Not living up to my potential

I used to be _, but now I'm _.

2010-09-03T14:23:00.010-05:00

I've been reading the book Spook, by Mary Roach. I love Mary Roach's books, they're fascinating, funny, and often a little bit twisted. So, Spook is about what people believe about the afterlife. The first chapter is about reincarnation, in which Mary travels to India to follow up on some cases of possible reincarnation. Most of the cases seem to involve little boys who remember previous lives, wives, and events. Mary states that many of these cases are reported every year in India, which has a majority reincarnation-believing Hindu population. In the United States which has a majority non-reincarnation believing population, the reports are much less frequent.

I don't believe in reincarnation, but I keep an open mind. None of us will know what happens after we die until we die, and maybe even then we won't know anything, because maybe what happens after we die is simply cease to exist. As a teenager, and like many young people, I was curious about reincarnation. I felt drawn to certain periods of history, and thought maybe that was because I had lived then. I wondered if I had been strangled or hanged in a previous life, because I hated (and still do) the feel of anything around my neck, like turtleneck shirts, scarves, or collars - if something was tight enough for me to feel it, it produced little tingles of panic. Sometimes I would spend significant lengths of time gazing at photographs from the Victorian period, convinced I recognized faces. Okay, so I was a little weird. I still like to look at old photographs.

And I could tell Mary Roach about two stories from my own American circle of family and friends that point to a possibility of reincarnation.

When I was about 13, my stepdad, Jack Hafner, told me a story about his best friend, Ernie Eineman. I knew Ernie. Before Jack and my mother married, Jack and Ernie shared a house.
Ernie was a devout Christian, and my mother's supervisor. My best friend at the time was Ernie's niece, Evelyn Eineman, who also told me the story. So Ernie wasn't a friend of a friend of a friend of your second cousin's neighbor like you hear in urban legends. This was his life, his family and it really happened. I don't remember all the details, I don't even remember the names of the little boys, so the story won't sound as spooky in this telling, as it was when it was told to me by people who were personally involved with the family.

Ernie and his wife Rachel had a son. This was in the 1950s. One day when the son was still quite young the family drove to San Diego from Oceanside, a distance of 35 miles. They were riding in a car with "suicide doors" - I'm not sure what kind of car, I think a Mercury? The rear passenger doors were hinged at the back of the door, instead of at the front, so the doors swung open toward the rear of the car. I guess there is a flaw in that design, and if the door is accidentally unlatched while the car is in motion, the windstream will pull the door open all the way and the occupants may fall out of the moving vehicle. Seat belts were not common in cars in the 1950s, and little boys like to lean on doors to look out the window. During this drive down the highway, the door swung open, and Ernie's and Rachel's little son fell out of the car and was killed.

Some time later, another son was born to Ernie & Rachel. When this little boy learned to talk, he spoke of people and places and events, that he didn't know, had never visited and had not participated in. Ernie & Rachel listened as their son related memories that shouldn't have been his own. Memories of people and places and events that belonged to their first son. How could the second child remember things that happened before he was even conceived?

A few years later this son became very sick and was diagnosed with leukemia. Ernie & Rachel often heard their son chatting with someone when they passed his bedroom. When they looked in, their son was alone. He explained to them that he was talking to "the man". One night as they sat at his bedside, their little boy suddenly brightened and smiled at a space near the foot of his bed. "I have to go," he explained to his parents, "the man says it's time for me to go. I have to go with him." The boy did not seem unhappy about this. Later that night, Ernie's and Rachel's little boy died. The second son died at the same age the first son had. I think it might have been six years old, I don't remember exactly.

That story left a huge impression on me. It wasn't until I had a child of my own that I understood how profoundly sad the story is. I don't know if Ernie was a devout Christian then, or if he became one later in life. As far as I know, he didn't believe in reincarnation. I imagine that both Ernie and Rachel felt responsible for this child's death, had they locked the car door? Should they have watched him more carefully? Should they have seated him between them on the front seat? The kinds of questions any parent might torture himself with when a child dies. So maybe it was a comfort to Ernie, maybe he believed that God was trying to show him that his first child was still alive, not lost after all. And when the second child told him about "the man" - was this an angel, or Jesus beckoning to him? Maybe it helped him through his grief to believe that his boys were happy and he would hold them again someday.

My second reincarnation story is short and sweet, a favorite family story. When my daughter Catherine was about 2 1/2 years old, she looked at me one day and said wistfully, "When I was an ant, I was so black and so shiny." And then she went off to play.

And then there is this - do we remember our previous lives in our dreams? Several months ago my youngest daughter, Merry, had a dream in which she was a spider. When she woke up after the dream, she looked at herself and panicked, "Where are all my legs????"

P.S. Here's another book by Mary Roach you might enjoy (or be repulsed by):
Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers

Semper Fi

2010-08-17T13:07:00.004-05:00

In memory of Sidney H. Hilliard, Jr., Capt., USMC, ret.
October 4, 1918 - August 14, 2010
My father

I wrote this in 1987 and gave it to my father for Father's Day.
It is not good poetry, but the sentiment is sincere, and he was touched by the poem.

For Daddy

This is my father,
tall and straight and strong,
who sheltered me like a spreading tree
when I was very young;
who held my hand on moonlit nights
as we walked beneath the palms,
and tucked me in his raincoat
away from jungle storms.

This is my father,
an accomplished man,
who built my bike and playhouse
with loving, able hands;
who read me poems and sang to me
old songs of sweet romance,
who gave me books and tender looks
and taught me how to dance.

And this is my father,
the proud Marine,
who fought in war to keep me free,
the model of the macho man
that others dream to be:
tough and dashing, brave and bold,
in the air, on land, and sea.

And yet this is my father,
this macho Marine,
who dandles his grandbaby on his knee,
who strokes silky skin with rare delight,
who grabs and tickles and pretends to bite.

This is my father,
who on his chest wears eagle's wings,
who with his heart
pulls my heartstrings,
this is my father,
my hawk and my dove,
this is my father,
who taught me how to love.

Playing with Fire

2010-01-18T14:05:00.005-06:00

I hate it when I'm cooking eggs, how it sometimes smells like burnt hair.

I once caught my hair on fire, in my college dorm room. I had lit several candles in an effort to
create a romantic atmosphere. As I leaned over a candle to pick something up, my long braid fell over my shoulder and into the candle flame. Remarkably I didn't notice this. Milliseconds later I smelled burnt hair. Hmm, I thought, I wonder why it smells like burning hair? Oh! Panic as I slap my hair between the palms of my hands. Charred hair remnants littered my bedspread. So romantic.

Once I tried another romantic effect - tossing a scarf over a lamp to give the room a soft rosy glow. Again with the stench. Scorched scarf is not a romantic fragrance.

And peaking of scorched, I once put eggs in a pot of water to boil, then yawned and lay down for a nap. Did I mention I am not a good cook? When I woke up, there was this really odd smell in the house - burning metal, and something else, uh, scorched? Burnt saucepan and blackened popped eggs. You won't find that in your Betty Crocker Cookbook. Now, whenever I boil eggs, my husband leans over the pot and says, "Pop Eggs?"

One Christmas Eve I was frying tortillas to make taco shells and the oil in the pan caught on fire. I raced outside and threw the pan in the snow. I didn't fry tortillas for about ten years after that. But I finally got tired of preformed tasteless taco shells and began frying my own again. My husband calls them "Tacos Flambe."

My church decided to have a bonfire in a pasture. Beautiful harvest moon night, clear cold air, glittering stars, picture-perfect pasture with tall grass, a creek, a few gnarled oak trees. And a humongous pile of firewood, enough to torch about 20 heretics. And that was on my mind, as we made a brave attempt to roast hot dogs. The fire was so hot, so intense, we had to wear jackets, gloves, hats, and lay face down on the cool grass, completely stretched out, arms extended with the longest roasting sticks we could find. Even then we could barely stand the heat long enough to get one end of a wienie roasted. My heart went out to Joan of Arc. Later we asked one of our group to lead us in a sing-along. She started singing All God's Creatures, but slipped in a Freudian way and sang, "All God's creatures got a place in the fire..." and stopped suddenly with her hand over her mouth. I couldn't resist, and continued, "some scream low and some scream higher!" And then immediately sobered, thinking of all those poor people burned at the stake.

I don't really have any good ending to this post. This was just a few random thoughts on a random day, and I have no idea what made me think of these things. Oh yeah, I was cooking eggs.

Fire and Ice

2009-12-10T13:39:00.002-06:00

This poem was written in December of 2007, at the end of a year in which I had slipped several times on ice and injured myself, my house caught on fire and my mother had a massive stroke.
I recently re-discovered this poem on my computer.

Fire and Ice

To live is to be vulnerable.
I'm afraid of the ice.
I'm afraid of getting hurt.
I'm afraid.
My mother, once so strong and fearless, a lioness, a bitch,
lies wounded, helpless.
Frail, broken, she cries out
in desperation;
her sorrow shakes me
like a rag.
I huddle in bed, wrung out, hiding, slipping into deranged dreams. I wake
strung out on fear.
I am stripped of pretense, I am unclad.
The fire marked me first. I am a public property, a walking
receptacle for compassion, empathy, pity,
kind words.
I am filled to the brim
with good deeds;
I stagger under their weight.
I am unmasked.
I am humbled.
I am excruciatingly aware.
My mother's stroke felled me.
I scrabble for purchase.
The ice is so slippery,
and so hard;
and I am so vulnerable, wide-eyed,
afraid.

12/02/07

Not Fun in the Summertime

2009-08-20T12:59:00.002-05:00

It has not been a fun summer for us. In addition to the usual whams and knocks that life flings at us, incompetence and not paying attention to details have come back to bite us in the butt.

My father has lung cancer. He is 90 years old and we know, we know, that people don't live forever, but still. He is going through treatment, because he is in otherwise excellent health (and looks and behaves like a man 20 years younger). But treatment for cancer can thoroughly destroy what health a person has left, and treatment for cancer has all but killed my mother, so we are cynical and bitter about this development.

We received a notice from the IRS stating that we made a mistake (I made a mistake) on our 2007 tax return and we have to pay back $1,090. I used the refund from my 2007 taxes to pay my 2007 property taxes. It's been a long time since I had more than $300 in the bank for more than 24 hours.
My paycheck comes in, my paycheck goes out. We will have to beg relatives for help.

Our fire damaged house is still not ready for us. I was so hoping that we would be able to move back into it and put our current dwelling up for sale, so we could get that time, energy and financial burden off our backs. But repair work moves slowly, so we have to scrape up (actually borrow from a relative) enough money to pay the property taxes on both houses.

