One of the Few Real People Has Gone

I’ve written a lot about the frustrating nature of internet friendships. Yes…they are a whole different category of human interaction. Maybe that’s the problem. Internet bonds are human interaction mutated by technology. The resultant relationships are sometimes freakish and a little scary. Let’s face it, it’s easy, fun even, to portray yourself as someone else on the internet. The technology has created this great big fantasy land. You can be anyone you’ve ever wanted to be. Or, even if you don’t create a completely fictional persona for yourself, you can still edit what you let people see of the real you—make yourself a little more comical, a little less anal retentive. I think we’ve all done that at one time or another.

But every once in awhile, a real person takes up residence in journal land. One who writes from the heart, who shares happiness and heartbreak freely and openly. Who reaches out selflessly and guilelessly to others. Who doesn’t hide behind a curtain of fear and falsehood. It’s funny. The rest of us, those of us who tread timidly, who always keep ourselves at least partially hidden, who write as if we were afraid someone we know might read; like ants to a picnic, we gravitate toward the real people. We have no problem calling them "friends." Even though we don’t (can’t?) offer so much of ourselves, we attach ourselves to ones who do, and wish we could be like them.

This past week, whether we wanted to or not, we have all found out how tragically real the internet can be. For one wrenching moment, the ether of journal land was transformed into substance, by the passing of our most real citizen—Pamela. I have been surprised how profoundly her death has affected me. Like many others, I only started reading Pamela’s journal after she was diagnosed with lung cancer last year. I immediately recognized her generous spirit and genuineness…and I was drawn to her as inexorably as the legions of j-landers who knew her as friend and paragon of the community before her illness. I was hooked…I kept up with every entry, throughout her struggle with the disease. Fearing the worst, yet hoping for the best. And continually awed by her willingness to share such a personal and difficult journey with the entire community.

We will miss you, Pamela. You’ve taken a big chunk of the rare reality of journal land with you. Wherever you are, we know you’re reaching out, making friends, and showing pictures…

Tuning In. Or OUT...

My attention span is about five minutes these days, and that’s a dead give-away that something is chemically amiss. I am usually focused bordering on obsessive once I set my mind to getting something done. I seem to have misplaced the "On" button for that part of my brain. As a result, everything in my life is a dangling participle. A half-finished paragraph. And it’s got to the point that there are so many of these partial projects hanging around, I don’t know which one to tackle first. The whole mess seems so overwhelming that I just…turn on the television.

Yep…the TV. The last time I spent so many hours in front of the boob tube was when I was a teen-ager. I used the tube as an escape from the emotional challenges of fluctuating hormones (though I’m sure I wouldn’t have described it that way at the time...) What’s my problem now? Escaping from the emotional challenges of fluctuating hormones…only fluctuating in the opposite direction, I’m afraid.

Typically, husband and I have latched on to one or two shows for a season or so. Up until lately, ER and West Wing were the big two. And Queer Eye got us hooked for a few months… But it’s not in my nature to sit in front of the tv for hours every night; I’m too high-energy a person for that. Until now. Suddenly, I have a whole litany of shows that I "need to" watch almost every night of the week. Boston Legal. Top Chef. American Idol (god save me!). House. NCIS. What Not to Wear. And then I was wasting two hours every morning watching reruns of "Judging Amy." Augh!

Yesterday, we finally had a spring day here in the Pacific Northwest. I managed to spend five or six hours outside. Took the dog for TWO walks. Weeded another bed. Mowed the lawn. Sat on the patio of our favorite local house-boat restaurant until the sun got too low and it got too chilly to sit outside anymore. I looked in the mirror last night to brush my teeth, and my face actually had color in it. Between about November and April every year, my face gets so pasty and sallow I scare small children at the grocery store.

Oh, well I hear some other half-finished task calling my name. Gotta go do…something. Or half of something, anyway.

Get The "H" (Heaven) Out Of My Life

My phone has rung twice in the last hour. The caller ID told me it was an "Unknown Caller" with a 571 area code. I ignored the call the first time. I figured if it was someone who really needed to get in touch with me, they’d leave a message. I checked the voicemail a half-hour later…no message.

A couple of minutes ago, the phone rang again. Same number. Okay, I thought. I’ll bite. Maybe it’s someone who really does need to speak to me and won’t leave a message. Like maybe one of my myriad bill payments got lost somewhere along the line and I have been sent to collections for something I thought I paid (it has happened…) So I answered it.

A sincere recorded voice started in on a long harangue about how my signature was desperately needed to get a measure placed on the Oregon ballot. The measure happened to be about requiring Oregon teens to get parental consent on abortions. Of course, I would never sign such a petition, anyway. But that is not what irked me about this phone call. I wasn’t even really pissed that these idiots can bother me even though my number is on the National Do Not Call List…though that is irritating.

No, what cheesed me about this call was the Area Code it came from. "571" is not an Oregon area code. It is not even a Pacific Northwest area code. In fact, when I went to my online US Area Code Table, I was able to discern that the call came from somewhere in Northern Virginia.

I am thoroughly sick of being subjected to the national agenda of the Christian Right. And I emphatically object to them sticking their noses, and their funds, into putting measures on the ballot in MY state; an entire country away from their bible-belt cubicles with the "Jesus Saves" posters on the wall. And apparently they don’t even believe they need to be sneaky about meddling in our business.

If you don’t live in Oregon, stay out of our affairs. If a majority of Oregonians decide to risk hellfire in order to maintain the availability of safe abortions, or to provide end-of-life choices for our suffering neighbors, it’s none of your damned business. Look in the mirror and take the plank out of your own eye.

Ten Good Things Weekly--Week Five

I’ve said this before…I am a pessimist’s pessimist. All my life, as far back as I can remember, I have tended to look at life from a negative, "half-empty glass" perspective. I don’t chalk my negativity up to some event or circumstance of my growing up. I was just never issued rose-colored glasses; my lenses are more the color of…something brown.

But there has also been a balance, something that sits on the other side of the see-saw of my life that keeps my negative baggage from weighing me down and planting my butt firmly and permanently in the mud. Many people are so mired in their problems, they don’t see any light at all. Up until now, I have been fortunate enough to never get completely lost in my darkness. I’ve come this close, but never fallen body and soul into the pit and pulled the cover over after me. My personal darkness has not prevented me from seeing beauty and life. And hope. And feeling gratitude for those things.

When I started this exercise a month ago, my intention was to get myself meditating on those good things, and take my focus off the "brown stuff" that is my constant companion. Tip the see-saw out of balance, maybe, but toward the good and the light. It hasn’t really worked out that way. But I have a feeling that, with the way things have been going lately, my butt would indeed be stuck in that cold, negative mud if I wasn’t taking a couple hours every Monday morning to call up the Ten Good Things.

So, even though today comes on the heels of a really crappy weekend, I don’t think it would be a good week to quit this exercise…

1. Waded our way far enough through the commercial real estate fog to manage to make a bid on a commercial property. It felt good to finally get an idea about what financing such a venture would entail, how one goes about writing up an offer that will protect one’s interests, all that technical stuff. Now that we have done it once, it should be easier the next time.
2. Bid was rejected. Trust me, this IS a good thing. Turns out the sellers are notorious flakes, have a reputation that has spread through just about every real estate office in the county, have listed this property at least four times with four different offices, and apparently have no intention of actually parting with it. At least, not until they disassemble it to the point that it will be of no earthly good to anyone… We are will rid of that particular money pit, and can now go on to the next one. J
3. …And the "next one" might be a strip mall sports bar/bistro a few blocks from our house, which has many of the elements of the restaurant we’ve always dreamed of owning.
4. I got my new recliners for my bedroom! And by golly, just the fact that they match makes the room look less like a flea market and more like an official room. Now, maybe I will be inspired to actually apply the paint I bought (and is sitting stacked up on the bathroom floor) to the tract-house white walls.
5. They showed the final episodes of "Judging Amy" on TNT early last week. I like shows that have continuing story lines and actually end. So now, I don’t have to waste two hours every morning watching it anymore. Just in time to start getting out and working in the yard. If it ever gets around to being spring…
6. New espresso machine performed admirably at otherwise forgettable (oh please) event on Saturday.
7. Truck did not break down, nor did trailer burst into flames on the way to, or the way home from, or during aforementioned event. Not the greatest endorsement for the day…but good things, nonetheless.
8. Unloaded the equipment from the back of the truck by myself (husband was down with flu yesterday) and only smashed my hand twice. It’s not broken… :-P
9. The "buzzies" (hummingbirds) are back. Cats and humans alike are entertained nightly by their aerial acrobatics and prodigious appetites for sugar water.
10. Sneaked out between freezing rain squalls and weeded another bed out in the yard. Two down, eight to go…

It is my imagination, or are my "Ten Things" becoming a little…stretched, shall we say? Next week, I’ll probably be writing that my right arm fell off, but that’s a good thing, because it means I won’t have to worry about my Weight Watcher’s weigh-in next Tuesday. It’s all in how you look at it, I guess.

