Too bad for me anyone want to have a Grandma?

Talked to a bloke from down under today, my 5 am is his 8 pm. We both blog and I decided to reach out and let him know I enjoyed reading about a young father and their busy life. Mine is rather dull I'm afraid with the kids all grown and moved away. I have one exception, yet she is forty and hardly the type to take up soccer or any sport for that matter, She spends most of her free time, and she has plenty of that on her computer playing games. Sometimes she does live action games where she uses an interactive program and she gets in character, I'll hear her talking in some strange voice from the ohter room and see her sitting wih a blanket wrapped around her in some fashion as if its a shawl and I'll know she's in character.

Me, I don't game, but my husband and I are rapt with the glowing rectangle in our laps as well, He's off on a hunt for an antique coffee grinder that he can buy for cheap and I'm off looking for inspiration and articles to read or wrting up another of these banal blogs to entertain noone but still it gets it out of me. This thing we do on these little white screens that pop out when we feel that urge to spew forth. Yes, its all about the day. Another chicken went into the oven last night and that's all well and good. Yet, sometimes its that sense of doom I feel coming on and my wonder over how I will keep it at bay, Today I talked with a new friend from around the otherside of this vast earth, who blogs about this too, Life ,,,will we ever make sense of it? No. But live it, well yet in these litlle increments someone can see we get it just a little. We feel it and know it has a substance. Its not all soccer games on someother continent I'll never see, and my yard not green this year because of the drought, I like to think its us and we are more than the mundane. At least I hope for that and it keeps the feeling of doom away. Until my next post. - from California the next big desert.

Never look back vs forwver looking

I wanted to hear from you and for a fleeting moment you're there, we've begun to share our inner most secrets. We are no longer chatting about the surface things in life. I love to heare from you, I look forward to our talks and then you stop, I doubt myself, oh why did I share that, was that the thing that made you stay away? What was it that I saiid, anyway that was too much?

Relationshops are hard, you promised to be there forever, no matter what the arrangement, was that just a lie so you would get to know me better? Are you just a cad, a crook, some one who later will want soemething again, but today whose needs are beiing met by soemone closer? Afterall this was never a face to face real intimate one. It was a casual serics on conersations. It was my mistake to share, my mistade to be vulnerable like this. Is this what its liked to be Catfished? I wonder if you were honest with me and just got tired of the game of making up more lies to seem real.

Or were you a real person, who thought again about who I was an was scared to go any further? Who could tell our freindship might go so far that you'd be hurt if taken any farther? At any rate, its too late for me, I have been affected by the lask of response to my text, I lament the relationshop if over. Until I hear from you again.,, dear friend.

18 years this Sunday

Everytime I married I thought it would be this long, Now that I have finally found the man for me it has been natural to stay. I have rarely, except when feeling trapped wanted to get away from him. Thsi marriage hasn't been perfect in anyway, and what marriage is? We've disagreed over things in the past and both of us have compromised or gotten our ways. I must admit most of the time I've gotten my way, but still there are things I would do differently if alone.

I know I wouldn't own a bunch of coffee grinders and crocks. I doubt that I would have joined him in the persuit of antiques, but it was a compromise of sorts. At least, he doesn't use drugs and that is where I have had to draw the line and walk away from love in the past, The drugs and alchohol my lovers used destroyed anything we could have had, for eventhough I realize it was a disease. I'm not capable of standing along another as they destroy themselfs and I know I'm not the one who can change another. Who is? These people have to fight their own demons, I know how that goes and my demons are well controlled with drugs. So its amazing that my husband has stuck it out with me. Every year is a blessing that he has been there to talk me out of my delusions. 

This year has been particularly hard on us all and I'm still fighting the depression. Even though I'm getting better, I could still be more active in managing my life. I think I will get there next year, but year after year I have these undone tasks that lurk in my office. Papers that pile up, and this year I've been forced to deal with some of them, as I've had to deal with my mom's affairs, Unlike my papers that simply lie there, some of her affairs we've had to attend to. That in fact has been the root of my depression this year, and partly why I feel I'm growing from the experience of loss.

