Hear-Say

Joey told me last night that her mother had said something about me.
I said, "Oh yeah? Do I want to hear this?"
Joey responded, "I was talking to her yesterday and she said that before I met you I was a miserable bitch."
I looked at Joey in surprise, "That's not about me...."
"Yes, it is," she answered.


Today I was in the grocery store going through the check-out line with my dinner.
The cashier rang me up and I said, "What a bargain! Such a deal!" and he said, "I haven't heard that today."
The gentleman standing behind me in line responded, "I have a better deal."
I turned to look at him and he told us, "Publix is my wife, mother and girlfriend."
I laughed and said, "Yes... that will save you millions."

Do Something

Tonight I read to Joey from Joy Behar's book, When You Need a Lift :But Don't Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin as we waited together in the Emergency Room for her pain medication to kick in.

Famous and noted people weigh in on how they deal with being "down in the dumps."

As for me, nothing brings me back from the blue room like getting something accomplished.

I was really down on Sunday, so I left the apartment and went to get some resume copies and I found a second job. I felt better.

At other times, I pick a repair or maintenance project that's been sitting on a back burner and tackle it. Cleaning and oiling my bicycle was a recent distraction from the blues. I like getting things done. I like handling the tools and getting oily, too.

When work gets me down, I sing oldies to myself, pop tunes, show tunes you have probably forgotten or never heard, like "I'm just wild about Harry" and "Let's Get Together." The Queen Bee is surprised at the variety and age of my repertoire.

And I think about funny things that have happened and laugh out loud and make my co-workers wonder about me and remark that I need medication.

What do you do? (Why not tell your blog and leave me a link?)(Yeah, I guess this is a "tag.")

wild ride through winter

Joey's grandmother has slipped, in just the past two days, into a transient delirium.
She was coherent enough to talk on the phone to a relative tonight, but she kept seeing people who weren't there and bugs crawling on the walls and counter tops.
She kept searching her knit blanket for a deck of cards and calling out to family members who are in other states.

We gave her a deck which turned out to be Pinochle cards and she scoffed and complained.

I have experienced much, but have been blessed that no one of my family members who have passed on went through this.

They all knew who they were and where they were. I haven't dealt with hallucinations and mental confusion.

I know that there is little I can do except to be kind to the grandmother, understanding and supportive for Joey and obedient to whatever Joey's parents require of me.

No one can tell, at this stage, how long this will go on. The only thing I know for sure is that the course of this adventure is unpredictable.

so tiny

My friend had her baby two days ago.
I went to see her and her daughter yesterday,
It reminded me of my father.
The first thing he ever said to me was, "Baby, it's just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man."
He was giving advice to my newborn self.
I would tell this new person in the world that money only matters as a means to survive, that rich or poor, no matter who you love, KINDNESS is what counts.

The Sacred Body

This entry is really not for the squeamish or sensitive.



Today at work, The Queen Bee was talking on the phone about the elderly woman she advocates for. The topic was a "DNR" or "Do Not Resuscitate" order.

When you reach a certain age or a certain point in your health at which dying would be preferred over extreme measures to keep you alive, you can post a DNR by your door. That way rescuers will know not to go to extraordinary lengths to revive you.

When my grandmother died, she had one of these orders posted by her front door... but she didn't die at home.

My grandmother was on a field trip with teenage school children. They were cleaning a cemetery and my grandmother was there to tell the kids about the people in the cemetery.

Her DNR was not with her when she confessed to the teacher that she was not feeling well, laid her head on the teacher's shoulder and left us.

The people who came tried everything to bring her back... because that is their job; to maintain life.

For a while, we didn't know what happened to her. My father and I drove to her house in St. Cloud, Florida as soon as we heard.

We understood one thing when we got there: She didn't die there. Paramedics don't clean up after themselves. Everything was as it should be.

As the Queen Bee answered a second call about the DNR, I felt myself getting sick to the gut. I went outside for some air.



When my mother died, my father and I were completely bereft. Although we had had time to prepare, though a day hadn't passed in many months when we wondered if this was the moment, we still had our hearts ripped out.

