Thank you Heron

This morning was absolutely magical. We went to the river to eat our breakfast and take a swim. We were the only ones there, which was wonderful. It was an amazingly clear and sunny day, if a part of a day could be a gift then this morning was a gift from the Universe. The part of the river I like to go to has a broken dam and the swimming hole is the area right before the dam, there is a sandy beach right that is nice and clean and it is a great natural spot. I have actually been going there for twenty years, although until about 8 years ago you had to park about a mile a way and trek through the woods to get there. We always walked fast in the spring because there were so many caterpillars in the trees, we thought there were pooping on our heads. Even having to walk out, this place was worth it. Many years ago we would sunbathe topless, bring out coolers of lunch, beer or wine coolers, and whatever because we wouldn’t see another soul all day.

Then the State found out about it and decided to create a boat launch, and you know what they did… In the words of the old song, “they paved paradise and put in a parking lot.” They created a boat launch with a parking lot and then paved another road down the path we used to run down and created a huge parking lot at the end of that. So on the upside you only have to walk a short distance up and down a hill to get to the beach, and on the downside there is usually people there. Not that people are a bad thing, my daughter always finds someone to play with, etc. But I love the peacefulness of the place. When I was asked once to imagine my favorite place on earth and this spot is where I imagined. We see bald eagle, red-tailed hawk, turkey vultures, and when we are lucky, we see blue heron. Although the blue heron are actually thriving, one doesn’t see them too often. I always figure it is my lucky day, or that I am blessed, when I get to see a heron. (The pictures I put up are from Wilkipedia, I didn't have my camera.)

Well today, the Universe, God, the energies, whatever you like to call it, wanted to let me know that I am blessed and even loved. Not only did we see a blue heron, it was a mother and it had little heron babies. The babies were swimming around crazily in little circles and would swim around and around and area and then move upstream. The mother would walk around on rocks around them or on the shore keeping an eye on her babies, but wasn’t actually too close either. When they moved upstream she would fly to a new spot to guard, and walk aroud that spot. When they fly their wingspan is incredible. We stood in the river just watching, with the sun warming our backs, and the balancing breeze cooling us off, and the solitude wrapping around us like a quilt fresh out of the drier. My normally active daughter instinctively knew too that this was an amazing time and was quiet and we were just a part of the river with minnows swimming around our feet, and not the human intruders that we actually were. Peace descended on my soul, on my entire being, and we just were. It’s been a long time since I just was.

Then some people not so in tune with nature showed up, and I tried to maintain my peaceful state, there were two women and some teenagers. One of the women did not stop talking from the minute she arrived to the time we left. Nonstop, I doubt she even looked around. At one point, they were about three feet from me and I asked three times, “Do you want to see a beautiful bird?” And not only did they not answer, they did not hear me. It’s not as if they were ignoring me either, they honestly did not hear me. As if their own world is so loud and nonstop, they couldn’t even hear my voice from three feet away, couldn’t and didn’t want to. And I surely wasn’t going to yell. The three teenagers were going crazy and having fun in the water, when they were next to me, I asked them if they wanted to see a heron. Two of them just moved on, like teens do, but one didn’t she wanted to see and followed my finger across the river and saw the bird with her babies. She thought they were awesome, but what I thought was awesome was that she got quieter. She sat on the shore and looked around, actually seeing the amazing place she was. Of course, she went back to having fun with her friends, but her whole energy had changed and she was no longer yelling with them. There is such a huge lesson in that. I couldn’t get back to the inner place I was with the never ending voice in my ear, so we left. Not that people shouldn’t go to a place and have fun with friends, of course not, I’m not being negative. I suppose they couldn’t hear me because they weren’t ready to see. A lesson for me. It was so amazing. I hope you all had an peaceful day too.I had my gift, the beauty, the stillness. I had my time as a part of nature, and I was able to explain to my child that if we are in nature and God blesses us and allows us to see the miracles of his creation, and yet if God is everywhere including in us, then we are not only part of what? She answered God. I asked and what else are we a part of? She answered nature. Years of religious study and theology couldn’t teach my child what the heron taught her this morning at the river. Thank you Heron.

Blue Screen of Death!

