Grown-up Easter Barbie

Sunday morning. Here’s how it went:

8:00am. Alarm goes off: beep-beep-beep. Slap! Snooze.
Alarm goes off again. Slap! Snooze again.

Repeat above about 10 times. Why that many? Because I actually got up around 9:20 and the snooze goes off every 8 minutes.

Great. Now I have 10 minutes to get ready for church and 30 minutes to drive. Stumble to the shower.

Out of the shower. Glance at clock. That's ok, I can drive to the church in 20 minutes. 10 minutes to get ready and 20 minutes to drive.

Now what to wear? Hey, it’s Easter! That means I should wear something pretty. Pull out floral skirt. It’s probably too big. I haven’t worn it since I lost weight. Try on skirt. It’s not too big. Curse skirt and hang it back up. It’s too floral and Hawaiian-looking anyway. This is church not a luau.

Hmmm…what else? It’s cold today. Not Easter-like at all. Not like the South. Better wear something pretty AND warm.

Oh, there’s my long white linen skirt. Admire it. It IS pretty. Check the size. Definitely too big. Try it on. Yayyy!!!! It’s too big!! Definitely going to wear this skirt. And it’s ankle-length so I can wear boots! (I love boots.)

Now what top? Black linen with the white embroidery? Try it on. Hmm..verrry slimming. Looks good with skirt. Am I really that slim on top? I look almost delicate. Nevermind, black and white are definitely not Easter-y. Back into closet. Will keep in mind for funerals. But it's too pretty for funerals. Maybe for a festive spring funeral.

Hey there’s my yellow linen jacket with the ruffles all around the edges and sleeves. Never worn it. Verrrry feminine. Too feminine? It’s from J-Jill! It’s allowed to be too feminine. Anyway is there any such thing? Probably not. It’s Probably too big. Try it on. Hmm, lovely. Too big in a way that fits, not too loose.

Now, I have an outfit. Glance at clock. Ok, well I can get ready in 5 minutes and get there in 15.

Walk into bathroom. Pull my hair back. Why doesn’t it look right? And why does it look different depending on the angle I pull it back? Because they’re different angles, duh…now get a move on. Pull hair back and take it down. Repeat at least 10 times.

Well that took long enough. Don’t even THINK about makeup. Exit bathroom. Glance at clock. Ok if I leave now I have 10 minutes to get there.

But I need a coat. Which coat? And perfume.

Glance at clock. Drat!! 5 minutes!!!!!!!!! I’ll never make it!!!!!!!!!!!

Walk towards garage. Pass powder room mirror and get a glimpse of almost full length of outfit, including lime green coat which looked very Easter-y in the closet but on me just hangs.

Great. Everything’s too big. I look like a pastel-colored bag lady. Maybe I should…..

“Oh no you don’t” I think…….and mentally push myself out the door.

Made it. Only 5 minutes late. Service ok. Go to Easter brunch with girlfriend. Two little girls who are mixed half-black/half-white walk past our table holding the hand of their mother who is white. The older one looks at my girlfriend and makes a shocked face.

“Don't be shocked” I think, “You’re going to be one of us some day”. (Unless of course Barack Obama wins president in which case you'll get to be whoever you want to be and your skin color won't matter, I continue my mental conversation with her. )

They walk by again later. This time I catch her eye and flash her my best “grown-up Barbie” smile. She smiles back and gives me an “Oh my, you look like a princess” look. “Yes, and you’re going to be one of us someday” I give her a knowing look and a nod back. This time she looked like that would be just fine with her.

There, that's better.

Let There Be Light

The ultimate destination of faith is to come to that point where you realize that (1) eternity is a very, very, very long time and (2) no situation is permanent and (3) suffering may seem like a bad thing (OK it actually IS a bad thing) but imagine the monotony of a life with no struggles or growth...it would be like a world without seasons. Saying suffering isn't bad would be like saying winter isn't cold. It is, but you can avoid freezing and sometimes even manage to enjoy yourself.

I would love to live in a "spiritual Hawaii"......a world of no problems; a paradise. But to live in a physical world with changing seasons, well......... that is like living in Omaha, Nebraska. The winters are long and hard here to be sure, but not impossible and not nearly as bad or as long as they seem. Just like all suffering, it looks far worse to the people who aren't going through it. The dread of it is worse than the actual experience.

A friend of mine at work emailed me the story below. I've heard it before and probably you have too. But it is exactly what I think of Christianity. The people, believers and atheists alike, who believe themselves to be good people because of their own abilities are like candles that think they lit themselves.


Does Evil Exist?

The University professor challenged his students with this question.

"Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir", the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil."

The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students nickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460? F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name -- Albert Einstein

Match Dot gosh-darned Com

So I just changed my profile on Match dot com. First of all, may I tell you how much I hate actually being on that site? But I have found that starting out by telling guys how much you don't want to be online dating......is not a good way to start off.



I've been out with two guys, one of whom is quite possibly gay and who obviously (since I am calling him gay) has not been invited to read my blog. Ironically the gay guy (ok, ok "Metrosexual guy") is turning out to become a pretty good girlfriend. So here's a sampling of a possible profile...... :




When I was very young my aunts used to tell me I should become a model. (I know that sounds conceited, but stay with me here, I have a point). I didn't, because I didn't want to get paid to have strange men look at me. Now I'm a member of match dot com and I am actually paying money to have strange men look at me. How ironic is that?



So, what would you like to know about me? I'm smart, fun-loving and easy-going. I have a great sense of humor and can be very funny. I love to laugh. I like to play tennis, belong to the Jane Austen Book Club, and travel a lot, especially for work but also for personal recreation. I like to try to stay in shape so I just got some new excercise equipment delivered to my home because I find that with travelling I excercise a lot in hotels but when I'm home my workout routine gets interrupted. I hope you like to stay in shape as well. (Not that I expect you to be a model. Most male models are gay...not that there's anything wrong with that. A woman can never have too many gay male friends. Anyway...).



I like to think of myself as a citizen of the entire country rather than only one city. I am relatively successful. I'm very outgoing and everywhere I go I am constantly meeting smart and interesting people. I look for, and usually find, the good in everyone.



If you're still reading this then hopefully we have some things in common and if that's true then you are a rare and special person. If we actually do get a chance to meet I hope you will realize what a privilege it is just to call each other friends.



P.S. If you've changed your profile lately you'll notice that match dot com now gives us about a quarter of an inch of space in which to type a profile of 4,000 words, so you can never actually see what it is you just typed. What is up with that?

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Went to New Orleans this weekend. Had a bachelorette party for "the bride". Well, not so much a bachelorette party as just a girls weekend. My brother asked me if he'd be seeing me on the next "Girls Gone Wild" video. That prompted many thoughts & questions in my mind...

First......What's he doing watching a Girl's Gone Wild" video? Yuck!
Second...I think at the age of 38 I no longer qualify to be called a "girl". At least I don't think the sleazeballs who create those videos would consider me one...
Third... If I did "go wild", I'd have enough sense not to do it on a video.
And fourth.... If he knew anything about my friends at all he'd realize I am the wildest one of the bunch, even if you consider them all collectively, which means there is absolutely zero chance of a video ever happening.

We must be the only women on the planet who've gone to New Orleans to celebrate a pending nuptial and went there to enjoy the food, art, culture, and weather. As boring as it sounds, we toured art galleries (my favorite was Galleria Bella on Royal street - check out Randy Cooper's wire mesh shadow art. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen. The shadows cast by the wire mesh actually show more detail than the mesh sculpture itself.) My favorite artists there are Antonio Gravina, David Chandler, and Marso Savaro. I also think I like Ann Copelan, but I'm not sure.

At a place called "the Brass Monkey" (yes, I know that sounds like a dive bar but it's actually a cool antique artifacts shop) I discovered Sabino glass, a type of glass made with milk. It has a blue-ish milky hue and it feels soft, like soap. I've been wanting to become a collector of something. You know how people collect teapots or mugs or thimbals or (if they're like my ex-husband) comic books. Well I've decided I'm going to collect Sabino glass! I decided to start my collection with the Rabbit. He's the little fellow you see up top of the post.

For years now rabbits have been becoming a sort of good luck charm for me. Whenever I see a rabbit something good is happening in my life. I first noticed it happening back around 2002. I would see a rabbit.....and then something good would happen. Or vice versa...something good would happen and then I'd see a rabbit. There's an old wive's tale in North Carolina that on the first day of the month you wake up and say "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit" (with the proper accent of course) and it will bring you good luck. It doesn't matter what form the rabbit comes in. Sometimes they're stuffed. Sometimes they're real. last week in Wyoming I was working with one of the switchmen, sitting outside in the truck waiting for trains to go by, when I saw three white rabbits in the snow. First one appeared, hopping back and forth over the tracks, and then another, and then another. They were barely visible against the snow. As if to make sure I didn't miss my rabbits, the Universe sent me another one. We left our spot and drove over to where my car was parked. There in the grass in front of the building, near my car, so close I could have walked up and petted him, was a brown rabbit. He was just sitting there, not even afraid when we walked near him. I think I'm going to collect both bunnies AND Sabino glass.

