Category: fall

Wow, a lot to be sad about these days

In short order, we’ve lot a lot of great voices.

As noted yesterday, Jerry Reed passed.

Also over the long weekend, Don LaFontaine passed away at the age of 68. LaFontaine was that great deep voice you’d hear in most movie trailers, “In a world…”

He was also featured in a Geico ad recently, which always gave me a chuckle.

And now today’s ABQjournal reports that Harold Gans has died at the age of 85. Gans was the moaning, groaning voice of Zozobra for over forty years (retiring from the gig in ’94), missing his turn at the mike only once, due to a heart attack in ’82.

This year’s burning of Zozobra will honor him.

That’s a lot of feeling speechless in just a few days.

I’ll keep my keening about the fact that Zozobra is already right around the corner to myself. : whimper :

Memories, dancing demons and lost fragments of thoughts

There’s a lot going on in my head. None of it related to work. But here I sit at my pressed wood cubicle shelf desk-like device absorbing EMF’s from my monitor…and pondering.

If I tip my head up a bit, I can look over the top of my monitor and see the actual outside.

Here it is:

That photo doesn’t tell the tale. There is an oppressive haze hanging over tree tops.

I say haze, it’s really smoke. The heavy winds have brought a taste of the fires up this way.

Taste, as in literally. If you go outside your eyes and nose sting and you get that campfire flavor in the back of your throat.

It was weird, when I arrived at work this morning, I opened my car door and took in the first inhale of this dirty air, you know what it reminded me of?

New Mexico.

Yeah. Odd huh? But for the people who live(d) there, you’ll be able to relate.

You know how when the first cold of fall sets in and people start using their fireplaces and wood burning stoves? The smell of burning cedar and piñon is distinctive. You can taste it. The cold crisp to the air and that smell permeates.

So odd, that the smell of burning forest made me homesick.

I’m reading “Curse of the Chupacabra” by Rudolfo Anaya right now. Last night as I was reading, the main character was back home in Santa Fe and talking about being outside and smelling that distinct wood smoke.

Must have been in my brain then, this morning.

Me and Rudolofo, same page today.

That’s the magic of a really good author. You and he are there together, touching across space and time in that moment you read the words. You find a common ground. Anaya is one of my favorite authors, so that synchronicity is cool.

Inspired by something really tough, a raging fire.

Memorial Weekend lies ahead. Memories. I know this weekend is about remembering military veterans, and I do.

Maybe it’s also about airing out old memories of all sorts. Spring cleaning for the closets of the soul.

Been thinking a lot about old things. Old hurts. Old scars.

The woo-woo minded among us would suggest that this is due to Mercury going retrograde on Monday.

I’d say it’s because I’m the kind of girl who likes to shake up her thoughts like specks in a snow globe just to see where they land.

The Good Man said I might be entering the water hazard known as “middle life crisis”.

Whatever.

Either way, I’m thoughtful.

Ah well, off to a holiday weekend. Three days off sounds like a little slice of heaven to me today.

To all, Happy Memorial Day. Enjoy the weekend, be safe and remember those you love!

Giving Thanks

Yep, I will join in with many of my fellow bloated-tum bloggers and give thanks for the bounty that was in my home yesterday. I have much to be thankful for. I actually try to get some gratitude in my day every day, but this feasting holiday is always a good time to go over the list again.

I had something of a rough upbringing and holidays were always a touchy topic. My dad didn’t see why my mom had to go through the bother and expense of buying up a bunch of presents and hassling with a tree and all of that. Birthdays were just another reason to spend too much money. But Thanksgiving, an eatin’ holiday, that was one my dad could get behind. Plus, his birthday was right around T’giving (and sometimes on the day) and he’d get an apple pie made just for him, so I guess that was a’okay in his book.

When I moved to California ten years ago, it was as much about getting away from the oppression as making a new start. I’m glad I did it, made my own life on my own terms. But that comes at a cost. For as much as my family makes me crazy, I love them. A lot. Probably more than they deserve. Anyhow, since I moved away, I rarely go back for the holidays, so that makes me a bit of an orphan this time of year. (Which, honestly, is probably better for all involved.)

