Talk Thursday: Ending... Beginning

This is my third start on this topic, but I think I’ve finally got, thank you spring, but Julieann’s Forgotten (and no that isn’t a nod to this week’s topic) may be a better fit. It is June 11th, what a beautiful sunny day, sadly it is only the second sunny day we’ve had in weeks and the sun didn’t come out until well after 2 o’clock. Once in a while we have a wet summer on the Oregon Coast, it’s been a while since the last, so this maybe one of those.

As noted it’s Oc, No, June 11th. We’ve had 7.46 inches of rain. No, not for the year - in June. So, you can understand my confusion. I use to have a 70’s Ziggy T-shirt that read, “The Oregon Rain Festival – June 1st through May 31st” I wish I had that T-shirt back. Last weekend we drove inland for a graduation party in Lowell (a 90 minute drive… okay Ducky was driving, it took two hours) the sky was blue and so sunny - the morning was promising. We were totally under cloudy skies by the time we turned onto Beltline. It was still a lovely day, just cloudy. One of those days you felt the warm threat of a thunderstorm hanging on the air. But sincerely, the ending of spring seems like the beginning of autumn this year.

Sunday morning dawned, bullshit, it didn’t dawn at all, it was endless dreary rain. Sunday night it began pouring. It was lovely to sleep to, I’ve not had to water my lawn once and did I mention it’s Oc, No, June 11th? The nasturtium in my hanging baskets are very promising, and as long as it doesn’t quit raining they will be beautiful and full fill their all summer long. Unless it stops raining then they are doomed – I’m sure to forget to water then (there’s that forgotten thingie again) just out of hydro-phobia. Not hydrophoby like in “Old Yeller” but total fear of water after this deluge of rain.

Tomorrow there is a forecast for sunshine. HALLELUJAH! Ducky will be burning brush at my mom’s. I’m going to weed my garden (friggin’ grass is growing in my garden) because the rain is going to start again. I know it is, I write the weather forecast all the time. I watch the satellite maps – and there’s the fact I’ve lived on the Oregon Coast for 37 years. Tomorrow will be sunny, the wind will pick up by 10am, it will really blow by 2pm. Sunday will hold promise and then the clouds will bank up, the sky will darken, and it will rain. I’ve seen the satellite maps. Plus you know the end of spring is the beginning of autumn and tomorrow is Oc, No, June 12th.

Welcome to the Oregon Rain Festival – June 1st through May 31st

Sith
Cele

Talk Thursday: Fuzzy Navels

I’m still contemplating that Fuzzy Navel, I much prefer to be imbibing one at this time of the evening. But, yeah, that ain’t happening anytime soon. I’m out of Peach Schnapps. Drats! Lately I’ve been having troubles falling asleep. Thinking it was the six year old Beauty Rest mattress piece of crap, I bought a new Comfort-Pedic. I’m still having trouble falling asleep. For a foam mattress it’s pretty firm, I like firm, but this is firm-extreme. I’ll adapt.

During our vacation to Vegas I broke myself of the sleep aide habit. In truth I didn’t use a sleep aide the entire time we were gone, didn’t miss it, fell senselessly into sleep each night after rolling over. Three weeks after returning home I was still having trouble falling asleep. Seemingly, I have become a light sleeper in my old age. Friday nights I’ve been allowing myself a sleep aide to get a good night’s sleep, but well I think “good night’s sleep” is relative. I don’t want to become dependent again. Sometimes I take a pill on Saturday nights too. The first step of dependence denial.

Ducky got me hooked on the “Real” Housewives of Orange County. Having been raised on the LA/OC County line and the beaches Balboa during my childhood summers, it was kind of like revisiting my old stomps. Except the botox vixens of the OC live in LaLa Land of Excessive Life Styles that are anything but normal. That evolved into watching the “Real” Housewives of New York City. I love the personalities, but I’ve come to realize that this totally screws up my sleep patterns. The personalities are negative and toxic. I can’t break myself of the addiction. I tired. Really. I was able to get past not watching Thursday night. Then, I caught part of it over the weekend. And caught up. The second step of denial.

So Thursday night I tried a Margarita. Despite the bucket having been in the freezer since last summer, not bad. I had two and slept like a baby until about two o’clock. Now you’re thinking. “Three hours, that’s not a quality sleep.” But if you’re like me two and a half to three hours of uninterrupted sleep is heavenly. Not that I want to create a margarita habit that will require a twelve step plan, but I’m good at the moment. And really the tequila is much better than the Peach Schnapps.

Cheers,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Expectations

Wow am I behind. I truly had these great expectation of writing more this year. I was good and didn’t set that as a New Year resolution. While I apparently have been writing less, my New Year goal seems to be in tack. I figured with choosing only one I shouldn't be able to screw it up too badly.

Last week was Rhody Festival, which usually runs me ragged and this year was no less successful in running me ragged than any in the past. But what was different was that I was so calm through the whole thing. The fact the parade was thirty plus entries less helped immensely. I was able to write up a specific number of entries a day leading up to Saturday, wait for revisions, insertions, and drop outs plus search the internet for interesting tidbits to help pass the time while 20 Corvettes idled past Parade Central.

It rained Saturday morning and I tendered calls the entire time from people wanting to know if the Show N’ Shine was canceled? And the ensuing Classic Car Cruise. Let me assure you neither was canceled. And while the rain did fall, over 130 cars still showed up for the Show N’ Shine.

The kids still paraded down Oak Street to the Kids Games. Old ladies still brought out their hand made Uglies, quilts, and delicious homemade jams.

Ducky and I have this tradition. Saturday evening during Rhody we go to the car cruise. I always take my camera because I love the old cars and the people. We walk Bay street look at the bikes. Buy a coffee. Then walk back along Bay Street to the carnival and have an elephant ear which we devour on the boardwalk while watching the river and boats. Always a lovely evening.

This year was no exception and met perfectly with my expectations.

Sunday's parade was excellent, no rain, only 10 Corvettes. And no really goofs in the parade construction, my friend Bubba did a good job. Then I came home to be met with my first iris.

I planted these four iris probably four years ago when I first put in the Lily garden. Nada. Green sword leaves shooting skyward and that was it. Year after year, the nursery didn’t know what I was doing wrong. This year my surprise Batik iris met my long abandoned expectations and gave me this lovely bloom with the promise of more on two of the other plants. My lily garden no so good, but the iris is a divine start.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: The Invisible Worm

I’m going to assume that inside everything there is a nigglely little worm. The worm that dines on the skinny ribs of self confidence, the fat of second guessing, and the sweet desserts of all left feet in mouth syndrome. I have learned over the years that rarely can you go back and make something right. So oft nights at 2am I awake with a regret I will never be able to right my ancient wrongs. Or a thought triggers a memory of behavior so embarrassing I burn in shame seemingly for ever. Maybe hell really is of our own making here on earth.

Psam and I were just talking about the nigglely little worms inside. She had her demons and I have mine, we’re not unusual tell me about your nigglely little worms. Mine, the terror of faux pas past.

I break out in a panicked sweat when suddenly my mind travels back to a moment best forgotten. These dirty little deeds are the reason I fully embrace my personal motto, “Where we’ve been is who we are.” Once I was a shy wallflower. Apparent inflicting pain on others with my razor sharp tongue was something I thought would elevate me in the opinion of others, isn’t that just a sad, sad thought? If inflicting pain is what it takes to be “in”, it is a sad comment on the me I was.

I want to impact people’s lives in a positive way. But the actions of my past will have done the exact opposite. I’m not a Catholic where I can go confess my sins to some middle man and have all transgressions erased from my record with a litany of hail Mary’s. No I’m a person who wears each wrong; for each transgression I committed there is a person whose existence I made more unbearable at an awkward, personality forming time of their life. I can’t take those back, and that is so wrong. Yes, it was wrong in the first place, and my stupidity is no excuse, but knowing I am responsible for a black hole of pain in a person’s past is unbearable at times.

Do I feel that all mighty and powerful? No, I don’t and I am hoping that I’ve blown them out of proportion in the years and decades since. Could I be so lucky that the misdeeds have been forgotten? I think not.

Now I take every opportunity I have to apologize to for my wrongs and mistakes. And I take every opportunity to thank people for the lessons, the friendships, and the impacts they have had on my life. I try to give people my all and never fall back in to the mean girl mode where I try to climb over the backs of others.

That person of then is so alien to me. To who I am and what I stand for. Maybe my nigglely invisible worm keeps me on vigil against becoming what I once was.

