Aaarrghh!

Few non-torture-specific physical irritants are worse than forgetting one has applied mascara to one's eyelashes and, thus, rubbing those eyes with a vigor which quickly reminds one that said mascara IS now not only on the eyeLASHES but also IN the eyeBALL!  Aarrrrghh!  Hold on . . . got it.  That was annoying.

And therein lies the rub!  No pun intended but punted just the same.  November.  The month of my birth.  Hence, my post-forty practice of celebrating Birthday Month (though to be fair that extends to all in my nuclear family).  But this eleventh month of the year has been less sacred and celebratory and more a string on Mondays . . . an seemingly endless succession of days which were evidently not informed as to their proper identities, save for the actual two Mondays which did come and go with their stereotypical gusto.  I can hardly be angry with November.  In facts, I think November may actually be angry with us, as in the U.S.  Those first six days of the month, unceremoniously shoving their way through the door along with Thanksgiving gratitude countdowns and elaborate salivating-worthy meals heaped high with festive sides and luscious pies, were loud and vainly proud.  And fearful.  And rife with polarizing clamor and enough rhetoric to raise the level of the Pacific ocean a good foot!  On most days, I'm in love with the human race and desire to serve my fellow men and women, but it can be most difficult to LIKE people during Presidential Election years.  Perhaps a swarm of stickers like mine should have been handed out in January: "Sir.  Ma'am.  Put your vote where your mouth is.  Thank you.  Move along with your life.  Prepare for Armageddon if you must but please be gracious while you do so.  The starving and dying in the Third World countries can hear you!"  

Reapplying my OWN sticker now.



Let's move on.  Shall we?  I'd like to keep this entry light.  THAT wasn't so very light.  Speaking of light, the reflected light on the hood of this SUV all at one mirrors the suburban setting AND tells the story of an adventurous feline.  Oh, the things to be discovered on the morning walk.

After an energetic weekend afternoon in the yard with my husband, spent tearing down vine and clipping away at overgrown shrubbery, I dropped my gloves and clipper to answer my phone.  Of course, I found a reason to compose a shot with my Hipstamatic camera app on my iPhone.  But I forgot the film I chose could randomly insert an eclectic frame.  That doesn't fit.  However, the saturated color is swell.  I wasn't done yet, though.  

 THIS turned out to be the winning shot in my book. Pale frame.  Faded color.  Everything intimately entangled.  THAT, my friends, is autumn surrendering to winter.  'tis a thing of loveliness.

'tis a thing of handsomeness and spousal patience . . . 

In Middle Tennessee, a land beholden to deciduous abundance in both species and numbers, the windfall of leaf-fall IN the fall provides a feast for the eyes AND for the rake.  Or whatever fancy lawn-riding gadgetry the man o' the house may drive out of the garage and on to the fading turf.  I gathered several bags from this pile of maple leaves at a neighbor's house to spread along the sidewalk leading to our front door for Halloween: the trick-or-treaters must traipse through the crackling future- composted-matter to beg for their sweets.

The ornamental pear trees which are as ubiquitous a tree as you'll ever hope to see around these parts drop handsome heralds of seasonal change.  I have to stop myself from collecting EVERY great specimen I happen across!

I can't blame the democratic process for EVERYTHING this month, though.  In all honesty, a significant portion of my unrest can be traced to two things: 1) the efficacy of my anti-depressant has decreased and upping the dose, while alleviating my anxiety, also alleviated my ability to function as a human being in charge of a home and family; and, 2) my female form has made a unilateral decision to tentatively step foot over the threshold of menopause, possibly PRE-menopause, with several well-placed hot flash episodes and hormonal activity SO off the hook that I wake up with a very sincere apology to my husband on my lips for everything I will say during the course of the day.  Same to my son and daughter.  They've all been targets . . . and being a fast mover has had very little effect on the impact of my grouch factor.  My appetite has been considerable.  And after spending the summer tightening up and trimming down with a ten-pound weight lost, my sudden ability to strip the siding off the back of our house, dip it in homemade salsa and devour, rather scares me. 