We made the awful decision to put our beloved but psychologically damaged dog to sleep. Our heartbreak is complete, we miss him everyday and I live with almost constant regret.

Today we received a notice from the City of Grinnell that we are in violation of city code, that our property at our fire damaged house needs to be cleaned up. The yard is full of overgrown bushes and weeds and junk and a construction debris pile. Well, the house is under construction, and there have been piles of construction debris there off and on for about 9 months. They get piled up, they get removed, they get piled up, they get removed. And the yard, well we mow it every week and try to keep the brush chopped down, but Iowa in the summer is a jungle, and taking care of more than one yard and working full time, and taking care of family needs...well we let some things go.

The second notice stated that the car in our driveway hasn't moved in 30 days. I was surprised by this notice - I didn't know it was against city ordinances to have your own car parked in your own driveway, so that letter was quite a surprise. The car does need a new clutch, and my husband has been putting it off because this particular make and model requires a major amount of disassembly to install a new clutch. But still - citizens are required to drive their own cars at least once every 30 days or they're in violation of code?? Come on!

Okay, so those aren't insurmountable problems - we can deal with those. What bugs me is that those notices didn't come out of thin air - there are brushy weedy yards and cars sitting in driveways all over town and the city doesn't take action unless someone calls them to complain. This would be one of my fine, friendly Iowa neighbors and I am pretty sure I know who he is. Like last year and the year before, when my current neighbor called the police to complain about my dogs barking at him (this is the neighbor whose small and very cute daschund yaps continuously at my dogs), I don't understand why this other neighbor didn't approach us before he called the authorities. With the dog issue, that neighbor didn't know us, so maybe he feared a confrontation, though I doubt it. But the yard issue -- we lived in that neighborhood for 15 years and know all our neighbors there, they know us, they know we are friendly and polite and reasonable. They also know that our circumstances since the fire in our house have been less than great, and some of them have gone out of their way to help us. They also know that a church group has been working on the house and that construction debris will be there temporarily until the construction is finished.
So I don't get it. If my neighbor had come to me and said, "Look, your yard is really overgrown, it's bad for the neighborhood, could you please tidy it up?" I would have been mortified. I would have said, "what would you like me to get rid of first?" and then proceeded to take care of the problems immediately. I am sloppy and lazy, but I am not belligerent.

A simple plea: If you have a problem with your neighbor, go to your neighbor first and politely explain your problem. Be civil, be willing to listen to your neighbor, maybe there's a good reason for the situation that you find objectionable. Be willing to help your neighbor out, be willing to compromise. Most of the time you will be able to come to an agreement with your neighbor. If you find your neighbor to be surly, unreasonable or hostile, then call the authorities.

For a dancer

2009-07-04T12:11:00.006-05:00

I dreamed about Jeff again last night. It's been a long time since I dreamed about him.

Jeff Sevcik was my first friend at college, San Francisco State University, in 1973. Tall, slender and graceful, with strawberry blond hair and a wide smile, he was friendly and charming and funny and charismatic. We went together to an orientation dance at the dining center, and he was all over that dance floor, long legs leaping, arms slicing through the air - me laughing with joy.

Jeff was a writer, a poet, an artist, a dancer. He was the most alive person I've ever known.
He signed up for piano classes, he'd never played before. I remember sitting with him in the tiny practice room in the basement of my dormitory. His 6 foot 4 frame crouched over a piano while he practiced his scales and smiled and laughed - "I'm playing piano, Bren!"

Jeff had come from McKee's Rocks, Pennsylvania, and he loved San Francisco, loved California. He learned his way around The City and then showed me his favorite places: Sam Woh's restaurant, the backstreets of Chinatown, North Beach. We rode a bus home at midnight, and Jeff entertained me with spot-on impressions of Joan Rivers, whom he resembled a little bit. I nearly wet my pants from laughing so hard.

One night out walking, he told me, he saw a dog scampering on the sidewalk in front of him.
"What a cute little dog," he thought. And then he realized it wasn't a dog. It was a rat. He raised his hands to show me how big, and started laughing, "I almost petted it!"

We rode across the Bay Bridge on a bus with a band of happy friends, bedecked in bright colors and dusted with fine glitter, to Berkeley to see Bette Midler in concert. Years later I was still finding sparkling dust on my skin and in my hair, and every glimmer reminded me of that magical night.

Alone in his dorm room, we listened to his records together, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Laura Nyro. One night we slow-danced together, tender and serious, gazing into each other's eyes. I felt like I was falling in love, but I knew it couldn't be the same for him. Even so, it was romantic and dear and intimate and sweet.

Over Christmas break he sent me a letter, typed as always: "I'm getting tired of tacos and gatorade, bren, what then?" That was all, one line, pure Jeff Sevcik, a private goofy message.
It made me smile.

The last time I saw Jeff, he said, "I won't say goodbye, because I know we'll see other again."
We both smiled, and knew it sounded corny, but felt sure it was true. I never saw him again.

In 1986 Jeff died of Kaposi's sarcoma/AIDS. He was 31 years old.

I began having dreams. Looking out my window, I would see him striding up my sidewalk with those long legs, waving his hand and grinning. When I rushed to open the front door, no one was there. The dreams stopped a few years ago.

And then last night, another dream. In an apartment in San Francisco I receive a letter with one typed line: "been trying to find you, i'm still here." My heart races. It's Jeff, I know it, he's still alive. I search, I keep losing things, losing clues, worrying, frantic, distracted, I have to find Jeff, where is he? Where is he?

One of the songs that Jeff and I listened to obsessively was "For a Dancer," by Jackson Browne.

I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing round
Crying as they ease you down
cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

I miss you Jeff.

God's Plan for You

2009-04-07T13:56:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I saw a book with the title, "God's Plan For You". The author, judging from appearances, is a middle-aged, upper middle class, American white woman with big blonde hair and plenty of make-up and expensive clothes.

Not that any of that means anything - none of those characteristics is essentially wrong or bad or evil.

Still, it begs the question. How well off, well fed, safe, and free does a person need to be before he or she asks the question, "What is God's plan for me?"

Because I'm wondering, what is God's plan for that teenage girl in Pakistan who just got flogged by the Taliban? (And what is it with the Taliban - grown men beating up little girls????)

What is God's plan for the young Somali girl who is brutalized by ritual genital mutilation and then given in marriage to an old man?

What is God's plan for the children in India who are dying of starvation? Does God have a plan for each of them, the way he apparently has for well-nourished Americans?

Well, I could keep ranting, but you get the picture. In fact, I do think God has a plan for me, and for you, and for each of us. He told us so himself quite a long time ago, and somebody collected the details and put them in a book.

Feed the hungry.
Shelter the homeless.
Comfort the lonely.
Care for the sick.
Clothe the naked.
Be kind.
Be humble.
Have mercy.
Love one another.

24 - my way

2009-01-29T14:05:00.002-06:00

I ordered an item from Amazon and forgot to check the shipping address. So the item sat around at the wrong address for five days while we fumed and fussed and wondered where it was.

I wanted to use a particular flannel board set for a storytime, but the set was not in the file, and I have not been able to find it.

Two patrons asked me for 1040 tax forms - but the government hasn't sent them yet, so I had to charge these people for copies I printed for them from the website.

I had to deliver Monday newspapers on Wednesday to two customers because we failed to leave papers at those addresses on Monday.

A group of pubescent boys ran around the library shrieking and hallooing and when I told them to settle down, they mocked me. They did not settle down.

We opened up a jar of newly purchased jam to find mold on the top.

I drove my van into the snow in my driveway and it stuck. I had to walk to work in the cold and I was late.

The Obama Gap

2009-01-27T17:32:00.002-06:00

I don't know if this is a generational gap, a cultural gap, or a regional gap, but each of my parents has their own unique take on Barack Obama.

My father, a white, 90 year old career Marine, veteran of 3 wars, born and raised in Jacksonville Florida, and a lifelong Democrat could not bring himself to vote for Obama. "Look at all those countries in Africa," he pointed out, "What chaos, what a mess. Blacks can't govern."

Since the election, my father has said, "So, all the Blacks are happy about Obama being elected. I hope they remember that he is also half-white."

I don't discuss politics with my father anymore. I mean, what do you say? How can you respond (politely and respectfully to one's father) to those two ideas?

My mother, a white, 80 year old career woman, raised in abject poverty, the daughter of a sharecropper in Depression era East Texas, and a life long Democrat watched the inaugural balls with interest. "Did you see Mrs. Obama's dress?" she asked me. "It wasn't pretty. Plain old white thing. She's a beautiful woman, she should have lots of sequins and sparkles. And did you see them dance? They can't dance. But maybe they dance differently in Africa."

I covered the phone so I could laugh.

How cold is it?

2009-01-15T13:11:00.002-06:00

It is so cold in Iowa today that when we scoop up the poop freshly deposited by our dog, we cradle the bag full of steaming dog poop in our hands to warm them up.

sinking into the hole of my own errors....

2009-01-06T17:04:00.003-06:00

I have that nagging feeling again, what my daughter, Mary, calls "vuja de" : the sense that one is doing it wrong all over again.

Ditto for January 7.

For goodness sake

2008-12-31T13:52:00.003-06:00

Two of the comments on the Project 17o7 site stated that there were other people who were more deserving of help than my family.

I agree. My family has some problems, but compared to many others, we have just been greatly inconvenienced. We are comfortable, well fed, and working toward making our life better.

But we live in a world full of sorrow, fear and pain. Please, if you can, extend your concern and financial help toward others who are in great need:

Another family in our community was recently burned out of their home. Their home is a complete loss.

A young man was just killed in a car accident leaving behind his children and their mother.

Several families in our community are facing financial difficulty due to illness - in addition to the fears and pain of being sick, they must also deal with bills they cannot afford.

For local needs contact the minister of your church, or if you don't attend church,
any minister at any church. You can also contact MICA (Mid-Iowa Community Action)

The City of Des Moines demolished the self-constructed huts of homeless people in that city, and there are not enough shelters to house them during these bitter cold days of winter. To help, contact Hope Ministries.

Native Americans in South Dakota and other areas of our country live in abject poverty, do not have have adequate shelter, heating fuel or warm clothes for the winter.

You may object to a group at your church helping out people like us, but you don't have to wait for someone else to create a group, create a website, and organize a work crew. Be a leader and create a crew of your own, get involved, write a check, commit to daily prayers, work for goodness and mercy to help someone else.

