Procrastination, Thy Name is Me

Somewhere, deep inside my brain, there is a mighty struggle going on. No, it's not the age-old battle between good and evil (although that was a great television show - all six episodes of it), nor is it one of right and wrong, lies vs truth, or even should I salt or sugar my tomatoes.

It has to do with my compelling need to be at least 15 minutes early for any event from doctors appointments to family get togethers (much earlier if it is a public event such as a concert , wedding/funeral, or sporting event), vs my complete tendency towards procrastination. Consequently I am my own push me pull you.

Before I retired, it manifested itself into my morning schedule. We had flex-time, wherein we were allowed to alter our start-time anywhere between six and 9:30 am. Obviously, the earlier you started, the earlier you went home, and for me, work started at 6am, so in the early days, the mister could get the kid off to school, and I could be there when he got home. It was a 35-40 minute drive, meaning I should leave home at 5:15, earlier if I wanted to park closer than 3/4 of a football field away (which makes a huge difference when the wind chill is -25F in the morning or the afternoon heat index is +112F.) Consequently, my original wake up time was 4am and my goal was to leave home by 4:50am, arriving at work around 5:30, securing the closest non-handicapped spot (still a miserable 50 yards from the door), and as a bonus, avoiding nearly all traffic along the way. My get-there-early DNA was pleased...maybe even smug.

The older I got, the more my procrastination tendencies conflicted with my get-there-early DNA and by the time retirement was near, my morning had altered to feed the horrid inner conflict. I showered, laid out clothing, and packed both breakfast and lunch the night before. I reset the alarm for 4:30, brushed my teeth, then dressed, did hair and minimal makeup, grabbed my lunch box and was out the door in 20-25 minutes.

Those were the days I went to the office.  Somewhere in there, part time tele-work was instituted and I took full advantage of work at home days. Unfortunately, on those days, procrastination took my brain hostage, as my alarm was reset for 9:15am (the kid was in middle or high school by then - certainly old enough to fend for himself so mom could get an additional 5 hours of sleep), and I, in robe and slippers, stumbled bleary-eyed, down the hall, logging onto the office website just in the nick of time. It didn't help that I had a min-fridge and coffee machine in the home office, so all I had to do was reach behind me to get juice, cheese, or put a pod in the coffee machine. I cannot begin tell you what having the two such diverse wake up times on alternating days can do to a person's soul. It was not pretty, and neither was I.

Two and a half years ago, I retired and made a list of all those get-there-early type things I never had time for - unfinished needlework from a cowboy Santa I started when the kid was 5 (he is going to be 25 in the fall) to a simply gorgeous crocheted blanket for my first niece's birth. She is now 16. The novel I started in 2005 was going to get completed. There were boxes of photographs and family stuff to sort thru, as well as genealogy inherited that needed more research. I also toyed with the idea of volunteering to become a story lady at one of the local elementary schools. I was even going to attack gardening again for the first time in years, as well as getting back to becoming the gourmet cook I used to be. I was even going to blog weekly.

That's when the old broad named Procrastination took one look at my ambitions and laughed right in my face. Loudly.She might have even snorted.

I have not touched a single piece of decades old needlework except to sort it and move it around. The 5,000 word novel is up to two parts - one with 17,000 words and another with 32,000, but melding them together is daunting and I keep editing and adding to established parts instead of meshing the stories together. The photographs are still in boxes (partially sorted), dad's genealogy stuff is still untouched on the shelf, the elementary school forgotten, gardening abandoned, and as for cooking, if dinner is even made, it more than likely is a frozen pizza that the mister puts in the oven. As far as blogging goes, none were written in 2013 and this is the 12th in the ensuing two years. All those pinterest pins I made?  Not even going there.

So.....if anyone can figure out how to force me into action, please feel free to kick me in the butt, since I evidently can't bend my leg to kick my own, although I do have an idea for a device that will do it for me. Unfortunately, I keep putting off building it.

Big Yellow Taxi

Forty five years ago, Joni Mitchell wrote a song called Big Yellow Taxi, which had nothing to do with one, except she rode in it from the airport to a hotel, opened up the curtains in her room, saw the beautiful mountains in the distance and the parking lot below her. “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.”

