Saturday, October 29, 2011

Talk Thursday: Frustration - aka dead air from the big boys

Running a week behind in my topics…. If you haven’t noticed – this week’s topic, Occupy/ied/ing, last week Frustration. This is how far behind I am, the frustrating conversation I’m about to relate happened a week ago this morning. People know I work for a radio station, oh, okay.

“Hi, I’m Calista and I work for a radio station”

See I should never assume. For the past fourteen to sixteen years of my job I’ve been not only the program director, but also the operations manager – that relates into me being responsible for, crap EVERYTHING. Yes, everything, if there is a light bulb out the morning guys will unlock the doors in the pitch black until I have a morning shift and find the light out and change it. If a satellite dish is wonky (an extremely technical term), no I don’t fix it, I coordinate with the engineer(s) until it’s fixed. I have learned all sorts of technical terms, i.e. sparkles, bongs, and the most important one, “Dead air.”

My job is so very technical and important in relation to dead air - that I get 1) paged 2) phoned and 3) did I mention I have two phones, yes they both get called. Five straight beeps in the message and it’s the AM, five alternating bee dee bee dee (think of them as beeps) and it’s the FM. Are you still with me?

The amount of dead air is growing on our AM station. Last Saturday morning, I get awoken with dead air on the AM at 2:12am, by the time I checked the radio we were back on and ten seconds later I was back in bed. Then at 7:56am I get awoken by the AM once again. This time I’m fully awake and as the station leaves dead air for the comfort of ABC news I’m dialing a radio network that sounds something very close to Flear Phannel. The following conversation ensued:

“Engineering, this is Bozo”
“Good morning Bozo, I am Calista with KCFM in Florence, Oregon. We’re a Music affiliate (read- name altered to protect the innocent and my butt) and I’m experiencing dead air.”
“Well there was dead air, but the network is on the air. “
“Could you please tell me where the dead air came from?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the dead air, did it come from Flear Phannel or Music?”
“Well I can’t say.”
“You can’t say? So it came from Music.”
“No, I can’t say that. The device that suffered the dead air is in our studios.”
“Oh, so the dead air came from Flear Phanhel.”
“No, I can’t say that.”
“Then it came from Music.”
“No, I can’t say that.”
“I don’t understand, the device that the dead air came from is in your studios, but you don’t know that the dead air came from Flear Phannel.”
“Right.”
“So it came from Music.”
“No, I can’t say that.”

At this point I crawl through the phone line all the way to Colorado and strangle him with his wits. And I’m wide awake at 8:05am on a Saturday morning. Too, mean.

Sith,
Cele

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Talk Thursday: Shooting For Happy

There is actually no reason for having not written this blog. Long ago I discovered several truths, yes, they are my truths, but I believe they could hold true for most people.


The first, it is far easier to be happy than to eternally be sad. Being sad takes up too much energy, sucks out too much spirit, and alienates you from people who are happy. I choose to be happy, I choose to smile instead of frown, or even be straight faced (which is sometimes hard, Ducky says my face is like a book.)

Second, yes money makes to world go round, but I prefer to have a job I love that pays less than a high paying job that I hate. Having more money doesn’t mean having a “better”, “happier”, or more meaningful life. It means you have more toys that you don’t use, bills that are bigger, as many headaches, and more house to clean. I prefer cozy, comfy, and hands on. My brother constantly boast of the businesses he owns, the property he owns, and the money he makes – yet he refused to pay a loan back to my parents (and yes my father did come out and bluntly ask for payment), all the while he is complaining about how many hours he has to work, who owes him money, and a myriad of other problems. Is that happiness? Is that quality of life? Are those good priorities? Really, I’m thinking not, I see him bowing to the almighty dollar and "Self-status", all the while he is flipping his family the finger – he still has not come home since my father died (four years ago this Christmas.) I don’t see this as happy and yes I realize this is my perspective.

Third, Happiness for me is about being a better person and making the life I live the life I want. My house is small, I like to think it’s cozy. My family speaks to each other (well okay there is that one brother, but if he called I’d speak to him). While my lawn is dead, my flower garden is a source of pleasure. My job can be stressful, but I love it, strive to be the best I can be at my job, and give as much as my time allows. I have to say the thought of retirement is actually gaining more appeal, I may be eligible for an AARP card (no I’m not going there) I have to take the yearning of more free time a bit slow as I’m still years way from that financial freedom (who am I kidding I will never be financially free) and retirement age.

In other words I am happy where I am. I love, I laugh, I sing, I am…. Happy.

Sith,
Cele

And it doesn't hurt that my Ducks are winning.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Talk Thursday: Masculinity and Testoserone

Living with a man who is recuperating from a “major” surgical procedure is, to say the least, enlightening. It’s been five week (and two days) since Ducky went under the knife, had his spinal stenosis removed and three disks replaced. He also quit smoking on that day – I am very proud of him. In the past month we have been challenged by the temporary paralysis of both his arms, nicotine withdrawals and probably the worse of it all – BOREDOM. It takes a big man to allow his wife to do certain things for him… cut his meat… wash his pits…. Tie his shoe laces – understandable he’s being doing these things for himself for the better part of five decades.

The depression that has battered him off and on over that time what probably the worst side effect to face. How do you deal with depression? Ill-prepared, I am only armed with is optimism and logic – my husband is not a logical man. For the last fifteen years I have been allowed my Tuesday and Thursday nights, he stays at his sister’s house in the valley and I have time to blog, to go out to dinner with my girlfriends, mother, and grandmother. Now he is home on those nights and I have someone to watch TV with, thankfully we pretty much watch the same stuff, and the rest of the stuff he is a sleep for… except now he doesn’t have to leave for work at the butt-crack of dawn, so he has been joining me for Castle and Body of Proof (did I mention at anytime in the past that Dana Delaney is one of the few people Ducky tells me he wouldn’t charge the first time? And yes you just appropriate filled in the blank.)

