Random Thoughts by MommaSquid

Neglectful

2011-01-06T10:12:00.003-07:00

I have been very neglectful of this blog--shame on me. My apologies to my reader(s).

Yesterday I visited my last place of employment (has it really been two years since I held a job?!). The managers I worked under were both present and they barely recognized me. In the past year I have started wearing glasses, cut my hair short and lost 40 pounds, so they both did a bit of a double take when I greeted them by name upon entering the store. We had a pleasant visit and I purchased a few items before leaving with a smile on my face.

I have worked with some lovely women over the years, and I am grateful for that. I'm even more grateful to be a housewife. I'm sure I'll have to get a job again someday, but for now I am happy to leave the hustle and bustle to someone else.

Happy New Year.

Tits

2010-06-21T14:01:00.001-07:00

I had a mammogram at the beginning of June, and a week later I got a phone call telling me I needed another one. Just a precaution, she said. When I asked for details she told me I needed to ask my doctor. Fuck.

The doctor’s office called me before I even had a chance to call them (which was nice) but they couldn’t give me any details either. There was just an area that looked different than my previous mammogram. Better to be safe and have a closer look.

I had to wait a week for the second mammogram, which I had today. I had a spot compression mammogram, which focuses on the area of the breast in question, not the entire breast. It hurts like a bugger, too!

The radiologist looked at it immediately after it was taken, and reported that it was a non-issue. The mammography technician explained that my breast tissue is dense and just needed a little extra compression to get a clear picture. Once a clear picture was available, the radiologist confirmed that it was normal, healthy breast tissue. Good news.

Then why am I so pissed off?!

I’m pissed off because I wonder if the first mammogram was done incorrectly. How would I even go about questioning the imaging center about the experience level of the first mammography technician I encountered?

I’m pissed off because I think there should be different standard for routine annual mammograms when the woman has dense breast tissue. There should be a way to avoid the need for a second mammogram and a way to avoid the waiting period. Not knowing if your body is trying to kill you is hellacious!

If the first technician had the ability to do spot compressions during the same appointment, I wouldn’t have spent a week trying not to freak out. I wouldn’t have spent a week wondering if I should warn my family that there was a potentially life-threatening health issue looming in my immediate future. I wouldn’t have spent a week wondering if my next appointment would end with me having to decide whether to have my breasts removed!

There has to be a better way.

Control

2010-06-01T14:27:00.003-07:00

I recently returned home from a two week visit with my mother. My father passed away in April 2009, and I have spent as much time as possible with my mother since then. I have been supportive in every way possible and I now feel like all that love and support has just been flushed down the toilet.

I suppose I have myself to blame for this recent turn of events. My mother is a very controlling, manipulative, selfish and jealous person. As a child, my every move was scrutinized, insulted and controlled. The fact that I moved thousands of miles away from home is no accident. The only way it was possible for me to become my own person was to move away from the influences and scrutiny of my parents. My husband and I have made a nice life for ourselves and have even managed to find a level of contentment after the death of our son.

After my father’s death, I felt that my mother needed my love and support, so I began spending more time with her both on the phone and in person than I have since leaving PA 16 years ago. I called her almost every week for the past year; I spent two weeks at her house in April 2009 after my father’s funeral; she spent Christmas 2009 in AZ with me and my husband; and I just returned home from another two week visit. This last visit was very different than the previous visits.

The worst example of her behavior is this:

Two days before I left, we went to visit my grandfather. Mom doesn’t like other people driving her car, so I knew she would be driving that day. Before we left the house, I told her I wanted to stop at a store and buy some flowers for grandpop’s birthday. My grandfather will be 90 in June, and since I wouldn’t be around for his party I thought it would be nice to wish him a happy birthday before I left. I told her I wasn’t picky about the type of store; a grocery store or a flower shop would certainly have something appropriate. She made a face and said it was a nice thought, but Grandpop wouldn’t appreciate it. I said, “Well, it’s something I would like to do anyway.” There are two grocery stores and a flower shop within three or four miles of Mom’s house. We got in the car, and we did not head in the direction of those stores. While mom drove she pointed out the location of a flower shop that had been closed for many years, and several small corner grocery stores that, according to her “certainly wouldn’t sell flowers”. I hoped there was a shop along the way that did actually sell flowers. (I moved away 16 years ago and am unfamiliar with the city my grandfather moved to recently.) When we pulled into the parking lot, Mom parked and removed her seat belt. I said, “I am very disappointed that we didn’t stop anywhere to buy flowers.” She sniped, “Grandpop wouldn’t appreciate the gesture anyway.” I calmly replied, “That wasn’t your decision to make. I wanted to give my grandfather flowers for his 90th birthday.” My tone was firm and although I was angry I didn’t yell. She yelled, “Well, there was nothing on the way!” She then slammed the car door and stomped toward the building.

When we returned home from the visit, I asked for the car keys. Mom demanded, “Where are you going?” I said I was going to the mall to buy a gift for my niece. “But you already gave her a present!” I replied that since I don’t get to see her very often I was going to get something for her from her favorite local store. Mom glared at me but surrendered the keys. Free at last! After a quick stop at the store, I drove to the cemetery and sat at my son’s grave. It was the only peace and quiet I had the entire visit.

My main purpose for returning home was to help my mother clean out the attic. The house I grew up in has a three room attic and it was stuffed to the ceiling with junk. My father never threw anything away; he hoarded junk like it was treasure. Last spring I hired a hauling company to clean out the back yard and tool shed. They filled three pick up trucks and a dump truck full of junk: broken air conditioners, broken tools, broken lawn mowers, buckets filled with rusty nails, piles of wood, etc. It was like the television shows on hoarding. It broke my heart.

This spring, I labored for 10 days carrying boxes and bags of trash down two flights of stairs and out to the alley behind the house. I hauled away broken window fans, lawn furniture that needed to be repaired in the 1970’s, empty shirt boxes from stores that closed decades ago, more rusty tools, and boxes filled with magazine article clippings. Dad wasn’t the only person filling the attic. My mother saved every Christmas decoration she ever purchased or received as a gift. As she opened the boxes, she told story after story about the items. “I got this from your Grandmother the first year we were married.” Other items made her exclaim, “I wondered what happened to this!” We sorted items into three piles: keep, yard sale, and trash. Luckily the keep pile was only about a third of what was in the attic originally. She admitted that it was time to get rid of some of the things she has been holding on to, yet seemed to resent my ability to throw things away so easily. (I am not a hoarder.) We filled several boxes with gifts she had received over the years from co-workers; things she didn’t want but also didn’t throw away. I was surprised by the amount of stuff in the attic that was hers; I knew my father hoarded, but I didn’t think mom did, too.

Day after day we discussed whether to keep, throw or sell items in the attic; and day after day she grew angrier and more resentful. I encouraged her to keep items that were of sentimental value, but to let go of the stuff that meant nothing to her. She yelled at me one afternoon; “This is my life!” Gently, I said “This is just stuff. Your life is in your memories and in the people who love you.” That seemed to make her even more angry, which I find baffling.

On our final day of attic cleaning I was sitting on a folding chair tossing items towards the garbage bag at the top of the stairs; mom was sitting on another chair sorting the items I tossed. Suddenly, she started crying and yelled at me, “Don’t be mad at me for all this junk. Be mad at your father!” I calmly replied that I wasn’t mad and that we were almost done. After days of back-breaking work in temperatures that ranged from 50 to 90 degrees we were almost finished! And now she decides to have a fit.

After that, I couldn’t do anything right. She didn’t like the way I mixed powdered tea; she got upset over the amount of beverages I drank in a day; she disapproved of me changing clothes after I did yoga; when I asked to use the car she demanded to know where I was going; she complained about the amount of trash I placed in the bathroom trash can; she complained that I let my alarm clock ring too long in the morning. The complaints were endless!

I know she is still grieving the death of my father. I know she faces an uncertain future as a widow. I know she was upset about throwing away the items from the attic and was taking her frustrations out on me. What I don’t know is if I am willing to put myself in this position again. I don’t want to be her verbal punching bag—I had enough of that as a child. I wouldn’t put up with that type of behavior from anyone else, so why should I have to put up with my mother treating me that way?!

Maybe I should take a cue from my brother and only call mom a few times a year instead of nearly every week. Maybe I should only email her sporadically and not offer to help her with major projects. Maybe I should distance myself from her again.

My own mental health may require it.

It Makes No Sense

2010-03-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

This morning my husband received a phone call from a woman who said a package had arrived at her home for him. The box was delivered to our previous address and the delivery information included his phone number, so she called to ask if he wanted to pick up the package.

The woman is the new owner of our previous home; the one we lost to foreclosure. She said she had only been living there for two weeks and had paid $120,000 for the home. We originally paid $212,900 and made several thousand dollars in upgrades to the home before the housing market in Phoenix collapsed. When my husband lost his job and had to settle for a much smaller salary in order to stay employed, we were no longer able to justify the expense of a mortgage that was so far upside down.

You may recall that I tried to negotiate a lower mortgage payment, a lower mortgage principle, or a short-sale; after several months of phone calls and paperwork, none of these options were approved by our lender.

Why was our lender content to sell the home to another party for current market value, but they wouldn’t offer us the same deal to stay in the home? What sense does it make to toss us out after two years of faithful payments simply because our situation had changed? The lender would have lost significantly less money had they negotiated a change in terms with us. That would have allowed us to continue owning the home at a rate that was more in line with the current economy and it would have saved time, effort and money on the part of the lender. Sounds reasonable to me.

I’m sure thousands of foreclosed-upon people are finding themselves in the same situation.

It’s Been a While

2009-11-12T17:33:00.002-07:00

I didn’t realize I had been away from my blog for so long. Let’s get caught up, shall we.

Hubby and I refused the credit union’s kind offer to grant us a short sale if we agreed to pay them $15,000 in order to receive said approval. The credit union did not change their stance regarding the denial and we received our notice of trustee’s sale.

A few days ago, we moved out of our house and into a very nice rental home in our neighborhood. The house is bigger than the one we owned, more affordable and repairs don’t come out of our pocket. Sweet!

We are completely protected from any collection attempts on the debt we left behind. The proposed changes to the Arizona Anti-deficiency law (which I referenced in my previous post) were not passed.

We do need to rebuild our credit score, but in a few years it will be like none of this ever happened. We won’t drain our savings in order to hold onto a house that is sadly in need of repair and worth a fraction of the mortgage amount. No, it hasn’t been an easy process; but I see this as a positive resolution to our problem.

Your mileage may vary.

The End is Near

2009-08-19T16:35:00.002-07:00

After two months of paperwork and phone calls, we finally heard from the credit union regarding our short sale request.

Yesterday the loss mitigation manager advised me that Fannie Mae (our mortgage lender) is requiring a $10,000 note at 0% interest for 60 months be carried by us in order to move forward with the short sale.

Today the loss mitigation manager called again to inform me that the private mortgage insurance company, Genworth Financial, requires a $5,000 note to be carried in order to approve the short sale. So between the two companies they want $15,000 in order to approve the short sale purchase or our house. I thought it was very convenient that we have that exact amount in a savings CD (our emergency fund).

I was also told that even though he stated yesterday that we had five days to decide what we were going to do, pre-foreclosure procedures had already begun. (Whatever that means.)

The loss mitigation manager went on to insist that we are not really a hardship case and that is the reason for the penalty. I was told that according to federal guidelines, my husband’s income is more than sufficient to continue paying the mortgage. I told him it may look that way on paper but in reality we are spending more money every month than we have coming in; thus the need to get out of our mortgage. We can rent an identical house in our neighborhood for 1/3 less than our mortgage; and renters have the added benefit of not spending money on repairs.

He also advised me that the state of Arizona is modifying the anti-deficiency law. (I was already aware of the change and have read the new statute; we are still protected.) He stated that the change places us at risk of being sued by the lender for the full loss amount. He stated that we may also find ourselves with a 1099 for the loss amount as well, meaning that we would be liable to pay federal taxes on the loss.

He continued, saying that if we foreclose it will ruin our credit for 7 years and there is an 8 year statute of limitations on law suits. Since we have no debt and adequate income (according to his guidelines) he urged us to do the moral thing and become current on our loan and continue paying the mortgage for at least 2 years, at which time the situation may look different. He stressed that this advice was coming from him “as a person” and that it was not legal advice. He talked about how foreclosure takes tax dollars away from every American since our lender is Fannie Mae.

If we still want the short sale, he said the only way to avoid being sued and taxed was to carry $15K worth of debt to the lender and private mortgage insurer.

My realtor and her broker, who have been processing short sales for the past year, have never heard of this situation from any lender. They have never before had a client faced with the prospect of carrying a note with their lender in order to be approved for the short sale. She said they are probably trying to scare me and that they were successful in scaring her. (She owns several rental properties and may find herself in a similar situation if the economy continues to slide.)

Like I said, I’ve read the changes to the foreclosure law and we are still protected. I am meeting with our real estate attorney later this week to confirm that I am interpreting the new law correctly.

With every phone call, the loss mitigation manager is sounding less and less like a banking professional and more and more like a debt collector. Foreclosure is something I had hoped to avoid but it is a legally available remedy to our situation. I am not going to let this guy scare me.

Painful

2009-07-17T11:54:00.002-07:00

Why is the anniversary of my son’s death so painful? It’s not as though I haven’t been missing him every minute of every day for the past five years; and yet I still find myself a blubbery mess on the actual anniversary. Am I subconsciously allowing myself to feel things I normally try to suppress (without much success) other days?

Whatever the reason, I haven’t left the house in two days and I keep breaking out in tears. Time does not heal all wounds, and whoever propagates that lie should be slapped.

Pass the Kleenex.

Short Sale Blues

2009-06-28T19:40:00.001-07:00

We put our house up for sale last week in the hopes of selling it as a short sale and avoiding foreclosure. My husband took a new job with a much smaller salary because his former employer laid him off; due to this decrease in salary, we can no longer afford our mortgage payments.

I met with a realtor and a real estate attorney, put the house on the market, cleaned like crazy and had several successful showings. So far so good. Then the first offer arrived. It was for a few thousand above the listed price, and we all felt that it was a good offer that our lender would approve for short sale. Then we were given the credit union’s short sale package.

The lender is asking for an insane amount of personal and financial information in order to determine whether or not we “deserve” to be granted a short sale. Deserve? Wait a minute. What part of this situation do we deserve? The part where my husband worked hard for twenty years in order to work his way up to an excellent salary only to have it snatched away when he was laid off? Maybe the part where we picked out a house and fixed it up in the hopes of living in it for the rest of our lives, only to find that the home value has declined 50% in two years? Or how about the part where we don’t want to spend every last dime of our savings trying to keep a house that may never be worth what we owe? I don’t feel we deserve any of this. We purchased a modest home, spend within our means, pay our bills and save for emergencies. We are not deadbeats.

Here is a summary of the information our lender feels we need to divulge in order to be considered for a short sale:

Tax returns from 2007 and 2008
Checking statements for the past two months
Savings statements for the past two months
401k savings account balance
Pay stubs from hubby’s current employer
Pay stubs from hubby’s previous employer
List of expenses for the past two months (including utilities, groceries, insurance, etc.)
Credit card statements for the past two months
Hardship letter explaining in detail the negative personal changes we have experienced in our lives since buying the house.

Basically they want to know exactly how we spend our money down to the penny. Keep in mind that after we give them this information, they can still say “no” and refuse to grant the short sale anyway (which our lawyer says is a frequent occurrence). Then where would we be? Some unscrupulous person in the lender’s employ could potentially steal our identities with this information and wipe out our life savings with the click of a few computer keys. No thank you. I am not so naïve that I blindly trust the banking institution to protect our information.
After discussing the situation with our attorney, she agreed that we should not hand over this information on a silver platter. The lender has no legal right to this information as they cannot take any of our money whether we wind up with a short sale or a foreclosure. The Anti-Deficiency Law protects us from that. The lender is on a fishing expedition to see how much more money we could potentially spend paying the mortgage before we would be completely broke and have to file for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would ruin our credit even worse than a short sale or foreclosure, and we refuse to continue throwing good money after bad to try to keep up with our mortgage payments. We could spend every last cent of our savings, wind up broke and still have to foreclose on a house that is worth 50% less than the mortgage balance due.

