Cowards

I may love the movie The Princess Bride but it is not my favorite. When it comes to romantic comedies, Robin Hood: Men in Tights is my favorite.

I googled the terms "cowardly" and "man" and this image was the first one. I giggled. I forgot how much of a coward the Prince was at the end of the movie.

I was looking for some inspiration to write about well, cowardly men.

I will get to it.

The Internet has changed everything. As a college senior in the early 90s I was one of few undergraduates with an email address. I needed it to conduct research. A few years laterI I was in grad school and all students on my campus had email addresses. We could dial into the university from our homes. We could tellnet each other. It was amazing and better than microwaved popcorn.

My first adventures on the Internet were in exploring search engines and finding innocent looking url that were really porn sites. It was fun. I learned the other meaning of the word GOLF back then. :) I joined several student based mailing lists and later young adult lists. When instant messengers replaced telnetting, I was able to keep in touch and to make virtual friends with people I had never met in real life. For my 30th birthday, I flew to Las Vegas to meet with people whose faces I had never seen before.

I never liked the early forums or boards. I had become addicted to mailing lists and instant messaging. Today, social networks are amazing.

When I first learned of blogs, I dismissed them. Today, my blog is almost 4 years old. I thought social networks were the annoying and too large to really be of significance.

Until I joined the ultimate social network and old friends began using it to reconnect for college and high school reunions.
It is amazing to explore how people have changed and where they have been since graduation day. I have been having loads of fun until I was dumped during a Facebook chat session.

My sister tells me to stop saying that. It is true. I was dumped over Facebook.
You want to know the story don't you?

I had been online trading dirty poems with some knitting friends. I didn't remember that FB was loaded. It was having a great time and drinking a rum and coke. I hear the telltale sound that someone has contacted me. It was the guy I had been dating. I share with him what I am doing online so late and he becomes cryptic. I manage to get himto he tell me what is going on and he admits that he has been seeing someone else.

I felt like a happy drunk that had just been placed into a really cold shower. I was a cold wet and still drunk but now I wasn't happy.

The next week it really hit me.

I had been dumped over the Internet.

What a cowardly thing to do. Later I got him to admit that he wasn't manly enough to just tell me. I had to force his hand. Over the Internet.

I referred to him as Asshat in my mind for about a week. A few weeks ago, I removed him from my friend's list when i learned that he was still paying attention to my page.

I can forgive just about anything...

Here is the deal, I am over 35 years old. He is over 40. When did our generation become so lame?

We are the ones born after the Baby Boomers and their little siblings the Jones Generation
who left college before windows 3.0. As Generation Xers we played hangman, Atari, Sega and minesweep for hours. We are overeducated, independent, and practical. I don't see the connection between sending IM to boyfriends in my mid 20s and being dumped through a social network's chat function at 37.

It is ludicrous. What happened to the manly men of the 90s who were appalled by the selfish attitudes of the 80s? Hell, we grew up on microwaved meals and the fear of AIDS. We can face anything. I still can't believe that he told me he can't face tears.

I threatened to send him a video of a woman crying. I actually looked for one on Youtube before I realized how stupid I was being.

I am not angry, I am just disappointed. Facebook chat? Really? and your over 40, college educated and employed????

I expected more.

Chortis and Wafel

Grandparents are a delightful blend of laughter, caring deeds, wonderful stories and Love.
-- Author Unknown

A few weeks back I visited my grandmother. I think my mother and I get our hoarding of our favorite things weakness from my grandmother.

It used to be like stepping into a time warp when I visited her. In the last few years, she has painted and updated all of her living room furniture. But that is just one room.
The furniture in the dining room is older than I am. There are things in there that I want. She has the brandy bottles that would be more useful at my house. In them is colored water. Yes, I was hurt to know that there wasn't any 30 year old brandy in those bottles. She uses them as decorations. I pointed out to her the layer of dust on them in an effort to convince her that she would not miss them. She said, "so what."

It is difficult to convince my grandmother to part with things. I will continue to try.

I agreed to clean one of her bedrooms for her. It wasn't one that she liked to enter. She kept it closed all the time. As we walked up the stairs she handed to me latex gloves.
I asked her, "what is in this room?"
She told me that she had cleaned 13 trash bags of junk from the room the week before.
At the top of the stairs she handed to me a heavy duty trash bag. I asked again, "what is in this room?"
She told me to look out for titles, certificates and other important papers but throw everything else away.

I entered the room.

I cannot begin to explain to you the mess that was that room. It had been my mothers as a kid. Over the years, it had become a depository of stuff and had been shut. The only person who entered the room was my grandfather. As he has dementia, I did not know what to expect when I went through the stuff in that room.

