Monday night I was kind of bad. I skipped my Portuguese class. Because I was busy with my interview to become a mentor.
It was time to fill in those gaps from my application. I went in knowing that I should mention that I am a Bay Area native. I've learned over the years that we are not as common as I had thought previously.
I talked about the things many of us take for granted -- applying for college or finding a job and an apartment. If you've never had a support system, do you really know how to do these things?
And college? Well, we all know that the SAT and other standardized tests can be culturally biased. If one has never been exposed to these things, then how can one answer questions on these topics?
The last part of the interview was answering questions about certain scenarios. The first was one in which the young woman was involved in risky behavior -- sex, drugs, or some combination of the two -- and how you would respond. And so I was honest. "I am not necessarily trained to deal with these kinds of situations but there are lots of people out there who are." I then went on to say that I would tell the young woman how her behavior is jeopardizing her future and that I can help her find someone to talk to. The program director loved how I said, "We can go and make an appointment." She said that her experience has taught her that while these young women will say that they will do whatever it is that you have asked of them, they rarely follow through with the actions. Just by my saying "we," I was holding this fictional young woman accountable.
The next step is to go through training. Part of this training is setting boundaries. Funny, but during the interview, I mentioned how there is often a lack of boundaries in these young women's lives. I gave a concrete example from my teaching years of how to be supportive yet set firm boundaries at the same time.
Basically I totally rocked the interview process. But from y'alls comments, I think you already expected that. I just wanted to let y'all know that I lived up to your expectations. And now I'm totally excited about getting my match.
And no, I don't see any problem with this post as a follow-up to yesterday's. Because I'm all multi-faceted and shit.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
One less debt
First of all, I am sure that a few of you have been wondering about what happened to this post as it made a brief appearance in y'alls readers this weekend. Yes, I meant to post. Just not at that time. Remember how I am prone to write stuff days, sometimes weeks, in advance. I just kind of hit the wrong button. But on with it all...
A few weeks ago, I mentioned exotic dancers in a post. That same week Hilly wrote a whole post about them. In my comments to her, I said that perhaps I should share a story. So now I'm sharing.
My first exposure to dancers was through a college roommate. If there was a Chippendales review in town, then she was there. And after we became roommates, I'd tag along. That same year I dated a guy who belonged to a certain fraternity.
This guy announced after a month of dating that he had been watching me for a year. I know this because he was able to describe outfits that I hadn't worn in about a year. Over this time, he had decided what kind of house we would have when we were married -- and the names of our children. I was going to say, "And for some reason," but I know the reason. When I met him, I was barely hanging onto life. I was looking to others for my reason to stay around. And so we "learned" how to be cruel to one another off and on over a two year period. I say "learned" because I know that at least on my part it was not something new. I may have not exhibited it previously but I knew long before I met him how to be cruel to another person.
This is not the story though. I mentioned this guy because his fraternity had an annual Chippendales night as their big fundraiser. I still joke to this day that that was the only night each year that all of the guys in the fraternity got laid. Really. Right before I left the place, I headed to the bathroom. To see some chick who had one of the brothers pinned to the floor while her friends were trying to drag her off of him saying, "But she has a boyfriend." Yeah. Right.
A few years later I ended up in a summer school program in England. The first Friday night found me and a few classmates walking through the West End. We'd pass by clubs and they would say that ladies didn't need to pay the cover. Well, our group of six was half female. And the female half? We were adventurous. We eventually told the guys that if they paid for a round for us in a pub, we would go with with them to their strip club of choice.
I remember our shock upon entering the club. They had a one drink minimum. And that two pound pint? Was eight to ten pounds in the strip club world. And then the girls started dancing. And the first chick had totally not taken care of her bikini line. Ewwww. I would have had more drinks if they had not been more expensive. But I had had enough drinks to warrant a trip to the bathroom. And while I was in the stall I got to hear the chicks talking about the cheap bastards in the club. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I stepped out of the stall. After about twenty minutes of this, during which we got to witness the girls literally clean out a German tourist's wallet, my guy friends decided that they had been cheated. One headed back up to the door to complain. The door guy was not there but the roll of entrance tickets was. My friend ripped off a long strand of the tickets before returning to find us. When we finally made it back to the dorm, all six of us were wearing a "boa" of these tickets. I'm sure the other students with whom we met up in the lobby after they were returning from a night at the theater and four-star dining thought that we were extra classy. I know this much. Our story is probably much more interesting today than theirs.
