Too Blue To Blog

It is the final day of 2009 and, as usual, I am a bit depressed.  I hate the ends of things..........with  the exception of awful  things, of course........those  I can hardly wait to see the last of.   But lovely things I have trouble letting go of.........my war cry is always, "MORE".........just your normal,everyday glutton, I guess.

I first noticed this tendency while sitting in a theater watching breathlessly as  the musical,  'My Fair Lady', dazzled me into a puddle of joy.  As intermission approached I remember groaning inwardly at the idea that this fantastic experience was almost half over.  Ever since then I have this odd feeling of finality and loss when something comes to an obvious end, particularly the last week of the year, and more significantly on the last day of same.

Not that 2009 was such a great year  but it was a year of my life and each one of those is infinitely precious.
I guess all I can do now is to let go of 2009 with thanks for blessings received and lessons learned and look forward with anticipation to 2010.  As my beloved cousin, Steve, has reminded me, when all else fails, curiosity may get you through.

Score: Silly Girl - 1000 - Wise Hermit of Califa Street - 7

I have just discovered that the foolish young 'un whom I chastised yesterday on her Facebook wall for her facetious attitude about quitting smoking has managed to attract 1000 followers to cheer her on......she just might make her goal of 5000 yet, by golly.

On the other hand, all of my rants, ruminations and self-revelations have garnered just one comment -  from my loyal pal, Ida....(bless her heart).  I am wondering...should I be depressed?

However,  I did notice that, when I wasn't looking, I did acquire 2 new fans in the persons of my brilliant and creative  friend Valerie (bless her heart) and my beloved and incomparable cousin, Steve (bless his heart) , so now I can proudly refer to my fan base of SEVEN (7).  Actually, I am NOT depressed because it is very obvious to me, upon reading the comments of some of those 1000, that I definitely have quality in my corner.  Bless you all!

Ruthless I May Be, But Not Heartless

This is, I hope, the last chapter on my knock-down drag-out catfight with a poor girl whose posting on Facebook caused me to lose my temper and behave badly.  I am, I hope, never too proud, or too arrogant to say I am sorry and, after thinking over the situation I decided that an apology might be the right thing to offer someone who was expressing a back-assed effort to quit smoking.  I still deplore her smarmy attitude and approach to the subject, and I am still rankling just a wee bit  from being called a "shrivelling prune", (who, ME????) but I am way above and beyond letting insults which I may have provoked bring me down and I am, as much as possible, always gung ho to reach across the line and do the right thing.  Consequently, it may please and relieve my fans to note the following apology I just submitted.

" Dear Selena : I apologize for what may have seemed like my harsh words earlier. I am a "saved" 4 pack a day ex-smoker myself. Additionally, I nursed my husband thru a crippling stroke (partially caused by his smoking) and lost him to lung cancer from his smoking so I do have the credentials to be down on taking smoking lightly. If I hurt you, please forgive. I wish you good luck in your struggle. "

It is interesting to me that it took 3 blogs to actually complete this verbal adventure.  I also want to stress that the lesson in all of this, (if anyone cares to know what I have learned and relearned during my life ) is simply that a person, even one who may consider themselves absolutely in the right on a position, should always review the circumstances objectively and honestly and, given any case where a person may have hurt another person unintentionally (or even more to the point  - intentionally ), it is vital that a person simply say "I'm sorry".    As far as I am concerned those are the two 2nd most important words in the English (and every other) language............. after "I love you".


Nuff said.

My Comeuppance

(Before reading this you  MUST read my preceding entry of earlier today)

Well, here I lie bloody and bruised, having been given a good poke in the snoot by the childish person I unceremoniously spanked on Facebook for her facetious approach to stopping smoking..  Undaunted, I say I would not take back a single word, but I am finding this exchange so fascinating, bizarre and so funny that I feel it warrants a bit of blogging.  Without further ado, I include below the Facebook response my chiding elicited.......I am not quite sure how I feel about being called a "shrivelling prune".......heaven knows I cannot deny being one, but it is practically unavoidable when one gets to be 82 or so.........I AM vibrating with irritation at having my pithy words called "ignorant comments".....(they were anything but ignorant)  ........and have ambivalent feelings about being called a "moronic character"........I think she could have done better, but, after all, she is young and  has a lot to learn..........and, to be fair, she did not receive my complete comment but had to make do with an edited version that, perhaps, did not include (because of Facebooks word limitations) my confessions of my own weaknesses.

