This fight started years ago. It started in another country, in another language, between different people. Only God knows what it was about. They carried it here to America-in their hearts tiny embers-they nursed them quietly, blowing on them imperceptibly to keep them alight.
It must have been hard for them. I have broken pieces of the stories in my mind, stories told to me by my grandmothers, cherished and turned over in their minds till the rough edges were worn away. Drunken gambling husbands mothers who's jobs kept them away from home for days on end. Cold water flats next to the railroad tracks. There were crates for tables and chairs, in those days you scraped the frost off the inside of the windows in the morning, there wasn't enough heat to sustain the fire in their hearts.
death was much closer then, always just over your shoulder, breathing down your neck, a sibling, a parent. There was no welfare, there was only the bitter cold and the gnawing hunger in your stomach. No time for school, just work, everybody work. She had to leave school in second grade, she spoke two languages but when she wrote you could tell by the way she spelled things that she'd left school as a young child. Not that she was stupid mind you, when she had her own daughter though she resolved to educate her.Her daughter spoke three languages and could write them all as well. She could paint and she went to nursing school. Such sacrifice for this child such pain in bringing her here raising her correctly. Navigating between the ways of the old country and the new.
Two worlds collided in this child, it was hard to apply old world sensibility to a new world child, and the embers in their hearts which they had inherited sparkled and glowed. The result of the friction of one feeling pressed upon to be something she didn't want to be and the growing resentment of the other who felt sure of the correctness of the path she had laid out for her daughter. The fire raged out of control fueled by the alcohol the daughter drank to drown the dreams she had dreamt. The conflagration decimated the the landscape of the family an entire generation of which grew up engulfed by it. It was onto this scorched earth that I was born.
The smoking ground hot and prickly with the vestiges of living things. Raw and bereft of resources with nowhere to hide. After having been through such a time no one has any kindness in there hearts for a child, it's all about putting things back together it's all about surviving. Houses were built and children born, but something had happened once this fire was let loose it could not be contained. It rages to this day, some of the children who grew up surrounded by it don't know another way to live, some see another way but just can't escape. All suffer the intractable sadness that comes from not being able to fight anymore, but not being able to give up either.
I have inherited the fire in my heart, the bitter vitriol, the unabashed hatred, the raging anger, the deep sadness. It is inscribed in my very DNA, and I have a daughter now and I am scared. I am nursing wounds given to me by my mother who's wounds were given to her by hers this goes on ad infinitum. Yet though I see it is so much bigger then anyone of us, and I see the futility of continuing (stupidity is doing the same things over and over expecting different results) I cannot let go of the hatred, I cannot give up this fight which was handed to me by my dead grandmothers. Of what benefit can it be to hold so tightly to this feeling which I hate? How do I let it all go when it is so deeply a part of me? It is something I continue to struggle with, and I don't feel I'm overstating that if I do find a way to let this go then I can surely broker world peace. because this eternal struggle is bigger then all of that.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
you can't make this shit up
Ok Ok!!! I acknowledge that I am paranoid, however...do you remember in the 1980's when some freak put cyanide into tylenol capsules and wiped out the better part of an entire family? well I have never forgotten, and really even before that we were raised to inspect fresh fruit in the store before buying it (for evidence of tampering) so I have a suspicious mind and a very cautious demeanor when it comes to food products which brings me to todays CRAZY blog.
Ray was over... he likes cake from box mix (which I didn't have) but I did have all the ingredients and a recipe book...so he was craving some cake...OK, no problem...me and Lea set to making it....then there's the problem of frosting....Lea's birthday was in March so I had a unused frosting in my cabinet...Lea grabs it without my looking at it...opens it and eats a gigantic glob of frosting....but here's the thing...the foil over the top of the frosting in not there....OMG...so now I'm totally freaking out...like what should I do?? If I bring her to the ER they are going to laugh there asses off, besides she wasn't in any distress...
so I yell at her for being such an asshole (expletive deleted while yelling) tell her to brush her teeth and go to bed as it was already 9:30 pm... now my beloved aunt who lives with me is on the phone with my other aunt and they are just hysterically laughing at me...right there in my kitchen which is pissing me off because I think it's a little insensitive... Believe me the humor is not lost on me, objectively I see that I am over reacting, however tampering is a possibility if very remote..and so is food poisoning...and I'm wondering if they would be laughing so hard if it was there kid or their grandchildren...so when I yell at my aunt and tell her this she gets viscious with me starts saying how she has to leave this house...blah blah blah...
My mother (her big sister) never wanted her here...Sibling rivalry runs deep...so I have suffered like a shit sandwich between them for the past 2 plus years...and she has to leave??? OK OK I will ignore it...she's very stressed over her oun daughter moving to Pennsylvania to try to have something closer to a "middle class" lifestyle...and my "frosting" issue is paling in comparison to her stress....
so now where the fuck is Ray during all of this??? I look on the deck...not there...look in the street his car is gone...he didn't say anything to me so now I'm worried about him...what the hell happened...I page him twice...but before he gets my pages he arrives back on my doorstep like a little puppydog carrying a pathmark bag with two containers of frosting...WTF!!!???!!!...did he think that was the problem??? I already made frosting from powdered sugar....I didn't care about that I was stressed that my daughter was going to get sick.... I told him to go home...I put him out and didn't even say goodbye...my aunt had long since stomped off into her room and Lea was sleeping peacefully..so I want to bed..you can't make this shit up
we will be eating the cake for breakfast...
