I borrowed this quote from "Watching my Sister....Disappear."  I absolutely LOVE it!  :-]

All the news you can use...

<TAIPEI (Jan 29) - The decomposing remains of a 66-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy Taiwan street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours, local newspapers said.>

Trust AOL to keep us up-to-date on all the important news stories of the day!  ROFL (ew!!!!)

UN-Road Trip

I am going to take a day off to just treat myself (as much as I can with Weight Watchers' restrictions.  Did I mention that I lost 5.8 lbs. my first week?  I think this was mostly due to the fact that I wore jeans for my initial weigh-in.  Didn't like the number, so I wore MUCH lighter clothing to the next meeting. LOL)

Anyway, I'm taking myself shopping to the fancy outlet mall.  All the good shopping is a fair drive from here...this mall I'm going to is an hour's drive through the city and back out the other end.  I'll be driving Big Red (my huge catering van that gets terrible gas mileage, unfortunately) because Little Pepe (our little 1981 Toyota pick-up that we bought new almost 23 years ago) just ain't gonna make it that far.  I feel guilty about sucking up the gas, but I can sure buy a ****load of stuff without having to wonder how I'm gonna get it home.

Off to the mall (insert light infantry charge bugle here)!

     ...or not.  Big Red won't start.  No idea why.  Try to call husband on cel phone while seated in van; no answer. *insert curse word here*  Push button on garage door opener to provide speedy entry to house without being drenched while fumbling for front door key.  Go in house...email to husband intention to drive Little Pepe instead.  Close down laptop.  Grab for keys.  Not in pocket.  Not in purse. *insert more curse words* Open garage door, walk out to driveway.  Look in window of van.  Keys dangle tantalizingly from the ignition.  Doors are locked. *insert every curse word I know, have known, or will know* 

Bad Dreams

It’s the middle of the night, and once again, I’m awake, pounding on the keyboard. I’ve had to leave my bed in order to escape the half-hour hot flash that sometimes afflicts me at night. But I woke disturbed by the dream I was having. It was a dream about war. We were off to attack another country somewhere, and I was certain that this time it would bring disaster on us. It had something to do with the timing of the attack…I remember being very upset that we were going to attack on a certain date. Seems it was the anniversary of another ill-fated attack, and because of this, the date spelled certain doom. It was very real, and I was absolutely certain that this time the battle was going to be brought right back to our shores. I was petrified.

I don’t usually dream about such universal issues. I can only surmise that the thought of war has been bothering me more deeply than I allowed myself to believe. When you are conscious, your mind doesn’t dwell on concepts that are so huge and unknown and unsettling. When you sleep, the chains you keep on your fears—to keep you sane—loosen enough to let your mind explore them. I try to keep the reality of war at arms’ length, but I must be more deeply disturbed by it than I want to admit.

In my dreams, I often visit the places I’m afraid to go when I’m awake. When my dad and sister were ill, I used to have dreams that somebody died. It was never them that died in my dream, just someone I knew, but was removed from. For instance, I dreamed that my best friend’s dad died of a heart attack. In retrospect, I can see that my psyche was trying on the idea of death. Looking at it from an angle that was close enough to examine it, but not to touch it. Or have it touch me.

The really disturbing thing is, I believe that my dreams contain more than a small dose of precognition. When I am bothered consistently by dreams of death, someone usually dies. I’m hoping that this war dream isn’t the first of a series…

Marriage

For years, I was convinced my husband was nicer than I am. Lately, I’ve begun to realize how stupid that is. I’m a strong personality. I’m not going to apologize for that. I never dreamed of getting married and having babies when I was a kid. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but the whole "married with children" thing didn’t hold a lot of appeal. I saw my life as that of an eccentric artist…a single eccentric artist. I never "went steady" in junior high…never even dated in high school. I was as surprised as anyone when I fell for my husband when I was a mere twenty years old. And, wonder of wonders, he fell for me, too.

"You guys fight so much," my mom said once, right after we were engaged. My parents never fought. Dad made the decisions, and Mom went along. That was their relationship, not mine. My husband and I were two young people learning how to work as a unit. We didn’t actually fight, but we didn’t agree on everything, either. We had differences of opinion, and we aired them. We worked them out. I always thought our attitude toward marriage was very contemporary…that "today’s" women (of 25 years ago) didn’t have to be the ones who always gave in.

But over the years, I’ve seen that the relationship I have with my husband is the exception rather than the rule. Women did then, and do now, embrace relationships that have them forever playing second fiddle to their husbands. And it’s still what society expects. People see me as one of those bitchy women that the "nice" men all marry. There’s a certain amount of truth to that…I’m sure I wouldn’t have chosen a man that wanted to totally dominate me, any more than an ultra-dominant man would have wanted me for a partner. We would have killed each other.

People raise their eyebrows when they witness the dynamic of our marriage. I went through years when it really bothered me. In fact, I always thought that if we got divorced, my family would keep my husband and get rid of me. But I think I’ve just reached an age where I can’t worry about that anymore. We’ve been married 27 years…we must be doing something right.

