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Not Working Up To My Potential
I have been making a concerted effort to declutter and rehome things that seemed very important when I put them in a storage box but no longer give me joy. During that process, I’ve found a lot of souvenirs, including high school pictures of classmates and old concert stubs. In 1987 alone I saw Heart, Bon Jovi and Y&T. In the interest of full transparency, I had to look up Y&T because I don’t remember any of their songs, don’t remember the band and have no memory of attending the concert. Sorry guys.
Concert stubs and my student ID picture Junior year. I went through a black hair phase.
But I also found my high school transcript and since most people claim high school was the best time of their lives, this discovery has got me thinking. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if your high school years were miserable, it WILL get better. Not magically, but if you put in the effort it can. Maybe that means changing your environment, going to therapy, or even just putting a few decades between you and an off key performance of “Pomp and Circumstance.”
HS Transcript or “Proof of Failure.”
I barely graduated from high school. There were a lot of reasons for that. Us GenX kids were pretty feral, and a lack of supervision led to me blowing off my homework. And then I discovered boys and gave up any hope of academic success. My GPA was 1.89 (I honestly thought it was lower, yay me!) and I ranked 303 out of 326 students. I guess I could be proud that I wasn’t 326th. My report card was peppered with C’s, D’s and F’s. There were some A’s and B’s, like in my Drafting and Administration of Justice classes, which makes sense since I work in law and love to build things. I went to Junior College for a few years and did better, but I didn’t have any idea about what I wanted to do. There was also no money for college so I figured I wouldn’t even bother. I worked in retail after high school and 7 years after graduation got my first office job. That’s how I accidentally ended up with a career in law.
After Phil died, my best friend
bulliedaggressively encouraged me to finish my AA. I called the local college on a Thursday and was attending classes the following Monday. I had forgotten how much I loved school and loved learning. When I graduated in 2017, my GPA was 3.83. I would have gotten “Magna Cum Laude” next to my name at graduation, but I was a part time student and I guess they only make the distinction for full time.
GPA for my AA transfer degree
Ok, college degree with training wheels obtained, so I’m done. Not so fast, said Bestie. A little more aggressive encouragement and I was registered as a full time student, while working and parenting full time, at Southern New Hampshire University. Their distance learning allowed me to get my Bachelors right before the pandemic. I had a 3.6 GPA, made the Dean’s list and graduated Magna Cum Laude.
I needed those decades for personal growth and for tech to advance in a way that would be the most beneficial for my needs. Online learning was in its infancy in the early 90’s. I remember taking one college online class in 1997, and I had to borrow someone’s computer because we didn’t have computers at home. (If we had cell phones, they weren’t digital until the early 2000’s, I believe.)
Again, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but hang in there. Maybe you didn’t do well in school, but that doesn’t mean you won’t crush it in college. Or maybe you have a beautiful brain that is wired to create music or build the better mousetrap. I can’t stop thinking of all the computer science geniuses that didn’t get to shine because they were born during the Middle Ages. Don’t let one obstacle stop you, keep searching and maybe the world will eventually catch up and celebrate what you have to offer.
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Not Our Song
{It is not my intent for this to come across as melancholy. It was just an observation.}
When I was a teen in the 80’s, it was a big deal for a couple to have their “song.” At a school dance, you could hear any number of girls tell their date, “Oh, that’s our song! Let’s dance!” Good thing each song didn’t have a limit as to who could designate it as the one perfect song for that couple, or some couples would have to sit out. “I’m sorry,” the Police might say. “You can’t have Every Breath You Take as your song, because ten thousand other people have used this obsessive, stalker song as an anthem of their love. Cheerio!” Although I’m sure some of the boys wouldn’t have minded. I remember one female classmate made a big deal about the “song” she and her boyfriend had. I think it was “You’re the Inspiration” by Chicago but they had so many love ballads in the 80’s I could be wrong. (Personally, my favorite Chicago song was “Stay the Night.” I like to think that I didn’t really know what that meant when I was 13 but like many of my generation, I knew what button combination unlocked the “naughty” channel on the cable box. If you know, you know.)
