Absurdities and Being Bitchy: 2012 Week 7

I guess I've just been really bitchy all week.

One person I know, who was NOT overweight or even heavy to begin with, has lost so much more weight now that her thighs don't even touch, yet she complains about needing to work out and how she's hungry all the time.  She made a comment one day that didn't we all think that the Duchess of Cambridge should just eat a sandwich.  To which several of us replied, you should talk.  She was stunned.  She can't believe that she's as skinny as the D of C.  It makes me sad for her, but also I'm just tired of hearing her eating and exercising drama.

One of my coworkers has installed a light shield above her cube.  It's ugly and kind of stupid, considering we don't sit under glaringly harsh lights.  This picture is what the shield looks like, not what our office looks like. 

 

The cube in question is already dark, and most of the lights above have been removed.  It's like the black hole of Calcutta over there and still not dark enough for her.  Plus it looks dumb sticking up above all the other cubes, like some kind of half-constructed black pyramid.  Fortunately, I sit kitty-cornered and get a really good view of it all day.  She's talking about buying another one so that she'll have the full pyramid effect.  Good news, the company is paying for it.  Whatever.

The icing on the cake is at church I got chewed out for running out of sticker name tags at our welcome table AND then for not cutting them apart off the sheet.  They print 8-up on a sheet, and each sticker peels off, but this person read me the riot for it because people won't use a sticker that they have to peel off the sheet themselves -- they have to be cut into individual stickers that people can pick up and peel off.  What the fuck?!  Seriously?  Despite my disbelief and several other comments that came to mind I just said, OK, thanks. I also got reminded for the 'teenth time how we've always done it and "we used to do it."  Well sorry I haven't been around for 100 years like you have, and sorry I don't give a shit about peeling a sticker off a sheet like you obviously do. 

So much room for my personal improvement . . . so little motivation.

Lottery Enchantment: 2012 Week 6

Ah, the sweet smell of money.  Well, the sweet dream of the smell of money anyway.  The lottery drawing this weekend is for more than $310 million, and one of my co-workers has got us all charged up about buying tickets as a group.  I’m in, no question about that.  It seems to me that we’ve got better chances of winning if we buy 10 or more tickets a time.  I am not greedy.  To win a jackpot and split it multiple ways would be a wonderful thing. All the nicer if I know the people I’m splitting with! 

So let’s say we got a lump sum of $193 million to split up.  There are twelve of us are in, so that’s about $16 million each before more taxes.  I don’t know how much more they take, 30%?  That’s still almost $11 million each.  I could so easily live with that.  I would quit working, of course, and so would my husband.  What would we do?  Yes, yes, the usual stuff, like pay bills, give some away, and invest.  Here’s my list of what else I would do.

Build a roller skating rink.  Maybe out by the aquatic center, so kids can ride their bikes to get there.  It would have great food and an amazing game room in it.  Two nights a week would be just for private party rentals.  

Open a used bookstore on the main street in town, with lots of comfy chairs and couches and low tables.  I might open a coffee/tea and snack shop next door to it, connected by a giant window.  It would be OK to sit down and drink a coffee and read for awhile.

Build a Girl Scout troop house.  It would have rooms and craft tables so that our local troops could have their meetings there.   It would also be big enough to be equipped with bunks for sleepovers, bathrooms and showers, a full kitchen, a fireplace and lots of outdoor space for tenting, and a fire ring.

 

Last, I would buy into a Waffle House franchise and open one outside of town along the highway. 

A Snow Memory: 2012 Week 5

I like winter, and I'm glad it's snowing today.  I'm distressed enough about the world without having to deal with 60 degree days in January.  It freaks me out.

One of my most outstanding winter memories is the year we built a bobsled run in our backyard.  We: my dad, sister, brother and myself.  Backyard: Earlham IA.  There was already a lot of snow, and we had a big yard and a raised cement slab off the back porch with a metal railing, stairs down each side and working well pump in the center.  That slab saw a great many events over time, like the year I was sitting up on the corner of the railing and fell off backward into my mother's rose bushes.  I don't know if the rose thorns were worse than the scraping I got all down my back and the backs of my legs from the concrete.  We used to sit on the steps in the summer and eat popsicles and spill kool-aid to watch the colors.  We pumped water out of the well for the garden and were admonished never to drink it, which made us wonder what was really down there in that well?  The top of the railing was probably five feet high, so it was a great look-out over the yard to the alley.

So, one snowy winter we were out playing in the backyard, and my dad was out with us messing around.  My brother wanted to ride sleds, but we had nowhere to do it.  That's when my dad suggested a bobsled run.  We started by piling up snow around the slab, up the stairs, filling it in around the foundation and railing and then packing it into a gradual slope away and down into the yard.  It shot down off the south side stairs and then banked into the yard toward the east, which was toward the garden and alley.  A higher start meant better momentum and speed.  I don't know how long we worked, maybe several days.  We formed the actual sled track using my brother's plastic sled, and we banked it up higher on the south side following the curve into the yard.  We packed snow and smoothed it and built the run as far into the garden as we could.  Then, my dad got a pail of water and started icing it down.

