Almost New Year

Still rainy and drizzly and dark oh my. I am my parents after all, I open with the weather. I don't, yet, put the weather channel on. My day will come though I'm sure. The talk today is all about the year soon to be gone. Events and such of 2005. Wherever you go to read on the net or watch on the news is a recap of the year or the year in review or ... well you get the picture. I could give my own review but I need my appointment book to do so.

I will go get it and come back.

Happy Christmas

Rain and more rain. This is a deluge. I don't mind though as long as the lights stay on. I have taken most of this week off to indulge in the fantasy that I can afford not to work. I can't. Oh well. We had a wonderful Christmas sort of. The night before the night before Christmas Eve, the Husband fell in a dip in the road while walking the dog. I was with him so I know he is not acting. The foot he hurt is the foot without the bone spur so he is totally gimpy. He is also unable to do all sorts of things that I hoped he would do since I had so much to do. Well, long story short, it all got done with much heavy sighing from him as he claimed to be sorry that he couldn't help me. Ya da ya da and so on.

We crammed way too many family members into our teensy quarters on Christmas Eve and had enough food for an army but at the end of the eve we had not enough left over to save or send home with anybody. Whew! that crowd can put it away. Even the 2 year old sat up at the table, fork and spoon in hand and ate everything in front of her and then some. I love it when people love the food you prepare.

Presents were torn open, mostly by the two year old and that was followed with guessing games of who the gift was for and from. We had a great time. Christmas Day was quiet with the feet up and iced or heated depending on which way was appropriate. We were going to go on visitations for the day but the feet prevailed and we stayed put. It was a great day.

Hope y'all are enjoying the aftermath and resting up for the big bang to come. We are.

Christmas Memories

Just read Lileks' Christmas disaster entry for his blog. He said he didn't remember a single toy he got but he remembers his Dad coming through the door with Russel Stover that he had just bought.....

Before I forget to write this down I have to say that reminds me of every Christmas morning when gifts were opened.. Mother always got Evening In Paris perfume that Dad picked up at the all night drugstore in the city. He brought it home late on Christmas Eve and Mother would have a fit every Christmas morning. I don't think she ever wore any. The only time it was used was when I, as a youngster, played domestic goddess and mixed it in with the orange juice. Yup, the fam never forgot that little thing and I was never allowed in the kitchen until I was way over 18. The other thing I savor is making stuffed dates with Dad. That was always done for Thanksgiving and Christmas.. Mix butter with confectioner's sugar and vanilla until it is the right consistency and open a date, scoop in the mix and roll the whole thing in sugar. Talk about cholesterol. No wonder we all had by-passes at an early age. Ye gads. But I have to say those dates were such a tasty treat.

Tough it out

Today is the office luncheon and rather than take the day off because I have gazillions of things to do for Christmas, I must appear at work. I will leave early but nevertheless I will be there and on my mind will be all of the things hanging in air that need to be brought to earth by Christmas Eve. We are having 14 for dinner in a house that is comfortable with 4. I eagerly look forward to card tables and TV trays and once seated always seated if you're at the big table. We do this every year and maybe its the weight gain factor and the children growing that gives us less and less room annually. Like every year, the tree is not up yet and this year there are no wreaths or lights outside. I guess the family losses have caught up with me. Presents are in the trunk of my car where they have been for three weeks or maybe two. I have left them there because to bring them into the house would add clutter to an already cluttered area. I guess I must be depressed and have no physical feelings of being so but it sure is taking its toll on my surroundings.

I must be about my day and do what I have to do. Soldier on and suck it up, get over it and move along. All of those things are being shouted in my head by my inner drill sergeant. I have learned over the years to yell back but in this case, at this time, I must obey.

Later

At One

Started the day with a reading from Leviticus....it concerned blood sacrifice and how remarkable the detail was that God provided the priests who performed the actions. But here's what struck me, the minister stated that this act was necessary for atonement and then he broke that word down into three syllables....at one ment. How simple the concept. It really makes sense. Getting right with God is at one ment. The sacrifice on the cross took care of all of us. We just have to claim it and then we are at one. Here we are at the beginning of the process, the birth in the manger, the child is born without sin, perfect in every way. He is here and will do the work for us. We celebrate His arrival and I am so in awe of the work He has done for me.

