Clear the Transaction....2007

For years it has seemed like I've had this strange Karmic-debt-thing going on in which every time I critique anyone in any way I then have to experience whatever it is that I critiqued about them. I think it is the Universe's way of teaching me empathy. In 2007 the volume seemed to be turned up. Lots of lessons in succession. What used to take months or years to occur now happening in mere days.

Last week on the plane from Seattle to Denver there was a woman seated in front of me who took what seemed like forever to get in her seat despite the fact that she was travelling with a small child and had boarded quite a while earlier. She was blocking my seat and had taken up what seemed to me like more than her share of the overhead space and had her coat spread out up there like a sheet, so that I had to ask her to move it over to make room for my carry-on. I noticed as we got off the plane and she pushed the baby stroller that she was walking with a bit of a limp. By the time I got home my right foot was so sore from wearing flat shoes while Chistmas shopping that the only way to keep from dragging it in a Quasimodo-like gait was to walk very slowly. My limp lasted 3 days.

A few months ago at Baker's I was paying with a debit card and I tried to get cash back. The machine said "can not complete transaction". I informed the cashier and he called the manager over. "YOU CAN'T GET A HUNDRED DOLLARS" the manager said so loudly that quite possibly every person at every register could hear. "um, hey lady how about leaving me a little dignity?" I thought. Now everyone is going to think I don't have a hundred dollars in my account when actually the register just won't handle a withdrawal that large. Then the screen went blank. "Swipe it again, I cleared the transaction" she said. As it turned out I didn't need either as much cash or as much dignity as I thought I'd needed.

I asked for these lessons. I think it all started back when I was 11 years old in Sunday School and our teacher, my uncle Luther, asked us "if you could ask God for any gift you wanted what would you ask for?" I remember my friend said money. I said wisdom and knowledge because if you had those you could get anything else you needed, including money, right? I remember wanting to be as wise as Solomon and thinking that if, at age 11, I had enough sense to ask for the gift that keeps on giving then I must be pretty wise already. Well it turns out that like truth, wisdom is a two-edged sword. Most of the ways to get it are painful and, once you get it (or some), you keep needing more painful and oftentimes humbling refresher courses on how to use it.

Years of lessons finally culminated this Chistmas in a final exam of sorts. The lesson? Have faith in People as well as in God. Quiet faith. Patient faith. Positive, good-natured faith. Time for the application. I can't wait for 2008!!!!!!!

The Highlands

I'm coming to the end of 4 days in the Highlands. No, not the Scottish Highlands, the Highland Park area of Five Points South in Birmingham, although, there was a guy actually playing a bagpipe outside the church on Sunday morning. He was wearing a green plaid kilt and everything. The bagpipe music being played on a beautiful fall morning outside a grand old historic church in the middle of the square behind the fountain surrounded by trees in full fall colors was breathtaking. That experience alone was worth the trip.

I stayed at the Hotel Highland, formerly the Pickwick Hotel. Five Points is one of my favorite places in Birmingham. The whole area feels like a park, especially in the fall when all the leaves have changed color and it is gorgeous. One of these days I'm going to buy a "real" camera so I can have my own photos of it. My room had a great view.

Speaking of "colorful" I met some interesting people on this trip. I met a successful young, black enterpreneur while I was outside in the courtyard. He's self-made, energetic and reminds me of an up-and-coming Donald Trump. He invited me to dinner that evening and we had sushi at Surin West. (I don't normally "like" sushi unless it's tempura but both the super crunch and the crunchy shrimp were to die for. (I also never say "to die for" but sometimes you just run out of adjectives.) He just randomly stopped and said hello and introduced himself because, he said, he could tell I had a good heart, which is cool. I didn't read anything into it. If he was trying to pick me up he was going to have to be a LOT more obvious than that. Engineers are dense (ok, stupid....we're stupid) when it comes to reading people. I can't believe how many people don't know that!! Plus he has a fiancee he's been dating for 15 years who is very successful and very wealthy. 15 years????? That is one patient woman.

