I'm usually not just a "Glass-Half-Full" person but an "I-Drank-The-First-Half-Myself-And-It-Was Delicious-And-I'm-Expecting-A-Refill-Any-Minute" person. If I believe Romans 8:28, which says "For all things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose," there is no reason for me to be depressed, is there? So it is really easy to look down on all those people who let themselves get depressed. Whoops, I may see a little flaw here.
Nobody ever said God doesn't have a sense of humor. I obviously needed to be taught to look at both sides. Accordingly, it seems that a few months ago, okay, probably nine, I started seeing less and less in the proverbial glass. Don't ask me for specifics; I'm not sure I could enumerate, or even recognize them.
Actually, I've been there before. Within one month in 1994 our youngest son graduated from high school and got ready to leave home for college, our oldest son got married, and Dennis' mother, for whom I had been caring in her last illness, died. Plus I hated my job but felt I was trapped there because we had to have the insurance. I think I cried every day for about a year and probably should have had some medication. And about fifteen years before that when we were experiencing some severe financial problems I sank in into a pretty deep funk. (Aren't you glad you tuned in today to get a little humor ?)
But there's the difference. Back then I could point to legitimate reasons to be down. Norman Vincent Peale, the "Power of Positive Thinking" guy, might have gotten depressed if I had spent enough time explaining it to him at the time. But, things changed, I got through it.
It's the elusive, something's not quite rosy, you can't put your finger on it, feeling that has been wearing on me lately. Maybe it's that the bucket holding my Bucket List appears to have a slow leak. Or it's that the sand in the hour glass and the shape of my body are more and more in sync: most of it is at the bottom.
I'm trying to work through it. When I wake up at three in the morning I start thanking God for all the things that make my life great, right down to toothbrushes and indoor plumbing, and Facebook. (Yes, you made the list.) I can look at the clock and it is after five a.m. and I still haven't run out. But then there is a lady on the morning news who is standing in front of her burned-out house, who has absolutely nothing left, and she says "Every day it gets better," and I start talking to myself "You ungrateful WRETCH!" and multiply everything I'm feeling with a mega-dose of guilt.
So, there you have it. I could find an expensive therapist and feel guilty about not being able to pay her, or I could blab all this to you, dear reader, probably accomplishing the same thing. If you've been following awhile you probably already know much more about me than you ever wanted to, like how I inadvertently gave a dog shock treatments, or bared more than my soul at my high school graduation, and all about my mastectomy, and I could go on and on. (Oh, yeah. I have gone on and on. That's what I do in my blog.) How much more can you stand?
I have to admit, nothing makes me feel more alive than writing. I'm chopping away at the Writer's Block. So, I'm starting to look at the glass from different angles these days. I'm thinking it is going to start sparkling any day now. Yeah, it does look like it's getting fuller and fuller.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Language Lesson
So, it's about ten years ago, when she was close to ninety, and my mom and are I tottering out to her car, (No, I'm holding onto her. SHE'S tottering, smart alec!), when four or five guys about fourteen or fifteen years old come walking down the road laughing and talking really loud and there are only about two regular words to every nineteen of the grossest cuss words in the world in their whole conversation. I look at my mom to see if she hears. This is the woman who would confide in you that cousin Margaret was "in a family way again" to avoid saying the word pregnant. She's pretty deaf but these guys are coming closer and getting louder.
Well, what could I do? I get Mom to the lamp post, prop her up and tell her to wait a minute, then I march toward the boys in my toughest, "I've taken on two sons and most of their friends" attitude and say "Guys! Come on. Don't you see there's an old lady there? Can you keep it down at least while she can hear you?"
Here's where it could have gone either way. They could have whipped out their switch-blades, or better yet their Saturday Night Specials, and taken care of this pesky little old lady first, then the other little old lady by the lamp post, or they could have looked kind of sheepish, mumbled "Oh, sorry," and slunk on down the street without saying another word. Thank the Lord, they chose the second option because I hadn't considered the first possibility until I got us both in her car. Then I realized what I had done and could barely breathe. I've been thinking about that lately.
When Jake was five years old we were coming home from Mother's Day Out (he hadn't even been to kindergarten yet!) one day and he asked me what the F- word meant. He didn't spell it out. I tried not to act shocked but I still remember exactly where I was standing in the garage at the time. It made an indelible mark. (Okay, I know you are wondering: I did explain it to him but I also let him know it was NOT a word we say.)
I'm not sure people even care any more. They don't seem to have taught their kids otherwise, anyway. It's just the culture, they say. You hear way worse than that in movies and in the music everybody listens to. You can't walk through a school hall or sit in a restaurant without hearing that word or most any other word out there. You hear it from the Vice President of the United States. Even from Betty White, for heaven's sake. It's just the way it is. So, what's the big deal?
Sorry, but it is a big deal to me. I recently "un-friended" a young relative on Facebook because the language in his posts was unbearable. Actually, it didn't even make any sense in the context he was writing; it was more like he was using a four-letter punctuation mark every other word. And, always being the second mom to those boys who hung around our house when the kids were growing up, I recently took one of them to task for his language on Facebook. So, call me an old-fashioned prude.
