When the Well Goes Dry...My So-Called Bucket List

In case it hasn't been noticed; I've been trying to get here at least once a week to post something mind-blowing, entertaining (maybe only to me) or inspirational. 
This week, it seems the well went dry (although plenty of you probably thought that was last week when I ran clips of stuff that happened more than 30 years ago) and I actually found myself 'Googling' blog ideas. Surreal experience.

Also, I'd already done many of them without realizing it.
Sometimes I wonder if anybody (besides 'Bama Bone, and my family) is actually reading these? Just like that song in 1776 (hey it was July 4th 5 days ago), I wonder,

"Is anybody there?"
"Does anybody care?"
"Does anybody see what I see?"

If you are there, and reading this, I sure wish you would comment. Tell me what I am doing wrong, or right. Unless of course you are a major celebrity and want to remain anonymous which of course, I completely understand. Thinking that major celebs who wish to remain anonymous are reading this is just one of the many coping mechanisms I employ.

So on to the business of this. After all this research, what do I elect to write...
Over the last 2-3 years, well, I've experienced quite a few deaths.  And I'm turning a year older as well, which puts me just a scoch closer to my own encounter with the reaper whose name is death.

Sorry don't mean to be morbid, it's just that all of this makes me reflective.
I started to wonder how I'd want to be remembered and what I really wanted to accomplish before I shrug off this mortal coil.

1. I'd like to be remembered as a person who was interesting. Frankly I don't care that much if you approve of me (by the way that's huge, it used to be my reason for getting up in the morning-your approval) or don't approve of me, but I hope you at least would say, "She's a piece of work!"

2. On my tombstone, memorial or epitaph, hologram, or whatever they are using, I'd like to see the following quotes:

• "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" It's Robert Browning and is one of the touchstones of my life.
• "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I know there is a certain political connotation to these words but there is very little that I believe so devoutly in or am more passionate about than these immortal words of Jefferson.
• Lastly and most importantly, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life". Quote-aholic that I am, I could go on for quite a bit, but it is these three that are the blocks upon which my life is built.

3. Probably the hymns/songs I'd most like to hear are, "Great is Thy Faithfulness", "It Is Well With My Soul", Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", Max Bruch's Symphony No 1 in G Minor, Michael W Smith's "Angus Dei" and Julian Lennon's "Too Late for Goodbyes", not for the obvious pun or irony, just because it's probably my favorite pop song of all time, narrowly edging out Level 42's "Something About You". There are probably much better songs technically, etc., but it's these two that I can play and never tire of.  By the same token, if any of the following ARE played, I'll find some way to haunt you, anything by Lady Gaga, "Uptown Funk", Spin Doctors "Two Princes", "Runaround" By Blues Traveler, anything by Snoop Dog, "The Thong Song", ummm... anything by One Republic and that hideous, hideous song that I can never get out of my head for days after I've heard it, "Somebody That I Used to Know" by artist with unpronounceable, stupid name, Gotye.

4.  When people remember me, I guess the things that they should know are that I lived my life always trying not to hurt people. To put myself in their place, walk a mile in their shoes. That I loved cats/dogs, nothing makes me happier than feeding, playing with or caring for them. My life's passions are books, music and movies. That when I'm sad, I always listen to The Carpenters; Karen's voice I always thought was the best and most soothing of all voices. That I had a secret passion for the Bee Gees and ABBA. That sometimes the only thing that makes me smile when nothing else could is to watch Fred Astaire dance. My favorite color has always been blue. While I read everything and anything, my favorite book is probably, Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home. Yes, the Bible is paramount, but I never really considered the Bible...merely a book. My favorite painting is the "Marriage of Arnolfini" by Jan Van Eyck. Although I also love JMW Turner, Winslow Homer, Auguste Renoir and the portraiture of John Singer Sargent. I love poetry, particularly Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and Shakespeare's Sonnet 116..."Let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments..."