The highlight of the weekend was having custom perfumes created for each of us at Borboun French Parfums. We got to name them. I named mine "Lyrical". I also have another scent but I don't want to reveal its name here. Anyway, they both smell heavenly, and the cool thing is that each of our perfumes smells exactly like us. That is, each scent matches the wearers personality. And amazingly, considering we made them all together, in one sitting, at the same time, none of the scents fit any of the rest of us nor do they smell similar to each other. I also had two amazing discoveries:

1. Almost anything smells good on me. Ok not almost. Everything smelled good on me. (I like to think it's because I am a happy person so my body chemistry created happy smells) And..
2. No matter what scent she put on me, after leaving them on a while they always combined with my body chemistry to end up smelling the same.

Another cool thing about this is that once they have your scents on file, they keep the formula. So friends and family can call or go online and actually order perfume, lotions, shower gels and whatever else they carry, either for me or for themselves, all in either of MY two signature scents. It's like the ultimate gift registry.

Not to worry, we did get our groove on at Bourbon Cowboy. There's nothing like walking past a wide open club full of people doing their version of dancing to some great R&B/Hip Hop sound to pull us in so we could "show 'em how it's done". Yes, the bride wore an "I'm the Bride" sash. And yes, we got up on one of the platforms and "performed". At one point we were joined up there by three other girls, so there were six girls dancing in all, three white and three black, all in sync, in a very small space. But the interesting part about this was there was not a drop of alcohol among us. None of us had even had so much as a glass of wine. We're just cool like that.

But what would a weekend in New Orleans be without jazz? We started the weekend on Friday night with dinner at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, followed by a live performance in the back room of the bistro by Ellis Marsalis, the grandaddy of the great Wynton Marsalis and the first family of jazz. We finished our weekend with brunch on Sunday morning at the Ritz Carlton hotel (we didn't stay there, we stayed at the adjoining Iberville suites which were much cheaper). The garden was beautiful. in all my trips to New Orleans I've never noticed how many beautiful courtyards there are. We had some time before our flight left Sunday afternoon so we decided to get in some shopping. Real shopping this time, not the art-browsing, "we're not actually here to buy anything" type we'd done the day before.

My friend, "the bride" got into a huge bruhaha at one of the stores where we were buying our designer knock-off purses. She had, against my advice, bought a Juicy Couture knock-off the night before, and then had carried it around to the various places we went, including dancing at the Bourbon Cowboy. I'd advised her against it, not because I was worried about the purse, but because one of the earliest rules you learn when you go out with a group of girls is "every girl watches her own purse", which as you grow older translates to "never carry a purse out dancing" to which was later added the corollary: "especially to a bachelorette party".

As she was buying the purse I had flashbacks to my early college years when I was still young and naive and I'd gotten stuck sitting at the table because I was watching the purses. It didn't take me long to figure out that the sooner I got up and got out on the dance floor, the less likely I was to be the one benched for the night. Hence the rule. The one thing all good bridesmaids know is that the rules don't apply to the bride, so I knew if she wanted me to watch that purse, I'd watch it. I was going for prevention. But here's the thing: Her maid of honor is her twenty-six year old sister. I'm not sure at what age you write the rules in stone, but I know it's not that young. The sister/maid-of-honor who outranked me insisted that she buy the purse RIGHT NOW. I don't know what the hurry was, but the bride bought it (both the advice and the purse).

The next morning when we went back to buy the fake Coach I'd wanted she noticed a rhinestone was missing from her purse and she demanded her money back. The store clerk pretended he couldn't find her original receipt (it mysteriously turned up later). There were all kinds of things wrong with this picture. The important thing to know is that while all of this was going on I noticed that we had thirty minutes left to get our luggage out of the hotel before my credit card was going to be charged for an additional half-day. While she was still arguing with the store clerk and waiting for the owner to arrive, I raced back to the hotel (20 mintes), up to our room, finished packing everyone's stuff, and had it packed and was loading it on a cart (10 minutes) when the bride and her sister returned. All my travelling experience came in handy. They had packed a lot of their stuff already but there was still a lot left lying around. I have packing down to an art science. I even knew who's stuff was who's and which pocket in which bag to put it so it's owner would find it. The girls walked in and checked. I hadn't missed a thing.

As we were leaving on Sunday, we were sitting in the New Orleans airport after our flight was delayed. The inbound flight at our gate de-boarded, and there strolling off as cool as you please as if he weren't the least bit famous, we spotted the great Mr. Ellis Marsalis.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit....

