Keeping your enemies close or just too trusting?

Yes I know I have been blog "dark" for a few weeks.

My busi-ness level tripled with the holidays and it's not over yet.

Let me backtrack - I managed to surprise Jon on the 20th for his first gig back with the band. He didn't expect the table full and given the snowy sub zero icy temps - I was amazed as many showed as they did. 

It was a fun and lovely evening.

Two days later I awake to the intense ringing of the phone and my talking caller id announcing Jon's name.

Weird becayse I had fallen asleep around 11AM in the bedroom because he was napping on the couch. So how is he calling me from the living room and more importantly why? The house isn't THAT big and he could get his butt up!

I was dreaming that his brother passed away.

Which is ironic because it was his sister on the phone ( hence the talking caller id thing - her's comes up last name first). I knew when the minute I picked up the phone that Alex was gone.

I walked the phone into him and he was awake and calling her on his cell. She started freaking out " Why does he have to do everything the hard way??? WHY CAN"T HE JUST TALK ON THIS PHONE???" I had to give her that one. it made no sense to me either.

Alex was gone. After 8 years with ALS. He went in the night in his sleep. He was done. He is now in Rock and Roll heaven.

THere was little we could do but make the calls to our friends and loved ones just to let them know.

The next few days were insane. and yet calm. It was surreal to be honest. I was still planning his fundraiser that he didn't know about. So that kept me busy because many of those people wanted to come to the funeral which made it nuts.

Finally the family closed the funeral off to immediate family and the health care professionals that took care of him with the promise of a memorial at the end of January.  

I answered all the emails and phone calls and made sure that every one knew "game on".  He still wanted to keep our plans for lunch with friends ( the cover story) at that restaurant. 

Breathing a sigh of relief in a way, Christmas eve comes. He had made plans to attend services at his congregation with his family at 5:30 then dinner with them.  He intended to meet meat my church at 10:30 for our services. The plan after was to meet friends for drinks but that didn't work out so we were going to meet at home and have the eggnog I just made.

Ah the best laid plans.....  Somehow or another I was slightly delayed in leaving church and he should have beat me home by 20 minutes.  Strangely though, I got home and he wasn't there. Finally 40 minutes later I called his phone and he texted back that he was at one of the pubs as the owner paged him.

This turned out to be a lie but not a strategically crafted one. Given the circumstances - I didnt' ride him too much on it. He really wanted to drink the pain of his brother's dying away.  I was expecting this since the news came in so I wasn't altogether surprised.   He didn't want to "admit" that need so he came up with the lie so I wouldn't ride him too much.  

I want to take a slight pause in the story to explain that this pub and I have a checkered past.  Largely good, but the lows were LOW.    I know the owners and most of the waitstaff there.    So I can safely tell you that he hasn't been in there since Easter.   He hasn't been in touch since Easter.  This is very key to the rest of this story.   Back to our regularly scheduled program. 

I wake up at 3AM,  he's still not back and now I am starting to worry about how far gone he was.  So I texted him to let me know when he was ready to come home so I could get him. But I missed him as he walked in the door 10 minutes later. Holding a flier in his hand for his own fundraiser and not too happy with me!!!!

I tried to cover it but I'm not really adept at that. So I bailed fast and came clean. He started laughing as he was trying to remain upright. I got him into bed and he talked about how we would keep the secret for everyone else who worked so hard.

He wanted to bring his bass guitar and his acoustic.   He wanted me to sing some tunes.  We re-arranged the cover story of OURS to cover the original cover story.   Alex's death not withstanding that actually was helpful.  We basically went in two separate cars.  THe story for that was that he had to go to his mom's early and didn't have a chance to shower. At 1:45 I was walking out the door with both guitars in hand telling people that he was in the shower so I was able to sneak them out.  He was so overwhelmed and touched by this that combined with his brother's passing and the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed we had a few hours of him crying in my lap.   I could not have been more touched by his feelings. 

The invites had been going out, being updated and lots and lots of communications have been flying around.   I invited the whore.    Being the bigger and nicer person, I thought he would have appreciated that.  I invited his movie buddy,  his exwife even though she lives in another country and tons and tons of people regardless of location. 

As I walk into the bar, with my stuff and his two guitars in my hands, His movie buddy meets me at the door and helps me get everything into bar and set up.   Then I see the whore who comes over and hugs me.  I introduce the two women and proceed to get everything rolling.   

He walks in  - plays surprised BRILLIANTLY - seriously no one in Hollywood can hold a candle to the two of us! 

The music went on for 7 hours.   We shut it down when the PA and sound system had to depart for another gig out east!  We had musicians upon musicians upon musicians playing and singing.  Guitars, cellos, singers - harmonicas - it was just a blast.   Jon played all night long.   I sang a couple of sets with him and we had a great time.  I met tons of friends of his that I had been hearing about for years!  Many of my friends and some of "our" friends.  It was lovely. 

The one damper was the whore.  She got hammered.  And I mean hammered.  So much so that she could barely walk, she was flirting with every guy in the bar, handing out her phone number, broke my cellphone temporarily ( I was able to fix it later that night), she was feeling everyone up including me - she kept hugging me and telling me how lucky he was to have me and what a good woman I am.   Then - she goes up to Jon asks him to play the song he wrote FOR HER when they were together and he didn't ( lucky for him).  Not to be outdone, she then decides it was time to go home, oh but wait - as she was saying good bye to Jon, she invited him to go with her. 

Ummm - HELLO??????     Are you people KIDDING ME???? I truly thought my head was going to explode.  Oh he handled it well enough - he told her that was never going to happen again and that any future was dependent on her.   

Umm - yeah that's fine but not good enough.  So when we talked about it the next day I told him that I was offended at her behaviour and he needs to straighten her out.  She needs to understand that It was never going to happen again REGARDLESS of what she does.   And she needs to know that I am pretty angry with HER for the betrayal.  I tried to do the right thing and she screwed me.  Moving forward she won't be included.  Period.  I don't need this drama. 

He did agree with me that she needs to hear ALL of that in the light of sobriety and that he has no intentions of going back to her because she is incapable of giving him the relationship he wants and needs and that he is much happier here with me.   I meet his needs in ways she never could.   Part of him still hurts from the things she put him through and to some extent still does.  But he's trying hard to let it go and move on.   This was our first foray into the 3 of us in a social situation and she failed.   

I'm not angry anymore even though that converation hasn't happened yet.  We both had a great laugh though as she called and left a message as if nothing happened - she has no memory!  Oops.  

This was how we closed out Chrismas week.    I don't know if I was just trusting that she would behave at the ripe age of 50 or that I  trusted that she was telling me the truth in the hospital that she didn't want Jon.   Or was I just keeping my enemy close? 

Truth be told I don't think it is as much the enemy as the others.   The reason is,  it was way too easy for me to not invite her.  Way too easy.  

I'm embarrassed because she made a liar out of me.  I'm embarrassed because she made a fool out of me.  And herself - more so.  

It's been a tough week.  We have had a LOT go on.  But honestly - he was so overwhelmed by everything that I did.  I'm the hero of his life.   His family ( who just could not attend the fundraiser due to the fact that they buried Alex the day before) loves me now in ways that they never did before.  I was so worried that they continued their dislike of me.  I found out differently and then they proved it on New Years Eve.   I spent New Years at the restaurant where Jon plays.  We sang a set together and then his mum and step dad and step siblings showed up - we closed the place down.  It was one of my better New Years eve's in my life.  We had so much fun!  It was not complicated, there was no agenda - everyone was in good spirits and good form.  

I wish for you all a happy 2009.   It has to be better for all of us.  I truly believe that.  

I have hope.  

Taking care of long term business

I have to make a will.

I don't want to, but I'm at that age. I actually own property, so that also makes it necessary.

I also have life insurance and stuff, making this necessary.

Sometime ago, I made my brother and his wife the beneficiary and contingents at 100%.

After a lot of thought and a lot of soul searching, I modified it this evening and added a second benificiary.

I made the split 75% to my brother and 25% to the secondary beneficiary.

It's the right thing to do, even if its going to cause some controversy in my family. I don't care. It's what I want. I need to do this. I will be more at peace right knowing this is taken care of.

