Category Archives: My Favorites
“It’s raining friends!” Three stormy day connections.
It poured. Absolutely bucketed down today! Roads flooded, traffic lights were dark – thunder BOOMED.
I arrived at the office to no power, but when I came in the door and said ‘Good Morning’ to the staff at the front desk, the power suddenly came on. “You’re welcome” I laughed – and headed to my door. Keys in hand, soaked from head to toe I stepped in to my little work world.
Internet was down – for hours and hours. You know, we truly are screwed in a ‘paperless’ environment when that happens. There were no faxes, no emails, no access to my online wholesale lending sites or my origination system. So I lit a Fall scented candle, turned on the purple Halloween lights, opened the blinds all the way and made the most of it.
SO beautiful to watch the rain from a cozy indoor spot. O.K. yes, it would have been lovelier to be watching it from my own window, in dry ‘at home’ clothes, but I’ll take the view where ever I can get it.
Ended up having three wonderful interactions today. (the upside to not being able to work at work).
Spoke to my best friend for a little while on the phone, my stomach hurt from laughing by the end of that call.
She was sharing about a dining experience at a 3 Michelin star restaurant. A 16 course tasting menu! (I think we’ve established I love to eat, but I asked her – HOW do you get through that? By plate eight, aren’t you bursting? Unless each course is in the form of an amuse bouche – which it turns out they were not).
Anyway, the couple seated next to my friend and her husband were sucking the joy right out of that expensive date.
One of them even blew their nose into the linen napkin?!? WTH? We then wondered how those napkins are cleaned – I’ll be reluctant to dab my mouth with a cloth napkin from this day forward. LOL!
Chatted with another of my favorite people on the planet on more serious matters. This is a woman who the minute I saw her – I KNEW must be my friend. She carries herself with such grace – she’s stunningly beautiful, ALWAYS of service to others and we have a LOT in common. There’s just an aura about her – I knew she would be an important part of my life the moment I laid eyes on her.
The third conversation was with a friend that made me question why life doles out what it does sometimes. She’s such a hardworking, sweet, beautiful, amazing mom/wife/soul. I adore her. She has some worries and I wish I could take them from her. I think though, that there are just some people who God knows can handle more than others. Still doesn’t seem fair.
(yes mum, I know – life’s not a fair, it’s a circus)
All in all, with only the latter part of the day affording me the opportunity to work, it was an amazingly productive day.
(Trying to remember though, did I blow the candle out before I left?!)
Morning Rain
It’s raining in the desert.
It sprinkled last night – and my son wrote this on his Facebook status:
“If tofu absorbs the flavor of what ever its cooked with, than Im going to cook it in the rain and if it tastes as half as good as it smells, Im going to dine on the gods food ;D”
It does smell amazing out there! And I love the thunder …
I sat outside while it was gently sprinkling and sipped my coffee and had such a HUGE wave of gratitude wash over me.
I was pondering recent events and appreciating the scenery and for a sudden second, KNEW all of my needs were, and would be met.
I was aware in one moment of time of how beautiful life is, how blessed I am for my friends and family and that everything is going to be alright.
Little God whisper? Maybe. Seems like a great way to start the day to me!
Good morning world! 
The hairy raspberry
Had a hungry day today – which happened to coincide with an office meeting next door that had a veritable buffet in the break room. I tried the ‘I’ll just take half a donut, and some fruit’ route – but that didn’t last long. Half a donut and some fruit is an appetizer really.
I traveled back for another half a donut and some more fruit.
Whilst in a sugar stupor, I stared at the raspberries on my plate and wondered “why do they have hair?”
My first thought was, ‘oh – maybe to ward off pests and small critters from nibbling them while they’re growing’. But that hardly seemed a fair hand dealt by nature for the poor, defenseless, bald blueberries on my plate!
I obsess over things like this. I do. Anything I don’t know I HAVE to know.
