Wordless Wednesday #11

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Rest in Peace

On December 28th, 2003, my father passed away after a two year battle with cancer. Yesterday marked the five year anniversary of his passing. There are many people like me who have lost a loved one around the holidays. It forever changes the mood, not to mention that the older we get the more the holidays are surrounded with memories of those who are no longer with us. This post is a tribute to my father and his life.

Baby picture.
With his best friend, on their way to school.
My father grew up in North Hollywood.
Dad's on the left.
At 18.

1939. He really liked his cars.

WWII veteran.

He left high school after the first semester of his senior year.

He was barely 18 years old.

My Dad, my sisters, and I.

I'm the middle child.

Family cat, Tank.

Recognize the chair?

Dad with his family - my two aunts, my uncle.

Me beloved grandma.

Dad was a film editor. This is circa 1980's.

On several occasions Dad rented a beach house on the North Shore so that we could have a family reunion. This video reminds me of that and it's for him.

May he be as happy and content in the after life as he is in this picture. Here's to dad. God bless.

Snark Fest: The Christmas Newsletter

I’m hoping not to ruffle the wrong feathers, but I just can’t get this post to stop trying to write itself in my head. So, better here than there I say.

Plus, since New Years is around the corner. I’ll be making some moves towards continued positiviality. (Just wait, that will be a new word someday). Might as well get snarky, mean, negative, judgmental thoughts out now before the regimens of healthy living get a revival treatment.

Anywhos, we get Christmas newsletters from family and friends and we love catching up on what is going on with those we don’t see often, or have lost track of somewhat. One of the newsletters we receive gets a special kind of attention from my daughter and me. It’s like, “OMG. THE Braggerbooter’s letter came in!! Break out the tea kettle and let’s have a sit.” My husband gets REALLY PISSED OFF at us. He thinks that my daughter and I are being horribly catty and bitchy and not at all Christmas like.

Ah. Well. Here’s some bitchiness thinly veiled as advice.

1. Keep to the highlights. Four pages, single spaced, eleven point font is getting close to becoming a periodical.
2. 
   Unless you want other people’s kids to not like your kids, have a little balance in the bragging arena. For instance, each kid’s paragraph should probably not be ¾ of a page long. Try to make your kids a little bit human.
3. 
   When listing the athletic accomplishments of your oldest child, even if HE IS an eventual Heisman trophy sure bet, maybe don’t mention every single award. Pick your favorite five.
4. 
   If your son is so athletically competent that he can play any baseball position well, that might be enough information right there. You probably don’t need to go on and say how he usually is put in as pitcher, 1st baseman, or short stop. And then detail the highlights in each.
5. 
   Just say you are proud of how well your son is doing academically while balancing it with all those athletics. Don’t give his GPA for every quarter.
6. 
   Your son may be the most popular boy in his senior class and the phone may be ringing off the wall with girls calling him. It’s just not that cool for a mom to make it a part of the holiday letter.
7. When introducing your daughter’s paragraph, maybe a more humble beginning than “Son may be a hard act to follow, what with so many accomplishments, but daughter rises to this challenge and even surpasses her brother with her own accomplishments."
8. 
   You may not want to call your daughter a “typical teen” and then detail that she: Is the most popular girl in her class; played two sports and was voted MVP for both; detail a list of awards athletically and academically, describing the honor and importance of each award; say how amazed you are that she is an excellent dancer in jazz, hip-hop, AND ballet and finish this off by saying she is so talented that at her ballet performance they “saved her for the closing number.”
9. Hands down, my all time favorite in your daughter’s paragraph was when you equated your daughter’s “stunning and sophisticated beauty” with a popular young celebrity. It got even better when you proved your point with the anecdotal story of the family vacation to Disneyland and how preteens were asking for your daughter’s autograph (thinking she was the celeb). It was a little over the top when you finished this part with, “it was a fun preview of her future and what it’s like to be rich and famous.”

I could say more, like perhaps you need not detail your home renovations with the exact colors and types of hardwood flooring and granite countertops. But, my snark meter is having a fit and so I should end this fun.

A couple ideas to improve on the ol’ newsletter.

