My entire family is insane.

December 3, 2020 – Rebel Without a Cause

I got yelled at today. I hate getting yelled at. It makes me feel like a child. But I brought it on myself. I insisted on walking down a trail with my dog even though it said the trail was closed. It actually said ‘Road Closed’ but that’s beside the point. I saw the sign but I walked right past it and then I came upon a work crew for a tree company. The first guy I encountered pointed back towards the trail entrance and shouted, “Didn’t you see the sign??!! It said ‘Road Closed’!!” He then proceeded to lecture me until I finally turned around, red in the face, and went the other way. I felt really dumb and ashamed but worst of all, I felt like a hypocrite. I’m always telling people to ‘read the signs’ and yet I don’t even follow my own advice apparently. And I wish I could say it’s the only time I’ve been yelled at, but it’s not. And I can assure you, it WILL happen again. What is that all about anyway? Does my brain short-circuit when I’m advised NOT to do something? You’re telling me I cannot do such-and-such? Hmmm. “Zap!” goes my brain. You can almost see the puff of smoke come out of my ears. “I think I’m going to take that as a challenge. I bet I will find a way. Just give me a minute.” It’s the most bizarre thing!

December 2, 2020 – Life Themes (Poverty)

I’ve often wondered what it must be like to be ‘born with a silver spoon’ in your mouth. I cannot begin to imagine it. It seems like such a foreign concept. Living a life of luxury and not having to constantly review the balance in your checking account to make sure you’ve got enough to get you through to the end of the month. Buying things without ever checking the price tag first because the price is inconsequential. Not constantly worrying about how long your car is going to last because when it does finally give out, how will you afford to replace it? To have the ability to go into a grocery store and not have to spend an absurd amount of time looking at shelf labels to determine which product is available for the lowest amount per ounce. Oh my gosh! I don’t know if I could handle it! I really don’t. I’ve spent my entire life ‘squeezing nickels’ that I’m not sure I’d be able to deal with being someone with ‘large cash reserves’.

December 1, 2020 – Life Themes (Depression)

I have really struggled with what to write about today. I’ve been feeling really down which frustrates me to no end. Sometimes, despite the medicine and exercise and eating right, my arch nemesis ‘depression’ returns on occasion. And fortunately today, even though I’ve managed to fall into the well, I was able to grab onto something before I plummeted all the way to the gloomy, hopeless depths below. How am I going to get out? I still haven’t worked out a plan. The walls are kind of slimy so it’s been tough to get my footing. I can still see the sky above me and planes flying overhead and I have hope that I can manage to pull myself out of it eventually, either through sheer will and determination or with the assistance of others. I am grateful that I didn’t drop all the way down to the bottom. Once you reach the bottom of the well, it’s much tougher to find your way out. It’s especially difficult when the water in the well is so deep that you cannot touch the bottom and have to continually thrash about in an attempt to keep your head above it because you never learned how to swim.

November 30, 2020 – Matters of Convenience

I just returned from Wal-Mart. It’s not a store I enjoy spending a lot of time in. It is massive and it’s easy to get swallowed up in the place. If you go, you can expect to spend a fair amount of time retrieving the items on your list. Would you like a gallon of milk to go with that box of cereal you just placed in your cart? Hope you don’t mind walking another half mile. It’s exhausting! And you’d better hope you didn’t miss anything on your list once you’ve finally made your way to the checkout line in the front of the store. I’ve done that before. Oh, crap! I forgot the yogurt! Well, guess where the yogurt is? It’s back by the milk. Hope you don’t mind burning a few more calories because you’re going to be tacking another half mile onto the other four you just completed in order to grab the 4-pack of Chobani that you overlooked earlier. And it’s not only that, all of the endless walking and the time consumption, the store itself seems to be an oddball magnet. I am not making this up. There is a website dedicated to the vast array of interesting characters that frequent there. Think I’m kidding? Check it out! It’s called ‘peopleofwalmart.com’.

November 29, 2020 – Facing the Consequences

My mom is a big fan of all-things-holiday and other celebratory events. She used to host all of the traditional family meals, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas. In addition, she never failed to bake a pie or a cake for each of her children on their birthdays, along with treating them to a meal at the restaurant of their choice. And many people used to affectionately refer to her as ‘the pie lady’ due to her far-reaching reputation for making the most tasty, melt-in-your-mouth pies. But life these days is very different than it was a year ago. A year ago, my mom had everyone over for a festive Thanksgiving meal with one notable change. At that particular meal, rather than being one of the ‘participants’, she sat on the sidelines. Because of her mental decline, she no longer knew how to ‘throw together’ a batch of stuffing, bake a pie or cook a turkey, let alone turn on the stove. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t take credit for it, even though my brother Clover and his wife did all of the work.

