The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Posted on July 7, 2011 by seussyque

I just returned from our vacation to see U2 in Chicago, and I will write about that, but I sort of vowed I would catch up with stuff here first, so I’m going to write about our trip to Washington DC last October 30 for the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear first.

As I wrote this it seemed to have so many different aspects, I thought it might be better to compartmentalize them a little. So first, we’ll discuss the travel part of the trip.

We ended up taking this trip with another couple so we could split expenses and the driving with a rental car. It was fine, except that we left late at night and were not able to sleep when we were not driving so we arrived exhausted and spent most of our first day there catching up on sleep. I guess it is a sign that Hubs and I are getting old and lazy that we did not rebound and run out sightseeing, but we could only think of sleep.

Unfortunately, the clerk that checked us in seemed to be new, inexperienced and maybe a little overwhelmed by all the arriving check-ins. First, they did not let us check-in early, so even though we wanted desperately to sleep, we were forced to find some place to eat and a place to kill time until we could get to our room. Then she gave us the wrong room. While we reserved a large kingsize room, exactly like our friends had, they received a large room with complimentary tickets for two days of breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and we got a room that would have made a mouse feel claustrophobic and not so much as a welcome mint. Hubs and I love each other and all, but a person needs some space sometimes, too, and it was certainly at a premium that weekend. We did make our concerns known to management, who offered to move us, but we were so beyond exhausted at that point, the thought of waiting for another room to be found seemed much more overwhelming than climbing into an already prepared bed, tiny as it was. We survived no worse for the wear with one voucher for breakfast for one day of our two-day stay in the too small room and a great big appreciation for the hotel rooms we have had before and since and customer service that goes above and beyond to make things right.

As a destination, I have nothing but good things to say about Washington, D.C. It is a beautiful place with so much pomp, circumstance, history, sentiment and spectacle. I had not been there since I was in junior high, and Hubs and I have vowed to return when we can spend more time, but outside the time spent on the Mall at the Rally, we got to see the Lincoln Memorial and the rest of the Mall including the reflecting pool, the World War II Monument and the Washington Monument at night. By that time of night, it was so quiet and the whole setting and atmosphere seemed so much more solemn and personal. It seemed a much more appropriate way to view and reflect on the men being honored there than amid a  swarm of humanity at midday overwhelmed by backpacks and body odor and screaming, texting or complaining children and their chaperones.

The Gettysburg Address by night

Being October it was a lovely time to be in D.C. I, no doubt, complained about being cold walking around the monuments at night, and I bundled up for the 60 some-odd degree morning temperatures for the rally, although the sun was strong and bright enough by midday to give Hubs a hilarious sunglasses tan-line on one side of his face. But, I have to admit I would have been complaining bitterly to be walking in 90-odd degree weather more. Due to the time of year, the trip home also provided some beautiful scenery as the leaves were changing and as we missed it all on the way there in the dead of night.

The people of D.C. are not particularly friendly. They are not mean, but they do not go out of their way to help or even acknowledge you much. They just busily go about their day as if intentionally ignoring the fact that they are surrounded by out-of-towners and tourists. I guess to a real D.C. resident, almost everyone, senators, politicians and the like are out-of-towners and  tourists, being as the place is a revolving door for many of these people’s careers. We enjoyed eavesdropping on some of the conversations around us at delis and watering holes, but we never really experienced that overall sense of welcome and enjoyable “tourist experience” we have received in New York, and especially, I can now say, Chicago. But, it would be unAmerican not to be a little moved by whole experience, nonetheless, and I have to recommend it for that reason, just avoid the Four Points Sheraton and do not ask us where to eat while you are there.

 

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The Rally: Part 2: The purpose

Posted on July 7, 2011 by seussyque

So what brought us there to begin with? What was with the Rally, why did we want to go and what, if anything, did we get out of it, you may ask? Well, this is where things may get slightly political. If you know me, (and chances are if you’re reading this, you do) you know I do not easily, nor readily, discuss politics. I feel too many people hold too tightly to close-minded opinions for there to be any real discussion that is beneficial for anything other than getting one’s feelings and vocal chords hurt. But I think that was what this whole rally was about, so I’m going to get into politics, oh, and silly girl-crushes on celebrity faux pundits, too.

I have been a long time fan of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. As a single gal, I rarely had cable, however, so I did not watch them regularly until D and I started DVR’ing them every night after we began to co-habitate. My appreciation and fandom has grown, especially for Colbert and his program.

