Grrr

This morning, in the car on the way to work, I began listening to "Emotional Freedom" by Dr. Judith Orloff. A story she told hit me like the oft-mentioned ton of bricks. Here's a paraphrase.

A Native American chief tells his tribe a tale of two dogs inside his head. One is courageous and pure of heart. The other is driven by hatred and vengeance. The dogs are fighting, and are determined to go until the death. A young brave, lacking the patience to wait for the conclusion, asks, "Who will win?"

The chief's reply: "The one I feed."

Good Buy?

I am upset for a friend of mine who's heartsick over a child custody issue. Young teen daughter has been promised material things, vacations, and special privileges IF she goes to live with the other parent full time. Daughter has been bonding increasingly over the past several weeks with the "generous" parent and has become increasingly disrespectful to my friend, and resentful over my friend's reluctance to see this change take place.

At bed time tonight, when I sometimes chat with my kids about their day, I asked my two older sons what they thought of this situation (hypothetically, no names). My thirteen year old said he would like all the "stuff" but wouldn't want to go live in a place where it was just the stuff. My eleven year old said that it was the wrong thing to do, but if the daughter went there for a while, when she got a driver's license she could put all the "stuff" in a car and drive back to the other parent's house.

Before they both went to sleep, I asked them whether they had enough people in their lives whom they could talk to about any problems they might be having, other than Mom or Dad. One named three buddies at school (all good people from good families, yay) and the other named his aunt, cousins, and grandparents. OK, as long as they feel that they have support. Sometimes kids have heavy loads (at least as they see it). In my friend's case, it really is heavy for everyone involved, including my friend's son who has his own issues about his sister's impending change in living arrangements.

That old adage about setting someone you love free seems appropriate, but there has to be a clear way to come back. I hope and pray that it will happen, either as my eleven year old described or in some other way that allows love to continue. I also hope that the act of blogging about this will help me get some sleep, and I hope that my friend is able to get some rest tonight.

Geek Milestone

I'm beaming with pride over this personal Twitter milestone. Today, for the first time, one of my tweets was retweeted. (It was a pointer to an article that explained how a Boston cabbie almost took the rap when parents left their sleeping five year old child in the back of his minivan taxi.) Only a geek like me would appreciate this. Still: sigh, swoon. :-)

Wax to the Side of the Head?

This is a sequel to yesterday's post. As the day progressed, hubby was feeling so much better after having all that wax removed from his ear canal that he called me at work and said that he would gladly take our seven year old to his friend's party at Fun Zone (so I wouldn't have to leave early to get there by 5:45). Further, because he was tired of remaining cooped up in the house, he would stay there instead of merely dropping off. OK, sounds great, thanks. After I hung up the phone I'm thinking, "Who was that and why was he speaking in my husband's voice? Wait a minute, do I really want to know?"

So I went home and, in a relatively quiet house, cooked a lovely dinner of sauteed fish and roasted sweet potatoes for myself and the two older boys (who had been squirreled away in the corner trying to beat Sly Cooper 2 on the PlayStation). When hubby and Son #3 arrived (around 8PM!) I was treated to a full report about who was at the party and what happened, and who said what, and what the latest family news was. Talk about role reversal! I was loving it. Normally I take the kid to a party and then come home with the 411, and after I speak for five or ten minutes straight, hubby gives me a quizzical look that makes me think he hadn't heard word one.

I was a good person and did not respond to his news bulletin with a flip "Oh, did you say something?" but commented constructively and said how pleased I was that he had a good time. I'm hoping that in the future we can trade off more with "party duty." It might even be beneficial to him as an electrician: he heard from a friend that there's likely a big side job in the offing. Yeah!!!

Wax On, Wax Off

Yesterday morning hubby and the two older boys went fishing with close friends of ours and their boys. The charter boat from Captree went out for fluke, but our family caught five sea bass instead (which we will eat tonight). Hubby was wiped out upon their return, which I attributed to the sun, lack of sleep, and rough conditions. This was more than merely that, though. After about an hour nap, he went in to shower, and then he went back to sleep. From 3:30PM until 6AM this morning. At that point he got up, said he still felt lousy, went over to the job site to give the keys to the crew, and came home to lie down again. Symptoms: fatigue, sweats and chills, ear pain, and stuffiness.

He was able to get in this morning to see our ENT (otorhinolaryngologist, if you like fancy words). It turns out that there was a lot of ear wax buried deep in the canal. Took two different methods (including suction) for the doctor to extract it all. There might be a bit of sinus activity that's causing the congestion, but the doc said that the wax could've caused the rest of the problems. Hubby asked whether overzealous cleaning could have pushed the wax into the canal -- doc said definitely.