Had to have the box on the left, the combo didn’t work on the box on the right (if memory serves.) My husband and I started dating while I was in high school when this was a normal practice for couples. I was part of the “our song” crowd, but he was a couple years older and had probably already had a couple girlfriends that had imposed their “song” on him. That being said, we never had a specific song that defined our relationship, but since he passed away in 2014, there are certain songs that I hear and think of him and think “maybe this is our song:”
“Fields of Gold” by Sting. That was playing when he … proposed. It was more like “ok, we’ve been together 7 years, here’s a ring and please don’t make me say it.” I should have made him work for it, but whatever. We got married 6 years after that. (13 years of dating, for anyone counting.)
I love anything by Sting. I’m basically a stalker. “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd. I wanted to walk down the aisle to this song, but was overruled. (We were married on November 4, 2000, and I originally wanted to be married the weekend before and have a Halloween themed wedding with all the guests in costume. I was overruled in this too. I can’t blame Phil for this. Our mothers put the kibosh on that idea and I don’t think we knew we could assert ourselves.)
“From this Moment” by Shania Twain. This is the song we picked for our first dance at our wedding. Neither one of us were big country fans, but none of our tastes had a song that would work. I agonized for months about which song we should pick and finally made the executive decision to go with this one. Which leads to…
Almost every song from Pink Floyd, The Police and Rush. For a decade and a half-ish this was the majority of music we listened to. Don’t get me wrong, I listened to other stuff, but it was mostly whatever was on the radio during my commute. Pink Floyd, The Police and Rush become important later.
“Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen from Highlander (We loved that movie and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw it 100 times. For years I burst into tears when Connor would call out “Heaaaatheeeeeeer!” Phil would say it in the same voice.)
Highlander 1986 (Connor and Heather) Every so often I would hear a song, look at Phil and say “Huh. Is this our song?” He would look at me, not answer and continue with whatever he was doing. My inner 80’s teen screamed out “We need a song!” but my adult self realized that isn’t something that should be forced.
I’m a radio listener, and maybe because I am the ‘mixtape” generation, I habitually switch from one preprogrammed station to another. After Phil died, there were occasions when I would land on a station and it would be a song that held some meaning regarding our relationship. It usually coincided with a time when our girls had a milestone or I was feeling blue. Normally I wouldn’t think twice, but when a station normally plays rock music from the early 2000’s and then throws out a random Pink Floyd, Police or Rush song from decades ago, especially one that has “meaning,” it gives me pause.
Lloyd Dobler, the ultimate mix tape master (Say Anything 1989) So now there are songs that I hear that relate to a time in my life with Phil. I stop, close my eyes and think, “Ah, that’s not our song.”
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Nielsen Family
Not long ago, I received a 30 page survey from Nielsen and one dollar as incentive to fill out the survey. I pocketed the dollar, answered 15 pages of questions and then put it aside, planning on finishing the survey at a later time. That didn’t happen and I felt bad, but not bad enough to send back the dollar.
A couple weeks ago I got a call from Nielsen . I always check the caller ID and don’t usually answer the phone unless it is someone I know (ok, I only answer the phone if it is my dad) but the phone rang as I was waking up and I didn’t check the caller ID.
“Hello, this is Nielsen . Would you be willing to track your radio listening habits for a week?”
“Sure,” I replied, trying to comprehend what I was agreeing to.
“Great, we’ll send you listening logs for every member in your house. How many do you need?”
“Three…”
“Great, we’ll send that out with a small payment. Maybe enough for a coffee. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”
I had the feeling that the poor guy might have been frequently hung up on or even cussed out.
In a week, we received three listening logs and three dollars each! Heck, one week of tracking our radio preferences paid off more than a 30 page questionnaire! So we diligently kept track of our preferred stations and sent them in on the prescribed day. It was tough for the kids because Youngest only listens to the radio for the 10 minutes she is in the car with me on the way to school, and Oldest really only listens when she is driving to and from the high school to pick up her sister. But we did it and we can now count ourselves among the ranks of other elite Nielsen families. I wonder if we have a club, or at least a secret handshake?