Insert Ego Here

I once had someone tell me that I am different in my emails and on the phone than I am in person. In other words I am, in his opinion, different in print than I am in person. No offense to my friend but this is utter and complete hogwash. I am exactly the same no matter what context you find me and anyone who knows me for any length of time knows this. Nevertheless, I respected his opinion. That was a year and a half ago and I've been pondering it ever since.


So if I'm not different then what is it that made him think so? What was different about me in person that wasn't coming through in print? The answer finally came to me today. The one factor that changed from one medium (print) to the next medium (face-to-face) was........him.


I remember once writing to him after he criticized me about something that it seemed to me that all of the things he was complaining about were my reactions to him or qualities that he brought out in me. It wasn't me he didn't like, it was the effect he was having on me. When I write, it is pure, but when we interacted his presence was affecting the message.


The odd thing is that this was not the first time this had happened. I had an ex-boyfriend who did the same thing, complimenting my character but criticizing me constantly whenever I was with him. He told me that if he ever had a daughter he wanted her to be just like me. "If you did" I asked, "would you want her to date a guy just like you?" You should have seen the look on his face.

Karmic Lesson about Karmic Lessons

In my post "Karmic Lessons" I pondered how every time I have a critical thought about someone I have a life experience to teach me what it feels like to live with their condition, and though I have been receiving those lessons for a long time, they now seem to be occurring with increasing rapidity. I didn't exactly phrase this as a question, but I did wonder why things seem to have speeded up....what used to take weeks or months to understand now happening in days. This, by the way, doesn't just happen with criticism. It happens with all my questions.
Case in point:

Today's sermon at church was called "The Dimmer Switch" and the point was (and I am typing this straight from my notes so I can get it right) from Larry Osborne:
"the longer we walk in obedience, the more subtle distinctions that were once indescernable become obvious....things that we would have never noticed at first suddenly can't be missed."

In other words, the lessons have always been occurring. Walking in obedience all of these years has enabled me to discern them better and apparently with increasing rapidity. I asked a question and I got an answer.

There's got to be some sort of term for this; that I could write a post about a situation - the gift of discernment in "Karmic Lessons" - and the post itself received an answer today, making it the perfect example of the condition it was meant to describe.

(If you're getting a headache reading this, just imagine the one I got trying to write it.)

Problems Men Never Have

Well, not most men anyway.....

Yesterday I attended a shower for my friend, "the bride". Afterwards one of my other friends left her purse behind and I was chasing her around trying to give it to her. I decided to try her cell phone but she didn't answer. I was annoyed. "Why doesn't she answer her cell?" I thought. Only after I located her and handed over the purse did it finally occur to me why: because it was probably in her purse and I had been carrying it around the whole time. In my defense, the ringer wasn't on. "This is the kind of problem a man would never have" I thought.

The theme for the shower was "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and we were instructed to wear our little black dresses and pearls. Earlier in the day just after I had gotten dressed and was standing in front of the mirror it struck me that this is how I look all the time. I think "Breakfast at Tiffany's" has never gone out of style in the south. I decided I needed to be a little more over the top and add a longer strand of pearls. It's funny how the mind works. As I struggled to fasten them, straining and trying to avoid my curly locks in the back, I wondered how old this particular strand was. Was this the strand I'd bought at a good department store or one of the cheap stores? Just as I had that thought I heard a pop followed by the "tap-tap-tap-tap-tapping" sound of pearls raining down all over my tiled bathroom floor as I pulled too hard and broke my necklace. I was heartbroken. Guess that answers my question.

You think that's all don't 'cha? Oh there was more.

Earlier that day I'd been putting on panty hose when I heard a menacing "zip"as my thumbnail ripped through and the run zipped up my leg. "Oh yeah, I forgot to file that nail". Good time to remember. But not to worry, I had a backup plan: spray-on panty hose. Yes, you read right. I got it at Walgreens to wear for New Year's Eve but it had been so cold I'd worn real panty hose instead. The weather this weekend was gorgeous and a shower with just a few of the bride's friends, most of whom I barely know, made this the perfect setting for my experiment. No crowded party, no public display to worry about, nothing could have been safer.

The way you put these "panty hose" on is you spray them (or "it") on your legs and then you rub it on like makeup. In fact that's exactly what it is. It's makeup for your legs. "Brilliant!" Later on at the shower I showed off my new legs. They looked airbrushed....just like a photograph. All the other girls were very impressed and asked where they could get some. Everything was great and I left the shower. After going to all that trouble to get dressed I wasn't ready to go home and undo it all, so I decided to stop by and visit a friend on the way home instead. The sun went down and it got cold...really cold....should have worn real panty hose cold.

