Random rants and raves

   Oscar night is finally here! I'm jazzed and bummed at the same time. Jazzed to see all the fashion -- in fact I'm missing the E! channel's Countdown to the Red Carpet right now -- and find out who wins the Oscars. Bummed that this is the last red carpet event of the season. What the hell can I look forward to now to get me through the rest of this never-ending winter?! I'm also bummed that it's the first red carpet since my bestie moved to Virginia. We love watching the red carpet together, having a cocktail (or three), dishing on who looks fabulous as well as hideous, and maybe even watching a bit of the awards show itself. But not tonight. Tonight I'll be watching solo. Rather than letting a bummed mood spoil my red carpet fun, I am going to make it an event just for me, dress up in something other than sweats, and instead of a cocktail I'll have a big glass of wine. Cheers, Bestie, I know you'll be here with me in spirit!

    I am hooked on "Royals" by Lorde, the tune that won the Grammy for 2014 song of the year. In a time when every pop song on the radio has the same artificial techno sound, the lyrics have no heart, and the chick singers all whine like they are 15-year olds from New Jersey, this song made me turn it up and listen instead of change the channel. I was mesmerized, like when I first heard Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" (and still love it!), and I've wanted to hear "Royals" over and over. For being only sixteen years old, this Lorde gal has a unique, soulful voice that actually brings heart and deeper meaning to the song. I hope the music industry that wants everyone to be the same doesn't ruin her good thing. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVB6np4qwG0 

   I'm tickled that today's big storm wasn't as bad (so far at least!) as predicted, but I am damn sick of this winter. Enough already. Please Mother Nature, bring on spring and give us a break!

   Time to get red carpet ready and fire up the E! channel. If you want to dish about the Oscar fashions or "Royals," chat me up!!  

What A Difference A Mantra Makes

   2013 may have been the Chinese year of the snake, but it was the Roni year of the black funk, aka depression. I will admit I am prone to being overly anxious and a "negative Nellie" anyway, but through the entire damn year nothing turned out the way I wanted. Nothing happened with my writing -- no fame, no fortune (hey, a writer gal has to dream a little to keep her writer mojo going), barely even any readers. My numbers didn't come up on the MegaMillions jackpot. My over-fifty body started sagging like a building about to implode, and my allergies tortured me regardless of the season. The closest this beach babe came to the beach all year was Biloxi, MS, which isn't a beach at all in my book. Even my new salon job, which I was hoping would turn my life around, had worn me slick by the time the holidays were over. I am not superstitious, but 2013 felt cursed to me. Then when 2014 started off looking just as black, and all I could see on the horizon was more fucuckta circumstances to keep me funked up -- i.e. my bestie moving clear across the country, plus more snow and arctic temperatures on the way to continue the Polar Vortex (un)fun we had all December -- I decided it was time for a fresh start. If I couldn't change my life, then by golly I could change my attitude about my life. And voila, my new mantras were born!

Mantra #1: I DO NOT CARE

   I'll give you some background here on where the mantras came from so you won't think I'm trying to act brilliant. Brilliant I am not, but I am smart enough to steal great lines from movies and morph them into mantras. This first one came from "Remember the Titans," an awesome movie I've seen a zillion times, when the white coach's football-crazy daughter Sheryl (played to perfection by a very young Hayden Panettiere) is droning on about the strength of certain players on their team and Nicky, the black football coach's daughter who couldn't care less about football, looks Sheryl in the eye and enunciates crystal clearly: "I do not care." As in, end of discussion. As in, back the "freak" off. That shuts Sheryl up without another word. I've loved that line since the first time I heard it -- the boldness, the fierceness of her conviction -- so I stole it. 
   Now I don't go around lighting incense and chanting "I do not care" all day. That isn't how my mantras work. But I do say the words in my head -- and sometimes even out loud when no one is listening -- when I need them as a shield to ward off things that threaten to annoy me, make me anxious, or worse yet piss me off. Things like the weather forecast, my bestie moving 1100 miles away, finding out my MegaMillions numbers didn't win AGAIN, or having to wait in the cattle call of poor folks like me to have VITA do my taxes for free -- things that in the past would have opened the door for the black funk to grab hold of me -- are vaporized by my IDNC mantra. How it works I really don't know, but it IS working. DMan even mentioned that I seem more at ease lately and don't go crazy and scream at the TV anymore when the forecast calls for snow or freezing temps.
   Don't think that my mantra has made me heartless, though, especially about things like my bestie leaving me. I miss her like crazy! But when I say to myself "I do not care," I mean that I am not going to let the hole her leaving has left in my life swamp me into the depths of the black funk. Instead, I am going to focus on the fact that her new life in Virginia is about making HER dreams come true and let it be a good thing. For both of us. Somehow.

