Foto Phriday: Concert Ready

Posted on June 13, 2014 by funnygurl2

When I was in my 20’s, and first had my own job and my own apartment, often I would go out to rock concerts with my friends. I went from going to no concerts ever, to going to probably about one a month for a few years.

These pictures were taken when my green-haired friend and I went to see Good Charlotte in Toledo, Ohio on Halloween 2002. Within a year, we would actually get to MEET them, coincidentally, also in Toledo.

This is one of my favorite pictures of myself. It was taken in my cute little one bedroom apartment I used to have.

Are you convinced I am a bad-ass yet?

Me, all ready for action!

Me, all ready for action!

Ya, me neither.

Here is a picture of my green-haired friend, although in this pic I can’t really tell what color her hair is. But knowing her, and that we were headed to a concert of one of our favorite bands, it was probably freshly dyed. She has a “roar” face because she is wearing kitty ears on her head;)

My green-haired friend

My green-haired friend

In this picture, I was first struck by how beautiful my green-haired friend looks.

Then I realized her necklace looks like a candy necklace (which she sometimes wore), but it is not.

Then I realized I look like Miley Cyrus. But, you know, a good decade before her. Can I get some kind of kick-back for that?

I look drunk. I assure you that I had not had anything but Coca-Cola.

I look drunk. I assure you that I had not had anything but Coca-Cola.

CONCERT READY-GC sign

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Miracles & Tragedies

Posted on June 11, 2014 by funnygurl2

I had a guy come to my desk at work the other day. He was inquiring about some sunglasses that he had lost months ago. He wanted to know if we still had them.

He kept telling me that these were no ordinary sunglasses. They were $400 RayBan sunglasses. I remembered him. This was not the first time he had checked to see if someone had turned them in.  He said he was checking again because “miracles happen”.

Unfortunately, we did not have them. He mused about how life is filled with miracles and tragedies. This made me wonder if he considered losing his expensive sunglasses as a tragedy. That turned me off a bit, as there are people with much worse things happening in their lives.

Then, he asked me, if I had had miracles and tragedies in my life. I couldn’t think of any in my own life off the top of my head. And maybe because of my previous thought about his sunglasses, I did share that my mom’s life was filled with both.

MIRACLES-miracle

“What is one miracle that she had?” he asked me.

This was getting personal now, but I couldn’t resist. So I explained how in 2006 the doctors told her that she had kidney cancer that had metathesized into her lungs. The doctor gave her 2 months to live. She had her left kidney removed, although the surgeon implied she was setting herself up for a long recovery for no reason. Then her cancer completely disappeared. She is still here today, 8 years later.

MIRACLES-mom and dad

“Wow! So what was a tragedy?” he replied.

I totally had him hooked now. It was time to pull out my favorite shocking family revelation. I can’t change it, so might as well enjoy it, right?

I told him that would probably be when she was pregnant with me and my dad dropped over from a heart attack before I was born.

Ya, the customer was pretty impressed with those. He probably still didn’t forget about his sunglasses, but I had unloaded a lot on him to think about. If he was better looking and I was single, this could be the beginning of a romantic Hollywood movie.

I still can’t really say what the miracles and tragedies of my life will be yet.

My son having successful surgery to fix his UPJ obstruction I would consider a miracle. But that is his, and not mine.

What are the miracles and tragedies in your life?

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What I Learned This Week – 6/8/14

Posted on June 8, 2014 by funnygurl2

This week I learned that I wouldn’t do my life differently.

Look at this baby.

Baby pic of A.L.D.

Baby pic of A.L.D.

I remember when this baby was born.

Last weekend, she graduated from high school.

This is the daughter of one of my close friends growing up. She had her when she was just 2 years out of high school herself. Two more children soon followed.

The last time I saw my friend and her husband at the grocery store, they actually looked at my son and laughed. They laughed because they are almost done raising their children, and I am just starting.

But you know what? I wouldn’t trade with them for anything.

I went and visited them shortly after their daughter was born. I was just a kid in college. I had never had a real job. I didn’t have my own car. I didn’t have any bills. I didn’t live on my own, and wouldn’t be ready to for another three years.

Their little bundle of joy scared the shit out of me!

In the years they were raising kids, I was going to concerts and spending money on CDs and hoodies, not on diapers and backpacks. I only had to be responsible for myself and a hamster.

You know the good thing about a hamster? If you decide to crash at your green-haired friend’s house for the night, YOU CAN! The hamster has enough food and water for 24 hours. It is a rodent, for God sake. They not only survived the plague, they spread it to everyone else.