Sigh, I love this man.

I love how Stewart expresses his frustration with the 24-hour news channels, including recently on Wallace’s program on Fox. He’s intelligent and funny, but in the past year I have found myself laughing more loudly and agreeing more strongly with Colbert, and I almost always enjoy his interviews more. I have become such a fan of Colbert I have amended “My List” to include him. He is intelligent, has diverse interests in everything from art to science fiction, and can go toe-to-toe with anyone from presidential candidates to Scandinavian Hip-Hop artists. He has the kind of well-rounded, intelligent humor that I find irresistibly sexy, just like my husband. Plus, I love that he is an unapologetically Catholic, loves his wife and kids and has raised tons of money for DonorsChoose.org.

Hence the reason I added him to the list of famous people with whom I would receive a free pass to commit adultery should the opportunity arise, and all of those later reasons are reasons why that opportunity, even if fractionally realistic, will never arise. D tried to argue that I could not randomly amend my list, but I feel it is a living breathing document, not unlike the Constitution and should be updated to reflect my most current interests. I probably will write a Friday list one day to expound upon that list, but that’s for another time and place.

When Stewart hinted that he was going to make a big announcement around the time of Glenn Beck’s Washington Rally, I started to get a tingle of excitement. When Colbert then announced that if Stewart made an announcement, he, too, would make an announcement, I told my husband that we had to be prepared to go to DC if the two of them got together for some sort of event. Lo and behold, they did, and we did. We jumped online, made plans and hotel reservations and just like that we were on our way to the largest public gathering I have ever attended.

It’s easy to Google the rally to read news articles and see pictures, so I will not go into any great detail here about it other than to say I was blown away by the sheer number of people. We arrived about an hour and a half early and ended up at a sort of front midway point. Before it was all said and done there were many more behind us than in front of us. Afterwards there was debate about the numbers of people and if there had been more or less than those that had attended Glenn Beck’s rally a few months before as if that was the point. Eventually, it was estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 had attended. Other sources sited the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, more left when they realized they could not see or hear anything and the public transit system became so overwhelmed it took hours to go the few blocks around the Mall. The organizers planned for about 60,000 people so when the crowd reached more than halfway down the Mall and nearly reached the Washington Monument, many people including another couple from our hometown, found they could not find good positions to see the few jumbotrons provided.

The stage was WAY up front by the Capitol, but before it was all said and done there were a lot more people behind me than in front of me.

It may not have been an accurate and scientific count, but just seeing the mass of people ahead of, behind and to either side of me, I knew there were hundreds of thousands. And then watching them leave and disperse all over town and filing into bars and restaurants, most of which were also not prepared to handle the crowds proved it to me. We ended up many, many blocks from the Mall and the hotel at a Popeyes chicken just to find some place where we could fit inside without waiting for two hours or more. Even this little restaurant seemed overwhelmed with the much larger than average Saturday afternoon crowd. The restaurant at our hotel, our travel companions informed us, ran out of fries, burgers and at least two types of alcohol. That has to say something about the size of the crowd in and around downtown.

So, what were all those people trying to do or prove? I think most were there for the same reason we were. Stewart was urging people to realize that despite all the heated debate, name-calling, fear-mongering, and seeming insanity depicted by the 24-7 media frenzy of our nation, we, the people, are rational and sane.

The point of us all being together in one spot was not to call for some sort of sweeping reform or change. We were not challenging the elite or the status quo. We were not attempting to foment some revolution, right some wrong or challenge discrimination. We just wanted to be seen and heard and to see and hear others that were like us. No, they were not all like us in color or creed. While I am certain there were more liberals there than conservatives or Tea-partiers, I know that not all agreed about the policies, procedures and politics of our government, but we could all sit together, laugh together, take pictures together and for each other; we could and can all get along, which is exactly what Stewart was saying.

We are in hard times, but that does not mean it is the end times. It does not mean that it must be every man for himself: Guard your doors, buy your emergency shelter, stockpile food and buy gold because everyone needs to be in fear of their neighbor, of the next catastrophic disaster or plague, of the liberal elite, of the socialist President who is leading us into the apocalypse. Instead, we’re the people who are really out there getting the real work done, and we coexist quite nicely. It does not matter if I’m a liberal and my neighbor is a conservative if his house gets washed away in a flood or his roof is blown off in a tornado. The people I share my workplace with, my classroom with may not think the way I do, but we challenge each other to think more about why we think the way we think, to think better and learn more about each other and our political system. We do not stand across some self-imposed aisle or on some bully pulpit and tell each other that everyone who does not think the way we do are stupid, wrong, Hitler, or going to hell.

