Category: All posts chronologically

Today didn’t go as planned…

Today didn’t go as expected.  I got up, that was normal.  I had breakfast, that was normal too.  I took my daughter to school.  Still normal.  Then I tried to leave her school.  My car wouldn’t start.  Now I’ll tell you, if you are going to have a car not start, the best place for that to happen is at home.  The second best place though is your kid’s school.  Particularly when it is a small Catholic school.  I was calling AAA which was warning me via a recording that there were unusually long wait times but to hold on.  Meanwhile, a few Mom’s go by. Then I see the recently retired fire captain.  There is a man who will have jumper cables.  I kindly ask him if he could give my car a jump after dropping the kids off.  He obliges.  Multiple people ask if I need assistance but I tell them I’m good.  Another Dad says he has jumper cables too.  Awesome.  I wait.

The retired fire captain is taking his mother-in-law to the doctor.  I recently had the pleasure of washing dishes with her while getting our school gym set up for our annual father/daughter dance.  Now I feel bad about delaying getting her to the doctor but she is kind enough to tell me not to worry.  “They always take 3-4 hours when they say they will be two anyway,” she reassures me.

The fire captain comes back and digs through his car.  No cables.  Seems it recently got rearranged and now he is truly perplexed.  “Not to worry,” I say. “Dad #2 has cables. I’ll just wait for him.”  Well, I don’t wait long because the fire captain goes and tracks him down for me.  Dad #2 was volunteering today and I didn’t even realize it.  I would have been waiting awhile.

Cables in hand, then attached to the vehicle, I try again.  Still no luck.  A few more times and now I have the suggestion that it must be the starter.  I thank everyone for their help and get back on the phone to AAA.  45 minutes to an hour later they show up.  Once again they try to jump my car but this time it works.  In the meantime I’ve called my mechanic explaining the issue and saying, I’ll be by in an hour.  I thank the AAA guy and head off toward my mechanic.

I drive 10-11 minutes and think before parking that I probably should leave the car running just to make sure the charge holds.  So of course I forget and turn it off.  I try to turn the car on again and back to the clicking without starting.

I’m fortunate.  I have a very kind and ethical mechanic, which in my mind is more valuable than gold.  I tell him the issue and he has one of his guys run a check on the battery and alternator.  I hang out for about 15 minutes and seems everything comes back as normal.  What do I want to do? They ask.

Considering I can’t do much without the car, I ask them to check it out.  There are a few customers before me but they say they can go over it and call me on my cell.  It will probably be a couple of hours.  They offer me a ride, but after a brief discussion, I decide to walk into the nearby town and catch a movie.

When I come out, I grab a quick bite for lunch as it is now 1:00 PM.  I decide to head back to see how the car is coming and get a call from the garage as I’m walking.  They went over all the connectors, checked and cleaned them and nothing seems to be amiss.  “OK,” says I, “I’ll be right there.”

When I get back to the garage they tell me what they did.  I ask if there is something I did to the car.  No one knows.  They charge me a fair fee for the amount of labor to clean up the inside connectors and I drive home.

My mind, of course, goes two ways.  First is:

What an inconvenience!  I missed my workout. I could have done so much this morning and of course, I stress ate pizza!

But the louder voice goes:

Boy, I apparently wasn’t supposed to have my morning go as planned today.  At least I got my daughter to school.  If I’m ever going to break down somewhere, I definitely was in the safest spot surrounded by people who know me.  I had at least 10 people offer to help.  Heck, I can take the later class at the gym and my daughter can work on her homework while I do.  I probably shouldn’t have had a slice of pizza for lunch, but in the grand scheme of things, at least I had a nice break with the movie.

Yeah, today didn’t go quite as planned, but then maybe my plan wasn’t the one that was supposed to be followed today.  We can’t control everything in life, so better to look for the good.  Today, I found a lot of good during my inconvenience.

911, what is your emergency?

So my iWatch decided to call 911 today while I was working out.  Not sure if I was panting to loudly from over-exertion or if I just hit some button wrong.  I don’t tend to wear my reading glasses when doing my workout you see.  That was part of the problem I think.  After all trying to do a push-press back to a modified plank was challenging enough.  But my wrist bent in such a way that it hit the crown of the watch and I was just trying to get my heart rate really.  You know to make sure I was still alive.  Of course, maybe I’m not giving the watch or Siri enough credit.  Maybe it realized between my groans and excessive heart rate that I was truly in distress.  I mean it isn’t like I look in shape.  I’ll admit I could lose a few pounds and like food way too much.  Part of the reason I work out is so that I have a fighting chance at having a burger on occasion.   The other is just to keep me sane and not to kill those close to me that I love.  I can get my frustrations out in the gym and I really do feel better afterward.  But this, during a partner workout, was a bit anxiety provoking to say the least.  Once my watch was talking at me “911 what is your emergency” with Eminem blaring in the background, it was the best I could do to say “Um sorry!  I misdialed.” Well actually my watch mis-dialed, but I wasn’t about to get into the particulars as I’m sure the woman on the other end of the phone had more important things to deal with. Needless to say, I don’t think my calorie count was quite accurate at the end of the workout.  

