Whole New World

Today was the day the Mayan Long Calendar ran out, and rumors have been flying for weeks about a great Apocalypse that was supposed to end the world. For me, it was a source of a lot of jokes, but I understand many folks took the whole thing seriously. People all over the world were reportedly maxing out credit cards, having indiscriminate sex, probably a little pillaging and burning too. For those poor souls, it probably will feel like the end of the world in the light of day.

I choose to look at this as an opportune time to start over. Make it be true that your old world ended, and tomorrow morning you get to start out with a fresh new life. The first day of the rest of your life. Winter is beginning, the new year is only days away, and you and the world have survived the apocalypse! What better day to start fresh?!

For my fresh start, I'd like to try to be a more thoughtful and giving person, to do what I'm able for those less fortunate than myself. I have good role models in my sister-in-law, whom has dedicated her life to befriending and helping homeless youth, and a friend who has a heart of pure gold, and works tirelessly with area free clinics and charities, among other selfless souls I have had the privilege of knowing. I don't have much to give, but you don't need to have or give much to make a difference. I would also like to be more patient, more understanding, less judgmental, less critical, less pessimistic, and just a nicer person to be around. Attainable goals with effort.

Quitting smoking, giving up soda, and losing weight are resolves I make every year, and fail at every year. I decided last year that to place them on my resolutions list only sets me up for disappointment in myself. If I don't make that promise to myself, then if I succeed... FANTASTIC! But if I fail, I am NOT a failure, because it wasn't a goal I'd set for myself for the year. To feel like a failure defeats the whole purpose of the mission of trying to better yourself and your life, which is the point of New Years Resolutions, so why would you set yourself up for it before you even begin?

So, come morning, I will be grateful to still be here, and for another chance to start fresh. I will try to be worthy of a second chance. I will view the world as bright and shiny and new.


As the song goes, "A whole new world. A new fantastic point of view. No one to tell us no, or where to go. Or say we're only dreaming. A whole new world. A dazzling place I never knew. But when I'm way up here, it's crystal clear. That now I'm in a whole new world with you."

Christmas Goodies

Making sugar cookies Christmastime 2010

Today was Christmas goodie day around here. I'm running quite late this year, and don't know how far I'll get, but hope to make a variety of cookies and candies. When I was growing up, my mother was a goodie-making fiend at holiday time. Every treat more yummy than the last. I recall plates filled with homemade candy... silky sweet fudges, crisp Angel Food Candy coated in chocolate, pale caramel-colored Penuche, Peanut Butter Buckeyes, melt-in-your-mouth Divinity and Sea Foam, Peanut Brittle, and chocolate coated potato Creme Drops. Then there were the cookies... colorful iced Sugar Cut-Out Cookies, coconut Ranger Cookies, delicate fried Rosettes dusted in confectioner's sugar, Butter Spritz Cookies in dainty little shapes, jelly-filled Thumbprint Cookies, crackly Snickerdoodles, and Kris Kringles with bright red maraschino cherries in the center. In later years, she added Peanut Butter Blossoms studded with chocolate candy Kisses, and light crispy Mexican Wedding Cookies. I have also added a few of my own goodies to the mix.


I try to do justice to those old recipes, but they never taste quite as good as Mama's treats tasted back then, and I never manage to make the vast array she always did. Today, my mother is approaching 88 years of age, and she suffers from dementia, so she isn't able to help much with the holiday baking, but I try to find ways to include her. I will usually situate her at a small table sitting on the seat of her walker chair, then I measure everything out and have her  pour  the ingredients together and mix it, or she will do simple tasks like chopping nuts or cutting, beating and frosting while I work on more complicated projects. She never remembers anything for long, but for the moment, she's feeling useful and helpful. Christmas gets more difficult every year because Mom frets so much over it. She worries herself over and over that she doesn't think she'll get to do any shopping, and I try to assure her it's okay and we'll get to the store, but even when we do, she forgets the moment she walks in the door that she's gone.

Mom had been showing signs of memory problems for many years. I remember my dad teasing her about "Old Timer's Disease" nearly 30 years ago, but it came on slowly. After Dad's death in 1992, my husband and I moved back into Mom's house to look after her, and I witnessed the progression. The first disconcerting change was when she'd begin to read newspaper articles aloud to me many times over... finishing the story, and within a few seconds, reading it to me again. This might go on a few times up to a dozen times. As soon as I found an opportunity, such as when she used the restroom, I would hide the paper just to avoid hearing it again, and she wouldn't even notice it was missing when she returned.

Mom's condition changed dramatically in October of 2008. Her oldest grandchild was getting married, and we drove across the state for the wedding. My husband and I took one motel room, and she had her own room across the hall. In the middle of the night, our room phone rang. The lady at the front desk was calling to tell us there was an elderly lady who had wandered down to the lobby in her nightgown and that she seemed very disoriented. The clerk had checked the records and deduced that she belonged with us. My husband went to the lobby to get her, and I moved some of my things to her room so I could stay with her the rest of the night. Neither of us slept very well that night, and I could  tell  something was bothering her. We attended the wedding, and then went to the reception for a while to have her photo taken with the family, but I'd conferred with my siblings about what had transpired the previous night, and told them we planned to take her home earlier than we had anticipated. The period following that weekend was very difficult for me.

I don't know if it was having me stay with her and make her feel safe at the motel, but suddenly she started to believe I was her mother, who had died 20 years earlier. Yet, at times, she also recognized me as Joyce. She had concocted a scenario that her mother and I both lived in the house, that her mother had started smoking, and that we both worked at the same convenience store, so that the flip-flopping of our presence would make sense to her. When her mother was here, I was at work, and when I was here, her mother was at work, and occasionally, we'd both be at work at the same time, leaving her at home with my husband. Often it was frustrating because I didn't know who I was supposed to be from one moment to the next. If I was fortunate, she'd give me a hint, such as telling me an item on the table  was Joyce's, or that her mother "wears those same ugly shoes," meaning my Crocs. There were times I didn't know who I was in her mind, and I would say or do something that was obviously incorrect, and she would scold me for reading Joyce's mail, or a look of total confusion would cross her face, and I knew I wasn't me again. I developed quite an identity crisis.I knew we had to do something on Christmas that same year. We had finished opening gifts, and I was gathering up  and folding wrapping paper to save for next year, as we have since I was a child. I looked at Mom sitting in her chair and she looked so sad. I asked her what was wrong, and my strong, private, mother, who never cried publicly, burst into tears and said she didn't get me anything. I had become her mother over the course of the morning, and she realized she hadn't bought a present for her. I put a chair next to her armchair, took her hand, and told her that it was okay and nothing to cry about. A little later in the day, after she had calmed down, I told her I wanted to talk to her. I sat down with her again and asked her who I was. She looked baffled and I said I'd tell her why I asked such a silly question after she answered. She told me I was Joyce, and I proceeded to explain to her that I wanted to be sure she knew who I was, because at times she thought I was her mother, and that was alright, because she just got mixed up sometimes. We talked and cried together for some time, and I told her we would try to help her remember better.

We made an appointment with her doctor and started her on a perscription of Aricept, which seemed to help a great deal. Her mother disappeared shortly after she started on the meds, and for a while, I was me again. As time passed, I once again became a split personality. This time, I don't know who I am, exactly, but when she talks to me  about Joyce, I know I have become this nameless mysetery person of hers. Perhaps she thinks I'm my sister, perhaps a nurse, or just a friend who does things with her. I don't know, but more and more recently, that lady is here and Joyce is not. I imagine one day I will just fade away and won't exist at all. I'm not so sure she wants to be around her friend either, because she's always talking about going home, and sometimes packs a bag and gathers her purse & coat and sits in her chair waiting... anticipating a ride from someone to take her home.

We don't allow Mom to cook anymore, but she can still do some of the things that are ingrained in her mind after so many years of repitition... she can make coffee without too many mishaps, other than occasionally overfilling the coffee maker so it runs out the drain holes onto the counter. She washes and dries dishes and puts them away, although it's often a scavenger hunt for me when I cook, because things wind up in odd places. She can fold laundry and will even occasionally wash a load, although I'm never too sure if she's used detergent or the proper amount when she does that without my knowledge. I also try to find simple chores for her so she feels like she's helping. I ask her to peel or cut fruits and vegetables for me when I need them for a recipe, or to stir something on the stove while I'm preparing something else nearby so I can watch her. I take her shopping and she pushes the cart for me, although her only real interest is finding the candy aisle. Mom loves her candy. She says she inherited that from her daddy. She told me she never took up smoking because she liked chocolate better. Even with the failing memory and body, her wonderful sense of humor remains constant. We laugh and joke together all the time, and those are the moments I will remember best when she is no longer with me. One blessing in her memory loss is that she's forgotten that she quit singing years ago because she thought her gravely voice sounded bad, and sometimes she will sing for me again as she did when I was a child. She can remember most of the words to old songs, and I help her when she forgets. Often I will get her started on a song, and she joins in. One of her favorites to sing with me is the old Mac Davis tune, "Lord, It's Hard to be Humble." My mom is a hoot.

Mom and her older brother with Santa c.1927

So who knows what this Christmas will bring? Will there be tears? Will Joyce be here? Will she sit with her coat and wait for a ride home that never comes? I don't know, but I hope she's happy. Whatever happens, I will file the good moments away and treasure them, because we have no guarantees that she will be with us next Christmas. Meanwhile, I will try to make sure she has some of the candies she loved so much from the good old days when she made them with love for her family.

Peace on Earth

Lots of thoughts today about peace, love and giving. I was listening to the song, "Let There Be Peace On Earth." Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me... That's really where it all has to begin. If everyone accepted the challenge of contributing to peace, I believe the world would be a much nicer place.

One of my favorite movies is "Pay It Forward." The new trend of secretly paying off layaways at box stores is one of the kindest things I've heard of in a long time. It doesn't take much to pay it forward. It doesn't have to cost a cent. You just have to do something nice for someone. Something as big as helping them fix their car or move, or as small as holding a door open or offering a smile to a stranger on the street.

Think about how good you feel when someone does something nice for you. Think about how good you feel when you do something nice for others. So with all of those good feelings going around, why stop with one good deed in a blue moon? What if we all resolved this year to do one nice thing for someone every day? Better yet, every hour? Just something almost imperceptible as a good deed... pick up a dropped pencil for someone at work, gather some litter off your neighbor's lawn on your way into the house, sit at a light for a minute longer to let someone turn the corner, send a note to someone to let them know you're thinking of them, drop a few coins in a beggar's cup, slip a few homemade cookies out of the jar and take them to a friend, continue down the walk a few more feet when you shovel snow, pull a weed when you walk by a curbside flower bed, check on an elderly neighbor, mow a lawn for someone on vacation, or offer to pick up their mail and papers... whatever you do, big or small, publicly or in secret, all will give you warm fuzzies, and if the other person recognizes that something nice has been done for them, they will have a better day too. There is no cheaper way to get a high, and it's not harmful to your health!

As I think back on some of the things I've done for folks, I still feel good, even years later. Nobody ever knows what effect their deed will have. It may even significantly change a life. A simple card in the mail may make a lonely person believe people do care and convince them not to commit suicide. By working a shift at a food kitchen, you may encourage your child to go into a career as a homeless advocate & social worker. Stopping to allow a pedestrian to cross the street may keep them from becoming frustrated and walking in front of a truck because they tried to rush between traffic. Offering someone a ride may keep someone from being late to work and save their job. So little can mean so much sometimes.

My sister-in-law has dedicated herself to the cause of homeless youth. She volunteers her time, her assets, a shoulder or a hug on a daily basis. She has been so blessed in her life just by showing love and support to young people that others ignore or view with disdain. Simply because she has a good heart and gives of herself, others give to her in return. She's not well-to-do. She often struggles to pay bills and scrape by, but will give anything she can to someone else in need, even if it means going without herself. This fall, someone anonymously paid to fill her propane tank so she would be warm this winter. Why? Because she's selfless and caring and someone appreciates that. Not only does she get the warm fuzzies from what she does, and the kids get the warm fuzzy rewards of her kindness, but a bystander apparently got warm fuzzies from watching her unconditional love and giving, and made sure she wouldn't go cold for lack of money to pay her own bills, which in turn, gave her more warm fuzzies that someone was so generous toward her! Kindness usually comes full-circle, whether you see immediate results or not.


Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

Words

Today I think I shall talk a little bit about words. I love words. I always have. I've always been a fair speller and I confess that I can be quite a "Spelling Nazi," although I try never to make people feel self-conscious about their spelling. I can spot a typo from a mile off. I flip open a newspaper and my eye goes directly to a misspelling. It drives me insane when auto-correct changes the words I intended to use, and it irritates me immensely when I discover I've inadvertently skipped a word or made an error in my own writing.

I remember years ago, when I worked with a young man at a convenience store. I came in to start my shift, and he looked so pleased with himself as he pointed out that he had changed the sign out front. That sign was miserable to change. It was very high up, and you had to use a suction cup on a long pole to do it. You'd lay the large Lucite letter tiles on the ground, and then smacked the rubber cup down hard on them to create a suction so that you could pick them up, which rarely happened if there was rain or snow to get the letters wet. Then you had to raise the pole up and slip the letter into an upper slot, lower it into a lower slot, and then peel the suction cup away, leaving the letter in place. If you had smacked it too hard, sometimes that little bugger did not want to let go and you'd have to fight with it. If you didn't smack it hard enough, it would fall off and you'd have to dodge it so you wouldn't get hit in the head. Well, I walked up to the front of the store to admire his work through the front window even before I had my coat off, and placing my hand on his shoulder, solemnly said, "I'm sorry, hon, but you spelled a word wrong." He almost cried. :)

Misuse of words like there, their and they're drive me crazy. Apostrophes where they don't belong (i.e. "bun's for sale), or missing from where they do (i.e. "I dont want to do that"), confusion over the use of  I and me also bugs me terribly. If someone says, "me and Jim went to the store," in my mind I shout, "Jim and I! It's Jim and I!!!" I bite my tongue, though, because it's not anything to make an issue over.

It's not just spelling, or grammar, or punctuation that I am obsessive about. It's the words. Words are so powerful. Words can build up or destroy. They can be ugly or beautiful. They can convey feelings, whether spoken or withheld, and the absence of them can speak more loudly than any vocalization ever could. I am an excellent writer (she said modestly), but I am an awful talker. I can sit down and scrawl out a five-page letter telling someone in great detail what's on my heart, but if I try to voice those same feelings, the words get jumbled, I can't think clearly, and I inevitably start to cry so I can't speak at all. That is a huge detriment, because it often results in my bottling up my feelings, which is never a good thing for anyone. My husband knows when I'm mad or hurt by my silence, but I've always wished I could express those feelings with words instead. The words just don't flow through my lips as they do from my pen.

I love how words string together to create a lovely scene. I love how they dance together in the lyrics of a song, and how a poem can paint a masterpiece of language. I used to dabble with poetry quite a bit when I was younger, but as my husband would likely point out, it's not technically REAL poetry... it's that "rhyme-y stuff." I confess, I like the challenge of rhyming. To try to express something eloquently and precisely while finding words that rhyme with each other is quite a head game! 

I figure songs are just poetry set to music. Can you imagine trying to sing a song that doesn't rhyme? I don't believe I'd care for it. You could write, "I picture in my mind a white Christmas, just like the ones from my past. Where the tops of the trees glistened, and the children strained to hear sleigh bells ringing in the snow." That's very nice, but it lacks something for me. I prefer, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Where the tree tops glisten, and children listen, to hear sleigh bells in the snow."

 The only time I really dislike words are when they're used in a spirit of hatred and bitterness. Words are like a blade. Sometimes it's edge is as smooth as a butter knife, spreading sweet jam over a soft slice of bread. Sometimes it's edge is sharp and jagged, and it tears and cuts the soul of the person they are directed toward. No one should have to hear those words, especially when they're coming from someone you care about. Perhaps that's why I have a hard time expressing my feelings. I fear my words will hurt someone, and I'd rather hurt myself by swallowing the words to spare their feelings.

Well, I suppose the time has come for the words to cease for now, but before I leave you, I would ask a favor of you. Please, think about your words before you use them, and try never to use them to wound, but to heal and cheer. Give words the respect they deserve, and people will respect you for it. Cherish words. Without them, you only have emptiness. Use words. Tell those you love how you feel, lest there come a day when they can no longer hear them... whether you have to speak them or write them down.

Our Troubled World

As I listen to coverage of the elementary school shooting in Connecticut this morning, I am flooded with emotions. I feel profound sadness for the families of these victims. I feel grateful that I never had children or grandchildren to worry about being killed or becoming a killer. I feel anger at the young man who committed this heinous crime. I also feel pity for the same young man who must have suffered much mental torment. I feel appalled that parents are allowing their children, who can't possibly yet comprehend what has happened, speak to ruthless news reporters as if they're describing the latest shoot-'em-up video game. I feel terror that so much of this horror is happening in the world these days. I feel anxiety at hearing this news over and over, time and again, and yet, I feel shame that I can't turn it off. I shudder when I think about the parents getting the phone call this morning.

The events of the day take me back in my mind to the innocence of my own childhood. I grew up in small towns of a few thousand residents. It was a time when parents could never have imagined that there might come a day when their grandchildren and great-grandchildren wouldn't be safe sitting in a classroom or playing in their front yards. When mass shootings would be commonplace, and kids would carry knives and guns in their backpacks. In the late 1960s and early '70s, while I was growing up, children played outside until dark and nobody gave a second thought to allowing their kids to walk to their friends' homes or to school.

Our room was the one on the far right of the second floor

I was two years older than my sister, and some of my favorite memories are of the many hidey holes where we played in our large old house. There was a big walk-in closet in our room where we would sit and play store or school, and in my early teens I plastered the walls inside with pictures of dreamy celebrities clipped from Tiger Beat and 16 Magazine. There was a neat little cubby underneath the front staircase landing with a triangular door, and we would climb in and play the board games stored there. Under the large front porch was a perfect little playhouse with a dirt floor and lattice-covered windows to let sunlight in. The row of lilac trees across the back property line enclosed an impressive dirt Matchbox car track. The monstrously huge walk-up attic filled to the gables with boxes and bags provided many hours of fun and surprises... including an old set of dentures discovered beneath a loose floorboard. A narrow hall-like enclosed back staircase with steps to color on and roll things down and ended in the second-floor hallway where there was a door out to a roof-top porch floored in metal that would blister your feet in the summertime sun.

We had a spooky dreary basement with a big old wood cook stove a past resident had left against the wall, a coal shoot we no longer used in a creepy dark corner, a wooden corral beneath the clothes shoot where we would drop things from the little trapdoors in the wall of the first and second floors into the dirty clothes. There was the earthy-smelling cool root cellar filled with potatoes, tomatoes, onions and jar upon jar of canned goods my mother had put up every year from her backyard garden. At one end of the basement, stood a ringer washtub and a large cast iron wash sink where Mom would wash clothes for her family of seven, and  one corner had a shower curtain strung across, concealing a shower head and a commode sat beside it out in the open, so we never had to leave our wonderland when nature called. We played for hours down there. I'll never forget the day we had a fight and I ran up the stairs, flipped off the light, and held the door shut while my little sister screamed and pounded on the other side, and my mother's stern face and warning that something like that could make her go crazy for the rest of her life. She was mad as a wet hen when she got out, but she was fine, although I still feel the sting of that scolding.


We were pretty good kids, although we found enough mischief to make life interesting. There were no computers or cell phones, and television was reserved for Saturday morning cartoons and evening family shows like The Waltons and Grizzly Adams, Little House on the Prairie and Apple's Way. I remember our 8 PM evening "treat" before bed, which was often a glass of soda pop. That makes me chuckle now as I down a whole 12-pack of Mt Dew by myself per day, and it's never tasted as good as that rare glass of Root Beer. 

Children in my day made their own entertainment. Old school papers, with their mimeographed purple ink bleeding through the back, kept my sister busy while I supervised her "tests" in our bedroom schoolhouse. Our handmade sandbox with wads of grass poking up through the building-grade sand was a popular spot for the neighbor kids. The front porch was a hang-out for pre-pubescent teenager wannabes. I still remember coming home from school and dragging my sister out to the overturned rowboat in the yard to show her how I'd learned to dissect an earthworm. It was so cool! 

