Last post of ‘08
One last post of ‘08. What’s it going to be? Well, if it weren’t for Holidailies (my solemn vow) I wouldn’t post at all today. Alas, I am committed.
So, in search of a topic, I randomly thought, “End of 2008: we’re still at war.” I googled, “US military”. You know, looking for a moving photo. Because, why shouldn’t I just post a picture like I have been for the last three weeks?
And then I came across a post at another site about Depleted Uranium (DU). And I read some statistics that (call me gullible) I believe. Statements like this:
- The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has estimated that 50 tons of DU dust from the first Gulf War could lead to 500,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000. To date, a total of 2,000 tons have been generated in the Middle East.
- In contrast, approximately 250,000 lives were claimed by the explosions and radiation released by the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- “More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing [of nuclear bombs] has been released from DU weaponry since 1991,” said Leuren Moret, a U.S. nuclear scientist. “The genetic future of the Iraqi people, for the most part, is destroyed. The environment now is completely radioactive.”
- Since the first Gulf War, the rate of birth defects and childhood cancer in Iraq has increased by seven times.
- More than 35 percent (251,000) of U.S. Gulf War veterans are dead or on permanent medical disability, compared with only 400 who were killed during the conflict.
I’m not going to pretend to be someone other than who I am. I’ve got chicken tikka masala arriving in a sack on the arm of a gentleman at my front door step any minute now. I’ll drink wine and ring in the new year under my down comforter while I watch a DVD of Friday Night Lights.
I’m not living in a radioactive state. But the fact of the matter is that a little boy somewhere has eyes where his ears should be and nostrils where his eyes should be, all because the weapons someone in the US decided to use employ some pretty fucked up shit. DU. Depleted Uranium. Something to learn more about in 2009.
UPDATE: Do Not Google “Depleted Uranium” image search. Really. Don’t. Seriously.
Real Niece-love!
Here’s that picture I wanted to post at the beginning of my trip East. Oh, December 19th – when Sam and I took this picture – seems so long ago. I wish I could go back in time. It was soooo good to be with my family. I miss everyone so much already.
UPDATE: I forgot when I originally posted this that it was my big bro’s birthday. I hope it was a happy one, Mister!
Why oh why
. . . couldn’t I have stayed in hiding at Hotel Monaco?
I suppose because sooner or later the bill collectors would have started calling, and by then, my employers would have replaced me, and at that point, everything would be a mess.
When put in that context, I guess it’s a good thing that I had a job to go to today.
I’m still feeling a lack of sufficient energy & time to really write a post. Seems like I’ll make it through all of holidailies without a single real essay. So it goes.
There and Back Again
For about two hours today, my iPhone sat undamaged awaiting discovery on the concrete of our apartment building garage. It had slipped out of my pocket, landing silently where it might have been crushed by Jeep tires later tonight had I not thought to wander out in my pajamas on a hunch. Good hunch.
In the relatively short period of time that I thought it was gone forever, the thing that upset me most was believing I had lost the pictures from my trip. The one above was taken this morning about 45 minutes away from landing at LAX.
Blogligatory Post
Heading off to the shoppes with Mom downtown. If you have to be a last-minute consumer, I’m thinking that being at a place that looks like Stars Hallow is the way to go.
UPDATE: Now that I’m back at home in L.A. & I have a little more time, I can’t resist offering the update that although Mom & I set out for the shoppes downtown, after breakfast we made one stop at the place below and proceeded to lose our energy. So it goes:
Which day of Christmas is this?
We’re all sniffles & coughs around here at my Maryland holiday residence. The nephew is relegated to a diet of saltines (please let him keep them down!) and not allowed to travel away from his flu-bucket for more than a minute or two. Thank God for buckets.
I’m pausing to get in my 50 word commitment prior to packing up the car & driving to the eastern shore for a couple nights. How on earth did I ever fit six sweaters into this suitcase last week? As a good friend of mine says, “It’s a quality problem.”
Niece-love!
