Grateful

 Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for our time together.  Thank you for the care you showed on our first Christmas together.  Thank you for awakening my body.  Thank you for telling your kids you're peachy keen.  Thank you for telling my sister you are so happy. Thank you for adding me to your Costco card!

Thank you for encouraging me to start my business.  Thank you for offering to help me in any way possible and then complaining about it.  Thank you for making me stand on my own two feet. 

Thank you for withdrawing.  Thank you for ignoring your health.  Thank you for not contributing financially to our household.  

Your actions or lack of actions gave me the push to say this is not working for me.

I'm grateful for our time and for knowing you.  

And grateful now that you are in my rear view mirror.

Other

All my life I have felt other.  Outside the pattern.  Exception to the norm.  Starts with my name.  No one else in school with the same name.  Never wanted to be Susan or Jane.  Was just fine with a name no one shared.
My hair is other.  Red hair is a recessive gene that affects less than 10% of the population.  Currently accenting that with a blue streak.
Felt other in my family.  No one else an artist.  I bided my time until I could break from the culture I knew as a child.
Chose a husband who was alien to my mother, especially.  Had many good years with him.  But eventually I was other to him too.  He often dubbed me weird.
Last boyfriend said you were the family rebel.
I know what I like, I enjoy my own company and if someone doesn't embrace me a big Bronx cheer to them.
I try not to offend but don't try to blend in.  I cultivate a social circle that appreciates me.
I celebrate my otherness and enjoy the way it fits.

Say Yes

Love may come at any age or stage.  When it does let wisdom and prudence guide you.  But say yes.  I talked to a woman yesterday who is married and she said she and her husband play "what if".  What if we broke up, what if we got divorced, what if I died, what if you died.  She tells her husband if she ever found herself alone again she wouldn't make the same mistake twice.  Meaning marriage.  I don't feel that way.  My marriage was not a mistake.  And I hope to someday say yes to marriage again.


So I say yes now to love when it comes knocking.  Although it's not without hurts and pains it's also full of joy and elation and fulfillment and desire.  I could avoid the hurt if I kept the door tightly closed.  Locked up my heart and gave the key to no one.  That would be the safe choice, albeit miserable.  So I wait and watch in anticipation of the knock at the door. 


I say yes.

Visual Bling

Carol Van Oss had the coolest glasses.  I secretly admired them as I gazed down the row at her in our second grade class.  They were pink cats' eyes with sparkly things in the corners.  I wanted them.  I coveted them.
The Pruiksma twins had glasses too.  But they were coke bottley nerdy things.  No cool rhinestone shooting stars in the corners.
I can remember Carol's glasses with great detail.  But not how I injured my eye.  Somehow a scissors came in contact with my eye and my mom took me to the doctor.  This was one of the doctors from the Jewish hospital where she worked.  She would always ask for a professional discount and still hold her purse tightly and sigh when hearing the price.
The doctor examined my eye and said there had been a slight injury.  Emphasis on slight.  He had me read the eye chart.  Here's my big chance, I thought.  I purposely blurred my vision and pretended I couldn't distinguish the letters.  Would I get pink glasses or blue glasses?  Color didn't matter so much as long as they had sparkly things in the corners.
My mother watched anxiously as I failed to read the chart, sure I was going blind.  The doctor began muttering agitatedly and told my mother there was nothing wrong with my sight.  We left without a prescription and the ride home was silent.
Why couldn't I tell her about sparkly things?  Maybe she could have gotten me a cheap pair of dime store sunglasses and that would have scratched my itch. 
Now I wear glasses all the time.  But none have sparkly corners.

