November 5 - Madrid

A's 21st birthday! Feliz Cumpleanos little birdie! She arrived here before 3 pm yesterday and after a tearful, noisy American reunion in the lobby we came upstairs for showers and I had a brief (too brief) siesta. Then we took off walking to wherever and ended up in Plaza Puerta del Sol. We window shopped and walked, then stopped for a bite -- not technically dinner since it was only 6pm. I had a Spanish omelet with some kind of really good sausage and A had a bocadillo (sandwich) & cerveza. Then we walked back up Gran Via and basically ran out of steam by 8 pm. We finished up the night with Hershey's cookies & mint bars and all those magazines I carted here (glad to get rid of those!)

So this morning we are off to the Prado after breakfast.

later that day ....
We tried to get breakfast at a cafeteria but the service was so slow (even by Spanish standards) we ended up leaving and walking down to Paseo del Prado and through a pretty little park. Across from the Prado we found a Starbuck's and had a non-traditional breakfast of tea & sandwiches. I spent a ton of time in the Prado. I was so amazed to see paintings I had only seen in books. Walking around every corner I had to keep from gasping out loud. (Yes, I am an art dork.) The portrait of Mary Tudor is here (see above, poor thing, she was not pretty) and I hear the Hans Holbein Henry the VIII is at Thyssen-Bornemizsa across the street. How did father and daughter, 2 English monarchs, end up in Spain I wonder (although Mary was 1/2 Spanish and married to a Spaniard as well). Saw an amazing wood sculpture of the penitent Mary Magdalene which completely blew me away. I wish I could find an image of her, she was amazing. Ummm, so much more: Rubens, Titian, Valasquez and Goya of course, El Greco. Oh! and the Lobster's favorite, Bosch. When you see Dali's work it's clear where he got his inspiration. Loved the Goyas -- even the black period. Very tragic stuff.

A abandoned me to my artistic love affair and so later we met up at the hotel again and I met Juan Antonio, her Spanish boyfriend... he led the way to Plaza Mayor. I got some great pictures and then my camera croaked. Canon is going to get a very nasty letter from me about the infamous E18 error.

After walking around Plaza Mayor we walked to Palacio Real and then back to Plaza Mayor hoping to catch an early dinner at Botin (the world's oldest restuarant and where Ernest Hemingway used to hang out) but 15 minutes after they opened they were on an hour wait so we went to another restaurant nearby, Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas. Juan ordered tapas and we had a pitcher of Sangria -- we had morcilla (black pudding-- I can't believe I ate that but it was actually good), potatoes with ailioli, bread, calimari, Spanish omelet. All very yummy! A got flan with a candle in it for her birthday. Ended up hanging in the hotel while A and Juan went to a disco -- I was watching MTV with German subtitles -- it was all I could find in English except for Sky News.

A wonderful day except for the broken camera. grrrrrr.

excerpts from Nov 3/4

Warning: all excerpts edited for content and embellished with afterthoughts.

11/3: random airport thoughts

1. white guys who eat at Panda Express with chopsticks -- little bit pretentious? Even the Asians are eating with forks.
2. Is pink camo so you can hide from Barbie?
3. Spent some quality time in L'Occitane and bought A her 21st birthday gift, Honey Harvest Body Balm.
4. backpack weighs 400# and is actually gaining the longer I carry it.

Have a terrible nervous stomach and am sick -- good I have a 5 hour wait. (In retrospect, not a great way to start the trip but felt like I had at least gotten that out of the way and in fact I wasn't sick the whole time I was in Spain, even with ice in my drinks, etc.)

11/4:

Sitting at the H10 Villa de la Reina waiting for my room to be ready. Stomach settled down in time for the flight which was uneventful except for one glitch in KC. The blonde at the Continental desk kept telling me I'd have to pick up my bag in Paris but with only 55 minutes layover I didn't think I'd have time to make my Madrid flight. I kept trying to question her and she was in a huff so T turned to me and said "Just talk to someone in Houston", referring to rebooking my Paris-Madrid leg so I'd have time to pick up my bag and recheck it. I guess she got offended because about 10 minutes later she stopped us in the terminal and said she'd checked my bag all the way though to Madrid "since we acted like she didn't know what she was doing". I didn't think she knew what she was doing but I never said so. We tried very hard to be polite and explain that we were concerned about the short layover -- she was having nothing to do with us. I figured my suitcase would end up in Venezuela but it was actually first off in Madrid.

Once I got to Madrid I thought I'd have to go through customs but there was nothing. I was even stopped by a police officer who just waved me on. What is up with this room? Trying to be patient. Drinking old Sprite and eating trail mix, want a shower and a nap and want to call A. It's 2 pm Spain time and 8 am my time ... 3 hours of sleep in the last 26 hours. Tengo mejor jet lag.

I'm back .....

I'll try to put up some excerpts from my journal over the next few days. Still waiting for the pictures, too, but more about that later.

hasta noviembre 15

At some point, all the planning and worry just dissolves into an attitude of "whatever happens, happens". I'm just going to be kicking back and letting everything roll.

I hope this is wonderful. I'm still scared to death.

Will post soon, friends.

Rose

Halloween Haters Anonymous?

I used to love Halloween. For the record I now only like it if I have an excuse to dress up and a super cool costume to wear. Yesterday I had neither.

I returned home at 5:30 to see the pack of scary teens from the block behind us walking away from my house in full regalia. I was happy to have not been home for that particular trick-or-treat. So happy that I waited at home with a minimum of lights on until T came back and then... we left.

Bonus: halloween candy, no trick-or-treaters.

Next year, I think I'd like to go back to our previous years' tradition of being out of state when Halloween comes.

Of course, that won't stop me from buying candy ...

In other news, 50 hours until I board my Air France flight to Madrid...

3 days and counting

Just three days to go until I leave for Spain. Almost packed and still debating over what books to take…

I’m freaking out a little.

See more progress on: travel to europe

confessional part 2

1. While I know what I must do to help myself, I don't really know how to do it. I have a lot of growing up to do.
2. I have to choose just 2 books for Spain. There are 8 or 10 on my table and one in my car. I alos have like, 5 magazines I haven't read.
3. I never sleep any more. I doze and wake and think about my life until the waking and dreaming wind together and things stop making sense.
4. I dreamed he turned to me and said, "Why are you always so far away?" It scared me so much I woke up.
5. I have 4 1/2 feet of magazines I need to go through at work. I measured them.
6. I bought a phrase book and now I know how to cuss in Spanish.
7. I'm looking forward to 16 hours on a plane but I'm sure I'll change my mind a couple of hours in to the flight.
8. I want to lie in Spain and tell people I'm Canadian so they won't ask me about Iraq or Bush or the White Sox.
9. Sometimes I think about going home and getting drunk -- I never do. But I sure think about it.
10. My 11th wedding anniversary is Saturday. I never believed that anyone would love me for that long.
11. "Love, Actually" makes me cry. Every time. It's the scenes in the airport that get me most. It's that concept of how we, at our most basic, are really loving beings. I also like that there are so many stories interwoven into the movie and not all of them have happy endings. Love isn't always requited. Love isn't always joyful. Sometimes it's damn hard. But it actually is all around.

"Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love!" - Sam from "Love, Actually"

confessional

• less than 2 weeks until Spain. I have not done one thing to brush up on my Spanish. I have not packed anything, I have not bought my phrasebook.
• I like Old Navy just below waist flare jeans, they make me feel cool, which I am not.
• my nails are getting really long again. they feel funny.
• no matter how much hairspray I put on my hair it still looks like I've been electrified by the time 4 p.m. rolls around.
• I absolutely am in no way ready to deal with the holidays.
• I am absolutely in no way ready to deal with my life.
• No matter how cool a trip I am about to take, I would always rather go somewhere else. Last year I was wishing for London on the way to Hawaii. This year I am wishing for any country that speaks English.
• I'm afraid to go to Spain. There!! OK?? I'm afraid.
• I'm also afraid of life after Spain.
• Fear is not my friend. I know this but the head and heart won't connect. In fact I know many things these days -- more than I used to. But the knowledge does not translate to the sluggish regions of my patchwork heart.

Now that I've confessed it's time for penance....

Time Magazine lists these books as the best English language novels from 1923 to present. As a book lover, I must have bad taste in books because most of these look like that list you got in high school English where you're thinking, "My lord there isn't one single book on here I'd actually want to read." Then again I have read a few (see the red ones) and read some other novels by same authors -- Like I've read just about everything ELSE Margaret Atwood has written...

