My New Heroes

Today the sermon at church was all about being grateful.  I am grateful for what I have but am still kinda a brat about it.  Okay so I'm really a brat about it.  Being poor was not that much fun and I do love crying in a BMW rather than in a VW.  I've done both and the former is WAY cooler.

We were encouraged to write letters, texts and emails to our respective heroes to let them know how we feel.  Bah humbug-why not just buy them a drink or whatever and really show them how much they are appreciated.

How come I am nobody's hero?  I have sacrificed but I do have to give my husband credit.  He did just buy me a BMW.  He also bought me the house I wanted and put both kids through college.  He is kind of my hero.  I tell him all the time that his treasure is ME.  I have stayed with him for 40 years.  He values what I have done for him even if no one else does.  Especially his mother.

Life doesn't have to suck-you can chose for it not to.  Sure I have had shitty things happen to me but I have kept going.  Believe me I wanted to give up, stop trying, quit being married but I was just too stubborn.  How many wars were won by stubborn generals?

Anyway, I have to thank my parents-they were the real heroes.  Even when they wanted to stop being the grown-ups they didn't.  I was fed,  got presents on Christmas,  homemade birthday cakes, my mom even made my wedding dress, and they drove me to college because I couldn't drive.  I was a very, very blessed kid.  And I was one of seven.

I learned how to be a compassionate and loving human from my mom and I do need to tell her this and I will.

The Ever Present

If my walls could talk, they would be on every talk show on tv and have their own Facebook page.

Many times I lay awake in the wee hours and can't go back to sleep.  Do you know how comforting walls can be?  Walls that I've painted and stripped of wallpaper, hung pictures on, entrusted my health and happiness to, surround me with nary a word but buckets of comfort.

I crawl into my robe and slippers, quietly I slip out of the bedroom and switch on the hall light.  My eyes are assaulted by two pictures I bought in Korea above an old captain's desk I refinished.  Across from the desk is an antique ice box that is now millions of years old -Ive had it for the last forty, and a small rug my mother-in-law gave me when my daughter was sick with a heart virus.

My life is hung, upholstered and scattered around our home.   Ive been carting the same furniture around the world for 27 years.

I've added a new table, chair, or couch to the mix over the years but most of what I started out with-I ended up with.   I feel at home with everything but every once in a while I'm overwhelmed with the old staleness and stodginess of furniture I have held onto for time immemorial.  My daughter is now the proud owner of my first bedroom suit.  It only has one night stand because my husband didn't think I would need one.

Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays were missed because I was living in some remote corner of the world.  My collection of pictures and small bits and pieces of the minutia of life are sometimes all that I had to celebrate with.  My blue couch has watched my children grow up and go off to college,
the end tables and coffee table in the den saw my children pull up and take their first step; I still have the rocking chair I got as my first mother's day present.

This home has been the one constant in my life

And I was so close...

I almost believed I could, hot damn, the brass ring was so close.   Just got a new little sports car and changed the way I wear my hair.  I have lost 6 pounds and why am I not ecstatically happy?  Isn't being younger the goal everyone?

I think it is being content with who you are-why am I not?  The old bod is continually sliding southward.  My tits are in my shoes, as it were.  Crap, can my wrinkles get any deeper?

Tomorrow is another day, shall I think of it tomorrow?  My husband adores me, my kids are a big question mark and everyone else I really don't care.  Or maybe I do.  I  care that my mother loves me and that is about it.

I have done my best to be a good sister and I seem to have failed miserably or at least that is how I felt when my mom was in the hospital.  Guess I'll just have to accept the fact that I might not be told when and if my mom is in the hospital.  Families are just crazy.

Focus, focus, get back to me.    I have great friends, in fact some are coming over tomorrow to honor the newly graduated West Pointers.  I just had two screwdrivers and there is a reason why alcohol never solves problems-but it tastes better than milk...

The same could be said of crying in a hanky or crying in a BMW.  The latter is so cool and if you are going to be sad, why not in a BMW?

You know every age has some type of angst associated with it.  I didn't used to give a damn-think ill adopt that stance again.

I just asked my emotional wall of  a husband (meaning he has concrete sand bags interspersed with his emotions, what he liked most about getting older.  His reply was, "I really hadn't thought about it."

Really?-no thoughts about getting gray hair, losing/lacking anything sexual, deepening  wrinkles, slowing down mentally and physically, and what about getting wiser? We are staring into that big abyss and he doesn't think about it??? Bah!  Humbug!  No help or sympathy there.

I think valuing people and relationships is probably pretty important.  Maybe my brothers and sisters aren't so full of shit.  Maybe they have good reason to be pissed at me-maybe not.  I honestly have nothing malevolent in my heart against them.  What I do have is a lot of self reliance-I figured it out as I went along, now it is their turn.  Maybe I should have a lot more compassion on my kids...after all, they had to schlepp through childhood being dragged here and there.  Although I was always there-maybe they feel that wasn't a great trade off.

That's it-people definitely make the difference.

My, But Your Gray Is Beginning To Show or The New "Old Fart Test"

My husband, Jim, and I were shopping in the local Walmart before the latest and greatest ice storm mania.  We had selected bread, milk, fruit etc. and were heading for the check out lane.  Unbeknownst to us, the store had installed six new self check outs.  We strolled over to the one with the light on and began "the test".  The bread and milk were fine then our first snafu came when we had to scan the bananas.  No sweat, we had to switch windows, press the button under the bananas (sounds like a psychology test from the seventies) and then we continued on.  Next came the apples-they each had an unreadable label.  Help was called and a very brusque young woman, with all the humor of the dead,  walked across the aisle  and  flashed her badge with the correct code on it to reset the computer.  She then turned and barked at my hapless husband to just read the numbers on the apple and enter them on the keypad.  He tried to read the illegible label TWICE and the unhelpful help was called again.

My lost as a goose husband, had his glasses on and still couldn't read the fucking numbers.  I picked up an apple and turned it just right so the light would hit the label and entered the 4 numbers on the keypad (I also had my glasses on). We finished our simple shopping trip and we both felt utterly demoralized.  My husband just half smiled and joked that self checks must be the new "old fart test".  He hunched his shoulders a little farther down, turned his collar to the wind and trekked back to the car.  We threw the groceries into the back seat and I took another look at Jim's face.  I laughed so hard I peed in my pants-good thing I was wearing a Poise pad...