I've been trying to work on my "harmless as a puppy approachability". I had just finished watching the movie "10 Things I Hate About You" and that girl, Kate, was me in high school: smart, sarcastic, and with a shield of invincibility; possessing an odd combination of frailty and venom so that you weren't sure if I was going to start crying or punch you. Most stayed away but the few who were brave enough to try became bosom friends. I should have suspected something about myself years ago when I saw the original "Taming of the Shrew" at the Shakespeare Festival and wondered why everyone was so hard on Kate.

Follow-Up to this post: Thursday, Nov 29th:
Last night when I wrote the phrase "bosom friends" I was specifically thinking of my friend Jenn. She was the first person to ever use the term to describe our friendship. She chose it because when we met in 1999 we bonded over the fact that almost 30 years ago as children we'd both loved "Anne of Green Gables" (long before the series became popular in the mainstream). In the story, Anne Shirley and her friend Diana were bosom friends. I haven't heard from Jenn in a year. We lost each other when I moved here and eventually changed cell phones. I had written down all the numbers from my old cell and I'd been adding them one-at-a-time to my new cell as I called people. But when I called Jenn her cell had changed too. We'd both disappeared into the void. Guess who called me this morning at 8:00am? You guessed it....Jenn! She got married and moved to a different state. She said she'd been missing me so she called a mutual friend who then called another mutual friend. I've missed her too, but I didn't think of the words "bosom friend" till last night. I have no doubt that it was a shared thought between us. I only wonder which one of us thought it first.

Fact-Checker

Back when I was thinking of becoming a journalist I always thought it would be stressful to have to get all the facts right all the time, mostly because the entire public would be scrutinizing whether I had it all right or not. As an engineer I work in facts all day long, but when I'm on my own time and especially when I'm blogging I tend to place more emphasis on "feelings".

Yes, I do have feelings. Even though my Meyers-Briggs type says I'm an INTJ; I think my thinking-T becomes a feeling-F whenever there's no work to be done. Just like my introverted-I becomes an extroverted-E whenever I'm feeling very comfortable in my surroundings or with a particular group of people or when I'm giving a performance and I'm well rehearsed. It also changes when I've been socializing a lot or, conversely, spending a lot of time alone. In other words, these two characteristics, my T/F and my I/E are VERY circumstantial.

As a consequence my blog, though mostly factual, contains some statements that aren't so much facts as they are my feelings about the facts. For example, when I said I drove 800 miles a week to North Platte, that's not a fact. If you look at a map of Nebraska, North Platte is actually 285 miles away from Omaha, which makes it 570 miles round trip. But there were several times when I was taking Dale Carnegie that I had to make the round trip twice in one week which means I drove 1140 miles. So I kind of mentally averaged all of my trips over the twelve week period and kind of came up with 800. It wasn't even a conscious mental calculation, just a swag.

Another example is from my post about Baker's grocery store. I think (and I'm not checking to see) that I said there was something like 24 inches of space for my groceries. I don't know what I said and since I'm blogging it's not "fact-check time", it's feeling time. I only know that it felt like it was only a few inches and that's what matters most. But it is a fact that my stuff didn't fit. Probably only about 1/3 of it did.

So you know, most of it is true, but sometimes the facts take a backseat to my feelings. I'm no journalist but I think I'm probably as accurate as one and I don't even have fact-checkers.

Mary & Martha

I just went back and read "Genesis" and realized that my sister and I sound like Mary and Martha. Are all sisters this way? There was never any doubt in my mind that her openness was a blessing. I like to think I am not so much like Martha because I did know and appreciate this about her. If my sister had been around when Jesus was in human form she would have definitely been worshipping Him more than anyone around. More than me. Foot-washing with perfume and using her hair to dry his feet? That was so her. You think it's beautiful when you read about it, but that's only because you're reading it. When you see people like this in the flesh you almost never recognize them for what they are unless, like me, you are looking for them and sometimes even then they're hard to recognize.

