March 31, 2021--Holy Wednesday It's still Holy Week, ya'll. And as evidence, I went shopping this morning. I entered three different stores only to find most of their Easter decorations and candy sold out. Kaput. Where is all of it going? I'll tell you where. To helicopter moms like me who insist on making Easter baskets for their grown ass kids, that's where it's all going. I know this to be true because, first of all, there's me. Yes, I still create an Easter basket each year for my g-a (grown ass) kids. And they don't complain about it, either. Secondly, as I was waiting in line at one store, this woman in front of me got all chatty with me, the store clerk, and everyone in a five mile radius. She spun yarns about her brood of twenty-somethings to whom she still gives Easter baskets on Easter Sunday morning. And she also insists that they dye Easter eggs together. So that makes two of us who accomplish the impossible every Easter. We make age appropriate Easter baskets for our adult offspring. If we two are doing it, then I surmise that there are others whose identity remains secret. What do you put into age appropriate Easter baskets for grown-ish people? Oh, you know, the usual. Candy of any sort is good. It doesn't have to be Easter candy. And you can add soaps, bath products, t-shirts, flip-flops, new swim suits. Last year, I decorated my daughter's Easter basket with a new bikini bathing suit. I stretched the bottoms over the basket portion and the top over the handle. Phone and electronic stuff is a choice. The problem with that is that most kids know more about which electronic products they need and which are not necessary. I almost purchased an earbud holder today, but then thought better of it. If you are going to spend money, you might as well make sure it is for something that will be used. Books are also a good choice. Comic books are welcome in my house. Jewelry or hair ties and hair bands are good basket filler. Sun glasses, sun tan lotion, new swim goggles are winners. And the tried, but true coffee mug or tea cup can round it out. Gift cards are another option. Candles are something most young adults like. I don't give candles to my children, ever. I mean they could burn the house down. It's a matter of morality. When the fire starts, I don't want to be the party held responsible. Other things that should not go into an Easter basket for your adult child, but which the adult child might appreciate, are any kind of alcohol. I have other contraband items, as well. If I write what those are, then I may end up sullying what should be a purified and consecrated holiday basket. I mean it is Holy Week. I will just leave it up to your imagination. If it doesn't feel like it should be given as a gift from parent to child, then it shouldn't. I know of one other mom who does this insane gift basket thing for her grown kids at every Easter. Actually, I don't really know her, but a friend of mine does or did. When my children were still small enough to believe in the Easter bunny, I worked with someone who knew someone who gave Easter baskets to her adult children. And the story went that this woman would also make her young adults hunt Easter eggs before church on Easter Sunday. And how she went about this was that she would fill those plastic eggs you can buy in the stores with money. And money was enough motivation for her college aged kids to roll out of bed on a Sunday morning and hunt for colored eggs in their yard. That is one thing I don't do and will not do. I mean, even during Holy Week, I'm not completely stupid. And since that story was told to me a while back, if the woman is still doing it, then her children ought to be in their early forties by now. I hope they are not at a point in their lives where hunting for eggs filled with money is motivation for them to show up at mom and dad's house on Easter Sunday. On the other hand, I wonder where this lady lives, and if she would notice an extra adult hunting for eggs in my pajamas? March 30, 2021--Holy Tuesday
It's Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Today is Tuesday, so that makes it Holy Tuesday. There are teachings about what happened today during Jesus's life, but each Christian denomination celebrates it differently with different readings and such. And who am I to say what should be said about it? I am just happy that Christians get a whole week to celebrate. Other religions get longer celebrations. There is Hanukah (eight days) and Passover (another eight days). There is also Ramadan (30 days). True, Ramadan lasts a long time, but you have to fast during daylight hours. So, maybe that balances out the length a bit. What I do know is that Christians get Holy Week as our week long celebration. I mean true, we do have advent (the month before Christmas), but it is largely just a thing that is celebrated at churches. There are no advent parties that I know of. I mean there are all kinds of Christmas parties and celebrations during that month, but no one goes around saying, "Happy Advent!" And then there is Lent. Lent is forty days long, not including Sundays. Therefore the entire season of Lent is forty six days. Lent is not so much a celebration though, as it is a lack of celebration. It is a way of negating all things celebratory. Although people might like to think so, Mardi Gras and Carnival are not actually religious celebrations. They are more like a bachelor or bachelorette party before the big day of the wedding. It is something that is nice to have, but completely unnecessary. Does anyone else remember when we were growing up that there was a movie every afternoon on television? During Holy Week, a local television station would show all religious movies, starting with The Ten Commandments (1956) on Monday and then The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) on Tuesday. That would be followed by King of Kings (1961) on Wednesday, with The Robe (1953) shown on Thursday, and finally finishing with Ben Hur (1959) on Good Friday. All of these movies were made before Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Heck, they were even made before Jesus Christ, Superstar. So while the former offered an extremely realistic take on what went down during the original Holy Week, and the later offered the first mass appeal movie with a different take on the Biblical story of Jesus, they both are jarring to my cranial fibrosis. I'm a Boomer. And I can offer no apology for that. I am sorry to tell you. Those movies that were shown on television during Holy Week are where people my age got their Biblical knowledge, except for a few of us who were taken regularly to church and Sunday School. And we are now in the midst of Holy Week again. It is Holy Tuesday. Since I'm talking about Boomers, I am reminded of an old cartoon series that was also shown on television when we were growing up, Popeye, the Sailor. In that series, there was a character named J. Wellington Wimpy who is Popeye's friend. "Wimpy is a soft-spoken romantic, intelligent and educated, a lazy coward, a miser, and a glutton. He is a scam artist, and almost a tramp, but pretends to have high social status."* In short, he is an every man trope. Oh my gosh, Wimpy is me. I am all of those things listed above. And isn't it ironic that Wimpy's catch phrase was, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today." Isn't that true for all of us, though? Don't we all want to pay tomorrow for a pleasurable today? The story of the Christ is largely about someone else paying for our gluttony and other deadly sins when we have been too cowardly to even admit a lack of ability to pay, even to ourselves. Well, guess what, my fellow Wimpies and/or Wimpions? Tuesday is already here. Right here. Right now. *'Wimpy' Comes To Town – But Don't Let Atlanta Know Anything of This". The Daily Oklahoman. Oklahoma City. November 12, 1935. p. 1. March 29, 2021--International Little Mermaid Day
When my daughter was three years old, she wanted to be a mermaid for Halloween. So she was. And when she was four years old, she also wanted to be a mermaid for Halloween. And so she was a mermaid again. When Daughter was five years old, she said wanted to be a mermaid for Halloween for the third time. By this time, I had gotten pretty good at creating costumes, so we went to Hobby Lobby where we purchased a real dried up star fish, glitter and netting. I created an elaborate head piece for her to wear with the Ariel dress we had purchased the first time she was a mermaid for Halloween. Talk about getting your money's worth out of a costume. When she was three years old, she saw The Little Mermaid for the first time on video. That Christmas and birthday a series of Little Mermaid dolls began to inhabit our home. I purchased a Disney song book and learned to play every princess song in it. Her favorites were always the songs from The Little Mermaid. We had a good act going there for awhile. I played and sang, and she danced. As I played through each song, she would go in her room and costume up, meaning that she would create various costumes for the Disney characters. I would keep playing, repeating as necessary, until she was ready. Then she would appear in some crazy iteration of a costume and dance her little mermaid heart out, using the entrance hallway as her stage. I was instructed on which song to play first, second, and so on. At this very young age, as I was tucking her in one night, she said, "Mommy, do you why I like Ariel so much?" "I have no idea." "Cause she shows her belly." Oh, dear. Should I be concerned? Is this how promiscuity is born? I went and