I want to grow up to be a cowgirl…musings of a lost dream… November 19, 2009

What is it about girls and horses? For me it was the possibility of escape! Maybe not your typical connection, but it made my teen years bearable!

When I was young I was blessed to have a horse…saved up my babysitting money and bought a big old boy…for those of you that know horses, he was 17 hands high and Thoroughbred and American Saddle Bred — dark with a star on this forehead.  Sky wasn’t registered and frankly had big ears and knobby knees, but I loved him…he was the best friend and salvation to a tall young teenage girl… 

My cousin handed me down saddlebags.  I really had no occasion to use them, but they fueled my escape dreams. The dreams of running away with my horse and my dog…packing the saddle bags and heading up to the mountains! Away from dances with too short boys, my typical back biting friends (who somehow became remarkable women who are like sisters to me), and my seemingly dreadful parents… 

I wasn’t going to be your typical cowgirl…wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those hats.  My Mom proudly thought I was fashion forward when I insisted on square toe boots…really it was just as a tall girl, I had long feet to match and didn’t want any extra length with that dreaded cowboy boot point sticking out from under my 36inch inseam Levi 501s. It was a good thinkg Sky was 17 hands with those gangly long legs! 

Dad regaled me, as he does to this day, with stories of growing up on the ranch and the adventures of minding the herds and the bonds with the horses and dogs…flaming my horsey runaway fantasy…Mom too, grew up with her Tennessee Walkers…amazing horses with 2 more gaits than your average pony! I

I never made it out of the foothills or even past the lake on my horse, but long, long rides kept me sane during my tumultuous teen years…There are still days when I long to be a cowgirl…I visit my friend’s horses, happily brushing their coats and picking their hooves. She marvels at the free labor and I relish in the presence of magnificent beasts that bond with us and let us into their world. Her big gelding Max is my favorite…sometimes in the summer evenings after work, I brush him, take him for a short ride and then hang out with him by the mare pasture while he enjoys some fresh tasty grass.  The mares come by and glance sideways as horses do at the handsome guy, and I relax and lean onto him as he grazes and think – back away ladies…he’s with me! I settle into the familiar zen feeling of being in the moment when I engage in even the most mundane of equestrian activities. 

Circumstances forced me to sell my steed after college…the big City that beckoned me for career and adventure was not conducive to keeping pet horses for someone without a trust fund…My escape fantasy now involves me running away to Europe to live in a small village, but that cowgirl thing…still is a grand ideal!  Mostly I just bitch and drink wine to get away from hellish reality…

My great niece is the budding equestrian now! Can’t wait to go boot shopping with her!  She likes pink, and I don’t even think she minds the point!

Recipe for disaster…why I hate big box stores November 17, 2009

I go to big box stores for one reason – to save money.  What happens? I always spend too much! Me in a big box store is a recipe for disaster to my sanity and my budget.  Here are some of the reasons I hate big box stores:

 

1. There is just too dang much in one place.  Maybe it’s my tinge of ocd, maybe it’s the romantic idea I still foster of a European lifestyle…just picking up the fresh cheese and veggies each day at the open air market.  I fancy myself very Hepburnish (Audrey in this case…although Katherine rocks too) carrying my bag up to my flat with my baguette and fresh leeks peeking above the paper edge – scarf and glasses rounding out the image. In reality I am cruising into the garage of my ranch with a take out chicken and premade broccoli salad in my SUV with my uncoiffed hair being sucked out the windows that I have to leave open for the dogs. I probably forgot my glasses.

 

2. Reason number 2 is pretty much the same as number 1.  There’s just too dang much stuff…who needs all of that.  I have a weird crush on Switters.  He’s a Tom Robbins’ character in Fierce Invalids Back from Hot Climates.  He’s not good husband, boyfriend, or even friend material, but Switters rocks.  One of his best lines is – “The more I see advertised, the less I want to buy.”  Ads assume we are all idiots. And I guess we are because we buy more and more crap.  And, at big box stores the crap is just laid out like treasured bounty pulled out from the vault or up from the deep.  Take one, it’s there within your grasp…who gives a crap if you need it or not! Shiny things!