As I get older, and am forced to pay more attention to the mortality around me, I decided to reverse the ‘I don’t know what you’ve got portion’ in my life. It started when I lost my father in late January. Actually, it started when he lost his quality of life several years ago after a life threatening bout of double pneumonia after bypass and valve replacement surgery. He never really recovered and his life went to shit in the three or four years after. During those years, I have been to two funerals of friends since junior high, had another friend die in a car accident, have been notified of friends battling cancers of all types from lung and bladder, to ovarian, and bone, have watched friends battle dementia and Alzheimer’s with their parents, watched other friends lose parents, spouses, and children, and then this morning heard from my baby brother that next week he is having that ol’ ‘let’s put a camera in you and take a look at your heart because we think there is blockage’ procedure.  He mentioned that it was in late June when our mom died and also when our dad had his heart surgery that eventually led to his demise.  Scary as all shit.

So, my friends, please join me in ‘noticing what you’ve got.’

Watch the clouds form horsies and ducks in the sky.

Listen to the laughter of unseen children playing somewhere in the neighborhood.

Revel in the love people have for music, even if it’s not your cup of tea.

Worship the printed word in the form of books. 

Pray for others, and for yourself, and for the world to have more love and less hate.

Close your eyes and enjoy the taste of a freshly picked, red, ripe, and juicy tomato.

If it isn’t lightning, stand in the rain and laugh.

Dance in it if you can.

Say hello to a stranger – you might be the smile that lifts their darkness.

Perform many acts of random kindness.

Celebrate friends and family.

Celebrate yourself.

Quit worrying about later, because today is the present, and it is indeed the most wonderful present we can have. 

2015 Reading list and first book - CandyFreak

I recently saw a reading list that I have made my 2015 goal. It’s not full of book titles, but type of books, such as over 500 pages, a book taking place in my hometown, based on a true story, one with bad reviews, a color in the title, on that was published the year I was born, etc.  All in all there are 50 different types.

An additional goal is to review each one on Amazon, Goodreads (and here), something I quit doing about the time I started finishing books at 3am and then going to sleep.

Will I make the goal?  I know I will read many more books than that this year, but will I add variety to my reading or keeping with the same old formula?  Only time will tell.

Number one completed on the list was a book I started but never finished.  Started from page 1 and read completely through to the end, is Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, by Steve Almond.  I didn’t set out to read this book in particular, but last week, Garageman called me to his office (i.e. the garage) to listen to an interview on sports talk. You can imagine my total joy. As I listened to this very articulate and entertaining man talk about the book he had just written on football and why he both loves and loathes it, I became entranced. I decided to find his name (Garageman couldn’t remember) and the book (he couldn’t remember that either.  At the end of the program, he did remember that maybe the guys last name was Allman and 10 years ago or so, he wrote about all about candy, and his trip across America to small, family owned and run manufacturers and how the big three were slowing killing them off.

Eureka!  I had that book!  I started reading it, and for some reason never finished, so I did a little research and dug it out. (I also purchased Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto for later.)

Candyfreak made me squeal with delight, shake my head yes in knowing sympathy, and made my stomach pine and mouth water for all those pieces of sugary goodness that were mostly regional, and that are long gone, or very hard to find. It delves into the disgusting practices of the big three and how they pay retailers huge fees to stock only their goods, pricing mom and pop manufacturers out.  It led to discussions between Garageman and I about the lack of new candy and limited twists on the old, pathetic as they are, at least it’s something new.

I was thrilled to find my favorite hometown candy with its own chapter - Valomilk, and to this day it pisses me off greatly, that in order to buy a hometown made candy, I have to go to Cracker Barrel because of the stocking fees charged by grocery stores and encouraged by the big three.  I admit, for a long, long time, I was an M&M freak, but the minute I started watching NASCAR and saw that Mars sponsored a driver who must remain nameless in my household, I banned all Mars candy from crossing my threshold.  I still allow Nestle and Hershey, but no Mars products, since I protest not with signs and marches, but by withholding my dollars.

Anyway, back to the book.  It made me long for the days of Mary Janes, rock candy, root beer barrels, peanut clusters, buttons, wax fingers, and all those wonderful penny delights of my childhood. Thanks to Mr. Almond’s Freak Appendix, I now have websites to connect with certain candy fetishes, and I recently found The Vermont Country Store, who sells many of these same delights.  I’d give the book five thumbs up, but he said nicer things about other candy makers than he did Russell Sifers who makes Valomilks.  In my book, that makes Mr. Almond slightly suspicious.

