The Front Steps

I've always been a step sitter. As a child at the old homestead, I recall sitting there watching bugs trundle across the cement sidewalk. I would watch how the trees whispered to each other in the summer breezes. We had two steps to the front door. They were brick, I think. The cement slab before the door didn't count as a step, just the steps themselves. They were warm in the summer. And even if the sun was bright in the winter they were kinda warm. I would watch the cars and trucks and kids on bikes go by, although it wasn't that busy of a street. I could watch my brother play cars or toss a football, then decide I would join him, if he let me, that is. Some days I would just sit there and watch the world go by for a long time, dreaming, wishing, puzzling for what seemed like hours.

When I grew up, the first house we owned had an enclosed porch. There were steps out front, but I don't recall having much time to sit then. Until we moved to the new house, I seemed to have kept indoors to sit and think. Of course we had a toddler to walk around with before too long and sitting seemed out of the question.

The house we moved to has five brick steps. The house was built in 1926 and the bricks on the facade and the steps look to be that old. As the children (yes, there were two by then), grew, they loved to step sit with their mom. We would watch the birds fly by and name them if we could. We watched the plants grow, felt the sun on our faces, waved to the neighbors. The cats would come and sit with me, getting a scratch behind the ears. Sometimes they would settle near me and watch the birds with more interest than I. When the children were in school, and before I was working, I would wander out on nice days before they came home and wait for them. They would come chattering down the street (or slouch sullenly during middle school years) and we would share a few moments looking at artwork or homework or talk about the doings of the day. Occasionally, I would wonder what it would feel like when they moved out, sitting here in the sun watching other kids come home.

And so now, I don't have to wonder anymore. The children have indeed moved on and out. Hubby and I have the place to ourselves. I still like to step sit, although it seems harder to get up from them now. I watch the neighbors children come home from school, I see the cat from down the street pause on the sidewalk in front of our house and watch me watching him. And I can still hear the trees whispering to each other in the breeze. Some things just don't change.

In the Still of the Night

I have returned from a trip to see my son. In some ways I wished I had never left. Because when you come home everything is pushed up on the calendar and you no longer have weeks in which to accomplish them. You have days, sometimes hours. And they are things you meant to do earlier. They are things you need to have done, in a timely fashion. But time is not and probably never will be your friend. And you face these things in the dead of night, while everyone else is blissfully snoring in their beds.

When the world is in slumber, I should be sleeping. But I'm making a list, then a sub list, then an even smaller sub list of what needs to be accomplished. I do not resent going to see my son. I resent the mess when I come home. And it seems night-time is the time to think about it. And wonder about what would happen if I missed this deadline or that on the horizon.

What is it about the night? I've spent a goodly portion of them sitting or half-reclining on the couch in the living room staring at the screen of the laptop or the iPad. Playing endless games of solitaire. Reading stupid books that I haven't really enjoyed just to get bored enough to fall off to sleep. When I was pregnant with my children, night was the time I paced the floors and wondered what kind of crazy person I was bringing a child into the world such as it is (or was about 30 years ago). And there are those nights when it might as well be the middle of the afternoon for how un-sleepy I have felt. Time drags when you can't sleep. I don't care what Einstein said, light at night slows down and there is no way an hour is just an hour.

I have spent a significant portion of nights finishing up really good books that I couldn't put down. Those are the nights when I finally stumble upstairs, bleary eyed but content that I figured out the plot before actually finishing the book.  There were occasionally books that freaked me out at night. When the boogey man definitely is waiting at the top of the stairs after I have turned off the lights to go up to the bedroom. A couple of them disconcerted me so much that sleeping never came until the dawn. I try to avoid them as I'm not pleasant when I don't get my 7 hours. With no sleep at all? Well, it's just not a good thing, trust me.

I've had more regrets, more sobering thoughts, more depression than at any other time when this part of the world is sleeping. I seem to be able to  enlarge and extrapolate troubles in the "dark watches". I become convinced that certain problems will never sort themselves out or certain unpleasantness will inevitably happen when faced with endless darkness (or at least about 10 hours of it). Sunlight seems to make me more rational. Starlight makes me a little crazy. I believe in magic more at night. I believe the impossible can and most likely does happen then. And when the sun comes up and proves me wrong, I shake my head at my foolishness until the sun goes down again and I wander the dark, looking for some light.

Moving to..What is that?

I decided recently, that I should begin an exercise program again. I had not done anything physical except walk for a long time. Lest you think I was a regular walking fiend, I walked only when the mood struck, which wasn't very often at all. I joined a gym in the same town we live in. I liked that its never an "open gym". You have to train with someone there. This is really good for me, asif I know someone is going to be there for me, I will make an effort to show up. I was never good with independent study at school either.

So here I am "suiting up" so to speak. I even bought new sneakers. The trainer is really nice. A good listener. She seems to know how far to push me and I remember now what aches and pains felt like when I exercised all those years ago. It's not a large space, so it keeps me from getting lost in a crowd. So far so good.

There is really only one thing I would complain about. It isn't really a big thing, but you see the music she plays? Well, let's just say it's not really my thing too much. Most of it just sounds like noise, but she apparently thinks it's motivating. I guess it could be. But I like music I recognize. Which is probably the kind of music that really isn't that great to work out to. Let's face it you really can't work up a sweat to Sinatra too much. So, maybe I'll learn to like whatever this stuff is she puts on. Or maybe I'll just switch off the hearing aids. And lip read. Sigh. I was never very good with change.

Sports as a Learning Experience, Discuss

I was reminded of something today regarding sports. But before I share the picture which was brought forward so clearly to my mind, I have to fill in some details. I like sports. I really like to watch pro baseball and football. I will occasionally watch basketball, ice hockey, even golf (though it usually has to be around the 16th hole or I turn the channel). I am not and probably never will be a rabid fan of any one sport, it just doesn't move me the way a book does. BUT when our kids were growing up, I knew it was important to play sports for lots of reasons. They learned how to use their bodies to do something besides watch television. They learned to be part of a team. They learned the rules of a game and how to conduct themselves when representing their town in traveling around local towns playing their sport of choice. When our kids were growing up, soccer had become all the rage. Parents were encouraging their kids to play when the kids could barely understand the concept of "kick the ball". Both of our children wanted and liked to play soccer. They were not star athletes by any means, but they consistently showed up and did their part. They were not picked to be part of the elitist traveling teams, but I didn't think this was tragic. They learned something from that as well, I like to think. Something along the lines of, "not everyone can be a superstar at everything." A good life lesson in my opinion.

So, today, the lady I work with and I were discussing our sons and the sports they participated in. Her sons did karate for a while (she shared her terror of having one son race towards her as she held a block of wood to be annilated by his foot--as she dropped it and waited for the impact). And that's when I saw this picture in my mind. It has been dormant for a while, but it was so clear, I was transported just for a few moments.

Picture if you will, a tall, gangly young man in his freshman year of high school. He has played soccer since he was knee high to a grasshopper and it is the only sport he is interested in playing. He is not consumed with it, as some of his contemporaries are, he is simply interested. There are stellar players on the team, to be sure, but this is freshman year in a four year school and the school has a generous no-cut policy which means everyone who wants to play is suited up. The mother of this young man (me), is just happy he's out in the sunshine getting some fresh air. However, into the first few weeks of the season, it has become apparent that the coach is out to win at all costs. Therefore, the less than outstanding members of the team will not be playing in any game. They will be observing their team mates running up and down the field exhausting themselves, while the bench sitters get neck strain watching, but not participating in the action. I am appalled. And annoyed. And beyond livid when during one such game, played in the pouring rain, the bench sitters sat huddled together getting cold and wet while the super stars were wiped down with towels when they arrived gasping for air at this same bench. I did not intervene. My son learned any number of lessons that season. He also never played any sport in high school after that. And why would he? He was embarrassed enough that season, why go through that again?

He is accomplished and grown up now. He probably doesn't even remember the incident above. But I do. That coach's son attends the high school my son once attended and I wonder if he will be treated the same. Somehow I think not. And it's a curiosity to me why I still remember this so clearly after all these years. But remember it I do. Sports can be a good thing or a bad. Discuss among yourselves, but leave me out of it, thank you. I probably wouldn't be very objective.

Daffodils

It's been a long winter. This neck of the woods has been smothered in snow this year. Not blanketed, mind you. Inundated with it. Even little kids are rolling their eyes when someone suggests that another snow day could be in the offing. Most of the adults I know turn off the weather on the nightly news as the weather person gleefully announces another snow storm predicted. Enough we think, enough already.

So in the past few days the temperature has risen and the remaining small clumps of the white stuff has disappeared. The mountainous hills in the shopping center parking lots will no doubt be there until June. But the local turf is peeking through. I walked to my gym appointment this afternoon as it was finally not frigid. And I saw the slender stalks of daffodils pushing up through the ivy in the front yard. The second flower to come out in our area, crocuses being the first. They are one of my favorite flowers, daffodils. They announce Spring is coming. They are optimistic, daffodils are. They come up some years right through the icy crust of winter, defiantly shoving their yellow and white heads towards the weak sunlight. Their frilled crowns in the center seem almost trumpet-like. Make way! They broadcast. Make way for warmer days, more sun, fragrant air! It's hard to be grumpy with these things staring you in the face.

