So never posted to my blog from my phone by Lantern light. The last time I went this long without power was the "No Name storm" 1991. There were t-shirts we sold at Eckerd that said,"I survived the No Name storm and had a map with it's path across the southeast US. The person that I lived with back then and I went more than 3 days without power and after the 3rd night of coming home after 12 hour days working he called the power company and I laugh now picturing the image of him and I calling from the wall phone in our kitchen and he said not so kindly to the person on the phone that he was getting frustrated with not having power every night when we got home and just had to look up the phone number in the phone book for the blanking power company like Benjamin Franklin by candlelight. I don't remember after the power was back on like that night.
God has a funny way of shining a light on important things and sometimes he has to turn off the lights for us to see. Last week before the storm my mind was having it's own tropical depression but a few visits with a couple doctors who are worth their weight in gold and I was ready to weather the storm. I know most don't want to know how scared others were and don't want to admit to themselves how real Irma was. But the few days prior to that to me was worse. I know worse than a tree falling on the house that didn't come through and the hours of sitting on the floor in the hallway praying that the guys on the weather were right before our power went off and said the worst should pass us by midnight. As I listened to my clock chime though the sound of the wind and rain thinking we just have to hold on for another hour, ok maybe one more hour, ok may be one more. That feeling for those who have never experienced it my friend is what it feels like when a person is having a panic attack. It is not the wind and rain but the quiet moment in my head trying to say the Lord's prayer for the 50th time and forgetting the words. Trying to keep your self together when the world around you is blowing by. There are a few events in life that I felt like I at least deserve a t-shirt for getting through and for the last two weeks I deserve 2. The panic like the storm has passed and my mind is as peaceful as the weather today. I am a thankful person because those moments of anguish lead to peace and tonight my friends I can say all the words to the Lord's prayer in order and will rest for tomorrow brings new challenges to all of us. Not all of them have a name or date to be remembered by. Some are just a day in the life of me. Our Father who art in heaven...
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Bringing back balance
I know it has been a while since I have written anything here. I think of things but not sure what to say. Well these last few days Anxiety has been high on my list of things I have been thinking about. Lots of things have been getting to me but there is this looming hurricane Irma out there slowly moving through the Straits of Florida hanging out off the coast of Cuba. Just putzing along at about 6 miles per hour. At this rate Irma isn't going to get here until Monday and right now those that forecast things like this expect that we should start to see conditions diminish tomorrow afternoon but it will be tomorrow night or early Monday morning before we get the worst of it. This is much slower than she was cruising along at earlier this week which keeps pushing out the inevitable of Irma making landfall somewhere in Florida unless she does what I want and keeps heading west. I hear Mexico is beautiful this time of the year. No, I truly don't wish her wrath on anyone and well especially not us. There is part of me that says you know we have had a good run. More than 50 years without a major hurricane hitting the Tampa Bay area so if we are due I hope we are prepared.
So with everything closed and most people hunkered down. It has given me some time to sit and think. While Princess and I were out in the back yard tonight and I thought how the wind and the sky remind me of when I was younger probably about 1980 and we had some storms that were pretty bad and people prepared for. Since we grew up on the beach we picked up the yard. Put down the storm shutters and rode out the storm and then went out to see what happened afterwards. I remember before one storm sitting out on the dock across the street from our house and watching people anchor their sailboats out in the bay to protect them from hitting into the seawall or dock and some even riding storms out on a boat. My brother did a few times on the fishing boat he worked on. Him and the owner's son spent the night on the boat and let out the lines as the tide rose and kept the boat from hitting into the dock.
Even back then I was always thinking about how things work and that how hurricanes are just Mother Nature's way of bringing balance back to the warm waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane gets it's energy from the warm water and as it reaches cooler water it looses strength. If the water didn't cool off then neither would the air and it would just be hot year round and algae blooms like Red Tide would just get worse each year. As strange as it seems we need the hurricanes. Tonight I was thinking how the storm brings a balance back to nature and maybe that includes us. The human beings of the world that have to control everything are reminded that we have minimal control of anything. One of the thoughts I had was about how anxious I have been lately worrying about things I can't control and worrying that I can't control them. So I said a little prayer tonight to Mother Nature that she does have control and that I am prepared to ride out the storm and will do it knowing that maybe she is bringing balance back to me as well as the water temperature in the Gulf.
Surprisingly I felt better afterwards and thought it may be so. Maybe we all need the barometric pressure to drop and the wind and rain to remind us that family and friends are important and everything else can be replaced. To all my friends and family that are hunkered down at home I am praying that all of us come through this experience a little more balanced and that we all remember the things that are important are not things at all. Amen.
So with everything closed and most people hunkered down. It has given me some time to sit and think. While Princess and I were out in the back yard tonight and I thought how the wind and the sky remind me of when I was younger probably about 1980 and we had some storms that were pretty bad and people prepared for. Since we grew up on the beach we picked up the yard. Put down the storm shutters and rode out the storm and then went out to see what happened afterwards. I remember before one storm sitting out on the dock across the street from our house and watching people anchor their sailboats out in the bay to protect them from hitting into the seawall or dock and some even riding storms out on a boat. My brother did a few times on the fishing boat he worked on. Him and the owner's son spent the night on the boat and let out the lines as the tide rose and kept the boat from hitting into the dock.
Even back then I was always thinking about how things work and that how hurricanes are just Mother Nature's way of bringing balance back to the warm waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane gets it's energy from the warm water and as it reaches cooler water it looses strength. If the water didn't cool off then neither would the air and it would just be hot year round and algae blooms like Red Tide would just get worse each year. As strange as it seems we need the hurricanes. Tonight I was thinking how the storm brings a balance back to nature and maybe that includes us. The human beings of the world that have to control everything are reminded that we have minimal control of anything. One of the thoughts I had was about how anxious I have been lately worrying about things I can't control and worrying that I can't control them. So I said a little prayer tonight to Mother Nature that she does have control and that I am prepared to ride out the storm and will do it knowing that maybe she is bringing balance back to me as well as the water temperature in the Gulf.
Surprisingly I felt better afterwards and thought it may be so. Maybe we all need the barometric pressure to drop and the wind and rain to remind us that family and friends are important and everything else can be replaced. To all my friends and family that are hunkered down at home I am praying that all of us come through this experience a little more balanced and that we all remember the things that are important are not things at all. Amen.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Loyalty Anyone?
I was at the bank last week and at the end of my transaction the teller said to me,"You have been a customer here for 25 years. Thanks for your loyalty." I thought that was funny because I have had the same acct number for the last 25 years but I haven't had the same bank for 25 years. The bank I think has changed names at least 3 times. Which in this day an age is probably not a lot. Then I started thinking about other things that I have done the same for a long time. I mean the cell phone company we use can't believe we have been customers for 18 years. But again, we have had the same acct but the company has changed 3 times. All of this seems ordinary for me to have been doing things the same way for a long time but I guess to others it isn't the norm.
Even talking to a Financial Adviser about refinancing my house I only assumed that I would refinance with the same company that our home has been financed with for the last 13 years. He recommended shopping around. I understand I could possibly get a better price but the thing is I am used to the level of service I get now. That might change and I don't want to change just to save a few percentage points, do I? Then I thought would this person recommend me shopping around for a new adviser? Probably not.
My first full time job I worked for the same company for over 20 years. I worked many different jobs within the company and would still be there if it wasn't for a buy out and the corporate office moving out of state. I have joked that no one ever told me I was supposed to quit my first job. So I waited for them to quit me. I am sure the company I work for now like every other one I have ever worked for I will not leave til they quit me which should make many happy. And I am sure the company I work for wouldn't recommend you shopping around for a new cable provider. I am sure my insurance agent of God knows how many years who worked with my mom and grandmother wouldn't want me to change either.
Yet for some reason now a days people change cell phone carriers every other year and jobs just as often. One thing I learned when I was about 20 years old from one of my best friends who was quit by his first job and had to start over with another company was that the grass is not greener on the other side. It is merely the angle which you are looking at the grass I believe that makes it appear greener. So why do people change things so often?
