Thank You for the Opportunity

My beautiful daughter sends me a text message from school early Friday morning to tell me that one of her classmates passed away suddenly. With stricken horror I reply with "OH NO!" 

This young lady was not one of my daughter's close friends. She never came to our house or called her on the phone. But she had been in my daughter's classes. They'd passed in the halls and seen each other in the lunch room. We've all known people like that. 

The facts surrounding her death, while unclear, point toward an aneurysm. Her mother went to her room and found her daughter on the floor. They called 911 and she was gone before they got her to the hospital. (All hearsay...I truly know no facts.)

Today my daughter and her classmates are attending the funeral of a teenager. I have to separate myself from the nightmare (that can't be a strong enough word) that child's parents are enduring. 

It is not our place to question God and His plan. I know that. I am reminded in the face of a tragedy that the opportunities we are given are fleeting and all gifts. 

Last night my daughter asks if I'd make her pizza as she didn't feel very well and was hungry.  I was happy to do it.  I sat down on the floor in front of the couch after the pizza went into the oven to watch the third quarter of the Cowboys game and there on the couch, her head on a pillow leaning against my husband's lap, is my sleeping teenager. 

Thank you, God. For the opportunity to make pizza for a sleeping kid.  I'm certain with every shred of my being the moms who have lost their babies would give ANYTHING to make pizza for their sleeping child.

I woke up this morning and my first thoughts were of work and what had to be done today and my plans for dinner this evening and...... my mind wandered to this mother who woke up this morning and thought, "I bury my daughter today."

Thank you, God. For the opportunity to think only of work and food this morning.

This is the hell of peace for sure.

Strike a Manly Pose

Today Hub and I were discussing the joy we got as children when our parents received the JC Penney & Sears catalogs around Christmas time.  This is an activity that our daughter has been completely deprived of as absolutely no one sends consumers a 4" thick catalog anymore. (Or if they do I haven't seen any!) Of course, with the internet it doesn't make financial sense for a merchant to spend the time & money on an actual catalog.

But there was something amazing about getting that giant book in the mail.  As kids we would quickly skip over all the boring things and hit the toy section which was pages and pages and pages of dream fodder. Ahh.... the time spent flipping through looking at Barbie condominiums, Slinkies, Monchichis, Speak n Spells, Tinker Toys, Stretch Armstrong, jumping/bounce horses...it was wonderful.

Since I was one of four children, my mother used to allot each of us time with the catalog to avoid fighting (it didn't work) and once an large brawl broke out when one of my sisters used a pair of scissors to cut a few items out of the catalog thus keeping any of us from "picking that" for a Christmas gift.

Looking back on it now, I was so busy drooling over toys that the GOLD buried within the pages of those 1970's catalogs was lost on me.  What I wouldn't do to have JUST ONE of those entire books in my possession.....after all....what the FRAK is better than THIS:

Drought and the Foot Effect

We are in the midst of a horrific drought. The best way to exemplify this is by stating the following:

On Saturday in the wee small hours of the morning, Hub and I were awakened by rain.  And I don't mean there was some loud-ass thunderstorm going on.  I mean drizzle was hitting the windows and both of us started awake at the same time wondering what in the blue hell we were hearing.  What is that??? Is that...water????? Falling from the SKY????????

Well, on Friday the bit of rain we were going to get was nothing but a pipe-dream that the weather people said we had a 1% chance of even getting so water on the ground was something I didn't bother to think about.

My daily chores at work include running to the post office and the bank (if needed). The post office runs are usually wildly entertaining.  Just the other day I select a parking spot as close to the building as possible to avoid bursting into flames between the cool interior of the car and the building only to find that the spot I chose was in front of a broken down Bronco.  The two men trying to fix it are having a discussion as I get out of the car that went like this:

Person #1:  Look.  This cable looks like it was chewed on by a rat.
Person #2: (mildly annoyed) Yeah. I guess we need to think about doing something about the rats.

WHAT????? You *think* you should do something about the *rats*???? Blech. My guess is it's not PET rats run amuck in your garage so ....gross.

So.

I go to the bank on Friday and I select the closest spot (again) in order to avoid spontaneous combustion (again) since it is over 103 degrees (again) by noon. To my surprise there is a small pothole that is filled with....water. (!!) So I exit the vehicle jumping gracefully from the driver's seat, over the puddle, on to the curb.  I glance back as I'm walking toward the building because seeing a pool of water on the ground in Dallas is such an amazing sight, and I notice that there is a layer of scum on top of the puddle filling this pothole.  This is immediately odd to me because if you run a sprinkler here for 30 seconds you attract a flock of birds so I assume it's filth in this hole.