Unlike Martha, I would never have complained that I was doing all the housework and she was wasting time. I kept my eyes on my own paper. I would have enjoyed every minute of what I was doing and if I found myself not wanting to do it I would have just stopped. That was the thing about both of us that we had in common. I'm glad we figured it out before it was too late. I can remember praying about our differences and worrying that it would forever separate us. "Just love her as she is" the answer came back loud and clear. "She's doing the best she can with what God made her and if she could do any differently, she would." So I stopped wanting her to change and I just loved her.

This picture of her was taken on my wedding day. At her funeral one of her friends told me that she'd come home afterward the happiest she'd ever seen her. I think my wedding day was when she finally realized that my way could lead to happiness too. There was a moment in the ladies dressing room at the church when it was just the two of us alone. "I love you sissy", she'd said in that childlike way of hers. "I love you too, Pearl" I'd said wearily. And with that exchange I think we each finally achieved a blend of our two kinds of love; her emotional kind and my practical action-oriented kind finally morphing into two loving, whole, well-balanced women.

Genesis

If you haven't been around since the genesis of my blog then you won't know why I started it. I deleted all of that. But I keep feeling compelled to put it back in.....to explain myself. You see, that's why I'm here in the first place....to be open. So I'm going to put it back, "my genesis" and leave it once and for all....

It all started when my sister died. She had always been the expressive, emotional one. I have a sister who is three years older and a brother who is one year older and, to my mind, they always seemed to be alternate versions of myself. They were sort of "what ifs". My sister was what I would have been if I hadn't been afraid of all the scrutiny and punishment we experienced as children. I admired her because she had the courage to face her deepest desires and to express them to others and to hope, actually hope, that those desires could be met. Well, it was either courage or lack of self control. This doesn't make any sense, does it? Let me start again...

We were raised by our grandmother. She was a good woman in her way; a smart and brilliant woman. But she was the product of an old southern "slave culture", and when under duress she reverted back to that. She raised her own 15 children the way white slave owners raised children: with strictness and without affection. But she knew in heart that was wrong so she tried to temper it as much as she could.

When she took us three away from our mother for reasons of her own, she was way too tired and stressed to bother with trying to be gentle, what with having to raise 15 kids of her own. So she raised us three with almost no gentleness and no affection, not as a white slave-owner would raise their own children, but as actual slaves. I didn't understand this until I read the work of Frederick Douglas and realized that the descriptions of his own childhood sounded almost identical to my own even though I grew up in the 70's and 80's. I won't go into any more detail than that. If you want to know more about it read his autobiography. But the end result was that we three were raised as subhuman with almost no understanding of what a human being ought to want and feel. So we had to figure out our humanity on our own, in our own ways.

My sister went about doing that by seeking physical affection from whomever would offer it. She was always writing love letters and poetry. She left herself wide open and vulnerable. She was often punished, beaten, or ridiculed for her troubles but that never seemed to deter her, as if her creativity had a life of its own that was worth risking her well-being. I saw her behavior as a lesson in what not to do. My reaction was to do the opposite. No one knew what I was feeling or thinking if I could help it. I was very guarded, very protective. I trusted no one and everyone in a way, with a very limited trust, because I wouldn't let anyone get close enough to actually hurt me. She, on the other hand, was constantly being hurt. I can't say that I envied her, but she did live, in my mind, a life of much greater freedom than I did. She was always taking huge risks and exposing herself, but she did exactly what she wanted. I was very cautious and took the path of surest success regardless of what I actually wanted to do. She danced, wrote songs, wrote poetry, stripped, club-hopped. I focused on school, got straight A's, got the easiest scholarship available to me, went away to college and took up engineering because I knew it would allow me to support myself. It didn't matter that I had a greater interest in english literature, politics, and journalism. Law school was too expensive and might require me to go into debt. Journalism paid too little and would require me to be more creative than I thought was possible. My pleasure never figured into a single decision I made and her pleasure was the sole basis for every decision she made.