                               *****************************

Selena Leoni Dearest lois,


Please refrain from using insults. Your words are nothing to me due to the fact I do not know who you are nor care to after your ignorant comments. I encourage you to LAY OFF. I am doing this for my mother not the approving opinions of moronic characters like yourself. Thanks for your life changing words of encouragement you shriveling prune. Good day."

                                           **************************

I do want you to know that I have sent an email of abject apology to the friend who sent me the referral to the Facebook entry......after all I realize that the person whom I apparently insulted and wounded could possibly be someone dear to them.  What a waste........

Ranting and Raving - Was I Too Harsh?

I just finished leaving an entry on a wall in Facebook and I am not sure whether I should feel proud or ashamed.  My sin was to have totally chewed out a perfect stranger whom a friend encouraged me to encourage to quit smoking. 

In the first place the entry enraged me with it's smug silliness.  This young woman posted an appeal for 5000 people to leave messages for her  in order to urge and/or coerce her into giving her parents a Christmas present.....the gift of her stopping smoking.  I will only quote the few words that sent me over the top........

                  .....I can, but I don't want to".......

Yeah, sure......and pigs can fly.   Having been the worst kind of Niccotine Addict I can say that any smoker with half a brain would definitely want to........it's the "I can" part that rouses my suspicions...... everyone lies to themselves about some things and any addiction brings out the lies in large numbers.  Anyway, I found myself actually participating in this charade by leaving a comment (if you can call frothing at the mouth in a definitely unladylike fashion a comment).  This is when I discovered that Facebook is not for the wordy or long winded.......I had hardly completed my diatribe and attempted to post it when I was rebuked by the damned software because I was apparently over the word  limit.  (One of the things I hate about Facebook is its shallowness......all of those people attempting to "reach out and touch somebody" and, as far as I am concerned, failing miserably.)  At this point annoyance had triumped over reason and I spent 15 precious minutes of my life editing my offering down to the bare bones so that it would be accepted but still deliver the message I wanted to get across. 

However, I have found, since I started this damned blogging, that a character flaw that used to be reserved for tangibles (like being unable to throw things out and unable to resist taking in and restoring things that my neighbors threw out) had spread to my being unable to even waste WORDS.  (Oh, God, what IS to become of me???.....)  So, I carefully collected all of the discarded words, phrases, sentences and assorted epithets and deposited them in my blog basket for use herein.  Without further ado, below is the full, unexpurgated version of my comment.......

                                                  *****************
"You silly, shallow, spoiled, self-absorbed, nay, I might even go so far as to say stupid infant. I fervently recommend that you develop a modicum of sense and a morsel of character before you bother to try to quit smoking.


You have been given the gift of life and parents who apparently care about you and you are wasting those precious assets with this infantile game to see how many fools you can recruit to give you "rah rahs". I suggest you save the outrageous money wasted on cigarettes for your old age when you can use it for oxygen tanks or other such equipment to help you breathe..

Dammit, I am 83 years old and know whereof I speak. I was once a 4 pack-a day smoker....a total addict....smoked every waking moment. Smoked in the shower, in the swimming pool, not quite during sex but immediately after it and even woke up during the night in order to satisfy my need for another puff. I got off lucky......managed to quit 25 years ago and, so far, I am still breathing on my own, but not a day goes by that I don't give thanks for my good fortune.

If you can, as you say "do it" then, for crissakes, DO it already !"

                                           *******

Do you think I overreacted???  I would be enormously grateful if 5000 of you responded to my query.

Loneliness As A Blessing

It is Christmas Day and even though it isn't a "Jewish Holiday" it is a  holiday of some massive proportions.  I couldn't help musing on some of my early Christmases  ........yes, I used to get Christmas presents....Mamma would leave a neat pile of presents in the corner of my bedroom which I would fall upon when I woke up before dawn and spend hours playing with or fondling quietly so as not to wake the grownups.  I remember the year I got  the game Chinese Checkers with all of those beautiful colored little balls.......great fun..........and a wonderful white rabbit collar and muff set....( Bunnies of the world forgive me,.....at the age of 5 I didn't think about the rabbit part...)  so I certainly can't claim deprivation but all holidays had a strange unsettling and ominous undercurrent of danger......

