Baby Shower

 Wow.  Time marches forward whether we want it to or not.  Today I attended the baby shower of my daughter's best friend, who was the matron of honor in her wedding.  My daughter's best friend, C, have been friends since before they were born.  Here's the backstory.

I found out I was pregnant with my daughter.  Two weeks later C's mom, who is a very good friend of mine,  found out she was pregnant as well.  We went through our pregnancies together and the girls grew up together, played sports together, were each other's maid of honor in their weddings.  

It seems like yesterday C's mother and I had our pictures taken with our VERY pregnant bellies touching.  Today the girls are both married and now C is having a baby of her own.   

It was with great emotion to attend her baby shower today.  The baby is having a baby of her own.  My daughter and I helped with food (of course) and cleaning up to help out the hostess.  We were more than happy to do it. 

The next generation is here. Geeez, I'm getting old. 

Going Home

 In a few short days I will be making the trek to my birthplace of Minnesota.  The plan has been morphing for months, but life has a way of making plans for you.  

The original plan was to fly to Minnesota, spend time with family and friends, then rent a car and head west on I-94 through Fargo to stop by and say hello to more relatives, continue on through Dickenson, North Dakota, and through Billings and Bozeman, Montana.  I have a friend who lives in Dillon, Montana and she has been begging for me to come for a visit.  From there, the plan was to continue on to Sun River, Oregon for a work meeting and then drive home to Sonoma County.  

As previously mentioned, life has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into plans.  While I'm still going to Minnesota, the rest of the trip has been cancelled.  Why?  Because both of my husband's sisters are in ill health.  One of his sisters has been in and out of the hospital for the past two months.  She can hardly breathe.  Her husband is also in ill health.  He does not have feeling in his limbs and has fallen more than once that landed him in the hospital. I will refer to this couple as A and B. 

A and B have two adult children in their late 50's.  One daughter works full-time and makes the time to care for her parents.  The other daughter is a raging alcoholic who does nothing and is in and out of rehab.  I've had more than one dream recently where A has died.  I had one last night.  I was at A's bedside and she was in a hospital.  She was having difficulty breathing.  There was a nurse  who pronounced her dead and stated that A was finally done suffering.  I was watching A's soul leave her body like wisps of ascending smoke that joined with other smoke-like wisps that were hovering near the ceiling.  I knew it was her spirit guides coming to help her cross over.  B was lying next to her body in the hospital bed in disbelief.  Then somebody put a coin in A's mouth.  It was then I woke up.

My other sister-in-law, I will refer to her as K, has been needy for the past few years.  She has had several surgeries on her knees and shoulders where she rehabilitated at our house as she lives alone, never married, and has no children.  In March of 2022 she had major back surgery.  K is accident prone and managed to open the incision in her back.  Every day the wound needed to be cleaned and bandaged.  We finally got her almost healed from the back surgery (it took over a year) and then K managed to injure herself riding a scooter and managed to pin herself up against the bumper of her car.  The injury required an ambulance, emergency room visit, and then surgery.  Long story short, the severity of the injury left her pretty much immobilized.  We have been cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, taking care of her garden, taking care of her cat, taking her to doctor appointments, and trying to figure out her state of affairs (she is extremely disorganized).  She is on the bubble of needing somebody 24/7.  We have her on a wait list for senior housing, but that wait could be years. 

What makes things difficult is that K is showing signs of dementia and getting the truth out of her is nearly impossible.  I'm constantly plucking the bits information she gives me and trying to piece together the truth.  Don't even get me started as to why she gave the original title of her home to a roofer five years ago who said he needed it in order to perform work.  I'm cleaning up that mess, which is a story all unto itself.

K is a wonderful woman, please don't get me wrong.  It's just that she's aging and needs care.  K was ALWAYS there for us when our kids were small helping out with caring for them.  K helped with all the "cousins" when they were small.  She never had biological kids of her own, but she raised 9 of them.

Where are all these kids now and also the rest of the family in K's hour of need?  Good question.

Without going into family dynamics, K has been ditched by the rest of the family.  She is broke and has nothing; therefore, nobody cares.  There won't be anything to inherit except a mess of bureaucratic headaches dealing with California probate court, creditors, and cleaning out her piles of useless crap.  

Yes, this is a long-winded testament as to why the summer trip going west got cancelled.  I kept   Minnesota to see my own mother who is aging and to give a little relief to my sister who has been at the helm of her care.  