Banking complete, I come out and proceed to avoid this hole filled with water and stepping over it to get into the car my plant foot slips on what I assume is mud.  I catch myself and my other foot comes down in a natural reaction landing . . . square in the middle of this warm, squishy, scum-covered puddle in the pot hole.

<<insert cry of disgust>>

I have flip-flops on and as such my right foot is now drenched with I don't know what (but it is liquid). Due to the dryness we are suffering from I carry bottles of water with me. Sometimes I forget them in the car, however, and if you turn the engine (and, hence the a/c) off for 5 seconds it's 200 degrees in your car.  I sit in the driver's seat....dry foot on the floor, drenched foot dangling outside the vehicle...wishing instantly for a shower stall and Lava soap.

Instead I reach for one of the two bottles of water in my cup holders....a desperation move to get rid of whatever is currently covering my foot.....I dump the contents of the bottle and ....

My foot is now on FIRE as this is the bottle from this morning and the water inside is now approximately 400 degrees.  I yelp and the person currently exiting the bank turns and looks at me as if I am insane.

Hopefully, the boiling water killed all the germs..... as soon as I got back to the office, however, I covered the foot in hand sanitizer.

Thank you S&G

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

Acrimony

We're going to start today off with a photograph of me:

Now then. While driving home last night I had a neighbor whip out of her driveway without looking.  I wasn't driving very fast.  I didn't have to lock 'em up or anything.  But as she swerves around me I give a quick toot of my horn.  Apparently Kittie threw her hands up in the air or something...I can't say for sure if she did or not because I didn't see it.

I drive up to the next block, turn on our street, and then into our driveway.  As we climb out of the car this woman comes to a screeching halt at the foot of our drive, rolls her window down and screams, "What is wrong with you? What is wrong with your passenger throwing her hands up at me?" I saw red INSTANTLY. Without thinking I retort with, "Ya know what....just watch when yer backing out of your driveway and stuff like that won't happen. Better yet, get killed."  She flipped me off and drove away.

I was in the state of Cat Hiss for the rest of the night. (I must give credit where credit is due. Hub is acutely aware of the moment Cat Hiss arrives...he can see the bitch-face from a mile away....and was sweet and considerate and didn't attempt to add to it....even though I'm sure he wanted to beat me with a stick.)

It wasn't until this morning that I started to examine my behavior.  I freely admit that Wrath is my most beloved and favorite deadly sin. But perhaps it's time to rein that in.  Didn't set a terrific example for Kittie by telling this person to 'get killed'.  Yay me.

So today is day ONE of seeing how long I can go without Cat Hiss.

If you want to start betting how long this will last by all means do so. I'm at peace with that for sure.

Sometimes They Are Still Alive

I am not so much on spiders. Living in Texas does mean that we have a pretty decent population of poisonous spiders like black widows and brown recluses. I've seen those around.  The occasional tarantula rings the doorbell every now and then. (I pretend not to see them. Big, hairy, slow and methodical. Blech.) The black widows and brown recluse spiders all get a nice healthy shot of Raid when they are seen.  I don't know if I own enough Raid to kill a tarantula and, really, we see them so rarely I don't know if I could bring myself to kill one. (NOTE: If one is ever seen in the house, however, we're going to move.)

Inside the house are wolf spiders. Hub has standing orders that the wolfies are to be either left alone or they are to participate in a catch and release program. They eat bugs. We don't have any....or maybe I should say we don't have any because of the wolf spiders.  While we've seen the rather large wolfie in the house before, they are generally not too big. I have spider catching apparatus ready at all times.  One clear plastic cup.  One cardboard coaster stolen from Chili's. Place cup over spider. Slide coaster under spider. Open door. Toss spider. Since they are harmless to people, I'm actually a little tiny bit fond of them. But just a little bit.

Last night I'm standing in the kitchen banging around trying to decide what I was going to cook for dinner. Something catches my eye.  In the corner of my cabinets is an unidentified spider the size of my palm.

I'm not a shrieker. I abandoned the Silly Girl a long time ago.  However, this massive, multi-colored spider elicited a very loud, "HOLY SHIT!" I squelched the urge to run from the room.

Hub wasn't home from work yet.  Kittie & friend were sleeping (yeah at 5:30 p.m.....teenagers can fall asleep at the drop of a dime) and that was probably a good thing because Kittie would have gotten a stick and polka dotted kerchif, packed some of her belongings and carried herself right out of the house never to be heard from again if she'd seen this monster.

