Playground and Toy Boxes ...Yeah Right

Okay, here's a photo of two businesses near my house. Oklahoma Playgrounds is a company that makes playsets for kids. And so appropiately...if there's a playgound, why not a 'toy box?' There's Christie's Toy Box right next door. Hello? They don't sell jacks and balls there, okay maybe they do sell balls....ones that come with an AC adaptor. How funny is that?

If you got it....

This woman is totally naked. Her clothes, or what you see on her have been painted on her. Well, except for the high heels...they're real. How funny is that?

Hello!

I was recently reminded of a situation where my hands ended up getting thrown in the air and my eyeballs hit the ceiling. On July 2nd I was vacationing in WNY and I went to my brother's house for a pre-July 4th party. My mother, who everyone was expecting at Ed's house, decided she wasn't up to going so it was just me and my dad. We walk into the back yard together and head out to the tent where everyone is sitting, standing, drinking, what have you. This women who I do not remember looks at me and says, "Mary!" Mary is my mom and yes we look like mother and daughter but to be accused of being her seems to me to be a stretch.

"Um....she's 70!!!" I find myself saying out loud. "Hello!" This does not set well with me all night.

****

Yesterday my husband and I went to Target to get a few things. This is one of those Target Supersavers so you can buy all kinds of stuff. Phil goes to the grocery section while I check out the sports bras (started to jump rope at the Y...yeah...need a little support there.) I meet up with Phil in the frozen foods. We go to the check out. I start to read the magazines but I remember the bra and I know Phil is embarrassed to be buying it without a woman with him. I head to the other end, next to where you sign your name on the credit machine thingy. I'm watching the checker lady. Phil had placed the bra on the check out belt. Had I been in line, I wouldn't have even set it down but I know Phil is too embarrassed to do that. The bra is the last thing to go get scanned. Checkout lady puts it in the same sack as the bananas! I'm like "Hello!"
"Did you not show up for 'purchase packing' class?" I step up and remove the bra from the bananas and ask for another bag. "She's 70!" rings through my head.

Stop the world, I want to get off

There is so much bad stuff in the world today I just feel like ignoring it and burying my head in the sand and hoping it just goes away. I know I should be more socially conscience but I just don't want to be. Ignorance is not only bliss, it's what gets me up each day. I feel if I turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to what I have no control over, I'll do better for me. Now, this is not to say that if something were happening right outside my door, I would act the same but events thousands of miles away..I just feel it's okay to be ignorant. Does anyone agree with me? It's okay if you don't because I can pretty much turn a deaf ear/blind eye to that too. I feel bad for all the turmoil terrorists are doing but what really can I do?

I was at the Y today and there was a couple in their, I imagine, 70s doing some exercises on little blue mats right off the indoor track. I found myself so drawn to them. I really wanted to ask them if they needed anything; if they could use a little instruction...anything. I wanted to talk to them. Now, here is something I know I can help out - I can make a difference (albeit on a much smaller scale). I love working with seniors and I really should find a place where I do that. Or more of it. They were laying down and when they got up, I so much wanted to race to their sides to help them steady themselves. I didn't feel comfortable but I did watch them to see if they were at all wobbly...fortunately they were not. (Had they been, I would have gone over to them in a heartbeat.) I did finally ask the woman when she came over to the machine I had finished with if she needed any help. She said, "No, it's all programmed into the machine, but thanks for asking." So she knew more than I thought she would know. I wanted to congratulate her for her dedication to exercise. It's over 100 degrees here and it's uncomfortable to be out in it even to run from AC to AC.

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is that I need to be in some control. I certainly don't have any on world issues so I need to just concentrate on the local.

The lady at Walmart

The lady at Walmart was named Alberta. I was so tempted to ask if her sister was Ontario and her brother was Nova Scotia. I really was!

