By e on May 14, 2012
1) there are still moments in adulthood that feel like getting picked last for kickball.
2) after losing gabby, calling to make reservations for the other dogs at our kennel, was somewhere between root canal and finger nails being ripped out.
3)Sometimes I don’t play a word in scrabble because i’m afraid it will offend the person I am playing.
4) I love prednisone because you can scratch with wild abandon.
5) I love prednisone because it makes me feel peppy.
6) gardeners tan (that 2 inch strip of skin on your back that is revealed while weeding in the garden) is equally hot to farmers tan. Which is to say not very.
7) “please dump mulch on the far side of driveway.” to the delivery man means, please dump in front of garage door so we can’t get in our out. You have been warned. 
the nachos alone at bulls head tavern are worth returning for. They make them with potato chips people… Potato chips!
9)you must be very brave to get on stage in front of your peers. When you are 11&12 this is even more true.
10) another person can only knock you down if you allow them to.
And one to grow on
The truth hurts. Sometimes the truth makes your heart sing. Then there are the times that the truth knocks you off solid ground. In a recent discovery of truth, I was told that a mechanism should have been created to protect people from learning the truth. While it hurt. It hurt deeply, I can’t say I would rather it not be revealed. I would so rather fight for something from solid ground than later realize that my castle was made of sand. Would you stay in a relationship if you knew your partner had one foot out the door? Would you throw your hat in the ring for a position where all eyes rest on another person? You wouldn’t if you knew. Well, I wouldn’t.
So yes, the truth hurts, but the truth will also set you free. That freedom rings eternal.
Posted in another monday |
By e on May 9, 2012
I wonder which came first, our inability to self advocate or loss of empathy. Was it in the 50s when manners were taught at home, in every home? And, did these manners halt us self advocating? Or more recently, with our hunger for political rightness? Either way, at some point it became perfectly acceptable to put ALL of your wants, not even needs, but wants before others. College students (adult and young adult) leave class early without a word to the professor before hand. Not giving thought to how disruptive it might be. Parents pull their kind early from after school activities to get to the next after school activity without a word to the facilitator. All the while knowing that there was a request by said facilitator to do so. What happened to common decency? It costs nothing to tell someone quietly of your intentions. To say thank you for what you do. What message does it send to our children, when in a crowded room, a parent professes the importance of their time above all others? To be told that practice, of any kind, will be over at a certain time and to repeatedly be a half hour late? Who have we become that making people wait on us or for us is expected? Shame on us! It is one thing to be unaware of your behavior, but another altogether to not care. At some point, we have given up on teaching our children what it means to live well among other people. I don’t know how to get it back, but I know how I can make those around me feel worthy of humane treatment. It costs nothing to say thank you. Or great job. Or sorry. Well, it might cost a bit of pride, but I would argue that dented pride helps in revealing empathy.
Ladies love shoes! Why wouldn’t we want to walk a minute in another person’s pair?
Posted in for those in the deep end | Tagged decency, empathy, manners, society |
By e on May 3, 2012
Often after great heights come deep deep lows. Why should this trip be any different?
The main reason that we came to England (other than to celebrate our love….gag) was to see our premiere league teams play. My team is arsenal, the gunners. This season, the come back kids.
Today was the day. I was going to see my boys play…..extremely hungover. Unfortunately, spontaneous wonderful nights have no way of knowing that the next day is your planned wonderful night.
So I strapped on my big girl britches. Skipped the English breakfast. Forced down a cup of coffee and eggs. Pasted on a smile and headed for the tube to emirates stadium in north London. Oh the tube is not our friend after a night of dancing and drinking. Poor me. We leave the station and walk onto a street that could have been created from my memory from every English book I have ever read. Football was started by the working man. This is a working man’s town. Many have created food or merchandise stands on their front garden walls. Imagine, in the cartoons, when a character puts down his suitcase, opens it and a castle opens up wing after wing. That’s sort of what these “shops” look like. I am immediately made to ponder the fact that this could never happen in the states. Somehow the over-reaching government or stadium management would disallow the necessary permits to create such a lovely walk to the gunner’s “house”.
At the mouth of the stadium, I buy a sausage and a can of mirinda, orange. A decision that later proves ill-made. We stand at the bottom of the steps while a scarf said snacks down. Another mistake as it turns out you can take food INTO the stadium. During the game i watched a sweet older man have high tea from his seat. He pulled snack after snack out out of his bag and washed them all down with a thermos of tea. In the states, they won’t even let you take water into the stadium.
We walk into the stadium and it’s HUGE. Bigger than you can imagine from TV. I can’t believe I’m here and I can’t believe I’m hungover. Dumb stupid!