If it doesn’t already, the next edition of Emily Post’s guide to manners will include something about how when a house guest, one should never, under any circumstances, plug one’s own mobile iDevice into the host’s computer. Doing so would be sort of like chewing food, removing it from the mouth and putting it on a dining companion’s plate. Ghastly. Imagine my my brother’s computer trying to sync with my iPhone – our contacts co-mingling, the exchange of thousands of photos. Frankly, I don’t even know what would happen, I just know that it would be bad.
It’s for this reason that the pic above is not the super-sweet one of my feet and my Niecie’s feet posing nearly toe to toe in our new red satin flats. Matching with her is my very favorite thing to do.
Quality Time: 10 year old style
Made it in safely yesterday. I’d write more about what a wonderful day of travel it was but my nephew has a day off from school JUST to spend time with his Aunt. How cool is that? There are some drum sticks waiting with my name on them.
Fly Day
Disclaimer: I feel sort of superstitious. I’m typing this on Wednesday the 17th and will “schedule” it to be posted automatically on the 18th because on the 18th, I won’t be at work, and may not have access to an internet connection. Why does that make me superstitious? Because I’ll be on a plane. That’s why I wrote this disclaimer. It seems like if I just posted about flying and pretended to have posted that day (without a disclaimer) it would increase the chances of something going wrong with the flight. No logic; I know.
No red eye for me today. I’ve allowed myself the luxury of a mid afternoon flight. I get to sleep in until my normal time. Have a relaxing morning. The taxi will pick me up at a reasonable hour. Nice.
You know what I like to do as I board the plane? Before I step over the threshold from-whatever that thing is called-to the aircraft itself, I place my right palm flat against the side of the plane. And I pause there and talk to god for a second. It’s not a desperate or worried plea. Usually it’s a prayer of thanks with a flashing image of a covered wagon caravan stuck in the mud. The prayer does include a quick underlying request for safety, but mostly it’s about how I grateful I am to get to see my family nearly any time I need to. Then I remind myself of what I read in “Flying Without Fear” by Duane Brown, Ph.D. – that if the Empire State Building had big enough wings, it could fly, too. All of this happens in my mind in less than three seconds—about the time it takes to deliberately breathe in and out just once. Then I’m on board.
Selfish Whines
Yes, a whine is a noun. And that’s no typo — I did intend to use the plural of it in my title. I’d like to continue the complaining I started yesterday. Please? OK-Thanks! I’ve got about 27 more hours worth of work to do today. By “work” I mean all the stuff I do at that place (also referred to as “work”) for the people who pay me. Then, I need to get home & pack. Tomorrow I fly back east to begin my holiday with the family, which is a good thing. It’s just the escalation of tasks that lead up to getting on that plane that could sometimes drive me . . . well, you know. Heck, you probably have it worse. Whoever you are. You probably have toddlers circling your knees wanting chicken nuggets and candy canes. I have no idea how parents of young children do it.
As I mentioned yesterday, the home modem is dead–has been dead since Saturday morning, actually. So I’m currently writing at home, saving to my thumb drive and uploading at work. Incidentally, aren’t thumb drives one of the more amazing inventions? Mine had been sitting here collecting dust until the wireless became nothing but air. I was whining that I didn’t want to lug that giant laptop (what is it 3 lbs?) all the way to work (2.5 miles), and then I remembered – The Thumb Drive! Okay, I admit it: I’m spoiled. Speaking of that . . . I work one block over from a place called “The Third St. Promenade”. These days, after sunset, it looks like this:
Isn’t it beautiful? I’m so lucky. See? I cheered myself up. Sometimes talking through the selfish whines isn’t such a bad thing.
Holidailies Flat Line
My home modem is dead. I could have schlepped to the local free wifi hot spot but other chores ranked higher.
Damn holidailies spoiled!
Trying to pull together 50 words at work while taking care of my pre-vacation responsibilities feels next to impossible. Quick, ramble!!