When she died I realized that I hadn't needed to explore pleasure because she had been doing it for both of us. With her gone, I felt cut off from the world. I finally had to face how closed off I was and I didn't like it. I felt starved for self-expression. I missed her poetry and her songs. I needed something. So I started this blog to learn to become more open; to trust people; to take the risk of exposing myself and to face the fear and know that I could live through it.

Road Rage

Last Sunday morning as I turned off the road that runs in front of my condo, I suddenly heard a horn blaring at me. Looking in my rear view mirror I saw a man in a big black truck bearing down on me. I didn't know what he was blasting his horn about, he was not that close to me until he purposely got up on my bumper. He was gesturing and mouthing words the way people do when they have road rage. I hadn't seen him coming before I turned. He must have come over the hill pretty fast. Anyway he was really angry at me and he shot me a bird. A bird!!! I haven't been shot a bird in....in.....I can't remember how long. I was shocked. outraged.

Hmm...what to do? I blared my horn back at him. I pressed my breaks and almost came to a complete stop. He didn't hit me. I slowed down to about 25 mph and kept that speed to the next intersection. If he wanted to act like an idiot because he thought I'd slowed him down then I might as well give him something real to complain about. He stayed right on my bumper as we creeped along to the next intersection which is only about a half mile down the road. I kept expecting him to pass me but he didn't.

When we got to the intersection he pulled up beside me and started rolling down his window. I rolled down mine. I had no idea what to expect. Was he going to cuss me out? He kind of laughed nervously in that "I'm not picking a fight but I'm ready for one" kind of way and said "hey that was a red light back there."

I didn't know what I was going to say but I looked him straight in the eye and said firmly in a loud, calm, crystal clear voice........

"I......Apologize"

He rolled his window up and drove on.

What???? Did I just say "I apologize"? Why and for what? I don't know what I expected to hear coming out of my mouth but that wasn't it. But after it was out it seemed like it had been the perfect thing to say.

And then I drove on to church.

Epilogue:
Now when I said "I apologize" it had nothing to do with conscious thought. It was born of pure reflex from an attitude that I take with me to church on Sunday mornings, which is to treat everyone with calm and respect and to behave so that everyone keeps their dignity. It came from years of conditioning almost since birth. I wonder what I would have said to him if I hadn't been going to church. I hope the same thing, but I can't be sure. I don't go to church every day, only on Sundays. But I think that incident motivated me to at least try to behave every day as if I was.

Mistaken Identity

This post was originally written back in October 2007 but was posted on July 8, 2008.

This is a very funny story, but in order to tell it I have to admit something about myself of which I am not proud. I have been internet dating.

I know, I know, everyone's doing it these days. I had decided it just wasn't for me. A few months ago I played in a golf outing with my friend and we were paired up with two great girls, both of whom met their current boyfriends on the internet. So I thought I'd open myself up to the opportunity. Again.

Now I could write a book about some of the initial contacts I get. The latest was "your pretty". That's all it said. Right next to it was a picture of Bubba sitting in a hot tub grinning. I wanted to respond to him, "My pretty what?" I may not get a date but I sure get entertained. I deleted poor Bubba.

Recently I got an email from a nice respectable young man who's probably too young for me but he's smart, a hard worker and somewhat impressive. I thought I would humor him and maybe encourage him a little bit. At the very least I could perhaps build his ego up so he would have confidence for the next girl who might be right for him. So I emailed him back thanks for his interest in me, etc. A few days later I got an email from him. There was my picture beside the email so I know he was looking at it while he was writing. He started out talking about me, complimenting me. Things were going just fine until I got to the next paragraph.