Today Dude, one of the guys Ducky works with, came to visit while I was at work. Dude’s girlfriend and Ducky talked about the merits of Dancing With The Stars (we quit watching SEVERAL seasons ago.) Dude promptly began teasing Ducky that he was going to tell all the guys that Ducky watches DWTS. After relating the story to me I asked him if he let him know that he was a devotee of So You Think You Can Dance? No, and he didn’t tell him that he watches Dance Moms either.

Seriously, it’s all my fault. Once long ago I had aspirations to be a dancer, professional dancer… did you know you needed to be talented, dedicated, and did I mention talented? … yeah, what’s that all about? So, I’m in radio instead… but as a sideline I edit books (yes, bear with me it’s all related) and one of the writers I edit writes “dance/mystery/cozies – better known as the Jenny T. Partridge Mysteries. Delightful stories about a clumsy dance teacher and her psycho dance moms, so you know I have to watch Abby Lee (who is as crazy as) and her dance moms (thank you Natalie.) Ducky watches with me – to the point where he argues at the TV in support of a dancer, critiques the dances, and harangue both nemesis and judges. Yes, my husband, who (normally) slings 100 pound tires around, watches football five nights a week, and has Dana Delaney on his list of women he’d like to… is a female reality TV aficionado. You doubt me? As him about Theresa Guidice and the Real Housewives of New Jersey, hmm need more? As him what bugs him most about the newest housewife in Beverly Hills, no not Brandi, Dana – he’ll go on for five minutes. Ask him about the blondes of the OC, or about New York Turtle-time and Ramona.

It’s okay, he may know his Real Housewives, but I’m the one he gave chocolates and a thank-you card to. Life is good… all the way around.

Sith,
Cele

PS Except stay off Highway 126 beginning Monday, Ducky says he’s heading back to work.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Talk Thursday: Redo - seemingly a tribute to the letter I

There are so many things in my life I would take a redo on, so many things (in hindsight) I’d do over, do differently, or do slower. So I began with my blog, I’ve been lax lately in blogging, we’ll blame it on two things: 1) a lack of get up and go (or inspiration) 2) No time. We are still in the post surgery throes. Ducky has yet to begin physical therapy, his evaluation with the PT is Wednesday morning, this guy specializes in necks. Ducky has not regained dominance over his arms, either, right nor left. While the burning pain is less a constant, it does still rear its ugly head, and in truth getting a man to be in-charge of his pain meds on my day off is impossible – honestly must I do everything? I know totally rhetorical. Given the chance Ducky says he would not do this again.

Never would I go back and redo my teens, although I love revisiting the friends of my childhood. I would choose to go back and redo Psam’s childhood – pretty much minus any connection with her father. In fact, I’d forego the whole married to Chewbacha thing at all (thankfully I up held a long standing family tradition and was pregnant when I got married. Yes folks, I with full pride and acknowledgement come from a family of frisky women - mean sluts.) What I would have done was slowed down and savored every moment – good and bad, embraced every hug, every chance I could to sing in the car with her, I would have done more tide-pooling, more fishing, more beachcombing, more reading, and more cuddling. I missed so much in my daughter’s childhood and I didn’t even know it. So fucking sad.

If I had the chance I would redo the moments where I was mean to a person. Yes, there are a few, they are moments that I relive in thorough shame. When I have the chance I let people know what they meant to me, to my life, to the person I have become. I like who I became. Who I have yet to face a person who I was unkind to an apologize – except for my school bus driver. They looked kind of confused. Maybe there were too many to remember individuals. Part of what boggles my mind over my behavior is the fact that while I was in grade school – especially grade school, I was the child harassed, I was the child who was beat up in the school line while very one (teachers too) watched. Yes, this I’m sure was in part to my smart ass mouth (and probably why the teachers refused to intervene.) These are moments I would definitely redo.

You might have noticed my new look. I’m not a pink person (that is Psam) but really I couldn’t find anything with lilies or nasturtiums as a theme. What prompted me to change (despite my love of green) was the wasted space when I look at the blog on my laptop – for all the space available all the template took up was about six inches of space smack in the middle of my thirteen inch screen. It was time for a change, so I re did it. Voila. In the morning I did something I’d not done in a long while, I went though my entire blog list. I miss my favorite bloggers. But what I had missed more was the inspiration that reading my bloglist is the inspiration. I like that Blogger sets my list based on the most recent post, but it means my time surfing the blog has shrunk amazingly so. Before the update widget, I would go back and even if there wasn’t a new post I would read the comments, make more comments, or God forbid, write a blog of my own as a result of what I’d read.

I don’t live on Facebook. Yes, I play Farkle to excess – in my defense I’m trying to reach 2 million points (only 350k to go). While everyone else is living in one sentence absentia I am yearning for the fulfilling meaty paragraphs of a good blog. Something that lets me dig my incisors in to the wordy bulk of someone’s though process, existence, experience and then provokes me, compels me, commands me to write my own blog. Thank you Jen and Ang - Mir and Joss you are bloggers who consistently blog and prosper. Will I blog more, I have no clue; will I read more, I hope so I miss the daily blog slog; will I spend more time in Facebook, only playing Farkle, one line epitaphs leave me cold and alone. Please wrap me in your words and send me forth.

Sith,
Cele