Taking the Bit Too Far

My family does this thing I like to call "taking the bit too far". It's what happens when we are starting to become very comfortable with someone but we haven't completely established trust yet. We lose all sense of boundaries and we say whatever comes to mind, some of which might be better left unsaid. I don't know where this habit comes from, but we all do it, not just my immediate family, but every aunt, uncle and cousin. We all start at different ages but it's almost inescapable. For years I thought I'd escaped it but it turns out that I'm just a late-bloomer.

Meandering

Yesterday at church the sermon was called "Meandering". Without getting into the religious-sounding aspects of it, what I took away from it was that I might enjoy life more if I just relax and let things happen rather than trying to control every aspect. Sometimes it's better and healthier if things don't go according to plans. (Ok, he didn't say "relax". He said spiritual growth occurs when life isn't going according to plan and quite often this is actually a very painful time in your life but it's when the most growth occurs. (But you know I'm an optimist, so....))

I guess the lesson must have really sunk in because I had an 11:50 flight out this morning and I knew the moment I woke up that there was no way I was going to make it. Don't ask me why. There are various reasons, but sometimes I am just so overwhelmed with the amount of "stuff" I have to get done that I don't do any of it, and I knew this was going to be one of those days.

So around 9:00am I called our travel company and asked to reschedule my flight. The woman I got refused to even check on it. Apparently customer service on short notice wasn't her thing. You know those people who are great crisis managers who could get you out of a third world country just after a terrorist attack? She's not one of those people.

I got off the phone and pushed through trying to do my errands, hoping that maybe somehow I would make it in spite of myself. Around 10:30 I called the travel company again. This time I got a guy named Dustin who has helped me out in the past and who, I remember, is AWAYS helpful and positive. But even he couldn't get me out of this one. "If you miss your flight to Denver" he said, "you won't get a flight to Rock Springs (Wyoming) until 2:45 pm tomorrow". Well, that's no good because I have a a meeting tomorrow at 9:30 am. I told Dustin not to do anything yet.

I called the customer I have a meeting with and tried to reschedule. I couldn't get him. I left three voice mail messages. Finally out of desparation I got a receptionist to interrupt him in a meeting. He sounded annoyed but he said he would check his schedule. It started to sink in that if I reschedule and piss this customer off there may be repercussions in sales & marketing that will reverberate back to me. Could I lose my job over this? Over one lousy, "my sense of time is malfunctioning" day? I don't know but I think I'd better give Dustin another try and see if we can't make a miracle happen. I called the travel company back and this time I specifically asked for Dan.

"What if I fly to Salt Lake City?" I asked. "Could I get there tonight?" Dustin checked. After about 30 minutes of calculations and negotiations he got me a one-way ticket to Salt Lake City, a one-way car rental to drive to Rock Springs where I would drop that car off, exchange it for an SUV, and keep the same flight back on Thursday. Holy.....

I breathe a sigh of relief and disbelief. I can't believe it, but somehow I can believe it. I'm going to make my meeting. I'm not going to reschedule it. I'm not going to piss anyone off or be fired.

Now THAT is what I call SERVICE. "Thank you" I said, "you have been an ANGEL today". If I had a job to offer Dustin I would have hired him in a heartbeat. I should at least send him a fruit basket, but I don't know his last name. I vow to myself that when I get a chance I'm going to find out.

When I started meandering, I thought I'd lose my motivation to be a top performer. But Dustin's performance and dedication to his job somehow lit a fire under me. I decided right then and there that I would be more motivated on this project. If he was willing to do all of that just to get me there, then I owed it to him to do my best too.

My Lifelong Friendship with Books

"So, do you like Barnes and Noble?"

I can't tell you how many times I've been asked that question. I don't know why but the answer is always "No". I think I might be some sort of a book snob.

Growing up I read a lot. My best friends were characters in books. In fact I tried listing them here and am ashamed to admit that I have forgotten some of their names. Here are a few: Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pippi Longstocking (although I wouldn't have actually been friends with her because she got into too much trouble), Beezus & Ramona, Scout (To Kill a Mockingbird), The Little Princess, the March sisters from Little Women.....see...I've forgotten so many. I'll have to look them up and do a complete list here later so that I can keep them forever. In fact, this is going to be one of my evolving posts so watch for it to expand and change as I ponder this subject and my thoughts evlove.