Ummmm……. this really isn’t fun. Gotta go…. Bummer!!!
Adopt-a-family
I don’t know much about him at all, but I’ve learned that John’s 25 years old with three children under the age of three, and his biggest desire this holiday season is for his children to have toys to open on Christmas day. His wife, Jane, is 29, and her biggest desire this holiday season is for more diapers.
What must it be like to have babies ages 3 mos, 1 year and 2 years, and to experience running out of diapers?
At work, my colleague distributed hand-outs describing what each member of John & Jane’s family would like for Christmas. It listed their ages, clothing sizes, needs and “biggest wants”.
John, Jr. is 3 mos. old. No one’s really sure what he desires (other than food, sleep and some hugs & kisses), so I got him something I hear every baby loves, a whoozit.
Michael, age 1, is apparently into the Leap Frog line of learning toys. Really? . . . Really? I haven’t heard of Leap Frog & couldn’t find it where I normally shop (yes, I live in a bubble) . . . so I got him baby safe trucks. ‘Cause what future man doesn’t love trucks? I know it’s gender biased of me, but I learned many years ago, after watching my (then infant) godson’s jaw drop in mortal fascination at the sight of a concrete mixer, that you men have other things going on in your heads than I can ever imagine.
Cindy, age 2, will be the recipient of the thing I wanted to keep for myself: a My Little Puppy Playset. It’s great because the doghouse doubles as a purse. And the dog barks. His voice is really cute, too. You know what else? His fur is irresistibly soft. Yes, I played with him for 3 minutes before I sealed the gift box. I didn’t get him dirty!
As I folded & taped snowman paper around the gifts yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but think about John & Jane and what it must feel like for them. It must be a hard thing to sign up to “be adopted”. What must be worse is that they don’t have the opportunity to vet the gifts their children will be opening. They’re having to exercise a whole lot of trust that strangers would come through with safe, worthy products. I wish I could some how let them know that I admire them.
And I’d also like to thank them. Shopping for people who don’t already have a world of toys to take for granted was a gift to me.
How do you do it?
Is anyone out there working full time and posting essays each day? I don’t know how you do it.
I woke up at 6:40am. Wrapped five gifts for our company’s “Adopted Family”. Throughout the week, I’ve had an idea for a post all about how much I loved shopping for these presents for a family I’ve never met, but each day has left me with too little time.
To work, drycleaner to drop off 8 sweaters, had my pants pinned by the tailor, picked up lunch, then went back to work until 8pm.
Home in time to have an hour to catch up with Andy. Listening to Pandora. Chatting about what voices we hear when we read “I Can Has Cheezburger.” Oh Hai. He hears Cartman from Southpark. I hear the little children who say “Hi” in John Ondrasik’s “The Hoppity Song” (Listen for them at 1:19 in to the video).
Dinner arrived & I thought, this post will go up before I eat.
I Can Has Holidailies and eat my cheezburger, too. Kthxbai.
No time today.
I pressed “Publish.” Does that count?
Each day at work I have 10-15 peanut M&Ms for dessert. Some days they last longer than others.
Like my highligher/ink/lead colored mandala? It keeps me busy while I’m on long calls.
First 24 hours down
Skin Test At Work-Day One
I’ve managed to maintain my ”quarter-sized” blotch “of mixture” throughout a day & night and so far, so good . . . no “rash, redness, burning or itching,” except that itching I told you about during minutes 6 through 8. Nor, “dizziness, faintness, shortness of breath and/or . . . [my personal favorite] . . . swelling to the eyes/face”.
I did a random sampling poll of (Okay. Two.) women yesterday and found out that none of them (The Two) bothered to do the Hair Dye Skin Allergy Test prior to dying their own hair. Brave souls. I mean, come on, if companies like Clairol - givers of healthy shine and glow never experienced from salon color – are printing two page instruction booklets that read like a disclaimer for a chemistry set you can’t buy over the counter, somebody somewhere has had some pretty god-awful swelling to the “eyes/face”. Somebody somewhere has up and died from dying their hair.