Ray was over... he likes cake from box mix (which I didn't have) but I did have all the ingredients and a recipe book...so he was craving some cake...OK, no problem...me and Lea set to making it....then there's the problem of frosting....Lea's birthday was in March so I had a unused frosting in my cabinet...Lea grabs it without my looking at it...opens it and eats a gigantic glob of frosting....but here's the thing...the foil over the top of the frosting in not there....OMG...so now I'm totally freaking out...like what should I do?? If I bring her to the ER they are going to laugh there asses off, besides she wasn't in any distress...
so I yell at her for being such an asshole (expletive deleted while yelling) tell her to brush her teeth and go to bed as it was already 9:30 pm... now my beloved aunt who lives with me is on the phone with my other aunt and they are just hysterically laughing at me...right there in my kitchen which is pissing me off because I think it's a little insensitive... Believe me the humor is not lost on me, objectively I see that I am over reacting, however tampering is a possibility if very remote..and so is food poisoning...and I'm wondering if they would be laughing so hard if it was there kid or their grandchildren...so when I yell at my aunt and tell her this she gets viscious with me starts saying how she has to leave this house...blah blah blah...
My mother (her big sister) never wanted her here...Sibling rivalry runs deep...so I have suffered like a shit sandwich between them for the past 2 plus years...and she has to leave??? OK OK I will ignore it...she's very stressed over her oun daughter moving to Pennsylvania to try to have something closer to a "middle class" lifestyle...and my "frosting" issue is paling in comparison to her stress....
so now where the fuck is Ray during all of this??? I look on the deck...not there...look in the street his car is gone...he didn't say anything to me so now I'm worried about him...what the hell happened...I page him twice...but before he gets my pages he arrives back on my doorstep like a little puppydog carrying a pathmark bag with two containers of frosting...WTF!!!???!!!...did he think that was the problem??? I already made frosting from powdered sugar....I didn't care about that I was stressed that my daughter was going to get sick.... I told him to go home...I put him out and didn't even say goodbye...my aunt had long since stomped off into her room and Lea was sleeping peacefully..so I want to bed..you can't make this shit up
we will be eating the cake for breakfast...
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Envy
This is not how my life was suppose to be!!!! I was suppose to get married out of high school to an ambitious, loving, considerate man who wanted to spend the rest of his natural life figuring out creative ways to make me happy. That's not how it worked out!!!
Look, I was going to quit smoking 10 years earlier then I did, I was going to join the gym and do yoga and pilates, I was going to get multiple degrees in nursing and biology and I was going to join the peace corps and save babies in third world countries. After I did that I was going to join greenpeace and ride the "rainbow" warrior and risk my life to save endangered species...after that I was going to meet the man of my dreams who would provide me and our precious, perfect offspring with every amenity known to man and then some.
I was suppose to have a Volvo, with onstar!!! ( do they make those???) and have a house in an upscale safe neighborhood, where it would be fine to send the kids to public school, but we'd send them to private school anyway 'cause the education was better. and after my interesting "career" I would contentedly settle down to raise my perfect children. I was suppose to have the money to buy organic food at the health food store, and I was going to rinse off all the organic produce with bottled water and then cook and prepare my own baby food, of course I'd have nursed all those perfect children until their 1st birthdays when they would wean themselves to expensive sippy cups filled with organic juice.
Oh and TV... there wasn't suppose to be any TV in my house, we were going to dust that evil thing off once in a great while when it was raining outside, and only then to watch PBS. We were going to be a fit family who enjoyed bike rides together, and swimming and of course sailing. We were going to be naturally fit and vibrantly healthy. Oh and sweet!!! we were going to be sweet... the kind of sweet you want to kill. So beautiful and content and financially secure that we just radiated happiness. All of our investments were timed perfectly and we were going to retire early allowing us to sit on boards of prestigious organizations, who's galas we would attend regularly.
Our perfect children were going to be fought over regularly by both sets of their loving grandparents ( who lived in remote locations from us :-) and their grandparents were going to take them to exotic countries once a year. The children being perfect would never have been spoiled by these luxuries but rather enriched by them, and were to have grown perfect young adults, who had a broad understanding and great love of the world they lived in, and had a tremendous focus and resolve to positively contribute to the world. They would have taken their large trust funds and attended ivy league colleges where they received perfect grades.
That's not of course what has happened in my life, it is what I desperately wanted though. I don't think about it to much anymore (I'm to busy with my actual life) But it's always there in the background like a shining city just out of reach. I can't let myself dwell on it to deeply, because as the days pass with out realizing these dreams it's like a little piece of me dies.
