Times They are A Changing

The other day I received an email from a friend, well more than just an email, it was a Christmas email, sent to me and apparently ALL the contacts in her address book. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate being remembered at this time of year but I truly found it…well for lack of a better word…tacky. I love technology, I really do but I also like the ‘old fashion’ way too. Somehow a ‘blanket’ email just doesn’t give you that warm, fuzzy feeling, especially when you have to scroll through a list of everyone it was sent to. Call me ‘low tech’ but I enjoy getting Christmas cards, real cards with a handwritten message…I even like sending cards.

I know there is the argument that it’s much faster…one message, one click and voila! It’s certainly cheaper! But it’s so impersonal. I feel like it should have the usual disclaimer at the bottom, ‘To unsubscribe to this Christmas email, click here’.

Maybe I’m being too picky; what do you think? Traditional card or Email greetings?

Brain Cramps

Have you ever done something to really embarrass yourself and hope that no one ever finds out about it, and yet, the event had enough humor that you really want to tell someone? Well, that’s kind of the situation I am in.

A few days ago, I went to Staples to buy some ink for my printer. It had been raining on and off all morning but not enough to deter me from my errands. I had just gotten in line to pay for my purchase, when the rain started to come down in buckets. I stuffed my wallet in the bag with the ink cartridge to keep it dry, waited for a lull in the rain and made a dash for my car. I popped the trunk with my handy remote and dropped the bag safely inside.

Even though it had only been a couple of minutes, by the time I climbed into my car, I was a soggy mess! I sat there for a few minutes, drying off and reviewing my errand list. Yes, I confess that I live in a land of post it notes! I think of them as little yellow memory aids. Besides, living out in the boonies it’s a real pain to get home and realize you forgot something.

The next stop was down the road at the shoe store where they carry the best socks in town. I found a parking place close by just as the rain started to get heavy again. It was going to be a quick dash in and out so I decided to leave my pocketbook in the car. I reached inside to grab my wallet but it wasn’t there! I was a little panicked as I searched through my bag. I checked the floor, I checked the seat, I checked under the seat…nothing! Many years ago, I lost my wallet and it truly was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. I didn’t have much cash but there was all the other ‘stuff’, Driver’s license! Credit card! Debit card! OMG, now I’m having a full blown panic attack! I’m talking to myself; I’m talking to the dog as I race back to Staples. Please let it still be there! I must have left it on the checkout when I took out my rewards card. I can’t believe I lost my wallet!

I screech into a parking space, the rain is now coming down in sheets…I don’t care! I run for the door and sprint to the checkout. The sales lady looks a little startled and so does the customer she is ringing up. “Sorry to interrupt but I was just here and I left my wallet, have you seen it? I blurted out all in one breath. Nonchalantly she glanced around her area. “Nope, I haven’t seen it.” My next thought was that someone must have picked it up and was about to assume my identity! Good luck if you want to be a 63 year old woman, with a maxed out credit card and a thirty-seven dollar check book balance!

As I walked back to my car, looking like a drowned rat, and about to break into tears; it suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightening! I remembered! I had put my wallet in the bag with the ink cartridge! Oh God, could I be anymore stupid? If I ever got the nerve to go back to Staples, would they cringe when they saw the ‘hysterical wallet lady’ coming through the door?

As I retrieved my precious wallet from the trunk, I collected my composure and got back in my car like nothing had happened.

Later that evening, as I attempted to tell my husband of my ‘ordeal’, I fell into fits of laughter; I’m still not sure if he knows what happened…guess he’ll just have to read my blog!

I know I'm not suffering brain cramps alone...care to share?

Friendship

“Keep in touch, I’m really going to miss you.” I expect we have all heard these words many times during our lifetime. Leaving friends behind when we left for college, got married or moved away. As we have grown older, how many of those old friends, I wonder, do we still hear from?

When I was a young woman, I was friends with another young woman, who, like myself was a new mom. We were the best of friends for several years, sharing the ups and downs of new motherhood. We were each other’s support system through the teething, chicken pox and the first day of school. If my memory serves me correctly, our kids were around seven, when Patty’s husband got transferred across the country with his job. By the time the movers had loaded the last piece of furniture, tears flowed freely and hugs were plentiful. “Keep in touch, I’m really going to miss you.”

For a few years we did keep in touch, talking on the phone about once a month and, being the pre-email era, we actually wrote letters and sent pictures of our growing sons. However, as we juggled careers, family and life’s daily routine, our calls and correspondence became sporadic, dwindling down to an exchange of Christmas cards, and finally, sadly…nothing.

It’s been over thirty years since I last dialed Patty’s phone and heard, “The number you have reached has been disconnected.”

