Puzzle Pieces

An Affair To Remember

2006-06-12T21:34:57Z

Until very recently, I didnt think there was much north of the Mason Dixon worth a heap of beans. Aside from a few places that boast some lovely scenery and a few scattered friends who stubbornly refuse to relocate to warmer climates, it held no appeal.As of this past Thursday, I now whole-heartedly recant those sentiments. All it took was a 2 hour flight and one cab ride and I fell in love with my first Yankee....New York City.

Yes, I mean love, and yes at first site.The skyline alone pushes heavens gates and left me breathless with wonder.I would never have guessed I was the type of gal who could fall for concrete and steele but i was a goner before i even returned my tray table to its upright position for landing.

Of course, I did all the cliche things one might expect for a virgin trip to the Big Apple....Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, Rockafeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, Chrysler Building, New York Public Library, Sax 5th Avenue, Central Park....and the list goes on. And i did it all in only 2 1/2 days time. The city never sleeps and I hardly did, covering most of Manhattan on foot or via Metro.

A trip to Tiffany's only deepened my eternal devotion, as i gazed upon display after display of heart-stopping beauty. It didnt matter that some pieces cost more than i will make in a lifetime, the sales staff was lovely and even offered to let me try things on.

But, i officially lost my heart to the place, when i walked into the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was utterly inspiring. It was my first-ever encounter with timeless artists like VanGoh, Monet, Renoir, and Picasso. I was so moved by some pieces, my heart felt liquid with emotion and I truely gained an understanding of why they are so renowned for their work.

I topped it all off with a Broadway show that left me laughing till my sides ached. Should you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend you see "Spamelot"....if you have any sense of humor at all, you wont be dissappointed. David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria starred in the show and afterwards they kindly signed autographs and posed for photos.

Breakfast in Greenwich Villiage, lunch on the Upper East Side, Dinner In Chinatown with a shoppin trip to SoHo thrown in for good measure....every last second was filled with excitement and memories to last a lifetime.

We've only just begun, NYC and me.....I return in April, and feel certain my love will grow daily until then....

Operator Please Connect Me

2006-06-12T21:33:13Z

Last night, I put in a phone call to my Gram. Let me tell you, there isnt much that offers more of a challenge than telecommunication with a hearing impaired senior citizen. Round 1 and 2 she hung up on me because she couldnt hear me when I said "hello"....Round 3 she informed me she "did not order any pizza" and would i please stop calling.....Round 4 was an accidental discconnect due to Parkinson's tremors but Round 5 we hit solid gold.

I settled in to listen to the latest installments...."Lost and Found-The Story of Black Slippers Gone Missing in the Night"......"What's New On the Menu-Mechanically Softened Chicken Vol.2"......and my personal favorite, "The Day I Put My Pants On Inside Out And Then Laughed Until I Wet Them".

I tossed in the ocassional "Uh-Huh" or "You dont say!" when need be, but mostly i sat still and let the sound of her voice wash over me. Even in the worst of times, it always seems to soothe. And lately, there are some areas of my life that seem to have fallen into the "Worst of Times" category. Ive always been an overachiever in the Worry and Stress departments....Im tellin you, if they gave out Golden Globes for such things, Id have more statues than Meryl Streep. Lately, I have kicked into overdrive losing all sense of life without sleep deprivation and seriously starting to forget what its like to NOT involuntarily vomit every day. My mind a swirling vortex of emotions that funnels thru me like a raging tornado leaving no organ system untouched in its wake. My new best friends are Ginger Ale and whatever is on late night tv.

I imagine all the change my life has undergone in the last 6 months is the catalyst.....after all, things buried beneath the surface will rise when the water is shifted round.

But, as i reclined there on my couch listening to "As The Nursing Home Turns", I was comforted. Its not so much her WORDS anymore for she can barely string together consecutive thoughts.....but somehow her HEART still comes thru low and clear in that soft, familiar cadence drifting in my ear.I am reminded of days spent with her barefoot in the garden or in the kitchen makin jam....when life stretched out before me with countless chapters to be written and bends in the road to follow. And somehow I see thru childhood eyes, the grown up ME that has so much to still look forward to.

As we prepared to say our good-byes, she reminds me "Remember Little Bit, there aint nowhere my love cant reach you" ....I shout back my own "I love You's" and promise to call again soon for the unabridged version of "What Fruit We Had For Lunch Today" and other assorted tales. I look forward to it.....more than she will ever know.

