Breeder????

My hearing is not the best, well actually, it's pretty lousy.

So, situations occur...like the other day, I was being introduced to a woman. She said, "Oh, I've heard about you, you're quite the breeder". I thought it was an odd thing to say but that is what I heard so I responded, with a bit of a laugh, "Well, we do have four children, but I'm not sure I qualify as much of a breeder." My husband and the friend making the introductions were saying "No, reader, reader--not breeder" while the lady was looking at me like I was nuts. And my daughter, who is ever so sensitive to social miscues, just walked away shaking her head.

Sometimes I have whole conversations with people and haven't heard anything they said. This can be construed as laziness on my part but you can only say, "what" or "I can't hear you" so many times. In some situations, I do get lazy about trying to listen. This especially happens if I'm at a public event and I can't hear the speaker. I just quit trying and go off into my own thoughts. I find I also do this when I'm in a group of people and there are a lot of cross conversations.

One of my concerns is that when that as hearing becomes more difficult, I retreat more into my own world because its easier. I don't ask people to speak up, I don't fight to be "heard", I tire of trying to hear.

None of this is written to elicit any pity---I don't feel bad about it except that it precludes working as a private investigator or spy--both of which I've thought would be fun. Its hard to get good intel when you can't hear what the bad guys are saying.

my Superhero

Today we celebrated my mom's 75th birthday with a surprise party. Her birthday was on September 13th so I've had a couple of weeks to think about this (about 50 years actually).

My mom fell in love with my dad when they were both very young. They got married and had kids. My mom grew up and accepted the responsibility while her husband (my dad) seemed determined to destroy himself and he wasn't too concerned about the collateral damage to his family. My mom kept plugging along, getting some help from her family, friends and government but doing the day to day worrying and drudgery on her own.

She worked as a nurse's aid, ironed other peoples clothes, babysat, negotiated with people that were owed money and stretched dollars farther than you would have thought they could be stretched. She then went to nursing school--and studied really, really hard, while continuing to do all the other things because her husband was still a mess and she was still the only support for her kids.

And while all of this had to be really hard, and tiresome, and sometimes seemingly impossible--the thing that makes it really incredible is that she did it without rancor or complaint. Without benefit of parenting books, classes, Oprah, Dr. Phil and all the other gurus of raising children, living your life, and other topics of pop psychology--my mom just did it. When things were bad with my dad, she would tell me to remember the good times and that he loved us very much. She didn't excuse him and she didn't talk bad about him. She loved him with a fierceness that enabled her to stay by his side long enough for him to overcome his self-destructive life and they got to have so many more good times.

She wasn't the type of parent who praised us for everything we did right because that would just be silliness--but we knew she was proud of us and loved us. I remember that once, for Christmas, she gave me a pair of leather ski mittens that I had really wanted. They cost about $20 which was expensive, so she told me that I had to use them for a long time. I kept and used them for about 25 years. I can't say I always listened to her that diligently but she did have a certain no-nonsense attitude that reinforced her words.

My mom is a little over five feet tall, has white hair, wire rimmed glasses and the kind face of kind person. She doesn't look like Hollywood's version of a superhero but she's been mine for a long time now. Don't mess with her--she'll either walk away because you're not worth the trouble or she'll stay and win because you are worth it, like she did with us.

My Vatican Splendor "toothpick holder"

For the past few years my two sisters, my brother and I have spent a day in the fall with my mom to celebrate her birthday. This year we went to the MN History Center to see the Vatican Splendors exhibit. The artwork on display was pretty amazing and we decided that when money is no obstacle its really much easier to build a fine collection of fine art. The intricate detail work on the dishes (I know there are real words for each item-I'm too lazy to look them up) used for communion was impressive. I suppose it would be sacrilegious to consider melting them down to provide proper health care to the retired nuns who live in poverty relying on donations.

The part of the display about digging in the mid-1900's for St. Peter's tomb, in secret for a couple of decades, had me remembering Geraldo Rivera's dramatic unveiling of the supposed vault of Al Capone's wealth (which only contained some bottles). Apparently, the Vatican excavating crew found some bones that they thought were St. Peter's, so they hid them so they wouldn't be misplaced, then someone else found them and then they were place in a proper reliquary. Enough about that.

The gift shop had all the usual museum type stuff--reproductions of the artwork, statues of the some of the popes, calendars, creches and postcards. The only item that got me to open my wallet though was the Vatican Splendor shot glass. My sister and I were laughing so hard that the clerk was even laughing with us. He said something like, I see you found our "toothpick holders". I bought two--one for me and for my most Catholic friend.

After seeing the rest of the museum, doing a little shopping, we went to Moscow on the Hill for dinner. Its a Russian restaurant. I would like to go back someday when I'm not driving as they have flights of vodka you can order--six different kinds of their over a hundred kinds of vodka to try. I tried one shot of the house cherry vodka and thought it was excellent. It would have been a good time to use my new shot glass but I forgot it in the car.

Rome and Moscow, all in one day. I hope my mom had fun.

Sidelines

The youngest of our little darlings went to her first school dance the other night. Knowing her personality, we knew she would never be one of the kids that would actually get out and dance or jump around or do whatever they do in the middle of the floor that passes for dancing these days. She's a cautious girl who has a strong need to know what she's getting into and if there's any chance at all that she'll look silly, she won't be taking part, only observing.

Sometimes, it makes me a little sad for her. I want to be able to help her see that living life on the sidelines isn't near as much fun as jumping in and letting loose,whatever the activity may be (except rock climbing, duh!). Its taken a lot of years--and self-talk, sometimes downright sarcastic rude self-talk, but I think I've finally learned the lesson and am applying it to my own life.

So here's my mid-life mini-manifesto (if I was really clever, I would insert a You Tube clip of a drumroll): If I want to do it, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to live on the sidelines worrying about what other people might think or say. You should all be thankful I'm not interested in ballet--because with this body it could get ugly.

Now comes the more difficult task of gently continuing to teach/coax/reassure my little darling that life is more fun lived than watched.

First time, kind of shy

Hello. This is my first time writing on a blog, well, not technically true if you count a one sentence response to a picture posted on another blog. Already lying in the first paragraph. Dang it.

Now I've got to make all kinds of important decisions about fonts, colors, size of type--never mind the topics and opinions.

I'm not a real stick to it kind of person so we'll see how long this lasts. Hopefully longer than any diet or exercise program I've tried.

Now that I've gone through a bunch of the fonts I think I've decided on "arial" as my favorite. No need to get fancy with the color or size.

I've been inspired to start a blog by several that I've been reading lately--"lutheran chik's L word diary", "a place called B.L.O.G.", "Time's Fool" and others.