cindy's world

The evening started off promising. Mr. W and I went to Seal Beach to pick up my ring. I LOVE it; the lower profile makes it much more practical, the jeweler had rhodium-plated both the engagement ring and the wedding band, and the set looks amazing; glittery and like a million bucks. The center stone looks smaller now than it did, but the new much-more-secure 6-prong short Tiffany setting only seemed to enhance the brilliance of the diamond. Then we went to Basil Leaf again, where I had the most frustrating grilled chicken sandwich (banh mi); every time I bit into the bread, the insides would squirt out the other sides. I also had another young coconut, and I think I’m done with coconuts for awhile. We ended the outing with a visit to the coffee house we go to when we see Rebecca. I had a chai latte with soy, Mr. W had some coffee thing or other.

And then, I don’t know what happened. I guess I can say I started feeling more negative than I could justify. Sure a few things bothered me — something this person said irritated me, the dismissive way that person treated something didn’t sit well with me, and someone else’s inconsiderate poor planning was annoying, too. Small stuff, no personal attacks, but I was feeling knotted and sick. All I could think of was that maybe I was picking up on and absorbing other people’s negativity, and it wasn’t my own cuz my life was just fine. I was starting to wonder what I could do to meditate away this empathic bad mood. And then I noticed that there was light coming out from the bottom of Mr. W’s daughter’s bedroom door. She’d come home in the midst of my crapshoot evening, I hadn’t said much to her, and altho it was late, I got up and rapped lightly on her bedroom door. “Come in!” she said in a lively way. At least she was in a good mood.
I cracked open the door and poked my head in. She was on her bed with textbooks, notebooks, and snacks spread around her, mid-text on her cell phone. “Hey, did you end up going to Disneyland on Friday?” I asked.
“Ugh, no I didn’t,” she said, and invited me in to tell me the whole story about her social life and her current frustrations with people. We had a lengthy heart-to-heart (I didn’t burden her with my feelings, this was just for her). When I got up to leave, she thanked me for talking to her, and added that she appreciates every conversation we’d ever had about her feelings and problems.
I told her, “You know that I’m proud of you and how you’ve learned to handle things, right?” She had grown so much since I’d met her as an excitable perky (if socially clumsy) 13-year-old.
She replied, “Thanks to you, because we’ve been having these talks since I was in 8th grade.”
I laughed and said, “I take VERY LITTLE credit for this stuff. By the time I talk to you a lot of the time, it’s just curiosity about what’s going on because you’ve already handled it.” That really is true, especially lately.
She looked at me earnestly. “I remember a lot of the things you’ve told me since I was in 8th grade, and I’ve told those things to my friends. I always say, ‘Cindy is so wise, this is what she told me.’ ” As a vision of an owl flashed through my mind’s eye, I laughed her compliment off and told her it was really not me, most of it is her learning on her own, and we said our goodnights.

And that is how the intimacy and appreciation from a 19-year-old stepdaughter fixed all the bad feelings about an evening. What folly, that she thinks that I save her, when she does so much of the saving.

Yesterday after work, Mr. W and I went to Seal Beach to visit Rebecca at the coffee house. We got there a few hours early, so we thought we’d try out a Vietnamese restaurant we’d seen on Main Street called Basil Leaf. What was attractive was a sign on the front door that says, “NO MSG!” Mr. W gets occasional cravings for pho, but I always resist because I don’t want to ingest toxic amounts of MSG and feel gross and bloated afterwards, so he rarely gets his pho cravings satisfied. This place was a great find and is DELICIOUS! I also had an entire young coconut to myself. Chilled. They just hacked the outside green stuff off, gave it a lobotomy and me a straw and spoon. I’m always surprised how great and lightly fruity coconut water tastes to me, cuz coconut flavored liquors, foods, chocolates, etc. is horrible to me. I also don’t like that scratchy scrapey shaved coconut texture. Young fresh coconut, however, I’m able to clean out. I ate everything edible in there. Mr. W turned to me at one point and said, “You’d better lay off that coconut.” I froze with a mouthful of the tender white stuff, thoughts of saturated fats scaring me for a moment, spoon still poised in stab-dig position.
“Why?”
“There’s something about young coconuts… it’ll give you the runs.”
“Oh,” I said with relief, “I don’t care.” I went back to digging and eating my coconut.
He instantly took out his iPad and said he’d look the information up. Turns out, fresh young coconuts are very nutritious and are quite low in saturated fat and calories. I remembered learning that surgeons back in Captain Cook’s exploration days would directly IV-inject coconut water into the vein for dehydrated sick sailors. And, I’m happy to say, I did not get the runs. I plan on eating more chilled young coconut whenever I come across them. I’m happy they don’t taste anything like coconut flavoring.