That's when he started telling me he liked the way I had talked about us snuggling (huh?) and cuddling (what??) and cooking dinner (me???) together on New Year's Eve. I barely cook on regular days, much less holidays.
I stopped reading.....What???
I read it again. It got more descriptive. More physical. More graphic.
I would NEVER talk that way with a man after one email!! I wouldn't talk that way after one date! He was responding to some other girl's email smack dab in the middle of mine! And it wasn't just a brief mention of what she'd said. There was a long paragraph dedicated to her suggestions of what she'd like to be doing with him on New Year's Eve. I don't know what she said but he liked it and I could tell he was very excited about it. To his credit he seemed to have enough sense to be a little cautious about a woman who was being so forward, but you could tell he was also very optimistic.

After I got over my initial shock all I could think was, "hmmm......Is THIS how women get men interested? Talk about physical stuff right away??" And then I had to laugh at myself. Here I was reading this email to another girl and I was taking a lesson from it. I guess it might have hurt if I had been dating the guy for a while, but under the circumstances I thought it was funny.

I wrote him back. I told him I didn't know who he was talking to but she must have written one heck of an email. I never heard from him again but I'm flattered he liked my face so much that he accidentally stuck someone else's personality into it.

Stickers and Gold Stars

Last night I graduated from Dale Carnegie class. It's been a long 12 weeks. I've been travelling back and forth 800 miles a week to North Platte for work and then attending this class on Tuesday night from 6-9:30. I am exhausted.

Part of my exhaustion is my own fault. I like to go out with the group on Tuesday nights after class. There's 19 people in the class and 8 to 10 of us will go out afterward. It's fun. And after spending the week alone in the wilderness of North Platte, our weekly post-class get togethers have been nourishment for my soul. Heck, the actual class has been pretty good for my soul too.

A few weeks ago, as part of an excercise on showing appreciation the class was asked to write down something we admire about each person on a sticker. On the last day of class we each got a sheet of paper filled with stickers of all the nice things people had to say about us. I told you this class feeds my soul. Here's what was on my stickers....

I admire your honesty and sincerity........coffee guy

Smart, Passionate, and Creative.........hearty humor guy

You are a VERY SMART, CARING person. You will go far & achieve anything. I can't say enough good!.......happy grocery girl

Professional & excellent manager; kind & sincere. Very driven and courage radiates from you. You are a star! ........ most popular girl

Smart. Makes the best of everything. Encouraging..........restaurant papa

You are strong, confident, and willing to take constructive criticism the right way. You inspire me.......department store "go getter" gal

I admire you for your heart and your ability to talk about things very personal to you.......Big teddy bear

A kind soul. Kind & friendly. Always looking for ways to better herself, and (my favorite) Goes with the flow......grocery gas cheerleader guy

A very sweet & inspirational person. Strong & very open with her emotions......... strong silent type

I admire your values and determination........big farm boy

Strong Presentation......game show host

You're very gentle with people and as a result they truly enjoy you as a person. ......George Clooney clone (this one's my favorite cuz I do try to be gentle with people but I feel like no one notices )

Very professional with all the best qualities of a manager blooming ........tall farm boy

Great personality and genuinely interested in others........hot rod mama

Genuine interest in others, hard worker, intelligent.........cheerleader girl

Very approachable and friendly. A positive person! Shows genuine interest in others! ........the chief


They are like signatures in a high school yearbook, aren't they? Ok, I know we were told to write nice things, but I still like reading them. I really enjoyed the class because of the people. Truth be told, the whole thing did start to feel like high school after a while, especially when we voted for outstanding performers in every single class. It felt like high school all over again and I started to hate going. The same girl kept winning everything and you can't help but like her cause she's so darned nice and she does work hard for it so she deserves to win. I felt the same frustration of wanting everyone to feel loved and part of the group and watched as they created their own hierarchy that kept them out. And, just like in high school, all the popular kids loved me, but I stayed just on the fringe, frustrated for the underdogs and never quite feeling comfortable being part of the "in-crowd" as long as there was anyone left behind.