I asked Mrs. Jackson if she would take my cats in the event that something untimely happens to me. I asked that she raise them the way that I would.

She agreed, which I was counting on.

All that is left is the matter of my home, car and piano. The rest is incidental.

I am tidying up the interior and getting rid of extraneous things as well as giving away things I don't need or use. I live well, but I don't take care of things the way that I should.

Deciding how to handle the house is tough. What I want to do with it, is, leave it to one of the life insurance beneficiaries so they will always have a place to live. I don't know how that will fly or work, but I am expecting and anticipating that being the way this is going to go.

Oh and I know what my attorney will say. Again - don't care. He will advise me properly and I will listen and hear what he says, then I will do it my way.

It's an act of love, making sure that the people you love most in the world are taken care of after you depart.

I plan to have my funeral wishes written down and included in the will as well. For those of you that know me and will most likely outlive me, please, I trust you will see to it that they are followed.

Morbid... maybe.

But none-the-less.... an act of love.

If the second beneficiary is reading this.... I love you.

Better but still weepy

I am in a general malaise.

If I'm honest with myself, it's the absence of my best friend for 10 days but who's counting?

Be that as it may. I am sad about Ella's mom. She was a dynamic performer, she was a forthright person - a little bit domineering but we'll call that the mother gene. That and she's British.

Grateful she's not in pain, but sad that she's gone. Something she always said to me came to mind today. She was raised Catholic during WWII. She didn't attend the catholic church - or any church after she moved to this country in 1970. When I asked her about that she told me that she couldn't believe in a God that would allow such a horrible war to go on and ravage her home, her family and her country.

She didn't really give up though. I know she didn't. She's at peace now. And no longer in pain and that's the main thing.

Last night while writing my post, I was seriously at the point of canceling all appts, rehearsals, lessons, pretty much everything are about, on a permanent level.

I just wanted out of my current existence. I'm tired. Bone tired. of everything.

I can't blame my best friend for this either.

It's my job. I am at the point where I hate going to work each day. I hate no matter what I do, it's not right. Or it is right, and I need to be criticized anyway just because.

I hate having my marching orders handed to me at 8:30 AM every day. Evidently I am too stupid to know what is a priority or not.

I am sticking it out as best as I can. But at some point I will need to make a decision. To stay or to go. I think we can all agree that I am not good at that kind of decision.

Additionally I am now at a point that I am seriously considering whether or not I ever want to get married. I am fairly sure that I do. In fact I am positive that I do. But divorce scares me. Being a child of divorce, with very few scars really, the idea of marriage and the work it entails is attractive, but scary. And I am dealing with friends who are on their first and second divorces and re-marriages. That's scary too. Honestly, I am starting to understand some of their reasons better. But divorce in any capacity just makes me cry. Every time, no matter whose it is. Because I see it as the end of a bad fairy tale.

Oh come on, I don't view marriage as a fairy tale. What kind of idiot do you take me for?

Seriously though. In a way, the end of a marriage I feel like it's the end of a life in a sense. and it is, It's the end of your life with that person. Now if they were abusive to you or your children in any way, divorce is the kindest thing that can happen. But just generally, it's so sad that my family and friends go through this that I grieve for them and the life together that they had.

So surely you can understand my fear of marriage is based on my experience with divorce. I think Shirley MacLaine said it best in Rumor has it.

"If the marriage implodes, divorce. You haven't lived fully till you've experienced one of those".

So that saddens me. I make no secret of the fact that I want to get married and who I want to marry. I have no time table either.

I am feeling a little bit better about Friday night. I have a good accompanist and so I am really happy that it will go well.

So what am I doing to combat this you may be asking yourself.

Well in the area of my best friend, I'm waiting it out. We'll discuss the absence/communication issues when I see him and I will then explain to him why I am afraid the relationship will change and how communicating helps me keep that on par. But I'm not saying anything till we are in person.

In the area of my friends mom, I am going to the funeral on Wednesday. I need to pay my respects and say goodbye. I will go to the wake on Tuesday night as well so I can see my God-daughter.

In the area of my job, I'm just waiting it out for now. I don't know how long I can stand it but I'm going to try.

As far as the divorce/marriage thing: I just need to get my head out of my ass, be supportive to those who need it and not assume the cloak of responsibility for it.

I'm really not depressed, just sad becacuse things are backing up at one time. I'll be fine, I appreciate the concern and caring.

In the meantime, I'm going to bed.

I'm crying and I don't even know why

I was sitting at the computer just about 40 minutes ago putting in an order for tomorrow.

I ran into a snag, nothing life threatening or critical, but it sent me into uncontrolled, inconsolable sobs.

It's not over, it's just resting right now.

Today was a weird day. It's been 9 days since I have heard from my best friend. It's stressing me out on a number of levels - none of them new:

• I told him something about me that he didn't know. I am afraid it scared him. He wa sreally supportive but it could cause him to view me in a way that would both surprise and hurt me.
• Or our relationship is changing and not for the better. He no longer needs me and as moved on to other things. This one scares me the most
• Or he's taking me for granted
• Or it could be the real thing that i don't know what it is.

Then there is a friend of mine whose mom we prayed for today at church. She died later today. I know her mom well, this was heartbreaking. But for the best as she was so sick.

Then there is my oldest friend who passed on some bad news today of her own.

Then there is my high level of burnout and the fact that I am so far behind but only care because I am getting yelled at.

I have to learn 15 songs by Friday.

I went to the first rehearsal of my group and am unhappy at this time. I love the new director but have discoverred that the mismanagement of the board has really turned me off. I am looked down on because of who my dad is and that kills me. The man is dead - let him rest in peace.

When I itemize like this, I see the reasons make sense. When it was just the problem with my best friend, I wasn't thrilled, but giving space is OK and I could make my peace with that.

The burnout and dread of Monday mornings makes me so physically ill it actually raises my blood pressure on Sunday nights by 20 points.

I was doing so great this morning. I am really not in a good place.

Decompression

I saw Harry Potter on Wednesday Night with my Voice Twin.

So, I won't ruin for those of you who haven't seen it.

About 2 hours into the film, the battery on my cellphone which was on vibrate went on low and it started to beep.

Thse days, in light of everything going on, I don't turn it off, I turn it down.

Being polite to the other movie-goers. I did turn it off though.

After the movie was over, We were walking to the cars and discussing the movie. I looked at moon. As I was doing so, I was turning my phone on and hearing the voicemail chirp.

I KNEW somehing was not as it should be. I knew when I looked at the moon, I had a tug at my subconscious and the pit of my stomach was feeling really hollow.... although I might have been hungry....

As we were saying goodnight, I turned to walk to the car and nearly walked into a sapling. You see? I'm already distracted I KNOW who the voice mail is from.

I check my voicemail after I get in the car, and I was right. it was my best friend.

I called him back and he tells me he is leaving there at 10 and is it OK if he comes over.

I told him it was fine. I came home, picked up a bit and prepped a drink for him.

He walked in a little after 10:30 annd wraps his arms aroung me in a bear hug that lasted a few minutes. He says into my hair, "Thanks for letting me come by so late"

I hand him his drink and we settle on opposte sides of the couch. Room for at least one other body between us. We put on Boogie Nights as I haven't seen it, and he says

" I need to be in a safe place to decompress a bit, is that OK?"
" Of Course it's fine. I"m on vacation this week, so it's not like I have anything to get up for in the morning." I say
" Oh that's right, I forgot! "

So we watch the movie, talking through it as we are prone to do. We discuss some very personal choices in our past, things like cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, that kind of thing. We talk about some our past loves. General things.

He is spending an awful lot of time finding excuses to touch me. He finally reaches over and takes my hand. We sit like that for awhile. Very comfortable.

By the end of the movie we are lying together on the couch. Just holding each other while we watch the next movie.

It wasn't sexual. It could have easily gone that route, but he was exhausted. And he just needed to hold someone and be held. Someone that he loves and trusts.

At 3AM, I got up to go to bed. I offered him to come in with me and he said he would be in shortly. At 4:30, I woke up, and found him out cold on the couch. I covered him up with a blanket and went back to bed.

I awoke aroung 6, he was still sleeping. I went back to bed. I woke at 7:45 and he had gotten up and left.

Please remember a few months ago when I mentioned that I can only look good next to the whore.

