Hi, Linda

I’m retired.  That means I don’t go to work.  It doesn't mean I sit around eating bon bons and reading movie magazines (do they even have them anymore?)  It just means I don’t get up at 5 a.m., get decently dressed and go somewhere they pay me for something.  I am often awake at 5 a.m., but rarely decently dressed until absolutely necessary.  And, as other retired people will testify, there is always plenty to do and people who need things done.

In a previous diatribe I suggested that people who feel the need to mind each others’ business do something else, like go to the grocery store.  I go to Kroger every Wednesday.  Count on it. We have family dinner on Wednesday night, and I surely couldn’t go any sooner.  I’d eat the food.   (I usually go as well on Thursday, Friday, Saturday…you get the picture).  Linda is my checker of choice.  She is a delightful lady who rarely gets disgruntled.  They have a variety of nice people at Kroger who I greet every Wednesday, but Linda and I have formed a friendship.  She asks about my family and particularly my grandson, Daniel.  She convinced me to buy the reusable bags.  She waits patiently while I fumble for my Kroger card.  She gets a guy to lift the dog food.  We’re buds, of a sort.

Linda wasn’t there this week.  Another nice lady checked me out and I buggied my bags on out.  I’m sure Linda will be back.  She disappeared on me last year for a while and had me worried.  Turns out she was on vacation.  I’m sure she needed it.  I’ve been a checker before, not in a grocery store.  It can be an extremely stressful job.  But Linda always has a smile, even when it is hard. 

Wherever you were, Linda, I hope it was for good and not some trauma.  I missed you, my friend.

People who live in glass houses. . .

That is ALL of us.  Who among us really wants our lives put on a billboard on the interstate?  Not me, for sure.  I only hope not to be taken unaware because the world will talk forever about my dirty house, my unfolded laundry and my multitudinous animals.  And that's just the innocent stuff.

Who wants to admit to the times I've hurt people, let them down, not come through?  The times I've done stuff that I don't even want God to know, but He does?

So then, why are we constantly thriving on the missteps of others, like it is going to make us look better?  It's not.  The worst criminal or the most depraved acts of meanness and cruelty do not shine my crown.  It's tarnished all on its own.  And until I work to shine it up, it'll stay that way.

There have been many accusations thrown around through this political campaign and not limited to the national offices.  It seems that that mud-slinging has been a springboard for personal nosiness and judgments of our "friends" and neighbors.  Friends is in quotation marks because a friend would not do these kinds of things to others.

It was a sad day last week when Big Tex burned.  It was like the symbol of Texas was gone.  And what is the United States without Texas!  

It is an even sadder day when people can't find any more worthwhile activities than to mess in the business of other people and then spread their judgments like rose petals at a wedding.  There is so much more to life, be it crochet, grandchildren, baseball or craftsy activities.  Go to church.  Go to the grocery store.  Volunteer at something.  Get a life, for Pete's sake, and live it, not someone else's.   

Spitting in the wind

I’m a Libra.  The Scales.  I live for balance.  I like things to be right.  But that’s not always the case.  I don’t like it when things are unfair, even though I know life isn't fair.  I really, really don’t like it when my family is hurt.

I recently heard Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts. 

And who do you think you are
Running 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
Don't come back for me
Don't come back at all
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?

I know someone like this.  Someone whose self-absorption and arrogance destroy everything in her path, every relationship, every hope of a relationship.  Who do you think you are? Puppeting those around you, telling others what to do? You have no right.  Who do you think you are?  But there is no way to show her what she does.  It’s like spitting in the wind. 

I know someone else like this.  (Apparently, this is a more common situation than it should be.)   This time it is one of the hearts in someone’s jar, one of the victims.  Her pain is due to other factors.  And there is little hope of her seeing him in his true light either.  Again, spitting in the wind.

Hearing the song (a beautiful one) and seeing the video brings it all up and frustrates me.  I want justice, I want retribution, I want them to SEE who they are, what they do, and what is happening to them.  I argue in my head and I argue out loud.  But I know there is no avenue to pursue, no way to bring this injustice to light.   I know it's not up to me.  I know it’s spitting in the wind.

So I’ll give it to God.  At least I’ll try.  He will bring justice where there should be justice and retribution where there should be retribution.  And that’s not spitting in the wind.

Jar of Hearts

Tube for one

I’m a big weenie. 

In 1998, I had an abdominal mass.  I told my doctor, no MRI.  I’ll just die of whatever it is before you close the lid on the box.  He didn’t press.  (He didn’t want one either.)  Now they have improved them but I still don’t want one.

