Dumb Post

Ok, this is a BS post, just like the last one with the cartoon. I cannot pour out my heart or write something profound (I've never done that here yet anyway), or intelligent (that either), or even interesting, mainly because:

I have not been sleeping well, or thinking well, or even driving well, because I am overcome with fear for my son. Last year when he was deployed I took up smoking again (disgusting habit, but what can I say). During my son's deployment last year, I also developed a mysterious itch all over my body which after a $25 co-payment to see the dermatologist and a $25 prescription drug charge (for what I later learned was just a version of Cortaid -Will everyone just line up to take my money?) I still had no clue what it was and neither did the doctor. This deployment is worse, and the few times we have spoken to my son, he has given us horrific news about things that have happened to others in his squad. He has also told us repeatedly to pray for him. And he has told me "Mom, I just want to go home." So I'm out of sorts for a while and will be posting DRIVEL, just so you know.

Anyway, the picture above is of my sister and I in the "disco" era with our identical-save-for-the-color disco dresses. We were young and cute, our asses were as tight as Goldie Hawn's WAS at that time. My mom took this picture of us in the kitchen with the silly-looking kitchen clock right over my head like a halo or a crown. Neither of which I deserved.

I love this picture. We were both in our early twenties, I'm a year older than my sister. For all practical purposes at our age (50-something) we may as well be twins. But going back to the subject, this picture was snapped before all the heartbreaks that came later, it was taken before having to experience the death of our dad which we both adored. It is a picture before either of us got married, had kids, raised them, got divorced. This was before we moved to Miami, before I got mugged, before my hair became blonde, before the pain of labor tore our bodies up. And also before the pain of having to part with our kids. It was taken before the lines of happiness, sadness, stubbornness, fear, surprise and determination were splayed out on our faces. When this picture was taken, we believed in the promise of the future, the infallibility of our parents and authority, in the love of our boyfriends, the loyalty of our friends, and the inevitability of having fun. Yeah, can u believe it?

As Ernesto Sabato wrote in "The Tunnel," our faces are maps of all the emotions we have experienced, and our souls are prisoners of the flesh.

What is your deal?

I hope y'all can read this. It's old, came out in like the late 90's and I clipped it and have kept it all these years. I actually know people who think like these characters and rationalize stuff the same way. Live and learn. Have a great weekend, Love yous.

Bogged Down with Work...Really!

I haven't posted for a while, I have been reading and lurking because I am so stressed out. When I am like this, I am not in a creative mood, I'm in a crappy-face, capuccino-drinking, blog-reading, feet-on-hard-drive, staring-out-the-window mood. Yeah, you may have guessed that I am not reacting to the stress by the getting-stuff-done-keeping-myself-busy method. Not at all. Am I bugging you? I don't mean to bug ya... (U2 at the Red Rocks concert, 'member?)

What is bugging me?

1) My older son's deployment and the fact that every time I talk to him he tells me to pray for him. Also the related fact that he is all the way around the world from us.That is my number one stressor.

2) My other son is doing well so far in college BUT I have to be after his butt insisting that he spend more time studying and less time with his bummy friends which are all sons of multi-millionaire parents, and who live in mansions, and who have way too much money and time on their hands as well as cars/games/electronic toys, not to mention being bratty and used to getting their way all the time. Those kids are not a good influence.

3) I have a lot of work. At my office, the paper is starting to cover every inch of surface area and even part of the floor. The last few students I saw had to stand by my desk because both chairs are full of stacks of stuff. All of this paper has to be dealt with before deadlines. Ok this part is normal, it's what we call crunch time here but this semester it's out of hand.

4) Our secretary, who is also my good friend, is on vacation. So not only do I miss her and our chatting and joking, but she's also the shield between me and a lot of people I don't have to see. Now I'm having to see everyone and answer their dumb questions. Plus I miss her, like I said.

Ok, so these are the main things that are keeping me awake at night. More than anything, Number 1. I can deal with 2 through 4. There are also mini-problems always hovering but I'm used to dealing with those as well and know how to ignore them while I go into REM. Maybe I'll go home and have a couple glasses of wine.

Dreams

Last night I dreamt one of my recurring dreams. I'm at a seashore, and there are beautiful, baby blue waves with white frosting washing up, a pale, soft sunshine and I'm walking on the shore looking down at beautiful pastel-colored shells that I gather. This is always a soothing dream for me, and sometimes I'm accompanied by my late father, who never says anything, just walks gently next to me.

Some of my recurring dreams/nightmares:

I never graduated - In this dream, I check my own records and find that I never graduated college. Usually, I dream that I have failed a Science or a Statistics class. I "forgot" to keep attending class, or I never turned in two difficult papers, or I did not show up for the final. I have a dreaded "F" on my transcript.

