100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 59

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch: Beefsteak, watermelon
Dinner:  Nothing, just not hungry yet. Need to add that I just had a cup of tomato soup, one of those little applesauce things, some probiotic chocolate and another cranberry snack pack thingy.  The chocolate is just plain weird.
Snack:  Cottage cheese

Lunch was more steak, with half left for lunch at work tomorrow.  I had bought bagged salad, but the produce bin must be all wonky, because it froze the stuff.  Very disappointing, as I really wanted to take a big salad tomorrow.  Rats.  I really should eat something soon, or else I will wake up and have to make something, not a fun thing to do.  I do not know how it happened, but we seem to be out of canned soup, which is what I wanted tonight.  And, some more of those rice/seeds crackers.

Tomorrow is my long day at work and I was finishing up some resource stuff and it got me to thinking about what I do and how I do it.  Truth is that I am really good at this work.  I have said this before, but everything that I have experienced in my life has brought me to do this work.  I am a tiny fish in a big pond, living in a village, but with two large cities on either side of me.  I work in the smaller of those.  Whilst I am valued at work, I am relatively unknown as the person who provides these services.

That said, our local workforce center, the literacy council and one of the nearby prisons refer people to me as someone who can help them craft the documents they need, especially when there is scant previous work experience.  They often send people with special needs and challenges, people that they simply do not have the staff or resources to help.  I have to say that that aspect of what I do, the trust that those organizations have in me is sometimes a bit overwhelming.  I am so aware of the great responsibility that I have to everyone who comes to me, high school students preparing for their first jobs and right on up to upper management people who need only a bit of fine-tuning on their résumés.  Oh, I should mention that I help people craft résumés, CVs and other job seeking documents, as well as honing their interviewing skills.

I help them find local resources, including social services, educational opportunities, literacy help and lots more.  I teach basic computer skills and how to navigate the Internet and use that to search for jobs and other information.  O have helped clients with tax and governmental, legal and other issues.  Clients have needed help creating their own businesses and marketing the products of their hobbies.  I am currently working with a client on patents.  Anything that has to do with creating and supporting income, well, that is what I do.  It is all about investing in the future and supporting people in finding and manifesting the work they are called to do. 

It can be difficult for people to do the deeper work involved, but only because no one has ever suggested that they should.  I and the work have made several people sweat, a few literally.  One woman is a semi-regular, as she struggles with a particular aspect, and she cries sometimes, but I suspect that she is a tender person who is inclined to shed more than the occasional tear.

There are days when I do more counseling than anything else, and although that is a natural extension of the main body of work, it is an area in which I wish I had more experience and training.  I am looking into the possibility of returning to school in the next semester, or the one following.  It is a huge commitment and I am not sure that I am up to meeting it.  Anyway, I do not have to decide until the last minute, as the classes with which I need to begin are never full.

So, anyway, I was thinking about what a job is, what it means to have a job and all that jazz.  For me it is the work I have done and what I am doing now.  It is about how I work a few days each week to improve my skills and move closer to being the really good resource that I want to be for my clients.  It is also about managing on the money I have, because I do this work, and a couple other jobs as a volunteer.  That is wonderful and all, but it means that I spend most of my time working for no wage.  No money.

I am, at least for now, content to do it this way.  If I decide to go back to school, things may have to change, and that is a huge part of the decisions I have to make.  This is truly huge, big picture stuff, even though we never use "big picture" anymore. smiley: smile

I have to figure out how the quality of what I do will be improved by taking those classes and how the quality of my life will change if I make this commitment, particularly where my family is concerned.

I was reading something this afternoon about the experiences of store staff who sell lottery tickets.  It was pretty compelling stuff, and whilst I am too conservative to participate in the state lottery, it is nice to entertain dreams about winning a whole shitload of money and making my life easier and making some other dreams come true.  But, I will never have that experience because I will never play the lottery.  However, if the Universe would like to drop that same pile of money on me, I promise to be an excellent steward of said fortune and would make it count, not just for myself and my current, personal, problematic issues, but for the world around me, most especially my community.

I have so many thoughts about what a job means and could mean to my clients, but that will have to wait for another time, because I absolutely have to go and search for some soup or something.

I made some new guilty pleasures today, but I cannot remember what any of them are.  Oh, a surprise.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 43

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, hash browns (icky, ate them anyway), raisin bread toast, coffee (lots)
Lunch:  Culver's bacon burger, sweet potato fries, diet cola, root beer float
Dinner:  Nothing - amended to add blueberry yogurt

Back home.  Had a good breakfast, except for the toast and hash browns.  My intentions were good, but not good enough.  Lunch was on the trip home and, frankly, there really is not any reasonable menu choice for seriously healthy eating.  There was one salad choice that I could see, and it was some berry thing.  They may have others, but I could not find any on the menu board whilst I was waiting in line, and since the lines were full of our coach members as well as the hapless locals that decided to eat when we were there, I was reluctant to engage in conversation with the counter staff about making modification to what I did see.  In my defense, I did not choose the grilled reuben sandwich, something I wanted very much since we were rushed at lunch on the trip up yesterday and I was able to eat only some of the inside of the reuben I ordered then.  I think I forgot to mention that.  Sad, really, because it was made with homemade marble rye bread.  I will bet it was delicious.

