Tag Archives: Jersey Girl hair

More Than Words

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

It was August of 1991 and I had just driven myself in my awesome Honda CRX down I-95/ 695 around Baltimore and then Westward, Ho along the I-68 into Morgantown, West Virginia.  I had spent the past three years rebelling against my strict parents by pissing away the $16,000 a year they were spending on my private college education.  I think during my final semester I was registered for three classes totaling 9 hours and I got a C, a D and an F on my report card.  Stellar work, genius.  But I sure had fun!

Actually, I did not have that much fun.  I was lost and trying to figure out who I wanted to be.  And I had no freaking idea how to do that.

I transferred to a different, much less expensive college that accepted such impressive transfer grades (fortunately I had a decent high school transcript), and hunkered down to actually get a tertiary education.

Now, I do not know if any of you remember West Virginia University and/ or it’s reputation in the early 1990’s.  Suffice it to say that the town was just beginning to come down off the high it brought to an entire state with superstar quarterbacks (and Heisman Trophy candidates) Jeff Hostetler and Major Harris.  There were endless stories of burning couches being a staple at the end of all-night or, more commonly, all-weekend block parties on Sunnyside.  The rumors and urban legends ran wild and almost every one involved raucous partying and drinking and almost unbelievable stories of ridiculous behavior.  I may have even attended one or two events that were remnants of the good ol’ days in my first days and weeks in Morgantown, but the locals lamented that it just wasn’t quite the same.  Many reckoned it never would be again.

Fortunately for me that was true, at least during my time there.  I needed to focus on studying for and passing my classes, not partying like it was 1999 (which was still cool because it wasn’t yet).  But I still found time to attend football games just down the stadium access road that meandered past my apartment.  I was earning a liberal arts degree – not training to be a nun – for goodness’ sake.

On one such Saturday (September 14, 1991, to be exact) South Carolina was playing at West Virginia.  My roommate and I held a small pre-game gathering in our apartment and then we eased on down the road with our friends to watch some football.  The way that WVU tailgating worked back then was pretty standard… there were rows upon rows of cars and trucks and trailers and tents set up with varying degrees of food and drink awesomeness for the enjoyment of the masses.  Fans would make our way down the access road and stop whenever we saw someone we knew to exchange pleasantries, meet new friends and partake in said food and drink.  It was under these magical conditions that I met Sheepdog.

He and his friends were running a keg about halfway to the stadium.  My friend knew him from high school days so we stopped and said hello.  Sheepdog smiled and offered me a solo cup and then he introduced me to his redheaded girlfriend.  My friends and I moved on.  WVU won that game 21 – 16.

A few days later I was taking a shower in my apartment and I walked out of the bathroom, through the common living area that lead to my bedroom.  I was honestly quite surprised to find Sheepdog sitting on my couch.  I was wearing nothing but a towel, which was surprising to no one.  He claimed to be there to “reconnect” with my roommate’s boyfriend, but I was no dummy.  I put on my best jean shorts and fluffed up my Jersey hair as big as it would go and we all went out to a bar called The Underground.

Immediately after that, the redheaded girlfriend got her walking papers.  Being emotionally immature (and chronologically immature… I was only 20 years old), I kept trying to push him out of my life.  But, damn if that boy was not tenacious.  We did the most logical thing and got engaged a few months later.

Our parents were actually supportive of the union (especially since I didn’t seem so lost anymore), as long as we waited to get married until after we had graduated from college.  Our WVU Graduation was in May.  We got married one month later, on Saturday, June 19, 1993.  We were both twenty-two years old.  And I wasn’t even pregnant.

Our wedding was a super fancy fairy tale. The horse even had a bag to catch his poop.

Today marks our nineteenth wedding anniversary.  I write that with such pride and joy that I almost want to use smiley emoticons.  But not really because they are so stupid.

There were times that we almost didn’t make it.  There was even a time before we had Kids D and E, when we had decided that divorce was the right option for us and Sheepdog planned to look for an apartment just after the holidays.  Then we had the most relaxed, fun Thanksgiving and Christmas break with the girls and with each other and we decided we were even dumber than our decision and we needed to fight to make our marriage work.  So we went to more counseling and we learned how to communicate better and listen better and how to just be better to each other.  We worked hard but we were also very lucky.

We are lucky to have found each other and lucky to have so many fundamentals in common.  We are lucky that we are both so very stubborn.  We are lucky that we are yin to each other’s yang and our parts fit together well.  And we are so lucky that we still like each other after all these years.  At least most of the time.

Cheers! to the most awesome wedding song ever. And to this timeless headpiece.

