the woman who loved every kind of weather or, how to fix everything

last night i had dinner with an old woman who loves every kind of weather. hot and humid? loves it. freezing cold and snowing? loves. mild and rainy? loves. cool and sunny? loves. below zero? fine. in the teens? fine. 50s? fine. 90s? fine. over a hundred? fine. "have you ever met a weather you don't like," i asked. "no," she said.



lots of people, all of them seemingly on facebook, seem to know the secret to a good life - and most of them can sum it up in a catchy meme. it might be - often is - religious in nature, it might be - often is - sarcastic in nature, or it might be - always is - thought-provoking in nature. but no one has ever summed it up like the old woman who loves every kind of weather.

i have never met a person who even likes every kind of weather, much less loves it. i have met people who like every kind of season, but that's different. to embrace humidity right along with embracing scraping your windshield in january is not just unusual, it is unheard of. 

and that's why the world is a mess. because loving weather, no matter what kind it is, is unheard of.




i asked this lady if she is flexible about everything. she thought about it for a second, shrugged her shoulders and said, "sure. why not?" are you flexible about what you eat, i asked.

"sure. why not?"

the clothes you wear?

"sure."

where you live?

"yeah."

what you do in your free time?

"of course."

you flexible about politics?

"people are politics. so, yeah. gotta be flexible about people."

religion?

"you practice yours, i'll practice mine."

what about taxes?

"sure. tell me what to pay and i'll pay it."




is there anything you're not flexible about, i asked.

"one thing," she said.

what, i said.



"being flexible."





 

bruno mars hates hot weather, too.

it's no secret that i am not a fan of hot/humid weather. understatement of the year.

however, i know that people don't want to hear me going on and on about how i don't like hot/humid weather. and by don't like it i mean, loathe it.

they don't want to hear it. i get that. just like i don't want to hear you griping about my beloved snow and cold. you don't wanna hear it, i don't wanna hear it. we're even.

and so, before i moved down here, i promised rudy that i would never complain about the heat/humidity. i didn't say i would never comment on it.....because i will.....but i won't gripe. there's a difference between commenting and griping: the difference is, "wow, it sure is hot today" vs. "for the love of $%*@!##$*&! this is the worst flippin' weather in the history of the world and i, for one, am gonna DIE. but not before i kill somebody first."

that's griping.

i promised rudy i wouldn't do that.

and, i won't. in spite of the fact that since moving down here, everyone is scaring me half to pieces about the heat and humidity that's to come. this is what all of them are telling me:

oh, girl, just. wait.

oh, dude, you don't know the half of it. just. wait.

oh, you poor thing! you're just gonna die! DIE! just. wait.

oh, nancy.......nancy, nancy, NANCY......just. wait.


(speaking of nancy, the latest person to warn me that death by heat/humidity is imminent was my dear old school (literally) friend, nancy (flood) staley, who now lives in north carolina - and so she knows what she's talking about -  and who only this morning warned me to "just wait until august...")



all of these warnings have left me terrified. standing here in may, on the cusp of june (and july and august after that), i am shaking like a leaf.  scared of the weather and scared of the word "just." i never wanna hear the word "just" the rest of my life.



but.


i. promised.

and. i. will. keep. my. promise.

i. will. not. complain.

i. won't.




don't believe me?


just watch.

is this why nancy drew wrote "the secret in the old attic?"

attics are usually small, hot,and full of stuff like family Bibles, vinyl records, old photographs, and newspaper clippings about woodstock or the day jfk died. if you're lucky, there's a mannequin or two up there or maybe one of those headless human-like things that seamstresses and tailors use to hang the clothes they're sewing onto. or, if you're really lucky, like kevin from "home alone," there's a life-sized michael jordan up there. just in case you ever need to make it look from the street like that there's somebody in your living room. so don't try breakin' in.

