young widowhood

Back from Vacation


 

I am back from vacation as promised. I didn’t really go anywhere nor did I do much by way of organizing or creating a system for order in my life as I thought I would. Basically, I just took a week off. Which is okay. A person needs to do that every now and then. It’s not like blogging is a real job though I must admit I enjoy it more than any real job I have ever had and put more time and thought into it than Idid my last months teaching. Truthfully, I did accomplish quite a bit. My daughter is registered for kindergarten, ballet and is fully supplied, outfitted and raring to go. I tackled the immigration paperwork and have just the medical exam, photo id’s and photographic evidence of the “genuine” nature of my marriage to complete/collect. And in case you were taken aback by the “photographic evidence” part, let me assure you that while it is tempting to take the Canadian immigration authorities literally, I am not. The pictures are a collection of shots, some of which are here on this site, that simply depict our wedding, trips we have taken, and those ordinary celebrations and events in our lives that we all have.

 

We decided on a vehicle. The Chevy Equinox. Rob’s daughters didn’t exactly laugh at our choice but they did insinuate that it was a lame, middle-aged one. That’s okay too. I am middle-aged. In my mind this puts me beyond the need to be cool. I am above it, as I would tell my students. Most of the choices I make anymore are weighed from a viewpoint that puts little stock in being trendy and doesn’t see measuring myself against others as productive or healthy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We celebrated Rob’s birthday. Katy and I threw him a little party complete with decorations and cake, and then later that evening Rob and I met the older girls for dinner in the city. We went to a new place. Tiny and, I guess, chic. The food was excellent and like most little hole in the wall places, the portions were not American-sized but rather took into account what a normal person can realistically fit into their tummies. While we were waiting for the girls to arrive, I noticed a couple just across from us who were obviously waiting for additional dining companions too. They were younger than Rob and I, maybe in their early thirties. Married because I noticed rings. And sitting next to each other with their backs to the wall as though they were two strangers waiting in a doctor’s office. Not touching, Not talking or even appearing to notice the other, but lost in some far away thoughts. I wondered how long they had been married and why she looked so angry and he seemed resigned. It was interesting to me. Rob’s hand was on my knee and our legs were touching from hip to knee, and even though we were both looking at the menu, I was fully aware of him and the look on his face indicated that his thoughts were about as far away as the menu on the table.

 

What else? We watched DVD’s. ElizabethTown and American Dreamz and kept the streak of movies with death as a theme or reality alive for another week. Rob made more progress on the back 

landing. We may actually have the new doors

 in soon. And, I got my hair done. Went to a

 salon/spa recommended by a new friend. The

 stylist was good but like most people here 

when they find out I am from the states, he 

had questions. His were political and I wonder 

what happens to Americans abroad when they 

are asked about our country’s politics and they 

haven’t any answer because the majority of my

 fellow Americans don’t think much beyond the 

sound bites they are fed. 

 

All in all it was a pretty good vacation, but it’s nice to get back to writing. Not that I didn’t write. I finished my first short story. It’s a tiny science fictionish piece that I started a couple of months ago. It still needs tweaking, but I have close to 3,000 words and I got a thumbs up from Jordan, so I am pretty proud of myself. I am like most writers in that I need to be read in order to be happy. I am not the Emily Dickinson type who writes only for herself. I am shameless in my need to be read.

 

So, back day early and hopefully still having an audience. 

 

Things That Matter


 

Oprah’s column for September is worth a read, even if you can’t stand the woman. Personally, I think there is a lot of admire about her despite the fact that she has probably passed the point where she has any reality check contacts in her world view. In her column she uses the old stand-by of mountain climbing as a metaphor for life. There are reasons that things become cliches and that isn’t just to annoy us. These chestnuts exist because they are quite apt. I don’t have a mountain in Hawaii to ruminate upon but  my kitchen table serves reasonably well most days when I am pondering my life and writing about things. Oprah made a list of five observations that resulted from her backyard hike that I feel are worth reflection:

 

1. Challenges are often more difficult than they seem at the outset.

And sometimes, they are not.

 

2. An ascent that at first looks smooth turns out to have unseen dips             and ridges and valleys.

 

Murphy’s Law will usually hold true here, but the unforeseen can be the best part of any journey if you hold the panic to a minimum and really think about it.