One. Funny works. Add a little humor. For online models, I’d like to point out Vodka Mom or Anna Lefler. See. One can still be poignant and show the love while cracking people up.

Two. Be gracious. Balance out what might come off as bragging with a little humility thrown in.

One last thing though. When you write that paragraph about your vacation home to Hawaii. Detailing all the fun you had. And isn’t it fortunate that you got to come for three weeks? How the highlight was spending time with family and friends who are so dear… Maybe you might word it in a way so those of us that you did not call while you were here don’t go “Err?”

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m probably going to hell for this.

Mrreowwwwwwwwww.

Christmas Present(s)

If you missed Christmas Past, you may want to start there. It's always nice to earn the happy ending.


I really looked for a Christmas song video, but none seemed to fit the mood. Since this is more than a Christmas story, but a story about family, I liked the feel of this song. My husband and I have 9 ethnicities between the two of us, and the only one we have in common is Irish. There's no actual video in this though, you can play it (or not) while you read.

Well, on to a Christmas Story.

The year we bought our home, my daughter was four and my son was one. That first Christmas Eve my husband had to work and I was home alone with the children. The baby went to sleep early, so my daughter and I had some special one on one time. On the second floor, outside our master bedroom, was a lanai (balcony) that we have since enclosed. That year my daughter and I sat on the dark lanai, looking out at the stars and sipping hot chocolate. She tingled with joy and excitement and her energy was infectious. Suddenly, she looked in the sky and said, “Mama LOOK! It’s Rudolf. I can see his red nose.”

As I cast my eyes upward, a saw a tiny red dot of light in the night sky. For a brief second that felt like an eternity, I would not have been surprised to see Santa, sleigh, reindeers, and all, come ripping past my house with a “ho, ho, ho!” It was only a moment later that I realized the red dot was a light on the top of a tower. But that did not change my moment. For the first time in over 25 years I experienced that sense of magic and wonder and believing in miracles. I was overcome with the feelings of an innocent child who believes and for a brief moment, I was the child I had been. I realized why adults like to be around children at Christmas. They help us become innocent and see the magic.

When my husband got home from work we took immense pleasure playing Santa together. Although we had bought a home, we had no money left over for furniture and the first two years the entire downstairs was like a gigantic playroom. A TV. A kids’ futon couch. Two bar stools and a high chair. For Christmas, we were giving our son one of those plastic basketball hoops (his second word was B-ball) and we played one on one rounds while we filled the stockings. I believe alcohol might have been involved, probably. We had our fun. The next morning, after opening maybe two presents, daughter felt sick and wanted to lie down. She had a 24 hour stomach flu bug. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up vomit and getting her to the toilet. Running soda crackers and 7-up upstairs. A few hours later the 18th month old baby boy got sick. The presents never got opened. My husband went off to work and when he got home at midnight he found me praying to the porcelain god. About two hours later it hit him too. The next morning, the day after Christmas, my husband and I slept in a little bit – like probably 7 or 8, and when we woke up and came downstairs, we found two toddlers in a sea of wrapping paper. They had woken up, came downstairs, and finished Christmas without us. They had moved through the dining and living rooms as the wrapping paper storm took over. I can’t believe I don’t have pictures of this. We were so wiped out from having the flu all night that we just let it be. We sipped tea on the couch and shook our heads at the mess and eventually combed through it to make sure no small present got thrown away.

My husband and I have tried to give our children the childhoods we wished we had. Nothing that special there. That is what most parents do. We may falter, but I believe that most of us have the best of intentions. Christmas is a bit of a balancing act. The gift giving so commercialized and trying to enjoy the gift of giving to your kids without turning them into greedy little grabbers.

The smiles.


We have created our own Christmas rituals. Christmas cookie baking and delivery to neighbors and friends. Candlelit services on Christmas Eve. Special meals. There were our first five years here, when my husband’s grandmother lived with us. She had so much joy in seeing her great grandchildren on Christmas morning.

My mom has come out for several Christmases. She can still be a bit of a handful. But making her a part of our Christmases always added something special. Giving the gift of forgiveness ranks high on my Christmas list. When my mom visits, I work extra hard before she arrives so that when she is here it is all the fun stuff. She has spent several Christmases with us here in Hawaii and sharing it with her has always deepened the joy. When she leaves, I forget the stress of one of her fits she may have thrown and try to only remember the smile on her face when she watches her grandchildren emptying their stockings.