5. I always wanted to get married outside in a rose garden. Living in Fl, I probably should say the beach, but to me that's the ultimate cliché, besides I sunburn faster than it takes most people to find a seat at a wedding. I still hope to one day find me a kind, funny and handsome groom to join me in this garden.

6. I regret never having gone to my High School Senior Prom. I should have, I had the dress, but I lacked the courage.

7. Before I shrug off this mortal coil, I want to be a better writer. I need to work at it more, I've been lazy. I'm too old to keep being lazy.  Since the moment, I began committing words to the page, there is rarely anything I've loved doing more, except maybe reading.

8. I want to see Canada, Maine, and go on a train trip. Actually, I've retrenched a bit seeing as how it used to be England, Italy, France and Australia.

9. I know it's probably indulgent, and non-PC, considering most people nowadays have a memorial service with a please contribute to in lieu of flowers thing. But, damn it, I want flowers. Funerals are grim enough, so even though I'm not actually going to be there, I'd like to think of it as being beautiful. Life is short and beauty is important. I want to drink in all the beauty I can. It's probably little known, but flowers are a big deal to me. I love roses (although not red, old fashioned ones, yellow, peachy pink, ivory), lilies, freesias (if only for the scent), and hydrangeas best of all.  I also have a soft spot for gardenias and petunias which always make me think of my Grandma, but the scent of gardenias is a bit overpowering and petunias don't do well as cut flowers.

10. Sometimes I feel that I've lived life too safely. That I didn't take enough risks. So a few things I'd  wanted to do, but always talked myself out of are scuba diving, horseback riding, competing in ballroom dance, going on Space Mountain at Walt Disney World, and climbing up the tower at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse.  I should do these things.

So this is what you get when the well goes dry...essentially my bucket list.
What's yours? Leave a comment! 

Ye Olde 1980's

This morning I was styling my hair and had a moment of panic. I was on my way to a career-related appointment and I started to stress that my hair was too big...that it was a bit too...1980's. 
My normally bobbed hair is longer than usual these days and I've let it grow. So there I stood, flipping Velcro rollers out of my hair at speed where they land like large chunks of confetti and I'm yanking the hair brush through my do' muttering,

"Beachy waves dammit, not BIG waves...NO BIG HAIR, do you really want to look like Stevie Nicks in her 'Stand Back' video!!!"

And it was at this moment where perhaps I'd inhaled a bit too much Aussie Frizz-Ease spray, that I had the first moment of nostalgic yearning for the days when bigger was better, when you could take a bad hair day and tease or crimp it into submission.

I shrugged it aside until 15 minutes later when I was shadowing my cheeks with blush and the 2nd moment came upon me,

"C'mon no slasher streaks...who do you think you are Pat Benatar?" (didn't mean for that to rhyme, sometimes things just gel)

Then as humans often do when confronted by their own inadequacy, I began to look for a scapegoat. And I found it, the 1980's.  "It's not your fault Jill, you learned hair styling and makeup in the 80's, it's natural that occasionally it rears it's ugly head!"

All of the sudden, I was tired of having to apologize for the 1980's like they were some black sheep member of the family. Tired of people saying, "you can't live in the past". So tired of the words 'dated', or 'ugh, this is so 80's looking'...

It even caused me to take a hard look at my style gurus', Jonathan Silver Scott and his twin brother, umm what's his name, Drew. For years now they've been on the leading edge of the destruction of all my childhood landmarks. Unlike when someone goes into a 1920's or 30's residence and goes mad for the Art Deco look, no one ever seems to go into a 1980's era home and says, "Oh wow, pink and teal, I love the use of color!" No one ever looks at the glass blocks and says, "I love these glass blocks, let's keep em!" In fact they are usually the first items sacrificed to the sledgehammer. But I remember, when all of that was new and current.  And sometimes...sometimes it hurts.

Nobody loves the decade that made me, that made the X'ers and lately it seems they are trying brick by brick to eradicate it from memory.

