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 |  My Blog....Pearls of wisdom and/or foolish mutterings.....You be the judge.... |
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A little of this, a dash of that......epic mood swings.......A LOT of foolish mutterings and occasionally a few words of wisdom. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you'll find in here... |
| ```````````` I think I’m comfortable enough here now to make a confession. I have a very large forehead—what you may have heard referred to as a fivehead. Ha ha, very funny, unless you have one yourself. I’ve managed to deal with it most of my life by keeping it covered with bangs and of course, I comfort myself with the knowledge that the real reason I have a fivehead is because my brain is so very large and needs more room than normal. (Shut-up, it makes me feel better, okay?) It has nothing to do with my German heritage so don’t even think about asking if I have thick ankles as well. That’s none of your damn business. But, I digress. As I said, I’ve covered my overly large forehead with bangs for the better part of my life. True, that has somewhat inhibited my choice of hairstyles at times, but it’s something I’ve learned to live with. However, I still suffer from recurring nightmares of my mother’s efforts at bang-cutting when I was a child. When I was a little girl, my mother would periodically awaken from her drug-induced haze and it was at those times that her gaze would lock on my face and she would declare, “Oh my, your bangs are l-o-n-g. Let me get my scissors.” I immediately would begin to whine and plead, trying to convince her my bangs are alright, really I can see just fine, no don’t cut them! It never worked. Once she made that declaration, hair would be cut. She always started out alright, with a big stripe of scotch tape across my forehead as a guide. Snip, snip, snip. Then she would rip the tape off my hair and scrutinize the job she had done. I would immediately start my campaign to convince her my bangs were perfect—what a great job, these bangs are perfect, you were right, they did need trimming and now they’re trimmed, thanks, Mom. She continued to stare intently at my bangs, her eyes flicking back and forth across my forehead and bangs, until finally she would announce, “Nope, they’re not even.” Oh great, here we go. I knew what was coming now. She would keep cutting and re-cutting, trying to get them even until what I eventually ended up with was not bangs at all, but something more closely resembling forehead fringe. Which on a normal forehead might not look so bad, but on a fivehead, looked ridiculous. For the next eight weeks, I walked around with my eyebrows raised trying to make my fringe look a little longer. So not only did I have very unfashionable forehead fringe, but I looked perpetually surprised. Not a good look at any age. |
| Wow is it just me or did anyone else find Bill Bellicheck's behavior after the game to be completely unsportsmanlike and rude? I know he's sooooo devastated, but jeez - leaving the field before the game was officially over and then the totally uncomfortable after-game interview? I would hate to have been the reporter who had that job. Sheesh! On a brighter note though, don't you love that Sonic commercial with the married couple who are sitting in the car drinking their smoothies (or whatever) and she has ice cream on her top lip and she laughs and says "Look Honey, I have a moustache." He's totally not paying attention and he says "Oh Honey, it's only visible in the sunlight." Now that's funny! |
| I was just reading Nada's blog entry from ... 2 days ago, I think. The one about her sleepless night. She related her dream about arriving at the airport to go on a trip somewhere only to realize that she had forgotten her luggage and a chandelier. I have that dream all the time - well, not the chandelier part--Nada, I think that's all you--but the part about arriving at the airport to realize I am unprepared for the trip. I've either forgotten my luggage or I realize I've left my passport or my ticket at home. Sometimes I dream that I'm still at home (or at the home of someone I'm visiting) and suddenly look at the clock and realize that I have only a few minutes to get to the airport in time for my flight. Always, in this version of the dream, my clothes, shoes and everything I need to pack is strewn willy-nilly about the room. Then, as I'm desperately trying to pack everything, I discover that I don't have big enough suitcases to hold everything. There are a lot of variations of this dream, but it's one that I have had many times over the years. Although, not recently, now that I think about it. I always wonder at the meaning behind this dream. I mean, obviously, it has something to do with being unprepared - with the missing luggage, or unpacked luggage or missing ticket. But why always the airport, why always leaving on a trip? Dreams fascinate me. I've always had strange dreams. I used to dream about my teeth falling out or crumbling in my mouth. I dreamed that one a lot too. Not so much anymore. One of my first jobs was in the bookkeeping department of a bank, back in the days when they would hire employees to count checks for statements and actually check signatures. That was my job - day in, day out. Counting checks. I used