Category: family

Cheating my way to a daily blog post

Cranky. Oh so very cranky. Crakasaurus kind of cranky.

And so, may as well channel my snark for the good of my daily blog post goal.

Today I’m retreating to an old trick used before on this blog, a conversation with the Imagination Prompt Generator.

It spits out a thought provoking prompt. I reply with the first thing that comes to mind.

Herewith, no cheating, taking the prompts exactly as they show up.

IPG: What keeps me going?

Me: A finely balanced concoction of sugar, fat and salt (not necessarily in that order) combined with various quantities of coffee, beer and margaritas, (not necessarily in that order).

IPG: Generalizations are…

Me: Generally useful in a generic sort of way.

IPG: Define kindness.

Me: Refraining from ramming my automobile into the $#&*head who cut me off, and when I honked to notify him of the pending collision, flipped me off, then called me an unflattering name.

I did not sway into his lane. I did not nearly remove the driver’s side fender of HIS sh**ty work truck. I was minding my own business when he came swerving into me.

I could have retaliated when he pulled over and stopped at the mobile taco truck.

I refrained.

THAT is digging deep for kindness.

IPG: If your best friend was right here, what would you say?

Me: They built a new Sonic Drive-In twenty miles from here. Load up, I’ll drive.

IPG: Five books that changed your life are…

Me: Ooh, this is going to be a tough one.

Gonna go with:

Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn

Johathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

and

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

This is in no way a comprehensive list because so many books have changed my life.

If you were to ask me again tomorrow, the list might change. Also, I only picked fiction…there is a whole other list for non-fiction.

IPG: Describe a favorite childhood friend and something you did with her or him.

The visible ones? Juuuust kidding…sort of.

I’d have to say going to the rollerskating rink with my childhood best friend Kathy, wearing bell-bottom jeans and shaking it to the Bee Gees.

Kathy rocked. Wonder what she’s up to these days….

IPG: ____ was my favorite cartoon because…

Looney Tunes. Because they are all oh so very sarcastic.

That’s always appealed to me, ya big maroon!

If I had 15 minutes to evacuate my home before it was to be destroyed by a hurricane, what 10 things would I grab (not including people or pets)?

Oh geez. That presupposes that I have a presence of mind about these things. I imagine if someone said “15 minutes! Go!” I’d spend about fourteen and a half running around in circles howling and freaking out.

Assuming my husband and pets are safe and I have the luxury of grabbing stuff….

Hmm. Hard to say, really, as I don’t get bound up in material things.

The few things that matter most are my wedding ring and some of my folk’s old photo albums.

I’d say my camera gear, but honestly, that can be replaced. My clothes and shoes can also be replaced.

Maybe some vintage family items my mom gave me. And my backup drives with years of my writing stored safely.

Other than that….

Honestly, it is hard for me to come up with a solid 10 items off the top of my head. My family and my pets are everything and most of the rest is replaceable.

But this one has me thinking. A lot.

Maybe this is the question to end on. It’s at least distracted me from my oh so very grumpy state of mind.

Better get back to it.

As the poem goes, Thursdays child has far to go…..

With that, onward to the rest of the day!


https://cpsych.org.uk/z-pak-360/

New Additions to Our Family

So, out of nowhere about a month ago, I decided I wanted to get a new pet.

I’ve no idea where this impulse came from. It just did. Considering that we can’t have any more fuzzy pets in the rental place where we live, it became clear that I had to go small.

Like fish sized.

Hmm. Trouble is, the only fish I’ve ever owned in my life was a goldfish from the New Mexico State Fair.

That one lived quite a while, by the by.

So this quest required some research. I looked for a fish that was easy to get set up and easy to care for. The answer was simple, a betta.

I spent hours going through the pages on bettatalk.com and I learned a lot. I made lists. I fretted. I thought about it a lot. And then yesterday, the waiting was over.

The Good Man and I went to the pet store.

And we came home with not one but two new fish friends!

Without further ado, may I introduce you to:

Margaret The Fish

Margaret The Fish

She is actually The Good Man’s fish. When we set out on our journey, we were just going to get one fish. But once we got to the store, The Good Man was so charmed by this inquisitive little girl, she had to come home with us.

I’m charmed by her too, actually.

So heck, easy solution. We decided to get two fishes and let them live in their own tanks side-by-side.

It’s a good solution.

Margaret is a pretty little fish and she’s happy to have interaction and already recognizes us. She’s not eating a whole lot yet so we’re hoping she’s still just a little shocky from the move and will be feeling right soon.

So now that you’ve met Margaret…please meet:

Frank The Fish

Frank The Fish

So named because of his vibrant blue eyes. He has all of the looks and none of the charm of Sinatra.

As you can see in his photo, Frank is a bit of a stalker. He stares at Margaret.

A lot.

In a creepy mouth breathing way.

He’d totally send her inappropriate messages on Facebook if he was a human. Instead he just stares. A lot.

Margaret mostly ignores him.

So we’ve got them set up in their respective tanks and they are doing (*coff-coff*) swimmingly.

As for the existing member of our pet family….

Well, the word indignant comes to mind.

