Category: Mom

From a salad to the wayback machine

In two easy steps.

Today, I was at my work’s cafeteria, and there I am, standing in line, waiting on the lady in front of me as she crafted her salad.

I personally think how someone makes their salad bar salad speaks volumes about personality, but that’s another study for another day.

This lady in front of me had taken a small container, and was packing, shoving, and cramming salad items in there.

I’ve noticed this a lot lately, not just at work. The general need to take an itty-bitty container. It’s a guilt thing. You convince yourself you are saving money and calories with a “small” salad, then you shove a “large” amount of salad in there.

We pay for salad by the pound, but whatever.

So while I watched this fabulous bit of engineering, I thought to myself, “Wow, this lady needs a geometry lesson.”

Which is really ironic for *me* to say.

Because I personally *suck* at geometry.

And why is that?

Come, step with me into the wayback machine.

: cue wavy lines and hazy focus :

The year was 1986…or maybe 1985…I can’t recall.

At that time, I was matriculating at good ol’ Del Norte High School. Yup.

That year, I was taking a geometry class that was going fairly well. I was learning, it was coming along, I was carrying a high B…until that fateful day.

Oh yes, that day…when our regular teacher introduced our (cue dramatic music…dun dun DUUUUUN):
Student Teacher.

But, not just any student teacher, no.

This gentleman was a student at UNM. But not just that…he was a basketball player.

Ok, now this goes back a lotta years. You have to be a Lobo fan or at least an Albuquerque resident from way back to remember these names…

This guy played under Gary Colson, who was the UNM savior after the misdeeds by our ol’ friend Stormin’ Norman Ellenberger.

(god, this is going back, NM style….bonus points if you ever ate or had a drink at Stormin’ Norman’s restaurant)

So, recovering from the scandal, UNM ended up having a *really* good team. The main players were pretty well known, kind of local celebrities.

There in my very classroom, next to my portly, middle-aged math teacher, stood none other than Alan Dolensky, UNM basketball player, that guy I saw on the news, Adonis.

Let’s be clear…in the vernacular…this guy was *foine* I’m not gonna lie to ya, I’d had a bit of a crush on him anyway, and then he shows up as my teacher.

All youthful, he had to be what? 20? 21? athletic, tall. Wow.

Well. It wasn’t long before that high B in geometry dipped to a low C.

I would *love* to blame the poor teaching skills of Mr. Dolensky (and did for many years), but that would be highly unfair.

I’ll just agree to two things…I *might* have been a bit….uh…distracted (c’mon, I had hormones!)….and I might also never have really owned a good math gene (much to the dismay of my engineer father).

So I spent a semester with languishing grades and an emphatic crush. Which *obviously* was never returned.

When report cards came out, I was *mad*.

My C got me flak from my folks, but it was enough to pass, and on I moved to the next course.

But…and I have to be honest, I have never really grasped the foundation of geometry, and it shows. I can’t mentally gauge spatial items very well. I am terrible at packing a full truck (thank GOD for The Good Man. He rocks this department!)

And the worst of it came when I had to take the Graduate Management Admission Test for graduate school. It was *heavily* weighted toward geometry (a fact I understand was later acknowledged and fixed…too late for me, however).

So, I’d done ok grade-wise in high school, but in college, I rocked the house. I got my undergrad with a *smokin’* GPA.

Desperate to get out of New Mexico, I appealed to my parents, who said they’d spring for in-state school. Out of state, I’d have to get a scholarship or a grant that would wave out of state tuition.

(Let me aside here to give it up for my parents paying for my edjumacation. I’m a lucky soul.)

Admission to a university is based on GPA and GMAT score.

So, obviously, a lot was riding on my GMAT score.

On which I scored terribly.

I mean, really, just above “who is this idiot?”

Undeterred and against the advice of the Dean of the Business College, I took the GMAT again. And scored even lower.

Still undeterred, I made an appeal to an out of state school, got a “provisional” admission based on my GPA and a good word from the president of NMSU, but “provisional” meant no scholarships, grants, or ability to wave out of state.