attics also are places that hold all the things that when you ask somebody like your mom or your dad or your grandma or grandpa, "whatever happened to (fill-in-the-blank)," they'll say, "i dunno, it's prob'ly in the attic." and when you go up there to see, sure enough, there it is. even if you do have to dig around awhile to find it.

attics are usually nothing but a bunch of unfinished boards and wires and pipes and pink insulation and their unfinished, raw selves represent everything that's right with the world and how, in spite of our materialistic american selves, we can still sometimes manage to get our priorities right:

attics are humble not proud, simple not fancy. it's the rare attic that has felt the need to upgrade to marble countertops.

attics preserve precious memories, most of them family-related. if you go back downstairs after a visit to the attic, nine times out of ten, the family's not there. because they're out playing golf or over at the mall.

attics don't care what kind of faucets the rest of the house has or how hip and cool the color scheme is. all an attic cares about is whether or not it kept your sentimental things intact and the dust to a relative minimum.

they spend countless days and nights unvisited (and in many cases, unremembered), guarding precious mementos and the family "jewels." they don't get much attention or consideration and when someone does go up there, it's not so much to say hi to the attic as it is to go up as fast as you can, find what you came up here for, and get the heck back downstairs as fast as you can. because it's hot up there and who wants to be hot.

but the attic doesn't get angry. the attic says, thanks for dropping by and, see you next time.

attics are faithful. they are faithful servants - if not of God then at least of us. and we ought to give them a little more respect.
 


yesterday, rudy and i went up to the attic in his - our - house and although his - our - attic isn't small (it's actually huge) and although it isn't hot (it's actually quite cool and comfortable), it's still an attic. and it's still the watchman for years and years of a life - soon to be two lives - well-lived, worth remembering, and worth preserving.



the supremes told us to "go up the ladder to the roof" and the drifters before them sang about the glories of being "up on the roof." i think both of them were right - the roof is a great and open-sky place to be. but don't bypass the attic on your way to the roof. the roof may have a spectacular view of heaven,

but the attic holds generations of reasons why being on earth can be pretty heavenly, too.

get your kicks on route 33.

i drive route 33 to and from canal winchester and columbus dang near everyday - and have for almost a year - and i just today totally realized that depending on which direction you're travelling, you either have the hills of southeastern ohio in your rear view mirror or out your windshield and/or the downtown skyline of columbus in your rear view mirror or out your windshield. 

it's a sign. it's gotta be a sign.

it's gotta be a sign of:

• what's ahead might look better or what's behind might look better but right where you are is pretty frickin' good! because where else besides right where you are can you see your past and (at least some of) your future? face it.....you gotta be somewhere and the view from right here is awesome. so i recommend being right here!
• it's also gotta be a sign that i need to pay more attention.
• as do you.
• we drive, walk, bicycle, run, work, play, eat, sleep right through our lives, people. right through them!
• and we never pay any attention.

but, most of all, 33 x 2 (driving to and from) = .......... 66!

if that's not a sign......

i don't know what is.

 

clean your windows if you want to be a saint

people often tell me that i am a good example of what a faithful Christian should be and that they admire me. and that they wish they were as strong - and as forgiving - as i am. ha!


ha! on two levels. one, the better a Christian you are, the worse a Christian you realize you really are. 

(father robert barron, a catholic priest in the archdiocese of chicago, says that the real difference between a saint and a sinner is that a saint is a sinner who really knows it. he says being a saint is kinda like looking through a window in the sunlight - you see all the smudges then. when it's cloudy, you don't notice. being a saint, that is, being someone who is trying to be oriented to the Sonlight, reveals how unsaintly one really is.)