Look, I was going to quit smoking 10 years earlier then I did, I was going to join the gym and do yoga and pilates, I was going to get multiple degrees in nursing and biology and I was going to join the peace corps and save babies in third world countries. After I did that I was going to join greenpeace and ride the "rainbow" warrior and risk my life to save endangered species...after that I was going to meet the man of my dreams who would provide me and our precious, perfect offspring with every amenity known to man and then some.
I was suppose to have a Volvo, with onstar!!! ( do they make those???) and have a house in an upscale safe neighborhood, where it would be fine to send the kids to public school, but we'd send them to private school anyway 'cause the education was better. and after my interesting "career" I would contentedly settle down to raise my perfect children. I was suppose to have the money to buy organic food at the health food store, and I was going to rinse off all the organic produce with bottled water and then cook and prepare my own baby food, of course I'd have nursed all those perfect children until their 1st birthdays when they would wean themselves to expensive sippy cups filled with organic juice.
Oh and TV... there wasn't suppose to be any TV in my house, we were going to dust that evil thing off once in a great while when it was raining outside, and only then to watch PBS. We were going to be a fit family who enjoyed bike rides together, and swimming and of course sailing. We were going to be naturally fit and vibrantly healthy. Oh and sweet!!! we were going to be sweet... the kind of sweet you want to kill. So beautiful and content and financially secure that we just radiated happiness. All of our investments were timed perfectly and we were going to retire early allowing us to sit on boards of prestigious organizations, who's galas we would attend regularly.
Our perfect children were going to be fought over regularly by both sets of their loving grandparents ( who lived in remote locations from us :-) and their grandparents were going to take them to exotic countries once a year. The children being perfect would never have been spoiled by these luxuries but rather enriched by them, and were to have grown perfect young adults, who had a broad understanding and great love of the world they lived in, and had a tremendous focus and resolve to positively contribute to the world. They would have taken their large trust funds and attended ivy league colleges where they received perfect grades.
That's not of course what has happened in my life, it is what I desperately wanted though. I don't think about it to much anymore (I'm to busy with my actual life) But it's always there in the background like a shining city just out of reach. I can't let myself dwell on it to deeply, because as the days pass with out realizing these dreams it's like a little piece of me dies.
Friday, April 14, 2006
endometrial ablation
It seems like there's no time for anything...no time to clean the house, shop, cook, to study... you get the idea right??? Did you hear the one about the nurse?? (credit to Deb T) a nurse washed up on shore, how did they know she was a nurse??? her bladder was full her stomach was empty and her ass was chewed up...it's soooo true, there is just no time for anything, not even for the most basic of bodily functions, which brings me to the endometrial ablation.
you know I got my period on my 13th birthday, it was late all the neighborhood girls had theirs already and my mother was ready to take me to the endocrinologist. To my horror my mother called everyone we knew to announce that I was "a woman now" Of course I wasn't, I was an embarrassed adolescent trying to figure out how to ride my bicycle with one of my mothers super plus overnight pads under my shorts, serious overkill for the scant brown trickle between my legs.
My period always lasted for 10 days and on a 28 day cycle that barely gave my privates time to breathe, but what can you do, that's life. I tried to embrace my period, really I did. I read a book called "her blood is gold" and "when God was a woman" but I live in a world where I literally don't have time to eat or pee, changing rags hourly during peri menopause was difficult to work into my schedule. I could go into a few gross stories of "flooding disasters" which women all over could relate to, but I just can't get my fingers to type the words.
so after awhile I learned to use tampons, with the super plus pads, to buy myself time between changes, then I tried hormones, then a D&C..none of which came close to solving the problem. because of my age I declined to use birth control pills, I want a stroke cause I'm inconvenienced by my period?? Which brought me to the "ablation". What does ablation mean anyway??? Sounds like to destroy, decimate, obliterate...I will have to look it up to see if I'm right, such an ugly word...
I think of the poor innocent lining of my uterus, fluffing up ready to receive life, month after month faithfully for the past 27 years, though I've only asked it to do so once. The lovely thought of the connection to all my ancestors through the blood in my veins, and my womb. I picture how it was in there like a fertile valley lush with life, and I blew it all away, scalded it, sterilized it, because it inconvenienced me, and I feel guilty. I wonder if the ablation works, and I never bleed again, how disconnected will it feel to be "PMS" and not bleed?
I was terrified of it though too, of the thought of bleeding for another 15 years, terrified at the possibility of having another child, especially that, being a single mother has been an experience I cannot repeat and live through, and I'd always feel like a single mother because I don't think I would ever feel secure enough in a relationship. So I feel like I have made the right decision now incase I meet a man in the future and feel the primal burning desire to "give him a child". I can't.
I had my period for 27 years, 12 times a year, minus the 9 or ten months I was pregnant, that's somewhere around 314 times. At 10 days a period that's 3,140 days bleeding, 75,360 hours bleeding. Countless boxes of super plus tampons, countless rolls or toilet paper to wrap them. 3,140 days of wearing black pants just in case, of trying to discretely check my ass in the car window before going into anyplace. A long time.