to dream numbers. Just numbers, against a black background, lots of numbers floating around. Some of my dreams I wouldn't even begin to tell anyone - for no other reason than that they are so freaking weird. The kind of dreams you have that when you wake up you think to yourself where in the hell did that crap come from? Now that I've written this, I'll go to sleep (after watching this incredibly exciting Super Bowl game - did you just see what Eli Manning did with 35 seconds left??!) and there's no telling what kind of dreams I will have stirred up. I'll let you know if it's anything interesting. I just hope it's not one of those luggage dreams! Or something to do with a chandelier. Kay Jordan ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I wonder why it is that we always think we know better than God? Maybe you're not that way, but I know I am. There's an old (and odd) saying about "thinking we have God on a stick." I always thought of it as meaning we think we have God stuck on to the end of a stick and we wave Him around like some magic wand. Like we sprinkle a little "God dust" here and a lot of it over there. I never thought of myself as being guilty of that, always someone else. Isn't that always the case, we can so clearly see the faults in others and we are blind to our own? I had a friend who used to say that we treat God like a slot-machine. We expect to put our money (our time, our prayer, our talents, you fill in the blank with whatever fits) in the slot and pull the God handle and we get our prize - sometimes we hit the jackpot and sometimes we don't get anything. I certainly never saw myself as having that attitude. A slot-machine God, please, I would never think that way. Not me! Then there was the teaching that made the rounds for quite some time that we should pray "directed" prayers. We were taught that we needed to pray specifically - in effect, telling God exactly what we needed or what should happen. I have to confess that, being the control freak I am, I bought right into that one. My prayers became more like a grocery list or a honey-do list than anything else. I put a lot of thought into how to pray and what to ask for, never realizing that I was reasoning with my finite mind and leaving absolutely no room for God's sovereignty. You can get by with those distorted views of prayer when life is not giving you anything too tough. However, when the bottom falls out and your life is turned completely upside down, you can wave your God-wand around, put your money in and pull the handle on the God slot-machine and pray all the directed prayers you want, but none of those things are going to get you anywhere except discouraged. Having been through an absolutely hellish time in my life for the last several years, I tried all those things. None of them made even the slightest bit of difference in the cataclysmic events that swirled around without mercy. Not that I could tell, anyway. So I decided that it was all a crock. God must not really care about us. I still believed in His existence and that He could, indeed, perform miracles; you know, heal the sick, set the captives free, make blind eyes see. But I didn't believe anymore that he cared about me personally and I was mad about that. I was mad at Him. I thought I had been sold a bill of goods and I was not happy about that. My vision of God got smaller and smaller until He was ultimately just a tiny dot on the horizon of my life. I was pouting. If He wasn't going to play the game my way - the way I had Him figured out - then I wasn't going to play at all. I pouted for a long time, too. I can be very determined at times. Seven years, but who's counting, right? There were times during that seven years when I would throw out a test line to see how God was going to behave - times when I was either desperate or just thought "well, maybe..." In His mercy and grace, God never gave me what I deserved, which would have been a swift pop in the back of the head. He just kept being God and I just kept being mad at Him. Somehow, I came to believe that if He had just done things my way, the way I prayed, then my family wouldn’t be going through everything that happened. I wanted Him to come around to my way of thinking. We’re talking the height of arrogance here, folks! Still, He didn’t slap me in the back of the head and tell me, “Hey, is your name God?” That’s the thing about God. He doesn’t react the way we do. He doesn’t think the way we do. He doesn’t see things the way we do. He is God, after all. Somehow, my view of Him had become very pedestrian and ironically, I was mad at Him for being who I THOUGHT He was. Very twisted thinking, I know, but that’s where I was at the time. Have I mentioned that I can be extremely stubborn? Oh yeah, the seven years thing. That was definitely me being stubborn. All the while that I was being so arrogant and so stubborn, God was quietly working, doing things His way (without any help from me, can you even imagine?) and bringing me and my family through the raging storms intact. Not only intact, but better and stronger. He didn’t do it the way I would have done it, or the way I prayed it would happen, but He did it the way that worked. The God way. I still don’t understand a lot of the things that happened or why they happened they way they did. It certainly wasn’t the way I would have worked things. I'm also finally realizing that I don't have to understand. God's ability to make beauty from ashes isn't contingent upon my understanding. I am trying to remember these things – my name’s not God, His thoughts are higher than my thoughts and His ways aren’t my ways. I’m trying to keep it simple. |