As I washed kitty dishes today and pondered Christmases Past, I noticed  that I WAS feeling a bit lonely....it's just me and the cats plus a resident  hummingbird (more on that later).  However, no self pity here......I accept loneliness gratefully.  I have always contended that I would rather be lonely than stuck, even for the moment,  with someone I didn't like and/or trapped in  some situation I loathed.   There is something clean and pure about unfulfilled yearning, wanting, craving, desiring that is totally absent  in wretched situations where your wish may be granted but the reality turns out to be not really what you wanted after all and the only thing you really want is to be back where you were before you wished the wish.  When I was very young and didn't know any better I would occasionally peer at a pleasant, peaceful, looking house across the street and wonder what it would be like to eavesdrop on some other family celebrating a holiday.  That was long before I found out that all families are to some degree dysfunctional and before I realized what a bonanza I had been granted in being a part of the fantastic family I belonged to.

I developed a strange  philosphy about holidays very early because of my mishuginna father.....a brilliant but crazy, tortured and fragmented soul who, for some unknown reason, imagined himself to have been kidnapped as a baby from Royalty somewhere and forced to live his young life in shameful bondage with a nice, ordinary, dysfunctional middle class Jewish Family in Pittsburgh yet,  of all places.  Since I don't know of any Jewish royalty, this meant that he had to reject his Jewishness and his simple Stern and Wimmer ancestry and morph from being Fred Stern to being that exalted personage, Frederick Wainwright Stearns.  Lest you think I am exagerating even the teeniest bit, let me assure you that I am NOT.   The details are so sad they could break your heart or so monstrous as to make you very angry.  As soon as he could he went about changing his name and, while he did not totally reject his family, he only acknowledged them as being in any way related to him on our infrequent visits to the Grandparents and sister Esther in Pittsburgh.  (Brother Jerry was already on the shitlist for some misdeed before I was born.....I do not think I ever met him.)  The rest of the time Pappy was literally somebody else.  He did enormous research on the various Stearns families  around the country.  (After his death I found file folders stuffed with volumes of information about several Stearns families, one of which at one time owned a good part of California), and he adopted himself into one which, if not Royal, was at least rich and WASPy.  Furthermore he managed to not only meet them but insinuate himself into their midst convincing them that he was a third cousin twice removed or something of one of their patriarchs.  He proudly reported to me near the end of his life that, while attending some soiree at their mansion his hostess hugged him and said ,"My goodness, Rick (oh, I forgot, in his other world he ceased being Freddie and became Rick)......"My goodness, Rick", she murmured, "So glad you could join us, but, I must say, I would never have recognized you...... you surely don't look anything like your father."   As he reported this to me his face positively glowed and he cast a look at me that combined both vast triumph and only one tiny crumb of shame.

Anyway, to return to the point of my story, all of the holidays somehow exacerbated his discontent as he realized that, instead of celebrating royally in a mansion, he was forced to submit to having a delicious but common meal with cousin Ruth and Al  (Ruth being the grandchild of the oldest Blumenthal son, Jake)......and this situation stoked the furnace of his rage to the point that he would ignite and explode without even needing a spark to kindle rampant disaster.  Living with a combustible father was not easy, I can tell you......as holidays approached my dread increased exponentally because a vile and violent scene was inevitable.......at best, he would refuse to participate or even take us to the site of the holiday meal (My Mother and I  would somehow make our way ourselves with difficulty but secretly grateful)  and at worst he WOULD  take  us.....gritting his teeth, reluctant, simmering nay already bubbling with fury so all one could do was pray that the explosion, when it came, would be a survivable one and no one would be killed or permanently maimed from being in the same room with flying turkey parts.  Holidays were fraught with danger.........is it any wonder that I luxuriate in peace and quiet and give fervent thanks for a day when the cranberry sauce and the giblet gravy does not fly around the room and festoon the walls, but stay placidly in their  bowls until eaten with the rest of the holiday bounty.  Sigh.

