Ponderings and Musings

It has been a year with many highs and too many lows, but I’m wishing the hap-hap-happiest of birthdays to my sister today. Here’s one of my favorite photos from when we were kids. I’m guessing it was taken around 1980, since the house didn’t have siding on it yet and the back porch is just a slab of concrete.

I wish I could find an adult-sized version of that t-shirt I’m wearing. Happy birthday, sis!

You may find this hard to believe but there are times where I am easily distracted. Now, I don’t mean that I go running off into another room because I saw something bright and shiny in there, ok, that only happened one time and I didn’t know it was the ladies’ room, but there are times where something will catch my eye and my brain will have to process it.

Today is the first of two, six-hour days of training for work. Because it is the 21st century, I work for a company that tries to be hip, the team I belong to is scattered all over the country and most importantly, remote training sessions are much easier on the budget, I am watching this training via WebEx and listening in via conference call. Actually, it’s not WebEx, it’s GoToMeeting and the audio connection information on the GoToMeeting should be ignored so that we can dial in with a landline instead (vs using the headset attached to my Mac). I am watching the presentation on my personal Mac because the display is much bigger than the screen on my work provided MacBook Pro.

I sound like an Apple fanboy.

I am an Apple fanboy.

Where was I? Oh yes, distractions.

I noted at the beginning of the presentation that the presenter mentioned one ten-minute break each hour during the day, however, at no time did he mention a lunch break.

Sacré bleu!

Now, I don’t know about most American workers these days but I try to work balls to the wall so I can get my stuff done and get to my lunch hour. I then work balls to the wall in the afternoon so I can get my stuff done and get out of the office at a reasonable time. Now, this might sound like it’s self-serving and quite frankly, it is.

The lack of the mention of the lunch break distracted me. As I pondered over whether we would have an actual lunch break or not during the presentation, I came up with alternate plans on how I would enjoy at least a snippet of a lunch break. This distraction led me to another distraction, and that was that the presentation and training seminar was apparently called “Click Here To Add Text”, but I digress.

I did my best to pay attention and I did learn some things along the way, but that niggling wonder of whether we would get a lunch break or not was always present in the back of my head. What am I going to do?

12:00 came and went. At 12:05 it was announced that we would take a ten-minute break and reconvene at 12:15.

NO LUNCH!

I ran upstairs (luckily I’m working from home today) and made myself a bowl of popcorn because a. I love the stuff, b. I find comfort in popcorn and c. it’s quick and easy.

I rejoined the conversation at 12:14, with a minute to spare. Said conversation was already in progress because they started at 12:13 with the assumption that everyone had already returned.

If we were on GoToMeeting’s audio and video controls they would have seen that I was still away.

Ugh.

The presentation continued as I munched on popcorn and listened to the tinny little voices on the conference call. I used the MUTE button on my phone so that others wouldn’t know about my secret stash of popcorn. I had usurped the lack of lunch during the “Click Here To Add Text” presentation! I made a little evil laugh.

At 12:50 it was announced that we would break for lunch and reconvene at 1:30 p.m.

w00t!

It turns out that the presenters are in Central Time while I’m in Eastern Time. I’m not used to having to bow down to another time zone. I guess they don’t realize that we are in the Eastern Time Zone, the time zone that reigns supreme from the mountains to the valleys and to the oceans white with foam. Stock markets close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Prime time television starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I don’t care if you’re still eating lunch when “American Idol” infests the television yet again, that’s not my problem. If you want to see it on time, you’ll move to the East Coast which is the most important.

So now I have 11 minutes left in this Centrally Timed Lunch Hour. I supplemented the clandestine bowl of popcorn with a chicken salad-on-croissant sandwich and a large, unsweetened iced tea from the local Dunkin’ Donuts. I was happy to note that this store closest to the house is back to its old ways with the crankiest employees on the planet again.

And now it’s getting ready to thunderstorm. That will liven up the presentation nicely!

I routinely hit Earl up with random questions, derived from the thoughts that are floating around my head at a given moment. For example, one of my friends on Facebook just posted a picture of a Red Velvet Cake that had been made from scratch.

This concerned me.

The reason that Red Velvet Cake concerns me is I can’t figure out how the cake becomes red. This is one of the reasons that I don’t naturally select Red Velvet Cake as a dessert delectable. I pondered this for a moment, randomly deducing that beet juice might be involved, when I decided to bark out.

“I don’t understand what makes a Red Velvet Cake red!” My voice might have been distressed sounding, because I had pondered this for a few moments and couldn’t come up with an answer. I didn’t want to resort to Google because I didn’t want to be bombarded with suggestions for connecting with Red Velvet Cake and it’s people on Google Plus.

Earl calmly looked up at me and gave me the mellow “What?” gaze.

“How do they make the Red Velvet Cake red?” My voice had ramped back a notch in distress.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Quite frankly, I was now terrified because I thought that maybe blood would be involved and that just didn’t seem, well, I don’t know, healthy. Or American. Maybe it would be more American than healthy if there was blood involved but I didn’t want to get wrapped up in a political debate.