But my knee disagrees.  Two weeks ago it decided not to work anymore.  I have suffered with arthritis in my knees for years and years.  At times it is better and then it is worse.  A “big pill” (600 mg. ibuprofen) usually keeps it in line.  But two weeks ago, for no reason that I know of, it just stopped working.  And it was my “good” knee.  Nothing I have done… rest, big pills, pain pills, ice, heat, IcyHot rub, knee brace…has changed it.  I was ready for the MRI if that’s what it takes.  Don’t care.  Close the box. 

Today I saw an orthopedist at Beaumont Bone and Joint.  A very nice man.  Very sympathetic and quite knowledgeable.   I’m getting an MRI on Thursday.  X-ray only shows bones, not whatever else is going on.  And something is.  OK, I’m old and fat.  But no older and fatter than I was two weeks ago.  So what happened?

Beaumont Bone and Joint is another story.  It is a very humbling place.  Everyone I saw was worse off than me, or so it appeared.  I felt very “suck it up, Nancy” but it hurts.  And these people treated me like I was just as hurty as everyone else.  And they handled matters with professional courtesy, compassion and speed. 

Turns out my head can stick out of the tube.  I can do this.  Yes, I can.  But still being a big weenie, I covet all the prayers and good vibes that you can spare.  As my friend, Margaret says, “when it’s you, it’s the only thing that matters.”

Buying the farm...

"I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills..."    So begins Isak Dinesen’s memoir of her life in British East Africa.  That phrase has become a way of remembering things and events that I hold dear. 

In 1972 I had a white Mustang with red interior and a stick shift four-on-the-floor.  I loved it.  In 1972 I also had a baby girl.  Two doors + car seat + baby = Great Frustration.  That lasted about two years.  Now in 2012 I have a red Mustang.  I also have a baby, my grandson Daniel, 3 years old.  The Great Frustration returned amplified by my increased age and decreased agility.  It lasted almost two years.  The Mustang, that is.  The frustration took considerably less time to come to the point of no return.  Enter the Nissan Rogue

I have had several “farms in Africa.”  I still have a heart-tug when I think about the green Nissan Titan truck I traded for the Mustang.  It was a blonde moment.  I am not blonde, but I had several months of a fling with it.   I loved that truck.  It carried me the 1,000+ miles by myself to Florida and back when the aforementioned baby girl was sick with Dengue fever.  It was empowering.  It was big. I couldn’t back it up worth a darn, but I was queen of the road in it.

I’ve had an assortment of modes of transportation that have been “farms”…my Honda scooter, station wagon, minivan, SUVs.  Each has had its place and done its job.  Each has its kaleidoscope of memories.

So now I return to my roots.  My red ginger hair which is mine regardless of whatever is really underneath.  (I don’t even want to know.)  And my new crossover SUV.  It’s who I am.

So, it’s not me in the red Mustang any more. I’m just buying another farm. 

Forever and ever and ever. Amen.

I don’t believe in forever anymore.

 

“Forever and always.”  “Forever and ever and ever.”  Used to, that was the ultimate way to seal the deal.  But things happen.  Circumstances unforeseen come along and slap us down.  Situations change.  And forever isn’t forever anymore.

But is that a bad thing?  I don’t think so.  Because if the good things don’t last forever, neither do the bad.  Yes, the ice cream is sweet and cool and delectable.  But if you don’t lick fast enough, it’s a sticky, melted mess.  It doesn’t last forever.  You enjoy it while you have it and remember it when it’s gone.  (If it’s Better Batter from Maggie Moo’s, you remember it a long, long time.)

It’s the same way with the bad stuff.  It hurts a while. It hurts bad.  It hurts a long while.  But it eases.  And something takes its place.  And there are new ice cream flavors, like Blue Bell’s Kooky Kookie.  (Yum).

I read a book this week which included this passage about waves.  “Bad things are like waves.  They’re going to happen to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.  They’re part of life, like waves are part of the ocean.  If you’re standing on the shoreline, you don’t know when the waves are coming.  But they’ll come. You gotta  make sure you get back to the surface after every wave.”  -- Look Twice by Lisa Scottoline. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it too, a longer time ago.  
"The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands.
And the tide rises, the tide falls."

When things go off the course we’ve planned, we have choices.  We can adjust the sails or we can sink in our misery.  But life does indeed go on.

And I think it’s just all right that forever isn’t forever any more.

