what???? WHAT???? i can't hear you!!!!!

update on my ear issue (make that my ear issues - two, to be exact):


ok, so the noise - the pulsating swoosh swoosh is coming from my jugular, but he doesn't know why. and even if he did know why, there isn't anything they can do about it except maybe operate on my jugular which they aren't willing to do nor am i willing to have them do it. so, bottom line is, i gotta live with the noise. nice.

second, it turns out i have "significant" and "atypical" nerve-related hearing loss in the ear that also has the swoosh swoosh. (well, of course it's atypical......this is me we're talkin' about.)

ok, so i knew i couldn't hear well out of that ear but i thought it was due to the swoosh swoosh. turns out, it's due to a separate problem. not that the swoosh swoosh is helping matters any.

what is causing the hearing loss remains to be seen. i have to have an mri to help them figure it out. he threw around the word "tumor" like it was an everyday, ordinary word. like "wine" or something.

(on the plus side - the very plus side - he said that there's only like a 5% chance that it's a tumor and even it is, there's about a hundred percent chance that it's benign. still, doc. be careful how you say the word "tumor." you hear me?)

cuz i can't hear you.

movin' on up. no, i mean, down. no, i mean UP!

tomorrow, i move.


to a smaller place - down.

to a less hip place - down.

to a place which will require me to commute to get to work - down.

to a place where bob evans is the best restaurant within about 5 miles - down.

to a place with no wine shop within about 11.2 (i checked) miles - DOWN.



to a smaller place - up.

to a less hip place - liberatingly up.

to a place which will require me to commute to get to work - i love to drive, so..... up.

to a place where bob evans is the best restaurant within about 5 miles - who doesn't love bob evans's fried mush? not to mention their blueberry pancakes? not to mention that i never eat out anyway because i love to cook......up.

to a place with no wine shop within about 11.2 miles - DOWN. DOWN!



to paraphrase meatloaf, 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

if i can't live in mayberry, i guess i'll live in ohio.

there was a time - a loooooong period of time - when i thought new york city was where i wanted to live. failing that, chicago. i thought big cities had it together, from a social/cultural standpoint, and that small towns didn't. it was that simple - i was biased against small towns.

well, true to my form (i used to be liberal, now i'm conservative, i've been married twice and divorced twice, i transferred undergraduate schools twice (though never majors....i was always sure about that) and i have, in my adult life, moved residence 9 times, soon to be 10)......true to my peripatetic form, i am now, if not entirely biased against big cities, am pretty damned close to being biased against big cities.

small, folksy, and yes, even boring beats the bright lights. here's why:

1. if you're bored, it's your fault, not your town's. boredom is less a function of nothing to do than it is of you not using your imagination and finding something to do. go do something nice for someone else. no town is so small that it doesn't have people in it who need something nice done for them. 
2. try having lemonade and warm, homemade gingersnaps on your front porch in downtown L.A.
3. it doesn't take all sunday morning to read a small town newspaper, not even on sunday. put down your fancy new york times and latte and go to church instead.
4. nothing that really matters in life is more present and abundant than in a small town - or even a village. because what really matters in life isn't art (nice as that is), it isn't haute cuisine (nice as that is), and it isn't intellectual stimulation. it's you - getting out of your egocentric self - and connecting to floyd the barber. and especially to otis, the town drunk.

now, go be nice.

7,000 reasons besides it's the right thing to do why it makes sense to pare down

i'm moving next weekend - "downsizing," as they say - and mercy, have i ever gotten rid of a ton of STUFF. what i haven't given to abby and eli i have donated to charity and what i haven't donated to charity i have dumped. and oh, what a relief it is.

so, that's reason #1 - it's a relief.

reason #2 is - there's less to clean.

three, you can see! an unobstructed line of vision is a good line of vision.

four, you can skip the gym. because load after load after load after load of stuff that you're giving or throwing away adds up to a lot of pounds that you've gotta schlep. whew!

#5 - you finally have to face the truth: your house isn't nearly as clean as you've been fooling yourself it is. and truth is as good for the soul as confession is. (actually, they're the same thing.)