I may be the last person in the world who feels this way but I find such language disgusting and offensive, vile, insulting, and objectionable, not to speak of nasty, hideous, ill-bred and rude. See? There are other words available. Have you no imagination? Is your vocabulary so limited? When you use the same tiresome vulgarities over and over you not only sound crude, you are also advertising your apparent lack of education. As Dennis is fond of saying, "When you talk like that nobody listens to what you are saying, only to how you are saying it."
If you want what comes out of your mouth to sound like it made a detour through the bottom of the kitty litter pan (it is, after all, your right of free-speech, as much as it is my right to complain about it) so be it. I'm sure you won't mind if I choose not to listen or read or watch.
If you're trying to shock people, too late. We've all heard it, seen it, read it before. If you really want to shock people, imagine there is a little old lady leaning up against a lamp post just within ear shot. Speak accordingly. The one who might get the biggest shock is you when you realize you sound like an intelligent person with self-respect and dignity.
Well, what could I do? I get Mom to the lamp post, prop her up and tell her to wait a minute, then I march toward the boys in my toughest, "I've taken on two sons and most of their friends" attitude and say "Guys! Come on. Don't you see there's an old lady there? Can you keep it down at least while she can hear you?"
Here's where it could have gone either way. They could have whipped out their switch-blades, or better yet their Saturday Night Specials, and taken care of this pesky little old lady first, then the other little old lady by the lamp post, or they could have looked kind of sheepish, mumbled "Oh, sorry," and slunk on down the street without saying another word. Thank the Lord, they chose the second option because I hadn't considered the first possibility until I got us both in her car. Then I realized what I had done and could barely breathe. I've been thinking about that lately.
When Jake was five years old we were coming home from Mother's Day Out (he hadn't even been to kindergarten yet!) one day and he asked me what the F- word meant. He didn't spell it out. I tried not to act shocked but I still remember exactly where I was standing in the garage at the time. It made an indelible mark. (Okay, I know you are wondering: I did explain it to him but I also let him know it was NOT a word we say.)
I'm not sure people even care any more. They don't seem to have taught their kids otherwise, anyway. It's just the culture, they say. You hear way worse than that in movies and in the music everybody listens to. You can't walk through a school hall or sit in a restaurant without hearing that word or most any other word out there. You hear it from the Vice President of the United States. Even from Betty White, for heaven's sake. It's just the way it is. So, what's the big deal?
Sorry, but it is a big deal to me. I recently "un-friended" a young relative on Facebook because the language in his posts was unbearable. Actually, it didn't even make any sense in the context he was writing; it was more like he was using a four-letter punctuation mark every other word. And, always being the second mom to those boys who hung around our house when the kids were growing up, I recently took one of them to task for his language on Facebook. So, call me an old-fashioned prude.
I may be the last person in the world who feels this way but I find such language disgusting and offensive, vile, insulting, and objectionable, not to speak of nasty, hideous, ill-bred and rude. See? There are other words available. Have you no imagination? Is your vocabulary so limited? When you use the same tiresome vulgarities over and over you not only sound crude, you are also advertising your apparent lack of education. As Dennis is fond of saying, "When you talk like that nobody listens to what you are saying, only to how you are saying it."
If you want what comes out of your mouth to sound like it made a detour through the bottom of the kitty litter pan (it is, after all, your right of free-speech, as much as it is my right to complain about it) so be it. I'm sure you won't mind if I choose not to listen or read or watch.
If you're trying to shock people, too late. We've all heard it, seen it, read it before. If you really want to shock people, imagine there is a little old lady leaning up against a lamp post just within ear shot. Speak accordingly. The one who might get the biggest shock is you when you realize you sound like an intelligent person with self-respect and dignity.
Monday, May 28, 2012
It's a Grand Old Flag
I'm having a love/hate relationship with my flag today. I love the flag that is a symbol of my country, but I'm frustrated by the piece of cloth that is wrapped for the twentieth time around the beam on the front porch. I've just come in from pulling it loose yet again.
When we moved into this house we put up a bracket to hold the flag pole. It was screwed into the bricks between the front porch and the garage but when I went to put the flag up for the first time this spring, I found that one of the screws had pulled loose from the mortar and the bracket wouldn't hold the pole. It was probably just as well. When the flag hung from that pole it was always twisting around and tying itself in a tight knot. It looked like a big red and white swimming pool noodle sticking out from the house. Not very patriotic.
I kept going out to take it off the pole and re-hang it but once, about an hour after I had unfurled it, our sweet young neighbor knocked on the door to ask if we were okay. Apparently I had hung the flag back upside down, which is a universal distress signal. She said she just wanted to know if it was all right if she fixed the flag but I'm pretty sure she thought she'd better check on the old people next door once again.
So then I decided to climb the ladder and hang the flag straight out on the beam across the front porch. I hammered nails in the beam and stuck the grommets over the nails and tried to hammer the nails straight up. Now the flag is dividing it's time between flapping wildly in our Oklahoma wind, wrapping around the beam, and knocking into the robin's nest that is on top of the beam.