Me & my sister, with the infamous Christmas doll, in 1975

With Christmas around the corner, I recall one of my favorite holiday memories. It was a snowy Christmas Eve and my sister and I were in our shared bedroom preparing for bed, when we looked out the window and saw Santa Claus walking down the middle of the dark abandoned street! It was so exciting! Of course, later I realized it was probably a drunk in a costume stumbling home from a Christmas party, but to us it was Santa in the flesh, and he was right in front of our house! Along with that, I recall one of my most disappointing and shameful Christmases. It was 1973, and I was 11 years old. That was the year I discovered Santa wasn't real. Naturally, I couldn't allow my little sister to continue to believe such lies, so I took her into my parents' bedroom and told her to look under the bed, where there was a big box with a child-sized dolly inside. I told her, "just watch... that doll will be under the tree Christmas morning with Santa's name on it." I don't think she's ever forgiven me, even 4 decades later.

Me as Santa for a 1974 school Christmas party

My heart hurts today for those parents who have to face Christmas without their little ones around the tree excitedly opening colorful wrapped packages, and for those children who had to grow up in the blink of an eye when their siblings, friends and teachers were gunned down in front of them. There will be no Christmas for those families this year, and it makes me weep. I almost feel guilty reminiscing about my own innocent happy childhood on a day like this, but right now that feels like the only way I can cope with the sadness I feel.


I pray for comfort and healing for the families and friends of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14. 2012. Bless the memory of the lost.

The Adventure Begins...

Well, here I am... a blogger! Imagine it! Now the whole world can peek inside this bizarre cataclysm I call life! What an awesome responsibility I am about to undertake! Can I handle it? Can I make it interesting? Probably not, but I face interesting challenges every day, so why not throw caution to the wind and make a fool of myself in public?!

Wedding June 2006

My name is Joyce and I turned 50 this year. I am unemployed and a full-time caretaker for an 87-year-old mother with dementia, a psychotic overweight belligerent dog, and a husband who is a recovering alcoholic biker. Now, I grew up a shy, quiet, small-town Wisconsin fat girl. I didn't know from alcoholics, or bikers, or men, when I met this wild city boy Willie Nelson look-a-like through an online personals ad. Well, that changed quick! Before I knew it, I was driving 180 miles in the middle of the night to the gritty side of Rockford, Illinois, getting out of my car to use a pay phone on winos row outside of a drug-dealer's hangout, and calling him for directions to his house because I was lost. Did I mention I was naive? Within months I was sitting in on AA meetings, attending Recovery biker events, and hangin' with tattooed, leather-clad, Harley riders on a regular basis. We got married at a camping weekend, surrounded by 500+ bikers in various stages of recovery. And so it began...

After my dad died of cancer ten years ago, the family decided that Mom, whom had been showing signs of early Alzheimer's symptoms for some time, needed someone to care for her, so the hubby and I moved into her house. She's grown progressively worse, and every day has become a little crazier than the last. Enter Tucker...

Baby Tucker June 2010

I've always wanted a puppy, but hubby insisted we couldn't have a pet because Mom might stumble over it. I realized he was right, and resigned myself to teasingly whining about how cute every puppy and kitten was. Then came the day when he found an ad for a puppy he wanted. It was the same breed he owned in his younger years. So, we brought an adorable little fuzzball home to live. I knew as little about dogs as I had about drunks and bikers, and he was the dog expert, so when he chose a half-Border Collie, half-Australian Shepherd for a house dog to live in town, I trusted his decision. Do you all realize that a Border-Aussie is a herder? They love to chase things... cars, trucks, ambulances... and they bark at them... a LOT! How fortuitous that we live right on a busy state highway! Tucker soon earned the nickname "Satan Jr," for reasons which shall become apparent as I let you glimpse deeper into my crazy universe.

That's probably enough revelation for this time. I hope you'll join me again soon for further Chaotic Adventures of Everyday Life.