Let's Look at the Big Picture

Here is the man I'd like to see elected the next U.S. president. His detractors, the Billary camp, like to play up his lack of experience as a weakness.

I don't see that as weakness. I see it as a strength. He is a fresh face with fresh ideas. He can be a symbol of a new USA, one committed to better international relations, a greener lifestyle, a healthcare system that doesn't discriminate against the working poor, and any other ideal. Whether he expresses those ideals at the moment is not an issue. It's time the Democrat Party and the US got a clean slate and started to look at issues from a new perspective. To do this, they need a fresh face fronting this movement. Obama is the man.

I've never been a Hillary fan. I liked Bill, thought he was one of the best presidents in modern times -- above the waist. But the Clintons like to play down and dirty. They'll feel your pain but stab someone else in the back. I don't think modern politics has room for that anymore. The issues should take over, and race and gender and experience or lack thereof should take a back seat.


Now, I'll step down from my soapbox and fill you in on the latest in the As the Idiots Turn saga.

First, the cast:

Wakeup: that would be me
Edna*: Friend I made when our daughters became friends at school. Her husband is chairman of the tennis club we belong to.
Mildred*: Friend I've known for the best part of 10 years. Our children are very good friends. I help her out a lot; she sometimes helps me out. We're going skiing at the same resort, but separately.
Gladys: Friend of Mildred's. Mortal enemy of Edna's since she spread a rumour round another tennis club and attributed it to Edna. Edna fell out with a mutual friend because of this rumour. Gladys has glommed on to Mildred bigtime and their families are going skiing together.

*not their real names

So last night Mildred and I went for a drink because we'd both had stressful days and realised we weren't going to make salsa class again. We chatted about my new favourite subject, dogs, a lot because Jake had just shown what a star he is at obedience training.

Mildred then goes all concerned and says, "Are you and Edna going to be all right because you're going skiing with Gladys and me?"

I decided to take the opportunity to tell Mildred that the feud between Edna and Gladys has nothing to do with me and has nothing to with her. I said they both need to draw a line under it and move on or they will never be happy, and that we would be doing our friends a favour telling them that rather than listening to their moans and rants about each other.

Then, Mildred said Gladys was surprised I was going with them skiing because I'm friends with Edna. And she added that people at the tennis club expressed surprise as well that I was going with them.

"How did these people at the tennis club find out where I'm going skiing? Why do they care where I'm going skiing? What business is it of theirs?" I asked in a somewhat vociferous manner. "They need to get a life."

Well, Mildred was immediately on the back foot. As you may recall from a few posts ago, Edna told me another friend told her Gladys was ranting on about me going. I wanted to not believe it, but Mildred pretty much confirmed it without saying it in so many words.

I continued: "These women want to draw everyone into their poisonous feud, and I'm not having it. It's nothing to do with me. They need to grow up. You and I have been friends for 10 years, Mildred, before either of these women entered our lives. I don't want their feud, and I don't care how it started or who started it, affecting our friendship."

Here's Mildred's reply: "I told Gladys that you would be hanging out with your friend who's coming as well anyway so she doesn't need to worry."

Worry? What does she think I'll do, push her off a cliff?

Here's what I wish Mildred had said: "I told Gladys that you and I have been friends for the best part of 10 years and our kids are best friends. Wakeup asked me if I minded her coming along and I said no, so get over it."

I don't like to be labeled or judged by people who barely know me, yet that's exactly what's going on. I don't know how this holiday will turn out. It's awfully expensive to go and have a bad time. I do know I don't ever want to be in a lifeboat with any of these woman. I would be shark bait for sure.

Fun Monday III in which I reveal my inner slob

In this Fun Monday, hosted by AOJ and the Lurchers, we are asked to show our bedside tables and drawers. I'm not showing anybody my drawers, but I'll show you the mess I see on first awakening.

