Grumble, Grunt, Bitch
It’s a gorgeous, crisp, cool, clear day here in Central Texas. I walked the half mile to the office to catch up on some work, and thought I’d hit my SIR list with some coffe…
…and it’s all so damned negative, I think I’m gonna go play a game on Yahoo!.
Edit: Ok ok, with the exception of AskDennis, who saw two shooting stars, and talks about rainbows. 
THE CHRISTMAS CARDS ARE READY!
Order Fast!
In a display of Xangan teamwork at its finest, the Christmas cards are ready! Iif you order fast, you’ll have them in plenty of time to send out for the holidays.
The card is on white card stock. The front contains a lovely photo by our own http://www.xanga.com/femmedelacreme . (Also found at http://www.fotolog.net/femmedelacreme ). Underneath it says Hey… (in this font you may or may not be able to see in your viewer)
Inside it says “I‘m socially obligated as a consumer to send you seasonal greetings for this holiday that has been ass-raped by the corporate whores of our culture, but I love you anyway and hope you get laid for New Year’s.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!” (Sentiment by http://www.xanga.com/the8rgrl ).
50 cents each, complete with envelopes. PayPal to sooz@ev1.net and I’ll mail them out as soon as I get your order. Woo hoo!
Today’s Peeve
I’ve always enjoyed words, like most Xangans, I suppose (why else would we be here?) But it bugs me when people cheapen a powerful word.
Two examples came to mind today:
Nazi/Hitler.
Usage I came across: “My boss hates it when we mess around on the Internet on company time. She’s such a Nazi about it! She’s f-ing Hitler!”
Now, come on. Hitler and the Nazis he was in charge of killed and tortured thousands upon thousands of people in the most horrible ways we can think of. Can your boss really hold a candle to that? Think twice before calling someone Hitler or a Nazi… if they’re of German or Jewish descent, this could be an especially sensitive thing to say.
Rape.
Usage I came across: “I moved out with 10 months left on my lease, and the complex is trying to charge me all this money. They’re raping me!”
I’ve broken leases, and I’ve been raped, and I promise, they weren’t similar situations. I don’t know what percentage of rape survivors cringe when they hear the word used this way, but I sure do. My apartment complex never drug me to an empty building during a blizzard, disconnected the phone line and held a knife to my throat while violating me.
You
Granted, this one is a lot more subjective, but it’s just a personal thing, not really a definition-based thing.
Usage I came across: “When you’re dead, you’ll resemble rotting flesh.”
Once we die, I don’t think that our bodies are US anymore. They’re the house we lived in, sure… but what makes you love your loved ones ceases to live in the flesh house once they pass on. Who they are is still with us, and with everyone they came into contact with, and with everyone that will encounter them in some way after their body has ceased to function.
I equate it to this: If my best friend moved away, I wouldn’t go to the house he used to live in to think about him or visit him. He’s not there any more, and it just wouldn’t be much fun. I guess this also explains why I don’t visit cemeteris, or worry much whether a person chooses to be cremated or buried. It’s their business, and who they were to me isn’t dependent on it.
Ok, enough about me. What about you?
LIBERATING MYSELF
I’m making a decision… drawing a line in the sand. Finally.
First: I have emotions and feelings. They just don’t rule me.
There are people in my life that I can’t exactly get away from completely (some relatives, for example) that live their lives based on feeling and emotion. I find it exhausting and frustrating. It’s easy (especially with my mother-in-law) to get sucked into the vortex… much like being a fragment of fiber that’s in a sink, getting helplessly wooshed into the downward tornado-like spiral that is a drain. You can’t even see out of the vortex, let alone climb to freedom.
There’s people that MUST have turmoil in their life. If everything’s ok, they have to create a problem about which to fret. This is the way they’re wired, and that’s fine. It works for them, and that’s what they need. The way I am probably drives THEM nuts. They need drama, excitement, turmoil and stress. I hate those things, and trying to be close to people like that is draining me.
So, I’ve reached a decision. I’m not going to be close with people who operate from their emotions. I’m a facts-and-committment-based person, and that’s what I understand. Why should I bang heads with perfectly good people that are just wired differently than me? We can be pleasant and enjoy each other on a certain level, but I’m not going to get sucked into any more vortexes. Life’s too short to drive each other bonkers.
Whew. Glad THAT’S off my chest. 
Credit where it’s due: I learned this concept from my husband, who’s mother is the epitome of what I’m talking about. She’s all drama, all the time. I admire many, many of her traits, as does he, and of course we love her. But long ago he decided to keep a safe distance from her (from Austin to Dallas, at that time), just to keep his sanity. This works great for all of us, and I’ve learned from that. Thanks to Richie!
A friend and I had a booth at a popular two-day outdoor craft show and festival this past weekend. We sell greeting cards and paper goods (also at www.mclax.com, which isn’t finished yet, but will be someday).
So, we put our tent up, but could only find one stake. Then the wind came, thought our tent was a sail, and promply blew it over, scattering our paper goods as well. The festival hadn’t opened yet… it was still set-up time. But here’s what amazed me.
Other vendors came running over. The women with a booth next to us (selling hand-blown glass) were the first to reach us. They said something that really touched me, for some reason:
“Tell me the first thing I can do to help.”
