From the Laundry Room

From the Laundry Room

Sorting it Out One Load at a Time

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Soiled

May 29, 2012

Tradition.

I like tradition, not in a weird conservative, never change even though something is based in ignorance or hurtful to others, but real tradition.

Happenings, ceremonies or routines that bond friends, a family, a culture, even a country.  I think that’s important.

Tradition has recently put a bad taste in some people’s mouths because, like so many other things, it’s wrapped up in the far right, conservative, religious crap.

As if they are the only people that appreciate tradition or any kind of values for that matter.

I think it’s important to remove certain things from that cesspool and reclaim them. Even for us crazy liberals.

Tradition is about seeing the value in something and making the effort, taking the time to keep things alive.

I recently listened to an NPR interview with Michelle Obama.  She has a book out, American Grown, about the White House Garden.  The interview is worth a listen and I learned some things.

Apparently, The White House has not had a garden since Eleanor Roosevelt started a Victory Garden.  Victory Gardens were big during and after World War II.  They promoted community and healthy eating, along with pride in our country’s home grown foods.

Mrs. Obama explains that when she started her initiative to get kids moving and making good food choices she wanted to bring back the garden.

She also said, in a moment of lovely humility, that as a working mother her kid’s pediatrician pulled her aside and told her she needed to start making healthier food choices.  She admits, like many working mothers, that she was on the grab and go food plan.

She mentions that her grandmother participated in a Victory Garden and all of their fruis and vegatables came from that garden while she was growing up.  She liked the tradition and community aspects of the garden and wanted that for The White House.

Mrs. Obama is also working to make fresh fruits and vegetables more accessible. Good cause.

I enjoyed the interview.  I’ve never been a “woo hoo” Michelle Obama fan, but this is great and I like what she brings to The White House.

I’m a Hillary Clinton fan.  I loved that she brought some grit to the position of First Lady, but I really like this too.  Women are wonderful and have a great deal to offer on all fronts.

So important that we pull basic human values out of the mess of politics, religion and outdated nonsense.  As a country, we must progress and learn from our mistakes, but there are certain things that should be brought back or remain.  They make up our fiber, everyone’s fiber.

My thoughts from the laundry room.  Wash up.

Clip-On Tie

May 26, 2012

Is it possible to be the CEO of Paypal and that’s just not enough? You’d still need to pad and pump yourself up bigger than you already are?

I guess so.

The CEO of Yahoo was recently fired for stating he had an accounting degree and a computer science degree when, in fact, he only had an accounting degree. So, he lied.

I’m assuming when you get to the level that you are applying for the CEO position at Yahoo that you’re pretty comfortable with your accomplishments.

Self promotion is a not easy. Well, it’s not easy for me. It may be rooted in some kind of insecurity, but whatever it is, I have a hard time tooting my horn. Sometimes I have a hard time finding my horn.

Your work should speak for itself, that’s what I’ve always thought, but if no one knows you, sees your work than no one can care.

I’ve done a resume before, I know how to put the schmoozy words together to make HR Manager duties sound like rocket science, but there’s a fine line.

Tooting is one thing, but you can’t invent the horn. It is tempting though because so much of our society is based on a certification or a diploma.

It’s a little troubling that the recently ousted CEO was implementing a well received rebirth for Yahoo. If he can do this who cares if that computer science degree was fiction? But…he lied and that’s not good.

I wonder if he’d just believed in his real qualifications and applied if he would have still been given the job?

Which came first the silly blanket job requirements, that really have nothing to do with a person’s ability to do a job, or the inflated resume?

My thoughts from the laundry room. Short Sheets.

Levis

May 25, 2012 — 2 Comments

My parents were divorced when I was three.

My mother remarried when I was 26. Interesting dynamic when your mother marries again after all those years.

Her new husband was different. Our relationship would take time and refused to fit into some kind of mold. Gil’s not my step-father, I introduce him as my mother’s husband. That may sound odd, but I don’t know what a step-father is, seems like a ridiculous label when a man comes into your life at 26.

I will say, he’s an important part of our family, we have a similar sense of humor, I’d be there for him in a minute and I wouldn’t hesitate to call him if the crap hit the fan. There’s really no label for that, he’s Gil.

He is almost annoyingly quiet, steady, secretly a little crude, famously regular, I still think it’s weird he fills my mom’s gas tank, and I love him. Our relationship has grown over many years into something quite genuine.

Gil served in the Army during Vietnam. He was drafted at, I think 18.

There have been several years that he and some of his friends, other veterans, have done a motorcycle ride from California to Washington DC to be in the capital for Memorial Day.

It’s a pilgrimage to remember.