A list like this just makes me feel guilty about the stuff I do read -- but that's why I'm no longer a student. After 19 1/2 years of education, I can now read what I want.

Funny little side note about Kurt Vonnegut. When I was a junior in high school I got one of those aforementioned lists and my teacher said we could only read Vonnegut with permission from our parents. I promptly went home and asked my mother if I could read Vonnegut. My mother, who is not a reader of much more than "Organic Gardening" said she trusted me to read whatever I wanted. I proceeded to read about a half dozen Vonnegut books, all of which I liked until the last (Galapagos, for those keeping score). Having satisfied my rebel instincts, I once again retired to tamer fare, such as Watership Down and Nicholas Nickleby.

The Adventures of Augie MarchSaul Bellow
All the King's MenRobert Penn Warren
American PastoralPhilip Roth
An American TragedyTheodore Dreiser
Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Appointment in SamarraJohn O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume
The AssistantBernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-BirdsFlann O'Brien
AtonementIan McEwan
BelovedToni Morrison
The Berlin StoriesChristopher Isherwood
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy
Brideshead RevisitedEvelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis ReyThornton Wilder
Call It SleepHenry Roth
Catch-22Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
A Clockwork OrangeAnthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat TurnerWilliam Styron
The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of TimeAnthony Powell
The Day of the LocustNathanael West
Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla Cather
A Death in the FamilyJames Agee
The Death of the HeartElizabeth Bowen
DeliveranceJames Dickey
Dog SoldiersRobert Stone
FalconerJohn Cheever
French Lieutenant's WomanJohn Fowles
The Golden NotebookDoris Lessing
Go Tell it on the MountainJames Baldwin
Gone With the WindMargaret Mitchell
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
Gravity's RainbowThomas Pynchon
The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of DustEvelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely HunterCarson McCullers
The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene
HerzogSaul Bellow
HousekeepingMarilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. BiswasV.S. Naipaul
I, ClaudiusRobert Graves
Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace
Invisible ManRalph Ellison
Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
LovingHenry Green
Lucky JimKingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved ChildrenChristina Stead
Midnight's ChildrenSalman Rushdie
MoneyMartin Amis
The MoviegoerWalker Percy
Mrs. DallowayVirginia Woolf
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs
Native SonRichard Wright
NeuromancerWilliam Gibson
Never Let Me GoKazuo Ishiguro
1984George Orwell
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey
The Painted BirdJerzy Kosinski
Pale FireVladimir Nabokov
A Passage to IndiaE.M. Forster
Play It As It LaysJoan Didion
Portnoy's ComplaintPhilip Roth
PossessionA.S. Byatt
The Power and the GloryGraham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel Spark
Rabbit, RunJohn Updike
RagtimeE.L. Doctorow
The RecognitionsWilliam Gaddis
Red HarvestDashiell Hammett
Revolutionary RoadRichard Yates
The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
Snow CrashNeal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed FactorJohn Barth
The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner
The SportswriterRichard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carre
The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee
To the LighthouseVirginia Woolf
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller
UbikPhilip K. Dick
Under the NetIris Murdoch
Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry
WatchmenAlan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White NoiseDon DeLillo
White TeethZadie Smith
Wide Sargasso SeaJean Rhys

blog search

I've updated my blog list a little but to be honest, I'd love some suggestions of great blogs anyone has read. I like my blogs but many don't update very regularly and (unless the author is a personal friend) if it isn't updated for 2 months, it gets the boot.

So anyone read or written any good blogs lately? It might be a long winter.

Home

Tuesday I went to Lake Geneva, WI to visit a company I have been working with for a couple of years. Although the trip made for a long day (about 15 hours door-to-door) the driving portion was amazingly pretty: crisp blue skies, bright sun, red, orange and yellow leaves, pumpkins, mums, old rustic barns. I swear it looks like the whole state of Wisconsin hired a professional landscaper. It was just that pretty.

Ruminating during my marathon trip ... I thought about home. Not my home specifically but rather the concept of home. My perception of that company and the people in it changed when I saw their beautiful hometown, the pride they had in their work, the success they've had, the machinery, the buildings and so on. And that got to thinking about one of my favorite moments in any relationship -- when you see someone on their home turf for the first time.

Going to someone's house or hometown or even their office for the first time is an profound moment of discovery to me. You see immediately what's important: is it family, play, wealth, appearance, comfort, pets, spirituality? Are they neat or messy? Some people like to peek in medicine cabinets but personally I like to see what's in the fridge (although I promise I don't snoop). And when you look around town, what was the high school like? Where did they hang out?

And another telling thing to me -- how far from where they grew up are they now? I'm equally fascinated by people who are halfway across the country from home or those who are just a few blocks from home. I have a friend who recently found himself living across the street from where his parents lived when he was a toddler. It's sort of a fluke but not much ... his high school is down the street, so are his parents, a sister and brother. On the other hand I have a friend who moved out of her home state immediately after college and now lives 2 time zones away.

I also love houses -- looking at them, touring them. An afternoon spent looking at houses, even if I'm not in the market, is still fun. I almost got my real estate license so I could do it all day long. Furnished is better than unfurnished -- it's definitely the "stuff" that gives a place it's character.

So anyway, while I've always loved to travel and have these romanticized ideas of living somewhere new and different someday, I'm still just across town from where I was born. And honestly, after being away for just a day I was glad to come home again. (Traffic on I-94 will do that to anyone I think.) Home is more than a place to me, it's a comfort level, it's the concept and the dream of safety and rest.

Maybe that's why The Hobbit was one of my favorite books ... like Bilbo I always look for an adventure but in the end I want to go home to my little hobbit hole and put my feet up with a book and a nice cup of hot chocolate.

mental photo album

A 50 degree day with 2 feet of melting snow at Silver Dollar City, the sun sparkling off every surface, cold wind on our faces as we screamed and laughed on the roller coaster. Fried potatoes, spiced cider, s'mores made with chocolate chip cookies. My bark owl and mushroom birds for the tree.

The day I first said "I love you" while you were sitting on the rock wall in the park and you sang back your answer.

Driving through the pineapple fields on a Monday morning to the North Shore and loving how happy you were to look and not drive.

40 gallons of water with a 5-gallon bucket and a cheap plastic funnel in a driving rainstorm-- and how bad you felt that you hadn't checked the water tank light inside the camper.

Dinner at that restaurant in the Smokies.

The day you took me to the jewelry store to buy me my ring after 5 years of marriage.

Scrubbing bathrooms and fixing broken plumbing to get the church ready for its first service. Me singing away to whatever CD I had with me and Glorifying God with a toilet brush!

The anxious days after 9/11 when you were stranded half a country away and I just wanted you to come home to me.

Lying in bed trying to coax a new kitten up for petting and the "foot game".

Driving to my mom's with a new puppy on my lap... warm puppy tummies and that funky puppy breath.

Huge platters of fried oysters, clams, scallops and fish at that little place in Plymouth, MA and the sunset on Cape Cod. Fish every day!

Loonies and Twonies in Nova Scotia and a long lazy drive to nowhere. And fish every day!

The day we brought the girls to see the house for the first time and the nights we spent thereafter painting and stripping wallpaper and requesting corny country songs while we worked late every night for the wedding.

**I suppose when I am old and gone a little soft these are the memories I will call up -- and our daughters will smile indulgently, our grandchildren will wonder and they will shake their heads and say "No grandma, I'm not Angie".**

reunionville

My 20th high school reunion went on without me this weekend.

High school for me was not a super-enjoyable experience: not quite as bad as getting your wisdom teeth removed and not quite as good as being on a long plane ride with a boring book. I did not love it.

However being the curious and nosy person that I am I always enjoy seeing how people have turned out and how they've aged and my, some of us have aged a little more than others, have we not? Of course some of them turned out to be a little more sumthin' sumthin' than others, too, which is OK.

I'm lucky, I have great genes, so I'm still getting carded from time to time -- flattering, amusing and incredibly myopic but bless them anyway, I say. And I have a cool job and a good education and am generally happy with myself. Others, well, time has not been kind, either in looks, finances or life. The girls seem to fare better than the guys -- thanks to the gift of good makeup and a night-time skin regimen.