The feline is sort of not amused by these new items taking our attention.

Thankfully, she doesn’t try to attack them. She just watches, shrugs, and walks away.

I suppose all will settle down in the house soon.

And The Good Man and I are learning a lot about how to care for these new friends.

I never thought I’d be a fish person, but here I am, all enamored of my fish.

Tis a crazy, wonderful, mixed up life.

Voice from the past

So I’ve been lightly reading the kerfuffle and conversation surrounding the new Nike ad featured Tiger Woods, with an overlay of the voice of his father, Earl Woods, taken from an interview in 1994.

Here’s the ad, if you haven’t already seen it:

Of the ad, Tiger has said: “…I think any son who has lost a father and who meant so much in their life, I think they would understand the spot.”

Hmm.

I’m not a son, but I’ve lost a father and I have to say the ad makes me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure I do understand the spot.

While it might be “…very apropos. I think that’s what my dad would say,” the context of an advertising spot, intended to sell Nike gear, seems…a little wrong.

I’ve no doubt Tiger might have turned to his dad for guidance during the fallout from his recent troubles. But would his dad have chosen that forum to have that conversation with his son? I think not.

I find the ad very powerful and I think it’s a very public reckoning for Tiger. But I still gotta say…it makes me uncomfortable. It just doesn’t feel respectful to the memory of his dad. Just my .02

By the by, hearing your father’s voice from the past can be an eerie thing. I recently found a video of my dad giving a presentation. It was filmed about five years before his passing. The Good Man and I watched it, and I found it difficult and a bit disturbing. And oddly, in some ways, comforting.

I’ve no plans yet to use it in a marketing campaign. I’ll keep you posted on that…..

Happy Awkward Easter!

Because you didn’t ask, I decided to provide a blast from the past.

Easter, April 8, 1976 from our backyard in Albuquerque:

I’m only sorry I had to drag my siblings into this.

I’m the shortest one. You know, the one with a deathgrip on my Easter basket.

Man, I loved that dress. It had a sash and everything.

We’d been to Easter Mass that morning.

Mom had sung “Jeeeesus Chriiiiist is riiiiiisen todaaaaaay!” loudly along with the congregation and the church organ (man, she loved that song. Something about all the allelujahs.)

Ham was in the oven and the backyard Easter egg hunt was soon to begin.

I always did love Easter. A new dress. New white sandals. A basket full of candy. Yeah baby!

Anyhow, Happy Easter to all who celebrate it!

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Oh, also, because no one asked, on the next page of that same photo album….

Here’s what the 1976 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta looked like:

We all have to remember in our own way

A tree stands in the median on I-25, north of Las Cruces, not quite to Radium Springs.

It’s a scrubby little tree, maybe a mesquite or a juniper. You know, the kind of hardy tree you see out there in the New Mexico desert. Something tenacious.

This particular tree stands out because it’s festooned with tinsel and garland.

It’s been that way for several years. I’ve seen it, driven past it several times, actually.

The first time I saw it, the time of year wasn’t much past Christmas, so I figured it was a leftover holiday decoration.

But when I saw it again a few years later, I realized it wasn’t just leftover holiday decorations, but something more serious. I knew it was a roadside shrine often found in our fair New Mexico.

The roadside shrine is a memorial located where someone has lost their life out there on the roads. It’s a pretty common sight in New Mexico.

It’s a tradition I grew up with and so it’s never occurred to me to question it. I find outside the borders of my homestate, it’s questioned. A lot.

Questions of taste and decency, actually. Whether it’s appropriate, or not, to put one’s grief so garishly on display.

See, I think we in our American culture have really weird and uptight ideas about death and dying. Ok, it’s probably because I grew up in the cultures of New Mexico that I feel that way.

But I’ve always really appreciated the Hispanic and Latino cultures celebrating and remembering their loved ones who have moved on. I appreciate the ability to show grief openly without remorse or embarrassment.

Dia de los Muertos offrendas and roadside shrines are simply the outward display of deeply held cultural beliefs. Beliefs such as that the dead have moved on to another world, but a world that is not so far away from our own.

A woman is comforted, perhaps, by knowing that her child, while not in her arms, is not that far away. While she remembers with a keening loss the child who was taken away, she can still bake bread and place sweets on an offrenda, and it helps her cope.

A mourning wife can drive to the spot where her husband met his end, and remember him. She refreshes the shiny bits of paper, and can feel her husband not so far away.

I think this is healthy, personally, and I don’t find it to be weird. I find it to be beautiful.

Those roadside shrines are called descansos. They aren’t just tacky plastic crosses and brightly shining tinsel. For the family that constructed the shrine, they are an essential part of the grieving process.

The garlanded tree located in I-25 highway median is a descanso to honor the memory of a child.

The shrine in the photo at the end of this post honors two kids who rolled their ATV by the irrigation banks on the Bosque in Los Lunas.

When someone you truly love dies, the grief never goes away. It tends to ebb and flow, welling up sometimes, overwhelming. Other times, the volume is turned down and you can almost, but not quite, forget.

I think we all have to find our own way of grieving.

No one can say who is right or wrong.

Source: Las Cruces Sun News