| I believe I have found my heaven. Right here in WDC. Ahhhhhh! I've hardly moved out of my chair for the last - hmmm, I don't know how many days. So wonderful to find so many kindred spirits. I'm hooked. I've been reading blogs written by so many of you and it has been such a breath of fresh air. Actual independent thought! And so much talent. People with a vocabulary! Can you tell I've been wandering in the wilderness for a long time looking for this site? And so many of you have been so very kind and have said wonderful things about my writing. If my butt doesn't grow too large to get through the door from spending so much time in this chair, it's possible my inflated head will keep me from making it through. To say that I have been awed by the talent I've found here is such a tremendous understatement. Not just talent, but honest-to-God insight, logical reasoning, lucid thinking, humor, and the kind of sarcasm that makes me smile that crooked smile I love to smile. I'm still finding my way around in here, but just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to so many of you for your warm welcome, your witty writing and your helpful reviews. It feels like home here.  |
| I'm writing a book--a memoir to be exact--and recently I came up with the perfect title for my book. I was so excited when I told my husband, "I have the perfect title for my book! I'm going to call it I See the Farm (which is what my brother and I used to sing-song chant for miles on the way to my grandparents' farm.) My husband, Charles, looked at me and said, totally deadpan, "I'm going to write a book, too. You've inspired me to write one." I completely bought into it. "Really? That's awesome!" "Yeah," he said, still deadpan, "I'm going to call it I See Your Hiney." This fairly typical exchange between the two of us may offer an explanation as to why I have been driven, at times, to do things to him like brand his naked butt with the hair dryer I was using to dry my hair. He still doesn't believe me when I tell him that I DID NOT realize the hair dryer would do anything to him except blow hot air up his ass. As I told him, "I've never closely examined a stupid hair dryer. I didn't know there was a metal grate on the end of it." I will admit though, that I still giggle when I think of him standing there in our bathroom - buck naked (or is it butt naked? I'm never sure) in front of the sink tossing out smart-ass remarks left and right as I dried my hair. I thought to myself He's so full of hot air, I'll just blow a little more up his ass. So I did. Wow! What a reaction! Suddenly he was pressed up against the sink, standing on his tip-toes, trying to climb into the air to get away from that hair dryer, all the while calling me everything but a white woman. I was shocked. All this over a little hot air? I probably don't have to tell you that, to this day, he still won't come in the bathroom when I'm drying my hair. He does, though, occasionally open the shower door when I'm showering and turn the hair dryer on and ask me to hold it for him. I never fall for it. If you ever get into a conversation with him, you won't be far into it before he will offer to show you the Goodyear brand across his belt line on his back. Don't fall for it - there is not a Goodyear brand anywhere on his body. The only brand he has is... well, you know. What he would have you to believe is that I purposely ran over him with a van. Not just any van, not a mini-van or even a full-sized van. This was one of those big Conversion Vans that were popular back in the eighties. The kind with a television, a table and four captain's chairs in the back and a bench seat that turns into a bed. The kind that carries a spare tire inside a metal, tire-shaped compartment on the back door of the van. As I've told him every time he tells this story (it's one of his favorites), I would never purposely run over him. Never. But I've never been very good at backing a car, or van or whatever kind of vehicle I happen to be driving. First of all, he should have just sucked it up and stayed in the van to finish the argument we were having. Why play the dramatic card and open the door, get out and start walking? It was cold and it was the middle of the night. We were on our way home from a camping trip and we were on a lonely road in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't just leave him out there. So, I calmly rolled down the window and rolled along beside him saying in a very calm voice "getinthevangetinthevangetinthevan!" His response to that was to turn around and start walking the other way. In retrospect, I'm sure he would tell you that was probably not his best plan of action. I threw the van in reverse, hit the gas and looked out the side window, expecting to see him there so I could once again, reasonably request his presence in the van. You can imagine how surprised I was when I heard a sudden THUMP from the back of the van. Probably not as surprised as he was, but I really was surprised. I threw the van