told Husband of what his daughter had said. We had a laugh, but secretly wondered. What did she mean by her comment? The original story of The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Anderson, is extremely dark. In it, the mermaid falls in love with a prince. She trades her voice for human legs, but every step she takes on land is excruciatingly painful. Then, the prince marries another woman, and the Little Mermaid plots his murder. I told you it was dark. In the end, instead of killing the prince, which she had the opportunity to do, she kills herself. The story of The Little Mermaid was published in 1837, and was written for children and adults. The Disney version came out in 1989 and was obviously cleaned up for today's children. I think I secretly wondered about my daughter's obsession with Ariel for years. She went on to repeat the belly showing comment often until she eventually outgrew her love for Disney princesses. As it turned out, I had no need to worry, and now that Daughter has entered firmly into her twenties, I can celebrate and cheer on her choices in fashion. Most women my age look back on their twenties as their personal hey day, anyway. So ladies in your twenties, work it. Work it with all that you've got because even the most fit of us have lost some of it by the time we have crossed over into the fabulous fifties. In the original story, after committing suicide, the Little Mermaid turns into sea foam. However, she does have the power to fly and be invisible. She then must do good deeds for three hundred years before she can ascend to heaven. As is fitting, her good deeds generally consist of sea rescues. So the next time you are at the beach, and you see sea foam, it could be Ariel. Or maybe it's only her belly--since she insisted on showing it. March 28, 2021--Children's Picture Book Day
There were trips to the library. My parents dropped my brother and me off in the children's section and left us alone there. Then my brother scattered to parts unknown as well, and I was by myself. Maybe that is where I determined that books are my friends. That was all I had in the moment. When my mother returned, she found me with a copy of Put Me in the Zoo, by Robert Lopshire. Many people mistakenly believe this book is by Dr. Seuss. It is edited by Dr. Seuss, or at least by his henchmen, or employees. His name is on the cover and the title page, underneath Mr. Lopshire. Put me in the Zoo is about this animal, either bear or dog--it's hard to tell which--who has colorful spots all over him. He does tricks with the spots, making them turn different colors. I was fascinated with this book. When my mother came to get me in the children's section of the library, she told me I could get more than one book. She said I could get as many books as I wanted. However, I only wanted the book about the animal who could change his spots to different colors. He was the same, yet different. Each spot was a separate piece of the whole. On subsequent library visits, I was dropped off in the same children's section of the library. I would go to the same location I found Put me in the Zoo, and there would be additional copies of that book. That was the one I wanted to check out again and again. And again. It was just so fascinating. I still could not work out how the character changed his spots, or what color he was going to change them to next. When I became a parent, my children had lots of books. But I saw a similar behavior when I first took my son to our local library. He liked a book called Freight Train, by Donald Crews. That book has pictures of a freight train and each car is a different color. It is connected, but each page features a different part of the whole. His autistic mind seemed to relish turning the pages of this book. His dad and I took him to the library often back then. We would put him down in the children's section and of course watch over him because that is what parents do nowadays. They hover. Each time, the visit went like this:
When I say all hell broke loose, let me explain that my phrase is a euphemism for melt down. How is a meltdown different from a temper tantrum? There are articles online all over the internet explaining the difference. Let me just say that a melt down has a nuclear component. It is organic in nature. The child cannot be held responsible, really. Truly. If you have ever encountered one, you will know it. No distraction or promise of ice cream in the near future will stop it. It is completely beyond everyone's control. I am happy to say that those days are behind us now, but I believe there is a pattern at play in these two scenarios. I wanted the same book from the overwhelming public library in the same way that my son wanted the same book from the overwhelming public library. The desire for control and uniformity is something a children's section of a public library can provide in the guise of the same book at every visit. And if visited often enough, it can eventually provide variety and diversity, if and when a child is ready to absorb it. March 27, 2021--Brothers and Sisters Day
In our three bedroom, one bath, single car garage house, my brother and I had many adventures. One of those adventures started in that house, then took us away to the closest hospital. It all started with Harris Roach Tablets--which are still available on Amazon.com. One day, Mother opened our broom closet and pointed to one of them on the floor. "I just want to show you something," she said. "That is a roach pill. It's there to kill bugs. Don't ever, ever put it in your mouth. It's not candy." I nodded gravely. It seemed to be what the situation warranted. Later, that same week, my brother opened the same broom closet. "Hey, Karen," he said pointing to the roach tablet. "Do you see that? It's candy. Pick it up and eat it." "That's not candy," I stated. "Mommy already told me. It's a roach pill." My brother had not counted on this turn of events. I am sure our mother had told us both about the dangerous pesticide. What she should have done was tell us together, and then none of the subterfuge that followed would have happened. I think my brother just wanted to see if I would fall for more of his shenanigans. He wanted me to pick up the roach tablet and bring it toward my mouth, only to stop me at the last minute and have a laugh. Either that, or he was trying to murder me. I wasn't falling for it, though. "No, it's not," he insisted. "It's a Sweetart (one of our favorite candies). Go on. Pick it up." "Nooo!" I whined. "It's not a Sweetart." "Come on," he said. He then added as a note of encouragement, "I ate one." I didn't know if I should believe him. If he ate one, then he was dumber than I thought. Even if it were a Sweetart, it had been on the floor, near the boom. And it was dirty down there. "It's not candy," I shouted. I got louder, and our mother's ears pricked up. "What are you kids doing in there?" Her voice was stern. Then she was in the doorway. My brother had finally been caught doing something to me underhanded and mean. Relieved at last, I couldn't wait for further questioning. "He ate a roach pill," I shouted. "I did not!" "Yes, you did!" "Did not!" "Both of you," said Mother, "be quiet. I told you not to put those in your mouths or you will have to go to the hospital and get your stomachs pumped." She bent down and looked directly into my brother's eyes. "Did you eat one of those tablets?" she asked. And that is when my brother took the first of what would be the easiest route for him through many more easy routes in his future. He must have determined that it was better for him to say what he said next rather than to tell the truth. "She ate one, too!" Holy Toledo. Are you kidding me? I almost wished he had continued with his plan to murder me. Now we were both under Mother's scrutiny, and no matter how much I begged, pleaded, cajoled with her, there was to be no belief on her part of my innocence. Our dad appeared on the scene, and my parents got into an argument. It seemed our mother had never liked the idea of roach tablets in our house in the first place. Our dad had put them out to control pests. He tried to reason with Mom that if there was still one roach pill on the floor of the closet, then we had not eaten it. Mother turned toward us. "Did you put that in your mouth?" she asked again. "No!" we said. Then she wanted to know all the places Dad had placed roach tablets. She wanted a complete inventory of them. He tried to tell her all of the places, but she did not trust his accounting system. She just kept saying, "What if they did." The next thing we knew, we were both scooped up and toted to the car. Our grandparents met us at the hospital and what follows is a vague recollection of tubes in my nose and masks on the nurses and doctors so that I could not tell if they were men or women. I don't remember returning to our three bedroom, one bathroom, one car garage house, but we must have done so because later at that same house, my brother would tell me to swing from the antenna on our parents' car causing it to break and earning each of us a swat on the behind. However, that was after he talked me into riding behind him in my doll carriage which he had attached to his bicycle with a rope. I do think he may have been trying to murder me, after all. March 26, 2021--Solitude Day
Today is Solitude Day, and here are some advice tips on how to appreciate and value time spent in solitude (along with my notes after each tip):
March 25, 2021--National Procrastination Day Here are the top four types of procrastinators according BusinessInsider.com.