I also want you to think about this. I did, long and hard.

When you are in a situation like this, dying parent, spouse, sibling, grand parent etc, and you are directly involved with being a caretaker, you have a tendancy to rely on the person you love most in the world to be your entire support system.

So the question is:

Why come to me and not go to the whore?

Ah - you see?

I KNOW the answer.

So does he.

And so do you.

Other Men's Cross are not my own

I woke up this morning, and a wave of sadness rushed over me like tsunami. I went back to bed and woke up at 1PM. I had been dreaming about Rod.

When I was about 20 years old, Rod, gave me some very important advice regarding a boyfriend I had who had a drinking problem.

He said "Contessa, your shoulders are only this wide" Gesturing the distance from one of my shoulders to the other.

"You can't carry your own cross and other people's full time. You can give them relief from time to time and if they love you, they will give you relief from time to time. "

"What my mother, Nellie, used to say is, Other men's crosses are not my crosses."

I thought of that this morning. His 58th birthday would have been yesterday had he lived. We lost him last year to an accident resulting from the pain of the cancer that would ultimately get him.

Other men's crosses are not my crosses.

Do not get the idea that I have adopted my best friends issues as my own. I have not. I am, however, in the position to do the things that need doing on the research end that can help him and his family while they are still actively caring for his dying brother.

I had to decline learning how to feed him. It just was in so many ways the wrong thing to do. Though I love him, if something happened to his brother under my watch, I would never forgive myself. I offered to do anything else to help relieve the pressure.

So this is my choice. I called upon receipt of the desperation email that he sent and offered to assist in this way. And that was accepted.

So while it is someone Else's cross, I am carrying it for now. Because I love him and because I think his family needs relief. I know what this feels like. I was there with my dad. And I only carried the responsibility for 4 hours a day when he was home and all hospital trips were split between my stepmom and I. With that little bit, I was able to carry on for 7 years, with moving from one county to another to be closer, taking a job with the understanding that I would have to leave by a certain time to be home for my shift.

Given the fact that my dad has been gone now 4 years in June, I realize that I still have 3 years to go before I am out of that situation as long as I was in it.

It's ironic. The day my dad died, I stood on the scale and realized that it was at a number that I wasn't happy with, but my clothing still fit.

I remember the day of the wake. The family went out to eat at the diner across the street from the funeral home. I ate like I had never seen food before. And didn't care. After the last person left the funeral home that night, I went out with the family again, and ate like I had never seen food before.

I gained 42 pounds in the 4 years after my dad died. 42 lbs sitting in WW meetings week after week. I can only imagine how much more that number would be if I hadn't been sitting there.

But, I lost 18 of that. Actually its close to 20 now. I only have 22 to go to get back to where I was 4 years ago.

It's funny, I picked up someone Else's cross and carried it, while working, hard, on my own.


I'm not upset about my decisions here. I made them, intelligently, and I didn't do it with any ulterior motives. I did this for someone I care about, because he asked for help. Being a person who doesn't often ask for help, and loving someone who is exactly like that himself, when it is asked for, it's usually way past the point where it will be easy. And it's not. But it is something that I am good at and capable of doing. I have the right people in place, the right information available and I am putting the files together to make this task easier on the family.


When my dad died, I didn't know what I needed. He showed up at my door with Chinese food and a six pack of beer for him and my favorite wine for me. He slept on the couch. The next night, another friend who was not going to be up here for the funeral, showed up with dinner and took all calls for me. Another friend, showed up one night with the biggest frozen yogurt she could muster up and stayed with me that night.


These people, these very same people are the people that his email was addressed to. I had dinner last night with with the friend who brought the yogurt and her mom. This dinner served a couple of things. I haven't seen her mom in awhile, so that was nice. I needed to be with this friend. She is the one who has my dad hanging around her aura. It got me out of the house AND Her mom is one of those formidable people who knows everyone in the town. She is going to be an asset here. I am already in discussions about jobs for him with her.


In times of trial, these people picked up my cross and carried it. They got me through the funeral and kept me busy and occupied for months afterwards.


That's love. That's what love is too.

A day long overdue

I was going through my day fairly normally.

leader started off this morning with 42 minutes and 6 seconds of idiocy. I hadn't even had coffee yet. And there's nothing like the project manager on the call with you, wishing like hell she hadn't bridged you up.

All we did was talk numbers and have an elementary math lesson while he tried to figure out where the bottleneck was. Now I, along with my PM, tried to shorten this exercise by TELLING him where it was, but he does not listen, loves to lecture, and holds us hostage till he finds his answer.

Annoyed ? yes. Earth shattering? eh - not so much. But I have to be honest here, this is the thing that drives my team bananas. And my poor PM is learning the hard way that don't bridge him up with ANYONE if you can help it.

So I was working through a lot of issues and realized that I was sitting in the wrong outlook profile for the better part of a hour and did a mental headslap. Duh. No wonder I wasn't getting any work email!

Boy was I sorry I switched.

I logged in, joined my 1:30 PM conference call, and started to catch up on the email that I had neglected inadvertently.

The first one I saw was from my best friend. It was pretty bad. He is so far down deep in the depression related to being the primary caregiver to his brother, that he was actually talking about some pretty permanent solutions.

I started to cry that he hurts this bad, but worse, none of it was news to me.

I called him, he called me back literally within seconds of seeing the call come through. We talked for about 15 minutes and I gave him the ready solutions that I have had for awhile. He just needed to be receptive and he wasn't nor was his family.

He told me who he addressed that email to. I gathered that the Whore wasn't on it, but he wasn't that specific.

He gave his schedule through Sunday and I have asked him to make some time for him and come over here so we can research getting his education resumed via the military and jobs and such. He can't wait to do this, he sounded better at the end of that call then I have heard him in 10 days,.

I called a friend who had mentioned a hospice that relates to the terminal disease his brother has and asked her to get me as much information as she could. She totally rocks and she delivered it to my door about a hour ago.

Further motivated I checked the Civil Service exams being given in our county.

I am compiling a list of questions that we need to get answered to move forward with a lot of this.

Then another friend who received the email called, obviously upset and a bit out of the loop. I filled her in and we talked about it. Both us got choked up at the tone of the email and she's traveling right now. She has offered her mom's assistance ( the woman is scary. 85 years old and she knows LITERALLY everyone in town. All we have to do is give her the specs and she will find him a job ). I told her that he's going to come over at some point by Monday or Tuesday and we will sit down and work out the details of the plan and start executing them point by point.

He was so relieved that I had ready info for him. But I knew this day was coming, and try as I might to head it off, if the family wasn't ready to hear the info about hospice, it would only aggravate them further and that isn't right either.

This is another stressor in the saga, but honestly, I think this is why my dad was attached to my friend. She's the one who called me as she received the email. My stepmom said that today and I was surprised. She thought for sure it was about her.... ( no one else did. just her) initially. I knew it had to do with me and I was reasonably confident that it was about this situation I am in with this man.

I can't explain this, but he was so relieved that I called. When I picked up the phone, he was tense and I was quiet. ( For those of you who know me, no commentary please). I said

"I got your email. We are going to get you through this. I have the name of a hospice that supports terminal illness. It's time. He needs to be there. It's better for him and better for you and you family."

It was met with silence. I suspect he was choked up a little. Then he said, quietly

"You and I have talked about everything in that email already. it's not new information to you. But I sent it to my family, mutual friend upstate and one or two other trusted friends including landlady. I need to make time for me now. I can't fix this. It's TERMINAL"

I responded to him, calmly, certainly more calmly than I felt

"We are going to get you through this. I know the director at the library, we can get you signed up for some of the basic utility civil service jobs that will give you a paycheck while you go back to school and get your training or degree. You need to make some time for you to come over here and lets make the plan and look at the options. I have a bottle of Vodka with your name on it so martinis ca be made. "

"You can't know how good that sounds. Here's my schedule through Monday. I'll call you and we'll sort this out"

I hung up. I cried stress tears only. It's a lot of stress to be this close to someone a few years older than me that is terminal.

I can't watch someone I love in so much pain that he was seriously considering a solution so permanent it helps no one. I couldn't let this go when I have some solutions readily at hand. It's not my personal battle, though in a sense it is. it's been a long road with this illness. I have been there from the beginning. This day was inevitable.

