Fifty years should be celebrated. I have outlasted Nixon, the Edsel, the Cold War, and insanity. Okay maybe not so much the insanity. I now will call it, second childhood.

Yeah this is me.  A rare picture taken with my permission, which has not happened with the exception of a brief sojourn in CA last year, in many years.  I am not a mirror or photo person.  I did love the print in the background, a pic taken by a friend at a medieval festival. 

It is just me but I have never liked my picture taken.  Maybe it is a throwback to ancient Native American feelings about the spirit and pictures.  Maybe it is about my not being particularly photogenic.  I seem to be the only one in my family so endowed.  My sister looks much better in a photo and my brother Neal, well if you visit blistur.com, you can judge for yourself, but he is pretty cool in photos, too.

I have a friend in CA that photographs well.  When I get really depressed I go to his sites and just look at what a timid personality can miss.  He is really very attractive, but we don't say that, lest he become a Hollywood type person which would spoil his inventive and convoluted personality.  I do like his various pics though.  I remind myself of me in some of them.  Particularly those with characters from his shows.  Swamp thing is a particular favorite

I have family and friends who have millions (okay thousands but after 100 what difference does it make?) of pictures of every member of the family and every friend, event, or day of their lives.  I am not one of those.  I take horrible pictures.  For others to look at, that is.  I take pics through car windows and such and the purpose is to remember a moment or feeling, not to make a personal statement.  I admire those that can.  I love the pics by the previously mentioned friend.  But I don't seem able to take those types.  I can't figure out half the time how to go from video to pictures.  Step one, learn the icons...

Once I allowed pictures of myself with only sea grass as cover. If you have ever seen sea grass you know that is virtually a wish and prayer.  I still have them.  It is a reminder that for a few moments in time, I was brave, someone else thought I was beautiful, and okay it wasn't too cold outside at the beach.   I look at those pics today and wonder what happened to that person.  I wonder that alot these days.  Pictures tell too much, even if it is not in the photograph itself.

Posted by: ginnygk at 20:38 | link | comments (5)

Didn't get a job.  Talked to (okay, demanded some answers) people who would have been on committee to hire.  Never saw the application.  Okay one has heard of me, of course, he is political, I am political...but other not sure why I have not been offered...going to look into it.  Wow, maybe in January.  Let me see, car up for repossession, house about to go into foreclosure.  That will be helpful.  Was told by my job counselor I was really overqualified to work in county and maybe put people in shock at having to pay top rate rather than lowest rate of pay.  Inotherwords...I can't work for 8.50 per hour, student loan payment is more than twice that income.

Nice to sleep...Lunesta...

Asked spouse when marriage was going to start again.  Otherwise I want pay for housework, listening to his bitching, worry about his health, and pouring him into bed after he falls asleep (beer and exhaustion, not always in that order).  Decided to push the issue when he would not go to bed but fell asleep on couch on porch and burned hole with cigarette.  Would have been worse, but we have the old redneck furniture of old couch, which I covered under the slip cover, with garbage bag so it doesn't get wet from swimmers who have so little sense they sit on material furniture wet.  I spend most evenings sitting on the bed while he sleeps.  I read.  He bitches, eats, smokes, drinks and retires.  It is the only way to sit with him, though after months of worry and his refusing to help himself, I wonder why.

Oh yeah...we are poor.  The fairy princess is eating us out of house and home suddenly and I can't keep up.  The electric is up.  Then there is another speeding ticket to help raise the insurance rates to a high I am sure only NASCAR drivers pay.  Do I wonder why I am feeling this way?  Yes.  No, really I know.  It is leaving for a few days and allowing myself to think and breathe and laugh only to come back to the tension.  It is really a force field.  I was in the house two hours and already so overwhelmed I didn't know what to do.  When it builds over time you get in a rhythm that allows you to absorb.  When you leave and come back, it is frightening and depressing. 

