Category: Mom

Tangents

Been thinking a lot about a discussion going on in the comments of another blog I read regularly.

One very astute reader there made a comment that a choice I had made was “…so very different than the common priority system a couple of generations ago it boggles my mind.”

That comment has stuck with me for a variety of reasons.

Been thinking a lot lately about my parents and their values versus my own values as their youngest child.

Both of my parents were alive during the Depression and remember it well. Especially my dad. A lot of how he faced his life, his finances and ultimately, his demise a few years ago, was shaped by those memories.

My mom had me at age thirty-five, which by today’s standards is normal, but by the standards in the sixties, was positively ancient. She was advised by doctors I would come out all wrong, touched in the head, or worse.

Ultimately I came out all right, mostly, and grew up with parents SO much older than the parents of my friends. My different (yes, old fashioned) way of thinking made me a bit of an odd ball among these kids with hip young moms divorced from their cool as heck dads.

My stodgy parents were employed at Sandia Labs, married for 46 years and devoted to working hard and raising their kids.

This has come to me in bias relief lately because The Good Man is one year and one month younger than me. His folks met and married VERY young, and are a generation apart from my own parents. My mom has more in common with The Good Man’s grandparents, for heaven’s sakes!

I am what is commonly referred to as an “oops” baby. My brother is seven years older than me. My sister is four years older. My folks thought they were done, but I was a force not to be stopped by aging ovaries and good intentions.

To say that my father was a staunch Republican is to say that Cher is just a tad flamboyant.

He leaned to far to the right it’s a wonder he didn’t flop over when he walked. He advocated clean cars, walls painted white in any home, and one must always save for one’s retirement.

It’s hard to grow up in that atmosphere and not reflect some of the constant theme. From the time I could vote, I was too scared to vote anything other than Republican, fearing my dad would find out.

The first time I *did* vote for a Democrat, it felt like mutiny. Like I was being deliciously deceitful. I grinned when I pulled the lever.

Then came a major act of mutiny. I moved away from New Mexico. I did it, mostly, because I wanted to know what my life could be like if I got to create my own way. I’d followed in the footsteps of my parents, both knowingly and sometimes without intending to.

Moving to California was, for me, such a break out act of defiance that I almost thought my folks would disown me. They certainly didn’t understand it. But ultimately, they accepted it.

And much like growing up in a Republican home, it was hard to live in this atmosphere and not begin to reflect the prevailing attitudes around me.

I think age, living on the coast and the evolution of American politics has made me rather liberal on some issues. I remain quite conservative on others.

California gets a rap for being hola-granola and long-haired liberals. You’d be surprised at how conservative it actually can be.

I guess this is a long way around the barn to say that I know that in commenting to me my values are so diverse from a couple generations ago wasn’t necessarily meant as a compliment…but for me and my personal experience…I’ll take it as such.

I’ve worked hard to have differing priorities. To greater and lesser success.

So anyhow, thanks.

Strategy.

Yes, planning session. Must have.

Approach. Direction. Map out the route. Implement. Execute.

Yup. Vital.

Necessary.

What’s that? Work? No, no, I’m not talking about work.

Food. At the baseball game. Tonight. Yup. The Good Man and I are currently engaged in a lengthy instant message conversation planning this out.

What needs to be consumed. Where it’s located. How to obtain efficiently.

Nice.

BTW, I learned this blitz strategy from my Mom. Attending the NM State Fair.

“Ok, we start out in the Spanish Village for a burrito…then across the way to the Native American Village for fry bread and honey…Mom needs a corndog…Karen wants funnel cake…”

You know the drill.

Hey, I learned from the best.

Dreaming of a Cha-Cha bowl now (bless you Orlando Cepeda!)…

Photo source.

This whole marriage "thing"

So the point of last week’s road trip was not only visiting with family, but also a fun engagement party, the subject of marriage has been the hot conversation topic.

Since becoming engaged, I’ve been talking to a lot of friends and family who have been married for a while to get their thoughts. Everyone has an idea on what it takes to “make it work”.

Obviously, I’m very conscious about being a good partner, friend and spouse, so I’ve been listening.

Here’s some of the thoughts I’ve gathered so far.

From Grandmother of The Good Man, her advice to me was to “have a room of your own in the house…because you’ll want your alone time”. I replied, “yes, that’s seems true…” She leaned forward and fixed her eyes steadily on me. “No, I’m serious. You are going to want your own space!”

Point well taken, ma’am.

From my Aunt in Arizona, her advice was to work to keep things from being boring. Can’t disagree with that one, seems easy to slip into. I have a couple friends who got married and slid right into the sweatpants and television mode. I suppose if it works for the couple, that’s ok. But I think my Aunt has good advice.

