Come Back To The Five and Dime...

Last night I saw up and watched a movie I had already seen. Not that this is of any interest, or even unusual, I have only recently stopped watching movies I've seen like 87 times already. Such is the lure of cable: "Oooo, "The Dark Knight Rises"  is on. Again. Because I just finished watching it on the east coast feed, how cool is that?"

Not very cool, I've decided, although I admit I have a Batman thing and always have.  I think it's because the Caped Crusader (and no, I'm not big on the  1960s TV show, fun though it was) has no super power. He's rich. He's a progressive soul who likes to use his billions for the good of the 98%, he supports widows and orphans and all sorts of green fuel alternatives. He's single. He's easy on the eyes. What's not to love? My son said I have a "lady boner" for Batman. Maybe. Although Christian Bale runs a close second.

Anyway, the Batman has to buy shit. He didn't get bitten by a bat (as they're vegetarians, or does one use herbivores? I'm not sure) and he didn't get merged with a bat in a lab and his father didn't mate with a bat, he's just a rich do gooder. Some would call him a vigilante. But he would kick the asses of the Texans who carry assault rifles into the local Walmart just because they can, so I'm good with that.

Besides, he's hot. And, unlike superman, there's an air of sexuality about the Batman, he does not stand for "Truth, Justice and the American Way", he stands for ass kicking.   But I digress...

Last night, as usual, I stretched out in bed, and ate a taco (that's not usual) and spread my stuff all over the bed and turned on the television. I didn't watch HBO, but I went to the network. I think I watched Jeopardy!, I'm not sure. It was on late, after the basketball game. So I was going to turn on the late news and decided to check out Turner Classic Movies, you know, just in case. And there it was.

"Giant."

I love that damn film. Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean. All at their peak. I sat up until 1am and watched it, just in case it ended differently this time. It didn't.

And today I've been thinking about James Dean. My son and I have discussed him more than once, he thinks that Dean would have been a "whatever happened to him?" long ago, I think he would have matured into a hell of an actor, much like Paul Newman did. We'll never know.

But what I was thinking about was a grey, drizzling Sunday about 10 years ago. I had seen in a newsletter that Hearst Castle, one of my favorite places to visit, decorates the place at Christmas the way that the magnate himself did. Okay, he didn't do it himself, the staff did, but you get the idea. There are something like 20 decorated Christmas Trees set up all over the place: Downstairs, upstairs, in the lady's chamber. I wanted to see this. We made plans to drive up on Sunday and take one of the tours.

The hubster sneezed and therefore, being a man, went to bed for a week. So he wasn't going. Because he had a cold, I got a late start with the boys, we didn't leave until after the requisite grocery store, drug store run. Because we got a late start, I took the short route, I didn't want to get there and find the last tour had just left. The short route, btw, takes over three hours, the longer, more enjoyable drive about a half hour more. I shot up the 5, over the grapevine and headed west on the 46. This isn't a very interesting drive, it's a lot of nothing, but it doesn't meander up and down the coastline either.

It was grey, chilly and drizzly, the kind of day I live for. I was driving carefully, not as fast as I usually do, and I have a lead foot people, it's not like I was poking along. The 46 was quiet, a bit of traffic but not a lot. One of the boys was dozing in the back seat, the other in front, there wasn't any radio reception and we were quite cozy, just enjoying the ride, the light rain, the warmth in the car.

I'd been driving on the nice, straight if small highway for about half an hour, maybe 35 minutes when a feeling I can only describe as creepy beyond anything came over me.I checked the car.  Trevor was next to me, his headphones in, Owen in the back seat snoozing. A truck up ahead, doing his thing. I never knew what "the hair on the back of my neck stood up" really meant until that instant. There was something off and I knew it. The car sounded fine. The mist was fine, I wasn't going too fast or too slow, I wasn't going to hydroplane, the road wasn't slippery. And out of nowhere, the thought popped into my head: James Dean died here.

I thought no, I thought yes, I wasn't sure, I didn't really remember. But about 30 seconds down the road I saw the sign, "James Dean Memorial Highway" and there was the intersection of the 46 and the 41. There's also a bar with a tree in the parking lot with a really weird kind of fence thing around it that says "James Dean " with some dates, one of them being 9.30.1955 of course, and was, I read somewhere, paid for by a rich, obsessed Japanese businessman. I don't know that for a fact. h

It's kind of quiet up there now, but I was there right after the 50th anniversary of Dean's death, not by choice, but, you'll pardon the term, by accident. I knew I MUST have read something about the accident so the location would have been rattling around in the dusty index cards I think I keep in my brain, I'm not so vague as to never have come across the information. But what really stuck with me was the time and place I got the weird feeling. It wasn't AT the junction, ti was before. It was before I saw the highway sign, before the Jack Rabbit cafe with it's steel tree fence thing. There was nothing really there.

Except the old road.

The roads have been reconfigured since 1955, which is unusual for California rural roads, but then this one probably got more action than most, not only from  the lookey Lous, but it's a pretty straight and direct road between the I-5 and Paso Robles. The junction has been moved a bit west, I found out.  The spot where I got the willies was the spot where one can see traces of the (now dirt) road that WAS the 41. I must have been within 25 feet of the place he died. That was the day I changed my mind about ghosts.

Was it him?: Who knows, I sure don't. I know that, out of the blue, SOMETHING touched me. And it wasn't one of those fun pokes either. It stuck with me and to this day I remember the odd sense of something going on. If it was him, maybe he thought it would be funny, you know, lets scare the chick behind the wheel in the mom mobile. Maybe we were related, my family always claimed there was a distant relationship, because, as we all know, Dean is SUCH an uncommon name. But it's my maiden name.

And maybe it was an ill timed hot flash, who the hell knows? 

All I know is that, since that day, I believe in spirits, or ghosts, or whatever one wants to call them. Oddly enough, it's never anyone I've ever MET, I suppose my mother knows running into her wouldn't be the best thing in the world for either of us, although I'm getting kind of tired of having her in my dreams, she's been dead for almost 14 years. Hell, maybe she ran into Dean in the afterlife and told him it would be funny to poke me on a two lane highway on the south end of the Central Valley. I absolutely adore the California Central Valley, btw, I just love to see the fields and smell the garlic and alfalfa and watch the mature cotton sway. I love the vineyards and the orange groves. This probably annoyed my mother, who claimed to be allergic to everything and always wanted to go home to the Midwest, she was always annoyed that I didn't want to go with her, because if I didn't go she wouldn't either. 

Well, that all came back to me as I sat up watching "Giant" last night, knowing I would regret the lack of sleep today but not regret watching the film. Although it ended the same way. Always does. Except that once Jett Rink passes out drunk in the ballroom we never see him again and I've always wondered how he got home.

I've always loved this picture of James Dean. I actually had a tee shirt with Mickey Mouse in that pose. Everyone thinks it's a screen capture from the film. Know what he was looking at? George Stevens. There are other stills taken at the same time, he was listening to his director. Which is why I think he would have stuck around.

"Just walk beside me, and be my friend."

I know a woman, she is better than an acquaintance but not what I would call friend. This is because, in my smallish world, "friend" is what many call "best friend" and of friends I have maybe half a dozen. I know people from the Internet, people I would never have met otherwise but for a dysfunctional message board we all ended up in, and some of those people I consider friends, even though we are face to face seldom, if ever. They are my support, my rocks, and I hope I can be the same to them.

There are others, from the same dysfunctional place, people I have met. Some I like. One betrayed me. That was the one I spent a lot of time with before I realized that perky is just a blurred and narrow line away from psychotic. This I know for a fact, a hard, nasty, cruel fact. Although I actually ran across her accidentally in cyberspace a week or so ago and I was somewhat saddened to discover that she hasn't changed and still considers herself just too adorable for words. Trust me...boobs are perky. Women over 40 are not, nor should they aspire to be. Seriously, get over yourself.

But this is the story about someone else from that same place. She's a pleasant woman, a bit younger than me. Okay, more than a bit. I understand, from people I trust beyond trust, that she could be, shall we say, manipulative and unstable. I can see some of that. But I have met her and her family, and spent a pleasant hour or so under a shady tree just shooting the breeze. While I do believe what I heard in this respect, I also say that I never had any run ins or quarrel with her. I can see a bit of what people have told me, not to go into detail, but there was some pettiness at one point. I shrugged it off and when she popped back into my life I said sure," hi, nice to see you" because it was.

She lives in another state and we're more pen pals than anything else. I noticed that there is some maturity as the years have passed, and that's the way it should be. Not someone crowing that they're "perky" or "bubbly" or some such nonsense. I've got nothing against an effervescent personality, but I find that when one has to describe oneself with those terms, and used them to define him (or her) self when prompted, well, that's self-absorption that defies language.

Several months ago, long the first of the year, my out of state friend popped into my cyber life again and, as usual, I said "Hi!"  Before I said something that unintentionally offended, she sent a lot of her Internet (and personal, I imagine) friends a note. She had been feeling ill and thought her fibromyalgia was taking a turn for the worse. After a lot of doctor's visits came the call, the one that everyone fears and makes every one's blood run cold. It wasn't fibromyalgia.