I don't know which one to do first. It also declares that I lack follow through. Also, not true. When I start a project I complete it. But there are just so, so many things I am working on. For example, since the weather has been nice here, I have been painting lawn furniture outside on my patio. I have updated everything furniture and lawn like for this season. So now I have a dilemma. Do I continue my painting, moving on to the indoor furniture that I have purchased paint for, and thusly take advantage of the nice weather? To do this means moving a bunch of stuff. The easiest thing to do would be to start with the pine coffee table in the game room which I intend to paint the popular greige color. Painting it would require moving everything that is piled on top of it, which are all the other projects waiting to be completed. Do I paint the train that is on the top of the pile? What color? Do I shop for additional paint? Or do I set that aside and fill the picture frames that are underneath the train? And if I fill the picture frames, it involves a time consuming hunt through all of our photos that are lying around in odd places which then involves cleaning out drawers and boxes. Do you see my dilemma? While I am digging through old pictures, do I stop and scrap book them? I haven't scrapped in so long. I will probably need more supplies which means going to the craft store where I can be a danger to myself and others. And while in the craft store, I will find ideas for other projects that will need to be completed. And I will purchase materials for said projects in order to up my game, and also so that I won't forget what my idea was. And then I will come home, and lacking a better place to put supplies, I will pile them on the coffee table in the game room that I was going to paint, or something. March 24, 2021--World Tuberculosis Day
If you read much literature written before 1900, characters and authors were always kicking their collective buckets from tuberculosis, or consumption as it was called. Romantic poet, Lord Byron, famously wrote that he, "should like to die of consumption," helping to romanticize this disease. It came to known as the disease of artists and poets, as it was thought to bestow upon the sufferer a heightened sense of awareness. Women of the eighteenth century tried various cosmetics to pale their complexions, so popular was this disease. If you were rich, you could go to a sanitarium to help dry out your lungs. These early versions of a health spa were located in the countryside, and it is questionable if they helped cure the disease at all. More likely, the sufferers were cured by their own immune systems and/or it went into remission, only to reoccur when the sufferer returned to the city where the air was stale and less pure. Literary characters who suffered from this disease are rife in things published during this time. Literature where characters died tragically of consumption or tuberculosis include Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, where the protagonist, Edmund, is diagnosed with tuberculosis at the start of the play; Katerina Ivanovna in Crime and Punishment, and Helen Burns in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Victor Hugo used the tuberculosis theme repeatedly: the disease is the likely cause of the spinal deformity of the hunchback in his 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris, while Fantine becomes ill and ultimately dies from consumption in his 1862 Les Misérables. In the 1915 novel Anne of the Island, the third in the Anne of Green Gables series, Ruby Gillis, one of Anne's childhood friends, dies of "the galloping consumption". Little Eva's romanticized death of consumption occurs over several chapters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The disease is not limited to human characters, but can help to achieve grim social realism in a novel. Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle portrays tuberculosis as common among cattle reaching the meat-packing plants of Chicago. There was a time when it seemed like every book I opened would have someone who died of consumption. I refer to that time as my romantic reader period. Even in Bram Stoker's Dracula, vampire victims exhibit symptoms similar, if not the same, as victims of tuberculosis without modern day medicine. The Victorian novel, by and large, gave consumption or consumption's symptoms to female characters "who embodied saintly spirituality or sexual depravation."* This troubling idea plays with the contradictions in medical texts while simultaneously linking the disease with the way of life of Victorian women and offering physicians control over their patients both morally and physically. Why should we care? Tuberculosis is currently not given as a vaccine to children in the United States. This is a good thing, but here is a personal anecdote. I actually do know of one family who got tuberculosis when they had some remodeling done on the interior of their home. I taught the little boy in my classroom some years ago. I never heard of anyone who lived inside the United States of America getting infected with TB during my lifetime. Until I met them. It is thought that a person who worked inside their house was a carrier of the disease. This person could have been infected with it or could have had a latent case of it. Either way, both mother and son managed well through treatment for it and no lasting harm was done. That is until Covid-19. As far as I know, neither one of them has had Covid-19, but with a case TB as a part of their health history, they find themselves in jeopardy if they get Covid-19. Something that happened several years ago and was thought to not cause them lasting harm suddenly sidelined them in the most surprising way. Not planning to travel to a third world country or hang around people who abuse alcohol and use illicit drugs? All of those things are linked to increased risk of tuberculosis. Well, neither was (or did) the family I know. On this World Tuberculosis Day, let us hope that consumption stays in the books...where it belongs. Katherine Byrne, Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 223 p, ISBN 978–0–521–76667–8 March 23, 2021--National Puppy Day
We moved into our house in 2006, and that same month Husband and Moses Malone, our son, came home form Pet Smart with a new dog. We had told Malone that a new dog was going to be part of the new house in order to make the transition from old house to new one more smooth for him. The dog they came home with was a tiny puppy, about two months old. He was so small, he easily fit underneath the gate from drive way to patio. They had been told that this new puppy was a beagle. I took one look at his big feet and determined that he likely was not a beagle. "He's going to have to grow into those feet," I said upon first sight. "What do you mean?" asked husband. "Well, he's going to be big." "How do you know that?" "Because look at the size of his feet. He's gonna need to grow into them." I ended up right in this regard. At full adulthood, our dog weighed about sixty-two pounds. He died this past week at sixteen years of age. I am proud to say that I was there at the beginning (well, not the very beginning) and at the end. We ended up taking him to vet to have him put down. I have already written about how he tried to commit suicide twice during the winter storm of 2021. We had known for sometime that he was senile. I have also written about how he caused a lack of sleep for me, demanding to be let out at all hours of the night. Just like an old man, an urgent need to pee would hit him in the wee small hours of the morning. We got our dog from a shelter, as it was Shelter Day at the pet store. So, he was a crossbreed, most likely. He seemed to be chiefly a Staffordshire bull terrier, though. These dogs currently have a bad reputation, but in the past they were known as the nanny dog. They are thought to be the best dogs to have when children are present. I can attest to that. Our dog was gentle and happy around children. And after a rocky start during his puppyhood, he was a loyal, mindful dog. These dogs are smart and can learn to ask permission by looking into your eyes. That's how I knew we did the right thing by putting him down in the end. He had come up to me several times during his final weeks. Each time he gave me sorrowful look, a longing to end his silent pain. He was asking me to do something about how he felt when staring plaintively at me just so. I knew this intuitively, yet I wasn't ready to say good-bye. We tried doing hospice care at home, but when he stopped eating altogether--even when I tried to spoon food into his mouth--I knew it was time. When we got him to the vet, he had stopped walking or standing. Just the night before he had walked from a chair cushion on the floor over to his bed. And by midday, he could no longer stand. I have never had to do this to a pet before. We have had dogs who died, but they went peacefully in their sleep. I lay this dog's reticence to die on his breed. They are just so god-danged loyal. They have luminous eyes that say all the things that need to be said in just one look. It seems strange to say it, but I'm glad I was present when he looked at me for the final time and closed them. March 22, 2021--National Sing Out Day
Today is National Sing Out Day, a day to belt it out with all you've got. I grew up with a mom who loves to sing. My first memory of her singing was one day as she was washing dishes when I was a small child. I was playing nearby. When she sang, I paused. When she stopped, it was eerily quiet. It stayed that way for a moment. I was taking in her clear soprano voice. "Well, I've got to go check the laundry now," she said. I didn't want her concert to end, though. "No," I cried. "Sing it again." "Which song?" she said. "That one the goes, 'From sea to shining sea,'" I said. And so she sang what I later learned is, "America, the Beautiful." At the time, I thought she was America, the Beautiful because she has a beautiful voice. I have never equaled her singing voice, although I have learned how to compensate for it. My voice is lower in register. Generally, I just lower everything an octave if the scale is too high. I loved when my children were still young enough to love my singing. I always have sung at home just doing chores around the house. And I sang to the babies when I rocked them to sleep. Somewhere along their growing up, I crossed the line between really cool mom who had a song for every occasion to annoying woman who will not shut up. Now that I know this, I try to curtail my singing at home. I really do, although no one here quite believes me. Husband is amazed that I can remember lyrics to songs so well. I don't think I do remember them so well, actually. And it is surprising that he doesn't remember lyrics. I mean who doesn't know the words to folk songs? I thought everyone knew them. Having a son on the autism spectrum has put a damper on my music, as well. Not only did he not like my singing as an adolescent, I also know that he needs more time to decompress than the average Joe. Like a lot more time. Like way, way, more time. So, when he is in decompressing mode, he might ask me kindly to stop singing. Or, he might curse under his breath, instead. Whatever he does, I always seem to know when I have gone too far. He says I create ear worms. For those who do not know, an earworm is when there is a song stuck in your head that you cannot get out. We all have them from time to time. But a person with autism has a more invasive species of ear worm. Son really hates it when he gets one. So, I know this information, yet I continue to sing. Sometimes, I don't even know I'm singing, but as I said, I teaching myself to become more aware. Do you remember the story of "The Little Mermaid?" One of my favorite show tunes is from that Disney musical, "Part of Your World." When I'm singing it, I often think, "I just want to be part of your world, Son. I want to be granted entrance into your exquisite autistic mind." In that story, the sea witch, Ursula, steals the mermaid's voice. So, that's what I say now when anyone at home asks me to stop singing. It goes like this: "Could you please stop now?" "Stop what?" "Stop that incessant warbling." "Sure, no problem...Ursula." I tell myself I'm teaching tolerance. When living together, you are bound to step on each other's toes. Or voices. March 21, 2021--Common Courtesy Day