Fortunately I am not a candidate for suicide, but I can see why others might be.  I can now see why I don't lose weight, what is the point?  Am I going to get to go hiking, dancing, out to dinner?  Will I see the inside of a jazz club, dress up, hit the beach, get a job?  Not likely.  The only thing I am doing is housework (always a joy and worthwhile project until everyone else makes a mess), and reading.  I find myself living in the worlds of Henry James and Daphne Maugham, John Steinbeck, and the fictional lives of Stephanie Plum (Wow, choose joe, but wouldn't a night with ranger be great?,  closest I get to sex), and Archy McNally.  Inotherwords, my life so sucks and by the number of job interviews I have gotten from the last fifty applications, it is gonna stay that way.   I need a golden retriever.

 

Posted by: ginnygk at 16:39 | link | comments (2)

Pain comes in many forms and degrees.  There are so many types of pain that the medical industry is always looking for new ways to deal with it.  I really wish I had more of the emotional or mental type, because that I can deal with.  It is this unstoppable pain, physical and constant that is getting on my nerves.

Pain...it can be sharp or dull, throbbing or steady.  It can come in bursts, waves, breaths.  Pain is low level, severe, scaled 1-10, and consistent or changing.  It can come and go.  Pain can be a dull ache or a twinge.  It comes with movement or just sitting or lying down.  It varies from person to person.  Some have a high tolerance, others a low tolerance.  Some people feel pain depending on where it is and how often it comes on.  Feet, finger tips, head and lower back are most prominent, I hear.  Knees and hips elbows and shoulders are common sites for pain.  Jaws too.  Toothaches are nearly unbearable for everyone.  Pain is ugly and pain meds work in varying degrees with success sometimes just a wish and a prayer.  Heart attacks, bone breaks, aneuryisms, and sprains are very painful.

Sometimes I get the wish and prayer pain.  It comes on and stays a while.  I often have low level, constant pain in my arm.  It is mostly from the screws holding the rod in place.  When I walk to much or stand on my feet too long, the right foot is painful.  It swells.  I have knee problems so that is bad some days, worse others.  Climbing stairs is an effort on some days.  Dancers often get this kind of knee pain, gymnastics probably didn't help.

There are meds for these pains, and sometimes I actually use them.  But the problem with the meds is the weird and queasy feelings you get and if it takes a few pills to kick in relief, then functioning is limited (the reason I don't like to take them).  Friday the pain started on my left side.  Head, neck, shoulder, arm, hand, trapezium, lower back, hip, and knee.  Finally let up last night after third dose.  Today it has begun again.  The good news is that when it stops, it will be gbne for months again (in this case usually set off by winter dampness and cold).  Ouch is not quite explanatory for the pain, but  just because pain has many explanations and forms, it does not have many vocabulary words to really get to the point.   On a scale of 1-10 today is a 25.

Posted by: ginnygk at 18:58 | link | comments (2)

Lucky for me there are Mondays.  I know, I know, no one likes Mondays.  But in my house it is the end of "togetherness" that none of us feels or really wants.  Since it is hot, it is worse.  Our day starts with most sleeping late, some later than normal (me).  There is no longer breakfast since there are too many of us to make the effort quick and easy and besides, someone always wants something different, usually the toddler.  Then we scatter to our different activities, mine being reading the paper and books and anything else I can get my hands on, and doing laundry.  I used to do it on Thursday or Saturday, but fairy princess does laundry just before I get ready to.  It's a gift.

For lunch we all choose something different or M cooks.  Since it is hot, it is more likely every man for himself.  But dinner starts sometime between four and six since there is a race and starting dinner (marinating whatever he is cooking) means a beer, checking on it is another beer, putting it in to cook is another beer and eating of course is another.  A trip to the store usually follow a half hour later.  Some swim (the toddler) or play, or watch TV...how can two adults sit for hours watching television for 15 hours?

