Spin Cycle: There is no Black or White, Just Shades of Grey

There are all kinds of ghosts and it seems that lately I have been more inclined to deal with the ghosts and hauntings of my childhood, of my young adulthood, and even of times not so long ago.

Everyone says all families are dysfunctional.

Maybe.

Go ahead and play the music video. You'll figure out why soon.



If you read yesterday’s post or have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know I grew up in a home with a mentally ill mom with an addiction problem and suicidal behavior. So yeah. A bit dysfunctional.

My first day back in LA last week I arrived at the airport in the morning on a red-eye. By 10 AM I had my rental car and was tearing up the 405 headed north. I was on my way to the cemetery to deliver leis to the ancestors.

The feelings aroused by hitting the road on a glorious sunny Southern California day overwhelmed me to say the least. I had not been on my own on the roads of what felt like a past life in a couple of decades. I got off in Granada Hills to find the house where we had lived until I was 10, before we moved to the beach. While I was prowling the streets, looking for my first home ever, I was listening to a country music station and Miranda Lambert’s song, “The House that Built Me” came on.

Seriously. Sometimes the Universe has a perverse sense of timing.

My friend’s death (at 47 years old) the week before combined with the nostalgia for my past, and the remnants of my memories came flooding in like a hurricane. How can one describe the layers of all one’s former selves drifting in and out, together and yet separate from this person I’d become?

It was difficult to tell whether all the old me’s were the ghosts or if I had become a ghost just drifting through my past.

And there were still the ancestors to deal with.

My father’s death eight years ago was a difficult time for my sisters and me. It turned out that while we had all painted my mom out as the bad guy for so many years (a concept encouraged by both my father and his family), in the end, dad was no innocent. A much better liar than my mom by far and just as manipulative. For anyone harboring a life of lies, here's a warning. Death and dying sometimes have a way of bringing everything to the surface.

It took me a long time to truly forgive him. I wish I could say I was a better person, but the truth is I was mad at him for a couple of years, and those were his last years.

Even worse, I was left with a gaping hole in my long secure feelings for my Uncle, my grandmother, and all the rest. These loved ones had been my force of resilience through my childhood and teen years and I credited them for my coming out of it all somewhat OK. But I found myself upset with them for not protecting us from him. For encouraging us to believe that everything wrong was my mom’s fault. For their trusting dad to take care of us and do right by us when he was not capable of any such thing. He was their son, their brother, they should have known better....

I had spent my life putting these beloved ones on a pedestal and it was painful to feel abandoned by them, even though none of them were around to explain.

Does it make me sound like a horrible person to say this aloud? To write it, even anonymously?

Maybe.

Probably.

As a 53 year old woman I see what a narcissistic perspective I had at the time.

But it was more the 13 year old inside of me that was hurt than the middle aged woman.



The Eternal Valley Memorial Park is the resting place for my father, my Uncle (dad’s older brother and my grandfather figure), my paternal grandmother, my Aunt, and my Aunt’s husband (uncle by marriage).

I had not been back since my father’s funeral in 2003.

As I laid the leis on their resting places and said my prayers for them, all the love in the world came flooding back in. I knew I was loved, their love was what carried me through some crazy times. All the rest did not matter anymore.

Of course they had to trust dad back then, to give him a chance to do the right thing. It did not matter that he was not able to live up to their hopes for him. Giving him a shot was a generous and noble choice.

I felt a peace I had not felt the last time I was there.

Later, I thought as I headed back towards Santa Monica, later I may go by my Uncle and grandmother’s house.

The refuge.

Perhaps I might even stop and walk to the side of the garage to see if my three year old footprints are still in the cement there. If the owner of the house comes out, I'll explain I just need a reminder of a favorite memory.

For more ghost stories,head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

Signs

For all that we put on our blogs, there is so much that we don’t. At least for me. I might rub my back up against some boundaries and occasionally foray into dangerous territories. Still. There’s a lot left unsaid.

Things have been difficult lately. A bad week. The kind where I wonder if I really have what it takes to deal with one more mess to clean up, one more broken thing to be fixed, one more bill that needs to be paid, one more emotional emergency of a loved one that taxes me too.

Murphy’s Law not only in action, but attached to a stealth bomb.

So yesterday I was feeling overwhelmed enough, when I choose the wrong route home and got stuck in a traffic jam.

Just what I didn’t need. To be stuck in traffic, late to someplace I needed to be, stuck idle with my fears and anxieties.

I decided the only way to stop worrying over a couple of situations that had the potential to get worse, was to meditate on the positive.

And while I was taking my deep breaths and centering my thoughts I asked for a sign that everything was going to be OK. That it would all work out.

Something to hold onto during this whirlwind of mini crises.

Please Universe. Give me a sign that everything is going to be alright.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

A sign.

A silver Jaguar passed me on the left, pulling up to the next red light just ahead of me.

Its license plate read

BE-LEEV

Click on the sunset in the sidebar for wonderful treat...

Friendship Challenged by Parenting, a Spin Cycle

WARNING (Vodla Mom) Long Post

For all my trepidation about returning to work, it was one of the best first day backs ever. The presentations were succinct, to the point, and delivered with more personality and sincerity than I can remember. We laughed. A lot. So, as much as I long to stay home, blog, garden, cook, and write a book; it’s not so bad being a Teacher. A Colleague.

Ice breaking warm ups this year were based on personality tests. We teachers take a lot of these. We’re expected to know ourselves awfully well in order to relate to the diverse personalities and learning styles (not to mention hormone challenges) of our students.

Today’s personality tests got me to thinking a lot about the Spin Cycle writing topic this week – friendship.

There’s something that just keeps coming up in a couple of my friendships and maybe if I write about it I can put it to bed. Figure out which part of my personality needs to deal with it.

The spin I’m taking on this isn’t the easy road. The Coast Highway with a view - balmy weather in a convertible. The weekend retreat with your best friends while you enjoy each other’s company.

Nor is this spin the hard road taken together, the long highway in rainy weather. The year your best friends rally around you while you battle breast cancer, chemo, radiation, baldness, and depression. The year they bring you get well gifts, cards with cheery notes, and meals for your family.

This spin is the lonely and sometimes scary dirt biking back trail with rocks and cracks and a slippery slope of mud. The trail you take off on your own to distance yourself from your friends when the road they are on, you don’t want anything to do with. When the road they are on feels more like a racetrack, going around in circles. Each car pitted against the other in a competition.

Throughout my life, I mostly stayed away from the popular girls. The competitive, back-stabbing type. It took until my twenties, but I ended up with a group of women friends who were like a part of my own soul. They are wonderful, intelligent, and generous of heart. Not to mention independent and loads of fun. I felt very blessed. I feel very blessed. I’m lucky and I know it. That’s what makes this so difficult.

All of us did not get married or start having children until our late twenties or early thirties.

Then something changed.