Sith.
Cele

Talk Thursday: Imaginary Spring

If April showers bring May flowers, then I'm going to have a bushel of spring posies. This month we've had two days with over 2 inches of rain. The other night, about 1am it rained so hard it woke me up. Granted I'm a light sleeper, but boy that is ridiculous. Tulips don't have a long life here, one season and they are gone. I will get some reds or yellows that will comeback year after year, but not the hybrids. And Tulips are one of Ducky's favorite flowers so I try to plant a lot of them. So while my lilies seem to be disappearing and the rain played havoc on the blooms, I did get some good shots to close out the month.



Here's to May flowers and the April ones too.

Sith,
Cele

Girls Night In Hell

Let me start off with the disclaimer that I adore my mother. Tonight’s dinner was at a small Mexican restaurant around the corner from my house. I arrived about three minutes before my mom and grandmother, just enough time to realize how tired I am.

We talked about what grandma would have for dinner and then set into enjoying the toasted chips and fresh salsa. And then began discussing things, yeah we talk about things like that. Last night Ducky and I’d been watching First Edition, Inside Edition, crap I don’t know the name of it, but he’s hooked. I had to laugh, stop the presses, big headlines from Inside Edition: “Sandra Bullock Drops Two Bombshells!” So I have to ask, “Except for Jessie James, who didn’t see Sandra filing for divorce coming?”

My mother needs to move out of the fifties, “Why is it that Madonna, Jolie, and Sandra Bullock have to adopted black babies, couldn’t they find white? It’s just so sad they’re putting those poor little babies into a bad position. Who’s going to teach them about being black?”

“Mom, maybe Sandra just wanted to adopt a baby that needed love? If she was trying to make a statement she wouldn’t have kept it a secret for three months. That woman needs to open up a school for keeping secrets.”

“But how do they explain their mommy is white?”

“Mom, who cares that Louie’s mommy is white?”

Suddenly the mouth of my grandmother opens (her mind is apparently stuck in the forties) “Children can be so mean, that poor little boy is going to have kids saying, ‘Look at the little nigger.”

And with that in the middle of a cute little Mexican Restaurant around the corner from my house, I was Gobsmacked by the blind rudeness of maturity.

Fuck, I need a drink.
Cele

Please Stand Against The Performance Tax

When I turned eight my parents gave me an AM / FM Radio. There hadn’t been much music in our house before, except for Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights. Well that isn’t totally true, I can remember being about five or so and having a worn out 45 stack turntable and two singles: The Lion Sleeps Tonight by the Tokens, and Andy’s Williams’ Moon River. The needle was missing so you had to put your ear close to the turntable and listen. It was worth the effort.

Several of my friends had their own record players, their parents had “Hi-Fi’s”, and I had the car radio or my dad singing, King of the Road. I love music and the gift of the radio was a turning point in my life. I listened to music every moment I could. A devotee to KHJ I grew up listening to Charlie Tuna, Robert W. Morgan, and the Real Don Steele. I knew the words to every song, a fact driven home to me in 1970 when the Beatles broke up. Every pop station on the dial played 24 hour Beatles marathons or worse “Non-stop Beatles Weekends.” I hated the Beatles. Really, fifty-eight charting songs in the US and I probably liked three of them.

Suddenly it was all Beatles all the time. ARGH! What’s a Folkie / daytripper to do? It’s not like I could turn it off, I’m a radio addict. And then the worst of it hit me, I friggin’ knew every word to every song. If someone tells you that learning by listening in your sleep doesn’t work, send them my way. That three songs Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, and Golden Slumbers realistically swelled to ten songs with the inclusion of In My Life, Here There and Everywhere, Norwegian Wood, Yesterday, Something, Rocky Raccoon, and Lady Madonna. I think it could get worse, I mean I am a child of the sixties, and if my politics and yard are any clue, I’m a Flower Child of the sixities.

Suddenly the Beatles were a begrudged inclusion into my repertoire of appreciated music. But the whole point is if it’d not been for radio I’d have not fallen in love with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Cat Stevens; the Moody Blues; Climax Blues Band; the Doors, Marvin Gaye; the Supremes, Sonny and Cher; the Temptations; the Miracles; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul, and Mary; the Rolling Stones; the Beach Boys; The Animals and all the other groups whose albums and 45s are stored in my guest bedroom closet. I was allowed to use half of my allowance and babysitting money on the buys of my choice. My choice was the music I heard on the radio. I bought concert tickets to the groups that I loved from radio.

When I was young I tried to figure out how they got all the bands in the radio, then I grew up. Now I work in the radio industry and have a better insight into what it takes to air your favorites and the new up and coming acts over the free airwaves. When Isay “free” I mean you listen to commercials that pay for us to be on the air with a product your want to hear on your radio. True a lot of people today buy Satellite Radio, but rumors abound that even satellite is going to begin selling commercial load. Time will tell.

Now, under pressure from the recording industry, bills are in both the House - H.R. 848 and in the Senate - S 379. Both bills have passed through committee and are potentially headed for the floor.

The Free Radio Alliance cites a series of facts on their website - that everyday 173 million Americans reply on free radio daily for music, news, and information updates. They state a bevy of figures that radio provides to the economy, to public service, to everyday life. We buy the music we play (well for the most part, country music gives us the music free.) As a small radio station on the Oregon Coast (actually two stations – four airwaves) we pay large monthly fees to ASCAP, BMI and / or SESAC to air the music you hear over the airwaves. Twice a year we report what we play so they can pay out royalties from our fees to the composers and lyricists who make that music possible. Do you know why all stations don’t stream on the internet? The cost is too prohibitive. Soon small broadcasters will be forced to pay double or more the royalty rates paid today, those increases will create a chain reaction that will see the end of small and hometown broadcasters.

If any part of my story and / or arguments touch a place inside of you. If you listened to the events and coverage 9/11 all day long at work on the radio, if you tune into the local high school football, basketball, and baseball games, your favorite college games, heard the OJ Simpson verdict, if you tuned into X-minus One, Burns and Allen, or the Cinnomon Bear, if you can look in your spare bedroom and see a hundred CDs, LPs, 45s, cassettes, or even 8-tracks bought because you heard a song on the radio please lend your support to No Performance Tax dot Org by signing your name.

Thank you,
Calista

Talk Thursday: Things That Must Go

It seems my time to blog has sadly diminished over the past few months. As I note the passage of the year, crap it’s almost May, I note the sad lack of topics and blogs I’ve written. Part of this is solely blamed on TV and my glaring inability to multi-task at all times. Thank God I don’t have TIVO. Why you might ask? Women know what commercial breaks all about – doing chores, that’s what! TIVO = no commercials; messy house; no blog. So tonight I am blogging whilst Dancing With The Stars. Okay, okay it’s hours before DWTS, but why put off until tomorrow what won’t get done?

Things That Must Go!

God this is more difficult than I thought. It’s the third time I’ve started this, to underscore the point, we are 45 minutes into DWTS. I keep getting off task and blundering.

Blundering must go

Now at this point I have to say go read Psam’s list… it’s mine except that she wrote it and put it on her blog, not mine. But hey, it could have been mine if she posted it here instead.

Note minor rant at the end..

Hatred must go. Enough said.

Companies who hire illegal aliens. Thereby screwing over the people whose Social Security numbers have been hijacked and will someday (possibly soon) need those numbers and the services that demand said numbers: like Social Security benefits, Workman’s Comp, and Unemployment to name just a few.

Companies that take their factories off shore and the people who still buy their products. I.e. Nike, Levis (yes, this includes Ducky – he will only wear 501s,) Indian Call Centers, and give me time and I’ll find a list.

Cheap unregulated Chinese products. We make our companies meet specific standards and regulations and yet bring in whatever made by whomever wherever. WTF?

Pompous vegetarians who make a fuss over the treatment of animals (said reason for being a Vegetarian.) And yet while spouting the doctrine of Peta they wear leather boots, suede jackets, and have two leather couches for their dog.

Oversized breast implants – Heidi Montag, Pamela Anderson, and the late Anna Nicole Smiths of this world you know who you are. In fact Pamela must go from DWTS, too.

Male enhancement commercials. What you don’t realize is that it’s his smile that is bigger. His wife is now much happier because he and his lack luster attention to detail is leaving her alone.