Fortunately, my uncle was there to rescue me.  When he heard my exclamation of an obscene nature he wandered into the kitchen.  There he finds me standing in the middle of the room, staring catatonically at this unwelcome visitor. "Wow!" he says. "What kind of spider is that?"

"I don't know. I don't care. Kill it."

He walks over and bends down to look closer and Silly Girl arrives. "NO! Don't GET NEAR IT!"

With a chuckle he says, "Ok ok ok."

"K.I.L.L. the little bastard please!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Silly Girl is starting to get panicky. I start to dig around under the sink for a can of Raid.

"Don't spray that in the kitchen!" Uncle says....he grabs a dishtowel. (I have Good Dishtowels and Bad Dishtowels.  All the Bad Dishtowels have bleach spots. He wisely chose one of those.)  Folding it in half, he makes a grab for this huge spider.  Which then LEAPS FROM HIS GRASP with amazing speed.

Some girl screamed. It might have been me.

Said spider climbs right back to where it was before and this time Uncle doesn't miss. I can hear the disgusting 'pop' of death as he closes his fist around the portion of the towel containing what I'm assuming to now be spider parts.  He turns and hands me the towel.

I take it, prepared to shake what I can into the trash and immediately set Bad Dishtowel to soak in some bleach.  "Let's look at it!" Uncle says.  I open the towel.  (Why do spiders ball themselves up when they pass. It's gross.)  We both peer inside to examine what is left of the spider and THE FRACKING THING spreads it's legs and flips back over.

Some girl starts screaming again.  Same girl throws towel onto floor and starts jumping up and down on it.

Sometimes....they are still alive.  I am NOT at  peace with that.

Your Password Sucks

I have noticed that all sites that require you to create a username and password now judge "Password Strength".

I'm big on the acronym password.  But I like to make them the longest acronyms possible.  I recently praised myself for the password Iasfsatohtcapjtbafpos! Which of course is an acronym for "I am so fucking sick and tired of having to create a password just to buy a fucking pair of shoes!"   While I was busy praising myself the website told me my password was only of medium strength.  WTF?

I use all encrypted passwords at work...which I keep straight using an acronym passworded spreadsheet.

A co-worker of mine once called me from out of town and said, "Hey yank such and such off my computer and email it to me."

"Ok," I say, sitting as his computer....which is locked.  "What's your password?"

"Don't you know it," he asks.

Seriously, I think......why would I know this information? It's a PASSWORD thus making your computer secure. "No. Why the hell would I know your password?"

"I just thought you had everyone's passwords."

"Unless you physically came and gave it to me I wouldn't know it.  Office Manager does not also equal clairvoyant."

"Right.  My password is 'clownpenis'."

"WHAT? That sucks. Why is that your WORK COMPUTER PASSWORD?"

"No one can guess it."

"I should hope not!" And I'm scarred for life.

I guess I should be glad it wasn't 1234.

Paternity Practice

Father's Day was this weekend and I have issues with what is great 'gift ideas' for dad.

Braun had a whole section of ads promoting how their Series 7 electric shaver was the perfect Father's Day gift. Is this what men hope to get? Here, dad, you look like crap. Shave for a change.

The website iamastuffedanimal.com has this extremely disturbing personalized stuffed animal made to look like you...and this is a great idea for Father's Day??? I know lots of men who just can't wait to put their favorite stuffed animal up against the pillow after they make the bed (satire) and do you want to display a stuffed animal made to look like 'dad'?  My darling daughter would have to ask them to produce a stuffed human replica that is either screaming or making the 'straight face'.

The standard tie, shirt and wallet says, "Work more so you can open this wallet and grand contents will fall out into our hands."

All men really want for father's day is to practice what it takes to actually become a father.

That's what my husband got from me for father's day.  And I'm super at peace with that.

I Have Gas

I'm a firm believer in the thought that you purchase a new car so that car trouble isn't an issue. The trade off of the car payment is the fact that car doesn't have problems.

I've had plenty of 'cash cars'.  You pay your cash. You are amazed for 30-120 days. The car needs work. End of story.

That's fine. I'm good with that. But technology being what it is today, if I'm making a car payment there should be no reason for me to need 'repairs' outside of tires and brakes.