I have had the same best friend more than half of my life and I am not looking for best friend 2.0 or husband 2.0 as Brian likes to joke. I am happy with the same friend and same husband I have always had.
So I looked up the definition of Loyalty: faithfulness to commitment or obligation, the quality or state or instance of being loyal.
Well this is definitely me. I am committed to my obligations and faithful to a fault. Til death do us part is not just words I said in front of a bunch of people to Brian almost 20 years ago. I mean them as much today as I did then. But I would also say that even if you are a friend of mine and we never stood in front of our friends and family and pledged allegiance to each other I extend the same to you. I will not quit you until you have quit me.
I don't know if everyone in the world is as lucky as I to have worked for the same company for so long but in those 20 years I worked for the same company I made lots of friends that also worked for that company for a long time. There was a group we called the "Lunch Bunch" that ate lunch together every day for maybe 10 years and even now 12 years since the last time we worked together we still try to get together a few times a year and have a meal and talk about what is new.
I am not sure if it was nature or nurture that caused me to be so loyal. But for people that have lots of new things and new friends don't you sometimes want someone that shared the old times with to talk to. Someone that knows your story that knows the ups and the downs of your life and you know theirs to share time with. To laugh and cry about the things that were done years ago but to go and have new adventures with. So while you are in some new place doing some new thing you remind each other of some time years ago that you did something similar but yet the experience is different today. It is different because you had that experience years ago. You knew what to now expect. Isn't that what I said in the beginning about why I was loyal. I know what to expect.
Hmm. I am happy with the friends I have and the family God gave me and the job I have. I may cry about all of them and whine about some of them but I know what to expect and the same goes for the companies I have done business with for years. You know me and I know you and well until you change I am not going to change either.
Even talking to a Financial Adviser about refinancing my house I only assumed that I would refinance with the same company that our home has been financed with for the last 13 years. He recommended shopping around. I understand I could possibly get a better price but the thing is I am used to the level of service I get now. That might change and I don't want to change just to save a few percentage points, do I? Then I thought would this person recommend me shopping around for a new adviser? Probably not.
My first full time job I worked for the same company for over 20 years. I worked many different jobs within the company and would still be there if it wasn't for a buy out and the corporate office moving out of state. I have joked that no one ever told me I was supposed to quit my first job. So I waited for them to quit me. I am sure the company I work for now like every other one I have ever worked for I will not leave til they quit me which should make many happy. And I am sure the company I work for wouldn't recommend you shopping around for a new cable provider. I am sure my insurance agent of God knows how many years who worked with my mom and grandmother wouldn't want me to change either.
Yet for some reason now a days people change cell phone carriers every other year and jobs just as often. One thing I learned when I was about 20 years old from one of my best friends who was quit by his first job and had to start over with another company was that the grass is not greener on the other side. It is merely the angle which you are looking at the grass I believe that makes it appear greener. So why do people change things so often?
I have had the same best friend more than half of my life and I am not looking for best friend 2.0 or husband 2.0 as Brian likes to joke. I am happy with the same friend and same husband I have always had.
So I looked up the definition of Loyalty: faithfulness to commitment or obligation, the quality or state or instance of being loyal.
Well this is definitely me. I am committed to my obligations and faithful to a fault. Til death do us part is not just words I said in front of a bunch of people to Brian almost 20 years ago. I mean them as much today as I did then. But I would also say that even if you are a friend of mine and we never stood in front of our friends and family and pledged allegiance to each other I extend the same to you. I will not quit you until you have quit me.
I don't know if everyone in the world is as lucky as I to have worked for the same company for so long but in those 20 years I worked for the same company I made lots of friends that also worked for that company for a long time. There was a group we called the "Lunch Bunch" that ate lunch together every day for maybe 10 years and even now 12 years since the last time we worked together we still try to get together a few times a year and have a meal and talk about what is new.
I am not sure if it was nature or nurture that caused me to be so loyal. But for people that have lots of new things and new friends don't you sometimes want someone that shared the old times with to talk to. Someone that knows your story that knows the ups and the downs of your life and you know theirs to share time with. To laugh and cry about the things that were done years ago but to go and have new adventures with. So while you are in some new place doing some new thing you remind each other of some time years ago that you did something similar but yet the experience is different today. It is different because you had that experience years ago. You knew what to now expect. Isn't that what I said in the beginning about why I was loyal. I know what to expect.
Hmm. I am happy with the friends I have and the family God gave me and the job I have. I may cry about all of them and whine about some of them but I know what to expect and the same goes for the companies I have done business with for years. You know me and I know you and well until you change I am not going to change either.
Monday, June 12, 2017
The Home Version
Today I am writing the home version of Before the hot water runs out. One of my favorite posts ever about how my brain never shuts down and the crazy places it can go in the time it takes me to take a shower.
Tomorrow was to be the day that my brother closed on mom's house but as things go it happened a few days early. And I didn't know until it was over that it was done. I was sad. Felt like that last trip down to the house by myself to clean the pool was ripped away. I know no one cries over not getting to clean the pool. I have been doing it for about 20 years. But I have added checking the mail and taking out the trash or pulling back the trash cans in the last 5 months since the house has been empty and for the most part the others had stopped going. Last week I had picked up the chlorine jugs to return to the pool supply store and didn't do it basically because it was too sad of a thing to do. So this week I thought it was crazy to be sad over such a thing and returned the jugs and cried. Yes, I cried while returning the chlorine jugs to the pool supply store. Through the years of me taking mom and grandma out on their Friday outings to when it was just me and mom and for this last year it has been me by myself. The guy was very nice as he has always been. He said, "it has been a pleasure to serve you and your family all these years and if you ever have a pool..."
So as I showered today I was thinking: Well, I don't think we could have a pool because of the way our back yard is. It would cost a fortune, there is no access except the gate we walk through and there is a huge oak tree that would hang over the pool if it survived the pool being built. But as long as we have lived in this house I have wished to buy the house next door and tear it down and build an addition to our house it would like our house have big windows and bright rooms and clay tile floors and yes out back have a pool. The house has even been foreclosed on in the time we have lived here but it was not a time that we could have bought it.
While I was thinking all these thoughts and a quote from the end of a movie came to mind. I knew it was one of my favorite movies. My first guess was wrong but after I thought again I knew it was from Hope Floats: Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it is what's in the middle that counts. So when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will."
And today I find myself again at a new beginning and at the same time at an end of a very long run so yes, I am sad. My youngest sister went down to the house for the one last visit and took some pictures which we have all the way. Pictures of how it was and how it is. I wanted one last family picture but it wasn't meant to be. Maybe not as sad as I thought I would be. Which may be a good thing. My heart has accepted what I knew had to come. I always think of a quote from American Pickers, " I just want to buy the piece, not your memories." Because the value you put on something you find to be sentimental is way more than the value of the object. Somethings are never going to be for sale and others will with time be able to be parted with. I have learned through this process that sometimes the person buying the object wants the memories as well but just to know them not to take them and appreciates the love you have for the person that owned the object before them.
The last thing I wanted to do was leave a note for the people buying the house. Again my sister said, she did leave a note stuck to the refrigerator. Just something short saying a really great family lived here and hope you enjoy the house as much as they did.
So here is my letter to the family that now owns the house that I called home for most of my life and then I referred to it as mom's house. I will miss that house but I will always have the memories.
Dear Family,
I hope you have a big family enough to fill all the bedrooms of this house with love and laughter. They don't have to be young children but if they are make sure they get outside and play. There are so many things to see and learn on this beach. They may have to look a little harder with all the condo's and hotels and beach umbrellas but they are still there. The sand and the shells are full of live creatures that are begging to be found. The water at the beach is best in the early morning or in the evening before the sun sets. Usually pretty calm at those times and not as many people out. When the water is calm and the tide is low you can get out to the sand bar and find sand dollars and see other things along the bottom. Maybe even some fish. Be sure to shuffle your feet there are sting rays out there and no one wants a day at the beach spoiled by that. Whatever you do find if it is still alive let it live unless you plan on eating it. The shells are pretty but there are plenty that aren't housing live creatures that you can take home.
