Peppermint Candy

I guess I missed the memo that informed the public that the Christmas season begins before the Halloween crap is even off of the shelves.  Hell, we are still in Daylight Savings Time.  If the commercialization gluttons get their way, we will be seeing holiday items in stores around the time the Independence Day items are being packed away.  It will truly be Christmas in July.

In an attempt to ward off the holiday depression that takes over my life every year, I have decided to thrust myself unwillingly into the holiday shopping epidemic that plagues my pocketbook not only for December, but for months following the joyous season.  So this year I figure that if I start early, maybe I can forego some of the financial hurt we experience in January and months after. 

We began at Toys R Us Express, a nice store filled from floor to ceiling with all of the year’s new toys.  Absent from this store is the noise, obnoxious clerks, and unnecessary bells and whistles of the Toys R Us superstore that we have in Waterford.  We were able to purchase a few items that were on Santa’s lists, and ended up saving twelve dollars in the process.  Apparently, the Toys R Us Express store has sales on some items that the parent store does not.  Keep that in mind all of you Santa’s helpers out there.

We then ventured over to the Toys R Us superstore.  We just so happened to stagger in during the “power hours” sale that was occurring between nine and one, therefore the store was overrun with other Santa’s helpers.  Being that Halloween is tomorrow, some of the shelves were bare, but overall the store was well-stocked for us early holiday shoppers.  We proceeded through the many aisles with caution, trying to get a sense of what our children would like to add to their un-played toy collections.  The “power hours” sale proved to be a little promising and we were able to purchase some items at a reduced cost.  I will not be divulging any sensitive information for that fact that one of my children is quite computer savvy and will probably be reading this blog within the next couple of days (Hello Mary). 

Having obtained several deals, we decided to push our luck at the local hobby shop.  Lee’s Toys in Groton is a great little store, often triggering nostalgic feelings when perusing the overstuffed aisles.  I saw toys there that I played with when I was little; toys that you would not see at a Toys R Us or Wal-Mart.  We were good little parents, however, and didn’t purchase anything bigger than stocking stuffers here, even though I wanted a Jacob’s Ladder and a new slinky (for myself, of course!)

I was happy with our purchases for the day; they did not break the bank but we did get some of the items on the wish lists.  And furthermore, we didn’t get buffeted and run over by the bullies who take over the stores somewhere around Thanksgiving time.   We actually had fun shopping today, I think because we weren’t under the holiday pressure yet.  Although, I must say, I did feel a little foolish wrapping Christmas presents while my jack-o-lanterns were staring at me.  Their eyes had that “what the hell are you doing, woman?” look in them.  What can I say?  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  As long as I don’t start decorating the Christmas tree in September…

Remember What Mama Said...

Do you remember some of the things that your mother told you when you were a kid?  Do you remember how you said to yourself that you would never say those things to your own kids?  Well, the time has come for you to admit that you were wrong and to woefully avow that "I should have listened to my mother, she was right."

I have two children, as most of you know.  One is three and the other is twelve.  Most days, as you've probably gathered, I'm very close to breaking that one precious thread that is holding the last of my sanity.  Every day I say the same things to my children, and every day I have to be disappointed when I realize that my words did not make an impression, and that those words didn't even pass the ear drums into the brains.  Have you ever heard your mother say, "I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall?"  Well, I remember that one among many others, so I guess I'm getting paid back.

 My daughter has the messy gene that apparently she may have inherited from me.  Messy meaning that her room looks like a J.C. Penney vomited all over her floor, her dresser and most days, her bed.  There are clothes everywhere, some are clean and some are dirty and somehow they are organized because she knows which are which.  I tell her every day to hang up one or two shirts, because by the end of the week, most of the clothes would be put away.  I say this every day, sometimes twice a day.  And yet, when I go up to say good night, the room looks exactly the same.  However, I believe that I'm getting paid back for what I used to do to my mother.  History repeats itself.  Mother, I apologize.

My son also does not understand the English language.  Every day I tell him not to antagonize the dog, and every day I have to listen to the whining when he gets nipped.  I tell him if he keeps lying on top of her like a pig pile, she is going to nip him when she's had too much piling.  I say this at least five times a day, but to no avail.  I separate the two, I put the human child on time out, I yell, and sometimes I even spray them both with the water bottle.   There’s only so much one person can take.  I can understand now what my mother had to put up with when my sister and I would start our daily brawls.  She must still cringe when she hears that whiney “Mom!” or the infamous “I’m telling!”  Again, Mother, I apologize.