I'm driving to work a couple of weeks ago; minding my own business just enjoying the smell of my venti Americano from Starbucks that I plan to down as fast as I can as soon as it's cool enough when I hit the gas pedal and. . . . nothing seems to happen.  I look at all my gauges and items that are supposed to light up.  Nothing.  Hmmm.... try again and "ping" the check engine light comes on.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Where the hell am I?  In less than 5 miles I'll hit No Man's Land.  Not a shoulder. Not an exit. Nothing. It's one of those awesome sections of freeway where they smash everyone in together and say "good luck!" I punch the gas again and get notta thing.  The "check oil" light pings.  Dammit.

I put on my hazards and see a sign saying my next exit is 6 furlongs away. (For those who don't follow horse racing...a furlong is 1/8 of a mile. When I give distances, it's in furlongs. You do the math.) I hope to make it...

Thankfully I do make the exit and drift off the freeway at a whopping 2 mph.  I call Hub to tell him what's up.  First words out of his mouth are, "Do you have gas?"  Um. Well DUR.  I'm not stupid. Of course I have GAS.  Are you kidding me? I examine every single gauge ....I have a little more than a quarter tank of gas, check engine, check oil, not over heating, not smoking, not smelling funny....just not running. He says, "Where are you?" I tell him. He says, "Sit tight. I'm calling a tow truck. I'm on my way to wait with you."

I sit tight.

Fourteen minutes go by and my phone rings. It's Hub. The following comes over the phone, "Well. I've had a blow out. I'm ten minutes from you but I need to change my tire." Seriously? Baby, just change the damn thing and go to Discount Tire.  I'll call you when the tow truck arrives.

Fast forward to almost lunch time.  Hub has a new tire. My car's at the shop. I'm at work; Hub's at work. We're waiting on the verdict.  Cell phone rings. I answer. "Ma'am?" I hear. "Yes." I say.  A kindly voice says, "Well, we know what's wrong with your car."  "OH?" I say.  The voice says, "Yes, ma'am. You ran out of gas."

WTF????????????? I say, "Um. NO WAY. I stared intently at every light and gauge on the dash! It never said I was out of gas!" The voice says, "No. It wouldn't. Your gas gauge is broken."

So, I'm one of those folks who waits for the **ping** and the lighted symbol of a gas pump.  Not any more.  I fill up at 250 miles w/o fail.

So.....$65 dollars later.....I'm at peace with being a dumbass.

Numb

As I claw my way through another day I find that more than anything else I wish to be numb. If you don't feel you don't hurt. If you don't hurt you don't cry. . . . . . .but if you don't cry . . . . are you human?

I freely admit to a charmed life. My parents doted on me. They did everything they could for me and to this day I can call either one and know when the conversation ends they will say, "I love you, honey."  It scares me that by even 1% I may be in the minority on that one.

My husband loves me. He comes home every night. He doesn't hit me or our kid. I know there are probably hundreds of thousands who would almost kill for that.

I have a great job with a great boss who pays me well and doesn't freak out or make me feel inferior. I listen to people complain about their jobs every day.

I have a child who is bright and funny and healthy and sensitive and beautiful. There are mothers all over the world who put flowers at their children's graves every day or sit at hospital beds praying for God to take the disease from their baby and give it to them.

How in the world could I, who has truly everything, be so selfish to wish for nothing else but to be numb?

When I am not worried I wonder what I forgot to worry about. When I am worried I compound it with extra items that are beyond my control.

Weird that I have a box inside my head that looks like a pirate's treasure chest. In it lives The Black Ooze.  The Black Ooze looks like that creature from the movie "The Blob". It threatens to take over. Envelope me. I  try to keep it locked in the box I created for it yet sometimes it leaks out.

Why can't I let go of the things that make me so angry? I brought this up to a person close to me and they said, "What you need to do is figure out what you need to forgive yourself for. You know what it is. Stop beating yourself up. The past is the past. Let it be there."

The freedom symbolized in those words I could actually taste. All the anger. All the self-loathing. All the mistakes. Can I leave them behind?

If I let them go, do I have an identity? Have I let the 20 years of anger consume me to the point that I am condemned to fighting the Ooze?

Suddenly fighting for freedom doesn't mean war on a global scale. Sometimes fighting for freedom is allowing yourself to make terrible mistakes. And then forgiving yourself for it.

Odd how you hear songs when they come out and then years later they mean something completely different:

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
For all this
There’s only one thing you should know
I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter 

If I could go back I'd change everything. I can't go back. How do I go forward?

No peace today.

"Kind" is a 4-letter word

I'm on this low-carb diet. Except for missing bread and cereal and pasta and pizza and ice cream and milk and potatoes and fruit it's pretty awesome. I've dropped quite a bit of weight and while it may SOUND like I'm bitchin', I promise I'm not.

