"In a Perfect World"
Dreams! I know every one of you has a dream. Some people live their
entire life chasing a dream. Some people sweep them under the rug and
pretend they don't exist so they aren't disappointed when they don't come true.
I think dreams are an extension of hope. With hope, all things are
possible; including making your dreams come true. Dreams are expectations
topped with whipped cream and pecans. I turn 50 next month. Yes,
it's hard to believe. I'm not sure my dreams have been realized in all
these years. Perhaps my dreams have come true, but I'm too ignorant to
recognize them. I'm being hard on myself, I know, but ungratefulness reaps
dissatisfaction. I still have my eyesight (questionable), all of my limbs
and organs (with minor aches and pains), I have a roof over my head and food in
my belly. Those are dreams some people long for. My boys are
not fighting a war in a foreign country; I have an automobile; a job; a checking
account, and a God that loves me. Those are dreams you can't wrap up and
put a bow on. Those are appreciated luxuries that too many people will
never experience. I have never won a lottery, won a dance contest, traveled
overseas, nor saved a life. But my life is not over and I intend to make
more of a difference, and maybe reach some of those dreams. In a
perfect world, we would all have a glimpse of what our life would be like
without our comforts and without our loved ones near. My all-time favorite
Christmas movie is "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart. George
Bailey gets a brief look at what his life would be like if he'd never been born.
Our lives, like George's, touch people's lives in ways we will never comprehend.
We should never give up or quit trying, even though sometimes our life doesn't
make sense. We should laugh more, be more patient, strive to do what's
right when a wrong is being done. Listen to that small inner voice
that says "stop and lend a helping hand." Sooner or later, a dream will
come true and you may be fortunate enough to recognize it when it happens!
12/21/06
It's exhausting being a parent. I
wish that when I got married, instead of the wooden salad bowl and tongs, that
someone would have given me a book on raising children. I love kids...I
particularly love my kids. But life would be less chaotic if they would
just do what I tell them to. I've been exposed to the evil in people, and
I could alleviate some of my children's mistakes if they would just follow my
rules. It would be neater that way. And since I tend to be a neat
freak, and, okay I'll admit it, a tiny bit of a control freak, raising kids would also be
simpler and not so messy. At what age can I let go? I have never
considered myself to be an overly protective parent, although I have questioned
my rights on many occasions. I thank God every day that my kids are
healthy, and still walking around on this God-forsaken planet on their own two
legs. Some parents aren't that lucky. People do the most despicable
things to kids. Some children make it all the way into adulthood, and then
their life is snuffed out like a fast burning candle. I know families that
are grieving right now, because they never expected to outlive their children.
Their pain and sorrow is written all over their faces. They are hurting
and it shows. Dennis tells me over and over again that I need to let my kids
live their own lives. I know this in my head, but my heart wants to
protect my kids from the bad things in this world. As a mom, I'll never
give up trying to chase away the boogie men so they can sleep better at night.
I want them to be self-motivated, kind, caring, and generous human beings.
I strive for them to be socially and financially independent, but I don't want
there to be suffering involved. Therein lies the dilemma. In order
to achieve great things, there has to be some element of suffering. There
are no peaks without valleys. In order to figure out who you are and what
your purpose is in life, there has to be a period of confusion and emancipation.
Someone should put that in a book. These are important points for raising
children, but it's difficult to experience, to watch my children struggle and
walk down the road less traveled. In a perfect world, children
would come with an instruction manual. Each child is unique, and it's a
shame that I have to factor in my own inadequacies into the equation of raising
them. Somehow we all survive. My own mother, more than once, made
the statement that her children survived in spite of her. Her honesty is
refreshing! We all go through hell to appreciate the blessings of heaven.
Love is a blessing, and one I hope I've at least passed on to my kids. I
don't know about you, but I could go for a group hug!! 11/01/05
Let's talk about husbands! I have one; have had for over 20 years,
amazingly enough. The neighbor next door used to have one until he died.