I bought some specialty daffodils from one of those catalog companies a couple of years ago. Some came up, but the squirrels enjoyed them more than I did, digging them up as a special treat I planted just for them. The regular yellow ones planted in the ivy by the people who lived here a few families back are the best. The squirrels either can't get to them because of the ivy or the newly planted ones are just so much easier to acquire, they ignore these. Whatever the reason, I feel so blessed that they come up so abundantly every year. And they are there now, not all the way up, still stretching skyward. But one morning I will look out and they will be there, nodding a benediction to Spring.

One Day Into The Next

It's sometimes amazing to me how quickly time goes by. My life of late is not filled with grand moments that make the days fly by. No, it's filled with the minutiae of the daily. Once the alarm goes off, I 'm off on the worn track in the carpet which takes me from the bed to the bathroom to the hall to the stairs to the kitchen to the back door, the car and work. Before I know it, the day is half done and I'm home eating lunch, then back to work to finish the day. A hiccup happens every couple of days when I go to the gym. But really, it's the same thing all the time. And the days roll by so fast that another month has been crossed off. I'm not a fan of this. I'd like more big moments, more grand happenings. Wait, let me qualify that--good things, please. No disease, no catastrophes, no funerals.

And therein lies the problem, in a way. Life does roll along for a while and things seem mundane, when suddenly they aren't anymore. So I guess for now, the alarm will go off and the cycle begins again. Until the next day, until the next day, until something happens.

The Thief in the Night

I spent a couple of nights at my sister's house recently. I luckily had some time to take off from work and I just wanted to get away from the smell of paint and wood stain (hubby is fixing up one of the bedrooms). It is almost always a nice retreat. She treats me so well, leaves me alone if I need it, talks if I don't want to, listens when I do. Their home is inhabited with my brother-in-law, a generous, super-intelligent, bookish sort and his dog. It is not and will never be her dog. She resented the animal from the moment it entered their living space and even though he has mellowed over time, she still resents him. Although, there are cracks in the grumbling lately. He will follow her up to her office occasionally and she will let him stay while she clacks away on the computer keys, figuring out ways to help people communicate.

I have never really had a problem with the dog. He was a little high strung at first, rambunctious and rowdy. He has an unnerving habit of "smiling" at you, curling back his lips to show you his canines. He doesn't growl when he does this. But I've never seen another dog do that without the growl and snap of jaws immediately following, so this expression usually stops me from petting him for a moment or two. Her husband thinks the dog is wonderful. He also assumes that he is smarter than he is, the dog not the man. Evidence to the contrary abound, but, my intelligent BIL just doesn't see it. One thing the dog used to do was grab things off horizontal surfaces and drag them under a coffee table in another room. There he would rip, shred and demolish whatever it was, mostly eating it at the same time. It didn't matter if it was edible or considered food. My sister despaired of ever deterring this  behavior, and in her husband's defense he didn't like it either (maybe because he lost a pair of sunglasses or two) They tried lots of things to make him stop:  squirting him with a foul smelling substance whenever he did this, yelling, whacking, and eventually just moving everything they thought he wouldn't be able to wrest from the surfaces to another place. Because he's older now, he doesn't do this with any regularity. He has taken this habit though to a different level. As an example, I was sitting on the couch reading. I had taken off my shoes and curled my feet under a throw to keep them warm. The dog came over for a pet or two, which I obliged, but I decided that I was done and commanded him to "go lie down." You don't say please to a dog, it confuses him, or at least this dog. Anyway, before shuffling off to lie down, he reached down, picked up one of my sneakers in his mouth and shuffled off with it in his mouth. Depositing it in front of him after laying down under the coffee table. He didn't maul the shoe. He simply put it down and looked up at me as I stood to retrieve it. I took the shoe back and placed it next to the mate, but he didn't come back for it. He just made his point.

In the morning the following day, I was getting myself ready to go downstairs and realized one of my slippers had vanished. It was next to my suitcase on the floor when I crawled off to bed the night before. I opened the door to the guest bedroom and saw the slipper next to the door. Sure enough, my sister told me the dog had entered the room while I was sleeping, picked up the slipper and taken it downstairs and placed it under the coffee table. Not mauled, not shredded or mutilated. Just placed there to be found the next morning. The next day I was packing to leave. I had placed my pajamas on top of my suitcase and gone into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I came back in the guest room and the bottom pants of the pjs were no where to be found. I walked downstairs to the coffee table and there in a lump were my pj pants. I appreciated his not ripping them or otherwise damaging them, they are one of my favorites. I marveled at his kleptomaniac tendencies and how they had evolved. No longer destructive, just sort of benign attention getting. I could live with that and evidently they are. After all he's still there, under the coffee table, looking out.

The Girl Within, The Woman Without

I had the opportunity to sit in on a discussion with some young ladies the other day. It was enlightening and yet not. Some things never change. Some dorky big guy guffaws his way through class making fun or putting down the feminine species. It's just a big joke to them. The put downs. But their comments can hurt. And what is truly amazing is that it doesn't dawn on these Neanderthals that these young ladies will remember the name calling and the dismissive snort far longer than they will remember doing it. They will remember and the guys better hope one of these smart, funny, savvy people doesn't become their boss, or well, let's just say payback is not always a pleasant thing.

The other thing I noticed is this:  although I am significantly older than these young ladies, we all had kind of an aura around us which was obviously learned from somewhere that we are not the power holders. We are the power seekers. We strive and strain and lurch our way to some goal feeling all the while that we have to be better, faster, more somehow, than our male counterparts. Why is this? Who taught us this? Where did this model come from. My mother, a product of the '50's mentality, had this as part and parcel of her upbringing, but I don't remember her beating it into me. I grew up with Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinheim and bra burning. I am woman, hear me roar, remember those words? We sang them with gusto. We believed them! Then we got older and it was harder to live up to those ideals and promises. We had careers but we may have stopped to raise kids, or we raised kids and kept the career and there we were being pulled so many different ways that we even forgot there was something we were striving to do! How did that happen? You can let someone have power over you, we were told, or we could show our own power and shove back. Are we shoving back? Not so's you can tell. The power still seems to be in someone else's court. And the bullying, blathering big guy with the big mouth is still leading. I don't like it, I don't like it at all. Something's got to change. We need a new Helen Reddy with a new anthem. Something to move these young ladies to go forward. Something we older women can get behind and push for them. What do we have? I don't know. I'm still looking around. And I'm not feeling hopeful at the moment.

Reading the Obits

It's Saturday morning and hubby and I are perusing the papers. He is reading the sports. I am reading the comics. Perhaps this is symbolic? I don't know, its just how it is. Anyway, after looking at the sports he goes on to look at the local happenings and then the world stage. I will go on to read the advice columns, the entertainment news and then on to the obituaries. I don't read them with hope of seeing someone there, honest! I read them for lots of reasons. I scan them first to see if any names pop out at me, people I know who have been very sick or I haven't seen for a long time. I look at the small section that lists people who are famous or at least seminally so, to see if I recognize their accomplishments. I don't study them and usually don't read any in depth unless there is a particularly long or flowery one. Sometimes it seems like the paper will group them into geographical regions, I'll see more on one side of the river than on the other some days. I never asked if this was the case, I'm not obsessed with obits, after all. Just curious. I could branch out at this point and begin to wonder what it was like when the deceased "crossed over", but that isn't the direction I wanted to go in today.

I saw a name I recognized today. I lived in a small town growing up. It bordered another small town, but this one boasted the area high school that my siblings and their friends and my husband and his siblings all went to. If you lived in either of these small towns you went to this high school. You dated people from this area and I know many people never left the area, settling permanently with their spouses to raise children who would also go to this high school. I took the road less traveled and attended the vocational school during my high school years. But the guys from the next town were the available guys to date, so even though I didn't go to school with them, I dated some of them. One of those guys lost in memory...his father passed away. I saw the name, read the obituary and was transported some 45 years back to a time when I knew the son. Knew his wavy brown hair and luscious chocolate brown eyes. Knew that when he smiled, there was a little dimple in his cheek. Knew the roguish twinkle in his eyes and knew NOT to be alone with him in the next room, tempting though it might be. How could one name bring all that back with such clarity? I have no idea. It's happened on more than one occasion. This guy and two of his other compatriots were part of a sphere of my adolescence that changed me from the young girl in elementary school to the young lady of high school. They didn't do anything special, there wasn't some breakthrough moment or some heart-rending tragedy which embedded these guys in my brain. They were just there, helping me without knowing it, to be part of growing up in a small town. I felt sorry for this guy I used to know. My own dad passed away about 25 years ago and it's not an easy thing to lose your father. Of course, being me, I thought I should send a card. But really? A card? From someone in this guys very distant past who probably wouldn't recognize the name even if I signed it with my maiden name. No, a card was a dumb idea. But I offered sympathy in my own way. By writing down my thoughts in this blog.

Sorry for your loss, Vince. Take care. It'll get better.

Winter Doldrums

The air is stale
With the perfumed air
Of poinsettias on the sill
They're drooping you see
From the past revelry
The holiday long been fulfilled.
The plants are distressed
As they peek through the mist
Of the fogged over windows
Of winter
Looking out in the night
 Of the last rays of light
Remembering highlights
Of summer.
The sigh of the plants
With the mistress's rants
The scorning of earlier lamplight
It's hard now to toil
For the scent of the soil
Buried so solid with snow.

