I Wanna Talk About Me(Me)

Okay, it's Friday, nobody is showing up in chat and Fii had this Meme on her blog. I hope she doesn’t think this gets her out of 100 things. I feel relentless bulldog coming on. And I will play like she did, answering for Ducky and me, both…

Here goes:
What are your middle names?
My middle name is Calista. Now here’s the thing. As if Calista isn’t different enough, I artistically added an accent to it when I went into radio. Who knows? I’ve no clue. Pinecone (my adorable sister,) says I suffer from identity crisis. Ducky on the other hand has a name little kids have problems saying, he is known to those who love him… and all little kids as RahRahRay – all one word. His middle name is Ray.

How long have you been together?
We met Easter Day 1992. My sister (Pinecone) and his cousin (the nutcase) set us up on a meet and greet Easter BBQ. Damn he was hot looking… and single WTF? I didn’t know nice guys really existed, and no I didn’t think he was nice because he was single or cute, I thought he was nice and shy. Ummm, hot.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
One week later (and about 100 hours of phone conversation later) he asked me out.

Who asked whom out?
I am old school, I don’t call guys, I don’t ask them out…. And that is where it stops, I pay my own way…. Most of the time.

How old are each of you?
I'm 53, he's 56 (ooh, an older man :))

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Ducky and his siblings live in each other’s pockets. Me and my siblings were raise to be independent. I know that sounds strange, I love my sibs they are in my mind and my heart all the time, but I don’t have to see or talk to them constantly for them to know that. Ducky sees his sisters at least once or twice a week (and they live 60 miles away or more) – because he stays with one of them two nights a week. When you live 80 miles from work, having a sister or two around helps. A LOT.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Hmmm, I don’t know if I have an answer for that one. Really we have been pretty blessed. We’ve been through the financially hard times, the children hard times, parents dying, his brother dying but we have been able to lean on each other, support each other, and share. And the distance he commutes makes us appreciate our time together more.

Did you go to the same school?
Oh gracious no. That would have been interesting. I was a bad ass bitch (read: outsider fresh from California and resented for it, who didn’t fit in) who hung with the smokers in the parking lot. He was a sweet faced rowdy boy (nothing too bad) who liked way younger or way older women. I went to La Mirada & Siuslaw, he went to Churchill.

Are you from the same home town?
No. He is born and raised Oregonian (third generation.) I was a California (third generation) Surfer girl who moved to Oregon in her Junior year. He lived in Eugene, I moved to Florence (aka heaven on earth.)

Who is smarter?
I think that is a toss up. He is good at some things, I am good at logical things. He has the patience to do woodworking, I have the patience to fix his rototiller. And I’ve got this really weird memory. Weird. He thinks I kick ass at Jeopardy – I know I would get my ass kicked on Jeopardy.

Who is the most sensitive?
I think we both are. But I cry, like today when I played the song Help Pour Out The Rain. Stupid.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
We have three or four restaurants in our small town that we go to. In Florence his favorite is Aztalan Mexican Restaurant, mine is China Bay. If we get to go to Eugene we both love Mongolian Grill.

Where is the farthest you have traveled together?
Together – ha ha. LA, he hates flying. But this year we are going to Vegas, and then car touring Arizona.

Who has the craziest exes?
He has the craziest Ex. My exes are livable; his is one of those “the world revolves around me” wackos.

Who has the worst temper?
He definitely does. I’m usually a slow boil, kaboom. He is just kaboom – or as I often say, he gets road rage when he puts the key in the car door.

Who does the cooking?
Men cook? My husband can’t even BBQ water.

Who is the neat-freak?
I believe there is a place for everything and everything in its place. I know where I put things. He accuses me of misplacing his stuff… his keys, his hammer, his hat, his level, his drill, his miter saw…get my drift? My daughter claims I am OCD… Truth, I’m not that neat.

Who is more stubborn?
Oh mi gawd, him. But he realizes it. And hold a grudge… ooooh doggie

Who hogs the bed?
I don’t think either one of us hogs the bed; my hot flashes broke me of it.

Who wakes up earlier?
He does, the poor man drives 80 miles to work… one way, so he’s up at 4am to be to work by 7am. Even on weekends he wakes up at 3 or 4 watches some TV (can’t get enough of those Killer Clowns from Outer Space) and then goes back to bed.

Where was your first date?
In Eugene, he took me out to Farman’s Chinese. Then to a movie, White Men Can’t Jump, and then we spent four or five hours in my sister’s hot tub. The poor man had to work the next morning (I didn’t know that.)

Who is more jealous?
Neither one of us are jealous. I don’t understand jealousy, and he’s just not jealous.