She's not died yet, but I've been going through the process. She has had to sell her house and that has been the most difficult. Leaving my dogs bones in the back yard where he was buried, I alwasy thought we'd be able to keep the house and not have to leave him, my best friend who died in the bushes was laid to rest there under my bedroom window. Time has past, this Sunday I'm happy that you and I are bestfriends now. I was able to say goodbye to long-time relationships that continue, and that I can return to when I want to in my dreams and daydreams, but you are here by my side everyday and have been steadfast for all these 18 years, Never thought I would find love like this. So very grateful for who you are and that I was able to grow into someone that you could hold dear. 

Irritation at the Universe

Last night I was watching a You-Tube video and in it were two friends, who were going at each other explaining on a radio station (on the air) how one hated the other now that they had become a successful actor-comedian and not just the plain struggling comedian he had known at first.

He must not have been that famous because I can't remember his name now for the life of me.  However, the video stuck in my head last night as I woke at 3:20 am and instead of falling back to sleep began to think about a friend who I've begun to hate on.  I know that is bad, after all I love her and the little things she says are the things that are irritating and I just wish she'd realize on her own how they rub me the wrong way, but I just let her say them and have been trying to ignore it.

She complains about the time she wakes up and can't go back to sleep and when I try to reassure her she always makes it an excuse for how its the job that does it to her and the bringing the work home that nags on her so she gets up to work.  In other words, I'm getting up because I'm doing it for fun.
I guess that is true enough. I'd do the work if they had given me the job and shut-up about it. I hate people who complain about what they get once they have what they asked.

She get more money than we do, so I think she knew what she was in for by applying for a managers job.  They get free time in other times we have to work - so isn't she just rubbing her job in our faces?

She should be glad she has been worthy enough to be given the opportunity. It's nothing to complain about it's part of the territory. Like young mothers who complain they don't get enough sleep, but they are getting paid for that in the love and cuddly babies cuteness 24/7.  The baby smell is pay enough for a few months of sleepless nights. I'd take that job again in a minute, I only got to do it twice, and then they grow up and they'll remember the cuteness and the smell, not the sleepless nights.

I get these early mornings and they are a gift to myself,  I get to write. I get the living room with no TV blaring in the background and I get a chance to see if any news has been posted at the social and news media sites I follow. Life is good right now, except for the crime of the mean streets and I thank god I live where its not hit my doorstep, yet.  The war is still over there for the most part, We're blessed that our military keeps it at bay. The drought's bad, and eventually we will have to move away unless they figure out how to get us more water. We used to be able to feed the world from this valley, now noone seems to care. If I had a friend who got it, she'd complain about that there's not enough people to help her and maybe that's what she wants to say, she wished we could all work the long hours together on these projects. But hey, I'm being a hater right now, feeling bad that I have a friend who makes me feel jealous of her plot in life, not sympathetic.

I guess, to be good I'd feel a little more empathy for her plite.

When there is no going back, what then?

Watching the Jordanians on Face the Nation, and their resolve, it seems true we have gone past the place were there is any going back. ISIS has finally gone too far, If they hadn't already gone far enough, The truth is becoming evident. The internet really has no editor as Bob Schiffer just said, The world war if you didn't realize is here, and it is so sad.

We must learn to fight the terror in chat rooms and find a way to make reason of some complex answers to the most innane bantor. I don't like the idea that my words must be monitored for the rhetoric that I might be some sort of recruiter for violence, as I clearly have not, I am angry that my freedom of speech must be subject to the analysis. I am upset that because of the unreasonable hatred and violence and sheer bullying of others, I am a subject and must submit and admit its appropriate for everyone to be under suspicion, as well we are. There will always, now, be a justificaiton for armies and I hate that.

We marched for peace. Do you not remember that? We argued that we were civilized enough to never have to engage in war. That all war was wrong. We were the generation of love, peace and harmony. This hippie chick is pissed.

