Blind Driving

Just a little joke between . . . well, me and myself.  That's how I feel driving at night.  The glare of oncoming lights reduces my vision.  I can't see well in the dark.  What does that leave?  Not much.  There are a few well-lit streets that have those softer-toned bulbs in them that I don't mind driving on at night.  And I can manage just fine in my own neighborhood.  Beyond that, it gets hairy.

My trepidation has increased exponentially with each invite I receive to an evening activity.  This Tuesday night, I have a friend's husband's 50th birthday party to go to.  It'll still be light when I go, but it'll be dark coming home.  Ditto for my nephew's wedding on October 8th, which is on a Friday, and, of course, at night.  The major stomach-wrencher will be my niece's wedding on New Year's Eve.  That's also a Friday and, being December 31st, it will be dark when we go there, as well as coming home.  In addition, it's New Year's Eve.  Half the drivers on the roads will be buzzing, if not outright drunk.  Did I mention the wedding will be in the north-west suburbs of Chicago?  On New Year's Eve!  For those of you who've been living under a rock and have no clue what the weather is like during a Chicagoland winter, we could have three feet of snow!  Of course, it could also be 60 degrees, but that's not likely.  It could also be raining, which could change to sleet.

Am I being pessimistic?  Possibly.  Oh, all right, probably.  But I would rather be prepared for the worst and have things turn out better than expected, than to plan for the best and have things turn out worse than expected.  Make sense?  Well, it does to me.  And, while I am a born-again Christian, I still firmly believe in jinxes and superstition.  So, I'll knock wood, avoid walking under any ladders and beware of black cats.  Oh, wait.  I live with a black cat.  Well, technically, she's a deep coffee-brown that just looks black.  Yeah, that works.  Whew!

If it was just me going, I would crash at my sister's place (which just happens to be five minutes from where the 12/31 wedding will be) afterward.  But, of course, I'll have my mother with me.  There are no bedrooms on the ground floor of my sister's townhouse and I can't expect my mother to sleep on the sofa with her bad back.

Maybe I can talk my daughter into going to her cousin's wedding that night.  She could drive.  Pfft.  Convince my hedonistic, 23-year-old daughter to give up New Year's Eve parties for a family wedding?  Not anywhere near bloody likely!  Maybe I could pay her to drive us . . .  Well, heck, if I'm going to pay someone, I could hire a limo!

Hey, maybe I'm on to something there!  A limo!  Or, at the very least, a cab.  That way I could have champagne, too!  I like champagne.  I would not be exaggerating to say that I love champagne.  I wonder how much a cab from Justice, IL to Lisle, IL would cost?  On New Year's Eve?  Oh sh--, I mean, darn!  We'd really have to tip the drivers bigtime!  There is free limo service to the nearby Hilton, but we don't have money for hotel rooms.  Or even one room.  So we probably can't afford a cab, either.  Oh well, it was a good idea.  I really hate being lower middle-class with upper middle-class (or maybe lower upper-class) relatives.  But that's a gripe for another day.

So, I'll just focus on one day at a time.  Tomorrow or Tuesday, I need to find a gift--in my price range--for a guy who is turning 50 and is also upper middle-class.  I'm thinking a nice card and an herbal alternative to Viagra.  That would be a joke.  A gag-gift, you know?  Fine, I'll just pick up a generic version of Geritol.
Party-poopers.

Photographic Treasures

I finally got all the pictures (that I've found so far) in bins and stored in my closet.  My niece, who is getting married on New Year's Eve, wanted a picture of her grandparents' (my parents') wedding day.  Since I was still sorting through photos, I found an entire album of their wedding day.  I did send the formal picture of my parents and their attendants, but I also included a picture of my mother giving my father a flirty little look at the reception:

It was October 28, 1950.  My mother was 18 years old at the time.  My father was not quite 20.  They'd known each other for four years already.  There's a pretty nifty story to their meeting, but I'll save that for another day.

I've found a lot of old pictures.  By "old" I mean before my siblings were married and had kids.  Some are really old.  Like the one of my father parent's wedding day, January 1930!  There are a lot of pictures from when my oldest brother was a toddler.  And quite of few of Christmases at my paternal grandparents' house. My dad had gotten a new camera and he made good use of it.

This is just four families of cousins.  That's me in front, second from left.  I was about 5.
The really tall kid in back is my oldest brother, who was about 14!

Then there are the "newer" pictures.  This ones of my nieces and nephews when they were small in the early 80's.  Then the pictures of my daughter, who was born in 1987.  And, of course, pictures throughout all the years of various pets that have enriched our lives.

