Entry for September 29, 2007 - Three Wishes...

I had meant to write this blog last night. Whether from it being just too eventful of a day for this birthday girl, or old age creeping up on me, I didn't get it done. I knew all of you would be on tenterhooks wanting to know about a day in the life of Vic on such a momentous occasion.

I got news for ya... birthdays aren't so hot when you get older. I know one should always be glad that you are having a birthday because it means you are still on this good earth. But birthdays aren't at all like they were when you were a kid. Anticipation of presents,and cards, and cake, and parties filled your mind when you were a kid. When you are older you no longer have that anticipation, that joy of a special day you consider all of your own. Being a twin, birthdays always meant sharing for me. First of all you had to share your special day and most often you had to share gifts, even your candle laden birthday cake you had to share. I wish my scanner was working so I could upload a pic I have of my 7th birthday. There in front of my twin bro and I are two cakes, yes TWO cakes with candles. My grandmother, wise woman that she is, always made it a point to bake two cakes, one for each of us. I think she knew that birthdays were special, especially to a child. Nothing says birthday more than your own cake.

Yesterday my mom wanted to take me to lunch for my birthday. We were discussing in the car on where to go to eat. Upon spying one of her favorite eateries she asked about stopping there for my birthday dinner. After we had eaten, my mom pulled out a small notepad and a pen. She is notorious for making lists. Lists on everything, and then leaving them at home on the kitchen table. But today she had remembered her lists, on it already were things she needed to get. She pushed the pad towards me and asked me what did I wish for, and to add it to her list. I jokingly replied, " is there where I ask for three wishes and my fairy godmother will grant them?" She just smiled and said write down what I wanted. I sat there and thought. Most things that popped into my mind were too much to ask for. Big ticket items that I knew she could not afford and I wouldn't dream of asking her to buy. My mind drew a blank. I said, "well today is my birthday, it should be my lucky day, so how about a lotto ticket?"... "What else?" , she asked... I grinned and wrote down for my second wish, a new and bigger kitty litter pan for Stinkpot the cat, she was outgrowing her old one. We both had a chuckle over that wish. She asked again, "what else?". After some thought I wrote down birthday cake. Cake, I wanted cake. She stuffed the notepad back in her purse and we went shopping.

We stopped at a store my mom wanted to visit. I window shopped and eventually went and bought a lotto ticket while waiting on her. We went to another store, and off she went with her shopping cart. I went in the other direction and finally just picked up a new kitty litter pan on my own. She wanted to make one more stop at Wal Mart. I told her I had bought my lotto ticket, and new cat pan, but reminded her, don't forget my cake,... I wanted cake. I wandered around looking at everything but not particularly needing anything, the only wish left on the list was cake and my mom was buying that.....or so I thought. Upon leaving the store I caught up with my mom with a shopping cart full of stuff including a new tv. I asked her about the tv, and she exclaimed, "oh that's for me."... Pulling out of the parking lot I casually asked, what kind of cake did you get me? What cake? It seems she forgot to buy my birthday cake. She exclaimed she did get ice cream though....Ice cream? I didn't ask for ice cream, upon which she smiled and said, "but I like ice cream". It was at that point that I mumbled rather loudly under my breath, "there seems to be a recurring theme today and it is not going in my favor", my mom just giggled. Once back at her home I had to carry in the tv and set it up for her. This day was not going exactly as I had expected it too.

I was beginning to feel a bit like a birthday-zilla. It was suppose to be my special day, my special day where I was suppose to get cake. My fairy godmother wasn't being much of a fairy godmother. Two of my wishes I bought myself, and my third wish was still back in the cake aisle at Wal Mart.

(Grumble...grumble...dark mood...no cake.)

I didn't give my mom too hard of a time though. We had a huge chuckle over the whole day. I guess when you get older the magic of birthdays has to be created by you. You are in charge of making your wishes come true, even if all you did ask for was a lotto ticket, a kitty litter pan, and cake.

Late last night as I read a few blogs I ate a piece of cake, still slightly warm from the oven. It wasn't chocolate...(sigh), but it was cake. My birthday was a bit wierd, a little bit funny, a bit unpredictable, ... a bit like me.

You can bet I will remember my fairy godmother on her birthday...I don't know about asking her what her three wishes are.....but there will be cake....and it will be the kind that I like.

Entry for September 26, 2007 - New and Improved...

Welcome to my new and improved blog. I know you are now wondering, what is new and what is improved about it, ..it looks the same as it does every day. If the truth be told, nothing is really new or improved, but I am counting this blog entry as an upgrade, so that makes it new....Improved? ....Maybe, maybe not.

We are bombarded with those words in advertising a lot. New, improved, upgraded, updated, they make a product or item sound more appealing. A promise of something better, something better than it was before. I don't really think I can claim this blog entry as really anything better than what has been posted before. But just saying it's new and improved made you stop and look. I often wonder how can something be brand new......and improved? To claim it has been improved would be to admit to it being not so new.

