Category: fate

Bittersweet

As mentioned yesterday, my quest for “feel good” stories continues on, unencumbered.

When I read the headline of this ABQjournal article “Recent Widow Gets Back Her Stolen Car”, I thought it was right up my alley, and it was, in a way.

But I found a lump in my throat by the end.

Alia Dahl, a very pregnant Alia Dahl, is having a pretty rough month.

Her husband, Joel, stationed in Iraq, was due to be home in about a week. July 9, actually. He would have missed the birth of his son, but he would have been home.

I say “would” because Joel became yet another sad victim of the war on June 23.

The week after the death of her husband, her car was stolen.

Leaving her about a week away from having her labor induced and without her husband, car, or her packed overnight bag to go to the hospital.

I think Alia must be a stronger person than I am, because I’m not quite sure how I would have managed to stay upright and deal with all of that.

But here’s the part to feel good about. I’m not the only one who felt this nice lady got a real bad deal.

People starting taking up donations, pitching in, and in 24 hours $18,000 was raised to get Alia a new car.

The police also got pretty tenacious on the search for the lost car.

And you know what? They found it.

So Alia and her mom went to pick it up on Thursday. Alia was in good spirits, happily talking to reporters and answering questions.

When her water broke. She delivered a baby boy. Mom and son are healthy, happy, and they endure.

She even had the strength to make a joke, a joke referencing her husband:

“‘Just like his father, he has to be the center of attention,’ she said, laughing and holding her abdomen.”

*gulp*

Here’s to the abundance of everlasting human spirit found in Alia. Here’s hoping she can rebuild her life and carry on, for her herself, for her husband, for their son.

Wow.

For some reason this story has really got me by the heart.

My past week has been a flurry of ferocity in the run up to the release of an over-hyped product. I keep feeling like I’ve lost perspective.

This article, this story, helped, a little………

Happy Friday to all.

A moment of silence

A lot of really great players have passed through the San Francisco Giants clubhouse. A lot of warriors and plenty of freaks and some a little bit of both.

I was saddened this weekend at the surprise and as-yet-unexplained untimely passing of Rod Beck, who wore the Giants uni from ’91-’97. He was just 38.

He was a steely-eyed closer, something the Giants have been sorely lacking since the retirement of Robb Nen. (Hell, I can have a moment of silence just for Nen’s arm post 2002 World Series).

Beck was a hell of a pitcher and by all accounts a hell of a good man, giving back to the community and all about his family. He looked crazy, that was part of his appeal, but his stuff was wicked and he’s both fondly remembered and sorely missed.

Sorry it had to go this way, Shooter.

Ok, now that’s kind of cool

I weary of all the death, terror and destruction in the news these days. In fact, I don’t really read newspapers. I glance at them online, skip the bad stuff and look for interesting opinion pieces, celeb trash or “feel good” stories.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has one of them thar “feel good” stories today.

Let me break it down.

It’s 1976. Palo Alto, California. A guy named Ronald Leung owns a car repair business. And he owns a sweet 1956 Ford Thunderbird with just 24,979 on the odometer.

Some yo-yo steals it. He files the report. No luck, it’s gone.

In the time since it’s been stolen, he’s had a couple kids, worked a job, retired and often thought about his car.

Fast forward to this week. Ronald gets a call yesterday. They found his car. And he gets to have it back!

Whoa.

Long story short, a lady in Ventura bought it on eBay and when she tried to register it, they found the true VIN and linked it back to Ronald, a car enthusiast, who filed all the right reports some 31 years ago.

Dude gets to go to So. Cal this weekend to get it. And it’s been fully restored and is in *cherry* condition.

What a fine drive home that’s going to be!

Yeah! That ROCKS! Getting to drive a machine like that makes even the nasty Grapevine seem like a lot of fun.

Enjoy the ride, Ronald!

To everyone else, have a great weekend!

(it’s a beaut)




Ruminations

Going to borrow a page from Natalie over at Petroglyph Paradox and mull over the implications of Father’s Day a little bit. Though I’m a day late (and a dollar short), as the old saying goes.

My dad was an odd fellow. Odd in all sorts of ways. My sister who is mother to a couple boys with as yet undiagnosed problems has been forced to read up on the markers for autism. My sister has said that had my father been born in a different time, he probably would have been tapped as a high functioning autistic.

He was smart as hell and obsessive about numbers. He worked hard but had a nasty temper. I chalk up the temper to being of fiery Irish and German descendentcy. His full-blooded Irish mother is the only person I ever knew who could yell at HIM. And boy did she.

He was bitterly type A. He put in a hell of a career at Sandia Labs, was an engineer to the core, and probably was a better man that I ever gave him credit for.

I could talk a lot about all the bad things he did to me personally, or the bad things I saw him do to my siblings and mother. But at the end of the day, there wasn’t any sort of physical abuse, no. I don’t want to mislead. He never laid a hand on us. He just had a cruel mind and would say hateful things in a fit of fury. And words can hurt too.

So I won’t talk about the fact that he was a bitterly mean and insecure man who lashed out at his family because he could.

I also won’t raise him up as the model of a father, then join hands and sing the praises of dad.

What’s it’s taken me most of my life to learn is that he was an incredibly imperfect person. Fraught with fears about boogeymen around every corner and demands for us to be better, he actually did try very hard to run his family.

Out of three kids, we all turned out with our fair share of “issues”, but we also turned out to be three decent people, all contributing members of society. In the case of both of my siblings, marriages and kids of their own. So I guess to raise three more or less well adjusted kids, he must have done a few things right, in the end.

And so I’ll give him credit for that.

On this Father’s Day, some two years after his passing, I didn’t exactly miss him. He never liked celebrations of holidays and such. I was sort of relieved that I didn’t have to find some meaningless gift and card to send. It’s nice to be “off the hook”. Instead of mourning my Dad, I spent the day with my partner’s Dad who is chock full of his own set of insecurities and missteps, but is a hell of a good man.

And it doesn’t pass my notice that he reminds me in many ways of my own father.

But the one thing that the father of my love remembered to do that my own forgot was to love his child unconditionally.

I’ll take that as the lesson for Father’s Day…and Mother’s Day…and every day.

*coff*

I am under the weather today.

I feel puny.

When I said as much to a coworker today, she responded by saying, “But you look great.”

Uh. Ok.

Which caused me to remember some observations I had made a few weeks back while at my local HMO waiting to see my doc for a routine checkup.

Why is it human nature that when we feel bad, we dress bad?

Now I’m not saying you need to wear your Dior and pearls to see your surgeon, but I am saying, why have we let soiled sweat pants and slippers become an acceptable norm?

I put on pants, a clean shirt, brushed my hair, dabbed at some makeup and came to work (because I *had* to, tho I really should have stayed home…..)

And now they are looking at me dubiously because I “look too good to be sick”.

What?

I think I’ll go lick that lady’s keyboard when she’s not looking. See how SHE feels…or better yet, how she looks when she’s fighting the guff that’s going around.

Grrr…….