Nice Suit

I've worked for two other Fortune 500 companies and I've never even met a vice president of one of them, let alone the CEO. That's not true this time. Last Thursday I had my second chance to meet him when I went to a reception on the executive floor of my company. I was really excited leading up to the event. Not knowing what to expect, on the day before the event I had asked a colleague/friend of mine who is a veteran of these things what I should wear. "Business attire", she said firmly. Well I wear "business attire" every day, don't I? "Is what I'm wearing business enough or do you mean I should wear a jacket" I asked her. "A jacket" she replied, quite firmly. So I hauled out my new suit that I had bought to wear for some previous trip but had never worn because the meeting turned out to be casual. It is a beautiful suit, I must say. It's a safari brown linen. Not the kind of linen that wrinkles as soon as you put it on, but lined and blended with something (I didn't read the label) that gave it enough weight to keep it wrinkle free without being hot. The jacket has a belt that ties at the waist, and these large pockets on the front just below the belt that gave me the look that I was ready to bag some big game......either on a safari in Africa or at a large corporation. I wore it with a white linen blouse with a collar that stood up out of the suit just enough which, coincidentally, added to the African safari look, but not so much that it looked like a butterfly collar from the seventies.

There were all sorts of people there from all levels of the company. One man had even brought his "lady friend" with him (her words, not mine). She hadn't gotten the memo about the attire though, and she was dressed in a white lace body-hugging, low-cut, leave nothing to the imagination cocktail dress and high, high heels, and *gasp* had painted herself in bright gold body glitter accentuating her shoulders and cleavage. It was not subtle. Hmm, I thought. Maybe she didn't know.

The executive floor is beautiful. There's lots of glass and beautifully decorated offices with expensive artwork. Halfway through the event the CEO made a speech and invited everyone to take a look at his office and even sit in his chair. I had already toured the floor but hadn't been in his office yet (it just seemed sort of intrusive until he made the offer). After the speech I made my way through the crowd and into the office where several of the other people had already ventured and were sitting in the CEO's chair and taking pictures like tourists. One the way I chatted with Ms. Body Glitter. "What do you do?" I asked. "I work for (major) airlines" she said. I didn't ask her what she did for the airlines. When I arrived in the office, someone had spilled food in the floor and one of the wait staff was sweeping it up with one of those carpet sweepers........Honestly, I sighed, you can't take some people anywhere....

Now normally under such circumstances I (ashamedly) admit my inner snob would recoil in horror at all of this lack of decorum. But, I thought, he (the CEO) knows what he's doing. If it's good enough for him then it's good enough for me. So I trotted out my "good 'ol girl, I love everybody self" (I do, truly) and started introducing myself and being friendly to everyone in the room. I walked around shaking hands and introducing myself and asking everyone where they were from and where they worked. I met one woman who said she worked on a floor near mine. "I'm surprised we've never met" I said. "Well, I'm not, I never come up here to this floor" she said. "Oh, neither do I!" I said surprised, "this is my first time here". "Oh", she said....you look like you belong here".

I smiled. Good suit.

P.S.
The next morning Ms. Body Glitter came to the conference assembly wearing another less formal but still inappropriate cocktail dress. Hmm.....I thought. Again??? Did she not take any clues from last night???? Well, maybe it's all she packed, I thought. (she was from out of town). As she passed me we made eye contact. She gave me a look that told me she read my thoughts and no, that wasn't all she had packed and yes, she had worn that outfit on purpose. We didn't speak to each other as we passed......we just nodded imperceptibly....a sort of truce....an unspoken agreement by each of us to acknowledge and respect the choice of the other......and went on our separate ways.