A Million$$ Jackpot Lottery Winner Story

2008-12-25T15:44:00.006-06:00

A couple of anonymous posts on the Project 1707 site remarked that our family doesn't deserve help from the church because we are millionaire lottery winners who own two houses. Fair enough. People are free to support any deserving cause they wish to, and we didn't make the cut on these persons' lists. But I think it is important to clarify the issues brought up in these posts. Because much of this family history is painful for me - there were arguments and bitterness, disagreements and regrets - I will not go into the personal details concerning our decisions about this windfall. I understand that people are very curious about this event in our family, but it is still our family's personal business, and some things are simply off limits to others.

A day or so after the fire, Rev. Len offered us help in the form of work crews, we thanked him, but declined the offer. We were lucky, we said, and there are so many other people who are not so fortunate. We had a place to live, no one was hurt, and we felt we would be okay. Occasionally when I would see Rev. Len around town, he would tell me the offer was still open, if I ever needed help, just let him know. My friend Monique, also a member of the Methodist Church, mentioned several times that the church was willing to help.
And still we declined. We know we are fortunate.

Fast forward a year and a half: Pat has completely gutted the kitchen - removing tons of burned cabinets, appliances, plaster, chunks of debris. He has put up new walls, replaced windows and is working on making new cabinets out of recycled and cast off lumber. I've hauled trash, cleaned and painted walls. The house is starting to shape up. But we are tired. And our money is gone. We live paycheck to paycheck and put our heating bills (for two large old drafty houses) on credit cards just to get by. When the church stepped forward and offered to help again, we were relieved and grateful and we accepted the help. All we expected was some help scrubbing walls, and maybe removing walls in the rooms where the plaster was already falling off. But this work crew came up with a more ambitious plan - take down all the cruddy walls, replace the old inadequate insulation, update the wiring, and put new walls up. We said, oh, are you sure? And they said, yeah, they were sure, so we accepted, but we were really sort of embarrassed by this level of help - a psychologist could maybe explain why. When we were told they would ask the church congregation for donations to cover the costs of wall board and insulation I felt really embarrassed and shy about it, but hopeful that we could soon return to our house. We would put the other house up for sale and hope (in this market) we could sell it and be able to pay off our debts and give some money back to the Methodist Church so they could help someone else.

And then we saw the comments on the project blog. So.

Here's the scoop on our million $$ jackpot lottery win:

In 1995 my husband bought a lottery ticket that was a winner: we received an annuity for a million dollars to be paid out over a 20 year period. We would receive a weekly payment of about $660 after taxes were taken out. At this time we were earning just enough to make ends meet and I was pregnant with the youngest of our five children. This extra amount of money allowed our standard of living to rise to an upper middle class level. It also gave us a measure of freedom - to make choices about jobs and college and vacations. After about five years a decision (which caused disagreement) was made to cash in the annuity. Over the years, we have both made changes in our work situations which made our income fluctuate. Some years we had to buy our own health insurance because both of us were working part time and taking turns staying home with the baby. Thirteen years after my husband bought that ticket, what we have left from that win is whatever we can sell our second house for. And remember: we never had a million dollars cash in one lump sum to spend or save however we wanted.

Did we make mistakes? Yes.
Did we make some ignorant decisions? Yes.
Were we foolish? Sometimes.
Should we have invested more wisely? Yes.
Should we have saved more, planned better, been wiser, shrewder, more informed? Yes.
Were we extravagant? Perhaps, in some ways
Do all people make mistakes about some things in their lives? Yes.
Do many American families make mistakes when it comes to money? According to recent events,
even CEOs of huge banks make mistakes when it comes to money
Are we rich? No.
Were we ever rich? Not by American standards.
Would we do things differently if we had the chance? You betcha.

Where did the money go? Here is a list, in no particular order, of how we spent the lottery money over the past 13 years:

College tuition for our daughter.
A new car 1996 Dodge caravan (which we still own)
Paid off our credit car debt
2 road trips to East Texas (a place I would never visit if I didn't have family there) to visit my
mother
1 airplane trip to Jacksonville, Florida to visit my father after his wife died (1 air fare)
1 airplane trip to San Diego so my husband could visit his brother and show two of our kids
where their parents grew up (3 air fares)
1 road trip to Arizona to attend my brother's wedding
2 road trips to Mall of America: first with my son as a birthday gift for him, bought 2 board games, deluxe Scrabble and wooden framed Chinese checkers set; second trip was a fun excursion for me and my other children, we each bought a stuffed animal at FAO Schwartz and did the rides at Camp Snoopy.
Remodeled our kitchen - my husband did all the work, we bought mid-price cabinets from
Menard's, and cabinet tops from Penrose Lumber
Paved our driveway
Tore down the 100 year old collapsing barn/garage and built a new garage. My husband
bought a kit (from Penrose Lumber) and he and our neighbor Dave, built the garage
Bought trees for our backyard
Bought a guitar ($300) for my daughter
Bought 2 mattress sets
Bought a couch and a chair
Replaced ceiling in the living room
Bought a used truck ($2,000)
Bought a used compact car for my daughter ($1,000)
Bought new refrigerator
Paid hospital and doctor bills when youngest child was born
Gave cash gift to friend in financial distress
Gave cash gift and monthly financial help to my sister during financial distress
Bought gifts for elderly in nursing homes and gifts for needy children at Christmas
Sponsored several children overseas through Plan USA/Childreach
Gave to church special projects and needs and funds, plus regular pledge
Gave to other favorite charities and causes: NPR, wildlife organizations, etc.
Living expenses for family with growing children: food, clothes, shoes, winter wear, school
supplies, school registration, other assorted school related expenses, gas and electric bills,
water bills, phone bills, Christmases and birthdays, mortgage, insurance, repair and
maintenance on house and automobiles...etc.
In summertime - we bought one of those big backyard pools for all of us to play in
Church camp - for 2 kids and family camp for me and kids 2 or 3 summers in a row
Grinnell Summer Arts camp
Tax accountants - winning the lottery made yearly income tax statements a nightmare

Finally - we bought the second house. Built in 1910 and divided into three apartments, this was an investment, and would have supplied a modest addition to our income had we charged as much rent as we should have. But we felt bad about charging more rent that we could have afforded ourselves! Since we bought this house we have only lost money on it. Three apartments make it a commercial property with a hefty commercial property tax to go with it.

Currently we are paying property taxes on both our houses, gas and electric on both houses (we keep the heat on about 45 degrees at the 7th Ave. house so the water pipes don't burst and so we can work comfortably when we are there), water bills for both houses. So yeah, we own two houses, but we aren't exactly living like John and Cindy McCain. We can't live in the fire damaged house, the other house contains our cash assets, but we can't get those assets until we sell the house, and we can't sell the house until the other house is in livable condition...unless we take out a loan on the house, and at this point more debt is not in our best interest.

Maybe you would have been smarter if you had won the lottery. People like us - who don't agree on how to handle money and who handle it poorly, we don't deserve to win in the eyes of many people. Most people like to imagine how they would spend the money if they won the lottery - none of us imagines that he will simply blow it, or let it be frittered away on the stuff of life, or that he will have arguments with his spouse about how to use it, spend it, save it, invest it or waste it. We think all it will bring is happiness and joy and that it will simplify the difficult parts of our lives and and enrich the happy parts of our lives. We all have noble intentions and grand plans. I wish I'd spent it on a trip to Tahiti. I might not have come back.

We are profoundly grateful for all the help we have received so far. The people on the work crew have been extremely generous with their time, labor and moral support. Even if they never do another thing at our house, their cheerful presence has been a tremendous gift to us - it has lightened our loads and lifted our spirits and restored our hope. Money or no money, we appreciate all the Grinnell United Methodist Church has done for us and will always hold the congregation in high esteem.

Thank you very, very much.

O Christmas Tree!

2008-12-24T15:26:00.004-06:00

We set up our Christmas tree today - it's a tiny decorative tree that my sister left behind when she moved away a couple of months ago. My daughters looped several glistening garlands and ribbons over it until the tree is no longer visible. It is a cone of shiny stuff and it is pretty cute. We were so delighted with it that we stood around it in a circle and clapped our hands.

This is my second Christmas tree of the year. My first tree was the library's entry in our town's Festival of Trees. It was a little "tree" constructed of books. Ginny Cameron, the children's librarian, and I built the tree in about 2 hours. Then we decorated it with paper letters decorated by children who visited the library. I placed a book about stars on the very top.
That tree gave me smiles for days.

(The link above will work for a short while till that web page picture is changed. In the meantime I will try to figure out how to put photos on the website....technology - not my strong suit.)

There have been other memorable Christmas trees in my life. Growing up, our trees were typical middle class trees of the 1950s and 60s. All the neighbors had similar trees with similar decorations. There is comfort in that. But in the late 60s my mother suddenly took control of The Christmas Tree. Maybe she had just been waiting for her clumsy little kids to become responsible big kids, waiting for a chance to have the tree she'd always wanted, Christmas trees like those in the women's magazines. I don't know, we never discussed it. But when I was twelve my mother's inner decorator emerged and from then on, I didn't participate in the decoration of the tree. We had small flocked trees with shiny blue glass ornaments, tall noble firs with shiny blue glass ornaments, 10 foot tall bushy trees with shiny gold glass ornaments, fat trees embellished with gold garlands criss crossed just so. My mother invested a lot of herself in her trees, which is why it is too bad I found them completely boring.

My first tree as an adult was a little scraggly thing my boyfriend and I bought for a few bucks. We made ornaments out of salt dough. We loved our tree.

Many years later when I moved to Iowa I was unprepared for the Iowa Christmas tree culture. In California we set up our (real) trees a week or so before Christmas, took them down by New Year's Day at the latest. In Iowa it is not surprising to see Christmas trees glowing through windows before Thanksgiving Day. A lot of Iowans use artificial trees. A lot of them. Before I moved to Iowa the only person I'd ever met who owned an artificial Christmas tree was my grandmother, who had an all aluminum tree in 1962. An all aluminum tree is the only artificial tree I'm interested in. I don't understand the point of having an artificial tree that looks like a real tree. If you're going to have a fake tree, go all the way fake is my way of looking at it, I mean, have fun with it, go glitzy. (Iowans also use plastic eggs at Easter, which I just can't get used to.) So my first Christmas in Iowa I behaved like a Californian and waited until a week before Christmas to purchase my real tree. But they were all sold. I couldn't believe it. No Christmas trees? A couple of days before Christmas a new supply of trees arrived, so we were spared a treeless Christmas.