On the walk to the coffee house, we passed by a jewelry store that does custom jewelry. I’d been wanting to get my engagement ring adjusted for some time. The center stone sits so high that I bang it into everything. It’s only held by just 4 prongs, so if one prong breaks, the diamond is gone. It’s gotten so that I take it off the moment I get home, and don’t wear it if I think I’ll be using my hands for anything (dishes, gymming, kayaking, rafting, holding onto ride handles at Disneyland, reaching into my purse…), and I check it frequently to make sure the stone’s still in place. =P It’s become very impractical. So we went into the store and spoke to the owner, who’s also the jewelry maker and designer. I examined a lot of his work and liked his taste. We also chatted with him a long time about the jewelry business and his philosophies about random stuff. We liked him and his no-nonsense approach to his field and commissioned him to reset the center stone in a 6-prong Tiffany setting, lowered 2 millimeters. He also asked if we could leave the wedding band with him so he could make sure if the dimensions change on the engagement ring, there wouldn’t be a match-up problem with the band. So walking out of there later, I felt very naked without my rings on. Until we pick up the rings next week, I’m gonna wear my other rings that I hadn’t worn in years. Today I have on a white pearl and peacock pearl yellow gold ring, accented by 2 diamonds, that I’d bought in a state of delirium and delusion of richness in college. It’s kinda fun, changing up the jewelry wardrobe, which is something I rarely get into.

At the coffee house, it was an intimate small crowd. I enjoyed that. Rebecca turned and smiled at me out of the blue at one point and asked, “Are you two ‘trying’ right now?” I explained there’s no “trying” with us, and that when we were ready, we’d just go to the doctor and get everything done. She said “it” feels very close around me, and that if she hadn’t known I couldn’t be pregnant right now, she’d think I were. I do feel very close to this soul, and I’ve felt it for awhile now. Just yesterday, before leaving to see Rebecca, I was typing up a case cite of Riley vs. Pappadopoulos [(1994) 23 Cal.App.4th 1616, 1624, if anyone cares to know] and suddenly, BAM, “Riley!” It felt like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle just glided seamlessly into place, completing a portion of a picture. No wonder my friends’ kids’ names of Kyden and Tyler always seemed to sort of resonate with me. I saw a “y” and a long “i” sound long ago. Plus, it’s one of the rare names that sounds good with Mr. W’s odd-sounding last name. So unless and until an even more perfect-feeling name comes up, hello, Riley! And Riley (well, his spirit anyhow) says hello to all of you!

