The Now of Christmas

It's a quiet Sunday morning and I think to myself, "If I was a truly good person I'd be in church right now" or, "I should be up and doing things", after all there are Christmas trees to finish trimming, floors that need vacuuming, clothes that need folding, "I need to get on top of them". Instead I've been lying prone of my backside hanging out with my cat Jamie. He's in the mood for kitty cuddling. In fact, he sits here with me now, watching my fingers fly across the keys. If I had to guess, he's probably torn between wondering why am I doing this, when he has come in all this state to be with me and I could be petting him! Or whether or not to attack the moving fingers. He decides on the latter, dammit, he deserves my attention! You can't believe the number of backspaces I've done in the last few moments.

Jamie, in an odd way, is teaching me something. Life's moments cannot be pre-thought, organized or measured. I keep trying to do this. It's as if my life was some sort of carefully staged road-show, complete with choreography, lines to learn and elaborate sets and props.

I had another of these wake up calls yesterday. It was my new Not Non-Company's annual Christmas Party and I had the responsibility of organizing it. Weeks of preparations for four (4) hours. I start off for the party early, so that I can be there an hour before the festivities start. Traffic is heavy and I am angry and tight. I realize that I need to get gasoline and resent the need to stop. Curse my lack of preparedness. I angrily rant that "I don't even want to go to this g'dmned thing". A weak moment later, I realize that, it's more than the traffic, more than the strain of wanting everything to go perfectly, I'm tired of going to these things alone. I am so sick of being the single in the room. I have one moment, where I think, 'I can't do this', and I nearly text my boss that I've had a personal emergency and can't make it. I hang my head over the steering wheel and I pray, "Please God, I need an attitude adjustment and pronto! Please give me a break with the traffic. Just please help".

After all my whingeing and whining and dire predictions of being tardy, I pull into the venue, exactly one (1) hour before the start, just as planned. The club where the party is being held is surprisingly beautiful, staggeringly beautiful. Decked out to the nines for Christmas, in fact, it couldn't be more Christmassy. I check everything, it's organized to plan. And then I have the moment, that I realize I'm there for, the upper room in which the party is being held looks out onto the golf course, but it's more than that, it's a view of old Florida, ponds, swamps of great Cypresses, swaying palms and heron and egret. And it's my favorite time of day, that whisper of time between day and night. Twilight, the stars just starting to come out, and it's absolutely magical. I'm all alone, the guests haven't arrived yet, there's no noise, just this sort of hushed reverent silence as I watched day turn to night. I couldn't tell you how long I stood at that window and stared out; time just ceased to exist. Waiters silently went in and out, bustling about with trays and all of the minutiae that goes in these types of things and I barely saw them, they seemed to understand that I was lost to them for however long I stood rapt at that window.

Some moments after that, the first guests arrive and with them the noise, people shouting out greetings to one another, spouses that haven't seen other spouses in nearly a year, huddle together to share bits of gossip, and all of the jokes that have probably been served up since Eden. It turns out to be a pretty good party. There were some headaches, missing place cards and the tables set up in groups in five instead of even sixes. As a single person, I forget about the dire need to sit with ones' spouse. I don't sweat odd numbers. I never even think about them. One of the wives, makes an unkind remark that it's very evident that I have done the table arrangements and not my predecessor who apparently was perfection itself. It wounds me for a few minutes but then I think of the things that I've done right and of my moment with God an hour earlier and the remark loses its' sting.

Sometimes I think that God tantalizes us with views of heaven, with glimpses of the real beauty in life. It's kind of a love note, right from God to us and frequently we, I miss it. I'm moving too fast, too full of the thoughts in my own head, the plans that I have. Today I realize that Christmas, rather than it being this elaborate stage play that we move closer and closer to the opening day of, is measured in small moments. For me, it's taking a few moments to watch my cat Jamie sleeping under the Christmas tree, savoring the cool brisk taste of a peppermint candy cane, sitting in an elaborately beautiful room laughing my head off at the sight of a co-worker's husband wearing an orange paper Christmas cracker crown as my own pink crown slips tipsily over one eye, listening to the sweet little boy voice of Linus reminding Charlie Brown what Christmas is truly all about.