My husband says that his mother would always say, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”  Children whine.  I’m not talking about crying when they are infants, that’s different…that’s communication.  I’m talking about the incessant whining that children begin to do right around the time they learn how to talk.  This time just so happens to be the same time that they begin the “terrible twos.”  They whine when they are hungry, sad, mad, tired, jealous, too hot, and too cold.  They whine at meal times, play time, nap time, bath time and bed time.  My daughter, even at twelve, still whines about taking a shower, about cleaning her room, and about doing homework.  My son whines about everything else.  There is no point to it, and sometimes I think they are just trying to see if anyone is listening and if anything is going to be done.  I have a whine filter, which I installed right around the time of my son’s terrible two’s.  My husband, however, does not have the whine filter.  So he cannot block the penetrating whines of the children from entering his mind.  Therefore sometimes I hear “I’ll give you something to cry about!”  In spite of this, the whining ensues, because the children see their Daddy as a big playmate, and not as the disciplinarian.  That’s my job, add it to the list.

Lately, my son flat out cries when he doesn’t get his way.  And lately, I’ve been using the old adage, “Your face is going to freeze like that.”  I remember when my grandmother used to use that one on my sister and I when we would do the same thing.  And yesterday, I used “If your friends jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?” when my daughter was telling me a story about a group project in school. Wow, I think I’m getting worse.

Postal Employee Newman

Some of you have known for some time that I have been in the process of obtaining my passport. It is a process because of the time and energy that it takes just to haul my ass into the post office, an establishment of this country that I hate whole-heartedly.  I dread going, and I will do anything at all in my power to prevent going.  I celebrated the day when my supermarket started selling postage stamps, and UPS installed drop boxes.  But I digress…

First, I had to acquire the necessary paperwork from the post office.  I stood in line for about thirty minutes while the huddled masses made their way through the unnecessary long line to the two postal employees working the counter.  So pleasant are these two that they just exude joyfulness to everyone around them.  (Note—if you’ve ever been to an American post office, you know that I am being sarcastic here.)  Once I got to the counter, I was greeted by said employee, who proceeded to shove a form at me, and telling me that I needed to gather the appropriate paperwork before I can have the passport photos taken.  I left the post office, feeling slightly confused, embarrassed and stupid, because apparently I look like an idiot, since I had just been treated like one. 

I returned to my humble abode, settled myself into a chair, and filled out the application form.  Now for anyone that has applied for a passport will understand, the paperwork is not the easiest to understand.  Especially when one is trying to comprehend exactly what is needed for proof of citizenship, what copies are needed, what originals are needed, and what the fees are.  The State Department website is absolutely no help in the matter, unless you want to know what countries NOT to travel to.  After reading and rereading the forms, I finally decipher that I need an authorized copy of my birth certificate, a copy of my driver’s license, the form and the fee.  I cannot ascertain the fee because evidently it changes every day.  One day it was $135.00, the next it was $115.00.  Luckily, I had a stamped and authorized copy of my birth certificate from when we applied for our marriage license.  I rejoice because this is one less government establishment that I would have to visit.  I put everything together that I need, and return regretfully to the post office.

Today there was one postal employee working the counter, and she was none too happy to wait on any customers.  We were inconveniencing her cigarette break time, I guess.  After 20 minutes, I finally made it to the front of the line, and handed over my paraphernalia.   She scrutinized the forms, happily informing me what I filled out wrong, and what information I was missing.  I had forgotten that in my 31 years, I did not change my last name only once, but twice.  When I was born, my last name was Ring, from my father.  When I was sixteen and trying to forget I had a father, I changed my name to my mother’s name, Di Buono.  When I got married, I changed my name again, this time adding the Russo to the Di Buono.   And apparently, if you add an “e” to your middle name, you are no longer who you thought you were.  I had put on the form that my middle name was “Anne” and on my birth certificate it was “Ann.”   I had no idea that would be such a showstopper, and I was almost foiled in my quest.  She decided since I didn’t look like a terrorist, she would use some whiteout on the aberrant “e.”  Phew, that was a close one. 

