It's here. It's Christmas Eve. Ebay and Amazon did their thang. For once everything is all wrapped, no church solos to be worried about. Miss it and yet enjoying the just chilling part of life too.
Read a beautiful reading about how we hear this story year after year.
How God is rock solid, never changing, always changing, and we dance together, staring into this story.
I felt this beautiful feeling. I was holding a paperweight, with a star, with sparkles that I've held year after year, looking down into a manger. Looking down into a story that says, "God is greater than Caesar. God speaks quietly, in a manger, and the angels give a great back up chorus that we can never top."
I look down into my paperweight, imaginary, and feel a little girl looking into it. Years passing, a young, married woman trying to become a grown up, a young mother watching the snow fall around the star, onto that stable, wanting to take the magic out of her heart and hand it to two precious souls.
Every year, that paperweight is the same, but the hands change, the story unfolds into another chapter.
Abdu'l Baha once said, "If you want a palace in paradise, make your home a gathering place for friends."
This year, we have been so rich. We are so surrounded by Love.
This year, looking into the paperweight, this very happy, deeply in love with God woman, stares down and marvels at how you can give love away all you want, it will always come back ten fold.
Here's to magic and a country full of folk celebrating a birthday, and to taking time to let the stress slide away to feel the magic, the gift that that precious child brings to us every year. He changed the world with a baby's soft sigh, and the Angels sang Amen.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Why I've Been Away and Other Stupid Thnigs
Okay.
I haven't written on here for weeks.
My good buddy Kelley reminded me of that. It made me feel great that someone actually cared.
I no longer fear death.
A big reason I've been away amazes me. It is one of the lamest excuses ever put forth....even better than my voice student who called me one time and literally said, "I forgot I'm in Guatemala."
Okay. How do you forget you are in Guatemala?
Okay. I'm looking out at a snow covered hillside going "How do you forget you are in Guatemala?"
So, my lame excuse, not that that was lame, that was more in the top ten mind boggling pile, my lame excuse is I got a cell phone.
I know. Lame.
Other people get cell phones and function as if life didn't miss a beat.
Not me.
I have been wrestling with this concept for years. I love gadgets. I love e mail and the web and finding wonderful things like "Don't let a crackhead sing at your funeral" on You Tube.
Imagine being able to do that sitting in your car. Or to look like a fancy person and say, "Let me check my calendar." and whip out an actual calendar on your phone. Not stand there rolling your eyes up in your head like it is somewhere just near your old fontenelles...up...there...Tuesday....hmmm....or is that a recipe for Tuna Brownies....
But, gee, an extra 90 dollars a month just to impress a receptionist?
My Scot Irish heritage railed against that one.
I'm proud to sport around an old cell that still says Cingular on it and costs me ten bucks a month.
But...new..toy...mommy...want......
So, a new motto is "If you can't decide between door number one and door number two, that's because you haven't found door number three."
Worked when I was trying to figure out what glasses to buy. What the heck.
So...door number three...Craigslist. My Mecca. I find a "smartphone" (scary thought) for sixty bucks...Virgin Mobile, on the 25 a month plan (now the same plan is a whole ten dollars more, that's 120 bucks a year I am saving!) (Did I mention my Scotch heritage? Single Mom status?) And I've been having to add extra minutes every month to my ten dollar plan, been paying about that anyway with no internet...this is unlimited.....what the heck! The month was prepaid, I am good to go!
Meet up with the very nice woman. She's just plain cool looking, hands me this phone in a gold, glittery case. It was just so right.
I can't remember the last time I've had a new toy. Well, since getting this wonderful puter from Geek Extraordinaire Jeremy that is....but, this...this was a whole new world and I was so excited.
I drive around the corner and sit in the mall lot. I don't really think I'll get phone reception here in Swamp Holler (pretty much right about that.) so I wanted to see what being a Virgin in a parking lot could be.
I'm tapping away, impressed. I see an elderly woman looking at me.
"No, I am not hanging out to pick up lost teens and abduct them." I send to her mentally. Didn't work.
I roll down the window, "Can I help you?" She just about collapsed in relief. "I can't find my car." "Well, feel free to hop in and we can drive around." "Oh, thank you!"