The last time I set foot in a strip joint is the most memorable by far though. It was during the height of my partygirl days in San Francisco. Every Friday night after work, I'd head to North Beach. To this old Italian bar. I still think of it as one of the safest places in the City. I was seated at the bar next to an older guy. He looked at me and asked, "Sweetheart, why you look so sad?" Now at this point the bartender, who I knew well enough to call "Uncle," had told me to not talk to this guy. Something about his fear that one day I would end up dead in an alley. Whatever. (Jade on the other hand used to ask me why I always told these guys that I understand Italian. I told her because I've seen the movies. First to go? The accountant and the girlfriend. Just didn't want folks saying things in front of me about which I shouldn't know.) I told the guy, "Some guy just insulted me." And then I pointed out the guy to him. I caught the offensive guy's eye as I pointed and smiled really nicely. Because I can be a bitch like that. The nice guy sitting next to me said that no one should ever insult me.
As the evening progressed, we started talking about smoking -- specifically cigars. Turns out his friend owned a place with cigars. So we decided to head on over. Turns out the place was a strip joint. All that mattered to me was that they had Jack and cigars. The girls were a wee bit classier than my previous encounter but I didn't really notice that much.
How does one follow up cigars at a strip joint? Playing pool. By the time our pool game ended, I realized that I was quite intoxicated (OK. Maybe I realized it when I was puking in the ladies room at the strip club but the night was young. And my stomach was empty.) and explained that I should probably go home. Especially since I had not eaten much that day.
"You should have told me you were hungry. Next time I'll buy you dinner."
And then he called the bartender over to get a cab for me. And pressed some money in my hand. I tried to give some of it back because it was more than what I knew that the cab ride home would cost. He wasn't having any of it. After reaching home, I briefly thought to myself that if he had given me five dollars more, I could have broken even for the evening.
The next week I was out with a friend and her coworkers. One of her coworkers had grown up in San Francisco and knew all kinds of interesting types of people. She mentioned a former classmate who had been acquitted on a hit. I told her that her classmate had the same last name as the guy I had met the previous weekend. When I told her the guy's full name, she said that he was the uncle of her classmate. And that I had not been mistaken in pegging him as a made man.
Every now and then I wonder about the guy who insulted me. Because I haven't seen him since that night. Oh, but he probably just moved out of the area. Yep. That's it.
Ummm. And now maybe you understand just how wild and out of control I was back in those days. Because stuff like this? Kind of normal back then. But I had a lot of fun.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned exotic dancers in a post. That same week Hilly wrote a whole post about them. In my comments to her, I said that perhaps I should share a story. So now I'm sharing.
My first exposure to dancers was through a college roommate. If there was a Chippendales review in town, then she was there. And after we became roommates, I'd tag along. That same year I dated a guy who belonged to a certain fraternity.
This guy announced after a month of dating that he had been watching me for a year. I know this because he was able to describe outfits that I hadn't worn in about a year. Over this time, he had decided what kind of house we would have when we were married -- and the names of our children. I was going to say, "And for some reason," but I know the reason. When I met him, I was barely hanging onto life. I was looking to others for my reason to stay around. And so we "learned" how to be cruel to one another off and on over a two year period. I say "learned" because I know that at least on my part it was not something new. I may have not exhibited it previously but I knew long before I met him how to be cruel to another person.
This is not the story though. I mentioned this guy because his fraternity had an annual Chippendales night as their big fundraiser. I still joke to this day that that was the only night each year that all of the guys in the fraternity got laid. Really. Right before I left the place, I headed to the bathroom. To see some chick who had one of the brothers pinned to the floor while her friends were trying to drag her off of him saying, "But she has a boyfriend." Yeah. Right.
A few years later I ended up in a summer school program in England. The first Friday night found me and a few classmates walking through the West End. We'd pass by clubs and they would say that ladies didn't need to pay the cover. Well, our group of six was half female. And the female half? We were adventurous. We eventually told the guys that if they paid for a round for us in a pub, we would go with with them to their strip club of choice.
