Life in Pink

New Year’s Eve Makes Me Melanchology

La Vie en Rose (or Life in Pink)

Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose

When you kiss me heaven sighs
And tho I close my eyes
I see la vie en rose

When you press me to your heart
I’m in a world apart
A world where roses bloom

And when you speak . . . angels sing from above
Everyday words seem . . . to turn into love songs

Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
La vie en rose

Words/Translation by Louis Armstrong

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It is worth noting that the translation of the original lyrics by Edith Piaf from 1946 are much longer than Armstrong’s and the lyrics adapted for usage in other movies and plays, such as Sabrina, Prêt-à-Porter, Modigliani, Lord of War, and WALL=E.

 

La Vie En Rose

Those eyes that makes kisses with mine
A laugh that loses itself on his mouth
Here is the untouched up picture
Of the man who belongs to me

When he takes me in his arms,
He talks to me very softly
I see La Vie en Rose

He says to me words of love
These words everyday
And this does something to me

He entered in my heart
A part of happiness
Of which I know the cause

It’s him for me. Me for him
In this life
He told me that, he swore it for life

And ever since I noticed that
I felt
My heart beating

Nights of love to no longer finishing
A great happiness takes its place
Sorrowful problems, phases,
Happy, happy until death

When he takes me in his arms,
He talks to me very softly
I see La Vie en Rose

He says to me words of love
These words everyday
And this does something to me

He entered in my heart
A part of happiness
Of which I know the cause

It’s you for me, me for you

In this life
He said that to me, swore it for life

And ever since I noticed that
I felt
My heart beating

Lyrics by Edith Piaf, 1946

New Year’s Eve Wishes

Whatever you do to ring in the New Year, please do it safely and wisely. Remember, if you get behind the wheel impaired, you are not only taking risks with your life, but also with the lives of your passengers, and with countless of strangers. The life you take may not be yours, but the life you ruin may be your own. Nothing is worth that. Most bars will call cabs for you, and most taxi services around the country will take impaired drivers home for free on New Year’s eve.

No one wans to be on the road with a drunk or drugged driver. Stay home, or if you do go out, leave your car keys at home and plan to take a taxi home. Or have a designated driver who drinks only water and soda all night. Or stay at a hotel where you are going to the party. Or take the trolley. You have plenty of options, and no reason to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle drunk or impaired.

Please, stay safe so that you can come back in 2009. May your angel be with you tonight. Peace.

From the Vault: Red Tapestry Wallpaper

Headache Today, So I’m Pulling One From The Vault:

 La Belle Dame Sans Merci

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Sir Frank Dicksee, 1903)

    

My Apologies for 2008

These are the people and events that I would like to apologize to and for in the past year:

The General Apologies:

To Virginia Natural Gas, for getting so behind in our payments that you felt the need to reclaim your meter. I’m sure that it is doing you more good than it was doing us. After all, we only need it for heat, hot water, and cooking. You must have needed it for something for more useful, say storage. Glad we could help. And just as soon as the economy takes a turn for the better, we’ll be getting back to you on the huge past due balance and deposit that you mentioned.

To Homecomings Mortgage for being so understanding when I’ve called to try to work out some kind of payment plan. I guess you didn’t get any kind of notification on the TARP money and how they are trying to use that to help financially-troubled mortgages. We’ll wait until you get the memo and get back to you on that.

Speaking of TARP money, my sincerest apologies to the Wall Street Bankers and Financiers who may have to do without bigger bonuses this year, or at least have pretended to do without pay cuts and bonuses until Congress finally figured out that there is actually a loophole. I just wouldn’t want anyone’s house in the Hamptons to go into foreclosure or anything. Warmest regards to all. Ta Ta.

To all of the bill collectors, it’s not that we don’t want to pay our bills, really. It’s that we can’t pay them. When a family of four is living on my disability income, and the primary breadwinner, my husband, has been out of work since January of 2008, it makes it very tricky to stretch those dollars to cover the mortgage, my health insurance, food, and just about anything else. I apologize. I sincerely do. We will be getting back to you on that as soon as we can figure out alchemy.