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Nifty Fifty +
This year I turned 51. COVID pretty much messed up my 50th last year, but this year several of us got together to belatedly celebrate milestone birthdays.
I have to say, I LOVE getting older. I mean, I could do without some of the system failures – keeping my cholesterol down is a constant battle and my left knee hurts before it rains – but overall getting older is really kick-ass. I don’t get intimidated by people anymore, and most of the time I’m told I’m the scary one. I also don’t take everything at face value anymore. When I had to buy new lugnuts for my car, the tech quoted me $154. “No, I’m not paying that. Look for a different brand” I told him. Miracle of miracles, he found some for under $50
One piece of advice I would give the younger generation is this: Start a slush fund for the future. Save as much as you can in three decades to change the thing about yourself that you’ve always wanted to change. As you age, your body won’t respond the way it did in your 20’s, if it ever did. Diet and exercise can only get you so far, and starving yourself for an ideal is asinine. Sick of the weight you can’t lose? You have a slush fund to pay for coolsculpting or liposuction. Teeth have always been crooked? Get braces. There is no shame in changing what you can, especially if you have the extra money to do so. Don’t skip rent, the mortgage or food to pay for it, but have a fund so you can do what you need to do to be happy with yourself.
Amy Schumer recently admitted to having liposuction because after the birth of her son, her body no longer made her happy, and I can totally respect her decision. Many celebrities have had one treatment or another, and even the Rock went under the knife. That being said, don’t change yourself if others are pressuring you to do it.
Jennifer Gray from “Dirty Dancing” got a nose job after years of negative comments from her mother. She was beautiful then and is beautiful now, but she honestly looks like a completely different person than the actress who portrayed “Baby.” Any changes you make should be just for you.
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Childhood Memories
When my oldest was five, we celebrated by taking her to Disneyland and Seaworld. Although it wasn’t as expensive as it is now, we had saved because it was a special occasion. We had a wonderful time, but years later, she doesn’t remember the trip. She remembers seeing pictures and us telling stories about it, but she doesn’t remember the trip itself. I don’t fault her and understand when she, and others, claim that five year olds don’t remember these things. My problem is that I am comparing her to me, and the fact that I have memories going back to when I was three, maybe as far back as two and a half. I thought everyone remembered things that far back. But it goes further than that. Oldest won’t remember what happened earlier in the day. There are numerous examples of this and it has become something of a family joke. I got so frustrated with her not remembering things, that I would make up trips. “Don’t you remember when we went to the Amazon for your 10th birthday?” I’d ask her, or “we had the best time skiing down glaciers in Canada last year!”
Then the funniest thing happened. She is majoring in Anthropology and wanted to tell me about some really cool facts she learned about the indigenous Ancestral Pueblo people that lived in Colorado around 600 CE.
“Ok,” I said. I love early American history (all history, really).
“They lived in pit houses,” she told me.
“Ok,” I replied. This sounded familiar.
“They would dig ventilation shafts so the smoke wouldn’t fill the house!”
“Like the ones we saw at Mesa Verde?”
*silence*
In 2020 – COVID be damned – we flew to Salt Lake City and went on a road trip. One of the places where we ended up was Mesa Verde in Colorado. We saw the cliff dwellings – from a distance – and also observed … pit houses with ventilation shafts.
Pit House with Oldest at top right 
Pit House information and diagram She didn’t remember that. However, she did remember the deer that was wandering around the excavated pit house.
Deer outside Pit House So this leads me to her 19th birthday present. I decided to circle back to the imaginary places we traveled to. And she knows her memory is – questionable – so I like to think it wasn’t picking on her, but having fun with her. The following are some pictures from her “Memory Book” for her birthday. And as part of the joke, I cut out actual photos of her and glued them to the picture to make it look as good as the really bad fake ID’s we had in the ‘80’s. (Not me, I was a good kid!) We can credit my creative writing degree for the captions.