I remember our shock upon entering the club. They had a one drink minimum. And that two pound pint? Was eight to ten pounds in the strip club world. And then the girls started dancing. And the first chick had totally not taken care of her bikini line. Ewwww. I would have had more drinks if they had not been more expensive. But I had had enough drinks to warrant a trip to the bathroom. And while I was in the stall I got to hear the chicks talking about the cheap bastards in the club. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I stepped out of the stall. After about twenty minutes of this, during which we got to witness the girls literally clean out a German tourist's wallet, my guy friends decided that they had been cheated. One headed back up to the door to complain. The door guy was not there but the roll of entrance tickets was. My friend ripped off a long strand of the tickets before returning to find us. When we finally made it back to the dorm, all six of us were wearing a "boa" of these tickets. I'm sure the other students with whom we met up in the lobby after they were returning from a night at the theater and four-star dining thought that we were extra classy. I know this much. Our story is probably much more interesting today than theirs.
The last time I set foot in a strip joint is the most memorable by far though. It was during the height of my partygirl days in San Francisco. Every Friday night after work, I'd head to North Beach. To this old Italian bar. I still think of it as one of the safest places in the City. I was seated at the bar next to an older guy. He looked at me and asked, "Sweetheart, why you look so sad?" Now at this point the bartender, who I knew well enough to call "Uncle," had told me to not talk to this guy. Something about his fear that one day I would end up dead in an alley. Whatever. (Jade on the other hand used to ask me why I always told these guys that I understand Italian. I told her because I've seen the movies. First to go? The accountant and the girlfriend. Just didn't want folks saying things in front of me about which I shouldn't know.) I told the guy, "Some guy just insulted me." And then I pointed out the guy to him. I caught the offensive guy's eye as I pointed and smiled really nicely. Because I can be a bitch like that. The nice guy sitting next to me said that no one should ever insult me.
As the evening progressed, we started talking about smoking -- specifically cigars. Turns out his friend owned a place with cigars. So we decided to head on over. Turns out the place was a strip joint. All that mattered to me was that they had Jack and cigars. The girls were a wee bit classier than my previous encounter but I didn't really notice that much.
How does one follow up cigars at a strip joint? Playing pool. By the time our pool game ended, I realized that I was quite intoxicated (OK. Maybe I realized it when I was puking in the ladies room at the strip club but the night was young. And my stomach was empty.) and explained that I should probably go home. Especially since I had not eaten much that day.
"You should have told me you were hungry. Next time I'll buy you dinner."
And then he called the bartender over to get a cab for me. And pressed some money in my hand. I tried to give some of it back because it was more than what I knew that the cab ride home would cost. He wasn't having any of it. After reaching home, I briefly thought to myself that if he had given me five dollars more, I could have broken even for the evening.
The next week I was out with a friend and her coworkers. One of her coworkers had grown up in San Francisco and knew all kinds of interesting types of people. She mentioned a former classmate who had been acquitted on a hit. I told her that her classmate had the same last name as the guy I had met the previous weekend. When I told her the guy's full name, she said that he was the uncle of her classmate. And that I had not been mistaken in pegging him as a made man.
Every now and then I wonder about the guy who insulted me. Because I haven't seen him since that night. Oh, but he probably just moved out of the area. Yep. That's it.
Ummm. And now maybe you understand just how wild and out of control I was back in those days. Because stuff like this? Kind of normal back then. But I had a lot of fun.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Making lemonade
This would be figuratively, not literally. The way my weekend started, it could have been a total disaster.
Friday afternoon while at work, my cellphone rang. It was the fraud prevention unit from my bank calling. The automated voice asked if I had recently tried to use my debit card, or had authorized someone else, to make a transaction in the amount of $102.50. Ummm nope. So I hit the button to indicate my answer of "No." Then the music started while I waited for a real person. After a couple of minutes, I decided to pull my account information up on the computer. WTF?!!! Someone had made two withdrawals of $202.50 from my account earlier in the day. Not pending transactions. Transactions that were already posted to my account. It gave the address so I looked it up online. A gas station to which I have never been. More music playing. At this point, I was freaked out to say the least. I stayed on hold for about 25 minutes. And then I was disconnected. I called the bank back. I was on hold for about another 40 minutes on this call before I got a live person. She once more asked about the transaction for $102.50 as well another attempted transaction for about $150. I explained to her that I had not authorized either of these transactions. She said that she would cancel my card -- that was still in my possession -- and issue a new one. I then asked about the two that had posted to my account. She put in for a provisional credit for those two. And then told me that the money would be back in my account by the 19th. The thing is that I had already sent out some checks to pay some bills. And my current account balance? It was not going to cover all of those checks. She said that if the checks hit my account before the bank had returned the money to my account, then yes, the bank would be returning them. But they would reverse any fees incurred because of this. Really assuring. I tried my best to think happy thoughts. OK. So the wine I picked up on my way home helped some.
