I don't give a good gorram if you know that I love this music...

I'm quite certain that I have already told you about my first teenybopper crush and my Dad's reaction to that.... mmmm,.... I was, what? 8 or 9 years old..... Bobby Sherman.  A silly kiddie crush,... but totally normal for the time we lived in.... 

It has been a very long time,.... I am listening to a Bobby Sherman playlist  on youtube.....

Easy Come, Easy Go,.... Seattle,.... Jennifer.....  these songs spoke to my young heart, plucking the strings of my innocence....  

It truly was all about the music,... songs telling stories to me, love and heartbreak. Heartache.

It mystified my father,... he could not fathom it. And yet, my father liked the music on that particular album.... 

lalala....."I would feel ten feet tall if you were at my side
There ain't nothing in this world I couldn't do
Kings would give up thrones to be
In love for just one hour like me
And that's the way I'd feel if I had you"

..............

and he told me that it was ok for me to follow my own path:

Listening to these songs again, after so many years.... it strikes me that they are upbeat and cheerful,,... that is not me at all, but I really appreciate these happy tunes....  I am an old soul. Melancholy.  Were it not for the happy, cheerful tune I would be deeply depressed... 

Anyway, I am finding it very pleasant to listen to Bobby Sherman again after letting far too much time go by.....

Hey Bobby! I miss you.... you still have a special little corner of my little heart after all these years....

fyi: my taste in music is eclectic,... a very wide range.... from Bobby Sherman to Pink Floyd,.... Jim Morrison, Van Morrison, The Beatles, Ted Nugent, and yes, even David Cassidy.....

have a happy, sunshiny day!!!  bada dada da da......badadada................

sweet gingerbread man..... fresh outta the pan.......

Just like momma said it would be....

Exactly.  Of course momma was always right. Nauseatingly so. And now this is a truth that is painful and difficult. 

It is exactly what she told me it would be.  "You are a single woman, and no one will include you. They won't even think of you at all."  She was a prophet, my mother.

...it gently weeps...

I am alone.  I am a singular, solitary soul.  Partially because I do not do well in groups of more than 3 of us.  Avoidance of larger groups may be the problem.  You see, I was an only child,....and, well,...the youngest at the same time.  In other words I came along later in my mother's life, and the other children of the household were grown up and married and having children of their own.  Thus was I the youngest AND also a ONLY CHILD simultaneously.  

I played board games by myself sometimes.  It is a mournful fact that I have experienced a great deal of sadness all of my life, because I have been (and apparently always will be) alone and lonely.

I do not think that anyone who knows me realizes that I am ALL ALONE. The truly sad thing is that no one thinks of me at all, apparently.  No one wonders what I am doing on the weekends, whether I am doing things with other people.  The fact is that, where I live, I do not know anyone.  Yes there are a couple of people who communicate with me, here in the area.  But NO ONE invites me to do things with them.  The ONLY time I spend with "friends" is when I am able to initiate the get together.  It is very hard for me, because I want to spend time with people on a regular basis, like monthly with SOMEONE. 

Yes, I have "family" and they very graciously include me for the three main holidays of the year (Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve).... and the occasional birthday.  So I spend time with them (the people that have come to mean the most to me) perhaps 6 times a year. 

I do not think that anyone can imagine what that is like..... I am actually invited 6 times a year.  The rest of the time I AM ALONE.

THIS IS FOR ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE

Sadly the friends that would willingly spend time with me, and would actually call me to invite me --those folks all live more than 300 miles away..... that is not an easy 300 miles.... were I to make the trip, it would be driving for 6 to 7 hours all alone,... the return trip home (on the very rare occasions I have had the energy and the gumption to make the trip) .....the return trip home is mournful.  When was the last time you cried for 6 hours, as you drove down the highway ALONE?

