Without

I get so tired of reading and hearing about people saying “Where was ‘your God’?” when something goes wrong or something bad happens. Or they ask why God lets bad things happen to good people (or to anyone, for that matter). I hear coworkers and neighbors complain that so & so has this or that, why don't I? And I have my own answers to these questions when people ask them. Hopefully without sounding preachy or overbearing, it goes something like this...

When “bad” things happen to good people? My answer is without the bad, would you truly appreciate the good things? Or would you take them for granted? Would you get a feeling of entitlement? Without the tough periods in life to endure, how are you able to feel thankful for everything good in your life?

In the same manner, if you didn’t have to work for everything you have, would it mean as much to you? Would you feel the same way about what you have if you had it handed to you? I know everyone jokes about saying they wish they could have it that way, but is that really the truth? Without the struggle, how important is it?

Without the sorrow, how great is the joy? Without pain, how diminished is your pleasure?

I’ve had plenty of so-called bad things happen to me in my lifetime. But I’m able to look at my daughters and see and appreciate the gift that they are. I see a beautiful little boy and know that my life wouldn’t be as blessed if he weren’t in it. I remember another little boy who gave me more love in his short life than I ever deserved. I see beauty in life because it takes away the ugliness that is always right around the corner. And I appreciate and am thankful for what I have. Because of the pain, the struggle and the tears.

Humdrum...A Dog Well Traveled

Last year while we were at Toys R Us, Elijah latched on to a stuffed dog and wouldn’t give it up. Getting him out of the store without it was a battle of utmost proportions. Weeks later, he was still depressed that the poor little puppy wanted to come to our house to live with us and we left him behind. He was lonely and missed us, we were told. As it was close to his 3^rd birthday, I finally went back and bought it for him. When he took the gift wrap off of the little pooch on the big day, his expression was priceless. Forgotten were the drum set and train he also received. And life with Humdrum began.

He was named him Humdrum after that famed little cutie on his favorite show, The Imagination Movers. In the episode A Puppy Problem, there is a sweet little dog named Humdrum who gets lost in the warehouse. Elijah’s favorite part of the show is when Mover Rich takes out his megaphone and calls to Humdrum to the detriment of his fellow Movers’ eardrums. Of course it’s his favorite…it’s loud! Anyway, to this end, we took Humdrum to the Mover’s concert this spring so that all four of the guys could “call” him as he hid behind Elijah’s back. And did they? Of course they did!

Humdrum has had many adventures in his short life. He has gone to Church…because what self respecting stuffed animal hasn’t been there? He goes to Walmart…because we're told he loves to ride in the buggy. Target is one of his favorite places as he enjoys going down all of the toy “paths” to see what’s new and exciting. Humdrum is also a regular visitor to the sandbox. Which makes him a regular occupant of the washer and dryer as well.

Humdrum is also a source of comfort. He takes away a lot of bad dreams in the dark of night. He has been to the emergency room more times that I want to count. A trip to the dentist? Piece of cake with this little doggie in hand. Mad at the world (or momma or yaya), Humdrum makes the blues go away. Don’t want to go to bed? Humdrum is ever so tired and needs his rest (yes, that actually works).

Elijah talks about some day getting a real dog but for now, Humdrum is his best friend. In a furry sense of the word. He is joined by Big Bad Barry (also from the Movers), Hundley (of Curious George fame), Puppy Dog (his first Build-A-Bear), Frank (given to him by his Great Pap as a baby) and Big Horse (who is a…well, a big horse). But when push comes to shove, and it usually does, Humdrum gets the call. And he never lets our little guy down.

 

 

It's About Time

I was filling out my timesheet at the end of last week and thought for moment what a unique and versatile word “time” is. It can be used in so many ways and is the basis of so many expressions. For giggles (I have no life), I Googled it just to see what I could come up with and I was amazed at what was there for this one small word (because, again, I have no life). “A blog post?” I thought to myself. “Only if you want people to think you’re nuts.” Myself answered. Time will tell…

Seeing as I thought of this at work, some really simple things came into my head. Things like working part time or full time, what time is quitting time or can I take a month of vacation time (the answer to that question was a resounding “no.”)

Song titles with the word time in it? You would be surprised at how many you can find. I told you this word was amazing. You have Big Time. You can Love Me Two Times. Have Time In A Bottle (because who doesn't love Jim Croce...me). And Time After Time, Time Is On My Side (yes, it is). If you’re hungry, you can do the Breakfast Time Hollar (come and get it, come and get it). And that’s enough of that because It’s Howdy Doody Time.

