If I Had My Child to Raise Over Again

This is one of my favorite poems and it says just how I feel about my daughter's lost youth. I screwed up pretty badly, I was very unhappily married, worked 2 jobs, and had no idea how fast she'd grow up and be gone, gone, gone. I was too angry and took it out on her. I'm feeling very sad about it today.

If I Had My Child to Raise Over Again
by Diane Loomans
"If I had my child to raise all over again, I'd build self esteem first, and the house later. I'd finger paint more, and point the finger less. I would do less correcting and more connecting. I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes. I would care to know less, and know to care more. I'd take more hikes and fly more kites. I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play. I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars. I'd do more hugging and less tugging. I'd see the oak tree in the acorn more often. I would be firm less often, and affirm much more. I'd teach less about the love of power, And more about the power of love."

I've been trying to make it up to her, trying to help her when I can financially and with her kids. She's an angry young lady just like I was. The acorn doesn't fall far from the oak tree.

Friendsgiving

I'm very excited about my good friend & neighbor "T" co-hosting with me an event we've dubbed Friendsgiving. It all started one drunken evening when my little boarder, K, [who's a sweet doll that can put away A LOT of freaking beer] observed that we all have much more fun as a group of friends then we ever do at a family gathering. We seem to feel a lot more love for each other through beer goggles for some reason. Anyway, she was saying something about dreading Thanksgiving with her dreary family and the inconvenience of being expected to show up at each of the divorced parent's houses, etc. And then, ding-ding-ding! she suddenly proposed that we have our own friend's Thanksgiving.

I had been thinking I wanted to have my daughter & the kids over to my house for a mini-version of Thanksgiving because I'm craving that warm fuzzy Charlie Brown holiday feeling and we're having Thanksgiving at my sister's house this year & I doubt she and the kids are coming. My daughter gets pulled very unfairly in several directions on holidays between her biological father, his family, and my X husband and his family, and to make it more complicated, there's always a fight with her X over the kids. So Memere [me] is the lowest man on the totem pole, of course. Bitter, party of one!

Anyway, my friend T lives in the apartment next door and our decks are connected, so we all sit around on our decks from Spring through Fall, it's really nice and we've gotten as close as sisters. T, after consulting her husband Y, kind of reluctantly agreed and then I also agreed to Friendsgiving, stupidly not double checking first to see if my daughter had the kids that weekend. Yet another ethanol-related incident, as Horhay loves to say. And no, she doesn't have the kids & can't get them, the Sperm Donor always refuses to trade his weekends, and she's got to work her 2 jobs on Saturday anyway. duh.

We're up to 17 mouths to feed at this point, and this thing is this Saturday. I'm getting anxious since my house is a total mess and I'm running out of time to clean the house, clean out & make room in my fridge, do the grocery shopping at 4 different stores to get the best deals, do A LOT of cooking, find all the bowls & utensils I will need [a giant feat since I have so much crap stored in my little computer room piled high with boxes and bags of stuff I seldom use] on top of trying to spend time with my good friend who is visiting from out of state. Yikes!

Here's what we're having, I'm KK: Spinach artichoke dip & chips [KM], Turkey w/gravy [KK],
Cranberry sauce [KM], Sausage cranberry parmesan stuffing [KK], Candied carrots [KK], Pampered Chef Garlic bread knots [KK], Mashed potatoes [T], Green bean casserole [T]
Sweet potato casserole [TR], 2 apple pies [T], Hot Fudge Pudding Cake [KK]

Since it's just our good friends, I don't know why I'm suddenly nervous. Mike is supposedly making the turkey gravy, IF he shows up. And if he does, I know that's why I'm a little nervous. He doesn't mean to be mean, but he loves to poke fun at me. I never really know how to take it, does he honestly find me stupid? One of my previous BFs, "J", told me after I broke up with him that he was sorry we couldn't work it out and he admired me a lot since I am the smartest woman he's ever met [this coming from a chauvinist was a very great compliment.] I consider myself pretty smart, I have a high IQ, maybe I don't always make the smartest choices but I'm no slouch. Hey, how did this come back around to M anyway! Anyway, I'm a damn fine cook so I'll just have to ignore his snide comments.

So, tonight I'm going to Grand Union to use my $1 off coupon for Half & Half. Then Ocean State for tin foil, an electric carving knife, & a gravy separator [I own both of the latter items, but they along with most of my stuff and my life are piled with thousands of items in boxes in my storage at a storage facility... another very sore spot in my psyche.] Then Big Y for the buy 1 get 2 free sale. Then if Big Y can't beat .48/lb. for generic frozen turkey, I'm going to get one for that price at Price Chopper.

Remind me to stop drinking and promising. sheesh. I'll need a drink or 12 tonight when I finally get home. Oh yeah, better stop at the Packie, too, I'll be needing an appointment with my Doctor Smirnoff...

Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy

OK, I can't resist posting this, it came to me by email, I am not the author. Gotta love it! We CAN do it - Go Obama!

"Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
Stunning Break with Last Eight Years

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota , some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist.

