Monthly Archives: December 2012

Gratitude

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(Originally posted January 29, 2010 — events mentioned in this post happened 3 years ago)

I’m one of those people who stops what I’m doing at least once a day with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for one thing or another.  Sometimes I recognize it silently in my head, other times I actually say “Thank You” out loud to no one in particular.  Yes, I am that lady in the passing car that looks like she’s talking to herself.

Last weekend, I had a bit of luck at the casino, so I thanked my friendly slot machine and walked away knowing that lightening probably wouldn’t strike twice.  I was grateful for my little windfall.

Most days as I drive around this beautiful little town that I live in, I say thank you out loud because I still can’t believe that I ended up here.  This is a house that’s been in my family for about 50 years.  I’d fantasized as a kid about living here some day, but never actually thought I’d be able to. Even though virtually every inch of this house was renovated and feels brand new, it’ll always be my grandmother’s house to me.  The view from the kitchen sink window is the same one I’ve looked at since I was a kid washing dishes after a holiday meal.  As I sit here at my desk, I’m sitting in my grandmother’s former bedroom. And there isn’t a morning that I don’t wake up and say “Thank You” before my feet ever hit the floor.  Over the years, gratitude has become a daily thing for me.

The other night, my parents were in a taxicab in San Francisco on their way to a fabulous restaurant when some lady on a cell phone  in a huge SUV ran a stop sign and broadsided them.  My parents are OK, but they were REALLY lucky and I am incredibly grateful.  The EMTs hustled them off in an ambulance to San Francisco County Hospital. They were processed through the trauma center with the local gun shot victims and I’m pretty sure that my mother was the only one in the ER wearing a St. John knit suit.  Knowing her, she probably tried to borrow someone’s cell phone as they wheeled her in so she could call the restaurant to cancel their dinner reservation.   My Dad has bumps and bruises and luckily, that’s all.  My Mom had 2 vertebrae that got thrown out of joint. The amazing doctors were able to work a little magic using about 12 millimeters of titanium and somehow she’s going to walk away with zero neurological damage. From what they tell us, this is very rare.  Turns out that my mother has an exceptionally impressive spinal canal and for that I am very, very grateful.   Some people are born with superhuman mathematical abilities. My mother was born with tremendous knitting skills and apparently a world-class spine.  She just never knew it until now.

If you added up my daily gratitude, multiply it by a million and then add Infinity, that’s how grateful I feel this week.

Note:  Just a reminder, these are events that happened 3 years ago for those of you who know me and my family.  I’m re-posting this Post because Gratitude is something about which we all need a little reminder now & then…

Common Sense

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Someone recently asked me if I’d ever want a “do-over” of my teens or 20’s.   I said yes, but only if I could do it knowing what I know today.  There are things in life that now seem pretty obvious. Common sense.   Something I apparently lacked in my formative years. I’m not dumb enough to share with the world any of the rather unflattering (and perhaps illegal) folly of my youth.  But I’d be happy to share a few more harmless examples:
Fried Mozzarella
Deep fried mozzarella is not a suitable lunch entrée.  So when your college dining hall offers you a platter of fried mozzarella patties, do not hold out your plate and say “yes, please”.  It is very possible that the weekly ingestion of this big, fried wad of cheese will contribute to the gaining of the freshman 15.  In my own defense, it is also possible that I was blinded by the health benefits of the lycopene in the marinara sauce.  Not that I knew what lycopene was in college.
Chicken pox
Whatever you do, don’t scratch. Whatever you do, don’t scratch. You’ll get scars!  Scars!  I scratched.  Hence the large crater-like scar in the middle of my forehead.  To make myself feel better, I like to think of it as my Third Eye and that’s why I’m such an Enlightened individual.
Baby Oil
Baby oil is not a suitable way to achieve a golden tan for the prom.  Crispy skin is only acceptable on Peking Duck.
Hair dye
Letting someone apply Eggplant colored henna to your hair may not achieve a natural looking result. This can be confirmed when you step into the sunshine and your mother tells you that your entire head is now dark purple. You know, like an EGGPLANT.
Tattoos
As much as you think you are always going to want that tattoo because it, like, totally represents who you are and it’s, like, so meaningful… it’s not. At some point in the distant future, your child will announce that she wants to open a lemonade stand to raise money to pay for the laser treatment that will make Mommy’s tattoo go away.  The silver lining is that it is now the world’s most effective tool for insuring that the daughter will never get a tattoo.
I could ramble on and on about my former lack of common sense, but I won’t.  As Shakespeare once said, “Brevity is the soul of wit”.  Then again, Dorothy Parker once said “Brevity is the soul of lingerie”, so I’m not sure whom to believe.

No Toys for this Tot

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(Originally posted Dec. 2009)
It’s the holiday shopping season.  Toy catalogs arrive in the mail by the dozens, but I just toss them in the trash.  My 7-year-old daughter doesn’t play with toys anymore.  I don’t know why.  In the past year, she hardly glanced at a board game.  Occasionally I’d see some Barbie dolls strewn around the house but I’m pretty sure they were just feeling unloved and trying to escape.  I’m happy that my daughter has found creative, homemade ways to entertain herself.  I just wish I’d known last year that all I really needed was:
1.  A king-sized bed sheet and chip clips — Or in my daughter’s world, the building materials one needs to construct a decent fort.
2. A big box — The bigger the better. Preferably the kind you can climb into and use as a clubhouse. Which is another name for…. a fort.
3.  A huge dry erase board and markers — It’s mostly used to play school.  We don’t want to GO to school.  We just want to PLAY school.
4. Kitchen utensils and ingredients — This is what we call potions or concoctions. The other week I bought my daughter some seasonal Pumpkin Spice mix and she practically jumped for joy.  We have an entire kitchen cabinet solely dedicated to concoctions.  There may be a few bottles of wine in there too, but those are Mommy’s.
So this holiday season, I’m going to wise up. Under the tree, there will be no Barbie toys that take 2 adults and industrial strength pliers to remove from the box.  There will be no stuffed animals (i.e., dust collectors).  There will be no cute dresses or other clothing.  The days when my daughter will wear what I’ve chosen for her have come and gone.
So, what will be under the tree this year? Maybe something small. After all, it’s the little things that often make us truly happy. I’m talking about iTunes gift cards.  But I’ll put them in a REALLY big box.

Random Acts of Kathy

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Just moved to my new home at WordPress and I think I’m going to like it here!

Much of what I write mirrors a viewpoint summarized in a quote by Dr. Arnold Beisser in which he said, “The tragic or the humorous is a matter of perspective.”   Or to quote Monty Python,   “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life”.  Because you know what?  No matter what it is, it could always be worse. That’s pretty much how I try to live my life and it’s what you’ll find here – Random Acts (and musings) of mine wherein I will aspire to find the bright side of things. Or at least, something worth a good chuckle.

Because I wasn’t able to bring my old blog content over to WordPress, I’m going to repost a few of those old entries.  If you choose to read along, I hope you enjoy them.  If not, no worries.  By getting my random thoughts on the page, hopefully they’ll make more room in my brain for other important matters.  Such as remembering where I put my phone.