Da Goddess

Missing you, Rob! You’d be 63 today. There’d likely be a box of chilled white zin ready to roll. Franzia.

Were you here, I’d make you meatloaf with some Vidalia onions you’d make sure I’d have. I’d insist upon you playing guitar and singing some songs. “Louisiana 1927” — no one could beat your version. EVER. It was pure heartbreak in every note. Of course, you sang me many other songs and I’d be begging you for those, too. Hell, I’d be happy just to hear your voice calling me a bitch right about now. (Thankfully, you never really meant it, but at this point, you could and I’d still be happy to hear you say it.) Which reminds me of this image. Remember sitting on that balcony in Daytona together, watching the storm roll in? That was one of the most difficult trips I’ve ever had to come home from. Finding a friend who makes you laugh and cry as you did, well, that’s more precious than gold, silver, platinum, or jewels.

You and King Arthur would totally exhaust all those around you with your endless supply of stories. You’d be great friends. I know this. You’d laugh and argue and sing and tell tall tales and drive me absolutely insane, but I would love every moment of it. I really wish you could be a part of this world today, Rob. You’d be so surprised at what’s going on. Of course, I’m pretty sure you’re keepin’ an eye on things from a distance and I’m pretty sure you’d have a mouthful to say about all of it.

I miss you, my friend. And today I celebrate you.

Hope there’s a party happenin’ wherever you are.

Not only did I survive Christmas, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

How was your Christmas?

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

May you be blessed with much, loved by many, and go hoarse from all the praises you sing today.

As I said last year:

Today I forgive the idiocy and cruelness. Today I focus on the kindness and love. And today I offer my thanks all those around me for being a part of my journey.

That should be my mantra each and every day. Maybe I need to start making Thanksgiving resolutions instead of waiting until January 1.

And it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without some form of this:

Yay!

LD, who missed his train and had to take the next one, arrived safely. We’ve had a good day.

We had game night. We played a new game called “Quick Wit”. Found it on Ebay while looking for Chinese Checkers. My particular version is dated 1938. And it’s FUN! At some point, there were tears, laughter, spontaneous belching and farting, and lots of shouting. I’m surprised the cops weren’t called. All that fun was loud and thoroughly enjoyable.

The premise of the game is simple: there are 50-some cards with letters of the alphabet (excluding X and Z) with prompts for categories. The first person to shout out an answer that fits the category gets the card. The player with the most cards at the end of the game wins. I did okay. And I think I was the loudest. Imagine that.

Tons of fun for a couple bucks. Hours spent laughing with family and friends…PRICELESS.

All we need now is a regular table (we have bar-height and stools) so I don’t kill my back during game time and meals and we’re in the money!

Bonus: Garden Wife is in town and we’ll be meeting up tomorrow. Woo hoo!

Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

It’s that time of year again. I end up digging through archives to find something and stumble on something else, which distracts me from my first task, but I don’t really care because I’m so thoroughly entertained that NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. Whew. I love run on sentences, don’t you?

Anyway, as I was looking for link from this post, I ran across my link to Random Penguins and got lost. But when I saw this post, I laughed long and hard. Sounds exactly like me these past couple weeks (fighting the sinus/bronchial crud and rankling King Arthur on a regular basis with my sheer volume of honking and barking). “Also, too, as well,” this one had me in stitches because Little Dude once said something similar about a guy in a Hummer.

Oh, and just so you know: I don’t think I’m going to do 25 Days of Holiday Music Videos this year. Or, should I? Do you like when I post the videos? Do you? DO YOU?

Listen, it’s been a weird few days here. Especially upon realizing that we have A WHOLE EXTRA WEEK before Thanksgiving. My entire family, including King Arthur, thought we had merely a week to go. WHEW! Gives me a little more time to recover and get down to serious baking and planning.

Let’s get the peeves out of the way first.