I am writing this because NO ONE seems to get it.  When I ask for someone to do something special with me ONCE IN 3 OR 5 YEARS and NO ONE will do it.  No one anywhere near me actually wants to spend time with me. How do you think that makes me feel? like I am a horrible, nasty, distasteful person to spend time with.... No one knows how hard it is to live like this.  To know that the ONE TIME I ask for someone, ANYONE, to do something with me, NO ONE will join me, no matter how much it would mean to me......

I have offered to be the "extra adult" when people take children on outings.... to the zoo, to museums, to fall activities....  I would so love that,..what joy it is to see children delight in such activities.... but that is denied me.  (How can I not believe that I am somehow so distasteful to others that they NEVER think to invite me along.... I CAN pay my own way -I am NOT asking for free admission, I AM ONLY ASKING TO BE INVITED ALONG!!  That doesn't even mean that I would accept every invitation.... 

FORGET ALL ABOUT ME NOW, BECAUSE YOU WERE NOT THINKING OF ME TO BEGIN WITH. 

(my sincere apologies to the family who do invite me to the annual holidays and birthdays. I don't know what I would do without you wonderful folks. you know who you are, and I love you.)

Lonely People by America

eavesdropping in the cafe....

first up, a story about four men, sharing a house... none of them wanted to wash the dishes, so they went to garage sales. they purchased sets of dishes on the cheap, and used them as disposable plates........ rather than have to wash the dishes.

second, some young-ish chick, who tried to cash a check at the bank today.  It seems that the teller refused to cash the check because this young lady does not have an equal amount of money in her account.  Common practice, right? except that this young-ish chick "never heard of this" and "it never happened before".  what planet is she living on.....

the rest of us are alone at our tables.... mostly engrossed in various internet pursuits... and a couple of young women are working on homework together.

not crowded on this Friday evening,.. the end of perhaps that last truly warm day we will have in "Illi-consin"....

change arrived on the wind

too late

Change arrived on the wind this morning...
a cold rush of fall air coming in hard from a westerly direction.

I will be visiting a new place in the mornings in coming days....
on this particularly blustery morning I sit once again in a familiar place.
It is a place where I have spent a great deal of this year.
It is warm. It is comfortable. It has become ...familiar.

Change, in fact, has been ongoing for the last fortnight...
I have a familiar now,... the form of a rather large dog.
She is a complication, but perhaps a necessary one.

And I have, in the last quarter year, had to release myself from a longed-for thing.
A place .... I wish I had found, ever in my life.

But life has led me here.

paraskevidekatriaphobia

"triskaidekaphobia" is the fear of the number 13.

"paraskevidekatriaphobia" is the fear of Friday the 13th.

LINK to wikipedia for Friday_the_13th

It's ridiculous.... that said: I have a personal policy.  I NEVER stay home on Friday the 13th.   Not since some time in the early 1980's anyway.  Before that if it was a Friday I was probably in school anyway..... 

I really don't remember the exact year, or month.... but once upon a time, in the early 1980's (yeah, I'm that old, what's it to ya!)   I stayed home on a Friday the 13th.  I may even have asked for the day off from work on purpose,... I really don't remember.  

What I do remember about it, is that things went wrong....  a sink backed up, things were broken.,..... needed items were not taken with when we left the house..... it was, all in all, a very long, very bad day. 

That is when I instituted my policy to always make sure to be at work on Friday the 13th.  And in all these years my Friday the 13ths have been fairly uneventful.  It's a fact.  This year I am a little nervous, because I am not currently employed,... nonetheless, I left the house before 6:00am (it was still dark!),... and I have no intention of going home earlier that 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

One year I sent a fun email, with funny facts about Friday the 13th.... I sent it probably on Wednseday the 11th.... anyway, my much older half-brother decided that he needed to try to rain on my parade.  He replied to my funny Friday the 13th email by crabbing at me about being superstitious....
I let him have it! I was blunt, I told him (in an emailed reply) to not be such a "hard-ass" and see the humor in things.

Anyway, I guess some folks think my policy of always working on Friday the 13th is superstitious all the same.  and you know what? I don't care!!!!   I just know what works for me. 