I did fall victim to the fries, but they were of a kinder, gentler potato.  I have absolutely no defense for the float, except that it was the smallest size.  Truth be told, I did not much enjoy the burger.  It had too much processed cheese and mayonnaise on it.  I scraped as much off as I could and then did not eat the last quarter of the thing anyway.  The float disappointed, as well.  Huh.

The tour director passed out more candy, chips and peanuts on the way home and I asked her if her final offering was going to be insulin.  She thought it only mildly amusing and I am guessing that was only because a fellow traveler laughed and she was trying to be a good sport to my smart-ass-ed-ness. 

I ate the little bag of chips, but not the rest.  Still, no dinner for me.  Rats, I still have to take my meds and they need to be taken with food, so it will have to be the little yogurt with blueberries. You know, if I do not start taking this healthy thing seriously, I am going to end up worse off than when I began over a month ago.  Hell, I am nearly halfway through the process and the only weight I have lost is where I did not want to lose any.    Sure, I do have one less chin and less flab in a couple of places.  Big deal.  Small victories, nearly insignificant in the larger war.  I seem to lack the will to do this getting healthier thing.  I sense sabotage from within.  A decidedly bigger deal.

As for feeling, well, I felt well during the weekend.  No stress, no thinking about stuff.  The new pain med worked great and my hips and knees did not bother me a bit until it was close to time for the next dose.  I could take another one now, but I am going to try to fall asleep without it, thinking that being back in my own, comfy bed will be enough to help me fall right to sleep.

I am feeling kind of cranky because it is steaming in here.  I will manage.  Two days away from everything should be two more notches on my Belt Of Courage.  I need to be more brave and every little bit helps.  I worried that these little trips were an attempt to escape from the here, but I think, I believe that they are steps towards being more self-sufficient and less dominated and afraid. 

On the way home, it was raining and I spent a lot of time looking out of the window at all the lovely countryside.  And, I kept thinking, oh, I could live there...and there...and that place...even there in the little town that flashed by.  I want so much to be somewhere, anywhere else.  Cannot do it.  The whole running away from things thing.  I have to find a way to live here, with everything, or I will never be able to settle somewhere else with comfort and confidence and the surety that comes from making the right decision at the right time and for the right reason.  I have the right reason, in spades, but the right time can come only when I have worked through all of this crap.  Just have to pull up my big girl panties and do it.  I need some serious therapy and have for a long time.  Wonder how to fit that in the budget, under the travel, of course, which is a sort of therapy of it's own.

I knit a wash cloth and the body and one sleeve of a really tiny sweater.  I think that it will end up being only two inches square, or not much more than that.  I am using four, 000 needles.  Very small and I have to really pay attention because whilst it is fairly easy to un-knit with larger needles and yarn, I am also using a very fine yard that is intended for making stretch socks.  My eyes finally gave out on that grey-skied, rainy ride home.

GP, which is kind of like the icing on the guilty pleasure of these little trips.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 32

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, tea
Lunch:  2 hot dogs, 1 bun, dill pickle slices, jalapeno slices, carrot sticks
Dinner:  Japanese place, usual stuff, usual behaving myself...yay me

This is the short and sweet of my day, because I am Ecks Hoss Ted, but my friends just call me Ecks.

Work was great, and with a no-show, I was able to do more work on that web site and catch up on a few other things.  The gift of empty time to fill is something that I will never take for granted.  It is that wonderful.  Clients were the usual mix.  I cannot define exactly what that is, but there is a customary mix and today was it.

Knitting club after work.  I have finished two of the half-size bath cloths and started on one that is shaped like a fish.  It is 2/3 of the way done and already cute.  I should have a few more pairs done by the time we make bathtub soap paint again.  Maybe the end of next week.

On my way out of the library today, the cover of a sewing book caught my eye.  It was on the new releases shelves and it is for small or scrap fabric projects.  I think that most of them, maybe all, just not sure, use a fat quarter or less of fabric.  I will check tomorrow when I am more alert.

Still walking without my cane, but, man, does it ever hurt like a bitch.  Those hip joints are rubbing bone-to-bone in a few places and it is taking large amounts of pain relief to make this walking unaided possible, but I just know that it will help with keeping me more mobile and less crippled.  I just know it and have to be patient until my supporting muscles pack on the fast and slow twitch fibers. I just know it.

There are some big storms in the area tonight.  It has been beastly hot for a few days, like dangerous to old folk and pets, or something.  On my way home I was stuck in traffic a block away from the tornado sirens.  What a pain, literally.  My left ear is still ringing and I have to wonder how the people who live near those things can stand it.  No tornadoes, but high winds, like in excess of 85 miles per hour, which blew a semi-truck on it's side whilst I was driving home.  Supposed to be bringing quarter-sized hail, too.  I am sort of sorry to have to miss that, because it sounds like the storm is going around us.

That is it, bed for me and the kitties, reading whilst the storm blasts through here.  My life seems so much better today than it has for a while.  I am going to keep myself occupied with gratitude.  Yep.

GP.  Nested hearts, I think.

Simple eating

Is there such a thing?

Still trying to eat well, but, gosh, it is so difficult.  It is not like there is any real junk food or fun food in the house, but that is all that I want, desire, crave, crave, crave.  As a result, I am overeating what is here.  Not by much, but more than you need to eat is simply more than you should be eating, big-picture-wise.