My mother has had three of them, and two of them were not worth the space I'm
using here to write about them. Eve had one. You know Eve, right?
Adam and Eve! The first great couple; the husband that blamed
his wife for having short-term memory loss because she forgot she wasn't supposed to
eat the forbidden fruit. We all have bad days. Theirs was a whopper.
Eve was just trying to find a way into her husband's heart via his stomach.
We all know guys like to eat. Eve was kind and intuitive enough to
choose an apple and offer it to Adam as a gift. She knew what he liked!
Food! Big mistake. Mistakes happen! I wish my husband knew what I
like in terms of gifts. He too makes mistakes! I think most
husbands are clueless when it comes to buying gifts for their wives. This
would require a skill most men are often lacking...LISTENING! Dennis says
he listens. But when I ask him to repeat back to me something I just said,
there are parts of my sentence missing. That's probably the reason I keep
getting weird and unusual gifts for Christmas and birthdays. He's not "hearing"
everything I'm telling him and only partially "listening".
I really like the three Lord of the Rings movies. One of my favorite
characters in the trilogy is Gollum.
Such a sneaky, slimy little creature with a raspy voice who slinks from rock to rock with the grace of a dancer.
He has his bad moments, but he has some interesting moments too....My
preciousssss!! Gollum is persistent! Because of this
fascination for Gollum, which happens to be purely creative and technical in
nature, I mentioned to Dennis at Target one day that a Gollum kids toy was
cool! But, what he "heard" me saying was "I will love you
forever if you buy me this toy for Christmas!" What the heck am I
supposed to do with a moving plastic replica of Gollum? Wouldn't it look
slightly neurotic and schizophrenic if a 47-year old woman and mother of two were sitting on the
couch mimicking Gollum while making him shimmy up the side of the fireplace?
I can't very well take it to work and put it on top of my computer. I work
at an accounting firm, for crying out loud. Accountants are not known to
be very creative, and a creepy green man lurking on my desk may be perceived as
abnormal, which I probably am, but no need to advertise! I also mentioned
that I liked the silver and diamond necklace at Tiffany's and the
hand-embroidered purse at Macy's. What happened to those gifts?
Maybe my loving, attentive husband did buy them, but hid them and forgot where
he put them...another skill he is lacking in...REMEMBERING! Like
remembering that the nursing bra he bought me on my 28th birthday didn't go over
too well. Or the black, leather French Maid's costume that I vowed never to wear
got stashed in the back corner of the closet.
You would think that after 20 years of marriage he would get me! He
doesn't! In a perfect world Dennis would know exactly what gifts to
buy to make me happy. I just had another birthday yesterday...47
years thank you very much, and there were hints that he's starting to pay
attention and discover what I like. I wonder how long it takes a
mini-bonsai tree to sprout? 2/1/05
Another one bites the dust! I just
checked off another item on my "things-to-do-before-I-die" list. I ran a
26.2 marathon! Well...okay, I didn't run! I jogged.
Well...okay, I didn't jog, I pranced very slowly so as not to injure anything.
But whatever it was that I was doing...I did it in 6 hours. Not bad for an
old lady! The most unbelievable part is that I wasn't the last one to
cross the finish line. In fact, I was astonished when I went through the
chute and the clock said 6:03:01. I thought it was broken. I felt like
I had just spent at least 8 hours moving my swollen feet, gasping for breath,
drinking warm diluted Ultima and scanning the sides of the road for a dropped morsel
of food just so I would have energy to keep going another mile. Imagine
the thrill when at mile 18 I found a fully uneaten and unwrapped
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Power Bar in
the dirt (my favorite). There is no doubt in my mind that it was a gift from heaven,
dropped by my guardian angel who was running a few paces ahead of me! I wonder
if the bottoms of his/her feet hurt as bad as mine did? There were
1780 runners and I was #1728. I was overjoyed to finish! In MY
perfect world I would complete a marathon! And thank God, I didn't puke! Go me!