I'm glad it's not the swine flu or anything, but I'm definitely going to be gentler now when using the cotton swabs. Yeesh. My friend L told me this morning that her daughter has an ear wax build up that causes trouble for her, and they go to their doctor every three months for cleaning. Funny, whenever I used to think of ear wax, it was because of Dumbledore's amusing comment towards the end of the first Harry Potter movie (about Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans). Nothing amusing about this, though...

Don't Cost Nuthin'

"It is a little embarrassing that, after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other." Aldous Huxley

Pshaw, I wouldn't consider this to be an embarrassing conclusion at all. In fact, just yesterday I was commenting on an early draft of a book an old friend is writing on survival in the business world. One of the suggestions I added to the "organizational behavior" chapter was BE DECENT. Brings out the best in people, costs nothing, allows others to be more gracious to you, and so on.

OK, Pollyanna is now leaving the building. LOL.

Greatest Misnomers

Tonight, after dropping Son #1 off at his clarinet lesson, I took a bunch of books and media back to the library. I was feeling in the mood for some mellow music, so I browsed through the classical and vocal sections of the CD room and found a few things to tickle my fancy.

One of the discs I chose was a favorite vocalist, who released a so-called greatest hits compilation in 2007. I'd never heard it, but a quick look at the track list made me realize that a few new tracks had been recorded for the CD. Right there, it's not really a list of hits, unless they're making the wild assumption that all the new tracks will be among the most popular for this artist, historically. Even I'm not that optimistic, folks!

I began to listen to the disc in the car, while running my other errands for the evening. I then realized that two tracks, both duets, had been re-recorded with new performers. So the hit songs in this collection of greatest hits are not the versions that became hits. Will these new versions surpass the other versions in popularity? I doubt it, because we often associate the first version with our idea of what the song ought to sound like.

This distills down to seven or eight tracks from the original CD releases. Greatest hits indeed. If I'd bought this disc instead of borrowing it, I would definitely be crying "foul!" Something has definitely gone awry with marketing and advertising in this country. Sheesh. (P.S. Both of the new duets are so-so according to me, as are two of the new tracks.)

Poking Fun at Pessimism

This, which appears to be a paraphrase of a quote by Daniel Reardon, was on a piece of unsolicited management advertising I received in the mail at the office.

The pessimist may be right in the long run, but the optimist has a better time during the trip.

This definitely leaves me -- a card carrying optimist -- smiling!

Wednesday Morning Greeting

A short while after I arrive at work, I have to make my potty break (that 40 minute commute gets me every time!). While walking down the hall, I said good morning to one of the guys who works in the Facilities department. He smiled and said, "Welcome to Carnival Cruise Lines."

After I stopped laughing, I thought that it was probably one of the best greetings I'd ever received on a work day. Particularly on Hump Day. So I'm sharing. Join me on the Lido Deck in a few minutes for mimosas.

Weird Germs

I have to admit that I normally have few worries about getting sick. Our household is generally very healthy. Even after a friend of ours (whom we hadn't seen in some time) told us two weeks ago that one of her children had been diagnosed with Influenza A (or H1N1, or swine flu...however you identify it more commonly) I wasn't overly concerned. They'd done the right thing: one week of isolation.

Then, almost a week later, the mom came down with a stomach bug which lasted for at least three days (today would be the fourth). We didn't get the kids together over the weekend as we'd planned because we wanted to be sure that germs would not spread between the families. BUT...one of our boys came down with a bad headache on Sunday before dinner time, and then became stomach sick after getting out of his evening shower. He still had a headache yesterday morning, bad enough to keep him home from camp, but the tummy was better. I'd spiked a headache on Sunday night, but it had turned to a dull ache yesterday morning and then subsided. Hubby developed a headache yesterday afternoon, followed by nausea which increased through the evening. He's home from work today, as his combined symptoms are still creating a general feeling of malaise. The rest of us are AOK today, and two of the kids have yet to be affected. From where did "our" germ emanate?

Another wrinkle...when she heard what happened in our house, my friend said "uh oh" because their case of flu began as headache and nausea combined with fever. None of us had a fever though, as far as we can tell. It's disconcerting that these viruses (or whatever they are) are manifesting themselves in different ways as they go from person to person. Does it merely have to do with each individual's immune system? Are the viruses actually mutating as they travel? What's in store next? Ugh, I think I feel another headache coming on.

Anyway, my wishes for good health to you and yours!