After going over my paperwork with a fine tooth comb, I was told to write a check out to the Department of State for $110.00.  I laughed to myself because the State Department website today had a current fee of $120.00.  Then I was charged $40.00 for the post office processing of the passport paperwork and the taking of the photos.  She told me to wait for her out near the post office boxes, and she would be along shortly to take my photos.  I walked out into the lobby, looking for some sort of sign of where to meet her.  I heard some rummaging near an ancient door that looked like it hadn’t been opened since 1943.  I heard her unlock it and she had to push all of her weight against it in order to open it wide enough for a human to pass through.  I guess I had been correct about the 1943 assumption.  I sat down in a chair in front of the camera.  She prepared the camera for the photo-op, and told me to smile.  Now here is the dilemma.  I am in the post office, I’ve been here for 30 minutes, I don’t want to smile.  But I squeeze one off, although not very convincing.  I have terrible flashbacks of my DMV photo that is on my license and have a momentary sense of an oncoming panic attack.  I am told by postal employee to wait for her outside.  The line now is all the way into the lobby, so I skirted around the sullen faces to wait for her to come back.  At this point, I had no idea what I was waiting for, but I was told to wait, so wait I do.  Five minutes later, she emerged from the annals of the post office, and told me that I was all set.  All set?  That’s it?  I just handed over all of my pertinent vital statistics to a complete stranger without so much as a receipt or proof that I was ever there.  Feeling a little numb and a little violated, I ran back to my car, and thanked the Lord that I made it out of there while keeping most of my sanity.

According to the State Department website, I will be receiving my passport in 8 to 10 weeks.  We’ll see how that goes.  Of course I am at their mercy, since I have no confirmation number to check the status, and actually no proof that I was ever there.  All I have to show is the PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder.  “When you control the mail, you control…information.”

Makin’ a List, Checkin’ it Twice

As I get older, my memory is beginning to fade.  Actually, if you ask my mother, I’ve been forgetting things since I was two.  Because of this mind of steel (steel because everything bounces off and nothing gets through), I have a tendency to make lists in order to remember things. 

I always need a list for the grocery store.  On one side of the list I write the decided menu for the week, and on the other I list the items needed to make the meals on the menu.  Simple enough, right?  However, I always manage to omit one particular item, usually the main ingredient of one of the planned dishes.  For example, if the menu item is Macaroni and Cheese, I usually forget the cheese.  Or if the menu item is pizza, I usually forget the crust.  The best one though was when I was going to make Chicken Enchiladas, and somehow forgot the chicken. 

In addition to the grocery list, I have active Wal-Mart and BJ’s Club lists.  When we run out of certain things, they go on the list in order to be refilled.  All paper products, cleaning products and bulk items such as juice go on these lists.  The problem with these lists is trying to get straight answers from the daughter and the husband of what they need.  “Do you have deodorant?” is heard, most likely to be followed by an “I don’t know.”  “Do you need shaving gel?” “I don’t know.”  Therefore my visits to Wal-Mart and BJ’s are followed by additional visits the same week to those same stores.  And people wonder how I have over 60,000 miles on my car when I have no job…

In my purse, I have a small notepad onto which I write items I must look up on the internet.  These items are usually curiosity-induced, with no important meaning.  If I see a website on the van in front of me on the highway, for instance, I want to know what kind of business it is.  The website goes onto the internet list.  Or if I hear a song on the radio and want to know whether it’s sung by Lady Gaga or Ke$ha.  This list has absolutely no bearing on everyday life, and should probably make its way to the Happy Hunting Grounds, but for some reason I can’t let it go.  Curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back.  In my case, I think insanity lures the cat back, only to be slaughtered again.

As the cold weather hits, one can only be reminded that the blasted holidays are approaching with runaway tractor trailer speeds.  Thus the season for Christmas lists.  I have a list of things that I either need or would like to have.  My husband likes this list because he usually waits until the day before Christmas Eve to go Christmas shopping.  I have a list for the each of the kids; what Santa is going to buy for them and what they actually want.  I have a list of presents I’ve already bought, and where I have hid them in the house.  There was one year I didn’t make this list and I found wayward presents that never made it into the hands of the intended. 