Mantra #2:  No Day But Today
   
   This mantra came from lyrics from "Rent," the extraordinary play by Jonathan Larson, who died suddenly the day before the show's first off-Broadway preview performance, that was later turned into a movie. If you haven't seen it, please do. The music is some of the most powerful, moving, and life-affirming you will ever hear. And listening to the lyrics after knowing that Larson died without any warning before realizing the culmination of years of work on his dream piece, it truly hits home that there is no day but today.
   I come from a family whose motto is "prior planning prevents piss poor performance," so the here and now, but especially the future, has always been a source of trepidation for me. How can I plan for any contingency I might face? What more can I do to prepare, to insure I am in control of whatever I might face? Combine that mindset with being a first-born, type-A personality, perfectionist with great expectations and it is no wonder that contemplating the future, which was always foremost in my thoughts, was a source of dread and gut-clenching angst. So the "No day but today" mantra is my shield against worries about the future ruining my today, my reminder to relish the right now and forget about the tomorrow that I can't control anyway.

   These mantras may seem like no-brainers that shouldn't require repeating in my head just to get me through my day, but honestly, they have been life-savers. Literally. Before I often thought about dying. Not about wanting to "kill myself," just that death would be a relief from the black funks that clouded most of my life. But now my mantra reminds me that if "I do not care" then nothing can get to me. Unless I let it and I choose not to let it. Now my mantra reminds me to pay attention to "No day but today" so I am able to enjoy the little joys that flow through the day instead of squandering them by trying to plan for and control tomorrow. My mantras may be simple and stupid, but they've gotten me through nearly two months of 2014 without a black funk in sight. They feel like miracle mantras, and I'm sticking with them.
   If you've got a mantra or some other tool you use to help you get through your funks, I'd love to hear about it. It may help me, it may help someone else. Feel free to use mine if it suits you as well.   

"I Do Not Care" scene link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrUMn6RS2Uk 

"No Day But Today" link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnOO7vy6DD4

My WalkFit Nightmare!

   If you are sitting on the couch late at night clicking through channels, thinking about how much your feet hurt from being on them all day, have a credit card handy, and stumble onto an infomercial for WalkFit Platinum Orthotics, CHANGE THE CHANNEL PRONTO before you get sucked into an automated-ordering-system nightmare like I did!!
   It went like this. I wore brand new blingy, bejeweled sandals to work with my Halloween costume, which caused my feet to hurt like the dickens by the end of the day. So my tootsies are propped on the coffee table, lubed up with Mentholatum Rub in comfy socks in order to find some relief, and I click on a program called "Oh, my aching feet" or something like that. Right there on the screen, straight from the Mall of America with a crowd of enthusiastic fans, is a real doctor telling me I can have immediate relief from foot pain -- as well as ankle, knee, hip and back pain! -- if I would only order a pair of WalkFit Platinum Orthotics. Plus, if I order in the next 20 minutes, I will get a bottle of soothing peppermint foot lotion, a sandal adaptor kit, and a plush pair of Memory Foam slippers for FREE! My feet screamed out, "Get your phone and credit card," so I did.
   Big freakin' mistake!! What ensued was 30 minutes worth of aggravation stuck in the neverending-robo-ordering-loop-from-hell! At first, the recorded lady, I'll call her Robo-bitch, was pleasant and accommodating. She asked me to say "yes" or press 1 to confirm everything I entered into the phone or wanted. How kind of her. Then when she asked for my shoe size for the WalkFit orthotic, I said, "eight-and-a-half," but she repeated "eight." Um, no, I didn't say "eight." She didn't ask for confirmation or wait for me, though, she just barreled into her next spiel about all my "free" gifts if only I will pay for additional shipping and handling. When she got to the part about my free slippers, I was so pissed off that I didn't hear what shoe sizes corresponded to their small, medium or large options. I asked her to repeat, she wouldn't. I asked her again to repeat the sizes, she ignored me and there went my slippers straight into the cyber-suck zone! At first, I am pleasant and calmly say, "Customer service, please." Robo-bitch won't stop talking. I start pressing zero, the universal code for "customer service, please," but she only speeds up her non-stop tirade of additional "free" offers of Glucosamine (a 30-day supply, then only $19.95/month automatically billed to my credit card after that), $50 Visa-shopping card (if only I'll try their store-coupon program "that will save me tons of money on valuable items for only a $29.95/month automatically billed charge"), and I don't know what all else she was offering me because by that time I was screaming "DECLINE" into the phone and pushing any button that my spastically twitching fingers could find. The more I screamed and hit the buttons, the faster Robo-bitch talked. When she finally said, "Your order will ship in 7 to 10 days, thank you for choosing WalkFit," I was hoarse and shaking so from frustration that I had to slam some wine with my allergy pills to get to sleep. Thank God, the nightmare was finally over!
   But wait, the nightmare was far from over. Yesterday I got to spend 20 WalkFit-fun-filled minutes trying to cancel my order with Sam, the customer service lady, and Joey, her supervisor. They were actual people but no less aggravating than Robo-bitch because they barely spoke English except to say, "We regret that your order cannot be canceled because the automated transaction has already been processed." They repeated this over and over until I finally gave up. At least they did assure me that my WalkFit Platinum Orthotic in size eight will fit my size eight-and-a-half feet and they added on the free slippers in a small -- for only $7.95 additional shipping and handling. Of course. So I'm getting a pair of orthotics. And, I get to endure the phenomenally frustrating WalkFit customer service system again on Monday when I have to call back in order to get the $7.95 refunded on my credit card as compensation for my "unfortunate experience."
   I just hope wearing the orthotic hurts less than ordering it did!
          