The following year I was determined not to repeat my mistake. We bought a tree very early, but we didn't want it to dry out and get all brown and bare limbed naked before Christmas, so we stowed the tree outside, leaning against the garage, out in the cold where it would stay fresh and fragrant. And the day my husband went to retrieve the tree and bring it in for decoration, we discovered just how fragrant that tree was. Did I mention that our neighborhood was home to about three dozen feral cats? Later that day the city manager was startled when he drove by the city street shop where my husband worked, and saw my husband hosing down a Christmas tree with the power washer used to clean garbage trucks. It almost worked. The tree released a sort of piney scent, delicately layered with eau de Tom.

Then there was the year Pat thought he would trim the tree just a little bit. He took the tree into the basement and soon the buzz of his little power saw came zipping up the stairs, followed by silence, followed by "whoops." I peeked downstairs to see the basement floor completely carpeted by pieces of pine branches. My husband gazed up at me and blinked. "The trunk had a fork," he said. We had just a little tree that year - we stuck one of the branches in a coffee can and set it up on a cabinet. I wound the other branches around a wire and made a lopsided wreath.

My Christmas trees are never magazine trees, they are family trees, and they are always loved.

Have a joyful and peaceful Christmas.

Amazing Grace

2008-12-07T14:50:00.006-06:00

www.project1707.blogspot.com

It's taken me years to comprehend the meaning of the concept of grace. It's a word much batted about by Christians - in hymns and sermons and devotionals, but I never fully understood what it means. For years I floundered about in search of the meaning of grace - it was just such a slippery word - I couldn't figure it out. It had no body, nothing tangible to hold onto, no image in my mind.

And there is the word hospitality. The writer and poet Kathleen Norris views hospitality as the central practice of Christian discipleship. This was a scary thought to me, a shy person. To me hospitality was a synonym for "dinner party", "entertaining" - being a hostess with the mostest. Pate de foie gras, soft music, candlelight, knowing about wine, crystal and china. Not me.

And then a few weeks ago my friend Monique approached me with an offer. A group at Grinnell United Methodist Church was looking for work to do and would like to help our family with our fire-damaged house. Okay, I said, thinking, well that will be nice to have help scrubbing smoke off the walls. The crew leader, Brian, contacted me and we set a date and time.

On the appointed day I arrived at my house and talked with another man named Brian. I showed him around, told him the work that needed to be done. He noticed the plaster falling off the walls in some of the rooms and asked if he could remove that. Well, sure, I said, if you really want to. "I'm a man of action," he declared, and I laughed. People began arriving - lots of people, equipped with sponges, rags, buckets, spray bottles. My broken house was filled with people willing to help fix it up. I felt funny - odd, sort of small and vulnerable. I was scheduled to work at the animal shelter, and so I couldn't stay to help them. I left my house in their capable hands and went to the shelter where I felt strong again, helping homeless puppies and dogs.

The next day, Sunday, my doorbell rang. Monique and her husband Craig were at my door with another offer: the work crew wanted to do more, much more - they were excited, on fire, with the desire to fix up our house - tear out the old walls, replace the old insulation, update the electricity and plumbing, whatever needed to be done, and they wanted to start right away! Was that okay with me? Well, you would have thought I would have been jumping up and down with joy - but I wasn't - in fact, I felt like I was deflating - like a toy inflatable doll losing air - I was floppy and helpless. But I was, and am, grateful, and I accepted the offer.

The next evening I met with Todd Reding, who would be in charge of the work crew. He was funny and relaxed, and I began to relax too, though I still felt unworthy. There are so many people who need help, I was uncomfortable being at the center of anyone's attention in this way.

Days later I began to understand my feelings. I needed the help, I certainly did - but I'm not used to being in the position of feeling that need for help - I felt exposed, all my tender parts, my mistakes, my stupidity, my neediness: exposed. It's primal to hide when you are wounded - animals do it - they hide their pain, or they hide their whole bodies when they are wounded, so other animals won't find them and kill them. And I guess I have felt wounded since this house fire - I felt small, someone to be pitied. And I had made mistakes - not keeping track of my insurance, so I felt stupid and unworthy of help. I just wanted to go hide under a bush and lick my wounds. But hiding myself away wasn't going to fix my house, and pretending I didn't need help was hurting me more than it was helping. I'm not an injured rabbit. I'm a human, part of a human community, and I needed help whether I think I deserve it not.

To be offered help when you feel unworthy, that is grace. To be loved in spite of yourself, that is grace.

To be treated with care and respect and dignity, that is hospitality. To be provided with the tools, help, comfort you need to live, that is hospitality.

My husband and I are awed, humbled, and extremely grateful by these people who put Christian love in action and who embody both grace and hospitality. Thank you.

BBC World Circus...?

2008-09-20T17:07:00.005-05:00

I've recently been listening to the BBC World Service news on NPR. When I first started listening to it I couldn't figure out why I had this sense of build up, and then let down.

My brain's been noodling over this puzzle for awhile and finally presented me with an answer: There's no punch line.

The British people on the BBC World Service all have the voices, accents and inflections of a Monty Python skit - I keep waiting to hear something funny.

I'm a Pavlovian Monty Python fan - when I hear those clipped British syllables, my whole body leans toward the radio in anticipation of laughing till I pee in my pants, but instead I get a droll delivery of depressing news about Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs. (How could they not make those two names funny? All the other NPR shows have.)

Now that I understand my conditioned response, it's taken the joy out of listening to the BBC World Service. If they're not going to break into a few verses of "Spam, spam, spam, spam"
why bother?

Dinosaur Topiary

2008-08-24T16:56:00.007-05:00

Somewhere in Missouri (I think, maybe it was Arkansas), as we were driving to Texas, my daughter Mary and I drove under a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Okay, it was actually a vine growing up a telephone pole and across the wire, with some viney branches dangling down like tiny T-Rex arms. But it really did look like a dinosaur about to step into the road, right over our car.

It got me thinking, wouldn't it be, like, so cool if we had a dinosaur topiary garden in one of our town parks? Little kids love dinosaurs. Imagine if we took a section of park and grew trees and vines and shrubbery and trained and trimmed them to look like dinosaurs? How much fun would that be? Walking between the legs of an apatosaurus? Darting away from a charging T-rex? Standing beneath the horns of a triceratops? It would be a total kid magnet. And even maybe a local or regional attraction.

Mostly I think it would be just a wondrous and fun place for a kid to play and dream and run around. I can already hear the joyful screams and laughter.

I wonder how to make it happen....

I just googled dinosaur topiary - there are businesses that sell dinosaur topiary frames, and several parks that feature dinosaur topiary (though some of those look like little dinosaurs, and even tho some dinos were little, T-rexes were not!). The LA Arboretum is one place and The Creation Museum is another, and here's a picture of one big guy in Cincinnati (I think). Awesome!

Topiary Joe just left a comment about his website. Have a look, it is pretty cool!

Blessings

2008-08-21T13:24:00.004-05:00

As I've said, there are days I don't even want to get out of bed...
and then there are the days I get out of bed and hear about a fiery airliner crash somewhere (this week in Spain). . .
and I go outside and smell the fresh mown grass, and see leaves fluttering from trees, and clouds piling up in the sky, and my dog bounces happily at my side, and I hear my children's voices through the windows of my house, and I think, life is too precious and too fragile to waste one moment worrying.

God bless those families of those people on that plane.

Bird by bird

2008-08-17T14:56:00.005-05:00

There are mornings I wake up and feel overwhelmed before I can even roll out of bed. Like this morning.

What do I do? Walk the broken dog first? Let all the other dogs out to pee. Clean up my smelly, dirty house? Plan dinner? Do laundry? Go over to the other house and try to peel smoke and paint off the walls? Stick my head under my pillow and imagine my problems away? Yeah, that one will do.

In the book Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, she tells about a school report her brother was attempting to write about birds. There are so many birds in the world, he was feeling overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin. He asked his father for help, and his dad said, "just take it bird by bird, buddy." I try to remember that on days like this (most days lately).

We are in such a financial mess. Our property taxes are due (about $2,500), I'm still paying on our winter heating bills ($700), had to pay school registration fees ($200+) and then there's school supplies, our water bill has been tremendous and I can't figure out why - my husband has replaced leaky faucets and the water heater, but still we get these $300+ bills - we owe money to several other businesses for services due to the fire, and medical bills that aren't covered by insurance, plus our regular living expenses, and I just can't keep up with it. Thus selling the house on West St. - if we could sell that, then use the money from the sale to pay off our debts, we could live within our means. Meanwhile I pay a little bit here, a little bit there, and wonder how much more I can cut from the grocery bill.

And we are in a house mess. We need to fix up our house on 7th Avenue at least enough to move back in and live there, then clean up and do some repairs on (maybe) the house on West St. to get it ready to sell. We need to erect a fenced area at 7th avenue for the dogs, because we can't show a house for sale when so many dogs are living in it. Plus we are just messy, messy, dirty, untidy, disorganized people - both houses are a mess and both need to be cleaned and I can't even keep one house tidy! At the 7th avenue house we need to have a functional kitchen and bathroom, and a couple of fairly clean rooms to sleep in. This sounds easy until you see the house. My heart just sinks.

If we could just get the walls clean it would make such a visible, encouraging difference. For the past week we have been trying to remove smoke from walls. We have used basic cleaners, and chemical dry cleaning sponges, TSP, and a lot of elbow grease. Then Pat tried steaming and scraping (as if we were stripping wall paper) - that way instead of cleaning the smoke, we are peeling the layer of smoky paint off the walls. It is tedious, but it works.

We will get there. Room by room, bill by bill, day by day. I just keep telling myself that. I just keep telling myself that.

Odd things that stick in my mind

2008-08-12T13:10:00.004-05:00

On a road trip to Texas, we are driving near Branson, Missouri, and we see this billboard:
a smiling woman dressed in a maid's uniform gesturing to a sinking ship - the text reads:

Visit Titanic --
A family experience!

On the same road trip in Arkansas at the outskirts of a tiny town we pass the sign bearing the town name and population : 158. Immediately following that sign are five more signs each bearing the name & denomination of a different church welcoming us to the town. With a population of 158, this town supports five different protestant denominations? I wonder if each church has a congregation of 30 souls, or is one church huge, with like, 75 members and all the others teensy?

In recent news I heard about severed feet inside athletic shoes bobbing in the waters off Vancouver. The fact that feet (I think there are five of them) are washing up on the shore is just weird enough. But there are other oddities to this story. When I first heard about it, on NPR, I believe, the journalists and detectives were laughing about the story. Black humor? Maybe, I don't know, but it seems pretty gruesome to me, there are five people who have had their feet separated from their bodies, and probably their souls from their bodies as well. So what's the funny part?