It was acute leukemia.

I mentioned  to my two friends, the ones who were wary of her, what was happening. One of them said "I heard from someone else. That poor girl, she must be terrified!" THIS is what good people do. They keep perspective. They do NOT hold grudges, they have sympathy for someone who is in trouble. I initially wasn't unsure if I should tell them, there WAS, indeed, some bad blood there. But frankly, I kind of needed to tell them, I'm not sure why. Just as I say an occasional prayer that the perky one and her band of stone faced harpies doesn't find out, because they will immediately hit Partypalooza for balloons, paper plates  and other celebratory items. Because they're disgusting. But I digress...

Through the last six months or so I have watched my ill friend, via the Internet, take the journey of her life. She has withstood more chemo than any living creature should have to withstand. Her first marrow doner was found unsuitable. She has spend literally months in hospital, in isolation.  She had seven rounds of chemo in 10 days before Christmas and kept her humor through all of it. Her hair fell out, and when it started growing back, it had turned white. She made fun of her bald pate. She reported on visits and gifts, and asked for prayers, freely given.

Her family reconciled with one another, and a few of them with her, and she felt that the journey was worth it to have them back in her life, a silver lining in this threatening cloud. I am amazed at her courage and her spirit. She has traveled to the gates of Hell and is smiling while she tells her tale, certain that she will be turning back, and soon.

A backup doner had been located, a young man in Europe. Seven days ago she began intensive chemo, six treatments in six days. She spend the first three days eating junk food until the expected nausea hit, so bad she ended up in the ER a few nights ago.

Today she posted a picture, which I share with you: I don't think it's ooky, but you might and for that, I apologize:

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That's not a blood transfusion. She's watching the rest of her life. That's bone marrow. All of that chemo poison killed a lot of stuff, including her own marrow, she had the last of it yesterday. Today, that bag was hooked up to her line and being fed into her bloodstream. That cherry colored stuff will then look for something it can latch on to...and what it will find is her marrow less skeleton.

She will spend 100 days with no outside dust, no ungarbed visitors and no JUNK FOOD. The danger of fast food is too great a risk, healthy people tend to fight off the constant barrage of infectious organisms being served up at Mickey Ds and friends, but when one's immune system is compromised that McRib will turn into McSalmonella.

I'm not one of those people who go around talking about JAYsus! at any given time, but it makes one think, you know? How appropriate that, with Easter less that two weeks I can see someone coming back to life. Sure, she's not rising from the dead, but look at that. It's new life. Actually it's shared life, a young man somewhere in Europe offered to share his life and his health with a stranger and isn't that just the most amazing thing ever?

There's no deep philosophy here. It's just a true story, one going on even as I type this. Something that was educational to me has become part of my reality and it's absolutely magnificent. I feel privileged that she let me follow along with her on this journey. It just proves that bitterness and ugliness of spirit will prevent you from something wonderful. Those people who exercised such callousness and hatred, and harbor those feelings to this day? I actually feel sorry for them right now. If I were to list some of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, I would mention my sons. I would add the  Northern Lights and the Milky Way. I would put Michelangelo's "Pieta" and the Shrine of Lourdes on it. I would list the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset and the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. And I would list that bag, that bag of life. I smile every time I look at it, and I am filled with wonder and happiness. And the haters and the naysayers won't know what it feels like. Because they have put such a price on their friendships that they can not possibly know the pleasure of just being friends.

And that's a sad thing indeed.

The Tyranny of Petty Things.

When I was a girl we lived on a hill. It wasn't much of a hill, we were about 8 houses up said hill. It went quite a ways up, where the houses got bigger and grander and more expensive, but we were firmly in the middle of the first block and therefore high enough for my mother to say that we lived on the foothill. This kind of crap was important to her, I think she made up for her lousy upbringing by attaching herself to things that glittered. You know...faster, higher, richer? The fact that we flooded every winter and lived a mile and a half from the local airport never seemed to be part of her vision.

It gave her some sort of weird comfort. Because, in spite of the fact that we were decidedly middle class and my father was a machinist, my mother fancied herself as some sort of social tree topper. This may have come about because of the general 1950s suburbia atmosphere that she embraced, I'm not really sure. She drank (incessantly) martinis and smoked Pall Malls and once explained to me how the 50s, with their Miltowns and cocktail parties and trays of rumaki and women in baby doll nighties was just the most ideal time EVER and we should go back to those good ol' days because we were all happy and in our place. She used to lecture me and my friends on how to be a seductive woman and told us that elbows were only slightly more unattractive than knees and shouldn't be shown. This was in 1966 or thereabouts. My mother was weird.

Anyway, in the late afternoon I would go outside and stand in the driveway and look towards the airport. I would hook my butt on to the retaining wall that marked the terrace-like housing lot on the "up" side of the hill and I would watch the sky. The local airport was Lockheed, later known as Hollywood-Burbank and various other sundry twists until it settled into today's version, "b Hope Airport". It wasn't LAX but it was pretty big time, we had 707s and Constellations and DC3s  taking off and landing. The late, lamented short hop airlines, like PSA and Western ("The ONLY way to fly!") had terminals there.

Well, about 4:30 or so was a busy time for landings. We were situated rather fortunately, geographically that is, we could usually SEE the planes but seldom heard them. So out I would go and I would start watching the west. And the planes would start coming in. I would watch for an hour sometimes, watching the planes stack up waiting for landing. There would be 4 planes, all flying in a big corkscrew over the airport. The one on the bottom would make its last, lazy turn and then straighten out, dropping out of sight as it landed. At the same time, another plane would come into view, head towards the terminal and join the springlike pattern at the top as everyone shifted down a level. It was a thing of beauty, of symmetry, it was almost baseball like in its summer perfection. And, as the air traffic settled down so did the sun and, in case you don't live by west coast, there is something glorious about the sun setting over the water.

The planes were full of people but I didn't really care. Okay, I cared, but they weren't the object of my interest. It was the craft that I loved, the absolutely beauty of some guy in a control tower juggling six planes all wanting to land on the same runway within six minutes of each other that fascinated me, it was a ballet of steel and jet engines which I could barely hear from my driveway; the fat, cigar like body of the DC 3s, the sleek silver tubes of the 707s and the exquisite triple tails of the Constellations, Connie's everyone called them, all, like Oscar Hammerstein's hawk, "making lazy circles in the sky."

I think a lot of those idle afternoons lately. Because of the Winter Games of the whateverthehellitis Olympiad we're watching a lot of television and, therefore, a lot of commercials. The hubster and I are of an age where we still watch commercials, because, well, you never know when you might miss the next big thing in breakfast cereal. Also, it might be funny. There are two that are pounding away at us now. One is the buff boomer who is trotting through his very rich and neat house telling us that the European way of life, that stop and smell the roses attitude, is just so much bullshit and we're awesome Americans because we work till we drop and, eventually, we get stuff. Like his gas guzzling Cadillac SUV. And it's cool because we went to the moon and, apparently, left a Caddy up there with the engine running. So screw the fact that those time wasting Europeans take an entire month a year off and they live longer, happier and healthier lives, keep pounding away and get yourself a car.

The other one is the woman driving her babysitter home and the new Chevy is awesome and it has leather and an XM radio and a GPS and as she pulls up to the girls house the girl, who has been taking in the spiff of the car, suddenly raises her rate from $40 to $60 dollars. In the first place, who the fuck pays that kind of money for a 14 year old babysitter? And in the second place, what a greedy, calculating little bitch. It's still just a Chevy for Gods sake. Hey, your car's spiffy, give me more money. Seriously? THIS is the kind of behavior we now glorify in advertising?

So I got to thinking. I got to thinking about those long, lazy summer afternoons watching the planes land and thinking of how difficult I would find it now to stand for an hour and feel absolutely NO GUILT about doing absolutely NOTHING except letting an experience wash over me. We no longer walk or ride our bikes unless our doctors order us to. We race everywhere, just so we can do something and race back and hardly anything we do is worth rushing for. I don't have a car, and yes, I would like one. But I am beginning to realize that, when you keep chasing the top of the line you never get there. There is always something else out there, something new, something better than the one you have. A used Toyota is going to get me to the same place the guy in the Cadillac is going and if seeing me pull in in a used Toyota makes him feel good, well, dude, do I feel bad for you!

Sure, I'm as guilty as the next one. I would like a house, and some financial security. But I'd rather have some new, clean carpet...with a built in cat scary thing in it that would pop up every time the damn cat starts circling anything other than the litter box. If I could invent that I could probably afford the Cadillac. But I don't want one. I WANT to stroll home, I want to stop and have coffee at the local bistro, I WANT to have a long, lazy dinner at a picnic table, I would rather work until seven and take a two hour break in the middle of the day. I want to work to live, not live to work. I want to be able to stop for an hour and marvel at the planes landing.