We always had a small sail boat another must have on the beach. Once you have explored everything within walking distance you can go further north past the end of the houses and there is lots more to find. A lot less people. The small islands in the bay are called spoils created by the water moving the sand around. Be careful of the weather in the summer a storm can come up out of no where and it will probably pass just as fast but you need to be prepared.
As for at home. The pool has been a great addition even though we never had that luxury as a kid we had to cut the grass where all that concrete lays now. We also had a garden back there. Back under the tree. Mom loved that Spanish Laurel Tree. It drops berries that smell as they ferment but the birds love them so they will take care of most. Don't let them lie at the bottom of the pool. It will stain it. If you get back under that tree and clean out all the over growth don't dig to deep. That was our pet cemetery it was used for the rabbits and birds we had as kids and for some of the cats I had as an adult. They were all great animals and were placed there with love and some even with pictures.
Inside, mom always had a chair in the kitchen so whomever was over could sit with her while she cooked or as she got older so she could sit with whomever was cooking for her. It was always nice hanging out in there. The dining room leads right into the living room to the fire place so you can easily seat 25 or so people for a big family meal if you have enough folding tables and chairs. Mom always kept the folding tables and chairs in the front closet so they were easy to get to. You never knew when there would be extra people for dinner.
Speaking of extra people. For years the house had an open door policy. Pretty much the door was always open and after we added the pool and there was no door bell on the back door you would just walk in and holler, "hey mom are you in here". If not in the house she would have been outside working in the yard pulling weeds. Be careful you may consider some of the things weeds that she considered to be plants. A weed is just a plant growing where you don't want it. But the yellow flowers that open during the day and grow wild in the yard are called Cuban Buttercups. They grow great where they want but we never had much luck with moving them. The succulent plant under the oak tree in the front yard is referred to as Al's plant. He brought home a little pot of it in maybe 4th grade and it took over out there over the years. mom liked that it was less grass to cut but then more weeds to pull. Under that front window is a row of rain lillys. Those were always mom's favorite. We even have some planted for her at the cemetery. There is also the wild periwinkles again they grow great where they want but don't if moved and the hibiscus near the front door. Mr and Mrs Lindsey planted that for mom oh so many years ago. They were the sweetest people in the world and when you see those beautiful yellow flowers remember the ones that planted it and the lady that loved it all these years.
I know the house needs a coat of paint and a little work but one thing you will never take away is all the love that was in that house. Love for a family and love for the house itself and like everything sometimes you have to let one thing go to take care of something else. So add the coat of paint and some fancy appliances and fill them with food because that house will fill itself with people to eat the food and enjoy the house and the yard and the pool and fill itself with love and laughter again.
Love, Jeanne
Tomorrow was to be the day that my brother closed on mom's house but as things go it happened a few days early. And I didn't know until it was over that it was done. I was sad. Felt like that last trip down to the house by myself to clean the pool was ripped away. I know no one cries over not getting to clean the pool. I have been doing it for about 20 years. But I have added checking the mail and taking out the trash or pulling back the trash cans in the last 5 months since the house has been empty and for the most part the others had stopped going. Last week I had picked up the chlorine jugs to return to the pool supply store and didn't do it basically because it was too sad of a thing to do. So this week I thought it was crazy to be sad over such a thing and returned the jugs and cried. Yes, I cried while returning the chlorine jugs to the pool supply store. Through the years of me taking mom and grandma out on their Friday outings to when it was just me and mom and for this last year it has been me by myself. The guy was very nice as he has always been. He said, "it has been a pleasure to serve you and your family all these years and if you ever have a pool..."
So as I showered today I was thinking: Well, I don't think we could have a pool because of the way our back yard is. It would cost a fortune, there is no access except the gate we walk through and there is a huge oak tree that would hang over the pool if it survived the pool being built. But as long as we have lived in this house I have wished to buy the house next door and tear it down and build an addition to our house it would like our house have big windows and bright rooms and clay tile floors and yes out back have a pool. The house has even been foreclosed on in the time we have lived here but it was not a time that we could have bought it.
While I was thinking all these thoughts and a quote from the end of a movie came to mind. I knew it was one of my favorite movies. My first guess was wrong but after I thought again I knew it was from Hope Floats: Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it is what's in the middle that counts. So when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will."
And today I find myself again at a new beginning and at the same time at an end of a very long run so yes, I am sad. My youngest sister went down to the house for the one last visit and took some pictures which we have all the way. Pictures of how it was and how it is. I wanted one last family picture but it wasn't meant to be. Maybe not as sad as I thought I would be. Which may be a good thing. My heart has accepted what I knew had to come. I always think of a quote from American Pickers, " I just want to buy the piece, not your memories." Because the value you put on something you find to be sentimental is way more than the value of the object. Somethings are never going to be for sale and others will with time be able to be parted with. I have learned through this process that sometimes the person buying the object wants the memories as well but just to know them not to take them and appreciates the love you have for the person that owned the object before them.
The last thing I wanted to do was leave a note for the people buying the house. Again my sister said, she did leave a note stuck to the refrigerator. Just something short saying a really great family lived here and hope you enjoy the house as much as they did.
So here is my letter to the family that now owns the house that I called home for most of my life and then I referred to it as mom's house. I will miss that house but I will always have the memories.
Dear Family,
I hope you have a big family enough to fill all the bedrooms of this house with love and laughter. They don't have to be young children but if they are make sure they get outside and play. There are so many things to see and learn on this beach. They may have to look a little harder with all the condo's and hotels and beach umbrellas but they are still there. The sand and the shells are full of live creatures that are begging to be found. The water at the beach is best in the early morning or in the evening before the sun sets. Usually pretty calm at those times and not as many people out. When the water is calm and the tide is low you can get out to the sand bar and find sand dollars and see other things along the bottom. Maybe even some fish. Be sure to shuffle your feet there are sting rays out there and no one wants a day at the beach spoiled by that. Whatever you do find if it is still alive let it live unless you plan on eating it. The shells are pretty but there are plenty that aren't housing live creatures that you can take home.
We always had a small sail boat another must have on the beach. Once you have explored everything within walking distance you can go further north past the end of the houses and there is lots more to find. A lot less people. The small islands in the bay are called spoils created by the water moving the sand around. Be careful of the weather in the summer a storm can come up out of no where and it will probably pass just as fast but you need to be prepared.
As for at home. The pool has been a great addition even though we never had that luxury as a kid we had to cut the grass where all that concrete lays now. We also had a garden back there. Back under the tree. Mom loved that Spanish Laurel Tree. It drops berries that smell as they ferment but the birds love them so they will take care of most. Don't let them lie at the bottom of the pool. It will stain it. If you get back under that tree and clean out all the over growth don't dig to deep. That was our pet cemetery it was used for the rabbits and birds we had as kids and for some of the cats I had as an adult. They were all great animals and were placed there with love and some even with pictures.
Inside, mom always had a chair in the kitchen so whomever was over could sit with her while she cooked or as she got older so she could sit with whomever was cooking for her. It was always nice hanging out in there. The dining room leads right into the living room to the fire place so you can easily seat 25 or so people for a big family meal if you have enough folding tables and chairs. Mom always kept the folding tables and chairs in the front closet so they were easy to get to. You never knew when there would be extra people for dinner.
Speaking of extra people. For years the house had an open door policy. Pretty much the door was always open and after we added the pool and there was no door bell on the back door you would just walk in and holler, "hey mom are you in here". If not in the house she would have been outside working in the yard pulling weeds. Be careful you may consider some of the things weeds that she considered to be plants. A weed is just a plant growing where you don't want it. But the yellow flowers that open during the day and grow wild in the yard are called Cuban Buttercups. They grow great where they want but we never had much luck with moving them. The succulent plant under the oak tree in the front yard is referred to as Al's plant. He brought home a little pot of it in maybe 4th grade and it took over out there over the years. mom liked that it was less grass to cut but then more weeds to pull. Under that front window is a row of rain lillys. Those were always mom's favorite. We even have some planted for her at the cemetery. There is also the wild periwinkles again they grow great where they want but don't if moved and the hibiscus near the front door. Mr and Mrs Lindsey planted that for mom oh so many years ago. They were the sweetest people in the world and when you see those beautiful yellow flowers remember the ones that planted it and the lady that loved it all these years.I know the house needs a coat of paint and a little work but one thing you will never take away is all the love that was in that house. Love for a family and love for the house itself and like everything sometimes you have to let one thing go to take care of something else. So add the coat of paint and some fancy appliances and fill them with food because that house will fill itself with people to eat the food and enjoy the house and the yard and the pool and fill itself with love and laughter again.
