A Letter to my Dears

As you know, I am due at the end of July. I went to the doctor today and he informed me that I am at 1.5 cm and 50% effaced. (The 1.5 could be the result of 3 other deliveries or it could be that I'm actually making progress.) Whatever the case, he felt as if I might have fewer than 5 weeks. Music to my ears!

To my Loyal Fans (all three of them)

I have been in training for my new job as a WIC peer counselor all week which is why I haven't been screwing around on-line. I'm sure there will be an audible sigh of relief now you realize that I have not given up on blogging and that, next week I will be back to providing my normal wit, warmth, and wisdom.

Lamest News Ever

There have been several recent news articles that caught my attention over the last couple of days. You have probably read them too so there isn't much of a point for me to go on about them and do a big rehash. Besides that, they are quite self explanatory. However, these are my votes for top three news items of the week.

1) Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii

2) The kid from the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind Album

3) Shayne Lamas dumps the guy from "The Bachelor"


Why these articles? Well, the Talula one is just funny and, as someone who taught high School English for five years, I can tell you I have seen my share of unusual names; just nothing that unusual. Besides that, I am very entertained by discussing unusual names in general- so, I hope, like me, you get a kick out of that one.

As for the "Nevermind" album, I can't believe the naked baby from the cover is 17! I was starting college when that album was popular. I definately remember the collective mourning from the direction of the boys' dorms the day Kirk Cobain was found dead a few years later.

As for the third article, I must preface this by saying celeb gossip is of no interest to me. I don't even subscribe to cable television so only explorers in antartica could be less connected to the goings on of the Hollywood jet set. You're safe in assuming I do not watch reality television and I have never even watched one episode of "The Bachelor". This article caught my eye, however, when I saw the name "Shayne Lamas." As soon as I saw that, I thought, "Shayne Lamas, you mean the one who used to sit in the back of my English classroom giggling with her friends and applying copious lip gloss, Shayne Lamas?" Now I shouldn't be surprised, I knew even then that her father, Lorenzo, was some hot shot soap opera star. There's just something funny about seeing a kid's name at the top of a Romeo and Juliet essay one time and seeing it in the news headlines the next.

With this article as well as with the Nirvana one, the single thought that reverberates is, I am that old? Yes, I am old enough to have taught Shayne Lamas as a high school freshman (not even a senior) and my friend, Julie, taught Shayne's older brother A.J. just down the hall. (He dated Lindsey who?)

So yes, as lame as I think celebrity gossip is, the lamest news of all is that I am that old and aging. Oh well, with any luck maybe those celeb kids will be this age some day, too.

Bounce the Blog

I don't think I am a vivid dreamer. If I am, I don't remember come morning. Sometimes however, I'll dream up something so colorful and strange that it sticks with me later on. As the dream hangs on in my mind's periphery, I will have an epiphany about it. It's not that my dreams are profound or prophetic or that they even generally make sense at all, it's just that ocassionally, I'll put the vague shapes and images together and then, boom- I'll get it!

So here's my latest tangible dream that left its flavor lingering in my subconcious. I was visiting old colonial, industrial type buildings in New England and there was a light crust of dirty snow on the ground. I was with my husband and other faceless though familiar people; clearly we were tourists. On the front of one of the buildings (here we get surreal though snow and New England seem surreal enough during summer in Havasu) was written in gold-leafed letters the word "Bounce." However, instead of an "O" there was a peg with a large wreath hanging from it. Quite inexplicably, there was a really tall ladder reaching all the way the front of the building as if the person who had hung the wreath had forgotten to clean up after himself. I was so taken with the building's fascade that, without thinking about what I was doing, I scrambled up to the top of the very tall ladder (a common motif in the dreams I do remember) and yelled down to my husband and friends below. I'm not sure why I was so taken with this building, but I kept shouting things like, "Look at this; isn't it beautiful?" and "You guys have got to see this." Suddenly, I realized that the ladder seemed rather old and shaky and I was feeling rather insecure. My husband below was fuming and irritated that I did something so ridiculous as climb up on that ladder. Then the realization hit me that I was way up in the air and I didn't know how I was ever going to get down without falling. This is about the point when I woke up perplexed and laughing at myself for the strange way my mind works when the subconscious goes into overdrive.

It occurred to me a day and a half later that the answer to my precarious and dangerous situation was right in front of me the whole time: all I needed to do was follow the advice written in large letters that I was staring at head on. I needed to take a deep breath, close my eyes, let go, free fall and . . . It is my dream after all and I can settle it up any way I want.