Saturday morning? I had resolved to get through the weekend on my credit card. And so I got up to take my car to the shop so that they could complete the repairs. Last weekend, I had been told that it would take two hours. I had brought a couple of books with me for the wait. Right before I headed for the waiting area, I asked how long it would take. "Two hours for each part. Four hours." This would be when I felt like crying.
And then I remembered all of that stuff I had written in the last week. I reminded myself that I had updated my iTunes software on Thursday night and the software on my iPhone on Friday night. So I put on my headphones and tried out the new genius playlist feature. I chose "A Beautiful Mine" (Some of you may know this as the theme song to "Mad Men.") as my first song. And that little genius in the software? Came back with a mix of some of my favorites including NWA, Public Enemy and EPMD. And so while I read my book, I found myself chuckling at Chuck D. saying, "Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps." I smiled when I heard a guy talking about, "A girl who's shooting up this world like Shaft." From the first time I heard this song, I always imagined that I was that girl. By the time that I heard EPMD say, "Relax your mind...". I was well on my way there. And I threw in a little "Woo sai" to be safe.
I started thinking that my luck had turned around when I drove over to the Berkeley Public Library and instantly found a space in front. I thought to myself that my unwillingness to give into the negative had led me to this parking space. And then I went inside and discovered that the self-checkout machine was not handling DVD or CD rentals. Just my luck. I had scraped the change out of my wallet to pay for the meter fee. Fortunately I was out before my time expired.
I still had that residual daringness left from "Looking Out the Front Door" left in me though. And this is what made me daring enough to try something that only an insane person would do -- go into Berkeley Bowl in the middle of the day on a Saturday. And unfortunately my list was too large for a hand basket. So I got a cart and "ditched" it at strategic moments -- like when dealing with the produce section. I left the cart at the periphery in these instances and walked my finds back to it.
After sitting in the chair in the car dealership waiting room, my lower back pain had returned. Did I mention that I walked into Thursday's belly dancing class with this pain? And that it was still present on Friday morning? But by Friday evening it was non-existent. But by Saturday afternoon, the pain was fully raging. And so as I maneuvered the narrow aisles of Berkeley Bowl, I silently prayed that no one would bump into me.
All was good until I got in line at the checkout. The family in front of me had "that kid." This kid kept weaving his way through the various carts for entertainment. And if your cart was in his way? Well, he just pushed it out of the way. Now I must admit that the majority of the time while this was happening, it was just him and his dad. I figured that dad was clueless so I forgave him. Then mom showed up and I changed my mind. Especially after the kid started picking up my stuff from the conveyor belt while his parents were being rung up. Hello, people. Your germ-ridden kid is touching my stuff. It's moments like these that makes me want to slap entitled, oblivious liberals. (Oh, and did I mention that PMS also kicked in this weekend. Ummmmm. Yeah.) Instead I gave the kid "that look." He dropped my stuff and fled back to his parents, never to be seen in my personal space again. Oh, and this was the only kid with them. I dunno. I figure that two adults and one kid? One of the adults should be able to keep the kid in check. So all this crap happened but I was determined to keep the positive things I had planned for the weekend going.
And so I give you moussaka -- once more. With ground lamb this time. Because early last week I realized that I had not consumed any eggplant the entire summer. And there was also that change in weather. Except for yesterday, most of this week has had a distinctly fall kind of feeling in the Bay Area.
But the moussaka in many ways took second stage to this. The chop is from a pork rib roast that was brined before roasting. (And so could not be eaten on Saturday.) On a bed of polenta. With braised Swiss chard. You can thank the fine folks at "Bon Appetit" and Zoomie for this menu. The article was about local foods, I believe. And this particular dish was about how Southern meets Italian. The recipe said that you could use Swiss chard but it was originally made with collard greens. Love me some collards. Just didn't feel like cleaning them.
And so food is what got me through the negative. Even if I did have to put it all on my credit card since I no longer had any cash. But that's the positive upon which I chose to focus. What if I hadn't had room on my credit card to get through the weekend? That would have sucked completely. However, I did. And while it is not my favored method of payment, I was still able to do the things that I had originally planned for the weekend.
