Category: family

You are the sum of all your learning

Back in my college days, I lived for a couple years in a sorority house. There were twenty-eight girls, a house mom and a cook. All of that living with a bunch of strangers was quite a life lesson for a nineteen-year-old girl, I assure you.

Those twenty-eight girls came from a variety of different backgrounds, with different values and talents.

Much of what I know and much of who I am can be traced to those days.

Recently, I’ve had a real dearth of creativity. Like a desert in a drought. My creative mind is dusty. The Muse, she’s out to lunch. A two martini lunch.

I’m learning, with the help of my extraordinarily talented and creative cousin, not to worry so much when the creative well has run dry. Be confident, he tells me, and The Muse will find her way home.

I’ve also gotten suggestions that creating something, anything, can also kick loose that block, get the gravel out, and let the magic happen. (this the basic tenet of the good folks at NaNoWriMo)

And so, when I get all creatively clamped down like this, I often go back to something I learned back in those sorority days.

This great girl from Roswell and I made fast friends (we’d both had to endure the same crazy roommate in separate semesters. This sort of experience bonds people). She’d grown up showing pigs and living on a ranch and was a much more creative person than I was at the time.

Not to be all stereotypical, but those ranch woman can out cook, out craft and out wrassle any of their town raised counterparts.

Anyhoo, I don’t really remember the events that lead up to it, but this friend of mine, at my request, taught me how to do a counted cross-stitch kit. It was a simple pattern, but when I was done, I was so pleased. It was a nice distraction during those long days of studying.

Doing cross-stitch is not especially hard, but can be time consuming, and there are certain stitches for certain patterns.

My friend very patiently showed me how to sort the threads, how to tape the sides of the aida cloth to keep them from unraveling, how not to pull the stitches too tight, how to fix mistakes, how the back of the cloth should look as clean as the front. All of that.

And so, over the weekend, I had a coupon for Michaels, and yearning to create, I picked out a very simple kit. A “learn a craft” kit that I think is made for kids.

But that doesn’t matter.

Today, I very carefully applied tape to the aida cloth. I sorted the threads and counted to be sure they were there. I folded the cloth and marked the center lightly with a pencil, and I got out my highlighter to mark off my progress, all the way my friend taught me lo’ these almost twenty years ago.

Whenever I start a new cross-stitch, I always think of my friend. She is with me, guiding my progress the whole way. She is forever a part of me. That’s a happy feeling. That’s the family you make over the course of your life.

So here we go! Let the creation begin!

Oh, wait. Well. There is one change. One update that will take place this go ’round. A necessary adjustment, if you will.

Yeah. My lighted magnifying class. Sadly, I don’t have twenty-year-old eyes anymore. *cranky*

Oh. And getting to work on my cute frog cross-stitch isn’t the only bit of using my hands that I got up to today.

I also got busy on these:

Ooh, I feel The Muse on her way back already! Here Musey, Musey, Musey!! Want a cookie?

Postcard Memories

I have been spending some time immersed in the Penny Postcards from New Mexico site (the link, a gift from my mom-in-law).

A lot of these cards predate me, but they also evoke lots of chest squeezing, heart wrenching homesickness.

My folks lived in Albuquerque back in the 1950’s, so as a kid, I loved to look through their photo albums and see my folks so young and vibrant, and the fair city of Albuquerque so sparse yet growing. A young town with an active military base.

Seeing these postcards makes me melancholy, but in that good way.

Look at this one, the venerable old Kimo Theater. A little worse for the wear these days, but still…a beautiful building.

Seeing this postcard I have a million memories of walking down Central, past the Kimo, on my way to who knows where (stores, bars, restaurants, etc!).

Speaking of Central Ave, how about this one:

Wow. Did it every really look like that? And yet, it did. Really, only in my dreams anymore, I suppose.

And this one makes me laugh right out loud.

Entitled “Scenic Drive Through Carlsbad Caverns National Park”.