 

3. Sadly, reason number 3 is yet again, the same as 1 and 2.  There’s just too dang much stuff…it freaks me out to think how many calories are in that giant box of “you’d never buy this if it wasn’t so cheap”….And the thought of blowing my nose all the times it would take to use that gazillion box pack is scary.  Even more scary is listening to Husband blow his nose all the times it would take to use all that up.  Moose (meese?) coming running when husband blows his nose.  We don’t live anywhere near moose country…it is loud!

 

And…Finally, a different reason I hate big box stores.  I get way too caught up in people watching! I usually run into someone I know…that’s cool.  The amazement I have is for the folks I see nowhere else.  Last time I ventured to one, I saw a small, elderly Asian woman dressed head to toe in a hot pink satin old west saloon outfit.  Satin hat, feathery fringe and all.  I kid you not.  She looked happy so I smiled and nodded…she beamed.  She must have put me under some kind of spell.  I left that day after going in for tuna and salmon with cal king sheets, 2 rugs, and a giant pack of chicken wings that would have fed a buffet.  Switters, I have forsaken thee!

 

I hate big box stores!

Karma, it freaks me out a little… November 16, 2009

Going though old pictures over the weekend, the concept of karma popped into my head.  I wonder what exactly karma has done to me…Here’s what I came up with:

1. Karma is probably why I can’t have kids.  This occurred to me   when I saw the picture of 3 year old Tiger dragging a doll by the hair.  The film of me at this age is even more terrifying…all my dolls had punk hair sticking straight up due to my dragging them around by the hair, and they very generally stripped naked and stuffed together in the stroller that I pushed around with glee.  Did the universe actually think I would do this to my real children?

1. As a pre-teen during in the dawning of the jogging epidemic that hit in the early 70’s I was HORRIFIED by women with cellulite.  I just thought it was the grossest stuff ever!  And, my Mom’s friends running around in shorts with that cottage cheese stuff just under their skin made me literally look away.  Mom had skinny smooth legs.  Guess I don’t take after my Mom.  Guess who battles cellulite now?  Thanks universe.

1. At 18 I met a wonderful guy – a handsome, sweet, caring human being, who loved me to pieces.  It was young love at its best.  However, he was a rock & roll guitarist and I was a budding career woman…I didn’t really want to “take care” of a man who didn’t really “earn” a living like I was used to a man doing…It fell apart when I met the accounting major…Now I take care of a man…a doctor no less, who became too ill to work…universe? Are you laughing at my fears?

 What I do to build up my karma: 

1. Of course I do the driving thing.  I try to build up my karma by letting the lane changer in; or, slowing down for the car to pull out. I do this so when I forget to pull over to the outside lane for my exit, there will be a place for me in the line of traffic.  It’s just good driving karma. It helps get you a parking place too.

1. Also, while going through the photos and organizing the snap shots and old school pics, I co-mingled my husband’s and my baby pictures! I have always thought that if I co-mingled our old stuff that we brought into the union all up, it would make it harder for us to split up.  Besides love, the real reason we would never split up is because we couldn’t give the dogs a broken home.  However, I co-mingle stuff just for karma’s sake.

1. And, if you have ever watched Practical Magic (Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock movie), I do the little things they recommend.  This may be blending witchcraft and karma, but I figure it can’t hurt.  I always though spilt salt over my left shoulder, plant rosemary by the garden gate, and lavender for luck.

 Luck, peace, best wishes whatever to you!!

It should always be aloha and never good-by… November 12, 2009

Aloha” means we welcome you,
It means more than words can say.
“Aloha” means good luck to you,
Goodnight at the close of day.

For it’s just like a love song
With a haunting sweet refrain
Bringing you joy, bringing you pain.

“Aloha” means farewell to you
Until we meet again.