So we sent the purchase offer to the lender without the rest of the short sale package just to see what would happen. Our realtor was notified that the purchase offer would not be considered because the remainder of the information was missing. When she explained our position, the credit union employee said that they have to follow industry standards and require the personal information before a short sale will even be considered, and it is very unlikely that a high level manager will make an exception for us. Our file basically goes to the bottom of the pile until they have time to rule on the exception, which could take months. Our realtor now has to go back to the potential buyer and explain to her that the process will take longer due to these circumstances and give the buyer a chance to back out of the deal and look elsewhere for a home. Depending on whether this buyer is patient or not, she can withdraw her offer and we will have to start showing the house again.

While all of this was happening during the past week, we had another offer come in from an investor who is willing to pay cash for the home as soon as the short sale gets approved. This may be a more appealing scenario for our credit union, so we plan to present that offer to them as well.

Hubby and I have decided that it doesn’t matter to us whether we wind up with a short sale or a foreclosure because the end result is the same—-we have to leave the home in which we planned to spend the rest of our lives.

Going Postal

2009-06-22T11:04:00.002-07:00

While out shopping the other day, I happened upon a cool stuffed dinosaur on the clearance rack at Kohl’s. My four year-old nephew loves dinosaurs and I knew it would make a great addition to his small collection. So, being the cool aunt that I am, I happily took the dinosaur home.

I boxed up the present and went to the post office. The only labels I had at home were USPS Priority Shipping labels I had left over from Christmas. I wasn’t going to ship the gift priority so I simply planned to cut off the top part of the label which identified it as a postal product. When I stepped up to the counter (with label, pen and scissors in hand) I asked the clerk to weigh the package and tell me the parcel post rate. I was still filling out the label and the following conversation occurred:

Postal Clerk: You’re not allowed to do that.
Me: Do what?
PC: That’s a Priority Shipping label and you’re not allowed to use the label if you’re not shipping the package Priority.
Me: Well, I’m going to do it anyway. It’s a label, not a contract.
PC: I’m not going to ship that package parcel post with a Priority label on it.
Me: Fine, then don’t.

I took my package over to the automated postal machine in the lobby, paid for the parcel post stamp ($9) and dropped the package in the box. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

Yesterday my nephew called to thank me for the gift. I was surprised it had arrived so soon; parcel post usually takes all week to travel across the country. I assumed it was a fluke, but then my bother got on the line and told me what really happened. The package arrived Priority Shipping postage due to the tune of $17. There was an official postal form attached to it explaining that the package had been re-routed from parcel post to Priority Shipping due to the fact that the address label was a Priority Shipping label. The mail man who delivered the box to my brother told him he could refuse the package or pay the postage due. So he paid the $17.

I don’t care about the money. What bothers me is the creepy clerk. He felt so strongly about enforcing the postal code that he actually left his counter position, looked for my package, and filled out the form to change the delivery method. I had my first stalker and didn’t even realize it!

Did he do this just for spite? Did he get some perverse pleasure from adhering to the strict letter of postal law? Was he trying to teach me a lesson?

The next time I go to the post office I will be sure to take home a stack of Priority Shipping labels to use as scrap paper at my desk. I have to make up the $17 some how.

House for Sale!

2009-06-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

We’ve decided to put our house up for sale and try to get a short-sale approved by our lender. Our house is worth approximately half of what we paid for it just two short years ago. There are two ways for us to get out from under the crushing debt of our mortgage: (1) lender approved short-sale OR (2) foreclosure.

We are trying to avoid a foreclosure (if possible), so we’ve put our house up for sale. The hope is that someone one will make and offer and the lender will approve the short-sale. The lender will lose money but we won’t.

Arizona has an Anti-Deficiency law that protects purchase price mortgage borrowers from having to pay the difference between what they owe on their mortgage and the price their house can actually sell for on the market.

In Arizona (and other states) purchase money first mortgages are non-recourse. That means if we default they can take the house and temporarily ruin our credit - but it ends there. They cannot pursue us beyond foreclosure and reclamation of the house.

They can’t raid our savings account or our 401k, and they can’t garnish our wages. I spoke with a real estate attorney a few days ago and she put all my fears to rest. Our credit score will be affected for the next two or three years, but that’s the worst thing that will happen.

If the realtor markets our house for the next six months and the lender forecloses on the property before she can sell it, she gets nothing for her time and trouble. Many real estate agents will not list short-sales for this reason, but I found an experienced professional who is willing to take the risk now in order to gain us as a client and maybe make money later.

We’ve had four showings so far. Whether we wind up with a short-sale or a foreclosure, we will be out from under this upside-down mortgage in a few months. That will be a weight lifted from my shoulders.

Mortgage Woes

2009-06-03T15:02:00.002-07:00

As you know, my husband received a lay-off notice from DHL. He was able to find a new job; which, in this economy is no small feat. However, he now earns 20% less than he did just a few short months ago. I used to work part-time for the Disney store, but during the months leading up the holiday shopping season the store experienced a severe decrease in sales and my hours were cut from 12 hours per week to zero. I have been unsuccessful in finding new employment.

All of our bills are going up due to the current economic crisis—groceries, utilities, health insurance, etc. My father passed away in April and we bore travel expenses related to his funeral.

The housing market in the Phoenix area has been hit hard in recent months, and our home is now worth 40% less than what we paid for it just two years ago. We knew when we bought the home that its value would decrease some; however, we did not predict that its value would fall so far. The phrases “money pit” and “throwing good money after bad” have been mentioned a lot lately.

With the recent change in our financial situation, we find that we can only afford our mortgage payments if we take money out of our savings. We do not believe that using our savings to pay the mortgage is a good investment. My husband has decided that we should stop paying our mortgage. He figures it will be several months until the credit union has us evicted by the sheriff, and before that happens we can save some money toward a rental house to live in after we get the boot.

This will ruin our credit. Hubby is aware of that fact, but thinks that is a temporary situation compared to the permanent situation we would be in if we drain our savings and still can’t afford the mortgage payments. I’m not sure his logic is wrong.

I understand why he doesn’t want to lose every penny he’s worked so hard for to keep a house that may never be worth what we owe.

So why do I feel so sick inside?

I feel sick because we are not the type of people to shun our responsibilities. We pay our bills. The only debt we have is our home and one vehicle. Credit cards are used for convenience, not as a loan to be paid later. Their balances are paid as soon as the bill arrives. We have savings, but that money is supposed to be for emergencies and our retirement. We are unprepared for a long-term decrease in earnings and the severe value loss in our home. Having to deal with a lay-off during the worst economic crisis in our lifetime is not something we ever thought to plan for.

Many thousands of homeowners across the country are in a similar situation. Foreclosure rates have skyrocketed in the past year and are expected to continue to rise. We got caught in a situation we never considered was possible. How do you plan for the unthinkable?

One of my friends suggested taking in a boarder to bring in extra income. Another friend asked me why my husband doesn’t continue to look for a higher paying job. Well, how about because it took six months of stressful job hunting to find this job and now he has the stress of learning the new company’s computer system, working with new people, travelling, and updating his technical certifications to satisfy the new employer’s educational requirements. I think he’s under enough stress already; adding a continued job search might just be too much for his system to handle.

Then she asked why I don’t have a full-time job? One reason is because I lost the ability to force a happy smiley demeanor at will after my son died. So sue me. My work experience is in customer service and retail; and with my back problem, I cannot physically handle a full time retail position. That leaves customer service, which would drive me crazy. I’m already on anti-depressants just to get through the day and I don’t think a little pill can handle the additional stress. I’ve been looking for a part-time position, but the low wages I could earn would not be enough to bridge the gap between what hubby used to earn and what he earns now.

I paid the mortgage on June 1st, but hubby doesn’t think we should pay it next month. So, I’m back to feeling sick and wondering how the hell we’re going to get out of this situation.

Job Hunt Update

2009-05-07T13:09:00.001-07:00

My husband, who was scheduled to be laid off this month from DHL, has found a new full-time job. The pay is 20% lower than what he has been earning and we have to wait two months for the health benefits to begin. And that’s just the beginning of my rant.

DHL was offering a severance package of two months salary and benefits after the separation date. After five years of service, I think that was a terrible offer, but at least we had that much to cushion the blow.

After enduring several frustrating months of hubby’s job search, I was beginning to worry that the current state of the economy was going to be the end of our healthy finances. I calculate that we have three to four months of living expenses saved; that’s more than most people have in the bank, so I’m pretty proud of that emergency fund. Add to that the two months he would receive in severance, and we would be okay until the end of the calendar year. Not too shabby.

The new company interviewed my husband twice over a period of six weeks. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry to fill the position, so I was surprised when they finally offered him the job and said he had to start immediately if he wanted it. Hubby asked if they could wait three weeks so he could finish his time at DHL and receive his severance package. No, he was told, they needed someone on the job immediately and if he wasn’t willing to jump ship now, they would simply call the next guy on the list of candidates.

It took them nearly two months to interview candidates, but all of a sudden there’s a rush to have the new person begin. Just in time to screw us out of nearly 10K of severance compensation.

Add that to the decrease in salary and we are 30K in the hole. Plus, we have to continue our health benefits through COBRA for the next 10 weeks, which will cost us another two grand. Fuck!

I’m glad that my husband did not have to go through the stress of finishing out his time with DHL without a job offer on the horizon. He has been unemployed before, and it’s not easy for him. His sense of self worth is tightly connected to his career (typical guy!) and he so enjoys his line of work.

But why do things never seem to work out in our favor? The randomness of the universe needs to throw us a bone every now and then, damn it! As always, things could be worse but they could definitely be better.

End rant.

More Loss

2009-04-23T09:20:00.002-07:00

My father passed away unexpectedly on April 4, 2009. He had numerous health problems, but seemed to be doing well and was following his doctors' orders. After a few days of not feeling well, and refusing my mother's offer to take him to the doctor, he slumped over at the kitchen table and died. He and my mother met when they were teens (18 and 16 respectively) and they were married for 43 years. Needless to say, she is devastated.

My brother and I flew home immediately, but since our lives take place far from our childhood home we were only able to stay for a short time. I hope the time we spent with mom was enough to help her gain some strength for the grieving process she must now face alone.

Death is Nothing at All
By Henry Scott-Holland

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Dedicated to my dad, Vernon Stein. 1943-2009. RIP.

MommaSquid Goes to Washington

2009-03-16T13:12:00.002-07:00

Hubby and I were in Washington, D.C. recently—-he was there for business and I tagged along to have a little fun. I hadn’t been to D.C. since I was a kid (and I was forced to go that time!) so I took advantage of the opportunity to take in some of the sights.

The Smithsonian museums are wonderful, and if you’ve never seen the vast collections they hold, you are truly missing a great experience. My favorite museum was the National Gallery, which holds art from the twelfth through nineteenth century. I especially enjoyed the Renaissance period paintings.

While I was there, I took the time to protest in front of the White House. I didn’t vote for Obama, he’s not my president, and I don’t support the massive “stimulus package”. I told hubby of my plans to protest and he asked me to please not get arrested, so my protest was brief and sans signs.

I yelled: America is NOT a socialist nation! Stop the stimulus package! No company is too big to fail! Say no to socialized medicine! Stop wasting my tax dollars! Thank you!

If the founding fathers were alive today, I’d like to think they would be disgusted by what the federal government has become.

My thanks to JNTB and Procrustes for meeting me for lunch while I was in town. It was great to finally meet people I’ve known online for years.

You can find them at State of Protest. www.stateofprotest.com Their writing is much better than mine.

And the End is Always Near

2008-12-17T16:45:00.001-07:00

The future’s uncertain. It always is, but lately is feels even more so.

My husband works for DHL and is scheduled to be laid off in May 2009 because the company is bailing out of the US domestic shipping market. Since my husband’s salary comprises 99.8% of our household income, this is a serious problem. With so many companies downsizing and very few companies hiring, it is going to be difficult for my husband to find a new job. He is a Cisco certified network administrator with over 10 years of experience; yet, in the past two weeks he has spoken with recruiters who have nothing more to offer him than short-term, low-paying contract positions and their best wishes that he finds a new job soon. That’s cold comfort when your entire financial picture has been scheduled to go down the drain. Sure, we have a few months but what if he can’t find a position in this area at the pay level he has grown to expect?

Since DHL is a global company, hubby and I have discussed the possibility of him seeking out a position in Europe. A few years ago I probably wouldn’t have entertained the notion, but a lot has changed recently. Our home has lost 30% of its value in the year and a half that we’ve owned it and the US economy is now officially in a recession. I always thought we’d be able to afford a European vacation of some sort, but things are not looking good. Maybe the best way to see Europe is to actually live there.

My mother is terrified that we will leave the country and never come back. My brother hopes we exhaust every possibility in the US before considering such a risky move. But what exactly am I risking? My house? It’s worth a fraction of the mortgage amount. My family? I have a guest room that’s never been used and I haven’t travelled to see my family in over two years. My friends? The few friends that I have are busy with their own lives and problems and we mainly stay in touch via email and MySpace. That wouldn’t change very much. My job? I have an unsatisfying part-time retail position and my hours have been reduced to almost nothing because sales are low. Basically I have nothing to lose. There is no obligation large enough to stop us from pursuing a major lifestyle change.

So far, hubby has applied for one position in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. It may be weeks before they start sifting through the applicant pool, and I don’t know what criteria he would have to meet or exceed in order to be more qualified than a local applicant. The odds are probably against him, but you don’t know until you try. Currently one other position is available in his field, but it’s in Malaysia and I have no desire to live there. (Too Muslim for my atheist sensibilities.)

Hubby has also been looking into opportunities with DHL’s parent company, Deutsche Post, which is based in Bonn, Germany. Hubby travelled to Germany as a teen and has always wanted to return. We both took German in high school, but our skills have wasted away during 25 years of non-use. But I’m sure we could pick the language up again if properly motivated and immersed in the culture. So this sounds like a viable option, too. What the hell…we’re not getting any younger.

I wonder if I’ll be disappointed if he gets a job offer in Phoenix.

Community Activist

2008-08-29T17:45:00.002-07:00

Hubby and I bought our house in May 2007, and I have been attending monthly HOA board meetings since November 2007. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a home owners association (HOA), our subdivision has, in addition to local and state laws, an additional layer of bureaucracy. The HOA is in charge of landscaping common areas and other useful things; however, they can dictate the color of the homes in the community, they can restrict parking on public streets, they can restrict the type of trees you plant, and dozens of other irritating controls. Unfortunately, if you want a newer home in my town, the only affordable way to do it is to buy in an HOA controlled subdivision.

I remember the good old days when you could buy a house and paint it any color you wanted. You were free to leave your Christmas lights up all year round and leave your trash cans out after they were emptied, and all your neighbors could do was give you dirty looks and bitch behind your back. Nowadays, a person can be fined for any of these actions and if you don’t pay the fine, your home can be foreclosed on. Yikes!

But I knew what I was getting into before I bought this place. I also decided to take a proactive approach to any problems I might have with the board by attending meetings and volunteering on a committee. This way, I know the people in charge and can smooth over any small issues before they become big problems.

There are 1400 homes in my community and there have never been more than 10 people in attendance at a monthly board meeting, and that figure includes the 5 board members! But as long as the annual meeting has 10% attendance (by mail or in person…gee, which one do you think people do?) the board is free to vote how they want to vote without interference. I have disagreed with some of their decisions, as have the few others in attendance, but with such a small number of community members around to complain, the board continues as they always have. The one new member who was elected in May has only attended one out of the three meetings held since he took his seat. The woman who lost to him has not attended a meeting since getting the boot.

I am on the Social Committee, which exists because I suggested a community event. The two other women on the committee were talked into participating by their board-member neighbors. We held a community party in the park in May, and it was a pretty nice event (if I do say so myself!). We had at least 300 attendees, but only two people volunteered to help our committee of three run the event. Since the party, I have been trying to schedule a wrap-up meeting to discuss what we did right and what we can improve upon for next year, but so far no one has been available to meet with me. Nuts!