Every photo is a treasure.  Even photos I found of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, or HWSNBN, for short.  HWSNBN is the person I threw away my life on.  Okay, that sounds a little overdramatic, but that's the way I felt when it was all over.  Fifteen months was gone and I could never go back to what I was before.  Immediately following HWSNBN, was my daughter's father.  Uh, yeah, that makes him the rebound guy.  I found a couple of him, too.  The daddy wasn't such a bad time.  Stupid, sure, but not bad.  So why did I keep the two pics of HWSNBN?  I'm not sure.  One is of the two of us at a friend's wedding.  I look really good in it, so I tell myself I'll scan it in and crop him out.  Maybe I will, too.  The photo of HWSNBN by himself, tho, I did have in my hand and held it over the wastebasket.  Like I said, I don't know why I didn't drop it in.  When I go through the pictures again to actually organize them, I will toss it.  Probably.

Anyway, all the pictures, whether of family, friends or worthless scum-sucking ex-lovers (not that I'm bitter or anything) tell of my history.  They show me where I've been and who was there with me.  I don't want to dwell in the past, but I think it's important to remember it.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience. 

George Washington

Yet More Decluttering

I've been working on the back bedroom closet.  Pulling boxes out, packing up give-away items, etc.  I'm really glad to have help in this endeavor.

Tabitha perusing the closet's contents.

For those of you who are not well informed on the nature of cats, there just isn't anything a human could do well without the assistance--or better yet, the supervision--of a cat.

Tabitha races ahead of me into the back bedroom, ready and eager for more exploration into the depths of the unknown.  Nimble of foot, she traverses boxes and bags and various Christmas decorations in search of something.

In search of what?  Well, you'd have to ask Tabitha and, quite frankly, I don't think she'd give you a straight answer, even if you spoke Cattish (my own word--don't you love it?).  But I can tell you what she has found in past adventures:

1. Yarn.  Now you might think that she plays with it, pulling on it and batting at it.  Well, she does do some of that.  Mostly?  She eats it.
2. Bugs.  Does she chase them and bat them around?  Sure.  Mostly?  She eats them.
3. Paper.  She likes the crinkle sound as she walks on a piece of note paper or, better!--wrapping paper.  If it shreds and tears, well that's all part of the Paper Experience.  But mostly--she eats it.
4. Anything small and roundish that will roll or slide across the floor.  Those are fun to chase, to pick up and toss in the air to catch it again.  So far, she hasn't eaten those (that I know of).

Feline facilitation isn't limited to Tabitha.  Khai has been known to check on us every so often.  He doesn't climb into the closet because of his gimpy right legs, but he investigates the stuff I--I mean "we"--pull out.

All those pictures I had found up in my closet have been stored in my (clean!) closet.  I'm finding much, much more in the back bedroom closet.
 This pile of boxes and picture frames is an actual stack in the corner of the back bedroom closet.  Without slanted ceilings to keep the stacks short, this pile has an old laundry basket full of more pictures and frames underneath the white box, so it's quite tall!

I've been bringing boxes of photos and frames up to my room. *sigh*  I sort through them in the evenings (I have actually turned my TV on for this) and am aided in this task by Bebe.

Bebe is quite willing to add her input to my task.  While she doesn't eat everything, Bebe has hands.  Yes, hands.  Her dew claws look like thumbs.  You want me to show you picture?  Are you serious?  We're talking about a CAT here.  You don't just go up and . . .   Wait a minute.  This is Bebe.  Maybe I could get a shot of her grabbing at a treat!  Okay, wait here.  This might take a while.

You can just make out her "thumb" on top.

While that was relatively painless, it's not the best view of her paw.  She was getting, uh, grumpy.  Anyway, she's very good at grabbing things and is surprisingly strong.  She reaches over and pulls stuff out of my hands--or rips it in the case of paper or photos.  She also likes to sit on the papers and photos.  After a few wrinkled pictures, I finally made a pile of old greeting cards that she could sit on.  I didn't tell her that I was going to throw them out.  Fortunately, she fell asleep and she didn't see me toss them.

Bebe is exhausted after a grueling
 hour of picture sorting.

Work on the back bedroom closet is moving along nicely.  I've already got a bagful of old coats and a large box full of old draperies.  But there's still a long way to go.  I haven't even started on the Christmas stuff and there are old Calphalon pots and pans in there.  I can't let my mother see the Calphalon, though.  We already had a, er, um, disagreement over an Eddie Bauer coat.  It was two or three sizes too small, but my mom was determined to keep it.  Fortunately, Brittany backed me up and while they argued, I mean disagreed, I shoved the coat into a bag.  Now, don't think I'm heartless.  If the coat was newer, I might try to sell it on eBay.  But the coat was in the closet for years before my dad died.  I still say it is harder to declutter with my mother around than with a half dozen cats!