(not that anyone's accusing me of being a saint!)  :)


so......i am not as good as y'all might think. just drop by my place on a sunny day and you'll see.


second.......there's no secret - no trick - to being a "good" Christian. nike would probably shrink in horror to realize it, but their famous slogan sums up Christianity quite well - "just do it."

if, in any way, i am an inspiration to anyone, it's not because i know something y'all don't. i probably don't know half of what y'all know. it's because what i am doing is just doing it. in spite of the fact that 90 percent of the damned time, i don't want to.


just do it. (thanks, nike.)


and clean your windows. (thanks, windex.)

throw back thursday? ten-o-six!

i love bonne bell cosmetics. did you know that you can still get their entire line by mail order (not online)? how freaking cool is that. love!

the first bonne bell cosmetic i ever used was their ten-o-six lotion. well.......they called it lotion, but it was actually astringent. it was thee acne buster par exellence among the junior high and high school crowd. even if you weren't lucky enough to go steady, you could at least control your zits like the popular kids did.

the next thing i tried - and they still sell these in the stores - was their lip smackers. lip smackers came and still do in every flavor freaking imaginable. it's a great world when your lip gloss tastes like dr. pepper.

they also made (still do - mail order!) this stuff called "white white." i bought my first tube just because i liked the name. i mean, how late did somebody have to stay up thinkin' of "white white?" about 5 minutes, that's how long. i loved how the un-originality of the name made it so original.

white white was (is!) whatever you wanted it to be. you could use it as concealer (gotta be careful, though; don't wanna look like a raccoon)or as eye highlighter or cheek highlighter or hell, if you were nancy bridgman (one of the popular kids where i went to school), you could even get away wearing it as lipstick. anybody else woulda looked dead - and maybe nancy did - but everyone thought she was the bomb. (or, as we used to call it back in the day........"tuff.")

bonne bell also makes this wonderful gel cheek color. it comes in pink, red, peach, and tawny. i use red, which sounds garish but really it's not. it's so clear and transparent and glowy. i have used no other cheek blush since 1967. i still use it to this day. every day.

true story.

there is absolutely nothing else in the whole wide world that i have done every day since 1967. well, besides breathe.

bonne bell makes a killer breath mint, by the way.(just ask nancy bridgman. she got kissed. a lot.)

there's a woman in the mirror, too, michael jackson.

it strikes me as odd that out of all the kinds of people that i see in my line of work - the sexual offenders, the pedophiles, the abusers, the cheaters, the felons, the liars, the addicts, the neglectful, the hard-of-heart - even with all of these, i find it much easier to love them than i do anybody who is arrogant. i just loathe arrogance.


being in the company of an arrogant person makes my blood boil. literally. well...not literally.

i wanna just smack 'em.

i wanna just smack 'em so bad it's a freaking wonder i never have.


you know how parents of young children - the honest parents of young children, that is - will sometimes say that although they would never actually abuse their own kids, they can definitely understand how such a thing could happen? well, i can definitely understand how such a thing as me pummelin' an arrogant person to the ground could happen. except for the fact that that would make me an arrogant person (and worse). 

i don't want to be an arrogant person. but, in truth, i guess i am. if i weren't an arrogant person, it probably wouldn't press my buttons so bad when i encounter one. not to mention i wouldn't write an arrogant blog post about how bad they piss me off. as if i'm any different.


i'm glad i have a mirror. i'm glad i have the nerve to look in it.



i'm happy to share.

i'm sure about this: i like being wishy-washy.

i like to wash dishes. my mom does, too, so maybe that's where i got it.

i especially like to wash them with original green palmolive. i like the way it smells. it doesn't smell fancy like lavender or fancy like shea butter or fancy like any of that fancy stuff. it smells like soap. huh.

i have tried other dish detergents but personally, soap is pretty much soap. if your dishes are still dirty after you've washed 'em, that's on you - not the detergent. as for which brand cuts grease best- beats me. i eat the grease! the grease is the best part!  :)

for most of my dishes and pots and pans and glasses and stuff, i still put them in the dishwasher. but whenever i'm feeling nostalgic or just like i want to smell something clean or trail my fingers through soapy water, i wash my dishes. it helps keep me humble.


i wash all my clothes in the washing machine, though. even the hand-wash only ones.


i'm not that humble.

why it makes sense to move to the moon

1. probably nobody keeps bitching about when is spring gonna get here.
2. it's made of cheese. 