How long did it take to get serious?
Hmmmm, we met on April 19th, had our first date April 25th, he moved in June 19th. Hmmm, I think we took our time.

Who eats more?
At one sitting him, but if you count my constant grazing and noshing, Me. And I’m the one with the two zip code butt to prove it.

Who does the laundry?
Men do laundry? WTF? When did this happen? Married three times and none of them did laundry after we got together. Of course in Ducky’s defense, I don’t change the oil in the car either. But hey neither did Ex 1 or Ex 2, so what was their excuses?

Who's better with the computer?
Ha, ha, I don’t think he can turn either one on. Of course he doesn’t want to either.

Who drives when you are together?
Women are allowed to drive when their husband is in the car? WTF? When did this happen? No really, when we went on our honeymoon- total road rage in Frisco. I thought we had an agreement, he drives country and I-5; I drive cities. Apparently not, he demands to do all the driving hence I ridicule him when he gets roadrage.

Example:
Me: “What do you mean #@!!## Driver? He drives just like you.”

Now his response is, “Everybody knows, when I get in the car, I own the road. End of story.”

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: The Seeker

Lyn Blossum is alive and well. I look forward to seeing how she uses her topic, because frankly I’m stumped. The seeker? Who? What? Why? Apparently always.

This week I have found myself – yes, seeking out one specific humming bird in the top of the Elm at work my truck is parked under a minimum five days a week. Hummingbirds are around all year long, although some species migrate, Rufous Hummingbirds do not. I first noted him Monday zzzinging, I couldn’t see him, because instead of looking in the tree I was looking everywhere else. Then as I sat in the main production studio, producing Harley’s afternoon show, I spied him perched upon a twig.

Now you ask yourself, “If she was producing out a radio show, what was she doing staring out the window?”

I wasn’t staring, I was zoning out. Why? Because if you don’t have to screen calls, producing a radio show is pretty boring. So there I sat, zoning out, waiting for the moment I was called upon to use my mighty trackball to deactivate the voicetrak, when I espied him. I couldn’t tell if he was a he, a she, a Rufous, or Anna’s Hummingbird. Yes, I do know it was a hummer, because well darn it, he hummed, and thummmmmed, and zzzzinged at me.

Tuesday morning, zoning out the window, there he is again. I’m still not sure what type, but I’m beginning to feel a developing friendship… you know that unrequited, from afar adoration?

I’m pretty certain he was watching me in my window Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday evening.

Thursday he was there, then dancing in the sky. A swooping, soaring bullet zipping through the sky creating sweeps and loops around another hummer.

This morning I was disheartened to see he was not perched in the Elm when I drove up. Several times I noticed I was staring at a vacant tree, no perky little hummer sat a top the elm, and then suddenly he was there. I ran out to grab the station’s camera, and he was gone. The little bugger must be camera shy, for every time I see him he’s gone by the time I return to snap a picture. So I snapped off crocus pictures in the mean while.

Oh, and yes he’s definitely a he and a Rufous, I wish I could get a picture of his beautiful iridescent flame orange throat.

Gracious I must be desperate for blog, this is the loosest interpretation of a topic I think I’ve ever done… But I got the picture.