I was flabbergasted. I’d never met this woman. I stammered “Um, get the cards, I think.” (That was our product flying around the grounds, see.) Several folks helped us rebuild our tent. None of us were tall enough to put the canopy up right, until a man with a cane came by and said “Aha! You meed a man with a stick!” He used the curved handle of his cane to catch the canopy and pull it over the tent frame.
After the mayhem had subdued, I asked the woman from the next booth why they were going so far out of their way to help us. “We’re going to be neighbors for two days!” she said, smiling.
These folks made me feel fuzzy all over all weekend long.
Follow-Up Blog
There were so many spin-off events from Patrick’s birth, I wouldn’t even know how to begin to list them. Becky’s career change to nursing was a pretty big one. I reconnected with my spirituality, though, after his birth/death… and that totally changed my world, and so much for the better.
Michael and I went our separate ways… but he called me one day, about 5 years ago, and said that he and his wife were expecting a baby boy. He asked if it was okay if he named their baby Patrick. This was such a considerate thing! I said I was thrilled for him and his wife, and thought it’d be wonderful if they named their son Patrick, and they did. The little guy’s about to start kindergarten now.
As I looked through my small memory book today, I came across a few things. Don’t feel obligated to read this… I’m just blogging for my own mental health.
The second page of Becky’s poem, titled “For The Love of Susan”… I lost the first page early on.
And so I find resolve
That I need not know why
Only that I live
And there should be glory in this alone
And I know this
For the love of Susan.
Then there was one I found somewhere, and kept:
Love does not come in sizes;
It cannot be measured by the length
Of a life.
All the pain and sorrow in your heart
Is there because you have loved.
Don’t turn away from your child’s
Brief moment with you;
Trust your broken heart.
In time, you will know its wisdom;
Love is stronger than death.
A card from Michael’s mom. She wrote:
Dunno how to express it, but I think you are very special to have had Mike’s son. We are so sorry, but I know (these three words are crossed out) heck I don’t know nothing, just feel awful, but that too will pass, give us time. Enclosed few bucks. Wish was more. Take care of yourself & Jimmy. Love, Corkey B.
From Michael’s grandmother, who passed away last year:
Hi! There! So proud to know your doing alright. My! Goodness! You’ve been through enough now for awhile. Truely hope nothing else comes up. (She discusses things happening in her town) I speck Jimmy is excited about going to school? I took Michael on his first day to school and at the bus every evening when he got off. You take care now. Everything’s gonna be alright. From Granny and Tinker (her dog)
Ten Years Ago Yesterday
(Flow of thought, here… forgive the lack of cohesiveness in this blog.)
Patrick David was born on July 7, 1992. He was my second son, but he was stillborn.
Today, Patrick’s singing and dancing and doing whatever cool things children do in heaven. And as a sweet friend said, “God’s a better parent than we are, so Patrick’s having a GREAT time!”
A 10-year old Thank You to Michael for ignoring his boss and flying back early from a business trip, risking his job, for our son’s arrival.
Michael and I were friends with a couple named Tim and Becky. They sat with me while I explained to a then-5-year-old Jimmy what happened to the baby. Tim went to the airport to get Michael, and Becky sat with me through delivery. She had no experience in the medical field — she was in accounting, for Pete’s sake! But there she sat, all day and night, holding basins for me to vomit in, changing my bedsheets when the nurses weren’t attentive, and answering the phone and saying “She’s not taking calls right now.” She and I both held Patrick for an hour, worried we would forget what he looked like.
A few years later, Becky and I drifted apart. Last I heard, she had completed Nurse Aide Training, and went on to get a degree in nursing, based on that time together with Patrick.
Then we reconnected a couple of months ago. Here’s mail I got from Becky just a few weeks ago (*note: “demise” is hospital talk for stillborn):
Do you know that yours was the first delivery I ever attended? And do you know that I have since attended some estimated 1500 deliveries? And do you know they used to pick me out of a crowd to attend demises? There was a day that I had done a record four deliveries — two sections and two vag — one very quick where I actually caught the baby myself — it was about 5 pm, 10 hours into a 12 hour shift. We were swamped and hadn’t eaten or peed. My clinical manager asks me attend a demise that was recently admitted with Dr. S_____. I thought, “I just can’t do this — I’m exhausted. Why me?” And then I thought — I’d rather it be me, exhausted and all, then another nurse who couldn’t see past not eating, not peeing and being exhausted to understand what this mom was going through. And we delivered before 7, and I stayed at the hospital until 8:30 to attend the baptism on behalf of the hospital and make sure the mom and the family was going to be okay before I truned over care.
Life Is Good
Heard a song on the radio yesterday, and it reminded me of Jimmy (15 yo son). He’s not usually into pop music, but he’s claimed the chorus as his own:
Life is good, and then you die
Don’t ask questions, baby, don’t ask why
I won’t trade places with no other guy
‘Cuz life is good.
**Edit: Thanks to venusunfolding, who let me know this song is done by Jacob Young, who also plays Lucky (Luke and Laura’s son) on General Hospital. The song, ostensibly, is about James Dean. Can you name two other singers that had pop his and also starred on General Hospital? **
