He Knows He Can Survive Without Me

Boy am I feeling pretty puny right now.  My oldest, my son, is away on a three day two night trip.  He went to Sea Camp on a school trip.  It’s an awesome opportunity.  We had to scrimp and save for a few weeks but we knew this would be a great experience for him.  One that I knew would make him learn and grow.  Little did I know how much I would learn and grow from this experience.

You see, there’s no electronics allowed on the trip.  No Nintendo DS, no MP3 players and definitely no cell phones.  The chaperons assured us that if they wanted to call that they would allow them to use their cell phones to call home.  They also assured us that they wouldn’t call.  They would be too busy, too tired, and having such a good time that they just wouldn’t.  I on the other hand knew he would call me.  I thought, “He’s my first born.  He’s a Momma’s boy.  He’s going to have an uncontrollable urge to call me and I will get a call.”  “If anything,” I said to myself with confidence, “he will call me just to share all of the cool stuff that is going on.”

Sigh.  This is night two and he hasn’t called.  I watched my phone ready to pounce on it all day.  I even made calls to and from the cell phone and house phone to make sure both were working.  Nothing.  He’s ten and he’s realized that he can survive without talking to his mom.  I knew this day would come.  In fact, I wanted it to come, just not yet.  Somewhere between his first year and high school and his first year in college is when I wanted it to come…not in 5th grade!  It’s just too early for him to know that he doesn’t need me.

When it comes down to it I guess I’ve learned a lot this weekend too:  My son is growing up whether I like it or not.  I should cherish the times that I still have with him where he is still a kid…the times when he thinks his mom is the smartest person in the world…the times when he thinks his mom is cool…the times that he just wants to hang out with his mom.  I know those days and moments are numbered. 

It makes me sad and proud at the same time.  He’s growing up.  He’s becoming confident in himself and comfortable in being without his family.  I now know that he has a chance to be everything I hoped he would be.  It’s just all too soon and very hard to swallow.  Momma’s little boy is becoming his own little man.

I can still see the light…The Dark Side isn’t dark…YET

I decided to take stock in the old truism If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right.  Yep, I dove right in head first into the Little League Board.  You can call me Madam Vice President now.  I’m the lesser of two of them but that is more than OK with me.  So far, the Dark Side isn’t so dark.  I’ve been trying to get things organized and it seems to be going well.  We are working together as a team and getting a lot of things accomplished.  Shocked?  Yes I am!  Are you?

We had our Fall Ball Opening Day recently and it was so smooth.  Everyone came together and it was fantastic!  I’m waiting for the light to go dim.  I’m waiting for the pettiness and gossiping to start.  I wish I could give you more but all I can say is things are good so far.  It is a lot of work and a big commitment but so are your kids.

I’ll try to update again soon.  In the mean time check out the pictue of “my boys” on the right.  Pretty cool photo huh?

Go Buy An Almanac! The Olympics Are Here!

As quirky as it may sound, the opening ceremonies for the Olympics are one of my favorite times of every two years.  On Friday, my family will gather around the TV and watch the wonderful event unfold.  We can’t wait for the countries to come in.  We always make sure we buy a new Almanac before the ceremonies, one that has all of the countries of the world listed with details like population, industry, literacy rate, tv’s per household, etc.  As the countries come in we find them in the book, on the map, and talk about them.  Our kids love it!  It’s educational and fun.  So go buy yourself a new almanac before the opening ceremonies start.  It’s good fun for the whole family or just few geeks like us!

DANGER: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE NO FRIEND ZONE

My circle of friends is slowing disappearing. In fact, I think it is pretty much gone. Except for a few stragglers I keep in touch with from far away my circle is gone. So now that the circle of friends is gone, I am left with a circle of acquaintances. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that.

I’m lucky in the fact that my circle of family does include a few friends. People who are not really family by blood or marriage but who I consider family not friends. They are the kind of wonderful people you can call on for problems, advice, an occasional lunch, and a lot of unconditional love. They aren’t the people who you go to a bar with or hang out and play poker with.

I think that I do miss my friends. I had some really good ones. We used to be social. (I’m going to go back and forth from I and we because my husband is in the same boat with me.) Every time we get close to someone, something really bizarre happens. Their marriage ends, they move, they get a problem that’s bigger than all of us together that tears us apart, or this just plain go mental. We had one couple that we really thought, “Hey, here it is. What we’ve been looking for. They’re our age, have kids our age, are interesting in the same stuff. This could be it.” The husband was bi-polar and decided he was no longer going to take his meds. He lost it and they ended up splitting up and she moved away with kids.