I'm just sorry that our own issues interfered with it or were interfered with before we settled it. This might settle it either way. We'll see.

I have no regrets about this choice and this decision. I'm doing something that's good and altruistic. It's helping someone that I love get their bearings in place. I can't knowingly let someone hurting so badly, flail in the wind.

And I would do it for any of you too...

Looking at the positive

I have a birthday coming up in roughly 12 hours.



On that day I have a performance with a group of people who may not be the best at what they do but are so unbelievably lovely and warm and welcoming that I can't possibly say no to them ever.



That of course is following the Outdoor church service and BBQ at church. Where my friend and I will have our birthdays blessed ( we have the same name, same spelling and were born on the same day... very bizarre).

As of last week, I was supposed to order in dinner and watch a movie with my best friend.

As men go he's pretty good most of the time but even he can mess things up pretty bad. He made plans with someone he wants to be involved with ( it's a long story and very boring) on that day because we are also celebrating our mutual birthdays the following weekend with friends. I absolutley stared at him as he was saying it and he faltered annd looked at me and said "your ACTUAL birthday is Sunday. OK I just officially blocked out the day and I'm all yours as we planned - I screwed up"

I should be happy but I was annoyed by that. I would have expected that he wouldn't need a freaking reminder after all these years. But everyone is not a walking calendar so I let it go. It was when I finally verbalized it that it stopped bothering me. I mean, he really did do the right thing. I just got mad that he would blow off his best friend for someone who doesn't even want him the way he wants her.

If you've ever seen the episode of Friends where Phoebe reads out Joey for breaking their date for another woman and then goes and breaks their date herself because HAnk Azaria is back fron Minsk for one day only - this is like that. Only we are the Ross and Rachel of our group.

I had dinner with my family today on the water at a lovely restaurant. I ate more food today than I have eaten all week. The same goes for last night. I actually got nautious. which is a first. I fell asleep when I got home too for about 30 minutes while waiting for neighbor to come over for a quick drink.

But I had a good early birthday gift - I went to Weight Watchers and stood on the scale - 6.2 lbs in the last 3 weeks for a grand total of 13.4! Happy Birthday to me.

This is the last year I am sharing my age too.... hence forth you all better keep track if you really want to know. A lady doesn't share her age.

That's enough about the birthday. I want to talk about the real gift I gave myself this year. Looking at the positive. I tend to be a glass half full person to start with but time and circumstances can cause a person to be somewhat jaded and a loss of perspective.

I am reading a book by Alexandra Stoddard called the Art of the positive. I highly recommend it. It teaches you how to live your live and enjoy it. If you are like me, and you work for a person who tends toward the crazy and tyrannical, it can tend to make YOU as much of a workaholic as they are. The trick is, take the time that is actually yours and use it. If you are required t o work from 8-5 and you are entitled to a one hour lunch break, start your work at 8., take your 1 hour and leave at 5. You will find that when you use the time that is yours in a way that is pleasing to you, you are better equipped to do your job and therefore do it better.

Now I work in an environment that can support this plan but not always. So I, along wi th my team, take comp time for overtime that we work since we do not get any other financial reimbursement. And we do this when it is excessive. Starting at 4 hours and going up from there. We never used to do it, we do it now.

She also suggests with work that when you are no longer excited by your job, but you love your career choice, it's time to take you career to the next level. I took a long look at my career. I love my job, I do it well. I am good at it. I am not ready to take it to the next level or leave. Not yet.

Making "possibilities" into "realities" is not easy, but it can be done with a little bit of change.

One of the other things I received this week was from my sales guy. He sent me an email that is titled two choices.

It basically says that Every situation that comes up in life gives us two choices, either we react negatively or we find the positive message in it. It's a long email so I won't post it here, it's very cute and has funny moments and serious ones. If you want me to send it to you, post a request in the comments and I will be more than happy to forward it on. It is not a chain - I hate those things. it's just a nice message.

But it made me think. I was having a pretty crappy day when he sent it. Work was not going well. So when I saw that it mae me smile and made me think.

Each day I get up as if it were on purpose now. I also get up with an attitude of positivity. I decide that today will be a good day and even better than yesterday.

When I am faced with a situation or challenge ( I no longer allow the word "problem" to exist in that capacity), I look at it from the perspective of what good can come of this.

An example is my best friend's recent stupidity. I was hurt, he knew it and knew he screwed up. He corrected it immediately and apologized. Now. I can look at this and say well obviously this chick is more important to him than I am. OR I can say, he recognized his mistake and realizes what is important and changed his agenad accordingly - he is human after all.

We are human beings. We sometimes screw up and if you screw something up, you need to fix it as soon as you recognize the screw up. I once forgot I had to teach a kid. the mother called me very angry that it was so late and I never showed and never called. I immediately looked at my calendar, apologized, made a new date and didn't charge her due to my negligence.

Being Positive is what makes things possible. That and hard work. and Hard Play.

So on this my 38th year ( ha this is the last notification you will get of the actual age people!), I have reviewed the things that I have learned and I have looked ahead to the things I want to accomplish.

Some things I am proud of:

1. My First Vocal recital. It was spectacular and I have to thank Bernie, Jax and Voice Twin for helping me.
2. I can lose weight when I really do what I am supposed to. the whole package.
3. My heart is not frozen in time. It is warm and capable of loving and accepting love.
4. My spirituality is humming along nicely.
5. When you love yourself enough to take care of yourself, love from others naturally follows.
6. My family is insane. They are crazy. They are amazing - and they are mine and I love them.
7. My friends are an Incredible and eclectic group. I don't dare name them all for fear I will miss one as I am tired. But I am lucky lucky girl. I have amazing people in my life.
8. My dad may be gone from earth but he's with me when I need him.
9. Perfection isn't a realistic or good goal. Being the best that I can be in everything that I do is a better choice. Just by doing the best that I can will make me a stronger, more positive and better person. This goes for my music, my career, being a good friend, being spiritually strong, communicating better all of it. perfection sometimes leads you to being a perfect failure. So be the best you can be. Geez I sound like an ad for the armed forces.
10. Fight fair. Don't bring up the past, stay in the present and fight about the current situation. Put it to rest before you go to bed.

I am counting down now.... I have 12 hours an 55 minutes left on this year.

I'm vitually blowing out my candles with you and making my wish for this year. ( I can't tell or it won't come true )

Pappa Do - I love you

"Life is the first gift, Love the second and understanding the third"

Marge Piercy

This quote says so much.

We are given life - a blank canvas, or a blank screen, or a blank sheet of staff paper. We are taught values, letters, numbers, speech.

We are taught HOW to love. And how to receive love.

But understanding as a gift? Many of us don't receive that until it's hind sight.

So it is with some hindsight understanding that I write this particular post.

A man helped create my life. He was my father. He helped raise me, thought not always in the conventional sense. Though he was the more conventional of my parents, circumstances didn't always allow him to raise us in the conventional method.

"Whatever is Flexible and loving will bend and grow. Whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die."

Lao Tzu

Some might say that my dad was far from flexible. In some respects that is true. He refused to bend on commitment - you either made the commitment and followed through with it or you didn't, He didn't bend on striving for excellence - meaning he wished things to be as good or as excellent as possible but not perfect. He was very flexible when it came to some life lessons and very flexible when it came to loving his family. He was very flexible in loving God.

My dad and God had a huge falling out when I was about 8 years old. That was the year he moved out of our home. My father was raised by a very religious Methodist family. So for him to decide that he and God were through was pretty rough. He maintained his jobs with the churches but he did not take us.

My father felt that God had abandoned him when his marriage fell apart. As an adult, I can completely understand how he got to that conclusion. I really can. I can't imagine being in his shoes.

"You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you to give."

Eleanor Roosevelt

My dad would not have met my stepmom if he hadn't accepted the hand dealt to him in the divorce. Two people who spent their lives together having fun. Each one alone would not have had nearly the adventure that the two of them created together. To be sure, it wasn't always fun and games. But the pictures that I look back on, and they are considerablem are full of fun, happy faces, jokes being told.

" I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth, and truth rewarded me."