The mind numbing dumbing down of America … oh what a list
1) Stupid TV - The Simpsons, Two and A Half Men, and hate filled programming.
2) Not requiring people to speak English. I’m talking people whose first language is English (Sadly I’ve failed at learning a second language, well unless Pig Latin counts.)
3) Students, parents, teachers, and school systems that do not exact a winning performance from students (or themselves) and pass them for either a quota, frustration, and to just get rid of the student. I believe this problem often starts at home.
4) Candidates, politicians, and leaders who can’t talk, don’t think, and spew their hatred and ignorance to be sucked up whole hog by the public who refuses to check their facts before believing. Can we say – Drink the Fucking Kool-Aid because it would be an improvement over your (being their) current mental exercise.
5) People who pull the race/gender/religion (or lack there of) / persuasion card – in totally inappropriate times. Sometimes pulling said card is totally legit, but how many times have you seen 1) Jessie Jackson pulling the “card?” It’s been over pulled. 2) I can’t I’m a girl “card.” Too stupid too live. 3) Glambert pulling the “card” when he’d been totally inappropriate in a primetime performance. 4) Anti: Prayer groups in schools, In God We Trust, The Pledge of Allegiance. Come on show up 10 minutes late and get over it, this allows both sides to remain true to themselves. In the words of Rodney King (paraphrased I’m sure,) “Can’t we just get along?”

Stores that gladly give you ten (no that isn’t exaggerating) plastic bags, but gets pissed and charges me 6 cents for the doubled 86 paper bags, that will hold all inside of and the ten plastic bags, when I forget my reusable ecobags. Again plastic bags aren’t biodegradable and trees are a renewable resource. Really I know you’ve been taught they’re not, but really I can show you acres and acres, and whole states of replanted trees.

Freeloaders. Example: Single parents or families who have child after child while milking the system of your’s and my hard worked tax dollars. I don’t mind paying my share, I friggin’ mind paying theirs. I’m not talking about hard working, responsible people who are down on their luck at the moment, crap no, they pay into the system. I’m talking the person who for years on end hasn’t had a job. My next door neighbor (yeah the rose killing bastard) has a son who’s well into to his thirties (maybe forties I am bad at ages) and has sponged off his father for the two years prior to the bloody rosebush massacre. While the man killed my rosebush and took away my privacy in the act, he has attempted to keep his front yard up in the past year and a half. Then he became gravely ill, his kidneys failed, and he now endures dialysis a few times a week. His son made a comment Saturday about how is father wants so badly to clean up his yard. Do you think his son, or grandson who live off him have offered? The weeds choking his new plantings tell me no.

Oh, and ungrateful whiney people who don’t own up because it’s always somebody else’s fault. Always.

And I’m going to second Psam’s final three (except I don’t know anything about the Canadian band Tea Party) and the whole pajamas in public thing, what’s that all about beyond lazy?

I wish I could go on, sadly, I’m blocked.

Sith,
Cele

The Reality of TV

Since China Beach, rarely do I stick with a television show for long. Okay, I take that back, there was Babylon V, Farscape, Joan of Arcadia, and West Wing. But in truth if I like it on network TV it usually gets canceled. Underscoring my argument… Sports Night (with William Macy and Felicity Huffman), Moonlight (with that hot guy in the new J-lo movie),

I’m in shock that Big Bang Theory has lasted two and a half seasons, it’s a great TV gem. But now that…

* * * * Spoiler Alert* * * * * *

Will Wheaten and the premature “L” word has broken up Penny and Leonard the show is doomed. Remember Moonlighting. Okay, you understand.

A week or two ago I saw a comment in the paper that there are few family friendly programs on television. To their dismay they could only name three: the Simpsons, some show I forgot, and Two and A Half Men. OHMYFUCKINGSTARS! The Simpsons is the footpath that leads to the dumbing down of America. And Two and A-Half Men family friendly? You’ve got to be kidding me. Two and A Half Idiots is disrespectful, rude, condescending, ignorant, did I mention rude? Oh and that’s only half of it – really I should have written a list.

When reality TV hit the airwaves I was fairly resistant. I’m not sure why. Then I went to England during the second season of Big Brother (a show miles different from the American version) I was hooked (this was during the Jade Goody season.) I came home and watched the second season of BB US style. Four seasons later the ignorance and the hatful personalities finally did me in. Wow, four seasons. I think that might be a milestone.

BB lead to Survivor, lead to American Idol. Then I found Ghost Hunters, which lead to Ice Road Truckers, which lead to DEADLIEST CATCH. I could watch this show forever. I have come to realize I adore characters.

Sadly I have degenerated into the deep bowels of the Reality TV abyss. Now I’m hooked on Cash Cab, Mythbusters, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and all those trashy Housewives. Well not the Atlanta ones, but hey I have to watch baseball and football sometimes. Don’t tell my mom she’d be appalled. Psam on the other hand has sadly been forced to sit through a Housewives marathon.

So now I have to come out and say,

“Hello, my name is Cele and I’m a character addict.”

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Aftermath

I believe when I originally named this topic I was thinking of "post Easter sugar coma." But then I thought about the aftermath of the West Virginia coalmine disaster. My father was from West Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, a small little burg named Valley Head, 150 east of Montcoal. I have lived the majority of my life thankful my father was neither an alcoholic or a miner. What more can I add? It’s heartbreaking, things won’t change, and people will continue to give their all to a job that could care less. ‘Nuff said. Smog, electricity, life, black-lung and sorrow the aftermath of coalmining.

Then I read Psam’s blog. I miss my daughter when she is offline, it’s our connection to each other. This is something my husband (and a world of other people) do not understand. I hate talking on the phone. I am a talk one on one face to face type person. I am hideous at small talk. Put me in the middle of 100 partying people, I am the wallflower – I suck at small talk. It’s not that I don’t want to hear from you, I really do, but I’m not good at it. Psam knows this. My mother (who is much better at phone than I) knows this.

My husband, doesn’t know this. He’s forever pushing me to call. Check on Psam. Find out how her job situation is going. I know that if I call Psam and I ask her about her job situation, did she get a second interview, did she get her call back? Has she heard any rumblings from her work cronies? My call and questions will only drive home her sorrow. Placing more pressure on her shoulders is not what I want to do. I know when something happens she will call me. It’s the way we work. Ducky does not compute this.

Now in my sixth decade I know life is a progression of education, challenges, learning opportunities missed or utilized, and metamorphose. We are born a blank slate. We become a mirror of our parents, peers, religion and society’s mores and norms. I was blessed with a mother who told me to go out and learn. To question (I hope I passed that on to more than just my daughter.) My viewpoints are ever changing, usually the basis stays the same with the fine points refined. And then other times everything is sent topsy-turvy and I end up re-evaluating, reconsidering, redefining because someone gave me a discussion point that struck home and really made me see something vital from a different point. Growth, the aftermath of discussion.

I may get mad by something I hear, and unless I see resultant red I will take it in, digest the finer points and adapt. Difference makes the world go round. Or as Ex-One was oft want to say, “Variety is the spice of life and that’s what the judge is going to tell my wife.” He had the sentiment right the rest of the things in his life he screws up on a regular basis. Sadly little of the world respects and embraces variety of life, opinion, religion, favorite colors, and pets. That is the aftermath of rigid humanity.

So I guess in the spirit of Green Earth Month it is rethink, reuse, and recycle. It all works.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: On Further Review

During last Thursday’s girl’s night out my mom revisited the old “If you make a mistake and you learn from it, the mistake was worth making.” I live by this motto (one of several,) I’ve made lots of mistakes in my life. A Lot! But when she saw the look on my face she automatically jumped to my first marriage and ensuing divorce.

“You got Psam out of that marriage” (relationships are broken down into marriages and situations to my mom).

That wasn’t where my thoughts had been. I believe what my mother’s words actually had been were, we gain things from each experience, each relationship. While I didn’t have to marry One-X to get an awesome daughter (I was unknowingly preggers when I said, “I do”) I did learn other things post my marriage to One-X – I learned I am strong, capable, and as damageable as everyone else. An innocent person I adored depended on me to be at my best. I grew during my first marriage and subsequent divorce.

No, the look on my face, mirroring the thoughts I’d caught myself on in shock, were the realization that I had gained absolutely nothing from my marriage with Two-X. WTF? Yes, I wound up with the house, but excuse me I’d paid for half of it – he walked away, I didn’t push him out. This is a topic you’ve heard me whine over many times. I lost my personality, my identity. And lately have come to realize that I lost more than a decade of my life to nada.

It’s quite a shock to find out that you wasted more than a decade with nothing to show for it. Almost like being an alcoholic or drug addict that wakes up one morning and can’t remember the last ten years and has nothing to show for it. I threw away over a fifth of my life on a worthless man. I have done several things in my life that I despise, but you know what? Upon further review, this may top them.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: It Was The Best of Times… It Was The Worst Of Times

If you haven’t noticed how really fast time flies, well then you are either pretty young, or live perpetually “in the moment.” I’m over half way through my life, if my life line runs true to form, and parts of me think that is far too long, and the other parts think "Crap!" it’s not near long enough. Thank heavens I believe in reincarnation.