There was another couple that we loved, they were in our wedding, and then all of the sudden just dropped off the face of the earth. They moved and then five years later I received a letter with no return address apologizing for everything she did that hurt us. She was now in a twelve step program and I was one of he amends she had to make. It’s been one strange turn of events after another.

We’ve tried making friends with the parents at the kid’s school. We’ve tried making friends at work. We’ve tried making friends at the little league field. It all either turns out bad or we just make acquaintances because we don’t really gel with the people.

Is it us? Do we not pick our friends well? Do we require too much? Are we just to difficult to get along with? I’m still trying to figure this all out.

The bigger questions: Is it worth trying anymore? I’m tired of getting attached to someone just to loose them. I think we will probably be busy enough with work and our own kids for the time being that maybe we’ll be fine. But what about when they leave? Our youngest is 7 so we’ll be able to do this for another 11 – 12 years but what about after that?

In the mean time, we are now in the no friend zone.

Too Much Green For A Little Green Monster

It seems like the Boston Red Sox have Lee County Florida squirming quite a bit.  Granted, this is the business of professional sports.  The Red Sox have the bargaining power to ask for the world if they want it.  They’ve earned it.  They have fans and those fans sell out their current Spring Training games every year and right now Charlotte County is trying to woo the Sox away.  The Red Sox bring a lot of money to Lee County and it looks like Lee County doesn’t want to loose it.

The current facility is old.  Parking is awful.  But it’s still baseball and it’s fun.  The Red Soxs want Lee County to build a Little Green Monster by 2012 so they will stay.

The problem I have is that with the current economy in Lee County it seems a little heartless to ask for so much.  Lee County Florida is ranked as one of the top foreclosure counties in the entire country.  The housing market has crashed and the building industry is half of what it was a couple years ago.  The loss in revenue from taxes and impact fees has caused the county and the cities to cut funding to social services and schools while also putting some much needed road construction and repair on hold. I understand that Professional Sports bring in a lot of money and the Sox are surely pay dirt when it comes to that.  However, that is seasonal money.  Does it really create year round jobs?  How many visiting fans are going to decide to relocate to Lee County because of coming down for a game?

I love baseball.  I enjoy going to games.  I actually have two fantasy teams.  This is nothing against the Sox.  This one just has me stumped on what to think of the county’s possible direction to spend a lot of money by 2012 that it doesn’t really have.  Money that will take away from some very needed bandages to get the residents of the county through to the other side of their apparent economic downturn.  Kudos for thinking outside of the box trying to tie it into the University but we’re still talking about a lot of dough.  Sound off…I’d love to hear your take on too much green for a little green monster. 

 

Green Monster headed for Lee County?

Last updated on: 7/8/2008 6:41:40 PM by Grant Lodes

From NBC-2.com Fort Myers, FL 

http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readleearticle.asp?articleid=20263&z=14

FORT MYERS: Fenway Park could be getting a smaller, younger sibling.

Today Lee County Parks and Recreation Director John Yarbrough said the Red Sox have made it clear they want their Spring Training Home to look a lot more like their regular season home by 2012.

With Sarasota looking to lure the World Champs out of Lee County, Yarbrough said he’s recommending the County begin a formal RFP process. The request for proposal means developers will submit formal proposals for the new spring training facility.

Boston brass has already indicated they’ve outgrown City of Palms Park. Red Sox leaders have also said they’d like their practice/minor league facility and their main stadium to be in one location.

Currently, City of Palms Park and their other practice fields are about two miles apart on Edison Avenue. The next big question is where would Fenway Jr. be built?

Lee County Deputy County Manager Bill Hammond told NBC2 yesterday that a new park or renovation of City of Palms Park on that Edison Avenue site would mean buying up residential lots to make room for the new structures.

Another option that seems to have teeth is to partner with FGCU to build a multi-purpose facility in south Lee County. FGCU President Wilson Bradshaw told NBC2 recently that the Eagles would love to have football in a decade.

Bradshaw and Hammond have seemed open to the idea of a joint facility that could accommodate a football stadium and a new Red Sox home.

The Sox would need between 90 - 100 acres for their facilities.

Where the hell did that come from?

I’m in my car driving to work with the radio on and suddenly, like I was possessed, I started singing along with the radio:

Friday night, it was late
I was walking you home
We got down to the gate
And I was dreaming of the night
Would it turn out right

I tried to stop myself but I couldn’t.  I kept looking around for someone to stop it but no luck. I was by myself.  It was like something spilling out of my head…

How to tell you girl
I wanna build my world around you
Tell you that it’s true
I wanna make you understand
I’m talkin’ about a lifetime plan

What the hell was happening to me?  How in the world did I know the words to that song.  Sure, it sounded familiar as in I think I’ve heard it on Muzak while in an elevator.  And it just kept happening.  There was no off button.

