Vintage Weekend

As requested, this is for those of you who asked for more 'vintage' photos...
if you have a project for which you want to use these images, feel free.

I hate to think of them just sitting in a drawer at my house when they could get wider use!

Enjoy!

 Co-ed softball team?

 Office picnic?

 There's one in every crowd!

 Looks like a tough crowd... would hate to be their teacher!

 Sister Wives... or just sisters, with their brother?!

This guys a player, you can tell!

Happy almost October!

Saturday morning play time

Playing with the Halloween effects available on Picmonkey - - 

oh yes, we might be doing more of this!

Hope your morning has been as much fun as mine!

One is a whole number...

but I really miss having two!

It's been 6 months since Jack, my oldest Standard poodle, 

died as a result of an inoperable brain tumor.

(And I can finally say that without 

being reduced to tears at the very thought!)

Pearl and I have 'adjusted' and are doing 'OK'.

Whereas before, I opened up the back door and let the dogs play outside together as their exercise, with an occasional (2-3x/week) walk, Pearl now faithfully gets walked twice a day - and she loves it! 

Being forced to give her time to explore and get out has been good for me too.

I'm losing weight again, clothes are fitting better and I'll bet my BP is down - 

all those things the 'experts' say will happen with regular exercise.

It's cleaner in the house - without two tracking in mud, leaves  etc on their velcro hair...

it's quieter...

it's cheaper...

it's easier to travel...

and yet...

there's just a 'lack' for both of us...

So it was no surprise 

when I recently found myself searching for breeders 

and thinking seriously about getting a puppy!

And the top contender is a breeder in a neighboring state - 

who just had a litter born 2 weeks ago!

with darling babies, some solids and some parti! 

I LOVE the idea of a parti or a solid chocolate little sister for Pearl!

The chance to 'visit' and see them won't happen for 2 more weeks, 

so there's time to talk myself in or out of it...

HMMMM.

We'll see whether common sense - or the heart - will prevail!

Japan, here I come!

In the “what in the hell is this world coming to” category is an entry I noticed today (in the Huffington Post) which would have us believe that the latest Asian beauty craze is a huge pocket of  facial saline, indented with fingers, to create a forehead lesion shaped like a ‘bagel’ .

I don’t know what’s crazier – people who would do this or reporters who are actually trying to convince us certifiable numbers of people are really having this procedure done.
Numbers of certifiable people doing it, no doubt, is more accurate!

But if soft mushy pockets of dented flesh are evidence of beauty in the Orient, then I have an ass and upper thighs that will ROCK their world!

While I’ve never wanted to travel to Asia – seeing how I don’t ‘do’ crowds and, by all reports,  Japan is one big mosh pit – this might just be the tipping point that would get me to consider it!

Who’s with me?

Truth is...

*     You can't tell just by looking:
No one seeing me walk the dog in the rain this morning would have guessed that, a few short hours later, I'd be in the middle of the state testifying as a witness in a murder trial.

Just the way I couldn't have guessed that the couple I spoke to in the ER, six years ago, knew far more about what happened to their baby than they were willing to tell us (although we suspected as much) or that the dad would be yanked from the military and charged with her murder.

*     Anyone who raises their hand in court and swears to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" is already lying.

They don't know the whole truth.
They know their piece of it - but it's far from complete - and a world away from being 'whole'.

*     Perspective is everything.
I know this event was fatal for a baby, devastating for her extended family, a lucrative job for the defense, time consuming for the state and expensive for the taxpayers... but it was one death out of hundreds for me and only a portion of one shift out of a 3 decade career... and I can't think of any way to even think that without making me sound like a heartless bitch.

*     If I had known testifying would be such a big part of my career, I wouldn't have worried so much about flunking out of grad school.
Working in a deli or asking folks if they'd like their order 'super-sized' is lookin' pretty good about now!

*     Today, I hate my job.

Snippets

Romney to the uninsured (on 60 Minutes): “There’s always the ER”…

Are you kidding me?

If this statement alone isn’t reason for every person who works in emergency medicine to vote for the other guy, I don’t know what is!

Clearly Romney hasn’t been to an Emergency room.
We already HAVE the indigent, self pay patients sitting alongside all the insured ones - waiting for  non emergent care none of them chose to get at their ‘primary care physicians’ office – because we’re more convenient, the hours are more flexible and they don’t need an appointment!

Most people would be APPALLED at the amount of NON EMERGENT care already provided by all ERs - rashes that have been there for 3-4 months, mosquito bites, STDs, excuses for school and work, colds, ‘cootchies’ that need checking “because they seem too big” and even kids who talked back to a parent.