I got out of lunch a tad late yesterday and had to cover for a busy court in the afternoon, so I had to skip the lunchtime Insanity workout. To make up for that, Mr. W and I ran my usual course last nite — a hilly trek from our house down past the lake and back, 4.42 miles total. I’d started running it (sometimes with the girl stepkidlet) at a pace taking me about an hour and some odd minutes. (There are some really long killer uphills!) We managed to get the time down to right about an hour when her summer vacation hit and she stopped running. I still went on for a few more runs on my own, shaving more time off until I averaged about 49, 50 minutes. I used to run flat land at approximately an 8.5-minute mile pace, so this wasn’t good enough. I know I have to make allowances for the extra hills, but still. Anyway, my last run was in June. Last nite, I donned my brand new Asics (coolest, most comfortable model ever! I have these in the blue), and ran it with Mr. W. The weather was perfect and cool. Not only did I not get blisters, and didn’t die without my iPod (which is battery juice-less), but I felt good thru most of my run and ended up shaving more time off! 45 minutes! It’s still a hair over a 10-minute mile, but I’m much closer. I think the Insanity workouts have helped strengthen my legs and cardio.

Now I’m less nervous about this month’s boot camp race I signed up for.

I believe that for the most part, quality of life is a state of mind. Assuming you’re not impoverished, painfully diseased, you didn’t just lose a loved one, or get brutally beaten up by a drunk husband, etc., your average life can be great if you just allow yourself to see the silver lining. I did this exercise late this morning, for example:

Cindy is hungry. –> Fortunately, it’s 10 minutes till lunchtime. –> Unfortunately, she spends lunchtimes doing Insanity workouts. –> Fortunately, she has nothing to barf up mid-workout.

See what I did there?

I think Insanity is perking up my butt. Which is another perk to this insanity.

(photos courtesy Tom’s cell phone camera)

Just got home from The Doors concert at our lake. I didn’t get the music; it was just noise to me except for the encore song, which was “Light My Fire,” #1 song on the charts in 1967. It was pretty cool that Robby Krieger (who mainly wrote the song) was performing it live in front of us. Maggie, her hubby Tom, and Mr. W had a great time. I’m glad, because I was mostly distracted and very violently annoyed by three morons standing up in the front nearly the entire time blocking people’s view with their gyrating, despite Lake rules that people stay seated and despite my and other people’s requests to them to sit down or move aside. I had never wanted a slingshot so badly in my entire life. Tom kindly told me after the concert that he’d considered throwing a fork at one of the guys. Judging by the way these idiots ignored angry tugging on the back of one of the guys’ shirt and the crowd’s shouting demands for “down in front” to sit down, they wouldn’t have felt the fork, but it was the thought that counts. According to the people in the know (apparently everyone except for me), the current lead singer sounds like Jim Morrison, looks like Jim Morrison, and has the exact mannerisms and movements as Jim Morrison. Mr. W said he felt like he was watching and living 60s history. At one point, someone even lit up and we smelled the skunky stink of pot. I think the sheriffs were on that pretty quickly because the smell was gone within a minute. But let me back up.

Before the concert, Dwaine came over and hung out, then Maggie and Tom arrived, and we all went to the lake early to get in some kayaking. Dwaine asked as we left the house whether we were gonna take pictures of our adventure. I thought it was a great idea, and asked Mr. W if he had his waterproof camera ready. He answered that it was too much trouble to put the camera in the waterproof casing, so I ran upstairs and got my (significantly more expensive) DSLR camera and met everyone outside. We got to the lake, I grabbed a towel and my camera and we headed to the watercraft rental station. Since we had to wait for Tom and Mr. W who were changing in the restroom, I decided to start a new folder in the camera for this trip. I turned it on, the battery indicator flashed, and the display shut off. That’s weird, I had enough juice in the battery the last time I used it, or I would’ve changed the battery already. But I walked back to the restrooms where Mr. W was walking out, handed him my camera, and asked him to put it with his stuff in the locker because it was out of battery. He looked at me like I was stupid and troublesome, which okay, I was at the moment. I ran back to my beach bag, retrieved my fairly new Android cell phone so that I could at least take photos with that, and returned to the kayak area. Soon we were on our kayaks in the water. I took some photos, and Tom pulled out his cell phone and took some photos, including this one of me:

