Talk Thursday - Scattered.... My 200th Blog!

Talk Thursday – Scattered

I like to have my Talk Thursday blog written, on well, let’s just say, “Thursday.” I mean imagine being on time. Which I originally wrote, “I mean imagraine” that is the image of a migraine I think. It’s been one of those weeks, I knew it would be and yes, I am definitely SCATTERED.

I worked double shifts all week. It does mean I worked a few more hours (come on I’m salary it’s just hours) the news director is on vacation…er was it’s Saturday so I covered his 5am shift and my 10am shift and then did my programming and sales. Friday at 9am (it was really 8:55am) my morning DJ went on vacation too. So technically (because I went on air at 10am) I was covering for him too. Now don’t take this as a complaint or rant because it’s not, but it is an explanation for a week going into the next that is totally scattered.

To kick off the week I was on antibiotics for the abscess that resulted in my root canal Tuesday. I have no problem going to the dentist; I’ve been pretty fortunate in my selection dentists through the years (this of course is all post move to Oregon, before that it was bad breath and pain.) What did bum me out was that I stood to lose the cap on my bicuspid that was going to be roto rootered. My sister made that cap for me, it’s beautiful – beware non paid advertising ahead…

If you ever need a cap, crown, or bridge see Pinecone at Creative Dental Designs in Eugene. They and she ROCK!

The awesome thing… Tooth Doc did it right through the cap...Way Kewl! it didn’t shattered (but it does have this round bored hole right through it) so I still have Pinecones’ “made just for me” cap and a pretty, painless, abscess free smile.

So Sid’s topic is so totally right up my alley this week. Because, I am scattered, totally, unadulteratedly scattered—do not add water, do not stir, shake, rattle, rock and roll. I’m there.

To underscore this point I have had no sleep (because of the antibiotic and shift change) for a week and a half. I haven’t gotten bitchy (major shock) I’ve just been incredibly tired. Tuesday night I had a sensitive…but pretty jaw, and it was Pinecone’s birthday. Every year I call and sing to her (my version) of the Sheriff John birthday song. Unless you grew up in LA in the sixties you probably have no idea what I am talking about – Sheriff John was LA’s mid day Romper Room, Ramblin’ Rod, or local kid’s show in your area. There was no way I could sing this song, and no way I could miss singing to her. I usually try to call when I will get an answering machine, but Pinecone carries her cell phone with her always…so I seldom get an answering machine. Then to compound the particulars she called me first.

Now where in the birthday laws does it say the birthday person can call the birthday singing caller? Where? So after an hour and a half call I’ve still not sung for her… because it needs to be an unanticipated surprise instigated by me, the birthday singer. But my non birthday singing jaw (and the phone call) have me in a non Birthday Cake Polka singing situation. So I did the next best thing – twenty minutes after we hung up, her phone rang and Sheriff John sang the Birthday Cake Polka (his version not mine) himself.

Thank heavens for YouTube now you can hear the Birthday Cake Polka...and Sheriff John too!




Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Baby Steps

Talk Thursday – Baby Steps

It’s all about me. Life. My life. My journey in this life, the choices I make, the paths I take, the lessons I learn. This, very possibly, I learned early in life. Not before I was a nasty bitch of a teenager, but maybe in my late teens or early twenties.

Firm in my faith, I don’t believe that God does things to us. I think we do things to ourselves, other people do things to us, and damn, in the words of Forrest Gump, “Shit happens.” It’s all about the journey. I am firm in my belief that I am a survivor. This hasn’t been tested too greatly by the universe, but it has been tested by my relationships and choices in life. Just keep the snakes out of the scenario, and I am pretty much fine.

Wow, was I this fantastic way back when? Shit, I’m not fantastic now, but I’m working on it. I am not a know-it-all (my typoing skills will attest to that) but I do strive to be the best that I can be. When I was younger life hinged on me being liked, and yet over all I wasn’t liked much. I didn’t fit in, I was mostly a loner, and yet I wasn’t a loner. I trusted far too easy and hurt all too often in my early life trials.

Today, I am not one to make friends fast, burned far too often in yesterday year, I am a wee bit slower to glom on to the BFF train. But I know a kindred spirit pretty darn fast, and yes I do glom on to my friends to never let them go. Through baby steps in life I learned that true friends are forever, our spiritual family, the rest are just acquaintances. While my heart has been bruised by those who took and ran, I learned that I took too. I just didn’t run. I took, I stayed, I shared, I learned, I grew. Baby steps.