Be there when God slips you your own personal love note.

Don't miss the now of Christmas.

The Bookworm

Your blogger wrung her hands and prayed and tried to bring forth a blog piece this evening, but it just wasn't happening.  The muse wasn't with her. But she did find a poem, a little ditty as John Mellencamp, or John Cougar or John Cougar Mellencamp or whatever he is calling himself these days would say.

I chanced across it the other night, the forties had taken hold of my brain and I was trying to recall the name of the teacher we (all the girls in the 8th grade) thought was hot, (Mr. Caldwell) and I found it stuck inside the yearbook that I looked in to find the name of the Hot for Teacher guy.

I wrote this was I was about 15-16 I guess, I was in High School though, so not sure why it was in my Junior High Yearbook?

I am the author of this, so I guess this is sort of a blog piece.

The Bookworm

Exact is the yarn I spin of my readings
Chart of my book learnings highs and lows
Time loss and lack of exercise my deepest sorrows
Lack of shelf space and social calamity
Daily I've borne sitting in a plethora of chairs
Fearful of an unbalanced book budget
Watching as time passed, while I sat enraptured with Gone with the Wind
Fast to the floor my feet were frozen
Gripped by the appearance of Damn Yankee soldiers at Tara
My eyes ceased to blink and I stopped not for sustenance
Little he who is engrossed in a book takes notice of
How, sick at heart, over Rhett's leaving, the wretch!
I read the novel through
Bare of nourishment and banished from family and friends
Swathed in blanket, tears stinging my eyes, glasses sliding from my nose
Nought I heard but the characters in my book, "I don't know nothin' about birthin no babies!"
For amusement I had Aunt Pitty's swoonings
For sorrow I had Rhett's final pronouncement, "Frankly my dear..."
The cry of Melanie's baby, the mirth of Rhett and Scartlett's first meeting
Shrill through the roar of the Confederate army
Yankees charging through the war-torn south
Raping and pillaging as they march through
And the glasses slide from my nose
Little tears drop off my face
With no help from the pressure of my glasses
They slide all the way down
Gasping and choking back sobs, I reach for a tissue
The book slides off my lap and falls to the floor as I escape in a daydream worthy of The Great Gatsby himself
Oh wildly my heart soars as I read of Oliver Twist, the drama of the Phantom of the Opera, the sorrow and misery of Les Miserables and the Decameron
Daily, hourly I crave the book
As an addict craves his next fix
No amount of book reading ever appears to satiate me
No deeds ever done by any hero, match those played out in my imagination
Which is of course fueled by the library of books stored there
Ever I long for a trip to the library, a jaunt to the bookstore
Winter freezes, spring brightens, summer burns, yet I miss these all
Ever lost in the latest bestseller
The perils and pleasures of he who readeth
Do heed the roosters warning
Morning will overtake you
Those who the night hath departed from
Reading the night through
Fatigue, nay, slumber will overtake thee
Suddenly my conscience awakens
Soareth afar my head sits the timepiece
It reads 4:05 a.m.
Hovers on high, o'er my conscience
You should be asleep it prods
I lay the volume down on my night table, bidding it a regretful goodnight
Yet the morrow lies before me, new mysteries to explore, new romances to blossom, new territories to chart
Thank thou goodest Lord for literature!


As faithfully as I could, I have reproduced this exactly as I wrote it. The inner critic in me was constantly editorializing, embellishing, re-imagining sentences, cringing a bit at the mawkish use of a sort of pidgin Elizabethan Shakespearesque language, but I kept it just as it was, marveling a bit at the fact that I am still very much the same as I was when I was a nerdy sophomore or junior. I still frequently read longer than I ought and I still daydream about being romanced by a tall handsome fellow on his steed, or being the heroine solving the mystery and saving the day and for that fact, I am truly and profoundly grateful,

As I work and strive towards being the heroine of my own life, sometimes it's good to stumble on a bit of the past and realize that inside, I already am.

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

"A Bottle of Red....a Bottle of White...it all depends upon your appetite"

All apologies to Billy Joel...for me it's always a bottle of red.
The sharp-eyed amongst you have probably already noticed that frequently the titles of these posts are usually 1980s songs, although in this case, I think it's 1977.