Ten Degrees

That's the temperature not the degrees of separation thing that hit Broadway. Yowzer it is COLD. But in the scheme of things it could be worse. My mother would always cringe when I tried to smooth over the bad event of the moment by saying that . "Don't worry", she'd say, "They'll get there." Yup, I come from a long line of optimists. We always were told that we weren't Irish on my mother's side. How all the other family members on that side were and we weren't never puzzled me. After all, they were all Catholic and we weren't so if that is possible, why not the Irish thing. My father's family was Scottish in every direction you looked so in my mother's view, so were we. That Irish surname and brogue of the older aunts could just as easily have been Scottish. As I get older and fall into what my aunt (on my mother's side) would call the blues, I realize that it's a gift from my Irish genes. The Irish do have that melancholy unlike any other group. It's deep and mystical as well as musical. They, or I should say I, weep without warning and go inside to uncover old hurts and pain. We sigh a lot and isolate to curl up, listen to maudlin music to blend with our thoughts. Then, it seems, equally without warning, we find something so startlingly funny about the worst thing imaginable that we laugh as inappropriately as we cry and back to level, life goes on.

So I go ----

Oh My Aching Back

On Monday I was doing some housewifely duties , namely laundry. I had a plastic laundry basket filled with dirty hings and as I started down the stairs my right foot slid off the step, my left foot stayed put, I dropped the basket grabbed the handrail and nearly split myself in two. Never knew I was that flexible and by the way I feel today, I'm not. My neck, my back, my left knee and that's only for starters. Oi!! Rubbed on some foul smelling deep muscle heat thing and took enough Motrin to drop a lesser woman and still, Oi. A friend called to tell me about her sister who had knee surgery and when she asked her sister why she didn't take Aleve, her sister said "A leave? Hell, I can't even get a half day off." Now I ask you. Is that girl too deep into the I am the corporate woman or what?

Well I'm still doing laundry despite the pain. Walk it off they say. Women's work is never done..........

Checking in and Checking out

OK ! Wow - that looks like I was yelling doesn't it? I never got any of this computer chat stuff like LOL. That took me a couple of years and questioning a friend who finally gave up the code. Well now that I am officially blogging here....I check into the sitemeter to find that I think I'm about the only one who checks into this blog and now........even I'm not being counted since I have checked several times this week and the sitemeter is only registering a visit from December 7th. Now that could mean one of several things. The sitemeter counter is fed up with counting my visits and is only counting other than me which would be none. The sitemeter counter is so overwhelmed with the number of visitors to this blog that it has whirled itself off the map and can't count any more....The sitemeter counter is broken for me and my blog. What to do, what to do? I guess that I will make the logical assumption that there have been so many visitors to this blog that the sitemeter can't count up that high and has reset to zero every time I check to see if anyone has looked at this blog. Bear in mind that I only want total strangers to enter in and read................

What's wrong with me????? Somebody has to tell me....


LOL or SLT

Older and Older still

I was going to say older and wiser but that remains to be seen. I read a journal last night that I started in 1982. What a whiner I was and still am. Back then I smoked and drank and was overweight. My brother had been thrown out of his house and was living with me. My husband and I were living together out of wedlock. Don't you love that phrase? Well we were. We were in the midst of an alcohol related auto accident for which I was being sued. The car was registered to me and driven by my future husband and we had been at a wedding. Oh I could go on and on about the injustice of the event and blah blah but, the driver, my future and current husband had been drinking (albeit very conservatively -- enough however to bring alcohol into the equation). Oh how I squirm with that issue. Anyhow, the lawsuit was pending and the amount of money I was being sued for was laughably huge. What a chaotic wreck our lives were.

No here we are some 23 years later and the chaos has somewhat settled. I guess that outsiders would look at this life and shake their heads that I would consider it peaceful. Perhaps. I still have lawsuits swirling, although of a much different kind. I have no siblings left or parents. I don't smoke any more. I drink less and am still overweight but not as concerned by being so. And -- I am married, no longer living "in sin".