My team lost," boo hoo"

Not really sure why I liked the bad boy team of the Seahawks, (They've won the prize this year as the most penalized team in the NFL" one of the Superbowl announcers said,) However, I like Marshawn Lynch and Russell White, here is (Wiki info on Marshawn Lynch) They fought the hard fight though and if it wasn't for the interception right at the end zone by the Patriouts player they wouldn't have won the game.

There was I thing that aggravated me, and that one thing is this. Why did that obscure player not get chosen as the most valuable player last night? The Patriots won the game due to him. It's always the quarter-back who they pick. The star they already have all the media goods on; I'm sure someone will tell that guy it was really him that had done it all. If there is any justice in the world, The lord sees to that doesn't he?

At lease that's what I like to believe.

calender Dec 25

1892

Knowing my mom, you probably wouldn't be surprised that after buying a new 32 inch Smart TV and ordering an upgrade from her basic cable to find out she refused the gift.  Not only did she refuse it, but got very upset and angry with us for buying it and insisted it be returned.  She states she is very happy with the TV she had and thought that the total idea of conversing with others over Skype was not what she wanted and she didn't want anyone to talk with her in that way.  She really didn't want to see anyone unless that meant they physically came to see her,  In my culture, I was insulted, as one usually accepts gifts and if it is something you don't want you accept and thank that person and proceed to gift it to someone who will appreciate.  So, she was angry we should spend "that :kind of money" so we are taking it back,  She did state she needed some towels.  So I am to go find that and they must be unique enough so they don't get mixed up in the laundry and mysteriously disappear like other items seem to.

The miracle

Yes, my birthday came and past and a miracle that seemed only to occur to me came about. I tried to tell a couple of people close to me but as usual they just asked the same aged old questions in return: "Have you taken meds today?" or "That's nice, when do you see the doctor next? Perhaps you should tell her about this."

When I sense something horrible is about to happen I get anxious and can do anything to alleviate the anxiety, and of course you all worry like crazy about me and now when something like the landing on the asteroid was about to happen and the anniversary of the wall in Germany falling, and all those poppies in England which are good things seem to turn the cosmos in a positive direction, and I hear the Dharma speak in France and I felt the great overwhelming peace that came over the world at that time. It was a miracle that we had never experienced and that many people in the same frame of mind I think at the same time wishing for world peace in a Zen sort of mass that was occurring over the internet that Sunday morning and  I felt like the new Dalai had been selected and I was to help in witnessing the miracle and had been part of the ceremony being asked to help find him and bring him and there was still this argument that if the Dalai was a woman it would be better to say we had no Dalai, but only the Dharma to lead us now, and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn would thus transport and carry us to a different place in space and time here while the miracle continues to occur.

I came to find out that God are in the children, we must worship them.  They must have all we can give to be lifted up in the family. Men and women are our brothers and sisters.  These were the words of the Dharma that day.

Chromium vs War

Have you read about the effects of chromium in our drinking water or in cigarette smoke? Seems just another of the many potential impending causes of death and at least some of the crazy mutations that makes it a hard road ahead for our children's future. When will we catch up with the vision, money and get it together to start working on changing the things that are really killing us instead of wasting our time doing it one, two, three at a time over petty differences?

Thought I'd share a little humor for really what can I do sitting in my pj's again this Sunday morn; as you sit in your pew praying for no more violent attacks from outside? Look inside, appears our demise will be dealt by our own hands, as we've stopped paying attention to what we consume.

We saw on the news last night after we were downtown picking up some KFC for dinner that three people had been murdered not far from where we had gone through the drive-through. I hadn't been downtown since the Honor Flight before 10/26 or Halloween or since the Honor Flight had come in, but had made the observance that there must have been a paint sale somewhere as all the buildings had a fresh can of white paint and the signs were all newly brightened up, all the red and blue ones, too. The banners on the streets about the Honor Flight where still there, so I realized they must have made us to look a little brighter, like a Hollywood Movie, for the News media that would be coming through town for the day, to Honor our Veteran's. Couldn't leave us looking like the dingy place we really knew.