I thought it might be old age and nostalgia, but my younger son told me the other day that, if he had the money, he would move to Europe. We were talking about the commercial, and how General Motors is telling us that in Europe they don't have as much "stuff" as we do. And he said "Yeah. And they live a hell of a lot longer."  Slowing down isn't going to be easy, I long for organization. But maybe it can work. I mean, why the hell should I have high blood pressure? Why do I need to be on antidepressants? There is happiness out there and I have come to the conclusion that the reason we aren't reaching it is because we pass it. We're going so fast we blow right by it.

So maybe we do need to do something on the weekends. We need to put dinner in the slow cooker. We need to stop worrying about what we're missing on television. For HEAVENS SAKE...we need to STOP MULTI TASKING!  Write a letter. A real letter. Send a thank you card. Watch a program. Go to a ballgame or a museum. Take a picnic lunch to the park. Start a patio garden. Look out the window. .

STOP CHECKING YOUR FUCKING SMART PHONE while you're doing it!   One at a time, people! Just like the planes landing...slowly and gracefully, and never getting tangled up. Try living as if you're in a landing pattern. Glide, circle and, when it's the right time, come in. Put the next thing on the list on top and do it again.

And do NOT pay the damn babysitter $60 bucks.

I'm just too short...

Well, we're going to give this thing another try. The problem with blogging is that one feels compelled to write about stuff that no one else is interested in, and thereby make it interesting. God alone knows why, I sure don't.

In my year hiatus I gained back about 20 of the 26 pounds I lost. Quell drag. There is nothing more annoying than discovering that your underwear didn't really shrink. It was the underwear that gave it away. Finally having worked my way into single digit pantie sizes I find myself with a continual wedgie which, when one is sitting in exactly the right position can actually be quite pleasant. It's the most "pleasant" I've had in years, actually. This position, however, most often occurs at my desk chair, urged along by the annoying jiggling of my left knee, something that only occurs at work. My boss finds my new pleasant demeanor while bored stiff in my empty work area a wonderful change by the way. On my last day I intend to tell him just why I appear to be having such a good time.

Anyway, I went back to Weight Watchers and lost 4 and a half pounds the first two weeks, which inspired me to find new and inventive ways to sneak cookies into the food pyramid. The way I see it, if you make a cookie, stick your thumb into it before it's baked and then fill the resulting divot with a large glob of blackberry jam you have created a fruit. If only my ass would get on board with this.

However I have discovered whole grains and Greek Yogurt. Non fat Greek yogurt blobbed in a small bowl over a handful of shredded wheat and topped with a handful of berries isn't half bad, by the way. Add a little Stevia and a shake of cinnamon and it's quite tasty. Get the Stevia that resembles either raw or brown sugar, not the stuff that Walter White gave Lydia for her tea.

Also, a can of tuna, a can of white beans, a couple of hard boiled eggs, some lettuce and some low fat salad dressing makes a hell of a lunch. Which is good because I live in the only part of the country where a cold salad is an appropriate lunch right now. The temperature is over 80 freaking degrees here in the urban village and, frankly, I don't talk much about it. It seems insensitive, what with the polar express or whatever it is that's affecting the rest of the entire country except California, where the sun shines from San Francisco to San Diego and, I understand, actually does slop a little into Vegas.

At least that's what the hubster said, he just got back from Sin City, ended up spending about 50 bucks in total and was gone for half a week. During this time, I found myself being able to get in the car and drive whenever I felt like it, which was liberating to say the least. I saw a movie, I went shopping, I bought a television set. I had  small Sony in the bedroom, 13" screen and 100 pound body. It took up most of the dresser. I found it on someones curb one day while I was walking home from the bus stop and, after five years of service, it crapped out. The picture was a big blob of fuchsia in the middle surrounded by a lime green halo and in order to turn it on one had to push the on button on the remote about 17 times in a row until it finally "caught." It was a lot like trying to get a car with a not quite dead battery going.

Well, thanks to one of my sons and his significant other, who happens to be some sort of tech geek genius, we found a floor model for sale. It's 19" and it's a flat panel, because, frankly, I don't think they make those other kind anymore. It's HD and it weighs about 6 ounces. They didn't have a box so they wrapped it up in cellophane and taped the remote to the back, charged me half price and I brought it home where we plugged it in and hooked up the satellite tuner. Did you know that the sky is blue and grass is green? I'd forgotten. I spend the week-end watching stuff in HG that I would not have watched under any other circumstances. I watched "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Oh yes, I really did, from beginning to end. By the time it was ending I found myself taking issue with the historical inaccuracies regarding Mary Todd Lincoln and Stephen Douglass, who, according to the film, were engaged when she met old Abe. And Lincoln only had one son, Willie, in the movie, and Willie died, not of influenza, but of a vampire bite. Mary was a pretty, bright, vivacious woman who frequently ventured outside, volunteered at field hospitals and was, most decidedly sane. These things bothered me. The fact that Abraham Lincoln kept a silver tipped axe in the oval office and forayed out into the hall of justice slaying vampires as he went didn't annoy me nearly as much as that Mary Lincoln thing. In fact, it really didn't seem to bother me much at all. Actually, that concerns me a little...

The hubster came home to find a new television in the bedroom and was NOT impressed. Apparently he liked the hot pink and green color pattern. He periodically asks me how my "new toy" is working out.

Quite nicely, thank you. Quite nicely indeed. In fact, I think I'm going to watch "Showgirls" next.

Down Mexico Way...

I honestly never thought it would be like this. The television is off, we can't pay the cable bill. My cell phones are off...I can't pay the bill. The second half of the rent payment looms large with no way of paying it in sight. Milk is a luxury. I haven't had a haircut in months, manicure? Not on your life. The hubster refuses to live in a world without coffee, so milk gives way to his whole bean habit.

Things aren't helped much by the lack of organization. I find myself piling clothes on the floor, because I don't care enough to put them away. Or give them away, for that matter. The fitted sheet on the bed is off of the corners and in a wad in the center, the pillows piled in clumps, clothing and magazines and old mail is piled up at the foot. I wash out my undies by hand every night.

I could cope with this if not for the bitch at work who seems to feel that she's being paid to watch my every move. I must call her when I come in so she can check my time, I must check in and out when I want to take a pee, I must put a sign up saying I've gone to take a pee and please call the bitch. Xanax is my new best friend.

I was okay until I had several things go dreadfully wrong last week because I couldn't contact anyone. It took me days to finally locate someone who could tell me whether or not my relatives in Moore, Oklahoma were alive. I spend over 5 hours trying to pick the hubster up at the airport because I had no phone to find out where the hell he was.

There are people out there who are obsessed with me because they acted like brats and I called them on it, and, jeez, talk about holding grudges! For God's sake, grow the fuck up! I think it's just awesome that you never had to work a day in your privileged little life, I also think you have no right to judge people who DO. So there.

I recently, being of loose mind and soft heart, offered to drive my son and his girlfriend to Mexico for her best friend's wedding. Oddly enough, I periodically find myself wondering why, if this is her best friend, isn't she IN the wedding, but hey, it's not for me to judge. Doesn't stop me, but I DO keep my judgments to myself. For the most part.

It then occurred to me that offering to drive to Mexico was, to put it mildly, stupid. We all need passports, although I (and everyone else) decided on those cards that let you into a foreign country providing you show up in a car, on a bike, a train or on foot. They're not good for flying. To fly you have to pay $140 for a passport "book."  For $50 bucks you can get a passport "card" which, basically, means you can drive into Tijuana or Vancouver. Or you can get these two things bundled. A  passport AND a card cost you the bargain price of $190 which, as you have undoubtedly noticed, is $50 and $140. Not to mention that if you have the book you can use IT to drive to TJ or Vancouver, which makes the addition of the card, well, stupid.

Anyway, I was told that the wedding was at a resort on the Sea of Cortez. The Sea of Cortez is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I was told the area was a couple of hours drive south of the border. So...I'm thinking what the hell? It's about 2 and a half hours from here to the border and another couple of hours to The Resort at Playa del Dontdrinkthewater. The kids have offered to pay for the gas. I invited my other son to join me. We get the wedding discounted rate rooms and we can get a lovely double queen room on the beach for about half a million pesos which converts to about $53.26.  The gf will get me invited to the wedding, which I graciously decline. I pick out a white eyelet wrap dress and a new pair of sandals from a cheapo catalog, stop cheating on my diet so I won't look so bad in my bathing suit, and have every intention of spending the hours of the evening wedding sipping Margaritas and munching Camerones while the sun sets.

I have managed to be JUST enough put out so the hubster doesn't realize that I'm chomping at the bit to leave which placing most of the blame on my own soft heartedness because no one else can drive, it's a long story.