I'm not sure how I'll end up feeling about the whole experience in the long run, but right now I'm left with sort of a sad empty feeling, like saying goodbye to an old friend, but it's a friend who I sent away.
you know I got my period on my 13th birthday, it was late all the neighborhood girls had theirs already and my mother was ready to take me to the endocrinologist. To my horror my mother called everyone we knew to announce that I was "a woman now" Of course I wasn't, I was an embarrassed adolescent trying to figure out how to ride my bicycle with one of my mothers super plus overnight pads under my shorts, serious overkill for the scant brown trickle between my legs.
My period always lasted for 10 days and on a 28 day cycle that barely gave my privates time to breathe, but what can you do, that's life. I tried to embrace my period, really I did. I read a book called "her blood is gold" and "when God was a woman" but I live in a world where I literally don't have time to eat or pee, changing rags hourly during peri menopause was difficult to work into my schedule. I could go into a few gross stories of "flooding disasters" which women all over could relate to, but I just can't get my fingers to type the words.
so after awhile I learned to use tampons, with the super plus pads, to buy myself time between changes, then I tried hormones, then a D&C..none of which came close to solving the problem. because of my age I declined to use birth control pills, I want a stroke cause I'm inconvenienced by my period?? Which brought me to the "ablation". What does ablation mean anyway??? Sounds like to destroy, decimate, obliterate...I will have to look it up to see if I'm right, such an ugly word...
I think of the poor innocent lining of my uterus, fluffing up ready to receive life, month after month faithfully for the past 27 years, though I've only asked it to do so once. The lovely thought of the connection to all my ancestors through the blood in my veins, and my womb. I picture how it was in there like a fertile valley lush with life, and I blew it all away, scalded it, sterilized it, because it inconvenienced me, and I feel guilty. I wonder if the ablation works, and I never bleed again, how disconnected will it feel to be "PMS" and not bleed?
I was terrified of it though too, of the thought of bleeding for another 15 years, terrified at the possibility of having another child, especially that, being a single mother has been an experience I cannot repeat and live through, and I'd always feel like a single mother because I don't think I would ever feel secure enough in a relationship. So I feel like I have made the right decision now incase I meet a man in the future and feel the primal burning desire to "give him a child". I can't.
I had my period for 27 years, 12 times a year, minus the 9 or ten months I was pregnant, that's somewhere around 314 times. At 10 days a period that's 3,140 days bleeding, 75,360 hours bleeding. Countless boxes of super plus tampons, countless rolls or toilet paper to wrap them. 3,140 days of wearing black pants just in case, of trying to discretely check my ass in the car window before going into anyplace. A long time.
I'm not sure how I'll end up feeling about the whole experience in the long run, but right now I'm left with sort of a sad empty feeling, like saying goodbye to an old friend, but it's a friend who I sent away.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Why I will (probably) be single forever
I want a man who has the balls to leave everything for me...my favorite movie love scene is in terminator 1, because he comes through time for her knowing he will give his life for her.... a tall order I know... but I can support myself... so it's OK, if no one wants to do that for me...
I want a man who loves me just the way I am...a man who I don't have to stress about what will happen if I get breast Ca, or MS...some one who loves me... the person who just lives in this body...
I want some one who doesn't mind if I'm to tired to shave....some one who can roll with the punches..who can just leave me the hell alone if I'm tired or bitchy...
and Jesus Christ some one who knows how to fuck...
hey!!!! fucking starts in the morning before you go to work... pick up your dirty towel....wash the beard hairs and tooth paste blobs out of the sink...look me in the eye and tell me you love me like you mean it and then kiss me long and slow...
shit I have a life too!!! I go to work just like you...and I work hard and pay bills and I have people depending on me the same as you...don't think I have been reading the latest tips to keep your love life hot in GQ and shaving my legs all day waiting to serve you a gourmet meal when you get home from your hard day...'cause I haven't...
on your way to our bedroom do the dishes and feed the cats...wipe the counters...and if we have any energy left then we will make love...
but if we do... I guarantee it will be worth all the effort...because there is nothing like two genuinely in love people..who appreciate the sacrifices that each of them makes for the other making love...
I am going to be 40 in June... I have declared 2006 the year of being happy to be single....
and truly I can say that I'd rather be alone then be with the wrong man
that ends tonight's rant... ;-D
I want a man who loves me just the way I am...a man who I don't have to stress about what will happen if I get breast Ca, or MS...some one who loves me... the person who just lives in this body...
