Category: family

More blogtastic random fun

Well, the dearth of good ideas continues.

So instead of a random word today, I found a random blog topic generator.

Ok, so here’s my assignment: “When I’m on top of the world…”

Well. So. Yeah.

Ok, here we go, a trickle of an idea, like rain on a dry riverbed.

Yep, here we go.

A memory.

When I was a kid, my folks owned land in Cuba, New Mexico. If you don’t know where that is, go toward Jemez, and keep going.

The piece of land was rather undeveloped, up in the mountains, bumpy washed out dirt roads that required four wheel drive to get there. But get there we did.

Lots of camping in that Apache Pop Up Trailer I’ve spoken of before on these pages.

Good stuff. Cold fried chicken and marshmallows toasted over a piñon wood fire. Very pretty and truly the beauty of the mountains of New Mexico.

Inevitably, we’d go hiking, plucking small cactus balls off pants legs the whole way. We’d do our best to hike to the very top of a pretty decent sized hill, then we’d sit on the ground and rest, eating gorp (for you young uns, that’s what they used to call trail mix).

Being a brat, I’d always pick out the M&M’s and raisins and leave the rest.

My mom, dad, brother, sister and I would sit and take in the view of the valley floor below, feel the wind across the sweaty brow, eat the gorp, and then, being the goofball I’m so proud to be, I’d usually begin a rousing chorus of…

Wait for it…

I’m on the
top of the world looking
down on creation
And the only explanation I can fiiiiiiiiind
Is the love that I’ve found
ever since you’ve been around
Your love’s put me at the top of the world

(How much do I love The Carpenters?)

So, when I’m on top of the world……I sing. Badly.

There you have it!

(had to recycle that image. I love it so.)



Image is of Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and a pretty extensive web search could not net me the attribution on this photo. I found photos from that same event on the European Commission page which allows for the use of photos with attribution.



Manual Process

The other day at work, one of the nice ladies I work with took ill. After much discussion, it was decided she needed to head home to rest and recoup, but she felt too woozy to drive.

One of her coworkers, who lives in the same neighborhood, offered to drive the lady home using the sick lady’s own car, and would then take public transit to her own place.

This was a very kind offer!

But when they got to the parking garage, a problem presented itself.

The car in question has a manual transmission, and the good Samaritan had zero idea what to do with all those pedals under the dash.

Turns out, no one in the office knew how to drive a stick (I wasn’t at work that day), so the sick lady ended up driving herself home…which is a shame.

See, I have a few personal arbitrary rules for the world. One of them is that everyone who knows how to drive should know how to drive a manual transmission.

I suppose this is one of those hand-me-downs from my parents. My dad was adamant on this same policy.

His reasoning for this was, “if you can drive a stick, you can drive any car in the world.” My pops was full of beans on a lot of his own personal arbitrary rules for the world (like father like daughter), but I have to back him up on this one.

When each of us three kids learned how to drive, we learned how to drive both an automatic and a stick, much to the groaning agony of the used four-speed everything manual car we all used to learn (if you click, it was like the one in front, only with purple stripes and no sun roof).

That car was pre-hydraulic clutch. I blame this for the freak strength of my left leg.

But I digress.

I realize that most of the cars on the roads today are automatic. I suppose it’s a good thing, it has made driving easier and more accessible for people. But it’s also a sad turn.

When I moved to the Bay Area, I had a 5-speed Jeep. God, I loved that truck. After moving here I fearlessly bombed all around San Francisco in that thing, up and down some of the craziest hills the City has to offer…

…not because I’m cool or daring or anything, mainly because I’m stupid and didn’t plan my routes better. In the first months of life here, the smell of my own burning clutch was like an old friend following me up and down SF roads.

And let me tell you this…if you are at a stop light on a street that just *happens* to also carry a streetcar, and if you *happen* to stop and don’t realize your back tire is on the streetcar rail…well, when the light turns and you hit the gas…the squeeeeing sound is unlike anything you’ve ever known as well as the smell of your tires AND your clutch as they hang on the foggy air. Yes! That is the smell of humiliation to a country mouse in the big town!

We’ll not discuss trying to parallel park on a hill with a manual transmission…

Ok, sure. One of the reasons that people don’t want to drive a stick is because of life’s little difficulties just like that.

Yeah, yeah…it can be utterly nerve wracking.

But I say, the problem solving and gut-it-out reflexes you have to go through to get that car rolling again are valuable life lessons!

Lessons we all can use.

Plus, if you ever want to buy a really fancy sports car, you are good to go.

Or…you know, “borrow” some farm equipment.

But once again…I digress…

Memorial Day

Here’s wishing all a happy and safe Memorial Day.

For me, this day will include taking a moment to remember those who have served in the military. This includes my dad, who was a veteran of the Korean War, and is buried at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe.

Photos taken at the Merchant Marine cemetery at Fort Stanton, NM.

Photos by Karen Fayeth

The funny thing about family is…

…that even if they make you mad, or you don’t see them for a while, or you don’t even know some of them, they are still yours. And they tell you a little about yourself.

I had the chance to take my still freshly minted husband to visit with the folks from my dad’s side of the family tree.

Unfortunately, my dad passed before The Good Man got the chance to meet him. TGM has heard all of my stories and I thought it was important for him to hear the stories that others had to tell.

I think you can learn to know a person by their stories.

This trip was also a lesson for me in asking for what you want.

I asked my aunts and uncles, surviving siblings of my father, to be willing to tell us stories about my dad.

They were only too happy to respond. And oh did they deliver.

The first day of my visit, my wish was not just fulfilled, my expectations were far exceeded.

Two aunts and two uncles, siblings of my dad, along with an aunt and an uncle by marriage, my mom, my husband and I all met for lunch.

Our orders were barely placed when the story telling began. Oh does my family love to tell a good story. My grandparents were real characters, like something out of fiction, and there is quite a bit of fodder there for stories.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a very, very long time. In fact, had I not been laughing, I probably would have cried my eyes out for all the gratitude I felt.

In two hours of lunch, I got a pretty deep glimpse into my dad’s life growing up. I didn’t know my dad’s side of the family that well since we were in New Mexico and they were in Indiana. Since my dad’s passing, I’ve been developing relationships with these folks and feel sad on the years I missed, but happy for the love and friendship and family bond I am earning as an adult.

I know a little bit more about my dad now. I know a little bit more about me, too.

And maybe the timing on this visit couldn’t have been more perfect now that I face the next decade of my crazy, mixed up, perfect life.

The funny thing about my family is…we may be a little strange, but the roots of our raisin’ run deep.

I wouldn’t have us any other way.

Blogging from the road

Here I am in the Midwest, donchaknow?

Indiana….saaaaaalute!

Had a fabulous lunch today with three aunts, two uncles, my mom and my husband. Two of the aunts and both uncles are surviving siblings of my father.

We managed to get the four of them telling stories about growing up. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time. I even heard some new stories today and a few I’ve heard before but still crack me up.

Also got the line on a couple family disputes I didn’t know about. Oooh, family gossip!

All in all…a good day.

Also have eaten twice at a Steak N Shake and may be in love. For West Coasters…take the passion many people (not me) feel for In-n-Out burger, and that’s how rabid folks are about Steak N Shake.

A lot of food, a lot of laughing, a LOT of family.

So okay! And The Good Man has met my relatives and hasn’t run off screaming into the night. That’s a *good* sign!