It was like yesterday the first time I said, “I remember about twenty years ago, when…” What I don’t remember is “the what” I was remembering about at the time; what I do remember was stopping in my tracks, mid sentence, and laughing out loud at the moment. Now I remember back over twenty one years ago (at least two decades since the first time I said “I remember about twenty years ago…”) I long knew there was something a matter in my marriage, I didn’t know the what. I didn’t know it wasn’t repairable, because it apparently had never been right in the first place, to become broken in the second.

All I knew was that I had been happy and in love, sadly he was neither and he told me so one Sunday afternoon. It had to have been bad; he interrupted a 49’ners game to tell me so and then left. I don’t remember where Psam was; I just know she wasn’t at home. I left the potato salad on the counter and walked west to the dune and sat down and cried.

For days, about three, I cried. And then he came back and told me, and I quote, “I think I made a mistake.”

“Yeah, you did, live with it.” If I was so devastated, and I was he’d just ruined my mine and Psam’s lives, why did I say that back to him? Because I knew that I could remain married to him but wonder forever more when he was going to walk out on me again. I could have dealt with an affair. There are myriad reasons for an affair. But for not loving a person, there is only one.

He was nice enough to deed over the house so Psam and I weren’t out on the street. I think it was a guilt move, but I’ll take it. In her early teens at the break-up, Psam was going through the changes and challenges of life that only a teenage girl can endure…along with her mom. But even more so she was there for me.

In the years between 2-X and Ducky, Psam and I we grew, endured, and triumphed. I worked three jobs, and she got her first. A friend of mine lent us her time-share in Reno and we made a week of it. I taught her to drive; she actually learned. I’d get a boyfriend and she’d beat his ass at chess (oh, crap the temper tantrum he threw.) She discovered boys that she didn’t want to beat up and her fingernails (she’d change the color every day – no lie); I’d find another boyfriend (yes, I was that crappy a mother.)

While I love my husband and life now, I could easily go back and relive those years when it was just Psam and I, maybe without the boyfriends. Because really, while for most it would have been the worst of times…remember there was a heart rending divorce in there, the truth of it all… it was the best of times.

Sith,
Cele

Spring, Spring, Spring

Did I mention it’s Spring? In the last few days (four days since Saturday, March 20th) we have had two inches of rain and three days of sunshine. My tulips are coming alive.

Each day I look at my lilly garden and wait in anticipation of what will become, just as the tulips raise their heads. I should have planted more daffodils. Next year for certain.

My flowers give me immense joy. Much needed in this time of political turmoil.

Does it seem to you like the rhetoric has been dialed up again, just when you thought it not possible? Crips, making it possible for everyone to afford medical care and insurance has cause a political out cry that makes me want to puke. And of course the media jumps on. First off I do not believe I am entitled. No, no way, fuck off. Do I believe my health care should cost less than my house payment? Yes, I do. I don’t believe that means I feel entitled, I think it believes I am willing to pay my fair share. Just please make it affordable.

If I listen to the Republican rhetoric I would believe that we are now going to hell in a hand basket and that Americans are OUTRAGED AND MAD AS HELL. Excuse me, the Republican barometer of all things good and bad… the Dow was up 103 points today. Money talks.

Thanks to the Republican rhetoric I would believe that all Americans are anti health care reform and furious that the Democratic demons have bucked the system, ignored the majority consensus and ploughed headstrong in to unwanted territory. Not. The Wall Street Journal does report that the margins are close 46 to 45 percent, and the remaining 9 percent are unsure. That means 55 percent of Americans aren’t mad as hell while thinking the Democratic demons are bucking the system. It means nine percent aren’t sure, don’t know enough, or don’t care enough they go with the flow.

USA Today / Gallup poll cites 49 percent of Americans think the health care reform bill is a “good thing” while 40 percent described their reaction to the bill’s passage as “angry” or “disappointed.”

And a CBS poll cited by Plumline says the health care reform bill doesn’t go far enough. Now yes, there are margins of error in all polls,



but I’ve not seen a poll that shows the majority of Americans are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

So I say, let’s see how it goes, give the powers that be the chance to make it work. The last administration had eight years to make their mark. They did. Now let’s let this one do it’s job.

I’ll grow more flowers in the mean time. And for my dear friend Fii, here's my first Woodpecker of 2010.. show me yours

please.

Sith,
Cele

Happy Birthday from Burp... the musical!

Back in February I told you Burp had called me for my birthday.
I took my cellphone into the studio and saved this recording.



I can't get enough of it.

Talk Thursday: Blogging?

Sadly, no I’ve not been blogging. It hasn’t been for the lack of desire, it has been for the lack of inspiration. Over two weeks ago I began a blog about looking back into Ducky’s family history… complete with pictures. It apparently is still in the draft stages.

Oh, crap. That was several weeks ago, because two weeks ago I took all the pictures for a blog about the Florence Home and Garden Show. Those pictures are still in my camera. Blog not written.

I bought this kewl secretary (Ashley and awesome) for a steal during the radio auction. I let it sit for a few weeks before deciding what to put into it. I opted for my china cocoa set that has been handed down from generation to generation. I photographed it for insurance purposes, because you know I really should do it and my china too. Ducky added his own touches to the display.

So WTF have I been doing with my time? Well let me tell you – I threw my back out. I worked in the garden. Tripped over the dog aka my black - can't be seen in the dark, 93 pound - speed bump and whacked my back more. It’s either that or I ruptured my spleen. Is your spleen towards the back in the left side? What ever it is it friggin’ hurts. Going to my chiropractor did not help. He did say no yoga. Frick. I have been watching a lot of the Housewives of this and that American burg. They make me feel really good about my boring, non-complicated, salt of the earth life. See I’ve been doing nothing, they have inspired me to nothingness. Hopeless. I need to get a life.

But really nothing has been going on. I’m dying to get out in my garden for more than two hours on a Saturday afternoon. I am itching to replace the plants that have died and do something better. I am not itching to pick up the courtyard pavers I laid two years ago and put them in correctly, but I will be doing that this summer. I even may possibly add a new paver style patio in our over grown, windy back yard.

I will leave your with a few pictures of my garden that I took today… which now means
The pictures from the Home and Garden Show are on my computer – I guess I need to be inspired to write another blog.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday - What Brings Me To Pieces; What Brings Me To Peace

It finally hit me today, something that pissed me off, so incredibly much that I wanted to scream at the world. Supposed Christian’s picketing the funeral of a fallen solder. How insensitive and base can a person get? Let alone a person who is supposed to live their life based on Christian morals? I DON’T FUCKING GET IT. Well there goes my attempt to keep from cussing.

Yes, I believe in God. The Bible has a lot of history, a lot of parables, a multitude of psalms, and oh those pesky rules and laws. To borrow a line from Scrooge, “Bah Humbug.” I don’t believe in the Bible as the word of God… “just because it tells me so.” I’m sorry, I don’t – can I point to contradictions and reasons why I don’t, you bet. But I do believe in your right to do so. But if you do, please, don’t pick and choose the parts you want to live by, the parts you don’t, and then yell at the top of your lungs hateful, insightful, condemning, ignorant things (that break a whole gob of rules.) If you’re going to live by the law of the Bible, abide it. And yes I know I’m going to hell because I have a tattoo, news flash I’m getting another one shortly. If your God sends me to hell because of it, well news flash, I don’t believe in hell. My God has more important things to worry about I’m sure. I’ve been here before, in the words of McArthur and Arnold, “I’ll be back.”

What gives these people the right to intrude upon a family’s grief? Not a thing beyond their self-righteous indignation. They believe God has enough free time on his hands to hate, to let people die because of hate, to do things to people because they dare to be, and to have chosen us and place our issues above anyone else in the world. Get over yourselves because if you’re living by the edict of the Bible the chosen were Jewish, lived in a hot barren hell-hole and definitely were not American. Get over yourselves, get over your “interpretations” and live your life, not someone else’s. Get over your hatred – hatreds based on pure ignorance.

Next put yourself into a grieving mother’s sorrow, a mourning father’s grief and live a moment in their shoes. Would you accept some atheist zealot screaming indignant epitaphs during your hour of sorrow because you choose to believe? Na, na, na, don’t get self-righteous put yourself in their shoes and then get over yourself.