“They burn the chocolate.”

“Red Velvet Cake is chocolate?”

“Yes.”

He went back to watching a political campaign ad, leaving me to ponder why anyone would want to burn a perfectly good piece of chocolate just to make it red.

So the other day Earl mentioned that one of his favorite photos of me is from my birthday back in 1997. It’s hard to believe that it has been 15 years since I was 29. Time sure flies by fast.

Today I turn 44. Life is good, I’m quite content and I’m very happy. Last night, under a slight(?) influence of alcohol, I told the world via Facebook how much I love my life, my husband, my work and the whatnot. I was accused of being sappy. You should see how I handle my beer in person. It’s a hoot.

Yesterday I received an official itinerary in my email.

Events have been planned for the weekend, including going away somewhere. I don’t know where we are going. I just know that I need to pack a bag, the travel time can be measured in multiple hours and that there is an entry on the official itinerary labeled “Exploration”. Sounds like fun!

Without sounding sappy, as I’m not influenced by alcohol since I haven’t drank my breakfast yet, folks are absolutely right when they say “it gets better.” Life does get better, and turning 44 years old is something that I’m proud of.

About 20 years ago I worked for an organization that is now called “The Arc.” Back then it was still called The Association for Retarded Citizens, a name that I didn’t really care for because the word “retarded” has such negative connotations to it. In fact, I have to hold back on hostile retaliatory impulses when I hear someone use the word “retarded”. It’s such an awful word.

Back to my point.

While working at The Arc, my last position with the organization was “Community Residence Coordinator.” Basically, I was responsible for the staff, facilities and physical plant for a cluster of group homes. My co-supervisor, a wonderful woman by the name of Tammy, was responsible for the mental and physical well-being of the residents (whom I still refer to as “the folks”). She was much like a case-worker. Tammy helped the folks formulate reasonable goals for achievement and made sure that they were comfortable in the home that I supervised.

Tammy was very outgoing. We could sit in our shared office space and chat for hours. Both of us had risen through the ranks, having both been Residence Managers (we managed one residence for one 35 hour shift per week) before the supervisory we held together. I enjoyed talking with Tammy because she was so well-spoken. She could conduct case review meetings with ease; I always stammered and stuttered when speaking in front of the staff during weekly staff meetings. It wasn’t a lack of confidence, it was a lack of comfort on my behalf. I just don’t like interacting with other people.

I wanted to be more outgoing and be more like other people: at ease in social situations, part of the crowd, banging empty shot glasses down on the bar when everyone was half-cocked during a night on the town. But the truth of the matter is, I’m not really wired that way. I like being part of a big group gathering when I can watch from the outside. I’m not afraid. I’m not shy. I just don’t like being in that type of space. I can do it, but it’s not what I like the most. It’s kind of like the bar scenario; I liked being in a bar best when I was alone or with Earl in the DJ booth, contributing to the party with my DJing skills from my own little corner.

I don’t know if Tammy was a partier or not. I suspect she may have been. We did talk about skydiving once and she went ahead and did it. She jumped from a hot-air balloon and had a hell of a time. There was a part of me that wanted to do that. Not for the thrill of doing it or the rush of wind blowing by my face or the sense of flying through the air. I wanted to skydive so that I could prove to the world that I could do it. Even though I really wanted to be just reading a book or in my “alone space”, I would show everyone that I was just as capable as they were at doing wild, adventurous, outgoing things. People always loved the outgoing people. I wanted to be loved in that way. That’s one of the reasons I was a radio DJ for a while. It would make me seem outgoing. It would make me seem to be part of the world. I didn’t care about being known. Truth of the matter is that I would have been just as content doing the behind the scenes work for the station.

I did end up bungee jumping at the county fair. That was my way of proving that I could come out of my corner and seek out adrenaline rushes and be outgoing and be spontaneous and do crazy things. When I finally got my self settled on the ground after that bungee jump, I felt the sense of accomplishment that I thought I would because I had proven to the world (and in fact, on the radio) that I had done just that. I didn’t feel fulfilled from the rush of adrenaline, I felt that I had completed what was expected of me. I had done something outgoing.

Most gay men surround themselves with lots of people. They have friends, they have lovers, they have friends with benefits. All of that is well and good, for them. I’m wired differently. I like my smaller circles. I would rather have a couple of very trusted friends over a whole gaggle of people that are doing their thing in their world together. Try as I might, that just doesn’t fit. I have a husband that gets me most of the time, though I probably frustrate the hell out of him some of the time. My first reaction to a group gathering seems to be negative. I need to stop that knee jerk reaction, that’s a fault of mine. I just need a few minutes to process a situation before jumping into it. I’m going to work on that for my next revolutionary ride around the sun.