I move everything, accidentally plopping the phone's manual on the backseat floor that is mysteriously drenched. But, hey, it survived.
"What's the model and year and color of your car?" "Dark green. 1956 Buick."
Well, that should stand out.
Nope.
She's getting more and more upset. I didn't think it was quite the time to show her you can get Netflix right in front of Bon Ton! "Do you have anything with the car's model written down?"
Amazingly, she pulls out her insurance card. Boy, I never carry mine around. Thank God she did! It was a 2006, but what's a few numbers between friends.
We drive and drive, up one aisle, down another..."No, I"m sure I was in front of Bon Ton, I paid a bill there." 'Do you have a receipt?"
"Do you have anyone we can call?" "No."
I'm starting to wonder if she escaped from a field trip...you know the kind...and I would be spending the next fifteen years with this woman, drifting around the Galleria Mall.
Well, finally, we find it. In front of Sears. I've never been so happy to see a car in my life.
By then, it is dark and late. I go home. Well, after looking at one little Netflix clip in front of Bon Ton. Oh, and maybe running in to see if I could find a cool cell phone case. No luck there.
I go home. Mom has a new toy. It has colors. Mom checks e mail and voice mail and has, seriously, 14 messages from her bipolar brain damaged OCD poster child wasband. I was going to help him fill out some forms about the accident (as in How Do You Get Brain Damage Trying To Cross The Street?) (Smash! That's only fun in video games, by the way.). Some form trying to get help from the State to pay his medical bills.
Okay. I could play with my toy, but I know what would happen. I'd be there feeling that "Gotta" tug on me. So, just get the work done, then play! Okay.
Well, it took some doing, but got her done. Did take a break and played a bit before going to sleep. Got up, finished everything. My youngest called, and in his wonderful way of making life a party said, "Come get me and let's just do something fun."
Yeah!
I go to Wazzie's house to pick him up. I'd based the paper work for the State on some forms I'd gotten from his health insurance company. Had to call up and ask for them. Dave hands me a bag of bills and something from the company and said that was it. Well, what was there was fine, it had numbers.
I get it signed, ready to go. He says, "Oh, did you see the big envelope insurance sent me?" (OHHHH....like the one I asked you about literally three times that you told me was this rinky dink four pager??????) He hands me a stack of paper an inch thick. I had to get it copied, 132 pages. Front and back.
I had to go through and sort out each bill...was it a repeat...list each one, add them up, categorize them. Did I mention I was a music theatre major in school? I can count to four. After that I subdivide.
I was fuming. I just wanted it done. It took me seven hours. It would have probably taken a smart person ten minutes, but it took me seven hours.
And you know, had this conversation with someone this morning, what gets me is I never know. I don't know if I should get a degree in psych, or become a psychic, but I never know. I'd be fine if I knew it was just the brain damage making him forget. But, I've seen him in action for far too long. Crafty Kraut R Us. It is mind boggling the lengths he will go to to mess with someone. It would be nothing for him to do that on purpose so he could have a bit of a laugh late at night when no one is looking.
I mean...this man...hit by a van...nearly dies. No idea who his second born son was. Weeks in the hospital, a lot of that in a coma.
He's starting to get it together. He tells me the nurses are angry because he can't stand the hospital food and he can't feed himself. His girlfriend and I go out every day, bringing him treats, hand feeding him.
One day, I'm feeding him some bread and cheese. The nurse walks in, "What are you doing?" "Well, he's been having trouble with the hospital food and with feeding himself, so just helping out a bit."
She looked at him, "You're just messing with her, aren't you?" and he laughed and had to look away. He'd been feeding himself, eating everything on his plate.
A friend laughed. Said, "So, he is brain damaged, near death, and he can still mess with you?"
Yup.
It's not so much the stuff the man does, and several others that I know too, but it's so infuriating to not know why. I wrote once, "Why is a question better never asked aloud." But, sheeesh, why?
Brain damage...okay. Bipolar wacky...okay. Crafty Kraut...okay. You just plain hate me...okay. You just enjoy seeing me frustrated...okay. But...GRRRRRRR...it's annoying to not know which one it is!
Oh well. So, that was a few days of not having time with my new toy.
I was not the best to live with.