There’s no other way to say it, but a couple of my friends are entirely different people when it comes to our kids. Things come up that I don’t like so much. They are overly confident in their parenting skills and overly judgmental and critical of others’. Especially mine. Or so it seems.

It has fucked with me for a long time and I still have not found the best way to deal with it.

It started when the kids were little. My daughter, she was the first by three years. Then, when my son was born, there was a litter of them in our circle of friends. Mostly boys.

One of the first times it became awkward we had taken the kids and rented a karaoke room. The boys were around four through six. A couple of my friends were of the philosophy that wrestling and grappling were taboo. This had already come up. Now, it is not like I thought it was OK for my son (or any kid) to grab a buddy and jackhammer his head into the pavement in a WWF move. But a bit of wrestling and grappling, well, I’m sorry if this offends anyone out there… but for a lot of little boys that’s just what they do. What they like. Our son’s favorite thing at that age was wrestling his dad.

His dad feels that boys wrestling and grappling with their friends helps them learn to handle themselves should they ever be in a bad situation.

But I knew how my friends felt, so when I did stuff with them and our boys I kept an eye out.

Told my son it was not allowed.

The problem, well, the problem was that my friends’ sons not only wanted to wrestle, they were sneaky about it because they were not allowed. And they knew my son and his friends by our house wrestled it up from time to time. So, of course they wanted to try their shit with him.

I was sitting in a booth by myself at the back of the room keeping an eye on my son because the other boys kept coming up from behind and locking onto him to see if he could grapple them off (after about an hour of karaoke they were looking for other forms of entertainment). I would put a stop to it. This happened about 478 times. I’d lost my enthusiasm and was letting them go a minute or so before I broke them up. I mean, shit. How hurt could they get wringing their little arms around each other shoulders when I was all of two feet away?

The boys decided on a tactic of two taking on my son. I have to say, I was a bit curious myself if he could get both the little buggers off. Meanwhile, the moms and little girls were in the middle of Grease’s Summer Days. Son had one boy off and was squeezing the other’s arm up and over his head when one of my bossy friends came up behind them.

She did not see me in the booth.

She grabbed MY son’s arm, twisted him around, and with a pinched mouth and a hiss like voice called him what I would consider mean names and made threats if he “picked on” her son or the other boy again.

Then she poked her finger into the middle of his forehead and said, “I’m watching you, you little brat.”

I never told her what I saw.

I’ve got a laundry list of stuff like this from over the years, from what TV and movies we let our kids watch to who started what and who is more at fault when the boys fight or disagree. But the incidents are not the point.

I’m not really sure what the point is…

Because it is a big blob of icky.

OK. I think this is the point. Over the years a couple of my friends have put me on the spot time and time again. Questioning or judging the parenting choices our family makes. Pointing out when things go south and giving unasked for opinions on the why and what next.

And this is why it is difficult.

1. 
   I have no intention of going tit for tat. I know what their kids are up to and they are no saints. Sometimes I wonder if they focus on my kids to avoid their own kids’ problems. But I don't retaliate by pointing out what is "wrong" with their kids or how they deal with it.
2. 
   I haven’t defended my son from a lot of the criticism because it’s just silly. He’s tenacious and stubborn and a smart ass. He does not think before he opens his mouth a lot of the time. We are working on his challenges. All. The. Time.
3. 
   The way I look at it, we are all doing the best we can according to our own morals and inner guidelines. They were little people. They are now teenagers. They will never be perfect. They just need to try to be the best people they can be. We need to do our best to help them. When they fall from grace, they need to learn from their mistakes.

I try my best not to let my son hang out with the couple of friends’ sons whose moms behave this way. I love my friends dearly; they are wonderful in every other way and after these boys go off to their own lives I want these women to be a part of my life.

Daughter has been mad at me for years over this and thinks that I should speak my mind.

Hubs fluctuates. Part of him thinks it is a competitive thing. Like who can be the best parent. I don’t remember signing up for that contest. Other times Hubs gets paranoid, feeling like we are under a microscope and says it used to be a lot easier to socialize before we all had kids.

The personality test we took at work today looked at whether our personality styles are dominance, influence, steadiness, or conscientiousness. According to the test, I’m a mix of them all.

If Daughter is right, I need to OWN my D-style a bit more.

For more spins on friendship, head on over to our wonderful host, Sprite's Keeper.

Unawareness

Hubs and I were at the beach on Friday. While he was swimming, I thought I'd mosey on down to the water and try and get a video of him body surfing the cute little waves on the shore break. So I sat my not so little butt on the shoreline and attempted some small-kind action video.

The clouds were amazing on Friday. BC wanted me to play with him. With so many distractions and such long time periods between the small sets, it wasn't long until I found other ways to amuse myself. I couldn't pick up BC's ball and throw it, because I would get sand on my hands. The sand on my hands would get on the camera. And last thing I needed was another person telling me my warranty did not extend to getting sand in the inner workings of a camera.

So I attempted to get a video of the cute way BC cocks his head to the side when he hears the words "play" or "ball." ("Walk" works too, but more when he wants to get out of the house)

Yeah, who needs to worry about sand when the ocean comes up to play splash-a-doodle.

Picture a middle-aged woman rocking back while the whitewash attempts to christen the camera. Holding the camera up high above her head with both hands.

Notice the irony of what I am saying while the poor dog tries, in his own way, to warn me.

BC's parting glance is a bit like, "I love you to bits, but you are one dense human."

Friday Foto: Déjà vu

I think falling in love is a little like having visitors. You push the things you have to do aside and make the time to participate in life. The balance shifts in favor of fun and recreation, of sights and sounds and sensory perception. Slow conversations and leisurely meals. Mixing things up and staying away from routines….

Of course it is a big cosmic joke because when the visitors leave, or when the honeymoon is over, real life and routine become a juggling act where mortgages, careers, children, elderly relatives, schedules, housework….fuck I’m tired just by putting it all down on paper. Where was I? Oh yeah, with all the balls in the air the ones that tend to get dropped are the leisurely ones. At least, it did for us. Not absolutely, but enough.

I’ve written this before, but surviving cancer helped me put things back into perspective. To let some things go, to make time for others. To appreciate the little moments and figure ways to fit in more of them. I got a reminder of that that last month. That scare has helped me once again slow down my frenzied tendencies.

One late afternoon last week that I spent with my daughter gave me a strong feeling of déjà vu. I picked her up in town from work and we were going to see a play together. It was preview night and therefore was free. We wanted to get something to eat, maybe a little on the treat side, but within budget.

We picked up some food to go and headed out for a picnic on the wall overlooking the ocean as you drive around Diamond Head.

When my husband and I were dating, we had many a lunch date on that wall. Afterwards, we would break out the backgammon board. We’d straddle the wall, sitting in one direction for an hour, then we'd switch places so we did not tan on only one side. We would play so many games we called them tournaments, and we'd place bets. If neither of us had to work that night, we’d do this all the way from lunch until sunset. Time moved slowly.

