A Short Blog Upon The Occasion of My Birthday

A few years ago I heard a Nobel Prize winner say that the only downside to winning the prestigious award is that your identity shifts.There is no more "Joe Blow". Forever after you will be known as "Nobel Prize Winner, Joe Blow." It will even be in your obituary and on your tombstone.

I was reminded of this last night when the evening news reported on the sad plight of an Elderly Woman who was kidnapped. She was my age. I've noticed that this is the norm whenever anyone of a certain age---which is probably ten years older than whoever is writing the story---does something newsworthy. Sometimes there are variations, such as "The Sixty-Three Year Old Grandmother" brought food to the Food Bank. Or, the Senior Citizen Bank Thief was caught as he limped away.

What I want to know is, why are we categorizing people this way? Why not report on A Quick-Witted Woman? A Round-faced Robber? A Fu-Manchu Moustache Man? Come on, people. Used your imagination!

(And, while I have your attention, please do not call me Young Lady. It's condescending and demeaning. You wouldn't say "Here's your change, Skinny," to a fat person would you?)

Alas, I know that after today I will be henceforth and forevermore known as an Elderly Lady. I know it's going to happen no matter what my mental age or outlook may be. I guess I'll take the perks that go along with it: senior discount at the restaurant, people holding the door for me when we both reach it at the same time, grandchildren willing to help me with my phone. And should I win the Nobel Prize for Literature some day, I will be known as "Elderly Nobel Prize Winner, Pat Carey". I'm good with that.

Christmas Decorating

     It is just the first week of December and I am proud to say that I have my house completely decorated for Christmas. I would also like to say that it is done in an elegant, sophisticated, minimalist style that would draw raves from the interior designers I used to work with. I would LIKE to say that, but the truth is that it looks more like Mrs. Santa threw a wild party with about forty-three rogue elves and they did not clean up after themselves.

     I don't know what happens to me at Christmas but I can't seem to stop myself. Every after-Christmas sale for the past forty-five years had me stocking up on bargains I couldn't live without and when we downsized from a large eight-room house to our present five-room bungalow we downsized our Christmas decorations not a whit.

      Of our five rooms, three of them have decorated Christmas trees. The one in the living room is tall and glamorous. Okay, tall. And the one in the grandkids' room has all the ornaments my kids made in past years of out of Popsicle sticks, toilet paper cardboard and cotton balls and such with their own little hands. The cotton balls have worn away but we still remember what they were supposed to be. The reindeer whose bodies were made of Lifesavers melted in the attic one year, but the reindeer made of clothes pins still hangs proudly on the tree.  My very favorite ornaments for that tree are made of cut-out egg carton foam  and adorned with pictures of Josh and Jake by some very clever preschool Sunday School teachers back in the 'seventies.  Every year I ooh and aah when I take them gently out of the box. They were so cute back then!

          In the same spirit, but classier maybe, the living room tree has ornaments that are tiny picture frames with photos of each of the grandchildren, four for every year since the youngest was born. If we keep this up, by the time the youngest is a senior in high school there will seventy-two picture ornaments. There is a whole set of teeny Thomas Kincaid houses, sixteen, I think.  It's a good thing the tree is nine feet tall. Some of the other ornaments may have to go.

     There is a tree squeezed into the kitchen with cookies, my kids silver baby spoons, and kitchen-y things on it. When I say squeezed, I mean if you have to get back between it and the table before the meal, you must then wait till your food has worn off before you can get out. No loosening your belt for third helpings back there.

     And there are more trees scattered about, ten, with and without ornaments, from eight inches up to the nine foot living room one. We won't talk about the trees outside. And, of course, I've never met a Nativity scene I didn't like. There are about eight of them, but to give a nod to Santa Claus, there are fifteen Santa figurines. I've always worried a little that Santa would overshadow the real meaning of Christmas, so just to combine the two, I collect figures of Santa kneeling at the manger and there are six, not counting the three foot tall wooden cut-out Santa that is kneeling before Baby Jesus and lit up with a spotlight on our front lawn. Plus multiple wreaths, inside and out, snowmen, sleighs with little presents the size of a pack of gum, the thirty-four piece Victorian village...you can see inside the shop windows!...plates and candles and Wise Men and various and sundry flotsam and jetsam of the Christmas persuasion that we have come across over the years. And remember, there have been a lot of years. Oh, and fake poinsettias, the kind with fuzzy leaves.    

