Celebrating Labor Day ...

by NOT laboring

I spent all of Saturday in sloth-mode and enjoyed the cooler weather the monsoon brought by opening all the windows and letting the breeze blow through the house. It was the closest thing I've seen to Cali weather since I got here and it was a welcome relief.

On Sunday I spent the day with good friend Kanika and her kidlings playing at the pool, hanging out on the couch gossiping and catching up on the all the gab that is the gab. Good times!

Today I'm celebrating Labor Day by not laboring at all. This day made possible by the generations that came before me who worked 7 days a week, worked when they were still children, worked locked in sweat shops, worked in dangerous situations for less than they were worth and with absolutely no employee rights ... and, eventually, worked to make weekends and holidays, OSHA and overtime possible for sloths like me.

Kudos and thanks!

Once Upon a Time ...

... it was the first week of 1st grade. I was so excited to finally leave the kindergarten playground and be allowed on the grade 1 thru 3 playground. There were two slides there, one was tall at about 7’ (aka the “big slide”) and the other was small at 5’ (aka the “baby slide”). There was a set of rings to swing on and horizontal “monkey” bars to hang upside down on. With all this playground equipment, you’d think I wouldn’t find it necessary to make up my own game under the baby slide, right. Sooo wrong. By holding onto the slide supports, one in each hand, and dead-hanging, I would “walk” up the backside of the slide’s ladder until I eventually turned myself upside down where I would sort of flip and land on my feet. My friends and I did this for weeks on the baby slide til we got bored and moved the game to the big slide to give it a go. The trouble with the big slide was that where the supports met the ground they were way too far apart for our 6-year old arm span. Being a problem solver, I saw an easy fix. I shinnied up one of the supports just high enough to reach out and grab the other support, leaving myself suspended like Jesus Christ about 3’ off the ground. Then I walked up the backside of the ladder, turned myself upside down (leaving myself about 5’ in the air) and flipped landing on my feet as usual … then my bottom (because of the additional height). Even so, I was hailed a hero as everyone followed suit and joined the new game.

One random day, having just made it to the “flip” portion of the trick, one of my hands slipped and I lquickly earned that gravity is a bitch. My forehead connected with the galvanized metal rung at the very bottom of the slide’s ladder just as my chest thudded onto the tanbark causing me to emit the most unattractive UFFFFF sound as the impact pushed all the air from my lungs. The combination of blows made it mandatory that I lie there for a minute … and would have too but for the blood streaming into my eyes!?!?! Always calm in a crisis, even at six, I got up, pressed the heel of my right hand between my eyes to stem the blood flow as much as possible and sought out a yard duty teacher. I found freshly credentialed Miss Chechetti on the basketball courts and said to her “I think I hurt myself”. She took one look at me and went white as a snowstorm. Leaving all the other children alone on the playground to fend for themselves, she rushed me, yard duty whistle bouncing, to the nurse’s office. The nurse (yes, we had those then) was a seasoned vet who stuck a butterfly bandage on me, gave me a baby aspirin and called my mother. Fast forward to the pediatrician’s office. I have a small, deep, ragged cut right between the eyes where my head hit the metal rung. The doctor is telling me he’s going to give me a shot so it won’t hurt --- what kind of logic is that! By this time in my life I know shots hurt and so do stitches, but right then I was hurting so badly, I just didn’t care. I got the shot, I got the single stitch he used to pull the raggedy edges of my cut together and I got the blast of aerosol plastic over the whole thing that would not only hold it all together, but also allow me to get wet (and it tangled my eyebrows in knots for days) … and the very next day I got my first grade school picture taken.

6 pounds and 7 ounces not that long ago ...

Well it was 30 years ago because yesterday we celebrated Chris' 30th birthday!

Wow! I still don’t feel all that far past 30 myself. Oops! I guess the advantage to having kids in the first half of your twenties is that they sort of catch up to you along the way and eventually (and sure probably briefly) you find yourselves in a similar place in life. It’s interesting being your kid’s contemporary (same music, same movies, same sociability) and still being their parent. It’s all sort of analogous to us as pieces on a game board. Chris rolled the dice and landed on the slide labeled “grow up” and slid into the same space where I’d already landed after pulling the “get divorced, start over” and “get laid off, lose 2 turns” cards. For what it’s worth it seems that Kevin, at 27, has a slight lead on both of us, lol.

In adulthood, birthdays that end in zero are milestones that are a much bigger deal than all those in between. Recognizing that, last night there were presents and ice cream cake (yum!). One of the things I got for him was a little book entitled “Tomorrow”. It's a not-too-smarmy yet timely diddy for this stage of his life I think. Inside it I wrote him a short “mom note” (similar to the ones I used to write on his lunchbox napkins when he was a little) and the note was about having “hope”. Afterwards I got to thinking about hope and that brought to mind the myth about Pandora’s box and how she released hope from it not long after she’d unleashed all the other evil miseries that plague mankind and the world.

And then I thought, wait a minute ….

Isn’t hope a good thing?

Why was it in the same box containing all of man’s greatest torments?

I pondered this off an on all afternoon and couldn’t think of a reason. Finally, like Pandora, my curiosity got the best of me and I went looking for an answer on the internet and found the following.

“Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."

Ouch! Have I just wished a torment on my kid?

“False hopes”, “high hopes”, “hope springs eternal” …. hope may prolong our torment but where would we be without it? I guess it’s the ultimate necessary evil so to speak and so, yeah, I still wish it for Chris as he turns the page and begins a new decade sure to make itself into a new chapter.

I do feel like he and I have reached that part of the world map though where it simply says “Thar’ be sea monsters here”.

Thank goodness I was raised by pirates ... and so was he :-)


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AARP, AARP !!!

No, it’s not the sound of your neighbor’s barking dog. It’s the American Association for Retired Persons.

I’ve been receiving invitations to join AARP since I was 48. Last year at 51 I finally took the plunge, wrote my check for $12.50, sent it off and joined. In exchange for my $12.50, I now have the cutest little red and white AARP card to carry around in my wallet and occasionally flash to save money. I also own a small collection of AARP magazines that I keep in a small wicker basket next to my rocking chair in my bedroom (and yes, I know that makes me sound incredibly ancient). I worry if it’s a sign of old age that I actually intently read these magazines cover to cover because I find the articles relevant and genuinely entertaining!?!?!?

The downside of AARP is that it generates a fair amount of, what is to me, junk mail. The mail isn’t actually junk. In fact, it’s chockfull of incredibly worthwhile opportunities to save money buying ordinary goods and services that just aren’t terribly meaningful to me (like vacations, good driver insurance, death benefits, etc) because I’m either covered by my work benefits or can’t afford it.

Last week I received a plain white #10 envelope bearing my name and address in the center and “AARP/NYL” in the upper left-hand corner. Thinking it was yet another offer for an AARP Visa card, tornado insurance or a reduced price offer to go to Bermuda or some other thing I didn’t need, couldn’t have or couldn’t afford, I nearly threw it out. It was a close call. Had I not had my hands full and already been on a mission, I would have taken the time to drop it in the round file where all junk mail goes. But I didn’t and, as a result, it was still lounging on the dining room table when I got home from work on Friday night and took the time to open it and realize it wasn’t an advertisement at all! It was a 2-sentence letter.