As my children grow up, I hope that their Christmases remain a time where giving means more than buying presents. Where family togetherness is meaningful. Where the magic of love knows no bounds.

Oh yeah. This is my 100th post. Random grateful Christmas list for my 100th post.

52 Christmases gifted with life (thank-you mom and dad)
23 Christmases with my husband (19 of them married)
19 Christmases being parents
3 Christmases as a cancer survivor
2 kinds of friends now, friends in the flesh and my new blog-world friends

One big heart full of hope for peace, and a better tomorrow

May your Christmas be filled with the joy of love and family. With the miracles of rainbows.

Happy Holidays from me and border collie.

Christmas Past

Kate did a post about going home for Christmas. What are the rituals, the memories, the traditions…

Commenting in her thread got me to thinking. At 51, I’m fairly far removed from the childhood of my past. We moved around a lot. I grew up in the LA area where my dad was a film editor and my mom was a housewife. They couldn’t decide what suburb or lifestyle they were seeking. I think they both had a bit of the grass always being greener somewhere else. In retrospect, I think they were looking for a place where they would be satisfied with their life and marriage and with each other. It never happened, but it meant that I was given a vagabond spirit.


Until I was ten, we lived in the San Fernando Valley. Track homes. Streets that ran perpendicular. A lot like Wonder Years or The Brady Bunch in physicality, not so much in organic realness. My aunt lived within a few blocks and my paternal grandmother lived a few miles away. The Christmases here are the ones I remember with wonder and magic. There was a Santa in Panorama City where they had “reindeer,” and I remember asking over and over why Rudolf’s nose was not the red I had expected. I remember going to get the Christmas tree being a big event and walking with my eyes closed through the rows and taking big deep breaths of the pine smell. I remember going to my grandmother’s and picking up Christmas presents that were wrapped beautifully with homemade bows courtesy of my aunt. On Christmas Eve we would be allowed one present each to open and my little sister and I would shake, rattle, and roll those gifts to try and tweak out one with a toy. There’s not much to do with a dressy blouse for the rest of the night, but sometimes that was just what you got. My dad would make Tom and Jerry’s (we were not a big eggnog family) and we had special cups with Tom and Jerry engraved in gold lettering at a diagonal across the front. I remember my little sister and me scrambling out of bed as soon as my mom left the room and looking out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa and his sleigh. I remember truly believing in magic.

My older sister and I, about 1960

When I was ten, we moved to a mobile home park on the beach. The other day I was talking to my mom on the phone and I actually had to ask her where we put the Christmas tree when we lived there because I did not remember. What I do remember from living there was the disintegration of my parents’ marriage. My mom’s suicide attempts. My older sister leaving home barely 17 years old and living with a friend her senior year of high school.
When the park was imminent domained by the state, we moved to Oxnard. When I was a sophomore we moved to the Conejo Valley. I don’t remember much from these Christmases either.

My parents finally separated at the beginning of my senior year. Their divorce was so bitter and so embattled that they actually appealed it all the way to the California Supreme Court. The following Christmases were only peaceful when I was with my grandmother, usually on Christmas Eve. Christmas day was spent dutifully with my mother who would drink herself into a temper and make biting passive aggressive comments at my sister and me.

When I moved to Hawaii the summer I was 24 years old, I didn’t go home for Christmas. I was working in a restaurant/nightclub and couldn’t get off. I went out to dinner with my friend that I moved here with, then pulled a 10-2 cocktail shift. It was such a relief to not have drama on my Christmas. I have never been back for Christmas since.

Tomorrow. Christmas Present. It’s a happy story. Really.

Spin Cycle: Ode to thistle and maple leaves

Sprite’s Keeper has a weekly spin cycle, where participating bloggers put a spin on a writing topic. I’ve read Goodfather’s spins and I enjoyed the heck out of them (try his shed series during Halloween). So I moseyed on over to Sprite’s. I had plans to join in the last cycle, but my job got in the way of anything close to actual writing. This week’s I couldn’t pass up.

