Unraptured weekend

So here we are ... we all made it!  No Rapture this past weekend.

The Professor thought on Rapture Day it would be cool to hang out downtown Philly at the Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival.  He figured (not me), what better way to go than partying down with a few zillion billion people. 

So not my kind of party.  But I was a good sport, even though I hinted that it may be very crowded. 

 I don't like crowds.  I mean, I really don't like crowds.  My two biggest dislikes in life are crowds and waiting in line.  I would have much preferred hanging out inside the Apple store ... see it, right across the street from me.  So close and yet .... I said nothing.

I didn't complain as The Professor weaved me through the crowds so he could get some food like this.

Actually, this crab cake was quite good.  As good as his Aunt Treva's.

Afterwards, though, we needed something to wash it down.  After pushing our way through more crowds, we came to this wine booth.  Now, that had my attention.

But The Professor was told that they were not selling wine by the glass, but wine tasting.  Okay.  Okay.  I could handle that.  Just head around the corner and buy a ticket.  Which we did but quickly changed our minds.  The line was about 100 people long.

I wasn't that thirsty.

We wandered around a bit more and The Professor took pity on me and suggested I wait in the park while he found us some drinks.  He's sweet that way.

So I waited and took lots of pictures.

 

This young boy's face pretty much summarized my feelings about crowds and lines.

After The Professor got back with our overpriced drinks, he decided he had enough and we headed home.

Sunday came with no Rapture, so The Professor and my daughter stuck with their plans to run in a local 5k.

More crowds.  But I went with no complaining.  Cause I'm nice that way.  Well ... sometimes.  Anyway, it was my daughter's first 5k.  Her mama had to be there to cheer her on!

At least this time when I got thirsty waiting around, there were no lines for drinks since most of the folks were running.  That made me smile!

After the race, everyone had beer and sandwiches.  Not a bad crowd at all.  Of course, beer can make many things tolerable.

I heard the radio evangelist was "flabbegasted" that the Rapture did not not arrive as predicted and that "it had been a really tough weekend."

Really?

No ...  the world did not come to an end but for some folks in Joplin, Missouri, I'm sure it feels like it did.  Thinking of you Joplin and sending good thoughts and hopes your way.

I'm glad I didn't complain to The Professor over the weekend's events.  Life can turn on a dime.

: : :

Reflections

When it's over, 

I want to say: 

all my life

I was a bride 

married to amazement. 

I was the bridegroom, 

taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, 

I don't want to wonder 

if I have made of my life 

something particular, 

and real. 

I don't want to find myself 

sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument. 

I don't want to end up simply 

having visited 

this world.

— Mary Oliver, When Death Comes

George Carlin & Me: Guiltless

I love George Carlin.

As a ninth grade dropout, he had a prolific 50-year career—which included 130 Tonight Show appearances, 23 albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, and one Supreme Court case.

That’s a lot of writing material.  Probably his best comedy was earlier than later.  But so what?   Even the later stuff is better than any comedians we have out there right now.  Jon Stewart and Robin Williams may come close, but still no match for Carlin.

Controversial? 

Yes.

But aren’t all hidden truths controversial?

Speaking of hidden truths, here is one of mine:

I don’t do guilt.

I probably have done many things in my life that I should feel guilty about. 

But I don’t.

Waste of time. 

Feeling guilty  =  feeling bad. 

And WHY would I want to feel bad??

Nope.  At 58, I can’t afford it.  Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years are speeding by like Haley's Comet.

So I'm not wasting any time feeling guilty or bad about something that I did or didn’t do because someone thinks I should or shouldn’t have done it differently.

It’s done.  I’m over it.  Move on.

So, dear friends, I don't waste my time feeling guilty about ....

... being on a sunny island when it is bejeezus cold back home
... drinking a Bloody Mary before noon
... being environmentally unfriendly on occasion
... not making my bed some mornings
... having had a higher salary than my ex
... skipping my morning exercise
... eating all the carmels in a box of chocolates
... leaving one sheet of toilet paper on the roll
... leaving my 5 year old to get on the bus by herself (don't judge, she's 23 now, she survived)
... divorcing my kids dad (BIG time no guilt here!)
... moving my kids around the country upteen times
... drinking wine, lots of wine
... taking time for me for no reason
... eating pickled pigs feet when I was a kid
... speaking the truth when others don’t want to hear it
... leaving my kids at home without a babysitter (the house didn't burn down nor injuries sustained)
... being right all the time *snort*
... making you read another list


“Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county, to a foreign country, but not to where the quilt is.”

Thank you George Carlin.

