76 Guards in 24 Hours .... can you spell overdose?

This looks a lot like a guard show to me. I first learned about this by watching a movie called "Under the Tuscan Sun" and was fascinated enough by it to look it up on the internet. Flag Throwers - Check it out


Weekend Happenings ...

Friday Night … Del Oro Show
Woodcreek = 1st Place Novice Guard

Saturday Afternoon … Granada Show
Franklin = 2nd Place Novice Guard

I wish either of them were going to Championships … I wish they both were. I think they would have kicked some serious booty. Ah well! I’m happy they both ended their seasons on such a high note.

On Friday night my friend Robert (another guard-geek-judging-type) and I carpooled to Fresno where we judged 43 color guards in a 6 hour span with only a 15-minute break to sustain us. Whew! Circuit Highpoint -- I love the Fresno circuit because they pay you before the show so you can leave the moment you’ve handed your last sheet in. Circuit Low point – the food wasn’t ready when the judges arrived so we starved for a couple of hours until the break. At the end of the show, we were hanging around chatting and waiting for a recap and I got blindsided by an instructor whose guard I tanked. I didn’t mean to tank them. It wasn’t an oversight. It wasn’t even a mistake. I just liked the other five guards better. I’m expecting an “accountability email” sometime today. After the show we drove to Tracy since we both had a show to judge in Livermore the next day. Tracy was an approximate halfway point and good choice. I was dead-dog tired by the time we got there (at about 2 a.m.) and the MicroTel chain is my new favorite motel choice. You get a LOT more for a few extra bucks …. safety and lack-of-foot-traffic being the primo motivating factors behind spending those few extra dollars.

Saturday morning I headed out bright and early to attend a meeting for all the folks judging at the Livermore and Granada shows. We talked at length about the meaning of the sheet criteria over Starbucks coffee. I know it clarified some things for me and I think it gave us all our best opportunity yet to apply the criteria in a more consistent manner between judges. All of those present have a championship slot so I think what we accomplished at this meeting will carry us over the remainder of the season and has positioned us to be really successful … and I’m excited about the jumpstart that gives us going into the next season.

Judging the Livermore show took an eternity … it was brutal … and I think that’s because we had mostly jr high and novice guards there, OR because I’m really sick, OR because I had just judged 44 guards the night before???? Generally, I enjoy judging the novice guards … I really do …. I think it’s where we judges have the biggest opportunity to make the most positive impact. I sincerely feel that if groups don’t grow that, to some degree, the judging community is responsible (for who else is there to help develop the beginning instructors). I love watching the kids get better and better with each season. Even so, judging that day was akin to having a terminal illness and I couldn’t wait to just keel over and die. Get the shovel already! Pay me and let me outta’ here. Sigh. After we were done at Livermore the three of us on the panel all headed over to the show at Granada to get another chance to watch the Open guards. I’m so glad we went. Watching as a spectator with another trusted colleague gave me the chance to review the overall production value of each guard. I took some notes and mentally filed some visual impressions and I feel pretty confident about my observations going into championships …. which is a mere two weeks away.

After the show Saturday night four of the judges gathered at Applebee’s (where we probably should have paid rent since we were there so long they finally had to ask us to leave) to compare notes and talk shop. My true-blue friend Di convinced me that we should stay in a hotel that night instead of braving the long drive to Roseville in the wee hours of the morning. I’m so glad she’s a tenacious chick … it took her four tries to convince me but she finally did. Thanks girlfriend!

Sunday morning Di and I parted ways over muffins and cheese biscuits around 10 a.m. and it took me ALL day to get home … I stopped at Walmart for some much deserved retail therapy and a long overdue pedicure then took myself to Davis where I lingered all afternoon with my son on his front porch finally arriving home in Roseville around 5:00 p.m. just in time to go to the Benedict’s house for a birthday celebration …. mmmm barbecue and birthday cake. What a relaxing day.

Highlights ...
As the season winds down I find myself counting my dollars down too. My earnings will go back to normal after 4/1 and I want to be sure that I’ve hit as many big ticket items as I can. Even though I’ll still have some important things to cover, I’ve shaken off and stomped a mudhole in the ass of most of the monkeys that were on my back … so … I feel good … da-da da-da da-da dut <$1 to Joe>.

My Visual DNA

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Nest Building .....

I seriously miss my cat Motown . He has been my true friend through some really crummy times. He’s great about being dependent when I need him and independent when I don’t. For example, he knew I needed him pasted to my side through the summer of 2004 and the fall of 2006 and that the rest of the time he knew he was free to dominate the outdoors. He’s been a good companion when I needed him most. Currently he’s warming Kevin and Devon’s feet until I can find a new nest. I need him right now. I wonder if he could live under my desk at work. Sigh … I probably couldn’t get away with pretending he’s a paper weight right?

On the topic of a new nest, yesterday at lunch I moved the search forward by going to look at a place in downtown that claimed on the internet to be “cute” and “affordable”. These are important words! This was the third place I’ve looked at and I had high hopes. I wanted it to do “it” for me. It was in a great area but it was a bit too grimy and bohemian for me. Sigh. Everything and everyone looks good on paper I guess. It’s just as well … there were no pets allowed … which means I would have had to lie because Mo is coming with me … period. The true gating factor in an apartment will be whether or not my fabulous-free-to-me-thank-you-Stu enormous couch will fit in the living room.

Highlights …
I’m in the last few days of teaching colorguard this season and I’ve gotta’ say I’m relieved to a large degree. The Frankie’s skills and work ethic have gotten better and better this season resulting in them taking 5th in Novice at the Elk Grove show last weekend. The Woodies have gotten lazy and complacent and its’ taken a toll. They placed 4th last Saturday just a few points in front of the Frankies … ooh scary, scary, cemetery <$1 to Chris>. I slapped them around a bit the other night and we’ll see if that works for their performance this Friday night. I hope so. I’d like to see them end their winterguard season happily. They have 3 judges who’ve never seen them before so anything can happen. The Frankies’ last show is Saturday at Granada. They will have two judges who’ve never seen them before so I’m crossing my fingers for them. I’ve given them the “don’t worry about the scores” speech …. and this time I mean it. I just want them to end their season feeling triumphant. Believe me; many people (including me) are surprised to see them still on the floor. I’m proud of the tenacity some of them have shown and, in support of everything they’ve done and to back up what I’ve told them, I bought this package of little plastic gold medals that say “winner” on them and I gave one to each of them last night to wear for their final run through. Hokey maybe, but I think they enjoyed the recognition.

I have a Fresno Friday this week followed by an NCBA gig in Livermore and I’m finding myself actually looking forward to the weekend …. go figure!

AND NOW .... DRUM ROLL PLEASE AND SOUND THE TRUMPETS
As of tonight at midnight (when my direct deposit hits) ALL, count 'em ALL, of my pay day advance loans will be a distant memory. Hooray for my side! Thanks Stubert!! I couldn't have done it if I wasn't being your roomie.

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Updates, Updates, Updates .....

The last weekend was really busy …. Friday night in Fresno, Saturday morning in Modesto and then an autobahn race up the 5 across the 12 and into Fairfield just in time to see my two groups of guard kids perform. I made it to Armijo High School with about fifteen minutes to spare getting there just in time to catch up with the Franklin kids in the warm up room, give ‘em a quick pep talk and push them into the gym … literally. As soon as they were through performing I reran (ran being the operative word) that same circuit with the Woodcreek kids and THEN said goodbye to the Frankies and hustled over to Fairfield to do it all again with the Woodies. Both groups represented themselves well. The Franklin kids let their butterflies go to their head a bit and took 7th while the Woodies did far better than I thought they would and took 2nd … at both shows. There’s work to do but it’s an auspicious start. My good buddy Stu came to Frankie rehearsals with me this week and wrote some super-duper swing flag phrases that I think will help the Frankies rock the house. Both groups have shows again this weekend in Elk Grove …. I predict the Woodies will place lower (but hope desperately that I’m wrong) and Franklin will place higher (and hope desperately that I’m right) … putting away my colorguard crystal ball … for now. Sunday I allowed myself a bit of retail therapy followed by lunch and drinks with some fellow guard geeks and ended the day by having dinner with my son and his girlfriend. All in all, a recuperative and badly needed day off. This weekend while the kids are performing at Elk Grove I’ll be judging at Vallejo. After all the ballyhoo on World of Pageantry this week the NCBA judging panels for both the Elk Grove and Vallejo shows have been doing a lot of conversing about their thoughts and views on the various shows. I think conversation helps. Sometimes you find things out that escaped your view by talking to others and you get one of those light bulb moments if you know what I mean. I haven’t had one yet about the upcoming shows but there’s hope for the future.