So today, because this is my blog and I can, I'm dedicating it to my 1980's and the things I most miss.
If you're a true 80's Toys r Us kid, get ready to be heart-warmed. Below is a boatload of nostalgia:

#1.   The original HBO Opening

 

#2. Bonkers Candy
*What I love most is how they unapologetically say it's 'artificially flavored'.

#3. Dallas TV show.
 Back before Netflix, you had to wait a week, or sometimes a whole summer to find out the end to a cliff hanger from the previous week. There was no such thing as binge-watching a whole season in one weekend. But it gave you something to talk about, and since there was no such thing as 'social media', you actually talked to people about it. Well maybe there was a very rudimentary 'computer geek' only Prodigy list-serve precursor to message boards, a sad sort of social media, but 'computer geek' types probably never watched Dallas, they were too busy playing D & D or text based computer games like Zork.

#4.  Laughing at NON-PC things.
Back in the day comedians like Sam Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay actually joked about taboo topics like world hunger, and Womens issues' and nobody went crazy. I still remember after 9/11, people gingerly asking, "is it okay to be funny again?". At the time when America could most have used a laugh, everyone was so worried about offending everybody that we began taking ourselves just too seriously. Frankly, I get so weary of having to worry all the time, if I say x or y, who might I offend.  *The below piece has a bit of salty language, but for crying out loud people, get a sense of humor!* 

                          

#5.  Jello Pudding Pops
 I am not sure what caused them to go out of favor. But as 80's kid living in Florida, there was something totally awesome about your dinnertime pudding being made into a frozen treat. And say what you want about Bill Cosby, what he did or didn't do, the Coz warmed our hearts in the 80's with Jello Magic.

#6. Saturday Morning Cartoons
Even though it worked out differently, I remember looking forward to watching Saturday morning cartoons with my own kids. No was more shocked than me when they just sort of disappeared from the air.  Note: This is long....but nostalgia-packed, feel free to rewind or fast forward as the mood moves.

#7.  MTV-When it used to play music videos
Back in the 1980's, you didn't have to hit You Tube in order to see the music/groups you liked best.

#8. Arcades
 The deafening sound of 50-80 machines all being played at once, the smell of un-washed bodies and stale pizza and the clink of the quarter in the slot. You remember that right?

#9.   Roller Skating Rinks
Before PlayStation, X-Box, the proliferation of Cable TV, computers, and helicopter parenting, kids used to get dropped off by their Moms at the roller rink on a Saturday afternoon. It was a perfect way to spend a day, you hoped for the Dazz Band's "Whip It" to play, you ate crap at the snack bar like cokes, candy and popcorn, and you wanted it never to end.

#10.   Big Hair
And here we end up back where we started, I miss big hair. You didn't worry about humidity and frizz so much, in fact you sort of welcomed it. And frankly, it was a totally awesome, gravity defying sight to behold.

So, there they are, just a few of the things I miss from the 1980's. 
I know life goes on and you can't stand still but every so often...it's nice to go back.
Now to go and make sure my beachy waves aren't frizzed out...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standing Outside the Fire...So This is Forty

I'm actually on the cusp of 41, it's a matter of days away. And I thought to myself,

"How can I be turning 41, I'm not used to 40 yet!"

That's the funny thing about birthdays', they don't care if  'you're ready', if you've achieved the goals you set for yourself, ready or not, here it comes.

I used to love them. Frankly, I still do in some ways. Despite what this blog may make you think, I really do have a  fun side, I love cake, I love balloons and crepe paper streamers. I always wanted a piñata. My friend Christina M and I tried to make one once, my first, last and only attempt at papier mache.  I guess we didn't give it enough time to dry and it turned into a gummy lump once the balloon on the inside was popped. All the candy we tried filling it with got soggy and melted into an inedible sugary mass. This is Florida after all and we have humidity like you only can in the tropics. To wit, I've never actually seen my hair un-frizzy...and that's with using straightener, a blow dryer, and much brute strength manhandling of a round hairbrush.

But there is part of me that still likes the idea of cake, candles, ice cream and fun.

But then 40 takes hold and you feel like, "Wow I really am a grown up now!"