The DART, the BART, and all forms of mass transit, tour busses, airport shuttles, trains, planes, and automobiles. Well, not so much the automobiles, but on practically any other kind of public transportation, chivalry is dead, but my husband and son are trying to make a two man return of it. Whenever we have found ourselves in the situation of finding a seat on public transportation, Husband and Son always give the first available seats to me and/or Daughter. Because we are the females, I guess. If the saying goes, "age before beauty," then I get to sit before Daughter. It just seems weird to Husband and me both to see men seated on public transportation while women stand. Some people may call it old fashioned, but at the very least, an older woman should get to sit down instead of a younger man. When a male patron of public transportation has given up his seat for me, I always take it and say thank you. To do anything less would be to dishonor his offer. It still astonishes me, though, how infrequently I get the opportunity to do so. Once, we were visiting Colorado and had taken a shuttle bus in Aspen to the Maroon Bells mountain peak and hiking area. On the return trip, the shuttle was full, with standing room only. A pregnant lady got on the bus. My son was sitting, but Husband was already standing. I waiting for a bit just to see what would happen. The bus was dotted with seated men all over the place. Most of them were young. At least younger than me. No one offered to give up his seat for the pregnant woman. Before I had a chance to say it, Husband told our son to get up and give his seat to the soon to be mama. He did. She thanked him and sat down. I looked around the bus. No one said a thing, but I think some of the men who observed our behavior were given pause. Maybe even embarrassed. When did it happen that even pregnant women don't get deferential treatment? Once in while, after Husband or Son has given up his seat to a female passenger on one of these transports, another male passenger has also given up his seat. It's like the thought just occurred to him. Be that as it may, I am glad when it happens. Twice I have given up my seat to someone. It happened when there was a clearly older woman with no seat, and then again when a disabled man had no seat. We should all be cognizant of those around us and use common sense. You can decline if someone offers you their seat. I imagine there will be some who will. On Common Courtesy Day, I invite you to disagree with my stance on men offering their seat to women. I invite your disagreement, and I respectfully raise you one. Giving up your seat on mass transit keeps our world in working order. It is the Yin to others' Yang. If you fail to notice someone next to you, you are little more than a machine of human data. And you know what machines lack? Emotion. On Common Courtesy Day, go out there and show some emotion for your fellow man or woman. March 20, 2021--World Frog Day
I prefer frogs to keep their distance. I have always found these creatures slightly disturbing, with their fat gullets and their long legs and the sheer greenness of them. It's not easy being green it seems. For example, you could get squished. There I was dancing barefoot in the grass, just like in the song, "Perfect," by Ed Sheeran. Except in my version of events, I am only nine years old. And I am dancing by myself, or playing chase. Does it really matter what I was doing? Suffice it to say that I was barefoot. It was dark. And the grass was wet from a recent rain. I felt something bumpy underneath my foot, and then nothing. I screamed, "What was that?" "What was what?" asked my mom. "I felt something move underneath my foot." "Probably a frog," she said. Wait. What? Could that have just happened? Suddenly, I didn't want to go barefoot in the grass anymore. Or ever again. Now whenever I hear "Perfect" on the radio I think to myself, "It's all well and good (o.k., it's all perfect) until someone steps on a frog, that is." I largely ignored frogs until high school. Then in freshman biology, I was told to dissect one. We had one girl in our class who refused to do so on moral grounds. I think she failed the assignment, but she didn't care. What she didn't know going into this event was that the frogs we dissected were already dead. So she wasted her uppity moral protest in that she wasn't saving a frog. How can you save something that was already dead? The frogs we dissected were not green, but a sort of grey brown color. And they smelled like formaldehyde. It was hard to imagine them ever having life in them. I dutifully dissected mine and lived to tell about it. Here's the thing though; I couldn't tell much about the frog's inner workings from the experience. I had a better idea of the frog's body from looking at the drawings in our textbook. Also, what good is any of this knowledge to me today? I don't remember much of the frog's body, and it told me nothing about the human body worth remembering. For up to date information on biology, I can just go to webmd.com, anyway. And for another frog memory, my grandpa had a pond on his farm. We kids always wanted to swim in it, and that would have been a nice way to spend a summer day. We were told consistently that it was not meant for swimming. A pond is its own ecosystem. And there were all kinds of critters, both visible and invisible, in Grandpa's pond. The adults were smart for keeping us out of it. One day, at a family gathering, some of the men folk in our family disappeared for a while with fishing poles and nets. They had sneaked off to fish in the pond. No one missed them much. We were all ready to sit down and eat, and there came my uncle and some others with a giant bullfrog they had caught in the pond. He (the frog, not my uncle) was upside down and already dead with his great front legs dangling about. My uncle held him by his strong back legs which stretched out so far that Uncle's arm had to be held up over his head to keep the frog from touching the ground. Everyone said how great the frog legs were going to taste for supper that night. And even though we were all ready to sit down and begin eating, the frog catchers asked Granny to fry up the frog legs. The frog catchers disappeared again for a while. I suppose they disappeared to clean or dress the frog legs. Much to my surprise, Granny fried them up, even though she had spent all morning preparing a meal that was already on the table. That's how she gave out her love. She cooked. Finally, on a trip to Chinatown in San Francisco, my husband picked an obscure, hole in the wall restaurant for us to dine. You had to go up a flight of stairs and through a secret tunnel to get to it. My son ordered frog. Why would he do this, you may ask? Because it was on the menu. That's why. I thought it would be frog legs, which is still a popular dish in the South. It was not. It was tiny, cut up pieces that were deep fried. We all tasted it. What I remember of it was that there tiny bones that should have grossed me out more than they did. What more can I say? Other than Kermit, I am not a frog fan. They have beady, scary eyes. Their legs are obscenely long and ill-proportioned to their body. Their chins are the stuff of beauty nightmares. And they can keep a person from walking barefoot in the grass late at night. March 19, 2021--I Know I Exist Day
I was intrigued to find out about today's topic, I Know I Exist Day. What could it mean? Don't we all exist, after all? Who would question our existence? Maybe it's not meant to be a question, though. I mean it is a declarative statement. I know I exist. No shit, Sherlock. Of course you do. But do you really? I mean really, really, like for reals? How do any of us know we exist if we do not question it once in a while. Today, I Know I Exist Day, is celebrated by The Realist Society of Canada, and that's who would question our existence. Today. And just so you know, they have a real website with real rules for living and everything. Today I'll tell you about few people who also questioned existence. Let's start with William Shakespeare who famously called existence into question on more than one occasion. Perhaps most familiar and best of all is Hamlet's soliloquy in which the character asks the question, "To be or not to be..." (Act 3, scene 1). Near the end of his speech, Hamlet states that, "Conscious makes cowards of us all," meaning that we "are made weak by too much thinking," (Lit Charts Blog). Hey there, all you Canadian Realists, did you just catch that? Me thinks you doth contest too much. But that's just me. Secondly, let's examine Emily Dickinson. And by examine, I mean see what she has to say on the topic, "I Know I Exist." Dickinson famously wrote, I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one's name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog! By stating that there's a pair of us, whatever could she mean? If someone else knows you exist, then you do. I think. Or do you both not exist together? And finally, let's not forget pop culture. In 1971, Neil Diamond recorded the dilemma of existence with his Grammy winning hit single, "I Am...I Said." In the song, he goes on to exclaim that no one answered him, including an inanimate object, like...um...I don't know. A chair? The Society of Realism is an actual non-profit and looks to be organized as a religion. There is information on their website about fundraising for a house of worship, religious seminaries, and camps. Camps! Perhaps you could send little Jane or Johnny to Realism Camp. That just seems cruel, but even so, someone will do it. I wasn't going to write about The Society of Realism today, but I made the mistake of clicking on their webpage. Do you what I found? One of the most startling