To my eternally snoopy next door neighbor on the left: No, we haven’t finished the soffet and fascia in the back because we have to pay someone to finish that particular job. We have, however, put up a new roof, finished the privacy fencing on almost the whole perimeter, leaving your back gate on our property (which, if it had been up to me, would not be there, but my husband is kinder), cut back most of the trees, gotten rid of the old truck, gotten rid of the old landscaping trailer. The only thing, unfortunately, I cannot accommodate you with is our own disappearance. So sorry. Maybe next year when we might be able to finish our renovations and move to a place where the neighbors actually talk to you.

To my former employer’s Human Resources department, I apologize for calling you with pesky questions about my personnel benefits as a long-term disability employee. If I could actually get answers that made sense without having to call and leave messages, believe me, I would. Trying to get someone in your department to be helpful is akin to asking for someone to drill my teeth without benefit of local anaesthesia.

To the Republican Party, nah, not really, but thanks so much for Sarah Palin. She gave me enough material for two months.

The Sincere Personal Apologies:

To my mail carrier, I apologize for never being quite as happy to see him as he is to see me. I wave and say hello even though I know that he is bringing more bad news, but I still hope that he has a good day.

To all of the people who put up with me at the pain management center, I apologize for being late, showing up on the wrong day, at the wrong time, or forgetting about appointments altogether. You are very kind for working me in because you realize that my pain has made me batty.

To my family as a whole, thank you for accepting the fact that I’m batty. Pain does weird things to people. Constant pain makes you want to be more sarcastic than usual.

To Corey, I’m sorry if I don’t always say thank you for all of the things that you do. If it seems that I take you for granted, believe me when I say that nothing you do is ever taken for granted. I’m also sorry that’s it has been such a rough year, but I know that 2009 will be better because honey, it can’t be worse.

To Alexis, I’m sorry that you have had to pick up some slack for me, which isn’t really fair since you have your own place now. But I appreciate it.

Eamonn, I’m sorry for being overbearing, but not really. I know that you don’t believe it, but you really will look back on this someday, and wonder why I didn’t come down on you harder.

For My Dear Hearts

Brett, I’m sorry for the gene pool lottery. It sucks. I know.

James, I’m sorry you just had to endure weeks of hell and that I wasn’t closer by to help you through it.

Mari, I’m sorry that we have drifted apart, and that I’ve let it happen on my end as well.

Sarah, I’m sorry for the years, and it won’t be a pine box. I promise.

Rebecca, we both should be sorry: we don’t live that far apart. Let’s make more of an effort.

And Finally, Apologies For The Rest:

To the rest of the world, let me be the first to apologize for eight years of George W. Bush.

Vog: sand from plastics

And let me apologize to all living creatures in the Pacific Ocean for my ignorance about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which has now exceeded the size of Texas, a humongous, man-made floating garbage dump that many are now calling the eighth continent.

It makes me utterly ashamed to be part of this society’s vapid, disposable mentality, which has caused sand to now be formed of non-biodegradable plastics like plastic utensils, toothbrushes, and disposable razors. There is a beach on the big island of Hawaii, Kamilo Beach, also known as ‘Plastic Beach’ where this sand, known as Vog, is almost a foot deep. It makes me want to weep for Hertha, Earth Mother.

To the person on eBay who bought the turkey that was slaughtered behind Sarah Palin while she was being interviewed, let me apologize for your obvious lack of sensitivity and just add eww.

To the world, I’m sorry to have to be part of the world’s least green country (according to National Geographic’s May 31 Greendex study), but it does not surprise me. And for the record, India and Brazil tied for first as the world’s greenest countries. Go here for the complete study: http://event.nationalgeographic.com/greendex/assets/GS_NGS_Full_Report_May08.pdf

And finally, to Tina Fey: I’m so sorry that you no longer have that dimwit to impersonate, but honestly, isn’t it a relief not to have to dumb yourself down?

Now that I got all of that off my chest, I know that I feel much better . . . somewhat. More later. Peace.

My Calendar Fetish

Isn’t Daniel Craig dreamy? There were no calendars like that available, and besides, I don’t buy man candy calendars. That would be sexist . . .