So. I have time finally. I download apps. I am scanning hand lotion barcodes and putting it in my shopping list app. I'm playing sleuth in some whodunnit game. I start getting "Memory is Low" messages. Huh?
Well....who knew?
Turns out my phone has crappy internal memory. Shoot! If I get another model, I may have to give up my 25 buck a month plan, nooooo!!!!
Well, web search is our friend. I see there is something called Rooting and it isn't what pigs do with truffles. Not to be confused with Rootching, which is what the Amish say when you squiggle in your seat and annoy them.
No, it means you take control of that doggie and you can get rid of silly Apps, like Virgin Mobile Radio. Wow, that app was an excersize in annoying! I guess I am just not happening enough, because that music had me wanting to take a hammer and make it beg for mercy.
Okay, I start researching how to Root an LG Optimus. I got an Optimus because I felt so Optimistic, get it? Well, that and I didn't think the other real choice, a Motorola, would fit in all my cool cell phone cases.
I am by far not a geek. My geek friends got e mails from me that they smartly ignored. I figured out how to root the phone. The first wave of that journey literally made my brain hurt. People just love throwing terms around and sounding cool. I spent so much time on Google looking up wacky terms that led to other wacky terms.
Gave up and went to Ebay as a joke, and actually found for two bucks a program that rooted my phone and no wacky terms!
Great!
Then needed to figure out how to partition the SD card. Wacky terms. Noooo!!!! It sounds like it should be so easy. Somewhere in there the computer stopped recognizing the phone so they aren't on speaking terms any more. Tried a lot of things to fix that and just give up.
Found a program to partition SD cards and hard drives and tangled hair. Did what the guy on the forum who uses a whole lot of wacky words said to do.
It all worked! Loaded up movies, and games and pictures and ringtones and music, music, music, and addresses and apps and still had internal memory galore!
But, the guy said to make the one partition small, and that was the only partition anyone recognized. So, had a 16 Gig card, and can only use 2 gig of it and that happy program won't let me change the partition size and okay, back up the card, I have another one....I can have this done in an hour and actually get some sleep and....
Back up card, back up files on the computer too, I don't know, color me stupid...I lost everything. Had to start over. All the way over.
Then find out my second SD card has brain damage and works sometimes but not others and doesn't really care about my feelings in this at all.
Well, somewhere in all this, thought the problem was that the phone was rooted, so set it back to factory settings which got rid of most of the programs I wanted to get rid of....by stupid Virgin Radio....so okay....spent hours getting everything back there again. Now the memory is running low and there are programs I wish I could swap onto the SD card and can't now and did I mention I love new toys?
I think my next new toy is going to be a sledge hammer.
But, what the heck. I can sit in waiting rooms now and watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" or read a book. Sort of back to a normal life now...but...maybe...I should...just....root the thing...once and for...all.......
Sheesh.
I haven't written on here for weeks.
My good buddy Kelley reminded me of that. It made me feel great that someone actually cared.
I no longer fear death.
A big reason I've been away amazes me. It is one of the lamest excuses ever put forth....even better than my voice student who called me one time and literally said, "I forgot I'm in Guatemala."
Okay. How do you forget you are in Guatemala?
Okay. I'm looking out at a snow covered hillside going "How do you forget you are in Guatemala?"
So, my lame excuse, not that that was lame, that was more in the top ten mind boggling pile, my lame excuse is I got a cell phone.
I know. Lame.
Other people get cell phones and function as if life didn't miss a beat.
Not me.
I have been wrestling with this concept for years. I love gadgets. I love e mail and the web and finding wonderful things like "Don't let a crackhead sing at your funeral" on You Tube.
Imagine being able to do that sitting in your car. Or to look like a fancy person and say, "Let me check my calendar." and whip out an actual calendar on your phone. Not stand there rolling your eyes up in your head like it is somewhere just near your old fontenelles...up...there...Tuesday....hmmm....or is that a recipe for Tuna Brownies....
But, gee, an extra 90 dollars a month just to impress a receptionist?
My Scot Irish heritage railed against that one.
I'm proud to sport around an old cell that still says Cingular on it and costs me ten bucks a month.
But...new..toy...mommy...want......
