Weekend Tidbits

I love Oregon, I love Florence, darnmit I just love life. This past weekend was the 13th annual Florence Home & Garden Show. It’s an event that my boss started, duh, 13 years ago. A small to-do that draws vendors from across the state and always offers the inspiration to kick start my gardening season. This year I bought pots from down under – way kewl, one for me, my mom, and my sister-in-law’s birthday next week.

You know my dear, dumb dog is a retaliatory pisser. There is no other way to say it. So I always worry about odors between carpet shampooing every four to six months. I bought an Eco egg. That’s my name for it at least, so far so good. It’s a little oval plug in thingie that whirls quietly purifying my living room air. I smell something I can’t put my finger on, but it’s not my dog or vacuum cleaner. Possibly $50 well spent, time will tell.

One of my clients for the Home and Garden show is a little nursery south of town that specializes in Rhododendrons (the city’s blossom of choice,) Azaleas, and their companion plants – that includes Camilla bushes. My mom bought me one years ago, which I promptly killed in ignorance. I’ve no clue why it died but I’ve always wanted one since. So I spent $20 and bought this beauty. One of my few warm memories of my grand mother was the water bowls of floating Camillas she had all over her house.

Florence has a few claims to fame: the movies Sometimes A Great Notion, Four Seasons, and portions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Five Easy Pieces we filmed here; we are home to one of the most photographed lighthouse in America, Heceta Head – a haunted one at that n(really it’s the Keeper’s House that is haunted.) And whales decide to beach themselves here on occasion, 41 in 1979 and of course the infamous exploding whale of 1970. So it was no surprise Friday night to find that a undersized, juvenile Fin whale was caught in the surf just north of Florence. My heart always breaks for whales. My love of cetaceans made me erroneously believe I would grow up to be a Marine Biologist (no one told me it would take eight years of zoology – and a boat load of money and ambition.)It was the dream that died right before the I’m going to be a professional dancer dream bit the big one.

Jonah (as he was named prior to his impromptu burial) Sunday morning was interned in an eleven foot deep trench on the beach below that haunted lighthouse, the third and final place the ocean brought him on his three day death trek. Marine Biologist from OSU took their tissue and organ samples to determine what killed him. Backhoes and bulldozers dug the trench and then rolled Jonah in. A wife of one of the crew created a make shift cross and quietly wished Jonah a happier afterlife.

And then it snowed.

Sith,
Cele

Controversial Meme

Care of Sid who got it from Erik -

1. Would you do meth if it was legalized?
Been there done that. No, I would not, but I have and I did for a long while. What the heck was I thinking? Thank heavens a brain cell or three survived. Now to keep it from having been a futile experience in my existance, I survived to tell my kids about it – they are smarter than their mom.

2. Abortion: for or against?
I believe in a woman’s right to choose. Not the state, not the next door neighbor, not a political party, and not the friggin’ pope.

3. Would our country fall with a woman president?
It’s barely survived warmongering and greedy men. Hell yes it will survive, thrive, and prosper.

4. Do you believe in the death penalty?
I am on the fence. I don’t believe in revenge, but I do believe in community rule and we have a death penalty. Enforce it.

5. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
Allegeric, so my answer has no personal use bearing. Yes, I do.

6. Do you believe in God?
Yes, I do.

7. Do you think same-sex marriage should be legalized?
Sid gave a though provoking answer here and I’ve been mulling it over. Who am I to say you can’t do something I can? Who? Therefore, yes I do. Gracious this world is so screwed up .

8. Do you think it’s wrong that so many Hispanics are moving to the USA?
Hispanics, no. And while we’re at it, give the illegal aliens green cards, tax them and let them work. Gracious this world is screwed up.

9. A 12 year old girl has a baby… should she keep it?
Again Sid gave a great answer. Personally, no I don’t think she should. She’s a baby herself who has no right rearing a child, most people don’t even consider a 12 year old of a reasonable age to baby sit.

10. The alcohol age be lowered to 18?
Maybe if we took the taboos off alcohol we’d have less partying teens, less binge drinking teens. Less alcoholics. Maybe. Wisdom begins at home, just like alcohol abuse. And while we're at it, lets make drinking and driving a death penalty crime.

11. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
Called off, funny phrase. "Let's call the whole thing off." Should it end, yes, years ago. Give Iraq back their country, let them rule themselves, and let’s fix our own problems. Instead of having a (crap how big is the deficit these days?) deficit that is eating up our resources, let’s put our people to work, our dollars to work, lives back together….right here at home.

12. Assisted suicide is illegal… do you agree?
It legal where I live. I’ve voted several times for it to be made legal. Who am I to say you have to live in extended, fatal agony thanks to the “benefits” of modern medicine. Let there be death with dignity.

13. Do you believe in spanking your children?
Yes. My government says I can’t spank my child as disappline, but they can send them off to die (as a reward for surviving childhood) to liberate people who have no desire to be liberated our way and hate us. WTF?

14. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
No, out of respect. But in the same breath I admit it is your right to do so.

15. A mother is declared innocent after murdering her 5 children in a temporary insanity case… what do you think?
Will she survive the treatment she doled out to her children… five times? Tit for Tat.

16. It’s between you and a person who is being kept alive by life support machines… one has to die? Who?
I’m not afraid of dying, but pull the plug. And let me say this here…again… I do not want to be on life support. EVER! Pull the fucking plug.

17. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
No. If I cared what people think I wouldn't have answered the questions... and then published them on my blog for others to see. I would have instead thought my thoughts, judged everyone else, and lived my pitiful little life holding grudges against others for their beliefs, opinions and audacity to think different than me. Oh wow, that would make me a rabid, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Dick Cheney loving, Republican. Argh, if that had been the case, shoot me and put the world out of my misery. Never mind Cheney's in the group, he'd shoot me.