I always picture sort of a flags flying, Easy Rider thing, but knowing Gil I’m pretty sure that’s way off.

He rides to honor those that didn’t make it home and those that are still lost. He flies his flag and his POW flag. He has a purple heart license plate.

Serving in the military is something completely foreign to me. The bonds formed, the tradition, it all seems quite Special Ops, camo pants, Saving Private Ryan. A brotherhood.

But on Memorial Day and sometimes when I look at Gil just the right way it feels a touch tragic. Part of the bond appears to come from going through a particular kind of hell most of us will never see. That kind of thing must change a person forever.

Don’t get me wrong, I would never want to paint him as a martyr. He’s still here, he survived and married my mother. He makes fantastic red chili and is my constant companion as we lose just about every card game played at their house.

Gil lives by the beach and has a good life, but every Memorial Day I think about him. I know the sentiment, “honoring those we’ve lost” means something completely different to him. He was there, he lost many and as with all soldiers past and present, I respect that and I’m grateful.

My thoughts from the laundry room. I’m Going Up.

Tan Shoes

May 13, 2012

Milestones are weird.

The culmination of years, tiny steps and near misses, all come together in one day.  A  ceremony celebrating a right of passage or an achievement.

Katlyn graduated from Xavier College Prep today.  Four years of homework and tests, crazy schedules and days when she just didn’t want to get out of bed.

She showed up, did the work and now we just watched her, showered, shaved and beautiful on her big day.

There are so many things a mother could say at a time like this…a milestone.

Lessons I’ve learned, warnings and advice for her future.  This is it, she’s done with high school and she will now go out into the world…

What does that mean?

She’s already in the world and I already give her advice and tell her boring “learn from my experience” stories.  This has been going on for years.

One day is just that, one day.

There’s no magic 24 hour period when it all comes together and the golden door to “the real world” reveals itself to her.  It’s in the details, they make up the whole.

It is great to take time out and celebrate her accomplishment.  I could not be more proud, but nothing really changes.

The school will be different now and eventually that will be a job or a new house. Someday it will evolve from college major advice to career advice, but it’s all the same really.

Day to day, little by little, being there for her and letting her know that she is loved and supported.  We’ve been doing that her whole life.

For those of you that think I’m just in denial, I know I won’t be making her lunch anymore and yes, her room will be empty most of the time, but that’s just logistics.

There will be new things she needs, new experiences and adventures she’ll bring to our family to add to the collection we already have.

We took a moment today and celebrated, reflected on how far she’s come. There will be many more milestones in Katlyn’s life.

Until the next one, I’m going to cherish the boring days, the every days, the details of loving our daughter.

My thoughts from the laundry room.  Big Day Tomorrow.

I am at ease in the arms of a woman…

Simple and beautiful and perfect.

I’m into Amos Lee lately.  This is one off his first album.

The video is sweet.  Enjoy.

That’s all from the laundry room.  Caress.

Cotton Pants

May 9, 2012

Robes of Gold

May 8, 2012

It’s graduation week.

Katlyn will graduate from high school on Saturday, but before the actual ceremony, we attended a Baccalaureate Mass last night.

She goes to a Catholic High School. We’re not Catholic, so it makes for some interesting events and conversation.

After I got past Michael commenting that the lead up to communion took too long and he didn’t like the fact that the priest is the only one that drinks the wine, we had to process up the isle to receive the host (bread, cracker).

Everyone has to go up and if you’re not Catholic or not worthy, you just cross your hands in front of you and the priest or person doing the deal will bless you anyway.

It’s sort of a nice gesture.

“Even though you are not one of us, or you’ve been bad, we will still pray for you.” I crossed my hands and the priest blessed me. I was nervous. Odd.

There are so many things we do that are not necessarily part of our personal beliefs or our family traditions, but we do them for our children or because we see a greater good.

When I’m in different situations, I try to find the commonality or learn something. I look around a lot.

The church was lovely, although Michael had an issue because the alter was huge and there were no Bibles and why were the lights off in odd places?…he was raised Lutheran and makes way too many observations, but it really is good fun.

There’s a sense of community at Katlyn’s school that is quite wonderful and she has received an exceptional education. She’s been in some great theology classes and some down right scary ones. She has learned about the Catholic faith, but that’s kind of a side car.

I realize it was a religious mass and there were many people around us devote in their beliefs. I respect that, and while I don’t understand a lot of the ritual and business of being Catholic, I whole heartedly believe in every person’s right to take comfort and connect with God in their own way.

I sometimes look at church as a show, I know blaspheme, but it’s my blog.

A show with costumes and great monologues and there are moments during some shows when I have felt the presence of God.