In a moment of quiet at my desk, I guiltily Googled ‘why do raspberries have hair?’. (A sentence I never thought I’d type).
Well! It’s to help them seed. They are the remnants of the pistils, the female portion of the flower. Big let down. I wanted them to have some really bizarre secret life or something.
I didn’t wonder anything about my sandwich or chips. Didn’t wonder much about the Raisinets I wolfed down after my initial sugar high dissipated either.
Pretty sure I’m skipping dinner.
The great dead-beat-dad debate. Advice and Opinions welcomed.
Topic was brought up by my son this afternoon. “You should sue my bio”.
Oh boy – here we go again.
The ‘child support’ clock is ticking – in 5 months, my son will be 18
Don’t think I haven’t thought about it – but the conclusion I come to every time is that we’re better off emotionally without him in our lives and I’d rather have my serenity and a peaceful heart than his money.
I don’t want to be vengeful.
Bothers me a little that my son wants compensation when he’s never actually gone without. There’s even been a few Christmas lists that he really had to think about because he already had everything that could have been on that list.
I don’t feel like we’ve missed out on anything?
Would it have been nice to be able to go on vacations? Of course. Would it be nice to have that little extra for when unexpected emergencies arose? Of course. But we made it.
We managed to make the best of what we had and did not go without.
No, there’s not been the latest, greatest, shiniest – and things did get really financially hard for a while. But we made it.
Why would I want someone in my son’s life that doesn’t want to be there?
I want peace, not court ordered, begrudgingly doled out money.
Of course, times like right now in my life, it sure would come in handy. But at what cost??
In the bigger picture, I’d like Nic to learn from everything we’ve gone through together. To step up and be a father when that time comes. To appreciate what he has versus what he doesn’t. To let resentments go.
I don’t resent his ‘bio’. If not for him there would be no Nic.
I do have a beef with his self-centered absence from conception to now. As much as I try to explain to Nic that he shouldn’t take that personally – it’s bound to have an effect on him. But how can it truly be personal? He didn’t choose not to be Nic’s father, he chose not to BE a father. Period. He didn’t know Nic. If he had, and had walked out, I could definitely see the logic in taking that personally.
I need some insight here.
I need opinions and thoughts because my son believes we ‘deserve’ for ‘bio’ to make a financial amends – and I do not. I think we are happy – why mess with that?
I am open to the possibility that this could also be my pride and I could be wrong.
But seriously, why go through agencies, paternity tests, lawyers – for a monthly recompense? The stress of just initiating the whole process – is it worth it?
Honestly, I wouldn’t even know how to begin such a process. And I definitely don’t have the money for an attorney.
He should have been contributing to raising his son for 17 years, and did not. This is true. But I just think it’s too late now.
Would love some thoughts on this.
“Rapture”
‘Back to back
Sacrailiac
Spineless movement
And a wild attack
Face to face
Sadly solitude
And it’s finger popping
Twenty-four hour shopping in Rapture’ – Blondie
This one’s going to be tough. But it’s time.
I just watched a documentary called “The Released”, about mentally ill offenders struggling to make it on the outside. To see the pain in their eyes – the hopelessness and helplessness, just broke my heart.
Something an Outreach member said really stuck with me. “People are being released with one to two weeks of medication and being told to follow-up at this time and this date with this agency. Which assumes that they have the judgement that they need to continue their medications as prescribed and it also assumes they have the cognitive capacity to be proactive with phone calls, making appointments, discussing how many days of their medications they have left. It assumes a lot”.
I had never thought of it that way. How does someone mentally ill remember that it’s time for their pills? I occasionally forget to take my heart medicine – and always have had a hard time remembering to take antibiotics three times a day!
I’m digressing. Or avoiding.
Bottom line is I was reminded of a topic I want, or need to share about.
Back to rapture.
Sixth grade, and I’m in a new country, a new school – feeling completely lost and out-of-place. I met someone who would become my best friend for many years.