Just Like Books, You Can Never Have Too Many Calendars

So today, we did one of my favorite after-Christmas things: We went to Barnes & Noble to scope out the 50 percent off calendars. Now some years, I buy calendars for everyone before Christmas and wrap them as presents, but lately, I’ve found that buying them after Christmas is not only more cost effective, but it also allows the kids to pick out the calendars that they want as opposed to my buying what I think they might want—big difference.

I mean, when they were smaller, it was pretty easy: Thomas the Tank Engine, or then later, Sponge Bob, or something like that. But now, they have branched out. This year, Brett picked out a calendar with black and white pictures of trees. This after first picking up a star chart, then a night sky calendar.

Eamonn shopped by phone. His first choice was a Red Sox calendar, but sports calendars sell fast; then he wanted a Venice calendar (?), no Venice, but could I interest you in a landscapes of Italy? No. Then I remembered that he liked motivational quotes. I mentioned that. He wanted to know if it was too girlie, so I had to describe the pictures. That one seemed to meet his approval.

Moving on to Alexis. She has pretty eclectic tastes. One year it was Jimmy Hendrix, the next Bob Marley. Far Side always works. This year, I knew that I could win with a Family Guy, so I grabbed what appeared to be the only one in the store. I could not find, however, a daily planner, lots and lots of weekly ones, but no daily ones. That search was quickly sapping the little energy I had left (we had made two stops before Barnes & Noble). Not to mention, my daughter is very persnickety about her planners; i.e., they must be a certain size with the pages laid out in a certain way. No way I was going to chance that one.

Then it was my turn. I used to buy four calendars: one for work, one for the kitchen, one for the bedroom, and one for my purse. Now I don’t have to buy one for work, even though I dreamed this morning that I had to go back to work on Monday for a former female boss whom I absolutely loathed, and I hadn’t done any of the projects that I was supposed to do while I was out of work. Don’t you hate those kinds of dreams?

We won’t discuss the number of calendars that I actually ordered at work or you might think that my OCD was/is truly out of control. And it was three, by the way, not counting the one that I brought from home, or the one that I had in my purse. And yes, I used all of them . . . moving right along . . .

So I found my first calendar right away, the kitchen calendar: it was an orchid calendar, beautiful miniature orchids in very simple vases with lots of open light. The bedroom calendar was giving me fits. That’s the one that I write all of my doctor’s appointments on and keep on the wall next to the computer, so it needs to have fairly big boxes, and be of good quality paper. I also need to like it a lot. I looked at the motivational one that I had picked out for Eamonn, which is why I knew about it in the first place.

I looked at other flower calendars, a Celtic calendar, a wildlife calendar, a fairy calendar (I like fairies if they don’t look too overdone), and a Dalai Lama calendar. I knew that I wasn’t in the mood for a country (as in Italy or France or whatever, which I’ve had before) or an animal (which I’ve also done before). What I really wanted was black and white, and the only one that I had seen was the tree one that Brett grabbed. And then there it was, on the bottom shelf of course where it is hard for me to bend down to see, a black and white Zen calendar. I grabbed it and put it in the basket.

Then I picked up a small weekly planner for my purse to duplicate all of the doctor’s appointments, etc. But I still manage to confuse times and days somehow, even though I check the calendar on the wall and the calendar in my purse. Don’t ask me how I do that because I’m still trying to figure it out. And don’t suggest that I use the calendar on the computer, because I’ve done that, too, with the reminder system and everything. I still show up at the doctor’s office on the wrong day or at the wrong time because I really don’t remember what day it is.

I didn’t have this problem so much when I worked because my body clock was set the same as normal people’s, but when you find yourself finally closing your eyes at 5:35 in the morning, it’s hard to be in sync with the rest of the world, and unlike one of my regular correspondents who can get by on four (4!) hours of sleep a night, I now need at least 9.

What’s really hard to believe is that I used to get by on five hours of sleep without any problem, and I would wake up early on purpose to get in at least 30 minutes of work out time, including 150 crunches every week day morning. This was when I was a single mom and had to fit in the work of two parents into one parent’s body.

You adapt. Then, I was buff and strong. Now, I’m a slug.

So back to Barnes & Noble . . . Brett and Corey are off looking for reading material because Brett has decided to try to spend less time playing video games and more time reading, and I am trying to find just one book (which is very restrained of me): the sequel of Into the Woods by Tana French. I don’t know the name of the sequel, but I know that it is out because of  Publisher’s Weekly, a really wonderful online publication that I receive that keeps me up-to-date on new releases and things that are happening in the publishing world.