This year it has only gotten worse and more grown up. You know those ads on TV, where the heart attack victim to be is given a sinister note that says, 'Your heart attack will happen today'; I used to find them creepy and off-putting, but lately I've begun to reconsider. If only that could have happened to me, maybe the day after my 40th birthday, someone, perhaps God, could have just dropped me a note,

"Dear Jill,

This is going to be a rough year, your fortieth. You are going to get laid off from your job in the first month of 2015. One of your co-workers is going to die the week after that. You will flounder and struggle month after month through a job search, then try to carve out a new career only to have that stall. Then your Auntie G will die and your Dad will be diagnosed with a serious illness that will suddenly make him, for the first time, 'old' and vulnerable. You will be required to remember doctor visits and prescriptions, accompany him to the hospital, for glasses, watch his diet, go to Walgreens repeatedly for all of the paraphernalia that goes with aging.

Try not to panic.

Love,

God"

At least then, I'd know what I was up against. I'm always better with everything, if I can just prepare for it. I like to make lists, and set goals. Doesn't God know that none of this is written down in my five-year plan? I mean, I start planning for Christmas in September. I'm on Hallmark's mailing list for the Keepsake Ornament catalog and they send me a card for my birthday because I'm always in their stores planning for holidays, buying birthday cards, sympathy cards, boss day cards.
Planning, planning, planning.

I guess the hardest part of 40 has been the realization that you can't plan for everything.
It's funny how we keep trying though, whole industries have sprung up around the human need to prepare ahead, with Filofaxes, Palm Pilots, Blackberry's and now I-Phone and Droids.  You can plan your vacation on Expedia or Trivago, plan your summer reading on Amazon, try to prognosticate your future through horoscopes, numerology or other at Astrology.com. You can even prepare for your exit from this world through Final Expense Insurance Burial Plans.

I guess the one thing you can't prepare for is grief. And not the grieving after a person has died, I'm talking about the grieving for the way life used to be. Grieving for the endless summers, pool parties in the backyard, eating birthday cake in your swimsuit, line dancing at the local country bar or honky-tonk depending on where you are from, eating sand-dusted sandwiches on New Symrna Beach, the icy cold of a Frozen Gold soft serve cone cooling your sun-burned face or falling asleep in the car on the way home from a Wednesday night church service with Eddie Rabbit on the radio crooning about "Driving his life away" because Dad was at the wheel and you knew you were safe in the back of the station wagon.

There seemed to be more of everything then, more time, more simple pleasures, more stars....

I can't change forty, but maybe I can change me.
Maybe at 41, I need to stop planning so much and start savoring a little more.
Maybe Garth Brooks was right, "Life is not tried, it is merely survived. If you're standing outside the fire..."

Get Your Business Done

I lost a family member about two days ago.

A part of me inside is saying, "I can't believe you are writing about this again".
It feels that I'm always mentioning someone who died recently in this blog.

Lately it seems that I am losing all 'my people'. The people who I care about, who are in my memories, the folks that ultimately made me...me.

I put it down to becoming middle-aged. And I admit, I've been sad and wallowing in it.
Mourning the person, their life, their loss, but in the end it comes down to being selfish. In the final analysis, it seems that most of us, no one more than myself, are mourning what their loss 'does to me'.

More than any other, this death has shaken me. A few weeks ago, I didn't know how sick she was, how ill she'd become in the last year or so. And worst of all, I hadn't really asked.

I feel guilty and stricken. In this, my own blog, I preached about the importance of making time for family, but I felt that meant just attending the family dinners when asked and picking up occasion specific cards at the right time. I realized that I had taken the lazy way out, letting all of the invitations come to me second-hand through my parents and not taking the initiative as an adult and calling to see how they were, maybe emailing, driving over, etc.