My 9th grade locker mate e-mailed me the pictures she took. How strange to look at those faces after all this time and think about the things we went through and the cliques and dividing lines that existed. People that wouldn't have spoken or acknowledged one another's presence were evidently tipping back a few and having a great time at the reunion. I'm sort of sorry I missed it -- but there's always the 25th. Maybe that time I will be in the pictures and not just looking at them.

I love books

Ever since I was a little girl I have had a real love affair with the written word. One of my early memories is my father bringing me a Hallmark Snow White pop-up book -- which I still have. I've attempted to do some writing of my own (hence this blog and the title) -- but not in a serious way. Really I read fabulous books and then give up hope of ever being that good, so I still haven't started my great American novel. Although from the looks of my friends' book projects, maybe that's a good thing...

So my list of books "on deck" consists of the following:

3 books I bought at the Cool Springs Barnes & Noble in Nashville when I was killing an afternoon waiting for the guys to finish playing golf with customers: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Mirror, Mirror, Oryx & Crake

Also on my list: Rebecca, The Chronicles of Narnia, the two on my All Consuming list and The Man of Her Dreams, the Woman of His (which I am reading right now).

I also have a long list of other books I'd like to read, including Freakonomics, The City of Falling Angels, Assasination Vacation, Persopolis, and Syrup.

Beautiful books. Cheaper than a vacation and great companionship for long plane rides, waiting rooms, hotel rooms in strange cities and lazy Saturday afternoons (if such a thing still exists).

random thoughts

weekly therapy appointment: I'm still OK

digital camera situation: Still not OK. Must get out and start taking pictures, learn to download them, etc. Very important as I do not want to come home from Spain having taken crappy pictures.

work: lots. WTH am I doing blogging?

intelligent design: I think it's arrogant for scientists to assert they know it all -- but they don't. Only a few hundred years ago the world was held up by Atlas and two turtles... less than 150 years ago doctors thought they should treat certain illnesses with mercury. But science is always right until proven wrong. Still, they call it the THEORY of Evolution for a reason, don't they?

Spanish for trip: hopeless

the Spain trip: seems like a pipe dream, not part of my operating reality right now.

chocolate: cures many ills.

All Consuming: doesn't list Daphne du Marier's novel "Rebecca", very disappointing. How am I supposed to update my list?

blogoreadership: down significantly. Probably due to my inability to write anything coherent or entertaining. Shame.

Still a man's world

I have a great job. I work with some wonderful people, people who are a lot like family. It's unique, believe me. I haven't had this much fun since I left my first ad agency position.

The one thing is that I work in an industry that is almost entirely dominated by men. Most of the time it isn't a big deal. Oh you get the guys who treat you like a "girl" or don't make eye contact-- they only look at you a foot lower. Sometimes the management wonders why a customer likes you so much. And then sometimes, you catch a guy who's had one too many and makes a comment like the one I heard today. In what can only be described as a fit of jealousy a male vendor told a new female vendor that she only got her piece of business because she was a woman and the buyer gave her special treatment because he likes women.

Just when you thought the world had actually turned and we were out of the 19th century, some jackass comes along and tries to put women back in the fainting couch.

Well let me gather up my petticoats a moment and say what I think. I think guys like CH are intimidated by smart people, men or women. I think he takes everything down to the lowest common denominator, drinks too much and takes hurtful cheap shots. I think his way of business is going the way of the dinosaur. Correction -- it's already gone.

I think I'm glad that guys like him aren't part of my "family" and my regular professional life. I'm glad the guys I do work with treat me with respect and sometimes even a bent and silly affection that makes me feel like I have big brothers when we're out on the road. I think CH will never know the greatness of a job like this as long as he dismisses 50% of the world's population as too shallow and too talentless to get business on their merits and not their anatomy.

It may still be a man's world but the time will come when even us girls get some of the credit and our fair share. I'll still be here -- I wonder if he will. My guess is no.

Couch Trip

I guess it's inevitable that once the immediate crisis that brought you to therapy in the first place has passed, the guy will ask about your childhood.

I don't think about it very much. As an adult I look back and I honestly can't believe that no adults were concerned about this little kid rattling aaround in her own head for so many years. Today when a set of parents split and the kid starts to implode, most people say "hey maybe that kid needs to talk to someone". No one really said that when I was imploding. My teachers did get a wake up call in 4th grade ... I threw a book at another student who was tormenting the crap out of me (along with all her little heathen friends). That earned me two sessions with the school counselor -- before she had an anurysm and had to leave.

That was all the counseling I got -- until I was threatened with losing my job in college if I didn't pull myself together. I did 9 months with a PhD candidate at the University center and kept the job... and then graduated and moved away. Hey I was crazy in love by then -- who needed therapy?

So, other than a 6-week stint of useless marriage counseling and 2 individual attempts to say "hey something's wrong" I never went again. Until now.

And what am I getting out of it now? The satisfaction of being told that however crazy I may FEEL, I'm actually doing pretty good. I'm doing good.

Hey, what do you know? I am. We have a long way to go until things are "right" again but I'm starting to feel like it's not just selfishness that is driving me to say "I need" and "I want". It's OK to take my time, to decide for myself what is right for me. It's OK for me to ask for, and receive, respect.

As long as I've got God in the mix, so Someone doesn't let me fall off the curb.

I wish I could get in to more detail about what's going on but T and I are trying to keep most of this on the down low. Someday I hope all this becomes something we survived to bring encouragement to someone else.

kid stuff

Just to prove that I do still have my sense of humor, I thought it might be fun to share a little kid wisdom with you. This is courtesy of my friends' two wonderful kids who shared their very deep thoughts with me on a lovely late summer evening...

he: (describing the pecking order of the universe) "It goes monkeys, then us, then aliens." "why aliens?" "'cause their brains are bigger." (he demonstrates the head circumference with his arms held aloft like a power speaker in a stadium full of Promise Keepers). "and besides they have lasers." "we have lasers" Yeah, but they have laser guns." oh.

I have discovered that some conversations with younger kids are so spontaneous, they are like, 5 minutes in to it in their heads before they even say anything. Therefore, THEY know what they're talking about but we have no idea. Refer to above.

she: "Daaaaaaaad, let me tell you. There's early, which is on time. There's on time, which is late. And there's late which is unacceptable." (Her father remains unmoved -- and chronically late).

I was also told, that if I were to be sold, the asking price should be a kajillion quadrillion dollars.

All of these conversations and many many more took place with the constant movement of the very young -- the happy dance that kids do when they are still protected, innocent and full of joy.

Now that's great therapy.

personal hurricanes

When the storm comes and levels everything, you have a choice. You either abandon or you build again. As my very wise and dear stepfather said: what you build is either better or worse but never will it be the same.

I made a choice to seek some professional help. After that, to take an action I never thought I could take. Now I am standing on the foundation of my life and all else has been leveled off. Who will build my house again? And what will it look like?

I don't think T would mind me saying that he has also, at last, decided to get help of his own. I hope that one day soon we can build again what we allowed to be demolished.

Thanks for your prayers-- and for those of you who aren't just blog friends, for your calls. When people say the internet is too impersonal, well, they don't know you.

Peace,
Rose

lamest blog on earth

Now someone is going to google "lamest blog on earth" and get mine. Oh well.

It just hit me that the last post was so bad I ought to just delete it and remain silent. See, the problem is that this is my place to think with my fingers but the only thing I think about these days is something I just can't share with all of you right now.

I can say that I am deeply unhappy and would appreciate your prayers as I try to deal with some things. Things that have made me so sad and nervous that my gut is palpably twisting almost every minute of the day. This is not to worry anyone but just to say, as so often we do not, that I need your help. Let me hold your hand for just a minute, please. Tell me a joke so I don't forget how to laugh.

OK, now this really is the lamest blog on earth.

favorite season?

Last night K asked me "mom, what's your favorite holiday?" Far be it from me to be a traditionalist but I am definitely a Christmas girl. The season captures for me the essence of human kindness. Everyone seems a little friendlier, a little softer, a little happier. I think of frosty windows, hot chocolate, the whole package.

She asked me about my favorite season. It used to be fall but I have to say over the last few years, fall has begun to depress the crap out of me. Everything's dying. And here comes another, just when I least can handle it.

My vote? I'll go with early summer, when the leaves are still fresh and green and the thick dust and oppressive heat have not yet settled in. Summer is birthdays and barbecues and fireflies and long evenings that come on very slowly.