Love, Jeanne
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Thanks for being a friend
I wrote back in 2013 about being friends in this day and age and the likes of Facebook (just a little play on words). And over the last few years people I haven't seen in years have requested me to be friends with them again. So many are people that I went to elementary school with and some even still live in the area and it is nice to see what they are up to and what is going on in their lives. Nice to see they are doing well and just like any friend to support them when they are going through a rough patch. But there is nothing quite like getting together and having a meal and talking.
Over the last few weeks I have been out with or talked on the phone with 3 different friends that I have know for about 30 years each. I have always said that one thing that I learned as a kid was to be loyal. And I can say that the friends I have are amazing. I have written about all the funny stories from back in my store days at Eckerd and the trouble I should have gotten into but the funny thing is that if I pick up the phone and call any one or all of the people from back in the day or if they called me I would do anything for any of them. Friendship is like marriage you can always fall back and one of them will be there to pick you up.
So a couple weeks ago I had lunch with my friend Sandy, We were in band together. She said the other day how I always said the funniest things at the right time. I always remember us that we could just look at the other and start laughing just like with our friend Jane from back in the day. I don't know if every kid enjoys band like we did but God those were the days. Well, I hadn't seen Sandy since soon after high school. Not sure why we lost touch with each other but it happens. Funny thing when we met up it was as if it had only been a few months except for the fact that we had to catch up on all those 30 years. What happened after high school and that I had been with Brian for more than 20 years and that I worked for Eckerd's for that long as well but have another job now that I have been at for 5 years. She had been in the Air Force when I last saw her but she went to college afterwards. She has moved all over the country and me well I have been right here keeping the home fires burning. We talked about all the love and loss and we shared a lot. The waitress at the restaurant thought we would not stop talking long enough to order and then probably thought we would never leave after we were done eating. We talked about the people we kept up with and the ones that we miss. It was a great afternoon. Can't wait to see her again.
Then just this Friday I had breakfast with Tracy and we had the best time together. I just don't think I could ever express how appreciative I am to her for her friendship. It takes us just as long to catch up on a few weeks but it is our thing we do. Have breakfast and talk and laugh and sometimes cry. I thank God for her every day.
Yesterday after having the house tented for Termites and finally getting back in after being out for 3 days I got a call from Scotty. I always laugh at us, two unassuming friends we started off together in the store and moved on to corporate together and we ate lunch together everyday for more than 10 years and now when we get on the phone we have to catch up on all the things we would have discussed over lunch. Which movies has he seen and which Brian will watch and ones he isn't going to sit through. He tells of the plays or other cool New York stuff he has done. We talk about work and everything else in life and remind each other how great it is when we get to talk.
May not seem like anything exciting for most. Certainly not worth getting up at 5AM to write about but these are just a few of my friends that I try to keep in touch with. These are the people that keep my head above the water in the ocean of life and encourage me to keep swimming. That I can get through whatever it is I am going through and I am there for them to reassure them that they are much stronger than they believe as well. No one is in this ocean alone, There is always someone to reach out to and grab hold of when you need a lift. I know people try to do the same on the internet and there are people that will reach out but no imoge can do what a hug or visiting with an old friend over a meal can do. Maybe we should all plan to get together more and put down all these smart devices and hang out with some really smart friends. I am just glad that over the years I have always remembered my love for these and many more friends. And getting together with them for an hour every few months is way better than anything else in the world.
So to all of you who read this far. As the Golden Girls theme says, "Thank you for being a friend."
Over the last few weeks I have been out with or talked on the phone with 3 different friends that I have know for about 30 years each. I have always said that one thing that I learned as a kid was to be loyal. And I can say that the friends I have are amazing. I have written about all the funny stories from back in my store days at Eckerd and the trouble I should have gotten into but the funny thing is that if I pick up the phone and call any one or all of the people from back in the day or if they called me I would do anything for any of them. Friendship is like marriage you can always fall back and one of them will be there to pick you up.
So a couple weeks ago I had lunch with my friend Sandy, We were in band together. She said the other day how I always said the funniest things at the right time. I always remember us that we could just look at the other and start laughing just like with our friend Jane from back in the day. I don't know if every kid enjoys band like we did but God those were the days. Well, I hadn't seen Sandy since soon after high school. Not sure why we lost touch with each other but it happens. Funny thing when we met up it was as if it had only been a few months except for the fact that we had to catch up on all those 30 years. What happened after high school and that I had been with Brian for more than 20 years and that I worked for Eckerd's for that long as well but have another job now that I have been at for 5 years. She had been in the Air Force when I last saw her but she went to college afterwards. She has moved all over the country and me well I have been right here keeping the home fires burning. We talked about all the love and loss and we shared a lot. The waitress at the restaurant thought we would not stop talking long enough to order and then probably thought we would never leave after we were done eating. We talked about the people we kept up with and the ones that we miss. It was a great afternoon. Can't wait to see her again.
Then just this Friday I had breakfast with Tracy and we had the best time together. I just don't think I could ever express how appreciative I am to her for her friendship. It takes us just as long to catch up on a few weeks but it is our thing we do. Have breakfast and talk and laugh and sometimes cry. I thank God for her every day.
Yesterday after having the house tented for Termites and finally getting back in after being out for 3 days I got a call from Scotty. I always laugh at us, two unassuming friends we started off together in the store and moved on to corporate together and we ate lunch together everyday for more than 10 years and now when we get on the phone we have to catch up on all the things we would have discussed over lunch. Which movies has he seen and which Brian will watch and ones he isn't going to sit through. He tells of the plays or other cool New York stuff he has done. We talk about work and everything else in life and remind each other how great it is when we get to talk.
May not seem like anything exciting for most. Certainly not worth getting up at 5AM to write about but these are just a few of my friends that I try to keep in touch with. These are the people that keep my head above the water in the ocean of life and encourage me to keep swimming. That I can get through whatever it is I am going through and I am there for them to reassure them that they are much stronger than they believe as well. No one is in this ocean alone, There is always someone to reach out to and grab hold of when you need a lift. I know people try to do the same on the internet and there are people that will reach out but no imoge can do what a hug or visiting with an old friend over a meal can do. Maybe we should all plan to get together more and put down all these smart devices and hang out with some really smart friends. I am just glad that over the years I have always remembered my love for these and many more friends. And getting together with them for an hour every few months is way better than anything else in the world.
So to all of you who read this far. As the Golden Girls theme says, "Thank you for being a friend."
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Good-bye friend
So I learned a secret last week at work. A secret that the person that I sat next to had gave their notice and was leaving. Now in the three years I have sat at my desk this person has sat by me for maybe a year and a half.
I feel as though I have lost a friend. Not the friend that you gossip about work or the friend that you eat lunch with but this is the friend that at the end of the night while my mom was sick I would cry to in the middle of the parking lot about how hard it is to take care of her and this person listened. Listened in the way only a person who had been a caregiver of a sick relative can listen. Listen as only a person who had walked more miles in those shoes than I would have a chance to. Listen like a life long friend.
This person was so private and yet so giving. Sharing only what had to be shared but always knowing what had to be shared. Not giving away too much. So this very private person told the management not to let others know that notice had been given. And in return they didn't. So no fanfare for a partner in crime or no cake or cookies to be had. Just a quiet good-bye at the end of the night with post it notes exchanged with phone numbers between us.
I actually had a dream last night of what it will be like tomorrow when I go in and the desk is empty. I already know because I had a call at the end of the night that kept me later so my dream was pretty close.