Madison Avenue and Hollywood Lie

Everywhere I go, from print to internet to screen, I am bombarded with descriptions and images of how a woman should look. If I were to believe it all, men only want to be involved with women who are (and subsequently, women only want to be) young, 5’9”, 115 lbs., tanned, toned, long wavy hair (preferably blonde), blue or green-eyed, with a flawless and totally smooth and unlined/unwrinkled face, and with legs long enough to wrap around an elephant. Personality need not be included.  For a long time…a very long time…I bemoaned the fact, I was short, far from thin, had stick-straight brown to auburn hair, brown eyes, stumpy little legs, small mouth, and eyelashes that refused to lengthen and curl no matter what I tried. Around age 12 or 13, I even remember one of my father’s sisters telling my family that I might be passably decent looking if I just lost a few pounds and the glasses, and they agreed. When those who are supposed to love you the most find fault with your looks, it takes a toll.

I have always felt like less in the looks department, and then I grew up.  Granted, it didn’t happen until I was 50 or so, but I learned to accept me for who I am, and found out I’m one helluva person, and can actually clean up pretty good despite….no….BECAUSE of what are considered flaws by many.

Every extra pound on my body (and I fully admit I could lose a lot of them) represents a wonderful meal with family and friends, enjoyed by all.  They stand for the love we generate around the supper table, at weddings, after funerals, at Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and far too many birthdays to count.

I do admit to coloring my hair to get rid of a tinge of grey over my ears, but my hairdresser says only until my eyebrows start to turn, and then we shall go au natural.  I treat myself to facials, and use high quality facial products to keep my skin from becoming dry and leathery, but I will never use chemicals or surgery to change my appearance.  I am me. I am unique. I am wonderful and it is my flaws that make me so.

Every line and wrinkle on my face represents a memory of a tear shed, a worry worried, or a laugh shared.  Why would anyone want to delete those wonderful pieces of life to appear less than what they are? The latest fad is for men too, to undergo facelifts and Botox treatments.  Why?  Are all these people so shallow and vain that appearance is what counts most? That what’s inside is negligible?

How empty are the lives that deem this necessary.  That’s not a question, by the way – it’s a statement.  How freaking shallow and devoid of what really counts is your life that you feel it required to change your appearance in order to fit in to a perceived notion of who you should be, whether it’s your insecurities or peer pressure pushing you in that direction?

Stand straight, let it sag, bag, wrinkle, and pucker. Smile. Let the inner you shine and be secure in the fact that you are real, and not a caricature of who you really are. There is a tall, 27 year old, voluptuous redhead inside me, and I let her take over my 64 year old 5’1-1/2”, overweight outside.  Guess what? People see the physical me, and love that crazy redhead inside. I refuse to hide anything or be someone I’m not.

Go jump in a lake Madison Avenue and Hollywood, and take your unrealistic ideals with you.  I don’t need you.  No one does.

Be secure and comfortable in who you really are, for once you start changing to please others, you lose yourself in the process.

Happy Birthday Eric

Happiest of 24th birthdays to the child I never thought I'd have.

To the fetus who kept me on my left side for over a month to ensure his well being.

The newborn I didn't see for 30 hours after his birth, and subsequently had to leave in the hospital when I was discharged. (Taken by the nurses in NICU so I had something until I was unhooked from machines and wheeled down to see him the day after he was born)

The infant with colic, milk issues, and who took several years to sleep more than 3-4 hours a night on a steady basis.

The miracle I would sit and look at for hours on end, even when I was so tired I would nod off while giving him a bottle.

The toddler who never teethed well, to the point that his father would bounce a ball off the door, let it hit him in the head, and while the kid was laughing, I'd shove a spoon of mashed potatoes in his poor hurting mouth.

To the kid I sometimes called Earache instead of Eric because of his many ear infections.

To the kindergartner who was so smart with calendar math that his teacher was amazed...the same kid who required a math tutor in high school.

To the first grader who went a year without front teeth because they were kicked out by the kid he was following up the slide too closely at recess.

To the charming 8 year old who, when I would not give him a cookie from the batch I was baking, changed to his Sunday go to meetin' clothes (complete with clip on tie), slipped out of the house with a clipboard, a pen, and a piece of paper and rang the doorbell proclaiming he was from a company looking for good cooks, my name was given as a good cookie maker, and asked for a sample.  The little con artist got his cookie and I still have the paper with my name, address, and the comment good cookie maker on it.

To the sweet, loving child who turned on me around age 12-13, into a sullen, totally unlikable teenager.

