The Coin

    

 A couple of us were talking the other day at the office about things that really touch the heart.   I think we all have things that have happened to us that just tug at our heart strings.   Later, when we remember them, they still shine in our memories.  For me this is one of those stories

                                                                     ######

My husband, Larry, is a very little boy playing in the upstairs hallway of his family home.  Rummaging in places he isn't supposed to be in he’s found an old coin that belongs to his dad.  It is very large in his small hand, and although he knows he’s not supposed to have it, the temptation is too much for a small, mischievous, boy to resist. 

The hallway floor is hardwood boards with gapped spaces that are bigger in some places than others.   This little guy is amazed to find a space that the coin fits into just perfectly as he plays there on the floor.  As his little hands fumble with the big coin it slips into the wide space and disappears from sight.  Crestfallen, he knows he has to tell his mom. Just as he suspected,  he receives a sound spanking for taking the coin and then losing it.   It is a long ago memory that stays with him all his life.

                                                                     ######

Several years ago my late Mother-in-law’s home was acquired by our nephew.  He announced that he was going to redo the entire house, and knowing his talent for doing this kind of work we stopped by the old house to check on his progress.  Standing in the nearly gutted house I remembered the years of family gatherings, the happy holidays we spent here, and the story my husband had told me about the coin.  Taking my nephew aside I told him the story and where the coin went into the floor upstairs.   He went over to the steps, picked something up and said, “This one?”  He had already found it!   I wanted to buy it from him, but he wouldn’t accept anything for it as he put the big coin into my hand. 

I had a wonderful time deciding what to do with the coin.   I knew it would mean a lot to my husband to have this back, straight from that long ago day.  I decided to have it mounted with a little plaque under the coin for the wall in his den.

                                                                   ######

I could hardly wait for Larry’s birthday that year.  I am the world’s worst when it comes to keeping a gift I’ve gotten for someone.  I usually end up shopping early, giving that gift to whomever it was meant for, then running out on the eve of the gift giving occasion and grabbing something else!  This was a special gift though, and I mustered all my self-control to keep the secret.

When his birthday finally arrived we had the usual cake, ice cream and gift shirt ceremony, and then I gave him the last small box.  My husband pulled the paper from the gift box, looking curious.  He opened it and took out the plaque.  He looked at me, puzzled for just a second, and I said, “Remember the coin?”  

His face broke out in a grin and his eyes misted as he read the inscription on the small brass plaque….”Nothing is Ever Really Lost”.

I think that coin was the best gift I’ve ever had the privilege of giving to someone I love.   Life is Good.

Adventures in a Corn Field

 The day was sunny and windy, rather mild for January.  I was off to meet Sister Jane Frances Omlor, a Franciscan nun who, I am told, loves to build things.  This time it’s a straw bale house in Tiffin, Ohio.

I’m always looking for a good story for Heart of Ohio Magazine, and this one promised to be just that.  Waiting in the lobby of the convent for Sister to arrive I was struck by the beauty of the place, and as I investigated my surroundings a small lady with short, steel grey hair and spectacles came into the room.   Even leaning on a cane she moved quickly, and there was no doubt this was Sister Jane Frances.

In a small room off the lobby I began to ask questions of the Sister.  At first she seemed distracted, probably because she had just come from a funeral and she had completely forgotten I was coming.  Several minutes into the conversation her concentration locked on, and she began to tell me a little about her life.  This was not an easy life she had chosen, and she talked about her mission in the West Virginia coal country, where she built a straw house to be used as a chapel.   In my mind there is nothing more interesting than the combination of faith and determination, and Sister Jane Frances has both. 

Eventually we got around to her project of the straw bale house, and the Sister said, “Oh, it’s so much easier to show you on my laptop.  And we can visit the house; it’s just in the corn field out back.”

As hard as it was to keep up with her, I managed to follow her across a courtyard, upstairs, and into her tiny office.   Stacked and piled and spilling over, she explained her office was also the place where a lot of the things they sold in their gift shop were kept.  Calling up the website (www.projectstraw.com) she showed me the plans and work on the straw bale house. 

“Now, would you like to see it?   No one is working there today; the holidays have slowed things down.  But we’ll be back in full swing soon.   It’s been pretty cold, so the ground should be frozen,” she said.