Speaking of hope for the future. I’m a single girl now. Unofficially single sure, but single in my heart where it matters most. Now that I know with a certainty that’s the path my life is on, I’m free to plan, free to do, free to go on, free to commit or indulge myself, and simply free to be me. While I haven’t graduated to the point where it feels good to be single, I know that I will and I look forward to that. I’m regretful for the wasted time but I’m also thankful for the wonderful moments that have been sprinkled over the vast wasteland that has been the past few years of my marriage and for the lessons I have learned. Sometimes people damage and disappoint you. Sometimes they amaze you. Sometimes you give of yourself to people who don’t deserve or appreciate it …and sometimes you have moments of clarity in which you realize you can’t fix someone else no matter how hard you try and you need to focus on fixing yourself. I hate that I’ve failed a second time at marriage. Maybe one day I’ll just have to admit that choosing partners is not something I’m good at. Sigh. In the meantime, a clear, blue horizon lies ahead and I have every intention of enjoying the discoveries yet to be made.

Highlights ...

The Frog has four new tires and I think they actually make him taller, prouder and greener?

The bank account now has four digits

I cruised midtown at lunch yesterday, looked at a couple of places and now have a better idea of what my lifestyle there would be like -- thinking about it seriously

In the Meantime ...

Give a shout out to God on my behalf and ask him to keep his wild and crazy sense of humor in check for awhile.



:)

Push, Pull .... Collapse

I said good bye to my very best friend in the world today.

Heartbreakingly we just couldn't find the reset button this time.

This is for him.



Hearts of fire creates love desire
Take you high and higher to the world you belong
Hearts of fire creates love desire
High and higher to your place on the throne

Weve come together on this special day
To sing our message loud and clear
Looking back weve touched on sorrowful days
Future pass, they disappear

You will find peace of mind
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Dont hesitate cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart cause youre never (never, never, ..) old at heart

Thats the way of the world
Plant your flower and you grow a pearl
A child is born with a heart of gold
The way of the world makes his heart grow cold



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YES, I am THAT old ...

A friend sent me this picture of the 1977 CCGC instructor's colorguard performing their version of "The Sorceror's Apprentice" (a spoof on other colorguards) at Western Regionals.

Don't hurt yourself .... I'm the one fourth from the right in the very back row. In the tradition of "Where's Waldo" ... find Stanley Knaub, Kathy Whitcomb and Tom Andrews.

It's hard to believe we were EVER that young ... or thin!!!

I hate commuter traffic ...

It’s such an exercise in futility. As I look at the cars stuck on the other side of the freeway as well as the ones stuck on mine I often wonder that we don’t just call a meeting in an arena somewhere, network and trade jobs … or houses … and avoid the whole thing by all being ten minutes from work.

This morning I sat at a dead stop on the freeway squinting into the sun, for what felt like an eternity, frustrated by the fabulous illusion that all the lanes but mine were moving. My baser, primal instincts began to surface and I experienced a brief but vivid kinship with cheetahs and lions and tigers (oh my) as I realized I was actually scouting the faster moving lane next to me like a predator looking for the weak zebra, ya’ know, the old one, the young one, the one with the lame leg, the one putting on their make up instead of paying attention to the road, the one reading the newspaper, the one that doesn’t know how to drive a stick ... so I could savagely cut them from the herd by ducking in front of them into their lane and leave them in my exhaust fumes. I finally spotted that zebra and zoomed in front of it with the speed of a cheetah (albeit a little green metal one) and as I sped past no less than 30 cars before zipping over and onto to the exit I felt the same rush of adrenalin a cheetah likely feels at the instant it sinks it’s teeth into prey and begins to chow down. At least the cheetah doesn't need to wait for his check so he can eat.

Just another day in the concrete jungle!

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Toodling right along ...

Well February is almost half over and since I’ve yet to hear a train whistle I’m guessing the light at the end of the tunnel really is just a light. For the most part, the things that are truly occupying my brain (and my heart) just aren’t to be shared in a blog. So a bit of silent running as I pull a stealthy Steve Austin and “rebuild” myself … “only better”.

Colorguard has been sucking up the majority of my life. I’ve got the two winterguard programs (the Woodies and the Frankies) and am doing a bit of consulting for another (the Elkies) and what with all this teaching and judging I haven’t had a minute to really stop and think … yet. Things will stay pretty busy til 4/1 when reality will finally have a shot at permeating my ultra-strong colorguard defensive shields but by then I’ll be in a financial position to focus on nest building and other things to distract me. Shields down? Whee!

The Woodies are going to be okay as a novice guard. The important thing is that they’re having a good experience. The Frankies are an uphill battle and I don’t yet know what the forecast is for that. At this point we’ll be lucky to make it to the floor at all this season. The kids have heart though, and desire, and while that’s about all they have it’s what has me hanging on by my fingernails. Today being a holiday means yet ANOTHER Frankie rehearsal had to be cancelled. Sigh. Even so, I think we can have a rudimentary show on the floor by 3/3 if nothing else happens … which, well, of course it probably will.

At last Friday night's Fresno show I judged GE for the first time EVER and I was really intimidated going into it (heck seeing my name listed with the rest of that panel was pretty intimidating on it's own) but once we got rolling I was okay. Judging GE is a lot like just watching the show because nearly everything is within your caption. I wasn’t sure the words would come but they did … number wise I didn’t always line up with everyone but happily I was in the ballpark and yesterday morning I received a thumbs up for my tapes … so I’m happy. My next show is Monte Vista on 2/24 (equipment) and things get even more hectic after that. With upcoming NCBA, CCGC and Fresno shows plus kid performances there’s something every Saturday and most Sundays between now and 4/1.

On Sunday I attended the annual PCJA clinic and dinner and, while I’d been dreading attending, I ended up having a really good time and I’m glad that I went. I’ve wanted to be a PCJA judge since I was a kid and last night when they gave me my “official” polo shirt I’ll admit to being a little verklempt. Stupid? I'm sure it is to some … but for me it was a memorable moment. As I sat through the remainder of the meeting, I couldn’t help but reflect on those who had been there before me and I was proud to now be a part of that.

Highlights …
I’ve put 3000+ miles on The Frog and he’s holding up so far but still needs new tires and a tune up (and don’t we all) -- the Sacramento house is a done deal except for the certain arrival of the little black cloud that includes the legal aspects -- I got an unexpected and welcome raise last Friday -- I’ve unwittingly dropped so much oil in my neighbor’s driveway that I’ve lost custody of my super cool parking space -- Stu gave me rugs for my room now so my feet don’t freeze (little things DO count) -- I miss my cat Motown an awful lot --
last night I had a dream that my armpits were as hairy as a orangutan’s no matter how much I shaved them????? -- someone nice put my clothes in the dryer for me this morning -- so life is good as long as I don’t think about it too hard.

My weekend plans are up in the air. As of now I have an entire 3-day weekend with NOTHING to do. Knowing that’s impossible, I’m waiting to see what develops and if nothing does … then it’s Miller time!!!!! Sorta’ like Hammer time but not exactly … although I may dance like Hammer after a few beers (my kingdom for a pair of parachute pants).

Later Gators!

My January Mantra ...

For the record ... this is a gnome ... not a nome.

Focus on February … nome … Focus on February … om nome … Focus on February … nome … Focus on February … om nome …

Many weird and wild things have happened in the last few weeks of January. The other day someone changed my internet banking password and cost me 90 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back fixing it on the phone with the bank – fortunately no money was missing. Last week someone changed my phone’s voicemail password and erased all my voicemail messages – costing me a mere 30 minutes of my life but causing much hair pulling dealing with the double digit IQ of the Metro CSRs. Cuz isn’t it fun when you know more about a company’s processes than its’ own employees do? Two weeks ago, I got home from the Homestead show around 2:30 a.m. and discovered that sometime during the evening someone moved/pushed the Little Frog from the curb where I had it parked in front of the house into the middle of an intersection, tossed the contents of the car (but took nothing) and damn near scratched off my 2007 tags. Sigh. Focus on February … nome.

Also weird are my new glasses – progressive lenses. The new glasses have abated the Mr. Magoo driver in me --- good thing too because I nearly drove over a cement divider and a stop sign the other day in Roseville -- but these glasses are so hard to use that I think I’m going to have to return them. I used them for the first time the other night at a guard show and I had to keep turning my head side to side and up and down so I could see the guards through the different sections of the lenses – I’m sure I looked like a big bird bobbing it’s head up and down up there in box. Sheesh! I’m thinking I’ll trade for two separate pair – one for distance, one for reading and that should fix it. Bette Davis was right – getting old ain’t for wimps. Focus on February … om nome.

Even more fun is that I’m getting evicted from a place where I no longer live. I expect it to lighten my bank account by about 6 grand before all is said and done. If you’ve ever been through an eviction you know what I mean. Funny thing is … I’m super okay with that … I don’t care … it’s a relief. Focus on February … nome.

So every week I try to take care of some new piece of business. First it was catching up on paying friends back who helped me bail on a moment’s notice … much love to Stu. Second it was getting glasses so I don’t roll the Frog into a ditch or make some unwitting Rosevillian The Frog’s new hood ornament and getting TB tested and fingerprinted both for schools and for the Secretary of State to give me my Notary commission. Next is getting into my storage and getting some sorely needed items that, in my haste, I forgot to bring with me. Beyond that … focus on February … om nome.

Today is the LAST day of January and February is finally HERE.

NOME!!!!