On the plus side, I'm going to northern Minnesota to the cabin with my coven for a short getaway.  I'm looking forward to seeing them.  It's been pre-COVID since we've had a cabin getaway.  :)

Names I Don't Like

 A strange twist of turns and events happen in life.  There is not a pregnancy that has been announced (yet) but names of my future grandchildren are being tested with their future parents.  Believe it or not, even my gay son is thinking of parenthood at some point.  He and his husband would be the type to adopt an Asian girl like in the sitcom Modern Family.  Yes, he laughs at the stereo type and finds humor in it.  

Before I get into names I don't like, my daughter's in-laws have announced their preferred reference to what the future grandchildren call them.  It's like they want dibs on being called Nanny and Poppy.  Whatever.  I never even thought about it.  The kids will call me whatever comes to them.  I don't have a preassigned determination on that.  It will come naturally.  I'm already called gramma as I have a granddog.  Whenever the grand dog comes over, which is frequently, I hear the dog coming through the front door with my daughter singing, "Where's grammmmaaaaaaaaa?"

I don't care if "gramma" sounds old.  I am old.  I own it.  I'm proud I made it this far.   I don't need some catchy-cutesy euphemism for being what I am.  

Now, back to names I don't like.  My kids are coming at me with names of their future kids.  Personally, for me, I have an unusual name.  Nobody ever got it right.  Nobody ever gets it right to this day.  Truth:  I did not know my own name when I went to kindergarten as I was referred to as a childhood nickname I still go by today.  I swore that if I ever had kids that I would give them names nobody would ever have to guess at, trip their tongues on, and mispronounce in the process - let alone struggle to remember 10 minutes later.   I succeeded at that.

 Now, back to the title of this post of names I don't like.  Here's my list.

1.  Naomi (need I say more) sounds like a high-maintenance Jewish bitch

2. Peggy (sounds like a wooden leg)

3.  Sue (of course you thought this would follow Peggy because of the 50's song Peggy Sue) also sounds like a pig call like my paternal grandfather used to do. "Soooooooooooey. Sooooooooooooey."

4.  Kathy (sorry to all the Kathys I know - there are dozens - and that's the problem)  It's the most unimaginative name there is.   I especially dislike the variation of Kathleen.  Kathleen sounds like a used kleenex. 

5.  Jennifer (sorry to all the Jennifers I know - there are dozens - and that's the problem)  Sounds like the name of a side piece for a middle age man going through a mid life crisis. 

6.  Kim:  are you Asian or white trash from Nebraska?

7.  Margaret:  Sounds too much like maggot. 

8.  Wendy:  Has a big mouth that is always open

I could go on and on, but the names I've mentioned are not necessarily in fashion these days as everybody is tripping all over themselves trying to be original by copying others.  Yes, the irony is not lost on me.  Hint:  There are only so many variations of Breeze and Neveah we can handle.

 Well, here are the top  names of my future granddaughter (should the gods determine to be so).  

Scarlett:  Which I can totally get behind as Scarlett O'Hara was my heroine from Gone With the Wind.  I suppose many today have no clue to the character or the legendary film and book circa 1939.  I always wanted to be Scarlett O'Hara.  

Athena:  After the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare.  Yup.  I can relate.  My kids say I come with my own warning label and should pass this down.    I take this as a compliment.  

Bottom line:  I had no idea that my kids would ever consider my personality when choosing a name for a potential granddaughter.  What an honor. 

 

No Interest

 My niece just broke up with her boyfriend.  We all just spent an extended family vacation on Oahu and Maui.  My son-in-law was lamenting privately to me that the "family" just paid a lot of money for boyfriend to go on vacation with all of us only to have the relationship with my niece end the day after we all got home.  

I looked my son-in-law in the eyes and coolly stated money spent on a vacation with a bad ending is better than money spent on a wedding with a bad ending.

No dis on my son-in-law.  He is trying to protect family.  God bless him.

Cupping Energy

 I had a dream that I was able to catch waves of almost invisible energy into my hands.   The energy looked like little wisps of smoke that were almost dissipated.  I then cupped my hands together and the energy transformed into beautiful creations I then released that floated up into the sky.  Some were flowers.  Some were intricate geometric patterns.  Some were souls that I was not sure if they were human or not.  I was amazed in my dream of what I was capturing, creating, and then releasing.

I was astonished at what I was able to do.  I sensed witnesses cheering me on indicating that this was just the beginning. 

Suit and Tie

Would somebody please close the coffin on the suit and tie?  The only guys who still wear suit and ties are uptight east coasters with a career in finance or banking.   The suit and tie is so symbolic of the 80's greed era.  Only money-hungry financial ripper-offers wear them to swindle you out of your money OR to compare themselves to other ripper-offers how much $ they have.  

Suit and tie = you are trying to swindle me out of my $ with a fast talking line of b.s.