We bustled into my convertible and drove around the campus, finally coming to the end of the asphalt drive.

“Head right out there,” she pointed to a glistening trail of slime that my mind refused to recognize as  a road!  “Just gun it and don’t slow down for anything,” Sister said.   Taking her advice literally I stepped down on the gas and we shot out into the corn field. 

Her estimate of the firmness of the field was a little off to say the least…it was the consistency of cake batter.  My poor little convertible seemed to be trying to learn to swim, and my spinning wheels threw mud everywhere.   We arrived at the straw house where I finally came to a stop, parking on what seemed to be the only solid piece of ground in sight.

Opening my car door, I slipped and slid to the back door of the house.  Sister followed along, her three legged cane sinking into the muck, but not slowing her down in the least.  The only thing that slug more mud than my Sebring was the Sister herself. 

The straw bale house is a sun filled structure with walls twenty inches thick.  Even on this January day it was pleasant, and the tour was wonderful. 

 Sister showed me an area around a window where she had applied the clay over a grapevine.  Its twists and turns around the beautifully rounded shape of the window added dimension and interest to the surrounding wall.  I loved the smooth clay walls, the natural colors and the openness of the whole structure.   I can see how one would become attracted to the beauty of a structure like this one.  The organic feel of the house seems to be that of something sprung directly from the earth.

 

It was obvious from the tour that Sister Jane Francis knows her stuff.  She is undaunted by contracting details and technologies that would probably make my head explode, and she is interesting as she explains them.  Soon our tour of the straw bale bungalow was over and it was time to head back to the convent.

As we exited the back door I looked up at the huge windmill constructed behind the house to provide electricity.  The thought, “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and I’ll bloooowwww your house down” crossed my mind, but I’m not nearly secure enough to joke with a nun, so I held my tongue.

Sister surveyed the field looking, I suppose, for a better way to go back.  “I guess the best we can do is back up over there and gun it again.  This happened to me last week, too,” she said.

“You know, Sister.  A little prayer might be in order here,” I said.  She dipped her head for a brief moment and chirped, “Done.   Let’s go.”

We fishtailed through the field, throwing mud and laughing as we went.  To be honest I thought we were a candidate for a tow truck, but somehow we made it.   The good Sister chuckled and said, “See?”

Pavement hadn’t felt this good to me in a very long time, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  “Drive over that way and pull in front of the garage,” Sister instructed.   I did as I was told, and the moment the wheels stopped turning she hopped from the car and pushed open a side door in the building, “I’ll wash your car off,” she called.

The convertible was covered with mud, from rag top to rims.   To my chagrin Sister Jane Francis worked her way around the car with a green garden hose in one hand, her cane in the other. 

I stood there in the watery January sunshine, watching this amazing little nun wash my car.   At first I was horrified, then I felt guilty, and finally I just had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.    Soon the big mud ball was once again a car and I was taking the good Sister back around to the front of the campus and the convent.

I pulled away with the Sister waving in my rear view mirror, heading back to Mansfield with the thought of just how lucky I am.  Writing for Heart of Ohio I meet such interesting people!  I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Sister Jane Francis, and I am impressed with the straw bale house and all the promise it holds.   She obviously knows her stuff about a lot of things….and she does a pretty decent job on a car wash.   Life is Good.    

Read “Spinning Straw Into Gold” in the March/April issue of Heart of Ohio Magazine for the story about the straw bale house.

And that's how I roll.....

               It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you’re married anything can happen.

This is not one of those disgusting commercials that starts with, “It’s time to get real about what happens in the bathroom”, and then deteriorates into a lesson on what should never be discussed on television.  However, it is about the bathroom.

If you are a person who has been married for a number of years you understand that there are always tiny “stress fractures” in any relationship.     There is the ever grating “Mom always did it this way”, or the day you learned that your mate considers the use of a clothes hangar or screwing the cap back on the toothpaste to be far above his/her engineering skills.     Then of course, the ever present “what’s to eat?” …a question that actually translates to “when are you fixing me something to eat?”   These are just a few of dozens of little things that a couple learns to work out…or learns to ignore.

And so we come to the granddaddy of all issues, the one that can send a couple running to a marriage counselor faster than any other; the toilet paper roll.