Dear World,

Recently I said Good By to Open Salon…I know now it should have been Aloha…while in such a forum (like everywhere else in life) nastiness can flourish, you cannot believe the talented and thoughtful writers and thinkers that hang out there…and you can interact with them! (They are so life-like!) 

I walked away because I could…there’s so many places I am trapped in my life. Yeah, maybe I get paid to take a lot of the crap, and maybe in some parts it’s just part of being in a family unit, but it still isn’t pleasant.  Plus, have you ever hit ice on a black diamond run and your are just flying down the hill out of control with poles, skis, gloves, hat flying…you are kicking and grabbing at the mountain trying to get a toe hold to stop the speed, but there’s just no control…you are at the mercy of gravity?? That’s how I feel right now, pretty much every minute of every day, careening towards 50…I’m there in about three weeks and I’m trying not to land there in a crumpled icy heap…(please don’t piss me off and tell me not to feel that way…I just do…I’m working on it…)

Despite my writing exit, I never could stop reading…

My lesson learned is that it should always be Aloha and never good by… I have to got to get back to OS! I WANT to go back to OS!

Here was my farewell…luckily, I did close with aloha…

“My posts are gone. My blogs are gone. To those who made nasty, hateful comments about my posts, your words are gone.  Thank you to those that were constructive — even if we didn’t see eye to eye.  And thank you to all of you whose posts I enjoyed so much…you made me laugh, cry and think!

Too bad…very little comments and help on my writing…most were comments on how my thoughts were wrong…and my feelings…or right…

To those of you who are the light here…shine on! I just don’t have room in my life right now for sadness and hate…nor do I have time to filter so much to get to the good…maybe later…until then, aloha!”

Those with the light do outshine all the rest…they have continued to make me laugh, cry and think!

World, if you haven’t had the opportunity, I highly recommend you visit Open Salon and consider joining the community…there’s much to learn, much to discuss…much to feel…much to think about…

Aloha,

Tiger

Barbie at 50…what chance do I have? October 31, 2009

43 days to go until I turn 50…oh yeah, it’s going to be so glorious…sure….just get a load at what Barbie looks like.  She couldn’t even keep it together and she’s plastic…

Barbie at 50: http://tiny.cc/Barbieat50

Dad always says he never thought Mom would lose her tiny little waist…who knew that Barbie would widen up…that bitch…she doesn’t even have hormones…what chance do the rest of us have???

Fox news is killing my dad… October 30, 2009

 

“I think your father is so disappointed in the way the country is going and the socialization after what he fought for, he’s ready to die.”   

This is what my mother told me yesterday after learning that Dad has about a year to live. Mom can’t stop weeping.  My first reaction was to bite my tongue (there is no sanity in discussing politics with my mother), but I wanted to say – Stop watching Fox News and quit listening to Rush Limbaugh! I did manage to meekly say – you know I don’t feel that way…

My siblings and I talk about hope for our country – repairing health care, surviving the financial crisis, becoming on good terms with the world. However, somewhere along the lines my parents became consumed with fear and doom and gloom, and there is a sector of the media that feeds that on a daily basis in big scoops dripping with negatively and hate.

We actually also had good news yesterday.  Dad’s advancing cancer will not prevent us from making the nearly annual family trek to Pearl Harbor this year for the anniversary of the infamous battle.  Eventually my parents’ ashes will be scattered there and Dad will be able to join his brethren that he was not able to pull out of the harbor that fateful day. He wants the kids to meet with the man who will make this all happen.  It’s kind of like a drill, so we know what to do when we fly back to scatter their remains in the Pacific in accord with their wishes.

My tall, strong, smart, handsome father who was really just a boy at Pearl Harbor, went on to become literally a rocket scientist…he was a pilot, a builder, a community servant.  Now he is shrinking while the cancer grows and his once seemingly larger than life existence is focused on one day at Pearl Harbor and his perceived sorry state of the country.

Wikipedia states:Many observers say that Fox News Channel’s programming promotes conservative political positions. Fox News Channel denies any bias in the channel’s news reporting, and says there is a distinction between its news coverage and editorial programming.