There is no great ending to this story, which is the way the most life-stories are.  The bobsled run worked pretty well, and we all took turns on it.  It was tremendous, a great moment in the Wagoner household.  We were proud, and we'd had fun together. 

My brother tried in following years to duplicate it, but nothing ever turned out as well as the first one.  Maybe my sister and I were too old to be involved by then.  Maybe the snow was not the same and would never be again -- like so many things in this bittersweet life.

THE SNOW MAN  by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Nothing to Lose: 2012 Week 4

It's funny how acceptance and even submission can work in a life.  Faced with uncertainties and fear of my husband losing his  job, I've had endless potential to worry and grieve and fear for the future.  The last two weeks have been challenging.  We made significant changes to our budget and repositioned ourselves better for come-what-may, and I finally reached a place where I accepted this new wrinkle in the fabric of our lives.  Everything changes and ends.  When I submitted fully to that, when I found the courage to face the fear, I felt fine.

But last Thursday the announcement came through that my husband's job, and those of many of his co-workers, were saved.  The project(s) came in, and they were given their lay-off notices to destroy.  We are grateful.  Grateful for the job and also thankful for the wake up it gave us to examine and evaluate our spending and our budget.  Once again I'm grateful for the teachings that have me be a better, more open and less fearful person.

I've given a lot of thought to my sister, who is in the greatest crisis of her life right now.  I have always been afraid of her, afraid of her inflexibility and unforgiving stance with the world, afraid of her anger and emptiness.  I don't know how to connect with her, I never have I guess, and that has made me hard against her sometimes.  It's made me angry sometimes, so I'm facing my fear now, opening my heart as Pema Chodron teaches, softening.  If I'm afraid of my sister it is likely that I'm guarding my own heart, and thus my own ego, and I have nothing to lose except grief and suffering by facing my own and therefore also her anger, her emptiness, her fears.

I will not withhold my love.

For Something Completely Different: 2012 Week 3

My husband is about to lose his job.  It feels shitty to write that, but it’s doesn’t make me sick like I thought it would.  It’s doesn’t feel liberating either.  It feels shitty and stupid because it’s senseless.  The company he works for has the government contract for the work.  It’s a done deal.  They say there is money for projects that are not getting released to the office.  If they get released then my Mr. and his co-workers will keep their jobs . . . at least through February.  Right.  Or how about you just use that as the sideways reasoning to close your little Iowa office and get rid of those paychecks and benefits so the stock looks even more awesome. 

I hate for him to have to start over again.  He hasn’t had to really look for a job for ten years.  On the other hand, he drives 45 minutes each way, and that’s a lot of gas usage and high stress in bad weather.  I’d love to have him closer to home.  He’s a talented graphic artist with a lot of skills, so I think it can be OK.  I’m hoping so.

Our daughter turned 17 this week.  I’m thankful that she is growing up so well. I think she was born with an old soul, but I know we’re raising her well too.  She has maturity beyond her years.  A lot of adults don’t have the emotional maturity or grace that I’ve seen in my child.   She has her first job this year, and she knows that we’re facing some tough times.  She’s making her own car payments and knows that she may be called on to pay for other things down the road.  It scares her less than the idea we might get divorced, which we’re not by the way, but if we have a fight she gets plenty wiggy about it.  “Hey, we’re having an argument, not dividing our assets and looking for separate apartments.  Relax please.”  Divorce is a major concern for her.  She has a lot of anxiety and guilt over something that happened once, a topic for later thoughts.  With less spare time, more homework and an actual work schedule, anxiety attacks are much less prevalent, and I think she sleeps better.  

My sister has either lost her mind or is collapsing into some kind of midlife crisis that hinges the realization that her life is empty and meaningless.  Either way she’s taken a virtual lover in Australia, attends but refuses to participate in marriage counseling, and believes that my brother-in-law should move out of the bedroom if not the house.  

8:00 am, the day before Christmas Eve, my phone rings.  My husband and I are still in bed.  My parents, who are staying with us for the holiday, are barely awake yet.  My sister is on the phone.  She says, are you going to be home.  I say yes.  She says, I need to talk to you all, I’ll be there in an hour.  Thus begins the revelation of her end-of-marriage awakening, displacement of feelings onto her husband, denial of actual infidelity and usual “I’m not sorry for how I feel or what I’ve done” spiel.  I’m still sorting out all my thoughts on this matter.

Final lines for the entry: from Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Toons and Lunacy: 2012 Week 2

Cartoon Network is running old Warner Bros. cartoons again. I can’t believe how much I love and laugh out loud at Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn and the rest.  Last night, Foghorn was babysitting the little egg-head kid with the big glasses who challenged and demolished every project and game with his science, slide-rule and calculations.  Like hide and seek.  Foghorn hides in the feed bin.  Egg-head uses his slide-rule, scribbles some equations, digs a hole and pops out Foghorn.  Foggie goes back to the feed bin and starts to open it then says, “No, I might still be in there.” 