Sith,
Cele

100 Things About Me – 2009

1) I am peaceful,
2) Well maybe not if you’re one of my exes.
3) I’ve been eyeing a solar water fountain for my new garden since last summer
4) It is the only thing I wanted for my birthday
5) Well, except chocolate and that is a given.
6) I got a lot of truffles and a chocolate bear for Valentines day.
7) Let’s just smear them on my hips, that’s where they will end up.
8) For years, really years, I’ve only drunk Celestial Seasonings’ Bengal Spice
9) Now suddenly adore their Apricot Peach Honeybush,
10) A box of Perfectly Pear White tea is waiting, patiently to be opened.
11) What, suddenly at 53 I am embracing change again?
12) What’s that all about?
13) Wow, I didn’t come to snakes until number 12, that may be an improvement.
14) I have a freakish memory
15) When I was a child… er an older, I would make myself fall asleep by naming all the kids in my childhood neighborhood
16) House by house, street by street.
17) My favorite place to be is in my hot tub
18) Watching the stars
19) Hey, I didn’t say these were all facts you don’t know about me.
20) I am annoyed at the people who are perpetuating this economy
21) In the mean time I’ll keep shopping.
22) I have a Bassett,
23) He was named after a mellow, folksie music guy, Arlo
24) There are moments I hate him (my dog, not the folksie music guy) – which makes me cry
25) Really, he is incapable of being house broken,
26) He’s a retaliatory pisser.
27) I’m still not a vegetarian
28) I have begun liking my steaks pretty darn rare,
29) I will refrain from sticking Arlo on a spit and roasting him.
30) My dog, not the folksie music guy.
31) There are moments that I really miss my dad
32) He once put electric wire in his house because his dog couldn’t be house broken
33) He too, was a retaliatory pisser
34) It must run in the family.
35) I love the frosting on bakery birthday cakes,
36) And those really good mini cupcakes you can buy these days.
37) But we should just smear those on my butt too.
38) Despite the butt, 53 isn’t too bad so far.
39) BTW Natalie’s birthday is Tuesday.
40) Thank God my butt size is much smaller than my IQ.
41) Have you noticed there are fewer people who blog consistently over their out put of last year?
42) Sad, to paraphrase a folksie dude, “Where have all the bloggers gone?”
43) Being at peace with myself translates in to boring
44) I don’t mean to be boring, I just don’t get out much
45) I love it at home, with Ducky.
46) The last movie I saw in a movie theatre was Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
47) I think the last movie before that was Second Hand Lions.
48) I told you I don’t get out much.
49) For vacation this year I think we are going to Vegas
50) a reunion of sorts for the people from my childhood neighborhood
51) You know how I say friends are gifts we give ourselves?
52) This year I gave myself the gift of renewed friendships
53) Such as Pammy, the girl who grew up the street from me
54) People are songs to me
55) Pammy is three songs: Angel on my Shoulder, Something Stupid, and Never On A Sunday.
56) And I am lucky she doesn’t remember what a bitch I was as a kid.
57) Last summer I put a courtyard around our hot tub.
58) This summer I have to pull it up and redo it….
59) There are so many waves in it you could hang ten on the south forty.
60) Last year I started a Teen Volunteer program at our local hospital
61) Five months later I may have our first teen volunteer
62) The speed of some progress is five slph (slug lengths per hour)
63) I may give up patience as my only virtue.
64) I am addicted to over the counter sleep aids.
65) Sad, but true, and I’m not likely to kick the habit soon
66) Addiction free lack of sleep is highly overrated.
67) I can get more work done on a Saturday air-shift when no one is there
68) Than in a whole day at work Monday through Friday.
69) Again folks, my name yelled loudly does not mean, “Come here quick my computer in put isn’t out computing.”
70) I cut my own hair
71) I burn out on hobbies
72) Except gardening, it appears.
73) My favorite flower is the Nasturtium and all it’s viney glory.
74) Jane Austin rocks
75) So does Duffy, Jason Mraz, and Five for Fighting
76) But Crosby, Still, Nash, and Sometimes Young
77) Is my favorite group
78) Followed by Cat Stevens.
79) I buy a minimum nine boxes of Girl Scout Cookies a year
80) One for each year I was in scouting
81) My favorites are Samoas.
82) I once had a monkey.
83) I phone flirt (everyone tells me so.)
84) I love deeply and forever
85) I can’t hold a grudge
86) Crap, I don’t want to hold a grudge.
87) I do at least two Suduko puzzles a day
88) Sometimes up to five or six
89) My best friend in childhood was my radio
90) As a child my half of the bedroom was immaculate; my sister’s really, really not so.
91) Today she is a better house-keeper than me.
92) Once, long ago, I was a negative personality
93) Not anymore (thank you husband number two)
94) Now I strive to always be cheerful and glorious
95) Some people find this grating – others love it.
96) You can’t please some people at all
97) But I still try.
98) In my fifties I am becoming a clothes horse
99) But all my shoes are still black
100) except my moccasins.
101) Wow, I only mentioned snakes once, that is truly progress.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Groove is a place in Your Heart

I’m not sure what this means, I’m not sure what my groove it. Certainly there are times I am stuck in the past, and far too many times I want to rush into the future. But today my groove is definitely focused on the most precious gifts I received.

Happy Birthday, to my little girl. 33 years ago (at this very moment of writing) I was screaming my head off “Never again.” Thirty-six hours of hard labor that was most certainly worth it, I just wish someone had warned me there’d be no drugs; no spinal block, no joy pills, no epidural, and definitely no epithelium (?).

33 years ago Psam came physically into my life and I have never looked back at the figure lost – because now I can go anywhere and not get lost due to the relief map of the US that was once my flat tummy. Never afterwards have I been alone. Psam had been there through it all divorces, romances, toads, frogs, and princes. She while she didn’t always like the roads I drug her down she endured, learned from my mistakes, and became the strong woman she is, a great mother, a splendid person.