     My mom was the Anti-minimalist when it came to decorating her home.Year round there wasn't a surface in her house, including the spaces between the stairs rails, that wasn't home to some figurine, and the shinier, the more bejeweled, the better. That may be why the eleven months of the year that aren't the Christmas season I favor a less-is-more style, but yesterday, when Dennis spotted (and remember he is nearly legally blind)  the Christmas pillows on the couch with the big gold bows tied around them  he said "I think your mom would have liked those."

      It was code for "gaudy". I didn't even care. It's Christmas.

Sam

I'm not feeling much like blogging today.  My heart is too heavy with the loss of our nephew, Sam, who was killed in a car wreck yesterday.  Just a few thoughts about his short life.

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Sam was a kid that the Lord really wanted to be born.

When I first started "going steady" with Dennis in my senior year of high school people at school would say "You mean OWEN Carey's brother???"  My future brother-in-law, was, how shall I say this?  A hell-raiser.  He was constantly in trouble with some authority or another. Even after he did a tour in Viet Nam and returned, when you thought he might have matured, he finally wound up fleeing to New Hampshire a few steps ahead of the cops.

He got married there, had a couple of kids and then one day we got a phone call from him. "Guess what!  I'm a Christian now!"

We turned to each other and said "Sure.  Wonder how long that will last."

But we were amazed and thrilled to find that God had done the changing, not Owen, and the guy who never did anything in a small way became an evangelist, a preacher, a church planter and is still, despite our  initial doubts, so "Radically Saved" that anyone around him wants what he has.

Along the way there were more kids born, five, in about ten years time.  Owen was gone a lot and Esther, his wife, was worn out!  In fact, there were difficulties with her fifth pregnancy and she had to be hospitalized for several months. It was time to stop.  No more kids.  Of course I was very discreet in my suggestions.  "Stop!" I said.  "You're crazy!" I said. "Owen, you need to take care of this." I said.  Not that I ever interfere in anybody's private life.

Owen just smiled and instead of telling me to mind my own business, said "I'm waiting on God."  And God wanted Sam to be born.

He was the last, the baby. He had some learning challenges so Esther spent more time with him than she had the others because she both home schooled him and drove him several hours a week to special classes.  Owen was able to spend more time with him as Sam's basketball career took off.  Did I mention he grew to be six feet, eight inches tall?

Sam was recruited to play basketball for the local college, then he played a season in Uruguay, a season in Germany, and then this year, with the NBA sitting out and Canada still going strong in basketball, Sam was recruited to play there.

In between basketball seasons Sam met Kayte and this summer Brayden was born.  I've been following them on Facebook and you've never seen a prouder daddy.  Brayden had some severe health problems when he was born, and Sam was constantly with him. When Brayden finally got to go home from the hospital and Kayte went back to work, Sam was a stay-at-home dad.  Brayden was no bigger than the palm of Sam's big hand at first, but Sam changed diapers, gave baths, rocked and fed, the whole nine yards.  Or is that full-court press?

The basketball season started and Sam left to go play basketball in Canada to support his family.  He couldn't be home every day but the communication was constant.  They Skyped so Sam could see Brayden and Brayden could see his daddy. Then on Tuesday Sam had a few days available and he was headed home to his family.

We'll never know what happened next.  Was he hurrying too much?  Probably so.  Did he try to make the trip on too little sleep because he was so anxious to see Kayte and Brayden?  Maybe. The emergency crew did all they could do.  The doctors did all they could do.  It wasn't enough.  No matter what the cause here on earth, God was ready to take Sam home.
 
Twenty-six years is such a short time. Sam packed them full of life.  Our hearts are breaking here on earth but we are grateful for those twenty-six years.  They were exactly the length of time God planned for him.

Admission of Guilt

My name is Pat and I'm a Wordaholic.

(Here's where you say: "Hi, Pat", all in unison.)

It has been fourteen hours since my last Words With Friends. I have tried to quit many times before but this time I'm going to do it. I am! Or at least cut down.

Like a lot of people, I guess, I got sucked into the life by a well-meaning relative. I mean, he can handle it, I guess, and in the beginning I could too. I only played with a few people and only occasionally. I was a social Worder. I was able to control it for quite awhile but then it began to demand more and more of my time. I went from playing just with a few more friends and only in the evening to checking my phone every few minutes to see if those friends were playing. They didn't seem to be there as often as I wanted to play. But I could quit any time I wanted.