So enter The Cute Boy™ into my life. This is good. I have a “date” on holidays. And what’s weirder, his parents live here. Close by. And even odder, he gets along with them. I mean, they have a healthy relationship. What the &^%$ is that!?!? Needless to say I both envy and admire the way he and his folks get along.

In the past several years for Thanksgiving I’ve gone to visit my sister who lives in Seattle. She’s the only family I’ll claim (and I’m the only one she claims). She has twin boys and they are adorable and a complete pain in the arse. But it’s been great. This year, The Cute Boy™ asked if we could spend Thanksgiving together since in the past years we’d gone separate directions for the holiday. At first, it pained me, a lot. I yearned to see my sister and brother-in-law (who I adore and is more family than my actual brother) and my twin nephews who light up my world. I was mad, pouty, pain in the ass about it until I “got over it” and got into having the holiday in my home. Hadn’t done that in a while.

So today, in my post feast hangover, I’m thankful that The Cute Boy™ is so wise. He was right. And look at me publicly acknowledging it! It was right for us to spend the holiday in this home we are making together.

Mother of The Cute Boy™ came over. We had big eats. We all cooked together in a companionable way. We ate together with big bites and laughter. It was easy. And comfortable. And no one yelled at anyone. And everyone had a nice time. And it was a holiday in which I felt (somewhat) part of “family”, and didn’t come out of “family” time with excruciatingly lowered self-esteem.

Even the feline had a nice time. She horked down a bunch of turkey and some wet food (a special treat for the holiday) and then sacked out on the couch like she was comatose, paws up.

And so today I’m thankful that family doesn’t always mean pain. It can mean peace.

I’m also thankful that when I spoke to my mom on Wednesday she was in good spirits. The holidays are tough for her since my dad passed, but her outlook is good. She planned to cook a small turkey and have my aunt and uncle over. My sister and her family are fine. My brother and his family as well. Everyone is fine.

I have a good life. I’m thankful for the blessings that are in it. Despite all my complaints and whinging about things (it’s just my way) I really am blessed.

And it’s just more proof that family isn’t what you are born with, it is what you make it. I have a rag tag bunch that I call family, but they are mine, and for each and every one, I give thanks.

Belated Dia de los Muertos

Yes, I know it passed me by last week. I usually at least TRY to think of those who have passed on, but didn’t. See, November 2 marks the anniversary of the day The Cute Boy™ and I met. And it’s a day so filled with joy and happiness that it’s hard to be sorrowful.

Yet, feeling that sorrow every year is important. Circle of life, no joy without pain and all that.

I was too caught up in NaNoWriMo and celebrating love that I forgot to think about death. Not so bad a trade off, I suppose, in the long run.

My NaNoWriMo progress limps along. I wrote nary a word for the first four days (yikes) and am now some 8,000 words off the pace. But I calculated 50,000 words over 25 days and that’s 2,000 words a day. Still do-able. I’ve got 1500 so far today, so progress has (finally!) begun.

But back to those muertos.

Today I remember the lives of those I’ve lost. All four of my grandparents, my father, and my best friend from high school. Of them, my high school friend is the one I can say truly didn’t get a chance to live her life. My grandparents and my father lived good long lives, saw their children into adulthood and were ok when the time came to pass. The loss of my friend still gives me pain. She was too young. Such is the nature of life.

But here, when the veil between our world and theirs is thinner, easier to access, I think of those I’ve lost with a heart full of love.

I remember.

*cramp* Oh the pain!

So. Today is November 1. Yep. First of November.

What does that mean?

The start of National Novel Writing Month.

Yeppers. Fifty THOUSAND words. Thirty days.

I’ve done it twice now, in 2004 and in 2006. Made it across the finish line both times.

So. I’m trying it again this year.

Worried.

Don’t have the focus. Don’t have that pinpoint freak out, holy-crap-nothing-will-stand-in-my-way-to-get-this-done kind of laser beam lock on. The two years I succeeded, I was sharp, on top of it, wrote plenty of words on day one to launch me into it.

It’s almost noon. Nary a word. Hoo boy. This might be a tough year.

No shame in not making it, really. But my Type A overachiever is YELLING at me inside my brain.

Oy.

Like I needed to add stress to this wacked out life!

So, pull for me. Send me the gods of the written word. Despite the crampy writer’s block I’m suffering, I’m jumping in!