At the hospital the other night: in the waiting room, a family had two small children with them. One was a baby who was intermittently fussy and then unsupervised the rest of the time. (Would seem to go hand in hand, no?) The other child had an unrelenting cough. Apparently, the parents had informed folks earlier that it was “just asthma”. It didn’t sound like an asthmatic cough to me. And if it had been, why were they not giving him his inhaler. I was angry because the last thing anyone in that waiting room needed was to be exposed to illness that could then be passed along to a newborn. When the family finally left (after HOURS OF EXPOSING EVERYONE!!!) we all breathed a huge sigh of relief and grumbled about the parents’ stupidity and lack of consideration of others and of their son’s health.

Babies R Us: Lady M desperately needed a smaller size for her breastpump. We ran over to Babies R Us to get what she needed, only to find they don’t stock the small size. You have to order it online. Now, with all the research and push to get new mothers to breastfeed, and the extensive stock of supplies for such at Babies R Us, wouldn’t you think they’d carry all sizes? “You can order it online,” said the very sweet clerk. I tried to keep the steam from blowing off the top of my head as I replied, “but that doesn’t help her now, does it? She’s in pain and she’s having to do all sorts of insanely things to pump at this point.” The woman agreed with me and recommended we try area hospitals’ breastfeeding stores. As it was after 5pm, none were open. It truly angered me that Babies R Us wouldn’t at least keep a couple boxes of the small shields on hand “just in case”.

Infant clothing manufacturers: Whatever happened to the onsies/bodysuits that snapped up the front center, from crotch to neck? These little onsies were lifesavers when LD was a baby. The only ones I can find online are over $15 EACH. Ridiculous. If anyone has some left over from days gone by, please let me know. Or if you know where we can get some, please please please please let me know!

Butting heads: King Arthur’s ex-wife has been a doll and has been doing so much for Lady M as she gets settled in at home. However, after I changed Baby E’s diaper, I was going to swaddle her again and was told I was doing it wrong. That was after I was supervised changing the diaper. Now, I know she’s just being a concerned grandmother, but after years as a pediatric nurse, nanny, and a mom, I think I’ve changed more diapers than she has, as well as swaddled more babies. I took a subtle deep deeth breath and let it slide, all the while wanting to show her how to really bundle a baby. The moment past and all was well afterwards. Still, that, in addition to the next item, it was a bit of a vexatious day that left my back knotted even more than it should have been.

Grumpiness: For some reason yesterday was one of those grumpy days for King Arthur. I truly felt invisible or, alternately, wanted to BE invisible. One minute he would act as though my input was ridiculous and unimportant, and the next minute I was incurring the wrath of Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. I ended up feeling surly as well as hurt. It wasn’t pretty. I finally said a prayer, asking for patience and grace and we managed to work in a laugh or three.

Now, on to the praises.

Corel: I was finally able to get in touch with someone who helped me get PaintShop Pro X5 installed on the new computer. All that’s missing is the Nik plugin and I’m simply awaiting the customer service agent’s response to my email. She’s been an absolute angel. I am grateful.

Medication: while I have a limited supply of my pain meds, I’m grateful to have what I do. I was carefully rationing them the past couple weeks, but I finally said, “fuck this” and took what I needed, when I needed, and have been feeling a bit better. I know there will be hell to pay when I run out, but this respite from excruciating pain has been quite welcome.

Prayer: it may seem a bit trite, but I’ve found that praying for guidance in times when I feel things getting to me has been, literally, a Godsend. I’ve found more peace in prayer in the past couple weeks than I have ever experienced in my entire life. Funny how the simplest solution is always the last thing you try.

And with that, I’m off to finish packing. We’re heading to Vegas for Ren Faire with friends, old and new, with a couple other very fun events planned. A CD release party tonight and Human Nature on Sunday. While the preparations for this trip have been fraught with disaster, we’re all looking forward to it.

So now I’m outta here.