Unplugged and Unblogged .... til now :)

I’m having a strange January … bad January … life altering January … so I’ve been unplugged and unblogged for awhile. No details for you!!! <$1 to the soup Nazi> at least for now.February is full of promise at this point. We’ll see. I have another hoopty thanks to the kind heart of a very good friend. It’s a 7-up soda can on wheels. Not really. It’s a bright green and tiny, tin can of a Geo Metro and I like it a lot even though driving it is a bit like driving a ride-on lawnmower at 70 mph down the freeway. I think I can actually feel my hair blow back while I’m driving with the windows UP and I'm pretty there was bugs in my teeth when I got out of the care. Believe me when I say that if I get hit in this car, it will be my undoing, but it gets great gas mileage and me and La Petit Grenouille (the Little Frog) are becoming fast friends. I need to get tires for the Frog’s first serious road test later this month – a drive to Fresno to judge a contest. I pray to God it doesn’t abandon me en route. Please God, just this one and I won’t ask for anything else for awhile. So for now, I’m driving and not missing crunching through the grass in the pre-dawn hours AT ALL. Driving is liberating and the ability to be mobile has improved my outlook in ways I can’t begin to articulate. Thanks Diane from the bottom of my heart. You are a friend in the truest and deepest sense of the word. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Last Saturday my friend Stu and I made the stupidly long drive to Cupertino to attend the Homestead guard show. We ran into several Rene-Friends and catching up with them was good. The shows were all early season stuff, some really bad and some really good. I think my favorite of the evening was Rhapsody. It’s hard to go wrong with a Josh Grobin-like song combined with above average abilities. I have to admit that while I was highly confused by Raiders show concept until it was explained to me afterwards, I loved the layering and the way the ensemble kept subtly shifting the form from one end zone to the other while morphing within the block. It was a very cool and controlled effect. Much like their Frida show a few years ago though, if you haven’t seen the basis of the concept, it’s hard to fully appreciate the show. This year it’s based on a specific Picasso painting that I haven’t see (or don’t think I have) so see me educating myself before the next show. Logan World seemed very young (a transitional year?) and there’s a lot yet to be fulfilled but their rifle line is quite simply SLAMMING and I enjoyed the choreographed tricks tremendously. Some good old school daredevil exchanges and changes in elevation make this show fun to watch. I’m sure the show and the kids will mature through the course of the season and be Logan’s usual in-your-face slam dunk before Dayton. Good for them. Bring it home to California.

I have done what will probably end up being a regrettable thing and signed on to teach two winter programs this year. One is still a bit sketchy and one is set in stone so we’ll see where that goes. At this point I’m emotionally committed to both. The design concept for both programs is done in my head. So for now I’m teaching 4 nights a week and I think it will be good to be too busy for a bit. Woodcreek High’s (fondly called the Woodies) show is based on the music of Qidam – a cirque de soleil show. The details are coming together and rough choreography is done through the first two minutes. My major frustration is that progress is being impeded because we are stuck in the band room! As soon as we can stretch out in a gym or cafeteria we can complete the details and move on. I’m excited about the potential of this show but we are running out of time to do it justice, so I’m pushing for something to happen soon. I have the exact same problem at the other school, Franklin-Elk Grove (they’re fondly called the Frankies). In fact, the problem there is so serious it may be terminal. They are in jeopardy of needing to look for another instructor this season if we don’t get a facility soon – or end up folding their winter program entirely. I don’t understand why band directors don’t get that a decent rehearsal facility is paramount to the success of a program. They wouldn’t try to put a field show together in a band room would they? And if they would, then I’m involved with the wrong program. Sheesh!

So all in all, I’m broke, busy and quite a lot off balance but there’s a dim light at the end of the tunnel … hopefully it’s not a train. I just have to keep reminding myself that I can’t fix everything for everybody and that trying to just makes everyone miserable. Sigh. In the meantime I will content myself with the knowledge that while I may have seriously questionable taste in life partners, I choose great friends.

Til next time, thanks for yielding to lawnmowers on the freeway.

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Back at work ....

The first day back from a 10-day hiatus is such an inexorably looooong day.

Christmas was nice. I cooked for two days straight and made everyone fat and happy with turkey, ham and tamales. For the first time ever we had the entire family together at our house. We did all the regular things families do on Christmas and then we played cards … for hours … and although a few folks went home with lighter wallets (well coin purses anyway), a good time was had by all.

New Year’s was a bust … and that’s all I have to say about that.

The events leading up to the holidays were nearly as much fun as the holidays themselves this year. In particular, but in no particular order … knowing I would have TEN consecutive days off of work over the holidays was ab-fab … decorating the tree … having dinner with Stu, Julie and Andrea and catching up with one another’s goings on … getting surprised with gift cards from two of my bosses that gave me the ability to actually Christmas shop this year and make a nice Christmas for the family … having drinks and appetizers with Stu at the Hard Rock café the Friday evening before Christmas … getting a Christmas bonus … Stu coming by the week before Christmas to watch “Wicked” and giving me that and pink stuff for my HooHa (uh, suddenly that sounds like impolite conversation - but seriously, a pink heart seat cover and steering wheel cover that I’m dying to put on the car as soon as I can kick Fred out of it) … having Diane overnight for chili and small talk just before New Year’s Eve. Good things with good friends made the holidays nicer than usual this year.


And in other news …

- I’m almost 50 and I just figured out that cats have fingerprints. Sheesh! Motown likes to sit on the desk when I’m on the computer and when the sun hits the glass surface of the desk just right a million tiny, tiny fingerprints become visible all over the place. I have to admit, the first time I saw them it took me a minute to figure it out. Doh! Now where’s that Windex?

- Watch out world for I’ve passed the exam to become a Notary Public. I stamp them! <$1 to Renegades>.

- I’ve found out I’m a mere $650.00 dollars away from an actual legal driver’s license so THAT is the DEFINITE January focus. Seriously it will be a stretch but sometime in February I should be driving legally – well until Tehama County figures out that I missed a court date anyhow – but hey, eat the elephant one bite at a time, right? Just think, using my newly obtained legal driver’s license, I’ll be able to drive my legally registered HooHa right up the front of the Tehama County courthouse steps for a court appearance where they will probably suspend my license. And the world just keeps on a-turnin’.

- Somehow passing the Notary exam gave me a much needed kick in the keester and was the motivation to finally go to the DMV and get a printout and to finally, finally, finally, go to the doctor and get the TB test that I’ve been procrastinating taking since I started teaching last September … oh and the TB test was negative so I can cross TB off my list of things that might kill me BUT had to add high blood pressure to the list when my pressure reading was 142/90 … wtf? I just came off a hellish physical endurance test called “drum corps season” and am now walking a mile a day as a “commuter”. Where did this reading come from? It’s God’s crazy sense of humor at work on me again. No worries though. According to the doctor it’s not “high”; it’s just “highish”. What? I don’t know which is more confusing: the reading itself or the word “highish”. So we’re supposed to “watch” it. How? Who’s watching it? Me? What am I watching it with cuz the most high-tech piece of medical equipment in my home is an oral thermometer and I don’t think that’s gonna’ help me here! I hate the way they fake you out with that “watching” stuff. Just be honest and tell me it’s a serious problem that’s just not serious enough yet for YOU to wanna’ do anything about it but that it will be serious enough eventually and THEN you’ll do something about it. Future anxiety! Sheesh!

All things considered though, I made pretty good use of my days off. Besides relaxing like a big dog and playing hours and hours of the Sims I also managed to squeeze in tying up some serious loose ends and as a result I’m that much closer to living like a real white girl. Well, at least a real white girl with “highish” blood pressure. Whee!

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Here's to hoping the fates allow ...

To all my faithful friends, I hope your holidays are the merriest ever.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us,
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together if the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
and have yourself a merry little Christmas now

XOXO
Jojo


and I'm done until the New Year :)

Thought for the day.....

Who should we be more disgusted by?

The person who leaves the bathroom without washing their hands ...

or the person who needs to wash their hands after going to the bathroom?


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Musings of a Commuter

I realized this morning that I sorta’ enjoy walking in the early morning crisp, and sometimes biting, air of downtown Sacramento … crossing lawns dusted with frost, grass crunching underfoot, a hot Starbucks in my gloved hand, taking time to appreciate Mother Natures’ smallest contributions and inhaling air so cold it takes my breath away if I breath too deeply. I watch as the puff of hot air escapes my lips and make a mental note of just how far and wide bad breath can really travel and pat my pocket to assure myself my gum is there. I passed a couple of joggers this morning out in the pre-dawn hours and I chuckled inwardly over the irony of them hustling around in the cold and dark getting their exercise before work where they will go to earn money ….. to make their car payments.

I always walk the exact same paths crossing the streets in the exact same place each time, sitting in the exact same bus seats, standing in the exact same place on the platforms and tucking my ticket in the exact same pocket of my bag. It gives me cause to wonder if I’m a creature of habit at best, a bit obsessive-compulsive at worst as every time I walk through a parking lot I can’t keep myself from counting the steps between the lines of the parking slots checking my drum corps stride. It tickles my memory into recalling all the times I’ve bought new clothes only to get them home and discover that I already have something nearly identical to what I just bought. For instance, I’m on my third pair of the exact same black clogs and I’ve been buying black clogs for at least ten years … and the same boot cut jeans … and gray turtleneck sweaters. So I’m considering a New Year’s resolution to break the mold. Maybe get bold and cross the street in a different spot or … gasp …buy brown clogs!