those are two pretty compelling reasons, if you ask me.

in other news, no, i haven't been watching too much of the olympics. a twizzle here and a half-pipe there and that's pretty much the extent of it. no, it's not because i'm boycotting them. no, it's not because i'm anti-american and don't care how my country does. it's cuz i don't want to.

what i've been watching instead are a buncha "in the heat of the night" reruns. you gotta give carroll o'connor a whole lotta credit.......i watch him as bill gillespie and i never once think of him as archie bunker. what an actor! to be big-as-life-archie-bunker and then go on to play other roles and archie bunker isn't the first thing (or even the second or third thing) you think of when you see him. now, that's an actor.

i read where archbishop roger mahony said carroll o'connor's funeral mass back in 2001. i never thought of carroll o'connor as a catholic. despite his name.

i bet that would've been a sight to behold - carroll o'connor's funeral. just imagine the who's who of hollywood that would have been there. against the backdrop of catholicism.

   3. hollywood isn't there.

zzzzzzz..........................

i am the world's best sleeper. proven fact. look it up.


this is how good a sleeper i am:

• it takes me, on average, 2.3 minutes to fall asleep. proven.
• i sleep 9 - 10 hours every night.
• i hardly ever wake up feeling anything less than rarin' to go.
• as long as i am lying down, i can sleep anywhere.
• no, it doesn't have to be my own bed. it doesn't even have to be a bed. floor is fine.
• if i am not lying down (on a plane, for example), i still sleep through almost the whole flight. if i were lying down, i would sleep through 100% of it.
• i am such a good sleeper, even on a plane, that i don't care who sits next to me. even a screaming baby. i feel sorry for the guy who wants to talk, though.
• it doesn't matter what kind of pillow i have.
• mattress? let's put it this way - if everyone were like me, select comfort would be like, what the hell is select comfort?
• i can take a nap in the afternoon and not have it mess up my sleep that night.
• no, i do not have a sleep disorder - i am a good sleeper. proven fact. if you haven't looked it up by now, you probably never will.

i am also the world's worst sleeper. another proven fact. etc. etc. etc.


this is how rotten a sleeper i am:

• i can't stay up much past 8:00 most nights. jay leno who?
• rarely, but sometimes, i'm in bed before dinner.
• or, on the floor before dinner. (and no.....not because i'm passed out from wine!)
• i don't have an adult life. i don't even have a 3rd grader's life. i'm zoomin' in on about a kindergartener.

one of the greatest blessings God has ever given me is my ability to sleep. i don't know what being tired during the day is. i know what it is at 7 o'clock. (p.m.)

they say our greatest blessings are also often our greatest curses.

(and vice-versa.)


the man next to me on the plane who wants to talk and wishes i would wake the hell up might not know it, but the vice-versa definitely applies to him.

:)

the warmth of winter

the votes are counted (all one of 'em) and the verdict is unanimous: i have thee most amazing fireplace in the world.


it's a lie to call it a fireplace when what it is is more like a fire thingamajig. my space is small so i couldn't go with some big honkin' thing. and my fire thingamajig fits in perfectly.

it's portable, which is nice. even if i don't have any intention of taking it anywhere. like, where the heck would i take it? to the store with me or somethin'?

it's lightweight. 

it's contemporary, which i love. you might never have thought about this, but it's hard to find contemporary portable fire thingamajigs.

it's clean - no wood, no ashes, no soot. it runs on gel. true story!

it crackles! just like a "real" fireplace!

but the best part, and this is NO LIE, even though it's probly gonna sound like a lie: it is one helluva efficient heater! it is so efficient that, no lie, i turn the heat in the house OFF whenever i crank up my thingamajig. and even then, it gets up to about 78 in here. with the lowest temps in 20 years predicted up here over the next few days, i challenge anyone to a weenie roast.  

