Saturday, February 5, 2011

24 hour blog - hour 13 irrational fears

i have 2 irrational fears...probablt you could consider them very closely related.  i have an irrational fear of papercuts.  I also have this fear of someone standing in front of me, whilst folding paper.  you know where a person is STANDING RIGHT THERE AND HE FOLDS A PIECE OF PAPER IN HALF AND THEN VERY SLOWLY PRESSES DOWN THE FOLD!

omigod.  its gross just typing it.

shudder

i also kind of fear clowns, but really...who doesn't?

24 hour blog - hour 6 7 8 9 10

#6: Friends (4-5)
#7: Write a review of your favorite movie/book/TV Show/Music (5-6)
#8: Theme Songs for Different Moods/Moments (6-7)
#9: Utopias (7-8)
#10: Where is one place you've always wanted to go, discuss the benefits of this place,

Favorite 3rd son Sam and Jenna are visiting .. so Ive been away from the computer. we went to Iaria's Italian restaurant for pizza and then to the greenwood mall for walkabout.  i bought a great pair of new walking shoes while sam got his boots resoled.  There's a cobbler type store - the guy who did the work grew up working for his dad there...he knows shoes!

anywhoo im back and to catch up im gonna combine 5 topics into one...gonna try anyway...lets see.

friends - my oldest best friend is one i rarely talk to and see even less...Laura Michalik moved into the house behind mine in Mokena when we both were 5.  instant buddies, we had sleep overs, and sat with each other on the bus, and were each others maid of honor.  she's the friend in my life where a year can go by without talking,yet when we do talk, its like we'd just talked yesterday.

music - certain songs mean different times in my life...i grew up listening to show tunes...the king and i, south pacific, mary poppins..and Frank Sinatra, Henson Cargill, and Hern Albert and the Tiajuana Brass...the stuff my parents listened to by playing thick records on this old white and tan record player. 

the first two records of my very own were carole king's Tapestry and Elton John's Caribou.  i still know all the words to all those songs...and when i hear one on the radio, i can smell the warm weird odor of my first record player. 

Songs bring to mind events, people, places...Bruce Springsteen's Born to run will forever mean the first year of my marriage and driving in Dan's VW...Twist and Shout will always mean laughing at the boys as they watched ferris bueller sing "shakin' the baby now", all 3 butts twisting and hands waving.  any elton john song means college and walking down to the record store to hand over my 4 bucks for the latest record.  Harry Chapin means my time in Sacramento...Johnny Cash means my Dad singing along in his low voice and the Beatles?  watching them perform on the Ed Sullivan show at my Grannie's.

Maybe my utopia would be a place where I could visit now and again with all the people of my life who are gone, where i could now and again have dinner with my Grannie or put together a jigsaw with my Dad  or be 14 again, playing cards with my little brother.    Utopia means an ideally perfect place and usually people are living in that type of place, but don't realize it until things change and you think...huh...how wonderful that was.

we've got Some Like it Hot on the tv... a wonderful movie with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, one of my favorites of all time.  Tony and Jack are wanted by the mob..so they go undercover as members of an all girl's band...Tony does a great impression of Cary Grant when he's trying to impress Marilyn by masquerading as a rich yacht owner...and Jack is pursued by a rich playboy who wants to bring him home to meet his mother.  Rent it soon if you've never seen it before!

24 hour blog - hour 5 alter egos

as a Mom...i have many alter egos .. or roles as it were..when they were little, i was mommy.. the one who could fix just about anything.  as the kids got older, that changed...i was simply MOM...i no longer could fix everything but i usually could make things a little better with a hug or a pan of cookies...or twenty bucks.

now?  as a divorced woman...things are changing again.  the kids are no longer kids...and twenty bucks doesnt go very far.  plus each boy has another source for hugs...pandas...no, not pandas...GIRLFIENDS OF VARYING STATI...

so what am i now?  today im the idiot who lives by herself , who went for a walk on a sheet of ice and fractured my elbow...and could still be lying in the middle of the road...

24 hour blog - hour 4 methods of destroying traffic

when i lived in california i had this beautiful commute from fremont, over the dun barton bridge, to palo alto... it did not matter how long it took because i was in ca commuting to palo alto over the dun barton bridge!

however, the past 6 years ive commuted 30 miles each way... through various construction zones..and i have to admit there were many times i wanted to kill somebody, by God...especially those people who refuse to let me merge...

dismemberment, stealth bomber bombing or my fav, a personally designed bazooooka attached to my impala..