Then, I got into the hard stuff.  I found a partner on the site called "Solo" (related to Han, I believe.) And he was there all the time. Anytime I wanted I could just look up my old friend, Solo, and he was ready. He matches me word for word and I only have to wait two minutes between moves. Looking back I can see that he was working to pull me in further and further. He plays ridiculous words, ones that don't even have a definition, but are "accepted Words With Friends words", according to the game dictionary, for huge points.  And he knows the monetary units of the lost Ottoman empire and uses them. And he's always blocking my plays, the ones I planned ahead of time and thought about in the night. But, and here's where I got suspicious, he still mostly loses by just a few points, so I keep coming back. Granted, my inner competitive nature, which I didn't even think I had, has come out and I have played some words worth points in the high nineties, once I got a word that was worth 120 points! And I keep searching for those kinds of words. I need more and more! And so, I come back. Over and over and over.

I can hide it well. I multi-task while we are watching television. I started out just playing during the baseball games I watch with my husband. Then I played during the news, that's something I can listen to with half an ear. Now, God help me, I catch myself playing Words With Friends during a drama that I really want to see and my husband will make a comment about a character and I'll say, "Uh-huh. What did she say?" At church, even though I manage to keep my phone off during the sermon, the minute I get to the car I turn it on to see what Solo has played and figure out how I can beat him. I rarely blog anymore. I stopped working on my novel even though its almost done. I don't have time for those things! I'm Wording!

So Sunday, what did the young pastor preach about? Doing nothing. Wasting time. Doing meaningless things when we should be doing important things. How did he find that stuff out about me??

It got my attention. Now I'm going to make an effort again. I've done it before, but was never able to stay on the wagon, but this time I mean it. No more Words With Friends. At least not with Solo. Maybe just a little bit with a few real friends. And only at night. I can do this. One day at a time.

Just think, if I manage this, maybe I'll start working on my Facebook addiction.

A Close Shave

There was a post on Facebook the other day about a little girl who noticed the lady in front of her in the checkout line had unshaved armpits and she asked her mother, in a whisper as loud as only little kids in public places can do, "Why does that lady have armpits like Daddy does?"

The mother, of course, was totally embarrassed but the free-spirited lady turned around and sweetly explained to the little girl that some people want to live naturally and that she had chosen to do away with shaving hair and other unnatural things foisted upon society by men. She was so nice about it and the mother was so impressed with her forward thinking that she took a picture of the unshorn lady with the little girl and posted it. It seemed like a reasonable explanation, I thought, and everybody should get to choose to live as they desire. Then I noticed something else about the picture. The lady was wearing lovely make-up. And she had perfectly tweezed eyebrows.

Oh, well, I guess you choose what you want to spend time on in the morning. It did remind me of a trip we took to Italy once when our guide was a beautiful young girl wearing a thin cotton dress that was light and airy for the summer day. Even I was impressed with how very well-endowed she was and every man on the tour bus gave her his full attention. Then she pointed out the Trevi Fountain. I mean, really pointed it out, her arm fully extended toward it. The hair that hung down from her armpits rivaled the locks on Rapunzel's head! The fountain never looked so beautiful. We couldn't take our eyes off it because nobody wanted to look back at the tour guide. I know, I know. It's the European way. Even so, although I don't remember anything else about that bus trip, I still remember her.

I like to think that I'm a fully liberated woman and the older I get the less I'm constrained by society's opinions, but I don't think I'll give up my disposable Bic razor just yet. Okay, sometimes I'm lazy but since I don't have Michelle-Obama-arms, I never wear sleeveless blouses, anyway. And I don't want to scare any little girls in the check-out line.