Chloe Elizabeth Victoria: 1994 - 2010

Age 14

God gave me a wonderful blessing in feline form.  My Chloe was a sweetheart.  When I posted a brief note of her death, one of my Facebook friends commented that "losing animals is so very hard when we love them so much."  This is true.  It's also very hard when they love us so very much!

Chloe chose me as her person the first moment we were face to face.  Because I already had three cats and Chloe was 3 year old, I kept her in my bedroom for the first couple of days.  We bonded so tightly!  When she finally met the other cats, she was fearless.  This little bitty cat, who weighed about six pounds, would trot by the other, bigger cats without a worry.

Chloe almost always slept with me.  At night, she would curl up next to my pillow, or, later, she would curl up on top of me.  I'm a side sleeper, so that meant she slept on my side!  Over the years, as I put on weight, that just made it more comfortable for her.  Even for her naps, she would seek me out.  I was studying for my certification as an Employee Benefits Specialist during those first years with her and I would often be deep into my heavy tomes of knowledge with Chloe curled up on my lap.  She rarely sprawled when she slept.  She almost always curled into a little ball.

She was very agile, even for a cat.  Somewhere, I have  picture of her jumping up to catch a feather toy.  She must be four feet off the ground.  It was like she had springs in her hind legs.  She was always amazing to watch at play.  When I find that picture, I will add it to this post.

Age 12

When I moved back to my parents' house, Chloe was the only one of my cats who would go downstairs.  As I said, she was fearless.  I would even take her outside with me when I worked in the yard.  She loved being outside!

Then, nearly five years ago, we got Tabitha.  For about a year, things were fine.  A little tension now and then as Tabitha grew and it became obvious she would be alpha cat.  Then one day, there was the worst caterwauling and screaming and hissing and growling!  I don't know what set it off, but it was Khai who was beating on Chloe, with Tabitha backing him up.  Chloe retreated upstairs and rarely went downstairs after that.  Chloe had gotten older and, with age, had grown a little fearful.

Since I had to be downstairs to take care of my mother, Chloe would take her lengthiest nap in the morning. If I was downstairs longer than 1:00 p.m. or so, she would make her way to the middle of the stairway and sit off to the side, waiting for me.  If I went downstairs in the evenings, she would be waiting on the staircase.

Chloe and Bebe waiting on the stairs for me.  I would call them Frick and Frack--the littlest and the biggest.

Chloe had the most beautiful green eyes.  The pictures here don't do her justice.  Even in the vet's waiting room, a lady told me "Your cat has such beautiful green eyes!"  Choking back my tears, I agreed.  And those eyes held such love for me and such trust!  Right up to the end, all she wanted was to be in my arms.

I won't go into the details of her demise.  I wish I had realized how much weight she had lost.  I wish I had taken her to the vet sooner.  Mostly, I wish I didn't feel like I let her down.  But, it doesn't matter now.  At least I know she's not hurting anymore.  One of my bf's told me that she believes we'll have our pets with us in heaven.  I fervently believe this is true.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be heaven for me!

This is the last picture taken of Chloe.  It was two days before she died.  You can tell by my eyes that I knew I wouldn't have her much longer.

Cleaning Out: More of Same

I can't say I've all that much progress since last week.  I did find a lid to the big empty cardboard box (still) sitting in the living room.  The cats have grown bored with it now.  I also passed along the bag of yarn to T, one of my bf's.  I pulled another box from the back bedroom closet to sort through.  Since it was Christmas decorations, I set it to one side.  I would like to do all the Christmas stuff in one project.  If I split it up, I'll forget what I already saved.

I've been plagued by recurrences of Pink Eye.  Staying home and sorting through boxes has been about as productive as I can get.  Hopefully, with some powerful antibiotic eye drops and a brand new pillow, I have the infection conquered.  Aside from some allergy flare ups, I'm feeling good, but I was minimizing my outings for a while.

While I was sorting the small box of office stuff last week, I thought of some stuff that my dad had in a container in the backroom.  This is not to be confused with the back bedroom.  The backroom houses the washer and dryer, stacks of give-away bags and boxes, the treadmill (currently covered with boxes), the kitty litter pans, and various yard/gardening products. And THE DESK.  Capital letters are necessary.  It is a ginormous monstrosity of oak designed for use with a PC.  It is large enough to house three PC's, office equipment and office supplies for a medium-sized company, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Oh, and the kitchen sink.