I put Vaseline on my lips every night before I go to bed and lotion on my hands. I then check I've set the alarm about a thousand times (I have forgotten to do this from time to time). The picture is of my husband and two children and was taken about seven or eight years ago. I have other photos of the kids on my dressing table.



The jewelry box is one of two. I asked for a big jewelry box one Christmas but got two smaller ones instead. I use this one for the jewelry I wear most often. As you can see, it's an overflowing mess. Every once in a while I go through it and tidy it up.



Next to my side of the bed is a big pile of books. Some I've already read and need to put in the bookshelf. Some I plan to read at some future date. Some I'm reading now (the doorstopper Until I Find You by John Irving is holding me up at the moment).




I also have a handy piece of furniture called a "chair-robe." I use this to pile all my clothes on before I go to bed. Dirty clothes go in the clothes bin, obviously. But some aren't dirty and are therefore wearable again. Rather than waste wardrobe space with them, I pile them on the chair-robe. On the top currently is the new swimsuit I bought to take with me when I go skiing. It fits me very well and was a bargain at £9.

So there it is. My boudoir. I really should tidy it up, but I spend TOO MUCH TIME blogging.

It's A Cyst

I can't begin to tell you what the last few days have felt like. Since I spoke to my mother on Tuesday, I have been preparing myself for the worst and thinking through what happens next. I'd decided that I would have to go out to Wyoming, my sister and brother being very unlikely to do so and not really the best candidates anyway. My sister would have volunteered one of her children, also not a very good idea.

My mother called last night with the news. It's a cyst, they decided. Her doctor should be calling her today or next week with more detailed information. I don't understand all the biology of this. How do you suddenly develop cysts at the age of 82? But I'm not looking a gifthorse in the mouth or breast (to use a cliche).

I have viewed this as a dress rehearsal for what could possibly happen in the future. My husband and I discussed what to do, who should stay with the children, etc. We'd ask his parents to come and stay, and I think they would. My very dear friend L. also said she would have our children and the dog, if need be.

So I can move on to worry about more mundane matters, like my upcoming ski holiday. The kids and I (hubby won't go) are going to a resort in Italy recommended by another friend who is also going with some other friends of hers. There's a snag. I am friends with a woman who is a mortal enemy of my friend's friend. They each say very unkind things about each other to me and my friend. I don't repeat what I hear from either side because I don't want to fuel the flames. However, I am caught dead in the middle, and it looks like I might lose my skiing friend because of this. This is the friend who invited us to hers for New Year's, then accepted an invitation from her friend who is also going skiing. My other friend has repeated to me something the friend's friend apparently said about me to another woman. Do I trust this information? Should I care?

Ay Yi Yi. Maybe I should dump all three.

The Sunday Phone Call

You ever get news that leaves a lump in your throat and a sick feeling in your stomach? With both my parents in their 80s now, I dread it all the time. But I -- and they -- have been fortunate in their good health and good minds.

But the Sunday phone call with my mother left a small lump in my throat.

"I had a mammogram, and they called and said they wanted me to come back in for another one," she said in between news of my stepfather's latest fall and other family gossip.

Why do they want to do that? I queried.

"I don't know. Maybe it was blurry," she replied.

Or maybe there was a shadow, I added.

She was supposed to go yesterday, and I said I'd call her today. She didn't go yesterday because it was snowing and 4 degrees below 0 where she lives (Wyoming). Her doctor's office called her today to say they'd found a "nodule" on her right breast and what did she want to do about it. She said she didn't know why she'd been called back in and she'd have to think about it. She's going on Thursday (weather permitting, I assume) for another mammogram and a sonogram.

I felt the lump in my throat rising and the sick feeling in my stomach growing. It's inevitable that I will lose my parents, that they will die of something at some time, probably sooner rather than later. But not this way, I pray. I want them to go the way their mothers went -- quickly, with little pain.

It's very early in the diagnostic process. The biopsy will follow the mammogram and sonogram, no doubt. And then what? I don't know. This is uncharted territory for me. I know people who have had breast cancer. I have a friend whose mother died of it. I have another friend who's had it twice. Pixie has had it. It's not that uncommon, I suppose. But I think for each woman who has had it, it's an uncommon experience.

