House – Part 2 of ?: The Inspection

A quick note: I’m going to label these posts in numbered order, but that is not necessarily a chronological order or how they will remain when they’re edited into a final form. This way as you’re reading along you can keep track of the ones you’ve read if you’re interested in that.

When the inspection is held depends on when your contract is signed. Our inspection was in late May. Remember in my landscaping piece (link), the outside looked fantastic. This was the naïve day when we still believed that the inspection meant something.

Supreme Court Decides an Employer’s Right to their Employees’ Reproduction Decisions (My Opinion)

I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with my priest before today. He is usually apolitical even though by virtue of being a priest, you kind of know where he stands on most issues. We are currently in the middle of the fortnight for freedom. It’s two weeks of daily prayer for religious freedom.

At the same time, yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Hobby Lobby case having to do with an employer’s religious beliefs. I’m a little incensed, so I’ll be touching on these and other related topics. If I’ve got facts wrong, please message me and I will most definitely look into it.

What is Bullying?

What is bullying?

According to the Webster’s Online Dictionary, bullying is “the act of intimidating a weaker person to make them do something.” It is also defined as “tending to browbeat others,” and its synonyms include intimidation (noun), domineering, and blustery (adjectives).

In modern vernacular it happens much more than in the schoolyard for some kid’s lunch money or baseball cards. For starters, and not entirely relevant, do people still collect baseball cards?

In addition to school bullying by peers, we have adults and teachers who don’t know the appropriate responses to bullying. Often we blame the person being bullied, trying to get them to change how they do things to avoid the bully and/or the bullying behavior.

We also have the internet which is both the best thing for modern technology and information dissemination, but it is also the best place that feeds the trolls and encourages some aspects of bullying because of its anonymous nature.

Using a made up name with no affiliation to a legal name or location seems to free people’s subconscious to the point that they think their abuse of others is normal and/or okay.

We all know that many bullies have their own problems, whether it is mental illness, chronic abuse by others, or any other reason that they feel validates their abuse and bullying of others.

When I was in middle school, I was told by a girl, same age, same class, her name was Donna and she told me that I couldn’t go on the field trip strawberry picking. I really, really wanted to go strawberry picking. I grew up in the city and the suburbs, which was more city-like than rural, and I had never gone strawberry picking. We barely had a backyard. I really wanted to go.

I think she said they would beat me up.

I went home and cried. I cried a lot.

I also think this is the reason I’ve always wanted a big brother, someone to beat this girl up so I could go on my field trip. This just illustrates the mentality of dealing with a bully; more violence. We know now that this is not the way.

Thinking back on it, she also had two friends with her: it was like Crabbe and Goyle with Malfoy from Harry Potter. She looked like Meg 1.0 from Supernatural, probably one of the reasons I prefer Meg 2.0 to the blond version. The first one always made me uncomfortable and it wasn’t until I started writing this that I realized why.

Anyway, I knew I couldn’t go on the trip. That was obvious; no argument there. I was upset and I’d cry, but no way could I go on the trip.

I also knew I couldn’t make a fuss.

I said I was sick. Very technically, I was sick; sick to my stomach about so many things that I couldn’t understand at eleven or twelve years old. All I knew is that it sucked, and I wasn’t precisely lying; I was truly sick.

I stayed home, and I never forgot it.

Thirty years later, I went to my son’s middle school back to school night. I came home having a panic attack and after spending about two hours talking and crying on the phone, the panic was barely soothed. I was upset for days after, on the verge of other panic attacks.

Bullying never goes away, and so when a fellow Tumblr user began bullying me last week, I became that twelve-year old again.

I tried to talk to the person, to express that I didn’t want to be harassed.

They bullied further.

I shouldn’t admit it for the satisfaction they might get (or others), but I’m in my forties and if it could happen to me, it could happen to the teenagers here who might be less equipped to handle the pressure. I cried. Every time I turned on Tumblr, my tears welled up. It was in the back of my mind at every moment. I stayed after mass and prayed on it.

Tumblr is not supposed to be stressful like this. Tumblr is not supposed to be upsetting. Nothing we do for fun is supposed to be stressful and upsetting.

I’ve taken legal steps to stop this bully from harassing me, but it’s not simple on a public site.

It also shouldn’t be my responsibility to stop this person. They shouldn’t be encouraged by others.

You can’t stop someone from hurting you by hurting someone else.

Sure, I could leave. But why should *I* have to leave? I like it here, and I’ve done nothing wrong. Tumblr is a place of diverse ideas, diverse opinions and people say stuff all of the time that I don’t agree with and don’t like. I don’t jump down all (or even some) of their throats, bully, threaten and harass them because I don’t like what they’re posting.

That is what’s called being an adult.

But it’s more than that.