Maybe if I keep a record it will help me to take responsibility for being such a, well, something, but not what I was going to write because I am also trying to stop calling myself names, you know, like the really disgusting ones I usually use.  So, no name-calling, just the facts.

Let me see.
A four-inch square of leftover chicken and rice casserole.
6 individual pieces of the sugar-free chocolates that R gave me for Easter.  That was lunch.
A whole bunch of those smiley-faced frozen potato things.  Half is in the refrigerator, but I left them out for a while to cool, forgot about them, and might just toss them in the interest of not getting sick from them.
Lots of water.  Then  more water and then some more.  Lots.
An apple, Ambrosia I think, that I will have before I go to bed.

I am hungry and am not sure that the apple is such a good idea because I still have that tummy trouble, the one where the remains of what you eat leaves your body sooner than is comfortable.

I tried to go, finally, and join Weight Watchers last Tuesday.  It took me a couple of weeks to fool around and shake the numbers so that I could squeeze the fees into my budget. 

So, anyway, I check the schedule, pick a time when they are having a meeting and haul myself over there.  The introductory offer that waived the enrollment fee was over and the weekly prices have gone up.  Not by much, but it was more than the cash I had with me, which was really all the cash I had.  Have, until this month's social security check arrives in my bank account.  There is nothing to do besides cancel or scale back my summer travel plans so that I can do this.  Getting healthier is more important than escaping from here for a while.

It/they are the least expensive weight loss thing around here and I really need something to help me with this.  I read a whole bunch of diet, weight loss, healthy eating books over the past month, and they all have something decent to share, but I have tried to do this by myself for the past several years and it is just not working.  So, the whole group thing is still to be tried.

Tomorrow will find me at the bank, opening a checking account so that I can take advantage of the lower weekly price for the WW meetings.  I am slightly miffed that they make you go through all of this nonsense just to get the lowest fees, although I really do understand that they do want to discourage their members from bringing cash that they then have to handle and eventually bank.  I will get over that, especially if their program helps me.  Although, if that perky Janet is there tomorrow, I will restrain myself from giving her a gentle shake, but with all of the tummy troubles I cannot promise not to barf.  Really, she could get on your last nerve.  I think that I should begin practicing a nice, relatively sincere smile right now.  They say that if you smile, even when you do not feel like smiling, that using those particular muscles can induce a feeling that approximates being happy.  Or happier.  I believe that, but I am not happy about it.

Maybe I would not be so cranky if I felt better.  I have not been able to shake this upper respiratory thing that I caught in January.  Seriously, five months is long enough.  I am guessing that each of those rounds of antibiotics has not been supportive of settling my stomach.  Who knows.  At least the infection seems to be under control.  I feel slightly worse from being around the smokers on Friday.  I am still coughing and my voice is raspy.  I slept most of yesterday, all of last night and will be going off to read a bit before sleeping some more.

I just need enough time to rest and be well, or at least feel better.  I swear, between the head and chest and throat stuff, the vision crap and my lack of energy, it would be so nice to run away somewhere for a week.  Yeah, at least a week, with no responsibilities or opportunities to disappoint anyone.  I mean, strangers do not give a crap about how you perform as a person and if, for some reason, they felt some distress at how miserable a human being you are, well, you cannot get all invested in that because they are strangers and you will be leaving them behind soon enough.

Work, however, is going better than ever and I am so grateful for having that part of my life.  It is nice, even though it is in contrast to how lonely the rest of my life is.  I am not complaining about any of that, truly.  I know how fortunate I am to have the resources that I have.  I see how lucky I am every day at work.  I see it in the market and when I am driving, all the people who would give just about anything to have the life that I have.  I am an ungrateful bitch to want more.  Maybe it is because I am feverish and cranky and feeling like crap all of the time that just wears me down. 

On the bright side, maybe I will be humiliated at Weight Watchers tomorrow and that will put all the rest of my life back into perspective.  Yeah, that's the ticket!  Something to look forward to.

Simple thoughts

Did you hear the one about the old babe who had a PVD/Posterior Vitreous Detachment and then had a second one four days later?  Well, it seems that having that little heart thing a month ago, plus the joint pain, plus the nerve damage, and the high blood pressure was not enough to help her see (pun coming) that she needed to regain her healthy body and the general health that comes with it.

She needed to be faced with the risk of having the remains of her sight lost due to the little bleed-outs in her retinas and the detachments and the flashers before she was able to take all of this crap seriously.  Lordy.

The simple things in a life are what seem to matter the most.  Forgetting that is just a darn shame.  Big problems are reduced when a client keeps thanking you over and over and keeps asking to shake your hand just because of that little thing you did for them.

When the next client does a little of the same and tells you that you are a nice person and that you are the first person with whom he has felt comfortable in a very long time, well, that is the icing on that cookie and that cookie is one that you can safely enjoy without further assault to your vision.

It is a lovely thing when the person who felt most threatened by your volunteering has become one of your most ardent supporters, which is important in an increasingly uncertain, local government, economic environment.

That he has a larger pole up his ass than you do is an opportunity to mind your own hubris before it can come back and bite you in the ass.  Frankly, it is a blessing, and you get to be grateful not only for his transformation, but for the gentle reflection he offers to your own attitudes and behaviors.

So, anyway, there is this guy who comes into the library on a fairly regular basis.  I do not know who he is, but I see him there all the time.

