Goals

A person's goals can tell you a lot about them. Upon self-reflection, that has me worried! I am not a big dreamer. I have no desire to conquer Annapurna, sail around the Horn, or discover the cure for cancer. Well, I'd love it if someone found the cure for cancer, but I am probably not the best candidate for that.

Having reached the goal of raising two amazing daughters to adulthood, I occasionally find myself wandering with a blank stare wondering what to do with the rest of my life. I decided to take notes as ideas come to me. It's important for everyone to have something to work toward, a few big things to attempt before blinking and realizing your chances have all passed.

Goal #1: Learn to shake my ass like the backup dancer in Ricky Martin's Livin' La Vida Loca video.

Now, this is a skill I can use at some point! If I climbed a mountain, I'd have some pictures and frostbite scars to show off at parties. Big deal. But, if I learned to shake my ass like that dancer, just think of the impression I could make dancing at my daughter's wedding! She'd probably be right beside me, shakin' her thang!

I haven't told my daughter about my goal yet. I thought it'd be better to just spring it on her when the time comes. I already know her reply, it's an old standard. "You explain so much about me."

Mouse, Part Deux

I realized as I typed that title just how apropos it is, when I am sitting here worrying about finding mouse part trois, quatre and cinq!

Rescue Kitty (her name is Sophia, but she doesn't respond to it yet) has suddenly remembered that cats catch mice.

I was walking past the fridge into the laundry room when I heard weird noises behind the fridge. Big weird noises. Suddenly, Rescue Kitty came scooting out backwards as fast as a cat can scoot in an area just narrower than she is! Then she ducked her head back behind the fridge.

Uh-oh! She found something! She crawled completely under the fridge for a moment, then scooted out backward - with a baby mouse hanging from her mouth! I was close enough that if I shrieked, she would have dropped the mouse on my feet. Whatever else happened, I did NOT want that mouse on my feet!

I scooted backward out of the kitchen at about the same speed she had moved from behind the fridge, trying so hard to keep my "Woody, there's a bug" noises to myself. I didn't want Woody, the dog, to come flying in and startle the cat into dropping the mouse.

Kitty took the mouse to her room. I tiptoed down and peeked around the door to see what she would do with it. She had it between her paws. I wasn't getting close enough to see what she was doing - I had no desire to see parts, innards, guts, etc! Worse, she might get distracted and the mouse might run my way!

I had to get to work, so I don't know what became of the mouse. I recalled as I drove that I hadn't made my bed. Man, I hope whatever she does to the mouse, it's not done in my bed!

I think I liked it better when she ignored the mice. At least then I wasn't worrying about Mouse, Part Trois ending up under my covers!

It's B.P. Day!

It's here, Bad Picture Day! I rolled out of bed, dressed and ran to the store only to park in front of a sign in the store window that said, "Don't Even Think About Parking Your Big Rear Here." Bad Omen.

At least I discovered my wallet was missing before I got in the store.

On my second trip to the store, I parked in front of an ad for chew. Grabbed a newspaper, and a 44 oz. diet Coke and flew home. I had to reconfirm that picture was as bad as I remember.

It was worse! Oh, Man! Ladies, throw away all your fat clothes now, disarm your snooze alarm, and vow never to leave the house looking like I did that day!

The ad is a half page. Doesn't my boss look perky and cute? And don't I look - geez, don't I look efficient? I look like the girl in school you hoped was going to grow up to be good at something because that was the only life she'd ever have!

"I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER leave the house looking like that!"

Heck, I think I'll start dressing nicer even to sleep, just in case. Full make-up, the works! Obviously, one can never tell when a camera might appear to ruin your life.

Thank goodness the presentation photo turned out okay, and I'm right next to my buddy, Martha! As Leasing Director, she picked up the award for The Montclair. There was a great picture of the resident who won for Best Volunteer, too. I think we should have put her in the ad, not me! Then we could have blown up her photo to a 4-foot banner. Much better advertising, I think, to say we have the best residents around. Not the best puffy lime green receptionist.

Instant Karma

I am not sure if I have pissed off the gods of reception or what, but life has just gotten worse. They took that picture of the Best Old Puffy Green Receptionist and Her Boss and blew it up into a 4-foot banner and posterboard!

Imagine the worst picture ever taken of you - oops, I forgot about 7th grade! Okay, take the second-worst picture ever taken of you and blow it up so big that even your dermatologist wouldn't recognize those pores! And it's not like they airbrush it or anything. I can't go into work on Monday; I can't spend a week or more staring at myself made broader than a barn.

I wonder what kind of offering one can make to appease the gods of reception. I would be more than happy to sacrifice a phone line or two, burn a few pages of messages while I chant, "I will answer all calls by the second ring. I will answer all calls..."