“We’re trying to determine if you are a relative of John Roy. Please call our office between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm (east coast time) yadda, yadda, yadda”

Yadda, yadda, yadda because I didn’t need to read the rest. I internalized the topic sentence right away and, thinking there’s something wrong, I pick up the phone. Sure, its 4:30 pm west coast time but, you know me, I’m gonna’ try and, seriously, would you expect anything less? I’m surprised though when someone actually just answers the phone. I tell her about the letter, she looks me up, finds me and asks me if I’m a relative. “Yes, I’m his daughter” I say “and, in fact, he’s here in a box about ten feet from me right now” (I’ll never be the one to receive a prize for tact). She asks me if I can confirm his full name and date of birth and of course, I can. She then confirms my current address and tells me she’s sending me a “claim form”. Pause. Unexpected this. Suddenly a million questions churn through my brains. This is exactly when I make the connection between the “NYL” on the envelope the words “New York Life”. I’m stunned into a momentary silence. Reigning in my churning brain I reduce the million questions down to just one and say, “Does this mean there’s a benefit of some sort?” “Yes”. I now can’t hold my tongue and the obvious next question simply falls out of my brain directly onto it and I hear myself say “Do you know how much it’s for?” and she tells me that “can’t be determined until the claim is filed”.

Sure! It will probably amount to $4.17 but I could care less. I’m joyful because I feel like my Dad just reached out and hugged me from the other side. If you read the blog, you’ll know that a few years ago I’d thought he was trying to tell me something, trying to get me to pay attention to something, trying to point me somewhere and I was just too stupid to figure it out. NOW, I feel like his message has finally reached me and I’m inexplicably all warm and fuzzy about it!

Whatever it is, I’ll follow through. Thanks for the hug Dad!

Love you much and miss you more.


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Thought for the day ...

There's only a one-letter difference
between stalking and talking

Regrets? I've had a few ....

<$1 to Frank Sinatra>

Why didn't I think to microchip Judas?

Duh!

I was looking for him on Craiglist last Friday (something I've done obsessively several times a day since he went to his new family) and hoping I wouldn't find him there. The good news is that I didn't. The bad news is that I found the attached horror story and it damn near destroyed me. Less than two hours after I read this Jack was the proud owner of a new microchip. $25 dollars of reassurance planted subcutaneously between his shoulder blades. The only way Jack will ever need it is if he gets lost because I will never, never, never, never, EVER rehome or give up (and I've done more than my share) another animal. I'm cured forever. That's just one of the gifts Jubes gave to me.

PLEASE QUIT GIVING YOUR PITS AWAY FOR FREE--I MADE THAT MISTAKE AND I RECEIVED A CALL FROM THE ANIMAL SHELTER SIX MONTH AFTER I REHOMED HER-MY PIT HAD A MICROCHIP AND I AM NOW SO GLAD THAT SHE DID. WHEN I WENT TO GO AND PICK HER UP FROM THE SHELTER THEY TOLD ME THAT THEY FOUND HER RUNNING THE STREETS, SHE WAS COVERED IS DIRT AND MUD AND YOU COULD CLEARLY SEE SHE WAS USED FOR FIGHTING. I NEARLY DIED WHEN I SAW HER, SHE WAS SO BADLY BEATEN UP AND HAD HALF HER FACE MAULED OFF. THEY CROPPED HER EARS SO SHORT THAT YOU CANT SEE WHERE SHE EVEN HAD YEARS AND SHE WAS SO TIMID AND STAND OFFISH WHEN I APPROACHED HER. NOW MY DAUGHTER SLEEPS ON THE FLOOR WITH HER EVERY NIGHT BECAUSE SHE IS SCARED AND DOES NOT WANT TO BE ALONE. I WILL NEVER GIVE ANY ANIMAL TO ANYONE EVER AGAIN BECASE IT WILL BE HARD TO TRUST. I THOUGHT I GAVE HER TO A GOOD HOME, AND I WAS WRONG. TO THE ONES THAT HURT MY BABY KARMA IS A BAD THING! I AM NOW CARING FOR HER AND TO BE HONEST I DONT THINK SHE WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN BUT I WILL LOVE HER AND HOPE THAT SHE COMES AROUND. IT HAS BEEN TWO WEEKS AND SHE IS FINALLY NOT AFRAID TO APPROACH THE FOOD DISH AND SHE IS ACTUALLY PUTTING ON SOME WEIGHT. WHO EVER HAD HER GOT TIRED OF HER, OR POSSIBLY SHE WAS NOT A GOOD FIGHTER ANY LONGER SO THEY DUMPED HER IN THE STREETS TO FEND FOR HERSELF.
IF YOU GIVE YOUR PIT AWAY FOR FREE PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHO THEY GO TO--YOU CANT TRUST EVERYONE!

I've gotta' mentally let Jubes go so he can become a happy memory and not a regret .... the not knowing is just so damned hard!

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Meet the Cheat ....

Jack .... He's a full-grown, 1 year old min pin/dachsund bundle of boy who weighs in at a whopping 8 pounds! So cute he'll give you diabetes on initial contact. I found him on Craigslist last Saturday afternoon. His guardian Jeff is being deployed to Iraq and needed a new forever home for Jack. That's where I came in.

I'd been scouring Craigslist for weeks specifically to make sure Judas didn't make an appearance there (it's a common practice for dogs to be taken in and then re-sold under the guise of re-homing). In the process I started opening up to the idea of a dog of my own. I happened to be sitting at the computer when Jack's ad came up. I made the call and an hour later I was Jack's new guardian.

Teddy was really into Jack for the first few hours. Now he just pretends he isn't there ... and vice versa to some degree. Jack still tries to make friends though. If I had to bet, I'd put my money on Jack eventually sucking Ted in just like he's done to the rest of us. Jack has charisma after all.

And his fabulous manners don't hurt either :)


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Jubes Departs ...

It’s been a month but this past weekend I finally shook the worst of a big weight that was on my heart. I feel like I cheated to get rid of it. The cheat has alleviated most of my sadness but hasn’t made a dent in my guilt … I’ll take that. And the cheat is a story for another day.

About a month before our move to Arizona Jubes (aka Sir Judas Bacon) started exhibiting some mild dog-on-dog aggression. It’s not a big deal really. It’s a common and fixable problem especially prevalent in male dogs as they mature. It’s fixable with additional socialization with other dogs, neutering and consistent leadership. It’s a phase of Jubes’ development we’ve been anticipating, studying up for and preparing to deal with since he was just a tiny, beige, comma in the bottom of a box.

It all came down to timing and, let’s just say, the timing was less than optimal. Jubes’ dog-on-dog aggression reached its apex the week we were moving. It seems the move intensified it … 15 hours in the back of an SUV, three different hotels, too many stops in too many unfamiliar places with too many strangers … or just too much new input and stimulation in too short a span of time … or too much he felt he needed to defend. I guess we’ll never really know. However, it came about, while we between houses, our playful and good-natured Jubes became impossible to walk in public without him acting like a slobbering menace every time he spotted another dog. Sigh. Problematic in a major way because what the public easily tolerates from a little dog, it has zero tolerance for from a bigger dog and gets down right indignant about from a bully breed. I get it. I used to be one of those people.


We did what we could. We muzzled him. We walked him late in the evenings or super early in the mornings. We walked him in the most unpopulated routes and places we could find and did our utmost not to have him come into contact with other dogs figuring that, once we were settled in the new place, things would calm down and we’d get to work on this challenge …. well, we never got the chance.