Today he has a new haircut.  I see him walking towards me and I think, "Man, that is so cool...he is manifesting his inner Beatle."  The mop-top bowl cut is actually quite cute on him.

Then, we pass and I turn to look at the back of the new haircut and I think, "Man, do you not have any friends who are good enough friends to share with you that, from behind, your head looks like a furry penis?"

It is very sad, very, very sad, when a local organization, one dedicated to the needs of veterans, accepts the help of a good person in utilizing a significant part of their facility to bring in much needed funds, and then after learning from him, decide to eliminate him from the program he designed, built and successfully ran.

It would be fine if the reason for dumping the good person was other than intentionally using him to develop the program so that they could take over and run it themselves.  Had they been upfront about their plans, no one would have been surprised or hurt in the transition.  But, seriously, to use someone like that is just plain shameful.

I am dedicated to that organization and when I heard what had happened I went to the source, where the suspicions of the dumped, good person were confirmed.  Bad enough to do that, but how much worse to be so blasé, so matter-of-fact and unashamed about it.  I could not be more shocked if it had happened to me.  I am hoping that writing it down will help me to process what seems like a complete betrayal of principles, beliefs and honor.   I am stunned and see no future time when this is not going to bother me.  I have also severed my connection to them, which makes me more sad that I can even think about.

I want to be light-hearted about this, you know, how breaking up is so hard to do (feel free to sing along), but I thought that I could do my little, peripheral stuff there and it could be a sort of connection to my brother, and there just is not any reasonably light aspect that I can find, which is another disappointment for a positive view girl like me.  Heartbroken and a little scared that such a thing could happen.

I get to play with the babies and their mommy tomorrow.  She, the mommy, was ill last week and I could give her only one day.  Maybe she will feel well enough to play outside with us.  More likely, she will use the time to catch up on all the stuff that was put aside so that she and her babies could play outside every day.

She is a lovely mom and I adore her.  I think that we will surprise her with home-made pizza for lunch.  One of her favorites.

I am a big girl.  I can pull up my big girl panties and get on with whatever needs getting on.  Still, today's disappointment and subsequent split with one of my favorite organizations is so sad.  People get to be human.  I get to let them do that.  I get to accept people for who they are, because, you know, we are all simply doing the best that we can, here on this pretty, little planet.  I get all that.  But, if I really do, then why does my heart ache so much about something that did not directly happen to me?

I have to release this.  Holding on to it serves no one.  Besides, it feels as though I am giving some of my power away to them, and they do not deserve to have anything from me.  This totally and completely sucks.

Feeding yourself

I should be in bed, but I just have to write about my friend.

He and his mother used to have a really cool, down home, spirit satisfying, soul food restaurant.  Here in the US that means lots of honest Southern cuisine.  But, you know how those things go.  Even though they had plenty of business, the work became overwhelming for the two of them, especially his mother who was no longer a f\girl with youthful energies.

So, they finally closed the restaurant, but they never gave up on having the energy to try it again sometime.

So, anyway, my friend was at a local veteran's center.  They have a bar, meeting rooms where vets come to play cards, have bar snacks and shoot the shit, which is a good thing, by the way.

One day he happened to wander down a hallway and see a fully equipped kitchen, with an adjoining dining room, albeit a little on the small size, both the kitchen and dining room.

Since you cannot smoke indoors anymore, he continued on his way outside to have his way with a cigarette and got to talking with another smoker.  He mentioned the kitchen and asked if the other guy knew how or when it was last used.  Turns out the other vet was on some kind of board at the center.  My friend told me, but I have forgotten the details.  Anyway, they used to have Friday night fish fry dinners there, but it did not work out, mostly because the previous guy was kind of a flake and the food was not so great either.

My friend and I have been noodling around with ideas for a community center that he wants to open, and since that sort of thing is both in my background and an adjunct to the self-employment support and services I provide to my clients, between the two of us, well, we had made forward movement on his ideal plans.

But, when this opportunity presented itself to get back into a kitchen post-haste, he arranged for a meeting with whomever is in charge there (again, he told me, but I have forgotten...huge surprise) and developed a plan for resuming those Friday night dinners.  He shared all of his ideas, but, frankly, he was so informed about what is needed for having a restaurant, even a part time one, that I was of little extra help to him.  He says otherwise, but he is wrong.

That was a month ago.  Tonight was their first dinner.  Actually, it started late this morning with a lunch menu, but the full dinner menu started this evening.

To say that it was great is an understatement.  You could tell that it was the first time for all of those people to be working together, but there was barely a misstep.  There was the kitchen door that kept self-locking and the really old guy at the table next to me who managed to unscrew the top from the tartar sauce container and dump most of the contents on his lap and cap and then proceeded to pick up the container's top from the floor and screw it back on.  No worries, because I told the wait person and she took care of it.

There were two tiny issues with the serving temperature of my dinner, but we will discuss that later when we meet to recap my experience.  On the whole, it was outstanding food, efficient and friendly service, a pleasant environment and he really scored a huge win on his first day there.

Despite the fact that I, a very healthy eater, brought home half of my dinner, he assured me that he really is making sufficient money on the huge portions they are serving.  Just another proof of his dedication to fabulous food at a fair price.  I can hardly wait to surprise the kitties with pollack and catfish for din-din tomorrow when I get home from the quilt show.