On days that I try to cram all of my errands, I have a list telling me where I need to go.  I start with the store the farthest away and end with the one closest to my house.  This list is helpful until I realize that I left the house way too early and nothing opens for another hour.  I guess I will have to start writing store hours next to the stores on the list.

In all, I must say that the creation of the list really does help the memory challenged such as myself.  Now if there was some sort of invention to help me remember my list before I leave the house, I would be all set.

Let the Sun Shine In

Today in Groton is a lovely fall day.  Maybe a little breezy...okay, a lot breezy.  But the sun is shining and there is a freshness in the air.  As the bright sunlight dances in through the windows and onto my kitchen, I begin to notice that the freshness of the day outside does not lend to the freshness on the inside.  Let me explain.

On Mondays, I have become addicted to the show "Hoarders".  I think its because no matter how dirty my house sometimes gets, its nowhere near what these people's houses look like.  One woman had ten dead cats in her house!!!  I may have ten dead spiders, or perhaps a couple of dead moths, but no cats.  Apparently she couldn't smell the death decay because the mold, bacteria and other extraterrestrial growths taking over the house lent a more overpowering aroma to the surroundings.

However, this morning, as the sun shone through the windows into my kitchen, I started to see things that were borderline grotesque.  First, the sun hits the windows, where I see hand prints from a toddler, tongue marks from a dog, and what I believe to be forehead marks just about Daddy-height.  This happens when adults are trying to talk on the phone while the circus performs in the kitchen.  We think if we get closer to the windows, we may be able to hear what the other party on the line is saying.  From the windows, my line of sight makes its way to the dining table, where I discover more fingerprints, smudges, crumbs, dust, and general shrapnel from last night's dinner.  My eyes move down to the wool rug lying underneath the table, where the dog hair loves to adhere.  Right now, I don't really recall what colors the rug is supposed to be composed of, they have become hazy with a thin layer of white.  The sun also reveals the sheer amount of surface scratches in our hard wood floor, along with the tufts of dog hair that I swear were not there last night.  Now I understand that they were hiding under the cover of darkness and shadows that our incandescent lighting creates.  I follow the sunlight over to the refrigerator doors, which are covered with toddler sized finger prints, what I believe to be dog tongue marks, and some sort of sticky substance that could be watermelon lolly pop.  Hence, the canine tongue marks. 

The countertop leading to the sink has a thin layer of dust, which I don't understand because I just wiped it down yesterday.  Are we sloughing off that much dead skin??  I shudder at the thought and proceed to the stove, which is also covered by fingerprints and the suspect sticky residue.  No tongue marks here, I think she still remembers getting her nose burned on the oven door.  I have now made a full circle around the kitchen and begin to wonder how bad the rest of the house is.  I decide to go on a recon mission.  I glance into our bedroom...not much going on here, except for the fact that someone sneezed while standing really close to the TV.  Someone who may be around three feet high and possibly eating a pop tart.  There are a few cobwebs, not anything too horrific though.  The bathroom counter is a little cluttered, but okay.  I move into the old living room.  I pass by this room because right now, its a lost cause.  It is half torn apart with the renovations we began about a year ago, but have not done anything with since.  The kids bathroom, also not bad, but a little cluttered.  Michael's bedroom also is not bad, and neither is Mary's, with the exception of a few carcasses near the windows.  Any insects that enter the house go to that particular place to expire, we are not sure why.  Probably because it is the highest point in the house. 

After the recon, I begin to understand that the kitchen, my domain out of all the rooms in the house, is the messiest.  Why is this?  Can I blame it on someone other than myself.  I try desperately to come up with some other individual to blame.  I think that I may blame the husband, but he only is home on the weekends...I could blame the toddler and the dog, but some of the mess could have only been made by someone around five feet tall.  The tween could be blamed, she is around five feet tall.  But no, I soon realize that its all my fault.  I cannot deny it any longer.  I am a poor housekeeper, I guess.  Or it could be because after playing chauffeur, cook, personal shopper, homework helper, laundry maid, and bathing nurse, I'm too damn tired to care.  "Let the chambermaid clean it up."  Oh crap...I am the chambermaid.  I'll do it tomorrow.

When I Become President

Election time again.  If you didn't know it was election time, you must be a hermit that doesn't own a television or a radio.  The mud and bullsh*t has been flying back and forth for the last six months.  If you don't remember to duck, you may get hit in the face with it. 

