I am not much for slogging through blogs in search of entertainment or good writing or both. The handful of blogs I read regularly belong to women I met through the YWBB and that I have listed on my Widow Blogroll. Anything that is evenly remotely entertaining, my husband Rob found using StumbleUpon and then went on to find others through the links he found on the worthwhile blogs he stumbled across. Stumble is a program that you can use to find specific topic oriented blogs or just randomly flip through like a couch potato with satellite. Through Stumble Rob discovered A Riot is an Ugly Thing along with its host, Uncle Keith. Uncle Keith, I should warn you, will not be everyone’s cup of tea. He is middle-age though he claims to be old. He is unapologetically incorrect and he likes to post pictures of scantily clad women who could be his (of legal age) daughters. But he can be funnier than hell while doing all of the above. Another pervert Rob discovered before the days of Stumble was the host of What Would Tyler Durden Do? (WWTDD) For you non-Fight Clubbers out there reading this from your IKEA-ized domains still in your khaki cubicle uniforms, Tyler Durden is the the name of the character played by Brad Pitt in the movie, Fight Club. It is one of my husband’s favorite movies and my step-daughter’s favorite books by her favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk. When I first began corresponding with Rob via email (because yes, where would two internet junkies meet but on the www), he told me I reminded him of Marla Singer. I was appalled (after I googled her up on Wikipedia) but in retrospect I can think of at least one area where she and I have some in common – though I am forbidden to go there (much) in my blogging. WWTDD is a celebrity eviscerating site, where the host skewers the flavors of the week and waxes pornographically about the current crop of famous tail. He may be Uncle Keith’s nephew. Tyler Durden came to us courtesy of The Gil Meche Experience. This is a cadre of writers there who claim to be law students somewhere on the East Coast of the U.S. The main blogger is a young man named Pulp who is on a mission (one of many) to expose David Brooks as a tepid writing talent. Nurse Myra of Gimcrack Hospital (PG) is someone Rob met through Uncle Keith who obviously enjoys her because on Friday she posts tastefully done pictures of herself in provacative clothing. She is a real nurse though in a real retirement home in the real place of Australia and she is a very talented writer. She writes with wit and style about the day to day of her job and the people she encounters. Rob discovered, inadvertently, that she was widowed as we are and thought at first that I should categorize her with the other widow blogs. While her “about me” states that she blogs to keep sane, she is not writing about her grief. Even if she were, I would still put her with the interesting blogs because she and it are that.The Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie is a Stumble find. He is not mad but he is a cabbie in the DC area and he blogs on all manner of things. He is funny. He is smart. And he is a very good writer. As is Johnny Virgil over at Fifteen Minute Lunch. I would do much to be that funny. His rantings on washrooms have earned him a place of honor in my esteem forever. Waiter Rant is just that, and apparently its author has written a book and was approached about turning it into a movie according to my oldest step-daughter. She is the original source of this blog and though my husband reads it – aloud to me – every so often, I don’t find it compelling enough to read on my own. It is well-written and others find it quite entertaining. And Rob likes it. He has much better taste in blogs as a source of leisure reading than I do. I am from the quaint old school of building community and friendships via the blogosphere. He does not believe that one can be friends with people who may or may not really exist at all. As one of my mommie friends from yore pointed out when she and the other women I now call friends met on BabyCenter – back in the days before we moved to a private group home – who knows who any of us really were. One of us could have really been a 55 year old man simply pretending to be a thirty-something pregnant woman or new mother. After all, you never know what some people will do to entertain themselves. Rob explains us, in case you are interested, as above average anomalies and exceptions to all rules.Blogging, in my opinion – ’cause that is the only one that counts around here, is a viable source of the written word as entertainment or information. One could do worse than to check out and become a daily reader of any of the blogs I have mentioned.
Tag Archives: YWBB
Idaho Falls: It’s Been a Year Now
When Rob and I first began dancing with the idea of meeting in person, we were still just friends. He and Cheryl were trying to organize a Bago in Manitoba for July and I made up my mind to attend, so we could meet. Well, that quickly went from meeting at the Bago to his picking me up at the airport to my flying to Edmonton first and driving out to Manitoba with him. I guess we should have known at that point we were already more than friends.