I thought I lost my hard drive on my laptop. I was devastated because I hadn’t saved certain things, like the newest changes to my novel, I’m at 47,000 words. I was watching a movie and heard this horrible grating sound and then the computer shut down to save itself. And I got, for the first time, the blue screen of death. Ahhh. I called this place in the phone book Fast Teks and they sent a man over, a $90 an hour man. He came in with what he needed to fix a desktop not a laptop, so he couldn’t work at my house. Huge red flag I think. He says he can save my documents and it will take an hour. Great that’s what I want and I’ll but in a new hard drive myself. It only takes five minutes. Then he starts talking about reloading the operating systems, Office and everything else. I realize beyond Windows XP, I don’t have any of those disks. I agree with him that he will take it with him, recover my files, install a new hard drive if it needs it, 25% chance it won’t, and he will also reinstall all of the operating system stuff. We agree on $230 for the whole shebang minus a $25.00 new customer discount, and he leaves with my laptop.

He brings the computer back the next day, today, and has all of my stuff backed up on disks for me. Very good. Also my computer is working fine and all of my old stuff is in it, no hard drive, no operating system files needed. I pay him the $205 and ask him what was wrong, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know if it was a virus. Hmmm. Whatever the computer is working all of my crazy stuff is still on there, suck it up and move on with life. Good.

A couple of hours ago, I pop in Conversations with God, and begin to watch. Not even halfway into the movie, gggrrrrrrrrrr, blue screen of death. OMG, I am so mad and sad my poor computer. I am going to call him tomorrow and he had better make this right some how. The kicker is, for that money wasn’t I paying him to diagnose the problem? Really, I’m asking, was I? After speaking to my brother, who is too far away to help me physically but talks to me. He diagnoses the problem as the fan. Or the lack of the working fan. If this guy had the computer and worked on it for the 3 or 4 hours he said he did, it would have overheated and he would have figured out it was the fan, wouldn’t he have? Wasn’t it his responsibility to figure out what happened to the computer? After it had been cooled off, perhaps he started it and it just started – LIKE IT JUST DID FOR ME!!!!

It is so hard not to have a good team surrounding you. I need a computer person. A good one that I can trust. Like my mechanic, he is slow as molasses but when he fixes something it is fixed properly. I tried others over the years but paid to have the car fixed, and then had to pay him to fix it again. And when I say slow, I mean slow, as in I still don’t have my new car I bought almost a month ago which he is fixing the wheel bearing on. I know I said I wasn’t in a bind but… Although I know when I get in that car it will be save and fixed properly. After all he is the one who picked it out and handled the purchase for me too. So a good team member. I need a good computer person. I used to have one but he moved never gave me the new number, because you really don’t need a tech too often to require being in their Blackberry, file-o-fax, or rolodex.

So the laptop is on sabbatical. I am on my desktop, in my office chair, and it seems so formal. I love the lounginess of the laptop. No lounginess is not a word, but I’m an English teacher and I can make them up! No more typing at ya from the couch! My poor baby is blue and so am I, that must be why they make that error screen blue.

~One question while we are all here, when you check REMEMBER ME on websites where you have to enter your email and password to get in, why don't they? It is really chipping away at my self esteem, don't enough people forget about you in life, don't you sometimes just want to scream, "Here I Am Don't Forget Me?" And yet it taunts and teases with it's little question, REMEMBER ME, and you check the box off feeling good something will remember me. Then the devistation, it hasn't remembered you, they never remember you, you are just a bunch of numbers - please enter your email and your password, because we don't know and don't care who you are! Remember Me!

Electrifying

I’m watching my Jersey boys on a PBS special, right this second they are singing, We’ve Got It Going On, and let me tell you what, they sure do. Richie Sambora darling, you are looking fine! He is looking healthier than I’ve seen him in a while. I hope he's licked that little alcohol thing he had going on. I don’t know when this is, it is the Lost Highway one, so it’s recent. Richie doesn’t look puffy like he was for little bit. His last DUI was before the tour, so I hope he’s straightened out. This tour is almost over, and of course, I didn’t get to go. I don’t often get to go to things as a single mom. I would actually have gotten a sitter for this one. That is how I rate things in life, sitter worthy events and events that are not worthy. (Unfortunately I haven’t had a sitter worthy offer of a date in forever.)