I had what I call John Kerry moment yesterday. You know the kind. You are in over your head and get caught. You grab the shovel and start to dig out but the hole gets deeper and deeper and you know you should just shut up and throw yourself at the mercy of your questioners but you don't. Maybe that's why people voted for the man......they saw themselves in his gigantic puffed up fantasy life and felt sorry for him. Anyhow -- I think that the difference between John and me is that I go over and over the encounter countless times and realize how stupid it is to pretend to be expert on issues about which you have only a tad of learning and that is second hand or maybe third hand. I wake up at 4AM and ponder the foolishness of my self. I guess I bought into my mother's propaganda concerning her children. You know that propaganda, the "My child is an honor student at blah blah school and in the top echelon of the whaddayacallit blah e blahs." Yeah, that stuff. Well I'm not and was never but believed I was because she told the world I was and so I believed.

Well -- maybe wisdom is knowing what you don't know and aren't capable of and shutting up when you are faced with it.

Sigh!!

Over My Shoulder

I have been lax in posting because everytime I sat to type my husband would appear behind me and I got that "Oh no he's reading my dear diary entries and I'm 11 years old again" feeling. So I gave up for a few days and I find that it's kind of like exercise, once you stop for a few days it takes a village to get you back and moving. Now it's late, I had dinner with a dear friend who bought because it's my birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday to Me......

I'm stopping now and will recharge so in the am I will have some more coherent and useful (to me at least) thoughts to write down.

Later

Yikes

Three times in one day is a whizzer of a posting record. I'm fast approaching my first anniversary of my first real post.....My birthday!

Get ready to sing. My mother had a voice like Lucy. Remember the old I Love Lucy shows when Lucy wanted to perform with Ricky? Well when she sang she sounded like my mother and that would make Mother happy....Lucy sounded like her not the other way around. Anywho -- on your birthday you could always count on Ma and sometimes Dad too calling first thing in the morning and singing the Happy Birthday song. It was painful but I miss it so much and that's painful too. When she died, I called the sibs on their birthdays and tried very hard to sound like Ma. There's another thing I won't have to do this year coming.

Well, I have a dear friend who is keeping the tradition going. She calls and "sings" and we love her for it. Thank God for mother's memories and good friends....I am really going to pound this gratitude thing until it screams.

Later

Not Lost

Driving to work and listening to the radio. I love Dr. McGee of Through the Bible. He said, if you can believe it "You are not lost. You are only lost if you reject Jesus Christ as your saviour." Did he read my blog this morning?

I'm telling you. That radio has a direct connection. Now to get on with the day. Thank you Lord.

Lost

I never watch this show by the name Lost but I feel as if I could be starring in it. I have lost both parents and all siblings in little over 5 years. My last brother died in September and with all the commotion that surrounds funeral arrangements and mothering the niece and comforting his significant other and making everyone feel as if they were the most important people in his life I got lost. Now I am suffering the serious pain of the lost. Oh sure, I have my husband who loves me and whom I love, I have very close friends of a lifetime, I am rich in in-laws and nieces and nephews but somehow..................................I am alone.

Where did they go? Why am I here? Why is that feeling of abandonment which I have felt for years and years and years , why is that the first thing I feel. I know we are not alone. I know God loves me and has since before conception. I know that He is always with me but seriously, I feel alone.

I heard on my morning radio sermon that the more anxious we are, the further we are from turning things over to the Lord. That makes sense. Anxiety is a result, in my opinion, of loss of control. Self absorption deludes us into feeling that we have or should have control of everything and everybody. The longer we live, the more we realize (or should realize) how little control we really have. But we should also be turning to the Lord who does control everything and everybody if granted permission because there is that free will thing. Anyhow, if we turn things over to God, as the minister this morning said, "Cast your burdens on the Lord", we will be unloading our anxiety as well.

Some of this pain I feel is high level anxiety. I guess I feel out of control and of course I should because who could control the illnesses and surgeries and losses that have occurred? Well I tried for sure. I dragged each from doctor's to tests and hospitals and physical therapies. If I couldn't drag then I nagged and pleaded and wheedled to do so. I enlisted the aid of friends and family to nag and wheedle and push the ailing family member too. Now I am without recourse. I must face that we are not able to control our circumstances completely. We can only do what we can do and must turn all else over to the Lord and breathe deeply in the belief that all will be well and it will be.