And then I thought about Taoism. This is precisely the kind of situation that Taoism speaks to. Sometimes life hands you a bunch of crap. It's all about how you deal with the situation. You can freak out and say, "Poor me." Or you can move on. Because true happiness comes from realizing that things happen and not trying to fight the crap but instead managing to move through it all -- with yourself intact.*
* Yes, I have been reading The Tao of Pooh once more. I told y'all that the book keeps me grounded.
Friday afternoon while at work, my cellphone rang. It was the fraud prevention unit from my bank calling. The automated voice asked if I had recently tried to use my debit card, or had authorized someone else, to make a transaction in the amount of $102.50. Ummm nope. So I hit the button to indicate my answer of "No." Then the music started while I waited for a real person. After a couple of minutes, I decided to pull my account information up on the computer. WTF?!!! Someone had made two withdrawals of $202.50 from my account earlier in the day. Not pending transactions. Transactions that were already posted to my account. It gave the address so I looked it up online. A gas station to which I have never been. More music playing. At this point, I was freaked out to say the least. I stayed on hold for about 25 minutes. And then I was disconnected. I called the bank back. I was on hold for about another 40 minutes on this call before I got a live person. She once more asked about the transaction for $102.50 as well another attempted transaction for about $150. I explained to her that I had not authorized either of these transactions. She said that she would cancel my card -- that was still in my possession -- and issue a new one. I then asked about the two that had posted to my account. She put in for a provisional credit for those two. And then told me that the money would be back in my account by the 19th. The thing is that I had already sent out some checks to pay some bills. And my current account balance? It was not going to cover all of those checks. She said that if the checks hit my account before the bank had returned the money to my account, then yes, the bank would be returning them. But they would reverse any fees incurred because of this. Really assuring. I tried my best to think happy thoughts. OK. So the wine I picked up on my way home helped some.
Saturday morning? I had resolved to get through the weekend on my credit card. And so I got up to take my car to the shop so that they could complete the repairs. Last weekend, I had been told that it would take two hours. I had brought a couple of books with me for the wait. Right before I headed for the waiting area, I asked how long it would take. "Two hours for each part. Four hours." This would be when I felt like crying.
And then I remembered all of that stuff I had written in the last week. I reminded myself that I had updated my iTunes software on Thursday night and the software on my iPhone on Friday night. So I put on my headphones and tried out the new genius playlist feature. I chose "A Beautiful Mine" (Some of you may know this as the theme song to "Mad Men.") as my first song. And that little genius in the software? Came back with a mix of some of my favorites including NWA, Public Enemy and EPMD. And so while I read my book, I found myself chuckling at Chuck D. saying, "Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps." I smiled when I heard a guy talking about, "A girl who's shooting up this world like Shaft." From the first time I heard this song, I always imagined that I was that girl. By the time that I heard EPMD say, "Relax your mind...". I was well on my way there. And I threw in a little "Woo sai" to be safe.
I started thinking that my luck had turned around when I drove over to the Berkeley Public Library and instantly found a space in front. I thought to myself that my unwillingness to give into the negative had led me to this parking space. And then I went inside and discovered that the self-checkout machine was not handling DVD or CD rentals. Just my luck. I had scraped the change out of my wallet to pay for the meter fee. Fortunately I was out before my time expired.
I still had that residual daringness left from "Looking Out the Front Door" left in me though. And this is what made me daring enough to try something that only an insane person would do -- go into Berkeley Bowl in the middle of the day on a Saturday. And unfortunately my list was too large for a hand basket. So I got a cart and "ditched" it at strategic moments -- like when dealing with the produce section. I left the cart at the periphery in these instances and walked my finds back to it.
After sitting in the chair in the car dealership waiting room, my lower back pain had returned. Did I mention that I walked into Thursday's belly dancing class with this pain? And that it was still present on Friday morning? But by Friday evening it was non-existent. But by Saturday afternoon, the pain was fully raging. And so as I maneuvered the narrow aisles of Berkeley Bowl, I silently prayed that no one would bump into me.
All was good until I got in line at the checkout. The family in front of me had "that kid." This kid kept weaving his way through the various carts for entertainment. And if your cart was in his way? Well, he just pushed it out of the way. Now I must admit that the majority of the time while this was happening, it was just him and his dad. I figured that dad was clueless so I forgave him. Then mom showed up and I changed my mind. Especially after the kid started picking up my stuff from the conveyor belt while his parents were being rung up. Hello, people. Your germ-ridden kid is touching my stuff. It's moments like these that makes me want to slap entitled, oblivious liberals. (Oh, and did I mention that PMS also kicked in this weekend. Ummmmm. Yeah.) Instead I gave the kid "that look." He dropped my stuff and fled back to his parents, never to be seen in my personal space again. Oh, and this was the only kid with them. I dunno. I figure that two adults and one kid? One of the adults should be able to keep the kid in check. So all this crap happened but I was determined to keep the positive things I had planned for the weekend going.