I ended up at an Italian restaurant this evening. Ended up?
Yep, I had a hair salon appointment and yet found myself bellying up to the bar for a glass of red instead. How I got there is a story in of itself. It starts with an arrogant presumption that I could somehow manipulate traffic, it ended up with me 5o minutes later sitting on barstool. There's a lot of 'stuff' in the middle, me shaking my fist at fellow drivers, stressing out, and gaining a few more un-coiffed grey hairs. But sitting here hours away from it, the triviality of it embarrasses me.

It's unusual for me to take a walk off the beaten path. But lately, I've been finding myself in all sorts of situations that I wouldn't have even thought of a year ago.

I know I've been away from this blog for some weeks. The old me would have apologized I guess.
This me, decided she wouldn't put up with the traffic one minute more, and that she would no longer ignore her screaming bladder, literally got off the highway, parked her German car, Gunther (I name everything) walked up to the bar like she belonged, ordered a glass of house red and demanded the way to the Ladies.

I had a terrific meal, the glass of wine soothing the pounding of my temples, the olive oil and garlic somehow, like an Italian Nonna, making everything okay again. But I think it was more than that, somehow it was the gumption to say what I will and what I won't accept. The old me would have kept desperately slogging through traffic.

Instead I sit back and watch as the chefs toss saute pans of steaming clams with red sauce, dousing the pans with wine as orange flames leap up in the air. I watch them shovel pizzas in and out of the wood-fired oven, jostle around each other with bottles of wine and glasses. One man's only job seems to be delivering endless baskets of bread with saucers of olive oil and wine vinegar to hungry diners. Two of the waiters, I kid you not, sing arias as they dash back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room.  It has to be, the best show that I've seen in months and I watch mesmerized from my bar stool as they stage this elaborate gastronomic ballet.

After a few moments, I find myself idly swirling the wine around in my glass, lost in my thoughts.

A lot has happened lately.

I became a licensed insurance agent back in April.

I let go of the Miata for a newer car.

I've been learning the ropes of a new job. I did finally get a job. It's too early to say much, except that I will go so far as to refer to them as Not Non-Company which is actually way more of a compliment than one would think.

It's a whole new field for me. And when you are 41, it's different than trying to do this when you are 21.

My whole life changed when my Dad got diagnosed with diabetes nearly 5 months ago. Suddenly I had to learn to cook a whole new way. I had to learn to eat in a whole new way. Whereas before I used to see vegetables as an accompaniment to the meat and starch, I've begun to see that the meat and starches should be the accompaniment to vegetables. And that fruit IS a dessert and a pretty darn good one.

As is my wont, maybe I even took that a bit too far. But I liked the new way I felt, so much lighter and less full. Suddenly, there were more possibilities than I've seen in quite a while. I kind of became a food Nazi, zealously reading every label and agonizing over everything I put in my mouth. I realized today that maybe there has to be balance too. I have to quit 'dinging' myself every time I give in to a craving and buy a small pack of cookies at the drugstore, or eat an Egg White McMuffin, feverishly rationalizing that the fact that it is egg whites on a multi grain roll make it better.

As I sat in the bar at the Italian restaurant this evening thinking over the events of the last 9 months, I realized that I'd come a long way. I think of myself this time last year, mired down in angry depression, forcing myself every day to a job I hated, and too scared and too stubborn to quit. I think of the shock and anger of being laid off after giving my entire life to the company. I think of the months of reinvention and unemployment, and sometimes just pure insanity. Too much NCIS on Netflix, too many eps of Property Brothers, just too much...time on my hands.

I grin, smile at the waiter, tell him how much I loved the meal and order...a cannoli!

"I'll meet you any time you want at our Italian restaurant..."

The Last Drive

A few days ago, I took one last long drive with you, 1997 Mazda Miata.

 
We took a familiar route, one that we both liked with plenty of twists and turns and open road so that I could open you up and feel the way you hugged the curves and how it felt one last time to zoom past other drivers.

I patted you on the dash and I cried because I knew it was the last time we'd do this. Anyone reading this would probably think that I am melodramatic and weird to do that. They probably never needed a car the way I did when you came into my life.