Deflated, I surrendered. Goddamn geometry.

I ended up staying on at New Mexico State to complete my MBA.

Which, honestly, in hindsight, has been fine. I really got a great education in Las Cruces and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But I often wonder where I would have ended up if my schlumpy but effective math teacher had continued to educate me rather than that awfully distracting virile young man.

DAMN YOU ALAN DOLENSKY! : shakes fists :

There you go, from a salad to an angst.

By the by, I can manage to fit an appropriate amount of salad in a small container…and I can also park straight in a parking space…so I have that going for me.

In other news…I’m also hopeless at chemistry. In the course of my entire education, I was never once required to take a chem. class.

Isn’t THAT something.

Or not.

Oh well, back to my management job at a Fortune 500 company, because, you know, things turned out so poorly….:)

Photo by Khadejeh and found on Flickr.

Random Sarcasm Generator

You know, when I was growing up, my mom always told me, “boys don’t like girls with smart mouths.”

Luckily, mom was wrong.

Plenty of boys liked me just like I am….most notably, The Good Man. (And yes, TGM, can show me a thing or two about being a smart ass).

So, feeling especially cranky today and still wiped out creatively from the latest round of the Tweet Me a Story contest, today, I’m going to continue to rely on a creative crutch.

Using the random blog idea generator from yesterday, here we go.

Random Ideas: The smart ass edition:

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Depends on where I’m looking.

Define faith.

While on an airplane, that moment just after you hear “whump” but right before the pilot says, “everything’s all right folks.”

10 things I’m pessimistic about

*sigh* I don’t even think I could make it through three much less a list of ten….why even try?

Why do you feel you need to change?

Because I have sand in my shorts. I can *definitely* feel that. : tug :

Something that I enjoy doing for a friend…

Pointing and laughing.

10 things I learned at school *not* on the curriculum

My mother reads this blog. I can’t tell you that…..

Plus, I streamlined most of my brain cells with the assistance of beer, so it’s not like I can remember anything I learned anyway.

What was the question?

If you could follow someone around for one day (unseen), who would it be and why?

The police cleared me of those charges. I don’t have to answer that.

Injustice in the world makes me feel…

Like the plotline to a bad superhero movie (take your pick, there has been so many in recent years).

Why should I be responsible?

I dunno. Wanna go get a beer?

10 things I believe in

I believe…I’ll have a beer. Not sure I can get in 10, who’s with me? (I’m looking at you, Emmett)

Do you feel underappreciated?

Only by the ungrateful.

I am going to make tomorrow different by…

Isn’t tomorrow, by definition, different from today?

How have you changed recently?

Back to that sand in my shorts….

You know….I could do this all day…..

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.



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.

Get outta the wayback machine!

It was Fall, had to be. Slight crispness to the evening air. Anticipation thick as the fog of Aqua Net in the Chi Omega house.

It was 1989, probably. Or somewhere close to that. The campus of New Mexico State University. I was a sophomore, maybe a junior, I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that I was getting ready to go to a dance at Corbett Center.

The woman who would become my best friend for what is now over twenty years was the driving force that night, and many just like it. Her parents had met at a Corbett Center dance, so she was especially incentivized to go scoot a boot and see what’s doing. Family history.

I nervously pulled on my too shiny, too new, gray goatskin round toe ropers and jeans that didn’t really go with the boots, but were at least long enough to be acceptable. “You should buy some Rockies,” I was told, and they were right. I would, later, in quantity. But then I had neither the money nor the courage. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get into, I just knew I was going to be there come hell or high water.

It wasn’t my first Corbett dance. It wouldn’t be my last. This story isn’t about one actual night, more an amalgam of a lot of great nights.

The gaggle of high-haired women walked out the back door of our home, a sorority house containing twenty-eight women of different backgrounds, and one understanding house mom. What bound us together was our choice of educational institution. A land grant institution. To the uninformed, that means an agricultural college.