I found a polaroid camera.
Does that tell you anything?
Okay, how bout this.... I found several 8 track tapes and a player.
I found hair nets and rollers that probably belonged to my mother.
I found medicine tins of alka seltzer.

Grandpa liked to eat in private. We found scores of snack packages opened and unopened. Lots of pop cans.
I also found mouse turds. Lots of mouse turds
Lots of mouse turds
Lots and lots of mouse turds
and evidence of mice

I yelled for grandma to explain this. She told me, very calmly, "Oh yeah, I find a dead mouse everyday in there. That is why I have the mousetraps."

WHAT

I thought I was going to be sick. I refused to sweep the floor for fear of agitating some mystery bacteria. I kept pushing her away when she would come at me with the broom. I would pick up the food bits and papers but I would no longer clean behind or under anything.

She offers to turn on the fan for the smell that I unearthed. I panic. I certainly did not want the mouse turds to be swirled around the room. Heaven forbid more smells to find. I begged her to open the window. She refused because the windows had no screens.

I took a double take.

No screens?

I couldn't believe that her mind was on bugs in her house and not the possibility of a mouse running past me. I sighed.

Then I found her original mortgage papers.
In 1956 she and Grandpa bought their first and only 3-bedroom home on a double lot for $68 a month. She told me that was high back then. I giggled cuz the house looked almost the same.

I found my mother's birth certificate and then my uncle's. I learned that in 1951 my grandparents were Negro. By 1954 they had become Colored. We both laughed, we figured that my parents were probably Black when I was born but my sister was African American when she had children. So much for census taking.

I came across some paperwork for a Wafle. I asked her about Wafle. Who was she?

Grandma told me that she her father was dyslexic. Pause. I didn't know where she was going with that.
During her early 20s she had gone to the Health Department to request a copy of her birth certificate. On it she had been named Wafle. Not Mabel.

Get it?

I laughed so hard, I had to take a break from cleaning.

After two glasses of homemade blackberry wine, I resumed cleaning and found a birth certificate for Chortis. I snorted and asked about Chortis.

Chortis had been my grandfather's name at the Health Department. Not the name Curtis that he gave to my Uncle and later my cousin.

I started laughing again and I was pretty much done cleaning for the day. So we went out to dinner where she told me funny stories about my grandfather, who is now in a nursing home.

I am fortunate to have had my grandparents for as long as I have.

Crafty Updates
I finally completed the kimono.
I still have a lot of the yarn remaining and I might make another to get rid of it. The kimono was fun for a short time but mostly, it annoyed me.

I pulled some yarn out of my stash after I attempted to organize my yarn room. It really isn't supposed to be a yarn room. It began as an office. When I lost the basement, I started storing my yarn in it. Now I call it the yarn room. Perhaps, it should be names the Yarn Room of Doom.

I can't go in there to use the computer. I end up organizing my yarn or my tools. I can't enjoy myself in the yarn room anymore. No mindless Net surfing, records organizing or letter writing. Now it is all 'find the missing skein' or 'make room for six more balls."

Digging around in my red yarn box, I found this skein of handspun. Since I also unearthed an afghan hook, I thought that I would make a shawl out of it. I had to contact the spinner for more yarn. I didn't calculate my yardage needs before I began the shawl. It is an endless cycle. I am not following a pattern just playing with a afghan technique I found in a book. I am hoping to make a curved edge. Let's see how it goes.

My First Lolcat

moar funny pictures

It doesn't work

I saw this on www.passiveaggressivenotes.com and felt compelled to comment.

As a sorority advisor, I visit the sorority house almost weekly. For the past six years, I have requested that the sisters keep diet soda, water or something in the fridge for me to drink. I am in my late 30s and they in their early 20s. We have different needs. I volunteer my time and drive 20 minutes one-way in order to be their adviser. I have earned the right to expect a dedicated drink in the fridge for me. Unfortunately, young adults are only concerned with their own drinking needs. They stock liquids like Tahitian Treat and Stars and Stripes.

One week, I was expected to be there almost everyday. I purchased some Simply Limeade for me to drink while at the house. A healthy drink befitting a diva like myself.

Knowing that sorority girls expect to share everything, I turned up the bottle in full view of most of the chapter. I figured this was more direct than writing my name on it or simply asking them to not drink it.

I ignored their protests. Their comments about lacking class or being obnoxious. I was determined to mark my Simply Limeade. I drunk it and placed the bottle in the community fridge. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand for effect.

The next day, I went directly to the fridge before stopping to greet the sisters. There was no Simply Limeade. The Simply Lemonade that my co-advisor purchased for her personal consumption was also gone. I expected that because she hadn't tipped it up.

I was angry for almost a week over that until they purchased a bottle for me a few days later.

Nothing will stop someone from using or drinking your stuff if it is in the fridge.