I used to be a democrat.  I say I used to be because there aren't any candidates that I would support within my party lines.  Saying this, I would also never become a republican.  But lately, in the interest of greed, the line between democrat and republican has become hazy.  I firmly believe that people go into major politics just to further themselves instead of being a voice for the people.  Of course I would be okay with this is a Mr. Joe Shmoe was elected to office and was able to give his family things that he never had.  But this doesn't happen.  First of all, you have to be already a millionaire in order to run for public office.  The mud-slinging campaigns cost a lot of money, and so do the thousand dollar plate dinners and the millions of signs defacing public property.  These people have no idea what it is like to struggle everyday to make ends meet.  They don't know the plight of the single mother, or the woes of the father who can't get medical insurance through his work for his kids.  They have never had to decide which bills to pay for the month: the outrageous electric bill or the even more horrific fuel oil bill.  They have absolutely no clue about the people who they are supposed to have a voice for. 

Therefore, my first order of business would be to stop mudslinging campaigns.  Campaign spending would be very strictly limited, and if you earned more than 200,000 last year, then you are not allowed to use public funds for your campaign.  You want to run, you pay for it yourself.  This way, anyone can run for office, not just the richest of the rich. 

My second order of business would be to get rid of the assistant to the assistant positions.  Every year, as tax payers, we pay salaries belonging to people with ridiculous positions in government.  The only people that we really should pay attention to are the janitors at the capitol building, because they have to shovel more sh*t than most farm hands.

Not one of the candidates for offices this year have addressed education.  NOT ONE.  Meanwhile, schools are still closing and teachers are losing their benefits and pensions.  Schools are falling apart, playgrounds and parking lots are disheveled, but no money is available for these problems.  Instead, we have an inane law that states that if schools don't meet a standard testing requirement, they lose their federal funding.  You bunch of idiots...these are the schools that are in desperate need of federal funding, and you take it away from them?  They need that money for textbooks, computers, and classroom equipment.  How are they going to score higher on the aplitude tests if they have no access to the essentials for learning.  In addition, if the teachers are constantly being shuffled and treated like crap, don't you think that their morale is going to effect the way they teach?  Instead of education, the candidates are only interested in cutting federal and state spending.  They do this by cutting funding to state sponsered departments and agencies.  The first that always get cut are the agencies having to do with education, social services, foster care, and the Department of Mental Health.  Therefore my third order of business would be to restructure our budget to take care of our children, because they are the ones that will run this country when we are gone.  Why not give them the best possible advantages to do so?

I would also form a coalition against domestic abuse.  Domestic abusers would have to register to a national database just like sex offenders.  If they were convicted three times of domestic abuse, they would have to wear an electronic monitoring device monitored by the local police department.  Child sex predators would no longer see the light of day once convicted.  They would all be housed in solitary confinement for the rest of their disgusting lives.  No chance for parole.  One strike and you're out.  There have been countless studies that state pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated.  So if you don't want to get it cut off, then I'm going to cut you off.

I would totally renovate the foster care system.  I would take away quotas for social workers working on foster care cases.  When you add quotas to an already hectic system, the foster children are not going to get the attention needed to determine whether they are being properly cared for.  There are THOUSANDS of foster parents that only have an interest in the $2200 a month per child they get for the foster, rather than the care of said child.  Many foster kids are sexually and physically abused, neglected, and are denied necessary therapy for psychological problems. All potential foster parents would have to undergo psychological testing and the homes would have to visited prior to and after placement.  Unscheduled visits would be standard. I would make it easier for good families to adopt their foster kids.

I could go on and on with the differences I would make.  Foreign policy, keeping our noses in our own country, taking care of the people here, bringing industry back to the U.S., giving farmers tax breaks and incentives so that we no longer have to take chances on tainted foreign fruits, vegetables, and grains.  Social Security benefits would be decreased for people making a certain amount of money, and increased for those who make less.  I would make it harder for people to find loopholes in the system, like welfare abusers and disability abusers. 

SO, if there was a candidate out their who possessed the know-how and the desire to address any of these topics, point me in that direction.  But in order for a candidate to do any of the things they promise to do, they have to have empathy for their fellow citizen, love for all people, honesty and integrity.  Well--there's the dilemma.  In order to be a politian, you can't have honesty and integrity.  I guess we just have to come to the reality that we are screwed.  Anyone want to migrate to Canada, eh?