I am looking forward to next week for the chance to try another item from the menu.  I may never cook another Friday night dinner for myself.  Yum.

Maps

I was using Google Maps this morning to find the location and direction to a family thing being held in another state, on the weekend next.

Alongside of the directions, there was the full, continental US map image.  Except for the tolls and the likelihood of encountering road construction, it looks like a nice and easy trip.

I grabbed the little zoom bar and pulled it all the way down so that I could see the whole world.  I swear, that image never fails to thrill me right down to my core.  That teeny place marker, that infinitesimal point where I will be spending a couple of hours on the road, well, it just floors me.

A space on my screen that a gently expanded hand-width covers and I have touched the entire planet.  Rotate my hand approximately 20 degrees and I could hold it in my palm.  It makes me think of how delicate, how fragile and wondrous it is, this place we call home.

Sure, it enthuses me to take care of it.  More than that, it helps me revisit my commitment to making my part of it, that tiny bit at the point of the marker, a better place.  Small things salve my emotions, fuel my desires and make make my behaviors worth performing them.  My tininess reminds me of my connection to every other person, every other living thing.  I am humbled by the shared responsibilities and shames me for my pitiful efforts.

On that map, I am an invisible speck beneath uncounted specks. 

Oh, and I might have lost a friend today.  If it happens, it will make me sad beyond my ability to express how truly sad I will be.  Sometimes friends have to take that risk with each other.  But, I will still be sad.

Wondering

I have been home a few hours now.  Tonight was the evening version of Saturday Morning Coffee with the Chickies.  My friends.  My pilgrimage buddies and then coffee friends and then hang-on-for-dear-life friends.   We do this each year near Christmas.  It is great and some of us give presents and some of do not and no one ever seems to notice who is giving or not, much less care about it.

It is a nearly perfect of manifestation of what true giving and gifts are about.  No expectations to be dashed, no weirdness about what is received or given or anything.  It is as pure and unselfish an experience as any of us have and one would hope that all such exchanges could be.  It is a pretty fucking amazing thing.  Just amazing.  One friend gave me three...count 'em...Anna Lee mice.  Two kind of Christmasy, and one Halloween little mouse witch with a sweet, tiny broom.  Another friend gave sweet little things and a gift card for a book store.  I gave my ornaments and chocolate gelt, which I adore, not only for the chocolate, but for the whole historical aspect and have been doing so for, gosh, this old babe has been giving gelt for nearly forty years and not a single one of them spent as anything other than the pagan girl that I am, and Christian that I was.  Maybe I was a Hasmonean-wanna-be in a former life.   

Last weekend, or the weekend before that, I simply cannot keep any of this straight anymore, just four of us got together for dinner at the apartment of one of the sisters.  I met both of them, the sisters, on a pilgrimage to Ireland.  One of them, the apartment one, had been warned about me by one of the other travelers, that I was a witch.  I may very well be a witch of the rude, nasty and despicable kind, but she did not understand that the other person was telling her about my spiritual path.  She, the apartment Chickie, much later, told me that it was near the half-way point in the trip that she realized what she had been told and found, much to her surprise, by the way, that she liked me as a person.  Cool.  Groovy.

Anyway, back here in the States, she was part of the original coffee women and over the years, other people have come; some stayed, others left, not finding us to their particular liking, which is fine, truly, because that is the process by which we find the people who are essential parts of our lives.

I have become particularly close the the apartment Chickie.  I like her sister a lot, too.  In fact, we were friends first.  Anyway, the apartment Chickie does not drive, never has, does not want to, and, frankly, she is unsuited to being behind the wheel of several tons of metal and other assorted parts and bits and pieces.  We often go on to do something else with the day after the coffee group breaks up and wanders off to do whatever it is that they do.

So, anyway, at the whenever-weekend dinner, it was, hell, I will just use their initials.  Sheesh.  There we are, at M's apartment, with her sister D and her husband and our other friend S and her husband.  S's husband is recovering from a stunningly serious heart problem, which nearly took his life a couple of months ago.  He is not recovering well, but that is for later.  D is our friend who is dying of ovarian cancer.  She had had a big transfusion on that weekend and was able to stay for a nice, long time and when she left, the rest of us left, too, because it was just so sad to know that that night was likely to be the last time that we would all be together.

D and her husband did not attend this evenings lovely thing with all of us friends because she is too ill to leave her house.  Her sister, M, does not talk about D very much.  She gives the occasional update, but her heart really is not in it, you know?  I worry about both of them, but M does not talk about any of this with anyone and whilst it is her journey and I would never interfere, beyond what I have done to make sure that she knows that I am available to her 'round the clock, it is her journey and she gets to travel it in exactly the way she prefers.  I truly do my best to not worry about this, but it just does not seem like a good plan on her part.  Truly.  Sometimes it is so difficult to keep my thoughts about this to myself.  Seriously.

Anyway, it is time to write how I feel and say my goodbyes, whilst I still can.  Even if I do not make this happen in time, D already knows how much I love her and that all of us will be here for her husband.  A kind of goofy, but altogether lovely man he is, who lost both of his closest relatives in the past year, his mother and his only auntie.  He is the kind of husband that all of us would love to have.  Interesting in a not too painful way, a person with wide and varied interests, and, most importantly, a man who pulled up his big boy panties and was there for his wife in every single way that truly matters.  