So, a new motto is "If you can't decide between door number one and door number two, that's because you haven't found door number three."
Worked when I was trying to figure out what glasses to buy. What the heck.
So...door number three...Craigslist. My Mecca. I find a "smartphone" (scary thought) for sixty bucks...Virgin Mobile, on the 25 a month plan (now the same plan is a whole ten dollars more, that's 120 bucks a year I am saving!) (Did I mention my Scotch heritage? Single Mom status?) And I've been having to add extra minutes every month to my ten dollar plan, been paying about that anyway with no internet...this is unlimited.....what the heck! The month was prepaid, I am good to go!
Meet up with the very nice woman. She's just plain cool looking, hands me this phone in a gold, glittery case. It was just so right.
I can't remember the last time I've had a new toy. Well, since getting this wonderful puter from Geek Extraordinaire Jeremy that is....but, this...this was a whole new world and I was so excited.
I drive around the corner and sit in the mall lot. I don't really think I'll get phone reception here in Swamp Holler (pretty much right about that.) so I wanted to see what being a Virgin in a parking lot could be.
I'm tapping away, impressed. I see an elderly woman looking at me.
"No, I am not hanging out to pick up lost teens and abduct them." I send to her mentally. Didn't work.
I roll down the window, "Can I help you?" She just about collapsed in relief. "I can't find my car." "Well, feel free to hop in and we can drive around." "Oh, thank you!"
I move everything, accidentally plopping the phone's manual on the backseat floor that is mysteriously drenched. But, hey, it survived.
"What's the model and year and color of your car?" "Dark green. 1956 Buick."
Well, that should stand out.
Nope.
She's getting more and more upset. I didn't think it was quite the time to show her you can get Netflix right in front of Bon Ton! "Do you have anything with the car's model written down?"
Amazingly, she pulls out her insurance card. Boy, I never carry mine around. Thank God she did! It was a 2006, but what's a few numbers between friends.
We drive and drive, up one aisle, down another..."No, I"m sure I was in front of Bon Ton, I paid a bill there." 'Do you have a receipt?"
"Do you have anyone we can call?" "No."
I'm starting to wonder if she escaped from a field trip...you know the kind...and I would be spending the next fifteen years with this woman, drifting around the Galleria Mall.
Well, finally, we find it. In front of Sears. I've never been so happy to see a car in my life.
By then, it is dark and late. I go home. Well, after looking at one little Netflix clip in front of Bon Ton. Oh, and maybe running in to see if I could find a cool cell phone case. No luck there.
I go home. Mom has a new toy. It has colors. Mom checks e mail and voice mail and has, seriously, 14 messages from her bipolar brain damaged OCD poster child wasband. I was going to help him fill out some forms about the accident (as in How Do You Get Brain Damage Trying To Cross The Street?) (Smash! That's only fun in video games, by the way.). Some form trying to get help from the State to pay his medical bills.
Okay. I could play with my toy, but I know what would happen. I'd be there feeling that "Gotta" tug on me. So, just get the work done, then play! Okay.
Well, it took some doing, but got her done. Did take a break and played a bit before going to sleep. Got up, finished everything. My youngest called, and in his wonderful way of making life a party said, "Come get me and let's just do something fun."
Yeah!
I go to Wazzie's house to pick him up. I'd based the paper work for the State on some forms I'd gotten from his health insurance company. Had to call up and ask for them. Dave hands me a bag of bills and something from the company and said that was it. Well, what was there was fine, it had numbers.
I get it signed, ready to go. He says, "Oh, did you see the big envelope insurance sent me?" (OHHHH....like the one I asked you about literally three times that you told me was this rinky dink four pager??????) He hands me a stack of paper an inch thick. I had to get it copied, 132 pages. Front and back.
I had to go through and sort out each bill...was it a repeat...list each one, add them up, categorize them. Did I mention I was a music theatre major in school? I can count to four. After that I subdivide.
I was fuming. I just wanted it done. It took me seven hours. It would have probably taken a smart person ten minutes, but it took me seven hours.
And you know, had this conversation with someone this morning, what gets me is I never know. I don't know if I should get a degree in psych, or become a psychic, but I never know. I'd be fine if I knew it was just the brain damage making him forget. But, I've seen him in action for far too long. Crafty Kraut R Us. It is mind boggling the lengths he will go to to mess with someone. It would be nothing for him to do that on purpose so he could have a bit of a laugh late at night when no one is looking.