Journal Land Mourns...

Where I'm Really From

When I posted my "Where I’m From" entry, I got a comment that kind of took me aback. Debbi said, "I know it’s not your usual vehicle…"

Ah, but it is! I’ve been writing poetry since I was in high school. I found it kind of sad that my usual entries don’t betray my poetic bent. Then I realized that I had been posting my poetry and more "creative" writing in my private journal—"Brainsurfing." I don’t write there anymore. I haven’t the time; the way post-apocalyptic Journal-land has re-formed, I have more than I can handle between "Coming to Terms," on AOL and "Better Terms" and "The Blue Voice" on Blogspot.

But, yes….I do write poetry. Even without a template to point me in the right direction. I’ve brought this one over from "Brainsurfing." It seems to speak to the theme upon which I have been expounding lately—my love/hate relationship with blogging…

Ether

it is after all

air…waves

of nothingness

 

they are out there

but not

those spirits

 

one thinks kindred

could easily be

probably are invented

 

too much like

the world inside my head

to be real

 

I reach out

to grasp them

and wrap my arms round

 

air

More Fun With Words

Last week, when I wrote about how blogging has changed the way I write, some folks were probably wondering how someone could write to no one for more than three decades. Hard to say… I’ve always been a decent writer. A few wonderful teachers in high school recognized my talent and nurtured it. But I wasn’t used to being recognized or nurtured; ultimately, my life didn’t go in a direction where my literary talent was going to get a whole lot of exercise. Even so, I never outgrew feeling that it was easier for me to write what I meant than to say it. I got quite a rep as a note-scribbler. At my little bakery, my crew used to roll their eyes and sigh every time a two-page hand-written missive was posted on the bulletin board. It wasn’t a terribly effective means of business communication, but at least it was communication. Let’s just say, it met with mixed results.

As I said, though, blogging has been a whole different experience. It has been challenging, exhilarating, intimidating and liberating all at the same time. And what a stretching exercise! I’m sure I’m learning things about writing that I would have learned way back when, had I taken my talent to the next level of education. Here I am, fifty years old, discovering by trial and error things that a twenty-year-old college student got out of a textbook in Writing 101. So I’m a bit of a late bloomer…. What can I say?

But my writing isn’t the only thing that has been undergoing a metamorphosis. I have found that my increased attention to words, and how to put them together, has changed the way I talk. I’ll be having an intense discussion with my husband or one of my sisters, and something so creatively metaphorical will burst out of my mouth that I almost turn around to see who said it. Have you ever been watching your favorite TV drama, and a character will come out with some eloquent soliloquy, very emotive, very poetic…and you screw up your face and say, "Oh, come on…people don’t really talk like that!"

I don’t know…maybe they do. At least, maybe the guys who write the scripts do, so they think everybody else must, too. Because that fascination with language doesn’t seem to be something you can turn on and off at will. It just becomes part of you. Time was, I despaired that my vocabulary had dwindled to about a dozen favorite words. If someone told me a sad story, I was more than likely to emote, "Wow! That sucks!" or something equally juvenile. The other day, my sister was venting about her husband, and how he had dredged up some old wound in a fight they were having; and I said to her, I kid you not, "You live with someone long enough, and you learn a lot about them. You can either use that information to cherish them, or you can use it to push their buttons. Unfortunately, some people choose the latter." Now, that’s not particularly eloquent or literarily significant, but it is about two dozen more words than my response would have been, say, three years ago. Earlier that same day, I was having a discussion with my husband, trying to describe the unbreakable connection I seem to have with my dysfunctional family. I blurted, "Sometimes it feels like a safety belt, and sometimes, like a garrote." I actually said that. It came out of my mouth, I swear to God. Whoa.

Who knows where this will lead? Either I will soar to new heights of improved communication with my fellow human beings, or I’ll be branded a hopeless snob, intentionally unintelligible to the unwashed masses. I may find that my days of gloriously eloquent utterances are numbered; because in a very short time, no one will be speaking to me anymore. This should be an interesting ride…

Ten Things Weekly--Week Four

Has it already been three weeks since I made the mind-expanding commitment to a weekly list of ten good things that happened in the previous seven days? My goodness, I’m becoming a veritable conduit of positive energy. Next thing you know, I’ll be reading "Chicken Soup for the (insert the name of your sorry-ass group here) Soul." Or writing it. Ewwww...

Currently, I’m in the curious space of watching the days and weeks whip past at lightning speed, while my own life crawls along at the pace of a spider missing six legs. How can it already be April? Wasn’t Christmas just a couple of weeks ago? I’m still vacuuming plastic fir needles and ornament hooks out of my carpeting…yet the crabtrees and the dogwoods are days away from bursting into bloom. And my life is so stagnant that I’m not sure ten things of any kind happened, much less ten good things.

Let me look down the corridor of the past week and see if I can spot ten points of light. This may take some time; I think a few might not be much bigger than a speck of leftover Christmas glitter…

1. Spotted our neighborhood bald eagle in a tree on the shore of Sauvie Island, across the channel from the dike on the Scappoose side. (Lucy has decided the dike is her favorite "dog outing" route. So many smells, so little time…and Mom and/or Dad usually produce a tennis ball for her to chase through the grasses.) We have dubbed our eagle "Sam," thinking the name would be appropriate for either gender, since we have no idea whether it is a male or a female.
2. Presented my horrible, inadequate business plan to a commercial loan officer, who did not laugh in my face (yet.)
3. Colored my hair. My pre-holiday haircut had eliminated the last vestiges of blond highlights from my mousy, dark brown fluff. I was quite taken with the fact that a fifty-year-old still had hair that could be described as "mousy brown," rather than gray. In fact, one of my sisters commented that she "wouldn’t have gone so dark" with the color, and looked a tad envious when I informed her that the dark brown was, in fact, my natural color. But after living with the new old me for about six months, I remembered why I have been coloring my hair since I was a teenager. Because my natural hair color sucks. So, back to the cap, gloves, and crochethook. It looks…better.
4. Participated in a "writing exercise" (posted two entries ago) that resulted in a lovely poetic picture of my family. This was such a fun exercise, though more difficult than it looked. Probably took me three hours to distill all the images it called into my head down to the ones that best told the story I wanted to tell. Here is the template. Why not do one and leave your link in the comments?
5. We made our first purchase of bio-diesel for "Great White"--the edging-toward-politically-correct giant mega-truck required by my business; which has, up ‘til now, inspired a worrisome pang of climate change guilt each time I clambered up behind the wheel. If I’m destined to pay in excess of $3 a gallon for fuel, why not pay a little extra for the privilege of sticking it to Bush, Exxon, and OPEC at the same time?
6. Finally got outside to do some yard work, which mostly entailed trimming back and pulling out freeze-killed plants. My high hopes that some of my tender perennials may have miraculously survived our unusually cold, dry winter were soundly dashed. But every dead plant is an opportunity to buy a new one…
7. Spent a day down south with my sisters and didn’t cry all the way home.  J In fact, we had a marvelous time with some blown eggs, cheap acrylic poster paint and vials of pastel glitter…
8. Met with my "new" Kaiser dentist; whose ministrations, it is to be hoped, will not necessitate unlocking a closed dental clinic on a Sunday afternoon so that I may undergo an emergency root-canal procedure. As did his predecessor’s…
9. Using my "brains over brawn" philosophy of donkey work, I managed to move two 100+ pound espresso machines without breaking either one of them or myself. I am woman, hear me roar…
10. Ate dinner Friday night in the shadow of the spectacular Astoria-Megler Bridge, the four-mile long span that connects Oregon and Washington at the mouth of the Columbia River. I’ll never tire of sitting in the back dining room of the shabby-attempting-chic Café Uniontown, watching the sun sink into the bay, hiding and reappearing between the girders of the bridge. The gulls wheel and cry; and huge ships slide steadily and almost silently past the last outpost of populated shoreline before reaching the open sea. For a girl brought up amid the cornfields and silos of the Chicago exurbs, this Oregon stuff never gets old.