On the other hand, begging might just piss them off more. I could wake up to find myself plastered on a billboard. No wait, that sounds like I am drunk on a billboard and I've promised my kids never to be found that way again. I might find my picture plastered on a billboard.

I'd better pass on the sacrifice. It'd be awful to find out just how vengeful the reception gods can be.

Morning Eye Opener

I moved 1600 miles from L.A. to get away from traffic, and I recently began to miss the 405 at dawn! I didn't think that was possible!

I have a thirteen-mile drive to work, the first block and last mile of which are on surface roads. The rest are on Missouri highways and the one small stretch they call a freeway. The speed limit is 60 but commuters don't go under 70, except when there is a red light.

Some mornings we are bunched together like we're on the track at Bristol, although we're only doing 70. It never fails, though, that two idiots will come weaving through like they think they have a faster car or truck! Where are they gonna go? We'll all end up bunched back together at the next signal, anyway!

Then we hit the freeway stretch and everyone slows to 60, except those two guys. The guy in front of me thinks his brake pedal is a percussion instrument. I'm never sure which taps are because of the traffic in front of him and which are for rhythm.

If I leave 5 minutes too late, traffic on my exit will be backed up. I swear there are only about 150,000 people here in Springfield; what are they all doing on my offramp? There are three colleges up the road from my work - do all morning classes start at 8:05? Because that's what time I end up arriving if I get stuck behind these guys!

I miss real traffic jams. You knew that traffic would slow as you approached Burbank Blvd., and not get moving again until somewhere after my exit. You'd see the same people in the lanes around you as you met up in traffic every day. There's Bagel Girl, and Cordless Shaver Guy. Oh, and the Girl That Puts On her Mascara as we stop at the 101.

You also knew that if traffic slowed anywhere other than the usual spots, there'd be no trace of an accident when you got there. And if Skylord in the traffic copter warned you about a jam, it'd be gone by the time you got there.

Sigh.

The good old days...when it took sixty minutes to drive a thirty-mile commute.

Word of the Day: Oooga Chacka

Oooga Chacka: Swahili for “I love my job.”

I did my semi annual changing of the CDs in my car’s CD changer this morning. I grabbed several discs that were collections from my daughter. At one point, while sitting at a stoplight, a new song began. “Oooga chacka, oooga chacka...”

Do you know how hard it is to not sing along with that? I hate stoplights for just that reason, it’s too easy to get caught singing along with stupid stuff. I get the giggles trying to sit still and not make a fool of myself like I do whenever I hear “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

I also realized that the phrase was going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When bosses are standing over my desk wondering why I haven’t finished a task and they are completely oblivious to the 5 pages of phone messages I have taken already this morning, I can just start singing in my head, “Ooga chacka, oooga chacka, oooga oooga...” and keep a smile on my face! It’s much more fun that repeating, “I love my job...”

Care to join me? Oooga chacka, oooga chacka...

Letting Go

Word went round today that Hospice has been called in for one of my favorite ladies. Now, she's 97 and fought her way back after an infection so she could come home to die. At a certain age, it should be easy to say, "She's lived a good life," and let them go. So why is it so hard?

I have all the beliefs I need to know why it's good for her to move on, and I know her husband is right there holding the door. I will miss that smile, and the twinkle in her eye that only 97 years of love can bring. And I'll miss the love she offers with a gentle look. Thank goodness love doesn't fade away.

Growing Old Gracefully

Being surrounded by the senior set five days a week, I have ample time to observe the personalities around me. There are varying degrees of aging and widely varying degrees of reaction to it. I often wonder what I will be like when my body begins to fade more rapidly.

Alzheimer's and dementia haven't made an appearance in my family, as far as I know, so I don't have to worry about losing my mind. Losing my glasses, my keys and my teeth are another story. It's been a good fifteen years or more since the time we discovered my glasses in the refrigerator, so I would say I am past that point already. Everyone loses their keys - that's why they made beeping key chains.

Misplacing my dentures has me worried. All my teeth are firmly attached right now, so this isn't an immediate threat, but after one incident at work I have my fears. A woman came up to me and said she needed the driver to go back to her hairdresser. I thought she might have misplaced her wallet, as that happens often. No, she had misplaced her teeth.

It has been a good month now since that day, and for the life of me, I can't come up with a scenario that involves taking out my teeth to have my hair done!

I am forgetful. I have a horrible habit of setting things down without paying attention. I have three pairs of sewing scissors and can only lay my hands on one at this moment. Every time I glance down at my purse in the car and realize my cell phone is back at the house, I wonder, how long before I am leaving my teeth behind?

It makes one think, and adds some pretty strange items to the list of qualities I want in my Dream Guy.

#263 - must be willing to go back to wherever I left my teeth and claim them for me.

We Have a Mouse!