What brings me peace? The universe. Knowing there are good people, good powers, good intentions in the universe that will stand in the face of insanity and find peace. I am glad I am graced with the intelligence to want to learn what I do not understand, to conquer ignorance, and to live in harmony.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: For Your Consideration

Six years ago Janet Jackson’s “Nipplegale” rocked the world and resulted in a $550,000 fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission against CBS. Today they are still arguing the fine points, and again the appealed fine is being scrutinized. We gained a new word, no not Nipplegate, we gained the phrase Wardrobe Malfunction. And that half a million plus fine, well consider this: A 30 second Superbowl commercial (remember Nipplegates’ famous wardrobe malfunction happened during the 2004 Superbowl) cost just over $2 Million. Consider this: While Nipplegate has ignited conversations around the watercooler, the dinner table, and in the tabloid aisle at the grocery store, CBS lost a mere 12 seconds of advertising revenue.

Republicans are arguing that American’s don’t want health care reform. Because I don’t know this as a fact, but considering most bankers (and I mean CEO golden parachute bankers) are Republican, I’m going out on a limb to believe that most Insurance CEOs are Republican too. Crap, you know the CEOs of Pharmaceutical companies hail the great White Elephant. So it’s comes as no surprise that Republicans are against Health Care Reform. It’s not your general practitioners that are making the big bucks, no they have a practice to fund. It’s not “most” hospitals that rake in the big profits, unless you consider Sacred Heart River Bend who features a million dollar fire place in a hospital that is so big they regularly misplace patients.

Sadly your health care is being run by HMO’s, not your doctor… and there are people out there making big money by making sure you can’t own your own health. Sadly 62 percent of bankruptcies in America are medical related. While insurance companies that layer blue sky percentage onto your health care cost are raking in billions in profits they are crying poor mouth and raising your insurance rates as much at 39 percent. Consider this Wellpoint/Blue Cross / Anthem raised rates 39 percent, while in the same breathe they claimed a 4.75 billion dollar profit this year. But hey, the system isn’t broken unless you’re the questionably-insured.

Consider this: If you live on the Oregon Coast and a devastating 8.8 earthquake hits Chile, someone from Nebraska will call your listener because a Tsunami is going to hit the Oregon Coast. While it could happen - it isn’t, it didn’t, it wasn’t going to happen. I must have answered 26 phone calls (this morning – yes I wrote this blog that long ago) Saturday morning from the headless chicken republic. I’m betting the police chief and mayor answered even more. Why am I betting that? Because I interviewed the Police Chief aka “Maury” on the air, and got a thank you phone call from the Mayor aka “Phil”, there after saying thank you.

And on top of all that stuff, consider this… someone had to invent the paper clip!

Sith,
Cele

The Week of Eating Fabulously

February is always one of those eating months for me. First you begin with a series of birthdays and then you get the chocolately delights of Valentines Day and now you can get I Love You Peeps – life rocks.

Add in Miseray’s birthday on February 8th, Psam’s Birthday on February 12th and you’re in birthday cake heaven.

Miseray is a chocoholic… cubed. For years I tried to make her cake one step more chocolate than the year prior. I’m up to six or seven chocolate elements and am about maxed out – chocolate fudge cake, with chocolate pudding in the mix, chocolate chunks baked in – divide into three cake pans and bake. Remove from pans to cool and cover with chocolate chips – when the chips are shiny spread them out to create a filling layer. Then I make a French Silk milk chocolate frosting topped with chocolate sprinkles. Sometimes I make a chocolate mousse to swirl into the frosting. Personally it is too much chocolate for me, but she’s in seventh heaven – I’m sure the milk industry feels a spike in consumption during that week. Ducky calls this cake Death by Chocolate but there really is a Death By Chocolate cake that isn't my creation. I have entitled the three layer chocolate be all/end all – Miseray’s Diabetic Coma Cake.

Psam’s favorite cake is coconut. At first it was a cake my ex used to make for me. After he walked she said it was her favorite and I began making it for her. I have to say it’s a great cake – topped with cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. It’s a lot of cake.

Now that the girls have made their own homes I still make them cakes. With no cake here Ducky has realized that I never got a cake – hey I’m a mom what can I say with all that cake in the house my butt had no problem growing an extra zip code in February. Monday night I came home to find Ducky hiding in the kitchen with a beautiful German Chocolate cake with a lone tea light lit while he sang Happy Birthday to me. It was incredibly sweet. Then he took me out to dinner for an awesome Cobb Salad. I’d show you a picture of the cake… mit tealight… but I ate it with French Vanilla Ice Cream… the cake – not the tea light.

Thursday night is girl’s night – one week I will meet Audrey for dinner, the next my mom and grandma. We met a Pomodori’s for San Remo Raviolli. Oh mi gosh it’s one of my favorites. Ricotta and Spinach ravioli in an amazing and rich cream sauce with sun dried tomatoes and prociutto. TO.DIE.FOR. They have other great things on the menu – Ravioli San Remo is all my eyes see.

Because I had to work all last weekend Ducky chose to take a drive today. It began with coffee at Pinecone and the Tooth Doctor’s where my adorable sister gave me a new dragon.


She tells me her name is Prunella PenDragon and I adore her.

I first hugged Prunella back in December during Girl’s Day out at the Lane County Holiday Market. I wouldn’t let myself get her because I was suppose to be buying for others and was actually resisting all urges (outside of lunch) for my usual self-indulgence. My sister rocks.

Miseray and the Brit were shopping; Psam had worked last night so she was in a deep sleep. Having eaten breakfast Denisious and Buttman met us for a quick chat and then Ducky took me for Mongolian Grill. See all I did was eat all week.

Then we drove to my next blog and indulged in Coffee Milk shakes. Life is good.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Slowdive – or The Fine Art of Time Miss Management

The intent of this topic totally eluded me. I thought, struggled, Googled, thought again and then I read Fii’s Talk Thursday blog for Spin. She is staggering blind in a miasma I know all too well: Crap! Where did my time go?

Easily I can say there is a minimum 9 to 10 hour day awaiting me Monday through Friday at work. My hours are forever evolving – this year it seems to be 8:30 to 5 or 5:30, or 6pm – depending on events even later. Plus I am on call 24 / 7. The length of the hours I work are my doing for the most part, yes I multi task, could you imagine the length of my day if I didn’t multi task? I literally do two airshifts at one time. I use to go to work at 4 in the morning, and I loved the morning shift – now I would hate it – at the time I was also working three jobs. My job also allows me to multi task for myself – I’m writing this while doing my airshift. It rocks. You have no idea how many times I chatted with Psam or Sid while on the air – on the station’s dime – my boss rocks.

But with those hours comes with a loss of time for me, a loss of time for Ducky, a loss of time of other vital things. Tuesday and Thursday nights are mine, Ducky is in the valley overnight taking a break from his long (160 mile round trip) commute. He gets the rest of my time, well the parts that aren’t claimed by work or my garden.

For eleven years I have compiled, Wednesday Links, a resource for writers. I’ve enjoyed creating the list and subsequent database that resulted from those eleven years – I placed a counter on the page and paid attention to the numbers – the numbers have slowed. Once each year I asked my readers to vote for Wednesday Links at Critters / Preditors and Editors, not a big request, to use it as a tool to judge the value of the Links. Last year Links finished at 11, this year at 19. I haven’t done links for the last two weeks reclaiming three hours of my life back each Tuesday night; I’ve not received one post or note asking what the heck happened to Wednesday Links.

While fewer and even less of my favorite bloggers have been posting in the past few weeks (months) I have missed my own blogging as much as my morning cup of coffee and blog time. I used to have the time to check my favorites several times each day, making sure I posted a comment as a show of support – whether a specific post compelled a response out of me (usually the case) or not. I refuse to give up blogging, it keeps me in touch with people I like, it makes me think, it feeds my soul. No! No! No! My blogging won’t go.

I have also noted that having no me time has bent my inspiration and sense of humor. I wrote out my annual “One Hundred Things About Me” list this week. I started writing it on Saturday night, added ten or more so items Sunday, got to number 67 on Monday – reread what I’d written Tuesday night when I wasn’t compiling my Wednesday Links and discovered several things:

1) I’m boring
2) I’m uninspired
3) I’m humorless
4) It took me four days to write 100 humorless things about me, a project I’ve been thinking about for months that usually takes me a half an hour to write. That sucks, majorly sucks. MAJORLY!

I want my me time back, I want my humor back. I want to still be able to hit my crosstrainer, bemoan my yoga endeavors, give Ducky the time he needs, garden, do my job and still be able to breathe, blog, and recharge. I’ve been on a Time Miss Management Slowdive. Slow nosedive is maybe more accurate, but now I know the definition of Slowdive and must become proactive to regain what I’ve seemingly lost.