*For anyone seriously worried about her mental state, we are actually going to send a note to her doctor and explore it further. It may be an ADD thing or just part and parcel of being a young person in 21st century America. She is brilliant and hilarious and because of this I’m not terribly worried. She was part of a dual-credit program in high school and graduated with her diploma and AA (magna cum laude) and entered UNR as a junior. So whatever is going on doesn’t affect her academics. But anyone who wants to share anecdotal life experiences on the topic of forgetfulness is welcome!
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Moving
My youngest came home from school the other day and told me that she has two friends leaving at the end of the school year. One is going to Georgia and the other to Montana. Like any parent, I tried to reassure her that it would be ok.* She still has other friends at school and in fact it is easier for her to stay in touch with the friends that are moving than it was when I was growing up. When my friends moved away we had to write letters or talk on the phone to stay in touch and that never lasted very long. If someone moved a town over, you had to hope that your mom was willing to drive you over to their house so you could hang out. As a tween, I could at least take the bus. My friends and I had the bus schedule memorized and could scam transfers from the drivers so a round trip ride only cost 50 cents. At least she and her friends have texting, video calls (is skype still around?) sharing TikToks and tagging each other on Instagram.
Best friends But then the strangest thing happened. One of our Sunday school teachers at church was transferred to Texas for work. Then one of my co-workers gave notice to move to Florida, another gave notice to move to California and a third left for a completely different field. In our office we hire college students as “runners” to handle tasks around the office. It turns out all the runners we had were graduating this year and moving back home. So I get to experience the adult version of “my friends are leaving this summer.” I won’t lie, it has made me feel pretty blue. I have another friend that has plans to leave in a year, at the most. That one is the worst, and I’m channeling my inner ostrich and not thinking about it.
Obviously, change is good, and for all of the people above, it is leading to something new, and hopefully exciting, for them. I anticipate that their next chapter will be wonderful. And while I will miss these people, I will be happy for them and try not to be too sad. I’ll be happy that I knew them and hope I was a positive part of this chapter of their life.
*Clint Edwards has a great parenting blog and frequently addresses depression and anxiety in parents and kids. http://www.byclintedwards.com/
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Check Please!
I write very few checks these days. When Phil was alive he sat down every month with our bills, the ledger and checkbook and wrote out checks for each bill. I continued that tradition for a couple months after he died, but the process took over an hour. I hate paying bills anyway, so dragging out the process was torture. I set up online bill pay through the credit union, and because our water company is lame (it takes them almost two weeks to process an electronic payment) they are the only monthly check I write. Every so often I’ll write a check for something my sophomore needs at school, but more often than not I can buy yearbooks or pay for school pictures online.
Paying bills is incredibly painful and I hate it.
There IS one place where I notice checks being written. I’ll be sitting in church on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, and the quiet is interrupted by someone tearing a check out of their checkbook for the offertory envelope. It has become an audible form of piety, as if you are telling everyone “Look how much I give! I don’t even carry enough cash to fill this envelope and must write a check! Praise God for all the zeros!” I’m sure a lot of people write a check so they can track their giving for their taxes the next year, but if you are registered with your parish the church provides a letter during tax time that breaks down all of your donations.
Papal Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls Rome, Italy (https://colosseumrometickets.com/basilica-of-saint-paul-outside-the-walls/)
During Lent (the 40ish days leading up to Easter) we usually read from Matthew 6:1-4.
1“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
I’m convinced the tearing of the check is the modern trumpet of the hypocrites!
UPDATE: Ok, I did recently write a check for a fundraiser at church. I had a little extra money and I felt like it was an important cause (materials for Sunday school) so I wrote a check. HOWEVER, I wrote the check at home, placed it in an envelope from my desk and chastely placed it in the offering basket during the second collection! Ha!