A Brief Moment

As so happens, once in a while, a moment in time is arrested and it can be stunning. The instant of time is never anticipated. It's never a documented moment usually (no matter how many You Tube videos you see). When you hope for such a second of time, it never happens. You could wait years, and it suddenly, serendipitously just occurs. Usually in those brief milliseconds there is an underlying truth revealed, either about yourself or a circumstance you have resigned yourself to. Suddenly, anything is possible. Now, just as suddenly, the next second, you find reality is standing next to you shaking it's head and whispering that this shining moment of clarity was an illusion. And most of the time your inner self believes it and the next breath you take is the same old, stale air you've been sucking down for the last millennium. Only occasionally, do you dare to ignore reality, and believe the impossible. And when you do that, life is forever changed.

I'm Not as Young as I Used to be, But Still

It's snowing once again in the Bubble. This time, though it's that heavier, slushy stuff. It's been spewing the white stuff since 8:00 am this morning. I do believe that it's slowing down, now though. Running out of--steam? That doesn't sound like the right word. Running out of moisture. This winter so far, we've had more snow falls than any other. Sometimes I like hearing about records being broken, like in the Olympics. Snow fall is not a record I care to beat. I was outside clearing off the deck and front steps a little while ago. Because it rained before changing over there is about an inch of slush you're lifting along with the white stuff. As I grunted with the effort, I thought of the neighbors around us. There was a time when we were the "new kids on the block". Our kids and the neighbors down the street grew up together. But that isn't true any longer. Our kids are grown up and have moved away now. There are new families with young children and I realized, we're the old people! We're the folks the younger ones look after (we do that in our neighborhood). The youngsters wave to us, ask us if we need anything, and blessedly, shovel our walk without asking for money! The nice young man with the snow blower came out when he saw me, fired up the machine and cleared a path out front in no time at all. Last snow, I gave him money for the gas for his machine. This time I just thanked him profusely and went inside to watch him. Of course, my hubby was slightly insulted that some younger guy came over and did the sidewalk. "I'm going to do it when it finally stops," he huffed. I just patted him on the arm and told him he could still do the long driveway full of stones. And I thought, "we're the old people on the block now." And it's still snowing.

Noise is Everywhere, I guess

I'm going to vent. But before I do, some disclaimers. We are empty-nesters, hubby and I. We make very little noise since no one is here to hear it. We go about our everyday chores and hobbies with an occasional crossing of paths, but really, he's retired, I'm not, so we are companionable in our separate paths for the most part. Also, you should know that I like this most of the time. I enjoy our solitude pockets. When we do sit down to a meal or to watch the television (even if I'm reading and he's watching basketball), we converse and make jokes intermittently.

But he has to have noise. Almost all the time. If he's working on a project, he has the radio on. If he's eating a meal, he has to have music on.  He listens to the local news station as if his life depended upon hearing the same weather, traffic/transit (he isn't going to work, why does he care the traffic conditions?), and top stories every few minutes. I'm not here most of the time, so it doesn't matter, really. But this is his modus operandi at all times of the day. For some reason though, Saturdays are the worst. For the past bazillion years he turns on some station that plays weird music. Scat stuff or new wave cacophony. Saxophone symphonies. Clarinet and piano pieces that go all over the map. Sometimes I catch a melody from some old song, but most times it just goes on and on until suddenly it stops and something else comes on to mutate before our ears. Our routine on Saturdays is that we get up basically before 8:30 and I make eggs and Spam. As we eat, we look over the papers from the morning. But I have to say some Saturday mornings, it's all I can do to not stand up and throw his iPad through the window. He enjoys this noise I know. He looks forward to Saturday mornings with anticipation. Why don't you turn off your hearing aids, I hear you ask. Well, remember that conversation piece I told you about while watching TV? It's the same for reading the paper. We share snippets of things we saw of interest, or funny things we've read. I don't want to miss the conversation, which I would if the electronic ears were off. But I really hate this sound in the morning,  mornings are when I am my most grumpy, uncommunicative and cranky. He doesn't understand some days when I go into the living room to sit in the blessed quiet while the radio continues to blather on and on. I have explained my annoyance with this radio station, but he likes it, you see. And well, we do live together and have for 35 or more years. He doesn't ask for much. He isn't a mean person or vindictive. It's a small price to pay once a week to be in his company with something he so obviously enjoys. And so here I am in the living room writing on the blog waiting for the crinkling of the newspaper to cease and the never-ending noise to stop as he realizes that I'm no longer sitting across from him. He'll go upstairs to get dressed and our routines will continue as they have for years. And its quiet now. Until the next time he turns on the radio.

Christmas Stays The Same

I am inundated with Christmas songs! Growing up with Frank and Bing and Ella and even Burl Ives singing songs of the season, they helped to shape my "music appreciation". But I like Buble and Barenaked Ladies and even the Chipmunks. Especially the Chipmunks! Music is the icing on the cake of the holiday. Hymns are hummed and jingles are jolly and my cd player in the car is on from the moment I climb behind the wheel to the destination and even just to sit in the garage and listen. 

A few years ago, I can't even remember where I heard it first, someone played the song, Christmas Stays the Same sung by Linda Eder. I liked her voice and I thought I kind of liked the lyrics, but I wasn't sure what they were. I had to look them up. The are below. You really can't appreciate the song unless you hear her sing it. Really. It just doesn't do justice to the lyrics until you hear her phrasing. It has become one of the most favorite of my Christmas songs. It makes me yearn for the days of baking in the kitchen with my mother and dancing with my father in the living room. It makes me want to be that kid again, just for a minute or two. Give it a listen if you get a chance. It's haunting!

Santa Claus and mistletoe, carols by the fire
Send a card and spread a little Christmas cheer
Silent night a fall of snow listen to the choir
Everyone is happy that it's here

For we all remember, some past December
Of tinsel and holly and people we love
Put the angel on the tree then enjoy the view
Wait until the children are asleep and then

Put together all the toys, hide a gift or two
Wishing you were just a kid again

For we all remember, some past December
Of train sets that whistled and dolls we could name
Oh, the years may change
But Christmas stays the same

Turkey and gravy and hams full of honey
Cousins you see once a year
Fathers who scold you then slip you some money
And roofs full of tiny reindeer

Yes, we all remember some past December
Of grandmas and kitchens with kettles aflame
Oh, the years may change
But Christmas stays the same

Songs of the Season, Part I

Christmas songs play in my head almost all year long. There are certain songs that seem appropriate for almost any occasion. I'm not a singer, so those around me are not tortured with my vocal renderings of these songs. Jingle Bells pops up with alarming frequency in the strangest of circumstances (in a line of traffic, in a line at the grocery store, in fact any place I have to wait for a period of time). Most of these songs I have heard a bazillion times throughout my life. I recall as a child hearing on our little transistor radios a Christmas song or two interspersed with the rock n'roll stuff blaring in our ears constantly. Christmas Eve was the time when our dad would put on his radio station in the living room and we would be inundated with renditions of holiday favorites sung by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como and the like. His radio station went 24 hours with Christmas songs and was only one of a few that did it. I even remember a TV station that showed a picture of a log perpetually burning in a fireplace as the holiday songs filled the airwaves. No commercials. It was amazing.

My husbands eclectic collection of holiday songs includes things from Dr. Demento with vocal renderings from the Three Stooges to Adam Sandler (and some Hanukkah songs as well--nothing is sacred to that man!). But songs like, "White Christmas", "The Holly and The Ivy", and yes, even "Jingle Bells" are still the ones I listen to again and again. My daughter has a lovely tradition she has started (and I hope continues, hint, hint) of creating compilations of holiday songs. It's a gift I look forward to every year as these CDs follow me in my car from place to place. They are varied and contain old and new artists, old and new songs, funny and serious. She has a lovely ear for music and weaves these treasures with a sure hand and good computer filled with thousands of songs. I usually pop in the one from the previous year (or sometimes more than a few years back) while traveling to stores and even to her house to refresh my memory of the tunes she's added or subtracted. Her selections fill my head (and heart) as soon as Thanksgiving draws near and well into January, I'm still playing them.

In the next few weeks, I hope to select some songs that bring the holidays into focus for me. I hope you will hum along with my words as I wander about the season.

A Difference in Temperature

I'm doing a first this weekend; I'm visiting my daughter overnight. I came down yesterday with bag in hand and a sense of anticipation. I haven't done this before in her new house. I was looking forward to hearing about her recent experiences camping with students and not having to rush home. We had a leisurely dinner, did a little shopping and came back to her place to watch the kitties have "Wrestlemania" , which they apparently do most nights. The weather was due to change overnight as a cold front was pushing through. My daughter, ever mindful of my propensity to freeze easily, loaded up my bed with not one but two quilts. When we went to bed, I was confident of being warm and cozy.  I woke up several times so warm I thought I was as done as a turkey on Thanksgiving. I rearranged the quilts and tried to go back to sleep. That's when I noticed how dark it was. Really dark. I'm used to street lights or even neighbors house lights. Not here. It was dark. And suddenly I felt cold. So I turned the light on and rearranged the quilts again. But now I wasn't sleepy. I grabbed my trusty iPad next to the bed and read for a while. I nodded off at some point and realized I was at 400 degrees again. I again, flipped the topmost quilt off and turned off the light and tried to sleep. It was really quiet out here. And did I mention dark? I lay there for a while staring at the window. I began to feel drowsy. I turned over and tucked my arms under the quilt, it was cold. Should I grab the other quilt again? At this point I think I was just too tired, so I drifted off to sleep dreaming of winter. My daughter and her husband like their house cooler than I am used to, but it was not artic by any means. I guess the blood just doesn't flood as fast or something.

