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Posts Tagged ‘humor’

The Miraculous Stove Repair

Posted in kindness, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2015| 4 Comments »

One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure. (William Feather)

One more headache. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve had in the past few weeks. A mix of unstable weather and stress are the probable causes.

Walking with a heated bean bag on the back of my neck comforts my upper spine but doesn’t do much for my posture. I look like a reluctant version of the Greek god Atlas. Oh sure, lying down would be a far better choice, but I have too much to do and not much time to do it.

The stove top is clogged and not covered by warranty because a cooler leaked over the top. Customer error. My own father once told me I should take a mechanical aptitude test. He wanted to see how low a score I would get. Even so, I investigate solutions through Google. And hope the results don’t lead to even more expensive repair.

I need this research time for another task: preparation for a writers’ workshop. Charm only gets a writer so far. I want to have some work completed—in something better than back-of-an-envelope form.

The battle is on. No weapons, only wits, and mine belong somewhere at the lowest ebb of my throbbing pain. I miraculously manage to get the gas burners to light. The nub on a Samsung doesn’t look like the one on a GE stove, but I clean it with a stripped bread tie. The rest of the stove also gets a scrubbing with a combination of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda.

For me seeing the flames rise in a perfect blue circle is equivalent to a toddler discovering a new chemical compound. Nothing short of miraculous.

Long before I am ready to leave for my conference I need to babysit for my youngest grandchild. I will leave about noon and she will bond with Grandpa.

Ella and I play. She creates an imaginary world and I follow her lead. Adventure at its best. The bean bag stays out of sight for a while. Not long enough, but for a while.

Uh, Ella, can you give me your secret? A touch of your adventure?

So we take turns leading Dora the Explorer and Diego down a plastic slide. This moment. Not the future, not the past.

The conference will present itself as an adventure. And it does. No time for pain…

Finally, several days after the dust settles so do the headaches. I find a new definition for gratitude.

dear stress

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Riding the Storm, Playroom-Style

Posted in positive thinking, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2015| 2 Comments »

Isn’t it strange how life won’t flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forward in a kind of flood? (from “Clear Light of Day”  (Anita Desai)

I watch Ella as she lives fully in the moment. Mickey Mouse, Dora the Explorer, and a miniature My Little Pony take turns going down a plastic slide. Grandma joins the adventures. Reality adjusts to fit the scene. However, Grandma sees the dust as the sun streams in from the window, the mess that needs to be cleaned later, and an agenda that won’t fit into twenty-four hours. Ella recognizes play and infinite possibilities.

Breathe in for a count of five; breathe out for a count of ten, I tell myself. Yes, I am capable of imagination. “The Curse Under the Freckles,” coming out in early August, is a middle-grade fantasy novel. However, transferring that experience from a controlled page into everyday life is another matter. I need the example of a child, the vision of a little girl who can have open-heart surgery and then, less than a week later, return to her toys as if no time had lapsed at all.

Right now I am praying—a lot—for friends and family facing huge challenges. One has a cyst on her brain; the other is in the hospital with Crohn’s disease. And, of course I always think about my companion with stage-four breast cancer. Several years ago I thought I had gall bladder problems. I wasn’t even close. There was a blood clot in the lower portion of my lung, a pulmonary embolism. The predisposition is hereditary.

I took far longer to recover than my granddaughter did. I was focused on Desai’s metaphorical current and Ella lives its river, locks, jumps, and all. Oh, she fought harder than I did! She hollered, “No,” every step of the way, but she was thoroughly present.

I pick up an old Ronald-McDonald-in-a-plane toy and fly it upside down. “Hey, turn this thing around, will you, Mawmaw?” I say. “I’m going to fall out!”