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Paying with Sticks
We have been remodeling and redecorating our house. Over the years, I have inherited a lot of really nice, quality furniture from relatives, but some of the pieces are very large and the style is different from how mine has evolved. So after tearing up the carpet and installing laminate this summer, I purchased some new pieces.
I really like the look of metal and wood, and the bookcases I picked have an “industrial meets reclaimed barn wood” vibe. The only problem is that there are no sides to the shelves and the books and movies will just slide out. Enter the local dollar tree with its awesome and growing craft aisle. I was able to buy ruler sized slats, stain them and glue them to the bookcases. The only problem is that I overbought slats and, as I have just learned, the dollar tree does not give refunds. They do, however, accept exchanges.
So now I have a dozen sticks in my car that I can use for payment at the dollar tree. I feel like the Labrador that figured out the concept of currency and uses a leaf to buy himself a cookie every day. Maybe someone will pat me on the head and say I’m a good girl!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5717641/Clever-dog-buys-cookies-day-creating-currency-using-leaves.html So word to the wise, buy only what you need or too may end up paying for imported junk with sticks.
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Hillbilly 4th of July
A couple years ago I decided to bring the girls to a local 4th of July fireworks display. When I was growing up we could go to the local rodeo grounds, set out a blanket and chairs and watch an amazing presentation. They would even paint a grid in the dirt where you could safely pick a square and set off firecrackers or stand alone with your sparkler. I thought it might be nice for the girls to have this type of experience.
Where I live now, there are fireworks shows, but not all of them have the accompanying music and pomp. We decided to go up to Virginia City to watch the show.
Hoosier Tim’s Travel Videos, Jan 27, 2009 Virginia City, Nevada is a living museum. It was built during the 19th century mining boom and the area is still historically accurate. On the weekends people dress up in period costume and promenade through town, their shoes echoing on the wooden sidewalks. Since Nevada is an open carry state, the revolvers on display (and the derringers in a ladies bag) are not props. (It took me a couple trips up there to figure that out!) As cool as this is, there is a large hillbilly/white trash element living in VC. Not to mention the meth users, allegedly corrupt sheriff and swingers. (The odds are good, but the goods are odd!) So it can be very interesting after dark.
We parked our truck on the side of a hill across from a small RV park. We set up chairs in the truck bed so we could sit there and watch the fireworks when they started. As with most large American celebrations, people had been out drinking most of the day. The several 5th wheels across from us had multiple families with children milling about, bbqing and just enjoying themselves.
As it started to get dark, people were getting out their chairs, ready for the show to start. Just then, a small, two door sedan sped past the families playing at the RV park.
His car was NOT as nice as this one! “Slow down, Capri!” shouted one of the dads. I thought the car might have been an older Toyota Camry or a Honda Civic, but it could have been a Mercury Capri. The car came to a screeching halt and the driver jumped out, yelling at the dad.
“You talkin’ about my SISTER?!”
“What?”
“My sister’s named Capri! Are you talkin’ about her?!”
Right then, the girl in the passenger seat starts yelling for the driver to get back in the car. She may have called him Ford, which made me wonder if they were named for where they were conceived. (I’m still wondering if they have a cousin named Freeway Overpass). I wasn’t sure if shots were going to be fired, so I strategically turned my body so I was between the girls and unfolding events. I luck out because the driver gets back in the car, revs the engine and speeds off. But his grand exit is thwarted because he has to stop 20 feet down the road for the stop sign.
I look over at the dad and he looks completely confused. His buddy comes over and asks what happened.
“I don’t know, man. I just told him to slow down!”
The VC fireworks budget only paid for the explosives, so there was no announcer or music. We enjoyed silent fireworks and then headed home. Since then, we’ve driven to places so we could see the show, but as far as I’m concerned, the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular works for me, and I can rewind and re-watch some of the more impressive explosions. And I don’t have to worry about getting shot by a drunken hillbilly over his sister’s questionable life choices.
Happy 4th! -
The Pandemic Opportunist
This is part one of my experiences working a second job during the COVID pandemic.
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Mom Solo 