I awoke earlier than she and watched the sun coming up over the trees which surround her backyard. It was a restful and pretty sight and I'm glad I was here in the morning to see it. Next time I think I'll bring long sleeved pjs with me and maybe a night light.

Menacing Mailbox

At what size does a spider become a menace? No, really, this is a real question. Yesterday there was an innocuous little arachnid on the pristine wall of the bathroom. Really small, like less than a millimeter-the whole thing, legs, body everything. I took the hair dryer I was blowing my hair with and turned it on him to blow him somewhere else, where I wouldn’t have to look at him. He didn’t creep me out. Didn’t make my flesh pop out in goosebumps. Nothing. I saw this same spider again this morning. Same thing. Now, I admit, there was a time when I would have handled this a little less calmly. I would have gone straight to the “smoosh” mode. But I’ve matured. I’ve come to not get hysterical just because something has 8 legs and is walking on the wall.

BUT, also this morning, I went out to retrieve the morning paper. Upon coming back to the front door, I realized that there was one of those gauzy spider webs on the mailbox attached to the wood next to the front door. It  has been there before and I keep knocking the web down with the broom and it keeps coming back. The mailman yesterday informed me he thought it was part of the Halloween decorations. It isn’t. I would never use even fake spider webs to decorate anything. It’s not in me, sorry. Anyway, seeing this creepy wispy web on the mailbox again and I began to make a pass with the paper picked up, you know, brushing it away again. But I was arrested with a sudden glimpse of a leg. One of eight. It was brown and significantly longer than the millimeter shortstuff in the bathroom. It was not a “daddy long legs” spider, which I don’t seem to have a problem with either. Nope, this was a junior tarantula. I stood stock still at the size of the thing. There was another leg visible as I got closer to the door. It seemed enormous. Those goosebumps I didn’t have with the guy in the bathroom, they leap all over me. This thing could eat me for breakfast I thought.

In all honesty, it could not. It would run away, right? It wouldn’t run up the broom handle (which I did see a spider do in one of those stupid documentaries about spiders—this kind lived in the jungle—not in suburbia). It wouldn’t jump out and attack me, right? But of course, it could. You know animals do protect their territory. It could come at me, menacingly.

So I’m left with the question. Why did the little one in the bathroom not bother me, but the gargantuan on the mailbox make me want to go to the back door to get back in the house rather than confront it? What size becomes menacing? I’d really like to know.

The autumn of my discontent

I really don't know what the matter is really. A general sense of life going by plodding as well as streaking--how is that possible? Each day I am done at work, I gratefully come home, put my feet  and play a few computer games and suddenly it's time for dinner, then clean up, then fussing with the next days wardrobe, then blissful sleep. Only to awaken the next morning to get ready for work, go there and begin the cycle again. It's not taxing, it's is sort of mind numbing. All of a sudden a week has passed! Plodding and streaking, see whatnI mean? I decided I needed a new hobby, something to occupy my mind. I began reading up about it and voila it was time to go to bed and then back to work, and, well, you get the idea. I'm still hoping for a new hobby or outlook or something. But right now? I'll just sit here and read or play a few games. It's not dinner time, yet, is it?

The Other Side

The above phrase can mean a host of things, can't it? It can mean the opposite of something, but usually said, "on the other hand." It has been used to mean the other side of life, or merely a side different from ours. It's a great balancing statement--looking at both sides of an issue can either bring clarity or confusion. I'm using it geographically today, though. I'm onthe other side of the country than my usual dwelling place. A place different from my everyday experiences. A place with a bunch of new circumstances and well, challenges. Adventures even! When we got here it was tiring, but exciting to see new places and see loved ones. The challenge comes in remembering all the things necessary now for the everyday-ness to seep into the new day, so we can enjoy everything on this other side.

Ther are medicines to take, foods to avoid, routines that are now a part of that life that we live on the "other side" that have to translate to the situations here and now. We didn't have to do that before. "The againg process" hubby is fond of calling it. Oh, well. I'll be posting more later, unless I get too busy from the Other Side.

Twenty Seven Years ago tomorrow

I developed a playlist not too long ago for my iPhone. It has some of my most favorite songs on it (and very few musical numbers, I might add). They are songs that make my feet tap and bring a smile to my face. Once I learned how to manipulate the music portion of the iPhone, I was ecstatic about being able to bring this music with me. I think I will post about some of the songs as I go along on this blog, but today I zeroed in on one of the songs that came up while listening. I was so flooded with memories of my son as an infant hearing that song, I almost couldn't see the keyboard. He's a young man now. Accomplished and smart. And living far away. Unless you have had children and had them move farther than a couple hours away, you really can't know that ache that assaults you from time to time. You long for them even though you know they are well fed, sheltered and surrounded by friends.

To get back to the song, though...picture if you will a mom with two kids. The little girl, a delight, really, as she loves life and everything she encounters, is out somewhere. Can't remember where, probably following the neighbor around peppering her with questions. This mom, me, is doing those things that mommies need to do throughout the day especially since there is another child who  is still an infant. He's probably a few months old, maybe 5 months, still in those little onesie things with feet and snaps. He is a different baby from the sister. He doesn't want to sleep very much. When walking him around he prefers to be face out instead of snuggled beneath the chin. He is not cranky as much as awake and aware of things.  He observes. He smiles and waves, if you wave first. The mommy is futzing around with things in the house when she decides she would like to listen to some music. She had purchased an album by John Denver and there are some good songs on it which might make the cleaning and other chores pass a little more quickly, so she puts on the album, listening sort of half way to the tunes. The little boy is fussy in his infant seat, so Mom picks him up to determine what the problem could be. He doesn't need to be changed, he burped after feeding so that can't be it. She begins the dialog with him as always, "what's going on, sweetie? What's the matter?" Except its not a dialog, since he can't talk. She faces him out the way he likes, but still he seems restless. She sits on the couch, bouncing him on her knee a little, thinking this will help. John Denver begins singing a song that sort of rocks along and is sort of "waltzy", has that 1,2,3 beat pause thing going on. She, on impulse, picks him up to dance, facing in this time. He fits so sweetly under her chin. His little hand clings to her fingers as she waltzes around the living room and soon, before the last strains of the song are done he has settled. He's not quite asleep, but so content (as is she) with their slow dance. The mom quickly turns off the music and places him in the crib for perhaps a few quiet minutes of sleep. But that dance is forever in her mind. And so is that music.

I have loved the song, "Cool and Green Shady" since that morning. And it brings back a few precious memory of a little boy and a mom who danced with her favorite little boy tucked on so gently under her chin.


Happy Birthday Son. Love you always.

Summertime

Think back, if you can to the days of childhood, when summer was endless. From the time school let out until the time you were fitted for pinching shoes and crinkly crinolines, the golden days were yours to master. Running, jumping, spitting, roller-skating, bike riding or laying in the grass and watching the bulbous clouds form make-believe animals, they were endless. Stretching out into the horizon like riding a wave of ribbon with no end to the spool. From the time you woke up in the morning, energized in a way that was impossible all the rest of the year, to the time you crashed back on the pillow; there were things to see, do, inspect, watch for hours at a time. Time was all we had to worry about. And there is the thing that eludes us as we, the adult have six million things to worry about during the summer and beyond. We don't have those endless days anymore. We have endless worries, problems, situations, concerns. They string along like beads on that endless ribbon we rode so carefree as children.

But we get blips now and then, wrinkles in the ribbon, in between the beads. Those nights of balmy, breezy, soft summer nights. When you laugh with friends, share a good bottle of wine or beer, listen to the katydids and for one chunk of time, just be. Eating ice cream (or frozen yogurt) and remember how it was to just enjoy the summer, on a nice summer night.

Retirement Day

We knew this day was coming. It had been planned for weeks and weeks and weeks. The replacement person is in place, the desk has been emptied of all of his traces. The pinging of the Blackberry will trouble his sleep no more. I tried to observe how he was taking his last day of work, since asking rarely evinces a response. He seemed the same as he always is. He did say it will be a shorter work day. After the exit interview there is no reason to stay. He is a practical man, when all is said and done. I took him to the train station this morning as I have done for the last five years and I will pick him up from there whenever he calls to tell me he's on the way. But it is the last day of this ritual for he and I.The funny thing is, even though it's his last day, the computer at home which notifies him of his emails is pinging away as if the world was on fire and he has the only water source. I'm hoping that the constant sound is actually the ringing of endorsements of what a fine man he is and the quality work he has done and he will be missed. I am sure he willed be missed for his sense of humor, his no-nonsense way of working and getting things done, his calmness in the face of a storm (or a bosses anger). I know all these things are true of my hubby. I'm hoping on the last day of employment at his current job, they will recognize and celebrate this about him as well.

I'm Hiding, I'm Hiding

The above is a first line from a children's poem I memorized a very long time ago. Recently, it was on the periphery of thought that hiding seems like a safe alternative to, we'll, just about everything.  As we were so forcefully reminded a couple of days ago, the world is a dangerous place. If we hide out, then no one can "get" us.

When I think of this "lock-down" mentality, it certainly has an appeal. No one can get in, so no one gets hurt. But see, life doesn't work like that. At least mine doesn't. I need to let people in--family, friends, the hurt and lonely. I see people that just need to know that someone--ANYONE--cares. And how do I just sit back and watch them think that?