2/1/04
Insomnia (n-som'nee-a) n. from the Latin insomnis, sleepless; in - not
+ somnus - sleep; in other words, NOT SLEEPING! Duh!
Sixty, get it!... 60 million Americans a year and 40% women suffer from it.
It's 11:30 p.m. and I happen to be one of those 60 million Americans and a
female to boot suffering from INSOMNIA! Did you know that there is more
than one kind of insomnia? I didn't. Designer insomnia...who would
have thunk? One of the remedies for sleeplessness is to get
up and do something. So I did! I searched the internet for the
meaning and reason related to my condition. There is primary
insomnia which is not associated with any health
problems....yawn!
There is also secondary insomnia which can be caused by depression or
pain from arthritis or any other health issue. There is short-term
insomnia (acute) or long-lasting insomnia (chronic).....YAWN......
I am absolutely positive that I could have all of the above
- primary insomnia which caused secondary symptoms brought on by an acute
inability to sleep which has lasted for at least as long as my oldest son.
Which leads me to believe that I am hopelessly and chronically incurable. Not
being able to sleep right now shouldn't be a bad thing except I am now
going into my fifth tax season at the accounting firm and when I sleep, I dream
about numbers and reams of paper. That's hardly worth going to sleep for.
In a perfect world nobody would need to sleep. Just imagine what it
would be like to party all night long with friends....drive from coast to coast
without even a nod....or finish a bestseller from start to finish without dozing
off once. Yep, just imagine.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
1/1/04
There were times when I ran through water sprinklers on hot days, chased
butterflies and traveled several miles across town on a 5-speed bike to visit my
boyfriend without even breaking a sweat. Those days are long gone.
These days my eyes are fatigued trying to focus on computer screens while
typing data into spreadsheets, and I answer unending phone calls from frantic
clients worried that the IRS notice they received in the mail will be the demise
of their wealth.
I serve a purpose for the company that employs me, but I pay a high
price; middle-aged spread! After eight or nine hours a day of answering to
millions of beck and calls (is that proper English?), the last thing I want to
do when I get home in the evening is go to a health club and stress my muscles
and ligaments by walking on a treadmill going nowhere. If someone could
invent a time treadmill that would whisk me off to a foreign country or exotic
tropical island while my legs are frantically trying to keep up with the
conveyor belt, I would be extremely excited about jumping on one. But
that's not reality. The reality is if I don't exercise the pounds creep
up. Therein lies my problem. So I have decided to do something about
that problem other than starvation. It may only be a temporary solution
until my sanity is restored, but for the time being I am in training for a
marathon. You know...the 26.2 kind of marathon. The ones where people puke
right before they reach the finish line or they are hauled away in an ambulance
at mile 13.
Please God, don't let me be one of those
people. It wasn't enough to just motivate this middle-aged
body off my chair and go out for a leisurely walk each night. I had to
prove something. Prove that I'm capable of accomplishing a dream; a dream
I've had for many years, but other priorities got in the way.
Unfortunately, this is a dream that should have been pursued 20 years ago before
my joints ached and my heart went into overdrive. In a weak moment, I let my adorable,
kind, in-shape niece, Montine, talk me into running a marathon. What she
fails to realize is that my knees have already been around the block a few
times. She's in the prime of her exercising career and I am, well...past
my prime. But hey...I'm crazy too, so look out
Las Vegas. What better place to
die than among the neon lights surrounding the Venetian, Bellagio, MGM or of course the
New York, New York. Which is what got Montine started on her marathon
craze in the first place. She ran the New York Marathon in November.