To my credit, I've taken action to correct what is within my power to correct here.  FaceTiming with the young married in Germany lightens my heart considerably.  A visit with my doc last Friday resulted in a diagnosis of SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which went off like a dirty bomb in my brain.  A V-8 moment!  Amazon took my order for TWO well-researched light-therapy lamps: one white-light sitting unit and one blue-light mobile unit.  Further, we decided to switch anti-depressants.  I'm moving from Celexa to Effexor.  I know I need it.  My friends and family notice a different when the levels are steady.  I notice the difference.  I'm simply a better version of myself.  More relaxed.  Less internally agitated.  Able to hop of the internal hamster wheel and trade up to a rocking chair on the back porch.  Coffee in hand.  

Along with all of that, I keep my wittiness about me.  And find the humor in everything possible.

Today's 'funniest moment prize' has to go out to The Dollar Store over on Old Fort Parkway.  Where nestled amongst the batteries and lighters and other important SELF tests, once can pick up a bargain-priced drug test for marijuana!  Keep it in the glove box for those road trips to Colorado.  You'll need to see if you inhaled in the state once you leave and enter federal stomping grounds: a.k.a. every other state in the union, save for Washington.

As my head begins it's late-night bobbing-and-weaving act, I'll leave you with this.  Five of the ten, TEN, puppies which my sister's dog, Bella, whelped last Monday.  That makes them almost ten days old.  Through the miracle that is FaceTime, I watched the white pup, a female, make her debut on the world stage.  She's the eldest of the bunch.  My son and I became rather emotionally attached to her and convinced my husband that Hankie Mutt would make good use of a young playmate.  Further, Panda won't be around for much longer.  Which prompted my husband to blurt out, "Yeah!  About that!  WHEN is going to die?  Every time I turn around, she's making a comeback.  At this rate, she may live another five years!"  (He really wasn't being insensitive to our old girl.  He's quite compassionate toward her.  It's simply the fact that she's been on death's door a good many times over the past year.)

Bella got rather carried away in her grooming of the white pup and accidentally bit the tiny tips of her baby's ears while cleaning the blood and afterbirth from it.  Poor little dear!  We have already named her.  In memory of my niece, Zachary's precious little cousin, Grace, the pretty white pup will be Gracie.

I think Hank may meet his petite match.  Come December, we'll see.

Adieu.  Adieu.  To ya and ya and ya-a.

Politically Restless . . .

I'd like to entertain you with a light entry, brimming with bright and beautiful pictures of my past week.  Pictures full of friendship and color and animals.  But there's something buzzing around in my brain that simply won't let me be.

Instead of feeling the urge to party like it's 1999 . . . 

. . . my tear ducts want to water.

So, I'm hoping to unload my carry-on bag right here.  Give us all a little food for thought.  

And maybe THEN we can ALL breathe a little bit easier.  (I find that with this delightful head cold which my husband found necessary to share with me, Mucinex-D also assists in better breathing.  Let's consider this a bit of written decongestant.)  And, YES, I'm fully aware of the mixed metaphors in this paragraph.  I can do it if I wanna.  This isn't a term paper, you know!

We live in a world of opposites.  Of differences.  And at no time in our society does this fact appear more glaringly apparent than during a presidential election year.

A person without a hard and fast party affiliation -- like myself -- starts looking around and sees how very alone they are on the vast opinionated political plains.  But, instead of longing for a nice little pre-cut niche in which to fit, round peg to round hole, square peg to square hole, I breathe a sigh of relief, and at times dismay, disgust or disgruntlement.  And, I'm supposing I'm not as alone as it might at first appear.  Voters like me just don't perform cannon balls from the high dive into the deep end of the pool, eager to make the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious splash, so we're harder to locate.  Personally, what with the glut of costly negative ads on television, paid pundits jabbing and sparring with weighted verbal gloves, and now the social forums like Facebook and Twitter alight with unkind, abrasive, and often untrue, pictures and posts, presidential election season fills me with dread.  It doesn't bring out the best in most people.  And the constitution takes a beating, with folks declaring their 'right to free speech' every time something crass and downright ignorant is said or written.