Sith,
Cele

Green Green

Two weeks one day until the official start to spring…according to the sun and the calendar; Mother Nature may have other thoughts, but only time will tell. Living in western Oregon I know I can expect – rain, snow, rain, wind, wind, snow, and sun.

Last week my crocus opened their cheery faces in my flower beds.

My daffodils have begun shining bright in my new garden beds,
while tulips are barely showing their sleepy heads.

My new golden chain tree is waiting at the nursery and I’ve yet to order my solar fountain.

Not worry my fingers are itching to get into the loam… that is hidden by the sod still not dug out. Yes, I’ve got a project on my hand. My last garden took the better part of a year to get in, and then this past summer and winter to establish. Okay, the weeds are well established, next year I definitely have to lay down hemlock before winter sets in.

This new garden is as bit larger and will mirror the other. I’m planning on planting herbs to accompany the cutting flowers. I also plan to create a berm to show my nasturtiums in all their glory and back it by winter blooming Hellebores. I’m getting excited just thinking about.

This weekend is the Florence Home and Garden show. My ideas may change. This too time will tell.

Sith
Cele

Talk Thursday: My Message

If you had the ear of the world for one moment (and they were actually listening,) what message would you give them? The power to deliver one message. Think about it, many have tried, tried, and tried in vain. Have you noticed that tried becomes tired far too easily?

Be happy in diversity. That would be my message, evolve in happiness to accept all that is different around you – all the things that make you unique. Instead of seeing all that is not what you are see all that makes others the people they are, all the things that make the world go round. Evolve, embrace, rejoice in diversity, for in diversity is happiness.

As you accept your happiness, accept the happiness of others. Be happy, breathe happy, sleep happy. Live happily ever after, and yes die happy. Give happily; receive happily. Life is far too long to be miserable, far too short to not be happy – is one of my many mottos.

If you are happy in who you are, what you have, and where you are in your life, embrace that it is because of others that you are. While no man is an island, remember that no one man is king to dictate (although many have tried and failed) to be the one man who dictates the lives of others. I heed several passages from the Bible as a basis for my belief and treatment of and in others.

Matthew 7.1 Judge not least ye be so judged. In other words who am I to judge you? Really who am I? And what gives me the right to say my way is the only way? Nada. No one. Zip. Zilch.

John 8.7 Let he who is without sin be the first to cast the first stone. I think the modern day version of that passage, is “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Again, am I so perfect that you can’t pick out five things you despise about me? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

So you don’t believe in the Bible (personally I don’t believe in it as divinely inspired in the way most do. I believe it was divinely inspired by the love of God, not by the edict of God.) Take away from the passages as messages to follow based on their merit of good will.

Do unto one as you would have done unto you. Yes, the Golden Rule or the Ethic of Reciprocity. While not specifically from the Bible, versions of the Golden rule exist in a majority of ancient text and tenets from Buddism, the ancient philosophers, the context of Karma, Islam, Hinduism, from the Torah, the Qur’an, Taoism, even yes the Bible.

If so many people believed in the Ethic of Reciprocity, why do so many people not practice its intent? Why are we so blind in our ways to think our belief is the only belief? That our being so right allows us to treat others so wrong? That we are an island unto ourselves and have no need to heed diversity?

Yesterday I was sitting at a rest stop north of Roseburg on I-5. The morning was gray (well come on it was February 28th in Oregon) clouds were spitting on the ground and a couple were cleaning up their breakfast and cooking gear at a picnic table near by. The man had gone off to the restroom as the woman loaded one more box into their van, then she turned and began walking to the facilities herself. From inside the warm truck I smiled out at her. No specific reason, but why not smile I smile at people all the time. She looked up and saw my smile, walked close to the truck and motioned for me to roll down my window, which I did.

“What a beautiful smile, you must be a happy person.”

“I think I am, what is there to not be joyous about?”

She replied, “We just moved to Oregon and no one here smiles.”

I thought this a strange, because most people I know smile and are welcoming, but then I live in a tourist town, our livelihoods depend on being welcoming and courteous (unless you work at the local DQ. “Well I hope you meet nicer people, try smiling first it works wonders.” She wished me a blessed and good day and went on to the bathroom. Yes she really wished me a blessed and good day. I liked that.

I am still smiling and I think she is too. Despite our differences.

Sith,
Cele

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

The Stars are Falling, The Stars are Falling

Stars intrigue me, captivate me, and mesmerize me. Anyone who knows me for long, knows this – I can stare up at the stars for hours on end. I can’t talk a lot about them knowledgeably (thought that hasn’t stopped me) but I love listening to people who know about stars. And Sky and Telescope’s Sky At A Glance is a weekly stop for me on the internet. I want to know what star is brightest where in what part of the sky. I’m hooked since childhood.

So earlier this week I’d heard a program, or maybe it was last week, that said when something is hurtling through space (think asteroids, comets, and other large propelled objects) but you see it in the sky as stationary, that means it’s hurtling towards earth. Oh joy. It gives pause to thought on the gazilla…trilla…bazillions of stars out there that seemingly don’t move (unless you go in the house for an hour then come back out.)

The street I drive off highway 101 to get to and from work logically runs west to east and in the evening back again. Duh! Tonight the sky was clear and dark with hundreds of brilliant stars twinkling (in their stationary mode) in the sky. Beautiful. I could see Venus hanging in the southwest a mere five degrees to the upper left of the sickled moon that was low towards the ocean’s horizon end.

I drove west towards 101 and watched the moon and Venus seemingly fall out of the sky. So rapidly that I had to stop for a moment (slow road) and get my bearings. Watching Venus and the Moon fall from the sky momentarily side swiped me and I had to regain my bearings (whoa dude, unhinged vertigo) so I could drive the remaining nine tenths of a mile home and climb in my hot tub.