I tried songs with the word time in the lyrics but that was just too much. The list is endless and I don’t have the patience for that. So I looked up television shows with time in the title. Just to name a few because most of them I don’t recognize, mainly due to the fact that I don’t really care for TV. I do remember Good Times which was pretty much dyn-o-mite. Timecop? Never heard of it. There was the fictional Tool Time…a television show within a television show. Much too confusing. And finally, Timmy Time, which is a kids show that is mostly annoying since it’s about a young sheep boy who goes to school and the dialog is all in animal language. Elijah loves it so it’s still on once in a while in our house.

There weren’t too many movie titles. All I found that I recognized were things like The Time Traveler’s Wife (read the book and hated it), A Time To Die and The Time Machine. And then I found Land Before Time…all eight, yes eight of them. I suffered through them all whilst I was raising my babies and am suffering again since Elijah just loves anything dinosaur.

One thing I didn’t have to look up was expressions that involved time.  Those are easy. I had a list in no time. Things like time is relative. Of course, if you have relatives like some of mine, time is endless. That’s when the time is ripe to hit the road, after saying a good time was had by all…whether it was or not. But then again, time heals all wounds, hopefully mine when some of those relatives read this post.  Quite honestly though I don’t see them wasting time getting angry over a few words because, after all, time is precious.

Well, speaking of time, what time is it? Must be almost bedtime. And I want to take time to post this before I fall asleep. And it’s only a matter of time before that happens, I hope. Here’s hoping you take the time to read this. I was able to write in up in no time.

 

"They're coming to take me away, ha ha hee hee ho ho..."

Hot and Bothered

It was a dark and stormy night…seriously it was. And it was also hot and humid (humid being that it was raining). We learned two things on that Thursday evening a few weeks back. One of those things was that having your air conditioner crap out during Louisiana’s 90° days (or 75° nights) is considered a maintenance emergency. The other thing we learned was that, even though maintenance would come to your apartment at 10 p.m. on a weeknight, they weren’t really prepared to do much. Our guy just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said the equivalent of “I dunno.” But he brought us a window unit to see us through the night. And we, in our innocence, thought it would be just one night. How wrong we were.

Now I’m not a spoiled brat or anything…ok, yes, I am. But when the weather is hot, which it is quite often here and I rarely complain about it because I like it, I do like to sleep in a nice, cool room. But I digress, as I so often do.

Day one consisted of a lot of “hmm’s” and “uhhh’s”. Not much got accomplished. Day two, which was Saturday, was pretty much the same. Sunday…oh, no, we don’t work on Sunday’s. By Monday, I was ready to blow a gasket. They decided that it was wired wrong and proceeded to “rewire” the inside unit. The outside unit, which was built before I was born (and that’s a long time ago), was fine. Or so they said. After two more days of this, they got it working. Then discovered that it was blowing warm air and wouldn’t shut off. Wednesday was when they decided they needed to order parts. My reaction? Not pleasant, I assure you. “We don’t know how long it will take to get the parts in seeing as tomorrow is a holiday.” But to pacify me, they brought another window unit. Which went in my daughter’s room because , amazingly enough, my bedroom window is sealed shut. Because it’s in the back of the building on the ground floor.

So my ceiling fan stayed on high, making me feel as though I were sleeping in a wind tunnel. An 80°+ wind tunnel. I tried sleeping on the couch because the other window unit was in my dining room which connects to my living room. While my couch is quite comfortable to sit on, a bed it is not. Too short, too narrow and it has this high back on it that gets in my way when I try to roll over. So I’m used to sleeping in divine comfort on a queen sized bed. I admit it. I can’t help it. And as I’ve already noted, I’m spoiled.

We’re moving on to week two.  Elijah has been sleeping with his mother, since her room is cool and comfy. I’m spending as much time as I possibly can in the living room. But I have to sleep some time. So back into the wind tunnel I go. When I walk out of the room, I have feel as if I’ve been listening to extremely loud music for a very long time. My eardrums are pulsating and my head is humming.

Parts ordered are received. We’re back to having two men’s asses sticking out of the cabinet that houses our inside unit and water heater. A lot of cussing and head scratching (I’m grateful that I work during the day and got to miss most of this part). The maintenance men insisted that we keep the fan running at all times to keep air circulating in the apartment. They didn’t seem to realize, or perhaps didn’t care, that it was blowing warm air. We didn’t take their advice and shut it off each evening after they had left for the day. 

After another agonizing four days, the unit was replaced and it was turned on for the first time. It blew a deliciously icy blast and I sighed in relief. The only downside was that new unit is extremely noisy but hey, I can live with that as long as it cools my home. The window units were removed and we all were back in our own bedrooms. My ceiling fan, which had become my best friend in the two weeks of the repair, was off. My ears slowly returned to normal. And I stopped dreaming that I was wrapped in a cocoon of sheep’s wool in the middle of the Amazon rain forest.

