Life’s Observations #327

In December, Good Housekeeping sent me an e-newsletter with the eye grabbing headline – “Ten signs you’re becoming your mom. (Sorry but it’s time to face the facts.)”

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

First, I think the title would have been more startling to the reader, more ‘smack you in the face’ if it had been “Ten Signs You Became Your Mother and Didn’t Know It (Sucker)”.

There are several reasons for this and Good Housekeeping does an excellent job of explaining this – with bluntness. Just rip the Band-Aid off the gaping wound. They tell me to simply “blame genetics”.

Perfect!

It’s not enough that my body gimps around like my mother’s, that I see telltale traits of her handwriting in mine or that my gray hair gets just as kinky as hers does, and thereby stands out more.

No.

Now I find myself strolling through Facebook, reading a post and thinking, “Oh, my mother would so do that.” And she would send me that same post in the next few minutes. Or when I shop for clothes for myself in an actual store nowadays (a rare moment indeed), that once I find something that fits and doesn’t make look like a whale, I discover I’m searching for that article in every color under Crayola’s spectrum. Something my mother taught me.

Good Housekeeping said in the article, one sign is you start making sure everyone’s coat is buttoned up, or your daughter’s hair is completely dry before leaving the house, you’re sounding more like mother every day. I have to stop GH right there. I remember my mother calling out to me and my siblings, draped on the sofa with her gin on the rocks calling out with half heartedly, “Take a coat.” Or “Don’t forget a hat.”

In fairness to my mom, those were called out to the last of the Siblings – seven of us in all and the span of eighteen years. As in life, she learned to let some worries go. She realized we weren’t going to die of pneumonia because we went outside with wet hair, stayed out after dark on Halloween trick-or-treating, or walking to school. After successfully seeing seven children live to adulthood, I’d be drinking gin or cocktail beverage of choice from the sofa also, just to marvel at any sanity I may have left.

As it is now, I drink with my grown son and his friends when they are in town, scold them for no coat or hat or gloves. I scroll their Facebook posts, send likes and Tweets all the while my hip reminds me that I walk … just like mother.

So cruel of you, Good Housekeeping!

 

 

Trading in Time

Have you ever wanted to restart a week? Or better yet, erase it altogether? Well, that’s how this week went for me.

If restarting the week means reliving it, then forget it! Sign me up for erasure, please. Yes, I can mark a few bright spots, like starting this blog and marking lots of tasks off my ‘To-Do List’ this week, but what you wouldn’t see is the hundred other items I keep cutting and pasting to the bottom of the list. A true Libra trait. I wonder is Elizabeth is Procrastination in another language?

My husband would certainly say so.

For those of you who don’t know Richard yet, he is sainted. If you don’t believe me, just ask my family; especially my mother and sisters. My brothers will also agree based on the simple principle that he married me.

After thirty-four years (November will be 35), we had miserable weeks together – about different things! That almost never happens! We usually say “there, there” and “this too shall pass” crap and move pass it. But this week was tough because we going through it together and the response we gave each were: “Do you believe that shit?”or “Let’s drink our dinner tonight.” My personal favorite was, “Can you lower the car window so I can accidentally drop my phone out the window?”

How can I get back the forty minutes on the phone with roadside assistance (half of that was spelling out the VIN number in NATO’s phonetic alphabet)? Or the following seventy-five minutes waiting for the tow truck? And for all the assistance they (RA) do, for the frickin’ information they collect, do you think they could GIVE or FORWARD the information to the dealer so I don’t have to do it AGAIN? What’s the use of collecting information if you don’t put it to use?

See, now my brain hurts, and it’s only 11 in the morning. Time to get back to work and have a cup of coffee.  It’s Friday and the weekend is looking better – a couple hours with some writers tomorrow, tackling the bottom of my ‘To-Do’, and Skype with my son on Sunday.

He’s not sainted, by the way.

New Year, New Blog, New Venture

Starting a blog has been on my mind for sometime. If I were being really optimistic, I’d tell you this was a New Year’s resolution that I can cross off my list, but I never formally declared it as one.

In honesty I didn’t go back to the gym (like I should) or give up sugar (like I REALLY should). What I did do was tell myself I was going to finish my manuscript, work harder at querying agents, and finally buy that digital SLR camera and take a photography class at the community college.

The last few weeks of December placed me in a position that I hadn’t anticipated, and I have my own big mouth to thank for it.

I’m an honorary member of the Highland Park/Highwood Rotary Club. I produce their bulletin (some very minor writing) and manage their website. But in the time that I have been doing that and getting to know someone the members, I noticed that a few of the older members passed away in 2016. When people told me of those lives now silenced, I thought what stories these people had, and no one else will know of them.

That contemplation crawled under my skin and festered like a parasite until I knew what had to be done. I had to write the stories of the remaining members.

So begins The Biography Project…