I laugh at black cats, and have no issues with ladders, or broken mirrors..... just, please, leave your open umbrella outside, and for heaven's sake don't spill any salt!! 

the last child

I am the last child.
A post script.
Unexpected,
but not accident,
actually SURPRISE!

Daddy was thrilled.
Mother less so.
She was older, perhaps wiser,...
it was not an easy time.

I am the youngest child,
and the only child,
simultaneously.

He had 3,
She had 1,
their combined 4 were adults,
by the time I came along.

It was strange,
having older parents.
All of their friends were grandparents,
or nearly so.

I prefer the company of my elders.
I would, frankly, rather talk to your parents...
unless you are older than I.

I was simultaneously an only child and the youngest.

Kitchen Remodel

A friend shared a funny video on facebook this morning,....

never buy a bird larger than you can handle

and that reminded me of a story my mother told me...about how she got a brand new kitchen.

The house we lived in had a very large kitchen/dining combination room. We simply called it 'the kitchen'.  I don't know exactly, but I think that room was at least 25' x 16'.... it was very large, the house was custom built in the 1920's.  I was all part of one large building which comprised the house, large garage, boiler, workshop, and attached to the back were the greenhouses,...large glass warehouse-style buildings in which my father raised hybrid carnations... but that is another story.
The house was built for my father and his first wife (who, sadly, died young).  I have no idea who actually planned that kitchen, who wanted it to be that large,... but it seems like a good idea for a young family, probably thinking they would have a large family, as my father came from a family of ten.  

The setup, as you entered the house from the garage, was that you entered directly in to the dining room end of the kitchen.  It was a large, open space, and at the far end of the room from the entry door was the actual kitchen.  There was a window above the kitchen sink, which allowed the person using that sink to look out to the west, across the driveway, yard, and out to the road.  There was also a window in the dining area that faced the same view.

The kitchen, as I knew it, was comprised of some lovely, handbuilt wooden cabinets as the counter and storage above the counters.  The sink on the west wall, and the stove/oven on the south wall, making an "L" shaped kitchen work area. Uninterrupted counter space, with the stove/oven wedged in between counter areas.  I believe that the trash can was at the end of the counter between kitchen area and dining area (but I could be wrong about that).  Along the east wall of the room, from the entry door in, were first a bathroom, then a bedroom,  and somewhere -perhaps between those 2 rooms was a sideboard.  This made the east side of the kitchen something of a hallway.

At some point, well before I was ever thought of, there was an incident that resulted in the kitchen layout I have described:
My parents were entertaining guests,.. I believe it may actually have been Thanksgiving, because a turkey was involved and they only had turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day.  The guests were in the living room,... a room equally as large as the kitchen, with more of a family room immediately beyond the south kitchen wall, and a formal sitting room area beyond -up to the south wall of the home.

My mother was in the kitchen preparing the turkey.  Here I will admit, that I don't remember every detail of the story, but the turkey must have been coming out of the oven....  My father came to help her move the turkey from the oven to the countertop.  Here is the crucial part,.....  at that time, before the remodel, the trash can was in a space that existed between the stove/oven and the countertop.  (I will surmise that it was not the same stove as when the house was built,... perhaps old gas stoves were much larger than whatever they had at this time.)  

By now, if you could follow all of my blather, you may have guessed where this is going.... the part they laughed about later..... 

The two of them, carefully moving the turkey from stovetop to counter,...lost control of the bird... and it fell,.....
.
.
.
into the trash can!!  
.
.
.
which had a fresh paper sack in it.  Whew!! That was a close one!! At least the trash was empty, with a new bag.  However, my parents were HORRIFIED, and said nothing to their guests, just proceeded with the meal.  (wow! that sounds a lot like the plot of a 1960's sitcom.....*loud thud, "is everything all right in there?"...."yes, sure, everything is, um, ....fine")

The following week they began to plan the new kitchen.....

getting ready for holiday dinner

(Thank you, Michelle, for sharing the "bird too big" video on FB.)