From my own mom, she told TGM about the rather expensive toaster her own mom gave her for her wedding present. My dad, the ever tinkering electrical engineer, kept that thing toasting for the better part of forty years. Mom said that even when the toaster died, she kept it polished up and on a shelf. She said, “I figured that if we had that toaster, we had a marriage.”

So maybe not the toaster itself, but a talisman, a symbol, a “something to hang on to” when the seas get rough is important.

I like it.

A friend at work who despite being about my age, has been married over twenty years (very YOUNG bride…wow!) says that for her, she laid down the law early on. For example, they have two beautiful children. She’s made it clear that if they part ways, the kids are hers, no dispute.

This was along the same lines as the advice from the dad of my best friend…

He also said that both sides should set down the rules early on.

It all seems a bit rigid to me, but maybe it’s not the “rules” so much as “these are the lines that cannot be crossed”.

Mom of my best friend, upon hearing this advice about the rules said, “yes, that’s true, I told him if he cheats on me I’m going to jail because I’m taking him out”

Wow. But hey, there’s no gray area there, now is there?

I do think it’s good to communicate “these are my non-starters” from the beginning. TGM and I have done some of that already…entering into this relationship later in life, we both had some previous experiences…so there were a couple “if you are going to xyz then I’m out” moments.

Other things heard are:

“Keep your own interests, don’t make your spouse the only thing in your life”…ok, good.

“Communicate, communicate, communicate”…also good and one already well used. In fact, I know I’m guilty of sometimes OVER communicating…but I do have to say, if TGM and I find a disagreement, it’s over pretty quick because we’re good at talking and being honest about what’s going on. (again, that “late in life” thing helps)

“Keep laughing.” Ah yes.

All good things to ponder.

Anyone else got thoughts? If you don’t want to put in comments, shoot me an email. I’m all ears.

Group Therapy

A personal blog really is just a form of confessional, right? No priest or therapist but a forum to air your issues.

With that in mind, I need to talk about a *painful* recent incident. It’s taken me these many days to be able to discuss it without wincing.

You see, as you know, I’m soon to get hitched to The Good (nay WONDERFUL) Man.

And as such, I need to wear what they call a “gown.”

I’ve worked for nine years at a company in which our multi-billionaire CEO wears old jeans with large visible holes. And we’re a company full of engineers. You can never set the dress standard terribly high with engineers.

So the standard of dress in my world has dropped considerably.

Once upon a time, I wore dresses and panty hose to work almost every day.

Now, it’s real, real hard to get my heiny into a pair of hose. I mean, why?

(Which begs for a slight aside…on the night that my love and I were engaged, I knew we were going to a REALLY nice place for dinner. Wanting him to think I’m a class act, I got out a dress from the back of my closet and bought a new pair of hose. My love observed the shimmy/shake/jumping dance it takes to get into those things and through hysterical laughter said, and this is a direct quote: “Never do that in front of me again.”)

Obviously with all this in mind, the thought of actually purchasing a wedding dress scared me sh–less. It took my best friend flying in from Las Cruces for the weekend to get me to do it. God bless her.

Once the dress was procured, the dress-making people told me, emphatically, that I had to go to Nordstrom to get measured and fitted for a “foundation garment”. (For those not paying attention, that’s a bra in street speak).

Well. If I was traumatized by going to buy a dress, can you imagine what this bit of news did to me?

I was immediately taken back to my youth. Twelve maybe? My mom took me to the Mervyn’s at Coronado Center in Albuquerque where a severe, middle aged woman roughly measured my burgeoning assets, and picked out the ugliest sturdy white device she could sell. No flowers. No lace. A utilitarian boob holding device.

To be fair, my mom did nothing wrong. She was being a good mom. No one could have known how traumatizing that would be for me. But it was. Traumatic.

So, needless to say, I’ve been avoiding the “get measured for a bra” task on my list of “to do’s” for the wedding.

With the day of my first dress fitting well nigh, this last weekend I had to “do the deed”.

I reluctantly trudged into Nordies and waited in line for one of the nice women working there to help me.

As I waited, it seemed the sturdy middle-aged woman with the Eastern Bloc accent was going to be the first finished with her customers, and would be the one assisting me.

FLASHBACKS FROM ‘NAM! Or Mervyn’s. Anyhow.

Much to my pleasant surprise, a young lady hidden behind Helga or Gilda or Gerta hung up the phone she was on, stepped forward and said to me, kindly, “how can I help you?”

I quiveringly told her I was getting married soon and was, to my own utter disbelief, going to be wearing a strapless bra and needed a garment to wear under.

She smiled kindly and said, “do you need to be measured?”

I woefully nodded.

