Suicide Blonde

Praying and Other Deep Thoughts

2011-10-18T18:50:00.009-04:00

Ok, let's see if I understand this correctly:

Some of us of the "homo sapiens" species believe in a higher power, a creator, an omnipotent, omniscient being. Within this group of believers, some feel very strongly about this force that originated the universe. Some even believe that She or He (even though it is almost universally understood that a Supreme Being does not have a gender per se, as we know it) is personally involved with our every thought, deed, feeling.

I, for one, personally know many human beings who have a very personal relationship with our Creator. And I'm not talking about people of the cloth here, just regular, everyday people. Some of these are PhD's, some are not formally educated, there are all types from all walks of life.

My mother, for example, is an extremely religious person who firmly and without question, unwaveringly , believes in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. She believes in the Blessed Mother and all the saints and martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church. She is devout and has never, EVER, questioned anything. At least not in front of me. I kind of envy that kind of belief and faith.

We have a friend, a pastor of a church, an upright, wonderful person who is also utterly convinced of the constant existence and benevolent attention of God upon all of us. We have had our conversations and peaceful discussions on faith, belief, etc. and I can vouch for the fact that he is one hundred and ten percent sure that the Omnipotent One exists and loves each and every one of us. In a personal way, as a parent loves His or Her child.

On the other hand, I am problematic. How did I turn out this way? It's not that I don't believe in a Supreme Being. I kind of do. But I have to be honest, I view anyone's idea of Him/Her with a bit of suspicion. You may ask "Why?" And I would reply: "Because everyone views God differently." Three people are looking at the same beautiful sunset and each one is thinking/feeling/remembering/being affected differently. The sunset is there, and it is the same for the three, but does not mean the same to each one. The first person may be just admiring the combination of colors in the sky. The second may be recalling a romantic event with a loved one. The third may be just looking but thinking "I need to get gas for the car and pick up a gallon of milk after this..." Nobody views anything the same way.

And I have to confess that when I meet someone that doesn't seem to have any doubts, it freaks me out. Maybe because I have so many? Maybe because I have not been able to establish a personal relationship with my Maker? Could it be that I am not a person of "faith"? Even though I would like to be? It is possible that I am way too conscious and even familiar with the many tricks used by all kinds of denominations to get people to believe in them? Does that even make sense?

We are all searching for meaning (shamelessly quoting Viktor Frankl, one of my most beloved philosophers), and meaning will never take the same form for you as it will for me.

Now that we have that preamble about the Supreme Being, let's go a bit further. Ok, let's say that I believe in a all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God who is personally involved with each individual on Earth (and in other parts of the Universe, if they exist). We (humans) are His/Her sons and daughters and he loves us and watches over us. I am not even going to touch the probleme of the existence of evil. My question is this:

How does prayer fit in? If we believe in a benevolent, loving God who views us as Her/His children, then whatever good or bad happens to us is for a reason, right? What purpose does prayer serve? If, let's say, my car starts making a noise and seems to be on the brink of breaking down (which it probably is), and God (who is all-knowing) sees this, well...if I say a prayer to Him/Her to please not let my car break down today of all days when I have to get to work super-early because I have a meeting at.... you get the drift.... What is the good of that? If just the fact that I appeal to Him/Her for my car not to break down, if that does the trick, then wouldn't that make this Creator kind of a shallow, conceited being? What about people who REALLY need help? People who are seriously sick, or in pain, or who have lost someone they love or....SERIOUS stuff. Is our Creator waiting for them to pray in order to help them out? What is the value system She/He uses?

I am not being flippant here, folks. I know that my faithful followers (I believe they are down to two, maybe three now) know that I like to write funny posts. Or they may just seem funny to me. But this is totally serious here.

I once told a friend who was leaving on a long drive home very late at night, "Be careful." And she replied, "I don't have to be careful. I know the Lord is watching out for me." I was flabbergasted. Why would He (in this case there was no gender doubt) watch over her exclusively while letting other people get mugged, raped, held up, arrested by cops, exposed to Bigfoot? (Ok that last reference to Bigfoot was a bit of comic relief) And while all these people are suffering, He is going to individually save YOU from any kind of problem? Why would He do that? What is so special about you that He would save you but not me? Or him? Or her? Ya know? And if the Lord was like that, that He would arbitrarily watch over someone tenderly while completely blanking out on watching/helping/saving anyone else, well... I just would not like Her/Him. So I can't think She/He is like that.

And furthermore, if He/She was to come to someone's aid bending the rules of Nature or whatever, just because a prayer was said or because someone beseeched Him/Her. The same applies. It would be that S/He pays attention to whiney, loud, selfish, self-promoters and ignores those of us who either are not sure what to do or what works, or are still in debate about a Supreme Being in the first place.

There are many, many people who believe in "The Power of Prayer." For me, it is a beautiful concept but one that does not seem logical. If I REALLY concentrate on praying that something works out the way I want it to work, then if I have made sufficient effort, The Creator will reward me and grant me what I wish. Really? If you were the Supreme Being, would you like it if the same people were always praying so that you would grant them stuff? No matter how hard they concentrated and prayed, wouldn't it seem just a tad bit selfish that they only prayed for themselves or for a select group of friends? The way I see God is that S/He would be offended by prayer unless it was offered up for everyone and anyone on this Earth who needed help, who was hurting, suffering, crying. Anyone and everyone.... or no one.

Another Friday

2011-09-20T12:36:00.001-04:00

As you can see below, I wrote this post on Friday, but Blogger. in its infinite wisdom, decided that what I really wanted was to start a second blog. Thank you, Blogger but I can't even keep up with the first.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Another Friday

Once again, blogging time has escaped me like sand through fingers, like water through a sieve, like...well, you know. It's been a while since I posted. There is the question of "Why write if no one (or few people) will read?" There is also: "Maybe I should just share something on FB instead of suffering through (or subjecting people to) several paragraphs to make sure they understand my thoughts/feelings/mood/ indignation/point (if there is one)..." Then there is the inevitable "WTF?"

But in reality, there is nothing more cleansing, more therapeutic, more cathartic (if I'm using the word correctly) than a good post. Yes, I am very busy. Our once small office has ballooned and I am now supervising (if that is what it is called) a bunch of people and interviewing/hiring a bunch more. Sigh. I am no longer involved with the little day-to-day things at work and that has brought about a certain freedom from drudgery but then I wake up in a cold sweat at night thinking that I forgot this or I didn't take care of that... My point is: The stress factor is always there. The only thing that changes is that the person that kicks your behind for goofing off is higher up. Otherwise, it's business as usual.

So, yeah, I'm pretty busy, but no busier than at my peak blogging period when I was not only a peon at my full-time position in an institution of higher learning but I was also working part-time at a department store of Thanksgiving parade fame. So back then my days were extremely long and I had a lot more loose ends to tie, more people to appease (which y'all know, is not easy), plus a second part-time job that was cutthroat. I would get home after 11 pm and think nothing of it. AND I had blogged.

I think, deep inside, some times I don't want to blog because:

1) I wouldn't know where to start.
2) I would have to write entire encyclopedias to bring everyone up to date.
3) Not to mention that writing always made things clearer to me so I would have to face a lot of painful realizations
4) The repetitiveness of my themes may be a bit boring to my readership (all three of you, if you are still there). Just like every time my sister and I have two or three Zinfandel Blancs we have the same conversation. It goes something like this (Disclaimer: it doesn't matter who says what, because we actually take turns, depending on who has had more Zinf Blancs):

Sister 1 - How the heck did we ever survive childhood?
Sister 2 - Well, you know it was really difficult moving every eight or nine months but we had each other...
Sister 1 - That's all well and good but it was really tough. As soon as we made friends or figured out what was cool, we moved to another state...
Sister 2 - Okay, you're right, but what could our parents do? They needed to work and to follow the contracts and so they had no alternative...
Sister 1 - True, but it turned us into monsters because we don't feel a part of any group, we are aliens even if we were to go back to Cuba, where we clearly do NOT belong... Couldn't they have just settled somewhere, would that have been so hard?
Sister 2 - Yes, it was difficult, but at least we had each other...

The arguments get a bit circular, but this is reassuring to us.

So, sparing you the other two hours of the conversation, this is what we talk about. Amazingly enough, we laugh about it the next day because there is no explanation for anything in this world. Not only this subject between my sister and me, but any other subject. You may think you have an explanation or that you have a "handle" (God, I love quotation marks) on things, but you need to keep in mind that you may not necessarily have a handle, though you think you do. Nobody does. Especially those who think they do.

So why blog? Why try to squeeze out something that (at least to the writer) makes sense, is attempting to be logical, trying to make a point (or to point out that there is no point?)? Especially when you can just blurt out some stupid reference on FB to the fact that you are having an 80 oz. frozen half-decaf/half caff coolatta (or whatever Starbux calls it) with half n half and two packets of Sweet n Cancerous. It's just as silly and it will make just as much difference.

-NOT.

Season of the Tropical Almond

2010-12-21T18:06:00.003-05:00

Disclaimer: Tear-jerker content. If you are easily tear-jerked (v.), please back off slowly. Now.

If any of you have ever seen a Tropical Almond tree in South Florida (they are found in most tropical areas) during the so-called "cold" months (November, December, January) you know what I am talking about. This is a very tall, pagoda-shaped tree with big, deeply veined leaves that turn many shades of magenta/red/red violet/plum/fuschia during our short, but still heavily griped-about, cold season. In the Summer months (the rest of the year not NOV/DEC/JAN) it is a sight to behold because the leaves are glossy and a light green in those months. But for me, catching a glimpse of a fiery mass of magenta/burgundy colored leaves through the deep green, jungle-like chaos of SoFla vegetation during this time of the year makes my heart flutter, my neck crane and my front bumper to get awfully close to the rear bumper of the car right in front of me. I've been very lucky that I have avoided automobile accidents and fender-benders so far. The contrast, the glossy leaves in a million shades of aforementioned colors (otherwise I will never finish this post), the sheer height of the tree towering over the parasitic, the recumbent, the climbing, the-short-of-stature, and boringly GREEN rest of local flora is truly, and of itself, an eye-dessert.

It is one of my favorite SoFla and all-time, all-places tree. To this day my sons groan when we are headed somewhere in MY car and I perform a legal U-turn to check out a carmine-colored almond tree. Tangentially, it always amazes me that my own father loved many different plants and trees and when I was young I thought HE was crazy to go way out of his way home or to the grocery store just to look at a specimen he enjoyed. Then, I turned into him. And weirdly enough, my youngest son has recently taken to bringing home seeds and planting them in little, unmatched pots. He has admitted to a love of orchids and has brought some home and they are thriving. What made me laugh is that he has a young Royal Poinciana tree that he pirated from somewhere, it was a tiny shoot and he just pulled it out of the ground and brought it home. He planted it in a pot and every morning before he leaves the house he takes this pot and places it where he thinks there will be the most sunlight. Then when he gets home in the evening, he will put it back on the porch "for protection against the wind." Ok, I need to explain that I am CRAZY for plants but my hectic lifestyle and back problems have given me a "What-the-hell-it-died" philosophy when dealing with caring for plants. So, I find my son's preoccupation with this plant to be a bit creepy. Every day, that plant is in a different location on the front lawn. I have almost tripped on it several times, walking back from the mailbox out in front because one never knows where the plant will be...and he has even gone so far to ask me if I thought it was doing well...That kind of weirded me out. I said "it hasn't died yet so it's ok." Which he thought was an overly simplistic (or possibly cynical) statement, probably originating from laziness or tiredness or just plain being 56 years old, which for him must seem like 96. Yes, I still remember how I felt about older people at his age. They all seemed like characters from Tales of the Crypt. Kind of like the effect Adrienne what's-her-face-that-sells-makeup&face-creams still has on me.

Digression is over. Then there is another reason why I so deeply connect with this tree. When I was little in Cuba, my dad and I would often sit together on the beach while he pounded on tropical almond seeds. They are very hard to open, the covering is really tough. But the treat was a sliver of tasty, bitter almond. He would eat one and I would eat the other, taking turns. This memory is one of the happy places I go to when I am stressed, disgusted, overworked, angry, sad, or just confused, which is quite often. And the smell or taste of almonds never fails to take me there. It is difficult for me to describe the warmth, happiness, just all-over peace and safety I feel when I go to this happy place.

I Hurt...Therefore I Blog

2010-04-09T14:05:00.003-04:00

Hurtful things:

1. My Zwinky (at left) is much cuter than me.
2. Learning in my fifties that hard work hardly ever translates into success or anything like it.
3. Whatever I think I should do, THAT will be the one thing I should NOT have done.
4. Needing a couple of Zinfandel Blancs back-to-back but it is 2:25 pm and I'm at the office (bummer).
5. Despite my tiptoeing around people's feelings/egos/self-righteousness, those same people go out of their way to step on mine.
6. And they feel they have every right to and how dare I get perturbed?
7. Or the fact that I'm a tiptoer bothers the hell out of them.
8. Or because I try hard not to lose my cool or be abusive or mean, I'm accused of being on my "high horse," whatever that is.
9. Seeing shameless self-promoters getting credit for things they did not do or for ideas they did not come up with...etc.
10. Hearing others mentioning how sweet/adorable/wonderful someone is whom you know is a verified, bona-fide bitch.
11. Not being sure when to use "who" and when to use "whom." Crap.
12. Where the heck is First Nations (aka "Paul")?
13. Having my IRS refund last all of two weeks.
14. After paying approximately $800 last year to get rid of the famous noise my car was making, it decided to develop the same noise again this week (and the IRS money is long gone).
15. People question my every decision, opinion, lifestyle, sense of humor, etc. but if I ever dare to question anyone's anything it is a huge drama.

Anyway, I really need those two White Zinfandels. I wish my blog friends a wonderful weekend!

Another Monday

2010-03-08T14:13:00.003-05:00

Seen on FB:

I got ice in my veins
Blood in my eyes
Hate in my heart
Love in my mind.
I seen nights full of pain,
Days of the same
You keep the sunshine
Save me the rain
I search but never find
Hurt but never cry
I work and forever try
But I’m cursed, so never mind. -

I know exactly how that feels. Bummer of a weekend. Came in like a lamb, went out like a lion. Sigh.

Me, years ago...More stream of consciousness stuff

2010-02-22T18:17:00.007-05:00

Warning: Please read this disclaimer carefully before you read the rest of this post. I use my blog, among other things, as therapy. If the material contained herein appears to be and/or is sappy, dramatic, stupid, disorganized, not worth reading, please do not say that you were not warned, because you were.

I was looking for something in my "hers" closet. I have "his" and "hers" closets and of course both of them are filled with my stuff because I don't have a live-in boyfriend or husband or anything of the sort. I first typed "I live alone" and realized that I don't, my mom and my sons are there (my sons at least some of the time) so I don't really live alone.

Return from digression: Anyhoo, looking for (insert object here), I came across my albums. For most of my married years I kept photo albums. Every trip, birthday, baptism, communion, holiday, school event, etc. was commemorated. I have something like 12 family albums and I hardly ever look through them because of a lot of reasons. After my father passed away unexpectedly and at a relatively young age, it hurt me to look at my albums and find his face there, smiling, with his beautiful almond eyes watching the photographer, always happy, always a part of everything in my life. Seeing his face reminded me very painfully of how much I missed him and still needed him. It still happens when I see his picture somewhere but the sharpness of the pain has subsided even though I never thought it would. Another reason for not looking at my albums is that after my divorce, it was depressing to see the nice pictures of our family life, which now did not exist, and so it became a bummer.

My wedding album: I had a lovely wedding back in the mid 80s. My then-fiance and I planned everything, paid for most of it (we were both 30), had every cousin and friend paticipate as bridesmaids or ushers, and it came out to be a nice and very enjoyable wedding. We even had a beautiful ice carving of two swans at the reception before the dinner (ok, you can laugh if you want, but ice carvings were way cool back then) and an open bar for the entire duration. But the main thing was that we were very much in love. I've been to weddings where the bride or the groom was crying the night before or that same day or looking for ways that they could have the wedding cancelled ("What if I disappear?"). I have also been to weddings where either the bride or groom (or both) shed tears at the ceremony, not tears of happiness, mind you, just tears because they were getting hitched and they really didn't want to. Still other weddings I have attended, either the bride or the groom had been out with the "other" love interest the night before... I'm sure you are getting my drift by now.

We were not like that, my groom and I. Not that I think we were any better than anyone else. We had huge fights before (and God knows, after) the wedding. We had our problems, our challenges, but we did love each other and were so happy to be getting married.

Everything I have written so far here is one digression after another, but that is how stream of consciousness works, baby! To get to the point quickly, which is really, really difficult for me, I had to pick up my wedding album to get to something else in the closet. The page opened up of a picture of me in my bridal finery standing with my dad in front of my mother's huge, beautiful gilded mirror in the living room of our house just before leaving for the ceremony. My father was holding my hand and we were both shyly smiling into the camera. I paused to look at my dad's beloved face and it was a sweet moment for me. As I said before, it took me a long time to be able to see his photo and not cry. This time, it made me feel good, thankful, appreciative, and content, for some reason.

Then I looked at the other person in the picture. I said previously that the other person was me, dressed in my bridal gown and veil, but I took a closer look. That was not me. I looked at that face and truly I could not recognize myself. This is a recurring theme with me. The person in this picture had a face that is not mine now. I'm not talking about the signs of aging, the wrinkles, the turkey neck, the saggy jowls, the liver spots. Ok, I'm exaggerating (a little) about how much I've aged, but my point is that what makes me not be that person anymore is the soul. The person in that picture believed in a future, was actively involved with her future was optimistic and believed in herself and in people, among them her family, her father, her fiance.

The "me" in the picture believed in loyalty, in the institution of marriage, in love and its infinite power. It was a part of my life where things were beginning, paths were being taken, directions being followed, futures were being determined. And yet, there was not a twinge of fear or dread in that person's face in the picture that used to be me. It was a time of fearlessness, of belief in prayers and hard work. Of sleeping the whole night through, the sleep of the innocent and the young. In that picture I had no qualms about promising my life "until death" to my fiance, I was so totally in love and convinced that our love would conquer everything, would make anything possible, would be eternal. It was as if my groom and I were on our flimsy little covered wagon of bliss, heading out into the uncharted and dangerous territory of mortages, pregnancies, babies, responsibilities, endless meals and bottles and bills, long nights spent changing sheets and wiping the chins of croupy kids, bitter arguments with mean grade school teachers, an infinite number of T-ball and soccer practices and karate lessons, countless boo-boos and real emergencies. But also, the sweet weight of a sleeping baby on my breast, the wonderful reconciliations with hubby after a particularly horrendous fight, the knowledge that that someone always had your back even though you couldn't have a civil conversation with him... Off we went into our frontier of adulthood, happily clueless and stupidly optimistic.

I am no longer that person. It's like that song "When I Was Young" in the sense that I feel more immature and less sure of myself nowadays.

On a lighter note: I was recalling the time about three years before I got divorced when we were packing up and moving to a larger house. My then-hubby and I were going through some boxes trying to throw stuff out. I pulled out one of those strip photographs you used to be able to get in malls where you went into a booth and had four poses and then you waited outside and the machine would spit out your pictures. It was my face on those pictures but I had pigtails and I NEVER wore pigtails. I turned to my then-hubby and asked him, "This is me, with pigtails? I don't remember when I had these pictures taken?" He got red in the face (it happened a lot in the last years of our marriage) and mumbled, "That's not you." I found out that it was his girlfriend who dumped him just before he met me. We had THE SAME FACE. So much so that I was convinced it was me in the picture. This set us off into a couple years of "Would you have married me if I didn't look exactly like your ex-girlfriend?"-type conversations. It was one of the last nails on the coffin. Took me a long time to be able to laugh about this.

Assorted Irritants and the Like

2010-01-28T14:20:00.008-05:00

I love you, I love you not: From FB, which is a blog-like instrument for those of us with impossibly short attention-spans not correctable with Ritalin or Adderall: A coworker commented a couple of weeks ago that she was very saddened by the fact that she had to get rid of her dog of seven years because her young granddaughter, who lives with her, was very allergic to dogs. She deposited the dog, her companion of seven years, at the local dog pound. She was severely depressed by this and cried at length on FB. Everyone of course sympathized, empathized and anything else that ends with "ized." We all left soothing and understanding comments. Switch to three days ago. She has a new profile picture holding up a cute, white, fuzzy little puppy with the comment "Meet my new puppy!" BTW, her granddaughter is still living with her but I guess she got over her allergies in the short time it took for the pound to put the older dog down and for her grandma to impulsively buy a new puppy and show it off on FB. Cute.

Kill the Suckah: One morning, while walking from the parking garage to my office, a snake ("A snake?" Yes, a snake.) crossed my path on the sidewalk. It was beautiful, gunmetal gray, shiny, smooth, obviously lost. I think it's called a graphite something-or-other and I once had one in my garage for a few days until it slithered out in the street and committed hara-kiri, which really saddened me. Anyway, I bent down to look at my present snake, marvelling at its beauty and grace. I didn't get too close because things in nature should be left the hell alone, not get tagged in order to preserve the species, not get handled in order for us humans to get a kick out of it because we are entitled to get a kick out of everything in the damn world, just left alone. A young woman happened by and looked down to see what I was looking at and screamed "What is it?" I turned to her and said "It's a beautiful snake." Her answer was "Kill it!" My answer was "Why would you kill something this beautiful? It's not poisonous and it eats mice and rats, populations that need to be controlled." The young lady raced away as fast as she could. Confirms my hypothesis that some people, probably a lot more than we suspect, would become Hitlers if given half a chance. And also that no one should be armed.