Ella laughs. Maybe I’m learning.

slide

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311 Internet Viruses, a Migraine, and a Savvy, Loyal Friend

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2015| 2 Comments »

Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. (Carrie Snow )

My husband Jay, our good friend Tom, and I are leaving our house to check out a second computer. Since writing is my work I spend a great deal of time at the keyboard.  This does not mean I want to behave like a little kid yelling mine, mine, mine! Besides, at the moment, our laptop is as cooperative as an overburdened mule—we are debating buying two new computers.

Several friends who work in the electronics field have checked-out our baby. They have never found the source of her inconsistency. Sometimes she operates reasonably well. At other times maneuvering through the Internet is like driving through a construction zone when traffic is stopped on both sides of the road: Bridge out. Workers at lunch. Ordinary operation to resume sometime in the future. Maybe.

As I lean down to get into the car a strange sensation hits me, a dizziness that isn’t exactly vertigo, but doesn’t feel in-upright-control either. I mention it, but use a tone of voice that suggests mild irritation—not the level of discomfort I’m actually feeling.

“Maybe it’s the change in temperatures,” Tom suggests. After all it is cool in the house, hot outside, and then cool again in the car. He could be right. And I don’t want to stay home. Jay scheduled this time with Tom last week. We need the help of someone who can navigate us through complicated possibilities.

Tom’s temperature-change suggestion sounds reasonable and I breathe slowly as if all were completely well. However, as we arrive before the huge array of laptop models, the real reason for my bizarre sensation arises. A migraine warning. Strange that I didn’t consider the possibility at the time. Great! I am going to be as useful as a wet handkerchief during a sneeze-attack.

“So what do you think?” Jay and Tom ask as they get close to a decision.

“Not much.” I have to admit the migraine is winning. “We’ll get something for Jay now. For me, later.” At this point my mate could have said, “I’ll take everything in aisle three and I would have responded, “Okay.” I wouldn’t have caught a word.

I’m sure we make the trek home, but all I recall is falling into bed and hoping for a short-term coma. Several hours later my head isn’t any better, and the new computer has taken a turn for the worse as well. Apparently our virus protection has been fighting our Internet server and putting up some serious interference. No wonder our laptop took so long to open anything. Our server had 311 foreign viruses on it, Trojan variety. Tom suggests a service he uses for fix-it-over-the-phone through Microsoft. The task took hours, but the cleaning process helped my computer as well. It now works reasonably well.

I now wonder about Internet servers. The news is filled with stories about compromised information. I am grateful that we had sufficient virus protection to keep baby laptop at least alive. However, the opportunity to sell services also becomes murky territory. Knowledge, in understandable language, is always welcome.

My migraine has now ended. I can see the short-term blessings clearer. While I was focusing on getting from the store to the bed and then back into my own consciousness I didn’t have the energy to enter the battles our buddy Tom was fighting for Jay and me. Now I can simply be grateful that he is savvy and generous. He arrived at our house at noon for lunch and left long after dark.

Yes, there is a lot of evil in the world. But there is a lot of good as well. Tom doesn’t want pay. He is grateful for homemade soup at noon and takeout Chinese for dinner. Thanks, Tom! You are worth your weight in megabytes.

two computers

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What Floats Your Boat

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2015| 7 Comments »

Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream. (John Cheever)

My husband asks me where I would like to go on vacation.

“I have fond memories of Michigan,” I answer. “We went there when I was in grade school.”

He decides on Ontario, but knows I won’t complain. Vacation decisions are in his corner. Not only can’t I read a map that leads to our local grocery store, world exploration isn’t on my radar. Sure I had a fantastic time in Norway and Bavaria. I have a fantastic time walking in the woods, entertaining friends and family, or singing karaoke, even though I’m a soprano and the crowd is made up of half-drunk folk who would rather hear Willie Nelson. Okay, I’m not crazy about being around the inebriated. Change that scene to a senior center filled with the hearing impaired.