I like having the time to read during the commute. There’s a library of paperback books at work for people to borrow - which is great. The troublesome part is that whoever is doing the majority of “donating” to the library has a thing for murder mysteries …… hence, I’ve been reading a lot of murder mysteries and I can’t help but wonder ……. what if I was murdered? What if being a creature of habit (or an obsessive-compulsive freak, I dunno’) and walking around downtime in the dark draws the attention of serial killers? This leads me to wonder if I was murdered what would the police would think of my wake … you know, the things I leave behind that they’d analyze in order to put together a suspect list … like the things in my junk drawer, jewelry box, nightstand drawers and even in this blog. What conclusions would they draw? I don’t have any mysterious match books, or phone numbers on insignificant scraps of paper so what would they use to find my killer? Would I be a person who’s murder would be worthy of 30 seconds on the nightly news or would the investigation be over in an afternoon. Most importantly, what’s the guy doing the autopsy gonna’ say? Wink, wink, hubba, hubba, hey baby want another donut! On the one hand I know there’s a lot of evil in the world and find myself wondering what happens if it crosses my path? On the other hand, it’s sometimes hard for me to believe in evil when none of my deals with the devil ever pan out.

I don’t know if it’s my recent empty nestedness (if that’s even a word) or my ruminations on being murdered that have made me a bit paranoid about coming home to an empty house (“my house is dark and my pots are cold” <$1 to Santana>. One evening I actually found myself just standing outside my front door staring at it and being afraid to open it …. sigh … I need to buy a novel that’s a love story or something.

When I get home at night my cat Mo is always huddled on the welcome mat waiting for me. Last night when he saw me he stretched, he yawned and then lifted his leg in a yoga-like imitation as he licked his butt. I found myself hoping that Mo's current posture was not a sideways commentary on what he thinks of me as a person and I unlocked the door and let him in. My dog Ted was waiting just inside the door, tail wagging and a look of pure innocence pasted on his mug so that I wouldn't recognize that he’s just jumped off the futon, throw rug, or wherever he’s been that he’s not supposed to be. Unfortunately, the paper plate in his mouth, poised in an imitation of him serving hors d’oeuvres, is a dead give away to the fact that he's been in the garbage ... again. Sigh. Seeing both animals there I know all is well inside the house because 1) Mo would head for the hills if he saw a stranger and 2) anything with evil intent on it’s mind would have laughed itself to death seeing Teddy serving hors d’oeuvres ... so I went inside.

Racism and Caterpillars

I’ve had a moment of self discovery and, guess what, I’m a punk. I have my tail tucked securely between my legs and I am flat out running from a fight (one I could probably “win”) for, what I remember being, the first time in my life … ever. Normally my commitment to my sensibilities is as solidly placed as spots on a Dalmatian but in this case I plain give up. I don’t wanna’ fight the good fight. I don’t care about justice or equality. I can’t take it anymore, life is too short, etc, etc, etc. I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude for this one. I give up. It’s not worth it to me. I’ve caved in to prejudice and changed my commute route due to racism.

Here’s my story. If I leave my office at 5:00 I can catch a bus to a train to a bus to home and the whole thing takes about 60 minutes (which by most standards is a short commute door to door). If I leave my office at 4:30 I can catch a bus to a bus to home but it takes 75 minutes. The upside of the 75 minute trip is that I get to leave the office early, the downside is I get home at pretty much the same time as if I left at 5:00 BUT if I leave at 5:00 I make points at work by staying til 5:00 …… see my dilemma? So in the interest of currying favor with my boss I left at 5:00 all of last week and did the bus to train to bus to home route. Not, repeat not, doing it anymore. Yes, it’s ME pulling the race card. Who woulda’ thunk it huh, but I can unequivocally state that the bus driver on route 56 between the light rail and my house is a racist. There’s just no other reason for him to single me out everyday. I’m not the only woman, I’m not the only older person, I’m not the only person who looks middle class or professional (hence out of place on the 56). Believe me I’ve considered it all. What I am is the only white person and I 100% believe that’s his problem with me. Everyday it was something new. Every time he saw me he had an under-the-breath comment I couldn’t quite hear, he seemed to relish snatching my transfer from my hand and scrutinizing it carefully while everyone else simply flashed their pass and walked on around me. Once, when I was already seated, he called me back up front to look at my pass again by loudly yelling out “hey furcoat!, furcoat come back here”. Which had the entire bus snickering. Furcoat? Whatever happened to ma’am? I guess it’s worth saying at this point, more to make myself feel better than anything else, that I didn’t respond to that one, and didn’t move a muscle which made him have to come to me – which probably didn’t make him like me any better but oh so what!
The final straw for me was last Friday. There was a crowd of about 6 of us at the bus stop that evening, it was drizzling and the bus was 20 minutes late. I was about the fourth person to board once the doors opened. As I stepped on the bus the bus driver bolted out of his seat (and he bolted, it’s not my imagination) and threw up his hand in my face and told me, loudly, to “get off the bus”. No explanation at all. More out of shock then resistance, I stood my ground and so he repeated himself … twice. It was at that point that I noticed a lady with a stroller trying to get off the bus by maneuvering her way down the aisle through the other people boarding the bus. Understanding dawning, I stepped off the bus simultaneously realizing that no one else was asked to get off the bus or stop. Once the lady with the stroller had disembarked he made a big show of letting me on the bus. Again, to the snickers of the other riders. Ok, I know all the wars I could wage over this. I know all the things I could have said and/or done at that moment. Usually I would have cut the man to ribbons with my verbal skills and gone after his job. But it was my only way home, I was tired, I was wet, I was hungry and I just didn’t have it in me. So what I did was hold my head up and go home with as much remaining dignity as I could muster. I will confess that all the way home I had fantasies of sic’ing Fred on the bus driver and imagining all the scenarios of that confrontation. Of course when I got home I tried to whine to Fred about it and was totally unprepared for the “well sweetie, it’s hard to be sympathetic” speech that I got. Shyt! The double whammy!! I closed myself up in the office in a snit for the rest of the night. Since then though, I’ve done a bit of reflecting on prejudice and racism and I can see Fred’s point to a degree.

When my son Chris was two he saw his first caterpillar. It was a big, chubby one, all black and orange, and it was scooting straight up our front door right at Chris’ eye level. He pointed at it and smiled up at me and I said to him “oooh Chris, what’s that?” He very carefully touched it with the tip of his tiny index finger and without a second of hesitation looked up at me and confidently proclaimed “iz a toofbrush Mommy”.

I know from Child Psych classes I took in college that as very young humans we process new experiences by comparing it to things we’ve experienced before to draw conclusions about the new thing and then categorize it accordingly. These categories are called “schemas”. To Chris the caterpillar fit his schema for toothbrush. Of course I gave Chris the additional information he needed and explained “caterpillar” and, trust me, he has yet to try to brush his teeth with one. To me this means he made the appropriate change based on the new information he was given and added yet another schema to his understanding … caterpillar.

Schemas are a part of human development and I’m thinking maybe we never really stop using them. At least I’m hard pressed to see the difference between schemas and prejudices. Is it possible that prejudices are really just schemas unchanged by new information and/or education we’ve received? I guess in my view, the mistake isn’t made in the pre-judgment, for that seems to me a natural part of being human. Rather to me the mistake is made when that pre-judgment is applied once you know better. I mean wouldn’t Chris be a hopeless idiot if he was still calling caterpillars toothbrushes?


To me racism is an offshoot of prejudice because it seems to me you can’t really have one without the other if you’re the offending party. I’ve felt prejudice all my life … people make assumptions based on how you’re dressed, the color of your skin, the consistency of your hair, your socio-economic standing, the company you keep and a million other things but prejudice rolls right off me. Not so, racism and, lucky for me, I’ve only been a victim of racism twice – once when I was 16 and in Nebraska a gas station attendant picked me up by the belt loops of my shorts and hustled me, unceremoniously, out of a convenience store for being an “Indian” … and last week by an underpaid, self-important, overly angry, unhappy, little black man who saw me as a way to return what had probably been given to him thousands of times over. It doesn’t excuse his behavior and I won’t be giving him anymore shots at me by riding his bus but, after a great deal of thought, I understand it.

In the grand scheme of things I should count myself lucky. I can’t imagine dealing with racism everyday because I know how just those two incidences have hurt me. I can’t imagine how small a person that would make me feel I was if I had to deal with it over and over. I have a new found understanding of the depth of strength and character it would take to stand up in the face of racism everyday.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when we’re all like the characters in the Dr. Seuss story “The Sneetches” and we’re such a jumble of genetics that it’s impossible to tell who is what. I don’t want to think too hard on what we might hold against each other when we’re all in one big pot of DNA soup (for I’m sure we’ll find something), but in the meantime, you can catch me riding the 63!