Cupcake in a jar. The only way to fly.

Even if they won’t let you on a plane with one.  Thanks to Rebecca Hains who tried to take a Wicked Good cupcake (from Wicked Good Cupcakes, a Boston area cupcake bakery) on a plane and was stopped by the TSA, I am now a part of the this cupcake-in-a-jar craze.  I never knew.

Being the good former newshound, I saw “Cupcakegate” on my Google page and was intrigued.  Didn’t care so much about the TSA’s stand or the ensuing argument, but boy, was I interested in cupcake in a jar.  What was this all about?

It’s all over the internet.  There were ideas and recipes and pictures and blogs and more ideas.  I had to jump in.  So I started to amass materials.  Turns out there’s the Mason jar debate.  What size?  Quilted or plain?  Did I need a dozen?  Who has the best price and do I want to brave the craziness there.  I went to my mother’s cupboard and found several jars of varying sizes.  Perfect since I could try them out and who needs 12 anyway?

My daughter Shannon and I dedicated Sunday afternoon to cupcaking.  (She has this crazy idea that I can make something worth looking at and we should start a cupcake bakery ourselves.)  Anyway, I got cake mix, two kinds of frosting – one for filling and another for frosting.  I wasn’t going for the fully homemade rigmarole until we decided this is a go.   We got out bags, tips, made labels, cut fabric to tie the spoon on.  The whole shebang!  We made cupcakes, red velvet.  We were advised not to use the cupcake papers because they left lines on the sides.  After considering scraping the cupcakes out of the pans, we decided lines add character. 

We made cupcakes, peeled off the papers, sliced them in half.  Dropped one in the smaller jar.  Fit perfectly.  Hooray.  Dropped one in the bigger jar.  Jar too big.  Cupcake rattled around.  Hmm.  Manning the icing bag, Shannon piped in the cream cheese frosting we were using for filling.  I put in another cupcake bottom.  More filling.  A cupcake top.  A buttercream frosting swirl.  We repeated the process until we filled the six jars I had scrounged.  Four were precious.  Two, not so much.  We did the only thing good bakers would do…ate the evidence. 

And was it delicious!  And neat, too.  No cupcake paper to dispose of.  By the way, you eat a cupcake in a jar with a spoon.  And it has a top in case you can’t eat it all.  (No danger of that!)

We’re now fans of cupcakes-in-a-jar.  They’re cute, they’re tidy, they’re fun.  And the only way to go.  Just not on a plane.

Look out! It's me in the red Mustang!

WARNING:  I’m going to rant.  I know.  I’m an English teacher and writing should be cohesive, circular, coherent.  But I’m going to rant.

Some people think they’re all that.  OK.  They can.  But then, some of them think they are all that in a motor vehicle.  That is not so OK.  And they all drive big, white SUVs.  No, not everyone who drives a white SUV falls into this category.  But in my experience the aforementioned “people who think they’re all that” (colloquially referred to as PWTTAT) do.  The big ones…Excursion, Expedition, Suburban, Denali, Tahoe, Yukon, Armada…the list is extensive.

I drive a little red convertible Mustang.  We don’t threaten anybody, except maybe a VW bug.  Even so, I can keep out of the way of these mammoth machines.  But when it comes to one of my grandchildren, all bets are off.  When the driver, invariably in a hat, zooms in and around us in the little cars to get the prime spot, in the parking lot or on the interstate, it starts me off on a tirade.  People who know me fear the tirade.  It doesn’t stop.

My son is a cop.  He was previously a paramedic.  He is used to driving emergency vehicles in the way that such vehicles are driven, aggressively.  He also drives his truck that way.  He knows how.  I used to have a truck.  A big, green Nissan Titan.  I loved it, but I couldn’t back it up worth a darn and had trouble parking it.  This Mustang isn’t great at toting stuff, but it turns on a dime.  I digress.

PWTTAT zooms in the school zone at more than the recommended 20 mph.  PWTTAT backs up like it was the red Mustang.  (There is a black Hummer that also fits this description).  What are these people thinking????  Children are here.  Children dart in and out of cars.  Children are small and sometimes not easily seen.  Children escape from the parent’s grip.  Children are precious, even when they are not my grandchildren.  And what are you doing here, PWTTAT?  You’re picking up your children.   They are precious too. 

So slow down and quit driving your big, white faux cop car/ambulance.  You’re a parent.  You might have places to be, but they are not as important as your children or my grandchild.

And a red Mustang is way cooler anyway.