Simone de Beauvoir

In looking back on my relationship with my dad, I had a good one as a small child but there were a number of years in the middle that I can't speak to. My later teens and early 20's more specifically. It was when my dad called me and asked me if I would sing in his church choir as a favor to him and the choir that I have just resigned from, that our bond re-formed in a new fashion. A good Fashion. We had our music and that's what our center or truth was. When things didn't go right, we always had that to return to. I can honestly look back at having two very different relationships with my dad. Once I was willing to give up the emptiness of his not living in our home anymore, I was rewarded with a new, better relationship.

Loss is tough to deal with at any time. There is a common misconception that over time the wounds heal, we apply bandaids and promise never to look again, but they don't heal. The wounds stay there but they change. They become wonderful memorials to the person who is gone. Memories replace the pain. The pain in dulls into something manageable on a day to day basis.

I have been beastly for the past few weeks. Thoughtless in some cases, angry and defensive in others, weepy in still others and wildly happy at other times. Each emotion was a 'times 10' to the normal reality of my life. And while I do have certain circumstances that helped pull those along, I reacted to even the most mundane things more vehemently than I normally tend to.

It was a bit of a shock, when I sat in the bar Friday night listening to the last strains of "my life" by the Beatles die down as my best friend finished strumming his guitar. I got a little bit choked up. It took me by surprise because he had played that at another friend's father's funeral - not my dad's. But still, it really hit home.

I blinked back the tears as he started on his next tune and it dawned on me that Saturday was the 4 year marker of my dad's passing. I am not the type to dwell on those dates and things. I know the month perhaps, but that's usually it. I commented to my friend on his break that I was surprised it snuck up on me like that. He commented that I may not have conscioulsy known it but my behavior has been giving me away. Everything was not just reacted to but over reacted to, nothing negative - it just was. It's also a sign that grieving is ending and living and acknowledging my dad's life was beginning.

I miss him still. I know that he is proud of me. I know that he loved me on earth and loves me still in heaven. I miss and love him so much. I have so much I would talk to him about right now if he were here. I know the things he would tell me too.

So Pappa Do - I love you!

Things I am learning about myself, about love and about life

The last few months have been enlightening to me.

I was accused of not taking care of myself. On more than one occasion by one person. I disagree on some points and I agree on others.

What I did say and maintain is "Hello kettle you ARE black". This person takes less care of themselves than I do.

You see, the term "taking care of myself" is a hard one. I care very much about myself. I am spending a lot of time taking care of my body and self image as that has taken a big hit in the past couple of years. I know why it did and while it's a valid reason, however it has a tendancy to take over, so I needed to let it go and move on. I gained all weight back that I had worked so hard to lose in the years before my dad passed and it's coming up on four years since he died and that also make me four years closer to a landmark birthday. So I bit the bullet when this person said to me, " you don't take care of yourself" and bumped up the good things I was ALREADY doing to get the weight off. I added the activity that I loathe so much. I actually like it now.

Then I started noticing that "care" had a different definition to me too. I care enough about myself to not get involved in situations that don't actively involve me. I also don't allow situations to happen that include me, without my permission. I don't mean to say that people ask my permission to involve me. I mean that I either allow the situation to happen to me or I decline and walk away and disassociate myself for some period of time.

Once I started doing this pretty frequently, I noticed it wasn't that hard.

For example. The Choral group I discussed yesterday. I am in the process of deciding to leave. I have three months to make that decision. Please DO NOT think that I am doing this in support for the director. I am not. I am doing this in support of ALL the past, present and future directors of this group. I am also doing it so that I do not have to watch the foundation crumble on my family legacy. Sad, but better if it folds up when I am not there, Less painful.

I am learning about love the hard way. I am in the middle of a life lesson that I am not entirely sure how it's supposed to go. Either I am supposed to acknowledge the feelings that I have had for 8-10 years and finally get over them OR I am supposed to learn the art of patience because the only person I have ever truly loved has walked back into my life in the right capactiy. Maybe this is our time FINALLY. Maybe it's not. Maybe its the lesson that teaches me how to stand up for myself and what I believe in for myself ? Or some combination of the above. What I want and what I am supposed to learn may end up being the same and they may end up being different. I am having a hard time believing that a loving and caring God would bring this situation back to me in this fashion without a plan for us to be together in the long run.

I pray for guidance on these items and I also pray for the outcome that I want with them as well.

I have discovered that life is funny, life is messy and dramatic. I hate the drama, I hate the gossip, but honestly, without it, I am living a half life. I am not fully living becuase I am not fully feeling. I realized that after Easter this year. I was not taking care of myself because I was living in the middle of the emotional spectrum rather than experiencing the Highs and Lows. Understand this. The middle is a nice resting place to hang out in when you are trying to recover your strength ( physical or emotonal) after something traumatic happens. It also takes a lot of additional work to not want the drama in your life. It sometimes takes an act of congress to put up the barrier that says "drama stay the hell out!".

But in the end, reality has a way of creeping up on you. Life is messy. YOu can't live fully without experiencing the high's and lows that come with it. So while the middle is a good resting place, it should only be used as that - A resting place. You can't love fully there.

I didn't think that was true. I didn't believe that I could be happy with the highs and the lows. Well, the lows. But the resting place gave me the strength to experience the highs and lows and handle the highs wonderfully with some AMAZING memories and handle the lows in a way that doesn't enable a full blown depression that would normally send me far away to hibernate.

I handle a lot of things better. I am better able to say "no" to situations that are not acceptable to me or good for me. And withstand the pressure when people try to change my mind.

I am better equipped to deal with my challenges of health and work.

A brilliant mind recently told me that they were envious of my situation. I have never had anyone be envious of me for any reason ever. It was a strange sensation. But not a bad one. I cannot imagine anyone choosing the path my life is on right now. And then I realize that I did choose. I could have said "No, I refuse to put myself in that position again". The risk of saying NO to the possibility was greater than the risk of having my heart broken. So I chose the path that I am on and will see it through to some point. The difference now, for me, is that I am 8-10 years older and I know more about myself and about the situation. I can mae some better educated decisions about what I will and won't tolerate.

And for all of you who know the story - did you know that throwing a drink at someone actually qualifies as "battery" ??? I just found that out in conversation and found that terribly funny. I guess I am lucky I didn't throw the waterford glass too! And that the person doesn't remember the drink got thrown!

Untitled Post

Today was the second Sunday of Easter.

THe Gospel of choice in Christian based churches was about THomas - doubting Thomas.

I adore my priest. He's young ( my age roughly). He spoke of his worst year. The year he couldn't wait to have over. He mentioned that he was in a job he hated, a church that wasn't comfortable, a masters program that wasn't working for him, family was having issues and he was alone. He went on to mention that good friends will stay with you and help you see the sun on the dark days, good friends will walk with you when you need them too and sometimes carry you when that's required.

I have to be honest, somehow that tied into the Gospel for today. I really didn't get past those last words. They are very true. And the ones who do this often times come from places you don't expect.

Bernie's version was a little bit different.... A friend will help you move, a best friend will help you move a body. Same idea - with his unique twist of humor.

But the part that gets confusing is when the problems are with one of the "best friends". That's where we deal differently and it's subtle, very subtle and it needs to be handled delicately to a degree so as not to shake the foundation up too much. Right?

Or is it? Do you avoid? Do you confront? Do you pretend everything is normal and hope the awkwardness goes away?

I don't know the answers here.... but that's actually OK for now. Because I have other friends who are carrying and CARING for me right now when I need them.

You all know who you are.... Thank you for caring about me enough to help me through this. It's tough on me, but I am taking this to a higher power sometime this week. I have a wonderful counselor in my priest and I have talked over things with him of significantly more importance in the scheme of my life. In reading some of your blogs, you picked me up and carried me when you were not in an optimal place for yourselves. And in light of that..... I am grateful. Very, truly blessed and grateful.

It is kind of Strange though. While it's very important to me, I can't help taking a step back and thinking "how junior high is this?" or worse yet "This is embarassng to be dealing with when there are people out there grieving for lost loved ones, war, rape, death, illness...." But in the end, its still real to me and not going away. It's just dulled a bit after a lot of tears and then some sleep, then more tears. I prayed a lot this morning. Shortly I will be heading to bed and I will pray again. I have had several discussions with my dad ( don't look at me like that, I know he's dead. I still talk to the man and sometimes, when it's important, that's when I get my answers! ).

