the beginning of the end....of smoking, that is....

MoFM went for her annual checkup today and asked her doc for Chantix....for both of us. Actually, she told her doc i kept 'misplacing' the prescriptions my doc gave me, so he offered to write me one, too. GREAT!! So...we will get the 'scripts' filled together, and end the battle with the cigs! We plan to share any nightmares we have and any other weird symptoms. This will be good. Smoking is such a stupid, stupid crutch, but certainly not an easy one to get past.

What will it be like not to have the NEED to run out of the building every 2 hours or so at work? What will it be like to have a car that doesn't smell like an ashtray? What will my clothes do without the stench of smoke? My balcony will even smell like the Jasmine growing on it instead of lingering stale smoke. Wow. Why didn't I think of this before.....like 30 years ago? I did. I quit in 1990 for a full year. Gained 40 pounds, which made it difficult to play soccer....at least I convinced myself the weight made it more difficult to run than the smoking! What caused me to pick it up again? I was still married to the smoking Gorton who had set his smoke down in an ashtray, and I picked that sucker up like I'd never quit. Unbelievable. That's all it took for me to somehow justify starting again. DUMB!!

Anyway, I will keep a running account of how it's going. Stay tuned.

Morality....Mortality....

We all had parents of some sort or another. My Dad is awesome, my Mom was....interesting. Seems to be the norm, though. One parent is generally the better of the two at parenting and usually it is the Mom. It may take some kind of beverage to get through it, but Moms rule. Dads are more likely to be ‘there’ if absolutely necessary. They have more important things to do...they think they need to be ‘out in the forest picking berries and hunting for food’. It is amazing how some things will never change. Doesn't seem to matter that Mom is holding down a real job along with the kid job.

When my kids were growing up they weren’t allowed to do certain things.....like hit me, yell at me, scratch me, or in total, do anything to endanger themselves or others, at least when I was within earshot or able to see them. Some parents just don’t get it...these are kids, you’re the adult here. After you send them to their rooms or a corner for a timeout, look the little bastards in the eyes and tell them they will not get away with this shit. Then give them a much needed hug, tell them you love them and go on.

I know, who the hell am I to tell anyone what should be done with the belligerent little bastards? No one. I simply have an opinion. Because I’m old and have been through the raising of kids stages, I have a pretty good opinion. Besides, I watch Super Nanny and she happens to agree with my parenting ideas. Kids are awesome humans. They learn everything so quickly, including the bad stuff you teach them without you noticing they’re learning it.

Many of the lessons learned raising kids are learned in the process. Or not. If you have more than one, the second, third, or more, will seem so much easier, so much more fun, and almost enjoyable. When they start to enjoy each other’s company, life becomes nearly normal....or as normal as it can be with kids. Then they get to the stage where they hate each other and not until they’re adults do they appreciate each other again. Sometimes they even appreciate their parents! The sad thing is when they wait too long to realize they really do appreciate their parents. Then there's the really sad thing when the parents turn into children. Morality.... mortality.....the never-ending cycle of life.

facebook

okay, most of us have a past, some of us have a much longer past than others...mine is pretty long. i recently signed up on facebook, thinking maybe i would run into someone from the past. when you put things in facebook the system somehow figures out by your age or where you're from, or maybe something you say, who you might be friends with. one night i'm checking out the friends list, and lo and behold, there's a name from the very distant past. so i write on her wall 'are you the 'Jane Doe' who lived on Prospect Place in Vista?' that was all i said. so we have been playing phone tag for days and finally tonight she caught me at home.

we met when we were 12. lots of stuff happened to us and between us. we grew apart in high school because dumb stuff happens in high school. we talked about all those people we both knew and where they are now. we talked about our kids and their kids. we talked about ex-husbands, brother and sister-in-laws, parents-in-laws. where we have lived and worked. the conversation could have gone on all night. then she told me a very touching story about my dad.

when she was 11 her older sister died. she didn't tell me how or why, just that after that her mother couldn't live in the same house, or evidently even the same state, so they moved from Pennsylvania to California in an old car pulling a small trailer. her, her mom and dad and little sister. her parents didn't know where they would live or work, they just knew they wanted to be in California. as they rolled into Vista (my home town) one foggy night, they ran out of gas next to my dad's gas station. her dad asked my dad if he knew where they might park their trailer until they found jobs and could afford to move to a trailer park. my dad let them park behind his gas station until they found jobs. she said they were only there a few days, but her dad never forgot that kindness. i teared up. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that she hadn't told me that story before, kids never want to admit to being poor or different. even though we were close for many years and she spent time at our house, she had never mentioned it, and pop probably didn't realize she was the same kid whose family he had befriended that foggy night.

i'm hoping we can get together soon and share more stories. she was a great friend. we've missed each other. strange how we sometimes just let things go. we shouldn't.