Even some of the ‘true emergencies’ are questionable – like adults who wander into pediatric hospitals when they’re ‘dying of a drug overdose’ (literally having cardiac arrest) and then get pissed off that we’ve ruined their high when they’re given Narcan to reverse the effects.
Some have hopped off the table and sprinted out of the ER AMA to go to their dealers before we can even find their shoes!

I know there’s a theory out there that people get the government they deserve.
I’d just like to go on record RIGHT NOW as saying that I deserve better!

Good grief… maybe he got away with saying it because most Americans were too busy watching the Emmys.

BTW - who is CK Louis - and why did he win two?

~~~~~~~~~~

I recently discovered 5 additional life insurance policies that my Mom had with a certain company. While I’m curious about the redeemable amount of each one (and who the beneficiaries are), I’m even MORE curious about who the charlatan was who kept selling a woman with Alzheimer’s so many pieces of the rock?!
The hoops have been lined up for me to jump through to get all that information, so we’ll see. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Alzheimer’s, at the risk of having my children know I’ve become my mother already, I had to call GI Joe the other day and ask how to watch a DVD.
It’s been months since I had a movie I wanted to see and, like any other skill, if you don’t use it, you lose it!
Call me old fashioned but 3 remotes controlling 4 pieces of equipment to see 1 small disc just strikes me as excessive!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heard another piece on NPR this morning about adults getting their ‘DNA genome mapping’ done, so they can get all the medical predictions about what diseases they’re predisposed to…
Thanks - not interested.
I’ll take it as it comes – and besides, I’m not willing to give insurance companies one more excuse for jacking up policy prices or excluding me from coverage due to a possible pre-existing condition.
You know it will happen!
~~~~~~~~~~

Overall, the past few days have been prime examples of why I find myself increasingly glad I’m nearing the end of my life and not just starting out.
Feels like a brave new world – and I’m not all sure its gonna be all that great!

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, and try not to hate me - but 1 brilliant idea, 1 credit card and 2 hours creating on the computer = the majority of my Christmas list DONE!
As soon as the masterpieces arrive, they'll be wrapped and ready for gift giving - and it's not even Oct 1st!!

SWEET!

A perfect moment

I collect antique and vintage photographs... both the formal 'cabinet cards' and informal snapshots.

As I was going through them the other day in the hope of thinning the herd, I realized that one of the things I love about them is how perfectly they capture the fleeting beauty of a person or a moment.

There's no other information you get... just that moment.

You don't know if she went on to live a long life as a beloved matriarch of a large wealthy family... or if she died the next month from small pox.

Speculation about them can consume hours...

Did any of them become successful or where they 'hussies' working as showgirls just long enough to snag a rich husband?

Halloween? or Witness Protection?

For all her looking, in obvious and obscure places, did she ever find one?

Did she know how 'cool' she looks?

Did she really wish it was an different finger?

Did she ever get a better vacation?

 Friends, whatever you're doing this weekend, 

gathering with friends and family 

or spending moments in solitude... 

may you find, and appreciate, those fleeting moments of beauty.

They truly are all we have.

Sometimes you’re the windshield,

sometimes you’re the bug.

Can someone explain to me WHY, when one appliance goes bad, there’s a vortex of brokenness that hovers over  your house and sucks other household apparati  (plural for apparatus, right?) up into the black hole of doom – and expense?

The minute I walked into the house after 2 weeks away, I heard the ice maker having a seizure in the kitchen and recycling every 30-45 seconds or so.

Keeping my diet cola at subzero temperatures is neither that important nor that tricky; it also shouldn’t consume the power designated for a small third world country.

But electrocuting myself isn’t appealing either and it was too much trouble to look up a YouTube video for disconnecting a 30 year old icemaker, so I decided to just let it keep misbehaving until it wore itself out. (Come to think of it, I think I might have made that parenting mistake as well!)

Just so you know, it didn’t work for my boys and it sure as hell hasn’t been a plan for my freezer.
Not only has it not burned itself out, I think it’s just getting pissed off and is recycling even faster now - but I'm trying not to personalize this whole deal!

My stove joined in the mutiny and the oven component stopped working.

For now, I can still use the burners and the broiler but baking or cooking is definitely out of the question. My finely tuned diagnostic skills tell me it’s the electronic ignition, but what do I know?

BTW - Microwave?
Yup, taking a rest and only functioning now as a huge black clock.

Tire – on a car not even a year old with 14,000 miles on it – flat as a friggin pancake! (OK, so it wasn’t part of the conspiracy as much as the screw I apparently drove over and embedded in it – but still!)

