your decision as final …”

I talked about who I was, what I believed in, what I preached to my children about honestly and obeying the rules, and about what a poor judgment I had made that day in his store.

“Technically,” I wrote, “my theft was not thirty nine cents. I ate approximately three pieces of the licorice bites. I technically didn’t even eat them. I spit them into a napkin. I left the rest of the bag in the cart, in the store. I swear I didn’t come into Shopko with the deliberate intention of stealing candy. If I wanted to steal candy, I would have taken it with me, and it would have been good candy, worth stealing. I'm not making excuses or trying to be funny, but I think sometimes you have to examine a person’s motives, not just their actions, and what is in their heart and mind when they do something, especially when it comes to something hurtful, stupid, or with serious consequences,” I went on to plead.

I also made a point of the amount of energy that was spent following me around the store and interrogating me, and all the probable items that walked out the door while everyone was focusing on me and my candy.

“Taking anything that doesn’t belong to me is stealing. And stealing is stealing is stealing,” I agreed with all my heart, “but there might be a point where it becomes absurd, and where the punishment just doesn’t fit the crime.” In my letter of 26 pages, I knew that the best defense I had was the fact that I hadn’t taken the candy out of the store. Thank God for that. I begged for his mercy.

Several days later Mr. Starr called me at home and informed me that I was the first and only person in twelve years whose shoplifting charges were dropped at Shopko. He had considered my letter and all the circumstances surrounding the event. “The store detective who observed and followed you is very, very angry about this,” Mr. Starr informed me. “He feels that you should get the same punishment everyone else has, regardless of the value of the theft. Actually, he is considering giving me his letter of resignation, but that’s another story.”

I told Mr. Starr that I had no words to express my gratitude. He said, “I’ll just accept your thanks and we’ll call it done. Please don’t write me a thank you letter because it will take me hours to read it.”

Years have passed. The store detective didn’t quit his job, but made it his new mission in life to follow me around the store every time I came in for many months. He hid behind shelves and ducked between rows of clothing in an attempt to prove to everyone that he was right about me. One day I had enough and I turned around quickly in the center aisle when I knew he was following me and shouted, “Look, enough is enough! I am not going to steal anything today, tomorrow or ever. I will let you search me if you promise to stop stalking me. I made a horrible mistake. I don’t know a lot of things that are going to happen to me in my lifetime, but I know what is never going to happen again, even by accident. I give you my word.” That was the end of the story of the detective and me.

This has been a deeply humbling experience for me. I am now very careful and conscientious of what I do while shopping. I have a new and serious respect for the laws of the land. I try to be understanding and forgiving with others because someone was understanding and forgiving with me. If I could go back and do it over again, of course it would be different! I don’t know what else to say. I was Forrest Gump. I was Dumb and Dumber. I was Clueless, long before it was cute to be clueless. I will make other mistakes until I’m 90, because I was never 90 before, but I will never make THAT mistake again!

When I use a public ladies’ room and read a sign on the wall that says Shoplifting is stealing! It’s not a prank, a joke or a thrill. It’s a crime. Even if it’s your first offense, you could be punished with more than $2000 in fines and five or more years in prison, plus a record that will haunt you for the rest of your life. We prosecute shoplifters! I BELIEVE! Amen.

Yours truly Tia

Happy Easter Making I Spy Jars

Happy Easter! He is risen ~ alleluia!

After a lovely dinner at my daughter's house, Keira and Lukie made the I Spy Jars I promised them. I brought two totes full of all kinds of small stuff, and a nice jar with a lid for each of them. They have I Spy books, but had never made a jar before. I explained the process to them.

We would go through the totes and choose all kinds of small items for our jars. They were so excited to dig through costume jewelry, miniature dollhouse items, beads and buttons, seashells, sewing and craft supplies, and tiny toys and things collected and forgotten about over the years. They asked their daddy for coins from his pockets for their jars.

My grandson, Collin, their older brother, decided to get in on the fun. He thought it would be 'cool' to make his own jar, to entertain his friends. He found a tiny plastic mouse, a little Buddah, some charms, an arrow head, glass beads that look like marbles, a screw, and all kinds of assorted junk that he liked.