And so I give you moussaka -- once more. With ground lamb this time. Because early last week I realized that I had not consumed any eggplant the entire summer. And there was also that change in weather. Except for yesterday, most of this week has had a distinctly fall kind of feeling in the Bay Area.
But the moussaka in many ways took second stage to this. The chop is from a pork rib roast that was brined before roasting. (And so could not be eaten on Saturday.) On a bed of polenta. With braised Swiss chard. You can thank the fine folks at "Bon Appetit" and Zoomie for this menu. The article was about local foods, I believe. And this particular dish was about how Southern meets Italian. The recipe said that you could use Swiss chard but it was originally made with collard greens. Love me some collards. Just didn't feel like cleaning them.
And so food is what got me through the negative. Even if I did have to put it all on my credit card since I no longer had any cash. But that's the positive upon which I chose to focus. What if I hadn't had room on my credit card to get through the weekend? That would have sucked completely. However, I did. And while it is not my favored method of payment, I was still able to do the things that I had originally planned for the weekend.
And then I thought about Taoism. This is precisely the kind of situation that Taoism speaks to. Sometimes life hands you a bunch of crap. It's all about how you deal with the situation. You can freak out and say, "Poor me." Or you can move on. Because true happiness comes from realizing that things happen and not trying to fight the crap but instead managing to move through it all -- with yourself intact.*
* Yes, I have been reading The Tao of Pooh once more. I told y'all that the book keeps me grounded.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
What summer used to be
About five years ago, I got my mother hooked on the idea that summer meant Cobb Salad. She cursed me at the end of that summer because it seems that she had put on some pounds. I attributed it to her habit of assembling a salad and then dumping salad dressing on top. In this case it was some extra thick blue cheese dressing.
Me? I like to shred the greens in the bowl and then I add the dressing -- usually about two tablespoons worth. After tossing the greens in the dressing and making sure that the leaves are lightly coated, I then added everything else on top. As I eat everything else gradually mixes in with the greens. And nowadays, I no longer use blue cheese dressing but instead use a vinaigrette and add some crumbled blue cheese on top. And this dressing? Well, instead of using oil, I used the bacon drippings from the bacon I had cooked up just for the purpose of using on the salad.
The first salad -- the one pictured -- was pretty good but subsequent salads this week were made even better by the inclusion of these. They come from a coworker's garden. I have never been much of a fan of tomatoes, but these? The first time my coworker brought in a bowl a few weeks ago, he stopped by my office to announce their presence in the kitchen. "They're like candy." I was skeptical. And then I tasted one. He was so right. I have never tasted a tomato this sweet before in all my life. I find myself eating them as snacks while at work. If my mother had served these when I was a kid, I might have a different opinion about tomatoes today. I sure do hope that he'll be bringing more in some time soon.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Hanging from a telephone wire
Yep, I guess I told a fib. I said the other day that I would leave a discussion of this past Saturday to one paragraph. After reading a couple of other blogs, I decided to go ahead and share some of my thoughts. The more I think about it, I think the reason why I misspoke was because I felt that I needed to do my last two posts first.
Saturday's brunch was at times very emotional for me. After everyone had a chance to eat, we sat around and shared stories about my aunt. While the group consisted mostly of my aunt's friends, my dad and his other sister were also present. But before I get into the statements that were made about her, I'd like to get into some of my choices.
Some of you may have noticed that I my presence in the blogosphere has been less over the last few weeks. That's because one of the decisions I made was not to use my feed reader -- for almost two weeks. (I won't even begin to describe how many posts there were waiting for me when I opened it yesterday.) I knew that I needed to take a step back, much as I have done with many of my family members.
In many ways, I was feeling like my life was in a rut. I love structure, thus my love of lists, but I also love the unexpected. And I decided that sitting on my butt in front of the TV night after night was not as much of a variety as I need. Besides I have DVR. The shows will be there waiting for me when I want to see them.