Sith,
Cele

PS Thank you Sid for the topic, Thank you Fii, my friend, for the inspiration.

100 Things About Me – the 2010 Edition

1) Wow, I’m getting older
2) I’m not bemoaning the fact
3) Each year counted I embrace
4) Because I worked darn hard for each
5) I am looking back, looking forward, and looking around
6) Where I am is a happy place
7) I am loved. I love. I am content.
8) But, mortality is often in my thoughts
9) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of dying
10) I’m afraid of not making the most of my time
11) And fear that I am missing what is most important to give my time to.
12) Lately I embrace the days I get to be lazy
13) Yet, I can’t imagining retiring
14) I love my job, it’s the best job in the world
15) Not that I’m close to retirement
16) I have only been at my job for twenty years
17) But I would love more time to work in my garden without becoming exhausted by it each Sunday night
18) My retirement – years away – would give me that time
19) The other scary part, I have come to learn I am LAZY
20) When I retire – in years to come – there will be tomorrow to get it done
21) Unless I die the day after I retire – in years and years to come – and then it won’t matter
22) There’s about eighteen more years of full work ahead of me
23) So I guess I have time to figure it out.
24) It would also give me more time to blog
25) But would I still be interested in blogging? It seems more and more bloggers are dropping out blogdom and into twits and tweets.
26) Lately I have noticed that the members in my internet life are changing
27) My focus is changing
28) Of late I have lost me time, blogging time, reconnecting time.
29) No one uses ICQ or their MSN anymore it’s all Facebook
30) Facebook is boring, the conversations shallow
31) I want deeper reading than twits and tweets allow
32) I want to see the thoughts and workings behind the events in other people’s lives
33) I miss my morning blog
34) I’m really considering ending my Wednesday Links
35) I’m fairly certain no one will notice – it may be a done deal.
36) It would give me more time for TV, Ducky, and Blogging.
37) My favorite TV show is Big Bang Theory
38) I gifted seasons one and two for Ducky at Christmas so I we could watch it
39) But he loves Sheldon, Leonard, and Penny too.
40) I still love Deadliest Catches
41) Rest in Peace Captain Phil – you passed from this plane far too young
42) I’m finding other TV shows boring, but I am trying this season of Survivor.
43) My Favorite ice creams are polar opposites – French Vanilla and Brownie Thunder… ergo I live for Friday night
44) That is ice cream night in our house
45) Ducky stuck a lit tea light into the middle of my birthday cake sang Happy Birthday to me
46) Tonight is Monday, so I got German Chocolate Cake topped with French Vanilla Ice Cream
47) That is after Ducky took me out to dinner
48) Then I came home to phone calls from my girls, and Pinecone
49) Burp sang Happy Birthday to me in both English and Spanish
50) I was majorly thrilled.
51) Did you know majorly isn’t a word? It should be, maybe I should invent it.
52) Wow, number 52 and I am only just mentioning I still hate snakes, some things never change.
53) With every year’s passing I adore my sister more (Pinecone is no snake)
54) I see parts of me in her, and parts of her in me
55) I see a vivacious woman, where a shy little tomboy used to be.
56) My sister is one of my dearest friends and I’m blessed.
57) I miss having Psam in my everyday life (Psam isn’t a snake either)
58) Major digression, could you imagine having a snake for a daughter? It happens, I’m blessed
59) As much as I miss her I willingly give her to her life and want the best for her and Burp
60) Each moment we get to spend together is divine.
61) Once I bemoaned having a stepdaughter, Miseray lived up to her name, now she is a delightful young lady. Sometimes negative energies morph into butterflies.
62) In the last few years I have noted a refining and redefining in my spiritual and religious beliefs
63) The basis of those beliefs and how I interpret what I believe, where I stand, and how I proceed are more open.
64) And I’m finding while I’m willing to talk about them, I am open to discussion and to change, I don’t have to validate my beliefs to someone else.
65) I revel in the universe
66) Over all, I still embrace my Quaker beliefs.
67) Although I’m a bit more abusive than I use to be.
68) Numerology long ago laid out before me that my life lesson is anger.
69) I do not hit in anger
70) That’s not to say I’ve never hit in anger – that would be a lie
71) But I do slap a shoulder in jest or mock anger
72) That has to stop, I do not accept it as acceptable behavior.
73) Scary this year’s 100 is more serious
74) WTF did my humor go? I like my humor
75) I asked Ducky for a Yoga DVD for my birthday
76) OMG am I out of shape
77) The instructional portion on the first of three disks, you know the one that you take a moment to learn the poses, kicked my ass
78) My gosh I’m out of shape – crap there’s more ahead
79) But worse I don’t think my lower back will allow me to do some of the poses, i.e. Upward Facing Dog
80) And then there is the whole disregard for strength shown by my biceps and triceps
81) Did I mention I’m out of shape?
82) So I jumped on my cross trainer and could only get out a lap. Paaathetic!
83) I will go at it again tomorrow – snakes popping up on the DVD would help alleviate my problems, but I don’t that is likely to happen
84) Early last week I’m fairly certain my father visited me
85) How do I know it was him? I don’t – outside of that place in my heart
86) But I felt him four times that morning. The first two times he sad down on the bed next to me. The other two he tapped the comforter covering me
87) I was comforted by his presence
88) Call me a kook, but we are not alone. Just as Mulder and Sculley.
89) Before that the last time he visited me was in my sleep just a few weeks after he passed.
90) No it wasn’t a dream, he’s been in my dreams, this was different.
91) Music this year, I still adore Jason Mraz, Five For Fighting, and Dave Matthews. Duffy has a new disc coming out this spring, I hope it’s as good as the last. CSN is still my all time fav.
92) Movies, I wanted to go see Sandra Bulloch in the Blind Side but I missed it at the theatre here. I will ask for it for Christmas. There’s really not that many movies I’ve wanted to see in the past year or so.
93) Our trip to Vegas was everything we wanted it to be. This year our focus will be Miseray’s wedding to the Brit. (He’s a keeper.)
94) I watch a lot of DYI network anymore.
95) Because of my gained knowledge from the DYI network I have to pull up the pavers in my hot tub courtyard and re-lay them this summer.
96) Plus we are going to build a pergola over the hot tub. I can’t wait
97) You think I could find Josh Templin or Ahmad Hussin – not. I could always use the knowledge and help… plus their checkbook.
98) Oh and in the past few months I broke my over the counter sleep aide addiction. There are times I miss it, but now I can take a pill – not two – and get a good night sleep on Saturday night if needed.
99) It took me three or four weeks to begin sleeping some what normally.
100. Did I mention my uterus is falling out?
Ah, the fifties.
Sith,
Cele

Happy Birthday, Psam!

Apparently it drives her crazy when I call and sing Happy Birthday to her. Well, I don’t sing Happy Birthday, I sing the Birthday Cake Polka - replete with my own lyrics, because I learned the song when I was five, and that was a very, very long time ago.

My baby turned 4 and 30 years today. The Olympics also started today. When Psam was born I had her name all planned out, I knew from the moment I found out I was pregnant that I was having a girl. I worked out a series of names, clashed with her father on potential monikers and we decided to split the difference. If she was a girl I’d name her if she was a boy, it was his call. There are things a mom just knows… her future name was apparently not one of them.

That February night 1976 I lay in the hospital bed watching the Olympics and really not sure what I would name her… and then a German Downhill (or maybe it was Slalom) with a name I’d never heard before hit the slopes and my tv screen in that small Florence hospital room and she had a new name. Sheesh if I’d seen Ryan’s Hope by then she’d have been named Siobhan.

My life has been made forever better with the birth of my daughter. She has been there through thick and thin. Shared my trials and traumas and shared some of her own with me. I cannot imagine life with out my beautiful little girl.

Now she has her own ray of light and joy… and I’m blessed she shares her Burp with me. Happy Birthday Psam… and thank you.

Love with all that I am,
Mom

Talk Thursday: Spinm

Several news items laid the seeds of this week’s topic, beginning with the arrest of 10 Baptist Missionaries trying to – excuse me, regardless of what they call it, it was – kidnap 33 Haitian children on January 29th. Yes, I realize their intent was good, but really how would they feel if a bunch of Haitians came into Idaho and took kids to say B.C.? They would be outraged. I was pretty disgusted at their arrogance, but even more appalled when someone in the group said, “We expect God’s will to be done and we will be released.”

Excuse me? Next I expect Oral Roberts to rise up and say God sent me back to raise that 3 million dollars. Baptist aren’t among my favorite revivalist, this just pissed me off more, the arrogance. Yes, they were trying to do-good, but respect the law, respect territory, and don’t think you are better just because. Yes I realize they will be released, if the devastation had been less, I doubt they’d have their freedom.