Then I finally get the official word. Turns out the wedding isn't at Playa del Dontdrinkthewater, it's at Playa del Pleaseheedthetravelwarnings. Yep, it's on the Sea of Cortez allright. The mainland side. Not the west, or Baja side. So the 2 and a half hour drive to the border is the same, but when I get there I turn left and continue on for about another 8 hours into Nogales, Arizona, from which I THEN turn south to the border where I embark on a 2 hour drive IF it were in the US with paved roads but is more like a 4 hour drive on the dirt highways of the Republic of Mexico, through Sonora, past Hermosillo and into the area the U.S. State Department describes thusly;

 Sonora is a key region in the international drug and human trafficking trades, and can be extremely dangerous for travelers.  The region west of Nogales, east of Sonoyta, and from Caborca north, including the towns of Saric, Tubutama and Altar, and the eastern edge of Sonora bordering Chihuahua, are known centers of illegal activity. 

I am now, thanks to the drugs and the therapy, in touch with my inner coward. I point out that this is turned into a 15 hour drive which will require an overnight, in Tucson or Nogales, both coming and going. My son can't take four days off. This is the best news I've had in two months. 

I am awaiting the outcome of this adventure, btw. The gf has said she is going to contact her friend and see what she can work out. I'm still awaiting the outcome.

This mental health thing is a pile of steaming crap. I think I liked it better when I was off my rocker. f

When the idle poor become the idle rich.....

In my dreams, I'm lying face down on a massage table set up by the pool in a luxurious desert resort while a bronze, ripped guy named Jeff exerts just enough pressure on my toned neck and shoulders to turn me into a puddle of warm syrup.

In reality I occasionally sit, fully dressed, in a convertible chair at an Asian Foot Spa where, after sticking my old lady feet in a basin of herbal water for 20 minutes some guy who claims his name is Craig except his license has his picture and the name "Phuc" on it does something not altogether unpleasant with my spine and then rolls something small and round (that feels suspiciously like a set of Ben Wa Balls) around the small of my back for 10 minutes, following up with a cheery "you done, you pay now."

This is because I fear the results of a poolside massage. The sight of me scantily clad, stretched out that close to the water's edge would, most likely, inspire at least six warm hearted people to run over and drag me to the nearest inlet in hopes that I could reunite with my migrating pod.

The other nightmare scenario is that the current CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch will be staying at the same luxury desert resort, thus driving him to madness at the sight of a fat chick. Considering the guy's current mental state I do not want to be responsible for pushing him over the edge.

Just in case you haven't heard, the story goes something like this: The CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, one Mike Jefferies, has given several interviews of late, stating that A & F caters to the "cool kids" and they do not carry XL or XXL sizes because he doesn't want to see his clothing on those women. He said, in essence, that every school has "cool kids" and "not cool kids" and he doesn't want the "not cool" kids in his store. This, btw, is Mr. Jeffries:

Just in case you weren't sure just WHAT a cool kid looks like. I'm guessing that, while excess fat is frowned upon at Abercrombie and Fitch, excess plastic surgery is not.  And looking like the love child of Gary Busey and Tilda Swinton is a definate plus.

A lot of people are angry about this guy. Jeffries, not Busey, although that's a whole 'nother area. In fact, MOST people are angry, although one woman I spoke with thought it was all quite funny as she doesn't shop at Abercrombie and Fitch anyway so who cares?

Well, in the first place, a whole lot of mothers care. Teen-agers are bad enough without dumping this "only cool kids allowed - oh, and no fat chicks" corporate identity on them.

So, let's try and be practical about this, before Mr. Jeffries gets his boney ass booted. Here is an Abercrombie and Fitch ad:

 Now, I know what they're selling. Okay, at first I thought they were selling instructions on how to do a breast self-exam, I admit it took a minute but yes, I figured out what they were selling.  But I don't see any way that they can merchandise that in public, outside of eight counties in Nevada. Is THIS a cool kid? And, if so, why is she advertising a clothing store? Trust me, that ad, appearing on the "A & F Quarterly" tells me nothing, including what "A & F" actually IS. And I don't think this woman is in any one's high school classroom.

Why do I care about this? The same reason I care that Disney has turned that fantastic little hellion of a princess with a bow and arrow, Merida, into a sloe-eyed little sexpot with a form fitting embellished gown, substantial cleavage and no visible weapon. The new and improved Merida looks as if she should be standing in front of a microphone in a smokey room breathlessly singing "Love for Sale." Stop that, it's a real song. Cole Porter, look it up.

See...I'm sick and tired of being merchandised. I'm tired of being airbrushed and hairbrushed, properly coiffed, shod and suited up. I don't CARE if I have the right cards in wallet. Want to know what's in MY wallet? Not bloody much of value, I'll tell you that. I like fashion, I think it's art and, as such, I like it plenty. I wear hats in public, dresses too. I don't wear t-shirts, I like cotton slacks and matching espadrilles. I like myself as a size 12.

Know what a size 12 is now? An EXTRA Large. A Plus size. And, as such, I am unwelcome at Abercrombie and Fitch. Which is okay, I never shopped there anyway, (not meaning that I have achieved my size 12 goal but yep, that IS my goal).  As far as I know, this is still Abercrombie and Fitch's most famous customer:

Love the guy, but not exactly my casual style.

I have, these last few months, been dealing with a lot of emotional pain. Abuse heaped on by relatives and "friends." My mother was a nut, and not in a nice way. It sticks with you, hearing your mother say "I hate you." It sticks with you when someone you considered a friend lies about you because she's tired of you and the best way to pull away is to tell a lie and then spread it around to those who are inclined to believe any crap they hear.

Living up to an image is a dangerous thing. I never lived up to my mother's image and expectations. I didn't live up to my friend's image and expectations which, for what it's worth, wouldn't have happened anyway, she causes pain and anger wherever she goes and I rather enjoy the self-satisfaction I get knowing that my kids aren't in therapy and have grown to success AND kindness, whereas hers are normally the subject of multiple calls from their school administrators.

I don't want other people to have to grow up with hate, with meanness, and with a picture of themselves as always, always lacking what is truly needed to be 'cool' because dickwads like Jeffries publicly humiliate them. And yes, he publicly humiliated every girl and woman who shops there, because we are none of us secure enough of ourselves to feel that Jeffries is calling US cool. Every size 8 feels unwanted by A & F, every size 12 feels desperate to BE wanted by A & F and every beautiful, kind and loving size 24 has been denigrated and labeled as not good enough for a store...a store that is famous for selling bush jackets. A store that is so exclusive it rents space in every damn mall in existence, from New York to San Francisco to Bismarck, North Dakota.

So piss on you, Abercrombie and Fitch. Shame. I hope Mr. Jeffries lives a long and healthy retirement, dies of old age and is sent to his eternity in a polyester suit from Big Lots.

"Doctor, Doctor, give me the news...."

I went to the doctor yesterday. Actually I went to two doctors, one is a psychologist and one is my doctor type doctor...you know, the kind who can legally deal drugs. My psychologist is quiet, not quiet as in "what do you think about that?" but a soft spoken person, probably about my age, who is fascinated with my mother. Someone should be, I suppose, he uses words like "abuse".

I somewhat mistrust therapists. No, I'm not one of those people who doesn't believe in psychotherapy, I think it's awesome, as the world spins faster and faster it creates a need for things that it never needed before, things like "the cloud,"  hazelnut lattes and psychotherapy. What I mistrust about it is that I have watched people manipulate therapists. I had a "friend" once who, in spite of her constant bragging about how her husband couldn't keep his hands off of her and what a fantastic mother she was, found herself in some sort of marital pickle and sought marriage counseling. She only "needed" two sessions because, in that brief time, she (or so she said) managed to make both her therapist and her husband see that is was HIS mother that was the cause of all of their problems.

Frankly, I think that her spending $15,000 on custom made bookcases for that ticky tacky house of hers in the desert suburbs just east of hell had something to do with the sudden cooling of the marital ardor. I didn't spend that much on my last car and I drove it brand new off the lot. Not to mention that the bookcases didn't help, the place always looked like inventory night at Big Lots.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I have seen people manipulate therapists. Therapists are people and, just as they size you up you can size them up. It's not too hard to start giving them what they want to hear and bam, you're cured and off you go, your marriage is saved. Yeah, like THAT lasts.

Anyway, I approach therapy as an exploratory operation right now. Besides, it justifies the Xanax, and that alone is worth the hour a week.

My doctor, however, should have been a therapist, although perhaps he wouldn't be as cool if he did what he does for me for a living. In other words, he's a really good doctor who takes the time to get to know his patients. And, if he were just a therapist, I couldn't get Vicodin from him when I have a root canal.

So, after the therapist, I head to the doctor. I have a standing appointment with him of some frequency, ever since I collapsed in his examining room  several months ago. He gives good hugs, btw.

Occasionally he takes blood. Mostly he talks to me. He seems to feel that I was entitled to a breakdown. He  understood that I gained almost 9 pounds in six weeks on disability, he confessed to indulging in a bit of binge eating himself.  So on Friday in I went. Now, while I was binging I was NOT attending Weight Watchers. I went off the deep end the week I hit a 26 total pounds lost. My doctor, God love him, was not upset about the weight (any more than normal) but about my frame of mind and he increased my Paxil.