I'm 55?!?: The weekend before last, my boyfriend was picking me up to go to "Taste of the Grove" which basically can be translated as "Bring a lot of money, yo. You're going to be paying bowcoo (beaucoup, i know how to spell) bucks for two tiny glasses of white zinfandel and two tiny plates of food while you freeze your asses outside listening to several local bands perform covers of Midnight Confessions and Mony, Mony." We go every year and I have to confess I like the music and I like watching the same 50-something hippies and Vietnam vets boogieying (Sp? Help?) to the music and the food is ok and we get a little buzzed too. It helps. Digressing is my bag, yo. Anyway, my mom ,who is otherwise hard of hearing and to whom you have to repeat things to in increasing volume, sometimes almost screaming, must have heard me grab my purse from the other side of the door over the blaring TV show she was watching. She did what she usually does, she called me on the cell phone. I don't know if you all have noticed that we have become damn slaves to our stupid and inane cell phones. My son even calls me from his room which is ten feet away from mine to tell me to switch to this or that channel, or to check out what Tony Soprano is saying to his cumpas (Sp?). Anyway (again), I answered my cell and my mom asked me her eternal question, "Are you home?" And I answered my eternal answer,"Yes, but I'm leaving." To which she replied "You're leaving? Where are you going?" I just stared at the phone, my eyes wide in disbelief. I'm 55, I thought. Do I really have to give her an explanation? When I was young I remember my grandma asking MY MOM the same question and her answering "Don't ask me where I'm going, I have things to do" (in Spanish, of course). I just mumbled "I'll be back later." And she said "Ok."

After you. No, after you. No, I insist...: Yesterday morning I turned in to the parking garage at work and immediately noticed a middle-aged man trying to cross right in front of me. I am a considerate driver in South Florida. I say this because I am well-aware that there are not many like me in this area of our great nation. I let pedestrians cross, I never honk after a New York minute when the light turns green and the guy in front of me is clearly investigating the booger contents of his nose (which is his prerogative), I try to be aware of bicyclists because I do not want to clip anyone and have them get hurt, I try to be polite on the road.

Get to the point: I saw this man stop as he saw me pulling in the garage entrance. He was walking with a limp, but came to a halt when my car approached. I immediately stopped and waved for him to cross. Why did I do this? Because the place where I work is crawling with 18 year olds who zip in and out of the garage and in and out of parking spaces and turn right in front of cars that are six inches away from them, etc. I thought to myself: Let him cross so that, like the proverbial chicken in the fable, he can get to the other side.

The guy shook his head and waved ME through. I insisted because, if he was a visitor to our fine institution he may not know he was taking his life in his own hands, or worse yet in the hands of the young driving mercenaries populating our campus. I guess this gesture on my part made him angry because he yelled "Goddammit, go!" and flipped me the finger. I yelled back, "I was trying to be nice, A$%hole!" Nice start to the workday...

Can I show you my lingam? A very nice gentleman, a friend of my boyfriend (to whom I have referred on this blog repeatedly as Thing 2, but who will heretofore be referred to as "My Fiance" - Just kidding!) gave me a lingam stone from India. "What is that?" you may enquire, and I would answer: Lingam stones come from India. If you google them you get like three encyclopedias of information but basically they are elongated, kind of egg-shaped but long, very smooth, have at least two colors and are beautiful. My fiance's friend gave it to me because I like rocks and so does he and so we traded some rocks and his present to me was that lingam stone. They are supposed to bring people luck and have other curative and positive powers as well which I have not yet corroborated, or maybe I have and don't know it...things could be much , much worse, after all.

Down the hall from mine is the office of a geologist who is incredibly knowledgeable and a super-nice person with whom I have had some "rock" conversations. I brought my lingam with me and told him enthusiastically: "I want to show you my lingam! Is it true that lingam stones come from meteorites?" In his dry, British manner he said to me: "Before you go any further, I need to let you know that the word "lingam" is Sanskrit for "penis." I'm still laughing about it. I thanked him for stopping me and he went on to say that they are usually just river rocks and do not come from meteorites.

Items of Interest for the New Year!

2010-01-13T16:56:00.005-05:00

Have I really been away from my blog for so long? Why? Can it be that my life was (and is) so cluttered up with stuff and activity that I cannot tear myself away from it? Or is it that I am such an upstanding and responsible person that I must be task-oriented at each second of the damn day? Excuse me while I turn away and muffle a quick "Ha!" Who the heck have I turned into? What am I trying to prove and whatever for?

These are all questions that I will endeavor to answer in this first month of the year when traditionally procrastinators, dreamers, bloggers, overeaters, alcoholics, abusers of tobacco, and generally distracted, non-focused people believe that they can turn their lives around, or at least bring some order, control, thought, planning and organization into a train wreck of a life! I have to admit that I am Laughing Out Loud at that last sentence. How naive and bizarrely optimistic we are to think that just because one day (December 31st) turned into another (January 1st) all of a sudden we will magically be able to get a grip on all the pesky (and serious) things that we have not managed to control in the rest of the year. We will once and for all time reconcile our bank account. We will lose unwanted weight (This is how the ads put it, like if some weight is wanted). We will march over to Bally's and let them suck out $40 a month out of our as yet non-reconciled bank account every month for the privilege of standing in line waiting to sweat on their exercise machines for two weeks until we get discouraged or tired or lose interest and stop going. We will develop leadership skills that we never had (and still don't), or worse - that we think we always had - and get that promotion we have been after for years. We will also sprout balls and a backbone and ask for that promotion if it is not offered. We will paint the kitchen and fix the sink that has been leaking for the past six months. We will clean out the car and put our extensive and eclectic CD collection in alphabetical order. We will clean out all five junk drawers in assorted areas of the house and get rid of all that stuff, whatever it is because we have not looked into those junk drawers since we moved into the house eight years ago. We will manage our money wisely, making and taking our own latte to work every morning and actually put some money away in a savings account that we will not tap no matter how badly we need $20 to get a cheap bottle of wine and a pack of cigs. We will eat, smoke and drink less. We will buy two sets of ShamWow and the Shark Steamer and clean every crevice of our abode and be able to sleep at night knowing that we have done the utmost to wipe out the filthy and dreaded dust mites that invade every millimeter of space including our mattresses. We will control, we will manage, we will administer, we will organize, we will become masters of our domains. Sigh.

In my January mood, I am thinking deeply about what I did and didn't do last year. I'm 55 years old. I would like to think that my life is about things other than working overtime, studying and writing papers, washing, drying and folding loads of laundry, getting milk and bread at the store, mowing the lawn every other week (Yes, I mow my own lawn and trim it too), filling the tank with gas, paying bills, making sure the dog is fed and has water, maybe patting him on the head and wishing I could go for a walk with him, but I'm too busy... My life has to be about more than feeling guilty for not doing the things I have to do. You get my drift, no? I am seriously thinking hard about the question "What is my life?" I'm hoping it's not too late to actually develop some enjoyment skills. It seems that I have been trying to be Ms. Responsible/Workaholic/Stoic/You-Can-Always-Depend-On-Me person and I am kind of sick of it.

My first step in the direction of enjoying a little bit more of my life is that I am returning to the blogging universe. I will find 15 minutes of time (or steal it from my work schedule) to write something. I will also put my feet up on the hard drive and look up at the turkey vultures circling outside my window. I will talk about movies, books, Tiger Wood's personal life and whatever else is happening with my coworkers. I will go for a nice 40 minute jog at lunchtime because I enjoy it, not because I have to.

I have a friend who is my age who was telling me that her younger daughter had just left home. She said that her daughter would complain about everything, not help her with house chores, criticize her mother's boyfriend, etc while she was living there. My friend said that she would ask herself, "When will it be my turn to enjoy my life?" I totally get her. We are socially conditioned to be responsible and consequential and I agree that for the sake of our families, our job, our well-being, our stability, etc. that is a good thing to achieve. But we have to enjoy life now too, while we still have it to enjoy.

Thing One and Thing Two

2008-04-01T17:12:00.003-04:00

For those of you not totally sick of hearing me talk about my boyfriendic (or boyfriendal) situation, I have some news.

But before I go into my news item, I have to say that I find I enjoy reading blogs much more than posting them and to my great dismay (but also relief) I find that there truly are Masters of Blogging out there, so many of them. They are incredible and it just amazes me that so many people

1) Have much more interesting and profound things to post
2) Express their feelings, activities and what-have-you like 300 times better than I do
3) Understand things a whole lot better than I do
4) Post great pictures and diagrams (FN is the best for diagrams. Also for lengthy but totally necessary explanations)
5) Have cuter cats than I do
6) Are just better bloggers

No feelings of inadequacy here, just giving some credit where it's due. And also explaining my lack of posts since I spend far too much time reading other blogs and it leaves me very little time for writing. No criminal activity, right?

Anyhoo, BF1 is still playing his cute little game of calling me and insinuating that he is interested, even though he doesn't actually say so in so many words. He is still living with his girlfriend but bizarrely calls me or emails me every day. I patiently go along with his little game and in my mind I'm like "Whatever."

BF2, who had been lost (read: not calling) for three weeks, finally broke down and called me on Friday night. As many of you know, Friday night is Happy Hour night for me. Or Content Hour night for us old-timers for whom "Happy" may be way too much and risky to our health and wellbeing. Yes, people, he called me and was all pathetic and stuff, saying he missed me and did not want to lose me, etc. I am sure you're glad I'm sparing you all the details of this fascinating conversation. But for the hell of it, let me quote you some juicy parts:

BF2: Is my toothbrush still on your sink?

Me: (Stupidly) Yes.

BF2: I miss you and I don't want to lose you.

Me: I thought you had already lost me. It's been 3 weeks since I last saw you.

BF2: I'm sorry. (I have observed that BF's say this phrase when they have nothing else more intellectual or to-the-point).

Me: Have you been drinking?

BF2: Yes, I have.

At least he's honest about most things. And I am a sucker for apologetic guys who have been drinking and are all, well, "sorry."

So I told him we would talk about it the next day. The next day we sat outside on my porch and had a short but productive discussion which consisted of me telling him that the next time he bales out after a fight that I will never, so help me God, answer his calls and needless to say his toothbrush would be a goner. It also consisted of him nodding his head and looking sheepish. It worked, I gotta tell you.

Do any of you remember my post bemoaning the fact that men are incomprehensible and that they lack genetic material, etc? Well, I would have to say that I am also incomprehensible to myself, seeing as how he made me so mad but at the same time he is just irresistible with his little boy way of saying sorry and being so cute and sweet and stuff... I know, I'm pathetic too.

I have just one favor to ask you. Keep the comments civil.

Observed in Traffic

2008-03-19T12:29:00.002-04:00

Two observations:

1) Last Saturday I was picking up my mother from Weight Watchers. I was in her car, which has one of those handicapped stickers, because she is, well, handicapped. My mom walks with a walker and it takes her a long time to get from point A to point B. She was walking very slowly and I was in the car waiting for her to get in. A car drove up behind me and started honking. I took the handicapped sticker and waved it so the lady would see it, plus she could see my mother struggling to get to the car. The woman was mouthing stuff at me and kept honking her horn. I motioned for her to pass me since my mother was still not in the car. When she passed by me she flipped me the finger and I stared in disbelief at her. Then, after my mom settled in the car we left and caught up at the light with the woman who had flipped me off because my mom was not fast enough for her. On the back of the car was one of those stupid "Jesus is my Co-Pilot" bumper stickers! I don't believe that for one second.

2) This morning I was driving to work and a car came up beside me and cut me off to get in front of me at a red light. I was able to brake in time to not squash her rear bumper, shrugged and just wrote it off as another crazy woman quite possibly very late for work. As I waited at the light I saw that she had two articles hanging from her rear view mirror. One was a rosary with a huge cross. The second article was a set of handcuffs. Classy.

Just Download them Please

2008-03-17T17:46:00.001-04:00

Me (after giving my son a list of songs I want downloaded from the Internet): Please download these for me! Puleeeze?

My younger son: Who is this first guy "Moby." Isn't that "Moby Dick?"

Me: No in his case the "Dick" is silent.

Men...Can't Live Without 'Em...but I'm Going to Try...

2008-03-13T14:10:00.005-04:00

I'm being facetious (sp?) here but it's my blog so I'm allowed. I love men. My Dad was an exceptional person and the best father, my all-time favorite person and my soul-mate, may he rest in peace. I miss him every day of my life and will never, ever forget him or his sweet smile and tender ways. I got married to my ex-husband and he really is a nice man, a great father, wonderful provider, etc. Can't get along with him but maybe it's just me. I have two sons of the male species (I know that's redundant but I'm trying to make a point) and adore them as you all well know and are almost puking from my sappy mommy posts. Some of my best friends are men, as are some of my favorite bloggers. Even those I just visit and don't comment on because I don't understand them, you know who you are. So, you see, I am perfectly objective and impartial when it comes to this post's subject.

But, "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH MEN?" This is in quotation marks because it is an "important" question.

Scientific explanation: When I was taking Biology eons ago, we were shown a picture of the two X chromosomes women have and the XY chromosomes men have. Helloooooo, am I the only person in the world that notices that the Y chromosome is not really a Y chromosome (yes, repetitive, but I'm making a point)????? Men don't have an X and a Y chromosome, they have two X's but the second one is missing a leg, PEOPLE! This is evidence to the fact that women have considerably more genetic material than men. I am sure none of you will argue this point. This does not mean that women are perfect, indeed we are not and I have known many a woman that I would have happily strangled if I would have been able to get away with it.

My point is that men are "different." And by this I don't mean that they have genetic material unlike ours (which may also be true) but that they are MISSING genetic material. This missing genetic material is evident in the following examples:

Example 1: No man that I have ever known has ever been able to locate things in a pantry, refrigerator, closet, garage, cabinet, drawer or glove compartment. This, in spite of the fact that the thing they are looking for is sometimes right in front of their noses.

Example 2: Even a basketball star that can shoot a basket from way across the court cannot pee directly into the toilet right in front of him.

Example 3: They don't know how to ask directions.

Example 4: When they do something wrong, they do not say they are sorry. They instead head for the door and freedom, even though you just told them "If you leave don't bother coming back!" And that statement doesn't faze them because invariably they do come back, but they don't apologize, they just wear a cute pair of jeans with a nice white t-shirt, lots of cologne, and expect to be loved anyway.

Example 5: Although it's been well documented that they have opposable thumbs just like women, they are unable to do laundry, pick up after themselves, make beds, sort socks or fold towels correctly.

How do you 'splain that?

There are other examples but I won't go on and on.

The reason behind this rant:

Last weekend, things were going very well with BF2 (not to be confused with BF1, who despite being largely ignored, keeps calling). We had been invited to my friend's house for a barbecue. We were two couples, three single women (including my friend), and one single guy, all sitting around the table and enjoying our wine and dinner. My friend's friend is a tiny, skinny woman my age with a huge set of bazoongas. Needless to say, she gets a lot of masculine attention and I think she gets a kick out of this because it can't be a coincidence that the woman doesn't own even one turtleneck. All her tops are extremely low cut so that anyone who cares and even those who don't can get a panoramic and sweeping view of what looks like the Grand Canyon surrounded by Les Grandes Tetons, if you can picture that. If you can't, just fly to Miami, I'll make the necessary introductions.

Well, I've known Ms. DD for about six years and found her to be nice but kind of empty-headed, vain and insecure. My BF2 was sitting across from her at the table and we were all yapping about politics and I soon realized that he was talking only to HER. We were arguing about Hillary vs. Obama and such so we were all interacting, but BF2 was looking at Ms. DD and talking exclusively to her. She, of course, being the kind of person she is, was eating this up and asking him questions point-blank, like if he was a serious political analyst. I heard him answering her, "But, mi amor, everyone knows that Hillary blah blah blah..."

I think I am a secure woman. It did not faze me that he was not looking at me or in any way acknowledging my presence, even though I did make some of my own political observations, which he completely ignored. I have seen other men get "tharn" when looking at Ms. DD so I am used to this. But hearing him calling her "mi amor" like fifty times really ticked me off. To make an extremely long and possibly boring post (to you) a little shorter, he proceeded like this for the four and a half hours we were there. I could have sneaked away, taken off in my car and drove into the nearest canal and he would have been oblivious. Maybe he would even now be oblivious.

We left together, got in my car, drove home without saying word one, changed and went to bed. He was asleep 0.8 seconds after his head hit the pillow. I sat there in the dark with my eyes wide open. If it would have been a cartoon you would have seen only the whites of my eyes in the blackness (@@) for hours while dozens of logs were sawed on his side of the bed, until I finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I got up early and was making breakfast. He got up, dressed and came into the kitchen asking me "What the heck" was wrong that I wasn't talking to him! I sat him down and had an earnest conversation about why I felt uncomfortable with his behavior. I went on to say that I have seen all kinds of fabulously handsome and interesting men around while I've been with him but that I was not going to go overboard, tripping over my feet to talk to these men and lavish attention on them while I was with him, etc. I won't list all the stuff I said but I did maintain my cool and told him I didn't appreciate him calling another woman "mi amor" while he ignored me for hours.

He apparently did not appreciate me not appreciating all he had done and he took off. This was Sunday morning and I have not heard from him since. Please note that I am not broken up over this or suffering or anything like that. I've been a big girl for a long time and so whatever... But the older I get the less I understand things.

I don't mean to offend good men here, just the mediocre ones.

Something my Son Said

2008-03-03T14:06:00.002-05:00

Last night we were sitting outside on the front porch as we tend to do because we enjoy watching the traffic go by Also, our house faces east and we nightly watch the moon rise and dance around among the clouds and the palm fronds. There is a street light right across the street and we watch it too because it has its own mind and turns on when it damn well wants to and goes off when it wants to, too.

My boyfriend, my older son and I were sitting outside with our wine glasses after dinner, drinking what I like to call Zinfandel Blanc even though I believe the wine was bottled last week in California.

My son was telling us stories of his deployments. He doesn't always want to talk about his deployments, sometimes I've asked him a question and he just brushes me off. He wasn't in the mood to talk about those things. But last night he was talkative. His stories are always different and you can never tell if he's going to make you laugh or he's going to make you think "Oh God, I'm glad I didn't know what was happening over there."

He was telling us a story about when he was made platoon leader during his second deployment. He was picking who was going to do what in his platoon. And he said, "I immediately chose Smith because he was a senior Marine (meaning he had been in the Corps longer than the others) and he was still Lance Corporal. That could only mean that he wasn't an ass-kisser. So I chose him to be my right-hand man."

He's my son so I'm of course biased-and-beyond and adore and idolize him way more than is sensible. But in spite of being aware of my shortcomings as an objective observer, I felt so full of pride as I heard him say this. In two months he will be 23. At twenty-three he is smarter than most people I know. He is smarter than PhDs and people much older than he is by decades. He is way smarter than me and constellations smarter than I was at that age.

So we kept talking and laughing and sipping our wine outside while he told stories and my heart was just exploding in love and pride and awe at him.

Why Doesn't Fidel Just Die and Be Done With It?

2008-02-22T15:15:00.006-05:00

At the very real risk of not having other exiled Cubans speak to me for the rest of my life, including my mother and other members of my family, I have to admit several things about our recently retired "Comandante," Fidel.

The guy had balls: At least at first, he had a good game, wanted to bring social justice to the island (which is not a bad thing), wanted Cuba to be completely independent from the US (much more difficult than it sounds but again not a bad thing), wanted to shake the foundations of decades of corrupt governments (not a bad th-, ok you get my drift), etc. How many heads of state have thumbed their noses at the US and maintained their stranglehold on their country? For almost five decades? Not too many. I do believe he beat Franco, didn't he? How about Duvalier?

Fidel stayed the course through thick and thin, never swayed from his views or beliefs. He did drastically raise the literacy rate in Cuba which was dismal before Castro, to say the least. He did open scores of rural schools and gave everyone access to health care. But that's about it for the list of good things he achieved.

On the other hand, he took a bustling economy and drove it to the ground. He nationalized everything, and destroyed the concept of private property for Cubans. Keep in mind that there are huge foreign conglomerates that own hotels, stores, businesses in Cuba, but Cubans are not allowed to own anything. There are even beaches to which Cubans are not allowed because they are open to tourism. They probably don't want vacationing foreigners to be approached and harassed by ragged, tattered, native Cuban people who would probably beg for handouts or try to hook up with one of the vacationers as a ticket out of their misery. How can a Cuban person not be allowed onto a Cuban beach? That to me is just illogical and stupid. And sad.

He leveled all salaries and possibilities for the Cuban people. I already admitted in the first paragraph that some of the things he did were not totally negative, but as anyone knows, if people work without an incentive such as a salary increase, a bonus, a promotion, something to look forward to, they will stop caring about their work. It's just human nature. Working for a cause will work for a while but then people get hungry and don't have money to buy food, or their car breaks down and they cannot afford another one (notice I didn't say a new one). Or they became a neurosurgeon because they are really smart but make the same salary as the guy who makes bricks in a factory. This is what happened to the Cuban people and I don't blame them.

He improved health care in the sense that everyone in Cuba can walk into a clinic and get treatment. But, guess what? You can get diagnosed but there is no medicine available for the Cuban people. Foreigners come to Cuba to have treatments or surgeries because we have some of the best doctors in the world, and health care is cheap there. The Cuban government makes money off them. But there are no medicines for Cuban people. Frequently there are shortages of toothpaste or soap or detergent, which is inconceivable.

I could go on and on about the stupidities of Castro's government. One of the worst is that no one can run for office if they are not members of the Communist Party. You can also be a brainiac and have perfect grades all through your schooling, but if you or your parents don't belong to the CP, you will not become a brain surgeon, EVER.

When I was 19 and living in Argentina, my parents and I took a flight back to Miami for a little vacation. We were traveling in first class along with four or five attaches or whatever you call them from the Cuban Embassy in Buenos Aires. They were getting off in Mexico City. While we were getting frantic letters from our relatives in Cuba that they needed vitamins, eyeglasses, razor blades, blood pressure medication, etc, these Cuban men were decked out in very expensive suits with gorgeous calfskin boots and Rolex watches, traveling first class. It made us sick and I will never forget that experience.

