I knew it all along ...

You Communicate Like a Man

When you communicate, you like to get to the point. You're not afraid to say what's on your mind - and leave it at that. Talking about your emotions drains you. You rather keep them to yourself. You prefer solving problems to wallowing in your sorrows.

Do You Communicate Like a Man or a Woman?

Thought for the day ...

There's a one letter difference between the word HEROES and HERPES ....

Funny how what was once a grind ...

is now something to look forward to. I’ve opted to use my stash to make the leap to my own place. Neither the time or the place is exactly perfect (but what is) but it does suit 90% of my criteria, it’s a short 10 minutes from my front door to my desk chair and it’s happening before the pending eviction hits my credit report. All good things and I'm intermittently excited and panicked to death. The whole moving thing has elevated my stress level exponentially but I know that’s temporary … after all, there’s a lot of details to be attended to in a move and especially this one what with coordinating clearing out the storage, making sure the money is in the bank on time, figuring out how to get a Uhaul (without a license) and coordinating that with the boys days off so they’re available to move my enormous free-to-me-thanks-to-Stu couch to the second floor… just a lot to do … but once I’m in I know there will be an enormous sense of relief because then, no matter what happens car-wise, I know with a certainty that I can get to work. Since work is what makes the rest of my life possible, getting there has to be at the top of my list of priorities. Moving has the added bonus of getting Teddy the dog and Motown the cat back in my life too. They’ll be good company and together we’ll find the rut that is my normal life. I guess Dionne Warwick was right when she said “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”.

Today is Friday the 13th … almost always a RED LETTER day for me in a good way so I’m looking forward to today being a good one.

Hope yours is too!

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On the edge of a percipice ... or ten

Still recovering from the onslaught that was the weekend of Championships and just now beginning to feel a bit normal. The week following Championships was fraught with professional and personal challenges … none of which killed me so they obviously made me stronger right? Hope springs eternal. The worst part of the week is La Petit Grenouille is ill … gravely ill … fingers are crossed that it’s not terminal but all indications seem to point in that direction. Sigh. Eating the elephant one bite at a time, The Frog is on the list of things to spend money on … but not today, and maybe not for awhile. Til then, I’ve borrowed my son’s car, put a new windshield on it and am driving gingerly until I can drive legally.


The big event of last weekend was Easter and I went to church on Sunday and managed not to burst into flames …. that alone is a media event. I reconnected with family and, in general, got a reality check on what’s most important to me in life. On Monday while driving to work, I briefly entertained the notion of accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior and what that might mean in my life …. I’ve always envied the peace that real Christians seem to have and of course I want that too, who wouldn’t … then I remembered Jesus is a time traveler and is likely just as befuddled by my challenges as I am. Sigh.

Rhetorical Question --- how did Christ die for my sins when I wouldn’t be born for another 2000 or so years? Couldn’t that mean by default that Christ died for OUR sins – even the ones yet to be committed. If you accept that, then wouldn’t it follow that we are going to succeed or fail (and btw be judged) as a group and not as individuals? Wouldn’t the golden rule and the Ten Commandments and judgment day make a lot more sense in that context? Could that be why we’re encouraged to take care of one another, to turn the other cheek, to judge not lest ye be judged, to cast not the first stone? I think we’re God’s grand experiment. A challenge to the angels … an affront of sorts in fact. I think the experiment of humankind will succeed or fail as a whole. Sorta’ puts a different spin on things don’t it? What I know is that I’m a tiny cog in this world and the only thing I can commit to is to bear my burdens in the noblest way I can, use my intellect to make the best decisions I’m capable of, help those I’m directly responsible for and to graciously take on additional burdens only when I can do so without losing myself in the process. In the meantime, God is a blip on my radar and, at this point, occupies a lot of my thought process. Still, I can’t help but wonder why it’s my job to seek him and not his to seek me. A topic for another day I guess.

In the meantime, I’ve started teaching for the spring band season … details (and length of stay) still to be worked out … and today, I’m going to finalize or abandon my apartment hunt. This is a HUGE event and I want to be very, very, very positive that I’m truly, truly, truly ready before I make a jump. Today will be a watershed day either way.

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Ode to a Bunny ...

All the world shall be your enemy
Prince with a Thousand Enemies
and whenever they catch you
they will kill you
but first they must catch you
digger ... listener ... runner ... Prince with a swift warning
be cunning and full of tricks
and your people shall never be destroyed


- Watership Down -

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Championship Weekend

Championship weekend begins tonight.

There are three long shows to judge this weekend; Fresno on Friday, San Mateo on Saturday and San Jose on Sunday and while I’m thrilled for what they’re likely to do for my bank account I’m worried about having the energy to do it all as great as I want to do it.

