Forgive But Don't Forget

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and

forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”- Thomas S. Szasz

I feel kind of bad that I haven't been paying due diligence to my little blog for a while. It's certainly not because I haven't wanted to, heaven knows there's been plenty to write about , just very little time to write.

I know sometimes I hate it when life demands that I live it instead of doing things I love to do.

While I still have a mountain of things to do, something happened this morning that I have to get out of my system so I can focus on other things.

Early this morning, I drove up north to pick up a friend who has severe dementia to take her to the doctor for a minor but necessary medical procedure that will improve her quality of life even if she does not recognize it.

I knew that I would have a little time to kill while she was getting her surgery so I planned on heading to the gym for an hour's workout and dressed accordingly in a tee shirt and gym pants.

(I suppose at this point I should mention that the tee shirt I was wearing was an Obama tee shirt from early in the 2008 election season.)

Now I'm not politically naive and I follow the news but I admit, it never occurred to me to think politically when I was getting dressed this morning. What I was thinking was since it's a little humid out, what shirt do I have that will wick away sweat the fastest so I wouldn't be dripping all over the doctor's office when i returned to pick up my friend.

When I arrived at the doctor's office, I guess I should have had a clue when the receptionist with a broad smile on her face asked "how's all that hopey- changey was working out for me?" I smiled back at her and told her that frankly as far as I was concerned the change I've been seeing so far wasn't even close to the change I had been hoping for but that's what the next round of elections were for.

No harm- no foul. To my mind it was mediocre political bantering at best or very lame small talk at worst. My focus was on getting my friend comfortable and going to work out and that's what I did.

When I got to the gym and walked in, I got several strange looks. I attributed it to the fact that this was not my regular work out spot and I was a complete stranger to these people.

Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. I'm not going to go into detail but I was bombarded with insults, personal comments and political attacks. Why? Because of the shirt I had chosen to work out in. There was absolutely no consideration for what my actual political ideology might be, these folks saw the shirt and to their minds that was that.

I held firm and did my workout, probably a better and harder workout than usual as I channelled my irritation with the whole situation.

As I left a man in I'd guess his mid 30's followed me out and loudly suggested (to my back) that if I "wasn't open to discussing things with them I don't come back".

I stopped in my tracks and turned around and stared at him. He stared back, For the record, I swear I could have held his gaze all day long but he was the one who looked away first.

When he glanced back at me he again told me not to come back but some of his steam had worn away in our little public stare-down.

You might be wondering if I had anything to say to him... I did and here it is:

I feel sorry for you that you felt you had to harass a middle aged woman (old enough to be your mother BTW) who only wanted to work out to make your political point because of the shirt she was wearing.

I feel sorry for you because by attacking without knowing exactly what who your attacking actually thinks, you really aren't influencing people or winning friends, both of which you need if you truly believe your cause is just.

I feel sorry for you because you haven't figured out that by attacking, without knowing exactly what the person you're attacking thinks, you have become exactly the person you're afraid of.

I forgive you but will never forget you.

With that I hopped into my little carbon footprint and drove away. I looked in the rearview mirror (seriously because I thought he was going to follow me and I was trying to remember where I had passed the fire station because I had no clue where the police department was and it was the only place I could think of to go for help) and this man was just standing there staring at me with his mouth hanging open.

After I dropped my friend back at the nursing home as I was driving back down to the city I found myself wondering what kind of country we have become when ideologies and even clothes have become more important than the people who are wearing them and saying a little prayer that things settle down quickly, that people who are being attacked don't let fear drive there willingness to stand up to this nonsense and that the people who are doing the attacking find a better way to make their point then using violence real or implied.

Footnote: When I got home, and saw the news, I noticed that our incredibly right leaning Governor received a letter from an even more right leaning group (Guardians of a Free Republic) threatening to remove him from office in 3 days if he didn't step down. Sheesh, these folks are now attacking their own....

Recycling Those Pesky Plastic Bottle Caps

Minneapolis, where I live, has been a strong proponent of recycling for many years. They go so far as to give you a monthly discount on your waste bill if you participate.

One of the things that has always really annoyed me about the recycling program is that while they accept plastic bottles the city has always required us to remove the caps from the bottles and throw them in with the regular trash. These caps then go on to either live in a landfill for heaven knows how long or to the county garbage burner to be added to the air we breathe.

Imagine my surprise yesterday to read in the paper that Aveda, wants these caps because the company is recycling them on their own for reuse on their own products.