We have gotten to the game plenty early so I grab a cup of tea to help settle my stomach and the throbbing sore throat that I assume is the result of a night spent making a log cabin with the logs I have sawed.
Then fabianski and szczesny come onto the pitch to warm up and all else falls away. Stubby hubs hunk is like a kid. ” ooo there’s joe hart, and is that fabianski?” he is positively giddy and this isn’t even his team.
The game was extraordinary. Arteta’s goal was beautiful. We turn our backs and mock city with their own Poznan move. Nasri couldn’t touch the ball without being booed or called a twat. The man beside me could do that whistle that deafens and I didn’t care. My team had won against city and I was there to see it.
Needless to say we did not go to the monkey puzzle later that night. We got snacks and went back to the hotel for the evening. All in all a wonderful day.
Posted in good time monkey | Tagged arsenal, Emirates, gunners, hungover, poznan, tube |
By e on May 2, 2012
The next stop on our trip was Camden market. Imagine new york street fairs only like everything else in England smaller and much closer together. Stubby hubs hunk said he read somewhere that the market it a hot bed for pick pockets. It was so close in some spots that you could have your pants picked off of you and never even see the culprit. I thought of the goose often as some of the dresses would have made her croon.
We had lunch at byron burger, served by a very cute Irish boy. He had been in England for 5 weeks and said we had seen more of his adopted city than he had in that time. I may have over tipped again but he was so cute it was worth it.
That evening we went to another pub in paddington that Derrick had recommended to us. When we walked in, it was another fabulous alphabet soup of a place. Owned and run by a Thai family, at the bar were a gaggle of local men who were singing along with old Irish tunes on the juke box. While waiting for our food we enjoyed a great game of Spanish football (go messi).
The day would not be complete with out popping in to the monkey puzzle. We sat on the couch and played a game of cards. Across from us were two men sitting at different tables but talking to each other. They were monkey puzzle regulars too. Sitting there listening to their conversation I was moved to join in. They had been talking about their religions. One man was a Lebanese muslim. The other was a tanzanian Hindu. I saddled up to the table and added how wonderful it was to hear two men speaking so openly about their differences. They seemed to welcome my interruption. Stubs followed shortly there after. They became our new best friends. Our one more pint turned into several. The Lebanese man, it turns out, is a retired professor of history. Though born in Lebanon he grew up in France. I continued to call him professor for the night. We chatted in French and German. He educated me on the history of Islam. It was obvious that the Tanzanian, a man of Indian descent, named harshi, deferred to the professor. After much conversation where at one point we may have been invited to Sunday dinner at the professor’s home in kent, it seemed we were moving to the next spot. We were suddenly joined by another familiar face. An eritrean man whose name we never learned. The professor did inform me that he didn’t speak much English and though very intelligent subsisted well below his potential, thus furthering my suspicion that the professor was the leader of this motley crew. Before you say anything, I do realize that these are not practicing Muslims. Here we were drinking together and on our way to an after hours club together. Having been arranged outside with stubs over cigarettes, I had no choice but to comply. With pleasure.
We enter the club, a place that doesn’t exist in any tourist guides, to find a man behind a keyboard singing 80′s pop. Talk about Mecca. I danced with every man of my fine group. I danced until I couldn’t feel my feet. Why drink water when you can have wine. It may have been one of the most curious and wonderful evening of our lives together.
Back in the room, my less than sober ramblings consisted mainly of how hungry I was. I believe my last words before the lights of my eyes faded were, ” tomorrow we WILL be getting a proper English breakfast!”
Posted in good time monkey | Tagged 80's, dance, monkey puzzle, muslim |
By e on April 30, 2012
when we adopted a senior dog we knew that we would not have a lifetime with her. what i didn’t expect was that i would fall so hard for her. or how good she would make me feel. i thought we were bringing her into our home because she needed us. i never imagined how much of a two way street that could become. she was so goofy. so sweet. she was an incessant licker. she had horrible gas. but how she made us laugh. the first time we saw her at work with my exercise ball i cried from laughing so hard. she had the body of a 12 year old dog but she had the heart and spirit of a puppy. i promised her that as long as she was happy we would fight to keep her healthy. when our vet suggested that she shouldn’t run until we got her blood values up, we decided that as long as she was living in our house she was going to live like a dog. what better way to leave this world than chasing a ball. the last couple of days she hasn’t been herself. i think all of the meds she was on had finally taken their toll. she stopped telling us when she had to go outside. it was as if she was surprised by the urge. she couldn’t get on our bed by herself anymore. she was having difficulty breathing. she had even lost her appetite.