This is the conversation that followed the photo.
Everyone: Be careful! Don’t fall!
Me: It’s fine, the kayak’s actually pretty steady. I can probably even do this on one foot. *lifting one leg*
Everyone: Be careful! Don’t fall!
Me: It’s fine! *lifting the other leg in another direction* *the kayak rocks toward the weight*
Everyone: *random gasps and yells*
Me: *lowering my foot quickly and restabilizing the kayak*
Everyone else: *sighs of relief*
Dwaine: Nice save! I thought it was gonna tip over!
Me: No, the kayak’s stable. I can actually get it to rock pretty far and it stays upright. *rocking left and right* See, I can rock it back and forth and it doesn’t –”
*flip*
*sploosh!*

When I came back up, my kayak was upside down. Which wasn’t a big deal in the very comfortable water temperature in the hot sun, until I understood what Mr. W was yelling. “Your cell phone! Your cell phone’s in there!” Oh, CRAP. My phone was in a zippered pouch attached to the back of my kayak seat. I pushed on the kayak. It just floated a little away from me.
“How do I flip this back over?”
“You have to get under it,” said Mr. W, paddling toward me. I took a breath and went under and pushed. Again, the kayak just moved away from me across the water. I had no leverage. Soon Mr. W got the kayak from one end and someone else, I think Tom, got it from the other end, and they pulled it up and flipped it. I pulled myself in and checked on the pouch right away. There was about 3 inches of water inside and my phone was submerged. Tom immediately took my phone and examined it, and took it apart to dry. *sigh* I wasn’t worried about it because what I was supposed to do? Besides, it’d gotten wet once before (rather mysteriously cuz I didn’t do it, I just found wetness and steam inside the display) and that time, after it dried and I recharged the phone, it stopped acting weird. So I wasn’t too concerned, altho it did suck that I was unable to entertain myself with it during the concert.

When we got home awhile ago and we walked to the front door, I mentioned to Mr. W that I need to remember to say a prayer of thanks to God (and really, to everyone helping me up there — spirit guides, angels, friends, etc.) for killing the battery of my DSLR camera. “Why?” Mr. W looked at me oddly.
“Because if that camera weren’t dead, it would’ve been in the kayak.” And I definitely would’ve been upset about THAT, because not only is it an expensive camera, it would’ve been resting on the bottom of the lake.
“Oooh,” he said, understanding.
A negative’s not always a negative, that’s why I’m not usually upset when little “disasters” strike, such as when I’m stuck hitting every red light on a drive. In that situation, I’m probably being deliberately delayed for a reason. In this case, it was weird that I didn’t check my DSLR battery before leaving the house, weird that the battery was so dead the camera wouldn’t even stay on which renders the camera completely useless, weird that my kayak was the only one with a seatback that had a zippered pouch cuz otherwise my cell would’ve been sitting in the open on the back of the kayak (where my stuff usually goes). Lastly, it was weird and unusual that Mr. W insisted, before we set out, that I remove everything (my tank top, flip flops, beach towel) from the back of the kayak where I usually keep things, and leave them instead on shore next to the launching area. All those things ended up being VERY lucky things.

Still, it was a stupid, careless move on my part. I should’ve just sat back down, but I wanted to demonstrate just how stable a kayak wasn’t, I guess.

Yesterday evening, Mr. W and I met up with a couple of my coworkers in Seal Beach for another coffeehouse visit with our clairvoyant Rebecca. (If you want to read more on Rebecca, type her name in my “search” box in the sidebar to the right.) First we had a fun, delicious dinner at Cafe Lafayette. Their food is amazing, we happened to hit happy hour so we my raspberry Lambic was nearly 1/3 off, and I now have a new love for string bean fries. Wow, that batter, dipped in their garlic aioli…just, wow. There was something else in the aioli, too. I can’t recall what it was, but it made it kind of green. Curry? Some herb? I guess I’ll have to go back to make sure.

After dinner, we walked down Main Street past the bustling shops, cafes, and restaurant-bars to our little hole in the wall coffee house. The tiny place was ridiculously crowded last night, and there was standing room only inside soon after the four of us sat down. There were already other coworkers there, waiting for our time to take a peek through the veil. Soon Rebecca arrived.