Anyone want to weigh in with their favorites?

Heart to Heart and more hurricane thoughts

If anyone is interested, Heart to Heart International is asking for both monetary donations and donations of care kits. The directions are very specific but easy and clear. I think it's a great thing to do with kids and I plan on doing a box full myself.

I don't think it's overstating things to say that this may now be the worst natural disaster in US history. When the bodies are recovered and the losses counted I think it's going to be very clear.

On a related note:
Most kids are pretty lucky to be so insulated from the problems of the world. I was definitely one of them. If anyone had told me when I was a teenager how much life could suck sometimes, I'd have politely declined my grownup membership card. I'd definitely have dragged college out for 2 more years, instead of being so anxious to get out into the world. Alas, too late. My prayer list is growing longer ... in the last two weeks a good friend was divorced, my niece may have cancer, a friend of a friend may have cancer, a co-worker's brother is still missing on the gulf coast of MS.

Sometimes I feel like there aren't enough prayers for all the hurt but then I have to remind myself, it only takes one. Just one.

PS - If you saw my earlier note about my co-worker's brother having been located, please disregard. Unfortunately, I misheard her. They have located a newspaper reporter in Alabama who has family in Gautier and has offered to go by her brother's house and look for them. If they aren't there, they'll go to the shelter and check there. The good news for now is that there are no reported deaths in Gautier. And maybe they'll have news soon.

good times roll no more

Hurricane Katrina will be much covered on other blogs, so just some thoughts here, nothing too lengthy or cerebral.

Because I am very likely to start crying at my computer when I look at sad news, I generally avoid anything other than a cursory glance at MSNBC and CNN.com. But today I looked around at the coverage and all I can say is the good times roll no more.

A year and a half ago I spent some time in NO for a convention and one happy afternoon I strolled along the streets of the quarter, through Jackson square and up along the Riverwalk. It was a beautiful sunny day - a nice contrast to the miserable weather I had flown away from in Columbus, OH earlier that morning.

I can't imagine that much of what I enjoyed that spring day is now rotting under several feet of filthy water. I also can't imagine what the people of NO must think of Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, whose planning resulted in a city below sea level and surrounded by water, a great big bowl waiting to be filled. They would probably like to go to Monmartre and spit on his grave.

My prayers for the gulf coast - the great cities of New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, Mobile and all the little ones in between.

vacation, all I ever wanted

November can't come soon enough. I can feel the burnout starting to settle over me. I need a vacation and some time to clear my head. I think Spain is going to be the perfect remedy.

I've read about every travel guide I can get my hands on, now I need a good phrase book and for my passport to arrive and I'll be set. I think I'll eat whatever food I end up with -- but I'll try to avoid the brains and nether parts wherever possible. I guess there's always fruit -- I'll be 2 hours south of Valencia at the start of orange harvest. I won't starve. And I'm cool with paella and most of the tapas -- love olives.

Mostly I just want a quiet mind. Maybe I'm starting to figure things out -- or maybe I'm just creating a bigger mess. Who knows? But I'll be so glad to spend time with A and have my very own "grand adventure". Until that time, I guess I'll have to be content with travel guides.

Angelita

I don't know if A will jump on here again before the plane leaves for Spain on Thursday but I want to ask anyone who reads this to send up some prayers for her. Between now and Christmas her life will change radically. She will turn 21, she will live independently from all her friends and family and she will become completely absorbed in another culture and language.

This girl whom I coaxed into halting friendship with the offer of a french braid for her thick brown hair, who hid her thumb fetish under the funny papers, this girl who wept bitterly when her baby sister was punished ... this girl who has been so patient with my idiot attempts at parenting these last years -- this girl is now a woman and it's time for her to fly.

She's so brave, this woman. And crazy enough to run in to a burning building, for real. She's also tender, prickly, funny, pretty, pragmatic and opinionated. She is so much like me in so many ways, both good and bad. She could be mine even though she is not. But even her parents can't say "she's mine" -- here's the thing. She's her own and she always has been.

God, please hold and keep our Angie safe and well and grant her joy. Give her safe travels to and from and let her know how much she's loved. We love her enough to push this little bird from her nest, at last.

Vaya con Dios, Angelita.

I did it

I made an appointment. Time to start implementing a plan instead of just thinking about it.

Everyone has a story

I think I would be a much nicer person and this would be a much nicer world if, when I interacted with people I remembered that everyone has a story.

A friend of mine just told me that one of his very good friends just found out he has cancer. He's young and he has a 2-year-old and a wife. He just got news that has rocked his world. But when he goes to the grocery store for bread and seems cranky in line, someone might think "what a jerk". I mean, I do it every day. I get my back up because someone isn't polite or because they act ... however. But I need to keep drilling it in to my head that we all have problems. We all have a story.

When you're a teenager or a young adult and you hear someone say life is so hard it's easy to be really blithe and think it applies only to some people and never to you. Oh but life is really hard. Really, really hard. How much easier it would be if we all could treat each other with a little kindness, some respect, give one another the benefit of the doubt. It would make a good day even better and a bad day bearable.

On another note, still have the counselor's number, still haven't called. Why? Scared to be told that I am wrong, scared to be told I am right?

And another note entirely: just 7 days until our A leaves for her great adventure -- 4 months in Spain. I miss her already.

50 things to be happy about

1. the way chocolate icing crinkles a little when you lick it
2. the way my dogs snort when they're really excited and happy
3. 29 minutes, 20 seconds on the treadmill (when I'm walking for 30)
4. overhearing a girl say she was going to be packing across Europe and realizing I'm going to Europe soon too
5. the deliciousness of falling asleep with the windows open
6. 20 jelly bellies for the drive home
7. scented candles
8. having dinner planned out
9. sticking to my food plan
10. getting lost in the library
11. laundry's caught up
12. the Renaissance Festival
13. a job well done
14. the wisdom of a kind heart
15. cats on my tummy
16. the fat fall issue of In Style
17. old friends
18. smooth red wines
19. half an afternoon in a steamboat museum
20. a $25 gift card for Dillard's
21. compliments
22. good hair days
23. good gas mileage
24. unexpected gifts
25. not having to nag
26. big earrings
27. diet coke with real limes
28. a clean house
29. private time
30. good movies
31. 54 mph on a wave runner
32. fountains
33. Creme Brulee
34. cheese
35. the crash and scent of the ocean
36. spontaneity
37. a very good sales year
38. organization that works
39. new checks
40. glass paperweights
41. the smell of herbs and cut grass
42. smoked turkey and cream cheese on a cheese bagel
43. cheese pizza
44. new shoes
45. jeans that make my legs look longer
46. feeling thinner even if I'm not yet
47. flying
48. the beginning of a much anticipated movie in a cool, dark theatre
49. winning
50. I made a joke and they laughed

hole to whole

I realize that I have lost control of almost every aspect of my life. It's not a good feeling.

My weight's out of control. My marriage feels like a hurricane. My house and yard need a million things that I can't find the time or energy to do. My God hole feels like a cavern that can't be filled. I have people depending on me to be something I'm not sure I can be.

Today I tried to start again. I got to bed earlier last night to try to get back some of my old energy and balance my moods. So-so progress, at least I was asleep by 10:30 instead of 11:15. I walked on the treadmill today and I had water first instead of my usual diet coke. I packed a nutritious lunch but that went by the wayside so I could have lunch with my boss, which was good. I was sidetracked by mayonnaise but I can recover.

I also have a number for a counseling service. The saddest feeling in the world -- to me-- is being out of control. And knowing I can't make things right on my own. I need God and I need help and I need to get in to my winter clothes. So before the day ends, I'm giving some of my precious minutes to God. And I'm going to pray for all these holes so maybe they can start being wholes instead.

peachy

I read my own blog and the inner editor goes crazy. I wonder if I would read it if I weren't the author. So, to perk things up a bit from my earlier and deeply depressing post, I'll tell you about the most perfect peach. Ever.

We stopped at Kimmel Orchard in Nebraska City yesterday. We were hoping that we could stumble upon some really excellent produce somewhere, since my own garden never materialized -- the first time since we've owned this house that I haven't had tomatoes or peppers or some embarrassing bumper crop of cucumbers and zucchini. And the birds had all my first year blackberries... I almost cried.

We bought a 5# sack of peaches, romanced by the size and the firmness but unsure about how to pick good ones... for the record, we pick terrible peaches. Either hard like rocks or mealy. A bad peach results in massive disappointment at my house and we're disappointed every summer.