I went back to Weight Watchers. First off, why the hell does it go ON at the rate of 2 pounds a week and come OFF at the rate of 1 pound a week? I dunno, maybe I don't ... oh, never mind, that thought was too vulgar for me, let's just say I guess I don't get rid of as much as I accumulate. Anyway, I got back on the horse and the horse is getting back into that smaller saddle again. I've lost six of the nine pounds I put on. It took five weeks but I did it. I also finished the 5K Walk Now for Autism Speaks in less than an hour. That sucker was 7 activity points! I was riding my new bike to work but then I seem to have bruised my tailbone so we're giving that a rest and damn, it's SUCH a cute bike...yellow with pink fenders. But I digress...

Well, I'm sitting on the paper draped exam table, swinging my feet and thanking GOD he has his a/c on because it's been 100 degrees and I have no air conditioning at home and I heard him coming down the hall. "Deborah! You've lost weight! I'm so proud of you!"

This before he got in the door. The whole office heard it. I didn't care. It was awesome!

Well, he came in and we proceeded to talk about how I was progressing. He also seems to think my mother was abusive, but he followed that up with "Shame on HER!" He then gave me some really great advice on how to cope with the people who come in and out of my life and turn out to be manipulative users.

"The next time you have to deal with her" he said, "just look her square in the face and think "Piss on you!""

He grinned. I grinned. And, at that moment, I realized I was close to nirvana. That advice, those three little words, managed to encompass their irrelevance and my self-esteem, all in one go.

He then told me to get the hell out of his office, he had sick people to see. I come back in three months. This alone makes me smile. As I was leaving he said "keep up the great work, you look terrific, I'm proud of you." I said "It's your doing." "Nope" he said. "It's YOUR doing. I'm just part of your cheering section"

And, for the first time in a very LONG time, I find myself not dreading bumping into those people, women I'm sad to say, who are condescending, who gossip, who make up stories and demand absolute fealty instead of friendship. But what will I say? In one case, as little as necessary and in another, absolutely nothing if I'm lucky. But I will be smiling broadly at the time. Because, behind that smile, the voice in my head will be confidently announcing "Piss on YOU!"

I am beginning to understand that "living well is the best revenge." It's not monetary. It's mental. It's buying clothes a size smaller because you feel so much better. It's realizing those demonic voices of my past (and present in a case or two) are fading as they lose their influence on my emotional well being. I'm a long way from the woman who once stood in a parking lot singing the theme from Growing Pains with gay abandon. But that woman was fun. And she WILL be back. I will again dance on the stage while singing "Let the Sunshine In." I will wear yellow again. That person is small, and off in the distance...but she is STILL in sight.

Except that, when we merge again, I intend to be the stronger for it. I will also be wearing a size 12 again.

As I was saying right before my nervous breakdown...

It occurs to me that, in my insecurity, I have collected a largish bag of former friends. They are former friends because they turned out to be selfish jerks, one of whom collects friends like most pudgy, yuppie Type C mothers collect latte recipes. I was awfully excited when she approached me with friendship, as I have always been too much of a loner, and my family did a number on me like you wouldn't believe in terms of reinforcing my general un-loveability.

This was due to any number of reasons, one of which was that I didn't want to wear mid-calf length tweed skirts with bobby socks and saddle shoes and blouses with peter pan collars set off with a cardigan sweater. My mother spent the better part of her life trying to bring back the early 1950s...GOD only knows why. She freaking LIKED the "let's have a cocktail party, I'll make rumaki, hang on while I take a few Miltowns" way of life. She thought I should blaze the fashion trail and bring back the great days of high school fashion.

Something like this:

The problem with this was that I started high school in 1968. Something like this:

My hair was better though. I didn't wear my glasses, which is why I wear bifocals today. My mother wouldn't let me wear bangs, otherwise my hair looked rather like Marlo Thomas in "That Girl." My mother and I fought constantly over my fashion sense. Which, now that I think of it, was rather ridiculous, because I went to parochial school and looked like this most of the time:

Yes, contrary to popular belief, that's what most Catholic schoolgirls look like. They do not even remotely resemble the schoolgirls featured on the cover of porn boxes. They don't smile - they're stuck in Catholic School - and they're always disheveled.  They hold hands because it's comforting to know there's someone else out there just as miserable as you are.

My parents told me that I had to stay in Catholic school because I wasn't made of sturdy enough stuff to make it in public High School. Seriously. have you even BEEN through Catholic School?

Anyway, I spent my off hours in jeans and sweatshirts and P.F. Flyer's so that entire struggle over me not wanting to wear my MOTHER'S hand me downs was actually moot, except on free dress days.

Anyway, suffice it to say that my mother did a number on me. She used to make up stuff about me and tell her relatives about it, oh, she was tearing her hair out about her horrible, incorrigible daughter. I never did ANY of the stuff she claimed I did, I was too nerdy and frightened of my own shadow. But a quite kid who played baseball and did, basically, what she was told to do wouldn't have helped my mother's cause; painting herself of the long suffering mother with a willful, headstrong kid. I've never been sure, but I have my suspicions that this scenario was one she convinced herself was true in order to justify the juice glass full of ice and straight vodka that was her constant companion throughout the 50s, 60s,k 70s and most of the 80s.

LORD, what she did at my wedding shower! Not that my in-laws to be helped any, but that's another story.

Anyway, I have a feeling this is why I have three actual friends and a worn road littered with people who have gossipped about me, used me, drained my bank account for their home based businesses and then spread the "fact" that I am a drunk, bi-polar psycho when they tired of me. You doubt this? I still have phone numbers...

So...if enough people treat you bad, you will, in spite of those three people who treat you as if you have value, eventually have the nervous breakdown you so richly deserve. And so that's what I did.

It was a beaut, although it could have been better. I didn't throw anything, but I cried non-stop for three days, until the Paxil kicked in. I spent 5 weeks in bed, watching old movies, staring out the window, sleeping and periodically dragging myself out to buy groceries or take one of the kids somewhere. The hubster is concerned, but confused, he has no idea what I need but he has, it appears, decided that I have a legitimate issue going on.. My doctor asked "what took you so long?" I dream about the house I lost, lost because we got swindled by Wachovia and weren't lucky enough to be the evicted former owners of a piece of property that was sitting vacant for a year. THOSE people got their homes back. We weren't so lucky. We get settlement checks every now and then. These former friends are the ones who claimed that people like me were just greedy, over reaching lazy oafs who wanted to take things that they weren't entitled to.

I hate that worst of all. We weren't greedy, and we both worked. If wanting a home of my own, one that I was able to make the payments on until the hubster and I were BOTH laid off makes me so, well, there's nothing that I can do about it. In my mind, falling into an arm with a neg am and being robosigned to boot makes me, well, maybe it makes me gullible, or uninformed. But I don't think it made me greedy and I guarantee that I did NOT set out to tank the personal economy of the privileged, arrogant stay at home moms and gay bears who claimed I did.

This does not stop my dreams though. In my dreams, I'm home, I have air conditioning in the summer and a back door I can let the cat out of. On quiet afternoons I can hear the birds singing in the holly tree outside the dining room window. I hear the sound of kids playing on the middle school playground a few blocks north. I have a yard to water and a place to plant the red, white and blue petunias on Memorial Day week-end so they will grow to the riotous mounds of patriotic color at the base of the rose border by the Fourth of July. On hot days I throw a tri-tip on the grill outside when I get home from work. I can put a load of clothes in the washing machine in the evening, after 9PM if I feel like it. I have my half bath off the bedroom - the one with the white bead board wainscoting and the margarita greet walls and  my shower with a door instead of a spring rod and a vent for the steam so that I didn't have to fight the mold I now battle daily.

I had floors that I could dust, they weren't in the greatest of shape but they were clean instead of the brown, cheap acrylic carpet installed over even cheaper padding that reeks of cat.

I miss my life. I hate what the people I thought were friends did to me. I value the friends who stood by me, and that's a fact. I am full of resentment at the way I've been treated, and even more at myself for allowing myself to be treated like that. All those people I gave money to to help them out...let's see...there was the literally thousands I pumped into someones scrap book business...both in purchases and in becoming one of her sales people, because I thought she was a "friend" and wanted to help her get a leg up.

The down on his luck writer who was recovering from a heart attack and was about to be evicted...yeah, I handed over close to two grand to him, paid his back rent. Where was HE when I needed a couple of HUNDRED back on that to make my mortgage? "Oh, gee, sorry, I'm broke." FUCK HIM. He showed up to help us pack. For a couple of hours. He rambled on about his glory days, wrapped some mugs and graciously allowed me to buy him lunch before he went home because his back hurt.

The girl I used to work with who was in SUCH financial trouble, there went another $1100. Don't even know where she IS now.

So there...you can all rejoice now because you managed to put me on Paxil and Xanax and Lisinopril and disability. You managed to send me back to work before I was ready because disability doesn't pay that well. You can all throw a party and drink domestic champagne while you celebrate my collapse.

Enjoy it while it lasts, my former 'friends'. Everything that goes around, comes around.

New Directions, or the ever shrinking Deb

So, here we go again.