So I have decided to take community apathy into my own hands and write a newsletter! The community has a quarterly newsletter written by the board and their advisor, but I don’t think it does enough to keep people informed. My newsletter will focus on one parcel of our ten parcel subdivision-—this parcel encompasses the 115 homes that are on the three streets immediately adjacent to mine. I will attempt to keep my neighbors informed about what goes on “behind the scenes” and encourage them to participate in our community. With property values plunging (due to the local housing bubble finally bursting) and the number of bankruptcies skyrocketing, something needs to be done to get people to care a little more about their neighbors and their community. So I will publish a printed newsletter, and I will also post it online. I have set up an email account to (hopefully) accept reader input and content suggestions. I spent a whopping $3 at the copy shop today to prepare the first wave of my newsletter. Now I just have to deliver them.

I don’t know if my venture will be a success but even if it fails, I can hold my head up high and say I tried. That’s more than 1399 other homeowners can say.

You Just Can’t Take Me Anywhere!

2008-07-26T16:43:00.004-07:00

I went out for lunch with my new friend Sara yesterday and proved to her that I don’t know how to behave in public.

I met Sara a few months ago through a hobby we both enjoy and we hit it off. As it turns out, she only lives a mile away so we’ve been hanging out every once in a while, in addition to seeing each other at our mutual hobby.

She picked me up at my house and we went to Olive Garden for lunch. We were seated at a small table for two in the corner. Half of the seating along the row of tables was bench seating (against the wall) and the other side of the table had chairs. The other tables were all tables for four and there was only about 18 inches of space separating each table. A little close, I thought, as I took the booth seat.

We ordered our food and were talking and laughing over our salads when a woman wearing way too much perfume sat on the bench seat next to me. She was at the next table but with only a few inches separating us, her scent was overwhelming. I tried whispering to Sara that the woman’s perfume was making me gag, but before I could choke out a word or two the hostess brought a highchair and deposited it in the 18 inches of space separating our table from the next. An older woman (grandmother?) stood there holding a toddler. Oh, great! Two annoyances for the price of one.

I looked up at the hostess and, in a firm voice, said, “Can we not do this.” Everyone froze! The two women with the baby finally gasped and the child’s mother said loudly, “What, you don’t want to eat near a child?!” I kept my eyes on the hostess and said, “If you need to seat them here, I’ll move.” The highchair was blocking my way out, so I made no move to get up and leave, but my tone said it all. I was not happy.

The two women with the child kept cackling, but my issue was with the restaurant employee who decided that the only place in the entire restaurant to seat a woman wearing half a bottle of perfume and her small child was right in my lap. She was scanning the room for another place to seat people when the smelly woman snatched her child out of the highchair. Seeing that the decision had been made, the hostess proceeded to escort the women, child and highchair to another section.

I turned to Sara and said, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, but I would have been uncomfortable with them sitting so close.” She had looked surprised at the beginning of my exchange with the hostess, but admitted that she saw my point. We were seated in the corner and my only way out was the small space in which the high chair had been placed. Add to that the overpowering odor and our meal would have been ruined.

I joked with her that she needed to make a mental note to never eat out with me again! I am a bit of an acquired taste, and I readily admit that. I’m not intentionally abrasive but I don’t put up with shit any more than absolutely necessary. I’d rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for an act that I put on for people.

The rest of our meal went smoothly and the table next to us was eventually occupied by two women who sat on the far side of their table for four. (And they didn’t stink or need a highchair.)

I guess I wasn’t so horrible after all, because Sara drove us to her favourite gelato place for dessert.

True friends love you, warts and all. Hopefully I’ve found a new true friend.

Yard Update

2008-05-09T17:14:00.004-07:00

Last fall, I had some landscaping done in my yard. Here are some updated photos.

September 2007

May 2008

The trees are filling in nicely and even bloomed for a few days. A few of the agaves died of transplant shock and were replaced with a different larger variety.

The ocotillo in the front yard bloomed for a few days, too, but my new camera arrived after they fell off. Oh, well. At least it still has leaves.

It's time to go pull some weeds. The joys of home ownership are many and varied!

Running Amok in Vegas!

2008-05-04T17:57:00.002-07:00

Hubby and I returned two days ago from Las Vegas and I am still exhausted.

Vegas always does a number on me—the smoke, the noise, the re-circulated and overly cold air-conditioned air, the bright neon and flashing lights, and the constant go, go, go atmosphere of the Strip. We walked our feet off every night and got up for more every morning. It was awesome!

The official reason for the trip was for hubby to attend Interop—a technology and IT expo which invades Las Vegas every spring. For me, it’s swag central and a free vacation—cool!

We ate at the Hofbräuhaus (I highly recommend the maibock when it’s in season) and a few restaurants at Excalibur and Mandalay Bay. We played the slots, roulette and blackjack at several casinos (including one on Freemont Street that was a little too seedy for my taste). The house always ends up with our money, so we set a reasonable loss limit and had fun until we cried ‘uncle’.

We saw Bodies—The Exhibition at the Tropicana. I didn’t really want to go, but I also didn’t want to deprive my husband of the experience, so off I went—and I am so glad I did! After the initial grossness factor wears off, the exhibition is very interesting and highly educational.

What a great trip!

The Sting of Rejection

2008-04-18T18:42:00.002-07:00

I have two MySpace accounts—one for my atheist forum friends to keep in touch with me and one for a hobby I do in “real life”. I don’t advertise my atheism in my daily life (nor do I hide it), so I choose to use one set of email and MySpace info for my atheist screen name and the other set for my given name. That way any email that comes into my MommaSquid account, I automatically know it’s from a forum contact. It simplifies things for me.

So this morning I logged into my “hobby” email account and saw that I had a friend request from Madelyn, someone I met during the course of my hobby. Right after we met, I looked up her MySpace page, intending to invite her to be a friend; but what I saw on her page disturbed me. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Everywhere I looked! Under hobbies—serving the Lord, Jesus Christ. Musical interests—Christian music. About Me—"If you died today, are you certain that you will go to heaven? Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today and spend eternity in heaven.” Her entire MySpace page was littered with references to church and Jesus. What the hell?

She seemed like a person of normal intelligence when I met her, and yet she has this layer that I was unaware of until now. So I decided not to invite her to be a MySpace buddy. But what does that say about me? Am I closed-minded towards believers? At that level of enthusiasm, the answer is yes.

I figure since I was raised Catholic and was able to use my mind for rational thought to ask questions, leave the church, abandon the dogma, and realize that the universe is not run by an invisible man in the sky, everyone else has the same opportunity. It’s not like I’m all that smart. I’ll never cure cancer, but at least my mind is capable of producing rational thought. I wonder about people who seem smart yet continue to swallow the mindless dogma of organized religion.

Anyway, getting back to today’s friend request from her: I logged on to the appropriate MySpace account, while pondering what to do. Do I reject her request? I thought that would be the right thing to do, since we obviously only have one thing in common—the hobby we both enjoy. But when I checked my recent friend requests, her request was no longer there—she must have deleted it. She rejected me as well.

Did she reject me because I am an atheist? The only part of my “hobby” MySpace account that mentions my propensity toward free thought is the little box I checked under the religion section. Although atheism is not a religion that is the box I checked because it best describes my views towards religion. Did Madelyn see that tiny bit of information and decide I wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to know? We certainly got along well enough during our hobby encounters for her to seek me out online and request to me a MySpace buddy—so why the retraction?

Unless I ask her the next time I see her, I’ll never know for sure. I find it very amusing that we both rejected each other (potentially) because of our views on god and religion.

How very human.

Bare Necessities of Life

2008-04-01T20:53:00.002-07:00

I had my air conditioner inspected today—that statement is deceptively simple and yet the process was anything but. The tech arrived on time and was very pleasant, but he was hard to understand (as foreign accents sometimes are) and he seemed to be very nervous that he was going to make a mistake. Isn’t that when one usually makes mistakes?

The 16-point check up took much longer than I expected, but since he was inspecting all the duct-work, electrical connections, wiring, fluid levels, multiple motors, capacitors and compressors, I’m glad he took his sweet time.

The inspection was only $30 (our local power company was offering a special through their registered contractors) but I figured that at the very least I was looking at a small repair bill. Yet, hope springs eternal so I had $30 cash on me. You never know.

After an hour and a half, the tech notified me that a small part on the inside unit needed replacing and that it would run me an additional $65 dollars. “Wow, I’m getting away cheap”, was my first thought. Then he said he wanted to show me something on the exterior unit. Uh-oh.

The capacitor on the outside compressor was beginning to show signs of wear and he said it was up to me whether to replace it or not. He added that it might last 2 years but it might only last two months. In Arizona, one does not take lightly the news that one’s A/C unit might break down in the heat of summer. I could see a gross, brown, oily discharge covering the top of the capacitor near the wiring connectors. (Perhaps it is equivalent to corrosion on the terminals of a car battery.) I conferred with my husband by phone and he agreed we shouldn’t take the chance of a larger inconvenience and expense down the line and have the part replaced before it failed. (The part looks a lot like this.) →→

The tech drove to the warehouse and picked up the needed part, returned to the house and installed the new capacitor. He came inside, turned the A/C back on and proclaimed the job done. He then went out to his truck to write up the paperwork, saying that he wanted to give the air a few minutes to cool before he left so that I was confident that everything was in working order. I could hear the air moving if I stood under the filter access panel in the hallway, but there was no cool air blowing out of the vents. Hmmm. I went outside to check the external unit and discovered that it wasn’t running. Double hmmm.

I went out to the driveway, knocked politely on the van window and told the tech that the unit was not running properly. He looked confused and said I must be looking at something wrong. When I suggested that he come to the backyard to see for himself that the fan blades were not spinning in the external unit and he got a horrified look on his face. We walked quickly to the unit and he realized I was right. Duh. I may not be a certified heating and cooling technician, but I can see when a fan isn’t spinning.

He quickly began assessing the problem and I left him to his work—he was nervous enough without a pissed-off housewife looking over his shoulder. A short time later, he returned to the house, adjusted the thermostat and re-proclaimed the job done. I suggested that he stay until the A/C cycled off and back on of its own accord so that I felt comfortable that we were really in the clear. Luckily for him, he only needed to be asked once.

All totaled, including drive time to pick up the replacement part, the job I anticipated would take about an hour took four and a half hours—but I should enjoy air-conditioned comfort for many months to come.

Oh, the joys of home ownership.

As I Was Going to St. Ives…

2008-03-03T17:13:00.005-07:00

I was out for an afternoon stroll today, which is kind of unusual for me. When I do manage to get in some exercise, I usually walk closer to sun set; but the weather was absolutely beautiful today, so I headed out early.

I left my home at approximately ten minutes before three. By 3 p.m. I had reached a nearby community area, which includes a basketball court, volleyball sand pit, benches and the north end of the walking path that runs down the center of my subdivision. I noticed a vehicle parked illegally on the street and I recalled seeing the vehicle there numerous times before. Today I learned the reason for it being there so frequently. Seated behind the vehicle on the curb was a school crossing guard, replete in her orange safety vest and wielding her mini stop sign.

Me: Excuse me. Are you a volunteer or an employee of the school district?
CG: I’m an employee.
Me: Are you aware that you’re parked illegally?
CG: Well, there’s no place to park and I have to be here for work.
Me: Oh, okay.

How could I argue with such sound logic? Apparently the crossing guard felt herself exempt from the laws of our community. But there simply must be parking available somewhere, I thought.

I walked west to the next cross-street a short distance away. There is a no parking sign on that street as well, so I kept looking. I turned south and walked toward the next east-west situated street, which I knew from previous walks would turn into a cul-de-sac if I headed east. I followed this short street until it ended. Sure enough, I was now overlooking the public area I had just left.

← ← ← ... **no parking** ... ← ← my walking route

↓
↓
↓
→ → → ((cul-de-sac))

I could clearly see the crossing guard and the no parking sign from this new vantage point. I then returned to the crossing guard.

“There is plenty of available legal parking at that cul-de-sac right there (pointed) less than 500 feet away. You look healthy enough to make that walk.”

She then gave me a very dirty look.

That’s all you got bitch?!

I took out my cell phone and proceeded to take a picture of her vehicle in front of the no parking sign.
My back was to her when she started yelling that I was harassing her, so I turned to her and calmly said, “I’m merely documenting illegal activity.” I smiled and then turned away to take a close-up shot of her car’s license plate.

She got out her cell phone and called someone, again yelling that she was being harassed. I’m not sure who she was speaking with, but I called the police non-emergency line and reported the afternoon’s activity thus far. While I was speaking to the officer, the crossing guard packed up her little vest and stormed off. Aaaaah, sweet victory! The officer promised to alert the beat patrol officer so that he can keep an eye on the situation in the future. I thanked him for his time, put my phone away and continued my walk.

Approximately 30 minutes later, I was heading for home when the crossing guard drove past me, stuck her head and left arm out of her vehicle and took a picture of me with her cell phone. When I returned home, I called the local elementary school and spoke with the principal. I expressed concern not only for the guard’s parking habits but for the tone she took with me. As a city employee, the crossing guard should show care and concern for the children in her charge and be able to deal with the general public in a polite and professional manner. The tone she used with me (and the fact that she may have waited for 30 minutes for me to walk through the area again) made me doubt her mental fitness to perform her job duties. Plus, I was feeling a bit bitchy about the whole situation, so I decided to see if I could get the guard in trouble with her boss.

The principal promised to pull her in for a little talk tomorrow. If the guard continues to park illegally, I will notify my community’s security supervisor and have the matter handled that way.

There’s nothing like an afternoon walk to get the blood pumping.

The Atheist Next Door

2008-02-19T17:25:00.003-07:00

CHICAGO (CBS) ― In this presidential campaign season, Democrats and Republicans alike have declared their religious faith. They do it, in part, because they believe it wins political points. After all, the latest Harris polls show somewhere between 73 and 80 percent of Americans believe in God. But what about the rest?

(The video takes a few seconds to load, so please be patient.)

Reason

2008-02-19T16:51:00.001-07:00

Since my son’s death, I have needed to come up with daily reasons to continue living. At first, it was terribly difficult. I was in so much pain and I could see no end in sight. I asked myself why I would want to continue such a painful and futile existence. I decided that I wanted to feel the pain and suffer his loss; my son deserved to be mourned and I wasn’t going to take the easy way out and end it all.

Once that phase began to wane, I found little things to select as reasons to go on living…seeing the sun rise, walking in the moonlight, petting the cat, seeing my husband’s smile…these things gave me something to focus on to get through the many hours that were without joy.

It is going on four years since my son died, and I still use this method to get through the days, weeks, months and years without him. Yes, it has gotten easier to remember him fondly and lovingly, and the intense pain I felt early on has subsided, but it will never be easy. There are daily reminders that something special is missing from my life. But there are small daily joys to hold onto.

Those small joys continue to sustain me.

Mental Dust

2008-02-15T11:26:00.001-07:00

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately. I just can’t seem to gather my thoughts into a coherent post. I have so many things on my mind lately that it’s all just swirling around in my head, so I guess I’m waiting for the mental dust to settle before I share my thoughts with the world.

And by world, I mean the whole three of you who actually read my rantings.

You know who you are.

Tax Man?

2008-01-28T03:10:00.000-07:00

I have a friend, who I'll call Dick. Dick recently read this book…

…and has decided to follow the author's examples and advice. What is this book about? Basically it's a tax scam in which you claim that your wages are not taxable and you are entitled to a full refund of all federal withholding.

Now, I hate paying taxes as much as the next person, but I'm not willing to risk the wrath of the IRS. But my friend Dick is under some kind of spell after having read this book. (It's reminds me of fundies!)

I've tried to talk him out of trying this scheme, but he is convinced that it is NOT a scheme…he believes the author of this book is interpreting the law correctly, and that the federal government has been defrauding voluntary tax payers for decades.

It’s been nice knowing you, Dick. Be sure to send me a postcard from the federal penitentiary.

Better Off Dead?

2008-01-28T02:58:00.000-07:00

$5140.00

What is “Normal” after your only child dies?

2008-01-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Normal is reliving the last day you spent with your child over and over, and wondering if you will ever forget.

Normal is wasting countless hours in front of the noisy TV or computer because silence is deafening.

Normal is seeing your child in the face of every child who remotely resembles yours, and feeling a grief so strong it knocks the breath out of your lungs.

Normal is having insomnia again and again because the sound of a thousand ‘what if's’ parade noisily through your head.

Normal is popping pills because you know your mental health depends on it.

Normal is facing the difficult task each year of how to honor your child's date of death and birthday, and wondering how to survive these days.

