I just need to keep telling myself.....

"change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change"

sympathy cards

I think people should write at least one sympathy card a week. One of my dad's nearest and dearest friends passed away last weekend. He had suffered from altzheimer's for years, and his time just came. As much of a blessing as his departing was and not a surprise, it was still sudden.... I sat down and wrote out some thoughts from my childhood about Al in a sympathy card to his wife. I didn't know he meant much to me until I sat down and had to relay in writing, what someone's impact was on my life. He was one of the few people I saw my dad regularly hang out with, which taught me friendship. He was the first black man I had ever met AND he worked at Harvard, which taught me that color means absolutely NOTHING. He walked with my dad at the track behind the high school, was about a decade older than my dad and looked GREAT, which taught me that regular exercise will keep you young.

I made a reference to all of the chiming antique clocks in my parents' home that were refurbished by my dad with Al's encouragement. Every 30 minutes, my dad is reminded of his friend when the chimes go off and is further reminded that Al is no longer here. Sad but sweet.

We should sit down with a sympathy card every week at least. It forces you to reflect upon something that isn't around anymore. Write sympathy cards to yourself - about someone you only know remotely and figure out what we would say to their wife/husband/mom/dad/child about your perception of them. It's surprising how the littlest things have a big impact.

Pink

I start a blog, never having done this before, and am startled that I have chosen pink as a layout color. I am not a girly-girl, but am feminine in a "one-of-the-guys" kind of way. I am tough, but really a sissy when it comes down to it.

So - pink. My favorite color is blue. Yet I pick pink. I guess it's a welcoming color. A soothing color. A Pepto-Bismol color. Hmmmm. I have a penchant for maroon. I see a lot of maroon in my apartment. Beige and maroon. Those are soothing colors I think.... Unfortunately I am in my office at work right now - nothing soothing about that.

Let's see. I'm in the automotive industry as I mentioned on my babble blog. It's a scary scary industry these days. But the job itself is quite fun. I work in a mom-and-pop type of store, with good people. There is a definate loyalty to the local population and we like to (or I like to anyway) operate like a neighborhood business. Kind of tough to do when there's a huge Walmart across the street, a huge mini-mall about 1/4 a mile away, and four other dealers on the block. It's nice, though, to have a customer come in just to say "hello" and have your name remembered. I am happy not to be at a "cheesy" dealership, but at a dealership that is pretty down to earth and just trying to stay afloat.

The economy is scaring the bejeepers out of everyone (surprise surprise) and I wonder with all of the fingerpointing why I hear so little about the lack of accountability of the consumer. So many who are in trouble (including myself) didn't control their spending. Just because I was making more money than I had ever made in my life did not give me reason to spend more than I had ever spent in my life. Accountability. And now....? Little savings, little business, and even less cashflow. Shame on me. Perhaps I needed a babysitter. Perhaps the consumer masses needed a sitter too.

As I get closer to the ages of those who run the show here - not just here here, behind my desk here, but EARTH here... I get more and more, well, scared. And almost entertained at the absurdity of it all at times. I think of the kid in my kindergarden class with snot on his upper lip that he didn't know enough to wipe off or the kid in fifth grade who would still throw temper tantrums..... or the kids in high school who I would sneak off and smoke pot with (only a couple of times, Mom) - THIS IS THE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO BE DECISION MAKERS! It's boarderline hilarious!! And they're everywhere! We all knew someone who we look back upon and chuckle. It's funny. We are humans and the more I realize how wonderfully human we are, the weirder the whole global situation becomes.

What a mess. What a mess. What a mess. A mess that a babysitter should clean up. Who is she anyway and how much are we supposed to pay her an hour? Maybe if she wears pink we'll feel a little better.

spam blog?

I don't know how to spam anyone. All I know about spam is that it's good panfried with a little bit of brown sugar and some eggs.

soooo......

