LA O NA MAKUAHINE

Do you wonder where some holidays have come from?

I mean, other than being invented by Hallmark for the purpose of selling more cards.

The American Mother's Day was invented by an Anna Jarvis (this is straight from Wikipedia, which, as Michael Scott puts it, "the greatest source of information, because anyone can write on it").

Ms. Jarvis succeeded in 1914 in making Mother's Day a recognized holiday.

HOWEVER (and this is the fun part), "by the 1920's, (she) had become soured on the commercialization on the holiday.

Anne "and her sister spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday... she became embittered because too many people sent their mother a printed greeting card. As she said, 'A printed card means nothing except you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.'"

Can anyone tell Hallmark this?

Or at least the 4,299,361 people who purchase a Mother's Day card

And people (like me) who FORGET to send Mother Day flowers to their mother-in-law until the day before and so end up spending a ridiculous amount of money so it'll GET there tomorrow.

Mother's Day has never been a huge thing with me - mostly because I was born on Mother's Day, so my birthday is always within that week.

And I like my birthday a WHOLE lot.

I like getting older (really, I do).

I love the fact that I was born on the 13th, since it's considered an unlucky number by so many people.

And I am egotistical enough to LOOOVE the fact that it's just MY day.

Not the (let's estimate here, population for the US for 2008 was put at 304,059,724 - divide that by, let's say 35% - carry the two - wait, is * to divide, or is that to determine pi - okay, let's go with) 10,6420,903 other mothers in the United States.

But in case you haven't already, CALL YOUR MOTHER.

(And although the urban myth is about Father's Day being the day that the most collect phones are made, did you know that Mother's Day is the SECOND?)

SCRUBBED VS. SUPERFICIAL

I have a neat-freak for a daughter.

But just one.

My second daughter has an apartment that makes a male college freshman's dorm room look immaculate by comparison.

We have a continual battle of things like taking out her trash... after TWO WEEKS of accumulation. She insists she can't vacuum her carpet.... because you can't SEE it under months and months of growth of pizza boxes, dirty laundry, papers...

Okay, let's get off that subject, I'm beginning to nauseate myself just by my own description.

But my other daughter is...

Well, let me just say that she is being driven slowly and irrevocably insane having to pick up after a husband, a two-year old and a four-year old... and a 53 year old when I come to visit.

My son-in-law is not a neat freak, but a PRECISION freak. His undergraduate degree is in mathematics, and he is all about measuring and right angles and spacing. He still is a normal male-type of slob - I mean, why pick up clothes that you are just going to put back on again in the morning, and stuff like that - but he also adds baggage (literally) to my oldest daughter's compulsion(s).

And I'm not at all certain where I stand.

Well, actually I do, I'm just not quite certain I wish to make it public.

I am neat about some things... I have to have the kitchen cleaned and the trash emptied before I go to bed. And I have to make my bed... at least before I can crawl back into it.

But a lot of things... ensuring that laundry ends up in the dryer instead of slowly growing mildew left in the washing machine - vacuuming the carpet when the overall color is being determined by the fur shred by my animals instead of the original dyed hue - dusting furniture and ledges instead of relying on our regular winds to blow everything clean when I leave the windows open...

Well, let's say that I do not allow myself to be distracted or encumbered by housework.

Ever.

And I am notorious for doing what I call "overall and sweeping brushstrokes" - which anyone who would like to be polite would call quick and dirty - and if you are honest, fast and of doubtful quality.

Over the past week, I have painted three interior doors some very... definite colors and striking contrasts.

They look marvelous... from a distance of at least fifteen feet.

Maybe just a little bit more.

MY LOVE IS AN ANCHOR

There are some evenings that are just perfect.

A hot day, followed by the rapid cooling of twilight. The sweat's still trickling down you back, but the breeze coming in through the windows suddenly causes chicken skin (that expression is so much better than 'goose bumps') all over your body.

And you're driving, and the local radio station which normally carries music you can just barely tolerate is blasting out the absolute best songs ever.

Songs that you know every single lyric to - songs which have that perfect harmony part (essential to someone like me who can never stay with the melody alone).