But these peaches, Oh! Firm, golden, juicy, flavor times ten and just a hint of tart. It was undoubtedly the best peach I've ever had. God was really on it the day He made these peaches.

Don't bother with fruit from Wal-Mart. Just spend the money right now and find an orchard. And think of me as you founder on beautiful fruit.

where is everyone?

helloooooooo?

heeeeeeeellllllloooooooooo?

Random thoughts I though today while working on a 50-slide powerpoint for 11 hours straight:

• Indian food sounds good.
• What's up with a guy that packs a six-pack of underwear and socks, workout clothes and shoes, no toothpaste and one shirt -- for a three day business meeting?
• It's hot in here
• Why was there a construction worker burning something in the middle of the street 15 feet away from a building built prior to 1900 and about as flammable as cheap hairspray on a Saturday night? Looks like another 5-alarm disaster in the making.
• More caffeine, please.

I'd be afraid that I've written nothing of any consequence except there's no one else blogging and there's no one here to read it anyway.

Perhaps the weather has finally cooked everyone's brains.

Since I haven't got anything smart to say, least I can do is give you something to laugh at. I have actually incorporated a wierd collection of these cartoons, some clip art, photos and quotes into my marketing research presentation for next week. I'll have candy. It should be entertaining.

God Bless the internet.

Toothpaste for Dinner

he wins

Filed under "dumb things that go on in an airport".

Frequently, I travel to Nashville with my friend and co-worker MT -- aka work husband #3 (WH#3). Because of the customer we visit there, our flights are often delayed, moved forward or otherwise jacked with, which means we fly standby on Southwest a LOT.

WH#3 is the stubborn Irish type and loves to push buttons. He is much like T in this respect and for that matter he's like all the Irish men I know. Since I have karma that apparently attracts these guys, I know quite a few. Anyway, I digress.

When we signed up to fly standby on the 5:40 yesterday, the chances were slim that either of us would get on. For the first time in a year, only one could go. He got called since he was on the list first. It was OK, I was ready to kill time until 9:30 for the next flight. But no... he refused to go. And just as adamantly, I protested that I would not go in his place. Needless to say, there was a disagreement, then an arguement -- and some bickering that ended with the thoroughly entertained and amused counter agent putting me on the plane. He won! WH#3 won! He smiled as big as I've ever seen any guy smile who just got stuck in an airport for 4 more hours. So pleased with himself that he didn't even think about the evening ahead... just because he got to "win".

As a wierd postscript, we both had the same morbid thought at the same time ... what if either plane went down? The whole thing gave me a very interesting idea for a story... maybe I'll actually write it some day.

And yes, I was exhausted and glad to go home. And guilty and frustrated that I had to leave him. And grateful. I'd tell him thank you but then he'll really know he won and we can't be having that, now can we?

non-anniversary

It's my non-anniversary.

On 8/5/89 I married husband #1. Sixteen years ago. A lifetime ago since I woke up and submitted my 22 year old head to the skilled hands of a male beauty operator who put an entire can of White Rain hairspray on my hair to hold up a perfect jumble of curls and my homemade veil. 16 years since I had my breakfast of cranberry juice and chocolate donuts while blowing up a gross of jewel colored balloons for the church basement reception. 16 years since I posed for my wedding portrait, which is still my favorite picture. 16 years since we ran and hid in our dark, furniture-free apartment and ate leftover Chinese food and wondered "what now?" 16 years since the day we thought everything was just beginning, when in fact, it was the probably the beginning of the end.

If I could say something to my former husband on our non-anniversary, I would say this:
I had an inkling that we might fail: I'm sorry I didn't say so. I'm sorry I didn't know how to be a wife. I'm sorry for the dumb, destructive things I did. I'm sorry I didn't object to the dumb, destructive things you did. I'm sorry that we killed our friendship. I remember what you did for me when Poppi died. I remember it was you who told me about Antonio Gaudi and I'll think of you when I stand in front of the Sagrada Familia in November. I remember the smell of your leather jacket. When I remember, it's not just all bad things.

I'm happy that you have a career that makes you happy, a marriage that works and two healthy sons. I hope this marriage lasts forever and your boys get to know you in ways that you didn't get with your own dad. I hope you're happy.

And finally, that thing we did 16 years ago helped lead us here today. For that reason alone I will never regret that I loved you. Because from that little seed bloomed a fragrant, thorny, beautiful rose of a second marriage -- I now have a husband and two stepdaughters that I love in ways I never knew were possible. Thank you for helping me grow up so I could have that. Happy un-anniversary.

real miracles

If you ask most people today whether they have ever witnessed a miracle, most will probably say no. Some will laugh. Even Christians. Most contemporary Christians think miracles are the exclusive territory of the New Testament Jesus or some saint in another country. The world no longer believes in real miracles, for the most part.

But a few people will give you a shy smile and they will say they've lived a miracle. They have had a moment when the world stopped turning for just a nanosecond -- and then began again.

Evidence of miracles everywhere. Are we too simple to understand their meaning?

If you google miracle you get over 11 million hits - from hearing aids to salad dressing. But there are also some really remarkable stories out there... so minus the "moving statues" stories from New Jersey and Italy, here are a few of my favorites from the recent news.

Vann Matthews (sign-in required)
Air France flight 358
Susan Anne Catherine Torres
Lime Vula
Abigail Lurensky
Derrick Walker

Before you dismiss miracles, read these.

a prayer for forgiveness

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.
-Dag Hammarskjold

Some "stuff" has happened in my church over the last couple of years. I would love to tell all the non-believers I know that once you become a Christian things get easier and everyone gets along perfectly... unfortunately, we are all still people and we fall short, every day.

Since we've been members at CCC we have known half a dozen couples that have for some reason left. Most left angry over some perceived slight or perhaps a very real disagreement. It's their perogative to do this. It wouldn't be the way I would want to handle things because I believe that conflict resolution and forgiveness is part of real Christianity and to be real we have to wrestle with these things. But they're tough. And before I start sounding all holier-than, I can't really say what I'd do because I've never been offended by something that happened at church.

One couple in particular had been our friends -- outside of church friends. We were still in the friendship-building stage but they'd been to our house, T had helped them move. We signed papers stating that we believed they would make great parents to the kids they hoped to someday adopt. Then they had a disagreement with the church leadership and left. I sent them an e-mail from both of us, from our hearts, asking them not to go and stating our hope that the friendship would survive their departure. We never received a reply to that e-mail or any other attempt we made to reach them. They simply never talked to us again.

A few weeks ago, T bumped in to him at the library. He seemed really happy to see T. Then last night she left a voice mail to share their web address for their adoption page: they're about to leave for the Ukraine to adopt. I had completely forgotten that we had signed those papers.

I have to say -- I had written them off some time ago -- in my hurt and anger. I've found that I am having a hard time forgiving them. How arrogant of me. And how sad to feel this way.

Lord, let me let these feelings go and pray them safely to pick up the children they've ached for all this time. I would even love to have the chance to try and recultivate that friendship, to see their new babies and their new home. Let me forgive as I am forgiven -- completely, with no looking back at what's past.

One again, God finds a way to work -- through a child.

Nickel for your thoughts

no, it's not inflation. It's the release of the third Nickel Creek Album, "Why Should the Fire Die?"

It's good music. It's not pop. It has tight harmonies and mandolins. It comes out August 9. Enjoy.

Miscellany

Looks like another hot, dry and really boring week in store... First week of August.

T starts his new job today. Between 5:30 and 6:30 this morning I had a dream that he was trying to think of reasons not to go and then I woke up and he really was trying to think of reasons not to go. As he pulled out of the drive I prayed that he would enjoy this job. Please God, just let him like it. Let him be happy. We're putting everything back together one small piece at a time -- this is an important part.

I've got a loose itinerary for Spain now and some tickets on hold. But it still doesn't feel real. Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia, Alicante, maybe Granada. We'll see how it all goes. I've always thought one of the best things about traveling is the planning but I'm finiding it harder to plan this trip. I guess there's just so much you can do when you're headed somewhere so strange and new and you don't really speak the language.

I've got a boatload of work to do so I guess I'd better get on it. I'd rather have a nap. And dream of castles and the Mediterranean instead of husbands who want to quit work before they've started.

letters - I write letters

Every one in a while I get all up on my high horse and decide to write a few letters (or in this case, e-mails) to complain about what I perceive to be the great wrongs of the world.