Really? Really?Ttake a look at the headlines at Fox News.  There’s no support for the country or the leadership.  There’s no attempt to find middle ground and work with all points of view to make things better.  There’s no call on Fox News for us to work together to pick up a mop and pitch in…Stop Fox News…Espousing hate helps no one. This isn’t just conservative — it’s alarmist and hateful.  Stop! You are killing my Dad.

Countdown to cobb salad lunch…

42 days to the big 50 birthday….me and Barbie… Even worse it’s only 16 more days until Cobb Salad Lunch.  Fans of Julie & Julia will recall the lunch with the way too successful friends, while there sits Julie with her dead end job.  I’m so Julie these days. And, I am having my own Cobb Salad Lunch.  Sadly I am the one that set this freakin’ lunch up. What was I thinking???
Since I’m using a former cat’s name (Tiger) to hide my identity, I’ll do the same for my Cobb friends.  “Friskie” is the local version of Jackie Kennedy and has spawned her own local Kennedy-esque brood of beautiful children with straight white teeth and thick hair.  It’s California so they are all lean and tanned too.  “Sabrina” is a Hollywood success. Not just a couple of good parts that are memorable…she’s a player…a big one. Sabrina is a producer. Not a one time shot who got an indie flick noticed, but known and a long-working-with-no-career-end-in-sight producer. Please know I truly love my high school pals, Friskie and Sabrina — they are kind women. I wouldn’t and couldn’t even ever dislike them or wish them ill for one second. They are very important to me and I care deeply for them, but these days they make me feel like crap – just by being.  I’m not proud to admit this and I know I suck for thinking this way…If you think I am whiny and bitchy about this, you are correct.  However, I’m the one that went off to the big school and stayed there – even pursued an advanced degree and dove into a career working day and night.  I was self-sufficient and on the road to “success” (not sure what that means now though).  I even married a doctor — for love…We worked hard and played hard.  Beach and mountain vacations; Husband piloted us to our getaways in private planes; we collected wine and art; we served in the community… Then boom! Baby making parts break down and come out; Husband loses career to health issues; I steer career into a not-so-profitable but altruistic path — we are barely scrapping by… And here I find myself in the bitter state of countdown to the “Where The Hell Did My Life Go” birthday…and now on top of that the “Crap I Am Going To Panic Because I have Nothing To Wear Because Everything Makes My Ass Look Fat Cobb Salad Lunch” is right around the corner. Friskie, brilliant as she is, went off after graduation to win beauty pageants and wed a trucker first time around. Personally, I think she saw Smoky and the Bandit one too many times.  She’s now married to THE local Mr. Successful amongst a trendy burb full of Mr. Successfuls. Sabrina dropped out of college and worked at a bank in-between modeling and acting until her overwhelming “it” factor, and her considerable smarts, drew her into the business – literally in fairy tale like fashion. She even has a fairy tale family and an unheard of multi-decade Hollywood marriage.

And, here I am today, miserably counting down to the Cobb Salad Lunch…why did I set this up??? Probably, because I lost a friend at the beginning of this year…  She died back East, far away from me and unexpectedly.  She was a college roommate whom I adored, but had fallen out of touch with… Literally, one hour before I found out she was dead, I had googled “Pepper” in attempt to reconnect.  (Yet again another former cat name…I can write a long, long, long time before I run out of pet names…we are still on cats – there are also former dogs, rabbits, horses, cows, guinea pigs, and gold fish, oh yeah, turtles too.  And, most of them had middle names as well…) Losing Pepper has had a profound affect on me…she was too young and I was too late, so I began reaching out to friends I haven’t seen in awhile… now there’s the freakin’ Cobb Salad Lunch looming… 

Oh, and 50, 50, 50 beats like a bass note in my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you.  50 is supposedly better than the alternative – being dead…you could argue a couple of years in Gitmo is technically better than being dead too…but, I’m glad I’m not there…Crap…tick, tick, tick…tomorrow it’s 41 days and 15 days….then it will be 40 and 14…

Hmmmmmmmmm…what was that? Wait a minute…I feel something very strange. 