November 28, 2020 – Not such a ‘dead end’ after all (PART THREE).

Here we are again. Good to see you back! Sorry I’m taking so long to ‘wrap this up’ but I promise, I will finish today. There will be no part four. I promise! I pinky promised so now I have no choice in the matter. Where were we? That’s right! I had talked about the lady that ended up ‘trapped in our dead end’ in part one and then I went on to tell you about a different lady that took her motorcycle for a swim in part two. What do we have left? My friends, I have saved the best for last. What I’m going to share with you now is the icing on the cake, the home run, the masterpiece. This is the story about what happened the day before yesterday on our ‘quiet’ little, unassuming dead end street. And since I’m writing it, if you’re at all familiar with my writing ‘style’, you’ll know that I’ve got to add just a few more minor details before I get down to the nitty gritty.

November 27, 2020 – Not such a ‘dead end’ after all (PART TWO).

Hello again! I’m back to finish off my story about all of the adventures we have living on a dead end street. Of course, things wouldn’t be quite as interesting if a canal wasn’t directly beside it, but that’s what gives the story that extra ‘kick’, that little nugget that changes the story from ‘meh’ to ‘wow’. It’s almost like when you make chili. There’s the version when you say, “Meh, that was alright.” And then there’s the version when you say, “Wow! That chili had a little kick to it!” It gives it a little more interest, a little more pizzazz. See what I mean? When you add the canal to the dead end street, it’s essentially like adding cayenne pepper to your chili. It gives it a little ‘kick’. What’s so special about the canal? Great question! I’m not sure that I would say it’s ‘special’ necessarily but it definitely acts like a repository for things other than water, that’s for sure!

November 26, 2020 – Not such a ‘dead end’ after all (PART ONE).

We live on a ‘dead end’. It sounds like such a morbid term but all it really means is that there is no way out. Hang on. I don’t think that description was very helpful at all. That still leaves a lot to the imagination. I probably should clarify that we live on a ‘dead end street’. And what that means is that if you turn onto our street, unless you are coming to visit either me or my husband or our next door neighbor you are going to be pulling a U-turn because the street doesn’t go through, it just stops, or dies, right in front of our driveway. And you would think because it’s not a through street that there wouldn’t be much activity but you’d be wrong! We have all kinds of interesting things happen just outside our front door, things I never expected. This year alone, we had two newsworthy events occur that you will likely think I’m fabricating but I’m not. In fact, the picture I’m including with this post is one I actually took tonight.

November 25, 2020 – Hip hip hooray, the hoarder’s moved away!

Have you ever lived near a hoarder? It seems like they’re everywhere. On just my block, there are at least three. Well, there were three until one miraculously moved away recently. I honestly never thought it would happen. I thought he’d outlast me easily. But I think he got tired of all the visits and subsequent fines from the City and finally gave up. I’d heard rumors from my neighbor that I like to call ‘Mrs. Kravitz’ that he was going to be moving and I thought surely that would never happen, unless Hell were to freeze over. And then it did! Not long after the rumors started up, I noticed that a moving van was parked out front and getting filled with boxes and then a ‘For Sale’ sign went up and then within a matter of days, ‘Sold’ just like that! Did Hell freeze over and nobody told me?

November 24, 2020 – Much ado about cold sores.

I woke up this morning to discover an ‘uninvited guest’ clinging firmly to my lower lip. I was pretty certain I knew what it was, my lip hurt a bit and was slightly bumpy, but the room was dark so I went into the bathroom to confirm my suspicions. After checking in the mirror, there was no longer any doubt, my old friend ‘Cold Sore/CS’ had decided to swing by. “Ah, there you are!” I said aloud. “Getting lonely, were you? How long are you going to stick around this time? Will it be a week or two or would you like an extended stay?” I should have known it would be making an appearance. I haven’t really spent a lot of time in the sun but I have been really physically tired and stressed, and that’s when it tends to ‘pop in’ unexpectedly. And it’s a really nasty guest!