We’d only been in our new place two days when, out for an early morning walk with Chris, Jubes put on a snarling, frothing at the mouth exhibition for an older woman who out walking her Scottie through our complex. In an evil twist of fate, she turned out to be the corporate manager of our 360+ unit complex. It took only 180 seconds for her to turn to Chris and say “it would really be a shame if after only 2 days here you have to move out”.

Red Alert!

After much discussion, soul-searching and a large dose of reality delivered by their wallets, Chris and Linz decided they couldn’t move out right now so they put Jubes’ photos and info on Craigslist. Seriously, I figured Craigslist was a long shot so I was caught off guard when they were called right away by a family interested in taking Jubes. Long story short, Jubes has gone to a new forever family thanks to Craigslist. The kids feel they couldn’t ask for a better adoptive pack -- Mom, Dad, a school-age boy and girl, a big back yard and a 1-year old Australian Shepherd for a friend. They believe that as adoptive families go, this one is top drawer. I sure hope so. I love that stupid little dog. I’ve always been ready for him to move away with the kids but I was not prepared never to see him again. Of course, I’m relieved that the immediate landlord problem is solved and of course, I applaud Chris and Lindsey’s decision and I’m glad for them because it does solve the problems presented by Chris’ snap decision in the parking lot of Safeway last August. Like what they will do with Jubes while they’re both working full time and living in their own apartment with no yard. But their choice is a regret we’ll all carry. Oh well, if only our kids would learn from our mistakes and experiences and listen to our advice in the first place these heartwrenching choices would never have to be made ….. annnnyyyyyway.

Were it not for Jubes “close encounter of the landlady kind” I would have kept him if the kids couldn’t take him when they moved out. That was always my contingency plan. And, despite Jubes’ close encounter, I would have kept him and challenged the landlady if his only option was a pound. After all, Jubes was a pre-approved, rent-paying, tenant on the lease. It’s a battle I would have waged and likely won, but it didn’t come to that. Instead, Jubes has a new family who want and understand him and who know as much about his tricks and talents as the kids could jam into the 30 minute “interview” time they all had together. The only thing that makes this at all palatable for me is that the new family has the kids address and phone number and has agreed that, should things not work out with Jubes, he be returned to the kids. That agreement reasonably assures Jubes won’t go to a pound, end up in a dog-fighting pit, a research facility or a can of dog food. Even so, I worry. Although the kids miss Jubes they are ultra comfortable with their decision. I guess one day I’ll get there too. One day when there’s no shows like “Animal Cops” finding live pitbulls beaten nearly to death, hog-tied and stuffed into lidded garbage cans to die. No news reports of pit bulls tied to trees, doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. Someday?

I’m thankful for the time with Jubes. I guess he crossed my path as another “see I told you so” lesson in response to another of my “I would never ______ (fill in the blank)” statements. Jubes revealed to me abilities I never knew I had, but more importantly, he taught me a lot about how to live tolerance instead of just talking tolerance like so many other people do.

I’m infinitely grateful that another family saw in him what we see. That he’s a smart, loving little guy and a joy to have around. It’s my most sincere hope that Jubes live a long and happy life … I just wish I could be there to watch.

And I wish I lived in a world without ignorance. A world where thinking adults understood that people with foreign accents aren’t necessarily stupid, black people really can float and there’s no such thing as an aggressive breed.

Whoever coined the phrase “ignorance is bliss” was an idiot.

Ignorance has a painful price tag.

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County Mouse to City Mouse ...

That’s just how I feel.

We’ve arrived in Arizona … aka “The Valley of the Sun”!! Let’s be realistic folks and just call it “The Valley ON the Sun” cuz that’s far closer to the truth. Redding is plenty hot in the summer but at least the temperature drops somewhat in the evenings. Here the temperature never drops significantly enough to provide any real relief. My first day here it was 104 degrees at noon, it was still a whopping 94 at midnight and it was a muggy 76 degrees by 6am this morning. The air conditioners never get a break … the hum is constant in the house… like tinnitus except you have to pay for it! I’m very afraid of the coming utility bill!

At times I feel like I’ve migrated to a parallel universe where everything is deceptively the same but not quite right, in short it’s like being cast as a guest star in an episode of the Twilight Zone where you open the kitchen cupboards only to find that all the food is made of Plaster of Paris. After comparing notes the family has decided it’s because it’s not just another state, it’s another planet. So we’ve agreed to work at blending in to prevent the natives from recognizing us as the aliens we are and coming after us to dissect our brains, or worse … probe us!

Things I haven’t yet quite adjusted to on the new planet of Arizona:

It’s extraordinarily flat here with occasional outbreaks of what Arizonians call “mountains”. Ok I guess technically they’re mountains but from far away they look like nothing more than a painted backdrop from a Wiley E. Coyote cartoon and up close they look like gigantic piles of potting soil. They’re just …. weird.

I’m having trouble taking the state flag here seriously. It flaps in the breeze over the local McDonald’s looking like an enlarged version of something some rinky-dink Midwest colorguard might spin. Who knew I had so much respect for the golden bear?

Everyone here is devoted to NASCAR. I have no words for that except WTF.

The city streets seem extraordinarily wide and open with few to no lines painted in the intersections resulting in the sensation that the 8 lanes of traffic across from you at the signal really are ONCOMING TRAFFIC!

The traffic light layout is different. Of course I was the first car in the left turn only lane when I discovered this. Instead of a rectangular block of 3, it’s a square block of 5! Trust me I was honked at as if I was sporting a bumper sticker that read “Honk if you love NASCAR”. I’ve about got it figured out now. The light turns green and everyone goes and you yield. Then the light turns red for a bit. Don’t go. Then the arrow lights up green and you get to go unimpeded by oncoming traffic. This means you get two chances to go in every cycle. That’s got to ultimately be a bonus right? The confusion is more in the presentation than anything else I guess, even so, it will take me awhile to get used to the idea that I have the option to fling myself into oncoming traffic any time any light is green. Can someone give me a woohoo?

Swimming. I love the swimming part I just hate the bathing suit part. Unfortunately it’s simply too hot here to say no to owning, and then of course WEARING a bathing suit.

Changes I’ve happily accepted here on the planet of Arizona …

The really spectacular icemaker in the refrigerator

No helmet law for motorcyclists. Right! It doesn’t affect me directly, but being that I’m against motherhood laws on principle, I can’t help but to see this as a good thing.

Nine-foot ceilings

You can talk on your cell phone while you drive. Hooray! Perfect now that I’ve opted not to have a cell phone. God’s sense of humor working overtime there.

Front license plates are not required here. See above and reference God’s sense of humor.

Brand new carpeting

The view of the moon from my oversized kitchen window.

The nice Fry’s and Trader Joe’s close to home to supplement the Super Walmart right around the corner. It’s a regular shopping bonanza here.

The en suite bathroom.

The incredible number of restaurants in Biltmore and the Camelback Corridor

To sum it all up …

As of this morning, I have home 91.53% unpacked and so can reasonably get through the normal course of a day. Good news for my sanity that! Once unpacked, I found out that the apartment is considerably bigger than is required for the amount of stuff I own. An excellent problem to have! 1221 square feet is bigger than I thought – so much for any spatial skills I thought I had. The extra square footage, the extra garage, the extra 1.5 bathrooms, the high quality fitness room, the game room, the resort-style pool, the Jacuzzi, the sauna, the internet café and the tanning bed (yes, I said tanning bed) compensate nicely for the absence of a backyard. I’m sure the dogs would disagree but then they’re not paying the rent.