An independent little soul who would roam my parent’s trailer park in her own little jeep. Following my dad around like he’d hung the moon, then screech at the top of her lungs for my mother, “He’s doing it again,” when he’d flip his two front teeth out at her. Her sitting on the kitchen counter in my mom’s kitchen perched next to my little brother, Buddy, watching episodes of Gilligan’s Island, sharing a kypted RC Cola from my other brother, Butch.

She never complained about the homemade clothes, the second hand bike, nor the homemade presents. Despite her room being painted hot pink, she never once said she’d have preferred it to be in her favorite red. She rocked. I was blessed with a child who devoured books, stood up for herself, and was a tomboy, who could spend a full day climbing trees and sand dunes with the best of them.

For 33 years I have been blessed to a partner in crime, my duets partner for road trips in a musty VW that she abhorred. Singing Deep Purple, The Beat Goes On, Heart and Soul, Midnight Train to Georgia, and Shhh-boom, but never The Long Way Home. I will always hold dear the memory of her, her cousin, and their friend harmonizing at their eighth grade graduation Amazing Grace. Watching her from the bleachers as she advanced in school band and concert choirs.

Today she is a wonderful mother, an open minded woman who gives all of her heart and soul to her son, and then stretches it farther for every one else. I can’t imagine being more blessed.

The groove in my heart is filled with the blessings of lessons, love, and joy that come with the motherhood and friendship of Psam. Happy Birthday.

Love,
Mom

Talk Thursday: Do I want what I need and do I need what I want?

Every morning during the first hour of my air shift I read the obituaries. Sounds morbid I know, but it is a habit that dates back to my days working in a neighborhood grocery store. I feared asking someone about a friend or loved one and unknowingly causing pain because that person had passed. Causing pain is something I avoid like snakes. The other thing I do from the newspaper (usually in the second hour of my shift) is the daily jumble, sudoko puzzle, and lately feeble attempts at the Cryptoquote. On the same page is Today in History, birthdays, and the thought of the day.

This week’s Talk Thursday blog is spurred by two items I found in today’s paper: A specific obituary and today’s Thought of the Day. The obit hit me first, a beautiful young face smiled from the picture besides her statistics that listed first her age of 16 and second the cause of her death. Suicide. My life has endured the pain and loss of several suicides. A few while I was in high school, my father in law (number 2) back in 1985, and helping my daughters through the suicides and deaths of their school mates.

Suicide, I’ve tried wrapping my head around how dark the future must look. How hopeless a person must feel; how depressed that they saw no alternative but taking their life. To think that they thought not only themselves, but those they love would be better off without them in their lives. I’ve tried to see that darkness and utterly failed, which leads me to realize how deeply dark and lonely it must have truly been. Why did not one see it? At the age of 16 I will naively think that chemical imbalances or medications lead to the taking of her life. A life, I assume, that had promise and hope, so much to offer before it that was lost in a shroud of despair. Could someone have made a difference?

The second item that prompted me to write today post is this thought of the day by John Stuart Mills, 1806 – 1873, English philosopher and economist: “Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.”

Well said, thought provoking. Do I want what I need and do I need what I want? Yes. I want to touch others. I have everything physical and material I need; the love of a good man and my dog, the respect of my daughter and mother, a warm fire in my home, a job that buys the wood for that fire and the food in my belly. I have joy in my grandson and friends, my mind is not yet feeble, I have my good health. All those blessings make the pain in my joints and back, minor irritations at best. So touching others and making a difference in their lives is what I want, it is what I need.

Don’t be misled; I have no desire to be the answer to someone’s problems that is too heavy a weight for one person to bear. But I do want to be a person who brings sunshine to others, laughter, solace, a port in the storm, a sounding board of reason in the lives of those who need those things. I do not want what others have or more of it, for in truth I have all I want and that is what I need.

Be a light in someone’s life, reach out and touch, share, give, and get back. To those who have touched my life, thank you, thank you so much for giving of yourself to me and others who have always needed just that.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Shifting

How are you shifting? Because, really we are; as in I am, you are, we are. Unless you’re incapacitated in some form and then I hope you are shifting towards movement, health, and your future.

Lately I’ve noticed my personal shift in age. Gravity and misuse, good use, too used have resulted in boobs and butt(s – yes with as big as it is the plural should be applicable) moving south in a Michelin Man sort of way. What was once firm is now marshmallow fluffy. I’m trying to learn to live with this, but I’m not giving up, after binging on a box of Little Debbie’s Swiss Rolls I get on my cross trainer for 25 minutes while watching, What Not to Wear. There is some sort of bug in my exercise for comfort food trade off calculations.