They probably would never understand how the first time I saw you, my heart kind of fluttered a little bit, the way it does when you first see a person who strikes you as attractive and, totes hot as the kids say.

I also knew that our time had come. There were signs...lately you'd begun to cough a bit and seemed tired a lot of the time. You decided that idling and running the air conditioner were functions you'd no longer perform simultaneously. Your doctor bills were really adding up. I, not being a car surgeon myself, never really understood what was actually ailing you. It was never that I didn't care, I felt helpless watching you decline. More than anything, I wanted to save you because you'd been just about the best car I'd ever had.

We had so much fun together. So many trips with the top down and the wind in our hair, the radio blaring out 80's classics. You gave me probably the only real youth I'd ever known. You made me the kind of person I'd always wanted to be, a cool chick, the kind that drives a sports car. I never felt any better than the day I was at a Subway looking at you waiting for me outside through the window when a little girl at a nearby table pointed at you and said that she wanted a car just like you when she grew up. You made me enviable and attractive.  You made it okay to be childless because you didn't have a backseat anyway.

The soulless bottom-line driven car dealer gave me a pittance for you. I still feel badly about that. Not about the money, it was never about the money. It was because for me, you were, are, and always will be priceless. Somehow you always got me to work, and to the places I needed to go. Always with that ear to ear grin on your Miata grill face. You gave your all and never let me down. Even down to the moment we putt-putted into the car dealership last Saturday.

I remember grieving our last moments together, because your black frame sitting out in the late August Florida afternoon sun was too hot to touch. I couldn't give you one last pat without incurring 3rd degree burns. I cried again as I sat in your furnace-like interior one last time trying to somehow thank you for always being there for me. I shouldn't have done it, but walking away, I turned back for one last look and such a sob rose in my throat that it physically hurt.

Your successor is not a Miata. He's a German-engineered, reliable, correct sort of fellow. Unlike you, he doesn't really make many interesting squeaks and clunks. He does his job efficiently and safely. He doesn't have your zip and panache but he does have an innate sort of dignity and class that I think you would approve of. He's the kind of car that I need these days at my new job.

I'll never forget you little 1997 Mazda Miata or what you represented to me.
I sincerely hope that you end up with a car surgeon type who can give you the sort of detailed care that you need, or failing that, that you end up reborn with your parts in a new Miata so that you can once again run free on curving roads zooming ahead of everyone with that ear splitting grin intact.

Goodbye Miata...and long live the roadster...

Days to Remember

Yep, there was no post last week.

 No, I didn't forget and no I'm not doing my usual disappearing act.

Last week, at approximately 10 minutes past the hour of 11:00 o'clock p.m., Eastern Standard time my beloved laptop, let's call him Gavin, expired during a routine system upgrade procedure. (a moment of silence please)

(Sobbing) "Mon Dieu, mon ordinateur est mort!" 

 Gavin didn't die alone though, he crossed over rainbow (cyber?) bridge with his hard-drive, his dedicated CD ROM, a music library that would have been worth at least $1500.00 in 1980's Peaches Record Store currency, power cable, docking station and his devoted operator Jill at his side. Jill made a herculean effort to resuscitate him, employing CPR (system restore) multiple times and rushing him to the emergency room (local computer nerd emporium) via ambulance (her 97 Miata) but the chief coroner/nerd, (a guy called Roman who referred to Jill repeatedly as Dude even though she clearly isn't a 'dude') pronounced Gavin Lenovo Laptop dead and gave the official time of death as Wednesday, July 22nd at 11:10 p.m.

Gavin is survived by his owner/operator Jill, his cat companions Gordon and Jamie, and his successor to be named Gavin Lenovo Laptop, II. His memorial library file archive will be located in Gavin II, where photos of Christmas 2011, kitten pictures of his companions Gordon and Jamie and most of his impressive musical library will now be housed on Drive C. His hard-drive is being cryogenically frozen, and he will be interred on shelf 4 of Closet Side A.

So as you probably inferred, my laptop died and for a few days I found myself sans computer while I waited for the good folks at Amazon to rush me Gavin II. Actually, it was kind of like a mini vacation. Oh don't worry, I still had access plenty to cyber space through my 'droid and Tablet. I am a creature of habit though and for me, going on the internet still usually means powering up my laptop. All my shortcuts are there, my profiles, my saved passwords. So I 'powered down' and unplugged for a few days. No Twitter feed, no Facebook time suckage, no LinkedIn professional quandaries.

