Happy Halloween!

And now for something really scary...

Domesticity, Part 1

I’m beginning to think my muse is an anonymous, bitter old hag, because now that I’m happily married and no longer anonymous, I just don’t seem to be as creative.

Speaking of happily married, this weekend I washed 9 loads of laundry, my pantry is fully stocked, I baked fresh bread, and I actually cooked dinner tonight. Husband is carving a pumpkin and we plan to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters tomorrow night. All this may just cost me my reputation of being the neighborhood crazy lady who lives on the corner. Or maybe not…I’m cooking some of the pumpkin, an experiment in domesticity.

So, for the first time since 1998, I’m living with a man. No commentary, I’m just making an observation.

The wedding and honeymoon were like a dream; I can’t recommend the Homestead highly enough.

Here is one picture, many more to follow...

While I Was Out...

I was blogtagged by K_sra, so here goes...

1. Go into your archives. (Not much here, since I cleaned house...)
2. Find your 23rd post. (Okay, I have at least 23 under my belt.)
3. Post the fifth sentence. (Ah, but the 23rd post consisted of only 1 sentence.)
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. (Consider it done.)
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing. (Hmmmm....)

The 23rd post was simple really, nothing but this:
"Love is strange."

To make it interesting (and out of curiosity), I went back to version 1 of this particular blog (still there, just off-line), and the 5th sentence of the 23rd post was this:
"I’m not easily excitable, more from self-preservation than anything else."

I know some of you have done this before, so if I tag you and you've already done it, you have a bye. Here goes:

CWMurphy dot com
Spitfire
Suzanne
Lillie
Rich

My work is done here. Now it's your turn.

Time

One year ago, I awoke on a rainy morning and walked through the streets of San Francisco.

The following day was beautiful and sunny. It seems like it's been much longer, but it's only been a year.

In one week, I'll be in this part of the country, where I snapped this photo 2 years ago.

And I'll get to soak in the same warm, natural pools that Thomas Jefferson frequented 187 years ago.

And I'll spend my honeymoon here, enjoyed by newlyweds for over 239 years.

Sunbathing

Kissing the Dice

Earlier today, I lunched with a friend, someone I once dated, but only a few times. Obviously, we have remained good friends. As we finished our lunch, he leaned back into his seat and said, “Look how much your life has changed since we met. When I first met you, it was right after your ex-husband’s death. You hated your job, and you were going to quit and move somewhere else. Now look at you – you have this fairy tale romance, you’re getting married, and you have a new job. It’s like you’ve won the lottery.”

I laughed, thinking about it. I’d been so swept up in living it each day; I hadn’t stopped to appreciate the recent good fortune in my life. “Yes, I’ve been very lucky, you’re right.”

We said our goodbyes and I traveled west to visit family, so I inevitably found myself driving east this evening. As I sped down the interstate, the traffic was heavy but moving steadily, and I found myself contemplating the vast number of things that were working correctly at that very moment – engines, wheels, tires, hands, brains, eyes, even the trees beside the road, which might decide to topple forward at any given moment. What great faith we drivers put into other humans and the things they maintain when we venture onto the highway and speed away.

Up ahead of me, someone’s new home straddled the white line, traveling in two parts. This section of the east-bound traffic only has 2 lanes, so the drivers of the to-be-assembled doublewide found it necessary to scoot as far right as possible so others could pass to the left. A bright yellow “Oversized Load” banner draped across the back of each half of the house, as each maintained a speed of approximately 75 miles an hour.

Two Honda Civics separated me from the house on wheels. The phrase “cushion of space” popped into my mind – one of those phrases I learned in Sears Driving School over half my life ago. Suddenly I questioned exactly how much faith I wanted to place in the drivers in front of me, as the second half of the house swerved further onto the shoulder to make way for a passing dump truck on the left. I slowed down a little, just as the back of someone’s new home was caught by a pine limb. A thin sheet of something flew off the truck and floated behind it, causing the Civics to brake and swerve to avoid it. In their wake, the flying piece of house was pushed back into the air, and I had only a second to try to determine which direction it might fall. I was able to quickly change lanes and chose the right path, as the big white piece of the house fell to my right. I’m not even sure the driver of the second half of the home knew what had just happened.

A few miles later and closer to home, I exited the interstate and approached a traffic light as it turned red and rolled to a stop. Out of the corner of my eye to the right, I noticed a familiar car getting ready to turn into the oncoming traffic, so I took a closer look. It was him, someone else I’d dated before, for several years. As his light turned green and he drove past me, he didn’t see me, which is probably better. We’d ultimately decided that we couldn’t remain friends.