Free at last . . .

. .. .. free at last, thank God Almighty, I be free at last!! Sister S was released from the hospital last night, and my niece went home. Finally, after 12 days! Of course, it took nearly four hours to get her discharged and loaded up in my car (thank God Almighty as well for the buff cutie Nurse Aide Brandon who somehow finagled my sister cross-ways in the back seat of my dinky Cavalier!); get her out of my car and into her house using a walker because she can't put any weight on her metal-plate-fortified broken leg; remove her toilet seat and install a commode chair (I never thought I'd need to know how to do that!); and load up and deliver all of my niece's clothes, accessories, and left-over groceries to her home, plus the assorted errands my sister needed done. When I got home to MY quiet house, sans teenager, I was too exhausted to do more than scarf down a Sonic burger (I felt I should have some sort of splurgey treat to celebrate!) with a petite glass of wine and fall into bed.
   The ordeal isn't over. Since Sister S is without a car and probably couldn't drive anyway with her leg held straight-as-a-board in a heavy brace, I will be called upon to tote her to multiple follow-up doctor appointments, get groceries, and run miscellaneous errands. I'm okay with that. At least my life feels like my own now when I come home, and that's the way I like it.
   With all that's happened, I have a greater appreciation for caregivers in general and mothers in particular. How they can manage having no life of their own and no privacy, being run ragged with endless grocery-buying and errand-doing and back-and-forthing to school and activities, plus keeping up with laundry and cooking and cleaning -- and not go bat crap crazy -- I do not know. But I applaud you, Mothers Everywhere! You are severely overworked and under-appreciated!! I also have a renewed gratitude for the services of Planned Parenthood and plan to stay on birth control pills until my Social Security kicks in just to be safe!
   Thanks for the prayers and well-wishes, Readers! 
      

. . . and it continues!

   We survived week one and are into week two of "surrogate mama" Roni. This "sh*t happens" situation hasn't been easy for any of us, but we're making it work. 
   My niece and I have fallen into a routine: I get up at 5 a.m. (UGH!) to get ready for work; at 6 I wake her up, wake her up, wake her up until she finally rolls out of bed, gets dressed, and slurps down some cereal while watching TV; then I get her to school by 7:30 so I can get myself to work by 8. She walks to her house after school and I pick her up there after I finish work at 4 p.m., she gathers clothes for the next day, then I drop her off at the hospital for a visit with her mom until 6:30. The rest of the evening we do our own thing -- she watches "The Voice" or some other teenager-type program in the sitting room and munches "her food" (how she can exist on baloney, cottage cheese, pickles, and Reese's Puffs cereal, I do not know!) while I sip wine (for purely medicinal purposes, it's much cheaper than Prozac!) in the living room and veg out on "Big Bang Theory" or read. DMan has been a gem through all of this, cooking us hot dogs and home fries one night when he was off work so we could eat as a "family," even picking up my niece one day after school when I had a doctor's appointment.
   My family has also stepped up to help out. This weekend my sister K kept my niece so DMan and I could take a road trip to some wineries that we had planned a long time ago. Man, did we need a break! And I'm sure my niece enjoyed the break from me. Sister K has three boys, so she knows a lot more about kids than I do. They made jewelry together, watched scary movies and had pizza night, so my niece really enjoyed her weekend too. Even though my parents and Sister S (with the broken leg) still aren't speaking, they have provided a walker and commode chair for when Sister S can go home.
   Speaking of going home, we had a major scare last week. Mercy Hospital was going to send her home with NO corrective surgery and that evil looking rod-and-screw contraption on her leg. Their thinking was the swelling needed to go down before the trauma team could operate. What a nightmare that would have been, her trying to take care of herself and my niece when she couldn't even move around. Mercy eventually came to their senses and kept her in the hospital (I'm guessing they feared the liability of sending someone home with no insurance or job or means to get follow-up care, but regardless, I'm thankful they didn't make a bad situation even worse), but days went by and nothing happened. Then she was supposed to have surgery last Friday, but the trauma team had emergencies come in overnight and she got bumped. Finally, she had the corrective surgery yesterday, which entailed putting a plate on her tibia and repairing the knee cap as best as they could. Now her leg is bandage-wrapped and in a brace that's even heavier than the rod contraption, complete with drainage tube and measuring container (EEW!). Someone from the trauma team is "supposed" to come by tomorrow (so far nothing the trauma team said they would do has happened when they said it would) to take off the bandages and check her progress. Then we'll know more about when Sister S can go home, my niece can get back to her normal teenage life, and I can get back to my hopefully-less-crazy one.