I think it's all a gimmick.

Have you ever picked up an item and saw that it was claiming to be better than ever? Upon closer inspection you notice the item may be in the same colored packaging, but now because it was improved you have less of it? I fail to see how that improves the value for my dollar. Most days I don't want anything new and improved... I want it to stay the same... the same as it has always been. I like reliability. When I think new and improved I think of Coke Cola when it came out with it's new version of the "New Coke". One of the biggest mistakes any company could have made.... changing a product when there was nothing wrong with the original.

Everyone likes new things. We want new things. We love the freshness of new things, opening that package for the first time, using that item, admiring it for the very first time. I think a new car is on a lot of people's wish list. New and shiny with that new car smell. Gadgets and buttons and new upholstery unstained yet with ketchup and hiding cold fries. We love new cars. My mom got a new vehicle a couple of years ago. She was dazzled by it's bright shininess. Today she is still dazzled by it. Not by how bright and shiny it is, but by all the features she has still to figure out on the vehicle. So many features, such a thick owner's manual, she hasn't gotten thru either of them yet. She has figured out that if the gas tank cap isn't screwed on tight enough the engine light comes on. If any car functioning fluids are low the engine will not turn over. Child safety features keep the back door locked at all times. Trapped in the back seat of your own vehicle evidently is an improvement.

I have a tracphone that my mom gave me to figure out for her. Not having a cell phone she thought having one of those prepaid phones would be so handy while on the road. It is a week old, and she has yet to make a phone call. I have looked up all of the info on the web and I keep getting the response from their website,.... her brand new phone needs an update. Upon clicking on the info, I am then given a message it can't be processed at this time. Evidently updates are not always available, even though they are a requirement for use of the brand new product. I hate to tell my mom when I hand the phone back I have used 10 of her precious minutes being unable to call or receive calls but I can get a message on her phone, that with the use of her credit card, she can buy additional minutes. I am tempted to tell her it is not really a phone at all but a miniature slot machine, once she is able to make a call she will have hit the jackpot, till then she will just have to keep feeding it her prepaid minutes.

I need a new computer. Well, I really should rephrase that sentence in that I WANT a new computer. My computer still works. It still boots up for me. It still performs the same task as it always has,....but, it's old. It's my original computer of 10+ years. One new modem from an electric storm and that is all that has been required of it's maintenance. It's slow though. Slow and small and cluttered and not at all trendy. I lust after a new computer. Something quick and shiny with tons of memory and a bigger screen.... and one that makes coffee and toast first thing in the morning. A big part of me, tells me not to mess with anything that works. Especially anything that is technical. I just know a big light will flash on the screen that I am not updated or upgraded, or improved enough for such a spiffy new computer.

So much technology, it grows by leaps and bounds each day. It is mind boggling what all we have and are privy too...so much stuff to make our lives easier, make our lives better and improved. But a lot of days when I pick up a paper, listen to the tv, read a story on-line, I wonder where is the improvement? How can we have so much as a society and as people are not improved? We still have wars, we still have racism - from all sides, we still have hatred,... and selfishness,... and apathy.

No matter how pretty the packaging and the claims of being improved and updated and upgraded and new and fantastic, they are just that...claims. It's what is on the inside that counts. If it works, don't fix it. Shiny and new isn't all it's cracked up to be. For now I will stick with what works and my computer. Once it quits on me, well then I will have to think about getting an improved model, and while I am at it I will think of what needs improving in me.

Entry for September 17, 2007 - It's All Relative...

*Warning, fluff blog ahead*....

Yes it is me again, with another one of those blogs that is really about nothing in particular but cleverly (or not so cleverly) disguised as a chatty blog entry. I was hoping for something exciting to blog about, but once again life is continuing in it's monotonous path...or rut... whichever way you want to look at it. I wish I could say I was busying living life, but that to me, sounds like I would be saying that I am living it to it's fullest, doing all that I want to do, embracing it with wild abandonment and riding that rollercoaster for all it's worth...but I am not. I am busy ..."being"....

I think life is like that a lot, filled with lots of humdrum,... doing all those things we need to do to survive, to pay bills, to keep a roof over our heads.... Til we have those short sporadic moments of wonderfulness that makes you realize that is what life should be. Most of us if we are honest with ourselves will admit that life has a hold on us and it's not the other way around, that we have a hold on life.

I've been busy this week-end, nothing all that exciting, but busy. Yardwork, garden work, work in general, family, friends ...they all fill up those moments that become yesterdays memories. I have spent a lot of time with family lately. It goes like that sometimes, little spurts of contact and visits and phone calls. You can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives, and that is very true. Given some of my family members I might think twice upon first meeting them, but in the long run I would pick them. What I should be more concerned about is if they would pick me.

Marriage, birth, death, sickness, divorce, they are all little hiccups in life, some of them maybe even more than just a hiccup. At the moment one family member or another of mine is facing or dealing with those life changing moments....well with the exception of birth. No one is pregnant that I know of, and NO I am not here to tell you that the rabbit died,...so bite your tongue.

I'm am single. No kids. Never married, and that doesn't bother me. I don't think I have to get married, but I still continue to get comments from friends and relatives on getting married and having a family. I'm too old to have a family, I am happy being a family of one. Maybe if I didn't have other relatives I would feel differently....I am not afraid to be alone though. That scares a lot of people, being alone. I will admit I hate to eat out in public alone, travel alone, attend events alone. When I get overwhelmed with so much to do I consider marriage and having family then...but I don't know if marrying someone so they will mow the yard and help weed the garden is a very good reason though. I think my family worries I will be that crazy, eccentric cat lady that lives down the block. I don't know if they can really call me that since all I have is the one cat, Stinkpot, and I am not so sure it likes me...or if it ever will.

Family can be a blessing, and a curse. They can drive you crazy, make you wonder about the gene pool, make you want to rattle those skeletons in the closet, or just plain hide from them. When push comes to shove and life shoves you down, it's family to help pull you up. One of my family members is dealing with divorce. His own family, now fractured and pulled apart has made him pull closer to his "first" family. I have noticed that a lot lately. Kids grow up, they marry, have families of their own, and then their kids grow up and move on and have families of their own. Then those grown up kids who are empty nesters find their way back home.

You grow, you fly, you come back to what you have always known.... your family.

It's all relative....

Entry for September 07, 2007 - Child of the 60's

It's been quite awhile since I have written a blog. I had planned on writing one sooner but lack of motivation, time, and suitable blog material was a major factor. Even now I am not so sure I really have a blog in mind. Most blogs I just sit down and start writing. I have tried to write blogs "in advance" with intentions of having a blog in all preparedness to post at any given time, but I have found that just doesn't work for me. I will sit and stare at that white screen and be totally blank. So I just sit and type and hope by the time I post the new blog that it somehow came together and made some sort of sense without too many typos.

I have noticed this week that there seems to be a theme in so many blogs. Blogs by Dixie, Mo, Victoria (aka Madge), Dolly, and I am sure there are others, that have visited the past in their subject matter, with comments, and memories, and all kinds of stories of "the good ole days".

I am a child of the 60's. No I didn't have love beads, smoked pot, attend Woodstock or protest the Vietnam war. I really was but a child. Out of all the memories we store away in vaults of time, it's odd how that some things just seem to stick in our young minds. It seemed like such a simpler time, a slower time, a more innocent time. In retrospect I think we did live in a magical time. Way back before the time of computers, iPods, cell phones, game boys, and a hundred and one other gadgets that now seem common place in our lives.

But we still had kewl "stuff". We had Mr.Magoo, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Partridge Family, Gilligan's Island and Marcia Brady. We had tricycles, hula hoops, romper stompers, pick up sticks, Lincoln logs, and Slinkies....well we did til we threw the Slinky in the toy box with the other toys and it no longer slinked. It was just a jumble of twisted wire that got stuck in Barbie's hair. We had games, lots of games that didn't even require batteries. Simple toys of which some survived and continue today.... G.I. Joe and hot wheels, barrel of monkeys and monopoly, troll dolls and paper dolls. I didn't really play with paper dolls much though, after punching out the perforated dolls from the books and their clothes, it wasn't long before they tore, got dirty,... got lost. I did have Colorforms though... those nifty vinyl magnetized bits of plastic that were like paperdolls. They stuck and clung to their plastic black plastic background. We all have some cherished toy that meant a lot to us, that we kept and played with for ages till it either disintegrated or was stuffed in some box to be forgotten in the back of the closet.

It doesn't seem that long ago, all of those nifty toys and cherished memories. Time flies faster than we give it credit for sometimes. Maybe September is just a melancholy time for a lot of us. Maybe it is just coincidence that so many blogs had a recurring theme in them this week. Out of all those memories of family, friends, tv shows, icons, and toys,...paperdolls came to my mind. I said I never really played much with paperdolls as a kid and I didn't.... but a few years ago when I was helping out a neighbor who was stricken with cancer, we played paper dolls. Actually we made paperdolls for one of her grandkids. She had loved playing with them when she was a child and she wanted to in some way create those same memories for her granddaughter. So we made dolls cut from old magazines and pasted on cardstock... and made their doll clothes out of bits of paper from old wallpaper sample books, and glued on buttons, and ribbons and lace. It was something my friend and neighbor could do between bouts of sickness and exhaustion,... make paperdolls.

Sometimes it is the smallest of memories or moments from our past that we hold dearest. I just never dreamed that I would be so much older when I played with paper dolls. Maybe times were simpler back then, or it could be it was just the distorted perception of the child in us.

Yeah, they really were the good ole days, and today is too....