I had wanted to make a master list of all the items in each jar, before putting in the rice, but the little ones were just too excited and overtired from the holiday (and no nap today). They just couldn't wait. You can think of a lot more games to play with the I Spy Jars if you have a list of the items inside, but Keira and Lukie liked theirs just the way it was.

They put their chosen treasures inside their jars, and Collin poured the rice, filling the jars about 3/4 full. You want to leave enough room to be able to turn the jar and find your items. They sat with each other saying things like, "I spy a santa claus button!" and the other one would look for it.

Collin will make a list of all that he has in his jar, so he can play 'timed' games with his friends. You can give someone the jar and have them write down everything they can find in two minutes, and compare it to the master list when you're done.

I have a feeling we will be making more I Spy Jars for Christmas gifts this year. The kids had a great time, and I had a wonderful afternoon. I told them that all my 'junk' has been neglected too long, and the little toys would be so happy to have someone playing with them. Keira and Lukie were excited about that idea. We're big 'Toy Story' fans, and know that toys have feelings!

A nice clean, dry jar with a good fitting lid, some interesting toys and small items, a bag of rice, a master list, and a pretty piece of raffia or ribbon tied around the top of the jar, makes a very special handmade game.

I hope your Easter was as wonderful as mine. Jesus Christ is risen today!

Love Tia

Happy National Down Syndrome Day

This is a story I wrote some years ago, about my wonderful Down Syndrome son, Brian. Brian is almost 39 years old now. I wish everyone a beautiful, perfect, happy National Down Syndrome Day. I love you, Brian. I'll see you tonight at the Marquette National Down Syndrome Celebration.

Blue Baby

Last week my son, Brian, went to the prom. He asked me a week earlier and I said, “Yes, you can go,” and “I’ll take care of everything.” That was the last word said about the prom until Friday afternoon at 4:00. I asked Brian if he was going to his grandparents’ house that night or in the morning. He looked at me wonderingly and said, “I’m going to the prom tonight.”
“Brian! I hate it when you do this! Why didn’t you remind me?”
“I did,” he answered. “I told you about it last week. You said it was okay.” He trusted me enough that when he asked me once and I said yes, that was the word and he didn’t have to think about it again. I apologized.

At 6:00 we stood in the entryway of a supper club in Marquette. I surveyed my boy in the hurriedly pressed dress clothes, holding the purple corsage we made in the car because no florist could make one on such short notice, for a girl who never even came that night. I looked at him and asked in a silly voice like I had a pinched nose, “Who are you?” He laughed and answered, “You know me, Mom. I’m Blue Baby.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “Now I remember.”

I remember a tomb in St. Luke’s Hospital in the broiling August of 1972, when everything was not groovy. A sixteen year old girl lay curled in bed in a fetal position in a room where the other occupant had been hastily removed so she could be alone. There were sinister monsters dressed in white in the hallway that crept past the door and peered in to look at her, and whispered unspeakable things like mongoloid, retarded, Down’s Syndrome. A Catholic priest asked her parents, “Is she going to keep him?”

“Is she going to keep him?” she repeated incredulously. She looked at the strange, bald creature who rested by her swollen stomach. The baby with the small, round head, tiny ears, stubby fingers and slanty eyes never cried. He didn’t cry because his world was perfect and she didn’t know it. Besides, she cried enough for both of them. Keep him? Of course she would keep him! He looked like a baby to her. He had so many things to teach her.

Her devout, Catholic parents had their own adjustments to make. They had to face a small town of judgmental spectators and defend their daughter who had broken all the rules. People talked. People whispered. People shook their heads.

Two weeks after the baby was born, she began her senior year of high school. She walked carefully down the crowded hallway with a pillow to sit on, because it still hurt ~ this girl, this rebel who was the first pregnant girl in Marquette Senior High School to say, “I stay and I finish.” It was a different time. Girls quietly left school when things like that happened.

The Home Economics teacher who had befriended her throughout her pregnant, junior year, stopped her in the hallway on that first day of school. She excited said, “Did you have a pink baby or a blue baby?”
“I had a blue baby,” was all I could say.

Brian followed the sounds of the music to the banquet room that had been festively decorated for this Special Education Prom. His friends crowded around him when he walked in and they hugged each other affectionately, like long last friends, forgetting that they had been together in school all day. Like Brian, they all had sweet faces that looked like a child you would see on the outside of a can, asking people to donate their loose change.