It's at those times that I take a good hard look at the person next to me, so very individual, so fortunate to be an American, so patriotic if somewhat misguided in the way they are choosing to express their political leanings, and thus represent our democratic system to the rest of the watching world, and want to ask, "Do you have MY back as a fellow citizen?  Because I have YOURS."  However I vote, regardless of the thought process by which I arrive at that decision, I'm not only considering myself and the well-being of my family and circle of friends, but the well-being of the people of my nation.  The decision weighs on my conscience all the way to the booth.  I'd like to believe that a majority of voters out there in election land feel a portion of that awesome burden as well, whether Democrat or Republican, independent or other.  But when they're so intently bent on bashing the candidates (and as an aside, as a stumbling but loyal Christian, I see how it hurts the way non-Christians view our faith when WE partake of the bashing, and often more loudly and righteous than others), it muddies the waters to such an extent that any clear true motives are obscured. 

 I wonder if it is more important for people and parties to be number one, to be right, to be morally, religiously or socially superior, so much so that they've neglected to contemplate how our founding fathers approached their right to create and live in a republic, unencumbered by a monarchy, fettered solely by the discretionary views of the educated and fair-thinking populous, regardless of their affiliation.  I think we disrespect the process when we insult the office of the president, and that means whoever is holding that office, with base innuendo and cruel or flippant mockery.  There's a line between disliking the incumbents on principle and desiring alternate policies, and crowing like a bandy rooster that they're satanic or manipulating a sound-byte to make it appear they've espoused something that they clearly have not.  Whatever happened to possessing divergent perspectives and debating those perspectives as ladies and gentlemen?  Whatever happened to taking our portion of individual responsibility for how our nation is turning out, from insurance to infrastructure to economics, and NOT simply placing 100% of it on the shoulders of WHOEVER ends up precariously perched on the highest seat?  To looking at how each of us spends and lives and works, how we each represent our America on a daily basis?  Including how we post on social forums and how we discuss men and women running for office, whom we've never even met, in front of our children.  And I include myself in that equation.  Over the years, I've tried to temper my immediate visceral response to what I see and hear in all instances, including politics, by considering how I'd feel if I was connected to the person or situation.  Because, really, by three or three thousand degrees of separation . . . I am connected.          

There.  All better now.  I've said my piece. 

 Probably the most you'll ever 'hear' me say about politics.  There's enough fodder in the form of polls and shows and literature to choke the entire population of Tennessee Walking horses in our fair state.  I'm definitely not tossing my hat into THAT ring.  I'd rather wear my hat and shade myself from the heat of the next two weeks.  

And then I'll hang it up and join everyone in a collective SIGH-H-H!

Prepare To Be Impressed?

You may be unaware of one of the more fascinating aspects of my scintillating suburban life: I'm a member of the 3-person panel on my neighborhood's Architectural Committee.  Yup!  That's right.  I have a heavy hand in approving pools, fences, playgrounds and major landscaping changes for Jamison Place.  Go ahead with your applause.  I'll just grab a special toothpick and bide my time until the din dies down . . .

Okay.  Now that you've recovered from the sheer delight of this revelation.  

What?  Oh?  Well.  Hot off the presses.  It looks like there yet another impressive surprise for my readers as they remain suspended in curious abeyance: Jimmy Valdez was roped into HOA service as a board member for the next three years!  All it took was his attendance at the annual meeting last night.  (I asked him and my son to accompany me to the festivities to a fill a couple more seats: 150+ homeowners but there's always less than 20 who show up.)  No one raised a hand when the query for new board members was tossed into the ring, but my husband smiled.  Say no more.  He caught the eye of the one long-term female member on the board who knows me pretty well.  Evidently, if you are in my physical vicinity when the call for help goes out, I exude eau du volunteerism, and the scent rubs off.  "It's a done deal, bear!"  (From a favorite children's book I used to read to my children.)  It's actually a pretty low-key gig.  One of the best aspects of the position is that of meeting neighbors you'd otherwise never know.  And for my husband, it's a very good thing for him to make the acquaintance of a few of the folks in our surrounding cul-de-sacs.