in park, jumped out and ran around to the back of the van thinking, Oh crap, he's really going to be mad now! He wasn't there. I looked under the van - nope, thank God! I looked down the road - no sign of him. Suddenly I heard a low moan coming from the ditch by the side of the road. There he was, moving very slowly, but moving. Thank God! "Are you okay?!" I shouted to him. He gave me a dirty look (which I took as a good sign, I couldn't have hit him that hard if he could muster up a dirty look, right?) I said, "Get in the van, okay?" This time he didn't argue; he got in the van. I think he was afraid not to. Just so you know, he wasn't seriously injured, just really, REALLY surprised. Believe it or not, this was early in our marriage and we have now been married thirty years. He doesn't let me drive very often though, and when he does, he NEVER gets out of the car while I'm still behind the wheel. Some things you just never live down. |
I turned fifty this year and it hasn’t been as traumatic as I once imagined it would be. I think it’s more the number that I mind than the age itself. It may have something to do with a distinct memory I have of a conversation between my brother and my grandmother. My brother, Mike, was probably about five years old at the time. He and I were in the back seat of my mother’s car, my mother and grandmother were in the front. We were riding along in relative quiet when suddenly Mike leaned forward over the seat and asked my grandmother how old she was. My grandmother (we called her Gommy) was the sweetest woman who ever lived—really, you would have loved her. Gommy turned around to Mike and patted his little hand and said, “Well, I’m fifty, Honey.” Mike looked at her with a big, wide-eyed expression and said, with complete seriousness and concern in his voice, “Woooooo, Gommy! You won’t be around much longer, will you?” Gommy proved him wrong, living to the ripe old age of 92, but that little snippet of conversation stuck with me all these years. I told that story to countless people over the years and giggled right along with them, but the closer I got to 50, the less often I told the story. Now, here I am at fifty myself and I am discovering, just as I’m sure Gommy did, that grandchildren have a way of keeping you humble. At my fiftieth birthday party, when my grandson Aiden, who is five, asked how old I was and was told that I was fifty, he responded with a wide-eyed look. That was nothing compared to his reaction when his mother told him that being fifty meant that I was half of one hundred. He said, in all his five-year-old-innocence, “Wow, Mimi that’s OLD! Are you sure you’re really 50?” A few weeks prior to the party, my three-year-old granddaughter, Olivia, was sitting in my lap, looking up at my face. Suddenly, she reached up and started to stick her finger in my nose. I stopped her, “Oh Olivia, don’t put your finger in Mimi’s nose.” To which she replied, “I just wanted to get those spider webs out of your nose.” Oh my gosh—spider webs? I’m also discovering, just as I know my grandmother did, that there is nothing quite like the wonder of grandchildren to take the sting out of getting older. Who cares that I’m not as young as I once was? I have three grandchildren whose eyes light up when they see me; three precious grandchildren who melt my heart daily and make me feel like the most important person in the world. I always wondered why Gommy just laughed when Mike insinuated that she was near death when she told him she was 50. Now I know that she understood the kind of joy only grandchildren can bring and age wasn’t a concern to her. She knew what was important and I believe my grandchildren have taught me that as well. |
| My husband was getting dressed yesterday morning and he was transferring all his manly shirt pocket stuff from the previous day's shirt to his clean shirt. Then he stopped and just looked at the stuff in his hand for a long time and I said, "what are you looking at?" He had this weird-looking little circle thing that looked like a plastic round gasket or something and he picked it up and looked a little more closely and I said (AGAIN!) "What is that?" He finally answered me, "It's an onion." After I fell off the bed laughing, I said, "First of all, how did you get an onion in your shirt pocket? And, hey, wait a minute, why are you throwing that away? Doesn't it go in your pocket?" Here's the second weird thing.... I was recently in the hospital—kidney infection; it was not a fun experience. It did have its humorous moments, nevertheless. One morning, I asked the nurse for something for a headache. She asked me what I would like for a headache. If I hadn't been still slightly septic and only a few steps back from death's door, my smart ass genes would have kicked right in and I could have said, "Well you're the nurse, right? Why are you asking me?" But I wasn't that quick that morning. So I said, "Well tylenol would be fine." She said (with a perfectly straight face, I swear) "Sure I could give you some tylenol, but wouldn't you prefer some morphine? It is on your orders, you know." I took the tylenol. She was not happy. What is up with that? Third weird thing. I was in the courtroom with my son, Eli for a hearing to get his occupational license. Knowing how these things can drag on and on, I took a book with me to