 

 

About Writing...

There’s one thing I have to say about blogging. It has so changed the way I write. When I first started doing this, back in September of ’03, there was an interesting constraint to the experience: the 2500 word limit. There I was, the one who could churn out four or five single-spaced pages of stream-of-consciousness in a bored hour or two at work, reduced to trying to express myself in what amounted to about four paragraphs.

Eventually, we were freed from the word limit ball and chain. Going forward, I found I had learned a good lesson, and I carried it along with me into the world of the expanded blog. I had learned how to edit. How to distill my prose down to an almost poetic economy of words. And how to stick to making one point about one subject, and not indulge in my usual butterfly-flitting-from-thought-to-thought style of writing. The hyper-examination of every word has worn off some; but I have been bitten by the editing bug. And the computer makes it so easy! I hardly crank out one sentence without backspacing, "control-x-ing," moving things around or just deleting large quantities of print altogether.

Gone are the days when I could jump on my train of thought and shovel whatever came into my mind into the boiler. Suddenly, it has to make sense. It has to communicate. It has to be more than bile, or tears, or hysteria. It has to say something. Writing has gone from the smooth flowing fun with words it once was for me, to being a stutter-step, start and stop process that decidedly does not flow. But I can’t blame it all on editing fever. What’s really to blame is that pesky thing called an audience.

Readers. Nobody read my writing. For years. Not since high school, anyway. That would be many, many years. Until now. Readership is a powerful drug. It changes everything. Everything. It has kept me coming back here, even when my heart was sore, when I felt I’d been rejected or misunderstood, when I was afraid I had alienated the world, when I thought I had run out of things to say. Even though my audience includes almost none of the people I started out with. Even though I don’t feel the same "relationship" I did with the first half dozen friends who fell into stopping by and seeing what I had to say. There is a relationship, nonetheless. And for a writer, it’s the only relationship that matters. Someone reads.

Now, I wish I commanded the audience of a Dave Barry, or even a Margie Boulet ("women’s viewpoint" columnist for the Oregonian.) Or maybe I don’t. Because I have a hard enough time trying to write things that are true, meaningful to me, topical, and engaging to the six people who read my journal. I work for literally hours on a 3500-word post. Editing, revising, re-reading, trying to make sure I’m really communicating. I think about people who write for a living…who have to crank out something good, concise, and interesting five days a week. Oh, my god….the impossible dream. Or writing a novel. At the rate I obsess for my handful of readers, it would take me 200 years to write a book.

It’s unfortunate that even a small taste of very limited success makes one crave more. I’m pretty sure I don’t have what it takes to ever get to the point where I might actually be paid for what I write. And, you know…I’m not sure that’s my goal. I write stuff here, and some of it is good. And I know that there is such a thing as making a living as a writer. But I don’t look at writing in those terms. For me, the reward is all about the communication; the connection to at least one other soul on the planet. Having readers is still new enough for me that I haven’t yet reached the point of wondering how I might profit from the experience. But then, how cool would it be to make a living doing the one thing that you have always felt the call on your heart to do?

The world is full of people answering calls on their lives not even remotely connected to their highest calling, to their native talent. We all make do. We all find our lives more influenced by who we know, where we grew up, what our families did, the expectations put on us by others. Rather than the true voices of our souls. I feel fortunate that, as one of the misdirected masses, I have stumbled across the world of the blog…this microcosm of what I should be, what I would love to be. I can get the tiniest taste of what it is like to do what I am meant to do. Many people are not that lucky.

Where I'm From

Cynthia, Wil, and Mary all partook of this wonderful writing exercise. Their resulting pieces were beautiful, magical, deep... And, well...this is what I ended up with:

I am from station wagons, from Kool-aid and Turf-builder.

I am from the three bedroom, one bath ticky tacky box

with the swath of weedy lawn; from lightning bugs, june bugs,

and mosquitoes the size of small birds.

From nights near as hot as the days, spread-eagled on sticky sheets, crickets creaking, horns honking,

trains rumbling and whistling in the distance…

I am from Snow to the eaves, jewel-studded ice storms,

and green-black thunderstorms with sideways rain

I am from bright red tulips, honeysuckle berries,

and worms on the driveway after a cloudburst;

From daisies, tiny wild strawberries, "Queen Anne’s Lace"

and crashing the kite into power lines.

I am from "look what followed me home from school"

and never having too many animals; from Taffy, and Rusty,

and Sunny, the yellow-headed parakeet, who could say

"Happy Birthday" but only when he thought no one was listening….

I am from the women who shuttle the carpool, punch the clock,

scrub the toilet, then climb into the bottle, the herb,

or the fantasy to quiet the noise in their heads

and themen they choose to rescue, or who choose to rescue them

From "when you meet the right one, you’ll just know"

and "Your dad was a virgin when we were married…"

I am from the dutiful eldest daughter who paired off,

home made and pro-created at the appointed time,

and the other four who didn’t.

I am from the tearful Catholic and the stoic agnostic;

the rope stretched taut between belief and unbelief,

pulled one direction, then the other…the eternal tug-of-war never won.

I'm from pioneers of urban exile; before the country clubs,

the soccer, and the rolls royces.

I’m from the first McDonald’s and the last Tastee Freeze.

I am from the great mouldering box in the upstairs closet,

roaring twenties studio sepias stacked on

shiny square instamatic shots discoloring with age.

I am from the five stair-steps, the Christmas trees, the campfires,

and the blurred mountains captured from a moving car.

I am from the unlikely union of a country boy and a city girl,

brought together by Hitler and Hirohito,

and the neighborhood of compromise that kept them both sane…almost.

Poetry Assignment

I tend to avoid "blogfather" assignments like the plague...  Bad attitude, I know.  But an assignment that appealed to me came to my attention late last week.  Something about posting a favorite poem...

Oddly enough, though I write poetry, I don't read nearly enough of it.  I don't have volumes of poetry weighing down my bookshelves.  In fact, I don't think I own a single one.  I'll have to remedy that situation.  But here's a poem I latched on to a long time ago...and I like to think it has turned out to be descriptive of my journey...at least a little.

 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Ten Good Things Weekly, Part Trois

I know it is very late on a Monday evening. (In some parts of the country, in fact, it is already Tuesday...). And that you all have been waiting with baited breath for my "Ten Good Things Weekly" post for this week. Or not.

It occurred to me that I should do a rebuttal list every Tuesday, called "Ten Things That Went to Hell Weekly." So far, about five out of the ten good things I have listed each week have rapidly deteriorated, disappeared, or just plain tanked within days. But you don’t want to hear about that part of it, do you? I didn’t think so….