But wait! There's more:

The foot, like all the others before it, was in a running shoe. But the newest instance was a left foot, whereas the others were all right. None of the feet appear to have been removed by force."
So. The feet fell off by themselves?

Another recent news item. There is a movement to lobby the Olympic Committee to include Competetive Yoga as an Olympic sport. What's next? Competetive Meditation?

And last for this post: a few years ago my husband and I took our family to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. We were especially interested in visiting the Lied Jungle, advertised as the world's largest indoor rain forest. It was quite beautiful and fascinating. We started at the top and followed trails down to the ground admiring the foliage and flowers and wonderful animals. When we got to the bottom however we were startled by the noise of a chainsaw - we turned a corner to see a zoo worker wielding the saw as he cut down a tree. We know zoos try to make their exhibits as realistic as possible, but we thought this was taking things a little too far. We haven't been to the Henry Doorly Zoo in several years. We hope the rain forest is still there.

A Fixer-Upper

2008-08-10T17:59:00.002-05:00

My life is full of broken things lately.

My house is broken - its walls are broken, its windows are broken, its floors are broken, its roof is broken, its plumbing is broken. Its condition is what my mother used to describe as a "fixer-upper" and what my stepdad used to describe as a "burner-downer."

In May, half of our huge old Linden tree crashed down in a windstorm, and the rest had to be cut down and hauled away. When it fell, it crashed onto our porch roof, garage roof and truck. Now I have a broken, gone tree, a broken yard (no beautiful old tree in it anymore), broken porch, broken garage and broken truck.

My van and my son's car are also broken.

Two windows at the other house (the one I'm currently dwelling in) are broken and the cruddy old tile floor is broken.

I just returned from Texas where I visited my broken mother.

I just received my property tax bill and my water bill and paid school registration fees, I'm still paying off my winter heating bills, and the trip to Texas added a significant amount to my credit card bill - my finances are broken.

And I am fostering a broken dog.

Unlike a house, a life can really only morally be a fixer-upper. So I guess I have my work cut out for me. I have to fix up my life.

Who is that old lady in the mirror?

2008-07-07T11:35:00.003-05:00

Funny thing about getting older - you don't actually feel older, you just look older. Most of the time I still feel like I'm about 13 - it's so unfair to have the inadequate, clueless, insecure personality of a 13 year old and the wrinkles, sags and gray hair of an old person.

Sometimes I see someone and my mind automatically categorizes the person as "old" - a nanosecond later I realize, oh, that person is probably my age.

A few months ago my husband was describing a woman he had met recently, "she's a little old retired lady." So an image came into my head - remember the lady who owned Tweetie Bird in the cartoons? Yeah, that was the picture in my head, a little old retired lady. Then my husband added, "she's probably in her fifties." I stared at him. "Pat," I said, " Little old retired lady?? WE are in our fifties." Later I met the woman in question: a very attractive woman about my age. Not little or old (although her hair is silver, it was cut in a modern style and was pretty sharp looking).And if she was retired, then she's lucky. I wish I could retire too! Then I could be a little (not), old (maybe), retired lady too. Wahoo!

Guthrie

2008-03-12T08:22:00.003-06:00

My grandson, Guthrie will be one year old next week, March 19. It has been a momentous year in many ways, and Guthrie has been the shining, redeeming star. A few days after his birth I had the privilege of staying with my daughter and her family in Brooklyn. Here is a diary entry from that trip:

March 28

I am in Brooklyn! This is what I think from my trip here. All airports look alike (except maybe Denver with it's weird subway systerm). It's better to not check your luggage, just carry on what you can. Buy your lotions and shampoos at your destination. Airport food is not only expensive, it's not very good, bring your own food. People who don't want to look out the windows of the plane should give up their seats to those of us on the aisle craning our necks to see something. The Statue of Liberty looks teensy, like a chess pawn, from the air. Manhattan is built up all the way to edges of the island. I also saw the Chrysler building and the Empire State building, very cool. The taxi was very clean, the driver frustrated at rush hour traffic, but was very polite to me.

March 29

Grant and Sarah's apartment is so cute. A little galley kitchen just like I've seen in the Conran kitchen books. Pressed tin ceilings and old fashioned radiators. The brownstone building is beautiful with enormous Italian doors with etched glass. Sarah & I figured out how to wrap little wee Guthrie and we took a walk. She took me to a place called the Tea Lounge which is a coffee house much like the one in the Friends TV series, with big old couches and overstuffed chairs. There were palm frond ceiling fans each with a fantastic weird light, some were stained glass Moravian stars. There were small tables that looked like African drums where people were sitting and working with their laptops. In one corner was a whole stroller posse of moms and kidlets.

Speaking of kidlets, on to the most important part of this trip - wee baby Guthrie, who is perfect in every respect. He is SO cute. He does all the adorable little newborn baby things - the little snorts and squeals and grunts and lamb bleats. He squishes up his face and arms and legs and butt in every direction. He is pink and sweet and has the intent little baby blue eyes that just gaze and gaze. He likes to look at his black and white toddler board books. Sarah and Grant seem much in love with him. They spend quite a lot of time lying on the bed with the babe between them and staring at him, saying things like, "He's still cute."

Please unplug your plastic toaster, or, Will your cheap toast kill you?

2008-02-27T08:56:00.007-06:00

A woman thanked my husband recently - she had heard about our fire and Patrick told her it was probably caused by the toaster, he told her to unplug her toaster when it wasn't in use. So last week she ran into him and said, "Thank you!" She had adopted the habits of unplugging her toaster when not in use, and standing nearby and watching it when she was toasting bread. Her toaster caught on fire! "It wasn't the bread," she said, "it was the plastic, it melted."

Plastic components in a toaster??

"Where'd you get your toaster," Patrick asked her. "Wal-mart," she replied.

Guess where we bought our toaster?

I'd heard about the inferior products sold by Wal-mart. The company insists on low prices, so the manufacturers of even heavily advertised brand name products have to make a separate line of products for Wal-mart, made with cheaper parts.

The systems administrator at the library told us that computers sold by Wal-mart have cheap plastic components that break easily. I know from my own frustrating and aggravating experiences that bicycles bought from Wal-mart are junk.

[Apparently Best Buys also follows this practice. My husband works at a furniture and appliance store and has heard many customer complaints about major brand appliances bought from Best Buys. (The customers bring their complaints to our local store because they sell the same brands.) When Pat and his boss, the owner of the store, look at the appliances - they aren't the same as the models in their store - parts made of plastic, very cheap and flimsy.]

Is cheap toast really worth the cost of having your house burn up? Is it worth the possibility of your pets and children burning to death? Maybe it's time to dredge up the cash to buy one of those sleek, shiny, retro toasters you've been admiring. But wait, check first and make sure it's not plastic. In the meantime, unplug your plastic toaster!

Vote for Tears or Vote for Hope?

2008-01-09T13:18:00.000-06:00

So Hillary wins in New Hampshire because, according to an AP report, women voters were moved by her emotionalism at a press conference, her eyes brimming with tears because of the stress of running for president.

- - - - - - - long pause - - - - - - -

Excuse me?

I'm sorry, but that's a stupid reason to vote for someone. I don't think women are that stupid.
I hope not.

Used to be women were soundly criticized for their tears, and considered unfit for the office because they were too emotional. That was stupid too.

When Hillary got teary, I thought, well, yeah, she's under a lot of stress. I'd probably cry now and then too. Mostly I was annoyed that the press even bothered to report it. Oh my god, look, she's a human being! Big news! Big news! Hillary Clinton has tear ducts, and they function!

Tears are not a reason to dismiss a person running for president. But they're also not reason enough to vote for someone.

Was the AP reporter just offering conjecture - or did some women actually say Hillary's tears made them want to vote for her? "Umm, hmm, let's see, health care, global warming, oil prices, the war in Iraq - oooh, look, she's crying! Well, that's it, she's got my vote!"

Then there's the woman who said she voted for Hillary because she, the voter, is a feminist. Okay, well, fine, I guess. But does being a femininst automatically mean you can only vote for a female contender? Because if it does, I guess I'm not a feminist. I thought being a feminist meant making up my own mind.

I don't have anything against Hillary Clinton. She's smart, she's able, she's experienced. I just like Obama better - he's calm, self-assured, soft-spoken, grounded. He's also smart, able and experienced.

As my friend Monique said this morning, "I still have hope."

Here's a link to someone else's opinion: http://www.vote.com/magazine/columns/dickmorris/column60530264.phtml

Tim Pettigrew for President

2008-01-06T10:33:00.000-06:00

When I was in 4th grade, in 1963, our next door neighbor, gave me her children's old issues of Treasure Chest magazine, a Catholic comic book. I loved to read and these mags were pretty good. There were stories about saints and artists (I especially loved the story about Michelangelo), and a serial story at the end of each magazine about a man named Tim Pettigrew who was running for president in 1976. Tim was always drawn in silhouette, so readers never saw his features. In the last installment of the series, Tim wins the election, and readers get a chance to see what Tim really looks like : a slender, light skinned black man with short hair. He resembled Barack Obama.

The Obamians

2008-01-05T18:48:00.001-06:00

So I went to the caucus on Thursday night and stood up for Obama. In our caucus group, it wasn't even close - The Obamians expanded over half the room (the high school cafeteria), leaving the other groups smushed into little corners, an edge by the wall. I was next to a woman recently moved to Iowa from Illinois. I told her why I supported Obama, his clear headedness, his authority and leadership, the way he thinks through issues, the way he listens, the way he inspires and motivates others. She nodded and said, "yes, I've been watching him for some time now and have observed how he has matured." Oh yeah, duh, the lady's from Illinois.

Meanwhile the precinct captains and officers counted and re-counted. "Stand up," they cried, followed by the head count in which each person sat down (most on the sticky cafeteria floor) when the officer pointed at him or her. Counts were tallied, checked against the voters registered, viability decided, groups shuffled about, then everyone stood up and counted again. Sway to the left, sway to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!

I used to vote in a primary - so simple. Walk down the street to someone's two-car garage, wait in a long line (maybe there were coffee and cookies available). Sign your name, grab your paper ballot and go to a booth. Come out, tear the corner off your ballot ("I've voted, have you?" to pin to your lapel), stuff the ballot into the cardboard box, go home.

But in Iowa, we caucus - we get together in big neighborhood groups, and for an hour or two, we wave fingers across the room at acquaintances, chat with people we just met, smile, yawn, move closer together to make room for more Democrats (the Republicans do it a little bit differently), and feel very American and grateful to be able to do this at all.