Thai food and neckties and inquiring minds....

I get many of my writing prompts from items I read on social media,... this is one of them...
I was perusing Facebook, just a few minutes ago, and I came across this article from The Onion (1)

Area Mother Doesn’t See Why Thai People Need To Make Food So Spicy 

Someone had commented that their mom pronounced Thai "thigh".... and that sparked a memory.....  
A former coworker of mine asked me one day, "Have you ever tried thigh food?"

I chuckled and said to him, "Mark, it's pronounced tie."

I laughed as he turned to me, incredulous, and asked, "How did you learn that?"
--now here I will mention that Mark is older than I am by a handful of years, and it truly surprised me that he, in fact did not know this.

So, I told him this story:
"when I was about 7 years old,... during the Vietnam War (Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand).... I kept hearing "Thailand" on the tv and radio.  Now, I spent chunks of time alone in the back seat of the car (we went "bumming" a lot, visiting friends and relatives)..... and I pondered many things while riding in the car. So, on a particular day I was pondering Thailand, and neck ties,... in my child's mind trying to see how those 2 things could be connected.  I knew that Thailand was a far away land,... and neckties are pretty, and we knew a man who had traveled the world -who had pretty, hand-painted neckties from some far-away land (Japan actually).  So, I tried putting 2 and 2 together.... 
"Mom, can I ask you a question?"

"Okay, what do you want to ask me?"  

This came totally out of left field as far as my Mom was concerned, "Is Thailand where they make neckties?" --it made perfect sense to my childish mind after all.

"Oh!" I wish I could have seen her face....  and I will always wonder if my Dad was listening to my question at all.

My Mother was big on learning and reading, and she had a fairly decent library at home,... so, of course, we learned somethings.  I do not recall exactly what was said,.... but I recall that in her answer she was amused by my idea.  "No, neckties do not come from Thailand".

a reasonable representation of the patterns of neckties my father owned

I can recall sitting in the back seat, a little disappointed that neckties did not grow on trees in Thailand, nor are there huge warehouses full of Asian women (which is really what my innocent mind pictured) with sewing machines, carefully sewing neckties in mass production for men all over the world.

Even though I do not have a recollection of what transpired after my question, I know that we looked in some books. (2) I know that an Atlas of the World was laid out on a table in our home. We looked at Southeast Asia,... perhaps we even perused an older World Atlas and found that Thailand was previously known as Siam (3).  

Anyway, at 7, I was fast approaching the age where I paid attention and heard everything, and began to understand things.  That the world is not just families, happily living near each other, and spending long amounts of time with each other.  The world is not comprised of families who "go bumming", which was my father's particular lingo for "let's go visit someone, I have not yet decided which direction we will go".  

I had started to become aware of a world outside of my little bubble of existence.... and that will be another blog post for another day.....

Thai restaurants were new to the area when Mark asked me whether I had ever had "thigh" food.

References:
(1)The Onion is an American digital media company and news satire organization that publishes articles on international, national, and local news

(2) Regarding books in our home I refer you to a previous blog entry:  
Books Are In My Soul (March 13, 2017)

(3) Siam officially renamed Thailand

Do not mourn, rejoice, for the believer is reborn...

Loss.
Loss is hard.
Loss of a parent can be crushing.
Loss of a person who cared for you, with tenderness, leaving you with the fondest of memories etched into your soul,... that is almost a burden. It should not be.

What is sometimes hard for people is just to focus on the best of times. 
Remember the love and the laughter.  
Remember the tender moments when they touched you deeply.

If you were old enough to have such memories, consider the good fortune of that.  If, when the beloved person passed, you truly understood what it meant, then you are lucky. 

My mother could be described as a "life partner" of mine.  My father died when I was kid, so for a time it was just her and I.  We lived in the same house until I was a young adult, in my twenties.  We lived apart for three or four years, and when my "step"father died, my mom came to live at my house.  We were together again, partners in crime, for more than a decade.  Two adults, we became friends, above being mother and daughter; friends who shared so many things.  And yet, when she died I was not sad for more than a few hours. Allow me to explain:

You see, my mother was not afraid of death.  She was a believer. Her faith was strong. When she died she would go to The Lord. She loved her God, and knew that He loved her, as He loves all of his children.  