Does an empty nest mean an empty holiday?

This morning at the train station I saw a little boy of about three wearing the identical Stride Rite, navy blue “converse” sneakers that my little boys used to wear at that age. I was mentally whisked back to the Christmas holidays when my boys were small. Visits to Santa, Toys R Us at midnight so the boys wouldn’t catch on, plodding through a forest of 6’ trees to find just the right one (when they’re really all the same), letters to Santa, sugar cookies and matching little boy sweaters for Christmas Day at Nana’s. Sigh. As much as it’s nice to be able to walk into the kitchen naked in the morning to get coffee, it just doesn’t begin to compete with having the boys and all their nonsense being part of my day-to-day life.

Letting go is hard and the holidays are a bit empty.





“Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy's right. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest”

- Linus Van Pelt –

MWF seeks Holiday Spirit for Fun (and possibly more)

Thanksgiving -- the good news is that I didn’t have to cook, the bad news is that it meant there were no leftovers to make sandwiches with on Friday. Bummer! On Thanksgiving we went to my sister-in-law’s house for the holiday and spent an uneventful but good day there with family. My boys couldn’t be there so the holiday mood just wasn’t in me that day. I finally got into the holiday mood on Saturday, Nov 25 while trial judging the Downtown Sacramento Santa Claus parade for PCJA. The fun thing about PCJA events is that, depending on the caption(s) you’re responsible for, you likely don’t judge every unit and so actually get a chance to watch a lot of the parade, check out the spectators, and just sort of enjoy the event. I missed the part I really wanted to see though because I was still wrapping up my scores from a marching band when Santa Claus officially “came to town”. By the time I looked up from the score sheet all I saw was the back of Santa’s hat and a waving gloved hand. Darn it! Still had a good day though. I had no idea there was so many nuances to judging floats and cars and miscellaneous entries. Choosing a sweepstakes winner is harder than it would seem when there’s so much to see. My personal pick was the Ophir Prison Marching Band (yeah, you heard me right). They were the most entertaining entry of the entire parade – talk about performance sell – these guys know how it’s done. Anyhoo, I passed the trial and now I’m an actual PCJA judge. Woot! And I learned that the prize money for this Sacramento Santa parade is significant – to the point where I’m pulling some friends together and entering us in the colorguard caption – stay tuned.

More news on the judging front -- I was ecstatic to receive six assignments for the Central Valley WGI circuits the other day. Looks like I’ll be a busy girl this winter season with 11 shows already on my plate and hopefully more to come -- and that makes me very happy!

In general lots of good things have come my way these past few weeks. Everyone is healthy, I’ve got great friends, some fences in my life have been mended, things are picking up financially, I’ve been doing a lot of nest building and I’m just in general ….. dare I say it even in writing …… happy and relaxed.

WBA vs NCBA ... tastes great, less filling

So the Hoo-Ha broke down …………………………….

I was on my way to lunch last Thursday and the engine wouldn’t turn over. Click – Click – Click. A friend here at work was nice enough to give me a jump and it turned right over. I gave it a 20-minute run to recharge the battery but when I turned it off and then on again … Click – Click – Click. ACK!!!! So later that evening my husband futzed around with it and not only could he not get it started but it wouldn’t even take a jump or go Click – Click – Click for him. ACK to the 10th power!

The next day I called the guy I bought the car from and he arranged for it to be towed to his auto shop where he had a diagnostic run on it, installed a new alternator as well as the new front axle he promised me he’d replace when I bought the car and had the whole thing done by 7pm Friday evening. The bill was $125 -- $75 for the tow and $50 for the alternator. Does it get any better than this? This guy is such a blessing!

On Saturday I spent the entire day being cold and damp again and wondering how is it that I got all the non-sunshine judging assignments for NCBA this fall? Oh well … sigh … some really good stuff happened on Saturday. Benicia High School was holy cow awesome in the parade. IMO they are the poster child for what parade in NorCal should be. Damn near perfect. When I got to the stadium that afternoon I was intrigued to find out that Stockton is going to have a new drum and bugle corps called the Buccaneers – hmmm, I wonder when they’ll be looking for staff??? Later that night at the field show event either Foothill, Buchanan or Granite Bay could have walked away with first place. I gave it to Granite Bay for guard with a 91 because they came with their A game. It’s a very pretty and powerful show but there’s also a lot of nice guard moments that have to do with skills with equipment and I’m a sucker for that . Foothill ended up taking auxiliary sweeps because of the average between the judges – we two judges just didn’t see things the same way. On the way out of the stadium we ran into Jolie and Ron and it’s nice to know we can all recover from 2006 and still be friendly.

There was also a competition in Fairfield on Saturday and my kids from Woodcreek must have represented well because they lost first place by on .5! I wish I would have been there -- and I can’t wait to see the recaps. The Franklin kids had a surprisingly nice showing too taking home an auxiliary trophy for 3rd place – their first guard trophy this season. So all good things happened on Saturday for everyone. I’m satisfied and ready for the winterguard season. With my friend Stu’s help I’ve found a song I feel good about using for Woodcreek and I’ve got some costuming ideas so we’ll see what develops.

Sunday was a very long day (and another cold and damp one too). Stu and I left for WBA finals in Clovis at 8:30 am and got there about 11:30 – just in time to watch 3-4 of the 3A bands. Our good buddy Alton FINALLY caught up with us … ahem … and I think in all we watched about 20 bands. Some were bad and there was a lot of mediocre and a handful of hey-really-pretty-good. I only saw a few things that really rocked my world. There are more bands in WBA than in NCBA but the quality of them, with the exception of Logan who IMO is in a league completely their own, is on par with the top few in NCBA. I expected there to be a much bigger difference than what I saw. The only real and identifiable difference is that the WBA bands have a universally more drum corps feel to them than do the NCBA bands. Although the top of NCBA is going that route also. Anyway I was very impressed by Beyer High School’s 3A band’s show concept to Imogene Heap's "Hide and Seek" and Logan was impressive if for nothing else than successfully using 3000+ kids on the field and making it look interesting and appealing – Foothill could take a lesson from them in layering as well as organization.

As soon as Logan was done performing we split and headed for Outback where we stuffed ourselves into a sleepy state that made our drives home through the fog a real challenge. I got home pretty late and am back at work today with my eyes burning. I can’t wait to get home and go to bed.

Finally some down time to look forward to.

I need a break....

When I moved into my new place the property manager gave me a mailbox key that;

a) doesn’t look like a mailbox key, and
b) certainly isn’t MY mailbox key

So I need a mailbox key. Note I’ve been living there since mid-September without receiving any mail – both a blessing and a curse. My motivation for getting into the mailbox right now is that I’m expecting my speeding ticket from Tehama County as well as the registration paperwork for my little hoopty. So I’ve contacted the property manager, who despite my protestations, INSISTS that the key I have IS the mailbox key. Sigh. Screw it. So I go to the post office and find out that I can obtain a replacement key for a mere $30. Geez, is it diamond-dusted, sapphire-studded, what? So I left the post office without the key and have mentally wrestled with this dilemma for the last few days. If my mailbox was broken into, the post office would replace it for free. So this bounces around my mind for a few days. After all, I have screwdrivers and hammers! Again sigh! I am not gangster enough to do this. So I’ve elected to pay the damn $30 and get my key BUT, I’m attaching the receipt to my next rent check and taking the deduction. They can sue me.

For the last week and a half my very good bud and fellow MBoB Stubert and I have being consulting at a local high school trying to add some punch to an otherwise struggling guard program. It’s exasperating! There is such a gap between the kids who get it and the kids who just don’t care if they get it that it’s been tremendously difficult to really make a difference. We gave them a new beginning and a new ending, a small part in the middle that’s new and Stu gave them some cool “clockwork” for the ID line. We ran it a few times last night for the last time and it looked pretty good from a design stand point. Now it’s all on the students and their commitment level. They have the opportunity to up their score. I hope this last performance is their best of the season.

Added to last night’s festivities … I met one of the guard member’s moms. I hate meeting moms, aunts, dads, grandmas, second cousins, friends of your grandfather’s chiropractor, etc. It’s universally NEVER a good experience when one of them simply walks up to you in the middle of a rehearsal with their hands on their hips – which is what happened last night. Long story short – mom was hot because I refused to put her daughter (who had just shown up for the first time) into the routine in the last 45 minutes of our FINAL rehearsal. Imagine that. What right-thinking guard instructor WOULDN’T wanna’ put in a kid who skipped 2.5 of 3 rehearsals? In the end, I had talked mom (and the aunt) down from their high horse by pointing out that it wasn’t possible to teach a routine to someone who isn’t there to learn it and drove home the point that I am not putting her daughter in … period. She started in on a litany about the “horrible” band director and I told her that wasn’t part of my gig and she needed to take it up with him. Today and all the days after this, the band director can do what he wants but I did tell mom that if she pressured the band director into including her daughter, that her daughter would NOT be up to the challenge and WOULD ruin the performance for everyone who HAD come to rehearsal and learned the routine the way they were supposed to. She understood that and agreed … but I’ll bet that doesn’t change a thing. Some people just don’t get it.