In the locker room she was singing ‘Rapture’ and she knew all the words. THAT was impressive. There began a friendship that would have more of an impact on me than I could have known.
We had our good times – but even the good times had an undercurrent that I didn’t have the understanding or life experience to identify.
I felt it – always felt it, but couldn’t put my finger on what was ‘off’.
My best friend was cruel. My best friend was a ‘bad influence’. My best friend was a chameleon, because she hid her sickness from parents and peers and saved it all for me.
There were constant threats to keep me in line. And constant verbal, physical and mental abuse. She took me on her wild ride and I so desperately wanted her acceptance that I followed. She was all I had. I didn’t see it at the time, but she was also the reason she was all I had. Why didn’t I end the friendship? I was scared of her and scared to lose her.
She would sing ‘somebody wants to hurt somebody’ as we lay in the dark at her house. She could do a spot on imitation of the Excorsist growl. She effectively isolated me from others at school by embarrassing me and telling me she was my only friend. It got to the point I would drop in the hall when she asked me to tie her shoe – and do it.
She introduced me to lying, to sneaking out, to drugs. I remember thinking when I was scared “I just want to go home”. I didn’t want to be where we were. I didn’t want to do what we were doing. But I was just a kid, scared to say no, and I did as I was told.
I was terrified of my best friend.
There was an atmosphere around her that scared the hell out of me. A darkness. A thickness in the air of almost palpable evil.
Wow this is hard.
Our Freshman year of High School, something shifted. And I’m honestly not really sure what the catalyst was, but she delved deeper into debauchery with a new friend and I found a healthier ‘relationship’. She ended up leaving the school – and town – and getting married then pregnant.
I’m leaving a lot out, I know. Truly, I’m really uncomfortable even thinking about the years we spent together. I didn’t anticipate feeling this.
We’d cross paths now and again. Then our paths didn’t cross for a very long time.
When I had my son, I spoke with her. She revealed something that made a lot of things make a lot of sense.
She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
In conversations over the years following that revelation she shared more. Before she was diagnosed and treated, she had tried to kill her daughter. She didn’t believe it was her daughter at the time. Even on medication the voices never left her.
God, what she must have been going through all those years! My torture a direct result of her inner turmoil. I didn’t know! I didn’t know.
I’m a little ashamed to say this was almost a relief. It wasn’t me! She couldn’t help her behavior. I wasn’t a target because of anything I was.
But I couldn’t forgive her.
While her condition obviously wasn’t contagious – our time together had a profound affect on choices I would come to make and my own mental health. Combined with other life events, her actions left me feeling less than, ugly, worthless, afraid, submissive and unimportant. We’re so impressionable during those formative years! We’re becoming the people we’re going to be as we soak up our immediate environment and draw upon what we experience.
It took years to figure out I could decide who I wanted to be and change my life.
We met again many more years later. This girl who had always put me down and told me how much prettier she was than me was now morbidly obese due to the medications she was diligently taking.
She told me I looked like a model. She looked at me with clear eyes and I was undone.
But, I still couldn’t forgive her.
She sent Christmas cards, tried to contact me – sent me letters. I’d call her occasionally, she’d share what was going on with her and her family.
And I still couldn’t forgive her.
This last Christmas I sent her a card – and didn’t hear back. This was strange, because prior to the holidays she’d called my mom and asked her to have me call her.
I hadn’t called.
I thought about her more and more and eventually did try to reach her. Her phone number was disconnected.
I found her sister on Facebook and sent her a message asking if she was alright? No response.
My gut tells me that she is no longer with us. I can’t explain why – just a feeling. Something has happened.
She was sick – and I wish that girl singing ‘Rapture’ in the locker room in 6th grade had found relief sooner. I wish she had known a peaceful heart and a quiet mind.
I wish I knew where she was, because, I want her to know that I forgive her.
Debauchery Soup 