To the young man who gets his heart broken far too easily, breaking mine in the process, as I help him grieve.

To the young man who is not too proud to admit he loves his mom and dad, and daily gives us both a hug and kiss.  (Of course I threatened to beat him if he ever felt too big in the britches to show his affection freely.)

Happy birthday to my son who daily gets on my nerves, and without whom I would be lost, for I have loved him with all I have, from the night I knew he was miraculously conceived.

May your life be full of joy and health.  I love you more than I can say, kiddo.

On Books - continued from July 2010

I have a sickness.  In late July 2010, I blogged about its beginnings when I wrote about the addiction I acquired at a very early age - specifically, reading and the books of my childhood.  What was true then is still true with my ever growing love for the books of my youth.  Like macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes and gravy, certain stories will always be the comfort food of my life, even at my ripe old age of nearing 64. The happy farmer letting the pigs slide in his dump truck still gives me the giggles, and Dav Pilkey books I purchased years ago for my son about Kat Kong, and Dogzilla are still favorites to give to friend’s children and grands.  Nothing can make me smile like those books.

Over these many years, my adult reading has had wild swings to it.  The first reading passion of my twenties was science fiction.  I consumed everything I could, especially if it had the name Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein attached to it.  Then I discovered Asimov branched way outside science fiction and started consuming those offerings, some of which came from the library and I wish I could remember titles – especially the book of short stories that all ended in puns. (One was about a snail named Teddy owned by Mr. Sloan.  It won a race, and the last sentence, was “Sloan’s Teddy wins the race.”) He was truly a genius.  The wide variety of topics on which he wrote (all very eloquently) is astounding.

Creeping into the end of my science fiction phase, I discovered horror.  Stephen King.  Dean Koontz.  Peter Straub.  H.P. Lovecraft.  That era ended during the reading of King’s “The Stand.”  On the same day, I purchased the book as well as a new clock radio - one of those newfangled ones with LED digits instead of flip-over numbers with a backlight. I can’t remember if it was neon green or red, but after staying up half the first night, reading the book, I removed my glasses (without them I am blind), turned off the light and fell asleep.  Waking up a few hours later, I was frozen to my bed in fright, because Randall Flagg’s glowing eyes were there in my apartment.  The sheer terror was overwhelming, even after I turned on the bedside lamp grabbed my glasses and saw it was the new clock.  Didn't touch horror stories for another 30 years or more.  Now I am getting back into them with the old standards, plus J.A. Konrath and Jim Butcher (who both inject a fair amount of humor.)  With the exception of Butcher’s Harry Dresden, I can’t get into vampires, shape shifters, werewolves, and the paranormal stuff.  Maybe someday.  

Somewhere in there, I started reading, enjoying, and collecting the classics and the poetry assigned in high school and college, and early on I developed an affinity for reading plays.  Each year, I go to the reps website, see what new plays they are performing and order the interesting ones.  I will never see 99.9% of them performed, but I can still cast them in my head and enjoy them.Tennesse Williams, Christopher Durang, David Mamet, George Feydeau, Noel Coward, David Ives....there are far too many to list.  If you don't read plays, you are missing some of the best literature out there.

I spend a lot of time reading American history.  At one point, I wanted to read a bio of every president, but after several very dry books, I have decided to only read the ones that seem interesting to me.  Love the old west, especially as it pertains to Kansas and Missouri (as well as any local history, from the earliest days to the mob.)  Always had an affinity for cowboys and westerns (thank you Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Jingles), but after moving in 1998 to what was once a township where 140 years prior, James Butler Hickok was elected constable, I cannot describe the thrill I get knowing that Wild Bill may have once ridden across the land that is now my yard. I can spend days reading about the border war between Kansas and Missouri during the War Between the States.  Don’t even get me started on Lewis and Clark.  I own a copy of the journals, which I have not only read daily (corresponding with their daily entries), but have actually used the internet and its fine mapping features to following their path along the rivers.  Gives me the chills to be in a place where I know for a fact they have been and described.  Back in the mid 90’s a traveling Smithsonian exhibit came to town and the two biggest draws for me were Abraham Lincoln’s top hat and Lewis and Clark’s compass.  If I could have a do-over of professions, I would definitely pick being a historian instead of an accountant.  Most definitely.  Hi.  my name is Sue and I am a proud geek.