Stewart was urging the 24-hour news channels to rein themselves in and not make everything that happens seem it is monumental enough to be covered with the same gravitas as everything else that is covered just because they have 24 hours to fill. Some pundits made brief changes, others got mad, but as the recent Casey Anthony coverage has shown, nothing really changed. The media is still out there blowing those whistles, ringing those bells and corralling us toward the news they want us to buy. This week it was all about the “Trial of the Century:” the story of one woman who may or may not have killed or been responsible of covering up the death of one child in Florida. I would never belittle or downplay the gravitas of a child’s murder, but did this really warrant the same attention as the death of Osama Bin Laden or 9/11. Did the OJ trial, which has drawn much comparison, for that matter? Did the release of Sarah Palin’s emails? Who really knows whats really important in the world anymore when our “news” organizations are constantly being the boy who called wolf.

So, I am disheartened that no long-term lessons were learned from our little demonstration in D.C. I will forever be heartened and excited to say I was a part of it, however, to be a  part of that calm, and, yes, despite the witch costumes and signs about masturbation, that dignified mass, and for even a few hours feel a part of the bigger part, the real majority that is yearning not to be free from oppression or socialist healthcare, but the screaming of our television’s talking heads and newsprint’s 36-point headlines.

 

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Our First House Guest

Posted on June 16, 2011 by seussyque

One of the rooms my parents left fully furnished was a bedroom. Actually, it was my old bedroom. Mom had always told me the furniture was mine, but I had never had an “extra” bedroom to move it into. It turned out to be really fortunate that they left it for us, because I do not know where Mom would sleep all those times she comes to work on stuff, plus we had our first official houseguest the weekend after we moved, a good friend of mine from Germany.

He lived here in the states for a year during an internship in 2007. During that time the two of us got to be very close. In fact, my husband will tell you he believes it was because I was so close to this guy that I did not want to get close to him in our early relationship. I have to remind him from time to time that, to the contrary, if it were not for Uwe, I probably would never have gotten close to him.

I have had one too many relationships that ended badly. Who hasn’t? All of these bad relationships and bad break-ups resulted in me building up walls and defense mechanisms to protect myself. When I met Uwe, it was a fun, flirty sort of relationship, and because I knew he was leaving in a year, I was able to let my defenses down a little and be myself around him. It was as if, because the ending had been written in advance, it was okay to let things run their course.

Uwe is the type of guy who makes friends with everyone. He met so many people during his time here, and it would be difficult to find a single person who did not like him or establish a close relationship with him. When it came to me, Uwe was interested in knowing who I was. He wanted to get deeper than the surface. He wanted me to learn how to figure myself out and get where I wanted to be. He has the most wonderful gift of encouraging and coaching people. Anytime I wanted to complain and gripe about how unfulfilled I was in my job, in my life, or in my relationships, he always made a point to remind me of all the wonderful things I did have going for me and to encourage and to remind me that no one could make anything better but me. It was through his persistence and patience that I learned to trust people again. I learned that people, well, men, in particular could actually be interested in me, the whole me, the real me and not just in some superficial, insignificant way.

There are people who observed us together and those who only knew us second-hand that believed Uwe and I were an item while he was here. Nothing could be further from the truth, although I, myself, am hard-pressed to come up with an accurate label for our relationship. Suffice it to say that he was and is one of the closest friends I have ever had, someone who knows me and loves me despite my weaknesses and flaws, someone who refuses to settle for less than what he knows I am capable of and who believes that the only obstacle to my success is me. It was his constant encouragement and timely investment in me that led me to acknowledge the importance of having a true help mate and partner in life. He, indirectly with slow, steady progression, led me out of a pit of resentment, bitterness and cynicism and back onto the path of progress, self-fulfillment and promise. That made my husband a more attractive potential mate to me and me to him.

And although Uwe and I communicate on a fairly consistent basis, I had never told him any of this until he came back for his visit. I am so grateful we had the chance to spend some time together, and I could tell him face-to-face what a difference he made in my life. I was busy with school when he was here, so we did not get to spend a whole lot of time together socially while he was here, but I enjoyed catching up with him at the end of his day of gallivanting or shopping or whatever he found to do with his time. We did get to spend his first night in town back in one of our favorite neighborhood bars. It gave a lot of his old crew a central place to be with him and to ply him with alcohol. Since he was in bourbon country, he forsook his better judgment and partook of enough of that particular potable to feel a little rough his first day in town. We had so much fun because he did, and he got to bond a little with Hubs with birthday toasts, too, since that is D’s favorite adult beverage as well.