In short, I  haven't grown up. I'm still acting like a 13 year old adolescent, worrying endlessly what 'people will think of me'.  It's hamstrung me in every way.  For fear of what people would think, I've stifled my sense of humor. I've put on a professional sort of mask to cover my personality so that I would be taken seriously because I've never been able to handle criticism, always fearing the ultimate judgment that I would be found out as a fallible human being. Excessive pride + vulnerability of any kind= crushing humiliation.

And it is this that caused me to always take the conventional path, to never make waves, to never step outside of the bounds and really do the things that show people what you mean to them. It's not what we say, it's what we do that people remember.

And this lady, what she did for me, for my sisters, for all of us kids was pretty remarkable. Acting only out of kindness, she spent her time, what little money she had and her energy to provide us with unforgettable memories. She took us to movies, for ice cream, to the zoo for the annual Easter egg hunt, to the fair for cotton candy and hotdogs, she set up weekend trips to the beach, backyard Double-Dare-esque obstacle courses, stuffed Christmas stockings, always had the time to play games, to listen to our childish chatter. As I sit here typing, the blanket she gave me in 1992 is still draped over the foot of my bed. In short she gave sacrificially, she never held anything back. She didn't spend time agonizing over what everyone thought, she was too busy doing...

I remember feeling bad that she had never become a mother herself, imposing a little of my own regret on to her, and it was just yesterday that I realized, she had actually been so much more than that. Instead of concentrating on one or two of her own kids, she'd been a sort of den mother to so many. Me, my sisters, their kids, the children she taught Sunday school to. There is not one of us, whose life wasn't impacted by her. This zany lady who taught us that it was okay to let our hair down, have fun and to be silly from time to time.

I guess I, in my devout struggle to become an accomplished adult, to by God be taken seriously, I forgot this.

A few years ago, on a popular sitcom, was an episode with the premise that a visiting African-American minister to their church turns the whole congregation on its ear, exhorting them that life is short and that the meaning of one's life, is to "Get your business done!" The family around whom the show centers is gripped as one by one the family members strive to follow the injunction and get their business done.

I know it's TV and maybe a little silly. But I took something profound from it and it's stayed with me.
No more so than this week...Am I getting my business done?
Maybe my career wouldn't have suffered such setbacks if people knew there was a real live human being inside. If they knew that when I'm alone, I sing...a lot. And that I can't hear salsa or flamenco music without moving my hips, that I bust a move frequently when really into music. That I can do the Cupid Shuffle at any moment completely from memory...even without the music. That I have to read my favorite poetry out loud, usually to my long-suffering cats.  If I talked at all, they'd find I'm actually pretty funny...that I have a really well developed sense of the absurd. They'd know that some mornings I wake up laughing because that Monty Python line, "No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition" is frequently in my head. That there are certain moments in movies where I laugh so hard, stuff comes out of my nose.

I quit showing all that; I reasoned that I was an adult, that it was time to start living my life in tailored black trousers with serious heels, and a serious expression, and to seriously work hard.

Maybe it's time I took a page from her book, maybe it's time for me to stop taking myself so seriously, to remember the lessons she taught me, to give more than I get, to stop worrying about what people think, to get busy having fun.

To get my business done.

I'll miss you Auntie G.....and I hope that in heaven you are baking, playing games and singing with the angels.

Mercury In Retrograde

Once in awhile, I take a look at my horoscope.
I call up the website and seek out the daily prognostication for those of the Cancer persuasion. I always have a furtive, guilty feeling as I'm reading it.
It's a reflexive action based on years of attendance at an Assembly of God church that viewed astrology on about the same level as the Church of God sect that handled snakes.

Most of the time, it's an exercise in futility, in many cases what I find is downright funny. The one reliable thing is that it is almost never accurate. Which in some cases, when the stars divine all sorts of wonderful things makes me mad. But on the other hand, when my fate is toward some sort of downfall, I can more easily dismiss it.

Just hokum...why do I even read this stuff?  And then, the other day came this semi-ominous warning about Mercury being in retrograde. I'll admit, my first thought was, does Ford still even make Mercury(ies)? And if so, how would it affect my life if they had to recall one? 