I think of characters in books as real people and bookshelves as the places where their homes reside. Something about large book stores feels like my books have gone "Wal Mart". They're cheap and available to the masses and while I can appreciate that, it's just not a dignified place for them to be. They shouldn't be dwelling amongst "Car & Driver " magazine or "PowerPoint for Dummies" or all the other books that are for "non-readers". They should be in houses, libraries or in the best treasure chest of all, old book stores. I just love old book stores. When I walk through the doors I can smell the dusty pages and decaying covers and my mind instantly feels "mmmm.......I'm home."

I don't read as much as I used to. That's on purpose, by the way. I decided some time during college that I should spend less time reading books and more time getting to know real people. So if books are my lifelong friends, then like most of those, I haven't visited them lately. I don't stay in touch. I think about them every now and then and we pick things up as if we've never been apart, only for me to lay them back down again promising I'll visit more often and meaning it, but more often just hasn't seemed to come around yet.

Ya'll....I'm so drunk

(Don't be alarmed, I'm not really, that's just the title.)

I've been in Omaha for almost exactly a year and a half. I grew up in Carbon Hill, Alabama, a town of about 1900 people with an excellent school system. Most people say I don't have a Southern accent, but people with a good ear for accents can hear it loud and clear. In other words, it's there it's just very...hmm.....educated and correct. I can't help it, I've always talked this way. I can remember when I was growing up adults would ask me "how'd you get to talking so proper?" And I would think, "duh, because I can read and I don't want to slaughter the English language." Flippant thoughts for an 8 or 9 year-old so of course I never said it out loud or I would have gotten smacked across the mouth for it. When I drink at the bar or I'm around other southerners my accent becomes more pronounced.

My favorite bar in Omaha is Mick's. I especially like when there is anyone remotely classical playing. Last Tuesday they had my favorite type of music, rock/pop/folk with classical mixed in. There was a couple called Montana Skies with an electric cello. It was awesome. I was talking to the duo after their set. "What part of the south are you from?" they asked me. "Alabama" I said. "We grew up near Atlanta" they said. I could not hear their accent either so maybe they were avid readers as children, like me.

This week at another restaurant I was asked this question again. I gave my usual answer "Alabama, but people tell me all the time I don't have an accent". One girl said "oh I can hear it" and then she proceeded to ask me to repeat certain words over and over. "Aww, that's so cuuute" the crowd coooed. I have no idea what they were talking about, I didn't hear a thing, but we'd been sitting there since 7:00-ish and by then it was 11:00-ish. I'd had several drinks.

Today on the tiny little plane taking us into Rock Springs, Wyoming the subject came up again. "Oh I love southern accents" the lady in front of me said, "My father was from West Virginia so hearing that accent always makes me feel like home."
"I hear your accent" The guy sitting behind me chimed in. His accent was far more pronounced than mine and I told him so. He was a gentleman too. I haven't gotten motion sickness in years but the plane was moving a lot and I was sitting in the back. I almost passed out once and thought I was going to, well, hurl at least 3 different times. I turned to ask for his help. I didn't want to get sick on the nice lady in front of me. He hastily passed me the white bag from his seat pocket. "Here use this" he said. It turns out he'd spent 3 years in the military in Charleston, South Carolina but now lived back home in Ohio. "3 years?" I asked, "I spent 26 years in Alabama and you sound way more southern than I do." His accent was definitely more pronounced than mine. Or so it seemed to me.

I rarely drink during the day but on this particular occasion I'd had a long layover and had eaten lunch while sitting at a bar. (It's the only place you don't have to sit alone.) I'd gotten into an interesting discussion with an older woman who was a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry and a young girl who'd recently graduated from nursing school and was going to New Orleans to help with Katrina relief. On the plane, the guy from Alaska sitting two rows ahead and to the right turned and said "Living in Alaska, I LOVE hearing a girl with a southern accent." I think he said something about melting but I'm sure I blushed and turned my head. The blood rushing to my ears made me tune him out.

In Dale Carnegie class we were told that our stories should always have a point, but sometimes mine just don't, or maybe I prefer to leave them open-ended and let people find their own points. So I'll end with a joke:
What is the mating call of the southern belle?
"Ya'll......... I'm so dru-unk".

Neverland

Up until I was about 4 or 5 years old, my sister and brother and I all slept in the same bedroom. That bedroom has always reminded me of the nursery in the Peter Pan stories. I don't remember how many beds there were in it at the time, but there was an old-fashioned dresser in between the beds. It was composed of a long narrow mirror in the center that reached almost to the floor, flanked by two shorter mirrors, and two sets of drawers that looked like built-in nightstands attached to either side, and a little bench (or maybe it was a dressing table) in the middle. It set in front of a large window that took up most of one wall. After hearing the story at school, I was convinced that one night that window was going to fly open and Peter Pan would fly in and all three of us would fly out with him.