Now I hear that Elizabeth Edwards is suing Andrew Young for the demise of her marriage. But she won’t sue if he donates $200K to her foundation. I had some respect for this woman, before, now none. Why? Her husband is the one who had the affair, yes the lackey lied about his role – hmmm her husband’s lie was bigger. Her husband and his “videographer” had not just an affair, but also a child together. Should I go into all the wrong things with the “videographer”? Maybe later, because there is plenty, but excuse me lay blame where blame rightfully lay. Second, can we say EXTORTION? WTF gives her the right to extort money from a liar that isn’t her husband. I say take John Edwards to the cleaners, and don’t blame someone else for his faults.

Spin, Crap in the media we deal with spin everyday, says the woman in the media. I’m sure I do my share of spinning, especially when you consider I like to have a silver lining come out of all things negative. But I watch what is happening nationally and I shake my head in mind numbing amazement. We live in a two party system, as an independent it is a system I am increasingly at odds with. The Republicans won’t play bipartisan, claiming two elections and a defection shows the people are fed up. The Democrats claim they have the pulse of Americans and will pass health care reform. I believe health care reform is a must. But when a political party has to bribe their senators to get on board with the Democratic vision of health care reform, there’s a problem. Earmarks and porkbarrels should not be an option to obtain a vote. When Republicans continually demean, naysay, and talk political smack with out ponying up to the table with a proposed recommendation or solution I say BS. Both parties blame the other guy never owning up to what they are doing wrong or failing to do. My question, “When does this become about the American people?” Spin that.

This week’s bizarre word wise turn of events comes from singer, songwriter, idiot extraordinaire John Mayer, who in one Playboy interview has managed to upset people past and present in his life and probably a slew of people who were potentially in his future. Why? I don’t think it’s because “He’s John Mayer” I think it’s because he’s a tunnel visioned ignorant idiot. And I’m waiting to see how he’s going to spin this. He has begun by apologizing profusely to the people he’s verbally abused and offended. My mom always said, “If you don’t have something nice to say, keep it to yourself,” John you should have taken a note from my mom. I guess he’s really not, Waiting For The World To Change. I figure he didn’t think he was saying anything wrong until the firestorm erupted burning the walls of the microcosm that is his belief and value system.

The thoughts above are the opinions of the management and sounded coherent in my head, I hope they make you stop and go hmmmm.

Sith,
Cele

A New Month - and oh, It's Ground Hog Day

Or that is Marmot day if you are a lucky Alaskan. BTW, Phil saw his shadow in Punsxatawny, so Pennsylvannia gets six more weeks of winter. Buckeye Chuck did not see his shadow, Ohio is joyous an early spring is on it's way, as it is in New York, Wisconsin, and Georgia. BTW the Marmot is just happy Palin's not governor anymore.

A long time friend of mine apparently has had enough of spam-mail and sent me this warning. I thought it totally fitting for Ground Hog Day.

Greetings,
I just want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed in the head now and have little chance of recovery.

I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel or have them put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel...I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking ones nose (although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot).

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of Trans fats and calories I have consumed over the years.

I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.

I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St Theresa's Novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually pumped with hormones and will make me fat with huge boobs.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

THANKS TO YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.

I no longer use Saran Wrap or plastic containers in the microwave because it causes cancer.

AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face.. Disfiguring me for life..I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer eat toast at all as im terrified i will burn it and get cancer.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan ...I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

THANKS TO YOU I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

OH, AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies!

I can't do any gardening because I'm afraid I'll get bitten by the brown recluse and my hand will fall off. And I now keep my toothbrush in the living room, because water splashes over 6 ft. out of the commode.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. Tomorrow afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbors' ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician . . .

Oh, by the way..... A German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse...

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

I'm figuring spammail was brought to us by the wonderful fearmongers of the RNC, who bring us their normal daily crap as well.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Long Time Gone

Warning - self indulgent post ahead

The older you get, okay let me rephrase that; the older I get the more I think about the moments of my past. And yes there are a lot of regrets. I regret I wasn’t a better daughter. I regret I wasn’t a better mother. I regret I’m not Super Woman who can balance both family needs and job demands seamlessly. I’m not sure Super Woman exist; I based my vision of Super Mom on my mother. And while she was everything I aspired to be, she didn’t have a full time job outside the home. So I have endlessly battered my head against that brick wall of comparison and fallen short.

What I do not regret are my three husbands. Why? From each I have garnered invaluable lessons. From ex-husband one came the lesson that I am strong enough, that I can endure, that I can over come, that I am a survivor. Yes, you are going to argue that I also have a fine daughter from husband one, but puuuulllllleeeease remember I was pregnant when I got married. Ergo, the wedding didn’t have to happen for me to have a great kid. But then I’d have missed out on other things as well. Marriage to husband one has been a long time over, having divorced in 1978. Wow, how often do you get to say in your life, I remember thirty years ago.

From husband number two came several realizations. First you can make yourself into what a man wants, and it won’t be enough – or it wasn’t what he really wanted in the first place – joke’s on me. You can lie to yourself, work to make everything right, and it won’t be enough by a long shot – stupid me. You (okay, yes I – but I hate using the word I all the time) can give yourself over to a man and a marriage and it will blow up in your face – I’m sure idiot was marked on my forehead in invisible ink somewhere.

This isn’t to say I didn’t have my problems too. My family suffered from my PMS, and before you think I’m making this up -a few PMS facts (Google it.) I was diagnosed with PMS in the late ‘80s. This is what I learned. 75% of women on the face of this earth suffer PMS in one form or another – for up to three weeks a month, twelve months a year through out their child bearing years. It can be physical symptoms – bloating, headaches, breast tenderness, acne, weight gain, and let’s not forget cramps. And those are just a few of the physical symptoms. It can be psychological symptoms (this is where the fun comes in) as many as 50-60% of women with severe PMS have an underlying psychiatric disorder (premenstrual dysphoric disorder). Or it can be both. Oh us lucky women.

Ten percent of the world’s women stricken with PMS are either suicidal or homicidal.

Aren’t we just lucky? Now consider the luck of my family. I usually just suffered the physical symptoms. But for about five years running my family suffered the psychological symptoms approximately once a year. In late August or early September just at the onset of ex-husband’s nine month hunting season. Nine months. I know, you think I exaggerate, but I was married to a bow hunter – September to May he was gone scouting, hunting, tracking – Long, long, time gone. I would explode. Go literally insane – screaming, rant, rail, everything short of my head spinning and me puking green Jello. Don’t believe me, ask Psam.

Now you might say, no wonder he went hunting nine months out of the year. I will fire back, that my PMS didn’t come into play until several years into this scenario, and totally disappeared with our divorce. Well, not true, it reoccurred with one short-term boyfriend’s incessant jealousy and idiotic acts of domination. My PMS ended with a good diet, exercise, and better men in my life.

While it took me decades to get over my divorce from ex-husband number two I learned I don’t need a man in my life. I will not be a doormat anymore. And more importantly I learned the extent that I went in my life to keep him around and that you can’t make a self-indulgent superficial person happy, whose not happy from within in the first place.

From Ducky I’ve learned I can be loved for being me. That my laughter is the best response, but I’m more than willing to yell back these days. That he really is my best friend and partner - That I am loved.

Years ago I had my numbers done. A long time student of astrology I knew a bit about myself (I don’t believe in horoscopes – I do like the power and insights of natal charts.) But I learned several new insights from my numbers. Maybe the most important was my life lessons. I need to conquer anger. While I’m only at the middle years of my life, I think I’m learning that lesson as well as the ones life is teaching me.

Isn’t it amazingly sad that it takes a lifetime to learn the most important lessons? While we are born with the tools to learn, we are not equipped with a roadmap to mental health, physical well being, and a divining rod to take us to the people who are right for us – friends, family, employers the first time. But if we weren’t learning our lessons the entire time why would we be here? Life is learning – when I quit learning please scatter my ashes to the wind at the water line of my Pacific.

In these years a long time gone, I have learned that I am amazingly blessed.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Superstitious

Athletes are considered (blind, blanket indictment) the most superstitious people in the world. If you doubt that take a look at David Wells game day cap. One Cleveland Indians player was so fanatical about being touched that the umpires literally halted a game to tell the Yankee players to quit touching him. Crap, even playing Farkle I won’t roll after hitting 300 if one of my two or three dice comes up a six – but that’s just common sense.