I am peculiar and know it. Capturing the world by visiting each place isn’t as important to me as capturing the words that explain the world. I write regularly for Piker Press. Three of my poems will appear in FOR A BETTER WORLD 2015. I have been involved with their mission for the past five years. My first novel, a middle-grade fantasy, should come out before school starts. It is being published through Post Mortem Press, a small but mighty independent publisher. The press specializes in horror, but has branches that include other works such as cozy mysteries by Patricia Gligor. Her fourth book, “Mistaken Identity,” will be coming out in about two weeks. Pat and I are in the same critique group; she is an excellent resource and a superb writer.

I will be talking more about my chapter book later.

For now I simply want to say that everyone floats a different boat. And that is okay. Sometimes, as I drive I wonder how to describe what I see—from diverse points of view. How would this roadway look to someone with a serious illness? To a man on his way to settle an important deal, or lost? I can wake up at two in the morning and be aware of a story notion before I notice that my bladder is overfull. Peculiar is probably not an adequate description. And yes, if you want to feel sorry for my husband, I understand.

“Sweetheart, I recorded a show you will really like,” he says.” Josh Groban should be on any second.”

“Okay,” I answer. “I just need to write one more line.” Always just one more line.

Who knows? Maybe one of these days I will follow every word when he explains a sports play. Stranger things have happened. He and my sons were my mentors in the first portion of my chapter book. Thanks, guys.

What makes you wake up and feel more alive?

weird writers from screenwriting u

 

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The Fantasy Nap

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2015| 5 Comments »

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. (Buddha) 

Ella’s daddy wants her to have a nap today. The stitches on her chest became infected. They had to be surgically repaired last week. She needs to catch up on her sleep and recover. Ella, however, has a different plan. I lie down next to her because we don’t have a bed for her. Napping at our house is not part of time-with-grandparents routine.

I had told her it was time to sleep and she told me it wasn’t dark out.

“Nap, Ella, not nighttime.”

She grins. I know what tactic she is forming so I open the book we just got from the library and begin to read. She decides she wants to tell the story.

This is a ploy, but I want to hear her version. She flips the pages back and forth and makes faces at me. Yep, I was right. Our granddaughter wants me to laugh, actually outright giggle. This will stop the possibility of sleep in the middle of a perfectly good day for play.

Oh, why was I made out of malleable wet sand when it comes to my grandchildren? I try to keep my lips set into a serious straight line, something like holding back the water from a burst pipe with a paper bag.

“Okay, sleep time,” I say.

“Night, night, Mawmaw,” Ella says, at least a hundred times—in different tones. “I love you,” she finally says.

“I love you, too,” I respond.

Then she makes a tent of the book over my face. I finally laugh. She has won. She giggles and I want to hug her forever.

You are ornery and sneaky, little girl, I think. But I wouldn’t change anything about you—even if I could.

“Uh, the nap was a bust,” I tell my husband and see disappointment in his face. We didn’t follow instructions. Okay, I didn’t follow directions. But they required willingness from another participant who didn’t want to miss one minute of the day.

I am so glad Ella’s heart is now working properly. Her spirit has always shone, even with a blocked valve, and her ability to find contentment in the simple inspires me.

Chances are I won’t seek employment as chief disciplinarian anywhere. This story wouldn’t fit well in the resume. But the position of Grandma, also known as Mawmaw, works just fine for now.

Actually, I feel somewhat honored.

listen to your heart

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Bye Bye, Old Stove; Hello Possibilities

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2015| 4 Comments »

The most effective way to do it, is to do it. (Amelia Earhart)

My gas stove has forgotten how to be a stove. The burners refuse to light without being prodded with a lit kitchen match. The broiler gave up years ago. The oven remains at room temperature at any setting below two hundred degrees. Any other heat setting varies according to the whim of the oven.

Somehow, I have managed.