I suppose I'd like to be a writer someday. Now that I'm 39... when the heck is someday? I'd also like to be a singer, actress - or just basically someone who can make a good living for herself.... I jotted this stuff down in my Yahoo account notepad, and it made me smile. I'll save it here in case I decide to write a book someday: So, I find myself to be somewhat of a 38 year old child. Or is that a 38 year old failure? Who'd think that 15 years ago I was making one of the stupidest choices in my life? General Motors. GMAC specifically. "Now there's a company that's been around a long while - a job with them MUST be secure!" My experience there accompanied by a somewhat scandalous (in my opinion) chain of events, led me to sales. F&I in particular. What I thought would be a secure career in Automotive Financial Services was nothing but a path that I was certain would have its ups and downs but no brick walls. How dumb could I possibly be? My sister is a physician. Lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and my two totally cool nephews. She paid her dues in the education department by getting her undergrad, going to med school, and grinding through a period of time of internships and residencies. When I reached the same age at which she had trudged through all of this, I was living in Honolulu, working at a bank, and trying to "change" a druggie boyfriend into a functioning member of society. Yes - another dumb choice. I did, however, get my undergrad prior to my move to Hawaii, but my ambitions were - well, nonexistant. Being happy was priority and hard work secondary. It's a romantic thought where the two can coexist. Let's keep romance in the movies where it belongs. A friend said that his daughter wanted to put off college in order to "find herself". His response was "ya - you'll find yourself alright... on the street corner asking for spare change!". I'm 38 and now trying to find myself - which I thought I had done already - feeling about 3 steps away from a can in my hand on that same street corner. I thought I had found myself to be a person of integrity, intelligence, humor and all of the other traits one would like to think of themselves to be. I guess I'm pretty, but I'm always considered "one of the guys" which is fine. A group of men are just as bad as a group of women. Bicker bicker bicker. That's great though - just shows our human nature. I have a great work ethic and I am an incredibly good liar since I am sitting at my desk on company time, writing down all of the thoughts that go through my head with aspirations of being a writer someday. Where that came from - your guess is as good as mine. I think it's because I read something to my dad that I had written and he said I was good at it. 38 and still seeking Daddy's approval - but I always had that. I find myself these days, as many of us here in the U.S., second guessing my choice of career, my future, and next month in particular when I have to figure a way to pay the bills AGAIN. Going from 10k a month to 3k makes me a bit uneasy. I'm sure any therapist would say the resulting anxiety would be reasonable to experience. Therapeutic advice doesn't translate to meeting my monthly nut. "I'm sorry, Mr. Car-Payment-Collector-Man. My therapist has told me that my current state of anxiety due to a drastic drop in cashflow is to be expected. I was hoping that a note from my doctor would could delay your visit to my home to retrieve the keys to the car which you technically own." I don't think they'd buy that, any thoughts? Did I mention I don't really have a therapist? But if I did..... As of late, I have been mourning my youth the most. I know I'm not old, but I think back on my life when things were simple. I'm talking youth... YOUTH youth.. like younger than young youth. Dirt was awesome. Grass stains were a badge of courage. A scabby knee meant that you had seen a thing or two. Throwing a frisbee straight was the most beautiful thing you had done all day. Not killing yourself in a fort of blankets and pillows and stuffed animals erected precariously on a flight of stairs in order to take a nap was an archetectural achievement. I grew up in a household comprised of two loving parents and one sister, two and a half years my elder. We were a close family unit and, in hindsight, best friends. My sister and I would put on plays for my folks. Come to think of it, I think there were only two productions - repeated over and over again. One of them was the story of Christopher Columbus. My sister generally played Chris while I was everyone else - a king, a queen, a sailor complete with costume changes which only involved getting in and out of my mother's fancy blue velour bathrobe worn when royalty was represented. The other play involved