Saying yes...

Unraveling

Unravel: 

1 a : to disengage or separate the threads of : disentangle b : to cause to come apart by or as if by separating the threads of

2 : to resolve the intricacy, complexity, or obscurity of : clear up <unravel a mystery>

The man I know as my father is unraveling with rapid speed. Disengaging day by day, unraveling and leaving parts of himself behind... a physical trait here, a memory there.  They said it would happen, but we held out some kind of hope for a magic pill or a misdiagnosis.

And while he is unraveling, shedding the wholeness and complexity that once was, there have been moments of joy as his carefully woven facade sloughs away bit by bit.

I know my father loves me. I have always known that, but he's had a very hard time saying it. I blame his harsh Germanic upbringing. You could see the struggle on his face, or hear it in his voice when you would say, "I love you, Dad!" and he knew he would have to respond and sometimes he did, with merely a strained, "Oh... Thank you." It was painful... not that he didn't reciprocate the feelings, but that saying it felt like he was breaking some long-ago ingrained rule.

As my father's disease worsened, his emotions ran more freely. No more stifling a tear or denying a feeling. It was amazing, and at times, almost scary to experience.

And then there came a time, when talking to him on the phone, that the conversation was not as usual ended by me saying, "I love you, Dad!" and then waiting in discomfort as he tried to sputter out the same words.... There came a time when he said, with no discomfort whatsoever, "I love you, Sweetie! Don't stay away so long!" and he said it first. I think the first time he did that, I responded in kind, hung up the phone and cried. It was salve on the wound. It was reassurance... it was just nice. There was no facade, there was no persona, there was just a father telling his daughter that he loved her... and telling her first

If you like people, if you love people, tell them. Life is too short. There's too much bullshit. We don't hesitate for a second to rip someone a new one, but so often we hold back the good. There's something wrong with that. We should be taught to struggle to spit out the venom, not the love.

Things are funky right now... I'm not really in the mood for posting... not even my filler YouTubes... but I just wanted to say, for anyone who stops by on a regular, or not so regular basis, you are appreciated and I like you.

Thought for the day... and any day for that matter...

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom; taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver

When 20 Years Seemed More Like 40... or 60

I was reading a post over at BG's... Nice to see you're back, BG! I'm not going to break down the whole post... go read it yourself. What really caught my attention though was a comment from Dan Leo. Yeah... you should be reading him as well! He said:

I think it's funny that kids nowadays will dig music that's forty or forty-five years old (like the Beatles), which is something that wasn't the case so much when I was a kid. If we listened to something that was ten years old it was considered a golden moldy oldy. And with rare exceptions we definitely weren't listening to stuff like big band music from the 40s...

To which I replied:

Dan- I was just discussing something similar... how the generational gap, while still very present, is not as present between me and my kids as it was between me and my parents. I was saying how in the 70's, if I watched a movie made in the 50's, it seemed like a different world! But... that if one of my kids watched a movie made in 1990, the difference wasn't as great. Grizzled said he thought it was due to the 60's and how there was such a large leap there...that the 50's to 70's had such a huge cultural difference. Now... not so much.

So, what do you think? Is the generational gap not as big or am I just looking at it from the other side? My thoughts are it's not as great. I don't think we have made as big of a leap, or perhaps, with the new ways of sharing knowledge, everyone is taking the leap together.  Has the vast amount of knowledge being shared on the internet lessened the gap. Is knowledge that would normally not cross generational boundaries now out for all in the world to see if they want to.

I'm not saying that tastes won't remain different and that older people still tend to resist change more than the young... I just don't think the gap is as large. I'm not going to turn my back on what I loved in the past, but I'm still open to what I might love in the future.

Are you a lover or a hater?

Personally, I can't get enough of this herb in certain dishes and just smelling it wakes me up and puts a smile on my face. I can't say I'd say the same about eating soap... smelling soap? Maybe, but not eating it.

Looking at the World Through Ovulation Goggles

Oh nature, you demanding beast... you unrelenting taskmaster. No matter how evolved we may feel we are, we are still relatively at your mercy. At no time is this more apparent than during ovulation... a time when nearly all men look good... and even though you've got your very own prime specimen in your bed next to you... the rest still taunt you...