Now don't get me wrong. My workdays are not always the same. It's just that the daily "surprises" have gotten to be the same in some way. I can handle most of these "surprises" in my sleep at this point. And so often by the end of the day, I do indeed feel half asleep. Then I reminded myself that my job has a seasonal quality to it. When we are in our peak season, I completely love my job. This meant to me that during the slow time, I needed to add more things to my life. Like the classes. Oh, and I have an interview scheduled for Monday for the volunteering.
Deciding what to do was in some ways the hard part. When trying to decide what to do, I suddenly heard my aunt's voice in my head. Because not long before her death, she had been asking me why I no longer did things like taking classes. And what really resonated with me was the memory of her saying, "When you do these things, you seem really happy." So I made decisions based on things that give me joy.
And now that brings me to Saturday's brunch. One of her friends mentioned how she was always so much fun to be around. In 2001, she pissed me off. I kept my contact with her to a minimal until 2003 -- when she was first diagnosed with cancer. Because she was sick, I was able to forget our past differences. But there was something else. I had missed her during that time because of the simple fact that she was so much fun to be around.
As the discussion continued, one of her friends mentioned why she was so much fun. This friend said that she had a serious side and could take care of business when needed. But she also had this childlike quality. I remember tearing up this point because all I could think was that perhaps we weren't that different from one another. Perhaps this was to be expected since my grandmother had such a great effect on both of our lives.
And then someone else summed it all up best. No matter what she was doing, my aunt had fun doing it. If there was no possibility of fun, then she just didn't do it. And she could make the most mundane of activities seem like the height of fun. She could even do this when she was sick and suffering from great amounts of pain. By doing this, she made it possible for the rest of us to forget that she even was sick.
So now I'm going to do my best to make sure that every day is filled with some sort of fun. Because as that article that Heidi quoted, this is what life is. And I am so ready to get on with living.
Saturday's brunch was at times very emotional for me. After everyone had a chance to eat, we sat around and shared stories about my aunt. While the group consisted mostly of my aunt's friends, my dad and his other sister were also present. But before I get into the statements that were made about her, I'd like to get into some of my choices.
Some of you may have noticed that I my presence in the blogosphere has been less over the last few weeks. That's because one of the decisions I made was not to use my feed reader -- for almost two weeks. (I won't even begin to describe how many posts there were waiting for me when I opened it yesterday.) I knew that I needed to take a step back, much as I have done with many of my family members.
In many ways, I was feeling like my life was in a rut. I love structure, thus my love of lists, but I also love the unexpected. And I decided that sitting on my butt in front of the TV night after night was not as much of a variety as I need. Besides I have DVR. The shows will be there waiting for me when I want to see them.
Now don't get me wrong. My workdays are not always the same. It's just that the daily "surprises" have gotten to be the same in some way. I can handle most of these "surprises" in my sleep at this point. And so often by the end of the day, I do indeed feel half asleep. Then I reminded myself that my job has a seasonal quality to it. When we are in our peak season, I completely love my job. This meant to me that during the slow time, I needed to add more things to my life. Like the classes. Oh, and I have an interview scheduled for Monday for the volunteering.
Deciding what to do was in some ways the hard part. When trying to decide what to do, I suddenly heard my aunt's voice in my head. Because not long before her death, she had been asking me why I no longer did things like taking classes. And what really resonated with me was the memory of her saying, "When you do these things, you seem really happy." So I made decisions based on things that give me joy.
And now that brings me to Saturday's brunch. One of her friends mentioned how she was always so much fun to be around. In 2001, she pissed me off. I kept my contact with her to a minimal until 2003 -- when she was first diagnosed with cancer. Because she was sick, I was able to forget our past differences. But there was something else. I had missed her during that time because of the simple fact that she was so much fun to be around.
As the discussion continued, one of her friends mentioned why she was so much fun. This friend said that she had a serious side and could take care of business when needed. But she also had this childlike quality. I remember tearing up this point because all I could think was that perhaps we weren't that different from one another. Perhaps this was to be expected since my grandmother had such a great effect on both of our lives.
And then someone else summed it all up best. No matter what she was doing, my aunt had fun doing it. If there was no possibility of fun, then she just didn't do it. And she could make the most mundane of activities seem like the height of fun. She could even do this when she was sick and suffering from great amounts of pain. By doing this, she made it possible for the rest of us to forget that she even was sick.
So now I'm going to do my best to make sure that every day is filled with some sort of fun. Because as that article that Heidi quoted, this is what life is. And I am so ready to get on with living.
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