the Pilgrims. Details about this play are sketchy in my memory but I am almost certain that the recliner always represented the famed rock. My sister and I both had a variety of lessons we attended. We went down to the Arlington Rec ice rink for skating lessons. I suppose I had visions of becoming an elegant ice dancer completing a flawless figure eight, lightning fast spins, and high jump splits in the air. Reality dictated that I was able to skate backwards, forwards and almost stop. Thank God for helmets and sideboards. My father, being of Irish heritage, was a member of the Irish Social Club in West Roxbury. I just did a Google search on the internet and found nothing but a phone number that rang and rang and rang. I suspect it was a place for my dad to go and socialize with other Irishmen. He wasn't a big drinker, but he sure did love to network. Nothing can top my father's passion for interaction between people particularly when that exchange involves one's own history and interests. I think his father was a member of the Masons. My dad touted his membership to the Masonic Order and the Shriners. I don't know much about his involvment but he was proud to belong. I remember his red fez that he would don with the crescent emblem on it. Networking. People. He loved them. I often wonder who came up with the idea, but my sister, Lynn, started Irish Step dancing lessons at the Club. Could it have been an excuse for my mother to try and get a foot in at the Irish Social Club where my dad was affiliated? Or was it simply a parental unit plan to ensure our familiarity with our heritage? I started lessons at the age of 4 or 5, I think. We used to practice in a huge hall where the Social Club met. I remember sitting and picking at (and possibly ingesting) the lead paint on the windowsills while my sister was in class. As a pre-K dancer, our class's attention span was likely sporadic and our sessions brief. So, I invariably was left to entertain myself while the older kids who could maintain focus were taught new steps. As my class sessions got longer, Lynn progressed to wearing tap shoes. Not the kind of shoes with metal plates on the toe and heel, but with individual teeny tiny nails on the heal and ball-to-toe of the shoe. A wonder in tap shoe craftmanship. I was envious of those shoes because of all of the noise they made. I was angered by my soft spoken padded slide-on slippers. Those tap shoes let someone know you were there and in a collective reel sounded like a roar of thunder. A roar of 8 year olds thundering anyway, but still powerful nevertheless. I would be doing some kind of dance counting the "point, hop, back, point, hop, back, point, hop, 1, 2, and over..." in my little brain while the stomp stomp stomping of the tap shoes in another area of the hall would distract me and make me rue my little wimpy insignificant slippers. Eventually I too earned my taps. I found that they were stiff, gave you blisters and took most kids out flat on their asses at every feis we ever competed at. Overrated. At about the same time as skating and step lessions, Lynn and I started piano. Both of us adored music and I would be enraptured sitting with my father listening to Fats Waller, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, the Dorseys to name a few. Simon and Garfunkel were in the mix too along with the Irish Rovers singing The Unicorn Song, and the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem. Imagine a 5 year old singing at the top of her lungs the lyrics to "The Jolly Tinker" without any knowledge of its content and meaning except it was fun to run around and sing. Would you want your five year old angel singing: "As I went down a shady lane, as a door I chanced to knockHave you any pots or kettles with rusty holes to block? Well, indeed I have, don't you know I have?To me rightful loora laddie, well, indeed I have The missus came out to the door and she asked me to come inSayin': "You're welcome jolly tinker and I hope you brought your tin?" Well, indeed I did, don't you know I did?To me rightful loora laddie, well, indeed I did She took me through the kitchen and she led me through the hallAnd the servants cried: "The divil, has he come to block us all?" Well, indeed I have, don't you know I have?To me rightful loora laddie, well, indeed I have She took me up the stairs, me lads, to show me what to doAnd she fell on the featherbed and I fell on it too Well, indeed I did, don't you know I did?To me rightful loora laddie, well, indeed I did She then picked up the frying-pan and she began to knockFor to let the servants know, me lads, that I was at me work Well, indeed I was, don't you know I was?To me rightful loora laddie, well, indeed I was She put her hand into her pocket and she