I want some one who doesn't mind if I'm to tired to shave....some one who can roll with the punches..who can just leave me the hell alone if I'm tired or bitchy...
and Jesus Christ some one who knows how to fuck...
hey!!!! fucking starts in the morning before you go to work... pick up your dirty towel....wash the beard hairs and tooth paste blobs out of the sink...look me in the eye and tell me you love me like you mean it and then kiss me long and slow...
shit I have a life too!!! I go to work just like you...and I work hard and pay bills and I have people depending on me the same as you...don't think I have been reading the latest tips to keep your love life hot in GQ and shaving my legs all day waiting to serve you a gourmet meal when you get home from your hard day...'cause I haven't...
on your way to our bedroom do the dishes and feed the cats...wipe the counters...and if we have any energy left then we will make love...
but if we do... I guarantee it will be worth all the effort...because there is nothing like two genuinely in love people..who appreciate the sacrifices that each of them makes for the other making love...
I am going to be 40 in June... I have declared 2006 the year of being happy to be single....
and truly I can say that I'd rather be alone then be with the wrong man
that ends tonight's rant... ;-D
Friday, February 24, 2006
Rosie's tomato sauce
My ex mother-in-law hated my guts but she made an ass kicking sauce...
tuttorosa crushed tomatoes with basil...
sweet Italian sausage
fresh basil<------HAS TO BE FRESH
garlic cloves<----also has to be fresh
extra virgin olive oil
red wine
boil the sausage to lessen the fat content....greasy sauce is yucky
brown the sausage in the olive oil
add chopped garlic cloves...don't let them burn they taste bitter then....
add the sauce, chopped fresh basil, and wine...simmer
really simple delicious sauce....thanks Rosie...may you rest in peace... O :-)
tuttorosa crushed tomatoes with basil...
sweet Italian sausage
fresh basil<------HAS TO BE FRESH
garlic cloves<----also has to be fresh
extra virgin olive oil
red wine
boil the sausage to lessen the fat content....greasy sauce is yucky
brown the sausage in the olive oil
add chopped garlic cloves...don't let them burn they taste bitter then....
add the sauce, chopped fresh basil, and wine...simmer
really simple delicious sauce....thanks Rosie...may you rest in peace... O :-)
the vagina monologues and 4 little pony tails
I've been wanting to see them since I saw Eve Ensler intervied on Oprah. I never had the time, the money and someone to go with...But I finally went to see a local production of it last night. I wasn't disappointed. It was dare I say??? a little ballsy, for lack of another word... I think instead of the "movie" they show kids in 5th grade they should do a tamer version of the vagina monologues...
so I never have a babysitter, my dearly beloved mother will only watch Lea when I work...which don't get me wrong I am extremely grateful for.... but the fact remains that I haven't seen a non animated film in going on 11 years....My mother God bless her sees that I don't go out and she wishes I would so occasionally she offers to watch Lea... this always results in disaster because she begins to revel in self righteousness as the date of my "recreation" approaches...then she feels put upon I mean really Isn't she so good??? really the least I could so after working full time, going to school, running my own life and house is...whatever...fill in the blank...i.e. send her on an all expense paid trip to Tahiti...buy her house pay her bills ...etc...when she starts to feel like this she gets very nasty... I mean really how could she be nice to such an ungrateful bitch like me....she will then come upstairs and berate me for any number of things after I calmly offer my apology for what ever I have done to offend (usually breathing) she accuses me of using her...sucking the life out of her and not being sorry for anything...she then revokes her offer to babysit...this is usually done as my ride is beeping their horn in front of the house... so then I have to make a choice...go anyway...as my mother will surely watch Lea or politely cancel my plans (which is what I usually do) out of worry of my mother taking her frustration out on my daughter but more to shove the whole situation up my mother's ass... the first time I was mad...the second time disappointed...then I just stopped going out all together.... which brings me to last night...
You already know that I'm f'd up...so I got the tickets to see the vagina monologues and called my best friend and tell her to save the date. Now the problem of babysitting... I could leave Lea alone...My parents do live right down stairs...I do leave Lea alone now while I go food shopping...she has my cell # and I'm close to home.... but this was different... it was at night and not for a necessity....see the headlines now..."child found alone while mother watches vagina monologues" sooooo what's a single girl to do???? BTW the two people who occasionally watch lea for me were unable to for their own reasons....
enter Ray... poor Ray.... he knows my daughter since she's 4...they love the hell out of eachother, they get along very well...so I go out on a limb and ask him to babysit...for once I just want ot go out and enjoy myself and not worry...remember that Ray is married so getting away from home can be challenging...But he works 2 jobs so he had to arrange for a night off which he did...Then he bought us a new TV and and some DVD's for Lea...we set the TV up ate dinner and off I went...Had a nice night I come home and....
Poor Ray is sitting exhausted and helpless in the blue arm chair with 4 tiny pony tails in his hair...My daughter God bless her is running wild in the house laughing at the havoc she's wrought... But everyone was relatively unscathed soooo it went well I guess...
I've stopped trying to live the "perfect" life, I'm 40 I have to live the life I have and that's what I'm trying to do...