Somehow, this is more important to me than to the dog, puppy, bird or cat. Yes, cat! She is apparently clueless about her role in life. The puppy heard me howl and thought she'd done something wrong. The dog knows that noise, after nine years with me, but he usually equates it with Mom finding a spider. He did at least come to the door to find out what I'd found this time. Of course, by then, the mouse had scurried across the back of the counter, across the stove and through the opening in the metal dish-thingie that sits beneath the burners.

The bird only notices mice when they try and sneak through the bars of his cage to steal his food. He stalks closer, raps his beak against the perch a few times, then opens his beak threateningly. Apparently, mice don't speak bird, they continue to steal his food.

Until today, I thought I had plugged all the mouse doors into this house. I expected to find some when I moved in here; I have a field to the west and woods to the south. The little packets of poison in the kitchen cupboard were another clue. Yet, I hadn't run into any mice before now.

I know the fastest way to fix things is with traps, but they don't work for me. My first home in Missouri was a beautiful rock house in the country surrounded by acres and acres of grass and cattle. And mice. So, I bought those little wooden traps and baited them with peanut butter.

They worked beautifully! But then I had to deal with disposing of them. There was no way I was going to get close enough to a dead mouse to open the trap and dump it, so the whole trap had to go. Picking up the trap also meant getting close to the mouse. I finally figured out how to manipulate a broom to sweep a trap out of the oddest spots, such as the shelf in the closet. My broom often had traces of peanut butter when I wanted to sweep the floor.

Throwing away those little wooden traps seemed wasteful, so I tried those sticky traps. Big mistake!

I sat in front of the TV one morning and heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-taptaptap!

I tiptoed in and turned on a light, trusty big dog right behind me.

Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap!

On top of the stove, a poor mouse had one back leg stuck to the trap and was trying to shake it off! He couldn't run away, and my attempts to get closer only brought on a wilder tap dance. I opened the back door, grabbed my broom and moved in.

Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap!
I had to get past the stove to get the right angle to swat the mouse and trap across the room and out the door. I prayed he wouldn't get dislodged from the trap and soar off into the bedroom. Swing one tossed him on the floor. Swing two caught the broom bristles on the trap. Swing three sent trap and mouse flying out the back door.

I finally got the courage some time later to look outside and see what became of the mouse. I am still not sure. When I looked, the old dog was walking around the yard trying to shake the sticky trap off her front paw.

Tap-tap-tap-! Tap-tap-tap!

Word of the Day: Dismembered

Dismembered: to no longer be a member of a group or organization.

My daughter said her stepsister was writing a letter to an organization saying she wanted to be dismembered. This seems a rather drastic measure for not wanting to participate!

Now, there are some organizations that cost an arm or a leg to join, but I guess if you know that going in, that's a choice you make. I don't know that I'd want to lose one to get out.

Of course, there are situations you wouldn't mind losing an arm or leg to, to get out. Think of "coyote ugly", where you wake up next to someone you don't remember meeting, and he or she looks bad enough that you'd rather chew your own arm off than wake them, getting up.

I've only heard about these one-nighters, you understand! I generally have to live with someone a month or two before I wake up wondering who the heck they are and what was I thinking?

So, would the antonym be remembered? And in the case of coyote ugly, do you really want to be remembered?

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

Yippee! They took my picture receiving my plaque last night! The Lime Green Blob photo is for an ad only.

Among those getting plaques and photos was one of our residents, who was voted the Best Volunteer. She had understood that she and other volunteers were being recognized, but then learned she had received the most votes. What fun to see her glow in her award! She is one of my heroes, pushing 90 and still volunteers every week at a charity thrift store. She also comes back from her Mall Walk every morning about the time I am stumbling in to work.

Many of the women there are walkers. There is a group of them with pedometers who log their mileage weekly. They have just finished walking across the U.S. and are now taking on Europe. I have been shamed into doing my own laps in or around the building, trying to keep up. I can't have women twice my age out-walking me!

I can see it now: As we leave the starting point at Edinburgh, I'll be dog paddling across the English Channel while these gals are hot dogging it through Eastern Slobovia! Maybe I can march in place at my reception desk as I type. Do you think anyone would notice?

Okay, do you think anyone would think me odd?

Well, what's new!

Word of the Day: Professionable

Professionable: The appearance of having the ability to perform the duties required by one's profession.

Today's the big to-do where I receive my plaque, and according to the invitation, have my photo snapped. Hey, I can still dream, can't I, that they'll take a photo tonight to replace the big green blob one? For the sake of the dream, we'll pretend we don't know that my boss won't be there to have her picture retaken, because they want her in the picture, too, so we can really pump up the promo that we really are the best place to live for the over 55 crowd.

Whoa, "over 55". We don't have anyone there that young; our youngest is in her 70s. I am closing in on over 55 much more rapidly than I'd like to! In a few years, okay, 9 or so, I could be living there! Except for one thing - the studio apartments rent for more than my take home pay. But, still, why did I have to go and realize how close I am to being able to qualify for senior living facilities?