I watched them laugh and twirl around in their party clothes and clap for each other. I think they come from another place, where everything is good and beautiful and always happy. Brian is different than everyone else in our family. He loves to write letters to everyone he knows that include a mixture of television advertisements, Bible Scriptures he has memorized, and the country and western songs he loves. After raising two ‘normal’ daughters, I have come to the conclusion that Brian is the smart one. I say that with a heart full of love for each of my children.

Pandemonium pervaded the room in the supper club when a particular song began to play. Some kids had partners, some were in wheelchairs, some were alone, and others were escorted by Staff. Everyone in unison began doing hand motions and touching themselves all over as they turned, twisted and shook their hips. I felt lightheaded. What was this, and more importantly, how did my son know it?

Someone next to me, whom I couldn’t understand very well, told me it was the ‘Macaroni Dance.’ I stood on a chair to watch Brian, who maintained unabated synchronization with his beautiful, brunette partner. I strained to discern her face. It was Wendy, whose last name I never knew, but someone I’d never forget. I hadn’t seen her in years.

It was the Christmas classroom party during Brian’s last year in the high school special education program, before he moved to the Jacobetti Skill Center. I was eating a Christmas cookie and opening the angel ornament Brian had made for me when a dark-haired, soft-spoken girl sat down beside me. “Are you Brian’s mom?” she asked me, and I said that I was. “My name is Wendy. Do you remember me?” I said that I was sorry, I didn’t. “Actually we never met,” she said, “but I’m Wendy from Brian’s first year here. Wendy ... from the pool.”

The blood drained from my face. “Ohhhhh,” I answered. I was recollecting. Brian had only been in the high school program for a few weeks, far from the cocoon that protected him, and his social behaviors, in middle school. He didn’t know all the games or the rules yet. Swimming was one of the regular education classes he was mainstreamed into.

One day as he sat on the pool side bench with his class, a girl approached Coach Carr and told him she would not be swimming that day. She was fully dressed in school clothes, shoes, a Redman jacket, and she carried a backpack full of text books on her shoulder. Some regular education boys sitting close to Brian dared him to push her into the pool. He said he didn’t know, and they assured him it was a good idea, and everybody would think it was funny. Whatever went through Brian’s mind at that moment will never be known to anyone but him, but he did it. He pushed her in ~ school clothes, shoes, Redman jacket, backpack and all. Her name was Wendy.

A stern teacher from the principal’s office called, explained what had happened, and asked me to pick Brian up immediately. He was expelled from school for two days, with the intention that when he returned, he would have a clearer understanding of appropriate behavior and decision-making. I was too distraught to ask what happened to the boys who told him to do it.

Brian lost his allowance for a month in order to buy Wendy a bouquet of flowers, a box of candy and a card, which he drew a hundred sad faces on. When I dropped him off at school two days later, I believed that how we treat girls was a lesson indelibly imprinted upon him. When he got home that night I said, “Did you take care of that today?” He said he did, and we never talked about it again.

I looked at Wendy in the Christmas classroom, and smiled painfully. “I’m glad to meet you, Wendy,” I croaked. She said something to me that I will remember for always. She said, “What happened to me with Brian changed my life. When he came back to school after his suspension, he walked into the pool area carrying flowers and a present. Everybody, even Coach Carr, stopped breathing. I was standing by my girlfriends, and he walked over to me and never looked me in the eye. He set the flowers and the present on the floor in front of my feet and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Wendy,’ and walked out of the room. All the girls cried, all the boys pretended they weren’t crying, and no one looked at anybody else or said a word. I thought about that for a long time, and I decided I wanted to spend my life helping and working with people like Brian. I graduated from high school last year, and I’m at Northern now in the Special Education Program. I just wanted you to know.”

The lascivious dance ended, and Wendy and I waved to each other as she was pulled in another direction by one of her students. That was our Wendy ~ Brian’s Wendy. I stood face to face with my boy. Who would I be today if I had never been part of Brian’s world? I don’t think I’d be working in a group home where 16 mentally disabled adults call me mom, and I don’t think I would have learned enough love to be able to take someone else’s infant who would never walk, speak or be toilet trained, and raise her as my own. Much of who I am today is because of what I learned from my son.