suggestions of all. In fact it is so provocative, that I'll reprint it here, "Celebrations typically include slow cooked dishes as part of a shared consciousness meal." That means that after their ceremony today of getting all up in each other's realistic grills with their meditations, yoga, and talent shows, they are going to break out the crockpots! It's unbelievable. These New Age Realists and their religion for a new era are going to go all old school on us in the guise of a church covered dish supper. For the uninitiated, a church covered dish supper involves gallons of iced tea, homemade dishes brought to the event by hard working moms in all manner of slow cooker contraptions. There are casseroles, cakes, pies, salads, pasta dishes, just about anything that your cookbook says will feed a crowd. After a while, the dishes can take on a generic taste or flavor. And in "after a while," I mean that after you have attended a fair share of these affairs. Some cookbooks will have you believe that you cannot show your face at a church covered dish supper if you do not bring tomato aspic or homemade cheese straws. Thankfully, though, those days are past and the cookbooks that such news is printed in are hopelessly out of date. Nowadays, many churches have inhouse cooks and kitchen staff. Or just volunteers who specialize in cooking. Don't expect more than meatloaf or chicken spaghetti as the main dish, however. That is why it gives me such pleasure to read about the Realists celebrating events and that their, "Celebrations typically involve a slow cooked meal." I recently learned about cooking hotdogs for a crowd in a crockpot. I wonder how the Realists feel about frankfurters and nitrates? That's what I would bring if I were attending today's event. Dogs are easy to fix in a crockpot, and they travel well. They may not mix with yoga very good, though. Especially on the downward dog. Keeping it real. March 18, 2021--Awkward Moment Day Does anyone remember when the Ladies' Accessory Department was called Ladies' Hosiery? I worked at a department store once, and sometimes I was placed in the Ladies' Hosiery Department. I loved working in that area because I could answer the phone, "Ladies' Hosiery." No one ever called, however, so I would get my friends from other departments in the store to ring me just so I could answer the phone like that. After that job, I worked with a woman who swore by wearing panty hose everyday. Although young and shapely, she said she just didn't feel all tucked in if she didn't have on her pantyhose. In the same building, there was another woman who never wore slips, and I wonder now if underwear was optional to her as well. I was better friends with the pantyhose woman. When teaching school it is hard to find the time to take a restroom break. Sometimes, I just left my high schoolers on their own. Once when I did this, they were working quietly at their desks. That, in itself, is hard to believe. It must have been a practice test because I would not have left them alone for a real assessment. Anyway, all was well when I returned to the classroom. I was just sitting down when I heard a small whisper at the back of the room. "I just can't unsee it," said a young man. I stood up and stared down the class, especially the back portion of the room. I let my nostrils flare a little, just for follow through. Heads went down to their work. I sat back down and continued to stare at them. Then, thinking of something I forgot to post on the board, I got back up and went to the chalk rail where I reached for a piece of chalk. "Miss...," said a young girl on the front row. "What?" I asked, not bothering to turn and look at her. "Miss.." "What is it?" I turned around. All heads, except hers, were down. "Your skirt," she said. "What about it?" "It's tucked into the back of your...?" "The back of my what?" I asked. "Your skirt is tucked into your panty hose," she finally said. "Huh?..." I felt my backside with my hands. "What? Oh, holy crap. Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph," I thought. "What kind of new nonsense is this? How could I have? Am I just that uncoordinated? How could I not know my skirt was bunched up in the back of my pantyhose like a giant spongy mass of squishy broccoli? Just the kind of vegetable you do not want associated with your butt." My helpful student was correct. And that is what the young man must have meant when he said, "I just can't unsee it." I quickly started untucking. I stood before the class pulling and pulling in the back, as I faced them. That skirt seemed unusually long. I pulled for what seemed like fifteen minutes. So long was my skirt, in fact, that the few students who knew what was happening got bored and went back to their work. I laughed a little too self-consciously when at last I reached the hem line of my skirt. At the sound of my laugh, students looked up. The ones who knew about my skirt situation gazed at me, as well as several students who had no idea. Only a few stoic scholars kept to their work. I tried a fake smile. "So many of you done so fast?" I asked. More students now looked up and stared at me. I could feel the eyes of thirty-one futures now in my hands. What to do? What to say? What memories would the ones who saw now take with them into their tomorrows? I touched my forehead and wiped away a bead of sweat. I looked past the faces at the back wall of the classroom. "As you prepare to leave my class today," I began, "You may be wondering what exactly you have witnessed. Let me just begin by saying that everyone is capable of making personal mistakes. We should all adjust our memories and thoughts today. And as my final word, I would like us all to never mention this incident again. As a matter of fact, I never thought I would say this, but I command that all of you unlearn everything you have learned today." Students were beginning to pack up their belongings to leave the class. A few of them still had no idea what I was talking about. There were perplexed faces all around me. They were sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for me to give them my nod that it was time to go. Someone raised their hand. It was a good fellow who had been bent over his work the entire time I stood before them in a state of wardrobe malfunction. I was grateful to the few students like him who had held steadfast to the work of English class while chaos reigned around them. "Yes?" I called to him. "What did you mean by all of that, just then?" he asked. I gazed at the few classmates who looked directly back at me, knowingly. It was not as many of them as I had first thought. "What I meant," I stated, "Is that...is that...oh, shoot. I could tell you, but if you hear it, then you cannot unhear it. And you cannot unknow it. Class is now un-in-session." March 17, 2021--St. Patrick's Day
One of our best Spring Break destinations was to DeGray Lake, near Hot Springs, Arkansas. We stayed in a three star resort, rode decrepit, old horses on a "trail ride," hiked mountainous trails in nearby parks, and accidentally attended a parade. We decided to spend an evening exploring downtown Hot Springs. So we packed up the car and drove an hour to the city. We found the downtown area and were still in the car looking for a place to park when I noticed a parade route sign. We hunted for a car lot and a restaurant. People in the back seat were getting hungry. We started to see strangers dressed festively in green. More parade route signs. "Wow, there's hardly any traffic here," said Husband. Parade Route. "Did you see that parade route sign?" I asked. "Yes. It's the second one we passed." Parade Route. "There must have been some kind of parade here today." "Mommy, what day is today?" Parade Route. "March 17th. Why?" "I keep seeing people dressed in green. Is it St. Patrick's Day?" Parade Route. "You know what? I believe it is," I exclaimed. "Hey, wait a minute...all of these "Parade Route" signs...do you think we just missed a St. Patrick's Day parade or something?" "Either that, or there is going to be one," said Husband, pulling into a parking spot. We got out and organized ourselves. A case of true Southern hospitality, we had driven down all of the parade route when we shouldn't have, and not one native said a thing about it. We asked passersby when the parade would start, found a restaurant/bar and waited for a table. Husband and I each drank a green beer, or at least I did. He had one in a green bottle. Finally we were seated at a table and ate a Southern dinner of ham, biscuits, gravy, and sweet tea. When we were done, we exited the bar to find that the sidewalks along the parade route had grown crowded. And the parade was about to start. We could not have timed it better. The parade had floats and balloons and confetti and and everything green. There were two different floats of Elvises that both threw moon pies at the us. My favorite float was the Hispanic Elvises, separate from the two Caucasian Elvises. They threw loose tortillas at us. And the final float, true to my own bookish heart, was one of the Sweet Potato Queens. Although mostly men in this parade's float, if you know the book, you also know that equality rules for membership as a Sweet Potato Queen. I had recently read, The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, But Could Have, and May Yet, by Jill Conner Brown with Karen Gillespie. We managed to catch a couple of moon pies and one tortilla. On the way back to DeGray Lake Resort, we stopped off at a store and bought Pepsi Cola and milk. Then we returned to our vacation home and fed the kids cracked and broken moon pies. Later, when we were going to bed, I told my husband, "You know that parade seemed like something we didn't actually do, but always wanted to." "But we did," he said. "I want to be a Sweet Potato Queen." "You may yet," he said. "You may just yet." March 16, 2021--Turkey Vultures Return to the Living Sign Day