It was at that moment that I realized that my good fortune hadn’t been luck at all. We call it luck, but it was really other things, tangible things, that brought fortune my way. Things like being open to possibilities and new things, making decisions for the right reasons, a willingness to earnestly give something a chance, a little faith in others, and, of course, sometimes maintaining a cushion of space when it’s needed. All those things had been in my control all this time, but it wasn’t until recently that they all came together in a way that felt right.

It’s like winning the lottery, but a little bit at a time, every single day.

"What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient but restless mind, of sacrificing one's ease or vanity, or uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully."
--Victor Cherbuliez

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

--Ben Franklin

Happy October

Creating it’s own market?

It’s fund raising season again.

A few well-intentioned people have decided to raise money by selling stuff. Something is wrong with this picture though:

• Help cure breast cancer! Buy a hot dog, potato chips, and a soda for $1.50!
• A doughnut and coffee: $1.00. Help cure Juvenile Diabetes!
• Visit a candy stand near you, there’s one on each floor! Proceeds go to the United Way!

What do you think might come next? How about:

Buy a cigar for $4.00! Proceeds go to the American Lung Association!

Or maybe...

Ice Cream Social to benefit the American Heart Association!

Goats

Goats are very sweet. Who knew?

Fuzzy Logic

She owned her self-destructive behavior, but kept it well hidden from public view. Like all meaningful traits, good or bad, it wasn’t for everyday wear. And yet, she knew that it would come back to bite her eventually. At least that’s what she’d always suspected.

It started with the mail. She rarely picked it up – maybe once a week, because it usually consisted of nothing more than junk and bills. On this particular day, though, as she stood over the trash can and sorted through it – tossing everything but the bills – she came upon a plain white letter-sized envelope. There was no return address, and she vaguely recognized the handwriting but couldn’t place it right away.

She opened it to find a blank sheet of paper, neatly folded and creased, with each fold fitting together in an exact, uniform manner. She unfolded the sheet to find no words – but a single blade of grass resting in the center of the bottom fold. It was at that moment that she remembered. And she also knew why he’d sent her the message. She knew what she had to do.

She only had one picture of the two of them. She hadn’t looked at it in years – seven to be exact. Back then, when she was alone, she kept it in public view. Then, someone else came around and saw it once, and she promptly hid it away. It was her picture, it wasn’t to be shared. Besides, it would have sent the wrong message. She pulled it out, gazed at it, and the fuzzy memories rushed back and became clear.

So when she decided to dine one last time with Danger, she put on her guard, along with her fancy dress and sandals, and the make up and nail polish, and the ear bobs. She curled her hair and dressed to the nines, because she knew he liked her, even though she knew he loathed the fact that he liked her. But she’d always loved the fact that he liked her.

She joined him at the table, and he rose to greet her. He didn’t smile but he looked her in the eyes. She knew this was poison, and she knew it would have been better if she’d approached him from the side. It was dangerous to look him straight in the eye – it was always safer to dance around it all and demurely hide her eyes from him, because they always gave her away. She did, however, smile – big and wide, because it was her only weapon. It was her defense. It was how she told him that regardless of anything he said or did, she was happy without him.

He spoke with authority, like he really believed what he said. Whether or not he really believed his own words didn’t matter, because it was how he influenced others. Manipulation was his game, and it was for purely selfish reasons. Still, it was an admirable trait, one that had always drawn her to him. It was the reason she’d agreed to meet him, just to bask in his power one last time. And it nearly worked.

The things he told her made her cry. Not while she was there, mind you, because she could never, ever let him see her cry. It was a form of weakness, and she wouldn’t let him see it. Weakness, even though it was part of her fiber, was another one of those traits not fit for public display. No, she cried much later, when she was alone. She had to do it, to get it all, especially him, out of her system. In private.

Because she knew that happiness is not really a feeling; it’s a state of mind only achievable through the selective choice of the memories we decide to carry with us. All the others we push back into the fuzzy areas of our minds. To feed them and have ghosts trailing behind us is nothing but suicide, if one’s desire is to be happy.

And that’s just what she did. She tucked the single blade of grass back into the folded, blank paper, placed it along with the photo back into the envelope, and tossed it into the garbage. She took off the dress and returned it to her wardrobe, put on her pajamas, and turned on the television. A few minutes later, her husband of six years, the eternal optimist, walked through the door. She looked him full in the face and smiled. He smiled too. He smiled with his eyes.

She’d become quite proficient in realizing what should be fuzzy and what should be clear. Then later, she could look back on her life and claim that she’d been Happy.

Love...

Love is strange.