My older sister, of course, was Wendy. My brother was John. I considered where I fit into this story. Since the only girls were Tinkerbell and Wendy, that left me to be Tinkerbell, and that made sense because I did have the most faith of us all and I was feisty like Tinkerbell. If anyone could believe we could fly, it was me.

I don't remember the color of our walls, but I do remember my uncles using an overhead projector to project bedtime stories onto them. It was like having a movie theater right in our bedroom. Like sleeping in a fairy land.

Just before he started school, my brother was moved out of the nursery and it became "the girl's room". I was upset. Where were they taking him? I know I must have made a fuss. My brother, although a year older, doesn't remember any of this, but I do. I remember one of my aunts (I don't know which one) was unusually patient with me and explained that he was a big boy now and he wasn't going far, just on the other side of the wall to sleep in the big boy's room. Whoever it was made me understand that it wasn't proper for him to continue sleeping with us. I looked around. None of the other big boys slept in this room so it all made sense to me.

Win / Win

Normally I would not care who's going to get the Republican nomination, but for some reason I found myself hoping for Huckabee. "Hey, what are you thinking?" my common sense interjected, "You should root for the WORST Republican candidate, that way Obama or Clinton will win". McCain should be way easier to beat. If Huckabee gets the nomination he'll get the votes of the nice Republicans who want to vote Democrat on the sly. McCain can't do that. More votes for Obama/Clinton! (I registered as an independent but I don't think I'm fooling anyone.)

For some reason my heart wouldn't give up. "But I LIKE Huckabee" I whined internally. "Hmmmm......well, one good thing about Huckabee is that if the Republicans do cheat and win like they have in the past, the American people will still have a good president." (pause while that sinks in.........) Huckabee it is!

Karmic Lessons

Ok, so I realize in my post "Clear the Transaction" the second story about the debit card contained absolutely no Karmic lesson at all. I know people read that with a puzzled look on their face thinking "did I miss something?" No you didn't miss anything. I edited out the real story because it made me look like a snob and because it made the post too long. But here's what actually happened.. .....

Before the manager came over, the clerk who had been ringing up my groceries noticed that one of my lasagnas was defrosted. "This is defrosted ma'am" he said, holding it up, "want me to get you a new one?" I wanted to say no. I should have said no because when I picked that lasagna out of the freezer I distinctly noticed that they all had wrinkly boxes and they all looked exactly like the one I had. But I shrugged and said "sure" thinking he was the expert. Then he called a kid over who looked pretty clueless but eager to help. He sent the kid to get my lasagna. "Great" I thought, "he'll never find it".

Why did I think that? Because this was no ordinary lasagna. This was Amy's Organic Lasagna and it isn't kept with the rest of the frozen food, it's on the opposite side of the store, so obscure that only I, the handful of people who buy that brand in a Baker's, and the person who stocks that freezer know where it is. Most people who buy stuff like that go to the tree-hugger stores like Wild Oats.

So while the manager was screaming out to the entire store that I could not afford to get a hundred dollars out of my account, and I was trying to keep my composure, the kid had darted eagerly off before I could think of a way to tell him that it wasn't where he probably thought it was.

I stood beside another young man who was going to push my cart out. I tried not to tap my foot or huff impatiently but I'm sure my demeanor gave me away. "What's wrong?" the young man asked generously. "Well, I know that kid didn't know where that lasagna was but I didn't tell him because if I'd told him it would be like insulting him before he's even made a mistake." The young man ,who was a little older than the kid, said something helpful and soothing. "How sweet" I thought. He is well on his way to understanding women. We stood there for about 15 minutes which feels like an eternity when you are blocking that narrow aisle of space on the way to the door. The kid finally showed up, panting.

"I can't find it" he said.
I didn't say anything but gave the other young man a look that said "what did I tell you?"
"It's not with the regular frozen food" I said. "It's in the produce section over there", I pointed.
Off the kid went again and returned in about 2 minutes.

The following weekend on the way out of church the lady who organizes our singles lunches told me where we were meeting for lunch. "It's the Olive Garden at Lakeside" she said "do you know where that is?" "Oh sure" I said and darted eagerly off. I know exactly where Lakeside is and how hard could it be to find the restaurant once I got there.

As it turns out, it was very hard. There had been a fleeting moment just before I had answered her that I thought I should ask her for directions just in case. About 20 or 30 minutes later I was still driving around Lakeside trying to call them on my cell to ask where it was.

"I can't find it"I said.
She didn't say anything critical, just directed me to the right location.
I arrived there in about 2 minutes.