Despite all that, here are last weeks "Things:"

1. Good weather! We actually had 2 ½ days of spring early in the week. Sunshine, warmer temps, swelling buds, perfumed breezes…the whole nine yards. Mmmmmmm!
2. $3000 truck repair turned into $400 truck repair. Not sure it really IS repaired, but the wallet remains a little fatter for at least a few more months.
3. Great dog walks last week. Herons, egrets, harriers, osprey claiming the nests. The buzzards are back in the valley (a sure sign of spring in Oregon.) I soar on the wings of birds…
4. Found out that the restaurant equipment guy was trying to pull a fast one on the espresso machine. I guess that's a good thing (that we figured it out before we bought....)
5. Was forced to gussy up the house for some out-of-town guests. I always perform best under pressure. I like a clean house, but need some kind of extreme motivation to achieve it, these days.
6. We may have found a property that will take my business to the next level. Someplace to put my catering kitchen. All kinds of plans and ideas swirling around in my head. Hope the fates are kind and it works out… All we need now is to win the lottery.
7. I made a lovely oatmeal cake (with coconut frosting) for the out-of-town guests, from scratch. And ended up eating easily half of it myself. Well, that part may not be a "good thing…" But---aw, hell! It WAS delicious!
8. Somehow managed to weigh in at 0.1# less than I weighed in last month at WW. And still within 2# of my lifetime goal (so I didn’t have to pay!) I have not been being good about what I have been eating, so this was a miracle, indeed. (I still need to lose three pounds to get back into my comfort zone, and my "skinny" clothes, for the summer…)
9. Saw the first swallow of the spring, perched on the point of the shed roof. Had a pair nest in the eaves of the shed last year. Hope they will reprise that performance J
10. Pearlie (my "Nuccio’s Pearl camellia—see above) popped into bloom. Along with my little rose-colored tulips in the side yard. Dafs are still hanging in there, and the grape hyacinths are coming on strong.

Once again, that was more difficult than I anticipated…. But getting easier! It seems I am powered by the sun. A few golden rays and a wedge of blue sky always inspires a smile and a happy dance. Oh, and daylight savings! How cool is it that the sky is still streaked with light at 8:30 pm? I gladly trade one measly hour of sleep for that yearly miracle!

As The Tower Crumbles...

Anyone who has been reading "Comng to Terms..." since the old days (and I know there are not many of you left out there...) remembers that I was known to post a political rant or two.  I haven't been sharing my political views here, lately, as I have been writing for a political blog as well as posting my personal stuff here.  I wrote the piece that follows for "The Blue Voice."  But I think it's worthy of being shared here in j-land.  Because I would like you all to start thinking about the mid-term elections coming up in November...

I read an editorial the other day that explained how the "high ideals" that the GOP embraced with a flag-waving flourish around the time of Bush’s second inaugural have run smack into the realities of culture wars and protectionism. Yes….it sounded wonderful, back in January of 2004, to shout that the United States of America was ready and willing to carry the banner of freedom and democracy to the world. A couple of pesky roadblocks sprang up along the way. Like that the objects of our crusade failed to throw open their doors, fling off the chains of thousands of years of cherished customs, and embrace our Western ideal of the highest form of human government. And that our own leaders were so busy "spreading democracy" across the world that they forgot to nurture and support it inside our own borders. As if there is a finite supply of freedom, and for every ounce we bestow upon someone else, we lose an ounce of our own.

To the GOP, idealism seemed a handy tool to make their wealth and power-driven agenda palatable to the American people. Unfortunately, the GOP lacks recent experience with concepts such as the good of mankind and universal understanding. They had no idea where those ideals actually come from, nor how to control them. High ideals are meant to give birth to an agenda, not to be manipulated after the fact to conceal one.

Ideals have to be anchored in reality, or they get so high, they are out of reach. The GOP hadn’t a clue that there has to be some connection between lofty, abstract creeds and the guy sitting next to you at the lunch counter. Leaders like FDR, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and even Bill Clinton, understood this. That you can’t just stand behind the podium, point to the sky and proselytize. That at the end of the day, you had to climb down off the dais, sit down and share a meal with the folks you meant to lead to that higher plain. You take your direction from the people. You need to know what they care about. You need to care that where they want you to lead them will be a better place for them—economically and practically, in their everyday lives—as well as a loftier plain for mankind in general. You need to understand what they are willing to sacrifice, and what results they expect. That’s how you get them to follow. That’s how you change the world. The Republicans, in their headlong rush to stockpile as much power and money as possible while their foot was in the door, understood only that their time on top was most likely limited. They could not spare a single second to listen to the people. Certainly not the Iraqi people. Nor even the American people. At least, not the ones lower on the food chain than, say, corporate executives.

Now, that idealistic Tower of Babel constructed to hide the GOP’s selfish, materialistic, xenophobic truth, has begun to crack and fall. Leaving the stark the image of a party whose real credo is "Build wealth, protect wealth" laid bare for all the world to see. The people—the American people, the Iraqi people, the people of the world—are beginning to take stock of the sacrifices they’ve been asked to make, and the results they have been cajoled to embrace, and two and two are adding up to zero. And now, now they’re casting about for a better answer. Who can blame them? And who is going to step into the vacuum and provide the leadership we so desperately need?

I'm Free!

Today will be my first full day since before Halloween to experience life without the ½ inch long acrylic prostheses that vanity dictates I attach to the ends of my fingers every winter. Seriously, I love acrylic nails. But if you actually have to work for a living, manual labor type work that is the bread and butter of my business, they become at best an annoying luxury, at worst a handicap.

This year, in a fit of insanity, I actually toyed with the idea of just filing them down to a manageable length and seeing if I could nurse them through my busy season. I allowed myself to entertain the theory that beautiful, well-manicured hands would enhance my image and impress prospective clients…so it would be worth the pain in the ass, and $20 every three weeks, to maintain them. An unforeseen cash-flow crisis started to erode that dream…and when one of the acrylic appendages in question popped off while I was making dinner last night, the die was cast for its nine amigos as well. I sat down in front of the television last night with a bottle of heavy-duty polish remover and a pry bar.

So today I sally forth into life with slightly sore, short and stubby unremarkable fingers. Maybe I’ll purposely drop my debit card at the grocery store just for the thrill of being able to pick it up.

Assistance, Please...

Does anyone know what kind of evil buggar I picked up with my computer that is now making every font size on the internet look like ant tracks????

The Answer...

For all of you who were dying to know, this:

Is an aerial view of this:

Like I said, bad weather, boredom, a camera...and cheap wine.  Result in a curious fascination with unusual objects.

Ten Good Things--Week 2

Last week sucked. And I made a promise to do a "Ten Good Things That Happened Last Week" list every Monday. I might be sitting here a really long time trying to flesh out that list. I think this is going to turn out to be an interesting feature… One of the world’s most finely-tuned pessimists wringing ten good things out of every seven days. At least it won’t be one of those fluffy, syrupy optimistic gushes that one feels in need of a turkey baster full of insulin after reading. :-P

Well, anyway...let's give it a shot:

1. To go into detail on this one would be TMI. Suffice it to say it happened on our first night in our romantic, candle-lit little cabin retreat. A good time was had by all.
2. We took the dog down to the local pet shop and used their "wash your own dog" set-up. Dog became a cleaner, sweeter smelling, slightly-less-hairy traveling companion, and I didn’t have my bathroom turned into the aftermath of a tsunami. Definitely worth the twelve bucks to leave the mess for someone else.
3. I think I may have found an espresso machine for my business that will cost me less than $3000. Keeping my fingers crossed..
4. Speaking of my business, found out from the tax lady that it actually made money last year. We were hoping, trying even, to lose money—in the interests of netting a comfortable tax refund. But hey…looks like I can make money without even trying. Might play well when I start going from bank to bank with my hand out…
5. Found a wonderful new restaurant in our favorite vacation hang-out (Florence—on the Oregon coast directly west of Eugene.) I’m always of two minds when I find a great new place to eat. Excited about the discovery, quickly followed by frustration that it isn’t mine.
6. Husband seems to be back on board the entrepreneurial train. Suddenly, he is gung-ho about the prospect of us having our own business together. This has happened before, only to have him lose interest when we can’t make it happen immediately. Now, I just have to figure out how to keep him engaged while we work out the details, which could take many months.
7. Found the last piece of the plumbing puzzle for the downstairs bathroom remodel. My new john now has a functional toilet, running water, and a drain in the new sink down which that water can flow. Ah, the wonders of modern plumbing!
8. All cats present and healthy when we returned from our five-day vacation. We have a "cat-sitter" come in twice a day to feed them, but it’s always a little iffy when a third of the brood are old and have health issues. First thing I do is walk in the door, count noses, and make sure everyone is breathing…
9. I bought a new purse! This is an occasion…I get very attached to purses; I can spend months looking for the perfect replacement for the current model that I carry until it literally disintegrates.
10. I drummed up another event for the business—an indoor event at the coast in May. Stopped by and scoped out the facility last week, and it looks like it will work marvelously well for us. Plenty of cooking equipment, so I won’t have to bring my own.

