24 November 2010

21 November 2010

Over there! Over there!

Kyran got a new url at Planting Dandelions. You should go read her there.

And my new url is, well, my name. Please bookmark accordingly.

Thank you.

16 November 2010

Come visit me at my new place

...same as the old place but with my fancy new url

http://suebobdavis.com

Tips for Not Being a Jerk

Don't make fun of someone's name, no matter how tempting it is. I recently met a woman whose name was the equivalent of "Cleopatra Anthony." I had to hold myself back. It took my force of will. But I stopped myself, because honestly? How often does a person with an odd name hear the odd name joke? ALL THE TIME. I assure you, as someone who knows someone with the last name "Ho," you are not the first.

Do not ask about someone's infirmity or scar. Everyone wants to feel normal. Asking someone "Hey, what happened to your face/arm/leg?" is a sure way to push them right off the normal path. If they want to talk about what happened, they will mention it in their own time, when they like and trust you not to be a nosy jerk.

15 November 2010

Some kind of depressing musings on life and burritos

I came home after the gym and Farmer's Market on Saturday and tossed all of my vegetables on the kitchen table and my wet gym bag on the floor.

They were all still there this morning. Monday morning. The vegetables were faded and limp and the swimsuit had that murky, not-so-fresh smell.

As soon as I had gotten home, I had thought "I'm so tired," and I laid down on the couch. Then I got up and went to bed. After about half an hour, I tried to convince myself to get up, but I couldn't move.

One of the great blessings of getting older is a certain amount of perspective. If I had been 20, I would have spent a great deal of time berating myself about what a lazy jerk I was, sleeping a beautiful Saturday - and it was a glorious, warm, sunny day - away.

But being Of A Certain Age, I realized "There must be something seriously wrong with me," and you know, Being of A Certain Age, I was right.

The fever and chills hit about 2 p.m. The cookie-tossing commenced shortly thereafter and lasted for the next 10 hours or so.

Thank God for twitter on my phone, because it was the only thing I could do to pass the long hours - I don't have a TV and reading a book made me even more nauseous. Sleeping led to weird hallucinatory dreams populated by the - I am not making this up - People of Wal-Mart. Standing up, other than to dash to the bathroom, was beyond my capabilities.

I usually love living alone. I don't get lonely. I seem perfectly suited to a solitary lifestyle, a room of my own, a house of my own, a life all my own.

I have to admit, though, as I lay there pinned down by the after-effects of an ill-conceived food stand burrito, that I questioned the wisdom of my decision. Being alone and healthy and happy isn't the same as being alone and sick and incapacitated, is it?

Flat on back, unable to move, helpless. Those were some long and lonely hours, despite my little glowing twitter connection. My tiny little house suddenly felt way too big for just one person.

But despite all of my fantasies of Brad Pitt carrying a cool cloth for my forehead, we never know what life may bring. We may get sick and get a Peter Mayhew, or we may have to be the hero when our loved one gets sick, the hero in ways that are tough and awful and scary.

Or, as happens all too frequently, we may walk out or get walked out upon in our hour of darkest need (no links here - I guess nobody ever blogs about that).

That's the crazy part about life. You just never know. But one thing is for certain: eating a bad burrito will give you a lot of time to think about it.

10 November 2010

A War Story (in honor of Veteran's Day)

My dad wanted to enlist in the Army during World War II. He was born in 1918, so he was a bit older than the average soldier when the war rolled around, but like every able-bodied man at the time, he wanted to go.

He signed up and kept reporting for duty, but was turned away several times because the Army had lost his paperwork.

In the meantime, he was working in Long Beach as a welder, building warships. Finally, he got tired of waiting.

He sold all of his possessions, including his car. He reported to the Army with the clothes on his back and $5 in his pocket.

"You have to take me now," he said. "I have nowhere else to go and no money to get there if I did."