If you go hiking around here, you may see a turkey vulture, also commonly called a buzzard. They eat carrion, and thusly make good on the saying, "What goes around, comes around." They are nature's neat little way of getting rid of waste. If you see them circling, they are having a feast on something below. Traditionally, turkey vultures return to their roosting sites on St. Patrick's Day which is tomorrow. According to wildbirds.org, this bird is associated with death and other sinister elements, although it really offers cleansing and purification. In many cultures, the turkey vulture is seen as the messenger between life and death. They have a contradictory symbolism of darkness, mystery, and divine power. In Tibet, the vulture is thought of as an angel because it feeds on dead bodies. According to this unconventional belief, the dead body's soul is then taken to heaven to await the next incarnation. Speaking of incarnation or more specifically--reincarnation, do the words incarceration and reincarnation mean the same thing? In the The Love Bug movie in 1969, there is a character who says, "We all prisoners, Chickee Baby. We all locked in." He appears to be from the hippie generation. In a similar way, Don Henley, of the Eagles, famously wrote and sang the song, "Hotel California," in 1977. In the song, he sings that, "We are just prisoners here, of our own device." Quick research on the Online Etymology Dictionary reveals that both incarceration and reincarnation are only rudimentally linked. Incarnation has to do with being embodied, as in the body of Christ. Reincarnation is when a soul gets reborn according to some religions. And incarceration is to be held in an enclosed space. However, if the human body is thought of as an enclosed space where the human spirit is held, then the link makes more sense. What if we replaced all uses of the word 'reincarnation' with 'reincarceration?' It might go something like this, "In my next life, I want to be reincarcerated as a dog." It becomes apparent rather quickly that belief in reincarnation has some flaws. I don't think you can wish yourself into your next reincarnation, but I'm not really sure. Maybe you could. And I am not going to say that Christianity has it much better. Our after life is all based on belief, faith, and taking a leap of it. I know I pride myself on taking leaps and expecting a net to appear. My experience has been that there is very little planning when this happens. So, I am now going to admit that I have a healthy amount of doubt in this regard. I am hoping that when my turn comes, I will just take that leap with little thinking about it. I am hoping that when I die, I will hear the voice of God, or my inner voice as some would call it, telling me to just, "Jump!" when the time comes. If I am honest, this calling--or whisper--to me has been the thing that has steered me the right direction my entire life. I have never understood fellow Christians who talk faith as if they have never had a doubt. Not once? Never? How can someone not question the very thing that has no evidence except eye witness testimony? We are told every day now to "follow the science." What science does life after death follow in any religion? None at all. It still remains the greatest unknown idea. And yes, I do know that it is what all faith is based on. What I think I find fault with is the most assured among us who know beyond a reasonable doubt. You can't even go to prison for murder if there is a reasonable doubt, speaking of incarcerations. It seems that as humans, we were made to doubt. Going back, if we stretch our imaginations a bit, we can use the idea of the encapsulated spirit that never dies (according to most religions) to represent the idea of reincarnation, that is if you believe in it. But I have already said that, haven't I? Oh, well. I guess what goes around, comes around. March 15, 2021--Everything you Think is Wrong Day/Ides of March
Most of us read the Shakespearian play, Julius Caesar when we were in high school. Reading this play is where we got to know the term, 'the Ides of March' which has something to do with the Roman calendar. Loosely translated it means mid-month or mid-March. Hence, today. And it was a fortune teller who said, "Beware the Ides of March," (Act I, Scene 2). To be sure, poor old Julius Caesar got the surprise of his life, or the surprise of his death, that is, when he was murdered by fellow statesmen on this day. Everything he previously thought, that he was a great ruler and that all of his colleague politicians were in support of him, was wrong. It must be completely devastating to find out people you thought were once your friends have stabbed you in the back, or in the heart, or all over, or whatever the hell happened to Julius Caesar. He was stabbed to death. That is all we really know. Although I read the play in high school and again in college, I never taught it. Probably I should have. There is a whole group of adults walking around out there who do not know what 'the Ides of March' means, or what it represents. I guess when they have their everything-I-(previously)-thought-was-wrong-moment, they will have no context in which to put it. If a person can have a Spartacus moment, then they can also have a Julius Caesar moment. My first Caesar moment was when my brother told me that Freddie Mercury was gay. It was the late seventies. Although technically a teen, I was still basically a child in so many ways. I don't think I even knew what the term, 'gay' meant. It was not commonly used back then. I didn't believe my brother, at first. And I remember thinking that if it were true that Freddie Mercury is gay, then what else could be true? If I go back before that, I guess finding out about sex in general was my first real everything-I-(previously)-thought-was-wrong day. And it was put in the context of my own parents. When presented in this manner it is easily dismissed. No one's parents actually do that kind of thing? Right? Am I right? Please tell me I am right. If you listen to any news today from the mass media, you may as well kiss everything you previously knew as truth good-bye. My kid believes in the illuminati. And he thinks Beyoncé is a leader of it. I have shown him videos disproving his theory, but for every video I can find to erase these ideas, there is another one that presents it in a more fascinating way as #truth. There are so many videos, in fact, that I cannot physically keep up with them. Here is what I have done though. I told him every single thing you ever read or heard on the internet is flat out wrong. Period. End of discussion. If you want the truth, you must speak to a reliable source in person. And you live with the two most reliable sources in the universe, your mom and dad. March 14, 2021-Write Your Own Story Day I am a noncompetitive person. For example, when asked the question, how well do rewards and incentives work for you, my answer is simple. Not at all. I actually hate incentives. They have always seemed so fabricated to me. Why should I be motivated by fake rewards? Whenever I have made a real change to something in my life, it is from getting forced into it, as in there is no real way out except to change my behavior. Recently, I was coerced (yes, I'm talking about you, Book Club Girls) into reading a book, Younger by Next Year for Women, by Chris Crowley and Harry S. Lodge. I would not say I was exactly coerced, but when a group of my friends began discussing it, I felt left out. I had been doing nothing to enhance my physical well-being. Well, at least not exercising on a regular basis. For ten long years, I was on a cancer medication (Letrozole) that blocked all estrogen. I did not realize how this one little pill affected my life. I hardly exercised at all. And if I did, it was because I had something I wanted done to be completed, like stones set in place around my patio. One day, I did manage to place heavy rocks around my back porch by myself. There have also been moments of moving furniture, rapid and deep house cleaning, bits of gardening, but all of those activities left me exhausted the next day. When I finally got the reprieve from my doctor to stop taking the pill, my energy started to come back. And then I read that book. I went kicking and screaming (inside my head) into reading it, and then reluctantly to the gym where I have had a membership for ages. The one upside to all of my disinclination was that I was actually beginning to feel like my old self again. My bones and joints do not ache. And I don't have chronic fatigue either. In short, I do not feel like I am eighty years old anymore. This type of pain is difficult to explain. And it embarrassed me as well. When asked if I cared to go on a hike or a walk, I had to demur. And when it got to my ten year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, it seemed like I just courted laziness or something. And except for my oncologist, none of my other doctors understood the effect of that pill. They would always ask me if or how often I exercised. When I was truthful, I got a lecture. And so, I lied to them when asked the question. But here's a thought. They were holding my medical chart in their hands when they lectured me. Why didn't they know the side effects of Letrozole and put two and two together? Truth be told, no one forced me to read that book, but I did want to have something to contribute to the conversation about it. And boy, does that book spell out danger. It is tedious, and much of it we already know about. And the authors are kind of misogynistic. But if you can get past all of that, they paint a very ugly picture on the aging process without daily exercise. You could say that book is responsible for my newly found daily exercise regimen, mild as it is. The good news is that while to some it may be mild, each day it gets a little more intense. That would be me you see riding my pink cruiser bicycle through the 'hood. Change is afoot as round and round I go, but Lordy, don't the wheels turn slow. March 13, 2021-International Fanny Pack Day
It was 2006, and my daughter was five years old. She was going into kindergarten when school started up again, and she was finding all sorts of new independent things to do with herself. In the meantime, we were all on a family trip Walt Disneyworld. It was around midday when we took a break for lunch and then the restroom after eating. The Disney bathrooms are clean and always have an attendant in them. I guess this it to make you feel at ease. The restroom we chose was one in Tomorrowland, and it was very futuristic, or at least up to date in the way things turned out. The place was crowded. I wanted to implement our fast pass while waiting for a stall, but the attendant wouldn't hear of it. Anyways, I think she might have actually been an animatronic. So five year old daughter decided then and there that for the very first time ever she needed to go into a public bathroom stall all by herself. This idea scared the jeepers out me, more than the ride on the Space Mountain had done. I had a friend who took field trips to the Florida park every year with stranger's kids. (I know. Crazy, right?) Anyways, she had told me the Disney people always had the talk with these kids. The talk about how nefarious characters and villains (but not the Disney sort) could take a kid who was alone into a bathroom, die their hair, and then quickly get out of the park with them as soon as possible. I don't know how all of this could happen when there was an attendant in every bathroom, but it preyed upon my mind. When daughter went into a stall alone, it's all I could think of. That and my urgent need to pee. The stall next hers opened up, and I found myself rushing in, stripping down as fast as possible. I say stripping down because as my outfit-of-the-day, I had chosen overall shorts with a tee shirt underneath. Tennis shoes and, of all things, a fanny pack instead of a purse. It was not meant to be a fashion statement back in 2006, although fanny packs have recently made a trendy comeback. So off with the pack. Off with the overalls. As we both sat side by side in tandem stalls, I tried to keep tabs on Daughter by engaging in conversation the whole time. Meanwhile toilets were flushing, doors were swinging open and shut, faucets