Mondays Suck!

I hate Mondays...(yawn!) It is so hard to get moving...and time just seems to mmmoooovvveee sssooo ssslllooowww... ... ...
Any way...I have a job that I have only worked at for two weeks and have already had my hours reduced. I work at 'Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwich Shop'. Most days it is kind of fun...once again I am the old lady with the young kids but I love it. Their energy and spunk is contagious. And they apparently like to hear what I have to say (and I'm older than some of their Mothers...imagine that!!!). Saturday I worked the cash register. A lady came in with her child...the little girl was mongloid and I tried to talk to her. Her mother said, "oh she's deaf." Okay...so I waved at her. Then the little girl started signing to me. I had no idea what she wanted and I kept saying to her mother, "I think she's signing." Her mother didn't reply and ignored the little girl...that kind of made me sad. Ultimately I figured out she was saying she wanted some soda. So I said to the mother, "oh I think she wants some pop." To which the mother said, "Oh she loves her pop." Mom still continued to ignore the little girl and to watch me interact with the girl I'm sure we looked like something out of the Three Stooges...she would sign...I would shake my head and point to her mother...she would poke her mother...then she'd sign....I'd shake my head and point....and then she'd poke...Can't say we don't know how to have fun at Jimmy Johns.

Today I have my first quiz in Physics and I am not looking forward to it. I'm not sure how to study for this since the lectures have been very scattered and hard to determine value for notes verses just talk...and of course the class in two hours...with as tired as I am today I'm not sure I will stay awake...Caffeine just ain't cuttin' it.

Oh well...I will only be here to 6:30...hope I can get a ride home...

Lou Rawls is dead.

I was surprised to read that Lou Rawls died today. He had an amazing voice and style...I just love a deep-gravely voice. It seems so many of the singers who embosssed that spiritual, jazzy, soulful sound into our hearts are leaving us. To a better place, absolutely...but what heaven has gained we earthly beings have lossed. May God bless his family and friends...Thank you Lord for sharing Lou and his voice with the world.

OKAY CLARE!!!!!!

What A Pain!!! Clare says I should update this thing...and while she is probably right-I just don't have time!!!! (Too many computer games to play...etc)

So what do we say to people who hit you and run away? A couple of weeks ago, while innocently driving my car on 57-cruise control set at 60 mph-talking to mom ON THE SPEAKER PHONE!!!- some idiot comes out of nowhere and slams into the back of my car! Poor mom-she (actually the phone) flies God only knows where and while my car is spinning out of control mom is screaming "WHAT HAPPENED? MARY LYNN!!! ANSWER ME!!!!" Just as the car stops spinning - the same idiot hits me again-this time on the driver-side of the car...Then, what does he do? He decides to RUN! My car is finally under control and stopped and I see his taillights heading off in the distance. Poor mom, she's still screaming "WHAT HAPPENED? TALK TO ME!!!" And I have no idea from where she is speaking...I just talk into the air, "I am okay...some idiot just hit me!" To which mom says, "I am hanging up." NOOOOO!!! The LAST thing I want to be is by myself in the middle of I-57 with cars and trucks now trying to get around me....I was sooooo shaken I could not think.

Then, my phone (you know, the infamous, now MIA phone) starts ringing. Okay, if I were a phone in the middle of I-57 with a car that won't move, where would I be. But of course! In a bag of bagels that also flew to the floor when hit by a tank (actually it was a 1990 white catolac which may have well been a tank). I finally locate the phone (of course just when it stops ringing). It was my sister-apparently mom immediately called her to ask, "When Mary Lynn was at your house, was she drinking?" My sister answered, "well, she had one (1) beer." To which mom replies, "OH GREAT! She was just in an ACCIDENT!!!!" Poor Sue. Her vision is of me splattered all over the pavement...she hangs up on mom and calls me. That's logical, right?

At this point in my story (saga) (drama) (the soap-opera called my life) I must say that a wonderful good samaritan did stop and ask if I was okay. A young woman saw the accident and (since I was looking for the infamous cell phone) she attempted to call 9-1-1. And, if you can believe it, 9-1-1 did not want to answer. So she called her brother. Yeah, her brother. And then this wonderful young woman's wonderful brother came, from God only knows where, to the scene and held my hand until the police and fire department arrived. Can you believe that? I am/was/still am so thankful to these people who I do not know...they even gave their names as witnesses to the police. I thank God for them and pray for them.

So, getting back to the accident. Nimrod, the guy who hit me...is driving away at the same approximate speed in which he hit me...and...as he is flying on the shoulder of I-57, he looses his right front tire. Irony...he now has to stop. I suppose he could have gotten out of his car and ran away...he did not. He did, however, apparently call his mother who came to the scene (this I gathered from the conversation the police were having while I sat in the back of the squad car waiting for me sister to come and get me). He did not have insurance. This sucks! I only have liability and the keyhole totaled my car! AND since he didn't have insurance and I do not have health insurance I did not go to the hospital. (I still have neck and back pain.) Oh well...time will tell how this works out. His court date is the 7th and I WILL BE THERE! I need a new car...This sucks not having my own car...

It could be/could have been worse. I sigh...I am grateful not to have been hurt more seriously and also that no one else was in the car or that no other car was involved. My situation will improve and I have a lot to be grateful for...but this does suck. Oh well, que sera sera!!!!...