And now we wait and watch and hope.

Not blogging to my potential

2007-10-17T20:23:00.000-05:00

I keep jotting down notes about topics I want to blog about, but I don't have a computer at home, so I can't blog till I get to the library, and then I can only blog when I'm not actually supposed to be working. Doesn't matter anyway, I always leave my little cryptic notes
("B-winkle"; "quack"; "bounce/window") at home.

I wonder, if I blogged more often, would my blog zoom around the internet faster and would people start finding it and reading it and leaving comments and making me feel wonderful, or awful, but at least noticed? I crave your attention!

I've read other blogs. Some were nothing I was interested in. Others were the products of people who are far more skilled as writers, or far more skilled in some particular skill, or far more knowledgeable in some specific area, than I could ever hope to be. But a lot, a lot, of blogs are just personal journals. Some are boring, some are funny, some are cute or cutesy. Some are pretty darn cool, as in No Impact Man, a journal about trying to live green, and dragging your family along with you. Lots of good information, well written, entertaining, timely, inspiring, worth your time.

In contrast, my blog, this blog, is a Whiner blog. I mean, really, who'd want to read a whiner blog? I've got nothing new or unusual or important to say. I just complain about the unfairness of life. I haven't even really written about all the really beautiful and wonderful and neat stuff about life, mostly because I'm in too much of a "life's not fair" fog to notice anything except how unfair life is. Plus the weather has been really sucky, I'm so damn tired of rain. Blah, blah, blah, Ginger.

But then, you know, I also come across other whiner blogs, and they have tons of activity going on, lots of people writing comments, I mean like dozens and dozens of comments on all of the posts, sometimes hundreds of comments. So how'd they do it? How does one attract so many people to one's whiner blog? I crave that attention! No, I should say it like this (very nasally),
"I want people to read my blog, tooooo, why isn't anyone reading my blog, huh, huh?"

You know, I'm not a social animal. I am, to use an old fashioned term, a wallflower. Put me in a party, and I back up to the wall and try to fade into the wallpaper. Unless you give me a drink, in which case I get tipsy and try to impress everyone with how funny I am when I am drunk and uninhibited. Embarrassing. On the other hand, here I have attempted to present myself in a very public forum-available, literally, to the whole world. And I write well enough, I'm not great, but I can string sentences together better than the average bear. (I've tried to read blogs that made me gnash my teeth and grumble, "go do your English homework!") And while many writers are shy, we still want our writings to be read, to be noticed, to be talked about. (Okay, so I'm not a professional writer, but I do write, have always written, it's a personal need, a desire, something that satisfies me, an avocation, if you will.) mmm - someone just engaged me in conversation and now I have lost my train of thought, bye bye choo choo.

Never mind. I will attempt to blog up to my potential from this point forward. And someday maybe I will also remember what I was going to write in this post.

2007-09-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Today, Labor Day, my husband and I were sitting at our table looking out over the back yard, watching our dogs play. Rocky has been barking a lot, but not overmuch, it seemed to us. He barks at everything, squirrels, birds, insects, leaves fluttering in the breeze. Usually I bring him indoors when I think he's barking too much. I don't want to annoy the neighbors. I try to be a good dog owner, a good neighbor.

But then we saw the neighbors behind us looking over our fence - it's a double fence, we built the new fence inside the old fence, so there's a "zone" between the neighbors' yards and ours and our dogs aren't allowed in the zone. Anyway, a police officer was standing with our neighbors looking into our yard. Three of our dogs were facing them, but not barking, just watching. Patrick and I wondered what was going on. "It's the dogs," he said, "they're complaining about the dogs." But they didn't seem to be looking at the dogs, I thought they were looking at the plants. "Is there a stray hemp plant growing in the yard," I wondered. (Hemp is a type of marijuana, and used to be farmed here in Iowa. It's not unusual to find it growing in yards or along roadsides.)

After a few minutes the police officer walked away and Pat went outside to the driveway, knowing the police car would pull up in front of our house. By the time I walked outside, the officer and Pat were having a conversation. "It's the dogs," Pat said, "barking too much."

The officer was very polite and chatted in a friendly fashion. "Your neighbors are trying to enjoy their holiday in their garden and your dogs have been barking all morning." He offered some options. "Thin out the dogs. Two would be plenty. Try a bark collar or put up a solid fence. Keep them quiet or I'll have to come back."

My dogs are only out in the yard when one of us is home. And we bring them inside if they get on a barking rant. We don't let them just bark constantly all day or all night. I really didn't think
Rocky was barking that much, perhaps I just wasn't paying attention.

This is what I think. If you have a problem with your neighbor, you go to your neighbor and say, "I'm sorry, but I have a problem." You give your neighbor the benefit of the doubt - you allow them to fix the problem, maybe they didn't even know there was a problem. You try to work it out together. You don't treat your neighbor like a criminal. You don't go to the police first.
When you go to the police first, it creates bad feelings.

I went in the yard with the dogs and played quietly with them for awhile. Meanwhile, over in my neighbors' yard, the neighbors who had complained about our barking dogs, their little dachshund was going, "yapyapyapyapyap!"

home

2007-08-03T18:25:00.000-05:00

A friend asked me the other day if I was settled into my new house - she said, "are you all organized yet?"
I laughed and said, "I wasn't organized before the move, why should I be now?"

A few days after that someone else said in surprise, "Aren't you unpacked yet?"

I moved into the house on May 20. You'd think I'd have everything done. But I don't.
Boxes are piled up in corners, in the middle of some floors, in closets and the stairwell and the garage. Every once in a while I'll make a half-hearted attempt at unpacking. I'll pull out a box and open it up, look at the contents, sigh, close it back up and shove it back into its place. Sometimes I actually manage to unpack a box. I put the contents on counters and in drawers, because I don't know what else to do with them. I'm not putting them away - I'm just storing them someplace different than a box.

Every once in awhile I drive over to the old house and walk through the dark, ashy, smoky rooms and pick something up and put it down, open a closet door and shut it, bring an empty box upstairs in order to fill it, then leave it empty on the floor. Dirty pieces of furniture are shoved haphazardly in rooms. Clothing, bedding, trash, papers and toys are scattered here and there. Books sit patiently in stacks near the door. I walk into the kitchen which my husband has gutted.
I look out the windows to the lush, overgrown back yard. Then I walk back through the house and shut the door behind me, get in my car and go home.

Quack, quack, seat back!

2007-06-29T19:48:00.000-05:00

(Life happens so fast lately I can't keep up. Here's something I wanted to share several weeks ago, not long after our house caught on fire, and our 11 year old daughter woke up her brother in time to escape from the fire.)

My kids fight incessantly over the best seats in the house, recently that means 2 recliners, which is basically all we have since our house caught on fire. "Quack, quack, seat back," one of them will chant as he or she leaves the desirable seat in order to get a snack from the kitchen. Invariably, one of the other kids will immediately slip into the vacant chair, causing a huge fuss when the original occupant returns.

One evening 11 year old Mary hopped up to go to the kitchen, chanting the quack quack as she went. Her 15 year old brother David hopped up and flopped down into Mary's chair. When Mary came back and surveyed this disaster, her face turned stony. "Quack Quack Seat Back," she said sternly. David shrugged his shoulders and smiled, "nope." Mary repeated the chant and Davy continued to smile.

Finally Mary stood up very straight and glared down at her brother with narrowed eyes, "I saved your life!"

Quack quack, she got her seat back.

First, do no harm

2007-06-24T19:16:00.000-05:00

Copy of the letter I sent to my mother's doctors.

June 24, 2007

Texas Cancer Center

Aparna Chacka Kumar

Mark Saunders

910 East Houston, Suites 100/100-C

Tyler, TX 75702

Dr. Charles Perricone

Family Medicine

511 North High

Henderson, TX 75652

To Drs. Chacka , Saunders and Perricone:

I am writing this on behalf of my mother, Sara L. Hafner. She wishes to let you know that you have caused her great harm. She feels she was treated inhumanely and discourteously. On many occasions over the years my mother has told all of her family members that she would never agree to radiation therapy or chemotherapy for cancer treatment. When she received a diagnosis
of DCIS this past winter, she told each of her children that she would not receive radiation. She decided she would have the surgery only, wait six months and see how her health was before making any further decisions about therapy. We were all shocked and dismayed when she told us that she would be undergoing radiation therapy after all. But my mother is an intelligent, strong woman who has generally made wise and informed decisions, and so we didn’t try to dissuade her.

Late in May my mother called me. She didn’t feel good, she was experiencing a lot of pain and she felt troubled and alarmed. Her body, she said, was telling her that something was seriously wrong. And the doctor’s office (your office) was harassing her, calling her and insisting she come back for more radiation treatments. “I stink,” she told me, “I smell like burnt flesh. And I have so much pain. When I tell the doctor and nurses at the clinic, they just pooh-pooh my concerns, they don’t listen, they don’t care.”

On June 4 my mother was admitted to the hospital with elevated blood pressure & dangerously fast heart rate with fibrillation. Mother told me that the doctors at the hospital told her that they suspected the radiation had reached the heart and damaged it. When she was released from the hospital she was told to take aspirin, and given an appointment to see Dr. Perricone on June 28.

Someone please explain this to me: a 79 year old woman being treated with radiation for breast cancer has an emergency admission to a hospital for heart fibrillations, and she is patted on the head and told, take some aspirin and see me in three weeks???? What the hell??

When I next talked to my mother she told me she wished she had never agreed to the radiation. She said her family doctor, Dr. Perricone, had told her he never advised his patients to have radiation therapy. I asked her why he hadn’t said this before she started radiation, and she told me she hadn’t seen him. “He’s a family doctor, not an oncologist. I was told these people were specialists in breast cancer. I thought they knew what they were talking about. But all the papers I signed said that ‘all radiation is experimental’. I wish I had never started this. And the clinic keeps calling me and leaving messages and harassing me about finishing up the radiation. They don’t care about me at all. They don’t listen to me. They don’t care that they hurt me. This whole process has been dehumanizing and brutal.”

On Friday, June 22 at 5:00 p.m., my mother suffered a massive stroke which damaged almost all of the right hemisphere of her brain. Her left side is paralyzed. She will never walk or dance or paint again. She is facing months or years of therapy. She will probably never return to her beloved home and her favorite things. She may lose her home and all her antiques and property in order to provide skilled nursing care for the rest of her life. It’s possible she will suffer another stroke which will kill her, depriving her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, husband, sisters and brothers of her love and companionship. Or she may contract pneumonia or influenza in the nursing home which may also kill her.