I may have not spoken to you in decades (ohmigod I can say for decades) but you, my friend, are still dear to my heart, essential to my existence, an eternal piece of who I am and my soul. Differences may have parted us, time may separate us, but you are still with me. Baby steps of where we have been, who we have known, and what we have survived make us who we are today. You helped form the me that I evolved into. Baby steps.

Several years ago I had my numbers done. I have master numbers it seems-- 33 / 11 / 2. All my life I’ve been told I possess a greater ability, a greater intuition, a gift. I think we are all in possession of greater abilities than we demonstrate, the ability to reach out and touch, to accomplish great things, to be a survivor and help others to survive. We possess the ability to rise above and see broader if we only open our eyes and start our baby steps with understand and an attempt to gain insight. And of course learn our life lessons.

When I leave this plane time, space, and difference will not separate us. In this universe we shall rejoice in our lessons and each other.

It’s all about my journey, which means it’s all about you.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: The Spaces In Between

Talk Thursday: The Spaces In Between

I must have been listening to Dave Matthews when this topic came to mind. I had no clue where I was going, what I might do, and to me that is the best topic type—challenging. No clue at all…

Until…well sort of, yesterday afternoon when I read Tewkes’ post on community leaders, and I asked myself, “Self, what happened during the space in between the teens and the moment of discovery that I’d become a political, social, and spiritual slug?”

Once I cared enough about the issues to speak out. I argued the finer points of society with my father (my mother wisely ran in the opposite direction – we were loud and unbending.) I miss my arguments with him they made me see the difference in philosophies, tenets, and generations. My spare time was spent volunteering in a rehabilitation / convelescent center, I took classes to learn about other religions, cultures, and the historical positions of mankind’s civilizations. I volunteered at the local family planning center making sure girls and women understood their right to choose, and their responsiblities. I sat with users while they came down from their bad highs and stupid indulgences. I cared enough to do.

Then I got married. I believe in marriage, wholeheartedly, as a working partnership between two people who love, respect, and value each other. I believed in marriage three times. My first husband and I were spiritually, ethically, and recreationally different as a couple could be. We made a great child and a crappy marriage. What happened in the space between I do’s and don’ts? Life with eyes wide open, no hue of rosy colour love could tint the vast difference of characters.

I went back to nursing, focused my attention on my daughter and tried to build a life for us with the help of my parents. Life was good. And then I jumped in over my head and went into private care. Three months later any notion of a career in nursing and my reputation was destroyed, because I bought into a dream I couldn’t carry by myself-- one hundred percent, hook, line, and sinker. Yes, I guess I am still making excuses. I loved nursing (and no that isn’t to say I was a nurse.) In between the “I cans” and “I can’ts” I learned reality and limitations-- mine and others.

This should have been apparent lesson that I could apply to others in my life…like my second husband. A nice guy, I still like him, hell, I still love him. We were politically a like, spiritually opposed, and only one of us was in love. In the space between him and the last I realized that too many people (mostly women, but there must be men too) lose who they are in a vain attempt to make themselves into what they think their mate wants them to be. Suddenly I was in the knowledge that I was without his love-- suddenly I was nobody.

In the space in between the I do’s and the I don’ts I lost who I was. I lost my ideals, my goals, the vision of who I wanted to be, and who I could be. I had made myself into who I thought he wanted and had no clue how to find myself in between the layers of veneer I’d accumulated to be his mate.

What do you do when you’ve lost who you are? You sit on a sand dune and cry. You mourn the past and what never was. You cry in horror at what has become, and as a mother you shove it deep into a box within and realize you have a child who needs you, who you owe everything. And you go on. Just like the countless broken hearts that have gone before and will go on afterwards. You go on with new insights, new respects, new determination. In the space in between heartbreak and success I found determination to be the best I could be, without excuse.

Do I harbor anger? No, that would be self defeating. Do I harbor resentment? No, life is far too long to be disillusioned and distrustful forever. A person does what they have to do, and in the long run it is plain and simple, I believe in love, I believe I am good at marriage, I just wasn’t good at finding partners. I have a list of what could have beens that weren’t even close.

Ducky and I are politically a like. But now I accept that he’s not the social activist that I am. He’s not the social doer that I want to be. But what he is, plain and simple, is the man who accepts that I have those needs and supports me.