And, then we have S's husband (the one with the miserable heart issues), who is not behaving well.  He has always been a joking and intellectually lively person, but two weeks ago found him taking a serious fall in his driveway, from which he is still sporting a black eye.  Tonight it was the worse that I have seen.  He kept repeating himself, over and over and some of it was inappropriate for general conversation and we all tried to make light of it, but it was so disturbing.  S talked about it when he left the room, and one of us is a nurse, the big-hot-shot kind and the two of them discussed what S needs to discuss at this week's visit with her husband's neurologist and cardiologist.

Things here, at the old homestead, are going from bad to more bad and I simply cannot muster any energy to deal with any of it because, in the scheme of things, like in life in general and the issues with which the people around me are struggling, my crap barely registers on any level of importance that anyone could devise.  My stuff is lacking in significance in the face of everything else and I am not able to cope with any of it.

There is great suffering in my town, many people who do not have the means to take care of the basics, much less anything extra.  I see them in my work and whilst I am working my ass off to help where I can and to find additional resources and connect people with them, it is just endless and I wonder how much good I am doing or if it is possible to do good at all.

I still cannot be holiday anything, and this evening's thing is the exception (the one and only, single thing I have done for months), because to not go and do and eat and share would have brought too much attention to myself, the feeling and being apart from everything that everyone else holds dear right now.  Pretending that I am cheerful and happy to be around people is so exhausting.  I am doing lots of volunteering, zoning in on something besides myself and it does fill the time.  I guess that it does do some good in town and I am, gosh, just so grateful that I have the resources to help, but I need this fallow time, some time to try to heal and maybe come back to who I was or who I want to be, yeah, who I want to be.  I am not empty, in any sense, but I am weary and exhausted to the bones, the ones that bedevil me and for which there is not adequate pain relief.

I cannot be the only person who feels adrift in all of this holiday stuff.  It is difficult to hold my tongue when I hear or read about how someone is stressed about not giving the exactly perfect gift or receiving some longed-for ideal present.  Or is distressed because other people do not have the same beliefs about how they feel holidays should be celebrated.  I weary of listening to the sadness someone feels because not everyone else, Christians or not, prefer to wish one another a happy holiday instead of merry Christmas.  I mean, seriously, Christmas is ruined because everyone else is not Christian or refuses to lock-step with their personal beliefs?  And, I just keep struggling with my own judgments about how others judge all those other people.  It is a vicious and pointless exercise and I just feel nauseated about it.  I do not want to be perfect or any such damn thing, but I would so love to not give a crap about how miserably some people are treated or judged.  Just pointless.

Frankly, if I hear or read about one more person bemoaning the commercialization or the Americanization or the Disney-izaion of the holiday I am going to scream or hurt myself.  I swear.  I really do.  If you are doing exactly what you want to do in your life, whether or not is it a holiday, then why do you give a rat's ass about what someone, anyone, else is doing?  If you have that much time in your life, to waste it worrying and fretting and judging other people, there is a possibility that you are not actively doing enough for other people or your neighborhood or your community or working to make your little part of the world a better place for everyone, every group, every creature, every issue.

I think that I must no longer be fit for being around other people.  If I start talking about any of this with other people, it might not even be a personal choice, as those other people might be very happy to kick my sorry ass right out of polite society, which, in itself, is kind of an oxymoron these days.  Crap, there I go judging again.  I am hopeless and best find a cave in which to live.  Posthaste. I am not fit company.

O.K., I thought that I was finished, but I am not.  One thoughtful, tender and well-intentioned thought stream.

Do your own thing.  I will do my own thing.  Leave my thing alone and I will offer and extend the same courtesy to you.  If you do not like my thing, please keep your opinions (to which you are entirely entitled to hold) to yourself.  Please, I am begging you, do not concern yourself or fuss about how I shop, what is in my grocery basket or shopping cart, how, or if, I cook, how many convenience products I use, what cleaning products I use, how I do the laundry, what I drive or do not drive, how I dress, whether or not I make all my own personal crap, how I garden or do not garden, how I educate my children, where I work or how I spend my money.  Please do not worry your pretty, little head about what I read, where I go, how I vacation, how organic my food supply or lifestyle is,  where I live or how many utilities and services I use, what my belief system or spiritual path might be, or how I manifest, or do not, what those beliefs may be.  If I have forgotten anything, please add it to the list of things about me which should not have to bother you.

I will do exactly those things, and more, for you. 

Oh, one more thing.  I have, for as long as I can remember, said Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.  I did this even when I was a serious and dedicated and faithful Christian, because I always recognized that my religion, spiritual practice and faith community was not the only one in the world, and because I did not want to marginalize anyone with whom I came into contact should they have beliefs different from my own.   It always seemed like, plain, simple and ordinary courtesy.  Just saying. 

Besides, the winter holiday season is chock-full of some of the most interesting practices, both spiritual and secular.  Many of them are fun, but all of them are informative to anyone who desires to be a well-rounded, educated and interesting person.  Open your heart and be a part of some of them. 

The more you learn about other people, how they live, what they practice, the less fearful you will be about those who seem to be different than you.  Educate yourself, inform yourself, move beyond only what you have been taught or experienced.  Yeah, just open your heart...if you are brave enough.  Courage, baby.