I thought I might use the time to work on a jigsaw puzzle.

'How zen that would be', I thought hating myself for becoming the kind of person that uses a word like 'zen'.

Just sitting there...working a jigsaw puzzle...that will surely relax me...
On a whim several weeks ago,  I wandered into a Barnes and Noble bookstore, which for me is like the recovering AA addict sauntering into his local tavern for "a glass of wine", it never ends up like that. In my case, it's extreme regret, a hardbound collectors' edition F Scott Fitzgerald classic that I had to have, a couple of paperbacks, a credit card charge that will invariably have me going "huh, where'd this come from, I wasn't even in a Barnes and Noble recently?"(I tend to blackout in bookstores being overcome with booklust), and a going-cheap-in-the-clearance section jigsaw puzzle called "Days to Remember".

The "Days to Remember" puzzle picture paints an idyllic picture of yesteryear, the old town, two little boys dragging their bedraggled Radio Flyer on their way home from a day spent doing whatever it is that little boys did in summer time circa 1940's. It's meant to beguile the senses, make you smile and hanker for the good ol' days and I fell right under its spell.

I had no idea of the trap I was about to fall prey to, the dark and sinister plot to undo my tightly wound psyche and make me frequently question my own sanity.

It started out fine. Humming softly, thinking, "this is going to be so much fun" with optimism, I slit the edges of the sealed cardboard box, dumped out the 500 evil puzzle pieces, turned them over to the right sides and began casting about for the border ones, just like my Grandma G taught me.

Two days later, the optimism had begun to flag as once again, I gamely rearranged the pieces in some semblance of a border. I couldn't help noticing that somehow, overnight they had inexplicably multiplied, and even stranger still was the fact that the following day they had begun disappearing in much the same manner.

Four days in and I was starting to unravel just a little bit more, getting dressed in the morning seemed to be a waste of puzzle time, so I took that off the schedule, preferring to just grub around in an old pair of jeans and my lucky blue t-shirt. Then I began skipping breakfast in order to spend even more time with my tormentor, I mean the puzzle. I started taking all of my meals at the coffee table in order not to miss a moment of staring intently into a sea of green pieces that all looked like vaguely identical tree limbs.

On the fifth day, I snapped. I became obsessed with the idea that the puzzle company execs had deliberately shorted me pieces and were no doubt sitting up high in some Manhattan Madison Avenue office building maniacally laughing at the poor unfortunates like myself who were still deluding themselves that they could actually finish "Days to Remember". I shook my fist toward the heavens and vowed that as God is my witness, I WILL finish this puzzle if I have to give up sleep, showering and well, Jeopardy. I began muttering to myself a lot at that point and frequently crawling under the sofas and table, picking at the area rug convinced that pieces were secreted under there. That had to be the reason why the pink flowers over the white picket fence were missing, IT HAD TO BE!

In a further weak moment, I have a fuzzy memory of turning one of the cats upside down while shouting, "Admit it, admit it, you ate the wheel piece of the Radio Flyer! Give it back, Give it back!"

On or around the 6th or 7th day, I've no idea which, because by this point, I was no longer sleeping, had lost all track of time, cut down on blinking because it wasted sight and I'd developed an odd sort of twitch, when outside I heard the heavy-wheeled sound of a truck and the screech of brakes. Then there was a knock at the door which startled me out of my usual sleep-deprived coma state, hunched over the coffee table, staring in a bewildered stupor at my maddening project.

Zombie-like, I wandered to the front door, where I stood in the open doorway, blinking at the dazzling light that shone from him, a brown-short and hat wearing hero proffering a Lenovo labeled cardboard box. As I reached out to take it from him, a single tear rolled down my cheek. I tried to speak, finding that words were never further from my tongue but finally I croaked out, "Thank you, you'll never know, I've been waiting for this...Days to Remember! Days to Remember!"

He backed away slowly, saying, "okay lady, sure. You take care now."
It wasn't enough, not nearly enough, I started after him in the parking lot, where I embraced him, still muttering, "Days to Remember", "Days to Remember"....you don't understand...."