After rehearsal last night Stubert and I went to the Kaiser Hospital in South Sac to visit fellow MBoB Andy, who is recuperating from meningitis caused because he took a “vacation” from his regular meds. Sheesh. As soon as he’s well we’re all kicking his ass. Anyhoo, Andy is covered in red spots (a reaction to his current meds) and running a temp but seems otherwise to be doing well. We watched the final episode of “Dancing with the Stars” together and chatted for awhile finally leaving around 10:00. I thought I knew how to get home but got lost as soon as I left the Kaiser parking lot and turned the wrong way ending up on the other side of the freeway. I am not the one to be judging anyone else’s spatial relationships because sometimes I can’t find my own ass without both hands and a blood hound. Geez!

Tonight is the last rehearsal of the marching season. Finally. My 5 little Woodchucks have done a very good job this season and have improved exponentially. I’m very proud of them. I won’t be at their last performance because I’ll be judging in Stockton, but I have no worries. They’re well prepared and well rehearsed and as long as they hold it together mentally they should have a very good last show. I truly don’t care about the number, but I admit I would like them to rank really well. Speaking as a judge in that circuit, I think their ability and design deserve it.

With at least three weeks off from teaching and the Thanksgiving holiday on the horizon I’m looking forward to some sleepy winter evenings at home. Teaching four nights a week really sucks and I’m glad that’s over!

.

Synchronized Desk Dancing … 5,6,7,8

I have a car !!!!

Sound the trumpets, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. It’s not my heart’s desire as cars go and yet it’s exactly perfect … well except for the humongous “Harley Davidson” sticker in the back window (which I may elect to simply leave on because I like the consternation it may cause other drivers and who knows, it may have the added bonus of them giving me a wide berth – after all I may be a Hell’s Angel on the creep right? – don’t mess with me!). At the very least, anyone who sees it will suspect me of wearing leather … or being leather-wearing capable. Anyhoo, it’s an escort wagon, it’s clean, it’s silvery blue, it’s in pretty good shape and because it’s a wagon I finally have enough room to carry ALL my guard stuff the year I’ve decided to finally retire (and there’s God’s wacky sense of humor at work again). I’ve named my new little car Hoo-Ha. I have no explanation for this, it just fits and I have a habit of naming inanimate objects -- my TV remotes are named The Big Kahuna and Momo respectively. I hope Hoo-Ha lives a long, long time.

On Saturday I left the house at dark o’clock and made the three hour drive down to Madera where I judged a parade and a field show. It was raining and thoughts of Rochester kept running through my mind. I will say that rain and wind make a judge’s job really easy because it quickly separates the big kids from the little kids. Those with training and composure do a really good job of pushing through … the others get exasperated and just give up ... you see it in their faces first, then their carriage and then the work just stops and finally they walk like pedestrians through the rest of the zone. It confirms my belief that training is the most important aspect of guard. One of the other judges and I killed the lag time between parade and field by camping out in a booth at McDonald’s where no topic was sacred and we gossiped about everyone we know mutually. Good fun. By Saturday night the rain had stopped but the wind had picked up significantly. Flagwork was a special challenge and a lot of equipment hit the ground. I rewarded those who heroically pushed through it knowing that heroes are created via good training and development of technique … and I’d rather see a bad catch then a nice recovery any day. The day finally came to an end at 9pm and I beat it out of there to get the long drive home started – I had to stop and nap twice and had to drink a lot of coffee but I finally made it. Next time (which if I have even a single ounce of active brain matter there won’t be one) I’ll get a hotel room.

Sunday was a lazy day. We slept in til 10:00 then went to IHOP for breakfast. Afterwards we stopped by Home Depot to choose a new (and yet to be installed) shower massage – mainly so we can wash Teddy (who hasn’t had a bath since his last “vacation”). I had no idea there was such width in the shower massage market and such a wide variance in the amount of money one can spend on a shower massage and I quickly felt overwhelmed. After an hour of negotiation we compromised and settled on a $40 4-position shower massage. Overcoming the always serious challenge of self-check out (which I despise), we went home and discovered we suddenly needed a nap. I love naps! And I think I will love the new shower massage. Around 4:00, I headed out to my friend Stu’s house to hook up with him and some other guard folks to go over some “conceptual” winterguard ideas. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with one of the shows. It’s “been done” but not by me and not in this circuit. It’s an idea I can’t get out of my head so I’m going to try to it. It was hard listening to music for four different guards, of varying skill levels, at the same time but I think by the end of the evening we had sorted out at least one school’s music and had several solid ideas for at least two others. It was fun times just getting our guard geekiness on with GREAT pizza as a bonus.

The coming weekend will be another busy guard weekend and the last one of this marching season. I’ll be at the Lincoln/Stockton show on Saturday and then for Sunday I have plans to attend an MBoB reunion and go be a spectator at WBA finals where I’ll get a chance to see some of the better Cali bands just for the fun of it.

Next on the agenda … a driver’s license !!

Husbands are like having raccoons in your chimney ...

In 1983, my then-husband and I bought our first house. It was a substantial 1770 sf 4/2 in a cul-de-sac. We got it relatively cheap because it was in Union City which at the time was the armpit of the Bay Area (and might still be, I dunno’). Our house was in a nice neighborhood in the very last row of our tract and backed up to the road that ran in front of Coyote Hills Regional Park, which is situated right on the edge of the bay at the Dumbarton Bridge. Also along that road was Turk Island Dump. The incongruity of a park and a dump being neighbors always left me scratching my head in curiosity. Anyway, as a consequence of these two places running for miles along the back of our tract, we had a variety of critters in our neighborhood; possums, beavers, raccoons, giant rats and potato bugs. I was always finding reasons to shudder with the willies!

There was a particularly endearing family of raccoons that accessed the cul-de-sac via the street drain and they were a curious bunch always getting into garages, garbage cans and open cars. Really annoying little raiders but we thought they were cute … well, right up until we saw one of them kill a cat that is. The biggest of the bunch stood about three feet tall and was pretty intimidating to run into in the dark.

We lived there about 6 years and during that time I had a friend and neighbor named Yolie we haven't seen each other in years but our boys were best friends then. She and her husband were like Mrs. Winchester, they just kept adding onto their little house over the years until it was a big rambling rabbit warren of living areas, dining areas, a country kitchen, and bedrooms with a Jack and Jill bathroom – and that was just on the first floor. Yolie had a formal living room decorated all in a creamy white – carpets, upholstery, throw pillows – it was like a roomful of marshmallow cream.

One weekend when they were away the raccoon family entered Yolie’s house via the chimney in her formal living room. You wouldn’t think a raccoon would fit but he did and he left literally thousands of little black paw prints all over her lovely marshmallow room and the entire downstairs. My family moved away shortly after that but we stayed in touch over the years and so I know that once the raccoons had found a way to break in, they just kept coming, pilfering the cookie jar and having parties in the pantry. Yolie and her husband tried everything including various screens and grates and finally at their wits end, even animal control but they wouldn’t help and nothing worked and the little raiders kept making themselves at home. One October evening I attended a Princess House crystal party at Yolie's. There were about 8 of us at the party all chatting and nibbling when we heard the scratching and clawing of what was clearly an animal in the flue. Yolie called her husband and he had the bright idea that if he would started a fire it would chase the raccoon back up the chimney -- instead what happened is that the embers from the wood caught the fur of what were two raccoons in the chimney on fire – they came crashing down the flue as spectacular balls of flame landing on the logs and scattering them everywhere then running through the rabbit warren of a house, up the curtains, on top of furniture, under tables, blazing infernos of smelly, burning fur. I don’t remember if the raccoons were screaming or if it was just all of us. It seemed to go on forever with everyone running and screaming. The smaller of the two racoons found his way out by running directly through the screen of Yolie’s open kitchen door and into the night. The largest finally collapsed in a smoldering heap in the dining room where Yolie’s husband threw a nearby rag rug on him and put out the remaining flames. We all just stood there holding each other and sobbing, surrounded by random bits of flaming objects. What had been just an annoyance was now a full on disaster that finally got Animal Control motivated. In a totally unrelated outcome I never saw Yolie after that night. We just lived too far away from each other. A few months after that party my husband and I separateded. It’s irrational I know but I somehow relate my marriage ending to that night of flaming raccoons.

I think husbands might actually be like having raccoons in your chimney. They can be cute and cuddly or annoying as hell, but if you make a fleeting decision you can be left with nothing but a flurry of random burning objects.

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Argh!