My mind is already racing ahead, wondering if I should visit at Easter instead of the summer. But I must stay in the here and now. And right here, right now I have a lump in my throat and a sick feeling in my stomach.

Fun Monday II

In this, my second Fun Monday, I show a very dark photo of the view out my front door. It was taken at 8:15-ish this morning. It's very dark but it would be at any time because we haven't had any sunlight for about a decade, it seems. La Nina has generously sent loads of cloud and rain our way. Though we live near the sea and shouldn't be suffering from flooding, I fear we will be.

I'm also just getting used to my new digital camera so am not familiar with all the gadgets that come with it. Hey, I'm just thrilled the photo is on the page. What you can't see are some of the shrubs: a rhododendron and some azaleas that are quite nice in the spring, forsythia that will be blooming soon, I hope, two butterfly bushes in need of a chop (one purple, one white), some fuschia, a dogwood. I've never been entirely happy with the planting -- a leftover from the previous owner -- but have never done much about it. Maybe this year. If the rain ever stops.

Ahhhgggghhhh!! It's a monsoon now. Honestly, how are we supposed to be able to do anything in this weather? They closed the carpark at the park yesterday because it was too muddy. My son's football match was cancelled because it was too muddy.

Anyway, sorry the photo isn't better, but it's a start. Look forward to more photos, probably of Jake.

Memories of a cookbook

My mother frequently asks me if I want something or other that belongs to her. She's been doing this for more than a decade as she clears out her possessions in anticipation of her death, which will come sooner or later. In the latest phone call she offered me three things, a yearbook, a pin, or a cookbook. I chose the cookbook. It came in my birthday package.

This is no ordinary cookbook. This is the "Cross Creek Cookery" cookbook, written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who also wrote "The Yearling." Have any of you ever seen that classic with Gregory Peck (I wanted to marry that man when I was about 7 or 8 after seeing The Yearling and To Kill A Mockingbird) and Jane Wyman (I always hated those cheekbones, which Hilary Clinton seems to have inherited)?

"Cross Creek Cookery" used to live on the bookshelf above my parents' bed, which says a lot about my mother's cooking. But perhaps that's because it's not so much a cookbook as a book about a life of cooking. Much like MFK Fisher's "The Art of Eating," which I also own. "Cross Creek Cookery" was published in 1942, and very much reflects the Florida of that time. Still very swampy and wild, as were the recipes.

My mother or someone circled several of them: Florida Soft Shell Turtle (Cooter) Soup; Poke Weed, Cross Creek; Swamp Cabbage (Hearts of Palm); Orange Lake Frog Legs; Turtles and Gophers; Coot Liver and Gizzard Pilau. Now I can tell you that my mother never once cooked Cooter, Gopher, Frogs Legs, Swamp Cabbage or Poke Weed. So she must have been amused by the exotic sound of these recipes. There are also recipes for more mundane dishes: Chili Con Carne, Spaghetti and Meatballs, Ginger Snaps.

But it's the tales behind the recipes that are most riveting. How she would shoot ducks every year when in season and the embarrassment of serving duck breast to one professor (perhaps at the University of Florida which was close to her house) who thought very highly of himself. When he had to spit out the lead shot from the duck breast, she could hardly contain herself. How she once hired a manservant named Godfrey from Ocala who fancied himself an intellectual (I think Ocala intellectual is an oxymoron). Godfrey was quite happy to serve Roast Wild Duck but not collard greens and corn bread. He quit when cows broke into Rawling's land and started to eat her oranges.

MFK Fisher's "The Art of Eating" also is full of anecdotes and reminiscences. The two also write about a different sort of cooking, when everything was freshly laid or shot or caught or picked. When supermarkets didn't exist and you either grew and raised your own or went to markets to buy fresh ingredients. No ready meals. No fast food. The preparation and cooking of the meals are as important as the eating. I feel an empathy with these women, not that I come from a culinary background like theirs. But I can appreciate good food and the preparation that goes into it. And I do like to eat.