It was such a great visit. I wish they could be more frequent. I hope one day when my life is more settled and I have no more school, I will have the opportunity to take advantage of his hospitality in Berlin.

Uwe, thanks for everything. You’ll always be one of my favorite friends!

Uwe's night out -He's on the far right

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The Move

Posted on June 14, 2011 by seussyque

So, then we moved. It was pretty uneventful. We hired a moving company, which is the only way to go. They packed up the last of stuff we did not have time to finish packing. They went to the storage unit and loaded it up, then delivered it to the house just in time for it to start raining. So besides some muddy tracks on the carpet, it was smooth going. I did lose one box. I think I may have thrown it away. It had the Vegas picture book we used as a guest book at our reception. I’m still hoping that will show up somewhere.

We moved from a small, two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment to a two-story, four-bedroom house with a full basement. My brother took over the basement, so we did not really have to worry about that, but we now have a full office/library with three walls of built-in bookshelves, a living room, dining room, kitchen, den, four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. My mom’s taste is traditional that leans toward country. And although most of the items I have used to establish my household style and decor have been hand-me-downs and recycled items, and I have never lived someplace where I could paint and decorate the way I want, which meant that I never really knew what my style and tastes were, I do know they are not my mom’s. So that means there is an awful lot of redecorating to be done.

So, although we have been moved in since October and have established ourselves nicely here, with school and life and every other little thing, the work of making this place our own has barely begun. I imagine a lot of this process is going to be potential blog fodder for a long time to come.

We have no intentions of filling the place up. We are only renting the house for a few years because my parents may come back after a few years, and they did not want to put the house on the market. They downsized and left rooms of furniture with us anyway. We have no reason to ever live in or own a house so big in the future, so we are not concerned with every room being utilized.

If my parents decide to sell the house, every room will need to be modernized, however, so the task of removing dated wallpaper and choosing paint colors and all of that remains. In addition, we do want to add some decorative touches that will make the place feel like we are home while we are there. I used to sit and daydream about things I would do if I ever had the space and time to do so. Now that I actually have the space and a need, I do not have the time or the money. Ain’t that the way it goes?

As I blogged last summer, we desperately needed a new couch, so that was one of our first purchases. We ended up getting a large curved sectional, with legs. I love it so much. It really filled up the room, and now we do have to be aware that when we move again, we will need a very large room to hold it. It has set the scene and suddenly we have a style! It’s updating the rest of the furniture and accessories that’s the real chore.

The Couch

Luckily, my parents insisted on giving us money for a belated wedding present, which paid for most of the couch, because within weeks of moving our washing machine bit the dust. Both the washer and dryer were mine, and both had been given to me by people who were upgrading to new appliances. So, I cannot complain about the years of service I got from them. The washer only worked on one setting before we moved, but shortly after we learned it would not spin, it would not agitate and it would not drain. It basically filled up with water and sat there.

So, we had to purchase a new washer. We got a front-loading GE Profile with all kinds of settings and bells and whistles. I love it. We debated getting the matching dryer, because for the two years we lived in our apartment the thing took forever to dry. I am convinced it was because, first, the washer did not do a very good job of spinning the water out of the clothes, and, second,  the outake from the apartment was full, and it did not vent properly. Since its been moved it has been operating like a champ, especially since the washer now spins the clothes until they are practically dry to begin with.

This summer we (my parents, really. Oh, the advantages of renting!) the air conditioner had to be replaced. Then, there is the yard work, which my brother does in exchange for free cable, and general maintenance and the like. My mom has spent so much time at our place painting and weeding and mulching, I really do not how she gets anything done at her own place. But, obviously, since the only work that has been done on the house to date has been done by her, I guess I should not be complaining.

She has started plenty of projects I would like to complete. I just do not feel like a single room is “done.” Of course, as often as my mom redecorated and rearranged during her 24-years there, I guess no room is ever really done, anyway. So, keep looking here, and I’ll post updates and pictures of my progress with these rooms.

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Control issues

Posted on June 11, 2011 by seussyque

So, helping my mom move was not all fun and games. It was often a challenge. I’m lucky I was busy with school and living a town away. My brother was not as lucky, as you will soon see.