Then for a few minutes we have conversations.  The son doesn't want to hear about the sex life of his parents.  This seems odd since we have to live with his (and he does talk about it a little) and how can we talk about something that has not existed for such a long time that the word seems to belong to people in a parallel universe?  We do get the schedules for the week down, talk about house work that I end up doing, though it is originally divided between us during this discussion time.  And we tend to joke (when M is not drunk) and laugh as a family for a few minutes.

Then all go back to their reading, TV, races and football, and we nod as we pass.  Mountain climbing, surfing, or anything is a vague memory of Sundays long ago and past. 

Posted by: ginnygk at 00:27 | link | comments

Wow!  Two days of not dealing with other problems, good conversations and debates, time with Mother and Father, museum trip, window shopping and an excellent band, strawberry crepes...and butterflied fried shrimp (fresh)....what could be better than this?  Three days?  Please?

One conversation and a question...what is the idea of including a Bible quote on a campaign sign?  John 3:16 seems most popular, but there are some from Ephesians, Corinthians, Revelations.  What is that about?  Did God give them permission?  Was there a conversation where he said, "Sure Dick, you can use that."  Isn't it presumptuous to do so?  I think it falls under the 'holier than thou' category as in, " I used a Bible verse that makes me holier than you.  Consider holy more in terms of holey.

We saw a few boats...yachts...that made us think, there was a competition on the I'm better because I have a bigger yacht, boat, dinghy, than you.  Compensating?  Maybe they were the politicians using the Bible verses ("My verse came from John."  " Well mine came from Ephesians which is harder to spell.")

I remembered that I like tea, the process of making it, drinking it.  I like the interesting tea pots, the levels and flavors of teas...the smell and taste of it.  It is not for just waking up, though it does do that as well.  I just wake up with a little more class than some...I love coffee drinkers though.  I swear it was the tea shop.  And then there was the writing desk I found and the shops with the scarves and hats and shoes and purses.  And another one with really great hats and some great shoes and jewelry.  And funky, cool sunglasses that I love, but cannot wear without successful Lasik surgery.  Blind as a bat and beautiful sunglasses really just doesn't go together well.  And my mother absolutely goes ballistic over women who pee on the seat and leave it...several hysterical moments in public about that.  One woman looked offended that my mom was upset...do you suppose she is guilty of such behavior? 

Spending the day with people with UTI's or on fluid control pills is a trip...to the bathroom, at least once or twice an hour or within minutes of any drinking.  We visited seven public restrooms over the two and a half days.    All within a five mile radius of where we were staying.  It is good to be completely informed about your destination. 

I had a great time, and I slept all night two nights in a row.  This leads me to believe that there is something wrong at home, keeping me from sleeping well and functioning as the person I am.  I should start by eliminating things to figure out what it is.  where to start, where to start.

Posted by: ginnygk at 00:36 | link | comments

Oh boy!  Today is the day I get to get out of here for 24 hours or so with no phones, no problems, no bothering me with CRAP!   was that harsh?   Too bad.  I have spent the last few days, weeks, months, years, remembering, prodding, coping, poking, adjusting, creating, solving, and generally being the adult for everyone in this house and for one day I am relieved of the duty.

Do I think when I come back there won't be twice the duties to perform?  No, but it is test run (for a 4 day cruise on Royal Caribbean Oct 2 for my B'day...just feeling the sound of it, sorry) and even the thought of 24 hours without insipid conversations with a fairy princess, problem solving with a 25 year old child, protection of a three year old, and treading softly on the attitudes and emotions of an old man is heaven.  For within this trip I get to see my family, which I have not done since April, though they live less than 60 miles away, go out in the evening without worrying that the person I am with will get drunk, loud, obnoxious, mean, and I get to sit a listen in peace and talk about intelligent things with my best friend...not what is happening on Days, or why the baby is in timeout for the 20th time today.

Can I just say...Hallelujah!  or is that like a religious reference completely misplaced in this blog?  I will have to discuss it later today.