While I sat there having a picnic dinner with my daughter I thought about the me that had sat on that same spot, over twenty years before....

Green papaya salad and summer rolls.

Lychee iced tea (me) and iced latte (daughter)

Not the greatest foodie shot. Sorry folks.

The view.




The path.

Through the plumeria tree.

Plumeria.

The play was free. The Thai food to go was $13.27. The drinks from the coffee house one block over from the Thai restaurant were $6.75. The view was free. Our night out came in at just $20, so I'm cross listing this as a Money in the Bank post. For more money saving ideas, clink on the piggy bank or this link to Money in the Bank host, Words of Wisdom from a Smart Mouthed Broad.

For more Friday Fotos, head on over to Candid Carrie's.

Red Wagon Philosophies: Part Three (AKA The Final Chapter, I Think...)

Part one is here.

Part two is here.

And here we go...

My own red wagon was what first introduced me to the concept of balance.

Work and play.

Being responsible and letting go.

Practicality and throwing caution to the wind.

One of the problems I find with kids these days is that many of them don’t know how to work through boredom and earn their fun. There are the overscheduled kids of the Type A parents. Between back to back sports schedules, lessons, and whatever else they fit in, they get very little down time. Certainly not enough to push them to their limits of creative imagining. Then there are the kids whose parents are either are at work, or just plain don’t want them out of the house, or just don’t encourage it. These kids watch TV, play video games, or they are on the computer all day.

I’m just finishing up To Kill a Mockingbird with my classes. Did you ever notice how Scout, Jem, and Dill always start their summers out lounging around, bored, and figuring out what to do with their summer surplus of time?

Apparently this topic of not allowing our children to work through boredom and hand feeding them entertainment needs to be left for another post of its own. But you get the idea, yes?

So, moving on.

I introduced the years we lived in a mobile home park on the beach in Malibu before. Across from Big Sycamore State Park. When I was eleven and we moved from the San Fernando Valley to the beach, the red wagon came along with everything else. At eleven, I believe I had mostly outgrown the wagon, which had seen its own wagon train days on our Wonder Years Street years before.

So, one summer day, my friends and I were lazing around in my yard trying to think of something different to do. Hiking? Mmm. Not today. Rock climbing? Swimming? Raft riding? Tree climbing? Fishing off the pier? Been there, done that. Want. New. Entertainment.

I don’t remember who saw the red wagon and decided we should take it tobogganing down the steepest trail on the hill at the front of the State Park, but that’s where we ended up.

Epiphany Number One. The handle of the wagon is not just for pulling. Sitting inside the wagon, you can use it for a steering wheel, a rudder. I remember being blown away at discovering this. It amazed me that this potential had laid latent and pending and waiting to be discovered. That I had almost never uncovered this gem of engineering. (OK. I was a bit slow. My friends acted like I was retarded for not knowing this, so I had to tone down my surprise.)

We selected a trail that zig zagged up the side of a hill and then went straight up along the ridge, perpendicular to the ocean. When we went up the straight edge high enough to get the speed for the turns, and turned to go down, we were facing the ocean. The turn looked like the edge of a cliff. Which it was in a way if you did not make the turn. But contrary to the optical allusion, you would not drop off into the ocean if you did not make the turn, but actually land on the Pacific Coast Highway.

The wagon could only hold three of us and there were four. We took turns being the one to push the toboggan off.

We started off not going too fast and this ended with the wagon anticlimactically sludging to a stop just beyond the first turn.

We gradually worked our starting point further and further up the hill.

By the last rounds, we were careening around the corner on two wheels, our hair blown back by sheer speed, our grins and laughter screaming out from the deepest depths of our souls.

It was the Most. Fun. EVER.

When we realized the rubber was shredding off the wheels we kept going until the wagon could go no more.

My friends asked if we should hide the wagon so I would not get in trouble for trashing it.

We all stood there staring at what remained of the wagon.

It was made of metal and bringing it to the beach had started it rusting. It was old. And now its wheels were gone.

I confidently told my friends the wagon had long been forgotten, was on its last legs anyways, and not only would my parents not be mad we had fast forwarded the wagon’s trail to the dump, but they would surely buy me a new one when I explained I had discovered the most fun activity on the planet.

Epiphany Number Two. Parents don’t always see a child’s perspective of living life to its fullest.

I stood there in shock while my dad stomped and yelled and made a big production of throwing the wagon in the back of the station wagon to take to the dump.

I still could not believe, once I explained EXACTLY how much fun we had, the once in a lifetime thrill, the feeling that we had discovered a true purpose for life itself, that not only did my parents not agree to buy a new wagon…they grounded me. Talk about adding insult to injury.

I remember thinking, and I believe I had about a week to think about it, that if they had a clue what my friends and I had discovered, they would apologize. See the light.

Work and play.

Being responsible and letting go.

Practicality and throwing caution to the wind.

Turns out it was a once in a lifetime experience. I never got another wagon and we found our thrills in new ways. But for months I yearned to experience just one more ride down that trail in a wagon, careening around the corner, smiling and laughing like there was nothing better in the entire world.

As an adult I try to remember to let go of responsibilities once in awhile and take the time to be creative, to relax, to enjoy.

As a parent I try to get my kids to be more responsible.

Ah. The irony of life itself.

Red Wagon Philosophies: Part Two

If you missed yesterday's post, you may want to start here.
When my kids were toddlers, a red wagon was in my top five list of playthings they needed to have. I had fond memories of my own childhood red wagon. When we went to buy a wagon for our kids, I wanted to buy them exactly the same model I had enjoyed, but times had changed and the wagons were made of plastic instead of metal. This was before the heyday of online buying, and we settled for a model the toy store offered.

My children’s wagon lasted many years and served many purposes for them. The activity I remember most was them playing Wagon Train with all the neighbor kids. There is not much that says childhood than ten or more kids lining up the trikes, bikes, scooters, and the infamous wagon to play Wagon Train down the access alley. The first time they got this idea, the wagon had the pristine first position. Our dog, the one we call Old Man now, but back then was a strapping young fellow, always hung outside with the kids when they played. He was never leashed; he was like a babysitter to them. The kids would try and ride him, lead him, order him around. He played as if he went along with it, but there was no getting around that he was in charge more than they were.

The first time the Wagon Train was good to go, the kids had tethered the dog to the lead and wanted him to pull the wagon and lead off the posse. I was sitting outside watching the fiasco, half reading a book.

Giddy up they yelled at him.

He played dumb and just turned his head to look at them. My son, riding a trike further down the line (having given the wagon riding spot to someone’s young sibling who was too little to ride in anything else) got off his trike and tried pulling our dog by the collar to get him started.

I raised an eyebrow.

You might hurt him, I admonished. Take that rope off of him and let him go.

After much argument from my then five year old son (a mere preview to his debating skills as a teenager) he finally unhooked the poor dog. He allowed another kid the spot on first trike and my son went ahead and pulled the wagon with toddler to get the ol’ western styled parade a goin’.