I had to laugh as I realized I was experiencing exactly what that kid had gone through hunting for my lasagna. Ok so the kid wasn't such an idiot after all. The church ladies were much more gracious than I had been. They didn't tell me "I told you so" or lecture me on why I shouldn't be so hesitant to ask for directions. They were just happy to see me. They hadn't even ordered, but instead had waited patiently for me to arrive.

"Patience" I thought, "but that's not enough. Be gracious about it." Got it.

Getting to know you...

So I recently am corresponding with a new friend online and was asked about myself, how I grew up, my culture, etc. It's interesting how I was able to express myself as I wrote. I thought it would be good to post it in here.....

I grew up in Alabama and lived there for about 6 years after college and then moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee where I lived for about 8.5 years before moving to Omaha. My family is mostly in Alabama. I was raised by my grandmother who has since passed away back in 1994. I am the youngest of three. My sister, the oldest, died in 2003 and my brother, a year older than me, is in the Army in Tacoma, Washington.

My mom lives in Birmingham and I help take care of her. We've grown closer since my grandma died but the reason my mom didn't raise us is because she was considered too irresponsible by my grandma. As an adult I have learned that my grandma was right so I've been essentially mothering my mother and giving her the nurturing my grandma didn't. This past Christmas when my brother and I (who never fight) got into an argument, my mom behaved like a mother towards me for the first time. It was the best Christmas present I've ever had.

I was raised Church of Christ and I attend regularly. I don't want to sound like I am apologizing for my spirituality nor do I want to seem like I am chest-beating and proud of it. It's just simply who I am. If it helps, I am not into "rules". I think Christ came to show us how to love so we would no longer need laws. But different people are on different levels of maturity and some still need the structure of rules to define their limits. Religion is a matter of laws but spirituality is a matter of love, and love always comes first.

The Illusion of Race

I have decided that for U.S. Americans, race is just an illusion. I came to this conclusion for many reasons. My great-great grandfather "looked just like a Chinaman", I was told long ago by my grandma (or maybe she said Indian). This explains the Asian (Native American?) slant to my eyes. My father spoke with a Carribean accent (Or maybe it was French?...Congo?...who knows?). My sister-in-law is Asian. My niece is half-white. I stopped calling myself an "African American" about 10 years ago and switched to calling myself just "black" when I realized the term was designating my skin color, not my racial background. My success in life is due in large part to the wonderful schoolmates, teachers and community in the small town in Alabama where I grew up, most of whom were white, but all of us had every opportunity to be and do almost anything.

At my church there is a grown white woman whose sister and brother are black because they have different fathers. She's nearly my age, not one of the new millenial bi-racial kids you see now all over the place. Her nieces and nephews are both white and black. Her brother married a white woman so his kids look white. Her sister married a black man so her kids look black. Never in my life have I seen more evidence that all of us are only one parent or grandparent away from being either white or black in skin color.

When I still lived in the south I was stuck between feeling the racism of the past and behaving with the bold confidence of knowing I was equal. Thanks to my year and a half in Omaha, Nebraska I no longer struggle with that. I feel liberated and free to walk into any room or business and look around and know that I have more in common than differences. My expectations, demeanor, and attitude are the biggest contributors to my experience, not my skin color.

In countries where the entire population is still one ethnic group, race may still be considered a real factor, but no longer in the US. I hope that all Americans who have longed for equality to become a reality can now see in the victory of Barrack Obama in Iowa that their battle has been won. The fact that he can win Iowa means that racism is almost extinct.

I admit that I had not decided to vote for him for president. My support was leaning towards Hilary Clinton years ago before she even announced her candidacy, while she was still first lady. But to see the change in attitude of the entire country with the victory of Barrack Obama in Iowa is amazing. It's like the entire country is breathing a sigh of relief..."ahhhh, we are not the racists we thought we were" and "see, we were just waiting for someone who was really qualified". Previously in this post I had written that this country was in fact once as racists as we seemed to be, but I am going to recant that. I am changing my opinion on the idea that America is fundamentally and historically racist. I think if that were true the civil rights movement wouldn't have been successful. None of the progress towards equality would have been possible without the cooperation of all races. I am going to cling to that thought.

Recently several states have been issuing apologies for slavery. All rational inteligent Americans want to repent of slavery and racism and finally put them behind us and actually practice the values the current administration likes to pretend to have. An Obama victory might do more to restore a return to family values than anything any Republican candidate could do. It would bring about a huge healing process for the entire country. We might finally be seen throughout the world as the example of Democracy that we proclaim ourselves to be and perhaps be redeemed not only from the hypocracy of slavery but also from the humiliation and ignorance of the Bush administration.

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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