Happy Macy's Day

This year the turkey will be served at a restaurant. I never like to do that and so we have only done so twice in all the years of turkey days we have shared. Years ago I always had dinner at our house with mostly friends who were at loose ends and then my husband's family started to fill in the seats. One memorable year when our neice was just a week old, her parents brought her to dinner along with my husband's mother and grandmother. I have a wonderful picture of that afternoon with all those generations sitting close and holding our darling neice.

Another time, when my sister-in-law arrived with her two girls late in the day, I recall the oldest neice saying to her mother, "I told you we should have come here, Aunt G has plates at the table and candles and everything." They had gone to another relative's house where a buffet was served. The children had no seats and Missy was miffed. Why I hold on to that memory is beyond me.

When family and work and who knows what were overwhelming one year we stayed at an Inn in New Hampshire for the holiday. It snowed just enough to cover the ground and make a stop your breath kind of picture. Our cabin was so lovely with a big brass bed, cable tv and a fireplace. What more could you ask for? The Inn served Thanksgiving dinner as part of the package and it was honestly fabulous. All the other guests were as friendly as could be and it was like having dinner with extended friends and family. Of course, the people around us were like that branch of the family that you never ever saw. Oh well, we enjoyed it.

Another time, my married neice was feeling left out since her mother and stepfather had gone south for the cold months and her father and stepmother never included her . She had no family other than her husband's and she didn't like that feeling. Her husband is in a wheel chair and my house is not and was not accessible so my very kind hearted husband said we would find a restaurant and take them to dinner. We went to a local hotel which had a buffet that would have put a cruise ship to shame. It was truly the best ever. Since then the restaurant in that hotel went out of business and that is that.

Well now, this year we are just two and will be at a local restaurant. We will cook a turkey on Saturday and have a small group to feed. I hope next year we have the turkey on the official turkey day....it just seems better that way.

We will watch the parade because we always do and if Katy Couric's too cute face appears, I will quickly change the station. Yuck and yuck again......she is too much like those high school cheer leaders who reminded me of female Eddie Haskells......

Oh well, I'll report in later...

Financial Slaves

Quite a to-do on C-Span last night with the Vietnam war wanna quits dueling with those that don't. I read one thing about a Rep quoting one of her constituents, a marine something or other who said that cowards cut and run Marines stay and fight. She was booed and now it seems that the Dems are saying the vote was a personal attack on Murther who proposed a hasty withdrawal of troops. How is that? Kerry had to somehow make the whole thing about him by saying he wouldn't let this be a swift boat attack on Murther.....yegads doesn't that ego centric ever stop. All I know is that I lived through the Vietnam era watching good friends die and this country go all mushy....I don't care what Hollywood says...it seems most of the drugs were being used by the peaceniks who didn't think beyond the allure of fighting the authority figures they had run away from when they left home. Give Peace a chance they crooned while the rest of us worked and paid their welfare incomes.....

Argh - as Howard Dean would say...............slavery does exist in this country but not the way the Jesse Jackson fools would have you believe.....the middle class hard working taxpayer who follows the rules is the slave....we are financial slaves pouring our tax money instead of cotton into the big bags of the upper class (read politicians) who throw crumbs of it to the masses on welfare. The crumbs are what's left after they've taken what they want to continue their high living lifestyles. How's that grab ya?

Lies and then some

A thought I had in the wee hours of the morning. I was half listening to a Christian radio station, as I do, and there was a discussion about lying and how there really are a lot of ways we can lie. I'm guilty of any number of ways and although I can certainly distinguish between the obvious LIES I think it's really hard to be a social being and always tell the truth especially when there's that annoying lie of ommission. I mean, if you're even lying when you're keeping quiet where does that leave us?

So, I though if the Lord God Creator of the Universe doesn't distinguish between gradations of lies, you know the white ones and kind ones and so on, I guess it would behoove us to rein this puppy in and get a handle on it. How to do it..... I think it should be like dieting (at which I always fail by the by) Identify a flaw and deal with IT not everything at once.. Recognize the most constant offense and work on it. That made my mind skitter along through any number of paths and I landed on blogging as a means of controlling lies..Yeah well.