I'm starting to feel at home here already :-)

Leaving California ...

We departed Redding on Friday, June 19 at 4pm all souls accounted for and two hours ahead of schedule … 4 people, 2 dogs, good attitudes and 919 miles to go. We all happily waved goodbye to Redding.

We’d agreed ahead of time that it was best for the dogs if we stopped every two hours. Me being the anal-retentive person that I am, I had laid out our journey in detail on Map Quest weeks before and had copies for the whole crew to follow along. I find that everyone having a map practically eliminates the “how far til” and “are we there yet” and “when do we eat” syndromes. An old stand-by works. Our first scheduled stop was Dunnigan but the dogs were already squirming by the time we hit Willows so we opted to stop early in Williams where we stretched and watered the pups and then hit the local Denny’s,

We were five minutes down the road when we hit our first wall. The kids had a cold war in the backseat over who-knows-what and that didn’t dissipate until we hit the next stop.

Next stop Westley! A quick bit of gas, a McDonald’s potty break, a water spigot for the dogs and we were back on our way.

We hit our destination of the Super 8 in Kettleman City by 11pm. It had looked nice enough on the internet and the view as we pulled in seemed to confirm that but the reality on the inside was nothing like its billing. It was like a motel room out of a scary movie. We checked for peepholes, cameras and men dressed as their mothers a la Psycho before finally turning the air conditioner on full blast and hitting the sack. The temperature was 80+ when we bedded down and I’d say it was 90+ by the next morning. The air conditioner made a lot of noise but that’s all it did.

Next morning we had planned to sleep in until check out at 11am so that we’d be traveling through the hottest part of our journey that night. Arguably the hottest part of the journey turned out to be sleeping in that motel room. I woke up at 6am feeling like a hot dog rotating in one of those 7-11 cookers. Knowing it was insanely early I tried to be polite and keep quiet. I took the dogs for a walk and entertained myself as best I could but by 8:00 had started making noise sufficient to wake people up. We hit the local Carl’s Jr. for some breakfast burritos and were on the road by 10am.

Whew!


In no time at all we were on the grapevine. I have bad childhood memories of the grapevine and as a result I view a trip over it much like the early California settlers probably viewed a trip over the Sierra Nevadas but probably less optimistically. I’m always convinced we’ll end up stranded and cannibalizing each other. We stopped in Lebec, just before the climb, gassed up, bought drinks and snacks for us and hotdogs for the pups (maybe it was the motel room cookery that inspired that, I dunno’) and let the truck cool down before starting our ascent.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d worried it would be. My sphincter factor ran high until we reached the apex and I believe I left half-moons shapes in the upholstery with my fingernails all for nothing because the temp gauge never even fluttered past its regular mid-point. We hit the flats without incident and soon enough we were in Pasadena driving through a pounding thunderstorm of biblical proportions and making our one and only u-turn of the entire trip.

An hour later we hit a wall …

We took the exit for our scheduled stop and Fred pulled into the first gas station we came to. We were three hours ahead of schedule and in the middle of the ghetto. The rain was gone and the temp was at least 100. We were supposed to eat dinner at this stop but it was only 2pm and no one was hungry yet. Now what? Here’s the truncated version of what happened next at the gas pump.

It’s ok, we’ll eat later let’s just get gas. No, let’s go, we still have half a tank. No, because it gets desolate after this stop. There’ll be plenty of places to stop. No there won’t. Yes there will. No there won’t. Yes there will. You don’t know what you’re talking about! No, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Well I looked it up on Map Quest did you!? Shut up!! No, you shut up!!! No, you shut up!!!! Well you’re walking back when we run out of gas in the middle of nowhere! No you’re walking back! No you are!! No you are!!! No you are!!!!

Kindergartners exhibit more wit than the two of us in an argument.

We got gas, the dogs peed and we didn’t talk to each other for the next two hours. Harrumph and fine!

Having screwed up our last scheduled stop by being three hours ahead of schedule we now had no plan. We drove through the hot nothingness for a while passing Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indio and Banning as we watched the scenery get more and more desert-like. We finally took an exit (Blythe?) not too far from the border. We got lucky with that stop stop because it turned out to be a little oasis in the desert with a quickie mart, a gas station, a water spigot for the pups and, in the category of what the hell, a museum dedicated to General Patton. We watered the dogs and ourselves and hung out for about 20 minutes before driving past a bunch of the General’s WWII tanks and heading out to the freeway. Rejuvenated from our stop we were pleased to find ourselves in the Joshua Tree National Forest. You know that part of the world where it makes sense to start looking for the signs that say “world’s largest ball of string – next exit”. We looked hard but never saw a Joshua tree much more than 2’ tall.

Let me digress here for a moment and just say that “forest” is a serious misnomer for this particular stretch of country. Actually, a more appropriate name might be the Dr Seuss Tree National Forest for every bit of foliage reminded me of the illustrations in his many, many books. I wondered if any of what I was seeing had provided inspiration for the books.


So much for the “forest”.

The border came as an abrupt surprise. No real ballyhoo in advance. There was simply a road sign with an Arizona flag on it, then a fruit check station for those entering California --- apparently, Arizona doesn’t care what fruits you bring into their state because there was no stop for us --- and then a much bigger sign and a much bigger flag and, bingo, we were over the border. What it lacked in pageantry it made up for in emotion as we all got quiet saying goodbye to California … for now.

Goodbye Franchise Tax Board

Goodbye CHP

Goodbye Ahhhnold

Goodbye fruit police… lol.

Suddenly Arizona license plates and saguaro cactus surrounded us. We all marveled over how quickly and seamlessly that transition happened. Wow.

Not far after the border, we pulled off in the city of Quartzsite. The highway sign advertising a family restaurant is what drew us off the highway. Although it was still early, the restaurant was closed and so was everything else. Chris is seriously spooked by desert towns that appear to be deserted and I was having my own visions of the whole town closing their businesses for the day so they could load their pockets with stones and participate in the local lottery. Our appetites on hold we drove around and surveyed the little town unsuccessfully for restaurants. The movie “Silent Hill” came up in the conversation as we beat it back to the highway pronto. We rationalized that we weren’t scared. It was just that we were now only two hours away from our destination anyway and we could eat in Phoenix.

It was still light when we arrived on Saturday. We could see downtown Phoenix from miles and miles away. Evidence that Phoenix and its surrounding areas really are flat. We headed directly for the apartment. I was the only one who had seen it so it was mandatory that everyone have a first look and see what they’d signed up for.

It wasn’t exactly like the unit I’d walked through a few weeks ago. It seems that by opting for an end unit I lost the window seat in the master bedroom and an extra 2 or so feet of balcony. Oh well. I got brand-spanking new carpeting I wasn’t expecting and that made up for it.

We spent about an hour scoping the apartment and the various amenities in the complex and then headed for the Homewood Suites to settle in.

What a nice surprise! Our room was a gorgeous, fully decorated, fully equipped one-bedroom apartment with a complete kitchen. In this case reality outdid the internet. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. We’d arrived intact, on time and with no real scars or scares and all of tomorrow to rest and renew before the first Monday at work and the arrival of Stage 2 … the moving van.