My first topic for today is the scientology tent at the Wy Co Fair, whose members have repeatedly and somewhat aggressively tried to get T and I to come in to their tent for a "free stress test". I did some reading up on scientology and came up with this and this and a lot more really frightening stuff (some unfortunate "guests" at the Fort Harrison Hotel). So, no, I don't want a stress test thanks. It's not that I don't want the fair to allow them to have a tent, 'cause I believe in free speech and freedom of "religion" but I definitely think it would be nice if they would get that tent off the main drag and ask the cultists to stop using their used-car pressure tactics to drag people in to their purple kool-aid world.

Topic of daily outrage #2: the sextacular overhaul of the Speed Channel by FOX execs who decided that Leann Tweeden was a serious journalist. Not only that, they disguised their two "real" journalists as cupcakes -- all four female personalities are dressed like they're ready for a night of club hopping. In the kind of outfits that would make normal girls like me glare and mutter "skanky ho" under our breath. And don't even get me started on the other stuff they're programming now -- like "Texas Hardtails". Horrible, horrible, horrible. Some loser cussing at his mother. Wow. You know, someone at FOX accidentally came up with a good show: NASCAR:360. But they shoot only 7 or 8 episodes a season. Hey FOX! Stop wasting your money on Texas Hardtails and NASCAR Nation and just give us a full 36 eps of NASCAR:360, idiotas! (There's my obligitory Spanish for the day, since I'm trying to brush up and all).

Topic #3: Why does every neighborhood in KC have a nicer grocery store than mine? When I had to provide fresh fruit and pastries for breakfast two weeks ago I had to drive 10 miles to the next closest Price Chopper to get something I could trust as fresh. No one seems to believe that people in Wy Co want or deserve anything decent. I mean, this is a county that until 5 years ago had zero services -- unless you shopped exclusively at thrift, dollar and liquor stores. Well, now that I think about it, perhaps all the bases were covered. Now we have a multi-million dollar state of the art racing facility, hotels, restaurants and retail only 5 miles away... but still two of the crappiest grocery stores in existence. Is it too much to ask to have a grocery store checker tell me my total, use the words please and/or thank you and possibly look me in the face? Or have a store that has a decent bakery, deli and maybe even some prepared foods that don't look crusty?

Whatever. Three e-mails and one blog later I feel therapuetically cleansed. I encourage all of you to write one e-mail or letter to someone who has done something stupid to you or near you. You'll feel better too.

coming home

My self-esteem has been tied to a lot of things: my looks, my weight, my job, my education, my accomplishments, my site meter. Let's throw another thing on the pile, shall we?

That's right, folks, it's time for the OGHS class of 1985 20th High School reunion.

"Okay, well, I'll see you at the 'I've peaked and I'm kidding myself' party." -Paul, from Grosse Point Blank

Two of my favorite movies actually take place around reunions: Grosse Point Blank and Beautiful Girls. If you want a really enjoyable night, watch the movies and skip your reunion. I think the reunion in GPB is the funniest reunion scene in a movie ever. Unfortunately I am not showing up to my reunion with John Cusack, which makes the real thing less funny. On the other hand, I don't anticipate anyone trying to kill me while I'm there. Although I may wish they would just go ahead and do so at some point during the evening.

That's right, I will probably go. Not for the game, tailgate, etc. But maybe for the reunion itself. Why? I have no idea. I'm just curious about how things have turned out. While we're here on earth our greatest resource is time. So I wonder how people have used it and what it says about them. And is time the great equalizer? Will the cliques flatten out now that we're 20 years older? Will people who didn't give me the time of day walk up to me like I'm a long lost best friend? Possibly. These things can get wierd.

And finally -- can I lose 20# by October?
(apologies to the Lobster -- I guess I'm just another weak woman chasing after the societal ideal.)

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
- The Bangles (by way of Simon & Garfunkle)

Wicked in Chicago

Another thing off my list! I saw it with Ana Gasteyer in Chicago. The Oriental is a beautiful theatre and the show itself was so terrific! Nosebleed seats just $43! And the tea shop next door has great Toll House bars.

See more progress on: see wicked

Murcia me, part dos

This is the process by which a whim becomes reality.

1. get birth certificate
2. get photos
3. apply for passport
4. book ticket with carefully hoarded frequent flyer miles
5. call A and see if she minds my crashing in on her
6. figure out the rest when I get there

I think I am going to go to Spain. Murcia, more specifically. Eh, why not?

A is going to spend a semester in Spain-- she leaves 9/2. I am the only person in my family that doesn't have a passport and hasn't gone abroad. T and I talked and I have decided to go and visit her there this fall. A little crazy but I'm going to make my opportunity. I'm thinking of late October/early November -- a weekend in Madrid, a weekend in Barcelona and the rest of the trip bumming around Murcia, Valencia and Alicante.

Wow, I am totally nuts. But very psyched. I just talked to her and she's happy too-- she said she'd be about ready for someone who speaks English -- someone from home.

Planning a trip = better than mulling over all the crummier things that have happened this summer.

As far as that goes, T has a job: he starts next Monday. Back to some kind of normal life, I think. I have definitely had enough stress for one year. We had a "date" on Friday night... and had a really good time. We haven't been arguing but we've been having some very real conversations about us and about the future. I don't know where we'll be a year from now but I think-- I hope-- we'll be OK.

Hasta luego! (I must brush up on my very rusty high school Spanish!)

looking at old pictures

I am sarcastic
I am shy
I assume that I will not be included in the conversation
I assume that I will always be the one to call first
I assume I will always be the one to give in first
I am broken, healed over and scarred
I am beginning my middle age and I'm scared I haven't made enough of my life so far.

I am advice giver, Miss Fix-It, picture straightener
I am always sympathetic and surprisingly generous
I was a little girl caught up in the roiling mess her parents made
the one no one was watching, forgotten for a while
I was well-loved but never easy to love

I am trying to please everyone and in so doing no longer please myself
I am self-centered but unable to stop feeling guilty about it
I look at these pictures and I see myself in all my variation
the camoflauge of hair and clothing
and I look adjusted, I look like a normal kid
a student, a girlfriend, a happy bride. I am fatter, sometimes thinner.
What I am is not in these pictures.

**I would really like to put away whatever has been bothering me for these last 6 or8 months but I just don't know how. I pick at these feeling every day like picking at a scab until it's scarred. I do that too-- a nervous physical quirk that has become an emotional bad habit.

The Dog Bares It's Teeth

I watched this movie night before last. While not quite as strange at Frau Lobster's ordeal with Koyaanisqatsi, I wasn't quite ready for this. It was strange.

T and I have been on a Nicole Kidman flick kick lately and this was one we taped on IFC, one of the 220 channels we rarely watch. (We're simple folk, we like the Food Network and the Speed Channel. Within 10 minutes, T was up and on his way to Lowe's but I watched for the whole 3 hours. Fascinated. In a horrified kind of way.

If not supported by a magnificent cast including Nic, Paul Bettany, Ben Gazzara, Patricia Clarkson, Lauren Bacall, Stellan Skarsgard, Phillip Baker Hall, Blair Brown etc. this film would have been completely, Uck. I believe real movie reviewers use this term all the time: Uck.

No one wants to look in the mirror, Lars von Trier.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this movie after it was over -- as much as I remember thinking about The Piano. This is not a summer blockbuster. It makes your brain hurt.

Some artists paint pictures that are beautiful and soothing. Like Monet, the college watercolor print king. And then some artists paint ugly things because -- well, life can be ugly. Something like "Order No. 11", Guernica or anything by de Kooning. I guess they're all good in their own way.

If you get a chance, watch it sometime. Or if you've seen it, let me know what you think.

overdosing on cat metaphores

Wooo! Replacing personal drama (for a short time, anyway)... work drama.

Not in a bad way though. I guess it's time for me to grow up a little and set about mending some fences, letting the real me out a little. I don't know if it's too late or if it's even important for some people here to like me but it sure couldn't hurt. And oh yeah, that means SOCIALIZING with people I hardly know. Please kill me now. One of my dirtiest secrets is that I'm actually sort of shy -- at least around strangers. (Some of you guys better stop laughing or that Coke will come out your nose-- and ooh, does that burn.)

The last three years haven't been a total loss. I think a few people 'round here like me better than they used to. I think a few actually like me.