Mr. W asked the question of where she sees us traveling on our upcoming vacation. We’d felt like we were all over the place, first thinking of going on an adventure trip to Australia, but then realizing how difficult that was to plan in our strict 2-week time off window. Rebecca closed her eyes and received information for what seemed like a long time, so of course I got excited. It wasn’t going to be something easy and unexciting like “Vegas again.” She opened her eyes and said, “I keep seeing Greece. If not that, then Europe. The reason I say that is because the two of you like something with more culture, and you seem to like water, something like Aruba, but you don’t like vacations where you just sit somewhere on a beach the whole time, that’s boring for you, and Greece and Europe has more history, there’s more culture and substance there.” We then told her that just earlier that day, we had changed gears and started looking up cruises in the Greek Isles, a dream of mine. We found a cruise that left from Venice to spend a week exploring the waters and islands of Greece, then returned to Venice, and we would still have a week left to discover Italy. We had only that day put Europe on the possibility list. This cruise and itinerary had fit our schedule perfectly (unlike the Aussie cruises we looked into first), but we hadn’t worked out the budget yet to see if it was realistic. As I told Rebecca about our research today, a heard a bunch of “awww”s around me. People approve of Greek Isle cruises, apparently! haha. I think the reason she saw Aruba is because of our recent French Polynesia trip, and Mr. W said earlier yesterday that if we could find another trip with the same cruiseline for that time period for Fiji or something, he’d jump at it. Rebecca then cited us to the crowd as an example of how easy it could be for her to receive specific information if people are open to her and trust her, and she thanked us for our faith in her.

Another spot I’m more and more interested in, but had done no research in, is Ireland. I’ve always kind of felt like I hadn’t been Asian before in a past life (at least not recently), but I had been European. I get overwhelming feelings of nostalgia when I see pictures of certain locations in Europe (strongly in parts of France — so strong I bought a painting when I found I couldn’t walk away from it, parts of Italy), even though with the memories of this life I am unable to identify those places as I have never been to Europe, and for the most post, don’t know much about Europe short of what we learn in a historical context from school. I feel like I was in the US for its Golden Age in the 40s and 50s, and Europe after the Renaissance. So I thought I’d ask. “Why do I feel so drawn to Ireland?” The answer was better than I’d expected with my writer’s heart.