Stay tuned …






.

Making for Mecca ...

My leaving Redding has been on the agenda since I arrived but it really started looming large last January. Finally, after being told I was going, being told I might be let go, being told I was going etc, etc, etc … well, I'm going. But not to Santa Maria as originally planned. Nope. Now it's off to San Diego but with a 12 mos stint in Phoenix first. Yep, Phoenix. This California native is going to follow the work and give the desert lifestyle a try. So last week I made the journey to Mecca (Phoenix headquarters) once again. This time to attend the mid-year company meeting, to find a place to live and to set in motion the next chapter of life.

I left on a Thursday morning from Redding on one of those teeny, tiny, toy airplanes that I “love” so much, flew into SFO and arrived relatively unscathed. Whew. We left SFO on time headed for Phoenix on what I finally surmised must have been the female pilot’s maiden voyage because the plane pitched and yawed in every conceivable direction on it’s sea of air. Having had nothing but coffee all day, my body's response to all this was to get frighteningly close to giving me the chance to inventory my stomach contents, in detail, in a ridiculously tiny, navy-blue, airline-provided paper bag. A new first in my long list of firsts.

Just a thought … When a pilot is a female wouldn’t it more appropriate to spell it pilette?

I arrived in Phoenix at 3:08, stomach contents yet intact, jumped into a cab and buzzed uptown to a realtor’s office for the ten-cent tour of Phoenix and the chance to look at some places to live. We squeezed in four possibilities … I nearly rejected the first one almost before we got out of the car but politely held my tongue until we’d actually toured the place and THEN, willing to have the relator think I was a snob, I rejected it … the second and third places more than made up for the first place and the fourth place was closed. Sooooo … choosing was ultra simplified by the fact that I only had two choices. Even so, I needed to sleep on it and so I asked to be dropped off at the hotel where I ate (finally), soaked in the tub, watched bad TV and finally fell asleep really early. Rising the next morning and, for once, consciously choosing the practical over the most fun, I called the realtor and took a 3-level townhouse. We'll be giving "resort living" a spin. The next day I went to headquarters where I found my name already on the wall of my assigned space … wow … and spent a few hours at my new desk filling out the application and gathering all the assorted nonsense I needed to apply for the new townhouse, stuffed it all into an overnight envelope and deposited it with the receptionist before finally heading out for the company meeting. The company meeting was fantastic. Truly. Between 2pm and 5pm I absorbed enough inspiration to feel really positive about this choice to move to Phoenix and am looking forward to what the next year will bring.

That night I had dinner with Renebabe friend Kanika and her two kiddos. We hung out for a few hours at the Tempe Marketplace where we ate Mexican food and watched her kids play in the mall’s splash-fountain. It was incredibly hot. The kind of hot that makes your feet stick to the cement … or maybe that was because I spilled my entire strawberry smoothie under our feet. Ack! There was no greenery or shade in sight so watching the wee ones frolic in the water was our refreshing relief from the life-sucking heat and the food and the company were a great break for me from an otherwise stressful couple of days.

Saturday morning it was up and out to the airport … and a delay due to fog in SF that finally led to a total rework of my travel plan home courtesy of the airline's kiosk agent. Thank goodness for kiosk agents! I had to be re-routed from Phoenix thru Portland to get home …. and it took alllllllll daaaayyyyyy … let’s just say I don’t ever want to see 3 states in 5 hours again. The upside though is that the flight from Portland to Redding is incredibly beautiful with views of Crater Lake, Mt. Shasta and Lake Shasta that make you believe in God.

Stepping off the teeny, tiny plane and onto the griddle-hot tarmac in Redding, I realized it was incredibly hot here too … temperature gauges indicated it was actually hotter than Phoenix but for whatever reason the heat just isn’t as hot here as it is in Phoenix. Funny because the increased humidity should make it feel hotter?? Oh well. Maybe it’s the absence of so much cement …. or the absence of sticky strawberry fluids underfoot … or because a shorts-clad B was there waiting to whisk me home into the nice, cold, air conditioning …. Mmmmmmmm

Time to turn the page ...

In about two weeks our fearless foursome and the pups will be on our way to new digs in Phoenix.

Hard to believe but more than a year, 14 months to be exact, has passed since I first arrived in Redding. As I feverishly plan my departure and pull up roots bound for Phoenix, I can’t help but be sad for there are things about the North State that I will sorely miss ...

The smell – because it always smells like vacation here, like camping by the river, like sun-drenched vegetation in the wilderness and clean, cold water – and how this smell has the power to bring on a sudden rush of precious childhood memories and transport me back to long, lazy summer days spent lounging idly on my Grandma’s lawn swing in her 100+ degrees Yuba City backyard garden, sucking grape Nehi from a glass bottle I purchased at the corner store, studying the sowbugs and grasshoppers, burying my bare toes in the long, cool grass and the soft, peaceful ksssk, ksssk, ksssk, ksssk, swiiiiiish of the lawn sprinkler in the background.

My backyard – because it contained enough dirt, enough grass, enough leaves and enough critters to make me feel like I was a part of the permanent landscape and to constantly remind me of my connection to the earth

The weather –because from rain to snow to blistering heat you never know from one day to the next which of the four seasons mother nature truly has in store for you until you fling open your own front door each day and experience it first hand as it smacks you in the face.

The postcard moments – because everyday, from mountains, meadows and rivers, I could use my fingers to form a camera lense, point it in almost any direction and find at least a half-dozen “postcard” moments to be awed by and grateful for

Here's to hoping I'll find "postcard" moments in the desert too ... cuz here we go!



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Franklin Field, Philly, 1975

A perfect G.E. score ...

high drums ...

and second place in M&M = no threepeat

oh, and 4:00 to 4:05 ... heh ... I guess I did make it to the front side line in jr corps after all

A salute to funny hats ....

Ok, maybe it's me but it seems fundamentally WRONG to smile while wearing an aussie ... lol







DCI 2002 Opening Ceremonies

Mission Accomplished ...

We won !!!

If wishes were horses ...

... we'd all take a ride

It's my mother's wisdom and I heard it a lot as a child. It took me growing up to fully comprehend it's deeper meaning.

I guess as a child I must have had a lot of wishes and wants to have heard that so much from my mother ... but tonight I have only one wish and that's for tomorrow to go my way without fail.

It's close to midnight now so it's almost "tomorrow" but, hard as I try, I can't sleep. Too much anticipation and anxiety I guess. Reaching tomorrow has been a hard-fought, lonely, isolating, soul-wearying, horrific 14-month battle that has challenged everything I believed, experienced or was sure of in my heart. It's been akin to kicking a rock uphill everyday ... in bare feet. Tomorrow the rock should start rolling down the other side.

Tomorrow is only 8 minutes away now and,as highly anticipated as this day has been, I can't help but be scared to death of it ... I guess for now, I have 8 minutes to relax (if I can), to pray (in my fashion) and to call on my angels (just the holy ones please).

calling all angels
calling all angels
we're trying, we're hoping, we're hurting, we're loving
we're crying, we're calling, but we're not sure how this goes

I deserve a win.


.

Still crazy (mom) after all these years ...