When she was life flighted to Mother Frances in Tyler, the doctors were astonished that she had been released from a hospital a week earlier for heart problems and not given blood thinner medication. “Just aspirin?”

When I saw her a few days after the stroke, she said, “they’ve killed me. Those doctors. That Dr. Saunders, that asshole, praying over me before the radiation. He’s a phony, he’s a jackass. I wish someone would put hookwires in his balls and radiate him. None of them ever cared about me as a person. They didn’t listen to me.”

I said, “Mama, why did you have the radiation?”

She said, “They intimidated me. They bullied me.”

I have never seen my mother intimidated in her life. She is a strong, opinionated, assertive person. My mother is usually the one doing the intimidating.

I did a little bit of research on treatment of DCIS. While radiation is standard protocol, I was interested to note that 75% of women who do NOT receive radiation after surgery do NOT have a recurrence of the cancer. My mother is 79 years old – how many extra years of life were you hoping to give her by aggressively treating a slow-moving, non-invasive precancerous condition?

By treating her with a therapy that I’m certain she told you she didn’t want?

I don’t know what you said to her to make her agree to radiation, but know this: she never wanted it. She didn’t need it. She didn’t deserve what you did to her. My mother has hardly been sick a day in her life – she was active, intelligent, interested in the world around her, and tried to take good care of herself. I fully believe that her condition now is a result of your bullying, lack of concern, and carelessness in your medical treatment of her. At the very least you need to personally and sincerely apologize to her. Not that she will accept it or forgive you, but you still need to offer it. Groveling is encouraged.

My mother told me she regretted ever getting a mammogram, ever listening to what you doctors had to say. She regretted the biopsy, which she said was like medieval torture, she regretted the surgery, more brutality, and most of all she regretted having the radiation. “Don’t you ever do it,” she told me and my sister. “We won’t, Mama,” we said. “You’ll regret it if you do,” she said.

“I already regret it, Mama,” I said, looking at her sorry state.

With all the media attention on breast cancer and mammograms, pushing, pushing, pushing women to get mammograms...this experience with my mother makes me wonder how much the medical profession genuinely cares about women. It seems our breasts have become one of Big Medicine’s great cash cows. You can bet that my sister and I will be telling every woman we know about this horrific and tragic experience.

Here are my mother’s instructions to you and your staffs:

· Treat people humanely

· Listen to your patients

· Respond appropriately to what people say (not, “oh, you’ll be fine, the side effects will go away, don’t worry about it.....”)

· Show some sincere concern

· Practice good medicine, as opposed to “this is the way we always do it (& we get paid so much more when we do it this way)”

· OR GET OUT OF THE HEALTH CARE FIELD

We are also including an attractive sign for you to hang on your office wall where you can see it every day. Sorry we couldn’t afford a frame, we have to save our money for our mother’s nursing care.

Sincerely,

Brenda G. McDonald

The sign was simply the words : First, do no harm.

Tremendous fun to tragedy & trauma

2007-06-20T11:06:00.000-05:00

I had a wonderful weekend in Chicago with my 3 younger children and my oldest daughter, her husband and their baby, Guthrie. I got to babysit - yay! Except poor little Guthrie won't take a bottle, he just wants his mommy's booby. So we had a few tragic hours when he was sure he had been abandoned to his heartless, empty-boobied grandma. But when Mommy reappeared there was rejoicing in babyland!

More about Chicago later.

On Sunday morning in Chicago I received a phone call from my brother - our mother had had a massive stroke and they didn't think she would survive. We drove home to Grinnell, I talked with my sister, and on Monday my sister and I started driving toward Texas. Tremendous thunderstorms all the way down through Missouri on Monday. Hot, hot, hot on Tuesday. We arrived at my mother's house late Tuesday afternoon.

So now there is more to do than I understand. I am angry, sad, confused, helpless. Mother is coherent, sad, angry, funny, depressed. She gave us instructions for her funeral : no sadness, no hymns, only music by the Tijuana Brass. Pitchers of margaritas, chips and salsa. She told us what she wants on her tombstone and started to cry. "I loved to dance," she said.

But she could survive many more years - just paralyzed on her left side. No painting, no dancing, no walks in the park. I asked about wheelchairs and the neurologist said, probably not. I don't understand. I don't know what to hope for.

Hold fast

2007-06-08T19:32:00.000-05:00

A few nights after the fire I couldn't sleep. I sat in the living room of our new house, amid the packing boxes and junk we've already accumulated and left in piles here and there...and wondered, what do I do, what do I do. Not about insurance or repairs or replacing things. But what do I do with my dream?

For 45 years I've nurtured a dream, and for about the past 10 years I've known in my heart that my dream just ain't gonna happen. Choices I made, or choices others made for me that I accepted, however half-heartedly, have altered the course of my life and pushed my dream ever further away. But I kept remembering that line from the Langston Hughes poem: Hold fast to dreams... But what if you can't hold fast anymore? What if holding fast hurts more than letting go?

So I sat in the dark and cried a little. And remembered that I used to pray, and that when I prayed I felt closer to God, and when I feel close to God, I feel safe and cherished. And I thought about so many of the books about prayer that are popular today, and how they make all sorts of promises: If you just pray the right way, you can have everything you want, wealth and success, all your dreams will come true, because that's what God wants for you! Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to the news knows that prayers don't work that way. Many people will say that prayers don't work at all. Just look at Darfur - you think those people don't pray?

But I digress. I must have my little rants at those other Christians. Where was I?

Dreams. Prayers. Oh yeah.

I needed to pray. But what should I pray for? All the usual stuff, but for this specific time in my life, when I don't know what to do with my dream, how do I pray about that?
And I picked up a pen and a notebook and I scribbled: "Pray for what God wants for you, not for what you imagine you want."

Last night I was reading a book by one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott (I call her Annie, as if we're friends), and she quoted another one of my favorite writers, Kathleen Norris:
"Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine." I sat up really straight when I read that passage. And read it again, and again. Okay, I'm listening.

When I feel my mind exploring that sore, tender spot where my dream used to be, I catch my breath until I remember. And I hold fast.

"For I know the plans I have for you, for your welfare and for good, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

The pinprick of light at the end of a very long tunnel

2007-06-03T09:18:00.000-05:00

I had been wondering why our credit union hadn't responded to our house fire. It seemed very weird to me that they weren't interested in their investment. They've made a lot of money from us, since we were incompetent in watching our mortgage payments and hadn't realized years ago that the loan had gone into a reverse amortization. (We now owe $27,000 more on the house than what we agreed to pay for it in 1991.)

Anyhoo...come to find out, our credit union reps had been avoiding us, because they made a very serious error, and so did we. Years ago our homeowner's insurance was cancelled. At that time we received a letter from the credit union informing us that we must have insurance on our mortgaged house and if we didn't procure it, they would apply insurance to the house and add the premium payments to our house payments. Being ridiculously ignorant and lazy we thought, okay, do that. And we assumed they had. But they had not. Not only had they not procured insurance for the house, they actually filed a paper waiving the insurance, without informing us.

So now we have a burned up house, no insurance and a mortgage we still have to pay for a house that is unlivable, unsellable and unrentable. Do we have savings to fix it up ourselves or raze it? We do not.

My dreams of being debt-free are wisps of mist. The credit union may pay for damages out of their own bigger pockets. We may have to take them to court. Either way we are exposed as extremely incompetent folks. Our life is wide open to judgment and criticism. I want to leave for Tahiti and forget the whole thing. But I can't. Somehow I have to overcome my claustrophobia and start crawling through that very long and narrow tunnel and working my way toward that tiny pinprick of light. There is hope yet.

P.S. We found our 2 missing cats, safe and sound. The 2 injured rats have recovered. Whoopee.

My house burned this morning

2007-05-20T21:34:00.001-05:00

My house caught fire. My kids are safe, my dogs are safe. Two cats are safe, two cats are missing.
Two rats died, two rats were crushed and injured. My kitchen is destroyed. My house is smoke damaged.

My kids were home, and I was gone, working at the church nursery. My daughter woke up and smelled smoke. She opened the kitchen door and saw fire. A cat ran out of the kitchen into the house, we haven't seen him since. My daughter called 911, then she ran upstairs and woke up her brother, whose bedroom is right above the kitchen. They scrambled to get outside, grabbed a few dogs on the way, 2 dogs remained closed up in separate rooms.

The neighbors said flames were shooting up into the sky. My kids said there were explosions as windows buckled and burst. The weirdest thing, said my 15 year old son, was hearing the crash of dishes as shelves burned and collapsed.

The firefighters got my other two dogs out, and found 2 of my cats. They went into my stinky, dirty basement and heaved the rat cages up the stairs and out into the yard. The firefighters were amazing, kind and amazing. I keep picturing them pulling out those disgusting rat cages.
They were afraid we had a huge snake, because of all the rats, like we were breeding rats for snake food. I said, "no, we don't have a huge snake, we just made a huge mistake."

I am raw, and sad, and worried about money and feel so sorry for my poor old house.

But I am so grateful, and counting my blessings, and thanking God, my kids are alive. They came so close to death.

I called my mother and told her my houses caught on fire. She said, "well I hope you have fire insurance."
Not, "how are you?"
Not "did everybody get out okay?"
Not "oh, my God, I'm so sorry, tell me what happened."
My mother is probably kicking herself now. She does this all the time. A few days from now I'll get a very sympathetic letter from her.

Friends and neighbors have been incredibly generous, people keep bringing us food, and items we need like toilet paper and cat litter and paper plates and silverware and offering hugs, even though I'm covered with dirt and blood from where the kitten scratched me in his panic.

My mind is reeling - too much going on inside. If only, if only. If only I hadn't taken that nursery job, I would have been home, or maybe not, I might have been at church anyway...

It could have been so different. We might all have been gone, the house would have burned, and all our pets with it. Mary might not have awakened in time to notice the fire, and she and Davy might both be dead, or burned terribly.

No time for if only or what if. Just the facts ma'am: we are alive. And I am so thankful.

even in my dreams I'm incompetent

2007-05-18T20:29:00.001-05:00

Afternoon naps produce the most bizarre dreams. Unpleasant dreams.

I dreamed I was letting my dog Beau in - every time I let him through the door I hurt him. I slammed the door on his neck, or punched him in the face - not on purpose, but I still hurt him.
He started growling at me - really snarling, snout wrinkled, lips curled back, big teeth bared. I couldn't believe it - Beau is a most loving dog. When I tried to talk to him, to apologize, he snarled. A couple of times he stood up on his hind legs (he's almost as tall as I am) and snarled right in my face, even mouthed the words "I'm sorry". It was hideous, like a horror movie, and I was terrified. My dog was talking to me, but I couldn't tell if he was truly sorry because he couldn't control his fear and contempt of me, or if he was being sarcastic and making fun of me. (dream logic) When I woke up and went downstairs, I was relieved to find that Beau still liked me.