I'm going to get up on my soapbox now, so you can change the channel anytime you'd like. I think we need to remind each other of the basic good. We get these big knocks on the head about he "bad" people, where's the dink on the head about the good people? We saw such goodness right after the explosions, as the paramedics rushed in, and the police helped out. But how come this caring, good stuff gets celebrated only in disasters? I think most people are walking around basically good. I think people are helping out all the time. Where's the headline about them?  Is it because its so commonplace we don't think it's extraordinary any more? No, it's because, I guess that this bad stuff is so wrong we can't believe it. Believing people are good is easier or something.

I'm not sure of the point I'm making here. I'm still processing my thoughts. But I don't think "I'm hiding, I'm hiding" is the way to go to deal with this.

You Never Know

You never can know who influences things or how things stick in someone else's brain. I had a delightful experience a while back when someone remembered that I used to host a "mother's group" at church. She said it helped her get out of the house and her own head some days. I didn't think it had much of an impact, but it did to someone.

One of the things I do at my work place is have one of those day by day calendars. Just a stock one. Nothing fancy or animated or even in color. But each day I put a quote on the space underneath the date. People visit my desk throughout the day for various reasons, but almost always someone sees that there is a quote there and they read it. Sometimes they get it, sometimes not. We have interesting conversations about the quotes and some who have visited come back later and tell me they read something else by the author and found them to be a) enlightening, b) not as erudite as the quote or c) somewhere in between. I usually don't pay attention to things like the summer solstice or Flag Day and just randomly put the quotes on the days in the order I either found them or like them. There is no rhyme or reason, just whimsy.

Now tomorrow I will go to a doctor and have a hearing test. It is beyond question, one of the things I most hate to do. Because it will not be a positive test. I'm sure of it. I have nerve deafness. It won't be cured, it won't get better. So each time I have a test it just reminds me that I have something I can't fix in me. Something that is not working that I can't bind up or put antiseptic on or anything else to make it go away. I come home grumpy from these tests ALWAYS. So as I sat at my desk today, readying it for tomorrow morning I looked at my calendar and flipped it over to tomorrow. And there was a quote from someone whom I admire. She is not flamboyant  in her writing or her lifestyle. But she wise and  warm and I found her on-line when my brother suggested I read her blogs. The quote for tomorrow reads:  "Attitude is the only thing you can control. You have a choice every morning when you wake up. That's a gift."

She wrote that after getting shot. Read that again, please. She wrote that after getting shot in Arizona, holding a little girls hand. She is telling me (and by extension everyone who reads her) that I can control my attitude. I may not be able to fix that test result. Or even my ears. But how I react to those things, that's up to me. I can control that. I don't have to whine or cry or beat my chest. I can accept the results whatever they may be with an attitude that suggests this isn't the sum total of who I am. And I can decide that when I wake up tomorrow, it won't matter whether its raining or sunny. Because my attitude will decide the day.

Thanks A/B for the advice, for the wise counsel and for blogging so diligently. I am grateful for your words and your humor and your influence in what otherwise can be a day of regrets.

I Was Done With This...

I had some basal cell cancer removed from my face a few months ago. Lots of people get basal cell, I'm told. Lots of people get it cut out and move on. I've blogged about my experience to some small degree. I had moved on, I thought. It was history. No need to revisit.

Then I went to the dermatologist for a "follow-up". Alright, I was feeling kind of cocky. I thought it  had healed just fine. I thought she would look at me and say, "see you in 6 months." Yeah, well, that was the plan. As it turns out she did not just say, "see you in six months," although she did say that. What she did say was, " I don't like the way that looks," pointing to my scar. She said it should have been flat, but there were little bumps on it instead. They shouldn't have been there. What did I know? I thought it looked fine. So she "numbed" up the area and scraped the bumps off. "We'll send these out for a biopsy." And just like that I'm paranoid all over again. The one word, well, two really--biopsy and cancer--make me weak in the knees. I hear it and think I need to begin planning the funeral service, getting rid of my stuff, contacting the family. I don't like the fact that I feel that way, but there you have it.

The dermatologist called last night to say that the "bumps" were "pre-cancerous." Meaning before cancer. Meaning whatever she cut out of my face before, wasn't the same stuff that's there now. After I talked to her, I really didn't feel anything very much. It's only now the day after that I begin to get the weak in the knees feeling again. The same scurrying in my stomach as I had before wondering what all this will mean. The same "boy-I-don't-want-to-think-about-this" attitude pervading my every thought anyway.

I have friends who have fought a much more scary cancer than this. I have friends who have fought and lost, too. On the scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the scariest), this is probably a 1 compared to major organs. But oh, it still makes me quivery and nervous, even if no one else thinks this is all that bad. And therein lies the rub. I don't want to have anything wrong. Especially not cancer. I really appreciate others saying, well if you're going to get it, this is the kind to get. Making me feel almost like I should be grateful instead of scared. Comforted instead of nervous. I guess that makes me a wimp. I guess that makes me not very brave. Well, it's good to know things about yourself I guess. And I guess knowing that I'm a weakling can help to make me stronger, but I doubt it.

So for now, I have to get some special cream medicine and use it for a few weeks to see what happens next. I really wish nothing happened next. I wish I could erase the phone call from last night, but I can't . Pardon me if I don't look happy for now. But I thought I was done...

Some Snow

Just a little, thank goodness. Not a lot.
Melting already, dripping over eaves
Plonking on sky lights.
Sun shining off the white
Makes sunglasses a necessity.
People sighing relief, no more running
For bread, milk, gas, candles.
We're stocked up for the next one!
Except the supermarkets are bare.
I'm finishing up my writings today
Brushing off the dictionary, the Strunk and Whites
Clacking keys in the warmth of the sun and
Radiators.
Pulling words out of air and fuzzy brains,
Wrapped in the snug sack
Around my feet
Listening to the water drip
Finding ways to write what I see and hear
While the sun shines off the white.

What a Difference a Week Makes

The snowman wrapping paper
Was waving a cheery hello
One week ago

The tape dispensers were full
The ribbon rolls curling up on themselves
The piled up bags
Became piled up boxes
Gaily wrapped in
Bright reds, greens and sparkles.

But the snow man is waving good-bye now
Delegated to the wrapping paper graveyard
Of leftover scraps-too big to throw away
To small for a whole gift.

The boxes are emptied of their treasures
The trash cans full of ribbon
The tape dispenser is empty but for one small
Strip left-not even enough for a gift.

The pings of electronic gadgetry
The dings of new emails
The click of tapping messages on new phones
Are the only reminder that one week ago
 There were promises and secrets to reveal.
The faint tap, tap, tap of the tree's needles
Counting out the time of the season
Done, once again.

Guess what I got for Christmas?

Do you remember saying that to your friends when you were a kid? It was always followed by something of amazing proportions, so amazing that those you were trying to impress were properly, we'll amazed!

Well, I got something to impress this year. An iPad mini. Yes I asked for one, but I didn't really expect to get one. I'm typing on it even as you read this. Even if my friends aren't amazed, I still am. Our son, the resident expert of things Apple, gave me a tutorial the other night. I think that was worth whatever the price of this little thing. Having mother and son sitting side by side trying out apps and finding the nuances--well the commercial says it--priceless.

One of the most amazing things though was the fact that one of the things in iTunes was this nifty thing which allows a person to "take classes" at one of the colleges offered. I can take a class for free!        This is truly amazing, if I can kill the word one more time. I can log into some big name university or even some small place and take a virtual course! I was so excited by this prospect that I just about cried. What a wonderful thing to be able to do! I've signed onto two courses and began listening and learning already.

So I'm sharing with you what I got this year for Christmas. What did you get?

Christmas Eve Day and Night

The day before Christmas is always a busy one at our house. We put up the tree which has been lodged outside the kitchen window since it's purchase either a week or a few days ago. This entails much muttering, moving furniture, locating boxes in the attic with appropriate lighting and hanging ornaments. There is cooking to be done for the next day, there are presents still to be wrapped, there is conversation and laughter and by the time my head hits the pillow around 1:30 or so, I'm exhausted. But it's a busyness I wouldn't trade for the world. When both children are in residence, their bantering, their earnest conversations that can't happen over the phone, just their presence fills my heart as much as they fill our home. They remember stuff we forget and vice versa (although they usually remember much more than we do!).

But when we go to church on Christmas Eve I am invariably filled with so much more than just their presence. I usually attend church by myself, something that I'm used to and comfortable with for the most part. But when the pew is filled with the family, the wonder and mystery of the night is compounded even if we get there a little late and have to sit in the balcony. And just for a brief hour or so, we sing together, listen to the story of Christmas together, share the peace with the family of the church I've become a part of, and there is nothing that needs to be done or finished or anything! It is a holy night in so many ways. The kids laugh because almost every Christmas Eve, during church, I am filled to the brim with so much emotion that invariably I shed a few tears. Sometimes they are tears of tiredness, but many times its just the pure joy of the night and it's meaning and being surrounded by the family of blood and the family of faith all in one place together.

I hope your Christmas is blessed and joyous and filled with busyness, love and laughter. Because that's why we have the season after all, because He wanted to bless us with his presence.

Merry Christmas!

Growing Up, Together

Knowing my siblings who read this post, they will no doubt think I am going to write about them. But alas, not this time sibs.

Our daughter got married a couple of weeks ago. She and her new hubby had a truly beautiful wedding and the wonderful thing of it was all (or most) we held near and dear were with us to celebrate. Our family, our friends, their good friends. All together under one roof for one night. It was intensely wonderful because we could see the connections between us all, the family, the friends, all wanting the best for the newly married couple.