["Oh my love with fly to you each night on angels' wings....godspeed, sweet dreams."]

Protect and Serve?? Not likely.

2006-06-12T21:30:55Z

Gather round children, and i shall tell you a story about a girl, the goverment, and a wild goose chase. It's full of drama and there are colorful characters at every turn. Its entitled, "All Cops Are Wankers and The Government Blows."
So, i was driving home from a long day of work on Tuesday evening. So tired was I, that i decided to forgo anything resembling a healthy dinner in exchange for a quick bite and a long soak in my gigunda bathub. Little did I know that the blue lights which suddenly began flashing in my rearview, meant the end to those little plans as well as life as i currently knew it.
A respectful citizen, i waited patiently for Mr. PoPo to come to my window. I knew this would be slightly complicated as i just purchased my car recently and still had temporary tags and insurance cards. I provided all the required info and after checking that in fact the car was registered to me and tags were on their way, and after speaking with my insurance agent over the phone and verifying my coverage, the policeman was about to let me go. He went to quickly run my driver's liscense so i could be on my way. Moments later, he saunters back to the window and grinningly informs me my liscense was suspended. Ha ha. Very funny....then i notice he is not joking. I asked for what reason and he said he would be unable to supply one as i was carrying a TN liscence and he was a GA police officer. He told me i had to exit my vehicle, and collect all my belongings from it. He was confiscating my liscense and impouding my car. You are kidding me, right.??? He most certainly was not. If i chose to get beligerent about it, he would exorcise his right to take me "downtown".
Spending ANY amount of time in a jail cell was not an option for this girl, so i did as directed. I dont look good in organge, people. Not to mention those ugly slipper shoes.
The tow truck promptly arrived and they departed, leaving me sitting on the curb with my belongings and a big fat ticket.
I tearfully called my good friend Stacy who has now rescued me from the Atlanta roadside not once but TWICE.She is one of those people that excells in a crisis situation....taking the reigns when you are too dazed to think independently. She activated the Emergency Phone Tree and in short order i was picked up and carried home where there was a team already assembled and working on the rescue of kidnapped vehicle and liscense.
After much searching, we were able to ascertain that there was some form of citation against me....but it was impossible to determine for what or how much.
In order to retreive my car from the impound lot, I had to provide the men in blue with a VALID drivers liscence. Since i am still a TN resident, that meant, a road trip.
Bags were packed and custody of myself was transferred to Dollah (aka Nikki) who arrived to take over as my parole officer. At just after 10pm we set off to Cleveland.
Bright and early the next morning, we went to our hometown courthouse. No one there seemed to be able to tell me WHY i had a citation, WHAT it was for, or WHOM had given it to me.....but they were certain it was in September of 2003.....we spent the next several hours going from Courthouse to Municipal building, to Justice Center and back. Eventually, i was told they had determined the citation was for $95 and had something to do with registration. I had no choice but to pay the fine even though i had NO IDEA what it was for and from whom it came.
Next stop, the DMV....on any given day going to that place is a real pisser, but under heightened stress and a deadline, it was a BITCH. Waiting in long lines and filling out forms, all to be told that i would need to provide my ACTUAL birth certificate due to new HOMELAND SECURITY policy....this meant a trip to the local Health Department (my mom has the only copy and she lives hours away so I had to apply for an offical copy)...more lines, more forms, this time waiting in a germ infested room full of sickly children and Meth mothers.
Back to the DMV...more lines, more waiting....this time only to find that my Social Security info is incorrect in their system. After some begging and pleading, they overode the system and got me a liscense. Needless to say my picture is less than attractive.(I was begining to resemble one of the aformentioned Meth mothers) Good thing it doesnt expire till 2011. 5 years of this picture. Awesome.
A mad rush was made back to Atlanta where at the police department i met the worlds most impolite human....i swear i think he had all forms of personality surgically removed. A true GEM this guy.....
Another long drive, more forms, more money and I encountered the worlds second most rude man in the form of the impound personel....he forced me to walk a half mile to my car ALONE thru a pitch black parking lot fill with junked out cars.
A complete 24 hours later i was sitting back in my car headed home to my big bathtub.
The moral of the story is: For a $95 charge about which they can give you NO information, our beloved government has the right to seize your vehicle, you identification, AND your sanity. God Bless the US of A.

Special thanks to Nikki for driving me ALL over tarnation in pursuit of the dream that is an official liscense to operate a personal vehicle. And to all those who offered comfort and sent loving thoughts my way....and to those of you dealing with your own personal dramas who STILL took the time to let me know you cared, I REALLY am grateful.