I dreamed I got into a car to drive a short distance away - I couldn't see, I couldn't find the road.
I was afraid, my passengers (my daughters) were afraid. I couldn't turn the wheel properly. I was swaying in my seat, half asleep. Usually in dreams I'm wide awake - I may be doing weird stuff or in strange situations, but I'm not a freaking half-asleep zombie. But in afternoon dreams, it's like the character of "me" is played by my actual sleeping self. I can't drive when I'm asleep.

PS - I actually have recurring car & driving dreams, and I know what they mean - but that's for another post.

I put it right there!

2007-05-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

I lose things. Important things. Like tax returns.

Then I throw tantrums, scream, yell at myself, slam doors, slam doors, slam doors, SLAM!
Feel stupid, stupid, stupid.

Why am I so disorganized? I think I put something away properly, where it can be located
easily when I need it. I'm sure I remember putting it away.

But then when I go to get it, it's not there, I can't find, I need it, right now, and, and, and...

Let the tantrums begin.

Tripping over the light fantastic shoe

2007-05-09T20:20:00.000-05:00

I tripped over my shoes this morning. No, I hadn't left them tumbled in the middle of the floor - I was wearing them at the time, and one of them slipped off my foot. Damn clogs. How do other women walk in these things? I've never been able to master the art of walking in backless shoes. So why did I buy them? Because everyone else was wearing them! Because my friends say, "oh, they're so comfortable!"

Actually, I bought them because I'm extremely lazy. Who wants to have to bend over or squat down and tie or buckle anything? I once heard of a young woman who complained that her shoes were tripping her up. When her friends looked at her feet, they started laughing. She had her shoes on the wrong feet, with the buckles facing each other from her inner ankles. Everytime she took a step, the buckles clashed and caught on each other. I can relate to that. Do they still make buckle shoes? Or are they all fake buckles with velcro underneath? Never mind. I don't even like velcro - you still have to bend over and press it in place. Nope. I like slip on shoes. Slip on, slip off, slip on, slip off. (I'd also love to have a clapper - clap on, clap off, clap on, clap off.)

Unfortunately, I just may be clumsier than I am lazy. I walk into walls. I am forever bumping my head on the cupboard door I left open (does anything hurt more than that? A paper cut maybe). I slip down the stairs, I bang my hips against counters, my knees on coffee tables, my ankles knock together when I try to jog. I don't try to jog anymore.

Back to shoes. Clogs. So what do other women know about clogs that I don't? It can't possibly be just about grace or lack thereof. Can it? Do other women buy them a half size too small, so that one's feet are wedged so tightly into the shoe that it cannot possibly fall off and trip one? Is there a glue strip one wears on the sole of one's foot? I just don't get it. I was attending a conference with two of my coworkers, and we were all wearing clogs. Walking from the car to the entrance of the hotel, my 2 friends were striding masterfully, fifty yards or more ahead, while I was mincing across the parking lot like an 19th century Chinese woman with bound feet. Tell me! Tell me now!! How do you keep clogs on your feet??? I have to squinch up my toes and attempt to grip the slick insole with each step, and they still fall off, or fly ahead, or just dangle off my toes as I lift my foot to take a step. And wham! Whumpity, whumpity, there I am, arms windmilling, nose headed for a smashing, clogs tangled up under my feet.

Perhaps I could blame my lack of shoe grace on growing up in warm climates - I went barefoot an awful lot as a child. Shoes were for school and church, any other time, I was shoe-free. My toes just aren't used to being confined. Nearly the first thing I do when I get home for the night, is kick my shoes off.

But I do love shoes. Some years ago when I was still young and attempting to pass myself off as sexy, I wore high heels. I loved my shoes, my sexy, strappy little 3 inch pumps. I loved my gorgeous black leather spiky heeled boots. I dreamed about red f-me heels. But the truth was - I couldn't walk in these things, at least not far. I could get from the car door to the cocktail table or bar, but once I reached a chair or stool, I was in place, legs crossed prettily, dainty foot swinging. If asked to dance, I kicked the damn shoes off and hoped the guy thought it was sexy.

I once tried to walk four blocks in my beautiful, beloved boots. I had made it to my destination and was gamely attempting the walk back to my house. My feet were screaming at me as I staggered from tree to fence post to fire hydrant, hobbling, swaying, falling toward the next vertical object. People driving by stared as they passed me - if cell phones had existed then, I'm sure they would have been tapping out 9-1-1, "there's a disgraceful drunk woman falling down on respectable neighborhood lawns".

So what is this infatuation that women have with shoes? I've been reading a lot of chick lit lately, and half the books seem to be about shoes, designer shoes, designer shoes for babies, shoe cupboards and closets, credit cards maxed out on 1 pair of shoes, shoe sale frenzies. And the reason women find this entertaining and funny, is because we can relate to it!

When I was nine, I insisted that my mother buy me a certain pair of dark red shoes. I loved those shoes - they didn't fit right, they pinched and hurt my feet, but I wore them anyway. I didn't understand then why I had to have those shoes, and I don't understand now, why certain shoes just tickle something in our brain - it's erotic and primitive and undeniable. Is there a shoe lobe in the brain?

I have reached the age where all I really look for in a shoe is comfort, but I can be stopped dead in my tracks in front of a shoe shop window featuring a beautiful and usually high-heeled shoe. I will daydream in front of that window, and maybe even enter the store and try the shoe on (if my socks are clean and my toe nails clipped). What is it about shoes and women? What do shoes represent?
Why are shoes "sexy"? How can feet be considered sexy? I don't think feet are sexy, I think feet are damned funny looking. If you stare at a foot long enough, you just have to wonder. Except for baby feet, baby feet are excruciatingly adorable.
And feet can be really ugly and stinky too. Well, I guess that's true of other body parts, too. Clean is sexy. But then, why do we call something sexy, "dirty" ?
Now I'm confused. Feet should definitely be clean, though, I'm not confused about that.

But while I'm mulling over all this sexy feet/sexy shoe stuff, take a look at this really cool book - I love it, my kids love it (though I have to censor some pages for them!) Some of the shoes are real shoes, some are artifacts, some are designers' fanciful creations, and some are just art:

Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals, Slippers & More by Linda O'Keeffe (Paperback - Jan 12, 1996)

Postscript: Years after I stopped going dancing and stopped wearing high heels (I almost typed high hells - ha ha Freudian slip!) - I still kept my high heels in my closet - through several moves, one half way across the country - I still kept those spiky little heels. Every once in a while I would take my strappy little pumps out of hiding and just look at them, remembering. They weren't comfortable, but I felt great wearing them, feminine, sexy, and even powerful. I will never feel that way about clogs.

See ya later, alligator! (and hey, those aren't alligator pumps you're wearing, are they?) Here's another fun book:

Alligator Shoes (Reading Rainbow) by Arthur Dorros (Paperback - April 1, 1992)

Urine trouble now!

2007-05-04T19:48:00.000-05:00

It’s morning, I’m late, as usual, and hopping around trying to brush my shoes and tie my teeth and round up the books I need to return to the library (where I work) when I notice something. A noise. Something drumming softly in another room. It’s an odd noise, and out of place in my morning routine. It sounds like...water running, no, splattering.

I cock my head trying to place the location of the noise. I creep from doorway to doorway and follow the sound into the dining room. Liquid is splashing onto the dining room table. From the table it bounces up and flies in thousands of tiny droplets out into the room, spraying the floor, the walls, the piano, me. My eyes follow the stream of liquid up, up, up to the ceiling where it is pouring through the exposed lath. My brain is exceedingly slow to puzzle this out. Why is there liquid up there? Above this area of the dining room, there is only the hallway and my bedroom door. No plumbing. No pipes.

A dog brushes against my legs. A lightbulb goes off in my head – it’s one of those jarring, noisy warning bulbs that lights up and honks when nuclear power plant protocol has been breached. Wonk! Wonk! Wonk!

I race up the stairs, all six dogs scrambling up with me, bumping into me, nearly knocking me all the way down the stairs again. I turn the corner at the hallway and slide to a stop in front of my bedroom door. Where there is a rapidly disappearing pool of dog pee. Rapidly disappearing because it is draining through the cracks of the old wood floor and through the broken plaster and exposed lath of the dining room ceiling and onto the dining room table (did I mention that this is a dining room table – people eat food from this table!)

Cursing at the dogs, I slosh a mop through the mess and finish it off with a towel – a towel, I might add, that I had just laundered the night before. A clean towel that has been folded on the bathroom shelf for a mere 8 hours, before being used to wipe up dog piss.

Downstairs (where each dog is now cowering in its own corner, trying to look small and vulnerable and innocent), I rapidly clean up the table, chairs, floor, piano, then realize I need to change my clothes as well. I am late for work.

This is my morning. This is not an unusual morning.

I have six dogs, obviously untrained, and every morning when I wake up I have six dogs with full bladders. My own bladder is also full. I used to drag myself out of bed and to the back door to let dogs out to pee before I had used the bathroom myself. But since our yard is not fenced, and there is a leash law, I can only let one dog out at a time. Have you ever watched a dog choose a spot to pee? They can be interminably slow. Sniff the rock, hmm, no, maybe the garbage can, hmm, no, not there, oh, a stick of wood. Nope. “Just go potty, damn you!” I yell, startling some early morning joggers passing by the house. Times that by six, and you can see my problem. After I’d peed in my pajamas a few times, I made an executive decision: the one who buys the dog food gets to pee first.

But a dog whose bladder has been filling up all night long is a worried dog and an anxious dog. There are mornings I can hear the dogs milling about outside the bathroom door, almost hear their fretting, almost see them squeezing their furry legs together, pinching their doggy lips together in an attempt to tighten all bodily sphincter muscles. Some mornings, such as this one, somebody failed. Or, I suspect, somebody didn’t try hard enough.

My life is clearly out of control. I am not living up to my potential. And I am late to work again, thinking, how did I get here? Why do I have so many dogs? Why are there holes in my ceiling? How do I sanitize the dining room table? How do I get the odor of dog pee out of my unfinished wood floors? And how do I escape?? But then I arrive at work, and must think about other things, like earning enough money to feed my dogs, repair my ceiling, buy a new table, finish my floors and book a one way ticket to Tahiti.