I don’t dislike church. I enjoy listening to the sermons and the interesting commentary on life, as long as they don’t launch into areas that make me crazy, church and I get along.

The essence of this mass, I thought, should have been about all of our daughters moving on and the growth they’ve experienced in their four years at Xavier. Instead it was really sort of a jumbled presentation about being Catholic. It’s a Catholic School, so I understand it’s their prerogative, it should have been more.

If the show’s not good, if the sermon isn’t inspiring or the songs aren’t uplifting, all I’m left with is the awkwardness of the ritual.

But, Katlyn was with her community of friends and it was a beautiful night, and her spirit was everywhere. All in all, a great start to an important week.

My thoughts from the laundry room. Peace.

Faux Turtleneck

May 7, 2012

I am possibly the most non-photogenic person on the planet.

I’m the one that jacks up the group picture by closing my eyes or flashing the psycho smile.

When we review photographs from vacations or the dreaded Christmas picture, it’s not uncommon to hear laughs and a few “Oooh, what happened there?” or “Mom, that one was perfect, except you closed your eyes?”

There  are some people that have a picture pose or a smile that just works for them every time.  I’m not sure if they were pulled aside and I just missed that day, but I’m all over the place.

I’ve often said, “If I look like this in real life, why hasn’t anyone told me?”

I’m a reasonably attractive person when I look in the mirror.  I don’t think the Ford Modeling Agency is coming after me, but I’ve got a little something going on.

Point a camera at me and all bets are off.

It’s weird because I can really work the other end of a Canon.  Some of the best shots of our family or vacations are mine, so what is my problem?

Maggie blurted out her theory in frustration last year during the 5th attempt at the Christmas picture review, “Mom, quit trying so hard!  Just be yourself.”

She can be such a little snit sometimes.

I AM being myself and what do you mean quit trying so hard?  A damn camera is pointed at my face.

Kids take fantastic pictures 9 times out of 10.  Great smiles, self pride even with braces or missing teeth or really bad hair.  They achieve this because they don’t know how to be anything other than themselves, they haven’t learned yet.

They’re not smiling at the camera wondering if their hair looks flat, or if their ass looks big from this angle.

They don’t care.  It’s picture time and they smile.

Lately I’ve been working on trying to relax in front of the camera.  I take deep breaths and I try, I mean I try not to try.

I am sorry to say that it’s not working.

I think I’m myself, if I’m not, I have no idea who I am, but she’s a scrunchy face, eye closing, crazy smile, odd head angle, wild eyed beast on film.

I have to get my picture professionally done in the next couple of months.

Professionally…that scares me.  If I can’t even do the amateur stuff, how am I going to work with a professional?  Hopefully she has more patience than Maggie.

My thoughts from the laundry room.  Picture Happy Thoughts.

Keyhole Sweater

May 3, 2012 — 2 Comments

I like old keys. I always have. I also have a fascination with hotel silverware, but that’s a different post.

There’s the obvious symbolism of a key. It represents the entree into something precious, locked away, private.

Writers have used phrases like “the key to my heart”, “key to life”, or “keys to the past” for years. Things locked away are revealed with a key figuratively speaking, as if some gesture or emotion is so strong that we are wiling to open a door to ourselves and let someone, or something in. Really lovely.

But then there’s the more literal aspect of a key. A combination of crevices that together open a locked door.

I really like that. There’s artistry there and mystery.

I have collected keys for a while, and like the hotel silver, I feel they link me to people that have come before. People from a time I’ll never fully understand with challenges and struggles not unlike my own, but staged during a different time.

Not celebrities, or well known politicians, that are paraded around for everyone to see wether we want to or not, but regular people.

Families on vacation, businessmen with safe deposit boxes, janitors in huge libraries.

I imagine stories of where these keys led, how they were lost and if any of them hold scandal, intrigue.

What if one of my keys was a key that was lost forever and somewhere in the past, if someone had just had my key their life would have changed? Sigh…I get goosebumps thinking about it.

So now these keys sit in my office and yes, they look nice, but it’s the energy I love. Sounds crazy, but it’s there.

There are stories in these keys I will never know, but as with many unknown things in this life, humans have the power to just make it up. Love that too.

In this age of plastic key cards, what will we leave behind?

Is some writer somewhere going to be sitting in her office with an old Hilton key card wondering about some conference I went to 75 years ago?

Maybe, but those plastic things will not look nearly as cool as my keys.

My thoughts from the laundry room. Lock Up.

Bedazzler

May 2, 2012

One of the great challenges while raising children is helping them become adults without making mini versions of ourselves.

I don’t want my children to be like me.