Much has transpired. Too much, perhaps, but much nonetheless. I have considering reconnecting with my self-centered self these last few months and, finally, I have the strength to it. You see, before, I would say something, something like "jeez, what a spoiled little girl that woman actually is" and three people would send me e-mails saying "how DARE you, I'm never reading your blog again, EXCUUUUSE ME!"  Well, in spite of everything, that kind of thing hurts my feelings. Because somewhere between the "who the hell ASKED you to read it?" and the "Go fuck yourself" there was actually a very non-confrontational woman who just wants people to like her.

Now...this brings me to my hiatus. Vacation. Absence. Okay, nervous breakdown.

It started way back when. Probably about the time I learned to say "Mama" and unleashed the psychopath my mother was but I digress. More recently, it started the Saturday morning last summer I couldn't sleep.

I was sitting in the unholy mess that is my apartment, at the desk, screwing around on the computer. I was staring at a large pile of laundry I had sitting in the living room. It was there because I had decided, for some unknown reason, that if I stacked it up in the chair it would end up clean, folded, and would have put itself away. No dice. I looked at the laundry, I looked at the lame ass farm I was tending and thought, "what the hell, laundromats open at 5am." I grabbed the bags, headed to the car and ended up at the local mold factory of a coin op (now closed, btw). I went there because it was in a shopping center that contained a supermarket, a CVS, a nail shop and a Western Bagel store. Yeah, the bagels were a prime motivator.

So...I did six loads of laundry, sat outside and had an onion bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee, and loaded the car. It was 8:15 am. Pretty sure no one was up, I drove around the long way, aimlessly cruising the streets, enjoying the warm morning and dreading the heat that would be here by 1 pm  I cruised by another shopping center. There was a supermarket, a Starbucks, a cut rate hair cutter, another nail shop, and a Weight Watchers center that hadn't been there a month ago. I turned in, parked, and walked in.

I had spent the entire time I was savoring my toasted bagel thinking about the fact that I was killing myself. My weight had gone up to astronomical proportions, my eating habits were abysmal, I hated myself, my life, and I waddled. I would lie in bed at night wondering how long before my own weight smashed my heart.

My old leader was there. Registration was free. The program was changed. And I was ready.

I drank my water. I ate fresh vegetables and fruits, I kept track of what I ate and how much. Slowly, steadily, I began to shrink. I found I was now trotting down the stairs in the morning, dead center, no hand rails needed. I had lost 20 pounds by Thanksgiving and I was wearing new jeans, a size smaller. I ate sensibly at Thanksgiving, relishing the company. I had pie, I lost half a pound that week, not a lot but I was in good shape.


As Christmas approached I found myself not keeping scrupulous track of my food intake. I went to my meeting and was down .8 of a pound. And I panicked. I was struck with an indescribable terror. Instead of accepting the fact that my weight loss WASN'T as high as it is normally instead of trusting my instinct and my logic and being pleased that, in spite of my carelessness I had acquired enough good habits to keep myself moving in the right direction my emotions were telling me something was dreadfully wrong. I spoke to my leader who said the loss looked perfectly fine but told me to go see my doctor and assure myself that I was as healthy as she thought I was.

I hadn't been to the doctor in years and I wasn't about to go now. He would yell at me for not being there in years. I knew it. He would give me bad news. I gained weight between Christmas and New Years which should have made me feel less scared. I got back on course and made 26 pounds. I couldn't bring myself to celebrate, to shop a little, to pat myself on the back. I didn't realize I was on the way to a personal hell.

It was a scant week later when a co-worker, new to the job, working for my supervisor and acting with a pushiness and arrogance I was unused to told me I was to meet her at 4 pm so she could supervise me while I cleaned out a storeroom. I told her I was busy (this was true). She demanded an accounting of just what was so important and when, exactly, did I expect to be finished. She explained to me that I didn't do anything that was very necessary and I was to meet her at 4. I said, fine, whatever you want. Se told me SHE didn't appreciate my attitude as she was taking time off from her busy day to help ME.

And I imploded. I began crying like a child (no, not in front of the size 0 bitch). I couldn't stop. Several people expressed concern, as if they actually liked me. I ended up in the HR reps office and, an hour later I went home for the day. I can only imagine what happened when the HR rep called my boss and said I would not be back that day. I hope Miss New Found Authority crapped a brick.

The next day, a Friday, I broke down and went to my doctor. He hugged me while I continued to cry, said I had every right to melt down, gave me several prescriptions, took some blood and referred me to a therapist. I went back to work five weeks later and 8 pounds heavier. I slept all day and stayed up all night, breaking the monotony with peanut butter and butter sandwiches at 3 am. Yep, that's right...peanut butter and BUTTER. I made mac and cheese and pot pies. I let the cat pee on the carpet and the dishes pile up in the sink. I went out only when necessary and didn't enjoy myself. I stayed in bed and watched all 31 Days of Oscar on TCM and "Kit Kittridge: All America Girl" on HBO. I watched it about seven times in a row. Then I watched a movie about a girl who's father got laid off and her mother went back to work and her teacher thought she was incorrigible and then her father got a new job and they were going to have to move and her aunt got married and the kid saved the day. I watched it three times in a row. I don't remember the name but Sandra Oh was the teacher. I was glad my last name is not now nor was it ever "Oh".

I went back to work because we needed the money. I am still fragile and a bit slow to fire up, but it's coming around. I went back to Weight Watchers and began to take the weight off again. My doctor encourages this by saying I am so pretty. If I didn't know he was Jewish I would think he was a nun, they used to tell me stuff like that. Have you even SEEN my nose? It's not a nose, it's a beak.

I started back slowly but the weight is coming off again. I am okay with that now. It has made me vulnerable though, and there is less to hide behind. I now know my job is unfulfilling, my mother was controlling, my husband so detached as to be non-existent and I am lonely. There is more to go. I wonder how I got to be pushing 60 and been so afraid. Not of life. Of myself.

There is 100 more pounds to lose. I took my first step at 9 months (I walked early, my sons walked at 9 months as well)  and the journey I started then is just beginning. For me anyway.

Rewind

Lord, I have been busy, doing what I have no freaking CLUE. But, it seems, I haven't had the wherewithal to put pen to paper, or however one describer the act of self-analysis called blogging. As if anyone much does it anymore, like so much nowadays, blogging has fallen by the side of the road, much like me. I used to have a friend who spent a lot of time going though friends like that, I used to joke that we needed jackets.

I was watching the news, the big news is the USC/Notre Dame came coming up this Saturday night.
I don't talk too much about USC as my husband and his family used to announce, out loud and in front of me, that they believed Trojans eat their young. They all thought this was high comedy, just too hilarious for WORDS.

I WENT to SC. As did my step MIL who, while hardly on my list of people I want to show up for coffee this morning, didn't deserve crap like that either. I eventually stopped mentioning I'd even GONE to college and hoped my spelling ability would speak for itself. I stopped following sports because the hubster refers to football as, let me see, I don't quite remember it exactly, it was something like 11 grown men chasing an over inflated pig bladder around a field or something like that. He thinks THAT'S funny too.

I LIKED going to USC. My husband would assert, again publicly, that USC stand for the University of Spoiled Children and that a USC degree means you can extort and embezzle all over the world and I would sort of curl up and die, something that seems to have stuck with me lo these 30 years later. It took me 20 years to realize that actually Bruins (from cross town rival UCLA) do NOT talk to people like that, they respect the USC Film School we admire their theater department, they talk about the  extraordinary Annenberg School of Communication at USC and the groundbreaking school of gerontology and Trojans have no end of respect for the UCLA Medical
School and it's world class hospital. Bruins used to come to our fooball games and we used to go over to their basketball games and before the SC/UCLA football game they would put guards around the round little bear of a mascot that stands in their quad and we would wrap Tommy Trojan in protective hefty bags and keep a 24 hour guard around it and it was a good time, a really good time. And none of us could stand Stanford.

In short, we co-existed back then, and still do. If you want film, you try for USC. Theater: UCLA. Medicine is UCLA, Dentistry is USC. The students and alumni have always been on board with that. It's the people who didn't actually GO there that aren't. My FIL claimed to have graduated from UCLA, he had alumni license plates. I remember how he got them too, he went into the office waited until they got really busy, claimed to have graduated and needed a new alumni license plate frame, when they couldn't find his records he claimed to be late for a business meeting on campus and the flustered student worker, now very busy and with people lining up finally just gave him the damn things.

His obit skirted the issue a bit and stated that he attended UCLA after graduating from Los Angeles City College. I don't think he graduated from LACC but I did explain to my kids that I had no doubt he attended UCLA, I'm sure he went to a couple of basketball games at Pauley Pavillion over the years and, as we knew, he had gone to the alumni office.

What my FIL and the hubster never realized, or realized and didn't care about, is that the years of constant ridicule took their toll on me and, eventually, left a hole in me where that part of my identity and my general glee as summer gives way to autumn and college football gears up is gone. But this Thanksgiving morning the news talk here in the Los Angeles area has turned to football. UCLA upended USC last week, which happens occasionally although not often, and all eyes are on the long standing SC/Notre Dame game this Saturday. SC was ranked #1 at the beginning of the season and now, Notre Dame is in that position, SC is off the radar. And the newsman was talking about a column this morning in which the writer reminisced about the 1964 US/Notre Dame game and how the underdog Trojans upended the top ranked Irish in a HUGE upset.