"The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off.

"The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said."

GASP ... Games Adolescents Shouldn't Play

GASP ... Games Adolescents Shouldn't Play http://www.gaspinfo.com/en/home.html

This is heartbreaking and so preventable, the kids call it the choking game, this mini movie is well worth seeing and discussing with your children, usually age 9-16 are the most at risk. There is an authentic 911 call from a 13-year old boy who is hysterical, having just found his twin brother dead. It made me cry. I've heard of adults doing this to get a sexual rush, but never heard of this apparent epidemic among children. Apparently most of these kids that die from self-asphyxiation are high achievers who don't want to use drugs or alcohol and other kids assure them that it's safe, but many of them die from lack of oxygen or have brain damage.

I had a moment of -whew! I dodged a bullet since my only child is an adult now, she was a pot-head thank God and I'm sure never did something like that. But then, oh crap, we have the 14-year old boy, my nephew is a high achiever, as well as my 2 grandchildren that I will now have to worry about! I have so much to worry about already, now this!

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

I've been so ambivalent lately. I've been in love with my on-again/off-again boyfriend Mike for about 5 years. He broke my heart when he dumped me the first time. I was wildly in love. Now, I'm not a young girl, I've been in love before and had my heart broken by the son of a bitch ["MA"] who fathered my child. That's a real gritty story for later. So this irrational behavior is so out of character for me.

I was also Mike's rebound girl. About a year went by after he dumped me, and he finally figured out that he and his SO/girlfriend of 13 years were really never getting back together. As he told me one drunken evening about 6 months ago, she "L" was & will always be the love of his life. Insert sharp gleaming enormous butcher knife into my heart. Anyway, like I said about a year had gone by since he dumped me & he came around again and we started up again. And as soon as he thought things were getting too serious on my part, he dumped me again. Again I was devastated. Crying all the time, I went a little nuts actually.

About 3 months later I happened to be at "The Pub", where we all used to hang out, on a sunny quiet Sunday, I was at the end of the bar playing the video game version of Wheel of Fortune. This big dorky looking guy & his buddy sat down next to me and big dorky started making silly outrageously funny comments about who knows what, but it got me laughing & I was deeply depressed. I realized it was Bob who I had met briefly a year or so earlier and had been told by someone that he was a friend of Mike's. In my opinion Mike was gone for good and here was this hysterically funny big dorky guy who was now full-on flirting with me. So that's how it started with Bob, he was separated and soon thereafter moved, coincidentally, into his buddy's house across the street from me. We dated for about a year and he helped me get over Mike. He told me Mike was the biggest asshole he knew, that he hated the guy & only tolerated him because they worked in the same department, and that Mike wasn't good enough for me. Bob made me laugh & made me happy. But his kids were the most important thing in his life, and they hated me because I was supposedly keeping him from their Mommy. These were "kids" in late teens/ early 20's, so how ridiculous is that! So we kept things on the DL but more than once ran into Mike either at The Pub or out shopping. It was super awkward but I think secretly Bob got a giant rush that he had wooed Mike's former girlfriend. Finally, the pressure from the kids was too much, we broke up and it hurt, but nothing like the hurt I felt when Mike left me. Bob & I talked on the phone occasionally, & I kind of thought we might still work it out. Then about 3 months later on November 4, 2006, Mike called me during a party I was throwing at my new place. He asked what I was doing, I was laughing & having a great time, I told him to come over. I was flirting outrageously with him. He was clearly drunk, so I even offered to send a non-drinking friend to pick him up. He finally said, I guess you don't know. I'm like, know what. He said you apparently don't know that Bob died today. I totally lost it. Bob's heart gave out, he wasn't even 50 yet. I was not allowed at the wake or funeral, his family hated me for no good reason. He is buried at an undisclosed location. I never got closure.

However, a week later Mike was back in my life. He never knew that Bob hated him and he was truly grief-stricken. We grieved together. Months went by and on schedule, he dumped me again. And so it's been going ever since, every 3 months he dumps me, goes 2-3 months and then he's back. I bitch him out, he takes it, then I forgive him. He's not with another woman, he just needs space. I love him. I hate him. I love him. I hate him. So, he's been back since mid-October and guaranteed he'll dump me right before Christmas. It makes me very sad because I really love him so much.

In the words of Lyle, Graham Hamilton and Terry Briten and sung by the incomparable Miss Tina Turner:
"You must understand
Though the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react
That its only the thrill
Of boy meeting girl
Opposites attract
Its physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
That it means more than that

Whats love got to do got to do with it
Whats love but a second emotion
Whats love got to do got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken
It may seem to you
That I'm acting confused
When you're close to me
If I tend to look dazed
I read it some place
Ive got cause to be
There's a name for it
Theres a phrase fits
But whatever the reason
You do it for me

I've been taking on a new direction
And I have to say
Ive been thinking bout my own protection
It scares me to feel this way

Whats love got to do got to do with it
Whats love but a sweet old fashioned notion
Whats love got to do got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken"

What do you think, I'm kind of like a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome... Or somethin...