Truth? I want a promotion and I need to play nicey-nice to get it done. So I'm doing the grown up thing and trying to let some people around here know me a bit better. Some people know me fine -- more than they want to probably-- most don't. And a few think they do but don't at all. 'Cause if they did they would know I'm a pussycat.

Huh, chasing a "new" job when everything else in my life seems so nuts sounds, well, nuts, even to me. I could just let this sleeping cat lie -- it does have sharp teeth and vicious needle-like claws. Going after this thing could potantially mess up one of the best jobs I've ever had. But I don't think I can be happy unless I do it.

There's a great metaphor for my life: when I "play" with my cats at home I tickle and pull and pick and poke at the sleeping felines and then duck the teeth and claws when they wake up pissed off. Then I like to be really nice to them. It freaks them out. I get a lot of bloody scratches -- but they haven't killed me yet.

pictures at last

They finally made picture posting so easy any idiot can do it. So here's my favorite place from the past year...

breathe

Some days I feel all right -- some days not. I am beginning to wonder about the depression again or if I just have a self destruct button in my brain somewhere. I'm shocked at how insecure I am for this stage of my life. All those magazines you read talk about how older women-- particularly those approaching 40-- are supposed to be so confident and together. More lies.

I called The Cat yesterday because I decided to go and see her while I'm in her neck of the woods for a trade show in August. Granted she was feeding horses and I was in Wal Mart but I still got the feeling that I was imposing somehow. I'll go anyway. But I'm not sure she meant it when she said I was welcome. It's not just The Cat. All my friends and family are probably tired of my drama. I am.

music I've been listening to:
"You can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
and life's like an hourglass glued to the table,
no one can find the rewind button, girl,
so cradle your head in your hands -- and breathe"

T has an interview this morning. He doesn't act very happy about it. I think he would like to stay home for good but of course we can't afford it so he needs to go back soon. I'm hoping he'll feel better about it when he's finished.

Still feeling small pangs of panic about Chicago -- still don't know why. Was double dog dared yesterday to arrive at Midway with no transportation and just wing it. This is against my nature and this double-dog dare-er knows it. Yet I've resolved to accept the dare and just figure it out when I get there. I can always fall back on the train if I must.

"breathe -- just breathe."

How ironic that the two things that keep us going -- breath and a heartbeat -- are involuntary. If we could just stop, would we? Are those things designed to be involuntary by a God who knows how hard things can be sometimes -- and how little we might want to continue?

inhale
exhale
thump
thump
thump

the weather report

Sunny and hazy
Fair to partly cloudy
Unseasonably cool and dry.

This is where four seasons meet
Unpredictable forecasts
My specialty.

You try to read my weather
As if I were a map
As if it will matter.

Like good Midwesterners
We always live with
Whatever will come.

let's go camping!

Huh, everyone else on my blogroll (except the lobster) has apparently been participating in their real lives and not the blogworld. One supposes I could do the same and I intend to do just that. I am going camping, so there.

I mean, who cares that only one of us has a job? let's go camping!
Who cares if we're driving a vehicle that gets 12 miles to the gallon towing and diesel is $2.37? let's go camping!
Who cares that the lake may have flooded out the campground? let's go camping!

I have books, firewood, chocolate and diet Dew -- T has beer, a movie he taped, RV magazines and peanuts in the shell.

It's time to get out of Dodge for a couple of days. Maybe fish, maybe walk, maybe talk, maybe just watch the world go by while we do nothing. Sounds nice.

camp memories

Did everyone who ever went to summer camp hate it? I've been reading "Sleepaway" and most of the essays are not the loving tributes to summer that I expected but rather diatribes on childhood cruelty. I'm a little disappointed.

As both a camper and a camp counselor, I had the time of my life.

As a camper I attended a church camp in southern Missouri. The first summer I found out I was going to go I was probably 11 and my dad was completely broke but someone (the church? my best friend's parents?) came up with the cash and off I went. I remember my first day there, running like a maniac for two hours before dinner, then off to the dining hall to eat. During grace I told the Tabby Cat I felt sick, or "funny" I think I said. I promptly passed out, no doubt from the heat and the excitement and lack of water. I was terrified they would send me home for being defective. But they didn't. I spent a happy week there, catching skinks in the showerhouse, hiking, swimming, playing four-square and crushing on boys.

In fact in my two years there I netted two boyfriends, Andy E, a dark haired boy who gave me my first real kiss and J.B., a boy from our hometown over whom the Cat and I got in to a major row. Our car ride home was miles of set chins and crossed arms and I still remember her mother chewing on us all the way over which was more important -- the boy or the friendship. By the time we got home I had conceded the boy so I could keep my friend. I chalked up two valuable lessons that summer: 1) in a fight over a boy, the Cat would always win and 2) friendship is, in fact, more important than boys. To wit, the boy has long passed in to history but 26 years after that fight, the Cat and I are still going strong.

After two happy summers at Galilee, I wanted to become a counselor and pursued a job with Camp Fire the summer I turned 18. The first year I just missed being hired but the second year I got the job and a few days before I was to leave for the camp, my dad gave me a $300 Chevy Chevette, which I had to repair, license and learn to drive before leaving. After installing a working horn, sewing up the headliner, pop-riveting aluminum panels under the pedals to cover the hole in the floor and attaching some seat covers, I was off to camp.

When I arrived, I walked up to the dining hall, stepped in and met my fate at the registration table. Maybe that sounds over-dramatic but that one moment really did change my life. The first person who greeted me at Camp Towanyak would also become my first husband. I can actually remember what he wore: jeans and a "Free Johnny Dangerously" t-shirt. We flirted immediately. It eventually settled into friendship and stayed that way for that summer and the next. In our final summer at camp (it was the camp's final summer as well) we were engaged.

In those three summers at Towanyak I would gain a husband, two female friendships that survived both my ill-advised marriage and predictable divorce, the skills of fire-building, camp singing, drink mixing, practical joking, rappelling, problem solving and french braiding the hot, sweaty hair of ten year old girls. I held hands with kids who needed me and the people I needed. I was punished, rewarded, serenaded, cold-showered, pranked, befriended and loved. As I fought off the inexhaustible hands of time shoving me toward adulthood, the camp fought off the bony fingers of suburban sprawl. We both lost. But some little parts of the girl and the camp are still inside me.

WoHeLo.

Babies and puppies

I went out to my dad's yesterday for our family Fourth of July "fish fry" -- which used to mean my dad fished all year with all his buddies and then fried up the haul on Independence Day. Now it apparently means hot dogs and store bought catfish nuggets, which is OK too. It's a chance to spend time with my immediate family: my half-brother and half-sister and their kids, stepkids and grandkids.

I come from a modest background, which is my way of saying there are elements of my family that sometimes appear -- a bit redneck. This causes me no end of frustration when I'm in larger family gatherings because I have little to nothing but blood in common with almost everyone. They think I am overeducated, stuck-up and weird because I don't have kids. I have to admit I get a bit holier-than-thou over the casual out-of-wedlock breeding practices of my cousins and their kids -- something my brother and sister and I had managed to avoid, up to this point.

I am sad to report that my brother's unmarried teenage stepdaughter recently bore a beautiful baby girl and is living at home on WIC and support from the "daddy". This baby girl is a delicate, gorgeous thing, tiny toes and fingers and tufts of red hair. The baby is loved and doted on, primarily by my brother and his wife.

I did not hold her but held instead a puppy that was visiting with a friend of my step-niece. I can deal with puppies. In fact I often find I like animals a lot better than people. Puppies are so cute but they never forced anyone to get married or drop out of high school. Puppies are pretty safe.

I realize it sounds like I hate babies. I don't, actually hate babies or even this one baby. It's just the concept I hate. She is a foreshadowing of my next grand nephew or niece, due in late October to my 17 year old nephew and his girlfriend. My nephew is going to be a senior next year and is currently suffering his way through National Guard boot camp in Fort Benning, GA. This lovely young man has managed to make two huge errors in just a brief amount of time: knocking up another high schooler and simultaneously joining the one branch of the armed forces most likely to get him killed in Iraq. I'm sad, not because I thought my family was better than the rest of our extended family but because my nephew is actually a great student who wants have something in life and get the hell out of small-town Missouri. Now I'm afraid he never will. And if he does I'm afraid my father's youngest grandson will promptly become the target of a roadside bomb in some Iraqi backwater. Where oh where is the ctrl+alt+delete for life?

