Nineteen seventy five

...Is when I graduated high school. I'll do the math for you: that was thirty five years ago. With the advent of facebook and Classmates.com, we cannot hide. We get invited, and we have to go. Well, I do because I managed to move back to my hometown, and only recluses or people with far more options than I can beg off. So what now?

I do what everyone else does--try to find a former classmate to go with me so I don't have to sit by myself OR make introductions all night. I have a handful of truly wonderful old friends who have in the past few years gathered annually, including the official reunions; which has been so much fun and also, parenthetically, kept us from having to sit alone at the lunch table--er--banquet table. This year, unfortunately, we were unable to pull together a quorum to attend the reunion. It threatened to be just me. Alone. I imagined crouching in my car identifying carefree classmates as they entered, laughing and yoo-hooing and hugging and confident they picked the right outfit and have cute hair and great shoes. (Actually, though, I remember entering the venue at our 25th reunion and being mystified that someone had invited all our parents; which of course was not the case. And then at our 30th reunion the chairperson [whom I will not identify] scoffed at the notion of photo-nametags. Some of us desperately wrote our names on our shoulders or throats with a Sharpie so people wouldn't avoid saying hello because they had no idea who we were. I am not making that up.)

I pulled out my stash of dresses, all a little dusty on the shoulders, and tried them on. I came up with just two possibilities --they fit, don't make me look too lumpy, and I have shoes that go (I've surrendered to the sorrow of having to wear flats--heels are no longer an option, but that's another post). Then I turned around to see how I would look as I crashed frantically out the exit. What happened to the other side of me? Who's fanny is that? It looked like I had on a full money belt, but I did not. What is that hump on the back of my neck? I thought I was taking some expensive drug to prevent me from becoming Quasimodo. I flapped my arms in horror and recoiled as my heybabies (think offspring of a flying squirrel and a camel) wobbled and shook. I wished it were next week. Next week is my vacation.

The closer it got the more excuses I thought of and the less appealing the idea of witnessing the sad decline of all those formerly vibrant children became. But the fifty dollar ticket won and I went after all. And as soon as I went in, two or three friends whom I was certain would not be there WERE there, and people were cheery and chatty and said I looked young and my newly silver hair was striking. A handful of compliments is great medicine. There were photo nametags. There was not, however, dinner, despite the fifty dollar dinner ticket. There were several tables of tasty finger foods, drinks IF you brought even more money, but no dinner. We went around the tables a few more times to fill up, said our goodbyes, and the reunion was over for five more years.

I'll start saving up.

where the cat lady lives

I have arrived. I am the cat lady. With Lillian's departure to the windy city, the cats and I are the sole occupants of this house. Add a few dozen piles of tight clothes, old magazines, useless electronics and castoff furniture and there you go: the cat lady.

For the last few weeks all I could think about (except my teeth) was getting her out of the state with everything she needs. She left behind everything she doesn't need, some of which she thinks she might possibly want someday, and the rest of which I am free to discard. Enter my first project: discarding things! Some can be dumped and some can be passed along to charity so someone else can bring it home to clutter and clog another house. Someone else's house.

If, after that, I'm still boiling with the urge to jettison unnecessary junk, I personally own about twice as much stuff as I actually need and use. Out it goes! Whee! I can see the spare, organized rooms now, and they are beautiful. Not like a foreclosure with a meth lab in the yard.

The cat lady has a whole list of projects; but let's start with this and see how it goes. I'll try to be done by the end of the summer! Hey-the cat lady works terrible hours and needs to rest and read so don't be critical of my timeline.

Hot lava is everywhere

I know why we still have that useless house phone. Same reason as you: I always know where it is. I do not always know where my cell phone is. I try to keep track of it but as everyone knows, cell phones are too small and too slithery and get lost all the time. I know I am not the only person to use the hot lava rule: you can put your phone HERE or THERE but everywhere else is hot lava. My phone is permitted to go in my purse, in a suitable pocket on a garment I am presently wearing, on the bathroom counter, on the coffee table, or in the cup holder in the car. Period.

There is a perpetual series of events in my life that make me certain I am gradually losing my grip on reality. The unreliable whereabouts of my cell phone is one of them. In order to help me maintain a little control, there is a list taped to the door to the garage: Phone, lunch, glasses, nametag [needed to get into my building], coffee, other. I'll bet you have a list, although you may foolishly believe you can have a mental checklist that works just as well. Of course it does not, so write it down. You're welcome.