When I saw her, still in her bed, in the nursing home.... she looked serene. There was a hint of a smile at her lips.  How could I be sad?  I knew that it was like I told her: when God's angels came for her she went with them.  I had to rejoice for her! She was happy to be with God, in His heaven.  

It felt odd, in a way, to be joyous in that time. But I had signs from her,... I saw the monarch butterflies, in gardens, and I knew that she was happy in a glorious place.  I was so grateful for her strong faith, and for her release from the terrible illness that she suffered. (Alzheimer's Disease)

All these years, since her death, I have told only a handful of people that I was euphoric for months afterward.  I have come to believe that she was with me that entire time, making sure that I found the strength to carry on.... and to never forget her belief, her faith...., and that I had the good memories to carry me through.... and to always honor her wish that there be no mourning...thus the photo, near the top of this blog,..when I see that I feel her presence... she did not write it, but they are her words, her thoughts.....

in autumn

My heart sings in autumn.

A time of endings… closure…

Bright colors. Cool temperatures.

Warm sunlight, comfy sweatshirt 
  and blue jeans.

In autumn my heart sings.









My heart sings in autumn

Color and sunshine

In autumn my heart sings

Given Names and gender and stereotypes

What's in a name.....

Recently a friend of mine got all hung up on the name of a dog....  In her mind Casey is a male name.  I guess she did not follow the Facebook posts of the woman the dog belonged to.... I knew that Casey was female.  I never really thought about the dog's name.... when I was a kid I had a girl doll, a friend of Barbie, whose name was Casey. And I mean that the doll was packaged and sold as "Casey". (Casey was my favorite Barbie doll.)  I have a female relative named Kasey.

I have a female relative named Terri. The first time my parents met a boy named Terry they were taken aback.  In my parents era people more often chose given names out of The Bible for their children, or reused the given name of a relative.  I myself have posed the question more than once or twice: "what ever happened to Mary and Jane and Carol?"  To my dad, if he did not know a child's name, all boys were Butch and all girls were Susie, and that was forgotten after they introduced themselves.

baby names that work equally for girl or for boy -- there are names missing from the list on the website.... what about Stacey/Stacy,...   I went to school with a girl named Stacey,..so I thought that was only a girl name until I heard of actor Stacy Keach......

I have a friend named Dale, a woman,.... wasn't Dale another one of Barbie's friends? Dale Evans was the wife of Roy Rogers.

People, especially the older generations, get hung up on given names.  And rightly so, because now days you really don't know by the given name if you are going to find a female or a male.  I mean Brooklyn (you're thinking 'girl' right?) , and if you've even been to Brooklyn -why?  The same for Dakota (thinking 'boy'? guess again), which I think would be a great name for an Alaskan Husky or a Malamute, and have you been to the Dakotas? 

DAKOTA Fanning     and      BROOKLYN Beckham

Ranker.com will give you a list of famous people with whatever name you are curious about.


When I was young there was a Neil Diamond song I really liked,..it was Desiree.... great song..... but I commented to my mother that "if I have a daughter I'm going to name her Desiree."  To which my mother replied, "No you won't." ....and Mom was right, because a year later my favorite names were Sarah and Michael, and I would not have dreamed of using Desiree for anything other than a middle name. 

The point, though, is that in this day and age we must let go of every type of stereotyping and antiquated thought when it comes to names.  Actually naming stereotypes should never have existed t to begin with, because there are millions of people on the planet, and everyone has their own ideas of what names should be given to girls or boys or human beings.

Personally, I would like to see a return to names from the early 1900s.... Emma, Helen, Lillian, Augustus, Charles, Frederick.  What, I ask you, is wrong with those perfectly lovely names?





This is Casey, the mellow old girl: