The Glass is Half-Full

I don't know if you know this but I often think in terms of essays or blogs. An example might be that I am out at an event and something funny (it's almost always something funny that triggers this writing response) happens. In my mind, while I'm supposed to be 'in the moment', I am instead often putting together an essay or blog. Good thing that these don't often make it to print or the 'cloud'. Yet I cannot suppress the humor and joy of a morning spent with my dear friend Aimee who has had very little humor or joy in her life since last December. And it was all because of my keeps-me-on-my-toes puppy, Wally. Aimee has a Chiara Malformation which is a growth on the brain that for may patients goes either undiagnosed their entire lives or causes little problem. Not so for Aimee. Hers was discovered last November and while dealing with what she thought were migraines. The pain became so severe that she went to emergency room where a CT Scan revealed...

I live about 1/2 mile from one of the most beautiful lakes in the world and the beaches are spectacular. Guess what? I didn't make it there one time this summer!!!! While this fair-skinned mostly Irish colleen doesn't necessarily bronze, I love to sit on the beach and listen to the waves (reapply sunscreen), read a book (reapply sunscreen),go for a swim and, you guessed it, reapply sunscreen.  I spent a lot of time in the kitchen and car. The kitchen because all three of the not-so-little Piggins had one or more jobs that required them to work different hours. Michael might come home from one shift at 9 and be ready for lunch. Matthew might have a shift that starts at noon and he would require food at 11. And Delaney often had to pack something because she was working two jobs. They would all arrive home at different times at night and need sustenance. While I didn't always cook for them, I found that I would need to assist. I was in the car shuttling Delaney from d...

I have been reading through the blog entries for John's caringbridge site and am marveling that it was only a year ago we were on that awful cancer journey. In a way it seems like so much longer - especially when I look at the Patient Patient and see just how wonderfully handsome and healthy he looks! John still has periodic visits with the docs in A2 and prior to each we are both a little nervous that the docs might find something. He calls after each visit and we breathe a sigh of relief when the docs declare that all is clear! We know patients that went through treatment at the same time haven't received the same news; our concerns are grounded in reality and our sense of relief immense. In the past year, we have heard of far too many people that have received a diagnosis of cancer - prostrate, breast, throat, etc. While the type of cancer may be very different, the family's reaction and the ultimate course of treatment may vary greatly. The family and loved ones g...

Who does that song? The one with the lyrics - "Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking into the future"? It's the song that continues to play in mind today. I've attended the graduation open house of my son Matthew's dearest friend, Kyle, today. While there I saw the elementary school principal, a teacher or two and a boatload of friends. It made me realize that no matter how hard I try to maintain the status quo ~ life continues. Not only can I vividly recall my children as young children, I can recall many of their friends. It's  bittersweet this time passage thing because we, as parents and adults, can recall these graduating 'children' as children. At this open house, my daughter's first grade teacher recalled Delaney as a six year old lover of books and told tales out of school that brought back the memories of my daughter at that time in her life. Shortly after that conversation,  I watched her rehearsal for the concert/performance/f...

As I was vacuuming this morning, my mind began to wander to times past - some considered less than funny at the time. Not true this morning as I laughed out loud. And I thought, "hindsight might be twenty-twenty, but it can also be funny-funny". I know I'm not alone in this thought - we often hear at those less than funny moments that one day we will laugh at 'this' (whatever the 'this' is). Especially when we're parenting young children and they do something incredibly irritating to their parent. In public. In the afternoon. On a hot, humid day spent at the beach. When the child and parent haven't had a nap. And the child can't stop saying something totally inappropriate for a three-year old that he just heard his parent say in frustration at the d*** driver that just cut her off on her way to the grocery store to get the milk her d*** hubby forgot to get the night before. So this adorable preschooler, sitting in the grocery cart starts to s...

I am about to sound like the perimenopausal, middle-age woman that I am but what is it with the droopy drawers on these teen boys?  I remember when showing your 'wears' was an embarrassment! Boys didn't want the public at-large to know if they were wearing Tidy Whities or boxers. Now it seems to be a fashion statement. It is something that has bothered me for awhile but I had cause recently to be really bothered. There I was minding my own business waiting to pick up Delaney in front of the high school when two teens stopped in front of the van. The boy bent over to tie his shoe and gave me a full shot of his Jockeys. His pants were belted - BELTED - below his buttocks to keep them where they shouldn't be anyway. And he was worried about his untied shoe?? I thought, "Holy cow, dude, you got bigger problems than an untied shoe!" He stood, and get this, adjusted his pants  and walked away- like a penguin he walked! And I was reminded of Dick VanDyke dancing w...

When I was in junior high school, I staged a sit-in and learned about 'ten year'. This will come as a total surprise to most of you readers - I was not a perfectly well behaved child. I know, I know - you're shocked, amazed, in wonder how I could have turned out to be so well-behaved despite the oats sown in my youth.  And the sit-in is a perfect example of how I marched to the beat of my own drummer. Miss Brown was an English teacher - and not a very popular one. She would invoke the yardstick on wayward student's hands and scowl the moment we walked into the classroom. We weren't very kind to Miss Brown but then she wasn't very kind to us, either. Personally, the hardest part of having Miss Brown as an English teacher is that she nearly ruined my love of my favorite topic in school. It was the year we were to learn grammar (have I ever mentioned that as a writer I detest grammar?). I think some new way of teaching English was introduced and in all l...