In fact, a problem solving technique that I like to employ is to shelve the problem until a set date and time. Anytime it comes up, you repeat some lovely mantra or phrase that works for you. Mine is " Put down the problem and step away! It's not to be touched until ____"

My timetable here is not reliant on me. But I am not going to address the issue before April 20. If it's forced prior to that, I'll cross that bridge then.

How much to say in a blogpost

I have some things in the hopper right now and I can't bring myself to post about them publicly yet.

Things like work, I can't put in publish mode. Not the gut wrenching brutally honest ones at any rate. For all good reasons.

But I was reading a book the other day. It's an old book that I read as teen an I kept the trio around because the author is very profound though she chooses to address the teen set. However, as an adult, I read these books from time to time on a different but yet the similar perspective as I did when I was younger.

Madeleine L'Engle wrote The Wrinkle in time series - wonderful. But the "Meet the Austins" Series is the one I keep around. A Ring of Endless light is an amazing story of a teenaged girl struggling with the death of a granndparent while living with her family at her grandparents home. She is also simultaneously dealing with boys and love, siblings and growing up in general. None of which is easy at any age. She is a poet.

The perspective I have now on this particular story is interesting. I used to identify with our Heroine, Vicky, most of the time. I still do in strange ways, but I find myself identifying with all the other characters in the story. Like the Widow who becomes the nurse to Vicky's grandfather. Her husband dies saving someone from drowning right in the first chapter of the story. He leaves behind two sons. One is younger thanVicky ( her younger sisters age in fact ) and the other is going off to college in the fall.

The widow speaks to her sons about grief in the book. It's a very short moment, but it always stuck with me. It's about life and death. Its about affirmations of life when tragedy strikes. The conversation between our heroine and dthe widow's eldest son seems pertinent to me right now....

" Why have I been so hungry all summer?" I asked

"Because eating is a part of life. So is loving"
It rang true. "Let's concentrate on eating, then. For now." Then I asked, "Have you been hungry too?"
"Famished. I talked to my mom about it, and she expained about it being an urge to live. When Dad's father died, he had a heart attack unexpectedly, just like dad - they wept, and then they made love. And she showed me that this wasn't being disrespectful but a-- what did she call it? An affirmation of the goodness of life."

-Madeleine L'Engle, A Ring of Endless Light

Since the title of this post is "How much to say in a blogpost", the answer is clear to me right now on this topic. The quote says all of what I need to say right now.

Blogging is interesting. I am an honest person by definition but I notice that I am careful with how and what I write lest I offend someone close to me. And I can tell you that I have had one friend me why I felt a particular way about them when I met them. It wasn't a bad thing, just a timing thing. I am sensitive to others feelings and even when they may drive me crazy, I won't write what I am feeling at the time, because worse than saying things you don't mean, is writing them. It sits there in cyberspace eternally in print. Just like words spoken can sit on the soul forever.

So not writing what I want to write at this point is a little bit troublesome, but I will get it sorted at some point and write something appropriate thats deferential to others. I just can't break a confidentiality agreement that I sign for work on paper, or a verbal one that I make to myself or a friend. I will wait it out till I can put my feelings into appropriate words that only affect me and no one else.

Sudden sadness

My dad published an arrangement of "He's Gone Away" many many years ago.

I have sung it half a dozen times in my adult life and I was priveledged to conduct a small select group of long time members to honor him at his final concert.

So, when our director decided to honor the deceased members of the Chorale at this next concert, it didn't really register that we would be singing this song.

So it was handed out on Sunday. We started singing it and I found myself crying. All the way through till the end.

I was really surprised because my dad's been gone nearly 4 years.

Now, I don't know how many people really caught on that I wass crying as I held the music up to hide my face from view.... not that I was embarassed, mind you. Frankly I think folks expected it to be honest.

But it was the 27th Anniversary of my dad and my step mom's engagement and it was only at that moment that I realized it and I couldn't show her my tears as I sit facing her. That wouldn't be fair to her. She has a tough enough time with it.

The song is short - it's a folk song really. The lyrics go like this:

He's gone away for to stay a little while.
But he's coming back, for he's gone 10 thousand miles.
And who will tie your shoes?
And who will brush your hair?
And who will kiss your ruby lips?
When he is gone, gone away?
Over yondro.

I can hear Bernie now saying "What is a Yondro???" Bernie - I don't know. Let me know if you do or we can add it to the dictionary near nogoodnick.

It's a beautiful song and a lush arrangement.

It kept me weepy for a few days. I couldn't really get the song out of my mind and at the same time when I noticed it was on my mind, the tears would come. What I fail to understand is why this happens almost 4 years later. seriously, I still expect him to call and ask me how my boys ( cats) are. ask me how work is, tell me his latest joke. It's weird.

When he retired from directing the chorale, we got him a plaque.

It says "He's Gone Away"

90 miles an hour with my hair on fire

At least that's what it feels like I am doing these days.

One of colleagues had a terminal illness in the family and was summoned to NY on Tues night. Unfortunately weather conditions delayed and routed him to Philly. By the time he landed at the airport in Long Island, this person had passed away. It's very sad to lose someone at all but someone who's 41 is very difficult.

I mention this because while all this was happening, and I was covering his workload, I also had a wake to attend for the daughter of a family friend. Also 41. She passed away due to a car accident. I didn't know the daughter to speak to as she was enough years older than me growing up. Her dad had passed away in December so this is a double whammy for the mother.

Now, I am the only member of my family who attended the wake. My step mom, who is closest to the mother, called her and they had some discussion about it. But Ellen knows that my step mom really avoids wakes at all cost since my dad died. I go, pay my respects to the family, but I do not approach the coffin for any reason. It is a rare day. I did for my grandmother but honestly, I didn't look at her.

When they opened the coffin for the private viewing for my dad, I was stunned to see how much healthier he looked in death. We buried him in his tails. I put his conductor's baton and pictures of his cats in with him. That bothered me, how well he looked. People shouldn't look better in death and I honestly lobbied for a closed casket. I just don't see the need to look at a person in that state. Not that they care. They no longer inhabit that body.

So, I don't do viewings. I do pay my respects and offer to cook meals etc for the family. The wake was the strangest I had ever been to. People were hysterical and throwing themselves on the coffin. I saw many of my dad's friends and collegues - some I hadn't seen since before he died - and so I as accepting my own condolences at someone else's wake. Weird. Even my neighbor, who went with me, agreed this was really odd.

As tragic as all this death was, I actually handled it so much better than I had this time last year. Those posts reflect how far down I went dealing with so much death. No clue why.

Through all of this I am working like a dog on both my work and my colleague's. I tend to put more effort into keeping my colleague's work from piling up than my own during that time. And with that in mind I spent my entire day correcting 4 international orders because the ruleset for that country changed since Monday ( this is a pet peeve of mine), then entering the last 6 orders for the same coutries under the new ruleset. The corrections took 2 hours and the new orders took a total of 30 minutes.... silly. I hate this system.

From there, I left to have my routine bloodwork done, visit my office briefly, teach 1 kid for an hour and another for 30 minutes.

The very first time I sat down to do anything remotely for me was 8PM. Now this may appear to be a complaint. It's not. To be home at 8 vs 10 is always a treat. I feel like I have gained time.

I am trying to slow my pace down. I'm not doing as well with it as I want. I have a tendancy to overbook in an attempt to make everyone happy. I'm a people pleaser and I always have been.

So in review of month 2 of the plan - I need to not be going 90 miles a hour with my hair on fire all the time. I am planning one activity and if another comes up, well, I'm sorry but I made the commitment to activity 1 first, can we reschedule for another time?

It's a piece of my personality that I don't want to get rid of ( it's very helpful in my professions), but I do need tame it. Manage it better.

So, yes this post is a little bit rambly - but I reserve the right to do that!

Review

I had my review today.

It took two and half hours.

Why ?

He likes to talk.

For those of you who know me.... he can OUT-TALK me.

Now THAT is saying something.

Before we got to my actual review, we talked about his trip, his undergrad work and his MBA work, my being a poor test taker, the credits towards my PMP that I have, his not wanting to be a snowbird in Florida ( he's 59), air travel pre-9/11.