In the world of work I know there is no time for grieving for the loss of a comrade. Just one of the newer people will be given that desk and and they will wipe it down and adjust the chair and put up their name on the wall and it will become theirs. This is the part of working in a place where turn over is part of life and it is a part I don't care for. Back in my Eckerd days I was known to not be open to new people and basically because they wouldn't stick it out for the long haul. In my almost 33 working years I have worked for 3 companies full time. 21 years at the first, 6 years at the second and now I have been here 5. At Eckerds my friends had all been around and I am still friends with them and most of us would still be at those jobs had CVS not closed the office we worked at. I know I am a good employee but good employee's don't last forever and change is so hard. And no matter how hard I work I worry that the job I do well just may not be good enough.
Seems today people think a job is like well everything in life is replaceable. And I the employee well I am replaceable as well. I mean if all you have to do is wipe down a desk and adjust a chair who's to say my chair won't be taken up by another new person another day. My friend next to me was hired by my supervisors but had to be a gift from God. I wish I could share all the laughs in our corner and all the tears. I am usually the one listening to people's stories and trying to guide them along their path but this person my friend was definitely sent to show me that I could move on and that I could change. And that life can be good maybe not in the way it was good before but good none the less.
I know there are some that are thinking well that person is probably moving on to better things. And knowing this person the way I do which really is not at all. That person will be fine. See I thought about calling this post by the person's name and I thought about using letters of the person's name through out the blog to be clever but this person is so much more clever than that. So instead I will not give away the sex or the age or any other clue of the person that sat next to me. I will only say to the next person that shares a space with this person will be the lucky one.
Good Luck my friend in whatever you do and know that you will not soon be forgotten in my little corner of the office.
I feel as though I have lost a friend. Not the friend that you gossip about work or the friend that you eat lunch with but this is the friend that at the end of the night while my mom was sick I would cry to in the middle of the parking lot about how hard it is to take care of her and this person listened. Listened in the way only a person who had been a caregiver of a sick relative can listen. Listen as only a person who had walked more miles in those shoes than I would have a chance to. Listen like a life long friend.
This person was so private and yet so giving. Sharing only what had to be shared but always knowing what had to be shared. Not giving away too much. So this very private person told the management not to let others know that notice had been given. And in return they didn't. So no fanfare for a partner in crime or no cake or cookies to be had. Just a quiet good-bye at the end of the night with post it notes exchanged with phone numbers between us.
I actually had a dream last night of what it will be like tomorrow when I go in and the desk is empty. I already know because I had a call at the end of the night that kept me later so my dream was pretty close.
In the world of work I know there is no time for grieving for the loss of a comrade. Just one of the newer people will be given that desk and and they will wipe it down and adjust the chair and put up their name on the wall and it will become theirs. This is the part of working in a place where turn over is part of life and it is a part I don't care for. Back in my Eckerd days I was known to not be open to new people and basically because they wouldn't stick it out for the long haul. In my almost 33 working years I have worked for 3 companies full time. 21 years at the first, 6 years at the second and now I have been here 5. At Eckerds my friends had all been around and I am still friends with them and most of us would still be at those jobs had CVS not closed the office we worked at. I know I am a good employee but good employee's don't last forever and change is so hard. And no matter how hard I work I worry that the job I do well just may not be good enough.
Seems today people think a job is like well everything in life is replaceable. And I the employee well I am replaceable as well. I mean if all you have to do is wipe down a desk and adjust a chair who's to say my chair won't be taken up by another new person another day. My friend next to me was hired by my supervisors but had to be a gift from God. I wish I could share all the laughs in our corner and all the tears. I am usually the one listening to people's stories and trying to guide them along their path but this person my friend was definitely sent to show me that I could move on and that I could change. And that life can be good maybe not in the way it was good before but good none the less.
I know there are some that are thinking well that person is probably moving on to better things. And knowing this person the way I do which really is not at all. That person will be fine. See I thought about calling this post by the person's name and I thought about using letters of the person's name through out the blog to be clever but this person is so much more clever than that. So instead I will not give away the sex or the age or any other clue of the person that sat next to me. I will only say to the next person that shares a space with this person will be the lucky one.
Good Luck my friend in whatever you do and know that you will not soon be forgotten in my little corner of the office.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
The South
A show on TV got me thinking last night and got me up early this morning. The show was on National Geographic channel and it was about the south. Not south like Florida but "The South". You know like south of the Mason Dixon south. For those that don't know the Mason Dixon line is the border between Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. A divide between slave states and free states. A line drawn in the sand basically to stop to families from fighting over the border between their lands. The line was drawn and marked by large blocks over the 300 mile border by two men named you guessed Mason and Dixon. An Astronomer and a Surveyor in the late 1730's.
I thought so much on this show that I got up and watched it again this morning. On the show,Uncensored with Michael Ware he was trying to explain to everyone else in the world the differences about the south. The history, the land and of course the people. What is different about people from a place where time doesn't move as fast as it does north of the Mason Dixon line. Seemed like race was what he wanted to discuss, but an Artist Jonathan Greene from Charleston, SC said it wasn't a monochromatic thing and meant it. It is a cultural thing and bringing the history with them and trying to deal with it the best they can. Mom would have liked his mindset. Food and family and a sense of place. A sense of being. By the way absolutely beautiful artwork.
Some of the people spoke of etiquette and civility but the word that really caught my ear was decorum. A man that was basically a party crasher said he is accepted at these events because he knows how to act. But I think those things the etiquette and civility of the south are how you should act but by Google's definition decorum is behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety. To which I had to follow up with the definition of propriety, the details or rules of behavior conventionally considered to be correct. I would have more simply defined it as knowing how to act based on where you are.
Mom always wanted us to behave as we should when we were in front of certain people. There was a way to speak in front of my grandmother and grandfather or other relatives. Especially when you visit their house. There was a way you behave at the table and a way to behave at church. Which made me think of the picture on the internet of a woman sitting inappropriately on the couch in the Oval Office while a formal picture is being taken. Some say that the problem is that she has her feet on the couch. I don't have a problem with feet on the couch in your own house but when you are a lady wearing a dress you should act appropriately for a lady wearing a dress as well as a lady visiting the Oval Office weather you work in the office or not. A picture is worth a 1000 words. I thought when I saw the picture that a woman wearing a dress of an age above childhood should not be sitting on her knees. If you would like to tuck one leg under yourself with the other on the floor would have been more appropriate than kneeling on the furniture. That was inappropriate decorum.
Throughout the show people spoke of tradition. One person spoke of land that had been in their family for over a 100 years and one referred to themselves as stewards of the land. Another concept some don't get. Just because you own the land doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. You have to think of the implications on the environment. Not just how big of a house can I build and these trees will grow back. Which follows suite with the book I just finished reading Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray who shared how being raised in a junk yard in Georgia got her to study ecology and the effect we have on the environment especially the environment of the longleaf pine.
Another lesson mom always wanted to impress upon us was that once it is gone you can't always get it back. I remember how she fought to not have the Surfside Holiday Inn built on the north end of the beach. Once they build one high rise there is no stopping them from building more. Well another 20 years later and guess what. It is now a rare thing to find a mom and pop motel that a family can afford to stay in on the beach and to some that is ok but to my mom that in itself was a crime. People should be able to afford to come and visit our beautiful beach and enjoy fresh fish and spend a day at the beach without getting their car towed or paying $10 to park their car. But some would say she was standing in the way of progress.
On the show they spoke of progress being part of the problem and the solution. One person said he wished South Carolina was more like the rest of America and he said but he feels America has become more like South Carolina. Some people are trying to bring back some of the food and culture to the area that has been lost over time and others just want to rehash what everyone already thinks that people of the south are all racist and keep pushing that idea into the media and further impressing it among the general population that, that is the way it is in the south. I know everyone is not racist.
I think some of my mother's sense came from her family history. They had lived in the same city for over 100 years. Her family was in Louisville, Ky before the Civil War started. Some of her family was in Indiana 50 years before that. At some point I believe the south is in our dna. Even though it is technically considered a northern state. Knowing how to behave isn't enough if we don't share the stories and beliefs of those before us with the children of today. Otherwise how will they learn. I know it is not transferred through dna. The kids have to be shown that they have it in them. They need to sit at the knee of a person that has experienced things and learn why they happened and not just read them on the internet. They need to know how to behave while they are sitting at that person's knee. How to act at a party and when you are invited to a person's house you bring a gift or an offering of food to show your appreciation for them having you over. I know these things seem silly. People today are so casual in action and dress and never go to a place where you have to dress a certain way so when invited they don't know how to act.