Also, thought that that was nice for the Day of the Dead, also if indeed any dead Veteran's came to visit that day, along with their buddies, since it was so close to Halloween, too.  However, after watching the news and hearing about the murders, it sent a chill down my spine and said to my family. I hope it wasn't "War Paint" that they decorated the town with, as it wouldn't be sitting well with me on that. They both told me to shut-up and stopped talking to me after that.

Summer time...

Morning world. This time Friday morning was taken up with dishes. Been waking at 4 am each morning for quite some time. Excuse is to go the gym. However, need some motivation to get there. For a while I was changing my clothes but not making it past the computer. Well, not for a while but since I didn't have anymore paid sessions with my trainer. Can't get over the shyness of going there alone and feeling stupid. I don't relish the fact that every time I go in there I still feel lost.

I did turn on exercise TV yesterday and my girlfriend had this body fat indicator proving that yes, I'm getting flabby thighs again despite keeping my weight in a healthy range, my body fat was still at 30. (Slightly overweight). Yuck! As that means I am also probably not eating right to get like this.

Why worry, you might say. Because there is heart disease in my family. Because I have diabetes. That's why. So exercise for me it key. Not just to stay healthy, but for a healthy sense of me. That's right, self esteem that comes from knowing I have somethings in life for which I have control. You and I know there is so much in life we can't control. Generally, I can control what I put in my mouth. How I ask at 5 am can I get myself going and out the door to the gym?

So its Friday and the cusp of the three day Fourth of July weekend. That means we might go see the fireworks or watch the local parade. It's suppose to be over 104 on Monday; weather for shorts, hotdogs, and tank-tops. Oh know, another reason to work-out. Yikes. Bar bells here I come.

Perseverance

Already started off the day "on the wrong foot" by waking up with a stuffed up nose. Grabbed the wrong pair of glasses off the dresser and can't see the screen and then to top it off the coffee maker decided it wanted a divorce from the basket and poured coffee and grounds all over my cluttered kitchen counter.

Lovely day what? If this is all that will happen I can go on and forget the little nuances that are my life. I'm comfortable that they don't concern the world. They shouldn't. Nothing to complain about, yet she still can ramble on they'd say.

So, I made another pot of coffee, finished washing up the cups from yesterday and made a poached egg to go with my whole=wheat muffin. This is Friday, I found my glasses.

Whew.. It really has been a production week, convinced (or nagged) my kid enough so she went to both of her doctor's appointments. Me driving her once and she taking the bus on her own. She's on spring break from college and is much less stressed and a little manic. I'm doing the best I can at work. Continuing to fight a cold, around people coughing, went to the gym once on my own. Still not quite got that discipline down. Working on quite a few fires at work and none seem under control. Will not quit, though.

Just isn't in my nature. Thank you, daddy for teaching me perseverance.

This last is a picture of my great-grandma Minnie and greatgrandpa George Washington Bryant...She was a gardener, taught piano, loved her dogs and her chewing tobacco. He worked at a GM factory and died pretty early. These pictures make me realize where we really get our character from and though there are many types in each family. We choose, I chose to follow us working stiffs.
Getting dressed, heading for the shower. Its' FRIDAY!

Just some pics from my yard

More of the last week in review of this lady's life.

Hey, this is my home. Hope you enjoyed your work week and your visit to my world this Sunday, now I really am gone.

A couple of comedic victories.

Here we are at Mary and John's 25th Wedding Anniversary party. The year's have taken a toll on us, also; yet love lives on. In fact, I'm not sure anyone really knows how to care for another in the same way a couple together that long can. Learning still is what love is about. Always forgiving someone is not necessary nor is understanding. However, staying despite those things that you can't understand or forgive is the great test of individual fortitude. He's not perfect and neither am I. So once we found our sense of humor about those little things and are successful at not ever passing a boundary where the pain and the frustration crush that love, I will stay with him. Love him. Let him be him, because mainly he lets me be me. Childlike as we were and will always be...but wait! what wonder under the covers the monster stirs. I must run!