Normal is having tears behind every smile because someone very special is missing from all the important events in your life.

Normal is feeling your heart soar and then crash at the sight of something you know your child would have loved, if only he were still around to enjoy it.

Normal is telling new friends and co-workers the fact that you lost a child, seeing the shock, sadness and pity in their eyes, and then getting to continue on with your day as if nothing is wrong.

Normal is being impatient with everyone because you just don’t have it in you to be patient anymore.

Normal is crying every day for two years, and then one day realizing you haven’t cried in over a week…and then you cry because you feel guilty.

Normal is lying to everyone by telling them you are fine, because the lie is easier for them to hear…and easier to say.

Normal is knowing people are afraid to mention your late child. Normal is mentioning your late child often (but not too often) to make sure that others remember him.

Normal is grieving for weeks, months, and years…a mother’s grief is eternal.

Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal."

Jonathan's birthday was a few days ago. He would have been 23 years old. This is how I choose to honor him this year.

Home Alone

2008-01-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

Hubby is out of town on business...
I hate being home alone.

It's too quiet when he's not around. I'm the crazy cat lady when he's gone!...muttering to myself and talking to the cats, staying in my PJ's until noon. And I stay up too late at night when he's away because I don't like going to sleep in an empty house. I sleep with my Ruger when hubby isn't here, and but the cold steel offers little comfort. There's just something unsettling about being home alone on nights when I know he isn't going to walk through the door after work. I hate being home alone.

But I also love being home alone!

Not having to pick up after him or share the remote, or smell his nasty chicken salad sandwiches (don't ask!). I can play the stereo and not have to turn it off because he wants to watch TV. I can spend an evening in blissful silence, curled up with a good book and a cup of tea. And, best of all, I don't have to listen to him snore!

Heck, he'll be home in a few days. I think I can tough it out.

The Joyfulness is Over

2007-12-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Another Christmas has come and gone. My tree with its pretty lights has been packed away for another year. The stores are putting up Valentine gifts next to the clearance racks of Christmas joy. The shopper’s faces, smiling with goodwill just moments ago, are beginning to droop into their usual grumpy demeanors. Basically, life is returning to normal.

I managed to get through the Christmas season without crying, so that’s a plus, but I seemed to notice more acutely the lies people tell themselves and others during this season of giving. There is a temporary mania that comes over our lives and it fades quickly, like a candle has been blow out. One minute there is the possibility of peace on earth, goodwill to man; and then…poof…it is gone.

I look forward to the New Year simply because it is another chance to find happiness. I have a loving husband, a roof over my head, plenty to eat, a car to drive, and a few dollars in my pocket. That is enough for me.

I wish you all health, happiness and love in the coming year.

"The Leader of the Band"

2007-12-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Singer and songwriter Dan Fogelberg, whose hits helped define the soft-rock era, died today at his home in Maine after battling prostate cancer. He was 56.

He wasn’t a terribly cool or exciting artist, but his songs spoke from the heart. The world could use a few more songwriters like him.

Longer by Dan Fogelberg

Longer than there’ve been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there’ve been stars up in the heavens
I’ve been in love with you.

Stronger than any mountain cathedral
Truer than any tree ever grew
Deeper than any forest primeval
I am in love with you.

I'll bring fires in the winters
You’ll send showers in the springs
Well fly through the falls and summers
With love on our wings.

Through the years as the fire starts to mellow
Burning lines in the book of our lives
Though the binding cracks and the pages start to yellow
I'll be in love with you.

Longer than there’ve been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there’ve been stars up in the heavens
I’ve been in love with you
I am in love with you...

Dear Children

2007-12-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

Click and learn.

Writer’s Guild Strike

2007-11-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

We are about to have our nightly television viewing schedules impacted by the writer’s strike. Several of the TV programs hubby and I watch have run out of new episodes to air: Rules of Engagement, ‘Til Death, The Office, and Desperate Housewives are just a few of the shows we enjoy that have just run out of new shows, which means their time-slots will be filled with reruns and sappy made-for-television specials very soon

Hubby and I were discussing re-runs that we would prefer seeing, as opposed to episodes of the recently aired shows that are on forced hiatus. Why not show a popular line-up from any given year of the past? I think being able to see a night of the 1978 programs Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Taxi would be a much welcome break from repeats of shows we just watched last month or last year.

It could be advertised as “a blast from the past”, with each network showing programs that were famous twenty or thirty years ago. Saturday night favorites Love Boat and Fantasy Island would be a hoot to see again. One Day at a Time, M*A*S*H, and the Mary Tyler Moore show were also favorites of mine that I haven't seen in years.

Syndicated shows from decades past still have viewership, so don’t bore us with recent reruns. Let’s see some comedy gold.

What are your favorite shows from days of yore?

Oooh, My Face Hurts!

2007-11-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

I took a seasonal job to earn some extra money to help pay for some things around the house. I’m still paying for the landscaping work I had done in September, and with home ownership comes unexpected bills. So, hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go.

I worked Black Friday and smiled until my face hurt. Being upbeat and happy is very important at the store, and since it is a little contrary to my natural state, I have to work at it. Once I get in the groove its okay, but I do have to force myself sometimes to think happy thoughts.

The store sells products associated with a certain mouse and a lot of princesses. I can’t really say the name of the place, but I’m sure you can figure it out.

There are always a lot of little kids in the store, so I’m waiting for my first cold of the season. (Germy little buggers.) I’ve also been instructed not to yell at the kids who are misbehaving. Who me? (Insert eye roll here.) To be fair, the instruction was for all the new hires, but somehow I felt singled out. Go figure.

For the next few weeks my face will hurt from smiling, and my feet and back will ache with over-use, but I’ll be earning some much needed cash for the coffers.

So if you see a harried looking woman with a huge smile on her face, selling toys and folding shirts, be kind.

Not For the Squeamish

2007-10-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

I took hubby to the emergency room on Sunday. He had a sharp stabbing pain on the right side of his lower back and mild abdominal pain. The back pain started out mild, too, but within minutes he was in extreme pain and clearly needed immediate medical attention.

Men do not handle pain very well, so as we drove to the hospital I tried to distract him somewhat.

Me: Do you mind if we stop at Home Depot for a few things first?
Hubby: Oooooooh….ow….mmmmmm.
Me: I guess that’s a no.

The hospital wasn’t very busy and hubby was examined and given Percoset in under 90 minutes. Usually the ER is filled to capacity and the wait can top four hours…thank random chance that wasn’t the case this time.

Once the pain pills started to kick in, they whisked him off for x-rays and a CT scan. Hubby was diagnosed with a kidney stone. Yikes! He was given a lovely medicine to dilate his urethra, a few days worth of pain pills, a container in which to pee, and a strainer to catch the stone.

Approximately 36 hours after the first stab of pain, hubby pissed out the stone. How it came out, I don’t even want to imagine; yet there it was, rock hard in the strainer. He saved it, and the urologist will be testing it tomorrow. Hopefully there is some sort of treatment that will prevent future painful episodes.

I’m not sure how close I want to get to my hubby’s member until he is cured of this malady.

I could lose an eye!

Club Penguin

2007-10-02T11:29:00.001-07:00

My niece and I recently joined Club Penguin, which is a kid-friendly online community, filled with games, chat and fun.

Members "waddle" around as a penguin, playing games and chatting with other members. The chat options are safe, as parents decide what level of communication their child can participate in. Pre-selected phrases, such as "yes", "no", and "How are you?" are accessible from a drop-down menu for members to use. Some members have full access chat, which allows them to type whatever they want to say, but even members who are too young to have full access can have fun conversations with other members by using the drop-down menu. The site is monitored for bad language and rude activity, and kids who abuse the site are banned.

Club Penguin is a free site; however paying members have access to upgraded functions, such as dressing their penguins and decorating their igloo homes. Kids earn coins by playing games and then redeem the coins for catalog items. The membership fee is reasonable, but even kids who don’t pay for membership can participate in games, parties and can earn free prizes for their penguin to display.

My niece is nine years old and I don’t get to see her very often because she lives on the East Coast and I live in Arizona. Club Penguin has provided us with a fun way to stay in touch.

If you have small children in your life, I highly recommend this site.

Landscaping Job

2007-09-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

I had some desert landscaping done at my house last week. Here are a few pictures.

The wash is in the front yard...the tall, dead-looking thing in the background is the Ocotillo cactus, which is dormant right now. Some day it will look like this...

...hopefully very soon!

The back yard has agave, red tipped yucca, and two tipuaanu trees with a flagstone patio and pathway.

See that little shadow in the lower right corner? That's me! The potted plant is some ornamental grass for the cats to play with. And by play with, I mean eat.

If my back were stronger I could have done the work myself and saved a lot of money, but since I'm a wimp I had to hire big, strong men to carry the 7 tons of raw materials into the yard. I guess that can be considered as part of my birthday present.

All in all it's been a darn good month!

Hot Summer Night

2007-09-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

Last night hubby and I went to the Def Leppard, Styx, Foreigner concert at Cricket Pavillion in Phoenix. A good time was had by all…and when I say all, I mean at least 17,000 people. The place was packed with people from age 5 to 75 and the crowd was as loud as the bands.

Watching Foreigner was like watching a cover band…there’s only one original member left in the group, founder Mick Jones. Jason Bonham was on drums, and the band played a snippet of a Led Zepplin song, which was fun but a little odd. The band played a bunch of their hits…Cold As Ice, Hot Blooded, Jukebox Hero (which was awesome!), Urgent, and Feels Like the First Time.

Styx was next in the lineup, and they blew us away with their sound and showmanship. Original members Tommy Shaw and James “JY” Young front the band with newer member Lawrence Gowan (who replaces Dennis DeYoung). They played a lot of their hits…Blue Collar Man, Miss America, Come Sail Away, Fooling Yourself, Renegade, Too Much Time on My Hands, and the Grand Illusion. Styx sounded great and Tommy Shaw can still hit those high notes!

I haven’t seen Def Leppard in twenty years, and they did not disappoint. Singer Joe Elliot was a little hoarse and had trouble with the high notes, but that didn’t stop anyone from screaming their guts out and singing along. The set list was as follows:

Rocket
Animal
Excitable
Foolin'
Mirror, Mirror (Look into My Eyes)
Another Hit and Run
Love Bites
Rock On
Two Steps Behind
Bringin' On the Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria
Armageddon It
Photograph
Pour Some Sugar on Me

The encore was Rock of Ages

The video and light show was the perfect compliment to the hits. The lights were so bright that my cell phone camera had trouble capturing images. Here's the one picture that isn't just a blob of light:

That's Joe Elliot on the screen, the stage is to the left, and the concession area is to the far right. Beer was $8 and double shots of Crown Royal were $11. Yikes!

I am exhausted, sore, and hoarse today, but I haven’t had that much fun in a very long time. What a terrific birthday gift!

Therapeutic Writing

2007-09-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows anything about therapy probably knows about the therapeutic value of writing letters to vent and express emotions to people who have hurt them. They key is to use the letter for therapy only…you’re not supposed to mail the letter. Expressing your feelings to another person in the form of a letter is therapeutic even if that person never reads the letter or knows what your feelings are.

My father and I don’t have a good relationship right now...maybe we never did. Dad is an alcoholic, a diagnosed manic-depressive (bi-polar), and possibly a sociopath. He is at times violent, angry, and selfish and he is always unapologetic. He is 64 years old and retired, but I’m still waiting for him to grow up.

I could write a book about all of the rotten crap he has done to me in my life, but I’m not interested in dredging up all that old pain. I’m trying to deal with the most recent load of crap that he has dumped into my life, and since I have a blog I’m doing it in cyberspace.

This is the letter I will never mail.

Dear Dad,

I wish you had taken the time to listen to what I wanted to say to you on the phone the other night.

I wanted to tell you that your behavior and your attitude are hurting your family.

When you get drunk in public, drive drunk and steal things you hurt the whole family and make me doubt your trustworthiness.

By refusing to listen to what I have to say about these issues, you show total disregard for my feelings.

Your drinking doesn’t just affect you and your health. You don’t take care of yourself, so how can I trust you to take care of Mom if she gets sick?

Mom wants to retire next year, but if you continue to have legal problems, she will have to keep working to pay your fines.

Mom wanted to plan a trip for the two of you to visit me in my new home, but with your legal problems I don’t know if you will be allowed to travel. And frankly, I don’t feel I can trust you to behave properly in my home.

I am not asking you to change. You are who you are, and I understand that, but you have said and done many unkind things over the years and I am frustrated and hurt by your blatantly unapologetic nature.

Maybe it is too much to expect you to apologize, but that’s what I wanted to hear that night on the phone. I wanted you to say, “I’m sorry” and I wanted to feel like you really meant it.

Over the years there have been many things that I would have liked an apology for; the beatings I received as a child, the distance between our family and the rest of the relatives during the years that you were not speaking to them, the times you didn’t come home for dinner because you were drinking at the bar, the hateful things you said to me about my son after he died, and now this most recent incident in which you once again put your own needs over those of your family.

I will respect your decision if you decide not to get help for your drinking problem, but I will no longer put myself in a position to be hurt by you. If that means I have to limit my contact with you, I will do so.

I love you, Dad and I hope you decide to get help, for your health and the sake of your family.

Birthday Thoughts

2007-09-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

My birthday is on Tuesday, and for the first time ever, the gift my mother is sending me will be late. It only took her 41 years to make that mistake, so kudos to her.

This year I asked for a copy of my maternal grandparent’s wedding photo. It may sound like an odd thing to ask for, but I love old photographs, and I have very few pictures of my late Grammy, so it seemed like the perfect thing to ask for. Again.

I actually asked for it two years ago, but my mother never sent it. This year, since I asked for it again, she made the effort and had a copy made. The only thing I resent is that she is also sending a copy of the photo to my brother. Not that I don’t want him to have a copy of it, it’s just that he never asked for it and I’ve had to wait two years to get mine. Jeez. Does sibling rivalry ever die?

Hubby’s gift is a date to see Def Leppard in concert in Phoenix. I only had to mention what a great birthday gift this would be one time...he rushed right out and bought tickets! This surprised me a little because we haven’t been to a concert in almost 20 years. We saw Def Leppard twice before, but both times were in the 1980’s…we’ve all aged significantly since then, so I just hope the concert will be a good experience.

It would really suck if we went, had a lousy time, and had to live with a bad concert memory instead of the ‘when we were young and awesome’ memory.

I think it’s officially too late to hope I die before I get old.

Oh, well. Happy birthday to me!

Contentment

2007-08-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

For the last few weeks, I have noticed a marked increase in the contentedness of myself and my hubby. I attribute this warm, fuzzy feeling to the fact that after weeks of doing all of my household chores, my husband has found a new appreciation for all that I do for us in general and for him specifically.

The first few weeks after my surgery, I was unable to perform even the most basic household task, such as pouring myself a bowl of cereal or washing said bowl after eating. No longer was I picking up after myself and I certainly was unable to pick up after him. Coincidentally, the “dish fairy’ was absent from our household, no longer available to spirit dirty glasses and plates from the living room and den to the kitchen (where she kindly loaded the dishwasher and put the clean plates away). Hubby was on his own for several weeks, and he actually commented that it was hard to do his job and mine. (He would rather stick to his job.)

Not that I haven’t felt appreciated in the past, but it’s nice to hear the gratitude out loud every once in a while. After 21 years, I think I was due.

Getting Better All the Time

2007-07-18T13:00:00.001-07:00

Today is the third anniversary of my son’s death. Remarkably, I am not sitting in a puddle of tears as I was last year and the year before. The axiom “time heals all wounds” comes to mind, although I think it is a cruel statement mainly used by people who want you to shut up and stop crying.

The human mind simply cannot function in a heightened state of grief and, therefore, must let go of the pain of loss. The chemical process the body uses to achieve such a marvel is a mystery to me, but since all human emotions are brought on by chemical reactions and I have observed a change in my emotions over the years, I trust that the marvel of proper brain chemistry is alive and well in my head.

In the early days of my grief, I felt that surely I would die or go mad. How could a loving mother carry on without her only child? It couldn’t be possible to continue living and find happiness in a world that did not include my son. Today I realize, with some melancholy, that not only is it possible but that I am doing it.