"It's so much fun!" Is she nuts? I've been
training for two weeks...hobbling around tracks and dodging rocks, getting
creeped out by noises in bushes at dusk and bundling up in freezing temperatures with
earplugs and mittens, and I'm missing the fun part. In a perfect world
I could take a pill for insanity such as this. "You say you
have a notion to pound your feet on pavement for 5 or 6 hours? Take this
little pink pill...it will cure you! You will be happy to answer nasty
phone calls for eight hours while your hips triple in size and content that none
of the clothes in your closet fit anymore." But, this ain't a perfect world, therefore my
body must pay dearly. The crowds may all go home before I finish the
race, but come January, I'll be in the best shape I've been in for years. And
who knows...it really may be so much fun that I'll want to continue training for
the Honolulu Marathon. Pineapples or bust! 9/1/03
Life's not fair! Some people
have brains, beauty and talent to boot. Like Nicole Kidman, Steve Young,
and Shannon
Hartnett, for instance! Besides being a marine biologist, a member of the
U.S. Bobsled Team and the 5th place winner of the World's Strongest Woman in
2002, Shannon also just happens to be the 2003 World Women's Champion of the
Scottish Highland Games. Every summer there's a bazillion art, wine and
food festivals. But my favorite is the Scottish Highland Games. I
think it's their cool bagpipe music. Who was it that designed that strange
looking instrument? "Aye Katherine, come have a look! I took my
kilt and sewed the sprinkler system into it and now it makes a lovely sound."
Or it could be the mystery of what lies beneath the kilts that those handsome
and burley
Scottish men are wearing. But whatever it is, the Scottish Highland Games are fun.
Shannon competes in more than one event, but by far the weirdest one is the
caber toss. Another good idea gone bad. Caber is just a light
sounding Scottish word for "big honkin' telephone pole." Did you know
those mutant beaver sticks
weigh between 125-150 pounds? And to think, all they need to do is balance
that 18' tree trunk, excuse me, caber, above the ground, run forward, stop and
toss it into the air attempting to propel it accurately so it lands facing
directly away from the athlete at a 12 o'clock position. It is judged on
accuracy, not distance, which is a good thing. I mean, how far could you
possibly throw an 18 foot redwood tree anyway? Wouldn't it just be easier
to cure cancer? In a perfect world athletes would use their stamina and
talents for something better than bragging rights to the biggest muscles.
If you don't believe me, check out this picture of Shannon at a competition.
Is it just me or does
this not look normal for a female? Maybe I'm slightly jealous, but I
don't think God gave me any muscle groups that even vaguely resemble the ones on
her body. Anyway, you go Shannon! For all the time and effort you
have put into looking like a Schwarzenegger clone, Scotland is very
fortunate to have you on their side.
Sometimes I think I'm
going blind. You're probably laughing right now. But I'm serious! I wake up in
the morning after a restless sleep and stumble to the bathroom. Normally,
I would sit there for a few minutes and read whatever magazine happened to be at
the top of the stack. People Magazine is my favorite. Nothing like a good
dose of reality before that first cup of coffee! But lately I can't focus on the print without my cheap reading glasses that look like something I won out of a giant
gumball machine and cost about as much as one...a gumball that is. Without
my Dr. Dean Edell-approved specs on it's as if I'm
trying to look through a layer of Vaseline. I worry it's hereditary. The
last eye doctor I went to...ophthalmologist or optometrist, one of those "ist"
people...told me that I didn't need to worry. She said I didn't
have the degenerative disease like my grandmother, but I wasn't comforted.
Winnie's eyes have slowly failed her over the years and even though she looks at
me as if she can see every detail of my face, I know she's lost in a world of
blur. She can't even read the menu board at McDonald's anymore. Now
that may not be such a bad thing. I'm usually disappointed anyway when my
meal arrives. It never ever resembles the picture of the
perfectly stacked burger with crisp lettuce and puffy buns that is displayed on
the menu board. I'm certain most people take their eyes for granted.
They may lose
their American Express, car keys, left sandal or sometimes their beloved dog, but they never expect
that one day they could lose their ability to see a rainbow or even a green light turn red.
I like reading People Magazine, the daily newspaper, seeing my children
smile and kittens pouncing on bugs. In a perfect world we would never lose our vision.
And I would never have to wear those hideous red glasses.
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