I want them to learn from me and hopefully they’ve listened to some of my less than brief ramblings, but what I want most for them, aside from health, is for them to discover themselves.  Not who I tell them they are, or what their friends and society reinforce, I want them to take the journey with themselves and not be afraid of what they may find.

My daughter is leaving for college in August and I will make a shift from caretaker, controller, decision maker to advisor, supporter, shoulder.  I have to.

It’s her life and she deserves the thrill of finding herself.

For crazy neurotic, slightly obsessive compulsives such as myself, this shift is not easy.  It takes time and I’ve been working on it for months.  I’m getting the hang of it and I’m realizing it’s fun to watch her make her own choices.  As Katlyn approaches 19, it is very clear that she is becoming her own person.

Tonight was Katlyn’s senior prom.  She decided to have her hair done, extensions and all.  Her make-up was professionally applied and she wanted a dress that was, in her words…”exciting.”  ”I want something fun and different.”

Well, now we really have a problem, because my idea of fun and different is wearing a necklace.  This was the perfect opportunity to find out what fun and different meant for Katlyn.

The first dress she picked out was gold, yes that’s right gold.  I can honestly say I’ve never worn gold in my entire life.  I don’t even have a gold watch, but she wanted gold so I went to the website.  They were out of the dress completely.  Apparently gold is a very popular color this year.  Really?

Moving on past several other gold and silver dresses that were out of stock, I found one that was a nude kind of color and covered in sequins and beads.  It looked like it weighed a ton, but I figured nothing said exciting like sequins and beads.  I also found a lovely navy blue, kind of classic…focus, I really had to focus.

I sent her a picture of the bead extravaganza and she fell in love with it.  I took a deep breath, held back the urge to argue the many fine qualities of the navy dress and ordered the bedazzler.

To make a long prom story, filled with which shoes and which bag and how much eye makeup was too much, short, Katlyn was beaming.

She looked fantastic last year, I had much more influence last year, but this year she glowed.  She looked exactly the way she wanted to look, her choices, all of them, and when she left our house I had a hard time breathing.  She was someone I’d never seen before, not a shadow of her parents or in a dress that was “sort of what she wanted”.  It was all her and it was all a bit overwhelming.

Seeing yourself in your children can be exciting and gratifying.  She has my temper, or she has her fathers butt, but seeing someone completely unique, separate, and all her own is really thrilling in a crazy roller coaster sort of way.

As beaded, red carpet, sort of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday, glamorous as she looked when she left, once she got to the prom, the shoes came off, the hair fell out and she danced all night.  I think she gets that from me.

My thoughts from the laundry room.  No Curfew.

USA Jersey

April 23, 2012 — 2 Comments

I’m new to sports.

Never had much of an interest in watching or participating. I mean I played tennis, but that was really only because it looked good on a college application.

I grew up believing that the arts were underfunded and sports was rampant with overpaid, glorified neanderthals.

One of the wonderful things about life is you are given experiences and exposure to people that help you learn and grow at every age.

My children are all athletic. It was a given they’d participate in a sport. Michael grew up participating in sports and races sailboats competitively as an adult. He’s always emphasized that our children would have a sport. A “life” sport as he puts it.

So, my children compete with each other and individually. A basketball game at my house is often a knock down drag out.

I used to look at them like they were aliens, but then a large part of our dinner conversation became dominated by crew regattas, swim meets and basketball. Everyone has their favorite teams. I really had no choice, so I listened.

Then my friend began asking me if I was watching this game, or that game. As if someone like me would ever watch a sports game…I mean really? But he kept going. “You should be watching this…incredible.” So, I started watching.

I watched the Super Bowl, really watched it, for the first time last year. I’ve watched the Bruins and the Celtics. My children have some sports pass thing, so every now and then I’ll watch bits and pieces.

I’m not a sports fan, I don’t own a jersey. I went to a Norte Dame game once as a teenager, but I’ve never been to a live sporting event as an adult.

I’ve started looking into this sports thing, I’ve asked questions and watched some documentaries. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…

Sports are universal.

Everyone feels them and they bring a people, a country together. They are rooted in hard work, pushing ourselves and overcoming obstacles.

We can’t all be Michael Jordan or the USA Hockey Team, but they are just like us. We see that in them.

We look at their struggle to win a game and we see our own struggle to get a job, find the strength. It’s deeper and more profound than I ever could have imagined.

My children and Andrew, for that matter, are rolling their eyes at my ability to make everything emotional, but it is.

The video above gave me goosebumps, I teared up at the looks on those men’s faces, and I couldn’t describe a single play that was made.

Oh, and the arts are still underfunded.

My thoughts from the laundry room. Suit Up.

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