Just Call Me "Grace"

Gracefulness must run in my family.  My grandmother, my mother, me and my daughter make up four generations of graceful beings.  Okay--I may be exaggerating a tad, maybe a little sarcastic, even.  Let me explain.  We'll start with the first generation.

Annette is my grandmother.  You could say that she is the genetic source for our inherited gracefulness.  My grandmother has a problem with sidewalks.  The first incident occurred on a crisp late autumn day.  My grandmother used to wear a cape-like coat...it had no armholes, so it resembled a cape.  She was coming out of the doctor's office and my mother, my sister and I were waiting in the car for her.  As she came out of the doctor's office, the cape caught the door, and my grandmother went down.  When she hit the ground, she rolled and the cape proceeded to wrap itself around her and go over her head.  So there, was my grandmother, wrapped up like a sausage laying on the sidewalk.  Amazingly, all she managed to injure was her pinky finger, which she rolled on during the melee.  The next incident occurred in March of 1987.  Don't ask me why I remember this, but I do.  My grandmother was driving my sister and I back to her house for a sleepover.  She stopped at the AM/PM in Glastonbury for gas.  She went in to pay for the gas and left me and my sister in the car.  I remember wondering why it was taking so long for her to come out.  Finally she came back to the car with her face all bloody.  Apparently, when she was coming out of the store, the heel of her shoe wedged in a crack in the sidewalk, causing her to fall onto the pavement, face-first.  This was very traumatic for both me and my sister, and we got to take our first ride in an ambulance.  The sidewalk struck again.  Later that same year, my grandmother was painting her bedroom.  While doing this, she managed to fall off the ladder she was using, and break her leg.  Not a banner year for my grandmother. 

Next along in the genetic line is my mother, the second generation.  My mother has been known to take several spills.  All, thank goodness, have been more humorous than hurtful, and for some reason, I am present for most of the falls.  Outsiders may think that I have it in for her, but really I seem to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In addition, even though my mother is short (only 4'10"), she has the uncanny ability to fall in slow motion.  One time, she had an entire conversation with my sister as she was going down.
Mom: "Here I go..."
Tina:  "Where are you going?"
Mom: "I'm going down."
Another time, my mother and I were outside in the snow fixing the bird feeders.  Apparently, she managed to trip over a snow bank, and fall down.  All I heard was "hmmpf".  I turned around and saw my mother sitting in the snow.  I asked her what she was doing down there, and she said she was resting. 
Then there was the peanut incident.  My sister and I had gotten bean bag chairs for Christmas and they were becoming deflated as the peanuts inside got more and more smushed.  My aunt, for some reason, had a mess of Styrofoam peanuts that she put in two big garbage bags for us to refill our chairs.  My mother carried these bags out to the car, but the bags were so big that they dragged on the ground.  She managed to step on one of the bags, trip herself and land on the mountain of peanuts.  If it wasn't for those peanuts, who knows the injuries she would have sustained.  The peanuts saved her life. 
My mother doesn't just have a problem with tripping and falling, but she also manages to brain herself every once in a while.  Last year, she was walking in the dark out to the kitchen, tripped over a box and smashed head first into the refrigerator.  Last night, she was putting stuff away in the freezer, when she dropped something on the floor.  She bent down to pick it up, she was almost knocked out by a frozen chicken that toppled out of the freezer.  Her head is still burning today.  Maybe the fridge has it out for her, like the sidewalks do for my grandmother.  We may never know...