were running, and hand air dryers were blowing. It was busy in there to be sure. Daughter finished before me. I instructed her to wait right outside my stall, but one can never be sure, you know. I wouldn't have been surprised if in her new found five year old independence, she would have washed her hands, dried them, and then wondered off to find her dad and brother. Meanwhile I rushed my overalls back into position. There is a reason that air plane attendants tell you to place air masks on yourself first before putting one on your child, in the case of an emergency. I should have followed their advice with the fanny pack. Instead of buckling it back around my waist, I just put it over my shoulder like a purse. Until I washed my hands, that is. Daughter was dutifully waiting for me when I excited my stall. Together we washed our hands and dried them. In the process of helping her reach the faucet (although newly independent, she was still short) I must have laid my fanny pack on the counter. And since I had spent the day walking around without a purse on my arm or shoulder, I was not used to having anything in my hands. And thusly, we exited the restroom. It was about twenty minutes later that I remembered the fanny pack. Of course, I rushed back to the same restroom to retrieve it. A different attendant was then on duty. "How could that be?" I wondered. The woman did not know anything about a fanny pack getting left there, but she did tell me where the lost and found was located. The rest is a longer story about how I became a terrorist in the eyes of Disney and how they had to keep my fanny pack in a secret room for forty eight hours to make sure it did not explode or something. And I was left with no ID, no hotel key, and worst of all, no cash, and no credit card. I mean my husband was with me, but I essentially became his third child during those forty eight hours, asking him for money when I needed it. And all of this is because I did something unusual for me, like wear a fanny pack to Disneyland. And also because of 911. Thanks, terrorists. March 12, 2021--National Working Moms Day
Warning: This post may contain information that could cause emotional triggers. The battle between professional working moms and stay-at-home moms is never-ending. I have done both. Repeat. I have done both. And the answer, my friends, is that working moms have it way, way worse. If you are a stay at home mom, you can get the kids off to school or practices while still in your pajamas. You can even take them to school in your pajamas. Heck, you can even walk into the school, sign them in at the attendance office due to their untimely late arrival, run home, pack their lunch, drive back to the school and deliver it to the same dazed attendance clerk, and then stop off at Walmart on your way back home for a gallon of milk. It all depends on what kind of pajamas you choose. Sound like I have done that? Oh, yes. You bet. More than once. After that kind of an eventful morning, I then returned home to bask in the glow of an empty house and full pot of coffee. Bliss. When I was a working mom, which was most of my adult life, I couldn't do any of that. When I walked out of the house each morning, with kids in tow, everything had to be ready. Here is a list that I had to check off every single morning before 7:00 a.m.:
Working mom syndrome is something I made up, but it basically means living with enough stress to fill a medical volume. Everyday of being a working mom with kids was like packing for a day at the beach without the relaxation that the seashore entails once you got there. And now a word about help. My husband's job always started earlier than mine. So he left first, sometimes before the rest of us were up--or at least fully awake. I know what he was running from though. And doing the nightly chore of putting the offspring to bed is not the same at all. There is no real deadline for going to sleep. Not the kind of deadline given by someone like a school attendance lady who counts every single step into the doorway of the school as if it is a line in the sand. I would find myself exhausted in the evening with barely enough energy to feed the kids, take a shower, and crawl into bed. All of those magazine articles and advice columns on how to streamline your morning routine are a bunch of bunk. They are only there to sell 'zines. There is no answer to it really. The best you can hope for is a dehydrated dog, a huge electric bill, runny noses all around, secret lunch money stuffed into the bottom of backpacks, a good Gladys Kravitz as a neighbor, wasted dairy products, and an extra phone charger in the car. Also in your desk at work. A purse full of granola bars is also a plus. I told you this post would contain trigger warnings, now didn't I? March 11, 2021--Dream Day Dream interpretation is one of my hobbies. I love symbolism, and dreams are rife with them. The topic of dreams is everywhere in our culture where emotion is involved. There are so many songs about dreams that it is difficult to focus on just one. Therefore, I will go back to original source material, in the guise of Shakespeare: We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. (Prospero, The Tempest, IV.i.156-158). I know there are those who will think a dream is just all of your jumbled thoughts, ideas, and sensory input getting processed through the subconscious and straightened out into some kind of cohesive story. Isn't it interesting that our subconscious minds insist on making story? I guess our subconscious knows a thing or two. Putting a jumbled mess of sensory input and details into some semblance of a story is a way of getting us to remember things. And a way of making sense of that is which is incomprehensible. I will give you a personal example. In my conscious life, I have been thinking lately about my extended family. Specifically about my parents. Just last night I dreamed about a relative going over a waterfall. What I know about dream interpretation is not much. In fact, it is only enough to be dangerous and scary. However, even though I do own a few books on the topic, you can also just google dream interpretation. When I googled "dream interpretation--waterfall," I got 57,000 results. Thanks to Google's powerful search engine, I just clicked on the first one to tell me the most obvious answer. And the answer to what does watching a close relative going over a waterfall mean? It indicates that there is physical and emotional distance between you and the relative. And that is true for me. I think what this dream was getting at is the changes that are happening to me emotionally. I lost my dad this year, and my mom is sick with severe memory problems that will not get better. I think I am sensing this changing of the guard so to speak. In a very short time from now, I will be the keeper of the memories of family stories and lore. In fact, I may already be there. And how I came to have this dream is also important. You see I have recently been going through my dad's old photographs and looking at them. I am sorting them into stacks to give to various relatives. Of course, I am keeping some for myself, but I believe this process has played an important part in my subconscious mind as well. Here is the little bit I know about dream interpretation. To interpret your dreams, you must be willing to think about your emotions. Dreams often reveal emotions that you have covered up or that you are not willing to deal with. Ask yourself how you felt during a dream and "BOOM." Usually that question is enough to get your answer. In that same dream I mentioned earlier, I was also getting wheeled down passages and hallways, but never quite finding a destination. Perhaps, that part of the dream is about my life. Hallways, roads, and passages are often a symbol for life. Funny, but my mother was pushing me in my dream and all of my relatives were following. It now seems a little like the movie, "Being John Malkovich." "Being John Malkovich" is about all of the relatives of a man, sitting around up inside of his head when they die. It is a weird, but interesting interpretation of the afterlife. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It's strange and will make you think. And it also fits nicely with the whole theme of family memory. Thanks for indulging me in one of my favorite hobbies. Send me your dream information, and I will do my best. Or you can just google it. March 10th, 2021--Festival of Life in the Cracks Day
The title of today's celebration sounds like a Shel Silverstein poem. However, it is not. I checked. Instead it is a day to celebrate the arrival of spring with new things popping up in the cracks in the sidewalk, such as weeds. I guess today was thought up by some city dwellers because any gardener would not celebrate weeds popping up through cracks in the sidewalk. I knew a woman once who put Roundup on the cracks in her driveway to keep weeds from popping through. When I found out that the product kept weeds from coming back into your driveway cracks, I rushed home to tell my husband about this amazing concoction. That is when he told me he didn't like to use things with so many chemicals in them to kill what was underneath our cement, that is--the ground. Turns out now I keep getting emails in my inbox asking me if I ever used Roundup. There is some kind of class action law suit pending, I guess. Well, Monsanto, guess what? I have never used your product. When I married my husband, I had no idea that he was such a naturalist. When I was a young teacher, I found out about a phrase that followed me throughout my teaching career, and that is, "Some of these kids will fall through the cracks." What this means is that in spite of our best intentions, some kids will not be reached by the educational system in America. It is the explanation for so much of society's ills. I spent twenty-seven years of my life trying to get kids to not fall through the cracks of higher level thinking. One hundred and thirty(ish) kids at a time, five days a week, for one hundred and eighty days a year, I single handedly fought the blight. According to the The Peak Performance Center, thinking skills are what you use to process information, make connections, and create new ideas. The simplest thinking skills involve learning facts and recall. Higher order skills involve analysis, synthesis, problem solving, and evaluation. English class curriculum covers them all. This I know. I was there. Every school year, at the end of term, there were forms to be filled out on every kid who did not meet expectations, in other words, who failed. You do not know how many times I wanted to write, "He/she fell through my cracks." Someone told me if I wrote that in the form, it could be used in a Court of Law. The threat of something you once wrote getting used in a Court of Law is enough to give one pause. No way would I write something on a form that could be used in a Court of Law which could come back to bite me in the butt, or shall I say, in the crack? All of this knowledge caused me to search my cranial archives to actually write something useful. I