To me that is the romance of the south. The love of your history good and bad. The love of your food and knowing that your grandmother used to make and love the same things that you love. The love of place and the land. Appreciating the natural resources you have and not exploiting them. Those are the lessons mom would have wanted to impress upon the future and I will have to agree. I don't think this knowledge is something we can afford to skip a generation.
I thought so much on this show that I got up and watched it again this morning. On the show,Uncensored with Michael Ware he was trying to explain to everyone else in the world the differences about the south. The history, the land and of course the people. What is different about people from a place where time doesn't move as fast as it does north of the Mason Dixon line. Seemed like race was what he wanted to discuss, but an Artist Jonathan Greene from Charleston, SC said it wasn't a monochromatic thing and meant it. It is a cultural thing and bringing the history with them and trying to deal with it the best they can. Mom would have liked his mindset. Food and family and a sense of place. A sense of being. By the way absolutely beautiful artwork.
Some of the people spoke of etiquette and civility but the word that really caught my ear was decorum. A man that was basically a party crasher said he is accepted at these events because he knows how to act. But I think those things the etiquette and civility of the south are how you should act but by Google's definition decorum is behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety. To which I had to follow up with the definition of propriety, the details or rules of behavior conventionally considered to be correct. I would have more simply defined it as knowing how to act based on where you are.
Mom always wanted us to behave as we should when we were in front of certain people. There was a way to speak in front of my grandmother and grandfather or other relatives. Especially when you visit their house. There was a way you behave at the table and a way to behave at church. Which made me think of the picture on the internet of a woman sitting inappropriately on the couch in the Oval Office while a formal picture is being taken. Some say that the problem is that she has her feet on the couch. I don't have a problem with feet on the couch in your own house but when you are a lady wearing a dress you should act appropriately for a lady wearing a dress as well as a lady visiting the Oval Office weather you work in the office or not. A picture is worth a 1000 words. I thought when I saw the picture that a woman wearing a dress of an age above childhood should not be sitting on her knees. If you would like to tuck one leg under yourself with the other on the floor would have been more appropriate than kneeling on the furniture. That was inappropriate decorum.
Throughout the show people spoke of tradition. One person spoke of land that had been in their family for over a 100 years and one referred to themselves as stewards of the land. Another concept some don't get. Just because you own the land doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. You have to think of the implications on the environment. Not just how big of a house can I build and these trees will grow back. Which follows suite with the book I just finished reading Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray who shared how being raised in a junk yard in Georgia got her to study ecology and the effect we have on the environment especially the environment of the longleaf pine.
Another lesson mom always wanted to impress upon us was that once it is gone you can't always get it back. I remember how she fought to not have the Surfside Holiday Inn built on the north end of the beach. Once they build one high rise there is no stopping them from building more. Well another 20 years later and guess what. It is now a rare thing to find a mom and pop motel that a family can afford to stay in on the beach and to some that is ok but to my mom that in itself was a crime. People should be able to afford to come and visit our beautiful beach and enjoy fresh fish and spend a day at the beach without getting their car towed or paying $10 to park their car. But some would say she was standing in the way of progress.
On the show they spoke of progress being part of the problem and the solution. One person said he wished South Carolina was more like the rest of America and he said but he feels America has become more like South Carolina. Some people are trying to bring back some of the food and culture to the area that has been lost over time and others just want to rehash what everyone already thinks that people of the south are all racist and keep pushing that idea into the media and further impressing it among the general population that, that is the way it is in the south. I know everyone is not racist.
I think some of my mother's sense came from her family history. They had lived in the same city for over 100 years. Her family was in Louisville, Ky before the Civil War started. Some of her family was in Indiana 50 years before that. At some point I believe the south is in our dna. Even though it is technically considered a northern state. Knowing how to behave isn't enough if we don't share the stories and beliefs of those before us with the children of today. Otherwise how will they learn. I know it is not transferred through dna. The kids have to be shown that they have it in them. They need to sit at the knee of a person that has experienced things and learn why they happened and not just read them on the internet. They need to know how to behave while they are sitting at that person's knee. How to act at a party and when you are invited to a person's house you bring a gift or an offering of food to show your appreciation for them having you over. I know these things seem silly. People today are so casual in action and dress and never go to a place where you have to dress a certain way so when invited they don't know how to act.
To me that is the romance of the south. The love of your history good and bad. The love of your food and knowing that your grandmother used to make and love the same things that you love. The love of place and the land. Appreciating the natural resources you have and not exploiting them. Those are the lessons mom would have wanted to impress upon the future and I will have to agree. I don't think this knowledge is something we can afford to skip a generation.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Mom would be proud
This week we finally had an estate sale. I took the week off from work and finished organizing and cleaning out closets and emptying out boxes and we had a sale. I spent so much time there this week and am tired but I didn't realize I was going to have a Panic Attack well two. One on Thursday night because I didn't feel like I had gotten enough done and the other Saturday night because I could do no more.
Panic is like breaking your arm. You forget over time what it feels like but then when it happens again your like, oh yeah. This sucks. But with the help of some friends I got through it. And even though I am awake in the middle of the night I am feeling rested and have off today also for me.
I knew we would have all kinds of people come through the house but the ones that were Jack Asses really got me mad. The people that everything is too expensive and your not going to sell anything. I had one first thing Saturday morning and I am not a morning person and he pissed me off. I told him I didn't need his negativity so early in the morning and since he didn't have anything in his hands I couldn't do better on the price. One of my sisters walked by and I said, "what a jack ass." She turned and looked back and said, "he is still there." I didn't care.
It was the other people I never thought about. The people that were like mom and grandma, that loved to go to the sales and find a treasure and bring it home. The pastry chef from the Yacht Club who went through mom's cook books and was so excited by her finds. She said, "what a great collection mom had." So I showed her one of my favorites that mom would be glad to know she has, it was a Treasury of White House Cooking. On the first page it said, Jackie Kennedy Onassis returns to the White House. It had stories of when the Kennedy's were in the White House and other first families and some of their favorite things. She came back and sent one of the other chefs as well. I told her the second time she was there what it meant to me by her appreciating mom's cook books. I told each of my brother and sisters that story so they all knew someone else other than mom will love her stuff.
We also had a young bride-to-be that collects vintage Fisher Price toys for her future children that couldn't believe mom had saved all these toys from our childhood. And the Barbie collector with OCD and asthma that went through boxes of miss matched pieces. She bought Barbie's with missing limbs and heads that my mom saved. These are the people that I want to remember.
Our best customer as my sister said, "was the ad she didn't place." She had called to place an ad in one of the weekly little newspapers and was too late to get in but the lady on the phone said, sounds like a good sale and can I tell a few people anyway. Sure. So she came and her friends came and so on. People called people once they walked through the house and told others. My sister would say when they walked in the house walk through the whole house twice and you may see half of what it here.
The people I didn't count on were the neighbors that stopped in that didn't realize that mom had passed. One lady walked in and said, "where is Jeanne?" I lost it. I just started crying right there in the living room. We had a few and that was really hard but then there were the people that also grew up on the beach that we reminisced with. The ones that went to the Youth Center or sailed Prams. The ones who knew other people we knew back in the day. And the ones that remember Pier 60 and the old hamburger stand and the pool and the soccer field that is now a parking lot. The ones that remember how great it was to grow up on Clearwater Beach.
This weekend was as therapeutic as it was difficult for me. Mom would be proud. She would have loved talking to the chefs and sharing her stories of finding the cook books and telling the stories of how she loved her cast iron pans that one of the chefs bough all of them. She would have loved the cat lovers that bought her cat statues and she would have even had choice words for the jack ass. That was mom.
And not only did all those people walk away with a treasure they all got a story and now they will have a memory of the lady in the big house that had saved all these things for so long for this weekend so that they could find them.
My brother and sisters did as we have done many times before and pulled together and worked hard for a common goal. Mom raised us to be a team and even through the difficult times we know when we need to walk away or when it is our turn to step up to the plate. And I can say this weekend we all hit home runs.
