Vision Quest

I am an idea person. A person of many ideas. Ideas that may come across as an innocent addition for the better good. But everything good has to have an ending point or it becomes, tacky, overdone, just too much. I am a too much person. Like the kid who learns a joke and gets an honest laugh and then tells it over and over again. Now that the kids are grown and they don't want me worrying about them (see? now that is a joke) I have more time to pursue the intricate workings of my mind. Perhaps I discover I am in the mood for a donut, it soon becomes an additive habit. Moving the furniture around on a restless day works wonders in forgetting to fret (over those kids) but I soon discover I don't like the arrangement and move it all again and I will continue until I get it right which could be any day now. Zing! An art idea suddenly comes to life and in my mind it is fantastic and people will ooh and aah, but in reality people say hmmm and huh until eventually they say "just stop!" But by then I have so many supplies that I may as well continue or it would be wasteful. What I see and what others see are not the same. But if they were life would be boring.

Girls just really do want to have fun. That's why a lot of us fall in love; he made us laugh. As we get older it can get damn hard to find a reason to laugh unless we're the kind of person who doesn't need a reason and we all know that kind of person is irritating. We want real laughs for a real reason or someone is going to pay. When I see that fake smile that barely acknowledges a word I just said I want to smack it off that smug face. But when the laugh is real and shared then there goes cupid again.

Cupid struck a long time ago and I'm not pulling out the arrow; he can still make me laugh and sometimes I like the challenge of turning the smirk into a smile. And he does need to smile, it's hard to do when carrying the weight of family happiness on his shoulders. My role in the family has morphed from one who sits back and waits for laughter to one who tries like hell to make it happen. Creating laughter is beyond hard work. Lifting bricks all day is straight forward; just lift and stack. Lifting burdens to uncover even a small chuckle takes herculean efforts that not everyone has. I am the court jester, the clown that tries to save us from the oncoming bull.

Laughter also does a nice job of hiding the truth. I'm about to get hysterical.

Wait! There's More! What About the Trees!

ok so I just talked about the wedding trip in my last blog but there is more to tell!! I found the olive trees!! Now most people would not consider rest stops along Highway 5 of much importance but there was one with really great narly olive tree trunks and last year when I discovered them I didn't have a camera so this year on our way back home I was careful to find the right rest stop. The first one I pulled into was not the right one so we didn't even stop, it was my turn for driving. But the second one was the one. The trunks are so old and twisted and just beautiful. So I got my pictures and will have them on hand for future projects.

I don't want to know the names of things, I just want to be someone who notices things. That is what I try to get across to my Park and Rec kids when I teach. Look around and notice the color of tree trunks, the texture, look at the ever changing sky and the light shining down on leaves. Those olive trees were just as big a deal to me as the giant sequoias of northern ca. But what I would really like to see are those really really old trees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. My son saw them on an expedition but the people in know don't want a bunch of loonies like me coming around and killing the oldest tree of its kind, to which I have no idea what they are called.

The best thing in our town are the three giant sequoias some guy planted a long long time ago. Thanks guy.

And what about Monkey Puzzle Trees? Love them. killed mine by accident, so sad. But i would very much (using the word love too much) like to see them in their natural habitat in South America. A whole forest of spiky trees.

Go out and notice a tree today and say thanks.

oops

Oh for Pete's sake. I haven't written in awhile but yet I have been writing like crazy. Too many writing projects. I would like to announce that the visit to the in-laws for a the very special wedding went very well and I only had minor melt downs. I was still rather hyper but that just seems to be the way I am aging. I wore my freshly colored (with Sharpies) Dansko shoes that are now dark bright purple and accented them with orange socks, short pants and a batik tank top. Yes I did get a few looks from the more conservative guests but as one niece put it "Aunt Tina is so perky!" And to continue the perkiness I danced at the wedding with my old clubbing partner who later introduced me to her brother and that was that. I also managed to drag my 19 year old daughter onto the dance floor and felt great joy at watching her joining in and twisting.

Earlier in the day we took her to see the old Berkeley stomping grounds of the first five years of our marriage. The apartment we lived in still had the cat ramps we built below the kitchen window! I gasped when i saw them and the guy living there was working on something outside and looked up. I said we used to live there and had built the cat ramps. He said, oh so that is what those are. They don't allow pets anymore. I had to ask him what he pays in rent and i was floored. 23 years ago we paid $250 and unless the guy was messing with me he pays $1,485!!!! I wisely didn't mention what we used to pay and just said that it had gone up a bit. I know it doesn't look as good as when I was living there. Plus the backyard we had created with bamboo fencing was completely gone so it was just a pile of hard dirt.

And we visited Blondie's Pizza for old times sake. We should have eaten it on a cement bench in Sproul Plaza like the old days but time was short and we had to eat and walk to get to the wedding in time.

So unless my perky personality pissed someone off...I was a good girl!!

What If...

What if my life is not as set in stone as I think? What if the power to shape me hasn't ended? What if it is still all up to me?

If so, way cool. But I think it may be time to give up obsessions that have developed as coping mechanism and get some new ones. Or is it time to just get better at what I am trying to accomplish?

Perhaps it is time to start thinking even farther outside the box. Get ready world.

Been Bin Shopping

Well here is is only July 17th (I think) and I have used up my shopping allotment. This is sad, very sad. What is even sadder of course is that I misjudged what people needed for the summer and no one needs used clothes for hiking. Why anyone would pay full price for stuff that is going to stay dirty for two weeks is beyond me but oh well.
At least I went out with a bang today in finding at least one good treasure: a big plastic tank for water and it has wheels!! This means when I go to the school to water the garden I won't risk dislocating my shoulder or elbows when I heft my other big container. Why don't I have a hose you may ask? Well for one thing I keep forgetting to ask the director of the school to buy one and the other thing is that hoses are a pain in the butt. They get tangled, they kink, the refuse to look neatly put away when the longer than 25'. Oh the temper tantrums I have had over hoses.
But as I spent about two hours at the bins and another hour and a half running errands I have successfully blown the day. Soon I am off to the library to figure out how to have a park and rec class for five-seven year old kids about geology junk. Not names of things, just how does a mountain form, a canyon, that kind of things and then we will pitch a tent in the middle of the room and pretend to camp. We shall see.

It Ain't So Easy Bein' a eBayer

I'm sure it was expected although I thought I had everything under control. Once I start thinking that I should know better. I mailed the wrong sandals and then had to ask that person to put the address of the buyer for those sandals on the mailing box and forward. I refunded the money for both parties. Then I had to print out a label and the process got confusing since PayPal thought since I had refunded then I don't need a label. So I did what I do when I need a label for a family thing and reused an already shipped form and changed the address and an email was sent to that person saying her order was on its way to North Carolina when she lives in Minnesota - yeah I know, boring stuff and confusing and why should you care? The gist of it is three people became involved in my screw up. But the first person refused the refund and paid for the shoes again. She made me cry damn it. I don't handle people being nice to me very well I guess. Not that people are usually mean to me. The next part is that the third person involved didn't like her shoes and already had reason to think I'm an idiot so she wanted a partial refund which was very fair of her I think. But eBaying is a little like writing; rejections hurt, whether of stories or shoes. I must develop that thick skin I've been told I need. I wonder though what it is I am supposed to eat to get thick skin and do I really want it? Probably I'd have to eat something disgusting since everything that is "good for you" is not good for you. So I guess the only way I'm getting thick is in the head and around the body.