This morning I patted my pockets and read the list out loud and had everything, so off I went. It is Friday after a terribly busy week, and I knew I was punchy and worn out, but I have a LIST and was confident.

I worked like a stevedore until lunch (late, very hungry by then) and went to check my messages but where was my phone? Hmm...well, I didn't want to waste my rest minutes so never mind. Too busy to rummage around, and by day's end I thought I probably left it in the car. It wasn't there, so I decided that although I was SURE I'd had it when I left in the morning...maybe I imagined it and it was on the bathroom counter. When I got home I looked everywhere and it wasn't there. I decided to go back since it's the weekend. When I arrived at work, everyone else was gone and I had forgotten my nametag (the magnet strip unlocks the door) which lives in the car UNLESS I forget and it hitchhikes into the house, which it apparently did today. I peeked in through the breakroom window in case I had left it on the table which I couldn't have-probably-I couldn't remember now...Essentially out of options, I was pleased to discover the phone hiding between the car door and the driver's seat. Pleased but boneheaded.

Lillie translated: Phone try to be where you look. Phone try to tell you it lost, but Phone on vibrate. That's pretty close to the truth. Half the time I forget to put it on vibrate until it rings when I am working; breaking the rules. I should add "Phone to vibrate" to my garage door list. Anything else is, of course, hot lava.

Canned vs. Fresh

This is a MySpace Blog I wrote a while back that seems appropriate today. I had a consult with the dental-implant doctor today and am overwhelmed with how much the whole project will cost. I have no choice, I need to have my teeth repaired. I am looking for avenues to finance all this but most feel like grave robbing. I just want to rest my head on the table and think about something else. I'm going to go scrub floors, as befits my washerwoman tax bracket. And my plan is to scare up some cheer before I write again (we're going to go see Sex and the City 2 which should help).

Blog Redux (I'll probably pull out a few others at some point):

" So I don't have a lot of regrets about my past. Except: I regret that I chickened out and didn't become a medical technologist. I remember looking at the books I'd need in the university bookstore and believing I couldn't do it; it was too hard. I was an idiot to think that, and I've regretted it ever since. Bad decision based on flimsy facts. I had no idea then what hard was all about..

Financial independence would be so wonderful. Phlebotomists do all right, we get by, but there is no extra money when my car makes dreadful noises or I want to fix up my home or help out my kids. When we were wretchedly poor and lived with my mother and got AFDC and food stamps I had a stomach ache every day. Those days are few and far between now, but there's always a stomach ache crouching around the corner when the car needs big repairs (it does) or I realize there's a few grand in dental work ahead (there is)...ouch, literally.

The love of money may be the root of all evil, but oh man...I wish I were rich. I promise I'd be the least evil rich person you'd ever want to meet. "

those greeks had hard jobs too

I like to think of myself as reasonably resilient. I have a challenging job which is hell bent on pounding the life right of me, so it's always a horserace to see who will win each round--sometimes the factory comes out on top, and sometimes, by the skin of my teeth, I triumph. Triumph is probably a little flowery; just ending the week with a pulse is enough. My brain is so tired that I'm surprised I wake up every morning.

An old friend mentioned that he wants to have the meditation-group guy lead a group at his house, by invitation which will keep out people who are, shall we say, counter to the process. Aside from one college why-not attempt at organized meditation, I have no experience with it. The people I know (all both of them) who are brave enough to admit they meditate are the ones who are, you know, the kind of folks who WOULD meditate. Yes. Well. Hmmm. But in my silvery wisdom (I decided about that, too) I wonder if meditation might help. Remember Sisyphus? I don't mean personally, he was in a Greek myth predating even me. Poor Sisyphus, as you recall from school, was condemned forever to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again, over and over. Good old Greek mythology, rife with characters with whom we can identify.

Anyway my point is, if I want to stop pushing the ball up the hill, I need something not currently present in my arsenal of coping skills. I don't know what will happen with this, but I'll let you know. Lillie says the best way to end a story with no real focus is to say, and then I found five dollars. I'll try that: And then I found five dollars!

knock knock

My house is a mess. I know everybody says that sometimes. We all have a level of messiness that we can live with--for some, NO mess is ok, for others, the zoo's the limit. Do you watch "Hoarders"? Yes you do. I think we like it because we say to ourselves, I am not THAT BAD. But it makes me look around uneasily during the commercials.