The first stress factor in this major issue occurs when one partner never replaces the toilet paper.   First you pass the offending partner in the hallway just as he/she is exiting the water closet.   You may or may not have heard this partner yanking the toilet paper roll as if trying to start a cranky out board motor.   Taking responsibility for one’s own well-being it is important to say here that, while it is true that anyone who plans ahead is never in a paperless predicament, we’ve all been there.   Once you raise your voice to summon your partner to bring you a roll of paper (that he/she should have replaced to begin with) it may take a while for the sound level in your home to return to normal.  

The next stress factor occurs when one partner always replaces the toilet paper the WRONG WAY.  Of all the things couples deal with this may be one of the most difficult because there are people…who shall remain nameless…who refuse to admit there is a right way and a wrong way to install a roll of toilet paper. 

 Ah-ha!   You say it’s just a roll of paper, you say it cannot be installed improperly?  You say wrong!!    Who among us has not had to spin and hunt, spin and hunt, spin and hunt for the end of the paper roll because it was installed improperly?   

But it’s not just an ill-informed spouse who can ruin your day.  It recently became necessary for me to visit the accommodations at a local store.   I soon discovered that the huge roll in the big plastic container attached to the cubicle wall had been installed in such a manner that the paper tore on top of the roll, up inside the plastic box.   I could see the end of the roll, but my attempt to get my hand up into the holder to grasp it ended in frustration and a scraped hand.  I had visions of getting my hand lodged in the dispenser and having to call 911 to send a rescue squad to extricate me.    I was finally able to inch the roll with an ink pen I fished from my purse.   But even when it became possible to grasp the end of the roll the installation error caused it to tear one or two sheets at a time.  What should have taken twenty seconds took several minutes and my entire storehouse of patience.  Did I mention the fact that I broke a perfectly good ballpoint pen in the process?

I’ve given this whole thing some thought.  While I’ve not come up with a suitable punishment for this infraction, I do believe it should at least be raised to a ticketing offense.     In my continuing effort to preserve the institution of marriage ( so that my husband and I have someone to go out to dinner with) I have included this instructional diagram.

 Please study the diagram carefully and share it with your significant other.  You may also want to make copies to pass out in crowds or to tape to stall walls.  This is an issue that has waited long enough to be addressed.   You can thank me later.

                                                                          Life is Good.

Age does have some benefits....

After four weeks in the sunshine, we are home to deal with the leftovers of our Ohio winter.   We had a wonderful time in Florida.   I did a lot of writing, we rode bikes, went kayaking, walked on the beach, and I am something I never thought I’d be… shopped out.   Now that’s what I call a successful vacation!

Some of our time was spent on the beach, some was spent pool side, but suffice it to say we were outdoors a lot.  That’s not new for me anymore, because the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time in the sun.  These past few summers I have been tan for the first time in my adult life.   Knowing full well what much smarter people say about the dangers of sun exposure,  I do enjoy being outdoors.  As foolish as I may be I  only use sun screen when I think about it instead of being diligent.

During every warm weather forecast and on every doctor show they tell you to slather yourself with sunscreen, avoid the sun during the hottest part of the day, and cover up.  We all have the advantage of knowing that our time in the sun contributes to wrinkles and increases the chance of skin cancer.   What a departure from when I was growing up.   As a child  my nose and shoulders  were red and peeling almost all summer long because,   in those long ago days,  we thought playing outside was good for you and a sunburn was just part of that.  I’m not even certain they had sun block when I was a kid.  Nearly everyone I knew poured on the baby oil or tanning lotion to increase the chance of a golden brown tan, not eliminate it!  From what I've read I know the damage was done during those childhood years and there's not much I can do about it at this age, so I don't worry about it.

I’m not recommending anyone be as fool hardy as I am, but here is my rationale: I’m old, I've earned it.   For many years  the only light my skin saw came from the fluorescent lights in an office. Summer and winter were basically the same for me.  I didn't have time to even think about being a "sun worshiper"  because I had children to raise and  a stressful job to keep me busy. I seldom took vacation time, and when I did I somehow didn’t find time to be out in the sunshine anyway. I lived like a hot house flower, running from one climate controlled office to another.  Then a few years ago I left my desk chair.....I retired.

The first summer I was retired I took up kayaking. I must admit I had to take a bit of a shortcut, because I can’t swim. Yes….I go out in a kayak on Lake Erie wearing a life vest knowing full well that I cannot swim a stroke. I am careful, I always wear my vest, but once again my rationale is: I’m old, I've earned it.