I think Richie’s switched guitars for every song so far. And Jon what can I say, beautiful as ever. He is so dreamy and every song he sings he puts into it real emotion (closed eyes, etc), which is why he is so popular, I think. I don’t know why there aren’t any more megastar rockers from Jersey besides my boys and Bruce of course. Growing up there was so much rock talent all over. Garage bands were so plentiful, and a lot of times they were really good. I wonder what happened to all the dreamers. I hope they still play and they still dream.

The boys played Central Park in NYC last weekend; I would have loved to have been there. Okay, Richie is switching the same two guitars off and on. Silly me. Jon’s teeth are so white, what an amazing smile, that is probably why he is the star he is. Not to take anything away from his musical ability, nobody sings a love song like he does. However, he is the total package, with a smile that could convince anyone to do anything. It is funny how his I Love This Town actually works in any town they are performing in, clever marketing.

I remember growing up my mother watching PBS and if she was on a PBS special at night, you had to leave her alone because interrupting her was never worth it no matter what. Now what am I doing, watching PBS and my music that used to be really cool is actually on PBS. Bad enough they call it oldies on the radio, now it’s on PBS. I remember when my parents would hardly let me listen to music. I wasn’t allowed to own or play any Grateful Dead when I was a teenager, now they have Dead shows on PBS. It’s so crazy.

“It’s okay to be a little broken.”

Enough about my growing older! I am still encouraging my child to be a musician and she has saved up $60 for her own electric guitar, which is hard to do at $2 a week. Thinking she won’t even like guitar anymore by the time she saves up enough, I helped her out and we bought her a real electric guitar from www.musiciansfriend.com. It was only $99.99 and it is beautiful. She named it White Chocolate. They had the kids’ electric guitars, mini ones, even a Hannah Montana, but I have had enough of the kid’s musical instruments. Her kid’s First Act acoustic guitar I can barely push down the strings, how is a kid supposed to, and it slips out of tune every song. I read a lot of reviews online and concluded it was a waste of money to buy another kid’s instrument and then a big one in a couple of years. The one we actually bought was $179 at our local music store and $149 on another website, so White Chocolate was a heck of a deal. I am amazed at how many different electric guitars are out there and how much they can be. We saw a hand painted one for $49,000, yeah right, that’s the down payment on a house. So now we have a little musical section in the living room, now that’s living! Pic of White Chocolate below. Well, Richie is done playing, and if I can’t go to bed with him, I guess I’ll just go to bed. Yeah, whatever... Rock on.“When you wonder why you’re breathing, know you're not alone.”

Jersey Joke

As a former Jersey girl, I have to laugh at an episode of the Simpson’s: Marge tells Homer to stop kissing her in public on vaca in Jersey because people are watching. Homer, “Oh yeah like people in New Jersey have never seen a fat guy making out; it’s on the freakin’ state flag!”

Swimming Lessons

I took my girl to the public pool today and there were a couple of boys from her class their friends there. One of the boys said he was her boyfriend and was so excited to see her. She looked right at him and said, “My name is Kaitlyn (not her name), I’m from Australia. I don’t know who you are talking to.” And walked away. This boy followed her around all afternoon, well as much as he could because he’s not allowed in the deep end. The older third grade boy who was allowed in the deep end came over introduced himself and off they swam. I sat on the side of the pool to lifeguard (because the two they have there are not enough - overprotective much!) and heard him ask her later, “Do you kind of like me because I kind of like you.” I almost choked. Then the other one got out of the shallow end and walked around the pool to come and talk to her. She talked to him for a minute and then swam right off.
The third grader swam up jealous, “Is he really your boyfriend?”
My sweet girl, “I’m too young for a boyfriend. Right mom?”
“YES” (whew, thank goodness)
Then he screams over to the shallow end, “No, you are not her boyfriend.”
Causing the boy from her class to get out and walk over to the deep end, “Are you mad at me?”
OMG are you mad at me, these tiny people are too fast, much too fast. The lifeguard was laughing too. It was craziness. She looked over at me and said, “You are in so much trouble when she’s older.” I know, I know. Perhaps I should tell her that boys have cooties. Whatever happened to cooties? They kept us away from boys for sometime in elementary school. They should be reintroduced; in science class would be nice. They can look at some under the microscope.
Bless my baby’s soul she told them both that she was going to swim with her mother now, alone with her mother. She didn’t even have to ask me to get in - I jumped right in. Wow, so much for chasing boys, she kept swimming away and they kept chasing her. Were we all born knowing that? Is it an art, the thrill of the chase? Will she forget when life zaps her self-esteem, gives her acne and puberty? I hope not. I wish my teenage self had known what she already does. All that time I wasted chasing boys, when I shoulda been swimming away...