Suit and tie = you are a crook that is not yet in jail

Suit and tie = you are a politician filling me full of what diapers are full of.  Politicians and diapers need to be changed often and for the same reason. 

I suppose the suit and tie still has a place at weddings and funerals....barely.  Other options for men's clothing have come onto the scene that do not scream up-tight-@ss-hole-money-ripper-offer-jack-@ss-prick-most-likely-peddling-life-insurance-or-hot-stocks.  

In my little town in Sonoma County anybody who wears a suit is immediately suspect.  We know they are not from here.  We know they are scoping out opportunity to make money.  We are nothing but a potential profit for them.  I'm going to resurrect a term from yesteryear.  Anybody who wears a suit around here is a carpetbagger.  Look up the term if you don't know what it means.  If you have to look up the term, and you are wearing a suit, you ARE one.  

We will take our flip-flops, Hawai'i shirts, surf boards, golf attire, sunglasses, sundresses, Grateful Dead paraphernalia, water bongs, and everything else that makes us California bums over the monetary ravenous suit and tie crowd.  

Oh, this excludes the L.A. crowd.  They are in a class-hole all unto themselves.  They can't be in the sun for too long, or their fake, plastic selves will melt. 

Door Dash

What is with this younger generation?  They want INSTANT gratification for EVERYTHING.  Yes, their helicopter parents indulged them by showering them with their endless, constant material wants while telling them they are the center of the universe.

Thanks a lot.  They are the employment pool we are now dealing with.  People wonder why there are constant "help wanted" signs while millennials cry there is not any work.  There is work.  Millennials  just think they should start at the top and not pay their dues. 

Millenials are now (....not really) wanting a job and think that money grows on trees.  They think the world owes them a living and will quickly label you a BOOMER capitalistic pig if you even mention they pay their own way.  

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa??????  Pay my OWN Way???????   (whine the Millennials as the waiter at the boojey, upscale restaurant slips the check to their parents) Of course NOT.  Millennials want to suck off their parents and use their Netflix password.  Millennials paying their own way is a foreign concept for them.  Of course they want everybody else to pay their bills for them.

What kills me is that while the Millennials are bashing the Boomers, the millennials are still sucking on the money tit of the Boomers as Millennials beg their Boomer grandparents for college tuition, paying  cell phone bills, wanting a down payment for a house, automobile purchases, etc., etc., etc..  Sorry Millennials, you can't have it both ways.  Cut your money demands from the Boomers and STFU.  You are not entitled.  You don't get to bash Boomers with your hand out.  You don't get to condemn Boomers whilst begging for the money and economic system you deem cancerous to society.  

Millennials, we know who you are.  You hate grandpa and grandma because their beliefs may not necessarily be aligned with yours.  However, their beliefs built the monetary nest egg you now want to raid.  I can see Millennials now.   Millennials are awaiting the reading of the trust documents after Boomer grandparents'  funeral wondering how many zeros are after the initial number when your name is read.

Dollars to donuts you did not even visit your Boomer grandparents while they were alive.  You hated them.  They were BORING and OLD FASHIONED.  You could not wait to escape their presence.  You did not text them.  You did not call them.  You did not email them.  You did not respond to birthday cards and Christmas presents they sent you.  You ignored their generosity.  But, there you are at the reading of the trust after the funeral wondering how much  $$$$$$$ they left you. 

Who are the fake ones?  Who are the materialistic ones?  I'm not letting Millennials off the hook. 

The instant Millennial response is to whine how Boomers had it sooooooo much easier.  Bullshit.  Every generation has challenges.  Nobody has it easy.  No generation ever had it easy. 

Millennials whine about everything, claim they are a victim, and yet call Door Dash at a monetary premium to deliver their coffee in the morning instead of brewing their own coffee at a fraction of the cost.  Don't you dare tell me how broke you are while you are getting coffee and food items delivered to your door that cost 4X as much as making it yourself.  

.....and while we are on the subject, don't ask me to pay your student loan debts off for you.  When you borrow money, YOU ARE OBLIGATED TO PAY IT BACK.  That's the definition of a loan.  If you're a college graduate and you don't understand that basic economic principal, your college degree is worthless.  It's not the taxpayers fault you chose a useless degree that pays less than a Starbucks barista.   Why should we pay it back for you?  How is that fair to people who worked three jobs to pay theirs back?  It's not.

Sorry Millennials, you can't suck and blow at the same time.  You can't condemn capitalism while sucking on its tit.  You like your luxury apartments, trips to Europe, boojey restaurants,  and all the trappings just as much, if not more, than the Boomers.  You won't donate your inheritance to charity.  You'll be asking why there was not MORE for YOU. 

I know this will anger many Millennials. 

Truth hurts.