I've spoken often of my father, especially as related to this Great Clean-Out of 2010.  THE DESK is a perfect example of how men feel size matters.  It measures over five feet wide, three feet deep and four+ feet tall.  The upper half is a roll top, which locks.  And I actually have the key for it.  The bottom includes a fold-down, pull out space for a keyboard; a drawer on the right side that can hold printers and paper; and three drawers on the left side for files and office supplies.  The bottom locks separately from the top, and, yes, I actually have the key for that, too!  Behind the roll-top are numerous cubbies and slots and ports for electricity and phone lines.  There was even a built-in clock, but when I removed the front to put new batteries in it, I sorta broke it.  I think.  I really don't know because I lost the piece I took off.

That small box of office supplies from the back bedroom closet was the stuff from the two smaller drawers.  That box was the impetus behind my diversion to the backroom.  I thought if I was going to get the office supplies sorted, I may as well get them all together.  So I did.  Well, at least all that I could find.  There was another container of stuff on top of THE DESK which held such items as an electric label-maker, ribbons for the label-maker, light timers, a tray of slides (from about 1952) and the California Raisins.

I put the tray of slides with the other two trays I had found up in my closet.  I was going to take them to Sam's Club, where they will put 50 slides on a disc for $19.86.  At 34 cents for each slide after that, or doing three discs of 50, I figure it would cost close to $60.  I think I'm going to get pricing elsewhere.  My photographer niece gave me the name of a place in LaGrange that should be reasonable.  I mean, who doesn't want to preserve slides from a 1952 trip to the zoo?  Have elephants changed since then?  Have mountain goats evolved in the last almost 60 years?  But my mother wants them preserved, so preserve them I shall.  Since Brookfield Zoo opened in 1934, I don't even know which zoo it was.

Okay, I'll explain the California Raisins.  Sheesh, you people are impatient.  Remember about 25 years ago there were commercials for California raisins that featured anthropomorphized raisins?  You know, singing and playing musical instruments?  Well, for reasons I can't explain (and probably don't want to know) my father purchased these little figures.  The California Raisins.  I think Stevie Wonder did the voice of one of the singers in the commercials.  Or was it Ray Charles?  Anyway, they were a big hit and lasted about five years.  There were a couple of TV specials made using the Raisins and, at least, one video.  I know because Brittany has the video.  My mother didn't want me to get rid of the Raisin figures.  If they had been in good condition, they might have been worth something to collectors.  But they had been chewed on by my teething toddler and, later, by teething kittens.  One was covered in an unidentifiable goop.  I might have tried washing it, but didn't think it'd be worth my while.  I had to wait until my mother was watching the TV before I could throw them out.

 My dad had only seven of the figures.

I said in a previous posting that someone needs to take my mother out so I can clean.  When she's there, she doesn't want me to throw anything out.  I had to explain that the pens were dried out, the rubber bands shriveled up, etc., to even get rid of that stuff!

I suppose I'll return to the back bedroom closet tomorrow.  Or the next day.  I may have to just stay in the back bedroom rather than bringing the boxes into the living room.  That way, no one will be watching me.  But, knowing my mother, she'll have to see what I'm doing.  She's almost as bad as Tabitha.

Still More Cleaning Out

Hallelujah, my room is my own again!!  Mostly, anyway.  There's a box of Christmas wrapping paper that needs a new container.  Did you ever try to find a wrapping paper container in the middle of July?  You'd think there would be some plain ones for birthday and anniversary and graduation wrapping paper.  And I'm not being fussy.  There are all types of storage/organizers.  I'll take whatever I find first.

I'll probably have to go to WalMart, where I'll walk about three miles to find storage boxes for wrapping paper. *sigh*  There are also a couple of empty boxes in my room.  And one box of give-away.  And a bag of yarn for one of my pals who still crochets.  But, it's a lot better than before I got my closet done.

The cats helped, of course.  I used good ol' Spic & Span to wash the floor and walls.  Chloe walked in just as I was starting, didn't find anything to sit on, so she left.  I worked my way from back to front.  Bebe sat behind me the entire time.  Once, I accidentally bopped her in the face with my foot when I was scooting backward.  When I was done, and sat back to survey the closet, Be walked in front of me.  Boy, did her nose wrinkle!  I guess cats don't like the smell of Spic & Span.  I like it.  That smell says "clean" to me.  It says "The Tough Job Cleaner" and my closet was one of the toughest!  Of course, the fact that my dad left three boxes of it in the utility cabinet helped me to choose it.