But the thing that I feel luckiest about is the wedding song that we selected to dance our first dance together as man and wife.  While our contemporaries were swaying to Real Love by Mary J. Blige, Can’t Help Falling In Love by UB40, and Nuthin’ But A “G” Thang by Dr. Dre, we chose a quirky little love ballad by the heavy metal band, Extreme, called More Than Words.

Family and friends, and even the emcee/ deejay during the ceremony, made fun of our choice.  I guess they wanted us to pick something more mainstream, like Knockin’ Da Boots by H-Town.  But we went our own weird way with it and – like our marriage –  it has stood the test of time.  More Than Words has become a kind of a classic.  I hear it all the time while I am out running errands, in elevators, in doctor’s offices, in the grocery store.  Every time I stop what I am doing to bust out the best lyrics of the song… “Hold me close don’t EV-AH let me go!”  And every time it reminds me that I am a very, very lucky girl.

Happy 19th Anniversary, Sheepdog. xo

It Was Definitely the Hair

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

The future has arrived.  I can listen to whatever song I choose, make a phone call and send a message (through the air!), all from one device that fits in the palm of my hand.  I can push a button and whatever flavor coffee I want comes out of the machine instantly (like in Judy Jetson’s kitchen!).  “Space Tourism” is an actual industry.  I can even load a photo onto my computer and the computer will identify the people in the picture.

I am sorry, but that last one freaks me out a little bit.  A computer can LOOK at a picture and IDENTIFY PEOPLE from it.  Like when your kid pulls out an old, square Fotomat photo from a dusty box, wipes it off and asks, “Who is that little boy, Mama?”  And you squint and jog your memory and say, “Um, I think that was my uncle, back when he was young and super cute, you know – before he started smoking pot all the time and living with the crazy cat lady who didn’t wear underpants to your aunt’s wedding reception.  Yeah, that was him.  Don’t do drugs.”

A bunch of different computer applications have face recognition software now… iPhoto has had it for a while and Facebook apparently has it too.  I get how it works (our souls have a fingerprint-like uniqueness and the computers have a way of recognizing those very specific and detailed nuances), but I am leery of it at the same time.  I would feel so much better – and the computers would seem so much less alive – if they were just measuring the distance between the eyes, width of the nose, depth of the eye sockets, shape of the cheekbones and the length of the jawbone.

So I was reassured and very pleasantly surprised the other day when Kid A posted her Hermione picture on her Facebook account and the computer identified her as… ME!

Now, let me give you a little background.  Kid A is the first grandchild on both sides, so all of the relatives gathered together in the hospital room when she was born.  My mom was so excited and overwhelmed to have a grandchild.  She stared down at the minutes-old new life, scanned her beautiful baby face and gushed to me with joy, “She looks just like you!”

Everyone in the room responded, “Stacy looked just like Sheepdog as a baby?”

Seriously, Kid A looked exactly like Sheepdog and nothing like the woman who just attempted ripping the rails off of the hospital bed while forcing another human out of her body.  And while Kid A’s looks have changed over the years, she has always most closely resembled her Daddy.  Yet the computer identified her not as him, nor even as herself, but as me the other day.

Why did the software recognition program identify Kid A as me, you ask?  I mean, yes, she is my kid but we really do not look alike.  We clearly have different noses, different eyes, and very different face shapes.

There’s only one logical conclusion.  It was definitely the hair.  Unmistakable, big, Jersey Girl hair.  She DOES look just like me!

Kid A (but Me, according to Facebook), 2011

Me, 1987

Having a Lot of Kids Will Almost Always Lead to Drinking

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

This past weekend we were heavy two cosmonauts (temporarily).  Sister C and her husband traveled to Jekyll Island for a wedding and her oldest two kids stayed with us.  My nephew is seven and my niece just turned five.  They are good and get along well with my kids.  So we threw them into the pot and told them to hold on tight for a bumpy ride.  Seven kids over three days was gonna be FUN!

Friday was Day One.  I was getting my hair cut and colored (I have the Catch-22 of giant Jersey Girl hair that grows super fast, yet started turning grey when I was only 25 years old) because my sparkles (what I call the evil grey hair when it shines next to my naturally dark hair) were lighting up like a Christmas tree.  My appointment was early, so I just asked Kid B (Kid A sleeps like the Teenage Undead until noon if you let her) to watch them all until I got back.  Sheepdog had made the mistake of deciding to work from home that morning without checking our schedule first, so he got roped in on the babysitting gig too.  Actually, the Wii ended up babysitting three of them, as the boys played video games until their eyeballs were just about to pop out of their heads.  The girls went upstairs and dragged out the $17,000 worth of American Girl Doll equipment, clothes and furniture that we have in a closet and played until their little fingers were bleeding from working those tiny buttons.  I gave them spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and ice cream cake for dessert, then they were off to bed!  Everybody was happy.

