Play as the question

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” — Plato

 

A wonderful man in my life is taking me to Disneyland in four days.

I’ve never been to Disneyland.  My single foray into the World of Disney was in 1996 when I went to Disneyworld with an ex of mine.  The trip started out horribly and stayed that way.

Michael is taking me to Disneyland as my birthday present. He wants us both to be kids for at least 3 days, to take our minds away from the terrible things that POTUS is doing to this wonderful country of ours, to at least enjoy the simpler things in life.

 

I can’t recall the last time I let myself be a kid.  I don’t know what I did to deserve Michael, but it had to have been something really awesome.

 

Insanity in the form of marathons

I have ran three half marathons so far. My first was in November 2015, my 2nd in September 2016 and my third in November 2016.

13.1 miles. Each time. See? Insanity.

My best time was 3:20 (that’s 3 hours and 20 minutes), my slowest was 3:40, which also happened to be my first. There was also a 3:30 in there somewhere, but I’ve lost track. Kidding. I have them written down *and* I have the medals to prove that I finished each one.

Two Seattle half marathons and The Blerch.

Ever hear of The Oatmeal comic? The creator, Matthew Inman, also started The Blerch, which is a race held in various cities/towns in the US. I’ll concentrate on the one here in the Seattle area, which happens in September and held in Tolt-McDonald State Park in Carnation, WA.

I started running as a way to keep in shape.  I used to weigh 255 pounds; I lived in a constant state of sadness … bad marriage, poor choices in life … all of this caused me to eat out of sadness and frustration, and utter loneliness, which led to quick weight gain. I was miserable.

I run (sometimes it’s a mere shuffle) to keep my anxiety in check.

I run to clear my mind.

I run to hear a pattern of my footprints, a staccato if you will.

I run to chase the demons away.

I throw in some walking, and once in a while, I even play hopscotch along the way with children that invite me in to the puzzle that they’ve drawn on the sidewalk, a puzzle in which only they understand, but have deemed me safe enough to invite me in.

 

 

 

Alice …

Alice the wee elf

Running with tiny large feet

Waiting to see me.

Let The Adventures Begin …

Wonder Woman, unforgettably played by the lovely Lynda Carter, is *my* sidekick. She just doesn’t know it yet.

I share my life with two Scottish Folds, Elvis the Pelvis and Neville.

Stories will follow of the multitudinous ways that these two felines keep me laughing every day, along with the encounters in my life of people of various ages and backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures … some old, some young, good and bad. I will share them all with you, and it’s up to you on what to take away from each story.

First blog post

At the age of 10, in 1979, my parents moved me and three of my seven siblings from Omaha, Nebraska, to Salem, Oregon.  Setting up shop, so to speak, on a farm outside of Salem couldn’t have been easy, especially since it meant my father moved his established trucking business from a densely-populated city into a more rural area.  I recall my mother telling me much later that they moved the family to Oregon so that my father was “home more often.” I don’t recall this happening.

I remember growing up with my father being a virtual stranger; he would come home every 2-3 months, if we were lucky, to give my mother somewhat of a respite from caring for four children, literally by herself for months at a time.  I can’t imagine what she went through to do this, what she sacrificed, what she set aside of herself most of all.

My mother died of bone, brain and lung cancer on September 13, 2012.  The biopsy of the tumors on her lungs showed it was from second-hand smoke.  Interestingly, she was a smoker from her late teens until she was in her mid-50s. She quit “cold turkey” one night when she woke and couldn’t breathe, and thought she was dying. She didn’t smoke any more after that late night scare.

My mother suffered greatly as she died, and no amount of convincing would change her mind on imbibing in marijuana to help relieve the pain from her bones breaking and the cancerous lesions growing on her brain.  She lived her last days at my sister, DeAnne’s house. I don’t know how DeAnne managed to keep her sanity while at the same time, watching my mother die.

There’s fewer days that I cry over the loss of my mother, my best friend. Most days now, I remember the good times, the funny things that we would do together, the long Sunday morning conversations that we would have, talking about everything and nothing, and then not being able to recall the next Sunday what we spoke of the previous Sunday.

My late Mama was one of the best people in my life. Her name was Sharon Lee and I am my mother’s daughter.