A little Google search later and I learned that in the world of astrology, the planet Mercury going into retrograde is a pretty big deal. In Seinfeld-lingo, it would be akin to New-mania...Apparently, 3-4 times a year when this phenomena occurs 'ol Mercury (once again, the planet) slows down, and appears to stop (station) and move backward (retrograde). It's an optical illusion, since there is forward movement, like speeding by a slow-moving train -- as it recedes, it appears to go backward.

No biggie right?  Well apparently when this happens, those who live their lives per the planets say that it causes all manner of weird things happening. Computers go on the fritz, traffic lights act up, phone lines go down, dogs start having kittens, cousins start marrying...ok, I made the last two up. Some diehards refuse to do anything when Mercury is in retrograde, sign contracts, get married, make plans, etc. And there is one sect out in the dark web, that suggests that for your own safety, you lay pretty low, and they mean it, going so far as to refuse even leaving their homes.

Reading this, I scoffed and snickered,

Pfft..."My horoscope is never right anyway!"

That was the night before my computer went down the first time. I say first because I am on the approximately 76th system restore of the week. My computer has chuntered and squeezed out more heat sink fan gibberish than Jar Jar Binks in the first 30 minutes of "The Phantom Menace".

Still don't believe me, take the colander incident. Now I have washed and polished the same spaghetti strainer for approximately 20 years. I thought it indestructible, an aluminum piece of art. I have poured boiling noodles that could have been lava from Mt. St Helens into this receptacle. It's taken more rides in the dishwasher than Michael Jackson at Neverland. Hell, it's outlived three of the last four dishwashers I've had. It's never had so much as a ding from the time I used it to clean a couple of rocks that I thought might be dinosaur fossils (they weren't). Or the time that I thought I might have found a rare penny and cooked up a little potion that the internet guaranteed would have the pennies shining like the day they left the mint and I used the strainer to sift and sieve the treated coins. Then Tuesday came and I was unloading the dishwasher as usual, outside the sun was shining and the birds were singing, and as I turned to stack glasses back in the upper cabinet, my hip grazed the colander from the hook on the wall where it lives and it fell to the floor.  I replaced it, it fell again, and again I replaced it and again it fell and again and again.

By this time, I was getting mad, my blood boiled and about the 5th time it fell, I did the unthinkable. In a fit of rage, I took that colander and bounced it halfway across the kitchen floor, thinking, 'it deserves this and nothing will ever happen, it's indestructible'. But then as it boomeranged back to land at my feet, I saw that my hitherto indestructible colander's side was bent!  Scarred, wounded and I was in no doubt where the fault lay....Mercury.

Mercury had done this.

And there were other things, oh yes, other things. Due to Mercury, I forgot to watch the Indy 500, the Kentucky Derby, The Preakness, and I'm sure Mercury was to blame for Rory McIlroy dropping 80 at his own tournament! I know it was Mercury that caused the entire right side rod of my closet to collapse, raining down garments like a Filene's basement sale.

And though a skeptic still, Mercury has certainly given me pause....and June 11th can't come soon enough, you know so I can leave my room again.

There is some good news though, last night my fortune cookie said, "You will find your solution where you least expect it."

Although, I don't really believe in fortune cookies...

Let's Hear It For the Boys (and Girls)

It's Memorial Day tomorrow...
Used to be that I viewed it as the summer kick-off, a sort of warm up to the traditional seasonal high water mark that is the Fourth of July. Call it summer's Christmas if you will....

BBQ's, the start of the summer blockbuster movie season, beach time, pool time, lazy crazy days of summer...

And I'm sorry to have to admit, I was in my late 20's before I really understood it for what it was.
It took Flags of Our Fathers, Saving Private Ryan, Taking Chance and lots of personal study before I really...got it.

Memorial Day used to be Decoration Day.
History states that in 1868, The Grand Army of the Republic (read that Union Army) established the last Monday in May as a national day to decorate the graves of the war dead. The graves of the turn-coat 'suthenahs' Confederate dead were similarly adorned but on a separate day. It took until the early 20th century for the two factions to finally unify and allow what we now recognize and celebrate as Memorial Day as a day to honor all who died in the service of their country. It's important to note that Memorial Day isn't Veterans' Day.