Thank God the Moon and Venus are still in the sky. Well okay the Moon has gone to bed, but if I were rowing towards China, it’d be there. Now I need a Kahlua.

Sith,
Cele

The photo is from Spaceweather

A Dawn of Hope

Today I was extremely proud to be an American. Today we stepped in to a new tomorrow, and wow, it felt darn good.

Last night I went to bed knowing a new dawn would break for America when I woke up. When I got to work I hurried through my prep so I could take fifteen minutes and listen, feel, and embrace this new day. My gracious Aretha can torture a song now can’t she?

As I listened to Obama take his oath of office my heart smiled. As he delivered his inaugural speech tears began rolling down my cheeks (I had worn blush to work.) As I listened to people choked with emotion and joy I could hear the land sigh relief.

Not all felt that cleansing breath, some took their moment to comment, “I see the stockmarket fell another 326 points today. I thought Obama was going to fix that?” I understand their bitterness, I felt pretty numb with stunned disillusionment when the weed took his second oath of office.

“Ah, he’s just a politician and politicians are all in it for money and crooked.”

The ailments and wrongs of and by America cannot be fixed with an oath. What was broken over years cannot be fixed in a week or even a year. But was has begun to heal is the spirit of Americans who want to believe we can, we will. Yes, we shall.

Politics and hope in an underdog make strange bedfellows. My morning DJ may have said it best, “Like Christmas music, you rarily get a new patriotic song that standsout.” David Foster and Will.i.am worked to create what I think is one of the most beautiful, new patriotic pieces I’ve ever heard (But America the Beautiful is still the best.)

America’s Song – featuring David Foster, Will.i.am, Faith Hill, Seal, Bono, and Mary J Blige. Thank you Oprah and Harpo Productions, and of course YouTube.



My America, Your America, Our America, is beautiful to me!

To a new tomorrow,
Sith,
Cele

2009 Winter Folk Festival – pt I.

Every January my town celebrates Folk Music. I love Folk Music (which is why I use caps, where no caps should be) I LOVE FOLK MUSIC. I am not an authority, I do not know all Folk Music, but what I know I love.

My mother and I made a day of it, okay really it was just half a day- but it counts. We started with lunch out, fish and chips at the Beachcomber—Lovejoys was closed (bummer.) And then it was onto the Florence Events Center for folk arts, folk crafts, and great Folk Music.

I make sure I take in this festival every year for two reasons, yes as I said the great Folk Music, but also for birthday shopping. I usually find the best little birthday presents there. But not this year, the kewl things I found, I had found in 2006. So no neat birthday presents from there for this year. But, the music wow.

Mom and I wandered the booths peaking and seeing, and the entire time I could hear great music coming from the theatre speakers, I was anxious to get inside and listen. After deciding which booths we needed to hit after the music we went inside to hear Calaveras. Sadly we were too late to get more than three songs, but oh were they worth it.

The second to the last song of their set took me totally by surprise. In truth I can’t remember what came before or after in their set for the second to the last song was – simply amazing. The song was about relationships that are parted by the conclusion of life on this plane and the sweet belief we shall be reunited on another.

In a clear voice she (Victoria Blythe) began singing…

“I am standing on the edge of the water…”

Chills swept up my back, goose bumps raised with the hair on my arms, my heart swelled, and my tears flooded quietly over the brim.

“And I am watching the wild birds fill the skyAnd I am longing to be lifted up among themI am not dying I’m getting ready to fly.”

In the dark theatre tears silent ran down my cheeks before my fingers could wipe them all away. The clear notes of their voices raised up to the rafters and I thought my mom would shake her head when she found out I was crying. But as the song finished I turned to her and said, “That is what I love about Folk Music it grabs you by the heart and answers something in your soul.” It was with those words I saw my mom (I think for the first time in my life) crying.

She looked at me, as she wiped away her own tears, and in a voice choking on tears she said, “I could just see your dad, free flying with the birds just as he loved.” I am pretty certain the song haunted her well into the night.

Sadly I could find recordings of the song, but no video to share with you. Visit Calaveras on their MySpace webpage, Ready to Fly is the second song on their playlist.

http://www.calaverassongs.com/music-2.html

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Serenity Now

I think my mother said it best, just this evening as I bemoaned (What? Me whine?) that I had no idea what I was going to do with this week’s topic. So what the wise woman of Florence said was this…

“Serenity comes from within.”

Most everything wise I learned, I learned from her (the rest I learned from my daughter.) Simple, concise, spot on. Serenity comes from within.

Yes, our lives contain periods of harried chaos. Moments where we can couldn’t find tranquility if we splashed smack into the of a sea of it – tranquility that is, not chaos.

Digression…Is there a Sea of Chaos? Enquiring minds what to know.

Back to the contemplation of serenity…Why, because that is life. It’s because we can’t turn off the chaos that holds our attention in that moment, that space of time where we are besieged by conflict, emotions, and dilemmas. At least not until the forces of chaos are momentarily pacified, rectified, or sterilized. And then we take our toys and we go home.

We (I know there is more than just me out there) home builders who construct our homes to create havens, idealic (not a real word – but it’s what I mean) settings where we can run away from our daily strife and find serenity. We create cozy corners, quite courtyards, lush gardens that take us outside our workaday worlds. But that doesn’t mean we find serenity. It means that I find a heart that listens then quietly shares a hot tub with me starring at the stars.

Because serenity is not a place, it is a state of being. I am sublimely happy when I am in my hot tub in the dark, the wind blowing in the trees, stars brilliant in the sky above. I am at peace, serene inside my heart, inside my skin as I contemplate things in the universe much bigger than me, bigger than the problems of the day, secrets deep and unfathomable.

Being in hot water with someone, who loves both the best and worst of me, makes serenity that much easier.

Sith,
Cele

Sage is a Youthful Mind

It is wonderful to have a young mind to nurture; to pass along all the long stored knowledge gleaned over the decades since my birth…from all those nurturing people in my past. For years I have worked with high school students, passing along my know-it-all of radio and music, which they gleefully ignore with wild rolling eyes.

To have a grandchild is a power untold. Oh, the possibilities are endless. For years I have had the joy of sharing my copious know-it-all with Burp. First we would play Funny Bugs (a game of concentration) and I would delight in kicking his cute little butt. The best part would be hearing him “Aah” every time the Firefly would be turned over in all her glory. Now he is mastering the wickedness of Chinese checkers with an adroit ability to jump three times sideways and still make it three spaces forward. That’s My Boy!

He delights in pounding nails with Ducky, measuring space and length time and time again to make sure everything is coming out right.

Finger-painted masterpieces adorn my refrigerator. Often his mom’s present at a birthday or Christmas will include something hand painted by Burp himself. He and Psam often hand make their Christmas presents.

He plants bulbs with me each fall. Deadheads every posy in my copious and growing gardens from May to October. And helps tote pavers for whatever path and courtyard I’m designing at the time. The boy is a workhorse.

Our cooking forays began early with oatmeal, chocolate chip, coconut cookies. The kid is a cookie maven. His Halloween pumpkin, cream-cheese frosted sugar cookies are to die for. He has helped me make gravy…from scratch (we’re still working on technique,) candied sweet potatoes (I’m sure as many marshmallows go in him as there are a top the yams,) and he knows to roll up when making pie- crust.

He loves breakfast for dinner. Okay, no, not as much as a 6 piece McDonald’s Happy Meal, but still – it’s breakfast for dinner with all its sausagy-syrupiness. So imagine my surprise Saturday evening, as I was pulled out my waffle iron, that when Burp asked what we were making for dinner and I replied, “Waffles.”

He replied with the sage nonchalance of youth, “Oh, easy. That just takes a toaster.”

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday – Things I Missed

Have you ever noticed the people who pick the topic tend to have a great deal of difficulty writing the topic? Been there, am that. It’s one of the problems in life I’ve not missed. Like not missing the moments of horror when you discovered your dress is tucked into the back of your pantyhose, has been since your last potty break, say 15 minutes, 30 minutes, three bus stops ago. Yeah, the red faced, absolute, public mortification lives far beyond the actual moment of discovery. I hate when the thing I missed was a really, really important fine detail.

In my teen years I was a big surf freak. Big surf freak. Problem one, I lived 16 miles from Huntington Beach, 19 from Balboa. Problem two, out of four years in high school I had two, count them two whole boyfriends who were surfers. One lasted two weeks, three dates; the other lasted two summer vacations to Morro Bay. The wealth of my surfing experience is much smaller than I’d like.

Through out my childhood and early to mid teens I spent a wealth of my summer days at the beach sunning, swimming, surfing, and body surfing. Two weeks were usually spent at my grandparents house in Balboa, where I was under the strictest rules to NOT surf at the Wedge, having seen a guy killed surfing at the Wedge, it was a rule I was prone to follow.

My grandparents lived on the peninsula - bay side, or two blocks from the ocean. And there was no prohibitions placed on body surfing. For those who don’t know Balboa, it’s a spring break / summer mecca for those who couldn’t make it to the River. A beach house rented back then for about $1500 a week, a price I could never have afforded even a portion, but I was born lucky, my grandpa lived there. Bitchin’. The riptides create prefect conditions for body surfing and the deadly conditions at the Wedge. Because it wasn’t Huntington the beaches weren’t crowded, the population tasty, and the water perfect.

In the tenth grade I had this great blue and green acrylic (the material, not the paint) bikini. It was my favorite, my first bikini, out of three I had. Armed with shades, a book, and a towel in my beachbag I walked the two blocks to the beach (dude, only babies and old maids did the bay,) found my strip of sand, and scanned the minimal crowd. Wow, the dudes were hot and the female companionship as scant…as their attire.

For the first half hour I would read my book, at that time it was most likely a Ray Bradbury sci-fi. My favorite being the The Illustrated Man, but I read them all that summer and a few romances. In time I’d be chatting with others on the beach, enticed into the surf, and spend the remainder of the day body surfing. Years of skateboarding, surfing, and some gymnastics gave me a pretty good start on body surfing, that and my own personal floatation devices - the girls and teenly bubble butt, made body surfing a great pastime and sport for me.

On this particular summer day I’d met up with six or seven guys and two chicks, who’d been staying on the island for the week. If memory serves they were from Taft and staying at an old beach house on Opal. The curls had been pretty good, each one growing in the series. I’d caught two or three nice rides taking me close into the shore laughing with whom ever I’d shared the ride, then we would swim back out to the break line.

The walls had been growing bigger and bigger, each ride taking us further, you could tell a big one was coming. Three or four of us were in a horizontal line to the beach, giddy with anticipation at the big one coming at us. I leaned slightly forward and slowly began my strokes to judge the speed of the wave. The surge of the water picked me up as the trough spread out before me, deepening as the crest built behind me. The ride was incredible; the height must have been a good fifteen feet from the base, mind blowing. Right up to the moment it disappeared from underneath me. Suddenly, the wave’s force and drive drove me crashing into the wet sand and broken shells of the sea floor below. Like flotsam and jetsam I gave myself up to the power of the wave waiting the right time to resurface.

The wave had it’s way with me, I tumbled, rolled, and lurched at the whim of mother sea. And then I felt my bikini bottom shift to my knees. My ankles locked together to keep them from floating way. As my hands rushed to my knees to pull them back up my feet hit the sand and thrust my body upward and out of the water…

Into a world populated by manly teen males. The thing I’d missed in my efforts to save my bikini bottom – was that the skinny part of my bikini top, it looked like a tie front – but really it had been sewn together with a false tie tacked on, had burst at the seam and the girls were flying freely in the surf and sun of Balboa beach, which is not now, nor has ever been a topless beach.

Sith,
Cele

O圣诞树， O圣诞树我流了我的在您的血液: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree I shed my blood on you

I think I’m allergic to my Christmas tree. Yes, it’s artificial. But it’s from China and I have an aversion to all things manufactured in China. If I’d been boycotting products made in China back in 2003 I might not have bought it. Do Americans make artificial trees? I know I live in the land of the Christmas tree, but I also have a woodstove. Dried out Doug Fir and American made woodstoves do not a happy holiday make. Does that contribute to my carbon footprint? And since it probably does, which contributes more: the Chinese wire and probable lead content, or the smoke from my chimney burning good old American grown Doug Fir? Crap I don’t want to know the answer do I?

Yesterday, after appreciating the lit brilliance of my Chinese artificial Nordic Christmas tree (ha, ha I’m imaging blonde Chinese people with dog sleds hauling my Christmas tree after harvest from the hills of Outer Mongolia,) I took off all the red balls and beads, crystal hearts and angels (all most certainly made in China) and carefully packed them away for later this year. Gingerly parting the wire branches I waded inside to break the tree trunk in to three parts, and proceeded to scratch my arms all to heck, pierce my left thumb (which was already highly abused from changing the high beam bulb - most assuredly manufactured in China- in Ducky’s Aspire earlier in the day) and bled profusely from that tiny hole for thirty minutes. Note: Chinese made band aides do not last as long as Chinese made Christmas trees.

I’m fairly certain I left a Chinese band aide in my American made hot tub filter.

And dirty words (all in English) I flip over my Dell Inspiron lap top and note, that yes folks the (frellin’ Australian made up word for Fuck!) stamps on the underside all say “Made in China.” Next time I’ll buy a Samsung or Sanyo or something less America sounding and maybe it will be made in some place closer to home, like Mexico or Canada.

Bah Humbug,
Cele

Happy Resolutions

Happy New Year!

Every year I fall into the make a resolution revolving door that kicks my butt by, let’s say February. Sad, so sad. Last year I thought to make it a more realistic. I resolved to blog twice a week, and write a poem a week (or three a month.) Well I fell only five short on the blogs, which baffles my mind. How did I get that many written? As for the poems…let’s not go there.

Because I was such a slackard last year, I’m going to try again for 2009. This is post 221 by year’s end, a mere 364 days away in a perfect world, I should have written and posted blog number 345. That is without skipping a single post between 222 to 344 just to be clear. Check back with me December 31st, will you? As for the poetry, well I hope to get one new poem written a month. That should be putting the hurdle low enough.

See, I do make resolutions, but I’ve scaled back from the grandiose “shrink my zip code size butt to one block” dieting for life resolutions to the livable type resolutions. Ergo, I resolve to be more positive, upbeat, and less sensible. Plus I’m doing the two I boffed last year… Some you win, some you lose. I will try harder.

The other thing I plan to improve upon is twofold 1) the time I spend with Ducky and 2) the time I spend in the hot tub.

I, er, I mean we began today. I came home from work (yes, I know it’s New Year’s Day, I’m in radio…and as I am wont to say, “Radio stops for no one.”) Ducky and I watched the first quarter of the Rose Bowl game… go Trojans! (Hey, I support the Pac Ten - Ducks first, the Beavers when they're not playing the Ducks, and damn even them dawgs.) And then hopped into the hot tub. You might note that Oregon’s coast line is being bombarded by high winds, rain, and did I mention high winds? I purposely left the cover partially perched over the west half of the hot tub and climbed in. Amazing. The wind blew, the rain poured, the hot water bubbled merrily…ahhh, total contentment and the perfect way to spend a New Year’s Day.

Hot water.
High winds.
Torrential rains.
And the man I love...Pure Bliss!

Sith,
Cele

The Gifts We Give…Ourselves

In the end the best gifts we give ourselves are the family and friends we embrace and hold dear. The memories we treasure of moments gone past. A wise man, eons gone by, once said, “You can’t take it with you.” I’m pretty certain he was talking wealth, fame, and toys, because love you take with you.

For a year I’d planned a trip in April for my friend’s birthday. You know when you meet a person and they answer something in your heart; like you’ve come home? He is that kind of a person. While I’d never met him face to face, from our contact online I knew he was one of those special people who just fit perfectly into my life and my heart. I had wanted Ducky to take the trip with me, but in the long run I went alone…and had a great time. I spent the next four days in gleeful anticipation of the next event, next person I’d met, the next great adventure. Despite missing Ducky it was worth every moment and I collected a new friend or three a long they way.

Friends are worth their weight in silver and gold.

With the expansion of information on the Internet no one can really hide, unless they began covering their trails long before. In the year past I’ve reconnect with several long lost friends and miss placed relatives – a gift to myself. My father’s passing last December made me try a little bit more to reconnect; he’d successfully done so with several cousins/friends in the short years prior to his passing. I admired that he could chat with his cousins, on the other side of the country, phone for hours. In the earliest years they would meet up at the Furby family reunions in West Virginia. He made the effort to reconnect and then held them dear.

From the time I was two, until age 17 I lived on the same street, in the same house, with the same friends. I loved my neighborhood, my childhood friends remain dear to my memory even though we’ve grown and moved on to become other people. I moved to Oregon three quarters through my junior year. Few friends remained in touch. Okay really one, but through her I have been able to reach out to others. This year, hopefully, we will meet in Las Vegas for an “Old Neighborhood Reunion” I am excited and can’t wait. Yes, they will be different, yes they will have different likes/dislikes, passions and focus, but there is one thing we all have that is similar and that is our beginnings. We share many of the same childhood stories. Michael and I got caught at the age of five playing doctor. Sadly, in a fit of childish anger I broke one of the controls for his race car track (this still bothers me.) My mother taught him and his siblings to swim. And they would sleep over in our back yard on hot summer nights. My mother was his den mother, his father drove me to the emergency room when I split my chin on the edge of the bathtub. Childhoods intertwined.

Just a few months ago I reconnected with Pam. Oh the trouble Pam I could have gotten into…but we were pretty sneaky, well that and as we got older we ran in different crowds. She is excited about a reunion. And I am happy to rekindle a childhood friendship. Do I think that we’ll become BBF’s? No, but her renewed friendship I am enjoying. When I emailed her she wrote me back with wonder and joy and that was enough for me.

Over the years since Classmates and Reunion went on line I’ve searched for a friend or three, each escaped me. Until this year. Finally I saw one name I’d been searching for, we’d been somewhat inseparable in high school. I sent her an email and she replied fairly fast. We up dated each other on our lives and activities. And then she quit writing. I am happy to know she is well and thriving in Orange, but I am sad that we are too different to connect further. I wish her Godspeed and a full life.

As I look ahead to 2009 it is with joy that I looked behind me during 2008. My friends are a true gift to me, whether they be childhood buddies, long lost cousins, or new found family they are my gifts the things I can take somehow from this plane to the next; they are the wealth I embrace to my soul.

Sith,
Cele

Here is 99 Things To Do Meme

I’ve not done a Meme in a while, and this is one I saw first Pomp, then at Wry, and now it is here for me. BTW Pomp’s blog is never, ever lame – despite what she says.

Here is 99 Things To Do (some I wonder why someone would want to do, and several I hope to do someday)…

1. Started your own blog (you're reading this right?)
2. Slept under the stars (who can sleep when you’re watching stars?)
3. Played in a band (you have to play an instrument, I sing back up)
4. Visited Hawaii (what’s all the hoopla?)
5. Watched a meteor shower (watching stars is one of my favorite things to do, preferrably from my hot tub – but meteor showers totally rock.)
6. Given more than you can afford to charity (it is the only thing toodo)
7. Been to Disneyland/world (several times it’s lost it’s allure)
8. Climbed a mountain (but riding the ski lift to the top of Bachelor during the summer was pretty damn kewl too.)
9. Held a praying mantis (I’ve never even seen one, does African Walking Stick count?)
10. Sang a solo (oh God, horrors from my childhood)
11. Bungee jumped (I would love to do this, but maybe reverse bungee)
12. Visited Paris (no, but I’ve been to Munchen, London, Copenhagen, Edinbrugh, Stuttgart, York, Frankfurt, Amsterdamn, and Salsbury.)
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (amazing and terrifying all in one moment, but in truth flying through a lightning storm was the scariest.)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (yes – stain glass)
15. Adopted a child (does an angel tree or big sister count on this one?)
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables (I use to have a vegetable garden every year, but a flower garden is much nicer and you can eat nastiuriums)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight (yeah, duh)
22. Hitch hiked (maybe I shouldn’t have said yes, because after the car stopped for me I refused to get in and walked anyway…oh but my girlfriends (akhem) got in and rode away.
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (I’ve not called in sick to work in over 28 years.)
24. Built a snow fort (I’m lucky enough to live where you can build an emanciated snowman about once every five years.)
25. Held a lamb (yes, and my very first photo I took was of a lamb)
26. Gone skinny dipping (yes, wow, what a feeling.)
27. Run a Marathon (run, ha ha)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (does a gondola at Disneyland come close?)
29. Seen a total eclipse (did the whole layers of film negatives, hole in the box thingie, and watched it in reflecting water too.)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (two of God’s many gifts - not to be missed)
31. Hit a home run (I played league softball, but I don’t think I’ve every hit a home run, that’s something you’d remember right? I do have specific painful memories of softball, see below)
32. Been on a cruise (someday)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person (I know people who have, okay I know that doesn’t count.)
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (definitely, can I go again?)
35. Seen an Amish community (I’m Quaker…okay I know that doesn’t’ count.)
36. Taught yourself a new language (I’m assuming that failing Spanish seven years in arow doesn’t count, right?)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (it is the place to be, it is a place in your heart and I am definitely there)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (it’s too athletic for me these days, but I use to love rock climbing. Not the pick ax - piton type, but still several hundred feet up, standing on the top of the earth over looking the desert, wow that’s kewl kind of rock climbing.)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David (it doesn’t say in person, so beautiful photos – yes)
41. Sung karaoke (several times, did I mention I’m a back up singer?)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt (yes, and it was beautiful, stinky, and not on time)
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant (no, but I’m going to rectify this)
44. Visited Africa (I hope to someday)
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight (definitely not over rated, never done enough times)
46. Been transported in an ambulance (I am very lucky that way)
47. Had your portrait painted (ha ha, thank God no.)
48. Gone deep sea fishing (several times, barfed the first half of the ride, and saved great memories for the second half)
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person (that would be kewl)
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (nope, but I doubt it has anything over great big rocks in the desert)
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (someday – okay this would be why people go to Hawaii right?)
52. Kissed in the rain (you haven’t lived until you’ve kissed in the rain while skinny dipping.)
53. Played in the mud (yes, and lived to play in the mud another day)
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (many times, while hiding others in the trunk of the car. Sadly in Oregon I think only one drive in remains.)
55. Been in a movie (no, but I have been on television many times)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China (some day, I’m looking forward to great Chinese)
57. Started a business (yes, a Tidy Car franchise, what a waste of good time and money - why would a person who believes that if a car needs to be washed, it needs to belong to someone else would buy a car detailing business? Oh, right, exhusband.)
58. Taken a martial arts class (I always wanted to try kick boxing)
59. Visited Russia (no and I can’t see it from my front porch)
60. Served at a soup kitchen (yes, did I mention I was a Girl Scout for nine years?)61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (see above)
62. Gone whale watching (ha ha yes, many times, and it is Whale Watching week, so come see me I will take you to watch whales. California Gray and Humpbacks are making their annual migration right now)
63. Gotten flowers for no reason (I send myself flowers every month, my treat to me)
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (I am not allowed to, but I gave blood a few times before the cut me off because of bruising.)
65. Gone sky diving (I so want to do this)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp (yes, heart rending)
67. Bounced a check (some banks won’t let me in the door – but I have changed my ways and am fiduciari-ly responsible now.)
68. Flown in a helicopter (yes, in Germany to see the Chec border)
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (I have my Barbie doll)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial (I am waiting for my personal tour by Tewkes)
71. Eaten Caviar (people do that willingly?)
72. Pieced a quilt (yes I have pieced a quilt, no I have not built a quilt. Does anyone want my squares?)
73. Stood in Times Square (no, sadly)
74. Toured the Everglades (no, sadly – wait, snakes. No, gladly.)
75. Been fired from a job (Yeah! no. Laid off, yes.)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guard in London (yes, way kewl.)
77. Broken a bone (yes, playing softball (catcher) I slid on the wet grass, sat on the ball and broke my coxxic - note, still got the runner out. Broke my right foot parasailing. Note do not parasail on the beach when there is less than 5mph wind, or your brother in law is driving the tow vehicle.)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle (yes, gladly)
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person (truly one of the greatest sites and experiences of the the world, a must do for anyone in the area.)
80. Published a book (I’ve worked on several books that are published…and my name is in them, does that count? Kind of? Like riding the coat tails of others?)
81. Visited the Vatican (really, don’t want to.)
82. Bought a brand new car (over rated experience…twice.)
83. Walked in Jerusalem (this I would like to do)
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (yes, and it wasn’t a wanted posted)
85. Read the entire Bible (yes, but I like to reread the gospels the most)
86. Visited the White House (again, I’m waiting for a personal tour)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (killed no, prepared yes)
88. Had chickenpox (ha ha yes, of course)
89. Saved someone’s life (yes, I heimliched an elderly woman who was choking on a piece of candy – hey it was at work – in a nursing home. Her daughter still says something kind to me when I see her – that was thirty years ago.)
90. Sat on a jury (several times – you come do despies drunk drivers even more than normal after you hear them say “Excuse me/pardon me/could you repeat that? Fifty times on their arrest tape)
91. Met someone famous (several times, did you know they put their pants on the same way you do, they just do it in a spot light.) My one boast is that George Winston seranaded me on my 50th birthday (no he didn’t know it was my birthday – which made it sweeter)
92. Joined a book club (they never chose books I would have chosen.)
93. Lost a loved one (my father one year ago tomorrow – but he’s not the only one)
94. Had a baby (yes, she is beautiful)
95. Seen the Alamo in person (no, but I’m going)
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (why would people do that?)
97. Been involved in a lawsuit (no)
98. Owned a cell phone (I don’t own a cellphone, my boss owns my cellphone)
99. Been stung by a bee (ouch, yes)
There you go. Now, wasn’t that fun?
See? Blog. Lame.

Happy Days After

I hope your holidays were everything you wanted and more. Despite the fates mine was pretty damn good, filled with love, joy, and most of my kids were able to come home the weekend before for a family gathering. Psam and Burp made it. Miseray and the Brit made it. Poor Seithfrye and the Bo-sox were snowed in Portland.

An early blog (not posted) that I’d written was depressing, negative, and really quiet morose. I don’t’ want to be down I want to be up, positive, and whole. Sometimes the plans we make go awry. Sometimes the plans we make are too intricate. Too involved. Too much. This year I’d really scaled back my plans and regardless they went awry.

Every year I make Kahlua for my family, friends, and even some of my clientele. I made no cookies, no candy, just Kahlua. Four batches in and the deadline for giving the first bottle, I’d realized I had not designed my label. In years past I’d just pulled up a former label and reworked it. This year I designed one in about ten minutes. The blues were pleasing, but it wasn’t until after I’d printed up 24 of them that I saw my flaw. The grey shadow of the Christmas tree is all wrong.

But they work. And really the blues are pleasing.

I put in long days leading up to Christmas day, my plans were falling far behind, and my stress level was mind boggling. Christmas eve day I could feel a meltdown coming on. I was emotional, fully stressed, and heeping more on myself. The answer. Chinese food. I got home from work at 5:30 and Ducky took me out for Chinese. The elixir of life. Okay that and some good love and Kahlua. I came home, baked my pies, and made the vegies for the stuffing and went to bed.

Ducky and I agreed years ago, we travel to his family on Thanksgiving, we stay home for Christmas – the door is open to all. Christmas morning was snowy, but not showy. Psam had to work Christmas night so I am glad it didn’t stick. My mother and Grandmother came for Christmas dinner. My big thing is doing stockings. Everyone contributes; your stocking is fair game anytime after midnight. As we opened presents Christmas afternoon with my mom and grandma I remembered their stockings (this was the first time I’d done one for each of them.)

Side bar: Psam and I adopted Henry on Christmas day, probably twenty years or so ago. She lives in the trailer park my parents use to own, had bought her trailer from them, and became best friends with my mom when her husband passed. Having no children of her own, and step and step grandchildren that want her money but not her, Psam and I wrote out adoption papers and the deed was done. Now she is apart of our family, our ups and downs, our holidays.

So back to stockings. I love stockings, and woah to my surprise at her exclamation and near tears that she’d never, ever had a stocking in her entire life. I mean really, I was floored. How can you go through life and never have been given a stocking? Stockings are for everyone, and then I thought back, my parents didn’t hang stockings, it was all for us kids. Well not in my house. Stockings are for everyone. Christmas is for everyone. So in the after Christmas sale I bought a stocking for next Christmas. Armed with my mom’s key to Henry’s house I will hang the stocking late one night while she is sleeping in her living room. I think that makes a pretty nice gift to myself, don’t you?

Now I need to go package up, and ship my Kahlua Kali.

Sith,
Cele

Victoria’s Secret …The Business of New Math

I am one of those people your accountant told you about: I do not balance my checkbook. Sad, but very true. While in the past this has caused me much woe, I’ve learned to compensate.

During my second marriage I always buffered my balance by rounding every thing up to either…
1) the nearest dollar… or
2) five dollars

The latter was actually the best method when you consider at the time I always paid more bill than I should have, which meant that something would bounce somewhere, some time. My mother, I am sure hangs her head in woe and angst.

In my third marriage (yes I get better with age and repetition) I have learned to just make sure I have a bumper in my accounts. I still over pay my bills. Which is the point of this whole blog.

America is in a financial crisis. Yeah, I know you had no clue until I told you.

While the bra industry is not sagging (pun intended) to my knowledge, I have to question how some companies remain in business. I was a diehard Victoria Secret customer. Their Emma line was smart, sexy, and affordable. Sadly I can no longer be an Emma Line diehard, the brand just doesn’t make their bras big enough, and yes woe is me, no one else makes affordable, sexy bras for women with large breastesesss. I’m sure Ducky would offer to walk around supporting me, but it would get in the way of my typing. And really, manly hands holding up my ponderously, obnoxious bosom is just a fashion faux pas (or wardrobe malfunction) waiting to happen, plus it’s not like I need to add rear cargo. You try typing when you’re being fondled, I have a hard enough time staying on task without diversions.

Yes, and no I was off task. I paid off my last Victoria Secret bill with sadness and began looking for a new brassiere. Last Friday in the mail I receive a check because I over paid my bill. Now I maybe wrong in my calculations, big companies do buy in bulk and therefore trim the pork off the edges of their bills, but really this is ridiculous.

Now keep in mind I am mathematically challenged being the product of the 1970’s “New Math” Fiasco. Ergo my calculations could be flawed…but not by much. Here is my estimates for Victoria’s Secret to refund my over paid bill (which I paid electronically) are as follows…

1) Envelope - .09 cents
2) Check - .12 cents
3) Office time – this is already a wash so let’s say 1 minute @ $10 an hour is .166 cents
4) Bulk postage .26 cents

Therefore Victoria’s Secret spent approximately .63 cents refunding my over payment of six cents. And I can’t even shop there anymore. If they kept my six cents maybe they could invest in someone to figure out the dimensions of a size “too big, old woman ponderous boobs” so they could keep my business. Maybe I should send them a plaster cast of Ducky’s hands.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Colourful Celebration

This is all about me. I love COLOUR which doesn’t explain why most of my walls are white. I love Christmas lights, Christmas trees, Christmas ornaments, and Christmas cookies with lots of cream cheese frosting (hint, hint Pam.)

Saturday my mom, Pinecone, and I met in Eugene for lunch and a wee bit of Christmas shopping (which translates in to a two hour lunch and two hours of wandering around World Market in lust.) Lunch was an incredibly indulgent affair that included three glasses of non-ice tea (just for me,) two huge plates of nachos (one for me and one for mom) and lots of girl talk. The two hours in World Market included oohing and aahing over teapots, boxes of tea, assorted napkins, Cadbury chocolate, and a new entry table for my mom.

All this whiling about was to burn enough time to be able to see all the Christmas lights lit up on the 60 plus mile drive home. There is one gentleman at the eastern base of Badger Mountain (the state calls it Cougar Pass, but everyone else knows it as Badger Mountain – just saying) this man goes all out. It began with a few candy cane striped trees, now it’s a colourful Christmas wonderland. The lights go up beginning on Thanksgiving (I know this because three trees were lit that Thursday night.) Saturday night the lights were Fabulous with an incredible capital F. Walton had gone all out with five or six houses in the middle of nowhere lit bright enough to be noticed from the International Space Station.

Sunday was spent decorating the tree. It used to be our ornaments were mostly handmade and treasures from my childhood. Today I have developed a love of red and crystal. When we built our new room (Ducky calls it the Christmas room) we bought a prelit Christmas tree, the lights are all clear and frosted to which I add a string of twinkling coloured lights (for Ducky – he would like more twinkle.) My sister several years ago gave me a collection of spun glass hearts, then I bought some blown glass angels, to which my mom added three more. And what is this pre occupation with red beads? I am not partial to the colour red, but red beads on my tree – in love. Red beads in my garland – in love. Deep red or burgundy Christmas balls – frosted or satin in texture – in love. And when did this pre-occupation with garland begin? I have no clue but I spend hours putting up garland and red beads. Garland and red and beige ornaments. Garland and Christmas lights. It’s become un-proportional and I totally love it.

Over the last few holiday seasons Ducky’s aunt and uncle, Turg and Veggie (you had to be there,) have gifted us a house for a village scene. This is the first year I have put it all together (not successfully), plugged it in to watch the festive Victorian scene on my table.

The pointsettias are red, and pink, and white (and a little bruised.) The bowl of ornaments on my table are gold and green, and gorgeous reds – with yes, red beads. But the outside of my boring. No lights. No garland. And the only red beads are on the door swag. Maybe this weekend the colourful lights and cedar boughs will go up. We’ll see.

I wish you a happy, colour filled holiday season.
Sith,
Cele