One of the hot topics up for discussion centered around the abuse of mailbox rights in our community.  We're one of those hoods sporting the same black mail receptacles.  It's the responsibility of the homeowner to replace or repair them as needed.  We've lived here for 8+ years now; twice our mailbox has been plowed through, so twice we have replaced it at $275 a pop!  And as for minor repairs, limp flags, droopy doors, rust -- the thing always needs a minor facelift of some sort.  However, the covenants are vague and the board has no power to actually enforce this rampant problem of mailbox abuse, save from sending out notices.  Thus, there are bent flags, flapping doors and full-on broken-down boxes with configurations of duct tape and bungee cords in use to extend life and save the pocketbook.  In a middle-class neighborhood like ours, with quarterly dues paid regularly by most, this ghetto chic habit is an assault to the sensibilities of certain folks.  

(I have to offer full disclosure here and state that though I regularly, REGULARLY, walk, walk, WALK, through the streets of Jamison Place, and I notice the disrepair, it doesn't actually rate on my radar of annoyances.  It won't come as a surprise to most that my reasons for volunteering to serve on the architectural committee centers around my sense of responsibility: I just want to do my part for my neighborhood.  I'm NOT interested in having my fingers in everyone else's pie and flaunting what very little power the position holds to nitpick and make contacts for my future political career as I make the very slow climb up the ladder of local government.)

At one point in the great mailbox debate, while ideas were hurtling through the airspace of the church room we were using for the meeting, I declared, "God bless America.  Land where we have the freedom and luxury to groan about mailboxes!"  That got a few smiles from the board; people who thoroughly researched every aspect of the subject for well over a year and treated it with the gravity due homeowners who care for their property and diligently send in their HOA fees check every 3 months.  And yet their own lives are burgeoning with far weightier issues, I know.

And that's just it.  It's that significant aspect of my life that I want never to forget.  I had absolutely NO choice in the circumstances of my birth, including the my citizenship.  I'm American, as opposed to Syrian, Iranian, Latvian, Hungarian, Swedish, Japanese, Polynesian or Liberian, only because of the location of my entrance into the community of the entire PLANET.  Because I'm American, because I'm a suburbanite, because my husband has been blessed with a job history which has allowed me to remain at home full-time throughout a significant portion of our 24-year+ married life, I can sit in a fold-up chair in one of many 'spare' rooms in a large local place of Christian worship and listen to my neighbors opine about the state of their comfortable brick homes with indoor plumbing to several working bathrooms, laundry room and roomy kitchens; two-car garages where cars don't even reside due to the congestion of mowers, bicycles, tools and gardening supplies; driveways spacious enough to accommodate a lesser-sized home elsewhere in my town, or several huts or shacks in third-world countries; yards green with the luxury crop of grass which requires enough summer water to supply an entire small village with cooking and bathing for at least a few months; and access to grocery stores, doctors, vets, churches, shops of all kinds and technology to the N'th degree.

(May I briefly digress and ask that you pay minor homage to that last paragraph?  Not the length of the third sentence. NOT bad, eh?)

I'm an American.  It's a privilege and not my right.  I feel fortunate.  I don't feel superior to other nations.  Nor do I want to see entire populations of 'enemy' countries wiped off the face of the map.  Under other circumstances, I could be one in the numerous other populations which pepper the land masses of our enormous and diverse Earth.  Every day I am alive, I try to exercise my citizenship with the proper perspective and gravity I have ben afforded.  That includes voting because I won't be forcibly dissuaded from trying to get to the polls.  That includes attending Church at Cross Point in a public manner because I'm not like one of my friends who works in the Middle East to further the cause of self-sustaining agriculture and disperse the seeds of his faith without the freedom to actually discuss said faith online or in real time with real people.  That includes sending my daughters to school because they won't be shot in the head for attempting to secure an education.  That includes walking side-by-side with my husband at the mall, and even holding hands if I like, because I won't be stoned by the men in my community.  And I enjoy clipping my toenails, pulling weeds, playing Bunco, baking lemon biscotti, watching the news while I wash dishes, hunting for the dish sponge when the cat hunts it and drags it to her mistress' room as a trophy of her indoor prowess, chasing Hankie Mutt down the road when he escapes the yard, chatting it up with the Wal-Mart checkout employee, sending cards across the country, FaceTiming with my daughter and son-in-law in Germany, posting morning-hair pictures of myself on Facebook and even rounding up those pesky balls of hair in the bathroom which like to congregate behind doors and in corners -- the mundane and momentous -- each and every . . . all because I CAN.

As I've said many a time before, I'd rather be poor or grieving or dying in America than many other places 'out there.'