I miss my son every day, but that sense of loss no longer defines my every waking hour. Nothing I ever do will bring me such a sense of joy and achievement like being a mother did, but there are good times to be had.

The Inattentive Butler

2007-06-21T02:31:00.000-07:00

Hubby has been waiting on me hand-and-foot for the past 8 days since I came home from the hospital. He has never had to be so Johnny-on-the-spot with the help and I think he’s getting a little tired of his role as butler. I asked him for some peanut butter toast and he responded that it was something I could probably make for myself. The hell you say!

When I had back surgery 10 years ago, my son was the one who helped me the most. Sure, hubby did the shopping and the heavy lifting, but my son cooked my meals (microwave entrees mostly), performed light housekeeping duties, and brought things to my bedside so I wouldn’t have to get up unnecessarily. He kept me company when he wasn’t at school and was generally helpful and kind. That’s the kind of boy I raised.

Hubby, on the other hand, is used to being waited on. I blame myself for this. He works hard so I try to make his evenings as stress-free and relaxing as possible. I am happy to see him when he gets home, so I bring him something to drink (root beer, not a martini), refresh his glass when necessary, and try to make his evening hours pleasant. That’s the kind of wife I am.

I won’t be ready to resume my normal housekeeping and shopping routine for several weeks, but I think my days of complete helplessness are over. Hubby sees that I am regaining my strength and he doesn’t want to do things for me that I am able to do for myself…mainly because he’s had enough servitude, but partly because it’s good for me to be moving around a little more.

So I thank you dear hubby for all of your help. Now, about that toast…

Recovering From Surgery

2007-06-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

It has been one week since my hysterectomy and I am resting comfortably. Hubby is waiting on me hand and foot, cooking for me and doing the housework. Even the cats are helping my recovery by sitting with me in bed and providing comfort.

I’m still on Percoset, so I’m a little woozy, but the pain is under control. I am amazed at my body’s ability to heal. Last week the surgeon sliced me opened, wiggled around my insides, pulled stuff out and sewed me back up...and today I’m sitting at the computer communicating with the world. Amazing.

OK, I’m going back to bed.

All Moved In

2007-05-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I are settling in to our new home quite nicely. The cardboard jungle has been cut down to size and all of the necessary and important things are in place. Hopefully that was the last move we will have for the foreseeable future. I’m far too tired to do this again any time soon.

Moving means living with clutter, which is not something I do well. I believe in the old adage “a place for everything and everything in its place”. I don’t function well when I can’t find things, so I unpack as quickly as possible every time I move. This irritates hubby, who takes a more leisurely approach to unpacking and organizing. He has only unpacked about half of his boxes, which only made up about 10% of the total number of boxes. (Slow poke!)

Although I have finished unpacking, there are still plenty of things to do, and now that we own a house again I imagine that the “to do” list will never truly end.

Sigh. I need a nap.

Moving Day

2007-04-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

Moving day fast approaches. I have been cleaning the new place, packing the old place, and I ache just about every place! I have been to Home Depot or Lowes five times in the last week and my shopping list is still a mile long.

Whose idea was this? Oh, yeah…hubby’s.

I am exhausted, but eventually the chaos will settle and the dust will clear. But by then the first mortgage payment will be due. Ugh! (Take deep cleansing breaths.)

My computer is being packed up today, so I won’t be posting or visiting my usual forum haunts for at least a week. Take care.

So We’re Buying a House

2007-04-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of stressful searching, hubby and I have found a house that we both like, in the town we want to live in, and for a price we are willing to pay. Hurray!

The house, while not being my dream house, is very nice. It is only seven years old, has a nice, open floor plan, and it is roomy enough for us, our cats, and our stuff. Hubby gets his den and garage work-shop, we will have a guest room (should we ever have guests), and there is a small yard that I can eventually landscape. The house needs a few minor repairs before we move in, but nothing we can’t handle.

Hubby was the one who initially suggested that we buy a house again, but with all my talk of plans to update, remodel and landscape, he is more than a little freaked out over the prospect of paying for all of this. I think I need to quietly dream-remodel for a while and let him get used to the idea of having a house again before I start talking about a budget.

I suggested that instead of buying a house, he could quit his job, sell all of our belonging, and we could bum around Europe for a year or so until we run out of money. Then we could come crawling back and beg our family to let us crash with them until we got haircuts and jobs again. It sounds good to me, but he said no.

I guess that makes him the mature one.

Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell

2007-04-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

I’m worried about my friend Grace. I’ve had this niggling thought in the back of my brain for some time now that she is a chronic liar. In the past, I’ve caught her in small lies that weren’t worth mentioning but lately the lies seem to be getting bigger. And she seems to be lying to cover up other lies.

Grace has been recovering from surgery and is finally able to walk again after months of rest, recuperation and physical therapy. She is now looking for a job, since she claims the job she had at the time of the accident is no longer available to her. The day of her accident, she went to turn in her two-week notice to leave her job. On the way home, she had her accident and begged her boss to disregard the fact that she just quit because she was suddenly in desperate need of health benefits. I’ve heard three versions of this story: she quit but her boss is ignoring that fact to keep her in benefits; she didn’t quit but cut her hours from full-time to part-time; she discussed the possibility of quitting but didn’t actually tender her resignation. I don’t know which version is true.

Supposedly her employer has been paying for her medical benefits for the past eight months with the intention of taking her back when she is healthy enough to return. Now she says they don’t have a position available for her but they are still willing to pay for her medical benefits. Hmmm.

She told me about a fantastic opportunity she has to work for a family friend in Mexico while living rent free in a condo by the beach. I encouraged her to take the job. She has no children or significant other to tie her down, she needs a job, the job in Mexico would give her experience in the field she has been studying in college, she likes Mexico, and she wants to learn Spanish. What is there to think about? Take the job! She agrees that it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but she hasn’t taken it. This makes me wonder if she dreamt the whole thing up.

She has told me about job interviews she has had recently and the fantastic positions she is being considered for and the high salary she commands, but I don’t believe a word of it. I’ve worked with her and I know how she is on the job. I know the kind of work experience she has and the types of jobs she is likely to qualify for. I’ve watched her steal things and then make rationalizations about how she’s not hurting anyone with the theft. I’m worried that she is going to use me as a reference and potential employers are going to call and ask me to attest to her character…which I can no longer do. The doubts are just too numerous to ignore any longer. Grace has gotten worse with the stress of the accident, being unemployed and having to overcome months of pain and physical disability.

I know I can’t change her behavior…she has to do that for herself. But do I continue to ignore the lies or do I have a frank discussion with her and risk losing her friendship? I don’t have a lot of friends, but I would rather have no friends than compromise my principles.

Looks like I just answered my own question.

Damn.

The Search Continues

2007-03-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been house hunting for several weeks in a soft housing market. There are a lot of homes for sale and they aren’t selling quickly, mainly because sellers are listing their homes for more than the market will currently bear. Phoenix real estate values have decreased over the past year while the previous three years saw record gains. Sellers are still holding on to the fantasy of making a huge profit at the expense of the buyer, but this mentality is costing them time and money. I’ve seen more than a few listings where sellers refuse to accept an offer below asking price on homes that have been on the market for six months.

I’ve made offers on three homes in the past three weeks. The first offer was verbally accepted but the seller did not return the contract. When my agent called to inquire what the delay was, we were told they had received a higher offer. I wasn’t willing to be involved in a bidding war so I declined. Two weeks later, that home is still an active listing, so I think I was told a little white lie.

My second offer was accepted and we moved on to the inspection phase. The house is 50 years old but it was completely remodeled so everything was shiny and new inside. The home inspector went over every inch of the place and discovered that all was not well beneath the shiny veneer. Apparently the remodel was not completed by a licensed contractor and there are major structural and electrical problems. Add to that a termite infestation which was improperly treated last fall and it was enough to turn my stomach. We got away from that property as quickly as possible.

I made an offer on a third home just yesterday and received a counter offer this morning. The seller was only willing to come down $1,000 in price, which to my mind isn’t much of a counter offer. The home has been on the market for 41 days and counting, so maybe they’ll get nervous enough to take my offer seriously in a few weeks.

I’m in no hurry.

House Hunting Blues

2007-03-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

In the past week, I’ve been out with my real estate agent three times and have visited about a dozen homes. Add to that the home listings that I’ve waded through online to come up with just those twelve, and I’ve considered a shit load of houses this week.

There was one home that I could definitely see myself living in, so I decided to make an offer. My agent called the seller’s agent who said they had an offer on the property already. Her reply was to keep us in mind if the current offer didn’t work out. This is how civilized real estate negotiations are handled, but the seller’s agent wasn’t too keen on playing by the rules. He immediately said he would refuse the current offer if we could beat it by X amount. I said I could and my agent had a verbal acceptance of my offer within minutes. We began discussing the offer contract but the seller’s agent called back and said I needed to add another several thousand dollars to the price in order to get the house.

Wait a minute! He had just accepted my offer, and moments later wanted more money. Sorry, I’m not going to have my chain yanked. Either honor the offer you accepted a few minutes ago or go away. So, he went away.

First thing the next morning, the seller’s agent called and said the original offer I made was good enough, so I got together with my agent and put the offer in writing. We only gave the seller 24 hours to respond, thinking that the shorter the time-frame was the less time he and his agent had to try to find a higher bidder.

Twenty-four hours came and went and I still hadn’t heard from my agent. After 30 hours I broke down and called her. She had heard from the seller’s agent who said he needed until the next morning to finish his end of the paperwork, so we should expect an acceptance by morning. That turned out to be almost 48 hours, which was too long. This morning my agent called and said the seller had a higher offer on the table and it was almost 10 percent higher than my offer. Consider my chain yanked once again.

I know exactly how far I can stretch our budget to afford a home; my husband and I are not wealthy people but we live a nice, upper-middle class existence. To have some stranger tempt me with a home in my price range only to try to get me involved in a bidding war is infuriating! I steamed for a few minutes, brooded for an hour and then hit the MLS search again.

Better luck next week.

Here We Go Again

2007-03-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

So the other night hubby says to me, “You know, I’d really like a bigger den…and maybe a garage.”

Crap.

Looks like it’s time to go house hunting.

Let me explain my reluctance in looking for a house. I’m quite content in my current apartment; the neighbors are quiet, the grounds are well kept, my rent didn’t increase when we renewed our lease, and the neighborhood has everything I need without being overly-commercial. I’ve lived in plenty of apartments, but this is the nicest one so far.

Our first home was lovely; however, after buying it, we had a string of bad luck. My husband lost his job while we were in the process of moving out of our apartment and into the house we had just closed on days before. Within a year of buying the house, both my mother-in-law and son had passed away.

Rationally I know the house didn’t kill my family members or cause my husband to be “down-sized”. I don’t believe in bad luck; it was simply a series of unfortunate events (sorry Lemony Snicket). Random chance, not karma or bad luck, is the reason for my past troubles.

My rational mind knows these things, and yet the thought of looking for a new house gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Sure, I’d like to have a bigger den, a guest room and maybe a small yard, but I’m fine where I am. Apartments have their beneficial qualities, such as not having to fix anything yourself, and the ability to move on short notice. Try doing that with a house.

But the local housing market has settled down and interest rates are still fairly low, so this is probably as good a time as any to buy a house. It doesn’t hurt to look, and since we’re happy in this apartment, we’ll be less likely to rush into a less-than-stellar home purchase.

Here’s hoping for a series of fortunate events.

Interlopers

2007-03-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

I’m going to start answering the door with a gun in my hands. Twice in the past week, my day has been interrupted by some random person ringing my door bell and saying “I’m not here to sell you anything”; which means they are totally here to sell me something.

I live in a gated community, and yet these maggots manage to get in and annoy the residents of my complex. Okay, mainly they annoy me but I’m sure they annoy others as well. There is a sign at the gate saying No Trespassing, No Soliciting. When I point this out to the interlopers at my door they just smile and shrug.

I think if I were to answer the door with, (Insert sound of racking the slide here) “Can I help you?” I wouldn’t have to say anything more.

Maybe next time.

Life Goes On

2007-02-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

I called the salon to schedule an appointment with my stylist to get a haircut. I’ve been letting my hair grown out, so it’s been a few months since I’ve gone in for a cut. When I asked for an appointment with Mario, the guy who’s been cutting my hair for the past five years, the receptionist told me she had some bad news.

Usually “bad news” in the salon business means the stylist has moved to another salon, so I was not bracing myself for truly bad news. Mario is dead. What? No, he can’t be dead. He has a house and dogs and people who love him! My brain, rational organ that it is, produced these thoughts instantaneously. Alas, giving reasons why something can’t be so doesn’t change reality. Mario committed suicide on Christmas day, two months after breaking up with his fiancée. (Yes, straight men can cut hair.)

I’ve lost three people in my life to suicide. Two relatives and now a guy I would have been happy to have as a family member.

The receptionist gave me an appointment with another stylist, and I was sad to see her working at Mario’s former station. His spot has been filled, but he cannot be replaced. He was a sweet man who deserved more happiness than he found in life. From now on whenever I get a haircut, I will think of him.

RIP, Mario.

Conversation

2007-01-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

Some days I think if it weren’t for our cats my husband and I would have nothing to talk about. After twenty one years of marriage, we’ve covered every subject; I know all of his stories and he knows all of mine. Are we doomed to spend the rest of our days talking about the weather and discussing how many times Kitty and Misty puked on the rug today?

Some nights he comes home from work and asks the cat how her day was and, based on her facial expression and body language, I will answer for her.

Hubby: How was your day, Misty?

Me: It was pretty good. I slept on this nice soft bed and then I ran into the living room for no apparent reason.

Hubby: Want to play with this string?

Me: No thanks, I’m resting. All that running wore me out.

How pathetic is that? And yes, he asks the cats about their day before he asks me about mine.

I know it’s natural to fall into comfortable silence with your spouse, but I wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to my cats.

They should really warn you about this sort of thing before you get married.

Career? What Career?

2007-01-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

My husband earns a good living doing something he enjoys. His career is in IT (that’s Information Technology for us non-computer types).

I have no career direction. Maybe this is because I’ve never had a job I really loved. I’m not opposed to an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, but does it have to be tedious and boring? Also, I hate getting bossed around and bosses seem to live for that sort of thing.

Over the years I’ve tried many things; data entry, bookkeeping, customer service, retail, banking, child-care, etc. When I was twenty, I had a job in a movie theater but I always went home smelling like popcorn. That got old really fast.

I’ve taken college courses and done volunteer work in an attempt to find my calling, but to no avail. Nothing has tickled my fancy. Experts say you should do what you love and the money will follow. But what do I love to do?

My Myers-Briggs personality type is ISFJ. Introverted, Sensing, Feeling and Judging. When I took the assessment, the results came with career suggestions. Health care and education were listed as promising the highest possibility for career satisfaction. I have no interest in math or science, so medicine is out, and I have no patience for a room full of other people’s children, so teaching is out. Needless to say, I find these test results unhelpful.

I don’t want to sell things, work outdoors, climb ladders, give injections, or spend my days strapped to a desk and a phone; and I don’t want to spend my days being nice to rude people just because the boss is watching. There are plenty of things I don’t want to do, but so far this hasn’t helped me determine what I do want to do.

The good news is eventually I’ll be old enough to retire.

Cozy and Warm

2006-12-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

Today I took down the holiday decorations. The joyfulness is over. Now it’s back to normal, everyday life.

Today on the WWGHA forum, someone posted the question “Which Deadly Sin Are You?”. It didn’t take much thinking to decide that I am Sloth (Acedia).

Lest you think my home is a pig sty, further explanation is probably necessary. I have not had a paying job in over two years. I work my ass off at home, cleaning, shopping, cooking, doing laundry, etc., but I do not have a paying job.

Since my son’s death, I find it very difficult to put up with people and the inevitable crap and baggage they bring with them to nearly every situation. When dealing with the general public, I used to assist, coddle and acquiesce; however, now I mock them, ignore them, or completely avoid them. Since my profession was in customer service, this newfound inability to tolerate idiots disqualifies me for that type of work.

I have considered going back to school to learn new things and get a job doing something else, but right now I am too lazy to read textbooks, write term papers, and I seriously can’t see myself sucking up to a professor (who would probably be several years my junior) to get an ‘A’, which is the only grade I ever settled for in the past.