So, in effect, Fidel, what you did was crap. Just go ahead and die already.

On a positive note (I feel much better now, thank you), look at the beautiful island that is my birthplace. A friend sent me this satellite picture and I have always treasured it.

File under "Illogical Crap"

2008-02-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

2007 was a tough year. Or should I say another tough year, since I've had tougher. But I got to thinking that maybe I should see what is delicately called a "counselor." Ok, people, we're talking about a therapist, a psychologist. someone who will listen, be objective, tell me that I worry too much or don't relax enough or that I need to give myself permission to send mean people to hell, that sort of thing. I don't like psychiatrists because I know that the first thing they will do is put me on Prozac or on a combination of Ritalin and Wellbutrin and ask me to smoke pot if I can find it. That would put me in the loony bin faster than I'm headed there on my own. I distrust the FDA when it comes to three things: Food, Drugs, and Administration. So the strongest thing I ever take is Extra-Strength Excedrin coupled with two cups of strong coffee. Does the work for me.

Oh yeah, I like Vick's VaporRub too, it works on asthma AND arthritis.

I asked around to see if anyone had any recommendations. I think that word-of-mouth is extremely important in making a decision of this kind. If I needed a surgeon, or a dentist, or a contractor, or a lawyer, the last thing I would do is to blindly pick one from the yellow pages. I have always been careful that way to get referrals, recommendations, etc before choosing any kind of professional or non-professional.

One of my friends suggested a practitioner in the pseudo-science of human behavior that she had frequented a few years back. My friend said that this practitioner, a female, had been an excellent therapist. She did not go for the lengthy "You lay on the couch blabbing and I will sit on the chair pretending to take note for eons until you come to some answers on your own" style of therapy. Instead, she asked a few questions and got to the point quickly, making recommendations and cutting to the quick. I thought to myself that this kind of psychologist would be a good thing, since I'm in my early fifties and don't want to be in my 90's before I attain psychological enlightenment. So I took her name and number and resolved to call to make an appointment.

But before I could call, the following happened: This recommended psychologist has a very uncommon last name and I asked one of my coworkers at the Thanksgiving Day Parade fame department store if she knew her since they shared the same last name. It turned out to be my coworker's sister! My coworker told me that her sister was indeed a brilliant psychologist, had her Ph.D. and had worked very hard to get her degree. And then my coworker went on to tell me that she (the psychologist) had had a lot of trouble in her life as well. First, she had gotten married about 15 years ago to her sweetheart of many years. After 5 years of marriage she caught her sweetheart, now her husband, in their bed with another guy. OK...Then she had divorced this person but they had remained good friends. A few years later she met another gentleman, dated for a couple of years, then married him and had two kids. Just recently, they had divorced because she (the psychologist) had discovered that her husband had a parallel family (wife and two kids) who lived about ten blocks away. OK...

I ask you: Would it be a good idea to put my convoluted little life in this person's hands? Would you not expect someone who is going to help you unravel issues in your life to be, well, um, more aware of stuff in her own life? More, I don't know, help me here, "normal?" Or maybe this stuff happens to everyone but what she would be helping me with would be more coping skills for dealing with stuff like this in my life? Well, yeah, I guess she would be great in that sense.

Friday Yet Again

2008-02-08T12:01:00.001-05:00

Loyal readers, I thought you would all (all three of you) get a kick out of this picture. It is part of my face under the influence of three "Blanc Zinfandels." I plan to look like this again by 8 pm tonight. Luckily, I only drink to get buzzed, not drunk or anything like that. I think I was 18 or so when I figured that drinking till you pass out or puke your guts out is not really that much fun but to my amazement there are people my age (and older, alas) that have still not gotten to that advanced level of knowledge. But that is not what this post is about, this is just a rambling preamble.

So why was I gone all this time? I was gone because I only can blog at work. I have a computer at home that has so many viruses, and is so old and obsolete, that I can actually hear it sneezing and wheezing every now and then, so I can't blog there. My office has become, to my dismay, very busy and I have become (also to my dismay) very productive and hands on. Those days of sweet irresponsibility are gone because nowadays I have to work darn hard to get all my stuff done. Sigh. That is the price of success. Allow me to snicker self-deprecatingly at that last statement, but it sounded good.

Also, I need to keep this job in order to continue paying my rent and the long list of creditors that are lined up every month to get their share of my blood, sweat and tears. So if I get caught blogging, my throat would be slashed in a millisecond. Unless they liked my writing (said in a little, hopeful voice). This last thing is a very strong factor in my current blogging status.

So just lately I have found a little time off from my busy workday to come in and try to blog. The following is a weird analogy but blogging is a little like certain bodily functions on which I will not expound but let me just say that some days the words just flow and I type out paragraph after paragraph of what seems to me to be witty and insightful commentary but is probably just a whole buncha blabber. Other days, I have "writer's block" (as if I were anywhere near being a writer, but give me a little leeway here - no laughing), and I'm lucky if I squeeze out a paragraph or two of awkward and disorganized thoughts.

Do any of you go back and read your posts and think "Did I write that? What meds was I on that day?" or is it just me?

But be assured that I think of all of you and miss reading your posts. When I have a little time I will catch up on everything that has happened lo these long months of absence.

State of the Union

My two sons are fine, they are both in school and doing well. Several girlfriends have come and gone like unimportant chapters in a novel. Several incidents have also occurred then vanished into thin air. Luckily.

I have been just living my life and trying to make it better (sounds like a Stevie Wonder song). I am in a boyfriendful state right now with the boyfriend I met after my former boyfriend dumped me last year.

Bittersweetly, my old boyfriend tried to patch things up with me a few months ago and even took me to lunch and told me he missed "those days when we were together."

Then I asked him, "But don't you have a girlfriend? My friends have seen you with her."

To which he replied, "I can't lie to you. Yes, I do have a girlfriend and we moved in together last week." HUH?

So I said (keep up with this, it will eventually get interesting), "Wait, you are trying to get back to me when you just moved in with your girlfriend last week?" I thought I hadn't heard well, but my hearing is tip-top.

His reply was (and I kid you not) "I will be out of this relationship in two months time." Not only will I never, ever go back with this guy but I wouldn't even buy a used car from him.

Well, mes amis, I will leave you now and get back to so-called work for a while. I'm still here, and I'm well. Talk to you soon. My love and good wishes to all of you, and you know who you are...

Friday Once More

2007-10-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

Anyone who knows me knows that my weekend really starts on Wednesday afternoon sometime after lunch. After that hour, yes I'll be on the clock till five and I'll be in on Thursday and Friday, but in real terms, production for the week has stopped and will resume sometime near lunchtime on Monday morning or after three cups of coffee, whichever comes first.

I'm sure I hear some of you groaning, probably those of you who supervise other people in offices and have to crack the whip every now and then to get stuff done. Oh, but that is not my case. If I was forced to autodiagnose my psychiatric shortcomings, I would say that I am definitely bi-polar. I find "schizophrenic" too strong a term so I use bi-polar. I am very low energy in the mornings, to the point where most of my good and bad China has been broken then, and every day I have to wipe enormous spills of coffee grinds, or orange juice, or I have to pick stuff off the butter on the toast after it goes butter-side down on the floor. That is one thing someone should research, the reason why anything buttered will hit the floor butter-side down, never, EVER the other way. But it's ok, I apply the five-second rule very strictly. The other occupants of my home are awakened (awoken?) from a deep sleep every dawn (dawn for me is 7:15 am) by the sweet clang of dropped kitchen utensils or the deafening crash of plates or cups on the tile floor. What the hey, they get fresh coffee and something to dunk in it, don't they?

Most of the time, I don't remember the ride to work, I guess I'm on auto-pilot, but this seems to work pretty well since I have an excellent driving record, mostly because I give the car in front of me a lot of distance just in case they are assholes or, like me, they are on auto-pilot too, which most of them are, judging from their driving skills or lack thereof.

By lunchtime, or after three cups of coffee, I am my usual productive self. As a model of bipolarity, I get a lot of stuff done after the coffee kicks in and usually I do several things at the same time and my to-do list gets greatly reduced after these bouts of manic activity. I realize I drive people insane during my crazy spurts of energy. If I have to call someone to get an answer, I will call repeatedly until I get the info I need. I'm nothing if not persevering and a pain in the butt while in this mode.

Not at all weirdly, I do not get the after-lunch sleepiness that everyone around me seems to get, especially after a high-carbohydrate lunch. I stay wired, and when I get home, even after working my part-time job several nights a week at the Thanksgiving Day Parade store, I need to sit on my porch and unwind for like 20 minutes before I shower and plop on the bed to watch whatever is on the tube (the boob one) or to read any one of a number of books that I have been simultaneously reading (but not finishing) for the past few months.

That being said, and it being 4:39 pm in my part of the world, a part where there are giant "palmetto bug" cockroaches and 758 different kinds of palm trees, not to mention turkey vultures nesting in the high-rise windows of swanky law offices downtown (which I think is the coolest thing), I am going to start preparing for Content Hour and for this glorious weekend, with my hunky boyfriend and my two sons at home. Life is good!

Soon I will be a millionaire

2007-10-09T12:45:00.000-04:00

Two very important emails have managed to get through my place of employment's considerable Junk Mail Filter and have made it to my Inbox.
One is from a Nigerian gentleman who assures me that he is holding the tidy little sum of $5 million dollars and all he requires from me is that I tell him where to send me the money, which he is giving me because of my "past cooperation." It is kind of cute that his email starts with "Compliment" instead of Dear Ms. Carmenzta or Good morning. What do you respond to that? "Compliment Back, Yo"?
The other is from a lawyer in Spain who has informed me that he would like to wire me an inheritance of $3 million left to me by an unknown yet very generous relative.
You may be dealing with a millionairess here, people! I decided that once I received these monies, I would go online and order each and every item on the Bombay catalog, and if they have different colors, one in each color. I would also go to the store currently promoting all the Martha Stewart items and order one of each color, all items, kitchen, bed, bath, and whatever else they have. Personally I think Martha is a major Ice Queen and I don't feel at all close to her (and probably neither does her actual family) but I like the stuff she sells. What the hey, sue me.
With all the remaining money, I would:
1) Pay off my mortgage, that way I am ensured possession of one junky house. I don't want to move because I have a phobia about moving. All my loyal readers may not be aware that in my childhood years, moving was a way of life. We never stayed long anywhere, and sometimes we would start in a new elementary school just to be pulled out of it six months down the line. By "we" I mean my sister and me. At the time I was not aware of suffering much (other than I had no friends and that I was the weird new kid everywhere) but as I got older it just seemed to impact me worse and worse. I guess you could call it a slo-mo psychological reaction to stimuli, or something like that, it sounded good.
2) Spruce up my car. Again, I don't want a brand new car because I am attached to my cute 2001 Cherokee and it's very comfortable. I would paint it, put swell new seat covers on it, take it to get detailed and polished and whatever else they could talk me into. New tires too. Ones with actual TREADS.
3) Buy my poor relatives an apartment or a townhouse. This is just to appease them and keep them away from me. "Hey, I bought you a home, now you stay the hell away from me!"
4) Give a lot of money to a) St Jude Hospital and b) Disabled American Veterans. Even back when I was penniless I was always a sucker for those two charities. And I always will be.
5) Give my two sons and my niece equal sums of money so they could do whatever they wanted with it, even though I would counsel them to buy real estate with it instead of ordering one of each item from stores such as Bombay and whoever sells Martha Stewart stuff.
6) Put the rest in savings accounts, $100,000 in each because that's what the FDIC insures. Yep, you heard me right. I don't want to hand my money over to any company that would "work it" so that I would get more interest or more whatnot. I like the sure shot. I don't want my money to be in any risk whatsoever and financial managers need to get their cotton-picking hands off my money! All they want is to make money off it themselves. No way, you savage money-hungry vultures from hell!
7) I would keep working but take lots of vacation and kind of abuse the fact that I don't NEED the job, it would be fun. I had a wonderful co-worker who retired this year whom I love very much. We still keep in touch by email and phone. One day we were talking about this very subject, what we would do if we won the lotto. Without thinking, I said I would tell everyone in my office to go screw themselves and they would never see me again. She, being much more worldly-wise and intelligent, said that au contraire, she would stay around as long as she could and she would torture her mean co-workers until she got bored with it. Then she would quit and go hold crack babies in a hospital or something. I love that woman, she is the bomb.
Anyway, as soon as I get the money I will honor requests from my loyal readership. Just get in line and keep the line straight.

Firefox, Where Have You Been All My Life?

2007-10-04T17:14:00.000-04:00

Firefox is absolutely wonderful! I can actually post on my blog, edit my posts, log in (LOG IN!!!) and everything actually works! I love this. Where has Firefox been all my life?

This is going to be a quick little post because it's 5:15pm and I have to leave one job to go to the next. Yes, people, I am working tonight and so it will be 10:30pm before I make it home and like 12 midnight before I hit the bed and remote control (these last two things usually happen simultaneously). But I just wanted to come in and post a little post, because, after all, I just CAN do it, thanks to Firefox.

::::singing a happy little song::::

More Fun Stuff, Continued

2007-09-25T14:16:00.000-04:00

I am proud of the fact that I was able to log in to my own blog two days in a row! NOW I'm ready to conquer the world...

Thank you to Vicus for his brilliant assessment of my life in his comment to yesterday's post. To say that my sons are accident prone is a gross understatement. At the ER they know them and me by name and my sons in turn know all the doctors and the staff, nuff said.

So what else is new?

I am boyfriendful
Yes people, I have been dating a certain gentleman whom I met just as my last so-called boyfriend dumped me. The one that was sweet to me and was a great dancer. I feel really lucky because my new BF is such a sweet, funny, nice, cute guy and so far we have gotten along great! Yes, ok, that's how it started with the last guy too, but I'm crossing my fingers that this will be a good relationship for both of us. I'm done thinking in long-term terms, I'm done trying to see or plan ahead (not that I ever really shone at this). But really, what is life except a long chain of hours at work interspersed (is that a word?) with some Happy Hours and maybe a party, or a good movie or a nice dinner. That's all it really is. Plus hours spent giving birth, worrying about loved ones, cooking, and oh yeah, cleaning, washing, folding clothes, etc.

The FLU
Last Monday, after coming home from the ER with my staple-headed son, I proceeded to make Marinara sauce to have with some Angel Hair for supper. After doing dishes for like two hours afterwards (for some reason cooking generates a heck of a lot of dishes) I was finally able to take a shower and drop into bed. Well, from one second to the next I started sneezing and my throat started aching and I got one of the worst flus (flues?) I have ever had. I even got fever and chills as well as pain all over my body, even my eyelashes hurt. I spent Tuesday through Thursday curled up in the fetal position, shivering and looking sideways at Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil episodes while sucking on Vitamin C lozenges. Needless to say, I felt like stabbing myself with the remote control but it was way too dull to do me any real damage. I don't know whether it was the flu or the deficient level of television viewing that led to some deep, philosophical thoughts. What is this world coming to? People actually fight barefoot over toothless 300 pound boyfriends/girlfriends? Women actually bare their breasts to obtain cheap necklaces made from colored plastic beads? Some couples have no idea who their baby's father is? I, too, can make a better living and some cute friends by studying massage therapy at one of those unaccredited colleges? Do I really want to get over this flu to go back into that world?
Luckily, by Thursday night I was able to get up from the bed for more than five minutes and I'm still recovering from this thing that has taken over my upper and lower respiratory tracts. I wouldn't wish this thing even on my ex-boyfriend.

Car Repair Thing
My new boyfriend has a good friend who's a mechanic. It should be a rule that all boyfriends have a friend like this. This guy is (finally) going to fix my car's air conditioner and do away with the mystery noise that has been plaguing me since the beginning of the year. I'm kind of relieved that I'm finally getting this done because all the times I went to the mechanic I knew and frequented in the past was like a circus, or a Fellini movie even. If I were a mechanic and someone brought me their car with a noise and I could not for the life of me figure out what was making that noise, I would march right out into the waiting area with my nifty clipboard and tell that customer that we could not find the reason for the noise. Did my former mechanic do this? Noooooooo, he didn't. He proceeded to change my front shocks, balance my tires, flush and replace the transmission something-or-other, all at great cost to me, with the results that I would drive out of the place hearing the gosh-darned noise. The last time I went back to them after they "fixed" my car, the mechanic drove with me, heard the noise and said,"Ok, I know what that noise is!" I went back to sit in front of the TV in the waiting area and finish the crossword puzzle someone else had started. When he was done, he called me into the shop and I shook my head in disbelief when I saw him. He was holding up this big-ass (ok, I'm done with gosh-darn) axle or something like that and said, "The noise is gone!" To which I replied "So what is that part you are holding up?" To which HE replied, "This is what makes your car a 4-wheel drive, I removed it and it no longer makes that noise." To which I said, "I wanted a 4-wheel drive vehicle, that's why I have one. Please put the part back on the car before I sue the shop." To which he just turned his back on me and got to work putting the part back in. The car still had the noise. I think he should study massage therapy and give up on trying to impersonate a real mechanic.

I have to get some work done around here to earn my pay. Sigh. More updates if I can log in tomorrow.

Dios Mio, Man!

2007-09-24T13:49:00.001-04:00

I'm sure you have all been wondering where I was... I was right here, I swear. Most likely you will not believe me when I tell you that I have been trying to log in to my own darn blog for three months! But you would be wrong not to believe me because it's true. This from a woman who sometimes believes herself to be the next dictator of the world. Anyway, I would have had my own IT department to deal with these things.

Being "IT-challenged" I tried a bunch of things to try to log in to my blog. Nothing worked. I emptied my cookies, I lowered my privacy setting, etc. to no avail. Finally, I came upon Firefox and downloaded it and voila as they say in one of those EU countries, it worked!

So now I'm back. I missed being here and I missed all my blog buddies. Thank you to all of you who faithfully checked in every now and then and left me beautiful, heartfelt messages such as, and I quote, "??????????" (from Ziggi), "Mars to Florida" (from WW), "Yoo-hoo" (Cherrypie), and others.

Updates on Weirdnesses and the Like

The kids: My boys are doing great. Let's start with the oldest: During a training exercise with live ammo, a ricochet bullet hit him in the forearm. His dad told me two days after it happened because as he said "Your son didn't want you to worry." Well, any father knows that a mother should be informed immediately of anything happening to one of her offspring. Being a mother supercedes any other wish of anybody else in the world to not let her know what is going on. I see it this way. After several hours spent calling my son who was hurt on the other side of the continental USA and not being able to reach him, I enlisted the help of one of my Marine Mom friends. Finally, a half hour later my son called me and said "Mom, I'm ok, I just had surgery and they removed the bullet from my arm. Quit calling everybody, my sergeant came in and told me to call you!" I thought that was kind of cute! Anyway, the bullet spared bone and tendons and just lodged in the meat in his forearm and he's fine now.

Big Breath.

My younger son has had another scrape with the law. I don't want to write about it here but it was a silly thing he did (just like the last time) and he ended up being arrested and had to be bailed out. His dad (bless his soul after all) hired a lawyer and hopefully the case will be dismissed (please pray for him). Then, last Monday while at work I get a call and it is my son telling me that he fainted in the college cafeteria and that he had hit his head on the tile floor and he was bleeding from the back of his head. After screaming at all my coworkers that I was leaving b/c my son had fainted ("He what??") and had hurt himself, I ran the four blocks to the cafeteria on heels in like two minutes. Rescue had already gotten there and had hooked him up to those machines and my son's pulse was dipping very low so they took him to the ER. If I wasn't so worried about my son, I would have enjoyed the ride in the ambulance RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRIVER!!! Long story just a bit shorter, they said it was a vasovagal syncope which translated means "What the hell, do you think we know every little thing that people have???" But all his bloodwork came back fine and so did the CAT scan. I'm leaving early to take him to the ER again this afternoon to have the four staples removed from the back of his head. Sigh.

I will update more tomorrow, gotta go see to the staples!

Can't keep a good girl down

2007-05-17T10:53:00.000-04:00

I am freshly back to the office after a very productive therapy session (cum ciggie) with my co-worker, twin soul-sistah S. Like every other human being on Earth, I have the capacity to suffer for a while, my stomach twisted into a knot, suffering nightmares every night, brain fried from asking myself "What did I do wrong?" or worse, "What could I have done differently?" I have tortured myself (and my loyal readers) for a few weeks now regarding the BF thing. But today it's a beautiful day out there... Really baby blue skies, with a few cotton-candy clouds, turkey vultures not anywhere in sight, the sun shining like a benevolent parent, a slight sea-smelling breeze blowing.

So, my point: Why keep suffering? Things will either be or not. People will either love you or not, or even hate you. You can't force people to want to be with you but neither can they impose their will on you. Life goes on, and really this is not going to continue being a problem for me. I won't let it. I have come to my limit of useless suffering and self-torture.

Yesterday, feeling very weak, unwanted and insignificant, I called my so-called BF twice. Once at around dinner time and then again at bedtime. During both calls he was very cordial and polite and subtly indicated to me that there was no interest on his part other than to have small talk. So, I gave up, I threw in the towel. He has my number and he has fingers to dial it if he so desires. But I cannot wait until he decides to call, because I am 52 for one more week and I need to have fun and live my life, just like anyone else.

I have been a good GF. I have loved him, really loved him. Helped him in any way I could, tried to be with him in good and in bad, gave him the benefit of the doubt always, stuck up for him, I did my best. I can at least feel a bit of pride in that. Then I can just go on. Breaking my usual routine, I will go to Happy Hour tonight with my sister and my friends and I know we will have fun. Good, clean fun.