Tonight I’m picking up my fellow MBoB Alton (that’s him in the picture circa 2002) from the airport and he’ll be my road dog throughout the weekend (and it’s good that I’ll have him to keep me awake through some of the more intense late night driving). We tried to convince Stu to go with his but he has an aversion to the 3-hour drive (wuss!). Personally, I think he just has a secret fear of frogs. So tomorrow at noon the road trip begins as Alton and I head down to Fresno for the first show. After the show we’ll be driving back to the bay area to connect with Stu (who will drive to the bay area but not RIDE to Fresno … sheesh) and our ace-coom-boom Diane and we’ll all get our hibernation on in a shared hotel room. Saturday morning Di, Alton and I get to sleep in while Stu journeys to San Mateo to judge the baby guards. We’ll catch up with him in the afternoon to judge the big kids and afterwards we’re all crashing at our friend Julie’s house for a “pajama party” (she’s the hostess with the mostest) where we’ll watch a lot of colorguard DVDs. I’m really looking forward to seeing Jules. On Sunday I’ll be the one that’s up and out early judging the baby guards (while everyone else sleeps in). Later in the day the remainder of the now enlarged entourage will catch up with me at the show and we’ll all watch the big guards together and alternately point and laugh, yawn and be completely inspired. There are many Reneguard alums planning to attend the show and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with most of them. Afterwards we’re all headed back to Julie’s to eat drink and be merry (for tomorrow may be scary). Somehow we will all make it back to Roseville on Sunday night/Monday morning where Alton has a 6 am flight out of Sac. Whew! And the weekend will be over. I hope I say all the right things into the tape recorder and write down all the right numbers. Mostly, I hope we have fun reconnecting. I hope we laugh a lot. I hope we take good memories of the 2007 season away with us.

Another season bites the dust this weekend and it sure went by quickly.

Real life begins again on April 2. Sigh. I hope I’m ready for it.

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Thought for the day ...

I think the standard wedding vows have outlived their usefulness. I think the words have become like the words to the “Pledge of Allegiance” or “Ring Around The Rosie” – we know them well but we don’t spend too much time thinking about the real meaning behind the words.

I think I’d like to hear vows that are meaningful in today’s world with less biblical mumbo jumbo and more plain talk. I think it should be simple, it should be real and if either partner can't, or won't, keep this covenant, then they shouldn't start something they can’t finish.

I promise to spend the rest of my life …

Making sure all your tears are tears of happiness
Sharing your accomplishments and your problems
Being proud of you
Working to make myself a better person so we’ll be a better couple
Always believing in you as well as believing you
Holding you with open arms and making my open arms a place you want to be
Working to ensure that my ego is never more important than yours
Accepting that sometimes you’ll be right and I’ll be wrong
Knowing that everyday will entail compromise and negotiation
Understanding that finding the good times is easy and that not letting the bad times tear us apart takes diligence
Keeping the faith in all ways

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If ...

I did a lot of driving this weekend, some of it on the outskirts of nowhere so I had a lot of trouble finding a palatable radio station … which wouldn’t have been hard at all if I spoke Spanish (or were I someone who used a used a sharpie to make eyebrows) … but anyhoo, I was randomly searching and happened on a pretty song I’d never heard before and so I stopped searching until about 3 minutes later the DJ came on and said “worship, you got that right, that’s what we’re here for”. At that point I realized it was a religious station and started pushing the search button again but for the remainder of the trip I could NOT get what that DJ said out of my head. What if he knows what he’s talking about? What if God created man simply for his own pleasure? What if our only purpose in life is to worship Him? What if that’s why it’s so difficult to find any sense in our existence? Maybe that’s why life is just a series of meaningless obstacles to overcome? What if that’s really ALL we’re here for. What if it’s really THAT simple? What if THAT should be the point of our day everyday? What if God is a childish, self-centered, a-hole just like the rest of us? Suddenly I feel about as important as a dust mote and for some strange reason the whole thing reminds me of a Mother Goose poem I learned as a child.

If all the world were apple pie,
And all the sea were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we have for drink?