Old Man that was a Young Dog was sitting next to me with his head cocked to the side as he surveyed the action. As the Wagon Train kicked into high gear and all the vehicles were clunking along down the alley with yipees and whoopees singing out, the dog took off at a gallop. He ran alongside the Wagon Train and gracefully propelled himself into the back half of the wagon.

He spent the rest of the day getting pulled by the kids, who had to take turns as Wagon Train Leader (wagon puller). The dog never looked happier.

After that, every time the kids started lining up the trikes, bikes, scooters, and wagon for an afternoon of Wagon Train, the dog would claim his spot INSIDE the wagon. Sometimes lying down so he did not have to share the wagon with undeserving children.

The children came to accept this as the natural order of things.

I have thought about this sometimes over the years when my kids have out maneuvered me. When it seems I am doing more for them than they are doing for the family.

Old Man is now 16.

Red Wagon Philosophies: Part One

The other day when I was walking along the bike path where all the cats live, I met a woman and her preteen daughter moseying along the path pulling a big red wagon. In the wagon was a huge Costco sized bag of dry cat food. And a five gallon jug of water.

We chatted a bit and it turns out that Sunday is “her” day for feeding the cats. She and some other kind-hearted people each take a day. They have really gotten to know the cats well. They have an idea which ones have been born feral cats and which ones were abandoned. Some of the cats have names. The little orange one that always runs up to me, wants to be pet, and isn’t the least afraid of BC – her name is Emma. The woman and her daughter are thinking of adopting her.

These people also trap the cats, especially the kittens, and take them to the humane society to get spayed or neutered. Then they bring them back and let them go where they found them. She told me I can tell by the snip in which ear whether it is a fixed male or female.

I wondered aloud at my measly bag of cat food I carry with me and the kind lady said that anything helps.

I know my healing book that is based on Buddhist philosophies advocated being kind to animals and to help those that are suffering. I started feeding the feral cats on the bike path during my recuperation.

But that woman’s wagon was big; as was the food bag and water jug. She brings them fresh water so they don't drink from the polluted pond. She and her red wagon were like a gigantic heart of giving. Ain’t no power walk when you are dragging that thing behind you.

The fact that I double up on my power walk and cat feeding. Does make me seem a bit more efficient than just a pure giver.

At any rate, the red wagon once again reminded me of all that is good in life.

Tomorrow, part deux

Spin Cycle: Time

People always tell you how much faster times flies by the older you get. I thought about this once when I was over my head with overscheduled life. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get to where you want to go. But while you are busy getting it done, the better moments where you feel the thrill of really living are fewer and farther between.

When you are a child, at least in the days gone by, time was something you had a surplus of. Most of your time is spent in the throes of living. Or pondering.

As you get older, a lot of time is spent doing what needs to get done. Work. Chores. Errands.

So, my thought was, the reason time seems to go by so fast the older you get is because only those moments where you are really experiencing your life count. Maybe, in a given year, you only “lived” two months at best.

When I think back on my teenagers’ childhoods, or leaf through the photos, I seldom remember the anxiety of juggling two jobs, a home, two children, and the elderly grandmother. Of constantly worrying over who did what and what did not get done. I remember the smiles. The joy. Those are the things that stick.

Living in the moment and finding joy while doing something as mundane as, say, vacuuming isn’t easy.

Letting go of obsessive worrying or negative thoughts wasn’t something that used to come easy for me.

Living through a cancer diagnosis and the subsequent treatments changed me.

I can tell someone straight up, and multiple times if necessary, that I do not want to get caught up in obsessive negativity. And mean it.

I can let go of the political maneuvering in the workplace and really not care of the sucky politics. Or at least not care so much that it follows me home.

I can let go of most things if it is for a greater good.

It is hard with our busy lives to slow down. So sometimes I feel like instead of moving forward, I just want to free fall and let go. And in letting go, can feel the thrill of what is really important.

Everything else just falls off the edge.

For more spins, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

This Adventure Called Family: Spin Cycle

I almost passed on this week’s spin cycle topic – adventure. Usually when I’ve got nothin’, I let it sit. Within a day or two the story, the slant, the spin, will come. Most of the time I get my ideas while I’m out walking.

What kept coming to me were the adventures that never came to be. The adventures I had planned that didn’t pan out. The adventures I thought I would have but sacrificed to have a family. Life does not always go the way you think it will.

I suppose one of the most adventurous things I ever did was up and move to Hawaii. Most people who read this blog probably assume I moved here to attend college. But it is not that simple. I was twenty-four when I moved here and had not attended college for several years. After three years of higher education and an epiphany that my major was not for me, I had taken a break. I was working in a restaurant in LA and a friend at work and I thought as long as we were in stall mode we might as well wait tables someplace more adventurous. We were thinking of moving to Colorado and skiing a winter or moving to Hawaii and beaching it for a year. What can I say? It was June and once we made the decision to leave, we did not have the patience to wait for snow. Hawaii it was.

My friend moved back after six months. Believe it or not, Hawaii is not for everybody. I stayed and ended up working at a place that changed my life – Bobby McGee’s. Several of the friends I made while working there are my closest friends today, 27 years later. One of my two roommates from that time was attending college and influenced my return. I started back part time, but within a year was in the full swing of it.

I double majored in Political Science and English and had hopes of graduate school and worldly travels. During my last year of college I was making plans to live in Japan after graduation when I started dating my husband (who had taken a job at, you guessed it, Bobby’s). When I first agreed to this thing called marriage and family, I did not foresee how much it would change my path.

Now my life’s adventure turns out to be the choice to have a family. Sometimes I wonder if, by the time we get them through college, there will be enough piss and vinegar left in my husband and me (and mula left in the bank)to travel and adventure like we thought we would back in the day.

Who knew the seemingly routine adventures of a mortgage and raising children were where I was headed. Certainly not me. For me, this adventure called family was not a place I proceeded to purposely; nonetheless, an adventure it has been. One I would not trade for all the travels I had hoped for.

Having a second child, buying a home, and taking in my husband’s 80+ year old grandmother all within a year? An insane adventure.

Working two jobs for the first five years of homeownership and, yeah, still raising two kids and taking care of a now ailing grandmom? A challenging adventure.

Juggling my son’s sports schedules with my daughter’s performing arts passion for many years? A roller coaster adventure.



The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back,

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost

Searching for balance amid the many roles of mother, wife, educator, friend, sister, daughter, and somewhere, somehow a creative self? My current adventure.

For more spins, head on over to our wonderful host of the weekly spin, Sprite's Keeper.

I'm out of words right now, so I'm borrowing words from others

"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the other.... The whole purpose of life is to live by love." -- Thomas Merton

Spin Cycle: Change

On Getting Older

The other day I posted a dream where I was taking a picture. My awareness was behind the camera looking through the lens. A volcano was in the background and I think it was Haleakala, but it could have been Kilauea. The person in front of the camera was a younger me.