6 - banking off of #5, you are filled with determination and optimism that you will keep the new place much better than you kept the old place.

7 - you have to face your history and therefore, yourself. yes. you really were that person who used to think that "mom jeans" were okay. 

eight, you have the opportunity to remember. this one can be tricky, of course, depending on what you are remembering. but even the painful memories - in most cases, especially the painful memories - have something to teach you. (which is why i wrote  http://nancyrankin.blogspot.com/2013/05/no-angelina-dont.html)


and finally (and i realize that i'm a tad shy of 7,000), with practically nothing left in here but yourself, you realize what lousy company you may have been to others. and so, as with your housecleaning resolutions, you are filled with determination and optimism as you vow to make the new you much better than the old one.

no, angelina, don't.

let's just, for the sake of indulging my ridiculous argument, look at this another way:


let's say there's value in suffering. let's say that it is, if not only, then mostly  through suffering that we grow and learn AND (gasp!) become more like what God wants us to be. 

let's say that managing suffering, once it comes along (as surely it will), is right-minded and avoiding suffering, which is to say, avoiding living, is wrong-minded.

let's say that observing others facing the pain - not dodging it - is the best example of all -  to children and the rest of us -  of how to take on this formidable thing called "life" - and to come out stronger for it.

let's just say that someone told me 4 years ago that my husband was going to leave me - poof! - out of the blue and in so doing, burn my life to the ground. and let's say the someone who told me this gave me a choice: bail on him - now -  (in an effort to avoid the pain) - or wait - and take your licks (even though you surely don't deserve them).

let's not just say that in taking door #2 maybe i would have become more like what God wants me to be.


let's say, i did.

sick of op-ed GOTCHA!

things have been a bit slow at work this week and so i have spent more time than usual browsing the internet, including a bunch of political and cultural op-ed websites, twitter, and facebook and the one thing - the one i'm-about-to-vomit-if-they-do-it-one-more-time-thing-(and-they-will) - that the writers on these sites have in common is.....GOTCHA!

and i'm sick of it.

the goal of written communication (and of all communication), should not be to insult your readers. if for no other reason than you want them to read what you just wrote. as opposed to telling you to go to hell. (like you just told them.)

however, that does not seem to be the trend these days. (or maybe i just haven't been paying attention......has the written word always been this caustic? i don't think so.)

the goal of communication also should not be to see how many people you can get who agree with you and high five you into "stardom." say what you need to say because you need to say it, not because you need your ego stroked and your like button pushed a million times.

thank God moms don't get paid

look, i don't have anything against money, but on the other hand, the notion that we should get paid for the work we do is, in some ways, very odd to me. 

if the most important job in the world is being a parent, especially a mother, (and it is) and if moms don't get paid (in money) for it, then my reaction isn't a feminist's well,-then-let's have-a-revolution-about-that-and-burn- our-bras-and-get-all-pissed-off kind of reaction.......

my reaction is, maybe there's something to be gathered and learned and celebrated about that! and maybe, if the people doing the most important job in the world don't get paid (in money) for doing it, then maybe the rest of us, who are doing jobs that at the end of the world don't amount to a hill of beans, period........maybe we shouldn't be getting paid, either! or at least, maybe not as much. (certainly not as much in many cases. in many, many cases.)

people in my profession - social work - complain all the time about the lousy pay. which, on the one hand, i understand and on the other, i don't. either which way, at the end of the social work day, i have always managed to have enough money to care about somebody. i've never been paid so little that i couldn't spare a little love. if they raised my salary, they'd raise it not because i cared more but because i produced more. and frankly, that just doesn't interest me.

in social work, as in everything, they can't - and don't - pay me to love. because love isn't money (even though 99% of us think it is). and if they did pay me to love, i would be offended. how dare they cheapen the greatest thing in the world to dollars and cents? and if you think i'm being pollyanna and unrealistic, then let me ask you this......how much should we pay your spouse to love you?


let's not fix motherhood. let's fix us.

this is where love is REALLY made

that i should be compelled to stop what i am doing (packing up the kitchen in preparation for my big move on may 25th) and put into words the emotional impact that this room is having on me shouldn't have been a surprise. 

because food is love.