Awfical Blues

I'm sitting at my desk in my Awfical (Office+Cubical=Awfical) and I'm going nuts. Love the work. Just can't stand snorting co-worker of substance. He snorts every 60 seconds or so. Grabs whatever bile is in his lung and snorts it into his head so, I imagine, he can swallow it. It is so disgusting! I have complained but apparently it's a "medical condition" and "he can't help it". Yeah, right. I remember a time when I cried a lot at work. I was told it was unprofessional and tears weren't allowed in the workplace. I used to be ashamed of it. Intellectually I knew it was stupid but emotionally...I couldn't stop. Well, by golly it's a medical condition! I can't help it. Don't think nothing of it. It's just my illness. Guess I can save the money on my Zoloft..cool. That's what I'm going to do. Weed of the drugs and just let the tears roll.

Okay..back to work.

What now?

Okay, my vacation is over until November. Work is busy as can be..even busier than that...they are letting me do overtime which is like so unheard of..."time and a half, what? are you nuts?" School doesn't start until the end of August...now what? Oh, I know...I could work on that short story I started to write for "TRUE STORY." Have you ever read any of those stories? They are so lame but I probably shouldn't say that since I might need to make nicey nicey with the editor (as if). You should look at them at the library. The headlines on the front cover are something like, "My mother caught me masterbating...will I ever see again?" I know I could write better stories than you will find in there. All of them have happy endings where the narrator learns a lesson.

Okay, back to the subject at hand....what's next? I know I should go to a pilates class but the Y has them at 7:45pm and it's hard for me to leave the house once I am home. Phil and I go to the Y three times/week but not usually that late. I go right from work. I hang out a work a while because if you to the Y early, it's too crowded. Everyone wants to get their workout in before dinner. Phil and I eat late usually.

Oh, I could clean my house. Yeah, there's a thought.

I do want to learn more about Access too. I could work on that. I could join the PC Users Group in OKC and go to meetings. I could learn more about investing. There is a lot to learn. I'm just not finding anything here.

I gotta think about it more.

Me and Mom

I think I have discovered how to put photos on my blog. Oh, good, something new to play with. This is me and mom at Bingo last Tuesday. You would never believe I was adopted? Okay, nice try, huh?

The Box

Randy Travis had a great song out a few years ago. I have it on his greatest hits CD which I play in my car. The song is called THE BOX. It's a ballad about a man whose father just passed on and in the process of attending to his dad's things, he comes across a wooden box in his father's workshop. He carefully lifts the top off and in it, he finds personal momentoes of his dad's life...some things he is surprised to find...a poem the dad wrote about his wife and child; a long lost pocketknife the singer gave to his dad for father's day; postcards and pictures. The singer says, "we had all thought his heart was made of solid rock, but that was before we found the box."

I had heard the song before I went back home last week. I really wanted to find the opportunity to sit down with my dad and talk about "stuff". I did try...a little but it just didn't happen.

I had noticed a wirey fake flower wrapped around a button on my dad's shirt - obviously a gift from a fund raiser he apparently donated to - when I first arrived on Wednesday night. I noticed the flower again on Thursday. On Friday...I had to say something...you can't wear a shirt for three days...you just can't. I told him he needed to change his shirt, that he had worn it long enough. "You're wacky," he said to me. He has said this to me a lot over the years.

"There's a man at work. He's 82 years old. He told me he needs his wife to tell him when to take a shower because 'when you get his age, you need to be told'. He's 82 and still works." I told him this so he knew he wasn't alone; that his thinking was normal for a man of 75 and he shouldn't feel so bad. Dad left the room. I really thought he had taken my advice. A little while later, I saw him and that same wirey flower around the same button.

"Oh," I said. "I was hoping I didn't hurt your feelings."

He walked by me on his way to the basement. "I don't have any feelings anymore."

"When did you lose them?" I asked. He laughed and kept on going. The next day he changed his shirt.

I want my dad to write his thoughts down because if I ask him he doesn't know how to answer. It seemed like everything I asked him he answered with a question or some big prologue that was so unnecessary. I must have said 15 times last week, "Dad, please just answer the question." He kept thinking his answer wasn't what I wanted to hear but the reality is, it didn't matter to me what the answer was...I just wanted an answer. Example, he was going to drive me over to my friends house so, as we were leaving, I asked him, "Should I lock the door?" To which he replied, "What for?" "Dad, just answer the question. It doesn't matter to me if it is locked or not, I just want to know what do you normally do when you leave." (They live in a small village outside of Buffalo, NY. There is a crime rate but not a high one and locking the doors when I was a kid was an option but not mandatory. I haven't lived there in twenty years so what do I know?)