Bridesmaids

I'm only 37. I'm about to turn 38 on July 10th. I am the oh so intuitive Cancer . <---Check me out there. Check yours out while you're at it. This one has stuff for couples too if you scroll to the bottom of the screen........ Speaking of couples, did I mention I have been asked to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of a friend who, let's face it, I barely know. I'm flattered. This girl, by the way, seems to have a very good read on me so far. I never realized I was that easy to get to know. Maybe it's come about with age. And speaking of age, didn't bridesmaids used to have an age-limit, like, I don't know....30? Like I said, I'm flattered to be asked. I love weddings. I have only been in a few but so far have had to wear no ugly dresses. Ok there was one polyester number but it was in a flattering haulter-criss-cross style. The fabric was from 1976 although the wedding and thus the dress pattern was from closer to 1996. The dress for the upcoming wedding is strapless satin in a burgundy color. <---Click here to see it. Very nice. I've never worn a strapless dress in my life. This bride is less conservative than most of my other friends but then she's also younger. A brave choice to have bridesmaids wear strapless dreses. Most brides wouldn't want to be calling attention to the acoutrements of the other girls. And you know brides of old have traditionally made their bridesmaids look like hookers, prom queens, or debutantes. Come to think of it, maybe the dress styles have been the reason for the age limits in the past. Anyway, I'm glad that the age limit of everything seems to be rising as the life expectancy increases. Seems fair to me. I hope I am still being asked to be a bridesmaid when I'm 50.

I feel like I should be out celebrating the last few days of being 37 rather than considering ow I'm going to celebrate turning 38. I think I will start a new trend.....celebrating the age of the year I'm leaving rather than the one I'm heading towards. Sort of a "wasn't 37 fabulous" party. Anybody with me?

Post script:
I just re-read this and realized I typed "only" 37. Good for me.

New Hair Do

Oopsy Daisy

I was talking on the phone the other night with my new friend Dana. He was telling me about all of the things he was going to do with his family while he was visiting his hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the things he was going to do, he said, was take his mother's 77 year old husband "jeeping".

"What's jeeping", I asked innocently...sigh...I have so much to learn...

Actually I had a pretty good idea of what "jeeping" sounded like it was. Something very similar to "mud-riding" in the south. Something offroad. Something that could turn the jeep over. They were men, it was a jeep, there had to be either dirt or danger involved, right?

Right.
The husband (also known as Dana's stepdad only Dana NEVER calls him that...I wonder why...) just purchased himself a new jeep and wanted to drive it on narrow winding roads along the cliffs of Utah and he thought it would be a great idea if Dana drove it for him. "that doesn't sound like a good idea to me"...the words just slipped right out of my mouth. (I hate when that happens.) Dana just chuckled in a way that said "probably not, but I'm still gonna do it".

This afternoon he called. From the hospital. My heart was in my throat. "Remember when I said we were going jeeping?" he said. "Yes", I said calmly, as inside I was waiting for the news....my mind racing....there'd been an accident?....he was hurt?.....maimed?.......the old man fell out of the jeep?!!! What???!! For God's sake what?!!! He paused for a while...

"Has there been an accident?" I asked, again calmly. "Yes" he said. "My mother fell down a cliff."

His 66 year-old mother had wanted to come along and then had gotten scared and got out of the car and was taking pictures. She had slipped and fallen down a 15 foot cliff. Dana said her face looked awful. She had gotten some pretty bad cuts, was bleeding a lot, and her upper lip was badly swollen. Dana told his stepdad "we should call a hospital and have her airlifted just in case she has internal injuries". A 66 year-old woman probably with brittle bones from osteoporosis...I'm thinking that's a pretty good call. The stepdad said "Oh she's probably fine we can just drive her to the hospital. She'll be fine". No wonder he doesn't call this man his stepdad. Meanwhile Dana ran down the side of the cliff and picked up his elderly mother and carried her up to the car, removing his shirt and pressing it into the cuts on her head to stop the bleeding.

They drove her to the hospital. Not Dana. He was sitting in the back seat holding and comforting his mom. No, the 77-year- old man who thought she was fine did all the driving. I think he drove closer to the speed limit than I do on an average day on my way to work...and I'm a slow driver...just ask anyone. The stepdad made sure to stop at all the traffic lights.