I'm not going to give up, though. It is important to me that we hang the flag out. I remember the story about how Al Quaida bragged that they would change the look of America on 9/11...and they did. After the attack, flags flew from almost every house on almost every block in all kinds of neighborhoods where they had never been before.
Don't tell him I said so, but my husband has been known to sniff pretty loudly when watching a sad movie, but it takes a lot to make me cry. However, when the flag comes past me in a parade, or when they unfurl it onto a baseball field, or I look up & down my street and see flags flying at my neighbor's houses, it brings tears to my eyes every time.
One flag we owned had rested on the casket of my husband's step-father, a World War II veteran. My brother was in Korea. My husband's brother was a Marine in Viet Nam and some of my friends from high school died there. Our son was deployed to Kyrgyzstan, where he patched up soldiers who were wounded when they flew in and out of Afghanistan taking supplies to the troops.Today one of our nephews just graduated from Army Ranger school and is getting ready to leave again, and another is in Afghanistan now.
All of them have sacrificed for my right to fly that flag, and untwist it and run out into the rain and bring it in and climb up on the ladder and pound the nails to try to keep it up there; to go online and search till I found a flag that was "Made in America." They've gone and left their homes, their families, the way of life we are enjoying today. Thousands of others have lost arms and legs and even their very lives to allow me to fly my flag.
I think I'll go pull it loose again. That isn't too much trouble, considering.
When we moved into this house we put up a bracket to hold the flag pole. It was screwed into the bricks between the front porch and the garage but when I went to put the flag up for the first time this spring, I found that one of the screws had pulled loose from the mortar and the bracket wouldn't hold the pole. It was probably just as well. When the flag hung from that pole it was always twisting around and tying itself in a tight knot. It looked like a big red and white swimming pool noodle sticking out from the house. Not very patriotic.
I kept going out to take it off the pole and re-hang it but once, about an hour after I had unfurled it, our sweet young neighbor knocked on the door to ask if we were okay. Apparently I had hung the flag back upside down, which is a universal distress signal. She said she just wanted to know if it was all right if she fixed the flag but I'm pretty sure she thought she'd better check on the old people next door once again.
So then I decided to climb the ladder and hang the flag straight out on the beam across the front porch. I hammered nails in the beam and stuck the grommets over the nails and tried to hammer the nails straight up. Now the flag is dividing it's time between flapping wildly in our Oklahoma wind, wrapping around the beam, and knocking into the robin's nest that is on top of the beam.
I'm not going to give up, though. It is important to me that we hang the flag out. I remember the story about how Al Quaida bragged that they would change the look of America on 9/11...and they did. After the attack, flags flew from almost every house on almost every block in all kinds of neighborhoods where they had never been before.
Don't tell him I said so, but my husband has been known to sniff pretty loudly when watching a sad movie, but it takes a lot to make me cry. However, when the flag comes past me in a parade, or when they unfurl it onto a baseball field, or I look up & down my street and see flags flying at my neighbor's houses, it brings tears to my eyes every time.
One flag we owned had rested on the casket of my husband's step-father, a World War II veteran. My brother was in Korea. My husband's brother was a Marine in Viet Nam and some of my friends from high school died there. Our son was deployed to Kyrgyzstan, where he patched up soldiers who were wounded when they flew in and out of Afghanistan taking supplies to the troops.Today one of our nephews just graduated from Army Ranger school and is getting ready to leave again, and another is in Afghanistan now.
All of them have sacrificed for my right to fly that flag, and untwist it and run out into the rain and bring it in and climb up on the ladder and pound the nails to try to keep it up there; to go online and search till I found a flag that was "Made in America." They've gone and left their homes, their families, the way of life we are enjoying today. Thousands of others have lost arms and legs and even their very lives to allow me to fly my flag.
I think I'll go pull it loose again. That isn't too much trouble, considering.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Performance Anxiety
Yesterday we got up even before the dog woke us so we could hurry over to the Tulsa Community College Performing Arts Center to get a good seat to watch our granddaughter, Hayley, perform a couple of numbers from "Little Shop of Horrors" with the members of the theater class she has been attending all school year. We sat for two hours through, approximately 4,327 other kids singing and dancing, some of them quite amazing (in many senses of the word) and finally, in the last fifteen minutes, Hayley and her group came out. She was third from the left, as I had to continually point out to her PawPaw, but I don't know why he had trouble finding her among all the twenty other girls in green polka-dot dresses; she was obviously the one with the most talent up there!
Then we jumped in our car immediately after the show and drove two hours down the turnpike to watch our second granddaughter, Emily's, dance recital, following the MapQuest map to the Luther, OK school administrative building instead of to the high school where we were supposed to be. Thank the Lord for cell phones because by staying on the phone with our son through all the turns we made it to the right place just in time to sit in another Performing Arts Center and watched another group of kids performing their hearts out and, amazingly enough, our granddaughter was the best one again! What are the odds?