It’s called respecting that not everyone will agree with you. Not everyone will share the same experience with you. Not everyone will want to follow your tactic. And you feeling that you’re right does not give you the right to bash someone who also thinks that they are right.

I don’t care what their problem is. I don’t care if it’s mental, physical, they’re a victim of abuse, what their political affiliation is, what their gender or orientation is, married with kids or single. I honestly don’t give a fuck.

My empathic nature does have its limits. I try to live my life through Christ, but human nature is at once beautiful and compassionate and it is also selfish and egocentric. Once you crossed the line to threaten me (and this person did), you lost my empathy. I have no need to have direct contact with anyone unless they come to me first; unless they talk about me with the name calling and verbal abuse.

When my first son was born, I remembered the strawberry picking field trip. It is never far from my mind when harassment begins, but when my first son was born, I swore that no one would bully him. I would not leave him to fend for himself.

And a few years ago, I swore again. I promised myself that *I* would not be bullied ever again.

I would not live in fear of some ignorant, arrogant, holier than thou, knows better than me about me person, whether in physical person or online.

So this is me standing up.

I know I’m not the only one this person is harassing. I know I’m not the only one that this person has attacked.

And I won’t be silenced.

The Trials and Tribulations of Buying a House – Part ? – Landscaping

Late May.

One of the most beautiful times of the year is late May. It’s still cool enough to sleep with the windows open on most nights. No heat, no air conditioning. The perennials are blooming. It’s the beginnings of the greenery on the trees, the brightness of the flowers in the morning sun while we’re still getting used to daylight savings time and early mornings with sunlight streaming in.

This is also a good time to begin your new house buying event. Schools are still in session so you can check them out before you choose on a house. It gives you all summer to give your notice to the apartment manager; time to move in before the school year starts and a whole host of other factors that.

This is merely one part of our story. Eventually, this will be a complete and concise account of what we went through; what we still go through seven years later into our home ownership.

Basket of Tea

On my dining room table (or on my kitchen cart) sits a basket of tea. This is mypublic basket of teas. The regular grocery store varieties. Stash and Twining’s in green tea with jasmine or green chai or chai spice which is a black tea as well as lemon ginger, which I don’t really care for and PG Tips. I just bought two boxes of Ginger Breakfast Black tea and one Honeybush, Mandarin and Orange and I’m gradually acquiring matching metal tins for three or four special loose teas.

The private basket in my office holds all of my loose teas, some of which I chose from a local place, the rest sent by my friend to try different kinds: Lady Londonderry, Moroccan Mint, and Mexican Chocolate. I had planned to do a tea tasting on my blog but never started the project.

Now might be a good time.

I do go through a space where I drink one kind for a long time and then switch over to another. I went through a Star Trek phase and only drank Earl Grey, hot.

On the morning that I began the first draft or snippet of this, I had the ginger black for the first time in more than a year. I was very lucky to have found it in the grocery store. Up until now, I’ve always had to order from a catalog.

The green tea with jasmine is the one I tried during Lent when I gave up soda. I was told that the green would counter the negative effects of the diet soda. I don’t know if it did, but I have been good and limited my soda intake to two cans a day on most days, and none for breakfast anymore.

I have green and black Moroccan Mint and I prefer the black tea. I prefer black teas in general.

I enjoy British tea, especially PG Tips. This is perfect with milk and a tiny bit of sugar. And it’s always wonderful. It also reminds me of Ed whose quintessential Britishness can be defined by his tea-brewing.

I also enjoy the Chinese tea that I found at my local store: Pai Mu Tan and Wu Yi Oolong. I believe those are their names. It tastes exactly like the end of the Chinese dinners I had in the restaurant when I was a kid growing up in New York.

Tea is that comfortable friend who sits in your lap and holds your hand. Tea turns the pages of the book and reminds you to use a bookmarks. Tea makes all things better. Tea understands. Tea comforts and reminds and is thoughtful.

Sweet, Sweet Music

I haven’t done a proper meme in a long time, so when I was asked to put my iPod/MP3* player on shuffle and list all the songs, no skipping, I thought it would be a cool thing.

This is my list of the first twenty songs that came up on shuffle:

Cold As Ice – Foreigner
Some Nights – Fun
No Sunlight – Death Cab for Cutie
Who We Are – from Hunger Games – Imagine Dragons
Long, Long Way From Home – Foreigner
One Day More – Les Mis
Balthazar, Impresario – Frank Turner
Bixby Canyon Bridge – Death Cab for Cutie
Half-Truism – Offspring
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida – Iron Butterfly
Agony – from Into the Woods
Wanted Dead or Alive – Bon Jovi
Bad Moon Rising – Credence Clearwater Revival
Hey You – Bachman Turner OverDrive
Night Moves – Bob Seger
The Blood of Cu Chulainn (instrumental)
Eye of the Tiger – Survivor
Dumbledore’s Army – WROCK music – Andrew Blake
You Get What You Give – New Radicals
The Gambler – KennyRogers

Typically when I talk about my musical tastes, I describe it as either twenty years old or twenty minutes. There is no in between. In looking at this list, I can see that my Supernatural soundtrack has taken over a bit – that is mostly the classic rock that you see here. I’ve also noticed that when I say ‘twenty years old’ at this point, I mean thirty since I’m talking about the 80s synth pop and second British invasion plus alternative.