It’s wet and rainy today and it would be nice to be home this morning curled up with a book and some raisin oatmeal. But I have bills and so I’m here, ever chasing the paycheck, surrounded by paper that I simply MUST find a way to shuffle onto someone else’s desk. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle … and try to look important. I arrived at work today really happy and raring to go but there are contractors here doing tenant improvement work on one of the nearby suites … again … and they’ve been testing the fire alarm system this morning … again. This happens here a lot. There are many suites and tenant turn over is high so there is a constant parade of contractors conducting all manner of tenant improvement work … and, unhappily, fire alarm testing. One day we will have an actual fire here and simply all just burn to death in our color-coordinated, ergonomically correct office chairs because we’ve been trained to ignore the fire alarm. So about every 7 minutes or so since 8:00 this morning the eardrum shattering (and actually frightening) fire alarm has kicked on. Everytime it goes off it kicks my fight or flight instincts into high gear and I nearly jump out of my skin. It’s only 8:40 and I have already been replaced by an angry crouching tiger who is sitting at my desk ready to rip out the throat of anyone unlucky enough to darken the doorway. This is not a good thing <$1 to Martha’s Stewart’s evil doppleganger>. I now understand why people used to keep a bottle of whiskey hidden in their desk drawer. Down with political correctness – bring whiskey back to the workplace! I believe I will venture over to the lunchroom and chow down on some Tylenol in an attempt to avoid a life spent in prison for murder.

The weekend in review ...

It’s Tuesday and someone has stealthily brought a ginormous bag of their left over Halloween candy into my office and put it on my desk. It’s obviously someone who hates me! I am not that strong. Tootsie Rolls and coffee … the new breakfast of champions!

The weekend was alternately busy and lazy. On Saturday I was up early to go to Lodi to judge the Grape Bowl Classic. It was a tremendously long and damp day with the weather bringing back Hurricane Ernesto memories. I had very good company in the box this weekend though and so the time went pretty quickly. I never know what to do with myself in the downtime between parade and field but Saturday I went with Christy (director at Santa Cruz) and Elsie (tabulator and everyone’s band mom) to a yarn shop in Lodi. They both knit and I don’t so I expected to be extremely bored. Instead I wanna’ learn how to knit! The yarns available are astonishing and it would be a GREAT way to pass the time commuting. I can’t wait to get started. We got back to the show with only about 30 minutes to kill before go time. The yarn shop was a great diversion. Thanks Christy, it was a great idea!

The field show started at 4:00 and I have to say, I was both stunned and disappointed to be looking at incomplete field shows this late in the season. Come on folks! There’s only two weeks left! You’re only giving your kids a chance to perform their complete show ONE TIME. I hate it when that happens to me and you would too, so don’t do it to your kids. As a performer you never get the chance to really own your show and maximize your performance if you only get to do it ONCE. Ok, now disembarking from soap box.

This was actually my third judging gig this season and it was very satisfying to see the improvements that some of the units have made over the course of the season. My numbers and rankings were vastly different from the other judge’s this weekend and so I’m avoiding going on www.worldofpageantry.com in order not to see who is blasting me for my opinions, lack of training and general lack of brain cells. Sigh. And yet, being a morbidly curious creature I know I’ll give in and log on at some point today. I stand by my numbers though cuz I know what I saw. Folsom was also this weekend and is a much bigger and more popular show … so maybe that will take the focus. Hope springs eternal.

I spent Saturday night with my youngest son and his girlfriend celebrating his 25th birthday at the local pub. We ordered one of every kind of appetizer on the menu and had several pitchers of beer and two marathon games of “couples” pool. It was a very good time and I really needed that down time.

On Sunday morning I awoke to an unpleasant surprise … again. My cat Motown has taken to peeing directly on me (and subsequently my bed) while I sleep and, in his estimation, am not giving him proper cuddle time when he wants it at 3 a.m. He has a box so it’s not a matter of Mother Nature calling. Trust me, Mo intends for me to understand that it’s a reflection of his opinion on me and my stupid need to sleep when he wants to be petted. A week of sleeping in the garage will hopefully cure this rowdy cat. Later on Sunday I ventured out shopping for the first time in months and went to WalMart (cuz if they don’t have it there, you don’t need it) to outfit myself for my new commuter adventures by buying a new coat among other things. It’s very girly and soft and totally impractical and it reminds me of the coats my mother bought for me when I was in grade school … so of course I love it. I was so warm and cozy in it this morning that I fell asleep on the bus and nearly missed my stop. Oops. I spent the rest of Sunday puttering around, cleaning and organizing and otherwise nest building. I think it’s the change in the weather but I’m enjoying my at home time. I want to break out the sewing machine or bake something … egad!

This coming Saturday I’ll be journeying to Madera – which I fondly refer to as one of God’s forsaken territories -- it’s about a 3 hour drive for me and I may elect to spend the night so maybe there’s an adventure in the offing.

I need to get rid of this bag of candy. Let me think (taps skull) who do I hate ...

Musings and Meditations

I wish I’d met my great grandparents. My entire knowledge of them consists of knowing that my father’s mother’s mother was an evil woman of epic proportions and wife to my father’s mother’s father who was by all accounts a very tall and practically saintly man (humph! I wonder for I think he's probably at least marginally responsible for his wife’s evilness in some way), that my father’s father’s mother was an aunt to Thomas Edison and my mother’s mother’s mother died during the great influenza epidemic of 1918 causing her children to be scattered to the four winds. It’s just not enough information to satisfy my curiosity. I realize I was lucky to even know my grandparents.



I wonder what all of them would think of the world today!




My maternal grandparents (Robert Elmer Gilmore and Dollie Nellie Huston), my grandfather in particular, were forward thinking people. My grandfather proudly babied my grandmother with whatever the latest technology was. In the mid-60’s they had a color TV, a steam iron, a double electric oven (in which my grandmother, who seriously couldn’t cook her way out of a wet paper bag, thought everything should be cooked on “broil” with disastrous results and on numerous occasions), a matched washer and dryer set and a house furnished in whatever was the current trend and colors. I remember thinking as a kid that they had a house like those you see on TV furnished with all the things people won on “The Newlywed Game”. My grandfather was an entrepreneurial guy who started his own cab company in Yuba City in about 1945 with my grandmother as dispatcher out of an office they set up in their own dining room. They ably provided a solid middle class lifestyle for their family – pretty good for a couple of itinerate farm kids out of the Oklahoma dust bowl. I think my maternal grandfather, a writer and poet, a chess and checkers lover fluent in two other self-taught languages, would embrace video technology and take pleasure in having an MP3 player and cell phone in his pocket. My grandmother was a fiend for Avon products and would have loved laser technology and Botox for her wrinkles.

My fraternal grandparents (John Arthur Roy and Helen Marguerite Palmer) were about a decade older and so a bit more old school(for lack of a better word). They raised seven children in Michigan through the height of the Great Depression. My grandfather was career Navy (Chief Petty Officer) and a 33rd degree mason who valued savings accounts and education -- even in the bathroom cuz why waste time just sitting there, right? He lied about his age to get into the Navy during World War I and at points he was a mason, a prison work camp warden, a building inspector for the Veteran’s Administration and an all around hard-ass and self-educated man. I think he’d be fascinated by the educational opportunities and the wisdom-at-your-fingertips aspects of the internet as well as Craigslist and EBay for he was big on making do and buying second hand. My grandmother took great pleasure in sneaking a smoke (because they both gave it up sometime in 1950s), handing out quarters to her grandkids (all 25 of ‘em) and going to the movies behind my grandfather’s back. She would “diet” but was constantly taking us kids for a nickel cone or donut holes or (gasp) out for strawberry shortcake. She worked in a government office during WWII in a highly responsible but very secret capacity that I never did get the whole story on. Her dressing table with all of its potions and lotions was a wealth of mystery to me and provided me with endless hours of entertainment and sometimes mischief. She was a big time reader and nail biter … and as I write this it occurs to me that I must take after her. From what I remember about her, I think she’d be fascinated by microwaves, cuisinarts, and diaper genies, acrylic nails, progressive lenses, Nicotine gum, one-dose yeast infection cures, the morning after pill and gymnasiums designed exclusively for women. She was the first to pass away. I lost her the same winter I discovered drum corps – I was 12 and in the 8th grade. Her funeral was the first time I ever saw my father cry. I know my mother loved her as much or more than she did her own mother.

I find all them drifting through my meditations. Often my thoughts of them are clouded with regret --- you know, the I should haves and I could haves. I wish I’d been cognizant enough to have taken the time to know them better and appreciate them more and to learn more from them about them … and about me. Or that they’d left behind some kind of written history for me … hmmmm ... like a blog.




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Stop and smell the ........ garbage?

Being recently unhorsed … if that’s even a word … I’m doing a lot of walking and using public transportation like never before. And I mean that seriously … like NEVER before. Walking through the world for really the first time as an adult is like having been near sighted for years and suddenly getting new eyeglasses that bring all the details into overwhelming, crystal, clarity. There is a staggering amount of garbage in the nooks and crannies of our world outpaced only by the astonishing amount of sputum on the ground and everywhere, even in the buildings and trains themselves – enough to fill Lake Tahoe in Sacramento alone.

As I sit at the light rail station and wait for a train I can’t help but notice the ground peppered with myriad candy wrappers and cigarette butts and shake my head and wonder why when there’s garbage cans easily accessible. Didn’t they get the “give a hoot, don’t pollute” pamphlet in grade school that I got? I mourn for today’s kids who will never know the pleasure of a summer day of bare feet on hot concrete. They’ll never know that if you walk on the white lines in a parking lot your feet won’t burn or that black asphalt is hotter than a regular sidewalk. Simple childhood pleasures denied them by an apathetic society.