My husband and I spent many Sunday nights going out to Walmart too late and spending money we couldn’t spare on DVDs and toys. And I wouldn’t trade those lazy nights for anything.

The way I see it, we got to enjoy our youth when we were young. My friends are looking forward to having all their kids out of their house soon. But they will still be in their 40’s by then. And as I approach that milestone myself, I am sure I won’t have as much energy then as I did in my 20s. I used to live my whole life on 6 hours of sleep per night up until I had my son. I used to go out to concerts surrounded by kids 10 years younger than me and jump up and down with them at a Good Charlotte concert. I used to be squeezed in a mosh pit. I stood up for 5 hours in the summer sun with no food or water in 2008 to listen to future President of the United States Barack Obama speak.

I was strong! I was hardy!

I can still do a concert better than many people my own age. But not with the enthusiasm and longevity and fearlessness I once had.

I waited until I was 34 to have my son. And even then, I could barely figure out when to give him formula and when to change a diaper. (I wasted lot of diapers and formula this way.) Now, at my increased age, I barely have enough patience for him some days. I can’t imagine if I had been younger and felt like he was making me miss out on stuff.

So as far as having a child, I definitely do not regret having mine later.

I am tempted to say that I do regret not working on getting a novel published sooner. But, well, I guess I had to wait for the right idea to come along and kick me in the ass.

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Have We Forgotten Our Dead?

Posted on June 4, 2014 by funnygurl2

My mom, my son M, and I visited three cemeteries the Monday prior to Memorial Day, to decorate family members graves with flowers.  Two of the three cemeteries was very unsatisfactory.

The first one, St. Joseph’s Catholic cemetery in Adrian, Michigan, had their drive blocked with orange construction cones.  It seemed they had decided that a week before Memorial Day was the optimal time to put fresh tar in the cracks of the paved drive.

Really?  How does that make sense?  To block people out of the cemetery at the one time of year when they are guaranteed to want to visit?!

As I didn’t want to get fresh tar on my car (the hail damage is enough to give it character), my mom and I made alternate arrangements to come back on Wednesday.  Surely it would be open again by then, right?

Next we visited Pleasant View cemetery in Blissfield, Michigan, where my dad is buried.  There was no sign of the flags that they always put on the graves of veterans.  The place had not even been mowed.  There were branches and stray bits of liter everywhere.

My mom is very particular about millions of things in this world.  Most of which I DO NOT and WILL NOT ever understand.  But on one thing I do agree with her, and that is that you should place your flowers at the cemetery after they have mowed.  Otherwise, your artificial flowers get dirt and grass thrown all up in them and look terrible.  But, having no other options, we placed our flowers at that time.  Next to my dad’s tombstone is a concrete marker in the shape of a lamb for his sister, who was born and died before he was ever born.  It probably isn’t made out of very quality materials to begin with, and it has been there approaching 100 years.  But we could plainly see where the riding lawn mower clips it when it goes between the stones.

You can see where I pushed away the dirt with my foot to expose the original resting position of the lamb.

You can see where I pushed away the dirt with my foot to expose the original resting position of the lamb.

Really?

These stones are the only thing left to mark these people’s lives (in this instance, of a deceased baby who never even got to live her life), and you have to carelessly push them over on their foundations?

When my mom and I returned to the St. Joseph’s Catholic cemetery on Wednesday, we witnessed the same thing.  The place had not yet been mowed.  The tombstones on the ends had been moved on their foundations, from previous passes with the mower.  I tried to push one back into position, unsuccessfully, and almost gave myself a hernia.

Oh, and FYI, there were STILL cones blocking the entrance to St. Joseph’s.  It appeared as if they had seal-coated the drive as well.  I drove around the cones.  (It had already rained the night before.  Any of the coating that was going to come off would have already been washed off.)

Aside from the shotty groundskeeping, I also noticed that WE, as surviving family members as a whole, are not decorating.  The entire section my dad is located in was almost devoid of flowers.  Everyone in his section generally died in 1980 or before.

Now, looking across the cemetery to the newer section, it did appear to be very decorated.  I guess all the people in the ground in the new section are the ones who used to decorate the tombstones in the old section.

How sad is that?

Even sadder is that they never told their children that someone had to keep decorating the grandmas’ and grandpas’ when they themselves had moved on.

Decorating gravestones is very similar to how I feel about sending greeting cards.  I know that it is an extra expense, but we lose a little of our humanity when we decide it is not worth our time and bother anymore.  A website exists called Find-A-Grave.  It is a great resource for genealogists.  But, you can also leave “virutal flowers” for people.  I have an issue with the “social media-ization” of the dead.

Oy.

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What I Learned This Week – 5/25/14

Posted on May 27, 2014 by funnygurl2

This week I learned what it was like to lose a family member on the Titanic.