Did I mention that Dana's 21 year-old daughter was in the car with them and could have (at least I would think she could have) held the shirt on her bleeding grandmother's wounds while Dana drove and the nearly-octogenarian stepdad could have sat on the sidelines? No...? I didn't....? That's because Dana didn't mention the daughter was even there until that point in the story. I had asked him several times why he didn't drive, but at that point I realized he just needed to know he'd done his best. So I said, dutifully, "well, you can't do everything". Good girl, Lisa.

When they arrived at the hospital Dana carried his mom through the doors that read "Emergency". The people inside looked at him quizzically and then explained to him that this was not the emergency entrance. At that point Dana, still holding his bleeding elderly mother in his arms since apparenly these people didn't "do" strectchers, yelled a few choice words at them and asked them why they labeled a blankety-blank entrance "Emergency" when it was, in fact, blankety-blank NOT the blankety-blank emergency entrance. Then a nice lady showed him to a bed where he could lay his mother.

Fortunately the stepdad was right. The hospital found no internal injuries after a CT scan. They picked the rocks out of her skin and sewed her up. No more jeeping with the old man.

Whew.....what a relief.

Baker's

My favorite place to grocery shop is "Baker's" on 132nd and Maple. "Favorite place to grocery shop" is kind of a misnomer because I HATE grocery shopping. It ranks right up there with visits to the gynecologist and to the dentist among things I hate to do. But one has to have certain things. In my case on this particular night the things I had to have were beverages, specifically bottled water (I LOVE "Fiji" artisan water) cranberry juice (to ward off bladder infections) and Berringer white zinfandel. I can do without food but have found that I will brave the horrors of a grocery store to get my favorite beverages.

So last night I'm at the store and the only registers open are the self-checkout lanes. Oh, did I mention that one of the things I do to avoid the grocery-shopping people is to go late at night when the store is empty? Because to be honest it is not the store I hate as much as the people shopping in it. I don't know why. It's not personal. The stock boys I love. I can take or leave the clerks. But the other shoppers just....

One of the bad things about the self-checkout, as convenient as it is, is that there's no room to put your stuff. So when the voice says "Please place your groceries in the bag" after about 4 items there's no space left. And if you move your stuff the voice will tell you to put it back. I had a shopping cart full of bottles. With 4 cases of water, 4 jugs of juice and 2 bottles of wine I had stuff everywhere. Just as I am scanning my final items and trying to figure out where to place them up walks this couple in their, oh...mid 30's, with a case of beer and a couple of other alcoholic/party implements. So I start to feel the stress of rushing to finish so this couple can have the register. I speed up a little....I feel that nervous internal quake you get when people are waiting on you...you know the one...like the way you feel in the airport security line when you have to take your shoes off and the people behind you are huffing and puffing because you're holding up the line.

The guy, clearly sensing my distress, goes "why don't we just go to that other register over there"....meaning the completely EMPTY register where there was NO ONE, instead of the one covered with all my bottles. And the girls goes "No this is fine, we can wait" (for me to finish) and she takes the case of beer from the guys hands and places it in the baby seat of MY SHOPPING CART. And just where did she think I was going to put all of those bottles after I took them from the 6 inches of self-checkout space? I had wondered if that was liquor I smelled on their breaths across the 3 to 5 feet of space between us, but that just cinched it.

At this point I just stopped and looked at her. I know what you're thinking but I didn't give her "that look"...the angry black woman "oh no you didn't" look. It was more of a "this situation was already funny, but I'm going to hold back my laughter of disbelief and just look at you until you realize what you just did" look. Also known as the "you can't be serious......?" look.

The girl looks at me, trying to look as sober as she could and says something. I don't know what she said. What I heard was "why are you looking at me like that?" At which point I replied "This is my cart. I still need it to take my stuff out to my car". At which point she removed her case of beer.

Sigh.....you just can't make this stuff up.

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