I will have to get into the habit writing these things down as they happen. Since I’ve started losing five zillion functional brain cells a day due to estrogen depravation, it’s getting hard for me to remember things that happened as long as seven days ago… And, looking over the list, I see it IS pretty boring. An unfortunately accurate reflection of my life in general, I’m afraid. But it really does help my outlook to spend at least a measly hour one day a week focusing on positive energy. It is SO the opposite of my usual tendency to wallow in the negative.

My dear old friends Jackie and Mary jumped on the bandwagon during the past week with their own lists. And all of you who commented about what a good idea it was, and then didn’t do one, what are you waiting for? J

What Happens On A Rainy Vacation...

Vacation. Rain. Boredom. And a camera.

  Okay...what is it?

Soggy Saturday

My sunny California get-away, beaten into oblivion by financial realities, has morphed into a gray, rainy Oregon coast wash-out. It was too late to cancel the husband’s time off by the time we figured out there was no money to realize the California dreamin’. The always-available alternate plan—hopping in the truck and taking the trailer to some quiet, woodsy destination in one of Oregon’s many and varied state parks—also was sabotaged by sad reality. The truck is at the "diesel fuel injection" doctor, even now probably being diagnosed with an ailment that can be cured to the tune of, oh, about $2k. If we’re lucky.

I suppose it was just as well that the camping option was denied us. Who would have wanted to spend four wet, weepy days trapped in an 8’ x 16’ shoebox with a damp dog, a cribbage board, and several bottles of cheap wine. Instead, we have dragged the damp dog and cheap wine into what could have been a wonderful little cedar shingled cottage on the lake…could have been, that is, if the sky had not spent 75% of the time opening up to dump buckets of Oregon sunshine upon us. We’ve been treated to a few snatches of sunshine and tempered breezes…just enough to make us really understand how miserable it has been the rest of the time. Sigh! Not at all what I had in mind when I first hatched the idea of this little get-away back in January…

We’ve been trying to make the best of our mostly soggy time… Had a great dinner at a new restaurant on Thursday night, and haunted some of the gift and antique shops along Highway 101 between here (Florence) and Waldport, about thirty miles up the coast. One junk shop proprietor had bought out the contents of a gift shop, which included several boxes of glass Christmas ornaments that my sister and I had a great time picking through. Such sparklies never fail to lighten y mood, and I left the store with nearly a dozen of them carefully packed in a box that also struck my fancy….

In another store, I happened upon something that cried out the name of someone out there in journal land…it made its way into my bag and will be sent out to its new owner on Monday morning…

Well, I suppose I had better rouse myself to get up, get a shower, get breakfast, and get on with the business of the next-to-last day of our soggy vacation. I’ve whined enough for one day…

Ten Good Things Weekly

In a previous post, I lamented that blogging just did not seem fun any more. Last week, I participated in the first meme I have tried for a long, long time. And it was fun. It wasn’t socially redeeming, it wasn’t great, thoughtful, meaningful Writing…it was just fun. So, I thought, how can I make this kind of fun a regular feature in my journal?

Another phenomenon I have witnessed in a few blogs is the "Friday Random Ten…" This is where ipod owners randomly list ten songs they have downloaded onto their little escapist electronic contraptions (can you tell I have no particular love for ipods?) Though I have no interest in impressing my fellow bloggers with my eclectic tastes in music, I decided I do want to do a "Ten Things" list once a week. But, what I’m going to list is ten good things that happened in the previous week. I decided to do this list on Mondays, because the nature of my business will keep me away from the blogosphere on many Fridays over the months of my season.

So, here is my first weekly, "Ten Good Things" list, published, predictably, a day late:

1. Finally gave up on the idea of doing my own taxes, collected all the stuff, and trundled it over to the tax lady’s office.
2. Received a last-minute email request to cater an event…luckily, that weekend is available.
3. I spoke to the bald eagle sitting in a tree next to the path on the dike. (S)he blinked at me…
4. I backed the trailer absolutely straight into a campsite, on only the third try. (Slightly aided by the gentleman in the campsite across the road, who obligingly removed his truck from his own driveway, giving me plenty of room to maneuver J )
5. I finished a living room art project I’d been putting off since Christmas.
6. The special order faucet for our bathroom finally arrived, allowing husband to complete that project (which was started before Thanksgiving.)
7. I remembered to bring my field glasses with me on our walks with the dog.
8. …thus getting a great close-up look at a blue heron that was sunning on the channel, standing motionless with wings at half-mast.
9. At last, spotted the hummer responsible for the mysterious disappearance of liquid from the hummingbird feeder. The level had been dropping, but I never saw a bird, so I thought the feeder must just be leaking.
10. Flowers! Plum trees, daffodils, hyacinths, and the first early azaleas. Despite the wintry chill.

Whew! That was harder than I thought. Evidence of the lingering affects of my winter funk, I guess. I’m thinking it will be easier next Monday…

Happy Vernal Equinox

It’s finally here. After what seems to be one of the longest winters on record (which still is not convinced it is out of here…)

According to the forecast, it will start raining again tomorrow, and rain into the foreseeable future. But, today is a gloriously blue and yellow day. I am hoping this little break in the weather on such an opportune day is a hint that the newly arrived season will more closely resemble today than the rest of this coming week…

Favorite Fours

Cynthia (A Crazy Quilt Life) tagged me, but she didnt' thinkI'd really play. It's been a long time since I've done one of these. I think I lost my thumbs this past winter...[obscure Dick Van Dyke Show reference that no one will get :-)]

Four jobs I've had in my life:

(Oh, my! How do I choose…?)

Production worker, Little Monk Home Winemaking Kits

Pizza Queen!!

Manager, Le Chatel Bakery, VRC

Production Manager, Ultimate Baking (biscotti!)

Four Movies I Can Watch Anytime:

Gone With The Wind

Little Women

While You Were Sleeping

Holiday Inn

Four Places I have lived:

North Suburban Chicago

Willamette Valley

Suburban Portland

Columbia Valley

Four favorite television shows:

Boston Legal

Judging Amy (reruns)

What Not To Wear

Designed to Sell

Four Places I have been on vacation:

The Baseball Hall of Fame

Grand Canyon

Door County, Wisconsin

Glacier National Park, Montana

Four of my favorite dishes:

Red Robin’s Mile High Mud Pie

Hot, crispy, batter-dipped French fries

Fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies

Spaghetti with garlic bread

Four Websites I visit daily:

The Blue Voice

Bloglines

Dogpile (Search Engine)

Weather Channel Forecast

Four Places I would rather be right now:

Toiling away in the back of the house of my own restaurant

Washburn State Park, feeding the jays from my hand

Getting off the plane for a six-month stay in Europe

Anywhere warm, dry, and sunny

Four bloggers I am tagging:

Tina of Ride Along With Me

Meredith of Another Country Heard From

Jackie of Pixels, Politics, Posies, and Pussycats

and Judi of talking to myself

Winter, Spring, and Words

Tina wrote on Sunday about the power she gains from some combinations of words that suddenly seem to come to life for her. Her latest discovery is, "It is what it is." I so understand what she’s talking about with these five little words. I recently discovered them myself, and they have unlocked a lot of chains for me.