In the weeks before, we had attended our grandson, David's, band concert (the star trombone player!) and almost all of Miranda's softball games. (She may not have been chosen MVP but I'm sure it was only because her Dad was the coach and didn't want to appear to show favoritism.)
Things are different now than they were in the last century when I was a kid. I didn't know anybody who took ballet or even played organized sports. It may have been that no one we knew could have afforded to pay for any such thing or it may have just been that kids were too busy playing in the neighborhood to have time for lessons and so on, but if they happened anywhere, I didn't know about it.
The closest I ever got to a recital (I wouldn't have recognized the word) was a performance that my fifth grade class put on one time. It was going to be on a Wednesday night, so I knew my parents wouldn't be able to come since this was also Prayer Meeting night and my dad, being the preacher, would be at church instead. My mother was always dutifully at his side. I'm pretty sure here in the Bible Belt a school function wouldn't be held on Wednesdays but in St. Louis, this was the regularly scheduled PTA night. My parents had never been to a PTA meeting for that reason.
The sketch was a depiction of Alice in Wonderland's encounter with the Queen of Hearts. Everyone was going to wear kind of a cardboard sandwich board of one of the cards in the hearts suit and march around in formation. Immediately I knew I had a problem: playing cards was considered a sin for Baptists in that part of the world and if I couldn't play them, how could I be one? I don't remember if I thought of it, (being either a child prodigy or just desperate to not be left out) or if one of the teachers did, but someone remembered that I was in possession of a lovely red formal with a poufy skirt from when I was a junior bridesmaid in my sister's Valentine's Day wedding. Perfect! I would wear that dress, march around imperiously, and be the Red Queen. I could shout "Off with her head!" while all the playing cards marched around me. Suddenly, I was the star! (I don't even remember if there was an Alice. She was inconsequential to the Queen, at best.)
Now, whenever Miranda gets up to bat at her softball games she looks over to the stands and yells, "PawPaw!!!" to be absolutely sure that he is watching her and she is never disappointed. I, on the other hand, did not expect to have any family members in the audience at DeHart Elementary School when we put on our performance. I don't recall that it bothered me; that's just the way it was. My mom had dropped me off at school and gone on to church, I guess, and I felt lucky that I was even able to be there myself and not at Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.
The music swelled, the Ten of Hearts, the Nine of Hearts, the Eight of Hearts and all their...ahem, co-horts...began marching around the stage. Soon it was my cue and I glided out onto the stage, red skirt swaying, ready to say my line. And there, front and center in the audience, was the whole congregation of Mary Ann Baptist Church's Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, with the preacher and his wife on the front row.
Did he call off Prayer Meeting for that night? Of course not. They just relocated, my dad told me later, and had the meeting in the school auditorium. I'm not sure what those good Baptists thought about having all those sinful playing cards marching around, life-sized, but I know that the preacher's daughter has never forgotten seeing them all there. And my dad was pretty sure I was the best, most talented kid on the stage.
Then we jumped in our car immediately after the show and drove two hours down the turnpike to watch our second granddaughter, Emily's, dance recital, following the MapQuest map to the Luther, OK school administrative building instead of to the high school where we were supposed to be. Thank the Lord for cell phones because by staying on the phone with our son through all the turns we made it to the right place just in time to sit in another Performing Arts Center and watched another group of kids performing their hearts out and, amazingly enough, our granddaughter was the best one again! What are the odds?
In the weeks before, we had attended our grandson, David's, band concert (the star trombone player!) and almost all of Miranda's softball games. (She may not have been chosen MVP but I'm sure it was only because her Dad was the coach and didn't want to appear to show favoritism.)
Things are different now than they were in the last century when I was a kid. I didn't know anybody who took ballet or even played organized sports. It may have been that no one we knew could have afforded to pay for any such thing or it may have just been that kids were too busy playing in the neighborhood to have time for lessons and so on, but if they happened anywhere, I didn't know about it.
The closest I ever got to a recital (I wouldn't have recognized the word) was a performance that my fifth grade class put on one time. It was going to be on a Wednesday night, so I knew my parents wouldn't be able to come since this was also Prayer Meeting night and my dad, being the preacher, would be at church instead. My mother was always dutifully at his side. I'm pretty sure here in the Bible Belt a school function wouldn't be held on Wednesdays but in St. Louis, this was the regularly scheduled PTA night. My parents had never been to a PTA meeting for that reason.
The sketch was a depiction of Alice in Wonderland's encounter with the Queen of Hearts. Everyone was going to wear kind of a cardboard sandwich board of one of the cards in the hearts suit and march around in formation. Immediately I knew I had a problem: playing cards was considered a sin for Baptists in that part of the world and if I couldn't play them, how could I be one? I don't remember if I thought of it, (being either a child prodigy or just desperate to not be left out) or if one of the teachers did, but someone remembered that I was in possession of a lovely red formal with a poufy skirt from when I was a junior bridesmaid in my sister's Valentine's Day wedding. Perfect! I would wear that dress, march around imperiously, and be the Red Queen. I could shout "Off with her head!" while all the playing cards marched around me. Suddenly, I was the star! (I don't even remember if there was an Alice. She was inconsequential to the Queen, at best.)