Once the cat, who was already out of the bag and sitting there watching us expectantly, was formally acknowledged we began planning our March trip that eventually became Devils Den. But even knowing we would be seeing each other then did not stop us from plotting an earlier meeting. And then came Idaho Falls. Rob and Shelley had met a couple at the cancer clinic in Mexico who lived just outside of Idaho Falls. Tee has breast cancer and Rob wanted to visit her as she wasn’t doing well. He was also taking her some things of Shelley’s, and could I manage to fly out to spend the weekend with him there?
My best friend, Vicki, wouldn’t even let me use Katy as an excuse not to go. She barely took a breath before agreeing to assume responsibility for my child for the weekend and with that – I was on my way.
I remember posting about my upcoming trip on the board, as so many people did and still do. I remember all the cautionary advice and pooh-poohing of the notion that Rob and I could have gotten to know each other via email, IM and the phone. I remember specifically that I didn’t ask for any advice and I didn’t take any that was given. I was beyond polling the board. But, I was still nervous. How could I not be? There is much one can learn about another person via their words – in any form, but there is a tangibleness about physical presence that goes beyond knowing on an intellectual level. I actually felt as though I was missing him in that concrete way even before that night in the airport when I saw him and rushed into his arms.
We’d speculated quite a bit about those first moments and each scenario became a bit more intimate. Our first kiss in those first moments was interrupted by my mother. She called Rob on his cell phone and wanted to know if I had arrived yet. It was a bit like having your one of your folks walk in on you as a teenager making out or something. It didn’t break the mood though and we smooched away the waiting for luggage to the point where a TSA officer broke us up to inquire if the last bags standing were in fact ours.
Rob likes to joke now that the woman he sometimes can’t get to stop talking barely strung more than a couple of sentences together that first weekend. But I was just drinking him in with all my senses to a point where I was overwhelmed.
A year later and we are sitting in our robes at the dining room table, me blogging and him scouring the net for a used car for Jordan and Katy in the living room chattering away with her imaginary friends while watching cartoons. All that is sandwiched in between then and now is our history together. History. Wow. You dream about being swept away. And love. Intimacy. Never does it occur to you that there comes a point where the newness is the comfy familiar and you are sharing an existence with touchstones, high and low points, and a future to chart together.
Happy Anniversary my Sasquatch lover. I love you, always.
Speak Too Soon. Invite the Jinx.
I spoke of giving up blogging in my last post because I wonder what good it is doing me any more and what I could possibly have left to say that might interest anyone. It’s not as though I, or my life, is all that interesting. But just when I thought I didn’t need the cathartic outlet that is my blog at its essence, my sister-in-law shows up at our home – four days later than she originally planned and with intentions of staying for a week. Did I mention she dragged – literally – her seventeen and thirteen year old children with her? No? Well, she did.
I like Shannon. I do. She can carry on quite the conversation and is very polite (aka Canadian), but she is in her seventh year of widowhood and stuck beyond even the most generous standards of grieving. Many of our conversations have centered around grief even when they started out about something else. Being problem solvers, both Rob and I have countered her at every turn with solutions to her fixed position – which she claims to not be happy with by the way – but for every solution, she remains attached to the problem like velcro. It’s exhausting in a way that reminds me of my time on the widow board.
Today, I escaped to the gym and then after lunch (did I mention they sleep til lunch?) I absconded with Katy to the library and to shop for groceries. In my absence, she decided to drag the teens to the mega-mall that is about a 45 minute drive from here. Upon my return with my raccoon-eyed child (teens make noise that intrigues and keeps five year olds up way past bedtime), Rob assures me that we will never have company over the holidays ever again and while I am being mollified, his sister calls to let him know her car has died. The night she arrived, she told us that the vehicle had been leaking anti-freeze for some time but she just took care of this by constantly refilling it. So, the anti-freeze was gone and the car wouldn’t start. Rob bundled up and went to fetch them and tow the car back. It was 8:30 by the time we had supper. Katy was beyond tired and nephew and niece were still wearing the stunned looks that I imagine overtook them when they realized that coercing their mom to take them home before the weekend wasn’t in the cards anymore.
My sister-in-law has taken to her bed. Our guest bed. I haven’t seen her at all. Rob says she does this.
It was easy to deal with widows who refused to help themselves when they were on the other side of the ethernet. I hit the ignore button. Now I have one in my basement. God help me.