Enjoy your day in your part of the world. Make sure you look at every little bird and every little flower and leaf and tree and cloud. Your problems will always be there (or may go away if you're lucky) but the beauty around us is our compensation for all the crap we have to go through. And it really does compensate!

"Tenemos" BF

2007-05-15T11:08:00.000-04:00

For all of you who are just fed up with my going on and on about the BF thing, you can just click on the "X" on the upper right-hand side. Do it right now. For the rest of you that, like me, love to analyze everything from every conceivable angle and then discuss other angles not conceived with everyone around them until you puke, please read on...

On Friday we went to happy hour as is our custom. We had a nice enough time. I danced for hours with this very sweet guy who can really dance and who is very into me but since I had my ex-BF thing unresolved, I would not have encouraged in any way.

At 10:45 pm we left, Friday had been a long day and we are getting up in years so those late nights are a thing of the past unless we have a nap sometime during the day. Yikes, I never thought I would say that, but that's life. As I was driving home, my cell phone rings and who should it be but my BF. For two very long seconds I stared at the phone and considered not answering. Then I answered it. I was hoping I didn't sound breathless, but I probably did. He was as smooth as a newborn baby's behind, and just asked how I was in that velvety voice. I said, cautiously, that I was fine. He said he wanted to wish me a Happy Mother's Day (On Friday night?) and asked if I was at Juancho's because he was headed that way. I told him I was on my way home... Anyway to make a long story short, I made up with him. I have feelings for this man, he is perfect except for his inability to talk about feelings or emotions. Is that such a bad thing? I didn't feel that it was on Friday night. And for a few hours (until Saturday morning) everything was "La Vie en Rose."

However, several things happened afterwards:

1) Saturday night he had a family party to attend. I was not invited and no mention was made of the fact that he was going by himself. He did call me at 10:30 pm to tell me he was headed home.

2) Sunday (Mother's Day) we had dinner at my house and I asked him if he wanted to come over and he said "Maybe." He didn't come over and he had dinner at his sister's, of which I was not part.

3) He asked me to go to his place on Sunday night and I did and he proceeded to talk about a vacation we were planning to take together before the split as "When I go to Timbuktu," not as "When we go to Timbuktu." So I guess I'll get to know Timbuktu on my own.

At the risk of alienating even those of you who are following this closely (Is anyone interested?), I will just say that I don't believe there is much future in this thing. I stopped calling it a relationship because it really isn't one.

So there it is: I have a BF but I don't think I REALLY, REALLY have one. Capish? If any of you would like to leave condolences, you may do so in the Comments section. Sigh.

Would you buy a car from this woman?

2007-05-09T13:47:00.000-04:00

My DL: I'm not selling any cars and I'm NOT an axe murderess, that I can tell you, but actually this DL picture was a huge improvement to the last one. My previous DL pic had a photo defect (it was too a defect) that made it seem like green slime was trickling out of the side of my mouth. So when I saw this one I heaved a big sigh of relief because even though I have the same look on my face that Lorena Bobbitt had on hers just before she did the famous deed, it's a lot better than the Transylvanian DL I had to show for many years. Oh yeah, and this picture was taken when I still blow-dried my hair in the morning. I haven't done that for years. I stopped caring if people didn't like frizzy hair.

So Kindness, what do you think, you thought your picture was awful? And if you stare at this picture and move around the room, my gaze will actually follow you. Very, very creepy.

Fence-sitting on the BF thing: I have come to realize that I have two types of friends. One category of friends believes that I am being pig-headed and stubborn (I tend to agree more with this type of friend) about the BF issue and that I am going to lose a good man with whom I was compatible for two years just because I am too proud to call him and try to talk things out. My second category of friends advises me that they will all stop talking to me if I call him because if I do I will be very simply allowing him to "punish" me further by being mean and unavailable if I do call him. And further, that if he had any interest in calling me he would have done so.

Oh wait! I forgot to mention that last Friday I saw my ex-boyfriend at Casa Juancho. He came in all casual and shit, my sister and I said hello and we exchanged some cold pleasantries with him and then he proceeded to stand behind me while I sat at the bar for an hour while he drank his drink. It kind of looked like this picture, which I found on Adam's blog:

For clarity's sake, I'm the gray cat sitting at the bar and he's the black & white cat behind me. Yes, we looked at each other like that. When he finished his drink he left and I went outside but he had gone. Then I did the stupidest thing which I had sworn to myself I wouldn't do: I called him. He answered with an acid and annoyed "HELLO?" and I asked him, "I just want to know if you have any interest in talking about this thing." To which he answered, "I already talked to you." So, dejectedly, I thanked him and hung up. There has been nothing from him since. I guess I can assume that he has no interest in our relationship. Right? Please feel free to go to the comments section and cast your vote. Thank you.

Mother's Day: To all you wonderful moms out there, I hope you have a great Mother's Day and that you get some nice, significant gifts, as you well deserve. I hope you get the perfume that you like, or the purse you've been saving for or a yummy and expensive brunch, with Mariachis playing in the background and two or three Mimosas parked right in front of your plate with a nice nap afterwards... You all deserve the very best on this day! My love to all of you.

I would love to stick around and continue talking about important subjects but I have to touch up make-up and nails before I head out to "Content Hour" (we ARE all in our fifties). Toodle-ooo!

Stuff

2007-05-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

TGIF. Another Friday arrives and another week gone. The predictable and reassuring cycle of the work week continues, and even though we are like the cute little hamsters at their wheels, we are blissfully not aware of it on Friday and actually look forward to enjoying the weekend, which is the establishment's way of letting us think that we actually have "lives." Uh huh. Thanks?

Some items are outlined below (meaning: I cannot focus enough at the present time to post on any one subject):

School is very important: During the time that I was away, supposedly in the witness protection program, I took a class at the educational institution at which I am employed full-time (because I am also employed part-time). I have to say that I enjoyed the class, even though my classmates could have all been my grandchildren. I also have to say that I did learn some things in the class and that it was interesting and useful. Eventually, according to my master plan, I will amass 36 graduate credits and then I will have a master's degree. Do I really desire this? No. Can I keep on getting promoted without it? Again, no. Thus, my efforts in this direction. I will probably be at retirement age by the time I finish, but I'm pigheaded that way. I am very proud to say that I got an "A" in the class. I have never really focused much on grades but I find that to get a good grade a person just has to be very clear on what the instructor wants and then just give it to them. So if the syllabus of a class spells out that the margins on your paper are supposed to be an inch all around, just do it that way. Instructors, via their huge and uncontrollable egos, get upset if their tiniest instructions are not followed. So, I learned early on to just make sure I got all the details of the assignments, attended all the classes (I always went to school even sick), and really listened to all the lectures. Simple really, a chimp could do it. Or a Republican.

Boyfriendlessness: Yeah, the guy hasn't called me and I am not going to call him either. Pigheaded, I said. I had a weak moment on Wednesday morning. I woke up thinking, "What am I doing? Why can't I just be done with this and call him and find out WTF happened?" I came in to work all resolved and shit to call him and behave like a normal person. Then, my friend and co-worker, S, who is by the way my emotional and spiritual twin (that's another post), said to me, "DO NOT CALL THAT MOFO." And went on to ask me why I had even considered calling him. I sheepishly said in a whiny little voice, "Well, that way I will know why he is acting like this." I blinked a couple of times while she inhaled, I knew something was coming. It was. She said, "You don't know why he's acting like this? Because he doesn't give a crap about you. There. You have your answer. If you call him you put yourself in the situation where he's going to have to spell out the fact to you that you are not important to him. Then you'll feel stupid and dumped. Don't do it." God bless my friend and coworker, S. She woke me up from the stupid little dream I was dreaming that morning. Can you imagine if I did drugs? Too much confusion as it is. She is totally right. She is also correct about another thing, every day it gets a little bit better. I am getting used to the singleness again. I am feeling better and no longer am I spending every single moment wondering why and asking myself what I did wrong. S is a good friend. And so is my sister who has listened to me go on and on about this situation and analyze it from every angle and has thoughtfully and lovingly provided intelligent imput. I am blessed with great people in my life, with the exception of my ex-boyfriend.

53: Is it possible that I will soon be three years older than a half century? Yes, it is possible and it's sad what 53 looks like! Pathetic is a better word. Anyway, I'm here and it does not hurt to breathe so I'm lucky. I have another very dear friend and coworker whom I love very much, G, who recently overcame colon cancer and is now recovering. He is a very intelligent and warm person, took care of his mother years ago when she was sick and nearly went bankrupt because he stopped working to nurse her. Now he's sick and he has no one to help him. He comes and sits in my "confessional" (my office is very small) once or twice a week, we chew the fat and sometimes I trim his eyebrows. He said to me a couple of weeks ago that he doesn't want to die or anything but that if he does he feels he has lived a wonderful life and would be prepared to go. How many people see things this way? I admire his courage and his outlook and I want to be just like him.

Happy Hour: The world does not end just because one solitary man refused to walk me to my car on a dark and scary night, so I'm off to Casa Juancho later for my one night a week of drinks, dancing and fun. I did my nails last night and washed hair this morning, so I'm presentable and I have a cute little outfit (ok it's not little) with cute sandals to wear, which I will be changing into in about an hour and a half.

To all: have a nice weekend and I'll be checking your blogs first thing on Monday. It's on my calendar. And hey! Hey!!! Be careful out there!

Back from the Witness Protection Program

2007-04-26T12:35:00.000-04:00

Yes, my loyal readers, I am finally back. Where have I been? Well, not to Western Idaho even though I would have liked to have stayed there for a while. But like they say, when you travel to get away from your problems, you just take them with you and they don't even help you out with the luggage.

Not that I'm drowning in problems, but I've had to deal with some adjustments. First of all, I am recently boyfriendless. This was a complete shock to me, as I guess it is to anyone who suddenly aquires this status. We were two peas in a pod, two pigs in a blanket, twin souls, two aging teenagers having fun and enjoying life. I really thought our relationship was going well. Since I have a job and a half, I didn't see him much during the week but we spent all weekends together. We ate out, we took little trips, we went to happy hour, we putzed around. I did his laundry, I helped him paint his place in the Keys, I helped him put up new blinds in his place, I cleaned his house, I cleaned his trailer, I ... OK you get the picture. We were happy and I was my usual, over-enthusiastic, stupid self.

Then, one Friday night we went to happy hour at the usual place. We had a wonderful time, we drank, we ate, we danced and caught up with all our friends. We left early, because we were going to drive to the keys for the weekend. I was the designated driver so I only had one drink, he had maybe three. We were crossing the street to our respective cars, holding hands, then he suddenly let go of my hand and said "I'll see you at the house." I asked him, "Aren't you going to walk me to my car?" (and I want to stress that I said this in a sweet, un-whiny voice) He answered, slightly pissed off, "I'll SEE YOU AT THE HOUSE."

I walked myself to my car, got in the car and just sat there. Then I called him on his cell and told him he would not see me at the house because I was going home. He hung up on me.

This happened two weeks ago. He never called me again. I have not called him, nor will I. I figure that if you can't walk me to my car on a dark street in Little Havana, forget you. It would be nice to someday have a relationship with a guy that didn't go weird out of the blue. Someday.

Second, after having been promoted to Ass. Director, my work environment has gotten very hectic and uncool. Since I came back from my son's homecoming, I've been buried under piles of work, supervisory functions, meaningless and endless meetings and similar crap. I think my supervisor thought that if I was promoted then I could be given all the tasks no one else wanted to do and he is one clever guy. Needless to say, I no longer have limitless hours of office time to devote to gazing out the window at the turkey vultures (yes, turkey vultures) flying by, or blogging, or IMming, or talking at the office cooler, etc. I miss all those things, but when I finally have the two trainees fully trained and duly functioning, I will unload on them some of the garbage that was unloaded on me. It goes by the term of "delegation" and is actually considered to be a positive thing. Ahhh, Management! (Putting my feet up on the hard drive as I write) Soon I should have a little more of my old fun time back.

My sons:

My Marine is in California training other Marines that will eventually be deployed to Iraq. He will be home, really home, in September and he will go back to college. He is adorable. He is also girlfriendless as his girl disappeared from his life and our home as soon as he was on his way back. Funny, I didn't cry when my boyfriend and I split up, but I cried when my son and his girlfriend did.

He is battling a bit of PTSS. While he was home on his post-deployment leave last month he was jumpy and nervous and chain-smoking. He also got into a (nother) huge fight with his brother and I had to call his dad to come get him. I don't know how they have these young men fight a war, seeing their buddies blown up, experiencing IED explosions, being shot at all the time, seeing dead bodies and stuff and then they bring them home and DON'T DO A THING TO HELP THEM. I asked my son if he had had any kind of therapy while at the base and he said no, none. I have spoken with other Marine moms who report that their sons too are having a lot of trouble handling civilian life. Thanks again, Mr. Bush and all you fat and greedy SOB's in charge of our country.

My younger son is doing great, he is studying his behind off now to make up for all the slacking during the semester. I don't know how he does it but he spends a minimal amount of time and effort studying and yet he manages to get excellent grades. He is adorable as well. It is a trait that seems to run on his mother's side of the family. hahaha

Anyway, people, I just popped in to share my eventful life with all four of my loyal readers. I miss all of you, and will do my best to set aside my daily chores and read up on your blogs.

One Happy Momma!

2007-02-12T13:48:00.000-05:00

Is that the best looking guy in the whole wide world or what? Yes, my boy is back! I thought this moment would never come but it did and I'm the happiest mom in the world. Someone pried my hands off him a few minutes after this shot was taken so he could breathe.

The trip up to NC was great. During all our road trips, my younger son "D" (The Bumpercar Guy) and I always fight for control of the radio or CD player. For the first few hundred miles, we actually listen to entire CD's or a whole list of songs on one station. However, we soon degenerate into music madness and we are like DJ's, changing CD's and stations like crazy. I don't know why, but we always do this. Luckily, we have very similar tastes in music, probably because from the time my boys were babies they have been subliminally programmed by me to like certain types of music (the types I like) and so I will be thinking "This fourth song really sucks, I'm getting tired of this CD..." and before I finish the thought my son will be ejecting the (now) tiresome CD and replacing it with a fresh one. Mind you, no spoken words have been exchanged.

My boyfriend drove almost all the way to NC. He likes to drive. Or maybe, to be more accurate, it doesn't have to do with liking it but with fearing Big "D"'s driving disabilities or my distractive qualities while driving, even though I have managed not to run into any poles or rear bumpers for the last 30 years. That left my son and I free to DJ and I think we drove him nuts with the constant music and singing (did I mention that we also sing along to the music?). But he is a trooper and pretended to be having fun, at least he didn't complain out loud.

My son came in on Monday, six huge buses pulled up to the barracks and all these Marines poured out of them, desperately looking for loved ones. He was the one that found us as we staggered around yelling his name, and as you can see from his beautiful smile, he was very happy to be back in the USA!

We spent a wonderful five days with him. My ex-husband (my baby daddy) was there for the first two days so I went around once again introducing the moms I knew through email to my ex-husband and my boyfriend in the same breath. You would think people would get used to this type of situation what with the skyrocketing divorce rate here in the US, right? I got some raised eyebrows but I've never been very bothered by raised eyebrows so...whatever. It was kind of funny.

I had the pleasure of meeting many of the guys that were deployed with my son. Most of these Marines will be deployed once again in a few months. They range between 18 and 22 years of age, some married, some have babies. I will pray for them and if you have a minute please pray for them too. They are a sweet bunch of young men.

To my loyal readers: Thank you for your prayers, your good thoughts and wishes and your support during these difficult months. It sounds mushy but you don't know how much you all have helped me with your messages and comments. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

HOMECOMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-31T15:09:00.000-05:00

Guess who is coming back when from where?

My phone rang at 2 am last night. I was spending the night at my bf's house and I kind of fareeked because I (like any other red-blooded, not bad-looking, single, middle-aged momma) have several jerkmeister ex-boyfriends that pop up every now and then, get drunk, and call me at 2 am as if I hadn't sent them to Hell quite a few months back. I picked up the phone at the insistence of my groggy bf, and muttered a meek and mousy "Hello?"

"Mommy!" It was my Marine on the other line, clear as if he was standing next to me, my firstborn, my sweet son! He is on his way home, and his voice sounded relaxed and happy after many months of hearing fear and anguish in his voice. Only he knows what he has gone through, none of us will ever understand it, try as we might. He is 21 and he has been through a lot.

I will be gone for a week for his homecoming, driving 14 hours there and back, worth every single mile, just to see his face and put my arms around him again. I don't think I could be happier than this.

It has been my pleasure in the last few weeks to buy him underwear, socks, pants, t-shirts, a pair of ass-kicking boots no Marine should ever be without, whether on duty or not, sweaters, belts, and all kinds of toiletries for his homecoming. I even bought him his favorite cologne, the blue MAC cologne that we both love. My boy is coming home!

So, if you come by, leave a message. February will be a completely different month for me, I will come back much relieved and a lot happier. I will catch up on all the blog happenings as soon as I'm back. In the meantime, enjoy your families, enjoy your loved ones, let them know you love them, you are so lucky to have them next to you...

One Year Ends, Another Begins...

2007-01-08T15:51:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to all my loyal readers all over the world!

Let me just share with you how my life has been in the last few weeks. You may want to get one of those spray water bottles and keep it handy because my life is not fascinating, but it is eventful.

Christmas was very nice even though I missed my Marine. One thing made me unusually and uncharacteristically cheerful despite his being away. I may have mentioned that I belong to a Yahoo group of all the mothers/wives/significant others of the Marines in my son's batallion. We were all emailing each other histerically just before Christmas, bemoaning the fact that our sons/husbands/fiancees were in Iraq and how much we missed them, and how Christmas was not going to be the same, etc. and then one Mom wrote in. Her message was: You people stop your complaining, your sons will be back in a couple of months, mine will never come back, he was one of the casualties this month. Well, needless to say, I pretty much decided that I would not complain or cry or be a pain in the ass or any of that silly stuff, because she was right. She was the one that had the right to cry and feel miserable, not us. I emailed her and offered my condolences, my prayers and a shoulder to cry on. And then I went on to become a cheery, happy, optimistic Santa's helper, did all my shopping, smiled at everyone, let cars in front of me in traffic, and became a really nice person there.

Right after Christmas, I left with with my BF and his family for Gatlinburg,TN. The idea was that we would all caravan to the mountains and stay at a cabin outside of Gatlinburg for New Year's and then head back. I have to tell you that as much as I was afraid it would be a fiasco, I had a great time. Why did I feel it would be a fiasco? Because every time I have traveled anywhere with anyone it has been a fiasco in one sense or another. For example, the trip I took as a newlywed to New Hampshire (eons ago), where my husband's aunt never stopped talking for one second the entire time we were there, and if I looked away she would push my arm and ask me "What did I just say to you?" (Yes, she really did this) and I got huge headaches, bruises on my arms, couldn't sleep at night and couldn't poop. So I was not a happy camper. Or the trip I took with a bunch of friends (before I got married, also many moons ago) in a van to the keys to go snorkeling and we ended up in Ocala (in the completely opposite direction) and my weird-o friends ended up trying to scuba dive in a hot spring that was on private property and got thrown out of there by a big TALL redneck that was kicking scuba gear around and screaming at all of us. Big Scare. And then on the way back everyone got mad at everyone else and we argued endlessly about whether to stop at McDonalds or not, or whether we really wanted to pee or were just trying to annoy everyone else... Terrible. There are many other trips from hell that I've taken, but for the sake of brevity I will not go into all of these.

No, this time I had a great time. My boyfriend's family is a hoot, they are a bunch of happy, insane, party people and they were warm and sweet to me (the outsider) the whole time. All we did was eat, sightsee and eat some more. It was great and I'm so glad we went. The Smoky Mountains are beautiful. I had crossed them several times in my childhood moving from one state to another, but it was nice to see them again. On the way back, we stopped at St. Augustine, which I love, and did a little more eating and sightseeing there before heading back to Miami.

Weirdnesses: Strangely enough, Gatlinburg, TN in the smoky mountains is chock full of people and traffic at this time of the year. On the outskirts of Gatlinburg there are miles and miles of outlet stores, mini-golfs of every imaginable theme (Star Wars Mini-Golf, Jurassic Park Mini-Golf, Care Bears Mini-Golf, the list is unending), malls, souvenir shops and the obligatory Burger King/McDonalds/Wendy's every three blocks. Sigh. No, make that Big Sigh. Outside one of the souvenir shops they advertised that they had live black bears. Three black bears were in cages and so fareeking bored with seeing strange people looking at them that they were sleeping almost all the time. The store sold bananas that you could "feed" them (translates as "throwing bananas at these poor, caged animals"). They weren't even interested in the bananas and didn't even look at them. It was so sad and I can't get that image out of my mind. Why isn't stuff like that illegal? Makes my blood boil.

We also visited "Dollywood." Ok, please heed my advice: NEVER, EVER go to Dollywood. Why not, you ask? And my answer is: Because it sincerely sucks and it costs $42 per person. It did not help that the day we went to Dollywood it was in the low 40s and all of us being thin-blooded Miamians we were freezing our behinds off even though we were dressed like an expedition to Antarctica. When we got there, and you have to understand that Dollywood is a "theme park" much like Disney World, except that it majorly sucks, we were trying to find parking and I am NOT kidding you, there were two huge parking lots all reserved for handicapped parking, miles and miles of them and THEY WERE FULL. If one more handicapped person would have visited Dollywood that day they would have had to leave because there was not one available handicapped parking space! Is the USA becoming a country of handicapped people? That is another item that pisses me off. Why do I see people coming out of cars parked in handicap spaces and then see them jogging into the stores? Hello? Is it only me or is this just abuse?