So Corey finds out from the help desk that the sequel is indeed out, that there is supposed to be one in the store, and an associate walks him over to where the book is supposed to be located, but of course, it is not there. Of course it isn’t because I could spend all day in bed tomorrow reading it. It would be wonderful. I can just imagine it. Ah me. Reading nirvana.

By the way, if you like mysteries, read Into the Woods. It’s a first novel by French, and it is masterfully written. I finished it, and I started having a tantrum to which Corey asked, “What’s wrong now?”

“It’s just not fair,” I whined in my most petulant only child voice. “This is her first book, and it’s wonderful. And, it’s a cliffhanger. I hate her and I want to be her.” Yes, Lola logic at work once again.

So we left the store with just one little problem: I set off the security alarm, which I had done when I walked in. I had asked the people at the checkout to scan my purse and explained to them that I had set off the alarm when I came in, and when I entered and left Kohl’s and had no idea why. They obligingly scanned my purse, said there was nothing there, asked if my coat was new, to which I replied, “nope.” We walked out the door perplexed until I realized that I was wearing new jeans that Corey had bought me for Christmas from Old Navy. Maybe there was a magnetic strip somewhere inside one of the seams?

Why me? When I get home, I take off the jeans, and lo and behold, there is one of those bulky tags that says, “remove before washing.” It’s one of the new security tags. No wonder I’m setting off alarms. I’m just glad that I look too much like a goofball to be thrown to the ground and manhandled by some security guard because my back couldn’t take it.

Speaking of Kohl’s, Brett’s jeans were exchanged, and so ends the great Levi’s 569 saga of 2008. Let peace reign again. I left a message on his father’s voice mail and told him that we were near a Kohl’s (true) and that we exchanged the jeans without any problems (also true), so everything was taken care of (also true). Now if he can accept that, everything can be fine. (We’ll see).

Also ends the great calendar quest as well as the jeans saga of 2008 as we approach the end of the year, and I have to say that I am awaiting 2009 fervently hoping that I can find a curse breaker to end this long-running streak of bad juju that has befallen our family. If you know of any good curse breakers who aren’t complete frauds and charlatans, ask them to send some good juju my way.

More later. Peace and goodwill to you all.

Who Nurtures the Nurturers?

What is it about Christmas that Makes Women Go a Little Crazy?

Don’t You Dare Say Anything About Hormones . . .

Every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I go into this mode that drives everyone around me more than a little nuts. It’s my holiday mode, and I have decided that I don’t like it any more than the rest of my family, but I truly cannot help myself. So let me explain . . .

It all began when I was actually quite young. I remember when I was a teenager that I started to put up the tree for my mom. She was all for handing over the responsibilities of tree duty. That was how most things were in our house since I was an only child. Little by little as I grew up, I took on more and more responsibility for things. Because our home was so dysfunctional in a lot of ways, I found myself trying to be the nurturer out of the three of us as my mom and dad grew further and further apart.

So I started to develop habits about Christmas that I came to depend on to get me through the holidays, and with my OCD, it had to be done this way every year. I sent out cards, wrapped the packages with ribbons and bows, never just a stick on bow, decorated the house throughout with candles, a nativity set and creche, my set of Santas, my various snowmen, my Santa boot with candy canes that no one ever eats, even a special angel candle holder in the bathroom.

Then there are the lights. I put lights in the windows, just single candles with clear lights, and then icicle lights on the roof and some lights on the bushes, not too many. I used to have a couple of white wire trees and a couple of reindeer, but I think that they have somehow disappeared in the great cleaning out of things in the attic. At one point in time, I used to climb the two trees in the front yard and wrap the limbs with clear lights, but the trees got too tall, and I couldn’t climb them any more. I’ll admit that I really enjoyed doing that, but I didn’t enjoy taking them down, so my daughter used to climb up in the trees and complain the entire time that she was taking them down that she didn’t understand how I could get the lights up so high in the branches. I used to tell her that I had monkey toes and I could climb really high if I wanted to.