Now, whenever Miranda gets up to bat at her softball games she looks over to the stands and yells, "PawPaw!!!" to be absolutely sure that he is watching her and she is never disappointed. I, on the other hand, did not expect to have any family members in the audience at DeHart Elementary School when we put on our performance. I don't recall that it bothered me; that's just the way it was. My mom had dropped me off at school and gone on to church, I guess, and I felt lucky that I was even able to be there myself and not at Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.
The music swelled, the Ten of Hearts, the Nine of Hearts, the Eight of Hearts and all their...ahem, co-horts...began marching around the stage. Soon it was my cue and I glided out onto the stage, red skirt swaying, ready to say my line. And there, front and center in the audience, was the whole congregation of Mary Ann Baptist Church's Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, with the preacher and his wife on the front row.
Did he call off Prayer Meeting for that night? Of course not. They just relocated, my dad told me later, and had the meeting in the school auditorium. I'm not sure what those good Baptists thought about having all those sinful playing cards marching around, life-sized, but I know that the preacher's daughter has never forgotten seeing them all there. And my dad was pretty sure I was the best, most talented kid on the stage.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Pomp and Circumstances
There are wonderful pictures of graduates turning up on Facebook these days, from Pre-K, complete with cap and gown, to college. It makes me sentimental for my high school graduation ceremony.....if only I could remember it.
Dennis tells me that is a blessing. I asked him about a detail the other day and he said "You don't want to know." Well, it was the sixties, you know, and you've heard what things were like back then, but it wasn't that my mind was "elsewhere". It is more like when something traumatic happens in your life and you block it out in order to survive with your sanity intact. Okay, the sanity question is still out, but still.....
I do remember that it was in St. Louis, at Ritenour High School. I remember that it was very hot that summer. Back when I was a kid, school started after Labor Day and we didn't get out till the first week or so of June, so it must have been around that time. Heat in St. Louis is hotter than other places. I think it has to do with the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers and several other smaller rivers all together there. A temperature of 93 degrees doesn't sound too bad but when you multiply it by the 98% humidity it feels like 9,114 degrees. Or thereabouts. The air is thick. You feel like you need to make swimming motions when you go outside. That's the kind of day it was.
Air conditioning was a new thing back then, at least around where I grew up. Movie theaters had it, and some grocery stores. They would have a sign on the front door that said "Come in. It's Kool inside!" in blue letters to denote ice and a picture of a penguin sitting on an ice block and when you stepped on the magic mat on the threshold that opened the door, cool air would rush out at you and it was heavenly until you had been inside awhile and wished you were wearing a sweater. But I didn't know anyone who had air conditioning in their home and Ritenour Senior High School certainly did not. Accordingly, the graduation was scheduled for outside on the football field.
I'm not sure where the audience sat, the bleachers, I guess. There were a whole lot of spectators because our class was one of the first of the Baby Boomers and it was huge and everyone had grandmas and grandpas and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, at least. I think they had put folding chairs on the ground for the graduates. We gathered in the gym, getting ready to march out onto the field in alphabetical order. Because the locker rooms were right there, several of us had decided to wait to put on our robes ---boys wore black, girls wore white---after we got to the gym.
Remember how hot it was. I was wearing a white chiffon dress with a full skirt that required a small can-can slip, and long sleeves. I had spent two weeks finding that dress and I had worn it for National Honor Society (there are pictures of that ceremony, that's how I remember what it was), but it was so hot! So, we had those long robes, they zipped up the front, I think, and completely covered us. A robe is like a dress, right? Why wear two? I took off my chiffon dress and the can-can slip, left them in the locker room and wore just the robe over my underwear. Who would ever know?
Now, here's where my memory gets shaky. I don't remember anyone speaking, any awards, any handshakes. All I vaguely remember is someone droning names: ....Roy Bell....dramatic pause....Barbara Brinkhorst....dramatic pause....Larry Brock... on and on. It was stifling. I wanted to nod off from the boredom and the heat. But then there was a cool breeze. A few clouds. A teeny rain drop. Just one. Then a few. The pauses got shorter, the graduates walked more quickly, the rain came faster and soon it was PatriciaPhelenJerryPostelwaitePatriciaPounds (that was me). I ran up the stairs to the stage, dashed across the slippery boards, grabbed the fake diploma (you had to wait for them to send you the real thing in the mail for some reason) and galloped down the other stairs in the pouring rain. It was not a light shower. It was not a small rain. It was, as we say in Oklahoma, a gully washer.
It would have been lovely if I had moved across that stage so quickly that no one saw me, but this was not the case. I have heard from quite a few people that many in the large audience did see me. Much more of me than I ever intended. It could be that I was the unwitting inspiration of the Wet-T-Shirt contest of later years, only with more class, of course. Who knew a sopping, dripping, white graduation gown would become completely transparent when wet?
For some reason, there are no pictures from my graduation. I will just have to wax nostalgic over everybody else's.