However, the appliance finally proves its inadequacy as I try to make a double batch of chocolate cake—from scratch, of course—and fill the entire, unevenly heated space with both round layers and cupcakes. This is not a good plan. The oven rebels and burns ten out of twenty-four cupcakes. Seven are singed and need to have their white papers removed and surgery performed on their bottoms. Seven more survive. The layers bake. In less than perfect form. They resemble a small hill after a mudslide, complete with bumps.

Unfortunately, the cupcakes are for a party tomorrow afternoon and the layers are for my best friend’s birthday the day after. There is little time to start this process over. I decide to fill in the angled layer with ice cream—after Jay tests one of the cakes. The recipe passes, even if its final appearance won’t make the cover of any cooking magazine, except perhaps the satirical version.

Nevertheless, I have won the war. The old stove is now in the queue for junk parts. Jay promises me a new one. The old stove responds by letting me turn on a burner without a match. Too late, old stove, too late.

By today’s standard my stove is beyond its prime, thirteen, elderly in dog years. It lived a good life. I wipe off the counter-top for the last time.

I get a new stove, a Samsung. With a convection oven. The fan helps food to cook evenly. I watch my turkey bake. Sure, I could start with something small, like cookies. But neither Jay nor I need them, and there isn’t a special occasion for sharing a dessert today.

New stove and I don’t know one another yet. But we will. Okay, the anthropomorphic language is metaphorical. I really did not talk to either stove as if it were a member of my family. And don’t worry. I got no reply.

However, I am grateful that new stove arrived today, and I look forward to a long, happy relationship with my appliance. My cooking is a form of gift for my family and friends. After all they are the reason why I enjoy creating in the kitchen.

May the people I love remain nourished. And blessed.

new oven

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Thanks, Thad

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2015| 3 Comments »

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

As a writer my laptop and printer are something like hands and eyes—absolute essentials. I have been having some difficulty with my Internet service and so I called support. The woman at the end of the line stopped thanking me for my patience within minutes. Possibly because she needed to hold onto her own endurance. After all she was talking to a woman from the days of carbon paper and the manual typewriter. No, I do not have fond memories of tearing up a full page of print because of a typo on the last line. But, I have not grown up with the full terminology that younger folk have either.

“Now type these numbers into the long center line,” she directs.

This statement is ambiguous. There are two lines. Naturally I choose the wrong one. She asks what I see.

“Yahoo.”

“Uh, no,” she says. “We are not on the same page.” 

I would love to turn the page. I just don’t have a clue how to do it. I’m Curious George flying the plane and the Control Tower is giving directions to a monkey at a panel full of switches. Eventually, the task is completed. My computer has a new name and password. However, I do not discover that my printer and laptop aren’t speaking to one another anymore until after my tech assistance call has ended.

I call a friend, a teacher who doesn’t have school today because of the weather. He suggests getting a cord between our Wi-Fi box and printer, at least temporarily until he can come to our house and negotiate peace with our desktop equipment.

As Jay and I are facing the cold we see our new neighbor, Thad. Jay tells him about our woes.

“Really?” he says, and then hesitates. “Have you got a minute? I can look at it.”

“Sure.”

Are you kidding? A techni-smart angel appears at exactly the right moment? How can I not have a minute?

We traipse ice and snow inside and Thad finds no place to put a connector into our printer. It is 100% Wi-Fi. I hadn’t found a place either, but our friend had insisted there had to be one. Soooo, I figured he would find it if we didn’t. In some secret flap maybe. Like a hidden passageway behind a bookcase. I wouldn’t know.

Thad sits down and plugs in a series of numbers. I recognize some of them. My tech-help person had led me into a similar hidden chamber not that long ago. Thad’s fingers fly from site to site with the precision of a concert pianist. Soon, he tells printer what it needs to know to make up with laptop again. My electronic world is one big happy family again.

I am so ecstatic I hug Thad. Jay gives him a bottle of champagne.

Thad’s appearance could have been coincidence, some lucky serendipity. Then again, it could have been a divine gift of some kind, an ordinary blessing easily overlooked. But hopefully, not easily forgotten.