About 3 or 4 lifetimes ago, I was Scottish (hey, like my cat, I just realized!) and there was an Irish man I was involved with. But because of the time period, the strife between Ireland and Scotland made this union very difficult. (When she told me this, I had no idea about any problems between Ireland and Scotland, and Mr. W had told me in the car, “Are you kidding? They had MAJOR problems with each other! That’s what the movie Braveheart was all about!” Well, I couldn’t watch Braveheart cuz I’d kept falling asleep during it. I don’t like violent films.) My love soon left to return to Ireland, and it was expected and talked about that he would come back for me. I waited expectantly; he never returned. I was drawn toward Ireland then, wanting to search it for him, and I am still drawn to Ireland now, although with no clue of what I’m looking for there.
I asked Rebecca when this was, if it was 3-4 lifetimes ago. Hundreds of years, then. She said, 1600s.
I told her I’d always pictured myself there around that time period, but didn’t know if it was just imagination. Thinking back now, it was played out in my little girl’s let’s pretend scenarios (minus the man), and my childhood drawings were full of women drawn from that time, in that period clothing and hairstyle. I guess I’d just assumed it was fairy tale emulation. But I was always more drawn to fairy tales than other girls. Rebecca confirmed that I have vague memories of being there at that time because I WAS there at that time.
I then thought to ask her whether this Irish guy is around me, spiritually or maybe on this plane. Turns out, she says he is. She first asked if I had a brother. I said no. She said he’s a relative with whom I have a sisterly-brotherly relationship. A cousin. He’s 4-5 years younger than me, and it’s someone I’ve had a sense of familiarity with and am comfortable around. She sees a relationship where we playfully kid with each other. I only have 1 younger male cousin. He lives in eastern Canada and we’ve only seen each other in person 3 or 4 times. The second time I met him, I’m not sure how old he was but I was 13. After his family visited us and returned to Canada, I was surprised when I started finding letters in the mailbox from him to me. I still have them somewhere; he was too little to coordinate the pen to paper, so he’d type out his letters to me — long rambling punctuation-less “sentences” mostly listing out the titles of all the Nintendo video games he had, his prized possessions. The envelope was also typed, clearly from a typewriter, so that it was legible for the postman. I’m sure I wrote back, and we were pen pals for awhile. I’d even then thought it strange that my little geek cousin could work a computer word processing program before he could write well, and use that to write to me, and it was also strange that I seem to be closer to him with our big age difference, than I am to his older brother, only a year younger than I am. We “found” each other again once emails and IMs became a regularly available medium, and clicked instantly. We discovered we had a lot of things in common, such as our love for Bill Watterson’s “Calvin & Hobbes.” I’d really enjoyed reminding him of my memories of him and our interactions when he was very young, which he has no memory of and had found to be hilarious. I was always the one who remembered stories to pass on, anyway. Although the regularity of our contact waned or intensified as we both felt the need for, we never really lost touch again. I was pleasantly surprised when years ago, he’d declared me his favorite cousin despite growing up with other cousins closer in proximity to him. I’m definitely most in touch with him than I am with other cousins who live near me and whom I grew up with.
I told Rebecca I could tell my cousin Mark about this and really freak him out. “He’ll think it’s the grossest thing ever,” I laughed. She said to wait a bit before telling him.

I’d always wondered whether relationships feel strange when people incarnate together and go from husband-wife to mother-son, or sister-brother to husband-wife. Now I know. The old relationship doesn’t carry anything with it except for the sense of bond and trust; none of the romantic ties or emotions follow through. I’m sure that would be a relief to Mark, as well. Since he sometimes visits this blog, I’ll let the universe determine whether this is something he should find out about. If he reads this, he does; if he doesn’t, I won’t bring it up. Yet. *snicker*

But, I’ve gotta check on our age difference. My sense is that it’s greater than the 4-5 years Rebecca said. I’ll post the result here in an update.

** Update: Okay, he’s almost exactly 7.5 yrs younger than me. That would make that first letter (the one listing all the video games) typed by a 5 yr old.

I’m not particularly a fan of political correctness. I’ve said more than a few times over the years that this PC movement is overboard and the popular thought in our country is overly feminist, overly minority-coddling, wussified to the point of reverse discrimination. Come on, we’re in a war, toughen up, people! Let the kids run and play tag in school! If they don’t put out enough effort, fail them! Stop being afraid of them and their “self-esteem.” People are not that delicate! Rub some dirt on it and walk it off! And public assistance should be for those disabled, down on their luck, etc., not a permanent crutch for lazy people and for shrewd social-conscience-less people to take advantage of. So there. I’ve said some unpopular stuff. Gasp gasp, she’s turning into a conservative. Whatever, I don’t disagree with that. I pay my taxes.

But it wasn’t until recently that I saw close-to-home pendulum swings in the other direction. Not just un-PC, but stuff that shocked me for how much it seems to set society back. Are we in the McCarthy era again? Are we gonna intern Americans with 1/16th Japanese blood? And we’re now gonna make laws against religious “sins”? What happened to the separation of church and state? What happened to the big strides toward equality and tolerance? Just today, I had to be a part of this online…