pulled out twenty poundSay: "Take this me jolly tinker and we'll have another round Well, indeed we will, don't you know we will?To me rightful loora laddie, well, indeed we will Well, I've been a jolly tinker for this forty years or moreOh, but such a lovely job as that I never did before Well, indeed I didn't, don't you know I didn't?To me rightful loora laddieWell, indeed I didn't" -- Traditional, Licensed to The Celtic Lyrics Collection Nice. My dad played a variety of instruments, and quite well (I think). I was impressed anyway. I recall him playing the drums, which scared me to death if the lights were off - one mistep and what a racket! They sat in "the Dugout", the tiny bar my dad had built in the cellar in homage of his alma mater's local pub on Commonwealth Ave. When the drums filled his musical appetite and they were sold, he would practice the trombone or the clarinet or the flavor of the moment. I have a tape recording of him practicing while I sat on the floor with my little Schroeder-like toy piano with only whole notes of maybe two octaves max, plunking out the notes to chopsticks and my own compositions. I have a vague recollection of this, but Dad says I would do that constantly and ape the notes he was playing. Dad considered me a natural and pressed upon my sister's piano teacher to take me on early despite my being below his normal cutoff of starting age. I loved it. And hated it. Try getting a 4 year old to practice 30 minutes straight, daily. The same song. Over and over and over again. Often badly. For that matter, try to get a 4 year old to do any one single thing for 30 minutes EVER. I respect my family for their saint-like patience. Perhaps they enjoyed the torture, those twisted people. I don't know. It did teach me focus though and prepared me for the focusing that was required in school. "Nobody gets to Carnegie Hall without practice!" My dad used to say. Let me mention here, that I never did make it to Carnegie Hall, but I think I passed it in a cab once in the 80's. I sang for a year at Boston University with their choir and the year I quit and opted to go for Crew,the Choir was funded by the university to perform at Carnegie. Bastards. Just like when I proclaimed that once I was in West Side Story, my life would have been complete. What did our Gilbert and Sullivan Club perform the year AFTER I graduated?!?...... not very Gilbert and Sullivanny of them, eh? My mom stayed at home until I was eighth grade at which point she returned to work as a secretary at Boston University in order to provide for a virtually expense free education for my sister and me. She was and is what I view as a rock. If I had been solicited that opinion when I was a kid, I would have said she was a nervous mess. Driving through Hartford Connecticut on our way to New Haven where Nana and Papa lived required everyone to shut up and hold our breaths. You could hear a fly fart in the car while she navigated through the confusing overpasses in the city. If an exit was missed, a passenger in the car while my mother was driving would think that the mistake was putting us all on a path straight to the gates of hell. I don't have any fond emotions with regard to Harford. New Haven was a different story. That was where my grandparents lived. I recall the seasons in Massachusetts to be such defining times in my childhood. Winter brought out the heaviest shovel I had ever seen and was told to use to unbury our home. The thing had to have been my height and about 1/2 of my weight. I was a runty kid up until 4th grade when I ballooned out and went through the growing pains that continued until high school. So, the shovel, probably casted in 1850 out of solid lead with its wooden handle, was the smallest of the bunch and was my assigned weapon against the snowplowed mountain at the end of our driveway. It was hell, I tell you. Pure hell. My dad was the slave driver. Two little girls out there with Dad trying to relocate the evil snow in shifts as to not allow it to accumulate too quickly and to make it more manageable. "This stuff'll melt on its own" I remember thinking as my toes became numb in my boots. "Why am I out here anyway? I'd rather go to Sunday School than do this" as hot tears welled up and spilled over onto my red cold-burned cheeks. Never really asked or wondered why Mom wasn't out there too. I was just happy that there was usually soup or hot cocoa ready when we came in with our drooling noses and iceberg-like caked-on snow all over our little bodies. that's it so far.... I'd like to continue with recollections of New Haven and trips down to Nana and Papa's... memories of their home, the smells, the conversations and games we used to play sans television. I'll look over this stuff again at some point.