We took our bicycles to Florida with us this year and we rode most evenings. I’m not a long distance rider, but I do enjoy the feeling of freedom you enjoy when you’re outdoors riding a bicycle. I’ve taken a couple of tumbles, skinned a leg and conked my head, and my husband would really like it if I would wear a helmet….but of course I won’t. I got through my first childhood without a helmet; I’m going for it without one in my second.  I'm old, I've earned it.

Please don’t get the impression I am not thankful for my health, because I most certainly am. But there comes a time in life, and I think your retirement is that time, when you have to say, “I’m going to enjoy myself.” The later in life you take that attitude is probably the better. Just look at it this way…the longer you wait to make dumb decisions, the fewer years you have to deal with the possible consequences.

Now I am semi-retired, working as the editor of Heart of Ohio Magazine. That takes up some of my time and it keeps me active and engaged. When I’m not busy working on the magazine I am often   enjoying one of my hobbies. This is the time of life I have given myself permission to work less, play more….and worry not at all. My advancing age also gives me the right to give advice, so for all you younger folks I have some wisdom to share. Take good care of yourself right now while you are young.  Stay out of the tanning beds, wear your sun screen, your helmet and your life jacket.  Eat your veggies, don't drink or smoke or take drugs.   Then, when you get old, you’ll have time to do the things you were too smart to do earlier in life.

I'm enjoying retirement, or my version of it.  I look at this as the time of my life I paid for with my youth.  If I sit in the sun, commune with nature in a kayak, or ride my bike sans helmet I do so because I've come to the understanding that I am officially too old to die young.   I am thankful for every moment, every day.....Life is Good.

                                            

The Eye of the Beholder....

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.   I know that is true, but I’m here to tell you the standard changes considerably as we get older.

Sitting around the pool in Ponce Inlet, Florida I realized just how different retirement age is from teen age.    Not just the aches and pains and number of prescriptions, but the standard for how we look. 

I’m a people watcher, and I always feel that I fade into the background as I observe the rest of the parade going by.  Today the hot Florida temps heat suntan lotion on sun browned skin, filling the air with a smell reminiscent of hot macaroons fresh from the oven.  By this stage in life no one is worrying about sun damage or skin cancer.    A dozen or so seniors, I’d say ages seventy five and up, congregate in  lounge chairs to talk about television shows, paperback books they have exchanged, and where the best discount dinners can be found at the four o’clock hour.   They laugh and chide one another for being old.   One man laughs as he relates his story about running a red light earlier in the day.  It seems he has just returned from the emergency room after wiping out a pickup truck and his own SUV.  I eavesdrop on the friendly banter and piece together their stories.

When we are young we are often so self-conscious  we cannot enjoy being young.  When we get old we leave all that behind us and just enjoy “being”.  This group, in swimwear, walks around the pool, greeting and meeting and enjoying the moment.  I look at them and read the stories of their lives  written in the scars on their bodies.  Here a heart surgery….there a guy in a blue hat  who has had back surgery.  That guy over there in the lounge chair speaks through an electronic voice box and inhales a filterless cigarette through the stoma in his throat.  It is obvious his wife has had both knees replaced.  Burgundy colored patches on the back of the legs of a pretty white haired lady make me wonder what terrible trauma might have created them. 

 It occurs to me this segment of the population that I am slipping into should have its own flag……”The Scars and Stripes”.     These are the veterans of the war between the sexes….the war of industry….the battle of the bulge and the ongoing fight for survival.  Surely they deserve a flag, if not their own anthem!

Arriving at an advanced age even relatively intact, completely unselfconscious and more or less mobile, that’s what it’s all about I guess.  I have a few years, but not many, before I join them.   Maybe while I’m here I’ll just sit by the pool and work on some lyrics for the “Scars and Stripes Forever”.

Bulges, scars and sun spots be damned……Life is Good.

 

He's Lookin' at me!!!!!

This year we spent a month in Florida soaking up the sunshine and walking on the beach.  It’s a wonderful break from the mid-Ohio winter.   My husband does the research, comes up with a place, and off we go.  My contribution to the whole process is getting into the car, my only requirement that we are on the beach.