I still listen to alternative. In fact, it’s the only thing I listen to on the car radio. My sister or my husband will tell me about a new song they think I’ll like, and I have to disappoint them by saying that I’ve been listening to that on my radio station for almost a year, sometimes more. See Flogging Molly, Frank Turner, Fun, Death Cab for Cutie, Adele, and Mumford and Sons.

It looks like at least four genres up there. Or more. Let’s see: country, wrock, classic rock, rock, alternative, top 40, Broadway soundtrack.

I like to sing in the car. The music up loud, the windows open, singing the wrong words. It is so freeing!

I’ve often said that the only musical instrument I play is the car radio. However, when I was in middle school, I could play bits on the piano: Stairway to Heaven including one chord, the theme from All in the Family, Do Re Me from A Sound of Music. I could also play bits of Color My World on the guitar, but that’s it. My fingers are too small for guitar playing.

I tried to take violin in elementary school. I was okay, but my pinky wouldn’t reach across, and I couldn’t make. I still have a very small pinky.

In college I took Folk Music in America and part of the class was assembling a lap dulcimer and learning how to play it. I could play Go Tell Aunt Rhody and Simple Gifts (my favorite) in my sleep. My friend taught us Smoke on the Water. Each note had a number, so after a time I could play anything albeit slowly. It’s made out of cardboard and it’s twenty-seven years old, but I still have it and it still works. I can even tune it since it’s tuned to itself. I could never read music, but I’m learning a bit from the church’s hymnal. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

This is a recent picture of it. My daughter took it to school during music week.

Every time I think I have no interest in music, one of these memes comes along to remind me that I really do like music and sometimes I need to remember that.

School’s Out. Almost.

The top picture is one that I took at my recent Diocesan enrichment. I love photos from different perspectives. I learned how during a workshop at the last writer’s conference I went to sponsored by the IWWG. It was given by author/photographer Carren Strock and she taught us about focusing our eyes, taking things from different angles, photos through things, etc. Personally, I love doors, and take several pictures of doors wherever I go.

The second photo was taken by my son. He recently visited the state capital and this was my favorite picture. He loved the architechture and the chandaliers and pillars, and I loved hearing him describing how he viewed it all and why he choose to take certain pictures from certain angles.

It’s kind of neat to see things that I do, but don’t talk about getting taken over by my kids. It’s that reminder that they are always hearing and learning whether we, as adults realize it or not. It’s good to remember.

Today is the big office clean up, and the beginning of my summer writing project of a vignette for each of the special things that I mentioned in my journal submission about my office. I will also finish my memoir homework for Tuesday’s class – the last until the Fall.

Monday, I’m going to the printing place and hope that they can get me a nice print of the cell phone photo of the tree sketch that is lost in the mail. I am also going to try to hunt down the photos from the Easter Vigil, so I can get some of those printed. I was going to do that yesterday, but things didn’t work out.

I will also attempt to phone two friends, possibly meet with one before the kids get out of school.

Monday also begins the last full week of school. Not horrified, but not ready for summer break.

I’m laying carrots down for the Fall. I can get there. Right? Right?

Saw Frozen last night. I really liked it although there were some parts that I thought less of. All in all a good movie and as I mentioned I had no idea of spoilers so it was kind of cool to see something that I had no idea at all of the storyline.

After seeing the gifset three times in the last two days, I want to see The Devil Wears Prada. I’m going to see if Redbox offers it (we don’t have Netflix anymore), and hopefully I can borrow it on Wednesday and watch it.

I’m trying to be more consistent. Any advice for that or any prompts, fiction or non-fiction, writing or photography, hit me up.

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there: dads, stepdads, uncles, godfathers (*waves*), father figures. Have a beautiful weekend.

Death’s Door

I’m not a huge fan of death; never have been. Whenever I think of death, I think of my uncle Nathan. His was an open casket, and the only memories I have of him were of cigar smoke and that moment of seeing him in the coffin. I cringed at every funeral after that as a child and well into my adulthood.

I would say that while this is a memory from me as a young child, the two that stand out more abruptly are of both of my grandfathers. They both died when I was five or near about. My first grandfather, my dad’s father was from Canada, and I remember his family there more than I remember him.

The most enduring memory I have is standing in the hospital parking lot looking up to the roof where my grandfather stood. He was wearing a grey bathrobe and I think my grandmother stood next to him. He waved to me and possibly my brother, and we waved back. Well, I waved back because my brother would only have been one or so. I think my father stood with us in the parking lot.