I couldn't hold that baby girl, which officially makes me a bitch. I couldn't help but resent my nephew's girlfriend who got pregnant (even though I know my nephew got her that way, duh) and the recruiter who fast-talked a 17 year old in to boot camp. That makes me a bitch, too. Oh and I really had a bitch moment when after I saw the baby, my brother said "Just think, in just a couple of years it will be your turn". Meaning I'll be a grandmother in just a couple of years? Oh hell no. I went off on that for about 5 minutes, until he wished he'd never said anything.

I realize I have no control over my girls' lives past a certain age and even at this point I know that control is illusory at best. But I wouldn't wish babies on either stepdaughter for many, many years to come. Maybe they'll be the ones who postpone family for a successful career and a healthy marriage first. Just maybe they'll travel and live a little before turning their lives over to child-rearing. Maybe they can be the ones who marry Mr. Right the first time, after great contemplation and prayer and don't get divorced. And maybe when they do have kids it will be with the right guy at the right time and for all the right reasons.

My wish for them, for now, is that they also stick to the puppies.

Chicago solo

Having led a life of very little adventure I have to take it where I can get it. In 1992 or 1993 I took my first business trip to a convention in San Francisco. I was blessed with a fatherly publisher who both insisted on my going and also insisted I take off early in the afternoons to explore the city. Having someone along for company wasn't an option so I studied the street maps and spent my afternoons walking and riding to Fisherman's Wharf, the beach and other scenic parts of the City by the Bay. Since that time I've never been afraid to do anything alone -- travel, see movies, hike trails, whatever. I don't travel alone often anymore but I'm usually OK with it when I must.

In two weeks I'll be going alone to Chicago for a 3-day conference. I'm treating myself to a performance of Wicked since I'm a Gregory Maguire fan and read the book some years ago. Makes perfect sense, right? Truth is, I almost didn't book the ticket. A small part of me is nervous about traveling alone and shy about going to the theater alone. Maybe it's because the last time I was in Chicago I was quite, quite lost and it was late and dark. And I didn't have exact change for the train. And people are strange when you're a stranger. And small parts of me still feel young and insecure. And lonely.

But forge ahead I must. I would hate myself for missing the opportunity of either the conference or the performance. Oddly, in a week or so I'll be sending A to do the same thing -- travel alone to Chicago, make her way to Michigan Ave and the Spanish Consulate to turn in her visa application. It's a day trip -- up in the morning and back at night.

She's afraid too but she's learning, as I have, not to let it show.

Happy Fourth

The dust seems to be settling, with great effort on T's part and some on mine too, though more on his side. I'm actually looking forward to getting home and spending the weekend at the races -- 2 tomorrow (ARCA and Craftsman Truck Series) and Indy cars Sunday. Then my dad's fish fry on Monday.

I'm able to articulate now what I feel and what my plan is, as much as any person can profess to have a plan since we never know what the world will wing our way next. I've said my peace and he's said his and we're still there, so it's a start. I don't know what tomorrow will be but today's all right.

So on to other things ...

I've always loved the Fourth, ever since my mother gave me a big box of fireworks for my birthday one year. It's deep summer, still light until nearly 9 and all the right smells are there -- fireworks, fruit, grass, sun tan lotion. Add to that chili cheese fries, hot rubber and race car engine fumes and I'm about as happy as a Midwest girl can get.

Happy Independence Day, dear readers, family, friends. I hope this weekend brings you your own particular kind of joy.

busy day

Sometimes work is such a blessing. It gives me a place to dump all my frustrated energy and become absorbed in something besides my own endlessly whirling personal thoughts. Today I helped map out my company's new consumer website redesign-- a badly needed update that should really add some value for customers stumbling through the chemical darkness. I returned phone calls, wrote, sent e-mails, usual stuff. I felt capable and competent.

Professionally and personally I still can't help but wonder what the future will be for me. In the movies, glimpses in to the future are always sort of ominous (Ada's look in to the wishing well in Cold Mountain, for instance). It's possible, I guess, that I could look in to the crystal ball and find only bad things. But how much better would I feel if I could see just far enough to get to something good? A new job for T, another vacation somewhere wonderful, college graduation for A, something on my wish list coming true.

I guess there is no crystal ball. Only faith that God and his archangel Time will make all things right again. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why faith is so tricky. When you need it most is when it's the hardest to have.

silver and gold

I am unbelievably lucky to have made a few good friends in my life. I was not ever the kind of kid that did that easily. In fact I took a goodly number of ass-kickings in elementary and junior high and spent most of high school as a bookish wallflower type, the kind of girl the geeks always fell in love with because I was more accessible than the high school beauties that roamed the halls. My modest parade of suitors included more than one D&D player, boys from the marching band and my best friends' brother. My friends were mostly their friends.

However, in third grade I was paired up with a beautiful little blonde girl who, for reasons that still escape me, seemed to like me as much as I liked her. I was her plain brown shadow for many years and some ways still am, though I am comfortable in this role now. She's one of the only people whose personality can immediately eclipse my own. It sort of feels good.

In college I finally hit the friend jackpot after a long dry spell of casual friendships in high school -- I now had half a hall full of friends to call my own. And then that summer, I went to work as a camp counselor and met two girls who changed my life. One poor soul I subjected to quite a bit of needling (my mama always said they tease you because they like you) and the title "Mother Nature" which still survives today, despite her best efforts to kill it. The other was a gentle girl who always smiled but never said a whole lot. She had the most common sense of any person I'd ever known and the wildest head of thick red hair I'd ever seen.

So there they are. My three rocks. Jesus had Peter, I have the Tabby Cat, Frau Lobster and the Deester. They are, despite their own trials of abuse, divorce, miscarriage, illness, special needs kids, financial duress and bad hair days, the safe harbors that I pull in to when the storms of my life become unbearable. They shelter me still.

I think it's important to make new friends and I have made a few since those muggy, smoky, silly, sleepless days of childhood and young adulthood. But I could not have made my new friends without finally having learned how to be a friend myself and what a true friend looks like: these are lessons they taught me. They taught me about emergency roadtrips, holding hands in the emergency room, the strength of the human heart, crazy drunken laughter, God, family, horses and the integrity of the one-match fire. I really, really love them and I hope they know.

Since it's Towanyak Tuesday on "McBrideFamilyblog", I too will sing my song at the council fire:

"Make new friends but keep the old,
one is silver and the other gold
A circle's round, it has no end
that's how long I want to be your friend."

typhoon

Do you remember the aftershots of the Asian typhoon? Like where some places were filled with garbage and muddy water and pieces of land that had existed were completely washed away?

That's how I feel.

I've tried and tried to write something deep today. Then I tried for just intelligible. I can't. There's nothing in my head but muddy water and swirling garbage. Sorry. I'll try again later.

i'm ok

Hey, I'm ok. I can breathe now.

I don't think I took a deep breath all day yesterday. I'm not sure I breathed at all. Maybe I was just holding it from 7:15 a.m. when all the shit started until I lay down in my own bed last night and not the spare at my mom's -- a place in which I fully expected to end up yesterday afternoon. I've been divorced once, I know what it's like to look down the barrel of that gun. Which is perhaps why I defended a marriage I sometimes find, frankly, indefensible. And why I think I'm crazy but also crazy like a fox.

Nonetheless, I think I'm OK. All the parts are still here. So family and friends, please do not worry.

I'm heading out of town again which means an uncharacteristic few days' silence for me while I travel out of town for meetings and then come back to enjoy (hopefully) my birthday weekend. I treated myself to a nice lunch today -- and a cannoli, which are hard to come by in a place like KC. Too much nutmeg in the shell and maraschino cherries no longer hold the same allure they did when I was 5 but still a nice 3 p.m. snack. All things considered I feel -- weirdly cheerful. Not "I hit the lottery" cheerful but "I won $2 on a scratch-off ticket" cheerful.

And when it's very quiet, I have these images in my head -- of work husband #3 standing in my office door yesterday saying "Don't you leave, don't you leave, don't do it. Don't you do it." And T with tears in his eyes and his voice thick in his throat, finally, finally saying he would make good on his promise not to quit our marriage. Those are what stays with me from yesterday and they'll be what I think about tonight as I lay down in my own bed again. And probably when I lay down a few hundred miles away from my bed tomorrow night. Actually I think they're going to be there for a long time.