Two nights before I had been at my friend’s house (“P”) for an Oscar party. While we were watching the Oscars, she busted out a photo album from 1983 (P and I were roommates) and was showing my daughter pictures. She wanted to show my daughter pictures of an event we worked once. Another friend of ours is a dancer (she was also at the Oscar party). Our dancer friend (“T”) led an exciting life back in the 80’s, traveled the world dancing, and even now works events as a ballroom dancer. Did you know that wealthy people hire ballroom dancers to start the dancing at their events? I guess the professional dancers make the rest of them feel like they are dancing better just by being on the same dance floor with them. Anyhoos, T and her troupe were working a huge convention event once in 1983, and they needed a couple of extra dancers to dance in the go-go booths. Yes, while T and her group were doing jazz numbers on the stage, P and I were put in go-go booths. The theme was under the sea and we had these humongous head pieces on that I think were supposed to be seaweed. Our dance costumes were beige leotards with green sequins spiraling around us.

You could tell in the pictures that we were having the time of our lives. We went through the rest of the album, and it reminded me how much carefree fun we had back then. We started off living in Waikiki and made friends with several of the beach boys that worked the sailboats. We would sail for free at sunset with them when they took the boats back to the harbor. There were pictures of us on the sailboat. We were in swim suits I had forgotten and in bodies that left us long ago. Or at least are trying to leave us by heading in sags towards the ground.

The movie Flashdance came out that year and P had pictures of us lined up in the apartment before going out clubbing. We were dressed in miniskirts, pumps and little white anklets. Our T’s were ripped to fall off the shoulder like Jennifer Beals. My daughter looked at these pictures and asked if we had worked another show that night and that she like our “costumes.”

There were pictures from a birthday party we had in our apartment when my dad was visiting and staying with us. If I was 25, he was 58. Only a few years older than I am now. He was sitting there surrounded by my Bobby McGee’s friends. While everyone else was hamming it up and posing for the camera, he sat in the midst with a beer in his hand. I remember he went to bed early while the rest of us drank late into the night and then he woke me up first thing in the morning and wanted his tourist day. We rented mopeds and went for hours on them, winding up at the harbor where he wanted to take a cruise on the glass bottomed boat. He got pissed off that I wanted to take a nap on the deck in the sun when he had paid good money for me to be below deck, looking through the glass. It was stuffy and gross down there and made me want to throw up. I was hung over after all.

So in this midst of a chaotic week where life piles up around me faster than dirty laundry, my dreams are pointing me toward reflection. My readers left some wonderful insights in the comment thread that also point me in that direction.

When I look at the photos of all the younger me’s, I see myself living life, not getting beaten up by it. Next month I will make my three year mark as a cancer survivor. No matter how much busy each day hands me, I want to remember to stay centered and focused on what is important. I want to live life, not just get through each day. I want to acknowledge all the different selves I have evolved through over the years. Here is a quote from a favorite story. Sandra Cisneros says it so well, I’ll let her say it for me.

What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you've eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you are--underneath the year that makes you eleven.

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three.

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree truck or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one.

Sandra Cisneros, Eleven

Your sound is fine. The music comes in a t 20 seconds. I know you are busy, but relax and enjoy the video. This is one of my favorite Hawaiian songs. It always reminds me of change and growing older and wanting to go back to our childhood selves. In 1987 this song was played at the funeral of a friend of mine. She was married to a bartender at my work and they had three young children. She was killed in a car accident and at the funeral, when the musicians were playing this song, and I had to sit there and watch those three kids in the front row, I really lost it. I "cried like my three year old self."

Change is a strange thing it cannot be denied

It can help you find yourself or make you lose your pride

Move with it slowly as on the road we go

Please do not hold on to me we all must go alone

Now this song always brings a lump to my throat and reminds me of my own mortality. So, no matter how busy things seem, the yield sign starts flashing and I leave busy for a few minutes and do something that will make memories instead of just making a living.

I have no idea who the dancer is in the video, but I thought her interpretive dance was kind of cool. It is not traditional hula, and the YouTube site says it is a combination of several dance styles.

For more spins on change, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Guilt Trippin

Sprite's Keeper's Spin Cycle this week is guilt.

This is a tough one for me. It does not help that I am feeling intimidated by succinct and thoughtful thistle’s spin, where she compares guilt to regret; and Jan’s strongly worded spin where she blew me away with her fuck you guilt attitude.

For me, I think the grey area lies with the mix of guilt and shame.

I used to be dogged by guilt. I would wake up in the middle of the night and worry about a detail left undone or a phrase that may have been taken the wrong way.

It wasn’t until my thirties that I realized others glided through life with much less worries. I studied this and tried to let things go. I have come to believe that what does not come naturally at first should still be practiced. Eventually it might stick.

It wasn’t until my trip through cancer territory that I was able to truly embrace and live the “let the little things go and stop beating yourself up over what’s already done.” Learn from it and move on.

I’ve probably done worse, but my most shameful memory is from my childhood days.

There were four of us. Sarah, Sophie, Katie, and Pseudo. Sarah and I lived at the park. Sophie and Katie were weekenders.

I was the weak link in the group. You know. The one that gets picked on. Sleepover? I was the one whose hand got put in warm water, ice cream melted into my hair, orange juice poured into my sleeping bag.

I wasn’t the youngest. That would have been Katie. But she was bigger and stronger. Plus her parents were the wealthiest. Her mom would give her a twenty to treat us all to candy at the bait store. That would be like giving a kid a hundred today I think. Who would pick on that?
Plus I was a sensitive child. I did not take some practical jokes well. Whenever I got picked on in a way that crossed the line, I went loner for awhile. My older sister would let me hang out with her. She was fearless and could have eaten my friends alive, one by one, if I had asked her. Her boyfriend was even more bad ass.

My friends would eventually apologize. Say it was a joke. Kiss my butt and off I’d go until the next time.

There was another weekender at the park who was our age and always tried to hang with us. Sheryl. We did not like her. Her parents were so rich that they made Katie’s look like they lived in the projects. Plus Sheryl was an only child and very spoiled. Self-indulged.

She was a royal pain in the ass. Her way of fitting in was to let us all know we would be lucky to hang out with her because of all her stuff. She’d brag about all her stuff all the time. That did not go over too well. Then she tried to boss us around and lay claim to leadership because of her vision of herself as better than us all because she had more money. She wasn’t intuitive enough to realize Sarah was the leader by virtue of being the strongest minded. Sarah had the hardest life as well, she was tough from the inside out.

Sheryl was also a big baby. We were a bunch of dare-devils. Our secret name was the dare devil’s club. For fun, we would go into the State Park and climb trees or go down to the beach and climb rocks. Each of us would come up with a precarious stunt. Once we accomplished our stunt, everyone else would follow suit. Sheryl did not like this activity and would tell us we had to do something else. We’d tell her if she didn’t like it, not to come.