Over the years, I have made a lot of friends but I always had a special place in my heart for Patty and I have often wondered what happened to her. Even with the advent of computers, I have never been able to locate her. Now in our sixties with sons twice as old as when we became friends…life goes on.

If by some miracle, and I do believe in them, your name is Patty and you should read this and anything sounds remotely familiar, please…Get in touch, I still really miss you!

Email: barnyardsandbarnacles(at)live(dot)com

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My apologies for not posting in such a long time. I could write a post just on excuses but I won't bore you! I hope to resume a schedule of timely posts.
Thanks so much for sticking with me.

Holding Pattern

“Your call will be taken in the order it was received!” How many of us have heard that annoying recording? I am writing this with the phone tucked under my ear, having been on hold for the past 31 minutes waiting to speak with someone regarding an insurance issue. What makes this even more aggravating is the fact that this is the third department I have been shuffled off to. I swear people just pass the buck and send you anywhere, as long as they don’t have to deal with you.

On my first call I was directed into an automated system, upon entering every conceivable piece of information; name, ID number, date of birth, address, phone number, what I ate for breakfast, I was transferred to a customer service representative who proceeded to ask me all the same questions. After my interrogation she tells me that I need to call a different number, where again I sat on hold for over 20 minutes. Another round of questioning by yet another snippy representative resulted in yet another transfer to another department!

It has now been over an hour that I have been…hold on…I think I am about to be connected to a human…

…Can you believe it?! I was transferred to another recording saying that “due to high call volume, they can’t take my call right now, so call back”…are they serious? I think my blood pressure just went up! I’ve wasted the best part of the morning in a holding pattern!

For the most part, I am a pretty easy going person but I must confess that there are two things that drive me insane, one is being stuck in traffic and the other is being put on hold, especially for extended periods of time.

Well, I’m taking my now cranky, high blood pressured self outside, in the sunshine, and when I have relaxed, I will go back inside and repeat this act of futility all over again!

A Memory of Springtime

Every spring when the Forsythia starts to bloom, my memory drifts back to springtime many years ago.

When I was eleven years old, I learned to drive. My friend Hannah’s parents owned a farm and we used to drive an old pickup around one of the pastures and oh what fun we had! Well, my dear Mom had never learned to drive and wasn’t really sure if she wanted to, but when I was old enough to get my Learner’s Permit my Dad and I convinced her to get hers too. For myself I wasn’t too worried about the actual driving but I had to learn all the rules of the road, so Mom and I studied together. Mom thought she should go to Driver’s School but my Dad thought he could do the same job, so every evening after dinner he would take Mom out for a lesson.

Let me just mention that my Dad was not someone you wanted as a driving instructor, this I can tell you from my own experience of driving with him. He had a way of making you so nervous with his constant warnings of the traffic ahead. Anyway back to Mom…

It was a lovely spring evening, I was on dish duty as Mom and Dad headed for the old Plymouth in the driveway. The nightly driving lesson usually lasted about half hour resulting in Mom coming in the house muttering something like, “Never again!” Well this particular evening, I had finished with my chores and decided to walk outside and watch Mom drive down the street. Our house was three houses down from the corner, where a neighbor’s giant Forsythia bush had recently blossomed in her front yard.

Dad’s car made a certain noise and I could hear it coming. Walking to the end of the driveway I looked up the street…just in time to see Mom take the corner too sharply and plow into the Forsythia, and…keep going…right back to our house!

After Mom had calmed down and Dad plucked the remainder of Forsythia branches from the hood and bumper, he went to speak with the homeowner, and assess the damage to the bush. At the time, my parents didn’t know the person who owned the house as the property had recently sold and the new owner was in process of moving in. As it turned out, no one was home, and the damage, luckily, was not much more than a couple of tire tracks in the lawn and a few broken branches.

By now, the sun had set, so under the cover of darkness, Dad returned to the neighbor’s this time armed with a wheelbarrow, rake and shovel. He repaired the lawn and fixed the Forsythia to almost perfect condition.

A few days later, Mom met Sally, the new neighbor and as time went by, they became the best of friends, even sharing a good laugh over Mom’s mishap. They remained friends for many, many years but after the Forsythia ‘fiasco’ Mom never got behind the wheel again.

Just Call Me Grace

The past few weeks have been a bit of a bumpy ride. Apart from having writer’s block, I experienced a couple of ‘graceful’ mishaps.

