sueeeus

Friday show and tell – Blackbird has asked to see decorations.
Alas, there is not an abundance of holiday spirit at Chez Squished this year. We do have a wreath on the front door. One of my coworker’s sons was selling these to raise money for his school’s band. I think they take a trip every year for a competition. Or something like that. He’s very good. (The son. He plays trombone.) The wreath was somewhat on the ho-hum drab side, so I stuck an assortment of colorful things in it to spruce it up.
We also have a cute little Charlie Brown tree just outside the front door, so a few baubles dangle from its limbs.

Just inside the door is a post with a nice vanilla candle. Not nearly as nice as Babelbabe’s, though. Those are downright fabulous. Some crackled glass ornaments hang from this. They are too heavy for the tree. They’re a deep amber color. Gorgeous up close.

Inside, the tree is jam-packed with all sorts of colorful things. I’m partial to the butterflies, and this green sequined star.
This fairly well sums it up though. The sentiments of the season, that is.

http://selfportraittuesday.blogspot.com
December challenge: reflective surface

Reflections from the kitchen.

Living on the edge. Is there anybody out there A face, distorted, on a waste can. A wasteland. There is a ghost in the faucet. A shadow of a person. A shapeshifter. It’s not the real her. Or is it Living on the edge. Resting on a thin sharp line. Hoping not to get hurt.

At Chez Squished we have a very pretty tree. It’s a rather squished tree. Squished full of decorations. It’s squished into a corner. Yes, we have a house with not one, but two living rooms, and two dining rooms. What is up with that Who designs these ridiculous floor plans What use do I have for two small living rooms and two small dining rooms. Areas, actually. They are areas. I can only imagine the living room with the vaulted ceiling is intended to be the formal living room, and the area of that room closest to the kitchen is supposedly the formal dining area. Bah! It’s completely useless to me. We had the changing table set up there for the first half of the year. A diaper changing room. That’s what it was. The real dining room is tiny, just off the kitchen on the opposite side of the formal dining area. Adjacent to that is the real living room. Where we hang out. I’d much rather have one large living room, and one large dining room. We don’t have the sort of lifestyle where we roam from room to room. I digress. With all these rooms, one would think we would have room (ha!) for a tree. Alas, such is not the case. This year the tree is relegated to the corner of the dining room. The real dining room. That we don’t use. Yes, we are pitiful. We eat in the kitchen, seated at the island. Or… Seated on the couch. Yes, it’s true. All is not lost though. I plan to start a family dining tradition, where we sit down to eat as a family, in the dining room, at the dining table, at the same time. It doesn’t work with our current schedule though. There’s no telling when Mr. Squished will return home from work on any given day. Hopefully the dining tradition will fare better than my Christmas gift tradition. Our first year of marriage, I suggested that Mr. Squished and I make each other an ornament for the tree, and do it every year. I thought it would be a nice gift. Something that someone put some thought and effort into. He said he thought that was a nice idea. Christmas arrived. He opened his special gift. A red velvet box with a picture of the happy Squished newlyweds in their I Do kiss emerging from a fluffy nest of tulle. A white satin button (from the gown, of course) attached to the corner of the box, for the ornament hook. Awwwww. Isn’t that sweet I waited for my special gift. I would have loved it, even if it was a screwdriver with a ribbon through the handle, tied in a bow. But. He forgot.

I live near a high school. In the morning it is dark. The color of the sky blends with the color of the pavement. There are five lanes which separate the school from the sidewalk on the other side of the street. The speed limit on this arterial is 40 mph. I don’t recall seeing the 20 mph reduced speed school zone signs that are posted near the elementary schools. If I happen to drive along this street in the morning before school starts, I observe teenagers sauntering into the traffic, crossing the street. It never fails. They just walk out into traffic, without bothering to continue to the corner where there is a crosswalk and a traffic signal. It is so terribly hard to see these people, dressed in blue jeans that blend with the color of the sky and the color of the pavement. They don’t even look. They step out into traffic so nonchalantly. Defying society. Daring society. They are invincible, are teenagers. I used to be one. I remember.