Yeeeah, it might be a *bit* of a stretch to call the area around Carlsbad “scenic”, but I do love the, erm…”artistic license” they took with the colors of the landscape in this postcard:

Good stuff, fun to see all the postcards. It’s a contented sigh I have as I look through them all.

Oh Fair New Mexico…missing you today.

Happy Weekend, everyone!

What do you get for the girl…

…who wandered away from home, and might be a little bit lost?

This weekend my best friend arrived, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time.

Lately, I’ve been, yes, a little bit lost. Been thrown off my center of gravity and unable to get myself back right.

The Good Man has been a champ in propping me up, rubbing my shoulders, sending me back out there for the fight.

I keep swinging. And keep getting knocked down.

Then that great gal I described last week, the one who has been in my court for twenty plus years shows up…back up troops, you might say.

And from her roller bag, she pulls out some completely unexpected presents for my belated birthday.

In the presents, she had this (pardon the iPhone photo fuzziness):

That gift was the idea of my two goddaughters (her kids).

“Open it, friend,” she said, “and take a whiff.”

At first I thought it was some sort of unknown-to-me spice. But I was wrong.

I opened. I inhaled.

Inside that little canning jar, hauled on a plane all the way from New Mexico, was a little sprig of creosote.

“Smells like rain,” she said. She was right.

“Smells like home,” I said, and had to blink really fast so I didn’t dissolve into a huge puddle right there on the red couch.

Another time, another place

: Cue the wavy lines : Today we’re headed down memory lane.

The year was 1988. Hmm…I believe we’re talking Fall semester of school? My memory is often weak. If so, then the month would have been August, or maybe September.

It was warm, I remember that. Then again, it’s always warm in Las Cruces.

I was a student at New Mexico State University. Enrolled in the College of Business.

I was also a member of a social sorority. Yes, now it can be told. Me, I was a sorority girl. Though it didn’t mean what you think of when you think of that stereotype.

NMSU is a different sort of college and the group I belonged to wasn’t your typical sort of sorority. But yes, it can’t be denied. I’m a sorority girl. My husband never thought he’d end up with a sorority girl. I never thought I’d end up with an ROTC guy. Things change…

I had only joined the group just the semester before. It was all pretty new to me. But summer was ending and it was time to engage in “rush”, that every semester ritual whereby you try to convince new people to join (new members, the lifeblood of any organization).

We had to practice for days. Learning songs, doing skits, working on conversation skills, coming up with party theme ideas. Figuring out how to be little drone salespeople, I realize now, in my later years.

So we’d line up, white Keds sparkling in the New Mexico sunshine, shorts perfectly creased, hair teased impossibly high. We were a’twitter with anticipation about meeting the new young ladies who would come to our house to learn about us, and our particular sorority.

They would gather on the front walk and we’d run out, do some awkward singing on the lawn, then select one of the girls, cut her from the herd and bring her inside.

From there, we’d engage in some banal conversation for about ten minutes. Then with the subtle cue, we’d “switch partners” and go on to the next girl, engage is similar inane conversation, and on and on. So it went.

At the end of the day, we’d compare notes and decide who we wanted to invite back the next day.

So on that fateful day back in 1988, the theme of the party was somehow something Jamaican. We’d adapted the words to Bob Marley’s “One Love” to fit in things about our sorority (a travesty, if there ever was one).

For reasons I can’t explain, yards and yards of camouflage netting had been hung from the ceilings in the house…to really bring in that tropical feel?

Being the well-behaved drone, I lined up, I ran outside, I sang, I selected, and dragged this poor young lady into the house.

Her name was Kathleen.

She was extraordinarily tall, dark hair, face full of charming freckles, and the brightest blue eyes in the world.

At six feet all, she had to spend the day ducked under that low hanging camo net, but was a good sport about it. She was a little shy, but we hit it off. We saw the world in a similar way, and I really thought she was cool. Her mom had been a member of the same sorority, what they call “a legacy,” so she was pretty odds on to make the cut.

Ten minutes passed fast, and I moved on, reluctantly. Later, in the voting round, I gave her a big thumbs up, as did all the others.

She soon joined, became “a pledge” and I got to know her more. We became distant friends, she ran pretty thick with the girl who was my roommate. They did everything together. But we were friends and always got along.

The story goes on at some length from here. Too much to tell, really.

I’ll fast forward a bit. A couple years later, some adversity hit Kathleen’s life. Hard. Big. Overwhelming. In a bid to deal with a pending breakdown, she did some stuff that made sense in the mind of youth. Some crazy sh*t that seemed like a big deal at the time, but in my now grown up eyes, looks incredibly not even noteworthy.

Because of all of that, she lost a lot of friends back then. People with small minds who didn’t want to understand. People who maybe weren’t really friends to begin with.

But through all that, she didn’t lose me.

In fact, that adversity she struggled through moved us from being pretty good friends to rock solid life-long best friends. 99.999% of the fun I’ve had up until I met The Good Man is directly attributable to her. Pretty much every wayback machine moment I have written about on this site, she was either there or more likely was the catalyst.

A lot has gone on in the twenty-plus years since. We both graduated, grew up, became actual adults, all against our will.

Tomorrow evening, I have the honor of driving to the airport to pick up my best good friend of now some unbelievable twenty years. She will be here for a weekend that likely will move way too fast.

Attached is a very small photo (sorry about the size, I don’t have the original handy) of my best friend and me on my wedding day. I wouldn’t have anyone else at my side. She’s just said something that has cracked. me. up.

You don’t laugh that hard with someone who you kind of feel fond about…you laugh that hard with someone who is family.

I love that girl. I can hardly wait to see her!

P.S. Not to be all selfish, but to have both my best girlfriend and The Good Man together this weekend, two people who are always in my court, it’s kind of all about me, and…well, hell, it’s *good* to be me!

Whoa, whoa the Fourth of July…whoa!

Man. Can’t believe we’re already into July. Of 2009. Wow.

Been a little quiet here on the blog-o-rama since I was out and about all weekend.

Big fun. Well worth it!

Sure, I thought I could never top last year’s holiday celebration, featuring the viewing of fireworks from a Cessna aeroplane.

But this year went ahead and topped it.

There were fireworks, but not like you think.

This year, The Good Man and I loaded up the car and went on a road trip.

Destination: LA

Reason? My amazing, world-class talented cousin wrote and produced a musical and chose this weekend for a family and friends weekend show.

Now, I had read an early version of the script, so I knew what to expect, but this show blew well past even my own expectations!

It was an amazing night, all around.

So there we were in West Hollywood…my cousin was wise and prescient enough to get us a limo (easy to corral a lot of family that way!).

We all got ourselves dolled up for the show and loaded up. Off we went, cruising the streets of Los Angeles.

So yeah, you know, on the Fourth, I got to emerge from a limo, in LA, on my way to this fabulous new show…

Cuz I roll like that.

Yes, I was able to keep my skirt down as I emerged. Yes, I was also wearing chones. I also roll like that.

No one needs to know that really, rather than “emerge” from the limo, my high heeled foot slipped off the step rail, thus whacking the side of my foot on the way down and causing me to actually tumble out of the limo.

But in my memory, when I retell the story, I emerged gracefully, like an elegant movie star from a bygone era.

It was just all around, an amazing weekend that went by way WAY too fast. I got to be with my cousin, one of my most favorite people in the whole world. I got to be with family, I got to see a killer show, I got to hit a couple Hollywood hot spots, and I got to have another amazing memory to make with my fabulous husband.

I can’t ask for anything better than all that!

And now, here we are at Monday.

This morning, there is a line for the auto-espresso maker.

The light of day in the real world is always a bit of a let down, now in’nit?