#metoo

I tried to ignore this hashtag, but couldn’t.  It was long ago. At the time I knew there really was nothing I could do about it without making my own life a living hell.  So I stuffed it.  I shared my story with some at the time.  I remember someone saying he was coming on pretty strong.  Yeah… so what could I do?  I was young, I flirted, I made a bad decision.  We learn from our mistakes right?  How many of us learn from our mistakes?  I would go around in my twenties trusting people, then not trusting people, then back again.  I had to learn boundaries.  What could I live with what could I ignore?  What couldn’t I ignore? What couldn’t I live with?

Years passed and  I moved on.  Stories about famous and not so famous people came to light and then receded back into the shadows.  It was just as well I didn’t say anything I guess.  I learned to play the game.  I wasn’t politically savvy enough to position myself quite right.  I would speak my mind.  I’d be silenced.  I tried to be good, I tried to be true to myself.  I tried to do the right thing.  I always tried to support others.  Unfortunately, it was never enough.  I never felt like I fit in.  I tried to find my own tribe.  I did, in fits and starts.  But the underlying unfairness of it all gnawed away at me.

My daughter. She is beautiful.  She is naive.  She is trusting.  I fear too trusting.  She can be cautious.  I don’t want her to feel what I have felt.  I don’t want her to doubt herself.  I don’t want her to question what she could live with.  She should have joy and light and freedom to do whatever she wants as long as she is safe and doesn’t harm herself or others.  I would wish that if she were a boy too.  But I wouldn’t be quite as afraid. No one should be afraid.  No one should have to ask, what can I live with?

Still learning

I’m still learning.  Aren’t we all?  But specifically, I’m still learning about blogging.  I’m having a challenging time actually letting people know this site exists.  So who am I blogging for?  Right now, just myself.  To get some practice.  To make sure I still can write complete sentences.  To try and be honest yet somewhat diplomatic about the daily thoughts raging through my brain.  Today those thoughts focus on the fires in the North Bay which are destroying an area of the world I truly love.  Steven and I had our wedding reception in Sonoma.  We lived in Petaluma when we were first married.  Wine tasting was a part of life.  That part of my life is no longer, but the natural beauty of the area was one I would cherish.  Now that it is decimated, there will need to be much rebuilding.  It will happen, but it will be different.  Of course, that is part of life.  Change.

At present the air quality here in Contra Costa County, some 40-60 miles away is poor.  There is a fine ash in the air, and the sky looks like something from Tatooine in the first Star Wars movie.  Yellow light, orange skies.  Part of me is grateful that I’m not working because my mind is so distracted by the day to day of this tragedy.  But then there have been a lot of tragedies in our country this year and this is just another.

Life works in cycles I realize.  This one right now is not a good one.  Hopefully good will come from it though.  I see people volunteering, offering to shelter those without homes, donating supplies and money.  People are inherently good.  That is one thing I have found seeing this at a local level.  Looting has been minimal, thank God.  But meanwhile, I see Puerto Rico, three weeks after Hurricane Maria and the people there struggling for food and water.  There is only 10% power on the island.  We thankfully, don’t have that issue.  I fear once again, the haves, of which there are and were many in the North Bay, will manage, while the have-nots, in Puerto Rico will not.  How do we change this?

Leadership helps. We are seeing leadership in California.  Puerto Rico has leadership but they are not empowered because they have been struggling financially.  Neither one of our areas, California or Puerto Rico, can look to the Federal government, though right now, the Federal government knows they would have more to lose if they cut off California.  Puerto Rico doesn’t have that luxury.  California is the sixth largest economy in the world I’ve heard.  The U.S. seems to need us.  But the thing is we need Puerto Rico too.  Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory after being acquired in 1898 following the Spanish-American war.  While its citizens are supposed to be able to move freely between the island and the mainland, current leadership doesn’t seem to care for that arrangement.  Like a business not cared for to flourish, the current administration wants to declare bankruptcy and “cut its losses”.  That may work fine in business, but that should not work fine for what used to be a great nation that is being led blindly by a man with no experience or knowledge let alone ability to care about anyone but himself.

I’m hoping those of us who have watched devastation in our backyards of Texas, Florida, and California will reach out to Puerto Rico as well.  I hope other states will reach out as well.  For in this time of hurricane, earthquake, and fire, no one knows where the next disaster may strike and who might need help again.

 

Empathy, kindness and courtesy.

What has happened to our country?  Why is the face of our country like an angry child? When I was a child, I was told “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Now that may seem simplistic, but I think we should have the saying come back.  And let’s start at the top shall we?  Mr. President, you are not what I want my child looking up to.  You show no empathy, kindness or courtesy.  You have encouraged a world of bullies.  A world where women and minorities are again second class citizens.  Not that we had climbed out very far, but there had been progress.  Now though, now I look to other countries for empathy, kindness and courtesy, because I certainly am not finding it at home at least not in my leadership.

Months ago my daughter had put together kits to hand out to the homeless.  She had done this with her girl scout troop.  Today, I finally gave these to some homeless men.  They were so kind to me.  KIND TO ME!!! They are the ones struggling and were so thankful.  I was truly humbled.  I know the kits are just little things; snacks and toiletries.  I may have given these items to them, but they were the ones who evoked empathy, kindness and courtesy.  I only wish I had done it sooner. I only wish helping the homeless drove headlines over tweets from a “reality star cum President”.

But I will not be part of the problem.  I will be the solution.  I will learn from those who taught me.  If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.  Instead, give to those who deserve more.  The homeless in your community.  You may even meet the empathy, kindness and courtesy you have been looking for.