Panic is like breaking your arm. You forget over time what it feels like but then when it happens again your like, oh yeah. This sucks. But with the help of some friends I got through it. And even though I am awake in the middle of the night I am feeling rested and have off today also for me.
I knew we would have all kinds of people come through the house but the ones that were Jack Asses really got me mad. The people that everything is too expensive and your not going to sell anything. I had one first thing Saturday morning and I am not a morning person and he pissed me off. I told him I didn't need his negativity so early in the morning and since he didn't have anything in his hands I couldn't do better on the price. One of my sisters walked by and I said, "what a jack ass." She turned and looked back and said, "he is still there." I didn't care.
It was the other people I never thought about. The people that were like mom and grandma, that loved to go to the sales and find a treasure and bring it home. The pastry chef from the Yacht Club who went through mom's cook books and was so excited by her finds. She said, "what a great collection mom had." So I showed her one of my favorites that mom would be glad to know she has, it was a Treasury of White House Cooking. On the first page it said, Jackie Kennedy Onassis returns to the White House. It had stories of when the Kennedy's were in the White House and other first families and some of their favorite things. She came back and sent one of the other chefs as well. I told her the second time she was there what it meant to me by her appreciating mom's cook books. I told each of my brother and sisters that story so they all knew someone else other than mom will love her stuff.
We also had a young bride-to-be that collects vintage Fisher Price toys for her future children that couldn't believe mom had saved all these toys from our childhood. And the Barbie collector with OCD and asthma that went through boxes of miss matched pieces. She bought Barbie's with missing limbs and heads that my mom saved. These are the people that I want to remember.
Our best customer as my sister said, "was the ad she didn't place." She had called to place an ad in one of the weekly little newspapers and was too late to get in but the lady on the phone said, sounds like a good sale and can I tell a few people anyway. Sure. So she came and her friends came and so on. People called people once they walked through the house and told others. My sister would say when they walked in the house walk through the whole house twice and you may see half of what it here.
The people I didn't count on were the neighbors that stopped in that didn't realize that mom had passed. One lady walked in and said, "where is Jeanne?" I lost it. I just started crying right there in the living room. We had a few and that was really hard but then there were the people that also grew up on the beach that we reminisced with. The ones that went to the Youth Center or sailed Prams. The ones who knew other people we knew back in the day. And the ones that remember Pier 60 and the old hamburger stand and the pool and the soccer field that is now a parking lot. The ones that remember how great it was to grow up on Clearwater Beach.
This weekend was as therapeutic as it was difficult for me. Mom would be proud. She would have loved talking to the chefs and sharing her stories of finding the cook books and telling the stories of how she loved her cast iron pans that one of the chefs bough all of them. She would have loved the cat lovers that bought her cat statues and she would have even had choice words for the jack ass. That was mom.
And not only did all those people walk away with a treasure they all got a story and now they will have a memory of the lady in the big house that had saved all these things for so long for this weekend so that they could find them.
My brother and sisters did as we have done many times before and pulled together and worked hard for a common goal. Mom raised us to be a team and even through the difficult times we know when we need to walk away or when it is our turn to step up to the plate. And I can say this weekend we all hit home runs.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
When I see you again...
In this last year I have written about all of the emotions of taking care of a parent and the loss of that parent. And over the last 11 months have been working on clearing out that same parent's home. That home that we have all walked through the back door a million times and the home that same door was never locked. For years no one had a key because it was always open if someone was home and someone was always home.
I have shown you around the house. Told you stories of the kitchen and the tv room. Talked about holidays spent in the living room. But over the last year or so I have always found in the midst of whatever was going on in the house I really tried to hold it together but always found that when I get in the car and start to head off of the beach I usually feel compelled to call someone. Because it is in those moments that I am truly my saddest.
Last week when I left a friend called at that very moment and she could tell something was wrong and I told her that I was just leaving mom's and she said, "I called just to make you smile." Thank God she called. We talked and laughed my whole ride home.
Tonight as I left was no different but tonight I decided to tough out the drive home and then comes on the radio a song that made me cry. See you again by Charlie Puth. The words just hit me, "It has been a long day without you my friend, I will tell you all about it when I see you again." That was our ritual at night on my way home from work I called her. I told her about my day. She hadn't driven in two years so unless I took her out or someone else came and got her she was home so she always wanted to hear about what I did during the day and the same with when my brother got home from work. He would tell her about his day. Even at the end when she couldn't speak on the phone, I would call and talk to whomever was with her and tell them to tell her a few things and hear about her day. Some asked why I still called every night. Why would I stop?
The song goes on to say "Why did you have to leave so soon?, I know your in a better place but it is always gonna hurt", I know mom was ready and it was her time but we did have a lot of things yet to do. "We've come a long way from where we began" In this last year my brother and sisters have worked hard on getting the house ready to sell, garage sales and auctions and part of that has meant going through 40 years worth of stuff. Over the last week my brother has moved into his own house and we have all five of us worked together which up until now has not been easy but we are working hard together to get this job accomplished. Mom would really be proud of us. "Hold on to every memory" We have sorted through boxes and closets and still there is more to do but we are really close to having one last sale and it is amazing. We laugh when we find some old picture and some strange thing that only mom would have saved. I have seen what I thought would not happen come to life right before my eyes in the last week, "Give me all the strength I need to carry on."And in the next week we will be ready for the next part of this journey. "And every road you take will always lead you home" This I am not so sure of. I don't know if I will ever go back by after it isn't our home. I just want to remember it the way it was for the 40 years that my family held down the fort there. But there is one thing for sure mom: "Oh I'll tell you all about it, when I see you again."
I have shown you around the house. Told you stories of the kitchen and the tv room. Talked about holidays spent in the living room. But over the last year or so I have always found in the midst of whatever was going on in the house I really tried to hold it together but always found that when I get in the car and start to head off of the beach I usually feel compelled to call someone. Because it is in those moments that I am truly my saddest.
Last week when I left a friend called at that very moment and she could tell something was wrong and I told her that I was just leaving mom's and she said, "I called just to make you smile." Thank God she called. We talked and laughed my whole ride home.
Tonight as I left was no different but tonight I decided to tough out the drive home and then comes on the radio a song that made me cry. See you again by Charlie Puth. The words just hit me, "It has been a long day without you my friend, I will tell you all about it when I see you again." That was our ritual at night on my way home from work I called her. I told her about my day. She hadn't driven in two years so unless I took her out or someone else came and got her she was home so she always wanted to hear about what I did during the day and the same with when my brother got home from work. He would tell her about his day. Even at the end when she couldn't speak on the phone, I would call and talk to whomever was with her and tell them to tell her a few things and hear about her day. Some asked why I still called every night. Why would I stop?
The song goes on to say "Why did you have to leave so soon?, I know your in a better place but it is always gonna hurt", I know mom was ready and it was her time but we did have a lot of things yet to do. "We've come a long way from where we began" In this last year my brother and sisters have worked hard on getting the house ready to sell, garage sales and auctions and part of that has meant going through 40 years worth of stuff. Over the last week my brother has moved into his own house and we have all five of us worked together which up until now has not been easy but we are working hard together to get this job accomplished. Mom would really be proud of us. "Hold on to every memory" We have sorted through boxes and closets and still there is more to do but we are really close to having one last sale and it is amazing. We laugh when we find some old picture and some strange thing that only mom would have saved. I have seen what I thought would not happen come to life right before my eyes in the last week, "Give me all the strength I need to carry on."And in the next week we will be ready for the next part of this journey. "And every road you take will always lead you home" This I am not so sure of. I don't know if I will ever go back by after it isn't our home. I just want to remember it the way it was for the 40 years that my family held down the fort there. But there is one thing for sure mom: "Oh I'll tell you all about it, when I see you again."
Friday, January 6, 2017
Silent Night
Yesterday I was reading online about a story telling event coming up and the theme was music. It said to come tell a true story about music in your life. A song from when you were young that you loved or one you couldn't stand. It said no notes or props and you have 5 minutes to tell the whole story with a beginning a middle and an end.
Well being that Christmas has barely passed by and our tree is still up I thought of Silent Night.