Posted by: ginnygk at 16:37 | link | comments (1)

Have I mentioned how much I love being a housewife?  No?  I cannot imagine how anyone would miss the opportunity to clean a kitchen, scrub stains out of the carpet on their hands and knees, do seven loads of laundry plus dry and fold another two loads for someone else, mop, dust, change the bedclothes and clean a bathroom while the rest of the household is either fishing or in bed at 2 pm.  Seems like a real person would enjoy these small adventures in cleanliness is next to Godliness if they had the opportunity.  They make all these great things to help us.  The dishwasher which does not hold two full days of dishes, so one still has to wash by hand if you want the kitchen totally clean.  The ceramic cooktop that requires special  cleaners.  The carpet cleaner that must be filled with both solution and water and then used, and every part cleaned upon completion of the job. (This makes the scrubbing by hand so much more attractive, even considering one has to get up off the floor upon completion of the manual labor.)  And let us not forget the Swiffers that dust but leave behind finger prints, water marks, and other asundry items that must then still be cleaned using the rag and cleaner.  Does anyone truly have a house that only needs dusting?  The drain is slow so I dealt with that, moved a chair from the office to the front room where I will put the computer for the spouse to use, since I hate running a scan every day.  I will move it once I figure out how to get the CAT line into that room without making yet another trip and fall hazard.  I put up a rack in the pantry door that sat for two weeks waiting for someone else to do.  I moved the shelves to the front porch since our pool stuff is now more than the bucket can handle with the toys and towels and shock and well I just need some place else to keep the mosquito coils and lanterns.  I will vacuum the porch today when I get to the vacuuming ( read this as "when the fairy princess" gets up).  It is the weekend and she does not have to do anything on the weekends because they are for rest and the toddler returns today.  I refuse to clean the hall bath.  I don't go in there if I don't have to, but I will supervise that cleaning since we are having company at least twice this week.

To be honest this is as much about avoiding the "BIG" doctor appointment tomorrow when we will learn about the diagnosis.  The tests are done.  There is nothing left to do but move on to either breathing a sigh of relief or taking steps that are invasive and dangerous.  I can do avoidance.  scrubbing, mopping, dusting, cleaning, dishes, laundry, floors, walls, fans, lights, tables...housework does have its place.

Posted by: ginnygk at 19:13 | link | comments (2)

yesterday my favorite teacher in the world died.  it was heartwrenching to imagine a world without this woman, who actually was accused by rumor for years of throwing a desk at a student.  Twenty years after, she told me she had done such a deed and the victim was my Uncle Donald, which makes it okay since he was perhaps the most infuriating person on the planet.  All in fun of course.  She taught my uncle, a cousin who is a generation older than me, several of my family in my generation, and one age group below me.  I remember the teacher as being tough but fair.  She was mean and insisted on homework and work done well.  She also made the Alaskan studies wonderful adventures with totem poles and real iced igloos built in the room.  She gave a luau for our studies on Hawaii with fresh pineapple and coconuts, split and we tasted the milk and the shreds of coconut.  If you finished your work you could do things you wanted, like write plays, essays, make papier mache' objects, interact with the fish, read, or just sit and daydream.  She helped us get auditions to school plays and clapped loudest when her students appeared.  She would bustle (no other word for it) about and pull out the ever present handkerchief to blot the sweat from her face.  She sent people in the hall and was not embarrassed about slapping a student who used foul language in class.  She expected the best of us and when she got it, was there with rewards and praise.  When she did not get it, she was helpful and stern.  She always said the 'testing' that goes on today, eliminates the need for teachers who teach.  Teachers are there to expand the learning world, robots can teach rote memorization.

She is never far from my thoughts when I plan lessons or teach a class. I try to emulate her creativity and enthusiasm.  Her husband was boundless in energy, helping her to build a village or make a banquet for students to feast on.  He was happy to be the teacher's husband, though he was an executive in his own right.  I will never forget her support and guidance, her faith in me, when even I did not have much faith in myself.  I only regret she will not be there in person to see me get my PhD.  She is one of the main reasons I have worked so hard for it.  You see, when I was a mere fourth grader she said she could see I was not just really smart, but the most intelligent person she had ever met and she expected that some day she would call me ma'am since I would have a doctoral degree.  She waited 40 years and we almost made it together.  I am glad she will never call me ma'am.  Lou Jean Boggess should never call another person ma'am.  She was the best of the best.