The bathroom cupboard of notions, potions, and lotions is getting bigger and deeper like the wrinkles and bags under my eyes. Side note: I was watching TV (what cable channel I forget) two weeks ago and noticed Shawna Christiansen in an Olay Regenerist Pro X commercial. Now you’re asking who is Shawna Christiansen? She was Psam’s best friend in grade school. Moved to Eugene and went in to modeling. She’s a beauty. And while I promote taking care of your skin early, ads attempting to make me believe that, at the age of 32, she’s in need of rejuvenating her radiant skin to it’s youthful appearance cracks me up. Her skin is flawless. It’s that beautiful toned Korean skin she was born with. Oh wait, it’s because she’s 32 and hasn’t bagged, sagged, or dragged yet. Hence, she maybe shifting towards middle age, but she hasn’t shifted towards middle age body by a long shot.

Are you shifting towards more leisure time? Maybe more gardening, three fishing dates a month instead of one a decade? How about more Frisbee time with the dog? Ha, ha if Arlo saw me throw a Frisbee he’d pee in fear and then run away. I try to shift more towards gardening… but I disagree with the weather, not the sun part but the 35 degree part, so my petunias need up rooting, while I have 40 daffodil bulbs that are peaking out of a number 86 paper bag.

Speaking of paper bags, I applaud the country’s shifting in green movement against brown (oh that sounded base) paper bags to reusable eco-bags. But shouldn’t we offer paper bags instead of non-biodegradable plastic bags? First they are biodegradable and second, they are from a renewable source. When I was in the hair business we had one company (Aveno?) who packaged their products in biodegradable bottles made of a corn cob product. Hurrah! But what happened, that was 20 years ago? Today, everything is bottled in plastic, not reusable glass, or biodegradable (they take three years to begin breaking down) corn plastics. And those awesome reusable-eco bags? I keep leaving the friggin’ things in my truck, on my couch, in my kitchen – I have them everywhere except with me when I am grocery shopping.

Okay, so I am shifting towards senior moments too… but I’m barely in my middle moments. Aren’t I?

Sith,
Cele

Winter Folk Festival, A Deux – er Part II

It had been my intent to write this post two weeks ago, right after the Winter Folk Festival. In it’s ninth year the festival brings together folk musicians, folk music enthusiast, folk crafters, and usually food.

Now I’m not sure what dog biscuits have to do with folk things, but I bought some great wheat and corn free all natural dog biscuits. Arlo has this bad, infection creating allergy to most things grain, i.e. wheat, corn, soy. Paws Nurti Bones Peanut Butter Shortbread are made of organic brown ice and tapioca flours, peanut butter, baking powder, mangosteen juice. Now I’m not sure what mangosteen juice is, but Arlo loved the biscuits. I’d missed picking them up Saturday, so Ducky and I made sure to hit the stand before the Sunday show. If you’re interested in wheat and corn free dog biscuits, she ships – she doesn’t have a website, but I have her email.

Saturday’s Winter Folk Festival headliner had been Tom Paxton who will receive the 2009 Lifetime Achievement award this month from the recording academy. Sunday’s was Barry McGuire and Tom York (formerly of the Byrds) Trippin’ the Sixties. McGuire had come to the Winter Folk Festival a few years ago as a member of The New Christy Minstrels, I’d always enjoyed McGuire, but this show turned me into a near McGuire-esque groupie. So imagine my delight at his show.

I cried from the opening notes, knowing the words to every song, but one. I can’t remember what song that was, I think something by Tim Hardin, but which, no clue.
He opened with Green Green weaving a story about himself, his music, his friends, their music, the stories behind each song, about the drug/music life style of the 1960s, and the politics of the nation. He wove them together in a musical tapestry that dug deep into my heart and moved me back to my early teens. A time when most of a generation was moved to public action, believed in giving of themselves, volunteering, speaking out, and believed in something. He spoke about the friends he had that died far too early. It was a magical afternoon.

That Sunday afternoon McGuire said his most famous song (one he doesn’t receive royalties for anymore) was as relevant today as it was in the sixties. Maybe more so.

The Eve of Destruction



He rewrote and rerecorded this updated version – he does not perform this version in his show

Eve of Destruction 2012



Monday morning at work we were talking about the weekend, the music, the concerts when one of the guys (our morning DJ) made a comment that will have me shaking my head for years to come. And I paraphrase, “It was too political. Left wing politics, why do they have to throw politics into it and ruin the music?” Yes, this was a child of the sixties, he apparently didn’t get the note.

I looked at him in shock and said, “Dude, it’s folk music, it’s politically driven.”

He said, “No it’s not. Example, songs like Blowing In The Wind, Tom Dooley, and MTA.

Really, he said that.

Sith,
Cele