(Christ understood that food is love. that pretty much explains why the first thing He told them to do after He healed her was "give her something to eat." not to mention transforming His body and blood into, um, food.)



but of all the rooms that i have packed so far (and that includes the master bedroom), this is the only one that is getting to me. maybe that's because i am getting closer to the actual BIG DAY, but i don't think so. i think it's because food is love. 

what i did in that room - for him, for me, for us - went way beyond the USDA food pyramid. sure, calories mattered and fat content mattered and the correct olive oil mattered and so did the right cut of beef.

and i insisted that it had to be the right kind of paprika, not just "paprika." 

but, when i wiped up spills, i needed bounty. i remember with pride how good bounty was at tidying up anything that might have ruined the presentation of his plate right before i served it. and how, without fail, he would always say, "wow, this looks good, cutie girl."

and how, at least once and usually two or even three times during dinner, he'd play footsie with me and say, "i am so grateful for you, do you know that?"


so, yeah. food is love. and i have been on a very strict diet.



well. all of  that's about to change. because i am getting off this computer right now and i am going back into that kitchen, and i am going to finish the job.


and then i will transport all of it to my new kitchen which, somehow or other, will be filled with love, too.

are you better off now than you were before you created this mess?

you know how the answer to "are you better off now than you were 4 years ago" is always no? well, hold onto that thought.........


this is what human beings do: they create problems and then they try to fix them. and the fix is always worse, in at least one way or another, than the problem. the fix is either divisive (it's almost always that) or it's expensive or it's complicated or it takes too much time or it ends up in court. or something.

whereas, if we did things Christ's way - in the first place - none of this would have ever happened.

none. of. this. would. have. ever. happened. and really, that's all He was ever trying to tell us!  that He has a better idea. better! and not only better.......fail-safe. but i guess we don't like fail-safe. (unless it's contraception.)


we wouldn't have murder and then the problem of what to do with the suspect(s) if we had done things Christ's way in the first place.

we wouldn't have adultery and then what to do with the kids if we had done things Christ's way in the first place.

we wouldn't have financial ruin and now what are we gonna do and who's gonna pay for it?

we wouldn't have any self-righteous someone screaming in your face that you're a bigot and then slamming the door in said face.

we wouldn't have abortion because we would have done what Christ told us to do in the first place........get married, have children, love them, raise them. and thou shalt not kill them.

we wouldn't have benghazi and we wouldn't have had watergate. to me, of all the examples in recent memory, these are among the best. if you can know about benghazi and watergate and still not get it that human beings screw things up whenever they don't do things the way Christ told us to do them to begin with, then, truthfully, i guess there's nothing left for me to do than to pray for your ignorant soul.



which is what Christ told me to do in the first place.

with apologies to bob dylan: don't think twice, it's NOT alright.

it is with lightening speed that some people rush to find fault. and "find fault" is putting it mildly when what i really mean is "crucify" you.


in less than a blink of an eye, some folks on the far left are criticizing those of us who like charles ramsey, the hero of the cleveland abduction horror. they say we like him because we're "racist." i guess we'd be less racist if we didn't like him. 

they say we only like him because he's a stereotype. how one is a stereotype of one's self is a little hard to understand, but ok. let's say he's a stereotype. even if he is, he's the one being the stereotype! maybe he's the racist! to get mad at me because i enjoy the way someone presents himself is about as idiotic as you can get.


and it didn't take 'em long to get idiotic. they're radical liberals.


dead give-away.

jason collins and tim tebow

jason collins comes out as gay and the media high five him to smithereens. tim tebow comes out as Christian and the media tell him to pipe down.


so, let me get this, ahem, straight: what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom should be made public? and following Christ's example, which was totally public, shouldn't make it out your front door.


????????????


well, fine.


as they say.............


when God closes a door,


He opens a window.


(or, as in this case, a blog post.)