That’s the way it began, we were hand in hand
Glenn Miller’s Band was better than before
We yelled and screamed for more
And the Porter tunes “Night and Day”
Made us dance across the room
It ended all too soon
And on the way back home
I promised you’d never be alone

I can’t remember what I ate for dinner the night before most of the time and here I was getting every word right.  I started to become more at ease reasoning that it was almost impossible that I was possessed.  And if I was possessed I guess singing songs I don’t know wouldn’t be so bad.  As long as there wasn’t any pea soup or head rotation I should be OK…

Hurry, don’t be late
I can hardly wait
I said to myself when we’re old
We’ll go dancing in the dark
Walking through the park and reminiscing

There was a little break in the song.  I looked around while I was stopped at the light.  Was anyone looking?  Could they tell I was totally singing my lungs out?  The rear view mirror looked clear.  There was a big box truck to my right and no one on my left.  So far so good.  Would it continue?  I felt a heave…

Friday night, it was late
I was walking you home
We got down to the gate
And I was dreaming of the night
Would it turn out right
Now as the years roll on
Each time we hear our favorite song
The memories come along
Older times we’re missing
Spending the hours reminiscing

That’s right.  I finished the song.  Where the hell did that come from?  I felt drained and exhausted.  I had no idea who sang it and when it was released.  I wearily walked through the front door of my office and sat down at the computer.  I pulled up google and typed in part of the refrain.  Reminiscing, Little River Band, 1978.  I was six years old.  The only thing I remember listening to in 1978 was the Grease Soundtrack over and over again.  I had it on 8 track and I played it so many times that the tape broke.

Somehow this song had entered my brain and stuck like glue.  What else is in there?  Can I get rid of any of it to make room for more important stuff?  For example, I would love to store my mother-in-law’s birthday (September ??), or be able to remember that I have to put the trash out on Monday, no Tuesday morning.  At least I remember the trash day because the big hint is when I leave for work and see everyone else’s cans by the road.  The mother-in-law birthday reminder is usually after the fact and the ramifications are not as pleasant as missing garbage day.  It just seems like a waste of gray matter.

For those of you who had a great time Reminiscing check out the video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RDn5Y0D_0  For those of you who feel my pain let me know!

An In Body Experience

June 30, 2008

 

I had an “in body” experience today.  I think the problem is that I have been having an out of body experience for about the past 8 years.  Let me explain.  At some point eight years ago I stopped looking in the mirror.  Usually, if you go by a mirror you check yourself out.  At minimum you give yourself the do I have anything smeared across my face look as you pass one by.  I’m not sure when, but I stopped doing that.  I concentrate only on what I need to see.  I look at my eyes if I need to see if I have mascara smeared under them.  I look at just my hair when I am styling it.  The only time I see a true reflection is when I look at a picture of myself.  I have even gone through the efforts of avoiding said pictures even being taken because my subconscious knows that I really don’t want to see what I look like now.

 

Today, I had to look at a picture of myself because we were picking the proofs of photos for work from a professional shoot.  At first it was the “Who is that a picture of?”  Then was the “Oh shit that’s me!” response.  I sat there in shock.  How did I get that way?  When did this happen?  For the past 8 years I have imagined myself stuck in the not fat but not skinny and comfortably happy with myself me.  I know the clothes I buy are bigger.  I know that my butt doesn’t fit in an airplane seat as comfortably as it used to.  But I didn’t know that I looked like that! 

 

I wanted to cry.  I wanted to go take a nap for a year.  I wanted to cut off a leg to lose some weight immediately.  I at least snapped to my senses a little when I thought, “Hey, come on now.  You’d just be a fat person with one leg.  That’s not going to help anything.” 

 

Now what?  What am I going to do about it?  I don’t know.  I know that I need to exercise.  I know I need to eat better.  I know that I need to stop smoking and drinking.  I know that if I look like this on the outside then my insides have to be a complete mess.  I know that I hate to diet.  I know that I am on blood pressure medicine at age 36.  I know that exercise is hard work for me.  I know that I bought an elliptical a year and half ago and have only used it once for the purpose it is intended to fill.  I know that I love food.  I know that I want to be around for a long time to see my kids grow up and lead great lives.  I know that when I exercise I do lose weight.  I know that I am tired ALL OF THE TIME.  I know that I feel busy ALL OF THE TIME.  I know that this all sucks.

 

What else have I been missing over the past 8 years while having my out of body experience?

 

Now what? 

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