We like to take our time, and this year’s leisurely pace included a couple of days in Savannah on the way down.   I loved the history of the city, and we had a place right on the river.   We stayed in old warehouse that had been converted into an elegant bed and breakfast.  It was surrounded by cobble stone paths made from the ballast stones of long ago ships and huge live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.

Arriving in Florida we located the condo and got busy unloading our belongings, not an easy task given the fact that I pack three times more stuff than we actually will ever use.   Once inside I set about stocking the kitchen, putting away clothes and denuding the living room of 99% of the plastic and silk flowers, ferns and vines that graced every table and hung all over the place.   Although the place has a professional cleaning service I still clean surfaces, remote controls etc. before we settle in.   The floors, a beautiful beige stone tile, got a quick dust mopping.  As clean as the place is, the three second rule that applies at home does not apply to anything dropped on the floor at the condo…that’s just the way it is.

Finally I was “bustled out”, and I sank onto the couch with a bottle of water.   As I looked around the room I had the strange feeling of being watched.    That’s odd because  Larry was outside exploring the pool and the beach.   What in the world….???  And then I realize… it’s the coffee table.  

You understand going in that a rented condo has been decorated in someone else’s taste.   It is often a private owners home six months out of the year, and a rental the rest of the time.  Some are tastefully bland, some brightly colored and energetic, often with sea shell touches and ocean scape art.    But this is the first time I’ve been “watched” by a coffee table.   I investigated the thick oval glass top resting on a blue grey “wave”.    Then I realized there was,  not just one, but two dolphins emerging from the wave, both with their watchful dolphin eyes trained right on me.   I moved to the other end of the couch, the beady eyes in their laughing faces moved, too.  I got up and walked around this thing, and the eyes continued to follow me just like the spooky eyes in a painting in a horror movie.   What in the world were they thinking, and I wonder if that monstrosity will fit into the closet that now holds all those plastic plants?    

Renting a condo feels less like being on vacation and more like trying on someone else’s life.   I think it’s because you stock the kitchen, continue to do laundry and make beds just like at home.   But one thing I can't do at home, and one of my greatest pleasures,  is to get up in the morning to walk on the beach.  I love listening to the ocean and the gulls, watching the sun come up.   Living with the beach in your backyard for a month it’s easy to fall into these pleasurable habits and feel as much at home as if you’ve lived here for years.   I have no defenses against things I really enjoy, and it’s such a privilege to possess this little piece of heaven even for a short time.

You know….in spite of the fact that we’ve been sleeping in someone else’s bed and I have the feeling that I’m being stalked by a coffee table…..Life is Good.

 

Full contact parenting......

It is hard for me to understand, but easy for me to believe, that some parents have completely lost control of their children.  Or, as an old friend of mine would say, it seems to me the inmates really are running the asylum.

Like most women my entertainment tends to include a lot of shopping and eating out.   I’ve decided no matter where you are, from Walmart to Saks, from McDonalds to an expensive bistro, it’s not a shopping trip or a meal till there’s a screaming child. 

I’ve been out of the parenting bullseye for a good many years, but I am not speaking from a lapse of memory when I say that my kids never behaved like some I’ve seen in public places lately.   And if and when they did act up I removed them from the scene of the crime…..with no hesitation.

Over the last few weeks I have been an unwilling audience to a couple of conversations between teen age girls and their mothers.   One I heard from the aisle next to mine because it got so loud.  An apologetic sounding mother was asking her daughter what she had done with the six hundred dollars she had borrowed.  The girl, just fifteen, insisted it was none of mom’s business.    The woman continued to beg her daughter for an answer.  After several minutes of being pressured the girl literally screamed, “You really wanna know where the money went?  I got an abortion….now are you satisfied you dumb $#&%”   This pair stayed glued to the spot as they shrieked additional personal details about their lives, but I fled the store, mortified for both of them. 

The second encounter took place in a dressing room beside mine some days later.  Mother and daughter were debating about how much material is required for something to qualify as a bathing suit.   I never saw the daughter, but from the sound of her (unpleasant and disrespectful) voice I’d say it was a twelve year old and her Mom.  Their exchange sounded something like this:    Mom:  “That is entirely too small.  You might as well be naked!”    Daughter:  “You don’t care about the suit!   You’re just jealous because you’re a fat old cow!”    I finished dressing as the argument escalated into more insults and the daughter’s exclamation, “I hate you.  You are just too stupid to know anything.”   Mom and I exited our rooms at the same time.  She carried an armload of expensive bathing suits and looked as if this was standard operating procedure, shaking her head and saying, “Kids!”   What I wanted to say to her( but did not) was:  “You would be able to hold the winter Olympics in Hell before I bought a bathing suit for that little monster."