You see Veterans' Day honors the living who served.
Memorial Day commemorates the dead who died in service to their country.
And it is this fact that changed me.

Watching TV over the last few days, something kept sticking in my craw...

No it wasn't the fact that NCIS may or may not have killed off Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and by God CBS, if you take Gibbs from me, I can promise you it will be a cold day in H E, double hockey sticks that I watch one more program on your network. I'll even boycott any offerings you run on Netflix on principle. You can have McGee, you can take Palmer, and I probably could even handle losing Bishop, Vance and maybe even Abby but if you touch one hair on the head of Gibbs, or DiNozzo, I won't even watch the re-runs...

It wasn't the fact that NBC is ending American Idol, now if only E would follow suit and axe the whole Kardashian-Jenner freak show that is corrupting the moral fiber of this country.

And it wasn't the fact that Bill Murray appeared odd and possibly intoxicated on the last Letterman show (but Jerry Seinfeld, you were a total mensch and rocked the tux you so flatteringly wore, good on you showing the others -looking at you Jim Carrey- what really class is)

All kidding aside, what's been sticking in my craw, are the commercials...
You know the ones,
"Head on over to World of Mattresses for our Annual Memorial Day Blowout!"
"Old clunker dying, check out our Memorial Day Bonanza at Kalamazoo Rio Kia!"

Driving by the Gold Platinum Gym today, I see they are offering a special Memorial Day $10 a month for 3 months Membership.

And that's when I snapped.

I'm a person of images, it's how I view everything. I take pictures in my mind and I remember things.
A few came to mind...
 I saw the scared freckled faces of boys knee deep in water as they waded to the slaughter waiting for them on the beaches of Normandy.
I saw the trembling hands of a soldier taking one last drag on a cigarette ankle deep in a water-logged foxhole before preparing to go 'over the top' in the Ardennes.
The medics carrying bloody bodies one over each arm evacuating Saigon as it descended into chaos and burning.
Pictures of men missing limbs from the IED's planted by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The images just kept coming, I can't even tell you all of them...some too horrific to 'un-see'.
Snatches of what I'd read, movies I'd seen....

One Memorial Day weekend back in 1988, I remember being angry with my Dad. I wanted to go to the beach with friends. It sounded so great, hotdogs and coca-colas, fruit roll ups, sand in my flip flops, and my walk-man in my ears. He sat me down and said that I was old enough to understand that Memorial Day wasn't a vacation, it wasn't a day for a picnic, it was a day of mourning. All I understood it to mean was that there wasn't going to be a party that day for Jill. He made me sit and watch movies like Bridge on the River Kwai, The Green Berets, and Platoon...I sat with my arms folded and my mind closed...angry and pouting.

Some time after that my Dad asked me what I was learning in school, I told him we were doing a unit on Vietnam. He asked what I knew. I spouted off things like the Tet Offensive, Fall of Saigon dates, times, parroting what the teacher thought was the minimum we ought to know. Then he asked for my textbook, and fool that I am, I smugly handed it over. My Dad took it and read silently for few minutes. After about 8 minutes had elapsed of me sitting in silence as he read, he sat up and with a shouted exclamation threw the textbook halfway across the living room where it crashed into the dining room wall. I sat stock still, frozen in place wondering what I had done. Then Dad said, "This, this is what they are teaching you?!!".

That day, for the first time in my life, my Dad sat me down and he told me the truth. About the government, about the torture inflicted on some men, the POW's who still hadn't come home, about coming back home himself to a fractured country that never welcomed him. Even his own family never would really talk to him about the war. It was as if, he'd gone on some overseas foreign exchange program. No thank yous, no joy at their safe return, just a bunch of guys who'd given their all to their country, fought a war that wasn't 'popular' and were left to suck it up and go back to their lives like nothing ever happened.