I can't find my class - I am in high school or in college and I'm frantically searching for my next class. Needless to say, the bell is about to ring and I have no clue where my class is. I stick my head in a few classrooms and nothing looks familiar, and if I don't find it soon I will find myself in the "I never graduated" dream.

I am naked at school or work - I find myself either in the hallway at work or at my old high school. I have a file folder or a towel from Physical Education in my hand and I'm trying to cover up the fact that I'm totally naked. I perspire a lot in this one.

I'm driving and I can't see well - OK this one may be really happening when I go deeper into senior citizendom but in my dream it's either raining or dark and I'm driving but I can't see crap out the windshield. In true dream fashion, I never think to pull over, I keep on driving and missing horrible collisions by microns. Usually the car is full of people.

I'm in another country - I have this dream very often because when I was young my family moved around a lot. I'm in (insert country name here) and I don't have the right currency but I have to take a taxi somewhere. I don't know how to tell the driver where to go, actually I don't know where I'm going, or how I'm going to pay him when I get there. I don't have a job and have to find one but I don't speak the language well (back to fast food employment for me). I cry a lot in this dream and ask "Why did I do this to myself?"

I find coins/treasure - This is one of my favorite dreams. I have two versions of this dream. In one, I am walking somewhere, I look down and see a whole bunch of coins under bushes or under rocks. I start digging and keep finding more. The clincher is that I don't have a purse or anything to put them in so I'm desperately stuffing them in pockets. In the other version, I am in a huge, old mansion. I either open a room I had never seen before, or go up to the attic, or I see a hole in the wall that is a covered up entranceway to another room. This room is full of antiques and I eventually find a box full of jewelry or loose diamonds, emeralds, rubies and pearls. Lovely!

I fight someone - Usually if in real life I'm having problems with someone, I will eventually fight them in my dreams. Not insulting them, or arguing with them, I mean really fight them, physically. As you can imagine my ex-husband is in a lot of these dreams and I have really whaled on him.

Someone/something is in my house - This is also a very recurrent dream. I will be sitting in my living room and will suddenly sense that a horrible someone or something is at my front door. I run over to the door to lock it (why do I always leave it unlocked?) but I never make it. The thing/bad person gets in. Then I try to scream for help but all that comes out is like a pathetic little whisper. I always wake up before anything (like my ex-husband) gets me.

I have a baby and I have forgotten about it - In this one, I open a drawer and lo and behold I have forgotten that I put my baby in there a few days ago. I haven't fed it or bathed it or anything. I feel horribly guilty and try to make up for the neglect. But every time I put the baby down I forget about it again.

I'm getting married - Ok, please don't laugh at this one. It's another anxiety dream. It's 3pm and I'm getting married in 45 minutes. My hair and bangs are a mess and I am nowhere near a beauty salon or a hair drier. I don't have a dress or I have one but it is torn to shreds and I have to sew it up. I also have to call people to invite them to be ready in 45 minutes for my wedding. I'm also insanely calling restaurants to see if we can have the reception there. Yikes.

Does anybody out there have these dreams or am I the only crazy one?

Thunder and Lightning

This is my Happy Hour post for Friday. It's finally here. I have the same bunches of paper on my desk that I had on Wednesday and I am not even caring, believe me. I made coffee and I was present, that is about all the man is getting from me today (as well as most other days too). My only defense is that I am underpaid grossly.

Outside my window is a MONSTER storm in tropical Miami. The sky, which is all I can see because I'm on the fourth floor, is a roiling mess of black clouds fighting each other for territory, and the rain is pelting the glass on the windows. Scary, but that sentence turned out really purty, didn't it? It is thundering and lightning and the earth is shaking every time. The last bolt hit somewhere near us because I was trying to count One Thousand, Two Thousand between the lightning and the thunder to determine how many miles away it is and I only got to "One Thou" and the thunder split my eardrums. Please, those of you who were not aware of this method, feel free to use it, I do not charge for giving out this sort of information. But it does work.

So, here I am, feet plopped on my hard drive, slurping coffee sloppily while I cast sideways looks out the freaking windows. Wondering what form my bangs will take when I make a run from the office to the car to head to my beloved Happy Hour. Let me explain this: I have very wavy and frizzy hair. The only part of it that I try to tame are the bangs because when I don't blow them dry I tend to notice people looking at them when I talk to them, the same way some men look down at women's breasts when they are trying to focus on what they are saying. So I blow dry my bangs (come back to the subject at hand for just two minutes, please) and they are gorgeous and straight, and, I think, very cute (some may argue this point). As soon as I step out the door, and the hot Miami vapors surround me and carry me off to the car (this consists of three steps from the door to the car) my lovely bangs are already ruined and they have transformed into frizzy, crazily shaped tendrils on my forehead. Sigh. I want you to know that I have repeated this ritual every morning for as long as I can remember. Some day I will sit down and try to see why it is that I do it.