she had an appointment for follow-up blood work today and on the way to the vet’s, i let in the voice i had been ignoring for a week. she looked at me as if to say she was tired. that she was ready. i didn’t want her to go. i didn’t want her to stop feeling like a dog more. i realize that this is a very personal decision, but for me, pet ownership comes with responsibilities. the hardest, the greatest responsibility is to put your pet’s need before your own. knowing in my heart of hearts that it was the right thing for Gabby has not made this decision any easier. my heart is broken. it will break further when i have to tell my children.
when my breath catches and i feel that it just hurts too much, i remind myself of how lucky i am. that it can only hurt this much because i loved so deeply. when i turn and she is not there, i will find solace in the shadow that she used to cast on my every move. though she was not in our lives very long, just a year, she taught us many lessons. not least of which is that in a loving home life flourishes.
we did our very best for you Gabby. we will miss you.
E
Posted in a love letter of sorts | Tagged adoption, gabby, grief, senior pet |
By e on April 30, 2012
1) I get my photography skills from my mother.
2) You know you’re middle aged when you derive serious pleasure from sitting on a heating pad.
3) free glasses are ugly.
4) be prepared for ugly free glasses to garner a reaction from your partner. This may or may not be laughter.
5) I sit in the spot at the kitchen table where the sun will shine in my face every morning….and not necessarily on purpose.
6) I will shake this chest cold…maybe next week.
7) there are two sides to every coin. Madame Tussaud lived in a tumultuous time. I did not realize that her salon was used to inform the public of current events.
9) wax figures still freak me out.
10) it’s another week. Let’s rock this bitch.
And one to grow on:
Friendship is about compromise. Since there is very low probability that we would befriend someone just like us, we make concessions. Maybe our friend is too crass. Or too bossy. Or too sensitive. We decide that we like them enough to overlook the parts of them that we find imperfect. I would even go further. Sometimes those undesirable characteristics are the flip side of the very trait that has drawn us to them in the first place. Friends come in and out of our lives for many different reasons. The life long friends are those that we have weathered things with. Those that love us, the good the bad and the ugly. These friendships are deeper for it. those incapable of bending, break and fall away. I would rather stand tall among a handful of people who embrace me warts and all, than be surrounded by folks who wish I was someone else.
Posted in another monday | Tagged friendship, Glasses, Madame tussaud |
By e on April 26, 2012
Next we went to the town of bath. Where, for centuries, people have been sitting in the hot spring waters in belief of their mystical and medicinal powers. I thought they’d be hotter. Maybe to their fragile Anglican skin it was, but this Mediterranean blooded girl wanted to come out of those waters pink and wilted. No worries they had steam rooms for that. We first went to the roof top pool. It was pretty cool to look out over cobbled rooftops while having a soak. Then we went to the middle floor to the steam rooms. Each offered a different aroma therapy flavor. After trying all 5 rooms I have to say I couldn’t discern which was which, but I did love that heavy hot air. Then we went down to the next floor and waded in the inside pool for a bit. After deciding that we were plenty pruney, we got changed and walked to the roman bath for the tour.
After the train ride home we decided on dinner at the monkey puzzle. Are you sensing a theme? While waiting for our food to arrive, we had a couple of pints and played some cards. There was a group of stewardesses sitting in a circle across from us. I know we are supposed to call them flight attendants, but for this story I am being intentionally derogatory. They were loud. One woman’s sour Midwestern accented voice cut me to the quick. With every story she told, I felt the bath waters work being further undone.
Here is what we learned: stewardesses (at least the international variety) play the alphabet game. It’s a lot like the version that you may have played in the car with your kids. Instead of looking for signs for every letter in the alphabet, they have to sleep with a man for every letter. Then they were sharing which letters they needed. These were not newbies to the industry. I was surprised how many of them still had whole patches of letters missing.. Come on ladies. Don’t you get a flight manifest? Don’t do anything half way. Read the list before we board and find a target. Romance him on the flight and close the deal after landing. No wonder people hate Americans. This is the version of us most people see. Needless to say stubs and I were relieved when they left for their next party location. Probably in search of an Xavier or Zeb…..
Posted in good time monkey | Tagged Bath, flight attendants, hot springs, steam room, stewardesses |
By e on April 25, 2012
For those of you who know me, this will come as no surprise:
We got to England, a trip that stubby hubs hunk had planned for a year, without a proper camera. I had my iPhone, but we decided that wouldn’t do for this trip so we walked to trafalgar square and bought a nice little camera. We then caught the tube to London town. That’s where the tower of London is.