Posted by: ginnygk at 03:34 | link | comments (1)

Gas Prices are too high!

Okay, I have a dollar bill, three dollars in quarters, twelve dimes, and four nickels.  I can buy $5.40 in gas which is 1.67 gallons and that should get me to town.  If I use the air and go the west I can get about 28 miles to the gallon and if I go 315 I can get about 26 with the traffic lights through town.  If I don't use the air conditioning it will be closer to 30 miles per gallon.  But the temperature is already 92, so what if I just use the air as I get into town.  This way I can get about 43 total miles and I know I have a half gallon left since it did not turn off the little light with the gas I just put in.  Wait, I know...I will go ten miles without air, the engine should be warmed up by then and I can turn on the air, since the vent air will be too hot after that with the heat of the engine mixed in.  Then at the lights on 27 I will open the windows and it shouldn't tangle my hair too much.  That will leave me about 4 miles I can go after getting the check.  That should make it to the gas station...one hopes.  

 It sucks to be poor.

Posted by: ginnygk at 16:10 | link | comments

A blog I read regularly, or rather when he has time to write, was about the lost art of hand holding.  It brought to mind some nearly perfect moments that happen in life and maybe a perfect one or two.  One does not always take time to look at perfect or nearly perfect moments as we barrel through life.  My grand mother has always been the opposite, drawing vivid pictures with words, perfect moments she remembers, for us as we grew up.  My mother can describe the exact moment she first saw my dad.  She can make you taste that first banana split and all the others that are so much a part of their courtship.

One perfect moment for me was the kiss at the end of the ceremony of my first wedding.  The people I cared about most in the world were there, except for a couple that bowed out because it was still the 70's in the South in a Southern Baptist church.  But the weather was perfect, the flowers were brilliantly colored, there were candles burning, and I was very much in love with a boy I had never given up on.  The kiss was cool and tentative, then a little possessive and very, very sweet.  I expected a light to shine over us at any moment.

Other nearly perfect moments have come and gone.  Though not many in number, they are worth remembering more often than I do.  Most of them, oddly enough, have included no one but me.  I have stood in the window of an apartment, near downtown and the river, overlooking the holiday lights.  I was standing next to my second Christmas tree that I put up in my room upstairs.  I said it was to decorate since my apartment faced the back yard and no one would see my decorations otherwise, but the reality was that the tree was for me.  A Christmas tree in my bedroom, what could be more wonderful? I stood next to the little tree and let the shimmering and twinkling lights, outside and in, bring the joy of the season to life, bring me a peaceful moment in time.  Another moment was in April and it was warm and sunny and the breeze off the ocean was pleasant and warm.  Sometimes in April it is chilly, but this day I sat on the dunes, looking at the vast ocean, with its changing colors of blue and green and gray, sunlight glittering off the surface, rolling in small white peaks of foam for the little beach birds to run through, and felt like things were all right in my world.  That is one that has gotten me through some pretty rough times.  But others like making "salad" with my cousins at my grandmother;s, using the strange plants and weeds that grew in her yard are special too.  There were also the eaten young pine cones, formerly squirrel dinners, that became our "shrimp" dinners.  Another from childhood is the Christmas morning I got up and found a softball and bat, a basketball and hoop, a tennis racket and balls, a volleyball and net, a football, badmitton, croquet set, tetherball, and a dozen books.  I was in heaven and thought nothing could ever top that year.  I'm not really sure anything has.