Songs from when you were in college - or when you had that incredible job or when you lived in that fabulous place.

Some times they are the ones that make you cry.

The first song you danced to with him.

And sometimes lyrics don't even tug, they simply wrench your heart.

Do these lyrics mean anything to any of you? Because these were the ones I was hearing:

It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon, like a lover


So I'm sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a dyin'.
And my love is an anchor tied to you
Tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship and all her flags are a flyin'
She is all that I have left
And music is her name.


He runs, wishing he could fly
Only to trip at the sound of good-bye
Wordlessly watching
He waits by the window
And wonders
At the empty place inside
Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams
He worries
Did he hear a good-bye?
Or even hello?


You need to find a brand new start
But you're almost afraid to be true to yourself
Oh, but it's all right
Once you get past the pain


I've come far
From the life I've strayed in
I've got scars
From those dives I've played in
Now I'm home
And I'm weary in my bones
Every dreary one night stand



Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me

There's just an empty space
And you coming back to me
Is against all the odds
And that's what I got to take


Get up in the morning, look in the mirror
A moment there's a toothbrush hanging in the stand
My face ain't looking any younger




Oh.


And you need to be eating an ice cream, especially one that is rapidly melting, during all this.

Trust me on this last one.

SUSAN BOYLE

I am so completely off the grid with so many things, it is almost like I live in the deepest, darkest section of the Amazon.

With Internet access somehow.

I have barely discovered YouTube. I am not in the least bit worried about H1N1 although I live literally three miles from Mexico. And I had no idea who Susan Boyle was/is.

Now I do.

I did follow one season of "America's Got Talent" when I was at my oldest daughter's with my son-in-law - shows like that are absolutely no fun to watch unless you are with someone.

And I admit I had hear something about the 'amazing' singer on the British version of "America's Got Talent"... or is the American show a version of "Britain's Got Talent"...

However, I had never watched it.

Tonight, in our local newspaper, there was a column by a Frena Gray-Davidson talking about a woman who had taken care of both her aging parents.

The author puts it so movingly; "So of course (as the youngest) it was right that she should be the one taking care of the parents... She looked after both her (parents) while slowly her own chances at life drained away.

"The rest of the family, meanwhile, had gone on living. She, however, went on living a small limited life... in that subsidized housing in which she's been raised. Well, her and a cat.

"She was lonely and purposeless. No husband and children in her life and now it was too late."

I began to cry.

Now, admittedly, it doesn't take much to make me cry sometimes.

I cry at television commercials. I used to cry the entire drive home from work every evening (before I began taking anti-depressants). I cry in almost every Disney film every made.

But as someone who has taken care of both her parents, one for the last eight years of her life, and my dad for the last three of his...

Thankfully, I was able to have a family. But especially that part about living in low-income housing alone with a cat...

Then I watched the YouTube of Susan Boyle's first appearance.

And that made me cry even more.

Not because of her incredible, beautiful voice. Which is beyond remarkable.

But I cried because the initial dismayed looks of the judges, the not-quite-but-almost disgusted stares from the audience - this middle-aged, stout little woman, dressed very conservatively and perched a little uncomfortably on her high heels.

Before she began to sing.

How can we be so shallow?

Continually?

RUNNING INTERFERENCE

Translation is often necessary when my second daughter has any sort of appointment.

For both parties.

Today she saw a doctor, a specialist in orthopedics.

And I vowed, to her on the drive to the doctor's, and also to the doctor during the initial exam, to remain "a fly on the wall", be only an observer, make no comments, and allow Joy to handle all of the conversation.

I am and have been for YEARS trying to encourage Joy to ask questions and for explanations when she doesn't follow and/or understand what they are asking/requesting/or-blowing-steam-about.

Because, although I try not to mention it very often to Joy, because she then dissolves into tears, I am not going to be around forever, and I am (and have been for years) attempting to help her be more self-sufficient.

However.

...At this particular appointment, when we arrived, the waiting room was more than full.

Overflowing. Teeming. Spilling all over.

And the people waiting were obviously NOT happy.