Babe Time

Gallery sat today.  Took along my ornaments for this swap thing, for something else and for one other thing.  If I find some time and energy, I will make some for my friends, too, but that has little chance of happening.

So, anyway, only one person actually came into the gallery today and it was a friend.  Several town people walked by and waved, but kept on going.

I got lots of hand sewing done in those six hours.  Sweet and icy nice.

On the way home I decided that I simply could not eat curry one more day.  I cannot remember exactly when I made it, but it was at least six lunches and dinners ago.  It is yummy, but I knew that the last three portions were going into the freezer.  So, that means stopping at the market for food and, gosh, I did hardly anything physical today and was just plain exhausted.

The way home, just a few miles before I leave town, passes a Chinese restaurant that I especially like.  Forty minutes later I was on my way again, with enough food for taking me right through to Monday dinner.  Yum.

Whilst waiting for my food, there was a steady stream of people coming in and going out, as well as the delivery driver.  Someday I will write about that very weird, although probably just as interesting as it is weird, situation.    Really, just plain weird.

A woman came in, and it was clear that this was an unexpected stop for her as well, because she had to pick up a menu in order to order her take-out stuff.  In the middle of ordering her order, she forgot what her husband told her to get for him and was going to leave to get her telephone from the car to ask him.

I offered her my phone and she took it, asking a couple of times if it was really fine with me.  I told her that as long as she was not calling Tunisia, that we would be fine.  Really.

When she finished her call and the order, she sat down across from me and we talked.

Now, I have to share that I love talking.  Hell, I will talk to just about anyone, despite being a painfully shy person.  There is something about people, in person, that makes me able to have conversations with strangers, which I guess are always people, except when it is a stray cat or crows or something, so I wonder what it is that allows me to do this random, easy talking to people that I do not know, but keeps me from going to to-dos at the homes of friends just because there will be people there that I do not know.

I am really digressing here, but a couple of weeks ago we hosted a traveling poet and a local poet at the gallery.  We have, host and offer public events all the time and I go to and often facilitate the daytime ones, but if it is in the evening, I just quail and end up staying home.  Sometimes I feel compelled to promise that I will show up for one of these things, but I almost always break those promises.  I know that I will do that when I make the promise and those who know me know that I will most likely break the promise, but they keep asking me to make them and I keep breaking them and it really is embarrassing and pointless.

But, I actually went out, in the dark, to this poetry thing.  It was nice, wonderful really, and I enjoyed myself.  The traveling poet is very much in the reality story-telling process, much like Billy Collins, whom I adore because he is the first poet of that discipline that I ever experienced and also because it is the kind of poetry that I have always written, except for the times when someone forced me to rhyme.  Bastards.

So, there I am at the poetry thing and all is going well and I am not panicking or anything outwardly visible, but I know that I have reached my limits, had endured entirely enough of late-night, O.K., early evening, sheesh, grown-up fun and I know that I should just pick up my stuff and leave before anyone notices.

But, nooooo, I have to be a big girl and stay and do grown-up stuff with the grown ups.  It did not take more than ten minutes for me to manifest how truly socially inept I am.  Man.  Even now, this moment, I can feel myself flushing and blushing and I am right back there, feeling that desperate need to just get the hell out of there.  Seriously, what is that all about?  Especially at my age.  I am already old enough that I will likely not ever, as in never, be able to figure out this sort of thing. 

And, then, there I am, sitting in the take-out chair, talking to another take-out chair sitter.  And, having a really nice conversation, and I am not feeling the teeniest bit shy or retiring.  Same thing happens when I teach or give workshops.  Maybe it is the total stranger part that makes this easy.  Maybe less threatening.  I do not think that I could do that with a man.  Too many cultural barriers.  Besides, despite how much I love men, and even though I have some wonderful men friends in my life, that direction is where most of the pain in my life has come.  You know, sometimes I really hope and wish that there is reincarnation and that I will have a chance to develop good, safe, wholesome and loving relationships with the men in my life.  A father who, well, that is not important to these musings.  But, a husband who could love me even a little bit for who I am, oh, that would be so nice.  I would really love that.  Next time in the flesh I hope I have that.

Whatever the dynamic, it was nice hanging out for that bit of time, talking to another woman and just, I do not know, being able to trust in the process.

Babe time.  It was really great, and I had a wonderful dinner that I did not have to cook.  Even better is that tomorrow is Saturday Coffee.  Life is so good.

Worthiness

Right now I am making gifts for the winter holidays.  Well, not exactly right now because I am here at the computer, but I just left that mess land of wonderment on my kitchen table.  As part of taking a break from all of that close work, I also am planning an a game or two of Mah Jong and a quick look at a couple of sites that, if not parallel what I practice, are close enough on occasion to keep me coming back.

Frankly, I am a very high-maintenance kind of forum member.  It takes just about every micron, or however you measure such things, of my determination to not offend when reading at those places.  Part of the difficulty I face there is that many of the (mostly) women still do not have the length and breadth of life experience that someone of my age has.  But, my goodness, there is so much judging going on there, but not only there and probably not a general practice of their day-to-day lives.  I sometimes wonder if I was ever like that and the sad and unavoidable truth is that I mostly likely was.  

I remember many times when I felt that I had something new to share and could be quite relentless about talking about whatever it was.  Try as I can, I do not remember sharing with anyone else how lame or unworthy someone who did not believe the same things as me I might think that someone to be.  