had to access my higher order thinking skills. By that, I mean I was forced to analyze where I could have possibly gone wrong with this problem kid. It involved taking everything I knew about my subject and everything I knew about the kid and just generally, everything I knew, and whittling down all of that information into one cohesive sentence--as that was all the room given to write an explanation on the form. I, of course, could have written volumes on where, why, and when this failure to thrive had occured. Speaking of a Court of Law, I guess Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) did not use their higher order thinking skills when they marketed Roundup to the general public. If they had, they would have known that everything they ever said about the product could be used in a Court of Law. And now, it seems all of that information has came back to bite them in the crack. March 9, 2021--National Fruits and Vegetables Month My grandpa grew up on a farm. He was the eldest out of a family of nine children. Therefore, when it came time to take the fruits and vegetables to the farmer's market to sell, he was the one who went. My grandmother was one of four children, three girls and one boy. I never met my grandma's brother, as he died young of some kind of disease. It might have been the Spanish flu. She told me once, but I can't recall. One day, Nanny (my grandma) and her two sisters were shopping at the farmer's market for their mama, as they did every Saturday. That's when Grandpa met Nanny. He overheard her talking to her two sisters about the town dance that night. He didn't speak to any of them, just overheard the conversation, and tucked that knowledge into his hat. That evening, he made sure he was at that town dance. I have no way of knowing now if Nanny's two sisters were already involved in their own romances, or if they were also single. Since Nanny was the youngest of her family, it would be interesting to know what transpired at that dance and in the household. Knowing what I know now about siblings, especially sisters, it would be nice to know what Winnona and Earlene were up to about then. They each married. Winnona had two boys, about the same ages as my mom and uncle. Earlene married, but never had children. I have never known a set of sibling sisters who were not jealous of each other at one time or another. I guess I'll never know if either of Nanny's two sisters were jealous of her romance with Grandpa or if she was the first to marry. I think my mom was the eldest cousin, though. How I imagine it all went down is like this. Nanny notices Grandpa from down the walkway of the farmer's market. He is a tall drink of water. He notices her noticing him. He makes it his mission to get her and her sisters to come to his booth. He jostles about, straightening and polishing fruit. Finally, they are at his booth. He is overly solicitous. Her sisters barely notice. He lurks over them, listening in as they discuss the upcoming dance. Nanny says she isn't going. Her sisters talk her into it. He doesn't say a thing about the dance, but gives them some extra apples or oranges as they finalize their purchases. Finally, at the dance, he waits and watches. Nanny and her sisters show up. My great aunts have dates and know their way around a dance floor. Nanny gets asked to dance a few times. Finally, Grandpa works up his courage, and asks her to dance. I hope he was light on his feet because the rest is history. Six weeks later, he asked her to marry him. I wish I knew more about their romance and courtship, but that is essentially all I know. I wonder if she refused him initially, or if she was the least bit hesitant. The oddest thing about this whole affair is that in my entire life, I never knew my grandparents to dance with each other. There is plenty I do know about them, but I don't remember them ever dancing. I guess they got it all out of their systems long ago and far away. What is true is that they got married six weeks after that first dance and stayed together over fifty years until Nanny passed away from Alzheimer's disease. Grandpa got remarried a few years after she died, but that is another story. March 8, 2021-National Craft Month
I would like to rename today's celebration Crafter's Awareness Month. By this renaming I mean that crafters (like me) should be aware of what stores they make their crafting purchases from. Not because of some lofty idea of where the store's products come from, but because sometimes a person (like me) needs to return an item to a store where she purchased it. For example, I have installed a new and more interesting art project into my non-working fireplace. I say it is non-working mostly because it has never burned a successful fire in all of the years we have lived in this house. During the event that shall ever after be referred to as the Wicked and Wretched Whiteout of 2021 when we went without power for almost a week (four days) and temperatures got down to seven degrees, we tried to use our defunct fireplace. It did not work. I had an old firestarter log that was moved from our previous house seventeen years ago. I tried to use it during the Wicked and Wretched Whiteout, but it burned a little bit and fizzled. Then I would light it again, and the same thing would happen. It never took off into a roaring blaze. In the meantime, during this crisis, on a day of icy streets, I contacted a man who was still selling firewood. I took along number 1 son, Muscles Malone, to lift the wood for me, but it turned out he wasn't needed. My dealer put it in my trunk for me. So then we hauled it all home, unloaded it, and proceeded to not burn it thanks to the ancient firestarter log. And now that the storm is all said and done, I have to find a place to store all of that wood until next winter. My solution was to make a sort of woody, rocky scene inside of the fireplace box lit with electric candles. My problems started when one of my candles, the biggest and center piece of it all, did not work. A return to the craft store was called for. I had thrown away my receipt due to a free-this-house-of-clutter mania that had swept over me when the sun had finally appeared after the second week of gloomy skies in a row. My large candle and I made a trip the Michael's Craft Store. I went straight the cashier and explained my dilemma. I had a product that was malfunctioning, but no receipt to show proof of purchase. "No problem," I was reassured. The clerk went through every telephone number I could remember and my credit card number. When my name and receipt finally showed up, my candle purchase was not in evidence. She looked up the candle's universal product code. A manager was called as a long line of paying customers formed behind me. The candle was not something they carried in the store. "But I bought it here a week ago," I protested. The manager looked it up on the store's website. They do not carry that brand, she confirmed. I wanted to talk to someone higher than the store manager. Who could I ask for, though? She had the sole authority over the store. I had to restrain my inner Karen. Finally, the manager said, "Let me just google this candle for you." At last, she was able to tell me that the candle I had insisted came from Michael's, was a standard product sold at Jo-Ann's Fabric and Craft Store. I tried to manage my composure. "What? Are you sure?" "Well, it says here that the brand is one sold at Jo-Ann's," she repeated. "Right. Well, thank you very much," I huffed and tried to hoof my way out of there with what dignity I could muster. I went straight away to Jo-Ann's, repeated the same process, and left with a new candle and my poise intact. I'm not even sure if I like my new arrangement of logs and candles in my fireplace box, but I'm not changing it now. It is the receptacle of logs, candles, and what is left of my self-respect. March 7, 2021--Termite Awareness Week Perhaps the worst thing that any home owner can be told is that their house has been infected with...TERMITES! (Cue the high-pitched ax chopping, knife-stabbing sound as played in the movie, "Psycho.") This week is Termite Awareness Week, and the thing about termites is that you are largely unaware of them until one day you are walking through your home and your foot smashes through a floorboard. Well, that is not entirely true. You should have been able to feel the floorboard getting a bit wonky before you impale your ankle through it. Our old house had termites. In the master bath. They found their home there due to an inperfectly and anciently placed shower pan. It was completely not our fault. That was an old ranch house built in 1954. I loved that house. I mean it had good and bad things about it, but mostly I loved it. After the termites were discovered, we had to have the shower pan replaced and part of the wall removed--new studs and sheetrock put in. I love me a good stud. All puns aside, when the sheetrock was removed, and we could see the damage to the studs, it freaked me out. There was the basic frame of our home, rotting away. And we had lived there for a year or two and had no idea. No idea that all of this damage was going on. I found myself unable to sleep at night. I imagined little munching men inside our walls, eating away at the very foundation of our home and everything we held sacred. All of this trauma happened before HGTV was a thing. Now, thankfully, as I have been a faithful watcher, I know that termites are not the end of everything. There is so much that can be fixed in a structure without undoing the entire thing. At the time of our termites, the only show on television that was akin to HGTV was "This Old House." I was a huge fan. I once told my husband that in my next life I was going to marry Bob Vila, one of the most regrettable things I have ever said. I don't think that I said it in anything related to the termites, either. I probably said it because I imagined a beautiful addition added to the back of our house. Something that would conceivably have taken an entire work crew, an architect, and I don't know...like a million dollars or something. All of this thinking about termites has me wondering about what else might be lurking within. Termites are akin to cancer in the human body, something I know a bit about. Through all of my cancer treatment, I never thought of myself as permanently damaged or beyond repair. Although that is all behind me now, there are bits of it that linger, such as scars. And speaking of scars, do you know what gives you a scar? Damage does. A cut to the core--beyond the surface is what leads to scars. Some scars are invisible, though. Those would be the scars on your heart, or to your spirit. During this week of termite awareness, I pledge to keep myself from laying scars on anyone's spirit. This might be done by watching what I say, or better yet, not saying anything at all. Anyone up for the challenge? |
AuthorKaren Schwabenland--Keeper of a daily blog of written matter, reporter of events large and small, and charlatan extraordinaire Archives
September 2022
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