“Well, well, well,” I said to Brian with mock sternness. “A smart mother knows when it’s better not to ask questions, because you might find something out, if you know what I mean. Let me just say one thing here ... when we get home, how about you teach me that dance?”
Blue Baby smiled and took my hand and said, “Rrrright.”

Mastiffs & Chihuahuas

I had a dream last night about the new Chihuahua puppy my sister and her husband got yesterday. They live in Tucson, Arizona, where they have different kinds of ‘critters’ to be aware of than we do here in the hearty Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Vicki and Tom have to be on the lookout for snakes, spiders and lizardy things. I have deer, bear, bobcat and fox in the woods around my house. I’ve always thought that they should have a dog to help protect the house from unwelcome ‘visitors.’ I sure would if I lived there. Talking to Vicki last night about her new puppy Coco, reminded me of a time when I had four dogs.


I was lucky enough to spend some years raising mastiffs. I had two English Mastiffs and two Dogue de Bordeaux, French Mastiffs (‘Turner & Hooch’ dogs). Nix, Billy Rae, Ivan and Gertrude were about the best dogs a person could ever have. Yes they are as big as baby elephants and yes they do have heads the size of stop signs, but they’re as gentle and devoted a dog as you could ever hope to spend your days with.


I took all four of them many times in my little Tracker. They loved to ride in the car, and were content to lay down, as long as the car was moving. I remember going to a car wash, paying the attendant, and warning him that I had ‘dogs in the car.’ He looked a little confused and shook his head and said, "Ummm, okay." As he began to prewash my car and tires with a soapy broom, my babies decided to sit up and see what was going on. When all four heads came up at four windows, the poor guy almost had a heart attack. He jumped back and dropped the broom. He clutched his chest and laughed and yelled, "Those aren’t dogs! Those are dinosaurs! I bet nobody bothers you when they’re around!" He was right.


My mastiffs got a lot of attention in these parts, where hunting dogs are the most popular. People knew the house on the corner that had the four DOGS. They never barked, but their presence was undeniable. I took my safety from predators for granted, until one early morning ...


I was putting my daughter Jenny on the school bus at 6:45 AM. I left the glass sliding door open to the front porch, as I always did. My dogs never moved from their beds when I told them to stay. I had no fear of them running out the door, even though I lived on a very busy road. I waved to Jenny as her bus pulled away, and then went into the house, closed the sliding door and drapes, and went back to bed for a half hour.


When I got up, my four elephants ~ I mean dogs ~ were laying down, lined up in the dining room, facing the sliding door. They were about ten feet from the door, and watching intently. I asked them what was wrong, and told them that I thought I saw a scene like that in a horror movie once. I said, "Whatever is the matter with you guys this morning?" I pulled back the drapes and saw an enormous bullfrog inside the house, cowering by the door. He must have hopped up the wheelchair ramp and into the house, while the door was open and I was putting Jenny on the bus.


At first I didn’t believe he was real, as he was huge. I only had a moment to get brave and shoo him out of the house, because I was afraid that if he took one leap, he’d be on the other side of the room and I’d have a heck of a time picking him up.


I had over six hundred pounds of dog whimpering softly, watching me get the bullfrog out of the house. They may have saved my life in the face of a bear or an intruder, but not with that frog. They were scared to death. They were all lined up with their eyes bulging, which at least alerted me to something being wrong, but they weren’t going near it. Mastiffs are not hunters.


I spent the morning scolding them, calling them cowards and cement heads. They would look at me and hang their heads, then drop to the floor in puddles, as if they had nothing to live for. They were very remorseful when Mommie was upset with them. On the heals of a heartbreaking divorce and having to leave my home, I had to find new homes for my Nix, Billy Rae, Ivan and Gertie. How I loved them.


Last night I dreamed that Tom and Vicki’s new puppy ~ a Chihuahua, a mere morsel of a dog, compared to my mastiffs ~ yelped and yarped and danced in a circle like a mad dog, around a bullfrog that had found its way into their home. I’m not sure what she would do in the face of a man or bear, but she sure took care of that frog!


My dream reminded me of the good days in my life that I spent with four very special animals. In a perfect world I would have a much bigger house, two English Mastiffs and two Dogue de Bordeaux. And maybe one tiny Chihuahua, who could take care of the really ‘big’ problems!