Just the other day, I read that as late as 2004, the State of Maryland finally issued a proclamation welcoming back Vietnam Veterans.

So I hope that you'll forgive me for thinking that Memorial Day isn't the time to go buy a new car,  a new mattress, or appliance.
It isn't the start of the summer movie blockbusters.
It isn't a day for you to see if you can drink your weight in Bud...

Tomorrow is a day of mourning.
I urge you to think about those boys and girls...the ones that never came back.
Think about their wives, husbands, parents, brothers, sisters, kids...the families who will never be the same.

If you are religiously inclined, maybe take a moment to say a prayer for the families, for the country, for peace.

Take a moment of silence.

Take a moment to remember them and the fact that they made the ultimate sacrifice for this country.

Renovation Alienation

So I've become mildly obsessed of late over DIY & HGTV offerings. I am not sure what it is about renovations, but I guess given the circumstances of my own life lately, I've become consumed with the concept of restoration.

Instead of Netflix, I've been binging on Love or List It, Flip or Flop, and of course Property Brothers, Ah...the Scott twins... Such pulchritude, such manly excellence...such height. I freely admit I'm a sucker for a tall dude. I'm probably more like Drew in personality, but ah...Jonathan. There is just something about Jonathan. Even his name is cool, Jonathan "Silver" Scott. I vowed right then and there, if ever I got the chance to wed Mr. Scott, I would affect a similar name change. Why be Jill A Last Name (ha...fat chance I'm going to give you my surname) when I could be Jill Topaz Scott, or maybe and this is a stretch...Jill London Blue Topaz Scott! Jill Sapphire Scott? How cool a name is that?

It was around this time of pursuing alternate identities, I realized I was entering the scary world of complete fan obsession absorption. It culminated in my subconscious late one night. I dreamt that Jonathan and I were restoring a home together and engaging in knock-down drag-out screaming match over the merits of subway tile which Jonathan favored and the retro 50's style black and white mosaic tiles I wanted for our dream bathroom.

I realized I had a problem. Then X'ers, it deepened when I realized that like most things in my life, once again I find myself out of step with current modernity.  Everything today is all about modern, open floor plans, ambient lighting, glass tiles, squared off sofas, lots of color, modern, modern, modern...

I'm not.  You may revile me after reading the following, snap shut your laptop or tablet in protest and vow never to read anything I write again, but I'm...ahem, (cough)...traditional. Ugh, I said it. I really like pale pastel yellow walls, wing back armchairs, chintzes, walnut secretaries and cherry sleigh beds. It gets worse... I like blue and white Chinese vases, Waverly prints, grandfather clocks, antique sewing cabinets, hurricane lamps and worst of all I don't even mind striped wallpaper.

Then we come to the thing that every self-respecting Millennial hipster must have, the open floor plan. I...like...well...I like walls. In the 1980's, my best friend's family moved to a new home. I remember visiting, alternately swooning over and envying the fact that they had a separate formal dining room, replete with ponderous cherry wood Chippendale-esque dining table and matching china cabinet hutch. In my home, we had an open plan, where the kitchen flowed into a nook that we ate in.  The luxury of a walled-off room just for eating has never quite lost its magic for me.

In my teens, I devoured gothic romance novels by the hundreds and there are no open floor plans in any of the old abbeys, stately manors, or chalets that these stories played out in. Where would the heroine hide from the lecherous Squire, libelous housekeeper, or murderous but seemingly kind nanny in an open floor plan? Where would Mr. Rochester have stashed his insane first wife and wifeys' seemingly malevolent but actually heart of gold companion/keeper in an open floor plan? You need corner turrets, secret passages, priest holes, libraries, and conservatories for such actions.

In short, you need walls....
If Frost is right and "Good fences make good neighbours, I would paraphrase that and say the "Good walls make better friends and families".

So there you have it, the unvarnished, un-staged truth. I'm not a modern...and as such Jonathan and I probably have no future together. But we'll always have Seasons 1-7...