I thought if someone were truly blogging a journal type thing it would really shake out some of the lying habits that the blogger had fallen into. Think about it .. here you are on a daily blurby little blog --yeah-- one such as this. Months go by and you sit down and start to type about one of those when I was a kid sort of things and you realize that it's kind of related to something you wrote ages ago and if you lied about it well, hell, you have to go back read what you lied and continue the lie forever. So blogging makes you live the adage...if you don't lie you never have to remember who you told what to.

Of course in this day and age politicians seem to think that they are exempt from that adage as well as others...they seem to think they can say anything at any time with no connection to anything they ever said before and as far as connections to the facts?? fugeddaboudit (is that the Soprano way?0

Toodles -- way too early in the morning --sorry about the rambles but that's the real me --- Honest

A Long Day

Life has its ways and that's for sure. The past week has beaten me senseless, of course that sometimes takes only two beats or so, but this week - endless pounding. Phone calls and paper work and business insurance things and oh my goodness help me I'm drowning in never ending minutiae (is that how that is spelled?). I wish this were the end of the week but alas -- one more day.

that's all I have to say and I mean it -- at least for today......

I'm so glad I'm home and warm and safe and I thank God for all of that.........

Smoking and Not

I quit smoking many years ago. I loved it. I smoked my first cigarette the summer after I graduated from high school, yes, I was a late bloomer. I felt so mature as soon as I held that cigarette between my fingers. I was immediately a grown woman. Of course I couldn't go down alone so I encouraged all my girlfriends to join me and they did. There were about six of us and we sat in the parking lot of the A&W (which by the way had car service at the time) puffing away. It was midweek and we knew our fathers were in the city working and our mothers had no cars...my mother didn't have her license at that time so we knew no one of consequence would spot us.

I went away to college and smoked as if I had never not done so. My mother told me she knew I smoked in her unique way..she never said a word, she gave me a cigarette case and lighter for Christmas. Nuff said. It was red (at the time and from time to time my favorite color) the lighter was silver - in color only - and I loved them. Talk about Hollywood happy. I felt like Katherine Hepburn (well shorter and plumper but every bit as elegant) as I opened that case, removed a Tareyton and lit up with my gleaming lighter. Even better was the ashtray set for my bedroom. Odd to have it in my bedreoom since I was never to smoke there and don't recall doing so but the ashtray set had a glass container for cigarettes that I had only seen in movies at that time. Lift the cover and offer a cigarette to a guest...you talk about sophisticated.

Well time moves on and common sense prevails and by the time you know you really can't smoke any more, the habit has taken such a hold on you that the struggle is one of the largest you have ever faced in your life. I won but still recall those elegant moments, those Hollywood sophisticated moves of removing the cigarette from the case or the holder on the coffee table, the feel of the cigarette between my fingers and the leaning back and exhaling the first puff........

You know that poem that says when I'm whatever age I shall wear purple? The hell with purple....I'm buying a carton of cigarettes, a red leather holder for the pack and a silver lighter. That's my plan......how old should I be do you think? I'll deal with that later..

Have a good day

Typing

Well, the pressure is really on since I stated that I am at the computer every morning. I should type something. I am typing. I guess a rundown of my day or the day before would be a good start. My neice called. Her father is my brother who just recently passed away. She has two children who are very swell. Since I have no children I hosey that my neice is mine and her children are my grandcildren. OK? Done! Honestly, that has been going on forever. My brother's wife, her mother passed away when she was six. Although I wanted to grab her and her brother and take her home, my brother would have perished much sooner than he did without his kids. It's a long and human mess to relate concerning that whole thing and maybe someday.............But for now..........

See I start to relate and then go off on another road...I have to get my wits about me.

This morning I heard my radio minister talk about discernment. He said that not only does it mean that you should seek the truth of what you hear but you should also filter through your behaviors and behave according to your beliefs. Well put. The old walk the walk thing. Don't impose your stuff on others but live in such a way that people would want the same. He also said that no one ministry has the whole truth. Search means search and only the arrogant are unwilling to listen to others. I remember being arrogant in a training class. The trainer was sharing teaching techniques and, having a college degree in education, I was very edgy about someone with lesser credentials trying to tell ME what the correct teaching techniqes were. What a pain in the ass I was. I wonder if I still am.....I think I had better work on that...

God Bless .. it's that beautiful day in the neighborhood thing again........