While here I am today all like bitter and pissy about the count downs to 50 and Cobb Salad Lunch, my mind must be playing tricks on me…it feels strange…as if it’s softening its edges and compelling me to lighten my mood. WTF? I am finding myself actually enjoying certain moments…the autumn sunshine, hearing about my friend’s vacation at the coast, Husband’s joke…

Strangely, this feeling comes after a morning at the hospital with Dad. My big strong amazing Dad — who looked so frail and crumpled this morning in his recovery bed after they went in to take pictures of the much too big cancerous tumor.  

I realize something… 

I realize that I don’t want to start counting down my days with Dad.   

I might just be at the point, dare I say it, for countdowns to be done?  

Damm, perhaps “they” are right — you have to live in the moment.   

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR…

Getting out of bed is the hardest thing I do all day…

Getting out of bed is the hardest thing I do all day…that moment when I become conscious, even before my eyes open is when my filters are off and the façade of functionality isn’t turned on yet.  My mind ticks down the checklist of reality: 1. My husband is ill and unable to work. 2. We are broke. (See number 1.) 3. My husband is miserable (See numbers 1 and 2) and therefore I am miserable as I am an “empath.”  4. My Dad has cancer.  5. My Mom, his wife of 64 years, isn’t going to handle this well – me either as I am an “empath…” 5. I hate my f’n job, but it’s pretty darn good and I should be grateful for it, so I’m an ingrate and I should be happy I don’t live in a war zone in Afghanistan. 6. I still hate my f’n job and my whole career.  7. For that matter I hate my life and the fact that I have lost control over it as I am careening towards 50.  8. I hate all the people that judge me – in particular my bitchy co-worker who I don’t want to get up and go to work to be around…9. I have a headache – as usual…Crap can’t I just go back to sleep? Then the dogs realize I’m awake.  Soon they are sitting over me on the bed (130 lbs of them combined) all happy and excited for breakfast, the cat meows, the façade turns on and I get up…eventually…I am always f’n’ late….

My people would think me narcissistic for writing a blog. If they only knew. They are nothing if not judgmental.  Picture the portrayal of Julie Powell’s mom in Julie and Julia. Not until Julie’s ventures hit the NY Times does mom get proud – then it was all a great idea all along.  It’s not that I haven’t broken out of the uptight puritan wasp mold.  (Although, I do occasionally still wear pearls…) My whole generation and the next pretty much has de-wasped…we are multi-ethnic now, we vote for Obama, we eat organic, but we are all still judgmental…Even the little Brooklyn artist of my tribe would think me narcissistic for blogging out my personal drama…artist or not, she’s still part wasp… and Asian… so there’s not much whining there…I resent to hell I am the only one in my family stupid enough to have a “real” job…I should be f’n Italian and/or Jewish…and not just by marriage…Could I stereotype a bit more???? In reality all people suck, why do I have to spend so much time around them??  Hard to tell my career is devoted to garnering equality for all – don’t you think!? Maybe I AM a narcissist…My Mom always freaks out when I accidentally call the narcissus flowers narcissists…maybe it’s a mental slip of some kind…

What the heck is happening to me…I just need to sleep for about a year…then maybe I can get out of bed…Whoops there’s the alarm again! What a beautiful day!!!

Last night’s dinner in trendy burb…

One good thing about trendy burbs is the great restaurants.  Not a lot of good little neighborhood spots like a real city, but some tasty faire.  Our neighborhood Applebee’s may have folded in the economic downturn, but our trendy burb bistros are booming! Our personal economic downturn means we shouldn’t frequent them, but TDB…we needed a night out!