Dumpster Diving

It's not what you think. 
I haven't joined the urban scavengers.
Last night  I arrive home at my apartment around 7 p.m. I decide to clear out some trash from my car before checking my mail and going upstairs to my apartment.
I gather up papers and other debris and head for the dumpster, my hands full with the trash, my phone, keys and an electronic keypad that I use in my real estate business.
The dumpster lid is open and as soon as my hand opens and releases the trash I realize from the heavy thud the handful made that I have thrown in more than just crumpled paper.
Phone?  Check.  Keys?  Check.  Keypad?  Oh no....
There is the keypad, nestled on a bed of rotting leaves about a foot from the floor of the 4' tall dumpster.  I stare at the keypad, weighing my choices.  I can't reach in and grab it.  Not tall enough and too far down.  I could climb inside the dumpster.  Or I could leave it there and get a replacement from the board of realtors since I had purchased insurance on it.  But what if I need that insurance again in the future?
Sigh.
Another shorter dumpster faces mine.  I shimmy my butt on top of the shorter dumpster hoping the extra few inches of height would be enough to reach in and grab my keypad.  Still not enough height.
I mentally run through my tool collection wondering if I have a shovel.  Nope.  Any of my fellow tenants have a shovel outside their unit?  Nope.  Toys, barbecues, plants, everything but a shovel.
I know! I'll get a broom and scoot the keypad over to the side of the dumpster and then slide it up to the top.  Every time I poke the keypad with the broom it sinks further into its soft leafy bed.
I'm starting to think my only option is to climb inside the dumpster.
Inspiration!  I dash upstairs again, return the broom and bring down my 3 step ladder and kitchen tongs.  I open the ladder and position it next to the dumpster.  Standing on top of the ladder, my hips are even with the edge of the dumpster.  I hinge my body into the dumpster nearly diving head first and stretch out my arm with the kitchen tongs finally grabbing and retrieving that little sucker.

Moral #1:  when dealing with trash don't multi-task.

Moral #2:  all kitchen utensils have secondary uses.

You're Fired!

I have had some unusual jobs.  I worked as a nurse's aide on a psych floor and can snap a drawsheet and do a hospital corner with the best of them.  I sold knives door to door and am a master at getting strangers to tell me about their neighbors. I worked in the garment industry in New York as a childrenswear designer and traveled to factories in the backwoods of Kentucky.  I worked for a large weight loss organization and told you how to manage your weight and hence your life. I told women whether they were summer, spring, fall, or winter and which eyeshadow best complimented their unique coloring.  I ran a restaurant and could call every member of the town's city council by their first name when I wasn't telling drunk chefs to take the night off or unclogging the toilets.
I counted heads for the census and once again got strangers to tell me about their neighbors. I now work as a property manager and hear everyone's stories, from the tenants to the owners to the vendors.
I've only been fired from one job, though.  In high school my sister hired me to iron her nurse's uniforms.  That employment was terminated when one uniform had the extra imprint of a delicate brown tinged iron.  I thought it added to the whole look but my employer disagreed.

Epic Fail

My ex had an impossible dream.  To own a restaurant.  The failure of his impossible dream made it possible for me to leave an impossible marriage.  It was my silver lining.  But I digress.
We bought a restaurant (one of several) with another couple.  Out of the four of us I was the only one without restaurant experience.  Everyone had his job, except moi.  You can be the bartender said my ex but you have to learn the right way.  You have to go to bartending school.
Off I went to a low rent area of Van Nuys (as if there's any other kind), enrolled in bartending school.  This was around the time of that movie, Coyote Ugly, and my fellow classmates all wanted to work at a hot bar, showing off their mad skills and raking in the dough.  Most students were under 25 and a quick perusal revealed I was the only one without any ink. I just wanted to learn how to make a screwdriver, a martini, etc. and thought all that could be accomplished with a few recipe cards.  If you can whip up brownies you can whip up a cocktail, right?
Our middle aged instructor claimed to be a whiz behind the bar and also said he had graduated law school but never taken the bar.  I know there was a story there but I didn't get the chance to hear it. 
We had a mock bar set up with colored water in liquor bottles to practice making drinks.  The instructor stressed mastering a 1 oz pour.  Just the right flick of the wrist, just the right time and make sure you're exact or you won't get hired.  That part I got down.  What threw me was having to memorize the drink recipes.  We could not graduate the course and get our extremely valuable certificate unless we could pass a test displaying our encyclopaedic knowledge of drink recipes and manage an accurate 1 oz pour.
I think my fellow students could memorize all those drinks because at some point they had drunk them.  Knowing I would never reach that pinnacle of memorization I dropped out after a few lessons.  Today I could probably pour an accurate jigger with a little practice but if you ask me how to make an old fashioned I'll tell you to google it on your smartphone.