Shoot. I guess they'd better change my plaque to read, "Best Old Puffy Lime Green Receptionist in the Ozarks."

"It's a good picture!"

I saw the picture for the ad. You know, the one for the Best Puffy Lime Green Receptionist in the Ozarks. Everyone at work comments, "It's a good picture!" This worries me. Is that what I really look like? No way!

Yes, way, apparently. Except for the fact that no one ever recognizes me with my hair pulled back, which means I don't really look like the picture. Especially in my head.

Of course, it's probably a long time since I actually looked like I do in my head. I still have big 80s hair there (man, I miss my 80s hair! It looks like that naturally!) and the body of a 20-something. Admittedly, I also sound like a Valley Girl in my head, but, like, you know, sometimes that's totally tubular!

It must be why I don't like pictures taken of me - they look nothing like I think I look.

Not long before she passed away, my grandmother told my sister that she still felt like a teenager in her head. Is it genetic, or is it universal? One of my friends at work just turned 101 years old and she is one of the youngest people I've met. She is the snappiest dresser and always has a pocketbook to match the outfit, and a bow in her hair or a hat. She goes out more often than I do (okay, that's not saying a whole lot), just go, go, go.

I wonder how old she looks in her head?

Word of the Day: Delationship

Many of you have been in a delationship and you didn't even know it. It's where one or both parties feel the need to slow things down a bit. Often, this can come at a point where one feels the need to slam on the brakes, but other times it is just a gradual cooling of the passions that drew the two of you together.

It Sucks to be Me

Friday was one of those days, and I swear it had nothing to do with being the 13th. It's because my guardian angel has the sense of humor of the Monty Python group and has been reading too much Bridget Jones.

I probably should have called in sick, but feeling "puffy" doesn't seem to fall under the company guidelines of when to stay home. Instead, I hit the snooze button and rolled over. The next time the alarm chimed I decided I could get 20 more minutes of sleep if I didn't wash my hair. A pony tail would suffice, along with my fat pants and a shapeless lime green silk blouse that is so bright, no one can focus on me long enough to notice I felt larger than life.

All the Preparation H in the world could not have shrunk those bags under my eyes brought on by that extra half-hour of sleep. Those puppies needed a training bra! Most of the people I come in contact with during the day are over 80 and have to get nose to nose to see who they are talking to, so they probably wouldn't notice my bags.

My evil guardian angel struck around 9 a.m. The ad man from our local paper came in, camera in tow. We love our local newspaper for giving us the opportunity to participate in their annual "Best Of..." contest. For the third time, we've just been voted the "Best Retirement Community in the Ozarks!" My boss got runner-up for Best Boss, and I won the Best Receptionist category.

Can I help it that, when picturing the Best Receptionist in the Ozarks, my cynical Southern Cal attitude problem conjures up the Hee Haw girls in their Daisy Dukes, pigtails and gingham blouses?

When I had gotten my invitation to the newspaper's awards function, I immediately thought professional dress. What an opportunity! This would be the perfect place to Meet Men. Successful Men. My fellow "Best Of" winners. Then I read more and saw the mention of a photograph for the "Best Of" section in an upcoming Sunday edition. Ugh, pictures! I tried some calming visualization techniques to skirt the rising panic attack.

Pictures are a good thing. You've been needing a current picture to send to people. And hey, maybe The Guy will see your picture in the paper and come find you. Heck, maybe hoards of guys will show up, purporting to need Distinctive Living in a Family Atmosphere for their parents, but really wanting to find out if the Best Receptionist could truly exist...

Whoa, is that where my mind went when I neglected to send those two sick tray orders to the kitchen? Some ailing seniors had to survive on water and crackers from their cupboards because I forgot to order their Chicken Maryland and Brussels Sprouts. Can they take my award away for that?

No need. Fate stepped in when the Ad Man waved his camera my way. "Come on into the boss's office and we'll get a picture of the two of you for the paper."

There was my boss, pertly wearing her Thin Clothes thanks to the 20 pounds she has recently lost, trying to tame her sexy, wind-tossed curls into something closer to her usual professional bun. Life just ain't fair, I thought, moving next to her and trying to decide which of my ears stuck out less with my pony tail. Do I even have a good side? Maybe the loud green shirt would reflect the flash of the camera, distorting the focus, necessitating a reshoot.

The Ad Man did say he'd give us the opportunity to request a new photo on Wednesday. I asked my boss what the chances are of my losing 20 pounds in 5 days. Come to think of it, just wearing a blouse that fits would knock 10 off that picture! And losing the eye luggage, another 5. The boss looks great, though, so I can't count on a retake. I will be immortalized as a puffy green receptionist. But hey, I'm the best puffy green receptionist in the Ozarks!

Some days it just sucks to be me.