I wish you a relaxing and beautiful weekend, my friends.

Today is King Arthur’s birthday. We officially celebrated Saturday with our friends, games, and some pizza. A good time was had by all.

Still, today is the official day. And today also happens to be the day King Arthur’s daughter was admitted to the hospital after her water broke. No contractions yet, but it could well be that she’ll give birth at some point soon. If that’s the case, the baby will share a birthday with her grandfather. It’s about three weeks too soon. The lungs should be developed enough, hopefully.

Please say a prayer that mother and child are healthy, the labor is painless and without drama, and that we have even more reason to celebrate today.

A friend of ours stopped by the house today and it was quickly decided that we needed something to do since it was too hot to go outside blah blah blah. So we got the dice out. And we played Zips for hours. I whipped up some lemon squares while we took a short break. King Arthur made some chicken broccoli alfredo. Everything baked while we played more dice. Then it was time to eat. Yum! After dinner, while waiting for the dessert to cool down enough, we played a couple more games of Zips. We laughed. We enjoyed ourselves. And we laughed some more. By the end of our friend’s visit, we’d caught up with each other, ate great food, and had a splendid time. It was a nice change from all the pain and sluggishness we’d been feeling for the last couple weeks. We both still hurt and all that crap, but it was nice to have someone come by and break up the day. Especially with a fun game.

It also beat the other day when I spent 15+ hours backing up my computer, which is still being bratty.

Yeah, game days are good.

So good, we’ve decided we’re going to have game night at least every other week with our friend and his family.

My friend, Pat in Australia, passed away last week. He continued fighting for wildlife and habitat preservation right until the end. Now, he and his friend/fellow wildlife enthusiast Steve Irwin will be together again in Heaven, working their magic from up above.

The world is a sadder place without Pat.

To help fund the work that was Pat’s passion, please make a donation to Protection Association of Australia or consider a donation to the Humane Society of the United States.

May God hold Pat in his arms and join him up with those loved ones who’d already passed.

A couple days before my birthday, King Arthur took me up to see Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show tape. (We got to do two tapings – first with Paul Reiser, second with William Shatner [whose hysterical first story was edited out of the broadcast]!) Whilst waiting in line to get in, we met a lovely woman who was in town specifically to see Craig. Naturally, she and I hit it off right away; we’re both Craigophiles to the nth degree. As we were talking, it came up that we were there as part of my birthday celebration, so after King Arthur had gone to buy me a souvenir (a LLW t-shirt), she went to the gift store as well and then surprised me with a coffee mug. What a sweet thing to do!

So now this is how I enjoy my morning beverage and relive some wonderful memories all at the same time. How cool is that?

I’ve been blogging for 11 years at this point. It’s a rather curious thing to me to still be at it after all this time.

I’m certain I’m no better a writer than I was when I started, but I know I’m a better editor for it. I’m no better a person than I was when I started, but I’m far more enriched by the friends I’ve made along the way. I hope in some way I’m a better friend as the result — not from blogging, but from the lessons of their friendship. I’m happier now than I was when I began. Sure, there have been many changes in my life along the way, but I am finally content to be who I am, proud of the two children who inhabit my heart, loving the right man, being loved by the right man, living in the right home, and just…to be.

There is no guarantee of where I’ll be tomorrow or the next day, week, month, or year. There is no guarantee of anything in this life (except death, no?). Yet, because of this blog, because of the wonderful friends and discoveries I’ve made along the way, I’m okay without any guarantees.

Don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the next adventure lying around the next corner. And, I hope you’ll still be around the campfire for the tales as they arise.

…I wonder how good they can be. How do they know when they’re done?

I ran into an old boyfriend today as I was leaving my mom’s house. Seeing this man always makes me super reflective and today was no different. Except that we laughed so hard over the “blind cleaners” truck he saw earlier. Our responses were exactly the same. Yeah, I do tend to attract like minds.

