Remember that amazing cola commercial with that adorable jingle?
Moving, motivating, inspiring.
In this house it's more like - Grab A Cake And A Smile...
We bake and it miraculously makes us feel good.
We laugh. We mix and talk and make messes and mistakes which we fix as we mix.
Its good.
We bake for occasions and most occasions are rewarding period, but a cake requiring occasion is just the best thing.
Tonight we bake for teachers; boy, girl and I do.
Tonight we also bake for their Pop. Yup.
We do, boy, girl and I.
It's a weird thing...
Divorce is.
It's weird how the people you are divorced from keep moving on in their life, having birthdays and whatnot.
Time doesn't stand still over anything or anyone.
Grateful as I am for the passage of time and all it brings and all it reveals and all it leaves behind for us to look back on, I sometimes wish I could split sideways, move out of time's way, escape notice, contemplate before another second speeds by. I'd like to stop along side time and just BE.
Maybe I should take a cake with me, because I might just BE a while.
Maybe it's because my friend Robert pointed out that I can't take a compliment.
Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that I recently swung a golf club and was reminded of how much fun it is to drive that itty, bitty, pitted complexioned ball
He's on my mind.
Can't say his name (shouldn't), but I can give you a hint...
Golf Father, whom I worked for quite a long time ago, who gave odd compliments to me and who's sadly no longer with us, son is a "wildcat" who may in fact be the best golfer of
all time.
Got it?
My best worst job ever.
If you've read my blog over the years you may recall that I was a housekeeper.
Yep I was.
I was because I wanted to be and I wanted to be for about 900 weird reasons;
some of which were....
I liked to clean, still do. (yes, I'm nuts)
I liked to wear Levis to work.
I liked to be alone.
I liked to work hard and fast.
I liked to see immediate results and let me tell you there is nothing better then Windex for producing immediate resulation (pretend thats a word).
I was a housekeeper because it was strangely fun.
I don't know how come, but it was fun to clean houses, at least it was for me.
And I didn't just use my hands and my often aching muscles.
I used my mind. I daydreamed and I listened to over 1,000 audio books, all borrowed from the local library.
Everything from Shakespeare to James Michner to Anne Rice.
I felt productive, made myself good and tired. It allowed me to attend college full time, provided flexibility, fueled me with cold, hard cash, funded my addiction to fashion and afforded me the more then occasional trip to Cancun and other exotic locations.
I remember when I worked for him, lets call him Earl;
It was his hay-day.
Books coming out, people clambering for his attention, interviews in the paper, appearances on Oprah and then there was good old me, folding his underwear.
He lived alone, but thats a secret, don't tell anyone.
He was quite clever, so much so that he could get away with stupidity.
He hated cucumber and once threw one at my head to illustrate his point. Cucumbers bounce, FYI.
He was temperamental at times.
Had a wicked sense of humor.
His laugh was infectious.
I found him unpredictable.
He liked jam on his fried eggs.
He loved frozen Snickers.
He put me in the middle of his quarrels.
I hate being in the middle.
Once he gave me a thousand dollars and told me to go buy him some plates.
I found that task daunting.
I came back with an entire kitchen; forks, knives, bowls, pans, plates and even a refrigerator's worth of food, including plenty of fresh vegetables and one flying cucumber.
I'm afraid he seemed lonely.
He loved to talk to me.
Sometimes I listened, sometimes I hid from him.
Sometimes he offended me.
He called me Whitey and Cinderella and BabyGirl and _itch.
He often asked me to live there with him and told me I was his best friend.
I think maybe at times I was.
Sometimes I got bored in the house because he rarely left his reclining chair and made little to no mess.
Once, while hiding at the back of the house, I made myself extra useful and alphabetized his _orn collection, (rhymes with "horn collection")
Yep I did.
Alphabetization produced one of those infectious laughs of his, once discovered and yet we never spoke of it. We wouldn't need to, you see?
Thats how we were.
It was long ago.
It was a hard job in so many ways for me.
I loved/hated it and him,
but most days, I loved the whole disastrous position I found myself in.
I wanted that job to last forever.
The pay was good.
I had a comfort zone,
though the company most definitely had its ups and downs.
There was always something for me to giggle about when I drove home after work.
His celebrity made him inexplicably intriguing for me.
His sexism toward me made my skin crawl, but I could handle that, some of the time.
I remember the day I quit.
Had something to do with him needing to keep the heat in the house very high, even in the hotness of summer. I never complained, sweat pouring down my back, dripping off the tip of my nose... and then one day this suggestion, "if it's too hot for you in here, why don't you take your top off?"
The least smart statement I repeatedly make is, "I can't wait"... For example, recently I'd said to myself, over and over, "I can't wait for Spring Break" and I couldn't, because it was when I'd travel with my kids and when I'd get to see my rarely seen sister. Though I couldn't wait, I did of course and the moment it came, the moment I saw her, wouldn't you know, immediately I began wishing that the very thing I'd waited for was still weeks away and not just happening. That realization lead promptly to a great big stomach ache on account of the missing I'd be doing once I left her, which inevitably occurred... and my belly still hates me, because I love her so... I wait a lot for the things I can't wait for, it seems. When I worked as a nurse I had an abundance of patience, but only with my patients (insert laughter here) When I was a child, I couldn't wait to grow up get married have babies move away go home see the world be whatever the heck I was meant to be And still I can't wait for most of those things, though some have happened in a different order then I'd waited for them to come and some have unhappened, or may never happen, but most likely will, just not sure when, but I can't wait to see... I can't wait for the swimwear I just ordered to arrive via two day express mail for an extra $17.99 (shhh), but the bill for those tiny bits of fabric can crawl here, far as I'm concerned I can't wait for summer, except the ceiling fans haven't been installed in the house I couldn't wait to find, buy, close on and move into and so Summer, don't jump here just yet, despite my out loud wishing for you. Come soon, but not just yet, wait for me to call the electrician. I can't wait for someone to call me and ask me out for a date or??? Or get lost, leave me alone or someone just notice me while someone else changes or grows or... or I don't know. I often ask for advice on what I should or shouldn't wait on and then in turn I dole out more tips on sitting tight or taking leaps ... etc, etc, etc. I think that maybe I ought to say things like "I don't know" more often then my well worn "I can't wait". Your thoughts? Never mind, I simply can't wait for you to answer me. I roll back and forth between patience and action I am patient, really I am, much more so then I could have ever imagined and it's good, but it's not always right. Sometimes you have to move and knowing the difference between patience and resistance can be tricky. In May I'll go gluten free, but why wait? Next week I'll talk to the financial planner. Tomorrow is coincidentally next week; when did that happen? Soon I'll return the tight shoes, book summer vacation, make time for my gym, leave the house past dark with a man maybe even but maybe I'll wait. I don't know. Soon I'll move forward Forgive someone Forget someone Buckle down Remember things better Treat myself to a... Soon I won't be waiting for what I waited for and then I don't know... Yesterday, my son picked lemons for me from my father's little tree, except they were oranges, which looked a lot like the nearby lemons that hung waiting to be picked on the lemon tree just a few feet further away. He apparently couldn't wait to begin picking and grabbed what was closer. We laughed about the sack full of yellowy oranges. He called them Loranges and then I named them O-mens... Tonight I said, "lets make lemonade out of L'Omens" and we did, with the Loranges and it was incredible...and I don't know what comes next. If patience is a virtue then what is action? Action is also a virtue and I have the Lorange-ade to prove it.
Do what you will, when you will, but you know, do it when I want you to, whenever that may be