I miss you.  The comedy world is a bit less funny without you.

missing the mom gene

15 Lessons Learned

As we tumble through life, along the way we gather and collect, somewhat unconsciously, life lessons that we have learned.  Some are small, inconsequential, and some are so cosmic that they change the course of our life.  Sometimes for the good, sometimes not so good.  But isn't that the mystery that keeps us rolling along? 

Here's a few of my life lessons. 

So far anyway. 

I anticipate I have many more to encounter! 

How about you?

15 Lessons I Have Learned

... that you really can get skin cancer from the sun

... love can be lost

... people aren’t always necessarily kind or honest

... life does get better after 50

... kids will grow up at their own rate

... grandparenting is much better than parenting

... everyone deserves a second chance

... words can damage the heart

... life never happens exactly as you plan it

... cough syrup doesn’t work

... forgiving does not always come easily

... stretching feels good

... the grapefruit diet doesn't work either

... never stand in the middle of a highway

... choices are within our grasp, we only have to reach out


Still learning,
missing the mom gene

PostSecret Thought

Happy Wednesday,

missing the mom gene

I Do Not Dream of Faraway Places

A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place.  A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse below and dreams of home. ~Robert Brault

As a kid, I was not much of a dreamer of traveling to faraway places.  Up until my late twenties, the only places that I had traveled outside of Iowa was a road trip out west when I was 10 and a couple of high school field trips to Chicago.

Compared to today's standards of travel, my exposure to the world when I was young was very modest.  We were not a family of means, nor big dreamers.  Just farmers, small town folks, living on the salary of the menfolk who scraped out a living either from the land or other menial labor.  Travels on planes or trains or to large cities were for wealthy people.  Not us.

So I did not dream of faraway places. 

Even on the road trip out west, from the backseat of the car with my grandmother, I barely lifted my eyes from the pages of my books as we drove through mountains and canyons.  My grandmother would frequently chastise me for not viewing the countryside as we passed, even taking away my books as we drove through the Grand Canyon.  A spectacular sight that I found boring and uninteresting compared to the words in my book.  My disinterest so frustrated her.

Sorry Grandma Murry.

Of course, now as an adult, I more than understand her attempt to broaden my scope of the world beyond our little Iowa farm.  But back then, I had no interest. 

I don't know why.

I suppose the words in books brought the outside world to me.  I lost myself in between the pages to whatever adventure lied within.  Even though our lives were not filled with riches or travel or excitement, it did not matter.  All of that could be found in a book.

So I did not dream of faraway places.

I simply read.

Today, I have returned home after being away for a week.  From my writing desk window, I occasionally see planes fly high above me.  I imagine families and friends excited about their destinations.  Kids fidgety and fighting and crying.  I also think of the business traveler who is saddened to have left their families that morning, missing a ball practice or school play later in the day.

Over the last three decades of my life, I have had the good fortune to have traveled across the U.S. and to far away places across the seas.  I have seen ancient ruins and rain forests, been on safaris and sailed the ocean.

But never a site fills my heart with such warmth and glee, as when my eyes set upon my home.

I still do not dream of faraway places.

Instead, I write of faraway places within my stories, hoping to mesmerize the reader, as I had been in my youth, when grand canyons pass by.

Thanks for stopping by,
missing the mom gene

Ma Bell No Friend of Mine

Grandson:  Nana, your phone is ringing.

Me:  Yes, I hear it.

Grandson:  Aren’t you going to answer it?

Me:  Nope.

Grandson:  Why not?

Me:  Cause if they have something say to me, they can leave me a message.

Grandson:  I can answer it for you.

Me:  Nope, that’s okay.

Grandson:  (Looking very troubled that no one was picking up the phone.) But what if they don’t leave a message?

Me:  Well, I guess it wasn’t important, was it?


This exchange with my grandson reminds me of the old story of the Maine storekeeper who was the last one in town to get one of those newfangled telephones. When a long-time friend and customer heard it ringing, and the storekeeper continued their conversation, the customer finally asked if the storekeeper was going to answer it. The reply: "I put it in for my convenience, not theirs."

Hmmm.  I am so not alone in the world!

It is a well known fact in my family that I won’t answer the phone.   House phone or cell phone, I let them ring their way to voice mail.  I figure, if they have something to tell me, they can leave me a message.  No need for me to interrupt what I’m doing at the moment.  I’ll call back ... eventually.

You might say I have some sort of phone aversion.

When my kids call, I let it go to voice mail.  And unfortunately, sometimes it can take me days to call back.  I forget.  Bad me.

Needless to say, that makes me very unpopular with them.

My friends primarily don’t phone.  They just email.  Or send me postcards.

I really like postcards.