This was 1970 or 1971 and children weren’t allowed in the hospital. It’s kind of like that now, but when my dad was in the hospital, we used to sneak my son in to see him and the nurses would ignore him just so long as he could get past the security guard.

We never would have thought to sneak in back then.

I remember this grandfather from photographs that blend into memory. There is me in a stroller wearing bunny ears, holding a Kodak film box, the recognizable yellow box of the Eastman Company. We are on a street in the Bronx outside of an apartment building. I don’t think this is their apartment building, but nearby there is an asphalt park surrounded by a chain link fence where the older boys played basketball and the girls jumped double-dutch. It was a noisy street with cars driving by, their engines noisy and their horns loud, interspersed with the bouncing of the basketball off the backboard and the handball off of the wall that divided the spaces.

My other grandfather, my Mother’s father died either later that year or early the next year. It was within months of each other. In fact, my grandfathers died within a year and my grandmothers did the same although they waited for many years after that. My parents also died within eighteen months of each other.

The only memory I have of this grandfather was his balding head, sitting with his back to the doorway at the kitchen table eating his dinner when he’d come home late from work. I’m not sure what we would have been doing there so late, but it is the one picture of him in my mind that is consistent.

My mother says that it isn’t true, but I have vivid memories of his death. He had a heart attack in the house, and I remember him lying on the carpet and the paramedics coming in with the stretcher from the ambulance. I would swear that I was there, and my mother would swear I was not, so I don’t know if this is an actual memory that she’s always tried to protect me from or if it is one of those planted memories from other people’s overheard conversations.

He did have a heart attack and died in the house and there are other details that it would seem strange for others to talk about around me, but I don’t know.

These are the three that still stand out to me as an adult, and form my ever fearful phobia of death and dying, although I have mellowed out in the abstract of faith and adulthood. I still occasionally have a recurrence of a childhood dream that I’ve often had of nothingness. If you can’t imagine it, it can’t be explained, but it is the abyss of nothing and it is palpable. It is the dark staring back at you and as much as I try to be calm and rational, the noiseless void can be too much to bear. All I can do is wait for it to pass, and it usually does.

May 14th Reflection

This campus is a dichotomy in practice. It is stone and marble and brick and lamp posts and tulips. Face one way and it’s the bustle of a city, traffic, walkers, bicycles, radios, chatter, convenience stores. Face the other way and it is green and benches and pastoral.

Today I will walk down the block to the church for Mass. This makes me happy. Shrill sirens scream behind the buildings, people chatter. I sit in partial sunlight under a big tree with rust colored leaves, comfortably, just enough sun in my eyes, warmth on my skin and a cool enough breeze that my decision to not bring a sweater is validated.

I look on at St. Rose, immortalized in stone, arms crossed, eyes closed, wondering about her. My Google list is long and she is at the top to learn about the woman for whom this campus is named for.

I close my eyes (and I hear Kansas – a by-product of a 70s childhood and A supernatural fandom), but only for a moment and the moment’s gone, but the moments here last a bit longer than a moment.

The parking is mostly good and I think about coming back here in later weeks as an inspirational place. Sit and be. Think and write.

Contentedness overlaps with excitability and the bells are ringing to announce the hour. I don’t have a ride home, and I am not worried in the least. This feeling reminds me of a similar day in Williamsburg. I haven’t reached the space of pure contentment and zero anxiety of that day, but this is very close. The winding paths and benches, the stone foundations and the brickwork, the root cellar doors and the leaves barely moving in the gentle breath of the air all remind me of Colonial Williamsburg. I thought it was the place a year ago – goodness it’s exactly a year ago to the day, isn’t it – I thought it was the pace – the childhood memories, being newlyweds, the home of my best friend but it is more than my life experiences as sitting her about five hundred miles north gives me nearly the same feels to grasp onto and gravitate towards.

It is this inner spirituality, inner peace inner light that comes on the breeze and adapts to my surroundings. The devil is in the details but really it is G-d in the details, doing without us noticing until our souls do in fact notice and feel that déjà vu to center us wherever we are.

Like right now.

And here.

Five Things I Learned About Myself Last Week

I can disagree and speak out and do it in an impassioned way without expressing disdain for the other side. I can also educate.
Not only do I like the blending of faith and continued learning with writing, but I NEED it.
I have more self-confidence than I thought I did.
I’ve changed so much in the last two years, and I’ve also realized that I am ever evolving and the changes aren’t finished getting, like clay. I need time to breathe, like a fine wine and see where my journey has still yet to take me.
I need the retreat. I need the alone, but not the isolated. I need to let the me be free, more free than I’ve let myself be before. I have much to offer.

Griffins and Ginger Snaps

-I write, and I have a blog because of course I do-