I found another set of timely words for myself the other day. It’s not a motto…it’s more like a sound byte. But it explains a lot of what is going on in my life right now. And it might even go a long way toward explaining the general "blahness" that seems to be afflicting just about everyone in the Land of J these days.

Only 30 percent of those polled by the Los Angeles Times believe that the country is on the right track. That is such a historically low number it's a surprise Americans even get out of bed in the morning.

The current political scene in our country is so dismal. War. Bigotry. Hatred. Political infighting. And there’s nowhere you can go to get away from it. If you turn on the television or radio, open a magazine or newspaper, it roars at you like a constant gale, blasting away and wearing you down until you are simply…numb. The world, seen through the darkened lens of our national moral turmoil, looks drab and bleak and hopeless. The fitful weather of the last gasp of winter only serves to enforce that lethargy induced by the sheer weight of the depressing issues we face on our political landscape.

Personally, I’m languishing for want of Spring. I’m desperate for soft, warm breezes, coquettish sunlight peeking out from between the clouds, and bright green knobs of new life breaking through the dark, damp, icy earth. And for the warmth of charity, the light of wisdom, and the life of understanding and new leadership to break through the murk of the cold political fog that has settled upon us. I don’t want to hear that "It is what it is." I want to know that it can be so much more…

Journal Reality, Part Deux

In a comment on my last post, Celeste likened the journal community to an apartment building…where people come and go, with or without notice. I like that analogy; it explains a lot. Many other commenters displayed a kind of blasé attitude about the impermanence of journal relationships. I really believe they are speaking from their own hearts and experiences. And I wish that my life had unfolded in such a way that I could have that same (healthy?) attitude toward the comings and goings of other people in it.

Unfortunately, I’ve always been a loner. I live a lot of my life inside my own head.. I don’t know where that came from. I was a smart kid. Often, the teacher’s pet. But never one of the "in" crowd. Partly because I could never follow the sheep, and pick on the kids that everyone picked on. I stood up for them. I treated them kindly. Which, oddly enough, gained me a unique position in the grammar school social stratum. I was nobody’s enemy, but nobody’s friend. Too respectable to be bullied by the hip kids, too smart for the outcasts to befriend. Limbo. I got used to living in Limbo.

It’s not like I never had any friends. There were special people who were welcomed into my limbo and stayed awhile. They were generally very special people, and they usually stayed quite awhile. My best friend in grade school was my best friend until we had each passed our tenth wedding anniversary. So this concept of people coming and going in my life, like a constantly evolving ensemble cast, is not really within my frame of reference.

And an apartment complex? Hubs and I bought our first house two years after we were married. We lived in exactly three apartments, and two of those were parts of old homes. The one gigantic "apartment complex" we lived in was so close to the nearby airport that we were jolted awake every weekday morning by the sound of the rich commuters’ private jets revving up for their early morning departures. In the apartment we moved to in order to get away from that, our upstairs neighbor sniffed gasoline to get high, and our downstairs neighbor was the landlord’s son, who thought it was perfectly within his rights to blast his "tunes" at top volume, preferably anytime after 2 am. Needless to say, we never really got into the "neighbor" dynamic of apartment living. So I missed out on that little life lesson as well.

So, perhaps I am a little more sensitive than your average person would be to the transience of journal relationships. I’m used to a very few, very close, very long-term friends. When I "let someone in" to my life, I expect them to stay for years. I have a really hard time with connections that don’t go far enough below the surface to grow roots. The problem with these internet friendships, especially the ones formed in the journal community, is that they start out looking like a fast track to the kind of deep, lasting bonds I’m drawn to. People write about intimate things, serious things. There, right before your eyes, is a veritable garden of people who feel the things you’ve felt but have never been able to articulate; who know the things you know, but never thought another person in the world knew. Instant soul mates!

But, then, it turns out that they’re really….not. That they’re not looking for the same thing out of these connections that I am. Or that they’re not looking for anything at all other than a place to vent. To work it all out. Or to just…write. Getting a kick, as we all do, out of the fact that there is someone out there reading their little missives. But not really looking for it to go beyond the writer/reader relationship. And when they don’t feel the need to write anymore, they disappear. To them, I’m sure, that’s the advantage of the internet. The anonymity. That freedom to slip in or out at will.

I admit, I have made as cunning use of that anonymity as anyone. But it is a double-edged sword. If you would keep yourself from being known, then you cannot know—anybody else. We explode into each others’ lives and then we…just cut and run. It’s all very confusing; after more than two years out here in journal land, I still haven’t got to the point where I can play the game without getting hurt. And yet, I don’t seem to be able to say, "To hell with it!" and just walk away either. There’s the rub…

So, here’s another post. Undoubtedly to be followed by another, and another. Because I can’t walk away. I can’t even define what magic this place still holds for me. And yet, I am held. For another day…another month…another year. As long as my acrylic-nail-challenged, arthritic fingers can make some kind of sense or feeling spring from this keyboard and makeit to at least one other person’s eyes. And heart.

Reality Finally Sets In

At least a dozen times in the past, I’ve waxed poetic about how the community aspect of journal-land took many of us by surprise. My original "About Me" from 2 ½ years ago cryptically referred to the fact that I was coming off several bad years in a row. I stumbled into the j-land community at a time when I was more than needy.

Within twelve months of putting down my roots in the virtual neighborhood, I had hooked up with more people that I considered friends than I had ever had at any one time in my life. Friends with different lifestyles. Friends from all over the country. I felt so rich.

But I didn’t know—maybe nobody knew—the dynamics of on-line friendships. By the time the second year had passed, the reality of the "community" was beginning to dawn. The transience of the relationships. The "burn-out" factor. The factions, the cliques, the tugs-of-war. Most disconcerting was the way people just…disappeared. You could think you were best buddies with someone one minute, and the next minute, they would just fall off the edge of the earth. Disappear. Go private, or shut down altogether. No explanations, no goodbyes. Journal land became a very odd place to be.

And so it is. Still. None—not one—of my original j-land friends writes with the frequency or the abandon that we used to. For the most part, they don’t even stop by any more…or, if they do, they choose not to leave any evidence thereof. I would love to say that I "get it;" that I understand that the relationships have changed and that I can function just fine with things the way they are. But the truth is, I can’t. It really hurts me. I’ve had too many very important people go out of my life completely over the last decade. People that I loved went away, and I couldn’t stop them. And I feel that I’m going through that all over again, on a smaller but more daily scale, with all my journal friends.

It used to be, you visited a journal, you made some comment—any comment at all just to show you’d stopped by. Now, unless you have "Something" to say, you don’t comment. It just isn’t done. And it’s almost become a game of, "Okay, if you won’t leave a comment for me, then I won’t leave one for you." Some convoluted game of paybacks and wounded feelings.

So now what? Much as I would like to hold this together, I feel like I have no control whatsoever over the direction my journal experience is headed. The handwriting is on the wall for me with some of the people I’ve felt closest to in j-land. I feel like I sign on and just wander around empty hallways that used to be filled with friends chatting and laughing, trading anecdotes and crying on each others’ shoulders. It’s gettin’ kinda lonely out here…

 

In Like a Lion...

This season has truly been a "Winter of the Soul" for me.  And it just doesn't want to go away. 

Eleven days until the vernal equinox.

Winter is getting in its parting shots...

Getting Through The Dry Spots

The land of journals has changed drastically for me. I am amazed at the permanent alteration that was wrought to the fabric of my journal experience by the AOL blow up. The immediate immensity of the emotional response shocked me. Still, I always thought that when the dust settled and people had time to sort out their feelings, things would go pretty much back to normal. But that didn’t happen. The place I used to go to meet friends and trade stories no longer exists. AOL decided that we needed to grow up and realize that our virtual haven was, indeed, part of the real world. And the mass "coming of age" dispersed the journal community…kind of like a high school graduation turns people who have been as close as family—or closer—into strangers in a matter of a few months. Last night, I tried to describe to my husband what journaling was like now. What came to me is, I don’t see any of the casual, fun people from all over the country who kind of just came to chat anymore. I seem to have moved into the realm of the "serious writers." (Actually, I called us "intellectual snobs…") And a lot of the fun has gone out of it.