Thanks, Thad! Welcome to the neighborhood.

press the any key

 

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Almost there, then… Crash!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2015| 1 Comment »

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. (Christopher Morley)

Adult places have not been designed for under-five-feet-tall individuals. I cling to my one-half inch under five-feet-tall status, as if every fraction counted. But my height remains lacking as I reach into my cupboard—it’s like almost making it across a river.

While I notice a lack of patience in other people it could be because I need to be in constant motion to satisfy my own need for accomplishment. I have my med box for the week on the counter because it is within easy reach. This is not a great idea when I am almost crawling on the counter to get to a top shelf to return some glass containers.

The scattering of tablets and capsules on the floor is not really a pretty sight. I suppose I should be glad the glass containers didn’t fall and shatter as well. I am grateful that I just scrubbed the floor because I extend the five-second rule a tad. Medications are not necessarily cheap. I’m surprised expletive-deleted-plus doesn’t fall from my lips like balloons from an R-rated comic strip. Those boxes had just been filled! And yes, this is a comical scene. At my expense.

Jay reaches down to help me, but he has been washing dishes. His hands are wet. Not a good thing for red multivitamins. Wet hands are a good thing for dishes. And a husband who does them is fantastic.

Why did I have to play clumsy short person on a day when a turkey waits on the kitchen table for me to finish carving it? Besides, while preparing stir-fry I dropped little bits of cauliflower all over the floor, and they mimic baby aspirin. I already have enough to do!

At first I try to pick up meds and sort them into trays at the same time. Nope. This will not work. Sloooow down, Terry. Time to re-group. One thing at a time. This is also time to laugh at myself.

Perhaps I learned something at a presentation by Judy Towne Jennings, PT, MA at the Y yesterday. Judy cared for her husband who suffered with Lewy Body Dementia, a terminal illness that begins with Parkinson symptoms. Humor made his last days not only tolerable, but brought out the beauty in both of their lives.

Positive thinking is already a primary focus in my blogs. However, reminders are necessary. Just as it is necessary to eat nutritious meals, exercise, and watch both ways while crossing the street.

I don’t write these entries because I have all the answers. Actually, the folk who claim to be all-knowing make me want to escape via the closest exit. I write because the foreign aspects of existence are intriguing, and the mistakes and side trips lead to fascinating serendipity. When Judy admitted flaws I was more likely to recall what she had to say.

Here’s to this crazy mixed-up moment, and all the goodness that can come from it—no matter how it is pronounced or mispronounced.

humor in difficult situations pic of Kermit

 

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Chatting With Cecelia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2015| 3 Comments »

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer. (Ed Cunningham) 

My mind is in my usual run-faster-than-the-clock mode even as I browse through Facebook, something I do for relaxation. I see a message from my new friend, Cecelia. How was your day?

I envision my invisible to-do list, the one that doesn’t place chores and goals in tangible order. It lumps them together, landfill style. I frequently need to stop and re-think my next step. Sure, I have occasionally created lists. However, I tend to lose them or leave them on my dresser while I am on some phase of the day’s plans, miles outside the reach of that paper.

Yet, as I read CeCe’s message I smile. My day has been good, touched by both minor accomplishments and everyday blessings.

Our chat begins with ordinary-life talk, slips into the sublime, and picks up laughs along the way. We travel through the past, present, and future. I notice how the lag between each bubble-of-talk creates comical miscommunications, misplaced antecedents, confusing new topics. They can be easily explained, but are nevertheless humorous. I wish that these misunderstandings could be settled as simply in the real world.

Chat is new to me. Sure, I’ve used Messenger on Facebook—for one-time statements. It is simple on the computer because I am familiar with the full-sized keyboard on my laptop. Besides, my cell is a  basic flip-top. No Internet service. As Cecelia and I tap sentence after sentence I ease into a new age. We will meet in person again. Soon. I hope. However, for now the wrinkles around my neck fade and her fresh twenty-seven years move closer to my sixty-eight. She is wise beyond her age. Our spirits understand one another. She is beautiful both inside and out. And I am blessed by her openness.