We could clean up the neighborhoods a great deal if we simply eliminated plastic lids and straws. They’re laying around everywhere … and yet there’s very few cups to go with them???? To me this means no one needs lids and straws or we wouldn’t be so routinely throwing them on the ground. Do away with them! The world can more easily recover from spilled soda than it can from discarded plastic lids and straws.

Sometimes I see things that tickle my curiosity … a pair of perfectly good size 10ish boy’s jeans, a random and expensive-looking high heel, an empty wallet, a crew sock, a condom in the middle of a 6 lane boulevard???? … these feel more like crime tips to me than garbage. Is anyone paying attention?

Intriguingly, the lower the income in a neighborhood the more there is to see and be fascinated by. It would be ignorant to assume that low income people are dirtier. In each of our individual experience we have too many instances where we know that’s simply not true. For example, I was in a Safeway grocery store last year, in a “good” neighborhood and saw a white, middle class “gentlemen” of about 50 lay his finger against one side of nose, close his nostril and blow … in the middle of Safeway’s produce section … where we buy food … stuff we put in our mouth. No, low income people are not naturally dirtier. Doesn’t it rather imply that the city simply feels its funds are better spent cleaning up the nicer neighborhoods to satisfy those who pay all those bonds? When a bond issue is voted in don’t we all pay equally for it? No. We don’t. Folks on public assistance don’t pay and I think that’s why their neighborhoods and public areas are neglected. Even in the face of that, I would think it would be a city’s top priority to keep train stations and other public transit areas the cleanest – isn’t that somewhat equivalent to keeping your living room clean even when the rest of the house is a mess so you can fool company into thinking your house is clean.

Whizzing around in a car we’re moving so fast and we’re so focused on our destination that we just don’t see that we’re living in a filthy fast food garbage can.

Slow down. Take a walk and take time to smell the ……….. garbage. Because we won’t fix what we don’t see.




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Recognizing blessings ...

On Friday, October 13th I left work at 2:00 pm and headed for Redding to be part of the wedding celebration of my good friend Diane and her best friend Ross. It being a Friday, I had a load of “financial” errands to run before I could actually leave Sacramento – nothing went as it should but I had allowed for that and so still found myself pointed north on highway 5 at 3:30 and, with the help of MapQuest and a Taco Bell lunch I was on schedule and feeling pretty cocky. I had nearly a full tank and so planned to drive straight through – it was just me and the open road.

Well, maybe the road was a little too open because driving through Corning I ended up meeting a CHP officer – and if you’ve read this blog before then you know I’d rather have my pinky toe amputated than meet a law enforcement person of any kind, for any reason, ever. He peeled me out of a pack of at least 11 cars hitting his lights behind me and setting off a litany of “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God” in my head. How I got from the fast lane to the shoulder is a blur. As he emerged from his vehicle and strode towards mine I couldn’t help but notice that he was elderly for a CHP officer. I was scared to death and by the time he arrived at my window, I could have been mistaken for a repentant four year old. He casually rested his arm on my car window, inquired if I knew why I was being pulled over and politely told me I was going 87 in a 70. Then he asked for my license at which point I looked him straight in the eye and said that I don’t have one, am not supposed to be driving and it’s not my car. He literally dropped his head onto his arm and gave an audible sigh of disappointment – something my Dad would do! He asked me where I was going and why then he went back to his vehicle to “look” me up …….. and I started chewing my index finger. I knew I wasn’t in jeopardy but that the car was. Not having a driver’s license or insurance the law states the car gets impounded for a mandatory 30 days. So as I watched him in my rearview mirror the “Oh my God” litany is replaced by my brain clicking at full speed to figure out what direction I should walk in, who I would call, how I’d carry all my stuff, what I would tell my son about his car and doing the math to figure out how I would afford to get the car out of impound. When the officer arrived back at my window I fully expected him to ask me to “step out of the vehicle” – he didn’t – instead he gave me a ticket for driving with an expired license and speeding. It was clearly a gift and tears of relief welled up and I think we were both a little embarrassed by that. He told me I was a “nice” person – well, he just met me – and honest and that “we all need a little break once in awhile” and that I should go and have a good time at my friend’s wedding and a nice weekend.

I learned a couple of things …. One, not all law enforcement officers are assholes. Some of them really are “peace” officers there to try to help you. Two, some blessings come in disguise. Who would have ever thought I would look at a speeding ticket as a blessing?

I was born on a Friday the 13th and it’s always been a lucky day for me. This one was no exception.

My lessons had a price though and made me a half hour late getting to Redding and when I arrived I found myself in the middle of Redding’s version of Sturgis. Surprise, surprise! Motorcycles everywhere! All the main roads were blocked off for a parade of motorcycles making my MapQuest map now utterly useless. I drove around town for about 30 minutes before I was finally able to figure out a way to my destination. Feeling as triumphant as the survivors of the Donner party arriving in California, I parked the car to go inside only to discover all the entrances locked. Not exactly giving up but definitely giving in to the events of the afternoon, I decided to sit in the parking lot and wait for everyone to come out. Which eventually happened and we all rolled on to the rehearsal dinner. Within about 30 minutes I’d had enough pizza, drank enough beer and laughed enough to be sufficiently comfortable, glad I came and felt ready to have a good time. The rehearsal dinner was fun and sad and poignant and in what seemed a really short time we were all headed over to the Best Western to bed down.

That night the bride and her "maids" all shared a hotel room. Despite being exhausted emotionally and physically I enjoyed the girl talk and giggling, some trying on of jewelry and make up and other girly pursuits before finally hitting the sack where I'm sure I snored. Waking up to the smell of cinnamon rolls, a couple of us, still in pajamas and unbrushed teeth, headed to the continental breakfast. Yes, people stared and scowled their disapproval at the grown women who should know better showing up in pajamas – well, they can ALL go pound sand – we’re bridesmaids in dire need of coffee so GET OUT OF OUR WAY. We took our sweet time making our plates and coffee despite their hot and disapproving stares and, giggling like teenagers, we eventually headed back to the room to lounge around for another hour before THE BIG DAY actually got underway.

We showered and put our PJs back on and went to meet our metamorphosis from caterpillars to beautiful butterflies head on. With full stomachs and freshly washed hair we surrendered ourselves to the beauticians and were, one at a time, transformed. I know I haven’t worn that much make up since I was in the 3rd grade and dressed up as “Jeannie” for Halloween BUT the end result of the makeup and my hair doing an imitation of Brigitte Bardot’s made me feel prettier than I have in a very long time. As incongruous as it all looked in pajamas it made perfect sense once we were all dressed, coiffed and ready to go.

Transportation to the wedding was clearly a challenge and feeling the bride was being pressured to answer too many questions about what to do, I got a little bossy, swathed the inside of my car with sheets I lifted from the hotel and installed Diane in my backseat. Me and another of her bridesmaids jumped in and we took off headed for the Turtle Bay Exploration Park – the wedding site. Magically, once the bride was gone, everyone else figured out how to get themselves into cars and get there. Gee whiz!

After meeting the photographer, taking a look around and taking care of some last minute decorating and logistic issues we took pictures finally sequestering Diane in the exploration center -- along with the possums, birds and snakes -- just in time to miss the arrival of the groom and his crowd. Whew! It was a hurry up and wait situation with all of the bridesmaids taking turns keeping Diane occupied and making sure things were properly set up.

I was standing up above in the reception area looking down at the impromptu “altar” created by the backdrops Ross and crew had constructed earlier in the day and the gathering guests. Dusk was settling in and the tiny white lights in the illuminated backdrops were now evident and giving off a soft glow. The song “The Prayer” had just started playing and I was thinking of how transformed it all was when I had the feeling someone was standing behind me. I turned to find it was the photographer there to tell me it was time to go. A few minutes later we were lined up single file at the head of the walkway with our long stemmed flowers cradled in our left arm -- looking for all the world like a colorguard. I looked back at Diane, so pretty in her beautiful dress, and saw her face filled with expectation and focused down the walkway. I looked down the walkway to the glowing altar where Ross waited for her and understood and suddenly wished I had a tissue. The ceremony was chock full of funny and endearing moments as well as tender, tearful ones. It had its hitches but as far as I’m concerned it’s all the more memorable for those. Afterwards we all gathered in the reception area to toast the new couple, enjoy the food and each other's company.

Later that night after the toast and the cake, I journeyed home and reflected on what I’d just witnessed. I concluded that my favorite part of the ceremony, of the day in fact, was when Diane clearly affirmed her support of Ross by interrupting the ceremony and asking the minister(s) to “break down” a long tongue-twisting phrase in the vows that would have stumped anyone. Understanding that Ross would have tried it and failed, Diane cast aside any concern she might have had about propriety and with good humor and without damaging anyone’s ego, she turned the situation around and made it possible for Ross to succeed ...... and isn’t that kind of understanding and support a big part of what a successful and happy marriage is all about. In my experience marriage is definitely not for the faint of heart or weak in spirit and I feel confident that Ross and Diane will find their way to a happy marriage together.



:)