Valentine's Day thoughts

My brain is a total randomizer this morning:

I am NOT big on Valentine's Day.  Seriously, I am married to a wonderful man who makes me feel loved every day of the year, so although the flowers and candy ARE nice ( he apparently went out last night after I went to bed)  I don't get upset if I don't get them.  He takes such good care of me.  This past year has been hard health-wise which has impacted my moods.  I cry a lot.   Frustrated mostly and he just holds me.  That.  Yeah.

I was thinking about Valentine's Days as a kid.  First of all my Dad would buy all "his girls" something   He was thoughtful and a die-hard romantic.  My mom was The One, from the moment they met. I remember at some point, the elementary school I went too said EVERYONE had to get a Valentine or no one did. I think that's nice.  Kids used to compare how many they got.  The popular kids always got a lot.  I remember the box and the names being called out.  One year, a friend of mine, a rebel in her heart, although she was not suspected in any way, signed ALL of her Valentines "Once in the morning does it" The Green Phantom.  It was a tag line from a Scope Mouthwash Commercial.  No one ( except me and her) knew who did it.  I never told and I am NOT outing her now.  Just in case...

Didn't Ophelia kill herself on Valentine's Day.  The opening line of the song she sings in  her "mad speech" is Tomorrow is St Valentine's Day"  There was a whole thread about her being pregnant and abandoned, so she wraps herself in "fantastic garlands" and jumps in the pond. Happy Valentine's Day Hamlet...

I know quite a few couples who got married on Valentine's Day. Sweet, but I was thinking, the way they price-gouge on this Day of hearts and flowers, if you wanted to go out for a nice meal or away for the weekend, it would be super expensive for NO GOOD REASON.

So, know that you are loved, that one day out of the year does not prove or disprove that fact.  May you have an amazing day, today and every day!

Theme songs

My husband got an ad in the mail that caused him to break into The Love Boat theme song.  Great.  thanks for the earworm, Christopher.

I have been thinking about PERSONAL theme songs all day today.  I went in to work super early and tried to get Pandora to play the song that I sometimes need to hear to empower me.  It's a song by a woman I am proud to know- Cindy Alexander.  Cindy is an awesome human with an amazing set of pipes and a talent for writing wonderful songs.  the song I needed today was a song I often think of as my theme song  "Idiot Child"  Sometimes I feel like a total idiot, like everyone else gets it and I'm standing there like "what?"   The thing about the song is the power of Cindy's voice both tender and soaring.  I have been singing along, my speech therapist told me I have to do some breathing exercise, so I watch my phrasing and breathing and sing along. I almost have my range back, if not my tone.  Baby steps. Google the song and Cindy.  She's amazing.

My other theme song is Warren Zevon's "My shit's fucked up"  I don't need to explain that to anyone, but if you haven't heard the song, take a trip over to Youtube.  Classic Zevon.

Music keeps me grounded.   I just don't need to hear theme songs from cheesy 1970s television shows...

A friend in need

Yesterday, I was talking with my neighbor, who remarked on how lucky he was to have friends who would step in to help when he needed it.  He said " of course I help them when they need it, so it goes both ways"  I nodded.  Isn't that what friendship is?  A give and take whether of your time or something to share?

It got me thinking about the saying " A friend in need is a friend indeed"  I always thought that could be taken two ways.

one- the obvious, a friend to you in your time of need is  truly a friend.
two- someone who needs something from you will be all over you trying to BE your friend until they get it.

Haven't we all had THAT "friend"   the one who needs you to do something and pretends to be your new bestie, until you do or give that thing and then they are like Jeannie in "I dream of Jeannie" off in a puff of pink smoke.

This morning, I am counting my blessings, thankful that my friends are more of the first type.

I hope I am too.

Laura

When we are young, we believe we will live forever, that we are invincible and that the future stretches out before us like some mythical Route 66, into adventure and the unknown.

On this day, in 1981, life conspired to give me a wake-up call and dissuade me of that certainty once and for all.

Laura and I had been co-workers, then friends as we were both Messenger Clerks (aka MCs) at the Pacoima Branch Library.  She was serious with a LARGE streak of fun built in.  The oldest child in her family, she naturally took the lead in many of our interactions.

I remember sitting in the tiny apartment I shared with my then-husband with a group of co-workers, having glasses of cheap wine ( possible other herbal substances?  I can't remember) and having long conversations.  One of our group declared Laura "an angel walking"  she was a good person, without being the kind of goody-goody you wanted to smack.

She and I were a month apart in age.

We were both going to Cal State Northridge, she in Business, me in English.  I was planning on becoming a librarian, I don't know if she had any real dreams about her life past the business degree.  CSUN had- and probably still HAS-one of the best business programs around.

Then she got sick.  In the last year of school she was misdiagnosed with "arthritis" and had to drop out.  She was really sick.  We kept in touch and visited her at her home.  They could not make her well.  In early February, we heard she was in the hospital,so we went to visit.  She confessed to craving Swenson's Mocha Chip ice cream, so the next day we returned with it.  We laughed and chatted while she ate and I told her when she got out we would bring our lasers and fog machines to her house to celebrate (my then-husband and I ran a small lighting and effects business on the side for bands and clubs)  She LOOKED at me.  Just that look and I knew that she knew she was never going home.  She didn't say anything, but she knew. 

I shut up.

I was at work when the call came.  I remember being in the workroom, hearing Stella Kobayashi say, "No, Robyn's right here" and hanging up.  She told me Laura had died.  I heard someone screaming. I realized it was me.  I went home. I couldn't think straight enough to work  and called a co-worker to tell her.  She accused me of lying, hung up on me and called back in a minute.  She came to my house and we stood on the front porch, hugging and sobbing.