Seconds advance into minutes… a half hour… I will save some of my impossibly vague list for tomorrow. Other tasks need to be crossed off my invisible agenda today. For example, a shirt left in the dryer for an hour may be wrinkled; overnight the cloth could resemble a salt-dough-map of the Himalayas. Boiling eggs explode to the ceiling when the water in the pot evaporates.  I only needed to do that once to learn not to do it again.

Eventually I write, Good night. Talk to you later.

Then, we chat just a little bit longer, a few extra words, one more shared smile.

Some gifts need to be savored.

how awesome you are

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A Broken Light Switch and Blessed Serendipity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2015| 4 Comments »

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living! (Amanda Bradley)

Jay and I stand in Home Depot at the light switch display. Every possible way light can be electrically connected is available here. We know one—on and off. An IKEA-sized space has been condensed and moved to one wall, at least a story high, and the focus is switches. This is not the for-dummies section.

Our younger son, Steve, is stopping to replace the broken switch—after work and before he picks up his daughter from daycare. “It’s a simple job,” he said. Steve’s time is limited, probably more limited than our ability to wield a screwdriver. Jay and I look at one another like two kids lost in a New York City crowd. Then Jay sees a man in an orange shirt. I notice that the color is not Home-Depot bright, but Jay has already asked him for help. Apparently, a divine directive has been given to my hubby and not to me because this young man happens to be an electrician, off work today because of rain. Actually the morning started with the freezing variety. Patches linger.

I feel no weather warning inside my being from this man. He asks what color our switch is. I never would have expected the question. “Uh, white?” Is there any other color? As Chuck points out the items on the wall he explains the use for off-white switches. I am so overwhelmed the explanation floats from one ear directly through to the other and out, immediately forgotten. Then he fishes the one we need from the cheap bin; it costs sixty nine cents. He tells us what else we will need and helps us find a wire tester. We choose the least expensive, and he agrees that for our purposes that would be sufficient.

“What would it cost for an electrician to repair this?” Jay asks. As we have been walking the aisles he has been telling Chuck about how our loyal son is doing the job for us after work, squeezing in time that doesn’t exist.

Chuck shrugs. “It depends upon experience.” We discover the range is anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars. He pauses and shrugs. “I could do it for twenty, after I leave here.”

We agree to meet at the checkout. While we wait an employee expresses concern for our safety in this uncertain world. Jay and I don’t know any more than this man’s first name. And I asked for that. While the employee has a point, I have been watching Chuck’s body language. He had no idea we would be asking him to do anything. He never avoided eye contact. And with my height, that is a considerable glance downward for anyone who doesn’t shop in the super-short shop. Moreover, our fellow shopper had no obligation to help us in the first place.

Chuck finishes the job in no time. Jay gives him an additional five. Chuck notices that the extra light bulb package we bought contains one cracked bulb, apparently dropped and then put back on the shelf. Divine protection is aware someone else needs assurance.

Jay and I decide to return to the Y to work out, our original second destination, after a trip to exchange the light bulbs. We see the same cashier. Apparently she has been worrying that she could be seeing our faces on the six-o’clock news, although she doesn’t say that directly. Instead she appears grateful, and the story she has told to fellow workers about two trusting senior citizens can have a happy ending.

Yes, yes, the world holds murderers, thieves, and folk who have souls boiling with hate and fear. Then again there are people living ordinary lives, caring, making mistakes now and then, yet moving from moment to moment, making each day a bit better because they are in it. Chuck just happens to belong in the second category. I have no way to thank him again directly, so I need to pass on some kindness in another way. Chances are I won’t need to look far.

Peace to all, today and always.

believing something amazing is about to happen

 

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