I might have to wait to find "the box." I just don't know if that's the best thing.

My Mother's Wine

I'm visiting my folks in Western NY. I have been here for four days and I am exhausted. My mother is 70, heavily affected by osteoporosis and unable to walk more than a couple steps assisted by a walker. She is also legally blind. Normally she is the most positive person you could meet even with all her health issues. She often replies, "there are people worse off than me," when I say, "my poor mama." She works for TAP (Telephone Assistance Program) where she calls shut in a couple times per week. Her big high light it so go to BINGO on Tuesdays with my dad and sister-in-law. Aside from doctor appointments it is her only chance to get out. She reads Guidepost and can quote from Dr Norman Vincent Peale. She says she can do anything if she wants to if she puts her mind to it. I once joked with her that she just might have a problem getting into the space program. "My books also tell me I shouldn't be around people who are so negative," she gruffs at me.

Mom has always liked her alcohol. She's not a drunk but I could rely stories from my childhood where alcohol played a big role in my life. Last night, Dad and I got back from visiting my brother. Mom was invited but decided she wasn't up to going. When we returned it was blatantly obvious she had gotten into the wine. I was not in the room where dad was making up a plate of food that we brought home for her but when I entered the room, dad was fuming, "How many glasses of wine did you have!" Mom went quiet which is not a good thing because you know the wheels, lubricated by the wine, are turning around in her head faster than normal. She sits in her wheelchair, behind her big thick Pre-80s style glasses, randomly sticking her fork into the left over baked beans and potato salad on her plate. After a few mouthfuls she not too forcefully throws her fork into the plate and gushes, "I can't believe you father reprimand me just because I had a little wine." By now she is crying.

My father has escaped to the livingroom after his assault where the TV volume level is set to 75 year old ears. I have traveled 1200 miles to witness this scenario no doubt a repeat of my last visit. I am mad at dad for bringing this up. Even I know you don't confront a drinking spouse about her drinking while her head is swimming. Now, I'm in this position to make everything right again. I have not deluded myself into thinking this is ever possible, but I have a need to try. I convince mom to go to bed. She agrees to that as she rolls away in a huff. I get the kitchen somewhat organized and go into her bedroom. She is halfway dressed; her exposed flesh making me gasp. My heart is breaking to see her so frail, so thin....her last weight reading was 89 lbs. This is a woman who averaged throughout her adult life around 140 lbs. I leave her to changing herself because I am not comfortable with helping her and she is by no means, even in her slightly inebriated state about to welcome my help. I return a few minutes later. She is in laying in bed, in a heap of arm, shoulder, back bones. The osteoposis is so advanced her neck extends her head down to her chest which was pigeoned chested since birth making the bone heap higher. She senses my presense. "I can not do the things you all can do," she declares between tears. "I can not go bowling, I can not drive, I can not walk much. Why does he have to make me feel bad for having a little wine?"

I sit on the edge of the bed, touch her thin arm, notice the veins therewith. "Mom, it is just so bad for you," I say softly.

"Bad for me? He smokes!"

"That's bad for him too, but wine can make you dizzy and you can not afford to take another fall," I have had this conversation before.

We go back and forth. She's not buying it. I finally say, "I don't know what more to tell you. It is just bad for you and we are never going to agree on this."

I let her go to sleep. My father should not smoke but at 75, I don't think it would make a big difference in his health if he stopped. It would make the house smell better though. I see his ice cream in the freezer and think to complain to him that there is too much fat in it but I think, "at this point, why bother?"

I can see mom's point. I don't discourage dad from his vices but I do mom. She can not see the harm...even after all the surgeries, the confidements, the pain she has entured over the past 18 years. I wish I could offer an alternative but I have no idea. It breaks my heart.