Sh*t Happens!

   Believe me, sh*t happens. Just when you are coasting along, thinking life is going pretty good -- K E R B A M -- everything changes in a nanosecond and you might not even recognize your own life on the other side.
   I started a new job last week, which was stressful even though I love it. Then my low back locked up on me on my first day, which got progressively worse as the week wore on. I finally broke down and got a chiropractic adjustment on Friday, which gave some relief, so I was really looking forward to a relaxing, be-good-to-myself weekend, the first weekend I didn't have to work in forever. The plan was to help out at Aids Walk Saturday morning -- I love volunteering at Aids Walk, such a fun crowd and everyone brings their dogs in costumes! -- then come home to a quiet house and nap as long as my heart desired since my sweetie DMan was golfing. My intention for the rest of the weekend was to read, chillax as much as possible, sip some wine, maybe have some romantic time with DMan, and do nothing more stressful than take my bestie to the airport on Sunday morning. Perfect! Until BAM, my phone rings on the way to Aids Walk and I find out my sister (I'll call her Sister S) fell and broke her leg/knee during the night and has to have emergency surgery. AND, that my 13-year old niece has been alone with Sister S (her mom) all night at the hospital. This is bad. This is very bad.
   Let me give you a bit of background here. Sister S is a single mom and has recently lost her job and her car. Besides having my niece, whose father is nowhere to be found and who has multiple other kids in multiple other states that he also provides no support for, my sister has an 18-year old hooligan son that has been in trouble with the law and stays with her when he needs a place to crash but the rest of the time runs with a bad (and scary!) crowd. Plus, my family is a mess. If you've seen the cartoon that says, "My family puts the 'fun' in dysfunctional," well, MY family sucks the fun right out of dysfunctional! And there's been very recent ugliness between our parents and Sister S, so much so that they aren't even talking. See what I mean? This is very bad.
   So my wonderful weekend turned into back and forths to the hospital (which I loathe hospitals!) and Sister S's house to pick up necessities, hanging with my niece and trying to convince her that her mother falling was not her fault, and trying to prepare my un-kid-friendly world to have a teenager living in it. I've never had kids, never wanted them. I don't "do" kids, and now I've got one living in my guest room. There was nowhere else for her to go. She's a sweetie, don't get me wrong, and I am enjoying spending time with her which we rarely get to do, but it just feels weird having someone besides DMan and me living here. Even though I've been exhausted the past two nights, after I go to bed I lie there listening for every odd noise and wonder what the hell she is up to since she's a teenage night owl and not an old fart like me that likes to get 8-hours-plus of sleep. And even though she is family, I feel stressed at having to take care of someone besides myself, especially since I have no clue how to do it.
   But, so far, we're making it work. I've now got the fridge stocked with some food that my picky-eater niece will eat, that's a start. She is digging all the channels we get on U-verse, so she's not bored out of her mind. I got her up and delivered to school on time this morning with no crisis or drama. Plus DMan has been extra thoughtful and wonderful about the whole thing, and he and my niece are getting to know each other. And, my new job schedule will allow me to take her and pick her up from school -- something that would have been impossible with my old library job -- for as long as this "sh*t happens" situation lasts. So far Sister S has had one surgery, leaving pins and rods poking out of her leg to stabilize the three breaks in the tibia and the break in her knee cap. The trauma team is coming today to schedule the corrective surgery, then we'll know more about how long we'll be a threesome and my life will be crrr-azy.
   The moral of this story is: Pay attention and truly savor those life-is-good coasting moments because SH*T WILL HAPPEN when you least expect it.            