A few months back my husband and I went into a local restaurant for dinner.  We were seated with a family of four in the booth behind us.  This family group consisted of two adults, a teenage boy, and a young boy of three or four.    The boy kept kicking him heels into the booth, being loud and just generally obnoxious.  Eventually his displeasure with everything served to him grew to a scream.   The father kept calmly and repeatedly telling him “You’re not going to ruin my meal.”   It did not seem to occur to him that the ear splitting shrieks were ruining meals for everyone else in the place.   He continued to eat and the boy grew louder and more hysterical, finally reaching a brain piercing crescendo.

We asked to be moved to the other side of the restaurant, but it made no difference because you could hear this child for a full city block.   The family members continued to eat and ignore him.  The waitress tried to placate him with crackers, and eventually the restaurant manager went to the table with a balloon and a cookie.    The screams continued, and then alternated with gagging noises.  The teenager had enough sense to be embarrassed and begged his parents to leave; they refused and  did nothing, apparently assuming the manager was visiting every table with treats.   Every eye in the place was on this booth.

Eventually they either finished their food or decided the restaurant full of hostages had suffered enough. They got up to leave with the screaming child, who then threw himself on the floor.   Dad scooped him up and paid the bill with the flailing boy gripped under one arm.   As they all started out the door the entire restaurant broke out in applause, and a collective sigh of relief went up as the door closed behind them.  Personally I was just hoping they wouldn’t decide to return for an encore.

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that these three children I speak of are the offspring of rude and incompetent parents.  I’m not so sure that is true.  Our society has deteriorated with the enforcement of being “politically correct” and the fear that has been instilled in parents about what constitutes child abuse.   The old adage “children should be seen and not heard” has given way to the belief that you and everyone in close proximity must put up with the whims and temper tantrums of a child.   The age of “time out” is alive and well as some parents live in fear of their own children.  

Don’t get me wrong, I do not advocate wantonly beating children.  I do, however, believe there is a time and a place to make a stand and take control.   If your kids have figured out embarrassing you in public will help them get their way, you are dead meat.  If you allow your child to terrorize an entire establishment with their behavior, you’re not teaching them a thing. 

Although I’ve thought from time to time that I was born in the wrong age, I’ve come to realize the good Lord knew what he was doing when he allowed me to raise my children in the seventies and eighties.   I know there is a very good chance I’d be sending my children birthday and Christmas wishes from my jail cell if I were raising kids today.

        I’m happy to listen to the conversations and think, “Oh…better thee than me!”    Life is Good.

Valentine's Day is for amateurs

I hate to repeat myself, but I can’t help but preface some things with “I know it’s my age showing”.   This post is a classic example.   It’s Valentine’s Day…the holiday for lovers.   Well…..I think it’s the holiday for beginners.

There is nothing more intoxicating than falling in love.   That first blush is usually full of gifts, I love you calls during the day, and romantic getaways.   It’s a time of flowers and candy and surprises; all in all a wonderful time for a new couple.

But we live in the real world, and it is inevitable, even if the bond holds up,   that things change.  The demands of a life together can soak up the limited budget of money and time.   Enjoying time together often goes from romantic evenings out to evenings on the couch, comparing notes about a stressful workday and sharing a bag of microwave popcorn.   Little gifts go from gift wrapped boxes, to clearing a loved-ones  windows before they use the car, or opening a car door to tuck your loved on inside.   

 All of that may sound like a disagreeable change, but in reality it isn’t.   Love is a shape –shifter, make no mistake.    The hand you took tentatively on a first date is now the hand you hold on to in the grocery store and at the doctor’s office.  Love’s face is the one crinkled with concern in a hospital waiting room, the one flooded with relief when the news is good.    Love’s first voice may be “you’re hot!” and then become “put your hand on his head, honey,   I think he’s cooler now”.   Gifts may not be in heart shaped boxes on a retail created holiday, but heart felt exchanges of many kinds on any given day.