You do know I am only being a little silly, right? My theme this "Sunday is Gone" blog about visiting Mom is comedic victory. If there is not such a literary theme then herein it is invented, OK?

I took my video camera up there and when mom starts talking about seeing Elvis and the Rat Pack in Vegas in the old days of the Strip. I figure another great (long) story was about to unfold. I got excited and interrupted to say, "Mom, sounds neat (I still say "neat") you're recalling a great story. Would you care if I recorded you while telling us one of your stories?"

"No, NO, but," (she yells alot) "..I don't mind, but ..." Then I interrupted, as it reminds me I brought the video camera and was checking it and realized the disc was full." Then she got madder not because I wasn't going to capture the story, but I was looking at the camera puching butttons and I guess she though I was not listening as she reiterrated to me later, as to why she justified being frustrated and hostile toward me. I was paying attention and then I think she notices her tone changed and then she laughs. "I was going to say I don't mind if I know in advance, but I don't have my hair done or my lipstick on or anything, so some other time." So I "interrupted" (responded) again so as to get her back on track with the story and I asked how old would Elvis have been then, "Oh, I know he was young and he had three young women on his arm, but I know he had married what's her name?(pause)...Oh, dammit, what is her name?, Priscilla! (we exclaim in unison) at a very young age, but I don't think anyone of them were her."

So, the fun night ended with us going out to get Pizza and having a small discussion with my brother over her disposition and care lately. I know none of us can afford to do any more than this for her with our finances. What my brother does is 24/7 in home care, for which he gets no salary but room and board, and some cash for his medical bills. My other brother lives closer than I but rarely is over caring for her. I doubt he has ever assisted in pulling up her pants, and that's hard for a son, just like it was hard for Mom to get a break when dad was in a wheelchair for me.

Seems this might be why I've studied communication - so as to survive a night with my mother. My husband sees it; as she doesn't hide her behavior around him now, and I've learned to see the comedy in one day of the tragedy of this we call our daily lives and what it was like as a young women. (Which I revisit everytime I go home.) The visits remind me why I choose a teenage marriage and ran from this. She will never understand, but I'm going to try to find what's so damn funny about words that hurt...Ouch, words slap me again.. when I didn't listen to how to pull the blinds or get her a wet dishtowel (got a papertowel).
Sunday, will be gone soon and no work will be done if I don't turn my pain into a comedic victory of a blog here...I pull again at the memory of my dear departed little brother Richard, what did he say he saw in Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe?

P.S. I do love you mom, with all my heart, course I'm not sure how to convince you I have a heart, or maybe at times you don't remember you had one once... Before this thing "Freidrich's Ataxia" got to you. 'Tis true I have a hard time listening and rarely pay attention. Such a grand skill I have at tuning you out... gal Friday and never will be perfect daughter yours. Oh yeah,

Double P.S. Here's the victory part, she didn't succeed in making me cry.

Rain, rain, rain ... glorius or inglorius, still rain, yes, muck. At our house, here in the central valley of California, the rain has brought us April flowers in March. We've postponed working on the taxes and really should get going on that and call Mom, go shopping for food, etc. Perplexed with the news of us sending in anti-aircraft missles into Tripoli last night. In the event of tragedies like Japan, I'd rather see our resources, men and women who serve to be at the scene of natural disasters. Be there pulling that nation together, instead of having to deal with angry and impatient ones who play games with the lives of their own countrymen. Pray they see the colors of blood and leave that field to play inside. Draw those voices inside to find the wisdom that we need to go where no rain will fall, where children are blessings, clung to as saviours of the world we actually valued once.

Set up this blog to have a place to post all those little, nasty annoyances of the day or to add some long interesting story of a work week - hence the name "Sunday is gone and Friday is here." Well, Friday is not even here and I'm looking forward to another long Sunday.

Sunday was a great day although we had a bit of rain. The sun came out. I got out into the yard after a cuddle with my husband and sleeping in until 7:30, and a bowl of oatmeal with my favorite mug of coffee..oh Sunday.