:)




(the pic below doesn't do it justice cuz it's not taken at night when my thingamjig goes all postal with the coziness. plus, the flames get really BIG! not to mention, this isn't my home - this is from an advertisement i stole online. shhh! i have pics of MY fire thingamajig on my phone but for some unfathomable reason it won't let me e-mail it to myself and then upload it here. i hate technology!....... 

but i LOVE thingamajigs!)

:)

counting on eating!

i have resolved, just sorta for the heck of it, to eat one meal everyday next year that Jesus might have eaten. in researching what foods those might have been (and there is quite a bit of disagreement about that), i have settled on the following as my things from which to choose:

apples
almonds
dates
figs
grapes
melons
olives
pistachios
pomegranates
raisins

beans
cucumbers
gourds
leeks
lentils
onions

fish
calf
goat
lamb
oxen
sheep
venison
dove
pigeon
quail
grouse

bread
corn
barley

butter
cheese
curds
milk
eggs

coriander
cinnamon
cumin
dill
garlic
mint
mustard
salt

wine
grape juice
honey
olive oil
vinegar


taking away those things on the list that i don't like or have no intention of finding out if i do or i don't , i.e. - 

apples
figs
melons
pomegranates
cucumbers
goat
lamb
oxen
sheep
venison
dove
pigeon
quail
grouse
mint
curds
eggs

i am left with 26 foods, beverages, liquids, and seasonings with which to concoct one meal a day.

adding lamb back on the list ( which, if you hold a gun to my head, i can manage to choke down lamb chops) we're back up to 27. 

27 things/365 days = 13.51851851851882.



maybe this resolution is gonna have to go. 

cuz i also resolved to give up math.

be grateful for gratitude!

i heard a guy on the radio this morning talking about modern-day Christian martyrs and he reflected on how incredibly blessed most of us are with the lives that we lead. he said, "sheesh......the closest i ever came to "carrying the cross" was eating fish sticks and mac and cheese on fridays during lent."

he is so right.

and then, later today, one of my colleagues remarked that we have such good lives (she was speaking in particular of the contrast between our lives and the lives of most of our clients - which, in general, are such a hot mess you could get a tan just talking to them).

she is so right.

and then, on the drive home, i heard a guy on the radio say that he thinks that the thing all of us should be most grateful for is the ability (the God-given ability) to be grateful. without the ability to be grateful.......well, doesn't it make you shudder just thinking about it?

he is so right.

and yet......most of us (on a daily, ordinary basis anyway) squander the gift of gratitude. we kavetch from the minute we wake up till the minute we fall asleep.....or......if we don't, we at least fail to realize that everything ......everybody.....is something/someone for which/whom we should be grateful.(do i have to be grateful for proper english? sheesh!)

or, as someone (i believe it was mother teresa) said, "it's not a problem....it's a gift."


she (or whoever said that) is so right.

(or is it whomever?)


i am so grateful for the who/whom "gift", which drives me (gratefully) crazy every time i have to figure out which one to use.

gives me a (grateful) headache.


think i'm gonna go lie (lay?) down. and be grateful for my bed.

give me an onion ring, not a diamond ring!

in this month of being thankful, one of the things i am thankful for is that unlike most of you, i love to go to the grocery store. LOVE!

going to the grocery store has never felt like a chore to me. ok, so maybe not never (you sticklers for the truth), but almost practically 100%....... never. i love the grocery store!

first of all, even the stuff that costs too much doesn't cost that much. as compared to, say, the stuff that's in a jewelry store. or at the car dealership. you gotta love $3.99 versus $3,999.00 or $39,999.00 any. day. of. the. year.

the other thing is, it's no fun cleaning jewelry. not exactly a blast washing the car, either. but running the carrots through the faucet? please. piece. of. cake.

speaking of cake.......you can't get that at tiffany's. breakfast, maybe, but cake?

never.

:)

coupla things that matter.