It won’t be me!
Natural? Instincts?
Let’s just hope that this is rock bottom for me.
“Great-great-Aunt Ruth, how bad did it get for you back in The Recession of oh-nine?”
“Caroline,” (she’ll be named after our first female president), “It’s hard to imagine, but I had to stop going to my hairdresser to hide my gray. I had to . . . I had to . . . I had to do it myself.”
It wasn’t my idea. Several weeks ago, one of my dearest, oldest friends – who, without competition is easily also my richest friend – gifted me with a box of “natural instincts” #35 Ebony Mocha. She dyes her own hair because Clairol products give her the healthy shine and glow she’s never experienced from salon color. Yes, women actually talk about this stuff. Thank god she spared me the experience of having to choose my own brand because I have trouble deciding which pasta to buy.
The first time I read these instructions was last night in bed and it’s a wonder I didn’t have nightmares:
You will need: scissors, tape and a clock.
Do not leave the mixture in a closed bottle (bottle may expand or burst).
Watch for skin rash, swelling to the eyes/face, blistering and/or skin or scalp weeping.
So there’s s Skin Allergy Test where I’m supposed to apply this “mixture” the size of a quarter “in the bend of [my] elbow”. I don’t know about the scientists at Clairol, but my elbow is the bony part of the outside of my arm. The inside part “in the bend” is not my elbow. It’s not. I don’t know what you call it, but it’s something other than an elbow. Neighbor to the elbow, yes? Any part of the elbow? No. So it took me a while to decide exactly where to put the quarter sized blob of mixture.
Once the test patch is applied, the subject (that’s me) must allow it to dry and “not wash . . . for 48 hours.” Seriously? On what planet would I actually go to work with this brown patch on my arm? Two days in a row! “During washing, protect with an adhesive bandage and remove it immediately after washing.” Meanwhile, I’m to keep an eye out for “rash, redness, burning or itching . . . dizziness or faintness, shortness of breath and/or . . . [yeah, I said it before] . . . swelling to the eyes/face”.
Time out: define “itching”. Yeah, there was a slight itch at about minute six, but it’s subsiding now that I’m deep into the “strand test”.
Holy Mother of . . . Christmas. I’m determined to have my white roots darkened in time for Christmas. Onward.
Dining with Miss Healthy Shine this week. I’m not sure if I’ve got it in me to keep my inner-elbow brown until then.
Enlightened Snark?
Over the last couple of months, my small women’s group and I have slowly digested the first four chapters of “A New Earth” (Eckhart Tolle’s Oprah hit). We’re doing less than 20 pages per week.
Reading this text at this time in my life feels just right. I can’t think of any giant Ah-Ha!’s that are coming up. Instead, I’m enjoying finding a new clear framework, a language, a way to hold onto ideas that have been true for me for a while now.
The more I have small (really tiny, fleeting) moments of “conscious Presence”, the more I see my ego finding new ways to act out. For instance, a couple weeks ago, I was wandering to the water cooler at work, when all of a sudden I thought, “What will I write about if I quiet my ego?”
I mean, I don’t know how often I actually whip it out here at the blog – but I enjoy writing a good snarky, opinionated rif that mocks. It doesn’t matter who I’m mocking, mocking’s fun. It’s entertaining. And being entertaining earns people money. And I’d be lying if I said I never fantasized about earning money from writing.
But it’s more than that. Even when I’m not flashing my witticisms – the truth is that when I write, I’m having thoughts, and I’m believing those thoughts. When I’m writing, I’m taking the drama of the world seriously. This is really contrary to the “seeing” that takes place when I’m experiencing “conscious Presence”.
I could just go round and round (again) recapitulating the question, ”What will I write about if I quiet my ego?” Rationalizing it. Considering the importance of it. Validating it. But all of that is the stuff of thoughts. . . ego . . . a waste of the present.
Perhaps I need to try getting Present and putting my fingers on the key board and seeing what happens then.