XXOOXXOO
so I never have a babysitter, my dearly beloved mother will only watch Lea when I work...which don't get me wrong I am extremely grateful for.... but the fact remains that I haven't seen a non animated film in going on 11 years....My mother God bless her sees that I don't go out and she wishes I would so occasionally she offers to watch Lea... this always results in disaster because she begins to revel in self righteousness as the date of my "recreation" approaches...then she feels put upon I mean really Isn't she so good??? really the least I could so after working full time, going to school, running my own life and house is...whatever...fill in the blank...i.e. send her on an all expense paid trip to Tahiti...buy her house pay her bills ...etc...when she starts to feel like this she gets very nasty... I mean really how could she be nice to such an ungrateful bitch like me....she will then come upstairs and berate me for any number of things after I calmly offer my apology for what ever I have done to offend (usually breathing) she accuses me of using her...sucking the life out of her and not being sorry for anything...she then revokes her offer to babysit...this is usually done as my ride is beeping their horn in front of the house... so then I have to make a choice...go anyway...as my mother will surely watch Lea or politely cancel my plans (which is what I usually do) out of worry of my mother taking her frustration out on my daughter but more to shove the whole situation up my mother's ass... the first time I was mad...the second time disappointed...then I just stopped going out all together.... which brings me to last night...
You already know that I'm f'd up...so I got the tickets to see the vagina monologues and called my best friend and tell her to save the date. Now the problem of babysitting... I could leave Lea alone...My parents do live right down stairs...I do leave Lea alone now while I go food shopping...she has my cell # and I'm close to home.... but this was different... it was at night and not for a necessity....see the headlines now..."child found alone while mother watches vagina monologues" sooooo what's a single girl to do???? BTW the two people who occasionally watch lea for me were unable to for their own reasons....
enter Ray... poor Ray.... he knows my daughter since she's 4...they love the hell out of eachother, they get along very well...so I go out on a limb and ask him to babysit...for once I just want ot go out and enjoy myself and not worry...remember that Ray is married so getting away from home can be challenging...But he works 2 jobs so he had to arrange for a night off which he did...Then he bought us a new TV and and some DVD's for Lea...we set the TV up ate dinner and off I went...Had a nice night I come home and....
Poor Ray is sitting exhausted and helpless in the blue arm chair with 4 tiny pony tails in his hair...My daughter God bless her is running wild in the house laughing at the havoc she's wrought... But everyone was relatively unscathed soooo it went well I guess...
I've stopped trying to live the "perfect" life, I'm 40 I have to live the life I have and that's what I'm trying to do...
XXOOXXOO
Monday, February 13, 2006
Grandma Betty's chicken soup
Chicken carcass or a small whole chicken (remove as much of the skin as possible)
place in large pot and cover with water, boil for a couple of hours, skim the bubbles from the top and discard.
now...if you have the time and the room in the fridge you can leave the newly created broth in the fridge overnight where the fat will rise to the top and harden, you can then remove it rather easily, if not then just skim as much as possible from the top, greasy soup is yucky.... I also put the broth through a sieve before I start but you don't have to I just have a fussy kid...
ok that was the hard/time consuming part...
put the broth on the stove and get it going at a gentle boil, add the following veggies, cut into bite size pieces...
celery
carrots
parsnips
turnips
onions
cut up and add to soup some fresh dill, fresh parsley and add some paprika too (for grandma Betty who came from Hungary) add to soup, cover and reduce heat, cook till veggies are tender.
ladle over wide egg noodles, or if you are feeling adventurous make some matzo balls.
season to taste with pepper and salt... enjoy, and remember grandma...
place in large pot and cover with water, boil for a couple of hours, skim the bubbles from the top and discard.
now...if you have the time and the room in the fridge you can leave the newly created broth in the fridge overnight where the fat will rise to the top and harden, you can then remove it rather easily, if not then just skim as much as possible from the top, greasy soup is yucky.... I also put the broth through a sieve before I start but you don't have to I just have a fussy kid...
ok that was the hard/time consuming part...
put the broth on the stove and get it going at a gentle boil, add the following veggies, cut into bite size pieces...
celery
carrots
parsnips
turnips
onions
cut up and add to soup some fresh dill, fresh parsley and add some paprika too (for grandma Betty who came from Hungary) add to soup, cover and reduce heat, cook till veggies are tender.
ladle over wide egg noodles, or if you are feeling adventurous make some matzo balls.
season to taste with pepper and salt... enjoy, and remember grandma...
Thursday, February 09, 2006
I was thinking today (in between cleaning and running errands) about nursing. It's such a wide field, with so many career options. That's one of the reasons I chose it. There are so many things I could (and I promise that I will whine about) but the thing that strikes me today is how I love my job. Besides it being the only thing crazy enough to temporarily block out the horrors of my personal life!!! I love nursing because I meet the greatest people on earth. I get to work with people who come from all over the entire planet people who on so many levels are different from me, grew up in starkly different cultures speaking different languages, practicing a multitude of different religions, and yet day after day we come together for the greatest purpose...to help our fellow human beings...and it works amazingly well, in such a high stress environment, my co-workers cheerfully offer their assistance to one another and to me and I to them. Amazingly the work gets done when shit starts to befall one member of the team, instead of running away, my co-workers run toward the problem everyone doing their part until it is resolved... Don't get me wrong... Put people together under stress with long hours and short staffing and they will get bitchy, but still amazingly they come back together again and again.