Not really. But a good attempt at a simulation.

Titanic 2nd class soup bowl

Titanic 2nd class souvenir soup bowl

See, my family and I headed down to the Imagination Station in Toledo, Ohio, to check out their Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition. The Imagination Station is a hands-on science museum. We had never been before.

I am not a huge fan of all things Titanic, but I am as interested in one of the most famous shipwrecks in history as the next person. Although, I do own a book about the crash of the famous Great Lakes shipwreck, the Edmund Fitzgerald. But do not get me started on that horrible movie with Leonardo DiCraprio.

If you have a toddler, I recommend going straight into the Titanic Exhibit first, before they can see all the other colorful objects in the rest of the building that they can touch. I attempted this with my son. I was unsuccessful. M didn’t enjoy the exhibit as much as my husband and I did. Although he was quite fond of the gift shop at the end.

When we entered the exhibit, each one of us was given a card with the name and info of a passenger who traveled on the Titanic. At the end, we would get to see if we lived or died.

I got Mrs. Dickinson H. Bishop (Helen Walton) from Michigan. (Which is cool, because I live in Michigan.) I was 19, in 1st class, and returning from my extended honeymoon in Egypt, Italy, Spain, and France. I was also pregnant. I liked my chances of survival.

M was Mr. Charles Duane Williams, 51, a father traveling in 1st class with his tennis star son, who was Harvard-bound. His fate seemed less certain.

My poor husband got Mr. Frederick Joseph Goodwin, traveling 3rd class with his wife and six children. I didn’t really want to know how his voyage would end.

The exhibit started by showing you the accommodations 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class passengers would have enjoyed on the voyage. Some of it was quite opulent. Even while I was trying to convince my son how cool it was to look at objects that had been laying in the bottom of the ocean for 80 years (he remained unconvinced), they lulled you into how nice the trip “could” have been.

Then you rounded a corner in the exhibit, and the lighting changed. It was darker. Signs started to appear. They were the first messages received about icebergs ahead. In this day of prolific texting, seeing the warnings posted in black and white was haunting. Other signs told of how despite receiving these warnings, the Titanic continued ahead at almost full speed. The wreckage of the boat indicated that while they turned the boat, they never did decrease their speed. It made me cringe.

At this point, the museum had an iceberg you could touch, which was nice for my son, since the rest of the exhibit contained alarmed glass cases. That interested my son for a while. Then we came to the board that listed all the survivors and those who perished.

As I suspected, both Mr. and Mrs. Bishop survived. Makes me wonder if she continued to have a successful pregnancy. That would have been a REALLY young Titanic survivor.  It made me wonder so much that I Googled her. You can find out the answer here:  http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/helen-bishop.html

Mr. Charles Williams did not make it through, but his son did. At least the blood line and the family history could be carried on.  More details on how Charles died: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/charles-duane-williams.html

The Goodwin family perished. Every last one of them. The children ranged in age from 16 to 2 years of age. To drive the point home, there was even a picture of the family in the exhibit. They could afford to travel in 2nd class, but had traveled 3rd in order to have more money for their new life in America. To make matters worse, they had only been transferred to the Titanic because of a coal strike. Many other passengers found themselves aboard the Titanic for the same reason.  Interesting facts about the youngest Goodwin: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/sidney-leslie-goodwin.html

Man, The Universe REALLY wanted the Goodwin family gone. Their number was up. When it is your time, you can’t escape death.

The Goodwin family. All perished on the Titanic. Photo: The Daily Mirror

The Goodwin family. All perished on the Titanic.
Photo: The Daily Mirror

I probably would have been more moved if my son hadn’t been throwing a mega-fit by then.

He was happy to look at the stuffed bears in the gift shop. I would have been a sucker and bought him one, as I can “bearly” resist plush myself, but my husband vetoed it. Second class soup bowls were on sale for just $5, so I had to get one. It is marked an “authentic replica” (Is that what they call an oxy-moron?) of the dishes used on the Titanic. It is quickly becoming my favorite dish. It is very versatile.

My husband on the high-wire bike at Imagination Station. Yes, he is crazy.

My husband on the high-wire bike at Imagination Station. Yes, he is crazy.

My husband enjoyed the Imagination Station very much. I am easily frustrated by all things science. My son was frustrated by all the other kids cutting in front of him. M did better in the kid zone for toddlers. That said, if you ONLY have a toddler, as we do, it probably would not be worth the price of admission to visit. At least not until they were older.

M in the Kidz Zone

M in the Kidz Zone

I was happy to make it home, be off my feet, and use my new bowl;)

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