Daddy

I can’t give my dad a gift for Father’s Day this year. He’s been gone for over three years now and it hasn’t gotten much easier. In fact, it’s taken me two years to finish this blog. I know that people say he’s better off since he’s no longer in pain and that is true but it doesn’t make me miss him any less. So in lieu of giving him a gift, I thought I’d give one to myself by telling everyone else about him and what made him so special to me.

Daddy was the eleventh child, next to youngest, of immigrants. His father was from Austria, his mother from Czeckloslavakia. No, I’m not going to give you a history lesson of his life. But to understand Dad, you had to know where he came from. Pap was a gruff man not given to affection. Grandma was quiet, spoke no English and, from what I understand, bitter about her arranged marriage. They moved quite a bit when Daddy was young, going where the work was. It had to be hard, especially since “foreigners” were not well accepted back in the day. As a result, Daddy was a shy man who didn’t make friends easily, although the ones he had spoke very highly of him.

Although Dad’s dream was to become a school teacher, he worked in the steel mill as a machinist to support us. He retired after forty-five years of service there. In addition to his job, he had the farm he bought from our Pap where he raised beef cattle, pigs, the occasional chicken and, of course, we six children. If anyone needed a sense of humor to go along with that, it would have been him.

And had it, he did. A very dry, often strange humor it was. I remember a commercial would come on the television for life insurance. An older couple was sitting at their kitchen table discussing their final rewards and the arrangements that would have to be made upon their passing. The punch line, if you will, of the ad was that the couple didn’t want to be a burden to their kids. They wanted all of the funeral arrangements to be made prior to their death. Every time this commercial was on, Daddy would turn to Mom and say “I think I want to be a burden to our kids. How about you, Mary?”  

Daddy wasn’t very affectionate when we were young. I guess he was too busy or, given his upbringing, just plain didn’t know how to show it. He showed his love to us in different ways other than the physical. We all had cute nicknames, ones that only he called us. Some were appreciated, others not so much (I was Sylvia, go figure). Although to this day, we call our youngest sister “Bee”, which was Dad’s name for her from birth.

No, he wasn’t affectionate but he showed his love in many ways that we learned to appreciate when we were older. If you needed a hand fixing a car or moving to a new home, Dad was there. If you were short a few dollars before payday, he would lend it. In the summer, all of our refrigerators were full of fresh vegetables from his garden. We all ate the best beef from his farm. You never went to his house without eating. He loved to feed people so we all knew to be hungry when we visited. It was his way of showing love.

What impressed me the most about my dad, made me love him even more, was the way that he took care of my mother after she had a stroke. Mom was bedridden almost from the beginning; many would have had her cared for in a nursing facility. Not my dad. From day one, he was with her in the hospital and when she was able to come home, he took care of her. He bathed her every morning, fed her all her meals and cried when she got bed sores. He sang her favorite songs and read the Bible to her because he knew she had always enjoyed both. While we kids were there to help when we could, Daddy was her caretaker for over two years, the one she trusted the most. And when she took her last breath, he was with her.

I took Dad into my home eighteen months before his death after he had fallen and could no longer live alone. While I was sad to see that he was unable to do most of the things that he loved any more, particularly his farming, I enjoyed the time I spent with him then. I grew closer to him than I had ever been, learning things about him that I had never known. He became my friend.

He shared his love of cooking (a little of this, a little of that), tried to teach me how to relax (which didn’t take) and constantly told me I needed to quit working sixty hour weeks (It’s not worth it, Sooz). He told me about his father (who spoke twelve different languages), working at the mill (Midnight shift is for crooks and whores!) and how much he enjoyed camping with us as kids (We always had good campfires, Sooz.)

What he didn’t teach me was dignity in dying. He fought it to his last breath. Six times after he moved in with me, we called the ambulance. And five times he came back. We started calling him Lazarus…you’d have to understand my family’s strange sense of humor to get that. But in the end, he had been in pain for too long and he missed his beloved Mary too much to stay. And as he was with me from my beginning, I was with him at the end (along with twenty others who loved him), holding his hand and telling him to go home.

I miss you, Daddy! Happy Father’s Day!

An Inch Shy of Stupid

Every parent/grandparent has been there. That uncomfortable moment when something a young child says makes you feel dumber than dirt. And with a child as precocious as Elijah, I’m in that moment more often than I like to admit. The child soaks up knowledge like a sponge. Remembers everything he’s told, except how to stay out of things he’s not supposed to be in, and constantly asks questions about it (refer to previous blog about that). You have to read on to see what I mean.