It turns out Laura did not have arthritis, but an aggressive form of Lupus.  In 1981, it was incurable.

Fittingly, Laura's funeral was Valentine's Day.  She was 22.

I think of her often. I wonder where we would be, still friends I hope, raising children, loving grandchildren- all of which was not to be for her.  I wonder who she would have become and I miss the young woman I knew. I visit a photo of the mural int he Young Adult section of the Pacoima Library where the artists painted her as the Madonna. The mural HAD been in the children's room at the old Library. She was ROYALLY pissed at him, but I think he had a huge crush one her.

I am glad he did that.

I gave my daughter her middle name as HER middle name, Elizabeth.  I don't think people become angels when they die ( a topic for a future blog, I think) but I think their spirits may remain somewhere.  I wanted the essence of her goodness to be part of my girl.

There's an Irish Proverb ( at least I have heard it, but I think many cultures say something similar) "Do not resent growing old, many are denied the privilege"  I look at myself, and the life I was granted and am thankful.  I am blessed in this journey and in thinking of Laura today, I am reminded.

Wind is my least favorite

Wind is my least favorite weather phenomenon.  I HATE the sound of howling winds in the middle of the night, the sound of the trees, groaning and tapping on the window.   I hate the thought of what the wind is doing to the landscape and the buildings.

I hate the thought of trying to pilot my small car on the freeway in these high winds.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a gentle breeze, stillness is uncomfortable.  But when the winds are going as fast as an Indy Car, I get concerned for my safety.  I need to remember to tie my hair back and I don't want to wear a skirt to work, but my slacks are in the laundry- bad planning on my part.

I see the power is still out in Hayward and I am worried about Chris' mother who has been without power since Sunday.  I hope they restore it soon.

I am just glad we took the Sunland Tujunga Oak down.  With the velocity of this current storm, it would certainly have fallen and done some damage.

I need to get rolling.  It's probably going to be a long day at my desk and I have a stack of things waiting.

February 9, 1971 Where were you?

It's the anniversary of the Sylmar earthquake.   I had to think what it was called, as to me for the longest time it was just the Earthquake.

The quake was at 6:01 am.  I was still in bed, awakened when my bed, which was on casters as many beds used to be, rolled halfway across the bedroom and back.  I remember hearing my mother SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER in the kitchen.  She had gotten up to start breakfast.  She CLAIMED she was trying to "wake us up"- me and my sister.  Uh. Right Mom.

I was twelve and in the 7th grade at Pacoima Junior High.  They did not become Middle Schools until I was well out of the school system.   I had NO idea what an earthquake even WAS, although at some point in my school life we must have discussed the Great San Francisco Quake.

It took twelve seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.  I read that the Alaska earthquake in 1964 was 4.5 MINUTES.  I can't imagine that.  Every time we have an earthquake, I wonder how long till the shaking stops.

We got up and surveyed the damage in the house.  Thankfully, the houses in my part of the Valley are wood-frame and they gave with the quake, which was a rolling one.  if it had been a slip-strike jolt it might have been worse than it was.

Still, my mother did not believe a natural disaster was ANY reason for me to skip school and  she made me take a shower int he dark and head off for school about a mile and a half away.  I got about four blocks when my friend Jimmy's family stopped me and told me school was closed.  I told them my mom would not believe it, and they let me try to call her.  Phone lines were down but I reached her and she said to come home.

My school gym was an evacuation center and school was closed for a week.  The only real damage to our house was a dent int the counter where a large bottle of some variety fell off the top shelf of the liquor cabinet.

My next door neighbor was a nurse at Olive View- the hospital that came down and she told humorous stories of herself and her co-worker trying to get in a doorway or in the case of her co-worker under the sink which cam off the wall on top of her.  I suppose it was scary but they made it sound funny.

They evacuated areas around the Van Norman Dam in Granada Hills and there was a lot of damage in neighborhoods not near my own.  As a kid, it was a grand adventure.

Earthquakes can be scary.  It's how we react to them that is important.  The City tells us we may be on our own for as long as three days and we need to be prepared for that.  I am not quite sure that I am- I'm close- but maybe today I need to look at my preparedness kit.

Saturday comes early

I'm up,

I won't say awake, but I am up doing my breathing treatment and getting ready to go in to work for a special project.  It needs to get done, but  ugh.


I am trying to think of upbeat and inspiring things to say here, but there is not enough coffee to do that today.

Does anyone else get up and look at the news in hopes some monumental change has taken place overnight?  I certainly do.  I know, it's probably not good to do that on some kind of level for my spirit, but  for that brief moment in time, before I check the news and weather, I have a tiny spark of hope.

I'm looking for good books and poetry to sustain me. I will probably post something on my FB page.  A while back I asked for books. I have to find that thread, Print it and get to reading.  About a 50/50 shot as to what I like and my friends enjoy, but I find new authors that way.  I know there are apps and reading lists, but a lot of my friends are either librarians or avid reader- or BOTH- and I enjoy the enthusiasm  people pitch their favorites with.

Hoping for a  great day,  Still having trouble with the breathing, but the anxiety meds came in so I can do something about the chest pains and the panic attacks!  I tried the guided imagery meditation that sometimes works, I tried  the shower- also a quick fix for panic in my world.  Not working so well.  I am sure once the asthma, or whatever this is,  is better controlled , the panic will subside. They are related.