Habits of a lifetime.

Anyone with any self awareness knows they are flawed. We work on improvement, deflect said self awareness with humor, forgive yourself, but don't ignore.

I am a talker. Have been since birth, if you asked my father, though my mother insists it was after 18 months that I stopped being shy with strangers.. Hoo boy has that ship sailed!   I chat up people in the grocery  store, in line at Disneyland, and (God help them ) people next to me in planes.  Many find me charming, some no doubt wish I would just hush the heck up. I try to discern early on of which camp they are and restrain myself,  

As I grow older I try not to be that one who goes on and on.  Unfortunately I do not always succeed, espcially when in the company of loved ones.  My kids occasionally remind me that I have indeed told the story before, or asked that question before.  My family makes jokes about no one getting a word in edgewise, laugh about stories I tell on myself about talking to someone somewhere.  I like to think that I have matured and mellowed, but...

Even at 60, no one wants to be thought of as trying or needing to be borne with out of love.  We all do it for others we love, but would not say so to the person we are bearing with, because we love them.  I guess we realize that others do it for us, but really don't want to know it.

Some self awareness is less desirable than other.  I wonder if it is even possible to change enough for the narrative to be different.  Even if I could curb a habit of 60 ( well  58 1/2 to be precise) years, my lifelong reputation precedes me..  If I were suddenly less talkative it would either be noticed and cause wonder at my anger or my illness...or (unless I went completely mute) not be noted due to the expectation that I would be speaking soon anyway.  Or something like that.  

In any case, I am not opposed to working on my flaws, but I do wonder if I have the capacity to stay focussed enough to retrain myself sufficiently to change perception. Especially of the people who love me, and have learned to bear with me.   Which I wish I didn't know. 

Arrogance or ignorance?

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate has become a national debate, due to the recent outbreak of measles that began at D land.  Some parents have not shaken the fear brought on by the now discredited study that linked vaccines to autism, and the anecdotal "evidence " by those whose children have had reactions or what they believe to be damage due to the vaccines they received.  I don't think any logic is going to dissuade those parents. (I know that some children are truly allergic to the vaccines or immune compromised and cannot be vaccinated, and they depend on the rest of us to keep them safe.)

 However, the argument against vaccines that infuriates me to the point of wanting to reach into the newspaper or Internet and shake the perpetrators,  is the one that makes the claim that vaccines are no longer needed, because the diseases involved have been irradicated ....and that the diseases only persist in"third world countries."  What exactly do they think brought us to this point?  Magic? God's will?  Clean living?  How about vaccines and modern medicine?  One mother, even when brought to the facts said that she felt her children were strong enough to survive the illnesses because they were well fed and got plenty of sleep. She preferred to raise them in a more "natural and organic" way. I imagine that there was not a more natural and organic way of life that our early days of family farms.  Yet the infant and toddler mortality rate was far higher than now.  Children died of diphtheria, tetnus, pneumonia, measles, smallpox....all now preventable.

The parents who think that their children are safe enough in our "first world" country are  eroding the very herd immunity that they rely on, and bringing doom to the weaker population like the infants or elderly who cannot survive the disease that their "healthy"child may pass to them as they survive it.

Worse than this misguided way of thinking is the idea that those that can survive the diease will survive due to their strength, health, and good genes, and those who don't fulfill Darwnian theory.  I actually read one man's opinion that you are either immune or you are not.  You die or you don't.  Good God.  The "the hell with the rest of you " theory of living in society.  Like that man, I have several people in my ancestry that lived long lives in times when many died in infancy.  That never caused me to think I was singled out by nature for special consideration.  I cannot believe that if his child stepped in a rusty nail or was bitten by a rabid dog that he would tell them that if they were strong enough that they would survive it.

Willful ignorance or such arrogance is all well and good if you chose only for yourself or (Lord help them) your children.  But choose  to endanger the weaker because you are sure your kids are stronger than any formerly eradicated disease, and it becomes our business.  Unless you intend to home school your children or never take them to a theme park, you are a threat and an invitation to these former scourges of childhood to return with a vengeance.

2015, already? And missing my girls.

First of all, what the hell happened to 2014?  Thanksgiving and Christmas AND New Years has come and gone.  Sheesh!  

I watched a TV show tonight in which the lead character had been at odds with her post college age daughter, and they reconciled in a scene that ended in a hug. The way the Mom hugged her daughter, strongly and at length made me miss my girls and their hugs.  It has been too long.  We talk, and that helps, but just now I miss their physical proximity.  Thank goodness I will see them both in a bit over two months.  A meeting of our three minds to further plans for my eldest's September wedding. I am really looking forward to hugging them at length. I miss my baby girls,

As time goes by

It is nearly October now, so summer is gone, as is our 20th yearly( and possibly last) summer visit to the Del.

Another sign of time passing is the retirement of long time local new anchor Kent Shocknek.  I have been watching him since the 80's when he anchored the early morning news on NBC.  I watched him every morning before work and getting the girls to school. I was watching when he was covering the Challenger launch . I will never forget sharing his so human yet under control reaction when it exploded and the realization sunk in that all were lost .  Likewise his ducking under his desk during an earthquake  and earning a joking nickname after-Shocknek.  Human and relatable.

He always seemed so genuine.  His goodbye tonight (from CBS/KCAL where he has been for the last several years) was humble and heartfelt.   One thing that really got to me was that he is a year and half younger than me!  Oh to be able to retire so young!  Godspeed to him. With him go my best wishes and not a little envy.

July the 4th and where the hell did the year go?

I am telling you, folks, that a sure sign that you are getting well along in years is that the years fly by. It is the 4th of July in less than half an hour, and I swear it was just April five minutes ago.  It is only 6 weeks to my vacation at my beloved Del, and it will be Christmas a  nanosecond later.

Work is very busy, and often fast paced, and complicated, but doable and I seem to be doing ok at it as well.  If being needed and depended on is job security, the secure I am.  The days do not drag, that is for sure.
My tomatoes are in, I just pulled that last avocado  from this year's crop of of the tree, and Wimbledon is nearly to finals weekend. .It is summer full on, and it snuck up on me.

It is another sign of age that you repeat yourself .  Look at my blog of 7/6/11 entitled "Summer already?  "

Ask, and ye shall receive

Just when I  start thinking that my  believing that everything will work out somehow, some day has been stretched to its farthest reach......something happens to bolster my faith.  I have been stressed about work, about being thought inadequate, about expenses coming up, and finding a way to deal with it all without imploding.   For my prayer request, I put down "peace of mind".

Work was a zoo today, but I got what I needed of get done , done.  I worked how to handle at least one of the expenses I was concerned about.  Then, at the end of a very long day, I got an email about an old stock plan from work. It is paying out this week, and it  more than I had hoped. And it will cover the bulk of what I was worried about.  Knock knock, who 's there? . Answer to your prayer, ma'am.

I am going to try to give up worry for Lent.

Happy 2014

Happy New Year.  First let me state that this year will likely be better than the last, in that my job (although altered) is secure for the immediate future.  No more sense of impending doom, and all that. 

However, let me also go on the record as saying that some experiences should be recorded under be careful what you wish for.  And also under never say never. It can come back to bite you in the butt. It isn't fatal, but also not a lot of fun. And being middle-aged doesn't keep you safe from the experience.  Sigh. 

Sometimes real life sucks.  

I guess that happily ever after is the fairy tale that it usually concludes.  There is happily, and there is ever after.  However, ever after will do, as long as it is happily more often than not.