We took the tube back to paddington and decided on Indian for dinner. It was delicious! We were sat beside an Australian couple who were about to embark on the 100 year anniversary of the voyage of the titanic. Margot and john were to spend 2 months together on a ship. That would certainly test any marriage. John was leaving his privately owned water delivery business for the trip. Margot worked for social services back in Brisbane. I thought 10 days away from our lives was a stretch…..
After dinner stubs and I walked over for a nightcap at the monkey puzzle. When we walked in Paul, the owner greeted us by name. Our friend Derrick told us that his wife was popping in after work to meet us. We are quickly becoming the celebrities we have always believed ourselves to be. We find out that Derrick in an interior decorator (painter). The curious bit is that he brings his own roller pole to work with him. Well, we thought it was strange, but I guess it IS the tool of his trade. Tonight we meet PJ. His tailor shop was responsible for the dress that pippa wore for the royal wedding. The one that made all of the no butt having English woman want a bum just like hers. Stubs can’t understand a word pj says so I have to interpret the whole evening for him on our walk to the hotel.
Our hotel room is TINY. What do we care! We spend all day out and just need a place to sleep and freshen up. When we travel we like separate beds. In the states this can be two double beds or sometimes two queen beds. In London we have two twin beds pushed together. You have to slip past the wall at the end of the bed to get to the bathroom. On the same wall as the the bathroom door sits the shelf for the kettle, coffee, tea, and cups and saucers. I have a permanent reminder of that shelf on my shoulder because of cutting it too close around the bed. The room serves our purpose perfectly.
An unforeseen complication with the proximity of the beds is what will now be known as the battery. When I have been drinking I tend to snore. Add to that the dryness of the room and I was sawing wood to beat the band. You know, the kind of snoring that wakes you because you may or may not have swallowed your own tongue. At home, in our king sized bed, when I snore, stubs usually shoves, taps, or pats me. In this design I was much closer than he was used to (at least that is the case his lawyer will be pleading in our upcoming civil suit). When he reached over to “pat” me awake, he punched me in the head or the kidneys. Most mornings were spent with him telling me that I was snoring and me showing him my battle wounds.
Ah the tet a tet of a loving marriage…….
Posted in getting away | Tagged battery, monkey puzzle, Paddington, titanic. |
By e on April 24, 2012
our first night in england, we had a mediocre dinner before walking back to the hotel. about a block from our destination we ran upon a pub called the monkey puzzle. it was fortuitous. we HAD to go in. after getting a stern talking to from stubby hubs hunk for over-tipping, we took our pints outside to the patio. two minutes later out comes derrick to have a smoke. he asks if we are american and then sides with stubs that i have in fact ridiculously over tipped. i mumble something about this being our local pub for the trip and wanting to take good care of the bar keep. the real reason is because i haven’t yet gotten accustomed to using change for tipping. if you leave change on the table in the states, it says you kinda sucked at your job. after chatting with derrick we all went inside. stubs and i had a few more pints and played a couple games of cards. then we decided it was time for our second dinner. our stomachs were still on US time after all. he got fish and chips and i got a small wheel of baked brie. let’s just say that no woman over 35 should eat that much cheese that late in the day. after consuming twosies, we hobbled back home. and a ritual for the trip was set. our last stop would become the monkey puzzle. an english pub, with a jungle theme, owned by an irishman and his mongolian wife. sounds like home to me.
E
Posted in good time monkey | Tagged England, fish and chips, London, monkey puzzle, pints |
By e on April 23, 2012
1)I got stubby hubs hunk a pair of pants for traveling. They have been named his vagina pants…I’m not sure why.
2)we brought the rain to England. And the coldest Easter in 10 years. Yeah us.
3)i dropped my nose ring in the airplane bathroom. Luckily it feel in my lap.
4) we wondered why they teach flight attendants to smile when they are being mean. It’s pretty annoying.
5) while out gallivanting one day,I lost my scarf.
6) while packing to come back home, I found my scarf in a shopping bag.
7) we skipped the crown jewels. English chocolate IS better than American chocolate.
9) robin van persie couldn’t score against city because he was too distracted by me being there.
10) while waiting to fly home I watch a man coil 4 brown belts into his suitcase. How many brown belts does one man need? Four.
And one to grow on
This morning the goose and I were discussing our obsessive minds. I gave her some advice that I do my best to follow as well. We can not control the behavior of others but we can control our reaction to others. She and I have the tendency to play chess in our lives. Trying to strategize moves based on the possible moves of others. I explained that while we are busy strategizing we may just be missing the best moments in life. Today I will do better at living in the here and now.
Posted in another monday | Tagged England, London, travel |
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