Dennis tells me that is a blessing. I asked him about a detail the other day and he said "You don't want to know." Well, it was the sixties, you know, and you've heard what things were like back then, but it wasn't that my mind was "elsewhere". It is more like when something traumatic happens in your life and you block it out in order to survive with your sanity intact. Okay, the sanity question is still out, but still.....
I do remember that it was in St. Louis, at Ritenour High School. I remember that it was very hot that summer. Back when I was a kid, school started after Labor Day and we didn't get out till the first week or so of June, so it must have been around that time. Heat in St. Louis is hotter than other places. I think it has to do with the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers and several other smaller rivers all together there. A temperature of 93 degrees doesn't sound too bad but when you multiply it by the 98% humidity it feels like 9,114 degrees. Or thereabouts. The air is thick. You feel like you need to make swimming motions when you go outside. That's the kind of day it was.
Air conditioning was a new thing back then, at least around where I grew up. Movie theaters had it, and some grocery stores. They would have a sign on the front door that said "Come in. It's Kool inside!" in blue letters to denote ice and a picture of a penguin sitting on an ice block and when you stepped on the magic mat on the threshold that opened the door, cool air would rush out at you and it was heavenly until you had been inside awhile and wished you were wearing a sweater. But I didn't know anyone who had air conditioning in their home and Ritenour Senior High School certainly did not. Accordingly, the graduation was scheduled for outside on the football field.
I'm not sure where the audience sat, the bleachers, I guess. There were a whole lot of spectators because our class was one of the first of the Baby Boomers and it was huge and everyone had grandmas and grandpas and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, at least. I think they had put folding chairs on the ground for the graduates. We gathered in the gym, getting ready to march out onto the field in alphabetical order. Because the locker rooms were right there, several of us had decided to wait to put on our robes ---boys wore black, girls wore white---after we got to the gym.
Remember how hot it was. I was wearing a white chiffon dress with a full skirt that required a small can-can slip, and long sleeves. I had spent two weeks finding that dress and I had worn it for National Honor Society (there are pictures of that ceremony, that's how I remember what it was), but it was so hot! So, we had those long robes, they zipped up the front, I think, and completely covered us. A robe is like a dress, right? Why wear two? I took off my chiffon dress and the can-can slip, left them in the locker room and wore just the robe over my underwear. Who would ever know?
Now, here's where my memory gets shaky. I don't remember anyone speaking, any awards, any handshakes. All I vaguely remember is someone droning names: ....Roy Bell....dramatic pause....Barbara Brinkhorst....dramatic pause....Larry Brock... on and on. It was stifling. I wanted to nod off from the boredom and the heat. But then there was a cool breeze. A few clouds. A teeny rain drop. Just one. Then a few. The pauses got shorter, the graduates walked more quickly, the rain came faster and soon it was PatriciaPhelenJerryPostelwaitePatriciaPounds (that was me). I ran up the stairs to the stage, dashed across the slippery boards, grabbed the fake diploma (you had to wait for them to send you the real thing in the mail for some reason) and galloped down the other stairs in the pouring rain. It was not a light shower. It was not a small rain. It was, as we say in Oklahoma, a gully washer.
It would have been lovely if I had moved across that stage so quickly that no one saw me, but this was not the case. I have heard from quite a few people that many in the large audience did see me. Much more of me than I ever intended. It could be that I was the unwitting inspiration of the Wet-T-Shirt contest of later years, only with more class, of course. Who knew a sopping, dripping, white graduation gown would become completely transparent when wet?
For some reason, there are no pictures from my graduation. I will just have to wax nostalgic over everybody else's.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Flower Power
I have a love-hate relationship with my garden. I love the thought of gorgeous flower beds and yummy, homegrown veggies. I hate actually having to work to get them. I love being out in the fresh air, but the minute I step my foot off the sidewalk and into the garden I'm praying "Please don't let there be any snakes. Please, please don't let there be any snakes." So far the biggest scare I have gotten, and it happens every year when I first go out, is when a toad jumps out and startles me and I scream, and the toad, dirt, weeds and whatever tools I have in my hand fly into the air.
My friend Joanne says she gardens by the Pointing Method. "I point and someone else plants what I want where I want it." If she can't convince her husband, she pays someone to do it. While I wish I could adopt her method, it isn't in the cards for me. So every year, with great fantasies of bouquets on every table in my house and BLTs for dinner, out I go.
Yesterday was the first day I have worked in the yard this year and the way I kind of moan when I have to move my legs today is giving me away. I knew my bum knee was not going to let me kneel much, so I spent a couple of hours bending over, (I remember cringing with embarrassment when my mom did that back when I was a limber teen-ager) pulling weeds and generally sorting through the dregs of the flower garden in my front yard.
I do love to pull up weeds right after it has rained because their resistance is at its weakest but all my flower beds are a ratio of about ninety-percent weeds to ten percent something I can't remember what it was when I planted it. It's been a whole year or more and if I can't remember where I parked the car at the mall, how would I remember what that green thing is among all the other green things? So after two hours in a stoop laborer position it still doesn't look like anybody had been working out there at all.