But back to this man and how I end up feeling after I see him. Because this is a tough thing for me. Part of me truly regrets not being a better judge of character and sticking with him — a good guy — instead of being aloof and just generally not the kind of person he always imagined me to be. He’s held me in high esteem all these years. And I do mean YEARS. As in 30. At least.

Yeah, weird, huh?

I still beat myself up about being young and foolish, young and stupid.

Because I wish I had been half the person he thought I was back then.

Deep down, I know I was a good person. But I was skittish and flighty and not as respectful to kind people as I wish I had been. I wish I had been nicer to him, had let him down more easily, had been more honest with myself even in not knowing whether or not I was ready for a Good Guy in My Life. That’s a very specific time in a young woman’s life, is it not?

So whenever I see my delivery man (who once showed me a photo of his “I married her because she reminded me of you” wife), I reflect long and hard about who I was and who I am.

Right now, I can’t say everything in life is perfect, but I can say I’m happy to be a parent to two really lovely children, the former wife of a man who was once my best friend, a daughter who loves her parents, an occasionally nice sister, and a woman who has borne the wear and tear of life with some modicum of dignity. I’ve made it through 46+ years. I’ve learned how NOT to treat people. How NOT to hurt them. How it’s better to be quiet sometimes, and speak loudly at other times. I’ve learned a lot and grown over time. I’m still making mistakes, but hopefully making fewer, and hopefully not repeating the same ones over and over again.

Thus, I came away from my encounter today wistful and smiling more than I usually do after I see my friend. I feel better than I normally do because I am more confident in who I am, warts and all.

I’ve taken off my blinders and cleaned up my act, I guess you could say. And that ties in almost as well as one could hope with the title of the post.

I’m going back to my music and memories, dwelling there just a bit longer, for no other reason than to keep my future on track.

P.S. Does anyone else ever think “wistful” should be spelt with an “h”…as in “whistful”?

Just some odd musings, spurred on mostly through conversations about kids with

Loving is what’s gut-wrenching. Motherhood/fatherhood/parenthood are just words. It’s the love that makes life exciting. What’s that quote from Parenthood? Gil and the grandmother are talking… (thank God for IMDB!!)

Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

Once you give your heart away, you worry a little bit about whether or not it’ll come back. It does. But not in the way you think. It comes back to you in the form of love from others. It’s a great big game of give and take. You give a little, you gain a little.

Still, you worry about the pieces of your heart you’ve given away. With our children, they become walking, talking whirlwinds that careen about, bumping and bruising the heart with each fall, every tear. You can’t help but hurt along with them.

Sometimes you almost wish you could take your heart back…only for a little bit. Just to catch your breath. Just to have a moment where you don’t feel it beating out of your chest. But then, after a while, you learn your heart only gets stronger because of the journey it’s taken with those who’ve held your love so very close them.

When you realize that, you kind of learn to love the adventure.

It’s now day #2 without my fuzzy friend Max here.

We took care of the gangly dog without confidence again. He was here for four days. I didn’t want to return him to his people. I ruv him. But he was very happy to have his people back and that’s the right thing to do. He did super well with us this time around and settled in right away.

Now I must go find myself another fuzzy friend to hang around with until he returns.

Ryan Bingham

Holy moly.

Fantastic concert.

He sang “Hallelujah” during his encore. Think he did four or five songs for the encore. Solo. It was amazing.

Don’t know who Ryan is? Try this song (which he did NOT play at the show, but everything else was so good it didn’t matter):

Opening the show was honeyhoney. Lead singer Suzanne gave me a copy of their CD and I fell in love with the band even more.

I like “Angel of Death” but I think my favorite is “Don’t Know How”

Don’t get me wrong, I like their livelier stuff, too! But these two songs just kill me in a way I can’t explain.

Bonus videos

Super special thanks to Fat Guy for being the one to first introduce me to the music of Ryan Bingham years ago.