I know. I was there. I was 10 and it was my first football game and I had to prove I knew the rules and the object of the game before my parents would take me and I did and they did. We sat at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on that autumn Saturday after Thanksgiving and I waved my Notre Dame pennant and remember Jack Snow and John Huarte tearing up the field and Notre Dame played the first half and USC played the second half and SC played a little longer and won the game.

Oh, how I remember those wonderful days, the days when I was what I was and not what I was expected to be, the day when I could watch football and play baseball and just be the hoyden I was as a young girl 48 years ago. And yes I remember where I was when I heard Kennedy had been shot, I was in Geography class.

FORTY EIGHT YEARS AGO?   Crap. I'm going back to bed.

School Days

So, like Billy Idol who liked dancing with himself (and the possibilities are rife with that) I am writing for myself. Okay, it's cheap therapy I suppose. So yes, it's been lo these many months now (and people who know me can vouch for the fact that I really talk like that. I say shit like "Lo," on occasion. We don't say things like "Lo" or "Prithee" often enough. There are perfectly good words, used rarely and only by those who quote Shakespeare on occasion. I quote Shakespeare on occasion. Only on occasion because I haven't committed a lot of Shakespeare to memory. I've learned just enough to make myself appear erudite without having to pay it off.

Doing this usually depends on who you're speaking to at the time. That is the key. The other day, I said "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..." and just let it hang. I said this to a theater major. The fact that said theater major was now an accountant didn't matter, she could finish it and did while I gave the appearance of someone with a functioning brain, something I was beginning to despair of.

I went back to school ago, online. I want to get a Master's, I'm not sure exactly why because, for some reason, the explanation "Because I want one" seems to annoy people. It annoyed my father, who informed me just today that, at my age, it wasn't as if I could utilize such higher education to any career purpose. I countered by telling him it would look better in my obit if it said M.A. after my name instead of "Bitch on Wheels."

He was unimpressed.

Well, anyway, back to school. I had initially enrolled at Brandman, the on line division of Chapman, some sort of church run school. I have to fill in some blanks, I was last in college at a time with the slide rule was hip. This was my first inkling that maybe something was wrong. The adviser set up an education plan with me and my third semester what set aside for filling in my math requirements. The set me up with a statistics class.

Statistics? For an old on line lady who's last math teacher was Euclid. And I flunked. But, before that I had to take some state mandated English class which was a new requirement. And this is where I started to unravel. The first assignment was to post a brief introduction of ourselves on the message board that suffices for a classroom environment when one is an on line student. I posted a brief introduction. The teacher said it sucked.

I didn't take this well.

He said I had no voice as a writer and it would "behoove" me to learn how to write because I would never succeed in life without that skill. I pointed out that this chatty, fragmented train-of-thought style WAS my voice, particularly when the assignment is "Introduce yourself" and not "Discuss why Mitt Romney is not a twit. Please provide ample citations and outline your thesis." The teacher than told me I had no skills as a writer and it would, again, "behoove" me to learn to write properly. You know, like him. He said I couldn't spell or punctuate. I said "punctuate this" and then suggested he bite me. He then wished me a "blessed day."

We did not part well.

Now, ever since 1975 I have given many people the same advice when they were involved in something that they did not like. The advice, btw, comes from "A Chorus Line." A character is describing going to the High School of the Performing Arts and her teacher is a jerk who constantly berates her. She goes to Church and prays for guidance and, unlike most of us, she got it. As the song goes a voice came up from the bottom of her soul (and out through the top of her head) and said "This man is nothing, this course is nothing, if you want something, go find a better class."

I've told this story and given this advice for years and I decided to take it myself. I found a better class. I still have to take lame ass English, but I discovered that the lame ass English I was taking is NOT required lame ass English. My current lame ass English involved writing a paper over the course of eight weeks, using various multi media and getting peer pressure  reviews. It's okay. Not hard, except that the paper is to be a paper about a happy memory.

Well, okay, I can dig up a few. BUT...it has to involve someone that I am then going to interview about said happy memory. And THAT'S the rub. I'm almost sixty. These people are dead.  I mean, who can't come up with a happy memory involving grandma? Me too. Now, talk to grandma about the circus. Sure, the median age of my classmates is 17.9. I'm freaking OLDER than their grandmother's.

I was going to make one up, including the person, but now I find out that photographs are involved. Well shit. NOW I have to find someone in the photo box and make up a life history for them, and then come up with a happy memory I had with them and then do some sort of interview. Kee-Ryst

It's not that I don't have said memories, I could probably call up one to use in case I ever need a Patronus. I was happy when my boys were born. Unfortunately neither one of them is much of a conversationalist on that particular memory. I thought of the time my dad sneaked me out of the house after I'd been grounded by my mother and took me to the circus. Now, to this day I remember the absolute wonder of all three rings going at once.AMAZING!  My father doesn't remember that. Seriously?

Maybe the time my fiancee dumped me for a guy? In the long run it worked out for the better, although I have no idea where he is now so there does the interview thing again.

Maybe the day I told my first English teacher to eat me? I have the emails, which might suffice as the interview portion of our program, no picture tough. For some reason I imagine he looks like the older, dissipated Richard Burton, because none of the 17 years olds in the class will recognize him.

So yeah, I'm soliciting happy, media friendly memories. Like the time crazy Uncle Clint started yelling at the furniture...

Oh, by the way, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..." is from The Scottish Play. Just thought I'd mention it.

Walt must be spinning like a lathe...

Yesterday was my birthday. It was also the hubster's birthday. We celebrate this like we celebrate all important days we share...our anniversary, Christmas, Thanksgiving...we ignored it. He doesn't speak to me and, in turn, I do not answer him. He never wished me a happy anything, sulked the entire time we were together and waited anxiously for me to give him a ride to someplace else, which I did, gladly. It was a business visit for him, but the business was interrupted with a birthday cake and much merriment. He told me to look on his Facebook page, as pictures and good wishes had been posted. He seems to have forgotten, however, that he "unfriended" me on Facebook, and told me so, because he didn't want his friends seeing me on his page.  Superficiality is not one of the nicer traits he got from his parents. BTW, I found the can opener. Don't ask.

This left me with a birthday and no one to care about it. I was casting about for free things to do. Okay, mostly I was looking for places where I would GET things for free. I remembered Disneyland used to let people in free on their birthdays so I went looking. I know, I was 99.9% sure that Disney would give away Jack Shit, but I looked anyway.

I found that Disney, aside from warmly giving people the aforementioned Jack Shit, has raised their ticket prices. Again. For the second time this year. If you want to take your three year old to Disneyland, and said 3 year old also wants to go across the Esplanade to see Lightening McQueen in Cars Land (built because both the movies sucked and Disney was looking for a way to squeeze as much money out of a franchise they're beating like a dead horse, with about as much success, but it's at California Adventure which is a waste of a good parking lot anyway) you will have to fork out $119. Yep, $119 for a three year old. It will cost you $119 to get your three year old into a place that is too big for him to toddle through, too hot for him to safely stay outside in for more than 20 minutes, too mature for him to go on the majority of the rides (sorry...attractions) and too expensive for him to eat anything except the cheerio-o's in the sandwich bag you smuggled through the gates in your pocket because Disneyland expressly forbids anyone from bringing in their own food for fear they'll lose that 7 bucks they charge for a freaking TURKEY LEG from a cart.

Now, if you really LIKE being ripped off by a rat in shorts, you can buy an annual pass. Oh, Passport. Other theme parks have passes, Disney is special, they have passports, which, I guess, are supposed to remind one that when one goes to a Disney "THEME" park, one is going to an exotic land where only DINKS and rich people live. 

Now, like an idiot, I Googled for information about Disney prices and such. Google is my friend, or so someone used to tell me, ad nauseum I might add. The problem with Internet searching, Google or no Google, is that your first two links will be paid ads and the next two pages will be crap that the bots find in blogs and on message boards which, while they feed the not inconsiderable ego of writers everywhere, offers little in the way of practical information like "How the hell much does it cost to get into freaking DISNEYLAND?" I discovered, finally, that it will cost you $649 to give your three year old a ticket good for a year.

SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE  DOLLARS FOR A THREE YEAR OLD.

Of course, that price includes parking, so it's justifiable.

In order to find this I ended up wandering through other websites and message boards. I came to the conclusion that people who populate these boards are mindless twits, largely bigoted against those who work hard and live from paycheck to paycheck and probably a lot of other people as well. I was, frankly, stunned at the arrogance and self-righteousness I was reading. Couples who have chosen to share their over privileged lives, not with children, the poor, the abused or the persecuted but with their cats, were opining with out and out disdain about the complete and utter fairness of what appeared to be a monumental price hike which is going to shut out those of more modest means by explaining that no one has a right to go to Disneyland, it's a gift given only to those of status who can afford it. If your three year old wants to visit Cars Land and you can't afford the price of a ticket please just shut the hell up because Disneyland is a place for the rich, powerful and gifted and you, obviously, don't qualify.