And then the big celebration is over. The ballroom has been cleaned, the magic of the evening swept away with the mundaneness of everyday living.  People go back to work, back to the gym, back to doing the wash, setting the table, running the vacuum. It all goes back to the minutiae of the minute. And I began to think about what I have learned through my marriage of 34 years. And wondered when did I learn it? When did I learn not to push through the wall of his non-communication? And simply wait until he was ready to tell me whatever it was. When did I learn that my way isn't always the right way (tho it still seems sometimes to me that it must be!)? When did I learn to listen for the rhythm of our give and take without just taking all the time? When did I learn patience? Well, this last one is easy, I still haven't learned it. But I am more patient than I used to be I know for a fact.

When you live with a person whom you love, you begin to change subtly. It isn't suddenly or overnight. I think you begin to try to fit together better, making one whole rather than stubbornly staying in pieces. At least, if love is present, it's more like warm wax. Molding and shifting to become one candle instead of two. But I remember at the beginning of our married life, that it was difficult. We were still used to being these two different people. He did things one way, I another. This was the way his mother did things, this was the way my mother did things. Our daughter has lived with her now husband for a few years beforehand and knows some of those quirks already. But I think marriage brings things out in relief that she might not have noticed before. And I wonder if she saw the shifting, re-adjusting, give and take that her parents were doing? Or did she just assume that her life would be the same and didn't realize that changes had to happen? Did I show her by example the right things or the wrong things? And maybe she learned from my stubbornness the right way to do something which would have been the opposite of me?

But as I said, her newly married life is just beginning. So perhaps its too early to say. I'm glad she is surrounded by loving family and friends. For that surely makes a difference.

Lazy or Crazy

There is so much you can say about getting ready to go to a wedding. Especially if it's your daughter. There is so much you would like to express: the sentimentality, the angst, the bafflement of certain attendees' behaviors. I'm not sure this post will do it justice. But at least I can put a dent in the proceedings and what it feels like and leave the rest for later.

If you were to ask me what I did today, which by the way, the hubby asks whenever I pick him up from the train station, my reply wouldn't sound like it took all day. But it did in actuality. The only actual scheduled thing to do was pick up the dresses (daughters and mine) from the seamstress. During the morning I went to the hotel where some of the guests will be staying to verify a couple of things with them. Then I went to the local stationery store to figure out a problem with the gift bags. Luckily, the young man I talked to had a brilliant idea which didn't cost me a penny, so it was a great trip there! I went over to the nearby clothing store that opened not that long ago and realized that I would be needing a new winter jacket as the one I have used for the last-um-10 years or so is falling apart. So I bought one! Just like that. I went to one of those boxy stores that sell electronics stuff to get a new cover for my beloved phone as the old cover cracked (again) and couldn't be fixed this time. I dropped off a HUGE bunch of plastic bags at the local supermarket. They recycle them so I felt very virtuous. Then home to work on the "Welcome" bags for the hotel. By then it was time to pick up the dresses and then I had a manicure/pedicure appointment.

I'm going to stop on this minute by minute minutiae as it probably borders on the mind-numbing and really I just wanted to talk about the experience of the salon. I don't go to get my nails done. I do them myself if I want polish on them. I mostly stay on the nail (learning to color in the lines of a coloring book helped with this I'm sure) and when I make a mistake I can mop it up with a tissue. But when you go to a salon to have it done, it lasts longer and probably looks better too. The pedicure thing, though, I'm not really a fan. First of all, my feet are cold. Almost all the time. So to have to go out when it's 40 degrees without socks is tortuous for me. Add to that most of my dress shoes are closed toes. Nobody sees my feet but me. So what do I care if there's polish on them or not? But for the wedding, I'm wearing pretty sandal heels and I know that my feet will look better with polish on the toes, so I went ahead and made the appointment.

The biggest problem with going to these places is this:  the people who run most of the establishments in this area are Asian and they have to wear masks because, I'm sure of the horrendous fumes that nail polish exudes. I wear hearing aids. If I can't hear you, I read your lips. Unless you're Asian and you're wearing a mask. In which case the communication becomes decidedly more complex, involving hand gestures, eyebrow arching and a lot of repeating. The pedicure comes first because it takes so much longer than the manicure. Not only does the person working on your feet, well, work on your feet, they also massage your legs, scrape away the rough dead skin (you've been accumulating since the last time you did this) and--at this place--the chair they place you in has a built in massager for your back! What a treat! The other interesting thing about this place was the daytime TV. I rarely watch television during the day as I'm working. I knew soap operas were still on, but I had no idea that there were other talk shows besides Ellen DeGeneres. The one the salon patrons were watching solicited audience opinions on everything from whether a family should get another dog (instead of a chinchilla--don't get me started with that!) to whether a man and woman should break up or stay together. The salon was buzzing with the customer's opinions on the matters at hand, with the Masked Asians adding their two cents worth every few minutes. It was pretty lively. When one of the "regulars" came in (she apparently gets new acrylic nails every two weeks or some such thing), she regaled us with her health stories of recent past while the owner of the salon chimed in with his own health issues. Before I knew it, my feet were done and my nails were drying under the little whirring fans. Of course, for me all conversation ceased at that point as I couldn't hear over the little fans and everyone seemed to have calmed down and began watching Ellen. I left enlightened and feeling as though maybe there wasn't such a problem with two hours of downtime from running around. And they decided all around that getting another dog was a good idea, instead of the chinchilla.

More on wedding preparations as the week progresses...stay tuned!

Eleven Days and Counting

I'm an occasional visitor to Facebook. Yes, I have a page, yes, I put stuff on it once in a while. Mostly, though I snoop at other pages--catching up with my children, friends who have left my sphere of the here and now. My children have "friended" me happily, so I can go and browse when I want without feeling like I'm nosing through their bureau drawers (I NEVER did that! Honest!).

Anyway, while looking at our daughters page, it mentions a countdown. We have a wedding coming up. Hers. She is counting down the days till she and her fiance will become husband and wife. It has been an interesting and exciting time for the family--we've never planned a wedding before. There were and are myriads of things that need planning, doing, fixing, arranging, and need I add, to pay for, as well. There seemed to always be something that needed to be done, or thought about, or (in my case) prayed about. And although things could be stressful, by and large my daughter and I get along just fine most of the time, so we weren't fighting about things, or bickering back and forth. She is getting a little short tempered lately, but as far as I can see, she seems fine, as does the fiance.

And then the other day I got to thinking about some things. Even though she has been living out of our house for a while now, her life will be different. She will be a wife. She will change her last name (she decided to do that, I didn't weigh in one way or the other). Her father is hoping she will have a telephone plan with the new hubby. And it seemed to me that she wasn't little any more. Okay, okay, I know she isn't little and hasn't been for a while. But when people get married they become "big people". Or at least that's always the way I looked at it. Married people are grown-ups. I know several people who will point out that just because someone is married does not mean they are mature--but I'm not talking about that anyway. I'm thinking that the way I've looked at my daughter will change subtly. In ways that even she and I haven't come to figure out yet. The responsibilities that she will have now will not rest solely on what her father and I think, but what her husband thinks. They will make plans and arrangements that have nothing to do with my opinion, my beliefs, my point of view. And that's as it should be. But it will be different now. It made me sad a little. Thinking that things will change. It made me a little melancholy doing the PowerPoint presentation looking at the pictures of her growing up and changing before my eyes, knowing that the changes that I witnessed almost every day, will be witnessed by someone else every day.

Will he notice the changes? As they grow together, will she realize that things are different now? I don't think I did until much later in life. And by then I forgot what was different anyway, I was too busy with the new life. Did my mother see things like that? I'll have to ask her.

And so we are at eleven days and counting. And I keep looking back and thinking how fast all those years went and how eleven days doesn't seem like enough time.

The C Word, Part 1

About 6 months ago, I realized I had a lump in my eyebrow. It wasn't big or anything. And it didn't hurt. But I knew it was there. And I would finger it occasionally just to see if it felt any different.  It didn't feel any different, but it wasn't getting any smaller either. Of course, after I really got to thinking about it, it felt like it was getting bigger. I was sort of freaked out about it. So I went to see a dermatologist. After examining it, she indicated that it was just some sort of growth under the skin and nothing to be upset about and did I want it removed? Well, yeah, I thought. Get it out of there! She numbed me up and proceeded to remove this lumpy thing. It was benign and it would heal before the big wedding coming up and no one would ever know it was there...because now it wasn't! They gave me an appointment for a follow up in three months, which ended up being September. So far so good.

I went to the appointment in September without any trepidation at all. After all the lump was gone and there didn't seem to be anything else to think about. As I sat on the upright recliner waiting for the dermatologist, the assistant came in and told me to remove my clothing and put on this paper drape thing with armholes. Why? I thought? They're just gonna look at the ol' eyebrow, tell themselves what a great job they did and that was the end of that, right? I know you looking at me askance right now and saying, "well, obviously she was wrong." The doctor came  in and said she was going to do a "body check". I immediately thought of the wrestling move and then dismissed it from my mind. She was going to look over the body for any abnormalities--luckily she wasn't checking my mind. She ran her fingers through my hair, a sort of weird feeling for me and then looked me full in the face, pointed to my lip and said, "well, that has to go." What? What has to go? The look on my face? What? So I asked, "what has to go?" She placed her finger on my upper lip and said, "this."