That brings me to my point:   Valentine’s Day is for beginners.   It is a pair of romantic training wheels needed when first you discover one another.  I’m not saying it’s  a bad thing, but it is certainly a contrived thing.   This is not a suggestion you ignore the celebration with your significant other, but that we all keep it in perspective as we look at our  relationship's “big picture”.

       I know firsthand that love never changes…..and it is the most valuable thing you will ever have.

                                 Happy Valentine’s Day…..Life is Good  

Did I say something???

Is it just me, or do you have someone in your life that you are fond of, that you wouldn’t hurt for the world, but who exhausts you??  It might be a friend, a relative, a co-worker.   This is my story, but the identity has been changed to protect the innocent….namely me.

I have this person in my life; I will say it’s a female and call her “Jan” because I don’t know anyone by that name.  This is a kind and honest person whom I have known for a long time.  “Jan” only has one fault, and because it is her only fault I forget when I don’t see her for a while that she has it.   Thirty minutes into a visit with her the thought crosses my mind, “AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHH”.

Jan is an “overtalker”, and if that isn’t a word it should be.    My definition of an overtalker is a person who chimes in right in the middle of your sentence because she/he simply cannot wait till you are finished to make an addition or correction to the conversation.  Here’s an example:

ME:  “Jan, how did the trip to Saskatchewan turn out?  The la…” JAN: “It was wonderful!  The weather was gorgeous the whole time and I wore my new red dress.   Remember when we were shopping and I bought that rest dress?”     By now I’ve stopped talking and I sit with a forced smile on my face, the memory of this annoying habit of hers comes roaring back into my brain and I want to go home. 

It’s not just me she does this to; she talks over her husband, her kids, her mother….even waitresses and sales clerks.  If she runs into someone who refuses to give up the battle for conversational superiority, she just continues to talk until they run out of steam.   Her voice becomes louder and louder as she attempts to gain control.   It is an awful habit, and it’s a contest she never loses.

I can see when I visit that Jan’s family has adjusted to this habit and they just phase out.   It is impossible to carry on a conversation with her for any length of time unless you speak in short hand.  You need only give her a couple of words to go on and she’s off and running.  

ME:  “You know, I saw Carolyn and….” JAN: “I think her hair looked so much better the other way.   This really ages her…......etc. etc. etc.”    She can carry on the rest of the conversation completely on her own.  I automatically edit anything I start to say because I know she’ll grab my first three words like a dog with a meaty bone and run off with it.  It is maddening, and I haven’t a clue how to tell her that the ways she communicates is actually anti-communication. 

I know what you’re thinking, most of us do this from time to time; I’ve interrupted people I know.   But this isn’t just the occasional interruption, this is an over powering verbal assault that has kept me from actually communicating with her. She really doesn’t hear anything you might want to discuss in depth, because she is always talking while you’re talking and completely hijacking the conversation.  

You might wonder (I know I have) why I don’t just tell her this makes me crazy.  I think it is one part cowardice, one part caring and two parts habit.   We have known one another for so long I can’t imagine not knowing what is going on in her life and she in mine.   Foolishly I have waited for someone else to tell her, but it would have started a dialogue that she would have “overtalked” any way.

So, to keep my sanity and our friendship, I keep our in person visits to the very occasional and I’ve found a solution.   Because I value her as a person I’ve decided this is the perfect Facebook friend.   I know popular opinion is that personal contact is on the decline because of technology, but I actually think the reverse is true.   “Jan” and I share more of our thoughts and daily lives with each other now than we ever have sitting across the table from one another.     Email and IM’s have become the communication medium for us, and it works great.   Now, for the very first time I can finish my thought, she can add her comments, and we’re both happy!  Instead of burdening the relationship with honesty and likely terminating the friendship, we’ve become cyber friends with a flourishing, albeit long distance, relationship.   Sweet. 

By the way…Just in case you wonder whether she might feel badly about the fact that we don’t get together very often, the answer is no.  I’m pretty sure some habit of my own must have been driving her crazy too, because she seems just as happy with this arrangement as I am.

                                           Technology is great……and Life is Good.

No response is the best response......

Ahhhhhhh………Super Bowl.   It’s become the second biggest gorging experience (Thanksgiving being the first) for Americans.  Now that this one is in the history books, we have another half time show to chew over and fuss about.