From Sept. 15, 2010

My parents are in the process of moving away after 24 years in the same house. My brother, my husband, and I are then moving into their house. In fact, my brother is already living there, rent-free with the understanding that he will help out with some home improvement projects that my mother wants completed before the move. This has created some interesting issues of control and conflict in the past couple weeks.

My mother has always been a bit Type-A, somewhat a perfectionist, maybe a control-freak. We grew up with her. We now accept how she is. My husband still visibly cringes from time to time when this side is revealed. The stress of moving put all these control issue on the front burner, and my brother felt the heat, for sure. He called me late last Saturday night after getting off work to complain, vent, and commiserate. My brother is very easygoing with a pacifist outlook, and it takes a lot to make him angry. (We do not call him “hippie” just for his fondness of tie-dye.) In the month that he has been living with Mom, he has resorted to calling me twice just to complain and vent, which is a lot for him.

His first project was a half bathroom, which required removing wallpaper. This required him then to patch drywall, then sand, then clean, then patch some more, then more sanding and cleaning, and removing the toilet, all before painting twice. Then, new baseboards had to be purchased, primed, painted, and installed and the toilet had to be put back and a new vanity, sink, and hardware installed. All of this had to be done after working 40-plus hours at his full-time job as an assistant manager at a restaurant.

More days than not, Mom would come behind him and re-sand or re-patch some spot she was not happy about, creating additional delays for him. All the while, she complained about how long the process was taking and how inconvenient it was to have the only downstairs bathroom out of commission.

J survived that process, only to have it repeated on a downstairs room he is converting to his bedroom. This room has the original wallpaper from the early 70s. Bright orange, green and yellow plaid adorns one wall, while the other three are papered with a bright yellow background with green polka dots. Mom used it as a sewing room, and since it does not have a window, or closet, it will never be considered a true bedroom, but J wants to live in the basement and use it that way. Because he has experience removing wallpaper in this house and knows what problems and additional work it creates, he intended only to prime and paint over the paper with a shade a little more restful and soothing than the existing loud patterns.

He spent the day before his night shift last Saturday priming wood work and starting to prime the walls, when Mom walked in and pointed out places where the wallpaper was loose. J informed her he intended to simply glue it down and to prime the entire room on Monday, his next day off. Instead of accepting that, Mom began to peel off the paper where it was loose. My brother asked her to stop, but instead she made her way around the room peeling off additional strips in random spots all over the room. J asked her four separate times to stop before he stormed out of the house.

He called me that day after working his shift and coming home at 12: 30 to find every light in the house on. Instead of going in and confronting our mom, at whom he was still fuming, he walked around the neighborhood while venting to me on his phone. He was angry about how much additional work she had created for him, while all the while she refused to take care of her own sorting, packing, and storing process she needs to undertake before her move. He confided in me that he was so angry, he was certain if he saw her that night he would cuss her out, and he did not want it to happen. He also told me that our dad, who still comes home every weekend to help, left in the middle of the night the previous weekend, because he was angry that he spent three hours on a project that Mom then insisted on doing over again herself.

By talking to me, J was able to blow off steam. I realized and was able to point out to him, that Mom had decorated or utilized every room in that big, old house exactly the way she wanted. She knows how to paint. She knows what she likes. She has some control, which she so desperately needs, when it comes to affairs of that house. What she does not have control over, right now, is the move. She does not want to move. She does not want to pack. She has twenty-four years of stuff to put in boxes, and she does not even know where to start. She was controlling the home-improvement projects, thus J, because the rest of her life feels so out of control. He came to appreciate where she was coming from and promised to strive to be more patient.

When Mom called the next day to complain about him always being angry and moody, I was not at all surprised. She advised that J did not adjust well to change or criticism. She said she wished he did not stress out so easily about things. All of this is horribly amusing to me, because all the attributes Mom said characterized J are character traits of hers, as well. J is not like my Mom, and I realized through our conversation that he was simply mirroring all of Mom’s issues during this stressful time, when neither had anyone else around to emulate.

Anyway, I somehow was able to calm them both down during our conversations. I spent a whole day helping Mom sort, pack, and store, so she could fix the walls she destroyed downstairs for my brother. He’s back to being able to fix his room the way he wants, Mom has finally made headway on her dreaded packing and does not feel so overwhelmed, and they seem to be able to coexist much easier now. Although my brother and I are both glad it is only for ten more days, not that any of us are counting.