Back to Dollywood... The only redeemable thing there was the Thunderhead Roller Coaster! If I would have been alone, I would have ridden it 5 more times, it was great! It started with a huge climb and after that it was an effort just not to be thrown into outer space by this roller coaster! It was a wonderful tooth-gritting ride and I loved it. But then everything went downhill. The rest of this park was just animatronics bear jamborees, and the "Dolly something-or-other parade" and pretty lights everywhere and souvenir shops and food and... ok I may be making you gag, I'm sorry. And did I mention it was freezing?

So now we're home in wonderfully balmy and mild Miami, but wait, there's more news and weirdness: My younger son, Big D, called me on what we like to call New Year's Eve Eve (the 30th) even though I had already called him that day.

Me: D? Why are you calling? Is everything ok?

D: Mom, please don't get nervous...

Me: What? What happened?!

D: Nothing, really... I don't want you to get nervous but a friend of mine was coming by to pick me up and he crashed into the wall (Ed. note: we have a short wall around our house, it's on a corner) and then he kinda rolled into your rear bumper.

Me: What? He did what???

So my driving-challenged son has driving-challenged friends. Sigh.

That's how my 2006 ended. I hope 2007 is a good year for you, my loyal readers and for myself too!

Happy Holidays! (Wish they were over...)

2006-12-19T15:09:00.000-05:00

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in an old man's hat...

Well, the holidays are almost here, and since I've been MIA due to my pursuit of a penny or a ha'penny, I sneaked in to wish all of you a wonderful end of the year/winter solstice/christmas/hannukah/kwanzaa/whatchamacallit to you and your family. This is a joyful time of the year, but I think that it's also a tough time of the year for many. It's a time of stress, of anticipation, of missing those dear to us who passed away, of not having enough money to give the presents we want to give, of stretching ourselves thin in every way, of trying to get everything done and wanting to have everything come out lovely. It is a stressful damn time of the year. All you have to do is look at those around you.

Some people become traffic nazis, cutting you off, honking at you for any real or imagined thing, giving you all of .005 of a second to get going when the light changes to green before they flip you the bird through your rearview mirror, or scream at you because you took the parking space they wanted even though you had your blinker on for half an hour waiting for the other car to pull out. Other people become aggressive in stores or in shopping malls, stepping all over your cute "Vixen Red" polished toenails to get to the stuff that's on sale or to be the next person in line. Still others, while humming "Silent Night" under their breath, will treat you rudely in an office, or ignore you. Yes, those things happen during the rest of the year, but it is important to realize that at the end of the year it gets worse, and people are stretched out emotionally, financially and physically to the end of their ropes.

People, people let's remember that at least during this time of the year we should be more tolerant, more giving, more smiley-faced. It's like that email that I'm sure has gone around the world a quazillion times, the one that says that when someone cuts you off you don't know what catastrophe they are speeding from or to. Keep in mind that we are all human beings, we are all busy, overworked, (grossly) underpaid, and unless you are Donald Trump, Ted Turner or Bill Gates, we are all being exploited. Every person is someone's darling child, or someone's sweet mom or aunt or granma or dad or uncle or grandpa. And if they are orphans it's even more of a reason to treat them nicely because they have no one that they are special to. I know I'm ending a lot of sentences with prepositions but grammar be damned!

My thrust (that word always increases my readership for some weird reason) is this: Let's be nice to each other, or if you can't do nice then at least be polite. And let's keep doing this after the holidays and after New Year's Day. Let's do it all the time.

I hope you enjoy my sappy little Christmas post. I really do miss you all and am looking forward to reading you in 2007! Big Blogger Kisses to You, One and All!

Dear Readers (All three of you)...

2006-12-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

I'm ok, we're ok, sorry I haven't written. On top of having the added responsibilities that my new title (Assistant Director, did I mention that?) brought to my full time job, I am working 20+ hours a week at my part time job at a department store of Thanksgiving Parade fame, and in my spare 15 minutes a week I'm trying to keep up with cleaning my house, paying bills, grocery shopping, getting a Christmas tree and shopping for gifts. Needless to say, mentally and emotionally I am a basket case and my 52-1/2 year old body is coming apart at the seams (well, more so now).

My sons: My Marine is ok, he has been able to call us a few times in the last month. He is homesick, he is tired of sand (that's what he said to me during his last call), and he asked me again to pray for him for his upcoming missions. That call was responsible for me not sleeping for two nights. On the third night I managed to sleep because I was exhausted. I would have slept even if Bigfoot came into my bedroom and started chewing on my leg. Honestly.

My younger son: "Big D," the one that is driving-challenged as you may recall, is doing well. His finals are next week and he has "everything under control" as he likes to tell me. I hope he has more control of his studying than of his car while driving. To his credit, it has been a whole month since he crashed anything, had any accidents or got a traffic ticket. Anyway, last night we went to get a Christmas tree and a car passed us doing 75 mph in a 40mph zone. My boy actually "tsk tsked" and said "People like that are the ones that cause accidents." I started laughing (still laughing about it as I type) and he said "Yeah, I guess I shouldn't talk." Maybe he's been in traffic school and seen those gory accident movies way too many times. I guess they do work in the long run.

Proof that men have strange DNA-related behavior patterns: Last night when we had finished picking out our Christmas tree (which by the way, involved picking up each and every blue spruce pine tree and analyzing it in detail from every angle, we spent way too much time there), we dragged it to the cash register, I plunked down the appropriate cash for it, then we dragged it to where the guy cuts it with a power saw. We sat there watching the guy work on the four trees before us and then he did ours. My son had brought the car to the front of the store to pick up the tree and had then gotten down and was watching the Power Saw Guy next to me. I had to drag him away from watching the guy lobbing off the bottom branches of the next 10 trees! He was mesmerized! When I pulled him away, saying "Hey D, we gotta go, we're in everyone's way," he giggled self-consciously and said "Thanks, Mom, I was kinda hypnotized." Sheeesh, men.

Anyway, I miss you all, I miss catching up on what's going on in your lives. I'll be back for good probably in January since this month is just bonkers. I give up trying to have a normal life in December. Love yous all!!!

I'm too cool to blog

2006-11-15T15:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm NOT too cool to blog. I'm not to cool for anything for that matter. Never was, either. Not even in my young chick years. Which are, unfortunately, long gone.

I'm just very busy again and the paperwork and the whiny, demanding students have taken over my world and every surface on my desk (the paper, not the students). Therefore, for the time being I am forced to actually get stuff done around here, which is a bummer. Coffee consumption, personal hallway conversations with coworkers as well as hours spent blogging and sitting back in my chair with my feet up on the hard drive staring out the window are down considerably from just a week ago. Alarmingly so.

At left is a little quilt designed and stitched by a wonderful friend and coworker, Stacy. It is much nicer than this scan but I have to take it out of the frame to scan it properly and as you know, I'm kinda busy. It's entitled "Coffee Queen" and it's supposed to be me with a big grandma-sized cup o' coffee. If you look closely you can see the tendrils of the coffee aroma wafting up to my face. As you can see, my coworkers don't think much of my hairstyle or lack of it. The depiction, however, is quite accurate. The hair that is. But I love this quilt and my dear friend who made it. She is an artist, or better yet, an artiste. I always tell her that if I had her talent I'd be famous and more obnoxious than Donatella Versace, designing only for the stars and maybe royalty. Maybe. If I can stand having them around for fittings and such. And if they don't wear those silly little hats.

My friend makes quilts that are breathtakingly beautiful and poetic. It is hard for people like myself, cool yet untalented, to understand how a person like my friend gets her ideas, picks the different colors and prints of fabrics and then makes such incredible works of art! If you want to take a look, here's the link: http://stacywest.com/ You won't regret the trip.

But the REAL Coffee Queen is my friend Stacy, not me. She makes the best coffee and stocks up on those delicious and sinful creamers like Irish Cream and Hazelnut Vanilla, and what have you. She comes by my door every day with a huge smile and an offer of a cup o'java and her sweet friendship. She is a patient listener, a good friend, she gives the best advice ever, and when she doesn't know how to help she offers the best of the best: a big hug.

To all my loyal readers (and you know who you are, all three of you), Enjoy what's left of Wednesday. You are all in my heart and thoughts. I'll write something again when I get 5 minutes of peace at the office. And as my other good office buddy says: "Hasta" (Short for "Hasta la vista, Baby" but we're too lazy to say the whole thing.)!!!

"I'm Still Here"

2006-11-08T10:16:00.000-05:00

My son sent me an email last friday with that title, "I'm still here." Since I last posted, his battalion has lost 3 more young men and the situation continues to be very dangerous. But he is still there and now we only have 2-1/2 months left until Sweet Homecoming!

Thank you for all your comments and for being concerned. I haven't been able to post because as Asst. Director (and future dictator of the world), I have not had 5 minutes to get to Blogger. It was really stressful to not be able to blog and set your minds at ease. Every single time I went into IE to blog, something urgent/important/needing immediate attention (according to someone else's opinion) came up. Sigh. I may not accept the title of Dictator of the World after all when offered to me, I'm just too exhausted. It may not be worth all the trouble and hard work, especially if I can't blog. I also need to do my nails.

On a lighter note, I was thinking in my car on the way to work this morning. There are two places where I do my deep thinking: My car (while I'm driving, of course, not sitting there in my car parked in front of my house, even though it wouldn't be a bad idea), and my bathroom. Ok, before you snicker, or even maybe if you already snickered, let me clear up here that I do not mean on the toilet. I am not a dawdler and I get my stuff done in like 5 seconds and head to the shower. THE SHOWER is where most of my deep thinking takes place. So many, many times I've had a really serious problem and under the shower I've had the "Aha!" moment of what I would do to resolve it. And there is one more place I do deep thinking: in my dreams. Very frequently, when faced with a dilemma, I will wake up after having dreamed something and my dilemma will have been automatically resolved. The night before I may have thought "Ok, I have to do this and this to resolve this." And in the morning, after my dreams wrestled with whatever issue was at hand, I will wake up knowing that whatever I thought I would do last night was silly and improbable and I have no other option but to (Insert Resolutionary Action Here). And it has always been the right action. Go figure.

What amazes me is that I consciously do not have much to do with any of this. My conscious brain is not taking the situation apart and analyzing it, then listing the possible actions, then weighing the consequences of those actions and then picking the obviously more logical one. It does not follow that pattern. It is more of an "Intuition and Impulse" kind of process whereby my subconscious is the one that analyzes and probes and probably uses what I learned in Business Statistics eons ago to come up with the best practical solution to (Insert Difficult Problem Here). And whatever personal CPU is doing this leaves me (my conscious mind) the hell out of the process since it knows I would only botch it. Super.

Where do you do your thinking? Are you a logical thinker, a mapper-outer of problems and a weigher of results in an orderly manner? Or are you, like me, a free-association type of problem-solver? I am fascinated by this subject.

Enjoy the picture of the lovely Morning Glory. This is one of my favorite flowers. Here in So FL it grows wild everywhere. There is even one type of Morning Glory that has a smaller red flower that is absolutely beautiful. I have tried growing these vines on the fences around my home to no avail. Obviously, the seeds need to pass through a bird's intestines in order to fully germinate anywhere.

Looking forward to your comments here!!!

Everything Sucks

2006-10-26T15:28:00.000-04:00

Please understand. I don't think EVERYTHING really sucks, but just some things. I like the sound of that title better than "Some Things Suck."

Again, I'm under a lot of stress. My boy is still in Iraq and every day we get news of stuff going on over there. It doesn't help that CNN declares over and over that this month has been the deadliest one ever since the Iraq thing started. It doesn't help that his dad (my ex) is calling me every day to ask if I "heard something." He's pretty much soiling his pants and he was always the strong one. It also doesn't help that last time my son called, when I asked him if he wanted me to send him sheets or pillows he told me, "Mom, we're sleeping on the ground." It further does not help that he was very pissed off about something that last time he called and he kept saying that he couldn't talk about it but that they (the troops) were being put in grave danger. After that call I came upon an article written about his commander in which he explains that now the squads are not allowed to shoot back when they are being attacked. That they first have to verify who is shooting at them. This is the new policy and it was put in place to "protect civilian life." Yeah, well, who is protecting my son's life? When a sniper shoots at them, what are they expected to do? Look around them, like in "Are you being served" when the salespeople are asked if they are free? In that split second a sniper or a mortar can get them. It really sucks, and now I understand why my son is angry and feels so frustrated and helpless. And here I am, and I can do nothing for him.

I promise that in February, when he comes back, I will never ever again write about this or go on and on about him. Ever. Right now, though, I need to vent.

Since he left for Iraq, I have written something like 12 condolence emails to families of casualties. I went to the funeral of one of his battalion buddies that was shot by a sniper and talked to this young man's mom and dad, nice hard-working people who were bewildered by the fact that their son was gone. They had that "tharn" look that wild animals get in our headlights at night. All I could do was hug his mom and whisper softly that things would be ok. She didn't know that I was lying.

What hurts me the most about all this is that these Marines are just boys. Boys with Toys. All the Marines I have met, and all of my son's buddies in Iraq are young, very young, idealistic, altruistic, they all wanted to do something for their country, they had high ideals of being important, of defending their flag... They are all good boys. Good boys with girlfriends that cry for them, good boys whose families love them and miss them like crazy. Good boys that should come back safe and sound.

I find myself thinking about my son, what he is doing right now, how the weather is over there, if he is looking up at the stars or at the clouds, if he is eating enough, if he has enough underwear and socks (yeah, mothers always worry about underwear and socks), if he is hot, or cold, or if he is coughing at night (he always had croup when he was little). It is hard to concentrate on other things when he is so far away.

So, please Mr. Bush, let's stop killing each other. Bring those boys back, let the Iraqis deal with their own problems, let's look into solar or nuclear energy instead of oil, let's stop all this nonsense. Let's make our airspace safe, let's take care of our country, our poor, our sick, our homeless. Let's be the country that helps, not the country that invades.

My Fave Blogs

2006-10-18T13:58:00.000-04:00

This is the car that my son, Big D, will soon be driving if he doesn't improve his so-called driving skills. Actually, I fear for the poor horse.

Anyway, I haven't posted in a week. I've been tagged with a couple of subjects but I have not taken up the challenge. I have been a bit busy in the work environment, so I've been absent in the blog world. One moment, please, I have an important message coming in:

WUP!

Ok, now we can continue with our regularly scheduled post. For a few minutes anyway.

I was thinking that if I still hadn't figured out how to link other people's blogs here, I may as well write about my favorite bloggers and why I like them. Please note that these are NOT necessarily in order and that these are NOT the only bloggers I adore. But I have a time restraint, since a) I'm at the office and b) I would like to have a life:

1) First Nations: She cracks me up something terrible. I will be sitting at work trying to actually work and I will bust out laughing over something FN said in her blog. You really never know what she will come up with next. My favorite post of hers is "More Fun with George," written about one of her hubby's loser friends. Now, I have to admit that I have had and still have my fair share of loser friends and (of course) boyfriends. Well, not my present boyfriend. But I think that George epitomizes everything that is "loserly" about losers. For example, the crazy and unbelievable lies, the excuses for not being able to work, or to have a relationship, or to keep yourself clean, etc. My second favorite post is the one about the junkyard. Love ya, FN!!!! (wup)

2) Mr. Scurra: No one can take an inane, insignificant, uncomplicated subject and convert it into a complex, intelligent-sounding, pseudo-intellectual post, completely undecipherable by us "colonials," like Vic. What drew me immediately to his blog was his picture. Yes, he is old. Yes, he is unkempt. Yes, he needs to drag a comb through that thing usually known as "hair." And finally, yes, I am starting to become a pain in the butt. But he is unique. My favorite post is any of them, especially the ones where he mentions Mrs. Trellis. Where he truly shines, though, is on his brief and biting comments on other blogs. Brilliant, yet perplexing. Savvy, yet unfathomable. But he makes me laugh.

3) Ms. Pie: Cherrypie is the only person I know that has ever written a post about fungus growing in her house, which of course just drew me into her world. She likes birds, improv, perfumes (expensive ones, ok, not Jean Nate), and when we both retire and our sons are on their own we are backpacking through Europe and Cuba together with Pammy.

4) Ziggi: Ziggi is a witch, not a good one but a Very, Very good one. And when you click on her blog, you nevah evah know what she will be going on about. One week, she's entertaining you somewhat with her DIY chimney or whatever it is she's building by herself (while taking a nip every now and then, supposedly to celebrate someone's promotion), and next week she is advertising this electric contraption which she seems very happy about. She also had a hilarious post about a cross-dressing teacher candidate which had me in stitches for a few days.

5) Dave: For many months I would read Dave's posts and out of, say 5 or 6 paragraphs, I would understand (maybe, I may not really have understood) one or two concepts. It was difficult at first because to me, cricket is something that chirps outside your window and that makes you go crazy, screaming and swiping at your hair, if it comes anywhere near you. But, like a long and complicated novel (like Anna Karenina) that at first you don't understand, I am glad I kept reading. One of the things about his blog that I read all the time and it makes me laugh every single time is the short version of his profile. And whose X-ray is that? Homer Simpson's? With a kidney stone lodged in the middle of his brain? And his picture where he's dressed like a Jedi is priceless.

6) Fronty: I was immediately endeared to Fronty when he and I both had Possum Problems at the same time. Apparently, unlike my possum problem, his would run all over him at night while he slept. He lost several battles with them before he was able to regain mastery of his domain. Nobody turns a sentence like FE. He is brilliant, funny, sweet, completely unexpected and has a thoroughly enjoyable blog even though sometimes his taste in music is a bit weird. But you have to give him credit for those airplane models, what the heck are those? They look REAL!!!

7) Tommy: Tommy is a wonderful person, one of the first commenters ever on my blog. Intelligent, compassionate, passionate, mandal-wearing, country squire who also lives in Second Life. Well, we don't want to share him with Second Life, do we Pammy?

8) Pammy: Don't tell anyone, but Tommy and Pammy are an item and they usually meet in Commentland. Pammy is a great wife, mother, friend, blogger and she even speaks Spanish! She has adorable kids, dogs, cats and now kittens. Be careful of the cat, it whaled on her hubby one time.

9) WW and Homey: These two are NOT an item, and please don't say that they are, even tho Homey took a picture of WW's butt which is one of WW's posts (check it out, ladies, it's worth the travel). They are friends and they have been so since they were very young. WW is irreverent, funny, always sympathetic and understanding, has a Niiiiiiiice Butt, and plays great music on his blog. Homey on the other hand, although he is also funny and sympathetic as well as understanding (and who knows, he may have a nice butt too, but that is just conjecture), is the Voice of Reason. He knows how to dissect a problem and how to tackle it from different sides. I really like that. But I still need a picture to decide about his glutes.

10) Anna: She is a breath of fresh air. She writes beautifully, she works hard and has difficult people to work with (including the customers), she is an awesome friend, sister, and mommy to Bruiser, the cutest and most photogenic kitty in blogland. She makes me smile. And she DOES NOT look like Edward G. Robinson.

wup!

I Am Taking Over the World, Don't Worry I'll Be Kind

2006-10-11T11:05:00.000-04:00

Great news! I am getting a promotion! I am no longer a lowly coordinator, those days are gone. Now I am an Assistant Director! "Of what?" You may ask. And I would answer forthwith and with a stupid little smile on my face, "Of the Advising Center for now, later the world."

Do not be afraid, I plan on being a great leader and kind as well. I once had a bumper sticker that read, "when I take over the world your death will be quick and painless." Of course, that was just a joke, maybe inflicting a little pain is not a bad thing. Bwa ha ha ha.

Seriously, though, I'm happy since this means beaucoup $$$! Which is my main thrust (I will try to use the word "thrust" at least once in every post, I believe it will increase my readership as it has for Vicus). They can change my title to Floor Sweeper or Paper Clip Organizer and I would be just as happy as long as I got the $$$.

It is really funny that the whole week before I was told about my promotion, I had been scanning open positions and sighing and mumbling that I had no future in my present position. I had no clue that I was going to get this promotion, if I had had a clue I may have been more cheerful and a better butt-kisser! But this came out of the blue and I am so happy and contented now. For now.

I am celebrating on Friday at Content Hour! Please feel free to have a Margarita on me.

Moan-Day

2006-10-09T16:51:00.000-04:00

On Friday morning I get a call from my ex-husband, the father of my children. Usually when he calls I take a few seconds to reflect on what it could be that he's calling about and whether or not I should answer. But that is another post for some other time when I am less stressed.

He was calling because my nineteen-year-old son, whom I adore, and to whom I bequeathed my Jeep Wrangler when I aquired my new Cherokee, had just had a traffique accidente. "Is he ok???" (Instant migraine) "Ye's he's ok, he just f*cked up the left fender." His words not mine, even though I probly would have said it the same way. I slowly exhaled and regained whatever level of composure I had before the call (not much).

Anyway, it turns out that my son was going to make a left turn and was turning into the turning lane and some woman smooshed into the left side of the Jeep as SHE tried getting into the same lane. He got the ticket of course. Why? Because he is now under my insurance policy and the car is under my name. Meaning that if the woman decides to go after me I can lose my house and everything in it. Mental note: I must buy a lot more Colorsilk Medium Ash Blonde to cover the ever-expanding gray and I must get it NOW while I still have some spare money...

Teenagers and cars: WHY? Why can't we make them ride bikes (too dangerous) or take the bus (they will be late for school) or walk (too far) until they are in their early 30's and skip this part of their lives where they will methodically mess up each and every vehicle they can weasel their way into?

And then I was remembering a conversation I had with my son, "Big D" as he calls himself on his cell voice mail, about two weeks ago when he took me somewhere in the Wrangler.

Me: D slow down, you took that turn on two wheels.

D: Mom, I'm going 35 mph. Jesus, relax.

Me: I can't relax when the vehicle I am riding in is on two wheels.

D: Mom, I know I've had a difficult past with driving and sh*t, but believe me, I've turned over a new leaf. I'm not the old D, this is the New Improved D. I am allowing plenty of space between me and the car ahead, I'm being careful, I'm anticipating craziness from other drivers. You don't have to worry, Mom.