Then we got to my review. Which was wonderful. Seriously. I got the max raise allowed. My director even threw some nice comments in since we are working together again.

Before I could throw it out there, he brought up the micro managing. He has some work to do on that and we, as a team, will try to deal with it. He's going to try the timed out updates so he's not riding us the entire time.

It's not optimal, but if it actually works out, it would be an improvement.

I don't have high hopes though.

We did this remotely. Me in my pajamas and coffee and him with his car back with freshly rotated tires.

Working remote is onoe of my favorite things. I love this. I haven't seen my office since the fall. I've been in other offices in the country more often than my own. I hate my office, but I do NOT want to commute - so this is the happy medium. My CMS is wonderful - forwards my phone anywhere I need to and announces the callers. I love this. I was able to spend my days home watching my kittens grow up.

I took another nap today. I was arely up 2 hours when I went down for the 2 hour nap. I was wondering why this is the third day this week this has happened. I think I have nailed down the answer.

I am not sleeping at night as well as I could. No that's not it, I am not Falling asleep easily - but once there I don't wake up. I think its the eczema. Given the temperatures and lack of humidty in the atmosphere, I am suffering a bit. enough that I am taking the oral meds exactly when I should be and the topical meds twice a day and moisturizing four times a day. It's slowly improving but sleep is not coming so easily to me. I am trying not to nap in the middle of the day as that makes it that much harder.

Tomorrow I see my coach. I will be bearing sad news too. A colleague of his and my dads passed away last night after a long fight with cancer. He was the orchestra director in the HS here until this past December. It was very sad.

I also had a neighbor pass today and I met her husband, whom I know better, in the elevator on his way to the funeral home to make arrangements. I had only met his wife once as she was always in the hospital or nursing home. I felt so sorry for him. He took such good care of her, but he felt this was for the best as she was suffering and in pain. Very sad news.

So given all of this, I am going to have my lesson tomorrow. It feels sort of anti-climactic. Not that I am anywhere near ready to stop. I have so much more to learn. I just feel like I have nothing to work towards. It was 2 years of my life prepping for that recital. I also have the issue of the situation with my coach. I am hoping that he will be mature enough to say "Hey we had a fight, we talked about it and we're moving on" as I have. I don't have high hopes though.

Stay tuned.

Life is queer.

Dreams

I had a dream about my dad last night.

Now there is only one other time that I dreamt about him in the past 4 years and that was a codeine based dream.

I do have to elaborate on the first codeine based dream for last nights to make sense. Codeine has the ability to cause you to have reality based horror like dreams. Mine, in short, was that my dad DIDN'T die and was, in fact, in a nursing home where they were taking what few organs still functioned, from him to give to others, while keeping him clinically alive.

This dream took place 4 years ago. Sadly I still recall it in great detail. There's more to it than what's above, but that's the gyst of it and all you need to know about.

Last night, I dreamt that he was alive again. Healthy though. I was being kept from him for reasons I still don't understand, but somehow I was finally able to see him. He was taller than i ever recall ( those who know me will say that EVERYONE is taller and they would be right) but hey it's my dream. All he did was smile at me and tell me he was fine. He didn't actually pat me on the head, but it felt like that.

All I could think of when I woke up was that he had hugged me close in my dream. It was comforting and unsettling all at once. It was like it really happened.

Some folks who believe in this stuff will tell you that it did because your mind in dreams is open to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. Maybe that's so - I don't know. This has not happened in my dreams before ever.

If it had been anyone else I would have felt like it was an invasion of my privacy. But it was my dad so I awoke, early, feeling refreshed and comforted. Really weird when I think about it.

It made me cry when I really reflected on it. I miss my dad. We did really have a good relationship until I was in my 20's. So, while I had him my whole life, we didn't bond well til I was an adult. So in a weird way I feel cheated now that he's gone.

I may end up removing the Pie Jesu from my program after all. We had that sung by the Diva at my dad's funeral. I also may leave it in - it was one of his favorites.

It's a tough call, but I feel better knowing that he's watching over me.

Whining doesn't get you anywhere

I want to thank you all for letting me whine yesterday. It was actually very cathartic for me and the overall answer is that I need to have faith that if I am doing all the right things and setting my smaller goals for myself that eventually my body will catch up. The good news is that I did write down my specific goal of 10 pounds by Christmas. I also ate healthfully and smart choices today and I did a 30 minutes power walk on the Walking DVD that I purchased over the weekend to help me get through the holidays. I'm feeling A LOT better about this.

I'm not as stressed about what happens when I lose the weight to the big goal, it's a long way off and I don't need to address it today. I just need to enjoy and learn on this journey and remember that these changes are full lifestyle ones so I need to do what makes the most sense for my life.

The one change I plan to make is to add a 10 minute power walk every morning with these DVD's before work. That will be in addition to the Firm Body Sculpting 3 days a week and the 30 mins walk 4 days a week. This is totally doable and I will add more or change it as needed.

On a sad note, Rod passed away due to a fall in the shower causing him to bleed out. The memorial service was in Tampa on Saturday and I didn't find out until Sunday. Even if our email server had been up on Saturday I wouldn't have been able to get to Tampa for it and no details were provided. So I am planning to do a toast in his honor with some of his friends. It's only right and I feel that he would nod his approval from heaven and be only too pleased when I yell BON BON across the room at some poor unsuspecting soul. And I'll do it too! He'll laugh. I miss him. I just really hope that he didn't suffer overly much.

So today I chatted with Jenna and we started looking at party favors and decorations for eeeman's birthday party. It's starting to get fun now.

I have some basic housekeeping to do that I did not get done this weekend.... laundry, dishes that sort of thing. But I was in phenomenal voice this weekend and I am trying not to get the col that keeps threatening to arrive - I am on airborn constantly, using my neti pot and just keeping my voice warmed up. I was popping out the F's from Der Holle Racht all weekend better than I ever have and that sucker is HARD. Melody and I talked about it and decided that when you sing those notes, you feel them in places of your body that you didn't think you could imagine. I'll let you imagine that.

Lastly, things with the benefactor are interesting. I definitely have the upper hand right now, and though I am not comfortable with any one person having an upper hand in a relationship, I think that balance of power has somewhat shifted from the parent to the child. The child now, is calling the shots in the relationship. The good news is, since I am the child, and I am the person that I am, that means that I am making the terms of this relationship more in tune with me, while still honoring the person that she is. You see, there are facets of her personality ( largely anger and insecurity and all the things that make that up - lying, CYA, embellishment, flash emotions, anger, negativity) that I do not care for but do recognize why they are there. And you have to take the fleas with the dog. But I am choosing to use frontline on this relationship. I have put into practice the ruleset that I live by with every other person that I know. I have good relationships with my friends and my family and this one is going to fit me this time as well as her. I think this will be a good thing. We don't talk every day anymore either, but it's every other day.

I doubt highly that the zebra will change her stripes, but I feel that she needs to have the opportunity to try. I will not abandon her, she is family and has no one else and I won't have that. But I won't go back to the relationship that we had as it was overly dysfunctional. A step past the line of normal dysfunction..... LOL!!!

Things are falling into place, slowly.........

The Godfather

My adopted Godfather ( my real one is who knows where), passed away on Halloween.
The exact email that I received went like this:

Friends, I’m sorry to have to inform you that Rod passed away yesterday after a long bout with cancer. He was a true friend to us all, sharing everything he had, asking only friendship in return. We all appreciate his rarity of character in our otherwise self-centered world. He will be missed.

It was perfectly written and though short, it captured the essence of what Rod was about.

He had pancreatic cancer. There was not much that could be done to save him.
Rod was a fantastic person. As UB put it, rare in this world. The expression "would give the shirt off his back" was an understatement.
We don't know too much right now, other than he has passed. We have heard that he would like to be cremated and his ashes buried at Arlington National Cemetery he was a Vietnam Vet). He is still in Florida as far as we know. The not knowing is hard for me.

I spent a little bit of time tracking down some friends of his, people that worked for him. It was tough to express it. By the time I got to WCC I was in a better place to talk about it.