pass the time. At first, Eli and I entertained ourselves by playing the clothes-police game where we make fun of what most of the lawyers and clerks are wearing and wonder why none of them have mirrors to look in before they leave the house in the morning. But before long, we had exhausted our supply of people to ridicule, so I decided to read for a while. I pulled my book out of my purse and started reading. Nice and quiet. Ahhhh - relaxing. Then Eli decided to go ask the bailiff a question. So he went over to Rusty (that's probably not his real name, but we like to call him that because he just looks like "Rusty the Bailiff") and asked his question. As Eli started to walk away, Rusty the Bailiff called him back and said to him (and I swear to you I am not making this up) "You're going to have to tell your mom to put her book away. There's no reading allowed in the courtroom." So Eli came back to where we were sitting and told me what Rusty the Bailiff said and I was so shocked that I laughed out loud and said in a real voice (not the hushed, whispery-so-you-won't-get-nailed-by-Rusty-the-Bailiff-voice) "You're not serious?!" Then Rusty the Bailiff gave me a dirty look so I would know that oh yes, indeed, he was most serious. Now you may be wondering if there is some part of this story I am leaving out, but I assure you, there isn't. I wasn't reading porn or anything subversive like "Overthrowing the Government for Dummies" and I was not reading out loud. I was not even moving my lips as I read (because, just in case you might be wondering, no I don't move my lips when I read.) And I wasn't turning pages speedy-quick which might make a rustling noise or anything like that. None of that. Just reading. But there is no reading in court. Hmmmm. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." Robert Frost |
| I'm forced to update my blog even though I have absolutely nothing worth saying because if I get another reminder to update my blog, I'm going to shoot myself in the head. Yes, I know I'm the one who set the reminder up and I could disable it, but then what would I have to complain about? I'm listening to Walton and Johnson as I am writing and they are talking about some freak who cut off his own hand with a circular saw because he believed he had the mark of the beast on his hand. I wonder what exactly he saw on his hand that made him think it was the mark of the beast? What kind of world are we living in? There seems to be an ever-increasing number of insane people wandering around free and spreading their own particular brand of insanity to any unfortunate soul they come in contact with. Sometimes it's hard to find the humor in everyday life, although I do strive for that every day. Consequently, I have a fairly twisted sense of humor. As the world gets weirder, so does my twisted sense of humor. I don't throw it out there for just anyone to gander at. Trust me though, if you ever get a glimpse of it, you will either be enthralled or appalled. Nothing in between. Well enough of this foolish muttering. Till next we meet..... |
| I was thinking this morning about my best friend in junior high and high school - even into adulthood, actually. We still stay in touch via email, though not as often as I'd like. Her name is Pat, but I called her Patty Cake. Still do, as a matter of fact. Patty Cake knew all of my deepest, darkest secrets and she loved me anyway. Then we both got married, moved away from each other, kept in touch for a while, lost touch completely. I called her up one day after years of no contact and it was just like no time had passed at all. Even though we were years older, wiser and getting gray hairs and wrinkles, she was still Patty Cake. And it dawned on me that she was one of the few people in the world who really knew me. She knew me before I started wearing all the masks we don as we progress through our lives. I could never have fooled her with any of those clever masks I wore so often in my daily life. She would have seen right through them to the real me. That's when I realized the real me was still in there somewhere, and if Patty Cake could still connect to the real me, I should be able to as well. Our conversations grew more frequent over the following months and years. Slowly, I began to find more and more of my "original self" as I talked with my friend. Through the trials and tribulations of life, I had adapted myself to fit different situations and had made a habit of wearing so many "masks" that I lost myself. Every time I spoke with or emailed Patty Cake, I saw another glimpse of myself through her eyes and I started to pull those pieces of myself back together. I didn't throw out all of the new me because it wasn't all bad. Experience and wisdom have to count for something. But I realized I had discarded so much of myself in my quest to discover myself, to grow up and "become someone." The old adage of 'don't throw out the baby with the bath water" began to take on new meaning for me. I realized I had done just that. It's been years now since I reconnected with my old friend Patty Cake. I've made a lot of progress toward reuniting the "real me" - which I now refer to as the core of myself - with the me I had become. I like the blended me. Everyone needs a Patty Cake in their lives. |
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