So she ratted us out. Told her mom who told our moms. Who told us we had to let Sheryl hang out with us. We were not allowed to do anything that scared her. We all got yelled at for being stupid enough to have a dare devil’s club.

After a couple of weekends of forced company with Sheryl, with Sheryl being bossy and a royal pain, we talked her into going into the State Park. Just for a walk. No tree climbing. Just a walk in the canyon. In my defense, I really did think that was all it would be.

We walked about a mile back into the canyon.

We stopped under some trees and ate the candy bars we’d brought with us.

We were about to walk back, when Sarah and Sophie asked Sheryl if she wanted to become a part of our group for real. She looked both eager and leery.

She said yes.

Then they told her to take off her clothes and run naked through the trees.

She looked petrified.

They talked smooth and sweet. Said we had all done it.

They winked at me conspiratorially.

Sheryl hesitated. She looked at me. The weak link. What was she thinking?

I now had to choose between telling Sheryl, “No. They are lying. We have NEVER taken our clothes off and run naked through the trees. Don’t do it. I wouldn’t trust them. They can be mean even when they do like you. And they so don’t like you.”

Or I could look at Sheryl. Nod yes. Let her trust me for a second and become the picked on one instead of me.

I nodded yes.

Sheryl slowly peeled off her clothes.

She stood there in her twelve year old nakedness. So much fear and trepidation in her eyes.
Sophie and Sarah smiled. “Go on. Run around. Be wild. You’ll like it. Really.”

She faintly smiled. And I realized that despite all her stuff and her spoiledness, what she really wanted was to fit in with us. I felt sick inside.

She raised her hands above her head. She ran around with a slight “whooohoo.”

As soon as she was past a tree or two Sarah grabbed her clothes and yelled to the rest of us “RUN!!”

In that split second, I met Sheryl’s eyes and they pleaded me to befriend her.

The four of us ran through the canyon, Sarah in the lead. Sheryl ran after us screaming and crying for us to stop and to give her back her clothes.

Once we were a good deal ahead of her Sarah turned around, holding Sheryl’s clothes above her head and laughing.

“Still think you’re better than us? Still want to hang out with us?”

Talk about a rhetorical question. I did not even want to hang out with us.

It did not end there. While she stood there, naked and crying, Sarah and Sophie listed her indiscretions and personality flaws. And although dead on, it was mean and cruel. But I did nothing to stop them. My thoughts fell more along the line of realizing that although they might pick on me, it was fluff compared to what they could do if they really did not like you.

Sheryl stood about twenty yards from us. Tears streaming down her face. One hand trying to cover her barely beginning breasts and the other trying to cover her nether regions. She begged for her clothes. She choked on the words.

Sarah left Sheryl’s clothes on the gate that separated the canyon from camping area.

Sheryl never tried to hang out with us again.

I clearly remember a day a few weeks later. I was sitting on the beach with my gang and Sheryl was sitting down the beach with her parents. As I glanced her way I caught her eye. She looked beaten and forlorn. Sarah had wanted to take her down a peg or two, but we had flattened her like a pancake.

I never approached her or apologized.

Guilt, shame. Lots of it over this one incident.

Every kid I notice that sits alone in school or eats alone on a field trip I now pay special attention to. I let my room be his or her safe haven for lunch. I try to befriend the ostracized kid. For me and for Sheryl.

2009: Walking the High Wire

A common theme in my life, especially mid-life, is the desire to achieve balance.

Work and leisure.

Reflection and activity.

Being generous of my time to my family while not becoming a doormat.

I was looking at the little video clips my daughter and I took at the beach on New Year's Day. I noticed that Border Collie's video clips were like a little mini-demonstration on the principle of balance.

There's pure fun:

Fun with a little listening and discipline thrown in:

Notice on that last one how BC paused for a second with the stick? Asserting a touch of independence maybe?

Then there is the lesson of going out there, making friends, while at the same time being ready to let a new acquaintance know your boundaries:

This is one of my favorite Friends.

Ah. Salmon skin roll.

Friday Foto: All the World's a Stage Part One

For more Friday Foto's, stop by Candid Carrie's.

When I went to look for pictures of my daughter's shows, I came across these old pictures from her early days. She is now a sophomore in college, majoring in music with minor (but I think they call it a focus) in theatre. These pictures seem both a world away and yet a second ago at the same time. It goes by so fast.

Fifth from the left


Ah, sweet pose.

Look Mommie! I'm a clown!

Police girl in Pirates

Backstage

After the show with a kalabash cousin.

Isn't it strange how one can so miss the days when the children were little? How when you think back, and see the pictures, these memories are so cherished? Unfortunately, during my daughter's elementary days, these highlights were surrounded by the stress of two jobs and graduate classes. I worked half day as a teacher and four nights a week waitressing in an upscale restaurant where the money was so good it kept me from making the change to a full time teacher's salary for several years. I needed the M.Ed. to increase my salary enough to quit the upscale restaurant.

So I worked from 7:45 to 11 everyday in a school. And then four nights a week at the restaurant. I went to graduate classes two nights a week for two and a half years. The two nights I had off, I took my daughter to dance classes. When my daughter was eight and my son was five, he started sports. The picture of her in Pirates of Penzance? I would get off work at Waianae High School, drive to my kids school 30 minutes away, drop my son off at baseball practice, drive my daughter and a carpool kid to Kaimuki High School (30-45 minutes), then drive back in traffic to pick my son up from practice. Luckily, the carpool kid's mom brought daughter home from town. Meanwhile, my husband was working two jobs and taking care of his grandma who moved in with us when we bought our home. She was 85, and two years later started having mini strokes so she needed someone to be home with her. We took turns, but he was her favorite.

But none of this comes to mind when I see the pictures from those days. I only remember the joy. My heart fills with a poignant joy and spills over when I think of those days and the little ones my children used to be. Today, my daughter is a wonderful young woman who is taking 17 college credits, is in a play with rehearsals at night more often than not (Peter Pan is opening soon with her as a pirate) and works weekends. She's great company with a wicked sense of humor.

And even though I miss my baby girl, I am fiercely enjoying the woman she is becoming. Next Friday I'll get to those recent show pictures.

Our Many Storied Lives

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post where I mentioned the integrated project my students (10th grade) were working on. The project was turned in November 7th and I have taken my time reading through them. When the students not only work hard, but also produce something so intimate and personal, I don’t want to rush the process. I don’t want to grade too many at a time because the projects may start to blend together and I’ll forget who said what.

When I posted about the project previously, McEwans asked in the comment thread if I could share some of the students’ stories. Here's a sampling of their stories and the trends...

Overall:
Most of the students give a lot of credit to their parents for instilling values, morals, principles and beliefs. Family was overwhelmingly their most credited influence. A lot of students mentioned chores and being a participating member of their home with a needed role as an important aspect of who they are and how they fit in. Especially students who have to help with younger siblings in the afternoons until parents come home from work.