I've looked at my face for 58 years and I still wasn't quite sure what she was pointing at. She got a mirror and showed me the bump that's been there for a long time. I was of two minds at this point. Why this bump? How come you didn't see it when I came in for the other bump? And really what's another bump on my face to worry about anyway? She looked at the rest of me and decided that the bump was the only thing wrong. And then she began to tell me how she was going to "numb it up" and take care of it. I just assumed it would be another lump removal like the one on my eyebrow. But you know, I really didn't want a scar on my face for the wedding pictures, so I just sort of casually asked, will this leave a scar? She stopped prepping and asked what I was worried about. I told her the wedding of our only daughter was two months away and I didn't want to look like Scarface in the wedding pictures. It'll just be a little red, she said. You can cover it up with cosmetics. Fair enough, I said and she numbed it up and came at my face with a sort of sharp little wiry thing. She scraped and scraped, but she wasn't digging it out like the other bump. But of course my lip was numb and really you can't have a conversation with someone when your lip is being worked on, so I waited. When she finally stopped scraping, she said, okay, we're gonna biopsy this, but I'm almost positive what we're gonna find. She put the scraped stuff in a jar, gave me a bandage and handed me a piece of blue paper with instructions on how to take care of the "biopsy" site. She did not say it looked benign like the other lump. She did say, "don't call us, we'll call you" regarding what the results of the biopsy would be. Really? Don't call us? For two weeks, just sit around and worry and worry, but really, we'll get back to you. Very unnerving.

So like a good little patient, I went about my business and tried (really I did) not to think about the word biopsy, what it means, why it triggers certain things in my mind and oh, by the way, don't call us we'll call you. By the second week I was antsy, so I called. They said the person who needed to talk to me would call me back. Which she did, while I was at work. She left a number. I called. She was with patients and couldn't talk right then. She'd call me back. Which she did when I was in the bathroom. So I called back. She was back with another patient. By this time, I had no patience, so I said, "I'll wait." They tried to discourage that adamant stand, but to no avail. Nope, she was talking to me this time if I had to stay on the phone and listen to their way-too-chipper ads about getting rid of wrinkles, fat and age spots for the next few days. Eventually the assistant doctor got on the phone, though and said, well, the biopsy says you have basal cell cancer. And there it was. The "C" word.

I've dreaded that word for most of my adult life. My father had bladder cancer which seemed to metastasize everywhere eventually. It is not something I want to remember much. But the "C" word brings out every single memory I've ever had of this disease. And they are not pleasant ones. I think I stopped breathing for a few moments and then the tears began to roll down my cheeks. I'm relatively sure I wasn't making any gasping sounds, but the doctor said, "are you alright?" knowing full well I wasn't. She explained that basal cell skin cancer doesn't metastasize anywhere except to maybe other places near where it is already. It doesn't "infect" other body parts.   It's a relatively easy fix/cure/whatever you want to call it. She didn't seem particularly concerned. My smart ass self thought, "well of course, she's not concerned, she doesn't have it." But that wasn't fair really. She told me I would need a consultation to discuss what we would do next as a course of action. She said we should schedule that consult relatively quickly. But I have to say, I wasn't ready to do anything quickly. I was still processing. I am still processing. The consultation happened the day after my birthday--Happy Birthday to you! As I follow up with this post, I'll keep you informed.

I know it's just a word. A powerful word, but just a word nonetheless. If it had been some other more "evil" kind, I would probably still be sobbing on the phone instead of going about the business of working, getting ready for a wedding and cleaning up after the cat. I am doing those things, but that word is still in the back of my mind, lurking, it's shadowy specter haunting my waking and even sometimes sleeping moments. I wish I could dismiss it as easily as some others. But so far, I haven't been able to. But I'm working on it. Every day.

Time Spent, Spending Time

I'm sitting here waiting for the phone to ring. Hubby and I have a routine. He calls when he's at a certain place geographically on the train, and I go to pick him up. It's almost always about 6:00 or so. It's fruitless to begin dinner if I haven't started it by 5:45 as I'm never quite sure of the timing--when he'll call. If he'll call while the pasta is still cooking. If the potatoes will be done, or I'll have to turn them off and they'll get all mushy while I ride over. The ride itself isn't that long, maybe 5 minutes or so. It's the sitting at the station or getting caught at the light or the unbelievable amount of people pouring out of the train station at any given moment who feel they have the right to walk directly in front of your car, because, of course, they have the right of way (fat lot of good that will do them in an ambulance being rushed to the hospital for their arrogance). So on many days, I just sit and wait for the phone to ring. Truth to tell, I usually write this blog then. I know I can get some idea down before the phone interrupts and who knows? sometimes he's late and I can continue on my writing without interruption. Invariably, the phone will ring sometime before 6 and it will be some unknown number. We have these new phones which announce the number in a droid-like dialect. Usually it will say, "out of area" or "unavailable", putting the accent on the wrong syllable and sounding like a Russian operator trying to sound out a word in English.

When I come home from work, I'm usually inclined to do a bunch of little short-term things...take in the mail, let out the cat, change the clothes. I'm almost never inclined to begin dinner and have it done before six. I realize that I have enough time to do that when I'm done work. But there always seems to be something else I could do with that time. I check my personal email. And of course, I check other blogs to see what people have to say or even comment about. Cooking for me has never been about the enjoyment in the kitchen. It's almost always been about the, "well we have to eat, so what do we on hand?" philosophy. So finding the something to do before the phone rings is almost like a competition. What can I do before the phone rings that won't bother me when the phone rings to go pick hubby? 

And the phone is ringing, so I'm off. Dinner once more not begun, but a blog successfully posted. It's a good day.

Making That Call

This morning I was running around doing errands. I was the proverbial "busy bee", flitting from the vets to the store to the bank to another store and finally home again. On one of my flights out to the car I smelled something rank near the front of our house. At first, I thought, eww, the neighbor's cats had used the area behind the bushes for their litter box. But the smell was different from that. I took another sniff. It was a bad odor for sure. And that's when I thought, "uh-oh, it smells like gas."

 I am not by nature an alarmist. I do not go looking for trouble. But I do look for verification (for almost everything!). So I walked across the front yard to the neighbors house and asked her to come out and sniff the air. She is an obliging sort (and she laughs at my jokes, so she is a good sport) and she came out and began sniffing around. By the then the odor seemed fainter and I thought perhaps I had misinterpreted the smell. She said she smelled something, but nothing alarming. We began to chat and swap stories when just like that, the odor was surrounding us! Ugh, we both looked at each other and thought, "we need to report this." I went in to the house and instead of calling the local gas company I called the police. Now the reason I called the police is that if anyone would get here quickly it would be them and I was afraid the smell would go away again and I'd end of looking stupid. I hate looking stupid, especially in front of the local police. I know a few of them from working where I do and they all enjoy teasing me as I suppose I'm so easy to tease. But I also knew they would investigate if I called.

The dispatch told me they would send out the fire department. I didn't want the fire department, I wanted one of those nice policemen I knew to come around and tell me what that smell was. But alas, soon I hear the fire whistle and I knew I was to blame. I went outside to wait for the sirens and blaring horns. At first, I was pleasantly surprised when two of the policemen I knew showed up and began sniffing the air. One of them reported he smelled something, the other didn't.They kidded around and talked to the neighbor and I, but then alas, I heard the blaring horn of the fire truck. This would be the talk of the neighborhood. for sure.

As the truck rumbled down the street and came to a halt the policeman who hadn't smelled anything, looked at me and smiled. I knew this was going to be one of the jokes they kidded me about for a while to come. The firemen scrambled off the truck, looking like ants searching for a picnic. They had these little devices that they held in front of them, testing the air, I assume. The reason I don't know was I wanted to stay out of the way and pretend it wasn't me who made the call. The neighbors' children down the street were enthralled with the proceedings. Another whiff of the smell came down on the wind and it was soon determined that a neighbor just a few doors down had put some kind of chemical down on his lawn that reacted with some other kind of chemical creating the bad smell. The firemen continued to monitor the area, the street was blocked off by police cars and some people were informed they should go back into their houses and it would be fine shortly. I say some people as neither the officers nor the firemen told me to get inside. They saw me mingling with the other people on the street and figured at least I wasn't causing any other ruckus, so they left me be.

All in all it was an interesting afternoon. I have vowed not to call the police for a while nor even the fire department unless I see flames. And in the future, I might wear a mask before going outside, just so I won't be the one to make the call.

Just Wondering

A friend of mine was feeling blue recently. Her husband (swine that I feel he is) left her for another, younger of course, what a cliche, woman. She was married to this guy for at least 25 years. They had 3 children. She was feeling blue because she finds that she wakes up every day and still thinks of him first thing before she gets up. Old, even bad, habits are hard to break--especially after 25 or so years. I told her that of course. And that he wasn't worth the tears, the anguish, but definitely still worth the anger. I love my friend very much and think she is a great person. What he has done to her--and in some ways continues to do to her--is shameful and hurtful.