Loving the new website

I love the www.sparkpeople.com. I have lost three pounds since I joined up. Although I lost that three pounds a couple of weeks ago too, and it came back, grrr. I hope now that my TSH number was a 1.7 that I can start to lose weight now. Because losing a pound for an hour and having it come right back, is not really losing it! You can join a bunch of discussion groups at sparkpeople and they actually have a thyroid group and a hypothyroid group. I joined both. People actually are very into this website and discussions are fruitful. There are not professional doctors just other people going through the same or similar things that you are. Or there are groups just by your age or occupation, I joined a teacher group too.

I’m such a joiner now, when I was young I never wanted to join in with anything. Interesting.

Insomniac thought processes...

It’s 1:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep. I turned on my laptop to my blog to listen to my music. My music is awesome! I think it is a lovely mix. Props to playlist.com for allowing me to create my own playlists. If you want to listen to some classical flip over to my nothryoid blog, that playlist is great too but all classic classical.

I have joined another internet group www.sparkpeople.com. It is a weight loss, exercise. living right support website. It is free you can record your daily diet or follow the one they give you. You can record your daily exercise and they give you exercises to do. There are many, many discussion threads to jump in on. It is free because whoever runs it said on it that they made a lot of money on eBay when it first began and they wanted to give something back. So check that out too.

Okay the celebratory news for those of you who have been following my health. My synthroid thyroid medicine levels are finally level after 11 months!!!!! Yay! I am so excited. I hope I can lose weight now. I thank you all for your support. To put a damper on my great news, I spent the morning in the imaging center at the hospital having two mammograms and an ultrasound. They have found a bunch of cysts, which are fine, but one something that they found is not. They do not know what it is but it is there. I have to go back for a biopsy on the 11th. Crap biopsy, just the word is scary. Besides I did all of the “C” stuff last summer. I am not entirely ungrateful to the Universe however, I understand that I am lucky to be alive, I am lucky I even had a mammogram at all not being 40 just yet, and if it is something it is early. What will be will be, and I will deal with it. I have a little girl, I have to. I also know that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. The ungrateful side of me however would like to know just how strong I need to be and would like to jump up and down in frustration. It’s taken now exactly 11 months to get over the first tumor removal and I should be celebrating that my synthetic medicines are working not having my boob squished in a Lucite box. But those thoughts are ungrateful and unproductive. Counting blessings: life 1 daughter 2 family 3 friends 4

Okay, reality check. I’d like to send out a healing prayer to our friend Claudia, who is recovering from a triple bypass. We’re thinking of you!

If you read about my car exploding this winter, I finally purchased a new car! Well, new to me anyway. It is a 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue. Candy apple red so I am screwed for more speeding tickets. I bought it for $3,000. It is not in my possesion yet as we are awaiting the title and my mechanic has to do some work to it before it is good to drive but it’s nice. And it has AC and a CD player, two novelties for me. I’ll post a pic.

Whatever happened to Loverboy? I remember Mike Reno was the lead singer. Just wondering. I should have been a rock star! I have the attitude I think I would love that. Too bad I can’t sing and I‘ve forgotten how to play the instruments of my youth, piano and trombone. I hope my daughter is a rock star or a famous actress, she wants to help people, and it seems to me that the only people who can afford to be philanthropic are celebrities.

Do you think that out there somewhere is a girl in court for property damage or vandalism on her cheating boyfriends car telling the judge, "I did it because Carrie Underwood did it to her boyfriend and wrote a song about it and didn't get in trouble, so I thought I would do it?" It could be like the Underwood damage defense on damning dear dogs.

Ok 2 am. Good Night all. Perhaps if I curl up in front of the AC I will be able to sleep. If I was a cartoon character I would bonk myself on the head with a hammer made by the Acme company and go right out like a light. What if I really am a cartoon? What if we all are cartoons and some alien planet watches us for entertainment like a cartoon soap opera? Hmmm.