I was playing a fishing game with him recently and when he “caught” a whale shark, I screamed “Look out, Elijah, that shark is gonna chew you up!” He gave me his patient look, the one that makes me wonder if he’s actually an adult in a child’s body, and replied, “Yaya, whale sharks don’t use their teeth to eat. They are filter feeders.” Um, ok. Yes, I asked. “What is a filter feeder?” I’m thinking, gotcha, brain child! “They eat plankton through their gills when they swim.” Thank you, Wild Kratts, for the idiot moment I just suffered.

While looking to add to his collection of dinosaurs, we scoped out the toy store’s offerings one weekend. “Look at this cool Raptor, E.” says I. “You don’t have one of these.” With a heavy, exaggerated sigh, he says, “Yaya, that’s not a Raptor. It’s an Allosaurus. Raptors are small. An Allosaurus is HUGE!” I see I’m going to have to pay a little more attention to Dinosaur Train, which is responsible for this bit of stupidity.

I sleep with a stuffed dog named Rufus. Yes, I admit it. He’s a gift I cherish. One afternoon Elijah and I were hanging out in my bedroom and Rufus’ origin came into the conversation. I explained how I got him for Christmas from his Auntie Debbie and that he’s very special to me. “I don’t like him.” Says Elijah. “Well, he really loves you.” I replied. He gives me a very serious look, as if trying to determine my intelligence level, and says, “Yaya, he’s not real. He’s a pretend dog and they can’t love people because they’re not alive.” Well, gee. My only pet has been fake all these years and I didn’t know it?

I was teaching the boy letters and numbers not too long ago and he asked me, “Yaya, how do you know so much stuff?” “I learned it in school, baby.” He considered that and asked, “Yaya school?” “No, just regular school and college. You’ll be starting school in a couple of months and someday you will know even more than me.” He kind of laughed and informed me “I know I will.” Should have offered him chocolate instead of encouragement.

I give up. I can’t win. And he’s only four. What will I do when he’s ten? Or fifteen? I used to be competent. I had all the answers to his questions. Now I’m finding out that I’m just an average person with no idea how to keep up with his ever expanding quest for knowledge. I’m going back to school. I’m starting back at Grade One and working up from there. Maybe then I’ll have the skills to keep up with him. Or not.

The Perfect Neighbor

Moving from a home with over an acre of ground in the quiet country hills of Pennsylvania to an apartment in the city of Baton Rouge took a lot of adjustment. And to be honest, even after more than a year, I’m still adjusting. With that in mind, I decided that I would make a list of qualities a good neighbor should have and give it to the office people at the apartment complex. Just to let them know how to screen those who were to be living near me or above me or … well, you get the point. The following is what I’ve come up with (so far). My idea of the perfect neighbor.

Goes to bed at the same time as I do (or close to it). No slamming doors and drawers or stomping after I have laid my precious little head down on my pillow. Or more importantly, no waking up the kid after we fight for an hour or more trying to get him to sleep. Ditto for early morning as far as the child is concerned.

Keeps their dog from barking at me every time I go out to sit on my patio. It’s my patio. I pay for it. I do not owe any canine an explanation as to why I am there or what I am doing. I have nothing against dogs, I really don’t. As long as they are well mannered.

Keeps their dog from barking all night long. Waking up the neighborhood dogs. So they can bark all night long. Again, I have nothing against dogs. But incessant yapping really gets on my nerves, especially when it’s after midnight and I have to get up at 5:00 a.m.

Does not drive past my window after 11:00 p.m. with loud vehicles. I’m not asking much here. Just don’t drive past my place with your loud pipes and music blaring when I’m either sleeping or trying to relax. Or after the aforementioned child is asleep.

Tolerates my strays. I feed 4-6 stray cats on any given day. They sit on my patio waiting every morning. They don’t bother you or your stuff. They don’t come to your door waiting for a handout. They come to me because they know I have food for them. Just have a little compassion for them because they don’t have a home or anyone to love them.

Keeps their intimate life between themselves. I don’t want to hear your arguments…or making up…from my place of refuge. It isn’t just consideration for your neighbors, it’s respect for yourself and the person you reside with. Everyone couple argues. But when walls are paper thin, it stands to reason that you would do your fighting on a slightly lower level. As far as the making up part, if you want to be porn stars, I’m sure you can find an agent on the internet. Just don’t practice within my range of hearing.

Well, that’s pretty much it. I don’t think it’s overly obsessive. Ok, so it is. I somehow doubt that anyone will listen but it’s worth a try. At the very least, I put it down on paper and got it out of my system. Until the next dog barks. Or a loud car comes flying past at midnight. Maybe I should look in to buying an island somewhere. A place where I don’t have to worry about such matters. Does anyone know of one for sale for about … well, I have about $10 in my checking account.