Saturday was Day Two.  We had a 1st Birthday Party to attend for my youngest niece later in the afternoon, but it was sunny and hot in the morning so we decided to get everybody dressed and ready for a day at the pool first.  Nine sandwiches, drinks, snacks, towels, bathing suits and eighteen flip-flops (well 17, as Kid E still has the boot on his left foot), and an assembly line of sunscreen later, we headed off to the neighborhood pool for some cooling off.  I was Mama Duck with my seven little ducklings marching behind me along the side of the road.  As we walked I heard the dreaded rumble of thunder off in the distance.  Crap.  We decided we could eat lunch at the pool while we waited the required 20 minutes before being able to go back in the water after thunder and we pressed on.  No sooner did we get to the pool than another boom of thunder rocked our ears.  Double crap.  The skies still looked blue and the clouds were not menacing, so everybody just ate lunch and we hung out for our second penalty.  As it goes, just seconds prior to the end of the waiting period, yet another thunderbolt crashed somewhere far away.  Despite our insistence that it was just a neighbor bringing in his trash cans, the lifeguard went all hard-core and shut us down again.  Third strike and all, we gathered our things and headed back to the house, never having even dipped a single big toe into the cool pool.

After our complete bust of a pool day the kids all complained that they were hot and sweaty and sticky from sunscreen and they all wanted soapy showers before the party.  Sheepdog was adamantly opposed and suggested we just hose them off in the backyard.  But I conceded to their request, mostly because they went straight into pj’s the night before.  By the end we depleted the hot water supply from our not one, but TWO hot water heaters, but everyone was clean, cool and dressed for the party.

Now the party for my other niece was in Kennesaw, which is forty-five minutes away no matter how you cut it.  The big monster truck that I drive all of the kids around in only fits seven (especially with all of the car seats), so we had to formulate a plan on how to get there.  We had the option to take two cars, but after much discussion we opted to take the truck and just put two people in the waaaay back, using body and boyfriend pillows for back support.  Sheepdog and I both grew up in the 70’s and have ridden seat belt-less on the hump in the back seat or in the empty bed of a pickup truck.  Hell, the “infant car seats” from when we were babies were basically laundry baskets that got put on the front seat next to the driver.  And we’re both fine, so we decided to Old School it.

I am considering this for my next car, as they say they were able to fit 13 people into it.

One dumb ass decision by Sheepdog and me, a driver who fell asleep at his wheel and two busted up cars later, we were getting a fire truck escort over to the right shoulder on GA-400S.  Our girls riding in the back saw that the driver was nodding off and called to Sheepdog to PLEASE GET OUT OF THIS LANE RIGHT NOW, DADDY.  He told them that it was fine, yet turned on his blinker and attempted to move over in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.  As the girls continued to let him know that they were frightened and he (and I) countered for them to calm down and that no one would really drive while asleep, but we were moving over nonethele… KABOOM!  He rear-ended us.  Fortunately we were going under 15 miles per hour and not even one person was hurt (the guy’s car is a different story – he lost his entire front end).  Oh there was some screaming at first from the jolt of the impact, but the kids really were troopers.

You really can’t even imagine how bad the sleeping driver felt when he learned that he just crashed into a car filled with seven little kids on their way to their cousin’s birthday party.  Why not just run over some nuns and orphans while you’re at it?  But, like I said, everyone was just fine and we went on to the party and had a great time celebrating and visiting with even more aunts, uncles and cousins.

So Sunday comes afterwards.  Day Three was a hot and sunny once again, so we decided to just go balls to the wall and attempt the pool one more time.  Suits, check.  Gear, check.  Food, check.  Sunscreen, check.  You know the drill by now.  Mama duck and baby ducks.  And on this day there was no thunder.  As a matter of fact, it was a fantastic day at the pool all around.  The kids had fun, swam like fish, and Sheepdog and I managed to keep an eye on everybody and we even got to spend some time hanging out together.  By the time we gathered out things almost four hours later we had four or five more kids who came back to the house along with us, everybody a little sunburned and everybody a little worn out.  It was a great end to a (mostly) fun weekend.

After Sister C came to gather her chickens and take them back home, and Kid A took off to go to dinner and the movies with her friends, and Kids B and C were invited to sleep over at their friend’s house, I made a simple dinner of burgers and dogs for Sheepdog, Kid D, Kid E and myself.  As I was standing at the grill I said a prayer of thanks that we were all safe, and I made a promise that no one was ever riding without proper seat belt restraints under my watch again.  And then I came back in the house and opened a giant bottle of wine and I proceeded to drink most of it.  Because having a lot of kids will almost always lead to drinking.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…