In these sad times when violence and intolerance seem to be spreading over our earth rapidly, a thought creeps up in the back of my mind repeatedly...healthcare as a model for living in the modern world. Here is a field, where on every level from housekeeping to doctors the men and women come from vastly different circumstances and yet every day put aside their differences and work together for the greater good of humanity. It is a very flawed system, but that is acknowledged honestly and evaluated for opportunities to improve our delivery of healthcare. God I can't help but think of the great things we could do as a species if we applied this model to living on the rest of our planet....
In these sad times when violence and intolerance seem to be spreading over our earth rapidly, a thought creeps up in the back of my mind repeatedly...healthcare as a model for living in the modern world. Here is a field, where on every level from housekeeping to doctors the men and women come from vastly different circumstances and yet every day put aside their differences and work together for the greater good of humanity. It is a very flawed system, but that is acknowledged honestly and evaluated for opportunities to improve our delivery of healthcare. God I can't help but think of the great things we could do as a species if we applied this model to living on the rest of our planet....
Monday, January 30, 2006
Really good soup recipe
Was going to whine a little today but I really don't have the time...maybe tomorrow.... here's a recipe for my daughters favorite soup instead...
vegetarian corn chowder
2 boxes of vegetarian vegetable broth.
water
1 head of celery
1 red pepper
1 carrot
5 medium potatoes
1 large yellow onion
2 large garlic cloves
1 bag frozen corn kernels
red pepper flakes
curry powder
peppercorns
olive oil
corn starch
*amounts are just suggestions, you have to see what it looks like and tastes like while cooking it
cut up garlic and onions saute in olive oil until soft, add broth and bring to a gentle boil.
cut up veggies into bite size pieces and add to the broth, put the frozen corn in too, and here's where the water comes in...add enough so that the veggies are covered well you can always add more later if the soup is to thick.
cook for about 1/2 hour or until the veggies are soft. then ladle out about 2 cups of broth into your blender,
and blend on low speed (be careful cause the steam makes this want to blow the top off the blender and splatter the walls!!! (not that it's ever happened to me, LOL) Add about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and blend before it becomes a gelatinous clump at the bottom of the blender.
add this mixture to the rest of the soup, stir and cook on low temp for about another 10-20 minutes
*add curry and red pepper flakes to taste also if you want, throw in a teaspoon of peppercorns (whole)
enjoy, this is thick creamy and delicious, add some salad and bread and it's dinner.
vegetarian corn chowder
2 boxes of vegetarian vegetable broth.
water
1 head of celery
1 red pepper
1 carrot
5 medium potatoes
1 large yellow onion
2 large garlic cloves
1 bag frozen corn kernels
red pepper flakes
curry powder
peppercorns
olive oil
corn starch
*amounts are just suggestions, you have to see what it looks like and tastes like while cooking it
cut up garlic and onions saute in olive oil until soft, add broth and bring to a gentle boil.
cut up veggies into bite size pieces and add to the broth, put the frozen corn in too, and here's where the water comes in...add enough so that the veggies are covered well you can always add more later if the soup is to thick.
cook for about 1/2 hour or until the veggies are soft. then ladle out about 2 cups of broth into your blender,
and blend on low speed (be careful cause the steam makes this want to blow the top off the blender and splatter the walls!!! (not that it's ever happened to me, LOL) Add about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and blend before it becomes a gelatinous clump at the bottom of the blender.