Me: Ok.

New Improved D just messed up the left fender. By the way, that is the same D that messed up the right fender just a few months ago, when allegedly a column got in the way of him backing up in a parking garage. So now at least the fenders are balanced out, both crushed in.

Big Sigh. So today is Moan-Day and I'm wondering what will happen to us. I'm wondering if my son will continue to play bumper cars out in traffic. I'm also wondering what will be the outcome of all this. Will I have a house in the future? Will I have a future?

I will try to feel a little more optimistic tomorrow.

My Songs

2006-10-05T12:42:00.000-04:00

Ziggi tagged me on this one. Songs that mean something to me, and obviously I'm going to like them too... There are so many, here it goes:

My Cuban roots: My mom and dad loved music and always had something playing on the record player. So, anything by Trio Los Panchos, Ernesto Lecuona, Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot will take me back to those early days. Also, Agustin Lara, a Mexican artist who sang the most beautiful and romantic songs (Noche de Ronda, Maria Bonita, Veracruz, for example).

Childhood: The Beatles were and will always be my idols. I was nine when I saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show (So you don't have to do the mental math, I'm 52) and they might as well have been from another planet, they were so adorable with their moptops and their chic skinny suits. My favorite Beatle song of all time is "Ticket to Ride." And when "Help" came out I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

Pre-Teen: "Cherish" by The Association was a song that all pre-teens could slow dance to and it was then possible to steal a kiss and maybe make out if you were off dancing in a corner and the adults were looking the other way (hardly ever happened!).

Teen: Santana "Abraxas" was the background music during my teen years. Every song on that LP was great. My sister and I shared a bedroom and we had a clunky record player on the floor and we would play that record over and over again until we fell asleep. Hope it didn't have any subliminal messages.

Young Adult: It may sound silly or something but I loved the Bee Gees. So did my sister. When my sister got married and had my niece she would sing "The New York Mining Disaster" to her ("In the event of something happening to me, there is something I would like you all to see...). Another favorite was "Lonely Days" (Lonely days, Lonely nights, where would I be without my woman...").

Full-blown Adulthood: "China Girl" by David Bowie, I don't know why, loved the beat and the video was cool.

Now: My kids were raised on Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Led Zep, Guns 'n' Roses, U2, AC/DC. When they were little they didn't like this kind of music (because they preferred "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round") but they grew to love it and now that is about all they hear.

My All-Time Favorite Song: "All I Want is You" by U2. Why? I don't know. I love everything about it, and I love Edge's guitar, I love Bono's voice, I love the lyrics, I loved the video.

Off to check if FE did his list.

The Female Mythtique

2006-10-04T16:13:00.000-04:00

At the university where I work, they teach this class entitled "Psychology of Women." The course description reads as follows:

"An examination of women from various perspectives, such as biological, anthropological, mythological, religious, historical, legal, sociological, and psychoanalytical points of view. Discussions of ways in which these various perspectives influence the psychological development of contemporary women."

My question is: "HUH?" I checked all of the psychology class listings and guess what, folks? They do not offer a "Psychology of Men." Does that surprise you? Before anyone comments on the apparent feminism of this post, let me assure you that I am not what you would call a real feminist. I believe that each person, regardless of gender, holds a place in the world, in nature, in society and so things always even out.

You may be thinking: What does she mean by that? And I would answer: If you are a woman and are a genius, there is NO WAY that our society can keep you down. They may pay us 75 cents to a man's dollar, but in the end if you are intelligent, persistent, a hard worker (at least at first), and you know what you are doing, you will rise like the cream in milk. Can't keep good people down, that is my belief.

However, why don't they teach a "Psychology of Men?" What is up with that? So does that mean that regular Psychology classes are based only on male psychology and this one class will explain the female? Ridiculous.

It bothers me that there should be a class dedicated to explaining the female psyche, as varied and as complex and as different as women are. This class would explain exactly what? That we were the gatherers whereas men were the hunters? Then, jumping a few thousand years, women were the homemakers and men the breadwinners? I just don't understand it. Why do we merit a special class to explain our psychology and isn't that a crazy thing to try to do? The way I see it, you cannot lump people together. You cannot catalog people by gender or by ethnicity or by nationality or by sexual orientation or anything. It is enough to make a stupid statement like "Women are maternal" to be shown examples of women who abandoned their kids, or neglected them, or in extreme cases even murdered them.

A few days back a coworker told me a story about being in line at a clothing store and a hispanic female tried to butt in the line and my coworker told her off in English (she is white), and the woman acted like she didn't understand English. My coworker said to her that that's the reason hispanics should not be allowed into this country. Now, my coworker knows that I'm also "hispanic" (a label which I dislike and is totally inaccurate anyway, but that's another post). When she finished, I blinked my eyes a few times. Then I said to her: "You know that that was an asshole problem, not a hispanic problem." And she replied, "Yes you're right." Sigh. Moral: Please don't generalize.

If they offered, for example, a class called "Cuban Psychology." What would that be like? Or another example: "Psychology of Bible-Belt America." Or "Gay Psychology." I don't think any of those would be approved, so why "Psychology of Women?" If I was the professor I'd show up the first day of class and say "OK, people, the difference is that women have two X chromosomes and men have an X and a Y. Discuss among yourselves. Everyone gets a Pass grade. You are dismissed. Yeah, dismissed for the whole semester, go home. Or go wherever you like, just don't stay here."

Makes me mad. (I didn't want to say "It pisses me off.")

Miscellaneous Again

2006-09-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

It's been more than a week since I last posted. I am still struggling with a lot of work at the office. Not only do we have a lot of students with problems but we are interviewing for two new positions.

I am also keeping very busy with shopping for snacks and stogies to send my son and his buddies in Iraq and keeping in touch with the battalion's parents' group. It is incredible that these people in the group, mostly way-too-involved middle-aged mothers (like me!), but also wives, girlfriends, so's, dads, sisters, aunts of Marines, are so organized and in touch with one another. As soon as anything happens on the other side of the world where our sons are, we all hear about it. It never ceases to amaze me. And we also give each other a lot of support. Every morning when I open my email I have 30 or 40 emails from our group. We take turns falling to pieces or supporting the nervous wrecks and trying to "be there" for each other.

It has really helped me cope and I have to admire these people. They are organizing Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Whatchamacallit decorations for the battalion mess hall for the end of the year. They bake and send their yummy home-made goodies to the whole battalion. They write cards or send boxes to Marines who never receive anything. They console grieving families and whacked-out family members who don't know whom to turn to... They are wonderful and I love them.

Ok, now that I got the emotional, touchy-feely stuff out of the way, you may be asking WTF is that picture? Well, that is a huge (about 8ft) metal sculpture called "The Angel of Justice" by an incredible Haitian sculptor, St. Eloi. I came upon it by accident about 2 years ago when I was racing past the Art Museum at the university. Something shiny caught my eye through the big glass window and I slowly backtracked and my eyes met this beautiful thing! I got goosebumps when I saw it and I stood there for quite a long time just gazing at it. I can't explain why it speaks to me, or what it means to me, it is such a gut thing. This angel was part of a Haitian sculture exhibit that lasted about three months. I do not lie to you, I went to see this angel every day. Why does it make me happy, and why does it make me feel serene and why does it make me sigh contentedly when I look at it? I have NO idea. It just does. Since I'm not an outwardly religious person, and since I am suspicious of any type of fanaticism or close-mindedness religious freakiness, I know it's not that at all. I am not even going to pretend that I have any kind of artistic je-ne-sais-quoi sensibility or any nonsense like that. It is like when you fall in love with someone and you can't explain the chemistry or the magnetism you feel for that person. That's how I feel about this angel. It just speaks to me, sings to me, signifies something that I can't put my finger on. Go figure. BTW I hope you enjoy it. I do.

When I first downloaded the angel's picture I sent it to all my family, friends and coworkers. I printed it out and put it in a frame on my office wall. I had little wallet-sized pictures printed that I gave out to people close to me. Everybody got sick of seeing it. I even sent it to my deployed son TWICE. He told me during one of his calls "Mom, stop sending me pictures of the Angel, the guys are laughing at me." So yeah, I stopped sending it to him.

It is Friday again, and any of you visiting the Miami area will find me in Casa Juancho's after work with my BF, my sister, and our little group of middle-aged, crazy-dancing semi-alcoholics. Really, people, nothing really changes in life. We are all 40, 50, or 60 somethings and yet we still vie for position at the bar, are possessive about out boy- or girlfriends, flirt like crazy with everyone, sometimes get into silly little fights over imagined slights, shake our booties shamelessly, sing along to the songs we grew up with, and maybe get a little bit tipsy and have to be assisted to our cars. Just like middle-school all over again. Oh Joy!

Have a great weekend everyone! Love yas!

Work is interfering with my life

2006-09-21T15:45:00.000-04:00

So I love work. Or rather, I love to be AT work because I'm comfortable here, I like sitting at my computer with my feet propped up on the hard drive. It's nice and cold thanks to the great AC. I see all my peeps and catch up on the latest. We make mediocre coffee but we have awesome creamers that would make a cup of crap taste good.

BUT, and that's a big BUT, I have not had time to even blog this week. I have just gone in and out of my favorite blogs (and you all know who you are) and scanned the posts. I am not doing careful reading which is what I usually do. I don't have time to blog because it has been crazy, whack-o, dingaling, insane around here. Sigh.

Why do I have so much work, you ask? Even if you don't ask, I may answer: Because of all the darn procrastinators in the world. I am not the greatest organizer or planner, nowhere near it. I am happy to say that I never had a palm pilot or a blackberry, never really obsess about everything being in order. But I am not a full-blown procrastinator, the likes of which abound where I work. The stuff I have to do over and over again, such as appointments, paying bills, renewing my driver's license or auto tag, etc. I try to do on time. WHY? Because no one is going to put up with my lame excuses about not knowing about the deadline, or no one told me I had to renew my license, or any such stoopid and inane crap.

That's why it bothers me so much when stoodents come in at the fourth week of class to demand (with attitude) that they be allowed to register in a class.

Me: Are you not aware that the Add/Drop period ended two weeks ago?

Them: No one told me.

Me (Sarcasm quickly sets in): No one is going to stop you in the middle of the hallway to inform you of the deadlines, you have to print the schedule from the web.

Them: Where do I find the schedule?

Me: On our website, right where it says "Academic Schedule" in bright blue.

Them: Ok, but I have to sign up for this class, I was dropped because I didn't know I had to pay.

Me: You didn't know you had to pay?

Them: No, but I've been attending all this time (Me in an aside: They think this entitles them to be registered in the class even if the semester is over).

Me: The fact that you have been attending the class does not give you the right to register for it. Where is your Add/Drop Form?

Them: What is that?

Me: .....sigh..... it goes on and on like that. This is just one conversation, and they file through my office like busy little ants, and they each ask the same exact things or give the same lame excuses.

Ok I just took a deep breath. It helps, a little. I remind myself that each of these students is someone's baby, someone's sweet son or daughter. I remind myself how it was when I was in school and the sarcastic bitches that worked in the office would get exasperated and talk down to me, or not look at me, or not smile. So while I'm mentally pulling my hair out by its (increasinly platinum) roots, I force myself to keep breathing slowly, to smile, to make jokes (for some reason it seems to evaporate the sarcasm), and to be NICE. Why do I try to be nice? Because they are getting an education, because they are supplicants at the doors to their future. If they don't get into this class, they may be set back, if I mistreat them they may actually think that they are not smart enough or organized enough or on-the-ball enough. Whatever. It is my responsibility, in my office and in what I do, to make sure I don't put down these students. That I treat them like (young) people. That I show them how a professional advisor acts. I also remind them that they need to organize themselves so they don't ever have to go through this process of late registration and give silly excuses ever again I am burdened with the responsibility of giving a good example. And that's what I try to do. But it's not easy. Sigh. Soon I'll get back to regular postings of a somewhat intelligent nature... nah, I'll get back to posting regularly and commenting on all ya'll's blogs.

Finally Thrusday

2006-09-14T10:11:00.000-04:00

Ok, my coworker, the one that coined the term "Thrusday" is a trip and I have to tell you about him. This is my coworker from my part-time employment at the fine jewelry department of a famous retail store of Thanksgiving balloon parade fame.

In our department, we are a bevy of about 15 women of varying ages, nationalities, ethnicities, civil status, etc. We are all very different and yet, contrary to popular belief that "Women cannot work together" we get along so well and we are very much a team. Except for one or two difficult people, who exist in every environment. It would be an interesting sociological research question "What is the average percentage of difficult people (aka SOB's) in each work environment?" My guess is that the percentage would depend on how much money is at stake, more SOB's the more money is involved. But I'm also guessing that there is a stable and average number of agitators or sour apples or just plain obnoxious persons in every work group regardless of education, religion, gender, etc.

Anyway, our little group of women, some full-time and some part-timers like me, work like a charm together and they are absolutely a great collection of wonderful people, warm, friendly, sweet, and very, very intelligent. We spend the time at work selling jewelry, but also hearing about each other's lives, troubles and tribulations, love interests or gripes about spouses, offering each other cheap and unprofessional advice for every imaginable situation. Within our group, there are some that are practically best friends with each other and call each other every day and meet for lunch, etc. One of my women coworkers was the one that gave me a beautiful freshwater pearl rosary another coworker had brought her from Venezuela as a gift, so it would protect my son in Iraq. Another one is 61, works a full-time job at the HR deparment of a local hospital and works a part-time with us at the store. Even though she only works part-time, she is the department's top salesperson in $$. She knows everything there is to know about diamonds, precious and semi-precious stones. She also cares for her elderly mother who needs constant attention. Another is in her late fifties, does math word problems "for fun," works full-time at her daughter's bridal gown business and works part-time at the store. She is one of the most intelligent people I know. She can analyze a problem in the most logical manner and come out with viable solutions that actually make sense. Another studied music in her native country and is selling jewelry here because she still does not know English very well. Despite that, she is taking classes to become a medical biller and is struggling but getting excellent grades in her classes.

Even though I've only worked there for two years, as opposed to almost 10 at my full-time job, I feel so close to all these women. In a very short time they have endeared themselves to me and vice-versa and we have worked harmoniously and enjoyably together.

In this group we have two male co-workers who are charmers and we love them. One of them, "Antoine," is tall, dark-skinned, handsome with his hair closely trimmed, sporting a neat goatee and impeccably dressed always. He is so much fun to work with because he is so creative and outgoing and at the same time a warm and lovely person. He has given each of us a name, a twist on our real names according to our personalities. He calls me "Kermesse" because he says that I am like a school bazaar, I am a communicator, I get around and talk to everyone and find out what they are doing and what's going on. Another co-worker, whose name is Martha he calls "Martillo" (hammer) because she is one of the difficult ones. Working with Martillo is tough because she, unlike the others, competes with everybody to get sales. We have our courtesy rules in our group and they are almost always respected, mostly to keep the peace. If you have shown a couple twenty engagement rings and they decide on one particular one but don't want to buy it that day for whatever reason, you give them a print-out of the item description with your name on it. If that customer comes another day and you're not there at the store, whoever helps them should ring up the sale on your number, since you were the one that helped them. Well, Martillo does not observe this rule, or any other. She is ruthless and will sell the ring under her number, getting the comission. This causes a lot of friction, needless to say but I said it anyway. Martillo is not a popular person with her coworkers but I feel sorry for her so I treat her nicely too. We have another co-worker "Clara," which means "Clear" in Spanish, whom Antoine calls "Un-Clear" because she is one of the top salespeople in our department but she forgets to write down what she sells in the log, making for huge discrepancies at closing time.

I usually work night part-time and weekends at the store. Most of the time, when I get out of my day job I feel really tired and I have to force myself to trudge to my part-time job. BUT once there, I have a wonderful time, and I really look forward to seeing my friends there and catching up on the latest goings-on with them. I love those people!

To all my loyal readers - all three of you...

2006-09-01T10:39:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm still here. Crazily trying to pick out a font color that will go with the eyeshadow... This one is way too turquoise but the program will not let me mix my own shades.

It's funny how little insignificant details keep us blessedly unfocused, distracted and unproductive... But who cares about that on a Friday morning? All that is needed is to make my presence known at work (albeit a bit late, but I made it), do stuff like this (blogging) until lunchtime, shuffle some papers around in the afternoon, maybe answer a few calls, put on my "concerned and busy" face when my supervisor passes by, and then...CONTENT HOUR!!!

On Wednesday night, I was working my four-hour part-time shift at a major department store and one of my co-workers put out a new sign-on sheet for the next morning. He wrote "THRUSDAY" on the top of it, and I said to myself "He hit the nail on the head, it should be called "Thrusday" because we must get through it to get to Friday." I loved it, and from now on it will always be Thrusday to me.

Sweet, wonderful, unproductive, social Friday! I look forward to it the entire week. It's the day when nothing gets done unless someone insists on making you do something, which is then strongly resented... In essence, my work ethic spans from Monday thru Thrusday full-steam and Friday is preparation for Content Hour.

More random and insignificant thoughts: Just like Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" I'm always pleasantly surprised by the kindness of strangers. I think it takes a lot of courage, love, concern, empathy, and who knows what else to reach out to someone you don't know very well just to let them know that you are there for them. I admire such acts and usually they come from where you least expect them. At times, complete strangers are sweeter and more sympathetic and helpful than your closest friends. Some examples: A co-worker at my part-time employment overheard me talking to another about my son being deployed etc (you all know the details), and out of the blue she walked over to me and gave me a beautiful rosary that a friend had brought her from Venezuela. She had tears in her eyes and told me that she wanted me to have it to comfort me while my son was gone. I tried to say no because someone had given her that gift and she should keep it and she said no, that I should take care of it until my son came home, then I could give it back. I hugged and kissed her, she's an angel. Another sweet and wonderful blog friend, whom I've only talked to through comments, sent me an inspiring email of hope and faith that took me completely by surprise and has given me strength in the face of despair. Another co-worker, this one from my full-time job, added my son and his battalion to her prayer group at her church and sent me the bulletin where his name was mentioned. Other bloggers that I have met on here have been sweetly inquiring about my son and letting me know that they are there: Anna and Alternative Anna, Kat, Ziggi, WW, Pammy, Tommy, FE, HE, Cherrypie, my dear cabbage Vicus, and last, but not least, cute and flirty Markie!

My soft, squishy heart beats happier because of persons like this, who are not afraid to love, not afraid to feel and to express themselves. I want to be just like them!

Ok, enough teary-eyed sentimentality. On with life, on with Content Hour. My BF (in caps, ok?) is coming back from a week away in some convention in Orlando and I'm looking forward to having a couple of drinks and talking a LOT of crap with him, my sister, and my friends. Besides, it's my sister's birthday so we're celebrating that as well! As I've mentioned before she is scarcely a year younger than me but at our age that margin gets narrower and narrower, making us twins for all practical purposes. And she is a beautiful, wonderful, loving person so I would love to be her twin.

To all my loyal readers...Have a great weekend and I send you all besitos from the bottom of my half-century-plus-old squishy heart.

My Marine

2006-08-14T17:24:00.000-04:00

This is my oldest boy, my 21-year-old son in his dress uniform. This was last year after he came back from The Sandbox the first time. He put on his uniform and came to my office so I (and all my co-workers who know him from when he was a little kid who made robot costumes from copier boxes when he visited the office) could see him in all his glory. This is the picture that I have right underneath my computer monitor that I gaze at every spare moment I have and pray over when I should be thinking about work.

It's funny because I am not a religious person as far as going to church, or any of the other outwardly religious ways. But I have my spiritual side and this side is praying on a daily basis, and I hope it helps him. Also, I guess that my brain was programmed by the Catholic upbringing, including the thousands of masses and rosaries and whatnot, and now, try as I might, I cannot NOT pray when I am seriously worried about something. My logical side says "Why pray? We are all God's children, and if God is listening to us he would answer all our prayers, not just pick and choose from whoever is getting through to him." And my motherly side says "I don't know what else to do, so I'm praying."

He is my son and of course, I adore him. He is at the same time, the strongest, most stubborn, most persistent person and yet he is the sweetest, most squishy-hearted, give-you-the-shirt-off-my back guy in the world. When he spent time with us before this deployment, he would tell us stories of things that had happened over there and this strong, automatic-weapon-carrying Marine cried over buddies that had been killed or hurt or maimed. He, and we, will never be the same.

God, please bring him back.

Dedicated to Tommy

2006-08-10T17:30:00.000-04:00

This is dedicated to those of you who wear "Mandals." If you want to read this funny yet on-the-money article written by The Bitch, you can click here. The Miami New Times is a free publication and they specialize in local, bs-free journalism.

I love this cartoon and the best part is the little blue fly at the bottom, puking his guts out! Enjoy!

Things that make me go HAHAHAHAHA!

2006-08-09T16:23:00.000-04:00

I am the type of person that you can see walking down the street or in the next lane at a traffic light or at a table near yours at McDonald's, and I will SEEM completely normal but all of a sudden, without any warning, I will burst into uncontrollable laughter. Sometimes to the point where I am wiping away the tears after a great laugh. "Why?" you may ask, and I will answer: I don't know, except that if I think about something funny that happened, it will strike me as funny as it did the first time. I'm weird like that.