I hope and pray that they survive this phase of clouded judgement and gracefully outgrow the arrogance that accompanies this time of youth.

I’ve never named a car. There will be no embelishments hanging from my rear view mirror either. No bumper stickers. Well, I do have a Baby on Board sign now. But that’s because I have a baby on board. Not that the sign will cause drivers to be any more considerate.

My dad always named his cars Betsy. After the queen. Of course. One brother named his first car Gwendolyn. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be a witchy name for a wicked car. But Gwendolyn it was. Another brother had a car that he named The Antichrist. Because nothing could kill it. It had seen many a collision and mishap. It just kept on going. And going. And going. The only thing that stopped it was that big car smasher thing that they have at the wrecking yard. It was a 60s or 70s Maverick. His roommates’s car was called Creeping Death. Maybe it’s more of a male thing, this naming of cars. Maybe it’s an emotional attachment thing.

My cars have been moderately nicknamed, though. The Truck. The Subie. The Benz. The Car. But that’s as far as it goes.

Topic du jour: Your Car

Cars. Is it true that cars are a reflection of one’s personality Aspects, at least. I imagine. I didn’t even drive my first car. It was an ancient Datsun with a manual transmission and I was a chicken $#!t. I paid $200 for it, and my boyfried drove it. That was in 1986, fresh out of college. He went back to school and I traded the Datsun for a new Ford Ranger. I was the cat’s meow at that point. It was red with an automatic transmission. Then I met up with a hoodlum crook in the guise of a friend who talked me into buying a classic Mercedes. 350SLC. The European version. Silver. Sleek. It was beeeeeeyoootiful, and very flashy, but it was being consumed by rust, and what did a naive girl like me know about things like that People thought I was RICH! I drove it to my 10-year high school reunion. Oooh, how successful I looked. Ha, if only they knew. I lost a LOT of money on that car. Relatively speaking. I drove it for 8 years, then liquidated everything I could in order to come up with downpayment for some property. At which time I acquired my beloved Subaru. I paid $350 for it, and drove it for many years as I struggled to pay for my real estate investment. Priorities. That car was a sight! It was a tiny hatchback, white with big round rust blotches all over it, and it was covered in green algae when I got it. I took a scrub brush to it, literally. I mastered the manual transmission with that car, and learned to drive in ice and snow. That trusty car never let me down. It had over 225,000 miles on it when we parted ways. I let my ex-fiance have it after the breakup, and I treated myself to a ‘me’ car. A safe and conservative sedan. Volvo 850GLT. Charcoal grey. I got it used, and it had all the bells and whistles. It was divine. It served me well. I drove it for 6 years, until, not too long ago, my sister had a friend in need and asked if I’d sell it to him. So I did. I didn’t have new car plans in my short term budget. I was on a vague wait two more years plan. But what the heck!!

This is the new me. I am a mom. A minivan mom. I’d never have imagined that a car could bring such delight, but I am delighted through and through. I have heated seats! Power doors! Lots of them! With a press of a button the rear hatch opens. Another press and it closes. Same with the sliding side doors. Both of them!! Deeeeeeeluxe!!! Oh. I almost forgot. It’s a Toyota Sienna XLE. 2006. Slate grey.
And how pretty is that My instrument cluster is like a jewel. All these pretty blues. It’s just so ooooh. So pretty. I am thrilled.
And the interior I’d have preferred a darker grey, but it only came in light grey. That burly woody stuff is okay. Sort of tacky, but sort of not. Sort of pretty, in a faux plasticy way. I can play MP3 files! I burned a CD with over 150 MP3 songs and loaded it in and away it goes. I can go several hundred miles on one CD without repeating any songs. Woohoo! Woo. Hoo.

Yes. I am really loving this car.

Much as I find the sight of falling snow, especially huge fluffy snowflakes, a beautiful sight to behold, I also find myself filled with dread. My chest constricts, my breathing becomes shallow, and I am filled with anxiety.There are so many steep hills where I live, and maneuvering in freezing conditions is difficult, to say the least. I must be off to collect my boy, before the temperature drops further, making the journey even more treacherous. Driving on ice terrifies me.