Play Secret Santa and write about a blog you enjoy.

So I sent a list of blogs to Sprite’s Keeper, received my assignment, and am tickled pink to be Secret Santa blogger of a really special blogger.

Da da da DA! Without further ado, I present a little tale of one of my favorite blogs:

Of thistles and maple leaves.

I ran into thistle in my first ventures out into the comment world. I think it was this post. Thistle lives in British Columbia and these shots of the trail where she walks her dog stopped me in my tracks with a sharp intake of breath. OHHH! Pretty. Gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. The icing on the photographic stunningness was the inner monologue that went along with the pictures. One because it was a Wordless Wednesday (I loved that she could not help but narrate the pics). Two, because she had to let the internet world know that her dog’s penis really wasn’t as big as it appeared in the photograph.

So, I left a comment and I let thistle know how much I enjoyed the photos of her world. She came and checked out this blog post and left this sassy comment, “OMG...is that...a palm tree at your feet? I will trade you both the woods AND the river for that view. Plus the Littleman. Well, maybe not the Littleman, maybe his mom...the Pipsqueak. She'll keep the beastie entertained for you...”

Thistle has several smooth terriers. And yeah. She offered to send me one for my ocean view. Thistle has a wicked sense of humor and is about the best I have ever seen at using the line out to mask/not mask her gift of sarcasm.

Like me, thistle is a horse and dog person. She just knows a lot more about them than I do.

Thistle’s insatiable intellectual curiosity, combined with her sarcastic sense of humor, makes her blog diverse and always a fun place to visit.

During our American elections and tabloid media frenzy, thistle diverted her readers by a series of posts on Canada’s elections. She managed to inform us and keep it really interesting. It had quite the calming effect.

She ran a series of hilarious pictures (try here or here or here) of dogs in costumes pre-Halloween. Then on Halloween itself, gave us a history lesson on the origins of Halloween.

She travels the internet and brings back fun and games, like a test to how old one's brain is. Or if one is more conservative or liberal in one’s politics.

She works in mental health and has a heart of pure gold to balance off her sassy wit. She volunteers for Special Olympics and is the creator of The Helping Hands Project.

What’s not to like?

Last time I heard from thistle, she was busy helping her dad fix his heater and shoveling snow.

So, here’s some balmy weather. I set up a chair for thistle. She might let some of you borrow it too.

And some funny dogs.






Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa.

Friday Foto

Christmas is finally up in our home and despite the extra work Christmas seems to be when the boxes lay scattered around the living room, I still find solace and a sense of peace when I sit with only the Christmas tree lights on. So, come on in...

A favorite ornament. Front door with "slippahs"

When my children were young, I loved it when their preschool and elementary teachers made ornaments with their pictures on them. These ornaments are like having our family's Christmas history dangling nostalgically from the branches.

This angel is from my own baby days. My sisters and I each had one and once our tree was up, my sisters and I would carefully place our angels, each vying for the most regal perch for these treasures. That makes this worn, messy-haired little angel somewhere close to 50 years old.

My husband has been off four days this week. Next week he has five days off. He works in a swanky five diamond hotel, and what with the economy being what it is, things have slowed to a screeching stall. For ourselves, we don't mind skipping the gift giving in our home. We bought our teens one present each, and we are not exchanging presents ourselves this year. Still, there are a lot of other family in the extended portions. Work and office Secret Santas. It takes some ingenuity and creativity to give while staying within a tight budget.

On the bright side, my husband and I get more time together with his extra days off. Usually we are like two ships passing in the night, working opposite hours most of the time. Since he has been home this week we have enjoyed working together to get things done around here. Last night he talked of his accomplishments of shopping and having completed his to do list. He looked at me and said, "Christmas sure is a lot of work."

I replied, "It's not supposed to be work. It's supposed to be a spiritual time. A time of giving and a time of appreciating the gifts we have."

To which he said, " I wish it were that simple."

Today is my last day of work and then I go on Winter break. I hope to do another post on the Helping Hands project before Christmas.

For a thoughtful and sobering Christmas video, checkout Shaunna's post.

For more Friday Fotos, visit Candid Carrie's.