So what I was thinking after the righteous indignation of her feeling bad wore off later in the day was this: does he still think of her like that? What does a cuckold think of his previous wife? Oh, I know the excitement and newness of the new relationship is still glowing it's fresh face. I know that he has moved on and is trying to push my friend into doing that as well (sell the house, sell the business, get rid of the past). But does he remember the good days at all? Does he remember how it was when it was just he two of them? Or even how it was when their kids were still small and the house was a hub of activity? Does he feel remorse? At all? And the new wife? Does she get what he has done to the former life? Does she wonder if she will wake up and find him not there in 20 years or so? Is he untrustworthy because he left once and so he might do it again? I have no way of knowing. And it's really just conjecture at this point that they even give a moment's thought to the past. Who am I to judge?

But I'm not judging necessarily. I'm wondering. Pondering, if you will. I see my friend struggle some days and wonder how can someone just walk away from someone else after all those years and not wonder about the other person? How can someone just shut down those feelings? Its a mystery to me. One I hope never to experience. But still I wonder.

the mind on hold

I've been playing a lot of mindless video games lately. Ones that involved catapulting penguins, sling-shooting strange birds at pigs and knocking zombies down to size with sunshine and plants. I can play these things either on my computer or my phone. I'm not sure that is a good thing, but there it is. I start with the idea that I will, you know, just putz around on them for a bit. Pick off a pig here and there. Or destroy one level of zombies before I take out the trash or put a load of clothes in the washer. Just a real quick game. And suddenly it's two hours later and I haven't quite got the angle on the bird crashing or the new zombie level has more determined and huge zombies and the lure of mowin' 'em down is just well addicting. So yes, it's sometimes two hours later! I could have read something for heavens sake! I'm not sure if this new state of affairs is better than mindless channel surfing or not. I used to be so smug when I knew that others were staring with glazed eyes at the TV. But I'm pretty sure my eyes look just as glazed (or is that crazed?) while concentrating on these stupid games. And in the back of my mind I'm contemplating getting the newest edition of whatever these things are. Spending money I don't have for mindless gaming. My smugness fades into the sunset with the pigs and birds. I'm doomed.

Sunshine Moments

I came home yesterday with a headache. I was grumpy, irritable, and in a funk. I had been pushed and pulled at work every which way and I am not very agile, so it was uncomfortable to say the least. There were ten different jobs that needed to be done "right now" and so the ten other jobs that were on the plate, didn't get done because of the hurry-up-and-do-now things. Very unsatisfying. Now in the backyard of our house there is a small patch of what most people would call weeds. I know better. They are milkweed plants and I put them there specifically for Monarch butterflies to find in their journey north. One year and one year only, there were a lot of them. Lots of caterpillars, lots of chrysalis' too. But since then, nothing. I've seen a monarch skip by occasionally, but they obviously didn't think my small patch worthy or big enough or whatever butterflies think and ignored my meager efforts. And so I came home sad, tired, angry at the world and its circumstances and sat in the car for a few minutes staring at nothing wishing that I could have stayed in bed with the covers pulled over my head. And then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I am not a butterfly specialist so I don't know the difference between a Monarch or a Viceroy butterfly--so I really am not sure, even now what I was seeing. They have very similar markings. But there as I finally focused on what was there on the periphery were two butterflies swooping and dancing among the milkweed. They looked like Monarchs. They flitted and flirted with the leaves (the blossoms are gone by now) stopping for a few second here and there. I have no idea if they laid eggs on the leaves (which are their favorite food). But, oh, suddenly the day wasn't such a waste of breath. Suddenly, I knew there was someone who was paying attention to my little patch of hopefulness. I stood outside the car and watched them skip and prance among the greenery and I looked heavenward and said, "Oh, Lord, thank you so much for butterflies." It's too early to tell if there will be caterpillars. But it's never to late to say thank you to the Creator for the blessings of a day which seemed like one long endless no but which ended with a blessed yes.

You did what?

A friend of mine, who is just as sarcastic, just as guilt ridden about things, just as neurotic about self as I went sky diving. WHAT? She went sky diving. She jumped out of a plane, rode the wind and pulled the ripcord to safely land. Safely land, I repeat. She is coming over today to show me pictures of the experience. She said on the phone the adventure was "really cool". OMG. I cannot imagine nor do I want to either. Standing on the top floor of the Chrysler building, I had to step towards the center of the floor. I'm sure the picturesque view of all those ant-like people down below was exquisite. But not for me. It's beyond my comprehension how someone does this--either thing, look down from high heights or sky dive. And I have a pretty vivid imagination! Beyond my comprehension. My anxiety level rises just thinking about it. When we were in sunny CA visiting the son, hubby and I took an excursion to the "Hollywood" sign. It is nestled up in the hills overlooking the valley and the Griffith Observatory. There is a relatively wide path to go up for those who are not adverse to hiking a practically vertical walk. The problem starts when the left hand side of this wide walk-way is observed. You see, it drops off rather sharply to the valley below. And there is no railing to keep you from dropping off. On the right-hand side of the walk is scrubby vegetation and dirt hills. The problem with that is the occasional sign which states you need to watch out for rattlesnakes, scorpions and mountain lions. MOUNTAIN LIONS!!!! So as we walked up the steep slope, I was forced to make sure I was walking in the dead center of the path. Certain falling down death on the left. Certain slow painful death on the right. You choose. When we came down from the walk I collapsed into the car, my knees like Jello. Maybe I could do that walk again, maybe. But maybe not. So I do safe stuff. Read. Write blogs. Walk around the neighborhood and admire the nice flat landscape around me. That's what I do.

Bugs, part 2

I found this on the garage today. It looks like a leaf doesn't it? But it's a moth. He's been sitting there since this morning. Just sitting right there under all those hungry birds' beaks. Which is, I suppose why he's been sitting there as opposed to making a break for it.

There are over 160,000 kinds of moths according to good ol' Wikipedia. Ten times more species than butterflies (my mother's personal favorite). I have heard them described as teddy bears with wings by Robert Fulghum. A bother to those who know that they lay eggs on plants and the larvae chew away until they become moths and the cycle goes around ad nauseum. I remember once as a kid finding this incredibly huge caterpillar, green with little spikes on its body. It broke a couple of sticks before I could actually move it. It evolved into a Cecropia moth-a huge brown thing that was as big as my hand. We caught a Luna moth once also. That delicate mint green moth again nearly as big as my hand. I always feel kind of sorry for the poor suckers though. Destined to fly towards the outside lights and smash themselves repeatedly on the glass. Sometimes getting caught in the spider web surrounding the light (oh, they are so clever and devious, aren't they?). I knew someone who didn't like moths because they "grabbed" you with their spiky little legs. They grabbed you? I've never seen a moth big enough to grab me, and the tiny little things on their legs which enable them to cling to sides of buildings don't hurt. I was baffled by her disgust, but I don't think everyone feels the same about spiders as I do either. To each his own in the bug world I guess. Anyway, take a moment to look up moths sometimes and you'll be amazed at their variations and coloration. They are amazing at camouflage and just as amazing standing out in a crowd. I'm just saying...

Bugs, part I

Bugs and I have an interesting relationship. The crawling kind of beetle, the undulating caterpillar, the moth or butterfly, even the ant I've sat and watched practically my whole life. I've read up on lots of kinds of creepy, crawlies. Some things would probably have been better if I'd never read them. But isn't that true of most things we read? But I can't seem to make my piece with a couple of bugs. One of them I know why and one I don't, not really anyway. The first kind of bug that I just really don't like much are spiders. I know, I know. Poor maligned eight legged creatures. I realize how beneficial they are. I've read plenty of things about them to underscore their importance in the "cycle of life". But really, I just can't like them. I just can't. If they are in my house, they should know better. Because I will not be kind to them there. Squishing is the order of the day. And I don't really care how little they are. Of course, if they have the audacity to be huge, then well, the arsenal comes out and the only survivor (at least so far anyway) is me. They move too fast. Have two extra legs for running and those eyes. Ewww. And on close ups? They're hairy, all of them. Nope, I'm not gonna be their best friend. Sorry. I'm pretty sure the reason I don't like them is because our mother was totally freaked out by them, like screaming in the other room, freaked out. So I figure I come by this prejudice honestly. And really, a lot of other people shudder when the discussion of spiders comes up. So I'm not alone. But the other bug which, er-um, bugs me? That would be bees. Now probably the reason they bother me is because I know they sting. Simply put, if it's going to hurt you, you probably don't really want to be good friends with them either. But I used to be pretty irrational about them as well. I recall one time riding in the back seat of the family sedan on the way to Grandma's house. A bumble bee flew in the back window and went down the front of my blouse. I screamed bloody murder! My mother thought I had lost a limb or something as she careened to the side of the road. Traumatized--truly shaken I was. Another time I was leaving a friends house and walking home when I noticed something on my pant leg. I looked down and a (you guessed it) bumble bee was walking up my leg. I was frozen on the spot. It wasn't until it had walked up to the middle of my t-shirt that I could force myself to flick the shirt, where the bee flung itself off and flew away without a thought in the world about the horrified, catatonic child standing on the side of the road. When I see bees zooming around the ground while at a stop light, I close the windows. I don't care how hot you get, they are not coming in to get me. I can feel the panic rising when I see them harmlessly gathering nectar from the clover in the yard. Bees. Another shudder racks the body. I don't believe my fear was passed down from anyone like the spiders thing. I just know they terrify me and I don't want to be anywhere near them. Even the hives behind glass that you can watch their industriousness. Not me, no sir. Be as busy as you want...just leave me alone! I will be posting in the next few weeks about bugs, but these two just happen to be on my list today. In the meantime, if you are a beekeeper or an arachnid-file, just keep your hobbies to yourself and I'll keep the flyswatter away from you.