I heard a quote the other day. You need to give yourself permission to live life more fully. It struck me as apropos in the aftermath of losing my brother. I’ve been moping about for weeks, wrestling with a multitude of emotions. Sorrow. Disappointment. Despair. Melancholy. Uncertainty. Guilt. Wistfulness. Anxiety. And such. It’s not just him. It’s the holidays. I think I struggle with general melancholy every year, brought on by a warped sense of how things should be. I’ve observed that how things are is often a state brought about by overcompensation for how things should have been. For instance. The whole commercialized gift-giving thing. I’ve watched friends and siblings overcompensate unhappy childhoods by showering their children with excesses. They take it for granted, expect bigger and better every year, and lack satisfaction unless the status quo has been met by name brand or dollar amount. There is no appreciation for the simple things. Things that actually have meaning. Or usefulness. Things that somebody thought about and put effort into making. Material things don’t make your children love you more. And they don’t make up for what was lacking in your own childhood.

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Sometimes I think empathy is a curse. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Feel their pain. But to what end To what good How can I retain clarity of mind to gain wisdom and understanding, rather than get caught up, as I am so apt to do, and sink in, spiraling downward into gloom and despair

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Words are very powerful. Once you put them out there, into the universe, there’s no getting them back. For good or naught, they are launched on the winds of forever. That’s why I just deleted an hour’s worth of text. A pity party of one. What good would it serve, other than to get it off my chest I wrote it out, part of it anyway, and released some of the sadness and tension in so doing. It doesn’t have to be shared. It doesn’t have to go out into the universe where possibly it could bruise someone else.

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There is something that terrifies me. I realize, in many ways, I am very much like my brother. The one who found no recourse but to release himself from the confines of this earth. There are many ways in which I am not like him, though, and this helps assuage the fear. He was frighteningly intelligent. I am not. He was reckless. I am not. He was earnest to the (n)the degree. I am only earnest to the (n-3)rd degree. He drank beyond moderation. I do not. He was fearless. I am not. But in his heart of hearts We are the same. I think. I get him. I think.

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About living life more fully. What does that mean Those words sent me further into the mire until I pondered what is actually meaningful to me. More than anything, my beautiful boy. That after a lifetime of yearning, he IS my heart’s desire. To be sad that my life isn’t full is to tragically overlook how incredibly blessed I am. And what else is fulfilling, in the world of Squished Piggies A good job. A good wage. Food in the pantry. A roof over my head. A shirt on my back. A hot shower whenever I want it. The love of a good man. So I’m not a jet-setting glamour girl. I tried that. It wasn’t any more fulfilling than kicking back on the sectional with my man and my boy, watching TV. (But it would be nice to be in better shape and wear cute things, and it used to be fun to shop for cute things, back in the day.) So I’m not a socialite. The friends I do have are warm and wonderful. Not a bit superficial. It might be nice not to have to work for a living, but I like to work. It would certainly be nice to have more sleep, get more exercise, see more sunshine, breathe more fresh air, and eat more fresh food. I get some, so it’s still good.

Exploration of Identity
Obscure. Hidden. Concealed. Covered. Camouflaged. Protected. Inconspicuous. Undiscovered. Unnoticed. Unobtrusive. Sheltered.

…from The Princess Bride…

Vizzini: …you’re no match for my brains.
Man in black: You’re that smart
Vizzini: Let me put it this way: Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates
Man in black: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.

Even smart people need help sometimes. How can smart people get help, when the would-be helpers are, as Vizzini so bluntly put it, morons How can a master of the mind take the average mind-professional’s advice seriously, when said professional’s skills and abilities are just that –average. What can they (the smart people) be told that they can’t out-think, out-reason, out-diagnose, or out-wit

They may well be their own worst enemy. It’s not always a good thing to be smart. How many smart people have flown over the cuckoo’s nest

Humility. Patience. A willingness to listen. These things help, although they don’t necessarily come easily.

Not everyone is a moron.