After talking to him for no less than three consecutive days about it, Chris forgot to put the garbage and recycle cans out on the curb for collection this morning. Again. I gritted my teeth, counted my blessings (cuz the garbage truck hadn't come yet), thought about doing it myself for the 48th time in 50 weeks …. but in the end decided I wasn’t gonna’ wrestle all three heavy cans to the curb in my work-wear and I knocked on his door and reminded him … nicely … really.

so he got up

and he put the cans on the curb

and I felt sort of guilty for making him get up … but darn it!

A short time later, I was warming up my truck in preparation for the drive to work and taking the opportunity to clean out all the fast food junk and garbage that had piled up inside it as a result of my judging weekend. As I turned toward the can (now on the curb) I passed Chris’s little Honda and noticed that he also had some car garbage in the form of old newspapers and fast food trash and I thought I’d be nice (and alleviate some guilt at the same time). So I swooped up his car garbage too, putting anything that looked remotely important in his glove box, and took everything to the trash can.

and went to work

So it’s lunch time and I'm at Bed Bath and Beyond struggling with the weighty decision of which shower shelf to buy to hold the ever-expanding number of potions and lotions in my shower when my phone rings ……. “Mom, when you took all my stuff out of my car did you see my check stub?” ….. “It’s in your glove box” …. “Don’t do that again, ok” ……. “You’re kidding, right?” …. “No, seriously I went out to the car because I knew right where it was and it wasn’t there and then I …………………..., “Ok, got it. I’ll talk to you later, bye.” and I hung up.

Argh!

It's true what they say ....... no good deed goes unpunished!


.

Risky Blessing ...

I judged movement at the Livermore show yesterday and got done at about 7pm. Driving straight home at that early hour should have been a breeze but there's something about I-5 that makes me sleepy ... rut roh! To combat this I routinely break my trip down into manageable chunks. In this case ... make it to the Benicia Bridge, make it to the 505 cut off, make it to Dunnigan, make it to Corning, then make the 45 minute slide into home base and bed. Well I made it through Dunnigan with zero problems thanks to distractions purchased at Taco Bell, but my eyelids were really heavy by the time I hit Williams. It got bad then. It got really bad. When it gets really bad I see giant trees growing over the freeway. Don't ask. I don't know what that is, it just is and it's my sign that it's time for me to pull over. I figured I'd ignore the trees over the freeway for the moment, try to perk up and make another 10 miles or so to the Corning exit where I'd catch a few zzzzzz's at the Flying J truck stop.

Well, I got perked up all right ... and it only took about 1.5 seconds.

There were two SUVs in the fast lane directly to my left and I was about 25 or so feet behind another SUV in the slow lane. Our SUV 4-pack was trucking along at about 75mph when suddenly, what looked like a big piece of retread tire, flew from the left front wheel of the SUV in front of me and started sliding rapidly toward the under-carriage of my truck.

Note: I was once hit by a hub cap that popped off a car in front of me on the freeway and it cost me $550 for a new CV boot. I was once hit by a piece of retread in the windshield and that cost me $300. Nothing is hitting me anymore!

So I'm geared up to swerve and I'm watching this sliding piece of retread approach my truck and doing the geometry to figure out how to best avoid it when I realize .................. the retread is furry !?!?!

And my thoughts rapid-fire like this ...

Why does it have fur? .... omg, it's an animal, he hit an animal! .... there's a huge dead animal hurtling towards my truck and he'll spatter everywere if I hit him ..... must avoid, must avoid! .... danger, danger! (Right then the "dead" animal rolls onto its' back) ... EEK! OMG! Holy Shit!!!!! It's a racoon and he ain't dead!!!

He's just been winged and, in fact, he's alert and looking right at me and doing the same geometry I'm doing! The action of him rolling to his back (to try to get on his feet?) has made him start to spin. Suddenly I feel like we've both been cast in a Hanna Barbara cartoon as he jets towards my under-carriage, flat on his back, paws to the night sky and spinning FAST. He magically passes right between my front tires and apparently made it through the rear tires in the same manner because I feel no "bumps" (thank goodness he and I are both good at geometry). I glance in the rear view but don't see him come out the other end. There were no cars immediately behind me so I'm thinking Risky Racoon (as I've decided to call him) made it ... and thanks to the adrenalin shot he gave me, so did I.

I checked the truck this morning just to be sure .... whew! ... and I would happily chalk this all up to "funny things that have happened to me, lol and ha-ha" except for the fact that immediately following Risky's narrow escape from my under-carriage, I had a creepy, cold, eerie, hair on the back of my neck standing up, goosebump feeling that death was right there and had just brushed us all.

1.5 seconds in which everything could have changed????

Or 1.5 seconds in which everything did change????

It wouldn't be the first time a racoon marked a milestone in my life ....


.

Thought for the day ...

I wonder, do vegetarians eat animal crackers?

I will miss ....

the weight of you when you would jump into my bed in the wee hours of morning to sleep on my pillow, nibble at my fingers or pee on me as punishment for a slight, real or imaged

the extraordinary power of your "evil eye" as it effortlessly held both a 55-pound pitbull and an 80-pound lab-chow at bay

your greeting "meow" when I opened the door to go out to the washer and dryer

your jackson chameleon imitation are you stealthily crept around a sleeping dog showing us that there's probably a lot of wisdom behind the saying "let sleeping dogs lie"

your ownership of whatever food was in whatever bowl and your certainty that it was your right to eat it

your unwavering ability to feel my heavy heart and know when I needed you most

your mysterious habit of loving me only when I'm horizontal and not trusting me completely when I'm vertical

your uncanny ability to know just what my car engine sounded like out of all the car engines in a 300 unit apartment complex and knowing when it was time to greet me at the door

your ninja-like quality of traveling everywhere you wanted to go outdoors without ever touching the earth

I'm sorry Mo

Sorry we had to let you go

Sorry I didn't have the money to fix whatever was ailing you or even to find out what it was

Sorry you won't see your 5th birthday, but really glad you shared the first four with us

So incredibly sorry that now you're part of the earth you so often avoided

You will be missed little buddy ... there will never be another Motown.


...

It's clouds illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all ...

Oh Judy Collins ... the things I could teach you about clouds! I wish I didn't know clouds at all.

The story of my life revolves around them and their silver linings. My clouds are plentiful and sometimes have silver linings but my silver linings always come with clouds. Fate gave me a cloud (the problem) and fate gave me the silver lining (the fix) the only trouble is that fate's timing stinks. It gave me the silver lining before the cloud and so I mistook the silver lining for a windfall.

I should have known >(

Long story short, I had a series of events that netted me some extra cash as of this coming Saturday. Oh the grandiose plans I made to get right with the world with that windfall!!!! Guess how much the car repair cost? No, I'm not kidding. Almost to the exact penny! So all the plans I had went out the window ... the car window I guess. Just when I felt like I finally had the world by the tail along comes the cloud and the whole thunderstorm with it. Whack! But the car is back on the road and I can now relocate (cloud or silver lining TBD) poor as ever but without the worry and guilt of leaving the kid stranded here.

I have a couple of silver linings to be really grateful for and I try to keep those in the front of my mind while I scrounge around for a raincoat in preparation for the next cloud burst.

Cloud: the job in Redding is wrapping up around 5/1
Silver Lining: I'm one of the lucky few being relocated to a new job team
Cloud: the new job team is in Santa Maria (San Luis Obispo)
Silver Lining: it's near the beach .. eh, ok I'm reaching here
Cloud: My SUV is having trouble accelerating
Silver Lining: it's still running

and my family is well and healthy and soon to be whole again ... now if I could just get some of that good health to rub off on my car .....