Lifting Up

Earlier this week I did the monthly shopping trip for our office donation to a local food pantry, which is financed by a collection from employees. A bunch of people throw a dollar or a few dollars in the envelope, and we normally have about $120. So I went to COSTCO and got juice boxes, applesauce cups, peanut butter, jelly, canned tuna, and other kid friendly items since kids are home from school for the summer and not getting breakfast and lunch subsidies. The load was fetched at lunchtime today, and I got to have a minute of sunshine while transferring it from the back of the mini van (with help from my charming group of friends during a short break from our bridge game).

I also decided to post some uplifting quotes. Hope this brings more smiles to some of you, which should already have been starting on this sunny Long Island Friday afternoon.

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain

"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." Benjamin Franklin

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet." James Openheim

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood." Berke Breathed

Maintaining the Chill

My April 29 post told the tale (and showed the photos) of hubby and Son #2 applying a temporary fix to our old fridge/freezer unit. While that definitely did the trick for a while, the beast began showing signs of slowing down. So...after we wolfed down the fresh fish that Son #1 and hubby caught yesterday at Captree (all right so I did cook it first) we charged over to Sears to take advantage of the last day of the 4th of July weekend appliance sale. 15% off plus another 5% if you use your Sears card. Ding ding ding, we have a winnah!

Couldn't get a 25 cubic foot model -- too wide and too deep (oh fercryinoutloud, save yer wisecracks) but we were able to get a decent not-too-small Kenmore model with a water dispenser and filtering system for under $1000. They do Sunday installations, yippee. Hubby fooled me...I thought he'd want stainless but he preferred black. My choice of bright yellow to paint the kitchen and dining room (whenever I get the chance to do that) is sounding better all the time.

So now we see how creative my cooking gets later this week, as I attempt to use as much as I possibly can from our current stores of food in the fridge and freezer. The fewer things we have to put in coolers on Sunday, the better. Tonight it'll be two kinds of sausage, spaghetti squash, and corn.

A Whack to the Side of the Head

Once I heard a stand up comic quip: "I spilled detergent on my kitchen floor. Is the floor clean, or dirty?"

Yesterday afternoon, while celebrating Independence Day with a wonderful collection of friends and their families, there was a moment that reminded me of that joke. One of the girls was tossing ice cubes out of the tree house and one of the cubes hit my youngest son in the head. My first thought was to ask him whether he wanted to put ice on it. Then I cracked up.

It turns out that he really did want to put ice on it. After about ten minutes, he was cured. Maybe the hugs also had something to do with it.

Coney Island Capers

Yesterday afternoon the kids had their first visit to Coney Island during the summer season. We checked out the original Nathan's, including the billboard which lists the winners of the annual hot dog eating contest. The scrawny Japanese guy who'd won it six years in a row was bested by an American in '07 and '08. A digital clock showed a countdown of hours, minutes, and seconds to this year's contest (to be held this afternoon). Personally, the thought of it makes me queasy, but it seems that an awful lot of people find it exciting. Let's hope this never becomes an Olympic sport.

We trawled through the outdoor flea market, where Son #1 bought his first wallet. He was psyched to put his school ID card in the plastic window but looked dejected not to have any credit cards to put in the faux leather slots. Why do they want to grow up too soon? When we walked on the boardwalk, and asked the kids whether they wanted to go down the water, they all couldn't wait. (This, after they'd all said earlier that they hadn't been interested in going to the beach. Sigh.) They spent quite a while jumping around in the calf high waves. When we turned around the other way from the water, we realized there was a beautiful view of the ferris wheel, so I took a picture of my friend and her beau in front of it (they were our companions for the day). I also took a walk down the dock with the kids, and they had a good time talking to some of the fisherman and looking to see what they'd caught. One had pulled up two large spider crabs and put them on the pier to let them crawl around and get into mischief. As we were ready to meet back up with our friends, I got caught in a torrential downpour going from the ladies' room to fetch the kids from the men's room. Good thing the sun came back out and rescued me from being a drippy mess.

The afternoon was capped off by an amazingly short ride home. I guess a lot of other people also had the day off, or left early. When else could you leave Coney Island at 5PM on a Friday and be in Eastern Nassau by ten to six? All of us met up with hubby for some great neighborhood Italian food.

Today I'm making a veggie platter and some dips to bring to our best man's house for the annual 4th of July BBQ, pool party, and dog pile of kids. Weather is supposed to be pleasant all day, which is a thrill considering our recent string of bad luck with Long Island rain. Happy Independence Day!