Friends and peer relationships, of course, figure prominently into their middle and high school years. They are greatly influenced by their peer relationships. It was inspiring to read how some students, upon realizing they had chosen friends with dissimilar values, were brave enough to go and make new friends.

Most of the students who credited God, religious beliefs, and church involvement felt it helped them resist negative peer and societal influences. For these students religion has been a positive experience that has helped mature them with empathy and mindfulness. Others felt disconnected and disappointed from their experiences with organized religions. Some students who go to more zealous and narrowly pedantic churches seemed less empathetic and more judgmental towards others.

The negative factor that shaped their lives and which was cited most often was divorce. This was mostly true when the divorce was bitter or a parent became absent. One student revealed the difficulty of dealing with feelings of jealousy towards friends and cousins who had a father present in their lives.

Students who are fully engaged in school and have engaging exeriences are usually involved in a program outside of core subjects. Band, music, art, sports, dance, student government, extracurricular clubs were all cited as major factors in shaping them and influencing them positively. These factors are the reasons (along with their friends) that they love coming to school. (So please keep out the shout to not cut these programs)

They value their education more than they admit to on a day to day basis.

Those who have gone through tough times in their young years (domestic violence, parental drug abuse, abandonment) could break your heart not only by their resilience, but also by their forgiveness and unconditional love.

Specifically, some highlights and quotes:

My grandfather was a huge influence. He took me fishing and to the beach and spent a lot of time teaching me things from his life. I am proud of him because he served our country in WWII.

A poem of growing up in domestic violence titled “When My Blue Skies Turned Grey”

Another poem a student wrote about her current relationship with her parents includes these two lines:
I hate how we can’t talk like we used to
There are so many things that I want to tell you

Or this insight from an essay, Growing up an only child, I got sunburned from the spotlight that my parents always shined on me.

Another student wrote that her jealousy of her little sister’s birth when she was five and the consequences of being pushed out of her parents spotlight were the factors that drove her to seek excellence in academics (and regain her parents’ attention).

I loved the idealism of some of the students. One wants to become a pharmacist. But she did not write about making her own personal fortune in the pharmaceutical business. Instead she shared how she would like to start a program to bring much needed medications and vaccines to third world countries.

One student’s poem describes her feelings when she passes the beach parks with the tent cities of the homeless:

Tides of grief rolled into my heart
And left my body quaking
My comfort burst by Indigence’s dart
A dream was birthed, a goal set
To aid families down on their luck
To cleanse the next generation of our regrets.

Another student wrote his poem about how he used sleep as therapy to get him through the angst of middle school. A few lines of a six stanza poem:

What wonders it brings
to shut my eyes closed
and put down all the walls,
and weapons and soldiers
that keep me safe from
the biting and gnashing of bitter teeth
and bothersome, mindless chatter of the world.

Please leave me for awhile
And I will reach you across the wide oceans of my mind
Through the colossal mountains of thought
Beneath the clouded sky of reflection
And speak with you
In the green fields of sleep.

Or a poem about a parent who made some bad choices that includes these lines:

When your hero falls from grace
All fairy tales are uncovered
When your hero falls from grace, so do the stars
And your perception of tomorrow.

Some students prefaced their essays with a favorite quote:

“Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor” Into the Woods

“Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work that goes on, it adds up.” Barbara Kingsolver

“Life is a gift; however, living life with values and principles returns the favor.” Anonymous

“Life is not about finding yourself. It is about creating yourself.” Anonymous

I love my job.

They Call Me Tree

I waited to blog about this until the boy was home and safe. My 16 year old son, who likes to surf, skate, ride dirt bikes, and jump off cliffs or rocks into deep pools of water, gives me a lot of grey hairs.

So, when he was packing up to go to his friend’s house on Monday afternoon because Tuesday was a holiday, I couldn’t help but notice the odd assortment of gear he was taking. Skateboard, check. Backpack, check. Helmet, huh?

Why are you taking your motorcycle helmet and not your skateboard helmet?

It provides better protection.

Next, he grabs his protective gear (gloves, pants) for dirt biking.

Where and what are you skateboarding?

We’re into bombing hills these days.

There are many times I have to remind myself to let things go. To be happy that my son, who had many difficulties in elementary school with motivation and self-discipline, now has a 3.7 GPA. That I have not had to check that he did his work since 7th grade. I should be happy that he has taken extra classes and is ahead on his credits. That he does a lot of chores around the house.

Still, there are only so many ways to survive your heat skipping a beat and your stomach doing a triple backwards flip.

Every once in awhile I think, why oh why after nine years of baseball, soccer, basketball, and football; after hours of driving to practices and hanging out in parks and potlucks – after all the time and energy, where was that corner he slipped around when I wasn’t looking and decided extreme individual sports was his thing??

One day, while I was fighting anxiety while I watched him body surf waves that would keep me from even a quick dippity do da, I heard a voice. At first it was faint. I tried to ignore it. With each crashing wave it got a little louder. Ah. There it was again. My father’s voice. Suddenly, a full blown flashback in Technicolor and surround-sound invaded my consciousness.

I’m 16 years old and lying in the back seat of our family car. My foot is elevated on the front seat and it’s swollen at least three times its normal size. My dad is driving me to the emergency room because while riding my horse in the arena, my horse slipped in the mud and fell in one swoop on his side. It happened so fast I wasn’t able to bail and my foot got caught in the stirrup. When my horse fell, the stirrup twisted with my foot inside, smashing it against the ground with the full weight of my horse on top, breaking three of my metatarsal bones.

The tricky thing was, I was told…no actually, it was more like forbidden, to ride that day. It had been raining for several days straight, the arena was muddy and my dad told me that although the sun had been out for a few hours, it was still too wet and slippery. I could go up and groom my horse, but no riding.

So the whole way to the hospital he yelled at me. Something like,

You god damned hard head. What the hell is the matter with you? If I had a nickel for every minute I had to spend in an emergency room with you, I’d be a rich man.

He also swatted at me and the side of my head at stoplights on the way to the hospital.

Those other trips he was referring to include:

• 
  Getting a nail slammed into the bottom of my foot when my best friend and I , at eleven, jumped off her barn roof holding sheets like parachutes and landed in her dad’s strawberry fields. The winds were whipping it up that day and it was actually kind of working, I mean we never broke any bones. Just bad luck that a board with a nail was under the plants.
• 
  Running barefoot down the pier and slicing the pad of my foot on another nail that was sticking half way up.
• 
  When my girlfriend in high school who had a jeep and used to always take us four wheeling rolled her jeep down a hill – about 15 times.

These are times I was hurt and do not include the rock and tree climbing I did when we lived at the beach.

The apple has fallen. Kerplunk. Karma’s a bitch. And my dad is up there, laughing his ass off at me. And hopefully keeping an eye on his grandson.

Kindergartners. Just ten years later.