I had my new laptop in my hand and all was restored to my world. Yes, Days to Remember is still on the coffee table, and yes I still think they've shorted me a few hundred pieces.

Someday I'll finish it...maybe tomorrow.
Yeah, I'll finish it tomorrow.

Social Media Challenged...or The Challenge of Social Media

Used to be that going online for me meant that I would head over to AOL, log on and play a game of solitaire while I waited for the computer to connect with the internet, using a very weird, but oddly reassuring set of blips, beeps, dial tones and what almost amounted to a computer shout, before the little icon would pop up on the mailbox and the AOL guy would say, "You've got mail!" For a few months in late 1996, AOL allowed you to program a guest celebrity voice to tell you 'you had mail'. Mine was Hugh Grant, before the whole Divine Brown thing and movies like American Dreamz, something....the Morgans and Bridget Jones 2 and I was still a fan. Sorry Hugh... got nothin' but love for ya...but you did make some execrable movies. (Cough) Mickey Blue Eyes (Cough) Nine Months.

Nowadays the gap between me and the internet has considerably narrowed. There is a whole WIFI network in my home. No more blips and beeps. Just hit the icon and go, you are online. Frequently I am online on my laptop/tablet and my TV is too, simultaneously playing some Netflix offering.

Many days, before I've had my morning breakfast, and while I am still in my robe and pajamas, I've already started 'online' because I've no less than 4-5 sites to hit.  Outlook/Gmail for my emails, Facebook to make sure that I am still relevant and have 'friends', LinkedIn to obsess over my professional image, Twitter to check my popularity and YouTube for anything new and recreational. Not to mention blog stats, to see if anyone is actually reading this and puzzle out who the people are that are breezing by this to read and not comment.

Frankly, I am tired just reading the above.

As part of my 'career training', I have been increasingly coached and coerced into creating, refining and editing my 'online presence'.

My online presence...I started to ponder that today. Introspection reached a zenith when looking through my LinkedIn contacts and all the suggestions from them (LinkedIn) of the "People You May (Should) Know", were, I realized about 95% from Non-Company. Non-Company= pain. I  just don't want anything to do with or to have to think about Non-Company.  But how do you just delete people?  LinkedIn is a place where prestige is gained by the amount of contacts you have and how often your profile is buzzed. Hopefully it's buzzed by some multi-millionaire entrepreneur type needing a personal assistant who wouldn't mind working out of his lakeside estate on Lake Como.

Ditto for Facebook. Facebook is just pain of a more familial and social nature. Again, how do you just delete?  Because FB contacts are not just business contacts, many are personal friends and relations. Many of which you might see once a year, if that? So why do I need to be updated constantly on your activities? Most of which just serve as reminders that my life isn't as populated by cute kids doing cute things, and backyard BBQ's as yours because nearly everyone in my life is dead.

 I even tried quitting cold turkey only to be told by a career counselor, that amounted to career suicide.  Really. Could my career die a more gruesome death than it already has due to natural causes?

At least with Twitter, my feed gives me useful things, reminders about encroaching thunder storms, traffic alerts, gas price alerts, when my favorite TV shows are on, what the celebrities on my favorite TV shows are doing. By the way, kudos to the NCIS Twitter people who bonus-ed me with a nice pic of a toothsome and shirtless Michael Weatherly reading over the script for the 1st episode of the new season! Hopefully Michael was at the part where Tony DiNozzo kills the bastards who shot Gibbs and is able to ascertain that he was wearing a vest and will be okay.....

YouTube is probably my favorite. It lets me know whenever Mazda have new video of the Miata up on their feed, gives me back all of my childhood memories, in some cases lets me watch entire seasons of "I'm Alan Partridge", and the music videos that thanks to reality TV, MTV no longer play.

I know that, much like rock and roll, (which actually may have died without us realizing it) social media is here to stay. But just as the old folks who shook their heads at Elvis (sacrilege) and Jerry Lee, I don't have to like it!

Here's to future days! You know when the hackers hit the server farms and we are knocked back to an age where we have to talk to one another in person, on the phone, and listen to what we actually say out loud.

Well, a girl can dream, can't she?

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!