I’m a homebody, Ducky is a homebody. We love to work in our yard, build on to our home, plant more flowers, build more fences, and share time with one another. He doesn’t understand some of my view points, and I don’t understand some of his anger, but we deal, we accept, we value.

In the space in between, who I was and who I am, I learned to accept, to survive, to give, to feel, to share, to hoard all the memories and moments, and give them back again, to value to cherish, to serve, and take. To learn the lessons and deliver them back again when the moment comes. To listen, to hear, to give and take. In the spaces in between I learned to be me.

Sith,
Cele

Google Picture MeMe

Compliments of Sideon, who got it from Eiain, here’s a Google Picture Meme.

Here are the rules:

a) Answer the question below, do a Google Image search with your answer, take a picture from the 1st page of results, do it with minimal words of explanation; and

b) Tag 5 people to do the same once you’ve finished answering every question. Everyone hates getting tagged, so if you want to play, consider yourself tagged and leave me a link.

1. The age you’ll be on your next birthday: 53

2. Place you want to travel to: Scotland

3. Your favourite place: flower garden

4) Your Favourite Food: medium rare steak

5) Your Favorite Pet:

Arlo

6) Favourite colour combination: green and purple

7) Favorite piece of clothing: jammies

8) Your all time favorite song: a- Where Do The Children Play?

#8B - Hundred Years

9) Favorite TV show:

10) First name of your significant other: Roger

11) Which town do you live in: Florence, Oregon

12) Your screen name / nickname: Celebrindal / Cele

13) Your first job: horse hand

14) Your dream job: Horse Groom

15) One bad habit that you have: procrastinate

16) Worst fear - no picture of a snake is going on my website

17) Things you'd like to do before you die: retire

18) The first thing you'll buy / do if you get $1,000,000 - no idea

19) Your husband / wife - husband

20) What present would you like for you next birthday - solar fountain

Talk Thursday - Back To School

There are two great demarcations in my annual schedule. Back to school and Halloween. I know, you’re thinking, WTF? She’s lost it again – what happened to Christmas and Summer?

When you have no children at home, the knowledge and acknowledgement of school breaks and holidays gets a bit tricky. My job compounds this discrepancy, I have no gratis holidays, yep, the last three day weekend I had involved vacation time. In radio holidays mean special programming, but no extra time off. Think about it, does your favorite morning crew take off Labor Day? Memorial Day? Easter? Well,okay they get Easter off, but most likely work Christmas and Thanksgiving.

In my station you get either Thanksgiving or Christmas off. And that isn’t exactly true, I take Thanksgiving morning off while everyone else works, and then they get Christmas and I work. It benefits me in every way possible. I get up early and off early enough to get a turkey in the oven for Christmas dinner and can make sure my programming at the station is on track, and I get to look like a great boss.

Wow, big digression. Back to school in Florence marks the first big migration. Summer vacationers are returning inland, leaving their summer in the sand behind them and leaving my roadways less clogged. Instead of it taking five minutes to cross 101, it takes a minute. Reservations become less an evil necessity than they’d been just a week prior. The weekends are a little iffy, but the week days—blissful.

By the end of October and Halloween the snowbirds have all migrated to warmer climes …well away from me and my private Oregon, marking the second great demarcation in my year. I can cross my streets and eat in restaurants I want without reservations. Point of argument, yesterday, I needed to run to the bank. Sounds easy, but…and that is a big but. What happens? I get behind a little old lady from Saskatchewan driving five miles under the thirty mile per hour speed limit. Which makes me question exactly when did she leave Saskatchewan? How long did it take her to reach to Florence? Are we her final destination? Is she just passing through? And when is she due back in Saskatchewan? All these questions still want for answers in my mind (hopefully she’ll be home before the snow flies.) My two minute drive turned into ten, my nails are chewed to the quick and I need new brakes. Happily, I can say I did make the bank before it closed.

Now that the kidlets are back in school, I know to avoid the roadways between 7 and 8am, and 3:30 and 4pm. But with back to school this year comes a new era. In the middle section of my life, I will be gaining kids. With back to school I am gearing up to the kick off the Junior Volunteer program at the hospital. I will once again have to focus on school breaks, holidays, vacations – and bending my schedule around teens. I should have seen this coming. Several years ago I had my numbers done. I’m in my nine year, a year that begins the third phase of my life, a new beginning is on the horizon. And with back to school and back into the hospital I am excited at the prospects ahead of me.

Stay tuned,
Sith,
Cele