It was a scrumptious meal…I verbally “yummed” my way through the mashed potatoes.  Before my apparently life altering Julie & Julia experience, which launched this blog and my return to loving food, I was at war with all edibles except organic baby greens and raw nuts…If you read too much, “they” make you think all food is evil!  Nothing you put in your mouth is safe for you or the environment…

Last night even Husband, the science guy, noticed the inordinate number of blondes in the joint.  It must have truly been a mathematical anomaly with a visual pattern, or some crap like that for him to notice.  They were all ages too…botoxed grandmas with their blonde bobs to pony tailed sprites staying up too late.  It was Husband’s idea to play Wonder Boys during coffee – he clearly had his right brain fully functioning this evening.  If you have seen that great flick, you know that they make up stories about who they see while people watching…

Now it was time for the floor show…We were seated in a booth on a dais (weird huh? you feel like your are eating on stage)…right below we had a table of 20 somethings whose conversation was lead by Taffy Summer.  Taffy was the bosses daughter and sometime hostess here at trendy burb bistro.  Her real purpose was to supply drugs to the staff. Here as a customer tonight, Taffy and her entourage were visited by practically every member of the wait staff. Not so clandestinely there to set up their drop times and places.  Her entourage included Garcia and his date we never could name, but she looked like a Greek-American princess I knew in college.  Biff, her long waisted date, newly graduated from law school was still mourning his stifled athletic success.  Stifled due to his freakishly short legs.  Talking to her date of unfortunate and disproportionate stature and their compadres, “Taffy’s” real voice wafted up to us…”I have degrees in marketing and nursing…”

Husband and I bumped fists.  We had nailed it.  Perfect background for a drug dealer with daddy issues!

This whole event was possible because Tiger Sonora was “born.”  My other self would have worried about my Karma for ripping on everyone.  I may have still done it half heartedly, buy with major guilt.  It was a great escape from my nose dive towards 50, the news this week of Dad’s cancer diagnosis, and my giant ball of angst I have been carrying around like one of the blue inflatables for exercise…Whew!  What a great evening! (I wore blue jeans by the way…) I couldn’t wait to blog about it! 

Blogging is so much more fun that writing professional analysis and positions and spinning the organization at the whim of those with power.  “Blog” is such a great word…While supposedly derived from “web log”, my visual of is of a bundle of  emotionally charged words blurging out into web space…you never know when and if they’ll land.  And if you are out there see it coming towards you and you don’t want to get hit by the blurge, you just hit a button!  I love it!

We are way beyond whether or not this makes my butt look fat…

For years my poor husband had to do butt check before we left the house to ensure an outfit didn’t do anything unnecessarily unflattering to my posterior. But that was about it. I knew who I was and what I wanted to wear.  Generally classics with a fun little trendy flare thrown in now and then…

For some reason, as I near 50 I am regressing into teenage like angst about my clothing and what it says about me.  Even as I dress for a trip to the store I wonder — Does this make me look like a Wisteria Lane housewife or, god forbid, a cougar?? (Actually I insert the name of our burb in for Wisteria Lane…there is definitely a known look around here – one that I avoid at all cost.  Last week I pulled off my shirt and put on one of husband’s t-shirts just because I looked too much like that stereotype – and that was just to run an errand.) 

Dressing for work is just as dreadful.  When I first started my career in the 80’s it was easy.  I worked in the big city and I wore a suit, a princess Diana collared blouse, a LA Law criss-cross neck blouse (remember those?), or a button down with those little bows in men’s tie prints.  On the weekends I wore jeans, or clothes to go with the sport I was participating in…skiing, hiking, etc.  For evening I wore a little black dress.   

Now working in the trendy burb, to fit in (or at least not stick out too much) with the pretend big time execs, it’s much harder.  They are basically a bunch of country club members and/or “wanna bes”  with day jobs in a modern day version of Madmen’s Tarrytown.  They, men and women, are as catty as the cobb salad women in Julie & Julia. And actually the men are worse with their Italian loafers and the great debate on whether to match your socks to your shoes or to your pants… We are so way beyond does this make my butt look fat. I thought life got easier as I careen towards 50…