A woman from Hospice came to declare my mother's death.
She asked us if we wanted her wedding and engagement rings.
My father said "No," and I agreed, but my sister said "Yes." I numbly remarked that her hands were swollen and they would be difficult to remove.

The woman said she could do it and went to the room while we stood around, too shocked to do much of anything.

Then I heard a most incredibly heart-sickening pop. The woman returned with the rings and handed them to one of us. I don't know who.

It is the single most horrific event of my life experience to date.

I know that there are many things in the world that are far worse, but to me... a saint was desecrated. The greatest love of my life was defiled and profaned.

My mother didn't feel it, but my heart snapped with the joint on her delicate finger.

Before my mother was even good and cold in the hearse, my sister was manically plowing through my mother's jewelry. The words that came to mind then (and now) were "acting like a freak."

I don't know how to end this entry.
I've lost other family and friends but nothing has ever impacted me with more despair and grief than the destruction of her sublime peace for the depraved avarice of my sister.

Before you criticize...

I just want to remind you that the Europeans who founded this country did not speak...

Choctaw, Iroquois, Creek, Pawnee, Passamaquoddy, Navajo, Ojibwa, Blackfoot, Crow, Cherokee, Nanticoke, Paiute, Winnemucca, Ute, Pequot, Mohegan, Sioux, Nez Perce, Muscogee, Shawnee, Potowatomi, Kickapoo, Wyandot, Apache, Cayuse, Micmac, Penobscot, Piscataway, Narragansett, Wampanoag, Chippewa, Ottawa, Mackinac, Lumbee, Ponca, Winnebago, Hopi, Omaha, Lakota, Patuxet, Abenaki, Pueblo, Mescalero, Tiwa, Shoshone, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca, Assiniboin, Zuni, Onandaga, Cayuga, Shinnecock, Comanche, Arapaho, Dakota, Cheyenne, Chickasaw, Osage, Kiowa, Natchez, Umpqua, Klamath, Modoc, Yahi, Aleut, Chinook, Catawba, Santee, Chickahominy, Samish, Snoqualmie, Menominee, Iowa, Tequesta, et al...

or any other language of the people who were already here. We rarely even tried.

But come we did. At first like alien colonizers and then like fleas.

Who are we, then, to tell anyone else what to speak?

On the one hand, I wouldn't go to another country to live without understanding how to communicate.

On the other hand, we were even more of a nuisance than the illegal aliens who are keeping prices down but also, allegedly, draining our welfare and health care system.

They didn't start the fire... but they are changing everything, just like we did.

Halloween is coming!

I love Halloween.
I enjoy dressing up.
I've always liked Holidays that involved candy.
Easter and Halloween are my two favorites: Easter because it is the most important Christian holiday and Halloween because it's all about fun.
It's ironic that both are about death, resurrection and overcoming evil.
But there isn't a traditional Halloween dinner. Go figure.

My parents helped me dress up as a kid.
One year my mother sewed a clown suit together for a play and I wore it for Halloween and probably a few other times as well.

One year, my father created a headless horseman get-up for me out of cardboard and his plastic raincoat. I got a black hobby horse and though I couldn't see too well in the parish hall, heads turned.

The year that I came back from the hospital, my sister and a friend sat out on the station wagon's tailgate to pass out candy and they covered me with a dark blanket to be a moving rock.

When I was in college, I had one of my grandfather's old white suits. It was big. I slicked my hair back and went as David Byrne of The Talking Heads. Fa-fa-fa-fa oh-oh-oh Pscyho Killer Qu'est-ce que c'est


run run runawaaayy

Then I had several years of Halloween humbug and no one ever came by our house in the sticks on Halloween.

Then, Cristy renewed my Halloween spirit by having me over to the Halloween event at her house.
She decorates her house and yard, lines the driveway with chairs and orders a lot of pizza. Hundreds of kids swarm the neighborhood. It's great. I can't think of a better way to pass All Hallows Eve.

Last year, I was a black cat. The year before I was a werewolf that made little kids cry. (It has a very good mask.)

This year, I also have a costume but I will not reveal what it is until afterwards.

I like scary. All the commercial costumes you see for women are cutesy and suggestive.
We are more than that.

I want to be the doctor, the pirate, the ghoul.