They took him, and he served in the 3rd Army, 261st Field Artillery Battalion in Europe, including fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

Dad in Germany 1945
Dad in Germany, 1945 Click to see larger

Here is a poem my dad carried in his wallet along with pictures of the family. It obviously meant something special to him:
Soldiers
I was that which others did not want to be.
I went where others feared to go, and did what others failed to do.
I asked nothing of those who gave nothing,
and reluctantly accepted the thought of eternal loneliness, should I fail.
I have seen the face of terror, felt the stinging cold of fear, and enjoyed the sweet taste of a moment’s love.
I have cried, pained, and hoped…but most of all I have lived times that others would say were best forgotten.
At least some day I will be able to say that I was proud to be what I was…a soldier.

06 November 2010

You Give and You Get

Warning: BusyMom said this should have a tear-jerker warning. Consider yourself warned.

It's a long story, but Catherine of Her Bad Mother asked us to make tutus and run in Central Park at BlogHer 10 as a benefit for her nephew, Tanner.

I was taken with this idea, but I was a bit baffled about how to transport a whole tutu across the country without mangling it, so I came up with a brilliant plan.

I would buy yards of tulle, cut them into strips, and offer people at BlogHer the chance to assemble their own tutus before the benefit race.

I bought tulle. A LOT of it. It was pretty and cheap and I got a little over-enthusiastic, as I tend to do, and I bought about 110 yards:
The little princess in tulle
The tulle was Goldie-approved

I realized that cutting 110 yards of tulle in a hotel room in the compressed timeframe of BlogHer wasn't going to happen, so I had to cut it at home. 110 yards into 4-inch wide strips...It was a big deal.

I decided to cut tulle at my folks' house on the kitchen table, since my only table is too small. And because my parents are lovely, lovely people, they decided to help me.

You mom bloggers know how it is when your kids "help" you make cookies? It was kind of like that.

My mom has bad arthritis and couldn't work for very long, so my dad stepped in. My 90% blind, not terribly steady dad. But dang it, there was work to be done and he was going to do it. He and I fumbled and twisted tulle and cut at funny angles and made mistakes, and there were times I felt like either screaming or running away.

But I took deep breaths and took his help in the spirit it was offered. We got that damned tulle cut into strips and we looked good doing it.

By the time I got to Central Park, I had two sprained ankles and couldn't run. I did have a walk down 6th Ave. to the park in gorgeous, Lakers-colored tutu, and many others at BlogHer got tutus made by volunteers who did tutu construction at the People's Party.
Caffeinatrix and me, bright and early. Really early

IMG00141.jpg

Three weeks later my dad was dead.

Making those "Tutus for Tanner" was the last father-daughter project we ever worked on, and it turns out I'm thankful for those goofy, crazy hours of frustration and screwed-up teamwork.

That's life, isn't it? You just decide to do things and do your best under the circumstances, and sometimes you get a gift you don't expect, a gift that you wouldn't trade all the gold in Fort Knox for. And then you go on to write sentences that end in prepositions, and life goes on.

02 November 2010

Sometimes you get lucky

You know my sister's name was Laura.

At BlogHer 2007, I got a new friend, whose name is Laurie. Which is far enough from Laura to not squinch my heart up every time I say it, but close enough to make me think that sometimes families aren't necessarily made by genes.

It also makes me think that having someone you really love take your photograph somehow makes you prettier.

Photo by Laurie White. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

01 November 2010

Things I Can Say Because I Have PMS

Random Idjit: "The happiest people I know don't have blogs because they are too busy having real lives."
Suebob: "The reason people don't have blogs is because they don't have anything interesting to say."

Random Idjit: "You're exploiting your kids/your family/your friends/yourself to make money from your blog."
Suebob: "If you knew how to make money making anything more creative than Slurpees, maybe you wouldn't be so jealous."

Random Idjit: "I think people that need to put their lives on view all the time have something wrong with them."
Suebob: "Your pathological need to hide from the world is baffling to me."

Random Idjit: "What makes you think everyone wants to know your opinion all the time?"
Suebob: "The way they find out my opinion is by seeking it out. As far as I know, no one has ever been forced to come to my blog or twitterfeed at gunpoint."

Random Idjit: "I just don't understand what you're trying to accomplish."
Suebob: "YOU WOULDN'T."
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