Happy Holidays everyone!!

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral.....The Difficulty of Relationships of the Non Human Variety

Those of you who lead more or less normal lives and have friends, buddies, mates and/ or lovers of the human persuasion will have no idea what the hell I am talking about when I say that there is an entire subculture of folk whose Significant Others (in terms of whom their hearts belong to) may be Pet Rocks, Fiddle Leaf Ficuses or members of the Animal Kingdom.  I am not necessarily proud of the fact, but it happens that I am one of this strange breed and, what is even worse,  it appears that many of the friends who inhabit my world either have long had the same proclivities or have been seduced by me into developing them.  (After all, how long can the average person be bombarded, teased and tempted constantly with my tales of massive Hummingbird Wars outside of my kitchen window or streams of night visitors to the Buffet on the porch in the guise of feral kitties, Possums and entire Raccoon families before they weaken and make a non-human connection, just to see what it might be like?)  (You MUST know that I am NOT referring to any sort of uncouth weaknesses of the flesh here, but of pure, unsullied love for another living creature)

Those who know me well have accepted the fact that I seem to have developed into some kind of a hermit in my old age.  I often refer to my sweet abode as my cave, and it is only the assiduous application of a kind of marvelous battery driven tweezer to the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin that keeps me from sporting a real hermit-like beard and moustache.  Being an only child of an only child prepares one for solitude early on in life and, while I used to be much more of a social being, I notice I have drifted more and more into the solitary life as I have gotten older and,  more pertinently, sicker and tireder of gritting my teeth and suffering so many of the world's fools gladly. However, the need for some kind of companionship does pluck at the hem of one's hermit's robe and, since I have always been a fool for anything 4 legged and furry, I have found myself catering to the needs of my pets in a shamefully indulgent fashion usually reserved, when I was younger, for a Prince Charming or, at the very least, a Sugar Daddy.

One morning as I was running the blender turning a can of Friskies Salmon into a lump-free silky porridge for Gussie, my Senior Cat, who prefers her breakfast Smoothie style and preferably served as Breakfast in bed......(I carry it on a small tray into the bedroom where she is still sleeping in and gently deposit it near her where she reclines on her fake fur pillow so she can imbibe Roman style without really getting up from the reclining position.).....as I was saying, one morning I actually wondered if I was carying these indulgences too far, but I have decided that any creature who gives me so much pleasure by permitting me to scratch her chin and rub her tummy whenever she feels like letting me do so deserves any pampering I am up to.

And lest you think that my benevolence is only showered on fuzzy creatures, I must confess that I have been known to murmur sweetly to some of my rose bushes and indeed, once caught myself tenderly pinching the leaves of my Fiddle leaf Ficus (yes there really is such a plant and I once had a gorgeous specimen that was about 6 feet tall and very macho, come to think of it).

I could go on for pages revealing idiotic and yea, even embarrassing episodes of demonstrative behavior between me and my non-human buddies, but I will save some of it for future blogs and zero in on the item that inspired this effusion of silliness.  I received an email today from my incomparable
 British pal, Anne, whom I have previously mentioned in an earlier blog ( who writes even more magnificently than I do, incidentally) and who shares my insanity for things furry  and feathered.   She has taken up with, of all things, a seagull whom she feeds on her windowsill  with goodies like hand made cheese balls and whom she has christened with the manly name of Spud.....that is before she discovered that Spud might possibly be female because the bird began to bring a clumsy baby seagull along to their social encounters.  However, Spud it has remained, and the bird has become a permanent camper on the windowsill, tapping on the window ungraciously and imperiously if food is not provided in a timely and properly sumptuous fashion.  Anyway, today she confessed to me that she had been into Torquay on the bus and upon returning home found, to her amazement and possibly horror, that Spud was waiting for her at the Bus Stop !!  I told her that I was absolutely outdone by her relationship with Spud....she wins hands down......after all, how many people can claim to be met at the Bus Stop by a devoted if somewhat impatient Seagull ??   I am sure there is not another resident in all of Devon who can make such a claim and I feel  humbled but also extremely proud to know her and possibly to have inspired her to such magnificence.    A true case of the pupil outdoing the teacher......big time!