Now I’m going to go sit in the corner and read a good book (well, an iPad version of a book) for the rest of my lunch hour. It’s a great way to recharge.

I hate labeling people, but this one sounds really familiar.

So today is Independence Day in these fine United States and there will be much celebrating. 236 years ago some very smart people made some pretty bold declarations. Look how far we’ve come.

Many will celebrate the day by shooting off fireworks and enjoying picnics with friends and family. Hopefully the weather will hold out so that we can do the same. I know I look forward to cooking on the grill. It seems to be my thing this summer.

When I was a kid there would be a big family reunion on Independence Day. All the cousins and aunts and uncles and other folks on Grandma Country’s side of the family would get together for a picnic at my dad’s aunt’s (Grandma Country’s sister-in-law’s) house. She had a big barn where there might be a magic show performed by one of the distant cousins. There were two ponds. One was designated for fishing or we’d take the row boats out on the other small pond on the property. One of the row boats had a leak so one of the passengers in that boat was responsible for bailing out water continuously. We didn’t care though. We took turns.

One year my cousin Becky shoved my cousin Missy out of the boat that didn’t have the leak. It was an awesome Laura Ingalls-Nellie Olsen-in-the-mud-like moment. Missy wasn’t really like Nellie Olsen but she was blond and that made the comparison more lively. Becky had always had spunk and didn’t put up with much from anyone. There was mayhem on the shore when Missy landed in the pond but that’s what family reunions are about. Mayhem.

Another year one of the distant cousins announced during the festivities that he was gay. This created a lot of turmoil since this proclamation was made in the mid 70s or so. I don’t know if his wife at the time was in attendance or not. I remember asking my mom what that meant. She told me without hysterics in her voice. Looking back she was usually level headed about that stuff.  She’d get much more hysterical if I did something like take the agitator out of the washing machine. I don’t know whatever happened to that cousin who came out in the mid 70s. 

One year I rode my bike to the family reunion and I felt a big sense of accomplishment. The ride was only three or four miles in each direction but I felt that riding a three speed bike that distance at an elementary school age was rather impressive. That year someone had the idea that we head into town for a little while to attend the circus that was going on at the firemen’s field. I was pissed. I wanted to ride the boats on the pond. It was that year that I decided that I don’t really like clowns. They’re creepy. The clown at that circus smoked while he talked to the crowd. Stupid clown. I don’t remember much else about the circus. The distant cousin who came up with the circus idea wasn’t the gay one. Everything got back to normal when we were brought back to the picnic.

We are having a picnic today to celebrate Independence Day. The family gathering will be smaller, we don’t have pond for zesty cousins to shove others into but it’ll be an enjoyable gathering. I’m looking forward to it.

So as I mentioned yesterday, we had some heavy equipment being operated by good looking men doing some work on the stream that runs along the back edge of our front yard yesterday. We call it a stream or “the creek”, but it’s actually a ditch that veers off from the road and runs down into a pond about a half mile away. The primary purpose of this stream is to handle the water coming down the hill along the roadway. It’s a drainage ditch. Unfortunately, over the past several years it has become over grown with foliage, dirt and the like and hasn’t been able to perform it’s function very well. Earl and I talked to the county, they said it belong to the town. The town said it belongs to the county. Because we live on a county route, one would assume that it belongs to the county but I guess no one really knows when the whole thing is wrapped up in red tape, so we just went ahead and got some folks to clean it out for us. After all, that side of the lawn has turned into a marsh and we’re kind of sick of that.

So now we have this along the back edge of the lawn.

We are going to put seed along the “banks” and dress it up again, but at the very least we have adequate drainage. The marsh that used to be our lawn is already drying up again.

While I was walking around the lawn I found one Black Eyed Susan (I think) showing her stuff. These are one of my favorite summer flowers.

In between his trips as flight attendant, Scott keeps busy by planting flowers around The Manor. We have a nice touch of color in strategic locations around the property.

During our ride last night I mentioned to Earl that if we won the lottery I’d like to buy the local Beardslee Castle and turn it into a private residence again. He said that we couldn’t do that, but we could build our own castle.

I think we are well on our way.

So last week I talked about how hot it was during my lunch hour. Summer had arrived early and we were all sweating to death when we couldn’t find air conditioned comfort.

Today I am eat chicken soup and thinking about putting on a sweatshirt because it’s gray and 62 degrees out. That Mother Nature is such a hoot, even when she looks like Dorothy’s sister Gloria.

I don’t have a cold or anything because I refuse to have a cold. I think I’m sniffly because we slept with the fan on and it dropped down to around 50 last night. When the windows are open and the fan is blowing on you, you can get sniffly under those circumstances.

Nevertheless, I am eating chicken soup in the luxury of the kitchen while playing around with my Linux computer during my lunch hour. The first official day of the remote part of my new position is going along quite nicely. I’m getting quite a bit accomplished down in my home office.

I’ll probably get more accomplished once I put on a parka to go with my camo shorts.