 

3. The higher you climb, the thicker the weeds.

 

And weeds don’t pull themselves. They can take the shape of preconceived notions about yourself or negative people who have some personal need to see you fail. Point is that you will run across them and the closer you are to the top, the more of them there will seem to be.

 

4. You need a clear vision of where you’re going if you want to avoid getting disoriented by the clouds that roll in and block your view.

 

True, and to a seat of the pants Sagittarian this can be tough. This when it is good to know an earth sign or two.

 

5. You have to be determined to make it to the top. Otherwise every slip, stumble, and fall (all of which happened to me today, within that first hour) will give you an excuse to turn around and head home.

 

Yes, it is all too easy to find or make up excuses for not being where you want to be. You have to want it. You need to be hungry. Only people who don’t need to win the lottery, or would be better off in the long run if they didn’t, pick those winning numbers. The rest of us have to work for what we want, and work is exactly that though interestingly it never appears to be so to those who prefer the excuse route.

 

Finally, I would add that you need to remember that mountain climbing should be a little bit of fun at least. Views should be admired whenever possible and shared with those who mean the most.

Adults Behaving Badly – on the Internet


In the Edmonton Journal Friday there was an article about government agencies, political groups and corporations that have been tampering with information they find objectionable on the Wikipedia site. Apparently Wikipedia has a program created by Virgil Griffiths, an Alabama-born Cal Tech grad student, that allows the site to track those who come there to add or edit the various articles there. Among the addresses associated with tampering with/deleting information Wikipedia discovered isp’s belonging to the CIA, the National Democratic Party, the Church of Scientology, a voting machine supplier named Diebold and the Vatican. Persons using these particular addresses were deleting or changing information that might be seen as unfavorable to their organization, or in the case of the CIA, simply vandalizing entries. I would like to say I am shocked to hear that the Democratic congressional Campaign Committee had added information to the entry on Rush Limbaugh calling him an “idiot”, a “racist” and a “bigot” or that the reference to his listeners as being “legally retarded” was a mistake, but I’m not. Anonymity brings out unacceptable and even herd mentality in the most mature adults when it comes to message boards or any public internet space where people are allowed, encouraged even, to voice their opinions and views. I was recently reading an article on MSNBC about immigration and clicked on the chat option to see what other readers were thinking about what they had read and was again not particularly surprised to learn that most of them were thinking that a previous poster in the conversation was a complete moron or worse.

 

Back in the day when I was watching soap operas I would frequent the ABC boards in hopes of picking up spoilers on different story-lines or characters but instead often ran across vehement and vicious arguments between regular posters over some of the most banal topics which is quite a feat when the topic to begin with is a soap opera. Name calling and character assassination was the norm and the idea of a civilized debate or even agreeing to disagree was considered foreign if not completely absurd. It’s interesting to me how easily we can dehumanize the being on the other side of the broadband and convince ourselves that they are not entitled to the same type of polite deference that would apply in a room full of people having the exact same conversation. Though I know that there are people whom face to face interaction is no deterrent, and who would think nothing of arguing and belittling those who disagreed with them or questioned their behavior, most people are not of that nature and yet are just as easily sucked in to the most appalling confrontations once they are seated at a keyboard. I guess it is no different than email which, if I am to believe the authors of the new book on email etiquette, is also a means of behaving like high schoolers in a clique war.

 

It shouldn’t surprise anyone. The internet has made it possible for vast numbers of diverse populations to gather and share information, form relationships and bridge the geographical obstacles that keep us from being the one rather gigantic community that we make up as members of the human race. The tipping point for a manageable community is about 150 people. Past that loyalty limits are exceeded and tension and strife set in. Many internet communities, certainly Wikipedia, exceed that by many times. Perhaps it is truly our nature to be aggressive and adversarial like animals who mark and guard their territories. Or maybe, we are just egocentric beings who only interact peaceably in the face of external pressures that society creates for us and the internet is still the cyber equivalent of the wilds, the last untamed frontier. Ultimately it really doesn’t matter why, but it is certainly disheartening and not in the least surprising which might be the most depressing thing of all.