It was a short shuffle over to Corbett, up the stairs to the third floor where they had the ballrooms. Pay the entrance fee. Five dollars I think? Maybe less back then. Get a stamp on your hand. Look around, see who is there already. Talk about who you hope shows up.

Hear the opening strains of music. Usually The Delk Band. A group of musicians, brothers, and their dad on fiddle. I went to school with most of the boys. I remember one of the Delks was cute. I remember one of the Delks was the drummer and back then had a tendency to speed up the tempo as a song wore on. Hard to dance to a wildly varying tempo. But we did it.

They were our people, and we embraced them. And we danced. Oh did we dance.

The two-step. Not the Texas double up kind, no. The slow kind, keeping time to the music.

And a waltz. My favorite, how I love to waltz. The rhythm of waltz-timed music still beats my heart a little differently.

The polka. If done right with the right boy (he had to be tall because I’m tall and otherwise we’d just bump knees) you felt like you were flying, feet hardly touching the ground.

Then of course the Cotton-Eyed Joe (stepped in what?) and the Schottische, played back to back, often enough. Linking six or eight of us, arm in arm, facing forward, laughing our fool heads off.

The ladies, my friends and I, would stand on the sidelines and take a look at the scene. My best friend would always get asked to dance first. She’s beautiful and a great dancer. Who could blame the boys for flocking to her blue-eyed, dark haired gorgeousness? Not me, for sure.

As I got better at dancing, I got asked often enough, too. The boys liked the girls who could dance, who liked to dance, who didn’t turn up their nose at dirty fingernails and cow sh*t on their boots.

There is something special about dancing with a boy who knows how to dance, a strong lead, who looked you in the eyes while we danced. The boys who had the right fold in their hat and smelled faintly of Copenhagen and beer and Polo cologne.

I got to know those folks. All of them, the boys, the girls, the dancers, the musicians, the laughers, the people who liked to swing each other around the dance floor.

They became my family. We traveled in packs, dancing until we were sweaty, then heading outside into the cool air to take a breath, drink a beer, laugh a lot and occasionally find someone to spend a little time with.

Well not me, not then. I was still too awkward and mixed up to attract much in the way of boys at that point. I was more “one of the guys” than one of the girls the guys would chase. Don’t feel bad for me though, I eventually figured it out. (cover your eyes, mom)

Over time, we all aged a little, got to be over 21 and started to migrate from dancing at Corbett center to dancing at the local country bar. It was fun but seemed a little more complicated. Add more than a couple beers to the night and weird things happen.

But still we danced. By that time, I’d moved off campus and lived with my friend from TorC. She was crazy and fun and taught me a lot (cover your eyes, mom), and she loved to dance as much as I did. She coined the phrase “big bar hair” and learned me how to get it, and keep it, despite dancing so hard sweat ran down your face.

Then we all aged a bit more, and we graduated and found respectable jobs. My best friend, her husband (a fine dancer, I must say) and I are all actually employed in the same area that’s listed on our diplomas. One might scoff at country folks, but all three of us hold a Master’s degree in our chosen fields.

Now, on the verge of turning forty, I find I still miss those days, mightily. I wished I’d enjoyed them more at the time. The stress of school and classes and “what do I want to be when I grow up” cast a pall on my days.

My own fault. A worrier by nature, a tendency I fight tooth and nail every single day I take a breath.

When I’m having a bad day, when I doubt myself, when I realize I don’t fit in at my new place of employment, when I don’t feel heard or understood or very well liked, I can always go back to those days in my mind and smile.

I can’t get together with my best friend and her husband and NOT talk about those days. Magical. I’m blessed to have been able to have them. Once upon a time, I knew where I belonged.

______________________________

(photo found via Google. That is, in fact, Mark Delk and if I’m right, that photo was taken at Dickerson’s Auction Barn…another location for a lot of good nights of dancing….)

This historic journey brought to you by the song “On A Good Night” by Wade Hayes. The song popped up on my iPod set to shuffle during the morning commute. The song itself was burned off a CD while visiting my best good friend in the world just a couple months ago. Damn you Wade for putting me in the wayback machine!