I am the next generation.  I have so many spills on my record that I will only describe the best ones here.  I, like my mother and grandmother, am short, so one would think that my center of gravity would keep me well-balanced.  That doesn't seem to apply to my situation.  When I was eight, I was running into the backyard, slipped in a mud puddle, and slid down the hill, covering myself entirely in mud.  That spill earned me the name "Geronimo."  Later on that same year, I was riding my bike down suicide hill on Old Colchester Road, when I hit a pile of sand and flew over the handlebars.  That was my first case of road rash.  I've fallen out of trees, off decks, tripped up and down the stairs.  When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was carrying my sister's cat in her carrier up the stone steps in front of our house.  The cat carrier caught one of the steps, I tripped and landed on top of the carrier.  That stupid cat probably saved my daughter's life.  I have slipped on the ice and gone under my car, twice.  I fell down the hill at my house when my foot rolled on some acorns.  When I was working as a waitress, I was climbing a shelf to reach something.  My foot slipped and I fell into a five pound block of butter.  I also managed one time to fall just right so that I wedged myself in-between the ice cream freezer and the wall.  The list goes on and on.  It is amazing after all of these incidents, I've only managed to break my big toe...and that wasn't even my fault!  My sister was helping me do a headstand and she let go of my feet.  I toppled over and my toe smashed into the concrete floor of our basement.  (T--you knew I would blame at least one incident on you...)

My daughter is the fourth generation.  She is twelve, but already the gracefulness genes are apparent.  She is the only kid I know that can trip over her own shadow.  When she was little, she liked to watch her feet walk.  When she walked through parking lots, she sometimes would smash into the side view mirrors of parked cars.  One time, at West Farms, she walked into a No Parking sign.  It seems whenever my back is turned, I will hear a commotion behind me, I turn around, and my daughter is laying on the floor, clutching one body part or another.  No broken bones yet, we're hoping it will stay that way. 

Gracefulness runs in our family and for some reason only effects the female population.  Some incidents have been more serious than others, but we always have a good laugh at each other's expenses.  Hopefully, my granddaughters will not be plagued by our gracefulness genes.  Maybe we can evolve so that those genes can be rendered useless.  All we have to do is beware of capes, sidewalks, refrigerators, frozen chickens, acorns, shadows, Styrofoam peanuts, cat carriers, butter and parking signs. 

Be Kind--Rewind

Ahhhh, the digital age.  If I was rich, I would have state-of-the-art everything.  However, I don't think we are doing too badly.  We have the HD television, the desktop, the laptop, a smartphone, Blu-Ray player, DVR, Wii, and even X10 lights. 

And yet, as I take a closer look and survey our stock of technological devices, I realize that we are obsolete.  Our HD TV only transmits in 720P, and it's a plasma...can you even buy plasma anymore?  They have been replaced with LCD and eco-friendly LED.  The desktop, even though we bought it in 2006, is an antique.  I'm still operating with Windows XP and a corded mouse.  The Blu-Ray was obsolete before we even unpacked it from the box.  It doesn't have a wireless component for downloading NetFlix.  And why hasn't Star Wars been released on Blu-Ray?  If we get the hankering for some Han Solo, we have to hook up the VCR. 

The VCR.  I remember when we got our first VCR.  I think it was around 1985.  It was great, we could watch Mickey Mouse whenever we wanted.  We used to tape the weekly top 20 music videos from MTV.  My sister would watch David Lee Roth and his spandex singing "Yankee Rose" over and over.  We would go to little J & R Video and rent the same movies every week..."The Pink Panther", "Strawberry Shortcake", and "The Care Bears Movie."  Then a couple of years later, all we watched were "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead." 

Now, there are no more rental stores.  The Blockbuster in Groton died a couple of weeks ago.  Towards the end they didn't have much in the way of movies anyway.  Mostly video games.  I'm glad they put it out of its misery.  Now its NetFlix.  I don't like NetFlix.  We don't watch enough movies in a month to make it worth our while.  So we are rewatching movies from our library.  But seriously, how many times can you watch the "Back to the Future" trilogy?  We are starting to run out of options.  Right now we are running through the Harry Potter series to prepare us for the premier of the seventh movie in November.  I know, I know...I am a thirty-something woman watching witches and wizards flying on broomsticks.  Call me strange, call me weird, but don't knock it until you try it.  But I'll have you know that I'll be the first one in line at the November 19th premier and be proud of it too!

Now to get back to the travesty at hand as I sit here and type on my wired keyboard connected to my antique computer.  We are an obsolete and disposable society, but I will always love technology.  Right now I have my eyes on the HP TouchSmart 600 with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  But by the time I get the funds together to buy it, it will also be obsolete, having been replaced by something bigger, better and brighter.  So until then, leave me in my obsolete world, working on my Windows XP desktop, watching my non 3D television, and our NetFlix disabled Blu-Ray player.  I'm as happy as a clam.