.

I would really like to know ...

... when is enough ENOUGH? Why can't God, or fate, or whoever is messing with me, simply just find something else to do for the next half century or so and give me some peace!?!

Chris' second-hand Honda (the one with 11 payments still left on it) took a dump on Friday. I won't seriously know how much, how long or any of the gory details really until I get it in the shop tomorrow ... but SHIT! Everytime I nearly get both hands wrapped around this thing called life something comes along to make my grip slip. Yes, yes, YES I know I should count my blessings ... I'm luckier than many ... luckier than most ... but SHIT!

Seriously I can only rest my head in my hands and occasionally shake my fist at fate today.

SHIT!

SHIT!

SHIT!

Life sometimes is like trying to dig a hole in the sand.

.

.

The circle of life ... errr ... colorguard

And so begins another winterguard season. I miss not teaching this year but am looking forward to being enthused about the programs I'm privileged enough to judge ... and I'll see a lot of them this year with assignments in 5 different circuits starting with a show at Beyer and a show at Homestead this Saturday.

I'm dreading the driving but really looking forward to the kids.


.

I must have a brain tumor ...

... cuz I can't think what else in the wide, wide world of sports would have me even thinking remotely about marching again. But it keeps popping into my head. I keep looking at the website. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I missing it THIS year??????

I feel compelled to march CNY .... wtf?

.

The Year in Review - 2008

Plain and simple, 2008 was a landmark year for me as a wife, a mom, a woman, and even as a human being. It was life changing year I want to remember for reasons good and bad so I'm writing down some superficial tidbits here to help me remember it.

Most of 1Q'08 was consumed trying to balance life between home base in Sac and a Redding hotel. A hotel is still a hotel no matter how great the room service is and so the mental wrestling over the decision to relocate or not ended with the decision to move to Redding. Once the decision was made life really swung into chaotic high-gear with a 4-hour frantic search for a place to live, moving company quotes, the purchase of a new to me vehicle, closing up the Sac apartment, change of address forms and the 1,001 other tasks related to successfully cutting and pasting an entire existence into a new place ... and that was all just in one week! The new job assignment, teaching/judging and some extraordinary challenges in the very private part of my very real life had me on the run through 1Q and wondering when the merry-go-round would simply slow down enough for me to jump off -- never mind the road rash -- there's ointment for that!

2Q'08 and the new zip code found life revolving primarily around driving. It seemed I was driving back to the Sac area every few days. This compounded the difficulty of establishing a new groove in a new place. Much of the driving was related to the crazy decision to insanely stuff, into my already overflowing bag of personal commitments, the challenge of working with a drum corps. (If only I could clone myself ... and fly.) Although I was super jazzed about the opportunity, in the end, the new job and the price of fuel ($4.69/gallon) and other, more important, things in my life made it impossible for me to really do this justice. 2Q utlimately proved though that the move up to Redding was the right thing for right now for all of us. I'm firmly entrenched here now with a strange sense of permanence despite the knowledge that everything here is extremely temporary. Truth is it looks as though I'll be headed onto the next adventure as soon as April 1.

The first month of Q3 saw me wrap up all of my colorguard adventures and the quiet closing of my "colorguard door". I was able to stick out the crazy teaching schedule til the last camp before the kiddos left on tour in July and before the first band camp for EGHS happened. That was a good stopping point for all of us. I had a great, but exhausting, time doing it and I might try it again under better real life circumstances and, this time, more on my terms. The result of all of this was that a life lived at a dead run almost instantly became a life lived at a dead stop. Whoa! Sure, I experienced a little whiplash but I successfully transitioned into an ordinary life of 100 degree temperatures, lawn watering in my shorts, Sangria on the patio and my first civilian summer since 2001. Funny thing is that once I stopped running I immediately found balance, happiness and some inner peace taking care of things that matter most to me. I know that's a little corny, but I don't even care. By mid Q3 things had settled down to the point of maintenance. The end of Q3 ushered in a new role in my life as I became a mother-in-law ... and things will never be the same in a lot of really good ways. I hope I'm a good one! September 13 I turned 51 and began to see my mom in my mirror instead of me ... it's troubling, it's okay, it was expected all along ... so why does it continually surprise me?

4Q'08 played out very predictably. Overall the fall was really good. I love the fall here in Redding and I'll miss that. The weather is crisp and cold and reminescent of "football days". 4Q saw the election of a democrat for president (thank God), my first gig out of state and a trifecta of unexpectedly nice holidays. I thought I'd get a ton of trick or treaters this year living in a house ... and got 4 ... and the family ended up eating a lot of left over candy. For a brief 11 weeks this Fall it looked liked our family was going to expand by one, but it wasn't meant to happen just yet after all. It eventually will though and I know he, or she, will be well worth the wait. So I wait. Thanksgiving was really good when we finally got around to celebrating it and it was thrilling when, a week before Christmas, I saw snow falling outside my window. Snow has always been something to visit or vacation in so it was very special to watch it from the windows of my own little warm house.

2008 has been one of the most painful and most peaceful years that I can remember in my adult life ...or possibly ever. I've had extraordinary amounts of time to just sit and think, to recover from hurts big and little, to organize myself into sanity, to plan for the future and think my way through what I really want as I enter the next phase of my life and to get back to those things that are important to me. I've ruminated a lot over my faults, failures and limitations this year but I've also recognized my talents. I've learned I'm far more intimidating, far dumber, far more spoiled and self-indulgent, far stronger and far more idealistic than I would have EVER previously believed or confessed to. Ah well. In the end I finally figured out that I like me. I can't say yet exactly what all this reflection will result in, but I know I've made peace with myself and that I'm happy in all my roles in life. It's a good place to be.

I'm approaching 2009 more hopeful than I can remember being in a very long time. After all, I have a lot to be grateful for in my life and many wonderful things to look forward to in the next chapter ...

One thing will make it even better, and hopefully, that one thing will come soon.


.

Happy Christmas : )

Spot, Spotted, Spotting ........

Picnic Spot
TV Spot
G Spot
Great parking Spot
See Spot run
A Spot to sit and watch the fireworks

Some spots are good news ... and some are not.

One day I will be a Grandma ... but, right now, it's not my turn yet.

Today is a very sad day :(



.

Driving Miss Jojo ...

My cell phone ONLY rings nowadays when I'm driving. Either I have no friends to call me anymore and so only my kids are calling me and THEN only because I'm not home to tell them where to find the start button on the dryer, or what closet the extra toilet paper is stowed in, or how to broil meat, or whatever (and these are ALL real phone calls I've received) OR I'm driving way too much. As I reflect on this now, I realize it's the latter. I'm driving way too much. Today I clocked six hours total ... and my phone rang at least 8 times in the process. None of those times could I actually answer the phone because, well, I was driving. Before you wonder the obvious, no, I don't have a headset and this is for two completely logical reasons; 1) my phone isn't compatible with Bluetooth technology, so my options are severely limited, and 2) I have really small ear holes (don't laugh I'm not kidding) and there's not an ear bud in existence, or at least that I can find, that will fit inside my ridiculously tiny ear hole, seriously! So when the phone rings I just look at it helplessly and wonder what the calling party is calling for ... or pull over. Pulling over, however, sometimes carries severe penalities that, over time, I've come to believe make pulling over to take the call simply not worth it. More than once I have taken an offramp to answer the phone only to find there's not a way to get directly back onto the freeway and have wasted ten minutes being lost. Shit! On occasion I have tried clandestinely answering the phone, but that never works because I'm irrationally terrified of getting caught and this makes me talk like a person moved by the spirit and speaking in tongues ... and the conversation quickly takes an abrupt turn into the land of lunacy and well, again, it's just not worth it. I don't try that anymore. Quite frankly I've embarrassed myself enough thank you.