I once got myself in hot water with some folks in the land of journals by suggesting that many people who kept journals on AOL were not really writers. (I don’t know why anyone would be upset not to be a writer. Like any other talent, it is often more of a burden than a joy. At best, it’s a roller-coaster existence. You create something satisfying, and you soar to the rooftops. You go through a dry spell, and you fall through a crack in the floor. What is it about right-brained talents that we who possess them always feel we are on the brink of losing them? Why this ever-present fear that the font of words, or notes, or colors, is not bottomless?)

As it turned out, those people who felt "dissed" because I suggested they were not writers, provide the lion’s share of the fun and diversity in the land of journals. I think many of the most vital, interesting folks in journal land were not really happy with the sedentary nature of the journal community-- being chained to their computers for large blocks of time every day. The "AOL graduation" gave them the perfect excuse to disentangle themselves from the convoluted ethereal chains of the virtual community and get on with their active lives. And I really do miss them.

Or maybe the problem is this: When I decided that the journal land reformation was going to be my ticket to "take my writing to the next level," I took myself out of what was left of the journal community, and started…I don’t know…going uptown?. I tried to hang out where I thought the real writers should be. But real writers have turned out to be…well, kind of boring. And self-absorbed. And just WAY too serious. Lest I offend those few people who still do read my journals, let me assure you that I include myself in among that serious, boring, self-absorbed group. I’m not really happy about it, but it’s exactly what I am.

Still, I’m in this for the long haul. And, like anything worth committing to, you have to realize the road will ultimately take you to more of the good stuff…you just have to stick to it through the bad stuff to get there. Maybe the level I’m at right now is boring and uninspiring, and decidedly not fun...but I think I detect a slight rise in the roadway up ahead. Going up to the next level maybe? The one that can be serious and fun?

A Shot of The Good Stuff

Last weekend, we were in Newport (Oregon) serving food to the mostly tipsy patrons at the 29th Annual Seafood and Wine Festival. I had great plans for this, our first event of the season. Optimistically, I had projected a 25% sales increase for the weekend. Since last year was our premiere year at the festival, I just naturally assumed that the word was out and that we had nowhere to go but up. Unfortunately, circumstances conspired to prove me wrong…we ended up actually seeing fewer customers this year, though our new-season price increase bumped our total sales by about 8%. Needless to say, I was disappointed. During the season I sort of live and die by the numbers… So I’ve been in a little funk the last few days.

But last night, I received an email. I almost deleted it, because, as a rule, I don’t open emails from people I don’t know. Imagine my surprise when I opened this one:

Hello,
I had one of your Salmon Dill puffed pastry sandwich pouches at the Seafood and Wine Festival in Newport this last weekend. It was incredible!

Do you have a restaurant in Scappose? If so, can you give me your hours and location, please?

Thank you, I will look for you next year at the festival, but I hope I can eat your wonderful pouches before then.

Thank you –
(a happy customer)

To say that this message made my day…week…month…would be an understatement. I wrote back and asked how she got my email address, since I only remembered giving out one business card to someone scoping us out for another event. Turns out she had emailed the Newport Chamber of Commerce to get the information. How sweet of her to go through all that trouble just to let me know that she enjoyed our product!

Look how someone taking a few minutes out of their busy life to say thank you, send a compliment, give a virtual pat on the back, can suddenly change the whole color of life. Words cannot express how grateful I am to this woman, and to whatever Greater Force led her to send that message at such an uncannily perfect time. It was an upper for which I did not even know I was so desperate.

Moral of the story? We’re so eager, these days, to complain, to bitch, to degrade. We deal with over-worked, underpaid people daily, and the qualityof service we get often reflects the degree of over-workedness and underpaidness with which these folks cope day in, day out. Years ago, when I was the one standing behind the counter, I knew how far a kind word or a compliment could go to brighten our bleak world. Since I promoted myself to "entrepreneur," I had forgotten…

Is it so much harder to thank or compliment good service than it is to complain? Why don’t we do it more often? And, you know, I have a feeling if we did do it more often, the quality of the service we receive would rise apace. This dismal pool of acrimony, conflict, and despair that is twenty-first century America could surely use an infusion of positive energy. I, for one, am going to try to carry this lesson with me for as long as I can keep it imprinted on my old dog/new trick brain.

Sunspot

The Story Will Have To Wait....

 

For a time this winter, writing consumed me. I was at it several hours, every day. Then it got frustrating. I felt I had things to say, but the words went away. I felt chained to the keyboard; it taunted me…it withheld its grace. The words choked and clogged. "Control+X" was my "go-to" tool.

Sleep, for me, has been much the same--choked and clogged. On-again, off-again…mostly off. Last Friday, stutter-stepping through another long night, this thought came to me: I want to be able to just...look at the pictures without coming up with the words. For a little while, anyway.

This Is Your Life

The milestone birthdays come packaged with a DVD of mandatory retrospective. The more advanced the age, the more maudlin the video. Up until now, I’ve studiously avoided the one that came with my big 5-0 last July. A couple of things have happened over the last week to inspire me to finally crack open the jewel case and take a cautious peek at what’s inside.

First of all, I got a chain e-mail which casually mentioned that most people get about 75 years out of life. (This was certainly originated by someone under forty.) But, I have to admit, it sounds reasonable. My own dad died at 79. Mom is still hanging in there at 83, but there’s a world of difference between living and just being alive. My sister died at 48. Hmmmm…maybe I don’t want to add her into the family death lottery; if Mom died today, that would drag the average life span down to seventy.

Mom will just have to live to be 98 in order to restore the balance.

And no one else can die for at least twenty years.

Ah…there is just a tiny sample of the higher mathematics at which people my age suddenly become proficient…

Okay…75 years. That used to be unthinkably far away. Seventy-five was as unimaginable to me, even at forty, as the fact that I would be forty-five in "The Year Two Thousand" seemed to me when I was ten. (Didn’t all school kids of the sixties sit around and calculate how old they would be at the turn of the century?) In the space of one high-speed decade, I went from still having half my life to look forward to, to realizing that 2/3 of that same life has already passed under the bridge.

Ten years ago, when I looked back 25 years, the picture—of a fifteen-year-old hippie in raggedy bell-bottoms that dragged on the ground, holey moccasins and a fringed leather jacket—at least had a misty quality of nostalgia about it. In 1996, in my big shirt, lycra leggings, and Nikes, I could look at that old, creased instamatic photo and say, "Wow! Wasn’t that a lifetime ago!"

But, 1981? I was already an adult. I had a husband and a mortgage, two car payments and a houseful of pets. Not so terribly different from what I am now. In fact, the object obtained with one of those two sets of car payments is currently sitting in my driveway. The last 25 years, with their victories and defeats, spotlight moments and deep shadows, moves, loves, lessons and losses, have just been like…stuffing added to a finished pillow. Unremarkable, in many ways, from the previous stuffing, waiting to be covered up and tamped down by the stuffing yet to come. I liked it much better when I could look back 25 years and still see the pieces waiting to be stitched together.

The other thing that pushed me into a retrospective mindset was my last post, where I mentioned my tug-of-war, high-energy/melancholy personality. It got me to wondering, how long have I been that way? I realized, it’s been as long as I can remember. And I thought about that… What was it like to carry around that odd, almost old-womanish persona in a child’s world? And I recalled the school year of 1968-69. I was in eighth grade. It was the worst year of my sheltered young life. Bad enough that I can still recall how miserable I was, but I have a hard time focusing on the actual details…I’m afraid I simply blocked them out. But since this entry is already getting long, and I have a ton of work to do today, I’ll share that story in my next post.