Last Wednesday I helped my son move into his new place. The first order of business was buying a mattress so he would have a bed. He told me he had a “twin size frame” in his new room (along with a dresser and a chair). Ok … a quick internet search helped me to quickly realize that a real mattress wasn’t in the budget so we opted for an Aerobed. We hit the Walmart and bought one in a twin size, along with all the bedding to go with it, a couple of pillows, a nightstand, a lamp, an area rug and some other essentials to get him homey in his new home … then we carried all that up 3 flights of stairs! Within one second of arriving in his new room I realized I’d be immediately going back to Walmart to exchange the bed. Ack! There was no “twin frame” in there! Instead there were 3 old mattresses all piled up on top of each other. Sigh. A couple of hours later I had made the trip to Walmart, sans receipt since Chris had lost it, and ended up not being able to return the twin bed and becoming the proud of owner of a full size Aerobed, a twin size Aerobed, a full size bed-in-a-bag as well as a matching twin size bed-in-a-bag. I love Walmart. I hate Walmart. I am soooo conflicted. Ah well. Now Chris has a full size bed at his house and I have a matching twin size bed at mine ... and the kid is settled in his new place and sleeping on four mattresses like something right out of the story about the Princess and the Pea. Sigh.

I hit the judging trifecta once again this weekend with an NCBA show in Benicia on Friday, a show in Modesto on Saturday morning and a show in San Jose on Saturday night. To make up for the hectic pace of Friday and Saturday I made Sunday leisurely. I left the bay area at 11:00, grabbed some eats in Cordelia and made my usual Dixon Walmart stop and reaching home around 3:00. I completed my weekend by going to Outback with my fellow Sacto guard geeks where my two-margarita dinner more than compensated for the intensity of the earlier part of the weekend. Tequila should be a food group.

Today I’m back at work toting that barge and lifting that bale and,thankfully, none the worse for wear really.

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I See One-Armed People ...

I’ve seen no less than 8 in the last five days … 4 of them on Saturday at the guard show … I think it’s my Dad trying to tell me something.

In my experience it’s not all that out of the ordinary to spot a person who is missing, or has lost, a leg – or two. Understandable since there’s birth defects, accidents, war, disease and all manner of causes to which people lose their legs, or the use of their legs and so it doesn’t seem unusual to me that I see, on average, 1-2 people a week challenged by this. I’m sure there are even more who are wearing a prosthesis and I just don’t notice (which is too bad because gaining use of a prosthetic anything takes a Herculean effort deserving of a standing ovation … but that’s a story for another day).

Conversely, in my experience it’s not all that ordinary to spot a person who is missing, or has lost, an arm – or two. I don’t know why that is, it just is. All the reasons for losing arms are pretty much the same as those for legs wouldn’t ya’ think? So why do I so see people missing an arm only about once every six months? In my view, more arms appear to be missing, or useless, due to birth defects than any of the other causes and I’m wondering if there isn’t some sort of taboo against removing them – as though doctors fight a bit harder to save an arm than they do a leg. It’s just an observation that’s in no way based on medical fact. Just a feeling I’ve got.

I think I notice missing limbs more than the average person because I grew up with a Dad who was born missing his left arm from just above the elbow. The way the story goes is that my Grandmother took a spill down the stairs in the latter part of her pregnancy that caused my Dad to turn and get twisted in the umbilical cord. Theoretically the cord wrapped around his left arm fiercely enough that it pinched off the circulation causing the limb to wither and fall off. I disagree with this theory. I think the umbilical cord is likely the cause but I think it probably happened early in the pregnancy rather than later because his little body struggled valiantly to keep growing the arm for when he was born he had five tiny little finger-stubs growing at the end of the stump that would be his left arm. Had he lost the arm in 7th month (as the story goes) there would not have been sufficient time for this “regeneration” to take place. I think it happened while the arm was forming initially. The umbilical cord also wrapped itself around his neck causing him to born a “blue” baby. That combined with his missing limb and the fact that his entire body was caved in and withered on the left side (later they would discover that the lung on his left side was hopelessly collapsed also) caused the doctors to “throw him to the end of the bed” (to quote my Grandmother) and set to work on her. It’s wondrous that he survived at all. It’s a credit to my Grandmother that her “crippled” child went literally from March of Dimes poster child to being his high school’s quarterback and an all-conference player, a nightclub entertainer and eventually an engineer. My Mom says the first thing my Dad did when he met me was count all my fingers and toes. I can only imagine his relief.


Last night as I was sitting in the pub at a table by a window sharing a pitcher of beer with my kids and talking about this exact personal phenomenon of seeing an inordinate number of one-armed people, a little dark-haired boy of about 5 came merrily skipping down the sidewalk right in front of the bar’s window … he was laughing as he hopped over the outside tables and having a great time being his own best buddy. As he hopped over the table directly in front of our window I was startled to notice he was missing his left arm from the elbow down ……………………… and I nearly spilled my beer in my lap.

You’ve got my attention Dad but I need another sign to figure out the message.



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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

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

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!

.

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!

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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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