Now anyone that knows me knows that Silent Night makes me cry. Just the thought of the words will bring me to tears. And I thought of all of the things in my life that have brought me to this point. I was trying to think of where to begin.
Do I start when I was young and how my mother loved Christmas? So many gifts, and that she would put up two Christmas trees in our living room one with traditional decorations and one with decorations we had made. She would save the ones we made from year to year and decorate with them. But it always seemed as we were decorating you know five kids and a couple parents and next thing you know there would be an argument over something and someone was getting in trouble and someone was going to their room. Well fast forward a few years and I just learned to avoid that whole experience and would not be around when it came time to decorate the tree. If your not there you can't get in trouble.
Dad who didn't have a long fuse or a lot of patience for the holidays, I remember him saying he didn't always know how to act because he didn't have a father while growing up. I was a little older when I heard of how he lost his father at Christmas.
Lets flash back about 40 years to 1950 my father he is about 7 years old and the tree is decorated and the house is all ready for Christmas and his father passed away on Christmas Eve. Well for those of you who didn't know back then in Ohio where my dad lived people didn't get laid out at a funeral home they were laid out in their own home. So there it is Christmas morning my dad and his two brothers and two sisters having Christmas with their dad laid out in a casket in their living room.
My uncle the youngest in their family recently told me that he didn't remember that Christmas he was only two but that his sisters had told him that he played with a car he got for Christmas along by his father that day.
We have gone from the 1970's to the 1950's and now to 1990 my grandmother, my dad's mom passed away on December 20. My grandmother loved Christmas. She always had a beautiful tree and it was the same every year and when I was a kid of my dad's brothers and sisters there was a time when we all lived within a mile of my grandma. That was 15 of 16 cousins most of which were young children at the time. We would all go to grandma's house on Christmas. She had a little chalk board by the front door and we would sign in when we got there. She would always take a picture of our names all crammed together. By 1990 however we weren't all as close in proximity and weren't all going to be able to go to grandma's for Christmas. But there we all were on Christmas eve at mass for my grandmother's funeral. Then back to her house for the wake. And the picture I have posted before that the whole family is in except for me. I went back to work.
I know I thought what a tragedy Christmas is for this family and how sad that is just to think such a thought.
So another 10 years have passed and I am now an adult and have found my way around the sadness that comes with Christmas. I have found that if I decorate the tree alone that there is no arguing. I just found as I got older my fuse got short around the tree and it was easier for me to just do that part alone.
2004 Christmas eve and there I am sitting in the same Church that we had my grandma's funeral all those years ago. Me and my youngest sister and her husband and her beautiful little baby boy. And that is the day that I remember for the first time that when the song Silent Night started to play and the words just rang in my heart. That little boy laying in his carrier next to me who when he breathed it sounded like a giggle. That little flap in his throat didn't close all the way and you would hear hee-eee, hee-eee.
By this time I have reached beyond the years that I would ever have a child of my own and this little baby was about the most beautiful thing in the whole world and all of my life and this reality all mixed together and when I heard the words, "Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace." I just started to cry. Still to this day I see the image in my head. Him in his little green onsie with a Christmas tree on the front.
Another 12 years later and I am sitting with my mom on Christmas Eve. She is bedridden after her second stroke and I am spending the evening wrapping presents and we are watching old home movies and I know in my heart this will probably be our last Christmas together and please God don't take her on Christmas.
But my mother the most stubborn person I know, knew that wasn't the way the story was going to end. We had our Christmas, just like in the past. The five of us all were together with her we shared gifts and stories and watched those home movies and there next to the fire place was that same tree.
That tree we decorated as kids. Now itself over 40 years old, with an ornament hanging on it that said Happy 40th Birthday from 2009.
So we have come to the end. This Christmas it was not the same. Now my mom is gone. But we went to church on Christmas Eve with my youngest sister and her husband and that little baby boy who is now 12 years old. There he was sitting across from me and when I heard the music start and I looked at his face and I heard hee-eee, hee-eee in my head and those words "Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.
I don't know if that is the kind of story they are looking for but that is the story that came to me.
Well being that Christmas has barely passed by and our tree is still up I thought of Silent Night.
Now anyone that knows me knows that Silent Night makes me cry. Just the thought of the words will bring me to tears. And I thought of all of the things in my life that have brought me to this point. I was trying to think of where to begin.
Do I start when I was young and how my mother loved Christmas? So many gifts, and that she would put up two Christmas trees in our living room one with traditional decorations and one with decorations we had made. She would save the ones we made from year to year and decorate with them. But it always seemed as we were decorating you know five kids and a couple parents and next thing you know there would be an argument over something and someone was getting in trouble and someone was going to their room. Well fast forward a few years and I just learned to avoid that whole experience and would not be around when it came time to decorate the tree. If your not there you can't get in trouble.
Dad who didn't have a long fuse or a lot of patience for the holidays, I remember him saying he didn't always know how to act because he didn't have a father while growing up. I was a little older when I heard of how he lost his father at Christmas.
Lets flash back about 40 years to 1950 my father he is about 7 years old and the tree is decorated and the house is all ready for Christmas and his father passed away on Christmas Eve. Well for those of you who didn't know back then in Ohio where my dad lived people didn't get laid out at a funeral home they were laid out in their own home. So there it is Christmas morning my dad and his two brothers and two sisters having Christmas with their dad laid out in a casket in their living room.
My uncle the youngest in their family recently told me that he didn't remember that Christmas he was only two but that his sisters had told him that he played with a car he got for Christmas along by his father that day.
We have gone from the 1970's to the 1950's and now to 1990 my grandmother, my dad's mom passed away on December 20. My grandmother loved Christmas. She always had a beautiful tree and it was the same every year and when I was a kid of my dad's brothers and sisters there was a time when we all lived within a mile of my grandma. That was 15 of 16 cousins most of which were young children at the time. We would all go to grandma's house on Christmas. She had a little chalk board by the front door and we would sign in when we got there. She would always take a picture of our names all crammed together. By 1990 however we weren't all as close in proximity and weren't all going to be able to go to grandma's for Christmas. But there we all were on Christmas eve at mass for my grandmother's funeral. Then back to her house for the wake. And the picture I have posted before that the whole family is in except for me. I went back to work.
I know I thought what a tragedy Christmas is for this family and how sad that is just to think such a thought.
So another 10 years have passed and I am now an adult and have found my way around the sadness that comes with Christmas. I have found that if I decorate the tree alone that there is no arguing. I just found as I got older my fuse got short around the tree and it was easier for me to just do that part alone.
2004 Christmas eve and there I am sitting in the same Church that we had my grandma's funeral all those years ago. Me and my youngest sister and her husband and her beautiful little baby boy. And that is the day that I remember for the first time that when the song Silent Night started to play and the words just rang in my heart. That little boy laying in his carrier next to me who when he breathed it sounded like a giggle. That little flap in his throat didn't close all the way and you would hear hee-eee, hee-eee.
By this time I have reached beyond the years that I would ever have a child of my own and this little baby was about the most beautiful thing in the whole world and all of my life and this reality all mixed together and when I heard the words, "Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace." I just started to cry. Still to this day I see the image in my head. Him in his little green onsie with a Christmas tree on the front.
Another 12 years later and I am sitting with my mom on Christmas Eve. She is bedridden after her second stroke and I am spending the evening wrapping presents and we are watching old home movies and I know in my heart this will probably be our last Christmas together and please God don't take her on Christmas.
But my mother the most stubborn person I know, knew that wasn't the way the story was going to end. We had our Christmas, just like in the past. The five of us all were together with her we shared gifts and stories and watched those home movies and there next to the fire place was that same tree.
That tree we decorated as kids. Now itself over 40 years old, with an ornament hanging on it that said Happy 40th Birthday from 2009.
So we have come to the end. This Christmas it was not the same. Now my mom is gone. But we went to church on Christmas Eve with my youngest sister and her husband and that little baby boy who is now 12 years old. There he was sitting across from me and when I heard the music start and I looked at his face and I heard hee-eee, hee-eee in my head and those words "Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.
I don't know if that is the kind of story they are looking for but that is the story that came to me.
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