Evidently MIA, a rapper, flipped the bird to America as she toiled and worked to earn her well-deserved sheckles yesterday.  It was not enough that this person was PAID to be a part of the biggest voyeur event of the year, but she decided to make a lasting impression by passing on her personal (?)….political (?)….religious (?) opinion with a hand gesture that is reserved for the most contempt one can express. 

I’ve not seen the picture of this “star”; I don’t have a clue what she looks like or what her “art form” may be.   I couldn’t pick her out of a line up, although my bet would be she’s been in one before.  I am, however, entitled to express my opinion just as she has taken her chance to express hers….and here it is:

     If no one ever bought another of your albums because they  took your gesture seriously and understood that it meant “I’ve got mine, you idiot, because you are dumb enough to pour your money into my greedy coffers while I laugh at you all the way to the bank”…..and if the American public decided to demand a standard of talent and behavior from  performers that was far above what you can provide….you would be working in a McDonalds drive through and the only thing anyone would ever hear from you again would be, “would you like fries with that?”.  

Until Americans raise their standards these thugs who seem to fill the television screen and the tabloid papers will continue to take the money and run.  With no moral code, no standard for talent and no regard for how this poison affects our children we can only expect more of the same.    Shame on us.

                               If you don’t watch this nonsense on TV…….Life is Good.

Been there...done that...got the T-shirt.

Today I was talking with an old friend about our childhoods.   We grew up in the same neighborhood and didn’t know each other well, although we were acquainted.   It’s amazing all these years later to realize you can watch someone’s life and not have any idea what’s going on.  Sharing some especially scary stories about home remedies, we decided we might just have some “I survived my childhood even though my parents tried to kill me off” t-shirts made.  It made me wonder what the slogan on my own children’s t-shirts might be.

When I had my first child, my son, I read Mother-to-Be Magazine for parenting tips, I rubbed Mother’s Friend lotion all over my tummy to prevent stretch marks, and I painted the nursery and furniture in preparation for this baby’s arrival.   As it turned out the magazine was full of nonsense…..I have a stretch mark that runs from groin to Adam’s apple …..And I now know that I gave every piece of nursery furniture a good coat of lead based paint before he was born.   In short, I was ill prepared and ill-informed about having one child, let alone three.   T-shirt:  “My Mom raised me in a nursery full of lead based paint and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”.

My second child, a beautiful blonde daughter, was born with a wry neck and a leg that had been tucked under her as she grew.  In those days they put special shoes with a big metal bar between them on the baby to straighten the leg.   The wry neck had to be stretched and pulled several times a day, a duty that sent my dad and husband scrambling for newspapers to hide behind until I was finished.    My sweet baby would scream and fuss, but I did what had to be done to strengthen her neck muscles.    As she got older the metal bar and shoes were clunky and heavy and it was sad to watch her struggle to turn over….but she mastered it!   What a torturous beginning for such a beautiful little girl… and Mom was the bad guy!  T –shirt:  “I’m with Meany à “

Last, but not least, another little girl arrived.  She was in a hurry to get into the world, so she could only wait eight months.   She was a colorful baby….first she turned yellow (jaundice) and then she turned beet red as she screamed for the first three months of her young life.   Her formula didn’t agree with her, three formulas didn’t agree with her, goats milk was a last-ditch try.  Finally the doctor threw in the towel and we started her on regular milk; she grew blessedly content.   The first baby didn’t eat, drink, or touch anything that was not sterilized.   The second baby was subjected to less sterilization and a little more mayhem.  By the time this third baby arrived she was raised under the three second rule….anything that was on the ground less than three seconds could be popped directly into her mouth.   No more boiling water on the dropped binkie no grabbing a fallen cookie.   This little girl had an immune system that can only be created by the consumption of potting soil and carpet fuzz.  T-shirt:  “I was the third child and lived to tell about it”.

One thing we all have in common, no matter how good or bad, we all had a childhood.  My parents loved me, and they did the very best they knew how to do as they raised me.  I think my children are the finest people I have ever known, and they may very well have gotten to be that way in spite of me instead of because of me.   All I know is that I love them, and I enjoy thinking back to the time they were all underfoot.  If I had a t-shirt made it would read:  “Life is Good”.