If you'd like to, you can read the article here:

Recycle those caps

For those who don't want to read the article but do want to do a really good thing for the enviornment for minimal cost, you can either drop them off at Aveda salons nationwide (to find a location near you check AVEDA website or send your plastic caps to:

Aveda Caps Program
4000 Pheasant Ridge Dr.
Blaine, MN 55449

Thanks Aveda!

The Happiest Sick Dog Ever

My dog has a very sensitive stomach. We have to be very dilligent about what she eats and as a rule she gets very little beyond her dog food and some raw vegetables.

When her stomach gets upset, she has a natural instinct that drives her to eat some grass or dried leaves to sooth herself or to make herself throw up whatever is irritating her.

This past Saturday, she started exhibiting signs that she had an upset tummy and was demanding between air licks to go outside. Well, it's winter here. There is no grass to speak of but there is a pile of dried up clipping and leaves so out she went. As I stood at the door watching her I noticed that she wasn't content eating leaves and grass but she was also devouring sticks. I thought to myself "I'm not sure that is such a good idea, especially since they are frozen solid" so I went back in and quickly chopped up a pile of carrots and spinach leaves and tossed it out onto the snow and she quickly devoured them too.

Now, granted when it comes to my animals, I am a bit of a worrywart. I remarked to my husband that I didn't think what she was doing was normal even for a furry vacuum like her and of course he told me I was just being the worrywart that I usually am and even I really wasn't sure that wasn't the case.

After what seemed to me to be forever, our dog was ready to come in.

To make this part of the story short, as the weekend progressed, our dog remained her normal sing song, I love life, what adventure are we going to have next self, but she wouldn't eat and when she laid down she would moan and shift and clearly couldn't get comfortable. For the older readers, the best example I can give you of what was going on is this:



Guess which one is me and which one is my dog?

On Monday morning, I called the vet and said that I was convinced that she had some kind of blockage or something and could he fit me in. Now, because I tend to overreact as far as my animals are concerned and I have a great vet who does not take advantage of me, instead of saying "Bring her in", he asked "What makes you think that?" After explaining, he agrees that he should have a look at her.

I called my husband to see if he could leave work early and come with me because after getting an appointment, I spent the morning looking up her symptoms on Google and scared myself half to death. (Darn that Google!!) He agreed and at 2:15 we hopped into my carbon footprint and we were off, Nervous Nellie, Mr Borderline Annoyed with his wife and their little dog who watched out the window in eager anticipation.

We got to the vet and the dog springs out of the car, heads into the vet tail wagging and eager to meet anyone who happens to be in the waiting room. The vet comes out and says "Well, she looks great." Now, at that moment I could feel the eyes of my husband boring into me as he's calculating the cost of this visit so I respond with a small smile, "Yes she does. She's the happiest sick dog ever!" This illicts some muffled snorts and chortles from others (especially the husband and wife teams) in the waiting room who are watching the little mini-drama that just walked in.

We go in the little room so the vet can give her the once over. Other than a little fever (which leads to a blood test), she is, for all intents and purposes, acting just fine. The vet doesn't feel any blockage but suggests that we do an xray to be absolutely sure.

He comes back in with the xrays pops them up on the light screen and it turns out she essentially had ate enough sticks, weeds, leaves, carrots, spinach and heaven knows what else that she now had effectively built a birds nest in her stomach and it needed to come out because there was no other way to know what really was in there.

So Tuesday, I took her back for surgery and this happy-go-lucky dog clearly didn't let the previous days drama effect her attitude, bounds into the vet's office once again. We switched leashes and in her eagerness to inspect the office, she led the vet back to the back area. I went home thinking that I was going to pick her up on Wednesday morning.

About 6:00, I get a call asking if I would consider not having her spend the night there if she didn't settle down because even morphine would not stop this dogs outgoing nature and she was in her cage wagging her tail and trying to make friends with the other patients. I admit it, I burst out laughing. I didn't mean to, I just couldn't help myself. The vet was going to give her a valium in one last attempt to calm her down and get her to rest and call me back if it didn't work.

I picked her up at 8:00.

By 11 P.M. she was bugging me for food.

At 3:21 A.M. she had to go out, which now means having to get dressed and go out with her on the leash since she can't get her belly wet and I sure don't want her eating anymore sticks and what not any time soon.

The rest of Wednesday she rested, ate a little and snuggled with our cat who has appointed herself the charge nurse.

Today, after breakfast, she went and climbed up on the couch rolled over and looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, "now rub my stomach will you so my life would be perfect?"





What a dog, what a dog!

Rest in Peace Kate McGarrigle

For My Sister

We were easily amused weren't we?

RIP Art Clokey and many thanks. You were loved.

Hanging on to less than perfect pieces of history

I have been called a junk seller. I prefer to consider myself someone who helps to keep the past alive.

I specialize in things that are affordable and I pride myself on being able to maintain some semblence of balance between the people I buy from, the people I sell to and myself. I like it when everyone is happy with the outcomes.

Never being one to pass up an opportunity for learning, today I had the pleasure of tagging along with a fine antiques dealer when he went to visit an elderly gentleman to price his collection of military items that he spent a lifetime aquiring.

I have to admit, even with my lack of knowledge of the minutia of the military, the things this man had was stunning. Uniforms, tools, big clunky box phones and other means of communication that were used in the field during various wars... even more incredibly he knew the history and story behind almost every object.

The last room we approached had a double lock on it. When our host unlocked the door, he said that this was his war room and his personal favorite. Walking in, I knew why. I was in the playroom of many a young boy's dreams. (Well at least the young boy's of previous generations)

This man had built individual diorama's for every war that the United States had ever been involved in. I have never seen so many tin, steel, wooden, rubber and plastic soldiers all involved in war related activities in such a realistic display in my life. There were battlefields, medic stations, convoys across the desert, each perfectly capturing a moment in history, all carefully put together by loving hands.

I learned that his wife had sewn all the miniature flags and other details that brought these scenes to life.

As we were leaving I noticed a table with some miscellanious pieces on them. When questioned about it, he said that the items there were less than perfect pieces of history but he couldn't bring himself to throw them away. He handed me this old toy tank which I immediately learned was a World War I French FT-17 Tank and asked me what I thought happened to the gun. I responded that if it had been mine or my brother's when I was a kid, I would have likely found a way to remove the gun like this to give the soldier inside a clearer view of where he was going.

"Sixty years I've been wondering and asking people what happened to my tank and young lady, (Young lady! I'm so easy to please! Yippee!) I think you've just answered this question. Oh I wish I had met you when my sister was alive, so I could tell her I figured it out! She spent years teasing me about keeping that tank!"

My friend the antique dealer has a new client and the little metal tank with wooden wheels, a piece of imperfect history, has a new home where it will be cherished because of the memory of a grand visit with the most gracious host.

I am blessed.

Some people get the image of Jesus, I get Ed Asner...

I have a classic love/hate relationship with city snowplow drivers. I truly love how they make my life a whole lot better but frankly, I have been known to moan about their timing.

Anyone who lives in a high snow area knows exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of snow falls, you go out and shovel it because you want to do it before it gets any heavier and then the snow plow comes and plows all the snow from the street back into your driveway. When timed correctly, a person can go out and clear the driveway before it freezes.

Over the past couple of days, we had what was forecasted to be one of the storms of the century but it went from a snowstorm to a slush fest and back to snow again creating what is known here as "heart attack snow" which is best shoveled in increments during the entire storm so you don't kill yourself at the end by trying to clear it all at once.

Sage advice that to my recent memory a person would be well served by taking and that's what I did.

This morning, after doing what I hoped was my final shoveling for a few days, I came in and had just pulled off my boots when I heard the snowplow come up the alley. Now the alley had been plowed yesterday so I was a little surprised but after a deep sigh and a cup of cocoa, I pulled my boots back on, gathered my shovel and chopper and went back out to finish one more time.

Imagine my surprise to find that the snowplow driver had deposited Ed Asner in my driveway!!

Just for comparison purposes:

Thanks snowplow guy! You made my day!!

Tim Tam Slam

I remember watching this one night a few years ago and wondering where I could get some Tim Tams.

Tonight I can tell you two things.

1) Tim Tams have arrived in Minneapolis (at Rainbow)

2) Oh. My. God. Graham Norton's reaction is spot on!!!

Food Euphoria!!

Looking For Christmas

For the first time ever, I woke up this morning, the Saturday before Christmas, without a single present purchased.

This is usually is one of my favorite times of year to the point where I actually choose to listen to the 24 hour Christmas music radio station for hours at a time while I plan to bake cookies, go look at lighting displays, and call up old friends just to say "Merry Christmas". I normally get a kick out of even the small things like having to look for my single roll of scotch tape that I might have used once since the same time the year before.

But this year it's different. I suffered a hard loss earlier this year and I've discovered that as Christmas nears I've somehow managed to keep busy enough and strong enough for the other people who need me to get through the last months without truly grieving. As each day passes in December, I find that I don't want to leave my dark, dank dungeon until Christmas Eve and then I only want to pop my head out to watch the yule log burning on the television and really cry it all out. (Of course in my delusional state, on December 26, I believe I'll wake up and feel more like my normal self.)

So today, when I realized that none of the shopping had been done, I looked at my husband (who has been positively a saint as my moping as been getting worse) and asked if he would please come out and do some Christmas shopping with me, even though he hates it because if I didn't have some support, I'd probably get nothing accomplished given my frame of mind.

I made a list of everyone we needed a gift for (about 20 adults and 2 children)

Turns out it was the shortest Christmas shopping trip ever and I mean ever!

The first store we went to, the parking lot was pretty full so I decided to park about a block away and we walked back. When we went in the first thing we saw was a giant Toys For Tots donation box that had one lonely toy in it. I asked one of the people working how often they had to empty the box and she told me "not often, it's a tough year for everyone".

Thinking about all the children whose families by circumstance have to rely on strangers to receive even a single present, I turned my husband and told him what I was thinking, he nodded as he smiled warmly at me and said, "and I think it's a great idea, every kid needs something to hold on too and as a bonus, it will get me out of this madhouse really, really fast!"

We spent all our time in the store looking for deals on stuffed animals (because we figured there was less of a chance they would be damaged or broken that boxed toys). We spent our present money on a large pile of good sized Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, Tigger and teddy bears that we then donated to Toys For Tots.

Sometimes you have to grab the Christmas spirit and hold on tight when it finds you.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Lemming Preservation Society

I have reached an age where, with the exception of new technology, many, many, many things pull up images from my past. Some of these gentle nudges, make me waste time on things I never meant to ever think about again, but other's come from so far out of left field, that I explode in laughter in celebration of their stupidity.

Lucky for you, dear readers, this post is about one of the latter.

First of all, for any younger readers, can you imagine a time when the phone rang, the person answering it had no idea who was calling? You had to answer the phone because it was the primary means people communicated with each other besides letters and postcards when they were not face to face.

The telephone while useful, could also be a thing of terror. Ask your grandmother about "heavy breathers" if you don't believe me because that's not what I'm here to talk about.

Today I saw the following tweet on Twitter:

I prefer to call them lemmings.

I burst out laughing because it called up (get it? Called up?) a long forgotten memory about how the telephone was also a great toy for kids and teenagers to use to annoy anyone with reckless abandon.

Kids used to call stores and ask the clerk who answered "Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Yes? Well you better let him out!". How many harried housewives got the call asking if there refrigerator was running only to then be told ,"Well, you'd better catch it!". There was some serious kid joy in hearing the line go dead as the receiver was slammed back down into the cradle.

What's this got to do with lemmings, kimbers, hmmmm?

Well, one night, there was a slumber party for 15 girls at a friend's house. About 7:30, her mother, who had a serious drinking problem (very normal behavior in those days) got fed up with the noise and in her drunken rant called us a bunch of lemmings.

Problem was, none of us knew what a lemming was and we weren't sure she hadn't just made the word up, so Mrs P (sorry, I'll never identify her) got her wish for quiet as the gaggle of girls went into the library to look up lemmings in dictionary. Then we had to get out the Encyclopedia Britannica, to see just how adorable these little things were.

We herded ourselves (like a pack of lemmings) back into the kitchen to tell Mrs. P we thought lemmings were very cute and she slurred back at us "they might be cute but they are stupid... one does something stupid, they all do it! Do you know that if one jumps off a cliff they all do? Stupid I tell ya! Stupid! now you girls keep quiet, I'm going to bed!" and with that she was off.

Now maybe it's adult in me, but no matter how confident I might be in my children to do the right thing, leaving 15 6th graders alone and unsupervised at 8:15 with a whole night looming before them does not seem like the best plan.

Especially when there is a phone in the kitchen, far, far away from the slumbering Mom. After sending a scout to make sure Mrs. P really was asleep we started calling people randomly out of the phonebook and saying:

Hello?

Long distance calling.

Norway.

We're calling from the Lemming Preservation Society and we were wondering if you would like to donate a dollar to buy a brick to build a wall to protect the lemmings from themselves?

and then we cracked up into peals of girlish laughter unable to go any farther. After about an hour of this one guy thanked us for being the best "unwanted call" he had ever received....

What a killjoy! Nothing like adult approval to kill the fun!