24 hour blog - hour 3 childhood memory

No fair!  my childhood is soo far away!  

oh ive got one...

i am the 2nd of 4 kids, and my brother steve is 2 years younger than me... so i dont really remember being the "baby" of the family, being carried much, or being spoiled.

my grannie and gramps only lived like 20 minutes away, but we would be in the car long enough to fall asleep if it was dark and cozy and late... one night ...driving home i fell asleep in the back seat.  i have no idea how old i was.  we got home and the car light came on and i just couldn't rouse myself enough to move into the house myself.  so my Dad picked me up in his arms, tucked me in,  and carried me into the house.  I remember my brother jim saying  "she's awake, she can walk" but Dad just held me a little tighter and said.."it's ok.  i've got her."  makes me smile just thinking about it.

24 hour blog - hour 1 best of 2010

My son Tim and his friends came up with this idea of a 24 hour blog... i decided to join in the fun...however!  i broke my right elbow yesterday and so am typing with only my left hand.  this will certainly have an affect on my posts... ill have to be less verbose, which is a good thing.

first topic?  best of 2010.

hmm those that know me know that my marriage came to an end in 2010,,, so much of the year was spent weeping, wailing, soul searching and sorting through/weeding out of the accumulation of 28 years (9 moves, 4 states and three wonderful boys!)

so at first, the topic dismayed me!  BUT  after a bit of thought...i find i do have a list ... in no specific order...

1. Son #1 Josh took a bride in July...i was given the gift of a second wonderful daughter without having to go through the rigors of childbirth!

2. My 3 boys and their girls continue to amuse, astound and cause me to be continuously puffy with pride!

3. sabra spinach/artichoke hummus on dakota bread toast!

3. March 3 2010 - my mother turned 75 !  I flew to CA for her surprise birthday party

4. I moved into an apartment only FIVE minutes from my office!  a 5 minute commute!  whoo hoo!

5. size 12 jeans...SIZE 12! 

6. I completed the 2010 Picaday project.  this is especially important to me because many of my pics were taken in my yard, a yard i worked in for 18 years...flowers, birds, trees, children, family -its a record of what has/had been my life for 28 years. 

7.  I started a new phase of my life and as Josh said "its a new adventure Mom!"  a new place to live, a new relationship, new aspects of all kinds!  

so yep, I've got a best of List!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Ice! Snow! Holy Moly! Feb 1, 2011

I am one of those people who remember the infamous Chicago Blizzard of 1967...with snow drifting up to the 2nd story windows!  I remember the snow and the cold and when we finally went back to school, walking to the bus stop with snow piled nearly as high as my head to either side of the road.  And was this the snowstorm when my Dad could NOT make it home from the office??  I remember he asked for and received a safe harbor with a farmer and his family for a couple of days, because his VW Bug finally remembered it was little (albeit mighty!) and decided to stop moving forward through the snowdrifts.
What I do NOT remember is the constant TV coverage interrupting our viewing of Gilligan's Island or Captain Kangaroo or "Hardrock, Cocoa and Joe!" 

There's been constant coverage for DAYS about this storm...Incessant coverage!  I mean for heavens sakes...it's WINTER.  It's the MIDWEST!  It's gonna snow!  It's gonna be cold!  There's gonna be ice! 

Years ago, they mentioned the coming ice/snow occasionally, but there was NOT constant coverage!  They've been tracking this storm ever since it was a baby out in the west... It's coming!  It's coming!  Batten the hatches! 

Another thing I do NOT remember is my Mom freaking out, racing to the grocery store to stock up on bread and milk for her 4 children.   She ALWAYS had food in the cabinet -- I remember LOTS of canned soup and peanut butter! 

Sometimes I feel that all the coverage is simply a way to encourage  the "it's after Christmas, but not quite Valentine's Day"  drop in sales... Buy a generator!  Snow Shovels!  De-Icer!  Scrapers!  SALT!  BREAD!  MILK!!! LOTS OF MILK!!  CARTS OF MILK!!!!!

I was at Wal Mart yesterday at 1 pm, and holy moly, i could not believe the packed carts. 

Sheesh.

But then again, mebbe I don't remember the "OMIGOSH!  IT"S GONNA SNOW!" panic because I was a kid.  Snow and ice simply meant tomato soup, toasted cheese sandwiches, snow angels and snow forts, playing with my brother Steve, big rubber boots with those cold metal clasps and if we were very very lucky?  NO  SCHOOL!