Together we went to the dressing room where she quickly measured my assets (less burgeoning now, more succumbing to gravity).

She left the room to pick out items to try on. I stood there, shivering like a Chihuahua, waiting.

She brought in a few choices. Said cheerily, “ok, let’s try these on!”

She took one off the hanger, opened it up and held it out to me.

I complied.

She said, “Bend over and shake into it.”

What?

“Go ahead,” she urged.

I complied.

She fastened it up behind me.

Oh dear god. I am now wearing this contraption. I. Can’t. Look.

“Oh, now that’s not bad,” my new intimate friend Lilly, chirped.

I looked. Really, it wasn’t that bad. But it made my generous assets, uh…how to say this…made them burble up over the top. Many women like this. I do not. I prefer the “keep ’em stable” approach.

So we moved on to the next one. Shake, shake, fasten.

Hmm. I looked. This one not so very bad at all. I raised my arms up (the litmus test of a strapless device). Everybody stayed where they should.

Lilly pointed out that I was “getting good separation” which sent me reeling back to those old Platex bra commercials, “lifts and separates!”

So ok. We shook, shook into a couple more and decided that device number two was a winner!

Ok, so bra is done. That wasn’t so bad.

Now we needed a garment for the rest of the stuff that has to look good in a nice dress.

Out came the Spanx. You’ll recall the “Spanx and a sash” advice previously discussed.

So I was cool with the Spanx idea.

Until my little friend Lilly suggested I should get a “heavy duty” pair in a size smaller “to really hold you in”.

Uh. Well. Ok.

So she brought in this wrestler’s suit. Which is appropriate, because that’s what we had to do to try it on.

Lilly actually chose to HELP ME with this task.

This was more than a shake, shake, folks.

As we grunted like overworked longshoremen to get the device installed, about halfway through the job, I started laughing.

I remembered, “never do that in front of me again” and wondered what The Good Man would have to say about all this. Two women wrestling a recalcitrant pair of Spanx. Hot? Yeah, probably not.

Not to be deterred, Lilly demanded that I focus.

Give it up for Lilly’s tenacity. She got that damn thing on me.

There I stood in all my pre-matrimonial glory. Highly steel belted Spanx lashed to a sturdy strapless bra, all my bits and pieces sucked in to within an inch of my life.

And I looked at me in the mirror and said, “yeah, ok, that will work”.

Blessedly, on the removal, the Spanx shot off of me like Evil Knievel out of a cannon, and I was free to breathe once more.

The rest of the day I walked around like a chastened dog, tail between my legs, terribly embarrassed but glad I got the “framework” for my new pretty dress.

It didn’t erase the “incident” at Mervyn’s in the early years, but it helped. Turns out “getting measured” isn’t all that terrible. I also bought a couple of pretty, nicely fitting bras for everyday wear.

With lace! Man, has bra technology improved.

Wonder if my best good friend and Matron of Honor will be as kind to me as Lilly was when it comes to getting those Spanx back on…

She has until August to think about it.

It should be a National Holiday*

(with all due deference to NewMexiKen’s decision that today *isn’t* a candidate for National Holiday. Damn Domenici for busting up my day!)

And on this day, a Karen was born, and it was good.

Until she grew up a little and her family would beg to differ…

So when I was little, my mom was always willing to make whatever cake or pie the birthday kid wanted. I usually chose a cake, a chocolate chip cake. My mom would whip it up out of a box and it was oh so yuuuum. It felt special to have the cake made just for me.

In honor of the kindness my mother showed me all those years, I decided to make my own cake for myself this year.

Mom, you’ll note my layer cake is about as even as all the ones you and I made over the years.

Though in my defense, The Good Man and I have discovered our home on a hill built in the early 1940’s isn’t exactly level anymore. Doors don’t stay open (or closed, depending) and my two layer of cake came out of the oven looking less like a square and more like a right-angled triangle. Can one work a Pythagorean theorem on a cake?

But as I’ve learned over the years, frosting can make up for a multitude of sins. And add a few too.

Last night on Birthday Eve, I endulged in a slab of cake. Not a piece, a slab. And it was gooooooood. Chocolate with vanilla frosting. Yes please!

And I am planning to celebrate even more. I’ve shaken off the birthday blues and enjoying the day. I even scored a few presents at work. How ’bout that!

Looking forward to the surprises The Good Man has in store.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños para ME!

_______________________________

Oh, an update for the folks who have asked about the progress of Plastic Surgery Kitty.

She’s healing really well.

Here’s a photo from this morning:

The last of the scab came off last night and the wound has healed nicely, is pink and healthy. Looks like she’s come through it just fine! Much better photo than the last one I posted, huh?