I have nothing against cartoons these days.  Though some are completely stupid, quite a lot are funny and wonderful and very worth watching.  The quality of Looney Toons cannot be underestimated though.  We heard opera for crying out loud!   We learned to recognize a great deal of classical music from those cartoons, even if we couldn’t name it or the composer.  At first glance it seems that humor is based solely on misfired guns, TNT gags, falling off cliffs, frying pans to the face and other violence.  In fact a great deal of the true humor in Looney Toons is created through puns, spoonerisms, witty banter and the really clever uses of dialogue and song lyrics.

Sir Loin of Beef, Earl of Cloves, Baron of  Munchausen, Milk of Magnesia, 

Quarter of Ten . . . 

(Rabbit Hood, 1949)

Rabbit au gratin du jour under tubed leather. Drool Drool!  

 (Rabbit Fire, 1951)

Keep your eye on the ball- Eye!  Ball!  Eyeball!  That's a joke, son. 

 (The Foghorn Leghorn, 1948)

Promenade across the floor. Sashay right on out the door. Out the door and into the glade and everybody promenade. 

Step right up you're doing fine. I'll pull your beard you'll pull mine. Yank it again like you did before. Break it up with a tug of war. 

(Hillbilly Hare)

How many of us can quote dozens of lines from Looney Toons?  I’m willing to bet, most of us who grew up on them.

I never want to reach a point where I can’t laugh out loud at Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester the Cat.   

I just wish I had a better knowledge of all that music!

Unbelievable: 2012 Week 1

Some big things have happened over the last few months.  I agreed to chair the Membership Committee at church, the UUFA.  I haven’t actually been on a committee for several years, and I’ve never chaired one, but apparently I was recommended for it, and the people I’ve asked to join with me agreed because they think I’m a good choice and want to be a part of it with me.  I feel very flattered by that and grateful to have such wonderful friends in our UU community.  We have a big task ahead of us:  restructure and build our membership services to create a more welcoming and stimulating environment for our members.  I’m hoping to get more involved in adult religious education.

My parents stayed with us for eight days over Christmas.  We saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie, ate out a couple of times, spent Christmas Eve with my sister and brother and their families.  The big deal is that not once did we have any arguments or altercations with my father.  He was not too provocative or defensive, and we have learned how to not bite the hook!  My mother’s health was sketchy, mostly because her doctor is tweaking medicine again.  It is difficult to see her weak and unstable on her feet, plus it feels like she’s just wasting away.  It’s like hugging a little bird, she’s all bones.  I was feeling very stressed before they arrived.  They don’t sleep in the same bed, or the same room for that matter, and my mother can’t climb stairs very well, so she slept downstairs on the futon, and my father slept upstairs in the spare room.  I was starting to make myself feel stupid worrying about sleeping arrangements and my mom using a walker and the house being filled up with two more people’s stuff.  Then I decided that I can’t change my mother’s disease, but I can be with my mother.  I can’t change my father’s eccentricities, but I can be with my father.  Favorite line from my daddy this visit:  “He fled the country.  We heard he’s in Illinois.”

The most upsetting development is the marriage trouble of some close family members.  There is mistrust, falling out of love, no common goals, infidelity, perhaps some mental illness, certainly mid-life crisis.  More on these topics later.

We spent a long New Year’s weekend with my best friend in Hartley and her family and their friends, and it was terrific.  Then school started again, and it’s back to work this week.  At the UUFA we’ve kicked off another round of Small Group Ministry and started on Tuesday with a topic I wrote, “Nothing is Sacred.”  

As the Christian mystics state, 'God is Nothing' He is Utterly Other; He is the VOID.' Eckhart proclaims, 'Thou shalt love God as He is, a Non-God, a Non-Spirit, a Non-Person, a Non-Form.'  Tauler describes God as 'The divine darkness, the nameless, formless nothing.'  In Jewish mysticism we find frequent reference to the conception of God as Nothing.  It is when these mystics proceed to making affirmative statements about the nature of God that misevaluation occurs.  God cannot exist in the sense that we normally mean existence.  As with things, whatever we say God is, he is not. 

                                                                          Harry Weinberg

Heretics and Spirituality is meeting again, and we’ll be reading The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic for the next several weeks. 

The novel takes the form of three cross-referenced mini-encyclopedias, each compiled from the sources of one of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). In his introduction to the work, Pavic wrote:

"No chronology will be observed here, nor is one necessary. Hence each reader will put together the book for himself, as in a game of dominoes or cards, and, as with a mirror, he will get out of this dictionary as much as he puts into it, for you [...] cannot get more out of the truth than what you put into it."

In personal reading I’m more than half way through the fourth Barker and Llewelyn book, The Hellfire Conspiracy, by Will Thomas. 

No resolutions yet this year.