Where does this leave me? At home, cozy and warm, that’s where. I’m not sure which vice my hubby suffers from in order to tolerate my “deadly sin”, but he seems happy enough, and at this stage in my life, that’s really all I want at the end of the day.

Christmastime is Here

2006-12-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

The tree is trimmed; presents are nestled beneath. Cookies are baking in the oven; their aroma fills the house. Carols happily play on the stereo, a festive wreath hangs on the front door, and holiday cards are displayed. From all outward appearances, my home looks like many Christian households. However: Ritual is not to be equated with religious belief.

I enjoy the trappings of the holiday, but the reason I celebrate is not a religious one. My holiday is purely secular...in fact, I only call it Christmas because it is socially convenient to do so. Christmas for me is, and has been for many years, a time to appreciate family and friends, indulge in food and fun, and reflect on the year that is rapidly coming to a close. No god required.

This year has been kind: while the sorrow of my son’s loss still looms large in my life, there have been happy times to be grateful for. My loved ones are, for the most part, healthy and happy. I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge, a few dollars in the bank, and a loving husband to share my life with. To ask for more might seem greedy when there are people truly suffering in the world, so I am trying to be content.

I wish you peace, contentment and joy this holiday season, however you choose to celebrate.

Bookstore Bandit

2006-12-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with my friend Grace. (I’ve mentioned her on this blog before; she had a bad car accident a few months ago and still can’t walk or drive.) She was feeling a little cooped up at home, so we went to her favorite bookstore and then out for lunch.

While we were at the bookstore, I picked up a paperback I was considering adding to my collection. As I was glancing at it, I found several gift receipts tucked between the pages. Apparently this book and several others had been returned to the store recently and the clerk inadvertently left the receipts inside. I turned to my friend to show her what I found and remarked that a less honest person than myself could walk up to the cashier right now and return a book they had not purchased. Grace asked to see the receipts, which I handed to, and then I continued with my book browsing.

A moment later I turned to find her stuffing paperback books into her oversized purse. The dishonest idea that occurred to me, which I would not do, was materializing before my very eyes! She then proceeded to scour the bookstore for the titles on the gift receipts which she added to her now bulging purse. I kept my distance and continued to browse and make my purchases.

As we left the store and headed back to the car to go out for lunch, we had this exchange:

Grace: I hope you don’t think less of me because of what just happened.
Me: It was my idea. I just wouldn’t actually do it. It’s not worth it.
Grace: It was worth it for me. I just don’t want you to think less of me.
Me: Don’t worry about it.

She then went on to justify her actions by saying she purchased more books than she would have because she had the extra credit from the “returns”. Obviously she felt guilty about what she did, but I wasn’t going to lecture her about it or offer her absolution.

This experience makes me wonder if she is worthy of my trust in other areas of our relationship. I am trying not to judge her too harshly as she has recently been through the trauma of an accident, several surgeries, and has been basically house-bound since the accident. She has medical bills and legal fees piling up and is still unable to work. Somehow I don’t see how $40 worth of paperback books is going to put an end to her troubles.

Yes, dishonest ideas come to my mind; however it is my belief that the punishment would far outweigh any possible gain I might experience from participating in an illegal activity. If I could steal enough money to disappear to my own private island, that would be tempting; anything less isn’t.

Blue Christmas Part II

2006-12-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

I’m having mixed emotions about the holiday season. For the first time since my son’s death, I’m actually looking forward to the holidays. The first year I completely avoided Christmas and the rest of my family by taking a vacation. I didn’t even buy presents. The following year, we were conveniently planning another cross-country move. I begged off holiday gatherings and decorating because I was once again putting all of my earthly possessions into cardboard boxes. Presents were purchased, but I was devoid of any feeling of holiday cheer.

But this year, I find myself longing for the traditional holiday trappings: shopping, wrapping, decorating, sending cards, cooking, baking and listening to Christmas music. The only thing missing is my son; thus the mixed emotions.

I bought extravagant gifts for my niece and nephew and spent a little too much on the rest of the family, too. Maybe I am overcompensating. If I am honest with myself, there’s no maybe about it.

I miss all of the mundane tasks that came with mothering and with Christmas approaching I am reminded even more than usual that something very important is missing from my life. Daily life is too quiet and holidays are especially quiet.

So, in an effort to foster the tiny spark of holiday cheer I am feeling, I got a few decorations out yesterday and bought a new artificial tree (albeit a very small one). Even the weather is cooperating; the last few days have been unseasonably cold here in Arizona, with low temps just below freezing. Brrrr! I dug out my Christmas CD’s and DVD’s and am preparing to assault my senses with as many cheerful sights and sounds as humanly possible.

Even with all of these hopeful activities, I know I am going to have myself at least one good cry this holiday season. I just hope it’s not in the middle of a mall crowded with shoppers.

(See Archives: 8/6/06)

Thanksgiving 2006

2006-11-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Obligatory List Warning!

This is just a partial list…I could go on all day about what’s good in my life right now. If that sounds like I’m bragging, I’m not. It would be very easy for me to wallow in sorrow and claim that I have nothing to be thankful for since my son died. But I would be lying to myself. I still have a lot to be grateful for.

• Hot showers in the morning…aaahh!
• My loving, supportive husband.
• Bright sunshine, even when it’s 112 degrees (it’s a dry heat).
• Having enough money to pay the bills every month and a few bucks leftover.
• Two annoyingly crazy cats…they bring a smile to my face every day.
• No major health problems for me or hubby.
• Our big screen TV. Oh yeah!
• Friends and loved ones; though the list is growing shorter, I consider
myself fortunate to have so many people in my corner.
• Having a full belly and a roof over my head in a world where millions are
hungry and homeless.
• The right to keep and bear arms.
• Holiday leftovers. (Yummy! )

Happy Turkey Day!

The Devil You Know

2006-11-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

There was an article in the paper today about a fifteen-year-old local boy who is in a coma after overdosing on Xanax, Morphine and Ecstasy. His family doesn’t know if he took large quantities of the drugs accidentally or if he intended to end his life.

The family is heartbroken over the thought that he was possibly suicidal and over the fact that he was abusing drugs without their knowledge. (Friends told the parents that this was not the boy's first encounter with illegal drug use.)

My son was a teenager when he died and reading this article made me wonder: is it better to lose a child and know the reason why or to sit at the bedside of a comatose child, not knowing what the outcome could be?

As depressed as I am over my son’s death, I wouldn’t want to face the alternative: to spend the rest of his life sitting by his bedside while he lays in a coma, watching him waste away, fearing that I may have to decide one day to “pull the plug”; or maybe he would wake up from the coma and struggle with severe brain damage for the rest of his life. These hypotheticals seem even worse than the reality that I live with.

The family in the article could be facing these scenarios. I would not want to trade places with those parents and I’m sure they wouldn’t want to trade places with me.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know? I don’t know. Maybe there is hope for this family. Or maybe there is only more tragedy yet to come.

Time will tell.

Give Me A Break!

2006-11-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hubby left on a business trip this morning and as I dropped him off at the airport I felt a sense of relief that he was leaving for a few days. I really need a break from that man!

After 21 years of marriage, I guess it’s normal to need some space. Last month we had a stressful trip to PA to visit relatives and yesterday we had a fight about the downloading issue. (See yesterday’s blog entry.) Too much pressure in too short a period of time…something had to give. The timing of this business trip couldn’t have been any better.

Usually hubby and I are quite companionable…we enjoy spending time with each other. We have similar interests and hobbies we can share; even if our activity is sitting on opposite ends of the sofa reading books, we are pretty good at being in each other’s company. And we know the value of letting the other person explore their own interests alone. But every relationship has its rough patches. I’m not concerned about this one. By the time he returns, we’ll be happy to see each other again.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy a little “me” time.

Downloaders Beware! Update

2006-11-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, it happened again. Cox Cable suspended our cable internet service because of a complaint regarding BitTorrent downloads on my account. Hubby downloads TV shows from file-sharing sites so we can watch all of our shows in high-def without watching commercials. He stopped downloading pay-TV programs from HBO because they lodged a complaint back in September.

This time it was NBC that complained. NBC?! We pay for cable; we pay to receive NBC programming. If we miss a show and want to download it, I don’t see the problem. We’ve already paid for the privilege of watching the show, haven’t we?

The Cox Cable has a “three strikes and your out” policy; three complaints and they shut off your internet service permanently. We’ve already had two, so we’re shopping for alternative arrangements.

Hubby and I had a huge argument over this. I think that he should stop downloading programs. He thinks the cable company is in the wrong. Personally, I don’t feel like spending money on an attorney just so he can demonstrate how right he is and how wrong the cable company is. It’s not worth the time, money or trouble. This particular issue is not important enough to me to fight the system.

We were able to cope before BitTorrent came along. I say we bail on BitTorretns until the networks stop hassling people for using the technology.

There are other ways of getting any programs we miss, such as using our DVR, recording with My HD-130 HDTV computer card, or signing up for TiVo. If we decide we need to see a season we missed, we could wait until the show is released on DVD.

This issue makes me sick, and it’s not just the TV networks who complain. The recording industry has sued thousands of people for sharing music files, including a woman who claims she is “internet illiterate ”. Are lawsuits from the TV networks far behind?

I think I’ll go read a book.

I Voted Today

2006-11-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

OK, I didn’t really vote today…I had an early ballot and mailed it in over a week ago. I’m too lazy to stand in line at the polling place, show three forms of ID, and fill out a long, confusing ballot with no chair to sit in while I refer to my notes to assist me. I actually researched the ballot issues and it took more than a little bit of time. In Arizona there were 19 ballot propositions, a bond issue, judges from County Superior Court, State Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals up for re-election along with the Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, etc; the list goes on and on. Who are these people?

I am a registered Libertarian. I know that most (all?) of the Libertarians on the ballot in my state will not win the seat they ran for, but even if my votes were merely s symbolic gesture it was still worth my time to vote. The Republicans and Democrats are doing a shitty job of running things. Libertarians believe government should take a smaller role in people’s lives. Here’s a quote from the Libertarian Party website:

"What is a Libertarian?

Libertarians believe that you have the right to live your life as you wish, without the government interfering -- as long as you don’t violate the rights of others. Politically, this means Libertarians favor rolling back the size and cost of government, and eliminating laws that stifle the economy and control people’s personal choices."

Libertarian Party Website

If we all took a little more responsibility for the world around us, instead of relying on the government to take care of us (and complaining about it when they do a lousy job) the world would be a better place.

I hope you participated in the democratic process today, no matter who you voted for.

Time Waits for No Cat

2006-11-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my cat Misty began tucking me into bed at night. I get ready for bed around 10:30-11 o’clock nearly every night; after I brush my teeth, I climb under the covers with a book and read for a few minutes before turning off the light. Misty sits on the bed while I brush my teeth and then joins me while I read. Some nights she lies on my stomach and purrs, which is really nice. All cats should offer this service.

Last night I stayed up a little later than usual because hubby and I were watching a movie. At 11 p.m. Misty came into the living room, sat on the floor and stared at me for a few minutes while I was watching TV and then she started to meow…loudly.

Misty: Meow!
Me: What’s-a-matter baby?
Misty: Meow, meow! (Glances toward bedroom.)
Me: Yes, I know it’s time for bed. I’ll just be a few more minutes.
Misty: Meow. (Walks into bedroom and sits on bed.)

I swear she can tell time! She sat there and waited for me to go to bed. I’m not sure, but she may have been giving me disapproving looks!

Misty also wakes me up in the morning by jumping on the bed, meowing, and walking on me (or sitting on me) until I wake up and pet her. Once I’m up, she heads for the kitchen to wait for breakfast. If I sleep late on the weekend, she is very put out. I guess she doesn’t understand the concept of weekends.

This is not the first time I’ve noticed Misty’s time-telling ability. When hubby is late coming home from work, Misty sits sentry near the front door waiting for his arrival. Once he arrives, she meows excitedly and follows him around as if berating him for being late.

Women don’t like to be kept waiting and, apparently, neither does Misty.

My Theory on Acting

2006-10-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was watching the movie “13 Going on 30” the other day when hubby walked by and remarked that Mark Ruffalo is the same character no matter what movie he’s in, thus illustrating my theory on acting.

My theory on acting is this: actors get paid gobs of money to say words written by other people, but they are still being themselves when they say them. There are very few actors who can disappear into a role and commit to it so completely that you forget who you are watching. Tom Hanks pulled it off with Forrest Gump. I don’t know about anybody else, but when I watch that movie I don’t see Tom Hanks.

Tom Cruise is one of those actors who can’t really act. He is the same character in every movie he has ever been in: the young, cocky, headstrong hero type with perfect hair who gets the girl. Boring! Not that I haven’t enjoyed some of his movies, but I always know I’m watching Tom Cruise on the screen. Why he earns so much damn money is beyond me.

Hubby said MI: 3 was a good movie despite having Tom Cruise in it. It comes out on DVD tomorrow, so I’ll be able to judge for myself. Once Netflix mails a copy to me, that is.

Reservations

2006-10-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

I just got home from a visit to the family homestead in PA. Since I live in AZ and time was a factor, I was forced to fly. I hate flying, which is not the same as being afraid to fly.

I hate everything that goes along with an airplane flight: dragging my luggage through the airport; paying extra if my luggage weighs two ounces more than the 50 lb. limit; being forced to strip before going through security (watch, jacket, sneakers); being selected for additional screening (during which the security guard fondles me more than my husband has in a long time); having my shampoo confiscated for being in a generic, unlabeled travel bottle instead of it’s original packaging (which is larger than 3 oz. and no longer allowed); showing ID over and over again; cramming myself into the too narrow, overpriced airline seat next to a guy who thinks my armrest belongs to him simply because he’s a man. Aaaarrgh! The frustration!

I purchased our tickets online and selected aisle seats for both hubby and me. I like an aisle seat, so the only way I can sit next to hubby is with him shoe-horned into the middle seat or across from me in the other aisle seat. Since I wouldn’t wish a middle seat on my worst enemy, and the aisle is only about 7 inches away, I selected the latter option. We checked in and made our way to the gate, and since the airline attendant handed the boarding passes to hubby I didn’t see them until we were about to board and it was too late. Hubby had been reassigned to a middle seat! Noooooooooo! We spent the flight practically in each others laps which made the day even worse than I was expecting.

I know Jerry Seinfeld has already waxed philosophical about this issue, but when you make a reservation it should be held in the manner you intended it to be held. If you reserve an aisle seat, you shouldn’t have to cram yourself into the middle seat. If you reserve a luxury vehicle, you shouldn’t have to drive a sub-compact.

Which reminds me: the next time we need a rental car I am going to handle the reservation, not hubby!

Friday the 13th

2006-10-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

Paraskevidekatriaphobia: the fear of Friday the 13th.

I am not a superstitious person, but I do believe that people act especially stupid on certain days of the year; namely on a full moon, Halloween, New Years Eve, and Friday the 13th.

Hospital ER’s are especially busy and many women go into labor unexpectedly during a full moon. These are not scientific observations, but many health care professionals who work in hospitals would agree that these examples are supported by anecdotal evidence.

According to myth, All Hallows Eve (or Halloween) is a mystical time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Pagans of old, fearful of ghosts and other things that go bump in the night, lit fires and made sacrifices to the dead. Today we carry on those traditions by lighting bonfires and jack-o-lanterns, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters and dressing up as creatures of the night.

Many stupid things are done in the name of ringing in the New Year; unattainable and pointless resolutions are made and relationships are hastily begun or ended by people who are terrified to be alone on such a symbolic night. New Years Eve is also a time for drunken revelry; not having to worry about getting killed by a drunk driver makes celebrating at home an attractive option for many, myself included.

Contrary to Hollywood movies and urban legends, masked axe murderers are not something people commonly worry about encountering on Friday the 13th; however, many people who get fired or have a car accident on this day will claim that bad mojo is partially to blame. Who among us can resist the easy out of laying blame on superstition rather than taking responsibility for bad decisions?

Like I said, I’m not a superstitious person but I plan to stay close to home today…just in case.

Chores

2006-10-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

I schedule my household chores like an appointment. Is that odd?

I dust and vacuum twice a week: I recently changed days to Monday and Thursday from Tuesday and Friday because hubby just started working from home on Fridays and I don’t want to disturb him while he’s working in the den. Plus he sneezes when I dust.