7pinkdaisies @ 2006-01-04T17:22:00

2006-06-12T21:28:10Z

The Indigo Girls, of whom I am an adoring fan, have a song with the line "....nothing turned out as I planned..." This is turning out to be more than a theme, but rather an inescapeable truth in my life. And for someone as PLAN oriented as myself, this is often quite daunting.

I'm that girl you hate....the one who irons and lays her clothes out the night before....the one who keeps kicky little notebooks with me at all times to record ideas and To Do lists....the one who orders flowers months before the anniversary and who is guenuinly anal about keeping the toilet paper roll replaced. I love anything involving organization, efficiency, and neatness. I get downright giddy in the "rubbermaid storage" isle at the Walmart, people.

Lately, our fickel friend Fate has taken to reminding me that SHE holds the reigns to the horses and I'm lucky to just be ridin behind in the wagon. When lookin down the road a year ago, my current job, car, house and city of residence were NOT in my extended forcast. Yet, here I am..... a small town country girl- big city livin...learning to eat sushi and cuss like a sailor while on the 12 lane interstate.

I never PLANNED to have my heart shattered at 20.... I never PLANNED to have 13 car accidents by the age of 27...I never PLANNED to deliver a woman's baby on a dirt road in Mexico.... ....In fact, looking back, my life has been mostly about things I DIDNT PLAN.....people i never planned to fall for and people i never planned to fall out of love with....vacations i planned that never happened and spontaneous road trips i went on that i never saw coming....jobs I planned on getting and jobs i never planned on losing....

So, since it seems to be pointless anyway, i am challenging myself to NOT plan......put that energy into something productive like learning the art of Oragamy or becoming the world's best Crash Car Derby Driver. (Hey, after 13 car accidents, I aughta be pretty damn good.) After all, in the end, its the unplanned road that holds the best suprises.

Wrinkled but Rockin

2006-06-12T21:22:43Z

Wrinkled but Rockin

Warning: Do not read below if you are allergic to cheese or after school specials. The following contains all sorts of smarmy, feel-good shit.

Over the Holiday, i spent some time with my much-loved Gram at her nursing home. Not my particularly favorite environment in which to spend a day but as much as I loathe that place, I love her more.

After we stashed the contraband i snuck in to her (An economy size box of Double Bubble and some assorted sugar-filled candy...trust me folks, it doesnt take much to get her giddy anymore.) we settled in for a nice long chat. We werent alone. Her roomate happens to be her sister, my lovely Great Aunt Thelma. My brother was also along for the ride so we had quite the party going on in room 82.

These days, my Gram's attention span last about as long as it takes for a piece of that Double Bubble to start tasting like cement mix. So, as we chatted, she flitted about rearranging the apples in her fruit basket, changing shoes three times and emptying the contents of her purse and refilling it. I have become used to her randomness and so I paid little attention as she began pulling small make-up bags and incidental containers from her beauru drawers. One by one, she opened them and deposited an assortment of coins from each. By the time she was done, she had ammassed quite a heap of change in the middle of her bed. I had tuned out her movements so much that i hadnt even noticed the money lying there. I was too busy explaining for the 5th time that hour how a lovely young woman such as myself could STILL be single.

My brother nodded at the jangle on the bed and winked at me, "Hey Gram, whatcha gonna do with all that dough?", he questioned. Without batting an eyelash, she said "I'm a getting out of the country." Then she smiled that mischevious grin that i know so well (its the same one i see when i look in my own mirror sometimes) and laughed like it was going out of style. Lordy, I love that woman... every last damn wrinkle.

The remainder of the visit consisted of repeated questions and answers and discussions of people who are no longer living. But peppered throughout were moments of humor and clarity and I saw the amazing woman she STILL is, hidden behind all that old age and disease.

As we left, I squeezed her tight, thinking as I always do, that this could be my last chance. We share the same brithday my Gram and I. And i sometimes think that links us in an extra special way. She knows all my weaknesses and flaws and yet she still claims i am the best brithday present she has ever received. What she will never understand it that she trumps that everyday with the rarest of gifts....unconditional love.

In her own way, Gram inspired me this Christmas.Its time I take out all of my hidden treasure....tucked away in secret hidden places within myself where i buried it long ago. I wanna pile it all into a great heap and enjoy the sparkle.....and then I wanna "get out of the country". Life is too short and I need to get out there and be DOING things. After all, I wanna be running when the sand runs out.