But there is one person whose calls I DO take.  And that is The Professor’s. 

I kind of want to stay in his good graces.

He leaves me little love notes.

He brings me coffee in the morning.

And fixes my grapefruit.

And rubs my feet.

And takes all those calls that I won’t.

So there will be no sending him to voice mail.

Because he may just stop taking MY calls.

And then where would I be?

All alone in the world.

Singing to him like When Harry Met Sally

"Call me, don't be afraid, you can call me,

Maybe it's late but just call me -

Tell me and I'll be around."

So not me!

Especially on the phone!  Aack!


missing the mom gene (and missing the phone talking gene)

I Beg Your Pardon, I Never Promised You ... Life Was Fair

Last evening I was semi-watching an old Law & Order episode with Carol Burnett while multitasking between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and emails, when Burnett turns to her doctor after learning that she's dying and says,  "No one ever said that life was fair, only that it was eventful."

One more time. 

No one ever said life was fair, only that it was eventful.

Whoa!  Beam me up Scottie!

When I was a kid, my parent’s often-used phrase “Life’s not fair” was tossed back at my brother and I whenever we whined about some unjustness,  “But that’s not fair!  Why did she ..?  What about me...?”

I hated it when my parents said, “Life’s not fair.”  Of course, when I  grew older, I understood.  Life sometimes is unfair.  And like my parents, when my own children echoed those same words to me, I simply replied with the standard, “Sorry, but life’s not fair.”

But somewhere there has been a shift in our society.  It seems wherever I turn, there is a concern about fairness.   Equal opportunity seems old fashioned.  Nowadays, people want equal outcome.

And why wouldn’t they?  Think about it.  Little League tournaments?  Everyone gets a trophy.  Spelling Bee contests?  Everyone wins a prize for participating.  Birthday parties?  Gifts for all attendees. 

Wow!  Imagine when you were a kid, all you had to do was show up, and you would win a trophy, receive an award or be handed a present. 

But what would have been the incentive to work harder, to strive for more, to desire success, if one was awarded a prize that was equal to everyone else?

I’m intrigued when I observe parents trying to make everything fair for their children, creating within them a sense of entitlement.   I’m afraid we are doing them a disservice.

Because simply, there is no fairness in life.

You work 14 hour days and the guy who takes 3 hour lunches gets the promotion.

You never smoked a day in your life, but you discover you have lung cancer.

Your husband, who you have supported and cared for during his illness, leaves you for a colleague after 30 years of marriage.

Good things will not necessarily happen to good people. 

Hard work doesn’t always bring success, but pride in a job well-done is priceless.

Healthy habits don’t guarantee good health, but feeling good about your choices builds self-esteem.

And giving your love away doesn’t guarantee it will be returned, but nothing is as joyous as moments of selfless love.

Life isn't fair.   We can not make it equal for all, and it’s not clear that we should.  Compassion, yes.  Equal opportunity, absolutely.  Equal outcomes?  Sorry.  To teach otherwise is, well....... Unfair.

And now, thank you Carol Burnett, I have a new phrase whenever someone tells me “Life is unfair.”

Yes, it is!

But it sure is eventful!

And it is what we make of those events that count.  Not the things we have nor the things we obtain.

Really now, isn’t that the beauty of it all?

Eventfully yours,
missing the mom gene

Forever Changed

Memories come to us sometimes, not in full sentences, but in images or groups of words that hold more meaning than any other narrative.

These words today reflect a memory of when I was four and struck by a car.  I was crossing the blacktop road that sat in front of our small Iowa farmhouse.  My mother, who was only 15 when she married, was on the other side, gazing down the road as my father steered his tractor to a nearby pasture for spring plowing.

Me at age 4 in Cairo, Iowa

When I Reached for Your Hand

I should  have known
you could not be there

when I reached
for your hand

you had already left

freeing yourself
of me
dreaming of another place
and time

I wonder

did you ache 
for what you left behind

or yearn for what
may never come

when I reached for your hand
and it was gone

left alone
I was not afraid

to cross over
to you

on that bright warm
early spring day
with the damp dark earth

beckoning to be split open

from the cold metal
that would carve through
its soft underbelly

not afraid
to reach for you
to call to you

but you would not hear
my cry

you had already left
and went away
to another place
that I was not allowed
to follow

you with your lost
innocence and wonder
and dreams

never to be realized

unaware
of what was left behind

me

who was reaching out
for you to take my hand

me

who was taking
that step
closer
to you

to bring you back
from that place that
stole you
and
left me behind

I reached for your hand
but it was gone

I was unafraid

to cross over
to you

and my life was
forever changed.


missing the mom gene