For the most part I’m not superstitious or at least I wasn’t before football. I have no fear of Friday the thirteenth (but I do harbor distrust of Saturday the fourteenth.) I understand black cats are popular familiars. Cracks in sidewalks happen over time (or from earthquakes, large trucks coming to a stop where no truck was meant to drive, or from tree roots.) Rings around the sun and the moon are caused by moisture in the atmosphere; “blood on the moon” is caused by pollutants in the atmosphere (so maybe the death superstition thingie has a shred of truth.) Itchy fingers or palm to me means I’m about to pop a blood vessel. Mirrors break frequently without the end of all things good as we know it. What rabbit’s foot was lucky for the rabbit? And, while I wasn’t born in October I adore opals (okay my rising sign is Libra but I don’t think that really counts, despite what I tell my mother.) So there!

But let my Ducks wear white helmets on to the football field and crap they are doomed. They started the season with a loss in white helmets and no one believed me. I have become much more believable since the Rosebowl. I prefer that my Ducks not score first, especially if said score is a field goal. Crap, talk about doomed. Oregon needs to suck it up and follow a few superstitions before game day.
1) Sacrifice the opposing team’s mascot to appease the football gods.
2) Eat chicken before hitting the gridiron.
3) Walk the warning track seven times counter-clockwize on game day.
4) And, never, under any circumstances talk arrogant smack – that’s just asking to be jinxed. (That and the whole pride goes before the fall thingie.)

And, finally - Yes, I believe in the pie god. Hell, I enjoy crop circles too, call me loony.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Ambiguity

Late and out of order, my apologies.

2010 – has become my year of setting the record straight. I am completely fed up with mass emailings from “Friends” filled with the latest recycled lies. I’m usually all for recycling, but really people get a life, get a clue, get out of my life.

Several weeks ago a “friend” sent me an email filled with a bunch of crap. Sadly, I have long deleted the email and my reply, complete with the truth and links where they can find the supporting stats to support my “facts”. I then sent email out to not just the idiot who sent it to me, but also to the other fifty or so people he’d mass mailed to. I actually got one thank you back. Whoa, dude. Delusional, I thought that was it.

Then about a week later a “friend” sent me a mass emailing filled with crap about President Barack Obama. I’m now on a mission. It took me, maybe, fifteen minutes to find the information I needed before mass emailing back to her and those she’d massed mailed. This time I kept my emails just for this post.

Please, note the link to Snopes at the bottom of her post, I love how all the bad emails encourage you to check it, but none ever do or they’d have not sent the email (maybe) in the first place. Idiots. And I’m tired of being told I’m not a Christian, because I disagree with Pat Boone and his tribe of Uber Christian Sheep.

I am a Christian (Quaker by choice, raised Presbyterian). Which leads me to sorrow that I didn’t ask her why in this case bearing false witness is an acceptable Christian action – en mass?

Here is my reply –

From: Cele [mailto:cele@celebrindal.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:22 AM
To: Rabid Uber Christian
Subject: Re: The President Without A Country. 6

Rabid Uber Christian,

I don't know if the truth about the following makes a difference to you, it certainly does to me. So, annoyed as hell at getting these emails (from many sources) spewing half truths and lies I've decided to wage my own truth campaign. Please keep reading. If you want more information
about the truth, check out FactCheck.org it is a non profit, non partisan fact check organization. Then go to snopes.com - the website that is posted at the bottom (of your original email) for verification about what I am posting as the truth.

In each case the quote was either misquoted or taken out of context and cannot stand as presented by Pat Boone. I can deal with the fact that many Americans don't like our current president enough to give him a chance (gosh at least more than 365 days) but really hatred should be based of fact not blind ignorance – or worse, ignorance by design and
choice.

Pat Boone's commentary shouldn't be read by anyone, unless they are studying how to twist or omit words in a campaign of deceit and lies.

Cele

Note: The following addresses only Mr. Boone’s misrepresentation of President Obama comments, the actual editorial from Pat Boone has been redacted, but can be found online at World Daily Net. The Snopes link only validates the attributions of the editorial as being from Pat Boone, but can find no documentation validating his claims. Words in bold below are Pat Boone's or misquotes from his email - aka - his first post at some news blog.

The President Without A Country
By Pat Boone

"We're no longer a Christian nation." - President barack obama, June 2009

What the president said was this...
Obama, June 28, 2006 (prepared remarks): Given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
Fact Check

"America has been arrogant." - President barack obama
What the president said was this...
Mr Obama said: "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. "Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."
Telegraph

"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals."- President barack obama
What the president said was this...
"And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year."
Huffington Post

"You might say that America is a Muslim nation."- President barack obama, Egypt 2009
What the president said in an interview with a French journalist was this...
"Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there's got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples."
Fact Check

Thinking about these and other statements made by the man who wears the title of president. I keep wondering what country he believes he's president of.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/patboone.asp

Here’s Rabid Uber Christian’s reply,

----- Original Message -----
From: Rabid Uber Christian
To: Cele
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 11:05 AM
Subject: RE: The President Without A Country.

With or without Pat Boone's commentary, I have felt that our president is leaning towards a one world government. I can not quote a direct comment, only that I feel he is not the patriot that I was taught to be. I have fiercely loved America since I was a grade schooler. In Obama's early schooling he wasn't even in the United States. Time will tell us what his plan is. In the mean time, I will respect his office as president in this great nation (Christian).
I do realize that the internet is a cesspool of miss information.
Wishes for a great new year.
Rabid Uber Christian (yes I was nice to remove her name)
P.S. I didn't mean to step on toes


I love that she has a problem because he wasn’t even in the United State when he was in early schooling. She on the other hand has no qualms nor questioning her vote for a man who was born in Panama (which she shouldn't, but really fair is fair when questioning in ignorance) and a woman who is an international policy expert because she thinks she can see Russia from her house. (The distance from Wasilla, in southern Alaska and Russia is 749.963 miles.) Good eyesight. I on the other hand can not see Russia it is over 3,000 miles away and my vision gets blurry.

God bless the blind ignorant Uber idiots of this world (Christian, Pagan, of Self-Righteous,) because they need all the help they can get. This is my war for 2010.

Cele

Talk Thursday: Favorite Proverb

My husband is a worrywart, the wet mud hen of western civilization as we know it. When Psam and Misery were dating he’d make their dates come in the first (and usually only) time stand up, turn around and then ask them to pull up their pants and if they had gang aspirations or a current affiliation? Then he’d promise to kick the ass of the hick-in- the-sticks- wanna-be-a- gangbanger if he EVER hurt his daughter. The Standonthegrass family traditional meet and greet date inspection grill service usually ended something like this…

“Be home by 9:45, and don’t date with hard candy in your mouth.”

Psam and Misery would go camping in the dunes with the admonition to not camp with hard candy in their mouth. Going to the movies, is it R-Rated? Lots of blood guts, and violent mauling? Good, don’t watch the movie with hard candy your mouth. And anything I do, you got it, no hard candy.

“Honey, I’m driving to the store.”
“Don’t drive with hard candy in your mouth.”

“Do you have laundry hidden any where? This is my final load”
“No, you’re not doing laundry with hard candy in your mouth are you?”

And the hot-tub and hard candy – fuggitaboutit.

Sadly this is not the only twisted proverb my family lives by. Ducky and Burp abide by the time old male standard, “if it’s not in front we don’t have it.” For years I thought it was just Ducky – I mean really folks after eighteen years he has just come to realize that soy sauce and syrup go in the cupboard, taco sauce goes in the fridge. In the fridge everything goes in the door or in the front, because God forbid it gets hidden behind something and we run out. He has literally failed to see the milk container because it was “hidden” behind a lunch bag. No I’m not talking a quart container, I’m referring to the large, white, they say you can recycle it but do they really? gallon container with the bright green lid. If it’s not in the front, we don’t have it.

Cupboard space in my kitchen is probably standard, but I feel it’s limited. A cause not aided by my ability to pack rat away hundreds lunchmeat containers and gallon upon gallons of plastic water bottles. He has no clue because they are all stored in nice neat towers behind the boxes of lunch bags, Saranwrap, and tinfoil. I cleaned out the cupboards last weekend in a winter cleaning frenzy. I had boxes of old vases (I recycled back to my florist), trash bags of filled with liter water bottles and Reynolds stackable containers that his lunchmeats come in. And boxes of baking tins, like the angel-food cake mold I have never used, to take to the Salvation Army. He was pretty boggled trying to figure out why I’d want to keep that stuff and where did it come from?

No, honey I regained acres of lower kitchen shelf space, by cleaning out the cupboards. But he will never know where his extra commuter cups are, because they aren’t in the front – so we don’t have any.

Sith,
Cele