On a social networking site friend’s status message: “If you think that putting up a Mosque 600 ft. from Ground Zero is immoral, inhuman, shows a complete lack of respect for the memories of all that perished on that day and their survivors, that politicians are doing a grave injustice to the fallen heroes, their families and all the people of New York City, THEN PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS TO YOUR WALL…”
This friend’s friend: “I think it is highly inappropriate and disrespectful of the men and women, not to mention the families of the victims, who lost their lives on that day.”
Me: “Well, on the one hand, it’s not the religion that killed people; it’s those misguided extremist idiots who got brainwashed through generations of more idiocy. Islam, when practiced purely, is not a violent religion.”
Another friend, whose daughter practices Islam: “just ask my daughter…”
Friend who posted the status message: “Correct. But when the results are this we have to take a stand!!”
Me: “no, I totally agree. but a stand against the terrorists, not the entire religion.”
Me: “I think that’s one of the beauties of what we teach in this country: we tolerate different races, backgrounds, cultures, unlike the extremist groups who think of an entire religion or race as something they need to exterminate, without exception, without free thought. An American ideal is that we’ll accept everyone and let the individual characters speak for themselves. A little bit of this sentiment is on Lady Liberty’s inscription, and continues through the famous words of MLK, Jr.”

I’m as patriotic as the next person. But I want to be clear-headed about who our enemies actually are. There are plenty of Muslims who are American, who were horrified and ashamed of the terrorists’ actions, who know their religion does not sanction such criminal inhuman actions. Yeah, it sucks that when these suicide bombers strike, they take down their entire religion along with the innocent victims when they say something bullcrappish like “We do this for Allah!” I bet they’re in for a rude awakening when they realize they’ve died for their sick cause and what’s this? They’re NOT sitting in heaven surrounded by 80-some virgins? If we condemn an entire religion based on the activities of these [some appropriate cuss word]s, we’re doing what they’re doing: attacking an entire category of people they don’t know, don’t understand, but just “believe” without proper justification is wrong or evil. We all know we don’t understand the laws of God enough to judge others in His name. We should know better. (And I’m not even religious in the traditional sense.)

**Addendum on 8-19-10
I was talking to a friend about this and he sent me a video clip of a show saying President Obama was contradicting himself on the issue because he first said pretty much exactly what I said: “I understand the emotions that this issue engenders, and Ground Zero is indeed hallowed ground. But let me be clear, as a citizen and as president: I believe that muslims have a right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.” Then another clip of the president at another location and time, saying, “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of the decision to put a mosque there.” He was immediately mocked for his position being wavering and unclear.
My response: “I totally agree with Obama. I get him, because I had thought the same thing myself.
As a country, we shouldn’t disallow this mosque because of everything I had stated. However, the people who proposed the mosque at that location are likely either political pot-stirrers, or very unwise. They should expect this backlash reaction. I feel horrible that we give that backlash and I think we shouldn’t, but it’s hardly surprising. For the safety of the mosque’s expected attendees, this was a very unwise location.”
So there, some balance… I didn’t mean to say last night in this post that I don’t understand the position of the opposers. I’m saying it’s not “immoral” or “inhuman,” and it would be hypocritical to oppose the religion based on the actions of a few. If I think the hate just needs to be put out with a water hose of tolerance and love, instead of with a battle axe of revenge or getting even, does that make me a hippy? I mean, if we attack with attacks, doesn’t that just perpetuate the attacking? But if we quash, then we’re done faster, right?