Somewhere in my high school years, I developed a love of mysteries, especially the old film noir type played by Bogie in the movies.  Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, Dashiell Hammett, Rex Stout, and of course Agatha Christie.  There are now a wonderful set of new style writers from whom I eagerly await the newest release, but honestly, you cannot improve on Hammett’s beginning lines of “Red Harvest”, “I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte.  He also called his shirt a shoit.”  Best book beginning ever.

The past five or six years, I finally got into the category of writing referred to as women’s fiction, chick lit, and/or romance.  For years, I avoided it like the plague, thinking (mistakenly) that it wasn't legitimate fiction.  Ha! The joke was on me. I have read some of the most insightful, poignant, and off the charts funniest literature since I ‘lowered’ myself to read the first one.  I am proud to say that a book coming out in August will have my name in the acknowledgements for aiding in creating a character - and it's not the first time my name has been listed, either.  The on-line friendships I have formed with authors are some of my most treasured.  I now have a list of tried and true women’s fiction authors that I make sure to follow and pre-order their works.  They can lift me up on the worst of days and turn blizzards into a day at the beach.

I have a basement full of books in boxes and on shelves, three bookcases of them in the home office, stacked in various places in the house, and well over 1,000 books on my Kindle.  I still continue to buy them.  I am like an alcoholic or drug addict, constantly needing another fix of new words. I could live to be 100 without ever purchasing another book, and still not read all that I have.

What a joy it is to have a sickness like this.

Gardening

I think spring has finally arrived.  I know….bold statement for me to make since I trust no weather, but at last, the feeling that long cold snaps have passed is there.  A couple of weeks ago, I went to the garden center and purchased a pallet of river rock so we never have to mulch again and while there I eyed the plants…oh, how I eyed them, but left without, yearning and unsettled for leaving seven months of brown behind, and springing into riots of colors.

Now, at last, I feel it’s time to make my decisions on what to plant.  Last fall, we changed the house color from a dusky green to a pale blue with bright white trim and a cobalt blue front door.

I’m thinking a Monet palette would be in order - yellows, pinks, whites, lavenders.  Tom is a huge fan of George Meis’ Greek photos comprised of mainly blue and white with red accents, and this one hangs in the powder room off the kitchen.

Because of that, I am planning on painting the ceramic planters on the front “porch” a cheerful cherry red and getting more to sit on the rock where mulch and rabbits used to live.  Since we had the painter also paint the trim in the back the same bright white, I want to carry the theme to the newly enlarged deck, but therein it gets tricky.  100% southern exposure with little to no shade – cactus have died out there, and I’m not the most attentive of plant mothers.  I used to be.  I suppose with determination I could be again.  Isn't that what women of a certain age are supposed to like - wide brimmed hats, flowing shirts, gloved hands, and fully feeling the Earth Mother vibe as we dig into potting soil?

I need to immerse myself into the world of container plants and figure out what would work best in the vastly different conditions between the front of the house and the back.  I know that somewhere there will be black eyed Susans since they are the closest I’ll get to sunflowers (my favorite of all flowers), but after that, I’m at a loss.  Even plants on my northern exposure porch have to be watered twice daily in the summer, but I love the color variety and the lushness of double impatiens, as delicate as they are.  We have a dead dwarf spruce by the porch (thank you ever so much Mr. DuPont and your imprelis) that I’ve been trying to get the hubby or son to cut down for months.  There are 4 or 5 bags of river rock piled up on the porch waiting to take it’s place.  I think I need to attire myself in long sleeves and gloves, find a saw, and do it myself.  Timberrrrrrrrrrrr.

I also need to find out where the men-folk put my tins of bird seed, and fill the feeders in the back yard.  I need my goldfinch buddies when I’m on the deck.  

The much beloved Tupelo tree is no more after a windstorm last year, and now there is a void in the back yard that was once full of waxy, beautiful leaves.  I need to get something into that spot also, but it took the Tupelo over 10 years to achieve its majesty, and I’m not willing to wait that long.  In ten years, I plan on being in a ranch house with no…count them….zero stairs.

I’d like to finish the landscaping around the sides and back of the house – put pavers with Irish moss between them under the deck.  Need to find the original landscape blueprint from 15 years ago.  All I remember are dwarf lilacs.  Then again, this is all probably for naught this year, as I was warned that this might be the summer we need to replace the air conditioner (last fall was a new furnace and water heater.)  Why must houses get old? As soon as I save enough money for a nice vacation, it goes back into the house.

I have an entire summer worth of yard labor with no concrete ideas planned.  Anyone game?