Working out the Kinks

What is success? I think it is…knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose. Margaret Thatcher

Yesterday was a successful day. The sun was out, the air was crisp and blue, and I had work to do. I read other women’s posts, the ones they write at the end of an exhausting, whirlwind day filled to overflowing with errands, tasks, and responsibilities. They are dog tired and squeeze out a precious minute or two to jot a few lines before falling into bed; mostly to say they would sell their right arm for a little quiet time. And I wish I could tell them, make them understand: You don’t know how lucky you are.

I would give anything to have that, right now. I am a naturally high-energy person; running my butt off is what I do best. Unfortunately, I am also naturally melancholy…bordering on depressive. An odd combination. And it has been difficult. Imagine physically needing to be busy, to be occupied, keeping three or four balls in the air at one time, but at the same time, being depressed to the point of not really being able to move. It’s like wading through crude oil; desperate to go forward (or anywhere at all…) but you can’t move your feet. And you have some kind of itching powder just under your skin that you can’t get rid of. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it IS how it feels.

After the rush and bustle of the holidays, I had the entire month of January "off." I can hear people out there saying, "A month off? What I wouldn’t give for that!" What I wouldn’t have given to have had work during that month! Without something to force the wheels to turn, to make me get out of bed in the morning, I ground to a standstill. I couldn’t do anything. I’d start little projects, lose interest almost immediately, and then wander on to the next thing. I am completely unmotivated to do things just because I want to. I need to have to. There needs to be some accountability, some deadline, some "this needs to be done and only I can do it" attached to a task, or I just don’t follow through. That’s why the whole "job" thing was such a see-saw life for me, all those years I was out there in the workaday world. My personality is such that finding the right job—working for someone else—was nearly impossible. I think it was because I needed to be needed…needed to be the one that, if I didn’t haul my ass out of bed and get to work, the important stuff wasn’t going to get done. I had exactly one job like that in my whole life, and it was my dream job. Most employers, however, are in the business of making it crystal clear to their employees that they are far from irreplaceable…the old "Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" philosophy. That just does not work for me.

So, anyway, yesterday was a good day. I have my first event of the season coming up in a week. I have—praise the Creator—work to do. I have to buy supplies, make product, spiff up equipment, make lists, check things off the lists, run my butt off…for at least a few hours a day, anyway. And it makes the sunshine a little brighter, the blue sky a little bluer, and my night’s sleep a little more welcome. Life is good.

Feeling...Ugly

My sister’s husband had a stroke yesterday. He is five months older than I am. Ever get the feeling that mortality is crashing down on you like a ton of…clay?

Of course, it is the height of selfishness and insensitivity for me to make his tragedy about me. Isn’t it? Let’s face it, for those of us hovering around the half-century mark, that’s just something you do. You hear about the death or illness of a peer, and the first thing you do is mentally subtract your age from theirs. When the answers start coming up in negative numbers, you try to ignore that prickle of sweat rising up on the back of your neck. You go to the funeral, you send the flowers or the get-well card, you make the hospital visits, all the while trying to sublimate your fear that, next time, you will be the visitee rather than the visitor.

For me, my brother-in-law’s misfortune is a double moral challenge. Because we don’t really get along. He and my sister have spent most of their nearly fifteen years of married life seeing how miserable they can make each other. I have never understood their relationship, I have never understood why they are so dog-assed determined to continue it. I think it boils down to neither of them wanting to be the first one to give up the fight. The only way to ever win this interminable epic battle, would be for one of them to finally walk away and hand victory to the other. And each would far rather sustain the eternal conflict, than give the other the satisfaction of being the last man (woman) standing. Since they have no kids, they’re not hurting anyone but themselves…

All signs indicate that J’s was a mild stroke; though they haven’t completely assessed the damage yet, and haven’t, as far as I know, ventured a prognosis. I can’t seem to muster up much concern for the situation either way. I feel bad for my sister; I feel sorry that they are going through this frightening experience. But my disquiet just…doesn’t seem to go very deep. In fact, it’s more like it’s happening to some passing acquaintance than to my own immediate family. So I feel guilty, on top of everything else. You know how you try to stir up empathy for someone by imagining how you would feel if their problems were happening to you? I can’t make myself do that, here, because I really don’t want to put myself, even hypothetically, in my brother-in-law’s shoes. It gives me too much of a feeling like…like there, but for the grace of god, go I. And that’s way too disturbing.

Sometimes, growing old is like looking in a mirror and seeing a complete stranger staring back at you. A saggy, wrinkled, hard, cranky stranger.

Vitamin D

The sun came out yesterday....

...so dog and mom and dad went for a walk on the dike along Multnomah Channel (the one that has been keeping the water IN the channel and not two feet deep in my living room...)

I think I had very nearly forgotten what color the sky was supposed to be. 

Heads in the Clouds

This story in yesterday’s New York Times caught my attention: Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities, penned by Adam Nagourney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Here’s my favorite part:

"…Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.

"Asked to describe the health of the Democratic Party, Senator Christoper J. Dodd of Connecticut, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: "A lot worse than it should be. This has not been a very good two months."

"We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about," Mr. Dodd said.

Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House's long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy — should they settle on one — were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

"As a result, some Democrats said, their party could lose its chance to do to Republicans this year what the Republicans did to them in 1994: make the midterm election, normally dominated by regional and local concerns, a national referendum on the party in power." (Emphasis mine.)

Ya think?

It’s been four and a half years since the twin towers collapsed, choking the air, literally and politically, with a massive cloud of post-traumatic debris. The Republicans, who by an unfortunate quirk of fate happened to occupy the White House at the time of the attack, have been taking full advantage of that ash, using it as a smoke screen to disguise their agenda and drive through even the tiniest point on their political wish list. And the Democrats...well, the Democrats have been struggling blindly through the cloud, unable to find a path, a direction, or even each other.

For four  and a half years, the cloud has been sifting earthward. It’s at about waist height, now. Low enough that we, the people, the ones who are still looking, can see the crossed fingers behind the Republicans’ backs. But…where are the Democrats? Unfortunately, it appears the Democratic leadership decided that the way out of the smoke was to belly crawl. They’re still under the cloud. They have no idea that, if they just stood up, they could see everything: They would see us, they would see each other, they would see what the GOP has done to this country, and they’d see a way out. If they would only stand up.

An Invitation (Help...!)

About a month ago I was approached with a proposition. A beleaguered midlifers' romantic fantasy? Hardly. But I was excited by it, nonetheless.

Actually, the proposition came from a group of writers for whom I have a great deal of respect: The bloggers at "The Blue Voice." For those of you who don’t know, TBV is an ensemble blog collaborated upon by eight gifted political writers who became acquainted with one another through the AOL Journal Community. In June of last year (long before the AOL exodus) they launched this enterprise at Blogspot in order to have a crack at airing their opinions to a larger, more diverse audience than offered by AOL. I have been a reader and more or less regular commentor almost from their first day.

To my immense delight, a few weeks ago, they approached me with the idea of becoming a "guest writer" at the blog. Though I was flattered and stoked by the idea, it took me a long time to decide whether I would truly be up to the challenge. I’ve been in the habit of firing off my political rants when something in the news sent me over the edge of reason. I didn’t know—and I still don’t know—if I could come up with a regular stream of good, topical, thoughtful political commentary. But…darned if, in the end, I couldn’t resist giving it a shot. I posted my first entry at 3:00 this morning. I’d appreciate it if those of you who visit my personal blogs—Coming to Terms on AOL and Better Terms on blogspot—could mosey on over to TBV and read my first offering. Maybe give me a few pointers. Or tell me to get out now while I still have my dignity. Most of it, anyway.

While you’re at it, read the rest of the posts there as well. If you’re anything like me, you’ll get hooked on the great writing showcased at TBV, and you’ll become a regular reader. And however you are inspired by the writing, yea or nay, don’t forget to comment. After all, despite what the Bush Administration would have us believe, political discourse has kept this nation vital for more than 200 years. Any and all opinions are sought after and welcomed at TBV. As it should be.

I'll be hiding in the corner, scanning the crowd for a few familiar faces...