He was 57 years old. He had a large family but not a close family life. He friends meant the world to him. He truly only asked for friendship in return. We were very close. I can't define the relationship too well, other than that. He was a part of my family. He was a lot of fun but he could drive you insane. He was ridiculously intelligent, but couldn't spell. I always said that his mom shortened his name from Roderick to Rod because he couldn't spell. He refused to clean his monitor at the office - he called it his anti- glare screen. He had rottweilers who hated women but loved me more than they even loved him.

He loved to spoil those around him and he has seen a lot of sad times and a lot of happy times. He attended my dad's wake, he came to my concerts ( when I had solos), he had me play for his wedding, I cat sat, dog sat, bird sat for him. He was my boss for awhile. He was my neighbor. My family always spent New Years with him.

One of our favorite shared memories was my Junior year of college when I was home student teaching, working at their company at night for some extra money. Rod, UB, my mom and Elle (Rod's Wife) decided to go to a french restaurant "La Grenouille". There, I had my first glass of truly expensive red wine. And Let me tell you the difference between inexpensive and expensive can only be described as whoooooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I had Lobster - shelled. Unreal. But the part the we laughed about for 10+ years afterward was dessert. He didn't really eat dessert. But they put a bowl of the these chocolate balls. They were like chocolate balls of butter. So of course, the broadway crowd thins. It's a sudden lull in the restaurant and Rod yells "Bon Bon" and points to the bowl. We all cracked up. It's been a private joke between us for years. If I close my eyes, I can hear him saying it and laughing that laugh he has.

I am mixing my tenses and I realize it, but I am purposely not correcting it. I just can't believe that he's not here anymore and the laughter has ended. So the tenses will be mixed for awhile.

He was a special man. He was loved by most everyone. He's with Bear and Ibo now.

Rod - Ibo has a balloon in his mouth for you!

BON BON!!!

My friends at work.

When you go to a school like a performing arts school or culinary or anything where you can show your skills off in the limelight, you are bound to be in a position at some point to see your friends at work.

We always TALK about work but that's different. Because you get the opinion commentary with it. I hear that a lot in my primary job. My colleagues are ever surprised to hear me deal with a difficult customer and have them wildly happy or at least calm at the end of the conversation, yet I hang up the phone and have a stream of expletives on that individual.

So I had the double opportunity last night to go to a concert for my Linnie girl, the daughter of good close friends of mine. She sang beautifully and has frightening stage presence. She will go far that young lady will. She has grown into a lovely young woman.

Her teachers in middle school and High school are friends of mine. Her high school teacher could be my sister except that we have the same name, spelled the same and the same birthday. I met her through her mom who sings in my church choir. Her husband is a really warm great guy and they are neat people. She and I have the same interests, we both sing, she has sung with the same groups that I sing with. She has two kids. Her son is my buddy. He is a ham on the stage. I sing with him a lot. He's 8 and what a talented kid.

So they left me a free ticket at the door, R&B saved me a seat with the family ( 2 rows worth, Linnie has her own personal fan club!) and I watched some of the most talented teenagers that Syosset has to offer perform. I was impressed. They put on a great show. It was clear they worked hard. Watching my friends organize, play in pit and conduct was a hoot. They are dynamite! I was duly impressed to watch her conduct the concert choir in a tune from Fame. It was unreal. In tune, well done, dynamically accurate and they were having FUN. They are some awesome teachers and are well loved by their students.

I am always in awe of my friends when I see them in their professional garb. I have another friend who is now a doctorate in Music. It came as no surprise to me to see that. He is a professor and director of a few choirs/choruses. I have seen the pictures and I am going to try to make it to a performance since he is local to me.

BernieRA is another one. He is probably the only one that I know that regardless of what he is doing with his professional life, I can picture him doing it. And well. He's got integrity that I don't find every day in this profession we have all chosen. He's has it when he performs ( with that gorgeous voice of his), when he teaches, anything. He is a model of integrity for me.

I would be remiss if I didn't include 2 well loved favorite teachers, my mom and Am. My mom is currently teaching kids who are kids of the first class she ever taught in this district. It's kind of a hoot for her. But all their parents remember her fondly and how fun she is and how much they learn from her. No matter what direction the world has gone, my mom has a new and fresh way to teach these kids in their own language. She is always abreast of the latest in her field and how to include that in her lessons. My mom likes all the classics including the backstreet boys, Santana and Josh Grobin. Its a hoot to see her CD collection.

Am has a lot of musical theater under belt as she does at least one per year with her school. Some years ( like this one ) two. She teaches advanced music theory and of course choirs/ chorus. her kids LOVE her, as anyone who see's her myspace can attest to. I have never seen her teach but I know that it would be a riot to watch! She is another one who is creative and likes anything that is NOT in the mainstream both for personal and professional.

Not to be outdone, we have Maple Mama who so diligently works to provide cultural arts to the fine residents of Vermont. And she does this with style and flare. Just like she did in college. She was good at giving tours, creating experiences ( some not to be mentioned here), organizing events and handling large groups of people. I think that this is her special gift and talent and it thrills me to no end each time I hear about some event that she put together or some kind of mishap that she smoothed over ( and there is ALWAYS a mishap!). She does a fantastic job with this. Before this gig, she did a fabulous job with the Teddy bear man and I have the bear to prove it. She really helped that business grow to the corporate world it has grown to. She is a true asset to any organization.

So last night was a neat surprise for me in an other wise sad day. On a side note and a topic for a separate post, we lost a dear friend and member of our family to pancreatic cancer yesterday.

and there goes my patience

After the raw rough emotion of the weekend I woke up much more content back to my old self.

Except that I have a short fuse.

Now, those of you who know me know I have a fairly long fuse but when we get to the end - run for cover. I am, after all, my father's daughter.

I worked today. I had a lot of things to get done. I am dealing with the move of my order entry hub from MO to Buenos Aires. I have to be honest here, this move is quite possibly the worst decision I have had to deal with. And I had nothing to do with it.

I spend an inordinate amount of time, explaining to them how they need to write my orders, how fast it needs to be done and I am escalating right and left to get things done in a timely fashion as there really isn't an reasonable explanation I can provide to my customer for delays outside of 48 hours.

Not that I am expecting any of you to have to deal or even understand this, but the extra time that I need to take out of day to manage them when I didn't have to manage the weldon Springs, MO group at all is making me nuts.

So my patience was short to start with, its Monday and this is taking up most of my time.

For my job I keep several different instant message systems up. AOL occasionally, Lotus notes Sametime and Windows Communicator. I like Communicator the best out of all three, in the event you were wondering about my opinion. One thing that is a pet peeve of mine, is people who have entire conversations on it in place of the phone. Now it's one thing when you are on a conf call, but something else entirely when I am just sitting here working on my spreadsheets. My true pet peeve about it largely deals with the fact that if I am just sitting here typing conversation back and forth with my co-workers than chances are neither of us is getting much done. sure once in a blue on a slow day during the moratorium maybe but every day I have co-workers who do this. Then to hit me line after line after line while I am trying to respond to the first comment?????

Normally, I yell at the lap top and tell whoever it is to shut up. today I was so incensed with my lack of patience that I shut all three down altogether. I offered up the suggestion to call me while I am typing so as not to seem anti-social. I wanted to chat but I really had to get this stuff done. I don't want to be pressured tomorrow like I am every week to get all these reports out and the client was on holiday today so I was making the most of a semi day off. I also have a truckload of orders to put in tomorrow.

I was a little bit stressed about teaching today too.... I was afraid that I would lose my patience with my kids but I was OK with them. They can pull me out of that mood really easily which is my patience isn't suffering now. I taught Gil and Jen today and they did pretty good.

So now I am driving home and it's dark out, I can't find my glasses and I notice that my right eye ( the one that had the torn cornea) vision has degraded substantially. everything is blurry until I am close enough to touch it. This is not acceptable to me. I have a sinking feeling that this is scarring of the cornea and I am praying that can be addressed. The other thing that scares me is the steroid drops degrading the vision. I have an appt on the 20th. So I am trying to adjust to this. My left eye is perfect - no problem. I am planning to call the doctor tomorrow though just to ask about this.

I had called my best friend, Jax, last night while sitting in the drive through line at McD's for the eternity that it seemed like. She called me back this evening between kids. she couldn't believe how angry I was last night and how impatient I was today. I know that this is part of my grieving process - I recognized it immediately.

Its getting back to normal around here! Slowly Slowly....