POSTSCRIPT: I love my Mom. She is a wonderful, giving woman and a terrific Mom. She is like her mom and probably every generation of family women before her to the beginning of the clan. She likes to have things done her way. I am like her more and more each day, and it terrifies me sometimes. I discovered it so much during school. I did not like group work unless I was a leader because I just want things done my way, because my way is the best. I try so hard to tone this down and not appear critical of others and their work, but I know it happens. Schmoops, friends, family and loved-ones, if I have ever done this to you,  I apologize exceedingly!

 

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A look back, in more ways than one.

Posted on June 11, 2011 by seussyque

Well, here it is almost a year later, and I am going to attempt to blog again with some regularity. Some really monumental stuff has been happening, especially recently, but I thought it might be best to do a bit of catching up first. About the time I stopped this blog, two semesters ago (which feels like a lifetime ago, really) I was taking a family communication theory class in which I had to blog. Several of those entries pertained directly to what was going on in my life at that time, so I decided I’d post some of them as a sort of flashback.

Here goes. From September 7, 2010. Helping my Mom pack up her house and prepare to move after 24 years.

This weekend I spent a lot of time reflecting on inherited narratives.

Sunday night my mother’s family got together for a bonfire at my grandmother’s. All the siblings were there and about half of their offspring. I found out my cousin, Warren, named for his grandfather, is going to name his son, due to be born in four weeks, Warren also. Another cousin asked me for a copy of the DVD my family made for my grandmother’s 80th birthday, consisting of hundreds of pictures from her life, and she told me her four-year-old son is enthralled with his grandparents’ copy and loves to hear stories about his late, great-grandpa Warren.

Monday, I spent the day helping my mom sort through a lifetime of memories and mementos. Because my parents have to relocate to a smaller house, my mother has been forced to part with things she was not ready to part with, or, at least, to speed up her timeframe, passing souvenirs from my and my brother’s childhood on to me for safekeeping. It was clear as she lovingly unwrapped a tiny, naked, nearly hairless doll from archival paper, buried deep in a dresser drawer that she wanted me to appreciate that it was my first doll, but, more importantly, that it had come from her grandmother. It was my legacy because I was the first great-grandchild and the only one my great-grandmother was healthy enough to know and enjoy. We talked about her grandmother, and what I remembered of her. We shared other stories as she came across a stuffed animal my brother made in elementary school. She had a drawer full of puzzles, games, blocks, doll clothes, dishes, and action figures. Some of them may or may not have monetary value, but every single one had emotional and sentimental value, a value I could tell my mother wished she, or I, could pass on to a grandchild.

All of which made me think: We can pass on our names. We can pass on our material goods. We can pass on our genetic material and narratives to a point. But what happens when there is no one left, and those lines, genetics, and narratives die out? As half of a childless couple, I am often plagued by those thoughts. It is especially poignant for me because my brother is child free. There are only the two of us. If he never marries and has kids, and if I am unable to have kids, what will happen to our family narrative?

I have no desire to pass on my family’s genetics. There is no need to pass on my Dad’s vitiligo to a third generation. I am happy to preserve those mementos from our childhood and will probably end up sharing them and with my friends’ children and the nieces and nephews I gained in my marriage. And those children may even enjoy playing with or looking at some of those things, but I doubt they will have any appreciation for the stories of where they came from and how they came to be important to me. The narrative of who I am, where I came from, who made me what I am, will cease to exist when I cease to exist, my parents, my brother, my and my husband’s names a short, dead branch on some genealogist’s family tree.

Postscript: That weekend was not all depressing. I actually had great fun sorting through boxes of Barbie stuff and paraphernalia. I had a whole box full of furniture, some of it handmade from boxes, material scraps, cotton and duct tape and a lot of it the blow up plastic kind with the stoppers all torn off and filled with the pegs from a Light Bright (which I also still have and fully intend to display with a “Welcome Friends” message in my living room one day).

I loved playing with Barbies, and I really hope I get a chance to play with them with my nieces by marriage Becca and Haylee and my niece by choice Lila. They may have to supply their own Barbies, however, as I was distressed to discover that most of my adult female Barbies, literally, have broken necks and have lost their heads. I have numerous “kid” ones and a few Kens. It was really creepy. It made me think of this:  http://laughingsquid.com/photos-of-barbie-dolls-doing-very-bad-things-by-mariel-clayton/

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