And then there is the business of what to wear. My neighbor, Harriet, always works in her yard wearing cute shorts and matching tops. She is up and out, dressed to work by about seven a.m. And her nails are done. I think she wears jewelry. She goes out every day and takes care of things, like weeds, as they happen instead of letting things go till she gets snide looks from people walking by. It is really her fault that my yard is a mess. I can't compete so I don't get out there. Well, not till after nine or so and a bunch of caffeine.
Sometimes I go out to get the paper in my pajamas and spot a weed that needs pulling and an hour later I realize (as do most of the neighbors driving by on their way to work) that I have forgotten to get dressed. Again. So I go in and put on my gardening clothes: the jeans with artistic holes, an old under-shirt of Dennis's that he says won't stay tucked down in his pants and why did I buy him that size in the first place? and my trusty gardening clogs that let me walk into mud but also let the mud ooze into the holes on top and stain my feet with our Oklahoma red dirt that takes ten minutes with a brush to scrub off.
Oh, and my headband because just the thought of physical labor makes me sweat and it drips into my eyes and I'm blind enough out there what with the dirt splatting up onto my glasses. If I am really planning ahead I put on sunscreen that probably lasts three minutes, but in case the sunscreen doesn't work I have my gardening hat which is especially designed with some space-age material to keep the sun off my delicate skin. My-son-the-doctor, who thinks about sunburn and skin cancer and such, purchased this for me. It is---I swear I'm not making this up---two-thirds of a yard across from brim to brim and, except for the charming ribbons that tie under my chin and produce more sweat, and when I'm wearing it, if I were not two or three times her weight, I could sail off toward Kansas, like the Flying Nun.
I also have gardening gloves that I put on before I start to dig, several right hand, several left hand but not an equal amount of both, so I turn one of them around backwards and wear the pinkie part over my thumb and vice versa. It doesn't matter that my hand is held in a claw position when I do this because somewhere along the line I take off the gloves and wind up with dirt stains on my hands and mud under my fingernails and there ya' go. The brush I use on my feet works a little and scraping my fingernails along the bottom of the soap dish where the gunk builds up works a little but by the end of spring there will be stains on my hands that last through Fourth of July.
And I love having birds in my garden but when I bend down to pull a weed and they dive down and peck me on the behind. I hate that.
My friend Joanne says she gardens by the Pointing Method. "I point and someone else plants what I want where I want it." If she can't convince her husband, she pays someone to do it. While I wish I could adopt her method, it isn't in the cards for me. So every year, with great fantasies of bouquets on every table in my house and BLTs for dinner, out I go.
Yesterday was the first day I have worked in the yard this year and the way I kind of moan when I have to move my legs today is giving me away. I knew my bum knee was not going to let me kneel much, so I spent a couple of hours bending over, (I remember cringing with embarrassment when my mom did that back when I was a limber teen-ager) pulling weeds and generally sorting through the dregs of the flower garden in my front yard.
I do love to pull up weeds right after it has rained because their resistance is at its weakest but all my flower beds are a ratio of about ninety-percent weeds to ten percent something I can't remember what it was when I planted it. It's been a whole year or more and if I can't remember where I parked the car at the mall, how would I remember what that green thing is among all the other green things? So after two hours in a stoop laborer position it still doesn't look like anybody had been working out there at all.
And then there is the business of what to wear. My neighbor, Harriet, always works in her yard wearing cute shorts and matching tops. She is up and out, dressed to work by about seven a.m. And her nails are done. I think she wears jewelry. She goes out every day and takes care of things, like weeds, as they happen instead of letting things go till she gets snide looks from people walking by. It is really her fault that my yard is a mess. I can't compete so I don't get out there. Well, not till after nine or so and a bunch of caffeine.
Sometimes I go out to get the paper in my pajamas and spot a weed that needs pulling and an hour later I realize (as do most of the neighbors driving by on their way to work) that I have forgotten to get dressed. Again. So I go in and put on my gardening clothes: the jeans with artistic holes, an old under-shirt of Dennis's that he says won't stay tucked down in his pants and why did I buy him that size in the first place? and my trusty gardening clogs that let me walk into mud but also let the mud ooze into the holes on top and stain my feet with our Oklahoma red dirt that takes ten minutes with a brush to scrub off.
Oh, and my headband because just the thought of physical labor makes me sweat and it drips into my eyes and I'm blind enough out there what with the dirt splatting up onto my glasses. If I am really planning ahead I put on sunscreen that probably lasts three minutes, but in case the sunscreen doesn't work I have my gardening hat which is especially designed with some space-age material to keep the sun off my delicate skin. My-son-the-doctor, who thinks about sunburn and skin cancer and such, purchased this for me. It is---I swear I'm not making this up---two-thirds of a yard across from brim to brim and, except for the charming ribbons that tie under my chin and produce more sweat, and when I'm wearing it, if I were not two or three times her weight, I could sail off toward Kansas, like the Flying Nun.