Friday Five

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. SONG:  "Shadows of the Earth"--Roy Finch (Off an obscure Windham Hill compilation CD from 1987.)

2. FOOD:  Anything with 1 point or less (I just started Weight Watchers.)

3. TV SHOW:  Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

4. SCENT:  Victoria's Secret "Amber Romance"

5. QUOTE: Not really a quote...a list: 

The seven "blunders" from which spring violence in our society:

Wealth without work.

Pleasure without conscience.

Knowledge without character.

Commerce without morality.

Science without humanity.

Worship without sacrifice.

Politics without principles.

Mahatma Ghandi

Little Plants

This picture is for anyone who thought I was joshin' ya when I said I have plants coming up in the yard.  These are Japanese Iris bulbs pushing up through frost-covered creeping thyme in my fountain garden.  They probably won't bloom until mid-February; that is, if the slugs don't get 'em first.  If I had yellow crocuses planted, they would likely already be blooming.  I'm going down to Eugene this weekend.  Maybe I'll be able to get some pictures of stuff that's already in bloom...for you spring-hungry easterners.

Natural Causes

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a movement outside the patio door.  I turned my head in time to see a little shower of feathers drifting above the fence.  Uh-oh...  Searching the nearby bare trees and bushes, I spotted him...a young sharp-shinned hawk breakfasting on the owner of the aforementioned feathers.  He was in the yard next door, perched on top of a birdhouse (how's that for in-your-face predation?), spewing more feathers about as he enjoyed his meal.  It was horrible, spell-binding, and beautiful  all at the same time.  Much like life.

 

I.....Can't....SEE....!

Due to some common congenital eye malady, the unpronounceable name of which escapes me, I started to need glasses for reading when I was in my mid-thirties. I’ve been wearing specs for more than ten years, and it still bugs the hell out of me. I cannot stand not being able to see.

One of my favorite places to be blind is in the shower. In my stupider days, I thought all I needed was better lighting in the shower to be able to shave my legs decently. I now realize that it would take klieg lights and a 10x magnifying glass (which I would have to attach to my forehead). I’ve adopted the "Helen Keller" method of shaving. I follow the razor up my leg with my free hand, feeling for wayward stubble. The results are iffy at best…I usually end up with at least one furry racing stripe up my leg. But, hey, I can’t see it, so what do I care? Well, there ARE those folks at the pool who point and giggle…

I try not to buy hair products in identical bottles. I’ve wasted hours trying to find the biggest letters on the bottle, and then deciding whether the word was long enough to be "conditioner." I could always wait until I’ve squeezed it into my hand…but if it’s the wrong thing, what do you do with it? I’ve developed a knack for sucking stuff back into squeeze bottles (picture that…), but you still end up washing half of it down the drain, at $6 a bottle…

And then there is the spider issue. I have a phobia about spiders in the shower. Anywhere else in the house (except my bed) I say, live and let live. But NOT in the shower. So, I hop in the shower in the morning, and if my husband has left a butt crumb on the tile, I spend fifteen minutes peering at it to figure out if it has legs or is moving under its own power. God forbid I should get out of the shower, get my glasses and look at the thing. Too much mess, and too much hassle… I just spend my entire shower doing gymnastics, trying to get the water stream to wash the whatever-it-is down the drain without having it touch ME.

We boomers are fast developing ways to fend off old age, or at least make it a little less inconvenient. Hopefully some presbyopic, fifty-something researcher will come up with a cure for this before I hurt myself.

Ya gotta have...

Life would probably be easier if I had friends. I have never been part of a "group". In my heyday, I had one "best" friend, and a few acquaintances beyond that. But no "Friends"-type relationships with anyone. No sharing of deepest secrets and desires. The girls I hung around with in high school thought I was kind of a drag...I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't do drugs, and I didn't really approve of people who did. They didn't pressure me to join them in a cigarette or a six-pack...but they never accepted me into the group, either. I hung around with them, but always on the outside looking in.

When I was in my twenties, and active in the little church we belonged to, I STILL didn't have any friends. Not being the model Christian stay-at-home Mom (I was neither a mom nor a stay-at-home), I missed out on most of the "women's" ministries. They invariably were held during the day, when I was at work...apparently, one was supposed to be home looking after one's husband and children in the evenings. Once again, I was on the outside looking in.

In the last ten years, we've moved three times. We haven’t been anywhere long enough to feel part of the community, much less cultivate friendships. And there was so much crap going on in my life, I wasn't feeling very outgoing. These were the times, though, that I could honestly have used a friend or two. My husband has been my ONLY friend for awhile, and he has been a little overwhelmed by this. The hurts and sorrows I've dealt with over the past five years have left me extremely isolated. I have spent more days than I like to think about completely alone, with no one to talk to but myself (and I DO, which is kind of worrisome...)

So, why do I write this? Well, today was an extremely social day for me. I went to my volunteer job and actually had conversations with my boss. And then, husband and I went to our first Weight Watchers meeting. I'm starting to think I might be crawling out of my self-imposed isolation. I don’t MAKE resolutions…but I feel like I really need to stretch myself to make connections with other people. Being alone so much that you are your only sounding board is NOT a good thing.