In a few weeks, I will be living here alone, which is weird enough. When Lillie moves to Chicago the mess will be all mine. The cats shed but are not otherwise messy, except for the litterbox and their buffet in the kitchen, and I can't point a finger at them. At this point I have tentative ideas about clearing out the clutter, sorting, tossing, painting...I won't have any more time than I do now so it won't happen overnight, but I am excited about the prospect. I imagine how it might look (just like the DIY websites of course). I do not think about how living alone will feel.

Perhaps it's my thoughts that are the messiest rooms in the house.

The better to bite you with

So I'm back in town, working long hours just like I never left. Without too many dreary details, let's just say that I think I may have been unfairly railroaded into working in Sacramento last week. I really did try to put whipped cream and a strawberry on the situation and learn as much as possible while I was there. It was, however, almost impossible not to think about revenge, so I did THINK about it; but I prefer to hope that justice will prevail and not have my fingerprints on it. Anyway--I'm back.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my sprinklers are still puddly and brain-damaged. I have to call the nice sprinkler guy, B, and ask him to come fix them back like new, and find a way to pay him. In the bigger picture, the money I save by releasing my current landscaper (see how I make it sound like I am letting a captive dove fly home to her babies?) can pay for sprinkler repairs. I'm saving the sprinkler-guy call as dessert to the unpleasant taste of telling P (via a nice note and a month's pay) that I don't want him to mow my lawn anymore. I do not enjoy the role of Big Boss. Did anyone see "Up in the Air?" The guy who is a professional firer? That movie gave me an enormous anxiety attack that comes back if I even type the words.

Also back at the ranch are my teeth. No mistake--I love my dentist but he is unfortunately not able, although he likes me just fine, to do my dental work for free. Once upon a time when I was a tiny little child with great big brand new front teeth I crashed my bike face first into the asphalt and broke those teeth. Ever since, I have had some sort of compromise dental situation--fake front teeth--which are in the afternoon of my life, failing. I have had several bridges but that ship has sailed over the horizon. I need dental implants. A wonderful invention, generally very successful, but crushingly expensive. Even with dental insurance, which will throw down a little, even stretching the process over two calendar years, I'll have to pull thousands of dollars out of my hat. Figuratively speaking. There is no money in my hat.

If I thought my job was stressful and being a landowner was uncomfortable, I was right, but nothing keeps me awake like this one. Some survey determined that people would turn down a million dollars before they'd give up a front tooth. Don't you have dental nightmares, too? That your teeth fall out or break off? The frosting on my anxiety cake is that no matter WHAT the doctors have ever promised, I have NEVER awakened from anesthesia without a whole lotta vomiting. I put off every procedure where I have to be "asleep" as long as possible because vomiting is so gruesome. Here are the rungs on the ladder of happiness: Thousands of dollars I do not have; Surgery that PULLS MY FRONT TEETH OUT; and then I get to vomit. And the top step? A denture over the obvious hole for a few months while it heals enough to screw new teeth onto the implanted posts. Say, now there's a picnic!

Sorry for sounding hysterical, and sorry if I gave your nightmares some fresh new ideas. I'll be looking around for something more cheerful to discuss. I think my 35th high school reunion is coming up...

Elena, Carly and Joan

This is not a political post, because I like you all the the way you are regardless of your political affiliation. This is a post about hair, including my hair. And little bit about mascara. Oh God, another disclaimer is in order. I like you all the way you are, again, regardless of your stand on mascara. Can we continue?

Today the news is filled with footage of supreme court nominee Elena Kagan. I happen to be kind of excited about the prospect of her becoming a justice but, poor dear, she is going to hear far to much about her eyebrows and eyelashes than about her take on higher court decisions. Call me shallow (go ahead, I'm ready) but if she had groomed brows and maybe a dash of lipstick, as though she were generally too busy to do the whole regimen, but not so personally careless that we wonder if her armpits are hairy, mainstream America would have fewer details to snipe about. We MIGHT subconsciously like her just a little better. As with any focus group; we trust the ones who look a little better put together. Its not just me. Two words: Susan Boyle.

Case in point: Carly Fiorina. I may disagree with her on principle but she looks marvelous; not like an anchorwoman but like she worked her way to the top, which she did, and also has a pedicure, which I bet she does. Also important because I so recently cut my hair short--she has great hair. She probably cut it like that JUST SO I would feel ashamed to disagree with her. I'm not sure what she looks like on a Sunday morning but her TV ads look great; which makes me WISH we had the same values.