I carefully plan my meals and make sure I'm within my limits every day. Unless, of course, I forget my frakking lunch sack at home .... which I did today. No worries, I can improvise. Jack in the Box is, shockingly, permitted as long as you forego all breaded products (including buns), potato anything, and katsup (who the hell knew tomatoes were loaded with sugar....eff me). So when I give up from starvation and head to JITB for breakfast I'm thinking, "Fine. Meat and eggs sans bun just means I can't stuff it down my throat driving back to the office."

OH. Important side note. The area in which I work can be accurately described as "The 'Hood". Police activity with full lights and sirens is the norm. If I don't hear an hovering police helicopter at a minimum of once a month I worry that the thugs and drug dealers have gone soft. I don't fear for my safety (I'm packing) but it is what it is and I am quite cautious at all times.

I pull through the drive thru at JITB....order my sausagey-eggy concoction that I plan to rip apart on a plate when I get back to my desk...and as I complete my order I see a bedraggled, filthy human standing by the drive thru line.....two small objects in his hands. I watch the 2 patrons before me wave him off.

My initial response is to push the button, roll up my window, and just ignore. But something tells me no. I look at this man; he holds a package of double A batteries in one hand....and a tiny pocket Bible in the other. He explains that he is a drug addict trying to reform and could I help him and buy batteries from him. I never have more than $20 in cash on me. Ever. And nearly never coins. Today I have exactly $0.62 in the cup holder in the car and zero cashola.  I grab the coins, extend them to this man and say, "Sorry, hon. This is all I can give you. You can keep the batteries."

He smiles, takes the change and says, "Miss. Do you have any water?"  I'm floored. I say, "No, I'm sorry. I don't."  Very kindly he says, "Thank you for your help."

When I got to the window to get my order I am watching others behind me ignore him.  I say to the young man working the window, "I need a large cup of water and another breakfast sandwich please."  I pay for the items and pull around the building. His back is now to me and I roll down my window and say, "Here, sir!" I give him the food and glass of water and say, "Have a good breakfast! I'm hungry, too!"  He takes the cup and bag and looks at me and say, "Oh, miss. Thank you so much." And behind me a woman whips into the parking lot and immediately starts honking at me to move out of the way. She was honking before she came to a stop behind me.

Am I a sucker for feeding the "reformed drug addict"? Maybe. Is the $3 extra I spent on breakfast going to redeem me or save my soul?  Probably not.  But sometimes the fellowship of mankind must be recognized. He was still thanking me repeatedly as I drove off. I'm not particularly religious. I don't spend a lot of time in church nor reading the Bible yet the verse below somehow leapt to mind. Was he an angel? Nope. Probably not.  The woman dying to get to the frigging drive thru window was clearly not. Am I? Nope. Not a chance.

I'm at peace with that.

"Let brotherly love continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."Hebrews 13:1-2

And then . . .

Well, she pressured me into it. She knows who she is.  I've rejoined the blogging world.

Do I have anything to say that will be interesting? Maybe. Do I have any sparkly bits of information or thoughts that will make you a better person? Doubtful. But I will do my best to entertain.

The whole idea behind the title of the blog is me trying to find peace. Peace with myself. Peace with this world. It's a tall order. I'm not sure if I'll be able to achieve either. But we'll try. But know this....I'm not always polite and I curse (a lot) so if you are too tender then away with you.

I do not have peace with the cost of toiletries. This weekend's shopping excursion ended with the somewhat chipper check-out girl proclaiming, "Your total is $389." What? The pile of snacks for a teenager + friends aside, I scan the mile long receipt and run a tally in my head. Over $100 of the bill was from the frigging toiletries portion of the store.

Having two menstruating females in the house is stupidly expensive. Three boxes of lady stuff is over $20...too bad the cash isn't very absorbent. I'd save myself the time and use a fiver in my undies instead.

Also, I want to know what in the hell is inside body wash that it should cost $9.99. I actually took the lid off and looked for flakes of gold. Ok so pick a cheaper brand, you say. Right. I'll save myself even more money and just use fucking lemon scented Ajax dish liquid. That'll be awesome on the loofah.

Toilet paper, which I'm going to do unspeakable things with, costs more than last two pairs of flip flops I bought and the flops are going to last WAY longer. The alternative I suppose is to use a wash rag but I could never talk myself into tossing that repugnant mess into my washing machine. Not without having to replace the machine directly after.

Alas....we all smell good and are wiped with a puffy cloud.

So, maybe I'm at peace with the $100 after all.