My fancy dancy pedometer that was keeping me on track, helping me get in 10,000 – 12,000 steps a day?

Yup, committed suicide by hopping off my pants outside Petsmart and getting run over by a passing car before I could retrieve it.

Oh, and the 'windshield referenced above...

Yup!

Sheeeet!

Lighten up, people!

Anybody else notice that some people are seriously missing a 'humor' gene?

I think it's human nature to poke fun at the kernels of absurdity contained even in our most precious philosophies and deeply held opinions.

The ability to appreciate the incongruities in our lives keeps us real. 

I'm not sure why Muslims should be exempt 

when people of the Catholic, Jewish and Protestant faiths

are in the cross hairs regularly.

I don't know about you, but the God I worship doesn't need me to defend him.

He's big enough to take care of himself.

That being said, there's a difference between 'good natured ribbing' 

and poking a bull with a stick.

If you do the latter, expect that, 

at some point, 

you might just be gored in the ass.

Think it might be time to put the sticks down, step out of the pasture

and back away slowly...

Just sayin;.

Smile, you're on camera!

One of the wonderful things about the timing of my recent vacation was that BOTH political parties held their conventions during the weeks I was gone and - what with deciding what kind of seafood I would eat and where, laying in the sun being a slug for hours at a time and reading 9 books – I missed every single minute of both of them!

(Frankly I don’t know why we need conventions these days when the outcome is NOT a surprise and the money could certainly be put to better use. Besides, if you don’t know by now who you’re voting for, you’ve been living under a rock – and truly it might be better for all of us if you just sit this election out!)

Anyway…  here I am, back in the ‘real’ non island world and, even with the concerted effort of purposely not watching more than 30 minutes a day of news and limiting the amount of commercial TV I watch, being barraged with political crap is inescapable.

Two items in the headlines since I’ve been back caught my attention and, oddly, I think they’re related… Mitt Romney’s privately recorded remarks to a group of fundraisers and the topless pictures of Kate Middleton aka Duchess of Windsor. (And yes, ‘boobs’ are involved in both events!)

I won’t even go into how disturbing I think it is that Romney cavalierly writes off nearly half of the American public he supposedly wants to represent as President or what a privileged, snarky elitist I think he is… no, the issue for me is how indistinct the boundaries are between public and private these days.

Romney’s entitled to his own opinions. He’s entitled to express them to friends in a setting in which he feels totally comfortable (a country club surrounded by other millionaires) in the same way Kate and William are entitled to prance about in all manner of dress – or undress as the case may be -  while in a private home miles from the nearest road without any of them  having to worry that someone with money for the best zoom lens or microscopic recording device can surreptitiously document and publish their every moment.

We run into these issues more and more in the ER… families who attempt to record our conversations, (for example, about sexual abuse procedures), pissed off parents who take photos of staff involved with their child, parents who place phones back in their purse which we suspect are not only not turned off but have an extended family member listening in etc …

I’m not sure any of us would want, or could stand, the scrutiny of having every remark or moment of our lives recorded, isolated, taken out of context and then exposed to the world for display/comment.
I know I couldn't.

I also know the genie is out of the bottle and there’s no going back… but it’s neither pretty, helpful nor beneficial for the 'greater good'.

God, I wish I was still on an island…
instead,  I’m working to find ways of creating my own ‘island escape’ while being tethered to work and the mainland!

Wish me luck – but don’t call… you never know who might be recording our conversation!

When did this happen?

Maybe it's because I've only been back from vacation for 1 week; maybe because I was so focused on sun and the sea and being on the beach... but cool grey weather, Halloween objects and pumpkins at a flea market  today came as quite a shock.

Not altogether unwelcome, just surprising.

Candles have come back out and the scent of vanilla wafts through the air tonight.

Quite a change from the summer we've just experienced.
Can't say I'm sorry to see 100+ degree temperatures go.

The change of seasons makes me even more grateful for my two souvenirs from the islands only antique store ...

an oil painting that now hangs on the wall directly across from my bed.
No famous artist but someone who perfectly captured a storm at sea.
Since I can't wake up to the ocean every morning, this will have to do.
I love it!
(yeah, I know... I'm easily satisfied!)

The other memento was a small plastic dog which reminded me of Pearl...

yup - you see it too, don't you?

“But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.” 
― Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot

Fall ... not sorry to see it's here at all!

Andy

To Live in This World

Mary Oliver

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

It's that whole "letting go" part that's harder than I ever thought it would be, despite the number of times I've been given to 'practice'.

Can't believe it's been a year since Andy died.

There's not a day when I don't miss him.