And then every year except for this one, I make a homemade wreath. I buy a fresh wreath, and then I add cones and bells and ribbon and a bow. I like to leave the wreath up pn the front door as long as possible so that we still have the smell of a fresh tree since we don’t have a real tree in the house because of allergies.

And of course, there are the homemade stockings. It started with the stocking that my mom made for me, and then she made one for Alexis when she was born. I made one for each of the boys when they were born. I asked my mother to make one for Caitlin even though she didn’t make it to Christmas. It’s never been filled, but I like to hang it each year in remembrance of her. I made one for Corey when he joined the family, and the dogs have their special stockings, too. But the fun part is finding new things to put in the stockings every year: special chocolates, gummi bears, miniature games, picture frames, maybe special jewelry. I stay on the lookout during the year for things for the stockings.

Doing all of these things brings me a lot of pleasure, but at the same time, I get very stressed out because I still am very much of a perfectionist  about getting all of it done, and Corey just doesn’t get excited about Christmas in the same way that I do. Not that he has to because everyone has different histories with Christmases, and granted, my need to do all of these things didn’t necessarily grow from the healthiest of sources. But I can’t help but get testy with him because he doesn’t get filled with the same childlike, over-the-top, isn’t all of this wonderful spirit that I do, instead of the, ‘do we really have to do this again this year’ kind of exasperation . . .

I don’t really do any kind of baking any more. When I taught at Old Dominion University, I used to bake homemade cookies for my students before the end of the fall semester when everyone went home for Christmas Break. I would bring in huge batches of cookies for them to eat during exams. I would also make some for home as well. Those were fun times.

But just about every woman I speak to around the holidays asks the same questions: Are you ready yet? And the answer is always the same: No. I’m running behind. How many men do you think actually ask each other that question? I mean, Corey likes to shop. He likes to shop for clothes for him, and he likes to shop for clothes for me, but he gets tired of shopping in general, and when I start to ask Christmas shopping questions such as, do you think so-and-so will like . . . he starts to wander into men’s jeans. If I start to look at Christmas decorations for the house, I get looks like, ‘are you seriously going to add one more Christmas figurine to our over-crowded house?’

So even though I want to do this, it becomes the bane of my existence for about six weeks, and I work myself into a stress-induced kind of mania. So who cares for the emotional nurturers when they are walking bundles of stress? When they are ready to snap at the least little thing? When they will consider taking their 17-year-olds to Wal Mart and ask for a return or exchange because Wal Mart agrees to take anything back even without a receipt?

Well, I’m pretty lucky. In my case, it’s my Grinch of a husband. Even though he’s not big on the whole idea of Christmas, he’ll still take me shopping, and bring me home and pull off my boots for me, and make me a cup of tea on top of everything else. And he’ll do that even when it’s not holiday season, so men may not want to talk about Christmas, but they can be nurturers.

Unfortunately, too often, and I know this firsthand, we have to be our own nurturers. We have to work eight to ten hour days, come home, fix dinner, go shopping for presents, send out the cards, decorate the house, play Santa, and nurture our kids’ hurts by ourselves. And sometimes this leaves us short. The cup doesn’t have enough on some days, and we find ourselves short: short on patience, short on time, short on all of the necessities we need to be good moms and still take care of ourselves in the process.

On those days, we might fall into bed with our make-up on and our feet hurting and wonder why life can be so unfair, wonder why we can’t get a fair shake, why we can’t find the time to paint our toe nails (oh, I painted my toe nails every time I went into labor before I went to the hospital. Oh yes. Believe me). I remember nights when I would curl up in bed with a dog and think with regret what a bad mother I had been that day because I didn’t take the time to play with one of my kids when he asked, or I skipped the bedtime story because I was too tired.

We can be so hard on ourselves. Years pass, and we still remember these things. Christmases come and go, and we still try for that perfect holiday. Is it because of what we see in magazines? For me, probably not. I stopped trying to live up to Victoria and House and Garden years ago. I did finally realize that my living room was never going to look like those pages, and my children’s rooms were never going to have toys neatly stacked in quaint little nooks.

Being a mother can be one of the the most difficult jobs in the world. We need to stress less, truly learn from our mistakes, and like most everyone else in our lives, be more forgiving of ourselves.

More later. Peace.