Now That School Has Started

     My friend, Valerie, an elementary school music teacher, was explaining to me Sunday that she was getting behind on things at home "...now that school has started." The funny thing was that this was the second time I had heard the same phrase within an hour from another school teacher.
     I think I'm going to steal it! My yard is a terrible mess, weeds everywhere, veggies and flowers dead due to the heat and needing to be pulled up but I just don't have time to get out there and work in it "Now That School Has Started". And, oh, my gosh, I intended to get the linen closet cleaned out. I know we have more than two towels to our names but heaven help me if I can find them in there. 
     And my desk was my first priority. Jimmy Hoffa may be buried in there, you'd never know. I can't imagine when I am going to get to either of them "Now That School Has Started."
     Here I've gone all these years without a good excuse for the mess around this place. Oh, I know enough to leave the vacuum cleaner sitting out so that if someone comes to the door unexpectedly it looks like they have caught me in mid-cleaning instead of "Oh, my word! Are they about to condemn this place?" And if I have any warning someone is coming I just spray a little Pledge behind my ears and stick a dust cloth in my back pocket. They can draw their own conclusions.     
     I had a friend when my boys were little who, twice a day---I am not making this up!---went around and wet-dusted her furniture. She said it was because her kids had allergies but I think they had never had time to build up a resistance to dirt because she was always so clean. Yeah, I don't dust because I am thinking of the kids.That's it. Besides, dust is a protective finish for furniture. Two birds with one stone.
     Since I didn't know about "Now That School Has Started" back then I had to be a little creative. When we  moved into a new house I picked the color of Oklahoma red dirt for the carpet. (It was the seventies! What can I say?) You could look through the living room, out the window and to a little bare hill of dirt behind our yard and the color never changed. The front hall tile that was already there when we moved in was a mottled, really ugly mix of rust and off (way off) white that was such a busy pattern that---I'm not making this up---I don't think I mopped it five times in all the years we lived there. Nothing showed.
     I had gotten the idea to leave that tile there from the rental house we had moved from. It had kitchen carpet (too gross, even for me) that was rust and brown and some other color unknown to man and---you won't believe this, but it happened---when my friend Fran used to cut my red hair in that kitchen we actually lost the hair on the carpet and couldn't see where to sweep it up. Ask Fran, she's on Facebook!
     These days my kids are grown, we've moved from that house and I'm not even a school teacher, but I still can find better things to do than housework until it is forced upon me. (Oh, please! Like you don't do the very same thing.) Here I sit at the computer instead of doing the dishes. I can't do everything, you know. Not... Now That School Has Started.

Alarmimg System

     They keep calling us wanting to sell us an alarm system for our house. I guess they don't know that if somebody broke into our house they would probably be so amazed by the lack of stuff and the age of what we do have that they would back out slowly and maybe even leave a few things of their own to bring us into the 21st Century.
     I guess what they are trying to sell are those things that make loud shrieking noises if there is an illicit entrance. I have a little experience with those. Our out-of-town kids have one. Most of the time when we visit them there is somebody to greet us at the door so we don't have to worry about the alarm, but, just in case, one time that we went and got there a little earlier than we expected, we stopped at the school, got our granddaughter out of class and got her to tell me the code for the alarm. 
     She told me all the numbers I would need. I memorized them...I thought. It could be that numbers are not my forte.  And there was one small detail that she forgot to mention. It's likely that she had never had to use it. You have to push "Stop" after the numbers when you set it off. I mean if you set it off.
     We were going to meet the family for dinner but needed to put our dog, Gus inside their house. It was going to be a quick turn around. I had managed the neighborhood gate code. I had managed the garage door code. Surely I could manage the alarm code. Surely I had fooled myself. "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!" It went on forever. I punched in every number I could remember. "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!" I started again. I yelled out the door to my husband who was waiting in the car. "Call Josh!" The phone in the house rang. It was not Josh.
     "This is the alarm company. Is everything okay?" "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!" Does it sound like everything is okay? I didn't say it, but I wanted to.
     "I'm Josh's mom! It's okay. I'm supposed to be here." "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!" I'm still punching numbers. The alarm company lady sounds like she's about my age. Maybe she will be sympathetic. And she tries. "Did you punch stop?" she says. The whooping stops.
     "Oh, thank you!" I hung up the phone and ran for the bathroom.  (What? It was a two-hour trip with a Diet Coke involved.) I guess I was not supposed to hang up the phone. I did not get to it in time. Perhaps it seemed suspicious.
     The alarm lady did not give up. She called again. This time she wanted to know the Secret Code. And sympathetic as she was, she wouldn't tell me the question. I needed to know both question & answer! Did I know a secret code? Nobody ever told me a secret code. I went through every possibility. Mother's maiden name? (I knew that one). Name of your first dog? (I knew that one, too) High School? Fourth grade teacher's name? I went on & on. And then I hit on it. If anybody knows enough history to guess a secret code, it's your mom!  "Okay, I'll try to stop the police," said the semi-sympathetic alarm lady.
     So I tossed Gus a dogbone & ran out to the car. And this is why I don't think I want an alarm system. Please stop calling.