One year, I went to a bar to check out the costumes (in the werewolf get-up) and saw a woman dressed as a tampon. What a hoot!

And there was a Queen dressed as a jellyfish. You know Mary has a big hat fetish!

As for real ghosts and goblins... I know there is natural spiritual energy, but until you prove that spirits linger... Halloween will always just be about FUN.

Dear Friends,



I have just read and signed the online petition:



   "Filipino Americans demand for apology from ABC and Desperate

 Housewives"



hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition

service, at:



   http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FilABC/



I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might

agree, too.  If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and

 consider

signing yourself.



Best wishes,



Jean

Filipino Americans demand for apology from ABC and Desperate Housewives

View Current Signatures - Sign the Petition

---

To: ABC

To the producers of "Desperate Housewives" and ABC:

We are writing to express concern and hurt about a racially-discriminatory comment made in an episode of Desperate Housewives on 9/30/07. In a scene in which Susan was told by her gynecologist that she might be hitting menopause, she replied, "Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines."

As members and allies of the Filipino American community, we are writing to inform you that this type of derogatory remark was discriminatory and hurtful, and such a comment was not necessary to maintain any humor in the show. Additionally, a statement that devalues Filipinos in healthcare is extremely unfounded, considering the overwhelming presence of Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the medical field. Filipinos are the second largest immigrant population in the United States, with many entering the U.S. (and successfully passing their U.S. licensing boards!) as doctors, nurses, and medical technicians. In fact, the Philippines produces more U.S. nurses than any other country in the world. So, to belittle the education, experience, or value of Filipino Americans in health care is extremely disrespectful and plain and simply ignorant. Many of the hospitals in major metropolitan areas of the U.S. (and the world) would not be able to operate without its Filipino and Filipino American staff members.

As Filipino Americans and allies, we band together to ensure that this type of hateful message should not be allowed to continue on our television and radio airwaves. Given the recent amounts of media attention that has been given to Michael Richards (against African Americans), Isaiah Washington (against gays), and Rosie O'Donnell (against Asian/ Chinese Americans), it is ridiculous that this type of hateful speech made it through various screenwriters, the show's producers, the show's actors, and ABC itself.

We demand a public apology to the Filipino American community, and we demand the episode be edited to remove the ignorant and racist remark. We will not allow hateful messages against our community (or any other oppressed community) to continue.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Strutting and fretting: a message to my blogbuds.

Hello, my two or three readers,

I'm still here and I have been thinking about you and about writing some entries.
I just need you to know that.
You all know that sometimes life redirects you from the things you want to do.

I have been contemplating copy some entries from my first blog over to here and then only re-posting entries from this blog that actually mean something.

I've also been considering splitting this blog into three parts. That is, create one blog for frivolous entries, one for darker entries and one for the ones that have seemed to connect to readers.

I feel bad about my darker and more pessimistic and cynical entries but it is also part of who I am and how I think and it would be a lack of integrity on my part to lie about it by omission.

I consider the sensitivity of my readership. I share things I might not actually want to put into your particular brain. We all have enough to think about and deal with on our own.

I could split "It's All Good" into light, dark and the middle. (But then that would not create balance, would it?)

Or I could take the lazy and less-ambitious road and just smoosh it all into this poor blog.

That's probably how it will end up because my energy and my attention is limited.
I no longer have the luxury of coming home and communing solely with cat and computer.
My spare time has been consumed with the stuff of partnered life.
I still marvel at how people find the time to watch television although I have to confess that the other night, Joey was away and I found myself feeling uncomfortably alone so I sat in front of Discovery with "Mythbusters" and "How It's Made" until she arrived.

And then I even watched "Man vs. Wild." Made me wish I was a handsome British man capable of roughing it with a knife, flint and canteen anywhere in the world. (lol)

I want to put myself here. I just only have so much energy. And I am more seriously contemplating getting a second job so there will be even less time for the outlet of blogging.

Plus, during months when I don't come up with a guest speaker, I spend much free time learning and preparing my talks for work.

And I have also rediscovered Friday nights with my friends. Dratted life! The nerve of supplanting the expression of my vanity with the only thing that makes life really matter!

I gotta work, I need to rest, my friends refresh me... and I love you, too.