The fact that Disney peppers television, billboards, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers and toy stores with advertising designed to show your three year old that the only thing worthwhile in life is to dream of going to Disneyland and thus break their parents hearts when said parents are not well off enough to afford a $1200 dollar Saturday for their family of four (and God HELP you if you have to travel to get there) is certainly NOT Disney's way of extorting money from you because you can lock your kids up in a cage where no social interaction can possibly take place, or, perhaps, move to Lancaster PA, don black coats and hats and sell $1200 dollar quilts to unsuspecting tourists, thus removing the temptation known as a Disney ad. You can also get a cheaper pass which does not include parking (actually a good thing for that three year old you were considering putting behind the wheel) - or park entry on a whole lot of days one might be inclined to go to Disneyland. Days? Try weeks. But you CAN pay $469 for the pleasure of opening the Annual Passholder's special calendar on the interwebs and saying "nope, we can't use these today..." A bargain, no?

So far, my personal favorite is the comment made saying, in essence, that the price hike was a very good thing because this woman could afford the over $3000 a year it will now cost her family of five to renew their passes and, with all the people who will now be priced out of the place it will make their "experience" better.  Since it will be better she won't complain to Disneyland as much and that will make Disneyland happy because, apparently, Disneyland management spends most of it's valuable time, not crunching numbers to see how high the prices can go before their guest's balls fall off from the twisting, but reading her letters and working out ways to make her "experience" better.
It's a Win/Win.

I don't know about you, but frankly, I don't want my kids anywhere NEAR people like that. Hell, I don't want to be anywhere near people like that.

So...here's my idea. Drive up to Los Angeles instead of Orange Country. Go to Griffith Park. Take the kids, take their friends. Take a picnic.  Take them to the Observatory and show them the universe. Take them to the carousel and let them grab for the brass ring. Take them to the Zoo - it's not the greatest Zoo ever but I remember once standing absolutely enchanted watching a small herd of giraffes run...heads gliding in slow motion, bodies galloping like they were in the home stretch of the Kentucky Derby. Take them to the Autry Cultural Center and show them the REAL Frontierland. Take them to "Travel Town" and let them climb through actual train cars and engines.  Go with them.

Next door to Travel Town is the Los Angeles Live Steamers. Here, on Sundays, you can immerse yourself in the actual Disney experience. Walt's scale live steamer barn, the one he kept on his property in an upscale L.A. neighborhood, is there, looking exactly as it did when Walt used it to house his own trains. Steamer enthusiasts run their trains on scale track here, through scale tunnels and up scale mountains and back again. They will let you ride for free, donations are appreciated.

Parking all over the park is free and you can have an entire Disney experience for less than 10 bucks a head if you like, including the hot dogs and potato salad. Not only that, the pretentious yuppies you don't want influencing your kids wouldn't be caught DEAD in a place that admits everyone.

Now that's a real Win/Win.

All the modern conveniences

About, oh, a million years ago, I decided no stop replacing the electric can openers every few years and buy an old fashioned Swing Away the next time I went to the market. It cost me $3.95. It went through the dishwasher (when I had one), thus eliminating that PITA of taking parts off the electric can opener and trying to scrape the crud off of them. It never broke, it never wore out and it took up absolutely NO counter space.

Four years ago, when we were forced to move (may the bastard who programmed the robo-signing machine at Wachovia burn for that thankyouverymuch) I took the can opener out of the drawer I kept it in, threw it in a box and transported it to my kitchen on the other side of town. Since then, it has resided in the drawer on the left hand side of the sink.

Now, I'm not exactly anal and, as of this minute, the dishes from dinner last night are still in the sink, the dishes from yesterday's lunch are still in the drainer. I know, I know...I'm not Martha Stewart. If I had a kitchen the size of hers I still wouldn't have enough counter space. I work until six, then I go home and start dinner. I finish cooking, yell at everyone to get their own damn food and usually end up taking my own plate to the bedroom so I don't have to watch yet another talent search based reality show featuring little talent but a lot of ego sitting at the judges table. I didn't name the show because it's ALL of them. You know it is.  I'm worried "Wipeout" isn't coming back too. It's summer, the days are longer and we should be watching "Wipeout."

Last night was taco night. It's getting warm here in the urban village and, for some reason, I equate warm weather with taco night. Yes, I'm a gourmet, I got the taco seasoning with the least sodium for the money and store brand shells. I got a rather zippy salsa ranch southwest chili tortilla salad type kit, because sorry, I'm a fair cook but I do NOT like having to start in the second I get home from work and I take shortcuts. Yeah, suck on THAT, Food Network.

My younger son didn't expect to be home until late, so I pretty much planned dinner for 3. He was delighted to find he wasn't needed for the rest of the rehearsal and so was home for dinner. I was delighted for him and glad to see him but also decided to stretch the taco/salad dinner to feed 4 instead of three...one of the four being WELL over six feet tall. Okay, THREE of the four of us are over 6 feet tall but this one brushes 6'9". So I poked around and found an onion, a wrinkly green bell pepper a can of diced tomatoes and a can of diced Ortega chilies and started a pan of Spanish Rice. I actually WATCHED the onions and peppers and rice as I sauteed them and everything was picture perfect when I grabbed the can of tomatoes and reached for the can opener.

Which wasn't in its drawer. It wasn't in ANY of the drawers.  It wasn't in the cupboards, in wasn't in the fridge, in wasn't in the sink or the dish drainer or on the counters. It wasn't in the microwave. By this time my younger son had come out to help hunt. Eventually "Jeopardy!" went to a commercial break and the hubster inquired as to the commotion. "Where's the damn can opener?" I yelled.   He wandered out. "I left it on the counter after I opened a can of tuna earlier." Well, it's not on the counter now. It's not anywhere. "Did you look on the floor?" he asked. This was a serious question, not a joke. I can't fathom the workings of a mind that asks if the appliances, small though they may be, are on the floor. I also don't want to imagine what growing up in his house must have been like, considering the nonchalant way he asked me if I'd checked the floor. I was going to ask if he had considered putting the can opener AWAY when he was through opening the tuna fish instead of just leaving it on the counter but, after 34 years I have learned that there are some questions best left unasked.

Suffice it to say, the can opener wasn't on the floor. 

By now the water I had thrown in with the rice was starting to evaporate. Facing two cans and no opener, I got out the beer opener and proceeded to punch holes in the cans. While this drained the liquid from the can of tomatoes the fruit itself (yes, tomatoes are a FRUIT, DAMMIT!) remained stuck in the can, unable to make it through the smallish triangle shaped hole on the side of the can lid. I punched another one and another one and another one, methodically going around the outside of the can, until I had managed to free the lid from the sides of the can and dump the tomatoes into the simmering rice. I did the same with the can of roasted Ortega chili peppers.

I then started to hyperventilate at the thought of some rogue shard of aluminum peeling off the multi punctured lids and being eaten.I spent the rest of the evening watching my kids and husband in case some piece of metal suddenly burst out of their chests, sort of like the Alien did to John Hurt.

Well, no one exploded, the tacos were good, the Spanish rice would probably have been better if I had had a can of plain tomatoes in the pantry, or at least a can of tomatoes and chilies and onions instead of the can of Italian ones I had, thus making the Spanish rice sort of European rice...Ortega chilies and basil with a hint of oregano. It wasn't bad though.

As of this morning, the dishes are still in the sink and the can opener remains MIA.  We're stone broke or I would have gone and bought another can opener at the grocery store, thus assuring the old one would show up because as soon as you replace something that's been lost, it pops up. You KNOW it, I once had to do that with a pair of Joan Rivers earrings I got from QVC.

And I'm sitting here, avoiding work and looking for recipes to make tonight that do NOT involve opening any cans. I had a lot of good stuff planned for the week-end meals because, well, it's my birthday tomorrow and I ordered a George Foreman grill from one of those catalog outlets which foolishly gave me credit in exchange for an outrageously inflated shipping charge. The grill is supposed to arrive tomorrow and I've got all SORTS of ground turkey and pork chops and chicken breasts, all to be slapped on the grill and served with fresh salad and corn on the cob.

Except now I have to move things around and make turkey burgers without the benefit of a fat fighting grill because I can't open the can of baked beans I was going to serve with the pork chops tonight. 

My father is going to stop by tomorrow morning for coffee, he's on his way to his 60th class reunion which is being held in the town bordering the urban village at 11am. I'm guessing this is the reunion equivalent of the early bird special. Anyway, he will bring me a card and, with luck, a cash gift which I can then use to buy a new can opener. Since it's my birthday I'm going to go the extra buck and a half and get the kind you bolt to the wall. And this is what happens when one turns 58...one looks forward to a new can opener and laundry money.

Oh, and just for the record? America HAS no talent.