add this mixture to the rest of the soup, stir and cook on low temp for about another 10-20 minutes
*add curry and red pepper flakes to taste also if you want, throw in a teaspoon of peppercorns (whole)
enjoy, this is thick creamy and delicious, add some salad and bread and it's dinner.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Virtual loss of innocence
I was talking to a very good friend last night...we were just lamenting the fact that our kids have such a vastly different and in many ways deficient childhood then we did. We were raised in a middle to lower economic class neighborhoods. we were not hungry or lacking in toys or "things" no grinding poverty etc... you get the picture, but God did we have fun. I was up with the sun I got myself a bowl of cold cereal got dressed and went outside barefoot to collect my friends. there were lots of us and we were completely unsupervised by adults from sun up to sun down. We were expected to show up to check in at intervals just to let the parents know we were alive..we would have done that anyway because we had to pee, or we wanted a snack. when I think of the things we did!!! I can't imagine my own daughter doing them. such horrible things as riding my bicycle down hills at intersections, through woods and dirt paths...getting scratched and dirty with out a grownup around to wash my cuts and put antibacterial ointment on them. No cell phones, no adults it was wonderful. When I was little there was a lot of new houses going up and so we would take rusty old coffee cans and scour the construction sites for nails and scraps of wood to build tree house with. We would then go quietly into our respective houses and sneak out a hammer with which to build our forts, again there were many bruises and gashes and we never gave any thought to washing them, as far as I know we never lost a kid to tetanus. Though our days were spent in the woods I never had a tick ( found a few crawling on me now and again though) maybe got stung by a bee once or twice. The woods were used by all age groups of kids from the ridiculously little 5-6 year olds to teenagers...so this could lead to enlightening encounters, not with the actual kids...as the older ones came out when we went in, but with interesting things the would leave lying around like beer bottles and playboy magazines, this was all taken in stride by us. There were alcoholic parents, philandering parents, absent parents, dead parents...divorces, catastrophic illnesses and death. I remember them all and I never felt that I was being sheltered from them, and I didn't feel traumatized by these things they were simply part of life, and we just kept playing. There were "molestations" and lots of them of various types. of course we didn't know as we were growing up but as we became adults and started reminiscing the stories came out one by one. An older neighbor a father or cousin, it might have been once or twice or lasted longer, but still we played. and while I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to experience some of the things I went through I wonder at the price she's had to pay for her own safety. I'm sorry that she lives in a sharply circumscribed world of play dates, and nintendogs, and a computer with parental controls, to protect her from what??? When I was running wild and happy unsupervised in the streets, I lost my innocence a little at a time as I experienced things, good and bad. My daughter to the best of my knowledge has never been molested, she has never gotten into a physical altercation with another child, she attends private school and has dance lessons and girl scouts, she is involved with various clubs after school. she has every comfort and advantage I could think to give her, I have protected her with all my strength. And though I think society would call me a good mother, I wonder if I haven't participated in robbing my daughter of her innocence more violently then mine was ever taken from me, by unintentionally placing terror in her heart of all the things I experienced and lived to tell about.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
a poem...
Listen I named this blog "a spoiled whiney girl" for a reason...
this is a poem I wrote while laying in bed thinking about a summer romance gone bad...
I would like to kill myself
I would like to cut myself
and let the blood run out
let it seep from my veins
slowly watch it as my
consciousness fades...
I'd like to let the blood out to follow my soul-
which has seeped from my body over time-
sometimes stolen, more often given freely-gently as a quiet gift
like a frightened child tugging at the hem of an inattentive parent-
quietly hoping for a reply-a reassurance-
only to walk away empty...
don't go callin' 911 I wrote it years ago and I'm still here....
Lisa
this is a poem I wrote while laying in bed thinking about a summer romance gone bad...
I would like to kill myself
I would like to cut myself
and let the blood run out
let it seep from my veins
slowly watch it as my
consciousness fades...
I'd like to let the blood out to follow my soul-
which has seeped from my body over time-
sometimes stolen, more often given freely-gently as a quiet gift
like a frightened child tugging at the hem of an inattentive parent-
quietly hoping for a reply-a reassurance-
only to walk away empty...
don't go callin' 911 I wrote it years ago and I'm still here....
Lisa
what defines true love???
So basically I started this so I don't have to regale my friends and family with tales of woe, I just want to sent my complaints and rants into the anonymous ethers and what ever will be will be. So I will begin: This is my question of the day... what is love? I mean the love between a man and a woman??? What defines it and makes it real and legitimate?? Say for instance (and of course this is all hypothetical) I had been married, and this man allegedly loved me enough to walk down the proverbial isle with me and swear on the bible that he loved me yadda yadda yadda...you get the picture right?? he swears he wants to buy a house and start a family live the middle class life of boredom and mediocrity.... Then once married comes up with a million and one excuses not to do all of the above??? Not to mention a secret love child and a married lover (but this is all hypothetical, and that would be a story for another time anyway) Then say I (hypothetically) years later were to hook up with a man who was devoted, understanding, loving, supported me in my endeavors to continue my education, achieve financial independence, who calls every day (going on 6 years now) and in all my 40 years on the earth is the most perfect person (for me) except for the fact that he's married and is never ever going to leave his wife??? NOW forget the fact that I am F'd up.... that is obvious....we come into the adult world with issues and do the best we can to live our lives...and I am no different... is there space for this kind of "love" in the world...people say it's selfish, immature...but is it if he stays married??? no disruption on the homefront?? he goes home every night and brings his paycheck with him...well a person could go on forever with this argument...Infidelity has been around for as long as people have been, and it will never go away...and what I'm saying is that of course it would be best to not do it...to be in a close and loving relationship with your spouse...but what if you couldn't be??? Have you sentenced yourself to a lifetime of loneliness after you say till death do us part?? if after 30 years of marriage you grow into two separate people??? with separate lives??? There are plenty of scorned women, and (no offence bible thumping Christians) who I am pretty sure will not like this post but, the world is not, not, not black and white as much as we would like it to be, as easy as it would make things to just know that "this is just the way things are" but life is messy. Sometime the best we can hope for is to do the least possible amount of damage, while trying to gain some happiness out of our rapidly passing lives...
Lisa
Lisa
Monday, January 23, 2006
1st post
Just signed up and seeing how this works, as I am technologically challenged...be back soon
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