I mean...this man...hit by a van...nearly dies. No idea who his second born son was. Weeks in the hospital, a lot of that in a coma.
He's starting to get it together. He tells me the nurses are angry because he can't stand the hospital food and he can't feed himself. His girlfriend and I go out every day, bringing him treats, hand feeding him.
One day, I'm feeding him some bread and cheese. The nurse walks in, "What are you doing?" "Well, he's been having trouble with the hospital food and with feeding himself, so just helping out a bit."
She looked at him, "You're just messing with her, aren't you?" and he laughed and had to look away. He'd been feeding himself, eating everything on his plate.
A friend laughed. Said, "So, he is brain damaged, near death, and he can still mess with you?"
Yup.
It's not so much the stuff the man does, and several others that I know too, but it's so infuriating to not know why. I wrote once, "Why is a question better never asked aloud." But, sheeesh, why?
Brain damage...okay. Bipolar wacky...okay. Crafty Kraut...okay. You just plain hate me...okay. You just enjoy seeing me frustrated...okay. But...GRRRRRRR...it's annoying to not know which one it is!
Oh well. So, that was a few days of not having time with my new toy.
I was not the best to live with.
So. I have time finally. I download apps. I am scanning hand lotion barcodes and putting it in my shopping list app. I'm playing sleuth in some whodunnit game. I start getting "Memory is Low" messages. Huh?
Well....who knew?
Turns out my phone has crappy internal memory. Shoot! If I get another model, I may have to give up my 25 buck a month plan, nooooo!!!!
Well, web search is our friend. I see there is something called Rooting and it isn't what pigs do with truffles. Not to be confused with Rootching, which is what the Amish say when you squiggle in your seat and annoy them.
No, it means you take control of that doggie and you can get rid of silly Apps, like Virgin Mobile Radio. Wow, that app was an excersize in annoying! I guess I am just not happening enough, because that music had me wanting to take a hammer and make it beg for mercy.
Okay, I start researching how to Root an LG Optimus. I got an Optimus because I felt so Optimistic, get it? Well, that and I didn't think the other real choice, a Motorola, would fit in all my cool cell phone cases.
I am by far not a geek. My geek friends got e mails from me that they smartly ignored. I figured out how to root the phone. The first wave of that journey literally made my brain hurt. People just love throwing terms around and sounding cool. I spent so much time on Google looking up wacky terms that led to other wacky terms.
Gave up and went to Ebay as a joke, and actually found for two bucks a program that rooted my phone and no wacky terms!
Great!
Then needed to figure out how to partition the SD card. Wacky terms. Noooo!!!! It sounds like it should be so easy. Somewhere in there the computer stopped recognizing the phone so they aren't on speaking terms any more. Tried a lot of things to fix that and just give up.
Found a program to partition SD cards and hard drives and tangled hair. Did what the guy on the forum who uses a whole lot of wacky words said to do.
It all worked! Loaded up movies, and games and pictures and ringtones and music, music, music, and addresses and apps and still had internal memory galore!
But, the guy said to make the one partition small, and that was the only partition anyone recognized. So, had a 16 Gig card, and can only use 2 gig of it and that happy program won't let me change the partition size and okay, back up the card, I have another one....I can have this done in an hour and actually get some sleep and....
Back up card, back up files on the computer too, I don't know, color me stupid...I lost everything. Had to start over. All the way over.
Then find out my second SD card has brain damage and works sometimes but not others and doesn't really care about my feelings in this at all.
Well, somewhere in all this, thought the problem was that the phone was rooted, so set it back to factory settings which got rid of most of the programs I wanted to get rid of....by stupid Virgin Radio....so okay....spent hours getting everything back there again. Now the memory is running low and there are programs I wish I could swap onto the SD card and can't now and did I mention I love new toys?
I think my next new toy is going to be a sledge hammer.
But, what the heck. I can sit in waiting rooms now and watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" or read a book. Sort of back to a normal life now...but...maybe...I should...just....root the thing...once and for...all.......
Sheesh.
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