I clean the bathroom on Wednesday and Sunday and wash the hard floors on Sunday, too. Dishes are done daily and the litter box gets scooped every other day. I spot-clean counters, do laundry, and put things away in between these scheduled cleaning days so the house stays neat and tidy. I hate living in a messy house.

This may sound very anal retentive, but trust me when I say that my house is a mess compared to my mother’s home. She moves the furniture when she vacuums (!) and makes the bed every day. My idea of making the bed is pulling the blankets smooth as I get out. Misty likes to sleep on the bed and she hates lumps.

Hubby treats every flat surface as a potential resting place for his stuff. He hates it when I put his stuff away and I hate it when he leaves stuff out. The compromise is that I give him a two day clean up warning. If it’s still out two days after I’ve asked him to put it away, it’s fair game for me to clean up.

Two Saturdays ago, he bought a new target stand and left the assembly instructions and warranty registration form lying on the kitchen counter. After a full week of walking past the paperwork, I told him that I would find a suitable home for it if he didn’t take care of it himself. He said he’d take care of it, but I wound up putting it on his desk two days later. We didn’t argue about it, so the system seems to be working.

If I didn’t schedule my chores I might be tempted to skip vacuuming for a week, and with two cats in the house, that’s not a good idea. Dishes are my least favorite chore; it used to be ironing, but I try not to buy clothing that needs to be ironed, thus saving myself the trouble.

Cleaning can be a very Zen experience. The only problem with a clean house is that it immediately starts to get dirty again. It’s a vicious cycle.

Hallucinations

2006-09-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Kitty seems to have lost her fuzzy little mind. She’s been acting really strange lately; staring at the walls as if there are bugs crawling on them; stalking invisible foes across the carpet; howling in the middle of the night. Stuff like that.

I went to bed last night with a book and Misty took her usually spot next to me on the bed. Kitty started caterwauling in the darkness of the living room. Misty perked up her ears and looked at me with wide eyes as if to say, “What the hell is she carrying on about?”, but I had no answer for her.

This morning, Kitty was sniffing the rug, stalking the invisible foe again, while hubby and I stood not two feet away from her discussing her actions; she didn’t seem to notice we were in the room with her. I called her name several times and she ignored me; her ears didn’t even turn toward the sound of my voice. A few minutes later, she flopped on her side looking blissfully happy, smiling up at us as if nothing unusual had occurred.

I’ve been visiting my friend Grace a lot since her accident, and she occasionally gives her cats catnip. Could I be dragging it home on my shoes and setting off Kitty’s hallucinogenic episodes? The episodes do seem to be worse since I’ve been spending more time at Grace’s house.

Grace also has several large dogs and the youngest dog likes to sit at my feet. I always change my clothing after spending the afternoon at her house because of the dog hair, but I don’t change my sneakers. Could the smell of dog on my shoes be setting Kitty off?

Whether I’m making my cat crazy or vice versa, one thing is clear: there’s never a dull moment.

In the Blink of an Eye

2006-09-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Life can change in the blink of an eye; a debilitating illness, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the destruction caused by a natural disaster. This is a life lesson that I have experienced numerous times, and recently I witnessed a friend’s life fall victim to chance.

On September 2nd, a sunny Saturday afternoon, my friend (let's call her Grace) was driving down the road, heading home after running a few errands. She was driving north in the left-most lane when suddenly a car cuts across three lanes of traffic, east to west. Unable to complete the journey west and enter the southbound lanes of traffic, the car comes to a halt. Grace t-bones the offending vehicle and blinding pain screams through her body. Police and EMT arrive within minutes, but when you’re in that kind of pain even a few minutes is too long. My friend is rushed to a local hospital where she is x-rayed, poked and prodded for several hours; the crying finally ends in a drug induced haze.

Grace is told she has a shattered tib-fib bone; the place where the shin turns into the ankle is now a mass of broken bits of bone. She is transferred to another hospital where she receives an external fixator to hold the larger pieces of bone in place until the swelling goes down enough for the orthopedic surgeon to reconnect bone fragments with metal plates and screws. This surgery was completed 11 days after the accident at yet another hospital. Racked with pain and hospitalized, Grace went from being a vibrant, busy woman with a full-time job and a part-time college schedule to a helpless patient, relying upon nurses, friends and relatives for nearly everything. The driver who caused the accident walked out of the hospital that same day. Fourteen days, three hospitals, two surgeries, three plates and 12 screws later, Grace was finally discharged. She is hoping to walk again next spring.

Because of the Employment-at-Will doctrine, Grace’s employer is not required to hold her position for her while she recuperates. She may lose her job and health insurance at any time and it will take several months for her to receive money from the at-fault driver’s insurance company to cover medical costs and lost wages. When she is finally able to walk and drive again, she will need to buy another car, probably find another job, and register for classes at least six months behind schedule. Right now, she is unable to care for herself, her home and her pets: this accident has affected nearly every aspect of her life.

If Grace hadn’t slammed on the break during her accident, she may not have sustained such a harsh injury. If she hadn’t slowed down before the crash, the impact may have killed the other driver. If she had made one more stop before heading home, Grace may have taken another route and arrived home safely. If, if, if.

There are many events in life we wish we could un-do. Unfortunately, that’s not the way life works.

Be careful out there.

Oh, My Aching Back

2006-09-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

My back hurts. I had surgery nine years ago for an L5/S1 radiculopathy with lumbar disc herniation, and I’ve been living with some level of pain ever since. Some days it is a screaming, burning, stabbing pain, but most of the time it’s like a bad headache located in the vicinity of my tail bone and lower back. Far too often, the pain from the sciatic nerve shoots down into my left butt cheek and continues into the top of my thigh; those are the days when I limp around and try not to bend.

The surgeon said I developed post-surgical scar tissue in my back which is causing the continued irritation of the sciatic nerve. Since cutting into me is what caused the scar tissue, cutting into me again to remove the scar tissue wasn’t a good. He tried injections of various steroids to reduce the scar tissue, but I still have pain.

I take a prescription anti-inflammatory and a medication to deaden the nerve pain, but I still limp around pretty often. I’ve been offered narcotic pain medication, but I figure I’ll wait until I’m older and don’t care that I’m too buzzed on pain meds to think straight or drive a car. I see an OxyContin addiction in my future.

I’ve been told that exercise to increase my core muscle strength will reduce my pain, but so far that hasn’t worked out too well. Trainers and physical therapists usually don’t believe me when I tell them that they are pushing me too hard. Afterwards, when I’m in so much pain I can barely get out of bed for three days, they realize that I wasn’t kidding; that’s when they panic and drop me as a client. So mostly I do light exercises on my own with cardio thrown in for good measure. Weight loss would probably help my pain level, but I enjoy eating way too much to give up food. I figure I’ll be thin and pain-free when I’m dead.

Anyway, my back really hurts today, but things could be worse. Things could always be worse.

I think I’ll go lie down.

Downloaders Beware!

2006-09-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Hubby downloads TV shows from file-sharing sites so we don’t have to watch commercials. He also downloads pay-TV programs from premium channels we don’t subscribe to, like HBO. We compare it to asking a friend to tape a show for us…the friend with a pay channel is simply sharing a recording with us. It’s borrowing from a friend, not stealing; so we thought. Apparently HBO disagrees.

About a month ago, hubby downloaded the HBO program “Lucky Louie” from mini-nova. Yesterday our internet service went down, so he called the cable company to report the problem. The tech told him that our service had been shut off because of a complaint from HBO…they found out that he had been downloading shows through mini-nova and they consider that theft of service.

How did HBO find out? Apparently they set up a sting; registering a computer with the mini-nova site, sharing the show and recording the IP addresses of the computers who were downloading it. They then contacted the ISPs and had the accounts shut down. Hubby was unlucky enough to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The Cox Cable tech advised him that they have a “three strikes and your out” policy; three complaints and they shut off your internet service permanently.

I don’t know if any other file-sharing services are being monitored for this type of “theft”, but hubby won’t be downloading any more HBO programs. I don’t think we’ll subscribe to the channel, but (since I need home internet service) we’ll have to find a low-tech way of getting their programs.

Downloaders beware! Big brother is watching and he’s pissed.

Tale of Woe: Hijacked by Faulty Technology

2006-09-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a long list of errands to run and a dead battery in my car. It turns out that the alarm system malfunctioned and drained the 6-month old battery, so instead of running errands I spent the day banging my head against a wall…or at least that’s what it felt like.

After trying to disarm the system and open my car door with my key-fob remote (and the spare) I opened my door the old-fashioned way…I used the key! This would normally start the horn honking and the lights flashing, but nothing happened. Since the alarm system is the kill-switch variety, I was unable to start my car. I called the alarm company and they walked me through the steps to disarm the system and put it in “valet mode” which should have allowed me to start my car. After following their directions several times, my car battery was completely dead. They dispatched a technician, who was supposed to jump start my battery and repair the alarm system. Key words: supposed to.

The technician arrived an hour late, so I had been stewing for over two hours at this point. Then he said he didn’t feel comfortable using his car to jump start mine. (Wimp!) He offered to come back later that day after the auto club took care of my battery problem.

So, I called the auto club. I know from previous experience that they respond at a snail’s pace, so I also called the local police non-emergency line to have a Motorist Assist volunteer sent to my location. I figured whoever showed up first would have my undying gratitude and the other one could take a flying leap. No big surprise when the guy who wasn’t getting paid to show up showed up first and cheerfully took care of my needs…ahem, my car battery needs.

After the jump start, I drove to a nearby Chevy dealer and they checked the battery for signs of physical damage, which there were none, and proclaimed the battery sound and fully charged.

Then I called the alarm company to let them know I was ready for the technician to return and examine the faulty alarm system. Oh, so sorry, but he has installations scheduled for the rest of the afternoon and can’t come back until tomorrow. I hate when people tell you (to your face) they’re going to do something and then they make excuses over the phone. If I believed in hell I would say there was a special area reserved for people such as these; but I don’t. Still it’s a nice day-dream.

Luckily the tech showed up this morning on time, so I didn’t have to hunt him down like a dog and shoot him.

Since I had the whole night to toss and turn and stew over the alarm issue, I decided to have the damn thing removed. I’ve had car alarms before and have never had even a hint of a problem with those systems. It figures the most expensive alarm I’ve ever had would be the one to malfunction. But it is gone from my sight now, never to return again. Plus I get to shop for a new alarm system. (Oooh, shopping!)

Since I love my car I took it to the dealer to have the electrical system checked. I don’t want my baby breaking down because some Neanderthal alarm tech was monkeying around with the wiring. The service advisor didn’t know if he could have the work completed by closing, so they offered me a ride home in the courtesy shuttle.

Invariably, the courtesy shuttle driver is an old man around 70 years of age; the age when he should be thinking about turning in his license instead of earning a living by driving around all day long. This has been a constant in my experience, and today was no exception. Sitting in the passenger seat, I found myself offering up a silent prayer, “Please God, let me get home in one piece”: then I remembered that I am an atheist. Damn, I must have been really scared to forget something important like that! Old habits die hard. Obviously I made it home in one piece, having lived to tell the tale with my atheism in tact (thank you very much).

I hate having my life hijacked by faulty technology, but it could have been worse. (It can always be worse.) I’ll have my car back tomorrow and will finally be able to get to Target. Yippee!

Post-Birthday Rant

2006-09-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

My birthday is September 11th. For thirty-four years it was a perfectly good day to have a celebration: fall is just around the corner, the weather is usually nice and there are no holidays on the calendar to conflict with my special day. And then the freakin’ terrorists went and hijacked planes, crashed into buildings, and killed thousands. All on my thirty-fifth birthday. Those bastards.

For the rest of my days, my birthday will be a reminder of the horror we witnessed that day. Our country will never be the same, not only because of what the scum-bag terrorists achieved on that day, but also because of the reaction of our government.

Getting on a plane is a massive hassle. Phone conversations can be listened to without warrants. Library and business records can be seized without cause. Physical searches can be forced upon citizens who can also be held and questioned indefinitely without being charged with a crime. The rights of the individual are being trampled in the name of public safety, but I don’t feel safe.

On September 11, 2001 I watched and wept with millions of others as the evens unfolded on television. I can only imagine the horror that those present endured. Feature films have been released about the crash of United Flight 93 and the collapse of the Twin Towers, but I will never see them. The images of that day are burned into my brain, and I have no need to see them again.

Every year since that fateful day, I have asked for the same thing for my birthday: a media blackout. I don’t turn on the television or the radio and I don’t go where a TV may be showing the memorial broadcasts of 9/11. I hibernate and remember birthdays of a more innocent time, when I celebrated with my family, when my son was still alive, and when America was still free.

Today is My Birthday

2006-09-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

Birthdays are a time for reminiscing about the past and dreaming about the future. Looking back, I wonder, what have I accomplished in 40 years of living? Not much really.

I’ve been married for 21 years, so that’s got to count for something. I had a beautiful child and, although I’m left with the pain of his loss, I wouldn’t trade a minute of the time I spent raising and loving him for all the money in the world. Over the years I’ve laughed and cried, loved and lost.

I’ve moved nearly ten thousand miles over the years and lived in at least a dozen different homes. I’ve seen a lot of places; I’ve made a few life-long friends and lost touch with others. I’ve had plenty of jobs and taken a few classes. I’ve vacationed in some interesting (but not very exotic) places. I’ve checked off a number of experiences from my “things to-do before I die” list and had several adventures that weren’t even on my list.

What is there to look forward to? Simple pleasures, quiet nights at home curled up on the couch with hubby, a few more vacations and maybe some unexpected possibilities. I was looking forward to being a grandmother someday, but that is not to be.

I’m neither rich nor famous, but those are things I never longed for. My life has been average in most respects and maybe the best has already come and gone. Mainly what I want now is for the good days to out-number the bad.

Perhaps forty is a meaningless milestone but I feel a level of self-acceptance that I lacked when I was younger. I may not be at peace with all of my circumstances and shortcomings, but I am more accepting of my flaws than I was five or ten years ago.

Happy Birthday to me.

Die Hard the Hunter

2006-09-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Steve Irwin died yesterday while filming an underwater documentary. A lot of things have been said about his death in the last 24 hours, including some unkind words from his critics. But now is not the time to criticize his methods.

The world mourns his untimely death. He was a husband, a father, a son, and an icon. He will be missed.

Night Out

2006-09-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, hubby and I went to the Tempe Improv to see Lisa Lampanelli. For those of you unfamiliar with her, she is a foul-mouthed broad…and freakin’ hilarious! Lisa is an insult comic and she spreads the insults around to every race, creed, color and sex. I laughed so hard, my jaw hurt.

We arrived at the Improv and waited in a short line to check in for the show. Staff members were checking ID for a group of guests in front of us and warning them that Lisa’s show is not for the easily offended. They looked confused....apparently they knew very little about her act and didn’t know that she would be using every curse word and derogatory racial comment known to man. After a brief consultation they all decided to be brave and see the show.

Hubby and I stepped up to the podium, ID in hand, and proceeded to receive the standard warning about being offended. After assuring them that we wouldn’t have a problem with anything Lisa might say we were escorted to the second row of café table seating. We were happy with our position because it allowed us to be up close and yet not too close. Shortly after we were seated, the couple at the table in front of us asked to be moved to a table further away. The next couple to be seated at that table was picked on during the show, so I guess the first couple knew what they were doing!

Hubby and I chatted and did some people watching, we had a few drinks and enjoyed our dinner. After the waiter cleared our table we had about 30 minutes to kill before the show. We sat grinning at each other for a few seconds because we realized that we had just run out of small talk. Hey, there’s only so much chit-chat to go around! I suppose this is why other couples travel in packs. When you run out of things to say to your spouse there are spare people nearby to talk to. We need to get some people!

Lisa’s comedy set was well received and a good time was had by all. Everyone was picked on equally and that’s the way it should be. If you can’t laugh at yourself stay home…that way the rest of us can have a good time.

Visit Lisa’s website.

Glib Paramount Exec Axes Cruise

2006-08-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Paramount Pictures recently severed ties with Tom Cruise’s film production company, Cruise/Wagner Productions. Tom’s partner Paula Wagner stated that the split was due to failed financial negotiations and not because Tom is as mad as a hatter.