Started out to simply water the plants under the eaves who wouldn't be getting any from the rain. Empty it from the saucers and plants that had too much rain. To spread the wealth a bit. However, as usual as I step just one foot out that door my yard becomes a temptress. I have to check out every place the bulbs are beginning to poke out of the soft earth. I find my rose bush scissors and begin at first a couple of snip, snips of dead branches from the asparagus ferm and I'm off later pulling out irritating strands of crab grass (they have no business in my yard, are they welcome anywhere?)

I finally stopped after the pinch in my hip and tail bone said it was time and ended the day with a pizza for dinner and watched a previous season episode of "Weeds" on my Laptop. Now, its time to get ready for work, and my mini-vacation was just not long enough. Friday, is not going to be here soon enough...However, must go to work so I can pay the bills.

Yosemite, one Sunday last summer ...

After ready we had a foggy day warning in the valley I began a search backyard in my photo albums to one of those sunny day trips we took last summer. This was one of the waterfalls we could see from the road. Traffic was backed up enough that we could take a short break from the climb into the Yosemite valley and take a few pictures.

Today's Friday and its been a Cheesecake trip into temptation and out again. My daughter's birthday was this week and we celebrated at the "Cheesecake Factory"; the restaurant as the name implies, has wonderfully rich, terribly fatty, full-of-calorie delights. I had the Chocolate (naturally) Raspberry Truffle after my Chicken salad sandwich and Ceasar. In the spirit I then took a seven-inch peanut-butter chocolate cheesecake to work which we (the admin staff and I) devored. Not too bad, I can handle some of the consuming in this manner (satisfied, we shared the frenzy).

Throw in our Holiday feast of Tuesday and the rest of the bag of caramel Corn (last night) from the Sunday Antique Fair and by then, I'm sweating the scale this morning. Even the 1.37 miles on the treadmill is not going to help me here.

So, all and all last week was a bust, eating-wise. However, a pleasant diversion and I'm proud that I handled a lot of it with portion control and no seconds. In fact, took my other half of that chocolate truffle sickness home to mom's and had a great visit with her, too. So this is my Friday and was my week? Woke up early, with writing in mind, asking myself if all the writers in the world did have this manic urge to graphically expell their lives on a page (or screen in today's world)like me? Probably not and I'm really babbling now and late for work! See ya.

Still hope you like the out of focus waterfall.

Up2MyKnees by Lizabeth Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Wearing my forest green tee-shirt and kicking it with chocolate brown gloria vanderbilt jeans. Proud that I bought both of these items years ago and they still serve me well as Sunday garb. Speaking of garb, this is what my "Ren" fair attending daughter refers to as the clothes worn at the event she's attending this weekend. 

So, we've missed every opportunity to have sex in strange parts of the house and the weekend is about to be over, as she will be walking in at anytime.  Since we're in our libido declining years, thats simply a source of humor for us and no lament. As far as what's really happening this Sunday night? Not sure what is on the menu for dinner. My husband tells me San Francisco won the football game.  
Here's hoping your life is as undramatic. Peace Out. 

I did it, I did it...I got to the gym two weeks in a row. Then of course there's cake. Yesterday I agreed to go get the cake for the office birthday's in October celebration. (Me! Of all people a lifetime Weight Watcher, true I can eat all I want...but do I want to spend that many calories? ) I'm hoping that I can tell myself that I shouldn't undo that little 20 calories that I burned this morning by adding 220 of chocolate cake. It's not steak or chicken, or even portobello mushroom. So why would I want cake? <>I'm confidant that right now part of my brain can reason with that. We'll see after I get there and I crack open the plastic cover and get that whiff of dark, dark chocolate frosting.. with those big chunks of shaved chocolate falling off the edge, almost falling off onto the counter..Oh, no-I might have to just pick off that piece before it falls onto the floor, maybe check to make sure its not stale and oops, is anyone looking?...
Check out this entry! from 

 wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Chocolate_cake_with_chocolate_frosting_topped_with_chocolate.jpg Image found with a Google search of the web