Mr. W and I got home about half an hour ago, and as we drove up to our house, Mr. W saw neighbor A. sitting in his front yard and the two waved at each other. I didn’t wave, not because I was being a disgruntled biatch, but because by the time I turned to see what he was waving at, we’d passed the neighbor. After coming home, Mr. W grabbed a UPS packaged we’d received earlier in the week addressed to some unknown but with our address, and said, “Ugh, I hate to have to do this, but I’m gonna go talk to him and see if he knows who this is.” Neighbor A. does know everybody, he’d lived in that house since it was built, as he’d told us several times.
I said, “And when he asks whether you’re coming to his BBQ, you tell him you invited your old boss to go to the concert with us. Leave me out of it when he calls you pussywhipped.”
Mr. W skulked off and came back 20 minutes later. “He apologizes for what he said that day,” Mr. W told me.
I was surprised, because altho I expected some conversation about the BBQ, I didn’t expect the conversation to be about what was said that day on our driveway. “Did you tell him something? Why was that brought up?”
Mr. W said that he’d brought up the BBQ by jokingly chiding, “What’s up with you having your BBQ on the day of The Doors concert? I had invited some friends to go to the concert. I’m going to the concert!” Neighbor A. had said that yeah, he hadn’t realized it, and a bunch of people were giving him a hard time about it saying they’d rather go to the concert so he’s considering canceling the BBQ since HE wants to see the concert, too. And then he said he wants to apologize for what he said the other day, and that he shouldn’t have said that in front of me. (I have an issue with that it was said at all, but anyway…) A. said that another neighbor, Darryl, was at the mailbox and had overheard some of what was said. (I remember seeing Darryl, an athletic looking Harley-riding tough guy, walking from his house to the mailbox, and I know Darryl was also a named person that was attending the sausagefest. I had wondered whether A. got Darryl to attend by playing the pussywhipped card, too.) So apparently, Darryl went over to A.’s house and “smacked him up the head,” and said he shouldn’t have said that, and what’s wrong with him, not only calling Mr. W pussywhipped, but to say it in front of his wife? Supposedly, Darryl reamed him good about it. A. said he was kind of drunk and it must’ve been his Navy side coming out, and he apologizes for it.

I suddenly *really* like Darryl. I wonder if it’s a race thing (he’s also black, like Dwaine) that he did exactly what Dwaine had thought to do, which was march over there and set A. straight. I do think different cultures have different behavioral “codes” for social situations. This could be an interesting sociology study. I think my race, the guy would just tell his wife to chill and ignore it, who cares what the guy says.

But thanks, Darryl! You’ll never read this blog, but I send my gratitude out there for you.

Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger, the keyboardist and guitarist of legendary Jim Morrison’s band The Doors, are coming to our lake for a private concert. Commenter Maggie is a friend and former coworker of Mr. W’s, and he thought this is the type of music Maggie and her husband Tom would enjoy. I extended the invitation to Maggie, she and her husband excitedly accepted. We’ll try to fit some kayaking on the Lake in there before the concert, and we’ll do a wine and food picnic for the sunset concert. It should be a great time.

I just checked the dates, and turns out, this event will take place on the same day, same time as my chauvinistic neighbor’s BBQ! And we didn’t even plan it that way. I guess Mr. W did get his wish to be “busy.” I just sent Maggie a little note earlier alerting her to this:

I just checked dates… concert day is the same day as “douchebag neighbor’s” sausagefest BBQ. He may come by and yell at [Mr. W] from the front yard again to abandon us women and join him at his house. Bring a rolling pin, cuz I only have one. 🙂

Maggie’s more on top of it than I am, because she responded:

Yeah, that actually occurred to me when you reset the date. I’ll fling my Harley helmet at him!

(I had originally given her the wrong date that Mr. W had thought the concert was, and then emailed her back to tell her the correct date)

The beauty of this, aside from the fact that it worked out without my (intentional) doing, is that the neighbor can’t say I forbade Mr. W to attend his sausagefest; this is a Lake concert that the neighbor is aware of because we’re in the same association, these are Mr. W’s friends, and who can blame a guy for choosing to go with his wife and friends to a pseudo-Doors sunset concert on a lake instead of a neighbor’s BBQ in which women were expressly forbidden? Right?!

Proposition 8 banning gay marriage was repealed by court decision yesterday. Of course the social networking sites are abuzz with the debate. I’d stated my position long ago. Due to these debates, I did so again. Because one of the greatest things about this country is the people’s right to disagree on issues, I wanted to record these very awesome debates.
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