So today after work, with all this rain I can just imagine how I will look for Happy Hour. I really should bring a hair drier and a round brush to do them here at work but I don't want to become obsessed with my bangs (as if I wasn't already).

Happy Hour: Don't laugh but my (single) sister and I, both fifty-something babes, meet for happy hour every Friday right after work. Yeah, we go to a very nice place in Little Havana called "Casa Juancho" that has a nice Spanish-style bar and a very "senior" attendance. Imagine how senior the attendance, if we feel like hot chicks...But they have keyboardists (three of them, and they each have their shifts and their fans who tip them) that play latin music and believe or not folks, these older people dance and flirt and jostle at the bar to get the best spots (near the dance floor). It's a riot and I am glad I am alive and kicking to experience it, even though I am aware of how comic it must look to younger people!

And every Friday just like my sister and I will not miss Happy Hour there, the same characters come in, order their drinks, flirt shamelessly with the new fifty-something or sixty-something hotties, dance, and generally have a wonderful time. There is the mature woman I'll call "Stella" that has "gone out" (to not say "done") every guy there. She is fifty-something but she looks great and is a happy and friendly person. My sister and I love her and are always happy to see her. Well, we get happy anyway, thanks to the Bacardi Limon on the rocks, but we like her a lot, she livens the place up. Then there are assorted older gentlemen (some married, thanks Stella for letting us know who is married and who isn't) very suave-looking in guayaberas or jackets, as well as assorted sexily-dressed female vampires out looking for an available guy or meeting friends to make asses of themselves dancing after a couple of drinks, but it's all for fun.

You are all welcome to join us when you are in town. Just promise me you won't laugh at my bangs, actually please don't even look at them.

Have a great weekend! Enjoy!

My Summer Vacation

To all the wonderful people that read the drivel on this blog:

I'm baaaaack!

As I mentioned on another post, for me it is always a pleasure to come back to the office. I am aware that I am opposite of most people. Most people dread going back to the office especially after a long weekend or a vacation. But my experience has been that when I am home I get EXHAUSTED by all the activity, commotion, communicating, "cooking" (as in breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks, dinner, snacks), stuff that has to be done because you are not working (as in getting the AC fixed, cleaning out the possum-infested garage, actually having to do laundry because we are all home and are using 4 towels a day and changing clothes twice a day).

When I go on vacation, I feel rushed to do everything and see everything (as in when in the Bahamas you MUST swim with the darn dolphins or walk through blocks of little boutiques selling souvenirs from the Bahamas that are "Made in China"), and then I get home and have huge piles of vacation clothing to wash/dry/return-to-drawers-and-closets, piles of mail (actually that should be "bills") to go through, and tend to other assorted disasters that happen when one is gone. Sigh.

So when I walk into my junkmail-infested, but serene air-conditioned office full of abandoned, wilted potted plants and see my voice mail indicator tell me I have 27 voice mails, I am happy because I can do everything sitting down and with my feet up on my hard drive. Aaaaah! What a relief! To actually do productive work, not just putting stuff away in drawers that I will be seeing in 1.5 days back in the darn hamper!

I am ecstatic to be back! Missed you all.

News:

We had a wonderful week despite the laundry. We went to the beach, lazed around and played old super-"intendo" games, caught up on what toothless, fat middle-americans are up to via Jerry Springer (Yes, they are still fighting each other shirtlessly or disgustingly showing their boobies).

We cleaned the garage, and we are happy to announce that our garage floor is now visible in certain areas and the "stuff" we have accumulated and still haven't a clue as to why, is now in a semi-orderly state and will continue to sit there for a couple more years until we can part with whatever it is.

My son leaves back to camp tomorrow, and then deploys mid-July. I actually sat around a lot during my week off, thinking of ways that I could prevent him from going. I seriously thought (and this scared me) that if I hit him with something and he broke an arm or a leg, he would end up staying here. Is that crazy? Allow me to answer myself: Yes, it is, big time. But it is craziness due to motherly love. It is biological, it has no sanity to it, no logic. And you know how dangerous THAT can be, so I chilled and resorted again to praying without really being convinced of how effective that is, but then what else can I do? So, here I am steely-faced, dry-eyed, ready to kiss him goodbye again so he can go to war. Big Sigh.

My son's girlfriend lost her mom Monday night. This is a long story, and since it is not my story to tell, I would rather respect their privacy. They are 5 sisters, from 28 to 10 years of age that just lost their mother unexpectedly. They do not have fathers because they either died or took off. All they have is each other and their 87 year old grandmother. My heart got all scrunched up for them, I felt so badly and it's one of those situations where there is nothing a person can do, just hug and talk in soft tones to try to comfort. That's what I did.