• chocolate-chocolate chip zucchini cake. this is wonderful. not because it's delicious (it is) but because it's. a. vegetable.
• grilling bbq ribs during the summer and freezing some for the fall. and since yesterday was the first full day of fall, guess what i'm having for dinner tonight?
• when somebody mows the grass, dammit.
• wine with a screw cap that tastes good. (yeah.....there are a few.)
• the wine tastes good, not the screw cap! you english majors, you!
• when the pope clarifies what he means and says no, if you thought i meant abortion is okay, i don't. it's not.

when the pope clarifies what he means and says no, if you thought i meant abortion is okay, i don't.

it's not.

how to grow up: go to a festival.

i remember the year my grandpa took me - just me - to the ohio state fair. i won a transistor radio at one of the game booths and was in heaven. and no amount of my grandpa's encouraging me to select another prize (knowing that the radio was a piece of crap) could change that. 

carrying that radio proudly out of the fair, i felt so grown up.

last night, olivia and i went to a local catholic church's festival (sidebar here: where in the Bible does it say to hold festivals? it must be in there somewhere because i have never met a catholic church that doesn't have them.).

catholic church festivals, i have found, vary widely in their appeal. some go all out, with local bands, upscale food, and high-end silent auctions. some barely deserve the title "festival," unless you consider one plastic baby pool with toy ducks floating around in it and all you do is reach in and grab one and you get a prize to be a festival. 

(even the youngest kid in the whole wide world knows that's a dud of a festival.)

but, most catholic church festivals fall somewhere in between, with a bouncy house or two, some bingo, maybe a dunking booth, probably a raffle, and lots of good "fair food." that's the kind of festival last night's festival was. and, from a kid's point of view, that's the best kind.........good enough to have decent prizes but not so good that it over-appeals to adults.

olivia tried her hand at several of the games (she has a mean pitching arm, as evidenced by  her nailing the "throw-three-basketballs-and-if-you-get-one-of-them-through-the-hoop-you-win" game. 

she didn't fare so well on the bean bag toss game, but of course, that gig was rigged.

:)

she skipped and danced and cartwheeled her way through the festival, went up to the various costumed characters who were strolling the grounds and gave them giant hugs, tried to high five the guy on stilts (you try doin' that!), and licked the mustard off her hamburger and left the rest, uneaten.

she had a ball.

and so did i.

just before we left, we spotted an artist doing caricatures, and olivia wanted hers done. 

the guy who did her caricature was nice as pie and he didn't mind a bit that olivia kept wiggling around and asking if he was done yet.

but, when he handed us the finished product, olivia took one look at it and said, full of pride, "grammy! look how grown up i just got!" and indeed, the picture did make olivia look older than the 4 1/2-year old that she is.

as we walked out of the festival and to our car, olivia clutched her caricature and held her head up high, proud and feeling so grown up.

just how transistor radios make 7-year olds feel, too.

suck-o, lousy weather

no, i don't have statistics. yes, i could get them if i gave a rip about statistics. no, this has not been a good summer. weather-wise.

in fact, this summer has sucked.



it has sucked the firecrackers out of the fourth of july.

it has sucked the picnic out of the park.

the outdoor concert? sucked. out.

i can count on one hand the number times i have been able to use my grill.

it ruined the jazz and rib fest.

filled the pool with (rain) water but emptied it of folks.

turned my flowers yellow. yes, even the yellow ones.

shut down the block party in my new neighborhood.

depressed even the mood of this rain lover.


can. not. remember a summer this gray.

further proof, if for some insane reason you need it, that everything was better back in the day. everything was 100% better back in the 1950s.


there.  that's a statistic for ya.

pet peeves

1. not cleaning up after your pet. long as i live, i'm not gonna ever understand how someone justifies that behavior. 
2. not scrolling through the comments before you comment. it's a dis.cus.sion., people.
3. that's all for now but trust me, i'll get more.

home

a place that has everything.

a door - front or back - through which i walk and find,

even if no one is there,

a hug.

a basset hound who licks her way 

to hello and the breeze

lifts her ears.

i smell new house smell and fresh

rosemary.

i lay out the chops and thank 

God.

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.)