Vodka Mom always has the best blogs about her kindergarten students. Five year olds say the cutest things. Absolutely precious. A recent post featured the first fifteen minutes of the day with all the exuberance and innocence one would imagine from these delightful creatures. While posting a comment on her blog, it occurred to me that my students, 10th graders, had only ten years ago been that cute and innocent. I commented casually that I should write down what I hear and see in my classroom and we could compare. Then Vodka Mom encouraged me to go through with it.

The following is a cross section of the first five minutes of four different classes, plus walking onto campus. The names have been changed to protect the little darlings.

Walking onto campus 45 minutes before school starts. I come through the back stairwell and a male student has a female student plastered against the wall. If they didn’t have their clothes on, one would assume birth control would be necessary.

Hey! Knock it off.

No separation, but dirty looks in my direction.

Seriously. You two need to get out of here.

No separation. Dirtier looks in my direction.

I have a digital camera in my purse and I’m not afraid to use it. Do I need to show your mothers a picture of what you are doing?

Girl looks freaked out (finally), but boy looks like he would gladly slice my throat.

Between first bell and tardy bell:

(Jan) Do you know how much the health room charges for a pad? (Me) Sorry, no. But do you need a pass to the health room to go get one? (Jan) What if I don’t have enough money? (Me) I guess you have to work that out with the health room aid. (Sadie)Hi Miss. Are we going to work on our poems today? (Bill) Why do we have to write poems? It’s not my thing. (Bob)I’m going to put a shriek bat in my poem. Miss, do you know what a shriek bat is? Do you play blah blah video game? (James) Why would you put a shriek bat in your poem? You’re supposed to write a poem about yourself. (Bob) EXCUSE ME. Maybe some of us are using similes and metaphors like we are supposed to. (James) Oh, my bad, you are so like a shriek bat. (Tom) Your mother's like a shriek bat. (Lily) Miss, can you sign my permission form? I’m going to be a tour guide for the students who are visiting from Japan next week. (Marie, Tilly, Helen, Fred, Kent – all digging into their backpacks or binders) OH! Me too. Me too. My form too. (Darlene) Hi Miss. I just got back from our family reunion. Do you have my work from last week? (Me) Darlene, review the make-up policy and come to see me in tutoring after school. Class, the tardy bell will ring in about 30 seconds. You need to be seated at that time. (Donald) Can I get a drink of water? (Me) Do I ever give you permission to be late to my class? (Ronald) Can I use the bathroom? (Me) Do I ever give you permission to be late to my class? Class. That IS the tardy bell. You can use the ten minutes of SST to study for your quiz. (Susie, Bobbie, and Chad)What Quiz?? (Me) The one that has been posted on the board and on my website for the last week. I’d like to remind you all that if you don’t know what is going on in class, you shouldn’t announce it. (Sadie) Miss. Lynn is crying in the hall. (Me, outside in hall) Lynn – are you OK? (Lynn, balling her eyes out) Miss, can I go to the health room? (Me) Of course. But are you OK? Do I need to call for a security cart to drive you? (Lynn) No. Snuffle. My boyfriend broke up with me just now. I can’t go to class like this. I need to lie down.

Mr. Bojangles...

I want to do a post on pharmaceuticals. It’s just such a huge topic for me and I’m overwhelmed with how to break it into bite size pieces. Plus, there are so many perspectives. From just me alone. My insights, ideas, and gut reactions are multi-tiered, multilayered, paradox pilings.

Tip of the iceberg:

• 
  Gratitude for the good they can do. I remember what it was like to suffer from migraine headaches before Imitrex or Maxalt came along. There were days when I would lay in bed and imagine the back of my head was going to explode and create a fierce artwork on the headboard. I even think I might have wished for it when the headaches got unbearable. I’m also grateful for the advances in cancer treatments and know the data showing that my rounds of chemotherapy and radiation will increase my odds of the cancer not metastasizing or returning.
• 
  Skepticism. The pharmaceutical industry runs too much like a capitalistic monstrosity with their moral compass equivalent to that of Wall Street and our financial institutions. It seems that since it is not very good business practice to keep us completely healthy and balanced, the goal is to get using as many prescribed drugs as possible. One med helps one thing, but throws off another. Like dominoes.
• 
  Distrust. Physicians seem a little too much in bed with the pharmaceutical companies. They partake of A LOT OF FREE STUFF. I’m really not comfortable with the fact that when I go to the doctor’s office, the sign in sheet clipboard, the pen, the calendar on the wall – pretty much everywhere you look is marketing of pharmaceuticals. I mean, don’t the doctors make enough money to pay for their own, non-merchandizing, office supplies? My radiologist looked perplexed when I mentioned this to him.
• 
  Disapproval. More on the physicians/pharmaceutical inappropriate relationship. I put myself through college, grad school, and the first 6 years of teaching by waitressing (teaching alone wasn’t paying enough). In my last gig, an upscale fine-dining restaurant, the banquet room was often booked for pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical reps invite the docs and their wives, order an expensive four course meal, plus cocktails and wine, and then while the docs are eating, they put on a presentation. That was over 10 years ago, but friends who are managers and event planners tell me the pharmaceutical companies still book the most expensive parties. It’s the docs equivalent to prom.

My friends and I were sitting around discussing the likes of these dilemmas the other day. One friend was saying that her doctor wanted to put her on meds for high cholesterol. The doctor was poo pooing the idea that supplements (like flax seed) or holistic approaches would make any difference. She has since started going to a naturopath.

I go to my medical doctors. I have shopped around and have an excellent team of physicians that I like and trust. But I also go to an acupuncture clinic and physical therapy for my recovery. Right now, I can’t afford the naturopath because my insurance won’t cover it.

So, I can’t even get started on the insurance companies.

Old Man Take a Look at His Life

I netflixed the movie The Savages last weekend. Two adult siblings caring for their father during his last months. A father who had been abusive and not very caring himself.

It made me think of this huge baby boomer generation and what it might be like another 10 and 20 years from now. Hopefully the economy won’t go belly up. BTW. For a great blog on the economic bailout, see Shauuna. She has links to articles AND to a website that gives you direct access to emailing your White House people’s what you think of it.

The movie also made me think of our dog grandpa. I write so much about Border Collie, even posting pictures, that it makes it look terribly neglectful of Old Man. He’s 16 and we adopted him as a three year old when Son was 3 and Daughter was 6. As a young dog he’d be out in the service alley with 10-15 kids. They’d try and tie him to their wagon trains to be their “horse,” but he’d none of it. He’d jump into one of the wagons and let the kids pull him all over the neighborhood. He used to go to the beach and spend the day trying to catch sandcrabs or swimming in the ocean. At his last check up the vet says he’s nearly blind and mostly deaf. He has arthritis in his hips. Before we got the puppy, Old Man used to act like he couldn’t walk past our yard. However, BC has given the Old Man a new lease on life and he now looks forward to a walk around the block twice a day.

I give you Old Man. Isn’t he regal?