Now there is this whole behavioral practice, that is part of people that I like or love or whatever who are ready to jump all over what someone else believes and judge the crap out of them.  When it is truly offensive I will speak/write up.  If it is racially or culturally or religiously dismissive or that objectifies a group of people, well, you better hunker down and hold on to your tasty bits, because I will take a stand on that sort of thing.

But, most of the time, I just move on and ignore it.  Like I did two times just now.  I read and move on, not sharing or writing or anything, because to take a stand on all of these relatively minor things makes me just as bad, just as judgmental, just as critical and non-supportive as the behaviors that offend me.

So, anyway, I am making these gifts.  Today's efforts were fabric ornaments, the kind you might hang on a tree or wreath, or something.  I have big plans to make personalized totes for my coffee friends and fill them with home made soap, marmalade, bath salts, fudge (which is really fabulous and whilst it is a slacker recipe, everyone always wants me to make it) and knitted washcloths.  I am also embedding flower seeds into paper and making little books of the pages, with planting instructions and some information about each of the plants.  Each is receiving one more thing, something that is related to a personal interest of hers.  

One friend is getting a pincushion and needle keep because she is beginning to sew and I know that she does not have either of those, as well as a few sewing notions.  Another is getting bookmarks, which are embroidered or plain ribbon (have not yet decided) with beads.  One of them is getting three loaves of my bread and so on for the rest.  I am trying to make what they like and have said they can use and if it is consumable, so much the better.  I have everything except the cotton for the cloths, and I keep forgetting to buy it and they are going to take me a lifetime to finish and I have only six weeks.  Erp.

Which cycles right back to worthiness as pertains to the people for whom I am making this crap.  I happen to know that each of them wants this stuff, especially the totes because we are all trying to use reusable bags when we shop.  But, each of these things was chosen for it's re-gift-ability.  So, if one of the recipients is in a mood and just does not want a particular item or finds that she simply does not get around to using it, she can just pass it on to someone else.  

You know, when we give a gift to someone, it is because we love or like them and we just want them to have whatever we give without any expectations about how they use or not use it.  Once it is given, it is theirs.  They can do whatever they like with it.  Keep it, use it, give it away, throw it in the trash, whatever they like.

I have another friend...all right, she is my sister, but she is going through another rough bout with her drinking and in this moment I am not all that happy to be related to her.  But, you know, it is her life and I can have all kinds of opinions about it, but I have to keep them to myself and let her take this part of her journey on her own.  She is only a year younger than I am and I am just worn out with all of the drama.  

So, anyway, she and some of her friends gave a money gift to the daughter of one of them on the occasion of the birth of her first child.  It was a nice chunk of money and the daughter and her husband used it to take care of some bills related to the baby's birth and to purchase some things they needed for the baby.  

That sounds great.  You would think.  However, the group of them had decided that this gift was to be used to open a savings account for the baby's education.  The fact that they never mentioned it to the young parents, and the whole thing about a gift being a plain, old, no-strings, no expectations gift has not lessened their distress over how the money was used.  After hearing her complain about this for the third or fourth time, I asked her that if the account was so important to them, then why did they not buy something long-term investment-wise with the money, buy it in the baby's name (although I am not certain that you can legally do that any more) or in the name of one of the parents with the designation that it was for education.  

Her answer was that that was too much work and that the parents should have known that such a large monetary gift was for a larger purpose.  Maybe they think that when sperm and an egg combine to make a baby that there is some alchemical process that bestows the ability to read minds on at least one of the parents.

The bottom line is that she and the other babes do not believe that the parents were, or still are, worthy of the gift.  And, that is what I read today in two different forums.  That whole belief that whatever we give, especially if we make it ourselves, should be received by the recipient with extreme and slavish gratitude.  Their praises should be sung, although they would be ever so humble about hearing such sweet things said about them.  The givers should be petted and fussed over, and if none of this happens or...horrors...the gift is not properly appreciated, then the person who receives the gift is not worthy of the effort that went into making the damn thing.

And, you know, that is part of being a gift giver.  If it comes from the heart, then we find out what would please that person instead of putting our pleasure of making and giving ahead of theirs.  I try to practice that.  Last fall there were two family wedding, nieces of which I am so fond.  The weddings were two consecutive weekends, preceded by two other consecutive weekends of wedding showers.  They were in two different states, neither of which is the state in which I live.  I went to all four events and made certain that what I was giving would serve them.  

Once niece always wants me to make something for her.  She does not care what it is.  She is having her first baby late next spring, and I asked here a couple of weeks ago to choose two colours and an animal.  I am making all kinds of stuff for the baby and wanted it at least try to match the colours and decor that pleases her.  S'kay, anyway, she wanted wine charms for her wedding gift, similar the the gemstone ones I had made for her mother.  I did that, and made a two-drawer chest to hold them.  I also made matching coasters, but I keep forgetting to send them to her.  The other niece wanted a gift card to one of the department stores in her town.  

I was thrilled to oblige both of them.  

Because they were gifts.  

Because I love them.

Because it was what they wanted or needed, but it does not make any difference to me.

I and they are satisfied because they got what pleased them and I got to do what pleased me, which was pleasing them.

No strings.  No expectations. No judgment.  Nothing but love.

And, the best part is that there is not any angst or worry or disappointment.  That is as it should be.  So be it.