R I T O L A (Homecoming)

I have this facination with finding out something about relatives/family history...roots. My father was a very quiet person so I don't have a lot of information about his family. Every once in a while he would surprise us by disclosing the fact that the great finnish athlete Ville Ritola was an uncle or cousin to him. Did he know anything about any of his relatives that may still be in Finland (or the Anderson side for that matter)? Unfortunately, the answer is no. So, when I have time to while away at the computer, like now for instance, I google search his name but really don't find anything. (A lot of Finnish web-sites that I cannot understand as they are in Finnish, as well as people I wouldn't know how to determine would be related to me or not.)

This is sort of frustrating as well as sad. I guess I am a person in search of connections to big families and holidays and a sense of belonging, or 'homecoming'. I do have family...my mom, two brothers, their wives and kids, and a sister, her husband and son...but I look/hear about families that have extended aunts/uncles/cousins and I feel cheated. The only cousins I have (who I love very much) that I know of are four other people and their children and spouses (oh, and a wonderful uncle as well). Now, have they got an extended family! Their mother has, I believe, four or five sisters and two brothers who all had children and then those children had children and it is unreal. When we were little and would go to parties at my cousin's home it was wild! When we had parties and the family came to our house, well, it was always very roomy.

I probably should not be complaining because I do have a wonderful family. Perhaps if I was still married I would have my spouses family as my extended family, but I believe I would still wonder about those European/Scandinavian relatives I might have out there. Oh well, perhaps one day I will take a long trip and search this out. For right now, however, I can daydream about a part of me that will finally experience that 'homecoming' I am searching for.

(Okay, Clare, so I have finally updated...are you satisfied?)

Okay, So Maybe I am Getting Old, BUT.....

So today I was walking through SXU cafeteria. An attractive young woman was ballet dancing (and really wasn't so bad) as she pirouetted infront of her friends. When she took her bow as her friends clapped, a young male idiot yelled, "bend-over again!" I do not believe she heard him but she did bow a second time to her friends to which he yelled something like "Yeah Bitch!" WTF! I, once again, do not believe she heard him but I sure felt like turning around and slapping him. This is just one example of sexual harassment that I think women of all ages should be aware of and not tolerate. Why are women reduced to sexual overtures and innuendos. To tell you the truth, it grosses me out.

Yes, I am a 46 year old divorcee going to college to get a degree. Yes, I have lived through some really intolerable times as a paramedic in my early twenties with guys who felt women did not belong in the fire/emergency response industry. Amazingly, I could out-lift and out-perform emergency skills 9 times out of 10 BETTER than my male counterparts. But the foul mouthed unrepeatable remarks about women still ring in my ears. Now, approximately 25 years later I listen to this shit and wonder will the male species ever get a grip!?!!!

Women are here to stay guys. We can do almost anything you can and many times we do those things better. There are things we do that you cannot do-that's just the way it is. No matter what, though, women are just humans with a couple of different parts from males and do not deserve to be reduced to boobs and ass!

These are just suggestions and pretty damn good ones too!

Four Weeks and Six Days

Well, it has been four weeks and six days since I moved out to my parents to help take care of my dad. Every day is more depressing. It takes his dying for me to realize how much I have taken him for granted, and now, when he has nothing left to give, I cry. There hasn't been a day that I haven't been crying. All I wish is that he can just pass...retain his dignity instead of getting weaker and more depressed himself. Thankfully, he isn't in any pain that we are aware of, but he can't seem to swallow so he is eating less and less and is loosing more and more weight.

And of course, I feel sorry for myself. I made the decision to move out into the middle of nowhere because I wanted him to be able to come home to die. The doctor didn't want him to come home because he would be too much for my mom. In ways this is too much for me, let alone her. I keep feeling like I'm suffocating and no one is hearing me screams. Mom has hives on her neck because that's how she shows stress. Yet when the social worker from hospice calls, Mom says everything is great! No they are not!

Sometimes I think he would be better in a nursing home-half the time he doesn't know where he is. Yet, I can't do that to him, nor do I want to. These selfish moments can be overwhelming and then I think about how much I love him and I realize he is where he needs to be. I pray to God He takes him soon though...It is time.

It is time...or at least we, his family, think so. This is a virile man who may not have spoken a lot yet said much. He taught all of us how to love and how to accept burdens as part of life...how not to let bad things destroy us. Dad has always been a faith filled-awe-inspiring, gentle man. His generosity and sincerity have made him legendary to anyone who has had the priveledge to know him. So why? Why has he been reduced to this man whose final days are designated to a bed...too weak to get out of the bed-vision deteriorating because of macular degeneration-hands unable to hold a cup to his own mouth?

Please, if you pray, pray for God to take him home. That is mine and my family's prayer now...God-please take him home to You...now.

Ever heard of spraining a tail?

No I am not kidding....My housemates poor dog actually sprained her tail...This would be funny but she is in so much pain!!! Poor thing....She's a golden retriever who loves everyone...I can see why she sprained it-I'm just amazed it took this long for it to happen...She's 8yrs old you know. She cries and looks at you like...What happened? FIX IT! Please????