We waited about 45 minutes - I turned the volume completely off on the waiting-room-TV after the 15th report of how H1N1 (the-flu-formally-known-as-swine- flu) is invading the United States and turning us all into zombies who will blindly follow Obama into Muslim terrorism.... can you tell that the television was turned to FoxNews?

The nurse finally called us into an exam room. It was small, nothing to read but the doctor's certificates on the wall, and we sat there for another half hour.

Then the doctor, obviously still in over-drive rush to get caught up, leapt into the room, flipped through Joy's file at lightening speed, and said, "well, let's do the x-rays again!" and flew right back out again.

It took about a half hour to get the x-rays taken (thankfully it was at least in the same building) - at least we got a sit someplace different.

Then back into another small exam room - but at least this one had the People issue from June 2005 and a Time magazine about Christianity being banned in the U.S.

Joy needed to visit the ladies' room, and just a few minutes after she 'stepped out,' the doctor jumped back in, x-rays in hand, and began to spout off about "it obviously isn't arthritis, so let's do the injections again and she should come back..."

I stopped him.
Which isn't always easy with a professional.

It also helps that I was bigger than him.

(And does that guy to the right remind you of Jim Halpert? He does to me!)

But he did pause, and he did listen as I explained that he needed to slow down about 85% so Joy could understand him.

And that he needed to STOP AND LISTEN.

Amazingly enough, HE DID.

And he spent probably 20 minutes with my daughter, explaining, on her level, what was wrong with her knees, what was not, and together they even came up with another treatment plan.

It was extremely satisfying.

AS WE CHEER/LAUGH/CRY TOGETHER

There are certain actions, particular habits, that humans all seem to be bound by (I'd use the expression 'universal', except that annoys me immensely - we are so humancentric).


We all smile when we are pleased - we all cry, unless trained otherwise (sorry, American males) - we laugh, giggle and even sometimes squeal like a pig.

But why do we all... well, push together?

Let me use an example.

I am not a huge sports fan anymore. There is a quote from a favorite book of mine by Haven Kimmel, which of course at this moment I cannot locate, so I will poorly paraphrase it; all sports involve a passionate desire for the location of a ball.

I do not have this desire.

I like basketball, but my husband flatly refuses to watch any semi-important game with, because I root for whoever has the ball at that particular instant.

I am alway for the offense - which drives any true sports fanatic totally insane... at least for half of the time.

But when there is that one moment - last quarter, final seconds, that one last agonizing throw/shot/put/whatever that hangs in the air for that unbearable extended second...


And everyone, even pathetic non-competitive people like me, holds their breath, and somehow...

connect in some cosmic, universal (there, I said it anyway) way.

Outside of sports - think about the last time you held your breath about something happening to someone else - maybe when they froze up trying to speak in public - a little child tripped and fell - a motor was trying to turn over....

And suddenly you were mentally trying to help them - help them up - push that gas pedal just a little bit more...



I am not making a good argument for this outside of sports, I can see, but I can't just leave it alone, either.

Partially because I'm not certain where it comes from.

Is it actually a spiritual unity, coming from the brotherhood of mankind? Is it karma? Some sort of psychic energy?

Or perhaps something we do bring with us from our pre-mortal existence with God?

Any thoughts? Or perhaps a paper someone much more articulate than me has already published?

Please?

THE FORMER JOLLY GREEN GIANT

This is exactly the way I feel. I am shrinking.

When I was in fourth grade, I was taller than my mother, my teacher, and the principal of my elementary school.

When I was in sixth grade, I was the same height as my brother, who is five years and two days older than me.

In high school, I was the second tallest girl there - Jane Witherspoon was at least six feet, I think.

My first year of college, I grew almost half an inch more - I believe it was because it was my first exposure to clean air. If I hadn't grown up in the smog of Los Angeles, I might be 6'5" right now.

I married someone tall- 6'4" - and that made me feel a little bit shorter.

And then my kids began growing up - and suddenly I was the shortest in the family.

Say WHAT?

Now I am literally one full inch shorter because of my spine compressing. It's not weak or bent or anything - it's just shrunk.


So when Colin and Kate are in fourth grade, they are going to TOWER over me, you just wait and see.