All I can add is that Nigella Lawson can't write -- or cook -- a patch on these women.

I've got a tummy ache

Well, I feel completely wiped out. I finally caught the gastric flu that's been going around. I have spent the last two days desperately trying to keep food in my system and to stop shivering non-stop. Poor Jake didn't even get a walk yesterday. I will attempt one today though my tummy is still feeling a bit iffy.

Part of the problem with being ill, I find, is that the world goes on even though you don't want to. Children still need to be fed and taken to school. Bathrooms still need cleaning and -- in our case -- carefully disinfecting because the daughter of a friend stayed at our house last night. Dogs need walking, though Jake was pretty good about not going out yesterday. I was going to ask my daughter to take him, but then she got the bug too. My son got home too late from cross-country training to take him.

The other problem with being ill for me is that I have been awakened in the night by either violent shivering or bad stomach cramps. First I lie in bed wondering what medication to take, then I finally convince myself to get up and take it, then I go back to bed, feeling better but oh so wide awake.

And then to occupy myself I start to think of all my baggage. You know, all the relationships that aren't quite what I'd like them to be, all the snubs, all the friendships that have gone awry. And then I go straight back to sleep. NOT!

Last night I mentally composed a list of said baggage under the following categories: In-laws, Family, Friends, Acquaintances. This was joined by Fears and Worries. Then I asked myself why I was able to remember so many of these, but hardly any of the successes and joys in my life. Are they fewer and farther between? But does that not mean then that they count for more? Because if the measure of my life is the relationship shortcomings and fears and worries, then how do I manage to get out of bed every morning?

As I argued with myself, I found sleep finally coming on. And I had some very interesting dreams. In one I explained to a woman I no longer speak to (or rather she no longer speaks to me) why I decided that socializing with her and the rest of her crowd was not a good thing for me. And she seemed to understand. In another dream I flew to Canada on my own and found myself in the ski resort we've visited for the past five years. Without any Canadian money or way to contact my husband. I somehow got a car that I was trying to drive while in the back seat. When I realised this was a near-impossible task, I had to maneuver the car over to the side of the road, also not easy. I managed to get where I was going eventually and was greeted by my husband and children, a nice surprise since my husband has resolutely refused to go skiing with us for about the last eight years. I know there's loads of hidden meaning in this dream. Trying to drive while in the back seat and not getting anywhere. On my own with no resources. My husband unexpectedly showing up. I'll try to think about this next time I can't get to sleep.

There have been many times I've wished I was a different sort of a person, the sort who isn't bothered by people letting me down, the sort who plows gamely through life, celebrating each and every little nugget of sunshine. The sort my daughter actually is. How I envy her ability to shrug off the snubs and putdowns from people. How I envy her innate confidence. Although I come across to people as a confident person, it is a confidence that has been earned through age and experience.

My son, poor soul, is more like me. I went to his Parents Evening at school last week. The overriding theme of the evening was that he needs to work harder and pay more attention and be more vocal, except in Religious Studies, where he apparently is the life of the party. If he doesn't understand something, he needs to ask someone, preferably the teacher, to explain it further. One of my fears is that, having worked so hard to get him into this school, he will then flounder and sink to the bottom. So we (and I feel it is partly my responsibility) will double our efforts to improve his performance. It wasn't an all-round bad evening. He is doing surprisingly well in maths, which he always struggled with in primary school. He's quite strong in history and shows promise in English. Sciences are very weak at the moment, but then I always struggled in them also.

But here's the little nugget of sunshine: He came second in his cross-country race on Saturday. Each time he runs, he gets a better result. My husband was so overcome with pride when he called me (he goes to each and every race) he was practically in tears.

Enough about me. I am going to attempt a walk with Jakie (I'm tempted to bring poop bags for myself). Wish me luck!