Some of those memories that make me laugh to the point of making my ribs hurt will be listed. And I sincerely hope that they will have the same effect on you:

* Party Girl: When my sister and I were 18 and 17, way back in the early 70's our family was invited to a barbecue (asado) on an island on the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was a highbrow barbecue since members of the Argentine government as well as the CEO's and COO's of several construction and dredging companies were attending. My sister and I, blooming fashionistas, donned our elephant pants which were the rage that year, our platform shoes, and our midi-length coats, ironed our hair, donned our big hippie purses, and we achieved what was then the "Peke of Perfection." In order to get to the island where the barbecue was held, a huge yacht was chartered, complete with stewards serving drinks and hors d'ouvres (sp?). High class. Top drawer. Until we got to the island. The guests had to cross from the yacht to another huge boat anchored at the island and from that huge boat to the dock. I made it ok, following the other invitees, my sister following behind me. As I stepped onto the dock, one of the sailors grabbed my hand to help me cross. I put one platformed shoe on the dock and as I did, I felt it slide under me. In desperation I gripped the sailor's hand and flipped him. He actually hit the water a few seconds before I did. We both fell in the river. When I fell, he was already in the water and I clawed him in utter despair as I sank to the muddy bottom and pushed myself back to the surface with my platform shoes. He had scratch marks all over. Two or three sailors were needed to drag me from the water because due to the heavy jeans and my long coat plus my purse, all waterlogged, I weighed like three tons. Water poured from my pockets, my purse, my hair as they dragged me out of the water. My parents' faces were a study in deep embarrassment and consternation. I was just freezing my butt off. I still believed they tried to act like I didn't belong to them but they always said it was my imagination.

* Orange you glad? The summer I was 16, I was sitting on our front porch in Sioux City, Iowa, peeling an orange with a knife. I looked up and saw what I thought was my boyfriend's car driving up. I got up and started running to the car with a huge smile on my face, waving at the car. When I got a little closer, I saw that it was not my boyfriend's car and there was a scary-looking old guy driving it while he stared at me, so I turned around and started running back to the house. But I tripped on something, probably the crabgrass, and I fell on my hands and knees, the orange in one hand and the knife in the other. I was lucky I had not poked my eye out. I turned around and saw the old guy in the car driving away laughing as I pulled myself up.

* A little Poop - My parents-in-law were having a long overdue get-together and had invited even the family members they hadn't talked to in forever. All the guests were there, dressed in their pale pinks and blues (this is Fort Lauderdale) and everyone was having a wonderful time. I was in the living room talking to one of my favorite uncles-in-law and I looked out the sliding glass door to the pool area where my then husband was taking care of our then only son, age two and a half. I think it's an understatement to say that I was mortified when I watched my son taking down his diaper and pooping right on the pool deck and in full view of everyone. Yeah, his dad was mortified too, as was grandma and grandad.

* Roach clip - This one is also from way back when I only had one son. My little boy was then also about two and a half. On the weekends, he loved to help me clean the back porch. I would turn the hose on and he would play with the water as I would move the plants around and clean the tile floor and the patio furniture. One day as we were both enjoying the outside and playing with the cool water, I turned around from my cleaning just to check on him and he was standing about five feet away from me with a plastic truck in his hands, smiling at me. But something was very wrong. I noticed that he had a HUGE cockroach on his head. The kind they call Palmetto bugs. It was so big it looked like a little black derby hat on his head. I did the only thing I could do in my state of horrified panic while my whole body burst out with goose bumps and the hair on the back of my head ruffled up... I smacked his head. I got the roach off him and it scampered off but my baby's face pruned up and he burst out crying. I really felt so badly for him, but later we both would laugh at this story.

I have many, many more, but I will have to come back to this subject some other time. This is becoming way too long and unwieldy. If you get all the way to the end of this post, let me know.

A Lifetime of Waiting

2006-08-02T11:07:00.000-04:00

First off, let me explain something about the way I look at politics. I am NOT by any means a Republican (Too many countries invaded) but neither am I a Democrat (Too many blow jobs in the White House). I am not a Libertarian (Wayy too much freedom and chaos) nor an Independent (They will never win an election). Like Chris Rock, I feel that I need to examine issues individually and not blindly and automatically adhere to whatever my party or my church or my ethnic group is backing. I am intrinsically afraid and wary of bunches of people deciding things for me.

So basically I don't feel I belong to any political group or follow any particular thought. What I do is think about each thing that happens (or that doesn't and should) and I make up my mind whether I'm for it or against it, and vote accordingly or email my congressman, etc.

All that preamble just to say the following: I know that a lot of people around the world revere Fidel Castro. I never understood this. Yes, he did stand up to the US proving he's either got big balls or he's insane, possibly both things. Yes, he did set up a system where there is social medicine , but there are no medicines and the hospitals have no equipment nor supplies unless you are a tourist and are coming to get breast implants. The Castro regime did build schools even in the most remote and rural areas in Cuba, but folks, if you're not a member of the Communist Party your kid does not go to the university, he cuts cane. He did a few good things, but to me that is like saying that Hitler got all the European Jews together and gave them jobs.

These are not meant to be political ramblings by a person that cannot even follow Vicus's posts nor the comments on them. This is just how I feel about the guy. First, he lied about not being Communist, then he took my country and made it into his own little fiefdom. So many people killed, silenced, tortured, imprisoned, intimidated, bullied, starved, worked to death, forced to flee into shark-infested waters. All of this so he could rule uncontested and unopposed.

In November 1960, my family and I left La Habana and took a 1/2 hour flight to Miami. Like any refugees, we got here with no money, no jobs. Just the 17 pieces of luggage that my mother packed. We had blankets, photo albums, clothing for my sister and me for the next year or two, some of my dad's books, and a Spanish/English dictionary that family and friends borrowed endlessly. I was six and my sister was five. My whole family, even while embracing life in the US and thanking our lucky stars that we were able to make it here, always dreamed and talked about when we would return to Cuba. What we would do, what a wonderful thing it would be to see the rest of our family, live in a free Cuba again. We never thought that we would be here 46 YEARS waiting for the insanity to end.

So when I heard the news that he was sick and that he was handing over power to his brother, my first thoughts were about the members of my family that died waiting for Castro to fall. My grandmother, who died without seeing her brothers and sisters in Cuba. My father, who at 36 years of age left his wife and two daughters in a strange country to fight in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and who later came back to us and would sit at home crying, his nerves shot by what he had experienced and the realization that his country was lost.

Needlesss to say, I took to the streets on Monday night, bringing my pots and pans to celebrate at La Carreta on 87th Avenue and Bird Road along with hundreds of other Cuban people. I hope he dies and I hope it's painful.

Dumb Post

2006-07-27T16:15:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-07-21T13:03:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-07-20T16:56:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-11T15:03:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-07T14:50:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-05T10:21:00.000-04:00

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.

On Vacation... Please leave a message...(beep)

2006-06-26T15:19:00.000-04:00

If I'm not here, please leave a message... I will be gone until after the 4th of July jamboree/holiday/fireworks display. I wish all of you, well not all of you, only the "colonials," a very wonderful and rewarding Independence Day! As they say in Brooklyn, "Love yous guys!"

Friday at Last

2006-06-23T14:54:00.000-04:00

It's Finally Friday. I am feeling much better, which can be interpreted as: I'm only coughing my lungs out occasionally, rather than constantly as I was in the first part of this week. To tell you the truth, I don't know how I'm still alive, this week was not easy what with being sick and all PLUS the added affliction of not having air conditioning in my Jeep. Worse than coughing your brains out is coughing them out while you are soaked in perspiration at a red light in a Jeep in South Florida's lovely hot humidity with not even the faint trace of a breeze. Aaahhh! I'm so glad the week is over.

Also this week: I have never, ever forked over $507.61 so willingly as yesterday when the guy at the shop billed me for the repairs to my car. I almost cried, I almost kissed the mechanic, I almost left them a tip! I have AC in my car, people! Does it happen to you ladies in blogland that you take your car in for a repair, for example the air conditioning, and the mechanic always comes back with a look on his face like, "Lady, you better sit down, cuz this is bad news..." This happens to me every single time. Well, my car not only had AC problems, which was easy to diagnose since I didn't have one un-frizzy hair on my head or an inch of dry clothing when I rode in my car, but it also had radiator problems, it needed a hose replaced, the windshield wiper fluid receptacle had a leak and so on and so forth. I'm holding off on doing the other repairs for the simple reason that those repairs would cost more than the car originally did in the first place. It must be that I'm a woman and all and they figure I don't know Jack about mechanical car thingies. It doesn't help that when something goes wrong with the car I can just point and say "Smoke came out of there" or "It is making a horrible T-Rex sound like in the movie Jurassic Park" or "The car doesn't stop when I step on the brake thingie." It also does not help that when they try to explain what is wrong with the car (and I just know that the other mechanics are stifling laughter right behind us) I can only look back blankly and blink several times before I admit: "Is that a serious thing? What does that mean?" I have to admit that several times I came in and I had no idea what was wrong with the car but I tried to bluff it and I said "I think it's the carburetor" so I would at least sound like I knew SOMETHING about cars. Of course, they did not buy it and I think they like seeing me come in because they are guaranteed a couple of laughs for that day, plus I may tip them or something if they fix something important, like the Air Conditioning.

These shop guys are used to me and know that they can just add things to my repair bill which I will never in a million years discover that it shouldn't be there. "What is this flea bath charge for 69dollars and 32cents?" So we both play our parts and come away happy.

On quite a different note, my older son comes home tomorrow to spend 12 days with us before his next deployment. I am overjoyed and at the same time pre-worried sick. Making plans to make him all the dishes he loves (or to have my mom prepare them, yeah, that's better) and take him to the beach and shower him with love and let him have a wonderful time before he's gone for 6-7 months. Wish me luck!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Is Monday over yet?

2006-06-19T17:26:00.000-04:00

I have a horrible cough and sore throat and I should not have been at work today except my supervisor is on vacation so I have to work my ass off until he gets back. No fun, here, people (sniff). I even have to wear proper clothes like suits and stuff. No jeans and sneakers until he comes back.

It's even worse considering that I passed this same affliction to my boyfriend who is not even able to sleep at night from the hacking cough and HE cannot take a sick day this week because his boss is off spending megabucks at some theme park with his spoiled rotten kids and his shopaholic wife. How unfair is that? So we are both walking around like zombies, sucking Ricolah's to no avail. Nobody better cut me off in traffic, that's for sure.

OK, maybe I should have waited til Tuesday to post... Mondays are rough. Tomorrow will be another day. Think happy little thoughts...

Miscellaneous

2006-06-15T13:27:00.001-04:00

I can't seem to focus these days...My mind is going off into tangents all the time and so the title of my blog and the following ramblings.

Critter news: I am the proud co-mother of two baby pigeons! My office is on the fourth floor and we have a balcony where my friend and I sneak off to for "sanity time." It is full of pigeons. About a month or so ago we noticed some hot sexual activity going on in the pigeon community and a bit later on we observed how a couple of these formerly copulating feathered friends made a little nest of twigs and dead leaves on the balcony. A few days after that we saw the female sitting on two tiny white eggs. We started leaving bread crumbs out for her on the balcony. First one chick hatched and then the other. They were ugly, tiny, hungry little things. We have watched as they have grown almost to their mother's size. They are still ugly but cute. And they are still flapping wings constantly so their mother feeds them. Yep, kids are the same in every species.

Oops: Yesterday I called in "sick." I have a bunch of sick days since I hardly ever get sick (shouldn't have said that considering my superstitious nature). Instead of being sick I went off to the beach with my boyfriend. Hello??? I forgot that usually one acquires a tan or a sunburn at the beach. This morning I frantically searched for a good excuse or reason why, if I had been "sick" the day before, I would today be sporting a fabulous bronze skin color. I remembered that my boss would be leaving today on a vacation so I thought maybe I was in the clear and would not have to give silly, untrue explanations but the man was here (why do people who are supposed to leave on vacation still go to work anyway? I will never understand that). And of course I was sitting there sporting my gorgeous tawny skin, looking certifiably un-sick. I told him that I had had a bad congestion yesterday and had gone to the beach to see if it helped clear my lungs. I coughed a bit, quite a bit as a matter of fact. Hope he bought it. I really do hate lying, but sometimes it has to be done, especially in cases where being able to meet your next mortgage payment is concerned.

Psycho babbling: Let me give you the scenario first. I have a cute boyfriend whom I've been dating for about a year. He is perfect: Mature, super-good-looking, sweet, considerate, funny, warm, sweet (it bears repeating). In short, we get along great, like doing the same things, and are having a wonderful time together. One little problem: There is not a single day that goes by that this wonderful man doesn't refer to one of his women-friends. As in: "Yes, I know that place, one of my women-friends recommended it to me a long time ago, and ..." Or: "One of my women-friends has a convertible like that, she loves it..." Who are these women-friends? Why don't I know them? I know his guy-friends, he knows all my girlfriends and I have very few guy-friends, mostly co-workers. Not people I mention all the time. Am I psycho? Should this not bother me? Other than this, he's perfect.

Sweet thing: My oldest son's girlfriend lives with us. It's a long explanation but basically she lived in the NW section of town and she wanted to attend the community college near our house. She asked me if she could stay here and I said yes. I said yes knowing that I'm creating a conflict of interest. Knowing that if they split up or argue or fight, I will be in the middle of everything which is where I don't want to be. I said yes knowing full well that I should have said No. Like the time I signed a contract to purchase an ex-boyfriend's motorcycle, but that's a different story. Anyway, she is a wonderful young woman, studies, works, really loves my son. She is very helpful around the house and is generally a pleasure. I hardly even see her as either we are both working or out of the house. Last night when I came back from the beach, she had left me a little note on my bed. She was working until 1am. I read the note, it said "Carmen, I bought a pair of shoes for you. I saw them at Ross and they looked like you so I got them for you. They are right in front of your closet." I looked and there were the cutest NineWest sandals that I have ever seen! Of course I tried them on and I'm wearing them today (You never know when that piano will fall on your head). That was such a sweet thing for her to do. Love that girl!

Happy HNT! Careful with the Piano!!!

2006-06-08T09:35:00.000-04:00

I made a comment on someone's blog the other day, I think it was Fronty's, about life having its ups and downs. That is a big understatement. I often wonder, and it's an important theme that takes up a lot of my "hmmmm?" moments, whether there are people in the world that actually have a shred of stability in their lives to the point that they can more or less figure out what is coming down the pike, or what is around the corner, or what piano is going to fall out of which building on their heads. Yes, this occupies a lot of my so-called thinking time.

For me, personally, the very instant that I start to feel that everything is more or less "normal" or "under control" (the very words give me chills), something happens to completely prove me wrong, and usually in the area where I would least expect crap to happen. An example: My youngest son got into a car crash last year on the 4th of July, he totalled his car and luckily he got away with only a concussion and two parents that changed from being loving and concerned while he was in the hospital to satanic dogs from hell once we knew he was ok. A week after he came home from the hospital, he borrowed his brother's car and messed up something or other on it because he went over a curb while switching CD's on the stereo (or something to that effect). His father and I told him he would have to take the bus for a while because we were kind of out of spare cars for him to destroy. About two weeks after he had been riding the bus or whining to friends to give him a ride, he asked to borrow my cute '93 jeep that I adore and that is my only MOT. I have even thought that if the engine dies, I will hitch a pony to it because I don't ever want to buy another car. Love my jeep. Have taken care of it for 14 years. It has original everything, except paint and canvas top. It's my BABY, ok? I lent it to him, thinking to myself "This guy (meaning my son) has f*cked up several cars. He has learned his lesson, I think now he will be responsible and careful while he drives." Yes, big mistake in thinking that. I lent him my car and like 2 hours later I get the call "Mom, I know you're gonna be mad, but don't scream..." He crushed in my right fender while backing out of a parking space (supposedly, I obviously don't believe him). I went apeshit, to say the least.

Another example: I have never EVER had anyone say to me "I met the man/woman of my dreams, we are so happy, we are in love, blah blah blah!!!" that the relationship lasted any more than a few months or days or even hours. This has made me so superstitious that if I ever start dating anyone that I really like and get along with well, I can't mention it because that person will sprout horns and cloven hoofs and will be gone in a cloud of dust before I can say "HUH??" This puts me in a really strange position in case I really like a guy. If the guy says to me "I really like/love you" I can only smile stupidly while trying to ward off the evil that is sure to ensue. I admit that not saying anything or trying not to even think in the possibility of a great relationship has not always helped as a couple guys have sported the horn/hooves combo anyway and trotted away, even thought I kept silent and didn't tempt the gods.

But my point is (I am NOT going to use the phrase "But I digress," if I hear it one more time I will hurl), that at least for me the last thing I expect is what usually happens. Please don't tell me then that I must figure out what it is that I would least expect and try to anticipate it because that won't work, I have tried it. For me, things always come out of the blind side. There is never a preview or a warning or a sign or anything. The piano usually just comes right down.

One some, luckily very few, days I have several up and down moments, enough to MAKE a person bi-polar or schizoid or manic-depressive. Several things will happen that will have me like a yo-yo, either tearing my hair out or giggling happily a few minutes later. Is this normal? Do I need medication?

In the words of Rod (Yes, I think you're sexy) Stewart: "Think of me and try not to laugh..."

Jesus, I'm 52! My birthday weekend

2006-05-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

It was a crazy, long freaking weekend. It actually started on Thursday last week. I took Friday off from work for two reasons. First, it was my birthday and I turned "Sweet 52." More about that later and snickering will not be tolerated. Second, my older son came home for a 96 which means he was with us for four days before going back to the Marines.

Things started out semi-normal. On Friday morning I took my boyfriend, my youngest son, and my older son's girlfriend (I'm thinking I should make a family tree here so people can keep up) to breakfast in my honor. This is the only kind of activity that I can organize in my honor which people will gladly go to, any kind of activity centering around food.

Breakfast was great. It had been a long time since I had choked down 375 grams of cholesterol in one meal like that and the three cups of coffee kept me in a manic mood till way after sundown.

After breakfast my boyfriend took me to a department store and treated me to the shower gel and perfumed talcum powder for Angel perfume (which I already have). I have to make a side comment here and explain that although I think wearing a lot of makeup or hair extensions or a fake tan will just make most women look bizarre (especially older, "mature" women), I can't stress enough how strongly I feel about smelling good! Of course, cleanliness is the first and most important thing, but a very close second is wearing a nice fragrance. In my younger years, I would follow a man wearing a great cologne for blocks, no matter how unattractive he was. I don't do that any more because I would probably scare people if I followed them at my age. Also, now there are rules against stalking and they invented restraining orders and whatnot. I am NOT talking here about people who wear so much perfume that the oxygen content in an elevator is immediately sucked out as soon as they walk in. But I love perfume, and Angel is my favorite at the moment.

To get back to my ranting about my weekend: We picked up my oldest son from the airport. We have a big poster that we painted for him when he came home from boot camp about 2-1/2 years ago that says "The Few, The Proud, The AJ." We did a great job, the huge letters on the poster are in a camouflage pattern and "AJ" is in red, white and blue. Every time he comes home, we drag it out and take it to the airport with us and hold it up when he comes walking out. For some weird reason, I never cry when my son leaves. My heart breaks every time he has to leave, especially when he gets deployed, but I can't cry. I think it has to do with not showing him that my heart is breaking because if this is difficult for me it has to be just as hard or harder on him. BUT I am Niagara Falls every time he comes home. This time, I hung around his neck for a long time bawling my eyes out and smiling. I love that guy.

My two sons went about doing guy things on Saturday, while I washed clothes and did the mom thing, happy to see them doing things together as they always used to do. It was a nice and quiet Saturday, they washed the dog, cleaned the garage a bit, took a look at my Jeep's engine and put in some gas treatment or something. My mom made lasagna and after dinner we had a little cake for my son (his b-day was May 12th) and myself.

Yeah, I'm 52! The first 18 years of my life went by painfully slow, it seemed that the days did not pass, there was time for everything and when someone told you that something would happen "next year" that meant you had to wait a loooooong time. After 18, my life became a blur and after I got married and had kids it just whizzed by.

I have to say I have enjoyed myself. I've made lots of mistakes. For example, I let Carlos Santana walk past me at the Mexico City airport in1973, we both smiled but I was too shy to approach him. Therefore, Carlos and I never shacked up, alas. Most of my mistakes have been of the "I wish I woulda" category. I have to admit I've always been chickenshit when it comes to making bold decisions or taking drastic measures. I always wanted to backpack through Europe but my mom and grandma talked me out of it because I would get raped for sure. I was hired by an airline in my early 20's but I didn't take the stewardess job (which I had always dreamed of) because my dad said I would be too far from my family. The few times I have tried to be bold and insist on doing what I want, I've had bad things happen (see my post on getting mugged).

But here I am, I've plodded through, gotten an education, planted trees, tried to write books, gotten married, had my kids, raised them, I'm still here, still breathing, doesn't hurt! So I feel that I've had a charmed life in spite of not having done a lot of things I wanted to do. If I backpack through Europe now I could probably still do it, but in a few years I'm going to need a walker. I can retire in 13 years! That last realization made my heart race a little bit but maybe it's the coffee.

The rest of my weekend was wonderful except for the fact that my two boys got into one of their horrible fights. Why are boys like that? My sister and I were raised together and we fought maybe twice (physically fight, not the screaming and crying matches, we did those all the time). My sons HAVE to fight when they have been apart a while and then get back together, like this weekend. They patched things up right away, though.

My older son left Monday morning while I stoically watched him walk away, not a single tear out of my eyes. He will be back again in a month's time for his pre-deployment leave. He and his brother will probably get into a fight again.

I'll be 53 next year...

Le Monde du Beaute

2006-05-23T13:05:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I took a year of French in high school and it has really served me well, even though the French would probably disagree... But just in case you are not at all familiar with the language, the title of my blog is the World of Beauty.

If you ask me, the so-called beauty industry is whack! On TV, on one channel you have a woman bemoaning the fact that her hair is too curly and frizzy so she bought the thingamajig that irons her hair (and btw if you order now, you get the nose hair clipper with automatic defroster in a corinthian leather holder that clips to your belt). If you flick the channel you will see another woman saying that her hair is too straight and flat and Esteban (or is that the guy that sells guitar lessons?) is selling her a product that will get her hair looking like Slash from Guns'n'Roses except you can see her eyes.