Moving on, I sorted through the scrapbook stuff again, to make sure I had pulled all the photos out of the boxes.  I also repacked the stuff into cardboard boxes.  I had two big Rubbermaid containers and a huge Sterlite container left empty.  The Rubbermaid containers were promptly filled with the photos and photo albums.  I'm saving the huge Sterlite container for when I start working in the shed out back.  I'll tackle the shed once this scorching weather breaks.  As it looks now, probably in January.

In the meantime, I started on the downstairs back bedroom closet.  There are more pictures in there.  Some Christmas decorations, too.  The majority of the stuff is from when my mom used to make dolls.  Well, the doll outfits, actually.  She would crochet these fancy historical dresses for the dolls.  So far, I've pulled out one huge box of doll paraphernalia.  This consisted of, among other things, naked dolls, satin roses, parasols, shoes, ribbons, buttons, stockings, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (that always reminds me of Yul Brynner in the King and I).  And a smallish box of office supplies.  I sorted through the stuff, filling a kitchen garbage can with things like dried up pens, Post-it notes with no sticky left, dried up rubber bands, old file labels from files long gone, dolls socks with no mate (just like us real people) and unraveled satin roses.

Since I was downstairs with this stuff, guess who was helping me?  Got in one!  Of course it was Tabitha.  She stole roses (about a half inch diameter) and paper clips with reckless abandon.  She very nearly upset a container of jingle bells.  Thank God I caught it in time.  Do you know what it's like to step on those suckers?  Yeah, BIG OUCH.  Worse than Lego's, and I've stepped on more than my share of those, too.  I'm still picking up paper clips, though.  And I found a little rose in my shoe today.  I like to think of it as a gift from my Sweetling.  In all likelihood, she was hiding it from the other cats!

So time marches on and I stumble along with it.  The smaller box of office supplies sits on the living room floor because I don't know where to store it just yet.  The huge cardboard box rests, empty, along side its littler cousin, waiting for me to find a lid that matches it.  In the meantime, Tabitha and Khai use the big box to play in.

Hey, when life gives you lemons, you can squeeze them into your cleaning solution!

If I Knew Then What I Know Now . . .

. . . it probably wouldn't have been as much fun!

I realized yesterday that it's been two years since I started writing my book.  That's a long time when I think how some authors put out at least a book a year, sometimes more.  Of course, those are established authors.  I'm a newbie and it takes us longer.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Well, maybe not such a newbie.  I've been writing my whole life.  I wrote some great fiction when I was in high school.  A good friend reminded me of that today.  Senior year, typing class.  I was a good typist.  I probably could've been a great typist.  I always finished my assignments quickly and accurately.  Then I used the remaining class period to type, uh, hmmm.  Sheesh, I don't know what to call it.  Scenes, I guess.  Just quickly dashed off descriptions of what my fruitful, 17-year-old, hormone-driven mind brought forth.

I shared desk space with two other girls.  One of my bff's and a Junior girl, who both shall, for now, remain nameless.  Seating was arranged so that we were at right angles to each other in our groups.  I had another bff in the class, but she got stuck at another group.  Oh, what she missed out on!

⇦ An IBM Selectric Typewriter--I think this is what I learned to type on.  Something like it anyway.

Although I was only marginally experienced in physical intimacy, that didn't stop my extremely active imagination from conjuring up scenes that'd make a 'ho blush.  I cannot believe that our instructor had no clue what was going on in our little group.  The laughter that was barely stifled, the reddened faces and, sometimes, the tears of hilarity streaming down our cheeks, were often disruptive to students at other groupings.  That poor Junior didn't know what to make of me and my bff.  We shared with her, of course, but sometimes she pretended to ignore us.  Looking back, I think Mr. B__ got ahold of some of those descriptions and was either: A. too embarrassed to tell us to stop, or B. too turned on (yecch!) to tell us to stop.

My bff kept some of those papers, but lost track of them somewhere along the way.  That's probably a good thing.  But part of me would like to read them again.  Not for their porn value, (well, mostly not) but because they made people feel something.  No, not like that!  Get your mind out of the gutter!  I mean the humor and embarrassment and curiosity.  Even shock.  (I seemed like such a sweet girl--still waters and all that!)

So I want to find that young girl inside me again.  I want to incorporate her style into my writing--within reason.  I'm not out to sell erotica here.  And I already did a posting on not describing any hanky-panky in my book.  I couldn't do justice to it anyway.  It's been an awfully long time . . .  Whoops, digression and TMI!

Maybe if I posted sections of my book as I go along, it would keep it moving.  Especially if I thought you were looking forward to it.  No need to disabuse me of that thought.  Let me have my dreams.  Remember that old Everly Brothers song?  ♫ Only trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreamin' my life away.♪