Cruise/Wagner Productions has been responsible for the following movies, which also starred Tom Cruise:

• Mission: Impossible I, II and III
• The Last Samurai
• Minority Report
• Vanilla Sky
• War of the Worlds

In recent years, the deal with Paramount paid Cruise up to $10 million a year to develop films and operate an office on the Paramount lot. This is how the deal worked for Tom Cruise:

Paycheck #1: Tom gets 10 million dollars a year to develop films.
Paycheck #2: Tom earns 20 million dollars to star in the film he was paid to develop.
Paycheck #3: Tom earns producer money on top of the 30 million he already earned.

Virtually any male actor under the age of 45 could have starred in War of the Worlds. Special effects and computer graphics made that movie worth watching, not Mr. Cruise’s skills as an actor. (Don’t get me started on Dakota Fanning and her constant screaming.)

So, poor Tom will have to live on 10 million dollars less this year. But since The Church of Scientology gets 10-15% of his earnings, he will really only be out somewhere in the neighborhood of 8.5 to 9 million dollars.

I don’t think baby Suri will have to wear outfits from Target.

Hurricane Katrina Anniversary

2006-08-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Anyone not living under a rock last year saw the devastation Hurricane Katrina brought to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. But many people don’t know that Katrina devastated South Florida first. I know because I was there.

On August 25, 2005 Hurricane Katrina knocked out power to over 1 million people, including me and my husband. Although it was only a Category 1 hurricane, we were without power for 3 days in nearly 90 degree heat and even higher humidity.

The first night was kind of fun. We listened to the storm, lit candles, played the radio (on battery power) and played Scrabble. After the storm blew through, the temperature was in the low 80’s and the humidity wasn’t too bad. We took perishable food from the refrigerator and cooked most of it on the grill, had a candle-lit dinner and went to bed early. We didn’t sleep well because it was warm, but it wasn’t too bad. Yet.

On the second day, reality set in. We used the last of the hot water for our morning showers and heard a report on the radio warning local residents that water might soon be unsafe or possible unavailable due to power being out at the water treatment plants. I never thought about it before, but they use electricity to power the pumps that send treated water out into the public water lines. No power, no way to treat the water; no pumps, no water pressure.

For something to do, we walked around the neighborhood to see the storm damage. There were downed trees, branches and debris; roofs were missing tiles or had gaping holes, and windows were smashed. Cars were crushed by fallen trees, windshields were smashed, interiors flooded. Mobile home roofs were ripped off, walls were collapsed, fences were down, the canals were overflowing, and there was trash everywhere. Homeowners were attempting to cover their houses and clean up debris. Power lines were down; billboards, street signs and traffic lights were down. A local man was killed by a tree that fell on him while he was assessing storm damage in his yard.

We cooked our meals on the grill. Our hurricane food supplies consisted mostly of canned soup and ravioli, plus peanut butter, bread, and canned chicken for sandwiches. We had plenty of water and soda but no ice. Warm soda is nasty, so we stuck to the water. When the sun went down, we lit candles and played board games again while listening to news reports on the radio, but it was too hot to sit near the candles so the games ended early. The night was long and sweaty and miserable.

The third day was awful. The temperature was higher and so was the humidity. The smell of rotting trash, rotten food, and body odor began to pervade the neighborhood. The water pressure was down to a trickle, so no showers. To flush our toilets, we transferred (in buckets) the water we had previously stored in our bathtub. Daylight made it possible to read, but we were getting pretty bored. That afternoon, we heard on the radio that power to the Sawgrass Mills Mall had been restored, so we decided to check it out. It was a dangerous drive, due to downed power lines and debris, but the respite from the heat, humidity and boredom was worth it. After a few hours at the mall I felt human again.

For safety reasons, we decided to drive back home before the sun set. Within a few hours the restorative powers of the mall air conditioning had worn off. By that night I was in hell. I couldn’t sleep; it was just too hot and humid. I tossed and turned and sweated. By 2 a.m. I gave up and went to sit in the living room. I was so weary from lack of sleep and crazy from the heat that I began to sob. It was a good thing that the power came back on that night because in a few more hours I would have completely lost my mind.

Within a few days the gas stations and grocery stores reopened, trash was being cleaned up, and life was getting back to normal. Things could have been much worse, and I soon learned exactly what “much worse” looks like. After watching Katrina destroy the Gulf Coast, buying basic hurricane supplies (like canned goods and batteries) was no longer enough to make me feel prepared or safe.

When Hurricane Wilma barreled down on us two months later, I left town.

I Can’t Sleep (Written at 3:30 a.m.)

2006-08-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, my favorite activity was sleeping. Everything about sleep is great… that half-conscious, slipping off the edge into nothingness feeling that precedes sleep; my nice warm bed; soft, fluffy pillows, that satisfied, well-rested feeling you have the morning after getting a good nights sleep, and the first stretch of the day…aaahh.

I can’t remember the last time I had a good nights sleep. I have trouble falling asleep, I have trouble staying asleep, and most mornings I wake up feeling like I never really got into a deep state of sleep. I miss feeling well-rested and alert first thing in the morning and I hate feeling tired in the middle of the day. I’m afraid if I take a nap I won’t be able to sleep again that night.

This has been going on (sporadically) for over a year now. I have been offered various prescription drugs to help me sleep, but they all have nasty side effects so I’ve been reluctant to try them. Valerian root doesn’t work and it smells really bad. Melatonin helps me fall asleep but I don’t get deep sleep when I take it and I wind up feeling groggy the next morning and tired all day.

I’ve read numerous articles on sleep disturbances and insomnia. The experts say you should have a bedtime routine and observe the same regimen nightly. You should go to bed and wake up at the same time on weekends as you do during the week. Make sure the room is a cool, comfortable temperature and very dark; don’t let pets sleep in the bed with you; wear earplugs and play white noise to block out disruptive sounds. I do all of that, and yet I still can’t sleep.

Guess I’ll go back to bed now. If I don’t get some sleep soon I’m gonna go fight club crazy.

Freaked out Cats

2006-08-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

I have several nature sound CDs. I find them relaxing because they make good ambient sounds which don’t overwhelm or distract, and yet they make the house seem less quiet. Too much silence can be maddening.

Recently, I bought a new CD entitled “Sounds of the Rainforest” and I decided to play it this morning. It starts off with cricket-sounding insect chirps, a babbling brook, a waterfall, the breeze rustling through the trees, and a few bird calls thrown in for good measure. Good stuff.

Then the monkeys start howling. Who thought that would be relaxing?

Kitty was resting on her favorite pillow in the living room and when the monkeys started to scream she jumped off her perch, stood on full alert, eyes wide and ears raised, looking around like she expected to find an intruder. She was totally freaked out. Then Misty ran into the room to join Kitty in Operation Kill the Monkey.

I don’t think I’ll be listening to that CD again.

Summer Fun

2006-08-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, I’ve been getting e-mails from my 9 year-old niece. She lives in PA in the same town where I grew up, and lately she’s been telling me all about her summer vacation.

So far, she has been to Hershey Park, Dorney Park, Hampton Lanes (bowling), and Skate-A-Way (indoor roller skating rink). She has been to the movies, swam in her friend’s pool, had a sleep-over, went out for pizza, and saw fireworks. She has also been riding her new bike and she just returned from a week at the shore. I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

All of the things she has done this summer are the same things I did growing up. It’s nice to know that little kids haven’t changed much over the last 30 years and that they still get to have good, clean fun.

Of course this also means that nothing has changed in my quiet little white-bred, podunk blue-collar corn-growing Lehigh Valley hometown. *

Oh, well. At least she’s not rotting her brain in front of the TV.

*My apologies to Matt and Trey.

Screw the Airport

2006-08-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Assuming my vacation destination is less than 1000 miles away I think I’d rather drive than put up with the aggravation of airport security. It will certainly cut down on annoying searches, seizures, dehydration, and sitting next to a fat guy who is using my armrest.

Considering the amount of time it takes to:
• drive to the airport (20 min.)
• park and take a shuttle to the terminal (30 min.)
• walk through the airport (20 min.)
• stand in line at the security check point (60 min.+)
• check in, wait for boarding (90 min.)
• board (20 min.)
• fly (3 hrs.)
• disembark(20 min.)
• pick up luggage(30 min.)
• walk through airport and wait for taxi or shuttle(30 min.)
• taxi to hotel (20 min.)

This process takes about 8 hours. I would rather get in my car and take an 8 hour road trip. Sure, gas is expensive but so is airfare. Plus, the aggravation of flying has increased and is now nearly beyond my ability to tolerate. First they make me take off my shoes, my coat, empty my pockets, and check my unlocked luggage filled with all of my belongings (which I always fear I may never see again). Then I get to sit in an uncomfortable seat next to people I don’t know; I can’t use my phone, I can only use my laptop and mp3 player when they say I may, and if I try to go to the bathroom when the seatbelt sign is illuminated I run the risk of being tackled by a flight attendant.

I live near Phoenix and there are hundreds of places to go and things to do that are within 8 hours of my home. I can go to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, New Mexico, Texas; and the list goes on.

Road trip!

Leaving on a Jet Plane?

2006-08-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…wait a minute. I can’t take that shampoo, conditioner, hand lotion, lipstick, sun tan lotion, face cream, toothpaste, contact lens solution, or hair gel in my carry-on bag. Toss that bottled water, too. Thanks to insane terrorists, if I need to pack anything liquid, cream or gel I have to check my bag.

I hate checking luggage. I’m always afraid I’m going to arrive at my destination to find that my bag has been accidentally routed to Hawaii and is now having a better vacation than I am. If I’m going on a short trip, I try to put everything in a carry-on bag. Tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, mini hand lotion and lens solution, just big enough to last a few days, have always been a regular part of my carry-on packing routine. If I take a nap on the plane, when I wake up I need to put drops in my eyes to loosen the grip my contact lenses form on my eyes. Sometimes I need a decongestant or some Advil, so I’ve always travelled with a bottle of water. Now I’ll have to wait for the flying waitresses to bring me a drink. Plus I have to hope against hope that my bag and all of its contents will arrive before it’s time for me to turn around and go back home.

I haven’t taken many trips since 9/11/01 but now, thanks to this new wave of idiot terrorists, I will be even more inconvenienced when I fly. Eventually we’ll all be flying in the nude. That’s not a pretty picture.

Looks like I’ll be driving to Vegas this year.

Blue Christmas

2006-08-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

The other day I got an email from my mother asking for Christmas gift suggestions. Already?! It’s only August!

I used to be one of those people who start their Christmas shopping in September, finish by Halloween and have everything wrapped by Thanksgiving. This practice allowed me to shop when stores weren’t crowded and gave me plenty of time to find the perfect gift for everyone on my list. It also spread out the joy of giving over several months; I could imagine my son’s smiling face weeks before he would see the gifts. Sure, there was occasionally an item on his list to Santa that I hadn’t anticipated, but it was much easier to run to the store for one or two things than to buy everything when the toy store was packed with frantic parents. Plus I had the entire month of December to decorate, bake cookies, and watch holiday programs on TV. As the song says, it was the most wonderful time of the year.

The first Christmas after my son’s death was excruciatingly painful. I thought I had prepared for his absence by planning a trip away from home during the holiday. If Christmas was out of sight, surely it could be out of mind. I told my family that I was skipping Christmas that year and, with the exception of my niece and nephew, they shouldn’t expect gifts from me. Everyone gave me a pass that year; they had some idea how hard it was for me.

We were living in Florida at the time, and my husband and I drove to Key West on Christmas Eve Day and spent the next few days ignoring the fact that it was Christmas. We ate seafood and Key Lime pie, shopped in quaint little stores, and took a day cruise on a sailboat. It was a nice trip, but every night in the hotel, after my husband went to bed, I cried myself to sleep.

The second Christmas without our son was equally hard, plus I was no longer given a pass by the rest of my family. They expected me to carry on as before and they tried their hardest not to let me avoid the holiday again. I started receiving emails with Christmas gift suggestions and party invitations. They were all trying to get me back in the spirit of things, but it felt forced. Sure, I could send cards and buy gifts but my heart wasn’t in it because the person I really wanted to buy presents for was gone. Again, I ignored the holiday as much as I could. There was no tree, no gaily wrapped gifts, no carols, no cookies and no Bing Crosby movies. I bought gifts for my niece and nephew but everyone else got a gift certificate. I used the fact that we were moving back to Arizona in January as an excuse to avoid the family gathering at my brother’s house. I wasn’t ready to sit and watch everyone else play happy family. I felt like the Grinch.

I don’t know how this Christmas is going to turn out. Like I said, my mother is already pestering me for gift ideas. Holiday gatherings are already being planned, airline tickets have been bought, and it has been mentioned that it would be nice if I could join everyone this year.

I miss the rituals of the holiday season, but they hold no meaning for me anymore. I was never a very religious person; for me, Christmas was always a secular celebration of family. But I don’t feel like celebrating anymore. I haven’t decided whether I’m up to the task of faking it this year, but the calendar still has a few pages left before December rolls around again. I’m in no hurry.

Everyone Has a Website

2006-08-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

It’s like information doesn’t exist anymore unless there’s a “www.” before it. When people need information, they use an internet search engine to find it. When I was a kid, I went to the library to look things up in encyclopedias. Encyclopedias! I also had a dictionary and a thesaurus.

I sound like a dinosaur.

People used to get their news from the newspaper. My grandparents got the paper twice a day, the morning and evening editions. Now, any information that’s printed in the paper is more like “old news” than news. I get the Sunday paper for the comics and the coupons.

I love to read. I go to the library at least once a month. Last week I read “The Tennant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë. Somehow, I can’t picture myself sitting in front of a monitor reading a piece of literature or fiction. Call me old fashioned, but I like to hold a book in my hands and turn the pages.

Zen Death Poem

2006-08-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

Since time began
the dead alone know peace.
Life is but melting snow.
--Nandai

I'm in a mood today. Don't mind me; I'm sure it will pass.

Oh, Schadenfreude!

2006-07-31T10:45:00.000-07:00

Mel Gibson, you have revealed your true nature at last. Have fun trying to get out of the mess you’ve made.

You got your last dollar from me when I bought Lethal Weapon 4 on DVD.

MSN Article

South Park Fun

Firing Range Idiots

2006-07-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I went to the indoor firing range. Tuesday is Ladies Day and women get free range time. Free and I get to shoot stuff...I'm there!

So, I register for a lane assignment, put my eyes and ears on, and head into the range area. What's this? People using my lane?

Me: "Excuse me, but I was just assigned this lane."
Idiot: "I'm using this lane."
Me: "I was just assigned this lane."
Idiot: "We were assigned lanes 3 and 4 but we switched."
Me: "You need permission to switch lanes. This is my lane now."
Idiot: "Oh." (grumble, grumble)

I didn't catch what he said after "oh" because I had my ears on and didn't care to listen anyway.

A few minutes later, I'm happily firing away and the Range Master comes in and calls a cease-fire. This means we all have to stop shooting, safety and bench our weapons, and step behind the yellow safety line. I complied and joined Idiot and his group behind the yellow line. One of the moving target holders jammed up, so a range employee walked up the lane to get it un-jammed. In order to ensure his safety, everyone is supposed to stay behind the yellow line and away from the guns.

Apparently the words "rules" and "safety" mean nothing to Idiot and his equally idiotic friends. Almost immediately, they step over the yellow line and begin wandering around. Near the guns. The guns with bullets in them. Most people who use firearms have a healthy respect for safety on the range. But not Idiot. The Range Master had to pull him and his friends back behind the yellow line and explain the importance of following directions. I would have kicked their sorry butts out, but that's just me.

I have no patience for Firing Range Idiots.

First Post

2006-07-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my very first blog post. How exciting! I'm a minimalist, so you won't find anything fancy on this blog. If you're looking for a lot of pictures and music files, this is not the blog for you.

I plan to talk about the random thoughts I have in my head. Believe me, some are more random than others.

A little background: I am a married thirty-something female. I'm originally from PA but I've moved around quite a bit and am currently living in AZ. I've taken college courses, but I don't have a degree. I am a registered Libertarian. My interests include music, movies, books, guns, tattoos and a whole lot more. Often I find myself surrounded by idiots, but we'll get to that later.

That's all for now. I have to pace myself.