The interesting thing about ovulation goggles, and how they differ from beer goggles, is that they magnify the attractive while not causing you to lose control. There's no walk of shame the next day... just a few days of hyper-aware examination... your senses at their peak, your eyes, bionic in their ability to see the good, to see the capable, to see the manly... the world is full of viable donors and your egg is looking... but you can still laugh at yourself, knowing that on most other days, you wouldn't give these people a second glance. There's still a part of your brain that says a very loud and clear, "What are you thinking??? Look at him!!!"

One particular clue that I'm donning my ovulation goggles is a peculiar fondness for land surveyors.  Part of this relates back to a certain fondness in college... but the rest is just some ovulation mystery. Those orange jackets... those bronzed forearms... those tripods thingies or whatever it is they are... they scream something that only my eggs understand. 

White shirts with sleeves rolled up, top button unbuttoned, so just a glimpse of chest hair is poofing out... also a beacon to the needy egg...

Men doing anything effortlessly? Bingo!

Men doing anything that seems caring? Hello??!?

Humor? Egg magnet.

Intelligence? Ditto

That certain spot on the neck that is somehow both soft and rough. Dear. Lord. Every man seems to have one at this time. 

It is a time of both enjoyment and frustration... a time when the damn egg doesn't seem to understand that one donor is enough... better have a list of back ups just in case... While the burst of energy and clarity is welcome, the frenzy eventually becomes too much and the candle must burn out. No one... no one, but men I guess, can go along at that fevered pitch forever...

It is exasperation with that fevered pitch that allows us women to longingly and gladly enter the Eeyore phase... we welcome the snuffing of the flame, the numbing of the senses, the dropping of the mood. We know we will be soothed by chocolate and salt. We will seek refuge in bad movies. We will once again see men for what they really are... hairy, troublesome creatures...

And when this stage becomes too much? We think about taking out those ovulation goggles again... and the world will seem brighter and full of promise.

Confession

This made me laugh more than it probably should have and I'm probably betraying my fellow feminists, but I don't care. It's funny... and having boobs, I feel it's my right to laugh at them should I choose.

I refuse to suffer alone!

If I have to have this stuck in my head today, so do you! Damn you... and you know who you are!

A Song Snag Probably Never Hated Either...

I inadvertently hit the radio tuner this morning while starting the car and it settled on "The Drive... The Soundtrack of Our Lives". Well, it could be... if you were born during a certain time... The song that came on was one I hadn't heard in a long time, but do recall liking it a lot. I was suddenly on my metallic berry, hand-me-down, Schwinn Hollywood, Toot-a-Loop hanging from the handlebars, while cruising around the adjacent neighborhoods with my best friend... puberty still around the corner, but close enough that we knew what the song was talking about.

Possibly a Life-Changing Moment

The Youngest Lamblet was trying to pull off a play date for today... the play date underpinnings put in place yesterday during softball practice... We call her friend, but alas, the mother had not been informed by the father that potential play date plans were in action.

We called a couple of other friends who happened to be previously booked. The Youngest Lamblet looked at me with that sad look in her eyes and I mentally cursed the effing play date mentality that pervades our society while promising to book days in advance next time. No more of this spontaneity thing!!! Our people will call their people, damn it!!@!

I then directed her attention to the house across the street. "It's for sale," I told her. "I bet if we concentrate really hard and make strange antenna-devil horn hats with our hands, we can beam a family with a girl your age directly into that house! Ok??"

She was game. We did it... We concentrated... She looked somewhat relieved... somewhat hopeful.

One small clarifying statement here about a "girl" moving in across the street. We have a lot of boys in our neighborhood. The Youngest Lamblet almost prefers boy activities. She's a classic tomboy, but unfortunately, while she and her neighborhood boy friends get along, we seem to have a large number of parents who believe that boys should be boys and girls should be girls... and never the twain shall meet past age 3, and then, maybe again if they're dating age... if all proper paperwork is in place.

But back to the devil horns and the pact... we wished, we focused, we did the best we could... and about 5 hours later, a mere 4 days after the house was put on the market, a crappy market I might add, the Youngest Lamblet came hurtling into the house, yelling, "It's SOLD! It's SOLD!!!" 

I had seen a lot of people looking at it today... the last family... had sons...

Thought for the Weekend

Why don't we just call all weeds, "perennials", and be done with it.