My brother said I look like Joan Baez. I honestly admired Joan when she had long stringy folksinger hair and I like her still with cropped gray hair, and I'm sure I look nothing like her but I still didn't mind the comparison. In truth, I probably look more like Judi Dench, or--oh dear--Julie Andrews. Just in case, though, I don't leave the barn without filling in all the blank parts of my face. There's always a focus group out there, or you, or me. Marketing: it works.

Thank you, Anna Jarvis

I'm sitting on my couch watching Sam show Lillie around Chicago on the laptop. Googlemaps, we love you. What's cool about that is being able to see their new street, yard, neighborhood, manhole covers, ad infinitum. Six weeks and she's outta this town, on to the adventure that is her future. The cats and I are a little uneasy about that. Well, actually, the cats are untroubled by the prospect of her leaving, indeed about anything on the horizon. Cats have no agenda and anticipate nothing. I, on the other hand, fret about tomorrow and next month and next year. Not to the point of ulcer but enough to awaken me in the night...

Friday I had a leaking sprinkler, or so I thought, but things got better after that. L's nice yard guy arrived and dug down further in the mud than I had, determined the problem originated in the sprinkler's brain on the other side of the house; called HIS sprinkler savvy friend who immediately appeared and established which of the ten-year-old sprinkler brain parts needed replacing. It was like a crime show where the murder and the trial fit into the same one hour episode. Apparently fate started feeling a little guilty about heaping crap on my plate and so L's nice yard guy offered to maintain my lawn for $30 a month instead of $100 which is what I give P to do it. Now I have to break up with P, essentially, which will make me feel like the Ugly American, but hey, I really need that $70. P does a lot of yards and probably makes more than I do, and it's all in cash.

Today is Mothers Day. My mom came which made it acceptable for me, the daughter, to bake the shortcake, whip the cream, and cut up the berries while the kids wandered around with their coffee cups. My gift to myself was a darling pair of Rocketdog zebra print silk flats. I can't moan about payback for long dreadful labors because I got them all out in a few hours each, but that's worth at least a pair of marked-down shoes.

Next week I'll be in Sacramento, living in a hotel without a magnifying mirror. I am far too blind and vain to live without a magnifying mirror. Worse, I also have to be snappy and attentive because they will be trying to teach me things --see previous sentence--so all I can say is this hotel better have internet and room service. Could be worth another pair of shoes.

You don't have to google it. Anna invented Mothers Day.

Fix it

Whee, my first post. I wish I had something charming to discuss but I fear that most of my posts will be, primarily, me whining about something. OH, don't pretend you don't whine about things. Yes you do, you're just not writing it down. If your problems are less distressing than mine, you get to feel better (why, you're welcome!) and if mine are less awful than yours, you get to wallow a little more, which we both know is what you were going to do anyway.

Where was I? My sprinklers...remember when it froze so hard in January? I think some of my sprinklers took it on the chin; because first one and then another are in some secretive way, leaking or gushing or being otherwise all f*****d up. Last week I replaced the first leaky one but that didn't help at all. Today (it is Friday of course) there was a serious swamp: evidence of a broken pipe, further down than my shovel could reach [although I didn't go down that far because then what?].

As my followers (all three of you) know, I am reasonably resourceful, thanks to my mother and grandmother who always figured out and solved their own property-owner type problems. But I know when I'm in over my head (figuratively speaking--I only dug down about 6 inches) so I called my friend L to see who fixes HIS sprinklers; called THAT guy, and HE promised to appear tomorrow and diagnose my problems. My sprinkler problems. He knows when he's in over HIS head, too, no doubt.

The whiny subtext in this is, how am I going to pay for this? I earn just about enough to get by but no more. I'm sadly aware that my sprinklers will break and my dental work will crumble and my car would like to--but cannot--last forever. I don't have any generous, but failing, relatives. I can't rob a bank because they have security cameras and I'm kind of self conscious about my hair right now. So tonight, instead of reading a soothing novel, I'm going to look online for information about refinancing my house.

This Sunday is Mothers Day. My son Sam will be in California on business and is driving up for a very quick hit-and-run visit, and then I have to travel out of town (work not pleasure) all next week. I'd whine about living out of a suitcase but that's a whole post of its own, so I'll save that one for later.

I'll let you know what happens; and thanks for joining me here...