I worked at the Fountain of Youth for several years.  One day we five unlucky early morning guides had come in and found our worst fears had been realized.  It was cold and the rain was coming down in buckets and we were to show people out to the Planetarium and the Space Globe along with such things as statues and burial grounds.  We feared our long skirts and peasant blouses would become so soaked that we would catch pneumonia.  But when we arrived we found a fire burning brightly in the fireplace none of us had ever seen used.  There were chairs placed nearby and a table with hot coffee and hot chocolate was on it with a note to not take any visitors we might have out.  We could point the way from the doors to the various exhibits and if they chose to go, then it would be on their own. Tourists tend to show up and expect full service when they just should have stayed away or went to some inside exhibits.  We had few people that day, but we had wonderful fun, talking, and laughing, gossiping, and doing all the things one does not do with co-workers during working hours.  Five, then eight, girls, sharing a warm fire on a cold wet day.  We became lifelong friends that day. 

Almost perfect.  As one approaches a big birthday, the almost perfect really qualifies as perfect if you consider how much they meant to you.  Maybe I will try to remember one for each year.  When I was sixteen a boy I really liked almost held my hand.

 

Posted by: ginnygk at 15:03 | link | comments (1)

Things I have learned in middle age:

There is a lot of running, out of time, to the phone you think is ringing (really just in your ears), to the bathroom.

Memory is a lie.  i.e.  "Hi, you remember me?" "Yes I do "(no I don't and why would I/), "R'member when we...?"  "Yes, it was ..."(Why in heaven's name would you remember that and bring it up now?), "Remember...?"  "Unfortunately" (Oh my God!  You were there?!?)

Hair color with gray coverage is a marketing ploy...so are diet promises, pain relievers, OTC insomnia relief.

A seven hour flight is actually twelve hours of exercise because planes are not comfortable and one must get up for the bathroom, up for the leg or foot that is asleep, up for the bathroom, up for the pain relievers you left in the bag you put overhead.  And the bending and stretching just to reach those seats or to get in and out should qualify for a couple of sessions with your personal trainer.

Waking up as you get up is no longer a problem with all the popping, creaking, groaning and moaning, grunts and "ouches."

Acne does not go away, it just stays longer and they really do not make a cream that works on it.

You may not understand Pythagorem theory but you become an expert on the theory of gravity .  (Let's see, I can wear this dress without a bra for exactly two hours and four minutes before the sagging takes over.)

You understand wishful thinking is just that. (see previous lesson)

Posted by: ginnygk at 21:16 | link | comments

Oh the joys of menopause, surprise visits, heat surges in 101 degree weather, and lack of anger management skills.  I spent on things I could not afford last month, so this month I will panic and panic again, because though I am in the pool for several jobs, no interviews are scheduled, not one job on the horizon.  Payless Shoes is looking really good right now.

I paid big bucks to have a medical exam, lab tests, new glasses, and of course the ever fun, blood drawn.  With the last I got a bruise about the size of two quarters and really ugly.  My veins are dainty and delicate, even if I am not.  I got meds, drugs, and other such things to fight the signs of middle age, as much holistically based as possible.  The list reads like a commune member's dream...black cohosh, niacin, potassium, evening primrose, red yeast rice, hoodia, Co Q 10. 

I just returned from paying house insurance, which in Florida is actually the equivalent to the cost of two houses, more expensive than mine.  I am in the "limited insurability" pool as are most in Florida.  And that is without flood insurance.  Of course for my yard to flood, Noah would have to rebuild the ark.  Example, last week one day we got a 4 inch deluge in just over an hour.  Another hour later, sand was dry and dogs were tracking in that top layer of barely wet stuff.  oh joy.  I am trying to figure a way to do the car insurance which jumped from 1300 a year to 2000 for one car.  Leave it to say that my spouse is a driver with a fetish for yellow paper and drivers education classes.

We do however have a potty trained granddaughter (for the most part) and she has a new swing set (which I could not afford, but she needs a place to play), puzzles with learning, and some play dough.  I was just asked when I would be going to the store because the fairy princess wants pizza, cookie dough ice cream, and oreos.  She says the baby is asking for it.  I think she does not realize that she is asking for it, and I don't mean groceries today.

Posted by: ginnygk at 19:09 | link | comments