One afternoon, while my son was visiting, I took him for a ride to show him some of the local scenery. Around lunchtime we stopped to grab a bite to eat and I wanted to let our dog, Lucy stretch her legs. I went to hook her leash and for whatever reason I didn’t catch it the right way, well she thought she was hooked and hopped out of the car…unleashed! I panicked as there was quite a bit of traffic and Lucy trotted off thinking she was attached. Without even thinking, I lunged at the poor dog, grabbing on to her fur. This action, of course, totally startled her and she pulled away with quite a bit of force causing me to fall down on my knees; I managed to catch myself just before my nose met the asphalt! Lucy, evidently thought it was playtime and came back to join in…thank goodness!

I can imagine how this all looked to anyone watching! My son figures if anyone had a video phone, I’ll be featured on ‘YouTube’ soon.

Then, one Saturday morning, a couple of weeks after my son left, I was taking Lucy to the groomer. We had had some freezing rain overnight that coated the vehicles but the ground just looked wet. I had put Lucy in the back seat of my car and was just about to open the front door to get my ice scraper. Next to the door there was a small patch of ice, that I hadn’t noticed and down I went! My automatic reaction was to grab the car for support; of course it was totally covered in ice so my arm just slid down the side as the rest of me slid under the car! Lying there just long enough to feel the, now, melted ice soak through my blue jeans, I crawled out from under my car, all the time being thankful that the neighbors were out of town!

When I fell the first time, it immediately felt like all my organs had been jarred and moved two inches to the left. The fall on the ice didn’t really hurt that much…at first. It wasn’t until later in the day that the pain hit…with a vengeance!

Now, slowly, I am on the mend, I am moving a little easier and can sit for longer periods of time. These ‘graceful’ moments served as a reality check, a reminder that this older body doesn’t bounce back the way it used to. Having ended up in a heap on the ground twice, I have concluded this body doesn’t bounce at all – Ha!

Shame On Me

I am really ashamed of myself! When I first had the idea of writing this blog, I seemed to have a million thoughts of what to write about; lots of events on the road to 60 and beyond. Well lately, it seems that my brain has had a short circuit…brain cramps…brain dead! I am going through the worse case of writer’s block I’ve ever had in my life!

I know hope this is just a temporary thing. Maybe it’s the weather! Once Spring finally springs, maybe ideas will flow like the sap in the Maple trees.

Please don’t give up on me…I shall return!

Fess Up!

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought it might be fun to trip down memory lane and share your very first kiss.

It's funny but I remember mine clearly! It was my ninth birthday, and my Grandmother had a party for me at her house, in fact it was the old mill house that I was born in. It had several out buildings, including an outhouse. There were seven of my school friends and myself and we were playing hide and seek. I thought no one would find me in the outhouse, so that's where I hid! Well, so much for that idea...my friend, Jeffrey found me and before I could run away, he planted a smooch...and then he ran away!

Okay, time to fess up...let's hear about your first kiss.

Lists

I have always considered myself to be very organized. It’s that dreaded Virgo neat freak thing! I like a place for everything and everything in its place. However, as I’ve grown older, I have more trouble remembering where that place might be. I used to have such a keen memory for everything, I never had to make a ‘to do’ list or write down what I needed at the grocery store.

It is troubling to me that over the past year, I have become the queen of the Post It Note. I find that if I don’t write things down they seem to evaporate from my brain, and I don’t like that feeling. When I worked in the corporate world, I always made lists; there were always staff meetings, client meetings, deadlines, etc. but this is not the same. My daily, mundane life should not require a sticky note! Okay, maybe I am exaggerating; I haven’t forgotten to take out the trash or walk the dog or feed the cats…yet! But what if I do?

The other night I dreamed that my entire house was wallpapered in yellow Post Its, with endless lists of things to remember. When I told my friend, Marcie she said that it’s perfectly normal to forget things. I hope she keeps that in mind because I forgot her birthday last week. She says that it’s part of the aging process, nothing to worry about. Let’s hope she’s right.

Is your memory as good as it used to be? Do you have to write things down? Do you want to go in half on a case of Post It Notes?

Frumpanista

Since the job market has forced me to become semi-retired, I have noticed a new trend in clothing. Well, not everybody’s clothing, just mine. From years of wearing business suits and dresses, I have morphed into sweatshirts and comfy pants. I just happened to glance in the bathroom mirror…Holy Moly! Not a pretty sight!

Don’t get me wrong, I really do take a lot of pride in how I look but without a definite schedule, I seem to have gotten, umm, let’s just say 'too comfortable' on the days I don’t have to be somewhere in particular.

Back in the days before pantyhose, I wouldn’t be caught dead without a girdle and nylons. I never burned my bra but I cremated my girdle many years ago! Fear not, however, you won’t catch me in Walmart in my jammy bottoms or with my midriff oozing over the top of hip hugging jeans!

I know I’m not alone in my ‘casual attire’, so what do you like to wear when you're hanging around the house?