I also have gardening gloves that I put on before I start to dig, several right hand, several left hand but not an equal amount of both, so I turn one of them around backwards and wear the pinkie part over my thumb and vice versa. It doesn't matter that my hand is held in a claw position when I do this because somewhere along the line I take off the gloves and wind up with dirt stains on my hands and mud under my fingernails and there ya' go. The brush I use on my feet works a little and scraping my fingernails along the bottom of the soap dish where the gunk builds up works a little but by the end of spring there will be stains on my hands that last through Fourth of July.
And I love having birds in my garden but when I bend down to pull a weed and they dive down and peck me on the behind. I hate that.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A Dozen Things I've Learned Painting Kitchen Cabinets
1.) Once you get over yourself and let the grandkids "help" things go faster and with a whole lot less anxiety. Making memories is a whole lot more important than a perfect paint job and besides, then if somebody inspects things closely, you can blame it on the kids.
2.) Prep is everything. It is a good thing to number the cabinet doors, making a map of the kitchen to show where you started in your numbering so that they can be re-attached easily. Then when you paint over the numbers, you can use the map to wipe paint off your fingers.
3.) If you have to stop in the middle of your job, wrap your brushes in plastic and put them in the freezer. This keeps you from having to clean the brushes every time. It also gives you about an hour to rest and relax while you wait for the brushes to thaw when you get back and are hurrying to do one more coat of paint before you have to stop and drive somebody somewhere. Or start dinner. Or clean the bathroom before the company arrives. Or scream out loud.
4,) Open shelving is very modern and hip. Everything is right in front of you and accessible, including the stuff you shoved in there trying to hide it from yourself and other for years.
5.) A little paint on your dishes, which you so efficiently left on the shelves because there is no sense moving them twice while the doors are being painted in the garage and who would be sloppy enough to get the brush way up there anyway, just gives them more character.
6.) People who already have white hair and choose white paint for their projects will be ahead of the game. It is called frosting, if anybody asks.
7.) When the dog comes through with an interesting white pattern on her side it is good to search the just painted walls for the corresponding pattern.
8.) People pay enormous amounts to have designs painted on their toenails at a nail salon. You should look into copyrighting White Rorschach Patterns on Red Toenails. It may bring big bucks.
9.) If it is raining and the garage door is up, the door does not keep the rain from blowing in and onto anything that has been freshly painted and is sitting around waiting to dry.
10.) Dried paint sticks to newspapers and attaches itself forever to the underside of whatever you have been trying to paint. Years from now archaeologists will drive themselves crazy trying to read the bits and pieces of the news that have been preserved on the backs of your cabinets doors.
11.) Yes, you can park a car in the seven feet of space between the garage fridge and the tables holding wet-painted cabinet doors when the forecast calls for hail, but you will not be able to get out the car door no matter how much weight you have lost during the stress of the project.
12.) Somebody, somewhere is waiting to earn some money rescuing do-it-yourselfers from the messes they have made. It will cost roughly twice what you would have paid them if they had done the project themselves from start to finish.
2.) Prep is everything. It is a good thing to number the cabinet doors, making a map of the kitchen to show where you started in your numbering so that they can be re-attached easily. Then when you paint over the numbers, you can use the map to wipe paint off your fingers.
3.) If you have to stop in the middle of your job, wrap your brushes in plastic and put them in the freezer. This keeps you from having to clean the brushes every time. It also gives you about an hour to rest and relax while you wait for the brushes to thaw when you get back and are hurrying to do one more coat of paint before you have to stop and drive somebody somewhere. Or start dinner. Or clean the bathroom before the company arrives. Or scream out loud.
4,) Open shelving is very modern and hip. Everything is right in front of you and accessible, including the stuff you shoved in there trying to hide it from yourself and other for years.
5.) A little paint on your dishes, which you so efficiently left on the shelves because there is no sense moving them twice while the doors are being painted in the garage and who would be sloppy enough to get the brush way up there anyway, just gives them more character.
6.) People who already have white hair and choose white paint for their projects will be ahead of the game. It is called frosting, if anybody asks.
7.) When the dog comes through with an interesting white pattern on her side it is good to search the just painted walls for the corresponding pattern.
8.) People pay enormous amounts to have designs painted on their toenails at a nail salon. You should look into copyrighting White Rorschach Patterns on Red Toenails. It may bring big bucks.
9.) If it is raining and the garage door is up, the door does not keep the rain from blowing in and onto anything that has been freshly painted and is sitting around waiting to dry.
10.) Dried paint sticks to newspapers and attaches itself forever to the underside of whatever you have been trying to paint. Years from now archaeologists will drive themselves crazy trying to read the bits and pieces of the news that have been preserved on the backs of your cabinets doors.
11.) Yes, you can park a car in the seven feet of space between the garage fridge and the tables holding wet-painted cabinet doors when the forecast calls for hail, but you will not be able to get out the car door no matter how much weight you have lost during the stress of the project.
12.) Somebody, somewhere is waiting to earn some money rescuing do-it-yourselfers from the messes they have made. It will cost roughly twice what you would have paid them if they had done the project themselves from start to finish.
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