I confess that I cannot come across one of those beauty informercials because I will sit there transfixed for hours, staring at the before-and-after pictures and listening to their crap and wondering how, just how, I have managed to live for 52 years without hair extensions for $29.99. How have I managed to get by?

One of my favorites is Adrianne Arpel, who must be like 80 years old by now but still wears mini-skirts, has collagen (fish) lips and sells her line of products for the Mature Woman (read: women who need to spackle their faces before they even put foundation on). She sells a kit, and I'm kidding you not here, that has well over 20 assorted creams, cremes, balms, spackles, lotions, gels, and "treatments." Actually, instead of investing in all that stuff (which comes with a cute woven raffia tote and weekend bag, hmmmm???) what would help some women would be electroshock treatments. That would really straighten us out. Then we wouldn't even watch these dumb infomercials. We would snap out of it, we would.

I'm a mature woman, but I can't see myself wearing all that stuff or paying beaucoup bucks for it (see my French kicking in again? It just flows out of me....). Most of the time, when I look at the before and after pics I feel badly for the woman in the "after" picture. In the before picture, she looked like a normal, nice person with maybe some dark shadows under her eyes. In the after picture she looks like someone from the old tv show "Dark Shadows." She doesn't even LOOK LIKE HERSELF and Adrianne has colored in her lips all crooked and stuff! Pathetic.

Ladies, ladies, the best thing is to be natural, which does not mean to look like you have a half-inch of putty on your face and to wear a lip color of such fuschia tone that does not exist in nature, or it does but only on exotic orchids, not on real lips. Which brings me to another related subject: If I was a man, I would not want to kiss a chick with gobs of gloss on her lips, that is just icky (well, just the thought of kissing a chick would be icky for me). And yet women spend a lot of dough on gloss and stuff like that... It's not kissable, it's YUCKY.

If you think about it, people are just big gobs of cells and hair with some nail thrown in. We are not meant to be artificial, we are meant to be gobs of cells and hair. We are not meant to be attractive, we are meant to imbibe enough alcohol to forget the fact that we are gobs of cells and hair and find the other person temporarily "do-able" so we can reproduce, have babies and raise them and be done with it. But unless you are horribly disfigured, and even if you are, whoever loves you will love you whether or not your hair looks like Axl Rose, or in spite of the fact that it does. You can't HIDE behind the microns of Bare Essentuals (they really spell it that way), or behind the creams and the horrible royal blue eye shadow that is supposed to make you look "dramatic" but instead winds up making you look like "crap warmed over."

AND being a mature woman, I don't think women my age or older (Yeah, Adrianne, that totally includes YOU) should aspire to look or act "young." We should act and yes, look, our ages. Maybe brush our hair neatly, maybe use a little lipstick in a natural color, maybe use some mascara, you know, accent whatever we have left that looks ok, always be clean and neat and smell good (that is always a big plus), but not the gobs of makeup or the collagen lips that makes all the women that have had the procedure look like they belong to the same genus of fish.

Wysiwyg, that is always the best way...

Cynthia

2006-05-16T14:00:00.000-04:00

What can I say about Cynthia? That her eyes were blue (not red, that was the camera), bluer than the Caribbean, bluer than the Miami sky just before Hurricane Katrina, bluer than this font...

Cynthia was the cat I most loved in the world. She was a blue-point persian. At least that's what her papers said. She had class, she had style, she had pedigree papers. She was the creamiest ivory color with blue-gray on the tips of her ears and on her face (which my sons always said looked like someone had hit her head on with a frying pan) and on her paws.

I got Cynthia when my then-boyfriend (long gone, thank gods) brought her home to placate me after another one of our fights. He had come upon her in a pet store. She had been kept in a cage with one of her sisters and it seemed that no one had noticed how beautiful, how sweet, how perfect she was. So he bought her and brought her home, to me.

When I saw her I promptly told him "The last thing I needed was another cat" (ok, I'm a bitch, I admit it). I told him that I would NOT keep her, as I was already struggling with a huge golden retriever (Yeller, which my mother calls "Yellow") and the cat we all call Mama even though her name is Oreo and her legal name is Jinx, but that's another story. I told him that he could have gotten me any of a number of things that I really wanted and needed (like a new air conditioning unit to replace the one we have that keeps us awake at night clunking, drawing its last breaths). I said a bunch of (mean) things to him, and then I really looked at her. I fell in love with her and she became part of our lives.

I have always had pets all my life. I've had countless and unforgettable dogs, cats, birds, turtles, hermit crabs (yes, hermit crabs), fish, etc. Once I even had a pair of mussels of some sort, that had beautiful orange lining on their shells, in a salt-water tank. But nothing prepared me for this cat. She took over our lives as if nothing, as if we had been waiting for her all this time. As if our lives necessarily revolved around her.

As soon as we met her we adored her. Cynthia was a cat that, as my sons said, "Loved love." She didn't want anything from anyone except love. She craved love more than anything else. If we were eating at the table she would hop on it and pester us until we held her and scratched her little chinny chin-chin. She never went after the food, all she wanted was our attention and our love. If we didn't immediately cater to her she would sit there and stare at us with her little mad-sad face until someone was caught up with her loveliness/sweetness/cuteness and scratched her pink belly. It never took very long for this to happen.

She had a chin that a plastic surgeon could have done liposuction on, it was that chubby. And it had a harlequin pattern to it, half of it light cream-colored and the other half gray. Like my boys called it: "Fucked up, but so cute."

I had never nor since seen big teenage boys talking baby talk to a kitty. The picture above, left is one we call "Dominic Eating Pussy" in which Cynthia is allowing him to kiss and adore her in the way that she was accustomed to. My sons even made up songs for her. "Twenty Padded Fingers and Toes" comes to mind. Another one was "I Second that Emiaowtion." They were smitten with her. Sometimes we would sit around the table thinking up hypotheses as to why she was the perfect cat. What had made her that way? Was it the months of cage living in the pet shop? Would our black cat, Mama, be reformed if we put her in a cage for a few months? Would that make her as sweet and friendly and loving as Cynthia? We would have tried it except that we didn't think it would work. And Mama would probably have scratched the hell out of us if we had tried to do it.

Cynthia loved it when we rolled up paper into a ball and threw it down the hall. She would skid on the tile until she could get some traction and then she would be off after it. Sometimes she crashed into the door at the end of the hall but as my boys said, that could only fix her face, it couldn't bash it in any more than it was. She loved playing that game and she would never tire of it. She would bring the wadded up paper ball back to whoever had thrown it, over and over until you had to hide from her because your arm was tired.

We had Cynthia for about a year. She slept with us, she lived on top of the dining room table (which I had never allowed a cat to do, even Mama would look at me like saying "You don't let ME on top of the table and I'm the senior cat and yet look at HER? What the hell?"). She would take turns sleeping with one or the other, whoever had the warmest bed that night. When we got home, she would be waiting for us with one of those rolled up paper balls, begging for us to play with her. She was totally adorable and good and sweet.

She died about a year ago. My youngest son and I were bathing her as we did every so often, and she must have had a massive heart attack. She started having convulsions in the bathtub and we quickly wrapped her in a towel and tried to revive her but it was no good, she died in my arms. My son and I cried like little kids and we buried her outside in the yard and marked her grave with a huge coral rock for eternity. We all went around mourning her for a long time. We will never forget her, the best cat in the world.

I saw Bigfoot

2006-05-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

One thing you must know about me: I am not crazy. Ok, you may laugh...that's ok. I may look crazy, sometimes act in ways that may seem crazy. But I am not in any way, shape or form a crazy person.

Why this preamble, you may ask? Well, what I am about to say (and the title of this blog) may make you think that I am crazy or maybe if you are a bit on the sensitive, understanding side, that I am not "all there" or that I may have been dropped as a baby. No, none of that is true. I am very practical and rational (don't judge me on the basis of my blog), and am not crazy at all.

Now for the story, and please keep in mind that this is a true story. If you don't believe me you can go to http://www.bfro.net/ and you can read my report there as well.

When I was nine years old (and may I remind you that I was a perfectlly normal 9-year old girl, not enrolled in learning disabled classes even though they didn't exist then), we lived in Fort Myers, Florida. Our house was next to a canal in a nice little neighborhood of middle-class houses near a very densely wooded area.

In the ways of yesteryear, my younger sister and I shared a room with my grandmother. My bed lay along a big, picture window with frosted glass and there was a streetlight outside that shone in all night. I had gone to bed and lay there thinking God knows what (the spelling bee the next day, whether or not a little boy named Marshall liked me or Janet better, whether they would have mashed potatoes in the cafeteria tomorrow...).

All of a sudden, I felt heavy footsteps outside. It's weird, but it was like in Jurassic Park when T. Rex is coming at them and the water in the glass moves with every step. I remember that I froze, I was so scared that I could not move my body. I lay there as the footsteps came closer to my window. I heard a low, painful moan. It wasn't human, it was like the sound a hurt animal would make. Whatever it was walked past my window casting a huge shadow in my room. I remember calling out to my sister in a low whisper, "Elena?" My first thought was that she had heard and seen all this and was probably scared shitless. I sat up in my bed, she was asleep. So was my grandmother. I remember sitting there a few seconds, and then I got up and ran into my parents' room.

That night they had to give me a tiny piece of a tranquilizer pill to make me stop shaking. Any self-respecting Cuban mother always keeps a supply of tranquilizer pills (because you never know when something like this can happen) and my mother was no exception. I finally dozed off.

This experience changed my 9-year-old life. I had been until then a happy, friendly, outside-loving little girl. Since that day I could not go outside without feeling that I had to be on the lookout for that thing that had gone by my window. I didn't feel safe anywhere, not even inside. I started biting my nails to the quick. I also threw up a lot.

One day after about two weeks, my father made me get on my bike and ride to the end of the block ALONE! I cried all the way there and back, certain that I would be attacked by Bigfoot. Nothing happened to me that day, but I was sure that the next day something would happen.

I begged my Dad on a daily basis for us to move somewhere. After about six months we moved to Buffalo, New York, thank GOD! I started behaving like my normal self there (albeit with huge fur coats, mittens and boots).

Nothing like this ever happened to me before or after that episode. I am not a sleepwalker, I do not "imagine" things or ever did for that matter. I never got night terrors before or since. I really did experience this thing.

So, believe me, Bigfoot does exist.

I'm a "bad" girl

2006-05-08T11:26:00.000-04:00

You Are a Bad Girl

You are 30% Good and 70% Bad
You're a total bad girl, from your wild hair to tattooed toes.
But you're too badass to even care if you're labeled "bad"!

Are You a Good Girl or a Bad Girl?

"Hump Day," he he he

2006-05-03T10:17:00.000-04:00

Wednesday... aaaaaaahhhh!!! We are almost done with the week, and it really just started. It's kind of like the calendar year, January starts the new year and before you know it, it's Christmas. Of course, it doesn't help that even before Halloween and Thanksgiving, the dreaded Christmas ornaments/stuff is already out and on store shelves, making you feel that you have (again) wasted an entire year. You didn't lose the 20+ pounds, you didn't begin a healthier lifestyle, you did not apply for a better, higher paying job, you didn't get the house painted, you didn't... catch my drift?

Wednesday is for weirdness. There are two sides to weirdness (as to anything), the good side and the bad. The good side of weirdness is any quirkiness that all of a sudden you get a glimpse of and it totally enchants you. For example, finding out that a fifty-something coworker has a piercing in a totally unexpected place. Or another coworker that I barely know sending me a beautiful and supportive email while my son was deployed in Iraq and I was not sleeping nights worrying about him. Or another example, what happened to me last week. I was sorting laundry and something moved in the pile of clothes I was holding. I shrieked and dropped everything, eyes open wide in total disgust, goose bumps all over my body. Out of the pile of clothes crawled a slightly dazed baby possum! In MY garage! It was ugly but cute, the way most babies are. It looked like a baby rat except that it had a patch of long hair on its head and a black stripe running through it. It also had a long, wide mouth and inside, rows of sharp little teeth. I sat and watched in amazement until it crawled back under the pile of clothes (which later my son had to pick up off the ground and he swore there was nothing there, as he sighed patiently, making me feel as crazy as he thinks I am).

That kind of weirdness is lovely. Unexpected, surprising, beautiful chaos that makes my day, indeed, it makes my existence.

But there is bad weirdness too. Bad weirdness is stuff that shouldn't happen, and you don't see it coming. Like when you start going out with someone new and everything is going great. You enjoy each other's company, feel like you could talk about any subject and that person would totally understand you. And then you find out that he already has a girlfriend because she calls you and tells you. And, at first you don't believe her but then she asks you whether or not he left your house at 5 am the other morning and you say "Yes, he did," and she says "Well he came over to my house when he left yours." WHAT?

Bad weirdness is when out of the blue someone calls you to tell you that you owe your neighborhood association $300 for "lawyers' fees" because your house was on foreclosure and they had to draw foreclosure papers on it. HUH? And you had no clue about this and have been paying your mortgage religiously so you have to backtrack and find out what the H*LL happened and correct it through faxing tons of copies of canceled checks, talk to 5 people at your mortgage company to get a letter stating that your house was never put on foreclosure so you can fax it to these bloodthirsty people... Ok by now you must get my drift.

So, I feel that good and bad weirdness rules our world. We can try to feel that we are "in control" of things. In fact that phrase "In control" always makes me laugh because we are all hanging on threads. If you don't believe me, look around you. The world is chaos, total coincidence and happenstance. If you are organized in one area of your life, something will go totally wrong in another, or even in that same area you are trying so hard to dominate because you cannot foresee anything, you cannot control anything, you cannot change what is coming for you. That is, at the same time, the horror and the beauty of it. And we can only try to enjoy the good weirdness, the happy little things that happen, the little possums we find, the good that somehow made its way to us.

Waxing philosophical, but don't let it scare you. I'm still as confused as ever. Perhaps more.

Happy Hump Day everyone!

Why is everyone so rude?

2006-04-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

It's friday, and I should be joyfully looking forward to Happy Hour and then the weekend, so this subject is kind of strange for today. But what is going on? Why are people so darn rude?

If I call somewhere for a question or for (God forbid) "customer service" first I can't connect with a live person. I get someone's recording or (worse) one of those self-service phone message circuits in which they toy with you while having you punch in your social security number, date of birth, account number (which you wrote down on a sticky eons ago and presently the sticky is lying in the bottom of one of your summer purses that you have not used since last year), then after that you get to pick among five choices, none of which apply to you, so you hit zero in the hopes that maybe that will get you to the operator, but it doesn't... ok, enough, you get my drift. So essentially that company has just told you by their lack of caring to go frig yourself (notice that I'm keeping my blog clean for now, there is only one "damn" in the whole thing, pretty good).

Then if by chance you hit a sequence of numbers that the phone computer can't figure out what to do with and a live person comes on the phone with a voice that seems like they just woke up from a nap, they usually can't help you, you need a pin, you need the correct account number (where did I put that purse?), they can't DO what your silly, whiny, insignificant self is asking for, and you have basically mistaken them for someone who gives a darn.

And this happens not only with businesses but also with people in general. I work on a university campus. I cross paths with people all the time, some of them will not even look at you to say "hello," even though you have talked to them countless times and they know who you are and they know you know who they are... this gets so complicated.
I can also say that also in my dealings as the customer service provider, I come across people who do not how to say "Good Afternoon" or "Please" or "Thank you," people who I'm trying to help with a problem and I'm treating politely and nevertheless they call me "sweetheart" (As in "No, sweetheart, I'm not an admitted student"). I really hate that. I never, EVER, call anyone sweetheart or anything like that. It's rude, it's not polite, it's not professional.

Another item that bothers me: People who are talking on their cell phones or with another person and they think no one hears their moronic, inane, and frankly boring, conversations. Please speak quietly in public places, no one wants to hear the conversation you are having, the breakup with your boyfriend, what you had for lunch, etc. Hint for rude people: Guess what, folks, profanity is rude! If I'm talking to a good friend, or on the phone where no one hears me, or at home, or talking privately on the cell phone, I'm the first to interject certain words that make the conversation, shall we say "flavorful." But I hate it when I have to hear other people using these words in front of me. I don't subject anyone to my profanity and neither should you.

Also, people, parking spaces are not important in the scheme of things. Think about it. If you weasel into someone's parking space that they were patiently waiting for before you rounded the corner, let them park there. Ok, so you're going to have to park a little farther away, so what? Another thing, if you are driving behind a blue hair (what we yanks call senior citizens) going 15 mph, don't honk, don't behave like an ass (I mean ass in the sense of donkey), remember that person is a grandmother or grandfather or maybe he/she was single and didn't have kids or grandkids but we have to value older people (I swear I would never call them blue hairs to their faces) and we do have to respect others regardless of age, sex, gender, religion, etc.

Ok, whew! That felt good. I'm ready for Happy Hour! Or as we call it in my age group (glorious fifty-somethings): "Content Hour." Besitos, everyone!!!

Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy!`

2006-04-24T14:24:00.000-04:00

Oh Joy! It's Monday! I know it sounds really crazy but for me it's very reassuring to come back to the (supposed) level-headedness of the work week. Told you it was gonna sound crazy.

During the weekend, my ordered, organized little world is turned upside-down by the extra time I have on my hands, the whims of friends and family that want to barbecue for me or want to have me cook them breakfast, the possibility of sleeping late till I slobber on my pillowcase, the lack of pressure of having to get up and have to take a quick shower and run out the door like a madwoman. If I have nothing at all to do, or even if I have a lot to do but I choose to ignore it, I can spend hours looking at sappy, old black and white movies on TV. After hours and hours of watching these movies, i cannot for the life of me remember what I watched. It's kind of frightening not to have a schedule, not to have to be here or there at a certain time, not to have to get stuff done...

So when Monday morning comes around, I have a sense of security at knowing more or less what I will face for the next 8 hours, to know that I am actually NEEDED somewhere, have to show up and do my part in a little part of the world. Coming to my little office is a pleasure, I have access to everything, my computer is super-fast, I get to see my work friends that I love, catch up on the latest gossip over coffee or IM's, I am surrounded by pictures, little knick-knacks that co-workers have brought me from their world travels, my plants that depend on me for their very lives (and always need watering), my schedule that keeps me on task, having coffee at 10:30, lunch at 12:30, break again at 3:30, leave at 5, etc... So reassuring, so safe, so predictable.

Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy!!!!

Why Suicide? Why Blonde?

2006-04-20T10:35:00.000-04:00

If you were alive in the 80's you will remember the INXS song "Suicide Blonde." I loved INXS, and since I became a blonde by accident I identified with this song... So much so that it became my nickname in the Prodigy chat rooms for many years, and yes, I'm aware that I'm dating myself. I don't care.

How I became a blonde: I was a happy brunette all my life, until I began getting gray hair in my early 30's. Since at that time I was having babies, I wanted to look younger, fresher. My then husband, the father of my babies, hated gray hair so I started using a rinse to cover the gray. THEN I made the big mistake of getting a perm because my hair is very fine and I needed "volume." Well, the woman who did my permanent left it in for like 2 hours and stupid me had no clue that that was way too long for a perm. When she took out the little perm rollers my hair was blonde, and when my hair dried I looked like a blonde Bozo the Clown who had stuck his finger in the electric plug. When I got home, my husband opened the door and laughed till he cried. I just cried. That was the beginning of my (suicide) blondeness...

Now, in my (very early) fifties, I feel great as a blonde and I don't care how much I spend on L'Oreal Medium Ash Blonde No. 71/2, it's well worth it. It's funny how different "accidents" or "events" can change lives drastically. My hair color change was not such a drastic one but others have been.

For example: I got mugged once. The mugging in itself was horrible, it was the first time I had ever been assaulted, I felt defiled, vulnerable, exposed. But the consequences of being mugged were worse than the mugging itself.

I was 26, single, recently moved to this city where I knew no one, felt like a complete alien from another planet, hated everything, was living with my parents and could not go on my own because I didn't make enough money... I had been saving my money to move back to where I had come from, back to my unavailable boyfriend whom I loved, back to my friends and the city I loved, back to where I understood people, where they understood me. I was homesick and wanted to go back but a ticket and a move would cost me beaucoup bucks.

The day I got mugged, I was full of resolve to go back or die. I gathered some items I had collected through the years, a set of coral ring and earrings made of solid 18kt gold, a promise ring with a small diamond from a high school boyfriend, some gold coins I had bought with some extra money. I gathered these things and took them on my lunch hour to a jewelry store to have them appraised, thinking I could sell them and buy my ticket back.

Well, I got mugged that day after work and they took every last thing of value I had. Apparently, they had been watching me and following me and waited for their chance to get me, and they did.

The person they left on the sidewalk after they wrestled my purse away from me was not the same person that had gotten up that morning. My will was broken, my valuables were gone, my destiny was changed...

What am I doing here?

2006-03-30T16:34:00.000-05:00

I was posting a comment on someone's blog and found myself here, with my own damn blog! Now what do I do? My first step is to take some HNT pics and have them ready for next week. My second step is to post some steamy (semi-made up) stuff on here so someone will (maybe) read it.

Who am I? I am 51, going on (you guessed it) 52. I am a divorced mother of two adorable sons, almost 21 and almost 19 (we all have birthdays in late spring). I have read so many blogs and have not yet found one written by a past-middle age person like myself. Like my sons remind me all the time "You're not middle-aged anymore. You're not gonna live to 102!!" Thank you, sonnies for reminding me not only of my mortality but also of my ripe old age. Actually, I'm ecstatic to be here! I'm glad I'm 51, even though I would like to look younger. I feel young and I am (so far) in the best of health so what else do I need? I'm optimistic, happy most of the time (when I'm not paying bills), very active (work two jobs), and have a bunch of great, smart, funny friends.

Okay, I'm gonna go look for some good pics of me (they have to exist) so I can put them on here.

C ya.

Carm