At one point about halfway home tonight my phone started ringing again. In what is now my standard operating procedure I just watched it light up the bottom of my purse over and over and sighed. Just about the second in time that I turned my attention away from my purse and back to the road I was passed on my left by a behmoth SUV with THREE glowing TV screens ... AND ONE WAS IN THE FRONT SEAT! Let me see if I have this right ... it's okay to watch TV while you drive but not okay to hold a 2.5" long, little silver phone to your ear and TALK into it??? Who came up with that logic? After that, I was looking into every car that passed me. My rough guesstimate is that 2 out of 5 cars have something huge glowing on their dashboard. I assume most of them were GPS devices ... but even so ... doesn't that seem far more distracting then a small cell phone against your ear? I mean really, who needs a GPS to drive straight north on highway 5 through the land of nowhere anyway? My hand to God, I don't understand the point of this cell phone law. Tonight reminded me of something I saw a few months ago. While driving in the morning commute traffic I saw a woman who was eating with one hand AND applying her mascara in her rear view mirror with her other hand and she HAD A GINORMOUS DOG IN HER LAP ... and expired tags. The Redding motorcycle cop who pulled alongide her was apparently undistrubed by this sight. Hmmmm. I wonder what would have happened if I'd pulled out my phone at that moment and started talking on it?????

#$&*%

The world is too weird for TV these days.









.

Happy Thanksgiving

My first weekend home since band season started on October 11th and I'm absolutely relishing the time to just sit still and have coffee on the patio again. No big plans today. Working retail means working holidays for the kids so they are working most of today and then are off in different directions to visit the "in laws". I may do some visiting later today but for now it's all about doing NOTHING ... ahhhhh.

Hope you all have a safe and wonderful Turkey Day!


.

My "yellow" children ...

Family Portrait
In a moment as rare as a solar eclipse, Teddy doesn't run from the camera

Judas through the Looking Glass?
No, it just hasn't clicked for Judas that he's just too big to fit through the cat door anymore
Judas watches Teddy in awe
and wonders if it could be true what they say about blondes having more fun


.

My cup runneth over ...

As Thanksgiving approaches I find I have an awful lot to be really thankful for this year. We're only at the halfway point of fall and I'm ecstatic to report that my cup already runneth over.

#1 -- The potsticker -- who, as of today, has elbows and arms and is working diligently on developing feet and hands. (When you really think about it, it's just amazing how much can go absolutely wrong and yet how often it turns out absolutely right. Fingers crossed.

#2 -- The upcoming (really soon) marriage of my oldest kiddo.

#3 -- Small, manageable, albeit weekly, crises. Just a series of small deaths really; the Explorer's "oil sending unit" ($125), the clothes dryer ($85), the hot water heater ($0 and 3 days of no hot water), the Explorer's new cable and battery assembly ($500), the washing machine hose ($8 and a very wet garage), the laundry sink p-trap ($4), the cost of nothing major happening (priceless).

#4 -- Judging gigs every week for the past five weeks with one more to go and a champsionship nod. Woot! See you on the 50 ... for TWELVE hours :)

#5 -- Five confirmed assignments for CCGC. Another Woot!

My only Thanksgiving tradition since 1993 has been to dread, with every fiber of my being, the actual Thanksgiving holiday.

This year I'm really looking forward to it.



.

Happy news in the form of a potsticker ...

A dream is coming true sometime around July 1, 2009.

I'm going to be a Grandma!

Chris and Lindsey's bun is in the oven a mere 6 weeks into it's bake cycle. Right now he or she is doing their very best imitation of a potsticker. I cannot wait to meet this glorious, new, little person who will surely teach me things I don't know that I don't know and be a bright light in my life forever more.









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Yes on 8? I don't want to know ...

No on 8 seems like a no brainer to me. I've watched the propaganda on YouTube and TV for both sides and I can't, I can't, I just can't, find anything that worries me, scares me or feels morally wrong about allowing same sex marriage. Quite to the contrary everything in me, right down to my bone marrow, says that voting yes is the wrong choice. I'm heartily disappointed to find so many people close to me that feel that a yes vote is the right vote. I wish I didn't know how they were voting because I will never be able to look at them the same way again without wondering what other prejudices they're secretly harboring. In my opinion, Yes on 8 thinking is the same kind of thinking that has held down people before based solely on gender, religion, color, etc.

I find it interesting that the argument I hear most in support of Yes on 8 is "why not just be happy with domestic partnership, cuz it's the same thing". Really? My question then would be, if domestic partnership is already the same thing as marriage then WHY NOT let them get married???? And please, don't throw the bible into it because, like it or not, this country has a separation between church and state. To some people, the bible is a pleasant story and nothing more and their right to think that way is guaranteed by the first amendment. Marriage, as it exists today, is a contract between partners and the state they live in. Romanticizing it is WONDERFUL for the wedding ceremony but romance is not the basis of marriage. Nor is the bible the basis of marriage today. If either of those were truly the basis of marriage then a covenant between partners (and their God if they have one) would be enough. There wouldn't be a need to pay a fee for a wedding license, have witnesses, divorce court, or an arbitrator/judge in your business when the love is gone. Marriage could be as simple as two people pledging themselves to one another in a park somewhere. But THAT'S not recognized as "legal" marriage now is it? Ever wonder why?

Marriage is the way it is so that the state can control the backlash when the relationship goes south. They decide what happens to property. They figure out who gets custody of the kids and who pays for them. In short, getting married is an open invitation to the state to get involved in your relationship ... and yet there are STILL people brave enough to want to get married ... and some of 'em just happen to be gay.

They want to get "married" for the same reasons the rest of us do. Because it's the ultimate seal couples can put on a deal. It's a strong, public, statement about the level of commitment and deep love between two people ........ and because they're entitled to enjoy the same freedoms the rest of us do. Domestic partnership is a fine way to handle the business end of a relationship, but it doesn't express the love or commitment between two people. Let's face it, it's an arrangement pretty much devoid of emotion (or ceremony) and so it's just not enough for some people ... and why should it be?

I've never understood why people get so passionate and work so hard to prevent someone else from doing something simply because they themselves don't like it, don't agree with it, don't need it, or don't understand it. Gay marriage, abortion, shoot even sex changes and permanent eye liner are all things I will never, ever have a use for but I would NEVER eliminate someone else's right to choose those things. I wouldn't because freedom and equality are the foundation on which our country is built. "We the people" are supposed to be prepared to defend our freedoms TO THE DEATH just like so many of those who came before us. Not give them up because we're afraid of terrorists, or child molesters, or drunk drivers, or spit on them because they inconveniently don't suit our own personal belief system. If freedoms can be taken away from someone else, then they can also be taken away from me ... and you.

What is to be gained by denying marriage to a large group of people, based solely on their sexuality?

I don't believe in fostering prejudice but I do believe, strongly, in equal protection under the law, so I will be voting NO on 8 and supporting freedom.


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