My First

   I'm sitting at the computer contemplating yet again deleting my Facebook account, sick to death of seeing nothing but Pinterest quotes and "yummy" recipes and "suggested pages" trying to sell me something, when a Facebook miracle occurred: I received a friend request from my very first love. At first the name didn't click in my brain and I nearly deleted it, thinking it was one of those phishing requests where next comes a weirdly worded message like "I respectably asking to communicate friendship with me." You know the ones. Then I looked at the name again. My breathing stopped. Could it really be him after all these years? I clicked on the request and saw his picture. No doubt, it was him! Older, more gray hair than black now, but in his face I could definitely see glimpses of the sexiest guy in my world when I was 14. If there had been a "HELL YES!" button I would have clicked on it, but "confirm friend request" would have to do.
   Let me set the scene for you. 1976. My family had moved to Maryland, where my Army dad got transferred. We lived in Aberdeen in civilian housing for three months, then moved into post housing on Aberdeen Proving Grounds. I didn't know anyone there, and the three girls my age that lived nearby were a tight clique, not welcoming to an outsider. Then by some stroke of luck, the group had a falling out and the coolest one of all, Sherri, became my friend. Eventually my best friend -- we were inseparable! She had two younger sisters the same ages as two of my sisters, so we all hung around together. AND, she had an older brother, Brian, that I fell madly in love with. He was the dreamiest -- six feet tall; muscular and lean; long, dark hair that fell over his eyes and gave him a sultry, bad boy look; a thin black mustache that grazed his luscious top lip; smoldering dark eyes, almost black, that were too intense to stare at for long -- like my very own David Cassidy in the flesh.
   Whether he knew it or not, Brian was involved in several of my firsts. On the occasion of my first drunk, when our friend Patty's parents were out of town and a bunch of us raided their liquor cabinet, he was my first drunk dial. While my intention was to use my buzzed bravado to call him up, explain my feelings, and ask how he felt about me, it came out: "I love you, I love you, I love" probably a hundred times, then I hung up and cried because I felt so stupid. I never mentioned the call to Brian, so maybe (hopefully!) he never knew it was me, but recalling that humiliation has probably saved me from many more drunk dials over the years.
   He took me to my first boy-girl dance. I was in ninth grade, he was in tenth, but God, he seemed so much like a man! My aunt Peg loaned me a long red dress -- one she had made herself and I'm sure looked great on her petite frame but was high-water on me -- to wear with my black platform shoes. I probably looked hideous, but Brian made me feel beautiful, pinning a corsage on me, holding my hand. The only thing I really remember about our date is we slow danced to Hall and Oates' "Sara Smile," and I wrapped my arms around his narrow waist and pressed my face tight against his chest like I'd seen in the movies, not even caring that my corsage was getting crushed. He smelled so damn good, and his big hands touching my back made me hot in a way that had nothing to do with dancing. I never wanted that dance to end! Even now, just hearing the opening notes of the song sends my body swaying and reliving that dance all over again. When it did end, he kissed me. Soft, slow, with those melty hot lips and the barest tickle from his mustache. My first kiss from my first love -- does it ever get any better than that?! Nope, not the way I remember it anyway.  
   I was crazy for that guy! I even got grounded to my bedroom for a whole week for having a pack of Brian's Marlboro Reds jutting out of the back pocket of my shorts so he wouldn't get caught with them. When Mom spotted them, I told her they weren't mine (no, I didn't tell her that my Kools were hidden in my panty drawer!), but I wouldn't rat him out when she wanted to know whose they were, so I did the punishment. That meant I couldn't see Sherri or Brian for a week -- which in the middle of summer feels like eternity to a 14-year old! -- but I was proud I took one for my man.
   Did he ever love me, or even think of me as anything other than an annoying tag-along friend of his sister? I don't know. We moved away in early 1977, and even though Sherri and I wrote letters for a while, we eventually lost touch. I kind of hope so, but it really doesn't matter. He was MY first love, still is, regardless of whether he loved me back. I've got tons of wonderful memories of him and Sherri and one of the best years of my life spent at APG. I've got a new Facebook friend and now a way to reconnect with my old best friend Sherri. And I'll always have "Sara Smile." In fact, I can hear it in my head right now and I'm smiling!